Boeroer

Afaik Skaen is an unforgiving patron and generally cruel and deceptive - but not treacherous when it comes to his followers (the underdogs) but towards high-status targets. So that "either blind or dazed" thing wouldn't make much sense for me in this particular case. That certain Skaen items entirely protect the priest from his own spell is kind of cool. I wouldn't take it away with the daze. Maybe Staggered since one could avoid that with a resistance like from boots or something. If the reduced healing effct of Effigy's Husk stacks with Sickened (or Weakened) I would consider that. You could nearly shut down any hostile healing around you then - and stay immune with a Resistance (or in case of Weakened become immune with Rekvu's Stained Grasp + an injury).

Can't say a lot about Death Godlike because I only used that once or twice for thematic reasons and it didn't feel very impactful - I didn't use BDD shenanigans to unlock he really good part often though (Pallid Fate's +3 PL). If you do then it's certainly great. Maybe some ranged build which lowers its health to near death and stays there would also be ok, no idea. The +20% against enemies who are near death (Death's Usher): meeeeh. Nature Godlike's Wellsprig of Life is fine. The +1 PL is very easy to trigger and it's as good as any headgear in my opinion.

Can't say, never took one either.

If you like Ranger check out Ranger/Cipher: Takedown Combo does not get removed from the target if you apply "pure" raw damage like Disintegrate. Every tick of Disintegrate will get the +100% dmg boost from Takedown Combo as long as it lasts (and as long as you don't hit the target with direct damage which would remove TDC prematurely). Also Soul Annihilation (Soul Blade) + Takedown Combo is pretty cool.

I never take it. The +1 AR is not bad though. The retaliation is nothing to write home about.

So, Battle Forged (Fire Godlike) stacks with all of them but doesn't seem to trigger Swift Flurry - at least I couldn't see it while trying. During the same test Fire Shield triggered it several times. Still: Battle-Forged + Lay on Hands (Darcozzi) + Magran's Blessing + Flame Shield is pretty cool in combination with Combusting Wounds. You get hit and create 4 instances of CW on the enemy right away. Sacred Immolation helps to get to Blooded pretty quickly.

Oh, didn't check, haha.

Without wizard, hm... I wanted to say Monk/Wizard but it's out. Helwalker/Caster of any kind is always great. The +10 MIG and +10 INT (from duality of mortal presence) is very good for all casters. And Monks of all sorts are great martial artists, so... I also like Barbarian/Caster a lot because both Spirit Frenzy and Blood Frenzy not only speed up casting but also apply Staggered/raw DoT with spells. Add Bloodlust for even more speed and Blood Thirst for recovery removal after any kill (doesn't matter if DoT or direct damage). I did a Nature Godlike Berserker/Ancient with Lance of the Midwood Stag and Spine of Thicket Green and it was great. Especially once Blood Thirst gets unlocked: you can cast Frenzy (+1 PL through Wellspring of Life) and then Woodskin to unlock the "Lord of the Forest" (+2 PL to everything), apply some raw DoTs (like Insect Swarm + Plague of Insects), then walk in and hit stuff with the lance. Carnage scales with PLs, too. Once the DoTs start killing the weaker enemies you will have a lot of Blood Thirst going which lets you attack the tougher foes with no recovery. I also love Furyshaper/Beguiler. The terrifying ward is very strong and usually makes sure you don't get attacked to much. Use clubs + modal to hit enemies which come too near and they will certainly get terrified by the ward (because -25 Will). Meanwhile cast Deceptions and gain massive focus, then do Disintegrate and such which can trigger Blood Thirst... Furyshaper/Wizard is also good because Fear Ward + Miasma + Dazzling Light is gold. Terrifiying everything... Assassin/Wizard (I know, but no summoned weapons involved) : If you like the sneaky ways this is great. Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure (unique spell from Arkemyr's Grimoire(s)) will not break its invisibility if you only cast non-damaging CC and also any wall spells (Wall of Flame etc. - because they count as hazards which are not directly coupled to you as character). So you can vanish, apply all CC spells you like with +25 ACC from Assassinate. If you use Wall of Draining you can prolong the invisibility endlessly. If enemies are disabled for good you can attack "for real" or just let the party do it. I made an Assassin/Bloodmage with the Cap of the Laughingstock (its buff/debuff also applies when invisible and makes if possible to leach from every enemy via Wall of Draining) as the party's main debuffer/cc guy and the +25 ACC on cc spells is just awesome. And he can still dish out rogue-like damage with weapons if he wishes so. Trickster/Soulblade is also pretty fun.

The Fire Shield retaliation seems to be not only a "weapon" but a "melee weapon" attack I guess (inherited from the bash or the shield as melee weapon itself?) - since Swift Flurry usually only gets triggered by those? Other retaliation effects I tested (Ragged Cloak, Flame Shield, Darcozzi's Lay on Hands etc.) don't want to proc SF/HBD as far as I can tell. Speaking of Darcozzi/Flame Shield: made a Darcozzi/Bloodmage with Magran's Blessing and all Fire/Flame Shields will stack (as a side note).

