Voltron

For frontliner - Troubadour is much better. For backline caster- Beaconer if you like summons. Endgame Troubadour for multi is better as you destroy things much faster than your summons so you may as well support that with some self buffs and offensive invocations. Summons are good but they fall short at end-game. At least for multi class since you can go only to lvl VII. Though empowered Drake is still great.

It's only good on solo as you are flanked in 95% of fights then. Works good with Fighter and Cleave Stance. But it's not really a strong subclass, though i combos quite well on solo with other classes. With party it's totally useless.

A) FUN. What Classes/Subclasses are fun to play ? Not fun at all ? Chanter is super fun to play, same as Chipher and Druid. Sadly only Chanter is strong, while Cipher and Druid needs some tweaks. B) EFFECTIVENESS. What classes/subclasses are enough Powerful, too much powerful, not enough powerful ? Enough Powerful- Paladin, but needs little more buffs and Immolation fix, Rogue, Chanter, Barbarian (though Mage Slayer needs something more), Priest (one skill is OP only). Too much powerful- Pure Monk, Fighter, Wizard. Not Enough powerful- Cipher, Cipher, Cipher, Druid, Ranger. C) SUBCLASSES BALANCING. What penalties discourage you to take the class / are too strong compared to bonus ? Beaconer needs some penalty, Helwalker needs his penalty reduced, B-something subclass for Cipher needs something more, Mage Slayer needs something more. Too strong- I don't think some subclasses are too strong, rather Level VII-IX abilities being unbalanced (not all) and scalling in game being broken in end-game. D) CREATIVE BACKGROUND. What are concepts that you like / Dislike ? (Not to mention the raw power of the class) - All Ideas are kind of ok, I just don't like so far two- Nalpezca from Monk, as you are limited to half/end game where you can craft enough drugs to use that subclass to full and Soul Blade which basicelly makes you take Cipher only to spam ONE ability all the time, pretty much making you not enjoy Cipher as a whole at all, as SA eats whole focus and it's a main thing for this sub.

The thing is though, most of Deadfire is about fleshing out that world. Instead of a big main story that focuses on your character, it has a multitude of smaller stories that focuses on the rest of the people living in the world of Eora. Their motivations, their political stances, their goals, their culture etc. The first game doesn't actually give you that much info about the world other than the Dyrwood area. You see mentions of other regions like the Deadfire, but no real meaningful info. I think somebody else said it best, a lot of newer games basically falls into "the hero's journey" type story. Where it focuses on one character (the player character) and everything is about that character, even the small random things are somehow related to that character. That's not the case with Deadfire. Deadfire is about a world that you are dropped in with a passable reason/in game motivation for being in the area. But it's not really a story about The Watcher, it's a story about the world of Eora and it's people. The Watcher is just a footnote. If you want a hero's journey, PoE and PoE II are definitely not for you. But if you want to romp around in a fantasy world doing random things, PoE was decent and PoE II is great. How about I want both :D like in Morrowind, Witcher 3 or BG2? It's not impossible to make at all. But nevertheless- whatever we expected from game or whatever type of game we prefer - the point is: main story is not only short, but also weak. I can stand behind short main story (for example till this day I remember how good some short main stories were like for example CoD: Black Ops or Nier: Automata) if it's great or even just average good one if it's long. However when story is both short and weak- well, it's hard to find good thing about it. I like other things in Deadfire, I am only dissapointed in main story.

I am doing devoted/kindwayfarer for my first run (with companions). I went with low intelligence with the idea that I would pretty much just be using charge with fighter for AOE, along with the cleave stance. That saved me points for more perception which I want anyway for finding secrets and traps. Because of the resource costs are so high for fighter, and the passives (after tier 1) are so good, there is no reason to take other abilities and charge/passives get no help from Intelligence and cover the weakness of paladin (get too high threats quickly and AOE). Paladin covers the single target, defenses. and healing with healing FoD and sworn enemy. Between both classes, you get pretty much every single passive defense boost and resistance in the game. Don’t need the fighter ones with all of that and the passives stack with everything, unlike activated abilities. I would prefer a chanter hybrid if going solo, but no reason to when you can hire a single-class chanter with a party for access to brilliance much sooner. One of the campanions can be configured that way. Yeah, Paladin/Fighter is broken, especially that you can skip Unbending and Precision Strike since you have FoD with White Flame. Also Accuracy Aura + Cleave Stance.. and Vig.Defenses + Paladin Passive giving you +41 defenses ( LOL!). You have AOE, super healing, super armor, super defenses, super dps, super mobility... I think I will make one :D After playing more with Fighter/Chanter I have to say that early game (when solo) : Paladin/Chanter > Fighter/Chanter. But later in game when you have good gear and grabbed that Charge, Cleave Stance and Rapid Recovery upgrade Fighter/Chanter > Paladin/Chanter. But both are more than enough strong for solo in general.

