Boeroer

Hello, I only yesterday found out that if I use "The Long Night's Drink" + "Thick Grew Their Tongues" with full linger overlap as a Troubadour and wait until both phrases have hit enemies (so both debuffs are on them for 10+ secs) and only then turn on Brisk Recitation the durations on the enemies will get refreshed to the max all the time as if Brisk Recitation were still turned off - but every 3 secs instead of every 6 of course. This allows full coverage of the effects forever - but I can still get fast phrase generation. This is obviously not the case when I go in with Brisk Recitation because then the effect placed on the enemies are only 3 secs short. So my tactic now is to go in without Brisk Rec. and turn it on as soon as the enemies are affected with both effects (usually after 6 secs). I don't know why I didn't notice before - but I guess it's because I didn't play a ton of Troubadours but preferred the other subclasses most of the time - and when I picked Troub I went for Brisk Recitation right away (see Troub/Psion).

@Noqnmod that does show some AoE indicators is great. When you have a good and reactive healer in the group then you probably don't need Stalwart Defiance. But note that Berserker Frenzy's self damage scales much stronger than normal damage does. It's not too bad in the early levels, it will not kill you when you are at full health, but at higher levels it will def. kill you even if not one enemy touches you. Maybe with maxed CON, an amulet of Greater Health, regeneration gear and Tough (passive ability) you could still prevent that - but having either a healer and/or Stalwart Defiance is less of a hassle. When talking about the best single class Barb subclass it's always Furyshaper for me. The Blood Ward is so good for a party because unlike stuff like Old Siec (Chanter phrase) it drains health from all sources of damage, including DoTs (see Blood Storm, Bleeding Cuts, Panther's Leap) for the party (if they stand in the AoE of the ward). The only things that don't work with the Blood Ward are traps, wall spells and Priest seals (which very few people use anyway). It is very potent even for the Barb alone because in combination with Leaping in and using Heart of Fury and Barbaric Retaliation you will dish out a lot of damage, even a lot of DoT if you use stuff like Battle Axe + modal and Blood Storm, so that you will have a constant stream of healing for you. This takes a lot of stress from any healer because who's doing damage also gets healed. It stacks with Old Siec by the way (which his a lot weaker). If you use Dazing Shout or Driving Roar (I would since those two are the best active abilities a Barb can have imo) you can heal up quickly while doing dmg/CC that nothing's a real threat - as long as you can keep casting. If you want to use Barbaric Retaliation (it's great) I would def. use Dazing Shout. It drastically improves your sturdyness and has a huge damaging AoE around you. It only costs 1 Rage which can often be retrieved when having Blood Surge. And before getting to the Blood Ward you'll have the Frenzy Ward (stacks with every other speed buff) and the Fear Ward for your party which is also super useful. Just placing it among your backline will screw up rushers and leapers that want to come for your casters/archers etc. Getting one's wards destroyed is not s problem if you have a Priest: just withdraw the ward. It becomes untouchable but will still work just fine.

Do the bonuses of Burden and the Crown of Woedica stuff stack?

Yeah, it's clever, not strange. It can be optimized by using spells for luring the enemies (instead of using Sparkcrackers). This works just as fine as long as the enemies are already hostile (red circles) and spares you consumables. Sparkcrackers is the only thing that can lure neutral NPCs (blue circles, for example shopkeepers or enemies which are not hostile yet) - so I try not to use them as long as there's alternatives.

Unfortunately not. And unless you terrify them the enemies don't seem to be willing to break engagement easily. I mainly use it as a passive debuff for my perma-invisible Assassin/Bloodmage who also uses Effigy's Husk (emits huge auto-hit -50% healing aura when bloodied - I use bloodied in combination with Blood Sacrifice for triggering Fighting Spirit anyway). I place him in the middle of a crowd while he's casting his non-damaging debuffs - and while he's doing that he automatically applies Distracted/Flanked to 4 enemies (Spear 1 + Kapana Taga 2 + Persistent Distr. 1). It's not gamechanging but a nice side-effect that also works reliably against high defense target.

