Vasvary5050

Yeah, this is really nice. Makes Votary a very tempting tank. Even better and even more tempting! Okay, I admit, now I'm very tempted to try an Arcane Knight or Votary as my next tank (probably Arcane Knight). I just completed FS, so it won't be long now before I'm ready to start another run (though I'm thinking of finishing off all the optional SSS artefact hunts before I head to the end (to pick up the Archivist of Kazuwari achieve). I really enjoyed the DLCs, especially FS (the most enjoyable of the 3). Makes me sad that they didn't release more DLCs or a PoE 3. I am really looking forward to Avowed (if it ever releases), but would prefer another isometric CRPG in the Pillars-verse.

That's a lot of armour. I'm not very familiar with Monks - I've multi-classed a couple of backline ranged Dps-ers with Helwalker but never used an FF (or a Monk of any type in a tanking role). And whilst I've used Paladins a lot, I've never used an SG. Could you please let me know how much max armour you manage to get to with your FF/SG, and what gear you recommend for it? Same question. I've not played an Arcane Knight. How much armour do you manage to get to with this build, and what gear do you recommend for it? [I'm just planning ahead for my next run]

The funny thing is, since wiping to the first Vithrack pack that I pulled (which included a Vithrack Luminary), its gone fairly smoothly (no KOs or deaths). Now that I know how deadly the Vithrack Luminary can be, I've adapted my strategy for dealing with them (overwhelm them with summons - animated weapons and Druid's primordial oozes, and then nuke them down whilst they are dealing with those). The Frightened Child fight was a long fight, but no one got knocked out or killed. I basically gummed up the doorway with summons, and killed a bunch of the imaginary friends with ranged AoE through the doorway. Things went a bit south for a moment when a wall of many colours landed on my party and summons, but the party held. I logged off last night at the Oracle of Wael fight so that will be where I pick up this evening. Yeah, I had forgotten about this nasty, and ran into his map/room last night (without the contract). I didn't even attempt to fight them (reloaded the save from before I went in there). I really think my party would have a hard time dealing with Sissak and all the other nasties in there (at least 2 Vithrack Luminaries plus a bunch of other nasties), so that's a fight I might skip. ... well, maybe I'll give it a few goes when my party hits level 20 (my MC just hit level 20, everyone else is still level 19 but not far off 20). Wow, I can't even imagine doing the Ultimate. So that's POTD upscaled, all the god challenges, ironman, and solo!? o7 For me, playing through the entire game (beginning to end, all side content, and DLCs, except the megabosses), on POTD upscale is challenge enough. Probably next run I'll start to add some god challenges on top and pick a party that is more optimised (I made some mistakes with my multiclass options this time, but I have a better idea now about what classes would synergise well for next time). I have 3 reasons (which may be flawed!) for liking chanter tanks. Firstly, whilst I love chanters, I'm not a fan of the idea of SC chanters (I'm not saying they are bad and I've been tempted to try one as a Dragon summoner). I'm also not a fan of DPS-chanters. I prefer making my DPS characters using 2 classes that both have abilities/passives for increasing accuracy and/or weapon armour penetration (my favourites being a combination of ranger, rogue, Devoted, monk and cipher for this role). Secondly, Chanter seems to be the one class that is only effected minimally by wearing heavy armour as their chants aren't slowed down by armour and their (high-level) invocations are cast infrequently compared to the attacks/abilities of most other classes so less recovery over time, and as I tend to wear heavy armour on just my tank that seems to make sense. And finally, some of the invocations/chants work better on the front line where they are hitting most of the enemies. It may be that my reasoning is flawed, and I would be really interested to hear what you and other people suggest for good multi-class Chanter synergies. I mean, of all classes, Chanters seem to go pretty well with everything, but for me the tank seems to be a logical choice. Interesting. I've tried a few different tanks, but I usually end up with either a War Caller or Herald as my preferred tank. I've found the fighter-chanter to be decently tanky (at least with druid's HoTs running throughout most fight), and good at holding a lot of engagement, but it does do crap damage. But the rest of the party deals with doing damage. Would probably be unviable solo, but I run with a party. But I am now tempted to try a Votary or Arcane Knight. I've never played a FF (my monks tend to be helwalkers)!

I confess that I've never pickpocketed in any of my playthroughs of Deadfire. Just never occurred to me to level pickpocketing as a skill.

