Ensign

As I understood it spellcasters were trash tier in the latest public Deadfire build. I would not expect that to be the case at launch - that would be a pretty colossal failure on their part. Building around an alpha balance state for an unreleased game is probably going to leave you disappointed. If anything, I'd use it as an excuse to play a concept that you wouldn't consider in the base game due to its balance - ranged support chanters, rogues in general, etc - with an eye towards synergies that might be relevant in PoE2 (chanter + something action heavy, cipher + physical damage dealer, etc); natural mechanical synergies are going to be useful regardless of the state of balance.

As the original question hasn't really been answered yet - two-handed swords and estocs are very similar weapons. In a vacuum, an estoc is going to generally perform better due to its DR, but in a handful of extreme (but important!) cases the two-handed sword will be better (such as against flame blights that are immune to pierce). The main selling point of a two-handed sword is that it has a couple very powerful uniques available relatively early in the game (the Hours of St. Rumbalt and Tidefall). It also shares a weapon group with arquebus and war hammer, which are also desirable weapons to use on a heavily armored front liner for various reasons. Estoc doesn't offer any exciting uniques into closer to the end of the base game (the Blade of the Endless Paths), and is in a more eclectic weapon group. If you want to use the White Spire for thematic reasons, go for it! Beyond the unique benefits of alternatives it's going to perform about as well as any other two hander.

Interrupting blows is really good for a wizard. Interrupts do use perception (which makes them more likely to land), and spells do interrupt. Wizards have a lot of hazard fields that pulse and trigger interrupts - if you're using a lot of Chill Fog (you are aren't you?) and walls you'll generate a lot of interrupts, which interrupting blows enhance. Don't take it over critical stuff obviously (blast, veil etc) but I almost always end up taking it on a wizard in a party.

You don't need to hit 20 out of combat. Just cast Crowns.

Not sure exactly what was causing this one, though it may be related to buggy code with the 3.07 Captain's Hat. Sometimes the Cape of the Cheat is triggering on its own - I'm not using it manually and I don't think the AI uses it. When it triggers, it gives an indefinite escape buff, and whenever the user tries to engage in melee he is teleported away from the target without hitting. This carries over combat to combat, so once triggered the character is useless. Saving and restarting the game seems to fix it; resting does not. Have not been able to reproduce the trigger.

Fairly easy to reproduce. The 10% chance to confuse on when hit or crit applies to allies that 'hit' you with heals (and presumably other friendly effects). Happening regularly with Consecrated Ground.

To be perfectly honest, if you're not going to micro her powers don't bother using her at all. The value of a cipher comes almost entirely from pinpoint use of CC, and if you're turning on the AI to spam that randomly you'd be better off with virtually any other class.

Slowly progressing on another run through the game, and while I'm pretty satisfied with the different choices available, the choice of whether or not to use Zealous Focus is one I always end up struggling with. The main thrust of it is Zealous Focus is better than Zealous Endurance, no question in my mind. However, Gallant's Focus exists, and no matter my party configuration there are *always* a couple characters with spare traits (Wizard, Chanter in particular) that can easily take Gallant's Focus at minimal opportunity cost. So the choice really is between Zealous Endurance + Gallant's Focus (or even two copies of Gallant's Focus for more coverage!), and Zealous Focus + ...Bear's Fortitude on a Wizard. By the numbers, 1 accuracy is worth about 1.6% outgoing damage, averaged across DR and defense levels typically encountered. The graze to hit is pretty low value, and drops in value as the game progresses - by the mid game, 15% graze to hit is worth about 2% outgoing damage. Most of the value of accuracy is from eliminating misses, especially on CC and debuff spells that push you up into the range where accuracy no longer matters. So on paper the difference is about 5% damage and a 2% lower miss rate on important spells. Zealous Endurance on the flip side has a more valuable conversion in hit to graze, and a chunk of DR that is really helpful early in the game (though it also falls off as you progress). Complicating it is the positional and stacking concerns. My paladins are invariably on the front lines, and on more difficult fights I keep my backline at maximum range - which keeps them out of the range of the paladin's aura. Also, on fights where it really matters I'll stack a scroll of valor in there, which overwrites the accuracy bonus of either aura. On the flip side, Gallant's Focus on a back-liner will rarely hit the front line (unless I run multiple copies). Of course, Zealous Endurance stacks with basically everything you want to cast, as Armor of Faith stops being a go-to pretty early on. Any additional thoughts on this? What have people found to work best? I'm playing on PotD - anything below that and I'd take ZE without thinking twice, but that marginal accuracy hitting a couple extra people...it's hard.

