Kaylon

Yes, edited...

For best melee AoE dps pick rogue/soulblade with the WotEP; for single targets switch to the Chromoprismatic Staff. Tricksters can benefit a lot from offensive parry/riposte and have better survivability, while streetfighters have obviously the best dps potential.

I don't know how you tested it but it's not true at all. You have recovery with the scepter in the OH or reload if the pistol is in the OH. Don’t make assumptions, TEST it. He means scepter in mainhand and pistol in offhand. In this way since full attack abilities use offhand recovery time and firearm has no recovery only reload. You actually CAN spam full attacks without recover. Imo it is a bug and should be fixed. Have you tested yourself? What makes you think I didn't test? Of course I test everything I post here. That's why I know you didn't test it. If you want proof, here u go I use two set here, scepter in main/pistol in offhand. And pistol in main/scepter in offhand. Here we go:

I don't know how you tested it but it's not true at all. You have recovery with the scepter in the OH or reload if the pistol is in the OH. Don’t make assumptions, TEST it. He means scepter in mainhand and pistol in offhand. In this way since full attack abilities use offhand recovery time and firearm has no recovery only reload. You actually CAN spam full attacks without recover. Imo it is a bug and should be fixed. Have you tested yourself? What makes you think I didn't test?

I don't know how you tested it but it's not true at all. You have recovery with the scepter in the OH or reload if the pistol is in the OH.

Voidward doesn't help removing the self damage, it just reduces it. It's the -5s duration of hostile effects from Clarity of Agony that removes completely the self damage and allows a second cast (even a third one with empower). Definitely not intended, but hey, I won't be the one complaining about it considering how bad SI is. PS. With Eternal Devotion and Turning Wheel you can also enjoy 30% more fire dmg...

It is easy in the sense you give the ranger a ranged weapon, pick some talents intuitively and it will pewpew....nothing special. It is very straightforward and intuitive in that sense. It is not the strongest class but for someone just starting the game for first time it is actually a much more straightforward class to play than wizard or something. For doing pewpew you can pick lots of classes and be at least as effective as the ranger. The pet is hard to manage and to keep alive and without it the ranger is a below average class.

Doing the quest peacefully doesn't mean stealthing and avoiding combat. It means to make a deal with the leader without killing him. You're never supposed to know the looters will attack you and stealth is never required to solve quests with diplomacy. Personally I play solo for the challenge, doing a pacist run and avoiding combat doesn't interest me. I pick diplomacy too if available, but only if it's more rewarding...

You can do every fight so far when you play solo. I never said you can't. There's at least a single class combo which can solo every encounter on the first island without splitting, pulling, summons, scrolls or potions (maybe even with all trials activated)... However there are many solo videos on youtube where people skip the hardest encounters (dig site,gorecci street, etc).

Math, heartless you bitch :D I missed debates around Red Hand, but I didn't find anything special about this weapon except cool 40% DM bonus for Unbending and BDD builds. Even single handed ranger / x with Scordeo's Trophy will overcome Red Hand DPS far away ;D FYI Red Hand>>Thundercrack>Scordeo's Trophy>Eccea's Arcane Blaster even without the 40% dmg buff (without mentioning the Red Hand has better penetration/accuracy). The only weapon close to Red Hand's dps is Aamiina's Legacy. While Aamiina's Legacy has lower penetration, it has better range and you can recover while moving (you can't reload while moving) making it the ultimate kiting weapon for a solo character.

Of course playing solo is a bigger achievement and feels more rewarding because you're the only protagonist. However soloing using some exploits or skipping fights will also defeat the purpose...

For solo ultimate the easiest is the paladin because he can get his defenses high enough to ignore most enemies and the tactics don't change very much. The chanter is good also because his summons can be exploited rather easily (but they won't work in some hard fights). However even the best build isn't death proof and you can die rather easily. People who did the ultimate solo had lots of attempts, perfect knowledge of the game (finished the game multiple times before) and used a normal save at the same time to rehearse the tactics for each fight...

Yes, it's 0.375%/point for a total of 12.5% at lv20.

In fact the whole point was to give you a nice round number, easy to remember, so you can do the math by yourself.

With the console.

The lash of Essence Interrupter reaches 20% only at 40 Metaphysics, thus in terms of pure dps it's worse than Aaamiina's Legacy.

The paladin is great because of his passives and Lay on Hands. For good actives/offense you should pick another class.

Now comes the best part: I got an answer on my bug report and they say it's intended... Yeah, ROFL with me! Of course it's intended - it's a feature from PoE1...

Paladin/wizard with Wizard's Double using Cloak of Major Deflection/Cadhu Scalth/Casita Samelia can probably have both deflection/reflex over 200, while a paladin/helwalker with Magnera's Chain, Giftbearer's cloak, ring of minor protection, Wahaki Tua can probably reach over 200 fortitude/will.

