The Ultimate discussion thread

[thelee]

17 minutes ago, MaxQuest said:

 Tactician/priest might also find useful Searing Seal and Spiritual Ally, for flanking purpose.

what i was going to try (when i have an evening free to experiment) was for hauani o whe to pre-buff a lot (a lot a lot, because of the small cleansing effect on each hit), and then use grouping/searing seal (because the ooze only resists perception afflictions) to try to trigger brilliant during combat, so i can spam mule kicks as needed (which will also flank), clear out if i need to interrupt two oozes at the same time. having storm of holy fire active via brilliant spamming (or scrolls of tornado) to help dps down greater/lesser oozes since they spam merge when they appear. since the tactician auto-restore resource upon successful interrupt works less well with Expert mode on because it's much, much harder to correctly time ability interrupts, actively having brilliant on somehow would help a lot.

Edited May 13, 2019 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Speaking of cheese: What about Chanter/<whatever> with Grave Calling, using the good old "kill your own skeletons for foe-only Chillfogs" trick? Would for example trigger Brilliant Tactician all the time, deals damage, reduce enemies' ACC...  also those Chillfogs triggers Avenging Storm by the way (like Blinding Smoke and basically all attack rolls that originate from weapons I guess). 

Edited May 13, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

Also: this

[MaxQuest]

^ It is great, but the priest is there to keep Vela alive with withdraws and BDD.

[Boeroer]

Use Troubadour/Skaen then with Grave Calling.

[MaxQuest]

But mah Brilliant?)

 

P.S. That moment when you miss multi-classing limit from NWN2.

Edited May 13, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Raven Darkholme]

Skaen without Brilliant is not much more than a class without withdraw because of Woedica's challenge ;).

Also how are you guys using melee abilities with hand mortar?

It doesn't work in my game at least for Power Strike and Mule kick.

(didn't try Clear out since it specifically says Melee weapon but maybe the irony is that one works?)

[thelee]

29 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Also how are you guys using melee abilities with hand mortar?

it sometimes works with melee abilities that do full attack so long as you have a melee weapon combined. i think that's the magic with WotW and various weapon interactions.

i thought that's what you were talking about with mule kick back when i didn't realize you were talking about the weapon proc (but mule kick is a primary attack so many levels of my mistake).

30 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Skaen without Brilliant is not much more than a class without withdraw because of Woedica's challenge ;).

still would work with the shroud of phantasm and using those skeletons to attack yourself first (before using them to trigger a bajillion chill fogs, but like i said boy is it tedious to get that brilliant trigger in the first place.

[Raven Darkholme]

Hm, can't seem to get it to work, my char keeps walking up for a melee mule kick and the aoe doesn't trigger.

[dunehunter]

On 5/13/2019 at 11:30 AM, baldurs_gate_2 said:

It took me 17 Minutes with my not so optimized monk to beat him. Maybe, if you know the exact amount of stacks you need, it can be faster. But it was even in fast mode and i would not recommend to use that in the ultimate run.

Switch to frostseeker and stack some hit to crit, you will use much less time to kill hellfire. It seems Resonant Touch and Frostseeker has some interesting synergy, and u will stack RT much faster with frostseeker than blunderbuss. Friend told me that if you crit with Frostseeker u stack 9 RT on target, will need to test it later myself.

And he shows me a pic of RT with 40 raw damage per stack, with Potion of Ascension. So you only need 400 stacks to kill hellfire. I don't think exploit food stack really matters here or not. Just need to optimize your build.

Edited May 14, 2019 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

8 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Hm, can't seem to get it to work, my char keeps walking up for a melee mule kick and the aoe doesn't trigger.

Afaik Knockdown/Mule Kick never worked with ranged weapons. What I could get to work was Clear Out (and upgrades), Hunter's Claw and Whirling Strikes. I simply put one melee weapon into the main hand. While this makes sense with Full Attack abilities like Whirling Strikes it still works (or worked?) with the primary-only Clear Out.

For Clear Out you put a melee weapon into the offhand. You will then walk up to he enemy (since melee ability) but instead of the offhand melee weapon you will execute Clear Out with the main hand ranged weapon. At least that was the case pre 5.0. But sincethe patch notes don't notice it...

Unfortunately I didn't take a video from it. But with Hand Mortar + Blinding Smoke + Fire in the Hole + Chain Shot and Heaven's Cacophony's Avenging Storm you could to pretty bonkers things (and also break your graphics card) since every AoE hit from Clear Out triggered the usual AoE attack from mortar (including Blinding Smoke and additional jump of FitH whioch all trigger Avenging Storm). 

