Metaturtle

There's also a few other scripted events that can lead to your sudden demise in solo though I think you'll never need to worry about it if the party assists you. :9

Seems like you can reflect your buff spells to yourself by casting it on party members with the Arcane reflection buff. I've tried using gear that says spell reflect, but I think those only work for offensive spells. It's a bit niched since you could just have a cipher cast brilliance on a priest, but I guess it's kind of nice to know if you have a wizard buddy (or a bunch of arcane reflect pots) and only one cipher that happens to also be your priest multiclass. Works great on an ascended mystic like this build https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105178-class-build-ascended-extended-mysticwip-on-hold/ (Thanks Dorftek :9 ) to start the feedback loop of extended brilliance and salvation of time to turn all the buffs on your party going from short duration to forever. Also works for other cipher multiclassed builds though not as compact as a mystic if they are the only cipher in the party. On a pure cipher I guess you get to cast reaping knives and the penetration buff on yourself via reflect.

I think the faction quests only really care about certain conditions met like destroying something other than saving it and they don't really care if you do it in a shady way or in an explosive hulk-smash way as long as you meet their criteria though it certainly weighs in who will be the rival of who in the end. There are some reactivity with dispositions from the faction leaders, but it's not going to stop them from giving you the next item on the agenda unless you whacked a few important NPCs or its the final quest for them.

I think that statement is in regard to an NPC moon godlike of the final confrontation of Pallegina's quest since moon godlike are also Ondra's "children" along with marine godlike and that NPC certainly doesn't seem like he's getting any favors like Tekehu is. If you are godlike or near the end of the game, at some point the gods will state that as a final resort, they can absorb all the souls of their children to hopefully gain enough power to to stop Eothas as a final act of desperation.

I've had the conversation where she explains that she removed her soul from the wheel if you have a decent metaphysics rating (7ish?) when you first talk to her to "understand" her research.

Why these 2 bows when you can have Essence Interrupter with higher DPS and accuracy and with it's amazing lash and summon passive? Or even Aamina's legacy since that thing is a beast too.

It does benefit from sneak attack and deathblows. I only suggested frostseeker since war bows came up.

If all the enemies stacked up in one spot and there's no target cap, pure barbarian all the waaaay if it's just melee we're talking about. Honestly, best really depends on specific criteria. A mage like a druid or wizard is going to run out of resources eventually in a nonstop marathon battle so melee builds will pull out ahead in that context or if their nukes are against stupid high resistances.

All the glimpses of Ydwin's background I've seen has been when she interjects into the BoW DLC conversations about her past living in the White that Wends. Like how she robbed someone to buy passage across the sea and how she supposedly has come from a very poor clan who she still feels bitter about since they still cling to their traditional beliefs with Rymgrand despite their living conditions.

Veilpiercer and Omaku bow's crit till you miss is pretty good with their added utility, but when it comes to multiclass war bows I like to use a variant of this build https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/103542-single-class-build-arcana-archer-ranger/ though it's not as strong without the twinned shot, but it's still pretty crazy.

You board Lucia Rivan's ship. The Algul, Fampyrs, and 10+ something spawned shades eat you. You respec arcana. You nuke everything to kingdom come. That fight is hella rough solo if you don't get lucky and gib some of the dangerous targets before you're left alone.

If you want to cheese everything, ranged gouging strike, hide and run away, come back half an hour later. Joking aside, In a group pure rogue isn't too bad either with dualwield gambit though it becomes a bit boring and really restrictive not to mention late in the game.

Having played a similar build as well, the shield cracks does not get extended from the fire brand or dragon thrash's damage. It does get extended from sacred immolation or other direct applications of abilities though. Similar to chanter builds in POE1, I like to have the chanter run around in circles since the dragon aura is pretty big with the INT until the monsters are softened up. :D With energize and shield cracks, dragon thrashed can effectively do its damage against armored types with an initial rating of 14 at level 20 without food, but will be pretty much stuck just casting between shield cracks debuff and energize buff to maintain that penetration level on a somewhat fire resistant group unless you got some aoe party buddies that can keep that shield debuff rolling though I don't think much trash should last long anyway . Without it you will be reduced to even less chip damage in some PotD+ targets that have ****ty upscaled ratings of like 15+ AR although the first tick of dragon thrash can crit and benefit from the +50% pen bonus so using flail modal to bring reflex low is kind of nice though don't expect it to be a crit monster . Fire brand is a bit better on damage penetration with a base of 9 compared to dragon thrash's 7 so it will be the steadier source of damage on targets with a bit more armor. The Blackened Plate armor is a good option too since the AR debuff stacks on top of shield cracks and comes with a nice raw damage and heal aura that works well with the build though it is kind of annoying to get real early.

