Not So Clever Hound

Yes it's the same for me but the double Powder Burns only happens on one enemy. Others get only one application of Powder Burns. At least that's what I've observed.

So to recap, the things that make it OP: Renewable resource Weirdly scales like a spell Very generous targeting (Bounces + Repeat + Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming) Interaction with Ajamuut Cloak (and Avenging Storm like all multi-hit weapon abilities) Interaction with very strong weapon combos A couple of leads - I'm certainly not suggesting all of them but maybe 1 or 2. It could become a fist-only ability like FF (doesn't use equipped weapons but your fists) It could cost e.g. 7 wounds (or minimum of 7 plus you lose all remaining wounds in the process because it's such a taxing/purging ability) Or it could cost 5 Wounds and a Mortification It could drop the weird scaling It could drop Invisibility It could have more limits on bounces and repeating on same target It could not benefit from Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming (you move so fast) There's probably more to think about but personally I think that implementing #1 + #4 or #1 + #2 + #4 could keep the ability super strong, maintain its spirit/uniqueness while making it less broken? I think #5, #6 and #7 are a bit sad, I don't like them personally. #3... I don't know. What do you guys think? BTW Elric I've started using the full complement of BPM (summons+buffs+nerfs). Love it!

Also the +INT from Turning Wheel increases the Mortar AoE thus increases overall damage output, and you can group at least the melee enemies together by starting the fight from stealth and having the enemy engage your Duplicates as I did in the video. And you can use Acina's Tricorn and the Ring of the Marksman and also the Harley pet. Anyway I get the message, no one is remotely in favor of nerfing WotW + Ranged. Fair enough .

I agree, the Keeper of the Flame build has absolutely incredible synergy. I didn't write the ultimate SC Monk - just the ultimate Mortar Monk (ie.. to have heavy interaction with Avenging Storm and Resonant Touch for very demonstrative gameplay). I personally think Grave Calling (Grave Bound) + Sun & Moon is the most consistent overall because you build quickly the paralyze effect that helps completely control the battlefield on top of the Stun from Ajamuut. Anyway, it's hard to find anything built around WotW that is not very good. I disagree with you on Mortar WotW being balanced, but I also wasn't clear in my wording: I think that being able to use this ability with range weapons is not intended and is more of an oversight/bug. That you can achieve equal or better results with specific melee weapons combos doesn't matter.

We probably don't need another Mortar Monk Video but just in case anyone is wondering what this is about: I just recorded the build above vs the Ikorno bounty on PotD Upscaled with full BPM & CP. Not a crazy fight by any means, but he has some Fighters with good defenses and AR that can pop Unbending, with lots of hard CC resistance. Should be a match for a SC martial. Well, kind-of . I'm also using the double Alt key-hitting trick.

Well I guess this happens when: That is the Deadfire implementation of SC Monk in a nutshell. As for the nerf bat... I agree with you but it makes zero sense that WotW works with ranged weaponry to begin with. Just like SoF shouldn't prolong buffs forever, etc. If BDD + Ancestor's Memory + SoT is a hearty Neufchâtel cheese, Ranged weaponry + WotW (+ Resonant Touch...) is a 40 year old Gorgonzola drenched in Grappa. If one gets a big nerf bat on the face, I think it's only fair that the other does too..? The other high level OP martial ability that remains and that I can think of is Vanishing Strike, but it's not as abusable as WotW (without SoF). Oh well, there's Gouging Strike and to a lower extent Brand Enemy too... but they're low level and they hardly will auto-win fights where you can't hide and wait things out. Happy to hear if you have a different perspective, it's just a personal pet peeve of mine that Monks get such a late game stratospheric power curve compared to other martial classes.

Hi folks, I know this is an old post but I'm testing a solo Hand Mortar + Sun & Moon SC Helwalker right now. @Boeroer I just wanted to point out that the synergy in your awesome finding is even stronger because: Hand Mortar targets Reflex and the flail modal debuffs reflex by -25 (total crit fest) With Hylea's Talons equipped, the S&M strikes supplies you with wounds on top (which wouldn't work with a dual mortar monk) So it seems that this setup is really the ultimate neverstopping Mortar Monk. To the point that I genuinely fear trying Avenging Storm - which is not needed anyway because Resonant Touch insanity - and have my GPU literally implode. And as you pointed out in another thread, with the Belt of Magran's Chosen it goes even better... why on Eora is SC Monk so broken! @Elric Galad just curious: have you considered the BPM nerf bat on WotW and ranged weapons?

