Not So Clever Hound

I agree with @Bosmer. If I may add, a re-stealthing melee Assassin/Soulblade will be micro-heavy in a party, but have the advantage of being able to strike enemies locked in engagement, or ranged squishies that are not moving around. The annoying thing when you're playing a melee Assassin solo is that when you are invisible, many enemies go about their business and wander around, resulting in a lot of "Miss: Out of Range" attack resolutions or encounter reset where you don't get your resources refunded...

Personally, I hate this spell with passion . Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of an impactful "Polymorph Other" in Deadfire. It is an elegant idea for mage fencing. But IMHO this spell is a missed opportunity in its state - partly due to what you described above. Also because enemy casters that seem scripted to chain cast Arcane Dampener and Form of the Helpless Beast while running to their certain death are the bane of my existence.

This is for the Herald right? Herald is typically a passive healer that does stuff on the side to adapt to the situation. If so as @Boeroer said max MIG and flat CON. Prioritize healing factor over total health pool, without going extreme. True for many tanks with healing IMO. Then ok defenses and high AR will be there for damage mitigation. You will need very high AR to push enemies into underpenetration on PotD upscaled, but a Herald can do it.

Not really, but it's always something to look at. I also did this one playthrough PotD but not upscaled IIRC. Anyway, as you say you have several ways to debuff AR and many damage types. And higher PL also improves Spell PEN. Chillfog is not a DoT (i.e. one hit roll that ticks damage for a duration) it's a pulsing AoE or a hazard AoE, so every pulse is a hit roll that reapplies the blind and damage effect. Any accuracy or graze to hit etc. conversion buff that is not explicitly for weapon/melee attacks will help the pulses. I can imagine, and that's why Gouging Strike is there. I'm a shameless gouging strike enthusiast myself. Nice find, indeed your Stun from Charge countered the Energized inspiration. On AR, don't forget the Mace modal which also debuffs by -1. Purging Volley should remove all existing inspirations/buff from the description but I'm not super familiar with this weapon. Yeah, it's a pain or straight-up undoable unless you have very specific abilities. I think @Kaylon had an epiphany with the Mechanical Marvel Arbalest and scrolls of Tornado..?

Also @mjo2138: Late game and in the spirit of pure optimization, Duskfall and Furrante's Breastplate or Magnera's Chain are probably better alternatives to Griffin Blade and Miscreant's Leather for this build, because of increasing returns of defensive stats. And you do want to try and push your defenses into the stratosphere, so as to cast in peace.

If you are happy to stay with Hylea's Bounty from the start, then you can start from Day 1 in Maje. If you want to use another resting bonus for some reason in the long run (e.g. Shark Soup, Captain Banquet) then start your no-rest buff gathering routine right after leaving Maje and resting with your desired buff. Or whenever. Just, beware of not getting Dawnstar's Blessing too early then, and of not getting Cruel/Aggressive disposition for Nature's Resolve. That's a fair point, that I did not go in as much detail as talking about potential early game choices and then the respeccing. Spirit Shield might be more impactful in Maje but the thing is, it competes with Chill Fog. And for me early game is all about trying to stay alive stacking chill fogs like it's my sole purpose in life. You can also pre-stack some chill fogs before starting a fight BTW... The weapon modal of this build is Medium Shield. Turn it on, never turn it off. You should try and stealth/rush the Gladiator Sword for Skrim early on to boost DEF. Try to get a ring of DEF, buy the Cloak of greater DEF. Outside of testing around, you can optimize this toon with 1 or 2 respec. And powerplay starts at day 1 . Congratulations! And thank you! Solo Swashbuckler, noiiiice! How'd you end up beating the Guardian of Ukaizo? And yes, why be a wizard when you can be a Blood Mage!

Hi folks, I pushed this playthrough a little further and the Solo Fury really takes off with Least Unstable Coil, Great Maelstrom (GM), all the Empower abilities, all the PL/Acc etc. bonus items to GM, and Deltro's Helm. You can stack as much as 7 Empower points per rest on this toon (3 base + 1 great soul + 1 Captain Cabin + 1 Luminous bathhouse + 1 Nemnok). When you Empower Great Maelstrom on an enemy group, you will have all Tier3 Inspirations, with in my case an 18s Brilliant. In the most devious scenario you can cast 2 Empowered GM in a single fight and 4-20 regular ones: 1) Cast GM away from enemies, on you, to get a 100%+ Shock lash (don't die doing it). 2) Empower a GM "trap" close to enemies so they come investigate 3) By the time they're hit and initiate combat, you can throw another (!) Empowered GM on them, still with the lash 4) This will trigger all tier3 inspirations if you hit enough enemies, then you're brilliant for another 3-4 GMs. 5) If all else fails, Wit of Death Herald and another 90s Brilliant. I never did Nemnok so fast, and Concelhaut didn't last long too. It will get boring pretty fast and it's not fool proof at all. But this solo Fury got much further than I thought!

