Boeroer

A proven and fun concept is using a Trickster/Soulblade, go for max deflection (high RES and INT are benefical, Mirrored Image, Borrowed Instincts, Psychovampiric Shield and ACC debuffs on enemies) and use Whispers of the Endless Paths with the enchantment "Offensive Parry". It will generate focus for you when enemies miss. Add in Riposte (stacks with Offensive Parry) and the fact that Soul Annihilation applies raw damage over the whole AoE cone of WotEP and you have an rather tankish yet offensively very performant build. DoTs don't break stealth or invisibility anymore by the way.

May I ask why you start the battle with Interdiction and not Inspiring (+eventually Aggrandizing) Radiance? Or even better: cast Devotions and then Radiance (since Devotions lasts a lot longer)? They do stack and in my book +10 additional party wide ACC is way better for the first CC spells etc. than a short-lived Daze effect (which might graze or even miss).

"moment of incredible cleverness" goes into my bag of funny phrases.

I just recently wondered if Arcane Assault was there all along - or if it's a new addition to the game. Because I never noticed it in the Weathered Grimoire before.

Yes, the synergy of Debonaire/Beguiler I also experienced myself. Did you know that you can cast Disintegrate on a charmed enemy and it will not flip back? That's rather awesome. +50% duration almost guaranteed and no backlash. Another nice combo (especially with Community Patch which turns Forbidden Fist into a proper weapon attack) is Forbidden Fist/Cipher with Stunning Surge and a Morning Star. Enfeeble (+50% duration of hostile effects) + Stun + Body Blows + Turning Wheel's INT bonus + a potential crit with Disintegrate (-45 fortitude after all) means a really long disintegration duration. And against high RES enemies (who usually laugh about DoTs) you have Psychovampiric Shield which removes 10 RES and further prolongs Disintegration. It's a fun combo. You just "infect" enemies with that combo and go to the next.

I do find lots of misses very annoying. First of all it gives the impression that your character can't even hit the broad side of the barn - which is a bit frustrating at times. But mainly because it just prolongs fights unneccessarily. By that I mean that if enemies and player characters both play by the same rules of misses/hits/crits then the outcome of the battle (on average) doesn't change if everybody misses more - it just takes longer. I don't mind misses every now and then, but with D&D they are way to frequent for my taste. It's not that bad with a RTwP game since it's faster paced than turn based combat and thus the time you lose isn't that apparent - but jeez is it annoying when you play turn based D&D games or even tabletop P&P and you miss all the time. I mean that's my free time that I spend with hitting the air... Hence I appreciated the graze mechanic of PoE a lot. I would have liked it even more if there would have been an "quality of hit" system that is more fine-grained - where you gradually do more or less damage based on the quality of your hits - but miss/graze/hit/crit is quite easy to grasp and also suitable for tabletop games. Obsidian even decided to lower the miss chance for TB mode even more - because as I said it it's even more tedious when playing turn based. So - if Larian decides to deviate from the (for my taste) awful miss mechanics of D&D they have my support. Even if they do a RTwP game. On the other hand I didn't look at D&D 5 yet so maybe it's not as bad (in my book) as it used to be?

Are you sure it didn't destroy loot? Because often players don't exactly know which loot is supposed to drop. And you don't miss stuff that you know nothing about in the first place. It is not a bug that occurs 100% of times. But it does still occur. After patch 4 or so I tested it and it seemed to be fixed. But then later I tried it again (just recently) with Nomu the Marauder who drops Chamaeleon's Ring. I shot him dead with Essence Interrupter (including crit and then death) several times and several times the Ring didn't drop. Killing him without the bow gave me the ring 100% of times (it's not a random drop). So even if it doesn't occur all the time it's still there. And I guess it will stay. Community Patch didn't touch Essence Interrupter. I also guess the bug is too deep in the code for a mod to fix it. Edit: I just now tried it again and killed Nomu several times with EI. This time the loot dropped. It may be that this bug does not occur in every playthrough - like the stuttering bug (the one where you command your party member to execute an ability but instead the ability keeps getting abandoned and reexecuted in an infinite stuttering loop until you cancel). In some playthroughs you might have it, in others it will not occur once. So it may totally be the case that you can play with EI and not lose loot. I would still be careful though and try it out on bounties and bosses before fully committing myself to the bow. I mean you can also reload and try again should you experience loot destruction. But maybe that can become a bit tedious. And the uncertainty is unnervig as well. Another possibility is that it got secretly fixed recently without any patch notes. Don't think so because patching's supposed to be over, but silent fixes like that did happen in the past.

