Boeroer

Yes, INT increases the duration of the curse. But maluses like from RES have a bigger impact than the numbers suggest (due to some mathematical shenanigans under the hood) so it's not too bad as long as you have a lot of "-x% hostile effects" going on. Without Berath Blessins you can simply substract 2 from every stat and be good.

I personally would invest more into INT and less into MIG. Also because the cone size of the Whispers of the EP is influenced by INT. Mediocre MIG is okay.

Here's a quick animated gif I made some while ago with a Steel Garrote/Trickster to give an impression how it's working (attention, 200MB image behind the spoler tags) :

I like both Steel Garrote/Soulblade and Steel Garrote/Trickster with the Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon. Key is the enchantment "Offensive Parry". It will proc on every melee miss of enemies and will not only damge them but also daze them, unlocking the Steel Garrote's life draining. Soulblade: Offensive Parry will generate focus via enemies' melee misses. You can then release that focus with Soul Annihilation. Trickster: Offensive Parry stacks with Riposte and gains bonuses from Sneak Attack and Deathblows etc. Both variants are a fun and potent mix of offense and defense. You want max RES and get all RES- and deflection bonuses you can get. That means Cloak of Greater Deflection, Bracers of Greater Deflection, Entonia Signet Ring, Casita Samelia's Legacy or Nomad's Brigandine or Giphon Prudensco, Mask of the Weyc and so on. I personally like Nomad's Briganine best because it also has decent AR. Also use Blinding and other debuffs like a Priest's Devotions for the Faithful, Desponent Blows and/or a Wizard's Miasma of Dull-Mindedness to reduce enemies' accuracy. With Nomad's Brigandine you can also enchant it with "Tactical Withdraw" which makes you immune to disengagment attacks: it turns every disengement attack against you into a miss --> procs Offensiv Parry (and potentially Riposte, too). It's not necessarily your sole main tank but a great hybrid and versatile: tankyness, damage, healing, support, CC - all in one package. When some single targets are left over it's often best to switch to a weapon which is better against single enemies.

A Paladin is a good healer. Don't know what those guides are talking about. Not Druid level but still good.

Hi and Welcome. You posted in the wrong subforum (PoE instead of Deadfire) - but no big deal. Maybe a moderator can help to move this into the proper subforum, @Amentep? Generally speaking: there are some classes who have fixed resource pools. You don't get those points back during encounters. Those are Paladin (Zeal), Fighter (Discipline), Rogue (Guile), Barbarian (Rage) and Ranger (Bond) and Monk (Mortification, although Monks have a second pool named Wounds which is refillable). But there are ways to get back a bit of those resource points you spend or to extend your resource pool (which will grow with level of course). --- You can get back Zeal with the following things: - spend an Empower Point - Brilliant Inspiration (from spells like Cipher's Ancestor's Memory or items) - Chanter's "His Heart did fill with the Light of Dawn" invocation - Virtuous Triumph - Devine Retribution (this also works with summons - if you have a Beckoner or Troubadour in the party who can summon a lot of weak creatures then your Zeal is pretty much endless) - you can get +2 Zeal with the Devil of Caroc Breastplate - you can get a bit additional Zeal from resting in some special rooms in some taverns (don't know which ones from the top of my head) --- The most early option to get Zeal back is to use an Empower point. But it's limited per rest. The most effective way - until you get Devine Retribution - is to become brilliant and then use Salvation of Time (Priest spell) to prolong the brilliance. Ultimately nothing beats Devine Retribution IF you have a Chanter in the party who can summon weak but lots of creatures (look at "Ancient Brittle Bones" but also "Many Lives Pass By"). In the early game there is only Empower though. You have to make sure to only spend Zeal when it counts most and not waste it.

Sorry, late to the party. I build a patio in my garden so not much time at the PC.

I would bet it does. It seems the translucent images are not really optimized for performance.

Even better!

