Not So Clever Hound

Ah ok, thanks Eric. I promise I read the BPM change logs, but I must have skipped the order-of-equip disclaimer. Still, indeed it makes Hard Counter decent. I'm an imbécile heureux.

Sorry for the weird post above. I'm experimenting. I'm trying to post a simple message but I keep getting this error message and I don't know why. EDIT: I've come across a very interesting synergistic bug between Cape of the Falling Star and Akola's Apex Ward. The Cape has a Burn or Crush AoE on Unconscious that has a +10 ACC, a +50% DMG and a +2.5 PEN built-in from item scaling I guess (maybe from BPM?). Those bonuses buggily (I guess) benefit the Hard Counter procs of Akola's Apex Ward. So you get a riposte-type counter that has 15% or 25% chance to trigger on being missed in melee, that does an Interrupt and thanks to this interaction, some pretty good damage (my Akola's Apex Ward is upgraded to Mythic). I might test later when I have time, but I wonder if the Fiery Descent interaction can be used more broadly with other Riposte effects, with or without Akola's Apex Ward. Anyway, that is certainly not Effort with Hemorrhaging and Avenging Storm level, but still, that made me happy. EDIT #2: So sorry again for the weird formatting but I was trying to figure out why the forum was filtering out my post. Turns out it was because of the acronym I typed for Cape Of The Falling Star.. Some real weird stuff going on on this forum lately.

The request is blocked. 0xoa0YwAAAAD09hwqHcMtRKMoc8A63baJUEFSMDJFREdFMDYxMwBkYWYxNzBhYS1lODc2LTQ1NjEtODYyOS1mOTg1Nzg1YTNmODI=

Oh, you mean the man, myth, legend, who also craves a good skeleton massacre and looooves using The Willbreaker to debuff everyone's Fort/Will into oblivion and also is biased towards casting Draining Touch from a grimoire and switching to another grimoire as a Sage for insane attack resolutions? That guy?

Hey, in case you didn't see, the buggy forum might have eaten most of your post buddy

Several things probably known to many already, but just for the sake of being exhaustive: I just discovered that Gilded Enmity and Ironskin are even better than I thought: they will literally only break after respectively 5 and 10 Hits. Grazes are not considered and count the same as Misses. This is very good in conjunction with a high defenses build - your armor bonus can virtually last forever even if you keep getting Grazed. However, incoming Hits that are Resisted (e.g. via Medium Shield modal or Uncanny Luck) will still register as Hits. In other words if you resist 10 Hits, you will still lose Ironskin (on the 11th Hit). As stated earlier in this thread, Gilded Enmity is still pretty nice even for an Arcane Knight, because it can be cast out of combat if there is a destructible item around, like a barrel, and the AR bonus will last indefinitely until hit 5 times in your next encounter or until this next encounter ends, which is very good particularly in the early game (Beach Cave and Dig Site). On the flip side, Wizard's Double is not as good as I thought before actually testing it thoroughly, because it will disappear if any incoming attack reaches you (not only Hits targeting Deflection but any non-Miss targeting any defense like Fortitude, Reflex and Will). So in practice, unless you can make sure that all your defenses give a net -76 malus versus the highest enemy Accuracy, you will still have a chance of losing the buff - and even if you're virtually untouchable, you can still face a lot of autohit abilities, Fighters with Confident Aim, etc. Wizard's Double can still be useful in combination with Mirrored Images or Arcane Veil, to respectively get more longevity from Mirrored Image or as a backup against veil piercing attacks... if you can spare the Tier 1 cast. But personally I would rather always cast Chill Fog or Slicken instead.

Very thorough and funny write-up, I say. A compendium of nearly every trick in the Deadfire book, and then some. The scripting part looks super impressive, but my scripting ability stops at automating Forbidden Fist + Whatever. Sweet, sweet build, and congrats again for taking it all the way through The Ultimate!

OK thanks. That makes sense. I have dug up the old thread below where people found the values a bit too asymmetrical (-5PL for approx. +40% foe-only AoE, +1PL for approx. -50% foe-only AoE). I think I agree with the idea that -4PL/+2PL would feel more right. Maybe something to consider for your next batch of improvements, if any? Not really a game changer either way, but could make it more worth the ability point..

Congratulations, mate! Looking forward to see the vids/build.

Salut @Elric Galad, quick question for you: did you ever consider adjusting the PL increase/decrease values of the ability Spell Shaping? Didn't find it in the BPM changelogs although I somehow recall a discussion about it, so wanted to check.

