Boeroer

You can use the WotEP with Run-Through for the initial Backstab and then switch to daggers. Also an Assassination with arquebus (+modal) is good - since it has no recovery but only reload you can immediately escape and switch to daggers then. Also a DoT - build with True Lover's Kiss, Mask of the Grotto Deep and Pukestabber or Marux Amanth is cool. Attack with the Dagger from stealth with Gouging Strike and deliver several DoTs at once, then vanish an let the enemy bleed to death. It's not the most OP thing but it's powerful enough, a very safe way to kill enemies and it's also fun (at least for me).

At the moment I like a melee Stalker/Streetfighter with focus on DoT stacking very much. Dual Battle Axes (with modal Bleeding Cuts), Wounding Shot, Gouging Strike, Ring the Bell, Deep Wounds and Arterial Strike as opener with an arquebus. This melts single foes like crazy. Bleeding Cuts all stack and due to all the Full Attacks (which also apply DoTs that can stack) the longer recovery time because of Bleeding Cuts is not that bad. For the future I'm planning to get both unique spears that deal DoT damage without lowering attack speed. I want to test if that's better or not. One can add Mask of the Grotto Deep for even more DoT damage from stealth (which I always use to deliver one Arterial Strike from arquebus with a fast second Gouging Strike because the 85% speed from stealth applies to the reload of the arquebus after the initiating shot). I also tried this concept with a swashbuckler and used Arterial Strike more in combo with Charge and Escape - and that's also nice. Hit them and zip around while they try to follow and bleed to death... I can imagine the same "DoT" concept would work with Rogue/Paladin, Rogue/Chanter and Rogue/Barbarian or even Rogue/Wizard or Rogue/Druid (Taste of the Hunt, Boar Form with woundind damage perhaps). Stacking DoTs is powerful and all the floating numbers above enemies heads are satisfying.

No. Not really. There are several unique armors which are nice for monks, but nothing that screams "monk's garnment!". The only thing that I can remember that has a monk vibe because of the "Blood and Pain" theme is the "Bloody Links" mail armor. But that can also be seen as a barbarian-themed thing. Edit: I think in terms of style Aloth's leather armor looks really neat on monks. Also the enchantment can be cool for stuff like Torment's Reach. It's AoE buff stacks with rings of Overseeing and INT.

Yeees - but Cutthoat Cosmo is lowering your armor penalty - it's not giving you an recovery bonus, am I right? Ach wait - now I got it. Cosmo reduces armor penalty so that the leather's enchantment is higher than your actual armor penalty. I made a mistake and thought that the enchantment of the leather was also lowering recovery penalty (like Armored Grace) instead of giving you an actual recovery bonus. :oops: Ok, then what's the math when you use the Devil of Caroc's Breastplate? If I recall correctly it has a 20% recovery bonus but has +40% penalty. Cosmo reduces the penalty of thicker armors by a greater margin than light ones'...?

Back to Charge: I now use it on a Devoted/Berserker AND Edér (Swashbuckler) and it's far from useless. It's not a no-brainer anymore, but I find myself using it a lot. It also stuns the target by the way, not only the ones in between. I even adapted my playstyle because of it: I will shoot some Arterial Strikes from far away at several enemies (usually because of the stealth speed buff you can fire two Arterial Strikes in very quick succession) and then retreat a bit. The enemies will run towards me and form a line, they will get damaged severely because the move (slowly because of the hobbled affliction), I will charge the last one in the line with both characters (after I placed an Ectopsychic Echo on one of them) and usually all enemies are stunned - that helps a lot with the beam damage and I now can mangle them from two sides while they are stunned. Usually the drop like flies without hitting back once. Sure, they would be already dead if Charge still did a Full Attack on everybody - but I think we agree that that was just too powerful. Now it's still fun and useful - just not so OP anymore.

