[[5.0 Sidekick Build] Konstanten, The Bodyworker (Howler)]

On 3/9/2024 at 3:33 PM, Sacerdor said:

but do you also have a link to a Pallagina Herald build you are talking about ?

Here’s that Pallegina build. 

[DoT Build Help]

Perception and Intellect highest, with Dexterity third. Might is less important for Rogue. Constitution and Resolve can be dumped to your comfort level of squishiness. 
AoE weapons are fun with Rogue (mortars, rods w modal) for applying your debuffs on many enemies at once. Slight anti-synergy with Ancient who really wants Lance of the Midwood Stag or The Spine of Thicket Green to boost spell damage, AoE, and duration. 
The Lance is a fun idea for being in melee without getting hit as often. 

[[5.0 Sidekick Build] Konstanten, The Bodyworker (Howler)]

1 hour ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Since you are using crush damages at principal, you can give to Fassina (or other caster that attack the same enemies than Konstanten do) Sungrazer : the -1 crush AR penalty from Blunt Rock work on any critical hit, including spells, and stack with everything.

This is a great tip, since that will stack and lasts the whole encounter. I did not realize it applied via spells. 

2 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Other think about your chant choice, at pl1, At the Sight (+10 fortitude and will) in really better than Come Soft Wind, in my opinion : at melee damage dealer most of the enemies are going to try to stop you at distance and all your defenses should be targeted, especially fortitude and will.

I completely agree here. If I were creating this build with a hireling or watcher, I would likely choose At the Sight (assuming no other chanters in the party). Because it's a sidekick, that choice is already made for you. 

[[5.0 Sidekick Build] Konstanten, The Bodyworker (Howler)]

I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Fassina Sorcerer build that I’m posting as well. This build is a riff on @Boeroer’s Konstanten Build (post) set up to offtank and pair well with Fassina. The lightbulb clicked when I saw Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick. Maybe he had a wizard cousin who liked wearing diving helmets? I’m posting this build so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Konstanten along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. 

I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Sorcerer Fassina). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only. (Borrowing @thelee's formatting here, slightly edited)

The Pitch: This build drops enemy Fortitude through the floor while dropping Will and AR to boot. It stands in the middle of melee and shrugs off attacks that target Fortitude or deal Corrode damage. 

Howler - Chanter (Skald), Barbarian (no sub)

Mountain Dwarf, The Dyrwood - Drifter (+1 RES, +1 Sleight of Hand, Bluff, Streetwise)

Attributes:
MIG 15
CON 17
DEX 12
PER 11
INT 10
RES 13

Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher, you could make these choices to further optimize. 

• Choose any non-godlike race. You could do worse than Mountain Dwarf, as CON Resistance is nice to have out of the box. 
• Choose any Barbarian Subclasses that you fancy, though you need an answer for Berserker’s Confused status. Corpse Eater would fit well with the BPM upgrades, giving you even more survivability in most fights. 
• Make CON, PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES a little.

Skills: Athletics and/or Alchemy and Survival. More explanation below. 

Abilities:
AT1
Come, Come Soft Death (a), The Thunder Rolled (a) // Barbaric Yell (a)
And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield
Frenzy
AT2
Thick Grew Their Tongues // Thick Skinned
One Dozen Stood, Two-Handed Style, One-Handed Style [BPM] or Accurate Carnage [BPM] 
AT3
Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake // One Stands Alone
The Shield Cracks
Bloody Slaughter
AT4
The Long Night’s Drink // Spirit Frenzy
Savage Defiance
Barbaric Shout
AT5
Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed // Bear's Fortitude (AT2)
Leap, Tough, or Uncanny Luck
AT6
Old Siec Would Not Rest // Brute Force
Spell Resistance
Oh, But Knock Not (AT4), What Ruo Naka Found, Threatening Presence [BPM], or Interrupting Blows (AT6)
AT7
Called to His Bidding or Accurate Empower [BPM]  // Spirit Tornado
Stalwart Defiance [BPM], or choice of previous

Weapon Proficiencies:
Battle axe (a), Mace (a)
Morning star
Club

Weapon slots:
I: The Willbreaker (Unavoidable Demise, Make Them Flinch)
II: Shattered Vengeance or Kapana Taga

Essential gear:
Helm of the Void
Aloth’s Leather Armor
Voidward
Undying Burden

Playstyle:
This build focuses on synergistic debuffs to reduce enemy Fortitude, Will, and AR, setting up your party for faster kills, while soaking up enemy attacks. 

- The real work horse here is the synergy between the chant The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning and the Barbarian abilities Spirit Frenzy/Spirit Tornado. While frenzied, every attack you make, with any ability, will cause Staggered (-5 MIG, Cannot engage enemies). Because The Long Night’s Drink is an attack, enemies affected by it are not only Weakened, but also Staggered. These two conditions together lower their Fortitude by 20!. For enemies who are resistant or immune to MIG afflictions, The Long Night’s Drink also lowers MIG independent of any affliction, resulting in an only slightly less impactful -14 Fortitude. This would be powerful even if it was a one time use ability, but the attack repeats every 6 or 12 seconds, and synergizes with itself, because it targets Fortitude. Once it hits, it has a much easier time of reapplying again, making it last the entire encounter in most situations. 

*Note: there is a bug in the vanilla game where Spirit Tornado only applies staggered on weapon attacks. If you’re playing vanilla, do not upgrade to Spirit Tornado. 

- In addition to Long Night’s Drink and Spirit Frenzy, we can lower an enemy's Fortitude by an additional 25 points with the Morning star modal Body Blows, which targets Deflection. This is often the first wedge to pry open high Fortitude enemies, as it makes The Long Night’s Drink much easier to land. On top of those, we have the upgraded version of Reny Daret’s Ghost Spake (Ben Fidel’s Neck Was Exposed), which targets Will and lowers all defenses by 10 and applies Frightened (-5 Deflection, -10 Will, -3 power levels). Lastly, the invocation And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon The Shield lowers AR by 2. With the upgrade, this can be kept up for the entire battle without much effort (especially on any target being focused). 

