Boeroer

2 Bittercuts + max MIG + Spirit of Decay + Vulnerable Attack + Ring of Searing Flames and the usual +dmg stuff is the best setup for HoF-damage afaik.

No, because those also do +x to all all defenses. But you can stack them with +y to one defense. Which is weird but it works. So Vigorous Defense (+20 to all) stacks with Mirrored Images (+30 to defl.), but not with Moonwell (+10 to all).

If you haven't already you should try the DLCs, especially Seeker Slayer Survivor and Forgotten Sanctum. Lvl 20 in the main game is a bit roflstompish in any case, Animated Weapons or not.

No, a Psion gains focus passively: 1 focus point per sec at lvl 1 - and then it scales with Power Level. I have no idea how that's done in TB mode. So basically you don't gain focus with Invocations but you gain focus while casting (and recovering from) Invocations. And on the other hand you gain phrases while casting Cipher powers. So basically every time you finished with one cast you already gathered enough resources for another one. There's very little downtime and you don't need to use weapons. As long as the Paladin's using Flames of Devotion with Ring of Focused Flame he can generate focus quite well since the attack rolls will have +20ACC (and maybe even up to +5 Power Level from Otto Starcat as pet, and Magran's Favor and Sun & Moon as dual weapon setup) and get more focus from the burning lash. Bleak Walkers genrate more focus than the other Paladin orders because of the secondary corrosive lash. Paladin/Cipher also can get +2 PEN for FoD attacks with Scion of Flame + Hammering Thoughts.

It used to stack the debuff effect but was made unstackable (only duration stacks iirc) after I posted this: Nowadays it stays at -5 afaik.

If you pick Cadhu Scalth and invest in Athletics (for increased deflection bons) and Metaphysics and instead of Casita Samelia's Breastplate take Nomad's Brigandine (+5 deflection and +5 against melee - no need to skill Intimidation and with the Large Shield modal ranged attacks are less dangerous anyway) you will have a high permanent, non-dispellable deflection that doesn't need SoT shenanigans. An alternative to Cadhu Scalth (which also has dmg reduction via Metaphysics which is awesome) you can be Bronlar's Phalanx which gains up to +20 deflection while your health goes down. +20 is at 0 health so that's silly, but even near death it has higher deflection than any other item and it delivers the deflection right when you need it most. But even if this leads to higehr deflection I would absolutels recomennd Cadhu Scalth because the combination of Athletics (+ deflection) and Metaphysics (damage reduction) is just too good. If you want to stick to Casita's you can still do that and use Cadhu Scalth. The deflection scaling with Athletics is still possible, but you wouldn't be able to raise Metaphysics since you need all the points for Intimidation. You can reach quite high Intimidation with the help of Berath's Blessing: pick the double skill bonus and Infamous Captain (+3 Intimidate) and later train the skill at some trainer dude (forgot who) for another +1. Also nowadays you can actually find the Bracers of Greater Deflection in the game for +7 on top.

Can you not increase INT by 5 temporarily? Basically like the Bellower's PL boost? It would be passive so it would stack with Smart etc. - it would raise durations by 20% but I guess not the AoE because at targeting time you wouldn't have it(?). Maybe it's the same problem though: not being able to apply the INT bonus before the empowered effect takes place. An alternative could be to create a separate temporary passive effect called Lasting Empower (that shows up on the char sheet under current effects and besides the portrait) that adds +20% duration. It would get added when using Empower. Same problem again maybe? Maybe looking at the Bellower's implementation of his PL boost could help? Another alternative: "Adept Empower" which simply lifts the empowered ability by another 2(?) Power Levels. This would not only benefit duration but also PEN, dmg etc. of course. But it's easy to implement I suppose?

Yeah - it's also such a tight space which absolutely doesn't help. Congratulations!

After beating certain challenges you can choose to funnel soul essence into the island (gain Galawain's Gift passive), strenghten Muatu (the summon from the head trinket gets a MIG bonus and heals you more with his attacks) or receive a culmination stone which can be used to upgrade superb stuff to legendary instead of using Adra Ban & stuff: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Culmination_Stone You can get four. There are other items that can do this as well: Kraken Eyes (Kraken's Eye tavern, Kraken), Magma Dragon Gizzard Stone (Ashen Maw), Outer Godseed Fragment 1 and 2 (both FS) and Porokoa's Eye (SSS). And then you can get Mythical Adra Stones from the Megabosses which allow the same but for mythical quality. As does the Godseed Inner Core (FS). With all of those the alternative enchantment cost no money.

