Boeroer

Since Nalpasca Monks gain wounds from drugs and since you can also use Mortification of the Soul and/or Enduring Dance it's not a big problem. You can also wear Hylea's Talons (gloves) which can be obtained quite early. They have a chance of putting a little DamageOverTime on you which helps generating wounds (this does not remove Mirrored Images and also doesn't remove Enduring Dance/Dance of Death). As in PoE1 you can use whatever weapon you want and be effective. There's no mechanic that makes weapons less viable than fists. AI: I believe so. For Soul Annihilation it doesn't really matter whether you dual wield or use a two hander. With a single handed weapon however you will miss less often with Soul Annihilation. Misses with Soul Annihilation are a bit frustrating because you'll lose all your focus but deal 0 damage. Just pick what you like best I'd say. Two particular weapons are quite nice for Soul Annihilation: Whsipers of the Endless Paths - because first of all it has a cone AoE and with Soul Annihilation you'll apply raw damage in that AoE (and the sum of the raw dmg is higher than your focus), secondly it has Offensive Parry which is neat because a Paladin/Cipher can actually have pretty high deflection. If enemies miss against you in melee you will retaliate and this gives focus(!). So you can gain focus while parrying and then use that focus for your offensive stuff. Sun & Moon: it hits twice with every attack. This means you'll have a better chance to not miss. Also, when the first attack roll hits and dumps all the focus into raw damage, the secons attack roll already regains focus which is convenient. Skald profits quite a bit from Fighters' Disciplined Strikes. Devoted also profits from crits especially - so my pick would be Skald. Here again Sun&Moon is a good weapon because 2 attack rolls per attack means 2 chances to land a crit an regain phrases. But everything that attack quickly and has high ACC works well. Killers Froze Stiff is great with a Skald because it's so cheap for him - and the hit-to-crit conversion paralyzed enemies suffer from is ideal for Skald. And that stacks with Disciplined Strikes - so crits are very common. Offtanking is no problem with a Fighter/Chanter. I'm not a big fan of Rogue/Chanter because I don't see as many synergies there. You can set the AI up to cast all buffs at the start of combat for you. Citzal's Spirit Lance + Clear Out is brutal. Also Unbending + Wall of Draining makes you basically immortal. Bloodmage is the best wizard subclass for melee multiclassing imo. How much? Don't know. It's pretty good though. For most players it's just a little too boring for most of the game I guess. But using Shared Nightmare + Time Parasite + Amplified Wave when ascended is def. a killer combo. Same as SC Ascendant basically: It's a bit plain during the mid game - but later on you get to the really good stuff. For example Eld Nary's Curse + Sasha's Singing Scimitar + Empower is really powerful with a Bellower and you can pull it off every encounter. Also Bellowers get really long durations with their summons so that's a viable strategy, too. But Eld Nary's Curse is just bonkers with all those power levels.

Yes, this can happen if you have a lot of benefical and/or hostile effects on you and/or if your screen resolution isn't very high. There's a mod that you can install which removes a lot of unneccessary entries from that window - for example bonuses from taverns, food bonuses and so on. You can find it here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/370

Better than pureed brains, isn't it?

Why that?

You can export a low level character with those rare gems. If you hire that character into your other savegame's party (with items of course) it will cost money but you'll have those gems. It's like a shop basically but instead of buying the gems directly you buy the guy who has them. Plus: you can do that in any tavern, port etc. You have to export from an uncheated run though. If you obtained the gems with the help of the console and then export them, that character will get marked as cheated. If you import him your game will be marked as cheated as well.

With a party? Every class combination is able to complete the whole game including DLCs just fine. There's not a single one that wouldn't work. Fighter/Cipher or Fighter/Druid are no exception.

Josh was playing another Pillars TTRPG session of his Dyrwood campaign yesterday. It seems to be in a state where you can already play.

Heh. Unfortunately you can't pickpocket the armors. You can only loot them from their dead bodies.

Indeed. It's possible to go solo on PotD without any meta-knowledge I guess - but you'd be reloading savegames a lot.

