Boeroer

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).

It may be that if your attack has multiple hit rolls (e.g. using Crippling Strike - or whatever might add a secondary roll like Blood Frenzy) each of them might trigger the effect on crit. I don't think that Wounding/Mortal Wounds thenselves add another hit roll like Saru Sichr's "Poison Dipped" or Mohora Tanga's "Red Flag Flying" do. When used with a Barbarian who has Blood Thirst the perception might be skewed. Same with a Monk who uses Swift Flurry/HBD. Could also be that the actual value got raised without adapting the description. Mybe someone can look into the game object file. I'm on vacation at the Baltic Sea and only brought my phone.

It's the last upgrade "Spirit Tornado" which is not working as the rest (in the vanilla game). Blood Frenzy/Blood Storm and Spirit Frenzy apply their effects to all the character's crit rolls (Blood Frenzy) or hit+crit rolls (Spirit Frenzy). Only Spirit Tornado doesn't. Blood Frenzy didn't use to, too - but then when I asked the devs (when terhe was still patching going on) why Spirit Frenzy applies to all rolls and Blood Frenzy only to the initial weapon hit they changed it to match Spirit Frenzy. And maybe forgot Spirit Tornado (which I didn't notice to have the same limitation at the time)...?

It depends - as always. If you want to cast stuff then a Monk Multiclass (most likely Helwalker) is a very good pick - and SC Monks don't cast stuff. For example a Psion/Helwalker can dominate multiple enemies for a very, very long time with high ACC and gain Focus and Wounds comfortably from safety with Soul Mind + Enduring Dance of Death. A Streetfighter/Helwalker with Hand Mortar+Fire in the Hole can use Stunning Surge nearly countless times because you will nearly always land a crit with the big AoE of the mortars, stunning enemies in an AoE for a very long time while having incredible dmg bonuses and also reloading speed due to Streetfighter passive (which is triggered by Powder Burns). It's a damage/CC hybrid against mobs which is very strong very early on. With an SC Monk you have to wait longer to have such an impact. Also some builds want to rely on crits and play around with Swift Flurry/Heartbet Drumming. A Multiclass is better for this because you can combine multiple sources of accuracy and/or crit conversion. For example a Monk/Berserker with a Morning Star can add accuracy, crit conversion, Brute Force (lower enemies fortitude with a Mordnign Star, Enervating Blows and Spirit Frenzy by 45 so you will land a lot more crits by circumventing deflection). Sages (Wizard/Monk) are great in general. See stuff like Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge for example - while being defense-buffed up to the max with Wizard's self buffs and Monk's passives and attribute boosts (+10 INT=+20 Will or +10 CON = +20 fortitude, +10 MIG=+20 fortitude as Helwalker, too). On the other hand the SC Monk' PL 8 (Resonant Touch) and 9 (Whispers of the Wind) are incredible. Truly worth the wait imo. So it's more a matter of taste... or a matter of "what should the role of the character be?" or "waht should it play like?". I tried both MCs and SC multiple times and both have their appeal. There is no universal, general better or worse imo.

DPS is the most overrated metric in this game imo. It's fun to see high damage numbers, no doubt, that's why I include at least one of those into the party (still in love with Helwalker/Berserker+Saru Sichr bc. it's such a fun Swift-Flurry crit machine) - but the most impactful characters I played so far were no damage dealers. I guess Ydwin could be really fun as a Mindstalker with the Seeker's Fang. Those are potent (raw) dmg numbers.

Keep in mind that those 24% are only an additive dmg bonus. So it's calculated only on the base dmg of your weapon. If your weapon is let's say a sabre, the base damage is 13-19 or 16 on average. 16*0.24 = ~3.8. So the investment of 8 points of MIG only gives you +~4 dmg per weapon hit. It's a bit better with ability usage because the power level scaling applies to the base damage - but still not breathtaking - also because you get many more additive dmg bonuses like Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Soul Whip and weapon quality (fine, exceptional etc.). So the 24% from MIG would not be very noticable, at least for weapon attacks. For spell damage MIG is often the only source of dmg bonus besides Pwer Level Scaling. But for example DoTs like Disintegrate profit a lot more from INT than from MIG, too. Imo INT is themore impactful stat for such a build. Just make sure you don't end up with MIG below 10 - because damage maluses really hurt in Deadfire's damage calculation system.

