Boeroer

Lol, nice!

Its range is pretty bad, that's right - but with Fleet Feet or D. Alacrity you can cast it and run away (no engagement) before the meteors hit you. Also Farcasting helps a bit. Sometimes I just use Rekvu's Scorched Cloak and stand in the midst of it - especially if I use the Fractured Casque with Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry anyways. I mean it's supposed to be a shower - so I take one.

Just assume that puns are always intended.

I think for such complex games the occurrence of really annoying bugs was quite low (in PoE/Deadfire). In the past it was not uncommon that I bought a game and couldn't even start it. The most annoying bug I had so far with PoE was that the game crashed reliably when you climbed from the basement of Raedric's keep to the captain of the guard on the roof. That was fixed within days. After that it was only "inconveniences" that I could circumvent until patched. Granted: I don't use potions much, hehe.

@Yell0wCheck out this picture, specifically the combat log in the lower right: I did three attacks there: one standard attack and two Barbaric Blows. As you can see in the combat log: --- 1. the first attack hit the initial target for 44 dmg and the two other enemies got a hit and a graze from Carnage (I would need to hover over the hit and graze with the mouse in order to see how much damage Carnage did). 2. the second attack - Barbaric Blow - did miss. This also means that Carnage will not get triggered! If you miss your initial target there will be no Carnage. 3. the third attack - again Barbaric Blow - was a hit again for 46 dmg, which also triggered Carnage hit rolls against both bystanders, but one of them missed. Carnage makes hit rolls against alle enemies in range. Those hit rolls can miss, too. Carnage has lower accuracy than your initial attack so it's not uncommon to miss with it a lot in the early game. --- So I presume you just had bad luck with your Barbaric Blow rolls and either you missed the Blow entirely or the Carnage rolls did miss. Check the combat log to determine if Carnage rolls were made and what the outcome was. If you hit with Barbaric Blow but no Carnage rolls are made - although there are enemies in reach - then you have encountered a bug. It's unlikely though because I never heard about such a bug. But never say never... Carnage only works with melee weapons - but the quarterstaff should be fine. Carnage originates from the initial target, not your character. Hope that helps.

Yes, I really enjoyed my last Aloth iteration with him, the Phantom and two Blackbows (+Helm of the White Void). It's so impactful and so easy to script for AI, too. I tend to forget my Aloth after he cast his initial spells and for a pure caster it's hard to set up non-annoying AI imo. But this is so easy and it just wrecks nearly all enemies. It's even effective against RES-resistant foes. Not being able to use offensive abilities ist still a great debuff.

I actually value Meteor Storm over Minoletta's Missile Salvo. It works the same with Unstable Coil etc. but does a lot more overall dmg, has a bigger AoE and is boostable with fire PL (of which you can stack a lot). I also think Storm of Holy Fire is very good for the same reasons - and it's PL7. As soon as Xoti reaches PL 7 it's a different approach to encounters all of a sudden - at least in my case. Their biggest drawback is the fire-only dmg. But for the Priest it's PL 7 (so enough alternatives to cast) and Wizards have Grimoire - so plenty of alternatives to choose from really. The symbol spells' biggest advantage is - imo - that they are foe-only and sometimes have a nice support effect for allies at the same time. You basically cast two spells at once which is a lot better than most players think initially I guess (I mean in terms of action economy mostly). Honestly, I think that is how all PL 8/9 should feel like. There should be a price to pay for multiclassing. And I don't only mean in terms of power/impact/mechanics but also in terms of coolness and the "I want" factor. PL 8 and 9 shoukd really make you sit down and think twice whether you really want to multiclass or go for single class. Priests and Wizards and also Druids achieve that (not the spiritshift part unfortunately, that's sharts for SCs)... Monks, too I think. And that's because of their powerful but also "cool" PL 8/9 stuff. The other classes... mnyeah... Rogue maybe - but only if you really understood how Gambit and/or Vanishing Strikes work and then you'd still be hard-pressed to pick SC Rogue imo because the possibilities and the "coolness" for multiclassing are/is so vast. Barbs are also an edge case. As much as I love Driving Roar and especially the Blood Ward... it's a bit much to forego the fun of mukticlassing a Barb just because of Driving Roar - which then kind of forces you to play a Barb like a ranged caster of sorts (same is true for the exploding fire axe... wtf, hehe) . But weird and maybe also a bit offputting for the classic Barb lover who just wants to smash - but with a boom. This also has something to do with VFX and audio in my case. If it has awesome effects - like most high tier spells have - I just want to use it. WotW with Mortars for example is just so moch fun to watch. Gambit on the other hand - while really good - ist just not that spectacular. Then you cast a Missile Salvo and holy **** you unleash Hel on Eora with visuals and sound and it's awesome!