I think you're right about BG1, you could remove the Gorion murder from the beginning and nothing would change for the player. At leeast for me I think it originally felt more like a detective story, where you try to find out what is behind the iron crisis and why. The framing for murder part at the half point is pretty good but yeah mostly the story doesn't give you much reason to care about anything. But BG2 does give you a lot of reason to care. Not going to write it again, I think I've already said this so many times in different threads including this, but BG2's story is not just well written but well executed in-game. PoEs might be well written or not but it at least is badly executed. And I don't think it should take 10 hours of cutscenes to make you care about at least the main plot points. Also consider that it was more than DECADE ago. Back then it was great story for video games. However, we are here right now, where all developers can already surpass and learn from previous games from decade ago and build them better story-wise. Of course older games had their minuses as well. However we want things to improve and go foward, not backward. Do you want new cars and TVs to be as slow and troublesome as old ones. What I try to say is: Deadfire main story is in NO way, not even one - innovative, memorable and exciting. We tend to idolize BG and old Fallouts because WHEN THEY CAME OUT- their stories were innovative, memorable and exciting. Hard to expect from new games especially RPGs to not try to at least match them or at least for god sake- work on that main story more than just make it placebo again (in nowadays games) because "semi-open world, factions, activities, side content etc." Well, great I have side content.... ok but where is my main story?

That is side content, not Main Story, or if you prefer "Critical Path"/Campaign etc. There is a lot of content around, but Main story is weak, short and unimaginative in my opinion. I hoped to follow Giant for quite long, learn new things, start new Acts (longer acts), meat new people etc. Instead I got cliche, short main story. I feel sorry for you. I hope you learn to appreciate and enjoy games someday. A crappy negative attitude like that will not make games fun. I have 36 years man and played since first Mario came to first PCs. I enjoyed a lot of great games, especially RPGs, like Planscape, BG series, Morrowind, Gothic series, Witcher games, Vampire Masquarade and a lot a lot more from different genre. Recently fell in love in God of War. The best games I ever played cought me with story, characters or interesting world. Hence why I consider Skyrim one of worst RPGs ever. Got bored before I even touched main story (which was even shorter and more boring than Dreadfire). I am at that stage that I am not impressed anymore by generic story told in game. I look for something new, fresh and exciting. First POE while not very original introduced a very interesting world for me, which kept me there. And it was first game founded by KS. From sequel I expected more focus on story, as I already know the world and now wanted to be hooked by great story inside it. Sadly I was not. What you say is that you should always try to just force yourself to find best things in game and just forget about things that dissapointed you. Well, that is not imo how you build your taste. I am nowadays (because I don't have time like when I was teenager) very fussy and picky about games, because I like to slowly enjoy a good game. And while overall I enjoyed Deadfire as there is really nothing else being released now, it's 7/10 for me at best. Don't feel sorry for others just because they have different taste and view on same things. You sound childlish and it's very immature to act this way. I respect that you may have different opinion and I don't "feel sorry" for you just because you like something I consider medicore.

That is side content, not Main Story, or if you prefer "Critical Path"/Campaign etc. There is a lot of content around, but Main story is weak, short and unimaginative in my opinion. I hoped to follow Giant for quite long, learn new things, start new Acts (longer acts), meat new people etc. Instead I got cliche, short main story.

Why no Torment Reach?? It's perfect AOE damage for this comboi as it lacks any sort of AOE.

So I had this sword Whishper of Yenwood. Now I have perma it's effect on my character even with it unequiped. I even used console to remove this sword totally from my inventory, but I still have it's effects on me. Anyway to fix it?

I think pure Fighter could be better becasue then you can dual wield Sasha's Sabre or Fin with maxed Modyr, which is super strong sword (probably strongest one) and easy obtainable on lvl 7-8 (at least thats when I soloed Old City). Though of course later in game nothing matters, but I think Devoted gives up too much really, as Sasha should be main weapon on War Caller and while on second weapon Fin Saber is also great, Modwyr is much better. It gives immunity to Int afflictions, strong lash, recovery in combat and Bottom's Up.

But main story is not even good....

