[Traps in Forgotten Sanctum]

There was a thread on mechanics where someone looked at the gamedata bundle and determined that the max Perception needed was 19. This was pre-Forgotten Sanctum release, so take that with a grain of salt, I guess.
 
The base game also had at least one hidden object requiring Perception 20. My personal experience going through FS on PotD had a trapfinder with 21 PER, so with some allowance for imperfect memory, I'll say it's not higher than that.
 
A quick and dirty list to boost PER (spoilered for mild game spoilers):

- Cauldron Brew: Found on a far northwest "unexplored" island. Follow the instructions on the Witch's deciphered notes and use those ingredients on the Cauldron.
- Food: Candied Nuts, Murkberries, Vegetables, Seafood Stew, and Murkbrew all raise by +1 or +2.
- Headgear: Horns of the Bleak Mother (Queen's Berth), Blackblade's Hood (deal with Crookspur as Aeldys asks), Blackened Plate Helm (Shattered Reef), Cowl of Piercing Gaze (Oathbinder Sanctum), Serpent Crown (Looted from Onekaza), Maw of Ingimyrk (SSS early fight reward, +2!)
- Neck: Just the Protective Eothasian Charm. Found on Gorecci Street.
- Shoulders: Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak (Fire Dragon Lair)
- Ring: Kuaru's Prize (Ori O Koiki)
- Way too many pets to list

 

Anyways, if your base PER for your trapfinder is 16, headgear and some +2 food should mean you're covered.

[Random thoughts and stray Observations]

RE: Fighters - Just wanted to agree about Primary Attacks needing a bit more oomph. Could probably be fixed by giving more benefit to One-Handed and Two-Handed styles.

 

Worth noting Knock Down affects initiative. I frequently use interrupting abilities to prevent enemies from acting during the window to interrupt my own spellcasters.

 

RE: Monks - Swift Strikes isn't great but its upgrades are still amazing. Getting a mini-Heartbeat Drumming with Swift Flurry frequently resulted in my Shadowdancer launching off 2-3 Two Handed strikes which was nuts on the damage front. A lightning lash is also a solid way to bump melee damage. The initiative boost is underwhelming but it's still nice to act ahead of enemies when every turn offers the opportunity to lucky-crit pummel a foe into the ground before they do anything.

 

RE: Rogues & Riposte - I modded it to trigger 100% of the time which feels more in line with the new very low frequencies of misses to trigger. 100% is probably a little high for actual balance but bringing it up to 50% or 75% should make it feel useful again. Or you could just make it like PoE1's Riposte and have it get a trigger chance on Grazes. That'd be fun!

[Changes / Feedback for turn-based]

I'll put in a second vote for the option convert a standard action into some amount of extra movement. The big set piece fights where you were fighting across on an entire map were some of my favorites in RTwP. Turn Based makes them tedious as you spend multiple rounds just moving.

[Single-Classed Cipher in Turn-Based]

Well, first off, Soulblade can't actually cast 5 Disintegrates in a row. They max out at 200 Focus. That's only enough for 3 Disintegrates. You need to kill at least two enemies in melee before you can even cast four like a Beguiler or no-Sub can from max.

 

I tested it and Max Focus Soul Annihilation deals about the same amount of damage as the same Soulblade's Disintegrate does on its first round. That's pretty impressive for a melee attack, but then Disintegration ticks again the next round, and an Ascendant would be casting a second one instead of following up with the, what, 60-80ish damage of a Soulblade trying to rebuild focus?

 

Though now that I've actually looked at Soul Annihilation, I'd say trying to compare the two things like that as you've been doing is unfair to the Soulblade, since Soul Annihilation still hits like a truck at lower focus counts.

 

I've never had an issue hitting the defenses I want to in a party. In a vacuum or solo play, Deflection might be easier to hit, sure. Fortitude is super easy to debuff, though. For example, out of all the Companions and Sidekicks, literally only Serafen can't apply a second tier MIG/CON affliction and the Morningstar Modal in the same turn. That's 12/13 game-suggested party members that can give something at least -35 FORT through MIG/CON resistance while applying damage.

 

I know I did a piss-poor job of expressing it but what I was trying to say in my above post was that Ascendant is worse than the other subs at certain fights that in no way comprise the entirety of the tough fights in the game. I think they're actually better than other Subs for a lot of end-game content, like most of SSS and Belranga for example.

[Single-Classed Cipher in Turn-Based]

I stopped reading there [...] why stop at 3 with the Ascendant?

 

(highlight mine) Wow, you honestly didn't read my post and still responded to it. I legitimately don't know what to say, that's kind of amazing in its boldness.

 

That's a fair analysis but it seems like you're basically admitting that Ascendants are flat a worse option in turn based on all the most challenging parts of the game -- levels 1-5 (Port Maje) and the DLC content (level 19 and after).

 

I was trying to respond to this and kept looking back at my other post and you're right: I really did make it seem like they were worse where it mattered. Some revisions that are more line with what I mean:

 

I think 20th level Ascendants are roughly on par with 20th level Beguilers and no-Subs. I haven't played a Soulblade so I don't feel qualified to comment but I'd guess they're around the same, otherwise every Cipher thread would be about how you should play Soulblade. As far as end game content goes, I only think they're explicitly worse on 2/4 megabosses (I actually think they're significantly better against Belranga and about on par against the Sigilmaster) and just the Survivor fights in SSS. And I'd still prefer an Ascendant in the Survivor fights to no Cipher at all.

 

My other point that I guess I wasn't clear on was that the places where a TB Ascendant struggles compared to other Ciphers are mostly the same places a RTwP Ascendant struggles - fights where it's hard to generate focus right off the bat, fights where you'll need to try to ascend multiple times, and the period of the early game where your Ascendance is just okay and not really much better than being a normal Cipher. RTwP is better in some areas, of course. But RTwP Ascendant was really good and shouldn't be a balancing point for if TB Ascendant is good enough.

 

My real big point is that it's so easy to ascend in most of the game, including some of the hard fights, that gaining +3 PL on 4 or 5 powers is basically free. A different Cipher sub was probably also going to open with that same big hit that took the Ascendant to max Focus and be casting for a similar amount of rounds.

 

I mostly don't really like that people are crying out "Ascendant is dead!" without looking at how it actually ends up playing like. There's also a bit of a disconnect where people seem to be ignoring the thing that "kills" Ascendant hurt Ciphers as a whole in TB. They were fairly fast casters and would definitely have thrown out more than 1 power every 6 seconds in RTwP. I probably shouldn't make this my hill to die on, though, especially not in OP's build help thread.

 

FWIW, I do use a slow XP gain mod, which I forget about sometimes since its effects aren't obvious or in your face and I didn't realize how that might color my view of things. 11-19 might not be as big of a portion of the game as I'm personally used to.

[Single-Classed Cipher in Turn-Based]

Ascendant isn't "plain bad", it's a build around now. You need weapons that'll consistently max your focus round 1 and to get INT to 20 or 22. It's just not the over-the-top OP, spam-1000-Disintegrates auto-pick it was in TB. The PL boost is fairly significant and pre-max level (you know, 3/4s of the game?), other subs won't be able to throw out more high level powers. Even if they can cast the same amount before running out of focus, Ascendant does it at +3 PL.

 

It's fairly disingenuous to say they only get three rounds, when 18 INT plus two items available in Neketaka (Heaven's Cacophony and Charm of Bones) get you four rounds. You can also hit four rounds with 19 INT (available to Godlikes and Old Vaillians) and Strand of Favor, another fairly early item. 5 rounds is even possible:

Non-Godlikes: 18 INT (+40% duration) + Strand of Favor (+15% Duration) + Heaven's Cacophony (+10% Duration) + Mari Crudia (+25% Duration) + Pick two: Kuaru's Prize/Cauldron Brew/Old Vaillia (2x +5% Duration) = +100% duration = 30 seconds = 5 rounds.

Godlikes: 19 INT (+45% duration) + Strand of Favor (+15% Duration) + Mari Crudia (+25% Duration) + Kuaru's Prize (+5% Duration) + Cauldron Brew (+5% Duration) + Old Vaillia (+5% Duration) = +100% duration = 30 seconds = 5 rounds.

