Boeroer

The terrify/disengagment thing does work, it's just not 100% reliable because the movement of enemies when terrified is erratic. So sometimes the just move laterally or donÄt move at all and thus they won't trigger disengagement attacks. But if they do it's quite the dmg. Especially if you get Deathblows + Overbearing Guard at some point. The +10 PEN leads to overpenetration pretty regularly (especially with crits which are common, too because disengagement attacks get a big ACC bonus in general) so that you will get the +30% dmg bonus very often, too. Unbroken also get +1 engagement which can be cool because you can afford to pick Warrior or Mob Stance and still get a decent amount of engagement slots even without Guardian Stance. Kapana Taga + Cadhu Scalth is a nice tank setup but it isn't very exciting offensively to be honest, not even with Rogue as second class. Because disengagement attacks are a one-time attacks with no animation and recovery you will get the most out of them with heavier hitting weapons, not light, fast ones like clubs. In other words: it's the dmg per hit that matters, not the dps. Battle Axes + modal can be nice, Swords, maces, spears, esp. Stalker's Patience (also +engagement with the modal) but also two handers (although then you can't use a shield which means you won't get the +1 AR which is pretty nice). Amra with 25 MIG is nice, too because (as I said above) the disengagement attacks will have very high ACC which leads to crits often, triggering Amra's Riven/Wanton Gore.

Geomancer Stalkers can become quite sturdy (bc. self buffs + Stalker passive) - and the high accuracy bonuses make it more easy to land all sorts of spells on enemies. If a party member casts either Champion's Boon (Priest) or Tactical Meld (Cipher) on your animal companion it can engage up to 4 enemies which also gives you the bonus accuracy from Stalker's Link against every one of them - useful for the Lance's AoE hits and spells in general. Unfortunately AoE weapons like Spirit Lance don't work well with Wounding Shot (meaning the wounding effect doesn't get applied to enemies in the area of effect, only the initial target. But Concussive Shot/Tranquilizer does work with the weapon's AoE; that means lots of interrupts and buff-stripping in an AoE. Also Hunter's Claw/Fang etc. work with the AoE iirc, giving you multiple stacks of ACC/dmg or deflection bonus per strike (if you hit multiple enemies with the AoE). As @dgray62said, the Essential Phantom can be useful in all sorts of ways.

Well, I can see a Soulblade who mainly uses ranged weapons to gain focus from rel. safety and use it for shred spells (because especially at low levels they are really cheap) - and maybe only use SA once an enemy appears in front of them or so. With this approach a Single Class Soulblade even makes sense because of Reaping Knives and also Time Parasite and also Shared Nightmare (bigger AoEs). When killing fast the Soulblade can reach high max focus (+10 per kill iirc) and then could spam fast, cheap, large shred spells. So maybe that (or something similar where SA isn't your most-used ability) is a fun way to play a Soulblade (no idea, never tried that). But if I'm doing a melee SA anyway it just feels ineffective to me to use Shred spells instead of just virtually cutting an enemy in half with SA.

Honestly I find most (not all) shred spells pretty negligible, especially if they don't target a lot of enemies and cause about as much damage as weapon strikes would do in the same amount of time. Because why would I do weapon dmg in order to gain focus and then cast a rel. lengthy damaging spell that costs focus - instead of just keep attacking with the weapon and deal damage AND gain focus? It feels just like changing the way of dealing damage and paying for that non-improvement. Just generally speaking. I know that there are situations where it can be useful to have different dmg types and so on. The exception is the Psion of course because he has not motivation to use a weapon in the first place. Ascended Ascendant, too - because he can cast for free then and some shred spells are fast. Therefore I tend to mostly use CC and buffs even as Soulblade - if I'm not using the focus for SA. I find - even as Soulblade who has reduced shred costs - that a Whisper of Treason or Puppet Master is often so much more worth than Mind Blades and such stuff.

Are you sure you found Adra Ban via pickpocket on Poko Kohara? Because Aparo and Auata should be on Ori o Koiki... and there are no neutral NPCs you can pickpocket on Poko Kohara, only enemies.

