Boeroer

Ehhh - one shot per encounter. It's not that bad. What would you have done with durgan steel on a gun? Hm... maybe double barrel (like Twin Sting) or so?

Ah, simple misinterpretation. I thought you meant something like "it's only good from lvl 1-4 and then the chanter gets something better that you should take". I didn't get that you were comparing the chanter and his Soft Winds to the rest of the party. I used it up to lvl 16 one time with maxed MIG and INT for maximum linger time and it's not that bad if you can stack some of them and refresh every 2 secs. It's a bit of AoE raw damage as a "byproduct" while your real focus is on the invocations.

Shouldn't Soft Winds get better at lvl 5 because the recitation is "more brisk" (=more dps)? Why 1-4?

It depends (I know, I say that a lot ). If you have a really good blunderbuss like Silver Flash then it's worth it to retrain for max DEX, low recovery and reload with stuff like Gunner and other stuff like Swift Aim or Sure Handed Ila, depending on your class. Then enchanting makes really sense. This blunderbuss in particular is so good because the spell chance of Divine Mark (10% of hits/crits) counts for every pellet, raising your chance to 47% proc chance per shot. And it blinds with every shot. It's very good with a rogue because not only does a rogue like the blinding effect but he also likes it that Divine Mark (that statistically goes off every second shot) works with Deathblows. You are totally right though that it feels like a waste to durganize blunderbusses if you have a quickswitch build or so. By the way in Deadfire the attack speed bonuses will also shorten reloading (not only recovery like in PoE1). So that's kind of a fix I'd say.

If you are the marking paladin with Shame or Glory you have to attack the dragon in melee - best is to switch off AI and use auto attacks because he will not stop doing this until you command otherwise. The party member standing next to you will get the bonus. Melee range not required. If this is Aloth then Aloth gets the bonus, no matter if he uses spells or attacks otherwise. As long as he attacks the dragon and is the nearest others can not get the bonus. The great thing is: if you turn off AI and use spells with several party members then most of the time they all get the bonus. Why is that? It's because after casting a spell the party member will usually immediately switch to idle mode, this freeing up the bonus for the next nearest party mwmber who attacks the dragon, too. If those are all casters and they all do this, they will all get the bonus if they are not casting at the exact same time (or to be precise: if their attack rolls don't happen at the same time).

Sounds like a fat bug, yes.

I did both cipher with Lead Spitter + max DR reduction/penetration as well as wizard. Wizard also with Golden Gaze which has the same "problems" a blunderbuss has. Of course a cipher has great focus gain with this setup, especially if he uses Body Attunement on an enemy first - but I have to say a wizard with Combusting Wounds, Expose V. and Citzal's Martial power is really good with a blunderbuss - it's a bliss. Since you can have those spells as mastery (except Martial Power of course) it's also great in the late game. Martial Power + Envenomed Strike and Runner's is also cool by the way. Rogue with this -DR stuff as well as Backstab is also very nice.

That is def. a viable setup. I did it with a wizard in combination with Expose Vulnerabilities (lowers AoE DR by 5). Other good options would be cipher with Body Attunement (-7 DR single) or fighter's Sundering Blow (-8 single). You can also dump Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool for another point of DR bypass. I know no vids of this though. With the wizard and Combusting Wounds (and Runner's Wounding Shot) it was a very powerful setup against single targets because Blunderbuss generates 6 hits at once which is awesome with Combusting Wounds.

The Redeemer is very strong on a barbarian with Blood Thirst - when it's used against groups of vessels. The reason is that with Carnage there's a big chance to destroy a vessel with every swing. Destroying a vessel with the Redeemer's enchantment counts a kill and Blood THirst will trigger, reducing your recovery to 0. This can lead to a situation where you can swing the Redeemer without recovery as long as there are enough vessels around. The Grey Sleeper is ok for rangers (Twin Stones has an awesome sideeffect with Driving Flight) and also for barbs beause a barb can proc the spellchances a lot more often. It's also nice for any priest because it works with the priest's weapon talent (+10 ACC to certain weapons). Nightshroud can be good if you want to stack as many uses of Shadowing Beyond as possible (for example for a Backstab based rogue). I would not use it as offensive weapon though. Of course Abydon's Hammer is very strong. The Dragon's Maw is great on barbarians with Heart of Fury.

