Boeroer

I'd like to see Transmuter's Ogre fists altered in a way that they profit from Transcendent Suffering and Monastic Unarmed Training. I would like to have two handed war hammers and two handed battle axes (double bladed/headed or danish/norse style would be nice even it they don't fit the Deadfire carribean theme). I would like whips. They can be considered flais when it comes to proficiency, do less damage but automatically reduce will or resolve on hit. Cat o'nine tails could mechanically work like a blunderbuss: multiple smaller hits. Maybe a special enchantment that lets you flangellant yourself and raise resolve/will: perfect for monks, eh?

The soulbounds in Deadfire are better (compared to uniques) than in PoE. My favorite so far is Magistrate's Cudgel. Marux Amanth is also useful - especially great on a Priest of Skaen (also multiclassed - but you have to bind it to the priest class). Lord Darryn's Voulge is also very nice. So yeah - I think they are pretty nice overall. Also spare you a ton of coins because you don't need to upgrade them via enchantments. Two superb/legendary enchantments already will cost you a junk.

You assume that the majority of players don't want an animal companion. Yet you have no proof of this claim. I personally liked the animal companion in PoE a lot (after it got buffed in one of the more early patches) and I think a lot of people felt the same. But since I can't say how many I don't claim that this is the general consensus. I also ask myself if this is a poll or just a "rangers suck!" rant in disguise. First you asked everybody who voted something else why they did it - and once ranger got mentioned the ranting started. I think the "ranger" part of the class is strong enough - due to the high ACC the ranger can stack. It is also quite boring... The animal companions are indeed too weak. It's not fun to make something weak merely viable with a lot of abilities. But still: an additional body in a party (that you can control directly) is a huge advantage. How else can you balance it other than nerfing other parts of the class? The animal companion is part of the class after all. Now one can like that or not, but it is as it is. A way out of this would be to make the animal companion a pickable ability and not an automatic one. It would nerf several other parts of the ranger (to balance the additional body). All abilities tied to the animal companion would be upgrades of that single ability that gives you an animal companion. If you didn't take it then your petless ranger could be made stronger (or not nerfed). Or you could make a fork: one ability branches out into pet stuff, one into non-pet stuff (making the petless ranger stronger) and the rest would be universal. Whatever... What I really really don't get is why Obsidian nerfed Evasive Fire. Sure, it was *really* good (and most people here didn't notice) but it wasn't that overpowered and gave me a reason to take ranger in the first place. Ah well... Concerning the poll: I have a hard time to name the weakest class. Too many variables (multi/single for example). And also I think currently there is no clear "weakest" for me as it was in PoE. That might be a sign of good balance or that I didn't play enough. However, I will pick ranger just because the nerf of Evasive Fire annoys me and Barbarian as strongest because of some broken combos of items+abilities...

Robust only comes from actives afaik. Things like Gilded Enmity/Iron Skin etc. won't stack with modals/other actives that give +AR. Passive stuff like Thick Skinned will stack.

No. Both. AND Dance of Death. The wounds fly in whether you get damaged or not.

The point is to have a build that's fun to play. Some builds and especially (support) abilities are only useful with a party. Are they all pointless aswell when posting a nice build?

He is a single class Barb who uses Heart of Fury with the Pollaxe. Same result with a consoled Spirit Lance + HoF. The pollaxe does its circular attack on every enemy in HoF range. I suppose it also works with Vengeful Defeat. So a suicide Wizard/Barb with Citzal's + Vengeful Defeat + Second Chance might be possible. I didn't try WotEP - if it behaves the same way or not with the cone. I guess not. And yes: the pollaxe hits always all enemies in range, not only two additional as the description says. The range is not being altered by overseeing or INT. Funnily enough the pollaxe does not do its AoE attack with Flagellant's Path (1.1). Also Wahaī Pōraga + Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming still proc endless crit chain if you only get enough enemies in range.

