thelee

sorry to triple-post, but just to add, probably the stupid-craziest thing you can do for DPS is wizard: combusting wounds (+ optionally arkemyr's wondrous torment to make it last longer on tough enemies) druid: all the various tick and hazard spells (wicked briars, venombloom, nature's terror, relentless storm, returning storm against single targets, and especially wall of thorns) you can easily end up doing 100s of damage per second, sustained. you'll literally see the health meter deplete in real time off of otherwise bullet-sponge-y bosses. you don't have to multiclass wizard/druid just to do this, but it does give it you to you in a nice easy package. (it also doesn't have to be druid, but druid has a lot of repetitive-strike spells)

blood mage is certainly very generally powerful, but over time I've gotten to really appreciate the alpha strike potential of an empowered spell. you don't need resource regeneration if the fight is already over.

my two cents: druid is merely OK at dps early on and mid-game. their strength comes from versatility (healing) and the fact that a lot of their damage effects come with crowd control effects or debuffs. edit: their DoTs will do a lot of total damage, but won't hit the charts for dps if that's specifically what you want, and also won't be as relevant if you end fights quickly enough that they don't have a time to let their efficiency shine (and fights will end rather quickly on lower difficulties or once you eventually power-up and are able to roflstomp potd fights) Fury misses out on a lot of the versatility and make up for it with better range and being able to do consistent (if not high) damage. late game, a single-class DPS can explode through the roof as @Fab3686 says. Even Tornado, which is more of an off-meta pick, still does a stupid amount of damage in a huge area. a multi-class druid misses out on that so if you multi-class it'd better be because you want something other than damage. evoker is stupid-good at doing damage. it won't happen often, but echoing a tier 9 evocation spell is basically game-over for enemies in most fights. (i got lucky with an empowered minoletta's missile salvo that got echoed (non-empowered) against a boss in the final DLC and it single-handedly ended the fight right there) druid/wizard (in general) you'd be doing this to give you a good leg-up in spell-casting for early to mid-game. single-class characters run out of juice real fast, multi-class caster/caster can run marathons. if all you care about is spell damage, this falls off real hard at high levels due to missing out on tier 8 or tier 9 spells (from either class) can still be a powerful combination if your focus isn't just doing damage. (i did an animist/enchanter that would use wizard buff spells and druid firebrand and it was a lot of fun if not necessarily game-breakingly powerful)

it's very possible for there to be a hero's adventure inside a sociopolitical narrative, but you have to change what that hero's adventure is or your adversary is. i think a common criticism of the story in deadfire is that the connection between the power struggles and eothas is kind of weak (fixed a bit with the 5.0 burning book woedica dialogues) while at the same time you don't get as much of the hero's fantasy because the ultimate ending is kind of fixed. i can see some ways out if i just spit-ball. as one example: really lean into the political struggles, and make the heads of those factions legitimately powerful--comparable to you at level 20. maybe eothas is already at ukaizo and is in the process of destroying the wheel (and may happen part-way through the adventure), but importantly the factions are already positioned there to try to harvest the soul resources, and the story is about how you make your own personal trek to ukaizo to recover your soul--allying with a faction or bringing them all down. by having the leaders legitimately powerful, it demands a power-level climb and hero fantasy of your own character. it also deals away with the ultimate ending being unchangeable because then the point is the conflict with the factions and who you want to be the allies to help you get your soul, not finding and then having to (rather, failing to) stop eothas. (compare with: New Vegas. you can find/figure out who shot you really early on, but the game is ultimately a game about the balance of power in New Vegas, not taking vengeance on Benny)

yeah it's definitely about it being an alpha strike than anything else, and also for ~2 casters who can dump spells at the opening instead of just one ally getting support. once the fight goes on for a while, repeatable (and outside bpm, infinitely salvation-of-time-able) brilliant of course trumps everything. edit: and if you have the chanter with weyc's, then all of this breaks down into barely-differentiable cheese anyway, since an empowered resource-restoring invocation will also grant brilliant (and the chanter gets boosted phrases, which is kind of like brilliant)

