Boeroer

You can also take a look at the Anvil Monk build. It uses Battle Forged, too.

Confirm. Yeah well, you can just take away from what I said that a Ranger with arbalest can be great. And the class combos I listed work very well. The subclasses don't matter that much. So if one of those combos speaks to you roleplaying-wise (like... are you comfortable with the idea of a Ranger/Chanter multiclass or does a Ranger/Paladin make sense to you etc.) then you can pick those and at least from a "powergamer's perspective" you will not be frustrated I guess. Just try the one that sounds most interesting to you.

For solo I prefer Stalker.

If you like crossbows and Ranger I can really recommend Spearcaster. You can get it early, it has superhigh accuracy with enough Arcana and the additional enchantments are great, too. The best thing about arbalests is the modal imo. It causes a knockdown on hit but lets you shoot more slowly. No big deal if you have a lot of reloading/recovery bonuses though. My current Arcane Archer/Troubadour reloads quickly enough with the modal on that enemies I focus on canot get anything done, they are effectively prone-locked (the get back on their feet but cannot finish anything before they get send down again). Single Class Ranger can be fun for different reasons (mostly special item-ability synergies) - but with an arbalest I prefer multiclassing for more shorter reloading/recovery time and/or more accuracy. Good arbalest rangers multiclasses I played: Arcane Archer/Bleak Walker: very high accuracy, good damage, quite sturdy, also good party support via healing and aura etc. Arcane Archer/Troubadour: very short reloading time (Sure Handed Ila applies its effect twice to realoading weapons), good damage bc of the lash from Mith Fyr, very versatile due to invocations Arcane Archer/Helwalker: short reloading time, very high accuracy, good dmg. This one is also very good with AoE weapons like Frostseeker or Watershaper's Focus. Yeah, I like Arcane Archers. Another good combination (that I didn't play) would be Ghost Heart/Cipher. Anything but Soulblade and Psion would be good. Damage would be nice, accuracy would be great and lots of versatility bc of cipher spells. This combination is especially good with the War Bow "Frostseeker" because the accuracy can be so high that crits are very common. Of course Ranger/Rogue is always an option if you are looking for a lot of dmg per hit. Ranger/Devoted also works very well - although I find it a bit sad that the only figher attack ability that works with ranged (two handed) weapons is Penetrating Strike. One thing though: you need a good backup weapon for enemies who are resistant or even immune to pierce damage. Any bow would do for example.

I killed Belranga with Ancient Weapons alone a few days ago (stealthed Troubadour) and did the same: chaining commands with shift. Takes some time and is not as convenient as AI but better than omitting the ability uses at all.

I thought about an Unbroken/Goldpact because of the added armor from the shield. +1 bc of Unbroken passive, +1 from the shield at lower health (e.g. when using Sacred Immolation), +4 from Gilded Enmity (doesn't stack with Zealous Endurance so you could take Zealous Focus instead to counter the large shield malus a bit), +1 from Stoic Steel and +1 occasionally from Inspired Defense. That's +8 armor without any additional equipment which would come on top. "Hello and welcome, my dear underpenetrating enemies!" Defenses would be great anyway bc of Refreshing Defense + Superior Deflection + Paladin passives. Gladiator Sword is not too bad bc of the +1 PEN enchantment.

Ah, okay. No idea then.

You chose to ignore significant parts of my answer. The point was that I can share whatever I genuinely think is fun and readers can decide for themselves if they might like it or not. They don't need the "Maybe-the-devs-didn't-want-you-to-play-like-that-inquisituon" as long as there's no competition like the Ultimate Challenge involved. There's no harm in sharing any information about the game nor is it in any way worse or better that how you play or what information you share. It is, as you said - just our opinion. While it's totally fair to recommend stuff we like in the game no matter what it is - and even to say what we don't like about certain practices - it is pretty uncalled for to criticize forum users for using and/or sharing that info. A disclaimer for new board members is nice. But Manu22 already played Deadfire solo after numerous suggestions from this forums and thus isn't exactly a new board member whom you have to take by the hand for every step - or at least that's what I assumed:

Hit me! I'll write something down with my wife. Maybe there's some colleagues we know who are posted there right now - they could give more recent tipps and recommendations. There's also an internal annual report that I can access. Uzbekistan opened up a lot since we left and the old president died. I guess a lot has changed - for better I presume. To me it was awesome even back then - except the diarrhea. Man... really wash your hands and only eat cooked stuff in restaurants l. One gets used to the germs at some point but it takes months.

