Boeroer

Cadebald's Blackbow comes really late. Nice idea though, it's a beast. I would be even more interested in Kalakoth's Minor Blights + Driving Flight. I really hope that Corpse Eaters don't remove the bodies from the battlefield - because I wanted to try a Corpse Eater/White-Worms-necrophilic Chanter.

I liked Skyrim a lot when I was doing it "stealthy style" with a character focused on sneaking/backstabbing with bow and dagger and using illusions. It's a totally different game then and the gameplay isn't that "hectical" compared to the usual melee approach. Skyrim has the advantage (over Witcher) that you can create your own character (appearence). But it's a looong game if you want to see everything, like Max Quest said. What I also liked was Dragon Age: Origins (NOT Inquisition ). But of course that's a tad old now.

That's right. Even until the late game (when you get durgan steel) it's hard to beat. Because the cipher can disable the target easily most of the time he often deals crits. Crits with Firebrand (huge base damage + annihilation), Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver lead to ridiculous focus bursts (and damage of course). You can also crank it up with the follwing combo: Phantom Foes (causes flanked) + survial 12 (+20% damage against flanked) + similar item (+10% vs. flanked) and Appr. Sneak (+15% vs. flanked). This works very well with Firebrand's high base damage. Later with durgan steel and good enchantments/lash Hours of St. Rumbalt will give you the same or better dmg/focus. More crits and also higher speed... The prone on crit is not really needed but who wants to complain about that. But dual wielding is also nice. Also helps with the casting speed because your weapon recovery is wy shorter and thus you can start to cast powers sooner after a weapon attack. It makes a difference.

At the end of the game the ranger does more damage than a rogue (just a rough calculation against 0 DR with 20 MIG/DEX and 50/50 hit/crit): The Rain of Godhag Field: Base damage: 13‑20 (average 16,5 ) Stalker's Link: +20% base damage Apprentice's Sneak Attack: +15% base damage Legendary Enchantment: +55% base damage MIG 20: +30% base damage crits with Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver: +90% base damage resulting hit damage: 36+9 lash, crit: 68+17 lash per arrow Twinned Arrows: hit: 45*2 = 90, crit: 85 * 2 =170 Driving Flight: I will leave this aside for now ~40 frames per attack with DEX 20 and 0 recovery in 500 frames you will deal 1125 hit damage or 2125 crit damage if hit/crit is 50:50 you will deal around 1625 damage against 0 DR on top come the pet and Driving Flight Dual Bittercut:Base damage: 11-16 (average 13,5 ) sharp: +20% base damage Spirit of Decay: +20% base damage Reckless Assault: +20% base damage Sneak Attack: +50% base damage Deathblows: +100% base damage Legendary Enchantment: +55% base damage MIG 20: +30% base damage crits with Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver: +90% base damage resulting physical hit damage: 53 + 16 lash , crit: 65 + 20 lash per swing ~23 frames per attack with DEX 20 and 0 recovery in 500 frames you will deal 1518 hit damage or 1870 crit damage if hit/crit is 50:50 you will deal 1694 damage against 0 DR You see that the damage output is nearly the same without Driving Flight and without the pet's damage. I assumed that the ranger only has a 25% lash and the rogue a 30% lash by the way. This calculation is already in favour of the rogue because I assumed that there are always two afflictions on the target. I assumed that he can attack without pause/without moving, too. I left aside armor penalties and DR just to show the direction this is going. So one can safely assume further that the ranger is the better damage dealer once he has Stunning Shots, Driving Flight and Twinned Arrows. But the advantage of the dual wielding rogue over a bow ranger is that he starts with Sneak Attack and higher attack speed - also and gets Deathblows at lvl 11. While the best abilites of the (bow) ranger come at lvl 7, 11 and 13. So for a good part of the game the rogue will be able to deal a bit more dps if things run smoothly (affliction setup, not getting knocked out and so on). However my point was to show that the general statement is not true. I like rogues over rangers by the way. But that doesn't influence their performance.

Yes - potions of recovery are really useful. Especially solo they saved my butt several times against those pesky Andragans and Lagufaeth. I have to admit that I only use food, drugs and potions when soloing.

