dgray62

Ah, thanks! I have seen that in the combat log, and didn't realize that it was inaccurate.

Deathblows affects spell damage too, doesn't it? Not sure how well it works with cipher powers tho. I think it would work with spells that cause direct damage, like mind blades, provided that the enemy has the two or more conditions enabling sneak attack.

I'd recommend that you use the stats STR 10 CON 10 DEX 20 PER 20 INT 20 RES 10, with Berath's Blessings. You can open battles with thunderous report, which with assassinate and sneak attack bonuses will almost always kill everyone in the cone, and ascend you immediately. Then spam cipher powers, and if you attract aggro, use escape. Most battles will be over before you pass out of the ascended state. For those that last longer, switch to the Red Hand, use smoke veil to go invisible, and backstab. You'll probably ascend again, and can repeat as needed.

EbonKnight, you are right that you can get away with lower PER with an assassin due to the big accuracy bonus you get when attacking in stealth. On lower difficulty levels I'd recommend you drop PER a bit, but not on PotD. Keep in mind, however, that you still need your cipher powers to land, and they won't benefit from the assassin bonus, since you'll be out of stealth when you spam them.

DEX and PER are your primary DPS stats, and as a ascendant mindstalker you want INT as high as possible to maintain the ascended state and prolong debuffs and buffs. I'd recommend that you max all three, to 18. You can leave STR at 10. I'm not a min-maxer either, but you could drop CON and RES a bit, to 7 or 8, and not have any serious problems, even on PotD. Keep in mind that this will not be a tank. The play style I'd recommend is sneak in, ascend via a sneak attack/backstab alpha strike, and then escape (if necessary) and spam cipher powers. I don't think that backstab applies to cipher powers, but they wouldn't need to anyway, since your backstab would be for initial ranged attack to build focus. The Red Hand would be great, as would Essence Interrupter for pierce immune or resistant foes. I'm 99% sure that you can reload while invisible; guns have reload only and no recovery. As for companions, you'd definitely want a few tough melee companions with multiple engagement slots to tie up enemies, like Eder and Constanten as a Howler. Maia would add as much, but Xoti's fine of course.

There's a mod that un-gimps WotEP and boosts its base damage. Might be worth using if you want to play a WotEP oriented build and are into modding.

I've been trying out your build, largely for the same reason as you. I've never really used Frostfall and Acolyte's Frostbite, but I can see that they have very intriguing possibilities. Magister's Cudgel and Grave Calling look great too, and seem like good weapons to rely on until you get the former.

I always take on Gorecci Street on PotD before doing the digsite, usually with Eder and/or Xoti and 2 or 3 custom characters to round out the party. It is challenging but doable. I usually sneak onto the platform (which is doable if you enter from the top with at least 1 stealth on each character), surround the mage, and take him out from stealth. Getting rid of the mage at the very beginning makes things easier, in my experience.

This is a really interesting build, Theosupus. Thank you for sharing it. I was wondering, why do you suggest picking Penetrating Visions? As far as I can tell, you do not recommend any of the Cipher powers that would benefit from it.

Strange. This game is filled with mysteries!

Thanks, Boeroer. That makes sense. Might be worth taking if you're using Keeper of the Flame, but otherwise not, it seems.

Does the self-damage from the forbidden fist curse or the raw damage from Hylea's talons trigger the paladin talent retribution? The in-game description of this ability is vague, and simply says you gain a 5% stacking bonus to damage with weapons when damaged. If so, retribution would be proc-ed continually with this build, and might be worth taking.

