Tales of the Watcher: A Pillars of Eternity I + II No Reload Thread

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 7: Northweald, Elmshore and more bounties

After praying against both treachery and imprisonment, even big groups with multiple adragans aren't quite as scary:
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One of the adragans even gets to taste its own medicine (courtesy of the blue stone scepter):
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I should be mentioned that they still can do significant work with their damaging spells, but nothing that is nearly as scary as charm/dominate or petrification effects.
Northweald, despite being further into the game, is actually easier to clear out than Elmshore, and we spare the Sky Dragon to finish Hylea's quest (or rather, we spare ourselves, because we don't know how dangerous the beast will be when upscaled, so we better not try our luck). "Hunter, Brother" also gives us Sheathed in Autumn for Cymedrol, which he will propably use for the rest of the game. The adragan groups in southern elmshore are taken down as well - aside from the prayers and a followup of blessing/dire blessing/devotions plus form of the delemgan (now firmly integrated into our buffing routine), our most powerful and often-used abilities at this point are returning storm and amplified wave. The huge group of ogres/ogre druids/ogre matrons to the north gets to taste both of these, while also being hindered by our defense/protection scrolls:
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Things are going so well that I even pull more ogres into the fight because I still want to make use of those buffs (after all, scrolls cost money).
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Once all that is done, the bounty inside the cave is easily collected, and we turn in some quests/tasks before making a quick trip to burial isle - no particular reason to go there, but it will feel really underwhelming if we clear out the enemies here only once we're ready to finish the game, so to get at least a little bit of fun out of it, let's do it now. Prayers against fear and imprisonment remove most of the danger, though:
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Now, everything in Act 3 except for Blood Sands and Galawain's Maw is done. I remember the level scaling being fairly rough there, so we do the remaining bounties first - this also serves as a reminder to us that Lle a Rhemen exists - I completely forgot about that place, so once we take care of Glasdial we also clear out the ruins there:
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Okay, that was a completely unfair trap:
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Freaking spiders. One of many reminders that this place is incredibly dangerous if done at the intended level, a good reason not to side with the Dozens during Act 2. Most of the bounties are fairly easy to claim at this point (I don't believe these, unlike the White March II bounties, get scaled up), even the high level ones:
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Between calling the world's maw and amplified wave, a lot of enemies spend most of the battles prone once we're able to get out our spells. I can see why the prone status effect has been severly nerfed in Deadfire (though I think they went a little bit too far).
However, we get hit by a very hard reminder not to get cocky. While we're currently doing very well, the element of surprise (and my lack of recent experience, meaning my memory of what the enemy can do isn't perfect) can absolutely catch us off guard. So, when we face the very final bounty, Sserkal, our party is hit by a surprise confusion spell (while Doador was praying against treachery and imprisonment, but not bewilderment) - this was Sserkal's first or second cast, and I was completely unprepared for it. Come to think of it, I am almost certain this exact thing has happened to me before, but I just didn't remember it. Well, the results are truly terrifying - everyone but Doador and Thayn Goron are confused, and Thayn Goron gets stunned by psychic blast as well:
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The few factors in our favor: We've got quite a few defensive buffs going already, including form of the delemgan, so we're hard to hurt. We've also got some figurine summons out, and they serve as a distraction. Our positioning isn't terrible, the tanky characters are still in front and nobody walks into a truly awful position while confused. Also, we still have our priest, though he is too busy trying to keep himself alive so he can't really focus on supress affliction spam. Thayn Goron is able to somewhat turn the tables on mind altering effects with the ring of changing heart's dominate effect, and we get back Nerthol plus Sjáanda - Nerthol insect plagues the vithracks to affect their concentration and spellcasting, Sjáanda starts to gather focus:
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Doador is able to survive, and Sjáanda is able to turn the tables - another hit with her new Rain of Godagh Field warbow, and she unleashes an amplified wave, just as we also gain control back of the remaining party:
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Don't you love to see that? 6 critical hits. The vithracks are devasted, and we emerge victorious despite starting off the battle in a terrible position.

Well, since we are now reminded of the dangers these enemies pose, why not venture back into the Endless Paths, where there are more of them waiting down below?
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 8: Finishing up the Endless Paths and Act 3

With our big experience advantage compared to our previous visit, most of the remaining levels of the enldess paths are a breeze - we mostly face enemy types we've already faced before at much greater numbers. Things get interesting, once again, when we get to the vithracks, who are fairly present in two of the later levels. It seems very difficult to counter an early psychic blast - a powerful AoE stun:
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Notably prayer against imprisonment doesn't protect against stun - however, while this abilty deals a good amount of damage, the vithrack are a bit out of steam once their blasts are used up, and once we're free, we counter with relentless storm and amplified wave - and they can't take much of those spells at all:
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However, this is the only time the blasts are that devastating for us - future vithrack enocunters go a lot better:
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The next level is actually way easier. Adra animats are not much of a challenge - they simply lack the damage to really threaten the party (there are adragans in here as well, but by now we're very experienced when it comes to dealing with those):
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Near the end of the dungeon, I am actually able to talk Od Nua down for once (maybe the first time this happened, and I was even on expert mode, so I am not sure what the stat check was - didn't look it up as I expected to have to fight there). I did check what I needed to say to avoid the adra dragon battle though, and I had to boost my perception via resting bonus and drugs to get the right conversation option:
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After the Falanroed bodyswap we clean out the hoard (getting our first piece of superior armor and an amazing little shield for Thayn Goron) and return to Twin Elms. Time to finally do Galawain's Maw - I even rest with the mechanics bonus at Caed Nua for this, and I was right to do so - I think I encountered a few level 14 traps there (and even with the gloves, Sjáanda was only at 13 mechanics). Luckily there was almost no combat needed, as we used both shortcuts to find Sul and agreed to take on Oernos instead, turning most of the enemies here neutral. Poor Oernus. Look at that prone timer via Amplified Wave (interdiction, as always, helps a lot):
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Lastly, we take on Blood Sands. Here I am really only interested in the main battle, I didn't clear out the entire place as there is little to get from this. The reason we delayed this is that the druids here love casting certain high level spells - most notably embrace the earth talon, which is another petrify effect - and that can be pretty devastating. We block of the pathways up to the altar via figurine summons as we take down the leader of the cult, which gives us nearly endless time to buff up and thrown down spells at range:
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Now, there is only expansion content left, except for Thaos. It's time visit the White March.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 9: The White March I