@Torm51I'm playing on POTD upscaled, but not ironman nor with god challenges on top. Getting party members destroyed would be pretty rough to continue from on ironman. I salute you for this o7. [By the way, is your avatar name, Torm, taken from the diety in Forgotten Realms by any chance?] Yep, I've had disintegrate cast upon party members. Usually it's fine. I have a Paladin/Druid in the party (yes, I know, it's a strange sub-optimal muitlclass combination). I've been using it as a healer/off-tank, with one or two of the druid's HoTs running throughout most fights, and the Kind Wayfarer's Flames of Devotion for healing through dual-wielding attacks, and up until now it has done a pretty decent job of keeping the party alive. Not sure if it will be enough for FS though. I like the idea of an indestructible Fighter-Paladin tank. However, my tank is a fighter-chanter, and whilst I could bench them and put in place a Crusader (either a hirling starting at one level below my MC or Pallegina), I wouldn't have a chanter in my party then, and so would have to replace someone else to get a chanter back into the party (chanters are just too good not to have at least one). Also, I would then have 2 Paladins, which I think is too many Paladins for a party. I guess I could change the tank to a Crusader, and then replace my Druid/Paladin with a Druid/Chanter. But for now I think I'm going to try to push forward with what I have. But in my next run, I might try the indestructible Crusader! Yeah. Problem is that the Vithrak with Salvos killed my chanter-tank before Thick Grew Their Tongues had a chance to rip off its 4xConcentration. I then resurected my tank with my Paladin and the fight continued. I managed to strip the concentration of the Vithrak, and was shooting it with concussive tranquilizer on my Ranger and Debilitating Strike from my rogue, but I presume they both missed and it managed to perma-destroy my ranger (didn't even see what it cast, just saw my Ranger disappear under a hail of animated weapons and whatever the Vithrak was casting), and then it killed my tank again, and it went down hill from there. I was on the backfoot TBH from the moment my tank died 5 seconds into the fight. Second time around, I had my party hide around the corner, my rogue went and sniped the Vithrak from range and then ran back to my party, whilst my chanter, druid and ranger summoned ogres, primordial oozes and ghostheart bear respectively, and I overwhelmed the Vithrak with the summons, and then when it was focused on my summons, I sniped it down from ranged [Tank got to sit that fight out]. I will respec my Paladin to include these abilities before continuing with FS!! @Shai HuludYeah, I figured I could avoid fighting the Vithracks, but after the first bad pull, I couldn't walk away. In any case, I'm pretty much trying to kill my way through everything in the current run because I'm playing more for the fights than the roleplay this time around. But if I was solo-ing it, or iron manning it, I would definitely take the stealth approach. I'm also learning a lot about the problems with my current build choices through putting them through these difficult fights. Whether my party can cope with the well-balanced enemy parties you mention I'll find out soon. I'm hoping I have enough damage and interrupts to get through their healing.

So, pulled Vithrack Luminary early on in FS, and it pretty much one-shotted my tank with missile salvo, and perma-killed one of my main backline DPS-ers. A good start! I think FS might be a bit harder than SSS. Defeated it on second attempt with a wall of summoned meat shields. They die quick but do such much damage if you let them.

Changeling's dance was a cakewalk. The mirror fight was difficult and odd. First couple of attempts I literally got my party disintegrated out of existence. I figured it was my MC mirror killing me with cipher's disintegrate, so second attempt I burned my MC mirror down quickly, but my party still got perma-killed [portrait gone, character deleted] (presumably by massive over-damage from Maerweld as none of my other characters can disintegrate). On the final attempt I managed to get everything to pretty much group together, and then AoE'd everything down. It's pretty nasty to have your party members instant-killed when they have no injuries. Just finished SSS. I was expecting the final (Parokoa) boss fight to be a cakewalk based on my memory of doing it last time (on an easier difficulty) and people saying it's an easy fight compared to everything else in SSS. Porokoa was of course red-skulls, and the little crocodiles were 1-skulls. Fight required decent AoE on the crocs, reliable non-stop interrupts and knockdowns on the boss (luckily my tank is a fighter-chanter with Knock-Down and Thick Grew Their Tongues) and constant party-wide HoTs. I initially tried to do it with Konstantin and Fassina in the party to see if that helped their romance (it didn't). Had to swap them out for the A-team. Even doing it "right", my tank still git knocked unconscious and had to be panic-resurrected by Paladin. Overall, I found SSS to be a real challenge, much harder than anything in the vanilla content or BoW, and that was just expressing my way through it (I still have some optional artifact retrieval fights to do). And I hear that FS is more difficult than SSS

