MaxQuest

For ranged debilitator or damage-dealer, Sagani bonus looks awesome. For a frontliner: Eder and Hiravias. Zahua's bonus is nice for a buffer and someone with many HoT abilities. +1 PEN vs Kith doesn't look that great, because there are not that many kith enemies with high AR in the first place. P.S. Ehh, too bad you have to sacrifice someone in order to actually get those bonuses. And I just can't do it) Well, maybe with the exception of... *giving Durance a long look*

What do you mean by multiple sources? Isn't cipher himself considered as source for Time Parasite? That's cool) In a way it reminds of Bloodlust. Which is a passive, but requires a certain condition in order to 'activate'. P.S. I still think that it's weird that (modal) auras with indefinite duration are considered actives. P.P.S. Where do you find this Crimson Panoply?

^ I have tried a Helwalker of Berath in Deadfire. 18/7/15/15/19/4 human, with armor: Aloth's Armor main set: Aloth's Sceptre + Tuotilo's Palm offset: Magran's Favor + Tuotilo's Palm it was okay'ish... but very far from great. First of all I would change from Berath to Wael. Because there are situations when you really want that Arcane Veil deflection vs enemy archers. But best of all would be just to go single-class and thus speed-up your spell progression. Bonus points if it is your main, and you can get +2 to all stats from Berath's Blessings.

Technically there is no max action speed limit. Was getting Scordeo Trophy down to something like 0.6s attack and 1.2s reload time. But that's not the limit. I haven't used Time Parasite in Deadfire yet, but as I heard it stacks (per different enemy affected). So depending on enemy pack you can stack quite a lot of it. Coral Snuff doesn't stack with potions that's 100%. Haven't tested Captain's Banquest. But I expect it wouldn't. And yeap, Mohora Wraps reduces recovery time - that's a different effect and thus it stacks with all [action speed] related stuff. P.S. It looks like attack speed calculator is asking for more effects to be added)

Attacks and spells cast out of stealth get a bonus: -85% recovery time. Usually this means that you can start casting a second spell almost right away.

During beta, Soul Mind focus generation was even lower than now P.S. I wish Soul Mind pausing was prevented by having Concentration... what was also suggested in that thread. This would open up a possibility of creating a melee psion offtank with a twist.

Ha! Caught myself several times thinking that priest could better be single-classed. +10 MIG/+10 INT for sure is nice for a DoTer... but rank 7 stuff comes toooo late. Even if those Shining Beacons deal up to 200 total damage, by level 15, mindstalker dealt thrice the priest damage.

Than it was something wrong with my party I remember needing a lot of healing on upscaled PotD during: - Oathbinder's Sanctum (lvl 7 party) - Giant Grub (lvl 8 ) - Torkar (lvl 9) - Madhmr Bridge (lvl 14) - Naxiva fight (lvl 14) - Neryscirlas (lvl 15) For reference, I used:

"Claim and refusal" provides damage reduction vs melee attacks only. Afaik it won't help vs self damage from Blood Sacrifice) Btw, I've also tried a damage-reduction tank few months ago. And yeah, it was a fail The problem was that enemies had quite a lot of damage bonuses: high might, weapon quality (fine/exceptional/superb/...), crits, and ability bonuses. Enemy rogues were especially unpleasant.

Tbh I indeed forgot about Thunderous Report

Well... hmm, that doesn't look like enough for me. Stormspeaker is not a troubadour to spam Fingers of Daylight (yeap, I undervalue Ancient Memory ^^). And Watershaper is not a lifegiver. Plus what about an off-healer, and who will be resurrecting if Tekehu is down.. Last run, I had a goldpact/lifegiver (who was all about tanking and healing) and a wayfarer/skald (who was healing for 2x20hp every 3s with White Flames). And that felt good. But I didn't have to sustain a Blood Mage in my party...

