Boeroer

I would try to decrease the duration of the curse from the Forbidden Fist ability and to find a way to produce wounds besides using the Forbidden Fist ability (so basically get short-lived hostile effects or prevent being attacked a lot so you can use Enduring Dance of Death). Generally one also you has to watch out for "does xy on melee weapon crit or hit" or so, because in the unmodded game the Forbidden Fist ability works like a melee spell and is not registered as a weapon attack. That means that for example a Skald will not generate phrases if he crits with the Forbidden Fist attack. But since you use the Community Patch mod this is not a problem because the Forbidden Fist attack is registered as melee weapon attack there (as it should be). Thirdly you have to forego resistances against afflictions - if you want to get wounds from said afflictions. For unknown reasons the Forbidden Fist's wound mechanic will not generate a wound if you downgrade an affliction with a resistance and that affliction then ends. For example: you get hit by an attack that would weaken you for 10 secs - but you have a resistance against CON afflictions and so you only get sickened for 10 secs. Not the sicken effect expires and you get... nothing. So it's better to not gain any resistance but instead make sure that all hostile effects only last very shortly. Which means maxed Resolve, special items and abilities. Also countering an affliction with an inspiration works: the affliction and the inspiration cancel each other out and you get 1 wound and some health. Based on those requirements: Pros: Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming can make it more likely to generate a phrase point (you cannot gai more than 1 per action, but the chance to get one increases with more crit rolls per action) Turning Wheel is great for invocation and chant AoEs (bc. +10 INT) - something like Her Revenge is a lot better with a big AoE, same as Killers Froze Stiff etc. Turning Wheel prolongs the duration of debuffs/CC you can do with invocations. For example the paralysis of Killers Froze Stiff lasts a lot longer. the burning lash of Turning Wheel stacks with the Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr lash, giving great multipilcative dmg bonuses to your weapon attacks (also Lightning Strikes if this us used instead of Swift Flurry) Ancient Memory and Mery and Kindness help with the FF-curse's self damage, Mercy and Kindness boosts the healing when a hostile effect expires Inspiration invocations work for the caster, too and can counter afflictions - and thus create wounds endless resources (wounds and phrases) Cons: Forbidden Fist attack cannot produce phrases Resistance chants (which are usually very good against certain enemies) will hurt your wound generation no real martial synergies Pros: lots of inspirations to counter afflictions and thus gain wounds healing to counter curse damage Triumph of he Crusaders is nice in combination with Forbidden Fist attack/curse. FF attacks can kill quickly and you can heal a lot from fast kills. Turning Wheel's INT bonus is great for AoE size and (buff) durations Salvation of Time Barring Death's Door (+Salvation of Time) + Turning Wheel + FF's curse can let you reach absurd dmg bonuses with the FF attack while the absurd self damage has no consequence Spiritual Weapons' lash stacks with Turning Wheel (and Lightning Strikes) for nice multiplcative damage bonuses for your weapon's attack. Cons: Action economy: Priests usually buff/support (the party) a lot. This takes away from fighting etc. no martial synergies besides Spiritual weapon limited amounts of spells Pros: Turning Wheel + spells like above healing o counter curse damage Druids have many DoT spells which profit a lot from higher INT Druids don't have accuracy buffs so the Dance of Death can help with hitting with ranged Druid spells some spells work with Instruments of Pain (for whatever reason) and gain *6 range. One of them is Sunlance which gains a range of 120m... Taste of the Hunt is a nice alternative to Forbidden Fist attack Druids can generate a lot of wounds and high defense with friendly-fire combos such as Tanglefoot + high RES + Clarity of Agony + Crucible of Suffering. You will get hobbled by your own Tangelfoot - but the duration of pulses will be very short and you will get a wound as soon as a pulse spires Wildstrike lash stacks with Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes Spiritshift Armor stacks with Iron Wheel'a AR bonus - while having 0 recovery penalty Cons: Action economy like with Priests when buffing or healing a lot no martial synergies besides maybe Taste of the Hunt, Wildstrike lashes and natural armor limited amounts of spells Pros: lots of self buffs which are superfast like with the other casters: +10 INT is excellent for all sorts of spells (AoE and duration) Deleterious Alacrity's self damage counts as hostile effect. When it expires you get a wound. Citzal's Spirit Lance works with Turning Wheel (AoE size, lash) and Stunning Surge which makes this an excellent combo Wall of Draining helps to prolong positive effects. See Crucibe of Suffering and all other (self) buffs as well as Healing over time You can - like the druid - generate wounds from friendly fire effects such as Chillfog (blind) or Binding Web (stuck) but those effects a more inconvenient than the Druid's hobble - and remember: no resistances with the Concelhaut's Draining Touch trick and a club+modal in the offhand + Miasma of Dull-Mindedness you can lower enemies Will defense a ton - which makes them easy to crit with terrify effects and expecially with the Draining Touch weapon (it targets Will). This makes triggering crits chains with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming a lot more likely and deals a ton of damage. But the trick is a bit cheesy and not intended behavior. potentially ulimited resources/spells Cons: no real martial synergies besides the access to Spirit Lance and Draining Touch, but both are very potent, so... squishier bec. of the Bloodmage's drawback against bloodied enemies and bc. of the added self damage of Blood Sacrifice --- sorry, no time to address the rest, have to go. Maybe later, bye!