Enchanting can be quite expensive and sometimes needs very rare substances. Some players only judge items by their unique enchantments and underestimate the advantage that out-of-the box legendary quality will offer. I admit I'm one of them.

Not really. SoT + Anc. Mem. will prolong everything. I can see situations where your fighter might want to get out of SoT range to hunt some casters or gunners/archers - then Refreshing Defense might be useful. If you don't do that then I wouldn't spend the point on Refreshing Defense.

I can make all the difference. For example: You want to cast Slicken in order to interrupt a whole bunch of enemies. But they shoot as you with some sort of interrupt. With Combat Focus you can still finish the Slicken and now they get interrupted every 3 secs. Without Combat Focus you will get interrupted, your spell use is gone, the enemies shoot at you again and angain and you will be sad and dead. It makes zero difference if several enemies fire some sorts of interrupts at you. BUT: you can stack Concentration. So if you get some other sources like from an item and another ability you will three layers of Concentration. I had a solo SC Furyshaper centered around Barbaric Retaliation and Blood Ward and Combat Focus + some other sources of Concentration made a huge difference. Without Concentration I could not for the life of me summon a Ward because I got interrupted all the time and died quickly. With some layers of Concentration I could get the Fear Ward out and enemies were screwed. You don't need concentration if you are wearing Rekvu's Fractured Casque with an injury.

It seems you didn't get the main point of the build: He is using the Energized inspiration from the Invocation "Their Champion". Once you are energized all your critical hits will interrupt the enemy. That includes chants as well (as long as they do a hit roll that can critically hit). They do hit rolls every 6 secs (with Brisk Recitation every 3 secs). Druid's pulsing spells like Tanglefoot do hit rolls every 3 secs. Different chants target different defenses though (Come Soft Swinds targets Fortitude for example). So it's benefical to have a portfolio of offensive chants that target all different defenses. On top of that the chant heals AND can interrupt while being energized. Ancient Memory would heal better but can't interrupt (doesn't do hit rolls on enemies).

There are other storm spells that have better base damage (like Blizzard and Hail Storm) but they are not shock based, so you'll "only" get +3 PL. +3 Storm PL from the Voulge equals +0.75 PEN, not 2. If you want shock damage you can still use Deltro's Cage and the Singing Scimitar because the shocking lash from the scimitar will get applied to your (shock) spells as well, boosting their shock damage equally well than +3 PL would do (14% lash vs. 15% base dmg) and at the same time work with ALL spells, not only storms BUT only works best if you have a full phrase count. St the same time it speeds you up with every held phrase. So if you hold your phrases and cast Druid spells you'll have equal dmg for all of them but you'll have 3 less ACC and as I said -0.75 PEN. So stat-wise it's not an easy choice. Depends what spells and invocations you use most often I guess. I agree though that I like the Vougle much better on characters that go into melee, preferably Barbarians/something. I did an electric-storm Barb/Fury with it (binding it to the Fury side for the +3 PL to storms because you still keep Static Charge with Carnage - just without the Disorienting effect) and that was nice because you get the best of both worlds (melee and storm casting). I would use it as a pure stat stick on a SC Druid who aims at getting Greater Maelstrom - because there it's really great (freeing up Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon and Chromoprismatic Staff which can also be used by other classes). But in that case you don't have to decide between Scimitar and Voulge in the first place.