I doubt that MS wants to see the use of Unity3D again - but maybe they don't care. Performance-wise it's not the best choice for such a big game with so many components/prefabs etc. Maybe one can polish this up, I'm not an expert with Unity3D, only dabbled around with it. But they should def. write down the systems/mechanics they had in Deadfire into a dev's handbook. They feel really good right now (for the biggest part) and it would be a shame if somebody thought the wheel has to be reinvented yet again. There could be more interaction between effects (like affliction/inspiration but also truly and more cleanly implemented for fire/water poison/antidote and so on) and generally a bit cleanup (see stacking of Mirrored Images + Moonwell/Refreshing Defense/Llengrath's Safeguard and so on, modals being actives etcpp). But besides that I would love to see them focus on everything else but not systems again.

Yes Like using a pistol one-handed with the modal on. Only there it's a reload bonus which is better than the great sword's damage bonus. The Citzal's Great Sword has no special features other than being one-handed (and scaling).

Great Sword proficiency and either Weapon & Shield-, Two Weapon- or One Handed Style. Like any other one-handed weapon basically. Two handed style doesn't apply. It's nice to use One Handed Style (+12 ACC and crit conversion) in combination with the great sword modal. It gets you some bonus damage without the otherwise hefty accuracy loss.

Yes, it's unintended behavior. It also worked with the Breastplate and the Morning Star and several other summoned weapons when you used Form of the Fearsome Brute instead of Draining Touch. But Form otFB got patched after I reported that. They also patched all sorts of summoned weapons to truly disappear after combat. They just forgot to fix Citzal's Enchanted Armory, Spiritshift Weapons (claws etc.) and Draining Touch. So nowaydays you can only "persist" a one handed Great Sword or a Spiritshift weapon (a claw, tusk, antler etc.). It's not gamebreaking but just a nice little detail. It's cool to be able to use a Great Sword one-handed or dual-wield them.

Crusader can be very boring but even when build offensively is always sturdy. If build defensively it's really sturdy, has tons of engagement - and is really boring, too. I showed in some post in tha past that if you build a Crusader quite agressively and with a two hander you can land pretty good blows (over 170 dmg crits) and still be quite tanky. Not main tanky but off-tanky with still enough engagement if needed. A fun defense/offense hybrid could be a Crusader with Whipers of the Endless Paths/Offensive Parry - maybe Steel Garrote/Devoted? High deflection, initial parryfest and then later switch to a single target Great Sword to clear out the remainders or so. If you have an SC Wizard then you can even get a single handed Great Sword* for that Devoted which he could with a large shield for little dps drop but vastly increased defenses in a third setup. That could be used when Whispers otEP doesn't offer enough defense or when a lot of ranged enemies are around. )* Cast Citzal's Enchanted Armory, then Concelhaut's Draining Touch, then don't hit with it but kill all enemies. You will be left with a permanent, ethereal, scaling, one handed Citzal's Great Sword

A Goldpact Herald with Sworn Enemy (+Gilded Enmity) should be fine most of times. I also really like Goldpact/Lifegiver or /Ancient(Bear) with a fat armor + large shield nowadays. At first you absorb the initial onslaught, then you shift. Once you're shifted the AR is still ridiculously high for a 0% recovery penalty armor - so you can cast fast while enjoying good AR protection. You can even add Woodskin, Form of the Delemgan or Weather the Storm and whatnot before shifting (and the specific AR bonuses stack with the universal ones), Robust and Moonwell and all the other very strong healings/buffs cn be cast while shifted, you have summons (Ancient gets the really good Sporelings - especially nice with Wild Growth) and good CC and damage options, too. Once your shift is over (pun intended) you will be a lot slower but still enjoy good AR and also the very convenient shield+modal setup. It doesn't hurt you healing and buffing abilities. Only downside is that you don't have endless resource generation like a Chanter has. That's the beauty of a Herald... Both have rel. little engagement so at the start of the game they struggle a bit to stop swarms of enemies. If you use shield+spear at least you'll have 2.

It's not a mere rain, it's a Storm of Holy Fire!

Generally speaking still fine. The added health isn't impactful even on PotD if you have sufficient healing. And if you don't have sufficient healing then a bit more health will most of times just delay the unavoidable defeat a bit. Also you can have an Amulet of Greater Health and the Tough passive if you feel you need a bit more. Sometimes having a bigger health pool is just convenient. For example if you want to get to "bloodied" with one use of Berserker Frenzy - but you don't want to get knocked out either - you may need to raise your health a bit or whatever. But as a tank that usually isn't your thing anyways. The thing that needs more attention for tanks is the fortitude defense. High(er) CON can certainly help here - but high MIG also can (and it even boosts healing/self-healing). Also immunities and reistances can somewhat substitute a (very) good fortitude defense since fortitude is mostly used to fend of nasty afflictions. If I decide to boost my fortitude with the help of CON then I usually go all-in (stuff like Monk's Iron Wheel, max starting CON etc.) because it can be fun leaning into it and not only achieve very high fortitude and a ridiculously high health pool (gives lots of leeway with timing healing abilities) - if not I will keep it low and circumvent the minor shortcomings.

You can sneak and steal the Willbreaker if you want to. Sparkcrackers for luring Ogres away is kind of mandatory for that though.