Btw has someone tried/tested reducing self-damage from Blood Sacrifice? The lower might you have the less damage you take. Plus there is the already mentioned Voidward ring. And also the following: - Honey Wine Hen: -15% damage taken; or Forgetful Night: -20% damage taken - Mouth Char: -5% damage taken - Standing near someone in Furrante's Breastplate (Vigorous Protector): -10% damage taken - Pallegina's Breastplate: -5% damage taken (improves as wearer loses Health) - Copperhead's Helm: -20% spell damage taken, (although there is also -8 acc with spells) - Death's Maw Helm: Being near a killed enemy grants temporary Damage Reduction. - Protective Eothasian Charm (per-rest): -x% damage taken (don't remember the value after the nerf) - Defensive Stance: -5% damage taken per engaged enemy - Cadhu Scalth shield (Luminous Harmony): -5% Damage taken from all sources (improves with Metaphysics)

I echo Clerith's sentiment regarding dumped CON and high chance of being one-shot. 3 CON is too low for a backliner (unless he is in plate armor), and it's too low for a frontliner no matter the armor, unless there are some build shenanigans involved and going low on hp is your actual intention. A ranged nuker Blood Mage, wants high MIG, PER, INT and decent DEX. So it's something like 18/7/15/18/17/3 or 20/7/17/21/20/5 (if with Berath's blessing). P.S. Looking at your party composition Takolin, it looks like your Blood Mage is asking for Wayfarer or Shieldbearer teammate. Otherwise you'll be heavily depended on Moonwell scrolls and Potions of Final Stand / Miraculous Healing in order to sustain Blood Sacrifice self damage.

Had a somewhat similar thought last week: what if there was some wizard subclass lets say "Apprentice" which among other percs allow you to multiclass with wizard itself. You get twice the wizard spells compared to wizard/x. P.S. That would be odd for cipher/cipher though. Two soul whips? Slower progression but double focus generation? And similar thing for chanters and monks.

If you can't storm the place it's better to look for other areas. Once your party is lvl 9 you can clear endless paths to lvl 11-13 in one go. Or you can go to WM, and after it clear EP completely. Generally you go to EP for xp and specific loot, like Argwes Adra on lvl 8, Ring of Thorns on lvl 11, Drawn-in-Spring on lvl 12 and so on.

I think that if used instead of standard wizard, blood mage will underperform under usual scenarios. Because often enough the fight will end before the wizard runs out of spells. Also a wizard can just tap empower and get back half of his resources. What would a level 20 blood mage need to do in order to regain 9 spell usages? Blood Sacrifice 9 times. I.e. lose time and health on tapping. And only past that point, he will start to out-resource the standard wizard. Provided that that wizard is not under brilliant inspiration. Also to be noted that health cost is quite biting. I've just rechecked it, and there are 3 tiers: tier1_dmg = [5 + 1 per CL] * dmg_bonuses tier2_dmg = [10 + 2 per CL] * dmg_bonuses tier3_dmg = [15 + 3 per CL] * dmg_bonuses So if that level 20 blood mage has 20 MIG and wants to restore 9 spell usages... on average it will cost him 585hp. And now there is also -15 defenses penalty vs bloodied enemies. And all enemies at some point will be going through bloodied phase... But on the other hand Blood Mage has synergy with: - monk (wound generation) - streetfighter - human race, moon godlike, death godlike and fire godlike - death prevention effects - throw Barring Deaths Door and restore as much as you want, just don't forget to heal back So there is that. P.S. Since when is Deltro's Cage lash capped at 40%? (was trying some BS/Conduit shenanigans - unfortunately lash doesn't apply to BS self damage) For physical 2H damage dealer I think berserker would be a bit better choice. Because of: - +2 PER from tenacious - having +2 AR from hardy, might be enough to not use Spirit Shield, and cast something else instead. - bonus hit-to-crit conversion - as a wizard you have means to deal with confused affliction - self-dot from frenzy is probably not a problem if you already planned how to deal with Blood Sacrifice self-damage. Perhaps taking priests + shield-bearers? Potions of last stand, or deltro's armor and taking lightning damage? Because of furyshaper's wards not dealing any damage, I mostly view him as a debuffer subclass. Jumps (daze), shouts, wards... and some multi-classing with a trickster or crowd-control inclined wizard (perhaps even blood mage). All that with dumped Might and onCrit items. Tbh, I would built furyshaper as damage-dealer... (in parties where I couldn't get rid of berserkers' confuse)... but only if he had bonus accuracy vs beasts and vessels. Not spirits, since didn't feel that spirits are that numerous or troublesome in Deadfire.

