Boeroer

Hello, thanks to @Constentin Lévine's post about how one can use Kalakoth's Minor Blights to get the weapons of the Changeling's Mantle (when in Boar, Spider or Stelgaer form) I found something new. You see you can use Concelhaut's Draining Touch to persist the Great Sword of Citzal's Enchanted Armory or all Spiritshift weapons (Boar Tusks, Cat Claws and so on) and I posted about that some times in the past (the rest of the summoned weapons was patched so this doesn't work anymore). You basically summon Enchanted Armory or Shift and then summon Draining Touch. When the encounter ends you will end up with the the Great Sword/animal weapon in your hand and it is now a normal item (that scales automatically to your level). This doesn't work with the Changeling's Mantle because it deactivates casting. But Kalakoth's Minor Blights comes to the rescue! Because that spell cycles through different elements throughout its duration - and it does that internatlly by putting a new blight weapon into your hand. And the spell stays active and cycles thropugh its elemental variants even though you changed into a form that can't cast. What that means is that you cast K's Blights and then change into a Stelgaer/Boar/Spider - of course the initial Blight will be replaced by your natural tusk/claw/fang. But after a few secs the Blight spell cylces and replaces the claw/etc. with a new blight! Now, if you end the encounter then you will end up with a persisted claw/tusk/fang etc. So far, so good. Now I remembered that I always liked those Ogre fists from Form of the Fearsome Brute, right? But the Ogre's Armor is so bad that nobody ever uses the Ogre form. If you could have the fists without the armor though... They have great base damage (13-25!), dual damage types (crush/pierce) and the second best thing: they interrupt on crit, yeah. PEN is not great (6) but you have dual damage and that helps. Why on Eora is interrupt on crit only the second best thing? Because those fists make an awesome sound when they hit - as if a hammer hits an anvil. So if you ever wanted to smack things with your iron fists: now you can! Enjoy! PS: this should also work with Shifter's natural weapons - but they are not different from the other spiritshift weapons which you can also get with the help of Draining Touch. I have not yet found other summoned weapons/creature weapons yet but maybe there's more. Form of the Helpless Beast maybe? LOL! PPS: those fists are considered weapons, not "unarmed". There's no proficiency/modal for them. PPPS: the AoE in the screenshot is from my char's Carnage - it's no property of the fists themselves.

I think there's a distinction between "being damaged by a hit roll" and "being damaged" in general. Also stuff like Dance of Death doesn't stop from self damage or DoT ticks - only when damaged via a sucessful hit roll.

Yes, Outworn Buckler is another great option for switching. You can also put LDevotion and OBuckler in weapon set 1 and 2 and switch back and forth to get healed AND reduce hostile effects - each at half the rate as if you would use a copy - but still incredibly fast because switching (with AI) happens multiple times per second. I haven't found any other items so far that can be used in a similar fashion. Cool that Slayer's Claw works - that wasn't on my list.

Most of it is only available (very) late in the game (Unstable Coil, Weyc's items, Storm of Holy Fire, Her Tears Fallig Like Rain etc.) but the class combo already works very well on the way there - because you can get Sasha's Singing Scimitar quite early (if you have the cash) and can enchant it with Refreshing Finale soon afterwards (if you have collected the right ingredients and again have enough cash). As soon as you have that sabre + enchantment you can start with empower 1/encounter. As soon as you get "Her Revenge" then you can also empower Priest spells 1/encounter and use the "Her Revenge" invocation to regain all the spend empower points (I mean all of them) so that the Empower mechanic becomes a per-encounter event not only for invocatios (as was to be expected with Refreshing Finale) but for Priest spells as well. And as I said you can even empower twice per fight if you use seal spells. The (most) Unstable Coil can be obtained earlier than the Weyc's items (still kind of late but earlier). After you get that your Priest side will increase in power even more - because with the Coil and the empowerment of Her Revenge (and later other invocations or spells that function the same way: counting as multiple empowered spells for the Coil, giving you all tier-3-inpirations most likely) you will gecome Brilliant (and Energized and Curageous etc.). Being Brilliat as a Priest means you can cast Salvation of Time over and over to again prolong Brilliant. Brilliat gives you back those SoT casts... This gives you unlimited Priest spells. Later (very late) the Weyc stuff puts the cherry on top the empowerment cake. So - it's not only a nice combo very late in the game but is also nice to play on the way there.

A Priest/Chanter also has a fun synergy with Sasha's Singing Scimitar: You can empower a seal spell (for example Searing Seal) out of combat, then start combat with an empowered Storm of Holy Fire (very strong) which gives you two empowered spells for the same encounter (and all tier 3 inspirations via Unstable Coil of course). Then in the next encounter you cast an Empowered "Her Revenge" to get back all spend empower points (if you cast it vs. enough enemies). Empowering seals (hazards) isn't super impactful, but you can trigger "x happens when you empower y" stuff and since you get the point back anyways... Of course you can also just empower a seal and then enter combat with empowered Her Revenge directly.

