Kaylon

Yes, it's 153%... As for Cautious Attack I consider it a feature... PS. Melee rangers can achieve perma 0% attack recovery with Swift Aim while wearing durgan reinforced leather+shield.

Ok, I did a few tests and durgan reinforced shields give indeed another 15% attack speed which stacks additively. In other words you can reach 158% bonus recovery while using a shield (that explains my observation from my previous post). I discovered also a nice bug involving Cautious Attack - the speed penalty will be suppressed when using any attack speed buff (meaning you get no speed reduction at all). A ranger with Swift Aim could use for example Cautious Attack without any drawback.

Bonuses from different categories are additive. If you add two weapons style you would have 138%+20%=158% recovery. For the shield enchantment I can't say yet how it works precisely, but I can say it allows swinging with no recovery while wearing durgan reinforced plate and using vulnerable attack. However it doesn't add speed,it's some kind of negative recovery working with abilities that slow your attack speed.

If you have a recovery time of, say, 50 frames and you reduce it by 100% (i.e. you reduce it by 50 frames), by definition you attack without recovery. If you reduce it by 138% (i.e. you reduce it by 69 frames) you still attack with no recovery because negative recovery makes no sense and I don't think the engine contemplates it If you wear a durgan-reinforced plate with Armored Grace, you're left with a 15% recovery (7.5 frames using my example), which gets further reduced by your DEX score. Playing at 60 FPS, 7.5 frames equal 0.13333333333 seconds, so probably no bar would appear over your character's head. How were your tests conducted? Mine were mere frame counting; the latest can be found here. I could never get the math to be 100% accurate (mostly because DEX doesn't really apply a full 3% action speed bonus for some reason) but it was fairly close. You don't need armored grace, just durgan reinforced plate - which has 35% recovery penalty - that's enough to see if you have some recovery or not... Of course negative recovery doesn't make you attack faster but it allows you to use abilities or armors that otherwise would slow you down... PS. For tests I used a character with 10dex and counted frames for various speeds and items combinations and then I found the formula.

Yes, it was me who tested that too... Back then they stacked with the chant. What makes you think that? Because I have tested... Also it's very easy to verify they're not additive - if they were additive you would have just 100% recovery reduction and you wouldn't be able to wear also a durgan reinforced plate and attack without recovery time.

With durgan reinforced armor because same enchantments on armor/clothes/accessories don't stack. Passive talents stack with everything.

Wanted to verify how durgan's enchantment stacks with different attack speed buffs and I found pretty surprising results. Here are my findings: 1. There are different categories of bonuses affecting the attack speed even if they share the same name in game: - armor recovery - durgan reinforced, Pilferer's Grip, Armored Grace - all stack additively with armor's recovery penalty - melee speed - Vulnerable Attack - ranged speed - Penetrating Shot (include spells) - two weapons speed - Two Weapon Style - fire rate - Vicious Aim, Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed (only ranged weapons) - reload speed - Gunner, Swift Aim, Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed - attack speed - Cautious Attack, Swift Aim, attack speed enchantments on weapons/items, all attack speed buffs from spells/potions - action speed - dexterity 2. Reload speed buffs from ranger and chanter don't stack anymore - reload speed reduction from Swift Aim will suppress the one from Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed - thus a ranger with Swift Aim and Gunner is the best you can get. 3. Attack speed buffs stack multiplicatively: - the best you could have is a weapon with attack speed enchantment (20%), durgan refined (15%), Gauntlets of Quickness (15%), Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (50%) which will give 1.2x1.15x1.15x1.5=2.38 bonus speed. That means it will remove up to 138% recovery from your weapon. 4. Attack speed enhancements from different categories stack additively: - chanter using Sure-Handed Ila Nocked Her Arrows with Speed, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, The Rain of Godagh Field durgan refined, Gauntlets of Swiftness, durgan reinforced plate and Penetrating Shot would have 100%-20%-138%+35%+20%=-3% ie no recovery with the bow - a dual wielder could also wear plate and use Vulnerable Attack with no penalty if he's stacking speeds

Being a good ranged chracter isn't just about damage. Ciphers are mainly casters using their weapons to recharge their focus. Blunderbusses are good just for fast recharging focus at the beginning of the fight because their dps is terrible. If you want to use a ranged weapon as your main damage then rangers and rogues can add to the table much more than any other class. Rangers are obvious because their abilities are centered around ranged weapons and by the end they become very versatile AoE damage dealers. Another interesting choice is the rogue for two reasons - their damage and their high critical chance. Rogues are basically snipers dealing high single target damage, but their high critical chance means bows like Borresaine or Sabra Marie become very strong in their hands adding more to the party than just damage.

At the beginning of the fight Thaos casts buffs on him and for over 1min he has something like 180 def. However you shouldn't focus on him anyway because you can't kill him first (when he's low on endurance he will cast a shield of invulnerability on him until one of the statues is dead and then comes back with full endurance). Also Twinned Arrows coupled with Persistance would kill them much faster. If you keep the statues moving while he's buffing himself he will buff just himself and the statues will be easy to kill. Also Thaos has unlimited spells, but he has a pattern which can be interrupted under some circumstances. PS. I suppose you skipped a lot of content if you already finished the game...

Well, for AoE attacks it doesn't help...

