Enoch

The echo chance on Marux Amanth when bound to a Priest deserves some mention here.

Yeah, Devoted and Blackjacket are both good. I find the latter more fun, but that's me. What are you going with on the Barbarian side? I haven't tried this, specifically, but I think a Blackjacket's free weapon-switching could be a neat way to deal with Berserker confusion-- keep Modwyr in a backup weapon slot, switch to it before activating Frenzy, then switch to your "real" weapon(s) for the rest of the fight. Constant Recovery being weaker will do less to offset the self-damage, but that's a pretty minor drawback in my book. Does a Tactician's Discipline regeneration work on any interrupt? If so, there is some really nice synergy there with Barbaric Roar's cheap Line-AoE knockdown-- in the right situation you can turn 1 Rage into lots of Discipline. And the AoE Terrify from Spirit Tornado would be a nice way to get out of any situation where you are Flanked. That said, it just doesn't feel right to me to have a Brute who has to be careful about flanking-- I've played with Brute Rekke (who is base-class on both sides) a fair bit, and Leaping into the thick of things is one of my favorite things to do with him. As for Barbaric Blow, it's an expensive enough ability that the refund-on-kill upgrade is where I'd go if investing in it. It can be a fun finisher, particularly with a two-weapon Barbarian. But, to me, it would be a low priority to fit into a build in the first case. I'd rather spend Rage spamming Barbaric Roar, or using Lion's Sprint liberally for the ACC boost.

For some reason, I always thought this had something to do with the Hitch**** film.

I can't speak for how reload works in turn-based. In real-time mode, both options are perfectly viable. It's a matter of what you think you're going to have fun playing. A front-lines character who opens the fight with a shot (particularly one using a Rogue's Arterial Strike, from stealth) before switching to melee is always nice to have. I wouldn't expect that bouncing back and forth between melee and ranged in a single fight is something that would happen much, unless you forced it, but I could be wrong. Streetfighters are very powerful, but it's also a rather demanding playstyle-- you have to deliberately disadvantage yourself to maximize your effectiveness, and that isn't everybody's cup of tea. When it works, it has some of the highest DPS potential in the game, and, if you're an active-management type of player, you'll definitely feel like your active management is translating into effectiveness.

One challenge with being a Streetfighter-Fighter is that the cost of deliberately Distracting yourself with Powder Burns is effectively doubled. One of the key advantages of a Fighter, relative to other martial classes, is that they have easy access to high-tier PER inspirations, through Disciplined Strikes and its upgrades. But you can't be Distracted at the same time you're Aware or Inspired. So, going the Powder Burns route not only imposes -5 PER from your baseline at character creation-- it also denies you the +5 PER (and G2H and H2C) that you could be getting easily with a tiny Discipline cost. It's not fatal to the character concept (indeed, the Black Jacket synergy should be quite beneficial), but it does undercut it somewhat.

The Sanguine Harvest mini-quest (documented here) is the most hidden bit of content that I can think of. Edit: Also Rekke. Not a quest, but an interesting joinable NPC.

It's also just a great visual image-- Paladin walks up to his foes, say "Witness Righteousness!" and everyone around him melts like they just opened the Ark of the Covenant.

They each stack with Llengrath's Safeguard (because that's an "all defenses" buff), but not with each other.

@Decadency is on the plaque.

AFAIK, you'll only get the highest of the 3 AR buffs from those spells. The "all defenses" buff of Safeguard will stack with LDI's DEF & REF buffs, but the DEF buff from LDI is pretty low-- it's worth casting a Mirrored Image or Arcane Veil to get that up to +30 (long duration, but degrading with Hits) or +50 (short duration, adds Concentration, but no help v. guns). LDI is more situational, IMO. Worth casting when you expect REF-targeting attacks. Opening combat with Infuse with Vital Essence is rarely a bad idea-- lets you get away with lower CON at character creation, and boosts to AoE (especially with Citzal's Lance) and durations are always great. Deleterious Alacrity of Motion adds a little risk in its self-damage, but action speed buffs remain worthwhile, and the 100% stride buff and engagement immunity from Swift can be a huge survivability boost. The freedom to flee if things go poorly is very valuable. (Also, as I understand it, the engagement immunity shouldn't stop you from getting flanked.) Otherwise, Flame Shield is nice if there's any threat of Freeze damage. Same goes with Arcane Reflection and enemy casters. Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage is, effectively, a pretty nice survivability boost, too, although that will break enemy flanking, which you might not want to do as a Streetfighter.

