Boeroer

DId you know that Inspiring Radiance completely stacks with itself (if you have two or more Priests)? Very funny if you do a 6 Priests run. +60 ACC for the party that early in the game is... potent - even if it doesn't last that long.

That is correct.

Erm... both at the same time. I use him as main tank swashbuckler with a large shield and lots of engagement items (Hold the Line, Reckless Brigandine, Kapana Taga, Cadhu Scalth), Riposte, Mob Stance and a pet like Abraham for example. It makes him rel. fast when he's engaging a lot of enemies which makes him more reactive while still being able to engage 5 enemies - more is not practical imo. With Persistent Distraction he will passively debuff and afflict those 5 enemies automatically which is nice. With Kapana Taga and his attacks and Ripostes he will debuff enemies' Will for my party. I also pick Adept Evasion - because in combination with the modal of the large shield and the enchantments of Cadhu Scalth you cannot really harm him when you cast friendly-fire spells on him + the enemies he's holding - if those spells target reflex. I also give him an item that makes him immune to push/pull effects (usually the Upright Captain's Belt) because I like to make heavy use of Pull of Eora in the area where he is holding most enemies. He will skill Athletics and Metaphysics bc. of Cadhu Scalth. He will not do great amounts of weapon damage nor will he be the tankiest of tanks - but he's really useful for me that way. He is and was totally fine for lots of my party runs as the only tank. It takes some levels until he can withstand all sorts of enemies alone - but at some point it just works. Maybe because I usually don't use glass cannons so there is always a bit of support at the front line. And lots of debuffs and CC from the second row which of course helps with survivability of the front line. The biggest gripe I have with him is his lowish INT. It's not so bad when taking Tactical Barrage - but I would still like my tank to have more INT. I would also have liked him to be an Unbroken instead of a no-subclass Fighter. But it still works.

I don't mind a Wiedergänger thread. I just wouldn't expect the addressed users to actually respond if their quoted post is like four years old.

While Xoti's passive (+3 wounds on kill) only works for melee weapon kills(!) her lantern restores +1 wound an 1 motification for any kill, no matter how. This can be important for Contemplative (e.g. Blessed Harvest kills will not trigger the passive, but the lantern's refund) and if you want to use Inner Death and Resonant Touch. Kills by those will not trigger Xotis "+3 wounds on kill" passive. I know, Inner Death: unpopular choice... but it's actually pretty fun if one builds around it, has the lantern and adds Empowered Strikes, too. Like... if you grow tired af spamming WotW with Monks. Since Inner Death costs Mortification it isn't affected by Xoti's increased wound cost. And with the lantern you can reuse it for every 3 kills you do. Be a little backline hunter, palm casters to death and so on. I liked to combine it with Skyward Kick. With Community Patch Inner Death is properly tagged as melee weapon attack, so you even get the +3 wounds on kill for Xoti. Made alternating between Skyward Kick and Inner Death easy. That's a pretty amusing combo against weak but dangerous enemies you want to get rid of asap. Of course not as overwhelmingly potent as WotW is.

Perhaps, perhaps not - I liked Durance, too. What's really off though is your timing. ...

@Achilles like:

Right - totally forgot about that.

I wouldn't nerf casters just because Rougues are a bit lame on PotD difficulty. First of all I would give Persistent Distraction's "Distracted" the feature to unlock Sneack Attack (as in Deadfire). Currently it doesn't (in PoE) and tha means Persistent Distraction doesn't unlock Deathblows by itself. Then I would scale Sneak Attack with level or make it a raw lash (less than 50% though I guess). This would mimic the ability to slide a weapon into the gaps of the enemy's armor when nobody's looking - sneaky. Raw lash would make Sneak Attack a bit less potent in the early game but much better over the course of the game because it's multplicative instead of additive dmg improvement. Would be a great combo with weapon quality, Deathblows and Backstab - and Finishing Blow, too. However, it would make Deep Wounds less effective compared to additive dmg - because raw dmg doesn't trigger Deep Wounds. So maybe alter Deep Wounds, too so that it gets triggered by pierce/slash/crush/raw dmg.