Ahaaa - now I get it!

This what makes the most sense to me. I mean it's called "Death of a thousand cuts" and not "Death of a thousand very specific Cipher spells". Heh no... but I mean it makes the most sense mechanically. Everything else just feels so forced and unneccesarily complicated to me. On the other hand I don't really play Deadfire anymore (besides running some test session here and there) and will certainly not do an SC Cipher run in the foreseeable future - so my feelings on this matter mean very little.

Huh? They are not limited in that way.

I would add "and target the same defense". It can be benefical to have one alternative to fortitude-targeting spells (like having Antipathetic Field or so). Besides that I agree - especially because Disintegration does raw damage. You don't have to look at enemies AR and your PEN. And if you have a Morning Star dude like Konstanten who also lowers fortitude with chant and Spirit Frenzy you're all set. Frostseeker is good. If you plan to pick Shared Nightmare then Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole are great picks against hordes of enemies. Watershaper's Focus with Blast and Ondra's Wrath, too (especially with Time Parasite). Both of the latter have fairly low PEN though, so having a backup weapon set with crush or raw damage is benefical. If it needs to be ranged then there's only Eccea's Arcane Blaster, as @yorname said - or scepters. Current's Rush has the enchantment High Tide which triggers a cone AoE on crit that can proc itself. And that cone does generate focus iirc. A quarterstaff could be used to be somewhat safe and still do good crush damage. If it were me I'd probably pick the Blaster for single targets and against pierce/slash resistant enemies, too. Raw damage takes aways any worries about PEN and AR which is so convenient.

No, DoT ticks do not trigger Do1000C. Only direct damage attack rolls from Shred spells seem to trigger Do1000C. Reaping Knives (the spell) might have the right keyword, but the attack from the knives themselves don't have it. That's stuff like Mind Blades and Antipathetic Field. Mind Blades isn't too bad if you have a lot of bounces and only two targets. Since Antipathetic Field rolls every second and is cheap it's the best option (if you can set it up) imo. If you bring a Berserker/Cipher you can anchor Apathetic Field to an ally who's flanking the enemy. If one really wants to make Do1000C work I would recommend such a party member. It also has other nice little things it can do with Confusion+Cioher spells (for example cast Amplified Strike on an enemy instead of an ally and deal double damage that way, cast Amplified Wave on enemies or anchor Ectopsychic Echo to enemies - and more). Blood Thirst + Soul Annihilation is a pretty great combo, too. A Cipher Wall spell with the shred tag would be perfect. To bad we don't have one. I didn't try Pain Link. Maybe the retaliation has the shred keyword, but I doubt it. I guess only the appliance to the ally is keyworded. I guess a Soulblade with Sun & Moon who could spam smaller Soul Annihilations non-stop might also work well? Didn't actually try if Soul Annihilation attacks carry the shred keyword. Might be worth testing. I would have preferred if they had implemented Do1000C like Combusting Wounds, meaning that all damage rolls would work. To balance it out the effect then could have been weaker than it is now. The current implementation can be very potent but the complicated setup severly limits its overall usefulness.