Mostly vessels, but there are also other enemy types that are immune to pierce damage - for example some spirits (see Flame Blights). Borrowed Insticts usually stacks with all single-defense buffs (Arcane Veil, Escape, Shields ftFf, Mirrored Images and so on) - but unfortunately not with Vigorous/Refreshing Defense which is also a buff to all defenses (like Borrowed Instincts). It's still a mystery to me why buff from modals are considered active buffs (and thus won't stack with other active abilities that buff the same stat), given that modals always have pros & cons which makes them balanced all by themselves.

It's B. There are some AoE-attacks like for example Heart of Fury, Whirling Strikes or Whispers of the Wind which don't use the standard firing/reload animation. With them you would just use both weapons with no reload time/animation in between. Doesn't matter if you shot before or not. But for all "normally" executed abilities like Strike the Bell and so on you will see B. The game will not make you run anywhere into melee if you have a ranged weapon equipped - unless you a very close (but not quite there yet).

I reported this behavior (I mean getting injured by fire traps although one is immune to fire dmg) rel. early after release because I thought that it's not very logical and contradicts player expectations. In my case I had somebody with an injury + Rekvu's Scorched Cloak (=immune to fire dmg, even get healed by 20% of it) - but Flame Nagas use the same "Bloodfire" mechanic. They even have lower burn AR so that the healing is higher when they get hit by burn dmg. Therefore it obviously makes no sense that burn-based injuries get applied. Unfortunately the devs had more important stuff to fix it seems.

I found that high(ish) INT compared to low(ish) INT doesn't make a huge difference as soon as you have stacked enough hostile effect duration reduction. All you need is a short enough duration so that the curse wears off during your recovery imo. If in fat armor the wiggle room is rel. high. Not that I would go for 35 INT or so.

Yes, but with Enlightened Agony you could maybe spare the cast of Infuse with Vital Essence (I guess you don't need the Fit inspiration due to Iron Wheel anyway) and at the same time get the reduced hostile effects duration. And should you get hit by stuff like Arcane Dampener you can recast it and shave off 5 secs immediately which often removes hostile effects on the spot. Too bad Iron Wheel's AR bonus doesn't stack with Spirit Shield and Llengrath's Safeguard etc.

Keep in mind that the Unbroken gets +1 AR when wearing a shield. Paladin's Exalted Endurance (the AR part) doesn't stack with Iron Wheel's AR bonus. So in the end it's Stoic Steel + Inspired Defenses vs. Shield Mastery if I'm right. Inspired Defense is worth not much if you get attacked by different sources of dmg simultaneously (like in the Splintered Reef fight above). So in this case the AR advantage of a Paladin may not be as high as perceived initially, also because you can get Shield Mastery right from the start while Stoic Steel comes very late. But of course Stoic Steel can reach higher values if played correctly around it. Steel Garrote's life drain is pretty handy - but I suspect it doesn't work with Forbidden Fist ability in the vanilla game? I mean since it's not a weapon attack. Or does it still work because it's a melee "spell"? I'm using the Community Patch where it's tagged as melee weapon attack so I don't really remember if that worked in the vanilla game or not(?). I like Unbroken in general, but what I don't like too much about them in a solo game is the lower Reflex. Of course Tuotilo's Palm and Weapon & Shield style will balance that out - and I guess that makes it a non-issue in the end. But (only for for solo) I feel a bit bad about that. On the other hand I managed to play a solo SC Furyshaper with abysmal Will and have fun and success with it anyway, so maybe that's negligible, too (also because Reflex isn't as crucial as the other defenses in most cases it seems). It's a bit of a shame that the improved disengagement mechanics of the Unbroken/FF won't get used in a solo run (unless you use some terrify effect like from Endre's Flog of Obedience or so, but it's an inferior weapon, so that's not the best option for a solo run in the first place I guess). What the Paladin compared to the Fighter doesn't have is the build-in Power Level bonus that is Tactical Barrage. I guess that's a drawback when it comes to the scaling of Forbidden Fist/Transcendent Suffering in order to take it over a certain threshold? I wonder how a Bloodmage/FF would do when using Wall of Draining in combination with all self buffs including Enlightened Agony. The curse duration must be really short and the constant healing would benefit Blood Sacrifice a lot. But I guess somebody already did this an posted it and I simply forgot...

