masterty66

This is what I use as well and I haven't noticed the AI spamming it too often.

I have experimented with different ways and the best/most fun AI setup for me is the following: 1) For any melee/ranged dps classes, I have them setup to auto cast their self buffs. Eg, Fighter disciplined strikes, Monk Swift strikes, Barb Rages, etc. I also let them auto cast self heal stuff like Second Wind and Savage Defiance. Then I'll pick one melee ability for them to spam and set the AI to do that. And if it's a Ranger or Paladin I let them do Sworn Enemy/Mark Enemy too. This leaves them not necessarily using their full range of abilities but enough so that I don't have to baby them. I still step in manually if I want to use an ability that requires more care like say Heart of Fury or Charge. 2) For casters, I set them up to use Second Wind, and that's all. I fully micromanage all of their spells. The only exception to this is Wizards. I set all my Wizards to self cast their buffs at the start of combat because I'm not having Aloth click 10 different spells every time when I can have the AI do it. What this leads to is an experience similar to the Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate et al which I love and am used to. In those games melees don't have a lot of buttons to click, so it's mostly point them in the right direction and let them fight and it's the casters that require the attention. With my AI setups that's what I do here which means I spend most of the combats carefully targeting my spells while being mostly hands off with my melees beyond pointing them in the right direction. I do still step in and micro as needed (eg casting lay on hands on the right targets, etc). This takes some of the burden off of me of having to click the same buffs all the time while still leaving the important decisions to me. If my PC is a melee or ranged dps char and not a caster I don't usually use AI for them as I prefer to micro my own character. So there you have it. I've tried different setups where the AI controls more decisions and where the AI controls none and this is my preferred way to go about it. It leaves most decisions to me but takes out some of the more burdensome ones like constantly clicking Disciplined Strikes and all that. Why leave that to myself when I know that I just want those abilities up all the time? But with my casters what I want to cast can often change fight to fight (aside from Wiz buffs) so I leave that to me.

That'd be a hell of a lockdown character. Not much on the dps probably, but who needs that when you can lock down 5-6 enemies while the rest of your party kills at their leisure. Meanwhile with the Dire Talon you have zeal for days to cast lay on hands and exhortations constantly on party members.

True. I guess they're more like an off tank due to the limited engages. They would be providing a lot of aoe healing with White Flames spam and all the zeal you'd get from the summons though so even if enemies weren't engaging the Paladin they'd be providing value that way. Maybe the best setup would be that and some type of Fighter with Guardian Stance tying up all the enemies while the Paladin heals them with lay on hands and white flames and the rest of the party provides the dps.

That would make for a pretty tanky character as well. Just grabbing engagements all the time and proccing summons while being virtually unkillable thanks to Paladin defenses, shield, and white flames. Sounds like a fun char.

Is there a max Zeal number you can reach or can you go over what you start combat with? I'd think a SC Kind Wayfarer dual wielding Dire Talon and whatever else would be pretty nice. Steel Garrotte or Bleak Walker doing the same would also work but Kind Wayfarer maybe gets the most benefit for dual wielding since their heal procs twice.

I assume the summon has to actually die and not just unsummon in order for it to work?

I'm working my way through a run right now with a single class Priest of Woedica. I've liked it well enough. Still some miles yet to go on this run but I'm already starting to think about what I'd play next. I'm into the expansions at this point so it probably won't be too long before I'm done. I was thinking maybe a Monk or some type of melee dps build but there's so many possibilities I'm a bit overwhelmed with choice paralysis! With casters it can be a simple decision to go single class simply because the PL 8 and 9 abilities are typically great and so is getting the better spells faster. But it seems for most melees outside of Monks the consensus is to multiclass. I'd probably be playing RTWP on Potd for what it's worth. God challenges probably Ondra, Galawain, and Skaen. unsure about others. I'm using Abydon on this run but might not again because while it has made the game more difficult it feels a bit much to constantly be checking my inventory after every fight. It was interesting to use but maybe won't do so again.

I guess it depends how you quantify "Nuker" but Priests have a lot of great damage spells. The Symbols, Shining Beacon, Pillar of Holy Fire, Storm of Holy Fire, Divine Mark, Magran's Might, Hand of Weal and Woe... They're maybe not as efficient at Damage over Time spells as a Druid or as great at burst damage as a Wizard but they're a good mix of both damage options. Dual wielding Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon is a nice setup for most Priests. They can also do the trick that some Warlock builds like to do which is equip the Revku gear and stand in their own fire spells healing themselves and laughing as enemies blow up. Wade in, drop an empowered Holy Fire right on your own face, and watch them all burn.

When I was looking in game it said "weapon damage" but I didn't test the ability out so no idea if it works with ranged weapons or not. If it did, I suppose something like dual scepters could be funny. The Wael scepter can be upgraded to have 10% chance of affliction which would be funny on a Steel Garrote. Of course if you're doing damage to heal, I suppose you'd want to be in the thick of things taking damage to get value out of that ability.

Think I'll roll with the Rogue idea since I never mained a Rogue pc. I'll probably do the Rogue as the scroll user in poe1 since Rogues are pretty fragile on that in Potd so better to have it as a backliner. Then Poe2 it's Garrote time baby. I'll have to think on what weapons will work best for this char in Deadfire. It's weapon damage not melee damage (unless the wiki is wrong) so technically this char could do ranged damage if it wanted. Or melee. Or both.

