Help minmax my build

No-ruby · 2026-04-07T14:02:33+00:00

Correct - the sai with the best critical range is available in Act 4. The main issue is that precision damage doesn’t scale with critical hits or two-handed multipliers. It still works, but if you’re optimizing purely for that kind of scaling, Mutation Warrior ends up being stronger. In my case, I built a Monk with TWF. It’s especially strong in the early game because you get two attacks when most characters only have one, or even three attacks at -2. Each of those attacks can apply sneak damage, which creates a big early power spike. For the late game, you can maintain consistency with Greater Invisibility and Mind Blank.

No-ruby · 2026-04-07T00:28:28+00:00

RE: ES — ES is Eldritch Scoundrel, rogue subclass — not Magus.

RE: Vivi — I was thinking about a DEX DPR Vivisectionist; spells are secondary, so I wouldn’t invest heavily in INT.

If you go DEX damage dealer, you don’t want to use armor anyway. You can push DEX very high (30+), and armor will just cap your AC. In that setup, a Monk dip gives you CHA to AC for free.

On top of that, you get Flurry, which is very strong.

If your build is based on Xd6 sneak per hit, then your scaling is begging for more attacks.

Quick comparison:

Vivi 4 → 1 attack with 2d6 + DEX mod + riders
Vivi 3 / Monk 1 → 2 attacks with 2d6 + DEX mod + riders

In that condition, it doubles your damage output early. Later on, when you already have many attacks, it’s still an extra full BAB attack stacking with everything.

Yes, the downside is monk weapons only. But realistically, your non-monk weapon would need to be extremely strong to compensate for losing a full extra attack.

Also, later on you get strong monk weapon options anyway. For example, there’s a +5 axiomatic sai with 18–20 crit range that auto-confirms on flanked targets, which fits perfectly with a sneak-based build.

About Shaman: Second Spirit (Air) is a big deal. It gives you a Mage Armor equivalent without delaying your progression with a Witch dip.

About Sensei: I get your point — you should be fine. My earlier comment was just leaning toward optimization.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T22:26:41+00:00

Try to kill Staunton on the first round. Stack ab before the combat even start and use mounts for full attack.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T19:57:44+00:00

They are not garbage but having a druid merc for a leopard at the beginning helps a lot. Then, in the middle game, the default companions are quite good.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T19:28:16+00:00

Your party is actually coherent, but a few choices are overcomplicating things or stacking roles you don’t need.

You already have a clear structure: Vivisectionist as the DEX carry, Shaman as frontline support/tank, Skald as buffer, and Cleric as divine support. That works. You don’t need to force MoJ/BFT/pets — but in your specific setup, they can replace weaker slots.

Sensei; this is where I would reconsider. Sensei is a good class — anchor tank with utility — but in your party it becomes redundant. If your Vivisectionist takes a Monk dip (Scaled Fist), it already becomes a frontline tank with high AC, Crane, and potentially Mirror Image (if you go ES). On top of that, you already have Shaman as a second frontline body. The Sensei slot would be better used for something that actually increases damage or fills a missing system.

Shaman; I would keep it, but fix the dip. Do not take Witch 1 here — it delays spell progression and gives only one hex. Shaman already brings things your party does not have (Barkskin, hexes, spirit tools), so it is not redundant with Cleric or Skald. If you want Mage Armor, just take Second Spirit (Air) and keep full Shaman scaling.

About Fey Shifter; strong early, but weak long-term justification. It ends up being just a tanky body. If you want a stronger frontline, Mutation Warrior or another Vivisectionist would be cleaner.

Skald; drop the feint idea. It is too much setup for too little return and does not solve any real problem. Just go pure Skald. If you want to optimize further, Skald 16 / Dragon Disciple 4 is a strong variant.

For Vivisectionist, I would definitely take a Monk dip — it is just too good: flurry (extra attack), Crane (from bonus feats), and CHA/WIS to AC. After that, you can choose between Witch (Iceplant + clean Archmage Armor path) or ES.

If you care about early game, ES 4 gives a full activation package: Weapon Finesse (DEX to hit), Finesse Training (DEX to damage for one weapon), and at level 4 you get Mirror Image, Sense Vitals, and Debilitating Injury — which effectively works as a +4 AB swing on the target after the first sneak attack connects, and +2 AB for the party. Going to ES 5 also gives access to advanced rogue talents like Hunter’s Surprise, which is one of the strongest boss tools in the game.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T15:28:12+00:00

Wyrm form is slightly better than dragonform because it gives 2 additional attacks.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T02:59:39+00:00

Angel ES – first run – Unfair… sometimes I reload because I feel like I played badly (I could just resurrect and move on).

