Not So Clever Hound

Interesting quirk: it seems that when you steal Spiritual Weapons from a priest with Minor/Major Grimoire Imprint, the disposition system still works. So with the right reputations, you can create a Martial/Wizard MC that has access to any spiritual weapons with its full 31% lash. This is especially good with BPM because most spiritual weapons get a +10ACC bonus. It can be fun with Berath's great sword (corrode lash), Woedica's hands (raw lash but no +ACC bonus) but especially if you steal Vatnir's double axes... Those bad boys with a 31% Freeze lash, +10 ACC, Bleeding Cuts activated in the hands of a Sage or Spellblade with Zandethu's Draconic Fury, Citzal's Martial Power and Full Attacks... Firebrand is fun to steal too.

Indeed, as with Clear Out: it hits the primary target twice with each head (so 4 hits) then each target in the AoE gets hit once per head (so 2 hits). This is nice to quickly farm Crits for a Fighter/Chanter and/or with Avenging Storm/Combusting wounds .

Ah yes. Maybe OP could consider a Kalakoth Minor Blight Ranger/Wizard?

Stunning Surge refunds itself basically 100% when you fire Frotseeker. Helwalker/Ranger is also a nice combo with it.

Nice find, I was actually thinking of replaying a Spirit Lance Sage at some point. The nice thing about Stunning Surge is that it refunds itself plus the stuns lasts base 6s vs. 4s here... but wow, the multiple cones must be devastating with a big pack of enemies, Zandethu's Draconic Fury, maybe Combusting Wounds on top... Very nice. I had forgotten that Power Strike costs 4 discipline lol. 2 x Clear Out and its upgrades. Stunning Surge is basically free, Raised Torment costs 3 wounds... Sorry fighter.

You're correct. And a Wizard with Vaporous, Adratic Glow and BPM's Great Soul has 5 Casts of tier 1 spells, so they get 3 tier 1 refund with an Empower point I just checked.

Well to be very literal I’m thinking Barbarian (because leap) and someone that deals in plants and other tubercules. So probably a Mage Slayer / Ancient. Sounds like a winning combination.

I get you totally, Elric. In my limited mind it's just basically impossible to create number-based equivalences but I do agree with statements like "WotW feels too cheap compared to high-cost Fighter/Paladin/Rogue stuff and it wouldn't kill anyone if it cost a little more". Or "Barb Tier 9 Shouts are sooo cheap but it's ok because other than that and Frenzy Barbs drew the short straw". Well Elric, you can't say that. It's just too simplistic: it depends on the cooking, the seasoning, the wine pairing... it's much more nuanced! (OK I stop ).

I wouldn't call passive Chanting + Helwalker passive abilities complete garbage... but yeah definitely not on same level as Persistent Distraction/Sneak/Deathblow etc. That said, my point is about the value of resources and I'm just saying that non renewable resources become more and more a hot commodity as the fight duration increases, which is why it is hard to just say 1 guile = x wounds once and for all. It depends on the length/difficulty of encounter. Exactly as you point out, Fighter has cheap Intuitive and they're more likely to focus on keeping uptime on this kind of universally useful ability vs. spamming more expensive stuff in a "sustained" fight - because their resource economy is a bit different then than in a "burst"/short fight. Our Cantor Friend can activate The Long Pain if he wants in the short or long fight, who cares. Same resource value either way.

Victor I don't know if you saw or already knew, but Constentin recently posted that Slayer's Claw STR inspiration upgrade can work every time you switch to it... so if you get Strong with Slayer's Claw > it's upgraded to Tenacious > switch to another weapon set and switch back > upgraded to Energized. And of course it doesn't need to bind soul or anything, anyone can wield the unbinded claw... so if you can rush it, everyone and their mother can be Energized super easily.

