dgray62

You make a good point, thelee. The big challenge with FF is the need for very high resolve, which is exactly the opposite of most builds in which resolve dumped. While you can make a nice combo of FF and rogue, as Haplok has done, perhaps the ideal pure melee build for FF is FF/steel garrote votary, due to the extra defensive perks and healing on the paladin side, and the fantastic synergy between the two subclasses. But the nice thing about the FF/trickster is you can keep STR on the lowish side, which gives you extra points to put into RES.

Thelee, I am almost positive that you can get the rare gems without loaded pockets. I almost always take this blessing now, but I didn't used to do so, and I recall getting Adra Ban and Sapphires occasionally. Loaded pockets seems to give you a greater chance for extra loot as well as the low level items, which are great early game and then just a source of extra cash. My experience too is that when you lack enough SoH to steal an object, it is almost always a dagger or stiletto, which aren't worth much anyway.

Ouch, that's a bad bug!

Pickpocketing is worth the effort IMO, considering that you don't need much of an investment in skill points, at least if you are in a party. No need to bother for solo play, since you'll have more than enough resources. Even if you don't have the Loaded Pockets blessing, it's worth it for the extra cash and the occasional rare gem (including Adra Ban and Sapphire). But it's a more profitable use of time if you have the Loaded Pockets blessing.

Yet sometimes you can pickpocket daggers or stilettos, of regular or fine quality. They take more points of SoH to pickpocket than coins, gems or drugs. I've never seen any other weapons appearing as loot. And while you cannot pickpocket armor, you can get gear (bracers, gloves, necklaces), etc., at least if you have selected "loaded pockets" among Berath's Blessings. And everyone can steal Deltro's Cage Helm straight off the head of Ezzali Bardatto, and it doesn't take too much SoH, strangely enough. But you have to kill her to get her armor and weapon.

Did you retrain right before doing this? I have discovered that when you retrain a chanter the old chants disappear. You have to go back into your chant book and re-establish them. Until you do this, you won't chant at all and thus won't gain any phrases.

You can get Shrimp's ring with minimal stealth. Just go into stealth on the upper floor of the Queen's Berth and have your character with the most SoH at the back of the group. Exit via the door to the south that opens on the balcony where Shrimp stands. Pause the game as soon as the new location loads. Your character at the back will be right next to shrimp in stealth, and can easily pick pocket him if you hit pause before s/he goes out of stealth. Figured this out after much trial and error trying to pick his pocket right after arriving in Neketaka.

I don't think it would be an option solo, but it would be great in a party for a character who is surrounded. Probably no need if blade turning is being used, however.

Blade turning is great when you are surrounded and getting pounded. And as Boeroer indicated, you might as well follow it up with enduring dance, to get a boost to accuracy as well as a nice flow of wounds while you're not getting hit. The most fun thing about this ability is seeing the hits deflected and hitting their nearby buddies.

The cipher ability Tactical Meld is also great here, giving you and an ally +3 engagement as well as the aware inspiration. A shadow dancer can get an additional +1 (passive, no cast required) with Persistent Distraction.

I personally really like the FF monk/soul blade transcendent. The cipher side gives you a great attack ability, soul annihilation, that you can alternate with forbidden fist strikes and just melt most opponents. For bosses, you can enfeeble them with a FF strike, stun them with stunning surge, thereby lowering their fortitude to land a Disintegration, which is prolonged due to their being enfeebled. Ciphers have some great passives too like lingering echoes and hammering thoughts which synergize nicely with a monk. Plus you have great CC powers that you can use when needed. Don't worry about the soul blade's lower focus; one of the nice things about a soul blade is your max focus increases with each kill, which also gives you a concentration stack, making you sturdier and less vulnerable to knockdowns, etc. Your max focus can get very high, which is important when you later get the seeker's fang rapier, which inflicts a mini-Disintegration raw DoT. The amount of damage it does is linked to your focus, so you can actually do an amazing amount of damage with this weapon late game, while still inflicting great damage with the forbidden fist attack. Regarding your other questions, yes, ciphers do extra dialogue options in the game. And while Monastic Unarmed Training isn't as OP as monk fists, they are still very good, and you can definitely make some great unarmed combat builds using this ability.

