Kaylon

Yes, Casita Samelai's armor and the Cloak of Greater Deflection are great replacements to use before you get the final gear. The best tactic to land Borrowed Instincts is of course pick the enemy with the lowest will defense, then cast Tenous Grasp (lower focus used so you can spam it until you get at least a graze) which will lower their will by 20, then cast Borrowed Instincts (or you can try also casting first Psychovampiric Shield to lower further their will if they really have great defenses).

Personally I would run Mith Fyr + Ancient Memory. Don't know if Old Siec works with spells - if it does then it's probably the best option once you have enough dps.

If you have a character with enough stealth/mechanics you can steal the items from the vault. Valera is alone at night and can be murdered with no consequence for his armor and another sword. Ezzali is never alone and killing her will make everyone hostile, however her armor is not worth unless you specialize in electricity magic.

To resume it, the new version does 2pierce + 2burn dmg/tick, while the old version did 5pierce + 5burn dmg/tick. With 30mig/int you will do now (on average and only as a troubadour) 14.4dmg/tick, while before (at max level) you were doing 48dmg/tick.

Very usefull guide. So if you do the quests/actions which force resting and then take the "one time" bonuses it's possible to keep them until the end... Another good food is the Shark Soup which gives immunity to mig/con/dex afflictions (coupled with svef, I think, makes you immune to all afflictions).

The Gift from the Machine and the Effigy bonus are activated both after Hasongo. Don't know about Woedica's power.

The Bluff check works. The bluff has nothing to do with the robes or the passphrase and it works only on the first floor.

My understanding is we have to wear Arkemyr's Old Robe or give the correct passphrase to avoid the fight in his manor, however neither of this options works. Here's a link with my savegame: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f2da0k5lja2mxzh/Vhailor%20%28PerikisOverlook%29%20%280fca34c7-ab82-4e6e-b781-70d25269a411%29%20%28764328812%29.savegame?dl=0

Drugs are unlimited at the shops (but you have to wait 1day to restock). But a simple resistance to intellect afflictions should remove the confusion. (And as a barb it's the best choice as the other is already covered by Unflinching.

The flail has 10% chance to cast Meteor on hit and it seems to proc from Dragon Wailed/Relentless Storm...

I didn't say good items should be obtainable only at the end, but there should be always a challenge. You could get them at lower level but then it will be a reward for smart playing.

I think there are too many unique items in shops... For me, they should be obtained almost exclusively from quests or enemies (with the difficulty adapted to the power of the item).

Yes, you can consider Empower being basically a caster ability.

I strongly recommend to use fists. Much more accuracy and dps. Anything could work, I suppose, but fists are just way too good. Fists are better at the beginning when you don't have good enchanted weapons. From the mid to end game however, the enchantments are far superior to whatever marginal advantage the fists have.

I don't really understand your question... Yes, I listed only the "core" abilities defining the build. After that you can pick whatever you want depending on your preferences. As a cipher you can always take some AoE CC spells to help you against multiple enemies.

Pale elf, Devoted/Ghost Heart dual wielding sabers, that's obvious. However the stats should be more like 13mig, 14con, 20dex, 13per, 15int, 13res (with berath's blessings) and focus on attack speed (Scordeo's Edge, etc...)

I think it would be interesting to know what you get if you side with each god at the ending of PoE1... I know if you picked Hylea you will receive some special food in your inventory at the beginning... Don't know if you get something from the others...

About Entonia Ring, yes it works when you're engaged, however from my testing it seems just humans can engage you, which means the requirements aren't meet very often...

Persistent Distraction adds Flanked + Distracted to the target which means you always get sneak attack, deathblows and flanking bonuses (on enemies who are not immune to flanking).

Have you tried to kill him after to see if he still drops the armor? PS. I got the answer myself - it's possible to kill him at night in his chamber without anyone noticing. You get the armor and a second Duskfall.

I don't think that's the solution because they nerfed the bonuses on most items and instead made everything stackable to avoid confusion.

I don't agree. In PoE1 the paladin was able to reach the same kind of defenses and nobody found that OP... What is OP is the fact that every class is able to hit easily the dragon for 100-200dmg... PS. In fact in Deadfire you don't even need high defenses - you need just high armor+high penetration and then you can out-damage any enemy in the game...

Yes, you can use the Cloak of Great Deflection until you find the bracers. No, it affects only the allies...

Yes, it's 1.0.2

It worked, thanks.