Unfortunately, great Malestom (and other max tier spells) wasn't an option as I'm only level 18 at the moment (and most of my party is multi-classed). Yep, sending one character to deal with the totem at the back proved repeatedly suicidal. Actually, each time Konstantin managed to take out the totem at the back, but he died a few second later. In the end I got the job done (on my 4th or 5th try) by just moving my entire party under stealth almost right up to the totem on the righthand side of the arena, took that one out, and then fought a slow grindy battle through everything until I worked my up to the platform to kill the remaining monsters and the second totem. A long fight. Yes, I was on the slayer path, and oddly I didn't have any problem with the cats from the fangs and fur (it's a tough fight, but I did it first time, whereas I wiped at least 3 or 4 times on the nagas). Just got the final boss to kill now (the big crocodile), which I'll leave for tomorrow. Hopefully I'll ding 19 after that, and then head to FS. I've played through FS before, but it was on veteran with scaling, so it will be a lot tougher this time. I found SSS really hard (and of course there are a lot of optional bits to SSS that I haven't yet done and which I might try to get done before I push through to Ukazo.

Yeah I think this is going to be a lot of trial and error and swapping in and out party members. SSS feels a LOT harder than BoW. I've pushed through to Cult of the Naga Shaman but failed a few times on it now. I can take out the two totems pretty quickly, using the main party on the right hand side of the arena to take out the totem over there instantly, and Konstantin leaping onto the platform to take out that one, but still having a hard time with what's left on the battlefield. I think the biggest problem is that there archers/skirmishers can burn down my squishier characters really quickly when they focus fire on one target. [Finally did it. Trying to rush the totem at the back was a mistake and when I abandoned doing that it was really easy]

I changed the party, applied a bit of cheese, and it turned into an easy fight. Phew.

Hi folks. I breezed through BoW on POTD upscaled but I'm hitting brick walls in SSS. I did the first two fights okay (hard but okay), but I'm getting annhilated in the fight against Maerweld, the mirrors to my party and the greater flame blights. Like, my party members are literally getting disintegrated and blasted out of existence so they can't even be rezzed if survive the fight. How do you deal with this fight? (Memories of a Mad Man)

Okay, I just realised that I can wait for 26 hours next to a vendor (Dimesa in this case), then check them again and their stock of enchanting mats is refreshed. Total RNG. Think the vendor had 1 pyrite about 33% of the time, and occasionally 2 pyrite. Well stocked up on enchanting mats now.

Hi folks. In my current POTD run I'm level 18, working my way through the DLCs, but I've experiencing a real shortage of pyrite. I don't remember having this severe a shortage previously and its making it difficult to upgrade some of my key items to Superb. I've gone back to the vendors at Dunnage, Fort Deadlight and around Neketaka, but none of them have any. Not sure if I already bought all their pyrite (I think its down to RNG whether they have any). Is there a good way to find pyrite other than hoping vendors have it in stock? I've been rushing through this run a bit and haven't been doing ship battles/bounties much, and I'm wondering if that was a decent source of pyrite and why I'm so low on it this time. Any suggestions. Ideally want 6 pyrite to upgrade 2 of my 2-handers and 2x 1-handers, and could easily eat even more than that! Best, Vas.

Yeah, I had a little play test with Konstanten this morning, and playing him as a ranged doesn't feel good. I think if I'm going to use him it will be as a Barbarian-Chanter as a substitute for my main tank. And Fassina I think I'm going to try as a sorcerer. Neither are my ideal class combinations, but hopefully good enough.

Follow up question - does barbaric blow work with ranged weapons? I just re-read it, and it does say "Range: Weapon". My interpretation of the description is that the +50% AoE only applies to carnage (and thus not to range), but the other modifiers (+20% damage, 30% hits to crits, +50% crit damage) presumably do apply to range? I've not tried it for ranged, just going off of description.

Hi folks. I'm getting close to the point of starting SSS and FS on my POTD upscale run. I'm thinking of swapping into my party Fassina and Konstanten as I've still not seen their dialogue playout in those DLCs, so looking for some ideas for solid builds for them. I'm not using any mods that allow other than their usual class combinations. I'm happy with my tank, and so I'm wondering whether it's possible to do a good build for Konstanten as a ranged damage dealer. I've not played Barbarian much, and I know it sounds counter intuitive considering how much of the barbarian is built around melee, but I'm thinking of ignoring Carnage and Barbaric Blow, and playing him as a frenzied shooter/chanter. Does this sound terrible or okay? I'm not sure how to build Fassina at the moment. I'm thinking of using her as a ranged support, as a conjurer/druid. Even without evocation spells, she will still have access to some of my favourites (Slicken, Web, Combusting wounds, Expose vulnerabilities, Kalakoth's Minor Blights, Writhing Tentacles), plus all the usual druid goodness (Heals/Hots, insects/plagues, etc). I did think about SC conjurer (tempted to try Caedebald's Blackbow), but I'm not sure the tier 8/9 spells she will have access to will offset having access to druid spells. I could of course make her wizard/chanter, but I'm usually happy with just one chanter. I would welcome any suggestions for Fassina and Konstanten! Best wishes, Vas.

