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Somewhere in Old Vailia, 15-year-old Dervide Riso gave his crush, Centa Enricis a carved rod with which she was supposed to scratch her back. A bully, Marco Zaurippi, took the rod and threw it onto a frozen river. While trying to retrieve it, Dervide fell through the thin ice and with him his beloved pet bear Frogfish. They were pulled away by the current. Dervide suddenly found himself in the local library and discovered his ability to "jump" from one place to another. Amazed with his new ability, he left his permanently boozed father and leaped away from home. Frogfish simply drowned that day but was too dumb to notice, so he followed Dervide as a ghooohoohoost. Booo! Eight years later, an adult Dervide lived lavishly on stolen money and fed his Frogfish imaginary golden currywurst nearly every day. One other day, he was ambushed in his home by Lolrand Capon, a member of the Goldpact Knight Paladins, who was hired to tracking down Dervide because of his habit to steal everything that's not nailed down. But Dervide escaped with some nice evasive leaps. Feeling that he needed to leave the hot zone, he returned to Old Vailia, seeking his old crush Centa. Unfotunately she turned out to be ugly like an Ogre Matron who regularly ate directly from the deep fat fryer without cutlery. When Marco attacked him again, Dervide leaped right behind him and hit him with a newly carved rod. A Blast got released and Marcos head exploded! Yikes! Dervide quickly cleaned up the mess and from that point on decided to turn off the gib option in his life menu. He then returned to Centa. After talking, they shared a kiss - brrrr - and "let the rod have a blast". Yikes again! Dervide then invited her on a trip to the Dyrwood because some wacko Rodriguez lord made a call for settlers. Dervide and Centa finally arrived in the Dyrwood by ship. But when they got on shore, Centa tripped over her greasy shoelaces and fell off the gangway and into the Dyrwooden mud. One half-unwitting leap later Dervide found himself amongst some people with a caravan and was a bachelor again. During some neat adventures that followed and which involved going on the nerves of some fake gods, killing a guy with two inbecile living statues with big noses, opening up an ancient forge and killing sevel dragons with magnificent Blasts from his rod he became the Lord of Caed Nua by killing some presumptuous smug. Lots of killing lately, really. Then onother imbecile statue emerged... Yikes! "See you later Watershaper far'well-ahoy fishy boy. I'll have to borrow your back scraper 'cause it will be my new toy." - Dervide Riso while stealing Tekehu's rod - =================================== The Deep Leap =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 1.2 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: untested -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Ghost Heart/Trickster -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Wood Elf (alternative: whatever) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Old Vailia - Dissident -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: MIG: 15 CON: 03 DEX: 19 PER: 19 INT: 19 RES: 03 -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities | Skills | Proficiencies (a=automatic) 01. Marked Prey + Crippling Strike + Arkemy'r Dazzling Lights (a) | Rod, Arbalest 02. Escape | +1 Arcana (-> 1), +1 Diplomacy (-> 2) 03. Wounding Shot | +1 Arcana (-> 2), +1 Streetwise (-> 2) 04. Marksman + Dirty Fighting + Mirrored Image (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 3), +1 Bluff (-> 3) | Scepter 05. Blinding Strike | +1 Arcana (-> 4), +1 Diplomacy (-> 3) 06. Two-Handed Style | +1 Arcana (-> 5), +1 Streetwise (-> 3) 07. Evasive Roll + Arterial Strike + Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 6), +1 Bluff (-> 4) 08. Gouging Strike | +1 Arcana (-> 7), +1 Diplomacy (-> 4) | Pistol 09. Marked for the Hunt | +1 Arcana (-> 8 ), +1 Streetwise (-> 4) 10. Concussive Shot + Withering Strike + Llengrath's Displaced Image (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 9), +1 Bluff (-> 5) 11. Protective Companion | +1 Arcana (-> 10), +1 Diplomacy (-> 5) 12. Stalker's Link | +1 Arcana (-> 11), +1 Streetwise (-> 5) | Crossbow 13. Driving Flight + Deep Wounds + Confusion (a) | +1 Arcana (-> 12), +1 Bluff (-> 6) 14. Accurate Wounding Shot | +1 Arcana (-> 13), +1 Diplomacy (-> 6) 15. Finishing Blow | +1 Mechanics (-> 2), +1 Streetwise (-> 6) 16. Concussive Tranquilizer + Toxic Strike + Arkemy'r Wondrous Torment (a) | +1 Mechanics (-> 3), +1 Bluff (-> 7) | Arquebus 17. Survival of the Fittest | +1 Mechanics (-> 4), +1 Diplomacy (-> 7) 18. Devastating Blow | +1 Mechanics (-> 5), +1 Streetwise (-> 7) 19. Accurate Empower + Deathblows + Gaze of the Andragan (a)| +1 Mechanics (-> 6), +1 Bluff (-> 8 ) 20. Lasting Empower | +1 Mechanics (-> 7), +1 Diplomacy (-> 8 ) | Wand --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Watershaper's Focus (! - +Ondra's Wrath, +Legendary) Weapon Set 2: Spearcaster (+Pinning, +Missile upgrade) Head: Acina's Tricorn (r - for ranged ACC - also works with certain spells) Back: Magnificent Escape Cape Neck: Charm of Bones (for more Blast AoE and longer DoTs) Armor: Aloth's Leather Armor (+Superb, +Structurally Stable, Known Causality - for the Blast AoE) Waist: Spellkeeper (for the fun) Hands: Burglar's Gloves / Aegor's Swift Touch Rings: Ring of Overseeing (for the Blast AoE), Ring of the Marksman Boots: Boots of Speed Pet: Loki (because it's a Trickster and Loki is the trickster-god And because of Blast's AoE of course) --------------------------------------------------------------- Hi! The Dead Leap? What's that? It the combination of Deep Wounds with DoT afflictions, Blast