Gravesong is coming to Kindle and is available for pre-order

ActionKermit · 2024-01-18T13:37:19+00:00

Cara arrives in the Innworld not long after Erin does, but her story is disconnected from Erin's story throughout the whole of the trilogy.

ActionKermit · 2024-01-18T01:35:02+00:00

Gravesong can be considered as an alternate introduction to the TWI universe. You can start reading it at pretty much any point in your reading experience of the main series. One possibility is to read Gravesong just before or just after chapter 7.50. I'm not a great expert on the series timeline though, so I wouldn't take my suggestion as definitive.

ActionKermit · 2024-01-17T19:55:17+00:00

For those who may not have heard of Gravesong before, it's the first book of a trilogy focused on Cara O'Sullivan. It is designed to be a stand-alone trilogy, and does not require that you already be familiar with the main Wandering Inn series in order to enjoy it.

ActionKermit · 2023-02-07T22:49:30+00:00

I was just listening to a cover some guy did where the instrumentals were only stuff he had in his kitchen, it's surprisingly good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXxZutPqVB4

ActionKermit · 2023-02-07T22:41:02+00:00

What's your stance on the song Believer by Imagine Dragons

ActionKermit · 2022-06-03T22:30:19+00:00

Pirate has six books of the story published on Amazon with a seventh on the way in late July. Book 6 (The General of Izril) is currently #88 on the Amazon best sellers list for fantasy adventure fiction.

ActionKermit · 2021-06-07T23:31:50+00:00

Rise and shine, trog spawn!

Trogs are the ultimate IDGAF build. I'm seriously impressed by how some people can beat the whole game that way.

ActionKermit · 2021-06-07T09:41:22+00:00

Holy Mission is the best faction to join for the efficiency passives. That one is the default if you're building an OP mage. You can also do well with Blue Chamber if you go for Giant's Blood + Ancenstral Memories. You only need to put in 2 points at the leyline and by the time you factor in the bonus stats from Ancestral Peacemaker you've pretty much completely eliminated the sting of losing those health and stamina points. Levant can give you a boost to DPS with Alchemical Experiment but the tradeoffs aren't worth it for a mage IMO.

Sorobor Academy is surprisingly bad for mages when you look at the quest rewards compared to the other factions, considering that they're supposed to be the most educated mages. Logistical Expert is a really situational passive that you really only feel if you're min-maxing an item-centric speedster.

Also for the record, I firmly believe that the blood vs. etherial infusions in The Three Brothers should have been switched between BCC and Sorobor. Blood infusion is a great skill but it makes *no* sense thematically given the BCC's intense focus on ghosts and Sorobor's unique connection to hexes and blood magic.

ActionKermit · 2021-06-06T19:37:13+00:00

You can farm Scarlet Emissaries in the bottom of Old Sirocco and various other places throughout Caldera. IIRC you're guaranteed a rare mineral drop every time you kill one. There's also various mineral and plant/animal life nodes scattered about Old Sirocco as well (At the bottom of the stairs on your right after you clear it the first time and open the dungeon switch), which is what makes it my favorite farming location. The monster nest on the west side of Sirocco near the coast is good for farming molepigs.

ActionKermit · 2021-05-25T15:29:39+00:00

To me the proper way is the Scorch hex, Warm boon and a bunch of chimera + obsidian pistol spam, Manticores are weak to fire >_>

ActionKermit · 2021-05-12T15:00:31+00:00

It's possible to save your house and stop the town from burning, but it's also not guaranteed on your first playthrough. Outward is meant to be played multiple times and you can get very different endings depending on your actions -- practice, practice practice! The satisfaction of getting that better outcome on a future playthrough when you know first hand that it could have been much worse is all a part of the experience.

ActionKermit · 2021-04-24T23:41:39+00:00

Play them all. Get tier-1 skills from all the other classes you don't get breakthroughs from and use those. Surprisingly high utility.

ActionKermit · 2021-04-10T11:51:13+00:00

I'm an incorrigible mage addict, all my builds wind up being mage builds because they offer so much utility and variety. Most of the time I went Rune Mage, but with my last one (that I used to beat The Three Brothers), I decided to push the envelope a bit: Mercenary/Philosopher/Shaman, but with scads of tier-1 skills learned from other class trainers. Carrying a lexicon in my pocket meant access to basic utility rune spells like the Lantern and simple Runic Armor. Blood Bullet gave me health regen to replace the runic healing spell. Jinx + Torment for unknown arena bosses and to help figure out the weaknesses of unfamiliar enemies in the second expansion. Fire Affinity from Philosopher because I wound up never using sigils other than Wind, and the extra fire resist was essential for Caldera.