 

Where TB Ascendant is actually bad:

• Port Maje/early game. Without the gear for a longer duration Ascension, the weapons to quickly reach it, and the really great powers to spam, Ascendant is worse than the other subs on Port Maje. This was also true in RTwP. In general, pre-level 11 Ascendant also isn't great since spamming things like Mind Blades is something all Ciphers are capable of. This is an issue specific to TB; spamming high action speed Mind Blades at +3 PL was great in RTwP.
• Fights that don't start with enough adds to farm for focus. Any fight where you're forced to open with auto-attacks for more than two rounds sucks. This was also true in RTwP but is actually slightly alleviated in TB. Why? Well, you can have your party debuff the tougher enemy or buff you and just delay until after your buffs/debuffs land. There was a time cost to doing that in RTwP that is gone with TB - it basically doesn't matter when you auto-attack in a round.
• If you want to Disintegrate an entire screen. No Cipher can do this in TB, btw. Play RTwP if that's your jam.
• In the very end game, specifically just in comparison to other subs. Ascendant is at its strongest from level 11 to level 19, where you should have your iconic level 6+ powers and the gear to sustain Ascendance. These are also the levels where the other subs won't be able to match 4 rounds of +3 PL high level Powers. I'll admit to being unfamiliar with Soulblade max Focus (is it 210+? Cos w/Greater Focus, that's the magic number), but Beguilers and No-Subs will be able to sustain 4 rounds of Disintegration/Amplified Wave at exactly 20th and being able to emulate Ascendant's schtick that well while still being useful when you can't quickly gain focus puts them ahead.
• Drawn out fights. Specifically any fight where you have to Ascend more than twice. Reaching Ascension a second time is kind of boring and will probably take 2-3 rounds but that's likely not going to be more total time spent generating focus than a differently subclassed Cipher. If you have to do that a 3rd time? That's a lot of rounds spent doing basically nothing, especially since you'll be out of easy targets and low on buffs/debuffs by the time you need to generate focus for Ascendance #3. This point is only valid if you don't have a Priest to cast Salvation of Time on you.
• Fights where it's hard not to be interrupted. Interrupts are absolutely brutal for TB Ascendants, losing 25% of your full power mode is a major bad deal. Interrupts of course weren't great in RTwP but they weren't as awful as they are in TB.

Basically, Ascendant is bad if you think the best fights in the game are the Dragons, SSS Survivor fights, Dorudugan, and Hauani O Whe. Considering that some players really love these challenging fights, it's definitely important to say that Ascendant is somewhere between mildly underwhelming and strictly worse than any other Cipher option in those fights.

 

For all I'm defending it, I wouldn't personally take Ascendant if Mortars are reserved for another character, since those are easiest way to quickly Ascend. They'll take you to max focus 1st turn in like 90% of fights, whereas with other options you're looking at like 70-80% 1st turn Ascendance (completely anecdotal numbers). Consistently Ascending right away is a big deal.

 

But it's not "bad now", it's still basically a free +3 PL for a meaningful chunk of a fight. Or an entire fight and not just a meaningful chunk if you coordinate your party (Salvation of Time Priest, AoE damage dealers to clear crowds while you Disintegrate big targets or single target damage dealers while you Amplified Wave away the crowds, Morningstar Modal user so you don't miss, etc.).

[Single-Classed Cipher in Turn-Based]

Ascendant vs No-Sub in TB depends on a lot of what you want to do. Ascended should last 3 rounds, or 4 at 22+ INT (20 INT w/Strand of Favor will also get you 4). Wanna spam high level powers? Ascendant does it better; No-Sub would also be out of focus after casting Amplified Wave 3 rounds in a row. Wanna cast buffs or CC? No-Sub will probably end out having more than 3-4 rounds of uninterrupted casting.

 

Course you said you'll have a party: bring a Priest and cast Salvation of Time. It's +2 rounds on your beneficial effects. 5-6 rounds of Ascended is plenty. No more drawback on Ascendant, since you can cast for the same amount of rounds as a No-Sub (or longer).

 

As for weapons, I'd dual-wield Kitchen Stove [Thunderous Report/Everything and Anything] and Xefa's Empirical Explication [Jagged Load/Open Choke]. Kitchen Stove's Thunderous Report will take you to Ascended pretty consistently. When it doesn't, auto attacking easily covers the remainder.

 

For backup, I'd consider a bow. Frostseeker can also generate lots of focus but it's inconsistent if it's not critting. Essence Interrupter is better for focus generation in RTwP, but it's still good in TB for the unique damage type and lash. Saint Omaku's Mercy giving big hits is great in TB where its slowness doesn't hurt very much. I would use any one of these in my second weapon slot for pierce immune enemies, with my personal preference being Saint Omaku's, since it's very good against the high AR opponents that Blunderbusses have a hard time with.

[New to Deadfire - need build advice!]

Soulblade is still pretty good if you can regularly generate lots of focus! Inquisitors (Paladin/Cipher) can load out some good Soul Annihilation alternating it with Flames of Devotion to refuel. Feels really thematic too - "I'll light you up with purifying fire, then send your soul straight to Hel!" Bleakwalker would be the best Paladin order for this but if you prefer playing as good guy, Kind Wayfarers is a great team player. Inquisitor would be a good fit if you wanted to keep dual wielding Sabres - Paladins are great at dual wielding and Sabres have big enough damage that having to "only" do a primary attack for Soul Annihilation isn't a big deal. Some early battles are surprisingly difficult in Deadfire (like PoE1 cave bear hard!), so even on "just" Veteran, you'll probably appreciate Paladin's added survivability. Especially in the starter zone while you're figuring the PoE1/2 differences out.

 

Helwalker/Ascendant is very good in RTwP. It's pretty simple - take Mind Blades, use Duality of Mortal Presence's Wounds-to-INT to extend your Ascendance and Swift Strikes for the action speed buff, shred the entire screen with Mind Blades. The standard set up is dual mortars to ascend right away but the main reason that works is AoE damage. You could probably Wahai Poraga or Whispers of the Endless Paths (both are accessible pretty early too!). Once you get full attacks from the Monk side, you could also just emulate your PoE1 set-up. There's a variety of strong Sabres and whichever Swift Strikes upgrade you take can end up adding a lot of extra damage.

 

I'll also put in a vote for single-class Cipher. Once you get Draining Whip (always pick Draining Whip in Deadfire), you don't *need* another class to get you going into caster mode and the extra PL/earlier access is very nice.

 

Speaking of Draining Whip, I'll mention Cipher has changed a bit in case you didn't know. You have to choose between Draining Whip and Biting Whip now, and Draining Whip is widely considered the better choice for Focus generation. It generates a TON of focus. Other notable changes:

• The PoE1 classic Prone Cone (Mind Wave) doesn't prone things anymore. It does have a way bigger cone and Interrupts on hit (similar function, significantly less powerful than PoE1's prone).
• Mind Blades doesn't stop bouncing on a miss, which makes it a great spammable power.
• You said you wanted to focus on damage but it's worth mentioning that Mental Binding isn't a powerhouse anymore. It has a much shorter duration and no accuracy bonus now.
• I used Psychovampiric Shield a lot on melee Ciphers in PoE1, so I'll mention it: It gives +5 Resolve instead of +25 deflection now. It's still good but don't expect to turn into a tank on this alone.
• Phantom Foes is a good damage set up now, since Flanked reduces Armor and helps with PEN.
• Silent Screams got toned down on damage a bit, I remember spamming it in PoE1 but I mostly used it for Stun utility in Deadfire.

In general, you're also going to have less powers. Ciphers have a lot of great passives and if you multiclass, your second class will be competing for ability points, too. I wouldn't pick any powers that I didn't plan on using at least once in most fights. I highly recommend the Penetration passives available to a Cipher (they have one for weapons and one for spells). DR works differently in Deadfire, and underpenetrating things basically entirely turns off your damage. Likewise, overpen is a massive damage boost.

 

More meta-gamey but I'd recommend also having your first character be a story-mode speedrun to 3 achievement points and then start your actual first run with the Bonus Skills Berath's Blessing. If you like dialogue stuff, there's a lot of extra tidbits gated behind History and Insight checks, so if this is your playthrough for the story, you'll get more out of it with the skills blessing. Just IMO, really, not a necessity.

[Suggestions for 2nd Playthrough - Turn Based]

I had a Harbinger Troub/Trickster hireling in my first TB playthrough, and I had a bunch of fun with that character so I'm doing a Harbinger Watcher now. I gotta say Skald>Troubadour in TB for being a caster. If you don't wanna summon (IMO too much micro in TB anyways), all the Skald invocations are the same equivalent phrase cost as Troubadour Brisk Recitation except by taking just one non-offensive invocation you can skyrocket your starting/max phrases. I can pretty much always spend the first 3-4 turns casting invocations and between Riposte and full attacks, might only need to take one turn off before casting a few more. Troubs can only open with 2-3 invocations max and can't spike right back up to full phrases for spamming higher cost stuff like Eld Nary.
 
