What to do with Ydwin

[superior987]

I just picked up Ydwin, who I'm using as a mindstalker.  I had intended to have her use 2 blunderbusses, including Serefen's AOE one, so that I could both get the blunderbuss focus generation and apply rogue debuffs in AOE.  The build guides I'm seeing for her seem to want to use Frostseeker or Essence Interrupter.  I remember blunderbusses being the go-to ranged cipher weapon in POE1 due to focus generation from multiple hits - are the bows that much better, or is that a function of the bows being excellent and there not being a ton of competition from other party members for them?

[dgray62]

Dual blunderbusses are great for a mindstalker. You can wreck mobs with the AOE explosions and get lots of focus. She'll do well if you give her the ranged gear such as Acina's Tricorn and the ring of the marksman. Frostseeker is great too, but is best for a build designed and geared for crits. Essence Interrupter is great for high damage to single targets. While blunderbusses have short range, they don't inflict a deflection penalty like bows, which is a nice compensation.

[limaxophobiacq]

Kitchen Stove with Thunderous Report won't be as crazy on Ydwin as it would be on say an Assassin/Ascendant, but it's still amazing opener for any Mindstalker.

[Haplok]

Serafen also gets a second AOE blunderbuss in his questline

 

But yeah, no other per encounter property can really beat a Kitchen Stove Thunderous Report opening salvo (and instant max Focus).

Edited April 13, 2021 by Haplok

[superior987]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll stick with blunderbusses and play around with the different options.

[Dmitri]

Necroposting time.
 

Ydwin is absolutely fantastic as a rogue/cipher, 2h melee. At higher levels, with buffs from Tekehu/Xoti she's the best single-target damage dealer in my group now.

[Dmitri]

Sorry, 2-wield not 2h.

[Shai Hulud]

12 hours ago, Dmitri said:

Necroposting time.
 

Ydwin is absolutely fantastic as a rogue/cipher, 2h melee. At higher levels, with buffs from Tekehu/Xoti she's the best single-target damage dealer in my group now.

Personally I like her as a pure cipher just so the party has access to defensive mindweb and reaping knives. Give her a high DPS bow like Essence Interrupter or gun like Red Hand.

But I usually don't run sidekicks because they're relatively boring compared to companions and relatively bad compared to custom adventurers. So if I really want a cipher I'll make one or just run Serafen that way, though Seraphen's subclass sucks.

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Personally I like her as a pure cipher just so the party has access to defensive mindweb and reaping knives. Give her a high DPS bow like Essence Interrupter or gun like Red Hand.

My own pet build is SC Cipher with Rod modal.

Shared Nightmare + Rod modal (+Time Parasite) is hilarious. Usually refill focus takes one strike

Mortars or WotEP work too, but the range convenience is neat. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

My own pet build is SC Cipher with Rod modal.

Shared Nightmare + Rod modal (+Time Parasite) is hilarious. Usually refill focus takes one strike

Mortars or WotEP work too, but the range convenience is neat. 

I've been wanting to run a pure soul blade for shared nightmare. With Strand of Favor expanding our focus, every spell would cover the screen. I wonder if shared nightmares works with scrolls...

Too bad it isn't a multiclass ability. Shared nightmares + citzal's spirit lance would be pretty hilarious (and game-breaking, but still). One hit fills focus, next hit soul annihilation clears screen. I guess that's what you're doing with rods and blast, basically, on a slightly smaller scale.

If only there were anything worth spending that much focus on. The tier 9 spells are really meh, though the tier 8s are really, really good. 

[Elric Galad]

27 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

I've been wanting to run a pure soul blade for shared nightmare. With Strand of Favor expanding our focus, every spell would cover the screen. I wonder if shared nightmares works with scrolls...

Too bad it isn't a multiclass ability. Shared nightmares + citzal's spirit lance would be pretty hilarious (and game-breaking, but still). One hit fills focus, next hit soul annihilation clears screen. I guess that's what you're doing with rods and blast, basically, on a slightly smaller scale.

For MC, Duality of Mortal Presence can give +10 INT which can act as a baby substitute. Even some INT inspiration is decent to abuse AoE.

