Boeroer

By the way: the Long Pain really sucks on a Phantom. It has no Transcendent Suffering and so the Long Pain doesn't scale at all.

So it's constant stuttering vs. missing double click centering? Why are you hesistanting?

Then maybe... turn it off?

It's never too late for another playthrough.

Yes, it's mechanics. As I wrote above 5 mechanics (on anybody in the party, doesn't matter who it is) is needed to find the key hidden in a book (on a table). Scouting (aka sneaking) will give you a bonus when it's about searching for hidden thngs and traps. So make sure you bring somebody who maxes mechanics and scout/sneak everywhere where you haven't been before.

You have to cast Time Parasite on a tight group so it can jump to several enemies. It doesn't stack on one and the same enemy - but if you can for example affect 5 enemies with it (you can cast several times) it stacks on you 5 times, giving you insane speed. I usually use it in tandem with a Wizard who first lures enemies with Dazzling Lights so that they are standing together and then uses Pull of Eora. If you then cast a Time Parasite into their midst you can become so fast it's ridiculous. At that point SC Cipher makes a lot of sense. What also makes a lot of sense (with AoE weapons) is Shared Nightmare. Especially if you gave Reaping Knives to some of your buddies... Mindstalker starts off very strong though due to the combined Sneak + Soul Whip. SC Cipher needs some time to ctach up. But I'm playing a SC SOulblade atm and really enjoy Time Parasite and Shared Nightmare with my Whispers of the Endless Paths (' gigantic cone).

There are several ways to open the door: 10 mechanics: lockpicking 5 mechanics: find the key hidden in a book on that floor Ring the bells. The correct sequence is: You can find out the sequence if you interact with the spirits that you can find on that floor. They appear once you clear the enemies in the corresponding rooms.

Check this out: https://naijaro.github.io/deadfire-speed-calculator/ There you can choose your items and it will tell you the outcome. DoC Breastplate will not have 0% recovery penalty with Armored Grace alone. As you read what MaxQuest wrote, you can't simply calculate 35% - 25%. That' not how the math works. BUT if you also pick a pet like Abraham or Cutthroat Cosmo (it works the same as Armored Grace and stacks with it) you will be even faster than with 0 recovery. How's that? It's NOT because the armor penatly will be below zero. Pentalty can't be bwlow 0. It is because the "Articulated" enchantment of the Breastplate reduces all recovery time directly. Check your spells' recovery tooltips! It's like an universal recovery bonus like that of the Streetfighter for example (but smaller). It's on an armor, that's the only difference. It is NOT a recovery "penatly bonus" like Armored Grace or Abraham. That way, Pet + Armored Grace lower the penalty of the Breastplate to nearly 0 (not quite) and then the Articulated Enchentment ist strong enough so that you will be faster WITH the Breastplate than without any armor at all. You can play around with the calculator. That's a lot easier than doing the math for the items or testing out everything with the console. Miscreant's Leather has the same potential "trick". Its echantment works in a similar way.

Mindstalker is a good combo in general. Plenty of CC at hand (Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors etc.), great focus generation due to very high weapon dps (Sneak Attack + Sopul Whip and so on - always pick Draining Whip, Biting Whip is sh!te without Community Patch). Squishyness can be countered by Psychovampiric Shield and later Borrowed Instincts and so on.

Turn Based: maybe pick something else. Don't know hat it does there but recovery bonuses are not that important in TB mode anyway. RTwP mode: it's good, saves you nearly a second of recovery time in plate. It also stacks with a armor-penalty-reducing pet (like Abraham). The inner workings are (let me cite @MaxQuest from his comprehensive attack speed thread that is pinned in this subforum

