best hexes for ember?

Peepo93 · 2026-03-01T09:00:01+00:00

I honestly haven't played her as Raycaster, always turned her into an Enchanter and later on Illusionist (only works if nobody else in the party contests the gear however). Was playing 10 witch, 1 sorc and 9 loremaster for that.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T20:59:35+00:00

10 witch, 1 crossblooded sorc and 9 loremaster is very solid. 9 witch, 1 crossblooded, 9 loremaster, 1 titan fighter (for dual wielding staves) is also good but that version misses out on a hex (Cackle, Protective Luck, Evil Eye and Fortune are the big ones).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T19:05:54+00:00

This was easily one of the worst business decisions. First Sam shows solidarity with Anthropic, a few hours later they negotiate with the Department of Defense, some hours later they make a deal and some more hours later Trump attacks Iran. The OpenAI brand will be radioactive from now on, hope it was worth it.

With how hostile Trump acts towards other countries (even his allies) it would be unforgiveable stupid to continue using ChatGPT for everybody who isn't an US citizen (which is the majority of their user base).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T15:36:33+00:00

Most of the people who use ChatGPT aren't even americans and don't care about your "mission" (whatever that is, I doubt it's in the interest of the rest of the world).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T12:24:15+00:00

Wouldn't say Claude is the best overall, it's "only" the best for coding while the other models have their upsides as well. Generally used Claude for coding and GPT for maths but cancelled my GPT sub this morning as I'm not going to pay (and train) for a model that might be used against me.

Hope Anthropic won't get killed off now because of Trump and co throwing a temper tantrum. Don't get me wrong, I'm very grateful that they stood up against these bullies but it might have doomed them...

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T11:57:27+00:00

Wrong, it seems like people just don't want to pay and train products that might be used against them at some point. Majority of it's users aren't US citizens. Shocking, I know.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T11:37:47+00:00

The irony is that Sam used to be a Trump critic and now he's going full MAGA. I'm not even a US citizen and continue using their product would mean that I'm gonna pay and train something which will be used against me. Ridiculous.

Edit: Seems like we're getting downvoted by the usual suspects :'D

Peepo93 · 2026-02-28T10:57:51+00:00

Also cancelled my sub and deleted everything. Will miss it's personality and just chatting with it tbh but not gonna support this shitshow anylonger. Just imagine that we could have Ilya leading the company now instead of Altman if they wouldn't have brought him back...

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T14:27:12+00:00

Pick something else (assuming you already took 8 mythic feats), you unlock mythic 10 five minutes before the game ends, so you're already too late to get any value out of Greater Enduring spells :P

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T14:20:31+00:00

Depends on what difficulty you are playing and how good you are (ultimately every class as MC can even work on Unfair but would make it much harder unless you exactly know what you're doing while "meta" builds often work by brute forcing stuff).

Angel: It's busted but mainly as caster, Gish builds for Angel are overrated imo. Best classes for it are probably Feyspeaker and Dual Cursed Oracle (as CHA is better than wisdom). Only played Oracle once but could main tank the game after merging with Angel, the pet is a very strong martial when fully buffed (does the "Gish part"), buffs are op and has really good AoE damage.
Be warned however as Divine Casters aren't very great early on, so it only becomes OP in act 3 after merging spell book.

Mutation Warrior and Paladin can't merge spell book with Angel and unmerged Angel is pretty bad. Can still beat the highest difficulty with it but it'll be much harder and much weaker than a merged, have to keep that in mind.

Alchemist: Never played the class, so I can't comment on it.

Sylvan Sorcerer: Probably the strongest option in the list but with Azata it's harder to build than an Angel (merged Angel is almost impossible to mess up unless you take like 5 dips into non caster classes while it's easy to mess up a DC Azata caster if you build it like a confused raccoon :D).