First: tell me what "SwF" means. Outside of pistols single weapon usage is good in the early game but falls behind later (compared to dual wielding and two handers). There are exceptions though. Usually that involves weapons which have some special effect on hit, on crit or on kill (see Sungrazer, Skullcrusher, Scordeo's Edge, Stalker's Link, Grave Calling, Magistrate's Cudgel etc.). For example Edér can be made into a decent single spear user. Grab Stalker's Patience and enchant it with "Mercy Strike". Then try to stack as much accuracy and crit conversions as possible (One Handed Style, Disciplined Strikes, Dirty Fighting, your Ranger/Troubadour can cast "Killer Froze Stiff" and so on). Have some backup weapon for pierce immune foes. Like a mace (e.g. Magistrate's Cudgel) or so.

Dazzling Lights only works on enemies. Neutral NPCs usually only get lured away by Sparkcrackers. But besides that: yeah!

Don't think there is. I don't know if you can reduce the number of images - I guess it's a hard-coded visual effect? But I think it would be rel. easy to remove all the visual effects from Mirrored Images with a mod.

I think I'd use Sharpshooter/Troubadour. The slower recovery will be countered by modal, Gunner and Sure Handed Ila (there is a bottom cap for reload speed anyway). The +1 PEN or crit conversion is nice. You can use CC/debuffs and also let your animal companion do some damage while preventing it from getting knocked out with summons.

For a single pistol build you want high ACC and action/reload speed. If pistol damage alone is your concern then Ranger is nearly a must imo - because of the accuracy bonuses and the Gunner ability + Driving Flight. As second class I'd recommend Beguiler (Borrowed Instincts is great and you can combine weapon damage and Deceptions for focus gain) or Troubadour (running Aefyllath + Sure-Handed Ila) since they both will improve your shooting but also provide a lot of other utility for the party. Which is more important than a smidge more pistol dps imo. They also don't have full attacks so a single pistol doesn't induce the "but I'd rather use those full attacks with two weapons" thought. Devoted also works - but you need to get Eccea's Arcane Blaster asap because there will be enough pierce resistant/immune enemies later on and you don't want to switch to a non-pistol since it will give you -10 ACC which hurts in combination with the pistol modal. I'd recommend getting the blaster anyway - but with Devoted it's even more important. A Wizard will not improve your shooting much. But a Wizard should provide a lot of other options for a party. If you still want to buff up your shooting damage with a Wizard you should look at the Essential/Substancial Phantom. It will get all your gear, including your weapon. It will not have One-Handed Style and will not use the modal or any of your abilites - but it will get the +12 ACC from single handed usage and will use all passive gear enchantmens. Then it's two guys firing their pistols, not only one. If you use Scordeo's Trophy with the ranged enchantments then phantom can get to really nice shooting speed after a while. If you meet very high DR foes then two Eccea's Arcane Blasters are better than one obviously. I played a Debonaire/Beguiler with single pistol. No extra speed buffs but the combination of charm + crit conversion made the lower ACC a lot less impactful right from the start. Since a Beguiler doesn't need to deal damage to gain focus it wasn't a big deal that shooting charmed enemies with almost guaranteed crits won't give you focus - but deal good damage. Scordeo's Edge has an enchantment that lets crits do extra damage. Mind Control is always good. And if you can finish off a charmed enemy with a Devastating Blow + crit that's cool. Or a charm-crit with Disintegration. It's not about the shooting dmg in the first place but since Debonaire is a Rogue the shots still have oomph. There's lots of options. But get Eccea's.

I would leave it. There's other speed/weapon stuff that also works for all weapons equipped - most famously Blade Cascade.

Well hm... you can't pause in the Ultimate (due to Magran's Challenge) - so maybe it has something to do with the pause function. It's a quirky function anyway - I mean look at stuff like Lethandria's Devotion ticking for one health every time you switch to it during pause. Some game mechanics don't seem to be really "pausing" - so maybe doing something during pause triggers some active bonuses (and given the code examples those food/resting bonuses are supposed to be active) to behave like passive ones? Or it's easier to accidentially trigger this during pause - no idea.

