Boeroer

I played a solo PotD Geomancer (Stalker/Bloodmage) which was pretty fun. I used the trinity of Geomancer, Bear & Essential Phantom. But it was micro-intense. In my case that was no problem of course... since it was solo. Example: I soloed Neriscyrlas without any resting bonuses and bonuses from consumables (not even food) and destroyed her quickly. Or I should say my Phantom did... I didn't try Megabosses though.

Immunity to disengagement attacks: Engagement is not affected. The immunity just converts 100% of all disengagement attacks to misses. That's on Nomad's Brigandine. Same with Giphon Prudensco. Entonia Signet Ring works as usual. Stuff like Grog (pet), Threatening Presence (Barb) and such grants immunity to engagement. Entonia Signet gives no bonus because there's no engagement. In fact Nomad's Brigandine works really well with this setup because you can just break engagement, trigger disengagment attacks and all of them will be misses - which means Offensive Parry will trigger every time. Perfect to speed things up and lauch a bunch of Offensive Parries against slow hitting enemies who engaged you. You only need to step away a little bit.

Yes indeed. Psion is a Cipher subclass who doesn't need to use weapons in order to generate his "spell fuel" named focus. It just comes to him like a steady trickle. Just avoid getting hit because that will stop the trickle for some time. But that's easy because of all the summons & mind controlled foes. You'll rarely have problems with getting attacked too much. Troubadour is a Chanter subclass. It has a passive called "Brisk Recitation" that lets you gather phrases a lot more quickly. Like with a Psion, Chanters' "spell fuel" comes with time: they sing phrases. For every elapsed phrase they get a point which can be used for "invocations". Summoning a bunch of skeletons for example is done by such an invocation. The good thing about Psion/Troubadour is that while you are using the one fuel the other is reloading. The phrases can be used to load up invocation points for summons while the focus loads up and can be used for mind control then. The other good thing is that besides gaining resources so effortlessly and being good at summoning/mind controlling a Psion/Troubadour is very versatile (if you let him be). Healing, support, debuffing, crowd control, damage - it can all be done with such a character. Imagine you meet a bunch of enemies who can't be mind controlled (e.g. imps): just shock them with "Soul Shock" instead. Or there are enemies who can move across the battlefield easily and just circumvent your summons to get to you: paralyze them with "Killers froze Stiff". And so on. But generally speaking the combo of mind control + mass summoning is very powerful. It's good to have some kind of Wizard in the party. Preferably one who can cast debuffs with high accuracy (e.g. Assassin/Wizard or Arcane Archer/Wizard or something like that) because a well-placed Miasma of Dull-Mindedness will lower the Will defense of enemies by 40 points straight and that's the defense your Psion/Troubadour wants to overcome.

Like a 6th party member would be annoying I guess...

Sharpshoter/Troubadour with Red Hand and Gunner, Sure Handed Ila, Sharpshooter's Garb, Acina's Tricorn, Aefyllath Mith Fyr is fun.

Wizards have no summons besides Essential and Substancial Phantom* (which are great though since they get all your items you currently wear) and no charm or dominate. But you can do both with one character: summoning tons of creatures AND charming/dominating foes. Use a Psion/Troubadour and focus on summons (Troubadour) and Mind Control (Psion). Start with summoning Skeletons and charming enemies with Whisper of Treason. Just note that charmed enemies will turn hostile again if you or your allies hit them. So leave them be until they flip alliance back. Later you can dominate foes (no flipping back wheh hit by allies) and summon additional skeletons "passively" with the phrase "Many Lives Pass By". You ca fill half the screen with friendly creatures this way and gang up on the only remaining hostile enemy. Repeat until all enemies are dead. )* and maybe some tentacles later

I might remember that wrongly. I did a test about additional attack rolls (Disengagement Attacks, Offensive Parry, Riposte, Swift Flurry, Cleaving Stance etc.) and focus generation a while ago and some of those don't generate focus. Maybe Riposte did, not sure anymore... 😊

How did you determine the time need for a swap? And did you guys know that you can swap SoF etc. a lot faster if you move the mouse cursor a tiny bit on the icon after each click? That way you will prevent the game from registering a double-click.

Why massive? It doesn't stack with other active speed buffs like Swift Strikes, Swift Aim, Deleterious Alacrity or Frenzy and 20% is not particularly high. However some speed buffs in PoE - if they stack - will have increasing returns. So if you already have Durgan Steel, Gauntlets of Swift Action and maybe even Sure Handed Ila (which does stack with Hastening Exhortation) then it might seem supergood. But its effect does the same as for example Swift Aim and is worse than Frenzy. I mean it somehow is good because its duration is quite long. But 3/rest makes it unpopular really - even though x/rest has the advantage that you can indeed use it x times in one encounter when you really need it - and just skip it if you don't. I would be tempted if it was 4/rest - like most spell uses are. 4-5 big fights per rest sounds reasonable. Resting every 3 fights seems a bit too frequent.

Yes, but the freeze-paralyze which circumvents resistances does proc with the Chillfog-crits - and that's what matters most. Focus is coming anyway for a Psion - Soul Mind is not a reason not to use one of the most powerful effects in the game. Would be even better if you gained focus from it, but still extremely good imo.

