Boeroer

He's carrying a unique leather armor named Miscreant's Leather which is not bad - but it's not one of the items I put on my party in most runs (at least not for long).

Make Pallegina a Herald with Zealous Endurance + Ancient Memory as aura+chant, aim for the Blackened Plate and enchant it with the healing aura, get Lethandria's Devotion as shield and enchant it with Sheltering Light and maybe use Bardatto's Luxury as main weapon or a spear for more engagement if you need it and you'll have a sturdy tank who can passively heal herself and the party and also support actively with invocations, exortations and Lay on Hands. Later even dealing noticable damage becomes an option with Sacred Immolation (watch out for the self damage).

Single class or Bellower/Helwalker I guess. Some high level stuff like Eld Nary's Curse is very potent with a lot of bonus Power Levels. Also single class can take more of the empower passives which work pretty well with the 1/encounter Empower that Sasha's Singing Scimitar provides. Helwalker adds MIG, INT, cheap PEN (Thunderous Blows) and ACC ((Enduring) Dance of Death) and also has a theoretically unless unlimited supply of resources (wounds). It's a great multiclass addition for any caster imo. Also Monk/Chanter can be pretty good in melee bc. of Turning Wheel + Myth Fir + Lightning Strikes giving lots of lashes for little investment. Adds versatility...

This is why my dual pistol SC Kind Wayfarer with two weapon style AND rushed reload was so useful despite the ACC drop: crazy good responsiveness because the reloading was already very fast - but if even that was not fast enough I could just cancel the reloading process and react instantly. That and the party healing was done on the fly via White Flames while shooting...

It depends on your party. If you have (or planing to have) party members who use a lot of summons (like a Beckoner with Ancient Brittle Bones, Troubadour with the phrase Many Lives Pass By or an Ancient with Sporelings for example) then going Single Class Paladin can be very potent. The reason is that the ability "Divine Retribution" will give +2 Zeal on a summon's death, too. The best case is a Troubadour with Many Lives Pass By, sung with Brisk Recitation. Those skeletons pop out every 3 secs and die as quickly (because weak as wet tissue paper) so you'll basically get +2 Zeal every 3 seconds if the fight is rough and the skeletons die quickly. So you can provide exortations and Lay on Hands and whatnot all the time. If that's not the case then Herald. It has great "self-contained" synergy and is both very tanky and very supportive - not only actively but also passively (with chants + zealous auras combined) and also has summons, which are a very powerful in general.

I'd also go Troubadour. Troubadour is about speedy invocations (or phrase overlap) while Bellower is about fewer invocations but with more oomph. One fun part of the Bellower is that you can stack the Power Levels from the phrase count with the Power Levels from Empower (1/encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar). You cannot have that fun experience when multiclassing with Bloodmage. Also keep in mind that the Bellower's chant AoE is severely smaller than the Troubadour's.

Yes, that's also very fun as Howler with Bloodlust. But he only has 10 base INT and that leads to a pretty small Her-Revenge cone - which is a little frustrating imo.

Yes, your observation is correct. Power Levels improve the accuracy: +1 per added Power Level. If you cast Killers with a Bellower - and let's say get +5 PL from his current phrase count - you'll have +5 accuracy. Your attack roll (d100 + accuracy - enemy's will defense) will determine the quality of the hit (miss, graze, hit or crit). It has nothing to do with penetration though. That's only a thing when dealing damage (vs. armor) is involved. Your Killers invocation will also have longer duration because of the added power levels by the way.

