Kaylon

If we talk about MC without party support then : paladin/troubadour paladin/bloodmage paladin/forbidden fist forbidden fist (using BT) priest/anything (using BDD & SoT) With passive help from the party there are of course more... Pallegina can also tank him with a little help but she won't be able to attack since without Rekvu's helm she will be interrupted most of the time.

A troubadour with Brisk Recitation activated, chanting Many Lives Pass By... is enough to keep Dorudugan busy (a monk summoning the Dichotomous Soul works too but is more tedious). After that, if you pick the right buffs/equipment and ranged weapons (Essence Interrupter, Eccea's Arcane Blaster, Fleetbreaker, Amaliorra,...), Dorudugan will go down pretty fast with minimal micro and without any cheese. And, contrary to the common belief, it's also possible to tank Dorudugan at melee with some builds.

Anything with a green circle is considered ally (ie party members, summons and charmed enemies).

The same is true for Grave Calling (and probably Hel Beckoning too) with the advantage you can freeze/paralyze any enemy without immunity to dex afflictions (even Dorudugan). Works well on SC rogues but also on any monk crit builds because the freeze/paralyze will increase the hit to crit chance. (It makes a great combo with Scordeo's Edge because of the accuracy buff and Blade Cascade...)

The ideal way is to recruit new companions only when you want to use them and preferably when you're near max lvl (that way they will scale with you and will require less xp to reach lvl20). Basically explore and do side quests/bounties with your main party until you're high level and after that start doing main/factions/expansions quests and recruit the others...

Yes, the dot is applied to every target but it doesn't stack and if the targets die in 2-3 WotW it doesn't make a big difference. However if you can't hit a target continuously it helps (like vs obelisks). PS. There are many good headgear options for WotW: Helm of the White Void (helps CCs), Cap of the Laughingstock (helps melee), Acina's Tricorn (helps AoEs) and Thaos' Headdress (helps all attacks if enemies are affected by Blinding Smoke).

Best summon are by far the animated weapons because they're very sturdy, their accuracy/pen/damage scales and have also useful abilities. And if you're using summons often then the Animancer's cat is nice to have.

Yes, I'm ok with the PEN reduction since it follows the rule of dual damage weapons. Also I see no reason to treat Caedebald's Blackbow differently and not give it dual damage. Personally I consider the secondary effects separate from the damage and should be separate from the main attack. In other words Sunbeam won't burn someone immune to fire, but will blind him because of the powerful light. Same with the Freezing Pillar - if you're immune to cold you don't take damage but the ground gets freezed and you're still hobbled. The Blights are maybe a bad example because they float and should be, in theory, immune to ground effects.

In both situations I would expect to pick the most favorable damage type, ie pierce. Giving all elemental weapons dual damage seems, for me too, the most logical choice in order to have a single clear rule. Personally I also expect an immunity to protect only against the respective part of an attack not the entire attack. For example Rot Skulls vs crush immunes should apply only the disease, while vs disease immunes it should just deal crush damage. For that reason I consider also the damage immunity a much better solution overall, instead of keywords. To solve the situation 2 a solution would be to increase the specific elemental damage above the other resists and also increase the healing part to compensate for the lower damage received.

I never realized the duration can be refreshed. That means a rogue with brilliant could keep it going forever.

I think the wounds take in account all the lashes, the only difference is the physical ones generate separate wounds.

I don't understand, there's some hidden advantage (maybe due to roundings) of having multiple small DOTs instead of a single big DOT? PS. Drake's Legacy gives only 5% slash.

You have basically two options: Sun and Moon + Toutilo's Palm (which allows SA spamming and combines high defense with the dps of a dual wielder) and the 2H option with Whispers of the Endless Paths which gives huge AoE damage with SA and passive focus recharge with Offensive Parry.

FF/helwalker/nalpazca, soul blade, stalker, bloodmage are also great choices for MC.

If I remember well all dots are considered ranged attacks and are affected by pets with ranged damage bonus (Harley, etc).

You don't gain wounds between hits, you gain them at the end. I think 30+ resolve is enough, however you need at least Clarity of Agony and the Ring of the Solitary Wanderer to shorten the effects. That way it's possible to reach 2.3-2.5s duration which ends at the same time with WotW recovery if you don't have other speed buffs.

Indeed the hostile effects are refreshed during the attacks, but if you reduce their duration in the 2s range they will expire at the end of the recovery phase of the WotW.

I don't think immunity to pull/push has anything to do with the wounds, at least from my experience... With Pull of Eora you can indeed get wounds in two ways - when the stride debuff misses or when it expires. When it misses you get only a wound, while when it expires you are also healed. The belt prevents only to be pulled. A thing to keep in mind however - later if you cast Pull of Eora with the monk it will stack Resonant Touch on him too. The FF can also generate wounds during WotW using Hylea's Talons bleed and Powder Burns from a blunderbuss - it's possible to reduce their duration to around 2s. A good way to increase the survivability of the FF is to use Voidward (to reduce the raw damage) coupled with items with %healing. Instead of using a belt giving some constitution it's more beneficial to use for example the Physicker's Belt. At Port Maje, using a brigandine + medium shield with modal + dagger with modal allows to spam FF and you can solo basically all encounters. (however you have to find the right balance between int/dex). The FF can also generate wounds while attacking with a blunderbuss and maintain Blade Turning all the time once you get Ooblit. The Dichotomous Soul can also be used in various ways to weaken/damage the enemies.

Modwyr is cool but isn't that great for crit builds - one of the best combos for that is Grave Calling + Scordeo's Edge + Fair Favor (high accuracy and once you start freezing enemies you start chaining crits like crazy), however it takes some time to max your buffs and requires high INT to keep your stacks maxed. Grave Calling opens also some great combos with Chill Fog and your skeletons.

The most limiting challenges in the ultimate are keeping Vela alive and having to repair your equipment. Basically all classes relying on shield/armor to survive are excluded. You're left with two possibilities: be invincible (BDD or being able to out heal the damage taken) or don't get hit (or very little). Being invincible always require some sort of cheese/exploit... Not being hit involves CCs, pets and invisibility. The monk can spam WotW and stay invisible as long as there are at least two enemies alive while vs single enemies he can use his summons to do the tanking for him. The bloodmage also has access to invisibility, summons, CCs, heavy damage and unlimited resources. The chanter has access to unlimited pets and paired with a bloodmage is another great choice. There's also the tactician/invisibility interaction which triggers brilliant inspiration opening some powerful combos - wizard/tactician, priest of skaen/tactician and assassin/tactician. These are probably the main combos able to solo the encounters without heavy cheese/exploits. In theory all of them can keep Vela alive using Withdraw/BDD or by using different strategies to keep her away from the battle.

There's no duration. These are the bonuses of the Barbaric Blow itself.

What's the point of nerfing abilities? I think it's fine like it is and I always pick it for my archers. Once you know how much you have to move between shots it works like a passive recovery reduction.

? Why would you give them only burn damage? That changes nothing and you just nerf them...

Like I already explained in a post above, a fix would be to make the enemies immune to elemental damage instead. However it doesn't fix non immune enemies absorbing damage like Dorudugan and especially flame nagas. Personally I don't see a clean solution to avoid burn damage while using Firebrand or Sunlance against them. It's possible to increase their burn AR, but that will make their absorption less effective overall.