Boeroer

No, I would just try it out with the help of the console. It also depends on the amount of your CON and if you have stuff like Tough, an Amulet of Greater Health, damage resistance from items like Death's Maw, Voidward and food (Rice for example) etc.

PS: I usually like Deleterious Alacrity of Motion a lot because the +100% movement speed + immunity to engagement is crazy (besides the action speed bonus) and the self damage grants constant wounds but is low enough to be manageable.

I guess as soon as you get Ninagauth's Shadowflame you won't use other Evocations that much. Especially with full Enduring Dance bonus and 10 Wounds + Thunderous Blows when it covers a fairly big area and the paralyze effect lasts for a while. Shadowflame + Merciless Gaze + Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge is a very nice combo because accuracy and crit conversions will be high, defenses debuffed and you can even convert from graze to crit with an Aware buff from a Priest or so. The AoE of the lance will be big bc. of Turning Wheel so you will crit with most strikes. Very cool for Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming, too. I find Pull of Eora super useful to pull as many enemies together as possible and be able to catch a lot of them with a following Shadowflame or such. Stealth offers -80% recovery time - so its possible to open with Pull of Eora and immediately after cast a Shadowflame. That's why I would put some points into stealth. You don't need many in order to stay hidden long enough at the start of battle. Of course for a Bloodmage Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon is very useful. The only healing spell of the Sage. Essential Phantom will inherit your Spirit Lance (or Concelhaut's Draining Touch without dispelling it on hit) which is pretty cool. It does not inherit Monk fists so it's better to summon it when you carry a weapon. A very potent spell, Concelhaut's Draining Touch, if you are willing to exploit it. If you don't learn it but instead cast it from a grimoire and then immediately switch to a grimoire that doesn't have the spell, the Draining Touch weapon will not get dispelled after a successful hit. It has tremendous base damage and drains health, targets Will instead of Deflection and weakens on hit. Combined with a club+modal in the offhand (-25 Will on hit) and Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (-40 Will) you will crit a ton with Draining Touch and have lots of chances to trigger Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. But it is an exploit... All sorts of pulsing damaging spells (Chillfog for example) and DoT spells (Necrotic Lance and such) scale very well with the increased accuracy, MIG and INT. What else (besides all the nice self buffs)? Hm, I find Fan of Flames is overlooked and actually is pretty dope - IF you can make it so that you don't hit your allies all the time. It scales well with Power Levels with its pretty high base damage, it profits a lot from the added MIG, INT and also the PEN of Thunderous Blows. The only thing that sucks is the friendly fire tbh. It's also easy to buff its power levels further with a pet (Otto Starcat, +1 fire power levels), Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon as stat sticks (+4 fire Power Levels) and Evocation bonuses (Firethrower Gloves).

I wouldn't use too much MIG because you will get up to +15 from the Helwalker side (Helwalker passive + Thunderous Blows) and that, combined with the +5% damage received per wound, leads to Blood Sacrifice doing a lot of damage (scales with Might). Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, too. Imo 10 MIG is enough. You will not get a damage malus (which would be multiplicative and that's bad) yet you somewhat control the self damage a bit. CON on the higher side is not something I consider often, but here it makes sense. Monks have a big health pool and half of it goes into the multiclass, so the effect of CON leads to a fair increase of health in absolute numbers. Imo high INT is a must for any AoE weapon such as Citzal's Spirit Lance. For Race I would pick Human because of the Fighting Spirit passive. Due to Blood Sacrifice you will find yourself bloodied or near death fairly often and the increased accuracy and damage (also self damage though!) are nice to have then. Everything that heals is nice, especially if it heals "on the fly" such as Devil of Caroc Breastplate (on crit) or a pet such as Abraham or even Cajux. Even better: using Cajux for yourself (20 healing on kill) and Abraham for Eder (effect for every party member: 10 health on kill) for a combined +30 health on kill (base value) when you kill an enemy. Stunning Surge is extremely good with Spirit Lance - if you can hit multiple enemies. It's a free AoE stun attack then basically. Zandethu's Draconic Fury (unique grimoire) is a great spell for a melee Sage.