I am kind of abusing Riposte, though. Gipon Prudensco's "Immunity to Disengagement" actually just makes disengagement attacks auto-miss, which can proc Riposte. I think it's really funny having an orlan be like "Uh oh, low on phrases! Time to run through these pirates' legs, givin 'em the Kapana Taga frat initiation!"
 
Lovers Cried Out vs. Thunder Rolled I think is a playstyle thing. I have a lot of AoE casters on my team, so Lovers Cried Out is for evening overwhelming odds. Often quicker to just "pause" the enemies so they hold still while I burn the world.

[Suggestions for 2nd Playthrough - Turn Based]

• Example: Eder Applies Disciplined Barrage as a free action. He gets its effects for 2 turns after this one.
• Example #2: A chanter casts The Thunder Rolled, giving a 1 round Stun. The enemy takes their next turn, does nothing, and the Stunned condition expires. The enemy acts normally next round. (The Lover Cried Out should work this way)

 

Interesting. So rule of thumb for offensive stuff is get it to the next six second increment if possible.

 

The Thunder Rolled... Hmm. Multiplicative Power Level might make this worthwhile. Currently, once you hit The Lover Cried Out, I'd much rather Charm a group than do a little bit of damage and stun them. At PL 5, a FF would have +20% duration... times base duration or Base Duration + Intellect Bonus?

 

20% x (Base Duration+INT). I don't know if I like Lovers Cried Out better if you can actually consistently hit 2 round duration on your 2 phrase Stun!

 

WRT theorycrating: Don't forget there are some pretty easy PL boosts from consumables. Food can give +1 PL and is basically always on. You should probably be able to be getting 2 round Thunder Rolled by level 13 simply by having 17+ INT and using DoMP.

 

Perhaps there's a crit-based spell build around Forbidden Fist. Wizard perhaps?

 

If we're just talking spell crits in general? Play whatever kind of caster you want, and build your party around it. I'd grab a Priest for Devotions of the Faithful, a Rogue dual wielding Club and Flail who picked up Confounding Blind, and a Wizard who can cast Miasma of Dull-Mindedness. Then only pick spells that target Ref/Will. Sample round:

• Priest casts Devotions. You, Rogue, and Wiz delay until past spell resolution so you can act while buffed.
• You and Wiz delay to let Rogue go if necessary. Rogue lands their Confounding Blind Club/Flail Modal because Devotions and CB give +20 to hit.
• Enemy is at -35 Ref and -25 Will
• You delay to let Wiz go. Wiz lands Miasma of Dull-Mindedness because they have +10 to hit against a defense that's already down -25.
• Enemy is at -55 Ref and -65 Will
• You crit because you have an effective +65-75 accuracy boost on top of whatever your normal accuracy is.

You should still be fine to crit against mobs since Miasma is an AoE and the Wiz should be able to land it against mobs just from Free Action buffs and Devotions. You'll continue to crit the entire combat with this set-up since Devotions and Miasma have great durations. Nothing is immune to weapon modals or Miasma, so it's always "on" (Miasma even bypasses Arcane Reflection since it's not targeted).

 

If you don't want to dedicate over half your party to it, a Paladin can replace the Priest and Rogue. You'll lose some Ref debuffing and some accuracy but Exalted Focus boosting accuracy/hit-to-crit plus Flames of Devotion's +10 Acc to land your modals should be good enough.

 

There's not any build that's going to come anywhere close to being as meaningful that sort of supporting party for spell crits. A Forbidden Fist build works of course. A lot of spells like the Enfeebled duration bonus and Dance of Death boosts spell accuracy for more crits. Your Wizard suggestion'd be good on the spellcasting side too because then you could be the Miasma caster. Eldritch Aim also helps with more accuracy/stacks with everything mentioned so far.

[Fextralife's Five Turn-Based Combat Builds]

The Blackjacket is really the only potentially exploitative build. Personally I think it's fine - it'll create a few unique builds and give the game more depth. One subclass being able to do pretty much what it's supposed to does not unbalance things. I hope it doesn't get nerfed, since it's a neat exclusive-to-TB build. There's probably some similar builds based on switching around PL boosting weapons.

 

I think the brief guide on Forbidden Fist is good. It's a strong foundation for other people interested in character building to work from when trying out possible FF builds. It only loosely ties into TB with the acknowledgement that initiative replacing action speed makes One Big Hit DPR more desirable.

 

The Warlock was already doable in RTwP. It's unclear to me what makes it better in TB, other than that you don't have to hold down the shift key between clicking Frenzy and clicking Infuse with Vital Essence. Once again, it's a nice guide - I think combining Blood Mage and Berserker to self-harm for Activated on Bloodied stuff is a cool concept and the brief outline on how to set it up and mitigate risks is helpful. It just doesn't seem like it has any special interactions with TB.

 

The Skirmishing Scout is just noticing that Animal Companions don't suck if you actually micro them (also doable in RTwP). I kind of get it, since I was also pretty impressed with how much better everything is when you don't let the AI handle anything but it's straight up not a build. It's even ignorant of how TB works, since having higher initiative than your AC is unnecessary if you delay your AC when it gets to act ahead of you.

 

The Elemental Shifter is, alongside the Blackjacket, the only one of these I would consider fully a TB build. Applying TB's automatic full attack to a mechanic that was lacking it is a great idea. I'm probably gonna try some Ascetic Shifter DPR builds now.

 

IMO the most powerful builds in TB are the ones that exploit the way a fair amount of crowd control effects last for a full turn, gaining an effective duration boost over RTwP. There's some potential for powerful free action builds but the only free actions I've found to be over-the-top abusable are the Fighter's Into the Fray (which is partially mitigated by its high cost) and the Barbarian's Spirit Tornado (probably could use a nerf - being able to apply hard control and AoE damage as a Free Action is wild). Besides that, Gniel is right that most of the best RTwP builds stay at the top. The only ones that truly suffer are the action speed based ones.

[Suggestions for 2nd Playthrough - Turn Based]

I'm not sure about the interaction between Power Level and Attributes. Are they Multiplicative?

 

I am going to assume that duration increases between Power Level and Attributes is Additive.

I actually forgot about power level scaling. PL is multiplicative. The % added is from the total after your INT is factored in. It does the same for MIG and damage.

 

The TLDR? I think your optimal intellect is strictly based off of the desired duration/area of specific invocations. Specifically:

• PL 1 The Thunder Rolled - it is possible to get 2 round base duration stuns at higher levels and high intellect.
• PL 2 ...The Killers Froze Stiff - The base duration of 4 seconds makes hitting duration break points difficult.
• PL 3 Reny Daret's Ghost Spake- This thing lasts forever on TB. Enfeeble an enemy for truly hilarious durations (I've gotten 12 Rounds duration off a crit).
• PL 4 The Lover Cried out- The Lover Cried Out wants 20 Intellect for 2 round charm.

Looking at the above, and assuming Duality of Mortal Presence for increased intellect, anything above 15 seems fine.

 

The Lover Cried Out is interesting - At level 10 with 15 Intellect, you could empower the invocation for a 2 Round Charm. At 30 Intellect and Empower, you should reach a 3 Round Charm.   At 3 Phrases... That's a bargain.

 

Thanks for writing this out, good info.

 

Have you figured out where exactly cutoffs for jumping from X rounds X+1 rounds are? It doesn't seem like you have to make it over the line - I did some testing with Eder and his Disciplined Barrage was getting 3 effective rounds of uptime at 16.5 seconds. The tooltips showed 2 rounds but in actual play he had a round 0 where DB was on for his turn but not any remaining turns in the round. That's obviously pretty meaningful for buffs and CC-style debuffs. Actually, I wonder if that's what is happening with Forbidden Fist Curse? It could be marking any time left over as your "round 0", and applying "round 0" to last until your end of turn.

 

The multiplicative PL thing does change some math - The Lover Cried Out only needs about 20 INT when empowered to hit 3 rounds, at least assuming it follows the same round 0 practice as Eder's Disciplined Barrage (getting it with at least ~16 seconds and also getting it all). I also have to wonder where the 2 round break point is for The Thunder Rolled, since 20 INT gets you a respectable ~10.1 seconds. If those both get the effective extra round from "round 0", I'd say the INT break point for duration is ~17 if you're casting from turn 1 (16+4 Wounds-3 Thunderous Blows+2 Enduring Dance=20), ~15 if your first action isn't always to cast (same math but +2 more from Dance), or ~12/14 if you don't use Thunderous Blows (since +5 MIG can really hurt with Forbidden Fist). Basically you're right that 15 base INT is what you want but I'm writing it out to process the info because I'm interested in trying out the new Forbidden Fist now too.

 

It does feel weird to not simply go with the most INT possible on a Chanter for maximum phrase AoE but it's not like it's going to be small esp once you get DoMP.

