Boeroer

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.

Steering a bit away from the Gunhawk, sorry ... but one of the best single-target Streetfighters I ever played was a ranged Troubadour/Streetfighter with Gunner, Sure Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr and Upgraded Whisps summons which shoot at your character to trigger Heating Up (and after enough lightning dmg even "On the Edge"). Sure Handed Ila applies both -20% recovery time AND -20% reloading time to all reloading weapons (guns + crossbows). On top came the Heating-Up bonus with 50% recovery bonus and Gunner with -20%. Using the Red Hand the shooting speed and also the damage per shot were pretty awesome. Leaving the arquebus modal on for +20 ACC was barely noticable imo. Needs some non-pierce weapon as backup of course (e.g. Eccea's Arcane Blaster or so). You can add Deltro's Cage Helmet. The whisps don't do a lot of dmg per hit but it's a "free" additional shocking lash so why not?

For example you can remove Carnage from the character --> a lot less unnecessary combat log entries.

Full Healing can be achieved by simply healing for a ridiculously high amount. But I don't understand where/how you would want to apply that...? If you alter an existing ability like Tough you don't have to touch progression tables, right? And can you not add several triggered "sub-effects" to Tough then? So one for every CON-value over 10? Man it's too bad that the attribute bonuses are not moddable.

Carnage can't crit and it doesn't get converted from hit to crit. That might have messed with your impression. I went with dual Sun&Moon + Swift Flurry/HBD on a Berserker/Fighter/Monk (lvl 20) because the log mostly lists relevant attack rolls then (and you can generate dozens of attack rolls with just one strike). And it's best to not have too high ACC against test dummies - else you'll see so many natural crits that you really have to search for hits and hit-crit conversions. I don't know if this approach has any other hidden problems that might mess with the outcome though. I was just too lazy and too impatient to really wait for a lot of normal auto-attacks to happen.

Okay, I logged 56 hits in the combat log with Disciplined Strikes + Berserker Frenzy and am no smarter than before. Of course 56 isn't a big sample size but I thought it could give a slight hint - but it doesn't really: Hits done: 56 Conversions: 20 (35.7%) Conversions by Berserker Frenzy: 9 Conversions by Disciplined Strikes: 11 With fully stacking conversions one would expect 47.5% conversion rate. 35.7 is better than 30% or 25% but not near 47.5%. You might find it funny that Berserker Frenzy did less conversions than Intuitive - but I guess Intuitive was just the first to try - if it triggers BF doesn't get a chance. I didn't check if the order in which you activate the abilites plays a role here (I mean which one will get checked first). Don't think that it matters. Guess more attacks are needed to be sure but I don't want to do this. It's incredibly boring work. I also later added Bloody Slaughter, Uncanny Luck and Barbaric Smash and did some attacks that I didn't log on a spreadsheet. I used Swift FLurry/HBD and two Sun & Moons to generate a lot of rolls in a short time - after enough attacks all the conversion abilities got at least listed once in the log. So they all seem to get checked at some point. Given the hints (char sheet, tooltips, combat logs so/so) I'll go out on a limb here and continue to state that conversions always stack (including B-Frenzy and Disciplined Strikes) - until somebody else takes the time and proves me wrong.

Right - makes perfect sense. You can attack any npc out of combat - and the effects always trigger no matter whether combat mode is active or not.

You can easily prolong it with WoD (did a lot of tests with it when doing my mini-mod for the weapon) but I never tried if this persists after combat ends...

Yes - as I said the base invocation "The Brideman" gives proper inspirations like "Set to their Purpose also does", but weirdly enough the upgrade "Each Kill fed his Fury" gives direct attribute bonuses (no "official" inspirations). I don't think it's a problem with the prolonging. For example Blood Storm and Wildstrike Frenzy seem to have no problem with prolonging inspirations/other effects on crit or kill. Imo somebody just made a mistake when implementing the ability. Just a guess though. Anyway this seems to be the reason why that ability stacks with inspirations. Like Ben Fidel's Neck (-10 to all defenses) stacks with afflictions. Maybe same underlying stacking mechanics.

If Disciplined Strikes gets suppressed by all means use Tactical Barrage instead. Not only +1 Power Level and +5 INT - which is beneficial for your AoEs and durations - but can also be used to counter Berserker Frenzy's confusion.

Okay I did some attacks first and now saw both Frenzy and Intuitive convert hits to crits in the combat log. Can't say anything about actual percentages though. Maybe the log just displays whatever - but if Intutitive would get supressed by Frenzy I would assume it wouldn't get mentioned in the combat log. But as I said: I don't trust the log with conversions. When I have more time I will do more attacks so that there are statistically somewhat relevant numbers - to see if the percentage comes near 30% or more. So far it seems they do stack though. I always assumed all conversions stack because of their "roll one after the other" mechanic.

Nope. No mention of suppression on the char sheet in combat nor in the tooltips when one hovers over the portrait (or the list of active effects right of the portrait which opens another sort of tooltip). Will do some attacks later, must get groceries first.

They get suppressed? That's new to me. I never read about that in any Brute build discussion but this is important. I mean it makes sense since both are actives. But how does one determine that? Is it listed as suppressed on the char sheet? Or doing a lot of attacks and observe that only Berserker Frenzy gets shown in the combat log? There is some issue with conversion display in the combat log. For example Debonaire conversion never gets displayed even though it's 100% - instead the combat log shows Uncanny Luck or Dirty Fighting (which one you have). So I don't trust the log there. If there's no simple way in order to be sure one would have to do a certain number of hits and check whether the percentages match (kind of) 30% or 47.5%?

Yes, you have to decide which of the two classes you want to bind the soulbound item to.

You can even skip Tactical Barrage (or one of the two other PL buffs) and get two Stones of Power. If you stack them in the stash after the fight you can use the Power Surge (+1 PL, stacks with every other PL bonus) in every fight. It's very convenient because it has no duration (lasts till the end of the fight). Lord Darryn's Voulge is indeed nice on any Barb-combo. The Brute also gives you Clear Out which is cool with any AoE effect (like Static Thunder). Amra with Riven Gore is nice on a Brute, too. Dual Carnage on crit and even more importantly Clear Out pushes the initial enemy into the two Carnages it procs which means it not only gets the two attack rolls from Clear Out but 4 Carnage rolls on top. Riven Gore triggers quite often and then it's Blood Thirst + Cleaving Stance time. By the way: a Brute whom I also liked (but who was a bit specialized) was Fury/Unbroken with Disengagement goodies. Fear Ward terrifies your enemies and should they disengage they eat massive disengagement attacks (nice in combination with Brute Force and Mob Stance - Barbaric Shout already gives you +3 engagement so you can go with Mob Stance instead).

Solo it's a pain but in a party (especially with a Paladin) not so much. Barbarian gets Stalwart Defiance eventually which helps a lot imo.

It is I guess because it's not giving inspirations but direct attribute buffs. Only the upgrade does this. The basic invocation gives the fitting inspirations. I guess it's an oversight.

If you want to dual wield I would check out the unique one handed weapons and decide which ones I like best. It's all about the enchantments. Like Helz said it's usually better to have one weapon set with one sort of damage type and a second set (or even third) one alternative dmg types. When mixing dmg types in one set you will rarely have the optimal outcome. A dual wielding Devoted can make good use of unarmed attacks as fallback: everybody gets the proficiency for unarmed combat automatically, Devoted included. Fists do crush damage - so for example a Devoted could any non-crush weapons set mainly (for example swords with pierce/slash dmg) and pick Monastic Unarmed Training for his fists as fallback for the situations when he meets foes who have a weakness against crush damage.