The net effect on all of this on enemies who are not affliction resistant or immune is: 
-2 AR
-15 Deflection
-55 Fortitude
-10 Reflex
-20 Will

- Spirit Tornado is worth a quick mention here. With BPM, it is very worth snagging, and honestly great for end game even in Vanilla, as many late game enemies have Might affliction resistance anyway. Terrified for 1 Rage in an AoE is very fun. 

- Choosing higher level invocations increases your max phrases. Your goal is to have at least 5 max so that you can cast Ben Fidel’s Neck and Hel-Hyraf back to back at the start of combat. Non-offensive invocations cost +1, and choosing a high level one will give you the highest possible max phrase count. 

- Keep your weapon modals on all the time. The damage penalties eat up all of your bonus damage from MIG, but in light or medium armor with frenzy, you still put out some decent damage. I didn’t do any math on this, but my gut is that the modal deals more total damage across the party if at least 1 other party member is attacking Fortitude. Once you have The Willbreaker, it makes more sense to use that 100% of the time and have another character use a club to keep Bewildering Blows up, even when trying to lower enemy Will, because Relentless stacks with those and adds an additional -3 to -15 Will.  

- With Kosntanten’s health pool being so large (~500 hp with a few points of bonus constitution and frenzy), you don’t have to babysit him. Instead, when you notice he’s getting close to bloodied, or is being focused by a few high damage enemies, you can toss a heal over time on him and/or use Stalwart Defiance. In BPM, Defiance stacks with Robust, in addition to getting extra base healing, but even without those changes, it’s a pretty great fit for K. 

- Surviving fights also requires having enough armor for the enemies you’re fighting. At a minimum, enough means that when he’s critically hit, he has enough AR to avoid overpenetration. You can figure out what that target is by using this formula (AR needed to avoid overpen=1+((Enemy PEN * 1.5)/2). With Thick Skinned, he should be fine in most fights with upgraded Light or Medium armor even on PotD. When in doubt, Potions of Spirit Shield last a decently long time and are cheap. Aloth’s Leather Armor is a phenomenal choice, because it has no weaknesses if you upgrade to Structurally Stable (and actually gains extra Corrode AR). The bonus defense against Transmutation and the Overseeing enchantments are also wonderful. Other great choices are Magnera’s Chain, Iridescent Scale, or Saint’s War Armor. The latter two really depend on Woodskin/Delemgan and some +corrode AR to work, but they have great enchantments). If you are facing particularly challenging enemies (e.g. rogues with ranged weapons that prioritize low HP allies), Heavy armor works great, too. Blackened Plate with the damage aura and -AR aura are a natural fit here. Both autohit, so won’t apply Staggered from Spirit Frenzy, but they do stack with everything else in your toolbox. 

- One very powerful trick that I like using Konstanten for on challenging bosses is putting him into the Kahako Nihi armor from SSS with the Hardened Plates upgrade. With heavy armor, K can take crits easily, and the debuff that it causes lasts the entire encounter. This is especially nice on Megabosses like Dorudugan and Hauani O Whe, where you’re stuck grinding them down. 

- The biggest downside of K in this build is low accuracy and low Intellect. These aren’t as damning as you might think, though. Gloves of Reliability and Helm of the Void, are a big help early (as of course priest/paladin buffs). Since your biggest single debuff targets deflection, flanking, etc also helps. The other reason it’s not completely damning, is that your main abilities are very cheap (1 Rage, 2 and 3 Phrases). If you whiff one, you can try again at little cost. Similarly, lower duration is not much of an issue. Lastly, as a melee chanter, your chants and invocations easily hit multiple enemies. 

- Pretty much as soon as you can get K, you can snag Saru-sichr from Arkemyr’s mansion with no violence. If you planned ahead and started with some extra gold from Berath’s Blessings, you should also have Shattered Vengeance. These will keep K in business for most of the game. I’d also recommend doing Beast of Winter as soon as you can (14 is great). Helm of the Void is huge. If you have a wizard with Combusting Wounds, Neriscyrlas is a breeze. K can make sure it lands, and Thick Grew Their Tongues helps you keep that pesky Llengrath’s Safeguard. Sidenote: if you’re running Fassina here, all of her poison spells work on top of Combusting Wounds shenanigans. Very easy once K gets N’s Fortitude under control. 

- This build works exceptionally well with Fassina and other characters with abilities that target Fortitude and Will. Big K has no problem standing in the hostile AoE spells that Fassina uses. If you use an Antidote, Khapa Tea, or get Purge Toxins from Fassina, you can safely ignore Venombloom, Malignant Cloud, and Noxious Burst. But if you don’t have immunity to poison, your high Fortitude and Voidward will make them completely survivable. Konstanten has the highest base Fortitude of any companion or sidekick.** We take Bear’s Fortitude to increase that even further, and with Frenzy up, he gains an additional +20 Fortitude. If you have an active source of +All Defenses (Circle of Protection, etc.), that’s helpful, but not necessary. I also usually give Konstanten a Cloak of Greater Protection for an additional +10. 

**For fun, here’s a breakdown of the top 5. 

• Konstanten (Barbarian): 54 (30 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON)
• Konstanten (Howler): 49 (25 class, 10 MIG, 14 CON)
• Pallegina (Paladin): 45 (25 class, 4 MIG, 6 CON, 10 Faith & Conviction (+Deep Faith))
• Eder (Fighter): 44 (20 class, 12 MIG, 12 CON)
• Serafen (Barbarian): 42 (30 class, 10 MIG, 2 CON)

- I think Alchemy is by far the most useful active skill, especially for the late game where fights can go very long and keeping buffs up is worth quite a bit. That said, there is great synergy with Athletics and Undying Burden, and if your party needs someone with high Athletics, that’s a great fit, also. 

- As mentioned above, Konstanten works great with a source of consistent Healing over time. A Herald with Ancient Memory and Exalted Endurance is usually plenty to keep him happy (also a great choice to work with Fassina, due to Righteous Soul). 