I've been thinking about this post more and I think that to be able to truly compare the value of non-renewable martial/caster resources vs. renewable ressources classes, you should factor in some kind of cost per second scale because the supply and demand isn't always the same. Where it gets dicey is that value is dynamic for non-renewables (it goes up the more the fight goes on) while it is more or less stable for renewables with a steady flow of resources. Let me take an example: in a party, we have a Trickster/Devoted and a Helwalker/Troubadour (2 popular classes): Let's consider a short encounter lasting 20s: Our Swashbuckler will have 9 Guile and 9 Discipline available at start. Our Cantor will have 6 Phrases at start, build up about 6 Phrases over the course of the encounter, have 9 Mortifications at start, 5 Wounds, and build another 6+ Wounds depending on what they does (dance of death, MotS, getting hit...). The Swashbuckler can decide to spend all their resources however they want right from the beginning, and this is important as many fights are front-loaded and you want to turn the tide in your favor quickly before the enemy does - by having the flexibility to use high-impact abilities at the right moment. The Cantor will have a starting pool and build up resources over time so they will have less flexibility on when and how they can spend their resources, which might result in wasted time and/or resources. However, they also Chant from start to finish on top of "doing stuff", and each Wound they possess gives them a buff. => All in all, they seem relatively on an equal footing in terms of resources value vs. cost. Now let's consider a 60s fight: The Swashbuckler will have the same 9/9 pool so they will have to be a lot more considerate in how they spend resources, probably use them more sparingly on truly critical abilities i.e. each resource's value will comparatively go up. The Cantor will have the same starting pool as before, the same Chanting lasting the entire fight and they can steadily generate about 20 Phrases and 20+ Wounds, going on with their routine and adapting their spending as the fight goes on. Overall they won't have to use more or less sparingly their resources, just arbitrate on what is the most effective usage. => The more a fight goes on, the higher the value per resource goes up for the Swashbuckler and the value is stable for the Cantor. Of course trying to figure out the conversion rates between resources for each fight duration would be insanely complicated. But it poses the question of: on what average fight duration/difficulty should the game be based on for balancing out resource value between classes? I feel like this was balanced based on short/easy fights, while the harder/longer fights that truly matter give a clear edge to renewable resource classes. It should be noted that Tactician, Blood Mage and Cipher are a bit more complex cases in terms of resource value linearity, Cipher being the most complex/interesting case: because of Scion vs. Soulblade vs. Ascendant vs. Beguiler each have an interesting quirk and because of Ancestor's Memory. In particular Ascendant might have a weird U-shaped value curve with multiple U's over the course of a long fight. But overall I think Cipher is more balanced and closest to non-renewable classes in terms of average value/cost of abilities. Monks and Chanters got a really, really sweet deal on fights that truly matter, especially when you start factoring in special equipment (Sasha's, Weyc stuff, Least Unstable Coil, Blightheart / Ajamuut, Hylea's talons, Mortars...).

A sh!tstorm? Time to "reflect" on your choices. To be fair, it also sucks when you play solo and when your empowered Concelhaut's Crushing Doom gets reflected. Slow, painful, shameful death.

You pretty much summed it up IMO. Before actually going into the DLC maps, Nemnok and Splintered Reef can offer some challenge if you're not fully built-up yet. SSS is meant to offer different encounter configurations stretched to the extreme to challenge different party types, so it makes sense that with the same party comp you will be challenged more or less by certain encounter types or certain paths (Seeker's Path, Beasts of the Slayer, Survivor's Stand). FS is just hard because enemies are tough, have access to all the good Tier8-9 stuff and get additional bonuses/inspirations on top. I think we all have our techniques but personally when I think about a solo build, I often try to play it in my head vs. upscaled Trial of the Naga, Splintered Reef entrance and Nemnok. Can't run away, can't hide... usually a good measure of whether I have something worthy of more consideration or not. Agree that megabosses are different. Personally I usually avoid them or cheese them for the stones.

I agree, maybe in that order: SoF/Cabalist Gambeson because all you need is to grab on of these items (very easy/no fight required) and get to the point where you have Vanishing Strike or Temporal Cocoon then you've basically won the game. (cherry on the cheesecake: Deltro's helm for a 100000% lash) Effort + Avenging Storm trick because it is incredibly and hilariously powerful but you need to grab Effort (not a walk in the park). Grimoire Imprint, I personally love this and it can lead to hilarious combos, but it's much more effective and convenient with hirelings (while the other 2 tricks are as effective fully solo, except the Deltro ping-pong lash trick). Now of course, you could also use all 3 tricks at the same time, make a little video and maybe pin it at the top of the Obsidian Board, share with the Dev and title it: Deadfire: a definitive guide to how developers intended that you play the game.