Hey no problem. We've all been wrong before and I will be wrong many times after. The MIG discussion - besides the mathematical question whether increasing the dmg bonus has what sort of returns - is more complex imo because it also contributes healing and Fortitude (which I consider to be the most important defense beside deflection). I personally don't consider MIG to be really worthwhile if it's solely taken for dmg - but I often raise it anyway - not only bc. of defense or healing but because it would feel weird to play let's say a two-handed axe swinging guy with 10 MIG...

I also almost always use Edér's pet slot. There are a lot of nice combos in it. For example +20 healing on kill pets and +10 healing on kill (party wide) pets also do stack. I mean that's not really surprising since healing sources never suppress each other. So if you have a offensively strong glass cannon character this can be a nice form of "passive" healing without wasting any time or character resources. The healing scales with items and so on as usual. But I guess my primary Berath's Blessing is the combo of the Port Maje dealer + 50K. On the other hand: I have maxed out Breath Blessing points long ago so it's hard to tell what I would pick first nowadays if those points where scarce. Maybe lvl 4 now that I think about it. I start a new run so often and it really helps to speed the early game up. It would be more like a convenience thing. As a player who only aims to play once or twice I 'd probably pick attribute points because they feel the most special.

You should only speak for yourself about what is easy to believe and what is not. To me there is no difference in ridiculousness whether a Chanter causes burn and slash damage by singing a phrase, a Wizard summons a big crushing hammer out of thin air - or if a Monk punches enemies with flying fists that also do additional shock damage. It's all bananas - but it's fun and that's all that matters in a game. And of course there is a reason for that feeling you describe. And it's noted that some players don't like monks. But what should the developers and players who enjoy monks do about that? The solution for your problem is very simple: if you don't like the monk class - for whatever reason, it's your taste - you don't pick it. If you don't like spaghetti you don't order them in a restaurant. What would be your suggestion? Remove the monk so that players who don't like it won't be offended by its existence as a playable class? Ask the chef to remove spaghetti from the menu? That doesn't sound reasonable.

IIRC it's not flagged as an melee weapon attack but like a melee spell attack (similar to vanilla Forbidden Fist attack or Inner Death) so a lot of those items do not work with it. And iirc futher the Mage Slayer's spell disruption works if it's just tagged as melee (and doesn't need the weapon part) - but I may misremember. I will look it up again and then follow up. Edit/follow-up: I misremembered. But the outcome is almost the same. So the on-crit attack from Frostseeker is a melee weapon attack. But it's not the damaging AoE itself. This intermediary melee attack is triggered by a crit of Frostseeker's projectiles and it then triggers the AoE (don't ask me why it's implemented with that step in between, I have no idea). This melee attack is an auto-hit, so no separate hit roll that can crit. That is the reason why on-crit stuff like Boltcatchers, Swift Flurry etc. won't work. Mage Slayer's spell disruption works because it works on any hit quality (not misses of couzrse). And Hylea's Talons work, too. Anything that works on melee weapon hit should. No fancy accessory comes to my mind besides Hylea's Talons atm but maybe there is something.

Alec Frey (producer) and Matt Hansen (art director) already stated some time ago that they would be on board. Fingers crossed!

Before doing extensive tests in game etc: If one uses the attack speed calc (derived from game code) I linked one can see the results in frames - and then maybe deduce whether the returns are linear (discarding little steps that are a result of rounding). I guess this makes it more easy to produce workable numbers compared to logging frames in the game or so. Besides that of course DEX has increasing returns in the form of a bonus to the Reflex defense. But most players, including me, think that Reflex is one of the more unimportant defenses so it's maybe not really worth taking up a bigger part of the discussion about DEX and its benefits as an attribute.

