Boeroer

Since you wanted to build a good Rapier user in the first place I wouldn't spend many points on spells. Instead I would make a collection of useful grimoires so that I can cast most spells I want from those books and only pick a few spells that aren't covered by the grimoires - or which I want to always have access to. Then I'd put most points into passives and some fighter actives. If you wanted to stack crit chances you missed Disciplined Strikes' 25% hit to crit conversion (you took Tactical Barrage). DS would stack with Merciless Gaze and One-Handed Style (not additively but still very nice) and you can get Smart by using Infuse with Vital Essence instead (no +1 PL from Acute though). I personally would def. go with a small shield and pick weapon & shield style. The good thing about Battlemage is the ability to stack very high deflection numbers and since deflection has increasing returns you should substitute that with a shield. Also kind of stacks with the "no flanking malus" from Squid's Grasp. The +12 ACC from one handed usage and -style are nice - but later in the game not as impactful as the added deflection. And you'll have plenty of conversion from Disciplined Strikes and Merciless Gaze anyway. Good fighter abilites that I would never skip as a Battlemage are Armored Grace (with Devil of Caroc Breastplate and a pet like Abraham you'll kind of have no recovery penalty but good AR and also +2 Discipline. Also looks rad on a fencer imo), Unbending, Refreshing Defense (it stacks with most of the Wizard's deflection buffs except Llengrath's Safeguard), Superior Deflection (if going for high deflection to start with) and such. Especially with Wall of Draining having Refreshing Defense and Unbending makes you almost unkillable (except one-shots) which is very powerful.

What -10ACC malus from Berserker? I guess you meant Devoted?

The unique Rapier Squid's Grasp has a nice enchantment that prevents getting flanked. Combined with Vigorous Defense and Wizard's buffs you can become very tanky. Becoming very tanky allows you to get threatened by multiple enemies without folding over which makes the other enchantment of Squid's Grasp accessible a lot more often: the 20% speed bonus (which stacks with stuff like Deleterious Alacrity etc.). Combined with Armored Grace and a pet like Abraham you can achieve good Rapier dps while being very sturdy. But you'll need some alternative weapon (or use spells) against pierce resistant/immune foes. So Battlemage would be my way to go - with Squid's Grasp at least. If you are aiming for Rännig's Wrath it depends on the enchantments. For a Spellblade I would prefer the flanking DMG bonus + the PEN bonus on crit while for a Battlemage I would pick the 10% chance to skip recovery after getting missed (which works well with the small shield modal by the way). For late(ish) game the Battlemage has better synergy since stuff like Vigorous Defense and Unbending can be prologed with Wall of Draining which will make you unkillable for a long time.

Maybe. I would be more confident if I knew who's working with (or "for") him. Like for example Nick Carver (who designed most of the later additional subclasses of Deadfire such as Forbidden Fist, Furyshaper, Ancient etc.).

Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst work well enough to speed the shooting up though. Bloody Slaughter, Blooded etc. also work well enough. And for a ranged character the self damage might be more manageable. If the preferred war bow is Frostseeker I would pick a Helwalker instead of a Berserker though: Thunderous Blows will give you Tenacious/+2 PEN as well, dmg bonus from higher Might, you'll get a bigger AoE from Turning Wheel, higher Accuracy from Enduring Dance and also a good speedup (Lightning Strikes).

Avenging Storm as well iirc. It's a mess.

There are several effects that work in your favor and are not "borrowed" but still won't get listed on your character sheet/character tooltip - like Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage for example. Those can't be prolonged afaik (I mean with SoT/WoD/SoF etc. - of course PL and INT have an effect when casting the spell).

They start as mid game challenges (you can also do some at quite low levels with some decent tactics) and slowly become more difficult. With the expansions there are other places to get bounties which are really difficult. If you manage to do the early ones at low levels it's quite a boost in XP and item quality.

No, not really. But I would say that the Warden's Lodge is most desirable because the bounties he gives lead to lots of XP and also cool items.

Unfortunately Brilliant Radiance is pretty bad.

Dunnage was designed with some more character levels in mind. Usually you'd go to Neketaka, grab some small quests which lead you into the rough direction of Fort Deadlight anyway and when you'd arrive in Dunnage afterwards it wouldn't be so hard. But since it's an open world game... But as long as you don't give Harker the coin you will be safe in Dunnage. The design decision to place that hard encounter there is a bit unlucky because there's no hint before that encounters in Dunnage may be above your level. No introductory fight that shows you the kind of difficulty you have to expect and which would be solvable peacefully once you realize this island's too hard for you (for now). Just throwing you into an ambush you can't talk yourself out of is not great. But situations like this are very uncommon in the rest of the game - if that's any consolation. Also keep on mind that the game was not designed for solo play but for a whole party. Usually you need a fair bit of meta-knowledge to solo this game. It's unlikely but... if you have a potion of invisibility (and maybe bounding boots from Benweth's study or boots of speed) you can skip this fight if you retreat to the top right corner of the map into that alley while you are invisible. When I did the encounter last time solo with an Assassin the enemies wouldn't follow there and the encounter stopped at some point. Don't know if it's reliable. PS: don't try to do the Torkar bounty in Dunnage that early. It's brutal, too.

