Boeroer

Ascendant, build/played accordingly, ist a potent cipher subclass. However it can't be a pure caster because it will have to deal weapon damage in oder to ascend. This can be very frustrating in fights against single, high defense/AR foes (dragons, megabosses, Steelclads etc.) where the Psion has the upper hand. It is more effective vs. numerous weaker enemies though.

Depends. If you concentrate on lower level powers then even SC Psion can. You'll have recovery time after all. Players seem to forget that a Psion also generates focus during recovery time. Other cipher subclasses (except Beguiler) will have to stop casting and attack with weapons in order to gain focus. That's not a "pure" caster then imo. Or you use a multiclass like Wizard/Psion, Priest/Psion, Druid/Psion or Troubadour/Psion and you can alternate between class1 and Psion spells. In case of Troubadour/Psion you will never run out of spells to spam.

Nope, mortars do foe-only damage. 👍 Also they deal pierce/slash damage which is uncommon for firearms (no problem with pierce-immune enemies) and the AoE rolls against reflex instead of deflection. Obviously you want a lot of INT because it enlarges the AoE.

Yes, also a good option. I played just that with a dual pistol SC Paladin fully led by AI. +20 ACC easily balances out the Rushed Reload modal - and with Scordeo's Trophy + Rushed Reload + dual wielding you can fire so very quickly (and then dish out healing pulses so quickly) that it was really hard to harm the party as long as the dude fired. Two Troubs with skeletons delivered plenty of food for Zeal. I just wanted to emphasize the dmg aspect with the Bleak Walker - because he can have extra +10 ACC for his FoD attacks with the Helm of the White Void. Unfortunately a SC Paladin cannot pick Spirit of Decay.

It used to give a +50% lash (either in beta or at release, don't remember) which was too good compared to PoE where it was limited to 2/encounter. So they nerfed it - and overnerfed it imo. But as Kaylon said: the upgrades are good and work well with any offensive multiclass. The small lashes even work with spells and so on! So it's an option to even raise a caster's dmg oputput. For example a Wizard/Paladin with Blightheart + Eternal Devotion can get +10% burn and +10% corrosive lash on his damaging spells. Which is nice. In case of Kind Wayfarer already the base ability is good obviously bc. of the healing. Then you can play with the fact that FoD is a burning attack that will get boosted by certain items and abilities: in power level with stuff like Magran's Favor and Sun & Moon and Otto Starcat (up to +5) in accuracy with Ring of Focused Flames (+10 - on top of the +10 FoD already has) in penetration with Scion of Flame (+1) Since FoD is of PL 1 it scales pretty nicely at later levels (5% base dmg per PL, frctional PEN per PL, ACC per PL and so on) so stacking lots of PLs is nice. Bleak Walker's FoD is even tagged as burn AND corrode which makes it possible to get +2 PEN for his FoD strikes with Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay. Combine with +10 ACC from the Ring and up to +5 power levels: that's suddenly decent. Add the Helm of the White Void which does +10 ACC to attacks that contain an affliction and you get +10 ACC on top (beause Bleak Walker's FoD also sickens). If you then want to go a little cheesy road and use an SC Bleak Walker with Divine Retribution who has a chanter friend who summons a ton of skeletons etc. you can basically spam those FoD-attacks with good dmg and awesome +30 ACC all day long. Because Divine Retribution also gives you +2 Zeal when a skeleton dies (and Many Lives Pass By skeletons don't scale at all and die extremely quickly) you will often have more Zeal than you can spam. Of course this is a very special case. In general the base ability is too weak, I agree. It's not good that you have to know about some obscure tricks to make it relly worthwhile - or pick the right subclass like Kind Wayfarer.

You can also have a look at the Chanter. "The Dragon Thrashed" and "Come Sweet Winds" are DoT chants. The latter even heals you a bit (which technically makes you sturdier, too). You can again combine this with Paladin for the nice Brand Enemy ability (it is not only nice because it is an auto-hit - which is not only nice but awesome - but also because it is a really fast cast and has 0 recovery time, cheap, too). Add the Blackened Plate later in the game an play a Death Knight that just drains the life from all surrounding enemies passively - by just walking among them. And then curse their guts with Brand Enemy. Sturdy as hell, too. Exalted Endurance + Come Sweet Winds will stack their healing, several armor passives... You could solo with such a character because your DoTs will eventuall kill all enemies while you are too sturdy and have too much passive healing to get killed (if you are going for a shield setup). Or a Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts for more melee DoTs. Saru Sichr (Morning Star): also nice. Invocations will come as piemont cherry on top.

How about Paladin/Streetfighter with mortars? You will be very fast, sturdy enough and can apply Toxic Strike, Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy to a bunch of enemies very quickly. Gouging Strike and Brand Enemy never end - so it's a death sentence. Brand Enemy is even an auto-hit. Add some Arterial Strike against moving targets.

Pure caster with Cipher: always Psion for me.