@Tagazielis monitoring the PoE and Deadfire forums I guess. Sometimes - when stuff is discussed here and the wiki gets altered shortly after - it was me. Not this time though.

If you solo the game you know that this fight only happens once you had a certain interaction with Harker. You'd simply wait with that until your level is higher. Eamund the Fox isn't that difficult if you're not so underleveled.

Stunning Surge refunds Mortification if you crit. With the three projectiles of Frostseeker + Driving Flight you'll have 6 chances to crit at least once. So it's very uncommon to NOT get the Mortification refund. Ghost Heart cannot use his Animal Companion and Dichotomous Soul at the same time. Both are summons. The Arcane Archer can have Animal Companion + Dichotomous Soul at the same time. Also Arcane Archer's Imbue:Eora and Imbue:Web are both very good to pull enemies together into one spot - then the AoE of Frostseeker works even better. You can start with an Imbue:Web from stealth and follow up with Eora directly after. This creates a field where enemies can't move AND get pulled to the centre. Driving Flight makes the effects proc twice per shot! The Animal Companion can just be used as bodyguard (not much abilites besides maybe Resilient Companion needed) or be used to get more ACC via Stalker's Link. Then the risk of AC's knockout is a lot higher until you get Stunning Surge. Stunned enemies don't hit your animal companion most of times. The PEN issue of Imbue:Fireball and Imbue:Missiles become serious on PotD. But as Helwalker/Arcane Archer I wouldn't use both anyway but only Web and Eora and then only Stunning Surge as main attack ability. It's very strong and you def. don't need Fireball or missiles for damage. Another issue with missiles and fireball is that with Frostseeker only the first projectile (of the three) will proc the effect and the other projectiles get omitted completely. This is a bit stupid and another reason why I wouldn't use both Missile and Fireball but only the CC imbues. They are perfect for this Frostseeker setup. "The highest dps" is open to debate because there are so many ways to achieve high dps and it depends on the situation. For example a Monk with Whispers of the Wind and Resonant Touch and Hand Mortar (+Blinding Smoke) does tremendous dps because Blinding Smoke triggers Resonant Touch. He can create 40+ Resonant Touches to a group of several enemies with one use which means 1000 raw dmg to every one of them (if not dead already). It hasn't the same effect on single targets that stand alone though. So... depends (like most of times). But the combo Arcane Archer/Helwalker with Frostseeker is no doubt really good and also fun (which is most important imo). Also because it's quite flexible and useful in more than just one way. Great CC, summons, damage, interrupts, nearly unlimited resources - all great stuff.

Right, not in a normal party setup etc. - but in special circumstances maybe. Like: if you are a solo tank who gets only grazed by enemies it could make a huge difference I guess. Also it's not affected when healing would be. For example if you are weakened your healing would be severly hampered but the dmg shield will not. All in all I don't consider it to be great. I don't use it myself 99% of times. But I guess you could create real balance problems with a 25 point shield and 5 Chanters - so maybe that's why it was lowered. As I said it used to be 25 but was nerfed. Which indicates that it was too strong. Does Her Courage prevents Mirrored Images, Iron Skin, Dance of Death, Soul Mind, Gilded Enmity etc. from stopping/deteriorating maybe?