Pretty sure I was able to get it as a Wael priest with maxed Shady.

"Dialog" used to mean "Dialogue"? Get QA down there on the double!

Focused ranged fire? Keep backup weapon set with a Large Shield, and turn the modal on. And when you know it's coming, make sure you're not wearing Pierce-vulnerable armor (Scale or Brigandine). Also, Risen Armsmen are tough opponents in the "early game." I think their default level is 10, and the encounter design often puts them in tactical situations that magnify their effectiveness beyond that. It might well be that they'd plaster whoever they focused on, at your current level.

IIRC, Bioware had built a tech demo for what was to be an online-driven product ("Battleground Infinity"). Interplay had, separately, just gotten the license to make D&D games. When Interplay folks (read: Feargus) saw Bioware's demo, they suggested using it as the basis for a D&D title.

Assassin-Evoker works, but it's not a melee build. You open with a ranged nuke from stealth, disappear, and repeat. If you want the flexibility to transition effectively between nuker-Spellblade and gish-Spellblade, you probably have to accept being less good at either and stick to the base classes.

Like, what are they (the internet is surprisingly unhelpful on this), when are they applied, and to what? If you look at the in-game Bestiary, you see that enemies have Base Health, a default level, and a CON score. Their health is also adjusted by the Difficulty that the player has chosen. In what order are these modifiers applied? I assume that enemy base health is their health at their default level, and that any scaling applied can alter this. My guess is that this also incorporates their default CON score, rather than representing their health at 10 CON, before the 5%-per-point modifications are made. (Right?) But does the Bestiary incorporate difficulty-level adjustment? Are difficulty level adjustments applied to the final total, or somewhere prior to that? (That is, before the scaling modification and/or before the effect of CON is calculated?) If you want the full story, I started thinking about this in the context of CON afflictions. It struck me that -5 CON can be a significant reduction in enemy health, and because current health shifts with max-health changes on a percentage basis, damage done to an enemy while they're afflicted is functionally magnified. (That is, even if the affliction expires, they enemy's health will be reduced by all the damage taken while afflicted, plus the % by which their total health was reduced-- a really nice 25% "lash" on all damage for an 10-CON opponent.) But it occurred to me that the health changes based on difficulty were a complicating factor that I didn't know how to figure out. The afflictions might be more or less good on PotD than they are on a difficulty without an enemy health adjustment.

Hit-to-Crit can be rather good. Hit is the widest base pool of outcomes to start with (apart from Miss-to-Graze in situations where you're seriously overmatched!), and lots of items have special effects on crit, as do some class abilities (particularly Monks and Skalds). Plus, Crits add PEN, which gives them more consequence than the simple damage (and, where appropriate, duration) differential between Graze and Hit. It's absolutely secondary to ACC, but still worth pursuing to a certain degree. You just have to be aware of the diminishing returns you get by stacking different sources. Graze-to-Hit, yeah, is pretty inconsequential, and all other sources of it (like Flails) are weakened by the ready availability of 50% G2H from a tier-2 PER inspiration, available to 1st-level Fighters and anyone in a party with a 5th+ level Priest.

I use the game's companions, so I'm not tailoring their attributes. But, yeah, I usually don't bother with pure tanks. I mostly stopped using shields once I learned how to get the weapons that grant engagement slots, and very rarely have anybody in heavy armor. My present party has Rekke as a Brute running point, wearing only medium armor and using 2-handed weapons.

Actually, wait, I was doing all that with the old Miss-Graze-Hit-Crit thresholds! Now it's: 24 or lower: Miss 25-49: Graze 50-99: Hit 100 or higher: Crit So Graze-to-Hit conversion is even worse. I think I can still amend the post above, so I'll give that a go.