Hi, I almost always build Edér as my party's swashbuckler "offensive debuffing" tank somewhat like this (this is just an unordered list and maybe I even put too many abilities there): (would be better with an Unbroken/Streetfighter instead of Edér but also works with him) large shield + modal* - the goal is to use Cadhu Scalth Luminous Harmony and max Athletics and Metaphysics* (if it's too weird for you to raise Metaphysics on a doofus such as Edér I'd go for Bronlar's Phalanx instead). engagement slots: 1 club + modal - the goal is to use Kapana Taga with its enchantments Champion's Relic and Unblockable. Before that I use Shattered Vengeance. engagement slots: 3 brigandine - the goal is to use Reckless Brigande with its enchantment Into the Breach. engagement slots: 4 Upright Captain's Belt - for the immunity to push & pull effects Escape (important to be able to move even when the large shield modal is active) Weapon & Shield Style* Mob Stance - at the beginning, before upgrading the stance and before getting the engagement gear I'll use Defender Stance though. Hold the Line. engagement slots: 5 - that's enough White Witch mask - this is one of the few helmets that matches the style of Kapana Taga+Cadhu Scalth+Reckless Brigandine and that's the only reason I pick this. Later the Champion's Helmet from SSS is the top choice. Could pick any other good headger and just hide the helmet if it looks bad. Tactical Barrage (because Edér's INT is low and his durations so short otherwise) Determination Entonia Signet Ring deflection gear Refreshing Defense Riposte Confident Aim Superior Deflection Armored Grace Adept Evasion* Persistent Distraction Deep Wounds Slippery Mind Deathblows if there's still room I'd use stuff like Bear's Fortitude and stuff a pet like Abraham One goal is to make him a tank that needs almost no attention (except at the start of the encounter) but can still contribute besides tanking via "passive" debuffing and dealing (some) damage. Edér will be almost invulnerable to AoE attacks (see shield modal + Cadhu Scalth + Adept Evasion) so you can use him to tank & bind a lot of enemies and then shower them with all the friendly-fire AoE stuff your party has to offer without affecting Edér much (if at all). Even Pull of Eora has no effect on him if you give him the Upright Captain's Belt. I usually approach the enemies with Edér as the only visible party member, hit shield modal, Tactical Barrage and Refreshing Defense, "escape" into the mob's center and then let him do his thing rel. unattended. And while all the enemies concentrate on him I will buff the party's ACC and then start bombarding the enemies around him with debuffs/CC and then damage. This way you can make sure that he will always engage up to 5 enemies right away. Those 5 engagements makes him quite fast for a guy in a Brigandine (Mob Stance, Reckless Brigandine) which adds to the speed advantage he gets from Abraham and Armored Grace. He will have up to +25 melee accuracy by his own (Tactical Barrage + Kapana Taga's enchantment Unblockable) which makes it easy for him to hit enemies with the club - which lowers their Will by 25. On top of that he will flank and distract the engaged enemies just by engaging them which also debuffs their defenses and also their armor (there's no defense against Persistant Distraction). Ripostes also will apply the effect of the club modal by the way. Works every time for me. He isn't sturdy enough to facetank megabosses this way - but anything else he will handle fine as long as he has support from the party every now and then. He could be made more defensively of course and I guess you wouldn't really notice in terms of offensive prowess of your party overall - because his damage-dealing is nice for a tank - but it isn't enormous. But I think he's more interesting this way. And advantage is that if he should be the last man standing he can end the fight on his own. Superdefensive tanks sometimes struggle to deal enough damage to finish an encounter on their own (in a reasonable amount of time).

Morning Star has crush and pierce damage (uses the most advantageous against the enemy armor automatically) and also very good base Penetration of 9. So you seldomly need a backup weapon. Also the debuffing effect of Body Blows always works, even if the enemies are totally immune to the Morning Star's damage. But in the rare cases you might need a backup weapon I would pick one that does slash damage since that is the one the Morning Star doesn't cover. Also it should be a two-handed weapon because you will most likely pick Two-Handed Style at some point. For me personally that leaves Great Sword and Pollaxe. I woul pick Pollaxe because you can get Lord Darryn's Voulge (a soulbound Pollaxe) quire early if you wish. It has slash and shock(!) damage instead of crush so it's a perfect altenative to the Morning Star. And there are several enemies who are especially vulnerable to shock damage. Also the Soulbound makes the weapon scale and enchant without any resources (money, special gems and stuff) wich is great for a backup weapon. And finally the Voulge is a great weapon for a Barbarian in itself because its special additional lightning damage works with Carnage. It doesn't have the double hit feature for more crits though and no cool debuff effect like Body Blows. The Howler Konstanten is not only doing okay in melee for himself - he's also a great debuffer for the party because lots of spells and other abilities target enemies' fortitude (see several good Cipher, Druid and Wizard spells for example) and Konstanten can help your party land more of those more reliably. The only thing at which a Howler isn't so good at is raising his own accuracy. The Brute Force/fortitude debuffing cycle does help a lot - but having a Priest with Blessing and Devotions is very helpful for Konstanten to hit and crit more early in the fight and start having more impact right away. Merry Christmas to you, too! And to my other fellow forum members as well. Yay! Cooking some venison goulash for the whole family while I type basically... hope it tastes somewhat decent.

