Boeroer

I think Chanter is a solid pick. But the first seconds of combat are a bit tricky because you will only be able to call summons once the combat starts. That means the enemies will rush to you before the summons are out. An animal companion might help to keep them busy until summons are there. So maybe Chanter/Ranger? Not Ghost Heart because you cannot have chanter summons and ghost animal companion at the same time. But Arcane Archer/Troubadour with Essence Interrupter sounds like a ranged build that might be able to solo quite well and be very versatile.

I think the Dragon Pendant is indeed the only equippable item with enchantments that's random loot. Never thought about it - but now I tried to remember some other such items but couldn't come up with anything.

Summons and Mind Control (charm/dominate which is basically like getting a summon while taking away an enemy) are very impactful - especially if your ressources are basically endless and you can recast that stuff over and over again. Summons/controlled enemies take heat away from you, help control the battlefield and also can deal damage. I have no brilliant idea how I would change them in order to make them more balanced. In this case I think there's a fine line between "feels too good" and "feels boring/useless".

It used to be too easy at release so they tuned it up several notches afterwards.

Yes, you can't send anyone near the dude at some point. Even now - when I place 9 Ancient Brittle Bones skeletons near him he will Cleave all in range (up to 9 + 18!) to death which just instakills his buddies, too (if in Carnage range).

Cool, I'm still trying to slip a few hours into my week in order to play him. Currently lvl 7 in Neketaka. I brought a SC Troubadour and a SC Beckoner as skeleton fuel providers. In the early-ish game having 9 wurms on the field is pretty devastating, too. A SC Psion is a marvelous mind controller by the way. Whispers and Dominations left and right - dominating is obviously better because the confused Brute will flip enemies back who are only charmed. The best thing about Psion is that they generate focus while they cast and recover. No other class does regenerate resources non-stop, not even Chanters (chanting pause after invocation). Just don't get hit. Also brought an SC Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols to harvest 2 Zeal for every dead skeleton with Divine Retribution. Should be able to spam (Shared) White Flames non-stop at PL 9. The range of White Flames is pretty bad though, need more INT/+AoE size stuff. Currently my Brute goes down a lot because I can't get too near with the Pally (else he will be destroyed). But soon I'll have a "+20 health on kill" pet...

The Beguiler gains a lot of focus just by casting (cheap) Deceptions spells. You can often fill your whole focus with just one cast of Phantom Foes for example. The funny thing: enemies need to be afflicted for this to work - but the affliction of the Deception spell itself already counts. So basically you will always get focus, no matter if the enemies were afflicted before (because they will get afflicted in the process). The amount of focus gained is pretty high. So - the Beguiler doesn't need to deal damage in order to gain focus. Casting stuff like Phantom Foes and Secret Horrors is enough. But at the same time he can also gain focus from dealing damage. So he has two sources for focus: casting and dealing weapon damage. That's why I like the Beguiler so much. I also like him with a Barb because the Willbreaker is such a perfect weapon for a Barb/Beguiler: it lowers both Fortitude and Will and benefits from Resolve afflictions the Beguiler can apply easily (e.g. with Secret Horrors). Ascendant is also very good, especially with Blood Thirst later on and damaging spells. But I almost never pick Ascendant because I find that duality of "Phase 1: fuel up with weapon attacks until full, phase 2: cast cast cast" a bit annoying. But it's just personal preference.

Not Furyshaper? It fits Beguiler quite well imo. Barb/Beguiler works well in general.

Basically the attack or weapon have to be tagged with the "fire" keyword to make it work. Lashes don't add keywords to attacks. Wall of Flame doesn't work because it's a hazard spell. Hazards (like traps) are "characters" on their own and don't get your passives, bonuses etc. For example Assassin doesn't get the Assassinate bonus for Wall spells. In this regard you can see them as summons basically. The Seal spells of the Priest have the same problem (also work as hazards/traps). The "summon" named Wall of Flames doesn't wear the Ring and doesn't have Scion if Flame - so they don't work (it's more complicated than that - but I guess this is sufficient as explanation ;)). Short side track: Because of those hazard shenanigans Walls won't break Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure. Everything else that is keyworded with "fire" and/or does direct burn damage (keywords may be hidden) should work. I remember that Dragon's Dowry for example was keyworded with fire - although it does pierce damage - and then you couldn't harm fire-immune enemies anymore because immunities looked for the fire keyword. If that's still the case it should also work with Ring of Focused Flame and Scion of Flame. Also weapons like Sungrazer and St. Drogga's Skull have fiery secondary effects that can proc off of normal attacks. Those should work, too. Minor Flame Shield not working is maybe just an oversight/error with the keywording.

