smilehigh

Wait, I might have worded it poorly in the initial post, but I was under the assumption that "Two Weapon Style" applies its recovery-time reduction to spiritshifted attacks. Is that not so?

I would agree in a solo run and on a pure caster, but in a full party game other party members may cover the gaps in offense. The game is not exceptionally difficult, escpecially with metagaming knowledge after many playthroughs. I think I prefer to enhance the tools that i have then to try to cover all bases by all means. So I'd rather make Storm spells stronger, then try to diversify. And enemies resistant or immune to electricity might get a dose of good old physical melee damage, either from weapons or from Shifter's many forms (and he has a lot). But it's just a matter of perspective and personal preference I guess.

Thanks! I'm really interested to hear more opinions on that. These are base stats that will be increased to 10 by Berath's Blessing at least. Besides, I will be playing this character as an off-tank. I usually start fights from stealth, then he will spend some time prebuffing (AoE Healing, Form of the Delemgan) and casting offensive stuff. By the time he (and the priest) has stopped casting and is ready to go into melee mode the enemies will already engage other frontline characters. In my experience this removes a lot of the enemy attention from the off-tank. But I'm curious to hear other opinions. I have considered going Ancient. It is also appealing to me. But the increased wonding DoT damage that only Shifter can achieve with boar form also loolks very convincing.

Thank you @Boeroer ! Great advice as usual. Also your Vigorous Warthog inspired me to play this build. (I initially was looking for a class to pair with a ranger). Extremely useful to know that the Ring of Focused Flame does not work with Wildstrike Burn. So Wildstrike Shock + HotS it is then! Nice one! Will try it! Its backstory has a connection to Naasitaq and boreal dwarves which hits the spot thematically as well! And it comes Legendary from the start too. Yes, I was evaluating this initially. Takedown combo adds a lot of extra micro-management though. Especially with a party and the pet attacking the same target. Using it with Sunlance soundnice though. Can a DOT tick inadvertantly trigger the Takedown Combo hit? (As with pulsing spells iirc)

Greetings! I've returned yet again to seek advice from the esteemed PoE community. It's time for me to plan another character for a full PoE1 -> Deadfire run. This means that the Base Attributes should not change from the first game to the second game. Usually I prioritize role-play over power-gaming, but that doesn't mean that I don't wish to optimize the build within the conceptual role-play limits. For a long time now I've been thinking about Beastmaster. For this playthrough I'm thinking of choosing: PoE1: Druid with boar spiritshift who inbetween the two games found a boar companion and thus acquired some ranger skills, thus: Deadfire: Beastmaster (druid/ranger) with Boar companion. In fact for PoE1 I'm going to use the Vigorous Warthog build by @Boeroer with slight attribute changes. But the way I see it, one of the main points of this build is doing consistent unarmed damage, and this is not easily replicated in Deadfire due to change in some game mechanics. However, ideally, I would like to keep at least a little bit of build consistency in transitioning from PoE1 to Deadfire (keeping Storm spells, etc.) So I came here to ask for advice/insights on how to optimize a build within my role-playing concept limitations. Here are the main considerations and questions. A. Unchangeable traits that I would like to preserve for RP-reasons in my Deadfire run: Boreal Dwarf from Naasitaq (culture: Deadfire); Beastmaster: Shifter druid + Stalker ranger; Focus on Boar spiritshift form (with its enhanced DOT) + Boar ranger companion + Baby Boar pet (Attacks Interrupt with Melee weapons) and Cutthroat Cosmo before that. Base starting attributes should be STR:20 and INT:16, the rest is up to discussion. B. More context: I usually play on POTD with a full party without enemy scaling. Companions will likely be: Vatnir Fassina Konstanten (with The Willbraker morningstar + Body Blows modal) Eder (who at some point will have Nalvi pet that reduces recovery penalty for armor for the entire party) or maybe Mirke. The way I see it I will mostly be alternating casting with fighting in spiritshift form. The rest of the level-up points will mainly go into pet upgrades, ranger accuracy boosts and generic character upgrades. C. My questions: 1. How to prioritize base stat spread so that it would be viable both in PoE1 and Deadfire? (I will use +2 bonus attributes from Berath Blessings, but they are not factored in the figures below) MIG 20 CON 10 DEX 14 (???) PER 10 (???) INT 16 RES 08 Should I favor Action Speed from DEX over Accuracy from PER? As a ranger I will eventually get a lot of accuracy bonuses, but they are mainly single-target-only. Will low-ish PER severely impact my AOE spell-accuracy? Conversely, most offensive druid spells have long cast times - will I benefit more from favoring DEX over PER in this case? And get more mileage from spiritshift melee attack speed as well? 2. Which Wildstrike Ability is better in this case? I would like to maintain Wildstrike Shock from PoE1 for character integrity reasons. Is it a significant upgrade But Wildstrike Fire also seems like a nice option if the Ring of Focused Flames boosts accuracy of spiritshift attacks with it. Does it work like that? (Also Firebrand becomes an option as pointed out in the Big Game Hunter build by @thelee ) So then: Heart of The Storm or Scion of Fame? 3. What gear might be intersting to use? The Changeling's Mantle and Survivor's Tusks for thematic coolness factor (and not much else). Lord Darryn's Voulge or The Spine of Thicket Green as stat-sticks? Both are two-handed. Should I try to make Two-Handed Proficiency be useful outside of spiritshift by dual-wielding weapons? As an option: is wielding Kahua Hozi spear with a bashing shield like Magran's Blessing or The Best Defense even remotely viable? In general I'm averse to using some irl impractical and historicaly implausible combos like dual-wielding flails or hammer+mortar, etc. 4. Spell selection. I will most likely pick such spells as: - Insect Swarm & Plague of Insects - Returning Storm & Relentless Storm - Moonwell & Garden of Life - Form of the Delemgan I would really like to keep the spell selection to a bare minimum due to needing level-up points for ranger stuff. What spells might be essentioal for this build? Which from the list above may prove redundant? Will there be a lot of action-economy troubles with this build? Thank you!