Some things that worked for me on Megabosses:

• Dorudugan: I had K face tank Doru to start the fight until he caught Hardened Plates, then had him wail away with Willbreaker, standing far enough away from the other 2 melee so that a Brutal slash would only ever hit 2 of the 3. BPM savage defiance and some back up heals along with stacked AR meant no overpen with crits, and underpen on regular hits. You have to do some work with a few characters to make a debuff strategy work here, but K is a key piece of the puzzle. BPM Threatening Presence helps quite a bit (immune to engagement when above 75% HP), but you can eat a disengagement crit with this setup with a similar amount of health. I respec to Blood Frenzy/Bloodstorm for this b/c he is resistant to Body Afflictions, and w/ BPM I had basically infinite frenzy (I think BPM Salvation of Time or something else has an odd interaction here, but I couldn’t figure it out).  The extra dmg from the dot is not huge, but there’s not much else to spend points on. 
• Hauani O Whe: Similar to Doru, stack AR, stay alive through the crits. I used Disintegrate to shorten the fight tremendously, and K helped that land. If you weren’t doing that, I’d pick up the accuracy boost for The Thunder Rolled and keep oozes stunned (5s base, vs Reflex w/ one attack roll for 2 Phrases)
• Sigilmaster Auranic: The biggest contribution K makes is the use of his old massage room back the the Wild Mare, but he does fine here smashing on sigils and making Auranic easier to land damage on. Spirit Tornado is fun on Auranic, who can be terrified. 
• Belranga: Pretty happy here with Khapa Tea smashing away. Carnage is nice to speed up spiderling kills. Once you switch over to Belranga, the lowered defenses help speed everything up a bit. 

BPM Notes:
- The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Lasting is great as a second. With Lasting, Ben Fidel’s Neck is probably your best choice to empower at the start of a fight. 
 

[[5.0 Sidekick Build] Fassina, The Venomous Vailian (Sorcerer)]

I’ve had this build in draft for years now, but just completed a full playthrough to test it exhaustively. I love the companion and sidekick builds @Ascaloth and others have posted, especially the way they mix mechanical fun with narrative details for each character. This build works great in most parties, but is designed to be paired with a Konstanten Howler build that I’m posting as well. This is in no way unique insight or creativity on my part, but mostly a very basic build that focuses on fun synergies. I’m posting so that it’s available for folks who want to bring Fassina along and are looking for a quick, fool-proof build. 

I tested this on PotD Upscaled with a typical party (Swash Eder, Herald Pallegina, Priest Xoti, Howler Konstanten). I used the Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, but the build does not depend on them to work. I’ll do my best to highlight if something is a CP or BPM feature only.  (Borrowing @thelee's format here w/ some slight edits)

The Pitch: Stack gross amounts of +PL and clear the battlefield with layers of AoE DoT, Pulse, and direct corrode and raw damage. 

Sorcerer - Wizard (Conjurer), Druid (Animist)

Human (Ocean Folk), Vailian Republics - Arcane Apprentice (+1 INT, +2 Arcana)

Attributes:
MIG 13
CON 11
DEX 12
PER 12
INT 16
RES 14

Note: If you are playing this build with a hired adventurer or watcher you could make these choices to further optimize. 

• Choose Nature Godlike (trade +1 Poison PL and +2 INT for +1 universal PL)
• Choose Ancient Druid instead of Animist (additional stacking +1 PL for plant and beast spells). 
• Make PER and INT your highest scores, followed by MIG and DEX. You could dump RES and CON as much as you are comfortable.

Skills: Alchemy (or Arcana) and Metaphysics. More explanation below. 

Abilities:
AT1
Concelhaut’s Parasitic Staff (a), Conjure Familiar (a) // Talon’s Reach (a), Sunbeam (a), Spiritshift Wolf (a)
Slicken
Choice of: Touch of Rot, Tanglefoot, Vile Thorns, Nature’s Mark
AT2
Infuse with Vital Essence // Insect Swarm, The Moon’s Light (a)
Necrotic Lance
Autumn’s Decay or Binding Web
AT3
Deleterious Alacrity of Motion // Infestation of Maggots, Returning Storm (a)
Combat Focus
Purge of Toxins [BPM]
AT4
Spirit of Decay // Form of the Delemgan, Conjure Blight (a)
Wicked Briars or Wall of Flame
Spell Shaping
AT5
Rapid Casting // Wall of Thorns, Plague of Insects (a)
Farcasting
Embrace of the Earth Talon or (Uncanny Luck, Heart of the Storm, or Scion of Flame)
AT6
Arkemyr’s Capricious Hex or Ninaguath’s Freezing Pillar // Venombloom, Sunlance (a)
Choice of: Quick Summoning, Garden of Life, Spell Resistance [BPM], or an optoin from a previous tier
AT7
Tayn’s Chaotic Orb or Wall of Draining  // Accurate Empower [BPM] or Call to the Primordials, Lashing Vine (a)
Potent Empower [BPM] or an option from a previous tier

Weapon Proficiencies:
Dagger (a), Rod (a)
Staff or/and Pike
Hunting Bow
Arquebus
Scepter

Weapon slots:
I: The Spine of Thicket Green (Empowering Instinct, Grove’s Respite) or Lance of the Midwood Stag (Lord of the Forest)
II: Essence Interrupter or Blightheart or Amaliorra

Note: Spine vs. Lance. Both are available immediately for “free”; I used the Spine for my playthrough, but on reflection, Lance is likely better in every case except vs Vessels. Both work great, though. You could always juggle them to maximize PL for plant/beast spells, but that is more micro than it’s worth for me, plus I prefer to have my second weapon set for an alternative ranged option. 

Essential gear:
Spider Silk Robe (Spider Blooded, Poison Master) 
Mask of the Grotto Deep
Serpentskin Grimoire
Fassina’s Grimoire
Battle-worn Grimoire

Playstyle:
This build focuses on maximizing a few strong spells with synergistic keywords (Poison, Plant, Beast, Acid, Decay, Conjuration) to stack up staggering amounts of damage, but stays flexible with tried and true utility spells for every situation. 

