Boeroer

With a Helwalker/Troubadour you can build a Dragon Thrashed guy. Not as tanky though because Helwalker makes it a bit squishy. But if you build him tanky with high AR and good defenses it's manageable. With Helwalker's high MIG and INT bonuses you can achieve decent Dragon-Thrashed damage I guess. You could put in some Soft Winds of Death to deal some raw dmasge while healing which would counter the Helwalker squishyness. Unfortunately Dragon Thrashed is not half as good in Deadfire as it was in PoE. But with the +10 INT from the Monk you can catch a lot of enemies.

It's also very good if you use Arterial Strike. Multiple shot enemies tend to run towards you...

Troubadour + Helwalker + Lightning Strikes + Turning Wheel + Mith Fyr + Sure Handed Ila + Night's Revenge + dual mortars provides excellent damage due to MIG + triple lashes as well as decent debuff (AoE Weakened) and CC (Stunning Surge and Killers Froze Stiff). Play it as a mid-ranged guy and also use Flagellant's Path. The advantage of guns is that you can skip reloading at any time to cast an invocation to save the day. Besides that Sure Handed Ila + Lightning Strikes will give you fast reload. The advantage of mortars in particular is that the +10 INT from Turning Wheel will give you a huge AoE. Another apporach might be Skald/Nalpasca with Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming using Ngati's Tusk and Instruments of Pain. The Pike has some crit conversion that can be used in addition to Killers Froze Stiff and with Instruments of Pain you get a range of 10.8 meters with the Pike. Alternative Weapon would be Quarterstaff. The modal of the Pike lowers enemies' delflection by 10 which is great, too. Mith Fyr + Turning Wheel again does good damage. Dance of Death will grant you +12 accuracy (Enduring Dance at least) and together with Nalpasca's drugs will ensure that you will get a constant stream of wounds. Use Raised Torment's Reach + Killers to stun + paralyze foes. Alternative weapon with normal range: Karabörü. Does stuff on crit and can be obtained early. Another option: Amra. Afaik its Carnage-like ability can crit and that might work with the Skald's passive.

After "Rogues are the best class" and "Wizards are useless" in PoE forums this is the crassest misjudgement I read so far (at least from a mechanical point of view). Grimoires allow Wizards to skip all spells at lvl-up (and only take passives - or in case of multiclass: take only actives from the second class) and still be able to cast spells as if he had learned them. How on Earth and Eora is that almost useless? It's THE biggest complaint of players when they compare Priests and Druids with Wizards: that the Wizard has those omnipotent Grimoires. This is so outrageous that I'm about to summon Gromnir!

If you know where to get the ingredients you can upgrade it early: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Devil_of_Caroc_Breastplate Check under Upgrades: Mechanical Mind. If you click on the ingredients they will tell you where to aquire them. No need to fight if you don't want to. Everything from the list can be bought. Not to forget that the Breastplate also gives you +2 Rage, +10% attack speed and either +2 AR when bloodied or regeneration on crit. The last one can be pretty decent for a Berserker + Whispers since it counters the self damage. If you took Blooded as passive and plan to become bloddied often then +2 AR is also good.

It may be that a benevolent Priest of Eothas wouldn't want to use that mace anyway...

Hm... if not using DoC's Breastplate but Whispers otEP: how to deal with confusion? It will shrink your cone, it will shorten your Savage Defiance, Bloodlust 'n stuff, it will make you hit your peeps... Using consumables in every encounter is kind of meh - and switching to Modwyr when casting Frenzy works but is tedious. That's why DoC's is kind of mandatory on a Berseker for me (if not Berserker/Nalpasca, Berserker/Paladin or Berserker with Modwyr).

1) Kind of kills the idea, yes. Not completely, but partially. The basic idea is to use Frenzy/Bloodlust and later Blood Thirst to shorten (or even omit) recovery while ascended (= casting with no focus). You will still have high casting speed but you will run out of focus quickly and have to fall back to dealing weapon damage. It still kind of works, but the best thing about this build is not going to happen. 2) Hand mortar(s), Watershaper's Focus with Blast, the Red Hand

Soul Blade regenerates focus with Soul Annihilation when you use Whispers of the Endless Paths! It also applies raw damage to all the AoE hits. So my recommendation is to max INT and use the Whispers mainly. If you pick up Savage Defiance and do not try to tank you will be fine with the self damage. Devil of Caroc's Breastplate is kind of mandatory when not using Modwyr - and then use Helm of the Falcon because a) it's great with two Handers and b) it fits beautifully to the breastplate. Berserker/Soulblade with WotEP goes through the roof once you have Blood Thirst...