Wild Orlan is great against dragons and drakes (and everything else that emits an aura against Will) since their fear aura procs the defense buff every 3 secs.

I'm not a big fan of the Cipher class in general but I really like the Psion - and I really like the Psion/Troubadour, too. It's one of my most beloved class combos: The Ceaseless Siren

Single class Rogue is fine. Mostly because both Gambit and Vanishing Strike are good abilities and fun to use. By the time you get Gambit you will usually have over 10 Guile (+2 if you use the Devil of Caroc's Breastplate) which means the crit conversion when using Gambit is at 100% or only a bit below (Gambit's cost of 4 Guile gets substracted before the conversion check). That means unless you miss or graze you will critically hit all the time, giving you back the 4 Guile (if you are using a dual wielding setup, else only 2 Guile). This lets you spam Gambit endlessly which is very powerful, especially with weapons and other items that do something good on crit (see Ball and Chain, Rust's Poignard, Boltcatcher Gloves and so on). It also works well with ranged weapons such as hand mortars, blunderbusses and pistols so a Debonaire who doesn't want to go too near to enemies or doesn't want to leave allies can also make good use of it. If you have a party member who can charm all sorts of enemies for the Debonaire then the critical hits for Gambit are even more likely, at least for the first attack (which will flip the target back to hostile). Vanishing Strike gives you an invisibility that doesn't break until its duration is up. This means you stay invisible even if you are damaging enemies with attacks. Since the duration is rather short you want to: a) prolong it with high INT and items (Salvation of Time is not working because the spell will not hit you because you are invisible and not targetable) b) be very fast with your attacks while invisible to squeeze the most out of it. Both Assassin and Streetfighter are nice for this. The Assassin because of the Assassinate passive being at work while invisible and the Streetfighter because of the reduced recovery which allows more attacks while invisible. Debonaire can also use it of course. Obviously Backstab is a great ability to combine with Vanishing Strike. You can use both - like turning invisible and then slam Gambit - but imo it's better to concentrate on one of them to maximize the effect. Debonaire as a subclass is charming (pun intended) but its uses are fairly limited. Because charmed enemies immediately flip back to hostile if you hit them, the 100% crit conversion isn't a very exploitable feature. The added damage charmed kith do (if you charm them with the Debonaire's own Rogueish Charm) is okay but not really impactful. Imo something like a self-contained Skald/Debonaire (focus on the charm invocation + melee crits for phrases) or a Psion/Debonaire (charm and then use Disintegrate as an almost guaranteed crit, this doesn't flip back the enemy) is most fun, even if a combination of a dedicated Charmer + a Debonaire on the party is usually better in terms of action and resource economy. One charms and the other immediately profits (instead of having to wait for recovery to finish). Single class Debonaire works and can be used like any other Rogue with the known drawbacks of a Debonaire. I just find the other Rogue subclasses more suited for single class operation. Assassin in combination with Vanishing Strike, Streetfighter with Gambit and Trickster with stuff like Freezing Rake, Wall of Many Colors or even Gambit in combination with Wall of Flashing Steel. The Debonaire's special thing at level 18 is that the kith enemies they charm with Rogueish Charm get any tier 3 body inspiration. It's nice but very situational imo. Like... why would you want the charmed enemy to become Robust? So when looking at single class Rogues the Debonaire isn't more attractive than a vanilla Rogue to me. PS: iirc you can combine the Chanter's charm upgrade (charmed enemies deal more damage) with the Debonaire's body inspiration on the same (kith) target somehow (don't remember how I did it). Not really worth it though imo. The most annoying thing about a melee Debonaire is that Persistent Distraction doesn't work and is a trap choice because they cannot ever engage enemies in the first place.

