Boeroer

Takedown Combo puts a "hostile" effect with a duration on the enemy. The next damaging attack roll that hits the enemy then gets +100% dmg. The effect gets removed immediately after. BUT: it only gets removed by direct dmg attacks (including pulsing stuff like Chillfog or Venombloom), NOT pure DoTs That means that while Takedown Combo is active you can hit the enemy with any pure DoT that does no initial direct dmg (so stuff like Touch of Rot or Necrotic Lance are out - Soul Ignition, Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin and Disintegration or even Plague of Insects etc. are in) the DoT-ticks will all get +100% dmg because Takedown Combo will NOT get removed by them. Disintegrate-ticks with +100% dmg are impressive. You can stack multiple DoTs like Disintegrate + Soul Ingnition, they all get +100% per tick. You DON'T want to hit the enemy with any direct dmg after you applied the DoT because that would remove Takedown Combo at once. You certainly don't need that. Once the duration of Takedown Combo runs out the effect vanishes and leaves the DoT ticks with the usual dmg. You can also cast Disintegrate first and then use Takedown Combo. The remaining ticks will profit. This also means you could use Necrotic Lance if you apply Takedown Combo AFTER the initial direct dmg was rolled and only the DoT part remains. Hard to time but possible. On top of that: Charmed enemies usually flip back if you damage them. But if you hit them with a pure DoT like Disintegration they will not flip back. And you can cast Disintegr. on a friendly (Charmed) target. So my Stalker/Beguiler routine was: 1. cast Secret Horrors on lots of enemies to gain focus for Disintegration and to lower fortitude and will. 2. hit with Morning Star to lower fortitude. 3. hit with Takedown Combo (targets fortitude), 4. hit with Disintegrate (often crits because low fort. and high ACC) 5. hit with Whisper of Treason oreven Ring Leader. It was then a Charmed enemy that had a build-in self destruct. You can totally leave out 1, 2 and 5 and you can flip 3 and 4. Sometimes it's better to leave out Whisper of Treason or Ring Leader because hits from the enemies on the charmed dude result in Takedown Combo's removal. Meh. However, I still used WoT frequently because I also had a Debonaire/Wizard in the party (100% hit to crit with spells on a "Ring" yo! )

Erm... I don't quite understand the causal inference - but I just wondered if it's possible to attack with something else than the natural spiritshift weapons (besides FF). Afaik all summoned weapon spells get deactivated while shifted. Meaning you can't cast them while shifted. Inner Death is not accessible to Druids. What if a Cipher casts Reaping Knives on a shifted Druid though? Never tried... Also: what happens when you are shifted and then summon an Essential Phantom? Does it get the fur armor and the claws? What happens with Living Illusions from dat cape when you are shifted? I did try that stuff but completely forgot what happened. Was a long time ago...

Right. The descriptions are again misleading. I understand why there are base values for every ability (internally they all start at lvl 1 basically I guess) but it's absolutely not understandable why the base data gets displayed in the ability description at lvl x and not the actual scaled values. I mean both the level scaling @thelee mentioned and the character's basic Power Level scaling, too. Forget temporary PLs and such - but when looking at the character sheet and the abilities the descriptions should list the values they actually have at your current level. When leveling up the abilities should display which values everything would have at +1 char level so you could make an informed decision. Anyway: Priests and Druids have great nuking spells and the PEN is not an issue compared to wizards. What might be an issue for nuking priests are fire-immune or -resistant.

Keep in mind that Power Level scaling will add more PEN. Priests can cast Champion's Boon on themselves for +2 PEN. Use stuff like Expose Vulnerabilities (-2 AR) or Hel-Hyraf (-2 AR) (they don't stack) in oder to soften up enemies' AR. If you hit critically you'll have +50% (multiplicative) PEN, too.

Another advantage of not using a Shifter is that you can use Taste of the Hunt while shifted - which I completely fell in love with now. I mean you don't need to cast it while shifted, it does the same whether you are shifted or not - but it's a bit annoying that you have to wait for the shift to end in order to be able to cast it. Looking at Taste of the Hunt I also wonder if Forbidden Fist/Boar would be cool? The enfeeblement would not only prolong Taste of the Hunt but also Boar's DoT lash by 50%. Which is more dmg (though not dps) than Helwalker's 30%. I don't recall how enfeebled's 50% and the duration bonus from INT and crits do stack. Is enfeeblement maybe multiplicative with those? That would be very potent.

It stacks with everything afaik. It's very useful against hordes of engaging enemies but pretty useless against single tough foes.

Llengrath's Safeword made me spit my oatmeal onto the keyboard... 🤤

You can give the Watershaper subclass to any druid via console. Example if you want to turn a Fury hireling into a Watershaper: iroll20s setSubclass Companion<hireling_dude> Druid Druid_Watershaper removeAbility Companion<hireling_dude> Fury addAbility Companion<hireling_dude> Watershaper In order to keep a savegame untagged with "cheated" you can use the Unity Console.

