Boeroer

Taste of the Hunt. You will only get healed once despite hitting multiple foes - but the AoE cone will apply the high raw damage to all enemies. Or you don't tank but focus on dealing damage and just be like when sombody attacks you. By the way: Eternal Devotion's lash also applies to direct damage (Sunbeam etc.) and pulsing spells (Wicked Briars, Relentless Storm, Nature's Terror etc.). There aren't that many multiplicative dmg bonuses for spells so this is pretty nice.

Since the "weapons" of Spiritshift forms don't scale with Power Level but character level and since Wildstrike Frenzy is a rel. lame upgrade overall (+4 secs per kill... mehehehehehe) I'd advocate for multiclass. Avenging Storm is nice with fast melee attacks - but the rest of the PL8/9 spells are not very exciting for somebody who wants to use their Spiritshift form in melee mostly. In another thread we found out that the Boar form's raw damage does incredibly well with the Helwalker's MIG and INT buffs (because more dmg AND way longer Spiritshift). Especially the Shifter's boar form because it's implemented differently than the "normal" boar form (for whatever reasons). Streetfighter is also a nice option: Trickster is always nice. Other good combo is bear form + Goldpact Knight. You'll get plenty of lashes (Greater Wildstrike + Eternal Devotion) for good melee dmg and very high AR with 0 recovery penalty - which also is a way to raise dps while being very sturdy. The bear's +2 AR does stack with the Paladin's Passive AND Gilded Enmity. And wioth Sworn Rival you can basically have unlimited uses of Gilded Enmity as long as you kill the guy with Sworn Rival on (which might trigger Inspiring Triumph and so on and so forth). Pretty fun. Barbarian with stag form is fun IF you use the community patch. The abysmal original stag AoE ability became a weaker version of Carnage there - and it stacks with the Barb's Carnage. It's not OP but nice. Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst is nice if you combine it with some nasty DoT spells like Plague of Insects etc.: Once the weaker ememies die from it you are getting your recovery eliminated and that can speed you up a lot. Furyshaper is a nice Barb subclass anyway but Berserker also works fine since you can heal yourself well enough as Druid (as long as not Fury).

Iirc White Flames from Kind Wayfarer only triggers if you don't miss with the attacks - so I wouldn't go too low with Perception. Might increases healing, so that shouldn't be too low either. Intellect will determine the size of the healing so that shouldn't be too low as well. Bit Resolve for Paladins is always appropriate. Dexterity and Constitution don't seem to be overly important. Overall I would try a rel. balanced apporoach leaning towards MIG/PER/INT I think.

9 levels of discrepancy is an awful lot - but 3 isn't that bad even on PotD (if it's not the whole party that's 3 levels behind but only one or two members). Certainly not "useless". I really despise that term since it's almost always extreme hyperbole and never used properly here. If anything a low level character can at least be used as bait and distraction, right?

Err... very fondly? I personally used Killer Froze Stiff (+later the upgrade) and Soul Shock most often combined with Brisk Recitation. Because high INT + Lingering Echoes with Killers often leads to such a long paralysis that you get 4 phrases back before the enemies are free again. Paralyze-lock basically. Later I also used more high-level spells like Borrowed Instinct etc. - but still mostly a mix of CC + dmg. I also tried a variant of Mind Control + Summons. I called it "the Recruiter". Using the Troubadour phrases to call summons (+Many Lives Pass By chant later) and the Psion side to (mass) charm/dominate. I made it so that only one enemy was left "hostile" who then faced all the summons + charmed/dominated enemies. This is extremely powerful but it felt so cheesy that I didn't pursue this path further. But it also depends on your role. A Psion-Troubadour can also focus on support and healing. A *very* versatile multiclass - so it's difficult to name the "best" abilities. Depends on your party composition, too. If you have a lot of buffing and debuffig/CC from other party members already the Psion/Troubadour could use Soul Shock or Mind Blades or Echo beams + Her Revenge all the time for pure damage for example.

See my signature. It's a mod done by some veteran forum members here that balances a few "broken" things and also adds some UI goodies (like unique passive icons that otherwise are all the same). If you're on console you can't use it though.

Why?

Hello and welcome! Maybe: Moon Godlike Kind Wayfarer Paladin (dual wielding the Sabre of the Seas + other sabre) Fire Godlike Barbarian Death Godlike Priest of Berath Nature Godlike Boar Druid (replace shock with corrode and nature spells/abilities maybe)

I want to add that grazes don't stop Psion's Soul Mind. Only hits and crits (only crits with Community Patch).

Played a Psion/Troubadour not too long ago: it's very versatile, can do support, healing, damage, CC - and the best is that you allwys have some resources to cast your stuff while at the same time you also have your phrases helping passively. Was very effective and fun. Particulary the Killer Froze Stiff invocation + Lingering Echoes was very useful since I was often able to alomost paralyze-lock whole groups of foes and alternate between Killers - Soul Shock - Killers - Soul Shock and so on while healing my party passively with Ancient Memory and Lethandria's Devotion. Didn't use buffing that much because I had no time since Killers was so effective. But I could certainly have cast support stuff instead - if that would have been my main role.

