Boeroer

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.

You mean shareholders. Excecutives will only get a meager bonus.

Miscreant's Leathers is good. I guess Gipon Prudensco with "Fight Another Day" would be good as well.

Yes. Usually a Druid is a better healer than a Priest anyway. Except Furies of course. But maybe you shouldn't restrict Tekēhu to healing. As a Watershaper he has amazing foe-only water/frost spells like foe-only Chillfog and so on. That's what makes his subclass so good. But yes - he can also heal pretty well.

Sure - a self-build ascandant will be better than Serafen as SC Cipher. But that's the case with other companions as well. Most paladin orders seem to be better than Brotherhood of the Five Suns, especially for a Herald build. Then you'd also take Troubadour instead of Pallegina's vanilla Chanter option. Unbroken/Trickster or /Streetfighter would be so much better for Edér and so on. But that's not the point in this case. The relevant question (with ragard to companion builds) is if Serafen can be played as Wild Mind Cipher and if it's any good. And sure he can and yes it's good enough if you know what his subclass is about and how you can circumvent the shortcomings. It's not useless nor is it particularly bad for a companio build if you look at it objectively. It is just not very likable for most players because of the randomness. You cannot minmax randomness as effectively as you can minmax deterministic stuff.

As I already said in some other thread: if your MC is a damage dealer and you give him the noble male voice and then also bring Konstanten you are in for some laughs. Both voices have similar tonality - and both have an infectious laugh. Especially if they land crits. Konstanten is hilarious but the noble is close behind. I played Konstanten as Barb/Skald and used a Morning Star with Clear Out - so the crits were plentyful. My MC was a Mortar Monk. It was all like Barry White and his long lost brother doing "hohoho", "hahahaha" and "teheeehehe". I was smiling constantly because of that.

Wild Mind def. has more upsides than downsides. Given that subclasses are designed so that they are kind of balanced when it comes to pros and cons I'd say Wild Mind is on the "better than balanced" side. It's just so that most players hate random effects. A reason why pets like Nebula or items that grant a random effect or ven spells who do that are not popular even if they are more powerful than other stuff on average. And one Miscast of Wild Mind burns itself into the brains of every player who didn't see that coming while all the good stuff will be forgotten soon. You can get: +5 PL for that cast (awesome) cast a power twice for free (like Evoker passive, awesome) get full focus (awesome) apply Blinded, Dominated, Enfeebled, Paralyzed, Stunned or Terrified on the target (good, those are all tier 3) gain an Empower Point (ok, nothing to write home about though) -3 PL for that cast (meh, not too bad) set enemy invisible for 15 seconds (this can range from "Eh I don't care" to "Oh my goodness why is Neriscyrlas invisible?") Push everything away from target (doesn't matter most of times) apply Brilliant, Courageous, Energized, Intuitive, Robust or Swift to enemy (not nice but no big problem most of times if it's not a mean boss) remove Empower Point (meh, I don't care much) And then the Miscast which is a self-centered shock AOE that does 3x current dmg and targets Will. This is neither entirely good nor entirely bad. Since it's friendly fire it can hit allies and foes. You can play it so that you will wipe the enemy and not your party. Or just put him a little bit to the side (radius is 2.5) and nothing happens (except Serafen may damage himself). And if you take this into account the subclass can actually be quite fun to play. Just note that a miscast happens very rarely and nearly always when you have less than full focus (if current focu is low then it's no big deal at all). Use Deltro's Cage Helmet as I said, strengthen your will defense and get some more shock AR. Funnily enough it's more easy to raise your Will defense as a Witch than as a SC Cipher. If you hate the randomness in the first place then of course you will not be happy with this subclass.

And loot destruction with Essence Interrupter.

Hehe, never read that quote before. Well the Dyrwood is kind of medieval - a bit "rednecks in the dark times". Witch hunting included and so on. Homophobic tendencies would also fit there I guess. But maybe that would have been too much for poor Dyrwood's reputation. They are already orlan-, animancy-, eothas- and xenophobic. On the plus side: slavery is forbidden. So it's not all confederate stuff, höhöhö. 😜

You can always use Takedown Combo with a direct dmg attack as well. Also a Seer is an accuracy beast: all the Ranger stuff + Borrowed Instincts... phew. And it's handy that a Seer always has an ally to cast stuff on that only works on allies (like Ectopsychic Echo or Amplified Wave and so on).