While the upscaled version of The White March I can be fairly challenging, we are at a level where even that one shouldn't give us too much trouble. One of the few enemies that can still destroy pretty much any unprepared party are languafeth broodmothers - of course, we make sure to always have prayer against imprisonment running, and the first few encounters go very well:
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These guys can achieve a surprising damage output, forcing me to use withdraw a few times (this is one of the additions to my toolkit I picked up during my recent Deadfire run, where Xoti gets it automatically, which incentivized me to try it out - and now I'm using it in PoE1 as well to save vulnerable characters):
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While dealing with the various sidequests, I make sure to have the required resolve for a peaceful conversation with the alpine dragon:
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Once we're done with Russetwood and Longwatch Falls, we enter Galvino's hideout - before going there, we rest for the mechanics bonus in Caed Nua, as the upscaled version of this area contains the highest level traps in the game:
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Though this might have been the only level 15 trap I encountered, most super high level traps cap out at 14. Okay, after that we're quickly doing the Devil of Caroc's quest, sparing Harmke - this is a purely mechanical decision so we can get the DoC Breastplate in Deadfire (this time we're working for it, so I don't feel bad about using it). Next, we enter the Battery. You might have started seeing shimmering shield effects around my party: This is "Her Courage Thick as Steel", a new chant we picked up (Thayn Goron is now chanting Courage => Fire Blades => Dragon Threshed for most battles) - I didn't have any prior experience with that one but found it super useful in practice: A lot of damage Cymedrol is taking is happening via a lot of small grazes that barely go through his armor rating, but after a few battles they add up - this chant really helps with that and means that we almost never have to rest for HP reasons, mostly only for spell recovery.
Anyway, with this new little bit of tech we can end even some fairly difficult battles with entirely full health bars:
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Also, Saeth, mostly thanks to having twinned arrows now, is finally starting to claim her rightful spot as the #1 damage dealer in the party. Beforehand, Nerthol held that position for the entirety of the run thanks to her powerful shapeshifting (and also some storms and other elemental spells). It realls helps that Thayn Goron can be an effective secondary tank when wraiths in the eastern part of the mines use their "abduct" abilty and take Cymedrol far away from the party:
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Well, we quickly make it to the foundry, where things get very interesting again... There are some symbols in the floor in front of one of the doors, and I remember those being trapped - but stealth reveals nothing, so we move in - but when moving back out we get hit by an incredibly powerful fireball trap which instantly downs all party members except for Sjáanda, who is a bit behind everyone else. Turns out these traps only activate on the way out, and there is also a huge spirit ambush here - luckily we don't run into the ambush, as I halt, let everyone get up and rest:
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That was a really dangerous trap. Things get dicy again as we fight the spirit ambush - a wraith abducts Thayn Goron, directly next to the second newly appeared trap:
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That's a dangerous situation, but we have a very powerful trick up our sleeve: Thayn Goron has "The Looking-Inward Chime" in his quick item slot, in case he ever needs to escape a dangerous situation. So, we get to activate "Shadowing Beyond" and just walk back to the party, and we end up winning the battle relatively easily:
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There's a second big spirit battle, with another abduction, but it's not as dangerous due to the lack of deadly traps:
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Now we just have to fight the forge guardians. As we buff up with everything and anything, we did NOT know that we should've prioritized prayer against imprisonment here - turns out one of the dwarven guardians has access to Ninagauth's Shadowflame - though this is not THAT bad for us, because he also ends up paralyzing most of his allied vessels:
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To protect the paralyzed Cymedrol (as Doador can't cast supress affliction, being paralyzed as well) Sjáanda casts the rarely-used "Going Between" on him. Our relentless storm helps in keeping the few non-paralyzed forge guardians away, and soon the two paralyzed characters are free again:
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We're now on high altert regarding the wizard dwarf, so as we see them casting confusion, we are able to leverage our high dexterity on Doador to pre-empt that with prayer against bewilderment:
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Because these dwarves have been quite inventive with their spells, we just end up casting almost all of the prayers, so, as we start taking down enemies with amplified waves, shapeshifted attacks from Nerthol and Saeth's twinned arrows, only our figurines get paralyzed once another crowd control effect is unleashed - we are now ready for anything, and victory is ours:
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The reward is great - we bind the spirits to the forge (if you bind them to the cannons you can get an extra cannon for your ship in Deadfire, but I never do ship combat with cannons anyway) and durganize a lot of our equipment - and use the recently acquired helwax mold to clone the durganized wayfarer's hide. Over all, a huge upgrade for our equipment, and we're ready to start The White March II (though I plan to visit the archmages before diving deep into that one).
 

WarChiefZeke

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If I knew we had one of these threads I would have documented my run. Arcane Knight (Kind Wayfarer Paladin + Evoker) is an amazing tank, I don't think i've been taken to half health even once so far.
 

Antimatter

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If I knew we had one of these threads I would have documented my run. Arcane Knight (Kind Wayfarer Paladin + Evoker) is an amazing tank, I don't think i've been taken to half health even once so far.
Sorry for Off-Topic, but if we don't have a thread, never hesitate to create one. Who knows, there might be other fans of the same game/genre, or just people willing to discuss it.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 10: Concelhaut, The Iron Flail and Llengrath

There are a few quick things we need to do before we can face the archmages - first, I decided to quickly do the "Ready the Cannons" quest because there's a bunch of durgan steel available there, though mainly to acquire the Dragon's Maw shield, which we need to get early in WMII to get its soulbound upgrades complete in a reasonable timeframe:
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We also decided to pay a quick visist to Magran's Chosen, in its upscaled version one of the most dangerous bounty fights in the game - but it wasn't too hard for us this time around - we were able to pull them back into a great position where Amplified Wave and Calling the World's Maw basically knocked the entire group prone:
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After that, we made our way to Concelhaut, the first of two archmages on our list. The mercenaries and vessels on our way are known to be extremely tough at it took us quite a while to fight our way to the top:
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The battles inside are actually much easier for our party:
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Concelhaut himself is ideally pulled back to the door to his room. I didn't want to pull him that far out (ideally Cymedrol would have stood in the door, but I decided to pull further back to dodge some powerful AoE spells):
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We left Concelhaut alone for most of the battle, which is certainly not an ideal strategy, but we got enough priest buffs up so that only few things could really hurt us - notably an archmage like Concelhaut can still do a lot of damage despite that, with stuff like freezing pillars - however, once he's isolated he stands little chance - still, it's been a while since an enemy significantly lowered our endurance:
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I immediately wanted to follow up by visiting Llengrath, however, it seems like you need to first do the Iron Flail quest before Llengrath becomes available. Sooo.... time for a frontal assault since we've done "Ready the Cannons" and can blast the door to their fort open. This is a huge and potentially difficult battle, but even for upscaled WMII we're very experienced and well-equipped already:
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I wanted to find a peaceful solution here for the talk with the commander, but it seems I must have chosen the wrong dialogue options - oh well:
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The eyeless do a lot of damage, but they can easily be disabled by prone, stun or paralyze effects, of which we have many:
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Well, when I said I wanted to visist Llengrath, I really meant that it was just going to be a visist - I certainly wasn't planning to fight her, so our actual primary enemy in the swamp was Arcanist Badrwn:
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We already had the stats to get to a peaceful solution with the archmage, so we have a nice chat and leave with two newly acquired bog dragon scales in our inventory:
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So far, so good. Next time we shall dive deeply into the White March II. I'm also hopefully going to get into some endgame cipher gameplay - one of the few classes in the party that really gets something out of hitting levels 15+16 - the new spells/abilities for the others are okay, but really nothing special. However, it's really only worth it to use the endgame stuff if the battles are quite substantial in number of enemies, difficulty and duration (otherwise, just casting one or two amplified waves is propably better, because there's a lot of setup required), so I rarely get the opportunity.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 11: The White March II

