Boeroer

Well that worked like a charm, didn't it?

The self damage scales with MIG (3% additive per point) and Power Level (5% multiplicative per PL). Duration scales with INT (5% additive per point) and Power Level (5% multiplicative per PL).

That's because every case is the best case with a mortar monk.

Since you have a Twitter account: tag Josh on Twitter and ask him. He immediately answered last time I did this with a question about a pending ultimate run.

About finishing/replaying a game: there might be different factors at play: - time available: you want to finish but time is scarce so you push through the crit path. - hook: you can like a game but it doesn't hook you like other games do or did. My best examples: Into the Breach and Druidstone. I like both games but didn't really finish - while I played the heck out of FTL and stuff like PoE or even Blackguards (which might be a better comparison to Druidstone - it's a worse game but it still kept me playing). - personal taste: sometimes even the graphics style pits me off - although I try to overlook that. This works well in some games (Slay the Spire, Avernum) while I can't get over it with others (Fell Seal or D:OS). - "vibe": I mean some games are just so weirdly mesmerizing that you can't stop (Hotline Miami) even if you don't like the genre in the first place. Probably also has something to do with the music. - age: don't know why, just have a feeling that it might be a thing, right?

I still have great fun with a Trickster/Sharpshooter with Watershaper's Focus. Max INT, stealth, Driving Flight. It's in the build list with the name "The Deep Leap". Lure enemies to a spot with Dazzling Lights and then blast them with Watershaper's Focus (includes 2 AoE jumps). It's not as powerful as it used to be (enchantment of the rod got nerfed) bit still plenty strong. Plays like an assassin. Also works with Arcane Archer/whatever Rogue subclass. Another option is Sharpshooter/Streetfighter with dual hand mortars (+modal). Enormous AoE dps. Another very strong thing is single class ranger with Whirling Strikes - especially with Fire in the Hole in the Offhand. By the way it isn't the Arcane Archer's accuracy but the Penetration (with the imbue abilities) that is an issue. You can use the community patch to fix that (see my signature). For me, Beguiler is the strongest Cipher subclass. Check out Takedown Combo + Disintegrate. The +100% dmg bonus work with the DoT-ticks and doesn't get removed by them(!). It gives Disintegrate a +100% dmg bonus as long as it lasts (may be shorter than Disintegrate's duration because the Animal Companion's INT is not great) which is pretty crazy.

Greetings!

Yes, it's good. Also because a Forbidden Fist can lower fortitude by -45 with Stunning Surge, Forbidden Fist and a Morning Star (makes critting with Disintegrate more likely which would give you another +50% duration). But note that (for whatever reason) the Forbidden Fist ability itself is not considered a "weapon" attack and thus generates no focus (only with Community Patch). You can produce similar results with a Debonaire/Cipher by the way: you can charm an enemy and then get a 100% crit conversion if you cast Disintegrate on him. This doesn't even flip his alliance back as a direkt damage attack would. So you can charm and then Disintegrate-crit without him fighting back.

No. It used to be so but not anymore. Overall damage ist not fixed. You have a base damage per tick a base duration. More Intelligence will give you a longer duration andthus more ticks. More Might will give you higher tick damage. A crit will give you +50% duration. Enfeebled on the enemy will give you +50% duration. RES of the enemy will influence the duration as well (below 10: longer duration, higher than 10: shorter duration). So in some cases it's good to cast Psychovampiric Shield first.

