Boeroer

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.

Got you. I recently discovered that several Druid spells that get countered by "antidote" (and thus are poison/disease spells one would presume) won't profit from poison power levels anymore - and so I assumed it also wouldn't work for Wizard poison spells anymore. I just checked ingame again and indeed the two Wizard spells Noxious Burst and Malignant Cloud do still profit from the Poison PL of both items. They have "poison" displayed in the description. I then went again to the druid spells and the only spell that still profits from poison PLs is Venombloom. It hasn't the keyowrd poison in the description. There's the antidote keyword and then there's the poison keyword and some druid spells lack the poison keyword while they still get countered by antidote effects and immunity (vessels etc.). Bit messy... Maybe something to fix with the Community Patch @MaxQuest? Maybe the workings are correct (disease spells could get countered by antidote but wouldn't profit from poison) - but maybe then an improved descripion or descriptive keywords (poison & disease maybe) would be useful? It seems that "poison" is considered a wizard-only keyword so they left it out of the druid tree. But imo that's confusing as heck. Right, I misremembered Urgent Harvest's workings, my bad. Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff is nice of course. True. Only the description of the spell mentions it iirc - but it isn't described in the weapon's description I think. Yeah, it's pretty cool - also that this means that the Helm of the White Void is so useful then. But something like Acina's Tricorn would also work I guess (sometimes looks a bit funky though, especially with robes). Of course the Mask of the Grotto Deep is also a cool fashion piece sort of (and the INT is also nice). Well you proved me wrong above so I don't know about that, hehe. --- Had I known about the combo of Helm of the White Void + Caedebald's Blackbow I would have played Fassina differently in my last run with her I believe.

I can also very much recommend @thelee's GameFAQ guide. Sometimes, with complicated things, it's just better to get another explanation that's worded a bit differently: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/action-speed-recovery-time This is the page about action speed/recovery. If you want to read the whole thing start here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599

Ah - and I think it's good. I just think -2 AR is better if you can make sure to crit often enough. You get the -1 AR anyway without further enchantment and in order for it to count you have to behave in a certain way - might as well double down on it imo.

They do stack. If you know how: make yourself a big coffee and read this: If you're suddenly not interested in the details anymore (who could blame you? ;)) you can see the results of the bonuses when you right-klick on your weapon during combat (over the portraits, down left with the standard hud config). A popup will display attack and recovery time (among other info). If you hover over those numbers there will be a list in a tooltip window with the effects that currently influence those stats (in percentages):

I guess in a party Takedown Combo + Call to Slumber + Disintegrate would be a fun combo against tough foes. Or even Takedown Combo, Call to Slumber and Concelhaut's Corrosive Skin.

Yes, Blackbow + Phantom is very nice to have and fun, too. May I ask why you are using the Mask of the Grotto Deep and the Spider Silk Robes? Do they synergize particularly well with something you are using (like poisons)? When prioritizing DEX/Action speed items - wouldn't an armor like High Harbinger's Robes for example be the better choice? And instead of Griffin's Blade maybe Xoti's Sickle or so? What do you think about Blightheart? It would give a 10% corrosive lash to all your direct dmg spells - and the healing effect can be prolonged with Wall of Draining (along with Healing from Hands of Light gloves for example). What's your opinion about Ring of the Marksman when using the Blackbow? It would give you +2 PEN for the bow in combination with Spirit of Decay - and the Phantom +1 PEN. The added accuracy would also be nice to have on yourself and the phantom. For that reason I also use the Helm of the White Void: it would grant you and the phantom +10 ACC with shots of the Blackbow because it comes with terrify and thus even the initial attack roll always gets the +10 ACC. And course +10 ACC for all spells that apply afflictions (like Chillfog etc.).

In the early game you can't - but once you leave the starting area you can go wherever you please and also fight enemies that are weak compared to you. I suggest to go to where the game points you first and do some non-violent quests to gain some levels - then it's easier to find underleveled enemies after. If you also own the DLC "The Forgotten Sanctum": here finally the enemies are of max level - so overleveling isn't possible anymore in these parts. If you follow the main questline instead of doing all the side quests first you can also overlevel more quickly. The main quest line gives a lot of XP. If you complete a step of it (as soon as you can) you will most likely be able to level up more quickly - and then do a lot of the side quests overleveled. An easier way to make sure to make enemies piece of cake is to simply turn down the game difficulty. Less hassle with finding enemies of lower level than you. Another way to make enemies piece of cake is to employ a character build that is very powerful - or even cheesy.