Our next stop is Whitestone Hollow, where we deal with a few sidequests and get into more languafeth battles:
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Next, we pick up the WMII bounties. Brynlod, the one in Dyrford Crossing, is among the highest level and most dangerous foes we will face (since we're skipping the dragon battles), and he has a huge group of high level and dangerous spellcasters with him. This is the perfect opportunity for Sjáanda to unleash some of her high level cipher powers. If we're expecting a long and difficult fight like this, we like to start with time parasite to speed up future focus generation (the reason we don't go for reaping knives right away instead, which grants way more focus, is that we don't really have a party member who would be comfortable auto attacking in melee at this point - everyone is busy casting spells/buffs or attacking at range (or needs to keep a shield going, as the knives fill up the off hand as well) - I like to cast reaping knives later on on my priest once he's put up the important buffs), make sure vigorous defense or something similiar is active on Cymedrol and keep the party together for a defensive mindweb (sometimes we use the mindweb right away if immediate high damage is expected). Now, look at the state of Cymedrol's buffs at this point:
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Pretty incredibly defenses - but what if every single party member had those, even the weakest ones? That might be useful against a ton of ranged opponents and high level spellcasters. Look at what defensive mindweb gets us:
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Now these are defenses I wouldn't want to go up against - and they could be way higher if we actively played around the ability. To take all this further, if we get the reaping knives going after that Doador nets Sjáanda gigantic amounts of focus with every attack, making it entirely feasible to just spam amplified wave, keeping multiple groups of enemies prone at a time and dishing out huge amounts of damage. Most battles are over before we can get to such a point, but for the few where this is possible, Sjáanda gets to be our most powerful party member for a short little while, providing incredible defenses, incredibly control and incredibly damage at the same time.

Anyway, we move on to the Stalwart mines where we sneak around in the vithrack city to avoid most battles, making it to the radiant spore:
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This is a pretty serious battle - the tendrils deal a ton of damage, one of the few points in recent times where even Cymedrol has to be careful about his endurance:
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But after acitvating Unbeding, buffing him with Going Between and putting down a Moonwell + Symbol of Eothas, even those can't hurt him too badly:
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This is one of the very few battles long enough where Thayn Goron actually gets to call in the ancient weapon summons. Deadfire really buffs chanters a lot by letting them start with maximum phrases so they can at least get one high level invocation out at the start of combat:
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With that done, we can move on to the Abbey of the Fallen Moon. We pose as the Tidebringer and avoid most battles until we face the Low Tide monks - who for some reason love to buff with multiple instances of prayer against imprisonment - I think one would've been enough, but that still doesn't protect against prone effects:
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Things get a lot more serious when we face the abbot. This is one of the harder battles in WMII, especially when upscaled. High level monks are no joke, and the battle is fought in an awkward position for us - while the opening seems to start out allright and Nerthol is in a great place with her returning storm, the abbot soon goes pretty heavily after Sjáanda, who has very weak defenses:
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Being surprisingly tough, the abbot manages to knock our our cipher, though a resurrection spell is at hand - but she gets knocked prone for a long time:
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Luckily we're able to kill the abbot shortly after that, and nerthol goes on a rampage in her spiritshift form. Supress affliction helps to get Sjáanda back up, and we take the victory:
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Now onwards, to take down the eyeless. This encounter with some eyeless hammers serves as a reminder that you REALLY want to make sure that you crowd control these guys (which is easy enough due to their poor defenses), or they can nearly destroy an entire party with some of their special abilities:
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Inside the moon fragment, we get to face the kraken. Cymedrol is sent ahead to distract the primordial while the party buffs up with a ton of powerful spells:
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Once we're ready, everyone moves in so we can get a defensive mindweb going, turning the kraken into little more than a nuisance:
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You can see Doador dealing raw damage here - which means he has reaping knives going. So, when the three eyeless arive, Sjáanda keeps all three of them permanently prone by spamming amplified waves with the ludicrous focus gain via the knives:
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We use the two kraken's eyes for The Rain of Godagh Field (Sjáanda has earned the upgrade to legendary) and now, only Sun in Shadow remains.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 12: Thaos ix Arkannon

Back to Burial Isle, where we once again activate upscaling and enter Sun in Shadow. No trouble with the traps or the encounters down here for now - the shadow drakes aren't very dangerous with prayer against fear active:
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Now for Thaos. First things first, I forgot at what point the battle actually starts and went to far into the area - so I wasn't able to eat all the food I had prepared for this, including the expensive dragon meat/egg dishes. Oh well.

Now, the battle starts. Doador opens with Minor Avatar (which will improve all his following spells), Nerthol with Form of the Delemgan, everyone else activates a figurine - one each for both of the vessels just to keep them in place, one to flank/occupy Thaos (though Cymedrol, while activating vigorous defense, charges at him as well), and also Concelhaut, who gets busy casting Crushing Doom and his other spells on our primary foe (Crushing Doom is a long term investment, so we need to cast it early).

Now we get to more buffing: Potion of Power for Sjáanda, Alacrity of Motion for Saeth (she follows up with a Wounding Shot and pet attack on Woedica's Judge); Nerthol gets us Weather the Storm (as Thaos' most dangerous attacks deal fire damage), Doador, who has a lot of buffs to go though, first activates Radiance and Symbol of Eothas. Thayn Goron goes for scrolls of protection and defense before moving towards the Headsman, to tank it once the figurine summon goes down.
Meanwhile, Thaos casts Shields of the Faithful, Interdiction and Symbol of Woedica, going for a Cleansing Flame next. Crucially, before the flame is finished, Sjáanda gets everyone in her Defensive Mindweb (which, together with our Shield from the Courage chant, means the Cleansing Flame does very little) while Doador casts Crowns for the Faithful, Nerthol activates Relentless Storm and Doador follows up with the three big prayers (against Imprisonment, Bewilderment and Treachery):
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Thaos' followup is a Pillar of Holy Fire, while Nerthol spiritshifts and Woedica's Judge goes down:
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Thaos' Pillar of Holy Fire mostly misses - our defenses are just too strong with all the buffs we have going. His followup is a Radiance which isn't going to do much. Meanwhile we focus on Woedica's Headsman who has also taken some significant damage, though Saeth is starting to target Thaos (which was not my intention, I only noticed it later on in the screenshots)
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Doador has been casting the usual non-prayer buffs in the meantime (Devotions, Blessing, Dire Blessing) and used his Interdiction. As a followup, he goes for Hand of Weal and Woe on Thaos. The efforts of mostly Concelhaut and Saeth have already taken Thaos to Near Death, to my surprise - same for Woedica's Headsman:
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Thaos goes for a final Cleansing Flame, but while that one does a bit more damage compared to his first attempt, it's to late for that - both Thaos and the Headsman go down at the exact same time:
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A later look at the combat log shows that, indeed, it was Doador's Hand of Wael and Woe that killed Thaos, while Nerthol's spiritshifted attack took down the Headsman at the same time.

That was FAST - might be among the quickest Thaos battles I've ever fought. You can check it by looking at Thayn Goron's phrases - I never used an invocation here, and he only made it to 4 phrases in total, as the battle ended seconds after the screenshot showing Thaos at near death (7 would be needed for the Ancient Instruments of Death which I was intending to use here).

Here's a look at our party stats at the end:
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4 being the highest number of knockouts is great for a completionist run (I think my previous best stat here may have been ~7) - and some of these knockouts are trap related. As mentioned previously, Saeth overtook Nerthol in most damage done/most enemies defeated after getting access to Twinned Arrows. I'm sad to say that we're going to lose Saeth in Deadfire (since the party size is reduced to 5, and rangers aren't the greatest in the sequel unless multiclassed and/or having the Gunhawk subclass, which is exclusive to Maia, so she will be the one to leave us), and showing her at the top of the damage stats is a fine way to say goodbye.