Fair point, to elaborate a bit then: Entropy: that's why I wrote "strong but niche" . Entropy is strong against a tough single enemy if you kind-of cheese it in the amazing way you found out or if you have e.g. a SC Monk or a specific very powerful ability you want to crit as Elric wrote. Strong, but limited/niche use. Firestag is strong if you cheese-BDD it in non-BPM I guess. It's really not on par with any Tier8 spell of other classes otherwise IMO. Avenging Storm is for a SC Druid weapon user - e.g. niche optimiziation for Mortar Druid. OK but... bof. Regenerate... well I think we all agree. Then let's compare with what other casters get as tier8 spells.....

If the Whip summoned by the Water clone doesn't count towards summon limit (?), a SC Wizard having stolen the spell will be able to fill the battlefield with Ondra's Whips .

Druid Tier 8 = 2 strong but niche spells, and 2 very meh spells. I almost wish that Embrace of the Earth Talon was Tier 8. You would get it much later but it wouldn't compete with Relentless Storm at Tier 5 and it would actually make you use Tier 8 casts!

Yes, and as @theleepointed out in his guide, they get the full PotD scaling of enemies (increased defenses, accuracy, armor rating, penetration). But, you can't command them, and they're not interested in using their special abilities (unlike the enemy drakes you might stumble upon, or the original ones you can command ). After 1200+ hours of having satisfyingly broken the base game with Community Patch left and right... I'm finally going to start implementing your BPM mod in my game . I'm starting with Summon Rebalancing because I'd like to play a bunch of Chanters right now. Later probably the Buffs and, if I can work through the psychological trauma, the Debuffs as well. I already love the before/after of playing a SC Beckoner - which makes me wonder even more why you rated SC Chanter so low in your rating, assuming you had the BPM version in mind .

Hi folks, I've always assumed that Fire in the Hole and Watershaper's Focus work as intended with regards to the +1 Bounce effect built-in those weapons. Because I always have a lot going on in terms of attack rolls when I use those bad boys (using Powder Burns or Blast plus martial abilities with several attack components), the tooltip is usually a mess and I never thoroughly checked that their bounce was indeed working. Today it bothered me and I just did about 30mn of testing in various situations with the 2 weapons: I can't make the bounce happen consistently and I can't find out why. The bounce triggers maybe in 10% of cases, regardless of enemy placement, character using the weapon, martial ability or autoattack... What am I missing? Does it work fine for you? Thanks!

@Elric Galad just to add to that, I discovered that even for a Beckoner, the second (Enraged Drake) is based on the standard Drake Summon duration (25s) not the reduced Beckoner one (18s). So it will always be 22.5s (25*0.9). That's another plus for the Beckoner, not game breaking but hey, much better than 18*0.9=16.2. With Sasha's Scimitar and Robe of the Weyc, a SC Beckoner can end up having 2 full size Drakes tanking the enemy, while you position 2 weird looking small Dragons on each side and have them double Tail Lash the enemy party. Pretty cool. Also, you can get rid of the base crappy Beckoner Drakes very quickly to get the fully-scaled Enraged ones once you've used their abilities: just move them around to trigger Disengagement attack from the enemies. They only have 100-ish hit points and will die instantly.

