TheMetaphysician

When I cast Citzal's Lance, and then use Gouging Strike or Arterial Strike on a group of enemies, only the one enemy directly targeted is affected. The other enemies in the area of effect (which still comes up when selecting the ability) are not even attacked by the strike, not even with a regular attack. Others have reported that the same is true with Citzal's Lance + Stunning Surge.

Not sure how to do that. I'm willing, though. One thing to test is whether the Rod's Blast has the same problem. Edit: I just tested Blast, and that seems to be working fine.

So, my Spellblade Aloth finally got to level 13, and I gave him Citzal's Lance in anticipation of using Gouging and Arterial Strike to spread afflictions in an AOE. But both of those seem only to affect the primary target, not any of the other enemies in the AOE circle. There aren't Miss rolls in the log for those; it just seems not to affect them at all. Can anyone else confirm this? Normal attacks still affect the AOE.

Yeah, I agree with that as a matter of design principle. I'm just disappointed because the cool idea I thought of doesn't work.

Well, my idea doesn't work. You can't use Wild Barrage and switch to a different weapon to use it; it disappears once you switch from Kitchen Stove. Oh well.

MaxQuest, why do you recommend sets with a pistol and a blunderbuss together? Is there an interesting interaction with the pistol modal or something? Or is it just that the particular uniques you list work well together?

Thanks! I thought something was wrong with my assumptions. I thought Driving Flight applied to the jumps too; thanks for that correction. That makes Twinned Shot more powerful for this sort of jump-stacking exercise (which is fitting for a higher-level ability that costs Bond). One possible correction: doesn't Twinned Shot double the initial hit too, and doesn't the initial hit cause a Blast? Your numbers seemed to neglect that (I think). So the numbers would be: Watershaper's Focus: 1 initial hit, +1 jump (WF itself), +2 jumps (Wild Barrage), +1 jump (Driving Flight) = 5 hits. All doubled by Twinned Shot = 10 Blasts total. Frostseeker: 3 initial hits, +3 jumps (Driving Flight), +6 jumps (Wild Barrage) = 12 hits. All doubled by Twinned Shot = 24 hits total. It still isn't clear to me which would be better. But this is a fun exercise. Edit: let's play around a bit. Let's assume, conservatively, that you hit an average of 3 enemies with all your Blasts. With 10 Blasts, that's 30 hits total and 30 procs of Avenging Storm. What would your crit rate have to be with Frostseeker to proc Garland's Rake to get the same number of AOE hits? (Though I don't actually know if Garland's procs Avenging Storm; I'm not sure how to test that.) To get to 30, you just need 6 more hits. If Garland's Rake is a separate effect that hits the original guy and the other 2 enemies, you just need 2 crits (in 24 hits) to get there. So an 8.33% crit rate. If you cluster the enemies and hit an average of 4 per Blast, that's 40. To get there with Frostseeker you need 16 extra hits. That would be 4 crits (again, assuming you are hitting 4). In 24 hits, that would be a 16.66% crit rate. That seems pretty achievable. So assuming Garland's Rake procs Avenging Storm, Frostseeker might be better. And that's not even including the increased attack rate of Frostseeker over Blast modal WF. Once you start increasing the number of clustered enemies, the math shifts gradually toward Watershaper's Focus.

I love boarding battles. Maybe my single favorite part of the game. Can't get enough of them. I love the flavor (the camera movement at the beginning, the music, the shouting sounds and taunts from the crew), and I love that four of the people not in my party are randomly selected to fight with me, not under my control. It makes me care about them: gearing them, leveling them, writing good AI scripts for them (since they use those in the boarding battles when I can't control them); it makes me grateful to them for helping me win the fight! Makes me feel much more plugged into my whole party, even the sidekicks I never use. With Berath's challenge I even have to care about protecting and healing them during the fight, since if they die they are dead permanently. That is a little frustrating, but on the whole adds more fun and challenge.