Hello! @Constentin Lévinealready reported the awesome feature that Hermorrhaging is (enchentment of Effort). It works with all crit rolls you do and applies sickened or hobbles the enemy. Special thnig is that those sincken/hobble rolls count as weapon attacks. While you can do awesome stuff with Avengng Storm this way I found that using Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak with an Assassin/Wizard is even more useful. The Stalking Cloak stun with every weapon attack roll done from Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure. Hemorrhaging counts! As long as you don't damage the enemies the invisibility will not drop. The thing is that Hemorrhaging procs from all crit rolls - and the stun again procs Hemorrhaging... it's a nice circle. You can kickstart that circle with any spell that doesn't do damage - for example Binding Web or even Brilliat Departure itself. It's best if the spell pulses (see Slicken or Binding Web) because the chance for crits occuring is higher then. Because of this chain reaction enemies will get stunned over and over again as long as you are invisible.

Hello! Did you know that when you use Arkemyr Brilliant Departure you can keep enemies engaged even though you turn invisible? If had engaged enemies before and then "jump" very near to those enemies with ABD you will keep that engagement. This can be useful - for example an Assassin/Bloodmage with Persistent Distraction and some engagement slots can use Persistent Distraction to permanently keep enemies distracted. You can also deliver disengagement attacks with Backstab- and Assasinate bonus should the enemies disengage (because why not, nobody's there, right? ;)). I thought it is a nice "passive" effect for my unseen master of debuffs. There are also some items that have some special effects when you are engaging somebody.

Did you do any other hit rolls on them? It may be that Spearcaster's enchantments work with non-weapon atttack rolls, too (like some other weapons out there)? But when looking at the positioning of the Imp for example that doesn't seem to be the reason. I can also see no other attack rolls aganst him in the log. Weird...

What about turning down the difficulty setting for this fight? Besides that: luring enemies one by one with noisy spells (for example Dazzling Lights) or traps almost always works. No. The animancers + Aloth will have left the cage when you come back and you can recruit him then. But you won't be able to recruit him before going into the arena's belly of course - only after. I mean unless you sneak to the adra pillar, trigger the scripted scene and sneak back to recruit Aloth... and only then really clear the whole digside with him. That's also possible - but a bit weird imo.

Yes, there is an achievement for soloing the game. If you didn't save after taking Pallegina in you should be good though and it should still be possible for you to unlock the achievement.

Rogues have high accuracy. Use Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral and Ring of Changing Heart to charm/dominate one of the dragons (the other one is immune). This makes the fight a lot more easy already. Before that you can loot Acuan Giamas (Morning Star) from the sunken ruins. It has an enchatment that lets you steal spells from any per-rest caster (wizard, druid or priest). Those spells - as long as the steal lasts - can be cast as often as you like. Since Rogues have high accuracy this can be very useful. It also has the wounding enchantment which is one of the best damaging enchantments there is so it's even nice as a weapon itself. Also scrolls can be very good. Note that Deathblows work with direct damage spells (Sneak Attack doesn't) - so you can use scrolls like Maelstrom to kill enemies quickly if they already have two afflictions (+100% damage). You can retreat with the help of Shadowing Beyond after you downed an enemy to prepare for the next round. Comba will not stop but it may buy you time to refresh buffs etc. Make use of potion of Infuse of Vital Essence of course - but I guess you knew that. Imo charming the one dragon is half the battle. I killed them + Llengrath that way several times and it makes the fight noticably easier if you can flip one dragon for some time.

If you don't plan to use shaken/frighten/terrify abilites yourself then the Cap of the Laughingstock is also a nice headpiece that can help to land more crits. It lowers everybody's(!) deflection by 10 in its aura's AoE automatically which is pretty good. But it also makes everybody in the AoE immune to shaken/frighten/terrified. The looks of it doesn't fit a lot of outfits of course, but fortunately you can make headgear invisible. Fair Favor is also not bad as long as you are using the fitting weapons (dagger, rapier, sabre, stiletto, sword). Thaos' Headdress is also okay if you flank a lot (or use flanking from other sources such as Persistent Distraction etc. or simply PER afflictions)

They are the same as in PoE 1 - and they are not additive. During a hit roll the separate conversions get checked one after the other - until one has success or all conversions got checked unsuccessfully. It's a combination and not an addition. Thus you can calculate the overall chance (most conveniently imo) like so: chance NOT to convert * chance NOT to convert (and so on) = overall chance NOT to convert. Substract 1 and you have the overall chance to convert. Example: 0.25 (Fighter's Disciplined Barrage) stacked with 0.3 (Berserker Frenzy), 0.05 (Uncanny Luck) and 0.1 (Hearth Orlan's Minor Threat) --> 0.75*0.7*0.95*0.9 = ~0.45 - 1 = -0.55. Just ignore the minus and you'll see you have a 55% chance overall.

