Constentin Lévine

For Mageslayer, you can take into account 2 things : Once you get Effort, every crit from any source you score from your Mageslayer cause Spell Disruption on targets. The war bow Frostseeker trigger on crit an effect (the AoE) that cause Spell Disruption on the target too. My testing-Arcane Archer /Mage Slayer was really amazing for this role, auto-attacking and launching Eora-Web imbue with Frosteeker and switching to Effort during some pulses from the imbued spells to silence a lot of enemies. Very strong, very fast, and very impactful character.

Do you think the scourge from Rymrgand's Incarnate grows too? As a beast of winter copy..

Brutal Cleave is not melee. The small shield Shimmer Scale can be good in this fight, with the bonus def to fire! For me the principal difficulty with Doru is his high resolve. With every bosses, I like to find the best way (and the best party/equimpment) to control them (like puppets) so it is important to lower their defenses. My best with him is to use many skelies / Frostfall tactic when he is paralysed / downed. At this point, his health pool doest really matter anymore, when the survivability is turned to "infinite", even if the fight last for 1h, for Dorudugan it is like all the damages are done in one instant (relativity). So I estimate I win the fight when I kill enought skellies with Frostfall-set to make him unable to take any action for sure (10 or 15 skellies with summoning, then it is safe, so periodic (3 or 6s) many live Frostfall kill is enought for the rest of the fight).

And for some builds this ring is very efficient : Int seems good for every characters but that can be interesting to minimize this stat. For exemple, I have a cipher- ff monk with this ring and 10 int. In function of the incomming fight, I can wear this ring, to have 1 Int /10 int (duality), and then use FF for a very short enfeebling duration (1int for a 3s duration, if I remember correctely), or not wear the ring and then have 10/20int (duality), for fight I dont want to micro.

From stealth, you can cast Chillfog or Pull of Eora (or other pulsing spells) without break the stealth until an enemy take an attack roll. Casting these spells nearby enemies (4-5m for exemple) can eventually gather them since they investigate when something happen (like for traps etc). The time the enemies enter in contact with the "spell" (and then break the stealth) your wizard should have recover his powerpool. A nice thing to do with wizard is to cast from stealth some Pull of Eora, Wall of Draining, Chillfog between the party and the group of enemies, wait few second to recover all the spells, and attack at distance to make the enemies "controled" in the pull of eora area.

Increased defenses will, most of the time, reduce the duration of afflictions. Good defenses can prevent crit (+50%duration) and downgrade hit to graze (-50%duration) ; high defenses can make the afflictions to miss, but in PotD enemies have increased acc. It is the most efficient strategy imo for Forbidden First, good defenses and good hit-to-graze conversion. Resistances to afflictions is useful and "easy to get", generally the tiers3 afflictions are very tedious to have. Immunities prevent any correspondant affliction to hit, so affliction doesnt remove your related inspiration . Since it is not commun in game to get immunities, this point is good to see on equipment building (if you want to use chanter as interrupting AoE-per3s build with energized, the Effigy's Husk is a good tool ; later in game, food are also nice). For your last question, enemies "investigate" when surpised by somtehing like a spell, so casting long-lasting spell like Chillfog or Pull of Eora nearby enemies (but not on them) can be considered as free-spell if the spell is refreshed (not in combat) before this last hit (or another attack hit).I hope I am clear with my text!

I remember pre-patch 1.2, when alchemy was increasing poison & potion & drug PL, a simple Plague of Insects (Poison) was enought to close most of the encounters in solo ! I throught pre 1.2 was too strong but really nice in theory : I liked the idea of Skills giving some bonus with spells/abilities (like Arcane Archer) and that the active effects from potions and drugs depending of the ability to use them. But instead of reworking them to balance purpose, they simply turned off in many way the influence of Alchemy. For potions and drugs, now only affect duration and healing done (excepted with the potion of Cleansing Purge) and poison KW from spells or abilities are now (in vanilla) useless, even from the spider silk robe (+2PL for poison KW). The poison I like is the Storm Toxin, because 1. I like storm, and 2. the per 6s paralyse effect is auto-hit, and even if that doesnt really hardCC an enemy for the poison duration, the repeated interrupt that cause is a good reason to sacrifice the long casting time the poison have, I mean in combat.

Based on the Least Unstable Coil proc (1 inspiration >> 1 spell), it is possible that each specific character proc have a chance to do the general echo (if i remember correctely, LuC proc an inspiration per character per 3s for the Priest). In this case, the Vithrack silk shoes will add ~20% too! Combined to Marux Amanth, for a regular party of 5 under StS, that mean 10 layers of echo check per pulse, I really want to try but I cant for now..