Most are pretty straightforward. Edér: Fighter/Rogue distraction tank with Cadhu Scalth (+modal), Kapana Taga, Reckless Brigandine, Hold the Line, Helm of the Champion, Entonia Signet, +Protection and +Deflection gear, Persistent Distraction, Armored Grace, Adept Evasion, Riposte, Mob Stance, Refreshing Defense, Deathblows, Unbending (and so on). Basically like an Unbroken/Trickster but without the goodies of both classes. Still works very well. Goal is to have a sticky tank with 5 engagement slots without using Defender Stance. The items help a lot in that regard. Also works with Defender Stance if you want other gear and more defensive capabilities. Anyway you only need enough staying power to bind lots of enemies to you at the start of combat. You distract all of them automatically (very nice passive auto-debuff with no "saving throw"). You will still deliver decent melee dmg but at the same time be nearly impervious to ranged and AoE dmg (shield modal + Adept Evasion). Because of that you can get hit by your teammates' AoE spells (e.g. your Wizard's) and don't care much. Usually your bound enemies do care though and die. Tekēhu: SC Watershaper with Deltro's Cage + Lord Darryn's Voulge as "stat stick". Or same with him as Watershaper/Stormspeaker. Pallegina: Herald tank. High defenses and passive healing. Fat armor, Lethandria's Devotion, Sasha's Singing Scimitar (Shopcking Prelude + Refreshing Finale: use empowered White Worms and later empwered Eld Nary), Blackened Plate Armor with "Life in Death", Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory and so on. Keep near your allies. Maia Rua: Scout with focus on arquebus. All the stuff that increases arquebus dps: Gunner, Marksman, Driving Flight, Stalker's Link, Marked for the Hunt, Deathblows, Accurate Wounding Shot, Arterial Strike, Blinding Strike, maybe Pierce the Bell against the really high AR foes (it has +5 PEN). And so on. Maybe not Toxic Strike since her INT is pretty low. Use the Red Hand or Dragon's Dowry. Dragon's Dowry is one of the best weapon for backstabbing: sneak up to a target, use Arterial Strike to "backstab" and immediately retreat with either Escape or Evasive Roll (usually Evasive Roll is better since you need more Guile than Bond in an encounter). If you use Escape and enchanted her armor with "Return Fire" and also pick Superior Camouflage it's not uncommon to trigger Return Fire's crit conversion often. If you don't want to backstab then just stick to the Red Hand and fire away. Aloth: SC Wizard - nothing special. Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry, Rekvu's Fractured Casque. Injure yourself with Necrotic Lance in between fights so you always carry an Acute Rash injury (it's a very minor debuff but you gain immunity to interrupts and +1 spall casts per spell tier). Either go for Chromprismatic Staff as stat stick (Power Level bonuses) or Blightheart (+10% corrosive lash for spells is great) or Griffin's Blade + a small shield for more staying power and a bit increased spell dmg. Or use Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon for your fire spells. SC Wizard "The Terror": use Effigy's Husk + Whitewhitch Mask + Eye of Wael (=+3 PL to illusions) and aim for Illusion spells like Miasma + Curse of Blackend Sight, Repulsive Visage and Enervating Terror, Gaze of the Adragan, Wall of Many Colors, Kalakoth's Freezing Rake. You can use a club + modal to lower Will by 25 on a single target if you wish. Best in this case might be Shattered Vengeance with "Coordinated Escape". Very strong debuffer (lower Will to the ground with Misama and then terrify the heck out of everybody) but also later a strong damage dealer with Freezing Rake. Use Concelhaut's Draining Touch + Essential Phantom for this trick: the Draining TOuch will not go away on a Phantom after a succesful hit, so it can keep hitting the enemy with it, It does very high corrode damge. Especially since it targets will and not deflection. You are a strong strong will debuffer: see the synergy? The Phantom will hit enemies like a truck because it frequently crits with Draining Touch. It will heal itself in the process (draining) and apply weakened to the target. If it drops below 50% health it will also cast Repulsive Visage because of