Elric Galad

Rez pet doesn't give back full HP. If you intend to use pet for tanking (and you don't use some priest combo for it) the bond cost of Ghostheart seems hard to beat. Brillant + Ghost Heart is basically a pool of instant summons which certainly help against megabosses. Now if you are really grinding for bond points (SC Class ranger for example), Ghostheart is not the way to go IMHO because you'll HAVE TO spend some bond for it even in the best case. MC Rangers don't have tons of top priority bond spenders, so using a couple points for a convenient pet seems like well-spent bond.

A priest can make anyone immortal this way. What can specifically abused with a pet is that it doesn't get Wounds when down, so feel free to tank with it and rez it indefinetely.

You need a priest for this. And it doesn't work against debuffing foes. Priest = win almost by itself in this situation anyway (BDD + SoT + whatever source of Brillant, such as Robe of the Weyc)

Although I agree with the opinion that Psion is not worth considering without Community Patch, I think that people to to overvalue "best case scenario" when choosing a build. Even Boeroer do this by repeatedly posting videos about his Dual Mortars vs packed Rotten Zombies . Psion has the most stable floor value of all Ciphers when you face foes that can't be hit or reliably or aren't good targets for Deception spells.

Some status have child effects. But I mixed status and attacks indeed. I had this to my own list of changes to be made. I might start my own balance mod from the Community Patch basis, but don't be too hurry for the release Crushing blow needed a rework anyway.

What is a se entry ? Child effect in the game data file ? Does it mean there is no extra crit damage in the regular crushing blow ?

Bounce Delay : is 0.9, according to game file.

Bellower works with SoT ? Good to know. I don't remember the bounce period of Eld Nary's. That could easily be checked anyway, since the bounce period appears in the game's file. It might indeed be a pb only for SC. I think that additional jumps are more interesting for MC than for SC, since the upgrade already bounce so much that the +5-7 PL would proportionally matter less. Eventually, it might be worth considering modding bellower bonus duration.

It also depends on which PoE version you've played. In PoE1, pets were greatly improved since version 2.0. So maybe your experience date back from this time and this is the reason you found it weak. I don't remember having troubles to keep pet alive since this time, given you shouldn't play it as a tank (more offtank or flanker).

Even active abilities from items ??

The problem is that Megabosses require specific way to be killed and are not fit to adapt other megaboss playstyle. Hauni O Whe will ultimately prevail against everything cause it will simply rebuild itself when split. Belranga has too high defenses, so will prevail against anything else than Hauni O Whe. Unless of course if her minions are spawned too. Dorudugan brute strength can't do that much agiant the 2 previous special defenses. Not 100% sure they can match its self-heal. Might lead to a draw vs Hauni O Whe and ultimately Victory vs Belranga. Auranic won't do much even if spawned with sigils cause her Crowd Control effects won't help much versus other megaboss.

Hijacking this old thread with a random though about tank : A couple of days ago, I faced Huani O Whe and I had to choose a party member to lure away one of the Gigantic Black Ooze. I ended up using my Nalzpaca/Transcendant, mostly because his Nalzpaca side was able to spam the twins who did the actual tanking. Drugs, Food and item provided enough regeneration for the couple of ranged attacks he suffered. I didn't pick my Herald cause she has to remain within the party to help everybody regenerate. It seems that there isn't lots of class option for infinite regeneration which is necessary at some point for a self-sustainable tank. Herald seems the best choice here, but ironically uses a party-wide ability for this purpose. Other than that, it seems trick such as summons are actually better than doing the tanking by oneself. It really feels weird that fighter isn't that much suited for the role, but this is mostly because constant recovery has a limited duration. Limited duration hurts for a few fights, but these are arguably the fights where Tanks are the most needed. The question here is : should constant recovery have been... well... constant ? (maybe with lower base number though)

Pillars of Eternity 3 : Arcanum of Steamwork and Animancy Obscura

Have you tested it with Clear Out and its upgrades ? It might be even more convenient.

But Can only ve applied from stealth so only once per encounter, right ?

