Boeroer

Yes - you will lose a bit of duration of the effect - but on the other hand it's a free cast then. Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free. That way you can even empower two spells for one encounter: empower the seal spell, wait for the refresh and then empower your opening spell. Of course empower doesn't have a huge impact on seal spells unfortunately...

Yeah, I was thinking about ranged-only attacks which could be used. But there really aren't that many (only Twinned Shot comes to mind atm)... Edit: Ah, the imbue-shots of the Arcane Archer might be helpful here. They only work with ranged weapons and could be used to force the use of the pistol even when in melee range to the target.

I think you can emulate this with the AI tool if you give you character an attack action (which gets used as standard action) and only occasionally throw in an attack which explicitly targets enemies who are out of melee range. From the top of my head I don't know a way to force the use of the firearm in melee (unless it would be a ranged-only attack ability like Twinned Shot or so) or how to force the character to run towards enemies and use the sabre instead of starting to shoot. But I also have to say I didn't use the AI tool that much - so maybe there's a way of doing it that I don't remember.

Yeah, that's why Assassin/offensive Caster can make a lot of sense. The +25ACC is just awesome, especially during the early game. Of course you'll not the to PL 8 and 9 spells, but the +25 ACC while stealthed or invisible do absolutely make up for it imo (besides some other goodies a Rogue can bring to the multiclass). Yes, and even hostile spells don't break stealth (and don't start encounters) - if you don't hit anyone with them (so if no actual attack roll is performed). This seems to be useless info at first, but it can be very useful to lure enemies somewhere - or to set up a spell that lasts some time (Chillfog, Pull of Eora, XY-Seal, Wall spells and so on) and only then start the fight with something more direct. Way faster casting than the other way round. This is a very good point and I haven't read about this very often. Buffing while stealthed is very benefical, especially if the casting time isn't that long but the recovery would normally be. Recovery time is -80% while stealthed - which is the single best recovery "buff" you can get in the game (aside from 100% via Blood Thirst or Blade Cascade etc.). Just watch out when using Devotions for the Faithful: it has the hostile debuffing component that can break invisibility (stealth not really a problem bc. you would have been too close anyway) if you touch an enemy with the AoE.

I don't 100% understand what you are trying to accomplish (sorry), but maybe my aswer helps nonetheless. Trying to get the buffs from both weapons: You can shoot at enemies who are far away and still stay in melee range with other enemies. You can just create two separate attack actions in the AI tool and let them alternate (or determine some criteria when to use which action). For example create one action that prioritizes an enemy you are engaged to, then for the next action prioritize an enemy that is far away - and so on. The character should then automatically switch between sabre and pistol when he runs through those attack commands. Another, more foolproof way is to use weapon switch (single sabre in weapon set 1, single pistol in set 2) with AI. You can tell the AI to switch weapon sets. Then the AI is forced to use whatever weapon is currently in your hand. This would work best with a Black Jacket Fighter + Quick Switch, but it might also be worthwhile with another character if you don't swith too frequently. I have to say that most melee/ranged hybrid weapon setups are usually pretty suboptimal (unless you really want to only attack with one of the weapons but still get the speed bonus from dual wielding). Generally speaking it's a meh setup (powergaming-wise - of course it can be stylish and so on).

Yes, you'll have two instances of Missile Salvo. Pretty dope when that happens. With Vithrack Silk Slippers you could theoretically get 2 echoes (3 instances of missile salvo) from one cast. Extremely low chance and I never got this, but should be great fun when it happens. By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells? Imagine a triple echo from Evoker, Slippers and Marux Amanth at the same time, tihihi.

Penetration vs. armor is one of the most important mechanics in combat. You are right that everything that either raises your PEN and/or lowers enemies' armor ist quite useful. Very useful I'd say. Cipher's "Driving Echoes" is a very valuable penetration buff, one shouldn't sleep on it - even if the Cipher himself cannot profit from it. I would just make a beeline for it. It's loot from an isolated island and the local "quest" has no ties to anything else. And the fight to get it isn't that difficult (esp. if you keep the fight to the one enemy that carries the pistol which is easy to do). Then come back later to finish the "quest". It's rel. easy to get the pistol early that way. But of course it's kind of spoiling the exploration aspect of the first playtrough to look up where you can get it and all that. I think a Soulblade is almost always better as a multiclass character (if not deliberately build to suck). The main feature of the Soulblade (Soul Annihilation) profits so much from a lot of other classes' abilities - and not so much from the Power Levels 8 & 9 of the Cipher single class. I think good candidates for SC Cipher are Beguiler and also Psion. Both are not really about melee combat (Beguiler could be, but since a Beguiler can generate much more focus with casting Deception spells than usng a melee weapon most of times one tends to deviate from melee combat quickly in my experience). Some very good and also fun to play melee ciphers are (to me): Soulblade/Trickster, Soulblade/Shattered Pillar (Community Patch version) and Soulblade/Bloodmage. I guess Soulblade/Barbarian could be nice due to the combination of Blood Thirst with Soul Annihilation. I heard that Soulblade/Stalker is also good. I could maybe see a melee SC Cipher with Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon, given that Shared Nightmare would enlarge the cone of the weapon a lot. But I don't know if that's worth it tbh.

