Boeroer

No, you'd have to kill him unfortunately.

Hello, welcome and thank you! Same

Offensive Parry from the Whispers of the Endless Paths does drain health with a Steel Garrote. Iirc Riposte does, too.

Against Belranga it's good to have summons (like Dichotomous Soul) so she can destroy them instead of you. For Huani you need interrupts such as Force of Anguish in order to prevent the merging process. If you use Edér's armor with "Veteran's Maneuver" and also use Keeper of the Flame as weapon and have picked "Imagined Pain" you can farm wounds while doing Whispers of the Wind and thus spam it endlessly. You will gain wounds because Keeper of the Flame's AoE does friendly fire and targets reflex. Because you will be immune to reflex based attacks (Veteran's Maneuver) every AoE roll against you will miss, granting a wound via Imagined Pain. If you can spam Whispers of the Wind you can mostly stay invisible. If you use Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak then all attacks made during Whispers of the Wind will stun enemies. This is very good in the Belranga fight to kill a lot of little spiders fast in order to drop the defenses of Belranga quickly. If you put Keeper of the Flame in the main hand and Mohora Tanga in the offhand like we described above you can do a lot of single target and AoE dmg + CC with Whispers of the Wind. Not necessarily against the mega bosses themselves (unless you brought Belranga's defenses down a lot) but the weaker spiderlings and the smaller split oozes. Against Belranga you can also just hide behind some rocks, use Enduring Dance and send Dichotomous Soul summons to Belranga & friends from hiding - over and over again. You can also resort to that tactic in the middle of the fight if you have a potion of invisibility.

Then I assume Lightning Strikes is better in that case. Lashes do generate Focus.

PS: Swift Flurry/HBD procs do not generate wounds for a Shattered Pillar. I always forget if they generate focus for a Cipher. I believe not, but I'm again not sure anymore. Blame my reluctance to play Soul Whip Ciphers I guess.

Steel Garrote only drains health from direct damage attacks, not DoTs. Red Flag Flying does no direct damage so no draining. I would have thought that the Swift Flurry attacks however would drain health. If they do not: I learned something new. The order in which attacks appear in the combat log is not necessarily the order in which the attacks are processed internally. Not really. The phrase generation of a Skald is +1 phrase max(!) per attack action or "swing" - no matter how many attack rolls happen during that action. So even if you do 25 crits with Red Flag Flying + Swift Flurry/HBD you will only get +1 phrase point. However: since the Skald only gets a phrase point in 50% of crits, this setup makes pretty sure you get a phrase point every time you crit (and a crit chain follows). That's cool - but not insane. The good thing about the Skald is though: with Killers Froze Stiff you get a really nice paralyze effect (enhanced by the Monk's INT) which causes 25% hit to crit conversion on the enemy (not on you). This not only helps to generate more weapons crits in general but also is one of the few ways to convert a graze to a crit: If your character has graze to hit conversion there's a chance to convert a graze to a hit, but even if that character also has hit to crit: that won't get checked during the same roll where you initially grazed - because only one conversion type of your character is ever checked within one attack resolution. But if the hit to crit conversion is on the enemy this will get checked even if your char already had a conversion check. So the attack can go from char[graze->hit]->enemy[hit->crit] -> ouch! Not game breaking but a nice little detail. Killers Froze Stiff + Ben Fidel's Neck is a pretty good debuffing cycle for Swift Flurry procs if you can generate phrases quickly enough. Note that the most costly invocation determines your max phrase point counter. It makes sense to pick one very costly invocation even if you don't want to ever use it. Just to expand your phrase point maximum.

I think so, but to be honest I haven't looked at it in detail and also didn't test it as much as I did with most of the other weapons we mentioned. Very nice!

PS: if I remember correctly then Magran's Blessing has a Fire Shield which also can proc Swift Flurry because this version of Fire Shield inherits the weapon attack tag from the shield it's attached to. So Magran's Blessing + multihit weapon could also be a nice pick.