The Helm of the White Void is certainly good. But if you play the game in a somewhat "normal" manner you will only get it rel. late(ish) in the game - so I wouldn't plan my whole character around it. If you want to use a helmat then of course godlikes are out. Then the race doesn't matter a ton. Hearth Orlan's conversion seems like the obvious pick for Swift Flurry/HBD - but due to the mathematical combination of conversion rates it doesn't make a huge of difference. But yes, it's benefical. If you like the looks of a Heart Orlan then I would pick it. But if you would otherwise prefer another race then I'd not sacrifice that for the 10% circumstancial conversion. If you don't desperaltely want a helmet then Nature Godlike is cool. But if you use Sun & Moon you will actually already do crush damage and don't need fists as backup. So maybe the added Power Level from Nature Godlike isn't that important? Of course if your don't use Sun & Moon and +1 PL might lift your fists to another level then it's def. worth it.

Soulblade/Trickster is def. not squishy. It's not a tank but def. not squishy. Well... since Offensive Parry provides focus without you actually attacking - and since the cone of WotEP delivers Soul Annihilation dmg to all enemies in the cone it's not really "whittling". Also players only look at the lower base dmg of WotEP and then claim it doesn't do enough dmg per hit - but forget that it has a 15% crushing lash AND +1 PEN from the get-go - which is very good. It also has reach (1.2m) which makes it possible to attack enemies that would be unreachable by normal melee weapons. YOu can stand behind your tank and still attacks the enemies the tank's fending off. It is especially good for Soulblade because of its unique dual hit roll mechanic which allows you to spam Soul Annihilation all the time. T's Palm makes it so that you get higher defenses and more importantly the dual wield and two-weapon style bonus without actually using it when attacking. I mean it's a Rogue with great weapon dmg and cool spells and a Cipher with great weapon dmg and cool spells - you can play it as a one-trick pony... but in reality it's versatile as heck if you want. The only thing it doesn't do well out of the box is self-healing (but when you use a heal-on-kill pet even that is solvable). But nothing stops you from controlling minds, do CC or support a party member if the situation calls for that. You know that is always my recommendation. Monk is almost always fun to play imo (if you're generally open to playing a Monk that is). But OP was inquiring for the Soulblade/Trickster combo specifically. It is one of the combos with the highest potential weapon damage output, while still being sturdy enough so that you don't have to babysit all the time. Generally speaking Deadfire rewards NOT sticking to a single weapon type. The individual armor ratings of enemies against certain damage types differ significantly - so you are encouraged to switch to a weapon set with matching damage types rather than sticking to your preferred weapon. Also enemies might use different tactics - and sometimes a parrying-style setup with WotEP might not work that well in some cases - for example against ranged enemies or tough singular bosses. Then it's time to switch to something else (an alternative Great Sword, a Morning Star or even a large shield setup). If you like dual wielding better then there's no real argument to stick to Great Swords. I suggested WotEP because you mentioned Great Swords in the opening post and WotEP works very well with Trickster/Soulblade imo (currently playing a Soulblade/Shattered Pillar with WotEP). But a Soulblade/Trickster also works very well with Rapier (the modal and single handed usage really help to land Soul Annihilation in the early game) or other one handed weapons like dual daggers (for example Pukestabber + Marux Amanth) or sabres and so on. I think Sun & Moon + Tuotilo's Palm (or Magran's Blessing - I believe the Fire Shield of Magran's Blessing even generates focus) is one of the most effective setups though due to the special features that support Soul Annihilation so well.

Played a solo Assassin/Paladin through the whole game including DLCs and never had that problem once - but I'm on PC and not console, so maybe that's why. I didn't even pick Shadowing Beyond because it has zero benefit over Smoke Veil when you are using the hit, vanish, run & hide tactic. Mainly because recovery (which Smoke Veil has and Shadowing Beyond hasn't) doesn't matter when you just run away out of sight before the invisibility ends.