I assume everybody who posts here is old and sane enough to make their own decisions when it comes to playing the game. I'm describing what I like and what works well for me. I would never force my recommendations onto anybody though. Your distinction between glitch and proper or "normal" mechanics is subjective and it's a bit silly to try and force that distinction onto other forum readers, and I'll explain why. What really matters for players is whether an action improves their experience with the game - or not. A small glitch may not break the game but even increase the joy of playing it - while an intended mechanic can be used in ways where it utterly breaks the game balance, takes away all challenge and kills the joy. Yet you advocate to skip the first but use the latter (more in that below). What's a "normal" game? Playing solo on PotD is very far from a normal Deadfire game to begin with. Most if not all solo PotD players will take advantage of certain mechanics that grant them more power, intended or unintended ones. The decision to not play a normal game was already made when starting a solo PotD run. Keeping both points in mind I'll give you an example that shows how your approach suffers from hypocrisy: Using Draining Touch with grimoire swapping (so it doesn't get removed after a successful hit) as a solo character on PotD hasn't a game breaking impact. It's good no doubt - but it's not even the best one handed weapon you can get - AND you have to spend a spell use for it + invest grimoire switching time. In fact this action has way less impact than "non-glitched" stuff like Scordeo's Edge + Blade Cascade + WoD (proper mechanics), Grave Calling + Chilling Grave + vessel summons (proper mechanics) or Engoliero do Espirs + Blade Feast + spell kills (proper mechanics...?). With Engoliero do Espirs we could argue that the proc of Blade Feast wasn't even meant to occur on any kill but just on weapon kills. I'd say that's a glitch. You see that not even the clear distinction is problematic when it comes to having fun with the gane in itself - but even the "official" lines between glitchy and normal behavior are blurry. You'll be okay with a Phantom wearing Draining Touch (which won't disappear)... but this is the same underlying effect. It's a glitch. Now, while you condemn the use of Draining Touch + grimoire swapping you like to play and recommend stuff like Assassin/Bloodmage who uses Deltro's Cage, casts Chain Lightning on himself and then prolongs that effect with Wall of Draining while triggering Blade Feast from spell-kills (which will be super potent with the shocking lash of the Helmet and then procs itself over an over). At least iirc that was you, right? You recommended that a lot in the past - although it breaks the game balance a lot more than using Draining Touch does. I personally consider this a gamebreaking cheesy af combination that takes away fun - but you didn't hear me saying that your recommendation saddens me? Did I judge you in any form for doing this although I personally don't like it? No... This shows that your personal distinction between glitch and "normal" or "pure" or "clean" is very subjective. I thought this discussion ended somewhat fruitfully after your debate with @Raven Darkholmeover "Strand of Favor cheese" a few months back - but I guess it did not. What is enjoyable is in the eye of the Beholder (or in this case: player). Whatever tricks and tipps forum members will share: it's the player's choice to decide if they might like that or not. A "purist" approach might fit your needs - but that doesn't have to be the case for everybody. Being a self declared purist doesn't give anybody the right to frown upon or look down on players who recommend and/or play whatever you don't consider to be "normal". There is no moral high ground playing a single player computer game. The artificial and subjective separation between bad and good ways to play, between glitch, cheese and normal is hypocritical. There is no Evangelion "How thou must have fun with Deadfire". It's not a religion where we as forum high priests have to divine the will of our Obsidian dev gods - to tell other players how the holy game has to be played. You can submit to that perceived authority no problem, I won't criticize you or be sad about it or whatever. If this approach gives you the most joy and makes you happy, I'm happy. Just don't try to judge how I (or we as a group) try to share what I like or don't like about the game. Or to recommend what I found enjoyable. I try to make it very clear in every post where I share "special mechanics" that what I recommend is just my opinion - and I try to explain why I think it might be fun. If somebody declares upfront that they don't want to use any cheesy tactics(be it glitch or intended mechanic) I will respect that and not recommend such things of course. And that has to be good enough, seriously.

