Boeroer

Last night I dreamt about this (maybe because this thread was the last thing I read before going to bed) and in my dream Obsidian hired "the whole gang" as consultants for their next RPG. You know for the next Pillars game (I feel it will come some day) we should really set up our own website/wiki.

Nope - I renamed the files and it works just fine. Okay, I should have mentioned that I also rename the file extension. Oops. I don't like to delete the files because sometimes I want to test stuff with or without mod and deleting/moving files is bothersome then.

Thank you. Yes, the goal was to not deliver a "moar powa" or be supercool but rather so iron out some of stuff that was left after the final official patch. I can also recommend the mod "Enhanced UI": https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/32/ It is very nice, doesn't alter any mechanics at all but only provides some more info and tooltips in a very unobstrusive way. This and the Community Patch are the only ones I use. A nice thing about the CP is that you can easily switch on/of the changes that are listed seperately. You just have to rename the mod files that are well named. For example if you want to switch off the nerf of Resonant Touch you simply rename the according file to "switch_off_<filename>" or whatver and it's deactivated. Thhat way you can enjoy it even if there are some changes you don't agree with.

Hello! I just landed a graze on a Troll with high fortitude (with Xoti ofc) and did 162 slash damage (at lvl 7). I wanted to watch the dmg calculation because 162 seemed a bit high for a mere graze. But to my astonishment there was no tooltip for the dmg roll. Blessed Harvest does more dmg the lower the enemy' health is. Is that amount calculated and then it ignores the hit quality maybe or something? I never noticed before... ???

1. Nope - all gain the same as long as they are in the party. Companions in the strongholg get a bit less (I think they gain 75%). 2. Right (they are in the stronghold though, not in an inn). They can go on "stronghold adventures" though which will give them extra XP. This requires not much action on your part. You just choose a companion who's in the stronghold to do an adventure that pops up. He/she will then leave the stronghold and return later with XP and sometimes even neat unique items. It doesn't matter whom you pick - they will always be successful afaik. 3. Per head - yes. XP will be granted to the whole party and then devided among all party members equally. If you have less than 6 party members the XP gained for the whole party will be less, but per head it will be more (because it gets devided among fewer heads). The XP gain per head is highest when going solo. You can trick the game a bit if you level up solo as high as you want and only then pick up new party members (which automatically puts them on your level). You can read about it in more detail here: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Experience_and_advancement

Mechanics skill - and only mechanics. When you are in scouting mode (aka stealth mode) you'll get a bonus. So always make sure you are in scouting mode when exploring new areas. For example in order to find Tidefall in a heap you need minimum 10 mechanics and have to be in scouting mode.

Huh? Since when? You'll get Berath Blessing points with or without mods. Or what kind of achievements are we talking about? The Ultimate Challenge will disable all mods, but that's something else. You won't get BB points when cheating with "iRoll20s" in the console.

Oh by the way: I forgot that all the Paladin/something variants with WotEP & Offensive Parry profit a lot from Inspired Beacon. Normally the action economy prevents Inspired Beacon from being very good unless you use it to set up the casting for another party member. But here your Offensive Parries (& also Riposts if Trickster) can happen right after casting during recovery phase. It wll give you more virtual deflection (because Blinded enemies have lower ACC) and better draining (+40% dmg). It's also great in combination with Sacred Immolation (draining works aginst the self damage - still have to use Lay on Hands though).

Yeah but it's not that big of a deal. Those are only minor improvements. But if you always wanted to paly a sort-of evil MC it's a good pick.