Spirit Tornado in the vanilla game is kind of a trap choice. Reason is: Spirit Frenzy applies the Staggered affliction to all(!) of your hit rolls (weapon attacks, shouts, spells, Carnage, you name it). With Spirit Tornado this is suddenly restricted to your initial weapon attack only (no Carnage, no spells, no shouts etc.)

Every Paladin has access to Lay on Hands and also Exalted Endurance. Jmo that's enough to counter the loss of healing from Fury. Steel Garrote is only useful if you use melee weapons and do put afflictions on your melee enemies often and reliably. For such things Nature's Terror is really good - but beware the friendly fire! The Steel Garrote passive doesn't work with ranged weapons, so a shifted Fury (Storm Blight form) doesn't profit (because its natural weapons are ranged shock bolts). If you want to use those bolts and still get additional healing then Kind Wayfarer would be my pick. AoE healing via Flames of Devotion is nice, also for party members. And you can use Scion of Flame + Heart of the Storm to gain +2 PEN for the natural weapons of the shifted Fury (+1 for the fire part of FoD, +1 for the shocking base dmg). If you use a Bleak Walker/Fury you can get +3 PEN for Flames of Devotion with Scion of Flame, Heart of the Storm and Spirit of Decay (+1 for the fire part and +1 for the corrosion part of Bleak Walker's FoD, +1 for the shocking base dmg). With Ring of Focused Flame and Ring of Marksman this leads to +20ACC with FoD, double elemental lash (FoD + Wildstrike) and +4 PEN (the aforementioned+3 plus the Ring +1). The base dmg of the bolts isn't fantastic, but they so bounce once or additional enemies and with that much PEN and lashes they become fearsome. A Paladin/Druid can also use Firebrand to get persistent +10 ACC bonus with Ring of Focused Flame (all attacks of Firebrand count as fire attacks, even non-FoD) as well as +1 PEN from Scion of Flame. Also, if I remember correctly, Furies might get +1 PEN with Firebrand as well because of their passive (+1PEN with elemental spells)? Edit: nope for that last part

I am here. The other ones you mentioned: not so much. At least not in these PoE/Deadfire parts of the form.

Hi, Heralds are not supercrazy OP, but they are pretty good and hard to mess up. Most of the time players of Heralds combine Exalted Endurance (Paladin aura) with Ancient Memory (chant) and thus give their party (and themselves) constant passive healing which is quite potent. One reason why they are popular. They can also be very tanky and also versatile. Anyway, Paladin/Fury is not bad because the Fury cannot heal, but the Paladin can. So combining both makes some sense. Also the Paladin's Eternal Devotion (gaining a burning lash for some time) also applies to spells, which is nice. Put on Deltro's Cage + Helmet, grab Lord Darryn's Voulge and you have a cool and shocking Liberator. Race doesn't really matter, but I wouldn't use a godlike - because then no Deltro's helmet. I guess Coastal Aumaua can be nice because you can color the skin blueish with zickzacks - Lightning in your face... literally. I personally really like Arcane Knights (Paladin/Wizards). They can buff themselves to be very sturdy, they are versatile and fun to play imo. One of my most liked combos is Steel Garrote/Bloodmage with the weapon "Whispers of the Endless Paths", using its echantment "Offensive Parry". It allows you to counterattack on enemies' melee misses, dazes the enemy then which unlocks the Steel Garrote's live stealing passive which stacks with your Exalted Endurance, making it easy to pay for Bloodmage's "Blood Sacrifice" with your own health.

Nope.