Maybe because the damaging spells of ciphers aren't super impressive in general compared to some other of the cipher's abilities (for example mind control). Since ciphers have potentially unlimited resources their damaging spells aren't as impactful as Wizards', Priests' and Druids' in most cases - but they can cast more of them in an encounter (if they manage ro generate enough focus). Disintegration is great if you can make it hit (or even crit). Especially against tough single foes it's a great damaging spell. For that to go nicely a party member with a Morning Star + weapon proficiency is very helpful: hit (or even only graze) the enemy with Body Blows from the Morning Star (which lowers the fortitude defense a lot), then cast Disintegration with Ydwin on him. Best would be to charm or dominate him before or after - for example with the help of Serafen - so that the slowly dying enemy doesn't bother you anymore but even helps you - as long as alive. Fortunately a charmed enemy will not get flipped back to hostile from Disintegration (or Soul Ignition which stacks with Disintegration but doesn't do raw damage but burn and has to overcome enemies' burn AR in order to be effective). So you can charm an enemy and calmly cast Disintegration on them afterwards which makes the process a bit more flexible. Both beam spells (Antipathetic Field and Ectopsychic Echo) are good if your positioning and movement is great (for example when using Boots of Speed and immunity to disengagement attacks from Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco) - and if you have enough PENentration and ACCuracy. They also don't rely on INT at all. Antipathetic Field is the go-to spell to use in combination with Death of 1000 Cuts. Both are also great in combination with Combusting Wounds (from Aloth for example). For a nice combo of disruption and AoE damage Amplified Wave is still very good. But you have to watch your PEN and the enemies' AR. It does crush damage - so it's great to lower crush AR in an AoE before using it. This can be done with Expose Vulnerabilities (Wizard), a Mace with modal + Clear Out (Fighter), Hel Hyraff (Chanter) or the Sungrazer flail (its enchantment that lowers crush AR by 1 also works with spells from that character iirc). Stuff like Mind Lance and Mind Blades is cool, but the damage:focus ratio isn't very good in most cases. Soul Shock is a lot better in that regard - IF you can ramp up your AoE size (more INT mostly) and PEN - as well as having an ally that's often surrounded by enemies (like a main tank). The biggest hurdle for good DPS with Soul Shock is your casting speed and your focus generation. A combo of Reaping Knives on a fast attacking party member (like your Soulblade maybe?) with Time Parasite can give you a great outcome with spamming Soul Shock. Reaping Knives - despite their description - generate 5 focus per hit. If your party member does a full attack you get 10 focus - that's one Soul Shock. Now if the Reaping Knives wielder attacks twice as fast as you can cast and recover from Soul Shock you can spam it endlessly (in theory). A Psion would be the best subclass for this but it would also work with Ydwin. Unfortunately Deltro's Cage, which would boost the Power Level of Soul Shock by 2 points, would slow you down. I don't know if it's worth it (besides its protective benefits of course).