with several jumps and leaping around to and fro on the battlefield. What's interesting about this build? It's the Watershaper's Focus! Believe it or not, but when you combine the Focus' inherent jump with Driving Flight and Ondra's Wrath (enchantment of the Focus) you can reliably produce a chain reaction of multiple Blasts jumping around and also multiple crushing waves rolling around so that everything is dead that can't swim. Only thing is: you want to have the enemies in one spot to make this happen - because recovery is so sluggish you can only afford to fire twice: out of stealth and then immediately after (because stealth reduces recovery by 85%). But honestly: two is all you need... So if there's let's say 5 enemies in a tight spot and I shoot them with Watershaper's Focus + Driving Flight, I theoretically generate 3*5 = 15 hits with one shot. Each hit would have a 15% chance to trigger Ondra's Wrath. This would mean a nearly certain proc chance of over 90%. Something weird is going on... But that's not all. Something else is going on. I suspect that the Wrath's crushing attacks themselves jump, too. Because I generate not 15 or even 30, but hundrets of hits with this setup as long as there are enough enemies. Ondra's Wrath usually triggers multiple times as long as there are more than three enemies. Combined with Deep Wounds and for example Arterial Strike I also add so much raw DoT that most mobs just explode in a wave of crushing water *booooom*. Even if some survive they get felled rather quickly by Deep Wounds + Arterial Strike (and/or Toxic Strike and/or Gouging Strike). If you manage to gather the enemy in one spot, encounter is over before it even starts most of the time. Single enemies are no problem as well: I shoot them with Spearcaster + Arterial Strike and leap here and there to make them follow me. They die like with any other rogue. Sneaky crowd control: Who's there? Now that we know that we have to cramp as many enemies as we can into a tight spot, how can we do that? Sparkcrackers? Meh... But doesn't Arkemy'r Dazzling Lighs work the same way? It does! That's actuall my no. 1 reason for picking Trickster And if you don't hit an enemy with it you even stay stealthed. That's important because the recovery bonus of stealth (85%) lets you fine two shots in very quick succession if you start shooting from stealth. So the huge recovery malus of Blast is not noticeable between the first two shots. But two shots of this caliber should be enough for most enemy groups, shouldn't it? It should. Even high level enemies with a lot of health (like Rathuns for example) nearly aloways get one- or two-shotted as long as you can get them to gather in one place. Additional stuff Besides the powerful AoE behavior I also found out that gaze spells like Gaze of the Andragan work with Driving Flight (=two chances to paralyze) and also work with the hat's accuracy bonus. Neat... The cons What are the weaknesses? Obviously enemy gunmen. Since this build is extremely squishy as long as you didn't cast Mirrored Image he can get screwed by ranged enemies pretty quickly. But to be honest I like the "all or nothing" approach. Plays like... This build basically plays like an Assassin without being one. The difference is that you assassinate the whole encounter if everything works smoothly, not only one single enemy. But what about... Now you might think: would a pure Ranger with Twinned Shot be even more devastating? I also thought about that and tested it - but funnily enough a pure Ranger with Twinned Shots doesn't perform half as good as the Scout. I guess it is because of Deep Wounds, Sneak Attack and all the DoTs you do apply. But to be honest I don't really know why the scout performs so much better. I only know that the Scout one-shots nearly every cramped group while a Ranger doesn't - even though the Ranger can generate six Blasts with one shot. If somebody wants to find out what really-really happens: be my guest! Variants (after a nerf...?) Another nice variant is to pick Sharpshooter/Street Fighter instead and use Fire in the Hole and Hand Mortar. The dps is better after the initial attacks because rod's Blast causes 50% recovery penalty. Vids I have huge problems recording the game atm. I get massive flickering blue bars when trying to capture a vid directy from the graphics card. I blame my drivers. What works is Peek (makes short animated GIFs). And if I'm honest I like those even more than Youtube vids for some unknown reason. Maybe because they remind me of Monkey Island? Enjoy (open tags to load animated gif)! --------------------------------------------------------------- Luring enemies to a spot with Arkemy'r Dazzling Lights: --------------------------------------------------------------- One-shot of a group of Rotghasts: --------------------------------------------------------------- Attacking a group of Rathun Raiders out of stealth with Empower: --------------------------------------------------------------- Attacking a group of Rathun Raiders from stealth without Empower: --------------------------------------------------------------- With Empower - without Empower - makes no difference, hehe. Edit: had to rewrite some text because of major forum formatting screwup that put links everywhere. Yikes!

For Deadfire I'm planning on importing my PoE character, an arquebus-wielding ranger with a bear companion. I found the Apprentice Sneak Attack talent in PoE to be great. My question is two-fold: Firstly, to be dealing out the damage, should I be looking at playing a Scout for the Sneak Attack and other abilites or would a single-class ranger work fine? Secondly, does a Scout play much differently to a Ranger? What's the "feel" of both options? Thanks heaps, TheDogProfessor