DozingDragon

Seeing as there are supposed to be two god challenges and four megabosses added to the game before The Forgotten Sanctum is released (based on the DLC release calendar), I would guess that we should see a few more patches before then.

Barring Death's Door can effectively counter the raw damage over time effect. Or drastically reduce the amount of damage by equipping Voidward and using compassionate soul essence, as the raw damage should not qualify as "veil-piercing."

Hey, if the Shroud of the Phantasm, Barring Death’s Door, Gouging Strike, or Salvation of Time are “adjusted” in the next patch at least we will at least have a decent guess as to why.

I mean, I would not complain if the developers modified the encounter to have some vithrack spawn once Belranga hits a certain HP threshold.

Here is a ridiculous strategy: taking down Belranga by primarily using Minoletta's Minor Missiles. Minoletta's Minor Missiles hits automatically and does crushing and corrode damage. The problem is getting a high enough penetration to overcome Belranga's armor. Boosting your power level (Prestige, Potions of Ascension, Firethrower's Gloves, Stones of Power, and the Nature Godlike passive) still brings you short of hitting 11 penetration. However, the level 9 chanter phrase, The Arrow Sings Between the Dragon's Scales, will get you to 11 penetration. So grab a single class chanter, and four nature godlike evokers that have the Minoletta spells, Infuse with Vital Essence, Prestige, Farcasting, and maxed out might and intellect. Get the "Private Dance Room" resting bonus from the Wild Mare, the Adratic Glow bonus from the Luminous Bathhouse, and I equipped Nemnok as a pet. This combination provides a minimum of five level 1 spell casts per encounter, and you can get a sixth cast by equipping the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry. Make sure everyone has a Potion of Ascension, any Stones of Power that are on hand, and any summoning items. In particular, the Wise Teeth Necklace is very useful in this fight, because Belranga and the spiders have a very difficult time with some of the undead summons it can generate. Start combat from stealth by using a ranged weapon to attack one of the spider mounds. Sneak back to the entrance, using all of your power level boosting buffs, and then have each character summon some distractions. Hang back, and watch as Belranga's health rapidly decreases under an onslaught of Minoletta's Minor Missiles. Replace your summons as they go down, and do not hesitate to pull back if Belranga starts targeting your party with ranged attacks. Replenish your spells with His Heart Did Fill with the Light of the Dawn. Once you run out of level 1 casts, start killing spiders with whatever other spells are on hand to make Belranga more vulnerable to other spells like Wall of Many Colors, Minoletta's Concussive Missiles, and Minoletta's Missile Salvo. Replenish your spells with an empower point, and then throw everything at Belranga. I am positive this strategy could be refined some more, but the basic concept works. Even just having one character relying on Minoletta's Minor Missiles in a party with a high enough power level, penetration, and a reliable source of the brilliant inspiration might make a big difference in tackling this battle a bit more conventionally.

I just did an entire play through using the EI with the Soul Diplomacy upgrade and I did not notice any missing unique loot. In fact, Belranga still dropped her loot after she was transformed into a gul.

I started a thread in the technical support subforum asking the developers for clarification.

As discussed in this thread (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106151-izzia/), Izzia might be bugged in the current version of the game. First, the player can mention being ambushed to Izzia before that ambush occurs. Also, it seems as if no one can trigger that ambush to occur. Should Izzia even appear before the ambush event? Additionally, from looking at the game’s files, Izzia looks like she should be able to craft when she is presented with Neriscyrlas’s Hope and the Tooth of Toamowhai, but right now she only recognizes those items and asks the player to return with any other similar items. Should Izzia be able to forge anything from only those two items?

She wants a third part before she forges the three parts together. I imagine the third part will also be gold with a red inlaid jewel. Try mentally picturing the two existing parts as one incomplete item if you want a hint as to what she is going to be forging for us. Edit: So I poked around a bit, and it looks like there is an item that can be forged with just two of the three pieces. That item is present in the game's files and appears to be functional. There also seem to be some different options as to what can be forged from the items, but those items are also not fully implemented yet. So yeah, it might just be that Izzia is still bugged.