Very Cool. My personal choice would be Troubadour/Ancient. You did something similar to me in PoE: after seeing enemy druids using Plague of Insects to destroy my concentration and then using Tanglefoot to constantly interrupt my party I build a max PER + interrupt gear Druid and it was fun. But since interrupts were less reliably and less severe in PoE compared to Deadfire and because the enemies where it mattered had very high Fortitude to resist the Plague and high Resolve for absurd concentration it wasn't as impactful as it appears to be here. I have three questions though: 1. Why not using Plague of Insects and/or "Thick Grew Their Tongues" (or did I miss that)? The latter would even work as interrupter chant as well because it does a hit roll vs Will. I reckon this would lead to interrupts sooner because they completely remove Concentration right away...? 2. Do you know if "Death in Life" from the Blackend Plate would also lead to an interrupt? Can you think of other items who have an "aura" that does hit rolls? 23. Did you mean Endre's Flog of Obedience? #itemNameAnalMinMaxingHauntsTheLee For the inexperienced reader I want to point out that there are two separate invocations whose name starts with "Reny Daret's...": a) the phanom summon and b) the cone-shaped fear invocation which leads to "Ben Fidel's". Obviously here it's the latter. I have no idea which deceptive dev came up with this confusing cabal. I have done something similar with a Berserker/Ancient and went to get the Slayer's Claw (Tenacious-->Energized) and paired it with Keeper of the Flame and Rekvu's Fractured Casque. You won't have the chants of course and the Frenzy duration is shorter than the Champion Invocation - but high action speed and Blood Thirst in combination with DoTs (Plague oI) and Pulses (Wicked B., Venombloom...) were very good in fights where you have some weaker enemies that die way before the tougher ones, giving you crazy spell output - and Blood Thirst can help to crit a bit more. Berserker Frenzy + Barbaric Smash is likely to crit even high defense foes due to the high crit conversion and the stagger from Spirit Frenzy in combo with the weaken effects is nice. Also nice is that Barbaric Shout (that doesn't naturally interrrupt like the Barbaric Roar) turns into a cheap interrupt tool whose AoE is huge. But Slayer's Claw comes rel. late...

Unfortunately the AoE that procs off of crits from Frostseeker doesn't transport Rogues' strike effects - like Blast or mortar AoEs do. It will profit from Sneak Attack and Deathblows, but you will crit significantly less I think. Keep in mind that Driving Flight not only delivers more damage but also raises the chance for AoE procs a lot - on top of the higher ACC.

I press the "print screen" button on my keyboard. But I'm on Linux where stuff works after a year of tinkering. I think with Windows you can do it with alt+pr.scr. or windows-key+pr.scr.

That would depend on what character idea I had in mind. Despite all the theorycrafting and minmaxing stuff I prefer that my characters have some sort of story, coherent theme or such stuff which helps me to connect to them so that they don't feel like some faceless mashup. In case of Chanter/Druid I would lean to the scimitar though. Also because then there would be one hand left which could hold stuff like the Weyc's Wand or Griffin's Blade and such.

Stuff like Necklace of Fireballs and Missile Gloves do scale. Don't ask me for the specifics though. That makes them good because both of them can be aquired at least twice so you can use all their charges or per-rest uses in one encounter and recharge by stacking in the stash.

Note that the shocking lash from the scimitar works with spells - so the choice not that easy.

Wizards have the best CC and debuff spells and later also great damaging spells. Chillfog and Slicken alone can make a big difference. Miasma is just great. And my beloved Pull of Eora: there's nothing like it. Fireball is for... beginners.

I actually don't know if nowadays hirelings' Deep Faith is somehow influenced by the MCs actions. Bit in this case it doesn't matter because it's a purely offensive character.

You can look it up on the Wiki. All items have a section about aquisition. https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pillars_of_Eternity_II:_Deadfire_accessories https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/List_of_unique_armor_(Deadfire) Early good armors can be The Bloody Links (buy), Devil of Caroc's Breastplate (steal or buy), Patinated Plate (steal or buy), Nomad's Brigandine (loot), Casita Samelia's Legacy (loot), Deltro's Cage (loot), Miscreant's Leather (loot), Sharpshooter's Garb (Maia) and Garari Cuirass (buy). "Good" may depend on what you are looking for. A melee tank can make good use of the Sharpshooter's Garb obviously as a Sharpshooter doesn't want to wear the Patinated Plate. It is very easy to loot the armor of very tough/overleveles foes (like the guys that will drop Nomad's Brigandine) if you simply hire a single Assassin/Bleak Walker with Ring of Focused Flames, Zealous Focus, FoD, Brand Enemy, Gouging Strike and Smoke Veil. Pick up Bounding Boots and Lover's Embrace and then just sneak/jump up on the enemy with the loot, hit him/her/it with a single-wielded FoD with Lover's Embrace if the defense is very high or Gouging Strike if not. You will have 12+20+25 ACC for that FoD attack which ususally is enough to hit even way overleveled enemies, then Gouging Stike (if not used right away) and then Brand Enemy (which is an auto.hit), then Smoke Veil. If things become too hot then use Smoke Veil in between and Brand Enemy afterwards, then Smoke Veil again. Retreat quickly so you're out of sight and let the enemy die. This shouldn't take too long because Lover's Embrace + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy stack (I haven't met an enemy who could outheal it forever on their own - although Ogres with unlimited healing potions sure will extend the process significantly). When the guy with the loot drops dead simply sneak/jump in like advised (with pausing/unpausing/cancelling the leap) and loot the stuff, then jump away or use Smoke Veil to stop the encounter, leave the map. That way I can even get Reckless Brigandine etc. very early. Can be a bit tricky at times and sometimes needs a reload, but it's not too bad and rewarding. After that you can retire the Assassin/Bleak Walker because his job is done.