Stand on top of the small ramp so that enemies have to climb it in order to reach you. If you're lucky the smaller beasts will block the way for the Drake. Chillfog, Blessing, Chillfog, Combusting Wounds, Blood Sacrifice, Chillfog, Blood Sacrifice, Combusting Wounds, Chillfog. Chillfogs do stack and will make short work of anything that's also hit by Combusting Wounds. Drake and worms might survive, but are still blinded (which increases your survivability a lot). Interestingly Combusting Wounds and Chillfog do not cancel each other out. Focus attacks on the one enemy (if possible) till it's dead, then the next and so on. Meanwhile Iconic Projection, Consecrated Ground and Lay on Hands and stuff to keep the blockers alive. Try to interrupt the Drake with Edér whenever he wants to use an AoE effect. Also use large shields + modal. They are unmatched against Dragon Breath and such. What about Herald's summons? Then you lack a party member...? You only mentioned four. For that encounter a ranged Rogue, Scout or Ranger for shooting the dangerous but blocked enemies in the back line while the weaker ones block the way (let those live). You can also sneak the whole part easily and just go underground to find Oderisi. Once you find him the beasts in the arena will be gone.

Where exactly? Drake + Panthers?

All of them.

All of them actually.

DEX and PER are most important. I wouldn't min-max too much. Lots of INT is good if you want to use Torment's Reach a lot. It makes the cone bigger. If not then it's not as important.

As a backup . You will meet some enemies who are immune to crush damage. You don't want to use your fists against them because you would deal 0 damage then. I didn't say you got to have sabres. It was just an example for a non-crushing backup weapon. Hatchets or spears would be even better because they'd use the same weapon focus as your fists. So maybe just keep some hatchets in the second weapon slot just in case you meet crush immune foes. They also provide +10 deflection which can be good in certain situations (when getting overwhelmed for example). You can also switch to them when you see that the enemies' slash DR is a lot lower than their crush DR. Then they'd do more damage than fists. Dual fists just work like dual weapons (speed bonuses and all). No worries. Dwarf ist fine. But race doesn't matter much. Background same. Best to use what appeals to you. The mechanical differences are rather marginal. Boreal Dwarfs can be very good in the early game because of their bonus against wilders and primordials - you will meet tons of xaurips, oozes, trolls, delemgan and lurkers. So I'd say Boreal Dwarf is good. In Deadfire - when importing your PoE char - you are only importing your choices actually. You can totally reform the rest of your char: race, background, class. So don't be too strict. Since the mechanics, classes and abilities changed in Deadfire a bit it's sometimes difficult to build a 1:1 character for it in PoE right away.

Maybe you skipped one ohokoki kokokiki? Or Alarad ist just pranking you. Alarad ist known for his pranks actually. Often he changes names afterwards, too. Try to recite the phrase "Far over the misty purple souls" in front of the wooden lift in order to get the crank back - but wash your hands afterwards!

Ah ok - true.

She will be less effective than a custom made Paladin/Troubadour but still totally viable.

Dual wielding, fists and some other backup weapon set (like sabres), stuff like that? You can build a good monk in many ways. There are some good ones in the build list.

True with the boots - but if you auto-pause on "enemy spotted" (I believe) you'll be able to restealth right in front of the enemy. Which is even better in my opinion. I was able to pull this off all the time with my last solo Assassin/Bleak Walker. A DoT like Arterial Strike (very fast ticks) does prevent combat end while it doesn't make you visible. By the way: as an Assassin wouldn't you want to use Gambit after Vanishing Strikes instead of auto-attacks?

