Boeroer

Animal Companions don't disturb your stealth and even if you put zero points into the Animal Companion abilities you still can have an additional body + summons in the field - while you cannot have AC and chanter summons at the same time as a Ghost Heart/Chanter (except when using Many Lives or a replacement summon such as Ancient Brittle Bones). The biggest drawback for me would be that I would not be able to use Stalker's Link against bosses if I also wanted to use summons. Good point about items that require you to be truly alone - but most summons will cancel those beneficial effects, too, wouldn't they? The rest of the points: fair enough. There's no argument when it comes to taste and what you enjoy (or don't enjoy).

I don't understand that choice either - also because with any Ranger/Chanter combo you can revive the animal companion potentially unlimited times (they don't get injured on knockout).

I played an Assassin/Bleak Walker pretty soon after the game came out. The value of big arquebus crits with Assassinate+Flames of Devotion is fairly limited after the early game. Enemies' health pools just become too big. Only if you can become invisible lots of times during an encounter an arquebus with Assassinate makes sense. So I combined Assassin with Priest of Skaen for more invisibility uses per encounter (that was before Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure). If I wanted to maximize invisibility uses for an Assassin I would pair it with a Bloodmage I guess who can cast Brilliant Departure lots of times and also has the benefit of an Essential Phantom which also can make good use of an arquebus setup.

Yes, scripting the switching at the start of battle (or with another initial trigger for that behavior) would be doable.

Uh... for some reason I got it backwards in my trail of thought.

Dps-wise and speaking about "self-contained builds" I guess there's not much that comes close to the described Streetfighter/Troubadour with wisps, but it doesn't have great accuracy. So I'd say Ranger/Troubadour with Marked for the Hunt, Marksman, Driving Flight, Gunner and so on and Sure-Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, using the Red Hand. Great reloading speed, great accuracy, good versatility (due to invocations, esp. summons), good dmg per shot (burning lash at all times). But it's true that you only need a chanter in the party for that. If there is one then including the rogue class is great. For example: If you don't enchant the Red Hand with Double Tap but the Knockdown effect instead, a Rogue/Ranger can be very good - if Arterial Strike is used a lot. I mean it's great anyway bc. of all the dmg bonuses paired with high ACC. But I mean it's even better imo if you can knock enemies away from allies with Arterial Strike and they will suffer greatly if they want to re-engage (they usually want that). With Driving Flights it's two enemies with one shot who will hobble around, bleeding out. It's very useful and does a lot of damage per shot, too. It's not as fast with reloading but good enough imo. You lose the double tap against vessels but I think it's worth it in this case. If you have a chanter in the party you can still use the wisp trick and pick a streetfighter for the rogue/ranger. For a solo arquebus user I think not much comes close to @Kaylon's Assassin/Tactician. It's posted here as a build somewhere with the mechanics explained. Mechanically I'm not a big fan of the Devoted with an arquebus because he's at a disadvantage when he meets pierce resistant or immune enemies - or ones with an Arcane Veil (which are pretty frequent, esp. among the vessel and spirit categories). Black Jacket is okay. I personally don't see a huge advantage when using 0-recovery weapon-set switching though because of the Red Hand arquebus. You buy up to 3 quick extra shots with increased micromanagement - I mean on paper it's worth it, but I find that one stops to care after a few encounters because the switching gets annoying. Especially when the fights last longer and longer it's not worth my time. Conquerer Stance is very nice though. And with the Community Patch Weapon Mastery is nice, too. Thematically a Sharpshooter/Devoted would make a lot of sense - and as long as you don't meet too many pierce immune foes (or just make your character sturdy enough to be able to punch those with Monastic Unarmed Training) it would also perform well. +3 PEN at closer range is pretty good - +6 when using Penetrating Strike: a lot of overpenetration I guess?

Enemies like boars, panthers etc. do use weapons (tusks, claws, antlers...), same as a spiritshifted Druid or a Transmuter (Form of the Fearsome Brute) uses them. They have no 3D model and thus are invisible, but they are game objects that have instances and values and so on. So as long as such enemies are not using ranged attacks or spells/spell-like abilities the dagger modal will work.

Blood Ward drawing health from scroll dmg maybe?