Hello, another little discovery I wanted to share: Fire Shield (the enchantment on Magran's Blessing, NOT the wizard's Flame Shield) can trigger Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. Those will not proc further fire shield attacks but instead proc main hand attack rolls. So for example if you have a Battle Axe with Bleeding Cuts in the main hand (probably Magran's Favor) and Magran's Blessing as shield, then crits from Fire Shield can proc additional attacks from the Battle Axe with Bleeding Cuts. So this shield might increase your damage output even though the Fire Shield itself is pretty whimpy itself. For a Monk that is... Don't know if that's already common knowledge - but I didn't read about it. Have fun!

The power is that even tiny damaging attack rolls lead to the same raw dmg stacks. So a blunderbuss for example adds 4 stacks while an arquebus only adds 1 per shot. That's why I loke mortars with Whisper of the Winds so much. Against a group of enemies you will apply so many small dmg hits that in itself might be enough to kill enemies - but the cumulated stacks of RT are superdevastating then. Also works well with Swift-Flurry/Heartbeat-Drumming chains and Sun & Moon for example.

I agree. By now we should be cautious with "it's simple" - but this seams to be the most simple (yet practicable) solution without making Brilliant too boring (like +3 PL might be). I also get some "PoE Spell Mastery" vibes. Which is nice.

Yes. It was the other way round in PoE.

It also works with Avenging Storm (every lightning during the empowered duration will trigger the Least Unstable Coil). I use it with dual mortars + Avenging Storm from time to time because one volley with Blinding Smoke is enough to trigger Brilliant if you hit enough enemies. I suspect Relentless Storm would also do this and maybe even Nature's Terror but I didn't test them.

True. By the way: with enough stealth and a reach weapon you can wait behind your buddies until the enemies make contact with your frontline. You will still be stealthed and can do a Backstab (+Sneak Attack). That way you remove the need to steer your "stealthy" rogue towards enemies and then (after Backstabbing) have to flee in panic because they all want to pierce your squishy guts. Also works with ranged weapons (as long as you don't fire too early but wait until enemies are <= 2m near). Also note that when using melee weapons + Backstab: it's the command of attack that counts, not the actual time when the attack hits (dirrerent from Deadfire!). As long as you were stealthed while commanding the attack (clicking on the enemy) your attack will be a Backstab - even if you unstealth accidentally on the way to your target. So you don't even need a stellar stealth skill to pull off Backstabs (with a melee weapon). With ranged weapons it's not the case because if you command the attack from far away your char will simply stop and shoot from afar - and get no backstab bonus. Best weapons for Backstabs are heavy hitters - like an arquebus (from 2m range or lower) for example or even a blunderbuss (if enemies' DR is not too high). But also Firebrand (see Forgemaster Gloves or Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer) and Tidefall are very good backstabbing weapons (only that FIrebrand has to be used from invisibility because summoning it breaks stealth so it's not a good alpha-striker from stealth but devastating from invisibility). In general two handed weapons are better than one handed ones. Sadly daggers and all other light weapons are not. The implementation of Backstab (which is an additive damage bonus calculated on the weapon's base damage) prevents this.

Not really an immunity afaik. He has a passive that clears fire effects on him periodically - I guess every 3 secs(?). Unfortunately it removes benefical effects, too. I mean it makes total sense so Im not complaining. I was just a bit bummed that I had to find out about that after trying to use Mith Fyr for quite a while and wondered why the f he wouldn't get any burning lash on his attacks althoug he was singing Mith Fyr all the time. Is suspect he also clears stuff like Flame Shield - but I didn't try.

@Rooksx: Yes, that is correct. But to be fair this wasn't widely known until someone tried it (kind of by accident) and posted it here not too long ago. Before that I guess most players just assumed that "immunity vs. disengagement attacks" just meant "immunity to engagement" or that it wouldn't be counted as a real miss.

Attack destructibles (barrels mostly) as @dgray62 suggested. You'll crit them all the time.

I have no idea. Chillfog does trigger CW, even Frostseeker does iirc (might be wrong here though) - but I have issues with Tekehu using the Mith Fyr chant (it gets cleared by his godlike passive which makes sense but is also annoying ). Maybe explicit water spells do quench/not work with CW, but I didn't do a comprehensive test. At first glance it seems that this "element x counters element y" stuff doesn't work at all (besides Tekehu). Maybe it was planned to be like inspiration vs. affliction, but it surely didn't get implemented thoroughly (if at all). And what would counter acid, what shock? Maybe they dropped it because it just wasn't worth the hassle. If others have more insight then please share! Would love to know what works and what wouldn't. Anyway - multiple Chillfogs, a Wall of Flames, Wicked Briars and such things combined with CW is often my 1-trick-pony approach in a lot of encounters in the mid game. Most classes have one or more of those pulsing or multiprojectile abilites and the others can use stuff like blunderbusses or Sun & Moon (with Swift Flurry even...) or so. Even against some late(ish) enemies that are vulnerable to fire - like Neriscyrlas - it's a great thing to use CW. And if you go with a Beckoner who uses his skeletons frequently and who's accompanied by a Priest with Spark the Souls then you might want to add a Wizard with CW, too. Druid with Avenging Storm + dual mortars: same. Missile Salvo: yep.

