Shai Hulud

Possibly I was mistaken but I removed interrupting blows and I was still interrupting things from carnage hits, as long as I had energized. Carnage kind of sucks so if there's a bug that makes it cool I'm fine with it. Stagger is neat but Blood Storm does massive amounts of damage and more important it can be sustained even in megaboss fights as long as you crit things now and then. Blood Storm raw DOT is also distributed by carnage. Don't know if that's how it is meant to work but I was just hitting one snake and moused over the others and they all showed the blood storm hostile effect, which gets renewed each hit. I never try to land cipher spells vs fortitude besides disintegration vs Hauani O Whe. I play almost entirely soul blades and the name of the game is beat things with a stick and spam soul annihilation. I really liked Brute Force in POE1 but there don't seem to be many enemies with fortitude lower than deflection in Deadfire. Some spirits mostly, who aren't the toughest enemies to begin with. Also lowering deflection is going to be more productive for your whole team (usually). Psychovampiric Shield lowers deflection by 10, Phantom Foes by 10. Yes you can lower fortitude more but most enemies seem to start with fortitude 20+ points higher. So..IDK. Interesting. Would this work on Vela? I've often been irritated I can't cast stasis shield on her...I can cast psychovampiric shield, but not stasis shield.

You start the fight with wounds. As you level up you start with more. Eventually you'll start with 5. But if you need wounds you can use "Mortification of the Soul" which trades self-damage for wounds, or "Dance of Death" or its upgrade "Enduring Dance" which both trade mortification for wounds every 3 seconds. Enduring Dance is really good because you can get hit 3 times before it dispels. It also gives you an accuracy bonus of up to +12 which is nice. What I do in fights where I need a lot of wounds at the start is begin the fight stealthed, use enduring dance, then wait for my wounds to increase. To start stealthed, approach enemies in stealth and unstealth/restealth really fast. Game has to be unpaused, and it is easier to do when not in fast mode. Just quickly press your stealth key twice. I'm assuming this works on PS5 but it possibly doesn't. If it doesn't it isn't that big a deal, Enduring Wounds builds up pretty fast. And there is indeed a condition like you're looking for Class resources - self - at least X wounds (and you can make it less than using NOT) So if you want a block to work when you have 1 wound or 0 wounds, use Class resources - self - at least 2 wounds (not) Though this block will prevent your guy from using FF attack automatically when you have two or more wounds already. The block order is enough to ensure you use enlightened agony before using forbidden fist. You may have to interrupt a FF attack though, because the script doesn't update in the middle of attacks. Say you have 1 wound, the script then does a forbidden fist attack, the script then checks to see if you can cast enlightened agony which requires 2 wounds, but you don't gain the 2nd wound until the curse lifts, so you have 1 wound and can't cast it yet, so the script moves down the list and uses forbidden fist. Which is fine (unless you're attacking too fast), you'll just have 1 extra wound when Enlightened Agony is executed. Eventually this problem will work itself out as you start combat with 2+ wounds, but until then you can modify the script, interrupt the second FF attack to wait for the 2nd wound, or use one of the mortification abilities I mentioned. Nice. I usually head to Fort Deadlight at this point for the experience, boots of stealth, and miscreant's leather armor. You'll leave Deadlight around L7 I think. Or can go straight to Neketaka and head to Deadlight later. Note at Deadlight the stealthy approach is generally best, you can row a skiff there if it's night and sneak around. At low levels combat tends to be pretty rough, though a forbidden fist will do better than most since you already have your main attack.

It's a solo run, I dont think I can actually proc aware...well maybe with cog of cohn and dichotomous soul? Will try this next time I play to see if they stack

I second this, I prefer witch to mindstalker all day. But wild mind subclass sucks =( Barbarians gets tons of action speed and damage buffs, go really well with soul blades for melee ciphers, and the strong and fit inspirations aren't available to ciphers to cast on themselves. Blood Storm is really good if you can actually proc crits, which ciphers can. Witch builds are one of the ones I'm testing for solo in BPM. It is pretty good, stalwart defiance adds a lot of survivability to the cipher and you attack quite fast with blood storm + blooded. Combine with weapons that heal on kill or crit and it is pretty viable. I like axes thematically, and magran's favor fits the healing bill while Oathbreaker's End heals on kill (and Amra adds more carnage-like damage), but sabres are also really good. Adlris Blade of Captain Crow heals like 17 health on crit (with dawnstar's blessing and decent might), combine with devil of caroc armor and abraham for health on kill and attack speed and the DOC BP devil's due healing is almost always up for a little over 1 health per second (a shame it doesn't stack with itself). Doesn't look like carnage damage goes towards focus, nor does soul annihilation go towards carnage (regular damage does but not the extra raw), but still pretty good. The soul blade side just casts phantom foes, borrowed instinct, and psychovampiric shield if necessary, and uses soul annihilation every 30s or so. Crits pretty reliably for a lot of damage and healing. Blooded + one stands alone + draining whip = +65% damage, and frenzy + blood lust is 20% + 20% action speed (doesn't add like that but still), even get a little armor boost from thick skinned. Add blood thirst and you can attack seriously fast, which is particularly interesting in something like a MC soulblade because you can, for instance, use blood thirst to cast spells with no recovery. Dunno if it can solo all the content but it is very solid. Would be very good with a chanter who can buff dex/per/int. Oh yeah and slayer's claw upgrades blood storm into basically permanent energized which is insane, because carnage DOES distribute energized interrupt. It's really one of the best DPS builds especially for handling crowds. ---- On further testing, blood storm might doesn't get extended if you upgrade it to tenacious or energized with slayer's claw. Seems like a bug as the effects are still listed under "blood storm", but only the other blood storm effects get extended with crits. Disappointing. I guess a workaround is if you have a chanter you can start stealthed, have chanter singing many lives pass by, crit a bunch of skeletons to extend blood storm, then upgrade to energized with slayer's claw. Kinda lame though.

