Boeroer

The modal alone makes Hunting Bows very good ranged weapons in terms of damage-dealing. Against enekmies withweak deflection the modal raises the dps considerably - and you can turn it off at any time should you meet enemies that hard hard to hit. The alternative damage type of Essence Interrupter makes it very useful and the shoking lash which can be increased up to 10% is nice, too. This all makes it a great choice. The "summoning" part is superannoying unless you go for Soul Diplomacy though. Summoning an Ogre Pirate in the midst of battle can totally mess up your fight. Damage-wise Amiina's Legacy is better though, and the CC aspect is nice, especially for a Dwarf with Driving Flight. But of course this one is only obtainably later when you can take on the Uamoru bounty (who is lvl 16). It makes the early to mid game a lot easier because the exceptional quality (+8 ACC) combined with the modal (-15 ACC) makes it so, so much better than any other ranged weapon at that stage. You'll suffer from a virtual -7 ACC loss copared to a regulat hunting bow but will fire twice as often (roughly speaking). I like to keep Essence Interrupter around even if I did get the Legacy - and if it's only for the aternative dmg type. I also often use it on Wizards and Wizard/something (esp. if they are geared towards using the Blackbow lateron) in combination with the Essential Phantom - because my Wizards tend to have high Metaphysics anyway and two Essence Interrupters (with Soul Diplomacy) on the battlefield can have a huge impact once the enemies start dropping and summoning friendly creatures as decoys.

Hi, unfortunately I can't remember the exact post in which I talked about Arcane Archer/Paladin for the first time, but here I have two posts hat outline the build well enough I think: Since then I also played an Arcane Archer/Troubadour with Spearcaster and found that even better that the Paladin variant, especially if you use multiple reloading weapons in the party - but the roles are slightly different (Troubadour is obviously less sturdy than a paladin but more versatile. Paladin has better healing and higher accuracy, Troubadour has better shooting speed and so on... If you have further questions then please ask.

Furyshaper/Soulblade or Furyshaper/Beguiler with Morningstar is a really nice combo. I think I'd prefer Beguiler because it's more versatile in terms of focus generation. Cipher has no summons - so there's no problem with the Furyshaper's wards. Also Iron Will of the Chipher balances out the drawback the Furyshaper has (lowered Will). Secret Horrors (frightens and sickens) in combination with Spirit Frenzy (dazes) lowers Fortitude of enemies by 20 points which stacks with the Morning Star modal (-25 Fortitude) which is great in combination with the Barbarian's ability "Brute Force".

In Deadfire I can lower the difficulty from PotD at any time:

Not liking it is one thing - and voicing that dislike, too. And indeed you can experience a raise in difficulty if you don't level up enough during the main game first or if your party is somehow not very well suited for the specific tasks at hand in the DLCs. But feeling you have to stop to play the game altogether instead of lowering the difficulty is something else. Like... injured pride?

"DLCs want me to bin this game instead of lowering the difficulty setting."

Ah sorry, I must have skipped that part.

In theory this works and it will also work in real fights from time to time - but usually fights are always a bit messy. It makes them even messier if you scatter a whole group of enemies that you would rather have assembled in one spot. So, using Clear Out with a wall in the back or so will be a lot more convenient than doing it in the open field. But of course it's better to apply a debuff in an AoE instead of doing it to a single target only. So Clear Out (and upgrades) can ideed be a nice debuffing tool. It's jsut not that easy to use a Black Jacket and then switch through your weapon sets and apply those debuffs to a group of enemy one after the other. There will be some micromanagement involved in order to hit the same enemies again. It can make the whole process a bit tedious and less fun to use as one might have anticipated. Just saying... I find with Clear the Path it's less of a problem because the enemies usually get thrown into the same direction which is less messy than having them fly into all kinds of directions (Clean Sweep) or at least fly away in a cone (Clear Out). By the way (this is an obscure mechanic, not mentioned in the game description): Clear Out is very good as a single target damage tool, too. It's not expensive and it will attack the initial enemy (the one you click on) twice(!). On top it knocks them prone of course which is always useful if you want to interrupt them. Now if you use a Morning Star + modal then the first attack roll will lower the target's Fortitude - and the second attack roll will already profit from that debuffed fortitude (bc. Clear Out itself targets fortitude). So basically if the first roll grazes/hits/crits the second one has the equivalent of +25 accuracy. Another trick: Clear Out and upgr. with a weapon that does AoE damage by itself (Whispers of the Endless Paths, Keeper of the Flame, Citzal's Spirit Lance for example) will do tremendous damage to a group of tightly packed enemies and also send them sprawlng even more wildly. Because every graze/hit/crit of Clear Out on the enemy will trigger the AoE attack of the weapon. Tons of interrupts and hit rols are the result. So a Fighter/Wizard with Spirit Lance can be a lot of fun. However: if you use a summned weapon you will have trouble switching your weapon sets. So maybe Black Jacket with the intend to switch a lot during a single fight + summoned weapons is not a good choice. But something like Whispers of the Endless Paths + Clean the Path with high INT can be really funny. Imagine your Fighter already debuffed the enemies and now just wants to deal great AoE damage and the enemies just happen to line up perfectly for a Clear the Path use: switch to WotEP and whip them across the screen for great damage, then switch back to another weapon ad finish off the scattered individuals which have survived. And it's foe-only, too (unless you are confused).