[Suggestions for 2nd Playthrough - Turn Based]

Thanks for the advice!

 

I am currently looking at Forbidden Fist/Skald.

 

I was playing around in the console, and the changes they've made to the Forbidden Curse duration are interesting [from 10 seconds ->6 Seconds]. With high Resolve, you can get a very small duration on the curse, allowing you to ramp up wounds and use Forbidden Fist freely (on RTwP).

 

On Turn based this is a little borked-  The curse will always expire at the end of the following round as a baseline.

Did they change the curse from being considered a beneficial effect and thus increasing with things like INT? Because if it isn't anymore, then Forbidden Fist seems pretty decent. I wonder where the cut-off for something not lasting an entire turn is, you could get the curse pretty low. Eviee the pet grants +2 RES, a few boots give +1 RES, Mohora Wraps is a 30% straight reduction, and Strand of Favor is a straight 10% reduction, so an Aedyran/Ixamitl Human/Orlan could have -79% hostile effect duration. -82% if you wanna Bloodpool Grieving Mother or Pallegina, -88% if you Bloodpool and Berath's Blessing. That makes the curse ~1.3 seconds (~0.7 seconds Bloodpool/BB). (Those numbers could be really off because I didn't test and it's not always clear where effects are applied - eg does Strand of Favor apply with RES or before/after RES is calculated? I'm calculating like 20 RES plus Strand is -40% of 6 seconds - a greater benefit than the option of 6-30%=4.2-10%=final result) It's moot if your INT still affects curse duration, though, since Skalds definitely want INT and you'll probably use Duality of Mortal Presence for INT - you might be looking at all that gear just to keep the curse down to one round.

 

I did play a Helwalker/Caster in TB, and fwiw Dance of Death/Enduring Dance is very good is TB. It's somewhat unlikely you'd need to rely much at all on FF's usual wound generation with that ability. It's a Free Action that generates its round's effects immediately when you activate it, so even if you've been hit enough to drop it, there's effectively no down time.

 

I'm also doing a Skald for my current playthrough, and fair warning: One-Handed is a trap option in TB. Dual Wield generating twice the attacks is so much better than 20% hit-to-crit (plus you save an ability point because Two Weapon Style is useless in TB). Course you might have been planning to dual wield anyways, seeing as Monks have the best Dual Wield weapon in the game - fists. If you're going with a high RES build anyways Tuotilo's Palm also becomes a pretty interesting option - Monks have a good enough chassis for tanking and adding Weapon and Shield Style really solidifies that. It does conflict with Skald a bit, since Tuotilo's Palm won't get enchantment accuracy bonus and will crit less than normal Dual Wielding.

 

I'll also give the piece of advice that if you want to be more of a caster this playthrough, you should pick up one of the PL 3 or 4 non-offensive invocations. They cost 5 phrases with Skald, so they effectively act like a passive that says +3 max and starting phrases. I ended up grabbing Two Fingers of Daylight and it surprisingly has saved me once or twice. More importantly, though, I get to cast for the first 2-3 rounds before going back to normal Skald alternating weapon attacks and invocations routine. The theoretical "best" choice for a non-offensive is Ogre summons but the practical best choice for a Monk is one of the PL 3 options since you're probably going to want to spend all your points on Monk abilities at PL 4.

[Suggestions for 2nd Playthrough - Turn Based]

Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole Cipher is pretty fun in TB - you fire at any grouping of enemies and max focus turn 1, then just spam cipher powers. Don't take Ascendant (it's underwhelming in TB). You can multi with just about any martial class, though Helwalker Monk deserves mention for being able to give +10 to 2 important caster stats, MIG and INT. Single class Cipher is also very good - the extra PL is helpful and Shared Nightmare is ridiculous.

 

If you don't mind taking on a supporting role, I've been enjoying Priests a lot in TB. Between delaying and initiative manipulation, it's pretty easy to consistently hit your whole team with some major buffs. Wael is good for tanking, Magran for nuking, and Woedica for control. There's definitely some cool roleplay moments for Berath Priests too.

[Any underrated invocations?]

Thanks for the helpful comments so far.

 

Wanted to mention Sasha's Singing Scimitar, which seems pretty mandatory for a Bellower. I'm thinking I would use the Encore upgrade so I can pop two heavy invocations back to back in a tough fight. Refreshing Finale seems good and the more popular choice (from what I've seen) but I have a little policy saying choose the best build for any given encounter, not one that is only good across several (without rest). Encore seems really good for gaining control of a fight early - good enough to need to rest here and there. Resting does restore all empower points at once right? I've never really paid attention.

Thoughts?

Refreshing Finale ends up effectively returning 4 phrases due to invocation cast time taking up most/all of another phrase. My experience is mostly with Troubs and Skalds so I don't know if a Bellower really wants the refill but 4 is plenty if your goal is mostly just chain casting. If you don't mind resting more often, Encore allowing back-to-back Eld Narys is very good, though as a single class you'll probably find that an empowered, upgraded, bellowed Eld Nary is enough damage and you'd rather be following up with utility.

[Turn-Based Playthrough with Fate (Spoilers)]

Did you find that high INT was a requirement for keeping your storms (or anything else) up? Could you do a similar build with less INT?

I originally went with a high INT because I was operating off RTwP build rules where every extra second counts. As far as duration? I typically got +1-2 rounds on top of normal duration. That's nice for Swift Flurry in longer fights (Mortification is a limited resource) but definitely in the "luxury over necessity" category. Duality of Mortal Presence's +10 on top of base 10 INT would likely cover most durations - it takes Swift Flurry from 1.5 to 2 rounds, Thunderous Blows from 2 to 3 rounds, and Relentless from 2.5 to ~4 rounds.

 

For Storms it's also worth noting you get a third cast from your armor. Even the smallest amount of INT puts you solidly in the region of 9 rounds uptime a combat.

 

So no, maxed INT isn't necessary for duration.

 

The bigger deal with INT though was AoE radius. The difference between hitting 4 enemies and 5 enemies is pretty big (maybe life or death on a low CON Helwalker!). The friendly fire AoEs like Sunbeam and Hail Storm are also easier to use with a larger radius and important in dealing damage to, well, any group.

 

Did I need 20+ INT? Probably not. If you wanted more CON for the pre-Hasongo game, you could shave off some INT, I suppose. I did have an advantage doing that with 4.1.0's broken engagement - without that, more CON might actually be necessary to prevent some major frustration early game. Also CON is way more important overall without the Bloodpool Durance and Gift From The Machine significantly boosting your HP.

 

More DEX could be useful too in that most fights are really about how fast you can get off Relentless. I typically had it up before too many enemy actions with what I had plus Rapid Casting but there are some pretty interrupt heavy ship fights where even 3% more action speed might have made the difference.

 

I personally value INT higher than those stats and wouldn't change it. Answering your question and trying to think about it critically, you don't need to max it and might benefit from not doing so, especially if you didn't minmax your PoE1 history for the build. Just because I wouldn't lower it doesn't mean a lower INT build wouldn't work or even outperform my version in some areas.

[Dual wield vs any 2h style style in turn mode]

Just finished a TB run and my rule of thumb was "Added Damage=Dual Wield". Rogues, Paladins with FoD, etc. should probably dual wield.

 

Similarly classes that use lots of Primary Attacks should go two-handed. Obviously a Mule Kick Fighter wants One Big Hit.

 

I don't actually think Two-Weapon Style is worth the ability point in Turn Based. If you're only trying to do DPR with weapon attacks, you don't need the initiative boost. If you're applying afflictions with weapon attacks, those afflictions effectively cover the initiative boost.

[Turn-Based Playthrough with Fate (Spoilers)]

I'm nearing the end of my first Turn Based playthrough (just mega-bosses and Ukaizo left!) so I wanted to share some findings and thoughts in hopes that it will help others (or at least that I'll have my mind changed on some things and get better for my next playthrough).

 

Mods/Berath's Blessings Disclaimer:

These are the mods and BBs that might have influenced how I viewed this playthrough:

 

Godlike Tweaks (Mod): Switches Godlike stats to be +1 Con/Dex/Per/Int. Obviously pretty good for my Nature Godlike Watcher. Specifically the Con boost alongside Bloodpool Durance and Gift From the Machine is an effective boost to all of my other stats because it makes dumping Con way safer than it would normally be.

Soulbound Upgrade (Mod): Soulbounds that normally cap at Superb instead cap at Legendary. Fairly relevant with Lord Darryn's Voulge, since you will end up wading into melee in some longer fights and it upgrades very quickly, allowing pretty early access to Legendary.

