Boeroer

I quickly crit & then killed Nomu the Marauder (drops unique loot) with Essence Interrupter. He turned into a Xaurip AND his whole loot dropped. Seems this was fixed. :dance: Edit: did it six times now (crit then kill) and the loot dropped in all cases.

It also turns on all the god challenges which might be something you don't want to do if you just seek for a "no reload" challenge. That can easily be achieved with the option "Trial of Iron" whch is basically "no reload". You also can't quit the Ultimate if you want to get the patch (first 50) or be on the plaque (first 12) because Obsidian requests proof in form of video footage besides the savegame. If you don't show how you leave the game properly and how you resume the playthrough you'll get disqualified.

In my opinion one should tape down the tab button in PoE anyways.

If you want to stick to blunderbusses: Streetfighter/Ascendant with dual mortars and max INT. Afflictions are getting applied to AoE with mortars again in 5.0. Turn on Powder Burns, trigger "Heating Up" which gives you higher Sneak Attack and + 100% recovery speed - or 50% recovery time (how you like to word it). Which is very nice when becoming ascended. Single Class is also nice because of Time Siphon (stacks with itself and also gives you a big speed advantage while ascended). Barbarian (Fury Shaper)/Ascendant: Use the speed bonuses of Frenzy Ward, Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst while ascended. Spirit Frenzy will put "Staggered" on all enemies you hit with damaging cipher spells. Troubadour/Ascendant: Use Sure Handed Ila to get double the recovery bonus for your blunderbusses/mortars and Mith Fyr for a lot better focus generation and dps. Use The Shield Cracks in order to reduce enemies' AR. While ascended use cipher powers, while not use invocations. Wizard/Ascendant: Use Infuse with Vital Essence and Wall of Draining to prolong your ascended state. Use Alacrity to speed you up. Use normal dual blunderbusses or mortars and cipher beams and Wall of Flames with Combusting Wounds. Use Essential Phantom to double your attack roll output (for Combusting Wounds). Helwalker/Ascendant: Use Stunning Surge and Enduring Dance to get near limitless Full Attacks with Blunderbusses/mortars through crits/refund. Use the bonus MIG to boost all your dmg (including cipher powers) and bonus INT to prolong DoTs like Disintegrate and more importantly your ascension phase. Use Lightning Strikes to speed you up and amp up the focus generation. Use Flagellanth's Path to skip reloading phase and immediately trigger a move+Full Attack (which is followed by recovery, not reload). Use The Long Pain for an awesome backup alternative for pierce resistant/immune enemies. Black Jacket/Ascendant: Use 3 weapon slots and Quick Switch with dual blunderbusses to instantly fill your focus via Penetrating Strike and start casting cipher powers while ascended. Use Tactial Barrage to get longer ascension and +1 PL with cipher spells (in addition to your ascension PL bonus). Use Conqueror Stance. Use Clear Out on mobs with your 4th setup: a mortar in the offhand and a melee weapon in the main hand. Switch to that setup right before executing Clear Out. This will fill your focus immediately (and most likly kill some mobs right away).

For this game: RTwP. In general: doesn't really matter and depends on the game. With a slight to Turn Based because of Pen & Paper and Tabletop nostalgia.

If I would use a SC Monk it would be a Forbidden Fist. It synergises very well with high defenses and especially high RES which not only gives you bonus defelction but also shorter afflictions and other harmful effects. Enfeebled for "free" (if your RES is high enough) combined with wound generation that does not rely on getting damaged, combined with Crucible and the usual monk stuff that makes him awesome sounds like the best way to beat the hardest bosses. I mean compared to a vanilla monk. I wonder if a kiting build with a high deflection SC Forbidden Fist, Graceful Retreat + Tumbling + Imagined Pain would be any good to generate a lot of wounds while kiting. Not necessarily advantageous in all fights, but still... you'll need WIthdrawal for Vela though. I think she is the most annoying part of this challenge.

