thelee

damn, son. I'm frankly amazed you didn't pull your hair out of frustration, I'd imagine she ends up getting gibbed by random AoEs all the time in this fight. (probably means taking out burrows is more important) i actually started attacking belrange at ~80 stacks, and it slowly built up to ~130 near the end just from incidental deaths. probably would be less sustainable if you don't have a lot of interrupts (i came in with slickens, scrolls, etc.).

whatever works for you but... why destroy the burrows? my last attempt (on galawain's challnege) i kept the burrows up and kept letting spiders incidentally die, and in the end belranga's defenses were so low (something like 130 stacks of wrath) that it was trivial to crit her with everything and keep interrupting her.

i needed a character with 18 perception to start detecting FS traps. I literally had 17, and then the moment I put on a piece of gear to get me +1 I started detecting them. So it sounds like you're just one shy. (I had Mirke, with +3 from constantly taking Svef, and then a piece of gear with +1 perception.) edit - FS is a bit worse about this, but traps generally have a visual clue that there's a trap (like a nozzle in the ground, or a cord that's visibly going somewhere) so even if you can't detect htem you can manually navigate aroundt hem.

dang. those chants are weird in many ways. fortunately my bellower wasn't relying on this interaction.

I definitely saw this bug in earlier versions, and I mentioned it in passing in another white wurms-related bug, but what finally kicked my rear into gear into actually documenting/reporting is the sheer frequency of failure this time around. Could just be bad luck of running into this bug repeatedly, or perhaps it has actually gotten worse in recent versions.

Picture is self-explanatory: That sword seems like it should be behind the tool-tip, but instead is merely behind the picture and text, but in front of the tooltip background. I don't think the UI was like this pre-4.1. Dropbox link to save and output_log in case it's relevant: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/arkehhq7wxyb1p5/AADe6oLbbs1ls9FmGRdC8xuya?dl=0

boy this is real annoying. i think i have had 4 whiffs out of 5 attempts since taking that video. interestingly, one of those times i tried again on the exact same corpse and the second time it worked.

I just caught an example on video, uploaded it to youtube:

Starting a new game, and noticed that several times I try to use White Wurms (the corpse-exploding invocation) on my bellower, and nothing happens. The character makes the casting animation, but when they finish, there's no explosion, no sound, no indication in the combat log that anything happens. As seen in the screenshot, I get an entry for the cast, my bellower stops chanting, and then a brief while later starts chanting again. But nothing actually happened! The invocation just used up all my phrases and nothing else. It does work on occasion, so I can't quite tell what's going on. Dropbox link to save before this screenshot as well as output_log: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qvlu4s7g32hrs42/AACKZyfaCdBl6RZJiuNYoEQda?dl=0

i'm not sure there's a whole lot of AR you could stack with a devoted/enchanter without seriously compromising your recovery time by wearing heavy armor. spirit shield.... and ironskin? and the latter suppresses the former. on normal it might be fine, though. if you're set on not using illusion magic, maybe pick up arcane veil (conjuration)? +50 deflection can reallly stretch out how long your ironskin lasts since fewer enemies will be hitting you. i might also pick a paladin instead of a fighter. paladins get extra deflection, but also get stoic steel. it comes real late (AL7) but is a steadily growing AR bonus that stacks. if you pick a goldpact knight you can even get gilded enmity which is like a mini-ironskin, except because it only costs 1 zeal you can really spam it over the course of a fight.

i wouldn't go so far as asnjas to use pejoratives, but in case it hasn't registered to you, PoE1 is a different game than Deadfire (and more than just a doom vs doom 2 situation, but like radically different mechanically). Just because you could do the one under whatever restrictions you placed on yourself doesn't entitle you to accomplish the same in the other. For normal playthroughs (i.e. not super-metagamed or trying to prove something/do some challenge or tedious camp supply runs to rest-spam), I could go down -2 party members in PoE1 PotD just fine by now (maybe not act 1), but I still wouldn't even want to go down even -1 in Deadfire if I don't have to. I'm not going to whine about it.

Yah, I have no idea on this and haven't seen it written up anywhere at all. I assume they do *something* but no idea. I feel like I attacked one and destroyed it and something bad happened. I don't remember, but all I know is that I stopped and just focused my attention on adds and the boss.