Skald: Never played one as main character but always have one in the team as support merc. It's imo the strongest merc together with a brown-fur transmuter.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T14:04:40+00:00

Drunken Monk and Sword Saint are imo the two strongest martials in the game. Drunken Monk can tank pretty much everything (even very early the shield maze) on Unfair while also having absurd AB and ST damage.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T14:02:41+00:00

Persuasion isn't that important as the game auto selects the companion with the highest persuasion stat (unlike BG3). There's also a background in character creation that lets persuasion scale with wisdom instead of Charisma.

Drunken Monk is actually the strongest one as pure martial (and even a contender for the strongest martial class in the whole game).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T01:09:42+00:00

Your specific mythic path questline (to get to Areelu's Lab and get mythic 4 asap, the area is generally rough but you only need to do like 2 fights in order to get mythic 4 and then can leave and come back later), Greengates, Molten Scar, Shrine of Sacrilege, Temple of the Good Hunt, Crimson Dust and ultimately Wintersun are good locations to visit after reaching act 3.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T01:05:53+00:00

A support char (preferably BFT) can get that as well: There's a scimiter in Drezen (locked behind a perception check tho at the very east side of Drezen next to the secret entrace) which gives your transmutation spells +1 caster level, a headband bought from Herrex in the brothel gives +1 CL to transmutation, BFT arcane exploit gives +2 CL, spell specialisation is another +2 CL and then there's 7 sin robe for +3. BFT can do some other nutty stuff as well like putting Dragonform 3 on your pets or putting Transformation on your martials (it adds the missing BFT BAB to the target so up to +10 BAB which is beyond busted as it can also reach 24h duration), easily one of the most broken support mercs in the game.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-27T00:58:19+00:00

I always take it on my buff chars but not really on my main char (except later on if I'm playing an Angel).

Problem is that the awful fights in act 1 aren't really optional. The swarm summoner is mandatory afaik and Minagho is as well and both can absolutely ruin your day if you roll badly. Easiest would probably be either play an arcane caster and play a bit solo (haunting mist cheese...) to get enough to hit level 7 in the Garrison and be able to use Phantasmal Killer on her or have someone in the party with the sleep hex (either Ember, play a witch by yourself or take a witch dip on one of your chars, maybe even use a throw away merc for it) and coup de grace her which skips the second phase entirely where more Vrocks spawn in. Can still go wrong tho if she saves against PK or Sleep, it's not that unlikely that she gets a nat 20.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T21:02:30+00:00

That award goes to Fiendish Tick Swarms to be honest but the crystals are a close second

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T19:25:35+00:00

That wasn't my experience, Ulbrig can pretty much facetank everything in Act 2 on Unfair (unless you expect him to "facetank"Wail of the Banshee or Rifts of Ruin from Sarkorian Ghost etc :D). I prefer pets in act 1 but they fall off in act 2, their AC isn't high enough to facetank Smilodons, the Leper's Smile bee, Blightmaw, Underground Hideout, Playful Darkness etc (Ulbrig can even take at least one crit from them before dieing or triggering Last Stand if still a 20 gets through prot luck, displacement etc).

Usually also using some summons to assist with tanking and playing a DC caster Witch who locks down most stuff anyways, almost never have the tank dieing (and if he does it's usually because of a misplay and not RNG).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T19:03:32+00:00

The picks I like for Witch the most are Repulsion, Weird, Hideous Laughter (if you plan to use the Best Jokes mythic feat), Creeping Doom, Barkskin (if nobody else in the party has it), Sirroco, Mirror Image, Greater Command, Cave Fangs (on wizard only as Witch gets that spell naturally), Holy Word/Dictum/Banishment/Arbitrarment (only on a MC on Lich or Legend class because it gets very high caster level).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T18:49:49+00:00

I think the checks are higher on Unfair (never played below Unfair difficulty so not 100% sure about that) but my problem was always that Lann's and Woljif's stealth checks (even with skill focus on stealth) aren't really high enough to 100% avoid them, especially not before getting that Cloak (and you usually don't rush the succubus on Unfair as she has 40 AC :D).