Thanks @Kaylon and @Okkes. I'll try the CP (and carry a backup hunting bow just in case).

Thanks @Kaylon this is good to know. This is quite a serious issue as one of my heroes as a devoted (hunting bow) ranger, which I built around the plan to use Essence Interrupter this run. I may have to bench them if it's going to be a regular problem. @Okkes, I presume the CP fixes this particular issue then? Funny thing is, I've completed Deadfire once, and done a few partial runs, but never tried the CP. Does the Community Patch work with achievements? I've got 50/55 achievements and want to collect the ones I've missed (3 of the faction endings that I haven't yet done and 2 DLC hidden achieves). And assuming the CP does work with achievements, can I change a run mid-way through to community patch (I'm a little over half way into a POTD upscale run and would be a pain to start again)?

I'm using Essence Interrupter on one of my characters, and even though the weapon says it has pierce and shock damage, and deals best of pierece/shock, in the attack log it's saying a monster (a storm blight) which is not immune to pierce damage but is immune to shock damage is immune to the attack: "<NAME> Hits Storm Blight, but Storm Blight is immune! <Pierce Damage Icon>" Is this a bug!?

Hi folks, I more or less know how level upscaling works based on (https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Level_scaling#:~:text=Level scaling is a user,of the location or encounter.) and this is not my first time doing an upward level scaling run, but I'm trying to work out in my head the best level to do various maps (on PoTD upscale). I killed everything in Arkemyr's Manor yesterday (that was a tough long slog), currently wading through port kohara ruins which I'm over-levelled for so its upscaled a lot, and the Hanging Sepulchers is quite tough too. Here is the heart of my open question. In you opinion, with upwards level scaling, is it harder to deal with maps at the expected level, or doing the maps upscaled by about 4 levels, or is it about equal either way? In other words, does having the abilities, gear and stats from 4 more levels more than (or less than) compensate for the 4 levels of enemy upscaling? Obviously when you start to out level a map by more than 4 levels it will become trivial because the level upscaling for most enemies caps at 4 (and at 6 for named enemies), but before that point. Best wishes, Vas.

Makes sense. All in for now (I can always respec later).

I know this question was aimed at @thelee rather than me, and I would like to know the answer as well. Is there a cap (soft or hard) on the explosives skill? Worth maxing on one character? I've got a devoted ghost-heart in my party who I'm thinking of maxing out explosives on (so far I've levelled explosives to 10).

Thanks everyone. Been experimenting with mortars and blunderbusses today and I really appreciate all this information! Going to start using grenades more aggressively too.

ps. Also happy to hear about other builds that work well for blunderbusses.

Hi folks. 1) One thing I've never really built a character around are blunderbusses, and I've also only got limited experience with Berserkers. Could anyone suggest (a) some character builds and (b) some tips for this. With Blunderbuss having a -10 accuracy to begin with, and powder burns having a distracted malus, accuracy would seem to be an issue (at least early/mid game, and I'm only at level 9 at the moment in my POTD upscale run so for now I'm interested in builds that will work now as well as later - with character respec later if necessary). I presume devoted/berserker and berserker/street-fighter are the two main ways to build a blunderbuss build (or maybe helwalker instead of Berserker)? Should powder burns be used most of the time, just situationally, or is it not worth the distraction malus and micro required to make sure you don't hit your own party (though I guess the explosive shot is going to have to be carefully aimed anyway with Berserker confusion)? Is it best to use blunderbusses single-handed for bonus to accuracy and crits (at least until higher level), or dual-wield? At first glance the mortars look best (Fire in the Hole and Hand Mortar) because of their slash/pierce AoE, but are any of the other blunderbusses better? [BTW, if anyone has a link to a berserker/***** build for ranged weapons that would be a bonus as previously I've only used barbarians for melee, but otherwise I can figure it out]. 2) Another thing I rarely use and end up sitting on through most of the game are grenades? Do they work better with any particular class, or pretty much identical no matter who uses them as long as they have explosives skill (I think even perception doesn't factor into their accuracy)? [This is for a hired custom character not main character] Best wishes, Vas.