Universal +1/+3: (Summon Familiar/Lance of the Midwood Stag)
Poison +3 (Mask of Grotto Deep & Spider Silk Robe)
Conjuration +2 (Conjurer subclass)
Plant +3 (Spine of Thicket Green)
Beast +3 (Spine of Thicket Green)

+PL by Spell:

• +8
  • Malignant Cloud (Conjuration, Poison)
• +6 (+7 w/ Spine)
  • Plague of Insects (Beast, Poison [BPM])
  • Venombloom (Plant, Poison)
  • Wall of Thorns (Plant, Poison [BPM])
  • Vile Thorns (Plant, Poison)
• +6
  • Noxious Burst (Poison)
• +5
  • Necrotic Lance (Conjuration)
  • Binding Web (Conjuration)
  • Death Ring (Conjuration)
  • All Wizard Wall spells (Conjuration)
• +3 (+4 w/ Spine)
  • Insect Swarm
  • Talon’s Reach
  • Tanglefoot
  • Wicked Briars
  • Form of the Delemgan
  • Lashing Vine
  • Call to the Primordials

The basic flow is standard stuff: buff > DoT spells > direct damage spells w/ debuffs and utility spells as needed. 

Buffs:
Infuse w/ Vital Essence
Deleterious Alacrity of Motion
Summon Familiar
Form of the Delemgan

Core DoTs:
Plague of Insects
Infestation of Maggots
Venombloom
Malignant Cloud
Insect Swarm

- Keep the staff modal on most of the time. Pike modal is a great debuff if you aren’t using Nature’s Mark or similar active effects that reduce Deflection. You should be able to stay in robes the whole game, but if you are concerned about getting focused fired, Cabalist Gambeson is great b/c Woodskin and Delemgan cover the AR gaps perfectly (always a fan of flaunting the haul from Arkemyr’s Vault, too). Ironskin is also great and is in the Snakeskin Grimoire. 

- Form of the Delemgan is easily the strongest spell in your entire repertoire. It single-handedly makes many encounters go from deadly to average with the Dexterity Affliction immunity and bonus AR. For your tankier party members, it makes Scale armor and Brigandine amazing by shoring up their pierce AR gap. Note that bonus AR is one place where specific does not stack with general. If you have both Spirit Shield and Form of the Delemgan, it will choose the higher of the two values for each damage type, rather than stacking. 

- Early/mid game you’re going to want to pay attention to enemy defenses and armor and cast the best spell you have for those defenses/AR, regardless of bonus PL. Sunbeam, Returning Storm, Slicken, Chill Fog, and Combusting Wounds are almost always useful. When all else fails, switch over to your ranged weapon and plug away (or bonk w staff or pike).

- Poison immune enemies are not that scary or troublesome. Just lean on your non-poison options. Unless you wait till very late, you won’t have many poison spells for Hanging Sepulchers. The rest of your early game kit works great. Same for Poko Kohara Ruins/Engwithan Waystation. Splintered Reef is an interesting case, as the Fampyrs are not immune to poison and many have lowish Fortitude. It’s worth blasting them with everything you’ve got and not worrying about the immune skeletons and guls. Speaking of, Guls and Alguls are weak to fire, so blast away. The fights in SSS with constructs, skeletons, and naga are all manageable, as well. Essence interrupter w/ Essential Phantom works great for the constructs. For the Naga you have less options, but Chill Fog, Slicken, Wicked Briars, Tayn’s Chaotic Orb, Lashing Vine are all helpful. 

- I recommend rushing the Kraken (lvl 10/11) and Splintered Reef (lvl 15/16) to maximize the time you have with your full equipment set. The Kraken has high Fortitude, but is not immune to Poison, and is weak to freeze and corrode. See above for Splintered Reef. When I did Splintered Reef Menzaggo died from AoE DoTs before I ever targeted him with anything else. While it doesn’t have much we really need for Fassina, rushing Beast of Winter is quite easy, too. Fassina eats Neriscyrlas up (Combusting Wounds, Wall of Flame, Insects to strip Concentration, Wall of Thorns - RIP). 

- This build works exceptionally well with a Howler like Konstanten built to lower enemy Fortitude and take the occasional hit from hostile AoEs. See my companion build, The Bodyworker for a version of this kind of build. It’s particularly helpful to crack open big enemies with high Fortitude via Morningstar Modal and -all Defense debuffs. Anything that lowers Fortitude in an AoE is awesome. Especially awesome are debuffs for Fortitude that target a different defense. For example, vs. Will:. Devotions of the Faithful, Secret Horrors, Interdiction, Mind Plague, Reny Daret's Ghost Spake w/ Upgrade, and Shining Beacon. 

- Other fun combinations include: 

• watch a big boss’s HP bar fall through the floor by stacking up all of your DoTs and have a priest cast Cleansing Flame (this might depend on BPM fixes). 
• watch all of your DoT and debuff durations fly through the roof when a boss is hit with Enfeebled from a Forbidden Fist monk

- Paladins with Righteous Soul and melee characters with Khapa Tea make your life much simpler once you have Malignant Cloud and Venombloom. You can gather up all of the melee enemies and then plop your spells right on top without worry. 

- I like the idea of stacking Alchemy all the way and using poisons to take advantage of the +PL. This sort of works with Blightheart and the Arquebus modal (which gives a much needed +20 accuracy to the poison). The fact is, though, it adds significant micro and not much versatility. Arcana is the clear best choice, not the least of which, because Fassina gets a special background with +2. Being able to cast all those evocation spells, along with some of the best from Priest, is so valuable at the end of the game. 

- Accuracy is not Fassina’s strength, so look for all the ways you can improve that. Aware from Priests or Ciphers, +Accuracy from Priests or Paladins or Deadeye. Potion of Perfect Aim is wonderful and should be used for every difficult fight. 

