Boeroer

Somewhere out there is a video from the closed beta of PoE in which pikes and quarterstaffs had engagement for their whole reach - and somebody put his character with a pike behind a choke point and the enemies with normal melee weapons tried to get to him and where instantly murdered by countless disengagement attacks.

I don't know about "threatening", but engagement doesn't work with reach. It is limited to the normal 0.8m melee distance.

Sorry, had a bad formatting-/tag-error so I had to edit the post right away.

Soul Annihilation does raw damage. This can be a gamechanger in certain situations (for example a fight with a very high AR foe who's accompanied by weaker foes). You collect focus from the weaker foes and then unload AS on the tough one. Maybe check out Soulblade + Wizard (preferably Blood Mage) with Citzal's Spirit Lance. The weird workings of Soul Annihilation + AoE makes using Soul Annihilation on all foes worthwhile then. All enemies will receive at lest some raw damage while focus is generated internally during the process of hitting several enemies. It will all be spend in the end (after the attack) - but the combined raw dmg you dealt is more than your initial focus would have done. At the same time it's easy to load focus up with an AoE weapon as soon as you face multiple enemies. You want maxed AoE size - so max INT + maybe AoE size items (see also Loki pet). Wizard's Wall of Draining also opens up a lot of great potential with some of the Soulblades and of course Wizard's buffs, but also buffs from items - for example the Soulblade's +max focus on kill, the Escape Cape's +50 deflection (stacks with Wizard's deflection buffs and Borrowed Instincts) and so on. It's such a good combo that it has sucessfully completed the Ultimate challange. If Wizard doesn't sound good: this also works with Whispers of the Endless Paths + Soul Annihilation - in this case I would argue that taking Helwalker/Soulblade with Turning Wheel is one of the best options (up to +10 INT for max cone AoE and +15 MIG for good additional SA damage bonus, Stunning Surge is aweome with dual flail heads). But Fighter (with Tactical Barrage instead of Disciplined Strikes for biger AoE size) is also nice. Solid sized cone AoE of the weapon + Clear Out AoE (results in AoE*AoE attacks because every hit roll in the cone leads to a new cone attack) is just a ridiculous action that sends lots of enemies flying, hit my a multitude of attack rolls and producing a ton of focus. Another way to make great use of SA is to pick Sun and Moon + Tuotilo's Palm: The first flail head will spend the focus for raw dmg, the second flail head will already regenerate focus for you. It's not much but with enough dmg bonuses you can spam SA without pause. It's a "free" raw dmg addition and profits from using an attack ability with PL scaling all the time instead of auto-atacks. The low dmg bash of the shield will not see much use since SA can be spammed and is a primary attack. Yet the shield will contribute to dps bc. dual wielding will be active (+30% action speed) and you can use two weapon fighting for even more speed, too. And of course it's added defense. This is good with Rogue bc. of the added dmg bonuses that allow to spam SA earlier (pref. Trickster to stack more defense on top of the shield which makes for a very balanced def/off char) or Monk (profit from the great defensive enchantment of Tuotilo's Palm and the great interaction of Swift Flurry+Heartbeat Drumming + the two flail heads which increases the occurance of crit chains significantly - this doesn't generate focus though but just kills enemies on the spot). Turning Wheel lash generates focus though. Lightning Strikes also does - but when using Sun & Moon I would prefer Swift Flurry. Nope. Carnage doesn't generate focus. Yes, unfortunately it would. I think Mage Salyer is a bad choice. Since the cipher doesn't have summons I would say that Furyshaper is a good pick. Either more speed fom the speed ward or free focus from disengaging enemies due to the terrifying ward. The Barb can get +3 engagement from his shouts plus shake the enemies which makes it more likely to terrify them with the ward and get more disengament attacks. Bererker's Tenacious and crit conversion is great if you (or your party) can deal with the substancial self damage. But it can also be used to reliably trigger Blooded (+25% dmg) and Fighting Spirit (human rac. ability). Single class Soulblade can make use of high INT plus Shared Nightmares (the AoE bonuses stack for the weapon's AoE, too): with Whispers of the Endless Paths the cone AoE can become very large with the help of Shared Nightmares. Especially if you can manage to keep up the +max focus buff from killing enemies. But in general SC Soulblade is just weaker on the SA side. But Reaping Knives on party members can help you to farm a lot of additional focus for more SA attacks (and spells). Reaping Knives give +5 focus per attack (not what the description says). So you want to cast this on party members who attack very fast and do not miss a lot. Something like a Barb/Streetfighter with maxed attack speed would be perfect. Unfortunately a Wizard's Phantom will clone the Reaping Knives from the Wizard but they won't give the Soulblade any focus. Boo... If this would work a Barb/Wizard or Streetfigher/Wizard + a Phantom would be so great as a wielder of Reaping Knives for the Soulblade.

