Boeroer

Arcane Archer with Fire in the Hole + Hand Mortar (Serafen's blunderbusses) specifically. Arcane Archer's Imbue shots trigger their effects per projectile jump (or bounce). Fire in the Hole has a build-in bounce called Chain Shot which stacks with Driving Flights. So you'll get three instances of the imbued spell. For example 3 fireballs from one shot of Imbue:Fireball instead of just one. Normal blunderbusses are bad with an Arcane Archer's Imbue shots because the first projectile will trigger the effect (e.g. Fireball) but then the rest of the projectiles will get canceled. Also mortars are great in combo with Helwalker because the +10 INT from Duality of Mortal Presence will increase the AoE of the mortars a lot. That will lead to more hit rolls on enemies. And that will lead to an easy time collecting crits for Stunning Surge. Best approach imo is to fire an Imbue:web from stealth, followed by an immediate Imbue:eora and then shower the clump of enemies with Stunning Surge until dead. It's the absolute CC zone of death. I would max INT on such a dude. But 15 is also ok.

2. 10 is the general value of the armor. If it has no separate values for certain dmg types it's just all 10. Actually it's not really 2 because there's some MIN-dmg mechanic that makes sure that you do at least 20% of the rolled damage even if enemies' DR is higher or nearly as high as your dmg: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Damage_Reduction But for the sake of the argument let's assume it's 2. I mean... I love Barbs... I personally would run a Barb and a Monk. But I know many players have issues with the Barb... A Monk is best used (imo) with a dual fast weapon (or dual fist) setup with high INT, spamming Torment's Reach as often as possible. Or play a ranged/melee hybrid Monk which was one of the most entertaining ways to play a Monk for me: But Monks can be played in a lot of ways because they can do severl things well: CC, damage, tanking (after some levels)... Powerwise I think a Cipher trumps a Monk. Good weapon damage AND good spells (especially Mind Control) is quite hard to beat.

Forbidden Fist/Cipher can be very good. Enfeebled does stack with Lingering Echoes and combined with the +10 INT from Duality of Mortal Presence and Psychovampiric Shield you can get absurd durations for all effects you put on enemies (e.g. Dominate or Disintegrate).

Nope. The only two styles that can stack ares Weapon & Shield Style + Two Weapon Style - when you are using a bashing shield.

That looks very nice. I didn't see any mistakes. Funny version of Linkin Park's "Numb" by the way.

I guess you played Pillars of Eternity before - just not on PotD difficulty. I wouldn't put the backline in cloth right from the start. You can do that later once you have a bit more health. In the beginning DR has quite some impact on your survivability, later it will not. Certain enemies (especially ranged ones) will look for soft targets: low endurance/health, low defenses and low DR. If you build four squishy backliners and also put them in cloth they will get targeted a lot more as if the same characters had a somewhat decent DR value. A fast caster is of no use if he's knocked out. As I said you can gradually lower DR the more you level up. Besides that the classes don't matter much. If you have some experience with PoE then every class is viable for PotD. Chanters make rel. poor tanks early in the game (but can be great later on in that role). Mostly due to their low starting values. So they often need a bit help with the tanking. Thus your idea to add a second sturdy frontliner isn't bad. I personally would add a sturdy Monk. Also not the best tanker early on but Monks develop so well (I'd say they are the most potent martial class) and can become so meaty yet offensively effective that it's worth the first few levels to have a little harder experience: Fighters are the other way round: they start really strong due to their good starting values - but imo their "power curve" is quite flat. Paladin would be a safe pick. Even when build offensively (to keep it interesting) they are quite sturdy. Also Paladins can be great at support, especially raising a single ally's accuracy: Blunderbuss isn't bad per se. It's just very good against low DR targets and quite bad against high DR targets. So either you lower the enemies' DR with abilities/spells etc. and get some DR bypass or you switch to a different weapon when meeting high DR foes. You don't need a ton of INT on ranger (unless you want to use some AoE effects): I personally like to take the wolf instead of the bear. The added DR is good at first but not really impactful later on. The wolf has higher base damage and does very high dmg per hit - especially if you use the bow Persistance which unlocks Predator's Sense for your Animal Companion. In combination with Merciless Companion and so on it can deliver furious bites. It's not attacking fast, but it cracks even high DR foes because of its high dmg per attack. Animal Companion's base damage scales per level.

You simply move with the Animal Companion. If you don't zip around that's no problem. But even if you tend to use Evansive Roll a lot (and thus get separated from the Animal Companion) then Master's Call/Furious Call is actually a great ability to have. You zip somewhere and attack an enemy and at the same time call your AC to your side who will attack all enemies in line and knock them prone - for only 1 Bond. I like it - but it comes a bit late-ish.

You can use Marksman with a Stalker as well. Marksman gives you an accuracy bonus against enemies that are further away than 4 meters (from you). It doesn't matter whether you are a Stalker or some other Ranger. If you want to mix pistols with blunderbusses I would fire some rounds with Scordeo's Trophy first in ortder to stack some reload bonuses and then switch to blunderbusses. The reload bonus is timed and will not go away when you switch weapons iirc. One handed pistol is very good if you want an auto-attacker. Such a character can run on AI very effectively with minimal setup. If you want to use a lot of abilities, especially Full Attacks and extra-especially Stunning Surge then two blunderbusses (and mortars) are better. Just because the multiple hit rolls make a refund much more likely than a single pistol shot (even with Driving Flight).

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...