Close to Board No Damage (Mod): Skip right to normal combat with ships. Massive money saver, since you basically don't need to upgrade or maintain your ship.

+5000 Starting Money, Fine Equipment, and Unique Item Vendor (BB): The start with good equipment cheat. Makes Port Maje that much easier and gives fairly early access to some end game gear.

Can I Pet Him Anyway (BB): I didn't have Eder in party the whole time (I know, I know, hard to believe) so not as powerful as it could be. A second pet is very strong though, and I'd probably not use this except that not giving Eder a pet would make me a heartless monster.

Skills (BB): Makes dialogue checks passable, basically. Definitely allows for some quicker item access and easier early game quest completion.

Mythical Discovery (BB): This went on Kapana Taga, which is extremely relevant, since the drawback of that weapon is low pen. Kapana Taga also spent a lot of time with my Harbinger and the extra accuracy to land debuffs and start making a foe's stats more hit-able is pretty strong too.

Veteran No Upscaling For Engwithan Digsite: Not a mod or blessing but I decided to start the game on Veteran to ease my way into Turn Based. I switched to POTD for Gorecci Street onwards. I think I'd have been fine taking on that Drake on POTD since I was already meta-gaming the fight by taking Charm Beast at level 2.

Cosmic Pets: Also not a mod or a blessing but I consoled them in right away. They're not game breaking but specifically handing Comet to Eder is pretty strong for Port Maje.

 

 

Background Info: Build and Party Set-Up

I played a Nature Godlike Fate Testarossa build (credit to Ascaloth) for my Watcher. Pre-level 13, I had a fairly standard party: Priest Xoti, Riposte/Engagement Swash Eder, Single Class Aloth, and story relevant companion slot. My post level 13 core party consisted of the Watcher, a Zealot Vatnir (Preist of Rymrgand/Rogue) with a focus on buffs and AoE DPR, and a hireling Harbinger (Troubadour/Trickster) that ended up being basically another Ascaloth build (The Cunning Duelist), except with more of a focus on dual-wielding than crits (I was actually really excited about building this character and wanted to make a build post but then checked the build list and it's like... 90% the same character. Oh well, someone else coming up with it first just means I was right about it being good). The spare slots were for story relevant companions, with generally one being a Chanter healer (Tekehu, Pallegina, Konstanten or Fassina) and the other being built for DPR (literally everyone else).

 

Post Level 13 Core Party Builds

Watcher - Nature Godlike Ascetic (Fury Druid/Helwalker Monk)

 

Attributes

Might: 20 (17, +1 Gift From The Machine, +2 Gauntlets of Ogre Might)

Constitution: 6 (3, +1 Godlike [Mod], +1 Durance, +1 Upright Captain's Belt)

Dexterity: 18 (16, +1 Godlike, +1 Boots of the Stone)

Perception: 22 (18, +1 Godlike [Mod], +1 White That Wends, +1 Kuaru's Prize, +1 Cauldron's Brew)

Intelligence: 22 (18, +1 Godlike, +2 Charm of Bones, +1 Kuaru's Prize)

Resolve: 4 (3, +1 Boots of the Stone)

 

Equipment

Head: Godlike

Neck: Charm of Bones

Armor: Deltro's Cage (Core to the build: +2 Electricity PL)

Rings: Kuaru's Prize, Ring of Overseeing

Boots: Boots of the Stone

Shoulders: Cloak of Greater Protection -> Giftbearer's Cloth if you don't care about dialogue or you're past most of it

Trinket: Detonator Shard (Obviously not important but I figured healing to pair with Helwalker's Might is good)

Hands: Gauntlets of Ogre Might/Woedica's Strangling Grasp (Core to the Build: +2 Might is necessary to hit the 35 cap)

Waist: Upright Captain's Belt (more for the Concentration/Constitution than the immunity)

Pet: Loki

Weapon Set 1: Lord Darryn's Voulge (Core to the Build: +3(!) Storm PL)

Weapon Set 2: Spearcaster [Elemental Bolts/Pinning] (Not important but ranged backup is useful and this gets an accuracy boost from a skill you want)

Ascaloth's Fate Testarossa used a lot more 1/rest equipment but I'm really picky about resting before I'm out of Empower so I ditched most of it. I'd guess that the 1/rest stuff is more powerful but I'm just showing my work here so I gotta be honest about what I have.

 

Skills

Active: 6 points into Stealth, then the rest went into Arcana. I used Spearcaster as a backup weapon and 13 Arcana gets you scrolls of Avenging Storm by level 20, which is pretty important for a Nature Godlike that can't wear Heaven's Cacophony. 1 or 2 points out of Stealth and into Athletics might be better.

Passive: Insight, Diplomacy, and Metaphysics so that my Watcher can say the lines I want her to. Respec'd into maxed History to wear Giftbearer's Cloth for SSS, and will keep it that way for megabosses/Ukaizo.

 

Proficiencies

Only one I used was Arbalest w/Spearcaster. I obviously grabbed Pollaxe, too, but never felt the need to use it. Everything else was irrelevant - I did not use those weapons.

 

PL1 (Levels 1-3)

Dancing Bolts (Fury)

Swift Strikes

Sunbeam

Charm Beast -> Force of Anguish post-Digsite

Lesser Wounds

 

PL 2 (Levels 4-6)

Burst of Summer Flame (Fury)

Taste of the Hunt (2nd most important spell behind Relentless Storm, IMO - saved my Watcher 100s of times)

Dance of Death

Two-Handed Style

Long Stride (I found stride to be extremely useful in TB)

 

PL 3 (Levels 7-9)

Returning Storm (Fury)

Combat Focus (Concentration is really important in TB)

Swift Flurry

Efficient Anguish

Stag's Horn  (Taken last because let's be real: this spell slot is dedicated to Returning Storm until you hit Relentless Storm)

 

PL 4 (Levels 10-12)

Hail Storm (Fury) (I ended up really liking this spell - it's boosted by Lord Darryn's Voulge and clears trash fast)

Heart of the Storm

Duality of Mortality Presence

Thunderous Blows

Enduring Dance (Taken last because you get 2 wounds right away for activating it, so half the time it gets knocked off you'll have a decent wound count anyways)

 

PL 5 (Levels 13-15)

Relentless Storm (Fury) (VERY good in TB - more on that in the post)

Rapid Casting (This allows you to cast Relentless Storm in the Surprise Round)

Enervating Blows

Secrets of Rime (I don't love underlevel picking stuff but Hail Storm was getting cast so often that it seemed like a strong choice)

The Long Pain

 

PL6 (Levels 16-18)

Sunlance (Fury)

Spell Shaping (Another underlevel pick - I think it gives some needed life back to Sunbeam and is obviously good with my favorite trash clearing spell, Hail Storm)

Turning Wheel

Uncanny Luck (Really a bunch of the underlevel picks here should be Monk goodies like Flagellant's Path but I spent so much time playing this as a control/DPR caster that picking passives felt like better choices)

Fast Runner (See above ^^^)

 

PL 7 (Levels 19&20)

Weather The Storm (Fury)

Bear's Fortitude (The final piece of the dump CON plan)

Heartbeat Drumming

Instruments of Pain (This was my first Monk and this having a duration was a pleasant surprise)

 

 

Hireling - Wood Elf Harbinger (Troubadour Chanter/Trickster Rogue)

 

Attributes

Might: 18

Constitution: 7 (3, +3 Girdle of Eoten Constitution, +1 Baubles of the Fin)

Dexterity: 14 (10, +1 Elf, +1 Chameleon's Touch, +1 Burglar's Gloves, +1 Boots of the Stone)

Perception: 20 (18, +1 Elf, +1 White That Wends)

Intelligence: 20 (18, +1 Baubles of the Fin, +1 Chameleon's Touch)

Resolve: 9 (8, +1 Boots of the Stone)

If I'd had a better idea of what I was doing when starting this build, I'd have gone Wild Orlan instead of Wood Elf and kept Might at 10 (well, 11, -1 Orlan), sticking one or two of those points into Dex, and the rest into Resolve instead. I was keeping the stats open to being an Ancient Memories healer but then didn't go that way and didn't want to deal with the huge XP gap of grabbing a new hireling in the late game. Besides, 18 Might was useful for Eld Nary.