Your math was correct, in that it caclulated the change in the percentage of Grazes that would convert to hits. I just took it the next step, by expressing it as a percentage of all attack rolls, not just the ones that resolved as a Graze on the first pass. [EDIT: And I did it wrong-- math now fixed below!] And I was only talking about the marginal increase that you get from Confident Aim, not the total of the PER inspiration and Confident Aim. To illustrate, assume that you're attacking an enemy with a weapon you're proficient with, and your total ACC is perfectly equal to their Deflection. With no buffs: A straight d100 roll against the game's thresholds. 24% chance to Miss, a 25% chance to Graze, a 50% chance to Hit, and a 1% chance to Crit. With just Confident Aim: As above, but add 30% Graze-to-Hit after the initial result. 24% Miss, 17.5% Graze, 57.5% Hit, 1% Crit. With just Disciplined Barrage: the +5 PER translates directly to ACC, which shrinks the Miss window and adds to Crit. Your first pass results in a 19% Miss, 25% Graze, 50% Hit, 6% Crit. Then you apply the 50% Graze-to-Hit conversion for 19% Miss, 12.5% Graze, 62.5% Hit, 6% Crit. With both Confident Aim and Disciplined Barrage: As above, but apply both G2H conversions sequentially. 19% Miss, 8.75% Graze, 66.25% Hit, 6% Crit. Lastly, remember that this is a best-case scenario. If you're fighting an overpowered enemy or if you've buffed your ACC and debuffed your enemy signficantly, you might have a smaller initial Graze window, which would reduce the number of times that the conversion is relevant.

EDIT: Math is off. See subsequent post below. In real-time mode, at most, 35% of your attack rolls will Graze on the first pass. (This percentage declines as the difference between your ACC and the targeted Defense goes higher than +15 or lower than -50.) So, your overall graze-to-hit chance increasing by 15 percentage points means that, at most, 5.25% of your attacks will be so improved. That's... not a lot. Whether it's enough to be worthwhile depends on what ability you're giving up to get it, and how you play the character in making use of those abilities. Now, it is nice that Confident Aim is always on. In the event that you don't have the PER inspiration from Disciplined Barrage active (e.g., if you get hit by a PER affliction that offsets it), the full 30% graze-to-hit chance applies. On the other hand, it is explicitly limited to weapon attacks, so your Sacred Immolation (and similar) won't benefit.

Isn't the earliest fights being hardest a function, partially, of how the difficulty levels work in this game? I suspect that most of the folks commenting on this forum a year+ post-release are playing on Veteran or PotD. And the flat increases to HP, Defenses, and PEN hit hardest when the base levels are lowest, and when the player is most limited in tools with which to approach an encounter. (TBH, I've been sneaking past the looters ever since I made the jump to PotD. I've long since forgotten whether they have any loot that makes engaging them worth more than bragging rights.) I'm with you on Hanging Sepulchres. After past frustrations, waiting to clear the area until after I have a Dismissal in the party is quite satisfying.

I can attest that Spellblade still works. I'm playing Aloth that way in my current game (so, base-class in both Rogue and Wizard), and he's extremely effective. Katrenn's Grimoire as the base, buff with IwVE, Mirrored Images, Spirit Shield, DAoM, and the Lance. Also include Flame Shield (when the Freeze AR would help) or Arcane Reflection when appropriate. After buffing, it's mostly melee (with lots of Arterial Strike, Confounding Blind, and the occasional Devastating Blow or Toxic Strike) but summoning a Phantom, Pulling Eora, or casting R's Repulsive Visage can be worthwhile enhancers to melee effectiveness, depending on the encounter in question. Light armor (upgrading his default armor is a nice choice for the overseeing on the Lance AoE, but others like Miscreant's or the Pale Hide work, too). Weapon slots are an Arquebus (which I sometimes use as a Arterial-Strike combat initiator) and the best 2-handed weapon not needed by the rest of the party. Up until level 13, I played him as ranged more than melee. Used the Battle-Worn Grimoire as primary, but had others to sub in situationally (including a melee option). The usual support Wizard stuff-- Combust wounds, Chillfog, Slicken, etc.-- followed by K's Minor Blights used with Rogue abilities. Didn't carry the party like he sometimes does post-Lance, but he helped out. Edit to Boeroer's point: Yeah, as far as I know, the only real nerf to the gishy Wizard stuff was Llengrath's Displaced Image. IIRC, the Deflection boost was tuned way down, making it less a replacement for Mirrored Image or Arcane Veil, and more a supplement to get the REF boost and the hit-to-graze.

If I were making a poisoner build, I'd go with a Warlock who uses Nannasin's Cobra Strike whenever possible.

Curious: Has anybody made a mod that "fixes" Serafen. (Which is to say, either makes him a base-class Cipher or reduces the proc rate on Wild Mind to zero?)