Yes, that's the common way to unlock a ranged Streetfighter's passive. But the one I mentioned works with every weapon and the Streetfighter passive stacks with Sure-Handed Ila what makes this shooter even faster. It's not really a fire damage build. Flames of Devotion still does the normal weapon damage - it just adds +10 ACC (+20 with Ring of Focused Flames) and a burning lash that adds fire damage on top of the physical weapon damage. Yes, a lot of melee attacks also work with ranged weapons. Not all though. Usually it's mentioned with the ability description. If it says "Range: Melee" there it usually only works with a melee weapon. I have to add that Arcane Archer has a serious flaw inthe vanilla game: its damaging imbue spells don't scale their penetration at all. That means that Imbue:Missile, Imbue:Fireball and Imbue:Death Ring will have serious penetration issues in the late game. The other imbue shots (Imbue:Web, Imbue:Eora) are not affected of course since they don't penetrate anything anyway. You can use the Community Patch. If fixes this issue. Or you mainly use Web and Pull of Eora at some point. Eternal Devotion (the upgrade of Flames of Devotion) leaves you with an effect that adds additional burn damage (+10%) on top of all your further attacks. It doesn't matter if weapon attack or spell: all your dmg rolls will get +10% burn damage as lonig as the buff of Eternal Devotion lasts. That means that an Arcane Archer's Imbue shots also will get +10% burn damage. This incudes the shot damage itself (for example the pierce dmage of the arbalest) but also the spell effect that follows (for example the Missiles from Imbue:Missile will also get +10% burn damage). If it's your MC then it would be best to pick cruel and aggressive conversation options, yes. BUT: since this is a ranged build that doesn't rely on its defenses that much you can also just break this pattern and play a "chastened" Bleak Walker who wants to become good. It will give you only a worse "Faith and Conviction"-defense buff. Which is really not a big deal with a ranged character. You could also just pick another Paladin subclass. You'd lose a bit of dmg for Flames of Devotion but could get something else what's useful. Kind Wayfarer for example could heal allies with his shots. Yes, you can use any class combination with Wizard and use Essential Phantom and Substancial Phantom. Both will get ALL your gear. But they won't get your abilites or passives. No matter what race/class combo you are - the Phantoms will always be the same generic Phantom (even though they will look like you). But their stats are not bad at all and they scale with level, so they make quite good summons. You can even summon a weapon for yourself and when you summon the Phantom it will have that summoned weapon, too. If you have the Red Hand then your Phantom will have the Red Hand, too. And so on. It will also use any passive effect that is on your items. For example it will gain a ranged ACC bonus from Acina's Tricorn. It can't use abilites on gear that you have to activate though - only ones that trigger passively. So for examples weapon modals won't work. And also you can't control the Phantom. It's controlled by AI. So it chooses its targets itself and docedes where to go itself. Still: it can be very helpful. A SC Wizard can even summon Caedebald's Blackbow and summon the Phantom --> two Caedebald Blackbows!

There is a chance though that the shield gets renewed before its points get depleted completely. If an enemy does low dmg and isn't super fast it's unbreakable. Ok - 10 points is pretty low. But I guess they had shenanigans like multiple Chanters in mind? It was higher at release (25 iirc) but it seems that was too good. It gets reapplied all the time (if you don't have a lot of other phrases in between). So in theory it's unlimited excess HP.

For Skald it doesn't make a lot of sense to compose complicated chants imo - because your chant will start from the beginning after every invocation anyway. Skalds can use invocations rather often becuse of the -1 discout and the additional phrase generation via crits. Same with Troubadour with Brisk Recitation imo.

It's complicated. The structure is basically the same. Generally speaking (if we look at it from a rethorical standpoint): You'll use a tautology intentionally as a rethorical device to really emphasize something (for example "first and foremost" - like "this is really the most important point so listen up!"). So it's not a mistake but it's done on purpose. A pleonasm is just you using a superfluous word and being a bit stupid ("free gift"). Transition may be fluid depending on your language, your region and so on.

Both (Bardatto and Valera boss) have very nice unique armors. One reason why I often solve the quest in the most finite way...

Maybe check out Frenzy Ward from Furyshaper? It's a summon, it gives you a buff as long as it's there and afaik that buff gets removed when the ward is removed - no matter how.

Tell that to Crazy Russian Hacker & Whitney Houston!