I would strongly recommend to use Berath Blessing points to unlock the merchant in Port Maje. The Cloak of Greater Deflection makes a difference. Bracers of Greater Deflection come way later. Entonia Signet Ring comes rel. earl in Fort Deadlight and is very good if you fight enemies who have engagement. Offensive Parry and Riposte will stack (Offensive Parry is a single target retaliation while Riposte does the normal cone attack of WotEP) but only Offensive Parry will generate focus. I personally favor Nomad's Brigandine over Casita Samelia's Legacy or other armors (when with party) because the +10 to melee deflection is rel. hassle-free, the AR is good and also the immunity to Disengagement Attacks is just great with Offensive Parry + Riposte (because the immunity is handled like a 100% auto-miss).

Don't be discouraged. The Digside fight is just too difficult compared to the other content around. You can sneak around and avoid the fight - and maybe that's what Obsidian wanted you to do - but most new players just reload and reload until they become extremely frustrated. Maybe not the best encounter design in hindsight. If one knows the mechanics better it's not that tough - or one addicentially or knowingly has more front-loaded characters in the party. But rel. new players will notice a huge spike in difficulty. Don't give up - it gets a lot easier after that.

With deflection (as with any defense) you have increasing returns: every additional point has more impact than the one before. Because of that I would max RES and get all the deflection bonuses I could get. Soulblade/Trickster can stack Borrowed Instincts and Mirrored Images, but you should also try to debuff enemies' accuracy. Psychovampiric Shield: also good. MIG isn't that important because Trickster/Cipher already gets enough dmg bonuses. You could leave it at 10 imo. INT, RES and then PER and DEX would be my priorities.

Both Barbarian/Fighter as well as Barbarian/Paladin fit your needs. Besides Steel Garrote you can also pick Kind Wayfarer. The heal of White Flames also will affect you.

I don't understand what you mean with crits or crit numbers when you describe damage ticks. DoTs don't change hit quality after they got applied. The ticks' dmg will increase/decrease with power level and MIG etc. - but they will not turn from hit to crit or so. Pulsing spells (like Wicked Briars or Venombloom) can do that though.

Imo the pet is the strongest suit when going solo because you can "stack" it with summons. I played a solo Stalker/Bloodmage in heaviest armor with Willbreaker and Blightheart. Made use of Takedown Combo from Bear + Essential Phantom with one-handed Draining Touch. Didn't try Megabosses (too grindy), but enemies like Neriscyrlas were done easily. A Geomancer has nearly everything imo: interrupts, good defenses and AR, good ACC, summons + additional body. It lacks healing first but you can manage with Corrosive Siphon until you get Wall of Draining and prolong healing shots from Blightheart and Healing Hands (Minor Lay on Hands) or simply potions so you can't really die except by one-shots.

I would do it the other way round: soften them up with Soul Annihilation and then finish them off with Barbaric Smash. For keeping the Rage.

It's good to have fun. I'd say that's just discovering the Ancient though. The spore summons are very good in the early game and Wild Growth is great, too (has no/unlimited duration, so very long summon durations are great for tanking). I don't see any special synergy between Berath and Ancient that would explain any exceptional power growth. No speed bonuses, no spectacular ACC bonuses, not vastly increased MIG or INT for the DoTs without having to cast lengthy buffs first. You'll have multiple sources of certain spells like Touch of Rot etc. though. And thematically it's nice of course. I'd argue that something like Helwalker/Ancient (+MIG and +INT for your DoTs, longer summoning duration, more ACC) , Bellower/Ancient (Wild Growth on empowered beast and primordial chanter summons) or Stalker/Ancient (ACC++) would be even better? Even Barbarians/Ancient maybe (Blooded + Bloody Slaughter complementing the Death Godlike's passives and giving casting Speed and MIG and also an additional raw DoT on any crit with Blood Frenzy or lowering fortitude with Spirit Frenzy kind of passively). But maybe I'm missing something. Like "abusing" Barring Death's Door + Salvation of Time in order to stay at +3 PL at all times or so. That is of course very good. Especially when combined with Spine of Thicket Green's +3 PL for Beast DoTs like Plague of Insects etc.

Yes, there is. reddit server: "Project Eternity". The official Obsidian server: "Obsidian Entertainment".

Last time I used it with a Devoted/Bleak Walker while doing some dmg tests and the self damage was easily countered by Constant Recovery, the heal on kill Voidwheel provides and Abraham (pet).

Chromoprismatic Staff is one of the 2H weapons with the best single target dps if you are willing to invest in Metaphysics. Also has a potential AoE component. Comes rel. late though. The great sword "Effort" is also good. It's raw DoT lash doesn't stack but it's still quite powerful. Voidwheel: not bad as well. Citzal's Spirit Lance with Soul Annihilation?

Works well with melee weapon + Tuotilo's Palm. Why doesn't it work with a melee/ranged setup (never tried)?

I wouldn't take it. It does provide an instant wound and +3 ACC on activation but that doesn't warrant the 2 Mortification imo. You could retrain once you get Instruments of Pain though because that often leads to getting hit a lot less. But the ACC still wouldn't stack with Borrow. Instincts so I don't know...

Curse with maxed INT isn't a problem if you also max RES and focus on items and food with -x% hostile effects. Because maluses are far more impactful than bonuses in Deadfire the effects of 10 INT vs. 30 INT aren't that far off IF the maluses to hostile effect duration are big enough. Especially when combined with a high-INT Clarity of Agony. If you solo you can also use the Ring of the Lone Survivor which adds another big malus to hostile effect duration. High INT is only a "problem" in the early-ish game. But there you don't need to spam FF that much imo because less enemies.

Phew - that explains a lot.