There is one single weapon setup for a Cipher that I like - and that is single pistol + modal (rushed reload). This combination has only -3 ACC (and increased crit conversion with the one-handed style talent) but an incredible increase in shooting speed which is faster than dual wielding pistols would be (even with the two weapon style talent) . It stacks well with Time Parasite later on, too. On top of that you always have the option to switch off the modal and instantly gain 15 accuracy should you struggle to hit your enemies. I personally really like to use Eccea's Arcane Blaster as my primary pistol then. Its the best pistol imo because of the combination of raw and elemental damage (with its special modal) which takes away all concerns regarding pierce immune or -resistant foes. Once Shared Nightmare is available I like to use Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot as an alternative weapon because its AoE size scales with focus then - combined with high INT you can reach absurd AoE size for the mortar blast which gives a lot of focus if there are enough enemies around. Shared Nightmare also works with Kitchen Stove's "Thunderous Report" which should provide instant ascension after use if you can manage to hit enough enemies with the cone. Of course then it's not a melee ascendant anymore... Single handed melee weapons that could work with a cipher (and not be totally subpar) include all weapons that can proc a damaging effect on hit or on crit: usually those effects count as weapon damage and will generate focus. Something like Sungrazer's enchantments (fiery meteor strike on crit-kill) or Grave Calling's Chilling Grave (a Chillfog that generates focus when it hits enemies). With one-handed apporach and style you can make sure to crit more which would help to proc those effects more often which in turn generate more focus. This isn't super reliable - but it helps generating focus nonetheless. Another option can be to use Xoti's Sickle and scale the Religion skill as much as possible. The sickle will gain up to +60% damage bonus (like a fully leveled SC Rogue's Sneak Attack) after killing a few enemies - and it doesn't matter how you kill those enemies (for example with Cipher spells). But the damage bonus only applies to the sickle itself, so single-wielding it isn't a bad idea (or use it with a shield). That way you can start combat with something strong in order to ascend asap (see mortar shot or thunderous report), then switch to sickle and kill lots of enemies with cipher spells while ascended - and then clear up the rest with the buffed-up sickle which will have great dps from the kills. Yet another option is to use the Magistrate's Cudgel for obvious reasons. It's good with crits (see enchantment route for cipher) and you'll get more crits with single weapon + one handed style. Still... my first recommendation for single weapon + cipher would be pistol.

The Empower mechanic will be gone completely. Blood Sacrifice only gives you back Wizard spell uses. It can indirectly give something to the second class, like giving Wounds for a non-Shattered-Pillar/non-Forbidden-Fist Monk, Heating Up/On the Edge for a Streetfighter or Blooded for a Barbarian - all through the self damage of Blood Sacrifice which can be nice synergies, esp. the Monk one. But in general the second classes' resources don't gain anything from Blood Sacrifice directly.

There is this very rare bug where enchanted items lose their enchantments. I don't know what the cause is, I guess save game corruption. In over 5K of hours I had that only once I believe. Before unbinding/rebinding and leveling it up again I would use the console to test if this actually works: save the game, open console, type "iroll20s", then unbind the dagger and rebind it. Then type "levelupsoulbind <player_name> dagger_soulbound_marux_amanth". Instead of typing out everything you can just lead with the first 2 or 3 letters and then use the tab key for autocomplete. Saves tons of time and frustrating typos. Player name starts with "player_" for example so just type "play" and hit tab and it will complete the name properly. Do that leveling command several times until the dagger is fully upgraded again (after each time the tooltip/description of the weapon will pop up like during the real process when you level up a soulbind). Then you can see if that fixed it. If it did you can reload and go through the process "properly" - if not then trying it would be a huge waste of time. If rebinding doesn't work: You can get a non-bugged dagger again via exporting a non-bugged dagger from another save game und importing it into the current one (achievements stay, costs lots of money, you have to level it up again) or the lazy way via console: "iroll20s" and then "giveitem dagger_soulbound_marux_amanth". And then level up the soulbind via console as described above until it is like it used to be. This will of course disable achievements. But it takes almost no time and will fix the problem.