Flagellant's Path, Whispers of the Wind and HoF and soms others always worked with ranged weapons, even when dual wielding two ranged weapons or using two handed ones.

So what about Tactician/Troubadour with Grave Calling? By the way: does Vela profit from Ancient Memory? Or Her Courage Thick as Steel? If yes this could be used to lower the amount of needed Withdraw scrolls?

Can you cast Statis Shell on Vela? I suppose not but who knows?

  

Edited May 14, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, dunehunter said:

Switch to frostseeker and stack some hit to crit, you will use much less time to kill hellfire. It seems Resonant Touch and Frostseeker has some interesting synergy, and u will stack RT much faster with frostseeker than blunderbuss. Friend told me that if you crit with Frostseeker u stack 9 RT on target, will need to test it later myself.

And he shows me a pic of RT with 40 raw damage per stack, with Potion of Ascension. So you only need 400 stacks to kill hellfire. I don't think exploit food stack really matters here or not. Just need to optimize your build.

I guess the synergy is that ResTouch also gets build up by the frost AoE of Frostseeker. So in theory (if every arrow crits) you could stack 6 ResTouches. But why should you be able to create more stacks with it than with a blunderbuss? Dual blunderbuss with Full Attack should put 8 stacks on the target instead of 6. But you need to overcome a certain damage threshold. If your blunderbuss pellets can't penetrate or the dmg rolls are too low then it will not stack anything I suppose. Maybe Frostseeker has less problems in that regard?

[MaxQuest]

35 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Afaik Knockdown/Mule Kick never worked with ranged weapons. What I could get to work was Clear Out (and upgrades), Hunter's Claw and Whirling Strikes. I simply put one melee weapon into the main hand. While this makes sense with Full Attack abilities like Whirling Strikes it still works (or worked?) with the primary-only Clear Out.

For Clear Out you put a melee weapon into the offhand. You will then walk up to he enemy (since melee ability) but instead of the offhand melee weapon you will execute Clear Out with the main hand ranged weapon. At least that was the case pre 5.0. But sincethe patch notes don't notice it...  

I have checked it just now:

• Clear Out with mortar (in MH) and melee weapon (in OH) will use the mortar.
• Clear Out with melee weapon (in MH) and mortar (in OH) will use melee weapon.
• Mule Kick with mortar (in MH) and melee weapon (in OH) will use melee weapon.
• Mule Kick with melee weapon (in MH) and mortar (in OH) will use melee weapon.

And without melee weapon (in at least one hand), you can't use these abilities at all (and icons are greyed out)

 

P.S. AoE Mule Kick works fine with WotEP though.

 

Edited May 14, 2019 by MaxQuest

[dunehunter]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I guess the synergy is that ResTouch also gets build up by the frost AoE of Frostseeker. So in theory (if every arrow crits) you could stack 6 ResTouches. But why should you be able to create more stacks with it than with a blunderbuss? Dual blunderbuss with Full Attack should put 8 stacks on the target instead of 6. But you need to overcome a certain damage threshold. If your blunderbuss pellets can't penetrate or the dmg rolls are too low then it will not stack anything I suppose. Maybe Frostseeker has less problems in that regard?

I'm also curious about that, will head back home and test it

[Raven Darkholme]

Thx guys, is there any way to flank yourself besides blunderbuss modal? preferably without attacking an enemy? 

Edited May 14, 2019 by Raven Darkholme

[Raven Darkholme]

Been testing around with Mule Kick and Wotep and it makes all the difference, tactician for life haha.

[Waski]

Cipher/blood mage,  cast spell reflection on Vela, cast brilliant on her should bounce back,  voila.  Wall of draining etc. You know the drill.  Loose toilets thoughts.... 

 

Bonus points for extended ascension

Edited May 14, 2019 by Waski

[MaxQuest]

1 hour ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Thx guys, is there any way to flank yourself besides blunderbuss modal? preferably without attacking an enemy? 

As tactician/skaen? Not many. Afaik there is only Searing Seal (for the blind). But iirc the enemy has to activate it.

And out of neutral options:
- Chillfog from Gravecaller, while confused (and iirc tactician is confused and shaken while flanked).
- Sparckcrackers
- Scroll of Sunbeam
- Cinder Bomb
- Shock Chain Trap (?)

Although all these will roll vs character's defenses.

P.S. Beside WotEP there is also Wahai Poraga. I haven't checked it, but it should apply AoE Mule Kick in v5.0+ too.

8 minutes ago, Waski said:

Cipher/blood mage,  cast spell reflection on Vela, cast brilliant on her should bounce back,  voila.  Wall of draining etc. You know the drill.  Loose toilets thoughts.... 