Factions are side quests. Critical path is you following Eothas, so it's Pretty sure you can even skip Hasongo and go straight to Ashen Maw. Yup, its riddiculous how short and bad the main story is. Considering how many side quests and other activities there are around- how they could drop balls on Main Story, which is like... most important! And it's shorter than PoE1 main story :/

I adressed this in my post... Chanter/Fighter is easy to level even without meta knowledge and doing some of the easy quests way later than harder quests summons and Veteran's recovery carry you a lot, since summons remove the death screen. Also cleave stance is most op when you get it and the levels after, but I only realized how good it is when I was level 10+. (ofc it never get's bad either) Yeah, I tried Fighter and while I miss free Sworn Enemy and FOD for single target burst, it's definitely much stronger AOE clearer. HoweverI don't like that for Vigorous Defense I have to waste 2 resources and it doesn't last that long and that Unbending while good, also cost 2 resources and heal less than Flames of Devotion from Kind Wayfarer which costs 1 Paladin Resource. You burn resources on Fighter very fast. If not for Cleave Stance I would not like Fighter at all, but Cleave Stance + Rapid Recovery is strong. Cleave stance is what makes Fighter viable.

Btw. Shasha's enchant 100% return of empower point works it seems. It does return the empower point which means you can empower your chants all the time. Love that sabre on Chanter.... EDIT: wrong.... now it did not return it.... bugged. Better to grab then a enchant that returns full phrases on empower till that is fixed.

did it really? I haven't played BG2 in ages..due..well new pc and my old copy aint working no more . But...if you skip (all side quest , factions quest , sight seeing , getting lost , random combats , groping and ogling innocent passers) from dungeon of irenicus --- join faction -- chase idiot ---- final battle..thats 50h ????? while I agree with you that , RPG games strenght is STORY and should be long . a gentle reminder that long doesn't always equal good story . And Long doesn't always equal main story long . They could easely calculate everything and give you a big number . This is average of BG2: https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=809 Of course various RPGs can be shortened a lot. But if talk about taking game as it was intendend to be- main story should be long. It's RPG after all. Mass Effect 2 main story alone was average 25h and there was much more stuff there to focus on like, like FPS combat, graphics, cinematics, movement etc etc.

Raven has played this combo solo from level 1 on his Twitch stream (victorcreed_twitch) although he's made regular use of respeccing so its not really the same build all the way through. That said, its definitely possible to do. Yes, I just tried to do few of same encounters (I save a lot ) with Fighter intead of Paladin to my Troubadour. Conclusion: once you get Devil armor + some basic stuff most enemies deal close to no damage to you anyway. While Fighter was very good in killing group of enemies (because of Cleave Stance), he was running short on resources very fast. Most of his best abilities cost 2-3 resources and don't return vs Paladin 1 where you can spam sworn enemy on anyone and get cost back when you kill them. Also single target damage was meh (Penetraiting strike is good but you have use your Unbending, Vig. Defense, Charge which leaves very little for fast burst) vs Sworn Enemy->FoD. His rapid recovery is super strong and lasts way too long. Charge was good to get to backline pesky ranger or mage though, but I use summons for that anyway. Overall It felt pretty much the same to my Kind Wayfarer. It trades AOE for Single target damage and being super resource hungry. What I don't like is having to pop Vig. Defense instead of just having passive +21 to all defenses. Unbending was very strong but it has short duration and you can kind of have the same effect on using Kind Wayfarer FOD, but at same time bursting one target much faster and costs only 1 Zeal vs 2 and get big healing because it's full attack with bonus damage. Mind I tested that when I already had Devil armor + Sashas and Sword of Yearwood + Lone Wolf ring so It was not really good testng. At that point you don't even use that much healing anymore as game slowly becomes too easy. I think Fighter would struggle more in the early game than Paladin, but from mid to end game they are practically the same. But I prefer Paladin due to better single target damage and passives and not being so resource hungry so I can have more fun with his abilities. But Cleave stance needs to be nerfed, it's just stupid how good it is. Paladin/Fighter would be totally broken....

Of course I know POE was short. But I was expecting from sequel you know.... better, longer, more. As usual from sequels. I know POE was short, but it was like their first step. I expected more from sequel. For example Main story of Baldurs Gate II SoA took on average 50h, rushed 35h, taking it easy 62h. Main + Extras 78h, with extras even 137h on taking it slow and easy.

