Boeroer

It's also great with Driving Flight + Twinned Shot with a SC Ranger. The high ACC of the Ranger paired with four attack rolls per shot makes a chain reaction on a bunch of enemies a lot more likely than high ACC or crit conversion alone. It's helpful to have maxed INT, INT gear, Rings of Overseeing and Aloth's Leather Armor as well as the Loki pet. Becoming smart/acute/brilliant also helps of course.

****. I should have written "the sword is less clumsy than the finger it cut off." Missed opportunity really.

*Elric wearing Boots of Evasion confirmed* PS: lol at perplexing sap

I genuinely read "roasting party members" the first time and became really curious...

Well, getting hit by Terrify is super annoying and the same goes for frighten (can't use FF ability then etc.) so it's not too bad of a tradeoff I think. There's plenty of other stuff that you can catch. And as said the main source of hostile effects should be your FF ability. The rest is cherries on top. Add Hylea's Talons and you will experience noticably more wounds for example. And do more dmg.

The auto-hit part that governs the bonuses and which gets prolonged, too is the most cheesy part imo. PS: Toxic Strike: jes

Everybody knows the saying "the sword is less clumsy than the finger".

I think it's a good spell. Not fantastic like some others the Druid has access to, but solid. Targeting fortitude is always annoying, but having some AoE-MIG- and CON-affl. in the party does help (e.g. Howler with Long Night's Drink + Spirit Frenzy, best if paired with Ngati's Tusk/Hunter of Hunters) and so does AoE Morning Star (one reason for me to bring a SC Fighter for the sweet Clean Sweep with Willbreaker or Saru Sichr). Since raw DoT spells and abilities usually don't stack with themselves it's a good way to stack some more raw ticks on (a lot of) enemies. Even the weird mechanics are not a problem then because you will cast it as the last one of the AoEs anyway, when the enemies already suffered some damage. The obvious combo is with Plague oI because the AoEs are both huge as was already mentioned. What's also huge (besides the mess on my desk) is the AoE of White Worms - so I like to combine those two as well. It has a nice interaction with Toxic Strike (preferably done with an AoE weapon like a rod+Blast or so from stealth to get rid of recovery): the ticks of Toxic Strike grow with time and the ticks of Maggots grow with lesser health - which snowballs a bit more than usual.

Whoa sweet Cheesus

That's why I didn't recommend Wild Orlan above. Resistances don't only prevent wounds from tier-1 afflictions but from all tiers. It's a little quirk of the FF's wound trait - so no resistances is best. To gain more wounds use Hylea's Talons. They will put a rel. short-lived hostile effect (DoT) on you that will give you wounds when it expires. Shooting with a Blunderbuss+modal from time to time will give you wounds, too. Once you get Parted Sorrow you will get a wound from every enemy you engage and kill (because dying apparently counts as disengaging, too ). If you need more wounds and mortification you can switch to Xoti's Lantern right before killing somebody. It doesn't matter how you kill (spell or weapon or DoT or whatever): it will give you 1 wound and 1 mortification per kill. In general the main way to produce wounds is using the Forbidden Fist ability. With maxed RES and the usual -hostile effect duration gear and (Enlightened) Clarity of Agony you should be able to spam it. If not you can use heavier armor and balance the recovery in a way that it's slightly longer than the curse duration. Nomad's Brigandine is nice because it gives melee deflection (and/or ranged - see Soul Mirror in combination with Riposte) while also being a heavy armor with high recovery penalty. If that's not slow enough you can check out the Patinated Plate. If you do it right you can spam Forbidden Fist non-stop, which nets more health than the curse will cost. All other afflictions and hostile effects (see Hylea's Talons etc.) will come on top. If you have a Druid or Wizard on the party then stuff like Tanglefoot or Binding Web are good sources of friendly-fire, short-lived afflictions. You can walk into the area where the foes are struggling with those spells and get some wounds in the process.

I tend to forget about immersion that interferes with my cheese.

Really? I must have written about canceled Leap about a dozen times. Leap works out of combat, so a canceled Leap is the perfect tool for sneaking, stealing and pickpocketing.

Ohh. I use Bounding Boots like that all the time but I never thought about canceling Hunter's Pounce. I have one dude in the party who uses it atm and could really use some more movement capabilities bc. I have too many melee chara. Nice!