- The custom companions are only 'clearly better' in the late game, at which point the advantages from a 'better' stat distribution are dwarfed by class and gear bonuses. In the early game the experience / level advantage of the default companions makes them clearly better. 1. Ciphers are still awesome. Increased focus gain has more than made up for the increased focus costs. They're just somewhat less front-loaded and get more use out of low level powers now. 2. He does play somewhat better that way, however you do want to keep his armor light if he's to do the typical priest buffing stuff. Consider putting him in one of the special Deadfire armors to make this feel good. 3. Dex does nothing for chanter phrases. Dragon Thrashed chanters are still one of the highest DPS characters in the game, especially on PotD where there are more enemies to burn down. Build as tanky as possible and let the chants do the work. Kana is very well built for that job. - I would argue that all wizards are CC wizards on PotD. You can still burst down trash mobs in the very early parts of the game, but that falls off quickly. Late game, damage spells are celebratory fireworks used in fights you have already won. - Best 'main tank' is generally a paladin. Chanter does the job really well for short stretches, but doesn't have the staying power to do it full time. Wizard does it well too (similar to chanter, very rest heavy). I don't consider fighter to be a particularly good tank, personally (though I use a 'tank' in maybe half a dozen encounters in the game). - Weapon focus and the priest's special +10 accuracy talents apply to all soulbound weapons.

I'd keep scale armor on the table solely for fighters, because the -20% armor speed penalty plus -15% from durganizing push it down to zero recovery penalty. For any other class it's a pretty underwhelming combo of defense and speed.

I end up using Psychovampiric Shield a reasonable amount, as it's both fairly cheap once you get into the mid-game and applies a stacking -20 will debuff. It also lasts long enough that even with a graze it has a reasonable uptime, and the -20 will from the graze translates into hits and crits on other, more important debuffs that carry from there. It's really easy to overthink your power selections - I sure do, trying to optimize each one. However there are really a handful of powers that are your workhorses, and everything else is just niche or stuff you'll barely, if ever, use. Mind Wave, Whispers of Treason, Mental Binding, Ectopsychic Echo, Silent Scream, Amplified Wave, Disintegrate, Time Parasite, Defensive Mindweb - a good 80+% of my casts are one of those nine powers. Eyestrike (early game), Tenuous Grasp, Amplified Thrust, Psychovampiric Shield, Puppet Master, Borrowed Instinct, and Reaping Knives are 90% of what's left. Usage of anything else is a rounding error in my playthroughs. That gives you a lot of extra powers to play with, many of which you'll barely ever use.

The keep study you describe is where I've always found the gloves of manipulation. They also show up sometimes in the chest at the foot of the bed. I've done a lot of playthroughs (at least up to that point) and have always managed to get them to spawn at that table - have you tried all 20 days on the calendar? The loot tables are unique each playthrough as of 3.05 so it's possible you got unlucky and they won't spawn for you. I'm surprised they haven't made any changes to make it a guaranteed drop somewhere. Every other random loot item I can happily finish a playthrough without (missing a gauntlets of swift action would suck, but isn't game breaking), but never getting the mechanics gloves really sucks.

