Boeroer

You can now get up to +18 ACC against all kinds of creatures (except kith) with Survival. But that stacks with all the ACC bonuses from the Observer. So yes - this build still works.

Eh - I totally forgot why I hated Powder Burns so much: It doesn't work with Swift Aim or Vicious Aim. Boooh!

I love the Celebrant's Gloves, but sadly they're not compatible with using the Forgemaster's Gloves. I was not aware of the Belt of Chimes, +25 Concentration is nothing to sneeze at. I wish there was an easy way to get certain Stronghold quests. There are some great items there. Man - how drunk was I when I posted this? Of course you can't wear Celebrant's Gloves while you use Forgemaster's Gloves - sorry for that.

Yup, they stack. Carry 2 Little Saviors, 1 Outworn Buckler and Redfield (Harbinger aura) with you and your front line has the equivalent of +18 to all defenses. Use the Executioner's Hood on top of that (Fear Aura) and you'll have the equivalent of +28 to all defenses. Edit: If it comes to weapons, everything stacks. There is no suppression when we think about weapon enchantments. Two Whispers of Yenwood would give you +4 CON, two Godansthunyr would give you +2 MIG. What does not stack are afflictions caused by weapons - like two times prone or prone+stun or disorienting (at least not any more). Those suppress themselves. That's the only exception I know of. Even wounding (Tidefall, Drawn in Spring, Persistence) stacks.

No - you only get flanked and suffer from -10 deflection. But you will get interrupted like hell I guess. That's no fun because the animations when shooting are very long even without getting interrupted all the time.

Keep dividing: e.g. new_reload_duration = base_reload_duration / 1.5 / 1.2 So for a blunderbuss, reload time would end reduced from 150 to 83.3 frames. Together with the chanter's reload chant and 20 DEX you'll get near the point where your reload time is below 40% of it's original value. Plus: your animations and recovery time will also be very short. Most people say that this is not important because the reload time is the bottleneck - but you can feel the diffrence nonetheless. All in all the time needed from shot to shot will be near 1/3 of the original value. I think that's this is really good.

After some thinking: For me it's now either two Bittercuts (just too powerful with Spirit of Decay and any full attack - rogues/paladins/monks) or... still Little Savior.

Good point!

Barbs with Firebrand (and Scion of Flame) are not underpowered at all. With Bloodthirst and Firebrand I think 9 DEX is fine. High CON on a low deflection barb is always great - that way you don't have to rest all the time because of low health. You might want to wear either Clebrant's Gloves (gives you Overseeing = bigger radius and Holy Meditation, which will boost your Concentration by 30 points). They will help you a lot against interrupts while keeping your deflection down (the way you like it ). The other item you might want to use is the Belt of Chimes. It adds another +25 Concentration. Both items come from minor stronghold quests.

I can see why this works best without shooting a gun.

Yes, the micromanagement can really get tedious - especially in easy encounters where it just slows down your steamrolling because you have to pause all the time in order to switch.

Hi! Knockdown got buffed: instead of being a primary attack it is now a full attack. However - the Girdle of the Driving Wave still gives you the old ability that only does a primary attack. I guess it was just forgotten - in the past this also was the case with all the items that had "Spellbind: Whisper of Treason". When it's casting time was buffed from average to fast the items still had average casting time.

I tried that build (only the Monsterlash part) on the Bleak Walkers in Woodend Plains which have fairly high DR - and the FoD with two Bittercuts and the "monsterlashes" plus Spirit of Decay plus Scion of Flame was higher than any FoD hit/crit I ever saw on my Arquebus-Quick-Switch paladins (like the Dull Runner who was solely build around FoD alphas with all the lash talents and enchantments). I didn't do any math now - but after the first Bittercut-FoD I just thought "Wooohaaa!". I think it's because most of the time the whole Bittercut damage, including the two corrosive lashes and all the base dmg mods gets multiplied by 1.2. With an arquebus only the lashed would get multiplied - and you only get one shot instead of two attacks. And you have a lower cirt damage multiplier on guns. Don't forget that. If you crit with Bittercuts, the crit damage also gets multiplied by 1.2. If DR is very high then maybe the Bittercut FoD is inferior - but I guess it would have to be a very high DR. Then you should perhaps try to lower it before wasting your precious FoDs on that. On the other hand - you can of course always fire a gun from a distance if you meet high DR foes and then switch to bittercuts (without wasting talent points). Everybody has two weapons slots at least. But I like the simplicity of this approach while losing no dps on your FoD. Just run into the fray and start hacking. This would be even better if Runner's Wounding SHot or the Girdle of the Driving Wave would give you full attacks. Sadly, the first only gives you a primary attack and the latter is bugged. It doesn't do the same as the abiliity. Knockdown was buffed to a full attack - but they forgot to adapt the GIrdle. As they forgot it to adapt all the Whisper of Treason items when they buffed the casting time of that spell.

