Boeroer

Chanter was already mentioned as option by OP, that's why I didn't include it.

That is correct. The enemies are attacking themselves. Blade Turning redirects the attack roll back towards the enemy. You Monk's accuracy isn't involved. So, good pick I'd say. Just shooting from the hip: Stalker/Shieldbearer with tanking capabilites and support + an offensive-minded animal companion (Wolf for more base dmg or Lion for faster attacks): the Ranger/Paladin buffs the animal companion's dmg output (and the one of the other allies, including summons). Use Brand Enemy (it's an auto-hit) to deal reliable damamge and unlock Predator's Sense for the animal companion all the time. SC Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (no modal) with FoD+White Flames+Ring of Focused Flames for good accuracy despite low PER (you need to graze with FoD in order to trigger White Flames' healing) - for healing and the goal of utilizing PL9's Divine Retribution. This will give the Paladin unlimited Zeal with he help of all the summons you might use in the party (and who will get killed all the time -> +2 Zeal). Paladins with unlimited Zeal can spam Exhortations. Exhortations are good, but usually too expensive to really turn the tides in an encounter. Not if you can spam them... Also you can put Brand Enemy (auto hit) on everybody. Berserker/Priest of Wael: confuse yourself and use Withdraw to remove enemies from the battlefield for a long time. This is an auto-hit! Also enemies' Resolve doesn't shorten the duration because it's a benefial effect which you only use in a hostile way. I'm pretty sure Wael would approve. Tactician/Priest of Wael: same thing as above, but you need to trigger confusion otherwise - for example with a blunderbuss + Powder Burns. No immunity to flanked or PER-Afflictions, no resistane to PER afflictions either - the confusion only works if the Tactician can get flanked. Aura-guy: Cap of the Laughingstock: this item lowers enemies' deflection by 10 automatically in an AoE (aura). No hit roll. Ngati's Tusk: lowers all defenses except deflection by 5 points. With high Survival you can get it to -10. Aura, no hit roll either. Blackened Plade: Death in Life does an AoE DoT which is an auto-hit aura, too. All three together could be used by a Helwalker/Whatever (+10 MIG for the Plate's dmg, +10 INT for max AoE) OR a SC Psion with Shared Nightmares. The AoE will become absurdly big the longer the Psion accumulates focus. Assassin/Bloodmage: use Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure to stay invisible (+25 acc) while applying CC spells which won't break this invisibility. Wizard in general has: self buffs Thrust of Tattered Veils (auto-hit) Minoletta's Minor Missiles (auto-hit) Essential/Substantial Phantom which can use the Wizard's (summoned) weapons with its own accuracy (it's VERY good with Draining Touch - which doesn't go away on a Phantom). good weapons/items for the Phantom: Draining Touch with Helm of the White Void: automatic +10 accuracy because Draining Touch causes weaken on graze/hit/crit. Also drains life for the phantom, making it harder to kill. Caedebald's Blackbow with the same helmet: same reason, but terrifies on attack, jumps to additional enemy (12m range in any direction). Arcane Cleanse (PL9) is an auto-hit Arcane Reflection and similar: bascially the Blade Turning against directed spells Ancient Druid: Sporelings (very long lasting, very well scaling summons) Wild Growth (gives any beast or primordial summon the Robust inspiration for as long as the summon lasts) - awesome with Sporelings but also great with "Call to the Primordials" summoning spell healing could be paired with Psion (Pain Block for more Robust inspiration) or Chanter (has aura healing and Aefyllath as well as beast and primordial summons which can also profit from Wild Growth)

You can export a character who has that armor and hire that character in an inn as an adventurer with items (expensive). This requires no console command and also doesn't disable achievements.

Playing with a party most of times I usually don't use any of the otherwise great debuffing weapon modals (club, morning star etc.) on a Psion because I don't want to go near enemies. For any other Cipher subclass it would make a lot of sense though. Hitting the enemy with a Bewildering Blow before applying a Deception spell to gain some focus while also lower Will by 25 points should increase the hit quality of the spell a lot. I'm no too concerned about recovery penalty with Psions because you'll have to wait a bit for more focus from time to time - might as well make the wait count (with higher AR and other defensive goodies). So stuff like Casita Samelia's Legacy or even Nomad's Brigandine is fine for me even if I'm an offensive-minded character in the first place. But like with a Chanter who gains resorces just by waiting it's generally a great payoff: more defense with little repercussions on offense.