The power comes from stacking passive defenses with active ones (including AR). And since stacking defenses has increasing returns this class combo turns out to be a very effective one. Also Eternal Devotion's lash works with direct damage spells which is one of the few things that can boost spell damage (besides MIG, crits and Power Level). It's not dropping any jaws but it's nice. Steel Garrote/Bloodmage is a very good Arcane Knight combo, especially with the good old Draining Touch trick + shield. Drain health to fuel your Blood Sacrifice while dealing damage. In the discussion one argument for the fighter was that it's a class that performs well without much attention (and with simple scripting if you use AI settings). The same is true for the Paladin (maybe even more so because the defenses tend to be better after a while and AR is higher) - but here it sounds like that's more like a disadvantage now - because it's kind of one dimensional. The support and healing (others) parts get pretty much omitted. While I'm arguing for the Paladin here: it's one of my least favorite classes btw.

Thank you! Sure. My spoken English with that German accent might not be the most pleasant experience for listeners I guess - but who cares...?

Sorry, edited while you were reading (see addendum above).

Yes. They do stack their effects. Indeed - it does work like that. It's a very good combo of spells - especially because both spells as a combination can be accessed so early (tiers 1 and 2). A similarly great combination with Combusting Wounds is to use Kalakoth's Minor Blights and combine it with the Blast talent. You will produce a lot of individual attack rolls (Blights' projectiles have their own AoE - and every hit in that AoE will trigger a Blast AoE) which will all trigger Combusting Wounds.

Nice video. First of all your voice is pleasant and well suited for this - which is really the exception rather than the rule with (not so big) channels. Great! I also like your explanations regarding your thought procress on every class. I do not agree on several things - but I'm able to relate to the decision making. I also enjoyed hearing @thelee's voice for the first time, yay! --- Edit: as I said before somewhere during the initial discussion I would very much like to see a list (or maybe simply a presentation) of the most enjoyable (multi)classes. Like "what makes Deadfire builds fun to play (for you)?" And then maybe assume and speculate what might be fun for other potential players and give arguments why some stuff might be boring (yet powerful) and other stuff might be fun (even if not OP). Maybe that could be a topic that's helpful to new players (especially the ones who don't want to play several runs but prefer to have the most fun with just one playthrough). I mean if the thought processes and reasons "why" would be equally well explained as in this video above it should be nice content, right? It's all subjective of course - but maybe entertaining and helpful nonetheless. Examples: I agree that Barbarians are pretty niche in general - but it also happens to be that Berserker/Helwalker is one of the most enjoyable combos I always come back to for a fun little playthrough. It can be very powerful and especially carries the character very well in the early and mid game, yet is def. not overpowered, it has very effective synergies while it still poses a challange with its downsides. It just makes me hoot and holler when you go against weaker enemies while it's still viable against the bigger ones. Or how a certain Arcane Archer/Chanter can be so incredibly enjoyable and great against single targets and mobs alike - despite having a class like the Ranger in it which usually focuses on the niche of "AC vs. single targets". Yet there's also the very powerful stuff that's still very enjoyable (at least to me) which is the Mortar Monk for example (thought about it when you spoke about Resonant Touch). It's great during he mid game (INT bonus working with the mortars' AoE, Stunning Surge being awesome with mortars etc.) while it's not breaking the game in an unfun way - and when you get the really gamebreaking stuff like Whipers of the Wind + Resonant Touch + mortars' multi AoE... well it's the endgame and I think one can be allowed a little OP for the last few hours. Or the Psion/Troubadour which combines two very powerful classes into a very fun and powerful enough experience (when you focus on spamming different CC and damage options without pause) or into a potentially boring one which is gamebreakingly good (focus on summons and mind control). You already adressed it in the video above: that using very powerful stuff can be boring... but I think this topic deserves its own video. Because it's a very complex topic and highly subjective - and because a lot of people enjoy different things. I think this could lead to good engagement with viewers and also fruitful discussions. I also think this point rarely gets the attention it deserves. After all it's a game and is usually played for fun. So imo the most enjoyable characters are the most "powerful" when it comes to serving the purpose of a game so to speak. Anyway, excuse my ramblings: again - nice video.

