Boeroer

Maria Cruria is a famous Troubadour from Aedyr.

Also wear boots of speed. Moving to targets eats up lot of duration, too. You don't want to spend precious Guile on Escape too often. Miscreants Leather with an armor speed pet like Abraham makes you faster than naked, so that's an armor that's good for this task. Of course best is to do both: speeding up your attacks and prolonging Vanishing Strikes. I don't know where the break-even point is when it comes to alcohol vs. Mari Crudia but that can be tested easily: how many attacks can you get off during the duration? I personally would prefer Mari Crudia because moving around as melee always takes some time and Pukestabber's alcohol induced speed doesn't help there at all while the longer duration from Mari Crudia always helps. One can if course have both in supply: if you don't have the food use the alcohol and vice versa.

Also don't forget Mari Crudia as food: it not only gives you +15% duration for all benefical effects but also +2 INT which means another 10%. You need a lot of INT for Vanishing Strikes. Maybe also wear Cabalist's Gambeson (+10%) and Strand of Favor (+1 INT, +10%) together with other +INT items. More Power Level (Prestige, Stone of Power, potion) also gives more duration.

The most impactful synergy is if you put a Beckoner into the party and let him summon Ancient Brittle Bones. Paladin's Divine Retribution gives you 2 Zeal if an ally dies. And those skeletons are allies... Besides that the PL8/9 abilities of Paladins are indeed pretty lame. I was just wondering if Providence (auto-revive of the Paladin, costs 3 Zeal) will get partly refunded by Divine Retribution (2 Zeal when ally goes down - are you an ally to you?). One could put on gear that triggers on knockout (Woedica's Crown, Effort, Effigy's Husk etc.) and then stand up again for only 1 Zeal. If you kill somebody in the process you could get back 1 Zeal from Virtuous Triumph. Have to test that... Edit: nope. You don't get 2 zeal for your own knockout.

I only know somebody from the forum who removed parts of weapons - for example the sabre "Aldris Blade of Captain Crow": removed the weird hand protection. The robe could be named "Obscure Haven" and the Cloak of Death ability simply "Eclipse" or "Total Eclipse". No need to put my name into it.

Aaand a robe that grants Cloak of Death.

I know that you can at least tint models. Don't ask me how, but it's possible. You can also set parts of a model invisible - if it's made from separate parts in the first place.

Maybe one can use some creature parts as armor model? A winged armor that grants leap (2/encounter or so) could be nice: :)

You mean new models or using existing ones which could get altered a bit? I would like to see nicer Hide Armor. The ones in the game look a bit weird - too much bone, not enough hide (except Changeling's Mantle). Hide armor out of ray- or shark skin or so could be nice. A touch more maritime/huana style with shark teeth or so. I would also like some gladiator shoulder armor like this: Could also be made from non-metal. Maybe seashells or cuttlebone. Would fit the SSS DLC.

Afaik everything that moves (foliage, watershaper-scuplture etc.) is a 3D object. Everything static is 2D (like texture on a flat surface).

I think so. You can always switch to a large shield with modal against ranged enemies - if the already high deflection of Paladin passives + Wizard buffs isn't enough.

Yes, Steel Garrote can first use Parasitic Staff (dual draining) and then Draining Touch (also dual draining but more damage) if he wants to. But I just like the "passive" draining of Offensive Parry best. You have to do nothing (besides having high deflection) while getting healed up and dealing damage and can concentrate on the casting. If I wanted to concentrate on the melee dmg and not cast so much I would use Steel Garrote/Trickster I guess.

Not on console...

I hadn't problems with White Worms lately. But that was during testing sessions. I didn't do a proper playthrough lately. Maybe the upgrade is bugged. Maybe that's it. I don't take it because I think it's not worth the ability point. SC Furyshaper can be build towards Barbaric Retaliation with Battle Axes, Panther's Leap and Blood Storm. Because Blood Ward is the only ability that drains health from every tick of all DoTs (including chants). That means if you land with Panther's Leap, then retaliate with Bleeding Cuts and Blood Storm you will apply so many DoTs in parallel that Blood Ward keeps you alive against almost anything. Also the PL-9 shouts will drain a hell of health if yoi spam them, especially if you have Old Siec and Ward active. That also means that Brand Enemy will drain health with every tick as long as it's active. You can spam it to all enemies if you want and drain health with every tick of it (with Blood Ward). Cipher's drain a ton with Disintegrate. Wizards drain double with Corrosive Siphon... and so on. SC Furyshaper is my personal favorite atm.

It is not. It's prerendered 2D environment which is then handpainted over. There are 3D-objects in it though (trees, characters etc.). You can tell once you want to cast some line-of fire spells like Rolling Flame up or down a stairway: perspective doesn't work then because actually the environment is flat. There's also some video footage where the devs rotate the camera and you can see how the environment (which is basically only a background) behaves then. Maybe I can find it. That's the main reason why the maps have to get reloaded (screen goes dark and then comes back again) if something of the environment changes.

