Boeroer

Some leading devs of Deadfire stated on Twitter that they would be up for it - about a year ago or so. I guess if Microsoft gives a thumbs up we might actually see something like PoE3 (maybe a bit smaller) - Xbox Gamepass needs games!

Yes, those images on the XBox website do indeed look good to me, too. Don't know why the gameplay trailer created a different impression, I haven't really analyzed it.

For what it's worth: Josh Sawyer's own Pillars of Eternity Table Top/Pen and Paper rules also have no classes. No classes doesn't mean you didn't have to study your craft in-universe. Multiclassing is nothing else than softening the borders between classes and a step towards a classless system. And it's just mechanics. It doesn't necessarily define what your life looks like and how you learn your craft. There is always an explanation why an "official" Wizard might have the determination and discipline of a fighter but also some skullduggery and guild of a rogue and so on.

Time for you to put on a helmet. Aedyr is inhabited and ruled by humans and wood elves. Your char is an official envoy from Aedyr. You will be either human or wood elf, I'll bet on it.

I liked the visual tone of PoE best, Deadfire is lighter and colorful but still nice and appropriate for the setting. I know that the Living Lands are supposed to be colorful and thriving with all sorts of wildlife and flowers and so on - and medieval times weren't as drab and dirty, muddy and gritty as Hollywood would like us to think... but still the overall visual style presented in the Gameplay trailer is not my cup of tea. This will not stop me from buying, but it's also not something I'm excited about.

Iron Wheel also requires resources. If you would constantly spend your wounds (= Iron Wheel requires no resources) you could not have a meaningful AR increase. The "cost" is basically the same - you don't have resources to spend or you have resources you cannot spend.

Using Wahai Poraga on the Corpse Eater works quite well if another character provides the wurms (I used a Berserker/Helwalker in the test). Send the wurms into the AoE of Wahai Poraga. While the Corpse Eater can still attack actual enemies the friendly fire AoE wll make sure he will kill some nearby wurms soon enough. This is also good because it not only leaves bodies for the Corpse Eater to consume but also triggers Blood Thirst and so on. Wahai Poraga is also an excellent weapon for Swift Flurry... My Berserker could also help to kill wurms with his confused Carnage - which then helped with his Changeling's Mantle (Primal Carnage) - giving him action speed when he hit those wurms with this friendly fire Carnage.

Hello! I guess you knew that when you use the Dire Talon (sabre) and enchant it with Wurm Call you will have a 20% chance on crit to summon 3 wurms? Did you also know that if those wurms die they will leave a body hat only disappears after combat ends - unlike the summons that you gain from your abilities (that includes summons from items that give you an active summoning ability like a Whale of a Wand's Fantastic Friends - they will disappear on being killed and leave no body)? I surely didn't. But those wurms' bodies will stay. And wurms are beats... That means that you can consume the body with Flesh Communion. All Corpse Eaters: This can help your Corpse Eater to use their Flesh Communion in every fight - you "only" need to crit often enough and then get a wurm killed. You can do so yourself by attacking it with the weapon itself (there's a chance that you crit and summon another bunch of wurms and so on - there's no hard cap on how many wurms can be on the screen) or by using some friendly-fire spell like Shadowflame or whatever. If you crit a lot (hello Swift Flurry/HBD) you can summon a lot of wurms - and some might end up dead even without your interference because they are just weak. The bodies will be there until combat ends. So nothing speaks against piling up some wurm bodies for later in the fight. Of course this doesn't have to be done by one and the same character. You just need somebody in the party who will crit a lot with Dire Talon in order to prepare a rather monothematic Corpse Eater buffet. I then also tried it with Hel Beckoning (summon Hel Imp on killing spirit) - and this also leaves the body of the imp when he gets killed. But alas: it doesn't work for Flesh Communion. I forgot that Imps are not wilders - they are primordials. And since Flesh Communion only works in kith, wilder and beasts... Off to Essence Interrupter you say? Right! It works, too: If you crit and then kill any enemy and let's say a Xaurip gets summoned (and then killed) - you can consume its body. Same with Ogre Pirates. Unfortunately there's several summons with Essence Interrupter that are neither wilder nor beast (oozes, guls etc.) - so it's not very reliable. Also some of the summons take some time to kill compared to the very weak wurms that Dire Talon gives you. And some summons don't leave a body when killed - like the Boars wouldn't do that for me for example. But still... it can work. I didn't find another suitable item for this interaction - maybe you know one. Anyway - with this you can make the Corpse Eater better in long fights that usually don't have "food" for him. Bringing your own targets for deliverering crits will make it easier (for example Many Lives Skeletons). Don't know yet if it's worth it though - or if it's too fiddly. We'll see...