To get the most of of the Arcane Archer variant (I mean circumventing the frustrating omittance of the second and third imbue projectile) I personally would use Watershaper's Focus from stealth to open combat. First use Imbue: Web once the enemies got lured to a spot or gathered around the tank. Then later def. Imbue: Pull of Eora. That way you will not drop only two Pulls (initial + Driving Flight) but three (init. + DF + Watershaper's Focus build-in jump). It's very hard for enemies to escape three parallel pulls that were applied with sky-high ACC. Also there will be three times the Blast damage of the rod which very often triggers its enchantment "Ondra's Wrath" which might ascend you right at the spot. Because you shoot this one from stealth you will have nearly no recovery (stealth offers a -85% recovery time bonus). You can then switch to Frostseeker. Sure, there will be switching recovery, but I think it's absolutely worth it. Because of that I was thinking about an Arcane Archer/Black Jacket with 0 switching recovery and four weapon slots (Frostseeker/Watershaper's Focus/Spearcaster/Essence Interrupter) to cover all resistances/immunites of enemies and be able to interrupt at the spot. Penetrating Strike and Disciplined Strikes would be nice to have for Frostseeker. And you wouldn't need to cast a bunch of debuffs/buffs like the Ascendant would. But I think Ascendant is more up your alley if you want to focus on Frostseeker. By the way: since you are scaling Arcane anyway it would be a crime to use Frostseeker and not use scrolls of Avenging Storm from time to time. It's just too good. Speaking of Cipher again: Biting Whip is pretty bad in the vanilla game - I mean compared to Draining Whip. If you install the Community Patch you will have a more balanced Biting Whip ability. That mod also fixes an annoying bug of the Arcane Archer: all his damaging Imbue shots (Missiles, Fireball and Death Ring) won't scale their PEN - so they become rather bad at higher levels because they can't penetrate anymore. The mod makes it so that the PEN of imbue shots scales with your Arcana skill. This helps to keep them viable until the end. And on top you'll get unique passive icons for every class in the game as sugar coating. Even if Black Jacket isn't your thing I would still encourage you to try Spearcaster at some point just to see how it is with an Archane Archer. It's Rune Shot enchantments gets bonus ACC from the Arcana skill and it stacks with the Arcana-induced bonus of the imbue shots, giving you absurd amounts of ACC (with an Imbue or Accurate Wounding Shot). It can be very good against enemies you want to interrupt very reliably with the modal. You don't need to commit yourself to it, just try it out some time.

I think I'd go for Ghost Heart. None of the suggested multiclass options has a summon (besides Monk) that would clash with the Spirit Animal Companion, you won't suffer Bonded Grief which you really don't want to experience when aiming for crits (because -10 ACC, ouch). Also you can often drop the AC directly in front of the enemy you want to shoot at, immediately getting the ACC bonus from Stalker's Link. And if the enemies are too far away at least you can drop the AC off behind the enemy lines which makes it less of a hassle to reach the enemies. As a multiclass there's usually lots of great abilites to pick from so it's maybe nice if you don't have to invest into the AC too much. A Sharpshooter may have 15% crit conversion from >4m distance (which isn't bad at all) but also +10% recovery time - which means that while you are more likely to crit per shot you are also shooting more slowly which in turn means less crits in a given time. Also you'd have to invest more passives into the AC in order to make it more sturdy or heal/revive it so you don't suffer Bonded Grief. But I'm sure both would be fine.