Yeah, there are 3 kinds of reflections: - Soul Mirror ability which reflects only misses (50%) - Reflection (Aila Braccia) which reflects only grazes (100%) - Reflecting (Golden Scales), Major Reflection (Badgradr's Barricade), Durgan-Reinforced (Shields) which reflect only crits/hits/grazes (10%). So a monk using Aila Braccia could, in theory, make himself immune to ranged attacks and at the same time reflect back 57.5% of all ranged attacks.

Heh, found a way to make this fight trivial... With a potion of Llengrath and Aila Braccia you have enough deflection to make his Cleansing Flame graze you at best and return back to the sender. Basically he will disable himself for the most of the fight and finally suicide himself... PS. The laguafeths also become trivial with this shield and on a monk it's probably even more hilarious.

If you were able to beat the ghosts in the throne room you should be able to reach lv4 too. For chest use cloth until you can enchant Gwisk Glass with durgan enchantment.

There are 4 bows worth mentioning: - Persistance (ch.2) - highest damage bow vs single targets in the game (even vs high DR) - which can be enhanced even more with Combusting Wounds (Ring) and Predator Sense pet - Sabra Marie (ch.2) - casts unresistable confuse (base 9s) on critical hits - becomes VERY VERY strong when durgan enhanced and coupled with twinned arrows and a potion of Merciless Gaze - you can turn impossible battles in easy fights with this bow - but probably impossible to obtain as a solo ranger - Stormcaller (ch.2) - strong vs targets with low shock DR and vs packs of trash mobs which can be tanked by the pet at choke points - Lenas Er (ch.3) - highest perma stunning potential because its defense debuffs stacks (you can lower a target fortitude by 20-30 with it) - strong vs single targets and at choke points

The pet is very fast and you can pull monsters one by one using him and kill them (when you have enough space of course). The pet doesn't have to tank vs tough monsters, you use him just to draw their attention. He pulls let's say 3 monsters and when they see they can't catch him they'll give up and will return to their spot; at this moment the ranger shoots the one left behind and the monster will try to attack the closest enemy to him which is your pet; the pet runs away again, the monster gives up, you shoot him, etc... repeat until death.

The ranger is one of my prefered classes and in open spaces the ranger is really good and can solo indeed most encounters - kill even the adra dragon - however I'm waiting to see a viable method to kill the alpine dragon as a ranger.

This bug happens also with the summoning figurines. This bug is however nothing compared to the perma invisibility bug...

Deprive the unworthy isn't that effective because it just suppresses the active buffs and since Thaos team has unlimited spells/buffs they get buffed back fast. It could help only after killing the Judge to remove his accuracy buff from the others. PS. Tried all the items giving spell defense and they don't work in my game.

Since scaled Thaos can be even more cheap and brutal than the dragons I thought it would be interesting to find a good method to kill him. Tanking him (video 1) is possible but not very reliable (various bugs mostly and sometimes rng can screw you badly if you don't play perfectly). The second method is to run and shoot them to death (video 2) since the map looks like it was designed for that . https://youtu.be/6oGAmsXep34 https://youtu.be/E8jh6m-fO9o PS. In my game the spellward amulet is bugged and I'm losing 10 more defense against spells. With it you could reach 100% protection against Cleansing Flame more easily.

It happens to me alot when I use a potion and if I switch weapons during the drinking animation. Also possibly if I'm charmed/knocked down while drinking potions.

Ok, here's a link with my save game: https://www.dropbox.com/s/td5ai1menkcyj2w/ab52a009b92248229b4de83969256156%2037915891%20SuninShadow.savegame?dl=0 PS. My character has 10defense against missiles (working as intended) and 10 against spells which should both work against Cleansing Flame...

Heart of fury uses all weapons equiped, those from inactive slots included. An aumaua can have up to 8 weapons equiped. If you have 4 targets clustered together then in theory you can hit 4*4*8=128 times other effects not included...

The Spell Defense Bonus (Spellward Amulet, Frigid Claim, etc) isn't working.

Keep in mind that guns are the slowest weapons in the game and their best use is as openers at the beginning of the fight. If you want to use them during all the fight then the best is the (elf) ranger because he's the only class who can reduce their reloading times enough to shoot at acceptable speeds. If you want a big fat opener at the start of the fight then paladins are the best. I recommend the goldpact paladins because of the combo: Flames of Devotion + Intense Flames + Enduring Flames + Scion of Flame + Apprentice Sneak Attack (and later you can add Sacred Immolation to the party). It does the most damage on hit of any class (rogue included) and with very high accuracy. PS. If you want the best damage in the game you'll be however forced to use the arbalests - the only heavy hitter that comes with the superb enchantment (because you don't want to spend 2 of the 3 ingredients you'll find in the game on a weapon that you use once per encounter ) .

Yes, if you want to minimize the risks - for example I can't be petrified at all in the videos. Yes, I finished all the quests, but don't imagine you'll simply walk in the middle of the packs and kill everything. You have to split them to defeat them - especially in the expansion. Wow, awesome videos! I think you may have already answered this, but is Wild Orlan necessary (because of the +10 to defenses)? It looked that way but I wasn't sure. It's recommended because the fear aura continuously attacks your will and you'll have nearly permanent +10 all defenses vs dragons.