masterty66

I honestly didn't use Brilliant (at least intentionally) even once on my most recent run. I didn't do mega boss fights though, but for everything else, I didn't use it and I didn't miss it either. For me there's more than enough resources to win fights in the standard game. On long drawn out fights in SSS and so on I would just empower to get resources back. Mega bosses are of course different though. I know those can be so long and so grindy that Brilliant can make a difference. I don't typically do them though. Have beaten a few before but usually aren't in the mood for them.

Agreed. That said I think Ascendant can be really cool with certain builds. I really want to try @Constentin Lévine's high dispersed tide build. That is one of the ones on my list to do. Right now I'm doing assassin/bloodmage though.

I typically use my Ciphers for debuff more than damage. I've found that charms plus secret horrors tends to be my bread and butter. Charms are always powerful for obvious reasons, and secret horrors really helps enable other party members. I feel like I spend most of the early part of a fight with a Cipher getting up Borrowed Instinct, casting secret horrors or charm spells, and then if I have time build up some focus to do offensive powers. Not sure if it's the ideal way to play, but it works ok for me. Haven't done SC Paladin. Pallegina is typically a Herald for me and she's exceptionally impactful with that setup. I know @Boeroerisn't the biggest fan of Heralds but imo the combination of heals and summons is quite impactful. The Ogres are quite useful early, and late game Animated Weapons are fantastic. My only complaint is her lack of engagement but as an off tank it's not so big a deal to me as long as I have Eder or someone who soaks up the majority of engagements. Beacon is of course nice as well especially if you time powerful abilities to go off after using it. I use Aloth similarly to how you use him. I find myself focusing on loading up enemies with afflictions moreso than outright damage. I feel like enemies are so tanky that long lasting afflictions matter more to me than outright damage typically. There are some exceptions. Being able to quickly kill weaker enemies with missile salvo and such is huge on fights like Nemnok where there's tons of enemies and you need to thin the herd quickly. But otherwise I find afflictions more impactful to enable other party members.

So how does Whirling Strikes work with ranged weapons? It requires a melee weapon to do, right? So is it just that you can dual wield a gun plus a melee weapon and Whirling Strikes will hit with both even though one is a ranged weapon? That's pretty cool if so. I guess based on the gifs you guys posted it must be :).

Yeah that's been my typical play with her. Have her summon Caedebald's, then Essential Phantom, and just snipe away. Then again that's often my standard tactic for a lot of my Wizards, lol. I need to get a bit more creative, but that combo is just so good.

Yeah after playing my current party I really do like having two rezzers. Pallegina is my Herald and my character is a Shifter/Paladin so both chars are very sturdy but even so occasionally one of them has died and that would cause me a wipe if not for having that backup rez. I really like the idea of having two party members that can do that, as well as a main tank to soak up engagements and just take a beating on the front line. Imo if you have those three things, you can almost do whatever you want with the other two primary dps slots. I am sure it is possible to play without a main tank or without two rezzers but for me it just gives me so much more breathing room and helps me to keep enemies where I want them for aoe effects and so on. I would also add to this that if your tank is a Fighter multi of some kind they can grab Unbreakable which is maybe not normally a talent someone would take but on a Trial of Iron run I'd think Unbreakable would be a real lifersaver when you need it

Interesting. I only use CP for now so did not know that. I need to try your mod soon Even so, 30% plus Druid heals is still quite good imo. Especially backed by summons.

If you're doing a melee heavy per you might want to consider pairing a Druid of some kind with your Herald. I suppose then it might not be melee heavy any more but Druid + Herald is so much healing that you will be able to out last almost everything. The +50% healing chant combined with Druids HOT is massive for survivability. I am running such a party now (not on TOI) and it's hard for me to wipe. Two sources of rez would also be nice in case one of your rezzers dies.

I respecced Xoti to try Mohora Tanga out. She's doing pretty crazy amounts of damage with that in Forgotten Sanctum.

Would need to have community patch extra for that to count as a weapon attack. But would probably be pretty good.

Why not both? I have Konstanten using Roar and Retaliation right now and he puts out a good amount of damage that way. Didn't think about that combination of Spirit Frenzy instead of Tornado. What I like about Tornado is I like to have Konstanten jump into enemies with leap and then frenzy to terrify a bunch of enemies and then immediately start shout spamming. Once enemies get unterrified and start hitting him he just retaliates a bunch while continuing to shout. Seems to work well though I sometimes get him killed by being so aggressive with him.

I was thinking its kit bonus gave +int as well as +might but it's just +might. Forgot that turning wheel is what gives the int bonus. I guess any Monk kit except FF would do then. Would depend how glass cannon you wanna be.

What Monk kit would you use? Helwalker for longer durations on Swift Flurry even though it makes you squishier?

I like how Deadfire supports a one handed weapon playstyle. I don't think it was ever really a good idea in Poe1, but Monks can get good mileage out of it here thanks to their talents. And using one pistol + modal is fairly effective too.

Do these procs still work with community patch? I noticed avenging storm was changed with it to only proc on weapon hits. Does that mean weapon effect procs like hemorrhage and such can't proc avenging storm?

I've probably completed oh I dunno four or five plays. I've had many more where I've gotten halfway through and abandoned the run to make a new character or take a break from the game. I've gotten better at not abandoning playthroughs over the years but it's still hard sometimes. There's always some new fun idea I wanna try.

I've had her using Tuotilo's Palm but maybe it would be better to use her Lantern even though that would lower her dps slightly on Wotw. Didn't realize RT didn't give her wounds back though. That's unfortunate. But still when I was using this with her it felt like she could get enough wounds to do another Wotw pretty frequently. I guess based on what you said that's probably because Wotw is generating a few killing blows for her even before I use Resonant Touch. Either way I was pleasantly surprised by her effectiveness as a SC Monk. I knew Monks were strong of course but I'd only ever tried her as a Priest since she's so useful as that. But this time around I wanted to mix it up. I don't see why you would ever go Monk/Priest with her though. Her PL 8/9 abilities as SC Priest or SC Monk are so strong, I don't feel like the advantages of multiclassing are worth it for her.

I've never run her as a pure Monk before. This is my first time. Holy moly Whispers of the Wind plus Resonant Touch is outrageous with her. She gets wounds when defeating enemies and with Wotw + Resonant Touch she does a lot of that so against big groups she can basically hit one, kill a few, and then immediately hit another one. I have her using Sun and Moon plus Tuotilos and she's a real power house. She was performing fairly well in my party prior to that but PL9 has been a massive boost for her. Anyways, I know everyone knows how strong Wotw + Resonant Touch is, but if you've never tried it with Xoti, you might wanna. It's pretty fun.

I agree, I don't think on balance it's a good subclass or anything. I've just seen a lot of people act like his subclass is unplayable and I've never personally felt that way. He is perhaps best suited as a pure Barbarian but he's fine as a Cipher or a Witch. But I guess it depends on what one's tolerance for variance is. He can definitely lose you fights, and for many that can be enough to never make him a Cipher or Witch.

People complain a lot about Wild Mind but I've used Serafen as a Cipher quite a bit and I feel like I haven't often noticed it and thought man this is screwing me over right now. I know it procs regularly and sometimes negatively but it's only rarely lost me fights.

HOF should maybe have a talent upgrade which lowers the rage cost by 1. I feel like that still wouldn't be overpowered considering how strong some of the other Barb abilities are like Barbaric Retaliation

I had a few quick questions on a couple of items. The Heart-Chime Amulet has 20% chance to give 20% of the damage in health for Fire key worded attacks for Fire Godlike. I'm currently playing a Fire Godlike Shifter/Paladin. Does that mean I could get 20% of the damage in health back off of my flames of devotion attacks? That seems like it would be decently large. Perhaps enough to be worth using. Second question was around Strand of Favor. This necklace gives -10% hostile effect duration. Does this stack with Outworn Buckler? That would mean theoretically -20% hostile effect duration if combined, which seems massive, especially with the trick @dgray1981pointed out to me about rapidly swapping between Buckler/Lethandria's devotion to quickly stack healing and negative duration. Debating what necklace to use and these are two I'm currently considering.

Yeah, I did know that you can do that. I just find it annoying when I pick up characters I haven't used yet and then get into a combat situation with them in the party. If I haven't accessed a safe area ahead of time, they aren't leveled. Glad I'm not the only one though. I was hoping I wasn't missing something lol

I wish there was a mod or something to be able to level up your party members from the boat without having to actually put them into your party and enter a zone. One of the reasons I find that annoying is it means you have to go out of your way to be in a safe spot if you're using an NPC for the first time. I'll give you a great example of this that I have encountered a bunch of times. When you leave Port Maje for the first time and pick up Serafen, he's obviously not leveled up yet. If you then decide to go to the Xaurip Island (which is typically my first stop for some quick xp etc) then you will encounter a few spots where you could potentially get immediately put into combat. Once you're put into combat, you can't level Serafen up, so he's level one until you beat that encounter. You could run into the same issue if your ship got boarded before you leveled him. My solution to this issue is usually to put him into my party and then re-enter port Maje to level him up before I leave, but I find that slightly annoying. All this to say, I wish you could level up party members from the overland map lol. Anyone else find that a little annoying, or is it just me? I know how to get around it after so many playthroughs now, but it's still annoying.

I would add that dark/evil doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a jerk to your companions. You could treat your companions or your favored faction relatively well and treat everyone else like they're subhuman. That to me is more fun and perhaps realistic than just being a psychopath to everyone. In that sense you could bring whoever along since your companions will probably be okay with you if you treat them ok.