As Psion I would pick up Tuotilo's Palm for the +10 deflection/reflex bonus when at 10 wounds (because you want to disincentivize enemies attacking you). Best with the Gladiator Sword I guess (+5 additional deflection). No accuracy penalty. I would also use an armor that raises defenses - for example Casita Samelia's Legacy which can provide +5 Deflection and +5 Will without any skill investment but +10 deflection with 20 Intimidate. It won't clash with Alchemy. Gipon Prudensco may be even better though - it can provide up to +10 deflection/+20 reflex and can aslo be used to become immune to disengagment attacks which is very convenient if you just want to leave a melee enemy without any repercussions. Add some boots of speed. With that setup you will have great defenses and almost never will be the preferred initial target of anybody. This makes playing Psion so much easier because you will seldomly experience as disruption of Soul Mind's focus generation. For fast focus burst (as Beguiler) you coul use Kitchen Stove with Thunderous Report. Also Stunning Surge with Fire in the Hole against groups is very good: great CC and focus gain at the same time. Fire in the Hole (or hand mortar) also works with Tuotilo's Palm of course for a Psion (without focus gain but still the nice stun effect of Stunning Surge in an AoE).

If I wanted to play a Cipher who' main focus is casting I would def. pick the Psion subclass or the Beguiler. And if it's a CC caster I wouldn't pick Helwalker but Nalpazca (because you don't need the increased MIG an the wound generation would be faster with a Nalpazca). Also I think Psion/Nalpasca is more fitting and interesting thematically ("Soul Mind on Drugs" ). Since you don't want to get damaged as a Psion you'd have to build your wound generation on drugs and (Enduring) Dance of Death - and use the wounds mostly for the +INT boost and the occasional Forge of Anguish to get rid of melee attackers - or maybe even Blade Turning for emergencies? +10 INT + Lingering Echoes + CC (mostly Cipher spells, but also Stunning Surge with an AoE weapon) is an awesome combination for exceptionally long disabling/debuffing durations - and Dance of Death also ensures really nice accuracy for that. You really want to make sure that you don't get attacked too much. So hard disables and mind control as well as a not too inviting (not dumpded) defensive stat line are good. I wouldn' open fights but stay stealthed long enough that the enemies have settled on other party members before I started attacking. This way you can also build up some nice focus and wounds + accuracy in hiding and get buffed by your Priest for even more accuracy - then unleash your CC stuff. The good thing about the Nalpazca/Psion combo is that even IF you get damaged and your focus generation stops briefly you still gain something: more wounds to spend. Yet you can have a nice influx of wounds without getting damaged at all. This can also work well with the Beguiler. Here you'd have the focus generation via Deception spells which can be better in "normal" fights. But in the tougher encounters I find the Psion to be more reliable because his resource generation doesn't depend on hitting something.

Hi, nice project. I already found something that the AI may have missed: When applying the filters "fighter" and "interrupt", the abilities Clean Sweep, Clear the Path, Knockdown and Mule Kick won't show. I guess because the prone effect (which also functions as an interrupt) doesn't get recognized as interrupt (it's not explicitly stated in the description of those abilities). Clear Out however (base ability of Clear the Path/Clean Sweep) does get listed even though its description is similar to Clear the Path's/Clean Sweep's.

I have not used the Turn Based Mode - so I cannot say anything that would help you I'm afraid. I generally like Turn Based mechanics (for example I have sunk a lot of hours into Battle Brothers...), but since I started PoE and Deadfire with RTwP (and enjoy it) I saw no reason to switch the mode. Given that PoE's combat was designed around Real Time with Pause I'm inclined to say that it's the better mode for this game.