I don't have to point out that it's not generally awesome and brilliant. Because for me it is awesome and brilliant. It's certainly not awesome and brilliant for everybody - like it's certainly not stupid for everybody. And of course this is a matter of opinion and taste - and thus it's always good to say and write exactly that and not make general statements about stuff that is not hard facts. Am I obliged to object if I agree that something is awesome - even if the original poster was generalizing? I don't think so. I don't need to rationalize my opinion. I told you it's only my opinion - like I told you that your "stupid" statement is exactly the same: only your opinion. And that including items for certain builds is not stupid (in general) because it adds replay value for me. Then I merely gave examples why I think it adds replay value because you asked for them. Then you tried to invalidate those examples that show why I like those items with some talk about marketing and whatever - stuff that in no way connects with my reasons to like it. It's like: Marty McRant: "Gnah! Fruits taste so bad! I hate fruit and it is bad and evil!" Peter O'Reason: "I don't think fruit in general tastes bad. I like several types of fruit." Marty McRant: "Well name some!" Peter O'Reason: "Apples, oranges and bananas." Marty McRant: "But you only like those because you ate them your whole life and got used to it!" Peter O'Reason: "I don't care why I like those - I like them, I think they taste great". Marty McRant: "Bah - don't try to rationalize your opinion! Fruits taste bad because only a fraction of people like fruits!" Yeah, ok. If you want to go on with that then be my guest. It's just so that I have to leave now because I have to make some builds around items and have fun while I'm doing it. See you!

Does it work if you let somebody else initiate combat while you stay stealthed - and then attack?

What's the name of that build? Surely you don't want me to post it as "The solo 1.1 PotD Thaumaturge"...? Edit: For now I put it in as "Effigy's Bombardement". Just as a nod to PoE's "Effigy's Resentment" - because it's a Priest of Skaen paired with a Wizard and you use most of your wizard spells in the videos for nuking/bombarding the enemy. If you want another name just tell me, I will edit it then.

Are you sure that it's not capped? Even in PoE you couldn't reduce armor penalty below zero so that it (theoretically) would become a speed bonus.

I didn't say that it's brilliant or awesome. I said that it is not stupid and adds a lot of replay value for me. You are answering my post with a quote of somebody else whom I didn't refer to.

That's because combat didn't start yet when you initiate it with an attack from stealth I guess? For me personally AoE stuff like hand mortar, freezy bow, WotEP or the Wakinukitiki Pollaxe are for my rogues because I can apply Arterial Strike and such in an AoE. Combined with Escape or high move speed this can be very powerful. Also Run-Through from the WotEP, combined with Sneak & Backstab is (even without being an Assassin) almost always a one-shot. And if not, over 5 seconds of prone follow. Frostseeker is particularly crazy in my opinion with Confounding Blind. With good attack speed you can reduce an bunch of enemies' deflection a lot just by firing at them with the bow. I guess it all depends on the way you play your rogue.

Disregarding that the examples you provided are let's say funny. If the game is designed around gear, unlike characters and how they are played, then character building and playing are trivialized to gear hunting. This is especially true when paired with Deadfire PEN mechanic. Sure, gear hunting is/can be fun and is part of the game, but there is much more replay value in multi-classing alone than there is in making gear part of builds as you claimed. That you found something, and that something made you to play the game again, is clearly an incentive - a thing that motivates or encourages someone to do something -, which indeed can translate to replay value. However, and yet again, the sheer number of classes and multi-classes offer so much replay value that only faction will be able to experience it. In this sense, this super powerful and/or cool gear is nothing but a marketing move simply because what they add to replay value is insignificant to what classes and multi-classes add. Maybe, if Wizard based on Illusions would actually have cool and powerful abilities, outside of Terrify, people would want to try it for another replay without the Mask. As of now .. Oh cool mask, gonna try another replay! .. after 20 hours .. oh wait, these extra PL do **** because Illusionist sucks. Replay value of 20 wasted hours. You wanted examples, I gave you some. I think I made my point why I think that build specific gear can add replay value. The game is not designed around gear, it simply had some items that work extremely well with a certain build direction. You can find that good or bad. I think it can be fun and like to develop builds around specific gear and the synergies that occur with certain abilities - if that's not the only viable way to develop good builds. And it surely is not in Deadfire or PoE. I don't give a moist shart if the initial reason for including such gear is marketing or just feeling the same as I do. It's def. not stupid. It's especially not stupid just because you don't like it. I don't like ship combat - but others might. So why would I say that including ship combat was stupid? I don't put my personal taste over others' and don't think that everything that doesn't suit me is stupid and should be changed. But as I said before: whatever. If you feel like this - what can I do? You will not change your opinion on a matter of taste just because I make a reasonable point. I mean who does in an internet forum. This would go back and forth over a minor titbit and no matter the arguments or examples at the end you would still say it's stupid and I will say it's not. Hence "whatever". https://youtu.be/hMeiDVv5t8I

Thank you.

Actually it was indeed Abraham. I confused Queen's Berth with Serpent's Crown. :oops:

Eh... whatever.

