Boeroer

I'm realizing a lot these days. Especially because I play all that stuff before starting rants. Since when did rogues in PoE have upgrades to strikes - like Confounding Blind that reduces the enemies' deflection with every hit or Arterial Strike lets them suffer 6 damage with every step they make? Since when could rogues in PoE use Backstab or Finishing Blow multiple times per encounter? Since when did rogues Persistent Distraction unlock Sneak Attack in PoE? Since when could round multiply their additive dmg bonuses with MIG in PoE? All that stuff makes the rogue a lot more powerful than in PoE. He also got a lot sturdier than in PoE. The only thing that misses is Reckless Assault. Why don't I give a damn? Reckless Assault is good in the early game - but it's non-stackable(!). Those potential +8 ACC are bad after the early game. Not only because 8 ACC is not that important at that point but also it supresses/got suppressed by any other universal ACC buff. And in Deadfire it would not stack with Zealous Focus, Devotions and so on. So no big loss. Also rogues strikes come with ACC or PEN bonuses. The loss of Reckless Assault in the beta is not a big deal. As if 8 accuracy would make you crit like crazy... And who says that there will not be more ACC and/or conversion stuff at higher levels? And since when is hobbled gone? Weapon Focus is gone for everybody so no impact on balance.

1. No, not affected 2. Only the low DEX 3. Recovery will suffer from it all - except weapon modal (that only affects weapon attacks) 4. Yes. Chanting pause after invocation. So as an active invocation user you don't want to be a slow turtle unless you use fast invocations with short recovery.

As a Troubadour you can also pair it (without a gap) with another phrase that doesn't stack - like Mith Fyr or Old Siec or whatever. I think it's pretty cool, putting a tier-2 affliction on everybody just by standing around. It will also cancel all fitting inspirations on enemies all the time. Seems to be very good in my book. Doesn't weakened also prevent healing?

You know that casting times are generally shorter in beta4?

As I said before: Soul Annihilation generates its own focus before dumping it into raw damage. So it's totally fine to use SA with 5 focus and do decent damage. Besides that: show me another cipher power that can deal 100-200 instant raw damage with the use of 40 focus and short casting time.

Well, that was a nice interview.

I used it today an I think I saw a lot of 20s on the enemies. Yes, a lot of ability descriptions are not finished. I guess because OBS doesn't want to go through all of them all the time as long as they tweak stuff here and there.

Right. Well it IS a lot of information. Just start on normal and pick what sounds best. You shouldn't have too many problems. During the game you'll understand better and better - maybe you want to restart, maybe not. The game boils down to: Accuracy vs. defense. Buff your accuracy and debuff enemies' defenses before you start to let your fists fly. If you do that you can't go exceptionally wrong. Watch out for spells/abilities/talents that grant bonuses to accuracy and also for those which disable/lower defenses/cause afflctions. That's most important. Only then look at stuff like damage, health/endurance, armor and so on.

I'm not at home right now but I think something around 20 base?

Ranger has the potential for very high accuracy (Marksman + Accurate Woundig Shot + Stalker's Link + Marked Prey). Also Wounding Shot is a Full Attack now which is great for any DW setup. Chanters/Ranger can heal/protect his pet passively while giving him a lash (Mith Fyr) or use Mith Fyr/Sure Handed Ila to get a lash for himself and speed up ranged weapons. And of course summons. The synergy is there. Paladin with Zealous Focus for ACC or Exhalted Endurance for continuous healing, Shared Flames (give pet a lash) and Brand Enemy (for triggering Predator's Sense) is also nice. In addition you can get a ton of high ACC full attacks: FoD (+20 ACC) and Accurate Woundig Shot (+20 ACC). Both combos are good.

Threatening Presence is from PL 6 in that list Yeah - but I don't know what it does in Deadfire.

Deathblows?

Riposte sucks hard at the moment. He rest seems viable.

No, but Devastating Blow is good on stuff with very high health like Titan for example. Backstab, then Devastating Blow is not bad. I guess against really big bosses Smoke Cloud + Backstab + Devastating Blow might be a great finisher. Especially with high MIG and a lash from Shared Flames and/or Mith Fyr.

Combusting wounds doesn't feel nearly as worthwhile as it did in the previous game -- the duration is very, very short compared to other spells. Do you mean the actual spell duration of Combusting Wounds or the DoT it applies on each hit?

I didn't see Threatening Presence in the beta. But the chanter has a phrase that weakens everyone in his chanting AoE. Pretty nice to set up Sneak Attacks.

If you take Confounding Blind you can still crit like crazy. But yes - a buff with Intuitive like Disciplined Strike would be nice for rogues as well. Or a strike that paralyzed (comes later with the rogue). Paralyzed enemies give you 50% hit-to-crit conversion. Also Finishing/Devastating Blow multiple times per encounter is a lot more powerful than in PoE. Same as multiple invisibility uses (in order to stack Backstab, Sneak and later Deathblows) - in PoE it was 2/rest.

