Boeroer

I'd say that using a drill to make holes into solids is objectively boring. *schenkelklopf*

That toally depends. Refreshing Finale turns the "x per rest times Empower OR refresh resources" into "1 per encounter Empower AND x per rest refresh resources". Also Refreshing Finale might lead players to actually use Empower frequently instead of saving the use of Empower points for later and then not using any until next rest. Also the difference in phrases after using Encore or Refr. Finale isn't that blatant for a good part of the game (where you don't have a big max phrase count anyway). Only later in the game (once you get access to invocations with 6 or even 7 phrases it will make a bigger difference). Because of those points I believe Refreshing Finale is the better enchantment for the majority of players, especially the ones with no or only a little meta-knowledge.

The point was that besides the food buff all the Power Level buffs you listed are not Corpse-Eater exclusive. They can be used by every character who has some fire ability - even a non-Corpse-Eater Barb. The only difference in your comparison is the food. An informative comparison could be done between a normal Barbarian with ability X and with some good food and the same ability with a Corpse Eater who ate Forbidden Flesh Pie. And if you do that you can see that Forbidden Flesh Pie with +5 PL is good but not really that OP - given that the ability costs 4 instead of 3 rage and that other classes can simply eat different but also effective food (e.g. Crusted Swordfish). It's even worse with the Roars/Shouts because their cost is doubled - which means you can only cast half as many. Even +5 PL will not compensate for that.

But besides the Forbidden Flesh Pie which is supposed to balences out the otherwise rel. weak subclass and has to compete with other good food (like +2 PEN food) all those PL buffs are accessible to any class with a fire ability. Try Meteor Swarm with the setup you wrote down and an Evoker with Firethrower Gloves or a Druid with Great Maelstrom. Instrument of Boundless Rage, even if maxed out by modded Flesh Pie, is kind of weak compared to that.

Exactly - Power Levels only raise durations of summons. And Empowering just adds +5 Power Levels. Hence spending an Empower point for a summon (creatures and also summoned weapons) is... suboptimal.

What about Effort (the great sword)? I mean it has no action speed/recovery speed buff - but wouldn't it work nicely with Predator's Sense? Also the 15% raw DoT lash itself is nasty. Besides that Blade of the Endless Paths is really a great weapon and I always shed a tear or two when I have to decide between it and WotEP (especially when having a Monk with Swift Flurry/HBD in the party). Time to export a character with one of them I guess...

Lol - ah well, was worth a shot.

Argh! I overread the sentence with Berath's and Magran's Challeges. Thanks for the correction. Ok then potion of invisibility doesn't make a whole lot of sense except buying time I guess. In that case another trick maybe: use two pairs of Bounding Boots (one from Benweth's study, the other from Ori o Koiki for example). You can jump while stealthed and coer a large area with one jump (the range is pretty big) and refresh the per-rest uses when stacking the boots in the stash. So you don't have to rest to regain the uses. It's rel easy to "sneak" past anything with leaps. You could even try to time it right and cancel the action while you are in the air, right before you land - but after the char circle appears in the target area. Since Magran's Challenge prevents pausing this will be very hard to get right but it's possible nonetheless. If you manage to do it you will be leaping absolutely silently (no noise on impact that enemies might want to investigate) and you will not consume any per-rest use at all.

Can't you just prematurely end the combat by using a Potion of invisibility or Arkemy's Brilliant Departure? Fight a little, kill some enemies, go invisible (which should end combat) and then repeat with fresh spell uses? Potion of Invisibility doesn't break with DoTs - so if you have the problem that the combat ends too quickly after going invisible (no time to run away far enough) you can apply some DoT (e.g. Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon) before drinking the potion which will keep combat running as long as the DoT is ticking. You'll have more time to retreat before the combat ends then.

"How are you gonna pay for it" is a rather stupid question when all you have to do is to take a look at nearly every other western democracy. The Nordic countries don't run hybrid capitalist\socialist systems by the way. They are running capitalism - but with a more dense social safety net and steeply progressing tax rates and/or luxury taxes (e.g. in Denmark a car will be taxed with 85% up to 150%). In Germany that's called "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (social market economy) - which sounds a bit like socialism but economists agree that it's still capitalism. Also capitalism != free market economy. Actually unregulated capitalism hampers competition and destroys free market enconomy. Just try to build a car or to run a cell phone carrier: it doesn't matter how good your product would be and what a genius you are: the barrier to entry is just too high because of the needed capital and thus competition doesn't happen. With socialsm the capital goods (e.g. machines) would be owned by the people and companies would operate on them (maybe rent them). In that case the hurdles for entry would be low and innovation and competition would rise - at least in theory. The GDR had socialism - but it wasn't democratic and also they had a centrally planned economy (the opposite of a free market economy) which ultimately broke their neck. Same with USSR basically (but communism + planned ec.). Afaik there hasn't been any serious attempt to establish any corruption-free democratic socialism with a social market economy.

If you have above mod, Dragon Thrashed will get +20% damage - if that's what you are asking for...?

Same. Taking out the sigils after the fights is so much more convenient: your resources refill nearly instantly and your attacks won't break stealth (your recovery is -85%) which speeds up the process considerably - even if you can only scratch the sigil with your attacks.

