dgray62

Lvl 16 is too low in my opinion for the Messenger and the FS in general. You might consider leveling up a bit elsewhere and try again. If you do all the side quests and bounties you'll easily hit lvl 20 before even turning to the DLCs. As for Furrante, you're dealing with him, a challenging foe, and a large mob. Good CC can make that fight a lot easier. You might want to have Ydwin cast Ringleader and other CC abilities. As for Combusting Wounds and Wall of Flames, I'm not sure if they have a base PEN since the tooltip doesn't indicate this. However, I can relate from experience that they are great spells if used properly. WoF doesn't do much damage, but it ticks frequently. By itself, it is meh. However, if you also cast CW, each tick procs CW. Moreover, CW inflicts increased damage every time the character is hit by something, so if you cast on them hazards like WoF and pulsing spells like Chill Fog, the damage very quickly multiplies to very high levels. It's one of the best spells in the game IMO, but you may not notice this early on, when your repertoire of spells is limited. I'm not sure how CW's damage is calculated but it definitely can add up to serious damage. As for the accuracy of WoF, it's based on the wizard's accuracy vs. reflex. If you debuff DEX or PER (like with Chilll Fog for example) the spell will be more likely to hit.

I Keep in mind that for Wizard, you really don't need to select spells at all when you level up. You can just rely on grimoires, or, if you're not opposed to a bit of cheese, use the grimoire switching trick to permanently steal all the spells that you want. Then when you level up you can always select fighter abilities. When you have to select wizard abilities at level 1, 4, 7, etc., you can pick common abilities like weapon and shield style or the important wizard passives like the elemental pen. bonuses, spell shaping, and so forth. Once you've put in 1000+ hours into the game, as many of us still lurking in this forum have, it can be a fun challenge to steal the spells you really need from the game's encounters with wizards and wizard multi class builds. For example, just yesterday, while clearing out the old Neketaka ruins with a 20th level party on PotD upscaled, I managed to steal Concelhaut's Crushing Doom from one of the skeletal mages/skeletal sorcerers/risen mages that lurk down there. This was a pleasant surprise as I've never gotten that spell from one of them before.

A spellblade doesn't need guile to go invisible. You can cast Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure unlimited times if you are a BM. For this reason, BM is by far the best subclass for spellblades.

You mean "Battlemage," right? Spellblade is rogue + wizard.

No, it doesn't work with ghost heart unfortunately, since the ghost animal companion counts as your one and only summons. For this reason, I think you're better off with stalker if you're going solo and want the AC and a nice summons like spiritual ally.

An itinerant can also cast spiritual ally for an extra summons. The spiritual ally can also spam a healing spell thank gives the Robust inspiration, which can make everyone tankier. And you can keep the summons and the pet alive indefinitely with BDD and SoT. This can free you up to cast more damaging spells.

WotEP can be fun weapon, but I prefer it for tankier builds, like an steel garrote arcane knight or steel garrote/trickster Holy Slayer. With high DEF the Offensive Parry upgrade is really amazing, since it gives you a free attack whenever you're missed and also dazes the foe, which is great fro SG paladins and rogues. It's also a good weapon in the hands of a soul blade, since you can affect multiple enemies with soul annihilation. For a devoted/helwalker, I'd go with axes or spears. Mohora Tanga is an amazing spear in the hands of a monk (as discussed in this thread). Axes are always a great choice too. Since you have high STR you can wield Amra which is great against mobs. When taking on tougher foes, you can wield Magran's Favor and Tuotilo's Palm for extra defense. And fists are always be great for a devoted brute, since unarmed gets the devoted perks as well as your weapon of choice.

The forbidden fist and steel garrote subclasses have great synergy, if you don't mind playing an evil MC.

It would be a nice combo even on PotD, if you made use of Barring Death's Door or the potion with the same effect when in difficult fights.

Thanks, I missed that initial bit. I think I'd like to try a chanter/soulblade with wahai poraga. I was wondering, however, if you were using the vanilla weapon, which only has one additional attack rather than three, or if you were using the mod you wrote and shared in an earlier post that fixed it? If the latter is the case I'll download and install your mod first. Also, in that same post you mentioned that the additional attack was flagged as a ranged attack. Are you sure that soul blades get the concentration and bonus max focus when they kill skellies with it? Usually kills with ranged attacks won't proc this.

How about chanter/fighter, maybe devoted so as to get more out of the weapon? Killing skellies will give you a lot of free attacks with mob stance, and I imagine that Clear Out would be very interesting with this weapon.

