Boeroer

I did (Assassin/Skaen)! I assumed it's still a 1:1 copy of the Rogue's ability. I suspect they "fixed" Shadowing Beyond of the Rogue at some point and forgut the Priest of Skaen's version. Shadowing Beyond did break on DoTs at release. Iirc all invisibility abilities did. There were several complaints about it. I think it's very likely that the devs tried to correct this behaviour quickly but overlooked some stuff in the process. After I used the Assassin/Priest of Skaen I pretty much never looked at SB again because it prevented the use of Deep Wounds and all the other Rogue's DoTs which I thought was a bit stoopid. Had I known that both version are different now...

The only guns that don't have much range are blunderbusses. One handed pistol still works well. With One-Handed Style and the active modal you'll get -50% reload time, -3 ACC and +15% crit conversion. Scordeo's Trophy has an enchantment that can be used to speed your reloading up even further (it stacks without limit). With high INT, Driving Flight and Gunner as well as Swift Flurry you can stack quite some instances and shoot really fast. There is some hard cap on reloading speed though: at some point you won't be reloading any faster (I guess due to the animation not being able to play any faster) - so no need to focus/maximize that effect. It's good nonetheless. Another nice pistol is Eccea's Arcane Blaster which is kind of mandatory if you want to hurt pierce resistant/immune foes with a pistol. It does raw damage and has some neat enchantments (including a secondary modal that amps up the dmg with elemental effects quite a bit).

That's what I wanted to say. In general the Powel Level scaling works great. And the summons do scale their stats. Just some of them have specific weapons and I guess those simply lack the "auto-scale" property - most likely because it was forgotten. Could also be that devs wanted to make the higher-tier summons more desirable - but I don't think so.

It was done after the DLCs got introduced. Some areas which were designed with character level x in mind became too easy if you did some other content first and then arrived there with level x+5 or so. It doesn't change the difficulty setting from Veteran to PotD for example. It doesn't add type and number of enemies iirc. Afaik it raises some stats - I guess it just levels enemies up a bit (so to speak).

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Why would you have to become visible every 30 secs? Wall of Draining doesn't break Arkemyr's Brilliant Depature but instead prolongs its duration. If you hit several enemies with it the duration will scale up long enough to end most battles without having to use Blood Sacrifice. You can also just retreat out of sight and send summons to the enemies.

It's too bad that the wurms' weapons won't scale (skeletons' swords also don't). You can build a really nice "artillery" Chanter with wurms using Mith Fyr and Sure Handed Ila etc. But after some levels it's constant underpenetration which is such a shame. Also wurms are no good for damage prevention and flanking bc. they have no engagement and are ranged creatures. Imo the non-scling weapons of some summons are an oversight. I don't think it was inteneded that some summons become obsolete. Devs did intruduce Powel Level scaling in order to make low level stuff viable until the late game. Makes no sense to introduce non-scaling weapons on summons intentionally then (at least I can't see how that would make sense).

Doesn't stack with what? Other speed stuff? It stacks with Frenzy's speed buff...

It brings self damage which makes the ultimate much more spicy!

SC Mage Slayer!

Community Patch makes it a lot more friendly for non-deflection maxers. If you pick Tuotilo's Palm with Outward Spikes you will have another retaliation effect on miss that stacks with Riposte. If you then pick a Monk instead of a Paladin you can trigger Swift-Flurry chains from Riposte and Outward Spikes alone (this is with Sun & Moon): With a mortar in the main hand this also kind of works - because a crit from Outward Spikes or a crit from (Riposte-) bash might trigger an attack with the mortar via Swift Flurry - but then it stops because mortars don't trigger Swift Flurry further. Sun and Moon has the advantage that it has two rolls to continue the crit-chain. Offensive Parry also triggers Swift Flurry... Of course with a Paladin it's much easier to reach the effective deflection (also via Inspiring Triumph and Beacon etc.). You will not have crit chains but you will be missed more often (and have strong AR and healing on top). Offensive Parry + Riposte on a Steel Garrote/Trickster is a fun build because Offensive Parry also dazes on hit which unlocks the life leach of Steel Garrote and unlocks Sneak Attack. At some point that's even better with Inspiring Beacon of course, but the dazing is always useful. Inspiring Beacon + Sneak Attack + Deathblows is pretty hefty dmg even with the real. low base dmg of Offensive Parry/WotEP - because they are instant attacks which come on top of your normal ones. And they all drain life for you. It's not foolproof and this approach obviously doesn't work against some kinds of enemies (e.g. ranged or casters) but it's cool most of times because in nearly every encounter there are some melee guys. And it's not like you couldn't switch to another weapon and whack casters more "traditionally".