Yes, it's a bit funky. I only had this problem with SC Belower and the upgraded Eld Nary though. But I never tried a Bellower with low INT. As I said a Bellower/Wizard can prolong the PL boost duration with WoD. In theory you should be able to cast an invocation for max PL bonus then and uphold that bonus even if you are casting invocations with less phrases after that. By the way: back then when I tried Skald+Blightheart I discovered that White Worms did not work with the kill-phrase. I assumed that the kill was treated as if the exploding corpse did it or something. However, yesterday I tried with the upgraded Worms and it works! At high levels this can be pretty great because Skald only pays 2 phrases but due to its high base dmg it scales very well with the PL of higher char levels (it also fits the whole decay/Blightheart theme pretty nicely I think). Maybe this is a side effect of the CP fixing the "oops I missed the hit roll vs. corpse" bug?

You need not to focus on that. I see it as a nice-to have bonus, but the focus should be on the fact that Skalds have reduced costs for offensive invocations. 2 phrases for two very good invocations (e.g. Her Revenge and Killers Froze Stiff) while getting phrases from singing (1 per 6 sec) and Brilliant (1 per 6 secs) is a significant advantage. If you can get some crit-phrases: even better - but no need to force your whole build around that. If you build it around those cheap invocations it's already more effective than any other subclass choice even without getting any phrase from melee crits. Imo relying on crits is not very effective because it's.. well... unreliable. You will crit most when enemies are easy to kill already and you'll get only few crits when you need phrases most. That's one reason why Blightheart is good with a Skald although his crit-phrase generation cannot even happen then. If you don't want to focus on those invocations then of course my point is moot and Troubadour or Bellower might be better picks.

I gets applied to the invocation you did cast directly and stays a few secs (so that invocations that actually take some time to complete - like that Eld Nary spell - will profit for their whole duration).

No, because Blightheart is even more effective for a Skald if he mainly uses 2-phrase invocations. A kill while carrying Blightheart will give him half of all phrases that he needs to unleash another invocation that potentially kills. Unfortunately you will only get 1 phrase per cast (even with Her Revenge) even if you kill more than one enemy with that cast. But still better than with a Troubadour who only gets 1/4th of waht he needs (at best) from a kill. An that's despite the Skald not being able to generate crit-phrases that way. I played a Berserker/Skald with BLightheart and it was a lot more efficient and casting faster than the Berserker/Troubadour I tried in comparison - but also less versatile of course. As Tactician/Skald you can not only get 1 phrase for a killing action and from singing every 6 secs but also from being Brilliant. That's 1.5 times of what you need every 6 secs (if you manage to kill every 6 secs of course). In the case above I "abuse" the fact that Berserkers kill their own skeletons and will get a phrase for that should they not kill an actual enemy (Many Lives Skellies are so weak they always die - they also help kill single foes because: more explosions that way ). Also it's a console-generated multi-multiclass char I made for some videos (you can see some monk abilities in the action bar) - just mentioning that so that viewers don't get confused how a char can have Monk-, Barb- and Chanter abilities all at once.

Tactician/Skald works very well if you concentrate on cheap offensive invocations (2 phrase cost) - because a Brilliant Skald who gets 2 phrases every 6 secs can cast such a cheap invocation a lot more often than for example a Bellower or a Troubadour. If focused on such invocations the damage output per second is higher even wiothout melee crits - just because he will cast more often. With WotEP you don't even need to attack actively in order to gain crit-phrases. Just cast and move. You can see occasional crit-phrases as a nice-to-have bonus on top. I would not recommend casting Her Tears Fell like Rain with such a char because it will take 4 phrases (12 secs) instead of 2 (6 secs) for a Brilliant Skald which reduces the handling significantly. Positioning is more delicate, damage output is not better (Her Revenge is plenty strong and when cast twice as often can totally compete) and you also have the opportunity to perma-paralyze enemies with Killers Froze Stiff (which would also add another 25% crit conversion for crit-phrases to happen). If you want to cast Her Tears Fell like Rain I would suggest items that provide immunity to flanked (Kapana Taga for example). Imo Brilliant has a lot more impact on a Skald who uses cheap invocations than on a Bellower who needs to invest a lot more phrases per ivocation to be effective. I didn't find the -5 ACC significant with the right setup. If you like to use Killers Froze Stiff a lot (like I do) you can use the Helm of the White Void later to great effect and it also works well with Mule Kick for example. In addition to Phantom Foes it is also very effective to use Chillfog and also Hand Mortar with Blinding Smoke. Also Tactician with WotEP can use Mule Kick to Disorient with the cone - which entails the flanked status, too. A great weapon (I forgot) in combination with Her Revenge is Sasha's Singing Scimitar since it allows you to empower an invocation "for free" and even regain more than 1 empower point because Her Revenge counts as several empowered spells for the sake of the refund mechanic. So you can actually empower a Fighter ability in one fight (e.g. Clear Out) and regain all empower points in the next fight when you empower Her Revenge. I personally would pair a Bellower with Helwalker, Wizard or go single class, not really use a Tactician. But maybe I missed some significant synergy there.

