bigwillystyle

One reason is the power level gap. A pure Druid or Wizard is +2 power levels above a multi-class, which pays off in terms of duration, damage, etc ... Some of this can be mitigated by items (i.e., Magran's Favor for a Fire specialist), so your mileage may vary. I personally like the Sorceror multi-class. Lots of firepower at early levels. Can mitigate some of the power level gap by going with Evoker for +2PL for Evocation spells and / or items like Firethrower Gloves, etc ...

Crusader, Devoted / Kind Wayfarer, Dual Sabers

Speaking of Monk, Monk/Druid could be solid too. mmmmmm

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” I just found the stat allocation funny from an RP standpoint of a Jedi. It actually sounds like a good precedent for a character that goes from good to evil in the end. hah! That's an interesting idea. Cruel and Aggressive, here I come!

it works with range

So, if you take a Lifegiver, opening levels look a little like: Lvl 1: Sunbeam, Nature's Bounty [i prefer Animist and taking Nature's Mark] Whispers of Treason [Too good not to take, could also do Tenuous Grasp] Lvl 2: Soul Shock Lvl 3: Iron Will [Kind of useless at this level, but should eventually pay dividends] Lvl 4: The Moon's Light, and either Woodskin [High Pierce AR is great!] or Taste of the Hunt Draining Whip Battles roll\ out like this ... - Eder takes the heat - Little Green Jedi charms or confuses someone to take the heat off - Little Green Jedi drops two Sunbeams on the bad guys - can't emphasize enough how good Sunbeam is - Blinded bad guys are easy to hit - melee crits with Saber ensue - Hit Ascended status and keep killing - Shift to cat form when needed I played a Wild Orlan (green colored!), max perception, high dexterity, moderate Might, moderate Intelligence, dump resolve. Animist/Ascendant. Fun little build. I may keep playing it.

I've been playing around with it, and I think I'd lean toward Animist over Lifegiver. I'm playing around with a low level Oracle with melee focus (Animist/Soul Blade) and its been better with the initial play with a Lifegiver. It's an interesting playstyle. More in the morning.

Let us know how it goes! One nice thing about this build is it is basically set / very effective at like level 6-7.

I just wanted to say this build inspired me on my Ranger/Monk build. Good stuff. I tried Sharpshooter for mine, but ultimately couldn't stand squishy pet and went Ghost Heart. Fine work here, sir. As an aside, I didn't realize War Bows were Pierce / Slash (hello what?) until looking at your screenshot. Good stuff. That's one up on an Arquebus. For the fella wandering the forums looking for a good bow build - this is your winner.

War Bow should work fine. I would probably swap out Sharpshooter's garb for something else, maybe Fleshmender or Miscreant's Leathers. A handful of Monk skills were nerfed for range attack. The most notable I can think of is Swift Flurry, which is now melee only - this build uses Lightning Strikes instead. Edited to add: If you're looking for a good bow build, the "Frostyboy" build is very, very cool.

I think it's worth thinking about if you do / do not want to use certain Cipher powers. If your goal is to build focus and dump it into Soul Annihilation, that is fine. That's actually not a bad way to approach it, but its worth thinking about. If you are going to take Cipher powers, it's worth considering do you want to do damage, do you want to debuff or do you want to crowd control. Depending on the route you'd like to take, we can probably offer more advice. An example would be: If you want to debuff, you might consider Secret Horrors at level 3 - 0.5 activation time, and it debuffs Resolve and Constitution. Each one is a 10 pt debuff of the associated defensive stat, Will and Fortitude respectively. That in turn helps land Borrowed Instinct and Body Attunement in future Cipher attacks.

Sir B., A Wanderer build for the forums: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104638-class-build-the-big-game-hunter-massive-single-target-ranged-damage-wanderer-ghost-heart-helwalker/ Subclasses: Helwalker/Ghost Heart The "Big Game Hunter", capable of inflicting massive single target damage at range with an Arquebus. Author: BigWillyStyle Game version: 2.0 Difficulty: PotD Solo: Untested Companion: -

Swift Strikes also adds a lot to attack speed - +15%, plus 5 points of Dex - it's sweet. Dance of Death is kind of "eh" until you get Enduring Dance, but at that points its amazing. Add the Red Hand and it's sweet sweet blasts

I am pretty fond of the Monk - just posted an Arquebus / Wanderer build a little further down the front page.

