omgFIREBALLS

So it has +5 penetration? Is it beard or densely packed barbed wire?

Oh yes, sorry, my silly mind thought legendary was the highest enchantment level when I posted that. Nothing is mythic by default IIRC.

Certainly! The staff is in the treasury of Nemnok, whose home is the Drowned Barrows. This is one of the three high level dungeons of the base Deadfire, and lies on an island to the northwest. The dungeon is a small mountain shaped like a skull, and after entering through the mouth and fighting the initial party, you can proceed directly forward to a room riddled with traps and two Sigils of Mortality (I think that's the name). If you can get through this room, you can get to Nemnok. It might be possible to simply destroy the sigils from a safe distance, but likely not with piercing or slashing damage (and you can't run in with your staff), so you'll need some magic tricks up your sleeve. If you try to run past the sigils, you will assuredly die, and I mean four-injuries-consigned-to-the-Wheel-deleted-from-the-party die. Read spoiler if simply destroying them doesn't work; it was getting too lengthy to talk this much about them, and I'm 90% sure they can be destroyed: When meeting Nemnok, you can avoid combat by saying the right things. I can't recall for sure, but I don't think you need to pass any skill check. Instead, this lets you work for him. He is a tough encounter, so you probably don't want to fight him if you intend to get the staff at as low a level as possible. Also, it's pretty entertaining to work for him. He'll ask you to get him three grimoires. For each grimoire you acquire for him, he will let you loot one chest in his treasury. You can choose between the staff, a bow and a shield. The grimoires are dropped by: * Bipara, in the Outcast's Respite, on the northwesternmost island of Deadfire and directly west of Nemnok's island * A lich (fighter/wizard) in a Flooded Cave, far east in the Deadfire * Menzzago, ruling the Splintered Reef (another high level dungeon) to the southeast in the Deadfire Menzzago's is probably going to be the toughest to get. The lich might be comparable to Bipara, might even be easier if you manage to take out his minions without aggroing him. Not sure that you don't need to pass some nasty skill checks to get to his cave though. Also, if you have a wizard in your party you might want to check out this grimoires in advance so you don't work on getting him one you'd rather keep for yourself. They are actual equippable grimoires, not inert quest items. You always have the option to "simply" kill him if you want his loot without getting him books. I don't play wizards so I cannot speak for how attractive these three are, but they're certainly not the only ones in the category "high level grimoires". Lastly I'd like to mention that in the northern Deadfire there's an island with a dungeon called Kohopa's Fang, incidentally where you can get Magran's Favor (mythic legendary battle axe). Elsewhere on this island is an encounter with some eoten. Aside from being a decent test for your party's combat ability, after defeating them you can loot a superb quarterstaff (Street Sweeper) which could be your weapon until you get the chromostaff. Just be aware that you (the player, not the Watcher, not the party :P) need to look for it in the sand to find it - just look for something broom-shaped. You can't return to the area, so if you don't loot it you never will.

At level 11 (PotD + scale all + upscale only, but no other twists) I killed Bipara, walked into the Drowned Barrows, killed the welcome party and went straight into Nemnok's lair. I already had a wardstone from the desert island with Dorudugan on it. Talked my way to the grimoire quest and ka-ching, staff be mine. It's possible I could have done it at an even lower level, however I won't contest that Magran's Favor probably wouldn't be easier to get.

A lot of it is in your list of active effects, simply listed as the effect's name and what it does. There's no summary of your counters to resolve afflictions, but if you have Divine Purpose (paladin, +20 saving throws) and Fearless (fighter, resistance), they will be listed there. Certainly that list can get very long though, so it wouldn't be bad if these stats were summarized more tidily.

