Boeroer

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?

Damn - I was about to post the console command. Maybe try to get missed by stuff that doesn't target deflection. E.g. get missed by Powder Burns (Reflex) or Keeper of the Flames' AoE?

I believe this is a big thing nowadays.

You must distinguish between stealth and invisibility. Stealth is the "scouting" mode out of combat when your circle has a dashed line. Invisibility is from stuff like Smoke Veils, Shadowing Beyond etc. Shadowing Beyonds does break from DoT ticks. I don't know what you mean but as soon as a DoT ticks it will remove Shadowing Beyond's invisibility. This does not happen with Smoke Veil. I played several times with a solo Assassin and it always was like that. Shadowing Beyonds was impossible to use effectively with DoTs in place. True Love's Kiss only works from stealth, NOT invisibility. I did a test in another thread some months ago, maybe I can find it again and link here. Ajamuut's Stalking cloak works from stealth, Whisper of the Wind and Vanishing Strokes iirc but not from other sources of invisibility. As one can see different invisibility effects are all implemented differently (which is bad but that's how it is). Pulsing spells like Freezing Pillar, Chillfog etc. are not DoTs in this regard. They do an attack roll with every pulse - unlike DoTs which only do an attack roll with the first hit. Pulsing spells that deal damage will break invisibility with every pulse. Only exception: Wall spells will not break Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure. But they also don't profit from Assassinate, so... If you see other behaviours it must be due to glitches or mods. It if you are playing turn based it's maybe different there.

You should see it on the enemy. It's not invisible. It would look a bit like Gouging Strike: a hostile effect on the enemy with an icon and without duration. Note that attack from invisibility do not work, only attacks from stealth. You must use it in the main hand, not the offhand because stealth will be gone as soon as the main hand hits. Never bump into enemies before attacking - this will lift stealth. You may think you attacked from stealth but you didn't because it broke a millisecond before. Don't move up to he enemy manually and then order the attack. Instead order the attack from a distance. Maving targets are harder to successfully attack from stealth with a melee weapon. Wait until they stand still for a bit. With the ability itself I never had any problems. Never use Shadowing Beyond with DoTs (it will break), always use Smoke Veil (which will niot break on DoTs) when you want to flee after hitting from stealth. The DoT of Strike the Bell/Ring the Bell only works when you use one handed melee weapons. Ranged weapons want Pierce the Bell. Check the description of Strike the Bell and the upgrades. Ring the Bell is for melee one handers, Break the Bell is for melee two handers and Pierce the Bell is for ranged weapons of all kind.

I you use the console to get the item the exported character will be marked as cheated and hiring him will also mark your game as cheated. However, if you load up am uncheated savegame where you got the weapon the proper way and export it you can import it into your other savegame without any problems. It's just a bit expensive to import unique items etc. It is possible to use other players' exported characters. You can share them. So if somebody has an uncheated savegame with an item you want you could ask if they woul be willing to export a char for you.

This also works with a mortar in the main hand I guess - you wouldn't even need to switch weapons. I'd even argue the effect maybe even stronger with Fire in the Hole because enemies get pushed "one AoE instance more often" because of Chain Shot?

Clear Out is a primary attack. It only allows ranged weapons if you carry them in the main hand and wear a melee weapon or bashing shield in the offhand. So only one-handed ranged weapons in the main hand work. Not Assassin, but Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke + Driving Flight + Avenging Storm is very potent because Blinding Smoke triggers Avenging Storm. Fire in the Hole is better without Avenging Storm. I don't think the jumps get Assasinate bonuses. Both are good in combination with Combusting Wounds, too. Karabörü is good if you can trigger its AoE cone. You can also increase the chance of that happening with a Monk/Fighter combo with Swift Flurry instead of Assassin. Sungrazer, if it kills with a crit, triggers Extinction event which is very potent, but it will get no Assassinate bonus because it comes after. Keeper of the Flame with high Religion is good. Whispers of the Endless Paths is good with Clear Out if enemies get lured into a spot. Same is Citzal's Spirit Lance (no Assassin obviously). Also Kalakoth's Minor Blights with an offhand melee weapon. Any Morning Star is good to apply Body Blows in an AoE with Clear Out. Subsequent Cler Outs then have the benefit of targeting -25 fortitude defense. A Monk/Fighter with Swift Flurry cn abuse that a bit. With Saru Sichr there's a nice trick: The DoT of Saru Sichr is very slow, BUT it stacks with itself AND you can trigger a tick for all stacks by hitting the enemy (and thus applying the DoT again which triggers the ticks for all instances I guess). It seems to work like Combusting Wounds sort of. That means if you hit fast enough the damage is very good after some hits. The additional effects of the DoT (paralyze or kill on tick) are cumulative. So it's 5% chance for every instance of the DoT on the target. With Swift Flurry now you can sometimes trigger several crits on several enemies with just one Clear Out. I used Saru Sichr on Xoti (Monk/Priest) recently and was pretty surprised by the performance against weaker enemies (bc. Swift Flurry) but also against tough nuts (bc. stacking DoTs) so I tested it more with other combos as well and came to Clear Out. It's not "instant fun" like with mortars or so but can be very effective over time. If you have several enemies in a corner where they can't be pushed apart a lot then the Weyc's Wand with Revelating Missiles is just bonkers. The seal stacks and ticks every sec. Its dmg profits from all weapon dmg anchancements including Sneak Attack etc. Imo even better with Ranger/Fighter due to Driving Flight doubling the hit rolls. Against lower level kith the Magistrate's Cudgel is pretty jawdropping from stealth with an Assassin/Fighter. On crit rolls they just die. Scordeo's Trophy can be used to gain a lot of recovery-reducing stacks very quickly with Clear Out.