That is kind of weird because all sorts of healing stacks with each other and also passive item effects do stack in general. I guess being the exact same effect is the problem here (as it is with some other items/spells combo like Mask of the Weyc/Arcane Veil or Magnificent Escape/Escape). Interestingly enough stuff like two Rings of Overseeing stack just fine. But I guess that's "truly" passive or whatever, no idea.

Nope, first time I read about this. I always assumed that two Rings of Greater Regeneration would stack.

Indeed. Berserker/Helwalker is a... daring combination. On the other hand: the wound generation through the twice-boosted self damage from Frenzy is pretty fantastic, hehe... If you have really potent healing options in the party it can be quite fun to play actually. Forbidden Fist/Berserker with very high Resolve has the advantage that the confusion of the Berserker will no last long (especially not wih Clarity of Agony) and you can use Berserker Frenzy to gain wounds. And if you stack enough RES and not too much INT and also get some -x% hostile effect gear you can heal a lot from removing hostile effects like Confusion and the Forbidden Fist Curse. Nearly enough to balance out the self damage. Still a rather squishy combo though - but not nearly as squishy as Helwalker/Berserker. Shattered Pillar/Berserker is less cool imo. You will still get the self damage - but you won't get any wounds from it. That's a synergy not taken and I can't see many upsides of a Shattered Pillar to balance that out. Indeed the best combo of Monk/Berserker is the Nalpasca. Wounds from Frenzy + wounds from drugs + wounds from Enduring Dance (potentially) is a constant stream of wounds (and works well with Rooting Pain by the way) without going down too quickly (like Helwalker). I think it also fits nicely thematically - drug infused rage and so on.

Yes

Cool. Note that the Entonia Signet Ring will not give you defenses based on how many enemies you engage - but instead on how many enemies engage you. Against enemies that don't have engagement the ring provides nothing.

By the way: Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming work very well with weapons which do multiple hit rolls with one attack. Any attack that can proc SF/HBD will lead to rolls with your main weapon. That means that an offhand crit attack (for example with Tuotilo's Palm) that triggers SF/HBD will proc main hand attacks. This is important because it means you should put the weapon that has a higher chance of doing a crit into the main hand. Sun & Moon is especially good here for the main hand because it does two hit rolls with its two flail heads. Both of them can crit and proc SF/HBD which will proc the two flail head attacks again (!) which increases the chance for a crit chain a lot. In addition to that the enchantments that may repeat a fire or frost attack also work with the flail heads --> even more chances to proc a chain of crits. Another weapon is Saru Sichr. Its DoT enchantment does a separate roll vs. Fortitude that can crit and counts as melee weapon attack that can proc SF/HBD. It's kind of working like Sun & Moon's dual heads, only that one attack roll is the normal weapon dmg and the second is the DoT. Because you can use the Morning Star modal to lower Fortitude, the chance to land crits is significantly increased (because the DoT targets fortitude naturally), but especially if you use an initial attack that targets fortitude as well - for example Force of Anguish or Skyward Kick (or Mule Kick and so on - or use Brute Force of the Barb to always target fortitude as long as it's lower than deflection - you get the idea). This setup will not produce as many crit chains as Sun & Moon + offhand weapon, but in my experience it procs a LOT more than with other two handed weapons. Also the DoT stacks like Bleedings Cuts and adds a lot more dps than one might think. Unfortunately it doesn't work against poison-immune foes. Still, Morning Stars have pierce/crush dang which is an awesome combo - the modal is very useful and the PEN is great, too. I can see a nice Monk/Fighter or Monk/Barb build with it. I'm using it on my SC Monk Xoti atm (used Sun & Moon + Tuotilo's Palm in a run before) and it's great. But admittedly I value the Morning Star modal so highly that I might be biased when it comes to a comparison between flails and morning stars. Of course Sun & Moon + T's Palm makes you more sturdy (Balanced Shield is an awesome enchantment). I'm sure there might me other weapons that work similarly and/or are well suited for a SF/HBD build (Rännig's Wrath, Spider Fang etc.) - those two above are also accessible pretty early which is a big plus imo. Well, R's Wrath can also get picked up quite early, but I guess a Rapier isn't really a "cleaving weapon" - I mean from a "vibes" standpoint.

