ErlKing

Right now Troubadour is better than Skald in almost everything. You just won't beat 1 extra phrase per 6 seconds because crit have CHANCE to generate phrase. So to have similar speed of phrases generation you have to deal at least 2 crits per 6 seconds. And even then it is pretty random - sometimes you get crits and each is extra phrase, sometimes rare crits and even these won't give you phrases. One more thing - you will have lots of crits only versus weak enemies and against tough opponents when you really need these extra phrases you won't have them. Additionally, as Skald you aren't generating extra phrases while you cast, recover from casting, under CC effect or moving while Troubadour gets them reliably. In my opinion Skald shouldn't be based on crits, maybe extra phrases generation based on number of enemies nearby. Also doubled casting speed on offensive invocations. Restriction - much weaker summons or no summons at all.

You just need to fix Full-Attack abilities to include recovery from main hand. It is single, most imbalanced feature of dual wielding.

Ancient memory or Vampyric song if you don't use Brisk. If you use Brisk - Courage thick as Steel is better, 10 pt shield each 3 seconds is three times more effective and isn't negated by constitution debuffs (-% to healing).

Ideas for Holy Radiance: Holy Radiance applies only once per combat, making target immune to additional ones to prevent from stacking from multiple Priests. Passives tree: 1 Tier - Effect 1: a) Heal - +30% Heal b) Shield - +3 Armor on self for 10 seconds c) Harm - -20% Heal, Interrupts enemies in range 2 Tier - Effect 2: a) Inspire - prolong active Inspirations on allies duration by 5 second b) Neutralize - shortens negative inspiration on allies duration by 5 seconds c) Interdict - prolongs negative Inflictions on enemies duration by 5 seconds 3 Tier - Shape: a) Circle - same old circle, +10% range b) Cone - 120 degree cone, +20% range, effect +10% c) Line - 3 meters wide ray, +50% range, effect +30% 4 Tier - Effect 3: a) Inspire - upgrades active Inspirations to higher grade (Strong to Tenacious and so on) or prolongs duration by 5 seconds if highest b) Neutralize - degrade negative inspiration on allies to lower grade or shortens duration by 5 seconds if lowest c) Interdict - upgrades negative Inflictions on enemies to higher grade or prolongs duration by 5 seconds if highest 5 Tier - summoned weapons effect: a) Holy strike - +20 Accuracy, +50% damage on next attack with summoned weapons. b) Last strike - +50 Accuracy and +100% damage on next attack with summoned weapons, but it also dispels Summoned weapons. c) Reaping strike - if next hit with summoned weapons kills enemy Priest gains one Faith charge for Priest spells (maybe limit by tiers). Any thoughts?

I think Priest should have few super quick spells on each level, similar to Wizard's illusion spells and sellfbuffs. Let these be very quick, but not as beneficial and not as potent as rest of the tier. For example single target inspirations, mediocre single target debuffs and some others 0.5 sec cast and 0 sec recovery. This way combat oriented priest might buff selected members of party, sacrificing utility and power of spells for being able to participate in combat. It will give some options to player - go for fast, but weaker spells or stick to slow and more powerful. Now crazy idea - let all Priest's spells to be available by default, and instead introduce various passives and skill tree for Radiance. About summoned weapons - I think these need some cool unique effects, maybe on kill they could give charge for low tier spells 1 or 2.

Carnage applies Staggered affliction from Spirit Frenzy. I'm not sure if it can apply bleed from Bleed Frenzy though. As far as I know it's the only effect that is applied through carnage. This effect actually works against my high int Marauder (berserker/streetfighter), as it disables engagement and prevents Marauder from being flanked. On other hand it makes it extremely easy to trigger Deathblows passive from Rogue.

Personally, I had this idea of melee caster instead of burning all focus in one attack without extra effects. Soul Annihilation could be modal, but without time to activate, it would limit casting range to melee range and add extra effect (raw damage) in addition to effect of the spell. Also all extra focus burned adds to spell Power Level at some ratio and spell have +20 Accuracy on it's effect. Downside is that Spellblade needs to hit opponent with attack (vs Deflect) before he could apply the spell, no effect on graze or miss. It might be overly complicated and I suspect it might be hard to implement. Overall Spellblade would have ability to supercharge his spells into melee punches with extra effects. This will keep signature surge attack, but still will be able to use their spells as base for the attack. As for other subclasses - I agree, some definitely need some tweaking (like Corpse-eater or ranger subclasses).

