Kaylon

Marksman works only if >4m from the target and I think Long Pain has 5m range so it should work only if you stay at max range. Wounding/Concussive Shot work with both melee/ranged and should work without problem with Long Pain. I think Long Pain is considered both melee and ranged.

If it works like the other reductions then the real coefficients are: 1/(1/0.5-1)=100%, 1/(1/0.35-1)=54% and 1/(1/0.15-1)=18% overall 172% bonus. This will be further modified by the enemy's duration bonus (depending on his intellect). Finally the negative effect will be reduced to 1/(1+1.72-%enemy bonus) of its initial duration which is probably around 40%...

The staff modal gives deflection only vs melee weapons which is different from the common deflection buffs which have no restrictions, so they stack. There are a some modals which give a lasting debuff and you can switch them on/off - they're ok. Blunderbuss modal (powder burns) can be used without penalty if you're resistant to perception afflictions. The deflection penalties (sword/estoc) don't make a big difference because there are many ways to increase deflection. The accuracy penalties for ranged weapons (hunting bow/pistols) are less harsh because you have items with ranged accuracy (Acina's Tricorn/Ring of the Marksman) to compensate, while the dps gains are huge. Great sword/ arquebus modals are ok for alpha strikes... The ones who penalize damage/recovery are bad however.

The dragons will get either Galawain's Favor/Wrath, a buff which makes them stronger/weaker depending on your PoE1 choice.

For the last boss it's cre_ukaizo_guardian

I checked more in depth the potential of all ranged weapons for single target dps and here's the top 3: 1. The Red Hand 2. Aamiina's Legacy (with Rapid Shot) 3. Spearcaster

Serafen's pistol does AoE dmg, it has nothing to do with carnage...

It's possible to have -3 reputation and still finish their quests or not?

The nerf of the WoEP makes the weapon very situational now and not using it makes the deflection stacking less important. Right now it's better to focus on armor/penetration and I will probably replace the WoEP with the Willbreaker and Gipon Prudensco with the Blackened Plate/Patinated Plate, but I need more testing before updating the build.

They can't give it the damage of a saber when it has the speed of a dagger. However they should have call it dagger instead, at least the modal wouldn't be completely useless.

Devil of Caroc's penetration bonus works only from stealth so it does nothing in your test... Also I think the highest AR in potd is 15, but for me testing against such high armor isn't very representative. In fights against such targets you have to use potions or debuffs. Even without testing I could have said that crossbows, arquebuses and arbalests were the best against such armor because the others can't fully penetrate. For me the dps analysis should be done without armor and after that you have to give yourself the ways to adapt to the high armor. A legendary hunting bow has only 10 pen but you can add the ring of the marksman and a combination between a devoted + other class having a tenacious buff - which can get you to 15 pen.

You try to find obscure advantages for empowering melee attacks while carefully avoiding to compare them to what an empowered spell can do. Your argument that it can help sometimes is truly laughable when you look at what difference it makes for spells... The fan of flames example was very obvious because a simple spell, available to any class, from the lowest lvl scroll, is more effective than your "strong" empowered attack - it has nothing to do with class balance. And by the way a wizard can become as tanky as a paladin if not more, melee and also nuke everything - I don't see the balance here. I can understand you don't want casters nerfed, but at least stop talking about balance because it's obvious you don't want it.

I'm also surprised they didn't nerf the duality bonuses to 5 (like any inspiration), considering the other changes. For a tank or a ranged character the kelwalker is probably one of the best choices for multi.

Yes, you can consider Empower being basically a caster ability. This is not totally right. Empower does boost even weapon-based martial abilities, ~ 50% to the base damage (so it is multiplicative with other bonuses). People just notice spells a lot more because there are degenerate cases where empowering a damage spell is basically super overpowered (Minoletta's Crushing Missiles is my go-to autowin button on POTD, but e.g. Josh Sawyer pointed out how broken high-PL spells can be when empowered [imho in part because in "normal" gameplay, they never really get much PL-based scaling because they are already high-level, such as meteor shower or cleansing flame, so empowering them puts them way over the top]). But there are also martial abilities that can be really good when empowered. The special two-handed whispers of the endless paths great sword, when used on an empowered flames of devotion can be really good (boosted base damage, boosted flames damage, boosted penetration, boosted accuracy [increased chance for crit for even more damage], and then again for the whispers of the endless paths' aoe effect). Similarly, while there are plenty of martial abilities that are underwhelming when empowered, there are plenty of spells where empowering them is really underwhelming. Try empowering Confusion or Repulsing Seal or Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff. Yes, in theory it can be used for melee too, however it's useless most of the time. Doing 50% more damage to a single target is maybe good for an assassin once in a while, otherwise it makes no difference in a fight. The only utility for melee is to replenish their resources from time to time and not for damage, but for buffs/heals. Whispers of the endless paths is a joke now - even empowered with the laughable 20% lash is not even close to a simple fan of flames. No, ALL empowered martial abilities are underwhelming compared to what is available to casters. The fact that are also a few spells which don't benefit too much from empower is irrelevant - even if there's only a single spell which can make a big difference in a fight it's more than enough.

