Boeroer

I saw you post this in another thread, and it def made sense as a possibility. It also has good spammability, is a full attack (for two weapons), and helps with accuracy. In comparison, am I overhyping how good an extra bounce would be with Ranger? I feel like it would add a lot, with accurate wounding shots. In addition, are damage pets even worth it? I would probably need to keep the pet too, since I would go sharpshooter. I guess Ranger with Driving Flight would also be nice. I only tested the Fury/Bleak Walker variant though.

Since INT doesn't have such a big impact on circular AoEs anymore I would indeed say that rogue is better because of Sneak Attack and the many afflcitions and DoT effects he can apply. Especially Streetfighter is nice because of the easy to get +50% attack speed. ALso the monk doesn't start with 10 wounds - so the +10 INT is the best case - not the norm.

*snore*

Fury/Bleak Walker with Spirit of Decay, Scion of Flame and Heart of the Storm gets +3 stackable bonus PEN for FoD attacks, +1 with simple auto attacks and +2 PEN for all elemental spells except freeze (+1 PEN). If you pick Wildstrike Freeze you will deal 4 different types of damage with FoD. Fury/Ranger with Driving Flight will give you one additional "jump" (not two as one might think).

Kalakoth's Minor Blights would be my no. 1 choice with the brawling small shield: speed of dual wielding with AoE attacks, defenses of a shield, afflictons in an AoE and lots of damage per hit as well. The +20 ACC is actually the best part of Minor Blights. And it also cycles damage types. It's really good. No Riposte though.

Backstabbing with a huge two-handed sword kicks my immersion in the balls :D But I realize that it's effective. I was actually considering a "dot" build. Single class Assassin with True Lover's Kiss and Rust's Poignard, spamming Gambit from Stealth, but I'm not sure how good would that be considering that I'd have to spend Guile to re-stealth during combat. Yes, you can stack a lot of DoTs with one single hit from stealth (Mask of the Grotto Deep + Deep Wounds + Lover's Kiss + Gouging Strike for example) and then vanish. It works very well because stacking DoTs is powerful - even when going toe-to-toe. However - in my opinion a simple battle axe (or two) + modal (Bleeding Cuts) works even better than that dagger. Bleeding Cuts stacks with itself and puts a very long lasting DoT onto the enemy that does 10% of the attack's damage as raw dmg tick every 3 secs. If you are doing a Full Attack and each axe does 40 damage that means that 2 Bleeding Cuts will do 4 (modified by MIG I think) raw dmg every 3 secs for 60 secs (20 ticks * 4 raw dmg * 2 = 160 raw damage). Perfect for the "hit and run" strategy.

Oh, nerfed with 1.1? SO the cone counts as ranged I guess? That's unfortunate for the monk. I think the pollaxe still works because it's not really doing an AoE attack but merely attacks two additional targets (and not everything that's in its radius).

Lindsay also retweeted this: Don't know what to make of it. If it's not related to the change then it's pretty bad timing. Good luck at Funcom! I don't play any of their games and I doubt I ever will, so no more seeing your artwork.

