Raven Darkholme

I did not know this whatsoever (weapons not degrading with abilities) but often wondered why they'd never degrade over a long fight and then sometimes they degrade immediately after a fight starts. Legit makes me wanna play the Ultimate again. tbf I've tested a lot recently and both Rogues and Tacticians are high on my fun list since we all already know that priest mcs are op and no one else needs to prove it.

Priest/Tactician can stack Unbending heals with Salvation of Time they will heal for several 1000s per tick eventually, and ofc you could also just indefinitely prolong Barring Death's Door. Maybe not as stylish as stacking deflection (tho Skaen with +50 from Escape can reach some nice numbers too) but much more effective.

Pretty sure thats fuzelogic.

Yes Kalakoth's, the 1 pen easily gets countered by Ring of the Marksman. The Aoe might not be the biggest but it does 100% damage as if hitting main target, so focus build is insanely fast. The main problem with a mc Cipher/wizard is the lack of actual good ways to spend focus solo (tbf if you used Lance you could just go Soulblade, but that's boring), but with PL 8/9 maybe that would be different. (Never actually tested cipher pl 8/9 once since release lol)

Let's be real it would be hard to find a class combo that wouldn't be op with multiclass and P8/9 abilities, using a priest should just be straight up forbidden. If I played with that mod I would try and find a useful cipher combo that doesn't include priest, prolly wizard for those blights which are prolly by far the highest focus building ability ingame?

SoT is an Aoe, no need to target.

It's both cc and hazards which don't break invis, also summoning doesn't and most buffs, which only works with Arkemyr's tho. Rogue's shadowing beyond is also quite unique in not breaking on certain dot effects like gouging, tho obviously you have to gouge first and then go invis or the attack would break it. I haven't extensively tested Rogue tho, so there might be a lot more hidden potential, never tested Smoke Veil at all either. (Funny enough priest's shadowing beyond even tho same name, breaks on almost any action including self buffs)

Shh, priests shall not be named.

I think purely damagewise prolly nothing beats whispers of the wind + backstab/sneak/deathblow combo.

Just cast phantom to engage concelhaut, Storm of Holy fire, then withdraw, rinse and repeat, lol.

Seems like the same as armor, if you get hit, so much faster than weapons.

The whole Lethandria switching is definitely interesting for healing while trying to get brilliant, in combat I'd probably be scared of ot breaking.

@Tenray oh thats quite nice. SC BM gets Draining Wall super early (I guess so does SC Priest SOT) and ofc also gets some pretty cool stuff at PL 8 and 9.

Damn, tested a bit more with sc bm and draining wall + magran belt fire blight is not enough to extend brilliant, which technically only matters against Dorudugan but its still sad.

Played around a bit with sc blood mage and randomly tested Arkemyr's Mercurial Madness, which doesn't roll vs any defense, which is kinda interesting. edit:I probably should have added you can cast it while being brilliant departure invis and it doesn't break stealth.

I wouldn't say "not needing" Captain's banquet is necessarily a strength of the tactician at all, since it is the best food by far for a solo run anyway. (Being immune to all those afflictions is insanely good and the action speed and spell damage is also really nice, most other food shave very specific bonuses, Captain's banquet is always good, often a life saver. There's no downside at all to having Captain's banquet either)

Thats super weird, I had that bug a long time ago (shortly after the game came out) and save/load fixed it, now I had it on my last Ultimate run less than a month ago and it still worked.

Save and reload fixes the Adra potion bug.

You have to save and reload your game for potion and boounty to stack, it's a bug.

Just saying it's less annoying with BM, not saying it's impossible with a fighter but killing the mobs off with either shining Beacon or auto attacks(no scordeos yet) just is a lot more tedious than a mage nuking everything around him. (this just straight up becomes irrelevant once one has either Storm or Scordeos, but since nemnok early seems to be the route usually you won't have these tools) Btw do you ahve the level 4 navigator from Crookspur?

Yeah thats what I meant by the early game being easier for BM. Tbf you don't need Storm for Belranga or Nemnok, but Nemnok is definitely a lot less annoying with a BM.

@thelee Tactician/Skaen is fine, most time waste lies in the route usually. Difference between Bloodmage and Tactician is mainly the early game, there is some cool stuff BM can do late, which Tactician can't but for the most part their difference comes down to Tactician getting easier brilliant and BM getting easier Mind over matter (which is mostly useful for the dlcs). Yes the BM has a lot of spells, but at the end of the day high level Storm of Holy Fire often is all you need. I do agree BM seems stronger overall, my point is just the time a run takes should not be shorter with a BM, since buffing just takes longer in general. (which is partially negated by the fact once you have mom you can keep SOTing during combat). The amount of time traveling takes makes a perfect route jsut by far the biggest factor.

The range doesn't matter casting at an enemy will break stealth. A bloodmage/cipher can actually charm from Arkemyr's brilliant departure without breaking it, never tried it with rogues invis (it does not work with priests version of it but rogues is actually better even tho it has the same name)

Single class Beguiler can not beat the megabosses unless you find a way to heavily abuse consumables. Cipher in general is not good in Deadfire especially against Megabosses, Borrowed Instincts is not as good in this game as it was in Poe1, since it's an effect on the enemy and not on yourself there is no way to indefinitely prolong it, and as Kaylon already said the megabosses add insult to injury with their high resolve making it last even shorter. Best cipher vs Dorudugan and Ooze would be Soulblade, since they have relatively weak deflection, but if someone beat them with a single class I'd be very surprised, since PL 8+9 doesn't add anything significant to deal with them. Spider and Sigilmaster would probably hopeless with any sc cipher even tho they technically are the easiest megabosses. Multiclass would be different with something like a priest, but the cipher wouldn't be adding anything to megaboss fights, unless soulblade once again.

Awesome, you really deserve it man.