Potions usually don't last until resting though. Luminous Adra Potion does - so maybe the naming was just causing confusion.

I guess he went to Fort Deadlight and then to Dunnage to report his success with Benweth. The encounter with "Eamund(?) the Fox" that takes place after you free the female wizard from Harker (so she can take part in the silly play at Lifter's Refuge) is very hard if you are of low level and it can't be avoided.

Yes, in PoE1 item bonuses don't stack at all - unless one item is a weapon or shield (then it stacks with everything). That's the reason why a shield with Preservation (+50 to all defenses when prone or stunned) stacks with an armor with the same enchantment. But the armor won't stack with a similarly enchanted helmet. Same with retaliation enchantments: they will only stack if one is a weapon/shield (Aura's Supper Plate) and then the other is something else (Hiro's Mantle). And so on. If you want to stack the same attribute bonuses from more than one item you need a weapon with that bonus (e.g. Abydon's Hammer, +4 MIG) and whatever other item with bonus MIG (for example Meagfolc Skull, +4 MIG, together +8 MIG).

Dex has no diminishing returns. More DEX is always useful. DEX increase is a multiplicative dmg increase. MIG increase is only an additive dmg increase. BUT higher MIG helps overcoming DR. So it depends on the enemy what is the better "dps stat". But more DEX is never bad. Note that apart from DEX there's nothing that enhances attack/casting speed. All "action speed" buffs in the game only affect recovery (the phase after attacking/casting). DEX lowers both action time AND recovery time. So the wizard spell Deleterious Alacrity of Motion gives you very fast recovery, but it doesn't speed up your casting time (time it takes until the spell goes off). Still a very good speedup though because spells' recovery times can be rel. long, too.

Usually there's somebody waiting in the Spaling who might give you a quest which depends on the outcome of an Act-I quest (has to do with Lord Raedric). I don't know if that may cause problems - but it sounds as if it could. There are also some dudes that are part of a quest that gets initiated on the way to Twin Elms (after Stormwall Gorge). I again don't know how the game behaves - most likely the dudes are just not there until you initiate the first part of the quest. Safer: you can simply level up a soulbound item via console instead of jumping to the taverns. Check out the "LevelUpSoulbind <owner> <item>" command here: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Console Doesn't break anything afaik.

I consider this an oversight. It's really too bad.

At the beginning: the thickest armor. Priests have bad starting defenses, endurance and health and this is very obvious in the early game. Never engage in melee first but send forth the really sturdy guys (if you have). Play him like a Rogue basically: let somebody else engage first and then flank. Priests should start combat with casting buffs anyway. Later with all the buffs and with more levels under the belt it's not that bad anymore. Like with all per-rest casters (who all have bad starting values): early game is harder but at some point they overtake everyone else.

Imo Hiravias is a great Druid.

I wrote that some days ago already but I guess it doesn't hurt to repeat it: Brutal Takedown's bonus damage only has to overcome 1/4 of enemies' DR iirc (or was it 1/2? don't remember.. all fixed damage abilities do this for whatever reason). Anyway this is cool against high DR foes like many constructs, beetles and so on. If Itumaak uses a Brutal Takedown with bonuses from Vicious/Merciless Companion and Predator's Sense things get brutal indeed.

No problem with a Wizard though because you will find a ton of grimoires with all kind of spells in it. So just bring one with some alternative elemental damage for frost/whatever immune foes.

Sure. Sagani with Persistence and then Vicious/Merciless Companion, Predator's Sense as well as Brutal Takedown on Itumaak is one of my favorite companion builds.

The belt (or better: Firebrand) works for every priest. All Priests can use summoned weapons (mainly Firebrand) and all soulbound weapons to full effect with their deity's special weapon talent. Meaning they get +10 accuracy with them no matter what type of weapon it is. Soulbound and summoned weapons work with all weapon focuses and all of the different Priests' weapon talents. So you can use a Priest of Eothas with Firebrand (Great Swords) and a Priest of Skaen with the Grey Sleeper (Estoc) and a Priest of Magran could use Abydon's Hammer (War Hammer) - or whatever combo you like. That's because summoned/soulbound weapons are "universal". The good thing about the Berath/Tidefall combo is that Berathian Priests get the fitting weapon talent for Great Swords anyway - and that Tidefall works incredibly well with high Might.

Funnily enough a high-might Wizard with Persistence (and later also Caedebald's Blackbow) using Deletrious Alacrity & Citzal's Martial Power is also a very good ranged single target dealer. Ranger starts stronger but the high attacks speed of the Wizard + bow is quite strong later on. And you'll always have plenty of spells on top.

I played a melee Priest of Berath with Tidefall and it was pretty fun: You need Weapon focus Soldier, the Berathian weapon talent, maxed Might (generally a focus on maxing out Might via Aggrandizing Radiance + Champion's Boon or Minor Avatar and an item bonus etc.). Key is that Tidefall's wounding damage scales with Might - and Priests can have the highest Might score in the game. Tidefall also has life draining which heals you when you damage enemies. More details behind the link above (use that arrow button in the top right to jump right to my post).