Yes, it opens up some possibilities to play a character with "on-knockout" effects who doesn't have to rest all the time. It's not OP (you could rest after every encounter, no problem with that) - it's mostly just more convenient - so I think this cheese is not too smelly.

Sure - that just means that you have to actively target allies (like skeletons) if you want to use them as fuel for Dispersed Suffering. It can't be done by AI and it can't happen "accidentially" via Carnage for example. Confused Clear Out and Cleaving Stance would work without specifically target allies though. Heart of Fury as well. Belt of Magran's Chosen would bring some weak enemies that can be "harvested" for more durations I guess. In encounters with enough weak enemies you don't need all that of course. And I guess in encounters against bosses it's not too inconvenient to actively kill a few summons.

Nice. Does the killing blow have to be done with Frostfall itself or does any kill (DoTs, spells, Carnage etc.) count?

It's written here. I would have gone for Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak + Whispers of the Wind as well instead of multiclassing (and use Edér's armor with the immunity to reflex, Keeper of the Flame and Imagined Pain to be flooded with wounds during Whispers of the Wind and deal crazy amounts of Resonant Touches and get additional wounds with Hand Mortar/Blinding Smoke + Powder Burns) - but the higher ACC of a Wanderer, Driving Flight, Concussive Shot and also the summon have their uses, too. You can beat Huani with an SC FF using Stunning Surge and Stalking Cloak with WotW - but I guess Wanderer is safer.

There's a potion that removes injuries. An amulet, too. Both are not automatically reviving though. The Ring of Reset does what you want. But it has fixed charges (meaning you can only use it a few times and then it's empty). If you are not against a little cheese you can still use the Ring of Reset for what you want: Get the Ring of Reset (Deck of Many Things). Export a naked character with only the Ring of Reset (from an uncheated game - if the exported char is from a cheated game it will taint all games you are importing that chair into). Then import that character as lvl-1 hireling into your party (opt for "with items"). You can use the same savegame for export/import. It will cost some money (about as much as the Ring costs to buy iirc). Now you have two Rings of Reset. This will not mark your game as cheated and is officially "legit". The thing with two identical items with charges is: if you stack them in the stash - one empty and one full - the empty one will get refilled. That way you can use Ring of Reset three times during an encounter (then it's empty). After the encounter is over stack the empty one with the full one in the stash (character inventory doesn't work) and put it back on: voilà - full again for the next encounter. So you can get auto-revival with 0 injury 3/encounter. Have fun with Vengeful Defeat or so. You can do the same with charged items and all per-rest items, too. Some don't even require exporting/importing because there are multiple versions in one playthrough (e.g. Necklace of Fireballs, Stone of Power or Missile Gloves).

Very Nice --- Hello @Amentep, this is a Deadfire build. Could you move the topic to the "Deadfire/Character Builds" forum? Thanks!

As FF you don't need many additional attack abilities (except as SC Monk you should always go for Whispers of the Wind. I would either take Enervating Blows or Stunning Surge (because you can use it with Mortification even if at 0 wounds). Enervating Blows seems like a waste because FF already enfeebled - but the weakening auto-hit lowers fortitude before FF rolls against fortitude to enfeeble, making it more likely to actually land the enfeeblement. Stunning Surge stuns (surprise ;)) which is a hard CC, enfeebled is not. But enfeebled prolongs the stunning effect on the enemy by 50% which stacks with Duality (+10 INT, also 50%), giving you enormously long stuns. Also the stun + enfeeble effects lower enemies' Fortitude by 20 points. I personally would pick Stunning Surge I guess.

Shieldbearer is good. Besides the healing of Lay in Hands you also prevent k.o. - that's nice. +1 Engagement is good if you want to tank - especially if you don't multiclass with Fighter, Stalker or Barbarian who could bring more engagement. Paladin's don't have engagement abilities so the auto+1 of Shieldbearer is nice. Besides the "don't leave or I'll hit you" effect engagement also automatically stops movement and clears the original command where to move. Against enemies than run on AI this often means they abandon reaching the backline because their movement command was cleared and they had to stop. You can turn that off in the game options but I wouldn't recommend that.