What do these guys have synergy with? Rogue seems like the obvious answer given all the ways it has to add afflictions. Was thinking of doing an evil run and Steel Garrotes sound cool but I'm uncertain what the best way to go with them is. Has anyone played around with the kit?

I'm playing an Arcane Archer/Kind Wayfarer and I'm partial to Spearcaster. It hits like an absolute truck regardless of whether you're using Imbue abilities or Flames of Devotion. Things just melt fast against it. Perfect weapon for this multi combo. The Watershaper's Focus is good too for when I want to get more mileage out of my imbues.

That's true. Unfortunately I already solved that quest peacefully so that solution is out :p. I can't rationalize going in and murdering her now. It's OK. Not having that +2 PL won't kill me.

Thanks, sounds like I should give it to Tekehu then. Sadly I can't get Deltro's Cage as I'm playing a Benevolent character and didn't want to kill the Valeras but should still be useful to have that +3 PL.

I do have Tekehu. He's a single Druid. I could have him use it I guess? Is the +3 PL for Stormspells worth it?

Who should I give this to? I've got Serafen and I'm going to have him use Morningstars for the Fort debuffs. My PC is a Ranger/Paladin (Arcane Archer/Kind Wayfarer). Kinda struggling to decide who to give it to if not Serafen. Maybe Rekke depending on how I spec him? I haven't picked him up yet. I don't have Konstanen setup as a Barb in this one. He's a single class Chanter.

One of the God Challenges makes everything per rest though, right? Or just some stuff? I'm guessing some variant of Paladin/Cipher/Chanter would be what is required to do this challenge. Maybe Wizard if you have a way to get spells back (Bloodmage?).

Do we have detailed notes on what the Turn Based balance changes are? Curious what was done there. Super excited to try the new patch though!

Well one problem I could see is actually getting the staff. Nemnok's area is pretty tough and I dunno what the earliest level is you could comfortably do it. Level 12-15ish maybe?

My usual tactic is to finish the conversation and then run as far to the left of the cave as I can. The Dragon will try his breath attack initially but it will miss because you won't be there. Then, when you're in the corner, immediately start buffing. Have Durance cast Crowns for the Faithful, Devotions of the Faithful, and Prayer Against Fear. Let Aloth buff himself with Deletrius Alacrity of Motion, Spirit shield, Llengrath's Displaced Image, Iron Skin, etc. Have a few characters summon monsters (with figurines, which you should have plenty of at this point) in front of you to buy you some more time to buff. Have those monsters engage the Dragon. Then, once buffed, you can start engaging the dragon. With your accuracy buffed that high from Durance's spells you should be able to hit it. Even better, what you can do now is have Aloth try to throw a Ninagauth's Shadow Flame at the Dragon. It is not immune to Paralyze, so if you can land it on him, the Dragon will be disabled and you can then kill it. It will go down fast once paralyzed. Of course, you might not have Ninagauth's Shadow Flame. To get that, you would have had to beat White March 1 and find the Spellbook, which maybe not everyone does. That's OK. If you don't have that, try crafting some scrolls of Paralyze. I'm assuming Aloth or Durance or someone in your party has high lore. Let them cast that on the Dragon once you have finished buffing, and eventually it will land and you can kill it. As a Cipher you also have the paralyze ability which should work. The key really is buffing your accuracy up high enough that you can land the spell on the Adra Dragon. Crowns for the Faithful and Devotions of the Faithful should get you to have sky high accuracy. Prayer Against Fear should prevent your accuracy from taking a huge hit from the Dragon's fear aura. After that it's a matter of getting lucky enough to hit the dragon with paralyze. Keep spamming it at him and it will eventually land. Once it does, it's game over for him as you can then focus fire the Dragon with all you got. I killed it very quickly recently on a run (PC Ranger), using the tactics above. Once Aloth hit him with the Paralyze I was able to shoot him with Persistence, then land a Cleansing Flame with Durance, and also everyone else was hitting him too. He went down in seconds. Of course his defenses are high and you might not always hit him with the spells even when buffed. But eventually you will, and once you do, he should go down quick. Paralyze is a devastating debuff in Poe1.

If you're playing turn based you should usually be able to interrupt the enemy before they hit you with it. Another tactic you can do that works tb or rtwp is spread out party members so that if they do get off an arcane dampener it only hits one or two of your party rather than everyone.

I really like Symbol of Eothas. Xoti does work with that spell.

Only problem is only having two slots and I like having the Watershape focus for my 2nd wep for when I fire imbues. Maybe I should use that ring or whichever item it is that gives +1 weapon slot. I forget which item that is or if it would take up a valuable slot though. I remember seeing it in my previous run though.

Definitely true. I imagine the only time it might suffer is vs enemies with super high pierce/slash armor but I guess on those I could switch to Essence Interrupter as my 2nd weapon instead of the Watershaper Focus. Or maybe even just stick with Spearcaster since the accuracy is so high that the build crits a lot which can make up somewhat for enemies with high armor. But I haven't noticed pen issues yet. But haven't fought many constructs, so we'll see how that goes.