During the early game/low levels combat feels especially tedious because you will miss and graze so much. My advice is to focus on accuracy a lot more than on damage numbers. Also always flank enemies if you can (attack an enemy from opposite sides in melee). This makes the combat a lot easier in the early parts of the game. Later the ratio of your accuracy vs. enemies' defenses becomes higher and the fights become less of drag. In general I would favor casters over weapon users. Casters start pretty weak but become a lot more potent later on than your usual fighters, rogues etc. A Priest is extremely valuable because he can buff up the party's accuracy like no other support class. That directly translates to smoother fights. If your accuracy gets boosted by 20 points or so it's much easier to land debuffs and CC spells that reduce the enemies' defenses. At that point the fight is already won most of times. PoE [edit]Deadfire[/edit] did some major changes in order to make the combat less of a tedium. I don't kow about any mod that tries to put those things into PoE. But you coud try if disabling the engagement mechanic (game options) does anything for you?

Shattered Pillar... Soulblade, too. Paladin/Soublade is actually quite nice imo. And who is flirting more with Death herself than a Berserker/Helwalker? But seriously: I like that combo very much. Especially with Saru Sichr. Maybe my most favorite melee class combo. The synergies are great and plenty and the challenge of living on the edge can be fun, too.

Right, with Turn Based Mode this would be less of a problem I think.

If you want to apply all those modals in every fight and switch around all the time then it is indeed a grind at some point and it would be more practical to distribute those weapons+modals across the party instead. If you just want to be a swiss army knife of debuffing and just have the indeal weapon-modal at hand then it doesn't become so tedious imo and is good to have. This is true. You can apply a modal like Body Blows to a whole bunch of enemies with Clear Out (or the upgrades Clear the Path and Clean Sweep). Check out this page to learn more about them: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/fighter#:~:text=Clear Out%2C Clean Sweep%2C and Clear the Path Note that Clear Out targets fortitude instead of deflection (like normal attacks would do). Then Clear Out (and upgrades) pushes enemies around - which often messes up the targeting for the party members who want to profit from the defense debuff (like for example Wizards, Druids and so on). But if you have the enemies in confinded spaces so that they don't get scattered too much it's very nice. A combination with a Monk is not bad imo because the added INT (Turning Wheel) makes the Area of Effect of Clear Out much bigger. Also Monks can provide additional accuracy which is sometimes needed to reliably apply the debuff. Single class Fighter would have the advantage of Clean the Path (very long AoE, pushes enemies in one direction so they don't scatter as much) and Clean Sweep (very big circular base AoE, scales very well with additional INT and stuff like Ring of Overseeing, the pet Loki etc. - but pushes enemies in all kinds of directions away from you). Besides that the single class Fighter isn't particularly appealing in my book.