She's working here now: Funcom.com

Boeroer: That kind of rogue build sounds a lot of fun. In such a rogue build, how high would you prioritize Intellect for the AoE effects? Are we talking max PER and max INT first and foremost?I use WotEP on Aloth (Spellblade) and use his leather armor and two Rings of Overseeing as well as INT buffing gear and Infuse with Vital Essence. In this case I prefer INT over DEX. INT and overseeing have a good impact on cone size (but not so much with circular AoEs due to the new way of applying the AoE-size-bonus in Deadfire). Atm I have double cone length and can easily hit 4 or sometimes even 5 foes with stuff like Arterial or Gouging Strike without too much positioning hassle and then vanish. I guess it could also be cool for a solo run where you inflict Gouging Strike to several enemies, then vanish and let them die - then rinse and repeat. I also tried this with Confounding Blind and Finishing Blow and other non-DoT upgrades of the rogue strikes - and while it's nice to put Confounding Blind on a bunch of enemies I find it's a lot more powerful to use the DoT variants in an AoE. Especially Arterial and Gouging Strike since the don't get influenced by the (lowish) weapon damage of the WotEP - this is just about hitting several enemies at once. This works even better with the Spirit Lance I guess (if its blast still procs afflictons). Its a better weapon than the WotEP but comes rather late for multiclass chars. Another really nice variant with WotEP is using rogue/monk instead of Wizard and combine +10 INT from Duality (INT) with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. I prefer Nalpasca + Dance of Death because then I don't have to get hit so much in order to get wounds. Helwalker would be nice as well in order to get really high numbers with the DoT ticks. But it's not so easy to get a lot of wounds at the start of battle without hassle. I added Enervating Blows and also used Stunning Surge besides Arterial Strike and so on. Enemies get stunned, weakened AND bleed to death. The Pollaxe does the same but in a less big AoE and it only hits 2 additional foes. But basically the same idea. The Hand Mortar is also cool for a Spellblade because Pull of Eora + AoE Arterial Strike with the mortar is just bonkers. They try to reach you but bleed to death while trying. Arterial Strike costs only 1 Guile and you can combine that with Combusting Wounds as well. Rod + Blast will NOT work. Also works well with Frostseeker I guess, especially the Combusting Wounds part(?). But maybe the frost/burn combo negates each other? I didn't test that.

I have never seen this actually working. The stealth recovery bonus does work with bows and melee weapons but any weapon requiring a reload doesn't seem to benefit from it. I use an Arterial Strike from stealth with a pistol and then a Gouging Strike that follows almost immediately. Works like a charm. The stealth bonus also applies to reloading. I have tried this numerous times and never gotten it to work. As soon as the first ability is activated, it pops me out of stealth and any reload speed boni are lost immediately. Maybe you're using a dual weapon setup?

You may have accidentally triggered auto-leveling in the game options. If that's not the case then it's a bug.

Okay, thanks.

When I use Eyestrike on several enemies who already suffer from an appropriate afflicton I usually get more focus back than I spend - so in this case it seems to be working "as advertised". I didn't use Phantom Foes though.

Wasn't Flagellant's Path changed? The description now says it only does a Full Attack at the target and minor crush damage in between? Or is that not correct? I didn't test it since 1.1.

Hi, I would make a high INT offensive fighter with Disciplined Barrage, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, Weapon Focus (whatever backup weapon you want to use), Scion of Flame, Weapon Spec and Mastery and pick up Forgemaster Gloves & Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer (gives you 6 times Firebrand per rest). The ACC boost comes from the paladin and the Fighter can pair that with his Barrage - to generate a lot of crits (also when using Knockdown). Firebrand does tremendous damage on crit. For sturdyness I would go high MIG (also good for Firebrand) and skill survival really high so that I can get the healing bonus and also use the Robe of the Tireless Defender, Rapid Recovery and a Belt of Bountiful Healing. He will destroy any single target the paladin marks for him. This works even better if the fighter is the MC and takes the Doemenel route and get "Merciless Hand" and later sides with the Dyrwoodan Looters in Twin Elms and gets "Dungeon Delver". Add a priest with Inspiring Radiance and Devotions for even more crits. For crowd control something like a cipher or wizard is better than a low dmg tank. Tanks who do low dmg but have very high defenses will be ignored by most enemies as long there are more "valuable" targets. A fighter with Take the Hit doesn't work well with Mind Control (like the Ploi has) because Take the Hit is bugged when it comes to charmed/dominated enemies: If they get attacked your fighte will also get their damage (because thy have flipped alliance and now work for you) - but it will not go away after they flip back - that makes them really hard to kill without killing your fighter as well.

actually in my opinion it's bad. other revive are much better. you cant be saying it's not bad because you can cast barring's death door. what if there's no priest in the party? player's fault? . of course it's just my opinion. i have barring death's door but i didnt use it for this actually . i use chanter's revive though. splitting resurrection to other classes is a good thing so that said class will not be a dependent class which promotes varied party composition . Eh? Read again what I wrote. I didn't say it's not bad. I just tried to find a way to make it work in the OP's situation. The ability is not well implemented. It should just substract half of your max health (if that's lower than 300). That would make more sense. But it doesn't so I just named some options that came into my head.

