Boeroer

SC Wizard with Caedebald's Blackbow + Essential Phantom is an excellent terrifier imo.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"...

Well... who "had been" forgotten - but the Watcher made Durance popular again!

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.

Too bad. Maybe it's just better against weak mobs. The more the better.

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.

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.

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).

You should really try Current's Rush now and see how that goes.

Sungrazer's more powerful AoE triggers on crit-kill which can happen more often with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. Same with the weaker 5% skill. But Sun & Moon massively increases the chance to get some crit chains because of how the dual flail head attacks are coded. It becomes really obvious once you get Heartbeat Drumming, too. If you are using Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming I would def. recommend Sun & Moon (besides the +2 fire PL at daytime which is also nice ofc). It has a lot more impact then than Sungrazer imo. Although I'm a secret fan of St. Drogga's Skull I wouldn't pair it with Magran's Favor - because two slash-only weapons. If you have a second weapon setup with another dmg type it's okay though. For example one with Magran's Favor + St. Drogga's Skull and the other with Sun & Moon + Sungrazer, eh?

@Not So Clever Houndbecause of bot/spam/flood control new forum posters need to have their first posts approved by a mod to get them published. Those posts will appear as soon as they get approved with the original timestamp (when the poster hit the save button basically). That can be confusing because it indeed means that they get sorted before the actual end of the thread and forum users might winder how they could miss it before (they didn't, it wasn't there). This ends after 5 (? I believe) approved posts.

See you tomorrow with some other build suggestions.

Just rechecked: Mask of the Weyc stacks with everything except Arcane Veil - and Magnificient Escape also stacks with everything except Escape (even with the Mask). I got my SC Bloodmage up to 230 deflection without any consumables and resting bonuses easily (with the help of Wall of Draining).

Yeah, I used it with the Steel Garrote/Bloodmage and it stacked with Mirrored Images and naturally with Llengrath's Safeguard. Great stuff!

Mask of the Weyc has an Arcane-Veil-like deflection buff that stacks with other deflection buffs (don't remember if it stacks with Arcane Veil, too - since it seems to be a copy of that ability). Magnificent Escape Cape has an Escape with the +50 deflection which also stacks with other deflection buffs but not Escape itself (because direct copy I guess but who knows). At least it used to be so. Cool if you can prolong those with whatever trick (WoD, SoT, SoF etc.) Bardatto's Luxury has some inspiration stuff that used to stack with other inspirations of the same kind iirc. I don't use it much (actually only once) so maybe this isn't the case anymore.

Yes, Seeker's Fang is bonkers on ciphers. Too bad all plaques of the ultimate are gone by now.

Sure. But what melee abilites does a cipher have? During Ascension a Witch with Blood Thirst wants to spam "free" damaging cipher spells in order to kill asap - so that recovery gets removed and the next "free" spell can follow. And most of the damaging abilites of ciphers are ranged ones. But of course you can totally use melee weapons to collect focus and ascend. As Barb/Ascendant you could even stop casting spells alltogether and just use the higher Soul Whip dmg bonus to boost your melee damage. But imo you could as well (or even better) play a Barb/Rogue or Barb/Monk then.

Oh wohawohawhoa! Does that also mean that the "renamed" effect like Brilliant from Shroud of the Phantasm and an ordinary effect like Brilliant could stack? 🤔

I just always use it.

3.8K focus rofl. 😄 I love Watershaper's focus. Ondra's Wave also generates focus, right? I mean not that you need that with 3.8K - but still. Ondra's Wave used to proc off itself. That was patched out at some point but it is still such a fun weapon (even without Blade Cascade).

Yes, that is the main thing indeed. THat's also why - in a party - you shouldn't cramp all the synergistic stuff into one character. It absolutely hurts the action economy of your party. It's cool if a character X can do A, B and C, but it will take thrice as long as if char X does A, Y does B and Z does C at the same time. That's also why single classes shine in a party more than solo (generally speaking) because it's easier to cover all necessary "roles" with 5 chars. The individual chars may look more "boring" - but you will simply be faster imo. But that's why I love the Barb/Chanter debuffer so much - because he can stagger + weaken with a phrase (Spirit Frenzy triggers from phrases, too) and can focus on hitting stuff with a morning star and Ben Fidel (or whatever invocation). And the repeating phrases make it easy to eventually hit. Against Dorudugan Ngati's Tusk is great because its debuff is auto-hit and there's no duration or immunity (RES is useless). That's already -10. Afflictions don't work well because of resistance/immunities. Miasma and Psychovampiric Shield could help with the high RES though? I didn't fight him that often so I don't remember how long the Body Blows lasted - but maybe against Doru I wouldn't really want to play the debuff chess game anyway. I'll just hit him with a Gouging Strike from Lover's Embrace and say Sayonara. Superannoying dude he is...