Boeroer

Sure, I do agree that it could and should have been more obvious. But you said: which is false. True though: a bigger warning than in dialogue form would have been great, given how many players missed this and expressed frustration about it. The designers learned from that mistake: in Deadfire this is solved with the "skull meter". It informs you about the difficulty (compared to your current party level) for any region you are about to enter - and even with every enemy in the game you are about to fight. This would have been really nice to have in PoE + DLCs, too. Unfortunately they didn't think of it at that time.

Your steward, who informs you about Crägholt Bluffs, does explicitly warn you about that area and suggests that it is high level content. Level 8 or 9 doesn't even cut it, at least not on PotD difficulty. Iwould suggest at least lvl 10, 11 is better and still challenging. Maybe you didn't read the dialogue thouroughly at that time - or maybe you forgot about that warning because unfortunately it is not included in the journal entry for that quest:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Edit: Tehehe, the retroactive admin approval of the post above makes it look like I'm a total idiot. Love it.

Best Wildrhymer for me is a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with the unique arbalest Spearcaster. Arcane Archer will max Arcana anyway so he might as well profit from the bonus ACC of the arbalest as well. A @NotDumbEnoughsaid, Wildrhymer can shoot reloading weapons very fast bc. of Gunner + Sure-Handed Ila (it applies both the -20% recovery AND -20% reloading buff to all reloading weapons!) and some nice items. Because of that I always keep the modal of the arbalest on and prone every enemy I hit. It is possible to almost prone-lock any single enemy that way that isn't immune to prone. The ultra high ACC of items + Spearcaster + Arcana + Ranger abilities makes it unlikely to even graze. On top of that you have the insane CC aspect of Pull of Eora and Binding Web imbued shots. With Driving Flight you will trigger 2 Pull/Web AoEs with one shot each. And then you will also have summons plus an Animal Companion.

In terms of overall usefulness no summon beats the Animated Weapons imo. They are not only fairly tanky and can spread out but also they each have several uses of special attacks (Pike: Knockdown, Warbow: Wounding Shot and Great Sword: Flames of Devotion) which adds a lot of offensive potential (for example more accuracy than a standard attack). The Dragon has one (or two) advantages: he is very tanky (huge health pool) and takes up a lot of ground space, blocking a big area. While his standard attack is weak, his active attack abilities (fire breath, tailswipe and so on) do scale very well with his high Power Level and thus have great effect. Only if you used them all up he starts to suck offensively. The second advantage is that a Dragon can profit from an Ancient Druid's "Wild Growth" spell. This is just hilarious: not only does it give the beast summon the Robust inspiration for the entire summoning duration (Wild Growth has no duration, it's basically permanent for that summon), making it even harder to kill - it also makes it bigger. You can imagine how cool an already huge Dragon can be if you enlarge him even further. What a mountain of an ally. He will block an enormous amount of space for you. This can be a disadvantage, too: if the space is verys limited he might get stuck. But usually it's very useful because he will occupy a lot of enemies with his big size. This also works with Drakes (all summoned beasts), but they are considerably weaker. If you like Wildrhymer I'd say Animated Weapons is good enough though. Also Many Lives Pass By (phrase on PL7) is accessible as multiclass. The automatically summoned Skeletons don't count towards the summoning limit and "stack" with other summons (and Animal Companion). So you can have Chanter summon + Animal Companion + Skeletons. A nice synergy of Chanter + Ranger is that you can revive the Animal Companion as often as you want with an invocation. So it's not the end of the world if the Animal Companion goes down early. It cannot get injured so it's as good as new after getting revived. My preferred multiclass for summoning is Troubadour/Psion because it can add lots of "temporary allies" (aka charmed/dominated enemies) to the collection of summons. Also both resources (phrases and Psion's focus) work the same for a Chanter/Psion and you will almost never run out of casting fuel (unless you get hit all the time which usually doesn't happen due to so many alternative weak cannon fodder targets).