I second the Xoti dual-mortars stunning surge ranged single-class monk build. The folks here in the forums suggested it to me, and I like her so much more than I did when I tried to use her as a priest or monk/priest! Basically get both mortars from Serafen (one he starts with, one you get at the end of his quest, which you can do fast) and dual-wield them, as a single-class Monk get Enduring Dance and Stunning Blow/Surge. Aim for clusters of guys, and odds are pretty good that one of the hits will crit, which refunds the cost of Stunning Blow. Rinse, repeat. My highest damage dealer. I also love the "Engaging Eder" build which Frog Man gestured to. Google for "engaging Eder" and it'll come up.

Some theorycrafting occurred to me; maybe you can check my reasoning. I have a vague idea that Frostseeker benefits more from Wild Barrage than Watershaper's Focus does (remember, activate Wild Barrage then switch to Frostseeker/Watershaper's Focus). The reason would be that Wild Barrage adds +2 jumps, which takes WF from 2 hits to 4 hits. (Then Driving Flight doubles that to 8; Twinned Shot doubles that to 16.) But Wild Barrage's +2 jumps should apply to all three of the Frostseeker projectiles, which takes Frostseeker from 3 hits to 9 hits -- 6 extra jumps, not just 2. (Then Driving Flight doubles that to 18; Twinned Shot doubles that to 36.) A couple of caveats. First, all of WF hits will trigger a blast too, which may end up narrowing the gap significantly in terms of Avenging Storm procs. (Say each Blast hits an average of 1.5 additional enemies each; then if with Driving Flight/Twinned Shot there will be 16 blasts, those will generate 16+8=24 additional Avenging Storm procs, which added to the original 16 actually exceeds the Frostseeker number of 36.) But then we also need to calculate how many frostseeker attacks I can get off in the duration of Avenging Storm vs. how many WF (w/Blast modal slowdown) attacks, which I will try to estimate the next time I play. The second caveat is a big one: this is all way too theoretical. It depends so much on number of enemies, distance between them, geometry (since driving flight only bounces at certain angles), and I haven't done careful testing. Probably won't, either, for time reasons, sadly.

That crippling strike opener has probably been helping quite a bit, since it lowers reflex (by lowering dex with the Hobbled affliction).

I'm exploring the cool ranged build ideas that are floating around in these forums, and enjoying them! I've already got a dual-mortar stunning surge monk Xoti build that I'm enjoying. Right now I'm trying to build Maia as a single-class ranger to take advantage of driving flight/twinned shots. I'm planning on starting with Avenging Storm, activating the Wild Barrage ability on Kitchen Stove (+2 bounces), then switching (with Quick Switch) to either Frostseeker or Watershaper's Focus. That's my question: would Frostseeker or Watershaper's Focus be better, do you think? Frostseeker would have 3 base hits to 2 for Watershaper's Focus, which would proc Avenging Storm more often. You can turn Blast on with Watershaper's Focus, which would slow down attack speed (which is a bigger deal because of the limited durations of Avenging Storm and Wild Barrage), but would Blast proc Avenging Storm too, and would that make up for the slower attack speed? Watershaper's Focus can trigger Ondra's Wrath, but Frostseeker can trigger Garland's Rake; I have no idea which is better. Watershaper's Focus would hit more different enemies (I've noticed that Frostseeker often has all three hits bounce to the same second guy), but that would only matter if I was trying to spread afflictions with it, which this setup isn't doing (she's not a Scout).

It is interesting that you recommend caster Takehu for dps. I haven't used many caster-damage characters, but when I have used casters it just seems like they run out of resources too quickly on PotD/Deadly Deadfire to really do lots of damage. Is my impression wrong? Cipher or Chanter would of course be an exception. Also, in looking at Takehu, I'm not actually seeing all that many shock spells a single-class druid can use. (The Druid/Chanter version is another story.) Returning Storm conflicts with the awesome foe-only Chill Fog you mentioned, and the only other ones I can see are level 5 Relentless Storm and level 1 Dancing Bolts. That's just 4 casts per fight. Am I missing something?

This build looks really cool and way different than anything I've played; I'd like to try it out. Two questions: (1) Could you run this on Serafen? You won't be an ascendant or a berserker; does that just kill the whole idea? (2) If I'm using Kitchen Stove for another character, could you recommend a substitute weapon for the opener?