Hard vs PotD doesn't matter, but high level scaling does (increases trap difficulties by ~25%) Without level scaling, the hardest traps you'll find in Act 1 require 7 mechanics, Act 2 require 10 mechanics, and Act 3 / White March / Deep Endless Paths 12 mechanics. With high level scaling you'll see a good number of traps requiring 14 mechanics and a few requiring 15. There's one infamous trap (the door to Concelhaut's treasury) that you can't detect even with 17 mechanics, but you can dodge it by standing off to the side so don't bother. A bunch of the traps in the prologue require 3 mechanics. The hardest locks are 13 mechanics without scaling and 16 with, though those can be opened with 11 / 14 with lockpicks. So I would shoot for either 8 (if you want to use the stronghold bonus all the time) or 10 mechanics base long term. 11 or higher are luxuries for parties where you have dedicated mechanics guys and the +2 mechanics bonus from Caed Nua is more costly to take (dead stats on everyone else). With 10 base, you'll have 12 with just the gloves (which is enough to spot everything), 14 with rest bonus and 15/17 if you pop a rite - which is enough to handle all the locks in the game. With 8 base you'll have to spend a lot more time adventuring with the stronghold bonus up (12 is about the minimum to go into a dungeon blind), and can selectively use rites to open the handful of harder locks and traps that you come across. As for timing, my preference is to get to 3 immediately at level 2 to get the trap XP from the prologue, 4 base at level 3, get the rest bonus from the inn and hit up Raderic's Hold for the +2 gloves, which clears all the traps there. You can hit 8 with the stronghold bonus, which handles most of Act 2. Level up to 8 base before you finish act 2, then enter WM1 with 8+2+2, which disarms all the critical traps. You can pop a rite for Galvino's and avoid the handful of difficult traps in the White Forge (12 is enough to spot). Then in act 3, get the permanent +1 from the quest reward, level up an additional +1 to get to 10 base, and just grab the rest bonus for the areas with hard traps and pop a rite for the handful of 15 difficulty ones you hit that you really want to open. You can of course always respec back down to 8, and take it out entirely before big fights, depending on your stomach for endless respecs.

Chilling Lash is actually pretty good on Tidefall. I was curious after reading that and re-ran the numbers, and I think there's a strong case for it. Not a lot of foes are vulnerable to chill (and a lot are resistant), but the highest DR enemies tend to be more vulnerable to chill damage than the other elemental types. It's particularly noteworthy for its efficacy against the hardest fights in WM2 - both dragons are vulnerable to it. Additionally, a lot of the mobs immune or heavily resistant to chill are also vessels - and the Redeemer is a great second weapon for a two-handed weapon specialist. If you take vessels out of the equation, chilling lash doesn't look all that bad. As for shocking lash, whenever you have a Stormcaller ranger in the party it immediately leaps to the head of the pack. Everyone gets to free ride on the reduced shock DR! I think there's a lot more room for choices other than burning and corrosive lash than popular wisdom may hold.

A bit off topic, but why Freezing Lash? What's the use case for it over the other elemental lash options?

Well, there are the important attributes and there are the attributes you put on your armor enchantment. Usually the *most* important stats you get from other items (since armor enchants only go to +2, and items frequently offer +3 or +4, sometimes with other effects). So the right stat for your armor enchant really depends on how you are planning on distributing your gear, and generally is used to round out holes left by the other items you are using. That being said, most of my armor enchantments are Int or Per. Might is a very easy stat to buff through other means (2 great helms and 2 belts amongst them, which are not slots overflowing with high impact items), and Dex has both great items (Rings of Thorns, boots) and isn't crucial for everyone, so all the characters that really need a dex item will get a good one. Int and Per on the other hand a relatively difficult to itemize for - most of their items are only +2 bonuses, and typically don't offer too much more - and those that do offer a lot more don't show up until very late in the game. That leaves them easy choices to put onto armor. Exception would be if you have a ton of Godlikes, and thus can't make use of all the great late game Might helms. Then you might (heh) want to use a few might enchantments. So, an example loadout: Paladin: Intelligence (soulbound breastplate has Intelligence enchant built in, which makes that choice for you) Fighter: Intelligence (Mantle of the Excavator, Might helm, Dex Ring) Barbarian: Intelligence (Might helm, Dex Ring; Perception also works here) Cipher: Perception (Talisman of the Unconquerable, dex shoes; Might also works here) Wizard: Intelligence (Might belt; Perception also works here) Priest: Dexterity (Band of Union, Might belt; who cares?)

A couple minor things to add: For Wizard, direct damage spells of a given level tend to drop off in power as you gain levels. Fan of Flames and Necrotic Lance are beastly at level 3, but kind of meh at level 13. Use them early, then cycle them out for more self-buffs or CC as you level (Eldrich Aim is not worth a slot at level 3, but is one of your best spells at high level). For Cipher, a little wrinkle is that most of your good powers target will, which makes Eyestrike and Body Attunement relevant picks later into the game. When you on occasion fight something with a strong will defense (or run into Lagufaeth Broodmothers spamming Crowns like it is going out of style) it's useful to be able to target a different defense and still debuff those mobs.

