Boeroer

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).

CP = Community Patch BS/BliSmo = Blinding Smoke AS = Avenging Storm HaMo = Hand Mortar FitH = Fire in the Hole KotF = Keeper of the Flame

The Blood Mage regenerates 1 point of health (base) every 6 secs. Not too low CON (or wearing a Greater Amulet of Health and picking up the Tough passive later on) is advised because Blood Sacrifice may be able to one-shot you with too little health. 10 can be enough imo, but I'm not an avid player of Blood Mages. Watershaper has a really nice spell collection. Besides that Tekehu as SC Watershaper can decide almost all encounters with just one cast of Great Maelstrom. If you're not hitting you are doing something wrong with your buffing & debuffing. If you just start slinging offensive spells with a caster who has no inherent ACC bonuses you will be ineffective. First buff ACC, then debuff enemies defenses with that higher ACC, then deal damage. Takes a bit longer but you won't waste as much spells with misses. The more levels the more spell uses and less often you will run out of spells. If you have a Cipher in the party this problem will go away once you take Ancestor's Memory. The power of the Waterhshaper comes from his powerful foe-only spells (which usually would cause friendly fire). Foe-only Chillfog for example is very good (if your ACC is buffed nicely). As Stormspeaker Tekehu has access to Avenging Storm. Which is great. I played him as Mortar Stormspeaker (Hand Mortar + Blinding Smoke or Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot in the offhand and Sasha's Singing Scimitar in the main hand). Every AoE hit roll will proc a lightning. Blinding Smoke triggers Avenging Storm, too (which is very powerful). I used Sure-Handed Ila to speed up the shooting a lot (-20% reloading time AND -20% recovery time both apply to all reloading weapons). Stacks with the dual wielding and Two-Weapon Style. You can't use Mith Fyr for Tekehu himself because his ocean-godlike's passive will clear all fire effects (hostile or benefical) every few seconds. A neat trick is to use Shash's Singing Scimitar with Refreshing Finale to empower Avenging Storm 1/encounter. Every proc of Avenging Storm counts as empowered spell. Refreshing Finale now grants you 3 phrases for every empowered spell. This means if you shoot with Hand Mortar or Fire in the Hole after empowering Avenging Storm you will get up to 8 phrases with one single shot (and deal big damage, too). More on that here: This means you can unleash so many invocations in no time it's quite insane and only limited to your casting speed, not your phrases. You will swim in phrases. Granted: this comes as late as PL8 - but before that you can still dish out nice shock damage with cheap Dancing Bolts, Her Revenge and whatnot and empower such invocations 1/encounter - which is pretty impactful imo. And even without Avenging Storm the Hand Mortar + Sure Handed Ila still does nice AoE dps in between invocations. You can combine that with the Least Unstable Coil, too. You'll get all 6 tier-3 inspirations because every Avenging Storm proc counts as empowered spell. CHanter's don't need Brilliant so much - but still nice to have all tier-3 inspirations for sure. Stormspeakers have a huge downside though: they cannot use summons. But since you did that already with another character and want to try something else - maybe that's even an advantage for you?

Refreshing resources are huge advantage against megabosses. Monks, Chanters, Tacticians, Bloodmages, Ciphers - that's usually the best picks. Cipher has Disintegration, too - which makes a certain megaboss fight a lot easier. You can get to refreshing resources even with those classes that usually have fixed resources. You'd need a source of Brilliant then (Cipher's Ancestor's Memory, Shroud of the Phantasm, Least Unstable Coil etc) and stuff like Salvation of Time and/or Wall of Draining. Some of those classes also can refresh resources easily with some tricks - for example a SC Berserker can kill his Chanter buddies summons "accidentally" and will gain Rage from Blood Surge - or a SC Paladin can get Zeal when a summon dies (no matter who kills it). You can easily combine both. Other classes might be able to refund resources often enough - like a dual wielding SC Rogue with enough Guile so that Gambit has a 100% hit-to-crit conversion (do not graze though...). But generally speaking the classes I mentioned first have a clear advantage. If you are not against some cheesy tactics you can use the Strand of Favor trick to extend all buffs on you eternally (including Brilliant) which levels this general imbalance.