Hi, while I was trying to do something different with Xoti this time (SC Priest all the time becomes boring at some point as does Whispers of the Wind for the umpteenth time) I experimented with Inner Death some more, combined with Empowered Strikes of course. Main reason was initially that Xoti's Lantern gives +1 Mortification (and +1 Wound) per kill. That's the only way besides Brilliant to regain Mortification - and it also means that Inner Death is kind of cheap (-3+1 =2 ) if it kills (which it often does with Empowered Strikes to ensure a crit). Now I tried to max the damage per empored crit with abilities and items so that the impact of one Inner Death punch is really, really impactful - so at first I went with Lightning Strikes instead of Swift Flurry because a +15% lash is a multiplicative damage bonus and is a great thing to have for such a high-dmg/single use combo. With the help of Lightning Strikes, Turning Wheel, Thunderous Blows and some items that add dmg bonuses and lashes I could often crit for ~500-700 dmg - which is pretty dope. If you have to take out an annoying enemy NOW I'd say that this is a very useful tool. But then, since I would will crit almost always with that combo anyway, I thought I'd give Swift Flurry and HBD a short try. I knew that Empowered Strikes (+100 ACC and +100 PEN on empowered attacks) does NOT influence the additional attacks of SF/HBD, but I thought I'd try how it feels anyway. I used Mohora Tanga to maximize the chance for procs and then I also put on Boltcatchers - because they work very well with Mohora Tanga*. It is not guaranteed that Inner Death will trigger SF/HBD! It is a melee attack and it can trigger them, but it doesn't use your weapon - so any special sauce the weapon has that could help you with SF/HBD procs will only trigger as soon as Inner Death did trigger SF/HBD which then executed a weapon (in this canse spear-) attack**. After a few tries I managed to trigger a crit cascade (for testing purposes it's helpful that the additonal attacks wil get executed and displayed BEFORE Inner Death impacts the target) - and I saw that the +300% crit damage bonus of Inner Death does apply TO ALL attacks that are done in the scope of the attack. So all damage rolls from SF/HBD and Boltcatchers got that sweet dmg bonus. Whoopsi! Boltcatcher proc: Heartbeat Drumming proc: I mean this is still a gamble. It's much more reliable to just pick Lightning Strikes of course - especially if you want to kill the tough foes with an empowered Inner Death asap. Tough foes with high defenses usually make crit chains a lot less likely. But with Swift Furry it's pretty awesome nontheless when it happens. I one-shot Concelhaut and Menzago instantly - but with other bosses I tested I didn't have as much luck. But of course Inner Death - even without a juiced up SF/HBD crit chain - is still a very hard punch. Anyway: thought I should share this info. Maybe somebody has better or just more fun ideas what to do with this. Cheers! --- )* Mohora Tanga's enchantment Red Flag Flying counts as melee weapon attack and can thus proc itself for and endless cycle as long as it crits. It can proc melee-related special attacks from other items such as Boltchatchers. It also procs Swift Flurry/HBD attacks that are then executed with the normal spear attack again - wich itself can proc Red Falg Flying again on crit and so on. This increases tha chance for crit chains happening a whole lot. )** Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming are always executed with the main hand weapon, no matter how they got triggered in the first place.

Interesting. The only situation that I can think of where you could command a melee attack on somebody from 3.5 meters away and not have to move to execute it is with Instruments of Pain (Monk's *6 melee range ability). Maybe abilities like Leap, Evasive Roll, Charge, Flagellant's Path and Escape also don't count as movement in this case. They don't for other purposes (such as the Wall or Blade Turning) so I guess this could work as well. However: for what use?

Somewhere out there is a video from the closed beta of PoE in which pikes and quarterstaffs had engagement for their whole reach - and somebody put his character with a pike behind a choke point and the enemies with normal melee weapons tried to get to him and where instantly murdered by countless disengagement attacks.

I don't know about "threatening", but engagement doesn't work with reach. It is limited to the normal 0.8m melee distance.

Sorry, had a bad formatting-/tag-error so I had to edit the post right away.

