Boeroer

Blood Sacrifice has one of three damaging outcomes: low, medium and high self damage. It's random. You can use Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon to heal you back. If the chunks of damage are too big I would look for an Amulet of Health. If you need to get rid of wounds quickly in order to minimize self damage you can later use Thunderous Blows. Helwalker + Blood Sacrifice is a bit risky, yes. If it's too tricky maybe try more CON - or a Nalpasca.

By the way: skilling Alchemy can be more benefical than skilling Athletics if you need occasional healing (and if you are not against using consumables). With high Alchemy even the weaker healing potions become pretty strong, even stronger than Second Wind.

I would start with a quarterstaff and a pike as proficiencies so you get both weapons. It's safer to attack from reach and later you want to use the Spirit Lance anyway. Might as well gather some experience how to best use reach weapons in the early game. Concenhaut's Parasitic Staff is nice. You can cast spells from grimoires (no need to learn them if you have a grimoire with that spell in it). In fact I'd recommend to mainly take passives and actives from the Monk side and only spells which you want to have access to at all times.

May I interest you in a variant I played long time ago and which worked quite nicely with the Devil's stats and "armor" etc.? Shield: Badgradr's Barricade. It's a Bashing Shield that procs Thrust of Tattered Veils every time (!) you land a crit with the bash (bash counts as an active ability and thus gains +1 ACC per char level - so it keeps having decent accuracy). The nice thing about this is that spells work with Deathblows (+100% dmg). Main weapon: Godanstunyr or We Toki or whatever weapon causes prone or stun on crit. This will help with unlocking Deathblows on the enemy (e.g. by doing a crit with Blinding Strike: blind = first affliction, stun = second affliction -> Deathblows). This means the Devil will be pretty sturdy because of the shield - but at the same time the offense doesn't suffer that much because Thrust of Tattered Veils will get triggered so often. Alpha striking: arquebus most of times. Against soft targets (low DR) a blunderbuss. Don't forget a lash.

That would work. I personally would reduce RES to 3, CON 10 (and first use some +CON items and wear an Amulet of Health/Greater Health and later pick Tough) if you have some healing capabilities in the party (Paladin, Druid, Priest...) and don't use Blood Sacrifice too frequently. It's more risky with mediocre CON but I prefer it that way. Maybe you want to play it safe(r).

I'd recommend Sage. With Stunning Surge (and Citzal's Spirit Lance) you effectively have three renewable resource pools for most of the fights. Add Swift Flurry and later Hearbeat Drumming. Nalpasca or Helwalker would be my pick. Helwalker especially if you also want to cast damaging spells frequently. With those two subclasses you can use Deleterious Alacrity of Motion to not only speed you up but also to gain wounds in a controlled way (via moderate self damage). You'll also gain wounds from Blood Sacrifice. Monk's Turning Wheel (up to +10 INT) is just awesome for wizard spells. Also the Monk side has more benefical effects than a Rogue. Stuff like Swift Flurry or Lightning Strikes, Crucible of Suffering, Clarity of Agony and even Blade Turning can be prolonged with Wall of Draining. Stats aren't that important and depend on how you play the character and also on the subclass. For example a Helwalker can get away with 10 MIG since he'll get up to +10 from his wounds - and that will also scale up the self damage of Blood Sacrifice etc. - you don't want to kill yourself. Maybe also don't lower CON too much. Gear will come together while you play, some nice items for a Sage could be Hylea's Talons (more wounds) or Healing Hands (nice in combination with Wall of Draining), the Abraham pet, everything that boosts INT further (for example Heaven's Cacophony and Charm of Bones = bigger lance AoE). Certain abilities (besides Stunning Surge) are really fun with Spirit Lance: Efficient Anguish, Skyward Kick and Instruments of Pain (which lets you stay of of melee range and allows you to wear lighter armor).

Yes, of course Chilling Grave with skeletons is bonkers. Ghost Blades also take their (GPU) toll, but they only have one single visual effect so you don't get hundrets of overlapping pulses that fry your GPU (or maybe it's the CPU which suffers most). I only see a few very short stutters, not the fps drop (or even crash) I see with Grave Calling. Recntly I also had a few crashes from WotW with mortars + Powder Burns if gunpowder barrels were involved. With Avenging Storm on top: nearly 50% of times.