Oh, I forgot: Frostseeker's AoE that procs on crit is a melee attack (weird, but it's like that). Because of that a Mage Slayer can use that bow to apply the spell disruption via bow. A Mage Slayer/Ranger (like Sharpshooter or Ghost Heart or so) can be built into a high ACC "caster sniper" who not only does good DPS but also shuts down enemy casters reliably from a safe distance and without the need of moving towards the targets. Mage Slayer/Cipher can do similar things with a bit less accuracy and without Driving Flight of course - but it can combine frighten (see Secret Horrors for example) and the spell disruption to not only shut down casters but also the other offensive abilities of most enemies. Also Mind Control which is always very powerful. Mage Slayer/Troubadour can do similar things but has to get a bit closer and has less accuracy. But summons, high versatility and more attack speed make up for that. It's a little trick that makes the Mage Slayer worth taking. It's something different and therefore maybe more exciting that a more traditional bow build, no idea. I found it interesting.

I only use the Community Patch (with two or three minor adjustments) and the Enhanced UI mod. But I try to recommend stuff based on the vanilla game as a baseline. My favorite ranged character is an Arcane Archer/Troubadour with an Arbalest (Spearcaster). It is the most overall useful ranged character I had in any full party run by far (excluding mortar monk - but I consider that to be more of a hybrid build and not really ranged) because it can do so many things very well. But it doesn't use a bow obviously. From a DPS perspective the best bows are hunting bows (both Essence Interrupter and Amiina's Legacy are great) and Frostseeker with a more specialized build. Arcane Archer/Ascendant is very strong with Frostseeker because the Accuracy is the highest in the game. It's great even if you just keep shooting and never spend focus for spells other than self buffs (because Ascendant's Soul Whip doesn't turn off when focus is full but instead gives extra dmg). For the early game a Berserker/Streetfighter with Essence Interrupter (or later Amiina's Legacy) and the hunting bow modal is ridiculously fast (if you get bloodied from Berserker Frenzy that will trigger the Streetfighter passive). Frenzy, Bloodlust, bow modal and "Heating Up" will all stack and let you shoot incredibly fast, with very high dmg bonuses but not too good accuracy. But this is redeemed a bit with the +5 acc the hunting bows have naturally and the conversions the Barb and Streetfighter abilities can offer. Also stuff like Gauntlets of Greater Reliability do help and of course taking a human (being bloodied gives extra acc and dmg). This build can help a LOT with the erlarly struggles of Gorecci Str. and the digsite and will just gatlin-gun down most enemies. Even if you miss several shots: they do come in to fast and then with such high dmg per hit (Sneak Attack + Streetfighter Sneak Attack Bonus + Blooded + Fighting Spirit) that even higher level enemies get overwhelmed quickly. It is risky though because you will have to deal with the steeply scaling self damage of the Berserker which is used to get to the bloodied state quickly. You don't want to get attacked too much - unless you invest in higher CON, but that significantly prolongs the time it takes to become bloodied and profit from the Streetfighter passive. For the patient player there is the kind of counterintuitive way to play a single class wizard - maybe even Conjurer - who uses a hunting bow like Essence Interrupter first and uses his Phantom to help with the ranged DPS (also Phantom's crits also cause enemies to turn into summons after death) and later switches to Caedebald's Blackbow. Wizard + Phantom, optimized with items for bow use (Ring of the Marksman and so on) are devastating on the battlefield when they use the Blackbow. Its projectiles jump once up to 12m in all direction and target fortitude instead of deflection, the dmg is corrosion (Spirit of Decay does +1 PEN) and it causes terrify on every hit. This also makes the Helm of the White Void an excellent choice for headgear because every shot of the bow contains an affliction which means every shot from the Blackbow gets +10 ACC. That way the Wizard can achieve very high ACC (also see Citzals Martial Power) and the Phantom isn't far behind. A party member with a Morning Star and some fortitude debuffs (CON and/or MIG afflictions) dies also help a lot. Besides that the Wizard can cause those debuffs with spells, too (see Ryngrim's spells for example). I find this to be fun and worthwhile the wait, but of course in the beginning it's not really an optimized build for bow use. Feels rewarding later though, so maybe it's interesting.