Captain America could use Nerian's Ward and wear Hearth Defender's Scale. They look great together and the enchantmens fit the theme. They are not blue and white though. Nomad's Brigandine with a padded cap would be an option if you are looking for that blue/while color scheme instead. Bronlar's Phalanx would also be a good fit - albeit a tad too big maybe. Captain America's fighting style is like fist + bashing shield, true. But I don't know if the Monk theme fits too well. Tuotilo's Palm is also a bit small. Cpt. America is a soldier. So for me he would need to be a SC Fighter. Devoted (medium shield) would make total sense if it would do anything... But Unbroken is also a good fit. Protecting allies, getting back up again and again. Highest Resolve... and Monastic Unarmed Training. It's not bad at all if you stack enough Power Levels (Tactical Barrage + Prestige and Stone of Power already give you an additional fist scaling level). I could also settle for Unbroken/Shieldbearer Crusader. Thor must be part Fury. Berserker/Fury might be best for his storm spells. It would make his storm spells penetrate like crazy (+4 PEN) if he also took Heart of the Storm - which he obviously has to. Of course he would pick Lord Darryn's Voulge as Stormbreaker. That thing does indeed "break" storms in Deadfire (sail into a storm at seee what happens) and it gives you +3 PL to... storms. Huh? How fitting. also Pollaxes are hammers/axes combined like Stormbreaker. They do crush and slash dmg. Do we need to discuss that? Use Deltro's Cage for more shock PLs (although a Brigandine or Scale Armor might look more like Thor's orginal outfit, but whatever). And for Odin's sake: he MUST wear the Helm of the Falcon. Seriously! Eat some Asgardian Lobster in order to keep your wits and you're good to go. Hawkeye: doesn't he need to be an Arcane Archer? I mean exploding arrows and arrwos with strings attached and arrows which hit several enemies with one shot and stuff. Just pretend that animal companion followed him from his farm. Hulk could be a Berserker/Transmuter. That way you can have brains/science stuff (wizard) and smash (berserker) as well as the Ogre form. Has to wear the dancer outfit obviously. Use Llengrath's Safeguard, Blooded and fitting "gets better when health drops" stuff to emulate "getting stronger when angered". Also on kill he will become faster and skip recovery - which makes lots of sense especially for a trasmuted Ogre ('cause his recovery penalty sucks so much). Zandethu's Draconic Fury, paired with Barbaric Smash and Ogre fists and Blood Thirst is nothing to laugh about... Or maybe Black Jacket/Berserker with potion of Form of the Fearsome Brute as Kaylon said. Black Jacket because Hulk always grabs some random stuff and hits enemies with it. Cars, street lanterns, Lokis - you name it. Or use SC Berserker with potion and copy Ring of Reset with an exported char. Then you can have 3 knockouts and revives without injury per encounter. Use Vengeful Defeat. Dazing Shout, Heart of Fury. This could be fun to watch. Ogre's fists with Barbaric Retaliation and Vengeful Defeat might be something... Edit: just realized that a Transmuter can't cast Draconic Fury and all the otjher nice Enchanting spells like Safeguard. Oh well... skip Transmuter then. Those spell restrictions are really stupid. Iron Man could be a Sage with Missiles and stuff and the Long Pain. Bounding Boots, right? Uh - I just realize that I never tried an Essential Phantom with the Long Pain... hold my beer! before I go: we also must think about Dr. Doom with the Cowl of the Piercing Gaze. Really!

I think those are just artificial categories for game rules (see Weapon Focus in PoE - also often struggled to make sense besides for game mechanics). If they also make sense in lore: cool.

Primordial means that it's pretty old stuff. Not a recent development in evolution - but has been around for a long time. Not necessarily the individuum but the species I mean. Ancient/archaic/primeval and so on. Check out the term "primordial soup" and then look at an Ooze. Don't ask me why Dragons are beasts then... hehe. I guess the designers just wanted to have a (kind of) equal number of creatures in every group so the distribution seems to be a bit random sometimes.

Do you mean an Ydwin Cipher build compared to a Serafen Cipher build? Because else they have different (multi)classes and you can't really compare them. Besides the Wild Mind passive they can be build pretty similar as SC Cipher. But Serafen talks a lot more and has his own quest. Ydwin is only equally "entertaining" in the BoW DLC. Note that all kills (also from DoTs like Disintegrate) do trigger Blood Thirst.

Oops, I planned without the last DLC levels. Don't ask me why. In this case I would maybe pick Veteran's Recovery at lvl 2 and shift all the others one slot up. Yes, you can then pick Blooded at lvl 15. Dazing Shout is also ok... but 1/encouter... and I like it better to start the fight with a Dragon Leap. I'll edit my list.

