Kaylon

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).

It would be nice if you could add to your guide the bonuses to precision depending on crew, ship type, distance and various maneuvers.

There are a few missing/wrong bonuses in your guide. Could you update it?

Against higher level enemies it's better to avoid boarding and try to sink them instead (especially if you play solo potd). For these situations the first condition is to be faster than the enemy - able to move and maneuver fast - in order to stay out of the boarding range or flee if needed. Because of that the Defiant and the Voyager are the only viable choices. It's always better to destroy their sails first in order to reduce the enemy's speed and be able to keep them in your optimal range. For me the fastest cycle is fire port, jibe ,hold, fire starboard, jibe, hold,... - which means you have 6 turns to reload. However you can lose often more turns in order to adjust the distance or to defend against enemy's shots. Staying in the ideal range and being able to hold position does more for your damage than the power or the reload time of your canons. In general you should fire when you're in the 150-400 range (if they have sails) in order to avoid boarding or prevent the enemy from fleeing. Wit all that said, for me the best canon overall for the Defiant is the royal bronzer which offers perfect range, decent damage and enough reloading speed. Against big ships a viable strategy is to use a Voyager with Haeferic's Nose at the back - you stay out of the enemy's ideal range and shoot until their sails are destroyed (if they turn to flee you turn towards them and use the 2 imperial guns at the front). At higher level, when you don't care if you're boarded anymore (and you just want to win as fast as possible) a junk using double bronzers to clear the deck is probably the best option.

Can you do it for just your player character though and not the entire race? No

Yes, you open with notepad the global.gamedatabundle file and you look for malescale/femalescale for each race.

Here's a simple mod made by myself allowing to go up to lv30. (works with the latest beta patch) https://hotupload.eu/1L6o Just put it in the Deadfire directory in: \PillarsOfEternityII_Data\Override\exported\design\gamedata If you want to remove it juste delete it. PS. Of course, if you play single class you won't get new abilities, but for multis you gain access to PL8-9. thanks kaylon and you havent altered the rate at which you gain experience? So I will just level up the same as a mulitclass and there will be no level cap so i can get level 8 and 9 abilities? Nothing changes before lv20 - you will just continue to level normally until lv30 (if you have enough xp)

Here's a simple mod made by myself allowing to go up to lv30. (works with the latest beta patch) https://hotupload.eu/1L6o Just put it in the Deadfire directory in: \PillarsOfEternityII_Data\Override\exported\design\gamedata If you want to remove it juste delete it. PS. Of course, if you play single class you won't get new abilities, but for multis you gain access to PL8-9.

This mod doesn't increase the level cap, it makes the multi class progression same as the single class.

The damage is (10+focus/4)*(1+%PL bonus)*(1+%dmg bonuses). Before the nerf it was (10+focus/2)*(1+%PL bonus)*(1+%dmg bonuses). The street fighter/soul blade has the highest annihilation damage potential.

Yes, if you want the solo achievement you shouldn't recruit them at all. If you just want to play solo you can recruit them for the added content (and maybe their quests) and then leave them at the keep.

You can of course survive Stupid Immolation alone, that doesn't change the fact it's a worthless ability. The real questions are: - it's worth using some useless items and spending almost all your resources (at least 5-6 zeal for SI+LoH) for this crap? - can you survive the stupid damage from SI and from the enemies at the same time?