Not So Clever Hound

I think with this one it's simpler. To get the full challenge/experience, you can simply advance openly in the main cavern to get the full "intended" opposition vs. trying to stealth around and take out the patrolling enemies covertly.

Ah my bad! Yes I was referring to the Flooded Cave encounter in the Ofecchia Channel. But then that's relevant because it is another encounter with a particular layout that can behave very differently depending on how you start it. Argh you're right - for some reason I keep convincing myself of the opposite and rediscovering in-game that indeed Sparcrackers behave differently. I don't know where this unconscious bias is coming from .

A couple minor comments: Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights work the same as Sparcrackers and is great for e.g. an Assassin / Blood Mage or Trickster to lure/group enemies and do nasty things to them from Stealth. Delayed Fireball is also interesting in that regard. Not to be picky but the Ancient Liche Battlemage is different from a Deathgard. They are separate entries in the bestiary with different stats, abilities, immunities etc. I don't recall every dungeon but I don't think so, this encounter is quite specific. Maybe Bipara and the Witches at Outcast Respite can be a bit the same.

I haven't tested but I could, sometime later. My bet is that it will work as if a 100+ shred spells triggered the additional Raw damage and duration extension of Death of a 1,000 cuts (then upgraded to Death of a 100,000 cuts).

Nice. Yes that makes sense. But I bet it would still be enough to trigger a strong chain reaction with Ancient Brittle Bones? up to 18 skellies vs. 8 instruments of death. Though of course 8 instruments of death with some nice supporting chant is a force to be reckoned with in itself. The mod shared above is self-contained, only about fixing Screaming Souls as described. Which Elric was nice to create for those of us more interested in "polishing" than "balance" .

Hi everyone, Not trying to bring this thread back to life, but I finally got a chance to play a fair bit around the modded Screaming Souls ability that @Elric Galad so graciously put together. i.e. Screaming Souls working "as intended" or at least, as described. Not surprisingly I did a solo Beckoner/Psion focused around Ancient Brittle Bones and the über Screaming Souls, with additional synergy with e.g. Many Lives, The Empty Soul and other Cipher passives, Helm of the White Void, the occasional Grave Calling bonanza... My findings are as follows: 1) It is extremely satisfying when you manage to pull off the perfect combo of basically 6 + 12 (+1) skeletons absolutely exploding the battlefield through a crazy chain reaction. I'm talking about 100+ attack rolls in one cast, with very large AoE size and humongous total Raw damage. You could think it is totally broken but... 2) You will often commit suicide in the process, so there's a bit of balance. It's hard to not completely wreck yourself or bystanders because the AoE can be somewhat unpredictable. Sure, you can mitigate the risk with sky-high Will (which you'll have), wearing Voidward, having a pet with +health on kill, maybe using the Great Escape Cape/Leaping Boots for last second mobility... But you're competing against your sky-high Accuracy even with only a few hits you might not survive the Choir of the Undead. But hey, when you pull it off... hundreds and hundreds of raw damage*. And it gets even better when enemies are Vessels themselves! In conclusion: if you want to bring a bit of versatility to your Troubadour/Psion or whatever, this mod is fun. Screaming Souls working "as intended" is OP, but it is so dangerous that I find it relatively balanced in a way. Worth a try IMHO! *I'm being intentionally vague on the actual damage potential because the combat log goes totally bonkers . but it's a lot! PS: don't try it in a party with a SC Cipher having Shared Nightmare. Guaranteed suicide.

Good question! I used it on a SC Trickster that was ready to experiment. Testing is tedious... but I only ever saw the following effects occur in 30mn or so: Illusive Spell: Miasma of Dull Mindedness, Dazzling Lights, Repulsive Visage, Curse of Blackened Sight Shrouded Strike: Stunned, Disoriented, Weakened, Dazed, Frightened, Immobilized, Charmed So I would think that Illusive Spell uses a specific list of lower tier spells. Shrouded Strike can probably give all afflictions. Anyway I don't think that unique spells like Crushing Doom, Shadowflame etc. would proc. Interestingly, sometimes Illusive Spell double procs! (i.e. I think it procs off itself or something like that)

Nope, the in-game effect is called "Paralyzed (Frozen)". It seems to be a uniquely implemented effect.

Really cool breakdown and strategy, thanks @thelee! For those who aren't aware (I know you are) perma-paralyzing Doru is also achievable with Grave Calling (Grave Bound enchant) in a more exploitative but simpler fashion. Doru should in theory resist Paralyze which would be demoted to Immobilize, but in practice Grave Bound works differently for some obscure reason/bug.

Yes. Also, if you play solo and have the full incoming damage increase debuff from the Red Hand on your toon, there is a particular fight in SSS where you’re transformed into an ironclad that is effectively undoable because the maths become completely against you and AFAIK there isn’t another way to cheese the fight.