Yes, but in case of Barbaric Smash it's like with the other attack abilities which get a dmg bonus (several Rogue strikes, Fighter's Mule Kick and so on): the innate dmg bonuses of those attack abilites seem to always stack with everything.

Afaik Babaric Smash dmg bonuses (20% in general + 50% on crit) stack with everything.

"Passives" from items will stack with everything. Afaik Mob Stance stacks with everything, too (not 100% sure, haven't used it in combination with other active speed bonuses for some time). Maybe because of the special circumstances that are needed to unlock it. Bloodlust is a passive, so it stacks with everything. Active buffs that don't stack (Zealous Aura + Deadeye): yes, the higher bonus gets used, the lower one suppressed.

No, they can't - and that was the point of my argument. The Animal Companion spirit counts towards your summoning limit - and thus summoning Spiritual Ally will replace the Animal Companion. There are summons which don't count towards your summoning limit (Skeletons from Many Lives Pass By, Wurms from Dire Talon, Imps from Grave Calling, Creatures from Essence Interrupter and stuff like that) - but Animal Companiopn of Ghost Heart Rangers are none of those. This was one reason for my solo Geomancer to not pick Ghost Heart: I would not have been able to have Essential/Substancial Phantom + Animal Companion at the same time. Since I wanted to play a melee Geomancer I took Stalker anyway - but still a point to consider. Of course: if you don't plan to use Spiritual Ally in the first place there's not much downside with taking Ghost Heart. The summoning process has to be done between casting Priest spells, but as @Porkchopsandwiches247 pointed out the summoning process is pretty fast - and the time you spend summoning between casting buffs etc. might be balanced out by the fact that a conventional AC would need healing/resurrection from time to time. By the way: Conjurer's Familiars also count towards the summoning limit (which is pretty stupid imo). So as soon as you want to use any other summons on a regular basis the Summon Familiar spell becomes very unappealing (basically a lvl-1 emergency summon for distraction only if you have o other spell uses for better summons left).

Spiritual Ally is controllable. It not only has unlimited use of Robust but also unlimited use of Corrosive Breath (cone attack with good base dmg but low PEN). You can cast the Robust healing on the Spiritual Ally itself - which makes it quite tanky (13 AR + healing, over 400 max health at lvl 20). It's basically an animat.

I think the Gladiator's Sword is actually a pretty good weapon. The deflection bonus is nice of course (increasing returns and so on) but also the +1 PEN (with additional enchantment) is good and maybe underrated. Stylewise it absolutely cries for Bronlar's Phalanx though. And the Contender's Helm...

Spiritual Ally is dope. Spiritual Ally + Animal Companion is dopamine... even dopamaxe if you ask me. Thematically Chost Heart + Berath fits nicely, it's true.

Every ability should just say how it scales. I mean it would be great if everything scaled the same way - but I can see how there might be abilites and situations where that's not a good fit and limits the design of abilities too much. So why not just include stuff like that in descriptions/tooltips etc.? Same as: why is there no entry regarding Power Level on the character sheet? 🤷‍♂️

I checked just now in the game and it's a flat +2 per PL, no percentages involved. Prestige also adds +2 base dmg as expected. So do other PL bonuses like the +1 from Stone of Power.

By the way: other self dmg like Sacred Immolation (Paladin) and Deletrious Alacrity of Motion (Wizard) scale normally with +5% per PL. I guess they altered the Berserker's Frenzy later because it was either too punishing in the early game with a higher starting base - or too weak in the late game with the starting base of 2 - with the normal PL scaling.

Berserker self dmg numbers don't scale like normal damaging or healing abilities do (+5% base per PL). Instead it gains +2 raw base dmg per Power Level iirc. Frenzy starts at PL1 - so at PL7 (for example a multiclass Berserker/Skald at lvl 20) it gained 6 Power Levels: 2*(7-1) = 12 extra damage. It starts with 2, so 12+2 = 14 base damage. A single class Barb would even go up to PL9 and thus receive even more raw dmg. This base dmg is used to calculate the final damage - which includes universal dmg bonuses like those from Might (3% per point over 10), Infamous Captain (5%), Harley pet (10% - it is supposed to only work for ranged attacks but actually works for all sources of dmg), Baubles of the Fin (3%) and so on. Because of that the dmg can scale a lot higher than that of healing abilites that start with the same base but only get +5% per PL.