While this first half of the run had its fair share of mistakes, it went very well - possibly my smoothest triple crown run yet. Reading through the old no-reload thread in the Obsidian Boards definitely helped a lot, but over all it seems that despite the long break my PoE1 abilities didn't suffer too much. Deadfire is much fresher in my memory, obviously, and you might've noticed that this party composition allows for a lot of party friendly AoE (the druid and cipher are quite good at that), which is hopefully helpful with Expert Mode, as I'm not that familiar with spell AoEs for Deadfire yet despite recently playing it (especially not with the classes for this party, except for the priest). The bigger question is how the only-upwards level scaling will impact the run.

I have to deal with some RL stuff for the remainder of the week, so the first Deadfire update might have to wait for a few days. I'll also have to make a final decision on subclasses and multiclasses.
 
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Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 13: Maje Island Part I

I'm back to my regular updates. Here's what we decided to do with our party in terms of subclasses and multiclasses when transferring it to Deadfire:

1) Thayn Goron is going to be a Beckoner, a Chanter sublass with a somewhat weird focus on summoning invocations. The summons cost one more phrase, are much, much weaker in terms of hitpoints, have a much shorter duration, but you get twice the amount and they still deal the same amount of damage - which turns them into pretty bad tanks but extremely powerful damage dealers - IF you have them up, which isn't 100% of the time without some additional help. It also turns out that the summons are tiny (which makes sense, otherwise their sheer size in those numbers might be a problem on the battlefield).
2) Cymedrol does ideed go with the Unbroken/Illusionist multiclass. The Illusionist offers a type of free mirror image effect when first taking a hit in combat, which should help with the tankiness. I'm curious to see how this will work out.
3) Sjáanda becomes an Ascendant, as planned. I have no experience with that subclass at all, it reads like it might have some ebb and flow gameplay in terms of power. It's supposed to be pretty decent as a single class cipher, but we shall see.
4) Doador sticks with being a Priest of Eothas, which is of course a more impactful choice in Deadfire because of the bonus spells depending on the god.
5) Nerthol, which was the hardest for me to decide on, goes all in on the Ancient subclass. For a long while I wanted to turn her into a Fury or an Animist, but I am interested in the unique Ancient spells and since I've grown fond of The Spire of Thicket Green, which works great with the ancient specializations in plant and beast spells, this was in the end what I went with.

You might notice that a lot of these classes have access to a lot of spells that don't deal friendly fire damage, which is very intentional: I don't have quite the experience with AoE sizes in Deadfire compared to PoE1, so expert mode is potentially more of a problem.

As mentioned before, due to the party limit being cut down to 5, Saeth sadly has to leave us. It turns out we easily have the money to immediately recruit our party in Deadfire, which is nice. Thayn Goron starts out with the skeleton invocation and "Blessed was Wengwrith" plus proficiencies in saber and medium shield. Freeing Rum-Dumb Riggere and finishing "The Better Man" gets us to level 2, which is needed to recruit the party.

Thayn Goron picks up "And Hel-Hyraf Crashed Upon the Shield"
Cymedrol starts with Disicplined Barrage, Wizard's Double, Bewildering Blows and Block
Doador starts with Interdiction, Flail and Dagger proficiency
Sjáanda starts with Whisper of Treason, War Bow and Estoc proficiency
Nerthol starts with Charm Beasts (going for the same spiritshift as in PoE1: Cat), Quarterstaff and Warbow proficiency

Now, we leave the city and return from the south to Gorecci street so we can peacefully finish "Law and Order" by sneaking to the named NPC and deal with "Burning Bridges", after which we can afford to buy Shorewalker Sandals, Death's Maw and Ring of Minor Deflection for Cymedrol (who also equips the Protective Eothasian Charm), Physicker's Belt for Doador, and we also find a hidden Ring of Unshackling for Thayn Goron. Now that we're done with sidequests here, we level up:

Thayn Goron: Weapon and Shield Style, Gernic Slew the Beast, but Soon Faced Its Kin
Cymedrol: Fast Runner
Sjáanda: Lingering Echoes
Doador: Restore
Nerthol: Fast Runner

I've come to appreciate combat speed/stride quite a bit during the PoE1 part of this playthrough, as you can propably tell. We explore the island for a bit, get Doador the necklace from the nearby druid and fight the xaurips at Whakura Pass for one (not actually my intention). This little battle tells us that we're quite fragile at this point, though Nerthol's sporelings, beckoner summons and Whisper of Treason really help:
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We return to the beach in order to clear out the sea cave, which is easy enough. Getting our crew together gets us to level 3 (except for Thayn Goron, who is already at that level):

Cymedrol: Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights
Doador: Spiritual Weapon, Weapon and Shield Style
Sjáada: Draining Whip, Mental Binding
Nerthol: Nature's Mark, Insect Swarm

We buy some basic equipment, notably some brigadines and the weapons we have the modals for, a club being the most important one for the will debuff. Before we enter the digsite, we rest with 5 Mariner's Porridges.
 

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 14: Maje Island Part II

At the digsite, Sjáanda lures back the first group of enemies as we call in our sporelings - the summoning spell takes a long time, so we get going as soon as combat starts. 108 health is pretty impressive for a level 1 spell:
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So, Cymedrol and the sporelings have blocked of the stairs. Our illusionist goes for dazzling lights to lower will defense while Thayn Goron calls in wurms as ranged damage dealers - together with our remaining party members, they quickly take down the first opponent:
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An attempt at Whisper of Treason on the second boar fails, but Nerthol's empowered Charm Beasts at least gets a young boar on our side while the wurms take out the other adult one:
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Our wurms have disappeared by now so a lot of our damage is gone, but a followup empowered Whisper of Treason works after the Charm Beasts breaks early. Thayn Goron is back at enough phrases to call in wurms again, allowing us to finish the battle:
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A bit messy, but we got the job done. Now the party takes care of the luminous adra pool and foreman's quarters, both easy enough, before going for the training hall. Somehow (and for the first time) we manage to pull only some of the skeletons there towards us, which is nice:
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I decide to actually leave and return to the hall from the other entrance to get into a better position for the second group:
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I'm really curious why only some of those skeletons came towards us this time around. This battle is moderately dangerous, so knowing a reliable way to split it up could be quite helpful. Well, Doador takes the fine hunting bow, and the grimoire is actually quite valuable because Cymedrols started without even having one of those - access to chill fog is very welcome. Before going for the big group with the drake, we rest with Captain's Banquets.

Our opening is chaotic - the summons come in too late and a misclick means that Cymedrol is slightly out of position as the enemies arrive and unable to entire hold the line - three young panthers break through before the sporelings finally appear and block off the ramp:
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The drake turns around as we try to go for Charm Beasts on those panthers - breathing into our party, interrupting the crucial druid spell, though also killing one of his own young panther allies. Sjáanda and Nerthol aren't looking good:
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Doador heals us up the party with Radiance while Cymedrol goes for a chill fog, and finally our Charm Beasts hits - a boar, a panther and a wurm remain unaffected, so we can focus on those:
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Charm on the drake breaks right away, most likely due to the Chill Fog - that's fine for now, we still have a lot of beasts to help us out. The ascended Sjáanda casts Mental Binding on one of panthers that's still annoying our backline, and Doador goes for Interdiction:
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Mental Binding on the drake fails, though, and Hold Beast only hits a wurm in the backline - Our own wurms have disappeared, though by now. Thayn Goron calls in skeletons instead as soon as he has enough phrases and sends them after the wurms:
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After another Mental Binding attempt only results in immobilizing the drake, I finally realise that it's resistant to dexterity afflictions. Interesting that I still get to see that despite having expert mode on. Luckily, Chill Fog keeps the drake blinded, we also have it flanked, and our damage is enough to take it down without losing anyone:
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Sjáanda ascends for a second time and she spams Mental Binding on the remaining foes, which allows us to easily take them down:
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Not an easy battle. I have to say that combat feels a bit awkward after playing PoE1 for a while - it looks like it SHOULD feel the same but the speed, pacing etc. feels a bit off now that I'm used to the first game again. When I was only playing Deadfire for a while, it felt much more natural. I'm sure I will get used to it again as the run goes along.

