Haplok

Cool in theory, very situational in practice IMO. Not to mention a boring playstyle that would take forever to accomplish anything. So yeah, at least for me, definitely not Fun.

Well, I was definitely noting a significant difference between a dual offensive setup or weapon and Tuotilo's Palm. Enough to give up on the shield after a while - its not like I haven't tried it. True about the FF and Toxic Strike not caring about the weapon. But FF on average was only every 3rd/4th attack for me and usually Stunning Surge with dual real weapons was more damaging - due to more frequent SF/HBD procs. Toxic Strike was very helpful when facing tough/durable enemies, but otherwise used sparsely due to the very high cost, so its use hardly matters in regular DPS calculations. I don't want to use Confounding Blind and Toxic Strike a lot. Confounding Blind on high-ish Deflection enemies and Toxic Strike on tough/durable enemies exclusively. Most combats I won't use Toxic at all and will maybe use Confounding Blind once. Plenty of room for the Trickster buffs. Heck, I might occasionally use Crippling Strike, particularly should Mortification run out. I must say I'm really baffled by the Flagellant's Path statistics you gave. It always seemed nearly instant for me (after clearing the current Recovery). The important thing is that attack is basically a part of the movement animation and (dual weapon) damage pops up immediately as you arrive - rather then waiting for a separate engage/attack animation to play. Its maybe not a great difference, but I've found it very pleasant to use - particularly against casters in Forgotten Sanctum and other squishies, who'd often die on arrival. I didn't use it much against durable enemies - there its instagib potential is kinda wasted. And of course, I'm not really spamming it - its too expensive to use that way. I do agree that the "bonus" crush damage when passing enemies is pretty useless. Very rarely would I run out of Mortification for Stunning Surges. Might have to do with the fact that using one or 2 rapiers with modal and with Persistant Distraction, the Accuracy is very high and you score crits really frequently on all but toughest of enemies. So it were rather exceptions when SS was not refunded (and there's always Empower for more Resources). I too play exclusively at PotD Upscaled btw. And interesting point about Enervating Blows. Failing to land FF wasn't very frequent, but annoying when it happened. And at least in 1 point we definitely differ. I will not use equipment "tricks", harmless some of them might be: I will not interrupt "flight" with bounding boots to avoid spending their charge (but may pause on arrival to quickly steal stuff before distracted enemies take note :P), I will not switch a grimoire to make Draining Touch a permanent weapon, I will not recharge necklaces of Fireballs/Stones of Power/similar by stacking them - and I will most assuredly not use the Strand of Favor cheese. That's where I place the boundary - even if I'm fine with a lot of other cheese, like Wall of Draining or paralyzing Chillfogs.

Forbidden Fist is a (single) attack that also Enfeebles enemies (cannot heal, +50% duration of hostile effects - including DOTs/CC/debuffs already in place, -5 Con/-10 Fortitude/less max health), inflicts you with a Forbidden Curse stack and has a scaling additive damage bonus that depends on Forbidden Curse level you currently have: +50% if you have no curse, +100% if you have 1 stack, +150% if you have 2 stacks and +200% if you have 3 stacks. Also its cost scales on Curse level: its free (0 Wounds) when you have no FF Curse, but 1, 2 or 3 when you have 1/2/3 stacks. FF Curse also continuously damages you, (damage per tick depends on Curse level, is mild at Curse 1, but severe at level 3), it doesn't last long (and its duration is reduced with Hostile Effect reductions, particularly high Resolve and Mohora Wraps food), but using FF again before the Curse effect expires prolongs it (and adds a stack); FF ability to recover a little health when Hostile Effects expire can nearly counter the level 1 Curse self-damage - but it cannot compensate for the higher stack levels.

High Int isn't a problem for a FF IMO.

The thing is, enemies die so quickly to a Shadowdancer that Riposting doesn't really matter. Even moreso if you use the Repulsive Visage - they will hardly even attack. For bosses simply FF + Confounding Blind + Toxic Strike, spam Stunning Surge and watch them melt. As for Flagellant's Path, its insanely good with high Accuracy weapons. Squishier enemies will explode outright on arrival (due to SF/HBD) and you have no Recovery and can kill again...