SC must get something anyway.

27 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

If only there were anything worth spending that much focus on. The tier 9 spells are really meh, though the tier 8s are really, really good. 

They are all a bit niche (more that than utterly bad), and vanilla Haunting Chain is plain bad.

Death of 1000 Cuts is a combo version of disintigrate. BPM made it target Deflection rather than fortitude, and we all know how high fortitude can be on foes that you wish to target with DoT.

Driving Echoes is caster support version of Reaping Knives. Situational but can be really devastating in the right circonstances (many AoE spells have meh PEN and will be turned into armored targets bane - even Chillfog starts doing damages with Driving Echoes !).

BPM Hauting Chain has super high duration. I think it is interesting as the only Terrified inflicting cipher spell. The neat part is that it can "silence" offensive abilities of a Resolve Resistant boss for a great duration (and it target Will, which benefits from nice Cipher passives), especially if "opened" with Psychovampiric Shield. 

 

The beauty of Cipher spells is that you can always use the right one in the right circonstance and then you have plenty of ressources to spend on the right spell. It doesn't matter if a spell is a bit niche, when you are in the battle that requires it, you can spam it like crazy. Ciphers have enough bread&butter abilities anyway, so the most important for the other spells is to be able to offer new possibilities. 

 

But the raw power of SC Ciphers IMHO come from Shared Nightmares, Additional PL and the bread&butterness of Time Parasite (which is arguably the only SC Active Ability that is useful independantly of party build and specific battle).

[Shai Hulud]

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

For MC, Duality of Mortal Presence can give +10 INT which can act as a baby substitute. Even some INT inspiration is decent to abuse AoE.

It isn't TOO hard to reach 35 INT without it, though the reason I usually take iron wheel is because I like forbidden fist monks and variable intellect makes them too unpredictable (also makes scripting things harder since you don't know the duration). Start with 18 or 19 INT, Old Vailia 20, Konstanten's Boon 21, Alchemic Wits 23, Effigys Resentment Kana/Aloth 24, Cauldron 25, inspiration 30, Charm of Bones 32, Kuaru's Prize 33, Milx 34, Heaven's Cacophony 36. Probably forgetting some things. I usually take a different pet and helmet though so for me I have more like 32 - 33 on non FF builds. That's enough to hit a lot of things with citzal's lance but I want the screen to shake

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

SC must get something anyway.

They are all a bit niche (more that than utterly bad), and vanilla Haunting Chain is plain bad.

Death of 1000 Cuts is a combo version of disintigrate. BPM made it target Deflection rather than fortitude, and we all know how high fortitude can be on foes that you wish to target with DoT.

Yeah I actually just discovered Death of 1000 cuts is better than I thought. I didn't realize it targets deflection which is vastly easier to hit for most builds. Found out the hard way when running through forgotten sanctum, the frightened child is tearing me to shreds. The initial hit is not that bad, but then her dozen imaginary friends poke you and oh you're dead. Doesn't work as well for a solo character since you can only poke the enemy so fast, but each hit extending the effect would certainly add up, could kill anything as long as you hit it once per 10 seconds. Maybe not dorudugan and HOW but they're "special" because dorudugan has insane healing that barely cares about damage and HOW cheats. 

But I'm starting to think single class cipher might be stronger than I thought for solo runs. Probably pick soul blade still, keep up buffs / debuffs, cast death of 1000 cuts, punch things, soul annihilate. Only hard thing is you have no innate healing so would need to carry tons of healing potions. Not sure if this would work in the longest fights where you may need many healing potions.

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Driving Echoes is caster support version of Reaping Knives. Situational but can be really devastating in the right circonstances (many AoE spells have meh PEN and will be turned into armored targets bane - even Chillfog starts doing damages with Driving Echoes !).

Agree it could be useful on casters because spell pen is bad, but how is it like reaping knives? It doesn't generate focus does it? Or do you just mean it's like buffing spells the way reaping knives buffs weapons? The main thing I care about with reaping knives is it returns focus without me doing anything so I can spam soul annihilation more. 

