Boeroer

Eh sorry. I actually meant "low PEN" weapons and not "dual damage" weapons. In case of Great Swords and Swords it's both so I somehow confused that in my brain. :oops:

That tiny thing spoils your entire game?

Bon courage and good riddance! *waves with pets' leftover body parts*

No, no - fair enough. You made yourself more clear and I now understand your problem.

Also have a look at Citzal's Sprit Lance: same behavior. Seems it has something to do with the AoE.

It seems to be a problem with most AoE weapons now. There's a similar bug report for Whispers of the Endless Paths.

Also dual damage weapons have more base damage that the high-PEN variants. Compare the base dmg of Great Sword and Estoc.

Fighter brings graze/hit/crit conversion, nice "stances" which either influence ACC or give you additional attack on kill or more engagement - and also strong self heals as well as some nice defensive abilities. He also has a cheap attack ability hat has 4 bonus Penetration which can be really good for a shifter who usually can't just switch weapons once he meets a resistant foe. You also can use Charge which stuns foes in a line and is a good movement ability - also fits somehow.

As always: buff ACC (for example with Devotions), then debuff enemies defenses (for example with Miasma of Dull-Mindedness), then cast damaging spells (for example Shining Beacon). Bonus points when using weapon modals to lower enemies defenses a lot (Flail, Club, Morning Star). Also make sure you buff your PEN and debuff enemies' AR. Nothing is more annoying than to hit with a spell and then severely underpenetrate.

Devoted/Shifter makes not much sense since you can't have a Weapon Proficiency for your natural weapons. That will leave you with penalties only when shifted. That is unless the "auto" unarmed proficiency (works with the natural weapons of a Shifter now. But I didn't hear about such a change (which would be a good one). Does that work now? Edit: oh, skipped the mod part somehow. So actually Devoted/Shifter is not a good pick in an unmodded game. Best Fighter pick for a Shifter would be vanilla I guess. Cipher/Shifter: can you use powers while shifted? I actually never tried. The thing about Cipher/Shifter I don't like is that you'll have no special attacks - except powers work and you can use Soul Annihilation as a Soulblade/Shifter.

Dang... never read about this. Seems to be new or to be quite unique/seldomly occuring.

But the Magran's Fire UI tells you what will happen. Didn't you read the description?

But there are plenty of other armors for a Bloodmage, aren't there? Surely one single, high lvl robe can't have such a big impact on your decision to play a Bloodmage. Or can it?

Yes. It was there in release (kind of) and doesn't seem to want to go. Maybe the priority for fixing this is low since it doesn't do much harm. Problem is that that shifted models are a lot bigger and won't fit in the space. You already posted that question in the bug subforum, didn't you?

Dude. You did activate Rymrgand's Challenge in the Magran's Fire menu. Food doesn't spoil in a normal Deadfire game. Why did you post this twice? The thread in the bug forum already answered your question.

It stacks with Frenzy and Bloodlust and other attack speed buffs if that is what you ask. You can see the effects of it when you hover over your weapon's tooltip's recovery number. Since it's working for everybody in an AoE it's pretty good. There is no additive/multiplicative distinction with speed bonuses in Deadfire as there was in PoE afaik. Under the hood they all work the same (some influence attack animation and recovery, some only recovery). The Ward gives you a bonus to animation speed as well as recovery.

I want a real challenge - oh wait it's annoying! Maybe you chose this by accident? Or it may be it got activated by bug.

So bump!

Try to rest with food or other alcohol and see if that helps.

Yes. Rogues are nice as well because of the raw dmg they can inflict and which adds to the Wounding the boar does. Also the additive dmg bonuses of the rogue work well with the multiplicative lash damage. Stuff like Escape lets you move really fast and Crippling Strike gives you a cheap ability with bonus PEN and interrupts. In terms of sturdyness this combo falls behind though. I think Trickster is totally fine. It's actually a lot of work to keep the Streetfighter buffed. If you can he's great of course. Monk/Shifter is also nice because the lashes of Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel stack with Wildstrike. If you take a Helwalker you can profit from the combo of additive dmg bonus from MIG and the high lashes. And the high INT will prolong you Spiritshift. I also used the +CON variant and it's very nice with high starting CON. But of course the increased received damage still hurts. Most balanced thing might be a Nalpasca but that's not everybody's cup of tea. Shattered Pillar is not mine because I don't like that you only get wounds from auto-attacks and more importantly that your wound limit is 5 instead of 10.

Best weapons for Arcane Archer's Imbue shots atm seems to be Watershaper's Focus and Fire in the Hole. The Imbue-spells do trigger multiple times with projectile jumps which means with Driving Flight you double the outcome and with an additional jump (like from Watershaper's Focus) you'll triple it. Besides that pistols will work like any other ranged weapon I guess. But remember that Arcane Archers get an ACC penalty when they use a weapon that doesn't do elemental damage. You can avoid that when using Essence Interruptor, Minor Blights, Thundercrack Pistol or Frostseeker. I can't see a special synergy between Bloodmage and Arcane Archer. Arcane Archers have reduced health and Bloodmages get self damage, so...

Yes, only interrupting a cast of an ability will give you discipline.

Hi! Glad you liked the boar. I think playing a Shapeshifter is fine. It depends a bit on the difficulty how good he is (PotD has that rather stupid raise of armor rating of enemies that favors any class with penetration abilites). But even on PotD you can have a good Shifter - there are several ways to either bring down enemies' AR or to buff your PEN - it just takes a bit more knowledge. Since you don't plan to cast much I would recommend a multiclass. Fighter/Rogue/Monk/Barb/Paladin are all good picks. My personal favorite classes for melee combat are the Monk and he Barbarian, but that's just personal preference. However - there is that new Barb Subclass now, called the Furyshaper. I think it could be quite nice in combo with a Shapeshifter. I would not recommend a Berserker/Shapeshifter if you plan to use Relentless Storm. Because the Berserker gets confused when frenzied he will hit himself with Relentless Storm. Besides that the self heals of the Shifter and the bonuses of a Berseker work quite well together. Goldpact Knight/Shifter can be a very sturdy guy while his dmaage output is still great. I think in terms of overall power (balance of staying power balanced with damage output) this is the best option. You get very high AR but it will not slow you down, you get a passive aura with even more AR that also heals you as some point, you can cast fast heals/Con-buffs before shifting and heal yourself with Lay on Hands while shifted. At the same time the lashes of FoD and Wildstrike will stack and even the Ring of Focused Flame works with your FoD strikes (+10 ACC on top of the +10 ACC from FoD). With other Paladin subclasses you can get more dmg (Bleak Walker), more heals (Kind Wayfarers) and so on. They all will work well. Since the boar build of PoE was a combo of powerful self heals and good melee dmg I guess the Paladin/Shapeshifter would be the combo that comes closest. One thing: in Deadfire a shifted druid keeps all the item bonuses/abilites except the ones from weapon and armor. The rest will work when shifted - that's a big difference to PoE. There's a helmet that you can get rel. early that gives you Avenging Storm 1/rest. You can't get that spell as a multiclass druid so that's a nice substitution.

I like theorycrafting as well. I just think that giving dismissive statements (without much experience) kills a fruitful theorycrafting discussion. With a more differentiated approach I believe the outcome is better. Having said that I also understand that strong opinions can turn a lame discussion into an interesting one.

Yes.