[Best shapeshift form?]

Shifting doesn't take a full action. Yes, you need to have finished recovering from your last action, but after you shift, you can immediately act to attack or cast a spell.

 

Also, I don't think Stag gets enough respect. Avoiding critical spells and attacks can save you way more health and other nasty effects than a couple points of DR. Doesn't suffer from bear's sluggish attack speed, either. I don't even care about the AoE ability.

[Are bows gimped?]

They kinda are, unless you know what you're doing. Check out my thread:

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/76081-learn-penetrating-shot-never-turn-it-off/

 

Obviously Penetrating Shot is your friend. +5 damage on nearly all enemies is worth the 20% slowdown.

 

Ranger has a high level ability which Stuns enemies on hit if they're engaged by his animal companion. Damage doesn't matter there.

 

Combusting Wound, a cute level2 Wizard spell, deals 5 fire damage to enemies on each hit ! Faster attacks are actually better, so bowmen and monks love this spell. This is the only instance of an ability or spell adding a fixed amount of damage I know. That's good for fast attacks. Marked Prey DOES NOT DO THAT, the tooltip is wrong.

 

The game has a rending hunting bow and rending war bow (-3 DR). Unfortunately, you only get them if you side with the right people.

 

Bows, and even wands are superior for interrupts. I don't think damage matters for interrupts. Just high Perception, enemy concentration and Interrupting Blows talent. DANGER!!! The talent is currently buggy and works against you.

 

Overshooting is a thing. If your arquebus hits for 60 damage, and enemy has 70 endurance, it's a waste to shoot him twice. But if a bow hits for 20, it might be better. I need to do some math about it.

 

Very high damage weapons are unlikely to benefit from Bloody Slaughter talent, because it works on enemies below 25% endurance.

Good post, just a couple things to add:

 

Accuracy is also important to interrupt. A graze gets a -25 penalty to interrupt and a crit gets a +25 bonus.

 

I haven't tried this high-level chanter ability, but it describes the bonus as per hit, rather than a lash:

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Aefyllath_Ues_Mith_Fyr

 

For whatever it's worth, bows also enjoy better range than guns. I know I get annoyed when I tell my ranged in the back row to initiate and they move up in front.

 

And one last point against bows is that abilities which add bonus damage, like the DoT on Crippling Shot, obviously do far less damage with a bow. For my hunter, I've been opening up with an Arquebus and Crippling shot, then switching to bow for the interrupts.

[Abilities & various other (damage related) mechanics revealed]

Few tests with druid shapeshift  - basically uber monks .. They have 16-25 !!! base damage per paw/claw  (and bypass 5 DR by default - EAT IT estocs ) ( monks are 10-15 and receive some flat extra as they level , 2h weapons are 14-20)..   Didn't check attack speed .. 

 

Weapon Focus Peasant adds +6 accuracy.. Biggest problem for shape shifting early game is lack of accuracy .. (hit like a truck, miss the barn sitting in front of you, repeatedly) ..

 

 Is kind of hard to make optimal use of uber claws.. (hard to add damage modifiers on druid) High might, savage attack, human shape-shifting at low endurance with fighting spirit on..Because of the huge base damage the 25% vs beasts/ghosts/etc talents would work really well.. .. Accuracy boosts (potion/ paladin/..) .  Dual weapon fighting - dual  spears when not shapeshifted ..  Probably not worth focusing too much on shape-shift / melee druid since it lasts so little .. But there is some potential  .. And (30% + 15% + belt) wildstrike lash (multiplicative) damage  .. These things might topple dragons (assuming they get the accuracy to land the hits somehow) ..

You'll probably want to verify this, but from what I've seen, Wildstrike belt adds 10% to base damage, not to the lash. Which is nice, because it then gets multiplied by the lash. This makes sense, because then the belt is valuable to all druids, not just ones with wild strike talents.

 

And it's as you say, accuracy is the top issue. Then again, with zero recovery penalty, blazing fast attack speed and grazes that do 20 damage, it's not such a deal breaker.

 

Basically, if you build for it, wild shape is a great way to do heavy per encounter DPS before you start getting per encounter spells, at which point it seems a little silly. If a Druid could sustain it, it might still be valuable for situations where focus is more important than AoE/control, but it feels like a bad investment to sink all your talents into something that only lasts 12 seconds.

[Animal Companion comparison (1.03+)]

how can a wild animal have 0 Athletics? 

That's what domestication does to you. Let your bipedal buddy shoot your food in the face for you and you laze around all day chewing bones.

 

Next thing you know, it's shampoo, pink bows, and a puppy pedicure.

[Deflection - what is enough?]

I'm level 8 on normal, wrapping up Defiance Bay, and Eder takes very little damage with 90+ deflection at this point.

 

For my melee/offtank characters, I feel they need at least 50 deflection or they're going to have a bad time and eat some crits.