Yeah, I figured as much, but considering the massive attack rate differences you can get outside TB, that sounds really harsh. High dexterity dagger user wearing light armor vs. a low dexterity tincan swinging a modaled war hammer, mace, sabre, battle axe or quarterstaff. One attack each! Spend it wisely, for example by not being the dagger user. Oh well, TB didn't interest me to begin with, but even less now ^^

Wait, really? Why would anyone take dexterity then? Reflex save and dialogue checks? ^^

Yeah, priest would be a closer match. To me it feels like a mystic is a believer but not necessarily a preacher. Also, you might not believe in any of the Eoran gods but rather in fate, which I don't think any of them govern. That would also mean there's no dogma for you to follow.

Never played a philosopher, nor have I even memorized the mystic dialogue options. 19 sounds like far more than I've seen. I'm jussaying they don't seem conceptually similar.

No, I don't think they will assume your philosopher is from Ixamitl. In my playthrough I'm a mystic, which is exclusive to The White that Wends, and I don't recall anyone assuming the latter because of the former (though they would be correct). Then again, I don't think mystic has given me reactions, just unlocked some responses, but none of them have been "As someone who definitely hails from the cold ass place from which hail also a bunch of madmen who are fond of hail, snow, ice and general awfulness and Rymrgand himself [...]" Mystic and philosopher seem rather different to me by checking their descriptions, BTW. Mystic: You've never been able to explain how the universe guides your path. Behind every task you undertake is a feeling of cosmic direction. Philosopher: You are most at home inside your own head, analyzing the nature of the world and its inhabitants. Another thought: It would be annoying from a game designer perspective to link backgrounds to cultures in conversation lines, because if they ever decided to make a unique background (like Philosopher - Ixamitl Plains) no longer unique, they would have to edit all those lines. Also while writing them, the writer would have to know what the "current idea" is of the whole background/culture matrix. Much easier if they can just think, might there be an interesting exchange here if there's a philosopher involved? If there's an Ixamitlite (this is 100% the term now) involved?

He is immune to mind afflictions, so only the weirdo spells outside the inspiration/affliction system will work. Psychovampiric Shield should. I prefer to open with Borrowed Instinct, and that's what I was trying to do repeatedly throughout the fight. I occasionally had his will reduced by Bewildering Blows and constantly by Hunter of Hunters (Ngati's Tusk on a survival pumped character), my cipher had a healthy amount of accuracy (Exalted Focus, The Empty Soul), but I actually never managed to land a spell. The chance wasn't horrible, but my cipher had many jobs and couldn't keep trying over and over. There also wasn't some easy extra monster I could cast Borrowed Instinct on to have more accuracy for when trying Dorudugan. If anyone has a neat trick (item/spell) for spawning a useless hostile monster, sigil, totem or just a damn barrel, that would be awesome to know. The point stands that it's really hopeless to methodically crack open someone you have a very hard time landing anything on, who is immune to half your tools and who will greatly reduce the duration of those that work. On an easier boss I could constantly have Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric Shield up and still have focus left for other jobs. It's obviously a lot to ask that this should be easily accomplished with a mega boss, but it doesn't even happen that I can do it by blowing all my focus on it. I'm getting nowhere near it. Maybe I would have had a different result if I prioritized Psychovampiric Shield over Borrowed Instinct, but I suspect it wouldn't have made me feel like this boss suddenly had depth. I also tried to figure out the answer to dunehunter's question (I'm curious too), but I don't have anything conclusive yet. I figured at this point @MaxQuest would have told us ^^

Another advantage of the staff is that you only "need" to make one weapon mythic instead of two. About the raw damage AoE enchant however, I didn't find it very exciting. It seemed to be only about 15 damage, and judging from the description it takes five hits on the same target for it to trigger. My staffsmacker was very pimped up and generally things didn't survive five hits from her. The damage reduction however, is like 15% fully stacked with pumped metaphysics. I only tested the AoE enchant very briefly (one fight on fampyr island), noting that it wasn't very exciting damage (five hits for over 100 and then a bonus hit for 15, yay?) while the damage reduction sure felt significant, especially considering, as I said, that the extra reach doesn't keep you safe against some bosses.

