Boeroer

If Edér is engaging a lot of enemies then there will be less of them attacking you in melee, that's right. But you can still flank them and attack them with the cone AoE. Like hitting them all with Arterial Strike and Gouging Strike, later even Toxic Strike. And should they turn around and attack you you'll have those parries. Paladin/Soulblade with WotEP is also very nice: you generate focus with (Eternal) Flames of Devotion and then dump the focus again with Soul Annihilation (which also works well with the cone AoE).

If you like Paladin/something with Great Swords I can recommend Whispers of the Endless Paths (which is a huge, massive blade) with its enchantment "Offensive Parry". Offensive Parry will give you a free riposte attack (instant, no animation, no recovery) every time an enemy does miss you. Offensive Parry attacks generate focus for ciphers (i like Paladin/Soulblade), wounds for Shattered Pillar Monks (not that high deflection but great dmg output) and can also be used by a Paladin/Skald to gain phrases (if they crit). You "only" need a lot of deflection. Luckily Paladins do have some deflection buffs. A good synergy of tankyness, melee dmg and some casting would be a Paladin/Trickster. Tricksters get Mirrored Image which stacks with the Paladin's passive deflection buffs, giving you high deflection. Combine with fitting items like Cloak of Greater deflection etc. Also Riposte (from Rogue) stacks with Offensive Parry. So enemy misses can result in two parallel retaliations. The Rogue's strikes all work with the WotEP's cone shaped AoE, for example Blinding Strike. And Tricksters can use some CC spells like Dazzling Lights, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and so on. It's a fun combo and a good frontliner. Against single targets you can bring another great sword because while WotEP is nice against mobs who attack you it's not that effective against remaining single targets.

Tekehu has some awesome foe-only offensive "watery" spells. I mostly don't cast anything else with him. And Great Maelstrom at PL9. Xoti's offensive arsenal is mostly fire. So she will cover that part. Druid's usually do CC and dmg and healing whilke Priests mostly buff and later deal fire dmg and also heal. Since you can't have too much healing capability there's no problem. Speaking of Tekehu: once you get to PL8 and can pick Avenging Storm you could try out how he does with Serafen's Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole. It's pretty devastating... You could take the melee/caster hybrid route and do something like Bloodmage/Steel Garotte (although the favorite dispositions of Stell Garotte are not everybody's cup of tea) or any Arcane Knight really. They can be extremely tanky while being able to sling spells. Something sturdy with Skald is also nice - like Devoted/Skald. I'm playing a Helwalker/Skald atm and if I would use a phrase like Ancient Memory I would be rel. sturdy. A Paladin/Troubadour can be very, very sturdy, make the party more sturdy via Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory and cast invocations (e.g. calling summons), too.

Ehhhhh... ...lol?

Like a game getting 10 years old?

There are a ton of options. I would say though that bringing a Priest for the buffs is always good (so Xoti in this case). If Edér is supposed to be a tank then I personally would pick another caster I guess. Something with Bloodmage or Troubadour or Beguiler or Psion. I had a lot of fun with Troubadour/Psion as CC/dmg hybrid lately since it's a non-stop caster (nearly always enough focus or phrases to cast stuff, endless resources). But it would help to narrow it down if you tell us what you'd like best. A lot of stuff is viable even on PotD.

...and Gomorrah!

Shimmer Scale can be enchanted so that you're immune to all gaze attacks which should include Gaze of the Adragan. You can also make your rogue blind - being blind makes you immune to gaze attacks as well. Against Form of the Helpless Beast you should use interrupts to be honest. THis is the most annoying spell in the Drowned Barrows. You can pile up some fortitude and put on Aloth's Armor with "Known Causality" (+10 defense against Transmutation) but it will still be a gamble. Better to put a Slicken under those Scrivener's feet or something like that.

Yep, that's it. Tried with a Helwalker and same thing: +2 wounds (and +2 mortification of course) on crit.

Yeah maybe. I will check.

Ah, good thinking! That may be. As it lloks now Stunning Surge ist a must-have for a Shattered Pillar. Sounds nice but has one disadvantage: besides Persistent Distraction there's no engagement. If you want to take advantage of terrify + disengagment you should pile up some engement slots. I compared Trickster to Unbroken and the damage on disengagement wasn't that much different (Overbearing Guard gives +50% and Unbroken +10 PEN) while the Unbroken could create lot more disengagement attacks in a given time due to his passive (+1), Guardian Stance (+3) and Hold the Line (+1). He lacks terrify though so you would need a party member to cause that. Furyshaper is nice because +3 enagement from Barbaric Shout, +1 from Thick Skinned, terrify galore - but no that much damage on disengagement. On the other hand Blood Thirst. I guess there are lots of nice combos.