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

BPM Hauting Chain has super high duration. I think it is interesting as the only Terrified inflicting cipher spell. The neat part is that it can "silence" offensive abilities of a Resolve Resistant boss for a great duration (and it target Will, which benefits from nice Cipher passives), especially if "opened" with Psychovampiric Shield. 

Eh... it is still 90 focus and single target. For 20 focus I can paralyze someone for 20s and immobilize his buddies. I might occasionally use haunting chain if ascended vs. very specific enemies who are not resistant to resolve but have powerful abilities. Why is it called haunting chain? That sounds like it is a chain spell like mind plague. Now if it worked like that, then it would be worthy of tier 9. 

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

 

The beauty of Cipher spells is that you can always use the right one in the right circonstance and then you have plenty of ressources to spend on the right spell. It doesn't matter if a spell is a bit niche, when you are in the battle that requires it, you can spam it like crazy. Ciphers have enough bread&butter abilities anyway, so the most important for the other spells is to be able to offer new possibilities. 

Yeah if you're single class this is true. I usually run MC ciphers and only take 2 to 5 spells because points are often better spent elsewhere. Still...I find cipher damage spells kind of limited in that most do basically the same thing, just some version of burn or raw DOT, besides a couple low level ones. Silent Scream was badass in POE1 but they nerfed it to hell. Amplified Wave was awesome too, kinda sucks now because very low penetration, rolls v fortitude, and prone is not as strong as it was. Screaming Souls is too specific, it might be good but I'm not going to memorize it for spirits/vessels only. 

10 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

But the raw power of SC Ciphers IMHO come from Shared Nightmares, Additional PL and the bread&butterness of Time Parasite (which is arguably the only SC Active Ability that is useful independantly of party build and specific battle).

Even Time Parasite was nerfed a ton, though it's still good enough to use. Used to be +50% action speed and it had 10 meter jumps. Ciphers in POE1 were something else...especially with psychic backlash broken. Oh and I do take Psychic backlash now, semi-passive abilities like this are one area where I can support cooldowns.

[Dmitri]

Well I don't like making custom adventurers, it feels like cheating. Ydwin is an existing character, and she's stylish.

Just killed the dragon in White Void, whateverhername, with Ydwin the 2-wield rogue/cipher in my group. Her "Ancestral memories" made sure that Aloth always had "Arcane cleansing" to take care of dragon's defensive buff, and Tekehu and Xoti could maintain their buffs and heals. Made this fight quite trivial.

Gotta say, I love Ydwin. )) Why cant I romance her, damnit.

Oh, and about Serafen... not only his subclass sucks. Lategame rogue is a much better damage dealer than a barbarian. Plus, Serafen is a pirate, and I do not approve of piracy.

[Boeroer]

20 hours ago, Dmitri said:

Oh, and about Serafen... not only his subclass sucks. Lategame rogue is a much better damage dealer than a barbarian.

That last statement is not generally true and depends on many factors (actual build, party composition, difficulty setting and so on).

But yes, Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is usually considered the worst one of all the unique subclasses the official companions have, although on paper it is balanced. But it is absolutely unpredictible and that's a bad thing for any well-planned approach. Also one tends to remember the times Wild Mind bit you in the rear much better than the times it helped you.     

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

That last statement is not generally true and depends on many factors (actual build, party composition, difficulty setting and so on).

But yes, Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is usually considered the worst one of all the unique subclasses the official companions have, although on paper it is balanced. But it is absolutely unpredictible and that's a bad thing for any well-planned approach. Also one tends to remember the times Wild Mind bit you in the rear much better than the times it helped you.     

I second this, I prefer witch to mindstalker all day. But wild mind subclass sucks =(

Barbarians gets tons of action speed and damage buffs, go really well with soul blades for melee ciphers, and the strong and fit inspirations aren't available to ciphers to cast on themselves. Blood Storm is really good if you can actually proc crits, which ciphers can.

