Boeroer

The official gamepedia wiki has all ability icons, too: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Pillars_of_Eternity_II:_Deadfire_images_-_Ability_icons Don't know if you can get them as a bunch of files somehow or if you'll have to download them one by one though.

I am playing an Arcane Archer/Troubadour atm. Spearcaster is one of my weapons. Arcane Archer has some flaws without the Community Patch because the Imbue spells Missiles, Fireball and Death Ring don't scale their PEN in the unmodded game. But if you stick to web and pull of eora that doesn't matter. Keep in mind that a solo char often needs to divide his skill points (mechanics, stealth, whatever) so maybe you will not be able to put a ton lot of points into Arcana at all times. I have no idea about solo since my AA/Tr is the party's main CC guy. But high Arcana + Spearcaster means insane accuracy while Troubadour with Sure Handed Ila (applies its bonus twice: to recovery and also reload time) and Mith Fyr grants great reloading speed and good damage. And of course a lot of versatility bc. of invocations. For me the best part about arbalests is the modal. Combined with the reloading buffs and the high accuracy I can interrupt/prone a single enemy all the time. Arcane Archer/Troubadour can be an interrupt monster with Imbue:Web and Imbue:Eora in combination with The Champion invocation. All your crit rolls will interrupt the enemies. That includes pulses of web an eora. Those will have high ACC. This can lead to situations where enemies can't do anything at all because they are not only stuck and pulled around eventually but also interrupted all the time (great when there is enemy concentration, too). Maybe for a solo run with a ranged character you want to get Boots of Speed and immunity to engagement asap? You could try to rush the pet "Grog"...

Yes (also with Stone of Power) and yes. But if you only lack spell uses for one tier (e.g. PL4 spells) you'll get that one back. The dmg is random between three stages iirc.

Yes, something like that. With such high MIG maybe even Mith Fyr + Dragon Thrashed would be good. With enough INT they still should overlap I guess?

I'm not using him as damage dealer. Usually I summon Concelhaut's Draining Touch and then the Essential Phantom, then do cast Misama of Dull-Mindedness on the enemies (followed by other CC/debuff. most often Ryngrim's Enervating Terror because it's supereffective and targets Will which Misama just lowered by 40 points...). That way the Phantom can do some nice melee damage while Aloth casts his CC/debuff stuff. Especially the combo of Draining Touch (targets Will defense instead of Deflection) + Miasma is pretty satisfying. If I give Aloth some engagement gear (for example Kapana Taga for the offhand +2 and Reckless Brigandine +1) the Phantom will also have 3 engagement slots. If you then cast Ryngrim's Enervating Terror on the enemies they will not only be taken out temporarily due to the terrify effect, they will also suffer -50 Will (Misama + Terrify) which makes the Phantom crit a lot with Draining Touch AND they will disengage the Phantom often which leads to nasty disengagement attacks from the Phantom. Takes some casting time but can be very effective. Not against all enemies (there's enough with resistance to Resolve afflictions) - but a Wizard is so versatile you can do something else which is also good in those cases. Once Aloth gets Caedebald's Blackbow I nowadays retrain him as Blackbow user. He and his Phantom can wreak havoc on enemy groups with lowish Fortitude (Blackbow targets Fortitude instead of Deflection) because two Blackbows will hit up to 4 enemies with terrify (12 m jumping projectiles). Even on graze... Of course he will still cast other spells then - unless I feel like using Citzal's Martial Power with the Blackbow (e.g. against single strong targets).

When it's about caster/caster I really like to use a Psion. An Ultimate finisher used Troubadour/Psion but I have no doubt that you can absolutely solo with Bloodmage/Psion or whatever Wizard/Psion if you want to use Empower in every fight with Sasha's Singing Scimitar (the Psion side). Edit: what was I writing in the last sentence? I totally confused Troubadour with Psion, sorry. Forget that.