If you hit an enemy caster (has to be an actual wizard, priest or druid afaik - xaurip priests work, so it's not kith only) you steal one (maybe more) spells from them which you can cast unlimited times during the time Imprint is active. Which is obviously pretty good. For example you can steal Plague of Insects from an enemy Druid and cast it over and over again as long as the Imprint lasts.

If you used Kalakoth's Minor Blights with Blast/Penetrating before it's best to stick to it (if you want to spare spell uses). The combination with Combusting Wounds (and Infuse + Alacrity) is very strong - even in the endgame. And it can be done with spell mastery so you don't actually spend any per-rest resource on it. It's crucial to pack mobs tightly though. So something like Pull of Eora is useful if following the "Blight-Blast" approach.

Not really. PoE's and Deadfire's Loading times are pretty unique on console (I mean uniquely bad - and on PC as well if you haven't an SSD - PoE's more than Deadfire's of course).

The Least Unstable Coil will grant you multiple inspirations with an Empowered "Her Revenge" because every lightning strike triggers the enchantment (for whatever reason) so I'd advise you to pick that invocation. It's very good anyways. A Bellower can stack his bonus PLs from collected phrases (up to 7) with those of Empower - which can lead to pretty spectacular damage numbers (I mean if you want to maximize the outcome of that one empowered invocation - and invocations in general). Of course he can't refill as quickly as Troubadour, but the impact on individual invoctions is bigger. Eld Nary's Curse is most likely the invocation that profits from PLs most. It becomes very very strong. But the buff of the Bellower is actually too short to cover all the jumps from Eld Nary. The last ones will have a bit lower damage. Still the PLs determine the number of jumps - so it's great nonetheless. Don't forget White Worms. It does very high damage with enough PLs. Because its base damage is quite high. It's great if you focus-fire one enemy down and then use it for great impact. Doesn't need to be empowered to be good. If you want more sturdyness: the Old Siec chant works with Invocations - so you can get good health from damaging enemies with Eld Nary or Her Revenge etc. If you make your Herald a Steel Garrote he can drain twice: from his passive and your chant. If you add a Furyshaper with Blood Ward: even thrice (your Furyshaper and you: twice).

The nice thing about Chanter is just the Singing Scimitar which turns Empower into 1/encounter and gives back 3 phrases instantly. A Skald/Bellower for example can use Her Revenge + Empower and then can always follow with another one (non-empowered) right away (since it only costs 2/3 phrases) which is pretty cool. And you don't need to be a single class for that. Just fiddled around with Skald/Wizard for the combo of Combusting Wounds + Her Revenge.

Since I love the combination of Monks & Mortars it's nearly always dual mortars for me. Stunning Surge with dual mortars is just great. Hard disable AND damage for free most of times (because AoE and jumping projectile nearly always leads to at least one crit). And the focus gain is pretty insane, too. Especially with the huge AoE from +10 INT. Also: dual damage types of mortars + Thunderous Blows usually means no PEN issues. For single targets I summon the Long Pain which is very good. But you can also use a reach weapon (aiming for Chromoprismatic Staff for example) and then later use Instruments of Pain with it. You'll get 10.8 meters of melee range and can use Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming (I actually never cheched if those would also trigger Soul Storm) and stuff to quickly gain focus off of weak enemies that are far away. And you would still be able to also use Force of Anguish, Torment's Reach, Envervating Blows and all that. Which isn't possible with ranged weapons. Lots of options really.

My first CRPG was Pool of Radiance.

No, I just keep it on for Offensive Parry and draining while dazing the enemy (people forget that Daze does -4 PEN which is a huge improvement when it comes to survivability) and do the real damage with Eternal Devotion + spells. I can clean up single foes with Run-Through and then switch to another weapon. But against mobs it' just a very good combination of defense, healing and offense that doesn't stop you from casting at all. Usually Arcane Knight either hit stuff with weapon OR cast spells. This does both at the same time which I find great. You can drain more I guess with Spirit Lance, but then you can't cast other spells while doing melee dmg. I can ususally tank everything that mainly attacks deflection with this guy and at the same time he dishes out lots of damage for a tanky frontliner. Winning against 6+ CRE_Tigers solo on PotD is not that easy even for a lvl-20 char. Also works with Cipher ()get focus from parrying), Shattered Pillar (get wounds from parrying - also Offensive Parry works with Swift Flurry etc.), Trickster (way better weapon dmg) and Skald (Offensive Parry-crits can give phrases). I just think that the draining is very nice in combination with Bloodmage. You can spam spells unlimited while parrying. I pick Hands of Light because at the beginning you might get interrupted by accuracy foes. Hands of Light makes you immune to interrupts. I even used WotEP/Offensive parry on a melee SC Wizard (because I like Minoletta's Piercing Sigil and Cloak of Death so much) and that also works. But of course there's not that much synergy, just dazing enemies and doing some melee and retaliation dmg while casting stuff.

Missile Salvo also works. Maybe even the other missile spells.

That's without any buffs. Sorry, the following gif is huge (50MB+). I had to scale it down a lot to even get there. But maybe one can somewaht see what's going on: