NotDumbEnough

Multiclassed Assassins are mostly only good for landing critical spells. That +25 accuracy is nice if you're trying to land a critical Disintegrate or Detonate for example. Much less useful for weapon attacks unless you're a single class Assassin.

The lower bounce damage in the tooltip is simply the initial damage with one stack of the bounce penalty factored in. It's rather confusing, since even spells like Rolling Flame actually have a bounce penalty stated in their spell description. The way it's written in Chain Lightning, Firebug, Mind Blades etc imply that the secondary hits have lower damage but do not reduce further. I suspect that whoever balanced these abilities got misled by the description as well. Personally I think that bouncing abilities should simply be standardized to have lower base damage but no bounce penalty, and can bounce back and forth. Something like Eld Nary's Curse.

Perhaps give Beetle Shell a superior range. BDD requires you to be in relatively close range, so a rogue that dives into enemy lines may not be within reach of the priest.

Note that chain lightning cannot bounce back and forth between 2 enemies. Not sure about firebug.

Not really referring to things like +2 Fire PL on the unique battleaxe and such. More like: Kitchen Stove reload bonus also applies to your other hand (but only if you don't upgrade the reload speed enchantment) Blightheart phrase refund works with any sort of kill, not necessarily with the weapon Engolio de Espers on kill effect also triggers on any sort of kill Crossbow hit to crit bonus is universal Anything else I'm missing?

Your thoughts on buffing certain weak druid and wizard spells? Some of them feel rather weak to the point where I never bother using them, such as Malignant Cloud, Chain Lightning, Firebug, Boiling Spray, etc. Personally I feel that some of the bouncing abilities lose too much damage from each bounce and quickly lose usefulness.

Young Panthers have +10 deflection (Cover of Night) at night. Was really surprised to see that day/night cycles mattered in combat on enemies as well.

This is really dumb, but I just found out that you can retarget single-target abilities much in the same way as AOE abilities. I used to always stop and recast them.

Another scenario where dumping intellect is acceptable is multiclassed Rangers. Regardless of whether you're going ranged or melee, only your binding roots ability particularly cares about intellect, and it's far from mandatory. Heal Companion is obsoleted by Play Dead, which in fact (I think) benefits from low intellect, as your pets get up faster. I did try a dumped intellect Stalker/Soulblade before this, but it was generally much less effective than this build. Simply not enough damage output. Your pet is a nice anchor for Ectopsychic Echo, but that's about it. I guess if you're a bit more keen on durability than damage, it's OK.

It was really not an issue, 20 damage per swing when you kill most enemies in 1-2 hits is not an issue. Chanter's Old Siec might be helpful though it tends to heal you for so much that you go above half HP.

Soulblade + Streetfighter is quite possibly the highest single-target damage in the game. Later on you will probably get 70-80 focus from a single use of Crippling Strike. Then with Soul Annihilation that translates into ~30 base raw damage which is amplified by weapon tier and sneak attack and your streetfighter passive. If you're using a slow one-handed weapon this is roughly equivalent to an attack that deals triple damage. One particularly fond memory of this build is literally one-shotting Fyrgist from full HP with a Soul Annihilation crit using Voidwheel. Basically this build will kill pretty much everything within the duration of 2 back to back BDD's from a friendly priest. Back of the envelope calculation: Weapon enchantment: +60% damage Might: +30% or so Sneak Attack: +60% Deathblows: +50% On the Edge: +50% On the Edge crit: +140% Biting Whip: +20% Total: 5.1 multiplier to your base damage. If you have ~160 focus that is 50 base damage so ~250 damage. But wait! You also get a PL bonus to your damage for roughly 30%. So 300+ damage for just the raw damage portion of your Soul Annihilation. Then calculate the weapon attack damage. Assume you're using a 2h weapon and roll 20 damage. Same 5.1 multiplier and PL bonus here so roughly 130 damage. Factor in your Biting Whip lash and Voidwheel's Lash and Deep Wounds and that's roughly 200 damage. So with moderate focus that's a conservative guess of 500 damage for a Soul Annihilation crit. But if you're even luckier you will get a Necrotic Lance proc which will deal approx another 150-300 damage depending on whether it is a crit. Keep in mind too that you have insane attack speed and you are doing this Soul Annihilation attack every third swing.

I suggest a change to Ooblit, the pet that you get in FS. It offers +3 sec duration to beneficial effects, which was very underwhelming in most cases but pretty broken in edge cases like the ones you give above. With most of these being fixed duration now, +3 sec duration is not very good for most other effects. Maybe change it to +15-20% duration of beneficial effects so that it can be more useful in generic situations.

The Bestiary states that Steelspine Warriors have Unbreakable, even though we never see them get back up. A bit of a shame, it would have been interesting to have enemies that occasionally get back up.

Her Tears Fell Like Rain seems to have the same kind of jankiness as Avenging Storm when used with Refreshing Encore on Sasha's Singing Scimitar, though it doesn't seem to be reliable. I'm not sure how the secondary damage works in general, whether it is an AOE or a projectile like the initial hit, or something else. Probably most significant on a Bellower, which could probably clear most fights in the game with 2 uses of the ability.

I think Cat form weapons deserve more credit. They're really only second to monk fists and mythic tier weapons which you can only acquire a limited number of. They have fast attack speed, high base damage and high pen; they're basically stilettos that deal slash damage instead and have 60% higher base damage which is insane.

Concelhaut's Draining Touch is really good since it doesn't go away on phantoms. You can also keep it permanently on your character by switching grimoires after casting. By the way, you also get a naked Tekehu if he uses Watery Double while shapeshifted. Given that you don't even need to multiclass for this to happen, it's strange that they would give him an ability that looks so weird.

Certain enemies have very low power levels for some reason; this buff came from Zihaa during the Watershaper's Guild quest while he was dominated. There was no resolve affliction on him, so I guess he just has abnormally low power levels?

Probably the dumbest build I've ever played, with 1000 hrs in this game. Dumb in that you dump intellect, as well as the extremely simplistic playstyle. Playing with Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod. Class: Rogue (Streetfighter)/Cipher (Soulblade) Race: Human Attribute distribution: Dump Intellect and Resolve. Allocate everything else as you wish, max out Perception and choose White that Wends origin. Skill build: Take Crippling Strike and Antipathetic Field as starting abilities. Otherwise take only passive abilities (Iron Will, Cipher +1 weapon pen ability, +10 Fort/Reflex/Will, etc etc). Suggest taking Biting Whip for raw lash (Community Patch change) over Draining Whip. Suggest taking Monastic Unarmed Training at least for early game. Consider taking Ectopsychic Echo (beam abilities don't care about your intellect) or Detonate for bosses, but entirely optional. How to play: Get flanked/bloodied or both. If all else fails, toss Sparkcrackers on self: since you dumped intellect and resolve you will likely crit yourself from low will, and since resolve is low, the distracted duration will be long. Hit stuff with Crippling Strike if you have 0 focus. Soul Annihilation if you have the focus to use it. A friendly priest can be useful for Barring Death's Door and Champion's Boon (if you find yourself running into underpenetration issues). Later on Reaping Knives from a friendly Cipher solves all penetration issues and hits hard. This is a build that was literally so strong that I immediately headed for the digsite without even bothering to visit Port Maje. I have the Berath's Blessing that starts me at level 4 turned on, though it is also PotD upscaled. I usually struggle with the drake even with Eder+Xoti in tow, but this time I only had Eder and simply punched the crap out of it.

You should avoid over-prioritizing flanking everyone. In most conventional fights you don't really need Brilliant. That said Tacticians are definitely not ideal for dealing damage as the accuracy and penetration penalties are pretty crippling.

Tested Trickster's Wall of Many Colors at the Wild Mare -- it seems that Murderous Intent does not work with Wall of Many Colors procs, but Wall of Flashing Steel does. Not sure if it's an issue with WoMC or Murderous Intent or just this particular combination, as well as whether or not it's caused by this mod.

It is not very good. The odds of failing to get a crit on an attack is bigger than you might think even with 4 attack rolls. I only ever made it work with a rogue wearing Devil of Caroc Breastplate and resting at the bathhouse for more Guile. The problem is that even then your damage output isn't amazing; you might get 50-60 damage per swing even when min-maxed (I was using a SC Assassin dual-wielding Ball and Chain and Sungrazer, which prone and stun on crit respectively). Then you compare it with a single-class Monk using Whispers of the Wind and wonder what the point is. It is also not very good against tougher targets and bosses, e.g. dragons have innate crit to hit, and of course it's not good if you are grazing all the time. IMO the only rogue subclass worth single-classing is Trickster, as WoMC and Kalakoth's Freezing Rake are both amazing spells (Wizards have their best spells at tier 8 -- conveniently you get access to them). I don't bother with either Gambit or Vanishing Strikes as both require lots of investment with very poor payoff.

I think you are underrating Ryngrim's; it's just barely balanced on Wizards as they don't really want to be in melee, but on melee Tricksters you can sail through 80% of the game with a cheap, spammable and persistent hard CC on all nearby targets. Pulsing effects like Repulsive Visage are also inherently better than one-off rolls, because it's simply much more likely that you'll land a hit eventually even against the toughest enemies. See how Tekehu's Chill Fog is infinitely better than a Cipher's Eyestrike. Another interesting thing about it is that it rolls against Fortitude rather than Will, which is not very common for Resolve afflictions. e.g. Sigilmaster Auranic has zero resistance against resolve afflictions, but has high will. With Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, however, you can potentially terrify her.

One thing I disliked about Deadfire's narrative is that the Deadfire seems to have very little history compared to the Dyrwood. You had the Dyrwood's independence, the colonists' relations with the natives, and the Saint's War and its fallout. You could also have a political discussion with Durance, who, being the political pundit he is, correctly predicts that the Vailian Republics will eventually throw the Dyrwood under the bus. You can ask him about this before you even reach Caed Nua, which is kind of cool. What happened before you arrived in the Deadfire? Basically nothing. There's that one ghost who wants you to cremate her in the Magranite Temple, and you learn she betrayed former rival tribesmen that she once fought in a civil war prior to the unification by the Kahanga. You have minor historical events where the watershapers sank the Rauataian fleet. But neither of these have anything to do with the plot, and basically only come up once or twice.

The different components of GM also correspond to different keywords, so the +1 pen talents don't apply to all components of GM. Probably relatively well known, but enemies don't drop their weapons if they're equipping a summoned weapon. This is mostly an issue with Katrenn and Eccea, be careful not to kill them while they have summoned weapons out.

You could even dump might if you're just going to spam a non-damaging spell over and over (spamming is kind of the point of a blood mage). e.g. pump intellect, perception and dexterity and spam Miasma/Slicken, Enervating Terror/Gaze of the Adragan and Wall of Many Colors.