Right. Offensive Parry only rolls against the target that missed you in melee. Riposte with WotEP will have the cone attack though. Offensive Parry and Riposte do stack, meaning it's possible that both trigger from the same miss against you. Riposte also works with an AoE ranged weapon like a mortar in one hand als long as you have a melee weapon or a bashing shield in the other hand.

Yes, kind of. It seems that several people were involved in fixing those "persisted summoned item" issues. Because there are several different fixes. One approach was to prevent the summoning in certain cases and the other made sure summoned weapons get removed properly after combat. I guess the first approach was just easier. Once a case was reported it got a bug ticket and was fixed by whoever got the ticket. Maybe sometimes that dev thought a bit ahead and fixed a bit more than was reported, but often I guess time constraints lead to a dev only fixing what is in the ticket. I guess nobody reported Draining Touch - because I guess nobody ran into this befire. Usually DT is gone very quickly (before stuff like Enchanted Armory etc. runs out) so the situation where you a) would want to summon it while shifted or with Armory in the first place is rare, then b) the situation where DT is still in your hand once spiritshift or Armory did expire is even rarer. So I just guess nobody reported it and devs didn't think about it while fixing similar stuff. The Training Touch ability (or spell) summons the weapon and also manages the removal once you hit with it. The Draining Touch weapon itself (which gets summoned) has no other properties than the ones you see in the tooltip once you wield it. An active Grimoire adds abilities (or spells) to your character once you switch to it. It removes the abilities once you switch to another Grimoire. This explains the Draining Touch trick: do not learn the spell (because then you will always have the ability that manages Draining Touch summoning but also removal) but instead use a Grimoire with the spell and another Grimoire without it. Switching to the Grimoire with DT will add the spell that manages the DT weapon. You summon it. You switch to another Grimoire: the spell gets removed and so does the part of it that would monitor whether DT hit or not. This also explains why an Essential/Substantial Phantom can use DT weapon without limits. It gets a copy of the weapon you carry - but not your abilities and thus not the part that would remove it. Kalakoth's Minor Blights works similarly: the spell manages the cycling of the elemental blights. If that spell is not there the Blights remain what they started with (e.g. fire). But here it's a fixed interval and not tied to an attack roll - so I guess that's some difference. Essential Phantom's don't cycle through the elemental variants because they don't have the spell but simply get the weapon clone from your hands. I never tried but I suspect if you summon Minor Blights from a Grimoire without learning it and then switch to another Grimoire there might be a chance the Blights won't cycle. Just a guess though, maybe it's implemented differently (didn't look into the files). They will still get removed because it's a summon with a duration (unlike DT) and that expiration will remove it no matter which abilities you currently have. But maybe one wants to prevent the cycling or whatever... Iirc Minor Blights is greyed out while you are shifted. I didn't check with Enchanted Armory though (if you can summon it while having armory). So I guess DT could also have been greyed out as well - but nobody thought about it. So to;dr: still think somebody slept on it.

If I remember correctly then after your report that firerand/shifting combo was patched so that you can't summon firebrand anymore while you're shifted. All the other summoned weapons get greyed out, too (Spirit Lance etc.). You also can't cast Reaping Knives on a shifted druid (or fearsome-bruted Wizard). But maybe I'm remembering that detail about Firebrand wrongly. I think they only forgot to prevent the summoning of Draining Touch. I now see that I didn't test the Warding Staff.

It doesn't work with Form of the Fearsome Brute. It used to, but that got fixed. You could keep almost any summoned weapon with Form of the Fearsome Brute or Spritshift - but I think they fixed most of it and just forgot about Draining Touch (also that you can summon it while shifted - all other summoned weapon spells get greyed out normally). I had no luck with any other summoned stuff. I think I tried everything. So far only Citzal's Great Sword (main hand) and Spiritshift weapon (main hand) remain. Even Nannasin's Cobra Strike disappears - I would have taken a bet that the main hand one would stay after summoning Draining Touch - but nope. Gets cleared at the end of combat "properly". I even tried to persist the unique weapons you will get with Neckless of Endless Possibilities. Also doesn't work.

I exported a lvl-1 character with Citzal's Great Sword. Importing with the sword is not really expensive: Cool

Right. Good idea. I didn't try it but maybe if one exports a lvl-1 hireling with those swords it could be rel. inexpensive (because the game might interpret them as gear of lower quality)? Will try that later...

I don't think so, there's an obvious warning when you try to hire a cheated character.

