Cardiodrone

Thank you everyone for the suggestions so far. --> I tried a Hunting Bow instead of the Rod + Blast and noticed that it didn’t take much longer to ascend - which confused me a bit because I thought the Blast’s radius would ascend me much faster when damaging multiple enemies. I will try also other weapons since a bow is still a recovery and not reload weapon, and see how it feels. Draining Whip also helps in that regard. --- --> The bonus damage while ascended is actually also nice even without casting spells. Especially with Marked for the Hunt. If I can get my ascended status up to 40 seconds would be phenomenal but I guess it is too in the game I guess. --- --> "Focus is at maximum" unfortunatly is not an available AI condition because my first idea was to do ecatly that: Cast a spell immediateley when ascended because then I have a visual and auditory clue when I see and hear my PC casting all of a sudden. But exactly that is not possible. --> Yes an auto-pause + notification option for certain conditions would be great, and not just for the ascention. I noticed some other conditions as well. e.g. let's say Aloth is using Kalakoth's Minor Blights and the cast time runs out eventually. It would be nice to know so you can cast something straight after instead of having him do nothing or auto-attack until you notice. But then again, maybe that would make the RTwP more like the TB mode, idk. Thanks again for all the replies. C

edit: Massive typo in topic headline. Sorry for that. I cannot edit the post myself. Can someone with moderator status edit Acended to Ascended, please? Thank you.

Preface: Hello forum - my first post here after looking up a lot of topics for some help before getting into Deadfire for the first time on PotD right after finishing Pillars 1 on Hard. --> Deadfire 5.0-something patch, no mods, RTwP I decided on an Ascendant / Ghost Heart Seer for my PC. Seemed to be a well-liked combo and made sense to me from a RP POV, taking my Pillars 1 PC and my decisions into account (writing myself a nice little backstory). At the time of this post I am level 5, started Neketaka and just cleared Lost Dues in Good Faith quest with a bit of luck and a pinch of cheese. PC (Human / Living Lands) attributes are Mig 15 / Con 10 / Dex 15 / Per 18 / Int 15 / Res 6 —> Pretty standard, I know. I did not want to min-max anything since I like that everything kind of matters in this game. I am loving my Bear Sprit companion so far as an off tank to help Edér block choke points, being a damage sponge summon to distract certain opponents and one that I can leave behind if I have to flee the fight when I am getting kicked in my behind. My PC is in the backline with a Rod+Blast to quickly gain Focus. My Problem: I am still figuring out my Ascendant side of the PC. Getting to max Focus fast and then spamming spells as long as I can is an interesting mechanic and kind of works so far. BUT: 1) I often do not notice the moment when max Focus is reached and sometime already 5 seconds of my ascended status have passed before I do and start spell casting. 2) When queing up spells and also when manually casting them it happens, that due to recovery time the ascended status runs out and Focus drops to 0 and therefore the last spell is not cast. Even if I know that it might me the last cast I can get through when I look at the timer in the active effects overview I cannot really know for sure. That means I have to keep an eye on my PC the whole time which is tough in some fights. Sometimes that spell is an important one that I kind of count on. Also it is frustrating when I miss the start of my ascended status since it takes a bit to reach it again and it is only 20s. The custom AI and also the auto pause menu do not give me the options I need. —> I would like at least an auto pause when ascended starts and stops. I know this is pretty custom but this class kind of depends on it a lot imo. —> Is there anything that can indicate the status without me checking the effects overview all the time? —> Is there a work around or maybe a mod? (A little pop-up and/or something that can indicate that the one spell will not go through in time.) —> Or can someone give me any advice on how to deal with this? Is it maybe intended that every class has some kind of thing you as a player have to adjust to? —> And, since we are in that area: What determines the ascended status time and is there a way to prolong it? Because then I might not worry about the above so much. As of now these 20s give me the possibility of 3-4 spells and that is the same as if I would cast them as a normal Cipher with using whenever there is enough accumulated for a certain spell. I am no experienced CRPG player and PotD with upscaling is quite a challenge (though a welcome one) and this is ruining the fun a little bit. Any help and suggestions are much appreciated and I thank you in advance. C