Yes, critical hits also raise spell damage. Direct damage gets raised like weapon damage with crits (+25%). Also crits provide more penetration (*1.5) which often leads to overpenetration. Overpenetration adds +30% damage. Spells which don't deal direct damage but damage over time (DoT) also profit from crits, but a bit differently (see below). Yes, I would recommend Ascendant for a Seer most of times. And yes, more INT = longer Ascension phase. More INT also means bigger AoEs (all AoEs) with spells and weapons as well as longer durations for all your spell effects (benefical on allies or hostile on enemies). This includes damage, see your Disintegration spell. That one deals raw damage (no armor, no penetration) in "ticks". Higher Might = more damage per tick. Higher INT = more ticks. Crits (in this case) = more ticks. A few points in an attribute (like Perception or Might) don't make a lot of difference. Abilities and gear are a lot more important than a few points of your attributes. You don't need to max out any attribute to have a great build. So if you feel forced to use a Pale Elf from the White that Wends just for the PER bonuses: don't. On the other hand: if you like that character concept in the first place then it surely doesn't hurt to have bonus perception. :). And a Pale Elf Seer from the White that Wends with Frostseeker is thematically very fitting. Bonus accuracy of hunting bows is fine, and the modal of hunting bows is also very good. Also the unique hunting bows are nice. But ultimately I don't think there's a better weapon for a Seer than Frostseeker. You can absolutely start with a hunting bow though. You will get enough weapon proficiency points to try both hunting and war bows. And once you get Frostseeker you can try it out and see if it performs better than your current hunting bow and if you like it or not.

Imo the best setup is war bow (Frostseeker). High INT, DEX and PER, decent MIG. Marked Prey, Stalker's Link, Marksman, Driving Flight. Usually ascends very quickly due to Garland's Rake (enchanment on the Frostseeker bow) and then you can cast for free while ascended. It is benefical to use Borrowed Instincts for more crits, because more crits = more Garland's Rake. This is a very strong combinantion bc. Cipher/Ranger has one of the highest potential accuracy and crit chance in the game which works very well with the bow's critical hits which produce AoE damage.

If you want crits to feed your phrase count you should consider Sun & Moon. Also legendary, but it has two separate attack rolls, both can crit. Skald's mechanic only allows 1 phrase generation per "strike" max, so you won't ever get 2 phrases even if two crit happen during one swing, but the chance to get a phrase in the first place with two attack rolls is significantly(!) higher than with only one attack roll. It's also better with Confounding Blind (which generates more crits). Second weapon can be whatever, Squid's Grasp, Katana Taga, Rust's Poignard has an additional attack roll that doesn't proc on every attack but only occasionally - but that additional roll also raises the chance to get a phrase a bit. Another good weapon is Rännig's Wrath - it's not legendary but comes with +4 extra accuracy and is faster. Faster attacks = more crits in a given timeframe.

Then they should've implemented the Long Pain like proper ranged weapons from the get-go - and not nerf them after (what feels like) 25 years of fun at-range punching .

The Brynlod bounty is very tough. Lots of his fellows have very high defenses, especially Reflex. They are all of level 22 iirc. In addition to high Reflex, the Rogues in that bounty also have Adept Evasion. So using spells that target Reflex against them doesn't do much. Maybe here it's best to use Plague of Insects and other stuff that targets fortitude. But you must cast it when your accuracy peaks (when Devotions + Inspiring Radiance is still up). Maybe even buff Hiravias with Champion's Boon for extra PER and so on.

Hi, I tried the Long Pain on Zahua last week and also found out that they don't work like they used to. Too bad - this fun little build is dead now after so many years. I really don't know what the motivation behind such a nerf is...

DoT damage doesn't show in the records. Plague of Insects etc. are super annoying when they hit you - but that's mostly because they bypass your DR and eat away your health pool while you cannot do much about it. They are not as effective against the enemy thouh imo because they take quite some time to make a difference - unless you have additional means of disabling large groups for a longer time and can afford the slow (but sure) death by raw DoT. The number one spell surely is Relentless Storm. It has good AoE size, hits foes only and combines a pulsing stun with shock damage. Overbearing Wave is excellent, too. Its stun lasts quite a long time and the damage is good, too. It causes friendly fire though - so you have to be careful. Talon's Reach and Nature's Mark are good because they are fast casts. Returning Storm is only working on a single foe, but it is still nice to have periodic stun + shock dmg proc. Especially while using Spiritshift it will add to your melee dmg against a single enemy. Venombloom and Wicked Briars are great in combination with a Wizard's Combusting Wounds.

