dgray62

Yes, a SC bloodmage can wreak havoc if you steal Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure (with Major Grimoire Imprint and the grimoire switching trick so you can cast it whenever you need it) and cast from stealth. Interestingly debuff spells don't break invisibility, only damage spells, so you can cast ABD, buff up and debuff your enemies, and then launch your nukes. An assassin spell blade can do this too, although they'll need a 7th level spell to do this. Spellblades are also great with the lance, as you can apply nasty rogue attacks to a group that way.

There's a mod that un-nerfs WotEP, if you're interested in trying it out with its original stats.

One of my favorite combos is a FF/SB mindstalker. Once you buff out (with Borrowed Instinct, etc.) you can pretty much alternate the FF and SA attacks. By mid game you'll do so much damage with the former that the latter will land very hard as well. You just have to max RES to keep the FF curse short enough (under 3 seconds) so that you can just spam this combo. You'll one hit mobs, and tougher (non-boss) foes will often go down after the second SA hit. But TBH it's so good it gets a tad boring.

Isn't this a bug found in some but not all versions of the game? I have read about others encountering this in the past, but I have never had item buffs persist when the item is unequipped, except of course the +damage "curse" from the Red Hand.

You can also get antlers as random loot when searching wizard towers, and you'll also get a few antlers in the scripted encounter in the forest near Neketaka, in which you also get Frostseeker. I don't recall ever getting them from monster kills.

Of course, you can always disable the BPM nerfs if you want to play a build that was heavily impacted by them, like Blood Mage. @Elric Galadkindly separated BPM into the buffs and nerfs packages, enabling one to use one or both as you wish.

Or try a Corpse Eater/Shifter for a werewolf character.

I second @Not So Clever Hound's recommendations. FF is a common abbreviation in this forum for the Forbidden Fist monk subclass. It features a very powerful attack, the Forbidden Fist attack, which enfeebles your foes, reducing their health and preventing them from healing. This attack provides a curse which causes you damage over time, but heals you and gives you a wound when it expires. The key to the subclass is having extremely high resolve, which causes the curse to expire extremely quickly so it heals you for more than it harms, allowing you to spam the FF attack and quickly gain wounds. However, the subclass works best if you use the Community Patch mod, which turns the FF attack into a weapon attack rather than a spell-like ability. If you use mods, by the way, there's a mod that allows you to play as a Fampyr.

Does this work with Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and Enervating Terror spells? One would hope that LUC would proc every time an enemy is terrified, sickened, etc.

Yes, you can use it with a weapon in your main hand or just your fist. It counts as an unarmed strike so it benefits from Transcendent Suffering, which makes it the best shield in the game if you're a monk, since bashing shields otherwise do not scale with damage, ACC or PEN, and thus quickly become mediocre weapons. It also benefits from BOTH the weapon and shield and dual wielding talents, so it's worth taking both. For a monk, you'll definitely want the Balanced Shield upgrade, since it gives you a great boost to defenses based on the number of wounds you have. As for the other upgrade, it's up to you, but if you play on PotD difficulty you'll want the bonus to ACC.

If you want to go with bleakwalker, you might consider a bleakwalker/shifter, and go with the lightning wild strike attack. That way you'll have crazy lashes when using FoD while shifted.

Which builds might reliably tank Dorudugan on PotD? Arcane Knight with Rekhvu's scorched cape?

Thanks! It seems that this was a case in which the nerf went too far, since it made poisons virtually useless.

So poisons don't benefit from accuracy of the weapon attack to which they are applied, right? If they did they'd surely be worth using.

It may be that Aloth had a spell that must be cast in melee, like Shocking Grasp, and the AI was making him approach mobs to cast it. If so, you might want to remove spells like that from his AI, and then equip him with a wand or scepter and shield, so that he keeps his distance.

You can also regularly get pyrite and other gems (including adra ban and sapphire when you are higher level, which are otherwise very rare) by pickpocketing people in towns like Port Made, Neketaka, etc. It's always wothwhile to invest in a few points of sleight of hand and max stealth for a single character to do this. It's particularly worthwhile if you invest in the Loaded Pockets Berath's Blessing. In the theme of this post, I must admit that I after playing for years I still have only the vaguest idea of how poisons work. I know that they are boosted by alchemy, but the few times I tried using them with melee characters nothing seemed to happen. Am I missing something, or are they as meh as they appear to be?

Blooded is very useful for Berserkers. Not only will a berserker likely be bloodied frequently and thus benefit from the damage boost, but the Blooded indicator will let you know when the char is below 50% health. But it's not worth taking IMO for other subclasses. As for Crushing Blow, I never take it, since the potential resource recover from barbaric smash is much better IMO.

They are the places where you find wandering spirits that you can interact with. They include the beach where you wash up after the opening ship battle, Vilario's Rest, Gorecci Street and the Digsite. If you plan on recruiting Xoti, bring her along when you go to the latter two of these sites, and go back to Vilario's Rest with her. She can also interact with spirits at other places where you encounter them, such as the second level of Oathbinder's Sanctum. I think that just interacting with spirits in these opening areas is sufficient to move her quest along. You'll also need to talk with her periodically.

So enchanters, BMs and vanilla wizards can steal the conjure familiar spell with minor imprint? Nice find!

Yes, it's definitely viable. Assassin builds are among the easiest to play solo, but work in a party too. You'd want a tank to draw aggro and then can zip around the battlefield attacking from stealth. You'd want escape for mobility and smoke screen for invisibility. If you use mods, Balance Polishing Mod is great as it reduces the cost of the latter to one guile, making it easier to maintain this style of gameplay. But if you don't prefer this style of gameplay then trickster/FF monk is a great alternative, for better melee survivability. As for the monk subclass, FF is by far the best due to being able to dish out unlimited procs of the enfeebled affliction, which is devastating for enemies, reducing their health, fortitude defense (great for monks!) and blocks all healing, and also extends the length of all afflictions, keeping them set up longer for sneak attack & deathblows.

If you empower an ability with a timed duration, like Confounding Blow, and then reapply the ability before it expires, will it continued to be empowered and proc more LUC inspirations as is the case with spells like Spark the Souls of the Righteous or Pollen Patch?

Assassin/monk is incredible; wielding Mohora Tanga you can one short almost anything if you attack from stealth.

For Priest of Woedica it is a medium sized AOE (2.5 m)—pretty devastating if you can bunch up the foes.

What was the other weapon you were wielding here, aside from Mohora?

Thanks! More potential fun for shadow dancers......