All speed modifiers in the game except Dexterity only affect the recovery time (or -speed - depends how you look at it). Dexterity is the only thing that not only influences the recovery time but also the action (or animation) time. So giving +2 DEX does indeed help a bit with the recovery malus of armor. Not much, but it helps. Note that attribute bonuses on items do NOT stack (except if it's on weapons or shields). So an armor with +2 DEX and a Ring with +2 DEX will NOT lead to +4 DEX. The Fighter has a special ability called Armored Grace which does not influence the recovery time of the character directly but instead lowers the armor's recovery penalty. Besides that there's dual wielding (+ Two Weapon Style), speed weapons (they carry an enchantment called "speed") and some other effects that reduce recovery time. If you want to play around with those things a bit you can try out this tool: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator THere you can try out DEX, speed items and -abilities with all armors and see what effect they have on your attack and recovery times (in frames).

You are exactly right. Sorry for being late.

Berserker has strong upsides (Tenacious & Hardy instead of Strong & Fit as well as 30% melee hit-to-crit conversation) and also strong downsides (Confusion, self damage, hidden health bar). The downsides can be somewhat circumvented or weakened though (become resistant to INT afflictions or getting an INT inspiration removes Confusion, using indicators such as Blooded for the health bar and stacking health, healing and damage resistance against the self damage). Of all downsides the self damage is the most impactful one - because it cannot be negated easily and completely without a lot of fuss. However, like with almost all downsides in this game, you can often use it to your advantage. Examples: (moderate) self damage in combination with the Wound Trait (Monk) gives you a lot of wound resources while you are frenzied. That's why I love Berserker/Monk. You never run out of wounds as long as you can frenzy. Self damage can help you to go under 50% health in order to unlock certain abilities (Streetfighter passive, Blooded, humans' Fighting Spirit, Llengrath's Safeguard etc.). Without the need of enemies attacking you. To me strong advantages/disadvantages are a lot more interesting than mild ones (see Sharpshooter Ranger for example: that's not very exciting imo). Brute: Berserker/Devoted (as long as he picks the right weapon type with multiple damage types or combined a single dmg weapon with unarmed attacks, picking Monastic Unarmed Training) can be a strong combo because you will have stacked +4 PEN via Tenacious+Devoted's weapon choice, the self healing will counter the self damage a bit for some time (Unbending will help, too) and Berserker crit conversion will add to Disciplined Strikes and make the improved crot dmg of the Devoted occur more often. Frenzy+Bloodlust in combo with Armored Grace and Mob Stances is also great in order to have high AR with relatovely little recovery. Blood Thirst with Mob Stance is a very potent combo against weaker mobs. You kill one: you will automatically attack the next one AND you'll have 0 recovery after your next regular attack. Usually that means the next enemy will be dead very quickly, too. And so on... But watch out: a confused Brute will cleave into your party members (besides hitting them with Carnage, too). You might knock them out very quickly. If you use the Battle Axe Amra with Riven Gore you might even destroy them (permanently killing them) with a Cleave from Mob Stance. Things like an upgraded Modwyr or the enchanted Devil of Caroc Breastplate can completely prevent that (they will remove confusion instantly).

What do you mean? You expect somebody to compensate you for some virtual ingame money? And why would you ask me - a fellow forum member and player - that question? I think it's a better solution than running around with a char you're not happy with or saving loading an older savegame and losing a lot of progress. If you want to get that expensive item first then maybe run around with the non-optimal char a bit and retrain later when you have more money. You will figuratively swim in it at some point I think.

Sorry, late response - I've been away for a work thing for over a week. I think nobody here is including those infos because you can look most of them up in the official wiki: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Official_Pillars_of_Eternity_Wiki So repeating that info (like where to get which item etc.) in every build is not needed. Thus this thread (that doesn't say "guide" by the way but "build list") simply lists fun and powerful build combos and ideas - and opinionated debates, yes. It's a forum after all, not a wiki. That's what we as forum users seem to like and settle on when it comes to character builds. They are not guides that hold your hand from start to finish and tell you every detail about what you should do. They are more like elaborated (and tested) build ideas that work well and can give you inspirations, not firm instructions. You can follow them bit by bit or alter them to your taste - since the game is so balanced it won't hurt the experience much. And maybe that's also why most players don't go into every detail but only outline the impactful stuff mostly when it's about building a character. Yet most builds I read here do note every race, background, skill, talent, ability and item even if it's not crucial. Complete game guides can be found here I think: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/687020-pillars-of-eternity/faqs I haven't used them - but since some other gamefaq-stuff I read is very decent I suppose those are good as well. If you still cannot make sense of the game(s) and need help please feel free to ask in these forums and you will get help. I suggest to not use detailed guides etc. because the games are better without spoilers and also they are balanced very well from a mechanical standpoint. You cannot really screw your first playthrough up with a "bad build" - especially if you start on normal or veteran difficulty. Both games are pretty difficult at the beginning and then feel easier after the first levels - so don't feel discouraged or fear that your character build is bad. That's most likely not the case.

