Boeroer

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.

I think you got Avenging Storm. And because Gathering Storm is considered a weapon attack it will proc off itself endlessly in a loop until the duration is over or all enemies dead. It might proc off itself because it originates from a weapon - nearly all spells on weapons work with weapon quality/enchantments and trigger Avenging Storm, see Chilling Grave on Grave Calling for example). This doesn't explain why it hit directly in an AoE though. Maybe Relentless Storm and Avenging Storm got triggered both (both will proc Avenging Storm because weapon enchantment). Edit: or Avenging Storm/Gathering Storm also applies and gets applied by Static Thunder - which might proc Avengimg Storm again which might explain the initial AoE.

You could use food that way in PoE, but in Deadfire food is only usable as camping bonus (effects will last until next rest). Maybe be you are confusing it with drugs, potions or unguents. Those can be used via quickslots. Drugs and unguents even out of combat.

That's even more confusing - because the mace modal does -1 AR.

But... Sungrazer doesn't lower the Will defense. The modals of flails lowers Reflex. You'd need a club + modal to lower Will.

The -5 secs will only get applied to existing hostile effects that are currently on you when you cast Clarity of Agony. For the rest of the duration of CoA newly applied hostile effects will get the -50% duration, but not the -5 secs. So it has an immediate effect (-5 secs from all current hostile effects) as well as an ongoing effect (-50%).

Its enchantments used to be 1/encounter each - at those times almost every build that was discussed here used it. So maybe it was nerfed for being too strong.

Isn't that 1/rest?

I think Hand Mortar is still the better pick for Whispers of the Wind/Resonant Touch because Blinding Smoke (every crit of the shot, including AoE hits, proc a cone attack that disorients) also triggers Resonant Touch as well as Avenging Storm despite not dealing any damage itself (this was nerfed in Community Patch). If you attack like 5 enemies with Whispers of the Wind with high ACC you usually generate so many Resonant Touches that most enemies die after the first WotW+Resonant Touch. This also works with Whirling Strikes and Heart of Fury, but obviuosly they come without Resonant Touch. Also refund for Gambit etc. But yes, the Weyc's Wand is very good because of the awesome Seal. If it wouldn't come so late it would be one of my preferred weapons, too. Barb's Heart of Fury works with two ranged weapons, Barbaric Retaliation, too. In that it's a bit different from Whirling Strikes.

Nope. It has no combat and so I assume not that many interesting mechanics. I like combat mechanics. Also the setting isn't something that speaks to me. So... it isn't very high on my list of games I want to play despite all the praise. I can enjoy games that have mediocre writing - or no writing at all (or very little - whatever). But if my toenails roll up while reading it's goodbye for me.

The writing in P:K was so bad that I stopped pretty quickly. I can't get over such things. The bonbon-ish graphics didn't help either. So I don't think I will give WotR a try. Not that the PoE games are perfect. I don't care about RTwP or Turn Based even. But pretty much every CRPG I tried after the PoE games left me disappointed. I guess I'm spoiled somehow... cute Only Orlans please! Yeah that would have been great. I also would have liked to see Xaurip Beastmasters riding Grubs (hello Dune) and Drakes and such. I mean look at Llengrath! Druids have Charm Beasts. Ciphers charm/dominate everything... So there's explanation why it could be more common. --- Has not much to do with the main point of your post, but about the Watcher abilities: I think I would have preferred a separate (small?) Watcher "class tree" - similar to the other class trees where you could have spend points you gained during those main quest lines. And not make then all per-rest but also include some passives and per-encounter stuff. For example that conjuring of spirits in the docks when you reach Neketaka: why isn't that an ability you can use more often/at will? Bunch of spirits that follow you become visible and distract the enemies or whatever. Everything's there: the models, animations, sound effects and so on. That would have been plausible and cool I think. As is: I never even use the Watcher abilities unless I'm in a situation most dire and I have nothing else left. And that's almost never the case.

Yes, it's cool. But because it comes so very late it doesn't play a role in any of my build ideas. Maybe if I wanted to do a crossbow char - but then crossbows don't have exciting uniques or they are gated behind certain decisions regarding factions. I had the same problem with Acuan Giamas in PoE. A morning star with wounding and basically Grimoire Imprint on hit - supercool really. But it's in Llengrath's bog which is one of the last maps of the game. Meh... Maybe exporting/importing is a solution (if it doesn't make you feel cheaty).

Also work with "Harley" (the dog).

Inner Death might be an explanation. It's pretty devastating when it lands properly - and you're only 5 so they don't need to spare Mortification.

Hm, I tried once with upscaled FS at lvl 20 (normally I don't play with scaling) but it wasn't noticably more difficult so I assumed - since most enemies are of same/higher levels as/than me - that not much was scaled in the first place. Maybe I was wrong and it was just the build that was overpowering everything anyways (SC Nalpasca with dual mortars, heavily relying on Resonant Touch + party). Maybe some of the encounters there are again set as lvl 1 internally for the purpose of scaling - instead of their actual level? There are some other encounters that have this problem as well (see one late thread about the upscaled Talfor fight). If that's the case the scaling would be adding a ton of difficulty. If not I don't really grasp how a few levels should make such a huge difference like you reported.

Search for abilities that cause interrupts or prone (basically an interrupt+). For example Thrust of Tattered Veils or Slicken (Wizard, ToTV is even an auto-hit ability), Knockdown (Fighter), Crippling Strike (Rogue) and so on. It's mentioned in the description if the ability/spell does cause an interrupt or not. Normal auto-attacks will not interrupt anything unless you have a weapon that can interrupts by itself (uniques or some modals). You can also use weapon proficiencies or in other words weapon modals such as crossbow or arbalest to cause interrupts. Note that Concentration will counter an interrupt. If you hover over Neriscyrlas in battle you can see the layers of Concentration she still has (she has a lot). You can completely remove all Concentration with a chant (Thick Grew Their Tongues) or with something like Plague of Insects or Insect Swarm. Or you can remove the layers one by one with interrupts (a few hits from Slicken, some hits with a crossbow + modal etc.). Once the Concentration is gone your interrupts will stop her spells and abilities from manifesting. If you manage to hit her with a terrify effect (for example Fear Ward from Furyshaper, Ryngrim's spells from Wizard etc.) she will become "only" frightened - but that's still enough to prevent her from using any offensive abilites (including spells) against you as long as she is frightened.

Having no visible cloaks/capes (you can equip them and nmechanically they work just fine - just no visible model) is not a bug. Obsidian chose to use a commercial Unity3D-plugin for the cloak/cape physics - unfortunately that plugin only works for Windows but not Linux or MacOS. Thus it can't get fixed by Obsidian (otehr than discarding the plugin and developing cloak physics themselves which was not feasible back then). So yeah - no cloaks for MacOS (or Linux). I always played the native Linux version - maybe I could see cloaks if I tried the Proton version from Steam (I doubt it but maybe...) In Deadfire this problem doesn't exist aymore because Obsidian chose to use their own cape physics etc. right from the start which works with all platforms.

Bererker/Druid is way cooler of course.

Scaling doesn't do much for FS as least since enemies are already lvl 20 or beyond I assume so they won't get leveled up anymore. SSS might have enemies that get scaled up a bit, don't remember their exact levels. I mean you can try and always change settings if it's too hard.

Ha - I was about to link to the same thread. Confusion is not an affliction, it's an inspiration!

Upscaling has a cap afaik. Def. raise the difficulty. Normal is pretty easy - scaling doesn't change that much. You are already overleveled for Beast of Winter (hopefully scaling does work well there). But Seeker, Slayer, Survivor and The Forgotten Sanctum should be challenging enough.