Boeroer

Since he seems to live in Stockholm since 2016 I guess he's no longer connected to Obsidian. What does that mean? Why would you say that? Do you have examples? Who said or wrote that? I mean besides the hypothetically speaking post-Obsidian producer (still don't know what to make of that tbh). After reading the article you posted it seems that Shane DeFreest and Jessie Pridemore are the only ones who at least have a chance to really know what happened. Not that I want to dismiss the claims (and I would be interested to know if there are other women who claim similar things - since I despise such toxic predatory behavior which should be eradicated universally), but what lead you to the assumption(?) that the CEO of Obsidian and Paradox absolutely knew what happened - do you have special insights? If so please share! Imo: even if somebody approached Obsidian/Paradox and told them about the event (e.g. Pridemore herself or the model she was with) they would have had to ask DeFreest about his version of th story. If he said "Hey that's not what happened I swear!" and Pridemore seemlingly(?) didn't want to push this further back then - what could they really know and what were they supposed to do? Yes, it seems so.

No, Feargus is not directing Avowed. Afaik he's not directing anything but is completely occupied with his role as CEO. When I said that Avowed is his "baby" I meant that he wanted Obsidian to develop a first person RPG since Skyrim came out - and now successfully pitched the idea to Microsoft.

Chris Parker was Chief Development Officer and Senior Producer for New Vegas and additional producer for Outer Worlds. I want to mention Technical Designer Nick Carver. Not because he was on New Vegas or Outer Worlds (no idea) but because he's the one who gave us the new "4th" subclasses in Deadfire (like Forbidden Fist, Debonaire, Furyshaper, Steel Garrote and so on) which are all very enjoyable imo.

Easy to say if your studio is not on the brink of bankruptcy. Obsidian had a big project canceled before doing PoE. PoE (being a crowdfunded game) was the clutching at the last straw. Crunch and Deathmarch don't lead to less buggy games. If anything they lead to less polished/more buggy games because the amount of errors you will do increases a lot when overworked. Crunch also leads to talented people leaving the industry which reduces the quality of games even further in the long run. So overall it just hurts and is counterproductive. The reason why it's still done: money. You grind down your employees in order to make more money and/or get your money sooner. Earlier release means less cost (salaries mostly) and an earlier cash day. Sometimes that's inevitable because your studio is going to close if you don't make that money. Sometimes it's just greed (hello Red Dead Redemption). The reason is NOT that crunch or even deathmarches would create better software. They just don't. So there is no point in doing this except making more money. There was no deathmarch with PoE and Deadfire. With no game of Obsidian afaik. They publicly speak up against crunch culture as a studio and don't have high fluctuation with their employees. So I highly doubt that they would do deathmarches. I linked the definition of deathmarch above, doesn't matter what the word sounds like. There was no deathmarch at Obsidian. Not even Josh (who opposes constant crunch and deathmarches publicly and vehemently) said that. He spoke about limited crunchtimes that were bearable or "sprints" - but not a deathmarch. You can watch his talk about crunch where he says that he found a much better work/life balance around 2009 (which was before PoE and Deadfire were done): It's a good talk. I don't think Feargus Urquhart "threatened" to fire Josh and Adam - I believe it was more like "We will have to close Obsidian if this crowdfunding project doesn't work out".

2m is only the base radius. It scales with INT. Temple of Skaen has several ciphers for example. Also some bounties have them. Not all of them have Psychic Backlash. But anyway no big deal: just use another shield for those IF the shield triggers Psychic Backlash. I just wanted to mention it so that you don't run into that issue unprepared. Aila Braccia is an excellent backup shield especially against all sorts annoying ranged enemies - and it works in combination with Soul Mirror (Aila Braccia reflects 100% of ranged grazes and also converts them to misses, Soul Mirror reflects 50% of the direct misses).

Rooting Pain: depends if you like to spend (and gain back) a lot of wounds or if you like to keep 10 for stuff like Turning Wheel/Blood Testament Gloves. You might want to check if Redfield's Harbinger enchantment targets will (I don't remember). If that's the case I wouldn't wear it in fights with enemy ciphers. They sometimes have Psychic Backlash and that means you'll get stunned every few seconds. It's the same with Threatening Presence (Barb) and can completely mess up the fight, so a backup shield would be good to have.

Hi, you posted this on the wrong forum. This is PoE - but junks and naval combat are from Deadfire. I have no idea why you can't jibe - maybe low sail health? Or it's indeed the missing deckhand. I never encountered or read about that problem before though.

Just playing a Berserker/Streetfighter with Essence Interrupter (aiming for Anima's Legacy later on though) in a party and if I'm not hallucinating it doesn't matter who of my party members kills the enemy. So I guess the problem is switching to another weapon set? What was a bit new to me (but I have to admit I didn't use EI a lot in the past) was that even the summoned creatures can get the status effect and then spawn another summon and so on.

