Boeroer

Huh? I def. empowered it in the past - even before CP existed. I mean it's like Inner Death was made with Empowered Strikes in mind (or the other way round). But to be sure I tested it again 5 minutes ago. No mods, new char, new playthrough: Inner Death + Empower in the vanilla game works fine for me. See the little vid I made just now: Maybe this is your problem with Empower + Inner Death: one cannot empower any ability that got added with the console. Instead you have to level up manually and pick the ability that way. Then you can empower said ability (if it works with Empower in the first place). I just give the char in question enough XP to level up to 20. Then I set their class level to 19, do the last level-up manually and pick the ability I want to test with Empower. Yeah, I also eyed Vrer Chiora and Mouth Char. They should stack just fine bc. one is universal crit dmg and the other weapon dmg. Will test later...

For the 1000+ dmg strike I used Empower + Empowered Strikes (and the relevant Empower passives) to guarantee a crit. This gives me the +300% dmg from Inner Death which does the heavy lifting - and the +100 PEN for Overpenetration from Empowered Strikes. And with Community Patch some dmg bonuses are a little bit higher. Let's see if I can remember all (didn't save the test character): Original base damage: 40-80 crush. additonal base damage: Prestige (+5%) Empower (+25%) sum: +30% base additive: Inner Death (+300% from crit) Might 35 (+75%) Overpenetration (+30%) Critical Hit (25%) Precognition - Tails, You Lose (+25%) Potent Empower (+20% CP/+15% vanilla) Improved Critical (+15% CP/+10% vanilla) High Harbinger's Robes - Accelerated Decay (+10%) Infamous Captain (+5%) Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak - Bushwack (+5%) sum: +510% additive CP/+500% vanilla lashes: Turning Wheel (+20% burn) Lightning Strikes (+15% shock) Horns of the Aurochs - Winter's Touch (+10% freeze) Hylea's Talons - Raking Grasp (+5% slash) Belt of Magran's Chosen - Linked in Flames (+3% burn) Fjord pet (+3% freeze) sum: +56% multiplicative I think that's it. Lashes had no issue with individual ARs in this test. It was obviously a good, high roll not too far from 80. I think Stone of Power's +1 PL would be a better choice than Precognition because the 5% added base would work nicely with the +475% dmg bonus then - and Precognition only works for the first 2 crits of combat. The cloak isn't really necessary but I wanted to try an be an Assassin without being one. Shared Flames and Aefyllath would be a really nice addition to a party with Inner Death (when CP is installed). If you guys have additional ideas to raise the dmg further please share. I guess there's consumables I could use - and there might be items that are better than what I used in this test.

Right, without CP Inner Death is treated like a spell and not a weapon attack. Most of the lashes won't work then. I guess one could use one or two items that increase overall dmg instead of adding lashes (maybe stuff like Griffin's Blade would work - didn't try, Harley pet instead of Fjord and so on) and raise the non-lash damage a bit more that way. It would still be like roughly 500-600 dmg. It's quite nice with Xoti's Lantern because it gives you 1 Mortification (and 1 wound) back if you kill with Inner Death (which costs 3). If you use Takedown Combo with a allied Ranger and/or Inspired Beacon the results should be impressive, too. Still not as powerful as lashes though. With the Community Patch (which only transforms Inner Death into a weapon attack) it's hilarious. Whispers of the Wind is still better over all, especially in combination with Resonant Touch - but Inner Death is something different for a change and very fun to use. You don't see those numbers every day.

Made him Helwalker (35 MIG at strike), added Fjord pet (3% freezing lash) and Precognition amulet (+25% crit damage for the 2 first crits in combat): Over 1000 dmg. Trollolol

Turning Wheel (2% burn per wound), Hylea's Talons (5% slash), Lightning Strikes (15% shock), Winter's Touch (10% freeze), Belt of Magran's Chosen (3% burn). I think that's it for now. This wasn't even a Helwalker. My Might was only 13.

btw: I'm using Winter's Touch to give Inner Death a freezing lash (together with some other lashes). So here's SC Monk stuff I found out about that triggers Winter's Touch (Horns of the Aurochs helmet): Clarity of Agony (2 Wounds) Dance of Death (2 Mortification) Instruments of Pain (4 Wounds) Mortification of the Soul (self dmg) Blade Turning (2 Wounds) which is very convenient...

810 dmg with one punch...

My guess: you switched to your second weapons set where you had the two sabres copied in reverse.

Glad I didn't participate in that discussion and spend my time on something more enjoyable.

Cool!

Yes, that's viable. Crusader (Paladin/Fighter) is a very durable combination and can have decent offense, too. Some say it's boring, but for a first playthrough I think it's a good pick because it's easy to play and so reliable.