Yes we could but at the end the conclusion is apparent: 20 bonus acc is much better than for example +50% bonus elemental damage most of the time due to how it works especially on classes like rogue which has alot of bonus damage. When you factor in on hit procs from weapons and abilities and being able to actually deal damage on higher armored enemies due to pen on crit, it's a no brainer. Also spells are affected by it in much better way because having +60 accuracy on whisper of treason after 3 sec in combat is extremely valuable. All of those benefits that acc offers are exponentially better on POTD. 50% elemental damage increases your dps by a flat 50% always superior to 20acc, that's a no brainer. Like I already said, procs are mostly irrelevant, unless you can provide an example because personally I don't see one. Also the first thing you should do is to debuff enemy's armor or pick a weapon which can penetrate it - if you expect criticals to compensate your lack of penetration then you do something wrong. Yes, for spells, accuracy is more important (because there are fewer ways to increase their dps) but the topic was about ranged dps...

I think you can change the subclass using the console (setsubclass).

All modals were considered active buffs since PoE1, nothing new...

There's no penetration reduction due to grazes. Over-penetration doesn't happen most of the time, your penetration should be higher than enemy's armor by at least 33% which rarely happens vs enemies of your level. You can I suppose add 0.15 to the criticals bonus (if we consider it happens half of the time and we don't have blunted criticals...) The only way to go over 50% hits is through graze to hit conversion, it has nothing to do with accuracy. Yes, there are a few procs on crits, most of the time ccs/debuffs (which can also be resisted) and from time to time more powerful spells with a very small chance to trigger. But if you have a weapon with a devastating proc in mind we can do a more in depth analysis.

I got the buff from the pool just by drinking from it... Sometimes I was polymorphed, sometimes I got a buff...

It doesn't work like that... I will consider the average situation where your accuracy equal to the enemy's deflection. That means your attacks will be: 15%misses, 35% grazes and 50%hits. If you add 20 accuracy it will become: 30% grazes, 50% hits and 20% crits. In the first scenario your average damage would be: base dmg * (.35 * (0.5 + dmg bonuses) + .5 * (1 + dmg bonuses)) = base dmg * (0.675 + 0.85 * dmg bonuses) In the second scenario your average damage would be: base dmg * (.3 * (0.5 + dmg bonuses) + .5 * (1 + dmg bonuses) + .2 * (1.25 + dmg bonuses)) = base dmg * (0.9 + dmg bonuses) In the case of a ranger/cipher how much dmg bonuses you can have? 60% from weapon, 20% soul whip and maybe 30% from might ie 110%. If we compare the two scenarios the dps increase will be: (0.9 + 1.1) / (0.675 + 0.85 * 1.1) = 2/1.61 = 1.24 That means only a 24% dps increase from +20 accuracy...

As a tank you need both good defenses (to avoid criticals which bypass your armor and also reduce damage because more misses/grazes) and armor (to greatly reduce the damage). The resolve should be maxed because it increases both will and deflection (negative effect reduction is a bonus). Might should be maxed too - it increases fortitude and the healing bonus (which increases your regeneration). The unbroken starts with -15reflex penalty which is later compensated by the shield bonus, however you have to invest in dex/per to keep your reflex at the same level with the other defenses - I recommend max perception because it helps landing hits/abilities. A good stat distribution for a tank is: 18mig/5con/5dex/18per/5int/18res (without the racial/culture bonuses).

The best dps ranged character is the dual pistols chanter/rogue, by a large margin... You'll have eventually all the possible buffs from chanter, recovery+reload speed chant, burn lash chant, crowd control, armor debuff, pets and all the passive dmg bonuses from the rogue, invisibility, etc... Pick Maia's armor, the hat with bonus to reload speed, ring of the marksman, the speed gloves, the pet with 10% ranged dmg and all items with +dex you can find and with pistols modal you can easily go under 2s attack (even after the patch I think). A monk(helwalker)/rogue can achieve slightly better dps but he's very squishy...

Items increasing area of effect work too (you can stack the bonus from Aloth's armor with the one from a ring).

You can't pledge to Woedica, but I saw the option to not pledge at all (was it even possible?)

There's the necklace of power which gives +2 PL (if it wasn't nerfed), +1 from food and +1 from Woedica's Power and +3 from Death's Usher.