Boeroer

Just got a PM from @MaxQuest: he's alive and kicking. Just some huge pile of RL stuff that needed attention.

Obviously for a "true stalker" one has to pick Stalker/Assassin. Takedown Combo + Accurate Wounding Shot + Assassinate + Sneak Attack + Deathblows: *boom* You got stalked man! Stalker/Priest of Skaen might also be nice. Having some nice support spells for you and your buddy plus Finishing Blow and Shadowing Beyond. Of course you need to use Stalker's Patience as main weapon.

Same with this forum and also reddit.

Takes too long for my taste.

Single wielding a pistol gives you +12 ACC. That's with all single handed weapons if you don't use an offhand weapon or a shield: you get +12 ACC even without any style. The modal is -15 ACC. Combined you get -3 ACC only but still -50% reloading time - which is a lot faster than dual wielding + two weapoon style. Generally speaking it's the best dps option when using pistol(s). Of course there might be certain unique items and synergies where you might not single wield a pistol - but in most cases a single pistol (+modal) is better than two. Single Weapon Style can give you +15% hit to crit conversion. This isn't too helpful with crit damage since pistols have reduces crit damage - but it can help with PEN issues as well as with on-crit effects (Stunning Surge for example or as you said Scordeo's Edge - which has enchanced crit modifiers).

We can't contact MaxQuest atm. He wasn't logged in since July 10th and doesn't respond to PMs. We hope he's well but we are a bit worried.

5 out of 11 is "a few?" It's a form of investment. The conditions are made clear. If you are lucky you can yield nice returns (look at Phoenix Point which runs until 2022 and already nearly doubled the investments before release - or Kingdoms and Castles which tripled them) and if you're not lucky you lose money (like with Deadfire). It's like trading shares or warrants. Of course the investor takes all the risk. He also takes all the returns if the game sells well. If you really believe that it's a scam you should file a lawsuit.

Please remove the time restriction for edits! Please extend the login time! Please reintroduce BBCode mode! Why is nothing done about it? No comment or answer either. I can't edit the char build lists anymore. Others can't edit their sticky posts with tipps & tricks. It can't be too hard to do that stuff can it? What's the point of this thread then? Ks ks ks...

It is not. As I said earlier there are several games on fig which did return much more than 100%. Here's a list from the end of 2018: It's like most other investments: there are risks. Calling fig investments "a scam" is out of place.

Some other games from fig.co returned a lot more than 100%, one even 300%. Of course deadfire was the biggest game and its failure will have a big impact on the reputation of fig investments I reckon. I don't know if it bombed in a big way. In Josh's post mortem talk he said somethiong along the lines of "was a disappointment compared to PoE - but not a disaster". But maybe I remember that incorrectly. It is a great game but I have to say I still like PoE more. Why? Can't relly put a finger on it... PoE was more addictive to me for some reason. I had to uninstall it in order to let go - else I'd still do playthroughs with build idea no. 12436534645. Deadfire is still installed but I don't want to play it anymore.

From a national economic point of view following that rule strictly would be fatal. Even as a private person this is hard to follow - for example if you want to build a house or need to build up private pension. So I wouldn't say "any kind of investment". There's a reason why there are forms of investment that are usually very safe (like government bonds): because people can't affort to lose that money. If we are talking about "playing with money" in order to generate more returns: sound approach. Like with gambling.

Solo Cipher vs. (lone) Megabosses is difficult in general. Like Kaylon said: focus generation is often difficult except against Belranga. For every Cipher and especially for a Beguiler since he will often miss with a Deception and his Soul Whip is not as powerful (against unafflicted enemies). Even a Psion (who would be the ideal candidate to gain focus without having to hit anything) doesn't work well because of his lame "focus generation stops if you take a hit" mechanic. In general a solo playthrough requires heavy metagaming, grind and often tedious an/orcheesy tactics that I don't find particularly entertaining - so I'm not an expert on PotD solo. I did do some runs with several builds just to see how they fare - but I didn't complete a lot of them. I believe only two. One Geomancer and one SC Monk iirc. I like the Beguiler subclass (as single class char) a lot in a party but haven't tried it solo. Resolve: In general (unlike other values with potentially diminishing returns like accuracy) deflection bonuses have increasing returns. So the higher you go the more impact every single point has. A difference of 10 points via 20 RES at the start of the game might not feel as significant as let's say an increase of 10 ACC (through 20 PER). But later, once you add Borrowed Instincts and other sources of deflection it could have a lot bigger impact on your survivability and performance. In the early game I would charm the heck out of everything that can be charmed to be honest. It makes the early game a lot more easy since it's basically removing one enemy and turning him into a "summon" at the same time. Just don't attack the charmed enemy: nor will it give you focus neither will it stay charmed.

Maje island is actually the hardest part if you want to fight every encounter.

Yes. A shield that also counts as offhand weapon (Tuotilo's Palm, Magran's Blessing etc.) will profit from both styles.

I also have the fig badge but I didn't do any investments/fig shares.

It used to be very good but its base dmg got nerfed severely. Now it's just okish. As Kaylon said it has it's own base damage and that is not weapon related. You'llget a rel. weak ranged piercing attack at the nearest enemy as a bonus on top of your roll for your ability point. Afaik it's not tagged as weapon attack so it wouldn't profit from weapon related passives and also would't generate focus. Most of the time I don't take it.