 

Equipment

Head: Whitewitch Mask/Helm of the White Void (I think Helm is better but Whitewitch is available way earlier and a lot of builds want the Helm)

Neck: Baubles of the Fin

Armor: Devil of Caroc Breastplate [Devil's Due/Mechanical Mind] -> Robes of the Weyc (Ascaloth's similar Harbinger used Gipon Prudensco instead of DoC and I'd have done the same if I hadn't already switched to Weyc by the time I saw Ascaloth's build - Robes of the Weyc offering Brilliant shenanigans is just too good in the end game)

Rings: Chameleon's Touch, Ring of Overseeing

Boots: Boots of the Stone

Shoulders: Ruata's Walking Cloak (Probably should have dropped this for Greater Protection)

Trinket: Betrayal (IMO better than picking than Charm Invocation for how often I actually wanted to Charm someone over just trying to kill them or casting Confusion to remove buffs)

Hands: Burglar's Gloves (This was my Mechanics Monkey)

Waist: Girdle of Eoten Constitution

Weapon Set 1: Main: Endre's Flog of Obedience [Tortured Mind] Off:Kapana Taga [Champion's Relic/All Comers] (Endre's in the Main is occasionally +5 accuracy for Kapana Taga via Terrified)

Weapon Set 2: Main: Sasha's Singing Scimitar [Refreshing Finale/Shocking Prelude] Off: Wand of the Weyc (Endgame weapon set essentially... Empowering an Eld Nary, then getting Weyc's pseudo Empower and enough phrases for a second Eld Nary was literally 1000s of damage over two rounds and the portion of the game I had this stuff for (SSS) was a bunch of encounters perfectly set up to get a lot out of Eld Nary)

 

Skills

Active: I went 12 into Mechanics, and the rest into Stealth.

Passive: Survival because high Perception makes you good at scouting and I was originally planning to use Mohora Tanga alongside the improved mobility from Ruata's Walking Cloak to jump to the backline and gib squishies, then just... didn't.

 

Proficiencies

Club and Flail! -25 Reflex and Will is an amazing debuff for an auto-attack and I pretty much always had the modals on, since this wasn't a DPR build. I also took Wand and Sabre and used those modals a fair amount, too. My other proficiencies included Battle Axe and Mace, with the idea that I'd lower armor and apply DoTs in long fights but I never actually used that weapon set, since the debuffs from my Club/Flail were pretty much always relevant what with Chanter abilities.

 

PL1 (Levels 1-3)

Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights (Trickster)

And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield

Come, Come, Soft Winds of Death

Escape

Crippling Strike

Fast Runner (Could have easily been Defensive Roll but I love Stride)

 

PL 2 (Levels 4-6)

Mirrored Image (Trickster) (So good!)

At the Sound of His Voice, the Killer Froze Stiff (Core to the Build: This lasts 1 round in TB, so a Troubadour can prevent enemies from acting 50% of the time)

Blinding Strike (Core to the Build: +10 Accuracy means you hit, Blinded means you keep hitting)

Thick Grew Their Tongues, Stumbling O'er Words (Core to the Build: The basic premise was a dual wield interrupter)

Dirty Fighting

 

PL 3 (Levels 7-9)

Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (Trickster) (Very good on a melee build like this one)

The Shield Cracks (Super important for boss battles, this effectively has duration: infinite)

Confounding Blind (Core to the Build: This is a massive debuff and pretty much assures everyone else starts hitting the target)

Finishing Blow

Combat Focus (Concentration is good in TB - you often won't have another means of defense against focus fire interrupting you)

 

PL 4 (Levels 10-12)

Lengrath's Displaced Image (Trickster)

...And their Fear Followed (Core to the Build: This upgrade allows a Troubadour to completely prevent foes from taking relevant actions if they're not Dex/Res resistant)

Persistent Distraction

Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr

The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of the Morning

 

PL 5 (Levels 13-15)

Confusion (Trickster)

Spell Shaping (Underlevel pick but hitting more foes with hard control is worth it)

Deep Wounds

Devastating Blow

Rapid Casting

 

PL6 (Levels 16-18)

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Trickster)

So Singt Biting Winds o' Eld Nary (IMO one of the best DPR abilities now that it's DPR and not DPS)

Uncanny Luck

Rise Again, Rise Again, Scions of Adon (Underlevel but leading up to...)

... And Face Your Foes (Helped with bosses, since I'm not always very careful about not having squishies in the danger zone)

 

PL 7 (Levels 19&20)

Gaze of the Adragan (Trickster) (A little redundant with Killers Froze Stiff but having both is still nice)

Many Lives Pass By, Each Leaving Footprints

Deathblows

Accurate Empower (Sasha's Scimitar means your Chanter will be Empowering things, so your empowered stuff may as well hit)

 

Chants

Trash Mobs: Mith Fyr, Soft Winds

Some Bosses: Thick Tongues, Long Night

Other Bosses: Thick Tongues, Many Lives

Interrupt Immune Bosses: Many Lives, Many Lives

 

 

Vatnir - Endings Godlike Zealot (Priest of Rymrgand/Rogue)

 

Attributes

Might: 13

Constitution: 11 (8, +1 Godlike [Mod], +2 Girdle of Mortal Protection)

Dexterity: 16 (12, +1 Godlike, +2 Footprints of Ahu Taka, +1 Rokowa's Fingers)

Perception: 16 (15, +1 Godlike [Mod])

Intelligence: 17 (16, +1 Godlike)

Resolve: 12

Vatnir has some pretty good stats. I'm glad Obs finally realized "Dump CON" is the only way to go.

 

Equipment

Head: Godlike

Neck: Cog of Cohh

Armor: Miscreant's Leathers (Super important! You really want Vatnir to go first, and this is the fastest armor)

Rings: Ring of Greater Regeneration x2 (Uninspired, should've at least worn Halgot's Warmth)

Boots: Footsteps of Ahu Taka (Honestly more for the Dexterity than the Priest benefits)

Shoulders: Cloak of Greater Protection

Trinket: Whatever the Rymrgand one was for flavor

Hands: Rokowa's Fingers (+DEX where the second ability didn't feel "wasted" - Firethrowers probably would have been better even w/o Evocation spells since more DEX is way better than free Sparkcrackers)

Waist: Girdle of Mortal Protection

Weapon Set 1: The Willbreaker

Weapon Set 2: Watershaper's Focus -> Chromoprismatic Staff

 

Skills

Active: 3 Mechanics to pair with another party member having 4 Mechanics to boost the Harbinger, 6 Stealth, and the rest into Athletics. Vatnir was my Athletics problem solver, which doesn't really fit his character but he was always in my party, so...

Passive: Religion 5, then whatever boosts the Watcher. I respec'd to pure Metaphysics at the same time I respec'd the Watcher to pure History but I could probably count on one hand that amount of times I used Chromoprismatic as a weapon rather than a stat-stick.

 

Proficiencies

Morningstar! -25 Fortitude! The Rod modal is okay too, though I'm mostly using it as a stat-stick. Quarterstaff is theoretically useful, except enemies didn't really try to focus Vatnir if he was hanging back in caster mode. Probably the Watcher and the Harbinger having minmax stats was drawing focus away from Vatnir.

 

PL1 (Levels 1-3)

Touch of Rot (Rymrgand)

Interdiction (Auto)

Crippling Strike (Auto)

Restore

Escape

 

PL 2 (Levels 4-6)

Blizzard (Rymrgand)

Two-Handed Style

Blinding Strike (Core to the Build: +10 accurcy helps you hit, then Blinded means everyone else starts hitting. Great on a Priest, since it stacks with all your accuracy buffs)

Dirty Fighting

Iconic Projection (Could have been something else but I was specifically picking something to spam w/Footsteps of Ahu Taka granting an extra level 2 slot. Health and damage seemed like good spam but I also didn't use it all that much)

 

PL 3 (Levels 7-9)

Spreading Plague (Rymrgand)

Dire Blessing

Confounding Blind

Finishing Blow

Combat Focus

 

PL 4 (Levels 10-12)

Noxious Burst (Rymrgand)

Devotions For The Faithful (This spell was the key that unlocked POTD - you cast it and everyone starts hitting stuff. A top notch nerf to those enemies that get scripted to start combat right on top of you, too)

Persistent Distraction (Didn't use this as much as I could have with Vatnir, as I'd often be positioning him relative to the party rather than relative to the enemy)

Divine Terror

Spell Shaping (Took this on all my casters because it's a solid 7/10 skill to me but I think it's more like 8/10 or 9/10 for Priests - the -5 PL for bigger AoE is basically irrelevant on buff spells)

 

PL 5 (Levels 13-15)

Blast of Frost (Rymrgand)

Rapid Casting (+10% Action speed is very important since you really want Devotions for the Faithful to resolve in the Surprise Round)

Deep Wounds

Devastating Blow

Barring Death's Door (Standard action with Vatnir's good Initiative makes this super easy to time well)

 

PL6 (Levels 16-18)

Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar (Rymrgand)

Salvation of Time

Uncanny Luck

Pillar of Holy Fire

Farcasting (This is me being lazy - I picked this up because of Ninagauth's range but Vatnir doesn't overuse his Guile and he can afford to use Escape for the occasional spell positioning)

 

PL 7 (Levels 19&20)

Death Ring (Rymrgand)

Cleansing Flame

Deathblows

Accurate Empower (Probably should have been something else - mostly used Empower to return resources on Vatnir)

 

 

An Aside - What's With the Pre-13/Post-13 Divide?