Why not take the wolf? I know his base damage and thought I can compare the expected results with the numbers I receive when testing. But after 20/20 crits there was no difference. Even without knowing the base damage it's obvious that something didn't work properly - but maybe it was just a one time glitch, don't know. As can be guessed from my previous comments about kith/non-kith enemies I don't think anymore that it's multiplicative (that was only my guessing after my experiences with the belt on some builds). But what I wanted to point out is that it can still be better (for certain characters) than a Blunting Belt and a Belt of +3 CON. And I don't think I stand corrected (yet). You said that one shouldn't bother with that belt (generally). I still can't see why. Sure: for a character with good defenses it's definitely crap. But there are certain characters and also enough situations where it saves you more endurance than the other two variants.

Hehe - you have to wait for dual Bittercuts with durgan steel and take Merciless Hand. If you didn't do that the damage of FoD isn't that "monster".

The Alpine Dragon is immune to paralyze...

Eh? What has this to do with Flames of Devotion? I meant you will have altering defenses pre combat and even during combat.

No, he will not. Because of: - the ranger doesn't need to run to his target and thus doesn't lose dps while moving (or doing Shadow Step or Escape) - will have +100% "real" damage (not base! - this is way better than Deathblows) via Twinned Arrows all the time without the need for afflictions - he will have perma-stun which leads to a lot of crits as well (usually rangers have the same hit/crit ratio as rogues by the end of the game ) - he will have Driving Flight (2 * 60% "real" - not base - damage with Twinned Arrows) - he will have +10 accuracy and +20% damage via Stalker's Link and Stalker's Torc (a bit like Reckless Assault but without drawbacks) - he will not get disabled or killed that often because he doesn't have to run around and get near melees and/or catch disengagement attacks in order to reach the enemies. And on top of that comes the pet that can crit around 80-100 dmg if you can utilize Predator's Sense (which you should - easy with Wounding Shot or Env. Strike or Persistence). A rogue most of the time can't dish out that much damage in a given time because he simply can't stack that many multipliying damage bonuses. He only has additive ones. Even with Sneak + Deathblows he's not close. He has the advantage of attack speed if the ranger has not yet reached 0 recovery, but the fact that he has to move a lot in order to apply damage negates this advantage. I presume you never played a high level ranger?

Remember that Frenzy from Sanguine Plate will lower your deflection by 10 and raise fortitude by 16.

You know the stats are not THAT more powerful on PoTD.

Whatever your theory is, you can't deny the numbers (which are of course not meaningless once you have a decent amount of samples - I agree than 10/10 is not decent though, but I didn't have more time). Since I don't know how the belt was implemented the best way to determine its usefulness is to test it in combat. While 10/10 is a very small sample and doesn't prove anything it already is in line with what I thought and experienced. The average difference was near 17 points dmg per crit - against an ogre. That doesn't fit into your presumption that dragons or the most damaging spells would do 10-15 less. It totally fits with -27% though - and that's plausible if the ogre is programmed in a way that he's only doing base damage and doesn't have a lot of dmg mods - like most non-kith enemies have (I guess). As I said, I think against kith enemies who attack with weapons and have different dmg mods this belt might be useless - but since those usually don't hit that awfully hard... but against other enemies I presume the belt will work the same as against the ogre. If you get disabled you are open for crits - then this belt is better than a Blunting Belt or a belt with +3 CON (also because you can get bonus CON from another item). If you have a build that is out for getting crits (in order to trigger Frenzy or Shod-in-Faith or whatever spell holding) - then this belt is better. In those cases the Blunting Belt would save you 5 dmg per crit (in this case zero because ogres do crush damage, but hey ). The CON belt would give you 15% more of your base endurance which would be something like 30-40 points or so if you are >lvl 10 I guess. Also not very overwhelming. Especially because Girdle of Mortal Protection and bonus CON are not mutually exclusive. So I don't understand the numbers you were posting when talking about dragons or the most damaging spells when against a simple ogre the difference is already that obvious (but no offense!). By the way: I tested it first in the tavern with a ranger's wolf attacking the character. So in my mind there should only be base damage + crit damage involved (wolf has 10 MIG). Here I did more samples (20/20) and the difference was nearly zero. So I assumed it only works in combat. Don't know what happened there.