If it comes to ciphers and wizards I'd say most builds with Beguiler and Blood Mage are pretty great without the need to be a master mechanics connaisseur. Ascendant and Soul Blade can also be great if you know what you're doing. I like Beguiler in particular because he doesn't rely on damage to get back focus but can fill his focus to max while casting CC spells (and hit with them). While it's difficult at PL 1 to spam CC powers all the time already at PL 2 (or spell tier 2 if you will) you'll get some spells that can refill your whole focus if you only hit enough enemies with them. Works from stealth as well: lure enemies to a spot, open encounter with Phantom Foes or Mental Binding (debuffing enemies) and having full focus afterwards is nice. You can combine with lots of other classes, for example Assassin for a +25 accuracy buff from stealth (works right from the start). Or Monk for +10 INT via Duality of Mortal Presence which works nicely with Lingering Echoes. Stuff like that. Blood Mage + good healing sources (party members and/or regeneration items and/or self healing) is just good. You can cast over and over. THis is extremely helpful in the early game where you won't have many spell tiers to pick from and hence the spell uses per encounter would otherwise be very scarce. But if you combine a healer (e.g. see Herald down below) with a Blood Mage you can cast a lot more which makes lots of encounters notably easier. Paladin subclass doesn't matter that much in my book since their subclass abilites aren't as defining as for example Beguiler's focus refund mechanic or Blood Mage's Blood Sacrifice. Depends a bit on what you like and your party I guess. If you want to focus even more on healing take Kind Wayfarer, if you want more engagement to bind more enemies take Shieldbearer and so on. Paladin/Troubadour is so effective because he combines rel. high defenses, very high armor rating (very impactful in Deadfire), good direct healing via Lay on Hands, two sources for revives, great passive and unlimited healing auras (which stack), can call summons (very helpful since figurines are charged items in Deadfire and can't fully substitute summoning abilities anymore), do good CC via invocations, support the party with dual lashes, deal damage via invocations... Bag of thousand tricks those Heralds. You didn't ask for it but a thing that can let you win even encounters that are too tough for most other parties is a Rogue (SC or Multiclass) with Gouging Strike who uses an AoE weapon. You sneak in, lure the enemies to a spot (e.g. a Trickster with Dazzling Lights or Assassin with Sparkcrackers or whatever) and then use a rod + Blast to apply the neverending DoT onto them all, then go invisible and run away. From a certain distance whatch them all die. Doesn't work every time, but makes lots of encounters encredible easy that would otherwise be very hard. Feels cheesy though...

But you're tellig the story as if the event of "it was impossible to heal an invisible party member" would occur often - which it does not. Maybe you're even the only one who had that experience at all, given that invisibility as side effect is very rare and then on a party member that had a DoT on him ( why else would he die when invisible where he should be safe usually). Also you are saying that the positive outcomes let you win a fight sooner. But that's not the only thing that can happen. It can also happen that you are only winning the fight because a positve side effect occured (e.g. getting a +5 PL boost that made it possible to land an important debuff or whatever). Or because you did a Miscast while you were standing in the midst of enemies and they got wiped immediately instead of killing you - winning the fight. Also a negative side effect doesn't necessarily mean you will lose the fight, it can also mean you win later. As the effects are pretty balanced it can't be that your loss:win ratio would get bigger. It should stay the same roughly compared to a vanilla cipher. Hence no trap choice. And I would insist that calling it a garbage subclass is a selective memory issue. I'd say if you experienced a "can't heal invisible mate" situation others might have experienced a "oh cool my rushed squishy can't get overwhelmed because he turned invisible" situation. That's a nice thing but you won't remember it for long. It's not a good subclass compared to some other "unblanced" classes, sure - but so is plain cipher and maybe even Psion (if you - like with Wild Mind - don't try to intensively circumvent the penalties). You may have to reload more often because of the randomness and you will remember that - but it's hard to keep track of how often you didn't have to reload because you won thanks to a positive side effect. Still - if you want to use an official companion and a cipher you can totally use Serafen and mustn't be afraid that it's a trap choice. It's just a bit more juggling around with his subclass "features". I actually find this interesting. Others do not. That's ok. But calling it a garbage subclass or trap choice is just overexxageration. It's not as good as a custom Beguiler or Ascendant - sure. But those are not official companions. So if you want the official companion and are not superfocused on powergaming Serafan is no problem. I played him twice as Cipher (Witch & SC Cipher) and it wasn't bad at all. Actually as SC Cipher with his mortars, fat armor, Heaven's Cacophony and Shared Nightmare, running into melee range but bombarding around, hoping for miscasts (also work with Shared Nightmare) and all was lots of fun.

I'm so happy I never played that game.