Boeroer

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Yes, if you are willing to pause a lot you can remove her just a tiny bit from the enemy while he's swinging at you, producing an "out of reach" miss. But while that's a good thing in solo runs I find it way to tedious for a normal playthrough. If you could script that for the AI though...

Haha - how awful is that? I think I never actually noticed that it can "miss". Maybe also because I tend to prefer stuff like Killers Froze Stiff over damaging invocations anyway.

If you summon your familiar you can't summon Essential Phantom (I mean you can, but what was the point summoning the familiar then?). And this (for me) is the biggest flaw of the Conjurer: you are specialized on conjuring/summoning stuff but can't have your class defining familiar and a phantom at the same time. And yes, you lose access to all the illusion spells. Those are not only some really nice self-buffs but also very good stuff for (melee) wizards in general, like Dazzling Lights (lvl-1 access to Daze=-4 PEN but also great to lure enemies from stealth), Miasma (not only lowers Will like crazy as I said but also drops enemies' ACC by 10 through -10 PER, stacking with other ACC debuffs like from Blind from Chillfog or Curs of the Blackend Sight), Repulsive Visage, Enervating Terror and Wall of Many Colors - amongst others. Besides that you'll give up on all evocations, too. You will never be able to cast a Fireball and friends. This may not have been your go-to spell in the first place since you are a spellsword. But skipping them all? And then there's the recovery malus for all other spells that are not conjurations. All in all it's not worth the potential +2/+3 PL on some of the conjuration spells that do actually profit from it (like Death Ring or whatever). Now - if you never planned to summon a phantom then my first point is not a big deal - but given the synergy of phantom + summoned weapons it's just another drawback. And what makes the single class "Spellsword" worthwhile is - as I said above - the possibility to reach Piercing Sigil and Cloak of Death (and getting to Draconic Fury earlier which is also a beast - and here th +10% recovery time would also hurt). They don't stack too well so you shouldn't use them at the same time. But those are pretty cool for a melee wizard. Especially if he also uses Offensive Parry with Whispers otEP. By the way Draconic Fury's lashes don't work with the AoE of Spirit Lance or WotEP. I agree on the INT: it's still important. Self buffs and summons do get influenced by INT and so does AoE of Spirit Lance or WotEP etc. A nice trick for melee wizards: once you get the Mask of the Weyc you can use Wall of Draining to prolong its +50 deflection buff. Since it comes from an item and is passive (automatically starts once combat starts) it stacks with everything, making you basically untouchable if you also use self-buffs like Mirrored Image etc. Offensive Parry will trigger nearly 100% of times then. My recommendation for subclass would either be vanilla or Blood Mage. Blood Mage + Corrosive Siphon is a pretty nice combo. You can spam it at some point since the healing you receive from multiple opponents will be way higher than the damage you get from Blood Sacrifice (given your defenses are good so you don't get pommeled too hard). I seriously don't recommend any wizard subclass besides vanilla or Blood Mage for any build (besides some really special weird builds or the occasional Evoker who hopes for double casts). Their drawbacks are worse than their benefits if you are looking at a whole playthrough. It would be different if all spells from grimoires could be cast no matter the subclass and if the limitations were only for "learned" spells. It would also be different if their special abilities such as Conjure Familiar (can't stack with other summons, can't choose the familiar) or Form of the Fearsome Brute (look at the armor...) etc. weren't too weak. And yes: Arcane Dampeners will screw you. You could counter with Thrust of Tattered Veils - but it's an evocation.

Yes, it is. It's like the Engwithan Titan on Poko Kohara. Only that it's burning.