Maybe because Chanter doesn't have a lot of dmg bonuses which don't work well with Novice's Suffering/Sandals of the Forgotten Friar anyway (because fists have such low base damage, 3-8 iirc). But he has lashes and a MIG boost (Mith Fyr and Champion for example) which work well with it because the bonus dmg from Novice's Suffering scales with Might (and lashes are not calculated with base but overall dmg dealt). Only thing is: why Savage Attack and Apprentice's Sneak Attack then? They would add very little damage to your fists' attacks: 1.1 additional dmg per strike for Savage Attack, 0.83 dmg for Appr. Sneack Attack. So maybe those two talent points can be spend on something more useful? For example Outlander's Frenzy which could be used to gap the time between combat start and The Champion invocation?

With the help of the console (marks your savegame as cheated which doesn't let you gain achievements anymore). Or with the help of a mod.

You can also take a look at the Anvil Monk build. It uses Battle Forged, too.

Confirm. Yeah well, you can just take away from what I said that a Ranger with arbalest can be great. And the class combos I listed work very well. The subclasses don't matter that much. So if one of those combos speaks to you roleplaying-wise (like... are you comfortable with the idea of a Ranger/Chanter multiclass or does a Ranger/Paladin make sense to you etc.) then you can pick those and at least from a "powergamer's perspective" you will not be frustrated I guess. Just try the one that sounds most interesting to you.

For solo I prefer Stalker.

If you like crossbows and Ranger I can really recommend Spearcaster. You can get it early, it has superhigh accuracy with enough Arcana and the additional enchantments are great, too. The best thing about arbalests is the modal imo. It causes a knockdown on hit but lets you shoot more slowly. No big deal if you have a lot of reloading/recovery bonuses though. My current Arcane Archer/Troubadour reloads quickly enough with the modal on that enemies I focus on canot get anything done, they are effectively prone-locked (the get back on their feet but cannot finish anything before they get send down again). Single Class Ranger can be fun for different reasons (mostly special item-ability synergies) - but with an arbalest I prefer multiclassing for more shorter reloading/recovery time and/or more accuracy. Good arbalest rangers multiclasses I played: Arcane Archer/Bleak Walker: very high accuracy, good damage, quite sturdy, also good party support via healing and aura etc. Arcane Archer/Troubadour: very short reloading time (Sure Handed Ila applies its effect twice to realoading weapons), good damage bc of the lash from Mith Fyr, very versatile due to invocations Arcane Archer/Helwalker: short reloading time, very high accuracy, good dmg. This one is also very good with AoE weapons like Frostseeker or Watershaper's Focus. Yeah, I like Arcane Archers. Another good combination (that I didn't play) would be Ghost Heart/Cipher. Anything but Soulblade and Psion would be good. Damage would be nice, accuracy would be great and lots of versatility bc of cipher spells. This combination is especially good with the War Bow "Frostseeker" because the accuracy can be so high that crits are very common. Of course Ranger/Rogue is always an option if you are looking for a lot of dmg per hit. Ranger/Devoted also works very well - although I find it a bit sad that the only figher attack ability that works with ranged (two handed) weapons is Penetrating Strike. One thing though: you need a good backup weapon for enemies who are resistant or even immune to pierce damage. Any bow would do for example.

I killed Belranga with Ancient Weapons alone a few days ago (stealthed Troubadour) and did the same: chaining commands with shift. Takes some time and is not as convenient as AI but better than omitting the ability uses at all.

I thought about an Unbroken/Goldpact because of the added armor from the shield. +1 bc of Unbroken passive, +1 from the shield at lower health (e.g. when using Sacred Immolation), +4 from Gilded Enmity (doesn't stack with Zealous Endurance so you could take Zealous Focus instead to counter the large shield malus a bit), +1 from Stoic Steel and +1 occasionally from Inspired Defense. That's +8 armor without any additional equipment which would come on top. "Hello and welcome, my dear underpenetrating enemies!" Defenses would be great anyway bc of Refreshing Defense + Superior Deflection + Paladin passives. Gladiator Sword is not too bad bc of the +1 PEN enchantment.

Ah, okay. No idea then.