Unfortunately Berserker Frenzy fused the beneficial and hostile effects together. So you can't shorten the self damage or confusion with high RES while you keep the beneficial effects. Sacred Immolation works like that but not Berserker Frenzy. Would it be different it would be a valid combo for solo. But as is I think it's not. You'll have two sources of self damage and both can get really nasty with enough Power Level. At the same time you won't have cheap healing sources besides when the curse runs out. Also the best synergy of Berserker/Monk - getting plenty of wounds from the Frenzy self damage - is not there with Forbidden Fist. You can get wounds from Confusion running out - but I don't think that's very impactful. Also the Forbidden Fist ability doesn't count as weapon attack so lots of passives of Berserker and Monk will not work (until you install the Community Patch mod). Like the crit conversion of Frenzy, One Stands Alone, Enervating Blows, Swift Flurry and so on.

Is that turn based specific? It happened to me several times in rtwp, too. One really has to watch out that no bystanders get hurt by anything or anyone. Waiting till night might thin out the number of random npcs wandering around. Don't think any patch addressed this but I maybe wrong.

Goldpact usually is on of my favorite Paladin subclasses since Gilded Enmity - combined with Sworn Rival - is so good. But it won't stack with Spirit Shield, Iron Skin or Llengrath's Safeguard. That's why I usually pick something else for an Arcane Knight. But I guess you could argue that you can then spare those spells and do Gilded Enmity instead. Which is true... Steel Garrote is cool in combination with Draining Touch and shield (or club + modal) setup when going solo imo. Not only does Draining Touch's healing stack with the Steel Garrote's but also the attack itself causes weakened which unlocks the life drain right away. I find that setup to work really well in order to get the most out of your resources, especially when not playing as a Bloodmage. Draining Touch stays for the whole fight - so it only costs 1 spell use - and the combined life drain makes it so that you don't have to heal yourself that often with Zeal or Corrosive Siphon - at least in the pre-late game before you get Wall of Draining. Aassassin/Wizard is also nice. Especially with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure it's a lot of fun to play imo.

Haha, right.

Did a quick test. Pulsing spells work (cool) - but unfortunately the imbue spells of an Arcane Archer don't seem to count. Neither as spells for the charm nor as weapon attacks for the other procs of the wand. Too bad...

When it's about Stunning Surge Frostseeker is nice. But the AoE on crit will not stun. Same with the other attack abilities of the Debonaire side. Because of that I prefer rods or mortars. The damage output of Frostseeker might be better though. I never checked if a Whale of a Wand procs charmed with every pulse of a spell - e.g. Binding Weg or Pull of Eora. If so then it might be great with an Arcane Archer (if the Imbue effects count as spells that is). With Driving Flight and from stealth you can "cast" two instances of Binding Web and two of Pull of Eora very quickly. Okay... Maybe that's stupid because wouldn't the charmed enemies flip back immediately because Web & Pull are friendly fire spells (which would crit bc. of the charm? And then they get charmed again and so on? Haha, want a mess that would be...

Ah sorry for the confusion - I meant the armor "Sharpshooter's Garb" from Maia. The passive on that is called Gunnery, not Gunner. You can stack it with "Shootist" from Acina's Tricorn if you don't go for Deltro's Cage Helmet (which looks a bit ridiculous with that armor anyway). I like to also bring Cutthroat Cosmo. Not beause it's the best pet for this (it's good though) but because your pet then has the same hat as you.