Of course it's viable. I don't think it's as good a a bow ranger, but it's good. With very high DEX and Swift Aim you can reload pretty fast. You can see the difference best when you use arquebuses. On the other hand you can always go for Vicious Aim and use an Island Aumaua, Arms Bearer and Quick Switch. With Powder Burns and Scion of Flame you should reach pretty nasty AoE damage numbers. Don't forget to wear that unique eyepatch when you burn your powder.

No, they are always faster.

It's about the fact that Bittercut's corrosive damage, including all +% dmg mods and corrosive lash, gets multiplied by 1.2. All burn lashes also get multiplied by 1.2. This results in higher FoD damage than with an arquebus shot. If the target has higher corrode DR than slash DR you are right. But Bittercut will always favor corrode damage as long as corrode DR is equal to slash DR (or lower). With Durance's staff it's the other way round by the way. It has crush/burn. Bitter cut has corrode/slash. This also works perfectly well without FoD by the way. And like the Blades of Vanatar said: dual sabres are a lot faster than an arquebus.

Thanks a lot!

Totally makes sense. After our "Monsterlash" conversation I briefly tested a Bleak Walker like this - with dual Bittercut an all the lashes and elemental talents you mentioned above. The FoD strikes are really... devastating! Way more powerful than an FoD arquebus shot - since it's a full attack and the full weapon damage plus lashed get multiplied by Scion of FLame and Spirit of Decay. And the normal attacks also deal a lot of damage because of that trick. So I can absolutely confirm the aweseomness of that part.

The best armor overall (for me) is Blaidh Golan. Combine it with Ilfan Byrngar's Solace and you are unhittable if you get stunned or prone (+100 to all defenses). It's light (= fast enough) but not too light (has ok DR). With durgan reinforcemant it only has a 10% penalty. You can get it very early and it looks great on barbs, rangers or druids - together with a Stag Helmet or The Dunryd Demon or Garodh's Chorus.

That's not the case. At least not anymore. I also thought that at least on-crit-effects didn't work with blast - but they do now. Maybe they changed that behavior in one of the patches. The Golden Gaze's Spellchance increased with Blast since WM1 was out. Exp. Vulnerabilities triggers all the time when you hit whole packs of foes.

The Golden Gaze, Curoc's Brand and Gyrd Háewanes Sténes are pretty good on ranger, too: with Driving Flight the proc chance goes up a lot (as it does with blast from the wizard) - and with Outlander's Frenzy + Vicious Aim + Dangerous Implement + Stunning Shots that's a nice combo. It's +74% damage with Stalker's Link+Torc and +30 ACC with Stalker's Link. I find the Golden Gaze to be especially good because Exposing Vulnerabilities is a nice spell and gets triggered often. And the two projectiles often hit different targets with Driving Flight, stunning even more foes with Stunning Shots. Not to speak of interrupts - this implement is one of the best weapons for a ranged interrupt build. But all in all a wizard still can do this better I guess. But it's an option if you meet pierce-immune foes or want to have more than two ranged rangers (with Stormcaller & Persistence) in the party...? On A fighter i can imagine that all his dmg mods plus Dangerous Implements add up pretty nicely up to 50% - but then I ask myself: why not use a rogue with deathblows for that (+225%)?

Is there anybody who knows which item has the "Spellbind: Barring Death's Door" enchantment? I just can't figure it out. Or are those scrolls/potions?

But that does nothing for you if you miss.

Look at this build: Bath!t Crazy Works really well with Hiravias - one of my favourite builds of all times. Sturdy, great CC and debuff. Lots of damage for a tank, too. Look at the synergy of Blaidh Golan + Ilfan Byrngar's Solace: not only will you have -50% stun and prone duration, but you will also have +100 to all defenses if you got stunned or prone - because shield and item enchantments stack! This guy is nearly always up and casting.

I'm just developing a Vengeful Defeat build (with an appropriate backstory to explain why he kisses the groud all the time) - and I can only say it's so much fun. He surely needs a priest/paladin/chanter or scroll user to be effective, but the combination of "Barring Death's Door" and 1 health is so much fun. He gets up aaand down... and up aaand down again. He just can't die! And every time he goes down he nukes his surroundings like crazy. You don't need DEX or CON or RES at all. I dumped RES and CON, maxed MIG, PER and INT and put the rest in DEX. Even works when he's totally disabled with prone/stun/petrified and so on. It's like you boosted your revival-abiltity with a nice AoE damage talent or something. And the best part is: the monsters only want to hit him and him alone. He's like living bait which shouts "Hit me!" - and they do! I think I will post a class build tomorrow if I find the time to write it all down.