While Clarity of Agony is nice in theory, personally I've never wanted to spend my Wounds and Recovery time that way. Its not like hostile effects last long with high Res and Mohora Wraps food (I always had this effect active from Nekataka onwards as a FF). I consider Stunning Surge kinda mandatory, since its a nice spammable Full Attack & CC. Also I like Confounding Blind for tough enemies and bosses - to further debuff enemy Deflection and get even more crits -> more Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming procs. And don't forget Flagellant's Path! That's fun! Also, while Tuotilo's Palm is great, do consider if you'll actually need a shield on such a striker. For me the answer was no most of the time. Particularly with Repulsive Visage buff. Dual weapons/fists will do considerably more damage. Personally I have used offhand rapier with modal for its extreme Accuracy -> again, more crits -> more bonus attacks from SF/HBD. But fists would certainly work as well.

That's... quite unnecessary IMO. Move your tank first, maybe move with party stealthed - unstealth tank first. Maybe charge forward with Escape or something. He'll gather the attention of all enemies and then the rest of the party can unstealth and act.

I agree, a Trickster MC would be a great fit for your playstyle, I would think. Like Boeroer wrote, Trickster/Monk is particularly deadly, while being quite survivable due to Trickster buffs. Particularly I'm very fond on Forbidden Fist / Trickster. Landing a nasty DoT, like Toxic Strike, and Forbidden Fist Enfeeble feels like an execution on even the hardiest opponents. FF makes even the usually annoying, durable enemies with Unbending feeble. The various CC and debuff effects also benefit a lot from the extended durations (like the monk's spammable Stunning Surge). Another archetype to consider (but maybe pair with a durable class, like a fighter), would be the streetfighter. Can't get more "in-your-face" then that. But I think the shadowdancer might be more fun overall.

I wouldn't be sure of that. Of course, you'd have to apply Beacon first.

I have one comment/question to the above. Doesn't Blood Sacrifice break Brilliant Departure? (I don't know it). I know that it does break Shadowing Beyond.

Okay, weird. I tested again and I confirm, no double turns with Red Hand. Wonder if it might have worked differently before. Or was I simply mistaken.

Only... I'm pretty sure that's not what was happening. I've read before that Red Hand "dual shot" doesn't work in TB and almost gave up on it. But when I tried, I was quite astonished to see it actually worked (just not consecutively, its like getting 2 separate turns in 1 round). But there were other irregularities also. Like I've read action speed mattered on casters, since they could "slip" to the next round if they were too slow/were casting long cast time spells. Only I've never experienced that. All casts would resolve at the end of the round the cast was started. Next round the spell would tick again (if not instant) and the caster could take another action.

Well, something with my installation then? But I have nothing special apart from Community Patch, really. In my game, Maia with Red Hand was definitely getting her turns twice as often as other party members.

I think Red Hand with the modal and its 2 attacks still beats it quite handily, unless you're considering backstabs from stealth. Red Hand is the only weapon I've used that could attack twice per round in Turn Based mode (and for example, Concussive Tranquilize 2 enemies/one enemy twice in a single round). The 2nd attack was not immediate, but always happened in the same round.

Well, tanking is different, I realize that. Still, I wouldn't entirely ignore the very important considerations I had when making a Turn Based nuker: 1. You buff to the teeth in Round 1 (Free Actions). I don't think you'd skip that step as a martial caster. Then you recover most/all of these lost spell slots via Blood Sacrifice (Free Actions again). You need a humongous health pool to recover like 6+ spell slots consecutively, in one round and still maintain a healthy buffer to avoid one-shots. This is kinda optional on a martial caster I guess - but why go Blood Mage if you're not gonna take advantage of its main perk? 2. When you've done this, you're more then likely to be Blooded. Hence the Human Fighting Spirit bonus would trigger. +7 Accuracy and +15% damage is nothing to sneeze at. Now whether you want to fight in close quarters in such a (somewhat risky) condition or not depends on you. But being able to fight with these bonuses and survive is certainly nice. 3. Lastly, without a doubt, the single biggest possible damage boost you can achieve is using Deltro's Cage helmet and shocking yourself with lightning (Jolting Touch will work early on, later Chain Lightning is much better - and it even gets the Deltro's lash on its bounces - that already target enemies). You do want to survive that AND those Blood Sacrifices. And in reference to multiple sources of healing: they are nice for sure, but Turn Based is a lot more bursty then real time. Both the healing AND enemy damage will tend to come in batches (rather then balancing one with the other over time). Enemies usually move one after another. But you'll only get your chance to heal when the turn of your healer comes up again. You generally need a bigger buffer (or stronger defenses/meatshields/CC) to compensate.

Particularly on a Bloodmage max Con is very nice to have.