Witch builds are one of the ones I'm testing for solo in BPM. It is pretty good, stalwart defiance adds a lot of survivability to the cipher and you attack quite fast with blood storm + blooded. Combine with weapons that heal on kill or crit and it is pretty viable. I like axes thematically, and magran's favor fits the healing bill while Oathbreaker's End heals on kill (and Amra adds more carnage-like damage), but sabres are also really good. Adlris Blade of Captain Crow heals like 17 health on crit (with dawnstar's blessing and decent might), combine with devil of caroc armor and abraham for health on kill and attack speed and the DOC BP devil's due healing is almost always up for a little over 1 health per second (a shame it doesn't stack with itself). Doesn't look like carnage damage goes towards focus, nor does soul annihilation go towards carnage (regular damage does but not the extra raw), but still pretty good. 

The soul blade side just casts phantom foes, borrowed instinct, and psychovampiric shield if necessary, and uses soul annihilation every 30s or so. Crits pretty reliably for a lot of damage and healing. Blooded + one stands alone + draining whip = +65% damage, and frenzy + blood lust is 20% + 20% action speed (doesn't add like that but still), even get a little armor boost from thick skinned. Add blood thirst and you can attack seriously fast, which is particularly interesting in something like a MC soulblade because you can, for instance, use blood thirst to cast spells with no recovery.

Dunno if it can solo all the content but it is very solid. Would be very good with a chanter who can buff dex/per/int. 

Oh yeah and slayer's claw upgrades blood storm into basically permanent energized which is insane, because carnage DOES distribute energized interrupt.

It's really one of the best DPS builds especially for handling crowds.

----

On further testing, blood storm might doesn't get extended if you upgrade it to tenacious or energized with slayer's claw. Seems like a bug as the effects are still listed under "blood storm", but only the other blood storm effects get extended with crits. Disappointing. I guess a workaround is if you have a chanter you can start stealthed, have chanter singing many lives pass by, crit a bunch of skeletons to extend blood storm, then upgrade to energized with slayer's claw. Kinda lame though.

Edited April 3, 2023 by Shai Hulud
because

[Boeroer]

7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

because carnage DOES distribute energized interrupt.

Sadly that shouldn't be the case. Indeed does Energized work with all sources of crits, including spells and spell-like abilities. Carnage does work like a spell and not like a weapon attack mechanically (that's why it doesn't generate focus and why it doesn't transport any weapon effects). It's like a spell-like ability that uses 33% of your weapon's base dmg as its own base damage (which is pretty bad in the early game) - and it scales that dmg with Power Level (which is nice). So far it could work with Energized.
But that "spell" has the unfortunate restriction that even attack rolls over 100 are counted as hits, never crits.  

Therefore it should never be able to interrupt via the Energized inspiration. 

But: Amra's "Carnage" is different - because it can crit.

---

As a Barbarian/Cipher I personally prefer Spirit Frenzy over Blood Storm (I don't even upgrade to Spirit Tornado), because Spirit Frenzy's stagger affliction works on hits instead of crits - and it can help to land Cipher spells vs. Fortitude (since the -5 MIG from stagger leads -10 Fortitude defense, too).
It also helps with weapon dmg if you picked Brute Force (I always do). Brute Force also works with Cipher spells that target deflection (see Mind Blades and Amplified Thrust). In combination with Secret Horrors (Sicken, also -10 Fortitude) you can lower enemies' Fortitude by 20 points with one single spell use, which is cool imo. That can often make a big difference for hit quality, especially if you have Brute Force. Of course I like to combine those effects with a Morning Star - modal (for another -25 Fortitude debuff on top of staggered and sickened).  

---

Speaking of Witches: a Berserker/Cipher can use his confusion to cast several cipher spells on enemies that usually need an ally (Amplified Thrust, Amplified Wave, Ectopsychic Echo...) or to cast spells that need an enemy on allies (like Antipathetic Field for example). In case of Amplified Thrust it makes the spell hit the target twice and push it back. Usually I consider that spell pretty meh, but with that variant you get twice the damage output and can target Fortitude via Brute Force - which is pretty good in some cases.

Do not try to combine confusion with Mind Blades though. Your party members will hate you.  