Now, onto the arena sub-level.Thayn Goron picks up the Gladiator's Blade for himself, and for the first big battle we have a great chokepoint, Chill Fog on the entire enemy group, summons helping us out both at range and at the front - a great position:
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Thayn Goron levels up, picking up "At the Sound of his Voice", plus large shield proficiency. Since we're in a dungeon now, summons, chill fog and good positioning (mostly chokepoints) make combat quite a bit easier compared to the outside battles at the digsite. The final battle against the spirits and the adra ooze lasts a bit longer. Our inital force of summons expires, but most lesser enemies are dead by then - the wurms can unleash very powerful focused damage. We have to heal up Cymedrol with Restore and Gaun's Pledge as we call in a second round of helpful creatures:
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Even Cymedrol's illusionist bonus shield gets fully taken down, but he reinforces his defenses with Wizard's Double, though the battle doesn't last much longer as the second batch of summons deals enough damage to finish the job:
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Finishing this quest nets our remaining party level 4:

Cydremol: Fighter Stances, Weapon and Shield Style, Large Shield Proficiency
Doador: Pillar of Faith, Medium Shield Proficiency
Sjáanda: Two-Handed Style, Arquebus Proficiency
Nerthol: Wildstrike Corrode, Hatchet Proficiency

Before sailing to Neketaka, we turn in our quests and rest with Hylea's Feast on Thayn Goron to get +2 to all skills, which will be helpful for the many upcoming skill checks in the big city.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 15: Neketaka

Sadly, while exploring the Huaro on the way to Neketaka, Sjáanda got an injury due to a lack of athletics skill on her part. I considered resting and using up my second charge of Hylea's Bounty, but ultimately decided against it since the injury really shouldn't matter as I had no intention of fighting any battles in Neketaka for now. No further events on the way.

One of the first things we did upon arrival was buying Boots of Stealth and Burglar's Gloves for our cipher. After that, we started doing every and all non-violent tasks and quests available in the city - which is a lot. Before we got into our first battle again, we made it all the way to level 7, selecting the following abilities on the way there:

Thayn Goron: Combat Focus, "The Shield Cracks", Bear's Fortitude, "Aefyllath Use Mith Fyr", "Oh, But Knock Not on The Door of Urdel and Gurdel"
Cymedrol: Confident Aim, Determination, Hold the Line, Llengrath's Displaced Image
Doador: Dire Blessing, Combat Focus, Despondent Blows, Devotions of the Faithful, Spell Shaping (which maybe was a mistake - with expert mode on, this felt pretty much impossible to use in any productive way)
Sjáanda: Puppet Master, Hammering Thoughts, Combat Focus, Pain Block, Psychic Backlash
Nerthol: Returning Storm, Combat Focus, Two Weapon Style, Moonwell, Greater Wildstrike Corrode (note that Form of the Delemgan is the level 4 bonus spell for the Ancient subclass, so we didn't need to take it)

At level 7, we started running into some random encounters in the city, and with the ogre summons plus the most powerful cleric & druid buffs now available, we didn't feel the need to just run away. Our first big battle was against a horde of black oozes - a good time to describe our midgame combat approach. Notably, priest buffs aren't quite what they were (and far less numerous) in Deadfire, but two of them stay universally strong, those being Dire Blessing and Devotions of the Faithful, so Doador opens pretty much every battle with these. Nerthol also always opens with Form of the Delemgan, which has been weakened in some ways in terms of damage reduction, but now grants the crucial immunity to dexterity afflictions, which are quite common and extremely dangerous (they include paralyze and petrification effects).
Thayn Goron opens by calling in ogres, who have replaced the wurms as our primary damage dealing summon, and Nerthol helps out later on with sporelings (these may be phased out later on for more powerful summons), usually following up with something like Returning Storm (later on this should be Relentless Storm instead). Sjáanda, who has picked up The Red Hand by now, ascends (which usually takes around 2 double-attacks) and starts casting pain block on party members that are under pressure or using Puppet Master/Mental Binding to control the battlefield. Cymedrol focuses on his defenses and will maybe use one of his spells to blind a few opponents.
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Notably, you might notice that we don't have a lot of direct ways to deal damage in this party at this point. Doador can buff and heal, Sjáanda deals decent ranged damage but most of her actual spells are defensive or crowd control focused, Cymedrol mostly has defensive spells and debuffs, Nerthol has a few more aggressive options but, honestly, we are nowhere close to the AoE damage of PoE1 druids in Deadfire - spells like Burst of Summer Flame or Calling the World's Maw have been heavily nerfed, and the same is true for spiritshifting, which is merely a shadow of its former self. Basically, we deal damage in bursts, whenever the ogres are up - right at the start they can take down a few enemies until their duration runs out, and now we mostly use defensive spells and crowd control until Thayn Goron has enough phrases for the second round of ogres, wich usually ends the battle (by this time, Sjáanda often also ascends for a second time, allowing for more pain blocks and crowd control spells):
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Pain Block is not only important for our two tanky characters, but also for Nerthol once she starts spiritshifting, as she's quite vulnerable especially once the duration ends, despite her quarterstaff modal.

Well, a few more quests, including Family Pride, and we make it to level 8:
Thayn Goron: "The Silver Knight's Shield Broke Both Arrow and Blade", Small Shield Proficiency
Cymedrol: Combat Focus, War Hammer Proficiency
Doador: Bear's Fortitude, Small Shield Proficiency
Sjáanda: Penetrating Visions, Scepter Profiency
Nerthol: Wicked Briars, Scepter Profiency