So let me understand this: as a confused cipher you can anchor Antipathetic Field to party members, too (instead of only foes)?

Did you mean Ectopsychic Echo @AndreaColombo? Because you need an enemy to anchor Antipathetic Field to. Can't see how Ringleader would help there. And no: you can't anchor Ectopsychic Echo on a charmed/dominated foe.

I guess the highest healing would be with Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon. Just because +4 PL for Flames of Devotion/White Flames should raise your healing by 20% (multiplicatively). Add Otto Starcat and Stone of Power and all that other (fire or universal) Powerlevel stuff. Also leads to pretty decent FoD damage of course. The self heal of both weapons (via a portion of the fire dmg) should also be nice for you.

A Berserker/Wizard can confuse you with Confusion. You could use thelee's poison, apply it to your weapon and attack yourself with Rhakan Field Boots. I guess?

A really nice CC/debuffer can be the Skald/Furyshaper with a Morning Star (Willbreaker). You will lower Will via Fear Ward (-10 terrify) + the Willbreaker (-3 per hit, stacks) and Fortitude via The Long Night's Drink (-10 from weaken) + Body Blows (-25) + Spirit Frenzy (+10 from stagger). With Brute Force and the significantly debuffed fortitude the crits come easily, giving you good phrase generation. At the same time stuff like Killers Froze Stiff and Ben Fidel's Neck (the -10 to all defenses stacks with the aforementioned debuffs) are really cheap for a Skald (and target Will mostly). Such a guy is a blessing for every party member that has abilites that target Fortitude (Cipher with Disintegration for example or some great Wizard spells) or Will (like Priest, Cipher with Deceptions or other Chanters). Also don't underestimate the Fear Ward: it's very impactful. If you also have a guy in the party who can abuse disengagment attacks (like an Unbroken/Trickster for example) you will smile. Losing wards is no problem if you have a Priest: cast Withdraw on the ward. It will still work but will be untouchable.

Action economy is a thing when you have plenty resources but only that much time to execute your abilities. With Cipher and Chanter it's often the other way round: not enough resources (yet) to cast something (at least the expensive stuff). Hence my Psion/Troubadour dude which I really liked because: if focus is down you'll have phrases - and once those are down you'll have focus again. With the help of cipher's Lingering Echoes and decent INT I could paralyze-lock most enemies with Killers Froze Stiff and squeeze a cheap Soul Shock in between - and so on. For me there's two main motivations to go SC Cipher (mostly applies to Ascendant because he has max focus while ascended - but also Beguiler because he can cast stuff without actually losing focus): Shared Nightmare which leads to a huge, huge AoE increase and Driving Echoes which turns a good fellow nuker caster into an awesome one (for example). Stuff like Missile Salvo is just so much better with +8 PEN. Shared Nightmare is also fun when you use AoE weapons like mortars, WotEP, rods etc .: the AoE of those will also grow with Shared Nightmare.

The duration can be doubled with an Antipathetic Field, too (because enemy not only gets extra raw dmg but also the duration of Death1000 increases with every tick of the beam). If there are only two enemies standing (and one of them has Death1000) Mind Blades is really good as well. Belt of Magran's Chosen or Essence Interrupter are good items when going for Death of a 1000 Cuts it seems.

I can check, wait a sec... edit: Reaping Knives do nothing with Death of a Thousand Cuts. It seems the best ways to utilize that are still Mindblades and Antipathetic Field.

Forbidden Fists are cool (also check out Steel Garrote + FF which is very good in the early game due to enfeebled + Garrote ability) - but I have a slight hunch that OP doesn't want to play another one after having completed his last run with a Forbidden Fist as initially stated...

Sorry double post, but I just checked the Psion: Reaping Knives do indeed give the Psion focus. Actually - contrary to my initial statement that a Psion doesn't need Reaping Knives - it's quite nice to have that additional focus income. It can more than double the focus gain if your knife buddy is attacking fast enough.

Don't forget that the Animancer's Energy Blade has only 3 secs recovery instead of the standard sabre's 4 secs. It's as fast as daggers are. Animancer's EB has 12 base dmg and "sharp" on top (+10%) while Reaping Knives have 14 base dmg. It's a bit more but not that significant. Keep in mind that you have to summon them for whopping 80 focus, that they have a duration and so on. Edit: What' cool is casting Reaping Knives on multiple party members because it feels a bit like an exponential focus gain machine at some point. SUre it takes some time to set it up but once you have 3 very fast hitting allies using Reaping Knives for you you will have a substancial focus gain while you can use your powers without having to bother with attacking yourself. The important part is fast attack speed: Reaping Knives don't care about damage when we talk about the focus gain. It's always +5 focus per strike. So a very fast attacker, even if he's dealing whimpy dmg per swing, will generate good focus for you. Unfortunately you can't cat Reaping Knives on summons like the Monk's. I guess some really fast hitters like Barbarian/Streetfighter or Barbarian/Monk or so could be the best focus generators for you. Addendum: bonus attacks from Swift FLurry/Heartbeat Drumming do not generate focus.