If you are having interrupt issues before you can get a summon wall up, you can use figurines or summon/rest items to get an instant cast decoy to buy you some time. It works well if you decide to not go low rest. Interestingly if you decide to play beraths challenge that makes you stuck in combat until enemies are dead: you can initiate combat, run far away if the enemies are slow, and summon your summons halfway across the map after the enemies have leashed. Cheesy I know but it does come with a caveat where if you are fighting enemies with more healing & mitigation (immunities) than you and your summons can do damage then it basically turns into a stalemate gameover.

So many capes. D: I want a bit more variance with belts and other weapon types like xbows/arbalest. Or maybe since they are releasing skaen's challenge a new torch unique perhaps with a unique modal ( I can dream ok ).

Fassina's wizard subclass limits her quite a bit, but yeah I'd make use of whatever CC/nuke skills is still available to her.

I'm sorry, I made a mistake, it rolls against reflex. I think I always associate CON debuff skills with fort lol :V It's not too bad if the monsters like the BoW scourges kill the skellies since usually their aoe sometimes cleans out like 3 skellies in one go so you can precast it just when the bodies hit the floor. It does take some getting used to and quite often casts go dry. :6

I don't think the invocation summoned ones leave a body, but the skelly chant skellies do. You have to be really quick though since they disappear in like 3-4 seconds.

Yeah, ascendant/helwalker is a beast when it can do its thing, but that babysitting though else a dragon dot or kraken arm decides to sneeze on it.

Yeah Eld Nary is much better for primary damage source, but sometimes either enemy fort is too high or as in mentioned BoW area everything is immune to frost. Shouldn't the inside bouncing also apply damage more than twice if aimed perfectly? The fact that it seems to have fixed damage output makes this quite potent on solo PotD, where enemies have to high armor quite often and massive fort almost laways when it matters. Yea the bouncing also applies to damage. I have a feeling that the damage done has a behavior similar to a really fast 1tick dot where if it re-applies too fast it won't do damage right away from an immediate bounce. At the very best average you'll get like 3 hits from all the bounces the 2 bolts do on a single target unless thay have a super huge hitbox. For BoW considering it sounds like you're a pure chanter, I honestly went thru most fights using the skelly chant to have them get ripped apart by the nasty monsters then corpse exploded them before their bodies disappeared. Corpse explosion ability checks against reflex, but that didn't stop me against high reflex enemies although the ice blights and rime constructs are definitely annoying if just using offensive invocations.

If carnage could crit, I would've expected seeing some crazy skald howler builds. lol

I wouldn't use the upgrade of the spell as a primary damage ability, but it does add extra value where if you are going to heal or anti-fear something you might a well get some extra damage in. Without upgrading it, It is still a really decent heal for a build like an endurance healing herald since while the initial output of it isn't huge like some of the other classes' heals, it is a multiple target spell with just enough power to patch a party until the healing aura can regen the rest and a well placed bounce can even nearly fully heal up a member. In really tight areas it is amazing. Yes it can heal you when it bounces.

I didn't care much about the stronghold in the first one since it was kind of a chore to fish for an event for specific items and in multiple games it became whatever (same with ships), but I do wish there was some kind of mega dungeon with tough monsters to run party builds and stuff since the last few battles don't offer much to test this "mastery" of combat progression despite having a great combat system with many nuances. I can't wait for the mega boss patch! It looks like the over-tuning of the initial game that lead to the hasty blanket nerfs made the current capricious state of PotD. I don't find the difficulty hurdles disgustingly bad since similar hurdles existed in POE1 when a player met a rude awakening (dragon fears and abbey monks), but some things like the lazy upscaled armor becomes a dampener when it comes to playing with the multiclass system since it pigeonholes you into certain skillsets. I do miss the open maps not because of the exploration, but mostly for pulling different camps of monsters to kill each other off. That kind of strategy is now rare in Deadfire so now I have to be happy with watching mages (or anything with splash) kill their entire party as my chanter's summons bait them.

I dunno if I can recommend helwalker/zerker in solo since the person mostly killing you will be yourself. I think a pure barbarian performs better overall in solo though the devoted pen bonus is nice since the upscaled armor on top of potd armor is annoying.

The copies in the current version also have weapons as if they have a version of the weapon summoning necklace equipped. Kind of interesting since the uniques still have their effects and you can check what weapon they are wielding by looking at the hit rolls in the log. Still kind of weird though since active skills sometimes pop up for them and sometimes it doesn't.