Boeroer

Tell that to Lucia Rivan. It seems that Death Guards don't necessarily have to be on good terms with Berath. Only that their will is strong enough to defy death when it's supposed to come. +50% Action/Recovery debuff is easy, elegant and good since it discourages time stuff/prolonging shenanigans. But once you couple it with Blade Cascade we're back at 0. I actually quite like the Death Guard idea (it's my own after all, hehe, #selflove). Not that it has to be implemented of course, but the lore it implicates is cool imo. I'll develop the idea further (just bear with me, I'm only brainstorming): Every time you hit 0 health while under the effect of Barring Death's Door you'll get an instance of "Mark of Berath (or whatever it's called)". Effects: -10% healing received, -10% max health, +50% duration of Barring Death's Door. At some point (which cannot be reached in game) you'll have 0 "real" health but very long duration of BDD and when you finally go down you'll rise as Death Guard. Yes, of course. Good point. Good point as well. I like a debuff during BDD. Maybe Action speed etc. could get countered by Blade Cascade so maybe something else. But the general idea is good I think. I don't recall any enemies with suoerhigh health who use BDD. But maybe there are. Could be solved with Enfeeblement as a counter though (if not resistant to CON affl.) or by destroy-abilities (Touch of Death, Disintegrate etc.)? But yes: if there's such enemies it would be a problem. Does somebody know enemies like that?

You simply run back up to the house where Vatnir's at. Afaik the Messenger is too big to follow? If not you can simply place your party somewhere out of sight and just go in with the Paladin, apply Brand Enemy and then use a potion of invisibility to retreat to your party asap. Or you just let the Paladin go KO while your party waits out of sight. Combat will not end because the DoT prevents it. It's rel. foolproof. I did my test with lvl-1 Edér and a lvl-5 paladin. But I spawned Neriscyrlas with the console into the early-game caverns on Port Maje. I placed Edér in front of the dragon, applied Brand Enemy, retreated while the Dragon attacked and killed Edér. Then it stood there and burned. I went to prepare some food for the kids and when I came back it was dead.

Cool in general but this sounds a bit too complicated to explain to the average player. I would suggest: Barring Deaths Door will prevent knockout and injury and heal you up to full and then immediately ends. That way: no abuse with time warping effects like SoT and Wall of Draining. If you add an injury it's pretty bad if you want to save fellows who already are severely injured. Or instead: one could add a debuff until rest instead of an injury. Like "Mark of Berath" which gives you +recovery time every time you should have gotten knocked out during BDD. Or -x% healing received. Hey this could explain how people turn into Death Guards. Once you reach -100% from this effect you'll be a Death Guard.

Funny - I almost never use it. I guess first of all it's good if you are able to stack/combine it with other forms of passive party healing like Exalted Endurance and Lethandria's Devotion, Blackened Plate and so on. At some point you will feel a substantial difference I guess. It's also good in combination with damage-mitigating strategies like high defenses + high AR - so great for tanks usually. Also good in combo with Her Courage. And secondly I think it spares you to use a dedicated healing ability "in advance" from time to time. Which can be valuable because that takes at least some recovery time. But I agree that AM alone isn't something I'm too exited about. Other phrases are a lot more appealing to me. For example Many Lives Pass by does a much better job when it's about preventing knockouts. You just fill the battle with decoys - nobody's attacking your party members anymore.

Yes, they do.

Yes, 10 MIG is ok. You want to put a lot into RES.

Normally, if you get two of the same injuries the second one automatically becomes a major injury (third: critical injury). I guess fatigue would be no exception.

Yes it does. And I would strongly recommend Steel Garrote/Trickster for such a setup and using both Offensive Parry and Riposte.

I used to be that way, too. Also in TTRPG sessions. Age somehow cured this.

...then somebody does a Lover's Embrace from stealth...

In this case it's simply based on my enjoyment. Therefore I first need to try it (in most cases). Of course it's not much fun to play an underperforming character in CRPGs (while it can be fun in TTRPGs) as well. But the opposite - like playing a character who has a win-button build in - is also no fun. It's a tightrope walk - but the rope is rel. thick I think. I can have fun with a lot of characters. One key is some interesting, effective mechanics but not too much repetitive micro (like using 123 buffs every time combat starts), another that I personally discovered some nice things about my character build and also that I can somehow connect to the character. That includes a somewhat believable appearance, motivation and backstory - even if it's just a rudimentary thing in the back of my head. So playing a Huana Debonaire in Patinated Plate with Fair Favor, rapier + flail and using the drunk pose... not for me. Anyway: some stuff just feels too strong for me to enjoy it. I don't say other players shouldn't enjoy them - just play how you like it of course. It's just my personal preference and it's complicated. There are even exceptions: I consider SC Monk with dual mortars pretty OP in a party setup for most fights - yet it was so much fun to play. 🤷‍♂️

I don't find it too cheesy to hire a specialized Paladin to fight the Messenger in order to get Vatnir real soon. You're meta-gaming already to get this companion sooner than usual - and then it's just another small step to hire a fitting Paladin for that special task and say farewell to that special dragon hunter afterwards.