Yes, it used to do that. You could stack Disoriented without a hard limit (only the duration made sure that the stacks woudn't get too high). Then it got nerfed so that the "Disorienting" debuff doesn't stack anymore (not even from different weapons who apply the same effect). I suspect one of my posts where I showed how to prolong the duration of Disoriented so that you could debuff most enemies to negative defenses was the trigger for this nerf. Edit: Ha, found a screenshot that I used in that thread but couldn't find the thread anymore:

I've done a lot of playing with all classes in PoE and Rogue + Fighter are def. the weakest ones over the course of the a whole playthrough. Start really nice but fall flat on PotD. Mostly due to the lack of AoE. Rangers are also not fantastic bc- of the same problems - but better than Rogue and Fighter imo. Usually the casters will steal the show. Even on the Rogue's home court, melee single target damage - a caster may overpower him (see Shapeshifting Druid with Avenging Storm), at least for a short time. And that guy would have a great deal of spells to unleash in tough encounters on top. I have tested countless character builds in special fights over and over again and Rogue as well as Fighter always were the hardest ones. BUT: that's often without using things like Shadowing Beyond which can be of course a great tool for a solo run. I don't mean they are unplayable or anything - just less "potentially" potent on PoTD that the other classes in general. I still had very enjoyable Rogue and Fighter builds though, especially in a party where they could focus on certain special tasks where the lack of AoE didn't matter at all (like hunting enemy casters in the backline or so).

Heh - this is a case for inspector @thelee. Looks linear enough to me, especially in the range of around 10 to 25 - which is the range we should be talking about when it's about deciding how to distribute attribute points at character creation. Besides that - I also often don't raise DEX too high. But not because of limited returns but because I value the effects of some other attributes higher for most characters (not all though - my Skalds for example often come with maximized attack speed). By the way here is a an attack speed calculator (done by @MaxQuest) which makes it rel. easy to experiment with the attack speed variables, incl. DEX: https://naijaro.github.io/deadfire-speed-calculator/ Well - I did not. Berserker can lead to that no doubt, but I described the techniques with which I prevented this. As was shown the main point is automatic wound generation when it comes to Berserker/Monk. And that - together with the spared ability point for Thunderous Blows, +2 AR and crit conversion is def. worth the downsides in my book. Esp. because you can simply circumvent the Confusion part which would be the biggest downside (if you don't want to turn it into a cheesy upside). I don't think it's hard. I only think it's not the way most players tend to play the game. Hence I don't use no rest as a base for how to judge if a build might be enjoyable for other players (who didn't indicate that they are about to do a no-rest run - in that case I wouldn't recommend anything because I don't enjoy no-rest runs). Yo-rest runs tend to be lighter on the indicator space. I wasn't talking about any mods - and I also said I didn't even need Savage Defiance. Clearly your build was a lot different from the one I described. Yes - but as I described I didn't devote lots of healing resources to the Berserker/Monk. It was an amount of healing any regular party would be happy with and not excessive. That would be the case if I talked about a Berserker/Helwalker with dumped CON - did that, also was fun but was def. dying a whole lot without meticulous babysitting. They are both considered active buffs and thus don't stack. No, Turning Wheel does not stack with INT inspirations. MIG from Helwalker does stack with MIG inspirations because that special MIG bonus comes from a passive. One is always doing adjustments and resource diversion to make a build idea work. You will put lots on RES into a FF Monk, you will give high ACC to a Skald, you will put a melee weapon and high dmg bonuses on a Soulblade, you will give special healing care to the Bloodmage, you'll make sure your Psion doesn't get attacked so much and so on and so forth. It is nothing special to make certain adjustments in order to create an enjoyable (main) character. Besides that you ignored the main reason to bring it up: it was originally done to maximize the combination of Saru Sichr and Swift Flurry/HBD and I brought it up as an alternative for a single class Monk which was mentioned as a potential wielder for Saru Sichr. I think there is no easier way to generate that amount of wounds right from the start - there are more safe ways of course, but not easier. You just press Frenzy (which you would want to activate as a Barb anyway) and the wounds start acumulating very quickly. That's as easy as it gets imo. I have no problem with that.

