Boeroer

I also still have it.

When you're using FoD with dual wielding while in stealth/invisible, does the off-hand attack benefit from back stab or assassin's unique ability? I vaguely remember the first attack with your main-hand clears the invisible/stealth status. But I'm not sure. Backstab only applies to the first attack because it breaks stealth. The second one (bash in this case) will be done without Backstab bonus. The only exception is Vanishing Strikes - because it makes you invisible right again after the first attack so the second one can benefit again (and make you invisible as well).

Further testing: Flame Shield from wizard doesn't trigger Avenging Storm. Ragged Cloak's raw ret. doesn't trigger Av. Storm. Nothing but Magran's Blessing seems to so far. But Fire Shield + Flame Shield stack. That's kind of nice in combo with Combusting Wounds. So I guess a Fire Godlike Wizard/something with Magran's Blessing and Flame Shield etc. + Patinated Plate + Combusting Wounds and not too much deflection (rets don't get triggered on graze) could be cool. Wait.. it seems that Piercing Sigil suppresses Fire Shield and Flame Shield. Arrrgh! Edit: Ha! If you cast Piercing Sigil first (with a different weapon set) and then switch to Magran's Blessing and then cast Flame Shield you can keep up all of the retaliations. Weird. But cool. Edit2: Tested it with a crazy high AR SC wizard and actually it's pretty great. Some heavy armored Wizard/something Fire Godlike based on ret can work (with the help of Combusting Wounds).

Did a quick test: The Fire Shield of Magran's Blessing does trigger Avenging Storm. Battle Forged does NOT. So usually when this is up it means that an attacks will get hit four times when he hits you (assuming you don't miss with the retaliations): - normal Avenging Storm retaliation - Fire Shield ret. - Avenging Storm triggered by the Fire Shield ret. attack - Battle Forged And Battle Forged still doesn't scale... So it's still complete crap. Excuse my French. No I would like to test other forms of retalations and check if they work with Avenging Storm. Then I would maybe build something sick around retalations + Heaven's Cacophony or scrolls of Avenging Storm (although I hate scrolls, so maybe Cacophony). Maybe a Wizard with Combusting Wounds and all those retalation spells (Flame Shield, Zandethu's Drconic Fury, Minoletta's Piercing Sigil, Cloak of Death). But I suspect Avenging Storm only works with the shield and not with spell indiced rets. But I'll see...

Magran has no sward as far as I know. You mean Magran's Favor the battle axe I presume. All those burn retaliations are a) no lashes but direct base damage b) don't scale with char nor Power Level At least if that didn't get changed in the latest patch (didn't read about that, but who knows?). That makes them ok in the early game and extremely ugh later on. You can upgrade Magran's Blessing's Fire Shield to Greater Fire Shield but it's still not good. Purifying Flame is nice though. On the other hand Flames of Devotion does profit from Power Levels. +5% base damage per PL. Burn-only Fire PLs do count! So the best setup for FoD is Magran's Favor + Sun and Moon. They can give you +4 Fire PL which will increase your FoD strikes by +20% (multiplicative). That is pretty awesome. My pick would be Streetfighter/Goldpact because you would be sturdy but would also dish out a lot of damage with FoD: raised base dmg * (1 + 1.qualityEnchantmentBonus + 1.MIGbonus + 1.SneakAttackBonus) * lash dmg is pretty sick. THe burn retaliations would come as a bonus. I did not check if those effects trigger Avenging Storm. Hm...

I'm playing a char with Frostseeker for over three weeks now and it def. was pierce/slash before 3.1. But I also remember that it used to be freeze/pierce at release. As I said I suspect it got changed because they were implementing Scion of Flame, Secret of Rime etc. properly and maybe they though that Frostseeker would be too good with Secret of Rime's +1 PEN?

What exactly do you mean? The lower base damage? That's because it fires 3 projectiles instead of one. Hence the lower base dmg. Or is it something else? Did it use to deal pierce/freeze? If so then I suspect they didn't want it to work with Secret of Rime.

