limaxophobiacq

The thing unbending doesn't say in its description that makes it so effective with high Int is how the healing over time effect works that triggers every time you get wounded while Unbroken is active. At base it heals you 25%(or 33%) of damage taken as 5%(6.6%) of damage taken every second for 5 seconds (so 5*5(or 5*6.6)= 25%(or 33%) total), but the duration of those healing effect are increased by Int but the healing stays at 5% per second, so with 30 int -> +100% duration and unbending trunk upgrade it heals you 6.6% of damage taken every second for 10 seconds, so for 66% of damage taken, and it's also improved by power level, so at PL 7 and int 35 it heals for 33*2.25*1.1 = ~82% of damage taken in addition to the duration of the unbroken ability itself being increased in duration. You can't really go wrong with single class monk using fists, accuracy and pen they get at high levels is incredible Not directly but theLees guide https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599 is probably the best place to start if you want to research some classes and find the more notable class abilities and explanations for when/why they are good and also a lot of mechanical oddities.

Does community patch nerf unbending? Otherwise not stacking Int for the crazy heals on a Turning Wheel user feels like it can't be right. Since you're using The Undying Burden and you say you're all in on Athletics you might want to try Contenders Armor which would let you attack even faster (up to -28% recovery instead of the -10% from Caroc) but you lose out on heal and +2 power pool. As for pets Blinky for +5 melee accuracy on whole party would be more effective than a +melee damage or hit-to-crit but is very late game.

Not an exploit really. Ancestors Memory is just the most straightforward on-demand source of the Brilliant inspiration (which lets you regenerate resources like spells cast) in the game, which combined with either Wall of Draining from your bloodmage or Salvation of Time from a priest lets you overcome the attrition of resources that tends to be the biggest problem in every Megaboss fight except Auranic.

Konstantens lack of Int hurts him with a lot of invocations but as a single class Skald he seemed to do well spamming upgraded Eld Nary. Vatnirs priest class and stats make for a good backline blaster (single class). I recommend going with Sun & Moon + Slayers Claw and opening fights with Minor Avatar. Sun & Moon gives you either +2 fire PL for his regular priest fire spells or +2 cold PL for his Rymrgand spells depending on time of day, and Slayers Claw upgrades his might inspiration from Minor Avatar for +2 Pen making him a great blaster at high levels. Ydwin as a ranged Cipher/Rogue with Kitchen Stove/Red Hand does solid dps, of course you can also bring her along for Ancestors Memory cheese against megabosses. Haven't used Fassina or Mirke.

If the Forbidden Fist is using his fists for combat he should probably use it since the +5 Accuracy with the main-hand fist is too good to pass up. Without the shield this build is probably better of with a different weapon and equipment setup though since other bashing shields are pretty terrible, like f.ex. switching the armor to Casità Samelia's Legacy and dual-wielding Sabres or Axes with monastic fists as backup.

Soulblade it is then. At the very least it seems like it should be less fiddly and let me get by with fewer cipher actives.

Bonus attributes nr1 always. If you're using Eder second is probably ...Can I pet Him both for RP and because a second pet can be OP. Other than that Item Vendor, Bonus Skills, and Infamous Past (getting a mutiny on purpose is a nightmare) are nice.

I'm kinda set on making a mystic (Priest of Wael/Cipher) with this setup but I'm not sure which cipher subclass would be more effective. I'm thinking the general combat plan at max level would be to start fights with the 3rd weapon set (Slayers Claw + Kitchen Stove) and cast Arcane Veil/Mirrored Image -> Minor Avatar (might inspiration buffed to Tenacious from Slayers Claw) -> Thunderous Report -> Borrowed Instincts (possibly Devotions for the Faithful thrown in there somewhere), and then switch to WotEP for retaliation focus gain while using powers or soul annihilation. Ascendant seems in a way more synergistic (salvation of time for ascension) but the payoff for ascendant is rather late (level 16 for salvation of time) while Soul Blade can spam Soul Annihilation while protected by Arcane Veil from level 1. Also Ascendant feels like it might just be better of ranged and single classed while the Soul Blade feels like it's losing less from multiclassing as long as you focus on Soul Annihilation. Also what attributes beside Int and Per are most important? With retaliation Dex loses a little bit of importance but maybe it's still superior to Might due to the bad disintegrate scaling and potential weapon damage modifiers on Soul Annihilation? Any other good item synergies with such a build?

I'm late but for another option Devoted (axes)/Priest of Wael is pretty solid. You can push your deflection very high and Tactical Barrage + Champions Boon is a good buff both for spellcasting and melee. Magran's Favor helps your priest fire spells like Shining Beacon and Storm of Holy Fire to clear mobs, while Divine Mark -> Bleeding Cuts (with +4 Pen from Devoted & Champions Boon) works well on strong single targets.