I did a quick test with a single leftover Ogre from that bounty in ELmshore and that's the conclusion after 10 received crits with and 10 without Girdle of Mortal Protection: without Gridle oMP: average crit damage roll was 75.05 per crit with Girdle oMP: average crit damage roll was 58.60 per crit (this was nor much more than the average hit roll - maybe around 10 percent but I didn't log that properly since I focused on crits) This comes close to the numbers I used above (percentage wise) which is ok with only 10 crits each. I think the girdle only works in combat because when you test it in a tavern on your own party members it does nothing. Or/and it may also depend on whether your opponent's damage is mainly base damage (have no special weapons and/or dmg bonuses but mainly flat base damage). Basically everything that is not "kith who does weapon attacks". But I didn't test that theory. Maybe the girdle is less effective against let's say kith rogues - but it is very good against everything that does crits with high base damage (wing slams, bites, claws, spells, you name it). But as I said I didn't test that. I only experienced a decent increase of survivability on my "crit me please" builds every time I put on that belt. An now those short testings with the Ogre can at least explain a bit why. So needless to say that around 16 less damage per crit is better than a Blunting Belt or a +3 CON belt - if you catch a lot of crits. THe higher the spike damage the more benefical is the girlde in comparison to the other two belts (sorry Kaylon ).

Sometimes happens with all items with spell chance. Unequip, save, reload, equip, leave map, come back. Sometimes that helps.

It's a nice belt if you get crit a lot. Like when you have a character with low deflection and Sanguine Plate who looses another 10 deflection with Frenzy. Then the belt spares you more endurance and health than a Blunting Belt or a +3 CON item. For the usual tank it's useless. By the way the numbers above I totally made up just for simpler examples. 300 "base" endurance is pretty high. And 100/150 damage, too.

Also note that reach weapons have no advantage when it comes to engagement. The longer reach doesn't lead to engagement over longer distances like I thought. Reach weapons have the same engagement distance like every other melee weapon.

That depends on your level and on your foes. In the early game +5 DR is quite powerful and will be more useful than +3 CON. +3 CON leads to +15% (* 1.15) endurace which means something like 50 enduracne to 58 in lvl 1. That's only 8 more. So he can eat 8 more damage. If the character gets hit more than once the Blunting Belt was better. Later on +3 CON is better most of the time. Imagine 300 endurance * 1.15 = 345 endurance. 45 more. So he would have to be hit more than 9 times and no sooner the Blunting Belt would be better. Now add the fact that CON also raises your fortitude and that the Blunting Belt only raises slash and pierce DR. So my advice would be: Blunting Belt first, then later +3 CON belt. However, there is another belt that can help you to survive spike damage if you have low defenses: Girle of Mortal Protection. It reduces critical hit damage by 27%. If normal damage would be 100 and critical damage would be 150, then with a Girdle of Mortal Protection you will only receive 150 * 0.73 = 110. So basically you spare yourself 40 damage. Pretty neat.

Ondra can make you (and even other gods) forget things. Maybe she slapped herself on the forehead accidentially after you met in WM II?

Fenwalkers are nice.

We will have the beta. I will try out a lot of potentially OP stuff for myself and I guess a lot of players will do that, too. So maybe after the beta the most OP combos will get fixed. Remember barb with Carnage + Jolting Toch from Azureith's Stiletto? Back in the days the spell strikings had no limit. Every crit triggered a Jolting Touch which got multiplied by Carnage. Enemy groups just got annihilated. Ciphers' Draining Whip gave +3 (?) focus per hit, same with Carow Gholan. Devs forgot that blunderbusses do 6 hits with one shot, making it the no. 1 OP weapon for ciphers. Total focus overflow... Similar stuff will happen in Deadfire I guess.

You an add them via console. They won't have banter and dialogue but besides that they will work just fine.

WM II bounties are tougher.

They are ok-ish.

Maybe there will be a trigger like there is now for auto-pause: right before the combat starts but it's not yet encounter-time. In this case switching would be done without any recovery.