Boeroer

It's not much if measured in seconds, right. But in order to maintain a somewhat similar dps a Rapier has to be faster than a sabre - because its base damage is lower: 12 (Rapier) vs. 16 (Sabre). Roughly speaking the sabre has 33% more base damage which has to be compensated with the Rapier's 33% faster (or 25% less slower) recovery. If the Rapier is only as fast as a Sabre it's already worse - if you can't stack the modal's ACC. If you can use the full ACC bonus effectively that's a different story of course. Vanilla sabre at 10 DEX with no recovery penalty will use 4.7 secs per attack cycle - while the Rapier + modal will use 5 secs per attack cycle. The time difference is not much of couse. But if you can't profit from the increased ACC it's a rel. big dps loss. In the early game however the Rapier's higher ACC is great and the modal is fantastic. Especially when paired with one handed usage it's really hard to miss stuff. You'll have +5+12+20=+37 ACC after all - which is an immense bonus early in the game where you often won't have access to other ACC buffs. And it's great for things like Soul Annihilation or other weapon maneuvers you don't want to miss with (Knockdown and so on). Still, when looking at the uniques I'd def. go with sabres.

Maybe something like MIG 16 CON 10 DEX 16 PER 16 INT 16 RES 04 You need to use your defensive buffs in order to not get interrupted a lot because of your bad RES and mediocre CON. A Priest with Holy Meditation also helps. Use Infuse with Vital Essence if your health is running low. If you want a bad-ass looking melee makge there's nothing more stylish than Argwes Adra imo. Later there's also a helm for it. Both can be obtained in the mid game. If you like Sanguine Plate's look than that's also fine. The fitting helmet will also come later. Here's the four plate armors that have fitting helmets: White Crest (Stalwart Village), Argwes Adra (Endless Paths of Od Nua), He Carries Many Scars (Readric's Hold in Act III), Sanguine Plate (Defiance Bay) For more inspiration about stylish gear combos in PoE check out this thread:

Scordeo's Edge and Grave Calling are more powerful than any Rapier a Helwalker/Devoted could use imo - so in terms of potential power I would opt for the sabres. Don't forget that Scordeo's Edge has "Adaptive" which is giving you up to +20 stackable melee accuracy which is already better than Rapier (+5, +9 when using Rännig's Wrath) + modal (+20 but slows you down a lot and it's not stackable with other active ACC buffs). Grave Calling is just ridiculously good if you have vessel summons - but even without the lash and especially the paralyze effect are very potent. I believe the Grave Bound paralyze doesn't even get lowered by resistances and immunity(?) since it's some special sauce. With high INT from Monk Adaptive: Blade Cascade, Chilling Grave and Grave Bound are a lot better, too. Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming always use the main hand for additional attack rolls, even if the initially proc off of the offhand. That means you should use Scordeo's Edge in the main hand to proc Blae Cascade as much as possible I guess.

I feared they had used the direct translation from any dictionary. Koryphäe... that's like a exceptional expert. The Vithrack Expert, sure. But if that's the official translation then what can we do. I corrected it right in the quote. Embarrassingly I also had an error in the following sentence because in between I switched from "die Mixtur (sie)" to "der Trank (er)".

Yes, it will not only have an effect on the ending slides once you finish the game but also ever faction gets you a special unique item and a special talent. That depends on the class/build you are playing. The Doemenel faction gives you higher crit damage (+30%) and a unique stiletto named Misery's End, Crucible Knights give you +2 DR and the sword Shame or Glory (which is the only way to ever dual wield two marking weapons) and the Dozens give you +5 ACC if you attack the same target as an ally as well as the spear Cladhaliath (but you can get that one later with every faction - just way later). They are just universally useful if you play a somewhat defensive character and they are easy to get. If you want more spell uses you can use the those other rings of course. But resting is cheap and there's also spell mastery - so those rings lose a bit of their appeal later in the game. For some builds rings like Ring of Searing Flames make a lot of sense, some want a ring with Preservation - it depends a bit. It wouldn't say there's one ring you always should wear.