Yes, it was always like this. I guess you only realize that it's a problem if you a) invest some playtime with WoTEP, b) meticulously try to aim with the cone in order to catch as many enemies as possible (meaning: not much AI use) and c) pay attention to the combat log or the numbers on the screen. I guess during playtesting this combo wasn't too common and also players really have to be bothered by a behavior to report it. For example I knew about this rel. early but maybe didn't think it was worth reporting it - like... subconsciously. I even kind of forgot about it - since I mainly use the WotEP as parrying tool and not as an AoE dmg tool.

All megabosses - besides having absurd stats - have specific "tricks" and it's very hard (I'd say almost impossible) to kill all of them without figuring out what makes them special. So... without any meta-knowledge you are bound to fail. Even the thing that usually always works as long as there's space (use an Assassin and apply Gouging Strike + True Love's Kiss, then retreat and get a coffee) won't work against all megabosses because of those special things they have/do.

No really bugged, but implemened a bit weirdly so that visual cone AoE indicator can be misleading. It shows you the cone where it would be if you really hit the enemy in that particular angle you aimed for. But once the "real" attack and the AoE proc happens the cone will be aligned in a way that its center line would be a straigt line from your char's center point to the target center point. And this might place the cone AoE a bit differently than the indicator showed when you were choosing the target (clicking slightly left or right to the center point of the initial target to make the indicator "hit" the other enemies behind it). Unlike other cone attacks such as invocations, the cone of the WotEP is not bound to the ground but to the enemy you pick. And once you picked that enemy as target the game will use the center of that enemy's circle as anchor point, not where you clicked. But the visual cone indicator used the point where you clicked. It's not a great implementation of course - but I guess nobody really noticed before (and long after) release. Some cone-shaped cipher powers that have to have an enemy as initial target have the same "problem". But often there the cone indicator gets "centered" once you picked your target iirc. WotEP's cone indicator doesn't do this unfortunately. Clear Out/Clear the Path would have the same problem as well - but they have no indicator VFX in the first place so you won't get deceived. I made a quick drawing to explain it a bit better: The best solution to not "trick yourself" with the cone indicator is to pick your target right in the middle of its circle (see red X in the bottom pic). Moving a bit left and right just to bring the indicator to touch other enemies (see red X in the upper pic) won't work. Instead, if you need the cone to move a little bit to the left and right, just move your character accordingly. This might be a problem with disengagement attacks - another reason why I recommend Nomad's Brigandine (immunity to disengagement attacks) when you use WotEP - not only when you enchant it with Offensive Parry (but mostly).

Complicated because what scenario. But in general I'd say there's not much that tops the combined dmg bonuses of a Marauder. Maybe if you take a Devoted and average the damage over several attacks (not only the one from stealth/invisibility) and use Clear Out - because the initial target of Clear Out gets hit twice. Which is a 100% multiplicative boost for the action. But in general I'd say it's difficult to pile up so many dmg bonuses (for more than one attack I mean) as a flanked & bloodied Berserker/Streetfighter Marauder, especially when using Barbaric Blow with a dual weapon setup and Blooded + Bloody Slaughter. You have to crit though to make it really good. And of course you'll also get knocked out a lot... I have played some Brutes in the past and they are just more reliable. Especially on PotD where higher ACC and even graze-to-hit is more important. Marauders start strong right away with the damage output though so I think they are more fun for most people. My current Brute + Amra is top of the food chain when it comes to melee damage so far (not counting Grave Calling stuff) and he's not too squishy - but that's because I cheese a bit with skeletons summons to trigger all the on-kill goodies such as Multi-Cleaving and Blood Thirst and so on. Without summons he would just be an ordinary Brute with more sturdyness but less dmg output as a Marauder. And the skelly-trick would also work with a Berserker/Rogue no problem (no cleave though which is kind of the trick).