If you use the Helwax Mold for The Flames of Fair Rhîan and then also buy Taluntain's Staff you could have 9 Fireballs per rest. I did this with a Rogue (because ACC also not bad and Deathblows working with spells - Sneak Attack not though). But this comes all a bit late. Rotfinger Gloves, Amulet of Summer Solstice, Sun-Touched Mail and Munacra Arret are esp. nice imo because they can be obtained rel. early. Same with the White Spire (estoc in Defiance Bay). It has 3 Blizzards per rest. You can stack a really decent amount of per-rest spells on a character that way and make him a good caster. I wrote a little build guide for a Rogue + scrolls, it's in the build list under "Sorcerer's Apprentice". It's a Rogue and not a fighter but the principles apply to both (instead of Deathblows the Fighter has Disciplined Barrage which stacks very nicely with the accuracy bonus that is on most of those spellbinds - except Ring of Changing Heart which has no acc bonus iirc). --- Edit: in Deadfire you can recharge "charged" spellbinds if you have two of the same item. FOr example a Necklace of Fireballs usually has 8 charges and if it's depleted you can basically throw it away. But if you have another one in the stash you can stack them to a pile and when you seperate them again both are charged full again. I never tried this in PoE - but maybe... maybe one could use the Helwax Mold on one of those charged items (there's the Red Reed Wand or the Rod of Wind and Thunder for example) and then do the same in PoE? As I said I never tried and most likely this doesn't work like in Deadfire - but maybe it's worth a shot? Because then you'd have the perfect spellbinding item that had a ton of spells and you could recharge them after every encounter...

The rel. early Amulet of Summer Solstice and Sun-Touched Mail of Hyran Rath for some AoE dmg. Munacra Arret and Spirit Spiral (charm) as well als Ring of Changing Heart (dominate) for impactful CC.

Psion is one of my favorite class options. Very nice with all sorts of casters in multiclass I think, but I also enjoyed it a lot as single class (bc. notably faster focus generation). The one I liked best is maybe Psion/Troubadour. However, I didn't really try Psion/Priest yet - so I cannot say how that plays. It should be good though, don't see a reason why it shouldn't be. Having said that: usually Xoti as single class Priest is fine for me. I don't like to bring too many "soulless" hirelings into the party. It makes the playthrough a little dull for me personally. Later Vatnir is a cool Priest alternative. He has an excellent spell portfolio because he brings some nice alternative damage spells to the usual priests' offensive fire spell monotony. --- An unorthodox Priest option that I did and enjoyed was Berserker/Priest (mine was Berserker/Priest of Wael, but the Priest subclass doesn't really matter). The reason to take Berserker was to become confused at will, which allows you to cast Withdraw on enemies. It is an auto-hit and a benefical effect. That means: defenses don't matter, high Resolve won't shorten the duration, no immunities whatsoever. Just *pouf* - gone for some time. You can use that trick very early in the game to shut down dangerous enemies in no time, finish the rest of the group and then deal with the withdrawn afterwards. There's a pair of shoes that grant you an additional spell of that Power Level, so iirc you can easily get 3 casts of Withdraw per encounter. That's three enemies taken out of the fight for a pretty decent amount of time. With Empower to fill up your spell uses again you can even take out some more. If you have a Cipher in the party who casts Ancestors Memory on you: just withdraw everybody but one. Very easy fights... Of course there's other little synergies between Berserker and Priest (casting speed with Frenzy/Bloodlust/Blood Thirst on kill, +2 PEN, Spirit Frenzy applying to spell hits and so on... if the Berserker/Priest is a good finisher then Triumph of the Crusaders + Blood Thirst is great), but the main reason was withdraw + confusion. A thing that one has to keep in mind: If the Priest wants to buff the party a lot at the start of the encounter then one might run into action economy issues. Casting an Aware inspiration + Devotions ftF takes some time and you def. don't want to be confused while casting those. So maybe wait with the Frenzy until all buffs are cast - or have high RES so that the confusion only lasts a short while during the Withdraw cast - or use Modwyr to "unconfuse" with a weapon switch at will. A Tactician/Priest could also do this in theory, but I guess way more fiddly. Anyway - just one maybe interesting ability/spell combo that's not widely known and can be very impactful.

