Boeroer

Edér nearly always uses Cadhu Scalth + Kapana Taga in my runs with official companions. Raising Metaphysics with Edér feels odd, but the shield is so good for his swashbuckling health that I decided that Aloth just rubbed off on him.

Yes, that's how it works. AoE rolls don't proc Carnage. Same with Spirit Lance. Even if they did: multiple Carnage hits from the same excecution will suppress each other (you will see something like "similar effect already applied" in the combat log).

Yes, Citzal's Spirit Lance is also a good way to build a nice melee damage dealer. By the way: if you use a Berserker/Wizard with Citzal's Spirit Lance and have a Troubadour in the party who uses "Many Lives Pass By" with Brisk Recitation you basically have a Warlock without recovery (most of times) as soon as you pick up Blood Thirst. The skeletons will pop up every 3 secs and are extremely weak (don't scale at all) so that an AoE hit from the Lance + Carnage kills them, triggering Blood Thirst, Bloodlust and Blood Storm's prolonging effect - as well as heals from a pet (+x heal on kill) or stuff like Triumph of the Crusaders, making it easy to survive battles as Berserker. The Blood Thirst combo is late(ish) game stuff of course but heal on kill can start very early when using the usual skeleton summons and Carnage. You have to stay confused though and party members shouldn't come too close. Remember that a Wiazrd can use Essential Phantom to deploy a summons which has the same items, including unique weaoon with all enchantments on them (soulbound upgrades, too) and summoned weapons - which will not run out as long as the Phantom exists. So you can have two people wielding AoE weapons for the price of one. Another way to "abuse" those skeletons summons with a Berserker is to use a Berserker/Devoted with Amra and Riven Gore, using Cleaving Stance. Once you kill an enemy or a skeleton the cleaving will most likely crit a bystanding skeleton which will die instantly because of Riven Gore (destroy everything that has <50 health), triggering another Cleave and so on - all the cleaving causes Carnage and Amra's Riven Gore which will eventually destroy normal enemies on the spot, too. It will also destroy party members with low health (meaning instakill + removed from party), so watch out! This Brute would also work with LD's Voulge. The funky mechanics of AoE+Soul Annihilation also apply to Citzal's Spirit Lance - so Soulblade/Wizard is also an option. It does less dps as a Soulblade/Rogue on the individual targets but has the better AoE weapon and tons of buffs for survival. Also Essential Phantom... --- About WotEP not being only good against 3+ targets: I disagree. It comes with +1 PEN compared to other Great Swords and a 15% crushing lash. It's not the best tool against single targets of course, but I think as soon as you can hit 2 enemies with it it's a solid choice. It also has reach wich makes it possible to attack from the second line. Offensive Parry isn't an AoE - but it procs on 100% of misses which is awesome. You can combine it with Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco for parry on disengagment - so you can hurt enemies while you disengage on purpose. Offensive also generates focus for non-Psion Ciphers and wounds for a Shatttered Pillar Monk. With very high deflection this can make WotEP even good against single melee enemies because they will kill themselves. Offensive Parry has no attack animation and no recovery. A Soulblade/Wizard with Wall of Draining can uphold all buffs for a whole encoutner - including buffs from the Weyc's Mask (doesn't stack with Arcane Veil but all other deflection buffs) and the Magnificient Escape Cape (stacks with everything except Escape itself). This can let you reach absurd deflection numbers of 200+ which makes sure nearly all melee attacks that target deflection will miss you, giving the enemy an Offensive Parry. Besides that Offensive Parry dazes enemies - which is very helpful for lifting your AR over enemies PEN, making you a lot sturdier. When not using Offensve Parry the speed enchantment als isn't bad. Against a last standing enemy one can use Run Through which has very high base damage. Still, when facing a single enemy I would also switch to another weapon.

I guess one could mod out the VFX of the spell so you wouldn't have any issues anymore.

