Boeroer

Deathblows comes very late with a multiclass while Soul Annihilation is your friend from lvl 1 on. I wouldn't say that a Devoted/Rogue always does more damage than a Devoted/Soulblade over the course of a playthrough. Cipher can get Borrowed Instinct which stacks with Disciplined Strikes, giving you a lot of crits with Soul Annihilation which works well enough with Devoted's passive and Cleaving Stance. Pure melee dmg potential is maybe higher for Devoted/Rogue in the end. But as you said: You're not only doing melee dmg but can also cast powers like Body Attunement and Borrowed Instinct which can also be a really nice help even if you wantto focus on melee. Recall Agony as well. Wait: was the bug that kill by Soul Annihilation doesn't trigger Cleaving Stance ever fixed? By the way: do Phantom Foes (flanked: -1 AR) and Body Attunement (-2 AR) stack? If so then Devoted (+2 PEN) + Soulblade (+1 PEN with Hammering Thoughts) would be a really nice "penetrator" even with the low-pen sword. Very nice dmg synergy is Rogue/Soulblade of course since all of the rogue's dmg bonuses apply to Soul Annihilation as well.

Then you can totally focus on offense without getting punished for it too much. I mean if he's not the only frontliner.

What is untrue? That I remember it that way? Guess I can't remember differently anyway since I always kill Benwith right away (no flag, climb the fort, go to Benwith, free the gal). I guess the important thing is that you can't free her once the fort turned hostile. Because then she also seems to turn hostile (as does Mike et al.).

No idea.

If you go for Soulblade don't pick Biting Whip since it's a lot worse than Draining Whip - also for dps. In it's current state Biting Whip is a trap choice for any cipher who wants to use his powers - including Soul Annihilation. If explanation is needed I can elaborate. Assassin only makes sense if you utilize Stealth and invisibility. If not then the Streetfighter is better. Once you get flanked and get bloodied you will do crazy crit damage. Unbending and a Devil's Breastplate with+2 AR on bloodied help to stay alive while Cleaving Stance and Crits will make short work of enemies. Devoted/Trickster can manage to use Riposte even without shield (Vigorous Defense stacks with Mirrored Image). This can be nice in combination with Cleaving Stance. Other strong yet sturdy damage dealers are Trickster/Nalpasca and Trickster/Soulblade. The latter can be outright tanky if you wish since Mirrored Image, Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instinct stack. Riposte does generate Focus.

Solo or with a party?

They are doing a lot of patching and balancing after release. Parts of the descriptions are getting generated to keep the descriptions up to date. But generated stuff can't be too specific. This means the more precise a description is the more likely you have to alter it after a patch. Altering descriptions isn't a big problem if you are only deploying an English version, but it's horrible if you have a lot of localized versions. If I'm right it's not a matter of laziness but a matter of resources and costs.

Oh sorry, I didn't see that thelee answered. Saw my quote and somehow overlooked that. :oops: Yeah - but "+x% speed with weapons" would not work on Modwyr since it would suggest it would also works with other weapons (in offhand or after a switch or whatever). Also on gloves you might want to be more specific since they can't profit from a speed enchantment themselves like weapon can. Best would have been to include a general "for attacks with this weapon" - like it's added for some other enchantments. Would make things a lot clearer.