Some things that worked for me on Megabosses: 

• Dorudugan: Equip Essence Interrupter and keep an Essential Phantom up. Keep Form of the Delemgan up on anyone in melee. Respec to grab heals - Moonwell counters a few spells, which can really help survivability. Embrace of the Earth Talon is great if you use Amaliorra and every possible debuff / accuracy boost. 
• Hauani O Whe: Not poison immune, but the highest Fortitude defense of any enemy in the whole game. For simplicity sake, I used Disintegrate to cut the fight in half, but her DoTs would shred through some smaller oozes. For big HOW, I landed a combusting wounds and then dropped every wall spell I had on ‘em. Wall of Thorns, Flames, Force from Fassina. Watch his health plummet. Venombloom is great, too. 
• Sigilmaster Auranic: Nice addition with Arcane Reflection self-cast. Essence Interrupter and Phantom for the Sigils. Form of Delemgan is a life saver vs. all the Petrify and Paralyze. Venombloom and all the rest aren’t too hard to land here, once you clear the sigils. Probably some other tricks you could do, but this one is relatively easy. 
• Belranga: Form of the Delemgan majorly trivializes a key mechanic by eliminating all of the paralyze/petrify. DoTs clear up the spiders with ease. Once you get Belranga into territory where you can land spells, any of your tricks work great. Stack up the DoTs and watch her fall. 

BPM Notes:
- Wildstrike Corrode seems like an easy fit in this build, but it’s actually not as useful for us, because when you are Spiritshifted, your carried weapons are replaced by the Spiritshift ones. This means you are always trading away more applicable +PL for the narrower Wildstrike bonus. That said, there are other reasons to spiritshift, and if you want to have more to do while shifted, by all means. 

- The Improved Empowered Abilities are great with this build. Accurate is a must, Potent & Lasting are great as a second/third. Venombloom is probably your best choice to empower, so kick things off with a bang and then toss out the rest of your spells. 
 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

Progress Update

I went through the trinkets and made the following changes (mod files attached): 

• Changed the cast time of all abilities to Very Fast (1.7 seconds for all of them)
• Changed recovery time for all abilities that deal damage immediately on cast to Very Fast (2.0 seconds) 
  • Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas)
  • Final Flame (Detonator Shard)
• Changed recovery time for all abilities that do not deal damage immediately on cast to Instant (0.0 seconds)
• Changed all ability usage: 1 per rest > 1 per encounter
• Added +10 Accuracy to all attacks
• Update Keywords for 
  • Petrifying Venom (Spider Empress' Mandibles) - Poison (display only, attack already had the keyword)
  • Final Flame (Detonator Shard) - Fire (display only, attack already had the keyword)
  • Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas) - Acid (display only, attack already had the keyword)
  • Tayn's Chaotic Missiles (Tayn's Gratitude) - Summoned Weapon (display only, ability already had the keyword)
• Other changes
  • Draconic Blast (Whispers of Neriscyrlas)
    • Increased Base Penetration: 7 > 9
  • Llengrath's Warding Totem (Glasanam Argûes)
    • Reworked Ability to increase its uniqueness and power level. The original is a less useful version (because of positioning requirement and short duration) of the Level 9 Wizard Spell Llengrath's Reflection. 
      • Original ability creates a small (1.5m) area on the ground (no scaling) for 10s (no scaling). While the caster (does not affect any other characters) stands in the circle, 100% of spells are reflected. There is no limit to the number of spells that can be reflected in this way. 
      • Reworked ability has the same AoE and duration, but now resists 100 of spells, rather than reflecting. This makes the user immune to all hostile spell effects, including spells that are AoEs, which are normally not affected by Spell Reflect abilities. 

Some remaining questions/decisions:

• Tayn's Chaotic Missiles (Summoned Weapon) is typed as unarmed (with a fist icon). Should this be changed to wand or scepter? I seem to recall that Kalakoth's Minor Blights are considered a wand. At the very least, we could change the icon to be the same as Tayn's Chaotic Orb Spell. I can't figure how to do that in Apotheosis, so welcome any help. 
• Do the summons need scaling? 
  • Muātu's Aid (Muātu's Head)
    • Superb Weapon (Ngati's Tusk), joined my level 20 party as level 23, I think (summoned in Periki's Overlook)
  • Servants of the Stars (Celestial Agitator)
    • Have very small HP and die easily, but that's sort of by design, I think. They hit decently hard w/ a frost attack, but not much in the way of accuracy. 

Trinket Fix.rar

[2hander build - need advice !]

41 minutes ago, Frog Man said:

Nice! Was just reading about blade feast in another topic on here. Awesome stuff. I guess a concern would be that you can’t get Engolio for quite some time right? The hanging sepulchers are tough …

If I’m remembering correctly, you can get the sword quite early (assuming you beat Hanging Sepulchers), but it’s only a quest item. It becomes an actual sword you can use only after defeating Rivan in the third act. So you have to get through Ashen Maw and kill Aeldys or Furrante before you can get it. 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

BPM fixed broken stuff for items, not bad stuff. I didn't want to engage on this path. It's extremely hard to define a general rule. You may want all items to be somewhat "balanced", but I'm warning you it is a huge task, comparable to what BPM for abilities.

Yeah - I knew you made that choice for BPM, and I think it's the right one. I don't think a total system overhaul makes sense here, either. My thought was to try and do for a small number of items what BPM did for PL8 & 9 class abilities, and catch up a few bugs in the process, hopefully. 

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

So I'm just going to point a few case where it would make sense to give them a little rework :

- Trinkets, for the reasons discussed above

- Sad weapon category as a whole (e.g. we can discuss case of the warhammers)

- Sad design of a particular ability (Quieting, most of that Godlike amulet properties)

- Really scarce per rest ability. Maybe all per rest should be x2, unless they are very great.