I guess I found my "tank" for the Single Class only playthrough. With Abraham, a Kind Wayfarer and a Chanter in the back this should be sturdy enough until I get Twin Eeels? What other single classes to bring? Hm... initially I wanted a SC Streetfighter with Mortars and Gambit - but maybe that's too boring. SC Wizard, Monk and Priest I did a lot of times already. SC Ranger? Fighter? Eh... Any unusual yet cool ideas?

Other fun options are for example: Amra: no healing but Riven Gore kills skeletons on the spot and with Abraham you can at least keep yourself healed - its party-wide effect also procs off of skellie-kills. Also Tempered Fury will def. proc soon and it stacks with Berserker's Frenzy. Lord Darryn's Voulge: same basically, very effective Engolerio do Espirs: with Blade Fest of course. Ghost Blades will proc off of Carnage-kills as well and heal, too. and I guess many more.

Hello again! Always annoyed that Berserkers go down so easily? And the Berserker really should hit much faster with two handed weapons anyway 'cause it's cooler? Easy: just have Carnage with friendly fire (or in other words: be confused af) and "accidentially" kill your own skeletons (or whatever summons - Many Lives is very convenient) with Twin Eels. Its healing effect also triggers from Carnage-kills (actually it heals from any kills, no matter how you achievend them). So every time a skeleton falls from your Carnage you'll heal your surroudings (including yourself), trigger Bloodlust and Blood Thirst which lets you attack with 0 recovery which leads to more ded skeletons which leads to more healing and so on and so forth... A bit like a Kind Wayfarer on speed with unlimited healing. Of course you could also do that with a Berserker/anything (hello Berserker/Paladin with Sacred Immolation?) and let somebody else summon creatures. But that's less cool imo. Before getting Twin Eels and stuff you will still be a Howler with all the goodies. Howlers rock anyway. Quick vid: --- Then, take the same character basically (Berserker/Skald is best though) but instead of Twin Eels give him Blightheart. Summon some Ancient Brittle Skellies, frenzy up and use Her Revenge. You will kill several skeletons accidantially and trigger Bloodlust, Blood Thirst and get phrases from the kill(s) which lets you cast another Her Revenge right away and so on and so forth. No healing but unlimited casting and brutal casting speed. Just don't let party members stand where you cast... Quick vid:

If that's really how "Hunter of Hunters" was translated we should find the creators of that mod and hit them with a Dachlatte.

I think it's fine. There are some fights in WM2 that are quite tough - lvl 12 isn't too high.

Primal Carnage also works with an Animal Companion, hm... Berserker/Stalker with Stalker's Patience and Hunter's Fang etc...? Maybe Ngati's Tusk is not so cool with a party when you are confused... :oops

? I don't know how it's implemented internally, but the enemies get a hostile effect named "Hunter of Hunters" and their defenses get lowered directly in the tooltip. Maybe it's just UI - but if you check the log there is no hint that you get an accuracy bonus. The enemies' defenses show the malus: (ignore Razor's Edge, it's a consoled multi-multiclass ) Since everybody profits from that debuff I think this is the only implementations that makes sense. The other way round (accuracy for everybody who attacks that enemy) would be unnecessarily complicated, wouldn't it? Like Cap of the Laughingstock's aura this just seems to be a direct, auto-applied debuff? But yeah, Ngati's Tusk is very nice, especially Hunter of Hunters. Also you can get pretty high survival values with items and Galawain's boon and such. By the way the Cap's deflection debuff and the one from the Pike modal do stack which is nice for a Berserker/Skald with Brute Force who can just attack the lower defense (Fortitude or Deflection - and both get debuffed).

Ngati's Tusk is also nice. You can stay away, it has a crit conversion and the auto-defense debuff as well as the pike's modal (-10 deflection on hit) works in your favor, too. If only Druids had early beast summons... this would feel even nicer with a Berserker/Druid I guess.

Servus!

Holy smokes, Berserker/Skald with Stalker's Patience and Changeling's Mantle is fun with this setup. With Old Siec + Ancient Memory + Abraham I can even heal myself enough so that I'm not going down from the self damage. Also 3 Wurms is kind of easier to manage than 6, hehe...