I didn't use a lot of scrolls in Deadfire so I don't know a lot about their workings by heart tbh. But first of all: including at least one class that gets the highest Arcana bonus might be good? The Wizard gets +2 from the start and with Chamaeleon's Touch it's +3. But if Shared Nightmares works with scrolls I'd also say a SC Cipher (for me it would be a Psion) should be great. Also Time Parasite and Reaping Knives might be awesome with scrolls. I mean those synergies won't click until the latest char levels - but you'll have a great caster character right away. The Barb's appeal is stuff like Frenzy (Blood Frenzy's DoT on crit?), Bloodlust, Blood Thirst (and maybe even the +25% dmg from Blooded), right? Furyshaper to get even higher scroll speed with the Frenzy Ward and later health drain with the Blood Ward? How about a Druid with Cat form? Should be able to cast scrolls very quickly, too. Advantage would be that it wouldn't require any lengthy setup. Just shift and activate cat flurry which is both instant casts without recovery. Can Shifters cast scrolls while shifted? I never tried... Does the PL bonus of Ancients (for beast spells) or Furies (for elements spells) work with fitting scrolls (do the scrolls like Avenging Storm for example carry the "elements" keyword?). Paladins' Eternal Devotion adds its burning lash to spells etc., I suspect it also adds it to damaging scrolls (never tried)? If so this would be very good. Should the lash from Blightheart, soulbound to a Wizard, also add to scrolls and not only Wizard spells I think a Paladin/Wizard would be excellent: high Arcana bonus, double lash on scroll dmg... cannot test bc. I am on vacation in Latvia. Do the elemental PEN abilities (Scion of Flame etc.) work with scrolls? If so all classes who have access to these abilities might be worth considering. Are there scrolls that do piece, crush or slash dmg? Because that might trigger Deep Wounds of the Rogue maybe? Speaking of Rogue: what about the Debonaire's 100% crit conversion against charmed enemies? Does it apply to scrolls? That would be great. Debonaire/Beguiler or -Psion or Debonaire/Chanter could mass-charm and then drop a friendly fire scroll that mostly would crit I guess? Does the Assassin get anything out of scrolls when he casts them from visibility/stealth? Lots of questions and little answers from me, sorry.

Exploiting Combusting Wounds either takes a lot of time (if done by one character) or a specialized party (which then becomes a one-trick troupe - which is very boring to play). Even though I knew about its potential I rarely use it - because if you invest the time you need to set it up most efficiently into different nice actions, you can have similarly good, yet more entertaining outcomes imo. Where I use it regularly is in Beast of Winter, esp. against Neriscyrlas because that's where I get the feeling that the outcome actually warrants all the hassle with multi hit actions such as walls and beams etc. By the time I get CW to tick for considerable bonus damage that I would deem balance-breaking, the enemy is already beaten by other means. And I'd rather make sure the enemies are constantly debuffed and disabled and can be disposed off safely than trying to set up massive damage ticks with CW. Like... I can disable any enemy in the game except two or three mega bosses from start of the encounter to finish with just one arbalest + modal. That's kind of game breaking, especially when it's about power curves imo. Just needs a Ranger and a Chanter in the party and works without any setup during the fight. Where CW is really great and easy to exploit without bending the party around it is when you have a lot of pulsing or multihit spells anyway - like if you have a Chanter with Her Revenge + a Druid with Venombloom, Wicked Briars and so on + a Wizard with Chillfog and Walls and maybe a blunderbuss dude or so. Then it really starts to feel like you are nerfing yourself if you don't use CW.

The part of "forces the damage to resolve each time a stack is added" is similar to other self-stacking DoTs like Bleeding Cuts or Saru Sichr's enchantment "Poison Dipped". That's what makes them much more powerful than one would think just from reading the description. If you can achieve a lot of hits in a short amount of time (like with Swift Flurry or Barbaric Retaliation or such things) this becomes more obvious.