- Absence of legendary quality on Soulbound equipement. Partially done by this : FG Soulbound Upgrade at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

- Bad concurrent upgrades (shall be really strictly worse... Steadfast on Kill for Quieting just replaces 1s of Quieting, so I will NOT tweak it if it was me)

- Absence of weapon/armor scaling for item summons (same as BPM Summon Rebalance did for abilities summon)

- Also consider making more obvious obscure display. Too many items have been designed by Wael ("Grants random Mind Inspirations" and the likes...). It would not change gameplay but such a QoL improvement ! Why do I have to navigate through gamedta files get an exact idea of what an item does ? 

I think this is a really sensible list. 

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

My opinion on warhammer :

- Resounding Call : not the greatest, but there are a couple of very annoying battle where it is BiS. Nagas, 1st SSS fight, Auranic, FS final boss. Almost a "quest item".

- Glacierbane : 2 great upgrades : one is basically Animancer blade with a twist (not 100% raw but can overpenetrate). One is suspension of beneficial effect. Does I have to comment why it is great ? Still not your "main" weapon, but these 2 abilities are great.

- Last Word : just remove the lower level condition. This is ill design. The reason it would great is that it works vs anything. Affliction and Interrupting effect can get somewhat resisted. This not. And bosses get a lots of resistance/immunities. Maybe Splintered Haft shoul be aligned with BPM/CP tweak to Wounding Shot (if using a different status).

Resounding Call: My thinking here was just to make it worth using outside of 3 or 4 battles. Make the proc a little better, touch up the upgrades a smidge. 

Glacierbane: I think it's great, except the Harder Than Ice upgrade seemed like too much setup for a buff that isn't really needed. Hammers already trade base damage away for +1 pen and dual damage types. On top of that, they have a +pen modal. That said, I tested, and the buff lasts until the end of combat, so maybe it's fine. 2 stacks and +10% damage, too, would be better. Not a priority. edit: you can also stack it up outside of combat, and it will last until the end of the next combat. 

Last Word: Agreed on just removing lower level restriction. Probably fine. 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

On 2/12/2024 at 1:48 PM, thelee said:

i basically don't bother with unique war hammers. bland and niche effects.

Looking these over, and I agree on Resounding Call and Glacierbane. Last Word I always thought worked fine for an engagement tank, but looking at it again, I think it's lacking. Specifically, effects that only work on lower levelled enemies are contradictory design at best. They do nothing in the case you most need them, and out-levelling content to make them work more often undermines the whole project of paying close attention to the items you're using. The smallest adjustment would be to add a lesser effect that works on same and higher level enemies. The best case, though, is to just change it to an effect that works on everything. 

Using Last Word as a test case (Lower level enemies cannot use active abilities for 2/3.0 sec on Critical Hit), I think it's probably fine to just make this work on everyone. Writ of War and Writ of Sorcery exist now. Even if it did work on everyone, 2.0/3.0 seconds is very short. Prone is a stronger effect, and prone on crit exists for a few items. I'm thinking upgrade it to 3.0/5.0 seconds. 

The other enchantments could use a pass, too (Steadfast for 6s on kill is pretty weak - should be at least 8s, if not 10s). Can someone remind me how duration of item proc abilities scale in terms of duration? Is that "classless" power level? Universal power level? 

 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

But Per Rest items are sort of mutually exclusive with a "no rest" approach where you try to stack as much "until next rest" bonuses as possible. That's quite niche in term of gamer population but it is still a bit of powercreeping.

5 hours ago, thelee said:

generally i'm in favor of the idea that we shouldn't have on-rest effects at all, but in practice i think that would be a huge power creep.

I think that's a helpful point you are both making - converting everything to per encounter would have a negative impact on game balance, or at least for the people who are interacting with the rest mechanic in a meaningful way (Rymrgand/Woedica's Challenges, no rest runs, etc.). Though I'm hearing you say that the trinkets are probably an exception to that, given their power level. Also, maybe 2/rest is the better fit here, at least for some of them. 

5 hours ago, thelee said:

more generally the on-rest mechanics of this game are kind of a poor fit. most of the game is geared around encounters and trying to avoid the tedium of skill resource management between fights, and between empower points and the growing amount of items they added that had on-rest effects, there's a gameplay design tension.

I think this is really helping me to put words to the specifics of why I have always felt per rest was an out of place mechanic. The conversion of all player abilities to per encounter in Deadfire is likely the biggest factor. 

Do any of you see any logic or design principle being employed here to decide what item abilities are per encounter and which are per rest? I actually started a short list of all of the per encounter item abilities, because they are so random and unexpected when I do end up finding them. Incomplete list at the bottom here.**

Maybe the better question, though, is what SHOULD the rules or logic be to determine which are which? Is it the overall strength or impact of the ability? The amount of "enchant points" being spent on it in terms of itemization (if that's even a thing)? 

6 hours ago, thelee said:

the unique amulet you get from assembling across the three DLC really should be per-encounter. a 20s dominate can be pretty powerful, but as a payoff for three DLC, and an amulet slot, and the fact that you can miss with the dominate, really makes it feel underpowered for one/rest usage.

Oh yeah - this is a prime example. The whole item just feels bad. I spent a week theory crafting around the stat boost only to find out it doesn't work with summons. The item is completed so late. Completing it gives such a weak boost to the functionality. And it competes with necklaces, which have many great options to choose from. My ideas for this so far are to add an enchant to the second tier (combining 2 of the items) that just gives a flat +1 Might, +1 Resolve. For the stacking buff, make it +2 per stack, stacks 2 times. You never really build a party around killing your characters, but it can happen, and if you really wanted to, you could build around it. Then, on the final item (combine all 3), increase the power level of each of the effects. +2 Resolve, +1 Might base, +3 Might/Resolve when party member dies (stacks 2 times); and change the Dominate to 1/enc. 