Nice, congrats! And yes the harder fights are much easier on slow mode, especially if managing a full party. Also pausing a lot can help. The fight will take longer, but not as long as reloading a dozen times

Dual mortars works well on lower difficulties with stunning surge. I tried it in some harder battles and couldn't reliably crit things on potd upscaled. It is beautiful when it works though, good for the lower level enemies bosses often call to them, or the mooks you encounter dungeon crawling. Whats really nice is stunned characters have -10 deflection making it much easier to restun them once you do crit some. Getting the second mortar Fire in the hole can take a little while. A mortar/blunderbuss combo would also do okay. The mortar rolls for every enemy, the blunderbuss 4 times, so for smaller groups or if you really want to stun one enemy mortar/blunderbuss or dual blunderbuss is also an option.

Yeah effigy's husk is one of my favorite armors anyway. The irresistable -75% healing debuff from skaen's hatred really helps shut down bosses like Dorudugan and The Guardian. Normally might immunity is better IMO but perma-aware for classes that can't get perception inspirations is pretty nice. I bet there are a lot of abilities one can steal with puppet master. I've stumbled on a few and I only use it in maybe 5% of fights. I've used whispers of treason more often but charmed characters can't use active abilities so this would only work with puppet master and ringleader unless the enemy has weakness to intellect like the cave grub.

I've tested with Cabalist's Gambeson + Strand of Favor + Clarity of Agony + Ring of Solitary Wanderer (not mohora wraps though, I like hylea's bounty) and the highest I could get my INT safely was 13 with dex tanked all the way to 3 (modified was like 8). That's base INT, with smart + boons + items it was like 20ish maybe. I was always wearing robes or at most like Devil of Caroc BP with abraham to keep the recovery down. Yeah I guess if you're willing to have a long recovery you can max INT, but the character will be slowww. Unless I was doing something completely wrong... Also dual-wielding and two-weapon style make a huge difference of course. If you aren't using a dual-wielding shield or weapon you can get away with significantly higher INT but probably be attacking every 3 to 4 seconds instead of 2.

Hmm...I just rechecked this fight because my guy was a monk. At the time I had two versions of the shield, one with reflect and one with immunity. In my initial testing it looked like soul mirror + reflect shield was having an extra effect, but I may have thought this because my will defense was 229 so he misses every time or the attack is reflected by soul mirror, or I just ran good in the random rolls. So I removed soul mirror and tanked my will defense and now I'm just getting hit over and over. Same with the immunity shield. This must not be a gaze attack after all. It is reflected by soul mirror but not shimmer scale. It isn't really clear what is a "gaze" and what is a "ray". So far the only thing I'm certain shimmer scale reflects is the scavenger of vision guys in the oracle of wael fight. Should have checked a larger sample, but my toon absolutely shredded the guy basically just standing there auto attacking with Neriscrlylas doing most of the damage to himself. It's the purple beam attack used by the messenger and neriscyrlas. It is devestating unless you have very high will defense or soul mirror. Arcane reflection may work on it also. I thought shimmer scale reflected it but it looks like I was wrong about that, sorry.

So I just killed Belranga and headed to Ukaizo, went through the forced rest, lost my boons, was sad, rested with consoled food in prep for practicing guardian fight, and saw this new boon: Shattering Screech: +5 Perception, 50% of Grazes converted to Hits Hmm. Sounds like "aware" but it looks permanent. I've never seen this before and couldn't find anything about it in wiki or googling it. I did "findgamedata shattering_screech" and it appears to be one of Belranga's abilities. Not initially sure how I picked it up. My character is a transcendent. Actually let's see...Belranga was surprisingly difficult this time because I have a couple mods installed (BPM and Deadly Deadfire), the second of which greatly increases Belranga's starting stats and I'm already on POTD upscaled. So by the time you kill enough little spiders so you can actually hit her, she crits every single attack because she's starting like 50 points higher than she's meant to. Deadly Deadfire Hardcore is like POTD upscaled upscaled, the monsters keep leveling up to like 8 levels beyond you. Anyway... So the strategy I settled on was stick Vela in starting corner, sneak to northeast corner, use enduring dance, then summon dichotomous souls over and over while staying as out of range, poking stray spiders with instruments of pain, until Belranga's will is around 150, then I start hitting her with Tenuous Grasp so she kills the spiders faster, once will is around 120 I debuff her with tenuous grasp and psychovampiric shield, then hit with pupper master. While dominated you can still beat her to death. So I'm guessing she used this ability while dominated, from the search results it looks like it's the one that gives her 4 stacks of concentration and makes the spiders "aware", but it isn't listed as "aware" for me though the stats are the same, and I didn't get the other stuff like concentration. I've seen this happen before with other enemy abilities, like the eoten chanters in Bekarna's Observatory, whose chants land on you if you flip them, but those chants are temporary unless you extend them. Shattering Screech appears to be permanent. Didn't even go away while resting. Anyone else run into this? I wonder what other abilities get erroneously transferred to the player character on alliance flip. I don't use the charm abilities much so there could be a lot of them. ------ It actually isn't permanent lol, I just assumed it was because it had no expiration, but it is treated as an inspiration like anything else. I guess if you wear Effigys Husk (incidentally the armor I am wearing) then it is permanent, though I have "Armor of Flesh" and not "Eyes of Blackstone".