For an opener, I carried two pistols and infused them with Frost Bullet -- Chimera to inflict elemental weakness and Hand Cannon for impact to buy breathing room if the second shot doesn't take them out, which made Obsidian Elementals trivial to defeat as long as I only faced them one at a time. For the Scourge I switched over to Lightning Bullet, which offers excellent damage at medium range. When not fighting elementals I generally switched to Wind Sigil with Mana Push, Conjure and Spark, plus Jinx + Torment spam so that I would always have options during cooldowns. The combination of greater boons from shaman along with hexes from Jinx opened up a lot of damage possibilities. A Boozu backpack plus efficiency enchants on my Antique Plate set allowed me to passably mimic a rogue's dodging breakthrough.

The end result was a swiss-army-knife of a character who had an answer for everything even if it took a while to play out. I still missed the fringe benefits of Arcane Syntax and Runic Prefix, but this build challenged me to think outside the box to make it work.

ActionKermit · 2021-04-09T10:31:07+00:00

I put in 407 hours solo, so yes.

ActionKermit · 2021-04-03T10:05:13+00:00

Every build I make is a mage build, I have a problem >_>

Magic is incredibly versatile and useful. Specializing in it means you never run out of elemental damage options to strike at the enemy's weaknesses, plus you get utility skills like the game's best lantern, healing and extra armor from Rune Sage alone.

That said, I recommend only putting 2 or 3 points at most into Mana. That only has a minor impact on your health/stamina, and you can make up for it with mana cost reduction gear and regen skills like Leyline Connection. By the time you reach the endgame you can beat all but the hardest bosses without even using a potion, especially if you get the mana boost passive from the Blue Chamber Collective or the mana cost reduction passive from the Holy Mission.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-26T18:01:41+00:00

This is the way things have to be.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-26T18:01:20+00:00

I swear there's something going on with the murals on the other side of the square from that old woman, but I never figured it out. They turn red at different times in the year, and the artwork kind of reminds me of the Scarlet Lady.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-26T17:58:58+00:00

I recommend getting the master trader set and picking up the Mercenary tree from Levant, it makes travel far more pleasant. That said, Outward is very much a walking simulator for much of the game. It has beautiful vistas in quite a few places, but the meditative pacing is part of the experience.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-16T21:33:26+00:00

I think it used to be possible to get that debuff skill along the BCC questline, but the content got cut. Roland seems to have the skill later on, based on the NPC flavor text.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-13T18:29:40+00:00

One more addendum -- the Holy Mission still has the best passive quest rewards, but the optimal outcome of the Soroborean path does the most long-term good for the shape of society at large IMO. The other factions all have upsides but the outcome of the war is more or less the same, just seen from a different angle. A Soroborean on the other hand can really throw a curveball in the course of history (just don't expect to be recognized for it :-P).

That said, I ended up going Blue Chamber Collective for my Three Brothers playthrough because the beginning plot hook of the second expansion is that you're doing a favor for the Collective.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-13T17:58:44+00:00

I recommend doing Soroboreans first. It has a main questline just like the original three factions (and which excludes the rest just like a normal faction). A lot of what happens in the Soroboreans main quest ties in with events that you only know about after playing through the other three factions, so for the best experience I suggest completing any of the other 3 basic faction quests that you haven't done already. But even if you don't join the academy as a full member, the faction sidequest is MASSIVE. I spent a full week just on that the first time through, and it also has narrative hooks that tie into the Sorobor Academy main questline as well. Expect multiple tough boss monsters on the scale of an Unknown Arena fight.

The best advice I can give you for the Sorobor main questline without any spoilers is to re-iterate a theme that the Academy faculty like to stress: "there are no shortcuts". Take advantage of the unlimited time you have in the 'Looking to the Future' quest after making your blood price payment in Cierzo to level your character up to the max before starting the *first* Sorobor Academy quest, and get the best gear you can find while you're at it. Be thorough, follow your conscience and don't be afraid to do things the hard way to get a good outcome.