At this point Thayn Goron's primary chant gets to be "The Silver Knight" plus "Aefyllath Use Mith Fyr". Sjáanda's Mechanics and Stealth are now strong enough to steal some quite powerful items, such as The Devil of Caroc Breastplate:
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We get a few more random encounters - the Príncipi with the figurine (we have enough reputation to just buy it from them at this point, having already made deals with Dereo and Morena), the Dyrwoodian Noble (we give them directions) and the Burning Building (we avoid combat by mentioning our connection to Dereo). Our final quest in the city for now is Arkemyr's Manor, which indeed works out the non-violent way again as we sneak to his bedroom and equip his robe before telling some tall tales to the imps (the resulting shady reputation does indeed hurt Doador's Radiance a bit, as, unlike in PoE1, adventurer priests use the Watcher's reputations) but that shouldn't matter too much. Cymedrol picks up Ninagauth's Grimoire here. On the way to turn in the quest, we run into another combat encounter, Kusi and the Skuldraks.
Thayn Goron calls his ogres next to Kusi to save her from the skuldrak she's fighting. We start with the usual FotD+DotF (Form of the Delemgan + Devotions of the Faithful), Dire Blessing, following up with Returning Storm and Curse of Blackened Sight:
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Nerthol is not in the best position, getting attacked by a cave grub that deals tons of damage with its crush attack (this random encounter doesn't let us start with very good positioning, as you can imagine). We go all out on saving her with Pain Block, Gaun's Pledge and Watchful Presence (one of our Priest of Eothas bonus spells):
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The combined effort is just enough to do the job, and Sjáanda further improves our position by dominating one of the cave grubs. Our first round of ogres has taken down two enemies, but Kusi gets in trouble with another skuldrak, so we have to withdraw her for now and call in the second round of ogres:
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The ogres are enough to take out most remaining foes, and we hit the final one with Mental Binding:
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Now we can finally turn in our final quest here (leaving combat-heavy areas such as the Old City, Hanging Sepulchers and A Glimpse Beyond for later). Our money is just enough to buy both Sasha's Singing Scimitar and Lethandria's Devotion, both for Thayn Goron. That's some really great equipment for our Beckoner and should heavily pay off. Especially crucial here is the additional enchantment of Sasha's Singing Scimitar, "Refreshing Finale", which returns an empower point and three phrases to the chanter whenever they empower an invocation - which essentially means that you get to empower for free in every battle and immediately get three phrases back to boot. This will finally help us in getting rid of the gap between our summon uptime: We can now always empower the first summoning spell, resulting in a longer duration, and the three extra phrases are easily enough to get our next summoning invocation ready as soon as the first one runs out (in fact, as long as we're using ogres, we propably have enough phrases to use one of our other invocations inbetween). I can't recommend this weapon enough for pretty much all types of chanters.

Well, we're ready to leave the big city - before we do so, we level up and equip all our remaining companions on the bench for the upcoming boarding battles.
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 16: Fort Deadlight and Dunnage

Our first stop outside of Neketaka are the Príncipi bases, as there are nonviolent solutions to nearly all of their quests. It is crucial to avoid facing enemy ships on the way, but we are able to do so. First, Fort Deadlight - we enter with the Prícnipi flag, get the party started by stealing the rum, rig the harpiscord with a bomb and get the stew from the dungeons by sneaking through the main entrance of that area to the south. I used to think the non-combat solution for this area was hard to pull off, but now that I really know what to do here, it's super easy and super quick - definitely worth doing early, as soon as you have a Príncipi flag. Everything goes very smoothly, and we finish the quest, sailing straight to Dunnage after that. Speaking to Furrante grants us level 9:

Thayn Goron: Tough, Rapid Casting
Cymedrol: Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (this time I've picked up that one on purpose, works much better with a tanking wizard)
Doador: Farcasting, Rapid Casting
Sjáanda: Ringleader, Rapid Casting
Nerthol: Relentless Storm, Rapid casting

The rapid casting/farcasting abilities are crucial here, but Nerthol esepcially profits a lot from getting access to 9th level spells (especially once we can get her Insect Plague as well). As we pick up the sidequests in Dunnage, we are able to steal the Iridescent Scale at the treasure trove, using Thief's Putty to boost Sjáanda's mechanics. Nice!
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The Iron Gut quest is easily completed, but as we help out the acting troupe, there is an unavoidable ambush near the end. Once again we're not in the best starting position. Our opening: Ogres, FotD+DotF, Pain Block, Relentless Storm. Doador can't go for Dire Blessing right away as he has to heal up Sjáanda with his Radiance. Luckily, Sjáanda is able to cast Puppet Master on the pirate who bothers her the most, so we can get our Blessing going:
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We don't even need our second round of ogres this time around to finish the fight:
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I'm planning to go to Hasongo next - this is mainly because it's close to Dunnage and a convenient stop on the way back to Neketaka. I am a bit scared of the archer ambush at the beginning which caused me some trouble in my previous run, but let's see how things go. Before leaving, we decided to finally get rid of Sjáanda's wound (no more Hylea's Bounty for Thayn Goron, but there aren't as many skillchecks from now on) and rested at the King's Coffin with the Sailor's Berth bonus.
 
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Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 17: Hasongo

My first thought for the archer Ambush at Hasongo was to stealth past it, but these naga archers have incredibly eyesight, apparently, and I have to turn around right away. Instead, I decide to walk in with Cymedrol first to offer him up as a target while the others run past the ambush, upstairs:
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It turns out that the naga won't actually destroy their own barrels, so as we run further west we get out of their range and actually leave combat - which allows us to easily pull the two enemies at the cannon towards us first:
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Nerthol starts using insect swarm to destroy the barrels at long range:
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The shaman eventually moves towards us, but the archers stay put, so we have to charge in. Now that we're at even ground, with no barrels to stop us, this battle isn't actually too difficult:
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We make it through the kitchen and engage the big naga group to the north. However, things don't go quite right for us. As we leave the kitchen and enter combat right away, the entire area to the west of us is entirely clouded in constant fog of war, now matter how close we go (even if we actually enter the fog, it stays unrevealed - the character entering just disappears). This means that we can't see most of our enemies, especially the archers, shamans and totems, plus the incoming blights (until they reach us). Getting attacked by arrows and spells that we can't see coming is incredibly frustrating and makes the battle rather difficult. Doador pays the price as I try to keep everyone alive with healing spells, including Nerthol's moonwell:
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With new blights being summoned in at the totems, things are getting rough out there - however, the shaman eventually stops summoning and slithers towards us, which allows Sjáanda to hit a crucial Ringleader spell:
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A second round of ogres is called in, finishing off most enemies - though only the ones we can see. There are more inside the fog, but we have no idea where exactly, so we have to flee east, hoping that these foes will follow us into the areas we can actually look at. This allows us to finally finish the fight:
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Here you can see the very strange effect of this unusual bug:
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Luckily, restarting the game got rid of the bug (we should have done this in combat, propably - Deadfire can save in combat, and if you quite a trial of iron game the game is automatically saved) and we could see normal again. Now, we use the cannon and move atop the ramparts to take on the final group of archers - Doador, due to his wound, takes pretty heavy damage and has to move around a corner to stay alive:
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Luckily, we're able to peacefully converse with the naga leader. Before leaving for Neketaka, we find a group of looters that I've never noticed before to the east - not too hard to kill, though our positioning isn't optimal, so Nerthol has to back pretty far away (as an Ancient, she's pretty weak against guns):
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We gain another level as we return to the big city:
Thayn Goron: Uncanny Luck
Cymedrol: Vigorous Defense, Confusion
Doador: Practiced Healer
Sjáanda: Farcasting
Nerthol: Farcasting

Next time, we will move south for our first round of exploration. This will also serve as a test case for the level scaling.
 

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 18: Southern Exploration

We sail southwards and get into our first ship battle. Now, the interface shows us that Diccila is a 5th level cipher. That can't be right - we have full level scaling activated, right?
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The boarding battle shows us: Indeed, she is most certainly not level 5. While this is a convincing victory, there's certainly not a 5 level difference between our crews, so some level scaling is most certainly happening (though how exactly it works I am not entirely sure - I read up on it a bit on the wiki but it seems quite complicated).
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We'll just see how things feel.

Our first stop are the xaurip caves, and those are easy enough to clear - we definitely notice that these enemies can take a lot of damage, but they don't seem to be using much in terms of higher level abilities, so maybe the scaling just upgrades their primary stats?
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Now we hunt a few bounties, fight a few boarding battles:
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As you might notice, Sjáanda has a wound here - she got it during one of the boarding battles - if the enemy has a lot of gun users, the ranged attacks can be pretty devastating, and I experimented with giving her some lighter armor (Miscreant's Leathers from Benweth), which, in retrospect, didn't turn out too well.