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's the normal behavior that it doesn't work. Most likely never has. Break the Bell is an unpopular ability because its effect is rel. weak compared to competing Rogue abilities for the amount of Guile and ability points it will cost you. So I guess nobody really noticed before.

As far as I remember almost everything works except Wounding Shot (Ranger) and one or two of the Rogue's attacks. I thought it was "Sap" but it could as well be Shadow Step... I'm not 100% sure about that (and Break the Bell). I almost never used both of them in a real playthrough so my memory is a bit fuzzy in this case. I know I tested all possible abilities with WotEP, Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole, Rods + Blast and so on - but that was along time ago... and I'm kinda old. If you say that they didn't work now I'm sure that your test results are correct. Try Clear Out with WotEP - it's aweseome!

Sure, I do agree that it could and should have been more obvious. But you said: which is false. True though: a bigger warning than in dialogue form would have been great, given how many players missed this and expressed frustration about it. The designers learned from that mistake: in Deadfire this is solved with the "skull meter". It informs you about the difficulty (compared to your current party level) for any region you are about to enter - and even with every enemy in the game you are about to fight. This would have been really nice to have in PoE + DLCs, too. Unfortunately they didn't think of it at that time.

Your steward, who informs you about Crägholt Bluffs, does explicitly warn you about that area and suggests that it is high level content. Level 8 or 9 doesn't even cut it, at least not on PotD difficulty. Iwould suggest at least lvl 10, 11 is better and still challenging. Maybe you didn't read the dialogue thouroughly at that time - or maybe you forgot about that warning because unfortunately it is not included in the journal entry for that quest:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Edit: Tehehe, the retroactive admin approval of the post above makes it look like I'm a total idiot. Love it.

Best Wildrhymer for me is a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with the unique arbalest Spearcaster. Arcane Archer will max Arcana anyway so he might as well profit from the bonus ACC of the arbalest as well. A @NotDumbEnoughsaid, Wildrhymer can shoot reloading weapons very fast bc. of Gunner + Sure-Handed Ila (it applies both the -20% recovery AND -20% reloading buff to all reloading weapons!) and some nice items. Because of that I always keep the modal of the arbalest on and prone every enemy I hit. It is possible to almost prone-lock any single enemy that way that isn't immune to prone. The ultra high ACC of items + Spearcaster + Arcana + Ranger abilities makes it unlikely to even graze. On top of that you have the insane CC aspect of Pull of Eora and Binding Web imbued shots. With Driving Flight you will trigger 2 Pull/Web AoEs with one shot each. And then you will also have summons plus an Animal Companion.

In terms of overall usefulness no summon beats the Animated Weapons imo. They are not only fairly tanky and can spread out but also they each have several uses of special attacks (Pike: Knockdown, Warbow: Wounding Shot and Great Sword: Flames of Devotion) which adds a lot of offensive potential (for example more accuracy than a standard attack). The Dragon has one (or two) advantages: he is very tanky (huge health pool) and takes up a lot of ground space, blocking a big area. While his standard attack is weak, his active attack abilities (fire breath, tailswipe and so on) do scale very well with his high Power Level and thus have great effect. Only if you used them all up he starts to suck offensively. The second advantage is that a Dragon can profit from an Ancient Druid's "Wild Growth" spell. This is just hilarious: not only does it give the beast summon the Robust inspiration for the entire summoning duration (Wild Growth has no duration, it's basically permanent for that summon), making it even harder to kill - it also makes it bigger. You can imagine how cool an already huge Dragon can be if you enlarge him even further. What a mountain of an ally. He will block an enormous amount of space for you. This can be a disadvantage, too: if the space is verys limited he might get stuck. But usually it's very useful because he will occupy a lot of enemies with his big size. This also works with Drakes (all summoned beasts), but they are considerably weaker. If you like Wildrhymer I'd say Animated Weapons is good enough though. Also Many Lives Pass By (phrase on PL7) is accessible as multiclass. The automatically summoned Skeletons don't count towards the summoning limit and "stack" with other summons (and Animal Companion). So you can have Chanter summon + Animal Companion + Skeletons. A nice synergy of Chanter + Ranger is that you can revive the Animal Companion as often as you want with an invocation. So it's not the end of the world if the Animal Companion goes down early. It cannot get injured so it's as good as new after getting revived. My preferred multiclass for summoning is Troubadour/Psion because it can add lots of "temporary allies" (aka charmed/dominated enemies) to the collection of summons. Also both resources (phrases and Psion's focus) work the same for a Chanter/Psion and you will almost never run out of casting fuel (unless you get hit all the time which usually doesn't happen due to so many alternative weak cannon fodder targets).