You chose to ignore significant parts of my answer. The point was that I can share whatever I genuinely think is fun and readers can decide for themselves if they might like it or not. They don't need the "Maybe-the-devs-didn't-want-you-to-play-like-that-inquisituon" as long as there's no competition like the Ultimate Challenge involved. There's no harm in sharing any information about the game nor is it in any way worse or better that how you play or what information you share. It is, as you said - just our opinion. While it's totally fair to recommend stuff we like in the game no matter what it is - and even to say what we don't like about certain practices - it is pretty uncalled for to criticize forum users for using and/or sharing that info. A disclaimer for new board members is nice. But Manu22 already played Deadfire solo after numerous suggestions from this forums and thus isn't exactly a new board member whom you have to take by the hand for every step - or at least that's what I assumed:

Hit me! I'll write something down with my wife. Maybe there's some colleagues we know who are posted there right now - they could give more recent tipps and recommendations. There's also an internal annual report that I can access. Uzbekistan opened up a lot since we left and the old president died. I guess a lot has changed - for better I presume. To me it was awesome even back then - except the diarrhea. Man... really wash your hands and only eat cooked stuff in restaurants l. One gets used to the germs at some point but it takes months.

I assume everybody who posts here is old and sane enough to make their own decisions when it comes to playing the game. I'm describing what I like and what works well for me. I would never force my recommendations onto anybody though. Your distinction between glitch and proper or "normal" mechanics is subjective and it's a bit silly to try and force that distinction onto other forum readers, and I'll explain why. What really matters for players is whether an action improves their experience with the game - or not. A small glitch may not break the game but even increase the joy of playing it - while an intended mechanic can be used in ways where it utterly breaks the game balance, takes away all challenge and kills the joy. Yet you advocate to skip the first but use the latter (more in that below). What's a "normal" game? Playing solo on PotD is very far from a normal Deadfire game to begin with. Most if not all solo PotD players will take advantage of certain mechanics that grant them more power, intended or unintended ones. The decision to not play a normal game was already made when starting a solo PotD run. Keeping both points in mind I'll give you an example that shows how your approach suffers from hypocrisy: Using Draining Touch with grimoire swapping (so it doesn't get removed after a successful hit) as a solo character on PotD hasn't a game breaking impact. It's good no doubt - but it's not even the best one handed weapon you can get - AND you have to spend a spell use for it + invest grimoire switching time. In fact this action has way less impact than "non-glitched" stuff like Scordeo's Edge + Blade Cascade + WoD (proper mechanics), Grave Calling + Chilling Grave + vessel summons (proper mechanics) or Engoliero do Espirs + Blade Feast + spell kills (proper mechanics...?). With Engoliero do Espirs we could argue that the proc of Blade Feast wasn't even meant to occur on any kill but just on weapon kills. I'd say that's a glitch. You see that not even the clear distinction is problematic when it comes to having fun with the gane in itself - but even the "official" lines between glitchy and normal behavior are blurry. You'll be okay with a Phantom wearing Draining Touch (which won't disappear)... but this is the same underlying effect. It's a glitch. Now, while you condemn the use of Draining Touch + grimoire swapping you like to play and recommend stuff like Assassin/Bloodmage who uses Deltro's Cage, casts Chain Lightning on himself and then prolongs that effect with Wall of Draining while triggering Blade Feast from spell-kills (which will be super potent with the shocking lash of the Helmet and then procs itself over an over). At least iirc that was you, right? You recommended that a lot in the past - although it breaks the game balance a lot more than using Draining Touch does. I personally consider this a gamebreaking cheesy af combination that takes away fun - but you didn't hear me saying that your recommendation saddens me? Did I judge you in any form for doing this although I personally don't like it? No... This shows that your personal distinction between glitch and "normal" or "pure" or "clean" is very subjective. I thought this discussion ended somewhat fruitfully after your debate with @Raven Darkholmeover "Strand of Favor cheese" a few months back - but I guess it did not. What is enjoyable is in the eye of the Beholder (or in this case: player). Whatever tricks and tipps forum members will share: it's the player's choice to decide if they might like that or not. A "purist" approach might fit your needs - but that doesn't have to be the case for everybody. Being a self declared purist doesn't give anybody the right to frown upon or look down on players who recommend and/or play whatever you don't consider to be "normal". There is no moral high ground playing a single player computer game. The artificial and subjective separation between bad and good ways to play, between glitch, cheese and normal is hypocritical. There is no Evangelion "How thou must have fun with Deadfire". It's not a religion where we as forum high priests have to divine the will of our Obsidian dev gods - to tell other players how the holy game has to be played. You can submit to that perceived authority no problem, I won't criticize you or be sad about it or whatever. If this approach gives you the most joy and makes you happy, I'm happy. Just don't try to judge how I (or we as a group) try to share what I like or don't like about the game. Or to recommend what I found enjoyable. I try to make it very clear in every post where I share "special mechanics" that what I recommend is just my opinion - and I try to explain why I think it might be fun. If somebody declares upfront that they don't want to use any cheesy tactics(be it glitch or intended mechanic) I will respect that and not recommend such things of course. And that has to be good enough, seriously.