Arcane Reflection is a self cast, no? And it reflects only hostile spells.

And the problem would be: how do you keep Vela and your MC alive.

[Waski]

**** it self cast,  but You can bounce it back (cipher brilliant),  I've tried it with companions, 

[Decadency]

18 minutes ago, Waski said:

**** it self cast,  but You can bounce it back (cipher brilliant),  I've tried it with companions, 

Ancestor's Memory? It's for an Allied Target but not a Friendly Target. I guess Vela is not an ally.

[dunehunter]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I guess the synergy is that ResTouch also gets build up by the frost AoE of Frostseeker. So in theory (if every arrow crits) you could stack 6 ResTouches. But why should you be able to create more stacks with it than with a blunderbuss? Dual blunderbuss with Full Attack should put 8 stacks on the target instead of 6. But you need to overcome a certain damage threshold. If your blunderbuss pellets can't penetrate or the dmg rolls are too low then it will not stack anything I suppose. Maybe Frostseeker has less problems in that regard?

OK I tested this, so the aoe from FS is counted as two stacks of Resonant Touch, so ideally if u can critical hit on all 3 projections, it will be 3 + 3 x 2 = 9 stacks of RT, ideally u can do it. Also we were talking about dorugudan here so don't think u will use Full Attack most of the time, mostly just auto attack here, so if no crit, blunderbuss will be better, if u drink some potion and stack some hit to crit, FS is better.

Btw do u mean that if u did 0-1 damage, it will not apply Resonant Touch on target?

So in general, Frostseeker is very powerful on monk because the AoE on crit + RT. If u target someone with low deflection and proc the aoe to hit enemies around, it will apply x6 stacks of RT on itself and targets nearby, plus x3 RT on target, even better than blunderbuss imo.

Edited May 14, 2019 by dunehunter

[Boeroer]

Honestly: when I said that I had PoE1 in mind where you had to deal at least 10 dmg in order to add a stack. I just unconsciously assumed it is the same for Deadfire. Maybe it's not though.

Cool thing with the two stacks. Very good to know.

By the way: all dmg dealing abilities that originate from weapon procs will not only profit from quality enchantment of the weapon and other stuff, they will also work with weapon-only restricted effects:

e.g. Frostseeker's AoE will trigger Avenging Storm, it stacks Resonant Touches and so on. Same with Watershaper's Focus (Ondra' Wave - used to be so at least) and Engoliero do Espirs (Blade Feast). So maybe there are other weapons that are great for stacking Resonant Touches with weapon procs?

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

I have checked it just now:

• Clear Out with mortar (in MH) and melee weapon (in OH) will use the mortar.

 

Oh - it was that way round? Also good. But yes - you have to have one melee weapon equipped - else no AoE*AoE magic with Clear Out.

Using Clear Out with Blinding Smoke fomr Hand Mortar should be pretty nice for a Tactician. 

[Boeroer]

Some more questions:

1. Can you cast Beetle Shell on Vela (guess not)? 
2. If yes: do enemies lose interest? I also guess not. But maybe it's worth checking?
3. Would there be any way to cast Cipher's Statis Shell on Vela? e.g. if you are confused (hello Tactician)?
4. Wouldn't mind control spells like Whisper of Treason or Puppet Master help to pull enemies away from Vela?
5. I guess there's no trick that allows you to cast Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure on Vela... ?

[Raven Darkholme]

22 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Some more questions:

1. Can you cast Beetle Shell on Vela (guess not)? 
2. If yes: do enemies lose interest? I also guess not. But maybe it's worth checking?
3. Would there be any way to cast Cipher's Statis Shell on Vela? e.g. if you are confused (hello Tactician)?
4. Wouldn't mind control spells like Whisper of Treason or Puppet Master help to pull enemies away from Vela?
5. I guess there's no trick that allows you to cast Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure on Vela... ?

 

Beetle Shell is friendly so it works on her (only allied and foe doesn't work, target and friendly do).

I don't think enemies will lose interest (haven't tested it tho) but it might still be enough in combination with Brilliant and bursting whoever is attacking her, main problem would probably be fights like Doru and Spider with Big Aoes that don't need to directly target her.

Confused might be worth checking out for Stasis Shell, isn't there also a barbarian subclass with perma confuse?

(Tactician would be better ofc because brilliant)

Mind control could help problem will again be fights with repeated big Aoes. (Doru is even Mind affliction immune)

Don't think there's a way to cast self cast spells.

Edited May 14, 2019 by Raven Darkholme