Boeroer

You might have triggered the "hide headgear" option in the UI.

For a Forbidden Fist I actually prefer to not use fists as standard weapon, because you will have your Forbidden Fist attack anyway (crush damage and scales like your Monk fists) while your weapon can have an alternative type of damage - which makes you more versatile when it comes to PEN vs. AR. And you might profit from some universal enchantment or modal of the weapon - for example I like to use a Dagger + modal with a Forbidden Fist: as long as I mainly use the Forbidden Fist attack there is no drawback (dmg malus only applies to dagger attacks) while the +10 melee deflection still applies. Could also be a spear (+engagement) or a hatchet (+deflection)...

Hi and welcome! Yes, that's it. Not only weapons but every damaging ability (spells etc.) must compare its PEN vs. the respective AR. Fortunately there a many ways to buff your PEN and/or debuff your enemies' AR. And then there's raw damage which just ignores PEN completely (but cannot deal bonus overpenetration damage like attacks with a PEN vs AR check can if the PEN is way higher than AR). Me personally: not much (in a party). I will have a standard chant and then one or two other chants for special situations. Like resistance chants when I know I will meet enemies who dish out a lot of annoying afflictions. Solo it's different because you need to be more versatile. My general approach is: buff accuracy debuff defenses/do CC deal damage Buffing accuracy can also mean that I attack with a debuff/CC spell from stealth with an Assassin/Wizard (+25 ACC) or something like that. On the higher difficulties CC or debuffing is absolutely not pointless. There it's often a lot less effective to start the fights with direct damage. Both very good. Psion/Troubadour is better for the really tough fights that last very long. I'd generally say it's better overall but it also depends whether you like to play wizard or chanter more. The Wizard has the advantages of nice defensive buffs so that the danger of getting your focus generation stopped is lower than with the Troubadour. Unless the Troubadour uses a lot of summons for distraction... You don't need to use a weapon at all for attacking - so best to use some kind of stat stick. Psion in general works very well with hatchet + small shield or dagger&modal + small shield imo. The Goldpact's Swown Enemy ability is nice once you spiritshift (bonus PL for Rejuvenation healings, good melee dmg). You'll have the very thick armor of the bear form (with no recovery malus) and on top you get the Gilded Enmity's +4 AR which makes you very hard to kill while being able to cast and fight quite fast. But other Paladin subclasses also work. Imo Berserker/Streetfighter with dual daggers (Lover's Embrace + Pukestabber) with all the speedup gear is mad fun - also because it's a dance on a razor's edge. Very good dps and fun, but also goes down very quickly if you don't pay attention. With a good healer it's manageable, just don't use that character to jump into the fray. Better to deal with single foes like casters and so on (using mobility abilities like Escape and Leap). Durable melee fighters are plenty. SC Forbidden Fist can be one for example.

That depends on what software you are using to downsize. But most of times, when downsizing a picture, there's some option to keep the ratio - like a lock symbol for example or a chain link or whatever. Here's what it looks like in my Gimp (sorry, UI is German):

Yes, I played a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade with Whispers of the Endless Paths (and Offensive Parry). I used the Community Patch here as well because the Shattered Pillar got nerfed too badly in the vanilla game (only generates wounds with auto-attacks AND the max wound count is limited to 5 instead of 10). Community Patch brings the max wound count back to 10 - and that's much more balanced with the other monk subclasses. It's cool to charge both wounds and focus with the same attacks. In my case it was also cool that Offensive Parry generates both focus and wounds, too. And Soul Annihilation works well with the cone of WotEP (which profits from the huge INT increase of Turning Wheel).

Alternating Forbidden Fist and Soul Annihilation only works with the Community Patch (mod) though. Without it the Forbidden Fist attack will not generate any focus unfortunately. With the CP you'll have indeed two very good individual attack options - and on top of their overall quality they both are fueled by refreshing resources which is aweseome, too.

Yes - you will lose a bit of duration of the effect - but on the other hand it's a free cast then. Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free. That way you can even empower two spells for one encounter: empower the seal spell, wait for the refresh and then empower your opening spell. Of course empower doesn't have a huge impact on seal spells unfortunately...

Yeah, I was thinking about ranged-only attacks which could be used. But there really aren't that many (only Twinned Shot comes to mind atm)... Edit: Ah, the imbue-shots of the Arcane Archer might be helpful here. They only work with ranged weapons and could be used to force the use of the pistol even when in melee range to the target.