My first advice is: Don't take Conjurer. It locks you out of to many good spells while the benefits are meh. Summoned weapons' quality scales with char level, not Power Level, so the additional PL won't do much for summoned weapons except longer duration. The whole concept is viable because you get some nice self buffs - but mostly because of high level spells like Minoletta's Piercing Sigil or Cloak of Death. I played a melee wizard with lots of RES and focus on defenses (buffs like Mirrored Image + Safeguard etc.) + Offensive Parry from Whispers of the Endless Paths. While there might be other class combos that rock Offensive Parry even more - it is cool to deal melee damage via retaliation while casting a lengthy spell. It works quite well - but only once you get up your buffs. But it was fun. Obviously you can also use the summoned weapons like Spirit Lance which is strong. Never forget Essential Phantom when you have a potent weapon/armor setup - the phantom usually does pretty well and if you summon it while holding Spirit Lance in hands it will also have it. One summoned weapon that's very powerful but usually not worth investing in is Concelhaut's Draining Touch. It has the highest base damage of all one handed weapons, it deals corrode damage, has ok PEN, targets Will instead of Deflection (cast Miasma first to drop Will into nothingness) and also drains 20% of the dmg as health. And while it is my no.1 weapon for the Essential Phantom (where it will stay until the phantom vanishes) it's usually not that useful because it vanishes after a successful hit. But there's a trick: Don't pick the spell at level-up but rather get a grimoire with the spell in it. Cast it from the grimoire. Now switch to another grimoire which doesn't have the spell before attacking. Now you can hit with it as often as you want - it will stay until the end of the fight. If you get a shield for the offhand you can be more tanky - if you choose a club with modal for the offhand you can drop Will even further (by 25 - together with Miasma that's -65 Will). Crits are common with this method. Also in this case: Essential Phantom is great, even though it can't use weapon modals.

There are three different paths you can follow: Seeker, Slayer or Survivor. Once you follow one particular path you won't see the enemies of the challenges the other two would provide.

You can add any character (enemy, npcs etc.) to your party with the console. But the UI will not accommodate for more than 6 party members. I don't think there's any mod that will change that since it would be very difficult, maybe impossible without de- and recompiling.

tl;dr: 😚

Then I know what item to give to my next export char.

I mean besides the VO that can't be too expensive, right?

Yes. Chanters have a hard time face-tanking in the early game because they have only average starting values in defenses but especially low in endurance and health. You have to be crafty until you gain some more levels and gear. Use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence to restore health if the fight takes too long and your health bar seems to drop below your max endurance. Turn off gib options in the game menu. More on that later. General approach: use "Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe" and run away to a chokepoint. You should be able to outrun them. Make sure they don't lose you (often they turn around if you are too fast and they are too far away from the spot they guard). Face them at the chokepoint so that only one or two can attack you. By the time you should be able to pull off the Phantom. With those Xaurips make sure that no Skirmishers can hit you with their spear because that thing stuns on hit which is devastating for any solo char. You can switch to another chat if you want - like Soft Winds. Use that chokepoint with the corpses and try to not reload the game. Lure all enemies of the map to that chokepoint with the amassed corpses. Always lure the enemies ontop of the corpses and then cast "White Worms". Each corpse will explode over and over again if you don't reload. The gib option lets enemies explode on crit-death. That leaves no corpse. But you want corpses to pile up. With that approach I can solo the whole Castle of Raedric rel. early in the game. For later: stack up on defenses. That means shield is mandatory. Pick Veteran's Recovery, Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits and put on some regenerating items as well as items that increase healing. You can later use the Mercy and Kindness chant to boost healing by another 100%. See the chanter build "Chillfog" in the build list to get an idea about the healing. Dragon Thrashed is the best offensive chant there is. It also stacks with itself. There are also some other solo chanter builds with tipps and tricks there. Even one with guns and no shield.

The ability "Resilient Companion" along with some other (active) AR buff (like from your party's paladin or a cipher or whomever) helps a lot - given that high AR is the most impactful defensive stat you can have. AC's AR also scales with level. But a passive +2 is a big deal actually since underpenetration leads to a lot of damage reduction. The numbers -25% (-1 PEN), -50% (-2 PEN) and -75% (-3 PEN) don't do it justice because it's actually a lot more after the numbers come out of the damage resolution. The bear has an additional +2 which stacks - so he is the tankiest AC of them all when it comes to high damage spikes (like when he gets targeted by several enemies). The boar has infinite health regeneration which means that when concentrated on he will go down a bit faster, but he can absorb a lot more damage when it doesn't come too quickly. Both are pretty ok as offtanks and sturdy flankers. Maia's bird actually has the best stats by the way (if you sum them up: highest stat number). You can't tank with any AC though. They don't have the defensive stats for that, not even the antelope (although it helps). And that's not what they are for. Use them as flankers or as bodyguard against rushers or even as path blockers (some of them, like bear or lion, have bigger models and tak up more ground space which helps with blocking pathways a lot). Always unstealth and egage with the tank(s) first - only then send in the ACs. Besides that ACs can get healed and they also don't suffer injuries when they go down (and then potentially revived). If you have a PL9-SC Paladin in the party he canl get +2 Zeal every time the AC goes down. So you can revive quite often without any hassle with injuries. Never forget that they are like permanent summons which you can upgrade. If you would present a n item which would invoke a permanent summon in every fight (and even buff and revive it etc.) everybody would be "Whoa how useful!" - but somehow with the Ranger everyboy just goes "whoahy is de pet so bad?". I don't get it. One of the most fun solo chars I had so far was a melee Geomancer (Wizard/Stalker), combining very high AR with three bodies (bear, me and my Essential Phantom) with great damage, debuffing and top accuracy. That build relied heavily on the AC. Also fun was a ranged Scout I posted in the build thread who uses Watershaper's Focus. It's still fun and viable but doesn't use the AC a lot. So both can be nice and viable.

