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Boeroer

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Everything posted by Boeroer

  1. The Soul Mind focus generation of SC Psion is better due to Power Level - but you will still have more casting downtime compared to Psion/Troubadour. The (not that much) better focus generation cannot compete with the dual resource generation. Also phrase generation doesn't stop on getting hit (or crit) which is a nice backup - and unlike chanting Soul Mind doesn't stop after invocations. I played Psion/Troubadour and it was one of the most entertaining classes I used because it was so versatile: damage, CC, debuffing, summons, healing, support - he can do it all and is also his responsiveness is great if you invest into DEX and you're not armoring up like crazy. I had almost no "waiting" time. Weapons can be pure "stat sticks". It also helps that a lot of the Troubadour's invocations are 0.5 sec casts which makes it all more dynamic. Another plus of the Troubadour: 1 empowered invocation per encounter via Sasha's Singing Scimitar. Late game: combine with the Weyc's Wand. The good thing about he Psion/Troub (always something to do) can also be a bad thing for some people: because he won't work with AI so well he needs attention. For me that's okay if it's the MC and I'm fine with micromanagement in general. And I even a SC Psion would need that anyway so maybe in this case it doesn't matter when it comes to comparing the two. I'm usually an advocate for Single Classes because I think they are underrated in party setups - but in case of Cipher in general I'm not that much. The high level abilities aren't as impactful imo as the ones of Wizards, Priests and Druids for example. Time Parasite can be very cool - but it doesn't help the focus generation of the Psion like it would do with the other Cipher subclasses so there still would be more downtime where you wait for more focus. And SC Psion's weapon attacks are really nothing to write home about (no Soul Whip bonus for example). I haven't played Psion/Wizard so I can't say how nice it is - but I would assume it would be more fun than SC Psion, too. Speaking of Wizard: If I were playing with a party and did another Psion/Troubadour, this time I would bring a Deboniare/Wizard along. Nice synergy: the first mass-charms (Ring Leader or The Lover Cried Out - doesn't matter) while the latter already prepares and then fires off a friendly-fire AoE spell on the charmed enemies with 100% crit conversion. No PEN issues, good dmg. Also a nice thematic fit imo.
  2. I like to juggle Grimoires and try to take mostly passives with a Wizard. But the spells I always want to be able to cast I will pick eventually.
  3. Devoted/Monk is a good combo imo. Swift Flurry + Hearbeat Drumming can be cool with Disciplined Strikes and the Chromoprismatic Staff (5 consecutive hits - sometimes possible with only one attack), Thunderous Blows stacks with the Devoted's PEN bons, the quarterstaff modal stacks with Vigorous Defense and fits nicely with Crucible of Suffering, cone attacks with Clear Out and Raisen Torment and so on. Devoted/Paladin: I don't think they are offensively nerfed. FoD crits as Devoted are quite good as you very often combine the higher crit dmg of the Devoted with an overpenetration bonus - and landing crits it rel. easy with Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC) + FoD (+10 ACC) and Disciplined Strikes (25% conversion). Devoted/Wizard was mentioned above (good). I also like Stell Garrote/Bloodmage. Like all Arcane Knights: top notch defensively. The life drain of the Steel Garrote stacks with the one from Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff - which is cool. If you also have an SC Furyshaper with Blood Ward in the party and a Chanter with Old Siec (they all stack) you will be the uberdrainer. Devoted with quarterstaff has one problem: can't use Monastic Unarmed Training or Transcendent Sufferring (as Devoted/Monk) as crush backup. Quarterstaffs already deal crush dmg. And there are none that deal other dmg. I case you meet crush immune foes you have to live with a -10 ACC malus. But that's not too bad imo.
