yorname

Tested this for a while. At least with Unity Console refreshing spells constantly, Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment + Writ of War can keep Dorudugan doing only auto attacks for a few minutes. I didn't get its hp down so can't say this works for all its abilities, but even disabling Brutal Cleave only is a vast improvement. This makes Priest of Woedica a very interesing MC choice, their spells aren't that great outside writs but they don't get symbols anyway, so I don't feel I'm losing as much as with other priests.

That's a fair point. By the way, nothing to do with cipher, but isn't White Flame's AOE super tiny? IIRC it's way smaller than paladin aura or chant, last time when I played one with 20ish INT he couldn't even cover melee characters if I wanted to flank a boss

I mean the cipher is probably the last person in the party I want to do tanking or healing, so wasting the best stuff from the paladin side.

Let's just assume accuracy, duration and brilliant isn't a problem, can Writ of War disable its Brutal Cleave or Magnetic Overdrive? These 2 are the only things that makes the fight tricky. I don't have a save near the boss to test on my own.

Inquisitor is probably better for a solo character, since both paladin and cipher are very strong classes, but don't help with the other side, like at all. Every cipher subclass has a different playstyle. Soulblade and Beguiler are closer to a vanilla cipher, with Soulblade focusing on melee and Beguiler on casting. Soulblade works well with rogues, especially Streetfighter. Beguiler can work with almost everything, or as single class. The high tier cipher abilities are very powerful for a caster style. Ascendant is extremely powerful as single class and can underperform with multiclass. The core spells and passives for them are mostly in tier 8 and 9. They are also the only subclass that can delete everyone in like 10 seconds for most fights. Psion is the subclass I haven't played and also the most unique, works with caster multiclasses, but I think others that actually played it can explain it in detail.

I don't know how to make bellower work either. +PL makes most sense for offensive incantations, but why not use skald then, they are so efficient with low cost incantations that +PL can't compete

Beware of the trap that you might build your character that is good in 90% fights but underperform against bosses. Most bosses has really slow attacks, if they attack at all, and tend to have high accuracy, so the use of riposte is actually minimal. As for the specific build, I found that you'll get way more out of disengagement attacks generated by terrified than from riposte, when fighting mobs. Mindstalker is good against bosses anyway, but just as normal mindstalkers.

Necro myself to say some of OP is wrong the "base" damage of the corrode/crushing attack is affected by PL and not MIG, so it's more like 12-18 at max level. Other bonuses that weapon damage normally gets are applied multiplicatively on top of it. IA don't graze or crit. If the weapon attack is at least graze then IA is always a normal hit. Adding up the 5-7 weapon attack it's effectively 17-25 dmg, and loses very little when grazes. When used for dual wielding or 1H + Rushed Reload, the damage and speed is very comparable to melee 2H weapons with the superiority of reloading instead of recovery. The damage is also higher than standard 2H ranged weapons and reloads faster. All things considered it's simply one of the best ranged weapons out there, especially useful when enemies have high defenses.

By the way, aside from psion/chanter, do you feel the lack of brilliant for endgame bosses? As they will likely be the only cipher in the party, the other class can be eventually drained out in those boss fights, and interrupt/paralyze spam don't work in those situations. I'm about to start one but planning for megabosses is stopping me from making the final decision. Most other fights are whatever since we can't really not beat them, that's why my mindset is always focused on those bosses.

Just want to say my appreciation again, as I didn't realize it is possible to perma-CC Dorudugan at all before reading this post for the first time. My party didn't have a constant source of STR/CON affliction, so my Tactician/Illusionist was looking at 180-155. Conquerer Stance and an affliction are identical, so it's possible to do this with literally any druid or wizard watcher, SC or MC, with no rest bonuses and siding with Rymrgand. Even Maia has enough ACC, although because Gaze of Adragon has a shorter duration and she has only 10 INT I doubt it can work in practice. Psychovampiric Shield is almost good enough for Dorugudan. I was using SC Serafen, who lacks any optimization. With Miscreant's Leathers and Eccea's Arcane Blaster he could generate just enough focus for Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric Shield, nothing more. It would be a trouble if I needed Ancestor's Memory from him

I' ve turned on Berath's trial for quite some playthroughs and never lost any crew members in boarding fights. They got knocked out, sure, but never permanently died like companions (if I don't revive them). This run after a few fights though, almost all the crew died. What's the rules for this? Are they supposed to permanently die like this? Or there's something wrong with my past playthroughs?