**Incomplete list of active per encounter abilities on items

• Kitchen Stove       Thunderous Report
• Pale Hide        Dread Howl
• Sanguine Great Sword       Prepare the Offerring
• Whispers of the Endless Paths       Run Through, Spinning Assault
• The Magnificent Escape Cape        The Magnificent Escape
• Rakhan Field Boots       No Quarter
• Spidersilk Robe       Dripping Fangs, Silk Spinner
• Slayer's Claw       Stelgaer's Lunge
• Healing Hands       Lesser Lay on Hands

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

20 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Mātakau would be no. 1 on my "I don't ever plan to use this"-list I guess. 

Good example. It's slightly better than a vanilla weapon when you enchant it to remove Fragile, but it's so marginal that you're honestly better off saving the money you would use to upgrade its quality and just using a vanilla exceptional/superb Battle Axe until you get Magran's Favor.

To fix this, I would add an additional enchant to the base item. Option A) play up the obsidian angle and steal one from Kahua Hozi, probably Knapped Glass to make it more unique relative to other Battle Axe options. Option B) play up the imbued with souls of warriors and priests angle and give it a defensive On Crit effect - a small heal over time, or bonus defenses. 

20 hours ago, thelee said:

most of the trinkets, honestly. 6s is a really long time for a once/rest effect with huge interrupt risk. my last run i forced myself to use a lot of the trinkets, and most of them were a lot of fun to use (sidenote: holy crap Muatu from SSS is extremely good, especially if you infuse him with souls). i think if their cast times were shrunk down a lot, they would be easier to use w/out causing major distortions in power (once/rest is a pretty hard constraint). that being said there are still trinkets i didn't bother with, but maybe i'd bother with them if they were cheap in terms of action economy.

Great points here. Fixing the action economy seems pretty easy - most of these could be moved to .5s/4s or even 1s/3s cast times without doing any harm. They are late game items (some literally gained from the hardest encounters in the game), so increasing their power level doesn't do much harm to the overall difficulty or pace of the game. Their opportunity cost is relatively low, because they use an item slot that has nothing else in it (for non-wizards), so that frees up some design room. Once we fix the general use case issue, we can look at each one and try to balance them with each other and their relative challenge level to acquire. 

The thing I can't stop thinking about, though, is how offensive On Rest abilities and items built around them by definition fall into this category of Rarely Used/Built Around. They are a limited resource, which creates a base level psychological barrier to using them ("What if I use it in this battle, but need it in the next and don't have it?").  But even if you can clear that barrier, let's say, and are committed to using them, you then have the added work of creating a decision tree for when you use it. What are the conditions when you should use it? Which fights? How many enemies? Etc. This problem is largely not an issue for defensive on rest abilities. If you're at risk of dying, you use the ability. The decision tree is much clearer there, and the risk for not using the ability is obvious - I might die, which might lead to more deaths and a reload. This second barrier is much less of an issue for per encounter abilities. You know you should use it every fight, so what's the best time in any given fight to use it. If you make a mistake on any one particular fight - oops, used it too early when I hit less targets, or when their defenses were too high, etc - then it's okay, you try again the next time. 

All of that is a long winded way of saying - why not just make most on rest abilities into per encounter? It seems so clear to me in terms of how I see the game, I'm curious what I'm missing, or what other perspectives there are on this. 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

1 minute ago, yorname said:

My very first character was a Devoted/something with Estoc and I gave up. Looking back now I probably picked the worst choice possible (at least one of them).

Are you saying that Estocs as a general group felt like the wrong choice? Was there one in particular that you think didn't work the way you hoped/expected? 

[Equipment that rarely makes sense to use?]

I'm curious what's on your list of weapons, armor, or accessories that don't really make sense to use. Is it because they are just weak compared to other options, bland in their design, or something else? 

I'm slowly working through a list of items that I think fit the above - namely that I can't figure out a situation where I would use them - and trying to "fix" them via modding. My goal is to preserve the item design philosophy of the original item, overall itemization design of the game, and avoid power creep. I want each item to be useful in some situation or for some build, but not a new default best choice. 

An example case is Queen's Rule. The on use ability seems cool enough, if situational. But that's all that the item does, and it has to not only compete against other 2H weapons, but also against a stacked deck of great sword options. 

My first draft fix here is to add a new enchantment to the base item that improves it's power mechanically, and fits a tactical and battlefield control niche. Commanding Presence: +2 all defenses per engaged target (stacks 5 times) (that's for each target you are engaging), +1 enemies engaged. In addition, shift the on use ability to 2/rest or 1/encounter. 

So what items would make your list? Have you thought about how to fix them if you could? 

[Choosing a melee class to bro out with Eder in the deadfire.]

Enfeeble on demand with FF is so good. Highly recommend one of those builds. Could theme Aedyran pike or great sword devoted w Helm of Falcon and DoC or Patinated. Some fun weapon options there. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

11 minutes ago, SenSx said:

Btw, I am hesitant in using the change to Salvation of time from the nerf package.

I understand the purpose of removing some game breaking tactics, but it looses its flexibility in my opinion.

Now you have to plan things in advance.

However I wonder now what new setup or synergies it opens up, could be interesting as well.

I just did a full run with all the nerfs (all megabosses) with a SC Priest of Berath and actually loved the new version of SoT. It's much more versatile and flexible - you cast it at any point in your buff sequence, and it's not wasted. It is still very powerful to extend all of your buffs in that way. With Brilliant, you can still keep your most important buffs up the whole fight, and SoT is a big part of that. It is honestly not very satisfying to extend out BDD and a million buffs infinitely once you've done it one or two times. It makes things so non-interactive. The updated SoT preserves some of the power and purpose of that, but puts limits on it that make you still feel like your risking something. 

[How make Barbarian better at single target?]

SC Barb is very strong in BPM. Fury Shaper is great, but Corpse Eater will put out even more damage. The food that gives +4 Barbarian Power Level is adding quite a bit of damage to Leap upgrades, Heart of Fury, and Dazing Shout. 

BPM adds rage gain via Vengeful Defeat and Potion of Enlightenment, which helps offset the added ability cost. Bloodstorm also helps conserve rage with enough perception/crit chance. 

On a boss with no adds, you will deal a little less damage (no bloodlust, fewer retaliation hits, etc), but Frenzy with 2 decent weapons should shred. 