My heart-chime amulet is giving the Moon Godlike ability (Lunar Heart) to both Pallegina and my Watcher (who is not a Moon Godlike) instead of the proper abilities.

Does Blast proc Avenging Storm? More generally, in your opinion, how would you rate those three different weapons to combo with Avenging Storm and Twin Shot/Driving Flight: Watershaper's Focus w/Blast, mortars, Frostseeker?

What are everyone's favorite ways to debuff reflex to set up the Mortar shots? (My dual-mortar Xoti is a single class Monk, so no Crippling Strike on her.)

Thanks for everybody here for turning me on to the dual mortar monk stunning surge build! I've been using it on Xoti and it has been great. I'm level 11 and she's pretty far ahead of all my other party members in damage. It's made me realize that I might not have built my companions for damage very well. My main guy is a Healing Wall Herald, so he does basically no damage, and fights take a long time (with hardcore Deadly Deadfire on PotD). Do you guys know any other builds for companions that are as good for dps as the Xoti monk dual-mortars stunning surge build?

I'm having the same problem right now with Light of the Dawnstar. I have it on Tekehu with lots of Religion, but when you mouse over Light of the Dawnstar it says "+0" from Religion, and is only at 8%.

I have two other modded items (baubles of the fin and WOTEP) in my override file; will adding this file mess those up? Edit: I followed your directions and put it in there, and as far as I can tell, everything seems to be working! The one other modded item I have seems to be working according to the mod. Thanks so much!

Does anyone know of a mod, or is anyone willing to make a mod, that would make the Avenging Storm ability on the helmet Heaven's Cacophany into a per-encounter instead of a per-rest ability? I thought I remembered seeing a mod that did that for all items, but I can't find it now. I really just want that item, but I'd be willing to install a general mod to get it. Edit: if anyone would prefer to walk me through how to do this myself, I'm teachable. I have a JSON viewer plugin for Notepad++ (I think) from trying to mod Pathfinder Kingmaker (and mostly failing, but oh well).

Very cool! Two questions: - How does stunning surge give you infinite uses if you attack several enemies? Is it just that it is likely to crit at least once and refund the cost? - Relatedly, with the huge accuracy hit from dual-wielding mortars, how do you make sure you crit to get stunning surge back? Does the number of individual hits that can crit make up for it? - How does Flagellant's Path interact with mortars? Do you get yourself into melee, or what?

What should I spend my wounds on early on? The wound spenders I'm seeing before PL 4 are all melee. Also, does the self-inflicted damage from the scepter modal end Dance with Death? And does resonant touch work from range?

Oooh, I really like that build idea. Thank you! I need more ranged characters. Here are some questions: - Should you dual-wield the mortars, or just use one? I imagine you'll have huge accuracy problems if you dual-wield and won't be able to generate the critical hits you need. - Any advice for particularly useful gear? - Are you saying that Whispers on the Wind works with ranged? The description is ambiguous. - Any other abilities I should integrate into the build?

To OP: - I really like an Eder build I saw on the forums here. I've been using it and it is great. - That Lost Sinner Serafen build is very good, but I have to say that Whispers of Treason is so good that I pretty much just ended up setting his AI to use that whenever he could. Contrary to another commenter, I didn't really notice the Wild Mind kit hurting me. - The Tuono Fulmine Pallegina build looks totally awesome and I can't imagine using anything else on her. - Aloth works as a pure Wizard, but he also works very well as both of his other options (Spellblade and Battlemage). I like the RP flavor of having the multiclasses, since I think of the other class (fighter or rogue) as the Iselmyr side of his personality. With both of those, you can make him a solid melee character. Set the AI to self-cast wizard buffs (most of which are in the Llengrath's Martial Masteries grimoire), and then use the fighter or rogue abilities in melee. Citzal's Lance at level 13 is kind of the capstone, and with Spellblade you can use Citzal's to apply the rogue debuffs (from gouging strike or toxic strikes) in an AOE. Since he can stack deflection high with wizard buffs, you can try to use the Whispers of the Endless Paths Offensive Parry on him, but if you are doing that with Pallegina with the Tuono build you can't do it with him too.