Loading times on PC are potentially better because you can have extremely good hardware like cutting edge m.2 SSD drives, insane amounts of RAM etc. But they still seem longer than they should, so IDK. The AI is pretty simple and unfortunately relatively limited, but for some classes it is sufficient and works well with most forbidden fist builds. You may want to script some things from unbroken side, but you definitely want these three blocks and in this order 1) Conditional: Self has inspiration - dexterity (not), Action: Swift Strikes, target type self, prioritize by none, cooldown 0 2) Conditional: Self has inspiration - intellect (not), Action: Enlightened Agony, target type self, prioritize by none, cooldown 0 3) Conditional: Self has inspiration - intellect, Action: Forbidden Fist, target type enemy, prioritize by nearest target, cooldown 0 What this will do is keep up swift strikes as long as you have mortification, keep up enlightened agony which includes the -50% hostile effect reduction and makes swift strikes last longer, and the third block conditional is important in that you only use forbidden fist if the intellect inspiration is active, this is how you ensure the clarity of agony effect is there when you use forbidden fist. If it isn't, depending on your stats, the curse could be longer than the time between your attacks. Alternatively, if you don't take enlightened agony, you would have it like this 1) Conditional: Self has inspiration - dexterity (not), Action: Swift Strikes, target type self, prioritize by none, cooldown 0 2) Conditional: Always True, Action: Clarity of Agony, target type self, prioritize by none, cooldown (INT modified duration, or slightly less) 3) Conditional: Always True, Action: Forbidden Fist, target type enemy, prioritize by nearest target, cooldown (*actual* forbidden curse duration) I say *actual* because the display for the forbidden curse is way off and doesn't factor in your resolve. It will say it's something like 12s even if it is 2s. So to test use FF attack on something (could be a party member), pause immediately after hitting, and check the character sheet for the duration under Forbidden Fist: +50% duration, etc., for X seconds If you have maxed resolve and clarity of agony active it should be under 2s or at 2s. I'd recommend the first way with Enlightened Agony since the script is cleaner and it allows you to dump INT more. You may want other blocks like you'd probably want to keep up disciplined strikes, so that would look like Conditional: Self has inspiration - perception (not), Action: Disciplined Strikes, target type self, prioritize by none, cooldown 0 And ideally you would place that after Enlightened Agony so that the duration of Disciplined Strikes benefits from the INT bonus. It is actually pretty easy with a little practice but those 3 to 4 blocks should be enough for the FF/unbroken, and for Eder and other party members the scripts the game comes with are okay, though you can make custom ones if you want. Pallegina is a good choice for a third character particularly if you run her as a chanter/paladin (herald), as both subclasses will give her access to many support abilities and chants. Personally I'd keep her back and have her supporting the other characters, doing crowd control invocations, and summoning things. Two melees is enough most of the time, particularly if you give Eder some +engagement items and the Hold the Line ability. Your FF/unbroken can also take Hold the Line. So an FF/unbroken with a shield and hold the line can engage 3, more if you equip weapons Kapana Taga, Last Word, or Shattered Vengeance, even more with various items (blackened plate helm, reckless brigandine, a few DLC items). You can equip these weapons in the main hand and a shield in the offhand, the weapon choice mostly matters for its secondary effects since forbidden fist attack uses fists regardless what is equipped. So you can benefit from +engagement weapons or a dagger's +10 melee deflection modal, for instance. Kapana Taga is a really good choice because of the immunity to flanking and + engagement. Squid's Grasp can also be very useful for immunity to flanking and Attempted Parley, particularly useful on solo runs.

FF / soul blade is insanely good and should fir with your role-playing. Stats 14/8/3/19/13/18 I can provide a full build later, let me know if interested, but as soul blade you build focus really fast with FF and can use soul annihilation for massive damage. You cast psychovampiroc shield and borrowed instinct a lot. Many debuffs that will last a long time like secret horrors, phantom foes, mental binding, wild leech, etc. You do need the community patch for cipher to work properly with FF attack. You can't max INT with FF because it increases duration of forbidden curse. You can have up to about 13 base and use enlightened agony which boosts to 18 (which is enough to give decent buff length particularly since you crit a lot with the buff/debuffs like PVS and borrowed instinct) and gives -50% hostile effects on self. Combine with ring of solitary wanderer and maxed resolve to get forbidden curse down to under 2s.