Yeah, but when we factor party-play, its more effective to "outsource" some of those combinations, rather then commit you main char to a less then optimal class. Like Takedown Combo, Inspired Beacon, skelly summons for Grave Calling and such.

Wizards don't need to focus on melee. Normal wizards might be starved for spell slots after buffing. But a Blood Mage doesn't have that limitation. As for monks, other subclasses also exist. I am particularly fond of the Forbidden Fist, who is great alternative for martial melee and caster multiclasses that are not focused solely on nuking. I actually prefer a FF for Transcendant or martial Sages. Also your look on Ascendants seems very limited. Sure, those are good spells and nicely spammable. But a IMO a cipher worth his salt will use lots of other active powers as well. Borrowed Instinct, Secret Horrors are almost universal battle openers for me. The awesome Ectopsychic Echo probably had more use over the course of the game then Mind Blades (which are a bit situational) or Disintegration (which comes rather late... and competes with other fun activities). Mental Binding is a great "oh ****!" emergency button... or a way to stunlock some dangerous opponents PLUS root their minions. Psychovampiric Shield is a great debuff for tough cookies. Mind Plague, while comes late, is very crippling for enemies and I love using it. Eyestrike is cheap and can provide plenty of value, particularly in the first half of the game. Tenuous Grasp is a great cheap and fast primer before landing serious CC, particularly early on. But anyway, my Transcendant was spending only a part of his action time casting those (far more then 2 powers, as you can see). Chain critting enemies paralyzed by Mental Binding or Grave Bound was fun too. Chilling Fogs he conjured when killing skellies summoned by Pallegina were extremely useful too. Late game rather them spam cipher powers, I often preferred to zig-zag between the enemies with Flagellant's Path (squishier - doesn't mean less dangerous - enemies pretty much explode on arrival), holding Seeker's Fang rapier which provides a mini-disintegrate (that scales damage with current Focus, so an Ascended cipher is great for that) whenever it crits. And it crits all the time with Borrowed Instincts, rapier modal for +20 Accuracy and +5 inherent rapier Accuracy bonus. Not to mention Spider's Flurry is a cone attack that hits each enemy in the cone 3 times... and only 1 crit is enough for most enemies. He was a Helwalker, but if I made him now, he'd have been a Forbidden Fist, since that's such a wonderful melee move/debuff right from level 1.

Trickster combines strong damage output with powerful defensive buffs, therefore is well suited to most playstyles.

Helwalker / Trickster might be a tad squishy, depending on your taste and playstyle. But Trickster / Forbidden Fist... oh boy. Trickster / Fighter is pretty obvious (Riposte galore). Trickster / SoulBlade. But honestly, Trickster is one of those classes, that will give good effects when mixed with nearly anything. Only some combos are more synergistic and some have more overlap (for example I'd pick another rogue subclass to mix with a Wizard or Priest of Wael).

Rapier (+5 inherent Accuracy) with modal (+20) can. The modal might not stack with everything, though. https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Rännig's+Wrath even has another +4. With the modal active its barely slower then a normal speed weapon, like a saber. Granted, its much weaker damage-wise, not to mention the broken Blade Cascade on the right build.

Well, I realize its an old topic, but another nice & easy way to spoil your rep with the Principi a bit without causing any consequences, is to kill the thugs in Delver's Row who guard the elevator down to the Undercroft (they won't let you pass until Dereo lets you go down).

Thing is, you're not giving up anything important (IMO) by making one Berserker multiclass and swinging Grave Calling against your own skellies. You're not forced to attack your own summons, you're not forced to use Grave Calling all the time. Furthermore, when that safety is a primary concern, you can simply clear Berserker Confusion with equipping upgraded Modwyr, equipping Devil of Caroc Breastplate with appropriate enchantment (before combat), not using Berserker Rage or a number of other means and then the Chilling Fog you conjure will be party-friendly (while still blinding and paralyzing enemies... just not killing them nearly as rapidly, paralyzing them slower/over a smaller radius... and failing to fry your graphics card).

Well, I'd find it really hard to resist making one of them a Berserker multiclass wielding Grave Calling... Preferably a Pale Elf. That way, from being relatively harmless, we'd have uber-monster-cheese flooding the whole archipelago! And bringing forth White Frost... or whatever's Rymargand cold called - upon the world. Edit: A MC druid with Weather the Storm could be a nice addition to try to survive the Cold.

Try to use Eder in a more offensive setup, then? Like dual sabers or something.