Sure, it is indeed one of the strongest and versatile possible combos in the game . I mean I love Wizards myself and I've played more Deadfire wizards than I would ever want to admit . In terms of uber jack of all trades, wizards are up there too...

With all the scaling, this can be a deceptively potent room cleaner. Cast and forget and win. Yeah, because you get 2 of them . I love Wael and it's probably more impactful throughout a full playthrough. But it will be stronger as (martial) Multiclass IMHO. Berath better justifies going SC. Skaen's Incarnate in particular is nice (ever fought Fampyr priests and wondered what the heck their Effigy summon was?). If RP allows. SC Cipher shines once you actually play it. Things like Death of a 1000 cuts, Time Parasite and Shared Nightmare are transformative. Yes, but then there is also PL scaling on previous abilities like the Insect spells, Relentless Storm and Embrace of the Earth Talon. They scale very well, and for some of those you can fire them from a huge distance. But yeah, Great Maelstrom is the MVP - cheesy I don't know. Very long casting time, some risk of friendly fire... It's immensely powerful, but it's only a straight "I win" button in fights that aren't that challenging anyway.

Forgot to comment on this: building around Arcana is incredibly impactful at high level, for instance with an Assassin, Arcane Archer or even Arcane Knight IMO. But it feels a bit cheaty because it's so powerful and flexible and copies powerful class abilities instead of doing its own thing. And resources are so easy to get that once you have enough capital to keep going there is no tradeoff.

I think you should try PotD Upscaled then and see. Beware, rocky start. You do you of course , but didn't you do a Herald in your first run already? Why not try something new? SC Priest and high level spells can be really good, Skaen or Berath mostly IMO. Berath's Symbol and Summons for tanking are sweet. But in terms of highest bang for your buck for going SC I think it's Blood Mage and Monk for any party/solo configuration, then Assassin (mostly for solo) then Druid in a party for Great Maelstrom. Then Priest and Cipher equally IMO. I think it is statistically the best physical damage, then for elemental it's arguably Shock or Corrode - I'd say Shock because a lot of high-impact Corrode spells target Fortitude which sucks a little bit on PotD. But you can also use both . Some of the most powerful spells are Freeze (Freezing Pillar, Shadowflame, Eld Nary, Her Tears, Maelstrom has flex damage type) which sucks in BoW. And don't even get me started on Fire damage .

Nope - funny you mention it because that's one of my very very few RP issues with Deadfire. Freeing him but keeping a bit of his soul in there is the obvious optimal choice, but it robs you of 2 epic fights. The latter you might even never know you missed unless you paid attention or read the wiki lol.

Ball Lightning and Mantle of the Seven Bolts require a little bit of positioning to optimize impact but with anything Assassin they're absolutely devastating indeed. Wear Deltro's Cage, Deltro's Helm, harm yourself with shock damage beforehand and open up with those... zap zap zap.

If you freed the Sea Dragon Scyorelaphas during the quest "The Shadow Under Neketaka", he's taken care of the final boss for you... It's not super straightforward to understand the first playthrough, I'll definitely give you that.

Thanks for sharing! Very interesting. I did a couple rounds of testing with my level 20 cantor and Animated Weapons in various places (Uamoru the Pretender, FS Central Stacks, BoW Outcrop on High) with and without scaling enabled. Animated weapons had the same stats in all situations, which compels me to think that once you reach Lvl20 it doesn't matter anymore because your summons cannot go past Lvl20, unlike enemies. Is that fair to say? The other way around: knowing that Animated Weapons have an intrinsic level of 17, would summoning these as a Lvl13 Chanter in a +4 scaling area push the summons to Lvl20?

Was probably referring to Keeper of the Flame (Entrancing Aroma)..?