There's several. Imo a fantastic single target sniper build is a Troubadour/Streetfighter with an arquebus. Here the key isn't high accuracy but incredible reloading times and dmg per shot. If you have trouble hitting stuff you can enable the arquebus modal. You will be slower but still fast - compared to other gunners. The trick is to summon Whisps that simply fire at your character. They do little shock dmg. But they also distract on hit which is what the Streetfighter needs to unlock his "heating up" bonus of -50% reloading time and high Sneak Attack. Once those shocking bolts lowered your health to bloodied you will become "On the Edge" and get higher crit dmg. At some point you should stop obviously. I imagine the character as an animancer sniper who gets boosted up by his own essence batteries. You can also wear Deltro Cage Helmet to profit from a small shocking lash the whisps will give you. The "loading up myself with essence" thought really helped me to get over the cringe to fire at myself. In addition to the very strong recovery bonus you also profit from Sure-Handed Ila and Aefyllath Mith Fyr. Funny thing is that Ila applies both +20% attack speed AND -20% reload speed to the reloading process. On top of the Streetfighter passive this results in fantastically short loading times. I personally used the Red Hand but any ranged weapon works. Non-reloading ones will only profit from +20% attack speed though. Pistol's and Hunting Bow's modal won't stack with Sure Handed Ila iirc. Also with reloading there's some hard cap - so it's not worth to stack too many reloading bonuses. I guess against non-pierce immune foes Red Hand is best. The shorter range is not super "snipey" of course. Anyway: the single target dmg per shot and the shooting speed is nuts. Best used as human imo. Needs several levels until you get to the Whisps. --- Arcane Archer + Bleak Walker with Spearcaster is not about speed but about high accuracy and overall usefulness. With Eternal Devotion + Ring of Focused Flames you'll have an elemental +20 ACC + Arcana-ACC attack which doesn't get the malus from Arcane Archer (because elemental) and which leaves you with a lash that you can use for your Imbue shots. Those will have twice the bonus from Arcana (on top of all the Ranger ACC bonuses and Zealous Focus of course). Besides that the char can heal very well (Lay on Hands) and push his Animal Companion (Exhortations). Works well right from the start and you can get Spearcaster very early. Due to the many high ACC attacks you can hit every enemy reliably. The arbalest can interrupt with modal who can be extremely helpful against bosses and casters. Race doesn't matter much. --- Streetfighter/Berserker with Essence Interrupter. Again this is about speed, not accuracy. Use Hunting Bow modal at all times. First Frenzy which will speed you up and gives you +2 PEN. It will also push you over the bloodied edge which will unlock "Heating Up". Don't Frenzy further (lest you die) but let Blooded (+25% dmg) and Heating Up take over. Bloodlust and Blood Thirst speed you up even more. Barbaric Smash is an awesome finisher. This build works very well on AI scripts as an automated turret. The shooting speed is insane. Even if you miss from time to time it's not a big deal because you shoot so freakingly fast. Works like a charm from level one on - which is very cool. This one went through Gorecci Street and Digside (as hireling) like a hot knife through butter. Felt like story mode... Just don't draw focus fire on you. Race: human is nice. --- Devoted/Sharpshooter with St. Omaku's Mercy or Veilpiercer. Here it's about crits. Driving Flight, ACC and crit conversions are key. You want to land crits as often as possible in order to trigger the recovery skip on crit. You should focus on low deflection enemies that stand together in order to increase the crit chance per shot. If you do that you will skip recovery very often, giving you great dps. The +2 PEN and crit dmg of the Devoted help. Also Disciplined Strikes of course. Penetrating Strike is a nice alternative to the Ranger's attacks. Also this guy works very well on AI. Race: Hearth Orlan would be best. --- Those are ones I played for some time. I'm sure there's more awesome stuff like Ranger/Cipher or Ranger/Helwalker crit builds with Frostseeker and so on - but those I only tested a bit with console or didn't even try them at all so others will have better insight on those. PS: There's even a melee sniper with Monk + Instruments of Pain + reach weapons. It comes very late but the range is 11 meters with all the melee goodies.

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Cheers! After reading through your post I will say that Deadfire most certainly is not for you. --- But since Deadfire is not expensive nowadays and because you're in the software business and therefore won't be a pauper you could still give it a shot - just to be really sure that you definitely don't like it. Else you might have this nagging thought in the years to come: "I know I won't like it, this Boeroer guy told me... but what if... what if I skipped the greatest CRPG of all times?" I mean looking at your opening post you seem to have some free time at hand.

Yes, among other things higher difficulites can increase the number of enemies and also give you more dangerous ones.

When you are not solo you can just knock yourself out with a spell like Necrotic Lance (out of combat preferably).