=================================== The Big Game Hunter =================================== Difficulty: PotD v.2.0 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Wanderer (Ghost Heart + Helwalker) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Any. Hearth Orlan is probably optimal here. I played with a human. -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: The White That Wends (Explorer) -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: Blessings in parantheses if you play with them. MIG: 19 (20) CON: 9 (10) DEX: 18 (20) PER: 19 (20) INT: 10 (10) RES: 03 (10) -------------------------------------------------------------- Important Skills: Stealth, Athletics, Survival -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities, by level MONK RANGER 1 Swift Strikes | Marked Prey Swift Strikes is foundational to the build. Achieving a 0.5 second activation time and 3.0 second reload time with an arquebus requires Swift Strikes. Marked Prey is a nice +10 to accuracy, which is the Ranger's forte. 2 | Wounding Shot Honestly, there's not much worth taking other than Wounding Shot. This will eventually upgrade to Accurate Wounding shot with a +20 accuracy bonus. We love accuracy. 3 | Resilient Companion Anything that helps our beloved Ghost Bear last longer helps. The bear is mostly useful as a meat shield and this builds on that. 4 Two-Handed | Gunner At level 4, PL2, we begin stacking more damage and reload % improvements. Both of these are useful throughout the game, all the way to level 20. 5 | Marksman More accuracy for our big game hunter is always welcome. 6 Prot. Companion | Protective Companion is helpful as a pre-req. for Stalkers Link, which comes with a +10 accuracy. Also helps your Ghost Bear be a teeny bit more tank like, with +1 Engagement. 7 Lightning Strikes | Marked for the Hunt 15% shock damage and Marked Prey that is no longer useful just once? Sign me up! 8 | Evasive Roll I initially took this for ship-to-ship combat, to avoid getting whacked in the opening volley by enemy gunmen and archers. Settle in on the left side of your ship and proceed to devastate anyone that jumps over the railing. Also come with the Quick inspiration if you're out of Mortification but have Bond to spare. 9 Dance of Death | Taken in preparation for Enduring Dance. You will get hit from time-to-time, so this power by itself is kind of "eh." 10 Duality of MP | Stalker's Link PL4 is like a cornucopia of fun Monk powers to fill out the build. Duality gets you bonus Intelligence, which prolongs the duration of Swift Strikes and later on Thunderous Blows. Stalker's Link is a +10 to accuracy. 11 Enduring Dance | This will dramatically help boost your accuracy and wound count at range. Three hits to eliminate the Dance helps massively. 12 Thunderous Blows | I occasionally ran into armor rating 15+ against Pierce; this helps put us over the top against those enemies. 13 The Long Pain | Driving Flight Long Pain lets you stay at range against evil Pierce Immune enemies, instead of flanking them with monk fists. Driving Flight doubles your projectiles. Wonderful stuff. 14 | Accurate Wounding Shot Extra +20 accuracy is hard to turn down. A crit +40% damage over time? Tasty. Optional power if you prefer something else at this level. 15 | Evasive Fire Fun to watch that mean bad guy take a blast as you rapidly retreat. Has a 10m range, while your gun has an 8m range, so doesn't always work in my experience. Don't retreat to max range. Optional power if you prefer something else at this level. 16 Turning Wheel | Survival of the Fittest Pretty straightforward: More damage and accuracy bonuses. 17 | Concussive Shot +10 accuracy and interrupt vs. spell casters. Also nice if you're about to get whacked. Interrupt! Optional power if you prefer something else at this level. You might consider filling out the pet's powers or going for Bull's Will. 18 | Concussive Tranquilizer. Optional power if you prefer something else at this level. You might consider filling out the pet's powers or going for Bull's Will if you didn't take it at 17. If I'm being completely honest, I haven't gotten past level 18 with this build. I made it to Ukaizo at level 18, and I'm doing the bonus content now. 19 Dichotomous Soul | Superior Camouflage Generally the best powers at this level for a ranged monk, I think. Open to feedback. 20 Graceful Retreat | I found myself running a lot, and this helps. --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important): Weapon set 1: The Red Hand (!) Upgrades: Legendary, Twin Slugs [aka, GET AWAY FROM ME!], Guilty Conscience Weapon set 2: Monk Fists Chest: Sharpshooter's Garb (!) Upgrades: Legendary, Low Profile Helmet: Acina's Tricorn (!) Amulet: Precognition Cloak: Cloak of Greater Deflection Gloves: Mortification Bindings or Firethrower's Gloves Ring: Ring of the Marksman (!) Ring: Chameleon's Touch Belt: Upright Captain's Belt or Girdle of Mortal Protection Boots: Boots of the Stone Pet: Cutthroat Cosmo ----------------------------------------------------------------- The general idea behind this build: Massive damage at range with an arquebus. I love the arquebus's animation, and the Obsidian team did a great job at including unique arquesbuses in Deadfire - POE 1 didn't have a wide variety in my opinion. I've seen a number of quality blunderbuss / pistol builds out there - Teesinz did a wonderful one for a Maia / Scout build on reddit that helped inform this build. But I haven't seen arquebus builds that really caught my eye. From a role-playing standpoint, I used to play Arcanum [WAY back in the day] with a "Big Game Hunter" - someone that used an elephant gun to take down the biggest threats that faced Arcanum. Gunners were kind of "meh" in Arcanum, but are much more in line with other classes in Deadfire. I felt like a Monk / Ranger was a good fit - Ranger obviously and Monk for the deprivation / ascetic aspects of living for a long time in the bush. So, how does this work? - High accuracy via perception, supporting equipment (Acina's Tricorn, Ring of the Marksman), Ranger abilities (Marked for the Hunt, Stalker's Link, Marksman, Survival of the Fittest, Accurate Wounding Shot, Concussive Shot) and the Monk ability Enduring Dance. - Very fast reload via Gunner from the Ranger tree, Acina's tricorn, Sharpshooter's garb and Swift Strikes from the Monk tree. At level 7, activation is at 0.5 seconds and reload at 3.0 seconds. Heck, yeah. - Massive damage via stacking damage bonuses on top of the already high arquebus base damage. When fully up in combat - which doesn't take too long - we're looking at +65% Might (+10 Base, +10 Helwalker, +5 Thunderous Blows), +60% Legendary, +15% Two Handed Style. Extra bonuses from The Red Hand's Guilty Conscience and Cuttthroat Cosmo. - The Red Hand fires twice between reloads. So for every 4.5 second attack sequence [0.5 activation * 2 + 3.0 second reload], you're getting two shots. At level 7-8, I was dumping ~50 point attacks every 2.25 seconds. At high levels, with higher crit rate, better weapon upgrades and Turning Wheel, the damage is very respectable. - This takes a little bit of micro-management at times. The Ghost Heart pet needs to have it's AI activated at summoning which is annoying. At times you'll have to use Evasive Fire to get the heck out of dodge. But to be honest, with the right companion setup [i.e., some melee tank types], this is very smooth to play. - I ran through the Principi content on this and it was generally very smooth.