Yes, the ideal stress free sequence with Assassin/Cipher is: Gouging Strike HoW, go invisible and chill somewhere, once HoW is at near death, buff ACC, land disintegration from invisibility , turn invisible again and go land the Marux Amanth attack. Single wielded or better, dual wielded with Sun & Moon to maximize chances to land the attack (as all potential hits in the attack carry the effect)

Yeah a rogue/cipher with magic amanth can destroy HoW in its first form without ever really fighting it. It’s funny Auranic is generally considered the easiest mega boss but I totally agree that with certain builds she’s actually a pain. Interesting comment about the obelisk’s terrify punching through RES immunity. If that’s the case well, that sucks! Agree with your thoughts on PoE1 mechanics. I miss the interrupts and prone-lasting-forever fun. And being able to learn grimoire spells for wizard (although now we can permasteal and infinite cast any spell..). If you want to play a more acceptable barb in poe2, I suggest having a look at @Elric Galad balance polishing mod. He gave the barb some much needed love. Anyway, family time… Merry Xmas!

It enables Hauani o We install-kill which is very nice. I’d love to see a mod for unified mechanics across the 2 games, with PoE classes and multi classing. One thing I dont know is if I prefer PoE 1 Damage Resistance or PoE 2 Armor Rating/Penetration system. I find the latter a bit too punishing at places for certain builds on max difficulty.

Yeah you have to. Iverra has to give you the diving equipment so you have to do it as part of the RDC quest line.

If I remember correctly, Slayer's Claw upgrades the inspiration every time you swap your weapon set back and forth. So you only need Slayer's Claw to get Energized. EDIT: sorry I meant using Lover's Embrace + Slayer's Claw, you still need at least a Strong inspiration to get Energized..

That's the beauty of it. You don't have to choose, just play them all!! 9 x overlapping Freezing Pillars for the win.

Yes, Magnera's Chain is awesome and gives you a real nice defense bump without having to invest in a skill e.g. Intimidate, History or Athletics like other items. If you're willing to (ab)use WoD or SoT, Furrante's Breastplate and Duskfall are amazing items because First to the Fight (+10 All Defenses) and Drawing Parry (+15 Deflection) can be prolonged and stack with everything. With those an Arcane Knight can push all defenses in the 220s, which is the equivalent of a middle-finger to 99.9% of enemies in the game.

Thanks @Shai Hulud for looking into this and sharing all those details! Very cool breakdown of your strategies. For Splintered Reef, I figured as much that you would be milking Grave Calling. Yes it's cool that Animated Weapons are vessels so can be used there like skellies. BTW my preferred synergy with Animated Weapons is on a Lorekeeper, because they're immune to cold so are not damaged by Freezing Pillar, Blast of Frost, Shadowflame etc. For Trial of the Naga/SSS, indeed I can imagine the headache with the God Challenges on. But interesting to see you can get by by targeting one group after the other. This one often gives me trouble because you can't be everywhere at once and those archers sport 150-ish accuracy with nasty attacks. Regarding Forgotten Sanctum, one of your biggest challenges might be some of the infested librarians because they have all Tier-3 MIG, CON, DEX inspirations and are resistant to INT afflictions on top. So they will resist all your CC. And they're super fast and hit very hard at level 22 with abilities like Razor's Edge and Inner Death.

Cool build. How does it play in encounters like Splintered Reef Crypt Exterior, Menzzago, SSS Trial of the Naga, some of the big infested librarians/vithrak fights in SSS? I'm picking those because as far as I can recall, you can't consistently rely on stun/paralyze/charm/summon distraction to shut down the opposition as they offer a mix of powerful range and melee enemies scattered, with big defenses/resistances/immunities, that will happily retarget you and jump on you instantly and with many enemies that can punch through defenses in the 180s (at least on upscaled PotD) with very damaging and/or disabling attacks.