Actually Justice has two lashes: one "mini" lash that is listed right beside its physical dmg (10% I believe) and the 25% crushing lash. That one is like an elemental lash and you can't add another one. Still it's a good weapon for focus generation because two lashes. Just know that every lash is applied separately (they don't get added to a bigger single one internally) and every lash (except raw ones) have to overcome 1/4th of enemies DR. No matter how low the lash is: it's always 1/4 DR. Lashes don't profit from DR bypass (like Vulnerable Attack) and that means that a 10% lash will often not be able to penetrate and thus won't do any damage. It's very beneficial to lower enemies' DR in those cases and ramp up your dmg per hit. Same is true for two unique flails. i think it's Starcaller and Unforgiven iirc. Both have a mini-lash + normal lash. But since their dmg per hit is lower than that of a two hander the mini-lash struggles even more to overcome DR. In that regard Justice has an advantage. Hours of St. Rumbalt will give you more focus than Tidefall on average (if fully enchanted) because the Annihilation (double crit dmg) will generate more focus while wouning (while being the better dps enchantment) will not. Firebrand is an awesome tool to get focus - especially with a lot of dmg bonuses (Two Handed Style, Soul Whip, Might etc) and Time Parasite. Its base damage is way higher than that of a normal great sword. Higher base dmg is also multiplicative but even better than a lash because it doesn't have to overcome DR separately. It can't be enchanted with Durgan Steel etc. but on the other hand it spares you all the enchantment resources since it scales automatically. Leaving you more stuff for your other party members.

The damage of Steel Garrote/Trickster is very good against melee mobs. And once you get too much damage you can just use Repulsive Visage and trigger Disengagement Attacks. Against ranged enemies or spellcasters the whole Riposte stuff is obviously doing nothing - but you'll have other party members. It's not really a caster though. It's just dishing out Ripostes while at the same time attacking the enemies the "conventional" way. As always the AoE of WotEP with Rogue strikes such as Arterial Strike etc. or Toxic Strike is great. Most of the casting will be Mirrored Images/Llengrath's stuff. Trickster/Soulblade will generate focus with Offensive Parry (which is awesome) but not with the Rogue Riposte iirc. I did a test not too long ago but I'm not 100% sure on Riposte anymore. Offensive Parry 100% though. I once did a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade with Offensive Parry: it will generate focus as well as wounds. If you use Nomad's Brigandine and pick the Disengagement immunity as enchantment you can run away from enemies and their Disengagement Attacks will turn to misses 100% - triggering Offensive Parry every time. Gives focus and wounds that you can then use to turn around and hit them. At the same time normal melee misses against you will still trigger Offensive Parry of course. But Monk/Cipher won't have such high deflection as Trickster/Cipher or Paladin/Cipher of course. Still fun! Shattered Pillar calls for installing the Community Patch though (see my signature). It sets the max wound count of Shattered Pillar back to 10. When Shattered Pillar was introduced it was too strong. So it got nerfed twice: first the max wound count was set to 5. That wasn't enough so it was also determined that only non-ability-attacks will generate wounds. That was a huge nerf. They then forgot to lift the first one. Comm.Patch does that (and has some other nice balancing/fixing goodies, too. And UI-wise it has unique passive icons for your ability tree which otherwise all use the same repeating icons which is confusing).

When playing Forbidden Fist/Cipher I strongly recommend installing the Community Patch (see my signature). Usually Forbidden Fist (the attack ability) is not tagged as melee weapon attack but as a "melee spell". This means it will NOT generate focus (and besides that it won't work with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming). Community Patch will fix those two quirks (besides other stuff that improves the game balance without power creep). It also nerfs some broken/overpowered mechanics (like putting a cap of 25 to Resonant Touch etc.). Without CP your Forbidden Fist will have to use other attacks besides Forbidden Fist if he wants focus. Or pick Beguiler instead of Ascendant or Soulblade.

Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with WotEP is fun. One just has to understand that the focus is not on melee combat but on casting while doing Offensive Parries (which daze and therefore drain health for you). Max Res, good INT, rest can be mediocre. The following is not really a caster but a variant of the above which is more melee-focused: Steel Garrote/Trickster with Offensive Parry and Riposte. While Offensive Parry only hits 1 enemy the Riposte uses the whole cone AoE of the WotEP. Furyshaper/Troubadour or Skald is an awesome frontline caster imo. Furyshaper/Beguiler, too. Unbroken/Bloodmage with a focus on terrify spells (Ryngrim's stuff) is also neat. I also like a Streetfighter/Skald who uses summoned Whisps to make himself distracted (unlocking the Streetfighter passive). Berserker/Fury can be nice because of the +3 PEN to elemental spells. I'd use Lord Darryn's Voulge. But it needs healing from a party member Stalker/Bloodmage with Morning Star is also good. As is a Stalker/Ancient. The high ACC is nice to reliably land stuff like Plague of Insects etc. Forbidden Fist/Ascendant is also nice. Enfeeble + Disintegrate = death sentence.