I personally think Sage is the most entertaining combo to play. Yeah, Godlikes - or rather their racial abilities - are not really that great. But for thematic reasons it might be still nice to pick them. Also Death Godlikes get some special dialogue options in the game.

I ran a solo Geomancer (Stalker/Bloodmage) - but it used Willbreaker as main weapon for the Geomancer himself. Draining Touch was used for the Phantom. The synergy was that Willbreaker + modal lowers fortitude which is great for the Animal Companion's Takedown Combo (targets fortitude) and also lowers Will (stacks with Miasma) which is great for the Phantom's Draining Touch (targets Will). That way the AC could apply Takedown Combo and the Phantom then smashes the enemy with Draining Touch crits and with a +100%dmg bonus. Takedown Combo also works for spells from the Geomancer of course. With thick armor the phantom + Draining Touch was pretty sturdy, the Bear companion was sturdy, too - and the Geomancer was also pretty sturdy because Stalker's passive + wizard's buffs. --- My approach with Draining Touch as main weapon for the character (I often used it with Aloth): I use it with Engagement-bonus gear like a shield or Kapana Taga (club, +modal) and Reckless Brigandine and then use Ryngrim's spells to cause terrify whenever possible. For those I use Whitewitch Mask (also looks decent with the Brigandine). This will allow free disengagement attacks against the terrified enemies which are brutal with Draining Touch. The Phantom can use the same method because from its gear it will also have some engagement slots (usually 2 or 3). So enemies get into double disengagement trouble... Kapana Tanga can be better than a shield because it not only provides +2 engagement but also lowers Will by 25 points with the modal - and that's the defense that Draining Touch does target. But I think it depends on the class combo you pick. You can then decide which second class is best: Unbroken is cool because of the additional armor with a shield and the insane PEN bonus of the disengagement attacks and the additional engagement slots from Hold the Line and Defender Stance and so on. And of course a Fighter/Wizard can later use Unbending with Wall of Draining which makes you basically immortal. I'd go with a shield because of Shield Mastery (Unbroken passive). Monk is nice because Club+modal+Draining Touch is a lot of virtual accuracy which works well with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. And later Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge or Efficient Anguish is just great. For a Sage I would def. use Tuotilo's Palm. Rogue is also very good because the very high base damage of Draining Touch works nicely with the Rogue's damage bonuses such as Sneak Attack and Deathblows. I'd recommend a Streetfighter because ,out can easily become bloodied with Blood Sacrifice and then dish out truly jawdropping dmg numbers when doing disengagement attacks while heated up (because Sneak Attack will have a +50% bonus then). Debonaire is a no-go imo because: no engagement. I'd use Kapana Tanga here. Steel Garrote is another nice combo. The Draining Touch applies weakened which unlocks the Steel Garrote's life drain. It stacks with the one from Draining Touch, giving you nice healing when punching things. Combine with the other goodies any Arcane Knight can have and you will be a very tanky yet offensively capable character. I think I would use a shield in this caseto double down on the tankyness. Furyshaper is the next option I enjoyed. You cannot combine Phantom and Wards (both summons) but the interaction of the fear ward with Barbaric Shout and Draining Touch and a club+modal is great. You drop a fear ward , summon the Draining Touch and then you will lower enemies' Will via shout and gain +3 engagement. You drop the Miasma and maybe even a Spirit Tornado. Most enemies will have their Will defense crushed and be terrified by now and you can engage them and punch them with good speed. Carnage is nice with Draining Touch because the base dmg of the weapon is high. When enemies disengage you punish them, too. Bloodlust, Blood Thirst, Blood Slaughter... This combo is also nice for your action economy because you don't have to cast Ryngrim spells that often. I'm sure other combos with Draining Touch Bloodmage and Ranger, Cipher etc. can be cool, too - but I didn't really try those out enough to be able to make any meaningful recommendation. For all of those combos my final piece of headgear is the Helm of the White Void by the way. Before that I use Whitewitch Mask as I said. Since Draining Touch comes with the weaken effect the +10 accuracy of Rhymrgand's Influence always applies. Of course this comes rather late, but it's something to look forward to.