Thanks Eric. I was having mild insomnia, then I read your post on my phone - now I'm officially awake . -- Overall I think your ranking is very fair. I like the distinction between SC and MC. Thanks for giving love to the SC Barb! "Shout! Shout! Let it all out..." I almost jumped off my bed when I saw Wizard in the OK MC tier but your reasoning makes sense. That said... any MC Wizard will have multiple casts of Ryngrim's Enervating Terror + Repulsive Visage. Those can be game changers in any multiclass and party configuration, even if you don't pay a lot of attention to the Wiz. Don't you think? -- I think one other variable that could shake things up is Difficulty Level but I think your assumption is PotD, correct? Essentially for how important PEN and ACC become offensively, as well as Affliction Resistance / Healing defensively, which will be even more important on Upscaled. -- Finally, Subclasses are sometimes considered as selling points and sometimes don't seem fully considered in your ranking IMHO, although they can alter the perspective. For example: SC Rogue: SC Trickster can be an awesome and very versatile contributor to a party - doesn't have to be a VS/Gambit one-trick pony. SC Barb: hell yeah, but then make it a SC Furyshaper and you have the Blood Ward! *Almost* bumps it up a tier. SC Chanter: is subpar in your ranking (I know, relative to its MC awesomeness). But having the ability to launch 8 Instruments of Death with a Beckoner while having a passive +PEN chant for them and everyone else is quite a neat selling point I think. SC Troubadour can easily maintain 100% Uptime on a freaking Dragon with 1800+ hit points and devastating special attacks. And in both cases, you don't really have to know what you're doing. MC Priest: Priest of Woedica + Martial Class has one of the best dual weapons in the game at PL2. Anyway thanks for the great ranking and ensuing discussion!

Thanks, that’s interesting: I did it with a Bloodmage under the permanent Cocoon untargetability trick, and I did get the curse when the tables got destroyed. So for that purpose untargetable is not the same as invisible. For sure! Tactician has access to the 2 strongest buffs in the game: Brilliant and… Confused .

Brilliant, thanks. I think you’re assumption that they work in similar ways (although positive vs negative) is very reasonable. But you never know with Deadfire . By the way, the French translation of the game cracks me up I mean it looks great and thorough but carré pollinifère sounds like you’re a biologist in a real life experiment to foster plant diversity or whatever. Pollen patch sounds a lot more simple .

Unless I'm mistaken (which is always very possible) Crits prolongs duration by x25%, not +50%. Right?

@Kaylon I was redoing the fight yesterday which drops the Mechanical Marvel (with a totally different build than the Glimmer Man) and it got me thinking about this thread and ask out of curiosity: what strategy did you adopt in this SSS fight - In Defense of The Written Word - to be victorious with the Glimmer Man? I'm asking because I've found that this encounter tests the abilities of a solo stealthy archetype build to its limits: Be stealthy and temporize, the enemy will destroy the alchemist's tables and the alchemist's curse can punch even through untargetability (!!!) for 60 DMG per tick. Go very aggressive without much stealth, and you might run into serious trouble when the Nagas show up. Did you use a lot of Arcana, with the right scrolls and a bit of practice on when enemies spawn at each phase? EDIT: maybe you can Withdraw the Alchemist's tables..?

Nice! Yes and I think it should stack with "And With Furious Vengeance" (+3PEN Invocation) which I know can be prolonged after combat.

Ah nice. then it should also work with a Barb/FF walking on any hazard aoe with pulsing affliction and friendly fire, right? Yeah sorry I meant not with a Zerker. Yeah I didn't do enough testing, I just saw the duration being about 1-2 sec on a low INT high RES Zerker/FF and the heal happen a couple times but not very often, reason why I said it wasn't useful. I don't know how the icy patch duration is working, as it doesn't appear in the tooltip. Good call about the outworn buckler!

Nice! A confused Zerker/Forbidden Fist can Hobble himself and heal very quickly from walking back and forth (not super super useful). However this got me experimenting with the Crimson Panoply: it can be enchanted to trigger Blood or Spirit Frenzy on the wielder when he's been crit. I don't know if this was already known, but this effect can stack with other Frenzy effects. So for example with wielding Lover's Embrace, you can have Frenzy (Lover's Quarrel) + Blood Storm + Spirit Frenzy (Crimson Panoply) active at the same time! Of course the STR/CON inspirations get overriden, but the specific effects of Blood (Raw DoT) and Spirit (Stagger) and the 3 action speed buffs do stack. Pretty cool. On the minus side, the Deflection debuffs also stack.. EDIT: also I never paid attention but the Optimistic Presence buff from The Crimson Panoply can be relatively good: with high Survival you can get to a >60 points damage shield on the entire party for 30+ seconds.