For Arcane Archer/Streetfighter I very much recommend Fire in the Hole for the main hand (and whatever melee weapon you like for the offhand). And if you use Fire in the Hole - and also for the imbue shots - you want high INT. Again: MIG is not that important. PER, DEX and INT should be the main focus, then MIG, CON and RES. Skill: obviously Arcana (max it).

What I found a bit annoying with a melee/ranged weapon setup is that sometimes when I wanted to shoot stuff and was pretty near (but not in melee range yet) the char moved the small distance and attacked with the melee weapon instead of the ranged weapon. So I often make sure I aim at enemies that are more far away even if I would prefer to shoot somebody who's nearer. By the way: some "melee only" abilities work with a ranged/melee weapon setup. For example Hunter's Claw can be used with Fire in the Hole (if the other hand holds a melee weapon). Against groups of enemies you will gain a lot of stacks with one single shot because of the AoE and the 2 jumps. Whirling Strikes: same (but only SC Ranger of course). Clear Out has the same effect: mortars + Clear Out = lots and lots of attack rolls. Very good with Avenging Storm and/or Combusting Wounds.

DEX is the only thing that increases casting speed. DEX also affects recovery and reloading time. The rest of all the other "speed" bonuses only affects recovery and/or reloading time. So DEX is absolutely necessary if you want to cast fast. One reason why Durance is considered to have bad attributes is his low DEX. I think if you want a frontline priest Durance is pretty solid though. Of course Priests get great spells before lvl 7. Prayer against Fear is one of the best spells to have against anything that has a fear aura (most notably Dragons), Consecrated Ground is a good survival tool if you cast it before things go south (not while), Iconic Projection only has to overcome 1/4th of DR because it is a fixed dmg spell and thus has some good uses and most famously Devotions for the Faithful not only buffs your party with insane ACC but at the same time debuffs enemies' the same way - which is awesome for a frontline priest. Shining Beacon is devastating with high MIG and INT. If you combine it with Champion's Boon (+10 MIG, +10 PER etc.) and Inspiring + Aggrandizing Radiance (+10 ACC, +2 MIG and PER etc.) it will do tremendous damage over time (even better with Minor Avatar). And so on and so forth. Speaking of DoTs and Holy Radiance + Priest's Dispositions: if you build a max MIG/INT priest and use Aggrandizing Radiance and Minor Avatar and max out your dispositions you can one-shot nearly all but the toughest vessels (like high level Fampyrs etc.) with your Holy Radiance because on a crit it can reach over 300 burn damage (that's per target). Also the healing will be good. If you don't want to invest in that kind of minmaxing that then I agree that dispositions will not do much for you. It's true that Priests have bad endurance and health numbers. You will need to make use of Potions of Infuse with Vital Essence if you want to prevent a lot of resting due to health. That is because also his defenses are not so great and in early levels he will get hit no matter what you equip him with. Later with more defensive spells this will change and a Priest can become sturdy enough to not be a liability in the front line.

With a ranged/melee setup also Blood Thirst and other melee-only stuff like One Stands Alone etc. would become usable. Unfortunately Barbaric Smash only refunds on kill and it's more tricky to kill reliably with a single weapon attack compared to a Full Attack. But that would be the only downside (besides the Rogue's other Full Attacks being limited to single strikes then).