Yeah but you use traps to start or quickly hit Alt twice and you are in stealth while the fight is going on so you can throw hoards of summons or whatever at the enemy, and do it forever. This might pass as cheese I guess but it’s there. This is why I mentioned Berath challenge which makes it even stronger.

Well... Death of a 1000 Cuts + Antipathetic field?

I feel silly because I did a lot of testing with Hemorrhaging when I was testing stuff with Helm of the White Void... but it didn't occurred to me that it would proc with anything other than weapon attack!

Or stealing all the spells you need with Grimoire Imprint

For Monk, exactly: that's my point . For the others... yeah they have a "chance" to recover some ressources but it's far from just standing there and getting your stuff back. Special mention to Corpse Eater who can just eat all the dead bodies around. My main point is that Monk and Chanters get a much better deal (EDIT: in terms of ressources) than most classes in the game from Day 1 and clearly by design - not because of some weird bug/abuse. EDIT: and this is even more pronounced with Berath challenge on.

I agree with you on the first and last part of your argument but I disagree with you here. 2x Symbol of Berath, 2x Wilting Wind or 1x Meteor Shower are on par with non-Empowered killer invocations. And Eld Nary when it gets reflected with still a good amount of bounces remaining = ouch. Then of course if you mean Empowered with all the Empower abilities, Sacha's, Weyc stuff... yeah they're probably stronger. But it's not really fair to account for those IMO, just because Chanter won the lottery and have free Empower ON TOP of having regenerating ressources.

Very interesting thanks for sharing Elric. It overlaps with your point about passives, but I would also add here the argument about "how useful are you when you have run out of ressources?". Which is also why Casters get a better deal here (as they should), but also why it remains very hard to compete with regenerating ressources classes on fights that truly matter for "normal" Martial classes. 1) SC Caster out of ressources = basically dead weight, so makes sense they get more ressources. 2) MC Caster-Martial or MC Martial-Martial or SC Martial out of ressources = can still rely on nice passives to do something with their weapon (driving flight, persistent distraction, Devoted bonuses, Paladin Aura/stoic steel, Barb carnage etc). Some get a better deal than others of course - I appreciate your work with BPM to correct that by the way. 3) But now let's look at Monk for example (same could be said for Chanter, but Cipher is more balanced IMO). Passives that are equal to or better than Martials without ressource regen Actives that are equal to or (much) better than Martials without ressource regen ... will not run out of ressources

Very nice . What about adding a Barbarian for the automatic Stagger rolls with Spirit Frenzy? That should feed into the proc chain too right?

I had overlooked it but you're absolutely right, permanent Taste of the Hunt is outstanding, especially with Spirit Lance on a tight group of enemies! One other thing that I had overlooked: Concelhaut Crushing Doom is tagged as Illusion and Concelhaut Spell. So with the Whitewitch mask, the Eye of Wael (Hundred Visions) and the Concelhaut pet, you can add +4 PL to it. On a SC Wizard with Prestige and a +1 PL food, you can easily cast it at PL15 or PL20 with Empower, or PL22 if you're an Illusionist. (but why be an Illusionist Concelhaut lover?). Why is it so cool to stack insane amounts of PL on it? Because Concelhaut's Crushing Doom benefits exponentially from PL: each PL above PL7 increases the duration of the overall spell and the accuracy, penetration and damage of each hammer strike. But of course duration also increases the number of strikes, and each strike adds a stackable huge accuracy and damage boost for subsequent strikes! You can see where this is going, even more so if you Empower it with BPM Empower passives! Now this one Empowered spell cast becomes completely insane, and you can still follow up with another one as SC Wizard. I thought it was already great before but now I see its potential as the one and only "fire and forget" boss killer.

That's weird. I still get the error message and BalancePolishingModBuffs isn't available. Anyone else?