With Tidefall very high MIG is benefical because the wounding lash itself scales with MIG. Priests can have the highest MIG score in the game due to their buffs (Holy Power early on, then Minor Avatar or Champion's Boon + Aggrandizing Radiance which stacks with everything) so their scaling of wounding is the (potentially) highest. The dps of wouding goes up once INT goes down (overall dmaage stays the same but the same dmg gets applied over shorter time). But low INT is not preferable on a Priest. You can take advantage of the "longer" wounding if you cast Cleansing Flame - it also doubles wounding ticks. Melee great sword priest is quite squishy in the beginning due to low deflection and endurance. You can get a lot of enemies off your back if you wear a thick armor and use Armor of Faith. Lots of enemies perfer "softer". I think only barbarians will go right after low deflection - and they are not so difficult to deal with once you wield that high-ACC Tidefall with a fat wounding lash. Also the healing and dmg of Holy Radiance gets pretty crazy once you reach the ~40 Might stratosphere. Especially if paird with the upscaled base damage due to correct reputation.

I don't remember that anyone objected to the statement that Heralds are very useful characters. So what needed to be validated? What got objected is not your obvious love of Heralds but that you constantly bring them up as suggestion - even if sombody just wanted to order french fries.

Yes, during my solo playtesting it became obvious that while the whole interaction can be very effective it can also be a bit fiddly from time to time. However - it was one of the easiest solo early-mid game I had so far.

This is, quite frankly, nonsense. Ciphers start with the same deflection as all classes (20) but have some powers that raise their deflection further (Psychovampiric Shield +5, Borrowed Instinct +20 - stack) and also gain more Armor (which is very important for survivability - Body Attunement) while at the same time they have lots of powers which drop enemies' accuracy (Eyestrike, Secret Horrors etc.). So by no means is a melee cipher squishy if you don't want him to be. The health gain of a singel class cipher is not great (38/8), but since they can have pretty high defenses and drop debuffs it doesn't matter that much after a few levels. Also the health gain per level of a multiclass is an average vaule. Monks gain 42/12 - so on average a Transcendent gains 40/10 which is standard. Since Borrowed Instincts stacks with all direct deflection buffs it can acutally be a quite tanky (multi)class if one wishes. Then - besides the quite tiring fact this is the build you suggest all the time no matter if it fits (after the omnipresent "Herald!" suggestion seemed to have lost its appeal) there are several problems that a new player might not be aware of (ranking from minor to major): Turning Wheel doesn't work with ranged weapons (which is a bit of a shame given that you want to use the +10 INT from Duality:Mind) - not a big deal though - just don't take Turning Wheel then. But you won't have the burning lash for faster focus generation (up to 20% multiplicative dmg which is considerable). +10 MIG from Helwalker wounds means +30% damage, not +50%. You can gain wounds for ascenson a lot faster with other weapons (melee or ranged, but especially melee) if that's the main goal of your build. There are several items which will give you additional lashes for melee weapons (Hylea's Talons - also give you wounds by the way, Belt of Magran's Chosen) which directly translates to more focus gain (remember: lashes are multiplicative dmg boosts and they do generate focus). You can't use those with a hunting bow. While Essence Interrupter (aka "the unique bow you can buy @ Port Maje") without doubt has its merits (e.g. against certain enemies due to the unusual dmg types, the lash of the bow and the stacking summons) it doesn't excel at helping you to melt anything - except unique items because: Essence Interrupter still destroys loot when it turns enemies into summons on crit-->kill. This bug wasn't fixed. I answered that or something similar to all of your reoccuring suggestions for this build in the past. So either you don't really read what people reply to your suggestion - or you forget - or you intentionally recommend a loot destroying item to new players repeatingly...?