If you use Swift Flurry you can try Sun & Moon. One can buy it early (if there's money in the pocket ). It's also a lot more likely to give you crit chains. It all starts to really go off as soon as you get Heartbeat Drumming though. Before that there will be the occasional mini-chain from SF alone, but only the combination makes it go like "holy ****" from time to time. Swords are cool with a FF imo bc. they give you pierce and slash - and crush comes from the FF ability. Very versatile and useful against all sorts of enemies. For raising deflection (for a time) there's also Duskfall (easy to get and for free). Players often overlook the Gladiator Sword. But it can get +1 PEN (which can make a huge difference offensively), +5 deflection when worn with a shield (see Tuotilo's Palm: +15 deflection with both when at 10 wounds) and +10% dmg (not the world - but still cool). It's not the most potent offensive weapon, but for a character who already has high deflection it's really nice imo - increasing returns and so on. I did a Streetfigther/Unbroken main tank with the Gladiator Sword + Bronlar's Phalanx and that dude was the silent star of the show both in terms of defense and offense. Not flashy though.

Fingers crossed!

Mechanically I think Priest of Woedica is great. The later writs are very useful. Writ of Mending is an AoE enfeeble that targets not fortitude but will (like all writs). Combined Writ of War + Sorcery is great - there is no immunity or resistance to that unlike vs. RES afflictions.

oops, double post sorry

As a Forbidden Fist I would not use resistances - because unfortunately they can mess with the wound generation so that you don't get any wound from a downgraded affliction (like paralyzed->stuck... stuck ends - no wound ). Instead the goal should be that the durations become so short that it doesn't matter much if it's a hard CC or soft that hits you. Also if you use resistances you can't profit from the low-tier afflicton in the first place (even if resistances didn't mess up the wound generation in general). Defenses can't be high enough imo. If there's not enough hostile effects incoming (never had this problem though) you can use FF Ability, Parting Sorrow and also Mortification of the Soul and Enduring Dance.

Henlo a little quote from Josh Sawyer's tumbler site today: Link: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/697035912579891200/hello-i-just-finished-pillars-of-eternity-2-and-i

Looks good. I like that you use Iron Wheel + Enlightened Agony. It's a nice combo and yet few do it. If you pick Swift Flurry/HBD and use Mohora Taga (unique spear from Cignath Mor) you'll have a double synergy: the DoT ticks of the "Red Flag Flying" enchantment raise with Sneak Attack and even Deathblows (automatically unlocked by Persistent Distraction) - same as the ticks of Gouging Strike, Ring the Bell, Toxic Strike and Arterial Strike. Those all don't stack with themselves but with each other, melting even highest AR foes with ease. At the same time Red Flag Flying, as a weapon attack roll itself, can proc both Swift Flurry/HBD which in turn proc an additional attack of the spear with again the Red Flag Flying on it and so on. It snowballs quickly... It is one of the best weapons to induce a deadly crit chain, maybe the best. At the same time Enfeebled makes sure the DoTs stay on the target way longer. You'll have alternative dmg to crush (fists/FF ability), too and the modal's +1 engagement can be useful for a tankish char (also see Persistent Distraction and Parted Sorrow's wound generation). A bash with Tuotilo's Palm can also proc Swift Flurry/HBD - which will proc main hand attacks! Also the enchantment of Tuotilo's Palm that retaliates can proc SF/HBD, but I still fine the alternative +defense enchantment better. That way you may create a very potent boss melter, mob crit chainer and also great defender. PS: Ring the Bell works the same with dual wielding (Tuotilo's) as with a single one handed weapon. You'll get two chances of DoT appliance, indeed.

By the way: iirc the DoT of Lover's Embrace (True Love's Kiss) also works like this? At least I remember fluctuation of tick dmg based on invisibility etc. from my Assassin/Bleak Walker solo run a while back (also Gouging Strike as you already noted).

Hmmm... since the DoTs that profit from weapon quality and dmg mods seem to be the same that trigger Swift Flurry I guess Taste of the Hunt's DoT would also be able to trigger Swift Flurry, adding an initial third chance to enter a crit chain? It wouldn't get repeated on Swift Flurry procs like the weapon DoTs would, but would still increase the chance...

Yes, the recovery was what I was thinking about.

It seems so. Takedown Combo was to be expected: it boosts all DoTs during its duration (unless you don't hit the target with a damaging attack roll again which would remove it). It's great with all spells that apply a DoT status effect only like Disintegrate for example). And with Xoti's Sickle and Vion-Ceth both did more DoT damage as with a normal mythtic hatchet (as long as I made sure the dmg bonuses were unlocked when I hit the enemy with TotH).

tested: yep