Soul Annihilation does raw damage. This can be a gamechanger in certain situations (for example a fight with a very high AR foe who's accompanied by weaker foes). You collect focus from the weaker foes and then unload AS on the tough one. Maybe check out Soulblade + Wizard (preferably Blood Mage) with Citzal's Spirit Lance. The weird workings of Soul Annihilation + AoE makes using Soul Annihilation on all foes worthwhile then. All enemies will receive at lest some raw damage while focus is generated internally during the process of hitting several enemies. It will all be spend in the end (after the attack) - but the combined raw dmg you dealt is more than your initial focus would have done. At the same time it's easy to load focus up with an AoE weapon as soon as you face multiple enemies. You want maxed AoE size - so max INT + maybe AoE size items (see also Loki pet). Wizard's Wall of Draining also opens up a lot of great potential with some of the Soulblades and of course Wizard's buffs, but also buffs from items - for example the Soulblade's +max focus on kill, the Escape Cape's +50 deflection (stacks with Wizard's deflection buffs and Borrowed Instincts) and so on. It's such a good combo that it has sucessfully completed the Ultimate challange. If Wizard doesn't sound good: this also works with Whispers of the Endless Paths + Soul Annihilation - in this case I would argue that taking Helwalker/Soulblade with Turning Wheel is one of the best options (up to +10 INT for max cone AoE and +15 MIG for good additional SA damage bonus, Stunning Surge is aweome with dual flail heads). But Fighter (with Tactical Barrage instead of Disciplined Strikes for biger AoE size) is also nice. Solid sized cone AoE of the weapon + Clear Out AoE (results in AoE*AoE attacks because every hit roll in the cone leads to a new cone attack) is just a ridiculous action that sends lots of enemies flying, hit my a multitude of attack rolls and producing a ton of focus. Another way to make great use of SA is to pick Sun and Moon + Tuotilo's Palm: The first flail head will spend the focus for raw dmg, the second flail head will already regenerate focus for you. It's not much but with enough dmg bonuses you can spam SA without pause. It's a "free" raw dmg addition and profits from using an attack ability with PL scaling all the time instead of auto-atacks. The low dmg bash of the shield will not see much use since SA can be spammed and is a primary attack. Yet the shield will contribute to dps bc. dual wielding will be active (+30% action speed) and you can use two weapon fighting for even more speed, too. And of course it's added defense. This is good with Rogue bc. of the added dmg bonuses that allow to spam SA earlier (pref. Trickster to stack more defense on top of the shield which makes for a very balanced def/off char) or Monk (profit from the great defensive enchantment of Tuotilo's Palm and the great interaction of Swift Flurry+Heartbeat Drumming + the two flail heads which increases the occurance of crit chains significantly - this doesn't generate focus though but just kills enemies on the spot). Turning Wheel lash generates focus though. Lightning Strikes also does - but when using Sun & Moon I would prefer Swift Flurry. Nope. Carnage doesn't generate focus. Yes, unfortunately it would. I think Mage Salyer is a bad choice. Since the cipher doesn't have summons I would say that Furyshaper is a good pick. Either more speed fom the speed ward or free focus from disengaging enemies due to the terrifying ward. The Barb can get +3 engagement from his shouts plus shake the enemies which makes it more likely to terrify them with the ward and get more disengament attacks. Bererker's Tenacious and crit conversion is great if you (or your party) can deal with the substancial self damage. But it can also be used to reliably trigger Blooded (+25% dmg) and Fighting Spirit (human rac. ability). Single class Soulblade can make use of high INT plus Shared Nightmares (the AoE bonuses stack for the weapon's AoE, too): with Whispers of the Endless Paths the cone AoE can become very large with the help of Shared Nightmares. Especially if you can manage to keep up the +max focus buff from killing enemies. But in general SC Soulblade is just weaker on the SA side. But Reaping Knives on party members can help you to farm a lot of additional focus for more SA attacks (and spells). Reaping Knives give +5 focus per attack (not what the description says). So you want to cast this on party members who attack very fast and do not miss a lot. Something like a Barb/Streetfighter with maxed attack speed would be perfect. Unfortunately a Wizard's Phantom will clone the Reaping Knives from the Wizard but they won't give the Soulblade any focus. Boo... If this would work a Barb/Wizard or Streetfigher/Wizard + a Phantom would be so great as a wielder of Reaping Knives for the Soulblade.

The power comes from stacking passive defenses with active ones (including AR). And since stacking defenses has increasing returns this class combo turns out to be a very effective one. Also Eternal Devotion's lash works with direct damage spells which is one of the few things that can boost spell damage (besides MIG, crits and Power Level). It's not dropping any jaws but it's nice. Steel Garrote/Bloodmage is a very good Arcane Knight combo, especially with the good old Draining Touch trick + shield. Drain health to fuel your Blood Sacrifice while dealing damage. In the discussion one argument for the fighter was that it's a class that performs well without much attention (and with simple scripting if you use AI settings). The same is true for the Paladin (maybe even more so because the defenses tend to be better after a while and AR is higher) - but here it sounds like that's more like a disadvantage now - because it's kind of one dimensional. The support and healing (others) parts get pretty much omitted. While I'm arguing for the Paladin here: it's one of my least favorite classes btw.