The fight is usually a lot easier when you have a Priest, a Druid and a Wizard (fully rested). You don't need a real tank - if you can reliably disable tough foes. 3 relatively sturdy frontliners are enough. And I think a Monk is better compared to a Fighter in general, the only thing the Fighter is better at is gaining high accuracy quickly (Disciplined Barrage) and use it with several Knockdowns - which is very helpful to occupy the dragon very early in the encounter. Monk needs more time because of wounds. He can stun right away - but with less accuracy and a lot shorter duration. But his Force of Anguish can make up for that because its prone duration is very long compared to Knockdown. If you give the Monk Veteran's Recovery there shouldn't be such a big difference between him and a Fighter in terms of sturdyness. Relentless Storm, Chillfog, Confusion and Ninagauth's Shadowflame make short work of all mobs in a very short time. And Chillfog blinds/Relentless Storm stuns the Adra Dragon, too. Also Wizard and Druid both have petrifying spells, which - when applied to the dragon - makes the damage dealing part so much easier: besides the monstrous defense debuff they suffer, petrified enemies take double the damage. Druid's Charm Beast and Hold Beast Druid are excellent in this case, too. A Chanter with Dragon Thrashed is useful to just erase the mobs without having to do much. You can run him into the enemy crowd and when he's about to go down you can withdraw him with Durance: he then becomes untouchable but will still burn and slash everything around him. His accuracy will go down a bit, but oddly enough a single one handed weapon does increase the accuracy of offensive chants such as Dragon Thrashed by +12, so he should still be able to hit mobs reliably enough. My last fight against the Adra Dragon was with this party comp. (outfit, most used stuff): front line: Eder (Tidefall, Sanguine Plate, 4 Knockdowns, Charge) Kana Rua (Edge of Reason, Argwe's Adra, The Dragon Thrashed) Hiravias (Hearth Harvest+except. hatchet, Wayfarer's Hide, Relentless Storm, Overwhelming Wave, ) back line: Durance (except. Arquebus, Angio's Gambeson, prayers + acc buffs) MC Chanter (One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger, Sure Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr) Aloth (Gyrd Háewanes Sténes, Rundl's Finery, Confusion, Chillfog, Ninagauth's Shadowflame) It was very easy and the fight was over quickly. I cannot stress enough how important it is to be able to buy a bit of time at the start of the encounter (if you don't have party members who can just facetank the dragon). I'm currently running another party: with MC Barb Firebrand, Eder dw war hammers, Devil of Caroc dw sabres, Zahua fists, Durance arquebus & Aloth rod. It's way(!) harder to beat tough encouters on PotD - especially the ones that are a bit overleveled compared to me. I like to go to certain places too early just to pick up a few items I want to habe early. My current setup lacks the additional oomph that a per-rest caster such as a Druid can unleash at will. A Rogue or Monk cannot make up for that at all (although I do enjoy playing them, esp. the Monk). What's also very helpful against dragons in general is Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral and Ring of Changing Heart on a high accuracy character. All but one dragon can be charmed or dominated. And it's easy to hit with a charm spell that has +15 accuracy bonus and is on a character who's already giot good accuracy.