 

Level 13 is PL 5 for a multiclass character, which is when you get Relentless Storm. Between high PER, PL boosts, and a buffing priest, it basically never misses. With Duality of Mortal Presence giving you +10 INT, it hits every enemy in the encounter. In Turn Based, there is no downtime on the stun. The game changes entirely from normal gameplay to "Do my enemies have Might Resistance/Immunity? No? I win."

 

So Post-13 Party is dedicated to covering holes (like Might Resistance) and making sure Relentless Storm lands.

 

 

Early Game - Learning the System in Port Maje

Port Maje's job is definitely punishing me for my hubris. "I beat PoE1, I know what I'm doing!" "I beat this game on RTwP, I know what I'm doing!" I never actually know what I'm doing, of course. A lot of the combat in Port Maje I dealt with in Real Time with Pause by pulling enemies and you can't do that in Turn Based. A very basic strategy, totally out the window. Right from the start, you're forced to re-assess how to deal with two very hard fights (the Drake and Gorecci Street) because the standard method doesn't work. This forced me to learn the first really important part of TB, which is:

 

The Surprise Round

Entering combat from Stealth currently (v4.1.0) gives you a surprise round where your entire party and just one enemy will have a round of actions. This is a simple and powerful action economy boost - it puts your entire party at +1 actions over all but one of your enemies. The Surprise Round is short, initiative-wise, so you're "limited" to Free Actions, Movement, and 1 Standard Action or shorter Cast if you want to take advantage of it - longer casts will resolve in the following round and prevent you from doing anything that round that isn't movement/free actions, thus robbing you of the advantage of the Surprise Round (being up one action).

If you're thinking: "Don't a lot of hard fights prevent you from opening from stealth via scripted starts?", then you're sort of right. Here's the thing: a lot of scripted start fights give an effective Surprise Round anyways. The Effective Surprise Round is the game having toughest enemy being added to initiative on round 1, with adds joining round 2 for scripted starts. The only fights that consistently don't get Effective Surprise Rounds from scripted are ship fights - it seems like the scripted Effective Surprise Round is reliant on dialogue.

 

The Gorecci Street porch dwellers never knew what hit them (it was a Sunbeam, a Burst of Summer Flame, and Eder for the record).

 

Shorter Casts? Longer Casts? Standard Actions? Free Actions? What are you talking about?

The wikis don't seem to have this information yet, and though it's sort of available in game, it isn't really obvious how it works. Here's what I've determined:

Free Action: All the 0.5 sec/0 sec abilities. You can fire as many of these off in a turn as you have the resources for. They don't affect your initiative in the slightest and they're still available when you've completed a spell earlier in the round (an occurance that can prevent other actions).

Standard Action: Resolves on your turn. I haven't looked through thoroughly but basically all martial abiities are Standard or Free. Spells that have 0.5 cast time but require recovery time are Standard. Auto-attacking is a Standard. You get 1 Standard (or 1 Cast) per round and can move/take free actions both before and after taking a Standard.

Short Cast: All the 3.0 second spells. These seem to resolve 1-5 turns later. Good Action Speed generally meant they were resolving right after the caster's turn or with only one or two turns in between. Functionally the big difference between a Standard Action and a Short Cast+good Action Speed is you can move/use Free Actions before and after a Standard, while a Short Cast effectively ends your turn.

Medium Cast: The 4.5 second spells. These will resolve in the same round towards the end of everyone's turns. Unless it's the Surprise Round - they'll get pushed to the next round for resolution, which means you don't get to take a Cast or Standard action that round. Good Action Speed can get these to point where they'll be able to resolve in the surprise round.

Long Cast: Summons, AKA the 6.0 second spells. I didn't test these much because TB forces you to micro summons and it's agonizing to me. As a rule of thumb, these resolve the following round, effectively taking two of your turns. I'm sure that enough action speed buffs can land them in the same round but like I said, I didn't really test it out. And who I did test it out with was Pallegina, whose DEX: 11 isn't a good representation of how this might affect a Watcher that focuses on summons.

 

The real big takeaway from this is that Action Speed is incredibly important for casters and as far as I can tell meaningless for everyone else - none of the Standard Action martial abilities care about action speed.

 

Initiative is Just Like D&D

The second thing that I figured out while flailing around Port Maje is that the same minmax concepts around Initiative that I know from D&D apply here:

- Initiative for the party overall is about surpassing a threshold: It's just got to be good enough to act before Team Bad Guy.

- Any group buff casters need to have the best initiative: getting buff spells off before everyone has to reposition is important.

- Next in the initiative line is AoE casters/control casters: Their casts aren't instant resolve like D&D but it's still very important to see where the AoE will be and who gets to move before and after

- After AoE casters, Standard Action debuffers and engagers: This part doesn't actually have a D&D parallel but you know. Not all analogies are perfect. It's important for engagers and debuffers to have a higher initiative than whatever count spells resolve on so they can hold down targets and ensure your spells hit.

- Finally, the DPR can go. Their initiative is mostly fine being bad (and definitely should be worse than your other characters!), but Pillars has very few builds that are solely dedicated to DPR, so you'll probably still want to have these characters act in the debuffer/engager stage. If they're actually only doing damage, it doesn't matter when they act.

 

Initiative Isn't Just Like D&D

I wanted to bring up D&D because minmaxers familiar with D&D should intuitively understand why and where a round's order needs to be manipulated but it's important to note that there is a very big difference between Deadfire initiative and D&D initiative:

Deadfire's initiative changes based on the previous round's actions.

Things like Blind, interrupts, etc. that add recovery time to enemies? They really screw over their initiative. DEX Afflictions should also damage a foe's initiative. Your own recovery time is added to initiative too but it's a small number compared to the effects of actions. For example, if you and an enemy both attack with Quarterstaffs, you're both at +4 initiative before modifiers. If your Quarterstaff attack was a Confounding Blind, that adds +100% to the enemy's initiative for Blind, so your enemy is now at +8 initiative. The attack potentially interrupts to put them at +10*. The biggest initiative penalty you'd be getting from armor? Puts you at +6 instead of +4. The actions you take will likely have more influence on a combat's overall initiative than the number on your character sheet.

*In Spoiler:

As best I understand it, interrupts add +2 seconds onto recovery but can't take recovery above its normal max in RTwP - so for example interrupting a 5 second recovery 1 second into the recovery interrupts for only 1 second to reset them back to 5 seconds. If you had instead interrupted 4 seconds into the recovery, you would get the full 2 seconds of interrupt to push them back to 3 seconds. I don't at ll understand how this interacts with TB - it's obvious where the window to interrupt a Cast is but not at all obvious where the window to interrupt a recovery is. There also doesn't seem to be a clear point in the recovery to attack (at least 2 seconds in with that 5 second recovery for example - so you get the full +2 second interrupt penalty unlike if you'd interrupted 1 second in), so are you always getting +2 initiative when you interrupt recovery? If not, why?

Theoretically, interrupting gives the enemy +2 initiative. If you're targeting initiative, theoretically you should interrupt after your target has acted but before the next round because that's the logical place for them to be in recovery. Practically? I have no idea.

 

 

Engaging and Movement

The last thing I got a handle on while in Port Maje is engagement and movement. Engagement is... different. It's only sometimes automatic. It breaks for all characters involved in an engagement whenever an engager or engagee loses the ability to engage (this might be a glitch). I'm 90% sure a lot of engagement specific info will get patched out (this post is v 4.1.0) because it feels... off... but here it is anyways.

Team Bad Guy Engagement: In my not-at-all-rigorous testing, the enemy engages you at the start of combat if they're close enough, if you move past their melee range when they've got a bigger "base" (Drakes, Eotens, Ogres, etc. have bigger "bases" compared to the normal kith-size "base"), and if you engage them.

Team Good Guy Engagement: Taking an action or resolving an action next to a foe creates engagement. If you've used up your Standard Action for the turn, you can click on an enemy to engage them. Every time you engage, your character automatically fills as many of their engagement slots as they can.