Ranger/Ascendant usually is a class combo for using Frostseeker.

I played some solo runs recently - which is tedious enough in some fights. I still have no interest in adding even more tedium to that.

Well on the international annoyance scale which goes from 1 = "cool cool cool" to 100 = "'Bother Some: Annoyerance" all megabosses reach a solid 101203 anyway.

Huh? The second quote is from your gamefaqs

Yes, a pulsing spell will lift your invisibility (no matter which one) with the next pulse (that pulse gets +15 ACC and extra crit damage - but those pusles are usually small so it's not that great) - which make them not suitable for an Assassin/Caster IF you want to go invisible while the pulsing spell lasts. In RTwP an Assassin/Druid can apply Plague of Insects which is a pure DoT and then vanish with Smoke Veil and stay invisible (DoTs don't break it). He can't do the same when castng Wicked Briars or Venombloom - because those are Pulsing spells. But a pure DoT, cast with Assassinate is not as impactful as a direct damage spell because while the DoT cast will get +25 ACC it can't profit from the increased crit damage of Assassinate. That's why you see a lot of Assassin/Wizards but not that many Assassin/Druids. Although Sunlance with Assassin/Druid is pretty nice. Ah, forgot: the initial attack roll of a pure DoT will also lift Smoke Veil (any any other invisibility) - only the ticks will not.

The Wing or the Thigh?

Absolutely what Haplok said. I made some tests recently to check which invisibility effects breaks on which action and the advantage of Smoke Veil is that it doesn't break from pure DoTs. Shadowing Beyond however does break. That means while you can use Gouging Strike, Toxic Strike, Lover's Embrace and so on with Smoke Veil and remain unseen while they tick, you can't do it with Shadowing Beyond and also NOT with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure (which doesn't break on pure CC/debuff hits unlike Smoke Veil and Shad. Bey.). Most invisibility effects are implemented in different ways as you can see. Which is weird but that's what we got. You have to separate direct damage from damage over time (DoT), even if it "pulses". I mean sure: semantically/logically Chillfog also does damage over time. But as Haplok already pointed out stuff like Chillfog does a new attack roll with every "pulse" and then applies direct damage as a result of that attack roll. DoTs just do one attack roll and put a damaging effect on the enemy and then the "ticks" just keep coming. There are some key features that separate the two: DoT abilities: - one attack roll at the beginning - applies a hostile effect with a duration on the enemy - that effect causes damage with every tick (usually every 3 secs but there's also ticks of 1 or 6, even 12 secs) - can be shortened with high RES or dispelled with stuff like Clarity of Agony and all other stuff that reduces hostile effect duration. - you cannot get rid of them by simply leaving the area. Pulsing abilities: - an attack roll with every pulse - usually applies the effect on the ground (Chillfog for example, Binding Web, Slicken, Wall spells...) but may also be anchored to an enemy or ally (rays or beams). There's nothing on the enemy (except of course if the pulses themselves cause a secondary effect like Blind - but that's not the original pulsing effect). - that effect on the ground/in the beam also causes its effects to get applied with every pulse but with a new attack roll. - cannot be shortened with high RES etc. since the effected is not places onto the enemy directly. - you can leave the area and thus stop it from hitting/pulsing on you Because this has several mechanical implications (e.g. Combusting Wounds gets triggered by pulses but not ticks, interrupts while being Energized can happen with pulses but not ticks) the terms "DoT", "ticks" and "Pulsing spells/ability" with "pulses" have been kind of established - at least here in the forum - so that we can distinguish between them rel. easily. The same is true for Healing over Time (HoT) and Healing pulses really. Lay on Hands is Healing over Time, Consecrated Ground is Healing pulses. Just no attack rolls here in general. But HoT can be dispelled (Arcane Dampener etc.) while Healing pulses cannot. But for healing pulses you have to stay in the AoE while with HoT you can go anywhere one it's applied. And so on. Big excursus, sorry - maybe overkill - but maybe also interesting.

I also found this: Seems to be a problem that affects all dragon fights.

That is an enchantment on St. Omaku's Mercy (warbow). I don't think a charm could transfer it to an enemy. I guess it just coincidentally has the same name. Either the effect on the Dragon has nothing to do with Galawain's Boon that the character might have or it's a proper hostile effect that just accidentally gets listed under beneficial effects or it's really a bug where the dragon gets what you should have. No idea what of the above it is though. I guess one needs more testing - or somebody could use the console to add the effect to a char to check out what it actually does. Maybe I'll have time for that later...

Oh cool - that's nice and better than in RTwP.

That's not automatically though. Unless it's a Nalpasca on drugs.

Damaging III also has an ACC improvement (like Fine).

Paladin/Evoker can use Eternal Devotion in order to give his damaging spells a 10% burning lash which is not bad at all. In terms of damage that's nearly 2 Power Levels. So the damage with spells can be better than with several other multiclass combinations. I don't know how Delayed Fireball works in TB mode but maybe you can time Inspired Beacon (+40% dmg to enemies) with Delayed Fireball? You will not gain access to some of the best evocation spells of the Wizard at PL 9 though. I'm talking about Meteor Shower and/or Missile Salvo.