Maybe not. I've played Divinity Original Sin 2 on console and it is nearly as easy to use as PC version. Theres usually like a tactical wheel and you can assign shortcuts to abilities on the D-pad. If PC version has controller support then that probably plays the same as PS5. I watched a bit of video on PS5 and it looks similar. One of the shoulder buttons leads to a tactical wheel when held, another to shortcuts. The rest of the controls are straightforward. Probably harder to micromanage but otherwise looked quite playable, particularly in turn based mode. Question to @andi255, are you playing turn based mode? I always assume people use RTWP because most of us old schoolers are used to it. If you're doing turn based FF may work a bit differently, let me know if you are

I have no experience with PS5 version but am guessing it is basically like vanilla but with different control scheme. Most forbidden fist builds will still work well in vanilla, just not quite as well. It is still really, really powerful though. Various FF builds can solo POTD upscaled without armor. All the megabosses. Vanilla FF is a bit weaker than CP but plenty strong for regular POTD especially with a companion. The main thing the CP does regarding FF is it makes the weapon talent treated like a weapon. It generates focus, abilities that apply to weapons apply to the FF attack, it benefits from dual-wielding and taking two weapon fighting, and so forth. This stuff doesn't happen without the patch. I'm not sure resonant touch will work either. But you still have a lot of tools, particularly if you do something like the unbroken / FF, which I believe uses a large shield anyway, so those specs are more accurate for vanilla. So in vanilla the most important difference is the attack speed is a bit slower, so you might as well use a small shield. Xoti's Lantern (+1 monk resource per kill) and Tuotilo's Palm (has various monk bonuses) , or the large shield Akola's Apex Ward is very good and can be acquired early though it isn't obvious how (you have to tank your rep with the Huana early by murdering the people in Takano's house in the neketaka serpent crown district. Then next time you go to sea you'll spot a vengeance ship called servant of rikuhu. Sink it or board it to get the shield). Because your attack speed is slower you can't tank dex to the extent I suggested. Don't dump to 3, probably want more like 13 to 16 and compensate dumping might and / or INT. Use stats more like suggested in the unbroken / ff build. You don't have to dump INT to that extent but unless you're casting a lot of buffs it isn't really a problem. So for FF / troubadour (very interesting build) you'd want decent intelligence for your spells but pure FF doesn't much matter so it depends what you want to do. Max resolve. Put INT as high as you need it, but not maxed. The higher your INT the less dex you can have, but in vanilla I believe you can have significantly higher dex and be fine. Whatever dex value sets your attack speed the same as the curse is ideal, though it is fine if your attack speed is 2.5s and the curse lasts 2s. It just isn't max efficiency. It should be noted the ring of the solitary wanderer has a buff called "lone wolf" that gives -35% hostile effect duration. If you take eder with you it won't activate while you're standing close to each other. Which is fine, but you'll definitely want to keep up clarity of agony (-50% hostile effect duration) in that case. Or enlightened agony (gives smart also) if it doesn't make the curse too long. I use enlightened agony in my builds which allows base INT to be a bit lower. Strand of favor can help a bit too (-10% hostile effect duration). Otherwise you can follow the stats and item suggestions in the evergreen juggernaut build for that build or for a pure FF. Main advantage of pure FF is you get a big boost to accuracy from razer's edge, imagined pain, and more accuracy damage and penetration on forbidden fist from higher monk power level. And you get whispers on the wind which is super, super awesome. You flash around attacking enemies popping in and out of invisibility so there is great synergy with ajamuuts stalking cloak which stuns on attacking from invisibility. Basically with the cloak every time you use WOTW you'll stun five enemies. FF makes good multiclasses with literally everything, except cipher in vanilla. And I haven't personally tried FF/druid but it is probably fine. Of particular note to me are FF / unbroken (tanky striker), FF / troubadour (striker with summons and buffs), and FF / paladin (particularly gold pact knights get huge defensive bonuses like +7 armor from gilded enmity and stoic steel, and paladins can hand out exhortations to eder), barbarians (with blood storm and blooded etc you get massive attack speed and damage bonuses, so you can wear very heavy armor and still attack quite fast even with lowish dex). Ranger is also interesting for the accuracy buffs but you have to micromanage the animal a bit. And blood mage is top tier but rather technical learning how to play. I dont think you can make Eder a devoted. He has the default generic fighter subclass...pretty sure. I havent experimented with npc builds nearly to the extent of the main character. I've played with a party a few times. I like eder as a swashbuckler (fighter/rogue). He doesn't lose much tankiness by multiclassing and he gains rogue goodies and a lot of damage when afflictions are applied. This goes well with your FF guy because FF attack causes enfeebled so any character with that will be subject to sneak attacks. Add persistent distraction and they'll be subject to deathblows as well for a total of +80% damage from eder. This is a decent build I've used before (though I'd take conqueror stance vs mob for the accuracy and deflection) https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1398100119 Eder would also do great as a pure fighter. I wouldn't make him a pure rogue. Pure rogues do best as assassins which he can't do. But pure fighters get some decent high level stuff. IMO you're best off with eder as swashbuckler though. Dual wielding sabres is popular because there are so many good sabres and they're high damage (though somewhat limited being slashing damage only), but there are a lot of good weapons and he can use whatever you want really.