  4. Hi and wecome! First of all: if you want a Druid then pick up Hariavias. He's fun imo (and good). Priests are one of the best classes in the game (I would even say the best) because their buffs are so insanely good, they can provide immunity with their prayers (which is important because some afflictions are really nasty) and at higher levels also have very good offensive spells. At lower levels it might not be that obvious how good they can make your party. But if you know some tricks they can have a big impact at low levels, too. Tanking is not the best option for a priest like Durance. His Resolve is okay, but he's still a priest (meaning his starting defenses are bad) and he is quite slow. This means it takes some time for him to put out spells - and every chance that he gets interrupted by enemies makes this process even slower. Better use Aloth for tanking if you must. He has very fast self buffs that help with defenses a lot. Later you can also use Sagani's Fox. He will go down from time to time but Animal Companions have no health bar (only endurance) so it's not bad if he gets pummeled - he won't force you to rest because of low remaining health. I always strongly recommed to take Inspiring Randiance for any Priest. It provides a +10 ACC bonus for everybody in range. It's rel. short-lived - but it can help enormously to land the first debuffs/CC abilities of your party. And that can make fights a LOT easier, especially in the first levels. Also Inspiring Radiance's ACC buff stacks with EVERYTHING (even itself if you have more than one Priest). You can combine it with Zealous Focus (Paladin), Disciplined Strikes (Fighter) or Blessing (Priest) - and because the tier-4 Priest spell "Devotions for the Faithful" also stacks with those a Priest can provide a stackable +30 ACC bonus to your party. Which is huge. That's like 10 levels worth of accuracy. What helps Durance a lot to become a better buffer is higher casting speed. The easiest way to achieve that is low recovery penalty from armor and more importantly: more DEX. DEX not only affects recovery (like all other speed bonuses do) but is the only(!) thing that also speeds up the casting time itself. So if you see some item with a bonus to DEX: give it to Durance. Attribute bonuses on items don't stack - so just pick the item with the highest DEX bonus. Another way to give him more DEX for some time is using Aggrandizing Radiance. It buffs all attributes by 2, including DEX. It's also short-lived but it gets applied at the same time as Inspiring Radiance (so no additional casting time) and helps you to cast your first important buffs in battle faster. I like it but it's not everybody's cup of tea. Durance can wear a shield no problem. But I wouldn't put him where he constantly gets attacked. You could turn him into an offtank and it might work - but it will slow down his spell output and that's what makes Priests so valuable, not their tanking capabilites or their weapon usage. I usually have him use an arquebus and give him the fitting weapon focus and priest talent - sincee this gives him the same accuracy with the weapon that a fighter has. So he can also shoot stuff reliably if you want to spare some spells or are simply out of spell uses. You could also give him the Forgemaster Gloves + Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and let him use Firebrand. That's a summoned Great Sword made of flames which is thematically fitting. Good thing is that summoned weapons will just profit from any weapon focus and also any of the priests' weapon talents. The are "universal" which is cool. Soulbound weapons do the same, so that's also an option. Sword + board also works well because he comes with good Resolve as I said. But that's mainly to discourage enemies from focusing on him, not for real tanking. Enemies prefer to focus on soft targets. If you give him good defenses via a shield they will often target somebody else and won't disturb him. Usually it's the arquebus for me though. It's convenient and works. It has high dmg per shot but is very slow. But a Priest doesn't shoot non-stop anyways like a Ranger would but may only want to shoot every now and then between spells - so that's okay. Theoretically you can build Priests in all kinds of fashion - melee, nuker, healer, buffer of course - but Durance has a rel. particular set of attributes which make him most suitable for buffing and healing I think (good MIG and INT for buffing and healing power but low PER, making it harder to actually hit enemies).
  5. If I were you I would have done a second playthrough of PoE with the WM expansions. They are quite good imo and I think PoE has a lot of replay value. Currently a third installment of the PoE series is not likely to happen because in comparison to PoE,Deadfire was not a convincing financial success and the developers were pretty disappointed. Deadfire broke even some time ago so it wasn't a financial desaster - but I guess as developer/publisher you just expect more. Maybe the the aquisition by Microsoft and the Game Pass programm there's still hope, but so far there are no official infos about it. The next game set in Eora will be "Avowed", but it's a 1st-person game like Skyrim etc., not a isometic-ish party RPG.
  6. With "irresistible" I meant that Resistance won't do much. Guess the wording was too fuzzy. Immunity is something else of course. I knew from my latest Psion/Troubadour run that there were quite a lot of enemies with resistances and some with immunities - but I couldn't remember specificly annoying high level immune enemies. I didn't fight the Water Dragon but made the deal - else I would have rememberes that... I guess. And I was too lazy to properly research the wiki because doing a quick text search with "immunity to dexterity" yielded quite chaotic results. Thanks for the list.
