Boeroer

@Griffonheart Back in the days it was a "one-shooting mobs" build. But of course it can also do AoE DoTs very well.

I've been advocating a true* Spiritshift modal since PoE 1. Like all modals it would have needed a downside. Back then I suggested "no spell casting" while shifted. Years later we got the Shifter subclass... 🤷‍♂️ * in the sense of "turn on and off as often as you want".

Why with Blights? Their AoE is rel. small compared to a rod's Blast iirc. And with Watershaper's Focus you'd even get a bounce (AoE, too) which makes it easy to apply stuff like Gouging Strike to even more enemies (and/or have two chances of hitting with it).

Indeed. I once played a solo Assassin/Bleak Walker with triple "endless" DoTs just because of those mechanics: Love's True Kiss (from the dagger Lover's Embrace) + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy. You use Gouging Strike with +42 ACC* from stealth which will apply both Love's True Kiss' and Gouging Strike's DoT and then immediately (bc. of 85% recovery bonus of stealth) follow with Brand Enemy**. It has a 0.5 sec casting time and no recovery which means you can immediately follow with Smoke Veil*** and then retreat far enough to be out of sight. There you can wait until the enemy dies. The combat will not end because of the ticks. However, you need the space to retreat. There' some encounters where this is not doable, most notably boarding fights and the Water Dragon encounter. Megabosses can be killed with this, too. It just takes an absurd amount of time because they have enormous pools of HP. The triple DoT makes it faster - but against Dorudugan you mustn't use Brand Enemy because fire damage will heal instead of harm him. * +12 from one handed, +25 from Assassinate, +5 from Dagger. Weapon enchantments and other stuff like PER etc. come on top of course. ** Brand Enemy is cheap (1 Zeal) and is an auto hit. Because it's easy to not miss with the first attack from stealth this auto hit is perfect to almost guarantee the triple DoT appliance in a very short amount of time. *** Smoke Veil doesn't break on DoT ticks. Shadowing Beyond does. So you need to use Smoke Veil.

I never tried but I guess it might.

Weird. I know there's a bug that removes items' enchantments. I only saw it once in one of my playthroughs though. If you don't have shield engagement on Magran's Blessing that surely is a bug - because I have it on that shield:

Look no further: The enchantment "Ondra's Wrath" was nerfed since then and doesn't trigger itself anymore, but it's still very good. The second revelation of that build - that gaze spells like Gaze of the Adragan work with Driving Flight - somehow flew under the radar so maybe this is a good time to bring it up again. But maybe that was nerfed, too. 🤷‍♂️ Edit: just checked - Gaze otA doesn't bounce with Driving Flight anymore. :sad_panda_face

Bit offtopic but speaking of Priest and keeping stuff alive: did you guys know that Withdraw works on the Furyshaper's wards - and that they work perfectly fine even when withdrawn? They tend to get targeted a lot (at least when playing solo - but also in parties if they are very obviously the most squishy target around) so that takes away one nuisance quite elegantly. 👍 def. underappreciated by me - because I didn't even know that engagement triggers the ACC bonus of Stalker's Link. I always thought it works like in PoE where only the actual act of attacking counts. I never bothered to check this. I seldomly took Stalker's Link for AoE Rangers because I thought it's only useful against single targets. But if it works on all engaged enemies that's a different story...

Somebody suggested the same at 10K posts - and then complained on Discord that I didn't even notice.

This sounded odd to me. All bashing shields are considered proper shields and thus should get +1 engagement from the "Shield Engagement" item mod. But after reading it I couldn't really dismiss it with 100% certainty - so I loaded up the game and used all bashing shields on a lvl-1-Rogue with no other source of engagement: they all gave me +1 engagmenent.

For example Blood Ward of SC Furyshaper (it works with all kinds of damage, even DoT-ticks) can turn otherwise squishy damage dealers into sturdy ones. Add some Old Siec phrase from a fellow Chanter (less potent but still works with spells and stacks with the Blood Ward) and the Bloodmage in your party can go totally bonkers with non-stop nuking + Blood Sacrifice. Add some Triumph of the Crusaders from a Priest for good measure... --- Beckoner with upgraded Ancient Weapons + Priest with Spark the Souls of the Righteous. Ancient Weapons gang up on enemies and each will have a shocking AoE. --- A Ranger with Essence Interrupter putting the transform-effect on an Ancient Brittle Bones Skeleton and then another party member kills said skeleton with Grave Calling ("Calling"). You will spawn: a random summon bc. of Essence Interrupter a grave imp because of Calling two skeletons because of Ancient Brittle Bones (which also could get the same treatment which would result in 2 random summons and 2 imps all not counting towards the summoning limit. You can add some Many Lives Pass By skellies, too. --- Bellower summoning the Dragon (for a quite a long duration) and an Ancient putting Wild Growth on it. Wild Growth lasts forever - so as long as the Dragon's summoning durations isn't over he will be robust (+2 AR and healing every 3 secs) and also be gigantic. --- My favored stuff is a Priest casting an ACC buff right before a high-ACC Wizard (e.g. Assassin/Wizard) casts Miasma for some buddy who shortly after targets the Will defense of enemies (e.g. Furyshaper's Fear Ward, Cipher, Chanter or Priest or so). If one character had to first buff himself up, then debuff enemies and then attack it would take so long. WIth three party members it's a matter of a few secs.