It is affected. You can look it up if you watch the tooltips of your equipped weapon during combat. The Hunting Bow modal wasn't changed by the Community Patch. It was always -50% recovery and -15 ACC. -15 ACC is pretty massive, especially in the earlyish game. You could get better results with a single pistol + modal I reckon. It's only -3 ACC and also has -50% recovery/reload.

The Long Pain is one of the best ranged (single target) weapons in the game.

Ha sorry. PoE1-induced brainfart with the retraining. Action speed modifiers work for reloading weapons as well. So with Swift Strikes you reload faster. Also with Two weapopn Style and dual wielding. Streetfighter's recovery bonus also works for reloading. What does not work is Barbarian's Blood Thirst. It only removes recovery only, not reload though. But since you don't use a Barbarian... no problem.

It doesn't matter at all for the quality of a story or the writing whether the actions of the protagonist have an impact on the world or not.

For an Ascendant/Helwalker MIG ist not a waste because one of your signature spells, Disintegration, profits a lot from him MIG AND high INT. MIG raises the dmg of the ticks and INT gives you more ticks. Together this is a huge dmg improvement for all sorts of DoT effects. Helwalker is only squishy if you have many wounds. If there are situations where you want to be less squishy: spend wounds. At the same time Turning Wheel and Iron Wheel are not mutially exclusive - you could take both and switch once you think you need additional CON. I personally would just use healing from your buddies though. I never take lesser wounds. So it's totally viable. In my opinion it's not worth the ability point. Instead I'd rather use Mortification of the Soul. But that I also don't pick a lot. If you are at 10 wounds (and started with maxed base INT in the first place) you will have plenty of ascension time. If you can raise this with SoT then even better. I know no practical way to increase that any further. Except more SoT from another priest or the same priest with the brilliant affliction - for example if you have a Tactician/Priest in the party. He could buff you up with endless SoT if the circumstances are right so that you get hours of ascension - but I'm pretty sure you don't want to experience the tedium of that in a normal party playthrough. Maxed INT + Tunrning Wheel (+10 INT) + one or two SoT is plenty, plenty ascension time. What you can do to press more castings into your ascension time is to become faster (at casting). Not only the duration of your ascension determined how many spells you can cast during that period but also how fast you can cast them. Your first try would have been better as Ascendant/Streetfighter with Blunderbusses (better hand mortars) for example. He cuts his attacking/casting recovery in half which allows to reach ascension superfast and then cast more spells during ascension. In case of Ascendant/Helwalker you want to have good DEX and raise action speed (see Lightnig Strikes - also raises DEX further and helps with the focus generation because of the lash). Then you're good to go. If you are playing a ranged Ascendant/Helwalker I would recommend to use AoE weapons for the initial attack(s). Rods with Blast, cast with high INT on a group of enemies, might already fill up your focus to max. Watershaper's Focus is a superb weapon for the initial strike. If you turn on the Blast modal it will also jump with the projectile (Watersh. Focus has a build- in jump), giving you two AoE attacks with one shot. If you can pull some enemies together with your tank or with the cast of Dazzling Lights (luring enemies from stealth) and then hit them all with that first shot you will most likely start the encounter with ascension already. Also if you utilize hand mortars (Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole). They have AoE dmg, two different dmg types and Fire in the Hole even jumps one time (including the AoE), giving you additional focus. Also Stunning Surge works wonderfully with them because all the AoE crits also count for the mortification refund. Downside is the limited range. If you dump RES and CON to 5 you can as well dump it to 3. You won't feel a difference in squishyness but gain 4 points for the other stats that really matter. Once you can pick Borrowed Instincts you can lower your PER via retraining. Exept if it's the highest PER in yopur team because then you'd need it for finding traps and stuff.

No, not really. But since you can multiclass now it should be pretty easy to combine a Monk with a Cipher in a decent way. Helwalker/Ascendant is pretty popular. Single class Cipher (again Ascendant maybe) with Monastic Unarmed Training (Deadfire's Novice's Suffering) is also viable.

Most of them come with ads (you can get focus from deceiving them), then cast a Disintegrate. Or Antipathetic Field + Death of 1000 Cuts. If not you need to either use a very cheap deception or attack with a weapon. Beguilers still can do that just fine. Besides that, Ciphers just don't shine vs. lonely bosses in general.

Uniques aside Battle Axes are totally fine for a dw Fighter. There are good unique ones, too - but as draego said they show up a bit late compared to unique sabres. However, a self-enchanted Battle Axe (exceptional + a lash) will get you a long way. You can even buy an exceptional axe (fake-unique one "Silver Crow Axe") in Defiance Bay a lot earlier than you could usually loot it. Also for a reasonable price. If you get this and put a fitting lash on it (to your liking, most likely you will have collected the required stuff for a burning lash first) then you'll have something nice. "Rimecutter" is among the best dps weapons in the game (because of the speed enchantment) but it's a random thing because it is sold by Azzuro, your travelling Stronghold merchant. Often he didn't offer it to me at all in many playthroughs - sometimes he sold it to me thrice in one playthrough... You can trick the game and Azzuro: at the entrance to Lle a Rhemen on the map Stormwall Gorge you can find a seal on the ground. This can be used to trigger a "wait" dialogue. You can trigger it as often as you want, letting time pass by in the process. Once you unlocked Azzuro you can use this to skip time between Azurro's visits and wait until he offers you Rimecutter. Or you can use the console to give it to you (losing achievements in the process).