DEX has linear returns by the way, not limited. Comparing Tenacious from Berserker with the effects of Slayer's Claw is pretty... wild. The Berserker's Tenacious via Frenzy comes at lvl 1 - while Slayers Claw is late game material. Then Slayer's Claw will upgrade your Tenacious inspiration to Energized like it would upgrade Strong to Tenacious, so it isn't really a substitute but an addition even for Berserkers (if one wishes). Imo the best argument against Berserker/Monk would have been that Monks can get Tenacious via Thunderous Blows - which will come way earlier that Slayer's Claw normally. Of course I skip Thunderous Blow's when using a Berserker, spares an ability point... My Berserker was meant as an example for a Saru-Sichr/Swift Flurry option instead of SC Monk, not a general recommendation for Berserker. Berserker's self dmg combined with concealed health is indeed a dangerous combo most of times. Anyway, here the strong synergy of Berserker/Helwalker (or any monk besides Forbidden Fist and Shatters Pillar) comes from the fact that Berserker's self damage fuels wound generation... a lot. Forbidden Fist could also work bc. the confusion from Frenzy is separate from the beneficial effects and gets shortened by RES and Clarity of Agony, so you only become confused for a short time and then get healing + wound. This also works... but back to the Helwalker variant. So as I said the self damage of Berserker fuels the wounds of the Helwalker. It already works well at low levels, but since the self damage scales so steeply while the wound threshold doesn't change, you will figuratively drown in wounds at some point. Now high accuracy is better than crit conversion most of times, but with a build I described that is about Saru Sichr and Swift Flurry/HBD the added conversion also helps. You want to create as many crit chains as you can after all. If one doesn't play juiced up with potions and special food and multiple resting bonuses in a "no rest" run but rather normally and with a party, it's not that easy to crit all the tough enemies all the time. Then a good base of conversion is not lost. Berserker's conversion does not additively stack with Bloody Slaughter, Willbreaker and Barbaric Blow - but it will stack. So in cases where a crit chain could end prematurely because you rolled low it still has a chance to go on bc. the roll gets converted up. It will not make a ton of difference but I take it. Of course the combination of Berserker and Helwalker, even with maxed CON and damage reduction, is a dance on the edge, but that's also part of the fun for me. Of course more MIG via high wound count and up to +50% received dmg will raise the self damage of Frenzy even more - and that can hurt a lot while it also leads to a violent eruption of wounds. To mitigate frustration I described the variant of maxed CON and using some sources of damage reduction (helm, ring, maybe food) which works very well. If one adds some form of healing on the fly (like a pet with +20 healing per kill, maybe supported by an Edér pet that adds +10 per kill party-wide and then Devil of Caroc Breastplate for example, best armor for Berserkers in most cases anyway). Lastly taking Blooded makes sure you have an easy indicator for when your health drops below 50% - and you get +25% dmg (again good for wounds and bad for your health). I like to take humans for such a build because there are added bonuses when going blooded. To get a further indicator you can also use an item that triggers if you are near death. I didn't need it but they are there in case one needs more info about the health status. Since Barbs have such high base health and Barb/Monks are not far behind the maxing of CON adds a ton of absolute health. While I tend to drop CON in most builds in this case its a staple. A huge health pool means a huge wound resource in this case. And with the right approach (as I said I also added Amulet of Greater Health and the ability Tough to the mix) you'll have more health while Bloodied than Edér has when unharmed. Now, it's still absolutely beneficial (I'd say mandatory) to have a good source of additional healing in the party. In my run Tekehu, who just cast Nature's Balm at the start of battle, was enough to substitute the Berserker/Helwalker with his additional self-healing properties via pet and stuff in most fights. Sometimes he had to get out the Moon well, too. Xoti dropped some additional healing as well. But I didn't even have to take Savage/Stalwart Defiance with the Berserker/Helwalker, which spared me some precious ability points again. Especially at the higher Power Levels there's just too much good stuff to pick. I didn't use Iron Wheel by the way - because neither the CON- nor the AR-bonus of it stacks with Frenzy's +5 CON and +2 AR. Turning Wheel doesn't have that problem. Since wounds are so plenty the wound counter is a 10 a lot of times. So you can get away with mediocre base INT - something that I normally don't do - but so is maxing CON. Another upside of such a Berserker/Helwalker is the comically high fortitude defense. The MIG bonuses of Frenzy and Helwalker passive do stack and maxed CON + Frenzy and some items add on top. Fortitude is a nice defense to have. It works against most effects that mess with your health pool, like weaken. You don't want to get your healing restricted when relying so much on it and stellar fortitude is a nice way of not getting struck with such afflictions in the first place. Can still be a thrilling experience of course - but I liked that for a main character. I have played many Berserker variants in the past though (also Berserker/Helwalker before) and this was one of the most easy-going ones when it comes to dying from self damage. Still this isn't supposed to be a glowing recommendation. I found it enjoyable but it maybe isn't for everyone.