In general the FF attack is its own weapon and doesn't care what you wear in your hand. It's like using a third arm with the FF-"fist". If the effect the weapon has only gets applied when that weapon is actually used, then the FF-attack will not profit from it. However, there are some weapons who have effects that apply to all your attacks, no matter if you used that weapon or something else (like FF or a spell or so). An example is Ball and Chain (a unique flail). Its enchantment that lowers enemies' crush AR ("Blunt Rock") would also work with your FF attack (and also spells and whatnot). Those effects are often called "universal" because they apply to all your attacks universaly. Here ist a list of weapons that behave like so and could be useful even if you mainly use your FF attack: As I said before (I believe it was in this thread, but I may misremember) something like a simple Dagger + modal would give you +10 melee deflection while it would not harm your FF attack's damage. Lover's Embrace could be a nice choice because not only does its modal benefit you but also its enchantment that gives you Frenzy would trigger on FF attacks.

Fortitude doesn't have to be lower from the start. For me, the difference of Fortitude - Deflection only has to be lower than 45 in order for Brute Force to be useful. And there are very few enemies with Deflection+45 <= Fortitude. Brute Force in PoE1 was less useful than in Deadfire imo because there was no Body Blows and the afflictions weren't as systemically ordered and based on attribute malus. In Deadfire, the synergy between Body Blows, MIG and CON affliction and Brute Force is the main reason I almost always use a Morning Star on a Barbarian. Hehe, most definitely I guess so - but I didn't try that out myself so I can't say for sure. Vela is an ally but not a party member iirc? Sometimes that's a tricky destinction. I tried it just now on an Essential Phantom and also on a Many-Lives Skeleton (also allies but not party members) and it indeed works on them - so the chances are high that it works with Vela, too I would say. *fingers crossed*

That would be unfortunate - but it is possible. I'm playing with the Community Patch for so long that I may have misremembered. In that case Swift Strikes will suffice I guess.

Sadly that shouldn't be the case. Indeed does Energized work with all sources of crits, including spells and spell-like abilities. Carnage does work like a spell and not like a weapon attack mechanically (that's why it doesn't generate focus and why it doesn't transport any weapon effects). It's like a spell-like ability that uses 33% of your weapon's base dmg as its own base damage (which is pretty bad in the early game) - and it scales that dmg with Power Level (which is nice). So far it could work with Energized. But that "spell" has the unfortunate restriction that even attack rolls over 100 are counted as hits, never crits. Therefore it should never be able to interrupt via the Energized inspiration. But: Amra's "Carnage" is different - because it can crit. --- As a Barbarian/Cipher I personally prefer Spirit Frenzy over Blood Storm (I don't even upgrade to Spirit Tornado), because Spirit Frenzy's stagger affliction works on hits instead of crits - and it can help to land Cipher spells vs. Fortitude (since the -5 MIG from stagger leads -10 Fortitude defense, too). It also helps with weapon dmg if you picked Brute Force (I always do). Brute Force also works with Cipher spells that target deflection (see Mind Blades and Amplified Thrust). In combination with Secret Horrors (Sicken, also -10 Fortitude) you can lower enemies' Fortitude by 20 points with one single spell use, which is cool imo. That can often make a big difference for hit quality, especially if you have Brute Force. Of course I like to combine those effects with a Morning Star - modal (for another -25 Fortitude debuff on top of staggered and sickened). --- Speaking of Witches: a Berserker/Cipher can use his confusion to cast several cipher spells on enemies that usually need an ally (Amplified Thrust, Amplified Wave, Ectopsychic Echo...) or to cast spells that need an enemy on allies (like Antipathetic Field for example). In case of Amplified Thrust it makes the spell hit the target twice and push it back. Usually I consider that spell pretty meh, but with that variant you get twice the damage output and can target Fortitude via Brute Force - which is pretty good in some cases. Do not try to combine confusion with Mind Blades though. Your party members will hate you.

If you don't have the Community Patch mod installed (I guess not because iirc you play on console?) then no need to test: FF attack will not work with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. So if you plan to use the FF attack mainly: better pick Lightning Strikes instead of Swift Flurry and skip Heartbeat Drumming entirely.