You know what? What if they had made a mechanics lesson/explanation that would have been presented before the game starts (skippable of course). Done in a P&Paper rulebook manner (meaning description + examples) and in style of all the other scripted scenes and ship combat "on sepia paper" you have in the game. With those watercolor drawings/paintings left and right which help to visualize the explanations and examples. Fully voiced. Like if the Dungeon Master read the rulebook for you. Maybe even interactive so you could navigate to certain chapters. Not necessarily superlong an in detail, but at least to cover all the basics. Do you think that would have worked? And would that have been worth the effort?

I think it's ok if mechanics are simple - as long as they allow for nice character builds. Sometimes they are not even that simple but simply well explained and rational in themselves - not many exceptions, no tables to look up etc. For example Dragon Age Origin's mechanics don't seem to be very complex. But in tandem with the effect combos that you can discover it allows for some nice and cool character concepts. For example I made a CC mage and mostly focused on stacking several seal spells on the ground in order to create that one truly awesome repulsing seal that sends enemies flying in all directions. At first I thought "meh what a boring ability system" - but actually it was ok the way it was.

I always found that Rangers were pretty good - mostly because of their insane accuracy buffs (and Driving Flight which allows for some awesome shenanigans). The Animal Companion has one very impressive ability (if you build around it a bit): Takedown Combo. It raises the next attack's damage by 100% (additive), which works very well with all attacks that have high base damage... AND damage over time. Especially dmaage over time. It raises the ticks' damage by 100% and will NOT get removed like after a normal attack. That means that for example a Disintegrate (which already does high tick damage) can get double damage ticks which destroys almost everything on the spot. Also the Animal Companion himself does quite good damage once you manage to unlock Predator's Sense all the time (for example with a Battle Axe + modal or Brand Enemy or Gouging Strike or Deep Wounds and so on).

I agree. We once discussed some unique mechanics with which Barbs, Rogues etc. could regain some of their resources in another thread some time ago.

I didn't say that you need to.

Yeah, but White Worms has a huge AoE and very high base damage for such a low PL ability (scales very well with PL) - so I often use it as damaging invocation if it's not against single targets. When I do the same with Her Revenge the result is meh compared to that. But as I said I never tried it against single (or few) targets and thus never discovered how it really works.

Why don't you just put more skill points into stealth and drop mechanics for example? If you have somebody else in the party with mechanics it's no loss at all. Or did you mean solo?

I always thought White Worms had a lot higher effect/cost ratio. Of course you need to find a corpse first. I never tried Her Revenge on single targets though which now sounds as if I should have done that.

Again some of your examples are not well picked: Is it obvious that DEX should make an archer deal more damage? It's not. The obvious thing is that DEX would make him move faster and fire arrows faster. Why should his arrows deal more damage? In a simulationistic ruleset an archer should deal more damage because he hits more vital spots. In PoE DEX does increase an archer's dps though which his not the worst solution I guess. Why does his Might increase his arrows damage? Well you coukd explain it with some in-game soul blabla but what it boils down to is that you'll simply have to accept that this system is not going to simulate arrow damage properly. It's only an abstraction. There is no Strength in PoE, there's only Might. The term was chosen for a reason since it includes not only bodily power (which should get resolved with Athletics) but also the power of your soul which everything evolves around in PoE games so far. For the same reasons I would guess. As I said above: it's a systemic approach instead of one where the rules should mimic some real world cases or meet the expectations we have from other systems. Fewer exceptions and edge cases, more generalisation and robust system. That's the idea at least. It's a matter of taste. Both have their pros and cons. Systemic approaches need you to let how of the idea that the rules have to simulate every action "properly" while simulationistic approaches tend to be very (often too) complex - because life of an adventurer is complex. With a simulationistic system you always need a rulebook by your side (which table to look up for damage when falling down a stair?) while a systemic approach forces you overlook some cases where things might seem weird (INT + Carnage for example). And come up with explanations that might explain the workings for people who are not willing to accept it (e.g. explain the higher dmg of spells with the Might of your soul). As I said above your general observation that PoE doesn't explain it's mechanics very well is totally true. I complained about that right from the start and sadly it didn't get much better in Deadfire.