yep after a while my rule of thumb became, don't use that tornado invocation in any fight with high-level kith wizards or fampyrs. they will use spell reflection, and even if the battlefield looks clear at the moment, the invocation bounces so slowly, they'll probably pop it up while it's in flight. i think Her Tears are area effects, technically, instead of projectiles. e.g. like rolling flame instead of necrotic lance. though this reminds me of the most ignominious party wipe i've ever done. empowered Her Tears, split-second before the invocation casting completed my skald got confused (don't remember, but i think it was one of those high level shadow-type creatures that can do that). of course my party was clustered next to each other, that was a ton of damage in an instant that instantly wiped out everyone (incl chanter from the smaller additional shards upon impact) and killed Vela, to boot. never had a fight go so quickly from "absolutely winning" to "instant loss" so quickly.

also applies to the reviving exhortation post-revive damage. you might not think it comes up often, but it's come up enough that i've literally been sitting there with pallegina regretting having given her a might inspiration or wishing for a daze/stagger. literally just enough might that it causes a character to get knocked back out. happened enough that i stay away from increased might on a paladin that uses that exhortation.

with the right party, a non-summon focused SC chanter is still brutal thanks to that tier 9 invocation that regenerates a class resource. you need a spellcaster-heavy party, probably single-classed. imagine this opener: 1. from stealth, druid and wizard cast great maelstrom and minoletta's missile salvo. 2. combat begins, use chanter's starting phrases to immediately restore those casts to the druid and wizard. 3. re-cast greater maelstrom and minolett's missile salvo. 4. you've just finished most fights in the game. including some boss fights, if you empower those opening spell casts. you can also have chanter with weyc's robe and empower the invocation (even though it doesn't benefit the invocation) to accelerate the chanter's chants; or have sasha's enchanted to restore all phrases, so you can quickly do the tier 9 spellcasts a third time. then you'll probably be able to clear out all but the megabosses in the game. edit: you probably don't even need a party. the tier 9 spells are so good that even if you have only one druid, wizard, or priest (though priests should drop symbols) that it makes it worth picking up that invocation as a SC chanter. edit 2: i did this in my last run and it kicked butt

something i discovered with my last run, which was using Effort + Avenging Storm at times. Pollen Patch is weird. It triggers the inspiration bonuses of Ring of Clenched Muscle (10% chance when hit with a weapon to get an inspiration). I swear I didn't have Effort equipped at the time, which is the main way I would trigger fake weapon attacks, so the periodic healing effect on yourself must count as a weapon attack each time. It also meant that when I would empower Pollen Patch with my least unstable coil, i'd frequently get a jumble of Tier 1 and Tier 3 inspirations (though the Tier 3 ones would override the Tier 1 if they were the same). I wonder if you could trigger other "hit by a weapon" effects with Pollen Patch?

unfortunately, spark the souls of the righteous only works on party members. don't know when that got changed, i feel like i remember being able to used to buff summons. definitely won't work on charmed enemies.

