Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

Oh yeah for the transformation fight I just respected Pallegina to have the healing aura and reshelved her afterwards.

I suspect whoever drafted that power either just didn't look at wizard abilities at all, or else forgot to make it an AOE. Also possible that in initial testing it was a large AOE and deemed too powerful so they nerfed it down to uselessness in the Alpha planning to come back to it later and never did. There's really no explanation for how awful it is other than everyone just forgetting it because it was so awful nobody cared about it.

Ok, I've completed SSS. It is what it is. I enjoy the combat and so it was a nice series of tactical battles I could mostly take or leave. Most of the unique items were pretty lackluster, which is fine. I liked that Konstanten got a larger role (and now that I've found a build I like for him, I expect him to be a mainstay of future runs; he's got great voice acting and always reminds me of ). I think the best thing about SSS is that it's very convenient if you just want to come home from work and take an hour or a half hour to do a fight without having to take the time for following a narrative. It's lots of little snack-sized encounters. It's great for testing out builds or testing party AI scripts -- when I was setting up my Fassina build for FS, it was really convenient to be able to just start up the Gul encounter and see if her AI could handle that correctly, etc. Moving on to FS now.

um. . ok that's weird should I opt out or will that bug things?

eyestrike is great, it's a first-level, tier 3 AoE Debuff that also gives flanked and other stuff too. It's dandy. Nothing wrong with Eyestrike. The tough call is between eyestrike and phantom foes (weaker effect, much larger AoE). Edit: yeah blind is common but Blind is still a very very powerful effect for CC in deadfire. It's also got a decently long duration .

Is this actually on steam yet? Not seeing it for some reason, oddly.

Aha, looks like they fixed the loot bug from deck fights. Time to clear the seas!

Whoops -- Nevermind! I forgot the "Tenebrous Tenacity" one (I'd completed it in another save line). Went and did it, helm upgrades correctly. No issue.

I'm at stage 2 of upgrading the "Survivor's Tusks" Soulbound helmet. Problem: I've completed all the "Survivor's Stand" quests, which is the requirement, but the helm is not advancing to the next stage. See screenshots: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/951852874828262127/875E57D9A1A5161C7784708DDA5AB1F8F8849E8F/ https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/951852874828261831/7D49B28835F77327667E6A7415B81D4DE728D128/ It may be because I beat all the quests before getting the helm. Not sure really. Do I need to beat them all Again while wearing the helm? Because that's really grueling if so and should be changed -- those fights are hard and take forever.

Ahh, yeah, I can see the use with Antipathetic Field. I tend to avoid that one because EE is superior in just about every other way except lacking the keyword, and I do extremely heavy scripting so I'm less fond of the micro-intensive powers, so generally one beam is enough (I mostly only use EE to trigger repeat hits of CW). Still, a ping with Mind Blades is generally enough to do the job anyway, since all you need is the duration reset. I haven't had any low-duration issues with CW or Disintegrate on bosses this run because I've been using Konstanten with the "stacked morningstar modal + chanter debuffs" build so everything important has forty-five points whacked off of its Fortitude right away, making Disintegrate and CW crits relatively easy to land. That said i think we're disagreeing less than it might seem -- I'm not saying that single class ciphers are "bad," just that their endgame powers never got the final tuning-balance patch they probably needed. When I say they're "broken" I don't mean necessarily bad, just "not appropriately tuned." So the class peaks somewhere between tier 6 and 8 powers in terms of, like, play experience: that's when you get the good stuff. The level nine stuff is either stupid good to the point that it trivializes a big aspect of the game (driving echoes) or stupid bad (haunting chains), or just kinda gilding the lily (the expanded AoE passive). I've actually gotten as high as 225% before -- wizard casts pull of eora first, etc. Still, more typical is 2-4 stacks at any one time. The (slight) downside to the power is that the duration and strength is dependent on the target, not an independent buff on the cipher, so Time Parasite won't lengthen its duration and if you kill off your concentrated enemies (rather likely if they're all bunched up with Eora) then your buff goes away also. Result is that practically speaking you don't often stay at more than +100% for very long.... At some point I want to experiment with using casts of the "enfeebled" affliction to lengthen the duration of cipher parasitic buffs, but Konstanten is taking up the off-tank slot right now where a forbidden fist monk would go.