Too bad with the ACC bonus. The base damage and attacks speed/recovery of the Stelgaer claws is nice.

As long as you don't use Wall of Draining or Salvation of Time or use Sasha's Singing Scimitar and/or the Weyc's Wand this houldn't happen though. Bellower ususally can't collect phrases fast enough to cast a second invocation while the PL bonus if the first is still active.

Troubadour might generate more phrases than Skald with Brisk Recitation - but if you focus on offensive invocations with a Skald then he will still generate more "phrase value" in a given time when Brilliant (and add a crit-phrase sometimes). If you look at "Her Revenge Swept Across": No Brilliant, no crit-phrase, with Brisk Recitation: Skald needs 12 secs (normal linger time) Troubadour needs 12 seconds (0 linger time) Brilliant, no crit-phrase, with Brisk Recitation: Skald needs 6 secs (normal linger time) Troubadour needs 9 secs (0 linger time) Brilliant, 1 crit-phrase (think of melee attack), with Brisk Recitation: Skald needs 3 secs (normal linger time) Troubadour needs 9 secs (0 linger time) Brilliant, 2 crit-phrases (think of melee attack + 1 Offensive Parry), with Brisk Recitation: Skald needs 0 secs (normal linger time) Troubadour needs 9 secs (0 linger time) Take into account what you said about chanting stopping after Invocations, too: a Skald has the opportunity to generate phrases even then, especially when using Offensive Parry. Even without crits-phrases the Skald can perform better - IF you want to focus on low-cost offensive invocations. As I said the Troubadour is a lot more verstile - and if you also want to use summons, support etc. then Troubadour will on average be the best pick imo. But if you like to shout things to pieces a lot then I'd look into Skald. Mainly because of the cheaper cost, not he crit-phrases (those I only see as little bonus but nothing to rely upon). The best weapons imo for Skald are: Sun & Moon (two flail heads = two chances for a crit with only one attack) Fists + Tuotilo's Palm and lots of Power Level bonuses Kapana Taga in combination with lots of engagement Concelhaut's Draining Touch + club+modal (e.g. Kapana Taga) in offhand + Miasma cast: Will debuff of -65, Draining Touch targets Will instead of Deflection. You need a little trick with grimoire-switching to prevent Draining Touch from disappearing after the first hit though - little cheesy Willbreaker + modal + fortitude debuffs + any melee attack that targets fortitude (Force of Anguish, Mule Kick, Brute Force in general) WotEP (Offensive Parry) with high deflection and/or immunity to disengagement attacks* Blade of the Endless Paths (ACC bonus + deflection malus on enemy) - especially on a Skald/Wizard because with an Essential Phantom you can apply/stack the deflection malus twice Rännig's Wrath (modal + Rapiers' natural ACC bonus + extra ACC enchantment) Seeker's Fang: modal + Spider's Flurry... Azure Blade (with enough fellows around +15 ACC) Blightheart: no crit-phrases bc. ranged but 1 phrase on kill instead - and it doesn't matter how you kill. Kills with invocations for example also work - also works when killing your own summons like skeletons etc. Pukestabber + another dagger + alcohol: very fast attack speed and inherent ACC bonus means more crits in a give time sure I forgot some... everything that is superfast is great, too. Some weapons have special "spell procs" that count as weapon attacks - for example Grave Calling procs Chilling Grave. I just don't remember if those also count as "melee" weapon attacks and can generate crit-phrases. I think not but am not 100% sure anymore. And if one-handed weapon then I value dual wielding over one handed style. The higher speed + eventual Full Attacks do create more crit-phrases in a given time than one handed's +12 ACC + crit conversion in my experience. *) WotEP/Offensive Parry can be paired with Nomad's Brigandine or Gipon Prudensco: they give bonus (melee) deflection in the first place, but they also can make you immune to disengagement attacks. This means that you will still trigger those attacks - but they all will miss automatically(!), triggering Offensive Parry every time(!). So if you purposefully break engagement you can get phrases for that. If you currently have 7 phrases on your counter and cast an invocation then you will lose 7 phrases (no matter the real cost of the invocation) and get 7 PL as bonus. If you only have 4 phrases at the time you cast you will only get 4 PL bonus. So basically it's "your current phrase counter = your PL bonus". Your max phrase counter determines how many phrases you can hold and that also determined how high your PL bonus can be. So make sure you take one most expensive invocation. That's a good advice for all chanter subclasses though - epecially for Skald, too. You don't want to only pick the cheapest ones because that would limit your max phrase counter. You want a least one very expensive invoc. in order to expand the counter... so you can collect more and don't create wasteful overflow so often. The Power Level only lasts for a short time so it's enough to cover the effects of the invocations you are casting it with. In the case of Eld Nary's Curse it doesn't even last long enough to cover all the jumps of the spell. But as Multiclass you won't get there. Usully if you cast a following invocation the old PL bonus from he previous invocation will be long gone and you'll get a new one for/from your actual invocation. However - you can prolong that initialy short duration with stuff like Salvation of Time or Wall of Draining - then it can stay for a very long time and then the highest bonus will supress lower ones (for example of successive invocations).