 

I guess the rule is: If you're going to melee, you need enough deflection to offset the accuracy of whatever's trying to kill you to eliminate crits. Main tanks need up 50 points more to eliminate hits. Pretty sure you can see the accuracy of the beast that's chewing on you if you hover over the damage in the combat log.

[Larder door - worth enchanting or worse than normal shield?]

Slow/Fast atacks has nothing , and i mean NOTHING at all to do with Holding Aggro in this game you Hold Aggro by engagement and its normaly 1 enemy you can engage , there is talent for 1 more , fighter talent for 2 more , and you can get weapon wwith guarding +1 more enemy engaged but nothing else matters in terms of holding agro , also if your melee tryes to flank the enemy most likely enemy will break from your tanks engagement and turn to your melee because ENEMY wants to kill your team not your tank in particular , having this shield wont make your tank worse at holding aggro ...

Thanks for the explanation. The dragon I killed last night seemed to bounce equally between the three melee I had flanking him. Now I know the logic behind it, and that there's a blood price to be paid for trying to melee at all and trying to flank in particular.

 

Then I guess it's simply a question of how much a Bashing shield reduces your tank's DPS and slows down the application of cool abilities on the main hand, like Drain and Marking.

[Larder door - worth enchanting or worse than normal shield?]

Oof, that's a good question. Perhaps the reason Eder isn't holding aggro as well as I'd like is because the Door is slowing his main attack.

[What class do you play as?]

Druid. There's just something satisfying about turning into a monster and wrecking people.

[Interrupt Build?]

@famousringo: that's why your tank wears medium armor and takes Armored Grace

What bugs me about that is that you're trading damage reduction from all enemies hitting your tank for reducing the damage of the one target your tank can hit.

 

Maybe I'm wrong and in the hardest encounters it's more important to slow down the Big Bad Boss than to absorb hits from several enemies. I'll admit I'm not far enough in the game to make that evaluation.

[Interrupt Build?]

I have found a high interrupt chance to be most useful on a Tank, for whom the interrupts serve as a form of damage reduction by slowing down the rate that the enemy they are attacking can attack back.  Fortunately, maxing Perception is already useful for a Tank due to the fact that it increases Deflection.

 

The problem is that tanks generally wear heavy armour and a shield, so even with a high interrupt rate, I think you'll find the sluggish attacks of the tank will interrupt less than the high dex dual-wielder next to him who ignored perception. Perhaps even worse than that, since the tank getting wailed on by three people is going to get interrupted himself rather a lot.

 

It's a nice perk, as you say, if you stack Perception for the deflection, but I don't think it's worth investing in Perception to get. Probably better to get Resolve first and cut down the interruptions the tank receives.

[Best weapon for snipers]

This is a little off topic, but I've found Kana makes a better offtank than sniper. He can only get spells off in the biggest fights, and I find his chant debuffs more compelling than his buffs, so I handed him Justice and slapped a suit of plate on him and sent him to the front lines. He does about as much damage, holds up well under the pressure so far, reduces damage to the rest of the front row, and is better positioned to cast spells once he finally charges up.

[Does secondary (elemental) damage ignore elemental damage reduction?]

Just adding another data point.

 

I did some testing, and it looks like a Druid with both Wildstrike talents will face about 50% of DR of the appropriate type.

[Combat Mechanics? Attack Speed, Recovery]

 

Things are not simple, for sure. I continually get different peaks for different conditions. I am currently confident though that dexterity builds get the edge on late game, while might builds yield higher DPS early. Let's keep some doubts though, till we verify the formulas.

 

Personally, I've got no doubts - damage modifiers can only continue to go up as the series progresses, which only helps Dex over Might. It's a certainty to me that at some point - whether it be in the PoE 1 expansion(s) or in PoE 2 - Might will be completely and totally overshadowed by Dex for all auto-attacker builds. Casters obviously still benefit from Might to get more out of each spell.

 

Looks like you've done some good work though - though I haven't checked your formulas over in detail. Looking forward to seeing what you can come up with. If you can produce some good graphs for communicating how the current system makes Might less and less relevant as the levels get higher, maybe we can convince Obsidian to change it - hopefully by just making Might multiplicative (the most obvious solution) or making weapon enchants actually change the base damage (the least intrusive and most intuitive solution).

 

Even for casters, Might over Dex is not so clear cut. Getting more damage out of each spell is less important the more per encounter spells you have. Also, Might doesn't improve stacking of buffs or debuffs, but Dexterity lets you pile on those buffs faster or do damage faster, and get that spell off before a hit interrupts you, and react with that clutch heal or CC sooner.

 

Yep, kinda starting to wish I'd built my druid for dex even though it wasn't "recommended".

 

And yes, thank you to everybody digging deep on the math in PoE's incredibly opaque combat system. You're saving my sanity at the expense of your own.