Yes, it's difficult to tell because the spell effects themselves are not displayed in the tooltip of the imbue abilites. As far as my ingame tests show they do not profit. Example: I made an Arcane Archer at Power Level 19: his missile imbue will have 7 projectiles. If I bring his PL down to 18 he only has 6 projectiles. Now - by logic it should be so that if I bring the PL back up to 19 he should have 7 projectiles again. Which he does if I simply add a "normal" Power Level. However the projectile count stays at 6 if I try to raise his PL (for the imbue) with Firethrower Gloves. That tells me that the +1 Evocation PL does nothing. I also didn't see any raise in PEN and ACC for imbued Missiles or Fireball when putting on the gloves. The ACC bonus from the bonus to Arcana is applied of course. Maybe modders with insight into the code will have more detailed info. Somewhat related: I noticed that Necklace of Fireballs does seem to scale its Fireball with the gloves. I tested on an actual Evoker however - maybe that's also a factor (that you actually need to have any Evocation PL in the first place, no idea). Also the Evoker passive (double cast) does not work for imbued Fireball and Missiles not for the Necklace of Fireballs or Missile Gloves. In case somebody wondered...

Swift Flurry doesn't work with the Forbidden Fist Ability - so maybe you shouldn't pick that when using Forbidden Fist but take Lightning Strikes instead. Draining Touch doesn't profit from any "unarmed" passives like Transcendent Sufferig etc. But Miasma + Dazzling Lights (-50 Will) are your friends when using Draining Touch (targets Will instead of Deflection). Shattered Pillar only has 5 wounds max which limits the INT-boost from Turning Wheel to 5. Which is a pity when using Citzal's SL - since its AoE would grow with more INT. However, Shattered Pillar with WotEP and Wizard's defensive buffs can be great if you pick Offensive Parry (NOT Blade Form) as enchantment: every miss of an enemy triggers Offensive Parry which generates wounds for the Shattered Pillar(!). It also works with Swift Flurry by the way. You can even stack tons of bonuses against disengagement attacks (Graceful Retreat + Tumbling + Fleet Feet + Boots of Speed + Gipon Pridensco and so on) and then disengage intentionally - you will be unhittable and trigger lots of Offensive Parries, giving you wounds (and dealing damage). Also nice in combo with Combusting Wounds. Also all kinds of spells that reduce enemies' accuracy help enormously (Chillfog, Miasma etc.). I played a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade recently (for double resource generation on every Offensive Parry) and the wound generation was great and happens "on the fly".

You are nearly right. However, Kaylon already reported that DoTs still let you trigger Brilliant. I played this build for some hours and it's true that most of the time you don't need Brilliant because the fight resets anyway. Bit as Kaylon said, it's the fights that don't reset that matter here. About Gouging Strike: if you use Gouging Strike or Bleeding Cuts or whatever DoT with 3 sec ticks or longer you can still trigger Brilliant. The thing is that between those ticks is enough time for the game to think "ok that's is, encounter's over soon", enemies relax and you will gain Brilliant (gaining resources right away - then the DoT ticks again right after that, you will lose Brilliant, enemies start running around again... the relax, Brilliant pops up, resources, tick, loss of Brilliant and so on. Works even better with longer tick intervals such as True Love's Kiss (6sec) or Poison Dipped (12sec). Doesn't work with shorter intervals I guess (Whirlig Strikes and Corrosive Skin etc. - but doesn't matter in this case).

Turn Based mode was introduced with one of the latest patches of the lifecycle. It didn't influence the "RTwP experience" in the slightest.

As: it canceled the ability for good (so he had to recast it completely and lost the cast) or was is just delayed?

Good question. I think it does not - because it causes an interrupt once the spell wants to go off - but if you're immune... Logic dictates that it does nothing against the Oracle then. But... you know... I don't want to put my head above the parapet.