The Temple of Tagalo Ruins, our next stop, are quite tough for us - the enemy rogues use escape to get to our backline, forcing us to move Sjáanda far away from the battle to keep her alive - However, the second round of ogres does eventually do the trick:
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Some more ship battles and bounties await - Sjáanda hits a great Ringleader against Biakara:
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With the low level bounties and ship battles done, we meet Aeldys at Fort Deadlight and make a quick stop at the Sandswept Ruins, using Sjáanda's perception of 20 to use the secret switch to skip all of the potential trouble (this is mostly done for a new tanking weapon for Cymedrol). On the way back, we land at the Oathbinder's Sanctum, resting with Captain's Feasts, not only to get rid of Sjáanda's wound, but also for the dank spores here and because we plan to fight two encounters with intellect afflictions directly after that. Poor spores - the food in this game can be really powerful:
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The Steel Garrote encounter works out quite well - Cymedrol has now quite a few useful illusion spells in his repertoire, including Confusion and Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, which can be used to control the battlefield, and our ogre summons take out the enemy backline one by one:
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We level up!

Thay Goron: Quick Summoning, ...For They Do Enjoy Stomping Your Head
Cymedrol: Tactical Barrage (Honestly, it's great that we can get +5 Intellect with a super cheap instantly useable fighter ability for our wizard multiclass)
Doador: Spiritual Ally, Quick Summoning
Sjáanda: Amplified Wave (hell yeah!), The Empty Soul
Nerthol: Quick Summoning, Plague of Insects (another great pick up for us)

Using those Captain's Banquets, we move on to the Deathguard Fanatic right away - at first there are only a few fampyrs to deal with:
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However, soon the other enemies turn up. Sjáanda now can spam Amplified Wave once ascended (usually she can use about 3 of those waves during each ascension). The upgraded ogres seem powerful, but are very, very hard to micromanage. The battle is not easy, we have to use all of our healing spells to keep Sjáanda alive and keep calling in new summons - we are starting to turn things around to our side once the amplified waves get in on a tightly packed group of enemies - the spell is nowhere near as powerful as it was in PoE1 due to the nerfs to the prone effect, but the damage is quite strong:
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The deathguard fanatic itself is extremely tough. He even knocks down Doador in the end before we are finally able to finish the battle with some Mental Binding spam. A bit surprising for a single enemy:
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Finally, we return to Neketaka, but don't enter the city yet - the final low level bounty is on the mainland here - easy enough - and we also fight the battle for Frostseeker (made much easier during the scripted interaction), which includes more spores - the last of three battles we ate those Captain's Banquets for:
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Finally, we get to return to the city.
 

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 19: Motare o Kozi and Eastern Exploration

In Neketaka, it's time to turn in quests and also do the Lord Admiral Imp and Lady Epero bounties - we don't do a lot of non-illusionist offensive spellcasting with Cymedrol, but Ninagauth's Shadowflame is always fun:
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While we buy some enchantment materials, I decide to invest the resulting money into a Voyager ship and some travel speed upgrades first - this made me comfortable enough to tackle Motare o Kozi, which is already easy enough to do with just The Spire of Thicket Green and the Boots of Stealth, but at the end, since I don't think I have the required reputation or skillchecks to deal with the approaching RDC ship without a fight, the extra speed should allow us to entirely skip that encounter. As we arrive, we also level up:

Thayn Goron: Spell Resistance, Scepter Proficiency
Cymedrol: Rapid Recovery, Small Shield Proficiency
Doador: Searing Seal, Large Shield Proficiency
Sjáanda: Uncanny Luck, Morning Star Proficiency
Nerthol: Garden of Life, Small Shield Proficiency

Sjáanda sneaks to the trees and heals them with the Spire of Thicket Green - easy enough to the east and to the west. For the last one, at the southern position, we need to use a firecracker to distract one of the panthers in order to get to the tree:
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Now we talk to the rotted lady - we escape the RDC ship by going into another direction and using our high travel speed. After turning in the quest, the ship disappears from the map. Onto the east, where a lot of ship battles, a few bounties and some exploration awaits us.

The Kuaro bounty gives us some trouble as the enemy goes aggressively after Sjáanda, but Doador is able to resurrect her and we win the fight in the end:
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After that happens a second time I decide to put her into heavier armor. These upscaled ship battles are tough!
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We end up with 3 wounds in total after 3 ship battles - we need to rest! While doing so, we also turn in bounties at Neketaka and Dunnage. Now, back to the east.

Next up is a quick trip to Tikawara to do the sidequests, the non-violent way (we free the languafeths). A meeting with Fiana Short-Fur indicates to me that the level scaling, at least for some enemies, doesn't only affect stats - how would the enemy crew be throwing around Gaze of the Adragan otherwise? Luckily our Form of the Delemgan protects us from dexterity afflictions.

The battle at the Subterrean Temple, despite being the naturally highest level fight we've taken for a while, is the easiest battle in a long time - no trouble here, unlike these previous mid-level upscaled ship battles:
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Another few bounties, and we pay a quick visist to the Black Isles while avoiding Fyrgist. The final and only battle here is rather easy and we have enough time to get everyone into position before someone gets knocked out:
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This grants us level 13 - a nice little boost before we tackle Poko Kohara next time.

Thayn Goron: Called to his Bidding (this should be a huge payoff for the Beckoner subclass), Bull's Will
Cymedrol: Guardian Stance, Rymgrim's Enervating Terror
Doador: Minor Avatar, Storm of Holy Fire
Sjáanda: Ancestor's Memory, Echoing Horror
Nerthol: Weather the Storm, Lashing Vine
 

Enuhal

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Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 20: Poko Kohara, "left for later" quests in Nekataka

An update to our average combat tactics at this level:
- Instead of ogres, Thayn Goron now opens up combat with an empowered "Called to his Bidding" invocation and follows up with a second "Called to his Bidding" once the original weapons disappear (no time for other invocations inbetween, as this one's more expensive compared to the ogres). He's still singing "The Silver Knight" and "Mith Fyr".
- Cymedrol usually buffs himself with Tactical Barrage, Vigorous Defense and Llengrath's Displaced Image, and follows up with some kind of illusion spell, usually Confusion or one of the Ryngrim's ones, or he casts Shadowflame/other damaging spells.
- Doador now sometimes casts Minor Avatar before going for DotF/Dire Blessing. After that, he often summons a spiritual ally and may use one of his fire-based damaging spells, some heals/additional buffs, and, if he's mostly out of spells, spiritual weapon.
- Sjáanda still generally tries to ascend asap. I was experimenting a bit with Frostseeker for a while, but we're mostly back to The Red Hand now (Frostseeker has an active ability, when enchanted, that would maybe allow for instant ascension, but a) it's per rest and b) with expert mode, it's not very useful for me at all as I have no experience with the AoE) - and it's still 2-3 double-shots for the Ascension. After that, she mostly spams Amplified Wave (though we can still hand out robust inspirations, use one of our charm/dominate spells or mental binding if the situation calls for it).
- Nerthol, after the obligatory FotD, mostly unleashes her fifth level spells - Returning Storm and Insect Plague, often following up with a Lashing Vine (or sporelings) and some more plant/beast spells such as the second level insects, or she just spiritshifts.

