Boeroer

It's def. not faster than just sinking the ship. That doesn't take 5 minutes. And even with the best Paladin/Chanter you can't board and win fights against lvl-15 or 16 crews if you are lvl 5. But you can sink them - because char level has no effect on ship combat.

I always use it. One of the best spells in the game for me.

Maybe. But I guarantee you can learn to sink any ship with the starting sloop faster than to reload and fight the same boarding fight 10 times. Because naval combat is very easy and allows to sink ships way above your level once you know what you are doing. And it's not much that you have to learn. 5 to 8 basic points maybe.

Yes, that it the same as with Essential Phantom and Sporelings and some other summons. They don't scale correctly atm.

Why on earth didn't you just sink them to get the loot instead of reloading 10 times?

You can do the same with a one handed pistol by the way: gain +12 ACC and 20% hit to crit, then use the modal to suffer 15 ACC but half your reloading time. All in all it's "only" a loss of 3 ACC and a big gain in speed and crit conversion. Especially if you have a pistol that you want to attack/hit with a lot (see Opening Barrage of Scordeo's Trophy or Bullet Time of Eccea's Arcane Blaster): sometimes you don't want to alternate between dual pistols but hit with one exclusively. The modal gives you higher speed than dual wielding + two weapon style - which means dps doesn't drop compared to these - while you can make sure your weapon procs occur more often. I find this actually better than hunting bow + modal (which is also fine in some situations of course). Also because you can always skip reloading which makes a gun user more reactive. Drawback is the single damage type (not when using Eccea's Arcane Blaster though) and the shorter range. I mean when I compare generic pistols to generic hunting bows. Unique weapons are a different thing, depends on the enchantments.

No. I just tested it in game. No effect. The weapon has do deal base burn damage it seems. Lashes have no effect. The only weapons I know of that do this are Firebrand, Kalakoth's Minor Blights (the burn version) and Dragon's Dowry. The last one is an exception because it only deals pierce base dmg. But I guess this was done because it's all about dragon fire and such. Essence Interrupter works with Heart of the Storm though (+1 PEN). If you are a Bleak Walker/Wizard (or Druid or Priest) and use it you can even get it to +3 PEN and +10 ACC when using FoD: Heart of the Storm (Essence Interruptor +1 PEN) + Scion of Flame (FoD +1 PEN) + Spirit of Decay (FoD Bleak Walker +1 PEN) + Ring of Focused Flame (which will work with FoD attacks because they are keyworded with burn/fire).

I build him as tanky Swashbuckler in my recent playthrough. The goal was to make him 5-6 engagement slots and make him really sticky (Defender Stance + Kapana Taga + Reckless Brigandine + Overbearing Guard - Refreshing Defense and so on) and debuff enemies automatically (Persistant Distraction) while doing okish damage (for a tank that is - with Sneak and later Deathblows). It was also my goal to be able to bombard him with wizard nukes (which mostly target reflex) - so I gave him Cadhu Scalth and raised Althletics and Metaphysics. With "The Wall" modal most of those spells won't do much. THen I also gave him Adept Evasion. I just unstealthed with him first, waited till the enemies gathered around him, cast Pull of Eora and Miasma on Edér's Head and then bombard him (and his surroundings). Kapana Taga with modal helped to land Miasma on tougher enemies. I think I never saw an enemy break engagement. Maybe it happened, but it must have been so few that I can't remember. That way he's not the most defensive tank, but a great mixture of "sticky tank" and a bit of damage. Oh, and I gave him Pernicious Cloud in the end. That contributed a lot to his damage output. But beware: it's friendly fire and has a huge AoE.

Yes, but in case of the Dracolich you only need to land that one Combusting Wound cast and the rest is missiles and tiny hits from Walls etc. So it's totally worth it to debuff Fortitude for that one cast. Makes the whole fight a cakewalk (with a party). You don't have to target fortitude all the time. Only when it counts. Megabosses I exclude as you said. They do favor classes without Power Pools and fixed spell uses because the fights will last forever. I find the design of the Mega Boss battles underwhelming. I would have liked them to be more like Titan Souls encounters.

I would like to see new faces when it comes to party members. Cameos of Aloth, Edér and so on are fine, but please give us new, "fresh" companions - I mean if you're going to make PoE3 in the first place.

If you have summons out that "tank" or block for you you can switch to a single handed weapon set. For whatever reason offensive chants (Soft Winds, Dragon Thrashed) gain +12 ACC from that (like the weapon attacks do). It seems to be an oversight that never got fixed. Pretty handy though. You can then live with lower PER and still hit stuff good enough (with chants).

I tested it one minute before posting: two grazes for 15 secs each and suddenly I had ~30 secs on the dragon. I wasn't expecting that. I also checked if I hit the second time instead of graze - but no. Originally I just wanted to check how good/bad the duration with 30 INT on the Dracolich would be. Don't know if that's intended behavior. Afaik the "weird" DoT mechanics (less INT = higher dps) got fixed through the board. Yes, as I said: Disintegration doesn't do enormous dps. I would prefer Amplified Wave any time. But against certain tough enemies with high AR (Dracolich with Llengrath's Safeguard on is a pain) it's nice - if you are ascended. With any other cipher it's too expensive for my taste - so I skip it. To be honest I don't use it at all in "real" playthroughs. I debuff Fortitude in every encounter by the way. There are too many good abilites that target it - so debuffing fort. is usually one of my top priorities. That's why I'm a big fan of Morning Stars.

You can edit your post if you're not satisfied.

There's a bug report in the tech support forum that says that Firgyst (Black Isle Bastards) no longer drops Kapana Taga when boarding (drops normally when sinking the ship). It seems to be a bug and I guess it's related to your experience. I never board but always sink ships and I always get all the loot.

