Seriphos

So, in a nutshell, your 4 points are:

Adding the Blackened Plate Helm and Maura's Grasping Belt to the stack, 7 should be more than enough.

I mean, in terms of optimality, being fun, or even from a RP flavor standpoint. How would YOU rank the classes based on the satisfaction YOU derived from playing it? Also, curious to see if anyone here's tried all possible combos.

Is there a place where you can view the max engagements of a character? My main is currently an Unbroken/Shieldbearer and I was wondering if I can stack enough engagements for him without taking the Defender Stance fighter modal, so I can take the Mob Stance instead. 1) How many engagements are enough? 2) Equipping a shield gives +1 to engagement. The Shieldbearer of St. Elcga provides an additional +1 engagement when equipping a shield, for a total of 2 correct? 3) So the total engagement stack for an Unbroken/Shieldbearer would be the following: Unbroken (+1) Equipping a shield (+1) Shieldbearer of St. Elcga (additional +1 with shield) Hold the Line passive (+1) Spear modal (+1) This gives a total of 5 engagements without ever taking the Defender Stance modal. Do I have the right of it? Are 5 enough?

With the events being played out as they did in PoE2, with Eothas destroying the Wheel so that souls cannot be reborn back into the real world ("Here"), it makes one wonder... are there no new souls that are born in this universe? It seems as if there are only a finite number of souls in circulation at any given point in time, all of them having been born once in the past. And if you break the Wheel, they don't make it to the Beyond-- they're all stuck in the In-Between. So new souls don't ever get born? Maybe I missed a piece of dialogue that explains this better. Can someone who has more knowledge of the lore care to enlighten me on this?

Congrats. Would you mind sharing the exact build you used to accomplish this?

The primary reason for multiclassing an Ancient with a Berserker is Frenzy, correct? For the bonus to damage/PEN and AR? What other abilities would you pick for the Barbarian?

For my last character, I'm having trouble deciding between a Berserker/Ancient and Paladin/Lifegiver. HELP. On the one hand, I want another Paladin just so I can run an all Paladin party for RP reasons, but Berserker/Ancient sounds intriguing.

I can easily get away with the Evoker firing off AoE spells while avoiding my front-liners. Remember that the outer part of the AoE circle doesn't inflict friendly fire-- positioning is key. And I don't mind friendly fire once in a while because the chances are that once my Evoker's spell goes off, the battle's finished as they're usually an insta-kill. Not to mention that my front-liners are pretty tanky and can easily heal.

Could you make the case for picking Ascendant for any type of Cipher build whatsoever? Even one that spams charms all day long? It's simply because Ascendants have the fastest focus generation (150% with draining whip) out of every other subclass. I think Ascendants may be better than Beguilers at their own game.

Thanks to whoever suggested Berserker/Nalpazca. I'm having a ball with this combo, and I especially love the character concept from a role-playing standpoint. Think it's one of my favorite classes now.

Here's my take on it: Paladin(Shieldbearer)/Fighter(Unbroken) - Main tank and support. Basically unkillable. Sword and shield. Max engagements. Liberating Command to dispel hostile effects. Lay on Hands for healing and immortality. Shining Beacon. Revives. Paladin(Shieldbearer)/Wizard(Blood Mage) - Off-tank and CC. Willbreaker (2h) + Body Blows to lower the enemies' Will and Fortitude. Open combat with the usual Wizard buffs (Arcane Shield, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Llengreth's Safeguard, etc) and go to town with enemy debuffs so they don't even get a chance to move/attack (Slicken, Ryngrim's Enervating Terror, Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage). The idea is to have a debuff spell for each of the 4 defenses. Use Blood Sacrifice if you're out of spells and rinse/repeat. Use Lay on Hands to regenerate health. Barbarian(Berserker)/Monk(Nalpazca) - Dual wield. Swift Flurry. Frenzy. Grab the ability that negates the confusion effect. Get the intellect boosting modal. Take drugs pre-combat and go to town on the enemies debuffed by the Blood Mage. Wizard (Evoker) - Main damage dealer of the party. Buff with Eldritch Aim and Merciless Gaze and nuke the hell out of everybody, especially those enemies that were proned and terrified by the Blood Mage. Take all the Empower passives and open with an empowered AoE. Everyone should be insta-killed. Priest (Berath) - Open with the usual party buffs: Devotions, Triumph, Blessings, Circle of Protection, Salvation of Time, etc. Once done buffing, the priest can cast Symbol of Berath and contribute to party damage as well, if an encounter happens to last that long. Running with this party is hilarious to say the least. I pretty much mop the floor with everyone before the priest's buffs expire, even without casting Salvation of Time. Actually, I don't even think the priest buffs are necessary. Opening with Symbol of Berath makes even quicker work of enemies. The enemies barely get the chance to move or take action due to Slicken and Ryngrim's Enervating Terror, while simultaneously being bombarded by the Evoker and the Barbarian's Carnage/Swift Flurry.

I see a lot of posts here talking about build synergy-- how to build a single optimal character, which multi classes to pick for synergy, how to solo PotD with said build etc. But there's a question I don't see enough of-- how to build a 5 man party optimally. Soloing is all well and good, but nothing comes close to the satisfaction of having a 5 member party executing a battle plan optimally while taking the least damage possible. So to that end, I pose the question: what is the most optimal party you can think of?

Dragon Age: Inquisition had that as well.

Edit: double post