It's not a comprehensive test, just one little setup to get an idea. Eccea's Arcane Blaster's performance in this case might be a little worse because the dummies have very low defenses, so crits are common. Also the AR is low. The Blaster doesn't do overpenetration (happens a lot with crits against dummies) so that might explain a good portion of it. I think against "proper" enemies the results would be different. The base rolls for Imbued Ammunition were more like 12-18. But the raw dm is pretty low. And it was very good with Twinned Shot - compared to the Red Hand (which I also tried with Twinned Shot). It then killed the enemies faster than the Red Hand and used less Bond resource for the kill. I guess because Fracured Bullet got triggered way more (which also get Imbued Ammunition for each fracture). Spearcaster was with 20 Arcana - so it had very high ACC. I also chose the enchantment for the multi-lash which helps, too. I had to put the enemy in front of a building though to prevent it from getting pushed back. When this happens it will cost you dps at some point because the enemy will get pushed out of range and you have to follow before you can shoot. Thundercrack has a good lash and it also paralyzes on crit (which leads to even more crits bc. of the added 25% crit conversion). crits that lead to overpenetration + multiplicative lash dmg bonus is a nasty combo. I guess that explains its good dmg performance in this case - also compared to Scordeo's Trophy that has more speed and higher crit dmg - but no lash (and less crit chance). Hunting Bows are indeed very good in this setup - but overall I think Frostseeker has the overall best outcompe here: great against single dummies, great against groups - just overall great. And it also needs very little enchantment ressources: the unique enchantmant isn't really necessary. You only need to bring up the quality and that's it.

With Wizard you could maybe use Binding Web and a Resistance to DEX afflictions so that you only get hobbled?

Just for y'all's info I did a few test shootings with some of the weapons for a quick in-game comparison. I shot at a cre_dummy in fast combat with auto-attacks (disadvantage for the Blaster bc of lacking PL bonuses?). For some weapons that rely on on-hit/crit effects and/or AoE I added some more dummies right behind the actual target. SC Ranger at lvl 20 with Marked Prey, Marksman, Gunner, Driving Flight, Prestige and Evasive Roll (for +5 DEX which increases recovery/reload) + Harley and Ring of the Marksman. All weapons legendary and with the supposedly best dps enchantments. The seconds are the time it took to take the initial target down. I averaged three tries each, so it's not very accurate but will still give some hints. The Red Hand: ~10 sec Eccea's Arcane Blaster (One Handed Style + modal + Imbued Ammunition): ~15 secs St. Omaku's Mercy: ~20 secs St. Omaku's Mercy (second dummy behind the target): ~11 secs Essence Interrupter (modal, Metaphysics 20): ~8 secs Aamiina's Legacy (): ~8 secs Scordeo's Trophy (modal) : ~14 secs Scordeo's Trophy (modal, second dummy behind the target) : ~12 secs Thundercrack (modal): ~13 secs Frostseeker: ~9 secs Frostseeker (second dummy behind the target): ~7 secs Frostseeker (third dummy behind the target): ~6 secs Frostseeker (four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs Dragon's Dowry: ~13 secs Watershaper's Focus: ~30 secs Watershaper's Focus (second dummy behind the target): ~22 secs Waterhaper's Focus (third dummy behind the target): ~20 secs Watershaper's Focus (four dummies behind the target, Blast modal) : ~6 secs Current's Rush: ~20 secs Current's Rush (second dummy behind the target): ~10 secs Current's Rush (third dummy behind the target): ~8 secs Current's Rush (four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs Spearcaster (Arcana 20): ~13 secs Fire in the Hole (modal): ~16 secs Fire in the Hole (modal, second dummy behind the target) : ~8 secs Fire in the Hole (modal, third dummy behind the target): ~6 secs Fire in the Hole (modal, four dummies behind the target): ~6 secs Xefa's Empirical Explication (modal): ~13 secs Kitchen Stove (modal, Frantic Relaod): ~9 secs Kitchen Stove (modal, Everything and Anything) : ~11 secs I guess I could push the reloading weapons a little bit more with something like Acina's Tricorn and Sure-Handed Ila and stuff but I wanted to keep it simple.