By the way: if you cast Reaping Knives on a Wizard and that Wizard summons an Essential Phantom then that Phantom also has Reaping Knives and does raw dmg (which is cool)- but it doesn't generate focus for the Cipher (which is too bad).

Path of the Damned gives every enemy +2 AR - which makes Penetration (and raw damage) a lot more important. Whether Reaping Knives is worth it or not also depends on the Cipher subclass. Beguiler and Psion don't really need it - although both could still profit from it theoretically (the focus gain of Reaping Knives even works for the Psion iirc). For the other subclasses it can remove the biggest issue they can have when it comes to boss fights and such: they won't do much weapon damage due to the enemies' very high AR and thus won't collect much focus - it can be quite frustrating. You can steer around that problem with a weapon that does raw damage (Animancer's Blade or Eccea's Arcane Blaster for example) or weapons with very special damage types (see Essence Interrupter). But maybe even better: combining Reaping Knives on an ally AND using one of the above weapons for yourself. If it's just about the raw damage/PEN issues and not about gaining focus I would prefer using Driving Echoes on the ally though. +8 PEN is immense and in case of your Cipher/Monk combo the Monk would deal a lot more damage with his fists +8 PEN than with Reaping Knives (in most cases). Of course the added focus transfer wouldn't happen -but as you realized: it's not that enormous anyway.

The most impactful thing that could hit you in the first seconds of combat would be some hard CC - and that usually doesn't target deflection. You'd have +8 deflection against some shots at the beginning of a fight or something like that. For that I personally would not be willing to spend a talent point. The situation in which this could indeed by so benefical to a point where I would consider taking it was against Lagufaeths' paralyzing blowdarts - especially when wearing Aila Braccia.

It doesn't stack with other deflection buffs (for example from your party's priest) and makes you even slower (it's already very slow).

I'll summon @Aarik D for you.

I recently liked to play the following (which go a bit in OP's direction regarding class choice) : Psion/Troubadour nonstop casting use empower per encounter (Sasha's Singing Scimitar) endless resource pool (passively regain focus and phrases) very versatile (dmg, CC, summons, support, healing) zero need for weapon usage Steel Garrote/Bloodmage Whispers of the EP with Offensive Parry tanky via self buffs nd paladin passives offensive parries will daze enemies and then heal you while you cast at the same time can usually cast all the time (only interrupted by the use of Blood Sacrifice) not a melee build per se - the weapon is there for draining life passively mostly while casting Bloodmage/Helwalker Concelhaut's Draining Touch: very high base dmg, targets Will defense, drains life, causes weakened. You can keep it in encounters if you cast it from a grimoire (e.g. Blood-Soaked Grimoire) and switch to another grimoire (without Draining TOuch in it) after summoning it (also never learn it at level up). Miasma of Dull Mindedness: lowers Will by 40 points Kapana Taga + modal in the offhand: gives +2 engagement and lowers WIll by 25 points Swift Flurry/Hearbeat Drumming: chain crits because Will is at -65 points Reckless Brigandine: +1 engagement, good AR boost when low on health Essential Phantom: gets +3 engagement from club and brigandine Rmygrgand's spells (terrify enemies): enemies flee and this will trigger Disengagment attacks from you and the Phantom. Disengagment attacks get huge dmg bonus which works exremely well with Draining Touch. Beguiler/Beckoner or Troubadour call forth some summons to buy some time Use Whisper of Treason/Ring Leader/Puppet Master etc. to mind control enemies until only one enemy is still hostile gang up on that one enemy (mind controled and AI summons like Many Lives Skeletons will automatically do that, the rest simply select all and attack) rinse and repeat very easy in the early game - still great later on still very versatile (dmg, CC, healing is all still possible) SC Arcane Archer Driving Flight single handed Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke in one setup, Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot in the other Use Fire in the Hole for imbue shots, especially Imbue:Web after luring enemies to a spot and later also Imbue:Eora in order to pull enemies together to a very tight group. use Hand Mortar for Twinned Shots max Arcana --> craft scroll of Avenging Storm and/or use Heaven's Cacopohony Avenging Storm + Twinned Shot with Hand Mortar will produce a ridiculous amount of hitt rolls (! like hundreds or even mor than thousand) rolls on the tightly packed targets. Blinding Smoke triggers Avenging Storm although Blinding Smoke does not deal damage itself --> unbelievable amount of AoE dmg with one Twinned Shot Not especially wow in the early game though you can keep the pet out of it (just use it as occasional body guard). With Firebrand it's better to just use the scroll and not pick the Druid class - but it also works with a Druid. The "problem" is that the Druid class itself isn't particularly great when looking for non-shifted melee fighting with Firebrand (except Scion of Flame and Taste of the Hunt). You can use healing, buffing and CC though. Maybe I would go for Druid/Rogue or Druid/Helwalker instead of Devoted.