dgray62

This sounds like a fun build, Boeroer. Am I correct in presuming that you would play this character in a party, and use the wisps to distract you when you're not flanked?

You can get Vatnir well below level 16. You could get him around level 10-12 I think. You'll have to fight the dragon after you talk to him, but the initial battle in town isn't too hard. You can then recruit him and leave, and come back around level 16 when you're ready to take on the DLC. With all his cold spells he's very useful again the fire resistant foes at Magran's Fires. Once you complete the quests up there, you'll probably be ready for the DLC.

I have found all of the gems, including Adra Ban, when picking pockets on ordinary victims, without the Berath's Blessing "Loaded Pockets" selected. It seems that gems have a small chance of being found, and you'll definitely get some rubies, emeralds, sapphires and/or adra ban if you do it often enough. Worth doing especially if you're playing an unmodded game in which sapphires and adra ban are highly limited. Also, the chief in the xaurip cave on the island south of Neketaka gives a randomly spawned high value gem when you kill him, including adra ban and sapphire. If you save before the fight and reload you can farm there whichever gem you need.

There are set places in the game where sapphires occur as lot, such as one of the chests in Marahi's Metalwork, Arkemyr's vault, and the Hanging Sepulchers. They also appear as random loot, and can be found if you meticulously pickpocket. I believe that they also appear randomly in the Treasure Troves's inventory on Dunnage. If you use mods, there are also mods that make them appear regularly in other store's inventories.

LND is a great chant, and you get it earlier than Dragon Thrashed, which is nice. It also debuffs fortitude, which is great if you do decide to get O'Eld Nary. I usually mainly use Her Revenge, but it's essential to have either that or Seven Nights for lightning immune foes, as I know you know.

Jayd, you mentioned above that you are using the Polishing mod. Dragon Thrashed is upgraded in this mod, right? Do you find it worth using with the mod installed. It must also cause a lot of interrupts as well as decent damage when energized, right?

Is the tooltip wrong for Her Courage? I always assumed it just blocked 10 pts of damage, but if it completely blocks a single hit, that would be much more powerful.

Yes, given Jayd's third point it is clearly important to plan out what your first phrase out to be, since it will get repeated very often. I too usually end up with two songs, one offensive and one more defensively oriented, but I never realized until now how important the order is.

thelee, do you have any recommendations for songs/chant sequences for a skald? While I theoretically know that you can compose multiple songs, I rarely do in my play throughs, so I am sure that I am missing out.

Not So Clever Hound's Soul Sniper build (assassin/cipher) does insane ranged damage as well. It's a great build for a solo stealth sniper run.

Thanks for the detailed reply! I suspected you might be trying this, Not So Clever Hound, which is why I asked. Given this play-style I wonder if Haplok's suggestion, of going with vanilla wizard rather than Bloodmage, would be a good idea. This would give you the option of empowering the opening salvo as well. It seems that Bloodmage really isn't needed when you have the option as a Spellblade of escaping and resetting the fight. But the big advantage of Bloodmage seems to be the ability to spam Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure for the tougher fights. Perhaps it's worth it for this reason alone?

Thank you for sharing your observations, Jayd. I was aware of point 1, but unaware of points 2 & 3. I don't think you're late to the party at all; the underlying mechanics here are not readily apparent I think unless you pay very close attention to the game.

In my experience it's not necessary to take RES so high. If you wear the various +RES gear and get Nature's Resolve, etc., via a no rest run or the mod that makes them permanent, you can get your RES up to 30 if you start at 18, and then rely on a RES inspiration, such as from Psychovampiric Shield, to bring you to 35. This gives you a few extra points to distrubute back to other stats.

I was thinking of trying a solo assassin/bloodmage run. Do you think that the stats you used for your Bleeding Arcanist build would work as well for a spellblade, Not So Clever Hound? I am thinking it would; you could even drop RES further, since you'll be able to rely on invisibility to stop aggro.

I am currently playing a forbidden fist/soulblade and I started out with STR 15, CON 10, DEX 15, PER 17, INT 15, RES 18, with Berath's Blessings. The relatively low CON isn't a problem so long as you are careful not to stack multiple forbidden fist curses. And once you get optimal equipment as the various buffs (food, etc.) it is a very strong melee build.

It seems to me that it makes sense to correct the DurationOverride bug but to implement duration scaling by PL. This seems like a very reasonable fix IMO.

Thanks. I checked in game (with CP installed) and found out that the boar DOT lasts the entire length of the spiritshift duration, which is 30+ seconds with high INT. And since it stacks, it really is OP, as noted in the thread above. So the Balance Polishing mod is clearly needed if you want to play a more moderate version of a boar druid.

I checked the notes to the Community patch, and there wasn't any mention of fixing the duration of the boar DOT. The only thing it fixed regarding shifting was stag carnage. It must be the balance polishing mod that does this, right?

I use community patch, but I wasn't clear how it modified the boar DOT duration. Does anyone know how CP modifies it?

That's a great point, Boeroer. In the past I haven't taken Enervating Blows for a FF, but I see now that it could make it easier to land the FF attack against high FORT foes.

That is exactly the range I went with when I played a FF/ ascendant cipher. I think you'll be fine with 15 PER. First of all, rapier with modal already has sky-high accuracy. And the forbidden fist attack scales with PL; for this reason, you might consider going with Nature Godlike, and also making use of potions of ascension for tough fights, to boost your PL. With a bit of tweaking it will be devastating, with high damage, PEN and accuracy. And as a cipher you'll have borrowed instincts to seriously boost accuracy when this is needed. You could also drop RES to 18 and bump PER to 17; it wouldn't make too much difference I think.

Kaylon makes a good point regarding tradeoffs. As a FF/ascendant cipher you will generate wounds more slowly than a helwalker or nalpazca subclass monk. However, with high enough resolve and Mohora wraps food, the FF curse will expire quickly, giving you a good stream of wounds. Hylea's Talons will also give you additional wounds. Once you are optimally geared you'll be fine. For this build, I'd recommend max RES (20 with berath's blessings), and decent STR and INT (15 with berath's blessings). The forbidden fist attack does so much damage you'll ascend very quickly. With Tuotilo's Palm in your offhand and whatever weapon you want in your main hand you'll be an indestructible pulverizer, with very high deflection and defenses and you'll shrug off afflictions very quickly, which will then heal you and give you a wound.

Thanks. So I guess the best strategy is to use smoke veil to retreat from combat to regain resources.

Ah yes, my mistake. Thanks, Boeroer. But I wonder if this is worth it. Smoke veil costs 2 guile, and is relatively expensive. With tactician I believe that you'll automatically get brilliant while invisible and playing solo, which would allow you to maintain the backstab/smoke veil routine without running away, which isn't possible in all encounters anyway.

Thanks for sharing this. I take it that you consider the +2 PEN and +25% hit to crit from Devoted outweighs the extra resource regeneration from Tactician, Not So Clever Hound? Tactician would also give you more flexibity, i.e., no penalty when you use other weapons such as Dragon's Dowry. But the extra PEN and hit-to-crit would be especially nice with Amra.