The easiest per-encounter way in my opinion is if you multi-class with street-fighter and: - open up from stealth with Confounding Blind - and follow up with Eliminating Blow while dual-wielding a pistol and blunderbuss (with modal on), for example: Scordeo Trophy + Xefa's Empirical Explication Basically you can perform these two full-attacks under 4s and get to max focus. Ideally you would want to have: - set #1: Scordeo Trophy + Xefa's Empirical Explication - set #2: Thundercrack Pistol + Kitchen Stove - set #3: Amira Wing and while in stealth, decide which set to use. - set #1: is best for steady dps - set #2: is good for aoe; Additionally: the per rest Storm Rune Shot vs a pack of enemies can fill your focus before you will count to 3; Wild Barrage is great too. - set #3: Wilting Wind deals massive damage... (for some reason benefits from weapon quality) and fills your focus. There are additional things that do help such a cipher, like: - ring of marksman - acina tricorn - cutthroat cosmo (reduced armor recovery, +5% damage with firearms) - baubles of the fin (+3% dmg) - xoti's lantern (thrashing aura) - sash of judgement (+10% dmg vs enemies above 50%hp) - sure-handed ila chant - which increases your ranged recovery speed by 25% and your reload speed by 25% - aefyllath chant - which adds a 15% fire lash to your weapon attacks - shared flames (fod upgrade) - which adds a 15% fire lash to all your attacks So if you want to achieve max focus fast (i.e. under 6s)... in 98% of fights you can. The question is what to do after that... I mean except for Mind Blades spam at 0.3s cast time + 1.5s or less recovery. P.S. If you are looking for a melee two-handed though, you can try Whispers of the Endless Paths. Cone Attack and (per encounter) Spinning Assault can fill your focus really fast. And Blade Form helps for steady dps. Don't forget to have high enough stealth though. That -85% recovery time while stealthed is nice and allows you do two hits in a very quick succession. Also you could take a look at Eager Blade. Haven't tested it yet, but technically you could attack a near-death party member (under the effect of Barring Deaths Door), and hit adjacent enemies due to Bounding Strikes enchant. Not to mention that while multi-hitting, your recovery could get waved quite often due to Enraptured Blade. And if you don't want neither of these, there is Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff. Which just provides good steady dps.

4.0 is out, but still no love for Moon Godlikes. Losing head slot for a plain 3x10 heal in my opinion is a bad deal past the early game. So I've made a small mod to add scaling to this racial, and while I was at it, implemented a few other minor changes: - Moon Godlike: Silver Tide: healing value is now scaling with character's level: 10 -> 6 + 2 * CL. Moon Blessed (new racial): during the night has a 10% chance to completely avoid an incoming attack. - Fire Godlike:Ashen Skin: AR bonus vs burn damage increased from +2 -> +3. Battle Forged: retaliation attack now has Fire keyword. Battle Forged: retaliation damage has now better scaling {2..4} + 5% per PL -> {2..4} + 50% per PL. Battle Forged: base penetration increased from 7 + 0.25 per PL -> 7 + 0.50 per PL. - Nature Godlike:Nature Sense (new racial): has +5 perception bonus while stealthed, invisible or is out of combat.You can find the mod: here