I like sturdy dps fighter over tanks (since pure tanks don't work that well in PoE anyway - at least on PotD difficulty. Too many enemies). Dual Wielding has some slight advantages over two handed because Knockdown and Charge are Full Attacks (meaning strikes with both weapons). Offhand hits first, then main hand follows. Charge doesn't say it, but it not only does its crush damage on the way to the target (and also on the target) but also adds an invisible Full Attack on impact. In my opinion CHarage is the best fighter ability. Too bad it comes so late. Confident Aim's dmg bonus (20% min damage) is not, like most other dmg bonuses, an additive bonus but a multiplicative(!). That means the min base damage gets lifted which then multiplies with all other bonuses. It's an 8% multiplicative dmg bonus so to speak. Which is better than the descritpion suggests. Example: if you have a great sword with 17 base dmg which is superb (+0.45) and have MIG 18 (+0.24) and maybe Weapon Spec and Mastery (+0.15, +0.1) plus Savage Attack (+0.2) you would do on hit: 17 * (1 [base dmg itself] + 0.45 [superb] + 0.2 [savage Attack] + 0.15 [Weapon Spec] + 0.10 [Weapon Mastery] + 0.24 [MIG]) = 36.38 With Confident Aim you base damage gets lifted from 17 to 18.4. Now the damage is: 18.4 * (1 [base dmg itself] + 0.45 [superb] + 0.2 [savage Attack] + 0.15 [Weapon Spec] + 0.10 [Weapon Mastery] + 0.24 [MIG]) = 39.37 That's 3 damage. So it's about as good as a +20% "normal" dmg bonus in this case and gets better the more dmg bonuses you can stack (crit, more MIG etc.). It knd of scales with your ability to deal damage. Armored Grace is very good, too. Attack speed is a multiplicative dmg increase as well. Here's a nice calculator from MaxQuest: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/ Disciplined Barrage is very good as well. Fighters can generate lots of crits because they have high starting ACC and Disciplined Barrage. It's only good with high INT though since its base duration is rather short. A good offensive fighter can be build in such a way that he can reliably prone dragons (Knockdown, Girdle of the Driving Wave, Overbearing [prone on crit] Weapon) so that they can't get up anymore. If your Overbearing doesn't want to connect you simply use a Knockdown. If you like your fighters with low INT your should consider wounding weapons like Drawn in Spring (lateish), Tidefall (early) and Acuan Giamas (comes superlate). In general I would say INT is a great stat for an offensive fighter. A fighter can be made sturdy enough with just his healing and good armor while putting the focus on his damage dealing. I didn't try a fighter with Firebrand in length, but I think that's what I would try next: buy the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and skill for crits. High(ish) INT, high PER, high DEX. CON doesn't need to be high. RES maybe 10, rest MIG. Raise ACC and dmg. Weapon Focus, Weapon Spec, Weapon Mastery, Apprentice's Sneak, Runner's Wounding Shot, Knockdown, Bonus Knockdown, Two-Handed Style, Savage Attack, Disciplined Barrage, Confident Aim, Armored Grace, Charge (not in that order), Savage Attack, Scion of Flame (Firebrand +20% dmg), Merciless Hand, Dungeon Delver... Should be fun.

Never had the feeling it doesn't scale. That would make for ridiculous healing at higher levels and I think I should have noticed... hopefully...

Hm, I think I'm only able to free her once I killed Brutal Benny without setting off any alarm. Or that's what I remember... Don't need to clear the guards then. If you kill Benny without setting the whole fort on fire then that's enough.

No, that was thelee. I suggested less hyperbole and emotions but more reason. You stated that a problem of Deadfire's rules is that they are not like in PoE's. Here we have a case where they are. So what's the reason for complaint? That the description is not detailed enough? The descriptions are not good enough, but they are better than in PoE. I can't count how many times I answered the question if the speed enchantment on weapons in PoE is universal or not. I understand and agree that the descriptions could be better and more precise - but there is zero rational reason to rant about this if you were fine with the same mechanics in PoE. Sober feedback and constructive criticsim on descriptions, tooltips etc. are more than welcome if you ask me - because I think it's the weakest spot of both pillars games.

It's not a bug. Usually attack speed bonuses on weaprons are only for the use with said weapon. Makes sense if you ask me. Why would a nimble sword make you cast faster? If it would be such an enchantment I would expect an explicit description like "speeds up all your actions" or something. Same like in PoE by the way. Speed enchantment on weapons only worked for the weapon (except Spelltongue which had a more unusual description with Time Siphon). Of course it's never a bad thing to be more precise with descriptions. Having something like "... for attacks with this weapon" would be nice. The last part about casters is extreme hyperbole and also not correct. Icon would be nice.

He meant you might want to verify the game files. It's easy with Steam. No idea about GOG. It won't hurt, so why not give it a shot?

Changing that part of the cipher is not "polishing" in my opinion.

I also had such errors once - due to file corruption.

If that's not the problem you can use the console to give yourself Dragon Wing sails: Open console (chack you game menue for the key binding). Case doesn't matter. If you type "iroll20s" it's the same as "iRoll20s". iroll20s <enter> reopen console giveitem shp_up_sails_dragonwing <enter> And they will appear in that inventory I showed above. You not gain any more achievements for this because of "cheating" - but you won't have to restart.

Please don't take this the wrong way - but are you are sure you are searching in the correct inventory? There are seperate inventories for the normal game items, food and ship items. The inventory for the ship items can be filtered by the type of item (cannons, sails, hull and so on). Maybe you have a filter anabled (like: display cannons only) that prevents you from seeing the sails? Most likely you know this, but I thought it's worth a shot.

For the rawest power right of the bat you should then utilize Firebrand. You can get the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer pretty early and the gloves will follow soon (6 summonings of Firebrand per rest). There's nothing like it that early in the game. You can use it with a Monk, a Rogue, a Barbarian, a Fighter, a Cipher... Highest dmg against single targets per swing would be with Rogue. Most fun I have with Firebrand though is with Barbarian (see "Cauterizer" build in the pinned build list). Rogue feels much stronger on lower difficulites (because less enemies). Rogue can also be great with Tidefall. Since he usually deals a lot of dmg per swing he will also heal very well with the draining from Tidefall. That makes him a bit sturdier. High MIG, not high INT, Veteran's Recovery and not too thin mail and you can have a rel. sturdy Rogue who does great damage per swing. Just don't try to tank with him. I once played one who used Tidefall and also used Backstab. I just waited with high stealth in the front line (right besides the tank) and struck when they cam near. Then used Shadowing Beyond and the Cape of the Master Mystic to become invisible and repeat a Backstab when my endurance was low. You can't get hit when invisible and the high dmg bonus from Backstab combined wit the Draining from Tidefall heals you back up a bit while most likely killing the backstabbed enemy. Stuff like that. Backstabbing also works with Firebrand (which leads to crazy numbers) - but only from invisibility since the summoning will break stealth.