I was really hoping for long main story critical path as it should be in RPG. How dissapointed I was that it was so short. I was playing side activities, discovering some Islands, doing side quests (hoping for another big city like Neketaka further in main story or new continent...). Because I was saving that (so I thought) long and good main story for later. Then I started it and ..... end? Really? Act 3 I was thinking should be end of Act 1. The whole main plot is like prologue to actual long story! This is not a true RPG. Mass Effect 2 main story was longer than this. Obsidian, you made RPG's your bread and butter. However, the main thing of RPG is it's story, main story, this is most important thing in RPG! I have that wierd feeling you followed the trend of "semi-open world", "world activites" etc. While what I expect from RPG is: long, great main story with a lot of plot turns with great finale, great memorable characters and interesting side quests. While things like Ship, tons of companions, some traveling around etc. is welcome BONUS- first of all game should have long, interesting story with many Acts. Then you should add some bonuses.... Doesn't matter if game is tunnel, linear, open, closed etc. I am glad I got it as gift from friend, becasue honestly - it's really dissapointing. Main story alone in any RPG should be at least min 50hh (critical path). Dunno about rest people, but that is why I play RPGs.... Game overall looks great, but if you really sacrificed main story length and depth for stupid ship battles, some empty islands and ship customization system- then that was not a good deal. Of course above is my personal feedback and I respect anyone who thinks otherwise.

how do you suggest to build them? I wrote that couple of posts above. For Fighter I would decrease Might and Dex a little and put into Perception more.

I would not dump Perception. Keep it at least on 10. Shieldbearer is also good, though FOD heal saved me couple of times. Beckoner is not bad, it's like pure Chanter +. I just think that Kind Wayfarer FOD give better benefit then Shieldbearer and I think on solo Two Weapons Style is important to finish fights before your buffs/invocations run out or at least as fast as possible as on solo (especially as Paladin) you need to max dps. With fighter it's little better as you have cleave stance so while your dps is not big, you at least damage damage group of enemies. Just my few cents. But Paladin/Beaconer should work too.

Hm, can you give me total math for those defenses? Paladin can get max +21 from his passive, Exhoration +20 deflection, Vigurous Defense + Unbreakable. Do you also count gear here and just class passive values? There was a shield that gives u Deflection based on your metaph. SO as crusader u get 21 from faith, 22 from legendary large shield, + 10 from that shield bonus, this already push u to 130 defense at lvl 20. Then fighter has +20 vigorous defense. 150. I didn't count Resolve bonus yet. A, ok, shield. I always go Two Weapons as I find shield useless on Paladins and Fighter considering their defenses and tankiness. Where did you find that shield btw?

I agree with that. Fighter/Kind Wayfarer would be ez mode to solo. Early levels Paladin heals + Constant Recovery will easly keep you up in early game hard solo fights. Later when you get Vigorous Defense and Unbending + gear it would be walking tank. And Two Weapons with Cleave stance would also be nice. Though I would not take Devoted as there is too many good weapons to restrict yourself to one imo. I would probaly get pure Fighter here or Unbroken to combo with Kind Wayfarer. Though it can be also quite boring to play as :D. I don't like solo with pure melee builds in isometric RPGs- they are very (for me) boring to play as :D So what do you feel is better late game, Beckoner or Troubadour? In Party scenario where you can just cast things from behind tanks line I think Beconer is little stronger because he pretty much has no downside. But Troubadour with + Her Courage on Brisk modal and crazy Phrases building is close. For solo or front line build- Troubadour hands down. Unless Berserker- then Skald

Hm, can you give me total math for those defenses? Paladin can get max +21 from his passive, Exhoration +20 deflection, Vigurous Defense + Unbreakable. Do you also count gear here and just class passive values?

1. K, I will do optional file for it 2. I don't think I know how to do it without editing EVERY single ability, which is too much work for simple mod :/ 3. There is optional file with 5 Acc, though I still stay with +10 as imo it's where it should be. 4. Already done for personal Eternal Devotion 5. I am in general, just I think that for example Fighter should not get Rapid Recovery, it should be Paladin skill. They are from healing in general. And Fighter can get that to 7 HP per 3 sec later instead of weak 3.0 HP per 3 sec from Exalted Aura. Which even needs to be activated first so you loose other stuff, while Fighter can get 7 HP per 3 sec for free as passive. For example Exalted Aura + Ancient Memory + Soft Winds heal you around 9 HP per 3 sec. That is from 3 stacking abilities/chants. While Fighter can get 7 HP from just one upgraded passive and it lasts 45 sec which gives room for other spells/abilities being active. Of course Paladin has Lay on Hands + Kind Wayfarer healing FOD and passive Defenses, but I still don't think healing should be a factor of Fighters.