Sun & Moon: it doesn't proc Carnage twice, so nothing special. Amra: The "Carnage" of Amra doesn't work with Primal Carnage. Pukestabber + Lover's Embrace works very well (+20% Action Speed from Pukestabber and 25% Action Speed from Lover's Embrace if you attack the right gender - it stacks with everything). You will stack a lot of action speed, daggers are already fast and you don't instantly kill the wurms with Carnage because the base dmg of daggers is low enough so they survive enough Carnage procs to give you 15 stacks of Primal Carnage. Only thing is that Daggers don't look so nice with that armor. Stalker's Patience would be nice. Maybe even Berseker/Skald is cool with the recovery-skip of Stalker's Patience. 3 Wurms instead of 6 means double the attacks needed - but if I can crit and skip recovery with the speas once in a while it should still be fast. And I can prifit from the phrases and the lower cost of offensive invocations... hm...

Hello! I just got the Changeling's Mantle again. And while I was looking at the possible "routes" for the soulbound upgrades I got an idea for "Primal Carnage": can a confused Berserker's Carnage which hits your own beast summons (for example wurms) give you the action bonus? This would turn Primal Carnage from a situationally cool gimmick into a thing that's always useful. So I tested it and yeah: you can summon your 6 wurms and place them around an enemy, then attack that enemy with - let's say Barbaric Smash - and immediately get +15% Action Speed which stacks with all other speed buffs. As a bonus you get Blood Thirst and Bloodlust should you kill your own wurms that way. I think that's pretty cool because the Changeling's Mantle looks awesome in the first place and I really needed a justification to wear it. Next I will test if Amra's Carnage would also add stacks of Primal Carnage. It's capped at 15 stacks so maybe this isn't superimportant - but good to know I guess. I'll also check if Sun & Moon (which should proc Carnage twice) will give me twice the stacks per attack. Till later!

While we speak about not spending resources for abilities: A Priest can use his seal spells out of combat. So he can just place a seal on th ground, wait until the spell use gets refunded and only then start combat. That way you can even use empower twice for the same encounter: empower a seal spell, then start combat and empower another spell.

That's right!

Tuotilo's Palm with the right enchantment (+1 deflection and reflex per wound) is better than a large shield. It's very good with fist as main weapon especially. But also great with any other one handed weapon. Later you could pick up this Brigandine: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Kāhako_Nihi Also Aloth's Armor isn't bad when it's fully enchanted to +2 crush AR . It's not heavy armor of course - but it's better than a Robe but looks like one. And the enchantments are pretty good. After the +2 crush AR it becomes a very well rounded armor without weaknesses. Maybe that's as far as one can go with a robe-looking armor compromise. Another option might be the Garari Cuirass. It is a leather armor but has the base AR of a breastplate basically. And it comes early and legendary. Nomad's Brigandine is nice, too. It looks like a normal Brigandine (which don't shout "heavy armor" such as Plate Armor does) but has great enchantments for a tank (especially bonus deflection). An SC Monk can even use it to willfully disengage and get wounds in the process (Imagined Pain).

Yes, or extremely high defenses. The Humility Robe would be cool if its pierce/crush/slash resistance enchantments would scale with wounds (or Metaphysics or Insight or whatever).

Why not. There are several great sabres in the game. It's not tank-ish though. You can achieve better tankyness with the small shield "Toutilo's Palm" that's made for monks. That would also look cool with sabres imo. Quarterstaff + modal is an option for a more tanky monk as well. Chromoprismatic Staff comes rather late though. But any quarterstaff + modal would work before that. You could also place a sabre in the offhand and be a dual wielder (while looking like a one-handed guy). You would attack with your main hand fist and the offhand sabre then. That option would be the only one if you wanted to use St. Drogga's Skull (can only be equipped in the offhand since it works like s torch, too). Back to one handed sabre: If you pick up the Animancer's Blade at some point you would look like a Jedi. And they are monks, too (sort of).

Funny. I only knew that Wall spells are "hazards" like traps and the Priest's seal spells (the ones you can put on the ground out of combat and which will stay there for a long while - like traps basically). Hazards seem to be a "character" of their own. At least in several situations the game will not treat them as spells that were cast by the character. They don't break the invisibility of Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure, they don't profit from lots of benefical effects the caster might have an which would apply to other spells and so on.