Why don't you retrain that companion? It's not expensive and you can make sure to pick the correct abilities and talents anew.

Yes sorry. Got the words mixed up because of Driving Raor/Dazing Shout etc. I guess. I like the Witch multiclass, but a Brute has more staying power (if both Berserker) and also the Berserker's confusion can get into the way of Cipher powers (because foe-only spells will cause friendly fire and so on). But the Berserker's confusion can also be used to cast certain cipher powers in unexpected ways (like casting Amplified Strike on an enemy instead of an ally and causing damage twice that way, anchoring Ectopsychic echo to an enemy instead of an ally...). Personally my most favorite Berserker combo is Berserker/Helwalker with the Saru Sichr Morning Star - but it needs a lot of attention.

Single Class Berserker isn't that common because the Berserker Frenzy gives you Tenacious. It helps with a lot of offensive abilities (be it a damaging spell or weapon attack). Berserker also grants you a nice melee crot chance that can be combined with other classes "on crit" effects (for example Monk's Swift Flurry). Also the self damage of the Berserker tends to scale very steeply. Picking a multiclass that can counter the damage - or at least make the character more sturdy - are more popular than SC. But as @Elric Galad said Driving Roar or Dazing Shout are excellent. And they profit from the Berserker's Tenacious Frenzy, too. You really want high CON and a good healer in the party though. Also make sure to take Blooded. It works with every form of direct damage (so with Driving Roar etc., too) and it helps you to see when you are under 50% health. It also stacks with Humans' racial ability "Fighting Spirit". Human is a good choice for a Berserker because you will be under 50% health a lot and so Fighting Spirit will kick in a lot, too. A Berserker under 50% health with Blooded and Fighting Spirit will deal really nasty AoE damage with Driving Roar. Those shouts do target the enemies' fortitude defense. So imo it's beneficial to take Spirit Frenzy over Blood Frenzy. Spirit Frenzy will daze on any hit (Driving Shout included) and that means -10 fortitude for the enemy. Makes the following shouts a lot easier to hit. Here's a test with Serafen as Barb at level 20 with Driving Roar (and Blood Thirsty as well as the Blood Surge ability to regain some Rage after kills):

I agree with Kaylon that the Furyshaper is the best subclass for a single class Barbarian since the Blood Wars is so very good (and the fear ward, which comes real. early if you are a single class Barb, is very good, too). The Blood Ward works with any sort of damage the party deals, even damage over time. It gives the whole party (if inside the AoE of the ward) - especially those members with a lot of damage output - a "passive" healing capability which stacks with any other source of healing. On the Barbarian himself it works very well with Barbaric Retaliation and Battle Axes + Bleeding Cuts (the battle axe modal) because the Bleeding Cuts last a long time and they do stack - so the Blood Ward will grant you a constant stream of healing ticks from the damag over time you will cause with your axes. The Barbaric Retaliation will trigger attacks with the axes (+Bleeding Cuts) that have no recovery, so the added recovery time from the modal becomes less of a problem. The Barbarian's attributes don't influence the accuracy, AoE etc. of the ward by the way. You can use a Priest's Withdraw spell on a ward (it counts as an ally) and thus prevent its destruction by enemies. It will still work its magic but will be totally safe so you needn't fear the debuff of loosing a ward. Like Kaylon also said I value high CON on human barbs. The single class Barb has the biggest health pool of all classes, so the added percentage from CON means a very big chunk of health in absolute numbers, making the Barb more sturdy, less prone to go down, yet being able to operate under 50% health without too much risk. For a SC Barb with high CON 50% health can be about the same as other characters' 100% health. Low RES fits a Furyshaper thematically I think. It also means even lower Will defense for the Furyshaper (who already gets a malus as a subclass). Fortunately low Will isn't as bad as having low Fortitude (which usually prevents the most nasty disables). Frenzied Barbs with high starting CON and decent MIG have an exceptional Fortitude defense.