  7. Okay, you go first. I'll be right behind you, I promise...
  8. It competes with PL8 spells of course (why PL9?). But imo if I really want to terrify without using too many resources it's great. Deals good dmg, too. Freezing Rake and Piercing Burst etc. are nice of course (Wall of Many Colors is cool as well - but who wants to give up their Wall of Draining for it? ), but the real bombs come at PL9 so I don't give up too much firepower imo. Maybe your primary role is CC and not dmg - then this is a nice option I think.
  9. I played an Berserker/Ancient with the Stag form with the Community Patch which turns the absolutely lame Stag AoE attack into a weaker form of Barb's Carnage - and they both stack. It's cool but not too powerful. Casting some DoTs before shifting, then running around as Stag dealing good melee dmg with dual Carnage. Using Taste of the Hunt and Stalwart Defiance to counter the Berseker's self dmg. It was fun. Berserker/Fury is also fun as nuker - but needs some healing support from the party because Stalwart Defiance sometimes isn't enough and Furies can't use Rejuvenation spells (Taste of the Hunt works though). Taking some of the elemental PEN talents, Berserker Frenzy and the Fury passive and you can cast elemental spells with +4 PEN which is great. You can even grab Deltro's Cage and Lord Darryn's Voulge and give your Storm spells some real Power Level boost on top of the PEN bonus. And melee is also good just with the Voulge + Carnage.
  10. Ah, but that's only the case if you have installed the expansions before starting with the main game. If you played and nearly completed the main game - or even already completed it - and only then buy and install the expansions there will be no carrot. There will only be one sentence in the store that tells you that those expansion don't take place after the main game. And if you believed that the expansions may take place after the main game as so many other expansions of RPGs do then you might have overlooked that. Completely understandable. And since so many players used to ask that question it seems that this is a common problem. But of course you knew it better. Such a nice brain. My applause
  11. SC Wizard with Caedebald's Blackbow + Essential Phantom is an excellent terrifier imo.
  12. Nice idea. Maybe the summons are too good though to use them as Chillfog fodder. But if the are about to die anyways... Since I played a Berserker/Beckoner and annihilated everything but the strongest enemies in seconds with Grave Calling + Ancient Brittle Bones I won't touch that thing anymore. One could do something similar (but less powerful) with Hel Beckoning + Noxious Burst and Beckoner whisps or exported figurines which summon shadows/shades by the way.
  13. Thematically Corpse Eater/Shifter is cool, unfortunately Corpse Eater is one of the least effective subclasses because in a lot of fights (without kith/beasts/wilder) he's just worse than a vanilla Barb. Barbarian/Caster is often a good mix because you'll get the action speed buff of Frenzy which helps with the casting times and the dmg (more might and in case of Berserker more PEN). Then there's also Spiritshift of course. You can play a Barbarian/Druid in many different ways. Think about Berserker/Fury who spams elemental spells with up to +4 PEN or Furyshaper/Ancient who terrifies, staggers and weakens enemies while using raw DoTs. Or a melee Shifter variant like you said. Generally speaking I think the Berserker/Shifter is a better combo - but you can make the Corpse Eater/Shifter work well imo if you concentrate on the Barbarian passives and don't "waste" Rage points on usually cheap Barbarian actives that would be cheap normally but as a Corpse Eater have their price doubled. I would do something like a "on kill" build I guess. Frenzy is kind of mandatory, but I would go the Blood Storm route because at least its duration can be extended with kills. I would use Barbaric Smash as "finisher" only - in order to get the Rage back on kill. Bloodlust, Bloody Slaughter and Blood Thirst are your friends. Nature's Terror, cast before shifting, is great imo.
