Kaylon

On top of the Balefire Beacon I think you can also kill the (respawning?) guards with no consequences for more easy reputation loss.

19AR means you have probably 15 crush/shock. The Black Plate and Sungrazer can lower crush to 13 which can be penetrated rather easily with Hot Razor Skewers without needing any modals or debuffs. With 160 deflection let's say half of the attacks will miss/graze you while you're healing 20hp every 3s (Ancient Memory + Exalted Endurance) - a party shouldn't have any difficulty to kill you just by using crush weapons...

Arcana can be strong if you plan to use high level scrolls for some tough fights. However scrolls are expensive and the best ones require rare ingredients - thus you can't expect to use them every fight. Personally I would respec for arcana only if I feel I really need it and put my points in a skill I'm using very often (or if my items benefit from it). Mechanics/athletics/alchemy would be my first picks. PS. High alchemy also allows to use drugs with almost no side effects (alchemy reduces the effects of drugs crash).

Each time I try this method Mad Morena becomes hostile and I have to kill her too - maybe if you do it after you finish her quest it's ok, but then you have to gain reputation with the principi first.

Here's how you can solo him - you can try to adapt this strategy for your party. Basically you have to keep him at range using summons while using shock (Essence Interrupter, spells) or crush damage (scepters) against him. To reduce the fire damage use high burn armor, large shield modal, Rekvu's cloak, etc... https://youtu.be/lbvf0x5PbFk

Yes, you have to reach -3 reputation first then do their quests. If you have more than +1 reputation and try to reach -3 the ship won't spawn anymore.

It is enough against most enemies, but not against all of them. Also you have to check the AR for each damage type because enemies dealing crush/shock damage will have no problems to penetrate your plate. For example Dorudugan in potd has 18 penetration (I think) and deals pierce/crush.

You can get another one from Berath's blessings, however in my case I had many more because before 4.0 it was possible to kill Belranga multiple times. The important ones are the armor and the main weapon (and for this fight neither one is really required).

I would love to know your Herald build details and gear if you care to share. You can see here the video and my build. https://youtu.be/RPNZS98rvdA

If you play with the companions you should always try to max their disposition for Hearth Defender's Scale.

The main issue with the cipher is his dependency on the duration of his afflictions. Enemies with high resolve and high defenses (like mega bosses) greatly cripple the effectiveness of a spell oriented cipher. Also the ascendant should be played as a ranged caster (to use as many spells as possible while "ascended") which means he's not a tank and he's not suited to solo the bosses. Soulblades are better for a tank role and for solo. I think the inquisitor soulblade is also able to deal with all mega bosses (Dorudugan might be the hardest one however).

You can also kill guards in Neketaka.

It wasn't very hard with a herald (for me she's the weakest of the mega bosses). As long as you destroy the sigils first there's not much you have to fear...

Pyrite is one of the rarest ingredients and often you have to wait many days in a row before it appears in vendor's inventory. I think there's also a vendor near the animancers tower who also sells pyrite and where it spawns more often.

Dragon's Dowry too.

With Devil you feel less guilty because she (deserves it and) dies anyway - at least you can benefit from it.

Not really. You'll be rather squishy and you will run out of spells/buffs very fast in the long fights.

It can be solved peacefully if you find his grimoires.

The action speed from food doesn't stack with the potion and the drug. You should try instead Rymsjódda Lager + potion and Pukestabber/Squid's Grasp instead of stilettos. Also a barbarian/streetfighter would be even faster.

I'm trying to side with the huana while having the VTC as the strongest rival. Has someone managed that? And if yes, what did you do?

And how do you shore up the weaknesses of Arcane Archer? What multi makes them strong etc. There are enough strong weapons (Dragon's Dowry, Essence Interrupter, Thundercrack Pistol, Frostseeker) that give no penalty to the arcane archer. You get basically some strong attacks for free and this is probably the best subclass for a ranged ranger.

Steel Garrote, Priest of Woedica, Blood Mage and Arcane Archer are the most solid because their drawbacks can easily be countered. Tactician, Ancient, Fury Shaper have big drawbacks and lots of things can go wrong easily for them. Psion, Debonnaire, Forbidden Fist and Belower are just worse than their base class.

The important ones are the active skills which aren't affected by your party (alchemy, arcana, explosives, etc...) and the ones affecting items (metaphysics, religion, intimidate, etc..)

False argument. Who says you have to leave the mega bosses at the end of the game? You can reach max level at half of the game and you have plenty of time to enjoy whatever loot you want if you pick it at the right time. I think the mega bosses are there purely as an additional challenge. Though if they all feel like dropping lots of adra ban and emerald for high-level crafting recipes I wouldn't mind (so you can replenish between fights). Objectively - what would be the point if mega bosses dropped sweet lewt? Mega bosses are basically the hard endgame... you're by definition already decked out just to fight them. What do you need that sweet lewt for afterwards? To even more roflstomp the already-incredibly-easy-at-level-20 encounters in Ukaizo? Anyway, the megabosses are the reason why you want the sweet lewt in the first place. Having the megabosses drop sweet lewt themselves seems a bit backwards. I kill the mega bosses only for the loot because I don't like to do things without purpose. If they would drop nothing I would kill them once for fun and then I wouldn't bother with them again. And since I kill them for the loot I feel the rewards are not proportional to the challenge and that's disappointing. PS. Also I would like if you could stop quoting me because it seems you have either a hard way to grasp my ideas, either a tendency of skewing them using false assumptions or flawed logic. Boy you are one hostile person. All I did was probe why one wants big lewt dropped from megabosses, which Gregorovich also probed about "Plus in Deadfire introducing such loot from Mega booses is not interesting, as you will be able to use it only at the final battle or some low-level encounters, like going aboard."

I think the mega bosses are there purely as an additional challenge. Though if they all feel like dropping lots of adra ban and emerald for high-level crafting recipes I wouldn't mind (so you can replenish between fights). Objectively - what would be the point if mega bosses dropped sweet lewt? Mega bosses are basically the hard endgame... you're by definition already decked out just to fight them. What do you need that sweet lewt for afterwards? To even more roflstomp the already-incredibly-easy-at-level-20 encounters in Ukaizo? Anyway, the megabosses are the reason why you want the sweet lewt in the first place. Having the megabosses drop sweet lewt themselves seems a bit backwards. I kill the mega bosses only for the loot because I don't like to do things without purpose. If they would drop nothing I would kill them once for fun and then I wouldn't bother with them again. And since I kill them for the loot I feel the rewards are not proportional to the challenge and that's disappointing. PS. Also I would like if you could stop quoting me because it seems you have either a hard way to grasp my ideas, either a tendency of skewing them using false assumptions or flawed logic.