Unlike Deadfire in PoE there are no Power Levels and items which boost specific ones (for example for Evocation and Fire attacks). In general there's no merit in specializing on fire spells - for for thematc reasons it might be fun of course. There are several items that give you Fireballs per rest - which you can use to expand your fire spell arsenal quite a bit. For example there is The Flames of Fair Rhîan (sabre) which holds 3 Fireballs per Rest. You can clone it with the Helwax Mold and then have 6 Fireballs per rest. On top of that you can put Curoc's Brand (wand) in another weapon slot and get another Fireball use per rest. Then grab Taluntain's Staff and get another 3 per rest. You are at +10 Fireballs per rest then. Then you can pick some fiery spell masteries (Fan of Flames, Combusting Wounds, Fireball for example) and all the other fire spells. This will give you an enormous arsenal of fire spells per rest. Pick Scion of Flame and that's it. If you also pick all the "hater" talents (+25% dmg against vessels, primordial and such - what else would you want to pick as pure fire caster?) you almost have Sneak Attack level (+45% dmg) for fire spell. High MIG, Merciless Hand (+30% crit damage) and Dungeon Delver (+10% crit damage) round the picture. Another approach to "Fire Mage": What also works really well is having 4 weapon sets (Island Aumaua, Arms Bearer) of blunderbusses, Quick Switch and the Coil of Resourcefulness (=switching costs no time). Cast Combusting Wounds and then empty your blunderbusses on one foe who got affected by Combusting Wounds (best is to pick the most meatiest one). You will apply tons of burning DoT instances and the target will die very soon. The remaining guys (which still suffer from Combusting Wounds) should be treated with Wall of Flame. WoF + Combusting Wouds is also devastating. Add lots of other fire spells and there you go. Kind of a Fire(arm) Mage. Sounds like a Wizard who really likes Magran...

Maybe. They are only dummies after all.

Obviously an oversight. I reckon this will happen with every weapon that already has a lash (Firebrand for example)?

Hm... when I use it on cre_dummy (while testing) it does nothing. That wasn't always the case.

Ah - by the way, speaking of clever tips: You can "recharge" every charged item if you have at least two of them. For example Necklace of Fireballs (there are several in the game) or Stone of Power (dito): Once they readch 0 charges (and you usually can throw them away) just stack them with the other one in yout stash and they are recharged. 8 fireballs per encounter is pretty hefty... Used them on a SC Assassin not long ago. You can even get 2 Missile Gloves (Bounding Missiles) if you use Berath's Blessing for the vendor in Port Maje I believe.

Lay off Hands? Great tip though. Didn't think about those gloves. It's correct with Draining Wall: for example if you use it on dummies (who usually have 0 buffs) it does nothing anymore. But usually most enemies have some sort of buff, even invisible ones sometimes (see FLame Blights which always give me duration although I see nothing benefical on them) - or stuff like Constant Recovery on enemy fighters and so on.

Oh, and stuff like: blunderbuss + Powder Burns + Combusting Wounds. Two shots already put 10 instances (8 projectiles and 2 Powerder Burns cones) of Combusting Wounds on the enemy which is rather deadly for most folks. Also works very well with Fire in the Hole in an AoE (Chain Shot). Generally Combusting Wounds + anything that hits often (missiles, walls, beams, blunderbusses) is devastating against anything that's not immune or has high AR to burn damage.