Not a big fan of Gwisk Glas honestly. It's main selling point is being superb by default in my mind. To the extent that I want second chance armors, I want them on the lower priority, durable targets with the res scrolls - as insurance, and because they're less likely to get knocked right back down after getting up from second chance. Plus, might on your armor enchant is kind of meh, as that's an easy one to pick up on your belt or one of the late game helms. Raiment of Wael's Eyes is my robe of choice, assuming I don't have higher priority armors to push up to superb (and even then - 2 DR on a backline character is just not that important). Angio's, RoWE, and GG as your priority backline armors. For midline or melee DPS there are 3 great hide armors (Wayfarer's, Blaidh, and Maneha's) or scale for a fighter (zero penalty once durganized).

Well, as a starting point, the most generic character possible would have 13 in every stat - and isn't going to play all that differently than a fully min/maxed build. In fact, it's likely vanilla man will provide a smoother play-through for a new player than min-max man. A big reason for this is that the benefits of maxing stats are pretty modest (and tend to diminish as you progress through the game and bolster stats through spells and gear), while the weaknesses of minimizing stats are actually pretty severe (but also tend to diminish as you progress through the game). For instance, a pretty popular modification in guides is to drop 10 points from constitution (down to 3) to max out might and perception at 18. This does make for a higher damage character - min-max man does ~25% more damage with attacks than vanilla man! However, vanilla man will have *77*% more health than min-maxed man. This has consequences beyond the simple 3x difference between the two characters. Min-max man is going to draw aggro like crazy, and if he does pull aggro he's going to drop very, very quickly. That means that to take advantage of min-max man, you have to also employ 'min-max tactics'. If you're a veteran of the game that knows the encounters and appropriate tactics well, you can play appropriately (attack with min-max man from stealth at max range after the front-line is engaged) and use min-max man to really maximize your performance. If you don't know the encounters so well and sometimes get caught off guard? Then you're going to be feeling the 'min' part of min-max a whole lot more. I would strongly recommend any first time player to build a rounded character - all stats at or above 10, recommended and important stats pushed up to 15-18. This actually does 'max' your ability to deal with new combat situations. A well rounded character is going to fit nicely into a variety of party compositions and work well with a variety of strategies and tactics as you experiment and work your way through the game. Think about min-maxing a main character after playing through the game a few times, when you have specific objectives, party compositions, and strategies in mind to min-max around.

I like to use Aefyllath as the very first phrase on a Dragon Thrashed Chanter before swapping to Dragon Thrashed full time. I usually don't start combat with foes inside of chant range, so the first Dragon Thrashed is wasted - Aefyllath on the other hand stacks up a buff for the alpha strike before going into full armageddon mode. For stats, you want max Intellect and high Might. Intellect is essential to maximize buff/debuff coverage; Might is crucial for Dragon Thrashed and also Ancient Memory. Perception is important enough that you don't want to dump it (and it does increase damage - Dragon Thrashed is an attack); the rest are relatively unimportant and you can season to taste.

Scepters and Rods are the ones that share a weapon focus, so you get the Engwithan Scepter early, and later can mix in Golden Gaze or Pretty Pretty's Rib. It's a solid choice, especially since you get reasonable options both early and later in the game. War Bow does have the advantage of sharing a mastery with Wands, so you can always stick one of those in your off-slot for pierce immunes (though there aren't any sexy unique DPS wands in the game) - but you don't get the really good War Bows until late (unless you opt to ally with the Dozens). Of course, unless you're swinging at a pierce immune a vanilla warbow is going to perform similarly to the Engwithan Scepter at the points in the game where those are the relevant choices. I have a preference for War Bows on high Dex Ciphers and a preference for Scepters on high Might Ciphers, which more or less splits the difference between the two - but YMMV.