Salvation of Time, Consecrated Ground, Restore or Hand of Weal and Woe are friendly and make Echo of Faith very welcomed when that proc. In my previous test, I think I saw a "general" echo on pulse with Spark the Soul, I mean the pulse is echoed for all allies when proc. For Blooded, if you have plenty of health and good AR, it is not tricky to stay under 50% of full health, dont need to barring death door for most of situations. There is many items/weapons that can be nice on Blooded (and Human passive), but if you dont build speciifically around, good healing is better than Bloodied for survivability Imo. On-own-death abilities are nice also if you build around them, with Items on phantom etc. Vangeful Defeat can work on summons too (Living Illusions from the cape are a truly copy of the wearer, per rest) but this passive is, for me, more relevant on glass canon barbarian . Barb of Condemnation can be useful also as alternative to Shnning Beacon VS fire immunes : this spell is tagged as Fire, so no only the damage is relied to Fire keyword. Action economy is also a good reason to use this spell (Devotions for the Faitful and Triumph of the Crusaders are also pl 4). Empowering a spell or ability make them stronger but it is not the only point : especially with DLC items and Weapons (Weyc's items, Least Unstable Coil) empowering can be very powerful. Speaking of Spark of the Soul, if you empower the spell with the Least Unstable Coil, and the robe of the Weyc, each 3 s you gain a tiers 3 inspiration, and each 3s your nearby allies gain Brilliant. So yes, this spell is the only priest spell that profit from Heart of the Storm, but this spell itself can be a good reason to pick the talent, and tiers7 talents related to Empowering (if you empower at first this spell, you can refresh it and then it stay empowered).

Did you find why Tekehu was like that?

A new Confounding Blow on a Empowered Confounding Blow is not empowered but their effects (blind, def. malus) are still empowered when refreshed and dont proc more inspirations. Actually the Swift Flurry (and other similar effects) attack proc work like the Frightened attack from Venombloom or the attack-on-hit from Her Revenge, so only when Empowering the ability, SF attacks are emporered. I tried by the way on an empowered Draconic Furry/Flame Shield with Azure Blade+Mohora and swift flurry. The spell proc on each reliatation an inspiration, but when on top Xrong Place proc a SF chain, these attacks are not empowered. Only on empowering Ability so.

With your party, as additional comapnion, a priest/ chanter to buff everyone and a cipher(not seraphen)/wizard / priest to debuffs enemies could be nice, but with these 2 roles in different characters (multiclassed or not). A beguiler/psion-transmuter (access to illusion and conuration) is really a good debuffer and a priest-lifegiver can really buff and heal the party, with on top some offensive possibilities. Priest of Woedica-chanter is also nice as debuffer, if that can help you.

Maybe you have underrated the potential of Enfeebled (like me before the old build I made), I mean the affliction doesnt look like an heavy CC effect like stunned, terrified, paralysed or dominated, but all the time (excepted for dominated) they have a short duration (2,4,6,8, and in rarely case 12s). Interfering with these duration can be seen like a Mohora chain, or an infinite heal, because that can turn the fight into a +"infinite" survivability (the target cant attack)/action time (relativity)/ damage deals (like for action time it is like, for the target, all the attacks are compiled in one instant). I think you have made an heavy tweak with Enfeebled-for-all (entre guillemets) and especially with Fractured Volition (but it is only my opinion). Fractured Volition is already a nice debuff with 1 tiers2 aff. and 1 tiers1 aff. for the same enemy, I like combine it with Tenuous Grasp to lower enemy all defenses for cheap, and quickly. Enfeebled can turn biggest enemy into a puppet, at the condition to know how that can work (not really intuitive in-game). This is also the reason why Frostfall is, for me, one of the more powerful weapon (on top, no resistance or immunity). -15 resolve from Vampiric Shield + Distraho crit (or other res affliction from items/weapons/passive) help for sure !

Yes but I dont use modified abilities from BpM (only stuffs like Poison KW that correct a "bug"), and especially this one : Enfeebled for 30 focus sound for me like a cheatcode ! There is normally 4 way to cause this powerful affliction : FF (with as drawback the self damage), Heart Seeker (PL9), Writ of Mending (PL9) and occasionally on cast with Seraphen. (I use often Birta for my test because she is weak to Con debuff, then Weakened from Fractured Volition is transformed to Enfeebled and I dont need other way to get it). But yes you can be self sufficient with BpM Fractured Volition.