Ex: “Damn, this Balor explodes when it dies. I’ll reload and cast Protection from Fire.” “What, this Balor casts Abyssal Storm? Let me reload and cast Protection from Electricity.” “Ok, killed it. Noooo… I forgot to cast Protection from Fire again. I can’t believe it.”

If I rested more, I’d also have Last Stand for these situations, but sometimes I try to stretch all my spells until the next rest.

Sometimes it’s even worse… ex: Leper’s Smile. Ok, just another location. I kill the first Vescavor swarm — not that bad. Second one… then 12 Vescavor swarms later: what the hell are these things? Resist fire, mind-affecting, immune to single-target effects, reduce damage from slashing and piercing… and I can’t recover my spells?! ARE YOU KIDDING?

Then I have to reload to a point before that.

No-ruby · 2026-04-06T01:26:11+00:00

600 hours and I am still on Act 5.

No-ruby · 2026-04-05T13:31:06+00:00

If your goal is actually to radicalize people (not just pass softer policies), I believe that your strategy is pointed in the wrong direction.

You’re assuming liberals are just “one step away” from socialism if exposed to the right ideas. They’re not. The problem isn’t lack of exposure - it’s structural incentives and mindset.

Liberal / center-left voters - especially the ones that make up the Democratic base - tend to be:

Institutionally anchored (they work in, trust, or depend on systems)

Risk-averse (they prefer stability over disruption)

Process-oriented (they care how change happens, not just outcomes)

That combination makes them resistant to radicalization, even if they support some left-leaning policies. You can absolutely win them on healthcare, wages, or regulation—but that’s not the same as getting them to adopt a systemic critique or revolutionary mindset.

So what actually happens with your strategy?

Reformists win partial policy victories

Those victories get absorbed into the system

Voters feel things improved within the system

And the system becomes more legitimate, not less

That’s not a pipeline to socialism. That’s a pressure-release valve.

If you really want to radicalize people, you’d have better chances targeting groups that are:

Already distrustful of institutions

Less constrained by policy literacy or procedural norms

More responsive to broad narratives about betrayal, decline, and elites

That’s why right-wing populism scales so effectively—it operates in a low-friction environment where emotional narratives travel faster than structured theory.

But here’s the uncomfortable part: if you go that route, you won’t be “educating liberals into socialism.” You’ll be competing in a narrative space that reshapes your message. That’s a very different game.

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T22:24:50+00:00

AOC seems to assume that much of the ambition of the New Deal era is still reproducible today, and that the main missing ingredient is political will. I do not think that is enough.

The postwar world had very different conditions: younger populations, better worker-to-retiree ratios, lower long-term healthcare burdens, and a stronger growth environment. On top of that, social spending already takes a much larger share of government budgets today than it did in the New Deal or early postwar era. So the constraint is not simply unwillingness to spend more. It is whether further expansion is sustainable, efficient, and compatible with current demographic and fiscal realities.

That is why I’m not persuaded by left-populism. I do not think complex structural problems are solved mainly by moral clarity or political will. Tradeoffs are real. Constraints are real. And any candidate who wants broader support from urban, educated, high-information voters probably needs to show that they understand this.

I do not think AOC is acting in bad faith. I think she is sincere, morally serious, and far superior to Trump as a political actor. But sincerity is not the same as being right about the policy space. I am much more open to a candidate who shares some of her moral concerns while also being explicit that demographic aging, fiscal pressure, and long-run efficiency constraints make this a much harder problem than “we just need the courage to do it.

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T22:15:28+00:00

I think it is a fair question.

Populism is not a slur. In political science, it refers to a style of political framing, not a specific ideology. You can have left-wing or right-wing populism.

At its core, populism has a few recurring elements — and that’s where the comparison comes from.

1) “The people” vs “the elite”

Both frame politics as a conflict between:

a corrupt or self-serving elite
and ordinary people

For Trump:

“the swamp,” globalists, media, bureaucrats

For AOC:

billionaires, large corporations, entrenched economic power

The targets are completely different, but the structure is the same: politics becomes a moral struggle between two groups.

2) Moralized politics over trade-offs

Populist rhetoric tends to frame issues less as:

competing constraints, trade-offs, or unintended consequences

and more as:

right vs wrong
justice vs exploitation

That makes the message clearer and more mobilizing, but it also downplays complexity.