As an SC Wizard you can combine Combusting Wounds with pulsing spells like Chillfog, Freezing Pillar, beams and walls and so on - and minor missiles and blunderbusses, too. The damage output is very good as long as the enemy isn't resistant/immune to burn damage.

If you have some thematic wizard builds you want to translate it may be that you just need to multiclass. For example I did that Mountain Dwarf Bilestomper Wizard who made himself nearly invulnerable against poison and disease and most fortitude based attacks and then tanked enemies and showered himself with all those poison/disease spells like Noxius Burst, Maglignant Cloud and so on. You can do that in Deadfire with a Paladin/Wizard because the Paladin gets a passive that makes you immune to poison and disease. How fitting. The tanking and the casting of those spells on top of yourself works even better then. I also made a variant with fire and ice spells (with a Pale Elf obviously) and in Deadfire you can do the fire variant very nicely with Rekvu's Scorched Cloak while the ice variant is nice with the BoW-ice-outfit. Stuff like that. So recreating thematic builds isn't that hard. You can even end up with something more interesting. Very special "powergamey" builds that require certain unique items or other delicate synergies are of course harder to do - or even impossible. What I really don't like is that they put Caedebald's Blackbow into PL8 - it would have been so nice for multiclassing...

You also have to distinguish between early, mid and late game. Saying "XY is best" when only looking at the late game isn't really a wholesome assessment (I still thing Priest is best because there's so much impact for a party even at low levels - see Inspiring Radiance but also mid game stuff like Devotions, Prayers and so on). Per-rest casters in PoE feel a lot weaker in the early game - because they have so few spell uses per rest compared to the endgame (where they have an overbundance of spells). A lvl-1 per-rest caster can cast two spells (especially if you took pretty lame spells as a Wizard to begin with) and then it's auto-attacking with suboptimal stats. Of course that feels weak - hence the claims of "uselessness". Fighters and Rogues (and Monks as well) feel stronger in the early game of PoE because they start with higher stats (for example compare the starting ACC of Fighter: 30 with the starting ACC of a Priest or Wizard: 20) and are somewaht "frontloaded" with nice abilities like Sneak Attack, Constant Recovery and such. Hence so many new players sworde that Rogue is the strongest class at first. Same reason why so many players thought that Barbarians were bad: they just didn't play them long enough. Barbs started with low ACC and deflection - of course they felt weak in the early game. Especially because Carnage couldn't hit anything with the low starting ACC and the -10 malus on top. And the 36% damage malus felt really bad in the absence of other dmg bonuses. It's written nowhere in the game that Carnage gets +1 ACC per char level. You had to find out yourself which was only possible if you didn't give up on the Barb (or read the forums ;)). In the end you could have a really great Barbarian - but you wouldn't have guessed from the first impressions.

People also said that "wizards are useless" in PoE. Usually people have the strongest opinions when they have no clue...

In PoE, with several priest in the party: always make sure all of them take Inspiring Radiance - because it stacks. 6 Priests = +60 ACC from Inspired Radiance. :headbang:

Fortunately it doesn't matter where the lightning damage comes from as long as it's the wielder of the Voulge who causes it. You could for example wear Heaven's Cacophony and use its Avenging Storm to cause the shock damage or as you said a scroll of some shock dmg spell. That way it's very easy to level it up (the other steps are also easily done). SC Barb is good with this like the others said. Not related to Serafen or Tekehu but it's a very fun weapon for a Berserker/Monk actually - mainly because of +INT from Duality (enlargens Carnage Area) and Swift Flurry (+Heartbeat Drumming) in combintion with Frenzy+Bloodlust + Blood Thirst. Sometimes Swift FLurry/HBD trigger one another and you'll get a ton of AoE damage because Carnage can't crit and still applies Static Thunder while the main attacks' chain-crits trigger it right away. @AeonsLegend did post some screenshots that do show the effect quite impressively. It's also fun for a Barbarian/Druid. You can bind it to the Druid class for +3PL to storms but still get the Static Thunder for Carnage (without the Distraction part that Barbs would get but still nice combo). Relentless Storms with Deltro's Cage + Voulge get +5 PL and are devastating - and when they kill your Bloodlust and Blood Thirst trigger... Fighter is also nice due to Clear Out (and upgrades). For SC Druids like Tekehu it's more like a stat stick. But all storm spells (that's not only shock spells) and Greater Maelstrom get +3 PL from it which is pretty awesome. I don't use it as melee weapon that much then (bcause busy with casting) but it's still good for that because dual damage with shock which is handy for many encounters (against constructs etc.).