Frog Man

I’m sick of all the xaurips trying to blow me! Arkemyr made me watch him beat off!

+1 will play this. Awesome theme.

You name your watcher ‘the watcher’ ?

Corpse Eater / Priest of Magran

Haven’t seen a build yet with a dual wield range/melee! Nice work Clim

The lady is back! Great guide Andrea. Looking forward to building soon- though I’ll run with Dwarf of Pain variant

Totally with you on both classes, which is a shame because Serafen seems to have a delightful and unique personality. I suppose the foul-mouthed little bugger will have to wait until Ciphers get a buff before I can tolerate him on my team for a full run-through. Suggestions have been awesome so far - anyone have any luck making an effective build with Serafen? Assuming hand mortar and pistol and you just throw out charms all day.

Steamspy is unreliable ever since it cannot scrape steam accounts. Why and how exactly would that make Steamspy inaccurate or unreliable? If anything, that would make it more accurate and reliable... If you're talking about it mistaking family sharers and leech/idling accounts as actual owners, it doesn't. Otherwise I'd like to see appropriative proof of this "Steampy being inaccurate or unreliable". Anyhoot, I imagine the sales have drastically slowed by now compared to launch. We are nearing the end of the month and unlike D:OS2 which is still selling well and being talked about, I think people will forget about Deadfire (sadly). Plus we got alot of big tittles popping out in June. Can’t wait for those big tittles to pop out!

Its just easier to damage now though. Like one handers actually hurt because of the new armor system. My example is the Paladin. You really do not have to alpha with big hitting range weapons now. Range weapon damage seems to be tuned down a bit more compared to melee. My sword and board Paladin crits really hard with his one hander and Flames of Devotion. In POE 1 unless you were Duel wielding, Firing of FoD with a one hander and shield was pointless for damage. Maybe to fire of a buff ability like healing for Wayfarers or Deflection for Shieldbearers but thats it. Normally youd want to get passed DR with high base damage. It seems you do not have to do that as much anymore. +pen on disengagement attacks isn't a DPS buff, it's dissuasion from breaking engagement. Now, if the AI is smart enough to recognize that is another story altogether, but it's an enhancement to the fighter's "stickiness" by making it more punishing to break engagement. Barbarian has the most "meh" subclasses to me right now - they don't substantially change how the class is played, and the cost of 2 of the 3 seem really steep for the limited benefits they get. You spoony bard!

Let’s do this. We know we can all play with Custom parties, but there’s a large contingent who play this game to enjoy the companions and sidekicks. Post your best builds for the companions and side kicks here to help forum goers fill out their teams for POTD runthroughs! Hoping this thread will be especially useful as POTD gets its difficulty tuned up, making it more challenging to design viable/strong builds for the companions. I’ll throw one out: Eder - swashbuckler- dual wield sabers. Used tactical barrage, then charge and/or escape to get to the back line mages, then locked them down with crippling/arterial strike to interrupt their casts and destroy them. After the back line is done he’d walk up to the front and flank any heavies leftover. Maxed alchemy which worked well with drugs and potions of relentless striking, but worked incredibly well with potions of healing. Had several tough fights where Eder was the last one standing and his potions allowed him to finish the fight off for the win.

Lol you’ve commented this in multiple places. I think it’s a great multiclass name. To each their own.

LOVE this build concept. Willing to build out a little further? Gear recommendations? Any other party members that would be good to have with it? Imagine priest blessings would be nice for ACC.

After playing through it roughly 500 times, I couldn’t bring myself to go back there lol Maybe next playthrough ...

Wow this sounds great! Thanks for suggestion

I doubt they want our watcher TOO tied up with any characters that they aren’t sure they will bring back for POE3. Eder is a lock to return of course

A few candidates: Beguiler- eyestrike, charms Wizard (which subclass?) Shattered Pillar - raised torment spam for stuns? Skald with Killers froze stiff

Yep - and POE3 is a lock. Feargus was Talking about it as soon as Deadfire got funded on Fig. There’s a whole Pillars team in place That can survive the loss of Josh to make a fantastic RPG. Also, Pillars is their first IP. they are going to want to make other kinds of games in Eora as well.

Great guide!! I wonder if folks will go back and update builds once POTD gets tuned up, to make sure they are still viable? But this one has great potential regardless.

Since Inquisitor is a class name, I got your build name right here: The Headsman.

Vicious and bloodthirsty. This build sounds awesome. Thanks for helping to make two handers viable again!

I will pay anything for anything Pillars of Eternity related.

This is super helpful! Thank you so much. I was very excited to get her on the team and was at a loss after the throne room incident and she wasn’t there. Thanks !!

Totally with Gromnir here. Obsidian was transparent about POTD being undertuned. So in the meantime, I am enjoying the heck out of my Hard playthrough, going through slowly and loving the story, companions, music, etc. I’m tremendous excited for a hardcore POTD challenge run, but I can wait.

Given that white March came with 3 new companions I have to think the DLCs will include quite a bit of this. Whether brand new companions, sidekicks, or upgraded sidekicks we likely won’t know for a couple months. I’d like to see a few more nonstandard companions like Devil of Caroc. Maybe a xaurip or Ogre?

I actually enjoy the exercise of tier lists, flawed as they may be! They provoke interesting discussion, help devs know how the community feels about balance, and help new players. If I’m a noobie to Pillars, I don’t want to try to make a class that has problems work when I could be learning the game with classes that are better balanced.