Boeroer

Shattered Pillar only has a max wound count of 5 which hurts the Turning Wheel bonus. I would pick Helwalker: the +MIG is great for a lot of Wizard spells as well and you can generate lots of wounds on the fly with Alacrity's seld dmg + Enduring Dance (doesn't get canceled by self damage). I would use Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon often, especially if you pick a Bloodmage. Also use self buffs of course. There's a grimoire of a guy named Zandethus (Zandethus' Dracon Scaled Grimoire) which has an awesome melee spell in it: "Zandethus' Draconic Fury". It adds two big lashes to all your melee attacks and also terrifies enemies. Stuff like Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst is also nice. You can cast nukes, sure. They are actually very impactful with the Helwalker's bonus MIG and the bonus INT from Turning Wheel as well as the +2 PEN from Thunderous Blows. One of the most impactful spells is Wall of Draining. With it you can prolong all buffs and healing over time(!) on you endlessly as long as there are still enemies alive. Even lowish healing sources like the Minor Lay on Hand glove become really good this way.

Yes, it does. You need to pick the pike proficiency.

Clear Out also throws enemies back and interrupts them. I'd still use one or more proper frontliners in addition to the Devoted/Monk.

Pollaxes - despite the name - are no reach weapons in PoE. Since you mentined that you won't be in the first row to tank I assumed with pole weapons you mean reach weapons. Those are only quarterstaff and pike. So Lord Darryn's Voulge would be out. If you want to go with LDV nevertheless, in my opinion there's nothing better than Barbarian/Monk due to the awesome synergy of Static Thunder with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming (disregarding your dislike of Barbarians) - especially on lower difficulties but also on PotD (but to a lesser extent because less crits): Carnage applies Static Thunder in an AoE and Swift Flurry can trigger cascades of crits which again apply carnage with Static Thunder which immediately get released by the crit again. The big AoE bc of Turning Wheel helps to sometimes clear a whole room with a single attack if you're lucky. And if not it's still very good. You maybe want Berserker in order to get more crit conversion in melee which helps with Swift Flurry. Berserker/Helwalker is quite tricky though. Furyshaper/Helwalker is also great because the fear ward leads enemies to break engagement (use Barbaric Shout to get +3 engagement) and lowers enemies deflection, the Disengagement Attacks help with Swift Flurry etc., too. Stuff like Devoted/Helwalker also works well. Once you get Clear Out you can do the same as the Barbarian version - but not passively and less often per encounter. But still impressive. Here the Disciplined Strikes help a lot of course.

If I wanted to build a reach weapon user I would def. pick a Wizard/something because of Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff first and especially Citzal's Spirit Lance later. There are no really good early unique reach weapons. Unless you count Whispers of the Endless Paths which also has reach, but a bit reduced (normal melee: 0.8m iirc, WotEP: 1.2m, pike & quarterstaff: 1.8m). Wizard/Monk, Wizard/Paladin, Wizard/Fighter, Wizard/Barbarian and Wizard/Rogue all work fine. My personal favorite is maybe Wizard/Monk because of Stunning Surge and Instruments of Pain which gives your lance 11 meters of reach instead of "only" 1.8 meters.

Yes. It's only party members you can't recruit.

Imagined Pain is very good with Nomad's Briganine because all disengagement attacks turn into misses and give you wounds. On top of the misses that will occur anyway.

Sasha's SInging Scimitar - it's great, no doubt. Not if your goal is to be a debuffer though. By the way: if I'm not mistaken then disengagement attacks can also lead to phrase gain. So using Spirit Tornado with Terrify and having a few engagement slots might be good. Skald can also be pretty great with Whispers otEP - because every Offensive Parry has a chance to gain you phrases if it crits. But Barb/Skald is not the right combo for that unless you use Nomad's Brigandine and force disengagment attacks (that will all be converted to misses and trigger Offensive Parries).

With Carnage Stagger + Long Night's Drink you debuff several enemies' fortitude by -24 right away in an AoE "on the fly" iirc. Singular enemies get get brought down to nearly -50 with Body Blows then. Add Ben Fidel's Neck and you can temporarily lower fortitude by ~60. Because Ben Fidel's Neck stacks with everything. Pretty dope.

I played SSS with him. Him having special conversation options was the main reason to bring him in the first place. Willbreaker is great in nearly all fights because it not only lowers Will on hit (-3 Will effect per hit stacks with itself) but also -25 fortitude with the Body Blows modal at the same time. Lowering fortitude is especially helpful in SSS because there are several enemies with very high fort which otherwise make some of the most useful spells less effective (see Chillfog and so on).