No need to pick Moon Godlike because you will have "Blooded" which will be displayed as benefical effect as soon as you drop below 50% health. The White Witch Mask and several other items like certain belts, capes and amulets only proc 1/rest so imo they are not well suited for indicating your health status - as long as don't want to rest after every fight. There are some items that always indicate when you are near death (<25% health), for example Effort. But usually I find Blooded enough to make sure to start healing. Furyshaper is def. better than taking vanilla Barbarian, especially when going single class. Because the Blood Ward is excellent for a melee build (and the whole party). I general the PL-9 shouts of the SC Barb are a lot better than Heart of Fury or Instrument of Boundless Rage. For melee Barbs Dazing Shout is an excellent CC tool for survival - as well as a great damage tool in a big AoE around you. Flames of Devotion does indeed apply to the cone of WotEP. Also Eternal Devotion's lingering lash works with everything that deals direct damage, including spells and other non-weapon attacks. SC Soulblade can make use of Time Parasite to attack really fast and Shared Nightmare to increase the cone of WotEP a lot. If you give a party member Reapng Knives they can farm focus for you that you can dump into Soul Annihilation. Other good melee AoE abilities: Whispers of the Wind (SC Monk), Clear Out/Clean Sweep/Clear the Path (Fighter/SC Fighter), Whirling Strikes (SC Ranger). Most effective is difficult to say and depends on the way you play, which enemies you encounter when and what party members you use - but if you also want to use WotEP's enchantment Offensive Parry and stack it with Riposte (those are free attacks which can raise dps considerably and the Riposte with WotEP even uses the cone) I would pick a Soulblade/Trickster over Streetfighter.

PoE's Edér was a Rogue in the first iterations of the game. They had to change it to Fighter because playtesting showed that player characters who weren't sturdy needed a tanky party member as soon as possible. So - in a way - Edér being a mix of Rogue and Fighter in Deadfire is the most "canony" version you can do.

Uh, for turn based mode my suggestions aren't that great because attack speed/recovery bonuses don't have much impact. Also I have nearly 0 experience with TB mode, so I rest my case.

I would do it differently. If you combine a reloading weapon like a firearm or a crossbow/arbalest with Gunner and Sure-Handed-Ila you'll have a shooter who is reloading VERY quickly. This can be extremely useful because the modals of crossbows/arbalests do interrupt - but they slow you down. With enough shooting speed like from gunner + SHI you can lock down a single enemy all by yourself nonetheless. The reason why this is so fast is that Sure-Handed Ila applies both the recovery bonus AND the reload bonus to reloading weapons, making it twice as good for them in comparison to normal recovery weapons like bows and wands etc. Also Driving Flights allows you lock down two enemies at once. I like Spearcaster for a crossbow build because first of all it comes so early - and secondly with max Arcana it has insane accuracy. The lashing enchantment is great as well. Add Myth Fir chant for more lashes (for your party, too) and even get very good DPS from your shots, not only CC and interrupts. SHI + Mith Fyr is also very, very nice for companions such as Maia as Scout with the Red Hand and such builds. In combination with Spearcaster I always pick Arcane Archer - because I want to max Arcana anyway. The acc bonus of Arcana for Spearcaster and the one for the imbue shots do stack, giving imbue shots extremely high accuracy because they will have a bonus of 2*Arcana that stack with alle other ACC bonuses (Marksman, Stalker's Link, Marker for the Hunt and whatnot). Even late in the game this combo is great because you can combine Imbue:Web and Imbue:Eora with the "Their Champion" invocation. Since you accuracy is so high and since you can dish out four AoEs of pulsing CC in seconds from stealth (driving flight procs the Web and Pull oE twice with each shot) you will interrupt in an AoE with the help of the energized inspiration all the time - while also disabling most enemy groups on the spot by simply immobilizing and pulling them together. Using Web and Eora and not Missiles and Fireball as imbue shots is not only the superior choice imo - it also makes PEN issues with the Arcane Archer non-relevant. On top you can have summons + animal companion = multiple additional bodies on the field which is always very impactful. In the beginning to the mid game summoning Wurms and boosting them with SureHI + Mith Fyr is incredible ranged dmg imo, especially if you focus the Wurms on one enemy and just blast them to pieces one by one. Because the Wurms scale badly you might want to retrain out of them in the later game though. So: Troubadour/Arcane Archer with maxed Arcana and Spearcaster is a top combo imo. Superb single target dmg and CC, superb AoE CC, lots of additional bodies and also nice support for the party.

That should work, yes.

Ahhh! Sorry! 😄 🤦‍♂️

? Since Hunter's Claw and upgrades provide bonuses that stay active until the next rest, the idea is to use it in easier encounters with the same type of enemies - but tougher - you might fight in encounters a bit later (e.g. Splinter's Reef: load up Beast's Claw to the max in the tavern fight and enjoy +20 ACC and +20 deflection for the rest of the island: everything's a vessel there). It's not meant for gaining high bonuses instantly for the fight you are currently in. Because of that I think it's perfectly fine. Are you sure the race-specific ACC bonus doesn't stack with other active bonuses? It should at least stack with Devotions and of course all inherent ACC buffs of abilities sich as Accurate Wounding Shot - giving you +40 ACC in a biss fight instead of "only" +20. +20 Deflection aside which I think is awesome.