That sounds interesting, thanks for putting thought into it. Truth is, though, I'm primarily interested in playing a SC Bellower to upset mobs with big Eld Narys and dragons. The energized thing was just something I was thinking about to give the character options and a shtick while building phrases. i'm doing a SC bellower next, also picking up that energized invocation. i'm planning on mostly a) using it as a fun accent to a single-weapon-style sasha's singing weapon (but mostly for the +2 PEN) b) investing heavily in arcana because arcana scales super well as a skill and just tossing out scrolls of binding web to repeatedly interrupt enemies sounds fun (also gives something for a SC chanter to do in between invocations instead of just autoattacking)

interesting idea. also i love how there never appears to be a chanter problem that troubadour can't fix anitpathetic field or ectopsychic echo might be better than mind blades because you could repeatedly tick on the same target(s), instead of having somethign bounce around semi-randomly.

edit: holy crap the forums ate my post. here's what i can remember: priests, berserkers, and monks can get good mileage out of slayer's claw (they all have tenacious inspiration access) though priests and monks need to multiclass to really get good use of slayer's claw. i did this with mirke (in combination with intuitive and rapier and stunning surge) and it worked out alright. probably would've worked better if i didn't make mirke my tank and thus she had heavy armor. single-weapon style isn't your only option. like i mentioned, rapier can be a good choice because +20 accuracy on top of inherent +5 weapon accuracy can give you pretty nice hit chance at many opportunities when dual-wielded. i haven't run the numbers to see what is better, but it's an option. i think mountaintiger is right though that chanters are not as able to take advantage of it: minimal accuracy bonuses, no crit boosts, and very slow-to-use multi-target effects. you'd probably need to multiclass it. also interrupts are mostly useful when you actually interrupt something: incidental interrupts from random crits are nice as a way to slow the enemy down, but not exactly world beating. basically while energized is a nice inspiration, i'm not sure it's exactly something you want to go out of your way to metagame to extreme lengths, you might be disappointed. (again, my mirke had rapier, slayer's claw, intuitive, the monk crit-weakend perk, stunning surge, and it was merely OK. chanter is going to have a lot less than that). But I mean, this is about in line with the other t3 inspirations anyway, they aren't exactly build-arounds or centerpiece strategies (except for brilliant which will forever be awesome)

Vatnir is great. It's too bad he's gated beyond a mid-high level DLC and a tough dragon fight.

high level priest spells are amazing. xoti doesn't get a great AL9 spell, but other AL9 spells are powerful, and her free Symbol of Eothas at AL8 is fantastic. I actually think monk/priest xoti is the worst xoti you can do.

In PoE1 they were an extremely rare but extremely powerful form of Delemgan that could petrify at will (using Gaze of the Adragan in fact). They were so nearly fatal to my The Ultimate run (and were fatal to earlier attempts) that I can still remember where they are: level 10 of endless paths, level 15 during the master fight, and then a stupid few random ones in the outdoor areas of act 3. I think they only appeared on PotD as selective upgrades to Delemgans. When solo-ing if you didn't get them down ASAP, they could perpetually heal (moonwell and the druid heal in a close area around them) and petrify on a repeating, cycling timer, which meant that any encounter against them would almost assuredly turn fatal in the long run (due to them constantly keeping all other mobs at high health and repeatedly attempting to hit you with petrify).