Hi, a dual pistol Paladin may not need the good defenses he or she naturally comes with, but it's not bad to have a ranged Paladin standing among the backline/behind the front line. Stuff like the zealous auras and also White Flames (healing in Flames of Devotion) but also Shared Flames (burning lash for your party members who stand near) work better if your party members don't move too much - which usually is the case with fellow party members with ranged weapons. And you will be standing among them. One of my best Paladin characters was a dual pistol Kind Wayfarer (single class) and it was a LOT more practical than I imagined it first. Arcane Archer is a great class imo. It has a little flaw though (if you are not using the Community Patch mod): the damaging imbued shots (Missiles, Fireball) don't scale their penetration. This makes them lackluster in the late game. However, I personally think the other, non-damaging imbued effects (Binding Web and Pull of Eora) are much better anyway. Other classes that work well with pistols and might bring a "magic bullets" kind of vibe in combination with a Rogue: Cipher: the accuracy bonus from Borrowed Instincts work very well on addition to the pistol modal Rushed Reload, which is excellent if you can balance out the accuracy debuff Wizard: the Essential Phantom you can summon will carry all your items, including the pistols, in Deadfire. A Wizard can also prolong all benefical effects on them with Wall of Draining. There is a special pistol in Deadfire that gives you a stacking recovery bonus. If you prolong each stack you can reach incredible shooting and casting speed. Chanter: Sure-Handed Ila works with pistols and applies its -20% recovery bonus twice (!) to reloading weapons. It doesn't stack with Rushed Reload, but you can then achieve similar reloading speeds without the accuracy loss. If you pick a Troubadour with enough INT you can overlap Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Uses Mith Fyr which is a great DPS boost for you and any other party member who attacks with weapons, especially ranged ones and extra especially the ones with reloading weapons. All these have the benefit that they have more options than pure shooting which adds a lot of versatility. I think I personally would like the Kind Wayfarer option best. The healing while shooting is very useful and leads to great action economy. The accuracy of Flames of Devotion (especially if combined with the early Ring of Focused Flames) is enough to balance out the accuracy loss of Rushed Reload. So you will have a fast shooter with high reactivity who's also doing high dmg per hit and can do support and healing (on the fly and actively with Lay on Hands etc.), too. It's a complete package and a good combo imo. Also a Rogue/Paladin will be more sturdy/have better defenses than most other Rogue combos and most backline/ranged characters - which usually leads to less enemies targeting you. That means they won't bother you as much and that can remove a lot of potential frustration where you'd have to heal yourself, run away etc. Cheers!

The sniper thing from stealth or invisibility is nice at the beginning but doesn't really hold up later imo because the damage per shot isn't climbing as much as the enemies' health pools are. Assassin is really good in combination with spellcasters though. The high accuracy from stealth/invisibility is very useful then. If you want to maximize the damage per shot from stealth/invisibility you can try Assassin/Bleak Walker and pick up Dragon's Dowry and the Ring of Focused Flames. The second option Streetfighter/Kind Wayfarer works very well right away because it's pretty front loaded with good abilities. But it also keeps getting good new abilities on the way. Great damage dealer and good healer rolled in one.

Hm... depends on the difficulty. On anyting lower than PotD I think it's fine - as long as you don't try to be the main tank. Arcane Knight is a pretty strong class combo in general due to the combination of Wizard's self buffs + Paladin's passives. On PotD it's more difficult to tank enemies without a shield because the enemies' accuracy is higher and also their penetration. So a bit more experience is good to have in that case. I think for a first playthrough something like Herald or Crusader is pretty forgiving no matter the difficulty setting.