Not for MC but maybe still relevant: Aloth, while not optimized stat-wise can get an (imo) awesome ability via his quest which is named "Adaptive". It lowers his grimoire switching time by 1 second which makes switching grimoires pretty fast. You can complete his quest quite early without any combat so you don't have to wait forever for this. It is kind of tricky to get the right dialogue options in oder to gain Adaptive and not the alternative ability Persistent (which is very lame in comparison imo). I got this in my current playthrough with Aloth as SC Wizard. After I ot it I retrained to mostly passives and gave him the Fleshmender armor (+2 Quickslots for grimoires) because now he could switch grimoires so quickly that I don't need to learn any spell (I did learn a few anyway of course, but only when I had to). It makes him very versatile. Also Fleshmender can give you +1 weapon slots which I used in combination with Arms Bearer so that he can have 4 weapon slots. In each slot there's a weapon set that boosts certain kinds of spells: Eye of Wael, Magran's Favor + Sun & Moon, Blightheart etc. I also thought about giving him the Giftbearer's Cloth and max history instad of Fleshmender (also +2 Quick slots) because the added non-deflection defenses would stack nicely with all the passives like Bear's Fortitude etc. - and he can buff his deflection via spells anyway. But the cape is used by sombody else in the party currently and I can't bring myself to retrain her, too (yet). Since you can turn Aloth into a Spellblade or Battlemage this might fit your demands as well? Especially with multiclass Wizards it pays off to not invest in spells but passives and Rogue- oder Fighter actives - with Aloth's "quickswitching" grimoires even more so I think. Edit: eh sorry, this was for solo. I misread a sentence. Anyway - I will keep this here. Maybe it's something not everybody already knew. One could also make the ability available via mod so that it's accessible for all wizards. Then it could be used for a main character Wizard, too. As for solo Wizard multiclass: the easiest with the best synergies for solo is Wizard/Paladin imo. I would also pick vanilla Wizard if Bloodmage isn't what you want. Paladin subclass doesn't matter that much but I liked Steel Garrote best.

Imagine SC Paladin getting an enemy seeking* summon like "Zealous Spirit" or so at PL 8 or 9 that costs 1 Zeal and explodes on contact... *all AI driven melee summons are enemy seeking of course.

Yes, I find the world of Eora pretty interesting. Could have done without elves and dwarfs - but even those have interesting historical/cultural backgrounds. Like the Aedyran Sceltrfolc or the Pargrunen.

Yes, I basically said that. They expected D:OS2 levels of sales and were pretty devastated by the poor initial sales numbers. I just wanted to inform that "performed poorly" might not be accurate anymore ("poor" seems to indicate that it was financial loss - but maybe that's just my impression). Metacritic scores: PoE: 89 critics, 8.3 user Deadfire: 88 critics, 7.8 user I'd say it was received nearly as well. Right - but after saying so on Twitter some PoE/Deadfire devs jumped in an said they would be ready for PoE3 (e.g. Ob's Art Director Matt Hansen and Producion Director Alec Frey). So there's still hope.

If you get some items with -x% to hostile effect duration and substitute with food that does the same and high RES you can go with high INT and MIG. Because both is also good for your Lay on Hands which you might want to use on yourself after triggering SI. Also Voidward and other dmg reduction works. Besides that SI is just better with a big AoE. I think you can use the Harley pet to boost SI's dmg a little further. Lowish CON shouldn't be a problem if your healing is strong enough and the duration of the self dmg short enough. For SI itself DEX does nothing - but you have to get there first so... I wouldn't drop it too low. Don't forget to get a RES inspiration before triggering SI.

First part is true. Second part was indeed a problem at release and during the first year after release. But: Deadfire broke even during the second year after its release and since then has continued to make profit. It's just a trickle now I guess - but nevertheless: it's profit. So, while it's still not a big financial success - and more importantly an unexpected disappointment for the once enthusiastic PoE/Deadfire devs - I think we can't say that it did poorly anymore. But of course the whole story still might not be a huge motivation to tackle a third installment of PoE. If Obsidian/MS does this it's mostly for the fans of the Pillars series, not for shareholders. On the other hand... knowing Microsoft's wish to be able to offer a broad portfolio of (non-AAA-) games for Gamepass... who knows? I haven't lost hope. But of course there will be no crowdfunding.

Sure, later you can get away with fewer rests - because of spell mastery but also because certain gear and abilities/talents can counter the Wizard's weak starting values. But as a solo wizard you'll have to rest a lot in the early to mid game if you want to avoid a ton of kiting and pulling. I mean compared to a Paladin or something. Even Barbs have to rest a lot in the early game despite their big health pool. Mostly because their deflection is so poor that low health forces a rest often. Chanters, too - because their initial health pool is quite small and their defenses not good enough (yet). Of course you can prevent that with certain tactics. But the question is what's more tedious? Trying to avoid resting by kiting, pulling to chokepoints etc. or simply rest more often?

Yeah, that wouldn't be a neat solution.