I have definitely crashed my game countless times with Force of Anguish on a single-/one-handed Nalpazca/Stalker. So not offhand but main hand, nothing in the offhand. So that might play a role as well. Since Swift Flurry/HBD only execute main hand attacks (even if the offhand crit triggered SF/HBD) it is considered to be safe(r) to use Mohora Tanga in the offhand since that limits the risk of too many Red Flag Flying loops. But this is a theory mostly, slightly backed by some testing results but comprehensively proven I guess. Your observation with offhand auto-attacks may reveal something still. For example it could be that exceptions get caught by the game properly when attack abilities are used and then the loop gets canceled no matter what or are just more robust - but with auto attacks those exceptions might get totally unchecked and get handed up until the game needs to close before compromising the OS's performance due to memory issues. No idea, it's just a guess. But it could indeed be that auto attacks behave differently in that regard and that's why you see more crashes (or any) in the first place. Could also be that your hardware (RAM size, CPU etc.) influence how many loops can be processed until it has to shut down to prevent bigger issues. It might be that players with more RAM will see Crashes a lot less often than players with less RAM. Again: just a guess. But if a player tries out Mohora Tanga and it just works and doesn't crash the game often: that's great. I also made it fun despite the crashes. I just had to find a way that works well for me. In any case it's mad fun to just obliterate an otherwise difficult foe with a series of nasty crits - all in one strike.

found another one from a test session:

PS: found a screenshot where I tested Mohora Tanga with the Monk/Ranger first and one-shot Concelhaut (before doing it in the actual playthrough): The top part in the combat log is all the Red Flag Flying crits in a loop whith tha occasional non-crit (can only guess why they didn't stop the loop). The log orders the rolls in such a manner that all Red Flag Flying procs are in one place and the Swift Flurry stuff comes after. I don't think they acutally occur in that order. Below come the Swift Flurry/HBD entries which were all triggered by either the looping crits or by themselves. If I had used Boltcatcher Gloves Concelhaut would have been dead way earlier. Mohora Tanga + Boltcatchers alone - even without any Monk/Swift Flurry stuff - is already devastating. Add Swift Flurry and Hearbeat Drumming and stuff gets pretty crazy. But as I said: beware the game crashes.

