Boeroer

I did miss the opportunity the video gave me to explain how it's pronounced in German and also how it came to be. Its supposed to sound like this: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g2g1zvgb08qbxsipe7fes/boeroer_sound.mp3?rlkey=o6pd77oyefp13ji5qaxuy25fs&st=876k23xn&dl=1 But since that's close to impossible to pronounce for anybody who didn't grow up with or learned "Umlaute" such as ö (it's originally Börör - in the earlier days of the Internet umlauts were a no-no). I'm fine with whatever people come up with. It isn't a proper word anyway: It came to be during a LAN-Party (I believe we were playing Diablo II at the time) and I accidentally belched really loud when I actually wanted to shout some warning or smth. at somebody... oops. Somebody then tried to convert that sound into text in the game chat and wrote "what was that Börör?" or something along the lines. Everybody was laughing because when your read it out loud (in German) it sounded nothing like a/the belch at all. Somebody said it sounded more like the last name of some old dutch or buren dude. "Like 'Horst Börör' hahaha!". Anyway it then stuck as a nickname - but luckily not in real life (phew) but only for online/gaming use. Had that until I turned 16... Because your actual name is Ricel Dlaag!

I'm wearing varifocals...

Exactly. Brisk Recitation for maximum phrase point generation. This build is about the invocations mostly, not the effect of the phrases. The Pindown Poet build is the opposite: there it's more about the phrases and less about the invocations. But that may be a bit different for you. Which phrases are good with the Ceaseless Siren depends a bit on what your party composition is. For example: for a party that doesn't have many resistances and not too great defenses it can be very good to pick the 3 resistance chants and sing them with Brisk Recitation. Switch to the one that fits the current enemies (for example if you get frightened/terrified or weakened a lot you'd switch to the phrase "One Dozen Stood" with Brisk Recitation - which would convert terrified-->frightened with the first hit and 3 secs later turn frightened-->shaken and then 3 sec later shaken-->nothing). Very good setup to get your party affliction-free withouzt fuzz. I personally didn't want to spend any ability points for special phrases - except for Many Lives later - but instead I wanted to use the points somewhere else. But it can make sense to pick some phrases if the party lacks something: The Long Night's Drink is a good debuffing phrase, Ancient Memory can be great for a party that leacks healing - or Mercy & Kindness if you use Pain Block a lot (it's a great single target healing spell imo). Yes, partly. Usually at level-up I pick something - and if I don't end up using it I will retrain and remove it. Amplified Wave was such an ability. How I played the Ceaseless Siren in my case (versatile CC and summons, not that much damage dealing) I rarely had use for Amplified Wave. Other party members filled the role of damage dealing way better - and Amplified Wave doesn't provide long-lasting CC. When lots of my enemies are already mind controlled, paralyzed and/or engaged by summons etc. already I rarely saw the need for Amplified Wave. To me it's often better to keep the disables up and do strong CC - while my party members do the damaging part (who were way better at it in this case). Soul Shock and Disintegrate where there to still have options for AoE or single target damage should I need it. And yes, I think Soul Shock's damage/focus cost ratio is pretty good (and shock dmg is a nice alternative dmg type). I could also spare an ability point that way. But if you feel you could profit from using Amplified Wave I would pick it. It's a nice spell in general. Sometimes it just doesn't fit though like in my case. This only becomes apparent when you play imo. Hard to predict what works best. Luckily there's retraining - so a bit of experimenting comes with little risk.

Hi, Critical hits with timed hostile effects (including afflictions but also DoT effects etc.) will cause +25% duration. Overpenetration does nothing for duration. If the spell has an attack roll (accuracy vs. defense) it can critically hit (there are some minor exceptions, e.g. Carnage which can never crit, only hit). CC spells with no damage still do an attack roll - so they can critically hit (+25% duration). If the spell has a PEN-value it can overpenetrate. Should be only spells that deal non-raw damage. Raw damage spells have no PEN value and thus cannot under- or overpenetrate. Many spells that have multiple effects and will have more than one attack roll: one for the damage, one for the affliction. In case of Venombloom (Druid spell) for example: AoE: 8-12 Raw | Accuracy vs. Deflection per 3.0 sec (first attack roll for damage - can crit, but no PEN bc. raw dmg) If successful: Weakened for 8.0 sec | Accuracy vs. Fortitude per 3.0 sec (second attack roll for weaken - can crit, but no PEN bc. no damage) Target: Frightened for 8.0 sec | Accuracy vs. Will (third attack roll for frighten - can crit, but no PEN bc. no damage) Overpenetration: no effect on duration. Crits: +25% duration - usually those abilities like Crippling Strike also do two separate attack rolls: one for the damage and if that at least grazes, a second one for the affliction component. You can see that in the description of the ability. It will say something like Target: Full Attack (that's the normal weapon attack you do, your weapon accuracy vs. enemies' deflection) If successful: Hobbled for 15.0 sec | Accuracy vs. Fortitude If the ability has PEN value it's for the damage part. Crippling Strike uses the PEN of your weapons and has an additional +2 PEN. THis value doesn't matter for the hobbling roll. Sometimes the affliction component does no attack roll but is an auto-hit (no graze, no crit). That is the case with Shadow Step's paralyze effect (Rogue's upgrade for Escape). But this is very rare. Usually it's two separate rolls: one for the damage and one for the affliction (or whatever additional effect a weapon ability might provide)

Thank you. But I'm not the only one - you're all still here, answering, helping, sharing weird ideas, offering free & cool mods and so on. Great community really, especially all you guys of the enduring inner circle.