Every party member has a skill named "Survival". It determines which bonuses (at which height) you can pick for that char when you camp: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Survival This doesn't work when you rest in a tavern. There you can get other bonuses (based on the room and comfort). Generally the Accuracy bonus is very strong. So if you already know which enemies you will meet I would use that whenever I can. For somebody who doesn't attack much (healer, tank) another bonus like the improved healing might be good.

You said dual swords or battle axes. Couple of thoughts about that: Good unique swords come very late. Good Battle Axes come fairly late. Except Rimecutter, which is awesome - but that's a random item (you might never get it) If it must be Swords and/or Battle Axes: the good thing is that both use the same Weapon Focus (Knight) - which is handy. Barbarians can pick Blood Thirst which favors heavy hitting weapons (that's mostly two handed weapons - it's very strong if you build around it). It also favors weapons which might destroy on hit (look at St. Ydwen's Redeemer which has a chance to instantly kill a vessel on hit - hits from Carnage also count Barbarians can pick Heart of Fury. It is very good and best with a dual weapon setup with the highest dmg per hit (usually sabres). If dual wielding is your thing: good alternatives for Swords/Battle Axes would be Sabres. There are good unique ones and most of them come fairly early. They also yield the best results with Heart of Fury. Their downside is the single damage type (slash damage). Bittercut has corrode/slash though (which is great). Another good pick is warhammers (good early uniques, great late unique one, two damage types). A Great-Sword build that is very fun to play is this: Also works well with your stats above. You do not need to be a Fire Godlike. That was mostly for stylish/theme reasons. Any race works. I saw that your INT is not very high. Carnage's radius depends on your INT score (like all AoE effects). Just saying. In the early game Barbarians do miss a lot of their attacks, also and especially with their Carnage. If you miss your initial target there will be no Carnage rolls. So try to target the enemy with the lowest deflection. Barbarians' starting accuracy isn't supergood. Carnage (as a passive ability) gains +1 accuracy with every level until it hits even better than your main attack, but in the early game it's missing a lot because it starts with -10 ACC (compared to your main attack ). Don't let that discourage you. With every level it will get better. Still your main focus as Barbarian should be to get additional accuracy quickly. The earlier you can stack it the easier the game becomes. For a fairly straightforward damage dealing dual wielding build you could take the following taletns/abilities: Frenzy Veteran's Recovery Savage Defiance (your CON isn't too high and Barbs have awful deflection. This can be your "oh s!hit" button if you see your endurance dropping too fast) Weapon Focus (Knight - or whatever weapon you want to pick) Bloodlust (usually triggers even after 1 kill, not 2 as description says. Speed bonuses from Frenzy and Bloodlust multiply with several other speed bonuses. Every additonal speed bonus (like from weapons) is golden) Two Weapon Style (speed bonus like I mention in the next point) Blood Thirst (very powerful, especially in tandem with Heart of Fury) Accurate Carnage (lets your Carnage have better accuracy than your main attack now) One Stands Alone (nothing better to pick at that point, it's pretty good though) Vulnerable Attack (you want to maximize damage per hit for Heart of Fury - see below) Heart of Fury (the best - if you have a Wizard with Combusting Wounds: cast that on the mob before executing HoF. Or wear a Ring of Searing Flames for tough encounters) Savage Attack (at this point you will have enough of ACC buffs from level/talents/party and items so the ACC loss doesn't hurt as much - you can swap this with Apprentice's Sneak Attack if you have party members you can CC a group of enemies for you - e.g. Wizard or Cipher. The CC then unlocks the Sneak Attacks) Dragon Leap (jump into the crowded mob, daze them and execute HoF right after that) Apprentice's Sneak Attack (will get triggerd by Dragon Leap - if nobody else in your party wants to put some CC on enemies to unlock its dmg bonus) or Blooded (if you have no problem with operating a lot with endurance < 50%. By now you will have a pretty big endurace pool so it's not that hard to manage anymore) Blooded Spirit of Decay/Scion of Flame/etc. (element of your weapon lashes) WIth the right items you might find yourself at 0 recovery suddenly when activating Frenzy. For example if you use Durgan Steel on your weapons and armor or find Gloves of Swift Action. At that point Blood Thirst might become redundant (as long as Frenzy and Bloolust are active). You can either retrain then and pick something else (like Thick Skinned) or you just stick with it: usually, when Frenzy wears out, you will again have some recovery (especially if you leave Vulnerable Attack activated all the time or are wearing thick armor like Plate or Brigandine). At that point enemies are already weak and more will drop dead. Then Blood Thirst can remove the remaining recovery. Frenzy uptime isn't that long alltogether. Note that when frenzied you can't see your remaining eundurance. What you can see though (once you hover over your char with the pointer) is a colored question mark. Green means healthy (>=75%) and so on. That way you have a bit more control. If the question mark turns red it's really time for a quick heal (from party member or Savage Defiance). One last thing: lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses. Most other bonuses are only additive dmg bonuses to your weapon's base damage (that's the damage without enchantments, Might, quality and so on). Lashes on the other hand take all that and multiply it (usually by 0.25) and apply it seperately (has they have to overcome 1/4th of DR). So make sure to put a lash onto your weapons asap. It's a big dmg increase. If you want to use Bittercut then pick Spirit of Decay. Also apply corrosive lashes onto your weapos then. Bittercut gains an +20% dmg increase from Spirit of Decay and also all corrosive lashes will get a boost from 0.25 to 0.3 (increase of 20%).