Since I don't use potions and scrolls much that's not an option for me. I took Konstanten only once I believe (at least that the one I remember). I made him a Barb/Skald and was very pleased with his effordless will- and fortitude-debuffing capabilities through The Willbreaker + Spirit Frenzy/Tornado + Ben Fidel's Neck invocation and The Long Night's Drink phrase. Besides the great debuffing for party members: with Brute Force it was very easy to do melee crit after crit then, too. Did damage and regained phrases rather quickly. I think people underestimate how effective the lower phrase cost for offensive invocations + phrase gain on melee crit can be. Like "Her Revenge", "Killers Froze Stiff" or "The Shield Cracks" only cost 2 phrases which is really cheap, especially if you occasionally gain a phrase by whacking enemies an lowering theit will and fort at the same time. Oh, and when he crits he does a funny laughter (his voice is pretty incredible to begin with) which made me grin a lot.

Maybe this will give you some inspiration (it's a funny effect): In a second post (scroll down) I also say which (fire) retaliation effects (Darcozzi Flame Shield, Battle Forged etc.) will stack.

Yes, taking drugs/potions with AI is pretty horrible. Or was - didn't try for some time now.

I don't like the words "worthless" and "useless" since it's often used so hyperbolically. Of course the lower wound cap is suboptimal and this shows when using Turning Wheel/Iron Wheel. Also the Shattered Pillar first had that cap and then it even got hit with the "only autoattacks generate wounds". That would have been a good time to remove the lowered wound cap. But since it's easier to raise your damage output than it is to raise the amount of damage you receive (in a somewhat controlled way) the higher-level SP gains wounds faster if you know what you are doing. You will never get past 5 wounds - but you will reach that limit a lot faster than the average monk who needs to collect wounds via received damage - at least in non-boss encounters (here the SP has the same issues as a vanilla cipher, soulblade or ascendant). On non-PotD playthroughs with Swift Flurry it can be pretty ridiculous because the additional attacks count as normal attacks even if triggered off of ability attacks (you can even combine with Nomad's Brigandine, Offensive Parry or Riposte - both generate wounds as well. Offensive Parry + Imagined Pain + Nomand's Brigandine is awesome on a Shattered Pillar: tons of wounds if you trigger disengagment attacks). And you're not putting yourself in danger in the process. Your average wound count over the course of an encounter might not be that much lower. Still I would have liked it that the cap was raised back to 10 - like the Community Patch does. I don't think it makes stuff useless but it surely hurts (a bit too much for my taste).

Again: it depends WHEN you are able to take down the ship. Obviously exceptional gear (taken from a sunken ship) is much more valuable for the low level party than the same or a bit more would be for the high level party. And as I already said it's a lot easier to sink a ship as a low level party than it is to win boarding fight. This very apparent once you go solo. And the OP needed tips for making money in the early game. Later money isn't a problem at all with all the loot you gather from every encounter along the way. You don't need a Junk to sink every ship on the map. The sloop with four Iron Thunderers is enough and extremely cheap. Train your cannoneers with weak ships like Beggar Winfruth etc. Once they are master cannoneers you can take on every ship. Buy the Red Dream in Dunnage for a bargain if you need extra safety and buy three Royal Bronzers (+Heafric's Nose) if you want a bit more firepower. Before even sailing to Neketaka I can already sink a good amount of ships and swim in money - if I want to.

ignore, double post...

Yes, but instead of landing at 0 phrases (after empowering an invocation with Refreshing Finale) they end up with 3. With Encore they would have 6 instead (which is better obviously) but would have to rest more often for "only" having 3 phrases more after using Empower. You are totally right though that when you have no problem with resting frequently anyway you should def. pick Encore over Refreshing Finale. By the way: the shocking lash of Shocking Prelude (2% - 14% for a MC Bellower) - like Eternal Devotion - works with all kinds of damage you deal, invocations included.

No idea about Rot Skulls - but it used to work with Minor Blights just fine.