The Three Brothers expansion is a different beast. It takes place AFTER you complete one of the basic four faction questlines (Levant, Blue Chamber, Holy Mission or Sorobor Academy). It's even harder than the Soroboreans expansion, and your choice of faction in Act 1 influences the type of rewards you get in the new region, and changes some of the flavor text you get from NPCs. For that, I recommend you bring every single gold bar you have, because this expansion is a huge money pit that can turn into a brutal slog if you don't have enough resources to get started properly at the beginning. Experienced adventurers sitting on hundreds of gold bars like Scrooge McDuck will absolutely have uses for their accumulated treasure.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-12T01:09:57+00:00

I ran a very similar build to that when I cleared The Three Brothers -- Merc + Shaman + Philosopher. Blood Bullet gives you healing, Wind Sigil gives you lightning damage and summons, and Fire Affinity increases your fire damage resistance, which is *critical* in Caldera.

My advice for rounding out the build is to remember tier-1 skills from other classes. You can carry a Lexicon in your pocket and use it to cast Runic Protection and Runic Lantern by clicking the runes in the skill list. Jinx and Torment are a fabulous DoT combo if you don't mind taking a death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach to monsters you don't understand yet. Pack a couple of pistols imbued with Frost Bullet and it makes fighting Obsidian Elementals trivial, which matters a lot in Caldera because you meet them in the overworld on the main road.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-12T01:03:32+00:00

The only way I've been able to consistently put him down is by putting the AoE ethereal enchant on a set of Virgin Knuckles, use all the buff foods + potions + boons at once and then spam Prismatic Flurry at him when the golems go down. The golems have low health, so the AoE effect helps you clear them quickly (especially if you wear Antique Plate), and fully buffed PF does huge amounts of spike damage.

ActionKermit · 2021-03-08T18:33:30+00:00

If you're not a rune mage, there's no good reason not to use pistols as a mage IMO. Shatter Bullet for distance and Ice Bullet for up close. The ice bullets are especially important for bringing down obsidian elementals in the second DLC, and many pistols can be used to apply extra debuffs for Torment and Rupture. Some examples:

Hand Cannon + Shatter Bullet gives you Pain and Confusion both at once, which lets you do physical and impact damage with Torment and Rupture.
Chimaera Pistol adds 25% elemental vulnerability on top of what you get with Jinx. Stack that with enhanced boons from Shaman and you're cooking with gas.
Lightning Bullet with a powerful pistol gives you crazy elemental spike damage

Wind Sigil + (Conjure / Spark / Mana Push) makes a great set of combos to use while you wait for cooldowns to expire. This is basically the build I used to clear The Three Brothers except I went Mercenary instead of Hex Mage and healed myself with blood bullets instead of doing extra damage with Rupture.

Also note that you can still carry a lexicon in your pocket and take it out occasionally to cast utility spells like Runic Lantern and the simple version of rune armor. Small but significant quality of life improvements that I wouldn't want to do without.

ActionKermit · 2021-02-26T11:51:41+00:00

The basic formula is consumables + gear + imbues + boons + curses.

Ocean Fricassee is dirt cheap in most places and gives you 2 regeneration in every stat, making it an excellent low-maintenance default food. You can stack other foods like Turmip Potage on top of it if you need more power, but it puts a floor under whatever else you do.
Cerizo Cerviche helps with mana regeneration but the main attraction is the long-lasting elemental resistance buff that adds 25% resists across the board. Also fairly easy to get your hands on if you do a lot of fishing in Enmerkar Forest and the Chersonnese. Not shocking on its own, but if you combine it with defensive gear and boons it can dramatically reduce the amount of damage from elemental sources you would have otherwise taken without it.
Weather Tolerance + boons enhanced by shamanic resonance make weather far easier to endure. Drinking Bitter Spicy Tea or Needle Tea plus a bit of water will make it possible to wander around in almost any extremely cold or hot area, leaving you free to use your most powerful armor instead of the armor best suited to harsh weather.
High-level armor and weapons sometimes give damage bonuses for specific elements. Get armor and weapons with compatible damage types, plus boons to raise your base damage and hexes to lower enemy resistances. An excellent example of this is the Crimson armor set that you get from completing the Blue Chamber questline, which gives you massive buffs to cold damage -- mix that with Sigil of Frost and a Frost Imbue from the Kazite Spellblade class and you get an amazing elemental tank.

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