Boeroer

What often lets me hesitate when combining Furyshaper with Chanter is the "collision" of summoning abilities. But then... Skald seems to be the best choice imo because a Skald usually doesn't use Chanter summons a lot since they are quite expensive - and at the same time the offensive invocastions (esp. the low level ones) are so cheap.

It still works.

Haha... good question. That was 2 years ago and I'm in my mid forties... : 😵

Found it:

I did a thread or somewhat lenghty post(?) about that stuff some time ago (I guess way over a year ago) that showcased this a bit with evervating blows. This might make CON afflictions nastier than one would expect. They might help you bring down an enemies' HP more quickly because of this behavior. I'll try to find the old post where I did some tests and link it here.

Yes, Stalker's Patience also has the potentially exciting enchantment to skip recovery on 20% of crits. This can also trigger from disengagement attacks. So it can happen that you do a "passive" disengagement attack which might crit and set your current recovery to 0 - so you can strike immediately again. Riposte can do the same - so this actually happens often enough to be fun imo. Add Mob Stance in order to strike immediately after a killing blow and to become faster when engaging more enemies. With Hold the Line, Shield, Unbroken Passive, spear modal and Persistent Distraction you will already have 5 engagement slots even without Guardian Stance. More than that isn't practical imo. I was playing an Unbroken/Streetfighter recently to emphasize on the offense (when surrounded) a bit more and it was a lot better than I thought it would be, even with the seemingly very defensive Gladiator Sword/Bronlar's Phalanx setup I chose. Initially I wanted Devoted/Streetfighter but you can't have sword AND shield proficiency as a Devoted (which sucks) so I went with Unbroken.

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.