yorname

Do you think Forbidden Fist (ability) need a minor nerf from CM version? It's effectively a fist attack, so imo should be treated like other weapon abilities in terms of PL scaling - no bonus accuracy.

I also noticed something about enemies queued up ability: if Dorudugan begins "casting" and the monk knocks it up, then a priest casts writ of war on it when it's targetable, it still uses that ability right after it stands up.

Finished the run with ranger/monk doing skyward kick. Accuracy can reach 210+ so that's not a problem at all. The problem is Dorudugan will spend more than half of the time flying that Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment misses a lot, then the knock up effect can be too short that it still does one thing or two. Wasn't 100% autopilot but still a solid strategy that you can dial up the speed to max.

I mean the high tier spells, for example when I used Gaze of Adragon against Dorudugan the flanking frequently dropped and the cycle broke several times . It didn't really matter since 9s is not too long, but I imagine if a similar cycle requires tier 7-9 spells it can be tricky.

Probably unexpected but balanced consequence: tactician/caster can be worse than before even if the battlefield is completely under control, as hard CC can make enemies immune to engagement for a moment, the free brilliant can break every now and then, so the tactician may never get their high tier spells back without phantom foes/perception afflictions. I don't think this is a problem since they get brilliant way too easily against few enemies. just an interesting observation.

It doesn't seem to benefit from multi-hit, with blunderbuss or Sun and Moon I can only reduce 30s. Why is blunderbuss recommended for it? Am I missing something? It has weird interaction with Refreshing Defense. With a few hits from a single-hit weapon, I increased it from ~100s to 600s. Doesn't seem to be exponential though. It also can't remove the actual HoT of Unbending.

What makes Engoliero do Espirs so good in your opinion? It seems to be the least powerful of the 3, lacking something other weapons don't offer. This seem to be a win-more case, the wielder needs to have extremely high accuracy to get this to work on more powerful enemies. To use that accuracy for something like chain stun/knock or enabling the party is a interesting question. Might be worth trying on the wanderer I'm running.

They're decent weapons for gambit rogue, at least if use BPM to fix the guile refund. Before the fix you only get guile back if the 1st of 4 hits crits, and after the fix you only need any of the hits crits, making them one of the best gambit weapons. Kitchen Stove's Hurried works for both hands, and Xefa's Empirical Explication has 30% total lash, can both knock back and knock down on crit. With this set you can knock most bosses to death.

Yeah I think the group is very problematic. It pays damage for pierce pen and offers even more pen with modal. It's useless. Stiletto is a similar case but it's so much better for simply being 1-handed, also Rust's Poignard and Azure Blade have some interesting enchantments. With the unique estocs, we only get some additional accuracy (which we could've had if we just use a slow 1H weapon), some speed (which we could have had if we dual wield), or some AoE on kill (that I can simply use a hand mortar if I really need). Blade of the Endless Paths has a potentially -20 DEF, but if I desperately want it on someone, how can I crit it 5 times to get the debuff? Why not just use pike modal. I just can't justify using them for anything but style points.

My very first character was a Devoted/something with Estoc and I gave up. Looking back now I probably picked the worst choice possible (at least one of them).

After targeting its fortitude with spells... Using weapons doesn't look that bad anymore. Isn't consistent crit harder to achieve?

I forgot the PL scaling part, since for most other classes low tier weapon abilities tend to be a waste of resources or function over damage I never thought about their damage potential.

That's promising indeed. Worst case can just let someone else attack the monk. I'm considering maybe berserker/some monk to easily spam skyward kick or raised torment.

Probably I'm the last one to know it, Dorudugan isn't immune to knock up. During test with 35 INT and Arkemyrs wondrous torment the effect from Mule Kick lasts 3s. Not as long as petrification but weapon accuracy is also way easier to stack than spells. Unluckily it's not technically a interrupt so tactician doesn't get auto refund.

I have some doubts about the morningstar - Brute Force approach: staggered gets resisted a lot late game, getting dazed or stunned for an extended time is much more unreliable without a SC barbarian. Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment + Flanked + Pike modal = -30 DEF, imo is comparable to morningstar modal + 2 afflictions + Hunter of Hunters on typical tough enemies, so Brute Force offers little most of the time. Saru Sichr also can't crit with additional rolls in BPM, all things combined it's probably not worth it to use a 2H weapon with naturally lower base damage and -damage modal.

