Boeroer

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).

I find the one raw DoT on it which increases with focus just nuts. It ticks for 30+ dmg easily when ascended iirc. And it's not even the only raw DoT on the weapon...

The skeletons can be nasty because they are immune to pierce damage. But you can lure them one by one etc. so they are more manageable than the whole Drake possy.

Hello, Pernicious Cloud has a huge base radius (5m) centered on the Rogue - and deals really nasty DoT in an AoE. It is not foe-only. Like all AoEs with friendly fire (for example Fireball), Pernicious Cloud shows its AoE indicator with a red circle (the friendly fire part) and a yellow, bigger circle which usually indicates the foe-only part. However, with Pernicious Cloud - and that's the only ability I know of that behaves this way - the yellow circle also does friendly fire. 🤯 Since the AoE can be very big this makes Pernicious Cloud quite bad if you play with a party or anywhere near neutral bystanders (city etc.). Bit sad given how many ability points you have to invest to get there. Because this behaviour is totally not in line with the rest of the game I call the current implementation faulty. To fix it there are two variants: make the whole AoE indicator red (like for example Storm of Holy Fire . this wouldn't fix the problem that the ability is difficult to use if you're not alone - but at least it will communicate its effect in the proper way) make the yellow area foe-only I would like to propose one of those fixes for the Community Patch. @MaxQuest@Phenomenum would that be something to consider? Others please chime in, too! Maybe I missed something or this was discussed before.

Sounds like a reasonable attribute distribution. I guess I'd put 2 points from DEX to INT but that's mostly cosmetic I guess. Just keep in mind that if you play with a party the Enfeeble effect is not only useful for your own effects (and stuff like Stunning Surge, Whisper of Treason, Puppet Master etc. won't even profit from MIG but only from INT and Enfeeblement) but also for all the time-limited effects of your whole party.

You can also go through the training area with the skeletons. If you return to the arena after finding Oderisi: there will be no Drakes etc. and the animancers + Aloth will wait for you outside the cage.

Yes, it's a bit much. Maybe Obsidian wanted to show that you don't need to fight every encounter but sometimes have to avoid fights. They did so with the bear cave in PoE. But that was a side quest. Gorecci Str. is also a side quest, but I don't understand the digsite. You can sneak past the Drake etc. - but chances that new players will become extremely frustrated are quite high. At least there should have been some tutorial-like warnings of explanations that it's always an option to void a fight and that XP from fighting is not very high anyway.

Well the normal boar form isn't weak, it only has a far shorter DoT duration (3 sec base compared to 15 sec base of the Shifter!). If you keep pummeling the same enemy you wouldn't notice it - until it's an enemy with very high health. But if you hit an enemy, then the next, then another one etc. it becomes superobvious. Keep in mind that the Helwalker I used in this case not only has +10 INT (so the duration is ridiculously long) but he also had Instruments of Pain. You'd just be standing there and maybe move a bit here and there but could attack a lot of different enemies with very little movement. Bang - bang - bang: three enemies are doomed to die with only three strikes. This type of combat could also be done with a Ranger/Shifter with Wounding Shot + Evansive Roll or Rogue with Ring the Bell + Deep Wounds + Escape. Fighter with Tactial Barrage and Clear Out (=AoE Boar Dot!) may also be worth a try. It could melt whole groups with only that one use of Clear Out...

Edér again

I would go mediocre on MIG because the curse can be really nasty before you get some more "-x% hostile duration" and +RES abilities and gear - and it scales its dmg up with MIG of course. You don't need to have superhigh INT because of the same reasons and you'll get Duality oMP/Turning Wheel (up to +10 INT) later. With the Berath Blessings vendor in Port Maje you can get an Amulet of Greater Health which makes things more easy-going in the early game - so you don't need high CON either. Later I would try to get some regeneration gear which helps to counter the health loss from the curse and Hylea's Talons (which I recommend for wound generation). While the durations of those hostile DoTs will get reduced by RES and -x% hostile effects stuff (e.g. Clarity of Agony), regeneration gear's effects will not. Voidward Ring also helps. Usually high DEX is always good - but in this case it's not too bad to have a somewhat mediocre DEX score that prevents you from spamming Forbidden Fist too quickly. I like high PER on MC if I go with official companions because none of them has very high PER which can mean you will miss some secrets/traps etc. It will be difficult to get it very high though if you don't want to really dump some other attribute. With Forbidden Fist the attribute distribution is tricky since you want to go max RES but also some other attributes are nice to have. Points are scarce and you'll have to make some sacrifices. Berath Blessings extra stats are especially nice in this case.

I guess that's because it's not direct damage but DoT and needs a bit time to build up. Most enemies, if you attack them one at a time - die before it becomes obvious. But if you use it against damage sponges or divide your attacks between mutiple opponents it becomes fairly obvious imo. I only tested it vs. dummies which are Rotghasts basically. They have high health but quite low defenses and they just melt from the DoT. In my tests I hit a dummy with one(!) Full Attack with a Helwalker/Shifter with +10 MIG and INT - and it was almost enough to kill them. Unlike some other raw DoTs like from Stalker's Patience etc. this raw DoT stacks! And with high INT it reaches absurd durations with a Shifter Boar. Two Full Attacks from a non-optimzed test char and I get ticks of 30+ raw dmg for over 30 secs. Maybe it doesn't even feel overpowered when you play in a "normal" way - it's just so different from the non-shifter boar forms. I think they should all work all in the same way (although it's of course fun to discover those things and play around them for a bit ).

Depends on the enemies you are facing. For example Blaidh Golan is good against Ogres because they knock you prone quite often. Wayfarer's Hide is better against other enemies. In general the Wayfarer's Hide is better. It comes later though - so I would simply use Blaidh Golan until I get the Wayfarer's Hide.

As far as I can tell it's only the Shifter.

Slight is less than minor.

With Scheemer's Needler I would pick Doemenel as well. Fits 100%. Misery's End is not good, but you also get a big pile of money in addition (forgot to mention that). You can get Cladhaliath later with every faction - after once Act III is unlocked. So your Druid can still use it if he wants. But if he's in melee a lot I personally would train him around Shifting/Wildstrike. As long as a Druid is shifted he has the potential to do even more melee dps than a rogue while still being able to cast all his stuff. I mean unless you want to use him with shield etc. and be more tanky.

But the looks! 🙈

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.