Merci ! The disable is always very small, usually under 2 sec. In practice between high-ish defenses and reduction modifier, I've never bothered/noticed afflictions and other effects. My total combined negative effect duration modifier is -80% and before (?) that is applied the hard -5s duration of Enlightened Agony. (I'm assuming it's applied before the -80% coefficient otherwise most negative effects effectively wouldn't have a duration...). Breakdown assumption: RES = 75% duration reduction = -3 once inverted Enlightened Agony = 50% duration reduction = -1 once inverted Total = 1/1-(-3-1)=0.2. So if I'm hit with a 10s effect: first it's reduced to 5s (hard -5s), then it's reduced by 80%: 10*0.2=2s

[Heard at the top of Bekarna’s Observatory, one moonless night] Concelhaut – At last, I shall put an end to the perambulations of Archibald Troubafist! Time to “punch” your ticket, Watcher (hehehe). This might hurt a bit… Archibald Troubafist – You fool! Pain only makes me stronger! I shall fist you ‘til you die, then sing songs about it! Concelhaut – I… Wait, what?! Archibald Troubafist – Yallaaah! [Fist, Fist, Invocation, Fist, Fist, Fist, Invocation…] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Troubadour/Forbidden Fist Concept: Somewhat counter-intuitive, self-sufficient Melee/Caster hybrid who punches hard, floods the battlefield with skellies and animated weapons to distract enemies, occasionally uses offensive invocations… and he can do that all day long thanks to never-ending renewable resources. Game Version: RTwP. Works with latest updates and DLCs as of v5.0.00040. I recommend the Full Community Patch and the No Forced Rests mod (otherwise just metagame around them, it’s fully viable but just a bit annoying). I think this is also a good build to play in Eric’s BPM. (?) PotD Solo Viable: Yes, tested on all Upscaled. Megabosses (except Auranic) need to be cheesed somehow. Of note, this is a Solo build that is also very compatible with party play – it will be the MVP of the team. Companion: Nope. -----WHAT IS INTERESTING ABOUT THIS BUILD?------ At first, I crafted this build to be counter-intuitively synergistic: creating a Solo MC Chanter/Monk who dumps Intelligence, who doesn’t take any summons invocations, and who chooses Her Tears instead of Eld Nary while being powerful enough to dominate on Upscaled PotD, AND running mostly on AI sounded like a very fun challenge. It worked totally as planned, being unstoppable and just going on and on forever against any opposition until there is no opposition… until I hit end-game content in the DLCs, where I realized that I needed to make a minor adjustment and still pick the Instruments of Death to tweak the odds in my favor on very serious fights. Animated Weapons is yet again here a cornerstone ability. From there, the build became even more powerful, even if a little less unique. (Again, this is due to Upscaled PotD. On any lower difficulty including PotD, this toon just steamrolls everything even without Animated Weapons.) The Troubadour side brings us healing in the beginning, nice AoE damage with Her Revenge, Her Tears or Eld Nary (Empowered with Sasha’s Scimitar as usual). It most importantly brings survivability at high level with Many Lives and Called To His Bidding: creating distractions that for the latter can also do damage, so that you spread out a bit the deadly incoming offense that Upscaled PotD throws at you. The Forbidden Fist side brings us very solid single target damage and healing, acceptable defenses with Tuotilo’s, Crucible of Suffering… and most importantly with max Resolve and hostile effect duration reduction from Enlightened Agony, it brings incredible resilience due to the inversion system in Deadfire’s calculations. Basically, no hostile effect can last longer than a few seconds at the very worst, and will heal us which is amazing… as long as we’re not the sole focus of attention of critical enemy parties (hence the Troubadour half for distraction). This build maximizes the use of the Forbidden Fist ability on AI thanks to optimized action speed vs. curse duration: at the top of our game, which is all the time, we have a Forbidden Fist ability total cycle time of 1.9s while the Curse lasts 1.7s. Perfect! To help with the automation of the FF fisting part, we pick Swift Flurry (of course) and Enlightened Agony, which isn’t very useful for the INT buff since we have Turning Wheel and max wounds… but helps with AI scripting (condition on NOT having INT inspiration). So the buffing and single target damage part is on autopilot, and we have the hand on using Phrases for Invocations (summons, Eld nary, Her revenge or Her tears which is absolutely devastating when surrounded). -----SPECS------ Race: Human for the 35 RES here, doesn’t really matter if you build up RES otherwise Background: Aedyr – Hunter FINAL STATS WITH ALL PERMABUFFS AND NO-REST BUFFS AS OF 5.0 (without combat buffs): MIG 26 (17 Base +1 Human +2 Berath +1 Gift from Machine +1 Rabyuna’s Boon +2 Alchemic Brawn +2 Hot Razor Skewers) CON 15 (8 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Brawn +3 Girdle of Eoten CON) DEX 20 (12 Base +1 Rabyuna +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Guile +2 Amira’s Blessing +1 Boots of the Stone) PER 24 (18 Base +2 Berath +1 Effigy: Sagani +2 Alchemic Guile +1 Savage Cunning) INT 7 (3 Base +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits) RES 35 (17 Base +1 Human +1 Aedyr +2 Berath +2 Alchemic Wits +2 Nature’s Resolve +2 Rikuhu’s Blessing +2 Rabyuna +1 Cauldron’s Brew +2 Eviee Pet +2 Token of Faith +1 Boots of Stone) ADDITIONAL PERMABUFFS: Food: Hot Razor Skewers Adratic Glow All Trainings Dawnstar Blessing Luminous Adra Potion Nature’s Resolve (Accuracy) Savage Cunning (Survival) Galawain’s Gift Magran’s Blessing Immunity to all Sigils Infamous Captain, Bonus Skills, Champion Stats, Port Maje vendor, Fully discovered Map, Bonus Money… invested all 105 Berath’s Blessing Points SKILLS I just spent between Mechanics and Athletics, then a bit of Diplomacy/Survival but end game dump all in History. ----- ABILITIES ------ ACTIVES Chanter: Thrice Was She Wronged; And Hel Hyraf…; Not Felled By the Axe…; Her Revenge; …Nor Flame; So Singt thy Biting; Called To his Bidding. (Optional vs. So Singt thy Biting = Her Tears is devastating when you let the enemy surround you and empower it... but it costs 2 points). Monk: Swift Strike; Swift Flurry; Clarity Of Agony; Enlightened Agony; Duality; Turning Wheel. PASSIVES Chanter: Soft Winds; Ancient Memory; Rapid Casting; Quick Summoning; Many Lives. Monk: Two Weapons; Weapon & Shield; Long Stride; Soul Mirror; Crucible; Rooting Pain; Tough; Uncanny Luck; Improved Critical; Heartbeat Drumming. -----GEAR------ Weapon Set 1: Sasha’s Singing Scimitar (Refreshing Finale, Shocking Prelude), Tuotilo’s Palm (Precision Striker, Balanced Shield). Weapon Set 2: Can wield Grave Calling for chillfog cheese. Or a ranged weapon e.g. Bightheart. Head: Helm Of the White Void (+10 ACC to FF attack!). Neck: Token of Faith. Chest: Devil of Caroc (Devil’s Due, Heart of Bronze). Cape: Giftbearer’s Cloth. Gloves: Hylea’s Talons (amazing for any FF). Rings: Greater Regen, Entonia’s Ring. Boots: Boots of the Stone. Belt: Girdle of Eoten Constitution or Least Unstable Coil for Empower fun (not that impactful here). Pet: Eviee. -----STRATEGIES------ Turn Brisk Recitation on, and never turn it off. Early on, just use a chant with healing (Soft Winds/Ancient Memory), fight in a corner or narrow corridor and kill them all one by one. Later on, switch to Many Lives for distraction and alternate fisting and invocations. The tougher the opposition, the more summoning you want. In really hard fights, use potions (invisibility, healing, ascension, arcane reflection, ryngrim…) to get an edge. An invisibility potion at the beginning of the fight to have all enemies front load their worst abilities on your poor skellies and letting you cast Animated Weapons in peace can be invaluable. This build is a steady achiever, I had a lot of fun playing it. Hope it can inspire your inner cantor. Feedback always welcome!