It works with Instruments of Pain so I don't understand where the issue is. You can use all melee abilities at 6m range then, including Forbidden Fist - and that allows you to use Enduring Dance more efficiently because you won't get hit much. That was my whole point - it doesn't get invalidated because Forbidden Fist is a melee attack. You do not have to sacrifice those - why would you? Activate Enduring Dance, then Instruments of Pain from stealth and start Forbidden FIst punches. Not long and you can summon Dichotomous Soul. Or cast Dichotomous Soul first and Intruments of Pain after that. Besides that it depends if OP wants to use Dicotomous Soul in the first place. That's right, but the 50%/pervents healing bonus is very good still and not that hard to apply because grazes work well, too. Helm of the White Void gives +10 ACC to Forbidden Fist by the way but not to Enervating Blows. Precision Striker (+5 ACC with unarmed attacks) works woith Forbidden Fist, too, but I didn't check if the fortitude roll is also affected. I didn't mean against bosses but more in general. But against bosses it can also be nice - if those bosses have ads. You can domiante them for the whole encounter basically which is very useful. As Forbidden Fist/Beguiler I very often turned multiple enemies into long time puppets. Charming also works. You then have all the time in the world and can enjoy Enduring Dance etc. This is obviously not a valid stragety vs. Megabosses but still very effective in most other fights (SSS for example) and fun to play.

But +x to all skills has very little effect in an ecounter. And usually you'll become brilliant in an encounter. If you get an empower point from Brilliant priodically you can use it in every fight to refresh resources or empower an ability and still get back to full from 0 to 4 (or whatever your max is) without resting. I think that's pretty cool. It's absolute garbage for a Bloodmage though...

I find Enduring Dance worth it even if I only activate it in stealth and wait until I got a few ticks of +3 ACC and some wounds while teammates buff the party up and try to debuff the boss. Then I can come in with rel. high ACC and wound count and use the Forbidden Fist - even more than once of the Enfeeblement doesn't graze on the first try. Not only does this make my other stuff like Psychov. Shield and Disintegrate etc. more powerful but also it prolongs the stuff all my teammates are putting on that enemy. And then it's just cool imo that you can always use a crush attack - even if you are wearing a Rapier + Tuotilo's Palm or whatever setup. Rännig's Wrath would be my first unique choice and then later the SSS soulbound rapier which is just nuts with Cipher.

Yes, afaik Community Patch didn't address this yet. It simply wasn't know until recently.

Cowardice triggers if you are too far away from any ally (4m). Imo no problem if you have more than one ranged character - or just stand behind the frontline. The term "ally" usually includes summons and animal companions, but I didn't test it with Cowardice since I seldomly remove my party members from the group unless they are meant to be high mobility strikers. Debonaires totally fits because Jack Sparrow only fights if there's no other option but rather likes to talk his way out. That's why I would also like Beguiler - but focus on the charming/confusing parts that fit the character. Debonaires have their own kith charm ability so that would fit I guess. Not stuff like Disintegration Amplified Wave and so on.

Luminaries are a special kind of extra smart Vithrack from PoE's White March. I also don't recall how the game translated that. Maybe we just take it out of the english version as well. I can't deduce an argument here. Maybe if Brilliant restored Empower points then the Empower mechanic would be used more often? Seems to work with Sasha's Singing Scimitar...?

With Brilliant restoring Empower you wouldn't need to rest. It would be like Sasha's Singing Scimitar - but for everyone who's brilliant.

Why is that?

Hm... what about giving an Empower Point periodically? You can't use more than one per encounter anyway, you can't have more than your max anyway - but you could avoid resting and use Empower more often (either in order to get more resources or to ewmpower an ability). Is it just me or would this immediately solve the problems with SoT and Wall of Draining?

"Dieser geheimnisvolle Trank wird aus gelösten Vithrack-Hirnen destilliert und mit der Essenz eines unerbittlichen Adra-Animats aufgeladen. Sie erlaubt schier sagenhafte Einsichten und erfüllt den Nutzer mit einer unermüdlichen Beharrlichkeit." Don't know the Deadfire-traslation of Luminary so I just skipped that.

