Boeroer

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....

Even better: Wizard/Monk with Citzal's Spirit Lance + Flagellant's Path. AoE Full Attack on every enemy in my path. Bonus points for casting Combusting Wounds first... Edit: works with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. Edit2: also Minor Blights + Palm shield + Flagellant's Path will do Full Attacks on everybody in line. Here even Swift FLurry works. I don't know why but it seems that the shield somhow circumvents the restriction for ranged weapons not triggering Swift Flurry. So - with a Wizard/Monk you can start with Minor Blights (+shield) and focus on Stunning Shots first - then later add Stunning Surge and Flagellant's Path and even later Citzal's Spirit Lance. Also take Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. Very nice AoE CC/dmg build.

The easiest way (and also the one that comes with the least debuffs - besides getting pummeled) is to get flanked by enemies. A Wizard/Streetfighter with a shield, Weapon & Shield style and Mirrored Image etc. can reach very high deflection very early. It's not so hard to survive getting flanked then and trigger "Heating Up". With Tuotilo's Palm you would even get the bonus of two weapon style - but I suppose (didn't test) that this setup leads to a situation that you will only attack with the shield in melee and the Blights get ignored (being ranged)...? Don't know. If not then Tuotilo's Palm is the no. 1 option for me with Blights. Superhigh attack speed, high deflection - perfect. Only needs some healing source and it's a nigh perfect build. You can also go Wizard/Monk - the shield has some nice enchantments for monks specifically - and Lightning Strikes with Blights is cool (slower than Heating Up - but gets an AoE lash). The real deal is Stunning Surge though: Since you hit a lot of enemies at once (and stun them all) you also crit a lot. I would end up getting more Mortification back than I spend (not possible - it's capped - but I regain all of the cost every time) with Stunning Surge + Wahai Poraga on Xoti (Monk) and keep foes stunned endlessly. This should be the same with Blights. I guess this is even better than wizard/rogue - but Stunning Surge comes a lot later so I suppose Wizard/Streetfighter is more fun early on. Edit: just tested the Palm in melee with Blights: it then only attacks with the bash and not the Blights. You have to be out of melee range - so a bummer with Blights if you want to get into melee. A normal shield would work better in this case. And then the Streetfighter might again be better since his speed bonus is higher than the monk's. The rest works as I expected (endless stunning with a monk and a ton of Dor-afflictions with the rogue).

I wouldn't say there is no point - if you plan to only use a certain subset of spells anyway it may be benefical to use an Evoker etc.. Or if you want to build around Form of the Fearsome Brute (just for fun - atm it's not really good) you need to take Transmuter, Conjurer's familiars aren't too bad after all... and so on. But I also think there is very little inducement when it comes to wizard subclasses. The drawback of completely losing access to some spells is just too harsh. I would like it better if those "forbidden" schools just came with a malus instead. Or some other drawback. I didn't use a wizard subclass so far just because the spells I find most useful are spread over all schools - and the small benefit a subclass grants doesn't balance this out for me personally.

I used this concept in the beta, but instead of Helwalker I used Nalpasca/Unbroken because I liked the constant flow of wounds better. With Blade Turning on you won't get hit a lot and at some point you won't have enough wounds to fuel it. With Nalpascs, a drug and Dance of Death (and lesser Wounds) you will generate Wounds as quickly as you spend them for Blade Turning (and trigger Rooting Pain all the time while casting it repeatedly). But as zendigo said I mostly stood there after gathering enough enemies and casted and casted. Still very powerful. I wonder if monk/Streetfighter wouldn't even be better...?

I talked about AoE weapons (WoEP, Wahaī Pōraga, Hand Mortar, Minor Blights, Spirit Lance) + rogue's DoTs in at least four threads in the last 7 days. Not so secret anymore I guess. Also works with Battle Axes (without being a rogue) but it takes a bit longer. But one decent Full Attack with Battle Axes will lead to 150+ raw damage (over 60 secs). Causing everlasting DoTs and running away is powerful - but it also feels cheesy and a bit lame and gets boring after a while - at least for me. Still the AoE appliance of DoTs is very cool. I mean you don't have to run away. It's also nice for a normal fight without running away.

As in PoE a rogue is good early on but falls behind a bit the more levels you gain. At least on PotD difficulty. Mostly because he lacks decent AoE abilities and he's frontloaded. That makes him a very good choice for multiclassing. It also leads to the impression that a rogue might be OP once you first try one. The good thing about Deadfire (for high level single class rogues): there are AoE weapons with which you can compensate that lack of AoE capability. Funnily - despite the common complaints about ciphers - I think that ciphers are the opposite atm: meh at the beginning but really strong later on.