Not possible to do it briefly, sorry. What changed: instead of having random afflictions and other CC effects you'll have a rationalized system of inspirations (buffs) and afflictions (debuffs, including CC). They counter each other. So if you become smart (+5 INT inspiration) and then get hit by confusion (-5 INT, friendly fire) both go *pouf*. They all come in three tiers per attribute. So every attribute has three tiers of an affliction as well of three inspirations. INT has smart, acute and brilliant as well as confused, charmed and dominated. Each of those cancel each other out, tier doesn't matter. There are also resistances which you can have. A resistance lowers the affliction you get hit with by 1 tier. Resistance to INT affliction would mean that if a charm hits you you only become confused and so on. Penetration is important. You will have a PEN value for all your damage-dealing attacks. If you can't meet the armor value of your opponent (let's say 8 PEN vs. 8 AR) you will suffer severe dmg loss. Math "behind the curtain" is different when it comes to dmg maluses. Without going into detail a -25% dmg loss goes through some facy operations and "in reality" is much more severe than the number suggests. So avoid underpenetration (-25%, -50%, 75% dmg if PEN is 1,2 or 3 points below AR) at all costs. Same with Grazes. If you meet the enemies' AR then their armor does nothing. So it's not a very granular system but more like "top vs. flop". If you overpenetrate like crazy you can get a 30% dmg bonus. Crits do PEN * 1.5. so a Crit can often lead to overpenetration which will give you overpenetration dmg as well as crit dmg increase. You can multiclass. Or better: dual class. The rules are very straightforward and easy enough to grasp. You basically mix two classes and get all the goodies but they progress more slowly and can't reach the final power levels of single classes which means their abilites can't scale as high and they can't get the last two tiers of abilities. It's pretty balanced. Multiclasses tend to be more front-loaded which makes them fun to play right from the start while single classes shine at high levels and progress faster. in Deadfire classes don't have x/encounter abilities like for example the Rogue or Fighter had in PoE. Instead, they all have resource pools now like the Monk or Cipher had in PoE. Difference is that they can't usually refill that pool. So instead of getting 2 Crippling Strikes per encounter a Rogue gets a pool named "Guile" and he pays his Crippling Strikes with Guile (in this case 1 point per Strike). spellcasters get 2 spell uses per encounter for each spell tier. So no per-rest anymore. you can empower abilities. It's 1/encounter and x/rest. It means you are adding a lot of Power Levels to a spell/attack/whatever active ability. You can also use empower points to refill your resource pool a bit. You get more used per rest with more levels. Low level abilities scale with Power Level (different from char level, but is connected). That means that low level attacks etc. stay being useful throughout the game. Often those are even the best picks since they tend to be cheap but scale beautifully (see said Crippling Strike or Flames of Devotion - payed for with 1 Zeal). Crits only do 25% increased dmg now, not 50%. But as I said they tend to result in overpenetration so there's that. INT's impact on AoE size changed: it now doesn't increase radius but instead increases the actual area. The value per point is increased but still this means that it grows a lot more slowly - and not quadratically like in PoE. Stacking rules are different: active abilities don't stack their effects, passives always stack (they are visually separated in the ability tree). Passive effects on items always stack (unlike PoE). So a ring +1 INT and a helmet with +2 INT will stack. The most important things to grasp: Inspirations/Afflictions, PEN/AR, Stacking, Resource pools/spell uses and Power Levels. And multiclassing of course.

And it's not that the abilities of classes with refilling pools are any weaker than the ones of classes with fixed pools.

@rtokar: If you are on Steam you should have the latest version. You'd need to do complicated things to NOT have it. It's weird that you are at 4.something. Did you deactivate automatic updates? If so you can probably deinstall and reinstall and that should solve the problem. With cloud saves enabled your saves should be fine. You can also save them manually. Weapon bug: I guess you are wearing a certain necklace named "Necklace of Unlocked Possibilities" which summons a random unique weapon into the character's hands at the start of combat. Look for it. If you have it it's not a bug but a feature. If you don't have it then it's the weirdest bug I ever saw here and you would be the first one to ever report it. In this case: congrats!