I found Lord Darryn's Voulge and thought: wow, that would be great with a Barbarian if Carnage triggers static charge. Next playthrough I might roll one. I found the small monk shield and thought: wow, that woul be cool with a monk/streetfighter with Riposte. I found the White Witch Mask and immediately decided to roll a new wizard based on Illusions. Stuff like that.

There is an "unarmed" small shield that counts as an offhand weapob, works with two weapon style AND weapon & shield style and also profits from Transcendent Suffering's bonus. I think that +3 base damage is not really too powerful. I didn't memorize the actual base dmg numbers yet so I wasn't sure.

Bonus ROFL points for using "D&D" and "prevents people from cheesing too much" in one sentence. I'm still playing my Aloth as a high deflection Spellblade who wants to use Riposte and Offensive Parry of the WotEP. It's not too easy to get him to very high values during mid game without the use of a shield.

Did you simply try to use Chillfog on the fampyrs AND you? Blind makes you immune to gaze attacks and as far as I know it won't get removed by Arcane Dampener (because it's no beneficial effect). And since you are all blinded it's not really gimping yourself in comparison to the fampyrs.

As long as your unconscious team members are near enemies they won't rise again after combat ended (if it ends in the first place). That prevents you from leaving the map. I agree that there should be an option to leave them (=killing them). Maybe a choice window that pops up once you want to leave the map like "Do you want to abandon your unconscious party members and travel on" or so.

I like the "auto max dmg roll" idea for Full Attacks with two handers a lot. It's something new yet easy to implement and understand and it's more powerful than a measly +25% additive dmg boost - since it would be a multiplicative dmg improvement. Maybe it's even too powerful, especially with Full Attacks that combine dmg bonuses and lashes (like FoD with an Assassin/Paladin for example). But it is the most interesting idea for me I've read about so far.

Why are you opposed to make it a bit more refined so that it really deserves the term "build description"? Look at how much efford others put into their build threads. I don't demand that every build discription is superpolished and shiny - but it would be nice to make it a tad more "complete". But maybe I'm the only one and a totalitarian schmuck, don't know... Edit: Then why don't you write that into your build description? That's all useful info that will help newcomers to understand how your build works.

Making gear part of builds is definitely not stupid. It adds a lot of replay value. The PEN system is also not my favorite mechanic in Deadfire. It's just too tedious to keep track if your PEN is sufficient or not all the time. I think that's why Devoted, Berserker or Sharpshooter are popular subclasses: just make sure you pile up a ton of PEN and don't bother further with PEN vs. AR.

I think there's alsways is a point to achive crits instead of hits if you can. Not only does if give you +25% additive damage (which isn't so overhwhelmingly good but still useful) but there are a lot of abilites and items that do something on crit (Evervating Blows, Blood Frenzy, interrupts(!) and so on). But that aside, a crit doesn't only give you "some" penetration, but multiplies your overall PEN with 1.5 - which leads to a better PEN quality (and dmg raise) in a lot of cases. The Guardian of Ukaizo has high AR, but if you yourself have stacked a lot of PEN (abilites, legendary equipment, Power Level boosts) you can improve your PEN quality with crits quite easily - even to the point of overpenetration. But it's true that in these extreme cases additional points of accuracy don't do as much for you as in the more "normal" fights throughout the game. Actually this makes the ranger more valuable for PotD than for lower difficulties where you will reach the point of "more ACC is not adding that much anymore" a lot sooner. Anyway: PoE's general rule of thumb "more ACC is always better" still applies. Even more so in Deadfire because afflictions' impact on enemies' defenses is a lot lower than n PoE. Accuracy is very valuable and thus the acc buffs of the ranger make him valuable, too. And never forget the additional body - it's very, very useful to have a body who can't be injured but needs no resources to be there - even if it only works as cannon fodder.

There's another pet (forgot the name, I think it's a dog) that does the same as Cosmo - without the gunner buff. So no need to console around. Maybe somebody else knows the name of the pet. I found it pretty early but didn't use it because I had Cosmo. Of curse - I mean a piggy with a hat - come on! Edit: Kaylon you ninja! Then there must be a third one because I found the one I was takling about somewhere else. I know because I haven't been to Queen's Berth in this playthrough yet. And I also think it didn't heal on kill but did something else. Or my memory is messed up completely and I mix up two pets or so. I'll try to find it and report... when I find the time to load up the game. But yes: you don't need Cosmo for this.