can't go wrong with a troubadour. i wouldn't even bother with weapons with a monk. just by fist scaling alone you will get post-superb fists and you can use litany for the spirit from your priest multiclass for an additional +1 PL from acute inspiration to get post-legendary fists. combo of fist base damage and speed is highest in game and will benefit from sneak attack and streetfighter damage bonus more than any other natural weapon in the game. the only reason why you'd use other weapons in this case is for crush immunity (rare) or high crush AR. edit: instead of litany for the spirit, you can just make this a nature godlike and the monk's swift strikes should trigger the +1 PL. what boeroer said. slash immunity IS a thing, and some enemies have super huge slash AR (and battle axe modal won't help you there), so pick up monastic unarmed training as some decent backup crush damage (everyone has proficiency with fists so devoted bonus also counts there). sure personally i find this redundant. lifegiver is such a good healer that the eothas seems redundant. are you trying to compensate for post-shapeshift poor healing? i wouldn't worry about that. my experience with life giver is that you only need to shapeshift in emergencies, and after shapeshifting is done you've done so much healing you don't need much more afterwards. i'd personally pick another priest subclass with more unique capabilities that can make up for the loss of PL and AL8-9 druid spells from not single-classing, e.g. wael can give you good survivability, magran adds diverse firepower (literally), woedica has a lot of useful debuffs for when you don't need to heal without using up your lifegiver spells. It is more that I haven't really tried an unarmed monk or anything but an eothas as a healer. I literally wouldn't know what spells to prioritise on the Lifegiver druid. I'm considering switching to swords or pickaxes for my devoted would this be a good idea or? Since it has two damaging types. fortunately for you, the lifegiver basically gets all the important spells you want for free that's kind of what makes lifegiver such a good druid subclass - the downside is really narrow (no summon spells) and you get all the heals that the class wants for free, so you're free to shape the lifegiver how you want, whether to shapeshift better or to cast debuffs or damage spells. eothas is a pretty redundant priest subclass because they don't really have much unique compared to other priests. it only really works if you for some reason specifically want sunbeam (AL1) or their special spiritual weapon (AL2) or their seal (AL8), or in multi-class situations where you want those free eothas priest spells anyway and it spares you a lot of ability points on your other multiclass. but with a lifegiver, you're essentially making your lifegiver worse at healing (no AL8-9 spells, missing out on up to +3 PL organically) just to pick up some additional heals and buffs for free that are.... (probably) worse than the lifegiver's healing capabilities. that's why i recommend those other priest subclasses - you can still pick up some priest buffs/debuffs/res spells, but the free spells interact better with a lifegiver. two-damage types are better. either what you suggest is going to be good though I would personally lean more towards war hammer due to their inherent higher PEN than swords (8 vs 6). with devoted inherent +2 PEN and the additional +2 PEN from weapon modal, and warhammer, you may never have PEN issues on even PotD+upscaling. (The main difference is that axes, on top of only having one damage type, their weapon modal doesn't grant any bonus PEN.)

can't go wrong with a troubadour. i wouldn't even bother with weapons with a monk. just by fist scaling alone you will get post-superb fists and you can use litany for the spirit from your priest multiclass for an additional +1 PL from acute inspiration to get post-legendary fists. combo of fist base damage and speed is highest in game and will benefit from sneak attack and streetfighter damage bonus more than any other natural weapon in the game. the only reason why you'd use other weapons in this case is for crush immunity (rare) or high crush AR. edit: instead of litany for the spirit, you can just make this a nature godlike and the monk's swift strikes should trigger the +1 PL. what boeroer said. slash immunity IS a thing, and some enemies have super huge slash AR (and battle axe modal won't help you there), so pick up monastic unarmed training as some decent backup crush damage (everyone has proficiency with fists so devoted bonus also counts there). sure personally i find this redundant. lifegiver is such a good healer that the eothas seems redundant. are you trying to compensate for post-shapeshift poor healing? i wouldn't worry about that. my experience with life giver is that you only need to shapeshift in emergencies, and after shapeshifting is done you've done so much healing you don't need much more afterwards. i'd personally pick another priest subclass with more unique capabilities that can make up for the loss of PL and AL8-9 druid spells from not single-classing, e.g. wael can give you good survivability, magran adds diverse firepower (literally), woedica has a lot of useful debuffs for when you don't need to heal without using up your lifegiver spells.

