Venatio

Thank you for the advice everyone, I have been muddling around at the beginning of the game fretting over every detail.

I am trying to decide between a ranged dps Rogue or a Ranger who has a lot of points pumped into Mechanics in order to round out my party. The only down-side with the latter option appears to be that Rangers level up their Mechanics slower than Rogues which could present some issues. Has anyone tried to do this already? What would be the most optimal for a scout who can lure enemies into bottlenecks, snipe from the back and take care of any traps between me and my objective?

The Stronghold seems like a massive money sink but it does not seem to offer much for the thousands of cp I threw at it in my first playthrough. I stopped playing at Defiance Bay to restart my game, but the Stronghold needs to be fixed otherwise I will just go past it and leave it in ruins until I am good and ready to settle down. I was also miffed that I could not hire as many of each type of Hireling as I wanted. I was hoping to hire a cadre of Goldpact Knights, not a ragtag crew. Perhaps hire a set of Hirelings from a faction? Would certainly be more interesting. But yah, considering how shallow the Stronghold features are I hope that the devs can turn things around and optimize it at some point. At least get rid of the bugs. Also, for anyone who has installed the Craft Hall - can we buy guns there? Like, a Blunderbuss for my Cipher?

Quick question - where do we get a blunderbuss early in the game? Do we just rush to Defiance Bay and look for a vendor or can we just place a vendor in our stronghold that sells them?

That is what I wanted to do, I was going to make Eder an off tank and make my true tank a dwarf with an optimized build. Then when I got Pallegina or Kana they would serve as back-up melee, especially with a Pike in close quarter/bottle-neck combat. I thought at first of making a Barbarian+Fighter+Paladin melee lineup but I think barbarians are kind of squishy, and for open-field combat I would really prefer a pair of fighters.

I believe a companion's initial starting level will depend on that of the player character's own when they first meet. So, they will not be optimized for anything in particular. That said, it is hard to make a mistake in this game if you have a general idea of what you are doing and provided that you are not on Path of the Damned difficulty with Trial of Iron on. Micro Details, such as character attributes and talents, are important and optimization is king here. But, Macro Details such as party composition, strategies and resource management are easier to change on the fly and are more concerned with generally winning as opposed to "overkill." So, you just need to decide which companions are going to tank, dps or play support and try to allocate stats from there (at least that is how I perceive it). Granted, you will want to compose a sizeable portion of your party (counting yourself) of actual optimized characters to ensure a steady progress through the game - basically walk into Gilded Vale and drop 500 cp for 2 brand new characters then you will have 3 slots available for companions of your choice so you can get all the banter you want. I cannot stress that the first thing you should do after getting out of the tutorial zone is to buy new companions you might need.

One time I picked up Aloth after dropping off at the Stronghold and he had 11 slots for his first level spells, which I found odd and useful at the same time.

What would be a good set of starting spells for the Cipher? I have heard that Soul Shock and Mind Wave might be optimal but I was wondering what everyone else thought.

For my first full play-through (my first attempt ended in Defiance Bay due to lack of satisfaction) I will make my main character a Cipher. After that, however, I was going to add a custom made Barbarian for two-handed/pike use and a Rogue I intended for ranged combat. Since these companions will not be entering into any conversations or need to match my personal preference for race and background, I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion for how I should arrange the stats and talents of my new Barbarian and Rogue to maximize their potential. I was also wondering what would be the best party composition going throughout the game? My Final Party should look something like this: Tanks: Paladin + Fighter (Pallegina + Eder) DPS M: Barbarian DPS R: Rogue + Cipher Support: Priest (Durance) But I don't know if the Barbarian is optimal or if the Priest is necessary. Can a Druid substitute for a Priest for instance? I am hoping for a set of guidelines I can reference going forward so I never have another case of buyers remorse. I hope the community can help me on this matter.