Yes, I did read that right. I don't agree that it's hardly interesting. At least not in general. Of course you can build a strong but boring chanter. But you can do so with most classes.

Ship combat is ridiculously easy once you know what's going on, but still that one mechanic is not right.

I disagree.

Troubadour with Brisk Recitation will be able to cast Eld Nary more often/sooner - but then you can't run two parallel chants without a gap (Brisk Recitation off). Anyways I like to use Many Lives pass by with Brisk Recitation because it's just awesome. Or simply Ancient Memory. So for me it would be Troubadour. Skald's phrase generation through crits is too unreliable for my taste. If you make use of Killers Froze Stiff al lot it's ok as a SC Skald, but still the Troubadour works better for me. edit: Jeez - those typos today, man...

Man, my solo run through SSS felt absolutely brutal. : P Sure, solo is a whole different story of course.

Torkar is by far the toughest of the Firebrand crew. No wonder you had problems.

Oh, that may be a mistake. Only single class chanters can get Eld Nary and Eld Nary is very, very good in itself but even better when empowered. It scales wickeldly well with Power Levels. Add Stone of Power, be a Nature Godlike and pick Prestige + Empower and you might wipe most encounters. Chanters can use Sash's Singing Scimitar to get back the Empower Point they spend on an invocation (and get back 3 phrases as well). That means you'll get an empowered invocation once per encounter without spending an empower point. This also works for multiclass chanters of course and the get the Eld Nary base invoation, but only single class ones get access to Eld Nary's Curse which adds a ton of jumps to the invication. I mean besides getting all invocations a lot earlier of course. Here's a video of a SC Troubadour using Eld Nary's Curse: Also SC CHanter (Beckoner) will have earlyier access to double Instruments of Death and later the upgrade Song of Carnage - and those are really, really good. A nice invocation that works very well for offense is Evil turned Away from the Sun because for some reason it does the same dmg on graze as on hit because the dmg is fixed. It's great vs. hard to hit targets. Another good invocation which gets overlooked often is The Thunder Rolled like Waves because it targets Reflex but lowers Fortitude. And that's a rare thing. You can crack the defense of high fortitude enemies with it quite easily. Especially with its upgrade that grants an ACC bonus. If you want to do a really mean thing then play a Beckoner and summon Ancient Brittle Bones skeletons. Then grab Grave Calling, enchant with Chillfog on vessel kill and kill your own skeletons. Every dead skeleton will trigger a foe-only Chillfog and span two other skeletons which can also trigger those chillfogs. It gets really funny if add Many Lives pass by as a phrase. You'll just kill everything with Chillfogs. You can do the sane with your phantoms or Will'o Whisps, Hel Beckoning and Noxious Burst.

So... it is a loss?

But I guess you need high stealth AND highish sleight of hand in order to reverse pickpocket explosives to hostile targets (out of combat)?

Also interested. Can't play that much atm. But the combat of SSS wasn't particulartly difficult for me with a full party a lvl 15. Of course that may depend a lot on party composition.

It's not a big loss for Obsidian because you don't like the music of Deadfire?

You can turn and flee. As the enemy you have to reach a distance of over 600m. Enemies can't turn to Port/Starboard and then advance. Enemies can't surrender. Sometimes AI is also really dumb, doing hold position and nothing else which makes then a sitting duck. All in all the AI has a hard time, but this fleeing and being fully repaired in an instant is a bit meh. It's also frustrating that you can't sail around a ship and get to its other sides without it turning.

Nice. Haven't read the word "Zwieback" in years. Makes me think of my Grandma. She made me Zwieback with butter and sugar when I was little. Quite disgusting - but nostalgia always wins!

Right.

Lol "Spirit Animal"

If I understood him correctly then a lvl 20 multiclass char should operate with PL 8 (not 7) when it comes to explosives. So 80 ACC if I'm not mistaken. What about all the ACC buffs, PER etc. No effect like on scrolls?

Cool! Every class gets 20 base accuracy by the way.

greater or lower?