--- Rogue with bashing shield: You can build a sturdy Rogue with a shield who is capable to survive in tough battles without hiding and still do good melee dmg. Let the Rogue use a bashing shield to still profit from the Full Attack strikes that contain afflictions (Blinding Strike etc.) and a hard hitting one handed weapon (war hammer, sabre, mace and so on). WIth a Full Attack the (weaker) offhand will strike first, not dealing that much damage but applying the affliction already. Second swing from the harder hitting main hand then gets the Sneak Attack bonus right away. A Bash is considered an ability - so it scales its accuracy with level (char level -1 = acc bonus) and is never behind your main weapon's auto attack too much - it keeps being decent (in terms of accuracy). My favorite late-game setup for such a rogue was Godansthunyr + Badgradr's Barricade. They work beautifully together. The bash of the shield procs Thrust of Tattered Veils - which has no limit per encounter. It will proc on every bash-crit. ToTV is a spell and thus doesn't profit from Sneak Attack - but it profits from Deathblows (+100%dmg) which makes it a nice addition to your dps. At the same time Riposte makes a lot of sense with such a Rogue (bash-crits from Riposte will proc ToTV, too). Godanthunyr allows to stun enemies on crit (so they won't be able to attack you) which also helps with unlocking Deathblows right away. The early to mid or even late game can be done with the superearly Larder Door and later Scath Gwannek if Azurro wants to sell it (kinda random event). Unfortunetly Dragon's Maw can't be bound to a Rogue so that leaves Badgradr's Barricade as the best option. Scath Gwannek is also nice because it has a 3/rest-spellbinding of Winter Wind (spellbinding with a Rogue: see below). This is still not a tank - but it's a quite sturdy Rogue who doesn't lose a lot of damage output. And you know what they say: "dead Rogues deal the least damage"... --- Ranged Rogue You can of course also play a ranged Rogue and thus circumvent the problem of getting knocked out so much while still contributing nicely to the party's damage output. Rogue with maxed MIG, low INT and Persistence (its wounding dmg per tick scales with MIG, its overall dps raises the lower the INT) has great ranged, single target dps. Also arquebus with Rogue is not a bad pick imo. Especially Pliambo per Casitàs, which has a marking enchantment, is great to hunt down casters and such in the back rows. You can team up with another ranged party member near you and while delivering deadly shots give your nearest partner all-stacking +10 accuracy on the target. Shoot at he same enemy and they will go down very quickly. ---Spellcasting Rogue Another way is to focus on spellbinding/-holding/-striking (and so on) gear. Since Deathblows works with spells you can pile all sorts of damaging spell-per-rest gear on the Rogue (see Flames of Fair Rhian, Amulet of SUmmer Solstice, Sun-Touched Mail etc.). Once enemies have two afflictions on them the Rogue can bombard them with his double damage spells with high accuracy. As with all spellcasters, you might want to spare the bulk of the spells for the tough fights and "just be a normal Rogue" in the easier ones. But once it's time to turn the tides the Rogue can really pull off some tricks then. Same with scrolls: a Rogue with Deathblows and a scroll of Missile Barrage on double-afflicted enemies is very deadly (again: +100% damage). --- Draining Rogue A Rogue with a draining weapon and good DR can survive a single encoutner long enough do have decent impact. Tidefall is a great weapon because it combines the health draining (which is dependent on the damage you deal) and the wounding (which works like a multiplicative lash and thus also is dependent on the damage you deal). Hitting with it won't raise your health of course (use potions of Infuse with Vital Essence for that), but it will work well for your endurance. You will sacrifice a bit dps because no Full Attacks/dual wielding and also bc. of longer recovery due to thick armor - but it's doing very well against high DR foes (wounding is raw dmg that bypasses DR completely and the higher base damage of two handers has an easier time with DR in the first place). It also makes using Backstab+Shadowing Beyond (and Cape of the Master Mystic) worthwhile in tough encounters. There are other alternatives with draining and they start pretty early (Gaun's Share, Oidhreacht etc. ). It's one of the very few times I actually used Rose of Salthollow - and it worked quite well. Also looks badass imo. --- The standard melee Rogue unfortunately isn't that well-suited for PotD's late game. Way too many enemies with way too much health (or endurance) for a single target damage dealer who's not able to survive concentrated attention.

Is it possible that this is only working because of the Community Patch? Because that mod removes Wizard keywords from spells that get used as Priest spells (see Fan of Flames for Pr. of Magran) and gives them fitting priestly keywords instead. Or does it also work without Community Patch (or the keyword component that's contained in it)?