Hey, for what it is worth, any abilities that target beast enemies tend to be very useful during the fight with Belranga.

I have sent some other bug reports to “support@obsidian.net” and received a response. Maybe try that address, as I think the developer who responded above made a typo.

Grimoires offer a lot of different benefits. There are multiple grimoires that contain powerful spells that may not be learned when leveling up, and there is one grimoire that allows one additional spell cast per encounter at the cost of having all damage cause an interrupt (a penalty that can be mitigated by another piece of gear). Grimoire swapping essentially allows you complete access to every normal spell either before or during any combat. I frequently find myself switching between Ninagauth's Teachings and the Iron Clasped just so I can use the different unique spells in each grimoire as needed.

Rymrgand is not the god of immaentizing the eschaton, but the god of entropy. Rymrgand seems to be pleased that Eothas may have accelerated the schedule for the end of the world, but he seems to have been just fine waiting for the white void to devour all life in Eora. As you noted, the gods all lack physical bodies. Without bodies, the gods seem to be masses of concentrated essence that are fed by the wheel, and as such, they do not have the ability to directly interfere with the world on the same scale as Eothas. With regard to Eothas shattering the adra with his doubt, adra was shown to be susceptible to corruption in Poko Kohara, and in the same instance, that same adra was able to be shattered by the Watcher by manipulating soul essence. So it’s not a stretch that Eothas would be able to pull something off like that on a larger scale.

Generally, the moment to moment gameplay in Deadfire is top notch, and overall a marked improvement over PoE. There are also some great quests, like Arkemyr’s Manor, Fort Deadlight, and the whole Gullet and Old City line. Beyond that, I have mentioned before that I think that Deadfire suffers narratively from being spread too thin between four major factions, even more minor factions, an overarching plot that concerns the gods of Eora, and establishing the character of the Deadfire Archipelago itself. It does not help that the game’s final act is relatively brief, and therefore, feels less satisfying in that regard than PoE. In terms of how time was budgeted during development, perhaps cutting one faction and the companion relationship system could have allowed more time for a detailed writing pass to bring the rest of the major quest lines to be on the same level as the game’s highlights. I still think Deadfire is a better game than PoE, and so far, the DLC has been great, perhaps due to the narrower focus.

Keep trying, the items will eventually drop correctly. I had to do Berkana’s Observatory at least three times.

In my latest playthrough, with the current patch installed:

Sounds like a bug, no pun intended. Perhaps you should post this to the technical support sub-forum?

I have also encountered this bug. Once an item has appeared without enchantments, reloading the game, or selling the item does not fix the issue.

I had party members instantly killed from the injury attack on my first attempt, where I did not use Shark Soup before the battle. It’s possible the injury attack will instantly kill a character if they are petrified. Hopefully someone will datamine the exact mechanics.

Very cool. However, you should really check out the actual battlefield where the boss spawns. Basically, as the boss's defenses lower, the boss appears to get stronger, and it will begin using more powerful abilities. Full spoilers for the combat follow:

You can definitely lower the boss’s defenses, it’s deflection was in the 90’s by the end of the fight. Also it’s not in Ukaizo, it is on its own island that can be reached normally on the map.

Turn-based too!

Yeah, they were very upfront about not adding companions in the expansions. Where? Everybody keeps saying how obvious it was, but I don't remember hearing this and feel like I've followed the game's development reasonably well. The Fig campaign, Josh's twitter/Something Awful, in video interviews, and I'm pretty sure here on the forums. It got reiterated constantly during the crowd funding and dev time. If I recall correctly, at some point Josh explained that it takes at least two or three months of writing time to make one companion because of the way they implemented the relationship system in Deadfire. I also thought he explained at some point he was relieved that the Ydwin stretch goal was not met due to the amount of time it would have taken to implement Ydwin as a full companion. However, I can't find these posts for the life of me, maybe they were on Something Awful? Regardless,the prospect of another full companion never looked very promising.