Ah. Well still worth using. +15% damage isn't that much compared to transcendent suffering and forbidden curse. The action speed buff helps a lot in vanilla because you don't get the dual wielding or two weapon style. No reason really not to install at least the basic CP though...unless doing an ultimate run I guess. Here ya go OP, just download and extract to the override folder https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/335

To most of this I say..fair enough. The chanter spell pen may be typical but it is still weak compared to mythic melee weapons which also often have modals that give even more penetration. Like war hammer is not the highest pen weapon but it does 13 pen at mythic with +2 from modal. 12 at just legendary no modal. Morning star does 14 pen at mythic and does crush/pierce. Fists do 14+ with easy power level scaling, plus have haymaker. I like casters but they just can't compete in this game except for hybrids. I guess that's just the nature of the game. Very much disagree about paladins v chanter though, sacred immolation and light of pure zeal both do fire/frost in vanilla. They may not work properly on fire-immune creatures but that's another issue entirely. Vanilla paladins have 2 high level abilities that do non-fire, while chanters have just one high level ability that does non-freeze. Yeah there's summons but that's a different type of build. And you'd only really use "Boil the flesh" on near death things, so 3/4 of the time mostly ignoring it. Chanters are versatile yes but not in the nuking department, in that they're like 90% freeze. Probably not using "Her Revenge Swept" much once getting other spells since damage is low. Would you consider at least making the upgraded abilities freeze/crush or freeze/shock? Particularly on Eld Nary's Curse since that is SC only, though I'd like seeing it on the base abilities as well. With Eld Nary could replace the crushing lash. Her Tears could alternatively do pierce/freeze, as they're described as "bolts of freezing ice" so pierce/freeze really makes more sense than just freeze IMO. I just hate caster chanters have few options vs certain foes. The whole Beast of Winter DLC tons of stuff immune to freeze. A small change in damage type could make like caster bellower build (best way to get +power level on spells) much more effective in these few fights while not having a large effect overall. They're not expensive. Palm slats, leathery wings, and primal wind are all very common. I didn't even have to buy ingredients to craft them, I had enough. If you can churn out boss killer scrolls for like 10k (7k with berath crafting pick) that seems way too easy. An ability that hits nearly the entire screen, does large damage, and interrupts and knocks up for several seconds with near 100% success even vs megabosses (with my char anyway) seems way broken. Still, I don't really care that much about nerfing things as I can just not use them, but the same logic applies to plenty of things you did nerf, so I thought you'd want to know about these things... If there were a sword that won fights with zero risk would you nerf that? Even if it cost 10k or more? Why did you nerf Great Maelstrom?

What? Lightning strikes should apply a universal action speed buff. I can maybe see Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming not working on the double strike thing, which sucks, but if one insists on playing vanilla then FF is probably still the best melee class (not counting tactician, priest, and bloodmage brilliant / life extension hax) even with these limitations. Just don't tell me resonant touches don't apply with FF. Though I'm kinda guessing they don't. Yeah definitely install the CP IMO.

Yep I can verify this can easily solo the game, BUT this combo requires community patch for focus generation to work correctly. I'd do a pure forbidden fist, you don't have to cast spells as often, and it doesn't require the community patch (though I'd recommend using it anyway). The main thing to note is with a forbidden fist using the forbidden fist attack causes "forbidden curse" to build up, so you have to have a pretty specific stat spread for you to be able to spam forbidden fist without damaging yourself. The relationship between intelligence (makes the curse longer, but also your buffs), dexterity (how fast you can spam forbidden fist), and resolve (reduces the curse duration) is a little tricky but once you get it right it is very easy. Basically you want 35 resolve or as close to that as you can get. It is actually doable with the right items, boons, and buffs, even without a steadfast inspiration (which soul blade could give you for +5 resolve). Check this thread for specifics and also an alternate multiclass build that would fulfill what you're looking for. Then your intelligence should be no higher than 13, in which case you can dump dexterity to 3. You will still attack once per 2s roughly with monk's swift flurry. Alternatively you can dump intelligence, which allows you to attack a little faster, but your buffs won't last very long. Then again only buffs a SC monk really needs is swift flurry and clarity of agony. Clarity of agony is important for reducing hostile effect duration by 50%. With 35 res, 13 INT, 3 dex, swift flurry, clarity of agony, ring of the solitary wanderer, two-weapon style, dual-wielding, and strand of favor (all available before halfway through the game) the curse lasts about 2s and you can attack every 2s so it is perfectly balanced. If you want to be extra safe dump dex to 3 and leave INT no higher than 10, gives you a little more room regarding getting your resolve to 35. You should note without the community patch forbidden fist does not benefit from dual wielding, so in that case you don't dump dex, the curse will last the same amount of time but with 3 dex you can only attack once per 2.8s or so (with robes or no armor, which you don't need), so you'd want dex a bit higher. You don't need much CON, PER should be high, can have might wherever really, don't need a lot because the FF attack has a +50% damage modifier and you get another +60% or so from transcendent suffering. Then you can make a very simple script to buff yourself with clarity of agony with a cooldown of however long it lasts for your character, cast swift flurry when you don't have the dexterity inspiration, and attack with forbidden fist. Three blocks. If you want another good alternative FF / unbroken, this is made by @Not So Clever Hound