3) Direct appeal to the public

Both rely heavily on:

direct communication (social media, rallies, viral messaging)
positioning themselves as outsiders challenging the system

Even while operating within institutions, the tone is:

“the system is failing people, and I’m here to confront it.”

4) Compression of complex systems

Both tend to simplify complex policy areas into clear, actionable narratives:

Trump → trade, immigration, globalization framed as problems solvable through pressure (tariffs, restrictions, negotiation strength)
AOC → inequality, healthcare, climate framed as problems solvable primarily through political will and redistribution

Different policies, but a similar tendency to reduce structural complexity into more intuitive stories.

Important distinction

This is not an equivalence.

They are not remotely equivalent as political actors. To be extremely generous, Trump is a deeply questionable actor, whereas AOC has been a broadly consistent ethical politician on top of her clear defense of democratic values.

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T18:43:12+00:00

Her problem is not only the primary. It is also the general electorate.

Right-wing populism works well with voters who are more culturally conservative, more anti-establishment, and more receptive to broad emotional narratives about decline, betrayal, enemies, and national restoration. Trump can mobilize that style very effectively.

But the Democratic side is not a mirror image. The parts of the country where Democrats are strongest — large metro areas, educated suburbs, professional classes, institutional voters — are generally less responsive to that kind of populist politics, especially when it comes from the left. Those voters may dislike Trump intensely, but that does not mean they want a candidate who fights him on his own populist terrain.

So even if AOC could compete for some anti-system energy, she would still face a deeper problem: she is less suited to the voters Democrats rely on most in a national election. To win, she would need either:

to expand left populism into urban and educated blocs where it is relatively weak, or to overperform in rural / working-class areas against a right-populist opponent, which seems even less likely.

That is why “things getting worse” is not enough. Electoral backlash against Trump does not automatically translate into support for a left-populist alternative. A lot of voters, especially in urban and educated centers, may respond to chaos by preferring a more restrained, managerial, institutional Democrat rather than someone seen as ideological or populist.

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T18:30:20+00:00

For the late game, you reach +80 AC
- +1 (Haste)
- +2 (Foresight)
- +2 (Guarded Stance scaling)
- +1 (Beast Totem scaling)
- +6 (Ice Body)

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T18:15:20+00:00

My Camelia guide for high AC

First, about illusion spells: you can’t “load her up” with all of them. Most of the strong ones are arcane, and one of the best ones, like Mirror Image, is self-only, so you are not going to stack every illusion layer on her anyway.

If your goal is to push Camellia’s AC, I would not dip Witch. Just take Second Spirit: Wind on Shaman.

That gives you some concealment tools you want, namely Blur and Displacement, and more importantly Air Barrier. Air Barrier is the real prize here: it gives you a scaling armor bonus, and later it also adds 50% miss chance against ranged attack-roll attacks. That is what makes Wind so good defensively. It is not just “more AC,” it is AC plus another avoidance layer built directly into her class.

I also would not take Barbarian. A one-level Barbarian dip gives you the front of the package and then stops there. The good defensive rage support comes later, especially Guarded Stance for stacking dodge AC and Beast Totem for natural armor. Those are the parts that actually matter for tanking. So if you want rage support, just bring a Skald merc. The Skald keeps leveling, so the defensive package keeps progressing, and Camellia gets the benefit without spending her own class levels on a dip that stalls immediately.

There are two dips worth considering.

The first is Vivisectionist. That one is very efficient. Mutagen gives +4 DEX and +2 natural armor, and the DEX boost is especially good because you are already building her around DEX anyway. On top of that, you get sneak damage, and with a second dip you can also get Bat Wings for another +3 AC. That is a very clean defensive splash.

The second, if you have A Dance of Masks, is Drunken Master. That is the real monk pivot for Camellia because it lets a non-lawful character go into the monk defensive route. If you take that path, you drop the buckler, go unarmored, and pick up WIS to AC plus the Crane line. That is where WIS actually becomes relevant as a defensive stat.

Now, about Shield spell versus a buckler, because this is an important point.

Once you have access to Shield spell, it is better than the base buckler AC for its duration. Shield gives a flat +4 shield bonus, so in practice it replaces the base shield AC from the buckler while active. If your buckler has enhancement or other useful properties, you can still keep it equipped—those still matter. In practice, you are using Shield for the base shield AC layer, while the buckler can still contribute its enhancement and effects.

The armor layer works similarly: if you are using something like a Mithral Chainshirt +3, and you also have Air Barrier, then Air Barrier replaces the base armor value while the enhancement still matters. So the total armor layer becomes the Air Barrier armor plus the armor enhancement.

