thelee

In the SSS DLC you can redo fights that include spirits.

that's a very good question and unfortunately i think needs to be tested (am unable to do so atm)

It's a very specific issue to the cavern of xaur-tuk-tuk and also one level of the oathbinder's sanctum. I have no idea why it's just those places. But basically if you happen to do a save/load cycle within those areas, it screws up the hostility of some of the enemies there. for the xaur-tuk-tuk case, when you try to leave the cave after having killed all you could, the frightened xaurip will run out of the cage and come talk to you, so everything can proceed normally, so nothing is really broken (you just avoid fighting a couple of random enemies). this is probably why it never got fixed - it's so low priority because hardly anything is broken because of it, that no one could be bothered in the little time they had left.

as an additional option, priest of berath gets a great sword spiritual weapon. It's potentially a +31% corrode lash which is probably the best brute-force damage great sword in the game. But no synergy with Ring of Focused Flames, which probably in practice makes Firebrand better (which has a +25% fire lash).

As the person who wrote that the key word is "generally". There are exceptions, annoyingly (chanter chants is another big one). In general if the gamefaqs guide mentions an alternate scaling, it was tested and explicitly different from normal PL scaling, such as the self-heal from forbidden fist. (Carnage is another one that doesnt follow normal scaling)

1. i think there are plenty of wonderful great swords. Twin Eels for example is excellent sustain in many fights. The real problem with great swords is the poor modal (as you mention) and their poor PEN - they have the worst of any 2h weapon, and unlike 1h weapons you have no modal to boost its PEN. On PotD this is a real big problem. I had great success with a devoted, the bonus PEN really helps. Outside of that, you should look towards parties and builds that help you mitigate the PEN and accuracy problem (so you can keep the damage modal on). Supporting/playing as a priest (champion's boon), chanter (shield cracks) are good, playing as a monk (thunderous blows), cipher (hammering thoughts, body attunement), berserker (frenzy) are all ways of helping with PEN, for example. (Edit: Oh, and boeroer's build. Like others mention it's really not that hard to get a huge deflection bonus temporarily with a modest deflection bonus more persistently. It's only hard/tedious to get that huge bonus persistently)

the damage penalty is only for dual-wield weapons, so two handed weapons are just as good as in poe1. Honestly, PoE1 should've also had some sort of balancing because dual-wield was just so good for full attacks. mathematically, a full attack with a dual-wield is almost equivalent to a two handed weapon; the nature of the damage bonuses and inversion of penalties are such that you pretty much have a similar effect whether or not you use 2w or 2h. It doesn't matter that rogues get so many additive damage bonuses because the penalty is essentially multiplicative. The main difference is that the two handed option will generally have +1 PEN over "equivalent" dual wielded options, and you have two chances to hit with a dual-wielded option. That may certainly matter for proccing something very important like Gambit, Toxic Strike, or Marux Amanth, but in general I don't think is a big deal otherwise. Math follows in spoiler tag.

You should read this and each megaboss subsection: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/megabosses A scroll or two of maelstrom ain't gonna get you far I'm afraid.

I ran a wael+devoted+monastic unarmed training build and it was fun and pretty simple. It's kind of like a glass cannon build, but you trade off some of the high-end damage for easier survivability. Arcane Veil+cloth/leather+fighter regen is pretty good even on potd. Tactical barrage works great to boost arcane veil. Yes, champion's boon and mob stance work great in general and for this specific setup as well. Also you get +2 PEN which is nice as well. I think most martial classes will combine pretty well with wael. Only ones I'd shrug at are mage Slayer and Shifter. If you're doing a whispers setup, you could also do non-streetfighter-rogue with wael for extra riposte; the riposte chances stack multiplicatively.

