Boeroer

Hahaha! It works: Sacred Immolation is still firing (Nature's Terror, too by the way) and the self damage gets blocked. It breaks pretty quickly though because 200 pts of damag-shield is not much when 30 points of base dmg (scaling with PL and Might etc.) are pommeling you every 3 secs. Also just tested: If you have a Priest you can use Withdraw: the outgoing dmg still works, the self dmg gets blocked AND you even heal up. Be your party's own sigil of death.

Ah, good thinking, will try that out. But you can always use Lay on Hands + Nature's Balm of course - should be enough.

Old Siec is not so great since its health generation is limited to a few hits per attack roll (no draining from all enemies who get hit). If you want a great (the best) draining effect go with a SC Furyshaper. The Blood Ward transforms ALL dmg (except traps, walls and seals - but even DoT ticks will work!) into healing. So ALL hits from Sacred Immolation do trigger the healing effect. You can even turn huge DoT stuff like Plague of Insects into an awesome damage spell with a good self-healing component. Brand Enemy turns into a weak but endless regeneration effect and so on. You can stack it with Old Siec! I played a solo Furyshaper so I know my Blood Ward stuff.

Yes, swift and efficient. Like doing drive-through vaccination - which is brilliant imo. If you can sell burgers, enormous soft drinks & french fries to individuals at blinding speed by not letting them out of the car you should be able to inject a vaccine in the same way at least as quickly. But they had some favourable conditions that can't be applied to other countries, too. But when I look at Germany's efforts...

The whole administration for Hartz IV (and all of the many many local programs) is so very expensive that it dwarfs the amount that actually goes to the people in need. You either have private insurance (several companies) or "statutory" health insurance (also several players which are actually not state-owned but operate differently than the private ones). If you are employed you pay half of the fee and the other half is paid by your employer. The fee is a percentage of what you earn - like taxes. Higher income = higher fee. If you're not employed you pay it all by yourself (or welfare pays it for you). Private health insurances work like most other insuraces where they try to invest the money and get safe but decent returns - difficult with all-time low interest rates though. The more wealthy people "flee" into private insurance the more pressure there is for the people in stat. health insurance.

I would agree to "better melee dps". Also Sacred Immolation comes very late and the self damage is strong tobacco (as ze Germans say ;)).

I didn't say that nor did I make the implication. I merely pointed out that there is no data that indicates that inflation will go up nor that motivation to get a job will suffer. If there's any data about local UBI projects or similar topics like minimal wage then that data points in the opposite direction or indicates there is no influence - but since the sample sizes are too small one can't be sure. Thus you (no matter if journalist or private person) should neither draw the conclusion that people will stop working - nor should you draw the conclusion that inflation will increase significantly. Those are just assumptions that may or may not fit your personal bias and opinion. You also shouldn't draw the conclusion that people will be a lot happier or healthier. Some pilots did show that it happened while others saw no significant impact. There seem to be a lot of variables at play so universal and easy assumptions and solutions won't work. Here's an argument from Germany: The amount of money we paid for social security in 2019 - which was 1.04 trillion € - was higher than the expenses for an estimated UBI of 1,000€ per capita and month - which was 996 billion €. So we would even spare money if we just removed the current system and introduced an UBI system. AND poor people would even get more money than they get now - even those who currently don't get social welfare because they are not capable to apply (don't have the paperwork, no permanent residence, mental issues etc.). Am I a fan of UBI? Not generally, no. Mainly because people who absolutely don't need the money would still get it - like me. That's not social equity. I don't need that money so I think it would be better to not give it to me - instead give it to people who really need it (like single moms for example or elderly whose pension is loo low while their health insurance grows more and more expensive). But there could be implementations where you simply introduce a luxury tax or increase the taxes of higher incomes more to remove that social injustice. Then I would be in favor. I don't see a big problem with an UBI test run in a whole country. I mean if it doesn't work out you just go back - what's the deal? Germany introduced tuition fees and we didn't like it: got removed. We canceled unemployment benefits and introduced social security benefits and kept it, we introdiuces minimum wage and it worked out well: kept it. You can't know for sure what will happen with any UBI unless you try it. But there can be many, many different implementation of an UBI system and I think you can't do UBI justice by quickly discussing it superficially with limited knowledge in a forum of a game developer where very conservative gamers meet very progressive gamers.

It's one thing to assume something in an article and another to look at the model projects where this wasn't an issue. Same argument was made with minimum wage (also here in Germany before it got introduced). Inflation didn't move one bit. It got even lower. I now can get a loan of 1 million € for 0.5% interest rate, fixed for 10 years. Before Minimum Wage it was around 4% iirc (already low). That was with raising employment rates also (not the assumed drop because cheap labor would become too expensive). By the way (if this wasn't posted yet): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_pilots Only one of the pilots showed slightly less motivation for employment (one I the US I the 60s/70s). The more recent ones showed no impact on employment rates. Inflation wasn't an issue at all - since the sample sizes were simply too small. Hence my comparison with minimum wage introduction.

Higher inflation is not necessarily a bad thing. In Europe inflation is so low that it hurts the economy. Think about this: if you had debts, would you want inflation to be high or low? If you had assets that don't lose value with inflation, would you want high inflation (generally meaning higher interest rates) or low? In all model projects I read about people did NOT lose motivation to get a job. They just could afford to take jobs they liked more but which did pay less though.

It's more likely that a less harmful but more infectious mutant will prevail - but there's no guarantee.

Right. The Spanish Flu pandemic ended not only because of herd immunity but also because the virus mutated into a less harmful form (like a normal influenza).

Yes, a lot of lashes. I'd add Hylea's Talons and Belt of Magran's Chosen for additional ones. But also on a Bleak Walker with Scion of Flame & Spirit of Decay you'll have +2 PEN for your Flames of Devotion attacks (including the lashes) and +20 ACC (+10 FoD +10 Ring of Focused Flames) which is a nice package.

Holy smokes: the combination of Nature's Terror + Sacred Immolation while attacking with Eternal Devotion (Bleak Walker) is pretty fun.

Yes it does!

I still don't know about SC Druid as Spiritshift build. Even if you get a lot more duration per (late) kill: it's an "on kill" effect after all - which usually is not a very impactful teigger to begin with (because if you kill a lot that usually means you're fighting weaksters anyway). There might be exception though - like really long fights with waves of enemies (see SSS). I would just miss all the goodies that makes Spiritshift more fun: good full attacks (FoD, Rogue's stuff, Stunning Surge and so on), lashes, speed buffs, damage bonuses... I mean you can uff a bit via Chanter and Priest buddies (Mith Fyr, Champion's Boon etc.) but that's not the same level of fun and "look I build something powerful"-satisfaction imo. Stalker/Shifter: also (Accurate) Wounding Shot + boar DoT +(potentially Hylea's Talons) should stack nicely, right? Boar form always unlocks Predator's Sense I reckon. Back to Wildstrike Frenzy/prolonging Spiritshift: does Wall of Draining prolong Spiritshift? Thinking about a buffed-up Sorcerer boar with Zandethus Draconic Fury...

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.