Lol... you can also get youself a permanent Spiritshift weapon that way. Unfortunatly the Boar's raw DoT is not tied to the weapon but to the Spiritshift modal itself. But still: cool weapon to have. The Cat's Claws are best imo because they have the same base damage as the others but only 3 secs recovery. The coolest thing is to get the Storm Blight weapons I think. Spiritual Weapons and Reaping Knives won't stay. So far only Enchanted Armory and Spiritshift.

Cast Citzal's Enchanted Armory Summon Concelhaut's Draining Touch (you cannot attack with it bc. of glitch) Wait until Enchanted Armory wears off end combat so Draining Touch disappears and Great Sword reappears enjoy your permanent, scaling, one-handed Great Sword - that you can give to whomever It's kind of nice to have a one-handed sword that has +1 PEN and +5 base damage compared to a normal sword. It's like having a unique sword with really good dps enchantments. Also you can use it with one-handed style + modal and get +2 ACC, +30% dmg and +15% crit conversion. I would love to also get the one-handed Morning Star or the armor (especially the armor) - but so far I couldn't find a way.

It depends what you want to play. A support priest can be very effective because he just drops PER and it has no effect because he never needs to hit anybody. High MIG and INT provide long durations and good healing and high DEX makes his casting fast. Cool. But if you want to play a Priest who hauls mighty damaging spells you can do that as well. With high MIG (and no other class can reach the might score of a Priest) and INT especially DoTs like Shining Beacon become very potent. And even the Holy Radiance becomes a superb damaging tool in certain encounters. But also Storm of Holy Fire is very good. Pillar of Holy Fire does great damage, too. And som symbol spells are very good at damage dealing as well. And at the same time nothing prevents the Priest from casting support and healing on top of all that. A dedicated support Priest might be more effective at support, but a Priest who can also deal severe damage is more versatile. If your damage dealers go down and you are left with the support priest you are screwed. Not if he can demolish the enemies all by himself though. And then there's stuff in between and also fun stuff. Is a Priest Priest of Berath as good with a Great Sword as a Rogue might be? No... but he can hit enemies as well as a Fighter with the right abilites/talents AND he can cast Priest spells on top of that. Very versatile - compared to a Fighter who can only whack things with the sword - and casts nothing. Sometimes it's just mad fun to hit enemies with Tidefall at 40+ MIG and see the massive wounding ticks just melt the foes.

Clear Out with Carnage is a nice "hidden gem" because Clear Out hits the initial target twice and pushes it into the Carnage AoE - and also all other targets will get pushed from their original position into the Carnage Area once they get hit. Targets of an attack roll usually don't receive Carnage dmg - but in this case I think they do (I'm sure about the initial target of Clear Out but didn't check if the other ones also receive more Carnage damage than they usually would - but it looks like it). Often multiple Carnage hits suppress each other though ("similar effect with longer duration already applied" message in the log).

I just checked Steam and there was a "secret" patch on March 2 it seems. Maybe it was done because there were some alterations needed for the Epic Game Store. And maybe those also got applied to the other versions? No idea...

So weird... I just now tested this, too (Shadowing Beyond + Gouging Strike with an Assassin - also used Backstab as additional indicator) and Shadowing Beyond does NOT break like it did a few months ago. At least not with Gouging Strike. There were no official patches in between - so how...? Then I tried to attack from Shadowing Beyond - but I retained Backstab as well as Assassinate bonuses unlike you. My Gouging Strike from Shadowing Beyond's invisibility got me +25 ACC just fine. I compared with Smoke Veil and it did the same. After that I used True Love's Kiss first, used Shadowing Beyond and then did a Gouging Strike from invisibility and that's wen I also didn't get the Assasinate Bonus and also no Backstab. I thought it may be the DoT that is on the targe that triggers this. But then I repeated the test again, same setup and suddenly I did get the bonus. What the heck? Something's off. I now also remember that arquebuses had a problem in the past with Shadowing Beyond and Backstab, too. Maybe that's another issue you are facing? Could you try to repeat the test but use a pike or so? Then we could see if the combo arquebus + Shadowing Beyond has a problem, too. I tested this now but for me it works like it should. I guess the best solution for now is to use Smoke Veil and skip Shadowing Beyond. It seems to be quirky still - Smoke Veil is a lot more reliable in its workings.

Rofl... I never realized that Orlans had smaller Spiritshift forms. Do Aumaua have bigger Spiritshift forms then as well? It becomes obvious that I don't use Spiritshift that much I guess. If you are not on a gaming console I guess a small mod could do the trick? Edit: I browsed through the abilities- and statuseffect.gamedatabundle files but couldn't immediately find a value that directly determines the size of the new model (in this case the bear form of the shifter). Maybe somebody else with more shifter modding experience is better suited to this. @Harpagornisfor example?