I wouldn't downgrade Monk because it's the overall best class for multiclassing imo because it can contribute and synergize in so many different ways - AND it's great as single class, too. But Wizard (especially Blood Mage) can be extremely potent, too. Especially with Wall of Draining which lets you keep any sort of beneficial effect for a long, long time (even really short ones like Escape's super short +50 deflection).

It is certainly not Unbending. Summons prevent your whole party from taking damage, Unbending only protects the fighter. In order for it to be very strong so that you can outheal most things the fighter needs high INT and decent MIG. It's also not a very early ability - I think those things have to be taken into consideration when compiling a list, too. Unbending also doesn't protect the Fighter from disabling or debuffing effects at all. If you get hit by an Arcane Dampener your healing is gone, if you become enfeebled or suffer a similar effect it's not as useful. And as you said it's gone if the Fighter runs out of Discipline. Since we are looking at the classes seperately I don't think it's viable to make the argument that one could uphold Unbending with the help of a Cipher. That would be a point for the Cipher but not the Fighter imo. With the same line of argument we could put the Druid in a higher tier - because with the help of a Cipher the Druid could heal the whole party forever... or cast unlimited amounts of Great Maelstrom which ends almost all fights. Chanters do not run out of phrases, so in theory their summons can absorb infinite amounts of damage - and also disables and debuffs which would hurt the party otherwise. A Chanter with infinite summons (and his party) are indeed under near zero threat of dying. That's how you can easily kill the Crystal Empress or win over Dorudugan: you don't even need to come out of hiding (boring of course, but effective). About micromanagement: We are back to the argument I made: that a list based on "what's enjoyable to play" might make more sense. Enjoyable to play doesn't mean "just have fun and do whatever". It means the class is potent enough to be successful (else it would be frustrating and where's he fun in that?) but at the same time not tedious to play. And it would have some very entertaining, "cool" abilities. They might not win you boss fights but they can make you hoot and holler. Chanter summons are absolutely tedious to maneuver and imo not much fun at all. Most players even consider a Ranger's Animal Companion an incarnation of tedium. But since we are not judging fun and convenience I think the point about added micromanagement isn't valid: But even then: in case of Dorudugan the Chanter can switch to the Many Lives Pass By phrase and send one skeleton after the other to the enemy - every 3 secs (as Troubadour with Brisk Recitation). It's zero micromanagement (they are run by AI like a Wizard's Phantom or the Monk's Dichotomous Soul summons), enough to distract any single enemy from your party - and they don't count towards the summoning limit so you could add aome Ancient Weapons and order those to attack with their special attack abilities, too. this helps the whole party, not just a singular character. Here's a Psion/Troubadour Ultimate run vs. Dorudugan (by @abot) using summons:

PPS: The Herald tank (Paladin/Chanter) is considered by many (at least here in the forum) to be one of the best (if not the best) party character there is. I don't like it particularly (again the "fun-to-play" side vs. effectiveness) but it's undeniable that it is very good to have it in your party in general. Now for me it would be tricky to sort this piece of info into a tier list of classes somehow.

Summons do not require hit rolls to be impactful. They work in every encounter no matter how high the defenses and armor of the enemy are. Simply by being an additional body and a distraction that enemies do not ignore. As I said: they are a walking CC effect. Three Animated Weapons for example are hard to kill, deal a great amount of damage and last for a reasonably long time. A Troubadour with Brisk recitation can keep them up. At the same time the Chanter isn't a stone pillar. He can still act and do all sorts of things: shooting fanstastically fast with a reloading weapon for example while giving the whole party more shooting speed with Sure Handed Ila (which affects reloading weapons twice by the way for 2* -20% reloading time). I like to use an Arbalest + modal to prone all sorts of enemies while still reloading reasonably fast. Even against pierce immune enemies this takes them almost out of the game and is great for disrupting the most damgerous foes - just with reloading speed and a modal. This has good impact on the fight, too - even without the summons which come on top. A Fighter, while decent, cannot compete with that sort of impact. Also a Fighter's coolest tools like Unbeding might get nullified when he gets hit by an Arcane Dampener - which happens a lot at higher level content. It doesn't matter when summons get hit by it - or turned into a piglet. Also dead summons count towards "allies defeated" triggers. That's a good reason to have a single class paladin with Divine Retribution in the party because their Zeal becomes infinite, too. One can do a lot of impactful stuff for the party with infinite Zeal. For example a Kind Wayfarer can use White Flames for an infinite amount of times, healing the party and dealing damage non stop. Granted, that's late game stuff... And this is why it's so hard to make a reasonable comprehensive tier list of classes in Deadfire. You can always pick out stuff that is great about a class and ignore - or better circumvent - the shortcomings. And the performance depends so much on the way you play and on your party composition, on the experience of the players and how they utilize those classes and their abilities or even items. I would say it would be easier and also useful to make a tier list for beginners maybe - and favor classes that are impactful without too much knowledge about the game. Like Fighters are. A Barb is harder to build well than a Fighter for sure. Monks might be more difficult to grasp at first because of their wound mechanic - and so on. Such a list I could more easily get behind I think. PS: I'm not really upset about the entries in your initial tier list of course.