Hi! Besides Cipher there are lots of good options: Ranger - obviously Chanter - Sure-Handed Ila's -20% reload/recovery time bonus is applied twice to reloading weapons such as guns, which is very good Paladin - especially Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols or blunderbusses: White Flames procs twice when dual wielding. Nice damage and nice healing at the same time. Monk - extremely good with your possible companion Serafen's hand mortars: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/133662-class-build-the-mortar-monk-bombed-aoe-disabler-and-atomizer/ Rogue - in general but especially Streetfighter with two blunderbusses + blunderbuss modal "Poweder Burns": Powder Burns distracts the shooter which automatically unlocks the Streetfighter passive "Heating Up" which reduces reloading time by 50% and gives +50% extra Sneak Attack damage, very potent And then any mix of those. For example Arcane Archer (Ranger)/Troubadour(Chanter) is one of my favorite combos because Gunner and Sure-Handed Ila stack their reloading speed bonuses and Driving Flight + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr do improve damage per hit a lot. Real nice with arquebus, especially Dragon's Dowry packs a good punch and is relatively fast that way. The Red Hand is always great. Streetfighter (Rogue)/Helwalker (Monk) with dual mortars and a focus on using Stunning Surge is also very good. I don't find Fighter particularly good with guns except some gimmiky builds. Other classes such as Barbarian also don't make too much sense with guns . It's doable but there are no good synergies. For example Blood Thirst doesn't work with reloading weapons and that's a pity. Single class Druid has one special build with Avenging Storm and hand mortars (or regular blunderbusses) which is very good - but only works at high levels, before that it's nothing special. Wizard can use blunderbusses and an Essential Phantom (it gets your weapons) in combiantion with Combusting Wounds - which is pretty nice but feels a but one-trick-pony-ish. But then on the other hand: a Wizard/Ranger with Driving Flight and hand mortars + Combusting Wounds would be pretty devastating against certain mobs. Priest can work but has nothing special for guns.

Yes, that's not really a bug though but a unfortunate implementation of elemental keywords and immunities. The attacks of Frostseeker are keyworded as freeze attacks (no matter the damage type) and thus they also profit from all bonuses for freeze (power level bonuses from certain items and so on). On the other hand it also always triggers the immunity vs. freeze (no matter the damage type). So an alternative weapon such as Essence Interrupter (which doesn't have that problem because it's not keyworded with shock but just does pierce/shock dmg) is a good idea.

hhh I wouldn't even upgrade Crippling Strike. Arterial Strike's DoT is situational and doesn't generate focus. Yet you pay 1 ability point. I would simply use Crippling Strike as is. Imo it's also suboptimal to use focus for damaging spells (except Disintegrate bc. great raw damage and Amplified Wave because prone) - might as well keep attacking with a weapon and deal damage AND gain more focus. Focus should be used for buffs, debuffs and CC imo. Frostseeker is great for a Cipher, the AoE explosion generates focus, too. What is the weapon bug? Never had one with it. An excellent weapon for opening the fight is Kitchen Stove with the enchantment "Thunderous Report". It's a 1/encounter cone attack that does immense AoE damage and generates a lot of focus. Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole are great, too. Hand Mortar has "Blinding Smoke" which distracts (in an AoE) and thus unlocks Deathblows in an AoE. Amira's Wing has an "AoE spell" enchantment that only works 1/encounter but works with Sneak Attack and Deathblows and does very high damage in a big AoE. Also generates a lot fo focus.