You could try the following straightforward "easy" builds that don't require a lot of actions once the combat starts (but can add more stuff if needed): Kind Wayfarer/Helwalker: dual wielding or weapon (includes fists but also other weapons) + bashing shield (spec. Tuotilo's Palm). Eternal Devotion, Turning Wheel, Lightning Strikes, Torment's Reach etc. Your Flames of Devotion not only heal you but also the party members (INT bonus from Turning Wheel gives you a very big AoE size, Helwalker's MIG bonus makes your healing more powerful) around you, you can get very high armor and defenses (see Paladin's passives and Helwalker's MIG bonus that raises fortitude, Crucible of Suffering gets triggered by Sacred Immolation's self damage wearing off and so on) - it's easy to play, has good damage output against single targets as well as in an AoE, is sturdy, can do terrific support with healing and other stuff. Goldpact Knight/Shifter Druid: pick all the armor passives of the Paladin and Sworn Rival, Wildstrike stuff from the Druid side (whatever element you like), Eternal Devotion etc. Sworn Rival + the Goldpacts special ability "Gilded Enmity" also works when shifted. When you shift into the Bear form + Gilded Enmity you will have very high AR while having null recovery penalty. You can dish out nice melee damage while being very durable (also Lay on Hands works while shifted). You can shift multiple times, so when your Bear Form wears off you can shift into a Boar and so on. The AR will be a bit less than with the Bear but still impressively high. Complement with Blunting Belt and so on. It works right off the bat with shifting, no spellcasting needed. However in tough encounters you can cast powerful (AoE) spells before/between shifts. You can also use Sacred Immolation while shifted and combine it with Nature's Terror for example (cast Nature's Terror, shift, cast Sacred Immolation, go to town... very good AoE damage with just one spellcast and two quick ability activations). Devoted/Streetfighter: large shield (like Bronlar's Phalanx), Gladiator's Sword (+1 PEN enchantment, +2 PEN from Devoted), deflection gear. Not really AoE, but capable of being the main tank while dishing out great melee damage at the same time. Not pure damage sponge but a great hybrid of good defense and good offense. Required almost no micromanagement after some levels. You'll have very high PEN for slash and pierce damage (sword) - should you need crush damage you can use your fist + Monastic Unarmed Training with no drawback from the Devoted side. Furyshaper/Unbroken: maxed MIG (at least 20 with gear, 25 would be optimal), Battle Axe "Amra", enchantment Riven Gore. Use Bleeding Cuts (the battle axe modal) and Frenzy, your Carnage AoE and the Axe's AoE on crit (with 25+ MIG, Riven Gore) will stack. Great synergy between Riven Gore, Blood Thirst + Cleaving/Mob Stance. Devastating against mobs. if you pick Furyshaper Barb: Use a Fear Ward summon to terrify enemies who will then leave your engagement, triggering disengagement attacks form you. The Unbroken fighter has great bonuses on disengagement attacks. When things get tough switch to a 1h-Battle Axe + shield. The Unbroken will then grant you +1 AR and make you extra sturdy. Also good with other Barb/Fighter subclasses, for example vanilla Barb/Fighter. Then without fear/disengagment stuff. Mage Slayer/Skald: use the unique Morning Star Saru Sichr. It has two attack rolls instead of one (one more chance to crit which makes the Skald gain phrases). Use Spirit Frenzy (staggers with chants as well) and sing the phrase "The Long Night's Drink". Use the Morning Star's modal "Body Blows" which lowers enemies' fortitude by 25 points. Spirit Frenzy will latch onto you chant and both will lower enemies' fortitude (Spirit Frenzy by 10, Long Night's Drink by 14). This is a great debuffing character which needs almost no action besides triggering Frenzy. You can then attack with the Morning Star. The second hit roll from it is a poison DoT which targets fortitude. Once the enemies' fortitude is so much debuffed (25 from Body Blows + 24 from Spirit Frenzy+chant) the second hit roll of the Morning Star will crit a lot, giving you phrases quickly. Once yout get Brute Force all attacks will target fortitude if it's lower than deflection. Crits en masse. Also the double roll of the Morning Star applies the Mage Slayer's casting debuff twice. So you only need to hit a caster twice and he/she cannot cast spells anymore (100% debuff). Cast nasty offensive invocations when you wish. They are supercheap for a Skald and get refilled quickly with crits. Choose good disables such as "Killers Froze Stiff", nice debuff such as "Ben Fidel's Neck" or pure damage such as "Her Revenge Swept Across". Stalker (Bear Companion)/Darcozzi Paladini: use Blade of the Endless Paths (with "Marking"), Ring of Focused Flames + Flames of Devotion and also Accurate Wounding Shot, Greater Lay on Hands, Reviving Exhortation, Zealous Focus, Marked for the Hunt, Stalker's Link, Resilient Companion... The goal is to crit a single enemy often. This is easy with FoD + Ring (+20 accuracy, same with Accurate Wounding Shot) + Stalker's Link and Marked Prey and the aura - and the Blade's help which gains accuracy every few seconds, too. A crit will put a debuff on the enemy, lowering their deflection up to -20, collapsing their deflection and making it easy at some point for you and all party members to hit/crit them. At the same time you can be very sturdy (Paladin passives + Stalker passive) and your Bear, too. It gains +1AR form the Stalker passive, +2 from Resilient Companion, +2 from being a Bear and also +2 from your Greater Lay on Hands. If it goes down you can use Reviving Exhortation or the Ranger's revive. For ehaling you can use Lay on Hands or the Ranger's heal. The deflection debuff doesn't need any setup. You just put out Mared Prey and attack with Flames of Devotion/Accurate Wound Shot and drop the enemies' defelction into the ground on the fly. AoE can get added with Sacred Immolation later. There's a lot more builds that are sturdy yet have decent damage output and can start into combat without much preparation quickly and easily. There are just a few that came to my mind while I was typing.