Aye, 'tis true. but I loaded a save just before changing zones. I agree with your thoughts, thanks for this. +6 ACC/DEF at this level have increasing returns for the most powerful enemies, so it would make sense as you say to consider the difficulty curve bell-shaped. So just to close this loop, I made a few adjustments that made this encounter and so far the rest of FS PotD Upscaled MUCH easier. I think my issue was, as often, hubris . For fun I wanted to follow through with a counter-intuitive Solo Chanter that dumps INT, doesn't use any Summon Invocations and no Eld Nary. Multied with Forbidden Fist it worked really well until FS but it showed its limitations in FS at max difficulty. I respecced simply to get Animated Weapons and I steamrolled this encounter and the next ones.

Against single sturdy enemies you should try the axe modal also… very good.

Debuff her AR, buff your PEN, focus damage type on her lowest AR, supplement with Raw DMG when possible. Essentially. Think about the wizard spell expose vulnerabilities for example, and a number of Chanter invocations, cipher powers, Druid spells… and of course the uber Sunder Armor if you have a SC fighter. Flanked also reduce AR. Oh and Beza’s toothed blade. Use certain weapon modals also. You have lots of options to overcome AR vs PEN gap.

Another tool that absolutely wrecks her: Concelhaut’s Crushing Doom from a certain unique grimoire. Also, whenever you see her about to cast something annoying, try to use something like mule kick, skyward kick, forbidden fist etc. to interrupt her. She’ll lose the cast.

Well, all the more as I’m playing solo

Nice find. If driving flight works indeed, that could be huge! Don’t know and can’t test right now. Something like Engoliero should work even better with Helm of the White Void because ghost blade does…

Grave Calling is both for damage and paralyze from all the chill fog attack rolls but yeah it can be a nice combo!