In general I think your ability and especially your spell choices are fine. Here are some abilities I personally would probably not take: Since you don't use any damaging spells besides Recall Agony and Disintegrate - which both deal raw damage - you can drop Penetrating Visions. Unless you are using the Community Patch, Improved Critical is absolutely not worth the ability point. Uncanny Luck: same as Improved Critical. Okay if Community Patch is active, not worth it if not. Deep Wounds doesn't generate focus. Still a good ability for damage, but maybe it could be skipped on a Mindstalker who's focused on delivering debuffs/afflictions. Combat Focus is not worth it in your case imo. You can get Concentration layers elsewhere or even become immune. Also as a ranged Mindstalker you might not need it in most fights? I personally would pick Crippling Strike over Blinding Strike. Just because Blinding Strike is two times as expensive - which means you can only use it half the times you could use Crippling Strike. Besides the bonus PEN, Crippling Strike also has one more Power Level for scaling which leads to higher base dmg and base PEN than Blinding Strike. I wouldn't even upgrade it and thus spare +1 ability point (compared to Blinding Strike + Confounding Blind). Bear's Fortitude is not worth it that late imo. Might as well use a +3 CON belt and get +6 Fortitude without spending an ability point. What I might take instead: Ciphers usually struggle a bit in tough fights against high defense foes. Empowering an attack or a spell can help. You didn't pick any of the Empower related abilities like Accurate Empower for example, maybe something to consider. They can make a difference in tough fights. An empowered, high accuracy Disintegrate can be pretty brutal. Lasting Empower stacks with Lingering Echoes, giving you very long affliction times on something like an empowered Secret Horrors for example or an empowered Puppet Master. Psychovampiric Shield reduces enemies' Resolve by 10 points. This can be very useful in boss fights against foes that have very high Resolve. Because a giant those all afflictions and other hostile effects (Disintegrate for example) won't stick long. -10 Resolve means an increase of duration of 30%. On top of that you get more Resolve yourself (yay). For a ranged character it's only useful occasionally but maybe something to consider if boss fights are something where Ydwin doesn't perform too well. Keen Mind lets you use a better/higher focus spell (+1 tier) right away at the start of battle which can make a difference in tough battles. Use it in combination with stealth: a stealthed character gets a -80% recovery time bonus for his first action from stealth. If you can cast a better spell from stealth and that have basically now recovery that's an advantage. You can also combine it with Empower. The Complete Self is nice with big AoE spells such as Phantom Foes since it most likely procs. In case of Phantom Foes it cuts down the cost in half. Escape is a cheap but effective mobility tool which also grants you a +50 deflection bonus; it can be pronged with Salvation of Time. In combination with a Priest who benefits from your Ancestor's Memory, you can make yourself a lot more sturdy for very cheap. I find Slippery Mind to be very useful later in the game. If you use Potions and Scrolls then Deep Pockets is great in combination with either The Amazing and Truly Incredible Instant Potion Belt or Spellkeeper (belt). I personally like to pick Fast Runner. It helps to outrun enemies and make them stop chasing you (because they quickly realize they cannot catch up and turn to somebody else. Not needed with Boots of Speed though. Bull's Will stacks with Iron Will. So if you want to invest in a defense passive I would maybe pick those instead of Bear's Fortitude. Snake's Reflex can be combined nicely with Adept Evasion instead of using Bear's Fortitude. If you want more versatility and lose the one trick pony feel a bit you can try to pick one or two support spells besides Ancestor's Memory. Pain Block is very good for example. It's very nice to have a good healing (and bonus AR) spell at hand on a character who normally isn't the party healer. That way you can improve action economy in a pinch when it comes to healing. If you only have one healer in the party you can get into situations where more than one party member would need healing - but the healer cannot cast two spells at the same time and maybe doesn't have a powerful AoE healing left. In those cases it's great to have somebody else be able to deliver the occasional healing effect. If you want to try something completely and utterly different you could check out if the Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry combined with Riposte is something you would enjoy with a Mindstalker. I did this with a Streetfighter/Soul Blade recently and had a lot of fun with it. I'm sure it could also work with Ydwin. Give Ydwin all the deflection she can get (items, spells such as Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts) and put on Nomad's Brigandine with the enchantment that raises melee deflection and the other that grants immunity to disengagement attacks. Use as Boots of Speed. Boost INT with items. You can then attack enemies from the flanks with a cone - and if they attack you and miss you can harvest focus passively with Offensive Parry and Riposte. The action economy of this is pretty nice because you don't even have to attack to generate focus. In this case Blinding Strike and a blinding spell are great because they lower enemies' accuracy (leads to more misses). Secret Horrors is also great for this. If you get damaged too hard you just run away. Since the armor turns all disengagement attacks into misses you will proc Offensive Parry every time somebody does a disengagement attack against you - and sometimes Riposte will proc, too. In this case Persistent Distraction is good to have of course. If you want to use an occasional backstab and don't have the Community Patch: Run Through (enchantment of Whispers of the Endless Paths) in combination with Backstab (and Sneak Attack + Deathblows) can do absurd single target damage 1/encounter. Secret Horrors to unlock Deathblows, pop a Smoke Veil or Shadowing Beyond, use Run Through and watch a very high danger number float up. ;) This also delivers a lot of focus of course. Cheers!