Thank you! Sure. My spoken English with that German accent might not be the most pleasant experience for listeners I guess - but who cares...?

Sorry, edited while you were reading (see addendum above).

Yes. They do stack their effects. Indeed - it does work like that. It's a very good combo of spells - especially because both spells as a combination can be accessed so early (tiers 1 and 2). A similarly great combination with Combusting Wounds is to use Kalakoth's Minor Blights and combine it with the Blast talent. You will produce a lot of individual attack rolls (Blights' projectiles have their own AoE - and every hit in that AoE will trigger a Blast AoE) which will all trigger Combusting Wounds.

Nice video. First of all your voice is pleasant and well suited for this - which is really the exception rather than the rule with (not so big) channels. Great! I also like your explanations regarding your thought procress on every class. I do not agree on several things - but I'm able to relate to the decision making. I also enjoyed hearing @thelee's voice for the first time, yay! --- Edit: as I said before somewhere during the initial discussion I would very much like to see a list (or maybe simply a presentation) of the most enjoyable (multi)classes. Like "what makes Deadfire builds fun to play (for you)?" And then maybe assume and speculate what might be fun for other potential players and give arguments why some stuff might be boring (yet powerful) and other stuff might be fun (even if not OP). Maybe that could be a topic that's helpful to new players (especially the ones who don't want to play several runs but prefer to have the most fun with just one playthrough). I mean if the thought processes and reasons "why" would be equally well explained as in this video above it should be nice content, right? It's all subjective of course - but maybe entertaining and helpful nonetheless. Examples: I agree that Barbarians are pretty niche in general - but it also happens to be that Berserker/Helwalker is one of the most enjoyable combos I always come back to for a fun little playthrough. It can be very powerful and especially carries the character very well in the early and mid game, yet is def. not overpowered, it has very effective synergies while it still poses a challange with its downsides. It just makes me hoot and holler when you go against weaker enemies while it's still viable against the bigger ones. Or how a certain Arcane Archer/Chanter can be so incredibly enjoyable and great against single targets and mobs alike - despite having a class like the Ranger in it which usually focuses on the niche of "AC vs. single targets". Yet there's also the very powerful stuff that's still very enjoyable (at least to me) which is the Mortar Monk for example (thought about it when you spoke about Resonant Touch). It's great during he mid game (INT bonus working with the mortars' AoE, Stunning Surge being awesome with mortars etc.) while it's not breaking the game in an unfun way - and when you get the really gamebreaking stuff like Whipers of the Wind + Resonant Touch + mortars' multi AoE... well it's the endgame and I think one can be allowed a little OP for the last few hours. Or the Psion/Troubadour which combines two very powerful classes into a very fun and powerful enough experience (when you focus on spamming different CC and damage options without pause) or into a potentially boring one which is gamebreakingly good (focus on summons and mind control). You already adressed it in the video above: that using very powerful stuff can be boring... but I think this topic deserves its own video. Because it's a very complex topic and highly subjective - and because a lot of people enjoy different things. I think this could lead to good engagement with viewers and also fruitful discussions. I also think this point rarely gets the attention it deserves. After all it's a game and is usually played for fun. So imo the most enjoyable characters are the most "powerful" when it comes to serving the purpose of a game so to speak. Anyway, excuse my ramblings: again - nice video.

Nah, I'm pretty sure it's the normal behavior that it doesn't work. Most likely never has. Break the Bell is an unpopular ability because its effect is rel. weak compared to competing Rogue abilities for the amount of Guile and ability points it will cost you. So I guess nobody really noticed before.

As far as I remember almost everything works except Wounding Shot (Ranger) and one or two of the Rogue's attacks. I thought it was "Sap" but it could as well be Shadow Step... I'm not 100% sure about that (and Break the Bell). I almost never used both of them in a real playthrough so my memory is a bit fuzzy in this case. I know I tested all possible abilities with WotEP, Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole, Rods + Blast and so on - but that was along time ago... and I'm kinda old. If you say that they didn't work now I'm sure that your test results are correct. Try Clear Out with WotEP - it's aweseome!

