Boeroer

Ach sorry. I misinterpreted "Don't see the sense in it".

It's your meta knowledge and your improved knowledge around the mechanics. Happens to all of us. Try solo PoTD next!

I played Diablo II like an addict with friends during my years at the University. And the weekends were for P&P. Had no girlfriend back then. Or nothing too serious... And also parties had to be celebrated. That stuff cost me one semester - if not more.

Drakes and all sorts of banshees come to mind. Also: enemy barbs with Threatening Presence. Here it's more like "Pleasant Presence".

Did you finish it with 12 ogre clubs to the head?

Yes, Zealous Focus is not good if you always use other sources of ACC buffs that don't stack with it (Blessing, Disciplined Barrage, Eldritch Aim and so on). What stacks with it though are Inspiring Radiance and Devotions of the Faithful. When I play a Paladin I always use Zealous Focus. Spares me some castings of other per-rest ACC buffs.

You obviously didn't watch Raven's video with the bog dragons vs Brutal Backlash. Brutal Backlash against fear auras is totally OP now.

Penetrating Shot, Ryona's Vambraces and dropping Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool will give you 13 DR bypass with any blunderbuss - 16 with Lead Spitter. If you have a Wizard then be sure to cast Expose Vulnerabilites - this is also great for the retaliation guys. Makes 18 DR bypass (21 with Lead Spitter). With this setup Wounding Shot wil deal the highest damage possible against enemies who have low to mid DR. Also the synergy between Combusting Wounds and blunderbuss is really nice as I said. But it's true that the cone of blunderbuss is so short (but wide) that you'd have to flank and be really near the enemies. I personally like the cone of arquebus the best. I will shoot 4 times with Quick Switch+Coil of Ressourcefulnes and Powder Burns while the enemies are approaching and then retreat behind the front line. But Silver Flash is so nice... If you want to use blunderbusses, but not with a ranger- do an Island Aumaua Wizard with Quick Switch, Arms Bearer, Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike, using blunderbusses and all the DR bypass stuff I mentioned above, casting Expose Vuln. and Combusting Wounds and also the Missile Spells (basically anything that likes DR bypass and deals a lot of hits at once - Wall of Flames is also nice in this case). It's a great single target destroyer and fun to play, too.

Oh, I didn't know that about Shadow Step. That makes it even worse.

Zealous Focus also boosts spells' accuracy (as long as it's not suppressed by a more powerful accuracy buff like Eldritch Aim). Works the same as Gallant's Focus, just a bit better.

You are welcome Stunning Shots works with guns and also with Driving Flight (forgot that one in my post above). So you can stun two enemies with one shot. The first target has to be attacked by your companion (that's how Stunning Shot works). I would def. use Driving Flight with guns, not only because of Stunning Shots but because gunshots have enough damage that they also hurt the second target even with the dmg malus Driving Flight has. Twinned Arrows only works with bows (hunting bow and war bow). Blunderbuss will give you 6 attack rolls instead of one, true. With stunning shots this is cool because there's a higher chance of getting a better hit quality with the stun. Also works well with Envenomed Strike (if you' want to use that). With Wounding Shot you will get 6 parallel wounding DoTs, yes. Also great with a Ring of Searing Flames (Combusting Wouds): 6 hits at once also means 6 burn DoTs. With a Wounding Shot it's 5 burn and 5 raw DoTs at the same time - pretty devastating. But DoT-ticks themselves don't trigger Combusting Wounds anymore. If you also get Silver Flash later on (unique blunderbuss) you will notice that the spell chance is per pellet. Since you have 6 there's a good chance to proc the spell chance with every shot. Also works well with Scion of Flame, that one. Retaliation doesn't have any connection to carnage nowadays. But a nice thing is Binding Rope (stuck retaliation) combined with a prone-on-crit or stun-on-crit weapon + carnage. THe enemies hit you and get stuck, you do a carnage sweep and same enemies will most likely receive a crit which disables them completely. If you also have a rogue it's Deathblow time.

Ranger: Talents/abilites/items for ranger using Powder Burns: - Weapon Focus Ruffian (pistol/blunderbuss) or Soldier (arbalest) - Marksman - Penetrating Shot when using blunderbuss - Burning Lash - Gunner (and a lot of DEX when using a reloading approach) or Arms Bearer + Quick Switch (when using a switching approach) - Scion of Flame - Powder Burns (no Switft Aim, no Vicious Aim - those don't work with Powder Burns) - The Crossed Patch (gives you immunity to blind - Powder Burns will blind you) Arquebus has a long, narrow cone, blunderbuss has a wide, short cone and pistols are in between. Monk/barb: Both classes work well with retaliation. I did some solo high-level bounties with a retaliation barb as well as with a ret. monk and both are viable. Barbaric retaliation is nice, it also profits from One Stands Alone and Blooded like the other retaliations (that deal damage) do. This synergizes well with Battle Forged since for that you also would have to be under 50% endurance. So One Stands Alone and Blooded wil give your Battle Forged +50% damage. Also Vengeful Defeat can be seen as a retaliation effect. If you have a paladin, chanter or priest this can work really nicely. Turn off knockout injuries though. The monk has the better retaliation effects though because the lashes from Turning Wheel and also the Blood Testamant Gloves work very well with it - especially Battle Forged. And you can even pimp that burning retaliation further with Scion of Flame. He also has Iron Wheel and Rooting Pain which are nice as well. At higher levels the barb has HoF which is of course no retaliation but beats most other abilites in the game. Overall I would say that the monk is more fun because he can get good retaliation going a lot earlier in the game. When using Battle Forged it's very benifical to pick Merciless Hand from Doemenel and use Dungeon Delver. At higher levels the base damage is very high and a crit with +90% will be a lot more devastating than a crit with +50%. Great items are: Binding Rope retaliates with stuck (stacks with Sura's Supper Plate, but not with other non-weapon-items that do retaliation like Garodh's Chorus, Vengiatta Rugia or that Lavander Headband). Because enemies will get stuck they will receive retaliation-crits instead of hits which will increase your damage way more than just another weak retalation device that does some whimpy pierce damage. Ring of Searing Flames - Combusting Wounds is very good when you cause a lot of retaliatin hits. THis is especially useful with HoF or Rooting Pain: tons of hits in a short amount of time means a ton of burn DoTs from Combusting Wounds. Ryona's Vambraces - obviously help to do more damage via retaliation - like Vulnerable Attack as well. You could also build a barb for melee retaliation and a monk for ranged retaliation with Alia Braccia and Soul Mirror. Soulbound Weapons: yes, like summoned weapons do (like The Long Pain and Firebrand for example). Even the priests' special weapon talent (+10 ACC) works with soulbound/summoned weapons. So for example a Priest of Magran can wield Firebrand or Grey Sleeper like it's a sword (in terms of accuracy). Flick of the Wrist only works with daggers/stilettos though nowadays (doesn't matter if soulbound or summoned, it has to be dagger or stiletto).