First of all: this is a good example for my take that Ciphers aren't as good as many players think they are. However, they can be good here if they can generate enough focus from ads and then use Borrowed Instincts + Tactical Meld and then disable the dragon with cheap Whisper of Treason or Puppet Master. But they need party members who distract and disable the dragon first - until the Ciphers have gone through their lengthy process of harvesting enough focus etc. In order to deal with the Adra Dragon reliably (who can potentially wipe whole parties with one lucky swipe AND has a lot of pesky Adragans) you need a few things: - summons: just to distract and buy some precious time (figurines) - immunity to terrify (Durance, Prayer) - immunity to paralyze - immunity to mind control is nice to have, too - but not as crucial since you won't usually die while mind controlled. - great accuracy on at least one party member. Use Devotions + Blessing/Zealous Focus + Inspiring Radiance. On top of that it's extremely helpful to have a Paladin with Coordinated Attacks + a marking weapon. Bonus points if you give the disabler (like Zahua) a coordinating single handed weapon (+4 acc when attacking the same enemy as an ally). The best option might be Cladhaliath with Coordinating because it is accurate (+5 acc), too and can be wielded one-handed for additional +12 accuracy. Paladin can then give +20 acc to Zahua with Coordinated Attacks + Marking while Zahua adds +21 from accurate, one handed and coordinating. Combined with Devotions etc. and exceptional quality this should almost guarantee hits with a disable from Zahua (stun + prone). - like I said above; good, immediate(!) disable (which the dragons isn't immune to) on that same party member. Can be prone +20 resistance!) or stun, can be charm/dominate etc. I like Knockdown + bonus Knockdown + Girdle of the Driving Wave on Eder and Force of Anguish an Zahua for example. But it can be many things. It's important that you can trigger some of them at will (and not after having to harvest a lot fo focus first for example). - not mandatory, but extremely(!) helpful: Confusion (Wizard). The dragon isn't even immune to it and you can mess up the whole bunch of enemies and make them fight each other. Instead of the Dragon wiping your party out it might wipe out its ads instead. You don't have a Wizard, so tough luck. A scroll of Confusion on a high accuracy, high INT party member would be awesome, too. Pop summons, let Durance pray and buff, cast the confusion if you can, start to disable the dragon. And then simply keep the dragon down as much as possible while you deal with the ads (lots of AoE preferably,here the Ciphers could do good) and at some point you might have enough focus to buff the ciphers acc up enough for then to also keep down the dragon. The most important parts are to get rid of terrify and buff up your accuracy enough in order to apply disables. You don't want the dragon to get up long enough to do a breath attack or tail swipe. Usually you can also trick her into attacking in melee if you place 1 single summon directly in front of her, in a direction where nobody else stands behind the summon.

What about shooting at enemies from stealth first? Then it shouldn't be too bad if the first reload doesn't profit from Heating Up - because stealth has it's own -85% recovery/reload bonus. Completely different approach: the most painless way for me to make my Streetfighter Swashbuckler work very reliably was to turn him into a tank with a large shield (like I did Edér many times before) and "escape" into the middle of an enemy mob in order to get flanked - for real. And then I just let him hack away, always heated up until only a few enemies are left and there was no flanking anymore. But at that point the fight is usually won anyway. That way I could make good use of: Escape and Charge (mobility is useful in order to get the best position for tanking and getting flanked - especially useful since you can move while the large shield modal is up) Coordinated Positioning (never used this before - but in this case it can be great to place yourself between crowded enemies perfectly so you actually get flanked properly - sometimes there's no free space to Escape to... and then Escape doesn't work reliably and your character might get ramdomly placed in some stupid spot) Mob Stance (even faster attacks and cleaves on kill - with the help of some engagement slots, see Hold the Line, shield and some other gear) Armored Grace (obviously) heal-on-kill pet (the damage output is good, that leads to kills which leads to cleaves which lead to more damage and kills which leads to a lot of healing procs for you) Entonia Signet Ring (getting engaged by enemies raises your defenses, perfect) Riposte (lots of missed melee attacks against you due to high deflection even when flanked - can trigger cleaves, too) Deep Wounds (nice in combo with Riposte and Cleave imo) Persistent Distraction (unlocking Deathblows on every engaged enemy automatically, also reducing their accuracy) Adept Evasion (in combo with a large shield modal AoE spells don't bother me anymore) Refreshing Defense (of course this works very well with such a setup) Unbending (if he punishment is too much you can still keep going easily) Fighting Spirit + On the Edge (increase dmg output even more before eventually getting healed) Slippery Mind (won't remove real flanking but will take away all PER/INT/RES afflictions once you are On the Edge - it's super useful imo) Pernicious Cloud (it's friendly fire so normally I wouldn't ever use it - but since you're surrounded by foes anyway...) Into the Fray (nice to pull some enemies near so they can flank you instead of bothering your allies) and so on. It worked out really well - while the tankyness was good enough to be the main tank of the party, the damage output was still very impressive. No comparison to the Edér Swashbuckling tankyness I'm more used to - in terms of the offense I mean. The increased Sneak Attack damage (+50%) combined with the short recovery, Ripostes and Cleaves leads to great dps while occupying a lot of enemies - even though it's "only" weapon & large shield and no dual wielding or two handed stuff. There wasn't even the need for the Rogue's strikes abilities. All in all I think this was much easier to play and less fuss than what is usually done with Streetfighters to make them unlock their passive "easily". I find all that blunderbuss firing and switching in order to milk that Heating Up passive turns into tedium quickly. But maybe that's just me. I used a Streetfighter/Devoted with the Galdiator Sword + Bronlar's Phalanx by the way for some Roman Gladiator vibes (also I wanted to stack the +1 PEN of the sword with the +2 from the Devoted and never bother to switch weapon sets - Iazy ;)). But I think the Fighter subclass doesn't matter that much. With a Black Jacket you can be more versatile (and even switch from weapon & shield to a more offensive setup if the situation is right or directly turn off the large shield modal), with an Unbroken you get more AR (but worse Reflex - but that's already very high due to the large shield) and better disengagment attacks, the Devoted grants more dmg with your one chosen weapon because of the PEN and slightly incrased crit dmg... but that's all not really crucial for this direct "getting flanked" approach I think.