Another option, since you’re SC is to use Monastic Unarmed Strike and look for consistent +PL. @thelee has a great build showcasing some ways to stack it in his guide. It’s easy to keep a few swords around for pen issues, and the sword modal only gives even more retaliation procs. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/354

Are you running this mod just to be sure? I usually do no rest runs and I have never seen my resting bonuses clear unless I intentionally rest.

I was convinced this wasn't it, but I looked at the list of them on the wiki, and tested the Luminous Bathhouse Quest. In that case, I kept my injury, but lost the food buff. It's possible I just happened to hit a handful of these without realizing it. I'll keep testing. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

6 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Have you ever noted that inn bonus mysteriously go away in Vanilla game ?

I’ll check regular food and try without mods and report back. 
 

I know it’s not forced rest, though; because my injury remains.

 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

I'm experiencing what seems like a bug, and wanted to check with folks before I do further testing. I'm playing a solo Corpse Eater on Normal, trying out all of the BPM updates. 

What I'm seeing is that my Corpse Eater food buffs are being cleared arbitrarily (not forced rests, as far as I can tell). I've at least observed it in Neketaka, but it may be happening other places, as well. This is annoying, slightly, but moreso, because I'm trying to maintain an injury to use Rekvu gear and the updated Vengeful Defeat passive. 

I need to test if this applies to any food buffs, but before I do, I wanted to see if other folks have observed similar behavior. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

I love it. I think it’s a great fix. Curious if it assuages @thelee. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Yeah the argument for BW would be "why wouldn't I want more focus". There're so many high tier spells that couldn't fit into a build because focus isn't enough for everything even with DW.

I think this is maybe this is the intended use case for Biting Whip (though of course vanilla does a really poor job of this), someone who wants to have a low-micro character (maybe AI coded) that deals higher weapon damage and uses very little focus. Biting Whip + Hammering Thoughts + Borrowed Instinct is 100% makes tacking Cipher onto any martial a huge boost, especially when you want to focus your ability choices on the other class. It's almost certainly suboptimal compared to a build that uses Draining Whip and casts more spells, but the added cost there is the micro to manage the focus and cast those spells. That kind of trade-off seems reasonable. 

I think Mindstalker might be a good example, where you likely want to spend more time using rogue abilities (though, of course you run out of Guile eventually), and pepper in some cipher stuff when you have the focus. In terms of action economy, you don't necessarily want more focus than what Soul Whip gives. 

 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I wonder about the passive being the cast of miscast AoE based on current focus, but without losing all focus and with obviously lesser values. 

Like your cipher untamed power always damages nearby foes. 

I like the idea, but yeah, might be really strong.

What if it was an activated ability? Dump all your focus into a blast, then get +1 PL for the rest of the encounter? 

You could also just make it a Crit effect, which keeps the sense of chance, but makes it more predictable. 

Edit: I just had another thought. You could make the whole Wild Surge effect something you can activate. Get +2PL, chance for Wild Surge. Make it a modal. Then people who really hate random effects can get a bog standard Cipher and still enjoy the dialogue, etc. In that case, I think turning up the % chance would be totally reasonable. 

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

I love that you are revisiting Wild Mind! I did a little draft design on how I would fix it a few weeks ago. This is a great solution that doesn't deviate too much from the current (with the exception of the proc chance). 

I like correcting the rest of the procs, so that the dice are more strongly weighted in the player's favor. Some are still pretty dangerous (Invisibility proc on a big AoE is really hard to work with), but I think you got it right on these. That said, I don't think weighting the effects is enough here. @thelee has made the case well in a few places that what makes a random effect class like this worth choosing is not a stacked deck of random effects, but a consistent benefit that always applies, e.g. extra spell casts. 

Given that, I think just adding a decent passive bonus to Wild Mind would really make it more appealing and balanced. Something as simple as +2 PL with Cipher spells is great. It's clear, always applies, and shows the tradeoff clearly. You are an untrained cipher. Your lack of control and training means that you cast with greater power, but wacky stuff can happen when you do. Other options could be Bonus Max Focus, Focus gain on cast, bonus action speed or reduced recovery with Cipher Spells, passive +hit to crit that increases every second until you crit, or a combination of a few of these.

As to the change to % chance for Wild Surge, I think that might be a little bit too much. Yes, the effects are more balanced/beneficial now, but the community's dislike of the Subclass is largely the randomness more than any particular effect. Increasing the chance to 25% feels fine, given your changes to the procs, but I wouldn't go much more than that. The thing is, even if that means more awesome procs, players are going to have an outsized memory for the bad ones and still dislike the class. If a player sees the advantage and wants to have more procs, they can self-select for that by increasing casting speed, casting lots of lower cost spells, etc. For those that want to minimize it or the effects, cast fewer spells, more single target, etc. 

[I slept on Sundering Blow done with a mortar]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

The no recovery BPM upgrade is even enough to sell a ranged (or semi ranged) barbarian (the Rod modal is especially good, the reload weapons much less since reload has a absolute minimum). 

Yes! I had a fun Savage turret build I was noodling.  Barbaric is always nice, if nothing else, to keep Blood Frenzy going. I was imaging using it with a Boreal Dwarf and Aamiina's Legacy (10% crit on graze/hit/crit) w/ Modal and Frenzy. I'm sure you could do fun stuff with Galawain's Harry on St. Omaku's Mercy, too. 

[clear out hits twice with 2h weapons?]

I seem to recall @Boeroer noticing similar a while back in a thread about clear out. I'm almost certain the behavior you're noticing has something to do with the weapon having reach (I think maybe WotEP and Citzal's Lance have similar interactions). It could also be about positioning - sometimes you can get Carnage to proc on the primary target, too. 

I do know that the way it works is it rolls first for a primary attack on the main target (which must hit (maybe graze is ok)), then rolls for the AoE. BPM removed the double attack roll for the AoE and reduced the damage to compensate. Maybe @Elric Galad knows more about the way it's implemented.