Mirke as Shadowdancer (Monk/Streetfighter) can be great with blunderbusses as well. Doesn't need to be mortars. Xefa's and Kitchen Stove are nice. Aloth as Battlemage with Citzal's + Mule Kick and later Clear Out is doing very well, too. Clear Out + Citzal means number-of-enemies * number-of-enemies hits and does tremendous damage for only 2 Discipline. And of course he still has his usual nuke spells. Use Essential Phantom to produce two guys with Spirit Lances. Bonus style points when wearing Devil of Caroc + Helm of the Falcon. But it's also highly efficient to wear Rekvu's Fractured Casque , cast Nectoric Lance on himself to get a rel. minor injury and then be immune to your own Slicken. Zandethus' Draconic Fury (form that unique grimoire) is also awesome with a Battlemage. Tekehu can be a single class Watershaper using either Lord Darryn's Voulge and Deltro's Armor to boost his Powel Levels with shock through the roof and go melee with lots of storms stuff - or use the Watershaper's Focus to boost his Water/Freeze PLs and be ranged. Take everything that boosts PLs further. In addition to that he has a Foe-only Chillfog which is just awesome. Also works as Theurge with the melee approach. Everytime you wait for phrases to build up for your next shock invocation you can cast a druidic shock spell. You're casting shocking spells all the time basically. Best thing about him relaly is that he's got so many foe-only spells.

The initial target will use Deflection during attack resolution, but the targets that are in the AoE will use Reflex. Using Miasma is a good way since it lowers both through attribute debuff (-10 PER --> -20 Reflex, -10 RES --> -10 Deflection). Best combied with Nature's Mark: this one directly lowers the defenses (-10 Reflex, -10 Deflection) and thus stacks with Miasma. So if you have a Druid and Wizard in the party (or one Sorcerer) you can guarantee (at reasonably low levels) that your dual mortar user will hit stuff very well. Add Blessing + Devotions (on top of any passive or ability-based ACC bonus like Blinding Strike etc) that means that you have the equivalent of +35 ACC vs. Deflection and +45 against Reflex for your whole party.

There was a table with attribute based dialogue checks floating around in some of the latest threads here... can't find it...

From Memory: - Ball and Chain - Karabörü

Of course we'll have to play the Ascension of the Watcher to godhood!

Assassinate (attacking with higher ACC, crit damage and PEN from stealth and invisibility) works with spells - also AoE spells like Fireball and such. That's what makes this multiclass work.

I mean it's lvl 19 - other lvl 19 stuff is bonkers as well and require no items at all. Like Missile Barrage or Maelstrom for example.

How did you distribute your stats? MIG: 10 CON: 11 DEX: 17 PER: 18 INT: 19 RES: 03 But I didn't think too much about it.

Ghost Heart doesn't work because it's a Spirit, not a Beast.

And once again we have reached the point where I will post this clip: Something similar can be done with Barbarian's Heart of Fury. NOT with Ranger's Whirling Strikes though - because those are melee only.

I'd only use single weapon style if I had a weapon that procs something on hits and/or crits or on kill and I wanted to make sure that I always hit/crit/kill with this weapon (like Blade Cascade from Scordeo's Edge or so).

Blessed Harvest scales wickedly with Power Levels. One of the best lvl-1 spells there is. Try a Xoti with Morning Star + this spell: *whack*...*explode*. Priest of Gaun + Helwalker would be a great combo just because of this spell...

As explained in the lore, Priests don't get their spells from the gods, but from the power of their souls. In this case their soul power + beliefs form the spells you use as a priest. If you could really believe in the ideals of atheism you would be able to be a Priest of Zilch or so - in theory. Or maybe a Proest of the whole Pantheon - if you worshipped all of the gods equally. Whatever... It doesn't remove afflictions in an AoE, it doesn't buff in an AoE, it doesn't revive in an AoE - it doesn't do a lot of things a Priest can do better actually. That's because yopur Wizard only uses self buffs while the Priest is buffing the whole party. How OP would it be if he could cast Blessing + Devotions like a Wizard can cast Eldritch Aim + Alacrity? Besides that: most Preist spells have the same recovery as an melee attack. Not that long actually. Priests are good nukers - but it wouldn't feel right if they were better than WIzards in this case, right? Priests are for support - nuking is only an addon. Yes, that is a valid point that has to be addressed. Grimoires are very powerful and there's nothing camparable for other classes. That depends on the Priest and Druid. Druids are actually a mix of Priest and Wizard plus some melee. But I agree that in general the Druid is the better healer. But he's a worse buffer and affliction remover. Sure there is a way: try Priest of Eothas/Ascendant. Once you reach ascended state cast Salvation of Time and cast everything into the ground while ascended for a long time. Helwalker/Priest is also fun because DoT stuff like Shining Beacon profits a lot from both +MIG (+30% additive dmg) and +INT (+50% multiplicative). Same with healing over time. You can play it as melee character, but then I would suggest heavy armor and a heavy shield in the second weapon slot at least. As ranged priest you won't have that many problems with your increased "damage taken" - still carry a large shield in the seciond slot. You want to switch to it once you get focus-fired by guns. I still like a mig-ranged monk (multiclass or not) with mortars. The AoE size profits a lot from the +INT and the fact that you have no recovery but only reload (which can be cancelled for casting) helps a ton at being reactive/responsive. Stunning Surge + mortars is awesome as well. Dance of Death is very nice. Besides that a melee Priest with Sun and Moon is always nice. THe chance to repeat fire spells is great and the weapon totaqlly fits a Priest of Eothas. Grab Xoti's Lantern - it's great.

edit: what was this doing here? Nvm...

Large Shield modal "The Wall" gives you a damage reduction against reflex attacks. Why would it prevent you to see the PEN value of those attacks?

No, you spoke about different things.