Sorry about the necro, but I just accidentally came across this thread and I would like to chime in and say that there are definitely more ways to make Xoti/Maia romance happen. On my first playthrough I did not look for this outcome specifically and everything just happened naturally. I played a Goldpact Paladin choosing mostly Rational/Stoic dialogue options in dialogues. I also did not encourage any Watcher/Xoti romance stuff. In particular I did not have the two specific dialogues you mention (I spoke with Serafen on the deck of the Defiant, so Eder couldn't hear us) and I did not even have him in my party while speaking to Syri the Siren. I never picked that dialogue line or in any way pushed Xoti towards Maia before their romance happened. I did remove Eder from my party once I arrived in Neketaka and could add Pallegina and Maia to my team. In fact all this time I thought that Xoti/Maia romance was inevitable if you did not go out of your way to discourage it. Game ending spoiler alert:

Potentially useful topic! Are these values for dialogue options with or without party assist?

I had the same idea at first, but then I upgraded the dagger to "male" version and tested it. It worked on male kith in Neketaka (crit = frenzy) but did not work on constructs and imps in Arkemyr's Manor (I critted many times on different enemies but was unable to proc frenzy). Edit: RNG is playing its usual tricks on me though - while testing the ability I critted Arkemyr about 20 times in 4 different battles with no result before finally proccing Frenzy from the dagger.

Cool to know. Now (if it's not too loaded a question) I have to ask: are there more female or male enemies in the game? Non-hostile NPC genders seem to be distributed more or less equally. As for the enemies though, I've never paid attention to be honest as I play zoomed out on my laptop and you can't really distinguish to much from that perspective. Has anyone cared to make at least a rough estimate? Also, just out of curiosity: do only kith (and lagufaeth?) enemies have gender mechanics-wise? Edit: I kinda start to feel like a maniac or a serial killer asking these questions. 🫣

@Boeroer Thank you again! Especially for underlining some dubious mechanics behind Debonaire. I was mentally prepared to make do without Persistent Distraction. But when you reminded me that crits on charmed enemies turn them back to hostile mode - well, at this point I see how I would sacrifice too much for too little with this build. So beguiler/trickster or soulblade/trickster it is! Soul Blades profit more from two-handed weapons as soul annihilation only uses the current weapon and not a full attack, right? So rapier/dagger might not be an optimal choice. But hey, when playing with a full party the game is not that hard as to require ultimate optimization. After your comment Beguiler also looks super-viable and interesting. I guess I will have to make a coin toss to be able to pick the one of the two subclasses. 🙂 Yes, I was originally considering this! I really like Paladins and Priests because Disposition is integrated into their class-mechanics so it gives more meaning to sticking to a certain roleplaying archetype. And Marux Amanth's burn damage would suit Paladin's fire-base abilities theme and perhaps be boosted by Scion of Flame? Besides, my character has an Old Valia Dissident background to boot. Almost too ideal a premise. The problem is I will have to wrap my head around how to retcon him to become a Darcozzi Paladin after settling in Dirwood (and convincing Pallegina to go against the Ducs' orders prior to that in the original game 🙈). ______________________________ A question about Marux Amanth: One of the upgrades is Quick to the Slaughter: +2 Penetration for 20.0 sec at the start of combat. What exactly is meant by start of combat? Does it mean that I've got to have it in my active slot when the combat starts? So for example if I start combat by a shot from Scordeo's Trophy upgraded with Strategic Blitz to get -10% Recovery time and then switch to a melee setup with Marux Amanth - the +2 Penetration will no longer be applied? Also does the "+2 Penetration" duration benefit from high Intellect? ______________________________ Speaking of Intellect: why do you say that Brilliant is not important for a cipher? Does it not extend the duration of Deception/Crowd Control/Buff-Debuff abilities? Or is it an insignificant gain when actually playing the game?