I think you can emulate this with the AI tool if you give you character an attack action (which gets used as standard action) and only occasionally throw in an attack which explicitly targets enemies who are out of melee range. From the top of my head I don't know a way to force the use of the firearm in melee (unless it would be a ranged-only attack ability like Twinned Shot or so) or how to force the character to run towards enemies and use the sabre instead of starting to shoot. But I also have to say I didn't use the AI tool that much - so maybe there's a way of doing it that I don't remember.

Yeah, that's why Assassin/offensive Caster can make a lot of sense. The +25ACC is just awesome, especially during the early game. Of course you'll not the to PL 8 and 9 spells, but the +25 ACC while stealthed or invisible do absolutely make up for it imo (besides some other goodies a Rogue can bring to the multiclass). Yes, and even hostile spells don't break stealth (and don't start encounters) - if you don't hit anyone with them (so if no actual attack roll is performed). This seems to be useless info at first, but it can be very useful to lure enemies somewhere - or to set up a spell that lasts some time (Chillfog, Pull of Eora, XY-Seal, Wall spells and so on) and only then start the fight with something more direct. Way faster casting than the other way round. This is a very good point and I haven't read about this very often. Buffing while stealthed is very benefical, especially if the casting time isn't that long but the recovery would normally be. Recovery time is -80% while stealthed - which is the single best recovery "buff" you can get in the game (aside from 100% via Blood Thirst or Blade Cascade etc.). Just watch out when using Devotions for the Faithful: it has the hostile debuffing component that can break invisibility (stealth not really a problem bc. you would have been too close anyway) if you touch an enemy with the AoE.

I don't 100% understand what you are trying to accomplish (sorry), but maybe my aswer helps nonetheless. Trying to get the buffs from both weapons: You can shoot at enemies who are far away and still stay in melee range with other enemies. You can just create two separate attack actions in the AI tool and let them alternate (or determine some criteria when to use which action). For example create one action that prioritizes an enemy you are engaged to, then for the next action prioritize an enemy that is far away - and so on. The character should then automatically switch between sabre and pistol when he runs through those attack commands. Another, more foolproof way is to use weapon switch (single sabre in weapon set 1, single pistol in set 2) with AI. You can tell the AI to switch weapon sets. Then the AI is forced to use whatever weapon is currently in your hand. This would work best with a Black Jacket Fighter + Quick Switch, but it might also be worthwhile with another character if you don't swith too frequently. I have to say that most melee/ranged hybrid weapon setups are usually pretty suboptimal (unless you really want to only attack with one of the weapons but still get the speed bonus from dual wielding). Generally speaking it's a meh setup (powergaming-wise - of course it can be stylish and so on).

Yes, you'll have two instances of Missile Salvo. Pretty dope when that happens. With Vithrack Silk Slippers you could theoretically get 2 echoes (3 instances of missile salvo) from one cast. Extremely low chance and I never got this, but should be great fun when it happens. By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells? Imagine a triple echo from Evoker, Slippers and Marux Amanth at the same time, tihihi.

Penetration vs. armor is one of the most important mechanics in combat. You are right that everything that either raises your PEN and/or lowers enemies' armor ist quite useful. Very useful I'd say. Cipher's "Driving Echoes" is a very valuable penetration buff, one shouldn't sleep on it - even if the Cipher himself cannot profit from it. I would just make a beeline for it. It's loot from an isolated island and the local "quest" has no ties to anything else. And the fight to get it isn't that difficult (esp. if you keep the fight to the one enemy that carries the pistol which is easy to do). Then come back later to finish the "quest". It's rel. easy to get the pistol early that way. But of course it's kind of spoiling the exploration aspect of the first playtrough to look up where you can get it and all that. I think a Soulblade is almost always better as a multiclass character (if not deliberately build to suck). The main feature of the Soulblade (Soul Annihilation) profits so much from a lot of other classes' abilities - and not so much from the Power Levels 8 & 9 of the Cipher single class. I think good candidates for SC Cipher are Beguiler and also Psion. Both are not really about melee combat (Beguiler could be, but since a Beguiler can generate much more focus with casting Deception spells than usng a melee weapon most of times one tends to deviate from melee combat quickly in my experience). Some very good and also fun to play melee ciphers are (to me): Soulblade/Trickster, Soulblade/Shattered Pillar (Community Patch version) and Soulblade/Bloodmage. I guess Soulblade/Barbarian could be nice due to the combination of Blood Thirst with Soul Annihilation. I heard that Soulblade/Stalker is also good. I could maybe see a melee SC Cipher with Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon, given that Shared Nightmare would enlarge the cone of the weapon a lot. But I don't know if that's worth it tbh.