What does this all mean? Well, a thorough reading here shows that if you can't engage, you can hit and run with Standard Actions. Not engaging means enemies won't engage and a lot of them don't engage automatically. BIG news for my glass cannon Watcher. I spent a lot of time on Port Maje popping out from behind Eder, giving someone a big two-handed whack, then running back behind Eder. Related, something Aloth taught me is that duration AoEs tick at the start of the caster's turn. Aloth and the Watcher as my engagement-incapable characters were pretty freely able to duck in and out of his Chill Fogs completely unharmed as we harassed the enemies who were inside.

 

EDIT: Finally booted up 4.1.1 instead of 4.1.0, engagement works like normal now. TB is still way  more mobile because of how much easier it is to micro the movement.

 

Movement is also way different from RTwP because it's instant speed. You can move freely during your turn without time passing or having to worry about enemy disruption. However, you can't move in reaction to enemies; once you finish your turn, you are committed to that position.

What does that all mean? Well, fights are more mobile. Movement is way less dangerous to take. Casters would constantly reposition for more effective AoEs. Engagers were less about forming a line in front of your squishies to catch enemies running past and more about pinning down high priority targets. Interrupters didn't need to hang out right next to enemy casters, they could participate in engagement tactics and still easily cross the battlefield to stop the caster on time, every time.

Going back to Aloth's Chill Fog lessons, instant speed movement also means it's way easier to drop AoEs on your own team. The instant speed movement allows you to pass through duration AoEs without harm. For non-duration AoE, you can just look at where it comes in on the initiative order and plan around that.

 

Mid Game - Ideas Under Neketaka

While I'm putting to use my new understanding of Turn Based and trudging through the Old City to get the Kitchen Stove, I'm trying to come up with ideas on how to actually apply the play difference in builds and a functioning party. I start thinking about what is working and what isn't.

 

Melee Damage

Melee damage isn't working. I'm probably partially underwhelmed because I'm comparing it to one of the best DPR casters you can have (Fate Testarossa's schtick of constantly being at 35 Might, getting +3-4 PEN, and having +4-6 PL is very powerful). I'll admit that I also might not be very good at building for the One Big Hit that TB inclines you towards. That said, melee has its uses. Engagement is still a useful tool and the Club/Flail/Morningstar modals are key debuffs.

It's fair to also point out melee damage isn't actually bad - it's just not capable of RTwP's DPS. My endgame rogues were still doing 120+ DPR without even really trying. That was incredibly nice to have attached to things like -25 Fortitude and Blinded. I'll reiterate: I'm not some super talented character builder and could easily be missing something like "Class X and Y weapon do 500 DPR!" But currently, there's just not a lot of impressive low-hanging fruit for DPR. So, until some forum poster shows us the way: melee=utility.

 

Ranged Damage

Ranged damage is working fine and IMO that's because of unique weapons. Dual Mortars is still very good (and will be better when they go back to AoE debuffs!), Watershaper's Focus doing AoE and jump is decent for DPR, Frostseeker does its thing, etc. My RTwP playthrough was a Trickster/Beguiler with dual Mortars who brought Scout Maia and her Arquebuses everywhere, so I didn't actually focus on testing this stuff in TB too much beyond trying a few things out on back-up Companions/Sidekicks.

 

Weapon Switching and Style

Switching weapon sets takes up your turn's Standard Action, so while it's still the right course of action to adjust to armor strengths/weaknesses, making weapon switches is a massive hit to your DPR. It was never great, of course, but losing 1 turn's damage is way harsher than in RTwP losing 2.5 (plus modifiers) seconds' damage.

Two Weapon Fighting gets a huge boost over 1 and 2 Handed Fighting because auto-attacks are full attacks. The game isn't difficult enough that this matters if you stylistically want to go single weapon but from the min-max perspective, the only reasons to ever do anything but Two Weapon are the Morningstar modal, Rod Modal for AoE, and Stat Sticks.

 

Hard Control

I hadn't got Relentless Storm yet when I was brewing ideas but I could see it coming. Returning Storm was telling me everything I needed to know: If you hit a creature, they would lose their next turn. Didn't even matter if they were electricity immune, as I found out fighting grubs. This is the idea that I'd end up building my core party towards: Stunlocking enemies. Several abilities that were strong but not going to single-handedly win encounters in RTwP changed to be incredibly brutal hard control in TB.

The control I ended up focusing on:

Relentless Storm: Besides its screen-covering radius, this was my top-tier control spell due to the duration allowing the caster to actually take actions when the enemies couldn't. Not to mention the Fate Testarossa build giving it a significant PL-based accuracy boost.

Killers Froze Stiff: Specifically upgraded and cast by a Troubadour. It won't cover the screen and is resistable on two different fronts (DEX and RES) but Troubadours generating 2 phrases a turn means you can keep 100% uptime on the enemy being able to do anything relevant (auto-attacks really aren't). They're Paralyzed 1 turn, Frightened the next, and then you cast it again (if you even need to). The two turn duration and Chanter phrases being passive put this in the same sort of category as Relentless: Hard Control that allows the caster to be taking actions when the enemy isn't. Also very important: It's a Standard Action. No need for initiative manipulation or engagers to pin foes in the radius, this just works.

Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage: Small radius but so much fun on engagers. Definitely more for applying to key foes than taking over significant chunks of the battlefield. You could maintain 100% uptime on this in RTwP so I feel like there's not much new to say about it - we all know how it works. Much like Relentless Storm, its value is a little higher than it looks on paper because of how easy it is to get PL stacking items for it.

Pull of Eora: Not actually hard control but pretty close with how poorly the AI deals with it. Way less commonly resisted than the others. I didn't keep this in my party all the time but I tried a Geomancer Maia this go around, so between Maia, Aloth, and Fassina, someone could generally cast it. Instant speed move generally meant you had to have someone "guard" the edge of the AoE, to trick foes into ending their movement in the radius (with movement being instant speed, it's easier for them to leave without getting pulled back in - a concern specifically with Maia's low INT).

Thick Grew Their Tongues + Interrupts: Also not technically hard control. Still very good because being limited to one auto-attack/round is pretty much hard control in terms of the sort of enemy you want to interrupt (casters and bosses). Thick Grew Their Tongues isn't strictly necessary but makes this strategy way more consistent. Interrupts as control is also why my end game core party includes two Rogues: if it's important to keep an enemy interrupted, having one rogue delay generally meant you'd always have a shot at interrupting. That's how I beat Neriscyrlas in TB - Vatnir and my Harbinger just sat there Crippling Striking her anytime she even thought about casting Lengrath's Safeguard.

I know saying stuff like Interrupts are good! Relentless Storm is good! Killers Froze Stiff is good! doesn't seem like new information. They were all already good. But they're so much better in turn based. Simply preventing the enemy from taking relevant actions is an incredibly effective and resilient strategy in the new play-mode.

 

Buffs

AoE buffs are working great. This is probably me showing a bias as someone who wasn't great at micro-ing the whole party in RTwP but it's just so much easier to hit everyone relevant with TB's instant speed movement. I normally stopped using priests as soon as I hit Neketaka in RTwP and switched entirely to Druid or Chanter healers. But having a Priest in your TB party is basically like giving everyone +15 Accuracy, since you can pretty much expect to have Devotions for the Faithul always on, and Dire Blessing on most of the time.

Mostly a gut feeling, but the relative time the action of buffing takes is better in TB. 7-14 (+/- modifiers) seconds spent doing nothing but buffing was absolutely brutal to me in RTwP, while 1-2 turns spent buffing doesn't feel like it's very significant, action-wise - especially when one of those turns can be taken in the Surprise Round.

On the non-Priest side of buffing, those 0.5/0.0 second buffs? Being Free Actions makes them increasingly better depending on how many a character wants to cast at once. It wasn't huge but the couple seconds that a buff heavy Wizard was delayed by in RTwP was enough that it could be considered a meaningful drawback. That's totally gone now, so martial Wizards rejoice.

 

End Game - I'm Bad At Summary And This Post Was Too Long 10 Paragraphs Ago

One big thing is: Turn Based is easier. Round by round information is going to be much easier to process for most people than real time information. Having to play each member of your party is always going to be better than leaving anything up to the AI. Humans>AI (for now... *ominous music*).

 

It's also surprisingly way less tedious. I'd actively micro 2-4 characters depending on party composition in RTwP but TB's full party management ends up feeling like less overall management. Mostly an opinion thing, probably.

 

As far as a summary about what I learned playing TB? My Harbinger and Vatnir builds are that knowledge applied. They exist in the context of a specific Watcher but should be capable in any TB party.

 

I'm legitimately excited about the way things play differently and getting to learn new approaches to the game. I will probably do another full playthrough when they next patch (still has the occasional bad glitch *cough*SSS Survivor fights*cough*) and will definitely be consoling my way to specific fights so I can replay the notable battles with different builds/party set-ups.