Boeroer

The higher the INT the bigger the AoE of Carnage and other attacks like Barbaric Blow and Heart of Fury. The more enemies you hit the more kills the higher the speed the more kills and so on... Firebrand's duration is pretty long so lower INT wouldn't be a big problem with that.

You can get you key more quickly than a wizard can cast a (good looking) fireball these days.

Firebrand is crap in Deadfire. But two handed weapons like great swords in general are not. There will most likely be a good great sword that you can use. You could also do a Barbarian/Priest of Berath in Deadfire who can summon a really good spiritual great sword (scales with level). Or maybe the designers gather their wits and make Firebrand better. At the moment it's just like a normal great sword that does burn/pierce instead of slash/pierce.

For cipher: Do a two handed build with Firebrand. Use Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and Forgemaster's Gloves for 6 uses of Firebrand per rest. Pile up as many damage bonuses as you can get (Biting Whip, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, high MIG, high DEX). Get the Merciless Hand (choose Doemenel Faction). This cipher will deal tremendous damage per hit. Focus flow will be enormous. Also: fiery giant sword seems to fit your description. Ranger: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83435-class-build-riptide-the-pit-fright-dps-offtank-melee-ranger-double-team-supreme/ Use it as inspiration. You don't have to follow the build in detail. Just the basic "tricks" matter: using Tidefall and Shod-in-Faith boots to boost your pet's damage and healing. Druid: Choose Moon Godlike and boar form. Take Veteran's Recovery as first talent. Skill survival up to 14 (or 12 if you use an item with +2 to survival) and choose healing bonus when camping. Use Nature's Balm and other healing spells once combat starts. Pick every talent that is useful for the shifted melee damage: Wildstrike Shock, Greater Wildstrike Shock, Two Weapon Style, Weapon Focus Peasant, Heart of the Storm, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Savage Attack. Use healing and storm spells before you shift. Also Form of the Delemgan is golden. Later use Avenging Storm as well. The only item you really need is the Wildstrike Belt. Use high MIG, CON and INT. This druid is sturdy and does a lot of melee damage when shifted. When in human form you can use dual hatchets for more deflection. All three builds are quite fun to play and also reasonably powerful.

Did you use St. Ydwen's Redeemer to redeem it rightly?

The detailed list is quite nice. Most of the things mentioned there are good changes. I mostly appreciate the raise of Predator's Sense back to 50%.

A monk can be build with ranged weapons (better as muticlass character) because things like Stunning Blows and Swift Strikes (and Lightning Strikes and Swift Flurry) work with any weapon (also with rod + blast modal = AoE stunning or cascading Flurry crits). Shattered Pillar does work with Long Pain. Rangers can now use Wounding Shot and other abilites in melee. I would still consider them to be a ranged class still. It was said rel. often that dual scepters or the use of rod+blast with certain abilites are some of the best options/builds in Deadfire.

Eh - I forgot that the belt also gives you +2 INT. So skip Band if Union and and perhaps wear a Ring of Protection or so instead.

If you want to know how a fun casting setup is done then look at the Chanter - especially Skald: lots of fast casts with good durations and nice effects. Of course you need phrases first. But the Chanter starts with some into combat and a Cipher has the same pattern basically - but his spells take a lot lot longer to cast. Why? Whaahaaaayyy? Ach, dem sacred interrupts, I forgot...

But dem sacred interrupts!

It was skill points - sorry, my fault. :ooops:

If anybody wants to try out a fun barbarian: Race: Fire Godlike Culture: Whatever Background: Colonist Stats: MIG: 16 CON: 16 DEX: 08 PER: 15 INT: 15 RES: 08 Skills: Survival 14 Talents: Weapon Focus Adventurer Accurate Carnage Two Handed Style Scion of Flame Barbaric Blow Savage Attack Vulnerable Attack Bloody Slaughter (in anticipation of Deadfire where it's better than in PoE) Abilities: Frenzy Bloodlust One Stands Alone Blood Thirst Vengeful Defeat (if not, then take Blooded here and Dragon Leap later) Heart of Fury Barbaric Retaliation Blooded if MC: Merciless Hand, Dungeon Delver, Effigy's Resentment: Durance, Blooded Hunter, Gift from the Machine, Song of the Heavens Items: Headgear: - Neck: Marked Amulet or Swaddling Sheet or Hiro's Mantle Armor: Argwes Adra (if Vengeful Defeat) or Coat of Ill Payment Hands: Forgemaster's Gloves Rings: Ring of Prot., Iron Circle Belt: Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer Boots: Echoing Misery Weapons: Firebrand, Backup Weapon: Drake's Bell Firebrand with Blood Thirst is ridiculously good. And with the belt + gloves you will have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest, which is plenty. For vessels bind St. Ydwen's Redeemer. To even add more procs of Blood Thirst (= 0 recovery after kill) we have Battle Forged + Flame Shield from the belt. If an enemy dies from retaliation you also get 0 recovery for your next swing. It is very good if you have some char in your party who can disable mobs so that the barb can crit a lot. Firebrand is annihilating (+50% crit damage) and Barbaric Blow adds another 50% crit damage. WIth Bloody Slaughter you would add another +50% - although this is seldomly useful it can speed up kill against the later bounties where the enemies have a lot of endurance or against ogres and the like. It's quite the show once the killing starts... bug: do not use Second Wind once Battle FOrged is active! You will hit yourself with Battle Forged which might get you killed.