Uhh, dunno what metric exactly to use for rating. But let it be overall impact that I would expect them to bring to my possible parties. And just a reminder: this is very subjective, and as Frak mentioned above related to personal playstyle. Also my views might shift as I play more with them. So: Barbarian - Furyshaper: 4.5/10 or 5.5 (is fear ward is pulsing every 3s, and not tunnel-vision by enemies) Chanter - Belower (if PL bonus is universal): 7/10 Chanter - Belower (if PL bonus is chanter only): 4/10 Cipher - Psion: 3.5/10 Druid - Ancient (in early game): 8/10 Druid - Ancient (in mid-late game): 5/10 Fighter - Tactician: 8/10 Fighter - Tactician (if penalty is changed from -1PEN, -5ACC, to lets say -2PEN): 9/10 Monk - Forbidden Fist: 3/10 Monk - Forbidden Fist (with shenanigans): 5/10 Paladin - Steel Garrote: 6/10 Priest of Woedica: 6/10 Ranger - Arcane Archer (early-game): 4/10 Ranger - Arcane Archer (late-game): 6/10 Rogue - Debonaire: 5/10 Wizard - Bloodmage: 7/10 And a few notes about reasoning: - Furyshaper: the wards have 3s/4s cast/recovery time which is quite long in my book. And they also don't deal any damage. So I won't be building this subclass as damage-dealer ever. But it opens the possibility to crease a multi-classed barb based on debuffing - the one who is focused on wards, shouts and jumps. It doesn't look as powerful as tactician/trickster or skald/trickster, but it's ok.. I guess. - Chanter: at +0.5 bonus PL per phrase consumed, it was pretty meh. Since it was increased to +1 bonus PL it is now an interesting option for a belower/evoker - who can cast an invocation, and basically follow up with empowered evocation stuff. Although... if the bonus PL only applies to chants and invocations... then it's a different story, since a troubadour will outdamage him. - Cipher: the sweet thing about cipher is that once you figure out how to achieve high focus generation you can get ahead of the curve. And with psion you get a fixed rate. The best way to capitalize on this is: multi-class with someone who doesn't deal weapon damage. You toss some vancian spells, in meantime get focus, use it, and switch back to vancian spells. Sounds good. So far. The bad thing is that majority of fights aren't long, and you would do better from damage-dealing perspective by multiclassing vancian/vancian or even straight single-classing an evoker, bloodmage or priest. Also, since your focus generation is now decoupled from phys damage output, you can dump your Might, grab a shield, or wield heavier armor without repercussions. It sounds great to have such an cc-offtank, lets say multiclassed with trickster or wizard/bloodmage. But taking damage pauses focus generation. And this is a deal breaker for me. Imho, the could be some additional mechanics, where pausing does not occur if you have Concentration. - Ancient: awesome summons available from level 1. Having such meat shields from the start of the game is really powerful. +1PL with plant/beast spells is a minor pleasant bonus, mainly felt with beast AoEs. But summons don't scale, and that PL bonus starts to struggle vs subclass cons. - Tactician: staying power is awesome. I already used Aloth as unbroken/wizard; and while he had no problems with survivability, discipline was going down fast. So trading 1AR for more resources sounds like a nice deal. The only thing I heavily dislike about tactician is the accuracy penalty when attacking enemies that are not attacked in melee by other allies. A lot of spells he gonna use in my party are AoE CC, and I have no means to melee all enemies, such that tactician doesn't get this malus. Changing from "-1PEN, -5ACC" to "-2PEN" would be great imo. - Forbidden Fist: Enfeeble is awesome. Having unreliable resource generation is not. Theoretically there are possible some shenanigans, like: equiping hostile effect reduction equipment, getting high RES, Clarity of Agony and a berskerker/trickster who would be affecting the monk with periodic stuff. But at +1wound/+14hp per effect expired it doesn't even look that stellar in order to go for it. - Steel Garrote: 4.5s recovery and 2 zeal for a 6s paralyze... Ehh, either lower recovery, or lower cost, or attach a primary attack. Otherwise I will usually just use FoD and LoH instead. As for 15% weapon damage taken as healing - it's a nice bonus. Not as good as Wayfarer's White Flames while using two weapons in a 5-man party context... but it still gonna be useful, for example for multi-classes with rogue, and especially if someone wants to solo, but is tired of goldpact. - Priest of Woedica: it doesn't strike me as stellar, but this subclass has a few really unique stuff. Being able to enfeeble is great; as is being able to disable spells or abilities without having to deal with affliction resistances and immunities. Regarding summoned fists: they are really strong while their double-scaling is not fixed; but after that they will be just ok. So there is that. .. to be continued, if I have time.

I am on the "not gonna finish any soon" as well. As gonna start a completely new playthrough.