You can enchant Amra with Wanton Gore instead of Riven Gore to avoid killing companions, but the trick with Riven Gore is that it kills everything with less than 50HP on the spot - and Many Lives skeletons do have less than 50 HP... So Wanton Gore would be less effective - but it would still work. Another way to prevent the killing of companions is to quickly switch to Modwyr (and back to Amra) in order to remove the confusion (or use any other method to remove confusion). Then you won't do any friendly fire anymore. Will also end the skelli-kill-cycle, but better than having to reload because you lost a companion I think. --- I would bind Lord Darryn's Voulge to the Barbarian because a "passive" Disorient is cool imo (keep in mind it contains Flanked which means -10 deflection and -1 AR!) and useful for unlocking Deathblows for fellow Rogues. Combine with Spirit Frenzy for a "passive" stagger (works with Static Thunder, too) and be a CC/debuffer guy on top of being a damage dealer.

I always wondered how I get THAT many crits even with big AoE size. No wonder it's so bonkers with Avenging Storm and Resonant Touch.

A Devoted/Berserker with Amra (and Mob Stance) becomes an absolute beast as soon as you send skeletons at his side. They will get killed by Carnage + Amra's Riven Gore which will trigger Cleave + additional Carnage + Riven Gore hits. Dead skeletons also trigger Blood Thirst and Bloodlust. Do not put companions near him because if they get hit by Riven Gore and have lower than 50 HP they will get insta-killed immediately (as in: removed from the party and be really dead forever). Killing skeletons "accidentially" also triggers healing "per kill" from pets like Abraham and such and also from Triumph of the Crusaders (Priest spell) - so it's very hard to kill that Brute as long as skeletons do rush in. The best way to "feed" skeletons to him is with a Troubadour who chants "Many Lives Pass By" with Brisk Recitation. You can also build a self-contained Troubadour/Berserker and produce the skeletons yourself - but you will miss the Cleaving. The rest (Carnage, Riven Gore, Blood Thirst etc.) will still work though. Works also well with Lord Darryn's Voulge - see Kaylon's suggestion. A very hands-off and easy to play "cleaver" is a Fighter/Streetfighter. I prefer Unbroken/Streetfighter with a shield bc. of the additional armor and engagement - but stuff like Devoted/Streetfighter with a two handed weapon or dual wielding also works well. "Escape" into a bunch of enemies to get flanked and hack away - as soon as health is too low escape back out, heal a bit and work the flanks.

The Magnificient Escape Cape is a true gem for every Wizard who has access to Wall of Draining (or a brilliant Priest with Salvation of Time - I like Priest of Wael for that). Its Escape ability also grants +50 deflection which stacks with all other deflection bonuses. It does only NOT stack with Escape of the Rogue (so a Wiz/Rogue or Priest/Rogue doesn't really need it unless he wants to spare Guile). Its duration gets prolonged by Wall of Draining/Salvation of Time... That way you can get an additional +50 deflection on top of let's say Arcane Veil (or Mirrored Images etc.) and Llengrath's Safeguard which makes you virtually untouchable for anything that targets deflection. If you later (like... a LOT later) also get The Mask of the Weyc - which gives a quasi-Arcane Veil - you can stack cape + mask a whopping +100 deflection.