Cipher and Chanter play fundamentally different. The Cipher needs to deal weapon damage actively to fuel his powers. The Chanter sings phrases passively and has to wait until a certain number of phrases have cumulated until he can use those to cast an invocation. His phrases can be powerful as well though. Some players choose to only use phrases and don't use invocations a lot. Because of that (generally said), a cipher needs to be played more actively (more micromanagement) than a chanter. Also a chanter is a bit slow with the development of power over the course of an encounter. This doesn't matter on high difficulties because fights take longer there. But on normal diff. (and below) new players often have the feeling that a chanter is too slow and is often late to the party with his invocations. On higher levels he will get faster and faster though. Chanters are not particularly great in melee not ranged. Both is ok but nothing special. The whole package is special though. Wizards' spells are hard to manage in the early game because you will only have a few. After some char levels you'll have a lot of spells. Usually you can do 4+ fights easily before having to rest. Good thing with summoned weapons is that they spare you spell uses (you only need one spell use to summon a weapon and hit foes with it - thus you don't need to recast Fireballs over and over to kill them). It's beneficial to have meta knowledge when playing per-rest casters. If you know when which encounter happens you know when it's time to rest. But if you don't hoard your spells too much you can also be successful without any knowledge about the upcoming encounters. Camping supplies for resting are cheap and plentiful. If you're not sure what awaits you and you're low on spells: make a campfire. Wizards have a per-encounter ability called Arcane Assault. It's good and I'd use it a lot in the early game.

In the beta it's 1/encounter, no exception. After the first use in an encounter it greys out. And up to level 9 it's 2/rest.

There are some classes that can do all three quite well after some leveling (melee, ranged combat and magic): - Wizard: has awesome summoned weapons for ranged as well as melee combat (Kalakoth's Minor Blights, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Citzal's Spirit Lance...) and is obviously good with magic. - Priest of Magran: can get high accuracy with an arquebus (gun) and a sword and his "magic" is very potent when it comes to buffing - Priest of Wael: same, but with rod and quarterstaff. - Druid: can shift into a sort of were-form that does tremendous melee damage. Can cast powerful spells - and later in the game he gets a very powerful summoned ranged weapon named Rot Skulls. - Rogue: good with melee or ranged weapons alike and can also make good use of so called spellbinding gear. That's items that give you some spells which you can use like a wizard uses his spells. FOr example there's a sabre that gives you 3 Fireballs per rest and so on. A rogue is very good with those spells because his accuracy is high and one of his later damage boosting abilites also works with spells and doubles the damage. - Cipher: doesn't matter if melee or ranged - ciphers do great weapon damage. Their powers (spells) are powerful as well. The rest of the classes will have some shortcomings with one aspect or the other.

Correct. Still the case in beta4 at least.

Tested my favorite setup (wizard/monk) again: - Nalpasca - Swift Flurry - Kalakoth's Minor Blights - Eldritch Aim - Merciless Gaze - One Weapon Style - Dance of Death - Duality of Mortal Presence - INT (console) - Pull of Eora (tested with a single class wizard) Plan: take a drug, activate Dance of Death (wounds start flying in until you have +10 INT), summon Minor Blights, cast Eldritch Aim & Merciless Gaze, pull 5 or 6 (or so) enemies togehter with Pull of Eora, activate Swift Flurry and fire with the Blights: *ratatatatata* all are dead. Outcome: Still works like a charm. Despite the nerf of Swift Flurry. The Pull of Eora part could be left out because I used dummies which don't move. I just tested how the pull works now and it's much more controlled than in PoE. Yu can combine it with Binding Web to prevent any movement after the pull so that everybody is packed together tightly. You only need that for the one killshot with the Blights - so short duration is irrelevant. With Spirit Lance it's not really possible to do that on your own (in the beta4) anymore because it lacks ACC and conversion compared to one-handed Minor Blights. But woith a Chanter in the party who can cast Killers it also works (due to 50% hit-to-crit conversion). Maybe also a Shadowflame will help. It also works with monk/fighter (rod+Blast+Disciplined Strikes) and a monk/chanter (rod+blast+Killers). Swift Flurry, AoE weapon attacks and high ACC/conversion: Still the strongest combo in my opinon. What was nerfed: afflictions can no longer be applied in an AoE by Blast/Spirit Lance/Blights. I tested them all today with a rogue's strikes, some monk abiliies and Mule Kick etc. - and they all only affect the initial target now.

Correct.

Synergies Paladin/Soulblade: - FoD: lashes generate focus, so with every FoD attack you generate a ton. You can alter between FoD and Soul Annihilation all day long and do tremendous single target damage. Doesn't really matter that Soul Annihilation is a primary attack only - if you hit with it it's a one-shot most of the time anyway. - Eternal Devotion: the lash that you keep (20%) helps with Soul Annihilation. When you execute Soul Annihilation you will gain focus from the hit (including the lash bonus) THEN dump all your focus into the raw damage. You don't need max focus before executing SA - actually that's a waste of focus. It's ok if you are halfway there. - Soul Whip + Biting Whip = +40% additive damage, combined with high MIG (multiplicative) and FoD (lashes als multiplicative) results in awesome damage. - Zealous Focus: more accuracy and conversion is good for Soul Annihilation because unlike FoD it has no ACC bonus and likes to miss/graze. - Paladins have a big impact on your sturdyness. Since a Soul Blade has to go into melee fight that is a good thing. - With Scion of Flame and Hammering Thoughts FoD gets +2 PEN. Together with Soul Annihilation (that doesn't care too much about AR because it's raw damage) you can take a low PEN but high dmg weapon and still be on the safe side when it comes to AR penetration. - A lot of great support abilities from two pools - Pain Link + Sacred Immolation = auto AoE ouch I guess (later, not beta material) - Borrowed Instincts + Faith & Conviction + Deep Faith = nigh invincible defenses and godly ACC bonus - +40 with FoD! - Sworn Enemy + Recall Agony = really ouchy on tough single targets - At the moment Eternal Devotion puts a 20% burning lash onto all damaging cipher spells (most likely a bug) That's all I can say out of my head. I played a Bleak Walker/Soulblade and it's a great combo.

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