This is definitely a solid mindstalker build but it as you noted kind of extreme but a toned-down version of an Assassin/Cipher (any Cipher class but soulblade/psion) using the same weapons but skipping on the min-maxed attributes is still going to hit like a truck as long as you use stealth for alpha-strikes and then get out of harms way with escape or smoke veil. For a 'face' a mindstalker doesn't usually have much use of Resolve (which is really only good for tanks) but Int and Per are both used in conversations and are very helpfull to a mindstalker. You could just go 10/10/14/18/18/8 for attributes and be fine. Whispers of Treason, Biting/Draining Whip, Hammering Thoughts, and Disintegrate are the only Cipher abilities you really need, plus ancestors memory if you want to take a priest with you and kill some megabosses. I played a build like this on Ydwin and she did pretty well even without the assassin bonus, you want Ring of the Marksman, Acina's Tricorn, Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak, and Slippers of the Assassin for sure, plus Kitchen Stove (with Thunderous Report) and the Red Hand as weapons. Might also pick up Arms Bearer for an extra weapon set to dual-wield hand-mortars.

I've played Fighter/Priest of Wael and its obviously super tanky, also while the weapon damage isn't that great casting Shining Beacon and Storm of Holy Fire with Tactical Barrage + Champions Boon gets you pretty respectable damage output for a tank. With blackjacket you could quickly swap to Magrans Favor + Sun and Moon in one set for up to +4 fire PL when you're blasting.

If you want to be the anything but a glass-cannon and deal damage over time Paladin/Wizard isn't a bad bet. You can even do DoT to yourself with Sacred Immolation. Steel Garrote/Blood Mage is considered optimal but other combinations are fine if you find Woedica and Steel Garrote disposition restrictions too annoying. Beyond whatever DoT wizard spells you want to cast key abilities are Spirit Shield, Llengraths Safguard, Lay on Hands, and Stoic Steel to be very hard to kill. Wizard are admittedly not as heavy on DoTs as druids are though. Bloodmage/Ancient is likely better of picking one of them and going single class .

Boeroer always the fashionista . I actually like the helm, it reminds me of the tiger-guy Russell Crowe fought in Gladiator so it fits the theme. The grey steel of Tuotilos isn't ideal but you can't have everything.

I've always dismissed Hold the Line (why do fighters, the tank class, get nothing with their extra engagement passive compared to Rogues and Barbarians?) so I kind of forget it exists, but it might have been worth it. The 4th engagement slot isn't bad but the 5th is superfluous. Also I wouldn't have known how to make this build without your guide making me realise Deep Wounds actually scales with Int. Given the +200% damage modifier with death-blows active, extra points of intelligence adding roughly +0.75% damage per point from the extended Deep Wounds duration ends up being almost as good as Might at +1% per point for weapon damage, in addition to everything else Int does.

I think if you were to switch weapon I'd consider going with an axe just for the bleeding cut modal with retaliation. With a fast low-damage weapon like Kapana Taga (even though it's enchantments are everything the build wants and would be insane if you could get them on an axe) you end up spending proportionally more of you time making weak shield attacks. I also don't want to over-invest in having to engage 3+ opponents to be effective since there's hard fights where that's just not a thing.