Level 5 is too low for that encounter. And it's a ton too low for Cliaban Rilag. You should do more side quests in Defiance Bay first. Finish all quests that start in Copperlane first. Don't push the critical path.

The "problem" with rogue and fighter is that they are pretty limited to single target damage. Naturally a monk can outperform them because he can spam stuff like Torment's Reach (which is a very powerful ability). But he's also better as single target damage dealer than the fighter and as sturdy - while he's a lot more sturdy than the rogue. Also let's not forget the Druid who has the highest single target melee dmg potential in the game (Cat or Boar form + Avenging Storm) while he also can cast the good stuff. But only for a limited amount of time. Still pretty awesome to see a shifted Cat Druid pawing around with his crazy high base damage claws (base dmg scales with level), awesome attack speed, the high lashes and the additional lightning dmg per attack. If you look at overall melee dmg potential (AoE and single target combined) the monk always wins in my book. Or a Barb with Heart of Fury - depends on the build of course. MonkÄs also the most versatile melee guy (or even ranged). Check out stuff like Monksterlasher, Anvil or Witch Doctor who all do much better for me than any rogue I ever build. But there are nice rogue builds as well, no doubt. I like best a Riposte Rogue with Badgradr's Barricade + Godansthunyr which is so much fun and also a great mix between offense and defense. But this is from the perpective of PotD difficulty where you will face a lot more enemies which means AoE damage becomes more important. Rogues have one big advantage: they start really strong on the dps-side and that can give you the impression that they are very powerful. and also the fun that keeps you playing. Which is good. But their "power curve" is rather flat (like fighters' as well) while other classes' curves go up more steeply (casters, Monk, Barb etc.) due to certain abilites. Rogue gets Sneak Attack right from the start and then there isn't a real gamechanger until Deathblows maybe. While Monks get Torment's Reach, Turning Wheel, more edurance for their wounds (wound threshold stays the same, endurance raises a lot), Barbs get Blood Thirst and Heart of Fury, Casters accumulate a ton of spell uses, even Paladins get Sacred Immolation... and so on. Whatever - the difference is not that big. Another advantage of Fighter is that he's very low on micro (for a Pillars class) and maintenance-free sort of. While a Monk needs a TON of micro to be really good and the rogue likes to be babysitted a lot. Huh?`Where did I say that? They are a bit behind, but not a lot. But it also depends on your preferences and your way to play. If you build a party around a rogue as main damage dealer he can do amazing things. I just think the are a bit limited - same as the fighter. But with a fighter you can also do nice stuff if you use him properly (and I don't mean as tank). I just think that generally both classes don't add as much to a party as other classes can. But they are totally fine Where did I say that "best DPS to main"? Can't remember that. Was it recently? I gave advice for fighter because you said "I'm trying to figure out the best pure DPS 2handed figher build". And since I don't like to persuade forum members into playing something that I like best (but rather give advice for the class they have in mind) I talked about fighter mainly. Sorry if you also wanted to hear about other classes.

Yes, you are right. Thanks, I will edit that.

Emm... man, but what about real life? I'm start worry about you Haha! As if real life is anything like an open world...

Ach! Thanks for the correction. That does totally make sense. :Oops: Still 10 secs for 60 focus at PL 10(!) is not great to begin with as you said (still behind). It's its own balanced focus generation variant that is maybe even weaker than the focus generation of any half-baked cipher build at PL 9. Don't forget that a normal cipher will not only generate focus but also deal damage. The more dmg. the more focus. Win-win kind of. The Psion can do something else than dealing weapon damage and still gets focus (at mediocre rate). But that itself isn't necessarily better. Or is it? Maybe I miss something. So - the focus generation variant is not better in itself. Why then slapping that very punishing "stop on graze/hit/graze" onto it? To prevent tanks with no weapon dmg output from getting focus? Why? Are they stronger than a Psion/Caster who sits in the backline? Was it done because of the special ability of the psion? To balance that out? I don't get the reasoning.

Open World is something that's totally overrated anyway in my opinion. Doesn't even help with replayability that much at least for me. In the worst case I feel lost and don't know what to do next or don't feel motivated to go into a certain direction.