Beguiler are generating focus on deception spells hit, and most of deception spells are AoE. So, with a level 20 cipher, when 2 enemies are in the area of (for example) Mental Binding, you are able to spam this spell over and over (if you dont miss) per env.3s . Spamming the same spell refresh the duration (excepted if the new duration is inferior to the current one), so with a loop of some spells, it is possible to keep the effects active on the enemies, and even if their duration dont exceed the regular max duration, you can calculate quickly : In first, a crit with Mental Binding cause 14s of Paralyse for the enemy. then, the cipher only spam Mental Binding 9 times, with 0.3/2.8 action time. ( 9* (+3.1s) >> 27.9s of extra-duration) or, the cipher spam also some other spell, and at a moment he have done 4 crits to the enemy with Mental Blinding and also with other spells. (4* (+7s) >> 28) For these two situations, the total duration of the Mental Binding effect is 42 (initial 14s + 28s). But with cipher, the current effect is always between 1 and 14s however. Cipher dont have access to Enfeebling effect, excepted while multiclassed to FF monk. Enfeebled cause +50% of hostile effects duration, but their Total Duration . In these two case, using FF ability cause +22.5s of Paralyse (50% of 45) . Then, recast Mental Binding do nothing (current effect is longer) excepted generate focus, and only a new Enfeebled (when the current Enf. effect is over) can cause a new 50% of total duration including the +22.5s. The tactic is simple, when the Mental Binding duration is below 14s (in this case it is my crit duration (Entropy)) and the Enfeebled effect is always running, a new spam chain refresh the duration and add to the total duration some new numbers. Ex : there is 33s of paralyse and 40s of enfeebled when the monk hit with FF. When the monk hit with FF a new time, his cipher side had to refresh for env. 8 or 10s the Mental Binding effect. So on FF hit, this is 50% of 45+22.5+10s (+39s) added to the current paralyse effect. With Duality of Mortal Presence, is is easy to not Enfeeble the enemy for a very long time (+10int when using cipher spells, +10con when using FF). Draining spells self duration like Borrowed Instincts are depending of the enemy debuff duration, so with these rules. Woedica Priest and the Writ of Mending (the only Enfeebling effect vs will) can be really potent when used after some minutes of Beguiler's spam! As PL9 spell, for most of the fight (without Brilliant) a priest have only 1 cast of that. For Mohora/Azure Blade perspective, spamming deception spells with large AoE can be very nice. Dispersed Suffering (Frostfall) work on the same way that Enfeebling do, but have no duration (dont need to wait the enf of the effect to reapply the +20% duration on-kill) In the past I made some topics related to this, but without the carity for the calculation : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/126467-class-build-the-duality-of-fractured-presence/ (but this is "extra min-maxed" and not very versatile build, but the idea is the same) and some others because I use Frostfall a lot. I hope I was clear in my explanations, if that can help to profit better at less for FF ability.

This is not a truly Magic Trick (like this topic), but something that change clearly the way to use (and the value) of the beguiler, when combined or accompanied with FF. At the beginning of the evening I will make some try to illustrate the post I m going to do after that!

There is a really cool another magic trick to to with Beguiler-FF, I will make a topic Helwalker, and Might in general, doesnt really matter because of there is so many SF attacks most of the time, you can strike for 4000 damage with 9 or 10 might for example. Raising Per, Dex and Int like for a frenetic debuffer seems to me the most adapted for the situation, I mean for the purpose to score many crit in big area quickly.

Walls didnt work in my test, but beams work. Ciphers are better for this purpose since they can have Beam at will! and spamming some big AoE spells can eventually do the job too, But since there is only 25% chance to trigger Wrong Place on hit/crit, and then 33%/25% chance to proc SF/HbD, Beams can be better with their per 1s attack.

And, to show the potential (with the Footstep of the Beast, no direct attack) :

That work also with summons (here, skelies).

Well, for most of the fight it is only partially useful, the melee enemies (mobs) are often grouped so they are not affected by Wrong Place. But casters and ranged enemies, in other hand, dont gather the others, and with push effects, it is possible to "spread" them at more than 2m from the others, and at this point they have a chance to insta-die (or at less take some damage) from Azure Blade / Swift Flurry. With high accuracy and spells (or others) with many rolls, that can proc often. Against solo enemy, like some boss, that work fine, and in comparison to __/monk with the classic way to use Mohora, there is more constraints (at less 3 allies within 2m and if the target is further than 2m of their allies) but, like for Mohora-Frostfall (occasionally), that can proc on many enemies in same time. Actually I like the idea to use Monk as caster not only for +10int etc, but with all his potential (and it is very fun to one-shot an enemy with a scroll of Binding Web).

I am escorted by Ringleaded enemies, and as you can see, they count as allies.

Another great interraction with SF/Azur Blade/Mohora Tanga is the Footsep of the Beast, Spirit Frenzy the Ring of Clenched Muscle : the icy patch from the Foostep of the Beast have a good radius of action, and the effect proc every 0.3s on enemies. It is auto-hit, like Spirit Frenzy that proc on any hit included the Foostep patch, and the ring, that proc on weapon attack (Wrong Place and SF). Moving around the 3 allies (I dont know if Summons work) cause to "alone" enemies 2 hit per 0.3s, that can proc Wrong Place > Swift Flurry on crit, and every attack from SF can proc the Ring effect / spirit frenzy and both can proc, again, Wrong Place. You can see with an icon on character portrait and in beneficial effect list when you can trigger a wrong place attack.

I made some new try : With the Belt of Magran's Chosen, the battlefield become very ... hostile , really useful to use WotW but also : Mob Stance, each solo target die and immediatly another nearby enemy die, and then another one etc... With on top Clear Out with, in main hand, Mohora, Fighter-Monk is also very strong for mass-murder. I'm going to try with the CP Backstab (flat raw damage instead of %damage), and with Carnage but without the CP fix (in vanilla, attack from offhand proc a carnage from main hand) Edit : even under Vanishing Strike effect, the raw damage fro Backstab doesnt work on Red Flag proc. Only the Mohora attack trigger vanilla Carnage on offhand.

Maybe this mod can help you, the description seems exactely what you search : https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/88