[Shai Hulud]

16 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Sadly that shouldn't be the case. Indeed does Energized work with all sources of crits, including spells and spell-like abilities. Carnage does work like a spell and not like a weapon attack mechanically (that's why it doesn't generate focus and why it doesn't transport any weapon effects). It's like a spell-like ability that uses 33% of your weapon's base dmg as its own base damage (which is pretty bad in the early game) - and it scales that dmg with Power Level (which is nice). So far it could work with Energized.
But that "spell" has the unfortunate restriction that even attack rolls over 100 are counted as hits, never crits.  

Therefore it should never be able to interrupt via the Energized inspiration. 

But: Amra's "Carnage" is different - because it can crit.

Possibly I was mistaken but I removed interrupting blows and I was still interrupting things from carnage hits, as long as I had energized. Carnage kind of sucks so if there's a bug that makes it cool I'm fine with it.

16 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

---

As a Barbarian/Cipher I personally prefer Spirit Frenzy over Blood Storm (I don't even upgrade to Spirit Tornado), because Spirit Frenzy's stagger affliction works on hits instead of crits - and it can help to land Cipher spells vs. Fortitude (since the -5 MIG from stagger leads -10 Fortitude defense, too).
It also helps with weapon dmg if you picked Brute Force (I always do). Brute Force also works with Cipher spells that target deflection (see Mind Blades and Amplified Thrust). In combination with Secret Horrors (Sicken, also -10 Fortitude) you can lower enemies' Fortitude by 20 points with one single spell use, which is cool imo. That can often make a big difference for hit quality, especially if you have Brute Force. Of course I like to combine those effects with a Morning Star - modal (for another -25 Fortitude debuff on top of staggered and sickened).  

Stagger is neat but Blood Storm does massive amounts of damage and more important it can be sustained even in megaboss fights as long as you crit things now and then. Blood Storm raw DOT is also distributed by carnage. Don't know if that's how it is meant to work but I was just hitting one snake and moused over the others and they all showed the blood storm hostile effect, which gets renewed each hit. I never try to land cipher spells vs fortitude besides disintegration vs Hauani O Whe. I play almost entirely soul blades and the name of the game is beat things with a stick and spam soul annihilation. 

I really liked Brute Force in POE1 but there don't seem to be many enemies with fortitude lower than deflection in Deadfire. Some spirits mostly, who aren't the toughest enemies to begin with. Also lowering deflection is going to be more productive for your whole team (usually). Psychovampiric Shield lowers deflection by 10, Phantom Foes by 10. Yes you can lower fortitude more but most enemies seem to start with fortitude 20+ points higher. So..IDK.

16 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

---

Speaking of Witches: a Berserker/Cipher can use his confusion to cast several cipher spells on enemies that usually need an ally (Amplified Thrust, Amplified Wave, Ectopsychic Echo...) or to cast spells that need an enemy on allies (like Antipathetic Field for example). In case of Amplified Thrust it makes the spell hit the target twice and push it back. Usually I consider that spell pretty meh, but with that variant you get twice the damage output and can target Fortitude via Brute Force - which is pretty good in some cases.

Do not try to combine confusion with Mind Blades though. Your party members will hate you.  

Interesting. Would this work on Vela? I've often been irritated I can't cast stasis shield on her...I can cast psychovampiric shield, but not stasis shield. 

[Elric Galad]

Carnage can crit only with balance polishing mod. 

Interrupting Blows applies to Carnage crits only with BPM too. 

And Blood storm without BPM is extended by kills, not crits (which is useless vs some Megabosses). 

[Shai Hulud]

5 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Carnage can crit only with balance polishing mod. 

Interrupting Blows applies to Carnage crits only with BPM too. 

And Blood storm without BPM is extended by kills, not crits (which is useless vs some Megabosses). 

I might have had BPM on. I usually do but I was testing some wizard builds in vanilla (prefer vanilla blood mages, blood sacrifice nerf is too much) and thought it was off. I definitely removed interrupting blows, though, so the carnage crits were from energized. I'll check again next time I play.

Honestly hadn't played barbarians much before trying BPM, played mostly wizards and the NPC chars but rarely serafen. Really like blood storm with on crit extension.