I'll always be here (I mean as long as I'm able to). Checking in at least once a day. I'm just not playing the game atm (really squeezed everthing out of it I guess), there are very few new players who come here and ask something - and also nothing new was coming for Friends of Eora™ during the last months*, so not much to talk about. * although I get some weird PoE3 vibes from Twitter the last days...

Welcome to the forum!

I think tehre are some in the build list that mention that they are good with AI, but I don't remember a specific one. But for example: Edér as tank is very straightforward and easy to set up with AI. If you build Aloth into an "Blast-Wizard" with an implement (wand/rod/scepter) and the Blast talent (and other implement-related abilities and talents) and let him use auto-attacks with the summoned weapon "Kalakoth Minor Blights" mostly he will also be quite easy to manage with AI. Same can be true if you skill him to be a melee wizard from the second row with a Pike, the goal would be to get Citzal's Spirit Lance at some point and use melee attacks with that mostly. That way you can turn a normally very micro-heavy class into a relatively low-maintenace class which runs well with the AI. Once can do the same with Druid (see Hiravias) if you focus on the Spiritshift instead of spellcasting. That way those classes can be useful and yet low-maintenance in not-so-difficult fights - but when you need the full arsenal of spells you can still switch to direct control and have more impact when you need it.

In general everything that relies on active abilities needs more micromanagement: all per-rest casters (Druid, Wizard, Priest), Cipher, Monk and Chanter if focused on invocations. Ranger if the Animal Companion is involved a lot. Also fragile classes tend to eed more attention - like glasscannon Rogues or Barbabrians, especially in the early game. Classes that rely more on passive abilities and have restricted per-encounter resources are usually easier to manage via AI settings. Those are Fighter, Paladin, Ranger (if Animal Companion is neglected), (sturdy) Rogue, (beefy) Barbarian, Chanter (if focused on chants). I think in general the classes which are easiest to run successfully on AI are Fighter and Paladin tanks, tanky Chanters with Dragon Thrashed as main "weapon" as well as Rangers with bows who use their Animal Companion as bodyguard and not much else. Defensive-minded shield Rogues also work very well on AI, as do sturdy Rogues wit reach weapons (pike and quarterstaff) or even ranged Rogues. Barbarian is the same, only that ranged Barb doesn't make much sense. Everything that needs fine adjustments (placing and timing of spells or other abilities) and every character who needs attention because of squishyness and the risk of getting knocked out is detrimental to the success of steering by AI. There are exceptions - for example it's totally possible to build a Monk who runs beautifully on AI alone (see a build like "Fulmineo Prondroni" in the build list in this subforum - a Monk specifically build to run on AI) - but that needs some deeper knowledge of the classes and their abilities I'd say.

It applies to the recovery of the main weapon (which makes this enchantment very worthwhile). If the shield has bash the enchantment still applies to the recovery of the main weapon - but I do not recall if it also applies to the bash of te shield itself. I'm relatively sure it did not, but not 100% sure. Sorry, it's been a long time I played PoE and my memory about some of the mechanics started to fade.

I wasn't clear, sorry. I meant that one of the things I like about Insect Swarm in general is that it's not tagged with poison - compared to some other DoT spells that have this drawback, like Plague of Insects (not Autumn's Decay). Another thing I forgot when comparing Insect Swarm vs. Autum's Decay directly is that Insect Swarm is foe-only - while Autumn's Decay might also hit your allies.

I haven't checked the code, but I guess that the duration for the wounding DoT wasn't actually set. So the DoT ability may inherit its duration from the parent ability - which is Boar Spiritshift of the Shifter subclass (it's a different ability than the "normal" Boar Spiritshift which is shared among the other subclasses - except Fury of course). But again: I'm just taking a guess here. The hint is that the base duration of the DoT is the same as the base duration of the Spiritshift. Anyway - it's brutal, especially with a Helwalker (+MIG, +INT) who boosts the already huge damage-over-time like nothing else. Also prolongs the Spiritshift duration of course - as another bonus. What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison) is the complete removal of Concentration on the targets. What I like about Autumn's Decay is that its AoE scales better and that it does target Reflex instead of Fortitude. Most Druid DoTs target Fortitude and it's great to have some alternative.

That someone was Feargus.

If you used Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming with the Brawler then Sun & Moon will work better that expected - because every crit with an individual flail head has the chance to trigger a Swift Flurry and/or Heartbeat Drumming attack with both(!) flail heads again. This naturally leads to a lot higher chances for crit chains. Same happens with all weapons which have multiple melee weapon attack rolls per strike (Saru Sichr, Wicked Beast, Mohora Tanga...)

