Not So Clever Hound

It's not exactly melee but going off of @Kaylon's speedy char idea, a Blood Mage/Troubadour or Blood Mage/Helwalker can speed around like a madman and be immune to engagement to seek optimal placement while unleashing devastating "walking bomb" type abilities like Precisely Piercing Burst, Torrent of Flames, Death Ring, Her Tears or Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge/Raised Torment. Buffs and Repulsive Visage can keep you reasonably safe. It would require some micro but would be practically a mass-destruction speedy gonzales. It could be the target of your resident Cipher's Amplified Wave for additional walking bomb fun.

I just tested this with Shocking Prelude for buffing the wielder and it doesn't work. Not in personal inventory, not if in one of the weapon slots but not in use. Seems to be only about Companion's Prelude. I don't know if it works only with Companion's Prelude or if it could work with other aura-based weapon abilities or "do XYZ to allies in 5m radius" weapon abilities, more specifically. EDIT: Defensive Bulwark from Shining Beacon doesn't work when in personal inventory. I don't think I'm going to do more testing .

IMHO Elric, don't hesitate to make it really good, really competitive . Whatever you decide (which seems to be focusing on the melee power), I think Spiritshift needs something a bit radical. It needs to be a true alternative at high level to very strong weapon setups. If Assassin/Druid becomes really powerful with it, fine - they still have to choose the right abilities and do a bit of setup for it. As they would need to by finding/enchanting the right weapons etc. Think that any random wizard/martial with the right grimoire can cast Zandethu's Draconic Fury or Citzal Martial Power, without needing to spend any ability point anywhere. One thought I had: would it be insane to make every Wildstrike Frenzy attack Full Attacks?

This Forbidden Fiat rolls over enemies even on difficult terrain and hits like a truck... It's a real trickster too: you never know what's gonna happen when you turn on the ignition.

I like the idea. It would also be fair in a way, since every class can use iconic/signature Druid spells as scrolls - why not give some good stuff from others back to the druid... But in my wildest dreams spiritshifting should complement subclasses in a unique/reinforcing way, not just be a martial alternative. Shifter dedicates spiritshifting to flexibility and martial power, but other druid subclasses aren't about that. The spiritshift brings each subclass closer to its "true" self. Well... and awesome default spells, and the buggy Boar DoT. Shifter/Assassin or Shifter/Helwalker = great.

Well if you have stolen BDD and SoT... you can bathe in your own Meteor Showers - or use Moonwell for the fire counter might work too!

After multiple rounds of great improvement from BPM, Spiritshift continues to be an odd beast (pun intended). There are different valid opinions about what the spiritshift focus should be between the different subclass, what the unique selling point for shifting should be, how much of a true modal it should be... In my mind, I'd like to play Druid conceptually like this: Start the fight in kith form, cast some spells - in low-risk fights the druid can leave it there and doesn't have to show their animalistic side. In tougher fights, after step 1 the druid realizes they need to make a difference - they decide to let the beast out, and that should be a BIG deal in terms of gameplay (e.g. all enemies are briefly frightened when the beast shows up, maybe the color tone of the display changes slightly to reflect animalistic vision, the opening roar is more impressive). In spiritshift form the Druid should be strictly and MUCH better at doing what their subclass flavor is about, with unique perks: to me that would be uber/unique martial prowess for shifter, uber/unique elemental offensive casting for Fury, uber/unique beast/plant abilities for Ancient, uber/unique rejuvenation/resurrection for Lifegiver... Spiritshift shouldn't be able to last forever but not feel super limiting in tough/long fights. Spiritshift should last longer as the druid gains levels and gets better mastery over their animalistic side. There should always be a clear downside coming back to kith form: letting the beast out is very taxing and shifting back to kith leaves the exhausted druid somewhat vulnerable. Some of those fantasy druid improvements are already included in Elric's work, some are just impossible to implement and some are probably not viable to balance. I do realize that as a whole I want the spiritshifted druid to be significantly more powerful than it is today. I want spiritshifted druid to be broken good and feel "right" - as wizard, monk or chanter for example. But I understand it probably won't happen . EDIT: also I'd love to have spiritshift scripted interactions in dialogs - like having an option to intimidate a d-bag like Benweth by shifting into a 9-feet tall Manboar .

Now I have this vision of a frantic man-cat casting meteor swarms and greater maelstroms at the speed of light, with every foe bathing in chillfogs and wicked briars etc. and afflicted by combusting wounds and infestation of maggots. Destroyer of Worlds.