I've now beaten most of the base game content, all of SSS, Belranga and Dorudugan (my first kill ever). I've been consistently happy with the performance of this character. The party is a bit less durable than I'm used to, but it's worth it. The only real disappointment is that the extra attack range doesn't mean anything against some bosses, because they can reach me anyway. I set my eyes on this staff because I wanted to be safe from the annoyance of mobs simply targeting the lowest deflection character in range. At least the modal saw some use.

I've finally killed this guy, the last megaboss on my list. No creative tactics, just tank, spank and run out of fire. He might be the least stimulating opponent I've fought in either PoE game. Being a mega boss, he of course has a generous helping of defenses and a truckload of health, but what makes it all worse is his crazy resolve. I find that only permanent debuffs are worth anything here. You have a poor chance of landing anything to begin with, and if you do, it's going to have terrible duration thanks to his resolve. He's dead alright, but despite having attempted him with half a dozen parties before finally killing him, the victory gives me little joy. Aside from dodging fire (and making him dodge it), the fight just feels like a tedious repetition of very basic RPG combat concepts because his resolve just doesn't allow for any whittling down of his defenses.

I suppose this goes here. The spoken line does not emphasize "from". She's in the Brass Citadel harbor if anyone else wants to opine. Also, cue discussion about whether I should have capitalized "the"

Autocorrect, what did you just do?

That's what I thought. You can't go wrong with blunt weapons in BG, IWD or PoE :D

Multi-classed to paladin, obviously stacking metaphysics. Not solo. Tell me some important fights where, from a damage dealing perspective, I will royally hate myself for it.

Not to be rude either, but I'm only reporting a bug, not trash talking them on Steam for not prioritizing it. There's never a wrong time to report a bug. And hey, there's always a chance they immediately know what's wrong and can fix it about as easily as they would a typo.

You know how to give yourself injuries but not buffs? Should we be concerned? :D Anyway, I've pretty much wrapped up SSS, just have the three last bonus fights remaining. So it seems it's safe to just console the quest items in. Thanks anyway =)

I don't know how. I could add wardstones and food again, I could get the courtesan, bathhouse, alchemic buffs and potions again, but how do I get a new Nature's Resolve and Dawnstar Blessing? Can I use the console to simply give me buffs?

There are a few occasions of the game making you lose all your buffs as though you had rested. Two new such seem to have been recently added (hopefully not on purpose). They're extremely detrimental to my "no rest" playstyle as they happen semi-late in the game, yet are tied to plot critical interactions. The two new ones are the starter tasks for Seeker and Survivor, getting the Sought Skull and the Crimson Crystal respectively. At the end of these scripted adventures, I've always ended up losing all my food buffs, wardstones, etc. Note that this didn't happen with getting the Slayer item, by the way. I've emailed a save game and output files for these. The procedure for triggering the hopefully-bug is simply doing the scripted adventure in whatever way; I haven't found a way to avoid it in 20 attempts on Seeker. I'm going to also name a few other such forced rests. They're not nearly as problematic (for various reasons), but if they're unintended, I'd be happy to have them gone all the same: - Reforging the shattered blades from PoE1 - Doing the Dirty Laundry quest (can't remember which point, when you get changed or when you get changed back I guess) - Southeast of Neketaka there's an island with a Forgotten Catacomb. To reach this mini-dungeon, you have to get through a scripted adventure in a bog. At some point during this adventure, you can do a survival check to head for the path rather than standing your ground. This survival check (on success - I've never failed it) seemingly causes you to lose your buffs.

No, I lost them there too the one time I tried, just haven't tried again since. Also it's a bit annoying to retry it because it seems the design is the search will take however long it takes for your party to almost die from injuries, no matter how awesome you are at passing skill checks If I don't encounter problems with this console solution, I'll use it for Survivor too.

Right, I gave myself the item. Obviously I got no journal update, but it seems I can use the pool just fine. I also got reputation for just inserting it there. So... here's to hope. The console command, by the way, is GiveItem lax01_quest_00_seeker_artifact

Yeah, I'll try that later. Anyone know how?