  14. Hello and welcome! There's a bit confusion about base dmg and lashes. None of those weapons had a lash. Instead they have a "normal" additive dmg bonus. Lashes would be multiplicative dmg bonuses. For example: Firebrand has actually 25-35 base damage. What you see in the wiki (or on the tooltip ingame) is not the base dmg but instead it's the base dmg +45% already included). Firebrand has the "Damaging III" echantment which consists of+45% additive dmg bonus (which is not a lash) and +4 ACC. It also has the enchantment "Annihilation" (+50% additive extra crit damage bonus). Parasitic Staff, Firebrand and Spirit Lance (all the two handed summoned melee weapons) all have the same base dmg of 25-35 in PoE. Only their different qualities (Parasitic Staff -> Exceptional: 30%, Firebrand -> Damaging III: 45% and Spirit Lance -> Superb: 45%) lead to different tooltip values (or values in the wiki). But the base damage is always 25-35 (average 30). For Deadfire you don't need to mod the quality - because they are scaling automatically now. That means those additive dmg bonuses come automatically with level. You'd basically only need to alter the base damage. Great Swords normally have 18-24 base dmg in Deadfire. If you lift that to 25-35 that's already a very strong buff. Quarterstaffs have the same dmg values. I wouldn't add Annihilate to Deadfire's Firebrand because in Deadfire it comes with a 25% burning lash - which will be very good in combination with the higher base damage. There are several modders still active here who can tell you exactly what to do. I'm not one of them unfortunately.
  15. That may be the way you interpreted it, but not the way I put it. I neither said nor suggested that. I said that - to me - Grave Calling is more powerful than Engoliero do Espirs because the Chillfog (from Chilling Grave) also does proc the irresistible paralyze from Grave Bound (not only the actual weapons attacks). You might think differently - but you are adressing points I didn't make. Megabosses could also be paralyzed with the weapon crits vs. deflection if fortitude is too high. You'd need some vessels to proc Chillfog anayway. If you had the means of producing vessels (like via Many Lives Pass By for example) you would create so many Chillfogs that a few might crit eventually - at least with some crit conversion and some ACC buffs and fort debuffs. That should be possible - but it's not what I was going for. That wasn't why I mentioned the megabosses and their resistences. Instead I merely wanted to know which tough enemies come with a dex or body affliction immunity and remembered that not even megabosses have those. So I was genuinely wondering in which fights Grave Calling/Grave Bound might fail to work because I can't name a dex- or body affliction immune enemy from the top of my head.
  16. I didn't say that it's strange. I said it is more powerful than Engoliero do Espirs' Blade Feast. The paralyzation is irresistible (meaning resistances won't make a noticable difference because resistant enemies still become paralyzed). No megaboss has immunity to dex or body afflictions iirc. What are the meanest foes with such an immunity (I can't really remember)? Yes, but it's a bit of a "win more" thing. It's fun of course but in fights where you have trouble killing stuff in the first place it doesn't really turn the tides. But still: one of the best caster items imo. Especially with a Warlock (Berserker/Bloodmage). Because Blood Thirst + Blade Feast you know. I like "win more"...
  17. Well... who "had been" forgotten - but the Watcher made Durance popular again!
  18. Yes, I guess it's unintentional. But it's also lots of fun and not too powerful imo. Not like Grave Calling for example where the Chillfog procs the irresistible paralyze.
  19. Too bad. Maybe it's just better against weak mobs. The more the better.
  20. Engoliero procs on all kills (spells, DoTs etc. included) which makes it a neat caster tool. Yes, the AoE of Current's Rush is quite strong. I also first discovered the chain reaction thing on the dummies from the console. But of course those have abysmal defenses so it may not be as impressive against high-defense enemies. On the other hand: with all the cheesy buffs one can stack (and I didn't) it may still work on those, too.
  21. Hah, right. But one more reason to have good alternative weapon sets, right? Dmg variety is much more important in Deadfire than it is in PoE. Underpenetration is a severe disadvantage that has to be avoided. So best not to roleplay a Devoted with something else than a Devoted.
  22. As I wrote in another thread (where I told the stuff about Shared Nightmares/Soul Blade) the proc of Current's Rush (which does crush dmg) is an AoE which can proc itself(!) as Ondra's Wrath used to. If you have enough enemies in the AoE it can lead to a chain reaction that means instadeath (of enemies I mean). Since it only happens on crit this might mean it's not working so well on high defense enemies - but as I also wrote I had fabulous results with it on a SC ranger (bc. of Driving Flight + Twinned Shot maximizing proc chance) - with the normal AoE. So I reckoned it could be as good with a non-ranger but a huuuge AoE. It may take some time to proc on a single enemy, but when it does and there's enough enemies around it has the potential to go *boom-boom-boom* all the way. It was a killer on that SC Ranger (also with Whirling Strikes in combo with club+modal).
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