Point 3) is not really the case. THe active abilities of Power Level 8 and 9 vary from truly awesome (Time Siphon stacks with itself: giving you absurd action speed, Driving Echoes is one of the best things against bosses and Reaping Knives is very good as well) to meh (Hauning Chains... seriously? ). However, the passives are very good. Especially with a Beguiler which is my personal favorite cipher subclass. It totally removes the need to deal weapon damage - but you still can and still get focus. This works especially nice with casters who also don't attack with weapons that much. Anything melee: go Soul Blade. Sometimes Ascendant (esp. when multiclassing with Barbarian or Streetfighter). Ascendant is very good for any combination wjhere you can achieve high speed bonuses (includes single class Ascendant) and high durations (Monk's INT bonus, Priest's Salvation of Time, Wizard's Wall of Draining) because you want to dish out as many cipher spells as possible while ascended. I can't say anything about Turn Based except that speed bonuses don't matter much - so forget what I said about Ascendant then.

It is not only switching on all God Challenges. It adds PotD, Expert Mode, Trial of Iron, disables Berath's Blessings, disables cheats via console, disables all mods, adds the additional challenge to have to kill all bosses and more. So you can't do it manually.

Maybe Brand Enemy will not be enough to complete all (mega-) bosses (if that's needed in the first place). One of them heals from burn damage, another has very high burn AR... Raw dmg is more universal. Maybe a combination of Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy? Don't know if a Holy Slayer can be tanky enough though. But maybe tankyness is less important than to be able to cheese the heck out of the gameplay.

So, not fixed in 5.0?

Why didn't this get fixed?

Ha! I didn't even play one single god challenge so far (but also no Berath's Blessings besides Edér's pet slot). I also didn't do a proper solo run. I did most all boss fights with solo test-characters though. But imagine the hassle with the video recording. Imagine you play for two hours and afterwards you realize that you video footage is corrupted or something. Also no mods (I mean of course that means I can't use those really good "improved UI" mods that don't change the game mechanics at all. A patch and a name on a plate - although both is cool - are not worth the hassle. I do have a real life with wife and kids and cleaning woman and cat and house and job after all.

You mean you are not good enough to download 5.0?

Yes, you have to find a metal thingy on the ground where you killed the two NPCs.

Yes, they were written on April 26th but set visible just recently. Those 4 fixes are also the most important for me.

Very cool. Time for a last playthrough I guess. I'm 100% sure it will not be an "Ultimate" one.

O-ha. That's an improvement which most players will dismiss as unimportant, but I guess it will have quite an impact (if you play around with engagement slots).

I guess @Kaylon will be on one of those plates, eh?

I'm pretty sure it's not the last thing we heard from Eora. Else Josh wouldn't be so invested in playtesting the Pen&Paper version. It would also mean to not use an overall successful IP. Even if Deadfire sold less than expected (who knows how long it lives though), PoE did very well and both saw acclaim from critics and users as well - even won awards. You don't simply abandon something like that. If we'll see another isometric party RPG though... Don't know. Josh said multiple times (and just recently) that he needs a pause from isometric party based RPGs. Doesn't mean that nobody else will design PoE3, but maybe it's a hint that the motivation isn't as high as it used to be when it comes to developing such a game. I would be fine with a tactical RPG. Or Kotor on Eora. Hey, even a beat'em up would be cool. Seeker-Slayer-Survivor style.

Cool, but what has that to do with what I said/asked? Besides that: Aarik said something along the lines of "end of the year". I mean he said "this year, but no release date yet" - but in my experience that translates to end of the year pretty much.

And that's the confusing part: you can still pick cannonball, chain shot etc. - but internally it will say "Lol screw you, I will fire with my own stuff anyway - and I will tell nobody". I guess it has to because how is a flamethrower supposed to shoot anything else than fire. But this should have been made more clear. Would have been fairly easy to add another type of ammunition called "flames" (or fire or however you want to call it) that also consumes the ammunition you bought (because we don't want to buy different types for every cannon) but can't be fired with other cannons and gets auto-equipped (and is the only option) once you install a wyrmtongue, flamethrower or such.

IIRC Obsidian is not doing the console ports themselves?

No unfortunately not. It's very confusing.

But you can't do that because your single class Monk (Whispers of the Wind), your single class Fury (Avenging Storm + Blinding Smoke) and your single class Streetfighter (Powder Burns + Vanishing Strike + Gambit + Backstab) are already fighting over those mortars. By the way: you can (or could, maybe got patched) give a single class Ranger one mortar for the offhand (preferably Fire in the Hole), pick Driving Flight and put Scordeo's Edge and Keeper of the Flame (or whatever melee weapon suits you best) in the main hand - and then do Whirling Strikes. Mainhand will strike first then offhand will do AoE*AoE*3 attack rolls.