Yes, they will stack. All "passive" abilities from items (I mean stuff that does not appear as active ability in your action bar) will stack with everything. And some other those actives will do so, too (but not all). If the Paladin is using Exalted Endurance and Shining Bulwark then all party members in range will get +2 AR. The range is extremely short though! The base radius is only 2 meters. So the party members wanting to get protected by Defesive Beacon really have to cuddle with the wielder of Shining Bulwark. Another drawback is that Defensive Beacon from Shining Bulwark only gets applied to allies but NOT the wielder (unlike Exalted Endurance that also works for the Paladin himself). So sombody else will have to carry that shield so that your Paladin may profit from the additional AR - and stay very close. *cuddle-cuddle*

Tbf the first posts all voted for Scout iirc. Arquebus is an obvious choice for Maia - so I think one would settle with the Red Hand quite naturally (because Dragon's Dowry is expensive as hell - too expensive to just casually buy it before you will discover the Red Hand imo). I mean the Red Hand is not only dealing fantastic dps compared to other arquebuses, it also negates some problems arquebus users might have with certain pierce immune vessels. But after all - Scout with Red Hand is also pretty boring imo. It's just shooting 24/7 with the occasional escape or Evasive Roll. But in some cases that may be exactly what you need. It's easy to set up Maia-Scout+Red Hand with custom AI. So if you want an automated party member to cut down on party micromanagement it's an ideal companion build I would say.

Your valid point about using the animal companion while casting gets somewhat torpedoed by using Ghost Heart. First of all you need to actively (and repeatedly if you don't care for it) summon the spirit (can't cast while doing that) and then it also blocks the slot for priest summons you might want to use. Since you are a priest with decent healing and buffing capabilities it's not that hard to keep a "real" animal companion alive (although I still wouldn't use it for tanking). If things go south you can revive multiple times (which shouldn't be necessary too often though). Most of that healing and buffing you will cast anyway on your party so I guess it's not a big impact on the priest's action economy. Rangers can get a lot of accuracy bonuses, but most of those are either tied to ranged weapons (Marksman), melee weapon usage (Hunter's stuff) or Stalker's Link (most often single target unless you buff it with Champion's Boon). For better accuracy I would prefer combos like Monk/Priest (Enduring Dance) or Cipher/Priest (Borrowed Instincst). But the point about lots of casting + animal companion is a good one. Also applies to other casters I think. Psion/Ranger comes to mind. Here the combination of Stalker's Link + Borrowed Instinct for high ACC single target cc (dominate for the most part) comes to mind. Also Pain Block + Animal Companion makes losing the AC a lot less likely. Combining an Animal Companion + several dominated foes should turn most encounters into cakewalks pretty easily. Psion doesn't need a lot of Cipher abilities to rock - so there's room for all the passives that make the animal companion better. Same it true for Priest if you limit your spell portfolio a bit I guess.

Sun and Moon allows for continuous usage of Soul Annihilation. Because it has two hit rolls per strike it will first dump the focus into raw damage - and the second hit will already generate new focus for the next strike. So no auto attack or rogue strike needed on between (still possible of course). Soul Annihilation needs focus to execute, it has a min threshold. If you use any other weapon than sun and moon you will have 0 focus after Soul Annihilation. You'd have to use another attack to gain focus first before you could reuse SA. Thus you cannot use it continuously. Kaylon's apporach is to use Sun & Moon in combination with Tuotilo's Palm. If you can use Soul Annihilation all the time (basically, missing and not-generating-enough-focus-with-one-roll not accounted for) you can skip attacks with the bash because SA is a primary attack. The bash is low dmg and a worse alternative than your main hand weapon. So skipping it is preferable. Yet you will have the higher attack speed of dual wielding for primary attacks and also the higher defenses from Tuotilo's Palm - which add up nicely with the Trickster's deflection and reflex buffs. An alternative is Soulblade/Monk which uses the same trick basically. In this case you also profit from the nice defense buff of Tuotilo's Palm (defense per wound) and Sun & Moon as excellent catalyst for Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. It hasn't as high deflection as Trickster and less SA raw dmg - but still a nice combo because of Tuotilo's Palm's enchantment and the general synergies of Monk and Cipher. And you won't have limited resources (besides Mortification). Also Stunning Surge with Sun&Moon + TP is great. Accuracy is also potentially very good (Enduring Dance + Instruments of Pain + Borrowed Instincts). Casting anything else profits from high INT of course. Basically any combo with Soulblade and Sun & Moon has a similar approach. Trickster combines defenses and dmg output very nicely (which also speeds up focus gain considerably and makes SA very strong due to the Sneak Attack/Deathblows). But you can basically do this continuous SA-thing with Soulblade/Fighter -/Skald, -/Paladin etc., too. If you manage to generate enough focus with the second roll to execute the next SA.

What do you mean with not running into the CON stacking problem?

Yes. +3 AR is still massive though. For further info on why AR is so important and is better than the in-game numbers suggest read @thelee's gamefaq on that matter: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/armor-and-penetration Ancient Memory will stack with Exalted Endurance's healing and any other healing effects. But it will not stack with itself (when it overlaps with a lingering Ancient Memory). You can use Brisk Recitation and remove overlap altogether and still gain the same amount of healing. If you manage 100% overlap via Linger time you can use Ancient Memory + Mercy and Kindness for better healing. Mercy and Kindness also influences the Healng from your Exalted Endurace (and Lay on Hands etc.) - as well as any other healing that is used in the party.