Problem is that the game is currently balanced around RTwP. TB isn't bad but it is mostly meant as a bonus. Since the TB Crowd is largeur, I think they should go this route from a sales perspective. Too Bad TB wasn't an ATB so both systems would be close enough to maintain TB and RTwP.

Or Pillars of Empire, the New Microbsidian game. I would pick the Rautai, they are a powerful Gunpowder Civ. Have you ever dream of wololoing with a Cipher Rush ?

Well, not to insist but I think it's relevant to point that Conjurer summoned familiar provides a stacking +1 generic PL (unless Stacking rule changed from the last time I checked).

Arquebus has a higher reload time and -5 Accuracy should not be underestimated. It's about 8% less damages (multiplicative). I feel like Arbalest has slightly better stats.

Conjurer summoned familiar provides a stacking +1 generic PL (and other random small bonuses)

But that's because you want to play Rogue as a sneaky backstabber rather than a backline enforcer. Shadow Step shall be better for Rogues who don't Care about invisibility (but it is currently not) or SC Class Rogues who use Vanishing for this purpose and want more diverse abilities. I'm still wondering about the numbers, you know. Reducing the Guile cost was necessary albeit not necessarily sufficient. As you pointed, the real problem of Rogue Ability Tree is that many abilities tend to do the same thing. So you end up picking the best of them if they are unsufficiently distinguished. Escape isn't technically replaced. So even if picking a situational upgrade isn't better 100% of cases, it might still being worth it for these cases. Shadow Step problem is that it is currently not even Valuable for these cases. Anyway, I thought Shadowing Beyond Deflection and Swift effects were also cancelled when attacking...

Changing the way an ability works is trickier than changing its values Rising Paralysis to 8s maybe ? 10s starts sounding too much, especially for SC upgraded version. Garrote has a prone effect that adds up to its 6s paralysis, and Stunning Blow has its refund upgrade + double chance to apply that both mitigate its cost so I guess it would be balanced. I also have Power Strike in my list of abilities to be buffed. First, its cost should be set to 3 Discipline ; a longer Stun (and staggered) would help too (8s, 10s ?)

Well, the deflection buff is short lived and the dash part situational. 0 recovery Smoke Veil would lead to abuse with Assassin/Caster. Current recovery is not very long either. I would not include it in a mod, but changing recovery of a single ability is quite easy (though tricky, recovery delay are coded as an ID, not a number, so you have to copy/paste the recovery ID of another ability). So if you want to do it, go wild ^^ Other Paralysis abilities (Garrote and Stunning Blow) currently cost 2. So I would align Shadow Step with them. Sure you don't get an attack or additional damages, but you have a Dash and Deflection instead. Also, Shadow Step upgrade also add a bit of AoE (SC only), so 1 Guile would feel too strong. Once more, it's quite easy to mod. Just to say, I'm trying to avoid Power Creep in my mod plan. I'm even planning a couple of NERFS, which might feel weird but I would include them in a separate package anyway.

I get your point about Smoke Veil but the No Recovery part contributes justifying Shadowing Beyond increased cost. You have to think about Smoke Veil as an excellent and cheap panic button with a positive interaction with Backstab while Shadowing Beyond is meant to be used more offensively thanks to its teleporting and no Recovery effects. Edit : Even if Blinding Strike is meant to be used more rarely, both its upgrades are extremely valuable against high prio target. Gouging Strike is even the Most Valuable ability against a certain Mega Boss. Blinding is a fairly good debuff even when decreased to Disoriented, and help Deathblow with ranged weapon and against Perception resistant foes.

That is also because most of Rogue active abilities aren't really worth their guile. Even as a MC you spam Crippling and Blinding strike most of the time in my experience. Maybe MC assassin spam Smoke Veil and Shadowing Beyond too but SC should indeed spam Vanishing instead. Gambit is tempting but require even more dedication. I plan to add a +2 Guile Bracer un my mod to help it a bit. Community patch already decreased Withering Strike Cost. Smoke Veil, Shadowing Beyond and Shadow Step should cost 1 loss Guile each. This should diversify Rogue Builds.