Boeroer

I meant that some players tend to just start an encounter with letting the whole party do attacks and offensive spells right away - instead of buffing up first. In the cases I described above this indeed results in a fight that's over more quickly - because you didn't have to take the (real) time for buffing up - and the buffs didn't make a huge difference in the first place because the encounter was easy to begin with. But as soon as fights become more demanding it is detrimental to start combat with all-in offensive actions right away. Imo it's better to make some time and room for buffing up first (mostly accuracy but defense also matters of course). Buying time can be done by using a scout or tank who seperates a bit from the party and starts combat - and then either lures enemies towards the party or just tanks them until the rest of the party buffed up. Or it can be done with very fast buffers (like a support caster with high DEX and no armor) who can dish out a lot of buffs quickly - or both. And/or you have somebody who starts the encounter with some impactful CC effect (mind control of a weak enemy in order to distract the other ones, a hard disable of a big group by a high accuracy disable... or just using summons) which would buy the buffing caster some time. If you have a very sturdy tank then the simplest option is to seperate from the party a bit and just initiate combat with that tank. Let the tank endure the first enemy attacks alone while you buff your party up - and only then go in with disables/debuffs and then attacks. In easy fights however the time and planning you will invest for this are often not worth it. Especially because you will most likely have to pause the game a lot bc. of timing and positioning etc. - and then, even if the fight is over more quickly in "game-time" it will have taken a lot longer in real-time. That's why a lot of players just do "select all, attack" later in the game because it's the fastest - or most "time-efficient" - way to overcome easy encounters, even if it's not the most resource-efficient way (in terms of spell uses and loss of health and injuries I mean).

The initial problem (and why the keyword mod adressed the keywords of some weapons, too) was that weapons which do alternative damage (like shock/pierce but also pierce/slash) might not do any damage against enemies who are immune to one of that dmg types, even if the alternative dmg should work in theory. Problem is that sometimes enemies with immunities against certain damage types have low AR or not especially high AR against that type (see Flame Naga). The game logic first determines the highest dmg type/AR ratio and decides the preferable dmg type, then realizes the enemy is immune only afterwards. Bummer. At least that's what I remember. But it seems the keyword mod only disimproved stuff (in some areas at least). If I'm ot wrong giving Sun and Moon fire/crush or freeze/crush wouldn't really help with the "can't hurt fire immune enemies with crush dmg" issues which occur without the keyword mod. Maybe crush/fire or crush/freeze would be okay in most cases because the first dmg type will get picked if the ARs (or dmgtype/AR ratios) are equal - and in that case it would be crush dmg. But against Flame Nagas for example it would still prefer fire dmg - bc. the fire AR of them is especially low. If Sun & Moon only did singular fire and freeze dmg with the repective head then it would make sense and one wouldn't have this quirky "immunity despite alternative dmg scenario" at least - imo. Just by taking away the alternative dmg type which would avoid all the issues. Same with Dragon's Dowry etc. I personally would prefer another solution (which I don't see atm)... but this seems like the simplest one - and one that shouldn't come with other unforseen problems.

Okay, turned off mods, exited the game, openend it back up and the Ring and lashes work. Seems I really have to shut the game down in between. Turned keyword mod on, exit/restart and the lashes are still there. So the keyword mod of CP may not cause the loss of the lashes? But the +10 ACC from the Ring is gone with the keyword mod. I don't know, maybe somebody else wants to join in finding out what is happening here. I think the keyword mod doesn't allow the acc bonus of the ring to apply to Sun & Moon's fire head. But it doesn't seem to remove the lashes. That seems to be caused by something else (also tried the other CP mods and the lashes stayed). They seem to get removed kind of randomly? I'm a bit lost and I gotta go for now.

Does nothing. Now I'm really confused though because the lashes went missing even without me turning on ANY mod. Err... wtf??? Apparently the missing lashes and turning on the keyword mod was just a concidence? Or would I need to start a new run in order to properly test whether CP causes this or not?

Yep, turned keyword mod of the CP on and the lashes are gone. Now I want to check if enchanting the weapon further removes the quirks with the Ring etc. usually I enchant the weapon asap to maybe that's why this was missed...

Okay, this is superweird: Removed all mods and not I get the lashes. But I still don't get any ACC bonus from Ring of Focused Flames AND the one-handed acc bonus of +12 only gets applied to the second attack roll, not the first one. Eh?? This wasn't the case some time ago. What happened? 🤔 Now I will gradually turn on all seperate mods of the CP and see which one causes the lashes to fail (I suspect the keyword mod).