Or using Binding Web to root them in place. A few Wizard "tricks": Concelhaut's Draining Touch: one of the best weapons in the game: targets Will instead of Deflection --> cast stuff like Miasma (-40 Will) and Dazzling Lights (-10 Will, stacks with Miasma) and maybe use a club + modal (-25 Will) weakens on hit --> -10 Fortitude debuff and reduces enemy's health by 25% drains damage as health (20%) does corrode damage (works with Spirit of Decay: +1 PEN) usually not so great because it dissipates after one hit or crit - BUT: Neverending Draining Touch: don't learn it but use a grimoire that contains it cast it from that grimoire, then switch to a grimoire which doesn't contain it (important). --> it will stay with you for the whole fight (doesn't go away after hit/crit) Draining (Essential or Substancial) Phantom: if you cast Draining Touch and then summon a phantom it will inherit the weapon and it will not go away (on the phantom). phantoms with Draining Touch do great damage (for a summon), weaken the enemy and heal themselves in the process. meanwhile you can lower Will on the target with the methods I mentioned above: lots of phantom-crits then Combine with Draconic Fury: Zandethus Draconic Fury works very well with Draining Touch (since you will be in melee anyway). Not only will the damage be better due to the two lashes (both multiplicative dmg boosts) but also it can terrify your attackers which then will be weakened and terrified (-10 Fortitude, -10 Will, -10 Deflection) Kalakoth's Minor Blights: smallish AoE but all AoE hits do the same damage roll as the initial one Uue it on a phantom and it will stay for the rest of the summoning duration and will NOT cycle through the different damage types. Instead it will stay with the elemental damage it had when you summoned the phantom. That way you can determine the element with which the phantom will attack. Can ver very useful against certain immune enemies. You can pick from four elements (just wait for the right one and then summon phantom). Rekvu's Fractured Casque: immune to interrupts if you have an injury you can injure yourself easily with Necrotic Lance: Cast it until you go down - works out of combat. You can also let party members hit you and only delivere the last blow with Necrotic Lance. Only the knockout damage counts and determines your injury. You'll only get an "Acute Rash" which is a very minor injury which doesn't hamper you much. You'll gain total immunity to interrupts. That includes interrupts from Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry and Slicken - that means you can stand in your own Slicken and nothing will happen. Your Pull of Eora will still pull you around but not interrupt you. A Mag Slayers disruption will do nothing against you (not that I ever encountered one who did this to me, but still... ). Rekvu's Scorched Cloak: Fire attacks heal you instead of dealing damage. Same tactic as with the Casque: Necrotic Lance. cast fire spells on yourself (Fireball, Delayed Blast Fireball, Wall of Flame etc.) and get healed a bit while your enemies die. If confused you can also cast Combusting Wounds on yourself which - combined with Wall of Flame - makes for a superb healing source (but maybe too finicky to use it often) Upright Captain's Belt: makes you immune to push & pull effects combine with Fracured Casque and run around in your Pull of Eora + Slicken Area totally freely and unhindered while everybody else just gets messed up completely Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure: makes you invisible for quite some time this invisibility will not break prematurely (as most other invisibility effects) if you don't deal damage. That means you can deal CC and debuffs from invisibility. If you are an Assassin that means constant +25 ACC. For a SC Bloodmage it "only" means being untouchable while casting non-damaging spells, but still awesome. Wall Spells don't break that Invisibility either (since they are "hazards") which means you can totally kill enemies with Wall Spells (Combusting Wounds + Wall of Flame or Wall of Many Colors etc.) without becoming visible. Also the attacks of your phantoms (with Draining Touch or Minor Blights or Spirit Lance etc.) will not break your invisibility Regenerating Bloodmage Use regeneration items like Tree Trolls Stiched, Ring of (Greater) Regeneration, Voidward and Fleshmender armor and eat fresh fruit at rest (+25% healing - or similar) as well as getting a Physiker's Belt and Bonesetter's Torc for better healing. You will be able to spam one single powerful spell endlessly without going down from self damage - for example Ninagauth's Shadowflame. Cast - Blood Sacrifice - cast - Blood Sacrifice - and so on Wall of Draining As @Raven Darkholme already said it's an often overlooked spell. Especially in combo with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure: Draining Wall will not break the invisibility and prolong it like crazy. You can cast Walls and CC spells without ever becoming visible again. God mode so to speak. Minoletta's Piercing Sigil stun and dmg retaliation on getting hit), Zahndetu's Draconic Fury (terrify retaliation on getting hit) and Cloak of Death ("withdraw" and DoT retaliation on getting hit) don't stack their effects but mess each other up. Just decide for one. Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin + Brilliant Departure: Cast it on a tough enemy from stealth and then use Brilliant Departure, then move away from sight. It's a great Assassination spell. The enemy will not see you, your invis. wil not break from the DoT and the enemy will die. Rinse and repeat. You can take out whole groups one by one with that tactic. Citzal's Enchanted Armory: gain permanent one handed (!), scaling Great Swords: Cast Enchanted Armory and then swallow a potion of Form of the Fearsome Brute. End combat (by winning while the form persists). Once the combat is over and the form ends you will keep the Great Sword. You can do that as often as you like and e.g. give your fellow party member two Great Swords for dual wielding. Or wield one with One Handed Style and modal on (+30% damage without losing ACC compared to a normal Great Sword). Blightheart: one of the few items that can raise spell damage: a wizard can get +10% corrosive lash (that's multiplicative dmg) for his damaging spells when wearing it. Great stat stick for a nuker. That's what I remember from the top of my head. There will me more for sure.