No doubt Venombloom is stronger. It lasts much longer, comes with 2 pulsing afflictions, each attack component targets different defenses and not just FORT. All its components benefit from Helm of the White Void. But Venombloom is also Tier 6 while Malignant Cloud is Tier 5. Quantity can trump quality in certain situations. A Blood Mage with some healing or cannot-die ability going can spam and stack Malignant Cloud all day, which as I wrote is enough with a bit of patience to kill Jadaferlas on upscaled PotD. Druid only has 2 Venombloom casts by default. Finally, both will interact very nicely with Combusting Wounds and other pulsing spells.

On Upscaled PotD you're often at risk to get your butt handed over, even with critical path enemies. When you go after a group of red skull enemies it's just more of a certainty . With a full party you won't hit 20 absurdly fast, but yes DLCs are high level content so they give more xp. You can keep them for when you're ready to hit the main story endgame. Without spoilers, the game will be pretty explicit about that so don't worry about hitting a point of no return without realizing it.

Lover's Embrace: chance to apply Frenzy on Crit applies to all attacks and offensive abilities that can Crit.

Yes, or it can actually put enemies at higher level than your party depnding on the situation. It also makes the beginning much harder, and makes Penetration mechanics even more important. Be advised that Upscaled PotD gives a VERY rocky start if you haven't played Deadfire at all. You can do them in any order you want and at any time in the story, they are self-contained arcs. Level-wise, I would go for 16+ but you can try earlier. The game will give you info on the difficulty of quests you pick up, in the case the quests/enemies are higher level than you. (one white skull to three white skulls then a red skull if something is way past your lvl)

A pulsing spell dealing Raw DMG is not rubbish in my opinion. It scales relatively nicely. Sure it's not the strongest spell but I've used it to great effect against Jadaferlas for example: Get surrounded by a barrier of magma oozes so Jada cannot reach you and just paces around like an angry lizard. Get your buffs and some healing going or BDD/Final Stand and cast Wall of Draining on the oozes to crit like crazy. Slowly kill Jada with Chillfog, Malignant Cloud, all the pulsing spells you want while chilling with the oozes and replenishing spells with Blood Sacrifice.

All afflictions will give -5 to one stat (CON, DEX, PER, INT...) which will provide a -10 to the corresponding defense (FORT, REF, INT) and additional effects as you go up in affliction tiers.

I think it would actually be SC Ascendant, max Focus, Phantom Foes with Shared Nightmare.

Only if a great Conjunction of Spheres allows AD&D Clerics to walk the land of Deadfire, but then all bets are off and I want Greater Contingency and Timestop available for PoE2 Wizards.

Putting feasibility aside for a second, personally I think it would make more sense for those abilities to have an "off" switch (like Spiritshift) than a fixed duration. To give flexibility to end the effect earlier if needed. Now, of course I guess this is a much more difficult change to implement than a fixed duration. but it would be more elegant IMO.

Honestly, I think that stat allocation is much less impactful than class choice, abilities allocation, synergies/combos between characters and abilities, even gear/items are often more impactful IMHO. The only thing that can make a bigger difference on PotD is Perception for higher Accuracy but with a balanced team you have plenty of ways to boost it and debuff enemies' defenses. You seem to have a good idea of what/how you want to play and who would fill in the gaps, so I would go with that and really not care much about stats. I think it's hard to find a team composition with story characters that is not viable on PotD. Pallegina can be a Herald healbot just fine, Xoti is ok whatever your class choice (of course at lvl19+ she can carry the whole party as SC Monk, but she doesn't have to. Priest SC/MC is more interesting if you actually want to use your party). Edèr is always nice (much harder in the beginning as SC Rogue), Fassina is really great as Sorcerer. Tekehu is totally fine, I'd be partial towards SC Watershaper or Theurge vs. SC Stormspeaker.

Yeah the beam spells/powers fixed duration is an interesting quirk from PoE1 that carried over PoE2 IIRC.

Spoken like a true McEnroe(tghast).

It is great indeed, because few weapon special attacks fully benefit from Rymrgand's Influence. Most unique weapons have their DMG and Affliction special effects split into 2 rolls. So only the Affliction roll gets the ACC boost, not the DMG roll. I'm assuming the Warding Staff only does one roll? Of note, Caedbald's Blackbow and Concelhaut's Draining Touch also fully benefit from Helm of the White Void. I bet it would combo very nicely as well with a Spellblade + Arterial Strike!

Combusting Wounds + Infestation of Maggots + overlapping Pulsing spells that deal damage AND debuff, and every effect feeding off from one another.

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! I'm certainly not disputing the fact that this build achieves stupidly high single target damage. It does one thing and it does it really really well. I also remember your post/screenshot about Voidwheel with this toon. I'm just saying that you're still very susceptible to things like Arcane Dampener or enemy cipher powers for example. Arcane Dampener then a couple lvl20 Fampyrs casting Minor Missiles and it's lights out. Of course it certainly isn't the kind of opposition you'll meet at every corner, but IMHO those situations will require a more hands-on approach than - I'm too dumb to die, punch, punch, punch.