Wow, Boeroer, thanks, man! As usual you are a treasure trove of useful information. I was contemplating Debonaire mainly for flavor (and the cool subclass name). But trickster/beguiler or soulblade trickster seem really enticing too. (I’m probably leaning more towards soulblade in this instance, as I was planning to make a beguiler/priest of Wael on one of the future playthroughs (thou maybe I’ll go Psion on that one, so many options!). I will have to digest everything a bit later today and come back to pester you with additional questions. Hope they don’t distract you too much from your family 😇

Hello! I'm currently finishing my first playthrough of Deadfire with a crusader and am already starting to think of my next build. I have a cipher save file from PoE1 so I would like to multiclass it in my new playthrough. As my cipher is already an established character from the first part of the game I would like to preserve some of his core character/build traits for RP reasons even if some of it may go against power-gaming logic. I will play on PotD unscaled and use a full party of story-companions. Mainly I would like him to: - be a melee-focused character dual-wileding a rapier in one hand and a dagger/stiletto in the other hand as main weapons (although I usually start battles with a ranged shot from stealth and then switch to melee); - favor Passionate and Clever dispositions; - have a somewhat balanced ratio of melee and casting; - not be multiclassed with a monk 🙂. Given his "dispositions" I thought I might thematically multiclass him with a Debonaire rogue. One of the obvious options is to make him a Beguiler/Debonaire. But I worry that it could detract from the melee aspect and would make me lean into a ranged shooter/caster playstyle. So another option is to make him Ascendant/Debonaire. This is the choice that I'm favoring right now. Yet another option might be multiclassing him with Trickster or Tactician instead of Debonaire. (Tactician in particular could make use of the Squid's Grasp rapier with its no-flanking enchantment for most of the game, but would miss out on the Seeker's Fang which might be a strongher option for a cipher in late game.) _________________________________________________ My questions to the esteemed community are: 1. Will Ascendant/Debonaire be a viable choice? Are there some hidden synergies/counter-synergies in class abilities that I should be aware of? 2. What weapon/armor/equipment combinations would you suggest? - Seeker's Fang with its raw damage on crit and additional raw damage on hit on enemies with mind affictions seems to synergize with Debonaire's specialization in critting mind-afficted (charmed) targets. Or am I missing something? Also Seeker's Fang comes very late in the game. Rännig's Wrath is available early on and its Redoublement (+1 penetration on Crit) seems to compliment Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion. Midgame Squid's Grasp might be a decent alternative. - For the off-hand (dagger/stiletto) I'm curious to try the infamous Pukestabber. But maybe there are better options? Rust's Poignard has a cool on-crit ability but it will limit all my melee damage to "pierce" variety and is also quite tricky to get. 3. I'm uncertain about some mechanics: - Seeker's Fang: Aspect of the Spider is a raw DoT that triggers on Hit. Will it trigger on Crit too? Or is it restricted to Hit only? What will happen if I hit a charmed enemy? Will Aspect of the Spider even trigger? Or will it be cancelled by Debonaire's 100% hit-to-crit conversion and only Spider's Patience will be applied? If both effects are applied - will the raw damage from Aspect of the Spider and Spider's Patience stack? Or will one cancel out the other? - Seeker's Fang again: it's a soulbound weapon with different "level 2" upgrades unlockable for cipher and rogue. If I play cipher/rogue multiclass and unlock the 2nd level how will the game determine which soulbound upgrade my character should be given? (Will I get a choice between a cipher-specific or rogue-specific upgrade?) Thank you!

Nice idea, but unless I'm mistaken you can't go higher than Mechanics 3 during character creation, and I don't have mods installed. With mechanics 3 the stash with Dissapointer does not get detected in normal (non-scouting) mode.

Could somebody explain the exact, uh, mechanics involved in finding hidden objects/stashes in PoE? Yes, I know that it is Mechanics skill + scouting mode. But how is success rate calculated exactly? By searching the forums I've found the following explanation in a post from 2016: Is it correct at all? Is it correct for the current build of the game? If this is correct: 1. You can find "The Disappointer" with 0 Mechanics if you enter scouting mode. Does this mean that some hidden objects have a detection value of 0? (So they can always be detected with no points in Mechanics if you enter scouting mode). 2. In the Wiki article about BotEP there is the following description of the location of one of its parts: Does this mean that you can only find some hidden objects only in scouting mode even if your Mechanics skill is high enough? (I.e. if I have Mechanics 13 or higher I will not be able to spot its location if I don't enter scouting mode?) Or is it just a writing/editing quirk on the Wiki? I've played the game several times and I always have one character with high Mechanics in my party and almost always explore in scouting mode. But a user on Steam forums asked how to detect hidden objects and while giving him the usual answer I got curious about the actual math behind the detection process.

By the way - can anyone explain how killing Thaos cures your from eventual madness? Is confronting your past enough? It's somewhat vaguely described in the game.