Boeroer

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.

"Whooha look mom! That's also me!"

Hey look mom: that's me! That's me!

It's not really similar to PoE/Deadfire (pixel graphics, turn-based), but it's a party CRPG: Skald: Against the Black Priory I did enjoy it a lot. It doesn't have the replay value like PoE/Deadfire have, but it was a great experience for me nonetheless.

@thelee with the classic loss aversion.

Didn't know that. But I also didn't test it. I just searched with wiki with some keywords and wondered why such a good pet would come at such a rel. early point in the game. Now I know...

Weapon Focus and Gunner. Penetrating Shot and Marksman later. Penetrating Shot means +30 extra damage per shot (6*5) - it's worth the slower recovery. The reloading is not affected.

It's a great way to get a huge burst of focus right at the start of the encounter - if you can shoot at a "soft" target. Having a lot focus at you disposal very early in battle can be a big advantage. Blunderbusses (especially when lashes are involved) are not good against high DR foes, but in most battles there's a few weaklings. Leadspitter + Ryona's Vambraces + Penetrating Shot gives you a whole lot of DR bypass, which is good for the pierce damage, but DR bypass doesn't work for the lashes on the weapon (like a burning lash enchantment and/or Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr). And since those lashes are based on mutiple projectiles with individually low dmg numbers, they often do not get past enemies' DR in the first place. That's a shame for a Cipher because they would generate additional focus, too (if they can penetrate the enemies' DR). So it's best to target not too thick armor - even if you have a lot of DR bypass (if you can help it). Against high DR foes it's not a bad idea to bring a backup pistol (same weapon focus). Blunderbuss + Combusting Wounds is great by the way.

Level 8 is okay to start the White March. Crägholdt Bluffs is high level stuff. The mercenaries are already tough, but the vessels of Concelhaut are even tougher. I see no reason why 2 Ciphers wouldn't work. Her attributes aren't that bad. She's just not a min-maxed offensive glass cannon. I mean 10 RES and 12 CON is hardly on the high side. She's got nice DEX and INT. I personally think that CC (especially mind control such as Whisper of Treason and Puppet Master) is the best use of focus. To deal weapon damage in order to then deal spell damage seems kind of redundant - might as well continue to deal weapon damage with the help of Borrowed Instincts and Tactical Meld. Of course if it's a CC spell that also does damage (like Mind Wave or Amplified Wave): even better. But two Ciphers who dominate enemies impact every fight against non-immune foes significantly. You can make them both ranged (a blunderbuss specifically aimed at low DR targets - is a good way to gain big bursts of focus), but Grieving Mother can also be used in melee. Melee combat usually has a bit higher dps than ranged in theory, which should yield more focus. With Time Parasite, Llawran's Stick (quarterstaff with speed) and durgan steel she can reach 0 recovery. She can also stay behind the front line with such a reach weapon. Durance's staff is a nice backup weapon against crush-immune foes then.

Obsidian is not the Publisher, that's Paradox and Versus Evil. But maybe @Aarik D can help? Or @SChin or @Shyla?

No, I have a much weaker (and older) system and I had no issues with the game performance at any point. My CPU/GPU is Intel/Nvidia though - and I'm on Linux. I'll take a wild guess and say that this problem may originate in your hardware drivers. In Hasongo there's a lot of water surface animation stuff (outside). Maybe that's the part of the game which gives your system extra troubles.

That's correct and well explained.