Yes, I find two rangers boring - also the increased party size due to two animal companions is too much bustle for me. Interesting that you find the bow wizard odd. I found it quite fun to go through with the bow until I finally could summon Cadebald's Blackbow. Also, with Alacrity, thin armor (and later Citzal's Martial Power) you can achieve impressive dps numbers with Persistence. It's more of a roleplaying thing though because 90% of the game you will do less dps compared to implement with Blast. But since wizards cast more and more with each level they gain and attack less and less with their weapons I never found this to be a problem. And the Blackbow is pretty cool. Sadly there is no Blackbow in the Deafire Beta. I would love to know how a wizard/ranger would work with Blackbow + Twinned Arrows + Driving Flight. The Blackbow has an inherent Driving-Flight effect (shots jump to an additional target) and how cool would it be to get two arrows that jump once because of Blackbow and then again because of Driving Flight?

I think Single Handed Style is still a ramnant of the first beta where we had no grazes but only misses - and the designers might have thought that 20% miss to graze is a good thing.

You mean ranger with some wizard flavor like Prestidigitator's Missiles or a wizard with bows?

It's like with the reload speed/reload penalty confusion. Sometimes I really think the tooltip guys are stoned half of the day.

Those don't have names like "Mirke". Just a label such as "orlan_female_c" or something like that.

Nevermind, I'm so tired that I posted the same stuff twice because I forgot I already had.

You don't understand what I mean and maybe I'm poor at explaining it. Anyways - I'll just leave it like that and be good with it.

[...]The flanker doesn't need to exactly on the opposite side[...] Yes... like I said? One Stands Alone does not raise your engagement slots. You can't engage more enemies with One Stands Alone. You can't engage more enemies with Ruphec's Watchful Cloak MKII. Both will raise the number of enemies that are needed to flank you by 2 each. A normal barbarian will get flanked by 2 enemies if they attack from opposite sides (does not have to be 180° - for me that's like the same as to say they don't have to be exactly on opposite sides by the way). If you take One Stands Alone there will have to be 4 enemies attacking you. Same if you wear the cloak. I never checked if One Stands Alone and the cloak stack so that 6 enemies need to attack you in order to get flanked. So, these abilites/items raise the numbers of flankers that are needed in order to trigger flanked on you. They do not increase the number of your engagement slots which which you could engage enemies (causing disengagement attacks and so on). I don't know how the game determines the numbers of enemies needed to flank you internally - but number of your own engagement slots (visible when looking at the green, curved arrows/lines in combat that will go from you to the enemies) doesn't determine 1:1 how many enemies are needed to flank you. I never checked/tested if Defender or Hold the Line or even a guarding weapon will also prevent you from getting flanked by 2 (or three) people and increase the number of needed flankers. But it might very well be. But your own engagement slots (with which you engage enemies) and the number of flankers that are needed to trigger engagement on you are not directly connected. But it may be that Defender and Hold the Line also give an additional bonus when it comes to preventing flanked - like One Stands Alone.

It's the casting speed. It prevents a) smart placement of your spells (because if you retarget too often or want to switch a spell while casting, the spell is lost) b) high dps. Damage per second can only go down a lot if you need 5 or 8 seconds + recovery for a cast like Fireball that does the same damage or less than in PoE but is like 3 times slower. And all that just to enable spell interrupts as a tactical addition to combat. It doesn't work. At least not for me. Every time I try a sinlge class caster (except Livegiver) I find myself kicking said caster's butt after some time and hiring a solid melee adventurer instead. Waht also makes them worse than in PoE: CC effects are a lot weaker than in PoE. So even if you successfully invested a lot of time to cast a spell and it's one which will apply an affliction to the enemies - it's over too soon or the effect is so weak that it doesn't really matter. Maybe it's better with PotD. Currently I'm only testing Classic mode since this is the difficulty that will everything get balanced around I guess.

Yes, I meant the Blights. But even if you use non-summoned weapons: Usually you have one (unique) wand/scepter that is superior to the others you own. If you can only attack with this one wand/scepter but retain the speed of dual wielding you will have a better result than alternating between superior and inferior wand/scepter. If both wands/scepters are the same or complement each other very well (like for example one causes affliction on hit and the other does Sneak Attack) then you are correct. At the same time you might profit from the melee weapon's modal without having to deal with the backdraws: a dagger + modal will give you +10 deflection. But since you don't attack with it the reduced damage doesn't matter at all.

They are powerful. But they reason why they rule over casters is that pure casters in Deadfire are in pretty bad shape.

Ah, ok. That might explain it.

Citzal's Spirit Lance: scales like the others, does AoE damage. No ACC bonus or whatever. Honestly Minor Blights at lvl 3 is MUCH more powerful. It only has half the duration though. Swift Flurry + Citzal's Spirit Lance works the same as Blights + Flurry: cascading crits. Meh... Edit: summoning Blights still causes a crash of the game in let's say 30% of cases.