necro-ing this thread to just suggest two all-purpose non-interactive ways to take out dorudugan. (by non-interactive i mean, you could probably do these on a potato machine) first: gouging strike. requires: a rogue of any kind, wiht gouging strike. potion of invisibility or one of the rogue's invisibility abilities. 1. stealth party (if not solo). 2. sneak rogue to dorudugan and whack them with gouging strike (reloading if you whiff). use potion of invisibilty or invisibility to sneak back to party and de-aggro dorudugan. you should stay in combat. dorudugan will die eventually. go watch an episode of your favorite TV show. second: invulnerable party (may require berath's challenge) requires 1 priest (of any type, so xoti or vatnir) with salvation of time and barring death's door, and the weyc's robe fully upgraded (not on the priest), and a potion of invisibility. 1. create an AI script for your priest that casts salvation of time whenever they have an intellect inspiration, maximizing the number of allies targeted, and with 1 second cooldown (i sometimes have bugs with a 0 second cooldown) 2. disable all AI when you enter dorudugan's map. 3. stealth everyone. 4. put the potion of invisibility on someone. 5. have that person sneak towards dorudugan while everyone hugs the edge of the map where you entered. 6. aggro dorudugan with that someone, and immediately drink the potion and run back to party to de-aggro. 7. have the person with weyc's robe get surrounded by the rest of your party (esp the priest) and empower an ability to activate brilliant. 8. manually spam salvation of time (the AI script won't work if dorudugan is de-aggro-ed). after you get brilliant to ~30 seconds, start buffing your party with barring death's door one at a time, with salvation of time to extend, and only doing another barring death's door on another party member once you get up to ~30s. keep spamming salvation of time until you have >100s on everyone for good measure. hopefully a potato machine can handle this level of activity, dorudugan just sits there doing nothing while you do some very low-intensity spell effects every few seconds. 9. enable AI, run in, and just auto-attack dorudugan. make sure your salvation of time script is active and everyone is near enough to get buffed by it. go watch an episode of something.

it's always tier 3, part of the item effect.

the spell is definitely still good at later levels. it's not as consistently an insta-kill spell on 50% or lower enemies as it can be at early-mid levels due to the increasing number of bullet sponges, but doing 100+ damage almost instantaneously is always good. my xoti has an AI script that always tries to use it on any target at less than 50% health, and she's still doing instashot kills even in end-game content.

BoW can be pretty short (in regards to eothas challenge), but because you can skip most of the content once you enter the vytmádh by just heading straight to the boss fight. i think your route makes sense. there's no real reason to go in any particular order outside of pathing so whatever path looks short to you sounds good, b.c. i don't think there's any relevant gear for most ultimate runs. i ended up doing BoW->SSS->FS iirc simply because that's the order i'm used to, though it probably was a bit inefficient.

yeah it's great. it's a vessel-only bonus for just your mainchair, but fortunately vessels are some of the toughest foes in the game. (e.g. also the guardian of ukaizo)

are you talking about in that screenshot vs Dorudugan? sure. 20 base from beastmaster + 13 perception + 57 from character level + 8 from ability level +6 from druid power level +10 from marked for the hunt (ranger ability) +10 from helm of the white wind +5 from a pet (Boras, in FS) +20 from Hunter's Claw +4 from Sweet Aroma (aura from unique flail in SSS) +10 from Stalker's Link (ranger ability) +10 for Devotions for the Faithful (normally doesn't stack with Hunter's Claw unless you go through some area transitions and save/reloads) +8 from Rymrgand's Gift (you have to collect all of Rymrgand's gear [helm, armor, mace, shield] in BoW and agree to become Rymrgand's Champion, and then do SSS and disintegrate all souls at every major story checkpoint) +5 from Necklace of Bones (unique amulet) this is paired with some debuffs on Dorudugan: -25 from Morningstar weapon modal -9.3 from Hunter of Hunters (an aura on an SSS-acquired pike) this is still overkill. You only need a net +24 accuracy, this resulted in +40, so you could lose +16 in buffs, or lose +8 in buffs and do away with Hunter of Hunters.

it might be worth poing out that that IME on potd your pet will fall over a lot early game. enemies hit disproportionately hard and healing is a scarce resource for the most part early on (for this reason i prefer revive pet over heal pet as a ranger ability). a way to think about it is, that's a lot of damage that would have been hitting you or another party member but instead hit your pet, which doesn't accumulate injuries (and on berath's challenge, can't die). if you're not having fun, you're not having fun, but just wanted to highlight that having pet get knocked out a lot early on is par for the course.

nah, first, obsidian-created npc's don't actually care about your disposition, so they're always at a neutral state (here, it's a 25% lash). second, even if it were somehow at the absolute minimum, it's still pretty decent (~21% lash). but just at 25% lash, spiritual weapons are already competitive or better than many unique weapons from a damage perspective.