Ended up finishing the game for the first time [i have major alt-itis] with this build because it was JUST THAT MUCH FUN. I used the gladiator sword for pretty much the entire game - first time I ever upgraded it to Legendary, but it just worked so well! This build did far more that 50% of damage, crits, etc ... compared to the rest of the party and died the fewest times. Good times.

Rock solid build. At lvl 11 potd - loads of fun. This guide is worth it for the Arteiro the Avenger tips - worked flawlessly!

Good questions. In theory it shouldn’t be too many ... I did something similar to spawn Arteiro the Avenger by killing Principi in the Undercroft ... maybe 30 kills? I’ll wreck a small village and see what happens

Same here. I think the girdle is a random drop - I've gotten it at least once. Never saw the bracers.

I'm curious, where do you get the Apex Ward? I know I've gotten it before but can't remember where to save my life

That looks bad-ass, sir

Willbreaker

Frenzy was still wrecking Wizard's double as of about three weeks ago under version 1.1.

I do still like the WotEP sword, but I've found myself swapping mid-fight to an alternative two hander. It's great upfront - I get a lot of offensive parry procs, I can usually line up 2+ enemies, and it feels strong. But once you get down to a small handful of enemies, it seems worthwhile to swap to an alternative two-hander. I haven't quite nailed which one. I have never tried Willbreaker, so time to invade Crookspur and give it a shot, I guess. Overall the build itself - Paladin / Cipher feels very strong.

So ... yeah. Frenzy wrecks WIzard's Double immediately - the Frenzy raw damage kills the Double. Welp, back to the drawing board with this one.