B doesn't follow from A. Unity probably handles worker threads very badly, this is probably the most certain statement one could make. YMMV though. I tried special K/whatever on my AMD 2700x and didn't get much of an improvement back in the day. Most people are very very bad at properly measuring performance ("most people" also includes some hardware review outfits), so anecdotal stories of getting +10-15 fps are overblown to me since a bunch of other things might be different with your tests. I had gotten some initial gains, but with repeated testing it mostly seemed to be an artifact of having improperly measure cold-start-deadfire performance to non-cold-start-deadfire performance (and also confounding factors of things happening randomly in Nekataka). The more I tested it, the less it seemed like I got any gain whatsoever. (Though now that this thread has been necro-ed, I will probably give it a shot on my newer 3700x build just to see if it helps.) However, this has almost nothing to do with CPU overheating. Any competent PC build should be capable of dissipating the heat from 100% cpu usage, and the cpu should also be capable of thermal throttling (same goes for GPU). There's nothing special about Deadfire or Unity that would cause this. It's hardware problems, pure and simple. Saying that normal cpu usage causes cpu overheating is misinformation. The game won't run like ass on all high end systems. It's more complicated than "higher core count = bad". In terms of bad performance, I've seen reports from people with virtually identical systems as something I use, and I don't have the same problems. Saying "it doesn't happen to me" is extremely relevant in such situations, because it rules out software, or at the very least points to an underlying issue that is nonobvious and more difficult than "use this mod and it fixes everything." I've had Deadfire running on a haswell + 1060 pc and had no stutter issues (aside from the ones that always happen when you cast mirror image), so if other people with similar or better setups (including one person who had an ostensibly identical setup) are having stutter issues it rules out (obvious) software issues because the software is literally the same within a platform (e.g. steam literally verifies with checksums). That being said, this is not a defense of Deadfire or Unity - for one Deadfire has serious cpu+memory leak issues. I think the severity is actually a relatively newer issue than from release - I don't know when it got this bad. It was extremely noticeable to me during my Ultimate run - I had to explicitly save/quit before and after my Belranga attempt because the sheer amount of spider corpses in my fight would cripple my otherwise pretty beefy PC, and if I continued on without quitting the game after beating Belranga I'd be stuck with 10-15 fps in fights, even if I quit to menu and long after I had left the Belranga map. In addition, every time you do a save/load cycle, something isn't being cleared properly (this was extremely obvious back in the day when hsip to ship combat battles or audio effects would have weird post-load effects). On both my newer build (a watercooled setup from a month ago) and a slightly older build (2700x w/ vega 64), I get 100% gpu usage and >60 fps (hard to say by how much because my main display is an hdtv with a max of 60). However, the more I save/load, my gpu usage starts dropping and my fps also starts dropping - basically my performance is becoming increasingly CPU-bound and is throttling my PCs ability to display frames faster. It is definitely not temp throttling - especially in my watercooled setup, my CPU and GPU temps stay cool the entire time. All I have to do is exit the game and come back and everything is fine again. This doesn't happen in other Unity games I've played, there is definitely something spaggheti-code going on with Deadfire (as if patches 4.0-5.0 weren't clue enough about the spaggheti code). edit: tl;dr - instead of doing full VO they should have hired more programmers and QA testers. OR cut some features and have their existing programmers and QA testers have better coverage on the remaining features.

you could do it but i'm not sure what a multiclass monk gets you over most other multiclass options. for example, in my tactician/skaen build, i picked up monastic unarmed training anyway. For multiclassing, that's very close to identical to a multiclass monk's fists. i think the real wins come from single-classing monk and getting really powerful fists and also whispers of the wind (but i'm not a monk expert). if you're just interested in doing something different, though, go for it, like Raven Darkholme says priest is the most important part of the "standard" ultimate meta and everything else can be fudged. (unless you're super hardcore like the one guy who did it as a single class wizard)

1. Can you take a screenshot or a picture? I don't know what pop up you could be talking about. 2. There's no conspiracy to exclude anyone from credits ("purposefully omitted"). It's way too late to do anything about it now. You should have received a survey well before release to fill in what name you want to appear in the credits and, failing that, you should have emailed support (again: before release) if there were issues with that. Back in PoE1 in the "developer's commentary" they noted that the first tavern was a kickstarter backer reward but the backer went AWOL and they did it themselves, so the lore in that tavern talks about an owner that left and never came back (and that's how you can get that dog). I always wondered how a player could miss out on a reward they paid out for, but well I guess...

for extra credit, a lot of the builds that aren't explicitly touched recently or good for 5.0+ are probably still viable (only really gimmicky/metagamey builds or builds made for 1.0ish will likely have fallen out of viability), but it'd be a lot of work to go through everything to see what still works or not.

Yeah, it was just a bit too annoying to keep two different things with different formatting code in sync. So my gamefaqs guide is the one that has the up-to-date build. It's quite a bit of a read (but comes with a lot of mechancis lessons). The other two are less of a big read.

I don't think that's quite what @FreyaMaluk meant by integrated. I take integrated to mean "a part of the main story, so not having them and then installing them later will make you miss out on the experience in part or whole." To that respect, I think Beast of Winter is "integrated" solely in the sense that if you do it at too high of a level, it might be too trivial because it doesn't scale up in difficulty as much as the others, and you'll miss out on Vatnir for a long time (the only companion [really "sidekick"] from a DLC). FS and SSS can still be challenges at level 20 (FS especially) and there's nothing as integral to the game experience as a companion in those so those are much more stand-alone.

nothing that a bunch of rice and lager for them to eat and drink won't fix. just like in real life?

This seems to happen very occasionally. The way that seems to fix it is to unequip it, save the game, completely exit (or else something isn't properly cleared in the memory), launch the game, then load the game, and equip it. It should work after that. (There was an older post suggesting this - I can verify that this still works, because marux amanth glitched out for me a couple days ago and this fixed it.)