Two points on this. First, there's the ability of an experienced player to 'out-build' the game that increases as you progress through it. When you are going through chapter 1, you certainly have some options for optimizing your build, but those levers are limited - you only have a couple skills and traits per character, and your gear choices are very restricted. Cash is a limited resource, and even with cash basic stuff like plants for crafting isn't widely available until Defiance Bay. At level 16 with optimal builds and picking between all the items in the game, an experienced player can make builds that just roll over everything in sight without trying very hard. You just don't have the tools to do that at level 4, and you need deep knowledge of the game and tight tactics to win instead. Second, the nuance that experience comes from quests, not fights, and the non-linear nature of the chapters lets you pick and choose the easiest quests at any time to level, and only go back to the fights once they are easy. This also becomes easier as you get deeper into the game - unless I have been missing some early experience somewhere, you're going to crash into Caed Nua or Raedric's Hold at level 4 no matter what you do, but you don't have to fight much, if at all, in chapter 2 until you're level 6 with a much wider variety of gear, at which point you can go back and start rolling over the easier encounters to progress. This combination of dynamics, the proliferation of choices, ends up making the game progressively easier as you advance for the experienced player. They are, for sure, valuable throughout the game and always provide a bunch of power tools for overcoming a particularly difficult encounter. I do not mean to imply those classes are 'bad' early game. I will 100% grant you that heavy use of wizards, druids, and priests, micromanaged properly with resting after every encounter, will have a higher theoretical power than other classes, even early in the game. At the same time, a properly specced party of paladins, chanters, and ciphers will just run over an awful lot of the early game under nearly full AI control, and can full clear entire maps that way without much rest. I totally get that if you want to really optimize for maximum peak power, setting all your consumables up and taking full advantage of every little edge available while picking and choosing your encounters that you're going to love the vancian casters. If you're playing a PotD + Trial of Iron game where you need to be super cautious and aware of what peak possible power is you want to make heavy use of those classes - inconveniences like rest spam aren't a luxury, but a way of life. On the other hand if you are trying to streamline your gameplay to simplify combat and minimize dead time, those same vancian casters are a liability until much later in the game. While the culture of this game (at least of the hardcore community that posts on boards!) is very much about the former and really milking performance out of optimized parties in the hardest fights, in a broader sense the demand is for fast, consistent, and forgiving builds or strategies. You can vastly simplify your play and beat every encounter in the game pretty handily without using any of the above - and there's a lot of power in the simplicity of that.

In fairness, the point in the game where wizards, priests and druids start surging ahead of everything else is also around the point where you both start out-leveling encounters and money stops feeling restrictive (AKA time for DAoM Potions / Confusion and Paralysis Scrolls for everyone). At that point pretty much any well constructed party is going to just run over most non-dragon fights. Don't get me wrong, a steady diet of Devotions / Shadowflame / Storms on top of whatever else you're running is still a non-trivial step up, but it's not essential. Ciphers are a very big deal in the early to early-mid game, before those casters come online, with a steady diet of Whispers and Bindings - to the point where the scariest things in act 1 are random Forest Lurkers that are immune to both.

The biggest consideration in my mind is how much gear you want to dump into the character. Durgan Ingots are a very limited resource, for instance, and you're not going to have 6 sets of Gauntlets of Swift Action, and there's only one Helwax Mold - and all the max DPS builds mentioned above are going to make a lot of demands on those resources. I like BotEP on a melee Cipher as it's less demanding than the other options, and still very high performance. Plus there are lots of great two-handers that work better on other classes, and you can ride the adventurer weapon focus to use a war bow until you build up some of the gear to really activate the melee Cipher. For ranged Ciphers, blunderbuss is ok it shares traits with pistol, so you can swap between the two (pistols for high DR enemies, blunderbuss for low / debuffed foes). If you aren't going to micro a quick switch / arquebus every fight you'll get better performance out of blunderbuss + pistol as needed. More importantly, firearms are way less resource dependent than war bows to be effective. If you're going to throw your ingots and GoSA at your ranged cipher, war bow is going to outperform firearms pretty handily, but if you're not (because you'd rather use those on a different character) firearms are the way to go. Firearms end up outperforming bows in the early to mid points in the game for similar reasons - they really just need traits, not gear, to shine, but benefit so much less from durganifying than bows that they fall off once that comes online. So there are a lot of good options, and a lot really depends on what else you want in your party - and who is getting dibs on the priority DPS gear.

They look at buffed stats - gear, food, rest, and prostitute bonuses all count. You can even pop the unique watcher skill before talking for an additional +2 to all stats (and time is effectively frozen during dialogue, so it'll last the whole conversation). As a result you don't actually need all that much in those stats to pass every dialogue check in the game - if you know what's coming, or save before important dialogues. Otherwise, 15s with +2/+3 gear to those stat and popping the watcher skill before dialogues will let you pass everything going in blind.