The variance in those attribute spreads will make almost no difference in combat. If I had to pick one it would be the rightmost because INT influences the AoE size of White Flames. RES 16 is enough for most dialogue (and you can add an intem with bonus RES, too). Estoc and Pollaxe is generally a good pick for Paladins, especially if you also take Coordinated Attacks and later get the Blade of the Endless Paths (unique Estoc) and Spectacular Spetum (Pollaxe). Both have Marking which stacks with Coordinated Attacks. So you can give stackable +20 accuracy to a party member who attacks the sme target as you which can be really helpful. In case of Kind Wayfarer however dual wielding is a good alternative because every strike of Flames of Devotion + White Flames (it's a Full Attack, so both weapons will strike) will trigger a healing. That's two healing procs instead of one. It's not that important though - Flames of Devotion has only 2 uses per encounter.

TL;dr: the cone might not hit where you thought it would hit. This is different from other cone-attacks (for example Chanters' invocations) which are targeted on the ground (and not on enemies). There the spell will exactly hit where the indicator says it would.

where I wiggle the cursor a little in the middle of that circle: that's the point where the attack will actually hit and a line from that point to your center will be the bisecting line of the cone:

The INT was 23. You also have to watch out with the AoE indicator: it changes direction based on where you put the mouse cursor on the target - but the actual attack will target the middle of the enemy's circle and the AoE will be placed accordingly. So it's often the case that you think the cone will hit where the indicator suggested, but in reality it will not because you didn't point in the middle of the enemy's circle and the AoE indicator was off because of that. Try to hover/click on the middle of the enemies' circle to get the best idea where the cone will indeed hit.

@Darab Masood did that help?

For sure Deadfire has deeper mechanics than PoE, even if some features of PoE got streamlined (health/endurance for example, less party members). More subclasses and more levels means a lot more abilities per class, multiclassing and the new enchantment system with individual enchantments as well as weapon modals/proficiencies lead to a lot of variety and complexity. And then PEN vs. AR (which is more complex than dmg vs. DR), new (more complex) interrupts...

Oh?

No, it did not get nerfed. I don't know what you are missing but I just tried it out, look here: First I hit with a normal WotP attack (and gain some focus), then I use Soul Annihilation on all dummies and apply some raw dmg to them - as you can see in the combat log. Here's a screenshot with some highlight as to where you can find the raw damage part in the log:

I mused about the initial post for about 20 hours but still don't understand what the specific problem is. Soul Annihilation can hit multiple enemies with one strike - if you use a melee weapon with an AoE (for example Whispers of the Endless Paths or Citzal's Spirit Lance). But it doesn't apply the full damage bonus to all targets in the AoE. Instead the first target receives the full amount, the second may receive nothing, a third receives a bit bonus damage again and so on. It's not really predictable in a practical way - but it's not zero. Using an AoE weapon gives a higher amount of raw dmg than a siongle target weapon. Weapons with multiple attack rolls (Sun & Moon, Saru Sichr, Wicked Beast and so on) don't profit. Soul Annihilation only applies to the initial attack roll. A second attack roll however may already generate new focus. Stuff like Swift Flurry also doesn't work. Don't know if that answers the question - maybe a more elaborated explanation/question would help.

Let's say it wasn't worth the ability point (imo). "Totally useless" was an exaggeration. Would have been good if it was per encounter, but 2/rest seemed pretty meh for what it does (mostly overkilling ;)) 5/rest makes it quite interesting. Burst a hurt Thaos into pieces! Don't know if 5 is too many uses - but on the other hand Rangers get 5 casts of Thorny Roots per rest - which can be spammed in a similar way (but fast cast).

Didn't try for a long time. But I don't think it was fixed with a patch, at least I cannot remember any patch notes that addressed this. It's still true that offhand melee crits will trigger Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming attacks with the main hand only - and I'm pretty sure it still works if the main hand holds a ranged weapon. But I'm also sure that those ranged Swift Flurry/HBD crits cannot proc additional attacks.

Of course: Wall of Draining on a Bloodmage/Monk would make it all a lot easier. Prolong Blade Cascade, prolong Adaptive stacks endlessly, prolong Swift Flurry and so on. But I find that pretty boring, same as using Salvation of Time.

+10 INT will prolong the duration of Adaptive - and every proc of Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming will add a stack, too. Blade Cascade will also help to collect 20 stacks quickly. You are right that you have to switch weapon sets for +40 acc - I thought with two Edge's that wouldn't be necessary, buit it is. But as you said I could put a weapon copy into the second weapon set and it works (as you did): I could stack 2*10 Adaptive for +40 ACC. It then is very easy to reach 40 acc (with plenty of duration). The only problem I can see is that the enemies are all dead before you can reach +40 acc. See below behind the spoiler tags the short animated gif I made from a test encounter (it's 66MB, so it may load for a while):

Two Scordeo's Edges means 2*Adaptive (2*+20 accuracy). Since it's from two individual weapons it should stack. Maybe Ranger/Monk with even more accuracy bonuses, using Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. Stunning Surge should also be nice: bery high chance to crit, giving you a Mortification refund often. The more you proc Swift Flurry/HBD the more likely to trigger Blade Cascade and so on.