Belaranga is easy with SC monk, due to Whispers of the Wind. Definitely the easiest megaboss for SC monks in my experience. As for weapons, as you note, fists are great, as is Tuotilo's Palm when you need the extra defense. But for a somewhat cheesier build you can dual wield Keeper of the Flame and Scordeo's Edge, while wearing the Stalking Cloak, Saint's War Armor and Boots of the Stone along with the ooze pet. There was a thread about this a few years ago. Definitely worth trying. Also, monk fists scale well beyond PL 10. If you get creative you can get them sky high; @Constentin Lévinereported getting a death godlike SC monk up to PL 20!

Yes, SC monk, especially a tanky FF, can solo the game on PotD upscaled with enough game experience.

I beat Doru solo for the first time recently using a tried and true build, a FF contemplative, wielding Magran's Favor and Scordeo's, and using SoT to prolong Blade Cascade once it procs. He goes down very quickly with this build. I beat all the mega bosses with this build. Belaranga was the easiest and the Sigilmaster was the longest and most annoying of them. I've beaten them before with parties, but strangely it seemed much easier with a well-build and somewhat cheesy solo toon.

Perhaps because it receives the Transcendent Suffering bonus to PEN?

I think Meryel is a priest of Berath. I'm pretty sure I stole Touch of Rot from her once.

An ascendent/black jacket would be a great choice for a ranged cipher build. You could switch between Red Hand and Essence Interrupter as you note. These two are among the best weapons for a ranged cipher. But don't forget the other weapons with powerful special abilities that are devastating in the hands of a cipher, since their damage is boosted by soul whip and they build focus for you. These include Kitchen Stove, Amira's Wing, and Dragon's Dowry. It's great to be able to switch quickly between these weapons.

Sorry, I forgot that this was an ultimate run. The hostile group with the skaenite celebrant only reliably appears if I blow up the oil barrel then save and reload. I have no idea under what conditions they are supposed to appear. If I don't do that, the area where they appear, right below the stairs leading down to the lower part of the roof where the god killer rum can be looted, is empty. On the other hand, the group on the steps going up to the keep are always there after I finish the Blow the Man Down quest, but they're non hostile, and if you attack them you anger every on that screen.

Cipher/ranger is nice too, as you can get the highest possible accuracy without cheese with this combo. Ascendant/ghostheart is great if you want to go ranged and cast tons of spells. Arcana archer is good too if you use a mod to fix the lack of scaling for the subclass' abilities in the vanilla game. But as it seems that you want to go melee, I'd strongly recommend soul blade/stalker with a bear animal companion. The combo's nice since stalker makes you both more sturdy, and you have lots of buffs for your AC.

In Fort Deadlight there are several skaenite celebrants. They can be found in the gang of thugs who appear on the roof close to where you emerge from Aenyls' headquarters. However, they only appear if you blow up the oil barrel at the top of the stairs, save and reload. There's no aggro or reputation hit if you kill them. Another group appears on the steps up to the fort's keep once you get the party started. However, if you kill them, you aggro everyone on the open area surrounding the keep. There's also a skaenite priest among the cannibals in the abandoned temple of Tangeloa on the island south of Port Make that you need to explore for the first quest for the mapmaker in Neketaka. There's none on the slaver ships; the priest there is Eothasan, strangely. The priests on the Valian ships are Waelite, and the Huana ships have priests of Berath. If you get the Moonbow that I mentioned above and use it with a priest, you can steal a ton of great priest spells just from ship battles.

This is a great build. I think I will try it after I finish my current run, a FF monk/priest taking advantage of an item (Moonbow) in a mod recently added to Nexus that grants Major Grimoire Imprint, allowing any class to have fun with spell stealing, and enabling me to steal all the priest spells, which means a good number of Wizard and Druid spells as well when you take the various priest subclasses into account. Why not pick up Flame Shield for the nice +10 freeze AR? It would also give you extra burn retaliation when hit.

Perfect for the theme would be a death godlike berserker/helwalker. Just have a priest companion to cast Barring Death's Door.

A FF monk/priest of Berath would be fun and fitting as well.

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. It does work with the CP mod, which I use. I haven't tried doing this in an unmodded game, but I expect the wizard keywords would block this.

You can't, if it's from your class. So an evoker can't steal the wizard version of CW. But they can steal priest versions of restricted spells. Of course, you lose the PL scaling when you do this, so it's not exactly OP.