No. It's a unique enchantment that works like a lash (in this case meaning it's a multiplicative dmg bonus). But you can add an elemental lash to the sword like to every other weapon. Those elemental lashes do generate focus.

I think any hard CC freezes the recovery?

By the way: the wounding DoT-lash of Tidefall doesn't generate focus like other lashes do.

I think Kaylon meant why you'll have endless recovery to begin with.

That's why I said potential. You can reach 0 recovery with Tidefall if you have >= 13 DEX, Durgan Steel and use a potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (or are a Wizard) and Gauntlets of Swift Action. This leaves a recovery of 0.7 frames which will get skipped (iirc everything below 0.8 gets skipped). Reaching 0 recovery is nice and all - but usually you only achieve it late in the game (if not dual wielding + speed weapons). It's more important what happens before. And over the course of a whole playthrough Tidefall is one of the best weapons imo (Full Attacks aside). Early to get, comes with high quality and very good enchantments. BotEP is also very nice but the pierce-only dmg sometimes stinks. Also comes rather late(ish). I like it on a marking Paladin. It can be substituted with the Half-Mast pollaxe until you get it. The pollaxe is also a backup against pierce immune enemies.

Survival influences the height of the autohit-AoE debuff of Ngati's Tusk. With Survival 20 it will reduce all defenses in 2.5m base radius by 10 (iirc) without any hit roll or immunity.

Tidefall's wounding scales with MIG. It's the weapon with the highest potential dps in the game. Inspiring Radiance should be used at the start of the encounter in order to more reliably land an impactful CC/debuffing spell. Afflictions in PoE are very potent - and often making sure to land those right at the start of battle can already decide it.

The second one: Boar Tusks apply a passive wounding effect (similar to the wounding that some unique weapons do). It's a raw damage over time "lash" that is multiplicative and that even scales with you character's Might (meaning the higher your Might the bigger the percentage of the lash) - and it's one of the best weapon effects for dps there is (besides speed). For whatever reason it's not listed in the wiki. Don't ask me why. +7 to all defenses is not bad. But defenses have increasing returns. That means that such a bonus is especially good for somebody who already has good defenses but not particularly useful for somebody who hasn't. A spiritshifted Druid usually isn't focused on defenses so the +7 to all defenses help a bit but are not as good as they would be on - let's say a paladin tank. The Boar regeneration is def. the weaker of the two passives the boar gets (the really good one is the wounding) but it stacks with all other sources of healing (like Veteran's Recovery for example) which can be used to be rel. sturdy despite focusing on offense. +2 per 3sec is only the base value. IIRC it scale with level - and stuff like Might, high Survival skill (pick the healing bonus when camping), healing buffs like the Chanter's "Mercy and Kindness" chant and also items can increase its potentency further. It's not supergood but nice to have. It's bad. A lame AoE attack you can use per rest. And you don't lean it, it just comes with the Stag form. If it were a passive, weaker Carnage effect (see Barbarian) I would totally recommend Stag. But as is I can only recommend it if you are building a high-defense Druid who's supposed to look great when shifted. Also it's the form I would use when I play a Nature Godlike - for optical reason only. As I explained above the Boar's tusks apply raw wounding damage over time. Raw means it ignores the DR of enemies. I believe that doesn't work. Also I wouldn't do it even if it worked because Spiritshift weapons scale with character level and become stupidly powerful at higher levels - I wouldn't overwrite those weapons with Reaping Knives even if I could. The best target of reaping knives would be a Rogue or a Barbarian. It doesn't matter if the character who receives Reaping Knives has Two Weapon Style of not. What I mean is that Two Weapon Stylew doesn't determine whether you can cast it on them or not. They will just attack a bit faster with Two Weapon Style than without of course. I would recommend that you just start playing. You are def. overplanning and overthinking this. Edit: befire I forget - A druid focused on Spiritshift absolutely wants to use the Wildstrike Belt. Its description is misleading. It's a LOT better than it appears to be:

Deltro's Cage Helmet shouldn't trigger Deathblows on spells. It will say so in the log (but with every spell done as a Rogue with Deathblows - with or without the helmet iirc) but if you open the hit roll it will not have added damage. Only Assasinate will work. I believe that pre release Deathblows worked with spells like it did in PoE1 - but that it was removed in the release version. They simply forgot to fix the log entry routine maybe. Blade Feast (basically Ghost Blades + healing) from Engolerio on the other hand is a weapon effect and will get the bonus dmg from Deathblows and Sneak Attack, Legendary and so on. The combo of Assassin/Wizard with Deltro's Cage Helmet + Blade Feast is superstrong. But again:

Active accuracy bonuses won't stack. So Zealous Focus (+6) + Blessing (+5) = still 6. Devotions is an exception because it doesn't raise universal ACC but "only" ranged and melee ACC which makes it stack (weird but it's like that). Coordinated Attacks, Marking, Inspiring Radiance are all considered passive effects and stack. Marking from two chars won't stack on the ally that profits from marking. But dual wielding two marking weapons (Cladhaliath + Shame or Glory) will stack their markings. Inspiring Liberation (Darcozzi) will also stack with everything. E.g. a Darcozzi Paladin with Zealous Focus with Cl.+SoG and Coordinated Attacks will provide +46 ACC for the ally who's nearest him and attacks the same target. 40 of those are completely stackable. Add Inspiring Radiance and Devotions and you are at +76 ACC. If the nearest ally is a Cipher he can cast Tactical Meld on the Paladin (stacks), get a Coordinating weapon (+5 ACC) and cast Borrowed Instinct (don't recall if that stacks with Devotions, maybe not - it's been some time). You can reach nearly 100 bonus ACC that way (ignoring debuffs like Flanking for now) which makes fights against dragons and other stuff extremely easy, especially if the Cipher uses a weapon with prone on crit (there is no immunity) and/or uses Mind Control and then Disintegration. By the way: for Marking/Coordinated Attacks/Tactical Meld/Coordinated on weapon to work you only need to initiate an attack, you don't have to actually run there and hit. You will eventually, but the click on the enemy alone (the command to attack) immediately unlocks those effects for the nearest ally who's also attacking the same target. It works for all sorts of attack the ally will use (spells, weapon attacks etc.). Edit: Inspiring Radiance even stacks with itself. So basically a party of 6 Priests could all use Inspiring Radiance at the start of battle and would all get +60 ACC. Or for better usage of the ACC use 5 Priests and a Wizard or so. Which is insane given how early you can get that talent. I never checked if the same works with Inspiring Liberation (like when you cast it on one ally with multiple paladins) but I guess so.

TheirChampion braved the Horde alone - but was pretty sad that he got degraded to a mere companion. He then founded the DCU (Deadfire Champion Union). Coming back to the Psion/Troubadour I also really love to bring a Wizard as Will debuffer (Dazzling Lights + Miasma, Aloth works). Because it makes Killers Froze Stiff (and lots of other Cipher and Priest spells) so much more effective and Miasma also helps with lowering deflection indirectly (stacking with direct debuffs). The Psion/Troub. can be a good debuffer as well. For example Long Night's Drink + Ben Fidel + stunning invocation drops fortitude by 30 points in an AoE. Takes some time to cast all that and I usually prefer Howler for that role bc. of Spirit Frenzy + Long Night's Drink being such an awesome combo - but it's a nice additional option nonetheless. Speaking of Howler: put on Ngati's Tusk (with maxed Survival) and Cap of the Laughingstock and you'll put -10 to all defenses on all enemies I range automatically without any hit roll. If you also wear the Ice Helmet thing this will make you a very reliable AoE debuffer. If you want to use terrify effects you have to skip the Cap though.