How about 69%?

Right. Also Corrupting Beauty has pulsing attack rolls (great for Avenging Storm) - but that's not mentioned in the description.

It doesn't matter why I don't use consumables. I know I'm not the only one so it doesn't hurt to give another reasonably argued point of view... so that OP can see if he agrees - or not - and then make a well-informed decision that matches with his wishes and expectations. I'm not pushing somebody towards anything - I just give my perspective and then let OP decide whether that applies to him or not. Again: I'm not saying it's not fine. I'm saying that I - personally (stated that every time explicitly) - am not in favor of making consumables an integral part of my character. So if OP feels the same way or can somewhat relate then he can consider this - and if he doesn't agree then he can discard what I wrote. Better to read two reasonably written opinions on a matter than just one. Yes, it stacks with everything except the Rogue's Escape. Later Veiled Hood (Mask of the Weyc) is the same: it stacks with everything except Arcane Veil. You can stack both and extend them with WoD for +100 deflection, which stacks with all other deflection buffs (like Mirrored Images or so). The downside of the cape is that you have to become bloodied in order to unlock it - but I guess that's not a big problem with a Bloodmage. By the way, speaking of WoD: I also like to prolong Blightheart's healing on hit and Lesser Lay on Hands (gloves). You can switch Blightheart after shooting/receiving the heal effect. The healing will stay. Iirc it pulses and every pulse adds a healing over time and they can be individually prolonged (but maybe I remember wrong). I mean just in case one seeks some "self contained" healing options that work with Wall of Draining. Wall of Draining works best if enemies have beneficial effects which the Wall and drain from. If enemies don't have that then WoD doesn't work as well. You can makesureall enemies have a benefical effect to drain from by wearing the Cap of the Laughingstock. Its "Village Fool" enchantment gets automatically placed on enemies in range (as well as allies) and is considered a benefical effect - thus the Wall can drain duration from it, even though Village Fool has no duration (is infinite).

Yes, but only from time to time for a rel short amount of time. Doesn't make the modal (which works at all times) redundant. To the contrary: the faster you can shoot the higher the chances to trigger Bullet Time in a given time frame. Skipping reload (original idea) would also be an absolute buff which would make any speed buffs obsolete for a short amount of time. So I think when it's about coming close to the original (which doesn't work) -80% is more in the spirit than -50% imo. Doesn't matter if the 80% would be overkill often. But it would be very nice for characters with no actual speed buffs and feel powerful compared to their usual slow reloading speech. Another thing: does Bullet Time allow to get triggered while Bullet Time is active? I imagine if it worked like intended (0 reload time) it could lead to an extended duration because it gets triggered again during that rapid-fire phase.

I quickly tested the Apex Ward jut now (with CP and Enhanced UI mod) and it worked like intended: when blooded I gained +10 ACC and +10% dmg to my attacks. Healed back up - bonus is gone. Next fight, getting bloodied: again +10 ACC and +10% dmg. :shrug It's weird though that the Bood Rage effect will not get listed under benefical effects or on the char sheet at all. You have to do an attack roll and check the log in order to find it. Which other enchantments did you put on your shield? Maybe there's some interaction... Nevermind: tested it with all enchantments - didn't change the outcome.

Then maybe do -80% (like the stealth bonus) to make sure the floor is def. met with Bullet Time?

Whoopsi!

That's your preference. As I made clear not using them is just mine. OP might tend towards your preference or mine. No. As I explicitly wrote above I simply don't use consumables as part of a little personal challenge. I find using them cumbersome (and I especially don't like that scrolls take away the uniqueness of class abilities). Instead of hording them I just sell all consumables (except food bc. you are kind of forced to use food/drink while resting). But I guess there are enough players who don't use consumables because they hoard them. The reason for not making them an integral part of a character build doesn't matter though: if you don't like to use consumables then you shouldn't rely on them when planning a character concept. If you have no problem with using them on a regular basis then that's not a problem of course. That is why I explicitly wrote that Wellspring of Life is worth it - in my opinion - if it helps you to get over that threshold (+3 PL for 1 additional for us per sec) and otherwise... not. For a multiclass character (like Bloodmage/Psion) it's accessible at level 19 out of 20. It comes very late in terms of character progression and still late enough in terms of game content. It's nice no doubt and often it is fun to use. I will absolutely use it myself with all sorts of buffs (see stuff like +50 deflection from the Magnificent Escape Cape) - I just wouldn't plan a build around it because the majority of time you play the game you will not be able to use it. I doesn't matter whether I am the only one who thinks godlikes are good or not (I don't think they are generally a good pick). If one can make a good argument against Wellspring of Life in the scope of this thread then that's fine - as it is fine if somebody makes a good argument in favor of it. In this case - as I said: it's worth it imo if it helps you to easily/conveniently get the +1 focus per second. In addition to that picking Nature Godlike is also worth it imo because of thematic reasons if you also want to use the Lance. That's my two points pro Nature Godlike. There are surely other points for another player race. If all those points are presented the OP can make an informed decision for himself.