Good question. I haven’t tried this exact combo but I know that: 1) a specialist mage can steal opposite school spells but can’t use them. So probably keyword limitation would apply for Druid « schools » as well. 2) A SC Wizard can steal any special Druid spell e.g. the awesome Sporeling summon and use it without issues.

That opens up a lot of interesting stuff! Assassin/Monk… ouch, crazy combos!? Wizard/Cipher for AoE? Priest/Cipher? Paladin/Chanter? Wizard/Ranger Caedbald?

Yeah I think it's a very effective setup. For the Watcher I would personally go with a Forbidden Fist/Troubadour which is also easy to script and more flexible while being party friendly. It can totally go on autopilot except for a few spots - hell, it can solo the game by mostly letting the AI do its thing. Not very original but I had written one up here:

-Wow you've got quite the hardware setup! Are you mining bitcoins for a living? Or maybe you enjoy playing Crysis in 16k with Uber Ray Tracing or whatever? -No, I just have... guilty pleasures in Deadfire... you wouldn't understand.

I won’t be more thoughtful than the very knowledgeable people who tackled your question already but i would like to just mention that you don’t have to dump stats on a bloodmage. Neutral everything with a particular focus on Dex, Per, and Int and you will rock. Distribute your points evenly across all stats is also very viable. You can min/max, sure… but having done more playthroughs than I should with all kinds of blood mage stat configurations… it matters little. What matters is how you want to play it.

IMO an elegant way to nerf the Red Hand would be to increase its reload time (which would also make a lot of sense). But it doesn't really solve the issue pointed by @NotDumbEnough regarding backstab. Although... with any Arquebus I guess you could squeeze a second shot at combat opening (with the -85% recovery from stealth bonus) and get backstab twice. In which case the problem isn't really about the Red Hand alone. I like the idea! But agree with concerns above about Arquebus or even e.g. Amra from stealth.

I think that's a really good idea.

Something else that bothers me when playing an Assassin: Backstab is mutually exclusive with Persistent Distraction, and both feel like must-have passives for a melee Rogue. You can of course set up your Rogue to enable Deathblows + Backstab in many other ways, but the fact that those 2 passives cannot work together feels a bit anti-synergistic, especially when playing a melee Assassin. It would be awesome if there was some kind of time overlap/lingering effect between both so you could set off devastating combos. For example, Distracted lasting a few seconds after disengagement, and Backstab still working a few seconds after breaking invisibility (which would both make sense: Rogue creates and takes advantage of battle confusion).

@Konst Have you considered going single class? A SC Monk or SC Assassin could be really effective in this role, really fun to play and can do a ton of other things for your party than just shut down backline casters. Monk is more explosive and has abilities that do it all (mobility + CC + damage). Assassin is a bit more specialized and requires more micro but can surgically decimate the backline. It might sound less funky than a multi with all the possibilities, but the advantage is that you will get access to effective and fit-for-purpose high-tier abilities faster and you will have unique access to amazing Tier 8 & 9 abilities - very useful for what you're looking for.

Hi folks, Nothing radically new here but a fun combo I've overlooked for a long time even if I've played a ton of Assassin/Wizards. I've been toying with an Assassin/Bloodmage while playing solo with BPM because this multiclass actually benefits a great deal from BPM's Smoke Veil costing only 1 Guile - even if Blood Mage gets a big nerf on its signature cheese abilities. From there, I wanted to maximize the lash from Deltro's Helm by hitting myself with Shock spells, so I tried to pack as much damage done/taken increase % I could muster: Maximize Spell Damage output: High Harbinger Robe Accelerated Decay, Kuaru's Prize Sonorous, Sash of Judgment Balance in all things, Griffin Blade Hound Courage (I switch to Blightheart for combat), Crusted Swordfish Food, Harley pet, max MIG/PER etc. Maximize Damage taken: High Harbinger Robe Accelerated Decay, Sash of Judgment Balance in all things, I also got the full Red Hand Guilty Conscience curse as well as the full Shards of Woedica curse from Shattered Vengeance (I had a hireling hit me) which, on top of the Assassin passive, net out +100% Damage taken. I also wear Sandals of the Water Lily to lower defenses... pure glass cannon. There are other ways to increase damage taken, but with my health pool (274) it put me in the sweet spot of reliably triggering a high Lash and Fighting Spirit as Human with Chain Lightning or even Jolting Touch... while not committing suicide on the spot . From there I tried to find the best way to maximize alpha-strikes and I went for max Arcana and Tornado scrolls. And the results got really fun as you can check in the video below. Tornado scrolls are cheap and easy to manufacture, I get a range of 24 (!) with Farcasting, a radius of 11 (!) while getting a ton of damage (on top of Arcana, all the generic damage % increase buffs apply) and very nice PEN (16+) and ACC (140+) thanks notable to Assassinate. But the true cherry on the cake is the Knock Up effect: a high-DEX Assassin can chain cast Tornados covering the entire battlefield and activate Smoke Veil in between casts as fast as the enemy can get back on their feet... so they can't do anything and, provided you can land your spells, you can brute-force a vast amount of serious fights even on Upscaled PotD. An Assassin also has access to Deep Pockets so you could potentially pack 20 Tornado scrolls, 10 Invisibility potions and cast Tornado > Invisibility 20 times in a single encounter . Just for illustrative purpose, here is the the Pickled Eel fight with enemies taking up to 1100+ damage per cast and very routinely getting in the 600-800 damage range

