Raven Darkholme

Pretty sure Kaylon tested the damage and the chant does more as soon as it is double stacked. My last chanter was quadra stacking even with under 25 Int (level 16 so full brisk Recitation) if the enemies reflex wasn't on Alpine Dragon levels. (PotD) Single applied chant does less than SI. so at the start of a fight SI will do more as Boeroer said.

In your case the DR of the target is so high, even a crit doesn't do a lot more, since 50% of low damage is still low damage. (A normal hit doing 3.5 damage would result in 5.) The barbarian has a crushing reduction of 10, not 7. If a target has a much higher DR in the damage type you attack with, than it would have for other damage type, you can even get the ineffective message, even tho you hit for 40, it's just the game's way of telling you, you could do more damage with another damage type. (The barbarian has higher dr for all phys damage only fire damage has a DR of 7, fronst 9 and corrode only 4.

I'm not enrirely sure about Carnage, but it should proc. Either way reaping knives on a barb will give you way more focus than you can spend.

I must say with barbarians and ciphers I had by far the most fun in this game, but the cipher might take more than one playthrough to get really good with. My very first playthrough (solo potd) was with a cipher and after it I was just happy I somehow made it through and didn't think the class was very strong. After that I played 2 separate (solo) paladins, boring but efficient, then it took me 2 separate trio playthroughs which both included a cipher, to finally fall in love with ciphers. Now it is my fav class and maybe even the strongest class in the game (arguably), while barbarian took me exactly ONE playthrough to LOVE it.

Does Durance have less than 10 Per? I find myself not going above 10 per with a lot of classes lately, ofc sometimes I respec for dragon fights, which wouldn't work on a companion, but I mostly solo, so I don't think 10 per in a party is that bad, especially priests can boost accuracy like crazy.

Using companions is ultimate hard mode, forget POTD Like driving the short bus Don't companions get a level advantage over recruits anymore, as they did in PoE 1? I remember picking Kana and GM in my trio party, just so I can get Dragon chant/Mindweb asap. When I reached level 16 and could have switched to recruits (it was my original plan to do so) the stats just didn't matter anymore because a level 16 party of three is so op they could have had not used all statpoints and still stomped the game. And well before level 15 and op mindweb I still felt like getting dragon chant one level earlier and having an ability/talent/power more than I would have on recruits more than made up for not having ideal stats. But since I don't have the beta I wouldn't know if recruits still lose a level over companions, but I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one solo PotD video, so I don't see how companions would hinder you from playing PotD.

Adra Dragon was so easy compared to Alpine, even though it is fire immune. Opened the combat without Withdraw, since I wanted to get the full benefit of Ancient memory and Veteran's Recovery. Only 1 Adragan aggroed, if more aggroed i was ready to withdraw earlier, but the 1 that aggroed melted to the chant without doing any harm. When I finally used withdraw the dragon was already badly wounded, since I don't have Steadfast yet (still didn't go to Durgan's, I wanted the Adra shield first for the extra defenses) I had to make sure to cast prayer against Fear before every Withdraw. Chanting alone against a fire immune enemy doesn't do as much as chanting + Drawn in Spring, so when both withdraws expired Adra was still barely alive, in this fight withdraw is more a safety measure, if all Adragans aggro, but at least it prevented me from taking unneccessary risks by big dragon hits. It is to note that Adra doesn't have Sneak Attack/Deathblows so it can't hit as hard as Alpine. Also another reason why Alpine was unneccessary hard for me was I forgot to use the Salty Mast whore. Maybe it would have been smarrter to kill Adra first and then Alpine for the Shield, since Aila Braccia doesn't really do anything vs Alpine.

With my cipher I realized they only cast Ray once at combat start (or at least they did for me) so as long as they're separated they're not as dangerous as they seem at first. I might switch to a stunning weapon for them, with the cipher Abydon's hammer was awesome, but the cipher had powers to stun/paralyze them permanently.

I have Durgan's, Craghold and all WM2 left, but usually I don't need the shield for trash mobs. but I'm too used to resolving the vithrack dialogue peacefully, so I didn't rest before talking to them and my hp was dangerously low. I also use Aila Braccia for lagu's it is so funny when their magic missiles rebound. :D

Damn the shield is such a lifesaver. Just came back from the animat level in Od nua and somehow managed to select the wrong dialogue option to the Vithrack and they turned hostile on me having red hp. Since they can stun and paralyze me quite well (Moon Godlight is sooo bad in comparison to Aumaua) I instapaused and wasn't quite sure if I can survive unprepared (I did have vital essence pots as last resort), pressing withdraw immediately resolved all issues, Vithracks are so squishy haha.

Yeah I think Alpine is the hardest enemy for chanter, but it was also my fault for not paying attention to my hp and buffs enough. (I didn't have Llengrath's when i almost died). Withdraw makes everything easy, fight 60 secs normally as long as you have end regen, then pop withdraw to finish. (or vs llengrath early to avoid thew piggy). I always thought chanter was better than cipher except vs dragons, but my last cipher run taught me how to fight the more dangerous bounties and now i truly think cipher is much better than chanter or at least much safer. (chanter is a lot faster vs bounties)

Dual wielding bittercut before the nerf with GM in my Mindweb trio (PC pala, GM and Kana) was the most satisfying thing ever. Even after sabre nerf melee cipher is still by far my fav, be it with Firebrand belt and full damage in a party or bittercut + shield full def solo, ofc fire brand is more fun purely by the numbers.

I just remembered the thing I tested wasn't chanting while withdrawn, but +50 defenses while stunned prone, sorry for the confusion.

Withdraw and chanting works now? Or does it only work with the shield? I remember trying priest and chanter, but chanter stopped chanting when priest cast withdraw.

