Boeroer

The three bows I mentioned above somewhat circumvent the DR problem (and Lenas Er had Rending). Warbows were also good, but saying that Hunting Bows were crap is at least hyperbole. If nothing else they were better vs. low DR targets. I also factor in that Massuk and Persistence come so early - so there's no argument along the lines of "but the hunting bows are bad until you get good unique ones" imo.

Huh? Massuk Hunting Bow: early dual damage (pierce/crush) hunting bow with only 0.5 points reduced base damage Persistence: potentially best single target ragend weapon in PoE due to the wounding lash. Stormcaller: dual damage (shock/pierce), +20% dmg from Heart of the Storm, cool enchantments. --- Essence Interrupter is very potent. It does good damage (hunting bows have the potential for very high dps anyway because of the modal - and this one has a scaling lash on top), has good dmg types (shock/pierce) and the "summon on kill" part is very useful, too. Usually summons have the biggest impact on nearly all encounters - but they add quite a lot of micromanagement. Imo Bellowers are coolest with damaging invocations because there the Power Level Scaling influences not only duration and accuracy but also penetration and damage. But some CC spells also alse very good with high PL scaling (and high INT) - for example Killers Froze Stiff.

Did you camp in the wilderness? A part of Durance's quest requires this in order to advance iirc.

I would go for higher sturdyness and also focus on stuff that lets you end combat prematurely - like Shadowing Beyond. It is very helpful for solo runs to be able to retreat once you killed a few enemies and come back a bit later to finish the job. I guess I would also use other items. This was partly a theme build ("wizard"-rogue) - so some items were picked for flavour over power. That's not helpful for solo runs of course. If going ranged I would maybe pick Persistence as main weapon.

I went with a Dwarf from the Living Lands (21). Berath Blessings for another 2 (23). Then I get bracers of Ogre Strength very soon which leaves me at 25 right away and don't even need Frenzy's bonus. Without Breath Blessings 21 is also enough of course. A human from the Living Lands would also do. Or an Aumaua from wherever. Currently I'm at 27 MIG without food and without Frenzy (just from items and story passives like from the Cauldron). With food I could hit the cap - but I'm not aiming for that. The high MIG is nice for the healing on kill which occurs all the time - which makes my Brute kind of immortal as long as there's skeletons and no hard CC (but the Brute's resistances help). Another reason to get Mountain Dwarf (resistance to Constitution afflictions which Fighter has no passive for). Getting enfeebled and even weakened is kind of bad even though it doesn't completely disable you. The rest (dazed, immobilized, frightened and so on) is not a problem because as long as you are not completely disabled you can always kill skeletons for healing. But I'm also running two chanter's - and both have all three resistance phrases. So in a pinch I can switch then to that songs and they will remove all afflictions very quickly while switching to Ancient Brittle Bones (to get skeletons out).

Chromoprismatic Staff would be another weapon to consider. It has +1 PL to each of the four elements - which is versatile and good for Great Maelstrom - and the quarterstaff modal can be useful, too. Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon (+2/+2 burn/freeze at night and +4 PL at day). Sungrazer: for me it only procs with weapon crit-kills and/or weapon hits (two separate enchantments) Watershaper's Focus can have +2 PL to Water and Frost iirc. Maybe that stack on Great Maelstrom but I don't remember. The Lance of the Midwood Stag will boost every ability by +2 PL. No stacking of individual elements. This is usually one of the best universal options because it works with everything you have. And casting Form of the Delemgan is useful in any case.

Exactly. I only need to cast Frenzy once. I used Tempered Fury. It was quite nice for the part of the game where I had no Blood Thirst yet. Because of the skeletons it triggers all the time. Edit: eh - I just realized that Temper does exactly the same but with the deflection penalty. Heh - as a Brute my deflection isn't superbad (also have Refreshing Defense) - so I guess Tempered Fury is worth the enchantment costs maybe.

The Many-Lives Skeletons have <50 health (won't scale) which means that Riven Gore one-shots them - which leads to this absurd chain of on-kill effects including Cleaving. Usually I don't put Amra on the top of my weapons' list because on-crit effects are not very effective when it really counts (against tough enemies). But since you will crit the skeletons all the time you will also trigger Riven Gore all the time - even if the actual enemy is tough as nails. Also all the killing triggers Tempered Fury very quickly - which stacks with Frenzy (yay). The funny thing is that even slash-immune enemies die pretty quickly because all the Carnage that originates from the Skeletons you kill will bring them down. I wondered why Greater Earth Blights lasted longer than the other enemies (but died eventually) - I just forgot they were immune to slash damage. I think for this "special" build it's among the best weapons. Engoliero and Sungrazer (nearly always get killed with a crit when cleaves get them, triggering the powerful AoE) are also very good though. Basically everything that has an AoE component (even St. Drogga's Skull!) will be pretty great as long as it doesn't hit you as well. Engoliero's Ghost Blades will hit you - but at the same time heal you so that's no problem. I thought Sungrazer's AoE should hit me as well but I somehow survived the tests with it... But Battle Axes are particularly useful in combination with Blood Thirst and the skeletons because Bleeding Cuts are such an enormous dmg increase while you have no downside anymore (long recovery gets skipped) - so it's not only great against mobs but also melts away bosses in no time. By the way: I'm not using Abraham anymore but a pet that does +20 health on kill instead of Abraham's +10 (forgot the name, white cat). Blood Thirst makes Abraham's primary effect (reduced armor penalty) unnecessary.