Edér

If it weren't for the bad accuracy I would be all in.

I would love to see an effect that is in line with the attribute it's attached to: Intellect. So something that only really smart characters could have/do. I thought Anti-Confusion was such a thing. Maybe there's something else that sounds "brilliant" and is cool from a mechanical point of view. I mean restorig resources is pretty cool and fits - It's just so hard to balance between casters and non-casters imo.

Yes, vanilla game Shifter/Helwalker has that bugged(?) boar DoT which then gets amplified by the Helwalker's MIG and INT - and that really shreds stuff.

I like Ring the Bell the most actually. It's a tad pricy but it always works, the ticks are high and it lasts pretty long. Toxic Strike can be brutal but immunity to poison isn't that uncommon unfortunately. If you start from stealth against a Steelclad and apply Gouging Strike + Lover's Embrace, Deep Wounds, Ring the Bell and then Arterial Strike in a quick flurry and then zip away you can watch it melt while it tries to catch up - even if your PEN is total crap. It's fun imo.

That's why I added Instruments of Pain and "or at least one that doesn't get hit a lot" The good thing is that Enfeebled itself profits from its own +50% duration buff - so a graze isn't actually that bad and can still make some difference. The base duration is 12 secs but because it buffs its own duration it's always more than that. It also lowers Fortitude so you actually can try to reapply it more easily if you wish. If the boss ist resistant to CON afflictions then at least you will apply the weakened status - which isn't as good as enfeebled obviously but still better than applying no CON-affliction at all with your damaging ability. Keep in mind that besides a healing malus -5 CON also reduces the health of the enemy - even significantly if it's a boss. It's even helpful if the affliction ends prematurely: Here's one good thing about Envervating Blows though: if you have no trouble landing crits vs. deflection it will apply weakened automatically (no seperate roll vs. Fortitude). So maybe it's even worth taking if you are a Forbidden Fist. You dodged the part about Enfeebled + Mind Control which I think is a rel. strong suit of Forbidden Fist/Cipher imo.

Imo German newspapers are Starker Tobak hard if you know what I mean. If it's not the BILD Zeitung (which is just awful so please don't read that).

It's a nice build to just shred high DR stuff. Good riddance Steelclads and friends. Underpenetration and low weapon dmg don't matter that much. I won't use all of those attacks on every enemy though. Some are immune to poison so no Toxic Strike, some enemies don't move so no Arterial Strike, Gouging Strike is pretty low DoT so it often only gets used if the rest isn't enough (or when I dispatch overleved enemies with a Gouging Strike + Lover's Embrace from stealth) and so on. I didn't use Battle Axes (total overkill) but daggers for the speed. Especially Pukestabber. Full Attacks with dual daggers and Pukestabber have really short recovery so you can breeze from enemy to enemy and deliver some nice DoTs and also potentially interrupt in a rel. quick time. Rogue/Ranger isn't bad for this. High ACC and you can use Evasive Roll instead of Escape to zip around but don't waste Guile. Shadowdancer is also very nice because of the high INT.

Yes, against normal foes Gambit is great. Vanishing Strikes calls for a different playstyle, but it's also very cool. It's also true that you will only use passives and no other offensive ability then. But I find that's a problem with all classes that have a finite resource pool: Since the offensive abilites compete for the scarce ability AND resource points a player is somewhat encouraged to focus on one main attack ability. Even with MC Rogues I often only use Crippling Strike/Arterial Strike. Only if I do a DoT build I will use Arterial + Gouging Strike, Toxic Strike and Ring the Bell (because the different DoTs stack). But that's a very special case.

If you can remove a crash with the console (never tried actually) it should be doable with a mod, shouldn't it? I don't mind that drug effects get suppressed by Arcane Dampener - they are timed benefical effects after all - but that crash once the AD is gone is kind of silly and a reoccurring complaint. It would be no big deal if AD wasn't that widely used later in the game. I mean those Scriveners etc. in the Drowned Barrows will cast AD before they even stretch in the morning...