Natures Bounty

Ok, my statement was imprecise. I was thinking of an off-tank troubadour who uses summons. In such a case, summons plus your main tank will most likely stand closer the the horde of enemies than the chanter. E.g. in my current playthrough with such a chanter, I just don't hit enough foes with "thrice was she wronged" that it feels overwhelming. But I can see that it's like a lightning festival if you're standing at the very frontline and manage to get maximum usage out of the aoe cone. Sure, there is such a thing as PL-scaling, yet in the case described above, my subjective impression is that the summons and casts on the higher AL are often (not always) more effective than the invocations on lower levels, despite PL scaling, even if you adjust for phrase cost. It depends a lot on your playstyle of course. Inronically, two of the three Lvl 1 invocations that I find most effective throughout the whole game are Hel-Hyraf and Not felled by the axe, although their effects on AR do not scale with PL (the third being the thunder rolled, mainly because it debuffs fortitude but targets reflex, but its effect is more situational). I don't see summons as a damage dealers either. They are a tool of controlling the fight, buying time, soaking damage and a whole lot of other things like doing damage. And as I said, the main question is whether you want to play with summons or not. Experienced players will tend to find that boring. But it's difficult to deny that it's also effective. If you're the off-tank, choose the concentration passive (plus maybe summoning passive) and initiate the fight with a different character, not the chanter, interrupts won't be a problem despite the high casting times.

I don't agree on the summons part here, at least not generally. The early level summons are quite bad indeed, and I wouldn't take the skellies either. However, mid- to high-level summons are very strong and will make a difference in almost every fight. It's more about the question whether you like playing with summons, not whether they are powerful. Thrice was she wronged and its upgrade are very strong in the early game, but I feel it becomes less and less useful the farther you progress. You can't spec out of it, if you select it at char creation. So I would select Hel Hyraf at char creation, pick up thrice was she wronged as soon as you lvl up, later on spec out. Concerning attributes, I think that you can't go wrong with maxing INT, leaving RES, CON and DEX at 10, put rest into PER and MIG depending on whether you focus on debuffs (PER over MIG) or damage ans healing (MIG over PER). If you play with summons, you don't need as mich deflection, and as a chanter you have access to all 6 inspiration types or affliction immunities that allow to counter every single affliction type (at least theoretically, you could be e.g. paralyzed before being able to counter that, of course). You don't need more than 10 RES, imo.

With Eder as main tank, you should be fine. I'm on a playthrough with Eder as main tank SC fighter, SC troubadour off-tank with versatility plus 3 casters. Works very well on potd. Medium shield should suffice for your chanter, you lose quite a bit of accuracy with large shields and the medium shield modal is quite good, too. Eder wears two-handed weapons like willbreaker btw. Refreshing defense plus the recovery passive are usually enough alongside situational party heals to keep him alive, wearing medium armor. But that's mainly true from mid- to endgame. In the early game, you might need more armor, a shield, etc.

Could you tell whether it's important to you in terms of roleplay that your MC is a classic main tank? By classic main tank I mean a char that is the first to step into the way of your opponents, engage multiple foes and soak up a lot of melee damage. Because if you want that, a SC Troubadour will have quite some problems to fill this role in combat. You will lack engagement slots, HP and possibly defenses to do that, no matter what your attributes look like. In that case, I would suggest mutliclassing with fighter, or choose arcane knight, herald, etc. as your class. If you are not set on the main tank role, a SC Troubadour is a great choice, as you can improve and buff the overall tankiness and survivability of your whole party in multiple ways and play an off-tank role. If you switch on brisk recitation, both the phrases "many lives pass by" as well as "her courage thick as steel" are very good defensively. The latter protects your party with a 10 HP damage shield every 3 seconds. There is that invocation and it's upgrade ("nor felled by the axe") that grant +4 AR to pierce, slash, fire and shock damage in a cone. It is often overlooked, but strong in many situations. As Boeroer already pointed out, AR is quite important, summons, of course, very helpful too. If you go that route with "thick as steel" or "many lives pass by", you could even dump MIG, as long as you don't focus on healing or direct damage, or scrolls. Both phrases soak a lot of any kind of damage so that you need much less healing. And instruments of death will do quite some damage anyways. If you want to heal, I would switch off brisk recitation in order to overlap ancient memory and merci and kindness phrases. You'll cast less invocations then. If you want to play a "lazy" MC with little micro and only basic scripts, a SC Troubadour can also dump DEX in my opinion. Just insta-summon instruments of death at the beginning of fights, and let summons and your phrases do the rest. You can auto-attack, maybe a scroll here and there (high arcana can be nice on chanters, but don't drop MIG then). In any case, I would say PER is more important than DEX as troubadours are not the fastest, but among the most steady casters instead. After casting an invocation, you will have to wait for phrases to fill up again anyways and your weapon damage will most likely be negligible ...so why invest into less recovery or more speed? Rather be sure to hit your opponents.

