Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

That's true, but you get dramatically less overall loot from naval combat than you do from boarding. I did a comparison run once where I sank everything by naval combat and then went back and boarded everything. I remember that the net difference in revenue was about the price of a galleon (though that may've been before they increased galleon pricing). Early loot is worth a lot more than late-game loot. Moreover, the 4.0 update's endless generic faction ships pretty much eradicate such concerns. Everyone can now get as much late-game piracy profit as they want, even if they sank all the bounty-target ships when they were level 6. Who's ever level 6? You're level five, then you go to Neketaka and do the noncombat quests and you're level 9 Still, good point re: early ship combat. Honestly I'm just trying to figure out how to get vailian hullbreakers now since as far as I can tell they now no longer drop anywhere no matter what you do.

Or anything that has multiple bounces. Mind Blades + Combusting Wounds are my go-to for most difficult encounters.

That's true, but you get dramatically less overall loot from naval combat than you do from boarding. I did a comparison run once where I sank everything by naval combat and then went back and boarded everything. I remember that the net difference in revenue was about the price of a galleon (though that may've been before they increased galleon pricing).

Fyrgist dropped Kapana Tanga on the first try for me in the current run of the current beta, but I haven't seen any Vailian Hullbreakers drop at all despite many many re-attempts at boarding the specific ships. Not sure what's causing it. Actually, checking, Biakara didn't drop Lance of the Midwood Stag for me this run either, not that I needed it.

I've run through a lot of ship boarding actions in my current playthrough, many of them against opposing ships that have the Vailian Hullbreakers in their armament -- the Goldbell, the Intrepid, Siren's Song, Heaving Harlot -- and I've done the Vailian ship bounties also. In all these fights, despite boarding to ensure maximum loot, and despite reloading each fight several times to check if the cannons would drop on a replay, I've never seen them drop. I've also tried a few fights against randomly generated "vailian" ships and haven't seen them there either. This is an issue because only one "vailian hullbreaker" can be purchased -- from the shop in Port Maje. So if you want to have a Hullbreaker broadside, currently, there doesn't seem to be a way to do that. I'm not sure if this is a bug or a design change or just an oversight but it seems like at least one of the three. If we could get some clarity it'd be appreciated. Thanks!

I've run into this bug also. Not sure of the cause. They work fine still, though, it's just visual.

Really? The tooltip doesn’t say it scales with anything, that’s really interesting or the wiki is misstated in game when you look at the tooltip on Nourishing Light ... wiki is wrong afaik Are you sure this isn't from a mod?

My original point remains: naval combat is broken to the extent that you cannot acquire new ships by boarding them and wringing them from the cold, dead hands of their previous owners. It is also somewhat unfortunate that after a boarding situation, the other ship simply disappears from the game universe -- it looks clumsy, feels unrealistic and doesn't really win the game any marks. The first time it happened, I had a bit of a WTF reaction, as it was such a negative surprise, but more recently it's become a ho-hum kind of thing. Now, this is not a big issue, and it doesn't ruin anything, but it does render naval combat less interesting than it could be. I am almost certain that this blemish on naval combat is a result of the question discussed before: Obsidian had bigger and better plans, but for one reason or another (was it lack of time?), only some of them were implemented in the game. I'm actually fine with it -- I only wish it had been better. Being able to acquire ships by boarding would 1) completely break the game's economy 2) require dramatically limiting the number of available ship combats 3) require dramatically changing the UI to handle the flood of ships you'd have in your inventory. Short version, if you could acquire ships by boarding they'd need to only have like four or five total ship battles or else you'd blow up either the UI, the game economy, or both. It's not "broken," it's a design choice. It might be a design choice you consider unrealistic. It might be a design choice you don't like. That's fine.

Since this seems to be the active ship combat discussion thread -- Has anyone noticed differences in ship loot from prior patches? I can't seem to find Vailian Hullbreakers in loot from anything any more, even the vailian ships I used to get them from, and even when boarding all the way for max loot.