Sometimes, when an inspiration-like effect is coded weirdly, it might also stack with the actual inspiration. Also maybe after a save & reload. Only a slight chance imo but maybe worth a try.

The FF attack doesn't really use your fists. It has its own base damage and accuracy and all the base values which match those of monks' fists - and it also scales with Transcendent Suffering and other unarmed bonuses. But mechanically fists and FF attack are two seperate things. That's why it's possible that in the vanilla game it isn't treated as weapon - and unlike your fists it won't work with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming and so on (because that "weapon" keyword was forgotten in the game object's description). That's maybe splitting hairs though. For the majority of the game this fine distinction might be quite meaningless. It is a very good hint that the main weapon doesn't matter if you mostly attack with the Forbidden fist. Unless - like Shai Hulud said - that weapon gives you some universal bonus. Some uniques are really cool that way (see what Shai Hulud said). For the early game you can even use this with the most generic weapons: a Hatchet gives you more passive deflection, a Dagger+modal can give you an active melee deflection bonus of +10 (the damage malus only applies to dagger attacks so your FF attack is safe), a spear+modal would give you +1 engagement and so on - even though you wouldn't really use that weapon to strike with it, it would still help you.

That last statement is not generally true and depends on many factors (actual build, party composition, difficulty setting and so on). But yes, Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is usually considered the worst one of all the unique subclasses the official companions have, although on paper it is balanced. But it is absolutely unpredictible and that's a bad thing for any well-planned approach. Also one tends to remember the times Wild Mind bit you in the rear much better than the times it helped you.

Hehe, getting that and then trying to permanently glue it to your char with an immunity sounds like a fun little side project for the next run.

Just some hints tow. Debonaire: Engagement: A Debonaire cannot engage enemies (ever). Therefore abilities which rely on/work with your engagement like "Persistent Distraction" (Rogue) or "Parting Sorrow" (Monk) are trap choices: they will not get disabled during level-up, so best to watch out and not accidentially pick them. This also means you cannot stop movement of enemies by engaging them (engaging cancels movement commands of enemies and makes them stop) or deal any disengagement attacks vs. those enemies who decide to give you a pass in melee. This can lead to you missing your enemy because the moment you strike the enemy might take a step back out of the 0.8m melee range (you can see a "out of reach" message in the combat log). This will not happen too often - but if it does you will know where it came from. This is all moot if you use ranged weapons like mortarts of course - because then you cannot engage anyway and you cannot miss because of "out of range". The Debonaire herself can still get engaged by enemies who are able to engage (most beasts cannot, some kith and wilders can... and so on). --- Charm/crit conversion: Also note that only charmed enemies will give you the 100% crit conversion. Dominated enemies (for example turned via Puppet Master) will not give you that. Charmed enemies immediately flip back to hostile as soon as they get hit by you or your allies. This means you can only apply one 100%-crit-strike to a charmed enemy who will then turn hostile again. With hefty crit-punches this might not be an issue though because the enemy might die from the crit - I just want to point that out lest it is not known. --- Alternative source for charms: If you want an additional source of charm then a Chanter is a good one: the invocation doesn't last long (so hitting charmed enemies doesn't feel like a waste of CC) but can target several enemies at once with enough INT/big enough AoE size bonus. Maybe that's something to keep in mind to support the synergy with the FF/Debonaire further? Konstanten, Fassina, Pallegina, Tekehu and Vatnir could use this. Konstanten is a Skald so it's an even cheaper invocation for him to cast (only 3 phrases instead of 4), but his INT is low (10) - so the cone will be pretty small (2.5m length only) and it's difficult to hit several enemies around your main char with that microcone I reckon.

Ah, too bad for Shimmer Scale. But great that you took the time to test it again.

Very unreliable visitor indeed. I have countless hours of gametime but only saw him a couple of times. You cannot rely on anything he potentially sells.