There should be additional lash damage, yes. I don't think CP took that away. I'm using the Community Patch as well and don't experience that behavior. [edit] that's actually wrong, see below [/edit] I get lashes and +10 for the fire head of Sun & Moon with the Ring of Focused Flame. Maybe the mods you installed are biting each other - maybe the loading order is not like recommended. Also sometimes unique weapons can lose their enchantments. It's a very rare bug of the vanilla game (not the mod) - but it's known to happen. Does the weapon's tooltip still mention the lashes and other enchantments? Edit: okay... tested it right now to be sure and indeed I get no lashes anymore despite the tooltip saying it. This is new to me. Maybe the latest update on CP broke Sun & Moon. I will test further and report.

Ring of Focused Flame doesn't add bonus damage to burn/fire attacks but +10 Accuracy instead. Or what am I missing? Check the attack roll for the fire head and then the one of the frost head (or some other weapon with similar accuracy). Do they roll with the same accuracy in the combat log?

Debonaire or Trickster: different gameplay because usually you'd pick a Trickster for melee combat and a Debonaire for ranged or reach weapons. No particular gear in mind, but Trickster would profit a lot from gear that raises defenses, like Gipon Prudensco, Bracers and Cape of Major Deflection and so on. Using Sasha's Singing Scimitar as main weapon would be a smart choice imo because it allows for a free empower use in every encounter with an invocation which is very cool. Something like empowered "Killers Froze Stuff" and then smack the helpless enemies is good. Can be paired with a second sabre for dual wielding - or pick a shield for more defense. Troubadour/Debonaire could use a weapon with increased crit effect (see stuff like the pistol Scordeo's Trophy or the pike Wicked Beast or the hunting bow Essense Interrupter or so). Pistol + modal (rushed reload) suppresses the reloading bonus of Sure-Handed Ila, so you might as well use two pistols + two weapon style, Sure Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr chants and Scordeo's Trophy + Eccea's Arcane Blaster. Full guns(l)inger. Troubadour/Streetfigther should maybe get Maia's armor (Sharpshooter's Garb) at some point and use a pet like Cutthroat Cosmo or Abraham, Acina's Tricorn, Ring of the Marksman. As with nearly all Rogues I wouldn't put too much into Might but would prefer DEX, PER and INT. Melee Trickster might want some Resolve, too.

Troubadour/Psion is an excellent combination and can fit the theme imo. The most effective thing is to combine summons (Chanter side) and Mind Control (Cipher side). Basically you can turn a whole army against one single leftover foe. But can cast a ton of other stuff, too. Can sing and cast all day, no need for weapon usage at all (still possible of course, just not needed and not particularly effective). Troubadour/Beguiler is similar but is more roguish. It gets bonus dmg for weapon attacks if the enemy is afflicted and he gains lots of focus if he csts against afflicted enemies (weapon usage not needed to gain focus, but still effective). Troubadour/Debonaire also fits the Scoundrel-Bard theme well imo (and so is Troubadour/Trickster). The Troubadour/Debonaire can almost guarantee critical hits because he can mass-charm with an invocation cone and then get a 100% hit-to-crit conversion on those charmed enemies (nice with weapons and/or abilites which do something special on crit - or in order to circumvent PEN-issues etc.). Troubadour/Priest of Skaen? Little dark, but Preist of Skaen has Rogue elements (like turning invisible). Troubadour/Streetfighter also works very well with an arqubus (especially the Red Hand) if you use your own summoned Wisps (The Lights Danced across the Moor) to distract you. You can stack 50% recovery reduction from Streetfighter with twice the bonus of Sure-Handed Ila (20% reload bonus AND 20% recovery bonus which both apply to reloading weapons). Until getting the Wisps one can use Blunderbusses to trigger the Steetfighter passive.

There's another downside that is more impactful in the later game imo: a Bloodmage (even as multiclass) has no access to Empower and therefore also cannot profit from abilities and items that work with empowering abilities (for example the empowered Missile Salvo + Least Unstable Coil + Wall of Draining combo).

I guess Moon Godlike - which is especially impactful in the first half of the game. Something with a head slot starts to become better later in the game when fights take longer (so you spend more time unshifted and can access the bonuses of the helmet). But since the hardest part of the game usually is the early part I'd say Moon Godlike.