Sure, I do agree that it could and should have been more obvious. But you said: which is false. True though: a bigger warning than in dialogue form would have been great, given how many players missed this and expressed frustration about it. The designers learned from that mistake: in Deadfire this is solved with the "skull meter". It informs you about the difficulty (compared to your current party level) for any region you are about to enter - and even with every enemy in the game you are about to fight. This would have been really nice to have in PoE + DLCs, too. Unfortunately they didn't think of it at that time.

Your steward, who informs you about Crägholt Bluffs, does explicitly warn you about that area and suggests that it is high level content. Level 8 or 9 doesn't even cut it, at least not on PotD difficulty. Iwould suggest at least lvl 10, 11 is better and still challenging. Maybe you didn't read the dialogue thouroughly at that time - or maybe you forgot about that warning because unfortunately it is not included in the journal entry for that quest:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Edit: Tehehe, the retroactive admin approval of the post above makes it look like I'm a total idiot. Love it.

Best Wildrhymer for me is a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with the unique arbalest Spearcaster. Arcane Archer will max Arcana anyway so he might as well profit from the bonus ACC of the arbalest as well. A @NotDumbEnoughsaid, Wildrhymer can shoot reloading weapons very fast bc. of Gunner + Sure-Handed Ila (it applies both the -20% recovery AND -20% reloading buff to all reloading weapons!) and some nice items. Because of that I always keep the modal of the arbalest on and prone every enemy I hit. It is possible to almost prone-lock any single enemy that way that isn't immune to prone. The ultra high ACC of items + Spearcaster + Arcana + Ranger abilities makes it unlikely to even graze. On top of that you have the insane CC aspect of Pull of Eora and Binding Web imbued shots. With Driving Flight you will trigger 2 Pull/Web AoEs with one shot each. And then you will also have summons plus an Animal Companion.

In terms of overall usefulness no summon beats the Animated Weapons imo. They are not only fairly tanky and can spread out but also they each have several uses of special attacks (Pike: Knockdown, Warbow: Wounding Shot and Great Sword: Flames of Devotion) which adds a lot of offensive potential (for example more accuracy than a standard attack). The Dragon has one (or two) advantages: he is very tanky (huge health pool) and takes up a lot of ground space, blocking a big area. While his standard attack is weak, his active attack abilities (fire breath, tailswipe and so on) do scale very well with his high Power Level and thus have great effect. Only if you used them all up he starts to suck offensively. The second advantage is that a Dragon can profit from an Ancient Druid's "Wild Growth" spell. This is just hilarious: not only does it give the beast summon the Robust inspiration for the entire summoning duration (Wild Growth has no duration, it's basically permanent for that summon), making it even harder to kill - it also makes it bigger. You can imagine how cool an already huge Dragon can be if you enlarge him even further. What a mountain of an ally. He will block an enormous amount of space for you. This can be a disadvantage, too: if the space is verys limited he might get stuck. But usually it's very useful because he will occupy a lot of enemies with his big size. This also works with Drakes (all summoned beasts), but they are considerably weaker. If you like Wildrhymer I'd say Animated Weapons is good enough though. Also Many Lives Pass By (phrase on PL7) is accessible as multiclass. The automatically summoned Skeletons don't count towards the summoning limit and "stack" with other summons (and Animal Companion). So you can have Chanter summon + Animal Companion + Skeletons. A nice synergy of Chanter + Ranger is that you can revive the Animal Companion as often as you want with an invocation. So it's not the end of the world if the Animal Companion goes down early. It cannot get injured so it's as good as new after getting revived. My preferred multiclass for summoning is Troubadour/Psion because it can add lots of "temporary allies" (aka charmed/dominated enemies) to the collection of summons. Also both resources (phrases and Psion's focus) work the same for a Chanter/Psion and you will almost never run out of casting fuel (unless you get hit all the time which usually doesn't happen due to so many alternative weak cannon fodder targets).