Yes, that's what I meant when I spoke about action economy and multiple party members being able to do certain things at the same time (rather than one after the other).

Often solo-builds perform less well in a party compared to party-friendly builds. Because a solo build has to be self contained it tends to have worse action economy or an overall more balanced setup in terms of offense and sturdyness than a party setup - where two or more characters can do stuff at the same time or focus on different roles. So it's less important for party chars to be able to do it all (deal damage and stay alive basically) but they can focus on doing one thing especially well.

Fun fact: if you are confused and trigger some Chilling Graves by killing skeletons (which will kill all other skeletons, leading to the Chillfog chain of paralyze-death) and THEN switch to Modwyr or take some Svef suddenly all Chillfogs are foe-only again. The friendly fire is not fixed (at casting time). It will change immediately (on still active spells, too) as soon as you are no longer confused.

Unbroken/Trickster wit maxed out engagement and stuff is also neat for "offensive tanking". If you have engaged a ton of enemies and have enough of tanking you use Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, scare them off and deal superhefty disengagement attacks.

There's no mystery there I think. Just pick what sounds good and it will most likely be right. With Berserker/Devoted you'll get an enormous amount of crit conversion and awesome Penetration. And if you use the Devil of Caroc Breastplate you cvan even shrug off the Berserker Confusion. Helm of the Falcon for the looks and the higher attack speed. Voidward Ring for the Berserker self dmg and so on. Pick Stalwart Defiance or else the self damage is hard to manage at some point because Unbending doesn't get triggered by self damage. I personally would feel more comfortable with a Berserker/Paladin though. Maybe Steel Garrote or Kind Wayfarer. Eternal Flames will get a +20 ACC bonus which is nice for the crits, Lay on Hands counters Berserker self damage, all the AR passives are good for survivability. With Spirit Frenzy your attacks will stagger foes which will unlick the Steel Garrote life drain - or you heal by Kind Wayfarer's White Flames. Imo a good mix of offense and survivability. You can maybe just plan something out and post it here and we could comment - if you want.

Stalker/Helwalker can get up to +4 AR if he must. That's plenty if combined with a heavy armor. But I don't consider this to be a tanky character and I also didn't play it as one. You could take the bear and let it tank damage for you I guess. As Stalker not only you but also your Animal Companion gets +1 AR (and +5 deflection). The bear already has +2 AR to begin with so it's +3 AR for him. And if you take Resilient Companion the Bear has stellar +5AR (for an AC anyway). Use Hardy Companion in situations where it might go down and it will regain health and get another +2 AR for a short duration (maybe enough to finish off the attacker). Actually it's not too short with Tuning Wheel I guess. I played this more like a flanker though. Animal Compaion and you apply flanked (-10 deflection, -1 AR) which also works in your favor (Swift Flurry/HBD etc.).

Neat indeed. Yes, Scordeo's Edge is very good (too good imo). I rarely use it though because you have to side with Aeldys and often I don't feel like doing that. And because every power build and their animal companion use it.

Yes, no shield. Also works with shield of course (especially small shield + modal) but I wanted a build that uses one handed style (since there are so few where it makes mechanical sense). The reasoning is that the +12 ACC and the additional crit conversion from one handed style will help you to proc crits and crit chains with Swift Flurry/HBD more often which leads to recovery skips more often. Also fun with Sungrazer. The one-handed usage makes sure you kill with a crit quite often which triggers its very strong AoE on crit-kill quite often, too. And of course the good old Sun & Moon. But I preferred Stalker's Patience. First because of the name (I mean Stalker wearing Stalker's Patience come on ) and the also because I wanted to double down on that recovery skip because its fun once it works. I used one if the flails against pierce immune foes though.