Berath Incarnate summons the Pallid Knight AND the Usher at the same time. They count as one summon. Such as a Chanter can summon three skeletons at once or a Druid can summon multiple oozes at once. Other priests' Incarnate also have multiple creatures, for example Priest of Eothas summons three Dawnstars. Wael only summons one giant eye that shoots lightnings iirc. Skaen summons one freaking Effigy and so on. I think Woedica is the only Priest subclass has no incarnate summon.

@Panda Baby https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/335 on the Description page scroll a little bit down to 3). Detailed list of changes (as of v2.0.5)

I think you don't need +2 PEN for Hunting Bows because you get Essence Interrupter (shock/pierce) and Aamiina's Legacy (pierce/slash) which helps enormously to overcome almost all PEN issues. I played SC Wizard, Streetfighter/Bloodmage and Streetfighter/Berserker with Hunting Bow + modal and the bonus PEN from Berserker didn't really lift it up. Streetfighter/Bloodmage was pretty cool because you buff up and call a Phantom, then trigger the right amount of Blood Sacrifice until bloodied and start shooting at incredible speed (50% & 50% recovery + Alacrity). Also pretty nice with one-handed pistol once you get Eccea's to circumvent the pierce-only limitation. The SC Wizard was Aloth and was meant to use Caedebald's BB eventually (which he did and which is awesome) - but I wanted to stay true to the bow theme for the whole run. Worked well, too. When you give him all the relevant gear a Wizard isn't that bad of a bow user - also because with a phantom + Essence Interrupter you will put additional summons on the field quite frequently. A SC human Bloodmage with Caedebald's and Helm of the White Void has pretty great accuracy with the Blackbow (+7 Fighting Spirit,+10 Rymrgand's Influence,+20 from Citzal's MP). The Helm eve works for the Phantom (which has good base ACC, too). So plenty of teffified enemies at all times. Streetfighter/Berserker has insane attack speed once bloodied (and even before quite great bc. of Frenzy + modal) but getting to bloodied takes more time and then you don't want to trigger Frenzy anymore - or the balancing between healing/heating up becomes a tedium. But when it works it really works. Barbaric Smash finishing enemies with 140+ crits, followed by 0-recovery shots and then shooting further with insane speed is fun. But it's also quite one-dimensional. Good AI-toon though. Easy to setup, fire and forget. In all cases the lowish ACC because of the modal is countered by the awesome attack speed. It's not hat bad to miss a shot if you're putting out 3 while others put out 1. For crits galore with Frostseeker I think Monk/Ranger or Cipher/Ranger are best. Both also get some bonus PEN (+2/+1) but they alse get bonus ACC (+12/+20) as well as speed, bonus dmg and even bigger AoE in case of Monk (as well als Stunning Surge which is awesome with three projectiles + Driving Flight). And the Cipher version also is a lot more versatile than a "dumb" pew-pew character imo.

I guess they could. If so then HC's Avenging Storm would trigger from LDV's Avenging Storm.

Avenging Storm from Heaven's Cacophony would not behave like the version of Lord Darryn's Voulge - because it wouldn't originate from a weapon but a helmet.

They all get the +2 PEN (also the bonus crit dmg). Including Ball Lightning which is an active "spell" you must trigger yourself from the action bar. Streetfighter with Sneak Attack crit while On the Edge should be truly devastating.

Okay, tried again with a phantom and got it to work. It's indeed Avenging Storm. And it will loop as long as it doesn't miss (which obviously breaks the cycle). As soon as it's going you should use Clear Out or even better Clean Sweep (or use a Brute to have Carnage going for you) to trigger shocking loops on all enemies in AoE range. As expected Avenging Storm not only procs itself which is already hefty enough but also Static Charge gets applied with Avenging Storm and as soon as AS crits the resulting procs of shock damage will also proc Avenging Storm again which lets this stuff snoball like crazy if you're lucky and no miss is interrupting it. Pretty cool. But as I said there seem to be other spells that are more commonly triggered. Some pretty lame (Blizzard or Returning Storm for example) - but all of them apply Static Charge. If you're patient Fighter Bloodmage with decent regeneration gear you can use Blood Sacrifice to stay hidden and send one Gathering Storm Phantom after the other. As slong as you personally don't proc Gathering Storm your fresh phantoms will always be able to proc it anew. Edit: by the way Ball Lightning is only 1/rest but it's very good (especially on Fighter/Rogue due to the Sneak Attack/Deathblows bonus). Another reason for going Fighter with LDV imo. I combined it with the Mantle of the Seven Bolts and you'll have 2 really impactful abilities per rest that can help you turn the tides real quick.

It's funny though because I used it with a Fighter/Wizard because I was testing different options for my phantoms. Soulbound weapons keep their soulbound enchantments even on phantoms - doesn't matter that the phantom doesn't have your class. So I was planning to proc Gatherig Storm several times per combat because new phantom - new proc (at blooded). But I never got Avenging Storm. Mostly it was Relentless Storm. Guess I was super unlucky or Avenging Storm has a very low chance to appear.