Hi! I like to have a character that has a thematic and also a class consistency throughout both games. For example in PoE1 I would pick a Nature Godlike Monk with druidic vibes, give him the cross class talent Aspirant's Mark, pick up (and level up) the Greenstone Staff and use several items with Druid spells (spell binding items) such as Rotfinger Gloves for example. And maybe some fitting scrolls, too. In Deadfire I then build a Nature Godlike Helwalker/Ancient and continued the journey with the Spine of Thicket Green (quarterstaff) and so on. Or I would use a Chanter in PoE 1 with Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, pick up One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger (soulbound arbalest) and Runner's Wounding Shot as cross class talent - and then in Deadfire I build a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster (also arbalest). I wrote a build description for that one because it turned out to be very effective and fun to play: Chanter with focus on invocations, using short phrases to get phrase points quickly and using the cross class talent Enigma's Charm and several charm/dominate items (Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral, Ring of Changing Heart) in PoE -> turn into a Troubadour/Psion in Deadfire: Also playing as a plain Priest of Eothas over both games was enjoyable. In PoE there's quite some fitting unique gear for a Priest (of generally a follower) of Eothas: unique flail, unique helmet, unique mail armor and so on - which is kind of rewarding. Priest of Eothas also fits both games' themes and storylines well. Sometimes it's a bit weird that the game doesn't react/recognize this class choice more though. Priest of Berath with Tidefall in PoE -> Priest of Berath/Helwalker with the summoned Spiritual Great Sword. My most beloved Monk build from PoE (Witch Doctor) who used the Long Pain primary (so a ranged Monk) turned into the Mortar Monk in Desdfire. But some builds that I have enjoyed playing very much in one of the games don't work well (or were not much fun to play for me) in the other. For example the combo Helwaker/Berserker with a Morning Star is one of my favorite builds in Deadfire, but when I went back to PoE and wanted to do a whole playthrough from PoE to Deadfire with this build in mind I couldn't make it work in PoE. I mean a PoE Monk with a Morning Star and Outlander's Frenzy would work for sure, but there's not too much synergy, some stuff just suppresses each other (like Swift Strikes and Outlander's Frenzy) and it wasn't much fun to play. The other way round - Barbarian with Monk features - doesn't really work because the cross class talent Novice's Suffering is kind of useless of you plan to use a Morning Star. Sometimes it needs a bit of playtesting to be sure it holds up in both games. Cheers to you, too. :)

Yeah, usually Steel Garrote Paladins are from Aedyr, that's why I picked it. Also nice for this build bc. of the bonus RES point. Unfortunately the helmet/hood is super late game stuff.

Nice. I also enjoy a high risk/high reward build from time to time. It just makes things more exciting.

That it never misses is probably just a combination of level 13+ (when you already have plenty of accuracy and debuffs to increase hit quality), the stun effect targeting will instead of fortitude (like some other stun abilities) and pure luck. ;) But it's the only hard disable for the Rogue - and that makes it quite valuable and very useful. It would be even better if it was a Full Attack instead of just a Primary one (and I don't get why it is a primary attack only), but still... Getting 2 uses per encounter is also very nice. Since I usually try to give the Rogue as many per encounter abilities as possible I wouldn't skip it. I try to use a Girdle of the Driving Wave (1 Knockdowns/encounter, also Primary Attack despite the Fighter's version being a Full Attack) to get a hard disable before Sap becomes available. The base duration should be 5 secs btw. You seem to have a lot of INT (which I also like on a Rogue).