Now, on to Poko Kohara. The enemies on the way are relatively easy to deal with:
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If I am interpreting the level scaling rules correctly, the Engwithan Titan should be either level 15 or level 17 for us. We lure him to the far north, where his skeletal allies won't follow him. Cymedrol lands a long-duration Curse of Blackened Sight, which helps a lot - our summoned weapons and additional summons (spiritual ally, lashing vine) start going. We've also acquired the Animancy Cat, a very impactful pet that helps out all our party summons:
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Once the titan is bloodied, his old and new allies finally notice that there's a fight going on - things are starting to look dangerous as they rush towards the mostly unprepared party, but we're just able to take the titan out as they come in, and without their master, these aren't the hardest foes to deal with:
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Inside Poko Kohara we face little trouble - our new summoned weapons aren't the best against skeletons (no crushing damage, one of the weapons does only piercing damage), but we can still summon ogres as well if needed. It turns out it seems like a good idea to select the weapons and turn on their auto-attack AI every time Thayn Goron summons them, otherwise controlling them is too much work. They don't use any of their special attacks, though, even if their full AI is activated, so some micromanagement can very much improve things. While none of the fights in the ruins are worth noting, we do acquired Marux Amanth here, a soulbound dagger that I'm handing to Doador and which will eventually allow him to instantly kill one near-death target per rest.
Back to Neketaka. We've left some more combat-focused quests here for later, and it's time to tackle them now - first "A Glimpse Beyond". The Soul Collector, while having a lot of HP, very much lacks in resistances or immunities to afflictions for a boss monster. We end up paralyzing it repeatedly with Mental Binding:
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This gains us another level up:

Thayn Goron: Snake's Reflexes
Cymedrol: Armored Grace
Doador: Scion of Flame
Sjáanda: Keen Mind
Nerthol: Sunlance

Now we enter the Hanging Sepulchers. Since double tap almost never works with level scaling on, i do switch to Frostseeker here, because arquebuses deal pure pierce damage and Frostseeker at least has two damage types. The bigger skeleton groups are quite dangerous - at one point, we have to save Sjáanda with Withdraw:
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As we find a spirit down there, we take the opportunity to let Doador hit it a bunch of times with Marux Amanth for the next soulbound upgrade. Good timing.
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What really helps against these skeleton groups: If Sjáanda actually does ascend (which takes a while without her prefered weapon), Amplified Wave deals crushing damage, so she can take out a lot foes quite easily:
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Thayn Goron uses Blessed Incense to get enough religion skill in order to convince the entombed barbarian to give us The Devourer of Souls, which we will need later on.
Finally, into the Old City. Some of the battles here drag on a bit, but none of them bring any real danger to the party. Once we get to the Giant Cave Grub, the fact that we have a Cipher with us means that we can finally take advantage of its weakness to intellect afflcitions - Sjáanda repeatedly whispers to the grub, which turns into a dominate effect (resistance/weakness means that the weaker or stronger level of an affliction will be applied), meaning that it won't turn on us even if we attack it - making this a very easy battle:
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To finish things off, Doador gets to try out his "Worth Sacrifice" ability on Marux Amanth, which is the aforementioned one hit kill on near death targets:
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I do feel kind of bad for the grub. That was a rather one-sided boss battle.
 

Enuhal

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65
Six Crowns for a Singer: Thayn Goron's Triple Crown Full Saga Run - Update 21: Sayuka and Shadow Under Nekataka

Before leaving Neketaka again, we catch up on the next VTC quest, which is easy enough to do without combat, and hand in some quests in Dunnage.

Now we sail to Sayuka, where we level up:

Thayn Goron: Tumbling
Cymedrol: Unbending
Doador: Salvation of Time
Sjáanda: Improved Critical
Nerthol: Tough

When the city is attacked, we fall back to our old Act 1 tricks with Charm/Hold Beasts to deal with the animals:
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Following the druids to the bog, we have to deal with a assassin vine ambush, but shadowflames and fireballs help to quickly destroy the vines as we summon our weapons:
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Similiar to PoE1, high level druids (especially when upscaled) can be quite dangerous, and insect plague is still one of the reasons. A few protections (such as the third level protective circle) and Minor Intercession help out quite a bit here:
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The animated weapons eventually take down all of the druids. During this battle I also realize that I now have access to a pretty interesting loop of spells that can make Sjáanda extra powerful if needed: Once she ascends, Doador can increase the duration of the ascension buff with Salvation of Time. In turn, Sjáanda can cast Ancestor's Memory on him, which grants him the brilliant inspiration, which returns spellslots to him, allowing him to cast more Salvation of Time spells. I knew from reading the Obsidian boards during the early times of the game that brilliant inspiration/salvation of time shenanigans with spells like Barring Death's Door are heavily used in runs with the "Ultimate" ruleset, but I didn't realize I would have access (across multiple characters, unlike the loops used for "The Ultimate") to similiar synergies. I will propably not make too much use of any kinds of infinite loop with this (they're also hard to set up and most battles don't last long enough for the attempt to be worth it), but I will "Salvation of Time" an Ascension from time to time, as that also helps with increased durations for our three regular buffs and flows pretty naturally with what we already do. Plus, it is a lot of fun:
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Onto "Overgrowth" - my plan here is to adhere to Galawain's wishes, so we only have to fight languafeth and sea trolls - which turns out to be not too difficult - they are tough but don't deal too much damage to us. I'm not too interested in fighting in upscaled Kraken, and we're not going to side with the RDC this time, so this is an easy skip:
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Next: Shadow Under Neketaka
This quest features a tough opening battle with upscaling, given that you're facing not only quite a few very powerful naga, but also lesser bog oozes. Those can cast insect plague, and I believe that they get multiple casts of it each, plus they are immune to crushing damage. Because antidotes protect against insect plague damage in Deadfire, we prepare with those before moving in:
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The enemies are hard to kill and keeping everyone, especially Sjáanda, alive, taxes our abilities to the maximum. Salvation of Time comes in very handy in extending our buffs, especially the antidotes, because we don't want to take the time in combat to renew those. As you can see, part of the problem is that the oozes stay at range, so AoE spells don't do alot (and they're immune to the damage from Amplified Wave anyway), while the nagas can deal strong single target damage. Despite a Minor Intercession, Sjáanda is in trouble:
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However, as she goes down, our secret weapon kicks in - Somewhat recently, we have bought the "Ring of Reset" from the "Deck of Many Things" (a DLC Merchant Ship with some very weird items - most of them have some kind of downside, but not this one) and, since Sjáanda is the most vulnerable party member, equipped it on her - it has three charges, allowing instant resurrection without a wound upon death. Now we're down to two, but Sjáanda is back up:
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Our summons have now taken care of most of the naga, but Doador is forced to cast withdraw on Nerthol. Sadly, even with Salvation of Time, our antidotes have now run out:
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This means insect plague can be a problem again, but we aren't hit very hard with it and Doador keeps the party healthy. One last Flame Naga Marauder, which we defeat by making use of its weakness against perception afflictions:
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And our animated weapons greatly help in destroying the oozes. That was a difficult battle. Aside from some of the midgame ship battles, this is the one where we felt the level scaling the most. The second battle down here is much easier (though still very long) as we have no oozes to deal with and a decent chokepoint to give us an advantage in positioning:
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Blessed Incense allows Thayn Goron to get enough metaphysics to free the dragon while still keeping the watershaper's power source.
 
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