I swear I searched the notes for "chanter" and didnt' see anything about upgraded tier8+ invocations besides Ah. Thought you were talking about chanters, I was like "prayers"? Got it, adjust time due to power level differences. I swear I ctrl+f "chanter" in the BPM notes and somehow I missed this. Change seems good, sorry about that. I was looking at the original. Somehow missed this one too. I think when I searched "chanter" and saw "summon rebalance" I assumed it was just the notes about the summons and went on to the next ctrl-f chanter which is under "ENchanter", skipped the whole section... Their Champion isn't really cheaper, though, you just changed the upgrade "far from defeated" which is cheaper by 1 gut gives back 1 fewer phrase so it seems about the same. Not that that one really needs an upgrade, I feel like both abilities are good enough because of how strong energized is. Yeah I thought the summons were okay. Haven't really used the dragon upgrade so didn't speculate, and animated weapons are amazing, but the upgrade is just a 33% improvement on an already amazing spell so it's on borderline territory to pick up. I don't think it needs upgrade, just I don't personally put that in same category as like "eld nary" upgrade which goes from 4 bounces to 12, which does absolutely insane damage. I do have couple comments about the damage spells, though. Chanter's best spells just do freeze damage (besides stormspeaker, which you can't take). Is there any way to open up NPC-restricted subclasses to the player? LIke I would love to play stormspeaker or gunhawk. Also, what about changing the damage types of "her tears fell like rain" and "eld nary" to freeze/shock? These are both really good spells, except when you run into things resistant to freeze, then they're useless, and the only other primary damage spells a chanter has are "thrice was she wronged" and upgrade, which is okay for low level spell, "white worms" also okay but limited in use, and "boil their flesh" which is mostly situationally used on near death things. Basically the main damage spells to me are "her tears fell like rain" and "eld nary" line. "Her Tears" is pure freeze, could make it freeze/shock which fits okay with a storm or freeze/crush which also fits pretty well. "Eld nary" does have a +25% crush lash but I feel like making the whole thing freeze/crush or freeze/shock and maybe removing the lash to balance makes it more versatile. Also "eld nary" is described as "high penetration" but is just 1 point more than "her tears". I feel like damage spells in general could use penetration buffs. The best tactic on potd upscaled is usually to punch things because the spell penetration is relatively worse. Basically I like using chanters as damage casters but they just feel too specialized because of the freeze focus in the high level spells. That's a good point about the empower. I never use the empower abilities in the past because they kind of sucked and empowers are hard to use in no rest runs anyway. But chanter with sasha's singing scimitar can use one every fight, combine with various weyc items and least unstable coil. Could be interesting build there. Thanks for considering my input, even if half of it missed things you've already done. I try to follow the notes but I missed a couple things this time. Damn. I liked "each kill fed his fury" but yeah the extension on kill is a little OP. It is pretty easy to cast once and keep up in a lot of fights. I guess removal is fair, or could just halve the extension duration. Sort of, a little hard to evaluate because they take time to build up. It's like a priest with infinite casts who can only cast a spell once per 18 to 42s. Yeah I noticed she was a little tougher now. I like it. Not sure what enemy buffs would be easy to implement. Maybe things like giving overall accuracy and damage bonuses? Mostly accuracy, I am fighting DLC bosses and most are missing me like 90% (sometimes 100%) of the time vs everything but deflection because my defenses are all above 200. Of course there are already difficulty mods I can use, though I'm unsure if they're compatible, like deadly deadfire. Tested, compatible, this will do niceley with BPM. Yeah I guess you don't really need to do anything in that area you wanted to One other thing, tornado is really busted, at least as scroll casts. The ingredients to make them are common, you pick up at least 7 just wandering through the Forgotten Sanctum. And the AOE is absurdly huge with high arcana. I was able to easily solo the Oracle on POTD upscaled all trials doing nothing but casting tornado repeatedly. Took me like 16 tornadoes to clear the map and I took no damage. Haven't tried vs other bosses but I expect it is similarly devestating. The vanilla tornado was in need of a buff but you might have gone overboard in this case, just look at this AOE (this pic is from me casting it as an "emergency cast", not the time I used nothing but tornadoes).

Since this a Deadfire forum I think the title is spoiler-free. I hope. Would have posted in stories forum but seems completely dead. Anyway, Rymrgand says and does things that makes it sounds like he is somehow different from the other gods, like he has a more fundamental role in Eora? In particular this line from Beast of Winter has me wondering. This isn't really a spoiler except to tell you that in The Beast of Winter you talk to The Beast Of Winter, but I'll tag it anyway. Read it and tell me what you think. He says

Just fought the messenger. Shimmer Scale. Use the 50% reflection upgrade and Oblivion's Call chews him up. Can also do the combusting wounds stuff but this is definitely easier. ---- EDIT: After more testing I don't think shimmer scale works on Oblivion's Call after all. (See post below). My bad.