The Animal Companion is a separate "character" so to speak. You pick stuff for them (such as Merciless or Vicious Companion) via the Ranger's level-up GUI - but in reality the ability is added to the Animal Companion and not the Ranger. Because of this, talents and abilities you pick for the Ranger do not apply to the Animal Companion (unless it is designed to be added in some shape or form to the Animal Companions and sometimes the Ranger, too - like Marked Prey or Stalker's Link). Talents and Abilities that aren't tied to the Ranger class and don't explicitly mention the Animal Companion (like Apprentice's Sneak Attack) only apply to the Ranger, never to the Animal Companion. So no: Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Merciless Companion cannot stack. I actually don't remember if resting bonuses from inns apply to the Animal Companion. I don't think so. Bonuses from survival do not apply to the Animal Companion. They only apply to the Ranger. Animal Companion's base damage scales very well with level. This means that all sorts of additive damage bonus (Merciless and Vicious Companion, but also Predator's Sense) work very well here. Predator's Sense is especially good because it's a 50% damage bonus. To unlock Predator's Sense you need to apply some sort of DoT on the enemies. This is impossible if your Rangers are not allowed to deal any damage. Besides Wounding Shot or a wounding weapon (Persistence, Tidefall, Drawn in Spring, Acuan Giamas) spell binding gear like Rotfinger Gloves (have a huge foe only Touch of Rot spell) is extremely convenient for this. Scrolls of Insect Plague/Plague of Insects are also great. So, by not allowing your Rangers to use any DoT you are directly gimping the offensive performance of the Animal Companions - because Predator's Sense won't work. Something to keep in mind. Maybe applying DoTs can be taken out of the restrictions the Rangers face in your challenge? Otherwise you need to accept that the Animal Companions won't be able to use Predator's Sense. It could be that you can circumvent this a little bit by using traps. If an enemy gets hit by a trap that does a DoT, the Animal Companions could gang up on that enemy with +50% dmg each. Another thing you will not be able to use (and which is very good) is Stalker's Link. Since you won't allow your Rangers to attack an enemy (like, command an attack action) you cannot fulfill the requirement of Stalker's Link which is that Ranger and Animal Companion have to attack the same target. In theory it is enough to just command the attack, you don't have to actually execute it. So you could command a melee attack from farther away (so the Ranger would have to get there first) at the same time as you command the Animal Companion to strike - and then cancel the attack again so the Ranger doesn't actually strike. But this means extreme micromanagent and likely be no fun at all. Another drawback by not letting your Rangers attack is that you cannot support your Animals Companions with Marking weapons. A weapon such as Spectacular Spetum or Blade of the Endless Paths or Shame or Glory can give your Animal Companions +10 accuracy if they attack the same enemy as the Ranger with the marking weapon. It would stacks with Stalker's Link and Marked Prey. Also, by forbidding your Rangers from attacking you obviously will have to skip one of the best passives of the Ranger class: stunning shots (which also work with melee weapons despite the name). I'm not saying you should ditch your challenge's rules. It's just stuff you should know before entering an all-Ranger PotD run I think. How would you feel to allow your rangers to use their fists (even without taking Novice's Suffering)? The damage would be incredibly low so it shouldn't have any impact by itself - but that would allow them to apply DoTs with Wounding Shot for Predator's Sense, use Stalker's Link, Stunning Shots and so on for the Animal Companions. Or maybe only use torches? They also do very low damage. Marked Prey always played a hit reaction afair. That's different than an interrupt. A mere hit reaction stalls the receiver a tiny bit but doesn't prolong recovery like a proper interrupt would - although the difference between a hit reaction and an interrupt from a light weapon (only 0.35 sec) aren't that big and noticable. It's more obvious when you compare a mere hit reaction with an interrupt from a morning star or so (1 sec interrupt/+recovery time). I don't think this has changed with the recent updates. Cheers and good luck with your rowdy rangers' rumble. :)

That is the quintessence of the Cipher class I'd say. Very good against weak mobs - but not so great against bosses and other tough enemies. The Barbarian has a somewhat similar profile btw. But since most fights are against numerous foes and a lot of them are relatively weak the Cipher in the party can still make a lot of sense: makes short work of "filler fights" without spending any per-rest resource so the other party members with per-rest resources (wizard, priest, druid) can spare their spells and use them in the tough fights. This problem also gets better with higher levels, a good accuracy buffer (priest) and complementing cipher spells (for example Borrowed Instincts).