But several people here already reported that the exact same bonuses sometimes stack and sometimes don't. What you wrote before gives the impression that you think that some bonuses will always stack while others (from the same category even) won't stack. That directly contradicts what others have said. Anyway: My point was about the presentation of oberservations in this thread (called "facts" by some), not the observations themselves. I mean it's no problem if people make contradictory experiences and report so. That's actually what we all want I guess: to share information and then maybe find stuff out together. The actual facts. What I meant and what can be problematic - and I didn't/don't mean you personally - is to claim that one's experience are valid while the experience of others are not. That's either implying that the others are stupid or it's implying that they are lying. As I said: I didn't mean you specifically with my post - I was speaking more generally into the tread. Some people seemed to be a bit overconfident and outright denied their own possible fallibility in the face of objection. It's a difference to say "I experienced x so I believe it works like so..." or to say "I know for a fact it works like so because I never experienced otherwise". What's even worse: if one then insinuates that the opposition is not interested in facts. What's that supposed to achieve? As can be seen now, this will just lead to infuriation. That's not necessary, is it? Again: not meaning you specifically. Anybody who's interested in finding out what's really going on can't want that to happen. I'd claim that a toxic debate will have worse results than a benevolent discussion. So everybody: edit: jeesz! while I was writing several posts got added in between. Sorry about that... 🥴

Would be cool if people wouldn't claim to present "facts" as long as there's several different anecdotal reports flying around that suggest otherwise. Would also be neat if one wouldn't imply that others are not interested in facts just because they report about different experiences. Since there's several reports that are somewhat contradictory: Maybe now is the best time that somebody* sits down and tries that stuff again with the actual game? It doesn't really matter what worked how in the past with which patch - I guess we can agree that it matters most how it works now. )* not me though because I'm on the road preparing to haul 100 bags of garden soil into my transporter - and also because I don't really care if resting/food bonuses stack: don't use them on purpose anyway.

AND you know what you are doing.

== 🤷‍♂️

Only direct shock damage will increase. That includes: Lashes like Wildstrike Shock or a shocking lash on any weapon (melee or ranged doesn't matter). For example a 25% lash will increase by 20% which means 25% * 1.2 = 30% lash. spells like Relentless Storm, Nature's Terror, Jolting Touch etc. They simply do +20% dmg (base dmg + base dmg * 0.2). weapons that have shock as primary damage type. I only weapon like that is Stormcaller iirc. It doesn't matter what the second damage type is, the weapon will always do +20% damage even it it does pierce damage: base dmg + base dmg * 0.2. DoTs wouldn't increase (in cas of Scion of Flame: Dragon THrashed will not profit). I know no shocking DoT though.

Wrong game.

Normal BDD without Brilliant and timebending isn't particulary powerful, right. Since I neither use Brilliant nor SoT and WoD (because too good = boring) I also never use BDD because it's not very good - at least for my playstyle.

I don't know. Given the weak representation of (unique) crossbows in the game it's kind of nice that they do something special - even if it's unitended and weird. And the bonus isn't that impactful to be honest. There are way better stat sticks for casters. On the other hand: not many will miss it if it's patched out. And it is an obvious bug. Hm... 🤔 If I were an official dev I would patch it out and put an interesting (not necessarily supergood) unique crossbow rel. early into the game.

I think that wiki's cargo-stuff that generates the list is a bit glitchy. I accidentially edited the source for the whole page and not only the small trivia part. So after saving the site tried to generate the list anew (as I said I didn't actively edit that part). That list generation works like crap anyway: always items are missing and others will have double or triple entries. You them ust to "empty" edits to force a new list generation and whatnot. It's nice that in theory you'd only have to edit one data source to update all sites that reference the data- but it doesn't work so well imo.