Vitalis

I always felt that the Bloody Links armor was more for Barbarians, monks never crossed my mind. When paired with Armored Skin/Toughened skin (don't recall the name of hand) and a berserker you're almost guaranteed to have high defense. I think the fire godlike bonus also stacks with it too.

You also need to figure out how you're going to approach narrative of the game. A lot of the builds on this forum recommend certain items that you either get near the end of WM2 or the main campaign. So either you're going to have to die the first main quest of Act 2 to switch to the WM expansions before finishing Act 2 itself (which helps for a certain ending), or miss out on those items for most of your playthrough. Once you get the +3 and +4 stat items it isn't difficult to get to 18+ for every stat as long as you don't minus below ten. Besides the soulbound sword there isn't a reason to get 28 in a stat anyways.

The restaurant owner Stephanie Wilkinson, before she kicked out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, had let her staff take a vote on whether or not to serve Sanders. So the restaurant owner was very democratic for a commie. I wonder, if Sanders were black and doing the same job would she still have been kicked out? Would everyone be OK with that? Well, if bakers can deny service to the gays with support from Conservatives i don't really see why this is an issue. ... I'll see myself out.

*Aloth shoots you a pained look. I named all of my ships The Defiant, guest I'm original that way...

So I've managed to get the character to level 13 on Veteran (no level scaling) before I ended up restarting (not due to the build for once). As a Fire Godlike, the Bloody Links armor, and Thick Skinned the character has become a pretty decent tank, although it may be different with scaling. After getting past Port Maje Whispers of Treason wasn't really used either. For weapons, I'm dual wielding the Watcher's Blade (aesthetics) and Modwyr to remove the berserkers confuse. Could I be more effective with different weapons? Probably but I just want the build to be effective, not fully min-maxed. Once Modwyr was maxed I was able to use Secret Horrors a lot more (I used to use it before Frenzy), but finding useful Cipher actives has been an issue since Soul Annihilation does good damage at higher levels (too bad it's not a full attack). I have no idea which accessories to use, but then I've been having issues finding them compared to the first game. I also have no idea which talent to choose at level 3 from either the Barbarian or Cipher tree. If no one else posts a Witch build I may repurpose this for that. I suppose I should note that with every iteration I've done of this build I've used Berath's Blessings. The current one (level 5) is using the stat boost, which is definitely helpful, but the stats I posted above are also entirely doable on Veteran without it.

If he were the Durance of Deadfire he would embody the Huana way of thinking, similarly to how Durance provided the Dyrwoodan way of thinking. Yes. Durance is the typical Dyrwoodan not Eder. #DuranceDidNothingWrong

Durance participated in religious purges and openly brags about killing lots of innocent people, how is it any better than what Montaron was (I'm leaving Xzar out of it because he is a clearly a psycho)? Durance provided the insight of a typical Dyrwoodan in the first game. Extremely judgemental, poorly educated, biased against everything they did not understand, and believing that the best solution to every problem is to kill the problem. Eder is an atypical example of a Dyrwoodan, which was just another nail in his coffin in Gilded Vale. In 2, the companion that represents the native population in the party is Teheku, and he doesn't even give a proper view of it.

Isn't that supposed to be the trade-off, though? If godlikes start off with an advantage over other kith before everyone is kitted up, and if they break even by the endgame, then godlikes are better overall. And the races are supposed to be balanced. That said, I do like the idea of godlike inheriting at least some aspect of their "parent" race. Doesn't make sense that an aumaua-sized godlike aren't generally stronger than orlun-sized godlikes, for example. You can balance in different ways. Making them all the same is not realistic. Look at how D&D handles their Tieflings and Yuan-ti Purebloods. They ARE more powerful than the other races because they have better stats and spell or elemental resistances that the other races simply don't have. They do level more slowly to make up for it. But a level 30 Yuan-ti Pureblood is more powerful than a level 30 human or elf. D&D no longer has level adjustment and doesn't do **** to try to balance for race. It's now up to the player and the DM to "balance" the game, which is how it should be. D&D is a tabletop and as such requires different balancing rules to weed out the munchkins anyways.

I choose it because I've never really been a fan of "Your max level character from the first game is suddenly level 1 and loses everything" regardless of how it's explained in the story.