Thanks, I was quite blind in that regard. Tbh I didn't even think of chanter invocations as spells. I realize that I should maybe have a look into spell reflection mechanics, what can be reflected or not. Also a good point, thx! I was not aware that Eld Nary can turn against me even if the casting party member gets confused after casting the invocation. I've been searching for downsides of Eld Nary, it seemed too good with the high base damage, number of jumps, high base penetration. That's quite a big disadvantage, actually. The strange thing is, I cast so many spells in that fight (SC wizard, SC Priest, SC Chanter and SC Cipher), but I did not take much damage until I hit myself with Eld Nary and that was probably 45 to 60sec into the fight. I mean it seems likely that a spell reflection was the cause why it hit my party members, but still, if it was, I seems also likely that I got hit by reflected missile salvos and so on (and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed that by insta-dying ). But it is still possible, as I instantly engaged Nemnok with a SC fighter whose abilities probably don't get reflected. Or do AoE spells not get reflected because they do not directly aim at an enemy? E.g. can Minolettas missile salvos not be reflected, whereas mental binding can because it directly aims an enemy (plus has an aoe around the aimed target)?

Hey guys, I seem to have hit myself or one of my party members in up to three different encounters with Old Nary's Curse now. I wonder whether that was an intentional part of its mechanics or just buggy. It's difficult for me to tell, because last time it happened was the fight with Nemnok, and the battlefield got so crowded, and there was tons of spell effects and afflictions so that I had a hard time of keeping track of everything that was going on. The combat log and the afflictions tooltip showed that my MC got hit by an empowered Eld Nary's Curse (maaaan, I hits like a truck). The previous time that happened, I saw the Curse wandering from one enemy to the other, but I ran into its way and that seemed to trigger a hit on my party member. Therefore I assume that this spell only hits your own party when you unluckily get into its way, and that this is intended by the devs although not mentioned in the spell description. But I'm not sure at all. Do you know what is going on there? Charmed or dominated party members might get hit as well, but that is expectable given game mechanics and was not the case for any of my party members in the Nemnok fight.

The game is not perfect and I love it. And, not but. After all, the multiclassing system (well, dualclassing actually) is quite balanced and that is a great accomplishment, really difficult to achieve. It's simply beautiful to be able to play a Psion or Beguiler / Priest of Wael (ok, that feels like a multiclass :-)) Even more so, I remember some points in the game when I got really enthusiastic because of the intense atmosphere, e.g. Evon Dwer in Beast of Winter. So for me, there are enough highlights in the game that I can forget about bugs etc. I can say that although I was so sceptical about PoE II that I touched it only after the 5.0 patch.

Let me add that the Aspirant's Mark talent is very valuable in the early game (debuffs enemies for -8 deflection an -8 reflex once per encounter). Combined with Inspiring Radiance, you will hit much more often. You can pick it with any char one even levels. I like to pick it with Kana on lvl 2 or 4. Let Kana chant only the phrase "at the sight of their comrades". That gives you up +20 fortitude when phrases overlap, so you don't get stunned by phantoms or proned by kith. It is much better than the other early chants. Although this is counterintuitive, the early game is the hardest part of PoE1. Strange, but that's how it is. Carry on, it will become easier once you arrive at Defiance Bay

Thank you all for the insights! Really appreciate the discussion. I decided to roll wit Encore, as it fits better with my playstyle. I simply want to rest from time to time. Maybe it's the false hope that Durance or Grieving Mother pop up and and bring up some weird discussion ;-). Jokes aside, I just don't have the meta knowledge to go for specific bonuses in a no rest run. My party members get injured from time to time, plus I seem to have a good grasp of when to use empower. But I see the argumentes for Refreshing Finale now and may try it in a future playthrough (with bonus shenanigans).