I've never played an oracle; sounds like it might be very interesting. A more conventional alternative worth considering in light of this theme is an ancient/trickster pathfinder.

If you go with Kind Wayfarer/Fury, wield +PL fire gear, and use the druid fire spells, you'll be a very effective damage dealer for most foes, and you'll have other tools in your arsenal to deal with the fire-immune ones too.

Fury just prevents you from learning druid restoration spells. There is one healing spell you can cast as a fury druid, however: taste of the hunt, which gives you a moderate heal while doing some major damage to your foe. It doesn't block healing abilities from the other class if you multiclass.

The mod has several components. There's the main mod, which totally transforms the shifter. The net effect of the change it is makes a SC shifter viable, by adding a number of martial abilities that one would normally multiclass for. The tradeoff is you lose elemental spells and can't use scrolls. You get some pretty interesting additional shapeshifts, including the well-known shark as well as Lurker and, if you single class, dragon. There are also some optional mods you can download too, including shifter ultimate evo, which makes the game significantly harder (to balance the OP nature of the mod itself) as well as some mods that makes it even more OP, namely allowing spell-casting while shifted and allowing multi-classes to access the higher tier abilities, and adding a spell that gives you the brilliant inspiration as a tier IX ability. It's fun and worth a try if you enjoy playing shifters. I disable the mod whenever I'm not playing it, because it also adds a -20% experience point penalty which, in my game at least, affects you if the mod is active even if you're not playing a shifter. While it is OP, to be honest it's no more OP that playing an assassin in the vanilla game. It just makes the shifter much more powerful, such that you could solo the game and take on megabosses, as you can already with the various assassin builds. And it's fun playing if you like martial casters, as I do.

The Balance polishing mod also boosts wildstrike, giving you a +20% lash and +1 elemental PL for wildstrike and +40% lash and elemental +2 PL for greater wildstrike. A liberator with greater wildstrike burn would have a +40% fire lash and +2 PL for eternal flames, and then +50% fire lash the next time you use it (due to the eternal flame +10% lash). And if you pick boar form, you'll have the raw DoT on top of that. Would be OP if it weren't for the large number of fire immune foes.

Many of these problems were addressed in the Shifter Evolution mod, which really powers up the druid shifter subclass, and adds a number of interesting new abilities. It's rather OP, but might be of interest to those who tire of running out of spirit shifts in the longer fights.

For me it was the Monksterlasher build. I loved that build and used in in several POE runs. That build also taught me to appreciate the power of multiple lashes. Thanks, Boeroer!

Liberators are fun and sturdy; their high defenses compensate for the druid's weakness in this area. You get crazy healing too, and flames of devotion is a lot of fun when in animal form. Combined with wildstrike lashes you can get some really nice lashes going if you pick eternal devotion on the paladin side. While a Kindwayfarer/Lifegiver is a great healer, if you want a more offensive build you could go Steel Garrote/Fury. You lose the druid healing spells in exchange for greater firepower with your elemental spells. But you'll get a lot of self healing (and aura healing for your party) from Steel Garrote. It all depends on what role you want the character to have in the party.

Yes, it's very possible to abuse this. You can land it on a boss or megaboss, turn invisible, and wait awhile until they die. Combat won't end due to the damage over time effect. You might say its the easy but very time consuming way to defeat powerful foes.

Thanks. I'd like to try a beastmaster or maybe a Berath itinerant per your suggestion, and will given it a try when I do.

Thanks for your answer, thelee. Clearly, the many druid DoTs harmonize well with ranger as well. How do you find rot skulls in Deadfire? I used it all the time in POE1, but have never tried it in Deadfire due to reading that it is less OP than in POE1.

thelee, by "incredible petrify effects" you're referring to Embrace the Earth Talon, right? Is it incredible due to the higher ACC a beastmaster can achieve?

You could also use the Griffin's Blade for the 50% chance to daze nearby enemies on crit. This will happen a lot given your very high accuracy and will protect both you and your pet, since hits from dazed enemies will almost certainly under penetrate.

Since I just posted this in another thread, I thought I'd help Boeroer out and post it here too. Boeroer posted this build on the second page of this thread.