Awesome. I especially like the first part where you explain why and how you arrived at this unusual combination and style of play. Because your initial description of "problems" with priest multiclasses is what bothers me in most cases, too.

You're only lvl 4 and the early game is the hardest part, especially for defensively minded characters - because there isn't much im terms of items and abilities to help you stacking up enough deflection. It doesn't help that Rogues don't have high starting deflection of course. So it will get better! You will get better deflection gear, be able to pick Superior Deflection (I'd recommend it), have a Priest buff your deflection etc. In addition to deflection buffs you also want to lower enemies' accuracy. Check out Despondent Blows, Devotions for the Faithful, blinding or frightening spells and abilities and so on. A Rogue with a two hander won't be a real tank, but you can make a Riposte build work - if it's not the only thing you are focusing on but treat it more like a nice addon. Check out the great sword "Tidefall". It improves your survivability because it drains a percentage of the damage you cause as endurance for you. It also wounds enemies, which stacks with Deep Wounds (also on Riposte attacks) which is really nice, too - because this means that they take damage over time from your Ripostes even if you are not hitting them further. Another option is to use an overbearing two hander (the Temperacl or Hours of St. Rumbalt) which will cause prone on crit - which also improves your survivability because once an enemy is prone (from a direct crit or a crit from a Riposte) he/she cannot attack your for some time (and also unlock Sneak Attack at the same time). The third option is to use the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer (and maybe Forgemaster Gloves, too) and use the summoned great sword Firebrand. It has almost twice the base damage of a normal great sword and thus its attacks hit incredibly hard, especially with Rogues and their several damage bonuses. It's not the fastest weapon (compared to durganized stuff) but that's countered by the occasional instant Riposte attack. If the enemies already have an affliction that unlocks Sneak Attacks, a single Riposte might be enough to one-shot them (at lower levels - high level enemies have too big of an endurance pool to be one-shot by anything). Keep in mind that getting flanked is an automatic -10 deflection malus - so try to not get surrounded and flanked. Imstead take on one (or two) enemy in front of you and keep your back free of enemies if possible. Use Escape and other mobility abilities to get out of a flanked position.

Torment's Reach is a Full Attack - and since that is the overall best attack ability of the Monk I personally would go for a bashing shield such as Badgrad's Barricade (if you have picked Torment's Reach in the first place). But (if there's time and in-game money) I would also try out dual hatchets as a tanking setup (and dual fists as backup). Anitlei's speed buff (which stacks with everything) makes it easy to reach 0 recovery with dual wielding, Two Weapon Style and durganized hatchets + durganized breastplate (or simply lighter armor). 0 recovery in combination with Force of Anguish can be very useful for a Monk tank: he can then push back and prone single enemies in very quick succession (protecting his allies that way) and be extremely reactive in general. I found that the +10 deflection of dual hatchets is often enough (if you are not alone in the front line) to achieve sufficient tankyness.

It could be that you don't get these "aura" bonuses from allies because you are unargetable bc. invisible/stealthed.

Not much imo - unless you want to really mitigate direct damage on allies who receive a lot of grazes (your tank(s) mostly).

Monk is the overall strongest martial class in PoE imo. Def. works as tank, too.

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