Boeroer

A Devoted/Berserker with Amra (and Mob Stance) becomes an absolute beast as soon as you send skeletons at his side. They will get killed by Carnage + Amra's Riven Gore which will trigger Cleave + additional Carnage + Riven Gore hits. Dead skeletons also trigger Blood Thirst and Bloodlust. Do not put companions near him because if they get hit by Riven Gore and have lower than 50 HP they will get insta-killed immediately (as in: removed from the party and be really dead forever). Killing skeletons "accidentially" also triggers healing "per kill" from pets like Abraham and such and also from Triumph of the Crusaders (Priest spell) - so it's very hard to kill that Brute as long as skeletons do rush in. The best way to "feed" skeletons to him is with a Troubadour who chants "Many Lives Pass By" with Brisk Recitation. You can also build a self-contained Troubadour/Berserker and produce the skeletons yourself - but you will miss the Cleaving. The rest (Carnage, Riven Gore, Blood Thirst etc.) will still work though. Works also well with Lord Darryn's Voulge - see Kaylon's suggestion. A very hands-off and easy to play "cleaver" is a Fighter/Streetfighter. I prefer Unbroken/Streetfighter with a shield bc. of the additional armor and engagement - but stuff like Devoted/Streetfighter with a two handed weapon or dual wielding also works well. "Escape" into a bunch of enemies to get flanked and hack away - as soon as health is too low escape back out, heal a bit and work the flanks.

The Magnificient Escape Cape is a true gem for every Wizard who has access to Wall of Draining (or a brilliant Priest with Salvation of Time - I like Priest of Wael for that). Its Escape ability also grants +50 deflection which stacks with all other deflection bonuses. It does only NOT stack with Escape of the Rogue (so a Wiz/Rogue or Priest/Rogue doesn't really need it unless he wants to spare Guile). Its duration gets prolonged by Wall of Draining/Salvation of Time... That way you can get an additional +50 deflection on top of let's say Arcane Veil (or Mirrored Images etc.) and Llengrath's Safeguard which makes you virtually untouchable for anything that targets deflection. If you later (like... a LOT later) also get The Mask of the Weyc - which gives a quasi-Arcane Veil - you can stack cape + mask a whopping +100 deflection.

Sure-Handed Ila is better (for all reloading weapons) as one might guess because BOTH bonuses - the 20% recovery AND the 20% reload - get applied to reloading weapons. It's most likely an oversight, but as is all reloading weapons profit twice from Sure-Handed Ila which makes Chanter and esp. Troubadour (bc. 100% uptime of Sure-Handed Ila + Mith Fyr) an excellent choice for a firearm user. And as I posted in another thread yesterday or the day before: A Troubadour/Streetfigher can make even better use of the Chanter side by summoning upgraded Whisps and let them shoot at you (they do very little shock dmg - you can use Deltro's Cage helmet to profit from that a bit - but also distract you, unlocking the Streetfighter's passive 50% recovery/reloading bonus) you will become the fastest shooter with one of the highest dmg per hit and the highest sustained (firearm) dps. Best weapon pick imo is the Red Hand then. The Whisps can also be useful to unlock Deathblows on enemies - because Distracted counts as two afflictions (bc. contains flanked). So you don't need to pick Debilitating or Blinding Strike if you don't want to. The only downside is the act of targeting yourself with your own summons. It can't be scripted with AI and I understand that for some players it feels too weird to be fun. However, it is very effective without breaking the game. The combination of high dmg per shot and insane reloading speed is a lot of fun imo. And if you can somehow rationalize why your own summons attack you then that becomes a non-issue, too. For example for me my shooter also was some sort of animancer or tinkerer who uses the whisps as his own "essence batteries" to power up some tech that lets him shoot a lot faster and with more dmg - and the price is getting fried a little bit in the process by electricity. Eccea's Arcane Blaster would be an even better fit than Red Hand - I mean thematically - but unfortunatly Rushed Reload (-50% reloading time, pistol modal) doesn't stack with the 20% reloading bonus of Sure-Handed Ila which is a bit meh. But you can simply not use Rushed Reload and for example get a second pistol (like Scordeo's Trophy with its additional recovery bonus stacking like crazy on top). At some point you will hit the floor of reloading time though. There is some limit due to the reloading animation which you can't get under. For the same reason there is no use to pick Eccea's AB's enchantment which skips reloading - because it doesn't work. If you feel your shooting doesn't get any faster you can balance out with thicker armor for example. But the best weapon in terms of pure dps would be Red Hand I think. Even leaving on the the arquebus modal (+20 ACC) is barely noticable once you stacked all your speed bonuses (including gear like Maia's Armor + Cutthroat Cosmo, Acina's Tricorn, Necklace of the Harvest Moon and so on).