Okay I finally got through Forgotten Sanctum and have run through Oracle of Wael fight a few times using my solo transcendent. Although the advice I gave before was good, it was too complex I think. All you really need to know is this: Use Shimmer Scale - it doesn't seem to affect the Oracle himself, I guess his "eye of ninagauth" etc. attacks are "ray" attacks. But it does work on the scavengers of vision and they will kill themselves pretty fast due to high damage and relatively low health. Potions of Arcane Reflection are your friend. Brew as many as you can, of the best quality you can, and distribute them to party members who can't cast Llengrath's Reflection or Arcane Reflection, have them drink them periodically. Points in alchemy will make the effect last longer but the base duration is quite good (45s). With Arcane reflection potions up, the Scavengers of Vision kill themselves even faster, and if your party stands near Wael, the Soul Mirrors' AOE spells will hit enemies near you and the Oracle. They'll also hit you if your defenses are low, but that's what healing is for, AND Have a stack of tornadoes (or several) and cast one if the battle is getting hairy. AOE is large and modified by arcana I think. And it targets fortitude, which all these guys are low in, interrupts on graze, doing a truckload of damage and buying your party precious time to heal and regroup (or just cast more tornadoes). I collected seven of these scrolls in the Forgotten Sanctum and they aren't hard to craft either but do require 15 arcana to cast. You can also easily take out the arcane channels with tornadoes, while still hitting the oracle and friends, and once gone the oracle is stunned periodically. Honestly I think one could solo this battle taking a character with high fortitude and arcana and just casting tornado over and over. I'm going to test this...yes, you can in fact, quite easily. I did literally nothing but cast borrowed instinct every 40s and tornadoes the rest of the time. Used like 17. Took very little damage. Keep in mind the soul mirrors wear The Mask of The Weyc which gives them Veiling Hood on spawning (basically arcane veil + concentration), so while the veil is up you can attack them with veil-piercing attacks or attacks that target something besides deflection (fortitude and reflex are lowest), like slicken! EDIT: Hmm, I'm using the Balance Polishing Mod, which makes some changs to the tornado spell like double radius and range, so...might not work quite as well in vanilla. I shall find out. On the other hand the Great Maelstrom scrolls would be better in vanilla. Yeah there's no knock up effect in vanilla so although it does reliably interrupt things, it doesn't for long. You would need more than one caster using tornado scrolls to interrupt things. Probably 3 to lock down things completely. They also have meh penetration so won't damage the oracle himself that much (not on potd upscaled anyway). It may be feasible to use tornado scrolls to interrupt oracle and soul mirrors while a couple more characters damage him, but it's not as simple as in the photo below. In BPM these things are kind of busted.

It depends what classes you're looking at. Wizards don't have might inspirations besides Citzal's Martial Power which is still tier 1 and generally not a great idea to cast as it disables spellcasting. But wizards have deletrious alacrity of motion for very long duration swift + action speed. Also fleet feet for nimble. But most builds have something they're missing. Rogues are very inspiration poor, yes, have zero from rogue side if multiclassed. But paladins have multiple ways to hand out quick and also ways to easily regen zeal in parties. The perception and intellect inspirations are overall more rare, though priests can cast them in AOES. I think that's just a thematic theme. Priests don't have quick for same reason wizards don't have strong and barbarians don't get smart. Anyway I acknowledged for whatever reason the devs made quick/insightful/smart comparitively rare to strong/fit/steadfast. Set To Their Purpose is just expensive and unless you're a troubadour it is hard to keep up this buff as well as casting say instruments of death. Maybe it's fine as is, I just thought the asymettry with "each kill fed" was odd particularly since that one is also extended by killing things. Also being lower level that one gets a 5% power level boost so lasts a bit longer anyway. You get about +10s per kill which is pretty solid except in some boss fights with nothing to easily kill. Lot of fights you can cast it once and forget about it, others maybe cast it twice. Also some builds like berserker howler can kill skellies while attacking enemy and keep it up indefinitely. Maybe "Set To Their Purpose" is strong enough but "Each Kill Fed His Fury" is a much stronger upgrade given one character can perma-buff the whole party with it. And it is cheaper. My cantor can keep it up pretty easily in most SSS fights for example. But not "Set To Their Purpose". That requires over half your phrase resources even with a troubadour. Another thing bugging me about chanters is that ability duration often doesn't matter compared to how many phrases you have. Like if I'm trying to keep up Set To Their Purpose and Instruments of Death, basically I cast Set To Their Purpose, then cast Set To Their Purpose Again so it lasts longer, then next time I have 7 phrases I'm casting Instruments of Death, next time I have 6 phrases I'm casting Set To Their Purpose, etc. Often I have like 10s leftover on Set To Their Purpose but if I wait, the summons will die so you either waste phrase regeneration not using invocations or you waste ability duration. So it's kind of difficult figuring out what duration you really need, and an ability may seem adequate duration but because of the way phrases build up it really isn't, and considerations are different with brisk recitation on or off. This also makes chanters a bit less responsive particularly regarding Set To their Purpose because of the bonus duration you get from intellect, you may have to choose from losing bonus duration and starting over or not casting an invocation in time. Like if I have 10s left on "Set To Their Purpose" when I recast it, it would be nice if the duration got stacked on top of that instead of resetting. This could lead to buffing over and over while stealthed to get very long duration buffs, though...but it would be very tedious to chant 24 to 36 seconds just to gain 10s. That was a lot longer than I intended. I'm rambling please don't feel obliged to respond to all this. Oh. Well it's nearly instant. Why is this significant if it takes half a second delay to reach party members?