By the way I have no idea what "LF" means...

Nature's Terror is very good on RTwP. What does Blood Thirst do on TB mode?

Anyway - the reasoning behind the fact that the sabre is on lvl 4 and the secret door is on lvl 3 (not 5) is that if you jump into/climb down the pit in lvl 2 you will be working your way from lvl 5 up to lvl 3 and thus should stumble upon the sabre first.

Eh - just realized this was in a spoiler-forum - so I didn't have to put spoiler tags. Ach, I don't care.

@teknoman2: spoilers incoming:

Viable: yes. But one of the biggest letdowns is that the storm blight weapons which jump 1 time don't work with Driving Flight. If you are not interested in the shifting and want to do melee even then that doesn't matter of course. Stalker/Fury can just work fine. With Firebrand + Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC for Firebrand) + all the Ranger ACC and Borrowed Instincts you can rel. savely leave the Greast Sword modal on. The Ring will kind of balance out the ACC loss of the modal and you'll gain +30% damage. Scion of Flame will give you +1 PEN with Firebrand. Unfortunately the Fury passive doesn't do anything for Firebrand attacks, only works on elemental dmg spells like Sunbeam and so on. Anyway +30% dmg (all cases) is better than +25% dmg from crits if your accuracy is already very high. Against hard to hit bosses you can then turn the modal off and gain even more ACC. By the way: people love Relentless Storm, but for a melee Fury I would recommend Nature's Terror. In my opinion it's the superior spell for melee druids. I compared Relentless Storm with Nature's Terror on a Berserker/Fury - and Nature's Terror yielded much better results. Also one reason less to stick to Lord Darryn's Voulge. "Pulsing" spells like Returning/Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror don't work very well with Takedown Combo. Sunlance on the other hand is a killer spell. With PL7 and 20 MIG it would do ~170 dmg on a hit then. Stag's Horn: also not bad. Even attacks with Firebrand + Takedown Combo can be very good. If you use Taste of the Hunt on an enemy affected by Takedown Combo you can do over 130 dmg on a crit. If you then apply Takedown Cmbo again the DoT from Taste of the Hunt will profit from that - and its ticks are already high (and raw). And the DoT last quite long (way longer than Wounding Shot). In my test case just now it had ticks of ~40 every 3 secs. That's a very powerful combo against single targets.

With the mace it's most obvious. I now wonder if Dwarves ge their weapon scaled down more than Orlans - although they are bigger and taller. With Orlans the difference doesn't seem to be that big, does it? The mace is really ridiculous looking. I'm pretty sure it's moddable. You can even switch certain parts of weapos invisible if they are not one monolithic model (for example the funny looking basket-hilt of the Aldris Blade of Captain Crow). So I guess it shouldn't be too hard to tweak the scaling. Besides that it can make sense to have shorter weapons if you have shorter arms - even if you are equally strong. Handling and leverage and all that - but the examples above show that it's too extreme. The mace indeed looks like a scepter. You could write a PM to @BMac maybe and ask if/how that's possible (or maybe he will already see this tag). So far he was always very helpful and supportive with such questions. Since active support for Deadfire has ended now it may be that he doesn't have a lot of time for that anymore - but it still might be worth a try.