INT def. prolongs the summon's time on the field.

--- pistol --- For pistols I would include a Ranger. A Ranger has the ability "Gunner" and "Driving Flight" which are both quite nice for a pistol user, especially if he/she uses Scordeo's Trophy or Eccea's Arcane Blaster. I personally like a single handed pistol best because its modal, in combination with one-handed usage, is both fast and accurate and awesome with autoattacks. A good second class would be Cipher, Rogue or Chanter. If you use a Chanter with Sure Handed Ila then dual wielding pistols without using the modal becomes a nice option. Sure-Handed Ila and the pistol modal won't stack their reloading speed bonuses - so going dual wielding + Two Weapon Style + Sure-Handed Ila will be faster than single-handed usage and will have a bit better accuracy (but no added crit conversion). --- arquebus --- For an arquebus I prefer Ranger/Chanter with Sure-Handed-Ila because of the speed, but Ranger/Rogue or Chanter/Rogue are also good. A very potent combination is Troubadour/Streetfighter. Mainly because you can use the upgraded Whisp summons of the Chanter to distract/flank yourself (unlocking the passive of the Streetfighter) which stacks his 50% reloading bonus with Sure Handed Ila's, giving you the highest reloading speed possible while also giving you great per-shot damage via Sneak Attack + Myth Fir chant (burning lash). But it takes a while to get access to both Sure-Handed Ila and the Whisps. Until then it's still a Rogue shooting an arquebus - so it's not bad at all. It's just so that once you unlock Whisps and Sure-Handed-Ila the build totally takes off. Especially with the Red Hand arquebus. Generally speaking Ranger/Rogue is always a solid option no matter the details. --- blunderbuss --- The best "gunslinger" option in my opinion is a single class Monk with Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole - but that's bunderbusses, not pistols or arquebuses. Anything Streetfighter with blunderbuss(es) is also very good because the modal of blunderbusses unlocks the Streetfighter passive all the time. Very good in combination with Monk, too - in order to spam "Stunning Surge" with very high speed and dmg per hit. Ranger/Monk is also very nice because Stunning Surge hobs with Driving Flights, including all the AoE from the mortars. But a SC Monk gets Resonant Touch and Whispers of the Wind in the end which are just pure devastation with dual mortar blunderbusses. Funnily enough a SC Druid with Avenging Storm is also very good with mortars (especially Hand Mortar) because Blinding Smoke and the jumping AoEs all trigger Avengimg Storm's lightning strikes. But it's a long way to PL 8 in order to get Avenging Storm so I wouldn't recommend it for a first playthrough.

A Black Jacket/Streetfighter can become a really fast hitting melee sturdypants when he uses a thicker armor and the ability Armored Grace, a pet like Abraham and then gets flanked. Even with the otherwise "low-dps" option weapon & shield the attack speed and DPS are great while the staying power is great, too. The early game, which usually is a bit difficult in certain encounters was noticably easier because offense and defense were so well balanced.