I'll quote myself: See, I quoted myself.

1 Power Level increases base damage by 5% while Griffin's Blade only gives you +10% additive dmg bonus. So +2 PL is already better in any case. +1 depends on how much other dmg bonuses (MIG, crit etc.) you can put together.

Helwalker with +10 INT is destined for hand mortars. Seriously. I know I say that often but it's just the best pick. ALso because of Stunning Surge + AoE = always a crit in there for refund. Against single targets you can summon Long Pain or switch to Fury form or switch to normal blunderbusses or pistols. What I want to try next is a mid/melee range single class Fury with blunderbusses/hand mortars. The goal is Avenging Storm + multihits of course.

You forgot two things: Power Level scaling and enemies' RES. If the enemy has high RES it's a lot less than 30 secs even with 30 INT. Still good in my opinion though. For example on Neriscyrlas it lasts 15 secs with 30 INT on a graze. And nothing stops you from casting it onto the boss again and again onve you are ascended (besides getting killed or interrupted/hard CC'd of course). The durations stack. So two grazes cumulate to 30 secs again. Plenty damage for a "non-mega" boss. Also because it's raw - and most bosses have very high AR on PotD which is annoying. (In case of Neriscyrlas however it's less effective than using Combusting Wounds)

No so much with Helwalker because the +10 INT does help. Which other single target spell is there for a cipher? And you can also cast a fine Miasma onto a boss in advance (together with a Body Blow to land the Disentegration in the first place). I'm not speaking about Mega Bosses. Those have so much health that it doesn't matter that much how much damage per ability use you do - as long as you can survive long enough to whittle them down with whatever suits you.

Hi! Pick up a fighter with Clear Out or Clean Sweep, use Whipers ofthe Endless Paths or Citzal's Spirit Lance. Attack any enemy witgh Clear Out: This also works if it's only one enemy. It truly is an endless loop. If it helps: Clear the Path also does too much damage, but here the loop stops. Clean Sweep is broken in the same way as Clear Out.

I would maybe just scale self damage with Powel Level and not MIG. Same with durations of other self-induced harmful effects (like Berserker's Confusion for example). That should do the trick. Scales properly with Power Level so it doesn't become meaningless - but removes the counterintuitive effect of "raising a stat does you harm".

Good report. I guess you are the only one who uses that ability.

Yeah - it's really annoying when developing software that displays lots of numbers and then having to localize it. Especially since in some countries they even mix both variants up (looking at you, Liechtenstein & Swizerland!). Good thing is that nowadays usually somebody else did that work for you. Still confusing though. But in no country there are 4 zeroes between separators!

Yes, it's a nice combo. But Swift Flurry doesn't work with Scepters. Instead use Lightning Strikes. Also speeds up focus generation. The scepter modal is nice in theory, but its self dmg doesn't matter much at higher levels (when you want to spam Disintegration etc.). In the early game it's risky but works well. Here are some faster ways to get to 10 wounds and become ascended faster at higher levels (especially when you're past lvl 16 to get Disintegration): Get wounds: +1 wound from Helwalker --> 6 wounds at the start of battle start encounter with Enduring Dance of Death and immediately gain 1 wound and 3 ACC (gain +1 wound and +3 ACC every 3 sec) --> 7 wounds at the start of combat trigger Mortification of the Soul --> 9 wounds after recovery of Motification is over you'll have 10 wounds from the second tick of Enduring Dance (at high levels you will even start with 7 wounds) Become ascended (scepters are poor here because they only do single target dmg): you picked Draining Whip instead of Biting Whip trigger Lightning Strikes use Thunderous Report (Kitchen Stove) or use dual mortars with Stunning Surge (you have +10 INT which means a tremenous AoE) or use Flagellanth's Path with dual mortars or use Watershaper's Focus: one shot + Blast from stealth (no bonuses on MIG and INT) on a crowded group usually means you can start the encounter ascended right away (focus generation from stealth got fixed). If not: alternatively fire one round from it when you have 10 wounds for more AoE and lashes. Disintegration with +10 MIG and +10 INT is very nice - especially if you can also manage to do a crit with Enduring Dance's +12 ACC - it's not the highest dps in the game though. First of all it's single target damage - so it's intrinsically less damage than a big and high dmg AoE ability that hits multiple foes at once. A Berserker just using Driving Roar + Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst does notably higher damage per second on a group of enemies. Just because he combines high attack speed + low to zero recovery while doing 80-100+ dmg per hit (and knocking down foes). With Blood Surge he can usually do that all encounter long. And secondly Disintegration doesn't have that much damage per second (dps) in the first place. It has very high overall damage though (for a single target spell). Great on bosses. The best if you can overcome the fortitude defense. Amplified Wave with +10 MIG and +10 INT is really bonkers. Not only because of the damage - but of course also because of it. It's rel. low level (good base dmg * PL scaling * MIG bonus) so it does great damage per hit (poor PEN though - you really need Thunderous Blows but will still have no PEN problems - better have a single class cipher in the party who casts Driving Echoes on you, right? ) and the prone effect helps a ton to control crowds - especially if you can spam it while ascended. However - I consider Witch (Berseker/Ascendant) with Frenzy/Bloodlust and Blood Thirst to do better dps with Amplified Wave in the end. I may be wrong though. Didn't directly compare. Helwalker/Ascendant is def. a great multiclass. (Have a Priest to provide Salvation of Time for your ascended status - because if you don't it's over rel. quickly even with +10 INT).

No. Not without mod. But I know none that skips Maje or if it's even possible.