I almost never use potions, but this is cool.

Unbroken/Wizard can profit from Body Blows with Knockdown early - and also from nasty disengagement attacks once you start terrifying enemies (they crouch around, you can engage and when they crouch out of engagement: boom). It can be a lot of fun but doesn't always work 100% reliably. Still it's a nice "free" source of additional damage output. If he Phantom has engagement (it has with some items like Reckless Brigandine for example) it works with the Phantom as well: It will follow crouching enemies, reangage and profit from disengagment attacks, too. Of course an Unbroken/Wizard will have more engagement slots than the phantom so the chance of triggeriung disengagement attacks its higher if multiple enemies are involved. Reckless Brigandine + White Witch Mask + Willbreaker is my preffered item setup for this. Also pretty tanky that one. But: using the phantom for such things can become a bit tiresome - because a rather elaborate summoning/casting-setup is involved. It might be that you don't want to go through that process in every encounter and soon would prefer a more straightforward approach. For solo I find this totally okay - for a party game it might be too much preperation at the start of battle for some players. Depends on the level of micromanagement you can tolerate - or if you are willing to script this behavior with the AI tool which can really help to mitigate the micromanagement-fatigue. --- I personally like to enchant Willbreaker with "Make them Flinch" (25% miss to graze) and combine that with Gauntlets of Greater Reliability (also 25% miss to graze). That way you can even graze (and apply Body Blows) enemies who have absurd defenses often enough. This can help to more easily crack very tough nuts. I value that over Battered Mind - although interrupt chance on hit is good, too. --- An even more potent "Swift Flurry machine" than Saru Sichr for MC or SC Monk is the spear Mohora Tanga. It has no fortitude debuff of course, but It also has a DoT that counts as separate weapon attack like Saru Sichr, but this one (named "Red Flag Flying") has the way more potent feature to trigger itself(!) on a crit. So it works like this: Mohora Tanga lands a crit -> this triggers Red Flag Fyling DoT getting applied, but it has to do a separate roll (which counts as a proper weapon attack of Mohora Tanga for the game logic) against Fortitude. If this roll crits it will trigger Red Flag Flying again - if this crits it triggers again... and again.. and again... as long as you crit. This is all without even Swift Flurry/HBD involved. Now - triggering Red Flag Flying on its own does not do much - because the DoT doesn't stack with itself. So one might ask "what's this good for"? Since all those rolls are considered proper weapon attack rolls they can trigger anything that gets triggeed by weapon rolls. Look at Boltcatcher Gloves, Gatecrasher Gloves or Hylea's Talons. Also look at Avenging Storm(!). And finally look at Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. They will have the chance to trigger from Red Flag Flying every time it appliies (itself). This makes crit chains incredibly easy to unlock - and if you combine with Boltcatchers for example it's just a very devastating combination. In fact it it can be so devastating that all the rolls will lets your computer decide that it's best to shut down the game without further notice. This happened to my latest Ranger/Monk so many times against not-so-tough enemies that I decided to stop that build. Crashing game every second encounter wasn't fun anymore. But that was also due to the fact that the Ranger/Monk had incredible accuracy. Once it is nearly impossible to not crit it becomes a problem with this spear. But if you go with lower accuracy it's a great weapon to still have superb Swift FLurry experience without breaking the game too often I guess. Another great Swift-Flurry weapon (without crashing the game) is Sun & Moon. It has basically the same feature as Saru-Sichr because it has two separate weapon rolls (both target deflection) which can trigger a full Swift FLurry/HBD attack roll - and so on. --- My last Saru-Sichr build which wa s really fun was Berserker/Helwalker with maxed CON. Because the dps came from crit chains mostly I didn't need much starting MIG (helped with the self damage of Frenzy+Helwelker passive) and with maxed CON + Tough + Amulet of Greater Health, Death's Maw and Voidward it was a surprisingly sturdy build with lots of crit chains and decent debuffing and CC "on the fly".