Devoted/Barb Fist-fighter can be extremely durable and consistently cobble together easily +3PL to get post-Mythic fists. +1 Tactical Barrage, +1 Nature Godlike, +1 Food.

Not to speak on behalf of @dgray62 or anyone else, but you're totally fine . This forum is a quote and tag fest, and contributors are mostly good-humored, considerate, willing to help, and just looking to talk about intricate and less intricate Deadfire shenanigans until the end of the Wheel. Cheers mate!

Casters are amazing in RTwP too, Priests are really rewarding when you hit Tier8/9. AoE + pulsing + high DMG is really great with Deadfire's inflated enemy health pools. If you're not planning on using your weapons, it's hard to beat weapon+medium shield with the modal. No drawback whatsoever (OK -4 ACC...)-. You can use the Gladiator Sword from the Digsite or the Griffin Blade, or Magran's Favor but it might be better in the hands of someone actually using it . There is a variety of great medium shields, the best being Lethandria's Devotion. SC Priest has several tools on top to seriously help survivability.

With 2 Heralds, a SC Chanter and an Ancient or whatever to cast Great Maelstrom at the beginning of encounters plus all the other goodies including for example enlarge summon/Wild Growth on your Dragon for fun... you can basically launch the game, sit back, get coffee and relax until the credit rolls. well not exactly, but close. Your Berserker/Devoted's primary task will be to try and reach the enemy before they die amidst your truckload of deadly summons, and to not die from self-inflicted raw damage - but he won't because Devoted + Paladin/Troubadour healbots. I know killing skellies is fun, but if you plan on actually using all your nice summons you should use Modwyr or DoC breastplate to get rid of Confused. Cipher is always nice but it's less appealing here because none of your other toons really requires Ancient Memory. Late game, anything that won't outright die from Great Maelstrom will be taken care of by Summon overload and Invocations mayhem.

Yep. Though because of the inversions system, maxing RES is impossible to beat for maximum impact. Also because it will boost two defenses (Deflection and Will) on top, so maximizing your chances to get Grazes on attacks, which nets out another -50% duration. But for example if you kept RES neutral at 10 and had all the other negative effect duration modifiers: CoA + Mohora + Ring of Solitary Wanderer + Cabalist Gambeson + Strand of Favor you would get a coefficient of .32 so you'd have a net % duration modifier of -68%. Not bad! I'm not considering here the +1 RES from Ring of Solitary Wanderer. And of course the latter is only helpful when soloing..

@dgray62 actually because of inversions, with High Res (I mean Max RES ) the added benefit of Mohora Wrap or other "small" % negative effect duration modifiers is almost negligible after RES and CoA effects. With 35 RES and CoA you get: 1/1-(-3)-(-1)=80% net % negative effect duration reduction With 35 RES, CoA and Mohora: 1/1-(-3)-(-1)-(-0.43)=82% net % negative effect duration reduction If you also add Ring of Solitary Wanderer, Cabalist Gambeson and Strand of Favor, your total reduction "jumps" to 84% I think... So basically Max RES is the absolute most impactful and when you add CoA on top (second most impactful) you have kind of peaked your impact.

I am an Amra Fan, and I support this message. All of it, even the gruesome, chunky parts. Though Amra is a two-hander. I really like what you say, dgray, because I've found (5.0 patch) Chromoprismatic a bit of a let-down - I want to build around it but it's never as awesome as I want. So I appreciate your thoughts on how to make it real good. I like the blackflames synergy, but it's rough to miss the other half of the highly accurate full attack without a monk's heartbeat drumming/swift flurry, isn't it?