Concelhaut's "Fist" is weird. If you use it with special full attacks like Crippling Strikes it doesn't disappear. You can use it over and over. If you do an auto-attack it disappears. I think it has something to do with the full attack and that your second weapon/fist will strike last. Bug I guess. And no, unfortunately Transcendent Suffering does not improve it. Back to Firebrand: Scion of Flame and also the Ring say: +1 PEN / +10 ACC with fire attacks, not only spells. An attack with Firebrand (whose primary dmg type is burn) can be seen as an attack with fire. And it is labeled and coded that way intentionally. Some other weapons like the Blackbow have the same features (primary dmg src corrode) but here the devs forgot to label its basic attacks as acid. Kalakoth's Minor Blights with the same feature are labeled again. Does the +10 ACC of the Ring of Focused Flame get applied twice with Firebrand + FoD? Unfortunately not. It works with FoD alone and also on Firebrand without FoD. But since FoD + Firebrand still counts as one single attack with fire it's consistent and logical that there's only +1 PEN I think. We might wish there's two, but it would be cheesy. Does Scion of Flame get applied twice? Nope. Same reason. Does Fury + Scion add +2 PEN to Firebrand? No. The spell itself is a non-offensive one and just summons Firebrand. It can't get any PEN. The sword itself doesn't seem to fit the Fury criteria. I wouldn't be sad if it did though. But as is the Fury bonus only gets applied to the druid spells that have the keyword "elements", even if there are others that do corrode damage but then have the word "plant" instead for example. Firebrand itself doesn't seem to be labeled in a way that the Fury bonus gets applied. Does Wildstrike profit in any way? No. Just adding a lash doesn't work. The basic attack has to be labeled as fire attack. Same with Eternal Devotion and Turning Wheel and so on. My build ideas are not always min-maxed in terms of pure power. The whole package should be nice: There has to be consistency with a certain theme and style as well. So of course one can find a better weapon than Firebrand at some point. But the fun will come from coming up with an idea to make Firebrand viable for a whole playthrough. Before it was just a "maybe" because I thought the +10 ACC and the +1 PEN could somehow make it work if I would have those items/abilities anyway (as a druid who also casts). Now, with the +25% lash I'll give it a go. I don't plan to use it as primary source of damage anyway. Of course as a Druid I will also cast lots of fire spells. That makes Barbarian with Bloodlust and Blood Thirst appealing as well, I agree. But my current char is a Devoted/Berserker and thus I still think I'll try out either non-shifting Fury or Animist/Bleak Walker's. Fury... I don't like the restrictions and that you can't choose your elemental form (always shock), but the name of the class itself sounds so fitting for a Bleak Walker's who's aggressive and cruel.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/100802-looking-for-death-knight-advice/?fromsearch=1

OR... you could leave all that 1-1(1-)//1()(1/0.674)) shenanigans aside and use a simple cap?

In 1.2 all two handers will get +1 PEN. So it's 7+1. For a Druid/Bleak Walker it's 7+2 PEN on Flames of Devotion with Scion of Flame and also Spirit of Decay. Or a Devoted with 7+2+1 PEN of course. But since I'm alread playing a Devoted atm I think I will go for the Bleak Walker. What I like most about Firebrand atm ist that the Ring of Focused Flame works with it. FoD gives you +10 ACC, the ring another +10 ACC... it's quite nice and you don't need to enchant anything. A nice gun as backup weapon maybe? I also thought about multiclassing with Ranger and use Accurate Wounding Shot + Ring + Rending Smash. +30% dmg with +20 ACC and raw damage...? Hm, still like Bleak Walker better.

Spirit Lance is actually better than in PoE: ability effects translate to all its AoE hits. That means Flames of Devotion, Stunning Surge, Arterial Strike, Force of Anguish, Mule Kick, Clear Out and so on and so forth work in an AoE with the Lance. Also Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming and Cleaving Stance. No big advantage for single class wizards, but awesome for multiclass wizards. My first playthrough I started with a Helwalker/Wizard because of this. Same with Minor Blights (samehavior, but ranged). Those are also awesome because they are one handed now. Rot Skulls is still great. Caedebald's Blackbow hasn't changed much. I didn't look at Llengrath's weapons. The ones that are worse in Daedfire: Concelhaut's Draining Staff and Firebrand (although it's ok now with the lash).

Well - I suppose you could cast Frenzy while not shifted (Confused gets downgraded to nothing) and then shift, right? Same with the sword.

Don't know - last time I tried a Priest of Berath his sword still had +50% corrosive lash - but that was some time ago. I'm still at 1.1 - so this is definitely not new (like 1.2-new). I just never looked at it again after release. I think I checked at release if Firebrand was still as crap as in beta and if I remember correctly it had no lash then. Secret buff somewhere in between release and 1.1 maybe? Whatever - works well now. I don't mind the "ethereal" looks too much. From a zoomed out perspective it's ok. Very yellowish. I like yellow. What looks really bland is Caedebald's Blackbow. They should call it Caedebald's Brownbow... But Firebrand: looks like I found my first serious build idea...

They are all actives - those don't stack. Items with +AR and passives will all stack.