A Morning Star cries for anything that targets fortitude. For Barbs that can be anything that would target deflection (see Brute Force), for FIghters it's Knock Down and Clear Out, Monks have Force of Anguish and Skyward Kick which can all profit a lot from the fortitude debuff. Casters as Druids, Wizards and Ciphers ahve lots of spells that target fortitud as well. Barbarians as wielders of Morning Stars have the added benefit of Spirit Frenzy which staggers on any hit roll (-10 foritude) - this stacks with the Morning Star's Body Blows. Monks are also cool because they can use Enervating Blows and Stunning Blows to stun + weaken which is -20 fortitude. Because of that I often play Barb/Monk or Barb/Cipher with a Morning Star. But I also did a Stalker/Bloodmage solo because Willbreaker lowers fortitude for my Animal Companion's Takedown Combo and the lowered Will is perfect for my Essential Phantom which wields Concelhaut's Draining Touch (it targets Will and weakens for the Animal Comapnion - circle of synergy ;)) Furyshaper/Beguiler is maybe my favorite Witch combo with Willbreaker. That's a great debuffer and Crowd Controller. Since those are more valuable to me than dealing weapon damage I don't like using Soulblade in this case. There's simply no time and motivation to use my focus for dealing weapon damage but I prefer to spend the focus on CC/debuffing for my party. Casting Phantom Foes + Secret Horrors fills focus up for some mind control, debuffs with Stagger, Sicken and Frighten (-10 Will, -20 Fortitude already) before summoning the Fear Ward and then going in and dishing out Body Blows. Also it is a thematically nice roleplaying approach imo. Lil' terror dude. When Wizard is involved there is a nice little trick with Willbreaker: You can summon the Essential or Substancial Phantom and attack the same target together. The WIll debuff of Willbreaker normally cannot go higher than 5 stacks (-15 Will). But since your Phantom uses a copy of Willbreaker it creates it's own stack (also up to 5). That way you can lower the Will by 30 instead of 15 max. And of course it it way faster to down the Will of a single opponent that way. If you have a Black Jacket/Wizard you can also use both Willbreaker and a Club with modals and lower enemies' Will by 25 with the club modal, 30 with Willbreaker (+Willbreaker copy on the Phantom) and on top use a little Miasma of Dull-Mindedness for -40 Will. There are no immunities against this, so even most bosses will suffer greatly from -95 Will. Against most enemies the double Willbreaker approach isn't necessary I guess. You can always give your Phantom Draining TOuch as weapn instead which profits greatly from reduced Will. --- As soon as a Monk is involved I would however not pick Willbreaker but Saru Sichr instead. The reason is that Saru Sichr has an additional hit roll with its poison DoT (Poison Dipped) which can trigger Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming all by itself. And it targets fortitude. So with every strike of the Morning Star you get two chances to crit (one against deflection, one against fortitude) and thus two chances to trigger Swift Flurry and/or Heartbeat Drumming. Both then lead to an additonal attack which itself again has two chances of triggering and so on. Result is that it is much, much easier to create deadly chain of crits with Saru Sichr than it is with Willbreaker.

The easiest (and I guess mostly overlooked) solution is the pair of Healing Hands gloves. My Aloth almost always uses then at higher levels with WoD. Also Blightheart's Heartbeat can be a nice healing source to prolong with WoD because it doesn't rely on crits. It's a nice weapon for a Wizard to have anyway (bc. 10% corrosive lash for spells).