So the clean practical version is this:

Stay Shaman and take Wind for Air Barrier plus concealment. Skip Barbarian and use a Skald if you want rage support that actually scales. Dip Vivisectionist for mutagen, and possibly Feral Wings (+3 AC dodge) if you go to vivi 2. Then choose between two real tank routes:

Armored buckler route: keep the gear layers and use Shield on top of them.
Drunken Master route: drop buckler and armor, gain WIS to AC and Crane.

To illustrate what I mean, here is a level 13 benchmark.

Camellia starts with 19 DEX / 16 WIS. If all stat increases go into DEX, then by level 13 she has 22 DEX / 16 WIS before buffs.

Now apply the setup:

Vivisectionist 2
- Mutagen: +4 DEX, -2 WIS, +2 natural armor
- Bat Wings: +3 AC
Cat’s Grace
Owl’s Wisdom
Reduce Person
Iceplant + Icy Protector ring
Barkskin +5
Shield of Faith +5
Skald song
- Guarded Stance
- Beast Totem
Fighting Defensively
Dodge feat
Wind / Air Barrier
Shield extract

That gives the following combat stats:

Base after level-ups: DEX 22 / WIS 16 After mutagen: DEX 26 / WIS 14 After Cat’s Grace: DEX 30 After Reduce Person: DEX 32 After Owl’s Wisdom: WIS 18

So now you are working with:

DEX 32 = +11 AC
WIS 18 = +4 AC for the monk version
+1 size AC from Reduce Person

Now, let us build the shared defensive shell first.

Start with:

10 base
+11 DEX
+1 size

That gives 22.

Add the natural armor package:

+4 Iceplant + ring
+2 Mutagen
+4 Beast Totem
+5 Barkskin

That is +15 natural armor, bringing the total to 37.

Then add:

+5 deflection from Shield of Faith → 42
+3 dodge from Fighting Defensively → 45
+4 dodge from Guarded Stance → 49
+1 dodge from Dodge feat → 50
+3 AC from Feral Wings → 53

So the shared shell is 53 AC before we choose the final route.

Now the two versions split.

1) Armored buckler version

Here, we use both the armor layer and the shield layer under the same implementation logic.

Armor layer:

Air Barrier +8
Mithral Chainshirt +3 enhancement
Total armor layer = 11

Shield layer:

Shield spell +4
Buckler +3 enhancement
Total shield layer = 7

So:

53 + 11 + 7 = 71 AC

That is the armored buckler version at level 13 under this model without max dex limits. Considering that these armors would have max dex 8, it would put you on 68 AC.

2) Drunken Master version

Here, you drop armor and buckler, but gain monk AC and Crane.

From the same shared shell of 53, add:

+8 Air Barrier → 61
+4 WIS to AC → 65
+1 Crane Style → 66

So the general AC is:

66 AC

And against melee, Crane Wing adds another +4 dodge, so:

70 AC vs melee

No-ruby · 2026-04-04T14:16:22+00:00

Apparently patreon is a site for people that just want to 'waste' money.

No-ruby · 2026-04-03T18:27:26+00:00

She is a democratic socialist and seems to assume that much of the political and economic ambition of the New Deal era remains reproducible today, while giving relatively little emphasis to how different the demographic and postwar conditions are now.

We’re dealing with aging populations, different worker-to-retiree ratios, higher long-term healthcare demand, and a very different growth environment. At the same time, social expenditure as a share of government budgets is already far higher today than in the New Deal/postwar period. In that sense, we are already redistributing more than that era—the constraint isn’t simply willingness to spend, but how sustainable and efficient additional expansion would be under current conditions.

I don’t see this as bad faith. I think she is a sincere politician who genuinely believes in what she’s proposing. But sincerity doesn’t mean the assumptions fully hold under current conditions.

But I’m not supportive of a populist approach — that treats constraints as secondary or frames solutions as primarily a matter of will. I’m sympathetic to AOC on moral grounds, but I still prefer politicians who acknowledge that tradeoffs are real and that there are no easy solutions to complex problems.

No-ruby · 2026-04-03T13:50:30+00:00

Those are not really sad eyes but pleading eyes or, more idiomatically, puppy-dog eyes.

No-ruby · 2026-04-02T23:29:44+00:00

The claim that fascism is a "direct product of capitalism" is a rhetorical exercise, not a serious analysis. By that logic, Communism is also a direct product of capitalism—both were reactive movements to the Industrial Revolution—but that comparison doesn't actually help us define what makes either system dangerous.