Hi, while toying around with the console I found this: I was planning a Druid/Devoted or Druid/Bleak Walker build based on Firebrand just for fun when I wondered why I always get additional lash damage even without using Flames of Devotion. My initial idea was to pair Scion of Flame (+1 PEN) and the Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC for fire attacks) with Firebrand and also use the fire spells of the Druid. Either with Devoted for the +2 PEN an crit damage or the Bleak Walker with additional Spirit of Decay for +2 PEN for FoD. The Bleak Walker does serious damage with Firebrand now due to the stacked lashes. With the Ring of Focused Flame I can leave on Rending Smash all the time with no ACC loss (compared to a normal great sword). So basically I now have a Great Sword with +1 PEN (+3 with Devoted), +25% burning lash and +30% damage (or +10 ACC). Sweet! If you ask yourself why Firebrand has +25% lash while the priest weapons have 50%: Firebrand lasts a lot longer: 60sec (base). I'm happy.

I don't know about any headgear that does this. Devil of Caroc's Breastplate, Modwyr and Svef are the ones that come to my mind. Two of them won't work for shifters... There's a pet that shortens the duration of intellect afflictions by 10%.: Newly Formed Whisp. Meh. Maybe there's more?

Two Weapon Style I suppose?

It also works for Shattered Pillars. They need to do more damage than 10 to generate a wound, so Lesser Wounds also leads to a bigger "bonus" (in flat numbers - percentage wise it should be the same: 20% less dmg). Else it would be near useless for them. Can't remember the exact numbers atm, but I tested it in the beta.

Weapons that work with elemental talents and that I tested: - Firebrand (Scion of Flame) - Frostseeker (Secrets of Rime - only the AoE blast) - Rot Skulls (Spirit of Decay - only the AoE blast) - Kalakoth's Minor Blights (all - weapon cycles through all 4 elemental damage types - each of them profits from the corresponding talent) - Fury's natural weapons (Heart of the Storm - initial hit + jump) Weapon that I suspected to work but don't: - Caedebald's Blackbow (although it does corrode damage) - Nannasin's Cobra Strike - Concelhaut's Draining Touch Firebrand also profits from the Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC) which seems to stack with everything and might be a reason to use it. +10 ACC is not bad. For example you could use Rending Smash all the time without ACC loss (compared to a mundane great sword). The bonus doesn't get applied twice when doing FoD with Firebrand. Also PEN from Scion of Flame only gets applied once. The burn version of Kalakoth's Minor Blights also works with it by the way.

Looks all solid to me. Sabres are a good pick if you like those "strike" abilities and take several of them (Crippling Strike, Blinding Strike etc.). The more of them the better when using sabres. They provide Full Attacks (= hitting with each weapon, skipping recovery between both hits) which negates the genersl sight dps disadvantage of heavy one handers compared to light weapons. If you don't want to use those strikes a lot and do mostly auto-attacks I would use Rapier & Dagger personally. There are two early uniques that are great and can be used until the end (if you upgrade their quality enchantment on the way): Sword of Daenysis and March Steel Dagger. Pure auto-attack dps will be the highest over the course of the game. But if you use some strikes (which is more fun in my opinion) sabres are great.

How do one reach 100% lash? FoD and Wildstrike are Would Wildstrike corrode/burn stack with the bleakwalker's FoD on this build? Yes. But there' no benefit to pick Wildstrike Burn (or Corrode or Shock). FoD adds a burning and a corrosive lash (and the ability is keyworded with fire and acid and thus gets the +1 PEN each from the elemental talents). But the lashes themselves don't get the PEN bonus (only the initial "direct" dmg part) - so I think it's better to pick a different element for Wildstrike (in this case freeze) in order to cirmcumvent immunities. With Wildstrike Freeze on the Fury/Bleak Walker you have shock (Fury natural weapons, burn (FoD lash), corrode (FoD lash) and freeze (Wildstrike lash). With Eternal Devotion you will have shock/burn/freeze for some time (Eternal Devotion doesn't use the corrode lash like the "real" Bleak-Walker-FoD). But if you want to stack FoD burning lash + Wildstrike Burn or the FoD corrosive lash with Wildstrike Corrode you can do that.

Fixed

The good thing is Flagellant's Path + AoE attack on every enemy you pass - not the +15% attack speed. Also the endless stunlockig of groups with Stunning Surge is very,very good. But as I already said: the Wizard/Streetfighter combo with summoned weapons like Minor Blights is awesome right from the start while the Wizard/Monk needs more levels.

Dammit. Ok, thanks. I wonder why this always happens. I'm pretty sure I didn't forget to edit the link after copy & pasting the template....