If you are using Wall of Draining (and playing around with being bloodied) a lot I would take a look at the Magnificient Escape Cape. It's an early item and when becoming bloodied it unlocks the use of the Escape ability which - in addition to the mobility - grants +50 deflection for a few secs which can be prolonged with WoD. Since it's a buff from an item it will stack with almost everything (except Escape itself, but Paladin/Wizards don't have that). Since LL Cool's Safeguard is a "+20 to all defenses" buff it will stack with indivudual defense buffs (see Arcane Veil for example). So you can conveniently get +120 deflection with Escape+Veil+Safeguard, extendable with Wall of Draining. You won't even get grazed by anything that targets deflection. Combine with the other stackable item-buffs such as from Duskfall etc. for extra ridiculous deflection and defense numbers. On the other hand it is more fiddly to use/less convenient than a plain Cape of Greater Deflection for example. But if you can make it work it's a bit like god mode - at least against the usual melee and ranged attackers. I used this to make an "Offensive Parry" Arcane Knight (Steel Garrote/Bloodmage) viable in the late game on PotD because otherwise it was hard to gain enough deflection to be fun to play (solo). This also works with the Mask of the Weyc - but that comes superlate and doesn't stack with Arcane Veil so I usually don't consider it for any x/Wizard. --- If I remember correctly you can use the Shining Bulwark's aura with an Essential Phantom to gain an additional +1 AR: switch to the Shinig Bulwark, summon Phantom and then switch to your other shield setup. The Phantom should give you +1 AR. This doesn't work if you keep using the Shining Bulwark yourself: all active bearers of it get excluded from its aura. The +1 AR buff from the aura stacks with everything afaik. --- One of the best boots for solo (not Ultimate bc. no pause) are Bounding Boots - at least for me. If you cancel the jumping animation before landing (cancel as soon as the target green circle appears) the per-rest use will not get substracted and there will be no effect upon landing - but you will have moved for free. Very long range, no recovery, only short animation. Gets you into and out of all sorts of troubles. Of course it's a bit cheesy to exploit the boots in such a way... I find Boots of the White occasionally, but I remember a spot where thy seem to be a fixed drop: on the top of the mountain in the BoW-DLC, where you fight those crazed pilgrims after you did climb up there. One of those guys always drops them iirc. I also consider Boots of the Stone solid footwear. I usually have several of those in the early-mid game already - and they provide RES vs. MIG affl. which the Paladin doesn't get via passive.

Speaking only about damage dealing, Seeker's Fang with a Cipher is very strong against single foes, but WotW has so much potential - as long as there's more than one enemy - that it almost always takes the trophy imo. Especially in combination with Resonant Touch. Bit there's more than damage dealing. A Cipher/FF can charm and dominate rel. easily for a very, very long time (Lingering Echoes, +10 INT from Turning Wheel, +enfeeble) - after getting Instruments of Pain the Cipher/FF doesn't even have to get near the enemy anymore - and as I have said a lot in the past, mind control is one of the most impactful effects in the game. It's like creating a summon while at the same time taking an enemy off the battlefield. And being able to do that with replenishable resources just makes it even more impactful. So you turn three or four enemies and then even can summon two elemental monks on top (Dichotomous Soul)... And also very importantly: you can start doing impactful stuff right from lvl 1 on which adds fun imo. I personally like Beguiler/FF most - just because weapon damage isn't needed to gain focus and that's convenient - but you can still gain focus from weapon damage. In the unmodded game Forbidden Fist ability works as a spell and doesn't generate focus, that's another reason. I even tried Psion/FF and it works very well with the Community Patch mod if you concentrate on defense more (Tuotilo's Palm and so on). I wouldn't try that combo with the unmodded game. Cipher/FF is more versatile, fun to play early on and very strong overall. But if it's about pure martial prowess not much beats WotW+Resonant Touch.

+3 MIG = +9% healing. That works for the same sources the Physiker's Belt works with (which does +10% healing). On top of that you'd get +9% damage as you said - but even more importantly (imo) you'll also get +6 Fortitude defense. +3 MIG def. better in my book.

Hi! I guess you mean this one:

Ah well - the day didn't go as planned and I didn't get to play Deadfore today, sorry.

