Why would you take Forsaken Thoughts over Calming the Tempest?

Since Forsaken Thoughts doesn't give your race holy/unholy resistance in the traditional sense, Calming does everything Forsaken does but better with a slight adjustment in gearing strategy. The rest is just preps and high damage and/or good tanking.

You would use Fortress of the Spirit to resist bards but does it also resist neurological disruption and eavesdrop?

redux from holy/negative melee weapons being one. it's also different in how you save (speculation begins...now). I think one gives the chance for a second save (calming) and the other (forsaken) simply lowers the level of the incoming commune.

If it does work against both communes and melee wrath damage, then why would anyone say that duergars who take it would regret it?

nt

It reduces holy and unholy damage but didn't "cover" a vuln the way wearing the red hide used to take you from vuln fire to resist fire as a felar.

Granted, post Zulg's last big set of vuln/resist changes that concern is sort of moot.

Never really expected the legacy to protect the duergar like that but somewhere along the line it was claimed to be a waste.

Now with these clarifications Forsaken Thoughts makes more sense than Calming on a duergar fighting druids and paladins frequently but one would only take both on one character specifically to bait communers into fights they'all never win once you have Derns on (but be less than stellar against warriors and shifters)

Put both on a Villager or Imperial and you'll do just fine, the cabal powers make up for not having more conventional legacies nicely depending on spec.