Service post: Bellower (to bellow ~ to shout) A Belower would be a Chanter who either sings really deep tones, can only be Orlan or Dwarf, is exclusively Roparu or is a subclass from the Abyss or so I guess.. I value Troubadour over Bellower with most multiclasses because of the higher versatility. If you like offensive invocations a lot then I would also look into Skald because Tactician/Skald can have very high invocation output because stuff like Her Revenge only costs 2 phrases and those are quickly generated with singing + Brilliant (+the occasional crit). Note that a Skald can only generate 1 phrase max per attack - even if he crits multiple times with an AoE like the WoTEP cone. However: every Offensive Parry counts as separate attack and can generate a phrase on crit. So a high deflection, Brilliant Tactician/Skald who parries a lot of attacks can generate phrases very quickly and at the same time has very cheap offensive invocations.

Could you hover over the dmg or post the base dmg of the tusks? The screenshot is with (unknown) dmg bonuses. So far it seems to me that Spiritshift Cat weapons are better (unless the base damage of those Changeling's boar tusks is much higher and/or the ACC bonus is higher than legendary). Not taking exporting into account because that allows for super cheese anyway.

I didn't know that the weapons of the Mantle'd shift form where better than the other spiritshift weapons (e.g. Cat's)?. That's cool and good to know. But the Great Sword from Citzal's Ench. Arm. is one-handed as well. Fury spiritshift weapons are meh imo because the base dmg is low and they don't work with Driving Flight.

sounds under-whelming

Yes. Unlike PoE, in Deadfire Persistant Distraction is enough to unlock Deathblows - if enemies are not resistant/immune to DEX afflictions, not immune to engagement (Fleet Feet or Alacrity for example) and if you can engage (see MIG afflictions, Grog pet, game options or Debonaire passive).

Berserker/Debonaire: best support char ever!

Funny, I was toying around with Berserker/Cipher yesterday (the result was the dual Amplified Thrust discovery I wrote about) and also tried to find some use for Stasis Shell but didn't succeed. Turn out all it needed was some additional domination. My only question is: why would you want to stun a dominated enemy?

So - that would have been in the game if ship combat would have been scrapped soon enough.

Hey there, so if you are a Berserker/Cipher and like to do some cool stuff while confused (like casting Amplified Wave or Ectopsychic Echo on enemies) you will probably like this one: When you are confused and cast Amplified Thrust on a single enemy (you can bc. confused) it will damage and push that enemy directly. If a second enemy is around it will jump to that enemy, too (and do its thing). This is essentially a +100% multiplicative dmg boost and pretty cool because the single target dmg is quite high (for a tier-2 spell). Enjoy!

By the way: why not Ring of Mule's Wit? Frees up the food part for better ones and also gives several resistances. You can't drop below 1 INT.

Or better than perfect. As I reported some time ago I played an SC Psion with weapon & shield setup (and the CP) and I had zero problems with stopped focus generation (because crits seldomly happen), especially if you spam charms/domnates non-stop and then focus on taking down one single enemy - which this build obviously excels in. I think players still underestimate Soul Mind and that it keeps generating focus at all times: during recovery, during attack animation, during hard CC and so on and so forth. One can easily dismiss how good the focus generation of a Psion is (also because the PL scaling isn't obvious). Having done a playthrough with a SC Psion it is now by far my favorite Cipher subclass - because its resource genertion is so independent from actually anything (except eating crits). I reckon without CP it wouldn't be as feasible (but I didn't try). But sure - if you are alternating FF and a Cipher spell all the time (and have CP) that should be a totally legit alternative as well. Not Soulblade though imo - this build isn't about dumping focus into damage but about disabling a single enemy indefinitely. And CC spells are usually no shreds. Beguiler: not so sure - most hard-CC spells aren't deceptions and the focus gain from weapon attacks is nothing special. Maybe with Puppet Master though...? I can see Ascendant being a good pick even with the reduced Ascension time.

Because the Forbidden Fist ability doesn't generate focus.