Boeroer

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.

I used the Sasha's Singing Scimitar and for some time Lethandria's Devotion but also Griffin's Blade. Weyc's Wand is the goal obviously but that comes very late. I wasn't in the front line though because Psion's focus generation will stop when you get hit - and you don't want that. Exported Weyc's Wand would be cool I guess. But generally you don't need any special items to make Psion/Troubadour work. It's fun out of the box. Ancient is cool. I also use Lance of the Midwood Stag because the PL bonus is only 1 less but works for all spells, including Decay ones which otherwise don't know any PL bonuses. See Infestation of Maggots and so on.

True. Better geht the items you want badly first and then do WMII and Crägholt Bluffs.

I guess SC Priest of Magran with bonus Power Levels stacked to the roof would also be cool. Prestige, Magran's Favor, Sun & Moon, Otto Starcat, Firethrower Gloves, Stone of Power and an Empower Point and *boom*: you're casting with +13 Power Levels. Jeez... that's like being level 49 or so...

You cannot do that. A character + item from a cheated game cannot be imported into a non-cheated game one without it getting marked as cheated. You can use a cheesy char to get the items though (e.g. 55k-Gold-Assassin/Bleak Walker with Lover's Embrace I always use for that). I use Bounding Boots with full cheese mode and just travel where I want to and get the items because you can kill everything rel. easily even if severely underleveled. Just poke them with Gouging Strike + Lover's Embrace from stealth, add Brand Enemy and banks with Smoke Veil. Repeat till everybody's dead. Take the loot. Doesn't work with boarding fights because you can't flee combat there. You need to sink ships (use BB's master sailors, Red Dream Hull and Royal Bronzers). You could also take any "finished" non-cheated run of course and export stuff from there.

Priests are good nukers after a certain level. Their major shortcoming is that it's mostly fire spells which can be a big problem in some encounters (e.g. with Ironclads or Fire Nagas etc.). And Iconic Projection is not enough to balance that out. That's why some people prefer Berath - because that will give you corrosion alternatives. Magran gives you good nuking options early on which is nice - you can start as nuker-priest right away. So using a second class that has alternative dmg types isn't a bad idea. Evoker for example can use other evocation spells that are not for (e.g. missiles). So that can work well. Afaik even the Firethrower Gloves do provide +1 PL for the Magranite bonus evocation spells that are borrowed from Wizard (correct me if I'm wrong). Marux Amanth (soulbound dagger) has a somewhat similar effect as the Evoker passive by the way - but for priests. Other secondary classes that work well are Helwalker: +10 MIG from passive, +12 ACC from Enduring Dance, +2 PEN and +5 MIG (stacks with +10) from Thunderous Blows, +10 INT from Duality oMP and Stunning Surge with is great to use with Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole to prepare a nuke. Imo mortars also totally fit a Priest of Magran. What's also cool is to use Magran's Blessing and combine it with Swift Flurry+Heartbeat Drumming: because the Fire Shield which Magran's Blessing emits counts as melee attack and it can trigger Swift Flurry/HBD attacks. Those will get executed with the main hand weapon then. So I'd pick Sun & Moon as main hand weapon because it has a lot higher chances to turn Swift Flurry/HDB into a long chain of crits. Since it's caused by retaliation you can cast your nukes while you may cause crit-chains with your main weapon. Which I think is very cool. You can also use Magran's Favor instead of Sun & Moon. It's less impactful but Bleeding Cuts with Swift Flurry/HBD is still very nice and thematically it's obviously [emoji]chefs_kiss[/emoji]. With both weapons you'll also get +2 fire Power Levels. Another would be Assassin. The +25 ACC, the +4 PEN and the +50% crit damage from stealth/invisibility are great to have. Arguably Skaen would be a good priest subclass for this because it grants you some additional invisibility uses. Tactician also fits a Priest of Magran. With Disciplined Strikes you can increase the amount of crits and Armored Grace lets you wear heavier armor without becoming a slug. Refreshing Defense is always great to have. If you have a Cipher I the party and use some flanking immunity on your front liners (or CC the hell out of enemies) you will be having the Brilliant inspiration lots of times which is great to have as nuker since your spells get reloaded. Streetfighter with blunderbuss(es) (includes mortars) ist also a good pick. Especially if you use spells that have rel. short casting times but long recovery times this is very nice: the recovery gets cut in half. Chanter, especially Troubadour or Bellower work well: while you cast priest spells you can load up phrases for invocations. Also you get good non-fire alternatives. Psion is also good for the same reasons as Chanter: load up focus while casting priest spells. I personally find the Helwalker variant most interesting, especially with Magran's Blessing. It still has the "only fire" problem a bit though. But the melee capabilities still make sure you'll be useful even if fire immune enemies emerge.

Why Grog if you can use Nomad's Brigandine? That knockout = kill is pretty harsh.

I use Assassin/Bleak Walker for the Triple-Endless-Dot combo that is True Love's Kiss, Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy. The arquebus + modal+ FoD is very, very good in the early game - but it's true that this isn't enough to one-shot enemies later on. Can still be good against squishy but dangerous wizards and priests and so on. But the real deal is the triple DoT which makes is very easy to kill everything even if you're severely underleveled. Because of the +25 ACC (Assassinate) + 5 ACC (Zealous Focus) +5 ACC (Dagger) + 12 ACC (single handed) + 10 ACC for Gouging Strike (and maybe even +10 from Helm of the White Void later) from stealth it's very hard to miss the initial attack - and Brand Enemy is an auto-hit with zero recovery. It's two extremely fast actions and then vanish. You can win every fight with ease. But you'll degrade your party to spectator rank. In top of that you have healing and support and rel. good sturdyness if you wish. The FoD + Assassinate combo isn't that exiting later on. Like @HaplokI prefer to use the Assasinate bonus with AoE stuff - not even necessarily with damaging AoEs. The +25 ACC is also really nice with an impactful disabling ability.

There were some major nerfs and other changes after this was published.

"Beguiler You know say daddy me snow me I'll go blame A licky boom boom down Dunryd Row man said daddy snow I stabbed someone down the lane A licky boom boom down" Sounds totally roguish to me.

I agree.