Sorry again if this is widely known - I'm having all kinds of epiphany during my current playthrough .

I just discovered that if you cast Gilded Enmity/Sworn Enemy/Sworn Rival as a Goldpact Knight outside of combat on say, a barrel, you will get the +4 AR bonus and it will stay with you "for free", also when you start your next encounter. This can be quite helpful in early levels, like at the Maje Digsite which includes, mind you, several barrels. 😎

Late game if you stack this with the Stoic Steel stealth trick, you could start a battle with (I think) +7AR without having spent a single resource.

Not game breaking, but knowing how you can sometimes get hammered with volleys of the hardest hitting ranged attacks at the beginning of certain encounters, each point of AR over the enemy PEN can knock off like 25% DMG. So, it can be the difference between taking 100% DMG and only 25%!

EDIT: now at the end of every encounter, I will try to think about casting Sworn Enemy on the last dying foe just before the encounter finishes, in order to be all gold-plated and ready for the next fight! That part doesn't seem to work.

Edited August 20, 20214 yr by Not So Clever Hound

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Late game if you stack this with the Stoic Steel stealth trick, you could start a battle with (I think) +7AR without having spent a single resource.

That's right!

While we speak about not spending resources for abilities:

A Priest can use his seal spells out of combat. So he can just place a seal on th ground, wait until the spell use gets refunded and only then start combat. 

That way you can even use empower twice for the same encounter: empower a seal spell, then start combat and empower another spell. 

Wow, so many great discoveries lately. I'm sure you both know this, but the barrel trick also works with cipher powers, like Borrowed Instinct.

Delayed Fireball can be used before combat in a very satisfying way too.

20 hours ago, dgray62 said:

Wow, so many great discoveries lately. I'm sure you both know this, but the barrel trick also works with cipher powers, like Borrowed Instinct.

Akka the phylactery trick

DON'T DESTROY THIS BARREL, IT IS THE SOURCE OF MY POWERS !

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

kka the phylactery trick

DON'T DESTROY THIS BARREL, IT IS THE SOURCE OF MY POWERS

I laughed out loud 😂. Concelhaut really messed up - instead of going through horrible mutilations and intricate rituals to become a lich, he could have just looked for a barrel and cast some simple level one « transfer my soul » spell on it.