Thank you. I will take the liberty and link directly to the post in question (less searching):

Yes, if you put a melee weapon into your offhand and a blunderbuss (for example) into your main hand and attack from range it will use the ranged weapon. And since that has 4 projectiles you can get 4 stacks or more with Driving Flight. With Fire in the Hole it's even more because AoE + bounce + Driving Flight. I once achieved a full stack (20) with only one use of Hunter's Claw on a tight group of enemies. I didn't test if Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke also counts as hits (as it does for Resonant Touch and Avenging Storm). If so it would be even better.

No, because Whirling Strikes requires you to wield at least one melee weapon. As soon as you equip two ranged weapons (or one single handed ranged weapon) you won't be able to use the ability (greyed out). If you want to do huge amount of damage as an SC Ranger with mortars alone then pick SC Ranger (whatever subclass) and skill Arcana so that you can use scroll of Avenging Storm and then use Serafen's Hand Mortar with the enchantment Blinding Smoke. Use Driving Flight and Twinned Shot and you will destroy most enemy groups with one Twinned Shot (because Blinding Smoke hits will trigger Avenging Storm). But that's not a melee build anymore of course. No, because the cone shape of WotEP doesn't work very well with the circular AoE of Whirling Strikes. You will actually hit not that many enemies. You can use Keeper of the Flame though. Its flame AoE attack will hit you, too - but you can either raise reflex really high or wear Edérs armor (has an enchantment that makes you potetially immune to reflex attacks) or wear Rekvu's Scorched Cloak with an injury (in that case the flame AoE will even heal you). I also liked Stalker/Paldin with Bear or Boar. Brand Enemy unlocks Predator's Sense for cheap, Exalted Edurance raises AR of you both, AR and deflection bonus of Stalker stacks with Paladin's passives, Lay on Hands can heal the animal companion, Flames of Devotion + Ring of Focused Flames has +20 ACC which stack with Ranger's ACC bonuses and so on. Also cool imo: Stalker/Druid if Animal Companion and Spiritshift Form are the same animal. I prefer Stalker/Ancient I think.

Indeed. And because of the AoE of Fire in the Hole and Driving Flight and Fire in the Hole's build-in bounce (Chain Shot) you will do 3 AoE blasts for every target in range It's a ton of attack rolls... try with Avenging Storm... And one attack to each target with Scordeo's... St. Drogga's Skull instead of Scordeo's is also nice. It has a chance to trigger AoE dmg, too.

I played a very good (imo) solo Stalker/Bloodmage with a Morning Star (Willbreaker). The idea was that I would lower enemies' Fortitude and Will with the Morning Star and Miasma, my Bear did Takedown Combo on the enemy and my Essential Phantom with Draining Touch weapon could then hit easily (because Drainng Touch targets Will instead of Deflection) for high damage. Rinse and repeat. With WIllbreaker's enchantment that grants 25% miss to graze (awesome) and Gauntlets of Greater Reliability (again 25% miss to graze) and the general high ACC of Ranger/Companion it was always so easy to hit even the toughest bosses (excluding Megabosses, didn't do those). For example I soloed Neriscyrlas on PotD without any resting bonuses or consumables. The two additional sturdy bodies were great, too. My Geomancer went for high AR and not too bad deflection. In combination with the Wizard buffs he was very sturdy. Another fun concept was Stalker/Helwalker with one-handed Stalker's Patience spear in combination with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. It has a nice enchantment that removes recovery after a crit (20% chance). With Ranger's high ACC and some crit chains with Swift Flurry etc. the recovery skipping went pretty great. Best against low defense enemies like casters and so on. SC Stalker with Fire in the Hole + Scordeo's Edge using Whirling Strikes (+ Driving Flight) is wild. It's more like a melee/ranged hybrid, but the combo is great because it also allows to use Hunter's Fang etc. with the blunderbuss which gives you plenty of stacks with just one shot (if enough enemies in range).

I tried to do that but I couldn't make the AoE size fixed then - as I described above. Else that would have been one of my preferred solutions, too. As I also described in one of my former posts. That pulling/bouncing was just born out of desperation. I knd of like it but it has some minor issues (like the bounce still being able to leave the red AoE). I now tested all abilites I thought might cause trouble (even Instruments of Pain and Whirling Strikes and whatnot) and so far I didn't run into broken stuff. Besides Swift FLurry/HBD which is probably too strong with this against low defense mobs. If you know how to make the "normal" AoE size non-scalable that would be great. I would then only alter the description: remove the "up to 3 targets" and be good. Because it looks really confusing if you have a yellow circle around a red one (because friend or foe) and still get firendly fire from the yellow area.