By the way: all that item stuff also works on an Essential/Substancial Phantom and Watery Double. Dichotomous Soul summons also work - but without the weapon. Just outsource the bomb part.

They will all trigger at once and so all but the first one will be completely wasted. No, those will trigger just fine. Revive will happen afterwards. That would have been my advice as well. Just for additional info: you can refresh the charges by stacking two of those rings in the stash. So the second one is just for resetting the charges, you wouldn't use it during combat.

Spirit Frenzy can crit, yes. And it also lowers fortitude vis stagger which is nice for Dazing Shout/Driving Roar bc. both target fortitude. With a SC Mage Slayer + Effort that would be my pick over Blood Frenzy.

I usually use a name that has a connection to stuff that happens there and which could have been a name sounds as if the locals could have given it. Like "Mother's Sharp Rock", "Eccea's Final Rest", "Imposter's Abattoir" and so on.

Im playing PoE Deadfire on Linux as native versions since the beginning and a couple of other games with the Proton layer. I never had any issues - but usually I'm not playing fancy new AAA titles. I won't buy the Steam Deck though because I'm not a fan of playing games on small screens and especially not RPGs without keyboard and mouse.

Using the first post to introduce oneself as a necromancing armchair quarterback. Bold move - I like it. 😄

By the way: it may seem odd but there are some offensive spells that are tagged as "melee". They might be able to apply the Mage Slayer's Spell Disruption to enemies...? That's not for single class Mage Slayer obviously, just saying. Edit: checked in game: "melee" spells don't apply Spell Disruption :sadpandaface Now that I know about the synergy between Effort's Hemorrhaging enchantment and Mage Slayer's Spell Disruption I would totally go for Mage Slayer. Just because it's so unusual and I personally like trying out things not many have done before.

I just tried it: it works! Just used Driving Roar with Effort and a Mage Slayer to absoutely lock down enemy casters in an old savegame I had from Forgotten Sanctum. It even works with chants and all other hit rolls. You "only" need to crit with your hit roll (of any source) to trigger Hemorrhaging - and then and the Disrupion gets applied via the sicken or hobble effect (which don't have to crit). If you are wearing stuff like Hylea's Talons and Ring of Clenched Muscle you will even pply it multiple times with one crit roll. Add a scroll of Avenging Storm and you'll apply 100% spell disruption to a huge area with Dazing Shout for example. Well... you can't use scrolls as Mage Slayer so maybe use tHeaven's Cacophony now that I think of it. Seriously people, this is the renaissance of the Mage Slayer (Utimate run? )!

Eh yes, 2 (not 3 - sorry, must have been a typo without me noticing, edited that in my post above). It's only that 2/level+starting value. No added PL scaling on top (no additional 5%). More about that self dmg here: Stalwart Defiance starts rather late when it comes to PL so the scaling of it can't keep up with the Frenzy's self damage. High MIG also does apply to SD's healing, but it also does to self dmg which has a higher base - so raising MIG is actually counterproductive. But you will do so with Frenzy itself (+5 MIG). Also Blooded will boost self dmg further while it won't help with healing. It is manageable and I like Berserker (playing a Berserker/Priest of Wael atm) - but you have to keep in mind that Stalwart Defiance alone will not save you from unintended suicide - especially if you use Blood Storm. However, with a heal-on-kill pet and Second Wind things look way better, especially if you also have a Chanter in the party who happens to run Many Lives Pass By as a phrase. Because "accidentially" killing those with a friendly-fire AoE such as Driving Roar or so will also trigger Blood Thirst and the healing from kill (see pet) which helps you to survive, levels up your dps bc. 0 recovery - killing more primary targets in the process which leads to more heal-kills and so on. So... confusion, when used in a smart way, can also be a boon. And then what you said: healing on crit will help, too. But in some tough fights (especially against overleveled enemies) there won't be a lot of crits. That's better against numerous (weakish) enemies. Stacking up on regeneration gear also helps. Right. You can even stack with with weapons such as Effort (Full Attack on knockout) or stuff like Effigy's Husk (raw dmg ret. on knockout). If you export a char from another safegame who has the Ring of Reset you can have two of them and use one of them for 3 revived without injury in every fight. If you stack them in the stash after the fight they will "recharge" to 3 uses again. It's a bit cheesy but imo it's a lot of fun to play around Vengeful Defeat a bit. And since you could use up to 3 revives in a battle anyway and just rest after such fights it's not too cheesy imo. More like convience cheese. If you need an uncheated lvl-1 char with Ring of Reset I can upload one here. It will be rel. expensive to hire him just for the ring (and then let him go) - but imo it's worth the money. I just thought if one can combine Hemorrhaging from Effort with Mage Slayer's spell disruption? It only works on melee hits - and I know Hemorrhage only counts as weapon hit but not melee weapon hit... but IF it worked it would turn Mage Slayer Driving Roar etc. into a great Single Class imo. Besides other stuff like Mage Slayer/Troubadour or so who would just shut down spellcasting passively... jeez... 1) You can also use items as indicators (High Harbinger's Robes, Càsita Samelia's Legacy with Ardent, Desgraza Breastplate, Recklessd Brigandine, Effort etc.) - or use a Death Godlike (since Pallid Fate triggers on Near Death). I like Effort on a Berserker. As I already wrote above Hemorrhaging might have interesting synergy with an SC Barb. If you combine Spirit Frenzy or Blood Frenzy + Hemorrhaging then all your attack rolls will have three potential effects: damage, sicken or hobble and stagger or raw dmg. If the sicken or hobble from Hemorrhaging crits it will trigger weapon-on-crit effects such as healing on weapon crit (from other items or so). 2) Stalwart Defiance will work fine. Also Regeneration gear of course. Pet-heal, too.

