Elric Galad

You can trade with the 3 merchants at the same time, even after choosing a faction.

You don't have to side with the Dozens to craft the Spear. You can get it beginning of act 3 if you side with another faction. You will only get it a bit later.

I think bash shield grants a passive bonus to accuracy, maybe depending on the shield.

Do you know that it Bearcat International day ? (yes, they made a day for it) Bearcat, also called Binturong, is a relative of Bear and Cat. My avatar is actually a Bearcat. They are like 50% cat, 50% bear, 100% cool with a Popcorn-like smell and long Prehensile tail. They eat a lot of fruits, and spread the seeds all around the Southeast asian jungle. Googlelize it, it is IMHO the coolest animal on earth ! That's a Druid topic, so why not a Bearcat Spiritshift for PoE2 ? Or a Bearcat pet for ranger ? It would be SOOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOOOOOOOLLLL

Honnestly, I don't find PoE system to be that customizable. Sure, you have different build, and there is freedom inside class, but the most important trait of your character, by far, is still his class. Talents are free, but few of them are real gamechangers. For example, barbarian is still defined by carnage, and druid by his spells. I think it is good like this. I like party synergy based on complementarity. I like the idea of getting unique abilities that you get by commitment and long-term development. I prefer systems with classes. Or to be precise, I prefer system with class for party games and classless for single character game like Skyrim. I think it's more epic to have different characters following different specialized paths. Also because it's related to usual fantasy setting. Furthermore, I can't think of a single balanced classless system. But the drawback of classes is that around 50% of your abilities are determined, and the remaining 50% have often a few optimal ways inside a class. Basically you currently have around 11 characters with variations. Introducing a second trait equally meaningfull (secondary class) would open more possibility, but your commitment will stay meaningfull. Because class system is about that : meaningfull commitment. Basically, my intuition is that infinite choice is equal to no choice. Either your character ends up with a lot of random abilities (not epic) or only a few very similar and class-like builds will emerge, the rest will be subpar.

Even in PotD you only need barely optimized stats )

Suppadruid build incoming.

I won't be too worried about balance. This is a wish for PoE 2. They have a whole set of game mechanics now. Introduce a new functionality is a lot less complicated than what they already did, even with such a complex thing as Multiclassing. In my opinion, multiclass would improve build diversity AND party diversity. With a multiclassed character, you should be able to cover some party role without pure class. The best example is priest : multiclassing should enable covering priest role (affliction, healing, rez and buff) without including a priest. Not as well as a full priest for sure. Another thing is about commitment : With a class system, you trade commitment versus unique abilities. With current talent system, the abilities you pick are neither unique (almost everybody can pick them) nor commiting (you may take 8 multiclass talent and unlock the "jack of all trade" achievement, yeah !). Multiclass should come at a cost, and be restricted to 1 or 2 options max. Then it would feel commiting and unique. Paying Multiclass with talents (instead of main class level) might be the way to go by the way. Maybe this system should just be expended.

If you want to pick up an Aumaua, Coastal ones have a more solid bonus if you want to focus on a single weapon. Resistance to Prone and Stun is never wasted.

Bear is meh. It's 33% slower attack speed than other pets for no reason with no bonus. Check Attack Speed Connundrum thread. Vicious Aim don't stack with Twinned Arrow. Stat are ok if you want to min max. I don't like to min max but that's up to you. Stalker Link is not a talent. You can't pick it up at level 8. Take Predator Sense at lvl 5 and Stalker Link at lvl 7 instead. For remaining talents, Marksman, Apprentice Sneak attack, Interrupting Blow are good choices. Penetrating shot is also very important with bows due to the number of target with high DR.

Bump. This topic is too interesting for PoE 2 to be abandonned. I would really love to see real multiclassing introduced in PoE 2 but I totally agree it wouldn't have been wise to aďd in PoE. Now, how to do this is the big question.

I tried Backstab + Invisibility from Feign death. Invisibility from Feign death is NOT cancelled by attacking. It sounded a potentially good combo. Backstab is indeed applied during the 6s duration from Feign Death. Then I used Salvation of Time on my rogue during the 6s persisting invisibility from Feign Death. I thought it could be PoE God Mode. Unfortunately, even if invisibilitt was kept active during Salvation of Time bonus 10s, Backstab itself ceased to work after the initial 6s duration. Not very consistent ^^

Shadowflame say hello ^^

Or e, based on probability.

Attack speed has always been unclear since the beginning of CRPG. It has always involved some weird fractions, decimal number, etc... As the audience (even gamers) are reluctant to see it, game designers are likely to simply hide the numbers instead of showing frightening maths. For example, I have never found on the web a clear explaination about how Dual Wield and its perks worked in Skyrim. That's true that there is confusion in PoE, but only for optimal build seekers. I'm pretty sure casual gamers is totally happy with the unclear description from tooltip. That won't change that much game experience. For Casual player, "fast', "faster", "average" and "+20% faster" are clear enough.

All is great news, but this got me curious. I am betting that the Barbarian base Deflection is finally getting buffed, after I (and others) have pointed out several times that it's laughably low. The funny thing about barb is that even with this stupid defense... they just don't die. They are just meatbag, especially with a little Con, Draining weapon and Savage defense. I hope Rogue would get a x5 Health multiplier like other martials (even ranger). Resting because Melee Rogue is out of Health just happens too often ^^

Skip Electrical talent. Embrace Earth Talon says Hello. Some says Gaze of the Adragan is good... This spell is less played only because not as convenient as storm...

From what I remember, yes (and bonus against disengagement attck too). I think it was the reason why I assumed they were identical.

Mmm, no. Devotion for the Faithful does not get overriden. Never. No Party buff has the same effect. It even stacks with Blessing and Radiance for a total +35 Acc Bonus. Nothing in this game can resist High Acc and CC spells. Storm might be the best CC spell of the game but you can replace it by other spells. But NOTHING comes close to Devotion Accuracy bonus. This spells will turn the tide of dangerous battle, of course combined with other spells. Might bonus and debuff part is just icing on the cake. Crown of the faithful is also extremely potent by the way. Storm might be very flashy and it ridiculizes even average battle (as you said), but it is not the best spell of the game. Thinking twice, I realize that might be your point : Devotion of the Faithfull is not able to trivialize most encounters the same way indeed ^^

I just checked about Itumaak, and it's actually slightly different from a wolf : +2 Dex, -2 Con. (and white soft fur...). Not stricly better, Con and Dex being both rather useful for pet. Maybe Dex is a bit better especially endgame with a crapload of healers.

Storm spells are the unique card druids have in their decks. If they got nerfed, all druid spells would need to get upgraded to keep things balanced. Honnestly, it's too close from the closure of PoE balancing. I would not support this request, even if I don't disagree entirely. Furthermore, Relentless Storm might be the most convenient spell to steamroll easy to middle encounters, but it's not even the most useful spell of the game : Devotion for the Faithful is.

27 hours would have been perfect for Planescape setting and its rule of 3 )

By the way, there is an interesting revelation about the gods in WM II. Gods do have a body. This body can be killed. Althought it is not enough to kill the god (as for mortal souls by the way), it seems to severely weaken them.

Sure Handed and Swift aim are active abilities, so they don't stack.

[*]Various game balance (particularly with Rogues and Barbarians). Great ! I didn't even hope this would have been planned ! Sorry for my doubts, but it's true that videogames have a long story of half-baked experience ^^