I randomly reloaded my game, months after I "finished" it, encountering this same bug. Since I have several solo games on my belt which never bugged, I assumed reloading would fix this issue, but even months after the bug happened I still get it. Help would be appreciated, since my reload had the reason of me wanting to import this char to Deadfire.

If you don't want to work to hard to beat the dragon and you're relatively high level and have good accuracy, just pick/respec into Psychic backlash and watch every dragon in the game get permastunned

You are looking at the wrong day, you need to look at the actual date in the fictional PoE month and not at the day of your game start which can slightly differ from game to game. You have to look at the lower date, the game usually starts at the 19th and the mantle is in the inn at the 20th. Also it is a good idea to save, quit and reload the game if you are about to open your very first random loot container, when you are in the room/area with the container, but before opening it.

Have you tested it? If I wanted to test it I'd have to create a wizard and use console to get xp and the gloves. So if you have a wizard with those skills already just spawn the gloves per console, if you don't wanna lock your achievements just reload before you used console and achievements will be enabled again.

I have to agree with Boroer that the melee cipher is by far more efficient than ranged. When I played my trio party I also used the companions Grieving Mother (and Kana) so her stats were not perfect for melee, since too squishy. I played her ranged till I got mindweb, but when I realized how strong Borrowed Instinct was, I was really sad i played her ranged all those levels. Ofc if you actually have Mindweb unlocked and have one really strong tank, there is no reason not to use it and keep your party all melee an together. I used twin Sting to open combat and 99% of the time build enough focus at the first shot and always latest at the 2nd.

Very nice and confirms what I've been thinking about. :D The main problem is still to get the focus for Reaping Knives in the first place, but with 2 chars dividing the aggro it should be very doable compared to solo. Another idea I had was to actually go for cipher + barbarian, but combine this idea with another idea which has been plagueing me for ages, not really easy to explain. But the simple version of my idea is to play the 2 chars "separate" from each other. Never really found a good application of this, but a cipher who is built like a solo cipher, very tanky and goes in first, while the barb sits in stealth or if impossible at "range". The cipher goes in draws all aggro, builds enough for reaping knives, then the barb leaps in and gets the knives applied, HoF, gg.

I've been wondering about this for a while. Who is the perfect target for Reaping knives, a cipher, barbarian or a monk? (Or somebody I overlooked). If I played a party of 2 chars duo ciphers had the big advantage of being able to cast allied only powers on each other. Does a monks TS apply to Reaping Knives? IK for a fact the cross class talent doesn't. (Or at least didn't when I tried it in my trio party) As to barbarian I see the danger that most fights are over before the cipher has enough focus for the knives, because HOF.

Party synergy is a lot of fun in Pillars, much more than in other games. It's jsut a shame there isn't something like BG SCS mod for Pillars, since my last Trio run while being a lot of fun was super easy and no challenge. (Paladin, chanter + defensive mindweb cipher and that was without the op Psychic Backlash which wold have trivialized it more.)

Ooooo don’t tell me that currently in one of my last TC runs. What should I avoid doing? PS I have exclusively played TC since release and never had a game ending bug, that being said maybe I’ve been lucky. PS PS for this reason I every once in a while make copy of the file and put it in an emergency folder for this reason. PS PS PS I have NEVER ONCE used those files to restore a TC run in which I messed up and died. I’m not very good my total record against POE on TC is like 4 wins vs more then 15 losses for sure. I don’t know I’ve logged almost 2000 hours lol I don't think those bugs would happen in a party (assuming you don't solo). Basically I fought the sky Dragon no problem for a couple of minutes but I already had the issue with the Deadfire hat charm healing the Dragon off my Moonwell whenever it got charmed so the fight already took longer than it should have, but all off a sudden after a charm wore off I still couldn't target the dragon as if it was still charmed and while waiting for it to change and even running away to try and end combat at the end it was invincible and I had to reload and after another failed attempt (without bug tho, but charm + moonwell op) I finally took of the deadfire hat and killed it easily (I was level 10). Then I had it twice that combat wouledn't end even tho I wasn't in combat anymore, once as I said after beating Thaos and both statues, while killing the laststatue who was stunned via Silent Scream, I had another Silent Scream held over the statue (you can't reapply it while the target is still stunned) but the stue died before the stun ran out, now my whole game went crazy, the combat didn't end and I couldn't get rid of the SS icon on my mouse cursor and not even esc, inventory, right click, trying to click on the "x" in the bottom middle menu, arrow keys nothing worked so I couldn't finish the game and hat to quit alt tabbing and forcing the game to shut. The other time I couldn't exit combat was with my new monk who just sneaked thru Eothas temple and while sneaking back thru the mob with the phantom accidentally got spotted, so I ran back to the door close to which there is a point where the enemies will stop following you, which they did and returned to their previus position, but combbat didn't end so I neither was able to reenter stealth nor leave the area via stairs and I had to reload and actually kill the phantom/slime mob, which was thankfully quite easy with a level 4 monk with max might and con.

I feel like there is one person confined to a dark basement with candle light whose job it is to keep the game from acquiring new bugs, while the whole team works on future content. The amount of gameending bugs I ran into while doing my cipher pt was much bigger than ever before and if it was TCS I would have been a very angry nerd. Ranging from an enemy becoming untargetable after they got charmed by Deadfire hat, even tho they were almost dead before the charm (Happened several times, worst one was asgainst Sky Dragon and only fixable by reload) over countless maybe less fatal but still potentially deadly bugs, to the inability to leave combat either if you run away and the enemies return to their positions or much worse after you killed all enemies, which happened to me after the Thaos fight with no way to save or do anything but reload.

Oh you mean because of stun immunity? Psychic Backlash has it's own affliction (which doesn't qualify for Sneak Attacks and I don't think reduces the stats like a stun would).