Then you must've missed the parts where he speaks about orlans.

If I'm not mistaken you can only access the stash in towns and while camping when playing expert mode. It should have nothing to do with the difficulty setting.

You'll have all the time in the world. You will decide when you face him. The soulbound scepter's spellchance for dominat works with wizard's Blast. It helps to proc the dominate effect more often. On the other hand the souldbound scepter also works nicely with any weapon focus and also with any of the priests' weapon talents (like Magran's Inspiring Flame that gives +10 ACC to sword and arquebus). That's because it's in the "universal" weapon group like all soulbouds and summoned weapons. So it's up to you. If you plan to use Kalakoth's Minor Blights with the wizard a lot then I would give the soulbound scepter to the priest.

But a genetically abnormal one who could grow facial hair I guess. Seriously that's the main reason I seldomly play male aumaua(s?) - they lack a beard for complete and utter badassery.

Are you doing Expert Mode or Trial of Iron?

An Island Aumaua (sadly no beard at all) could even carry 8 pistols into battle. Maybe he could grow some dorsal hair and call himself "Backbeard".

Depends which abilities you take. The perfect placement of Torment's Reach requires some micro, but other approaches like using Turning Wheel don't require any.

Yes, exactly. As usual a very helpful answer. I want to add: Also things like one handed weapon use (+12 accuracy) will get applied to the main attack (of let's say Knockdown), but the fortitude roll that actually sends the target prone will not have +12 accuracy. I guess it's the same with all attacks that have two (or more) rolls. Look at Interdiction and Painful Interdiction where you add a weakening roll to the initial dazing one. The daze roll will profit from things like Empowered Interdiction (improved accuracy) but the weaken roll will not.

I did that with a max CON monk build. Just for fun though.

The healing of Holy Radiance is neglectible. It's much more beneficial to start your CC wave with +10 ACC. If you don't have Inspiring Radiance then of course it makes a lot more sense to use Holy Radiance as a quick healing later during an encounter.

Cool, that's good news!

Yes - they start even weaker when it comes to damage but can go really wild once they get access to the right spells.

No it doesn't. At least not reliably - for example Dragon Thrashed doesn't get logged and Come Soft Winds also didn't, but maybe that changed. Does your chanter have more DEX and/or lighter armor than your paladin? Or maybe more MIG or PER?

Oops - totally forgot to test it, sorry. Well if you say it still works I'm relieved. Thanks for testing.

Wizards often don't lead in the "damage done" section of the char sheet because you will hold them back in trash fights and therefore they won't do a lot of damage in those inimportant encounters (until you get spell masteery and can spam stuff on an encounter basis). But in the important encounters you can then unleash all their spells, making that encounter a lot easier. That is way more important than leading the damage highscore (which doesn't work properly anyways - for example ranger's companion's damage doesn't get looged as well as chanter's Dragon Thrashed damage for example). So don't look at those numbers too much, they say not much about the usefulness of the character.

He meant max starting deflection I guess. It's not completely correct, since fighters start with 30, but a chanter is on par with monks for example (25) and that is the second highest starting value after fighters. Paladins only get 20, but with their ability "Faith and Convition" they instantly get a bonus of +5/+10 to deflection/other defenses and then a bit more automatically per level (companions/hirelings) or if the dispositions are correct (player char). So usually a paladin will have better deflection after few levels - but chanters, monks and paladins start with the same deflection value into the game. But chanters have low endurance and also low health. I guess your "dps" chanter has problems because of that. In the beginning, give him Veteran's Recovery, Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits asap as well as survial up to 8 and choose healing bonus when camping. Add to this Fulvano's Amulet that you can find in the south of Magran's Fork (on a troll). This should give him nice endurance regeneration. For his health issues you will either have to engage later than sooner so that he doesn't draw too many enemies or give him potions of Infuse with Vital Essence or pick Wound Binding. After some more levels that problem will solve itself once his health pool is a bit bigger. Also put him in plate. The thing is that a chanter will never be a great dps-dealer with a melee weapon until he gets "The Champion braved the Horde alone". The "Last Unicorn" variant was more about aesthetics and also because The White Spire estoc has some nice ice-themed spell bindings and just looks so good with the White Crest armor (which also has nice spell bindings).