Works: If you get critically hit by a fire attck and you wear the Ring Ibis, the resulting debuff will trigger CoS when it wears off. This even works if you use Rekvu's Scroched Cloak which turns fire damage into healing (when injured). So you can blast yourself with friendly fire² spells, catch a critical hit but get healed ibnstead of damaged in the process - you will also get the Ibis' hostile effect. When it wears off you trigger CoS. Without the cloak you could use the self-induced fire damage for wound generation I guess. But it's risky with most spells (like Fireball) or it's very hard to crit with the non-risky one (Wall of Flame). It's not that easy to crit yourself with fire spells reliably though. You can pile up some ACC while raising your defenses no too much maybe. Don't know if this is worth it, most likely not - because why would you focus so much attention towards CoS and then lower your defenses on purpose just to get it? But maybe on top of something else - as a little tiny CoS bonus chance - the ring could be okay.

Works: With enough RES and Clarity of Agony (and not too much INT) there's Berserker's Confusion when you use Frenzy (the Confusion is managed seperately from the speed and self damage aspects) and Sacred Immolation's self damage (not tied to the fire damage part). They will be fairly short then. Sacred Immolation + Clarity of Agony + Crucible of Suffering is a nice combo imo. Removes the hefty self damage, so your Sacred Immolation has no drawbacks AND gives you bonus defenses on top. If you combine with Effort's Hemorrhaging (see below) the Sacred Immolation can also trigger Hylea's Talons' DoT on yourself and the enemy. If you use Enlightened Agony (smart) you can cancel out the Confusion directly (because smart couters confusion) and trigger Crucible oS instantly. A Priest or Paladin could also give the smart inspiration and remove the Confusion right away, triggering CoS. --- Does not work: Any character can get flanked, but when the flanking ends CoS will not trigger. A Tactician gets confused when getting flanked. You will get flanked (1. effect) and confused (2. effect) and both end if you disengage. This also doesn't trigger Crusible of Suffering Edit: as one might expect also Cowardice from Debonaire doesn't trigger CoS (like running away from allies to trigger Cowardice and then move back to cancel it). --- Does not work: Deletrious Alacrity of Motion's self damage is tied to the benefical effect and is not a separate hostile effect. Doesn't trigger CoS at all. --- Works: When you use Confusion (from Berserker or Tactician) and don't want to raise RES like crazy and use Clarity of Agony you can use Footsteps of the Beast and step into your own hobbling traps (usually foe only - with confusion it also hits you while walking). The hobble effect is very short. But you have to make sure it wears off properly (so stop walking around for a few secs). If you keep stepping into your own frost traps then the duration of the effect will get refreshed all the time and the effect will not wear off = no CoS. It's an old trick for Forbidden Fist/Berserkers to gain a lot of wounds+healing on the fly and it also keeps up Crucible of Suffering ifyou do it right. It's becomes more difficult to hit yourself with the hobbling traps if your defense is superhigh (like in general and then on top with Crucible oS). But every now and then it should still graze you because the traps drop so frequently (with every step you take - as fast as Arterial Strike causes dmg when you move). It can work out in a way that you don't even have to stop moving because most traps will miss - and if a new one grazes, the effect of a previous trap might have already worn off. But of course you can always stop moving to make sure. --- Works: Hylea's Talon can be triggered with spells if you use the great sword Effort with the enchantment Hmorrhaging. If you land a crit with anything you will trigger Hemorrhaging which counts as melee attack - which can then trigger Hylea's Talons' DoT on the enemy or yourself. --- Does not work: The Thundercrack trick doesn't trigger Crucible of Suffering. The pistol doesn't put the nagative effect on the wearer anyway - so it needs to be carried by a party member. But even that doesn't work. You will get the effect - and if your buddies switches weapons the effect goes away... but nothing happens for the Monk. --- That's all that comes to mind atm. Maybe I will remember more later.