Two Handers hve the same recovery time as the heavier one handed weapons. Gipon Prudensco is a padded armor, so it doesn't slow you down that much. Nomad's Brigandine is indeed a heavy armor and thus will give you the highest recovery. You can counter that a bit with with a proper pet (see Abraham). Those are two options. Armor is very effective in Deadfire if you can make sure the enemy doesn't fully penetrate. It makes a huge difference when you look at your sturdyness. If you sacrifice armor for faster attack speed you will a) get attacked/shot at more because some enemies prefer "soft" targets and b) go down more easily. This you can circumvent with stuff like hard CC (what is disabled can't attack you), mind control or summons. Or a very sticky tank or so. I think you will have to play a bit in order to find out what works best for you. For example in the early game it might be better to stick to the heavy stuff, but the better your defenses become from buffs and items and abilities (and the less attacks actually land on you as a result) the more likely it becomes that you can get away with using lighter armor. Offensive Parry and Riposte can make up for a slower recovery because they will happen when you get missed - which is completely independed from your own attack speed. Concerning attributes: keep in mind that the cone size of WotEP Greatsword is determined by your intellect. The smarter you are the bigger the cone. But you can also enlarge it with Ring of Overseeing or a pet (see Loki). I think it's okay. You could try to min-max the attributes more and go for 3 CON for example - but I wouldn't recommand that for the first playthrough since it would not only make your health pool smaller but also drop your fortitude defense a lot.

You might have missed that you can cast a seal out of combat, then let the spell use refresh and only then start combat. So a seal can be a free spell basically. I agree that they are not the most useful or powerful ones, but having an additonal effect at the start of the fight is very handy in the early to mid game. Later on you can retrain and skip them because they scale awfully.

Indeed. With the staff and a Warlock you can push enemies around into carnage all the time. It's like a raw lash then - kind of. Clear Out does the same when you have a Brute (for all enemies in the cone). Also with Amra and a pushing attack you can actually stack Carnage and the Amra-Carnage on the initial target.

If you want to use Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry (and Riposte) I would go for high RES (also good for dialogue options), INT and PER, good DEX. MIG and CON can be left alone. Hits with Offensive Parry do generate focus by the way, which is cool because you can reload focus just by getting missed. Riposte does not afaik, but in contrast to Offensive Parry, which is a single target retaliation, Riposte will retaliate with the whole cone of WotEP. Both stack, that means they can proc both off of one single miss! Also the cone + Rogue strikes such as Arterial Strike is very good if you manage to hit several enemies. In order to gain even more deflection I would look at armors like Nomad's Brigandine, Gipon Prudensco or Casita Samelia's Legacy (with maxed Intimidate skill). Also stuff like bracers/cape of Greater Deflection. Another good setup is Sun & Moon flail + Tuotilo's Palm. The two flail heads roll for hits sepertely and work very well with Soul Annihilation. First of all you get two chances to not miss the SA attack - and if both hit the first one dumps the focus into raw dmg while the second already generates focus for you. Because Soul Annihilation is a Primary Attack you will not strike with the bashing shield in your offhand - yet you will profit from the dual wielding speedup (and two weapon style if you take it). And you will also be more sturdy because shield.

Nope. It just lifts them into the air. It's still cool because it has a good dmg bonus and there's no immunity against kockups (only against push&pull effects).

True, it's a lot of running around then with Force of Anguish (SF/HBD will still work because those are actually applied before the push takes place) - but Force of Anguish has the "hidden" benefit that it will push your target into its own Carnage AoE. Because of that it gets damaged be the initial attack (as usual) and the Carnage on top (usually Carnage only hurts enemy bystanders). If you have the target against a wall you don't have to chase it anymore, but then the Carnage trick doesn't work either. I forgiot: Llengrath's Warding Staff profits from Helm of the White Void with every hit (because it has an additional hobble roll). Might also be a cool weapon for a SF/HBD build maybe.