You don't take into account the fact that the base damage for Arquebus is much higher. You mention a lot of the weapon effects of Hunting Bow but if you compare a normal Arquebus next to a Hunting bow thoughs effects are balanced around having different recovery, base dmg, penetration, modals etc.It's simpler to just look at what additional modifiers the weapons of themselves get, to get a comparison on the relative strength of the weapons. Basically the total theoretical dmg output of Red Hand is gonna roughly double that of Essence Interrupter if you have a lot of Guilty Conscience stack. If you compare it to a standard Arquebus it attacks twice (bit less then doubling its dps, due to having two attack animations), then another 40% from max stacked Guilty Conscience. Essence Interrupter gets a 20% Lash effect, which is multiplicative dmg, making it decent. This is obviously simplified and won't translate 100% into game but its close enough to see the massive disparity. Got some feedback on the summon for Essence Interrupter on reddit and it was better then my initial assumption (summoned creature does scale with enemy level), so Im planning to move it into B - Tier atleast but my post seems to be bugged atm. Well, then you don't understand very well how it works... The 20% lash damage basically compensates for the lower base damage. The main dmg advantage of the Red Hand is given by Guilty Conscience which can be used by ALL weapons (and by itself it represents overall only a 10-20% dmg increase - depending on your total dmg bonuses). On the other hand Aamiina's Legacy will shoot at least 10% faster (based on the average attack of a double shot with the Red Hand). That means Aamiina's Legacy has 10% lower dps than the Red Hand in the worst scenario and 20% higher dps in the best scenario (if you're using Guilty Conscience with Aamiina's Legacy) If I understand you correct, you mean that you first stack The Red Hand to max THEN swap to Aaminas Legacy and you retain the buff? That obviously does complicate the calculation, but seems very cumbersome especially since the buff resets on rest. There might be something i'm missing but attacking twice should be a much more powerful effect unless you have insane recovery time compared to a 20% lash. Are you making the case that Hunting Bows are just way better weapons then Arquebus and that compensates for a weaker effect, or that the Lash effect is stronger then shooting twice? It just seems you are only taking into account the positve effects of a Hunting Bow and not the negative effects like lower pen, weapon modal giving a huge accuracy penalty, lower base dmg etc. The main damage advantage of the Red Hand is the ability to shoot twice, not Guilty Conscience. Shooting twice without reloading is like having an arquebus with half reloading time. Rapid Shot does nearly the same thing for the recovery time of the bow. The average base damage of the Red Hand is 23. The average base damage of the hunting bow is 19. That's 21% higher base damage for the arquebus, but Aamiina's Legacy has 20% lash which is almost as good. After that the Red Hand has 3 more penetration and 5 more accuracy but less range and blunted criticals, only a damage type and, of course, the buff (which can be considered an advantage or not). PS. Playing without resting is perfectly viable and the buff is easily obtained if you have a chanter.

You don't take into account the fact that the base damage for Arquebus is much higher. You mention a lot of the weapon effects of Hunting Bow but if you compare a normal Arquebus next to a Hunting bow thoughs effects are balanced around having different recovery, base dmg, penetration, modals etc.It's simpler to just look at what additional modifiers the weapons of themselves get, to get a comparison on the relative strength of the weapons. Basically the total theoretical dmg output of Red Hand is gonna roughly double that of Essence Interrupter if you have a lot of Guilty Conscience stack. If you compare it to a standard Arquebus it attacks twice (bit less then doubling its dps, due to having two attack animations), then another 40% from max stacked Guilty Conscience. Essence Interrupter gets a 20% Lash effect, which is multiplicative dmg, making it decent. This is obviously simplified and won't translate 100% into game but its close enough to see the massive disparity. Got some feedback on the summon for Essence Interrupter on reddit and it was better then my initial assumption (summoned creature does scale with enemy level), so Im planning to move it into B - Tier atleast but my post seems to be bugged atm. Well, then you don't understand very well how it works... The 20% lash damage basically compensates for the lower base damage. The main dmg advantage of the Red Hand is given by Guilty Conscience which can be used by ALL weapons (and by itself it represents overall only a 10-20% dmg increase - depending on your total dmg bonuses). On the other hand Aamiina's Legacy will shoot at least 10% faster (based on the average attack of a double shot with the Red Hand). That means Aamiina's Legacy has 10% lower dps than the Red Hand in the worst scenario and 20% higher dps in the best scenario (if you're using Guilty Conscience with Aamiina's Legacy)

Aamiina's Legacy (and probably Essence Interrupter too) should be in the god tier with the Red Hand. Dual damage, no blunted criticals, no reduced range, with 20%lash it hits almost as hard as the Red Hand and Rapid Shot allows to easily attack under 2s... Rapid Shot penalty is less harsh than for pistols because hunting bows have +5 accuracy bonus (hunting bow with Rapid Shot has only 5 less accuracy than an arquebus). The only drawback is the penetration, but with the right choices you can overcome it rather easily.

Don't know about the last patches, but I was able to drop more than one wearable item from the same spot - you can also save/reload between searching attempts.

In a party temporary buffs last long enough and are very effective - so paladin/trickster, paladin/fighter, paladin/wizard, etc. make all good tanks. For solo however, where fights can outlast easily all your buffs, the best tank is the paladin/chanter because of the strong infinite health regeneration among other perks. The paladin/nalpazca can be a very effective tank at high levels, but struggles the first half of the game.

Destroying the sails prevents turning/jibe and full sail. That means you will cut in half their damage (and if you destroy their sails while they're advancing they won't be able to fire at all) and prevent them from boarding you (or flee if you stay close to max range). (Rathuns will always board you if you don't destroy their sails, while the others will try to board/flee if they take too much damage). Using grapeshot is useless if they have a surgeon because the injured crew will be healed back over and over again (however rathun ship don't have surgeons and grapeshot is effective vs them once you have destroyed their sails). Of course, if you have a junk full with double bronzers you can destroy most ships in a single turn (but even then it's safer to destroy the sails with the first salvo and then destroy their ship).