By the way: If you switch away from the Lance while having woodskin, form of the delemgan or any plant effect (also see tanglefoot or thorny roots) you will immediately lose the +2 Power Levels from Lord of the Forest. If you switch back to the Lance the PL bonus will also be back. It is worth going Nature Godlike if the 1 additional PL brings your Soul Mind focus generation over the edge to generate 1 more focus per second - which is a huge improvement. If it doesn't then maybe not, although +1 PL does a lot more for you than simply add a bit of additional focus - see +1 ACC, +5% base dmg, +5% duration, +0.25 PEN and all that. Iirc Wellspring of Life + Lord of the Forest are exactly worth +1 more focus per second for the Psion. Since the Psion generates Focus at all times, even while casting and recovering and even while CC'd in most cases (as long as not critically Hit), this is a very good bonus imo. If you don't want Nature Godlike then Stone of Power can substitute it, you keep the +1 focus and can enjoy the benefits of a helmet. It may also depend on party vs solo - and on what you are willing to invest on a regular basis in fights. I personally wouldn't want to chuck a potion for getting to a decent PL threshold, but instead I would want to achieve a better focus generation with abilities and gear that I can use in every fight (in case of Stone of Power you'd need two of those then) and which I can get access to relatively early (see Nature God-like and Lance of the Midwood Stag). So with recommendations I personally will not take into account stuff like potions, Wall of Draining and Wand of the Weyc etc. The first I would be reluctant to use all the time (actually I'd never use it, that's my own lil' challenge) and the second come pretty late so that the game is too far advanced in terms of "time played vs. time left to play". Hence I recommended Lance otMS if you have a Druid in the party who can cast Woodskin and Form of the Delemgan. That's easy, reliable and early access to the +2 PL of the Lance. Reling on becoming blooded for that one cast of woodskin would be too fiddly for my personal taste as the only source for the PL boost, but of course it's a source that's accessible as soon as you get that enchantment on the Lance, especially with a Bloodmage. A Death Godlike can also be a good source of PL for a Psion. Being near death raises your focus by 1/sec right away. But of course it's also super risky if you don't go the Barring Death's Door + WoD/SoT route. For me personally not worth the hassle. Nature Godlike or Stone of Power is easier and I like the thematic fit of Nature Godlike + Lance of the Midwood Stag/Lord of the Forest. For me the thematic fit is an important part of whether I enjoy playing a build or not. I guess that's different for everybody though.

This is interesting. That is usually one of the easier fights for me personally (other that the Changeling's Dance for example, grmblfx...). I'm using official companions most of the time. I don't know why - I guess it has something to to with the general tactics I like to use (like for example "assembling" as many enemies as possible in one spot before really opening the fight) that make some other fights (especially with lots of very mobile + tough enemies) pretty hard but others pretty easy - contrary to what other players describe.

Oh, weird... that is something I never experienced. Is the combat mode over though? If so that sounds like a veritable bug. I wonder what might trigger it. I did that fight so many times... there has to be one sort of behavior or prerequisite that breaks the quest that I didn't use (much) or have. Did you by any chance use some sort of destroy effect - for example Disintegration, Marux Amanth, Saru Sichr's Death Sentence (Neriscyrlas should be immune to that though), Amra's Riven Gore, Death Ring or something like that?

Yes, it does. Stacking universal Power Levels is great for boosting the Psion's focus generation. So stuff like the Lance of the Midwood Stag (+2 PL) is a nice "stat stick" for a Psion (if you have a Druid with Woodskin and/or Form of the Delemgan). Also Stone of Power...