Devoted seems diametrically opposite to what OP suggests, given that he wants to Key is understanding that weapons skills (or better: proficiencies) are not needed to use any weapon properly. You can always take whatever weapon type you find and use it without any penalty (just not being able to use the modal if you don't have the fitting proficiency). Several weapon types have modals that aren't worth considering if you plan to switch weapons frequently anyway, so no loss really. Also weapon proficiencies are completely decoupled from the rest of the class abilities: you get proficiency points "for free" at every few level-ups and have to invest them anyway. So I would focus on the proficiencies that give you useful modals. The rest of the weapon types you can use without proficiency/modal (and without drawback). Proficiencies that I find useful are large shield, medium shield, club, flail, morning star, pike, mace, arbalest, crossbow, hunting bow, pistol, blunderbuss (if one of your classes is Streetfighter), arquebus, rod, battle axe. As I said: not mandatory - but useful. So if I had to pick a proficiency I would use some of these. If one likes to focus on melee then of course a lot of them aren't worth considering. A Devoted however is the only (sub)class that puts a penalty on using weapons you are not proficient with - and he only gets two proficiencies at the start of the game and none later, thus locking him out from any other weapons besides fists and the other weapno type he picked at the start. So "use what I find" becomes more difficult with a Devoted, not easier. Because of that I wouldn't suggest Devoted when I look at what OP wrote. A Black Jacket on the other hand is something that fits the description of OP pretty well: not only does a Black Jacket get more weapon proficiencies from the get-go but he also gets an additional weapon set where you can put alternative weapons in AND he can switch to those alternative weapon sets more quickly. If a Black Jacket takes the ability Quick Switch he can even switch to whatever weapon set he has without loosing any time at all: maximum flexibility of all classes when it comes to "use what I find". The additional weapon proficiencies a Black Jacket gets for free can be used to pick more of the useful modals/proficiencies I wrote above. So, imo the trick isn't to pick no weapon proficiency (because you have to pick some anyway and they only unlock the modals which are not strictly improvements but more like pro/con things that give more options) but to be able to pick as many proficiencies as possible for free AND not having drawbacks if you don't pick a certain proficiency (which rules out Devoted). Because that allows you to play as OP wants: picking up whatver good weapon you find and use it effectively. And as an added benefit you're able to switch to a fitting weapon against a certain foe - as soon as you realize what said foe is vulnerable to you can pick the optimal weapon set. Not focusing on a single weapon but using what is best in a given situation. I think the no.1 wish of OP isn't to not be able to pick a proficiency but being able to use whatever weapon comes along. At least that's how I interpret OP's post (?). The second class can be whatever (if multiclass is an option I mean). I personally would maybe pick Streetfighter if I wanted more melee damage - it's also a nice pick to make use of several different weapon setups depending of the situation you are in. For example you can start with a dual wielding setup and once you feel you get overwhelmed and bloodied switch to a shield setup to be more safe. I also think that Black Jacket/Streetfighter is a thematically fitting combination.

You can put it on Durance if you want. Priests ca get to very high MIG with Aggrandizing Radiance (+2, stacks with everything) + Minor Avatar (+8) or Champion's Boon (+10), Maegfolc Skull (+4) and Abydon's Hammer (+4). That's +18 (+20) MIG which is pretty cool to cast some damaging spells imo. You don't even need to bind it to him in order to test this out - because the +4 MIG also works without binding it. Combine with high INT gear (+ Aggrandizing Radiance + Minor Avatar) and then try something like Shining Beacon + Cleansing Flame. The boosted MIG and INT both add damage per tick and also more ticks so overall the dmg increases a lot. Also works with Holy Radiance against vessels. I could one-shot all but the strongest vessels with Holy radiance alone when I did a maxMIG/maxINT MC Priest with perfect dispositions. Storm of Holy Fire is also nicer with a lot of MIG bonus. This can also work if you give it to Aloth, max his MIG with gear and cast Champion's Boon on him and let hm cast damaging spells - or on Grieving Mother with something like Disintegration. I prefer the Priest though bc. of Minor Avatar (bonus to MIG and INT at also DEX and PER at the same time). You can also attack with it, but that hasn't a particularly spectacular effect imo. If you want to use it in melee then Zahua (especially with Anitlei passive from his quest + Swift Strikes + Gautlets of Swift Action) is a good pick. The high base dmg of the weapon helps all the little lashes with overcoming enemies' DR better and the slow speed (you can't durganize the hammer and it hasn't a speed enchantment) can be countered with Anitlei which otherwise often is overkill with a dual-wielding setup (already at 0 recovery without Anitlei).

Um... he wrote that 5 years ago.

One downside of Double Tap: It's really annoying if you want to test out reloading speed with the Red Hand on some CRE_dummies.