In addition, you should see a reload indicator on the enemy's side, but there's a display bug since forever where if it happens as the first action of a new turn, it doesn't show up. It's no coincidence that it seems that they fire at you right after hold position - if you're sailing full speed, they will frequently just wait until you stop moving to fire (not always, which is why it's good practice to move at full speed). This is still very good, because many enemy ships have a Dyrwoodan whatever-Hog, which reloads very quickly (3 rounds) which is its sole saving grace, so if you are able to use movement to slow down their rate of fire to you rown rate of fire (which may be slower but more powerful), you're still doing good. At lower levels where your captain rank is low enough that you're not constantly going first, you can abuse this AI a bit. When the enemy is first to act, you can try just sailing the entire turn, and as your last action, hold position. They'll have been waiting for you to stop sailing the entire time. But since you're last to act, the enemy won't have a chance to attack. In the following turn, there's a chance you might be first to go. Then you can fire. If you're even luckier, this will cause a negative event or cause injuries, which will delay the enemy's attack action even further as the AI tends to deal with these things at a higher priority than attacking.

Basic tips: 1. You need to kit out your ship a bit. 2. Pick on easy ships first. 3. Make sure you're in optimal range for your cannons. 4. It helps to HOLD POSITION the action before firing your cannons - gives you a huge boost in accuracy. 5. It helps to SAIL FULL SPEED when both you and the ship are parallel to each other - gives the enemy a penalty to accuracy (do this while waiting to reload). 6. JIBE-ing to me doesn't seem worth it unless you have very slow reloading cannons, or you have cannons with very different optimal ranges on either side of your ship. Jibe gives the enemy a minor accuracy penalty (depending on your helmsman levle I think) but nothing compared to sailing at full speed with good sails. 7. In case you don't know, the action right after you JIBE you have a massive penalty to accuracy for the immediate next action. For that reason it's not worth firing right after a JIBE most of the time - spend that action sailing full speed, holding position (for accuracy boost in next action), or using "report to..." to deal with any events that have occured. More advanced tips: 1. I like to use grapeshot the first few volleys - on lower-level ships ships, you can disable a lot of deckhands, helmsman and navigators. Surgeons on easy ships are very crappy so with fast cannons you can get the enemy to waste turns shuffling people into the ship's hold to be healed and then pummel their hull. 1a. Bonus: if in the middle of pumelling the ship you trigger events on the ship, and the AI sends sailors to deal with the events, sailors working on events count as "above-deck" even if they are normally below-deck (ship's hold, cannoneers, surgeon) so grapeshot will pummel them as well. 2. You don't need deck hands to deal with negative events - anyone will do. Just toss spare sailors up from your hold, or even cook or surgeons. 3. Cannoneer rank determines accuracy but also crucially how often they trigger negative events on the enemy when firing (which is 0% at rank 1, so getting up to rank 2 matters a lot). As such, if you find you can't even handle lower-level ships, it could help to do some world-map events or storms, just to get enough sailing experience so that your cannoneers get a rank under their belts. For more detailed breakdown of how thigns work: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/ship-to-ship-combat

Don't worry too much about making a "bad" choice, even on Path of the Damned. Just focus on what you want to play and optimize that. Your question otherwise is way too open-ended, and mostly just sounds like to me a concern that you are worried about making an unviable character.

Agreeing with dgray62 here, but adding on some extra notes: INT and DEX are basically king stats in general, but especially so for ascendant. The only thing that makes ascension last longer (without a priest or the Ooblit pet) is intellect. Dex--by making your actions faster--will let you squeeze more in during that ascension period. The returns here are effectively non-linear; the difference between four powers during ascension and squeezing an additional fifth might be just one more dexterity point. Perception and Might are roughly equal in most cases (so typically you want to balance them), but for a witch perception is much better - so much rides on you actually hitting the enemy that perception becomes more powerful (and with carnage actually gives you much better returns than might - barbarian is an exception where--contrary to most barbarian builds you'd naively expect--perception is much more important than might).

Keen Mind yes, virtually all the time. Greater Focus, less so (it might be obvious to say that the couple times I've played ascendant it is an anti-synergy, among other things). I was only giving one example with the puppet master from stealth.

Gambit doesn't even strike me as particularly great. One wall of many colors is probably better than several gambit hits. Not to mention the built-in synergy that trickster has with mirror image (which it can spam better than anyone else) with riposte/wall of flashing steel. It strikes me that maybe Wall of Flashing Steel triggers on any crit (not just weapon crits) and Wall of Many Colors could theoretically give you many opportunities to get a passive +10 deflection at 100% uptime (would have to be tested).

Cipher is probably ultimate snowball-effect class in the game (maybe chanter or debonaire after that). For example, being able to cast puppet master from stealth is an incredibly insurmountable advantage for the player. The mechanics of the two talents means that Greater Focus can give you the extra to do that in the first place (at the very least lowering the threshold by a clvl for a vanilla cipher), and Keen Mind gives you a shot of extra focus once combat begins sot that you can do something else with your essentially "free" post-stealth action. I haven't tried this with ringleader (i don't know if this is stealth-castable),

maybe blind + dazed ? seems a little more apt for a tier ix spell. effigy's husk can be upgraded for either might immunity or perception immunity. Maybe skaen's treacherous nature is that you have to pick which one to be protected from