Huha, I updated the post with a video link. Also here:

Hello, updated the post with a video link. You can also find it here:

Hey, I added the video link to the post. You can also find it here:

"Dicksite"

Hey, I added the video link to the build post. You can also find it here:

I added the link to the YouTube video to the build post. Here it is again:

Yeah, that would also be a viable way to implement it I think. But on the other hand the potential joy of building up a collection of grimoires would be gone (or at least it would ne mechanically meaningless).

PoE's grimoire system was easily exploitable because you could edit grimoires learn spells from grimoires, even the unique ones retrain characters which leads to a situation where you would write several grimories wit all you spells you learned so far, retrain and pick spells at level up that you didn't know already. Then alter a grimore to put the new spells in and so on. At the end you'll have all spells there are and all it costs is some money. All the spells but no grimore needed anymore. Not that I hated that, but I guess that was not the dev's intention. Hence the new grimoire system in Deafire: you cannot learn spells from grimoires but instead you can cast them directly out of the grimoire. Which isn't as exploitable but still feels "wizard-ish" I think. I agree though that being able to awrite a grimoire would feel nice. Not alter grimoires of other wizards (maybe those are magically "fixed" or locked) - but at least alter (or create) your own grimoire. Sure, it would be a more powerful mechanic than having to collect and curate a whole bunch of grimoires to get your favorite spell selection without having to pick them all at level up - but not gamebreaking I think. One could write down a collection of your favorite spells (or your favorite backup spells) which would feel cool and which would mitigate the need for multiple ones (maybe only the ones with unique spells, which is what most players are doing anyway). To counterbalance the mechanical advantage this would give wizards over other casters I would make it so that rewriting one's grimoire (or creating a new one) required pricy/rare ingredients which may also be used to enchant items. That way you would think twice about "wasting" grimoire ressources maybe. Don't know, just an idea.

They are ludicrous and silly. That's my opinion.

The list is a Google spreadsheet. I don't have the link anymore but you can google it with "woke games pillars recommended" iirc. I just saw it because Josh lol'ed about it on Twitter. I believe it's from those people who did that silly "woke game detector" channel on steam.

Well, it surely wasn't me who composed that ludicrous list.

I do not. I have three daughters and want them to play games like Deadfire and PoE, having fun and feeling seen by devs - without getting the impression that those games are catering to the hegemonic masculinity of some vocal gamors™. I had no problem whatsoever with women depicted as leaders, pirate captains, thugs, even gods - in fact I didn't even notice. When there's a strong female, the strong male counterpart isn't far away and vice versa: Castrol & Alvari, Furrante/Aldeys, Hazanui/Atsura and so on. Which was fair and cool imo. Is that different from our own history and current society? Sure. Does that make me uncomfortable? Absolutely not. Do I think that sales numbers had anything to do with this (in 2018)? Come on... Btw:

I didn't even know how Soulcalibur plays... had to google that.

I love those (sometimes silly) vindications of seemingly unfitting class combos. I really do... Makes me want to play one actually.

INT has an effect on Carnage. It changes the AoE size: Konstanten about to attack Edér (with 15 INT): Konstanten with 5 INT: You can use a mod mafe by @Noqn to add an AoE indicator to Carnage so that its AoE size becomes visible: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/448 It doesn't change Carnage, it just adds the visual indicator. Sneak damage has no effect indeed. Carnage is implemented like a spell basically. Cannot crit, too (that's why Blood Frenzy doesn't work with it, only Spirit Frenzy). But it scales with Power Level.

I loaded your save game and Twin Stones is broken. When I reload it briefly works (two lines appear an can get moved around me) and then it gets stuck in a fixed angle and I cannot release the spell. When I cast seomthing else the AoE indicator adds more lines. It doesn't get fixed like it used to with my druid savegame. AI can still cast the spell normally though! I made a test AI behaviour and let it cast Twin Stones on enemy sight. It does that without problems, while it shows more and more weird/fixed indicator lines which don't correlate with the direction the two stones are actually flying (see green lines by me in the screenshot below). Sometimes the charater gets those casting hickups (see combat log - were you have to cancel the action manually and then it works):

Nope. I started the game and loaded a save: Twin Stones was buggy. I quit the game, looked for files but didn't alter anything (and didn't close Steam either). Started the game gain and the spell was fixed. Just like that. I'm currently at music school with one of my kids. Will try to download your savegame later when I'm back home.