Gatecrashers only have a "passive" Knockdown effect. The push effect of them is only 1/rest. I don't know what that means.

Carage got nerfed pretty hard in that regard. Unlike Carnage, WotEP's cone-shaped area of attack (AoE) does transport all attack effects (focus generation, SHattered Pillar's wound generation, all CC effects like stun for example, push effects from Knockdown or Force of Anguish and so on, dmg bonuses from weapon quality or stuff like Sneak Attack etc). Also every attack roll in that cone-shaped AoE can trigger another AoE attack IF your attack ability has its own AoE. Example: Clear Out (Fighter) has a cone-shaped AoE attack - and every attack roll from the cone ot WotEP will trigger a cone from Clear Out. AoE times AoE if you will... Same with Heart of Fury (Barbarian), Whirling Strikes (Ranger), Whispers of the Wind (Monk)... Soul Annihilation works a bit wonkily with AoE weapons: the first hit will get all the raw SA-damage, the next enemy will get close to nothing, the enemy after that will get a bit more again and so on. It's not predictable which enemy will get how much raw damage (besides the initial target) but it's pretty decent nonetheless. Citzal's Spirit Lance does the same and so do Serafen's blunderbusses "Hand Mortar" and "Fire in the Hole" (those two don't work with Soul Annihilation of course because they are ranged weapons). Citzal's Spirit Lance + Soul Annihilation is a very good combination. That's what makes a Wizard/Soulblade a surprisingly good melee character (besides the great self buffs and the fact that).

Never experienced that. Maybe because I'm playing so CC-heavy, no idea. I didn't even see him use HoF once.

Unfortunately one cannot really push enemies down something - because on the maps there are no real elevations. The things I did with push effects: Force of Anguish + Carnage (Monk/Barb) : push the victim into its own Carnage proc. It receives the normal weapon damage + Carnage dmg. Llengrath's Warding Staff + Carnage (Wiz/Barb) : same thing basically Force of Anguish + Arterial Strike (Monk/Rogue) : obvious Llengrath's Warding Staff + Essential Phantom (wiz/whatever) : playing tennis with an enemy (as the ball) - if you concentrate on one enemy it's hard for them to get up. Spearcaster's Knockback (50%) + Arterial Strike (Arcane Archer/Rogue) : like with Red Hand - but less reliable Force of Anguish + Warding Staff didn't seem to do anything special despite the double push it should create. I didn't try the Staff with Clear Out.

I'm not a huge fan of the Fighter class in the first place, so I am inclined to say "yepp, that's all a Fighter has to offer", but that would be unfair. Fighters possess some nice abilities that work well with multiclassing in general. Also WotEP + Knockdown is a nice combo to have in your backhand because it has a neat ACC bonus build in an provides good CC for times your focus is empty. Yes, a Cipher doesn't lack CC at all (if you pick your abilities accordingly), but it's driven by focus. And sometimes you don't have that. The WotEP+Clear Out combo deals a lot of damage and thus generates a ton of focus which you can then use for whatever Cipher power that seems useful at the time. Still... Soulblade/Devoted wouldn't be my favorite pick because Fighters are pretty boring to me personally. But that doesn't mean they are boring for everyone else. It's a very subjective take. Yes, that would be fine as well. The whole Parry thing is just a neat little trick that is fun to me but doesn't completely alter the validity of a Transcendent. Monk/Cipher is a good combo in any way, generating resources from both damage dealt and damage received - which is a nice combo in general. Also the added Helwalker MIG with the add INT from Duality of Mortal Presence/Turning Wheel is great for most spallcasting and especially great for stuff like Disintegrate. True, I mixed it up with Antipathetic Field which works similarly to Ectopsychic Echo (a beam of 10 secs with 1 sec procs, but instead of anchoring it to an ally you anchor it to an enemy). It's not an Echo ability but surprisingly enough it is of Shred - and imo it is the best option for Death of 1000 Cuts since it procs so rapidly (1/sec) and is so cheap to cast with a great range. But you need a second enemy (if you are confused you can anchor it to anybody, hello Berserker ;)). Sorry for the confusion. I don't think it's as bad as some other players think it is - I just don't think it's useful enough to be a reason to go single class Cipher and especially a melee SC Soulblade.