I draw from RTwP experience, but personally I would suggest SC Bloodmage because the PL8 & 9 spells are out of this world in terms of nuking, being both super fun and powerful. If you want to specialize in Meteor Shower, the ultimate arcane orbital strike, you can stack absurd amounts of Power Level (PL) and make those things really hurt. And you can think about devious ways to make your frontline either super resistant (Burn AR is so easy to stack), or straight-up regenerating from Meteor Shower (e.g. Bloodfire from Scorching Cloak and/or High-RES Forbidden Fist regenerating from the DoT hostile effect) if you're worried about friendly fire. But friendly fire shouldn't be a problem at all. Missile Salvo is also super good, it is basically a magical A10 Warthog autocannon hovering over you and letting loose where you want it too. At PL8 the Wall of Many Colors can single handedly end fights with a good placement, and that is hilarious; the Freezing Rake is brutal if well targeted and you can stack Illusion PL on both of those too if you wish for more free power. Finally, as long as you're not playing Upscaled PotD, a few casts of Wilting Wind will instantly end almost every non-Boss encouters. With the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy, You get 3 casts of PL8, and 2 casts of PL9 (and 3x Combusting Wounds for jaw-dropping synergy....) before you start playing with Blood Sacrifice. And that is barely scratching the absurd potential of endgame SC Wizard in Deadfire. Second choice I would go Arcane Assassin because of your mod. If you want to search his name on the forum, @Haplok has played a truckload of BM/Assassin turn-based and wrote very insightful posts here and there. My personal caution having soloed a few BM/Assassin is that it can get repetitive. BM/Helwalker is very strong too, of course there's nothing wrong with it and as @crdvis16 commented, it is very versatile, nuking included. You do the basic wizard nuking, but better because Helwalker, and you can potentially go in melee to spam Stunning Surge with the Spirit Lance - if there is no immediate danger of getting whacked. But why limit yourself to (very strong) PL1-PL7 spells when you can embrace the goodness of PL8&9?

Probably nothing really new, but I just tried this in SSS vs. Trial of the Naga challenge. It's very funny to set the FF attack condition to Farthest Target/Allow Disengagement. With a fast-moving character and widespread targets, it's a festival of disengagement attacks and "missed: out of range" for the enemy. The hostile AI doesn't know what to do with you as you run around picking the furthest targets 1 by 1. But, your own AI does get scrambled when you're surrounded and can't move, then it's stuck... HOWEVER, you can set-up 2 copies of the same behavior and pick "random order" but one behavior has FF set on "closest target" and the other one has it set on "farthest target/allow disengagement". That way, the AI always finds a way to unf*ck itself, and it is very funny to watch as you never know what your immortal toon is going to do. Thanks for starting this thread, I'm enjoying myself because of it! I didn't use a proper SG/FF but my Autopilot Unbroken Fist little toon. SG/FF would be even stronger.

Yes that’s what I was talking about re. riposte abuse. With Steel Garrote/FF to get lots of heals, try and set the AI to run around and hit the furthest enemy, you might trigger lots of disengagement attacks while hitting with FF and healing through forbidden curse and heal-hitting foes under enfeebled or dazed (WotEP). And wreak havoc on enemy AI because you’re running around so much.

Pre-nerf WotEP was a lot stronger than what it is currently, especially for Soul Annihilation AoE. You may have seen builds referring to its older version awesomeness. It can still be very good on a riposte-abusing build with Offensive Parry, and has a few other good uses (Run Through is still absolutely brutal). But yeah. Sun & Moon on the other hand remains a weapon of choice for a lot of skald, soul blade, monk builds. S&M is cool on FF/SA (with community patch as @dgray62 pointed out) because FF attack uses the monk fist even if S&M is equipped > you generate a lot of focus > then you dump it via SA with S&M.

Indeed, Blood Mage with nerfed WoD, nerfed Potion of Final Stand/BDD, nerfed Blood Sacrifice AND without blatant cheese like SoF AND deciding to not use the Grimoire Imprint trick (the last Wizard cheese left in BPM)... make for a very short solo run. I think a Loremaster can still have some fun because they can Empower to regain spells + switch to grimoire of vaporous wizardry to gain double the amount of spells back. And empower certain Chanter invocations in the next fight to regain all their empower points, while using summons as distraction for survival. An Arcane Knight with high Arcana and focus on healing/defensive spells with uber powerful offensive scrolls could be pretty solid too. But I think they'll only be viable up to a certain point at max difficulty. They can't win certain encounters, like SSS or FS hard fights and of course non-cheesable megabosses. For soloing everything with BPM, either you allow some modicum of cheese, or you only play the few combos with built-in self-regenerating resources (built-in cheese?).

Chanter makes almost everything great. It’s a great combo with martial and with caster classes too. Chanter/Cipher would probably be better as a pure caster > TroubaPsion. They can cast all day, everyday. Troubarogue is fun too, I had toyed with Troubadour/Trickster for some time. Torment your enemies with powerful debuff/cc, deadly weapon attacks and nightmarish summons. Just for inspiration if you’re interested i had written up a Forbidden Fist/Troubadour that can solo at max difficulty. It’s below (spoilers included). You certainly don’t have to min/max like that in a party especially if you’re on your first play through! It’s a toon that will always have something super useful to do. The FF part is exactly based on what @dgray62 mentioned above (hey, pal ) at the end of the day, there are many class combinations that can give you the flavor you’re looking for, and a lot of power. So it’s really down to what sounds the most fun to you.