I read that repeatedly but it's not correct. The amount of engagment slots you have doesn't change how many enemies are needed to flank you. Maybe it was different in PoE, I don't really remember - but two enemies at (mostly) opposing sites are always enough to flank anybody (unless there's One Stands Alone or Slippers of the Assassin or something like that involved that specifially changes how many enemies are needed). Look here at my dude Edér who has 8 engagement slots in this situation (Kapana Taga +2, Shield +1, Guardian Stance +3, Blackened Plate Helmet +1 and Reckless Brigandine +1) but still gets flanked from two dummies (who don't even have engagement):

Yes, it is. It's basically Barring Death's Door with another name. Say hello Monk/Shieldbearer with +10 INT, eh? It can also be prolonged with Salvation of Time and Wall of Draining (by the guy who gets the effect).

Don't remember what your exact setup is, but Stunning Surge is a great pick in most cases. If you are using any AoE weapon or Sun & Moon I would absolutely recommend Stunning Surge. If you are dual wieding anything I'd also pick it. With a two hander it depends a bit on how often you crit to determine if Stunning Surge is worth the ability point. You took Torment's Reach before - why not take Raised Torment? Enervating Blows is pretty great, too because the weakening effect does no separate attack roll: if you crit with the weapon attack the target will get auto-hit with weakened. Weakened lowers enemies Fortitude by 10 points and stacks with stunned (also -10 points) which makes hitting with Force of Anguish which targets fortitude (you have that as well) a lot easier. Blade Turning's 3 sec is only the base duration. With Duality of Mortal Presence (INT) and some more Power Levels (adds base duration) as well as maybe some items which prolong benefical effects you can get a decent duration out of it. I personally would take Stunning Surge first - but as I said: I don't know how your character performs.

Yes, Clear the Path is pretty cool. Sundering Blow also isn't bad (but maybe a bit too weak or PL9). The rest of the lot is way too expensive. Especially because you can't get Discipline back easily (except Tactician maybe). I tried to make Take the Hit (with Furrante's Breastplate, Voidward, Cadhu Scalth, Death's Maw and all shenanigans) and Toughened Fury (with deliberately lowered deflection via low RED, Cap of the Laughingstock, Sandals of the Water Lily etc.) work though - and still they are not worth going SC imo. If Toughened Fury gave you Discipline for every - or every second - crit you receive: maybe. Take the Hit: if the damage received would be a bit lower than which is done to allies it would be worth it maybe. And the AoE needs to be way bigger to be useful. I understand that it sounds a bit weird to "take a hit" for somebody who's meters away from you - but hey: it's some sort of essence-induced fighter magic so let's just roll with it. For Chopping Wood to be good it needed a duration or a counter. For example: after empowering an ability your attacks will have the effects for the next 15 secs or whatnot.

Jeez... I read "my wife did pass yesterday" at first and freaked out for a second or two. Man man... good work on the portraits though.

Imo Helwalker is the best pick for such a Monk.

The Devoted's ACC malus doesn't affect spells, it only affects the attacks with weapons (without proficiency). Using the Chromoprismatic Staff to boost your spells doesn't turn tose spells into quarterstaff attacks.

Using a one handed weapon can be benefical in the early game - but in most situations it's inferior to dual wielding or a two handed weapon later on. An imo very nice and underrated thing is miss to graze conversion. Some weapons have it (the Willbreaker and the Sanguine Great Sword for example) and there's also Gauntlets of Greater Reliability. Both sources stack (as conversions do - not additively, but still nice). You can even eat some food for more miss to graze conversion. Miss to graze lets you apply debuffs and CC to enemies you wouldn't even be able to hit otherwise and then open a door for more reliable hitting. Example: you have Brute Force and are wielding a Morning Star + Body Blows. The enemy has 120 deflection and 120 fortitude and your ACC is too low to even graze under normal circumstances. But you have a cumulated ~50% miss to graze conversion with your melee attacks. Now with ever second swing of the Morning Star you will apply Body Blows which lowers fortitude by 25 points. Now you are attacking 95 fortitude instead of 120 deflection. Stuff like that. After all miss to graze means that you turn nothing into something no matter how bad your acc is compared to the enemies' defenses. Of course it doesn't to much if your ACC is great compared to enemies' defenses. But those fights you'll win anyway...