There is one single weapon setup for a Cipher that I like - and that is single pistol + modal (rushed reload). This combination has only -3 ACC (and increased crit conversion with the one-handed style talent) but an incredible increase in shooting speed which is faster than dual wielding pistols would be (even with the two weapon style talent) . It stacks well with Time Parasite later on, too. On top of that you always have the option to switch off the modal and instantly gain 15 accuracy should you struggle to hit your enemies. I personally really like to use Eccea's Arcane Blaster as my primary pistol then. Its the best pistol imo because of the combination of raw and elemental damage (with its special modal) which takes away all concerns regarding pierce immune or -resistant foes. Once Shared Nightmare is available I like to use Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot as an alternative weapon because its AoE size scales with focus then - combined with high INT you can reach absurd AoE size for the mortar blast which gives a lot of focus if there are enough enemies around. Shared Nightmare also works with Kitchen Stove's "Thunderous Report" which should provide instant ascension after use if you can manage to hit enough enemies with the cone. Of course then it's not a melee ascendant anymore... Single handed melee weapons that could work with a cipher (and not be totally subpar) include all weapons that can proc a damaging effect on hit or on crit: usually those effects count as weapon damage and will generate focus. Something like Sungrazer's enchantments (fiery meteor strike on crit-kill) or Grave Calling's Chilling Grave (a Chillfog that generates focus when it hits enemies). With one-handed apporach and style you can make sure to crit more which would help to proc those effects more often which in turn generate more focus. This isn't super reliable - but it helps generating focus nonetheless. Another option can be to use Xoti's Sickle and scale the Religion skill as much as possible. The sickle will gain up to +60% damage bonus (like a fully leveled SC Rogue's Sneak Attack) after killing a few enemies - and it doesn't matter how you kill those enemies (for example with Cipher spells). But the damage bonus only applies to the sickle itself, so single-wielding it isn't a bad idea (or use it with a shield). That way you can start combat with something strong in order to ascend asap (see mortar shot or thunderous report), then switch to sickle and kill lots of enemies with cipher spells while ascended - and then clear up the rest with the buffed-up sickle which will have great dps from the kills. Yet another option is to use the Magistrate's Cudgel for obvious reasons. It's good with crits (see enchantment route for cipher) and you'll get more crits with single weapon + one handed style. Still... my first recommendation for single weapon + cipher would be pistol.

The Empower mechanic will be gone completely. Blood Sacrifice only gives you back Wizard spell uses. It can indirectly give something to the second class, like giving Wounds for a non-Shattered-Pillar/non-Forbidden-Fist Monk, Heating Up/On the Edge for a Streetfighter or Blooded for a Barbarian - all through the self damage of Blood Sacrifice which can be nice synergies, esp. the Monk one. But in general the second classes' resources don't gain anything from Blood Sacrifice directly.

There is this very rare bug where enchanted items lose their enchantments. I don't know what the cause is, I guess save game corruption. In over 5K of hours I had that only once I believe. Before unbinding/rebinding and leveling it up again I would use the console to test if this actually works: save the game, open console, type "iroll20s", then unbind the dagger and rebind it. Then type "levelupsoulbind <player_name> dagger_soulbound_marux_amanth". Instead of typing out everything you can just lead with the first 2 or 3 letters and then use the tab key for autocomplete. Saves tons of time and frustrating typos. Player name starts with "player_" for example so just type "play" and hit tab and it will complete the name properly. Do that leveling command several times until the dagger is fully upgraded again (after each time the tooltip/description of the weapon will pop up like during the real process when you level up a soulbind). Then you can see if that fixed it. If it did you can reload and go through the process "properly" - if not then trying it would be a huge waste of time. If rebinding doesn't work: You can get a non-bugged dagger again via exporting a non-bugged dagger from another save game und importing it into the current one (achievements stay, costs lots of money, you have to level it up again) or the lazy way via console: "iroll20s" and then "giveitem dagger_soulbound_marux_amanth". And then level up the soulbind via console as described above until it is like it used to be. This will of course disable achievements. But it takes almost no time and will fix the problem.

I'll always be here (I mean as long as I'm able to). Checking in at least once a day. I'm just not playing the game atm (really squeezed everthing out of it I guess), there are very few new players who come here and ask something - and also nothing new was coming for Friends of Eora™ during the last months*, so not much to talk about. * although I get some weird PoE3 vibes from Twitter the last days...