Something with effect on crit - like stun or prone on crit or/and annihilating. Hours of St. Rumbalt in PoE1 had both: prone on crit and did double crit damage. Because in theory Sworn Enemy + Flames of Devotion + Borrowed Instincts should lead to an accuracy bonus of +55. Plenty of crits. If there's still a possibility for non-druids to summon Firebrand I would use that.

Since I only played on PotD where fights take longer I liked chanters a lot. But it's true that the builds that focus on phrases are better/more fun than those who want to utilize the invocations. Higher tier phrases needing more time to complete was a bad design decision. They should have had mixed durations throughout the tiers.

Since I only played on PotD where fights take longer I liked chanters a lot. But it's true that the builds that focus on phrases are better/more fun than those who want to utilize the invocations. Higher tier phrases needing more time to complete was a bad design decision. They did have mixed durations throughout the tiers.

Thanks Torm. Unfortunately same here. I used to play P&P roleplaying games with friends a lot back in the days - but since I got a bunch of kids and a wife now I can only squeeze in some time for good old single player CRPGs at night when everybody else is asleep.

Finally!

Did you read the two posts before yours? Actually weapon enchantments don't enhance spells and chants and whatnot. It was a mistake. Only those abilities you execute with the weapon will profit from weapon enchantments (and even then not all of them - look at Knockdown: the initial hit will work with weapon enchantments but the roll against fortitude that causes the prone effect will not).

You're welcome.

One thing I could see is an Island Aumaua with 4 dual pistol sets and 4 uses of Flames of Devotion with all the fitting talents and item enchantments (burning lash, Intense Flames, Scion of Flame and so on). With Quick Switch he could then fire his FoD shots as soon as he needs focus. In theory (and if dual pistols work with Full Attack abilities like dual melee weapons did) this should result in a lot of focus with each FoD-shot - since lashes also generated focus in PoE1. Combined with Biting and Draining Whip this should work nicely. Stats would favor MIG, INT and PER. Maybe DEX for casting, too. I would name it "The Zealous Soulshot" - no not really...

Chanters will now start with some phrases so invocations can be used earlier in the encounter. This thing comes from Tyranny where people seem to like it. There is also a feat where you can carry unused phrases over to the next encounter, but I don't know if this will be in Deadfire as well or not. Also the invocations will not be ordered like before: tier 1 invocations needed 3 phrases, tier 2 inv. needed 4 phrases and so on. Instead, they will be mixed when it comes to phrase cost. So it might be that some tier 1 invoc. need 3 phrases while other tier 1 inv. need 5 - and same with higher tier invocations. Maybe that this will also be true with the phrases themselves, can't remember. This was said in a Q&A live stream as well as someehere else (can't remember, maybe Something Awful or Twitter). Hope I summed it up correctly.

That's a pity. As long as you don't get hit or crit the +40 to deflection will stay forever. Grazes don't count. With Hardened Veil + Wizard's Double you will have +115 deflection and will only get grazed at most. So as long as Arcane Veil is up you will have +115 deflection. After the Veil is gone you will still have +40 against the next attack - and as long that doesn't hit or crit the +40 will stay. It's a very potent combo for the early to mid game. Wizard's Double alone without Arcane Veil is very good for wizard tanks with weapon & shield style and so on. The deflection is already high - and with the potentially everlasting Wizard's Double it can reach numbers where you will most likely only get grazed. There is a downside: attacks against other defenses will also end Wizard's Double if they hit/crit, but fortunately those attacks (mostly afflictions) are not very common in the early to mid game. Most enemies target defection at that point.

Really? That would be new to me. Afaik all those AoE effects don't work with DR bypass, not even universal ones like from Ryona's Vambraces.

Just checked with a low level chanter and Come Sweet Winds: no difference in ACC when switching from a normal to a fine weapon. Aloth: Minor Missiles with a fine sabre: 45. With a normal sabre: also 45. All taken from the combat log. That would have been totally new to me if this had worked. What does boost your ACC with all offensive abilities is char level: +1 per level.

V4. But I guess v5 (which works on Linux) can handle the v4 files as well..?