And Berserker/Streetfighter will probably out-dps both. Not that it's a helpful advice though, as OP asked advice for his particular combo. Thus said, I want to give my opinion on Monks in general. Honestly, I don't know why everybody is crazy about Monks. Sure, there are some nifty abilities at higher levels, but right at start they are pretty boring - no Full attack abilities, except for Stunning punch, which becomes renewable on crit at high levels. Knockdown attack and AoE kick, which stagger (and later Stuns) enemies in cone, both Primary attack, so no synergy with dual wield. Fire lash and Int boost are good, but you either have them or use your abilities, so do. Rooting pain is interesting, but I'm not sure it's such gamechanger. I tried to start with Monk at 1.0 version, but it was a bit underwhelming due to lack of abilities, so I started trying other classes. Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe I expected to combo special moves or something, but auto-attacking with bare fists almost all the time and general squishiness left me unimpressed. I recently made a pure monk adventurer (14 lvl) and tried to use in my party. Kicks, stuns and buffs surelly made it more entertaining, but performance wise it was still not as good as my Marauder. No special effects from weapons, no crazy stacking speed buffs (frenzy + bloodlust), no fancy combat teleport for repositioning (though Flaggelant path is pretty nice). Extra stuff on crits and renewable full-attack with stunning fist are good, but without Berserker crazy hit-to-crit conversion it is unreliable in tough fights. Only thing that I really like about monk is renewable resource - Wounds, on other hand almost all really cool abilities work on Mortification, so you run out of it pretty fast. Oh, and extra range on melee attacks - this is somewhat unique. I probably playing Monk wrong way or something, but it wasn't that fun at earlier stages and on quick test wasn't mindblowing at midgame.

Few notes about Corpse-Eater: Special food that boost Power Level affect only Barbarian, so if you multiclass it with caster you won;t get additional Power Level. I'm sad, it was last redeemable potential feature of Corpse-eater. He doesn't actually have any barbarian powers that would benefit much from boosted Power Level. Heal on eating corpse is nice, but +1 cost of abilities makes it really hard to use any. Another thing is that crits and some spells often destroy bodies, preventing Corpse eater from actually eating. Overall I would say it is worse than default barbarian in almost everything. I had hopes that he might be good for multiclass with casters, but no, it doesn't work.

Easy solution is for these skill bonuses to be capped. Let it be +1 deflection per point of Intimidate, but only up to 5 or 10. Same with other skill scaling items.

Oh, right, I misread the question. Sorry about that. Now, to answer the question properly: 1) There are armor enchants that reduce recovery time in general, it doesn't depend on armor and works as a separate modifier when calculating total recovery time. You can easily go bellow base recovery, especially with specific buffs and passive abilities of few classes. 2) There are few things - fighter passive and specific pet, that reduce actual armor recovery penalty directly, but I know only about these two and haven't tested how these work together. Either way even cumulative effect shouldn't reduce armor recovery bellow 0. Also these modifiers reduce armor penalty by adding multiplier to it, so with fighter passive you should have 0.75*20%=15% recovery penalty, not 20%-20%=0%. For example Miscreant armor have 20% recovery penalty and enchantment that gives -10% recovery time. If you wear this armor with special pet, I think recovery penalty will be down to 8% (though I'm not sure), so with -10% recovery time you result recovery will be [ 1*1.08*0.9=0.97 ] slightly bellow 100%.

Short answer - No. Modifiers are sort of multiplicative rather than additive. Check pinned topic: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98679-mechanics-attack-speed-recovery-time-reload-time/

Depends on what you would call fun. Among martial classes I would say Barbarian and Rogue are offensive oriented ones and get fun stuff from the start. For Barbarian Berserker sub-class is min-maxing for damage and Corpse-eater is just for style, as it's worse than default barbarian gameplay wise. Assassin or Streetfighter for Rogue give nice bonuses, first lets you play as stealthy damage spike hero and second more of skirmisher in midst of enemies. Combining these two give Marauder - pretty fun class to play with good passives and Frenzy from barbarian and mobility tools plus powerful debilitating attacks from Rogue. You have to position Marauder and combine effects properly to get max effect from Marauder, but result is great and it is satysfying when you can pull it off. Alternatively mixes with other classes are also interesting: Holy Slayer (Paladin+Rogue) is a bit more tanky and single target oriented, while also having some support capabilities. Warlock (Wizard+Barbarian) is a bit weird, but pretty interesting combo when you get few levels under your belt. Early on you spend all your casts way too quickly, but later extra speed and buffs from barbarian help to unleash spell barrage onto enemy really fast. Rogue+Wizard is another wizard combo, but focusing on damage by stacking debuffs and utilizing sneak attack (and assassinate) to boost damage from your spells. I wouldn't recommend Ciphers because while interesting, their main strength is in charming opponents. It is powerful tool, allowing you to fight opponents above your level, but it becomes boring pretty quick. Soul annihilation subclass is one-trick pony which would bore you out in no time, so don't pick it unless you want to use it whole game. Ascendant might be interesting if you combine it with powerful martial class like Barbarian or Rogue. At least you would be able to cast spells without worry about uses per encounter and such.

You can also use firecrackers (special gloves) to distract NPC, it is even hinted in tutorial.

If description is correct Arterial strike works only when enemy is moving.