Hi, I like to use him as Howler (Debuffer) with a Morning Star because the synergies of both classes plus the weapon modal are great: Spirit Frenzy (Barbarian) applies the Staggered affliction (-5 MIG, cannot engage) to ALL hit rolls from the Barbarian. This includes chants, Carnage hits and of course all weapon hits. Stagger lowers Fortitude by 10 points (-5 MIG directly leads to -10 fortitude because every point of MIG grants 2 points of fortitude defense) Th Long Night's Drink (phrase, Chanter) applies the Sickened affliction (-5 CON, -25% healing received) to all enemies in th chant AoE that don't get missed. If this chant hits it also applies Staggered via Spirit Frenzy. -5 CON directly leads to -10 Fortitude which stacks with Body Blows' (see below) and Staggered's Fortitude debuff. Enemies' fortitude can now be dropped by 45 points. Body Blows (Morning Star modal) lowers enemies' fortitude by 25. If you hit with the weapon you aill also apply Staggered via Spirit Frenzy (if not already staggered). All those effects stack so that the enemies' Fortitude can be lowered by 45(!) points without any fuss: just hit them with the Morning Star, the rest is done on the fly (and in an AoE) without you having to actively do anything. Brute Force (Barbarian passive) targets Fortitude if it's lower than deflection. There are few enemies which have 45 higher fortitude than deflection - so you almost always have it easier to hit or crit enemies. Use the Morning Star "Saru Sichr": It is optainable quite early and has a "hidden" feature. Its poison damage-over-time effect does a spearate hit roll every time you strike. This hit roll targets fortitude and it can crit. So with this weapon you have two chances for a weapon crit with just one swing. That increases the chance to get a phrase point for the Skald. You can alternatively use the Morning Star "Will Breaker" later because it also debuffs Will defense on hit - but is doesn't have that neat "double hit roll" which leads to more phrase generation. Konstanten's INT is only 10 which isn't ideal for his AoEs and durations as a debuffer so I make sure to give him +INT gear. On top of that a Skald has very cheap "Her Revenge" invocation which stays great through the game. In combination with Blood Thirst you can really wreck mobs with this. You can later use "The CHampion" invocation to become energized and interrupt with all crits (from chants etc. too). So if you crit with the chant and this triggers the Spirit Frenzy's stagger (which might crit) you can interruot twice with one chant's hit roll for example. This can mess enemy casters up pretty badly. Konstanten has a funny laugh when he crits. So the more he crits the more often you will hear his infectuous laughter. It is paired very well with the noble voice for a male player character - because that voice also does have a laught that fits Konstanten's. I once had a moble-voiced Monk who crit a lot and Konstanten as Howler and I was laughing a lot in front of my PC when those two did a lot of crits in some mob fights. The Dragon summon is nice as a tank - but IMo it's not worth going SC Skald. Eld Nary's Curse though might be a reason: it's pretty cheap for a Skald and the upgrade is noticably more powerful than the base version.

You might have triggered the "hide headgear" option in the UI.

For a Forbidden Fist I actually prefer to not use fists as standard weapon, because you will have your Forbidden Fist attack anyway (crush damage and scales like your Monk fists) while your weapon can have an alternative type of damage - which makes you more versatile when it comes to PEN vs. AR. And you might profit from some universal enchantment or modal of the weapon - for example I like to use a Dagger + modal with a Forbidden Fist: as long as I mainly use the Forbidden Fist attack there is no drawback (dmg malus only applies to dagger attacks) while the +10 melee deflection still applies. Could also be a spear (+engagement) or a hatchet (+deflection)...

Hi and welcome! Yes, that's it. Not only weapons but every damaging ability (spells etc.) must compare its PEN vs. the respective AR. Fortunately there a many ways to buff your PEN and/or debuff your enemies' AR. And then there's raw damage which just ignores PEN completely (but cannot deal bonus overpenetration damage like attacks with a PEN vs AR check can if the PEN is way higher than AR). Me personally: not much (in a party). I will have a standard chant and then one or two other chants for special situations. Like resistance chants when I know I will meet enemies who dish out a lot of annoying afflictions. Solo it's different because you need to be more versatile. My general approach is: buff accuracy debuff defenses/do CC deal damage Buffing accuracy can also mean that I attack with a debuff/CC spell from stealth with an Assassin/Wizard (+25 ACC) or something like that. On the higher difficulties CC or debuffing is absolutely not pointless. There it's often a lot less effective to start the fights with direct damage. Both very good. Psion/Troubadour is better for the really tough fights that last very long. I'd generally say it's better overall but it also depends whether you like to play wizard or chanter more. The Wizard has the advantages of nice defensive buffs so that the danger of getting your focus generation stopped is lower than with the Troubadour. Unless the Troubadour uses a lot of summons for distraction... You don't need to use a weapon at all for attacking - so best to use some kind of stat stick. Psion in general works very well with hatchet + small shield or dagger&modal + small shield imo. The Goldpact's Swown Enemy ability is nice once you spiritshift (bonus PL for Rejuvenation healings, good melee dmg). You'll have the very thick armor of the bear form (with no recovery malus) and on top you get the Gilded Enmity's +4 AR which makes you very hard to kill while being able to cast and fight quite fast. But other Paladin subclasses also work. Imo Berserker/Streetfighter with dual daggers (Lover's Embrace + Pukestabber) with all the speedup gear is mad fun - also because it's a dance on a razor's edge. Very good dps and fun, but also goes down very quickly if you don't pay attention. With a good healer it's manageable, just don't use that character to jump into the fray. Better to deal with single foes like casters and so on (using mobility abilities like Escape and Leap). Durable melee fighters are plenty. SC Forbidden Fist can be one for example.

