superior987

That was my worry - he soaks the attacks and undermines what i'm going for with the MC. I'll just try it both ways and see which is more effective. I still have a little bit before it become a major issue - don't have the club or upgraded defensive stance for Eder yet, so he's just sort of wandering around hitting things.

I'm up to lvl 11 now - this continues to be a super fun build. I'm a little worried I'm building towards a nonbo where I want enemies engaged with my PC so that their attacks trigger WotEP procs, but I'm also building Eder as a swashbuckler tank with kapana taga/reckless brigandine and the other + engagement abilities/effects. Is the solution there to just engage with PC first so enemies attack her, then move eder up so that he engages with them for his various effects?

Nomad's brigandine upgrades to immunity to disengagement attacks, not engagment right? So it still works properly with the signet ring?

Man, I'm glad you can start getting the necessary pieces as soon as you get off of the first island. Fight at the ruins was the most trouble I've had with the drake/cats in a while. I see what you mean about wanting defenses as high as possible.

Ok, cool - I'll give it a go that way. Thanks for your help! This has the added bonus of being decently different than how I tend to play characters - namely with max or close to it MIG and PER and then just swinging away with whatever relevant class abilities apply. It'll be a fun change of pace

Boeroer has convinced me to try out a riposte build with WotEP, so I'm going to make a trickster/soul blade to run on upscaled veteran. I believe the general stat distribution for that would be maxing Int and Res for cone size and deflection, with the rest I guess in Per and maybe Mig. My question is that since I'm going to already be in a cipher, I'm also curious about Seeker's Fang and want to be able to use it for a bit later in the game when I find it. I assume what I've seen in older threads is still accurate and it's still pretty good for a soul blade? Also would I see a significant reduction in riposte effectiveness with leaving res around 12 and relying on gear and buffs to up my deflection?

How significant is the self damage from voidwheel? I'm generally, if perhaps irrationally, wary of self damage.

I'm toying with a soul blade/unknown and trying out cleaving/retaliate with whispers of the endless paths. What are people's preferred other 2h weapons for more single target fights? Amra and Oathbreaker both seem pretty good, even if they also benefit more from aoe situations.

I think the thing I most dislike about dropping from 6 to 5 party members is that there are so many more cool weapons than there are hands to use them!

I'm running a kind wayfarer/helwalker votary and can't decide between sungrazer, sun and moon, or drogga's skull to pair with magran's favor. I can see some discussion of the first two from old threads, but there are vague mentions of nerfs and it's not clear how badly they were scaled back. Do the AOE procs happen enough to balance out +2 fire power?

Thanks for the feedback! I'll stick with blunderbusses and play around with the different options.

I just picked up Ydwin, who I'm using as a mindstalker. I had intended to have her use 2 blunderbusses, including Serefen's AOE one, so that I could both get the blunderbuss focus generation and apply rogue debuffs in AOE. The build guides I'm seeing for her seem to want to use Frostseeker or Essence Interrupter. I remember blunderbusses being the go-to ranged cipher weapon in POE1 due to focus generation from multiple hits - are the bows that much better, or is that a function of the bows being excellent and there not being a ton of competition from other party members for them?

Is this worth using beyond the beginning of the game? Proc for AOE fire damage seems pretty good in theory, but I don't want to waste resources upgrading it and find out that the numbers don't work out.

IIRC Magran's favor is a good go to paladin weapon - I don't know if the +2 fire power level buffs the heal of White Flames or just the damage, but either way it seems like a good inclusion

Yep - it's nice!