Hi and welcome! Together with Ball and Chain, Sun and Moon is one of the best options if you don't want to crash the game frequently. If you have no problem with reloading a crashed game then Mohora Tanga (spear) is maybe even more exploitable. With Sun and Moon it's not only the two flail heads (which already increase the chance of crit chains drastically because every proc of Swift Flurry executes both flail head attacks again) but also because of Lunar/Solar Excellence. They add another 5% chance to repeat an attack roll because Sun and Moon's rolls are keyworded as burn and freeze attacks, too. Ball and Chain works great because it has three rolls: the normal flail attack roll, Crushing Yoke can proc Swift Flurry/HBD and then either Shackles or Subjugation. The latter is better for the chance because it procs on 100% of crits while Shackles only has a 50% chance. But with Shackles you can apply several different afflictions with one crit chain while the Knckdown effect of Subjugation doesn't stack or prolong. Mohora Tanga is crazy because the DoT "Red Flag Flying" which procs on crit can proc itself (when it crits). So with enough accuracy over fortitude (and/or an overall very high crit conversion chance) it will proc itself endlessly. The DoT doesn't stack with itself though, but that's not the crazy part. The crazy part is that it counts a proper melee weapon crit an thus triggers all sorts of stuff, including Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming but also Boltcatcher Gloves, Gatecrashers, Hylea's Talons, Ring of Molded Flesh, Avenging Storm and so on. Obviously it's a lot easier for Swift Flurry to proc when every crit you do is repeated a dozen times in a loop. Unfortunately with high accuracy over fortitude you run into the issue of the game shutting down. At some point, when there's too many loop iterations, tha game cannot handle it anymore, some exception might not get catched properly and it just closes. It is a fantastic setup against high fortitude bosses (once one-shot Concelhaut with it) but your own death sentence (so to speak) if you use it against weak/low fort. enemies. Other weapons which have multiple melee attack rolls which can crit and proc Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming: Saru Sichr (Morning Star) : the DoT "Poison Dipped" does a seperate hit roll vs. Fortitude and can proc Swift Flurry which in turn does two rolls again (normal + DoT) - basically like Sun & Moon. I made use of this in this build where I combined Swift Flurry/HBD with the Body Blow modal of Morning Stars, Brute Force and then weaken (Enervating Blows) and stagger (Spirit Frenzy) to bring down enemies' Fortitude a ton: Wicked Beast (Pike) : the enchantment "Hounding" works like a second melee attack roll, too. The good thing is that Hounding targets Reflex and has a +10 accuracy bonus which obviously makes it easier to crit. In addition to the higher chance of crit chains because you get two rolls instead of one the Hounding effects themselves can be very impactful, especially if you proc several of them in a crit chain. Especially the Knockdown effect is excellent. It is the only Knockdown effect in the game that lasts over 1 sec. In this case whole 5 seconds. The only drawback is the occasional self damage which also interupts. Luckily this is not tied to the attack rolls (this would kill you eventually) but only connected to the attack action itself. Meaning no matter how many crit chain procs you generate, the self damage will only occur once (if it occurs in the first place, tha chane is only 10%) while doing the striking motion. You can prevent the self-interrupt with Fractured Casque + minor injury. But it's not too bad because you won't interrupt yourself WHILE executing the attack but only right after - meaning you only get a hit animation and a little more recovery time. You won't lose any resources/spells etc. But you will lose a layer of Concentration if you have any. Sanguine Great Sword: Weeping Wounds on crit can crit itself and proc Swift Flurry/HBD. This is cool because it can heal you up nicely via "Blood Gift". Distraho (Great Sword) : "Menace" on crit. It procs Swift Flurry/HBD. However, the AoE upgrade does NOT(!). It targets Will - which is easy to debuff with a Club+modal and/or a Wizard (Miasma of Dull-Mindedness + Ryngrim's spells). Ball and Chain (Crushing Yokes on hit, Shackless and Subjugation on crit) Those are the melee multihit weapons afaik. Then there's other weapons which are also pretty cool with Swift FLurry/HBD because they can have crazy accuracy vs. defense effects or have other interesting mechanics that interact with Swift Flurry: Scordeo's Edge (Sabre) : Adaptive grants up to +20 accuracy for all your attacks. Since Swift FLurry/HBD only proc main hand attacks, putting the sabre in the offhand while having a multihit-weapon such as Sun & Moon or Ball and Chain in the main hand is a great combo. Concelhaut's Draining Touch: there's a trick which allows you to keep this crazy summoned weapon for the whole fight. Don't learn it but cast it from a grimoire, then switch to a grimoire which doesn't have the spell. This removes the part of code which governs the "vanishing" of the Draining Touch weapon once you hit with it. So you can keep it until the fight is over. Now... Draining Touch targets Will instead of deflection. And a Wizard with a club+modal in the offhand and a Miasma spell can bring down enemies' Will by -65 points with just one cast and one offhand strike. If you pick Kapana Taga and get +2 engagement from it and then also use Ryngrim's spells you will terrify enemies which lowers the Will defense even further (now -75) and also gives you disengagment attacks with the main hand against them (which have +5 accuracy). This all combined leads to a very high chance of crits and thus to more Swift Flurry/HBD procs. Whispers of the Endless Paths: Offensive Parry counts as melee attack which can proc Swift Flurry. This is great against multiple melee enemies because you an get lots of free attacks if enemies miss you in melee. Any of them can crit and then eventually produce a crit chain. Tuotilo's Palm: Outward Spikes can proc Swift Flurry - like a Riposte basically. Unlike Offensoive Parry (which is 100% proc chance on miss) it has only 20%. Still nice to have. Swift Flurry always does main hand attacks so it doesn't matter the the shield bash and the Outward Spike attack are weak. It's about the added chance of trigering Swift Flurry. Akola's Apex Ward: Hard Counter does the same as Outward Spikes but only with 15% chance, but Shark Teeth Counter brings it up to 25%. In combination with Blood Rage (+10 accuracy when under 50% health) and a human (also +10 accuracy ehen under 50% health) it doesn't matter much that large shields do -8 accuracy - if you allow yourself to get blooded a bit. Combining these (except Concelhaut's Draining Touch which needs a Wizard) with a Fighter's Disciplied Strikes + Cleaving Stance or a Berserker's Frenzy + Blood Thirst results in even more crits and thus more crit chains in a given time. Or using a Ranger for maximum accuracy gains (Marked Prey + Stalker's Link + Accuracy Wounding Shot for example) can also lead to nice outcomes. Whispers of the Endless Paths on a Monk/Trickster is cool because you can add the occasional Riposte to Offensive Parry, adding another potential free attack (like Cleaving Stance) with perfect action economy. I did a complete playthrough with the Berserker/Helwalker with Saru Sichr as I said/linked to before... but I also did also a Nalpasca(I believe)/Stalker with a single handed Mohora Tanga (who one-shot Concelhaut). I used Stalker's Patience against normal enemies though to prevent too many game crashes and only brought out Mohora Tanga against high fortitude enemies. The rest of the weapons I tested for some time with the help of the console (and surprisingly really liked Wicked Beast with Devil of Caroc Breastplate and Helm of the Falcon - not only powerful but also very stylish). I didn't do real playthoughs with them though. Sun and Moon + Tuotilo's Palm on a Monk/Soulblade shoud be really good in theory. The two flail heads mak it so that the first one dumps raw damage into the target when using Soul Annihilation and the second head already regains focus for the next Soul Annihilation while the shield bash doesn't get used (fortunately) because Soul Annihilation is a primary attack - yet you get the speed bonus of dual wielding and the enhanced chances for crit chains. Same class combo with Whispers of the Endless Paths: Offensive Parry generates Focus (the Swift Flurry procs don't though) and Soul Annihilation works great with the cone AoE. Whispers of the Endless Paths + Monk + Fighter with Clear Out and Cleaving Stance might also be crazy. The cone AoE + Clear Out does absolutely devastating AoE damage, especially with the +10 INT from the Monk's side. And Clear Out hits the initial target twice, making crit chains and kills more likely. Add the Offensive Parry for more potential crit chains out of the ordinary attack phases. Akola's Apex Ward + multihit weapon in the main hand may be very cool with a human Monk/Streefighter I reckon: lots of speed, higher Sneak Attack and crit dmg when flanked and blooded, Riposte and Shark Teeth Counter for many chances to proc Swift Flurry. Thematically Mohora Tanga would fit best. But I guess something like Ball and Chain or Sun & Moon would be safer.