So I've decided to actually try to create this as a build. This is not a solo build. This has been (partially) run on Veteran's difficulty (game not complete). This is not built for min-maxing, it was built for roleplaying for a character I had. If someone wants to min-max it, make a comment and I'll add it in. (®=recommended, !=important) Stats: M: 10 C: 10 D: 15 P: 15 I: 15 R: 10 Race: Fire Godlike (Or whatever else you decide) Origin: White That Wends (Or whatever else you decide) Background: Mystic (If you haven't noticed the pattern here) Weapon style: Dual Wielding I originally chose dual wielding, but if two-handed weapons are ever looked at they would be a viable option for this. The reason for this (hypothetically) would be because of how Soul Annihilation is not a full attack, which really doesn't make full use of dual wielding. The only full attack is barbaric blow, but that's not really required for this build. Subclasses: Berserker: This provides the most bonus to the character, the increased damage, +2 armor, and increased attack speed offset the confusion. In the early game, confusion makes it difficult to use any of the offensive multi-target Cipher abilities, and Carnage does not really do enough damage to kill your party. In the mid to late game it is possible to negate confusion which allows for a respec to take multi-target abilities. Having a class that can provide heals is mandatory. Soul blade: This makes the most sense to pair with Berserker. I may give a better detailed analysis later. Abilities: In general I find it's better to take the passives over the actives first. Power Level 1: Power level 2: Power Level 3: Power Level 4: I haven't actually tested this out just yet so this is where my abilities section will end. Equipment: As stated, I'm not really a min-maxer, I just tend to use what I find/forget to change out. However, there are a couple items that are heavily recommended. Keep in mind, this play through isn't even close to being finished so if anyone has any recommendations I will add them as well. Head: Godlike (If not Godlike choose Whitewitch Mask) Amulet: ??? Armor: The Bloody Links ®®®®®®®®®®®®® Ring: ??? Ring: ??? Shoes: ??? Cape: ??? Hands: ??? Belt: ??? Pet: ??? Weapon: Modwyr Weapon: Watcher's Blade

Having recently done numerous PoE1 playthroughs to try to perfect the games I wanted to import, it seems rather similar to how it was in 1. Most of my inactive party members ended up being one level lower than the regulars, which isn't too much of a detriment, and they quickly caught up in levels after a quest or two. If it's worse in Deadfire then it should be looked at.

> I think the issue is, most encounters don't last long enough for the Cipher's primary advantage (infinite resources) to matter. Cipher can still be strong, but I've come to the realization that it will only feel that way if you're literally neglecting all of your other party members - and that's exactly what most Cipher mains will do, as Ciphers are already one of the most micromanagement-heavy classes in the game. There are other issues that make this problem something that needs to be tackled at multiple angles, but this is what it essentially boils down to. 1) The hardest encounters in the game are those that will last the longest, often. So Ciphers have a lot of power when it matters the most. 2) You don't have to 'neglect' your other party members. This is a real-time-with-pause game. Set the game to pause after each ability is cast, and simply issue a new command to your Cipher each time he finishes an ability. Or, use the AI. The point I'm trying to get to is that if one macros every party member equally, most other classes are going to naturally outperform the Cipher in every way that isn't a charm bot, unless people have found a way to make the Cipher work as a multiclass. And even then, Cipher as a multiclass in such a case has more of a passive/secondary purpose - which is the entire point of the Soul Blade subclass, now that I think about it. I think what would help the most (outside of redesigning like half of the Cipher's spell selection) is an across the board reduction in cast time for most of their spells. Longer cast times means time you're not spending to attack in order to build up focus again. This is a contributing factor as to why Ascendant seems so much stronger than the other Cipher subclasses/non-subbed, as they don't have to worry abut auto-ing to chain cast for a long period of time. Actually, Ascendant in general seems rather problematic for balance, now that I think about it. The very nature of their 'unlimited focus for 20-30 seconds when at max focus' design means that any buffs to Cipher is going to matter a lot more for them than the other Ciphers, and the impact of any nerfs will negatively affect the other Ciphers much more than an Ascendant. Take the Time Parasite nerf, for instance - Time Parasite in itself costs about 1/3 - 1/4 of a Cipher's max focus, and the nerf was done in a way that it made it much more difficult for the other Ciphers to take advantage of, while Ascendants can chain cast it and pretend that the nerf didn't even happen. The problem for ascendants is that they need to reach max focus before you really get the benefits of the subclass. Perhaps I built my witch wrong but I never managed to reach max focus before the combat was over.

Well, that's an unfortunate, does anyone know if it also disappears from companions when shifted?

I have a feeling it was changed because of the Beserker Barbarian subclass. Imagine the outrage over having the PC frenY and then murder their waifu...

I would easily sacrifice Durance to the Blood Pool for the sake of getting him to finally shut up. So I imagine you played a Cruel/Aggresive PC who's entire goal was to kill every Kith in the Dyrwood? If not then I really don't understand why you have such a hatred for Durance, he is just being a typical Dyrwoodan...