Concerning Soulblade/Helwalker: Helwalker's increased damage received isn't as bad as it sounds. Higher CON is not a bad idea though. Monks can generate wounds in different ways in Deadfire, not only through damage received. For example look at the ability "Dance of Death". In addition there are some items which can give you moderate self damage (won't stop Dance of Death) which helps with wound generation, for example Hylea's Talons. With Whispers of the Endless Paths you want maxed INT and Turning Wheel on top of that. The cone-shaped AoE is only really useful if you have a lot on INT in order to make it sufficiently big. Stunning Surge is a great ability with WotEP (with a big cone). Hitting multiple enemies at once with a long-lasting stun is impactful - and also multiple attack rolls increase the chance of a crit, giving you the refund (Stunning Surge for free). Force of Anguish will push all enemies in the cone away which can be great for battlefield control and interrupts. The cone of Torment's Reach doesn't interact with the cone of the great sword at all. Both cones will be there but you won't get cone*cone attack roll explosions. 10 MIG is okay. One little trick with WotEP and a Cipher/Monk: Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming don't generate focus (Lightning Strikes do generate additional Focus so that's what I would pick with most weapons) but they proc off of WotEP's special enchantment "Offensive Parry" which is one of my absolute favorite enchantments in the game. So if an enemy misses you in melee you will strike back immediately (like Rogue's Riposte) - only that it's the case in 100% of misses, not only 20 or 30%. But it's a single target attack, no AoE. So your "Parry" (which doesn't use up any time or recovery) has the potential to occur twice or thrice or even more often if it's combined with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. This is fun. Also Monks are great at disengaging with high bonuses, outright forcing an enemy miss on a disengagement attack -> Offensive Parry to the face. If you even find the right armor (Gipon Prudensco or Nomad's Brigandine) and enchant it properly you can safely disengage all the time (those armors grant immunity to disengagement attack, meaning they turn 100% of disengagement attack into misses) and deliver parries in the process, turning ALL the enemies disengagement attacks against them without harming yourself - and potentially setting off cascade of Swift Flurry attacks, too. You could pick up the disengagement abilities of the Monk in the earlier game to profit from this effect - and retrain later once you got one of the aforementioned armors which grant immunity. Make sure to bring a backup weapon against single tough foes. WotEP is great against mobs but suboptimal against lone tough nuts. A normal great sword would do for example. Or a Morning Star - such as Saru Sichr (very good in combination with Swift Flurry since it has two attack rolls per strike which both can trigger Swift Flurry). A Morning Star can also be a great backup weapon in combination with the weapon proficiency "Body Blows" because it can help to crack an enemy's fortitude defense. Many abilities and spells attack fortitude (see Force of Anguish for example). --- SC Soulblade doesn't have a lot going for it. Death of a 1000 Cuts is very specific since it only procs off of shred spells - it's basically only good against bosses in combination with Ectopsychic Echo Antipathetic Field. Time Parasite is nice - but like all Cipher spells it competes for focus with you Soul Annihilation which is just the best damaging tool overall. So you are constantly wondering "should I invest that bulk of focus to speed me up - or do I outright splat an enemy with it?" - if you can cast Time Parasite on a tight group of enemies it's pretty great though. One fun thing you can do as a SC Soulblade is to use Shared Nightmare with AoE weapon such as Whispers of the Endless Paths, making the cone huge, especially since Soulblade gains temporary +max focus on kill. But it's not gamechanging. --- Soul Blade/Devoted with WotEP(and high INT) can use a nice trick later in the game: Clear Out's cone DOES produce an AoE from the Great Sword with every hit roll in that cone. With a tight enemy formation and sufficient INT (and maybe other AoE size modifiers such as Ring of Overseeing or a pet) this can lead to an absolute explosion of attack rolls that sends all enemies sprawling over the screen, hit by multiple attacks, often killing a bunch of them outright. This is very satisfying. --- Since Soul Annihilation profits from damage modifiers such as weapon quality, crit, Sneak Attack and Deathblows etc. a very popular combination is Soul Blade/Trickster since it provides awesome damage through Soul Annihilation+damage mods while it also makes you sturdier (Trickster's self buffs). Also Offensive Parry of WotEP and Riposte do stack... So maybe that's a combo that is interesting to you as well? Some players also reported that Soul Blade/Blood Mage was a lot of fun with the use of Citzal's Spirit Lance. Its AoE is bigger than WotEP's and it's circular. In combination with the reach of the pike/lance this makes the placement of the AoE a lot easier: more focus, better distribution of Soul Annihilation. Also Wizards make surprisingly good melee characters due to their fantastic and fast self buffs. Also with Essential Phantom + Spirit Lance you can have two AoE-swinging chars on the battlefield at the same time (Essential and Substancial Phantoms inherit all your items, including currently summoned weapons). They don't use your attributes and abilities - but they are sturdy summons with decent accuracy and the item effects alone can be great in them (see lance).