That depends on what software you are using to downsize. But most of times, when downsizing a picture, there's some option to keep the ratio - like a lock symbol for example or a chain link or whatever. Here's what it looks like in my Gimp (sorry, UI is German):

Yes, I played a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade with Whispers of the Endless Paths (and Offensive Parry). I used the Community Patch here as well because the Shattered Pillar got nerfed too badly in the vanilla game (only generates wounds with auto-attacks AND the max wound count is limited to 5 instead of 10). Community Patch brings the max wound count back to 10 - and that's much more balanced with the other monk subclasses. It's cool to charge both wounds and focus with the same attacks. In my case it was also cool that Offensive Parry generates both focus and wounds, too. And Soul Annihilation works well with the cone of WotEP (which profits from the huge INT increase of Turning Wheel).

Alternating Forbidden Fist and Soul Annihilation only works with the Community Patch (mod) though. Without it the Forbidden Fist attack will not generate any focus unfortunately. With the CP you'll have indeed two very good individual attack options - and on top of their overall quality they both are fueled by refreshing resources which is aweseome, too.

Yes - you will lose a bit of duration of the effect - but on the other hand it's a free cast then. Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free. That way you can even empower two spells for one encounter: empower the seal spell, wait for the refresh and then empower your opening spell. Of course empower doesn't have a huge impact on seal spells unfortunately...

Yeah, I was thinking about ranged-only attacks which could be used. But there really aren't that many (only Twinned Shot comes to mind atm)... Edit: Ah, the imbue-shots of the Arcane Archer might be helpful here. They only work with ranged weapons and could be used to force the use of the pistol even when in melee range to the target.

I think you can emulate this with the AI tool if you give you character an attack action (which gets used as standard action) and only occasionally throw in an attack which explicitly targets enemies who are out of melee range. From the top of my head I don't know a way to force the use of the firearm in melee (unless it would be a ranged-only attack ability like Twinned Shot or so) or how to force the character to run towards enemies and use the sabre instead of starting to shoot. But I also have to say I didn't use the AI tool that much - so maybe there's a way of doing it that I don't remember.

Yeah, that's why Assassin/offensive Caster can make a lot of sense. The +25ACC is just awesome, especially during the early game. Of course you'll not the to PL 8 and 9 spells, but the +25 ACC while stealthed or invisible do absolutely make up for it imo (besides some other goodies a Rogue can bring to the multiclass). Yes, and even hostile spells don't break stealth (and don't start encounters) - if you don't hit anyone with them (so if no actual attack roll is performed). This seems to be useless info at first, but it can be very useful to lure enemies somewhere - or to set up a spell that lasts some time (Chillfog, Pull of Eora, XY-Seal, Wall spells and so on) and only then start the fight with something more direct. Way faster casting than the other way round. This is a very good point and I haven't read about this very often. Buffing while stealthed is very benefical, especially if the casting time isn't that long but the recovery would normally be. Recovery time is -80% while stealthed - which is the single best recovery "buff" you can get in the game (aside from 100% via Blood Thirst or Blade Cascade etc.). Just watch out when using Devotions for the Faithful: it has the hostile debuffing component that can break invisibility (stealth not really a problem bc. you would have been too close anyway) if you touch an enemy with the AoE.

I don't 100% understand what you are trying to accomplish (sorry), but maybe my aswer helps nonetheless. Trying to get the buffs from both weapons: You can shoot at enemies who are far away and still stay in melee range with other enemies. You can just create two separate attack actions in the AI tool and let them alternate (or determine some criteria when to use which action). For example create one action that prioritizes an enemy you are engaged to, then for the next action prioritize an enemy that is far away - and so on. The character should then automatically switch between sabre and pistol when he runs through those attack commands. Another, more foolproof way is to use weapon switch (single sabre in weapon set 1, single pistol in set 2) with AI. You can tell the AI to switch weapon sets. Then the AI is forced to use whatever weapon is currently in your hand. This would work best with a Black Jacket Fighter + Quick Switch, but it might also be worthwhile with another character if you don't swith too frequently. I have to say that most melee/ranged hybrid weapon setups are usually pretty suboptimal (unless you really want to only attack with one of the weapons but still get the speed bonus from dual wielding). Generally speaking it's a meh setup (powergaming-wise - of course it can be stylish and so on).