I never found more Vailian Hulbreakers. I already cleaned the map except for those ships you are talking about. I understand what you are talking about (range) but I wanted to try the Vailian Hulbreakers against them. Vailian cannons can be obtained by boarding VTC ships. If you blow them to smithereens you can't take some of the spoils. Anyone mind sharing which ships exactly? Not sure if I'm running into the "whoops, that didn't drop for you, sorry" bug or not on these. edit: I think the loot tables may have changed, I can't seem to find hullbreakers where I found them before.

Thanks for catching this. In my current run I have a battlemage aloth poised right below 13th level.

Yeah, it's a lot better in deadfire but one big area of confusion is whether or not a weapon bonus on one weapon applies to all you do or just to that weapon. Sometimes weapon bonuses apply to the weapon in the other hand, sometimes they don't, etc. Compare, e.g., Scordeo's Trophy Opening Barrage vs. Griffin's Blade Hound's Speed

Thanks again, these are all good tips. I usually go with a PC cipher, so my plan for this run is to have an Aloth battlemage tactician (there's a mod), Eder Swashbuckler, etc. At the moment, I'm thinking I might drop squid / kapana tanga onto Eder, let Aloth go summoned/DoC, and see how that plays. Thanks!

Yeah, I thought about that but it lacks. . .elegance? I don't really want to bother with keeping food constantly going, I prefer to just stockpile lobsters for the fampyr fights and leave it at that. Hrm. There's always https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Ring_of_Mule%27s_Wit

Thanks, that's really interesting and the sort of post I was looking for. I hadn't thought about just negating Tactical Dilemma with resistances to afflictions. The problem is that with a fighter/wiz there's a natural lean towards the summoned weapons and most of those are two-handed (and also not squid's grasp, obviously). I'd been thinking about maybe just scripting it so that (if flanked) (equip squid) but Fearless and a source of intellect affliction resistance makes sense, especially since you can probably steal the DoC before you can buy Squid's Grasp. Hrm. Problem is I'd been planning on using the Casita Samelia BP for increased Deflection, rather than the Devil BP. Maybe Modwyr?

Thanks for putting this together! I was just looking for an update of exactly this now that all the DLC is out. Looks like a survival warrior build is definitely a thing.

Any interrupt works, provided that it landed while the enemy was casting. And that can be a problem... a terrified/stunned/paralyzed enemy won't be casting anything. Also there are different abilities that interrupt. Some interrupt only on crit (e.g. Fan of Flames). Some on crit/hit (e.g. Crippling Strike). And only a handful interrupt on crit/hit/graze (e.g. Knockdown). Haven't tested. And can't say for now.In PoE1 for reference there were checks for "isAlly" - which would check just that (and even charmed enemies would be considered allied); and "isPartyMember" - that would take only companions into account. Thanks. Yeah, my thought is to set up scripting such that my Aloth tactician only uses knockdown when there is an enemy nearby who is casting, and then similarly script ToTV to hit ranged casting enemies only (I believe this should be possible with the enhanced AI conditionals mod). ANd yeah, the "isally" vs "ispartymember" is the thing I was wondering about. If tactician requires no allies be flanked, a lot of summons and so forth aren't nearly as useful, especially the stationary ones like Tentacles.

Quick question that this seems to be the thread for -- any interrupt works? So, for example, a fighter/wizard using Thrust of Tattered Veils interrupting an enemy cast, you get a Discipline refund? Also, if you summon allies like the Writhing Tentacles, etc., and those allies are flanked, that ruins tactician, right?

I'm still sad at the lack of magical frock coats.

Done. Available at nexus and steam workshop. Thanks so much!

ok, that actually got me for a second, noice

Would it be possible to add a mod that had 1) Eder as just Unbroken (not streetfighter/unbroken) and/or 2) Aloth's fighter subclass as "tactician" (and no other changes)? If so, thanks! I'd use the unity console but it's buggy these days.

Yeah, but it's not fully updated for the newest patch and only really works with some kludge fixes so I feel using it is asking for bugs.

Could someone make a mod that adds the Tactician subclass to Aloth when you multiclass him as a battlemage? Thanks

I posted this near-endgame save a while back -- almost no random encounters have ever triggered on it despite having completed almost all content: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/102849-no-random-encounters-in-neketaka/page-2?do=findComment&comment=2104259 I think it may have occurred because I did the Cornett of Waves quest in an odd order very early on in this run.