Welcome to the forum!

I think tehre are some in the build list that mention that they are good with AI, but I don't remember a specific one. But for example: Edér as tank is very straightforward and easy to set up with AI. If you build Aloth into an "Blast-Wizard" with an implement (wand/rod/scepter) and the Blast talent (and other implement-related abilities and talents) and let him use auto-attacks with the summoned weapon "Kalakoth Minor Blights" mostly he will also be quite easy to manage with AI. Same can be true if you skill him to be a melee wizard from the second row with a Pike, the goal would be to get Citzal's Spirit Lance at some point and use melee attacks with that mostly. That way you can turn a normally very micro-heavy class into a relatively low-maintenace class which runs well with the AI. Once can do the same with Druid (see Hiravias) if you focus on the Spiritshift instead of spellcasting. That way those classes can be useful and yet low-maintenance in not-so-difficult fights - but when you need the full arsenal of spells you can still switch to direct control and have more impact when you need it.

In general everything that relies on active abilities needs more micromanagement: all per-rest casters (Druid, Wizard, Priest), Cipher, Monk and Chanter if focused on invocations. Ranger if the Animal Companion is involved a lot. Also fragile classes tend to eed more attention - like glasscannon Rogues or Barbabrians, especially in the early game. Classes that rely more on passive abilities and have restricted per-encounter resources are usually easier to manage via AI settings. Those are Fighter, Paladin, Ranger (if Animal Companion is neglected), (sturdy) Rogue, (beefy) Barbarian, Chanter (if focused on chants). I think in general the classes which are easiest to run successfully on AI are Fighter and Paladin tanks, tanky Chanters with Dragon Thrashed as main "weapon" as well as Rangers with bows who use their Animal Companion as bodyguard and not much else. Defensive-minded shield Rogues also work very well on AI, as do sturdy Rogues wit reach weapons (pike and quarterstaff) or even ranged Rogues. Barbarian is the same, only that ranged Barb doesn't make much sense. Everything that needs fine adjustments (placing and timing of spells or other abilities) and every character who needs attention because of squishyness and the risk of getting knocked out is detrimental to the success of steering by AI. There are exceptions - for example it's totally possible to build a Monk who runs beautifully on AI alone (see a build like "Fulmineo Prondroni" in the build list in this subforum - a Monk specifically build to run on AI) - but that needs some deeper knowledge of the classes and their abilities I'd say.

It applies to the recovery of the main weapon (which makes this enchantment very worthwhile). If the shield has bash the enchantment still applies to the recovery of the main weapon - but I do not recall if it also applies to the bash of te shield itself. I'm relatively sure it did not, but not 100% sure. Sorry, it's been a long time I played PoE and my memory about some of the mechanics started to fade.

I wasn't clear, sorry. I meant that one of the things I like about Insect Swarm in general is that it's not tagged with poison - compared to some other DoT spells that have this drawback, like Plague of Insects (not Autumn's Decay). Another thing I forgot when comparing Insect Swarm vs. Autum's Decay directly is that Insect Swarm is foe-only - while Autumn's Decay might also hit your allies.

I haven't checked the code, but I guess that the duration for the wounding DoT wasn't actually set. So the DoT ability may inherit its duration from the parent ability - which is Boar Spiritshift of the Shifter subclass (it's a different ability than the "normal" Boar Spiritshift which is shared among the other subclasses - except Fury of course). But again: I'm just taking a guess here. The hint is that the base duration of the DoT is the same as the base duration of the Spiritshift. Anyway - it's brutal, especially with a Helwalker (+MIG, +INT) who boosts the already huge damage-over-time like nothing else. Also prolongs the Spiritshift duration of course - as another bonus. What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison) is the complete removal of Concentration on the targets. What I like about Autumn's Decay is that its AoE scales better and that it does target Reflex instead of Fortitude. Most Druid DoTs target Fortitude and it's great to have some alternative.

That someone was Feargus.

If you used Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming with the Brawler then Sun & Moon will work better that expected - because every crit with an individual flail head has the chance to trigger a Swift Flurry and/or Heartbeat Drumming attack with both(!) flail heads again. This naturally leads to a lot higher chances for crit chains. Same happens with all weapons which have multiple melee weapon attack rolls per strike (Saru Sichr, Wicked Beast, Mohora Tanga...)