Unless used for infinite loop, BPM SoT is better and easier to use in most cases. It effectively doubles buff duration for up to 24s, for one single cast it's much better than vanilla version. I guess a theme of BPM is to reduce the impact of brilliant so the difference between having access to it or not isn't as big as vanilla, and eliminating easy access to infinite brilliant is part of it. From my experience it's now pretty hard to do something like permanent paralyzing Dorudugan. I did it only because I was playing a tactician/wizard. Cipher can't get enough focus to fuel brilliant to 2 or 3 casters even with SoT. But in most other cases I'm glad it can extend buffs for a much longer time.

Thinking about finally starting a barbarian run, my first choice is a SC Furyshaper, to use blood ward + old siec + barbarian retaliation. While barbarian has a million tools to deal with mobs, I don't want him to become basically a worse tank when facing a boss. How much does barbarian retaliation help with single target damage? Is it restricted to strictly melee weapon attacks, or broader like monk's Soul Mirror? Since I'm taking Dazing Shout eventually, I'd pick Blood Storm over Spirit Tornado as BPM buffed it to +3s per crit. All things combined SC Furyshaper gets speed, a DoT, a quite long Dazed and retaliation for single target. Doesn't look too good even if enemy crit him every hit to be honest. What are good MC choices for barbarian by the way? They only provide speed, stagger on hit and some survivability to a caster so I guess it's not a great trade. For martial characters, maybe a mass interrupt build or berserker/streetfighter? (tricky to get the passives in BPM otherwise).

I'm playing with SC ascendant Serafen (didn't change his stats though) and he's not nearly as good as ascendant watcher with all the buffs. Every cast of ascendant is precious, while a watcher can sometimes skip borrowed instinct, a companion/mercenary will miss a lot due to lower accuracy. His mediocre INT didn't help either, even with salvation of time his ascended didn't last very long, to the point I believe he's worse than a SC vanilla cipher in many cases. I feel some classes are by design more attribute-reliant than others. Offensive casters, especially SC ones come to mind. MC casters can get some accuracy from another class so that they can catch up with enemy defenses, but for SC ones I feel they really need the extra accuracy a watcher can stack to be effective. Damage spells can benefit so much from high MIG and spells like symbols, freezing pillar and crushing doom scale very well with INT. In comparison martial classes seem to suffer less from mediocre stats. They either have built-in bonus accuracy (fighter, ranger) or just mechanics that make stats less impactful (sneak attack). Maybe barbarian is an exception, as carnage is more like a spell. I remember Serafen performing very bad when I used him as barb or witch. Or perhaps I just didn't know how to find a use for barbarian. Cipher usually is very stats-hungry, though I find picking mindstalker solves many problems. Trying SC Beguiler on Serafen also proved pretty okay. It's really just ascendant that can easily go into a downward spiral due to a couple of misses or grazes. Maybe also Psion since they can't afford wasting a spell?

I was thinking maybe something can be done with SA too, but wouldn't it be extra complicated to describe, since SA is a core ability? I guess you need to make another version of BW for soulblade? Saying "does more damage with a tier 3 upgrade" in SA description at lv1 is weird.

Can you make the shield from old "cannot die" effect visible, at least the duration? Also priests' resurrection still has cannot die effect, is it intentional that only they have access to it?

with *2 multiplier and 25% raw lash, the difference is 8%. IDK, if BW is "overall" 8% more damage it's probably worth considering, but we're only looking at a very specific use and the advantage is still so small that if we just occasionally cast a spell it disappears. But I agree the lash can't be too high because the AoE applications you mentioned. I'm still rooting for your 0.625 SW/BW solution

did a quick test, it's indeed 5%, and weapon part also benefits from PL. the corrected result would be M<376/(108+135L), so even with a lash, DW needs a ~300% multiplier to match BW. still, with 250% multiplier and no lash, the difference is very small: DW 153.0625 vs BW 158.3625, a 3.46% difference if change BW to 30% lash the difference is 10.7%, slightly more visible but probably not good enough

Yeah the argument for BW would be "why wouldn't I want more focus". There're so many high tier spells that couldn't fit into a build because focus isn't enough for everything even with DW.

from here I think I probably saw PL affecting the weapon part when doing tests earlier today (20.3 roll with a sabre). Not sure as I'm not on computer right now.

That's a pretty elegant solution. Other lashes will still make the end result favor DW a little bit, but with reasonable amount of lashes it's at least 15% more damage and 70% focus gain, not bad at all.