yorname

I think multi. BPM buffed high tier chants and summons, but single class chanter feels kind of empty for me, you cast a big spell, then just auto attack and provide chants to the party, wait for half a minute. They're not weak, just not the most fun style for my taste. I think there's no need to worry too much about class choice even if you only have time to play it once in a long while, there might be a line of "I shouldn't pick this if I want a character to do XYZ", but that line is pretty low and you can't really go wrong with any choices.

@somebody_else24 TBH, it's really hard to tell, because for every class there's at least one subclass that's worth a whole playthrough, that you can't get the experience from companions and sidekicks, not even close. For chanter or monk, because their subclasses are all unique and somewhat viable, I can't even think of recommendations. For example, as a monk you can go with Nalpazca to get extra wounds and make bosses stay in the sky forever, or be an unkillable Forbidden Fist that steadily punches people to death one by one. Neither of that can be done with Xoti's subclass. For cipher, I think Ascendant really stands out as single class, because of their ability to end non-boss fights in seconds. Other subclasses are more or less similar to the base class experience, and imo the exception, Psion is more interesting as multiclass. Because the subclasses are really unique in this game (unlike DND games where each character can only do one or two things, and subclasses are just re-combinations of a few traits), the answer is always "take your time and try them all". Even more so with BPM because less subclasses are game-breakingly better than others.

The only downside of Ancient is needing a lot of ability points. We don't really need both stag and aspect. I personally would use Xoti as multiclass priest, because her symbol is also fire damage (you always get Storm of Holy Fire), and her extra spells are not great. Tekehu is unique however you play him, but imo SC druid is not as interesting as the other 2 choices. Other than unique summons, the only extra spell that matters for him is Chill Fog, which multiclass watershaper can get. He also has low PER and can't use head gear, so his accuracy will be much lower than a customized druid. Overall I think the offensive potential of a SC druid is kind of wasted on him. For casters, an optimized character with high MIG, PER and INT is very different from companions, so even if you use them as SC priest/druid, a customized priest or druid is still worth playing. I really think you can play as either. But if you want to do good damage from the start, then definitely go with druid. Priest will have to be a buffbot for a long time. Before tier-7 most of their offensive spells can't compete with buffing spells.

It's an cliche answer but still, they fill different roles. Defensive and buffing: For SC priest, SoT feels less game-breaking with BPM, so you can count Dire Blessing + Devotions for the Faithful + Salvation of Time as a "basic offensive buffing" set. Priest can easily counter MIG/PER/INT/RES afflictions. Minor Intercession is also much better than vanilla, so you have an actually usable "defensive dispel". For SC druid, they can provide much more healing, easily counter CON afflictions, and make the party immune to DEX afflictions. Weather the Storm is even more useful than vanilla. As you can see, they almost don't overlap at all. I personally think a priest is slightly more essential for a party, since with BPM chanters can also provide DEX affliction immunity, and also has good AOE healing. Offensive: Both are pretty much the same as vanilla. SC priest's good offensive spells are mostly in tier 7-9, while druid's are spread across all tiers. This is kind of important due to the Brilliant nerf. SC druid can now extend their shapeshift duration with crits, it's very different from vanilla experience. Summons: I haven't tried many Incarnates, so can't speak for the priest. As for the druid, Ancient's tier-1 sporelings are very good in BPM. High level summons are also stronger, but just like vanilla, their offensive potential still can't match your characters, so would you spend a high tier slot (more precious due to Brilliant nerf) for one of those, or spend a tier-1 slot for 2 sporelings, which are almost as tanky individually and don't even underpenetrate very often? That's worth considering. If you want to play a SC priest, build a party with many summons that you can control (e.g. not skeletons from Many Lives). Spark the Souls of the Righteous is simply a different spell with 10+ creatures. For SC druid, I think ancient is the way to go, because only they have unique spells, except Tekehu of course. Cat form + Confounding Blind + Blade of the Endless Paths (from other party members) will allow you to stay in shapeshift forever, dealing weapon damage comparable to martial classes, while also being a full caster.

Spellblade is a fun class to try. Wizard gives you good AOE weapons (arguably better than any gear) to use the debuffing Rogue abilities. For example an AOE Confounding Blind is very powerful and quite hard to find an alternative from other classes. The only downside is it doesn't need a lot of optimizing, so Aloth as spellblade is almost as good as the watcher. Barbarian for PoE and a barbarian multiclass for Deadfire makes sense in terms of both consistency and metagaming. In PoE you get a barbarian really late, yet it's a very strong class, so playing as one yourself is ideal. Barbarian in Deadfire can use some optimizations, so playing as the watcher, who you have total control and can potentially get much higher stats is much better than a companion barbarian. Single class barbarian is kind of meh until lv19, so I recommend multiclass. But if you don't mind the power curve, single class barbarian is still a solid choice. For single class barbarian, Furyshaper is the "base barbarian plus", Blood Ward is very useful. For multiclass, choose either base class or Berserker. The two wards Furyshaper get doesn't scale very well into late game. Corpse-Eater and Mage Slayer are basically downgrades if you don't use mods. Since in Deadfire Carnage doesn't synergize with many things, a monk who can massively improve your action speed, MIG and INT is one of the better multiclass options. Check @Boeroer's guide here. If you feel it's too risky, you can replace either side, or even both, with base classes, and it still works very well.