It needs to be a melee weapon attack - therefore it won't work unfortunately. Those weapon "spells", even when tagged as weapon attacks, seldomly are tagged as melee. Offensive Parry from WotEP is one of the weapon enchantments that gets treated as a (non-ability) melee weapon attack (and thus works). From the top of my head I don't recall any weapon enchantment other than Offensive Parry that works with Skald's phrase-on-crit. A Skald/Monk with Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming can maximize the gathering of phrases because Offensive Parry triggers Swift Flurry/HBD and that also counts for Skald crit-phrases. A Skald cannot get more than +1 phrase from one "attack phase", no matter how many crits rolls they produce from one attack action - so even if you proc a whole crit chain you will only ever get +1 phrase max - but this makes it a lot more likely to get a phrase in the first place because the 50% chance isn't that meaningful anymore if you can produce whole chains of crits per swing (or parry) instead of only one.

I think it's pretty cool. Also because there aren't that many CC/debuff alternatives on PL6 (besides Arkemyr's Capricious Hex).

They would indeed die - and the weapon was used in a Youtube video by a user to one-shoot Neriscyrlas with an empowered Whispers of the Wind. Afterwards it was nerfed by the devs so that it only would apply injuries to uninjured targets. 😄 So the injury mechanic works on enemies, too - in general. Skullcrusher with WotW should still apply an injury to all enemies it hits - but only once. But since the injuries aren't too bad (as pointed out by my fellow forum users) it's not too exciting. The alternative enchantment (+10 max health until the end of combat) also isn't fantastic - but it works with killing summons (directly with the weapon) so it's at least abusable (tried some SC Berserker with HoF and such and it's fun but not too impactful).

Huh? I tried that several times in the past and it didn't work. Only the initial attack would proc the raw dmg cone (which would only add to the weapon dmg cone of WotEP).

I didn't try it in Turn Based Mode, but in RTwP mode you can use a Black Jacket with items like Lethandria's Devotion (in weapon set 1) + Outworn Buckler (weapon set 2) to heal up and remove all hostile effects from you and the whole party without any recovery - by simply switching between the two weapon sets multiple times. Each time the passive aura effects get triggered anew. And the Outworn Buckler effect is multiplicative when "stacked" that way. I guess Killers Frozen Stiff (paralyze) will be better than the Thunder Rolled (stun) because its AoE is much bigger - but the duration is comparable. It doesn't deal damage but it's a lot easier to reach multiple opponents, especially with the spell shaping passive. Of course you'll have to get there first.

Ever tried to use Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr with Tekehu?

Congratulations 😀

Welcome! That build is okay. Just don't pick Bloody Slaughter (it's really bad).

You will be able to cast up to 4 spells per spell tier per rest. If you unlock a new spell tier you start with fewer spells than 4, but as you level up further that will increase. So naturally the more levels and tehrefore spell tiers you gain the more spells you can cast per rest. At low levels casters are at a bit of a disadvsantage because they will have few spell tiers and also not full 4 spell uses per tier yet. But if you are patient caster turn into the most powerful classes after leveling up several times. At higher levels you can choose some low level spells for "spell mastery" which you than can cast 1/encounter (on top of he per-rest uses). So those will refresh their uses after every fight. Intelligence only determines effect durations and Area of Effect size (and influences the Will defense). It ha nothing to do with your spell uses. Hiravias has the same amount of spell uses a any other caster (Wizard, Druid or Priest). Maybe you remember him from times where he was of higher level than you are at the moment. You should regain your spell uses after resting. If not then something is wrong.

Also works with only one pair if you cancel the jump mid-air (as soon as the circle appears at the target location - in this case in the water). You will still land in the water and will still have 2/rest uses left. Then give the boots to another party member and do the same. With the same trick you can sneak to/reach places with the whole party which otherwise would be impossible to do.