Deathsmind, if you search through this forum you'll find a lot of posts on various builds, some of which are recent. As for celebrant, I am playing one now. I am going with a mountain dwarf, for the resistance to CON afflictions. With gear I'll have resistance to STR and DEX afflictions as well, and immunity to mind afflictions via Captain's Banquet food. My stats, if I remember correctly, are STR 18, CON 10, DEX 16, PER 20, INT 18, RES 8, with Berath's Blessings and Deadfire origin. I am using the skald/priest of magran subclasses. The idea is to be able to cast frequent offensive invocations (Her Revenge mainly, and Shield Cracks when needed) as well as buffs, healing spells and fire spells as needed. I dual wield Sasha's Singing Scimitar and Sun and Moon, which are great stat sticks for chanters and fire priests, respectively. Sun and Moon, with the two heads, give you more chances for crits and hence extra phrases. You will definitely want Firethrower's Gloves, Magran's Favor and the Ring of Focused Flame as well. It's a fun and very powerful build; the once per encounter empowered invocations made possible by Sasha's Singing Scimitar is really great. An empowered Her Revenge, possible as early as level 7, melts mobs, and an empowered O'Eld Nary is awesome as well.

Very true. Even though Encore is superior, I always upgrade it with Refreshing Finale, as I dislike resting and tend not to empower abilities otherwise. I also like to keep the one time bonuses as long as possible, as Kaylon noted.

I agree with thelee completely; Encore is clearly the superior upgrade, unless you are doing a no rest run or simply prefer not resting very much. But if you rest regularly to enable more party members to empower abilities aside from the chanter, it is clearly the best option.

Thanks, AndreaColumbo. I also read the accuracy stacking thread and contemplated a build of this sort, but haven't tried it yet. I too prioritize PER and DEX and am now finally playing a modded game as well. I never thought about a two handed build for a seer; that's an interesting idea. I think I might try it; Blade of the Endless Paths is a great weapon, given the reduced recovery time and accuracy bonus. Do you upgrade it with Marking to get the further boost to accuracy via the deflection penalty?

Are you doing a ranged or a melee build for your ghost heart/ascendant? I know that the former is what people typically do. If you are doing a melee oriented build, I'd love to learn how you're doing it. I ask because I generally prefer melee builds.

That's what I do as well. The only time when I get hit with sigil curses is when I am careless, and let characters stray too close to sigils in combat.

I'd add monks to the category of classes whose resources refill automatically in these fights, since they'll have no problem getting wounds. Staying alive til the end, rather, is the challenge!

Such an easy fix; thanks again for the tip!

Boeroer, that worked! I created a community_patch subfolder in the override folder and Community Patch now shows up in my game's mod manager. Thank you so much for this suggestion!

I added to the override folder the four subfolders I downloaded from the Nexus mods site, namely the folders for the extended Community Patch as well as the icons, keywords & typos. Each of these folders have several subfolders as well. Do I need to remove the files from their folders, and place them all in the override folder?

Thanks for the advice, Boeroer. I created an override file in the Contents folder and placed all if the Community patch mod files in it. But mod doesn't appear as an option in my game. Maybe I didn't find the right directory. Anyway, I've been playing a FF/trickster shadowdancer and it's fun so far. I've reached level 7 and have WofEP with the offensive parry upgrades, and I've already seen quite a few foes dazed by it. The character is quite sturdy and dishes out considerable damage, both actively and passively. So far, so good!

Her Revenge is one of my favorite chanter abilities. You can easily explode mobs with one empowered cast of it (which you can do once per encounter with Sasha's Singing Scimitar, and then cast it immediately again with the phrases you get back, to finish off any survivors. It does significant damage to tougher foes as well, except for the few that are immune to lightning damage. Fortunately chanters have good alternatives for those foes. Currently, skald is my favorite subclass since it reduces the cost for this abilities to 2 phrases. This actually makes the game ridiculously easy, in an overpowered fun way, even on PotD, once you get the Her Revenge upgrade and the Scimitar, which for me is usually around level 7.

Thanks, Boeroer. I actually downloaded and tried to install Community Patch on my Mac, but unfortunately I could not get it to work, despite following instructions I found online for installing mods on Macs. So until I figure out how to get it working, I'm stuck with an unmodded game. I'll try this with FF; while wound generation is low initially, I find wounds not to be a problem for most of the game, once you have clarity of agony and Hylea's Talons.