Something else entirely. The original Forbidden Fist attack, mechanically "under the hood", works like a melee ranged spell: it has its own base damage, penetration and so on. It isn't considered an attack with a weapon because it simply lacks the proper code tag. It doesn't use weapons stats of weapon you carry or anything. It just uses its own stats but simply lacks a tag/keyword a la "melee weapon attack". This "spell" howver profits from Transcended Suffering (which scales it) and other bonuses to unarmed attacks (because it is tagged as unarmed - but not as weapon attack. It's an unarmed melee spell so to speak). Because of that, abilites which would trigger on "weapon attacks" won't proc if you use the Forbidden Fist attack. That includes Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. Soul Whip's Focus gain also wouldn't work (a Forbidden Fist/Cipher won't get focus when attacking with the Forbidden Fist attack), Berserker/Forbidden Fist wouldn't have the Frenzy hit-to-crit conversion with Forbidden Fist attacks and so on. You also shouldn't get Lightning Strike's and Turning Wheel lashes on it. The oly thing that the Community Patch does is to give the Forbidden Fist attack a proper tag so it counts as a "melee weapon" attack. Like your other fist attacks (auto attacks and attack abilities like Force of Anguish and so on) also are. I personally believe that's what it's supposed to be. The implementation as a quasi-spell seems to be an oversight by the devs. But we cannot know for sure. By the way: Inner Death (PL 9 ability of the Monk) has the same behavior and also got fixed in the same way with the Communty Patch.

That is hard to say. If a Phantom or Shade gave you a lot of trouble then maybe start with normal difficulty. You can always ramp it up to Veteran difficulty afterwards (note that only undiscovered maps will become more difficult then, the already discovered maps stay the same as they were when you loaded them the first time). Only Path of the Damned is a locked in experience which you cannot change once started. In PoE1 they do not unless it's a bonus from a weapon or shield (for example the defense bonus of Outworn Buckler stacks with everything). Or if you have multiple gear with "Retaliation" it won't stack unless you have a shield with "Retaliation" and a helmet or cape for example - then you will have two Retaliations and so on. For all other gear: the higher bonus of the same kind suppresses the lower, no stacking. One minor exception: roll conversions (offensive x% hit to crit conversion for example or the defensive x% hit to graze conversion) will stack with each other. But they won't get added in a flat manner but instead they will all go into a list and then get checked one after another until one of the list is successful or none triggered. A 10% hit to crit conversion and another 10% hit to crit conversion thus will not result in an overall 20% chance to convert - but instead you will have an overall chance of 19% (1-0.9*0.9). 10% and 20% would not be 30% but 1-0.9*0.8 = 28%. Passive abilities stack with everything, active abilities do not stack with each other (if they apply a bonus to the same stat/attribute). Talents which add some "passive" effect to an active ability (see the Priest's talent "Inspiring Radiance" for the ability Holy Radiance" for example or Darcozzi Paladins' "Inspring Liberation" talent for the ability "Liberating Exhortation") do stack with everything even though the parent ability is an active one.