Sure-Handed Ila is better (for all reloading weapons) as one might guess because BOTH bonuses - the 20% recovery AND the 20% reload - get applied to reloading weapons. It's most likely an oversight, but as is all reloading weapons profit twice from Sure-Handed Ila which makes Chanter and esp. Troubadour (bc. 100% uptime of Sure-Handed Ila + Mith Fyr) an excellent choice for a firearm user. And as I posted in another thread yesterday or the day before: A Troubadour/Streetfigher can make even better use of the Chanter side by summoning upgraded Whisps and let them shoot at you (they do very little shock dmg - you can use Deltro's Cage helmet to profit from that a bit - but also distract you, unlocking the Streetfighter's passive 50% recovery/reloading bonus) you will become the fastest shooter with one of the highest dmg per hit and the highest sustained (firearm) dps. Best weapon pick imo is the Red Hand then. The Whisps can also be useful to unlock Deathblows on enemies - because Distracted counts as two afflictions (bc. contains flanked). So you don't need to pick Debilitating or Blinding Strike if you don't want to. The only downside is the act of targeting yourself with your own summons. It can't be scripted with AI and I understand that for some players it feels too weird to be fun. However, it is very effective without breaking the game. The combination of high dmg per shot and insane reloading speed is a lot of fun imo. And if you can somehow rationalize why your own summons attack you then that becomes a non-issue, too. For example for me my shooter also was some sort of animancer or tinkerer who uses the whisps as his own "essence batteries" to power up some tech that lets him shoot a lot faster and with more dmg - and the price is getting fried a little bit in the process by electricity. Eccea's Arcane Blaster would be an even better fit than Red Hand - I mean thematically - but unfortunatly Rushed Reload (-50% reloading time, pistol modal) doesn't stack with the 20% reloading bonus of Sure-Handed Ila which is a bit meh. But you can simply not use Rushed Reload and for example get a second pistol (like Scordeo's Trophy with its additional recovery bonus stacking like crazy on top). At some point you will hit the floor of reloading time though. There is some limit due to the reloading animation which you can't get under. For the same reason there is no use to pick Eccea's AB's enchantment which skips reloading - because it doesn't work. If you feel your shooting doesn't get any faster you can balance out with thicker armor for example. But the best weapon in terms of pure dps would be Red Hand I think. Even leaving on the the arquebus modal (+20 ACC) is barely noticable once you stacked all your speed bonuses (including gear like Maia's Armor + Cutthroat Cosmo, Acina's Tricorn, Necklace of the Harvest Moon and so on).

INT def. prolongs the summon's time on the field.

--- pistol --- For pistols I would include a Ranger. A Ranger has the ability "Gunner" and "Driving Flight" which are both quite nice for a pistol user, especially if he/she uses Scordeo's Trophy or Eccea's Arcane Blaster. I personally like a single handed pistol best because its modal, in combination with one-handed usage, is both fast and accurate and awesome with autoattacks. A good second class would be Cipher, Rogue or Chanter. If you use a Chanter with Sure Handed Ila then dual wielding pistols without using the modal becomes a nice option. Sure-Handed Ila and the pistol modal won't stack their reloading speed bonuses - so going dual wielding + Two Weapon Style + Sure-Handed Ila will be faster than single-handed usage and will have a bit better accuracy (but no added crit conversion). --- arquebus --- For an arquebus I prefer Ranger/Chanter with Sure-Handed-Ila because of the speed, but Ranger/Rogue or Chanter/Rogue are also good. A very potent combination is Troubadour/Streetfighter. Mainly because you can use the upgraded Whisp summons of the Chanter to distract/flank yourself (unlocking the passive of the Streetfighter) which stacks his 50% reloading bonus with Sure Handed Ila's, giving you the highest reloading speed possible while also giving you great per-shot damage via Sneak Attack + Myth Fir chant (burning lash). But it takes a while to get access to both Sure-Handed Ila and the Whisps. Until then it's still a Rogue shooting an arquebus - so it's not bad at all. It's just so that once you unlock Whisps and Sure-Handed-Ila the build totally takes off. Especially with the Red Hand arquebus. Generally speaking Ranger/Rogue is always a solid option no matter the details. --- blunderbuss --- The best "gunslinger" option in my opinion is a single class Monk with Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole - but that's bunderbusses, not pistols or arquebuses. Anything Streetfighter with blunderbuss(es) is also very good because the modal of blunderbusses unlocks the Streetfighter passive all the time. Very good in combination with Monk, too - in order to spam "Stunning Surge" with very high speed and dmg per hit. Ranger/Monk is also very nice because Stunning Surge hobs with Driving Flights, including all the AoE from the mortars. But a SC Monk gets Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind in the end which are just pure devastation with dual mortar blunderbusses. Funnily enough a SC Druid with Avenging Storm is also very good with mortars (especially Hand Mortar) because Blinding Smoke and the jumping AoEs all trigger Avengimg Storm's lightning strikes. But it's a long way to PL 8 in order to get Avenging Storm so I wouldn't recommend it for a first playthrough.

A Black Jacket/Streetfighter can become a really fast hitting melee sturdypants when he uses a thicker armor and the ability Armored Grace, a pet like Abraham and then gets flanked. Even with the otherwise "low-dps" option weapon & shield the attack speed and DPS are great while the staying power is great, too. The early game, which usually is a bit difficult in certain encounters was noticably easier because offense and defense were so well balanced.