If with the Watcher boss fight you mean the fight against Maerwald then that's normal: The Fighter is a front loaded class, mostly because of the very good starting values (defenses and accuracy mostly). There's no class that has better ones. On top of that the Fighter also has some very good low level abilities such as Disciplined Barrage which have a really nice impact in the early game. In order to catch up and then outperform a Fighter, most classes need a few (or a few more) levels - especially the caster classes.

Yes, I personally would pick Draining Whip over Biting Whip (CP version) for a Beguiler because Draining Whip - besides improving focus generation from weapon dmg - also improves the Beguiler's focus generation when using Deception spells (!). Biting Whip does nothing for that special Beguiler feature but only boosts weapon damage.

Hello and welcome. 🤗 I never used the Epic Games platform but a Google search result leads here: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/epic-games-store-c-202300000001639/launcher-support-c-202300000001735/achievements-are-not-updating-in-the-epic-games-launcher-a202300000014828 Maybe it helps. That's also the answer Gemini suggests in general. So it's not a general problem with the game (because PoE's achievements usually work with Epic, too) but rather the Epic cloud services not synching properly for whatever reason.

Imo the original Biting Whip is almost never worth taking (with the original value of +10% additive dmg). With Soul Whip, +20% dmg are done and 0.5 points of damage get transformed into Focus (or half your damage in other words). Other dmg bonuses aside (who all work in favor of Draining Whip because Biting Whip just adds additive damage) let's just assume you rolled 100 base dmg with an attack (which is absurdly high,so this example is actually shifted in favor of Biting Whip, and still...): Soul Whip (+20%/0.5): 120 dmg/60 Focus Biting Whip (+30%/0.5): 130 dmg & 65 Focus Draining Whip (+20%/1): 120 dmg/120 Focus This is so unbalanced it's ridiculous imo. Every additional point of damage (from other damage bonuses) make Draining Whip perform even better in comparison -because its effect is multiplicative while Biting Whip's is only additive. You can decide between +10% additive dmg gain (which translates into a tiny bit more focus, too via more dmg) - or no additive dmg but +100% focus gain which is multiplicative because it is based on all dmg dealt (including lashes). I mean even if you want to build the absolute weapon dmg monster cipher you would be better off taking Draining Whip, forget about the measly 10% additive dmg and instead cast Recall Agony for 30% multiplicative and even have spare focus left. Even in case of Soulblade, Biting Whip is a trap choice, too, since you can convert focus into damage directly and a ton more focus per strike translates into much more raw dmg via Soul Annihilation. The only build I can imagine where I maybe wanted to use the original Biting Whip over Draining Whip is with an Ascendant/Ranger or -/Rogue -/Shattered Pillar or so who wants to keep attacking even when ascended and not spam spells (because Soul Whip doesn't turn off while ascended so you keep the dmg bonuses from it). One cast of Borrowed Instinct maybe and then keep attacking. In that case Draining Whip wouldn't do anything while ascended (because you're already full - takes you longer to get there, but if that's okay with you...) but Biting Whip would still add +10% damage on top of the already elevated Soul Whip dmg of a currently ascended Ascendant. But even then I guess it would be better to ascend more quickly with Draining Whip and cast a Recall Agony for more weapon damage. Back when CP was created I believe it was@MaxQuest who did some calculations and tests on how high Biting Whip (as a multiplicative lash instead of an additive dmg bonus) should be just to be on par with Draining Whip. That's how he landed at the current solution which is in the Community Patch. There has to be a discussion/thread about it somewhere here in the forums. 🕵🏾‍♀️