Hi, for DoTs and CC there are three classes that fit best: Wizard (per-rest caster, individual spell selection via learning and grimoires) Druid (per-rest caster, automatic spell selection) Cipher (casts spells with focus which is harvested via weapon damage) All of them can be good melee performers: Wizards with summoned weapons which are very good, Druids with Spiritshift which is extremely strong while it lasts and Ciphers with normal weapons and their special ability "Soul Whip" which not only transforms damage into focus but also gives you a damage bonus for weapons. They all have nice CC and DoT spells. Cipher's DoT is mostly against single targets but very strong. Wizard and Druid have AoE options for DoTs. My personal favorite is the Druid. Spiritshift is very potent but has limited duration. So you can play him as a CC/DoT caster mostly but shift as soon as somebody attacks you in melee - and you then shred them to pieces. Spiritshift performance is completely independent from gear - except one special belt, the Wildstrike Belt. This means there's more good gear for the rest of he party since your Druid usually doesn't care as much about it. The best Spiritshift forms are Cat (higher attack speed) or Boar (wounding DoT on every strike). The Cat is better against low DR foes, the Boar is better against high DR foes. Imo it mostly comes down to taste. Boar form is also a little bit more sturdy because it has a little regeneration effect while shifted. Wizard can have a (much) bigger spell selection, the summoned weapons (mainly Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff and later Citzal's Spirit Lance) have very high base damage and they also have reach, so you can attack from the back row over your front row/tanks which can be an advantage. But Wizards can also deal a lot of ranged weapon damage with Blast + Kalakoth's Minor Blights (another summioned weapon, this time a wand). Blast is an AoE that attaches itself to every wand/rod/scepter attack. It can also transport on-hit/on-crit effects from your weapon - for example prone on critical hit (Overbearing). So in theory everybody in the Blast AoE could be knocked down (if you crit them with the Blast). Ciphers are my personal least favorite of the trio. Mainly because I consider the focus mechanic as flawed: the action economy isn't great because you have to alternate between weapon damage and casting all the time. And also the transformation of damage into fuel for casts means that the Cipher usually is VERY good in fights with lots of weak foes (which are usually not that hard to win anyways) because dealing lots of damage to weak enemies is easy - but lacks impact in the hardest fights, when dealing a lot of damage is hard and therefore getting focus for spells is difficult and the Cipher can become focus-starved. But this depends a LOT on the difficulty setting. Ciphers generally perform much better on the lower difficulties up to Veteran where the enemies' defenses aren't so high. So if you plan to play on normal or veteran difficulty you can dismiss what I wrote there. Ciphers are def. the most popular of the three among players - I assume because the mix of weapon damage + spellcasting is entertaining and cool - and because it's fun to annihilate (trash) mobs very quickly. Against bosses the rest of the party can step in then - so it's not a big deal if the Cipher performs a little worse than usual.

I haven't used that exploit myself - but I suspect that like with the other switching tricks (Lethandria's Devotion, Outworn Buckler etc.) this should work while the game is paused...?

It is better because it already has superb quality and an additional enchantment (Preservation) - but if you have a second shield user in the party it's better to let them use Little Savior (because everybody can equip it) and leave Outworn Buckler to Pallegina (because only Paladins can equip it). The main reason is: the Herald enchantment stacks with everything, even itself, so with both shields in the party you will apply +10 to all defenses instead of just +5. If you only have Pallegina as shield user in the party then yes: Little Savior is the better shield and you should use that instead of Outworn Buckler.