Any idea why if might is upgraded by skayer's claw the duration becomes fixed? That is the might inspiration duration becomes fixed, the action speed and the rest can still be extended scoring crits.

 

[Elric Galad]

43 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:

Any idea why if might is upgraded by skayer's claw the duration becomes fixed? That is the might inspiration duration becomes fixed, the action speed and the rest can still be extended scoring crits.

Because slayer claw basically create a new status, and probably only copy the duration.

There are a couple of affliction/inspiration statuses with secondary effect attached to them (such as non BPM Confounding Blind or Perishing Strike Weakened). The additional property is also lost when the affliction is upgraded / downgraded through weakness / resistance.

[Boeroer]

20 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I really liked Brute Force in POE1 but there don't seem to be many enemies with fortitude lower than deflection in Deadfire.

Fortitude doesn't have to be lower from the start. For me, the difference of Fortitude - Deflection only has to be lower than 45 in order for Brute Force to be useful. And there are very few enemies with Deflection+45 <= Fortitude. Brute Force in PoE1 was less useful than in Deadfire imo because there was no Body Blows and the afflictions weren't as systemically ordered and based on attribute malus. In Deadfire, the synergy between Body Blows, MIG and CON affliction and Brute Force is the main reason I almost always use a Morning Star on a Barbarian.

9 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I might have had BPM on.

Hehe, most definitely  

20 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Interesting. Would this work on Vela? I've often been irritated I can't cast stasis shield on her...I can cast psychovampiric shield, but not stasis shield. 

I guess so - but I didn't try that out myself so I can't say for sure. Vela is an ally but not a party member iirc? Sometimes that's a tricky destinction. I tried it just now on an Essential Phantom and also on a Many-Lives Skeleton (also allies but not party members) and it indeed works on them - so the chances are high that it works with Vela, too I would say. *fingers crossed*

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Fortitude doesn't have to be lower from the start. For me, the difference of Fortitude - Deflection only has to be lower than 45 in order for Brute Force to be useful. And there are very few enemies with Deflection+45 <= Fortitude. Brute Force in PoE1 was less useful than in Deadfire imo because there was no Body Blows and the afflictions weren't as systemically ordered and based on attribute malus. In Deadfire, the synergy between Body Blows, MIG and CON affliction and Brute Force is the main reason I almost always use a Morning Star on a Barbarian.

This is a good point. The fortitude debuff is irresistible and has decent duration. Unfortunately it isn't distributed by carnage so it is single target. Also even when enemies can have their fortitude debuffed lower than deflection, it usually isn't way lower. I guess I don't really like morning stars for crowds, though they are extremely good for single target damage with high penetration and good debuffs. I'm usually playing with Abydon on also so weapons tend to break, though generic weapons don't break for some reason, and I'm pretty sure I've found legendary morningstars somewhere, but no idea where.

Sabres are good because there are a lot of good ones and even with Abydon on you can cycle between them so they don't break. Really like Aldris Blade of Captain Crow on crit builds, combined with Devil of Caroc BP you can outheal the damage from berserker frenzy, which unfortunately scales with power level and can be quite high. Though the health hidden part is the worst. I've done testing where I manually remove that part and the battles are so much easier when you can see if you're about to die. The character usually says something like "I could use a healing spell" so there are some clues, also you can script to drink potions at various levels, but it is still pretty hard to work around especially for iron runs.

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Hehe, most definitely  

I guess so - but I didn't try that out myself so I can't say for sure. Vela is an ally but not a party member iirc? Sometimes that's a tricky destinction. I tried it just now on an Essential Phantom and also on a Many-Lives Skeleton (also allies but not party members) and it indeed works on them - so the chances are high that it works with Vela, too I would say. *fingers crossed*

Yep it was BPM.

I made a berserker/witch and stasis shell does work on Vela! Also the confused affliction correctly scales with blood storm so it isn't hard to keep up. Can also cast pain block on vela, plus on ememies cast tactical meld for aware + 3 engagement, amplified wave, etc. Still can't cast pain block on oneself unfortunately, I guess confusion only applies to other things, though we can cast stasis shell on ourselves. Still have to be careful with keeping Vela away from the pack because even in Stasis Shell she gets hit by blood storm and carnage raw damage which kills her pretty fast, and you can't heal her when she's in stasis shell. But it would be nice to have stasis shell and pain block as backups when other tactics fail or you run out of withdraw scrolls. 