Just a few experiences: Ghost Heart/Ascendant can be very good - also bc. of the highest accuracy a class combo can get on its own. It is very good with Frostseeker for example. Builds focus very quickly and procs the AoE of Frostseeker all the time bc. of high ACC and Driving Flight. The AoE also generates focus. No fuss with the Animal Companion but can summon it behind enemies and then use it with stuff like Ect. Echo for example. --- Arcane Archer/Troubadour is also very good, especially an Arcane Archer with high Arcana using Spearcaster (unique arbalest). Sure-Handed Ila applies to reloading weapons such as Arbalests twice (so 2* -20% reloading time) which combined with Gunner and some reloading gear (like Acina's Tricorn and Sharpshooter's Garb + penelty-reducing pet such as Abraham) leads to awesome shooting speed with very high accuracy. You can actually use the arbalest modal to chain-prone even the tough singular enemies which takes them basically out of the fight. On top of that you have lots of useful invocations, Aefyllath adds damage to your shots and the Imbued Shots Pull of Eora and Binding Web are very useful with Driving Flight, delivering double CC fields with high speed and a ton of accuracy. --- Arcane Archer/Paladin - a very versatile character with high accuracy (epecially with Accurate Wounding Shot and Flames of Devotion in combo with the Ring of Focused Flame). Flames of Devotion counts as elemental attack so it doesn'r get the -5 ACC an Arcane Archer gets with "normal", non-elemental and non-imbued shots. Can heal, support, deal damage, do great CC, is sturdier than the usual ranged char. Can heal and revive his animal companion. Spearcaster is good, but any reloading weapon is good. --- Troubadour/Streetfighter with the Red Hand is a devastating shooter once you pick up the upgrades Whisp summons. With them you can distract yourself which stacks Sure-Handed Ila (2* -20% reloading) + Aefyllath (+15% burning lash) + Heating up (-50% reloading, extra Sneak Attack dmg). Also the summons help with crowd control of course. They last long enough that you can use another invocation in between most of times. With the Red Hand you can already shoot twice before reloading - and with the combined reloading bonuses the reloading action is incredibly short. As close as one can get to a machine gun imo. Great char for hunting enemy casters for example. No ranger here of course. --- Single Class Helwalker or Nalpasca with dual mortars from Serafen (Fire in the Hole, Hand Mortar). It's great early on bc. of Stunning Shots/Surge but literally explodes once you get Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind. Makes most late game encounters with lots of enemies trivial. Also nice with Watershaper's Focus (+Blast) instead of mortars. --- If you have a Chanter in the party who wants to use the Invocation "Many Lives Pass By" and also uses the skeleton summons a lot and/or if you have a party with lots of summons use in general: Single Class Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (Eccea's Arcane Blaster + Scordeo's Trophy). Ring of Focused Flame, all the shooting gear, Two Weapon Style and so on. Fast shooting in general with good accuracy. Take all the exhortations and upgrades (in a manner so that there is no overlap with the inspirations), Shared Flames, Lay on Hands... it will be a nice character for roleplaying purposes and will deliver nice healing, support and single target damage - and truly unlocks its great potential once you pick "Devine Retribution": it will give you +2 Zeal every time an ally goes down - and even summons count. So every time a summon in your party gets killes you get +2 Zeal. If you have an endless supply of summons (see Chanter or Monk) this will turn your Paladin from a limited-resource class into a class with refreshing (overflowing) resources. You will drown on Zeal which you can spend to spam FoD (+Whit Flames), constantly healing your party while damaging foes, cast all the exortations in seconds (they are instacasts and expensive - doesn't matter if your Zeal comes back all the time), revive your party's Animal Companions endlessly without drawback, put Brand Enemy on every enemy in seconds and whatnot. It's very useful in the later game but of course it's real trick only comes online very late. I still found it very enjoyable because it doesn't suck before and it was its own fun to work towards that goal to unlock Devine Retribution.

Hi! I'm not 100% sure anymore but if I remember correctly it doesn't work on charmed/dominated enemies. I'm about to start up the game and can test it to be sure. Till later...

Hello and welcome. Depends on the topic. Questions about mechanics and character builds I would post in the resp. subforum. Everything else here. But it doesn't matter that much tbh. Since the PoE forum isn't that frequented anymore it's not a big deal if a topic doesn't fit the subforum 100%. If it's too bad we can always ask a mod to move the topic. I don't think your questions will be silly. But even if: I'll still try to answer them. May take some time though - am not as frequently monitoring the forum like I did in the past. But I will see new questions eventually - like... once or twice a day or so. Cheers!

Yes, that is very good. I think this is indeed the best class combo when considering the special requirement and the whole game from start to finish. Maybe one could think that they lack a bit of an accuracy boost - but I think it's not a real issue.

Ach Scheibenkleister - now I want to do another run with a Blackbow Wizard in the party.

Unfortunately I don't use AI much so my experience with the scripting tools is pretty limited. But I guess the easiest way is to use a timer/cooldown with the phantom? I personally also like to cast Citzal's Martial Power after summoning the Phantom - that would make the timer/cooldown approach very unreliable I think. I think I would just set up a script for the self buffing and summon bow part and then cast Essential Phantom manually. This would also allow for better positioning of the phantom. And then I'd manually cast C's Martial Power. By the way: I really like Helm of the White Void with a Blackbow Wizard. It works for every shot (+10 ACC) bc. of the terrify effect. And it works for the phantom, too.