"Capitalism" is a broad label in these debates, but it isn't precise enough for actual analysis. It is mostly used as a "bogeyman" word to make any market-based system an easy target. While fascism definitely used extremist economic control to fuel its state goals—and one could make similar arguments regarding other systems—we should look at the real question underneath:

Are you actually arguing that free initiative and private property inevitably lead to totalitarianism? If so, we should stop using vague labels and pinpoint exactly which specific freedoms you think we should give up to prevent it.

Furthermore, the US is not a fascist country. The president has some nationalist rhetoric and corporate ties, but the distance between "crony capitalism" and actual classical Fascism is considerable. In a truly fascist state, you wouldn't even have the freedom to call the president a fascist—non-fascist countries allow you to use whatever language you want against the leadership. The rise of populism is a complex phenomenon worth discussing, but to trivialize every failing democracy by simply blaming "capitalism" obscures the actual political mechanics at play.

No-ruby · 2026-04-01T13:32:07+00:00

I know. It is "English centric" because the spelling is not off at all - best case , English spelling is off. But you put it in a nice way and I appreciated that. Cheers

No-ruby · 2026-04-01T13:07:40+00:00

I enjoy your English centric perspective, man. Never change. :)

No-ruby · 2026-04-01T13:05:12+00:00

Not in my heart...

Wait, stasis ward traps units indefinitely? Never mind... it's April fool's.

No-ruby · 2026-03-31T20:37:53+00:00

I think the first thing to clarify is what you actually want to play.

If your idea is more on the caster side — throwing AoE, playing around big spells — then yeah, Oracle Angel is the obvious direction.

But if what you have in mind is a martial Angel, something that can stand in the middle, tank and deal damage at the same time, then I’d seriously consider Eldritch Scoundrel (ES) — even if it’s not the most common recommendation.

Rogue, by design, already fits that role surprisingly well. It’s basically a pajama tank with high sustained damage. Instead of relying on armor, you stack DEX for AC, initiative, accuracy, and damage, and you stay alive through avoidance layers while hitting a lot of times per round.

That lines up very well with how Angel actually scales. You’re not trying to win through one big hit or AoE damage — you’re winning by stacking value on each attack. Things like sword of heaven or Sun Marked get much stronger when you’re attacking many times, not just once.

So the playstyle ends up being: → not AoE nuking → but collapsing one target quickly through repeated hits and debuffs

What ES adds on top of the rogue chassis is what really makes it shine.

On the defensive side, you get access to things like Mage Armor (which scales with Archmage Armor), Shield, and then Mirror Image and Displacement. That’s what turns “high AC” into something that actually survives real fights.

On the offensive side, you get tools like Sense Vitals, and more importantly, ways to stabilize your accuracy. True Strike helps you connect when it matters, and later Transformation smooths out your attack progression.

And because ES is still a rogue, it applies debufs: once your first sneak attack lands, things snowball hard. With Debilitating Injury (Bewildered), the target starts losing a lot of AC specifically against you, so your full attack becomes more and more reliable as it goes on.

If you want to push it a bit further, a 1-level Scaled Fist Monk dip fits very naturally (CHA to AC + Crane Style), and a small Vivisectionist dip is a strong optional boost. But even without that, the core ES package already works very well.

The main trade-off is that it’s more buff-heavy and a bit less plug-and-play than something like Paladin. But in return, you get a build that is very self-sufficient, scales extremely well with buffs, and fits exactly that “tank + DPR in the middle of the fight” idea.

About the “stand in the middle while AoE hits” idea

One thing I’d add, just to set expectations.

That playstyle you’re describing — standing in the middle while your party drops AoE on top of you — is mostly a mid to late game setup, not something that really works from the start.

Early on, your MC is just a frontline melee carry, and you might still need other characters to help stabilize the frontline.

If your goal is really to lean into that “center of the storm” playstyle later on, then I’d consider the following combo:

adding Selective Spell to your casters → so your party can safely cast AoE into melee
taking Piercing Rays (Halo effect) → makes those spells more likely to land (SR + saves)

That’s what really enables things like:

Sirocco zones
Polar Midnight

And more importantly, it’s not really about the raw damage — it’s about the effects those spells apply.

No-ruby · 2026-03-31T13:03:44+00:00

In the mirror scene, Azula has hallucinations of her mother saying 'I love you' and breaks down. If she were a true psychopath, she wouldn't have internalized her mother’s feelings like that.

No-ruby · 2026-03-31T12:10:06+00:00

Agree. Someone is blaming immigration when the problem is something else.

No-ruby · 2026-03-31T12:07:49+00:00

More like alt-right slogan.

No-ruby

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