I would prefer to use Her Revenge with the enchantment "Refreshing Finale" that restores the empower point and gives you +3 phrases instead of the full phrase refillment (but no empower refund) of "Encore". The nice thing about a chanter is not only that you can empower in every fight as soon as you get the scimitar but also that Her Revenge (and the upgrade) is quite good with empower so it's already fun pre late game. Most other classes are not very special in terms of empower until you get the coil. Then of course stuff like Missile Salvo, Storm of Holy Fire and even Avenging Storm (especially with dual mortars, helloooo! ) are supernice to trigger Brilliant - but before that it's just a plain ol priest/wizard/druid. I used Thekehu's Stormspeaker class with the scimitar to empower Avenging Storm once I got it as invocation at PL8, then after that switched to mortars and rain the wildest pierce/slash/shock AoE dmg (used Sure Handed Ila - Mith Fyr doesn't work with Tekehu because his race cancels out fire effects) while triggerig Brillant nearly 100% (practically 100% - theoretically a tiny bit less ;)) due to the unbelievably high amount of Avenging Storm lightnings that get put out by Blinding Smoke (hand mortar) and also the jump of chain Shot (Fire in the Hole, but less). But of course: that's not an MC build. I mean unless you use the console or a mod and make your MC a Stormspeaker. Then I would say that's the most fun way to use the empower mechanics that lead to he unstable coil and Weyc's stuff. First use with Her Revenge and later use Avenging Storm (most likely you will already have this when the coil is ready anyway). BUT: Obviously the triggering of Brilliant isn't that impactful for a SC Stormspeaker as it is for an MC Priest... If that's not cool then I would also pick Bellower/caster - just because everybody and their neighbor use Troubadour and that's just so boring right now.

To be fair: it's really hard to screw up a Monk build. While most classes have some pitfalls (or let's say ditches) the Monk's stuff is nearly 100% great. Okay, you can make inferior choices if you want, but they are very obvious (like having no engagement and then picking Parting Sorrow or having low deflection and picking Imagined Pain or using a ranged weapon and picking melee-only stuff).

Cool info. 👍

That may be the case, but my point was that you can get the expensive exceptional/superior loot a LOT earlier of you don't try to board but simply sink the ships (due to the reasons I explained above). So while you may get a bit more coin out of boarding instead of sinking ships it wouldn't matter much since it would mean you get that money a lot later - when you usually swim in money anyways. Sinking superior captains/ships very early is what has the most impact on your "money game" by far. Also raising mechanics asap, getting the Burgler's Gloves, grab Thieve's Putty and go lockpicking superior or even legendary gear (see Grave Calling in Crookspur etc.). If you have Bounding Boots you need no stealth. Simply be in stealth, then target the jump right beside the chest but pause before you execute. Unpause/pause until you see the landing circle, then cancel the action (Leap gets cancelled, no rest use gets substracted but you still land where you aimed - without any recovery and sound) and click on the chest. You will be able to steal without getting noticed. This trick is useful for other things, too (like being a solo Assassin with not much stealth or just getting past enemies unseen) but it's also great for looting stuff from containers and also for pickpocket. Barbarian can do without boots obviously once he gets Leap as ability. There are at least two pairs of Bounding Boots. So if you screw up the cancellation process you can still stack them in the stash in order to refill the per rest uses.

Ususally you use a so-called tank or a line of sturdy front liners to bind enemies in melee. You can stay in stealth until all enemies engaged with your frontliner(s). That way the enemies won't be motivated to rush to you (the frail wizard). Then you can target/hit the enemies around your tank/frontliners reliably. Usually enemies won't break engagement to run around then, but it happens. Of course casting a CC spell from stealth is another way. For example cast Binding Web on the enemies from stealth. They can't move then and it's easier to hit them the way you want to. A third option is to use choke points. A doorway, a narrow path in the wilderness and so on. Block the choke point with a sturdy frontliner and all enemies with gather before him. Then cast your stuff on them. By the way: the best lvl-1 spell for wizards is Chillfog. Makes the game a lot easier. But it is crucial to control enemy movement in one of the ways above, else it's not very effective. I don't use AI. But I'm on PC, so it's less of a hassle to micromanage every party member I guess.

I think (iirc) there were more people that also didn't receive the discs on the first try. But after some back and forth they came in eventually. If you didn't say anything back then I guess the logistics guys just had to assume you got them.

You don't need that much INT as with mortars because you are only attacking single targets (no AoE). I wouldn't drop it too low (you don't want the afflictions you cause to be over too quickly) but you certainly don't need it to be very high either. High MIG is nice with guns. It's not the top priority attribute to raise (go for DEX and PER first) but it certainly doesn't hurt to have it high(ish). If you have no problems with class cannon builds you can drop RES and CON to 3 and put max on DEX, PER and MIG and the rest on INT. You will get down quickly if you get attacked but you can prevent that with Escape/Evasion/Smoke Veil which is part of the fun (for me at least). If you don't like that then don't drop RES and CON all the way. By the way: two items that you might want to have besides the Red Hand are the Sharpshooter's Garb from Maia and Acina's Tricorn.