Hey guys, I've read several recommendations to enchant the Scimitar with "Refreshing Finale" to get the empower point back plus 3 phrases. But I am not sure why people seem to not choose "Encore" instead. I am currently running a POTD non-upscaled party with SC Troubadour, Pallegina, Eder, Aloth and Xoti, Lvl 15 atm. I do not really need to empower (mostly Eld Nary) in every single fight, I don't need that in "average" encounters. But I want a good bonus in the tough fights, and it seems like "Encore" would just give me that: does it not allow me to both summon instruments of death plus empowered eld nary right right away, whereas with "Refreshing finale" I would have to wait 12 sec (with BR on) to do the same? The empower point seems kind of useless to me in a game that does not impose any restrictions on the number of rests... Yet there are many people here who know the game much better than me...so I wonder: am I missing something here? I should mention that my playstyle is build around controlling, positioning etc. mainly at the start of encounters, quite heavy on micro. Thx! NB

Personally, I monk and wizard the most for soloing. The monk is beefy, has good defenses, and his offense is great right from the beginning (torment's reach is so devastating). The wizard is probably the most versatile class and has an answer to all the problems. But that is just my personal taste. I don't like it when fights take too long, which is the case with paladin and chanter (before Lvl 9), in my opinion.

The dragon's fear aura targets your will defense. Choose those two cipher talents that retaliate against will attacks with stun + raw damage. The Dragons will perma-stun and ultimately kill themselves, if you stay alive long enough. I think psychic backlash is the name of the first talent. Use potions of vital essence, defensive and CC cipher powers to stay alive, maybe borrowed instinct to push your accuracy, and a scroll of immunity against fear. Kill Llengrath early. Disintegration and recall agony are also great cipher powers for beating meaty foes like dragons. But as Boeroer pointed out, the good old whispers of treason works just fine (and is maybe the most cost-efficient solution in terms of focus spend).

as you might already know, firebrand is a great melee weapon for ciphers early on because it fills up your focus very quickly. with forgemaster gloves plus that nrw soulbound belt you can summon firebrand 6 times per rest. whispers of treason and mental binding can protect you early on. during midgame, I like to protect my melee ciphers with those turquoise cloaks that allow you to insta-cast mirrored image. you can also cast vampiric shield out of combat on one of your teammates with min RES, but that is a bit cheap imo.

I agree that the base damage of tlp is a bit too high, but if we talk about balance, priests, wizards, druids and the dragon thrashed should also be nerfed to some degree. the mechanics of poe 1 are fun and interesting. Still, they require rebalancing, although they were patched so often. I do not understand why the devs decided to throw all this work away and develop so many new but totally unbalanced mechanics for poe 2. why start from scratch?

I found monk and wizard fairly easy for soloing, but these are the only two classes I have tried. I can recommend both, though. The wizard is just so versatile, he or she can handle all situations the game throws at you (but you need some experience and knowledge how to use the spells efficiently and which spell combos are good). Plus the per rest casting system allows you to drown your enemy in the sheer volume of magic in a single encounter. Monks are beefy and can deal a lot of damage. The Monksterlasher / Anvil builds are good for soloing. Will your solo run be ToI mode, and do you intend to kill all dragons and bounties? For potd parties: it is a matter of taste and play style. There is no clear "best party". The most powerful party for my playstyle was priest, wizard, druid, chanter, barb and monk. But I like to play very micro-intensive and with a tons of CC (I hate to use healing spells). I guess that most other players are lazier ;-) I would say that any combo of the three vancian caster classes priest / wizard / druid plus chanter is ridiculously powerful (no matter the specific builds). if you know the game well, this combo will be boring ;-)

On my first playthrough, I ignored the official companions and build a party of adventurers. That was a bad decision ;-). I had problems understanding certain parts of the story and the lore. On my second playthrough, the companions who were most important for the story and the lore were in my opinion: Durance, Aloth, and Eder. I would not leave one of those three out. They are so closely tied to the main story. Plus I would recommend grieving mother, she has a quite interesting, though a bit blurry personal quest, that also relates to the main story quite a bit. Note that you can solve all of the companion quests. You can switch a lot between party members, and I would recommend that because its fun and diversifies gameplay. The least important companion to me (storywise) is Sagani, plus Zahua, but I would not recommend leaving him out because his personal quest is fun and something different ;-).