I can only eliminate this by reducing duplicates to 0. I guess the process of creating those duplicates does wierd things that's more than causing serious stuttering/freeze.

I'm playing on a rather weak laptop, so don't want to turn on every graphic setting for a higher framerate. But I found that each time I cast Mirror Image, several setting like Lights will be turned on. Lights is the most obvious visually, there are probably other stuff got messed. The options in the menu are unchanged, just the actual effects are turned on. Edit: I realized that this is far more common than I expected. Even switching weapon sets to wielding a torch can turn the Lights on. That's really annoying. This is how it should look like when Lights is properly turned off: the 3 light sources don't cast shadows or illuminate the surroundings. This is how it should look like when Lights is turned on: When I turn off the setting and then switch - switch back to a torch, it becomes this: the torch on my hand is ignoring the setting. If I turn off the option again and re-enter the area, the firepit ignores the setting:

Last time I only have Better Pet Tooltips and No Final Boss Skip. I added more QoL things like Silent Corporate Logos this time, but I doubt those have anything to do with it since last time they weren't there. I guess I'll have to look closer to find out the exact moments when effects stick in the future

None that I know of. This time and a year ago I both newly downloaded from steam before the runs, then added some mods, outside of CP and BPM none of them should change rules and mechanics. The buffs and abilities can be removed by re-equipping then remove the gears, but how they stuck for the first place is a mystery.

Edit: duplicated

Just for the healing part, do you need another chanter or paladin for prolonged fights? I always wanted to try something other than the go-to herald Pallegina as support but the class has too much infinite healing that I can't justify giving it up for something else. Running both seems to be an overkill. Maybe a paladin OR chanter, plus a druid is the right balance?

Now my Serafen can also use Thunderous Report without equiping the weapon. I gave the weapon to another member and when using the ability from Serafen, the indicator and actual attack was from the other member.

Necroing my own post because I'm constantly running into this bug. Last playthrough Aloth had Fleshmender's Regrowing for the whole playthrough, even though he only wore it once pretty early that run.

That's a good point, I'll try some builds on mecs and perhaps a new watcher.

I only tested a lv19 SC mercenary for a while. He was generating 5 focus/s, probably slightly more if he got lv20 and some additional PL. In combat I just found his focus very limited compared to a normal cipher unless the enemies are somehow too powerful for weapons. Unless there's only one boss that the cipher can't reliably hit, I believe a normal cipher can always manage to generate more focus even factoring in downtime. The only thing that kind of worked for me is like you said, lower tier spamming. I guess The Complete Self is essential for this playstyle? What caster multiclasses do you suggest, besides chanters? I can't really think of great synergies off the top of my head

What are the possibilities for psion builds? My understanding is that they are meant to multiclass with caster class, but what are the advantages of a psion over fighter/ranger/monk in supporting the other half? They can sustain Borrowed Instinct, and perhaps 1 or 2 other debuff on an enemy, that's pretty much it. I don't think they can even comfortably offer Ancestor's Memory. Borrowed Instinct isn't much better than what other classes can offer, and prevents another cipher from working efficiently if I want a cipher with full debuffing potential. The only other idea I got is as SC, using Death of 1000 cuts and Mind Wave non-stop on a single enemy. but when fighting tougher enemies I would want at least Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric Shield, perhaps Ancestor's Memory on someone else. I feel psion would have problem getting enough focus for just these, and don't see an advantage over normal ciphers let alone SC ascendant.

But without summon or exploit? Templar needs Wall of Draining (maybe not strictly a exploit), how does FF tank it? Last time I tried I couldn't avoid Brutal Cleave with Blade Turning.

To be more specific, among 4 megabosses: Colossal: you can't tank it anyway Mage: you don't need to tank it Spider: it will eventually reliably crit you, anyone wearing heaviest armor and large shield is good enough. Also you can't tank it in melee. Slime: only thing you can tank in a normal way, and you really need the extra AR. Fighter is just not a great tank for extremely long fights. It's a supportive class for your other side of multiclass. As a swashbuckler the best role is tanking weaker enemies and deal damage.

Bashing shields results in slightly less damage, but you are looking at a much shorter recovery time, so if something goes wrong, you don't have to wait for a whole 4s to use Second Wind. You can use mods to make bashing shields scale with enchantment so their PEN is usable. The thing about megabosses is, a paladin has at least 3 more AR than fighter, and it matters a lot when tanking megabosses, which are literally, megabosses, you know, you're not supposed to tank them without a dedicated build.