Against crowds I like Amra + modal even more. You'll be frenzied + flanked and can even wear the Cap of the Laughingstock + Sandals of the Water Lilly which will drop your deflection by 40 points which makes cross against you very likely. Piling up damage reduction gear and armor is crucial though. Then you'll have Carnage + potential Riven Gore + Bleeding Cuts from a Retaliation and the +50% recovery time from Bleeding Cuts won't matter at all while Blood Thirst will work fine (doesn't for arquebus). So you can use that for some active 0-recovery-HoF or -Dazing Shouts or whatever after the shell breaks. Lord Darryn's Voulge: also really nice with this setup bc. of Static Thunder. Even a rod + modal works well. With something like Rod of the Deep Hunter + Sisyphos Stone you can slow down bunch of enemies' considerably while doing damage. Against singular (or not that many) tough foes the arquebus trick is pretty amazing though. 👍

Frenzy also speeds up casting, how does it go to waste? Yes, Dance of Death applies its ACC bonus to all attack rolls. It scales with Power Level. I think at PL9 it's at 5 focus per second (or 6? can't remember). But with additional power level bonuses (for example from Lance of the Midwood Stag's enchantment Lord of the Forest) you can go even higher. The good thing is that focus even loads up while you are in recovery and cast Druid spells - or just run around. SC Stormspeaker has access to Avenging Storm though and can cast it over an over. You can try it out with either Effort (+Hemorrhaging) which will make all your crits (including chant and invocation crits) proc Avenging Storm - or you use Sure-Handed Ila + dual mortars (Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke and Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot).

Yes, correct. And the Sporelings are very good summons considered the immediate access. That's why I wouldn't have recommended Furyshaper/Ancient (if I had read your plans before today ;)). I'd still say that Furyshaper is a great Single Class. The offensive beast and plant spells that are DoTs are very good (Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects, Venombloom) and adding Infestation of Maggots to the mix (although not a beast or plant spell itself). There's only two possible problems with them: first they all target fortitude which is often the highest defense - so you might need a reliable way (in the party) to debuff it. For example a SC or MC Chanter with The Long Night's Drink, your own Tanglefoot while Spirit Frenzy is active and so on. The better candidate for a Ancient Multiclass is the Helwalker imo. +10 INT are great to have for summons an DoT spells. And up to +15 MIG is great for DoTs, too (+10 from Helwalker passive, +5 from Thunderous Blows - although the +2 PEN is a little wasted if one mostly uses raw dmg DoTs - but for stuff like Wicked Briars it's great). What is also a nice candidate for an Ancient is the Psion. It needs no weapon damage to gain focus. You can stay behind and cast spells from cover. Psions have access to (mass-)charm and dominate which works really well in combination with summons such as Sporelings. It's very effective to be able to not only put summons on the field but at the same time also produce allies from enemies via mind control. Also the Psion has access to some accuracy buffing (Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld) which helps with landing spells. Alternating between druid spells and cipher spells and having one bottomless ressource pool is great imo. A Berserker/Fury has the advantage that he could stack +2 PEN from Frenzy with the +1 PEN of the Fury (when casting elemental spells) and then later even +1 PEN from some of the elemental talents such as Heart of the Storm and so on. +4 PEN on elemental druid spells is a big deal and helps a lot. Combining fast casting with spell spamming is nice as well. Also using Lord Darryn's Voulge is pretty cool as a Berserker/Fury. Once you get Blood Thirst this combo can be really fun when using stuff like Relentless Storm and Nature's Terror. Just make sure to get rid of confusion before casting Relentless Storm... The only thing that's not so great is that Furies don't have access to restoration spells - which means you cannot heal yourself from Berserker's self damage while frenzied (except with Savage Defiance and Second Wind and of course scrolls or potions). So a good healer in the party would be nice to have (for example using Tekehu with some Moonwell + the Moon's Night etc.).

Dumped Resolve also means that hostile effects on you will last longer. If you are no frontliner that's not a big downside though.

Also: if you apply effects with durations on enemies like Many Nights or Soft Winds etc. - and only then switch to Brisk Recitation, the effect on the enemy gets refreshed to the original duration with every new hit (the game the doesn't remove the linger time when the effect is already applied) and thus won't run out. So it can be very benefical to first apply effects without Brisk Recitation and then switch it on as soon as enough enemies are affected. It's micro-intense so it's only really worth in long fights with durable enemies imo, but then it's pretty cool.