Yes Endless Path lvl 3 - is quite challenging for a level 3 party. Iirc I was doing the following: - killing a backer NPC in Gilded Vale for the plate armor (and pierce proof it) - get Blunting Belt - go to Endless Paths (with a level 3-4 party) - clear levels 1 and 2; jump into the hole on level 3 (the hole leads to level 5) - there are a lot of xaurips. And plate armor + pathway blocking was helping a lot vs them. - backtrack to EP level 4. Grab Persistance and Resolution. You can give the bow to GM and the sabre to barbarian. - go back to EP lvl 5 and leave the dungeon - now go to Raedric Hall. Clear everything, and loot a lot of plate armors. - after that was going to Defiance Bay. And getting Shod-in-Faith boots and Firebrand gloves asap. That larder door is very good up to level 5, after that you can unequip and forget about it. Until you get Dragon Maw shield, your barb better be dual-wielding ([sabre + Resolution] -> [sword of Daenysis + Resolution] -> [Purgatory + Bitercut]) with Vulnerable Attack on. Your chanter can wield large shield up to level 9. After that he will be chanting Dragon Trashed, and it's better to switch to a small shield, because of no accuracy malus.

Hah, belower might be actually worthy of being considered now

It happens) Regarding Aloth talents: - wizard: Arcane and Hardened Veil; bonus 4th level spell - general: 1h&shield, Superior Deflection, Aspirant's Mark, Veteran's Recovery (optional), Wound Binding, Bear's Fortitude, Bull's Will, Mental Fortress, WeaponFocus (if you have weapon with onCrit effect), Deep Pockets (if you go for high lore) Regarding plate armor: - you can take a look here for existing armor types - and yes, in the early game there is underwhelming amount of plate armor. There are some NPCs you can kill for it; or do some bounties or endless paths and wait for it to drop.

Yes, that looks to be a different build. I was referring to control freak - a 1h&shield wizard that doesn't deal damage but mainly uses crowd-control and debuffing stuff. And occasionally self-buffs if it's needed for his survival. Specifically: rank1: Slicken (!), Ghost Blades rank2: Bewildering Spectacle (!), Curse of Blackened Sight ®, Miasma of Dull-Mindedness ®, Infuse With Vital Essence ®(good for early game) rank3: DAoM (!), Llengrath's Displaced Image ®, Arcane Dampener ®, Expose Vulnerabilities ®, Vissage rank4: Shadowflame(!!), Confusion (!) rank5: Call to Slumber (!), Enervating Terror, Wondrous Torment rank6: Gaze of the Adragan (!!) rank7: Crushing Doom (!!), Siphoning Image rank8: Wall of Many Colors, Bullwark, Spell Steal / Grimoire Imprint as for wizard specific talents: Arcane Veil (+Hardened), Bonus 4th level spell. The idea is to disable enemies such that they won't hit your party members; and to lower their defenses such that your party can easier land their stuff. E.g: lower reflex for Dragon Trashed and Immolation, lower fortitude for Disintegration, Amplified Wave, Brute Force; lower will for charms, dominates and Shinning Beacon; lower deflection for auto-attacks and focus generation. The thing is you have enough damage dealers in your party. But hey, if you are having fun with Citzal-inclined battlemage, you can keep it that way. 1. Don't quite understand the question That party wants: - hide armor on mid/backliners (in the early-mid game); and durganized robes (in the late game). - plate armor on all frontliners All plate pierce-proofed. Because in it you can almost ignore majority of low-hitting enemies that also happen to be quite numerous (xaurips, wolves, spiders). Btw, if you don't find an unique plate, just equip non-unique ones. As for mid/backliners: - I would apply freeze-proof to GM's armor - in order to make her less attractive for shades. - and pierce-proof to fire-priest's armor - in order to take less damage from archers... and act as a bait magnet for shades. They teleport to priest... trigger her Silver Tide, Swaddling Sheet, preservation items, and are in great position to get covered by an AoE disable from cipher or wizard. 2. Majority of spiders deal pierce damage. Go for pierce-proofed plate armor as I already advised. This will help tremendously vs majority of them, except for Crystal Eaters who have high damage values. Just chain Charm/Dominate/Prone/Stun/Paralyze those.

Glad to hear that) Now wait till he gets Shadowflame and mastered Slicken