I don't pay much attention to food. Have been using fruit for the added healing until now (also works with the +20-health-on-kill pet) and it works fine.

I like Enduring Dance for ranged monks or once you get Instruments of Pain (which turns you into a ranged melee Monk sort of). For a "normal" melee Monk it's not that effective since you'll lose the effect every few hits, Mortification is limited and it costs 2 points.

Taste of the Hunt + Citzal's Spirit Lance is pretty good with high MIG/INT and Infuse with Vital Essence.

The Fury's Spiritshift has ranged weapons though, not melee. Won't work with stuff like Zandethu's Draconic Fury. Also the base dmg is quite low (because they have a build-in bounce/jump) effect. Once you get Wall of Draining you can prolong the shift until the end of combat in nearly all fights.

The behaviour is indeed kind of buggy.

If you go the spiritshift route I recommend Zandethu's Draconic Fury for the late game. It's good fun because of the Terrify effect - and the lashes stack with Wildstrike. That leads to nice melee damage. Of course the spell also works with other melee options such as summoned weapons.

Arcane Dampener is quite bad for a Nalpasca because you get the drug crash and it will not go away even once Arcane Dampener runs out. You have to take in a new drug to make it go away - or rest. The only thing that can prevent Arcane Dampener to crit/hit/graze you is your Will defense. But it is very difficult to get it so high that enemy wizards will mostly miss. You'd need high RES and INT (Duality of Mortal Presence helps of course), Bull's Will and all that. Interrupting the casters before they can complete AD also helps of course. Maybe Rooting Pain can help as long as you keep spending the wounds for interrupting stuff (like Force of Anguish) while gaining new wounds via drugs and damage. Rooting Pain should fire quite often then, interrupting your surroundings, too. Arcane Dampener becomes relatively common once you visit certain higher-level areas. Usually it's only cast by kith wizards (or kith wizard multiclasses). Iirc Elric's Balance Polishing Mod fixes this in a way that after Arcane Dampener runs out the crash will get removed, too (as one would assume). This would help.

Yes, stairs etc. really mess up the aiming. It's because there aren't really stairs. It's just a lovely flat background that gives the illusion of elevation.

Sorry, I'd rather not be involved in any challenges.

He is not.

Theurge is fine.

Yes, if you have it it's a great cannon. Getting it depends on your choices in PoE though. I also use Vaillian Hullbreakers. Very fast and lots of damage. The poor range is not a big problem with Master Cannoneers against bigger ships because the ACC penalty is countered by the defense penalty of the bigger ships and the cannoneers bonuses. Usually I go with 2 Hullbreakers and 2 Royal Bronzers. At the beginning four Iron Thunderers are also quite fine imo.

I always only use the starting Sloop. It's good because it only takes one turn to jibe so your rate of firing is perfect for Royal Bronzers (5 rounds: fire one side, jibe, hold position, fire, jibe, fire other side and so on). So no need to spend money on a new ship. Better to just upgrade stuff like cannons and hull (if you are not taking the Berath Blessings for hull + sail I would recommend to spend the money on the Red Dream hull in Dunnage ti make your Sloop really sturdy).

When it's about the best weapon category (not necessarily the best unique weapon) for a Brute I would always say Morning Star. Dual damage, good base PEN and the Brute Force/Spirit Frenzy synergy etc. is really cool - but it is really nice right from the start, too. Just because Knockdown/Mule Kick target Fortitude instead of Deflection. That makes hitting some tough enemies so much easier right away.

You need to sink the ship of Fyrgist at the Black Isles. Forget boarding it early. It's quite high level but you can do it as soon as you have two master cannoneers (four stars). With a bit of luck there will be a special event (below deck members injured, flooding, fire etc.) that will force the enemy to reassign crew instead of firing at you. If you can repeat that ofen enough you can take out the ship very early on. Or use Berath Blessings to get the master sailors and the upgraded hull & sails right away. It's also possible to just take the "money" blessings and then put good stuff and crew on your ship first. Master cannoneers (who do special events that block the enemy's offensive actions) and good (not too slow) cannons and a decent hull as backup make it rel. easy to sink way overleveled ships - which in turn brings very expensive loot which you otherwise wouldn't get so soon. This can be sold. That's a very good investment of the starting money imo. With master cannoneers and decent cannons you can get Kapana Taga quite early. I usually manage to get it around lvl 6 when I use Berath Blessings (for money & sailors). Sometimes it doesn't work out and I have to reload. So getting it early is nothing for an Ironman run imo.

You could give him an item that gives immunity to flanked. There are two weapons and one armor that can do this: - Squid's Grasp (Rapier) - Kapana Taga (Club) - Gipon Prudensco (Padded Armor)

No. CP makes it so that Blinding Smoke hits don't proc Avenging Storm anymore. Blinding Smoke is a cone attack. Every attack roll from the Hand Mortar's AoE that crits will create a Blinding Smoke cone attack. Removing those additional hit rolls from the cones from Avenging Storm makes a big difference - especially once you shoot into tight groups of enemies. It may even be that Blinding Smoke can proc itself because I often get way more hit rolls that I should. I couldn't fully determine that but I suspect it is so. Anyway: Blinding Smok NOT triggering Avenging Storm makes big difference as soon as you can hit multiple enemies at once. You can use CP anyway and just rename or remove the file that changes Avenging Storm. But maybe CP didn't even change the Stormspeaker's version of Avenging Storm but only the original Druid spell (didn't check).