it also makes for some pretty neat flavor. i never actually thought of using sun and moon like this, just changing what spells you cast depending on time of day (instead i just used the wait option until the "right" time of day came up), even though both druid and wizard could have also pulled this off (druid less well compared to vatnir's bonus spells and wizard grimoire).

imo medium armor is mostly a trap on potd with upscaling*. the relentlessness of enemy PEN gain (already boosted by PotD) means that most of the time you're probably better off going lighter** for more responsiveness or heavier for actual protection. medium armor tends not to actually provide much damage reduction in practice (as it seems you've experienced). even heavy armor has trouble sometimes without additional help (AR buffs or something like dazed on enemies), especially early on where it's really hard to find/upgrade enchanted heavy armor but you keep leveling. i think you'll probably get the most mileage out of hearth defender in conjunction with a couple allies in heavy armor. but like everyone else, i generally have never used it (it itself is a mediocre medium armor for the person wearing it). *a handful of exceptions from the unique armors list, but hearth defender is not one of them. there is a exceptional scale armor that is very nice b.c. you can steal it from the dark cupboard very early in the game and it's very useful protection early on. ** ironically it feels like there's a bigger protection difference between cloth/robes and light armor than there is from light to medium. in my (admittedly very selective) memory, light armor can meaningfully help against overpenetration vs robes, but often times it seems like medium armor doesn't even help with that.

what i meant was that in tyranny, mainchar and party members can combine to create combo effects as special abilities (and different ones get unlocked based on your reputation with party members). it's not like DA or ME where you cast one spell and then another spell on the same target to trigger a new effect, but it's still something that required you to have specific party members together.

ywdin is just a nice generic cipher. i think she's a bit too underwhelming as a rogue or rogue multiclass. i think fassina as a sorcerer (druid + wizard) can also work real well. you miss out on the really good end-game wizard spells (though as a conjurer, she already misses out on the really good ones), but the versatility and survivability of being a sorcerer is really really nice. you can load up on wizard buff spells (deleterious alacrity of motion or fleet feet for speed, infuse with vital essence, eldritch aim, etc) and still have plenty of spellcasting power from your druid side. i'm pretty sure (though i haven't tried this in any recent memory) that even though you miss out on caedebald + phantom, you can shapeshift + phantom, which is still very nice and available earlier. you can also firebrand + phantom. vatnir is also great, don't forget him! he has a great unique priest subclass that is very good, and i've found any version of him (sc priest, +chanter, or +rogue) to be very good. if you're going chanter, picking up the long night's drink to help your priest spells land is good. if you're going rogue, use lots of mobility abilities and pick up the spiritual weapon to dual wield axes with a +25% frost lash, and use full-attack abilities (crippling strike is good enough for this, honestly) to stack on bleeding modals; champion's boon for PEN and minor avatar for general self-buffing are good assists.

lol i was going to recommend a build i used (fury + stalker) that also used firebrand a lot, and then i realized that yorname already linked it. here it is again just for good measure: the plus of using a stalker is that you can cheat on your defensive stats again, like a fighter, and still be rather safe. this build actually goes down to 7 con and 8 resolve. this is only true for a single-class druid. you need a regular source of Avenging Storm to make it powerful. Otherwise it's kinda merely OK (i'd rather use Firebrand)

Tyranny came the closest but still pretty far off, but I agree the combo mechanic that Bioware (and only Bioware it seems) did in DA and also to an extent in Mass Effect was a pretty neat way to mix up the party RPG formula.

yeah +100 there are some folk around here who will happily dump res and con w/out worry, and you can eventually pick up Tough as a huge boost to health, but frankly my play experience is a lot more enjoyable when I'm not getting two-hit comboed by enemy archers and/or enemy rogues (one hit, followed by a finishing blow ability or a big crit) than from a small amount of extra damage output. I still take a couple points out from resolve and con for back-of-line mainchars, but not typically lower than 8-9 for con/resolve. There are exceptions, for example, with Bear/Boar form I'm more willing to lower resolve a bit since I can always become tankier on demand if needed. Still don't really don't take con down much. (And I always take Tough anyway)