Unfortunately Berserker Frenzy fused the beneficial and hostile effects together. So you can't shorten the self damage or confusion with high RES while you keep the beneficial effects. Sacred Immolation works like that but not Berserker Frenzy. Would it be different it would be a valid combo for solo. But as is I think it's not. You'll have two sources of self damage and both can get really nasty with enough Power Level. At the same time you won't have cheap healing sources besides when the curse runs out. Also the best synergy of Berserker/Monk - getting plenty of wounds from the Frenzy self damage - is not there with Forbidden Fist. You can get wounds from Confusion running out - but I don't think that's very impactful. Also the Forbidden Fist ability doesn't count as weapon attack so lots of passives of Berserker and Monk will not work (until you install the Community Patch mod). Like the crit conversion of Frenzy, One Stands Alone, Enervating Blows, Swift Flurry and so on.

Is that turn based specific? It happened to me several times in rtwp, too. One really has to watch out that no bystanders get hurt by anything or anyone. Waiting till night might thin out the number of random npcs wandering around. Don't think any patch addressed this but I maybe wrong.

Goldpact usually is on of my favorite Paladin subclasses since Gilded Enmity - combined with Sworn Rival - is so good. But it won't stack with Spirit Shield, Iron Skin or Llengrath's Safeguard. That's why I usually pick something else for an Arcane Knight. But I guess you could argue that you can then spare those spells and do Gilded Enmity instead. Which is true... Steel Garrote is cool in combination with Draining Touch and shield (or club + modal) setup when going solo imo. Not only does Draining Touch's healing stack with the Steel Garrote's but also the attack itself causes weakened which unlocks the life drain right away. I find that setup to work really well in order to get the most out of your resources, especially when not playing as a Bloodmage. Draining Touch stays for the whole fight - so it only costs 1 spell use - and the combined life drain makes it so that you don't have to heal yourself that often with Zeal or Corrosive Siphon - at least in the pre-late game before you get Wall of Draining. Aassassin/Wizard is also nice. Especially with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure it's a lot of fun to play imo.

Haha, right.

Did a quick test. Pulsing spells work (cool) - but unfortunately the imbue spells of an Arcane Archer don't seem to count. Neither as spells for the charm nor as weapon attacks for the other procs of the wand. Too bad...

When it's about Stunning Surge Frostseeker is nice. But the AoE on crit will not stun. Same with the other attack abilities of the Debonaire side. Because of that I prefer rods or mortars. The damage output of Frostseeker might be better though. I never checked if a Whale of a Wand procs charmed with every pulse of a spell - e.g. Binding Weg or Pull of Eora. If so then it might be great with an Arcane Archer (if the Imbue effects count as spells that is). With Driving Flight and from stealth you can "cast" two instances of Binding Web and two of Pull of Eora very quickly. Okay... Maybe that's stupid because wouldn't the charmed enemies flip back immediately because Web & Pull are friendly fire spells (which would crit bc. of the charm? And then they get charmed again and so on? Haha, want a mess that would be...

Ah sorry for the confusion - I meant the armor "Sharpshooter's Garb" from Maia. The passive on that is called Gunnery, not Gunner. You can stack it with "Shootist" from Acina's Tricorn if you don't go for Deltro's Cage Helmet (which looks a bit ridiculous with that armor anyway). I like to also bring Cutthroat Cosmo. Not beause it's the best pet for this (it's good though) but because your pet then has the same hat as you.