Engagements don't get used up. Player and enemy don't compete for engagement slots. Enemies can still engage you no matter how many engagements slots you have. Like here with Edér and a Xaurip Champion (note the green arrow which is Edér's engagement and the red one which is the Xaurip's) : Nothing you do with your own engagement will influence the ability of enemies to engage you. Enemies only lose engagement if you have some sort of immunity (see Grog pet or Barb's Threatening Presence and such) or if you apply an effect that prevents them from engaging (like Staggered for example).

Direballs also sounds like one of those movies tbh.

Arkemyr's Disturbed Naming: all foes in the AoE have a 50% chance to execute a different spell or ability every time they try to use one.

As I said: every enemy who engages you - not the other way round. It does nothing if the enemy can't engage. For example if the enemy is a beast or just a kith with no engagement slots. Once you fight against enemies that do engage (and those are usually the tough ones) you'll get the bonus.

No. Priests and Druids can be awesome nukers, too. Chanters as well (check out a Bellower with Eld Nary's Curse). SC Ciphers can be the best friend of a nuker: Driving Echoes is very good to have on an offensive caster.

Takedown Combo/Disintegrate indeed is hot fuzz. Especially if you cast Psychovampiric Shield first (or a wizard drops Miasma). Had a melee Stalker/Soulblade with a Morning Star and while Takedown Combo/Soul Annihilation is also great, TDC/Disintegrate is just better. Especially when the enemy is charmed before - because Disintegrate doesn't trigger a backflip of alliance like normal hits would do.

Nope. You can use the Entonia Signet ring to raise your deflection: every enemy that engages you will give you more defenses, including deflection.

You really have to look at the Penetration. Casters' biggest nemesis is underpenetration. I'm having lots of fun with my Troubadour/Psion offensive non-stop caster. I didn't use Soul Shock a lot before but with this class combo it's one of my favorite spells atm.

Might sound counterintuitive but I think a Lifegiver would be the best partner class for a Helwalker Boar. Lifegivers gain +5 PL for Rejuvenation spells once shifted and for HoT it also works if you cast Moonwell etc. first and then shift. The ticks will adapt to the higher PL. You would have insanely high healing numbers because of PL bonus * MIG bonus from Helwalker on top of the Boar's regeneration and I guess you wouldn't need to get healed a lot while pummeling enemies with Wildstrike. Ah and sorry: I forgot to answer the question about Hylea's Talons earlier. While shifted all items except armor and weapons will work. You could add the Belt of Magran's Chosen for another small burning lash and wear Rekvu's Scorched Cloak so that the summoned Flame Blight even heals you should it attack you.

What's Arkemyr's Enchanted Armory @thelee?

Yep!

Since you will have very limited casts of Great Maelstrom you might want to squeeze every bit out of it. From stealth the recovery is -85%, so...

They do stack. +5 PL for Great Maelstrom. As a Nature Godlike with Prestige and Stone of Power you'll have +8 PL which not only does awesome dmg (40% multplicative) but also prologs the duration (40%) and raises PEN by another clean 2 points on top of the Fury passive and Scion of Flame etc. Overpenetration works really nicely in combination with the boosted base dmg. +8 PL is something. You'll only get +5 when you empower an ability, so... You can even stack those 8 with empower and cast with +13 PL.

That is correct. Helwalker/Bloodmage can be fun - but can also be over very quickly.

@Elric GaladJust wanted to confirm that you were absolutely right: it doesn't matter whether CP is installed or not - Great Maelstrom profits from Secrets of Rime in any case (both effects, the pure freeze dmg proc + the burn/shock proc as well).

Ah - I didn't know Secrets of Rime also works for water because we have specific PL bonuses for water, wind and frost in the game - so I just assumed it's the same with the PEN talents. I just guessed that CP added 1 PEN with Secrets of Rime because it added the frost keyword that was missing before although the spell does lots of freeze dmg. Might check later if Secret of Rime still applies to both dmg effects when I turn the mod off - just to be sure. Yeah, the SpShift table in the wiki is misleading. I never looked at it before.

It always works and is not connected to the Spiritshift. This makes SC Fury an excellent elemental nuker: Great Maelstrom with Scion of Flame and Heart of the Storm (and with CP also Secrets of Rime) is absolutely devastating because you gain +3(+4 CP) PEN for the shocking/burning part of the procs; and +1 (+2 with CP) on the freezing part - they seem to be completely separated effects but still: ouch. Normal hit at PL9 has 17 PEN, crits do have 25.5. Overpenetration is not common for spells, but here it happens quite often. The wiki doesn't list it as a Spiritshift bonus, it took the wording 1:1 from the game: Those are separate bonuses. One can misinterpret it if those bonuses are put into one single line of text (like the wiki did) though - and it also really doesn't help that it's structured like: - Spiritshift stuff - general stuff - further Spiritshift stuff - spells Would be less confusing if the passive came fist and spiritshift stuff after.