Are you aware that Frenzy's self damage does scale with Power Level in a different way than other abilities? Every PL adds 3 base dmg which then gets boosted by (>10) Might, Blooded etc. Not even Robust from Stalwart Defiance will be enough to completely even that out at some point. Of course it helps a lot and you can use Second Wind, too. What also helps is a pet with healing on kill and a weapon which heals (e.g. Twin Eels, Sanguine Great Sword or Engoliero do Espirs or so). And of course a party member who can heal.

Maybe it's botched. It's no bid deal though, that side quest is not really important.

You want to imbue the shot with Caedebald's Blackbow? What is going to happen? A war bow appears at the target location? If it would act on its own like Ancient Weapons do that would be pretty cool I guess. On a more serious note: I guess you meant that instead of an imbued shot the SC AA should get Caedebald's Blackbow as a summon ability, paying it with Bond points? I also thought about that but ultimately ruled it out, because the Blackbow doesn't work with Driving Flight (meaning it doesn't get a second jump) which I found to be very disappointing. Would still be a good weapon in the hands of an AA bc. of the extreme accuracy and because it wouldn't get the ACC malus (because it does corrode dmg and the shots are tagged with the acid keyword iirc).

You suggested a Berserker yourself. Berserkers always need characters working for them at higher levels because the self dmg is too high. The added option (!) of healing yourself with Footsteps otB AND getting lots of wounds and having the option of crucible oS + armor bonus at will in the process cannot be a drawback. You are confused by Frenzy. The confusion wears off very quickly with high RES and Clarity of Agony (if you wish). The confusion duration is not tied to the frenzy duration, only the self dmg is. You can trigger Frenzy, get some wounds+healing+defense boost via confusion+footsteps - and when the confusion runs out you just have the normal behavior like any other wearer of those boots would have. I think it fits the whole theme of the item set perfectly well in both "vibe" and mechanics - but you may think differently.

I do not agree. As you said Imbue:Death and Imbue:Fireball are somewhat redundant: both are just AoE damage spells with a different dmg type and different AoE size. Multiclass Arcane Archers would then be limited to mostly damaging imbues besides Web which is a shame imo. Currently a multiclass Arcane Archer can make a great CC build. Putting Eora into PL 8 would mean its only exciting option will be damage dealer. I understand that Imbue:Eora isn't super exciting for a SC Arcane Archer because he already has Fireball and both fight for Bond points - but rather than "punishing" MC Arcane Archers I would opt for improving the Imbue:Death slot. Don't know if it's possible to exchange the spell altogether? Enervating Terror would be really good and a nice incentive to go SC. What I would really like so see (but what would change the class too much I guess) would be an Imbue:Essential Phantom where there would emerge a copy of you near the point of impact. Jumps would bring a copy, too. So you could fire the Imbue and get several phantoms with Driving Flight and other jump effects.