Despite my 87% sureness Riposte does NOT generate wounds. :sadpandaface Offensive Parry DOES generate wounds. Okay, new list of wound generating stuff for Shattered Pillar: - auto attacks - Stunning Surge (2 per use - needs more testing) - Mortification of the Soul - Dance of Death - Parting Sorrow (nice in combination with Disengagement Attack) - Disengagement Attacks (nice in combination with terrify) - Offensive Parry - Imagined Pain (nice in combination with Offensive Parry) A Furyshaper/Shattered Pillar with Barbaric Shout (+3 engagement), Fear Ward and later Spirit Storm (both terrify) in combination with Parting Sorrow is harvesting wounds very quickly.

Cleaving Stance/Mob Stance do NOT generate wounds for Shattered Pillar.

Disengagement Attacks do generate wounds for Shattered Pillar. Nice in combo with Parting Sorrow and some terrify ability.

While Testing Swift Flurry with Shattered Pillar I found out that when I use Stunning Surge I always get 2 wounds. Doesn't matter if dual wielding or single handed or so. Always 2. Huh? I have no other wound abilites like Parting Sorrow etc. What is this? Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming indeed do NOT generate wounds. In case of Swift FLurry this is a bit sad since Lightning Strikes' lash does (I guess at least)?

I didn't do this for a long time and didn't play all those variants but only tested it in a console session rel. long ago - except the rel. recent partial run with Offensive Parry on the SP/Soulblade which def. worked. I'm also pretty sure about Riposte (which I didn't mention above). So maybe some of the interactions with additional attacks/SP got removed at some point in the past? Sorry if my info was deprecated and false. Now that I think about it a bit longer: maybe Cleaving Stance et al. worked before the "ability attacks don't generate wounds" nerf. If they count as ability attacks this might explain the discrepancy. Can also check each ability separately in an hour or so and will report what I found out. So in the meantime the cleansed list would be Mortification of the Soul, Dance of Death, Parting Sorrow, Imagined Pain, Offensive Parry and Riposte (the last one not 100% sure but like 87% ).

With "work as usual" I meant that you'll get wounds from those abilities as a Shattered Pillar like all other Monk subclasses (including Forbidden Fist). But your clarification is very useful nonetheless.

Mortification of the Soul and Dance of Death as well as Parting Sorrow and Imagined Pain work as usual with a Shattered Pillar. Stuff like Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming, Riposte, Cleaving Stance and Offensive Parry (Whispers of the Endless Paths) count as non-ability attacks for a Shattered Pillar, meaning they will give you wounds. Speaking of Offensive Parry: I once played a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade named "Barry" obviously (with WotEP/Offensive Parry) and it was pretty cool to fill up wounds and focus kind of passively with parrying, especially when using Nomad's Brigandine with the immunity to Disengagement Attacks and then just disengage to provoke Disengagement Attacks (results in 100% miss --> triggers Offensive Parry).

Good bye and all the best.

Okay... ...mhm... ...wait what?

Fortune for a pand, good sir?

A fun CC/damage hybrid I played recently is a Troubadour/Psion. The idea is that while one resource pool (phrases/focus) is refilling you can cast from the other one. No fuzz with regenerating resources: it's purely automatic. Pick Killers Froze Stiff, Phantom Foes, Ben Fidel's Neck, Secret Horrors, Mental Binding and so on. For the damage part pick Thrice She was Wronged, Soul Shock or whatever you like. You will have nearly no casting downtime. With Killers and Mental Binding I could paralyze-lock one enemy 100% and the rest for a good amount of time, too. If enemies cluster around the tank then I can cast Soul Shock almost non-stop after some levels because the focus regeneration is faster than the spending of 10 focus and the recovery time. Should focus generation stop because I got hit there's always my phrases. Healng can be done with Ancient Memory, Pain Block and Two Fingers of Daylight. You can even revive. I wasn't too impressed with the idea first but after playing it I have to say it was one of the most fun character concepts so far. It may be though that the basic idea doesn't work as well in TB mode. But I think it's still valid. I don't like Barring-Death's-Door- and Salvation-of-Time cheese. The fun of breaking the game only lasts a short while for me.

Sonce alwais thx ubi