I guess by Berserker you mean Barbarian. Because there's no Berserker in PoE1 - but there is one in Deadfire as a Barbarian subclass. Streetfighter with blunderbuss is very straightforward. If you want to use Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole (which I would recommend unless you want to build a Mortar Monk in the same party as well) then you want max INT because of the AoE of both weapons. If you want to use "regular" blunderbusses you don't need that much INT. With regular blunderbusses there's a small problem: you need backup weapons with non-pierce dmg because there's quite some pierce-resistant or even -immune enemies. But that's all basically. For a damage dealer you want high PER and DEX and also usually MIG - a Streetfigter can do with less MIG though because he already gets a ton of dmg bonuses so that a little chunk from MIG isn't really noticable. DEX (being a multiplicative dps influence rather than MIG which is additive only) is more important. PER, too because not only do blunderbusses have an ACC malus but also Powder Burns will cost you 5 PER because of the distraction it will put on you. As second class: you can use Barbarian or even Berserker. Berserker is nice because of the added PEN, but besides that it's also very dangerous because the self damage is high and you can't see you health. On the other hand you can get yourself to bloodied (50% health) in no time and then you're not only "On the Edge" (where your Streetfigter gets a lot of bonus crit damage) but also profit from Blooded of the Barbarian. Combined with Bloody Slaughter and Barbaric Smash you can do a lot of damage in a very short time and even get a Rage refund if you use it as killing blow (way better then Finishing Blow imo). Some additional cool stuff with Berserker + mortar blunderbusses: you can either apply Spirit Frenzy's staggered in an AoE with every shot or Blood Frenzy's raw DoT which stacks with Deep Wounds etc. With Blood Storm + mortars you will land crits so frequently that your Frenzy will stay on forever without recast, too. But so will the self damage (so beware). There's one other problem with Berserker Frenzy. It confuses you. That means with mortars the AoE will get smaller and you will hit your friends with the AoE. That last part may not be as bad as it sounds because you will hit friends with Powder Burns already so you want to make sure nobody friendly is where you are aiming your blunderbusses. You can get rid of confusion by using Svef, eating special food at rest (like Luminous Lobster) or using items (like the Devil of Caroc Breastplate which can be enchanted with a resistance which makes you basically immune to Confusion. It's a great armor for a Rogue/Barb anyway so I would aim for that). There are other problems with Barb/Berserker: Blood Thirst doesn't work with reloading weapons - you will still have the reloading time. It's one of the best passives of a Barbarian so that's a shame. Berserker Frenzy has a really good crit conversion. But it only works in melee. There are other passives that don't work with ranged weapons, like Interrupting Blows. So... it's fun but it's tricky. Since it's a bit difficult to monitor your health you will def. go down in combat from time to time. High CON and a fat health pool with passives like "Tough" and at the beginning an Amulet of (Greater) Health can help. A healer, too of course. So with a Berserker high(ish) CON isn't the worst idea. Like... don't dump it. Stalwart Defiance and the Voidward Ring are two things (among others) that may save you a lot of headache. If you have a Priest in the party you can use Barring Death's Door + Salvation of Time on your Streetfighter/Berserker which gives him god mode basically. Besides Barbarian/Berserker there are other classes that fit nicely: Ranger has high accuracy and the other obvious ranged abilities like Gunner and so on but also Driving Flight (especially awesome with mortars since the AoE also jumps). If you don't like animal companions there's the Ghost Heart subclass. With mortars and Driving Flights there will be mayhem. If you use stuff like Blinding Strike with that setup it's like a guarantee that you will always hit all enemies because there's so many attack rolls. Fire in the Hole has a build-in jump. It stacks with Driving Flights. If you pick an Arcane Archer: his Imbue shots release their effect with every jump. Fire in the Hole in the main hand with Driving Flight and Imbue:Eora will drop three(!) Pulls of Eora with enormous accuracy which will pull everything together. Now hitting with AoE stuff becomes so easy - while it's also a great CC effect obviously. If you combine it with Imbue:Web you will have locked those clumped enemies in place, too (3 parallel instances of binding web stop anything that isn't resistant/immune). Monk is very good as second class, too. Especially with mortars. Monks have Duality of Mortal Presence which can give you +10 INT. It leads to very big AoE sizes for your mortars. Also Monks have Stunning Surge which is excellent with mortars, too. Basically it's a free AoE stun without costs most of times in this combo. The Helwalker subclass even adds up to +10 MIG which is cool - but it also makes you more squishy (but nowhere as bad as Berserker). And also Monks can use Thunderous Blows ti get that sweet +2 PEN that the Berserker comes with, only later. Enduring Dance adds not only wounds to fuel your abilites but also let you gain up to 12 ACC which is good. Finally Lightning Strikes make you even faster and add a sweet shocking lash. Also with the Long Pain the Monk later gets an excellent backup for blunderbusses should you need crush dmg at range or simply want to finish off single enemies with good single target damage (mortars are not that good then). Chanter is also a good second class, especially Troubadour because he has an easy time to keep up two parallel phrases at once. When you combine Mith Fyr + Sure Handed Ila you (and the party) will be having a nice burning lash and incredibly fast shooting speed (because Sure Handed Ila has this effect with reloading weapons that it applies both the recovery bonus AND the reloading bonus to your blunderbusses - stacked with your Streetfighter recovery bonus from "Heating Up"). And besides the shooting you'd also have plenty of cool invocations to choose from. For example summons that will help to keep enemies away from you. Black Jacket Fighter would allow you to switch weapon sets without any recovery. You could basically fire blunderbusses as soon as you want to heat up, then switch to something else and use the lightning speed with those weapons instead. Plenty of options. I personally consider Streetfigter/Arcane Archer and Streetfigter/Helwalker with dual mortars (Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole) to be most fun - but that's my subjective opinion. I like strong "on the fly" CC in combination with damage and both have plenty. Berserker/Streetfighter is brute force. Lots of dmg and speed but little CC. And risky - but that can be fun, too. Troubadour/Streetfighter is strong and very versatile - but it requires to do more diverse stuff, not just shooting. Which might not be what you're looking for (?).