Interesting. I'm not particularly skilled but so far it's been 100% reliable once I got the hang of it. But I play with saves/reloads allowed so sure there's less pressure. I'm also playing at max game speed, maybe it matters somehow for the reliability/timing of the Alt key move..? Dunno. Yes, that's nice. For encounters that are supposed to start with a talk (i.e. enemies are not yet red circles), the Delayed Fireball is also a very easy way to skip dialogue, make everyone hostile and deal a bit of damage while still being stealthy away from enemies - and with the Tier 7 spell refunded by the time the encounter begins. Yes, it's interesting how the mind works. Also, I guess Deadfire has deep enough mechanics (sometimes a little weird) to remain a potential for mistery and epiphanies among veterans even to this day .

Something funny I just experimented with based on @Constentin Lévine's finding and the one above. I had an Ascendant/Tactician, 2 priests (SC or MC doesn't matter) and a SC Wizard, with Berath Challenge on. 1) While everybody is stealthed, have the Ascendant alone approach the enemy and quickly unstealth/stealth. Combat starts, because he's still stealthed Tactician triggers Brilliant, i.e. automatic focus generation. 2) While his focus slowly fills to the max, have him go back to the group still all stealthed. 3) As soon as he reaches Ascended thanks to Brilliant, go through a full routine of Ancestor's Memory + BDD + SoT chain-casting for the entire party. 4) The Wizard then also casts Temporal Cocoon on everyone, which beneficial effect gets prolonged by the chain casting of SoT (this is why you need 2 priests, so they can each prolong Cocoon for the other). 5) Just leave them continue to cast SoT on each other like weirdos for as long as you like (why not a few hours) until you're ready to go actually do the fight. It won't last long: you'll have tens of thousands of seconds of untargetability by the enemy, cannot-die, brilliant for everyone and ascended for the Psyblade. 6) Once the fight is over, Ancestor's Memory and BDD will go away, but not Temporal Cocoon... your entire party is now permanently untargetable by any enemy. This is probably the easiest/safest way to achieve Party God Mode purely within the confines of the base game mechanics and without using Strand of Favor at all .

So.. SC Wizard really didn't need to get any more powerful and cheesy than it already is but you can permanently steal Essential/Substantial Phantom with Grimoire Imprint, which now makes you able to easily summon those from stealth forever... and equip items that trigger big AoE effects on kill to have a never-ending supply of arcane suicide bombs. What about a Wizard/Psion that permanently steals Summon Sporelings and (why not) Wild Growth from an Ancient with Minor Imprint, then uses Pain Link on those forever from stealth... while still being a Wizard and a Cipher when need be.

I've just been toying with this with a few recent solo builds and I can say that it bumps up the usefulness of any Chanter MC significantly... now you can just start almost any cosy fight from stealth, summon Animated Weapons > have the enemy waste away their hardest hitting stuff > keep summoning Animated Weapons until you want to do whatever you want. I find it especially great with the Loremaster that can resummon a fresh batch of Animated Weapons on the enemy group that is now all out of tricks, and start launching über Freeze AoE abilities. This inspires me to finally do a Solo SC Beckoner fully reliant on awesome summons but I fear that on Upscaled PotD it's going to remain painful... 8 Weapons is amazing but their base PEN fully leveled is 12 and many enemies feature really high kinetic damage AR... Instruments of Death can get +1 from Animancy Cat, +1 from the "and the arrow sings" Chant, +3 from "And With Furious Vengeance" incantation. So you can get to 17 PEN with Animated Weapons. But that's still not that high for Upscaled PotD (knowing your Animated Weapons won't Crit a lot given meh ACC). Of course you get 2x Arcane Assault with the wands, which deals Raw damage - but still sounds like a drag... Blackened Plate Armor could be useful, but the radius of Usher's Visage and Death in Life isn't great. Otherwise there is Pain Link with a Beckoner/Psion, but that's been already done and done. I need to think more about the SC Beckoner and try and see where I can get. Any thoughts welcome.