Difficulty: PotD. Solo: No. First of this is not a super optimized build, rather it's the result of me trying to build around a pretty mediocre weapon I find aesthetically appealing. The build is pretty effective at what it does but other weapon choices are almost certainly going to be more effective. The weapon in question is the Gladiators Sword (the notable traits of which are +1 Penetration, +5 Deflection & +10% damage when used with a shield), and the result is not all that surprisingly a sword-and-board build with retaliation. Second I ran this build on a hired adventurer so it doesn't include blessing or pet bonuses (best pet would probably be Blinky for the +5 melee accuracy). Race: Hill Dwarf Culture: Old Vailia Class: Devoted/Trickster Fighter/Trickster is a tried-and-true combo for a good tank that can dish out some decent weapon damage, and since we're building around a specific weapon which we're comboing with a shield that can also use the devoted bonus (Tuotilo's Palm), devoted seems a sensible choice for our fighter subclass. The rogue Riposte ability lets us use our defense for offense, and the multiplicative damage boost from Deep Wounds works to make up for the lack of lashes on our weapons. Attributes: I went with a very conservative attribute spread (12/10/10/17/19/10). Int and Per are the most important attributes by a decent margin, Dex hurts a lot to dump even when you're doing a lot of retaliations, and dumping Might or Con tanks our fortitude defense which is already our lowest. You could dump Con for Might but with how many weapon damage bonuses the build has it wouldn't be very significant. Core Equipment: -Gladiators Sword: Duh. -Tuotilo's Palm: With Monastic Unarmed Training + Two Weapon Style and the fact that it benefits from the devoted bonus, this shield offers a pretty ok damage boost (with the attack speed increase it's about +30% DPS compared to a normal small-shield despite the low base damage) while also offering a 20% chance of a mini-riposte that only uses the shield. -Champions Helm: 10% chance for a main-hand riposte and a respectable boost to action speed and weapon damage when the character tanking multiple opponents. -Devil of Caroc Breastplate: +2 class resources is fantastic for any martial multiclass and the -10% recovery combined with Armored Grace means we're still quite fast despite being medium armor. -Entonia Signet Ring: +2 defenses per engagement, a no brainer for a high-engagement tank. Party support: I made this build with a priest using DotF in the party, a paladin aura would do but obviously not as good. Beside a party-wide accuracy buff this build doesn't need any other help to be effective. You could have a priest casting Champions Boon on the gladiator but that's usually not going to be the best use of your priests valuable time. Skills: History for Giftbearer's Cloth to help our non-deflection defenses. Party Synergies: Thanks to it's very high reflex defense (180+) and the abilty to apply distracted (-5 perception = -10 reflex) to anyone it engages, the build works well with any party-unfriendly reflex-save AoEs which is a nice bonus from not going Unbroken. If your friendly casters have very high accuracy you could dump a passive or two to throw in Adept Evasion or even Snakes Reflexes for a complete overkill reflex defense. Early Game: Just punch things, early game Monastic Unarmed Training with the devoted bonus plus Crippling Strike is quite effective. Abilities: 1 Disciplined Barrage | Crippling Strike 2 Monastic Unarmed Training 3 Knock Down 4 Fighter Stances* | Two Weapon Style 5 Confident Aim 6 Dirty Fighting 7 Tactical Barrage | Arterial Strike 8 Riposte 9 Mule Kick 10 Vigorous Defense | Weapon and Shield Style 11 Persistent Distraction 12 Weapon Specialization 13 Unbending | Deep Wounds 14 Superior Deflection 15 Armored Grace 16 Refreshing Defense | Bears Fortitude 17 Hold the Line 18 Mob Stance 19 Unbreakable** | Deathblows 20 Unbending Shield *Warrior stance early game until your priest gets Devotions, then use Defender Stance for the engagements untill you have room to grab Hold the Line + Mob Stance (the later isn't worth without the former getting you to 3 engagements). **I know people don't like getting knocked down but given that it's effectively 2.5x the HP of Tough and people take Tough I don't think that's rational. Helm: Champions Helm (3% speed & damage per engagment, 10% riposte) Cloak: The Giftbearer's Cloth (+14 Will/Fort/Ref) Amulet: Ciphers Shackle (+1 Con, Resistance to Dex) Gloves: Greater Deflection +7 Armor: Devil of Caroc Breastlplate (+2 Class resources, -10% recovery, Resistance to Int) Boots: Boots of Stone (+1 Dex, +1 Res, Resistance to Might) Belt: Eoten Constitution (+3 Con) Ring 1: Entonia Signet Ring (+2 defenses per engagement) Ring 2: Chameleons Touch (+1 Dex, +1 Might) Weapon Set 1: Gladiators Sword + Tuotilo's Palm Weapon Set 2: Fist + Tuotilo's Palm Weapon Set 3: Pistol/Blunderbuss + Tuotilo's Palm Buffs: Tactical Barrage, Refreshing Defense, Displaced Image, Unbending Shield, DotF Attributes (base, gear, buffs) Mig: 12 +1 +4 = 17 Con: 10 +4 +0 = 14 Dex: 10 +2 +0 = 12 Per: 17 +0 +5 = 22 Int: 19 +0 +5 = 24 Res: 10 +1 +5 = 16 Deflection: 22 +57 (level) +4 (Superior Deflection) +20 (Refreshing Defense) +10 (Displaced Image) +5 (Scrim) +7 (Bracers) +16 (Shield) +6 (Resolve) = 147+2*(Engaging), or 167 with Mirror Image Fort: 17 +57 (level) +14 (Str) +8 (Con) +20 (Refreshing Defense) +10 (Bears Fortitude) +14 (Cloak) = 140+2*(Engaging) Ref: 25 +57 (level) +20 (Refreshing Defense) +4 (Dex) +24 (Per) +14 (Cloak) +20 (Displaced Image) +16 (Shield) = 180+2*(Engaging) Will: 17 +57 (level) +20 (Refreshing Defense) +28 (Int) +12 (Res) +14 (Cloak) = 148+2*(Engaging) Sword Accuracy: 20 (base) +57 (level) +15 (Legendary Weapon) +12 (Perception) +10 (Devotions) = 114 (65% Graze to Hit, 10% Hit to Crit) Shield Accuracy: 20 (base) +57 (level) +14 (Monastic) +12 (Perception) +5 (Precision Striker) +10 (Devotions) = 118 (65% Graze to Hit, 10% Hit to Crit) Sword Damage: 13-19 (base) +60% (Legendary) +21% (17 Str) +10% (Weapon Specialization) +10% (Scrim) +55% (Sneak Attack) +50% (Deathblows) x1.37 (Deep Wounds) = ~54-80 Shield Damage: 8-10 (base) +50% (Monastic) +21% (17 Str) +10% (Weapon Specialization) +55% (Sneak Attack) +50% (Deathblows) x1.37 (Deep Wounds) = ~31-39 Penetration: Sword 13/Shield 13 Edit: Added Hold the Line + Mob Stance.