All speed modifiers in the game except Dexterity only affect the recovery time (or -speed - depends how you look at it). Dexterity is the only thing that not only influences the recovery time but also the action (or animation) time. So giving +2 DEX does indeed help a bit with the recovery malus of armor. Not much, but it helps. Note that attribute bonuses on items do NOT stack (except if it's on weapons or shields). So an armor with +2 DEX and a Ring with +2 DEX will NOT lead to +4 DEX. The Fighter has a special ability called Armored Grace which does not influence the recovery time of the character directly but instead lowers the armor's recovery penalty. Besides that there's dual wielding (+ Two Weapon Style), speed weapons (they carry an enchantment called "speed") and some other effects that reduce recovery time. If you want to play around with those things a bit you can try out this tool: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator THere you can try out DEX, speed items and -abilities with all armors and see what effect they have on your attack and recovery times (in frames).

You are exactly right. Sorry for being late.

Berserker has strong upsides (Tenacious & Hardy instead of Strong & Fit as well as 30% melee hit-to-crit conversation) and also strong downsides (Confusion, self damage, hidden health bar). The downsides can be somewhat circumvented or weakened though (become resistant to INT afflictions or getting an INT inspiration removes Confusion, using indicators such as Blooded for the health bar and stacking health, healing and damage resistance against the self damage). Of all downsides the self damage is the most impactful one - because it cannot be negated easily and completely without a lot of fuss. However, like with almost all downsides in this game, you can often use it to your advantage. Examples: (moderate) self damage in combination with the Wound Trait (Monk) gives you a lot of wound resources while you are frenzied. That's why I love Berserker/Monk. You never run out of wounds as long as you can frenzy. Self damage can help you to go under 50% health in order to unlock certain abilities (Streetfighter passive, Blooded, humans' Fighting Spirit, Llengrath's Safeguard etc.). Without the need of enemies attacking you. To me strong advantages/disadvantages are a lot more interesting than mild ones (see Sharpshooter Ranger for example: that's not very exciting imo). Brute: Berserker/Devoted (as long as he picks the right weapon type with multiple damage types or combined a single dmg weapon with unarmed attacks, picking Monastic Unarmed Training) can be a strong combo because you will have stacked +4 PEN via Tenacious+Devoted's weapon choice, the self healing will counter the self damage a bit for some time (Unbending will help, too) and Berserker crit conversion will add to Disciplined Strikes and make the improved crot dmg of the Devoted occur more often. Frenzy+Bloodlust in combo with Armored Grace and Mob Stances is also great in order to have high AR with relatovely little recovery. Blood Thirst with Mob Stance is a very potent combo against weaker mobs. You kill one: you will automatically attack the next one AND you'll have 0 recovery after your next regular attack. Usually that means the next enemy will be dead very quickly, too. And so on... But watch out: a confused Brute will cleave into your party members (besides hitting them with Carnage, too). You might knock them out very quickly. If you use the Battle Axe Amra with Riven Gore you might even destroy them (permanently killing them) with a Cleave from Mob Stance. Things like an upgraded Modwyr or the enchanted Devil of Caroc Breastplate can completely prevent that (they will remove confusion instantly).

What do you mean? You expect somebody to compensate you for some virtual ingame money? And why would you ask me - a fellow forum member and player - that question? I think it's a better solution than running around with a char you're not happy with or saving loading an older savegame and losing a lot of progress. If you want to get that expensive item first then maybe run around with the non-optimal char a bit and retrain later when you have more money. You will figuratively swim in it at some point I think.

Sorry, late response - I've been away for a work thing for over a week. I think nobody here is including those infos because you can look most of them up in the official wiki: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Official_Pillars_of_Eternity_Wiki So repeating that info (like where to get which item etc.) in every build is not needed. Thus this thread (that doesn't say "guide" by the way but "build list") simply lists fun and powerful build combos and ideas - and opinionated debates, yes. It's a forum after all, not a wiki. That's what we as forum users seem to like and settle on when it comes to character builds. They are not guides that hold your hand from start to finish and tell you every detail about what you should do. They are more like elaborated (and tested) build ideas that work well and can give you inspirations, not firm instructions. You can follow them bit by bit or alter them to your taste - since the game is so balanced it won't hurt the experience much. And maybe that's also why most players don't go into every detail but only outline the impactful stuff mostly when it's about building a character. Yet most builds I read here do note every race, background, skill, talent, ability and item even if it's not crucial. Complete game guides can be found here I think: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/687020-pillars-of-eternity/faqs I haven't used them - but since some other gamefaq-stuff I read is very decent I suppose those are good as well. If you still cannot make sense of the game(s) and need help please feel free to ask in these forums and you will get help. I suggest to not use detailed guides etc. because the games are better without spoilers and also they are balanced very well from a mechanical standpoint. You cannot really screw your first playthrough up with a "bad build" - especially if you start on normal or veteran difficulty. Both games are pretty difficult at the beginning and then feel easier after the first levels - so don't feel discouraged or fear that your character build is bad. That's most likely not the case.