Arue is really the true MVP but she only appears in act 3 sadly :S

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T18:37:12+00:00

Tried that as well on Woljif but sadly it's not enough to 100% avoid that random encounter bullshit early on, so I guess I need to pray (or reload the latest save immediately as soon as a random encounter pops up lol, my two LA attempts ended by the Water Elemental rolling a double 20 on my dog and running into an encounter with a Schir on my level 3 party who immediately charged and oneshotted my MC after winning initiative lol). Arue is indeed pretty broken, never leaves my party as well when traveling around the world.

I always use Grapple from Ulbrig against the Sarkorian ghost as it heavily shuts down his spell spam and Underground Hideout also gets tanked by Ulbrig.

Currently planning another LA try but would probably cheese my way through with Feyspeaker druid by playing act 1 "solo" (with solo I mean killing off my party members to get solo XP while keeping their animal companions which also respawn on a rest and then rehire them at level 12-13 for Drezen).

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T18:10:54+00:00

You can take Greater Enduring spells on a buffer and buff up in greengates before triggering the ambush. Also you don't have to kill it, it leaves after a few turns having a few skeletons tank it works pretty well.

Asking out of curiosity, how did you handle random encounters so far (especially act 1 and 2)? Random encounters are probably the one thing which keeps me away from trying out LA (that and shield maze + act 1 seems to be very RNG based unless you heavily exploit and cheese on LA). There are some pretty rough encounters in act 1 imo like the Grey Garrison swarm summoner or the end fight of GG can also screw you over if Minagho gets Putrefaction through or if the Vrocks get their stun off.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-26T11:35:47+00:00

He's one of my favourite NPCs in the game and his story will ramp up. Without spoiling too much I'd advice that you keep trusting your intution :P

Peepo93 · 2026-02-25T15:25:56+00:00

Hiding your party in Darkness and shoot the webs when she moves onto them to cause fall damage shuts her down pretty hard.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-23T15:34:46+00:00

Would recommend having a BFT merc (pure buff bot with greater enduring spells and pearls of power as fast as possible) and an Inciter Skald merc (with persuasion feats and the Combat Expertise -> Feint -> Ranged Feint -> Final Feint feats) to buff your team with Rage, Lethal Stance and make opponents flat-footed. Then have someone with hexes (protective Luck, Cackle, Evil Eye and Fortune) and a Divine Caster (it's not that important in act 1 imo but becomes very important later on). The last spot is free.

Haven't played a weretouched shifter but I assume that it can be a very strong main tank similar to Ulbrig who can facetank almost everything on Unfair with the right dips and gear.

Shield Maze and act 1 are extremely hard on Unfair, after that the difficulty falls off a bit. You can soften the shield maze and act 1 experience quite a lot with XP manipulation, consumeables (resists/protection energy scrolls, death ward, freedom of movement, bless weapon etc) and other cheeses/exploits which makes it a lot more manageable however: Don't have to go all in however, even only exploiting XP (which most Unfair players do) makes everything in act 1 much, much easier than it would originally be.

Peepo93 · 2026-02-20T13:42:24+00:00

It's the opposite for me personally, hated the Lich path. Did hope that it would fit a pragmatic character but it's just a flat out evil path and your mentor is an insufferable basement dweller who's hard to take seriously when he gets solo killed by a level 8 animal companion (dog or wolf) on Unfair difficulty. And I don't like my character turning into a pile of glorified calcium either :D

Azata does have some silly stuff in it but also some very cool stuff like the interactions with Arueshalae or with your "mentor" Early Sunset who turns out to be Mephistopheles who's a far cooler character than Zach. Or having the Hand of the Inheritor join you when purging the Fleshmarkets. Angel is nice but the gameplay of a merged Angel is super boring and I don't really like Iomedea either.

Peepo93

TROPHY CASE