Ydwin as a gunslinging mindstalker more or less like this build minus the assassin bonus plus a bit of survivability. With deathblows/soul whip/deep wounds for weapon damage and borked might scaling on disintegrate her low might doesn't really matter that much. It's not much of a build really but single class priest of Rymrgand is just so good and Vatnir actually has good stats for a backline blaster/support caster I can't really see him going anything but single class priest. Has anyone had success with him as Celebrant or Zealot?

I know fractions are actually calculated for damage & health, but does having say 10.5 or 10.75 PEN make any difference from having 10 PEN? Also for 'normal' damage over time effects that tick every 3 seconds (ApplyOnTick), does increased duration have an additional effect if it falls between 2 potential ticks, i.e. is there any difference in the damage you'll do between an 18.1, 19.5, or 20.9 second duration for a damage over time like Shining Beacon or Meteor Swarm that hits every 3 seconds? Or do you want to try to hit just over a number of seconds divisible by 3 if you're trying to min-max for a specific damage-over-time effect?

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with having 'some things are to big for you to affect' be a thing in the game but having that be the main story of a game which is about player interaction just feels bad. Compare say Disco Elysium, where you play a character vastly less powerful/influential in his setting than the watcher, where there's on one hand a story about a murder you're solving, and on the other a story about politics and the seemingly inevitable doom of the setting through natural disaster. But unlike Deadfire the game focuses on the former where you can actually do something, and the small victory you get in the end actually feels satisfying even though the world is still pretty much screwed.

I literally just said it would be hard or impossible to actually get revenge so I don't see why you bring that up as a counterpoint. The point isn't that I wanted to be able to get revenge on Eothas, it's that the game barely recognises that I'd feel like i want to (while at the same time realising its probably not going to happen). Plenty people are angry at things much larger and powerful then they are (governments, corporations etc.) without expecting to be able to do much of anything about it. I just want the option to spit in his face and call him an idiot.

I like a lot of things about deadfire. I like the mechanics, I like most of the companions, I like the faction system, and I really like the expansions. But I've still played it less than half the time I've played PoE1 because every time I think about it the main quest and the limits of main-character responses annoy me so much. It's not that I expect to be able to stop Eothas (though the fact that sending Wael in his titan against him does literally nothing is kind of lame), but game starts out with Eothas murdering you and destroying your home and there's no real option to express that you hate him for it and want vengeance as your main motivation (even if you realise true vengeance is going to be hard or impossible to achieve). Every conversation with Eothas is this big-picture discussion about the wheel and the gods vs mortals when my MC wouldn't care if Eothas is right or wrong in the grand scheme of things, they'd want Eothas to fail and suffer because Eothas made them suffer, and the game barely recognises that this is a thing a person might feel when it's the most human reaction I can imagine from someone in the watchers position.

So a brute Berserker/Devoted can stack some serious crit conversion and Frenzy + Disciplined Strikes (47.5 % with weapons and carnage if I understand correctly) plus 25% weapon crit damage from Devoted, but what are the best weapons to utilise it? Axes seem good for +20% crit damage and Slayers Claw (for interrupts with frenzy), also you're dual-wielding so you can grab monastic unarmed training for a crushing backup weapon that's at least decent. But OTOH dual-wield doesn't play great with Mule Kick and Clear Out being Primary attacks. Voidwheel and Karabörü play nicer with fighter abilities. What other weapons would be good with this build?

The golden dragon back in PoE 1 was a thing of beauty that I really enjoyed playing (though with a warhammer instead of a sabre). I'm not as active here as I was back then and my hours in Deadfire are a fraction of my time in PoE 1 but without his many (many) posts on the subject I probably would have dismissed WoTEP as not worth it after the fix/nerf and never played my greatsword devoted/priest-of-wael that a had a lot of fun with.

Could note that the templar build is not possible without modding as the dispositions of Wael and Goldpact conflict. I wish the unmodded game would just let us take the penalties instead of blocking conflicting priest/paladin combinations completely.

Kitchen Stove with Thunderous Report won't be as crazy on Ydwin as it would be on say an Assassin/Ascendant, but it's still amazing opener for any Mindstalker.