Soul Mind usually reaches 5 focus per second at lvl 20 (9 PL). It can reach 6 focus per second once you add +2 PL through Prestige and Stone of Power for example. With another 2 PLs (Lance of the Midwood Stag/Lord of the Forest) you get 7 focus per second and so on. You really don't want to get hit by anything (or crit if you are using the Community Patch) because that will pause your focus generation for 6 secs which is... bad. Only actual hits count though. self damage like Berserker Frenzy, Alacrity, Sacred Immolation, Blood Sacrifice, scepter modal etc. won't stop your focus generation. DoT's also only with the initial hit. Pulsing spells like Chillfog, Wicked Briars etc. or Wall spells are your worst enemy.

You shouldn't limit yourself to one weapon. Kitchen Stove is great for most encouters like described. For the others you need something with high PER or better raw damage. For example Eccea's Arcane Blaster. It can make sure you get at least decent focus from even the most armored foes. Essence Interrupter can also be very good since the shock damage can be used when pierce or slash AR is very high. As SC Psion you don't need any weapon. Just some "stat stick".

Yeah, most of them work like that as long as they are flagged as weapon attacks. But the difference is that Thunderous Report is not 1/rest like most of those abilities but instead is useable 1/encounter. Another ability that is a bit like this would be the spinning AoE attack of WotEP. It doesn't have that insane base dmg though. But it's AoE also works with Shared Nightmare and can be used to ascend very quickly if you're surrounded. A Cipher with Grave Calling/Chilling Grave even gets focus from the foe-only Chillfog that gets triggered if you kill any vessel with the sabre. So if you have a Chanter in the group (best a Beckoner) you can generate focus all the time by killing one or more of the weak skeletons. If you are fighting vessels it's often auto-win.

That's only the case im fights with easy (enough) to hit enemies though. Against tough nuts that approach doesn't work. I find that SC Ascendant sometimes struggles against few but tough enemies (bosses mostly but also others).

Time Parasite on an Ascendant in combination with Disintegrate is great. Higher PL, very fast casting, no focus cost... Disintegrate also profits from higher Power Level which would multiply with additive dmg bonuses such as MIG (maybe also Griffin's Blade and Harley pet - didn't test those with DoTs). Also the duration is longer then. The +10 MIG and +10 INT from a Helwalker is hard to beat though. Longer duration is not increased dps - but the overall dmg from one cast is bigger. If it's about Disintegrate only: Forbidden Fist with its enfeeble effect is also very good here: Forbidden Fist + Stunning Surge will lower enemies' fortitude by 20. It's way easier to land Disintegrate then. If you're also using a Morning Star you can lower the fortitude by 45 points which often leads to Disintegrate-crits. Enfeebled + Crit + 10 INT means +150% Disintegration duration! That's not dps via pure casting of course. Instead of SC Ascendant one can also use a Streetfighter/Ascendant and use mortars or other blunderbusses to reach ascension an then cut recovery in half (during Ascension most importantly).

The potions work like Smoke Veil by the way (meaning the invisibility will not break from DoT ticks).

No, stuff like Time Parasite, Shared Nightmare etc. and especially Driving Echoes (for a fellow caster) are good reasons to go for SC Cipher. It's just so that some multiclasses are more fun early on because they get two resource pools and are often frontloaded with good abilites. The advantages of a single class character become more obvious with more levels: higher Power Level, earlier access to impactful higher-level abilites and finally access to PL8 and 9 abilities is nothing that you "feel" early on but later.

If you only want to spam cipher spells I would multiclass with Helwalker. The +10 MIG (dmg), +10 INT (duration, AoE size), +2 PEN and +5 MIG (dmg) from Thunderous Blows and +12 ACC with Enduring Dance are great. Also a great combo for non-Psions because Helwalkers have an easier time generating more focus - for example with Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole on groups of enemies (mortars' AoE also increases with INT etc.).

Ectopsychic Echo does great dmg. It's really hard to pull off for AI though... I guess? Didn't really try but it's tricky enough when I try to place it myself. Mind Blades is maybe the easiest spell to use for AI. With decent Power Level and some gear that can improve its stats it can be pretty good. One spell that is totally underestimated is Soul Shock imo. I only used it more frequently when I was playing my Psion/Troubadour - because it's so cheap that you can always cast it if you alternate between invocaions and cipher powers - even in the early game. I pretty much overlooked it before but I realized it's pretty good actually. Shock damage is often the least resisted type of elemental damage and Soul Shock scales well with Power Levels. It's also easy to use for AI I guess. Just drop it on the ally with the most enemies around or so. It's obviously not your go-to spell while ascended - you want to put out the most devastating spells then - but its dmg/cost ratio is good.

Deltro's Cage Helmet:

Örm wäit... there's already another game in the making that uses Eora as setting. It may be that it tells a story that is placed before the happenings in the Deadfire Archipelago - but it will still add to the (hi)story of Eora nevertheless. And given the unique IP, several novels, two finished games including 5 DLCs, one board game, a TTRPG in the maiking (last testing game session was yesterday I believe), new Microsoft money and GamePass as platform where also small title make sense... I find it very, very hard to imagine that the story of Eora will not see any further development. Not necessarily with an isometric party based RTwP RPG - but something that pushes the story further will come.

Äh... was that an answer to my question "Why would you buy the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry"? If yes: let my visualize what the emphasis was meant to be: "Why would you ***BUY*** the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry?"

Yes, crush damage is preferrable to pierce. If I'm mostly casting spells though I like the Lance equally well because of universal Power Level bonus. But you need to cast Woodskin or Form of the Delemgan to unlock Lord of the Forest which is a bit of a disadvantage comared to the "always on" bons the Spine grants you.

Right Wrong Right Wrong ;)

? The dmg type of Citzal's Spirit Lance is crush.