the mask. If it dies it will trigger the Husk's raw AoE attack on death. If you use Shroud of the Phantasm you can do all that times 6 (six Phantoms) - but of course only 1/rest. If you use Arkemy'r Grimoire there's an Illusion spell names "Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure" which makes you invisible and doesn't break if you only cast CC on enemies (no damage though). That means that you can cast for example a Miasma on a crowd without becoming visible. It's like CC god mode a bit. Also Wall spells (Wall of Many Colors but also Wall of Flames) will not end the invisibility because they are hazards (their own game character entity) which will not be connected to you dealing damage. Xoti: SC Priest- Very straightforward - just works. Use her lantern - it's great for that. User her as main support/secondary healer and kind of offtank. SC Monk. As melee Monk use her fists mostly and aim for Whispers of the Wind + Resonant Touch and make her the main damage dealer in order to get something out of her subclass. As mid-ranged SC Monk: use Serafen's two Hand Mortars and go gunmonk. This is very strong with Stunning Surge, Flagellanth's Path and Whispers of the Wind/Resonant Touch. Use Lightning Strikes, Duality of mortal Presence (INT) - no need to pick Turning Wheel since it's melee only. Pick everything that gives you ACC, PEN and INT (AoE size): Enduring Dance, Thunderous Blows, Razor's Edge, Ring of Overseeing, Ring of the Marksman, Aloth's Armor, Heaven's Cacophony and so on. Start fights with Enduring Dance and then fire away with Stunning Surge. Use wounds for Thunderous Blows in between, later for Whispers of the Wind and Resonant Touch as well. Stunning Surge will ost nothing if it crits only once in the AoE and you will even get back Mortification from her class passive if you kill (which happens a lot if she's the main AoE damage dealer). She works great with a single-target-focused Maia Rua: Maia picks off the dangerous single targets, Xoti wrecks the mobs. This woirks very well with a stiyk tank Edér and Aloth using Pull of Eora to cramp as many mobs a possible into a tight space. Also Aloth can use Dazzling Lights to lure enemies from stealth into a tight spot where Edér then egages and Aloth casts Pull of Eora. If you use Pull of Eora much gie Edér an item that makes him immune to push/pull effects (like the Horns of the Aurochs or the Upright Captain' Belt - very good in this case). In all monk cases go for Precognition as amulet and Stalking Cloak for the back. Whispers of the Wind makes you invisible so you will stun every enemiy you hit with it. Serafen (I like him if that isn't obvious): Witch with Willbreaker and White Witch Mask, use Blooded - works very well with the Mask. Use Spirit Frenzy/Tornado to apply Staggered (-10 Fortitude) and Secret Horrors to apply SIckened (another -10 Fortitude). Cast Borrowed Instincts a lot (+20 ACC besides other stuff) and hit enemies with the modal "Body Blows" on (-25 Fortitude) - then using Soul Ignition/Disintegrate and other fortitude based stuff on them. Your accuracy will virtually be +65(!). Use Brute Force to target fortitude instead of deflection if it's lower (often is with the Morning Star + Sprit Frenzy + Secret Horrors). The Morning Star also lowers Will (-3 per hit) which is great for most other cipher powers that don't target fortitude. Also use Psychovampiric Shield to lower enemies Will by -20 and Deflection by 10. Use Whisper of Treason and/or Puppet Master, too. Although you are a melee guy you should use these because they are very strong. Don't hit your charmed enemies - else they flip back. Let them fight for you instead. Skill your Will into the sky (Iron Will +15 & Bull's Will +10) and use the highest shock AR gear you can find (so.. NOT plate armor). When casting, don't be too near to your allies in case you miscast (can wipe your friends). Use Deltro's Cage Helmet to profit from the miscast (if you survive). Witch with Lord Darryn's Voulge, Deltro's Cage - mostly applying Static Charges with Carnage and using Soul Shock on your tank. SC Barb, aiming for Driving Roar with Blood Thirst, Bloodlust, Spirit Frenzy, Acina's Tricorn, Lance of the Midwood Stag (Lord of the Forest). Let a fellow druid cast Woodskin