There is an attack roll. Most likely you only fought vessels who have weak deflection so far. Two consecutive hits doesn't mean you're not allowed to miss in between. You can hit, miss and hit again and Double Tap still destroys the vessel. The thing with the Red Hand's Double Tap is: only works against enemies of lower level than you. And it only works against vessels. It's awesome in general, but that are its limitations - which means you cannot rely on it 100% as backup weapon. If you meet vessels who are of equal or higher level it will not destroy them. If you meet pierce immune, non-vessel enemies (some blights for example) it will also not help you. It also gives you -10 accuracy because you are devoted to pistols. But if it works for you so far then that's great of course. Still I would try to get Eccea's Arcane Blaster at some point. There's a scripted interaction on the way there you need to pass with some skill checks. If you did that successfully you can catch Eccea (the foe who carries the pistol) while she's alone, guarding the entrance to a cave. There it's not too difficult to kill her and loot the pistol. Return later for the rest of her party (it's quite a challenging fight). Then you'll have an excellent backup weapon for all sorts of enemies. No one is immune to raw damage and you'll have a pistol with no accuracy drawback. It also has a very good second modal that adds elemental damage on top.

Devoted with pistol is a bit difficult because there is only one pistol that doesn't do pierce damage. So if you face enemies who are immune to pierce damage you are a bit screwed(you'll have to eat a -10 accuracy malus if you want to use any other type of weapon or pick Monastic Unarmed Training for fists). The pistol that does raw damage (Eccea's Arcane Blaster) is not easy to get early. But I would try now. Critical hits do PEN *1.5 automatically. I don't recall if Penetrating Crit does add +2 before the 1.5 multiplier or after. Before would be better of course. If it doesn't display the bonus at all it's maybe bugged? Since crits already do PEN*1.5 (which is more than enough, especially on a Devoted), I never bothered with Penetrating Crits but chose the +25% damage variant instead.

Because in terms of game mechanics, Bloodmage is generally the superior subclass over any other (and vanilla). A non-subclass Wizard has the only advantage that he/she could use Empower and has a little better basic sturdyness. Both is not relevant for this build. A Bloodmage can replenish spell casts as often as he/she likes (and if there's enough healing). This is relevant for this build since - once there's enough stacks of recovery bonus - you can spam spells a lot faster. Later you want to cast Wall of Draining in combo with a heal over time asap - and also as often as necessary.

I think Helwalker/Priest of Berath is a nice combo. Monk's/Helwalker's abilities increase melee as well as casting capabilities. You can add two further lashes (shock and burn) as well as up to +15 MIG and +2 PEN to the Spiritual Great Sword, have +10 INT for huge AoEs and long durations and so on.

This build wasn't intended for solo play, but I guess trying it wouldn't hurt. Merciless Hand just gives a bit more crit damage which isn't very helpful in the really difficult fights (in which you won't crit a lot in the first place) - so I personally would go for Second Skin. At least that will give you some value in every fight.

It doesn't matter much because you'll have barely any recovery. Dagger level damage with no recovery is way better than any regular sort of weapon damage. At the same time you'll get plenty of use from all the on-kill effects and the non-offensive enchantments of Wahai Poraga. Besides that I also said:

Yes (not in the build list though). You pick Berserker/Troubadour (or Beckoner) with maxed INT (to counter confusion's -5 INT and still hgave decen friendly-fire Carnage AoE size). You use Amra with Riven Gore (procs on crit, same size as Carnage). This raises the chance to "accidentially" kill your skeletons significantly. Blood Storm (Frenzy will last forever basically), Bloodlust, Blood Thirst, Bloody Slaughter. Ancient Brittle Bones first and then Many Lives Pass By for skeletons. Use a pet that heals on kill to completely counter Frenzy's self damage. Battle Axe modal always on because the recovery malus doesn't matter with Blood Thirst. That's basically it. Alternatively you can also use a reach weapon to better place the Carnage on certain enemies in order to hit more skeletons. You can do this without Berserker's confusion: use Whahai Poraga. It has friendly fire without confusion. You can combine Corpse Eater with Beckober or Skald for example: secondary summons like Ancient Brittle Bones' second wave skeletons, second wave drakes and also Many Lives Pass By will leave corpses when they die. You can use White Worms on the skeletons corpses and eat drake the drake corpses. The Berserker variat is significantly more brutal though. If you have a Chanter in the party already then it's better to use a Brute though: Blood Thirst in combination with Cleaving Stance is even more brutal when you accidantially kill your Chanter's skeletons: each kill will proc Blood Thirst but also a Cleave which usually kills the next skeleton and so on. In any case you do NOT want to have low health party members near such a guy who is wielding Amra in confusion. Riven Gore will destroy them instantly when they are below 50 health, removing them from the party without further ado.