I have never seen this actually working. The stealth recovery bonus does work with bows and melee weapons but any weapon requiring a reload doesn't seem to benefit from it. I use an Arterial Strike from stealth with a pistol and then a Gouging Strike that follows almost immediately. Works like a charm. The stealth bonus also applies to reloading.

It has 10 bonus accuracy and interrupts on graze. It's easy to interrupt an enemy caster with it.

What class? Because some can buff themselves with a resolve inspiration/direct buff. I don't know if this can be carries over to the stat check though...

Maybe if you have a priest, cast Barring Death's Door on the character you plan to get revived? Eh... I mean after he got revived. Time it so that the health loss falls into the timespan of Barring Death's Door. But I guess you didn't pick that spell, right? I don't know what else to do besides raising your characters max health. Raising CON (with Nature's Vigor/Balm, Prayer for the Body, ), items, putting on Amulets etc. with +x to max health (they do stack)... Reviving Exhortation will raise your ally with 300 health (max) - so losing 150 isn't that bad then.

Hi! I would use Swift Strikes first because in the early game the foes are not that numerous but hard and you will have to split and pull some enemies (if you don't want to skip fights) - and more attack speed for a certain time seems to be more useful than the Torment's Reach cone. Especially because you can't line up multiple enemies for the cone like in a party without high move speed. For a solo Long Pain build that uses Torment's Reach you need high move speed (Long Stride and/or /Boots of Speed and/or /Fast Runner) - then you can run away, the enemy will follow in a line/cone and you can turn around and nuke them with Torment's Reach like crazy. THat is very powerful. But without the move speed and also Long Pain it's not as effective as it can be. But even on a single target its 50% lash and the Full Attack are great... so... hard choice, but I'd still stick to Swift Strikes as first pick I guess. Stats look good. Weapon Focus as first is not bad. But since this is a solo build I would maybe choose Veteran's Recovery as first choice. You have to avoid hard CC at all costs. Since you can run around and avoid too many hits while attacking from range with the Long Pain, hard CC will totally screw you up. So I recommend stuff like Fenwalkers, Blaidh Golan etc. which work really well with Clarity of Agony to make sure afflcitions only last for a very short time. If you combine it with Crucible of Suffering you can combine very short afflcitions with an additional defense boost. This would also stack with Duality of Mortal Presence. High fortitude is your best friend. Getting paralyzed/petrified/stunned/prone can mean knockout - and all of those target fortitude in most cases. For a solo build one can also consider to use Weapon & Shield Style and switch on Duality(Deflection) insteat of (other defenses) at the start of battles. COmbine this with Aila Braccia. All voley from ranged enemies (this includes all single target spells that target deflection) will get turned into miusses and reflected back to the attacker. THis can make encounters such as Lagufaeth and Thaos a LOT easier. After the initial shots at you you could summon Long Pain and start punching. Just an idea though. Hope you have fun!

I also like Evasive Fire a lot. Its base damage is good, it's superfast - and paired with the very long range mobility component it's great - especially since it only costs 1 Bond.

No. But you have to level up the soulbing first so that the owner spawns. Then it works like before.

Not that situational - I use it in every fight at least once. For example: if you open with it from stealth its recovery is nearly zero because the stealth speed bonus of 85% applies. So you can stun several enemies for 4 sec (base) and attack immediately after. Even if it's not that useful for you during encounters it would be still pretty great as combat opener (obviously not for Assassins ). But even if it would be very situational or only good for very special builds (which I don't think): the initial question was if it's "totally useless" now - and I'd say it's far from that. It's actually still pretty good.