Iirc that pause (or its length) is not influenced by anything. I'm not 100% confident though.

Yes, it's best to actually test these options in the game because theorycrafting and calculating is of limited use with such a complex game. It's great to get an idea - but there's so much to consider which is difficult to put into a formula.

Stalker is actually a great class to make a multiclass (off)tank and very good for certain melee builds (especially if it's about high accuracy because no other class has that many stackable accuracy vs. single targets). I played a solo Geomancer (Stalker/Bloodmage) and it was excellent at tanking - even without a shield setup. Of course the Wizard's self buffs helped a lot here. But I think players often just forget about the Animal Companion which can def. help a lot with offtanking. I mean you get two bodies for the price of one. A SC Stalker is a bit more tricky because it lacks the nice synergies of some multiclass combos - but I think offtanking is no problem. Thick armor and decent RES and CON would be my preference. You cannot heal yourself until Power Level 9 with Shadowed Hunter - but what are those other party members for anyway? You can however heal the animal companion. If you pick the Bear and are a stalker the near has great armor rating which makes it a lot sturdier compared to a non-Stalker non-bear. Antelope also works because of the higher defenses - but overall I think the bear is better for offtanking. If you have a Chanter in the party then off-tanking with the animal companion is even better: you can revive it unlimited times per encounter - because animal companions don't get injuries. If you don't have a chanter the ranger can revive the animal companion, too - but the Bond resource is limited.

St. Omaku's Mercy with the enchantment that skips recovery on crit is great imo because it trades higher PEN for slightly slower recovery - which hasn't such a big impact bc. of the skipping. In combination with Driving Flight and Twinned Shot (=4 attack rolls) and all the accuracy the chance is very high to skip recovery. Imo there's no real delay - except the shooting animation of course. The most straightforward way for max single target with a Ranger usually is Essence Interrupter or Amiina's Legacy witj the modal on. That's not about crits so much - but the very high ACC helps to balance out the drawback of the modal. And the upside of the modal (-50% recovery) is just insane for DPS.

I mean it's less likely to drop from healthy or blooded right to death with one cast of wilting wind - so I expect Spirit Shield or Iron Skin to trigger. Yes, that's what I meant basically. Your dead before BDD gets cast. I also guess the other effects wouldn't trigger of you dropped from healthy or bloodied to death right away.

The cape only triggers BDD if you go under 25% health, right? So maybe if you blast your character from let's say 30% to 0 with a single cast it could be that he goes down before the cape has a chance to trigger the BDD effect?

Yes, that is a very good approach to SC Chanter Tekehu. Spamming Eld Nary's Curse would be my use of unlimited phrases. Imo Tornado is not so great. It's just that Great Maelstrom is so powerful that you often only need that one spell, hence the druid. And to the way there the druid can offer those foe-only variants of Chillfog and the other water/frost spells he gets which are really helpful at all times. Plus good healing, too. I think that's why most players prefer the druid path. You can amplify all offensive spells (including Great Maelstrom) with the great sword "Effort" and its enchantment "Hemorrhaging". This sicken/hobble debuff procs off of all(!) attack rolls (like spells, not just weapon's) and it counts as a proper weapon attack. Which makes it trigger Avenging Storm Bolts, too. If you add other attack rolls that proc off of weapon attacks (see Hylea's Talons for example or Ring of Molded Flesh) you can increase the number of attack rolls on the target(s) even further. You can then cast Avenging Storm, then Great Maelstrom (or other offensive spells , those who pulse like Chillfog, Venombloom etc. are best) and every crit of those spells will trigger Hemorrhaging - which will trigger an Avenging Storm bolt - which can itself trigger Hemorrhaging if it crits - which thrn triggers another bolt (and so on). It's absolutely devastating. The Effort trick using Avening Storm can also be used by the SC Chanter variant - and it's really good in combination with Her Revenge and it's multiple hit rolls against a group of enemies. But then you'll not have scimitar's effect of course.

Yes, it got patched at some point and turned from "per encounter" to "per rest" which turned it from "most sought after cape" into "what are those useless rags lol?" It is mentioned in the named enchantments' description that's it's per-rest. But you have to click on the names of the enchantments iirc.