I don't know. If you use them for tanking it's pretty good to have two additonal casts for 2 more phantoms in long fights. The substancial phantom casting stuff is indeed a bit annoying at times (I like Arduous Delay of Motion because it targets Will and stacks with all other debuffs, but Necrotic Lance and Minor Missiles are often just a waste of action time - casting can also break engagement the phantom might have via items which is detrimental to tanking) but if it's used as a tank then bigger health pool doesn't hurt I guess. It would have been very exciting if one could pick the 3 spells for the substancial phantom from your own spell portfolio. The opportunities... 😄

These days I give him Effort and enchant it with Hemorrhaging because that also works with all crits, not only weapon crits. If you add Hylea's Talons you can generate ebven more crits per spellcast (because the DoT on the gloves also does a hit roll that can crit). Even before getting Avenging Storm (which procs on Hemorrhaging hit rolls bc. it originates from the weapon) it's cool to cause hobbled or sickened as additional CC effects on the fly while casting Chillfog, Wicked Briars, Tanglefoot and so on. Later add Avenging Storm and of course Maelstrom and he's wiping ads (which are usually more prone to receiving crits) like few other characters. Venombloom is lso excellent with this because it does 3 attack rolls every 3 secs (loads of chances for crit rolls which all trigger Hemorrhaging which in turn triggers Hylea's Talons and Avenging Storm - which when those crit trigger Hemorrhaging again and so on and so loop). Effort + Taste of the Hunt is also a pretty decent combo during mid levels. The combined DoTs melt tough foes pretty nicely (if you can reliably hit).

I somewhat agree. However, the pl7 phantom has better stats iirc (at least more health). But you confused the names. Essential Phantom is the pl4 summon while Substantial Phantom is pl7.

Yes, you are right. It's only auto-leveling companions before you pick them up - sorry. 🥴 I forgot about that limitation since I always wanted to level them manually. But since there is the retraining option you can try things out without too much regret.

Besides (pistols in general and) the early game where single weapon usage is really good bc. of the +12 ACC - which is a huge bonus compared to the overall low ACC/defense numbers at that point of the game - I only used One-Handed Style "seriously" with a Monk/Berserker + Stalker's Patience and the "0 recovery on 20% of crits" enchantment. The combination of Swift Flurry/HBD, Blood Thirst and the enchantment made it a lot of fun and the high ACC (+29 from Enduring Dance + single weapon + spear) also made it very viable against high deflection enemies. In most other cases it just feels lackluster. It may have its uses in edge cases - but that's not enough to make it an attractive alternative for most of players who aren't too fixated on the fine details. It not only lacks broad mechanical impact - it also lacks (a) feature(s) that would make it more attractive. Dual wielding and two handers will always have their fans just because of how "cool" they are. Maybe instead of giving increased crit conversion it would have been interesting to focus on the fact that you have a free hand... which could be used for all sorts of stuff during a fight (grabbing the opponent's weapon shaft, throwing random stuff at opponents, grappling, making offending gestures... ;)). Don't know how that would affect combat mechanically though (in a not too complicated fashion)...

I didn't check this ingame now but from the top of my head I see no way to accomplish this with the conditions that are given.

Having played Tekehu with Effort (pun intended) as an SC Druid - which was great - I also tried an Assassin/Bloodmage + Effort, Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure and some pulsing CC spells like Binding Web etc. plus Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak and that was even more impressive imo. Especially because if you also bring a Druid with Entropy all hits will get converted to crits on the enemy with Entropy while the "stacks" of entropy won't get removed (bc. no damage, only CC). With this you can perma-stun whole groups of enemies and very tough single enemies in particular. Of course not the MIG-resistant or -immune enemies, but still...

There is automatic leveling iirc. There should be an option in the game settings menu.

I think you meant to post in the Deadfire Stories subforum - this is the Pillars of Eternity (1) Stories subforum.

Yes, and since the items give +3 engagement, the Phantom will have those 3 eng. slots, too - letting it dish out disengagement attacks as well (which target Will instead of deflection because Draining Touch just does that).

Willbreaker! In a party that plays around with terrify I really like to give him a club (+modal) and Cadhu Scalth and use him like a tank. I love to use Miasma with him, put Kapana Taga in the offhand and Reckless Brigandine as armor and then summon Concelhaut's Drainng Touch + a Phantom. I will have 3 engagement slots and deal devastating disengagement attacks against terrified enemies with Draining Touch. Later I like to use The Blackbow (and a phantom with the Blackbow), too. Tekehu is a nice addition. And Cipher is cool (maybe a Psion/something) because lots of their spells target the Will defense. A combination of terrifying some enemies + charming/dominating the rest messes up almost all enemy groups very thoroughly.

It doesn't cause an interrupt on itself. It only removes concentration completely (no matter how many stacks an enemy has). So you need some weapon or ability to actually cause the interrupt. But if you are energized (Their Champion) it can interrupt if it crits - like any other attacks roll that results in a crit.

Yes. Barbaric Retaliation also works with dual mortars.