or Form of the Delemgan on you right at the start of battle. Or count on the weapon's enchant,ment to give you Woodskin at some point. In this case it can be good to also wear Nature's Embrace. Gain +2 PL and attack from second row with Spirit Frenzy + Carnage and use the yell/roar to deliver dmg and apply Shaken, Daze and Staggered as AoE CC until you get Driving Roar. At that point just be your party's best ranged damage dealer with incredible dmg output for just 1 Rage per cast. Also pick Improved Critical etc. Against crush-immune or resistant enemies either use your Lance or pick Instrument of Boundless Rage. Use two Necklaces of Fireballs: one in the stach and one on your neck. Before getting Driving Roar cast up tp 8 Fireballs per encounter (trigger Staggered with Spirit Frenzy, Blooded also works and so do Frenzy and Bloodlust/Blood Thirst for casting speed) after encounter stack the empty necklace with the full one in the stash - tada: both have 8 charges again. If you like fire attacks a lot you can also go Magran's Favor (+ Bleeding Cuts) + Sun & Moon + Instruments of Boundless Rage + Necklace of Fireballs + Spirit Tornado + Dragon Leap + Barbaric Shout + Barbaric Retaliation + Blunting Belt + Patinated Plate (Bronze Juggernaut + Constant Reboud) + Death's Maw + Stalwart Defiance + Thick Skinned + Blooded + One Stands Alone + Heart of Fury + Barbaric Smash + Blood Surge + Blood Thirst + Bloodlust (hope that all fits into one char Can't remember the exact portfolio). Maybe also use Three Trolls Stiched or Nemnok's Cloak. Ragged Cloak for more retaliation damage. Jump into the midst of the enemy and let them hit you. With dazing and such high AR they won't do much damage but crit you a lot, triggering Barbaric Retaliation with Bleeding Cuts and self heal from Sun & Moon. If you're too low on hralth use Stalwart Defiance. All the while cast Fireballs from the Necklace or use Instrument of Boundless Rage or simply Barbaric Smash. All your fire based attacks will have +4 Power Level during daytime. Suicide Bomb - SC Barb: use Effigy's Husk, Effort, Shroud of the Phantasm in hard fights, else Mantle of the Seven Bolts, Vengeful Defeat, Heart of Fury, Pather's Leap, Blooded, Accurate Carnage, Blood Storm and so on. Jump into enemies and start hacking away. You want to be very fast but not too fragile. Should you go down: Deal tremendous AoE damage from Effort (Full AoE Attack), Husk (Raw AoE attack), Vengeful Defeat (Full AoE attack) and Mantle (Shock AoE attack) to everything around you. Get revived by a Paladin, Priest, Druid or Chanter and try again. Very good on itself but not if you don't like resting. In tight encounters use the Shroud to summon 6 copies of you which have low health and do the same on death as you: EXPLODE! . Nothing except fat bosses might survive this if your timing/position is good... If you want you can copy the Ring of Reset from the Deck of Many Things. You can do that without the console if you export a custom character with the ring (use a lvl-1-adventurerer with only the ring - to avoid hich recruitment costs). Hire him then in the other game in a tavern and take the Ring. Now you have two. They can form a stack in the stash. If one is emoty stack it with the other one and it will be recharged. This way you can go down 3 times in an encounter (trigger AoW dmg) and get back up right again without taking an injury. It's cheesy - but if you like that build idea but hate resting this might be your thing. It's a lot of fun. By the way: Ring of Reset doesn't work on Phantoms... (see Aloth). Well... some might not be that straightforward now that I read all this again...

😉

CanGraze is a relict from the times right after release (or beta?) where we had only miss and hit and crit for normal attacks and only certain ones could graze. This was changed to the ols mechanics like in PoE (sort of).

I guess. Didn't test but it would make sense. Important thing is that two (or more) of them form a stack in your stash. Afaik you can also get two Dragon Pendants. A Dragon Pendant has "Call the Clutch" which summons a drake and wurms 1/rest. You should be able to use it 1/encounter then. Ah and watch out: the stacking doesn't happen in your char's personal inventory. Only in the stash!