Yes, you'll have two instances of Missile Salvo. Pretty dope when that happens. With Vithrack Silk Slippers you could theoretically get 2 echoes (3 instances of missile salvo) from one cast. Extremely low chance and I never got this, but should be great fun when it happens. By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells? Imagine a triple echo from Evoker, Slippers and Marux Amanth at the same time, tihihi.

Penetration vs. armor is one of the most important mechanics in combat. You are right that everything that either raises your PEN and/or lowers enemies' armor ist quite useful. Very useful I'd say. Cipher's "Driving Echoes" is a very valuable penetration buff, one shouldn't sleep on it - even if the Cipher himself cannot profit from it. I would just make a beeline for it. It's loot from an isolated island and the local "quest" has no ties to anything else. And the fight to get it isn't that difficult (esp. if you keep the fight to the one enemy that carries the pistol which is easy to do). Then come back later to finish the "quest". It's rel. easy to get the pistol early that way. But of course it's kind of spoiling the exploration aspect of the first playtrough to look up where you can get it and all that. I think a Soulblade is almost always better as a multiclass character (if not deliberately build to suck). The main feature of the Soulblade (Soul Annihilation) profits so much from a lot of other classes' abilities - and not so much from the Power Levels 8 & 9 of the Cipher single class. I think good candidates for SC Cipher are Beguiler and also Psion. Both are not really about melee combat (Beguiler could be, but since a Beguiler can generate much more focus with casting Deception spells than usng a melee weapon most of times one tends to deviate from melee combat quickly in my experience). Some very good and also fun to play melee ciphers are (to me): Soulblade/Trickster, Soulblade/Shattered Pillar (Community Patch version) and Soulblade/Bloodmage. I guess Soulblade/Barbarian could be nice due to the combination of Blood Thirst with Soul Annihilation. I heard that Soulblade/Stalker is also good. I could maybe see a melee SC Cipher with Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon, given that Shared Nightmare would enlarge the cone of the weapon a lot. But I don't know if that's worth it tbh.

There is one single weapon setup for a Cipher that I like - and that is single pistol + modal (rushed reload). This combination has only -3 ACC (and increased crit conversion with the one-handed style talent) but an incredible increase in shooting speed which is faster than dual wielding pistols would be (even with the two weapon style talent) . It stacks well with Time Parasite later on, too. On top of that you always have the option to switch off the modal and instantly gain 15 accuracy should you struggle to hit your enemies. I personally really like to use Eccea's Arcane Blaster as my primary pistol then. Its the best pistol imo because of the combination of raw and elemental damage (with its special modal) which takes away all concerns regarding pierce immune or -resistant foes. Once Shared Nightmare is available I like to use Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot as an alternative weapon because its AoE size scales with focus then - combined with high INT you can reach absurd AoE size for the mortar blast which gives a lot of focus if there are enough enemies around. Shared Nightmare also works with Kitchen Stove's "Thunderous Report" which should provide instant ascension after use if you can manage to hit enough enemies with the cone. Of course then it's not a melee ascendant anymore... Single handed melee weapons that could work with a cipher (and not be totally subpar) include all weapons that can proc a damaging effect on hit or on crit: usually those effects count as weapon damage and will generate focus. Something like Sungrazer's enchantments (fiery meteor strike on crit-kill) or Grave Calling's Chilling Grave (a Chillfog that generates focus when it hits enemies). With one-handed apporach and style you can make sure to crit more which would help to proc those effects more often which in turn generate more focus. This isn't super reliable - but it helps generating focus nonetheless. Another option can be to use Xoti's Sickle and scale the Religion skill as much as possible. The sickle will gain up to +60% damage bonus (like a fully leveled SC Rogue's Sneak Attack) after killing a few enemies - and it doesn't matter how you kill those enemies (for example with Cipher spells). But the damage bonus only applies to the sickle itself, so single-wielding it isn't a bad idea (or use it with a shield). That way you can start combat with something strong in order to ascend asap (see mortar shot or thunderous report), then switch to sickle and kill lots of enemies with cipher spells while ascended - and then clear up the rest with the buffed-up sickle which will have great dps from the kills. Yet another option is to use the Magistrate's Cudgel for obvious reasons. It's good with crits (see enchantment route for cipher) and you'll get more crits with single weapon + one handed style. Still... my first recommendation for single weapon + cipher would be pistol.