Noticed this first with Defensive Mindweb but it seems to be an issue with other party buffs, item buffs like Cruelty and Curios, etc. Defensive Mindweb is supposed to pass along the defenses of the whole party to all allies, even summons; other summons do in fact benefit (for example, Xoti's vine summon benefits from the party web). The essential phantom, however, does not seem to benefit from the web at all edit: sorry, SUBSTANTIAL phantom, the level 7 one

Yeah, but amplified wave (note, that's a level 6 ability -- I said those were great!) already has a huge radius. It's enough to take on the whole battlefield even without the benefits of Shared Nightmares, at least if you have decent intelligence (which you should if you're a single classed cipher). Main benefit of SN is if you want to turn Eyestrike into Phantom Foes, or amplify the AoE radius of specific weapons in niche builds. Most Cipher powers already have more AoE than they really need even without it. Reaping Knives might be great with the right build, sure. Time Parasite is good but you get diminishing returns from increasing action speed bonuses in deadfire, so it's not as good as it was in the first game just because of how that's changed mechanically. Driving Echoes is probably too good -- it trivializes the whole armor penetration system. It's also balanced badly, but in the other direction people don't usually complain about. It' should probably be +3 or +4 penetration max, but a party buff (just because at that point you're running out of time to cast different buffs ). 1,000 Cuts seems nice at first but mathematically, in a party setting, it's going to be superseded almost every time by Combusting Wounds, because CW re-triggers additional damage off of every wound, whereas 10k only triggers additional DoT duration off of specific "shred" keyword attacks (i.e., Mind Blades or Disintegrate, since Ectopsychic Echo and Amplified Wave are both Echo keyword). It's basically just Disintegrate's expansion pack. Not bad, but far from the best boss killer in the game, unless you're talking specifically fire-damage-immune enemies. I mean, don't get me wrong, the only cipher power that right now I think is genuinely *bad* is Haunting Chains (*maybe* screaming souls given Cipher's limited power selections). Everything else I can at least conceive a build that could get some worthwhile mileage out of it, HC though just make a wizard instead.

I'm into Seeker, Slayer, Survivor now with a full-PotD run as an Ascendant cipher (they're my thing) and the game is fully beatable with the class even on PotD. That said the class abilities peak at around level 7. The level 8 Powers are nice-but-underwhelming (time parasite is decent in RTWP; defensive mindweb can be useful if you build your entire party around it). The level 9 powers are just broken though -- they clearly never went through significant play or balance testing. Driving echoes is both overkill (in that it breaks the game's penetration mechanic with a ridiculously overblown bonus) and somewhat annoying to use (because it's single target; I'd change it to +4 Pen party-wide buff); Haunting Chains is literally worse in every way than a fifth-level Wizard AoE; Death of 1,000 cuts seems good until you realize it's ljust (****ty disintegrate + ****ty combusting wounds element) and mechanically inferior to both or either. The passives aren't much better; Shared Nightmare is mostly gratuitous given that cipher aoe's generally have ample range anyway; protective soul might be good for a barbaric retaliation build or something but is gonna be relatively useless as a 9th level power for a single class. That said the lower level powers are still dandy and the mechanics of the Ascendant are fun and going single class gets you playing with even the lower level toys sooner, so it's not a particularly bad choice. It's just not the optimal choice like it was in the first game.

I'm only just now getting around to a run with SSS and FS. Beast of Winter may not be as long as White March but honestly the first game was too long and BoW feels just about "right" in terms of length, especially on replay. So far in SSS I really enjoy that

Here's one trick that works: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/951852175334701365/7948F54FBD4CD5E3B9AA8F3DAA9C1A8FD06183F1/

Oh, this may interest any of you who've had as much trouble figuring out how to automate "cast salvation of time on the Ascended Cipher" as I have: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/951852175334394719/B8CCC07D6FF49D1DEA6D7F97EEDD7AB80D705F79/ (you will need to build your party for Defensive Mindweb but if you're playing an Ascendant in a party you're probably doing that anyway).

Mathematically,a priest who can cast Salvation of Time.

It's the most important up to a threshold but mathematically once you are routinely hitting it has diminishing returns.

The game is pretty mod friendly overall and it's hard for a mod to break things. The Enhanced User Interface mod is its own separate thing and just changes the UI so you can uninstall and revert it no problem. Less Exp mod is also distinct (I think it's part of the "Deadly Deadfire" package but you can download it independently). I generally install it around level 13.

Personally, what I'd like is a mod that left XP gain as current until level 12, then reduced gain after that significantly, such that you needed to do all three DLC's to hit Ukaizo at level 20. That's just me though. I feel the game is at its strongest in the level 12-16 or so range. The 18+ level powers were never reallly balance tested adequately and it still shows. Some are obscenely wonderful and some are obscenely horrible.

The Dream of the 90's is Alive in Eora

I've been going blue orlan pretty consistently in Deadfire. The crit chance is just a nice addition to almost any build, and you get a lot of neat conversation options. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1545390434

It does in-game I think. I read it somewhere anyway. I've been playing around with a blood mage / steel garotte aloth but 1) I used the unity console to craft him and 2) I haven't gotten Citzal's yet on this run. if you're testing the combo please share any info you figure out.

I believe the Steel Garotte only heals from weapon damage, not all damage. Otherwise steel garotte / blood mage would be even better than it is. That said, a steel garrotte / blood mage could summon Citzal's and go to town. There's even a certain natural synergy because both the steel garrotte and the blood mage should benefit from Voidward.

My Trickster Edér decided to go in big on practical jokes.