From a thematic level, I got the impression that the narrative of Deadfire was structured around the clash of cultures in the region, and how that conflict connected to the aftereffects of Engwithan society, chiefly the creation of the gods and the concealment of Ukaizo. Each faction in the game has its own value system, and the player may tacitly approve one of the faction's value systems, or the player may refuse to engage in any form of moral compromise and seek out Ukaizo by themselves. Meanwhile, Eothas's narrative arc is running in parallel to the player's, especially if the player decides to do an "independent" ending. Rather than take some action to ensure the destruction of the gods, or to ensure the mystery of the gods is preserved forever, Eothas decides to break the Wheel, which will reveal the artificial nature of the gods, while at the same creating a scenario where complete inaction will result in the destruction of all life on Eora. Eothas, who has apparently been playing Hamlet about the role of the gods since their creation, ultimately refuses to pick a side and instead creates a scenario which demands some change in the status quo. Eothas's and the player's respective arcs then meet where the player can convince Eothas to give an advantage to mortals, the gods, or to destroy all life on Eora, which allows the player once again to make another judgment regarding respective value systems and societal structures. While all that sounds well and good when we're just talking about themes, I feel like the story for Deadfire still fell short of what Obsidian accomplished with Fallout: New Vegas, which has a comparable story structure. Throughout the course of the game, we learn relatively little about the major NPCs for each faction, and there is only minor exploration of the tensions and conflicts that exist within each faction. That's not to say there aren't some moments of great characterization, such as the conversations with Atsura, but the game is spread too thin trying to differentiate between four major factions, the characters in those factions, and 11 different deities who keep deigning to appear to converse with the player. The game's characters needed more time to breathe, and highlight their relationships and vendettas with one another. Moreover, the entirety of the Eothas plot line could have taken place in an introductory cutscene or an introductory chapter to the game rather than take up valuable narrative space during the game. The player has largely no influence on Eothas's actions, so why make following Eothas such a big deal? The whole narrative setup speaks to setting the stage for a plot that relates to a massive change on Eora, but if that plot is inevitable, then why bother centering the game's plot around an event that has nothing to do with the player or their agency within the story?

I think Magran’s challenge is not appealing at the moment, as it just requires you to rely on making custom scripts for your party. Similarly, the fog of war increase with Skaen’s challenge seems more annoying than challenging. I like Berath’s and Abydon’s challenges because they actually interact with the game’s systems in a nonsuperficial way. As for what I would like to see: 1. Enemies that use consumables at the start of combat for a buff, and/or enemies that have randomly assigned resting bonuses from food items. 2. Ambushes or reinforcements during combat encounters. This is why I think Skaen’s Challenge was a missed opportunity, because the player could have been regularly hunted and ambushed by the Effigy as part of Skaen’s challenge. 3. Increase the quality of each enemy’s equipped gear by one step, but make that gear undroppable. Enemies could also have a chance to have generic undroppable accessories, like rings of deflection, that provide passive buffs. 4. Randomly assign buffs to some of the creature-type enemies (i.e., non-kith), and similarly, assign random extra passive talents to some of the npc-type enemies (i.e. kith). Ideally, these bonuses will provide enemies with some level of increased defense, resistances to afflictions, or extra potency with their standard abilities so no AI-tweaking will be required. Overall, I think these bonuses would help level the playing field, and force even a well-equipped party to need to occasionally think outside of the box to counter enemies on the fly. For example, any random bonuses to defenses would incentivize the smart usage of the weapon proficiency modals to decrease specific defenses, and any random resistances or immunities could force a player to alter their crowd-control tactics and seriously consider how to best leverage their consumables for that encounter.