In my experience it is far more effective to master AoE CC effects (Slicken, Chillfog, Ninagauths Shadowflame). Because when you hard-CC your foes, they can't attack you, so you don't need defense spells. Plus your other chars can kill your foes quite easily. But that depends a bit on your wizard build. I would not choose 4 defense spells as spell mastery, not more than 1 is needed, the rest is overkill. On 3rd level of spells, I would never choose anything else than Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, no matter the build. It's a no-brainer, one of the best spells in the entire game.

Hi, after running the 3.07 Deadfire Update, I have encountered an already known save game error: when I try to save the game, no save game is created (or not recognized). So when I try to load, the latest save game cannot be found. In the game, the usual entry in the game log that pops up after clicking "save game" does not appear. Please note that I have already tried the following known methods for this problem: - using all the methods described in the pinned post for troubleshooting https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86079-workarounds-and-troubleshooting-4-19-16/ - verifying game cache via steam (repairing was not needed...) - running the game as administrator - checking properties and access, but all important folders got enough permission rights - re-install the game - switching off malware software The error also has appeared right after a Windows 10 update, don't know whether this is important. I have attached an output log. I would be very thankful for any advice! I have two playthroughs that are close to completion that I would like to import to Deadfire! Thanks, NB output_log.txt

The old health / endurance system was clearly better in my opinion. They should have implemented a cross-class talent though, that lowers your endurance and increases health (would have been great for human, nature and fire godlike race specials). Let's face the developer's dilemma: if you want to sell your game, the average player who starts from scratch has to understand the basics of game mechanics. This means: your game mechanics must not be too complex, or even easy to understand. On the downside, easy to understand often means unbalanced or at least easy-to-break for experienced players. If you want to develop a game that shines with balanced and interesting game mechanics as well as replayability, it has to be somewhat complex too, because else it is boring. I wish they would have chosen the path of complexity and balance. Those guys who did not understand PoE 1 mechanics should go and play Diablo....;-)

It is a pity that they changed game mechanics so much. especially the way health / endurance and knockout injuries were handled in poe 1. because that was the best health / injury system I ever saw in a game.

These new items are ill balanced. I would say they are nothing more than a marketing gag for catching those who complained about items not being powerful enough. Gotta sell deadfire.

I prefer prayers too, but I find liberating exhortation and suppress affliction useful too. even if you know all fights, you will not always have the corresponding prayer available due to being low-leveled. and there is the most annoying affliction of all: stunned. there is no prayer that makes your whole party immune to it. by the way, my first TC run ended with a stronghold attack by vithracks. for no obvious reason, the auto-pause did not work for this stronghold attack, and one of the vithracks AoE-stunned my whole party and crit most of my group directly at start of battle. ). I have never seen such an attack in a regular fight with vithracks, but thats maybe because I kill them too quickly because I scared of them...

My party have finally arrived to level 10. And what I did is: note down the total damage inflicted by each party member, right before hitting level 9, and once again right after hitting level 10.So, this is what I've got: I knew that Dragon Trashed is good, but didn't expect it to outdps my main. Actually they were going toe-to-toe, but during The Battle of Yenwood Field, chanter took a clear lead. Thank you for the interesting overview, MaxQuest. If I remember correctly, your mod introduced some changes for elemental talents, e.g. scion of flame applying to the Dragon chant. Is that true? And did you go with Scion of Flame on your chanter? because it would be interesting to know whether you obtained these numbers with or without the fire talent.

the priest is one of the best facilitators for your party - some may say the best. but you can definitely do without a priest on potd. I would recommend using scrolls, especially the immunization scrolls against paralyze, charm and so on, plus the +15 accuracy and the +20 def scrolls. I find ciphers very helpful when running a party without priest. that's maybe because they attack will defense with a lot of their cc powers. as will is often the lowest defense of your opponents, ciphers do not necessarily need the priest's devotions or inspiring radiances to hit. if you do not want to play a cipher, I would recommend a wizard . they also have great cc powers that attack will, and you can buff their accuracy with eldritch eye or merciless gaze if needed. if you choose a blaster build, tge wizard may require less micro management than a cipher

How does resonant touch actually work? It displays quite a big AoE (two circles for friend and foe AoE), but it seems to work only on single targets. the description seems to be wrong too... when does the raw damage get applied? combat log did not really help me there, but maybe I did not check thoroughly. The recovery seems to be quite long. Would be grateful for some advice!