Whatever raises Accuracy and/or Hit-to-Crit conversion comes to mind, but also don't disregard debuffs (see paralyze, Miasma of Dull-Mindedness etc.). Ranger: several accuracy boosts, can flank with Animal Companion Berserker: high conversion rate, Spirit Frenzy + Morning Star + modal in combination with Brute Force (also Berserker Frenzy generates lots of wounds) Wizard: Merciless Gaze + several debuffs, especially Fetid Caress (also look at Draining Touch which targets Will instead of deflection + Miasma + club+modal in offhand). Fighter: high conversion and +5 PER, Cleaving Stance can proc Swift FLurry, too (if I'm not mistaken) Cipher: +20 ACC via Borrowed Instincts and +5 Tactical Meld + debuffs Rogue: debuffs and a bit of conversion, Riposte can proc Swift Flurry/HBD, too Skald: Killers Froze Stiff (25% conversion) and other debuffs Priest: Devotions + Blessing etc. + debuffs (see Shining Beacon, Divine Mark etc.) Bleak Walker: Flames of Devotion + Ring of Focused Flame + Helm of the White Void = +30 ACC with Flames of Devotion I guess Also check out attack abilities that roll the dice more than once (Forbidden Fist, Stunning Surge, Rogue's Strikes etc.) because I suspect that even the rolls for applying afflictions count and can lead to a crit-chain. At least that would explain why I have the impression that those lead to chain crits more often. Maybe one day I'll do a comparison between single-roll abilities (e.g. FoD) and multiple-roll-abilities (like Debilitating Strike) in combo with SF/HBD. The best weapon in general is Sun & Moon because it has two flail heads which both get the chance of triggering SF/HBD with every strike - and then proc a dual strike again and so on. Even the enchantments (chance to repeat fire ot frost attack) work in your favor because the flail heads themselves count as fire/frost attacks. You an combine it with Scordeo's Edge in the offhand for the "Adaptive" enchantment that delivers up to +20 ACC. Or Tuotilo's Palm for more defense and studyness. Even carrying a ranged weapon in he offhand works because you will get the speed bonus frm dual wielding and Two Weapon Style but only strike with the flail in melee combat. But something like a Morning Star in combination with Brute Force can also be cool. Especially the Willbreaker procs chains often for me. Here I also suspect the multiple rolls of the weapon (applying shaken and whatnot) might help but maybe it's just luck (needs testing). I think all in all I would pick the Sage (Monk/Wizard) since he would be the most versatile and has good potential for crit chains but is not a one-trick pony - which becomes boring quite quickly and later also uneffective against high-defense enemies.

Regarding Mindstaller: Maybe you just didn't find the right combo yet? A Soulblade/Trickster combines good sturdyness and great damage output. You can combine Riposte + Offensive Parry (from the Great Sword "Whispers of the Endless Paths") with high deflection (from Mirrored Images + Borrowed Instincts, they stack). Those two is one of the best combos of melee offense, CC and defense imo. --- What I found most fun to play so far (in nearly 5K of hours played on Steam, although some of that is idle time): - Psion/Troubadour: strict caster, no weapons needed (you'll still have them of course - I used a small shield setup and fairly high deflection to demotivate enemies from rushing this guy). Non-stop spamming spells, resources refill automatically, super-versatile: can do dmg, support, disable, debuff, healing, summoning, mind control... - Helwalker with dual mortars (Serafen's Blunderbusses, obtainable quite early): unbelievable dmg output and awesome CC. The late game potential is enormous because of Resonant Touch + Whispers of the Wind. The mid game is also excellent bc. of Stunning Surge with AoE weapons. benefits a party setup that focuses on keeping enemies in a tight formation. So a main tank who draws attention first and a Wiz who can cast stuff like Pull of Eora or so. - Assassin/Bloodmage: not for the damage but for the awesome accuracy bonus from stealth or invisibility. A well-placed disabling or debuffing spell with +25 ACC trivializes most encounters. Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure makes you invisible (unique spell from a unique Grimoire) and has the unique feature that it doesn't break on non-damaging spells. That means that once you got that spell you can stay invisible and cast debuffs and disables while invisible all the time. Bloodmage lets you regain spell uses (but the self damage will break the invisibility, so proper timing is needed). There are a ton of other option which are all fun, but those stood out the most I think. For example Arcane Archer/Ascendant with Frostseeker is a well-known combo that seems to be fun for most players. But: with many builds the real fun starts after the early game. So it's difficult to judge your character only by the experience on Maje Island/pre Neketaka. But some combos start off really front-heavy and are fun right off the bat, for example when you use classes that start with a special feature right away, like Steel Garrote with the draining, Forbidden Fist, Streetfighter with blunderbuss+modal or so. For example Berseker/Streetfighter with Hunting Bow + modal starts really strong because of the triple speed buff (but won't improve a lot during the game).

Steel Garrote/Streetfighter doesn't go down easily and does a lot of dmg. Soulblade/Trickster: same basically.