Dex inspirations aren't that rare. Priest has minor avatar. PER and INT inspirations are the rare ones. What do you mean the chanter is affected by the intellect inspiration first? You mean Set To Their Purpose procs the +5 INT and applies that to the duration? Because IDK, I seem to recall scripting this ability and its duration depending whether I'd already cast the ability...maybe I'm mistaken.

Sounds reasonable although making them cost the same seems simpler. I do agree int/per/dex is generally more useful than mig/con/res but their inspirations are pretty widely availalbe, I think? Time for nerdy experiment, I feel compelled. I'm looking at vanilla to try to find any pattern of intent. These are the available inspirations if I'm not forgetting anything Barbarian - strong, fit, nimble, robust, courageous Chanter - strong, strong, fit, steadfast, quick, insightful, smart, energized Cipher - strong, insightful, steadfast, random tier2, robust, aware, resolute, brilliant Druid - fit, robust Fighter - aware, intuitive, acute, (all tiers 1s from inspired discipline), acute, swift Monk - quick, smart, tenacious Paladin - robust, courageous, strong, fit, steadfast, tenacious, resolute, quick, fit, steadfast, hardy, quick, nimble, strong Priest - strong, insightful, resolute, fit, smart, strong, hardy, aware, resolute, tenacious, (all tier 1s from minor avatar), insightful, smart, steadfast Ranger (ignoring pet) - quick, nimble, tenacious Rogue - swift Wizard - nimble, aware, fit, smart, swift, strong/fit/quick, random tier 2 (bekarna's midnight daydream) So... in total we have strong/tenacious/energized - 11 / 4 / 1 fit/hardy/robust - 10 / 2 / 3 quick/nimble/swift - 8 / 4 / 2 insightful/aware/intuitive - 5 / 4 / 1 smart/acute/brilliant - 7 / 2 / 1 steadfast/resolute/courageous - 7 / 4 / 2 So...yes you do have a point. There are 28 sources of strong/fit/steadfast, and 20 sources of quick/insightful/smart. Counting all tiers it is mig/con/res 44, dex/per/int 34. I probably missed one or two things but close enough. Overall quick/insightful/smart are a bit more rare (particularly insightful), though the placement of buff abilities appears very random and mostly thematic, like fighters get easy access to the super rare intuitive and acute at low levels. Meanwhile a wizard has easy aware, nimble, swift (super rare), fit, smart, but only way you get strong is citzal's martial power. What related prayers? Fit and hardy from what? Not following sorry Seems reasonable. I never take that ability...guess it could be useful for parties in some fights. And I agree things that require specific triggers like killing something, or in this case having an affliction remove, should get longer than the standard 10 to 15s. I'm looking at Tier 8 and 9 chants and some of them are pretty mehhh. Like "And with furious vengeance" needs some kind of buff. 3 penetration is solid but a 6 phrase buff that lasts 15s? I don't know... What do you think about bumping to 20? "His Laughter Rang Out The Halls" seems really bad. 6 phrases, Tier 8, for a cone of daze lasting 8s? I mean for 3 you can get cone of paralyze/frighten 4s/6s or damage/stun/push 5s. It also targets fortitude and unlike the stun cone doesn't get +15 accuracy. Needs bonus accuracy, longer duration, secondary effect, something IMO. Maybe if it got daze/confuse or daze/frighten or daze/disoriented. Those combos are pretty decent especially the last two. Daze/disoriented would be my vote of those three. "The Foul Thing Gave One Last Grasp" perma-sickens friend/foe in area. Maybe this is better than I'm imagining, but I usually don't summon the dank spore anyway so IDK, but..the upgrade could make it more attractive if this effect were stronger like perma-weaken, even better if it's foe only. "And Sip From The Marrow" has probably unfixable bizarre targeting, but the action speed buff of 25% for 8s... since that is conditioned on allies being in the area of the exploding enemies, maybe it should last a bit longer? Other invocations look okay to me. "Arrow Sings" chant maybe bump to +2 pen though being a tier 9 chant. Just my random thoughts, chanters are quite strong already though I don't see much reason to go SC. The only super good invocations are "Eld Nary's Curse" and "His Heart Did Fill". ----- I've also been thinking that I've proposed lots of buffs but not really any nerfs. I mean you did a good job nerfing most of the broken things already, in some cases too much IMO, and I'm not really a fan of nerfs in general for increasing difficulty. But I have been thinking about other ways to increase difficulty, like maybe buffing enemy specific abilities? Of course it isn't very transparent what abilities they have to a non-modder.