Why don't you retrain that companion? It's not expensive and you can make sure to pick the correct abilities and talents anew.

Yes sorry. Got the words mixed up because of Driving Raor/Dazing Shout etc. I guess. I like the Witch multiclass, but a Brute has more staying power (if both Berserker) and also the Berserker's confusion can get into the way of Cipher powers (because foe-only spells will cause friendly fire and so on). But the Berserker's confusion can also be used to cast certain cipher powers in unexpected ways (like casting Amplified Strike on an enemy instead of an ally and causing damage twice that way, anchoring Ectopsychic echo to an enemy instead of an ally...). Personally my most favorite Berserker combo is Berserker/Helwalker with the Saru Sichr Morning Star - but it needs a lot of attention.

Single Class Berserker isn't that common because the Berserker Frenzy gives you Tenacious. It helps with a lot of offensive abilities (be it a damaging spell or weapon attack). Berserker also grants you a nice melee crot chance that can be combined with other classes "on crit" effects (for example Monk's Swift Flurry). Also the self damage of the Berserker tends to scale very steeply. Picking a multiclass that can counter the damage - or at least make the character more sturdy - are more popular than SC. But as @Elric Galad said Driving Roar or Dazing Shout are excellent. And they profit from the Berserker's Tenacious Frenzy, too. You really want high CON and a good healer in the party though. Also make sure to take Blooded. It works with every form of direct damage (so with Driving Roar etc., too) and it helps you to see when you are under 50% health. It also stacks with Humans' racial ability "Fighting Spirit". Human is a good choice for a Berserker because you will be under 50% health a lot and so Fighting Spirit will kick in a lot, too. A Berserker under 50% health with Blooded and Fighting Spirit will deal really nasty AoE damage with Driving Roar. Those shouts do target the enemies' fortitude defense. So imo it's beneficial to take Spirit Frenzy over Blood Frenzy. Spirit Frenzy will daze on any hit (Driving Shout included) and that means -10 fortitude for the enemy. Makes the following shouts a lot easier to hit. Here's a test with Serafen as Barb at level 20 with Driving Roar (and Blood Thirsty as well as the Blood Surge ability to regain some Rage after kills):

I agree with Kaylon that the Furyshaper is the best subclass for a single class Barbarian since the Blood Wars is so very good (and the fear ward, which comes real. early if you are a single class Barb, is very good, too). The Blood Ward works with any sort of damage the party deals, even damage over time. It gives the whole party (if inside the AoE of the ward) - especially those members with a lot of damage output - a "passive" healing capability which stacks with any other source of healing. On the Barbarian himself it works very well with Barbaric Retaliation and Battle Axes + Bleeding Cuts (the battle axe modal) because the Bleeding Cuts last a long time and they do stack - so the Blood Ward will grant you a constant stream of healing ticks from the damag over time you will cause with your axes. The Barbaric Retaliation will trigger attacks with the axes (+Bleeding Cuts) that have no recovery, so the added recovery time from the modal becomes less of a problem. The Barbarian's attributes don't influence the accuracy, AoE etc. of the ward by the way. You can use a Priest's Withdraw spell on a ward (it counts as an ally) and thus prevent its destruction by enemies. It will still work its magic but will be totally safe so you needn't fear the debuff of loosing a ward. Like Kaylon also said I value high CON on human barbs. The single class Barb has the biggest health pool of all classes, so the added percentage from CON means a very big chunk of health in absolute numbers, making the Barb more sturdy, less prone to go down, yet being able to operate under 50% health without too much risk. For a SC Barb with high CON 50% health can be about the same as other characters' 100% health. Low RES fits a Furyshaper thematically I think. It also means even lower Will defense for the Furyshaper (who already gets a malus as a subclass). Fortunately low Will isn't as bad as having low Fortitude (which usually prevents the most nasty disables). Frenzied Barbs with high starting CON and decent MIG have an exceptional Fortitude defense.