Can't believe I didn't see the change to SC druid's wildstrike all this time. It just feels right this way. Corrode route seems to be really good at boss fights.

I believe most AOE weapons only triggers carnage once, making them worse than normal weapons just because of lower base damage, at least for carnage. I tested Wahai Pōraga on dummies, but I really couldn't make sense of the messy combat log. Does it trigger carnage multiple times? Are there other weapon effects that interacts with carnage? By the way, does the Static Charge damage of Lord Darryn's Voulge benefit from Hot Razor Skewers? I can't see the penetration numbers in the logs, but it seems to be always underpenetrating.

One of Neketaka or Crookspur shrine gives +2 RES and might trigger the encounter, to give a chance of praying without resting. It's said to be the Poko Kohara one, but I believe it's only possible on Neketaka or Crookspur.

My problem is that I simply can't prevent deaths in my party. They have ranged stun, paralyze and stuck, which require 3 different priest spells to be immune to, and stun immunity is a single target spell. So there is no time to give enough protection to even a single character before my whole party get stunned. I also tried sending 1 character to start the combat while others stay back and get buffs up, and that character just got CC-ed to death in a few seconds before the buffs are up. That's even very optimistic. When Wraiths use the abduct ability, that character is guaranteed to die. Either they abduct my tanks before my priest finishes 2 spells, leaving others unprotected, or they abduct the priest and I have to reload. It's not unbeatable, but every time I fight them it gets super messy and I have to rest. Makes me think I'm missing something. Edit: so far the more successful strategy is to give stun + paralyze immunity to my barbarian ASAP and let him more or less solo the fight. There are a couple of fights start with the party surrounded, I guess casualties are inevitable.

I didn't know that, will try for my next playthrough Edit: I haven't gotten the arsonist event yet, but I can confirm you can get +2 CON from The Hika on top of +2 RES

What's the fish event?

Thank you, for some reason I never realized I could edit the areamusictable. If anyone is trying to do the same: make a backup of PillarsOfEternity_Data\data\areamusictable open it with a text editor, and replace every "CombatTrackFile":"something something" with "CombatTrackFile":""

DND lore is just so filled up with the superhero comic sh*t like world reboots, gods behaving like ordinary people, retcons... I don't have a good word for it. I used to think it's WotC's fault, but after reading Greenwood's twitter about Bhaalspawn's story (ACtUaLly dead Bhaal could control every Bhaalspawn and made charname decide to give up his divine essence, thus making his return possible), it's clear the whole IP is not capable of producing anything other than garbage stories. BG1&2's writting wasn't some masterpiece of humanity, but at least it focused on mortals, their motives and actions. BG3 just wanted to impress people with "OMG it's actually Jergal helping us" "OMG Shar just spoke to me" while the actual characters, especially villains are boring AF.

I feel this is similar to the case for Psion: spamming low level damage spells works, but in the end they're doing a less impactful loop. Sure you can cast 10 Mind Waves or Soul Shocks with merely 50 focus, but it's not even as good as only 1 or 2 AoE spells from wizard or druid, and your DPS is just Lv1 spell/cast. Soulblade has even less of a reason to do this, since nothing keeps them from gaining more focus with AoE weapons and dump it with better spells.

I don't think bellower (or chanter in general) helps much with soulblade. You really want to heavily use SA as a soulblade, or they're just ciphers but worse. Chanter doesn't add any speed or damage to your attack - SA loop. The only synergy is a lash, another chanter can simply give you that. Every time you cast a chanter spell, you're slowing down the attack - SA loop. Remember the retaliation of WotEP comes with a Dazed affliction, which makes enemies unable to engage you, so using disengagement attacks only works once in a while. I've tried using WotEP with Nomad's Brigandine, which makes enemy disengagement attacks automatically miss, and it's still meh, so WoTEP with The Fox... chant is just not worth it. If you want to improve single target damage of a chanter, you can: spamming Her Revenge... as skald (single or multi-class). It actually hits really hard Stand next to the target and cast Seven Nights... and its upgrade. If you hit it with at least 3 bolts, it's probably better than Her Revenge... in terms of efficiency. make use of Sure-handed... with ranged weapons and ranged-focused classes as caster, you can simply multiclass with wizard. Multiclass wizard still has incredible offensive single-target spells, provides speed bonus to the chanter, and benefits from Their Champion... They also want exactly the same attributes, which makes them easier to build than chanter/martial multiclass.