Speaking of withdraw scrolls, it never made sense to me why that one could cast that on Vela but not Pain Block. In general you can cast foe only spells on Vela, and a few ally or ally/foe spells. Like you can cast psychovampiric shield on her, not sure why. Maybe because under "Target" it isn't designated as ally or foe. While withdraw is tagged "friendly target" but pain block is tagged "allied target". 

So I think spells that are tagged "friendly target", "foe", or unspecified can be cast on her. Results are kind of arbitrary and heavily favor priests because of how their spells are tagged. Hmm. Rechecked, not this simple, because for instance Tenuous Grasp is tagged "foe only" but that one can't be cast on Vela. But you can psychovampiric shield, antipathetic field etc. 

But with confused you can cast anything on her! Berserker/X is pretty hard to solo though mostly due to the blocked health. Are there other any other sources of confusion? I mean there's confusion and bewildering spectacle but I believe those are foe only. Well I found one, but its use is kind of limited, and takes a while to proc. With "A Whale of a Wand" you can charm yourself by repeatedly casting a spell on yourself while holding the wand (like psychovampiric shield), it procs 5% of hits. Takes a while. But that's "charm" and leaves you no control of your character, so you need to be wearing like Devil of Caroc BP with Mechanical Mind and you could start fights confused for about 17s. Takes a long time to set up and usually not worth it since you can also cast spells repeatedly on vela to charm her and get her to stay in one place. Doesn't work on all maps, some of the SSS fights are pretty tricky and others where you're just dropped in to a small room like Scyorielephas, but in these cases you're usually better with withdraw scrolls anyway..

Edited April 5, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Kaylon]

4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

 I'm usually playing with Abydon on also so weapons tend to break, though generic weapons don't break for some reason, and I'm pretty sure I've found legendary morningstars somewhere, but no idea where.

Interesting, are you sure it's not because you're using some abilities? And it happens only to weapons or to the armors as well? 

[Shai Hulud]

2 hours ago, Kaylon said:

Interesting, are you sure it's not because you're using some abilities? And it happens only to weapons or to the armors as well? 

Pretty sure, though it's possible it's only certain legendary weapons and not all of them. I suspect it is all of them but I didn't test every weapon. It's more than just morning stars though, I've sometimes used legendary war bows with the modal (and razor skewers, and tenacious+) against Dorudugan to get 18 piercing. Also morningstars, hunting bows, and I think I've tested war hammers and maces. I just can't remember where you find them...I always seem to have some generic legendary weapons at some point in the game, but like I didn't see any in forgotten sanctum. Those were all superb quality.

Seems just to be the weapons unfortunately. Generic armor breaks like uniques. Also I'm unsure about superb and lower weapons. I really only tested with legendary ones as I was experimenting with ways to beat Dorudugan with Abydon challenge on. I first noticed when using a devoted/troubadour with four legendary war bows, expecting to have to swap them out as they broke, but they didn't break. Wasn't using weapon abilities, just summoning things and firing nonstop at Dorudugan. The legendary weapons don't even get ticks if you show "toggledurabilitydebug" with the console.

Armor breaking isn't as catastrophic though, lots of builds don't even really need armor. Also it lasts longer. Not only are the durability breaking values higher, but you tend to hit things more in a fight than you get hit, so armor can usually survive from freshly repaired against anything but megabosses. 

Edited April 5, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Shai Hulud]

@Elric Galad

We were talking about carnage in BPM earlier. I've been playing a forbidden fist / mage slayer and I could have sworn forbidden fist applied both carnage effects and blood storm effects to those in AOE, but now it looks like it's only triggering on normal attacks, so my question is whether carnage is meant to apply on forbidden fist attacks? Seems like it should since it is treated as a weapon in most respects. 

And I mean the raw damage, not like distributing enfeebled through the carnage area...