I simply don't use it. For the same reason I don't use Deltro's Cage Helmet much and also not Salvation of Time, Barring Death's Door, Wall of Draining, Brilliant in general, Thunderous Report, scrolls and Streetfighter with blunderbusses. It's fun to find out about it and use it for a short while - but boring af in the long run. I never even once used the Strand of Favor trick in an actual playthrough.

With Community Patch all wonky DoTs (that I know about) got their mechanics and descriptions fixed.

If you have a Paladin with Brand Enemy you can take out the Messenger at lvl 5. Neryscirlas is vulnerable to fire damage, Brand Enemy is an auto-hit and it lasts until the fight is over. Once Llengrath's Safeguard kicks in the burn damage will no longer penetrate and thus it will take a very long time to kill him. But I tried 10 minutes ago (just to be sure) and it worked. Maybe backing it up with an Assassin + Gouging Strike would be good.

Right. Skald with Blightheart is very good although it doesn't get any phrases from crits. But +1 phrase from kill (no matter how you kill) is often half the cost of his offensive invocations (e.g. Her Revenge). But don't underestimate the power of the crits. If you build around it (by using high ACC, crit conversion and most importantly high attack speed) you can produce so many phrases that you can't even spend them fast enough. At least against enemies with non-stellar defenses. A Skald/Streetfighter with Pukestabber + Marux Amanth, Miscreant's Leahter, Blackblade's Hood, Two Weapon Style and Confounding Blind, using Killers invocation to paralyze and then using his dagger will swim in phrases as well as deal great weapon dmg AND be rel. sturdy with Mith Fyr + Old Siec. It's fun to play. Actually I will use summons with a Skald. Partly because your max phrase count depends on your most costly invocation. And since Ancient Instruments of Death are very good but also quite costly for a Skald they have two purposes: first of all just be awesome summons of course - but also set the max phrase counter to 7 (6 normally +1 for Skald). You don't have to summon them in every fight, but when summons wohld really make things easier for you (like in boss fights or with tons of enemies) you can use them. For the aforementioned Streetfighter/Skald I will use the upgraded Whisps because they will make me superfast if I use them to fire at myself (only if I'm not flanked by enememies of course). So Skald + summons isn't that wild imo.

Looking at chanter subclasses in general I think most here agree that Troubadour is the most universally useful subclass. It can do it all very well. If you want to focus on invocations then activate Brisk Recitation. If you want overlapping phrases then don't activate Brisk Recitation. Skald is nice if you want to mostly focus on offensive invocations AND expect to crit a lot with melee weapons. You can achieve overlapping phrases witgh a Skald as well if you max INT, stack some INT gear and food and become smart. If you mean AoE damage: multiclass Paladin has Sacred Immolation and multiclass Fighter has Clear Out. Not really "plenty" but something's there. Multiclass Paladin also has the Beacon "tree" which is AoE cc/debuff. Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour with Ancient Memory + Exalted Endurance + White Flames is a very effective offtank who can keep the whole party healthy passively while doing good CC (e.g. Killers Froze Stiff) and damage (Her Revenge, Flames of Devotion). Because defenses will be good and regeneration and AR can be very high you can savely use dual wielding when offtanking. I'd suggest dual sabres. One of them should be Sasha's Singing Scimitar so that you can use Empower once per encounter which is fun imo. Second sabre can be St. Drogga's Skull until you find something you like better (e.g. Scordeo's Edge). There's plenty of unique sabres. Backup weapon could be something with a different damage type, I'd suggest crush damage. So maces, clubs or flails. You can also mix sabre with swords or whatever. If Fighter I would pick Devoted/Skald. I'd use Disciplined Strikes for more crits and cast Killers - and then attack the paralyzed enemies for great phrases generation. I'd use Sun & Moon + Sungrazer as main weapon set and Rännig's Wrath + Pukestabber as backup set and go for good attack speed yet good AR with Two Weapon Style, Devil of Caroc Breastplate + Abraham pet + Armored Grace.

I would try it from lvl 8 on. That would usually be before Act III. At lvl 8 it should still be a challenge. Some of the later White March maps my even be a bit too hard. But you can go and leave there whenever you want. You don't have to "solve" the White March in one go. See it as an addition to the open world map, not as a separate expansion. You cannot play it after finishing the game. Once you beat the main game's end boss it's game over --> ending slides. So please do not finish the main game first. It's even said in the DLC description when you buy it. PS: Cräghold Bluffs is extremely hard for a lvl-8 party. It's late game material. Don't try to solve it before WM.

Tagging @Noqn:)

Right. It's even better with more egagement slots (= more disengagement = more wounds + more disengagment attacks) - so make sure to pick Persistent Distraction and pick up some gear that raises engagement (e.g. shield, spear + modal, Kapana Taga, Reckless Briandine, Ring of the Clenched Muscle, Blackened Plate helmet and so on) or let a Priest cast Champion's Boon onto you or whatever. Keep in mind that you need at least 1 engagement slot to profit from Parting Sorrow (also on kill). No engagement = no wound. Means Debonaire and ranged wepons won't work with Parting Sorrow at all.

They should sell in a bundle

I wouldn't mind if the injury occured after the beneficial effect of the potion runs out (sort of a crash effect). And it shouldn't be a random injury imo but fatigue. It just fits. Afaik fatigue usually only occurs via scripted interactions so it would be unique to get it from a consumable.

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?