Late to the party, but the discussion is interesting enough to want ot chime in on this thread necro For what little it's worth, as much as the RDC's usage of assassination and conquest doesn't sit well (and shouldn't), I still get the sense that they may be the group that wants the best for the most people. Utilitaranism as a moral ethic has its limits. Especially since how the RDC defines "most people" is exclusively nationalistic: e.g. they only want what's good for Rautaians, and not even Huana, who they are basically kin with but deem an uncultured mass of savages that needs to be rescued from itself. (I fully expect in their society to see a poem entitled "The Rautaian Aumauan's Burden"). At least the Valians are meritocratic in the sense that if you are effective at political intrigue and can make the VTC a lot of money you can do well. Rautaians kinda also (in a militaristic sense) but they are nationalists first, whereas I get the feeling the VTC ultimately only care if you can make them money. There's an interesting dynamic there. The old guard of Principi are basically pirates out of necessity and have a shared sense of purpose and culture, so one could argue that they are the "better" part of the principi since they aren't just greedy looters. But then they also support slavery. Meanwhile, Aeldys hates slavery but definitely encompasses the more Joker-esque "just wants to watch the world burn"-type piracy. Ultimately I don't think any faction is supposed to be "good". They just... are. I think threads like this show that there are things people will try to highlight as beneficent about a particular faction, or other things that are just repugnant. So while I have my capital-o Opinions about my favorite faction, I think it's great that it's set up that basically anyone can justify siding with a particular faction, or no faction at all -- in this respect I think Obsidian did a way better job than F:NV where it was pretty hard to view Caesar's Legion as anything other than the traditional bad guys.

ignoring hand mortars and aoe weapon interactions (i know i know a big caveat), soul whip necessarily lends itself to single-target focus, and many of their effects are limited aoe or single target. they do have aoe effects, but they tend to have really weird targeting based on a specific target (beams, bounces, aoe effect centered on target who gets a stronger effect). i think an effect like phantom foes or secret horrors, however much i love them, are more exceptions than the rule. Whereas the opposite seems to be true for a wizard/druid - they have tons of aoe effects, and single-target stuff tends to be more of the exception (necrotic lance... sunlance... thrust of tattered veils). i think possibly in practice ciphers feel less single-target because they can just repeatedly spam one's favorite aoe effects, whereas once a wizard/druid uses up their single-target stuff they can't get them back normally, so the general design of the class is more apparent. well i didn't say it was great the health loss can be relevant, but most of the time the duration isn't long enough to notice, and the health loss itself will never kill anyone (only reduce them to 1). i mostly like it for shutting down healing and lowering fortitude by 10, especially around paladins of any stripe (which is what i thought you are referencing for paladins of woedica). on dorudugan a sickened/weakened can mean literally hundreds of health loss. too bad the fight is so long it's hard to make that meaningful.

you probably want to provide more details about your party, because othwerise i'm going ot say a lot of stuff that may require re-speccing. if i remember correctly, the boss merely resists body affliction, so with a level 20 aloth you can cast petrification and paralyze it for a while. empower and then cast again as needed. you'll probably need a morningstar modal to debuff with -25 fort to help land the effect well (bonus: have aloth use Eldritch Aim for extra accuracy and Infuse with Vital Essence for extra duration, or better yet Litany for the Spirit from Xoti; also use Devotions for the Faithful). You can also use scrolls of gaze of the adragan in a pinch (but petrification is better). you can petrification early on to buy you some breathing room, and/or you can cast when the boss is at near death and permanently paralyze them. If Xoti or your paladin has soulbound marux amanth you can also just instakill when boss is at near-death, saves you 25% of the fight. make sure you are using the right weapons and paying attention to PEN and AR if you're not doing significant damage. Mace modal or Eder with Sundering Blow can go a long way. it also might help to have you or eder just tanking the big guy while everyone else works on whatever adds crop up (this is the fight where the ?? teleporting beasts appear right?)

Yes, with each DLC you're free to come and go as you please, with the exception of one climactic area in each DLC where the only way out is through is there one for FS? I don't remember... in fact I was on rymrgand's challenge and kept making trips out to harbinger's watch for some more of that lager and brew battered ysae.

cross-class comparisons aren't great though. wizards are just a better aoe (damage or debuff) class, ciphers are more narrow and single-target focused. ryngrim's is probably too strong at AL5 (heck the AL3 one is also really good), but more importantly, I wouldn't use a cipher to fulfill the role of a wizard or vice versa. like I said, it's not going to knock my socks off, but I'll never downplay a hard-CC. (also a subtle distinction is that haunting chain targets will which synergizes with some cipher passives. it's not much, but it's something)