I edited my post above to give an example whlie you were writing, sorry. I'll quote it here again: A hint - when it comes to pure mechanical prowess - is to look at the ultimate achievements. There's chanters there but as far as I remember no Devoted. Tactician is there (because potentially unlimited resources). Granted, that's a very special solo experience and some shortcomings of the fighter (for example limited resources) don't matter that much in a party. But it's a hint nevertheless. https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/The_Ultimate#The_Ultimate_Roll_of_Honor

It's fun to make a tier list I suppose. But for Deadfire it's (in my opinion) absolutely impossible to make a simple yet comprehensible tier list of classes and not give out false impressions/information. The game mechanics are way too complex for this, at least if that tier list is about the standard way to play: with a party of 5. For solo performance this would be a lot easier. So I would make clear in that video that the resulting list is mostly based on personal opinion/experience and that the (multi)class mechanic and the overall balanced approach(!) as well as the small but impactful changes that subclasses give as well as the different difficulty settings that do alter the composition of encounters(!) lead to so many potentially good build variants that it's impossible to do the game and the audience justice. One example: the Psion (Cipher subclass) is one of my favorite classes in the game because it plays so very differently than any other Cipher - because its focus mechanic is totally different. At the same time the more "regular" Cipher subclasses (except Beguiler) and the vanilla class are of little interest to me. So how does one include this into a simple class tier? Another example is that Rogues perform so much better in the lower difficulty settings than on the higher ones. And so on... Imo it's much(!) easier to make a tier list that is based on the base criterium "how enjoyable is the class to play?". Obviously that's a subjective assessment and a matter of taste - but people accept different opinions about taste a lot easier than than opinions about stuff they think are "facts". And since having fun is the most important thing while playing a game I think it's very relevant. While it's interesting to know which classes were more fun to play than others, such a tier will not trigger experienced players to object that much. Like [Chanter below Fighter] and [Wizard below Cipher] as a general statement as well as [Druid and Paladin below Rogue] def. upsets me just by looking at it. At least when it's about classes in a party. For solo it's rel. easy to sort the classes with unlimited resources above the ones with limited resources. That's not that important in a party though and especially not on the lower difficulty settings. One little example why I think Chanters are more impactful than Fighters in almost any party: they have unlimited access to summons. Summons are the most impactful thing to have in Deadfire (besides several cheesy effects of course). Nothing the fighter can do comes close to an unlimited supply of summons. Now, is it fun to summon lots of creatures and do a ton of micromanagement in order to win a fight? I guess not for most players. It is fun to withstand punishment with Unbending and deliver some cool crits and drop enemies with a cleave and so on? For most players it may be. Does that make the Fighter more impactful than the Chanter in general? I would say "not in the sligtest". But it might be totally valid to place the Fighter higher on a "fun to play" list.

But what about your party members (if there are any)? Btw.: one usually cannot stack affliction resistances (like with items and abilities). There's only one layer of resistance and the next wouidxbe complete immunity. However, if you sing the chant that gives you resistance to perception afflictions, you can clear a tier 3 affliction like Blindness phrase after phrase: first phrase lowers Blind to Disoriented, the next phrase lowers Disoriented to Distraced and so on. If you already have resistance to perception afflictions from items or abilities it starts with Disoriented->Distracted of course.

It is def. safer with Confusion off. But it's quicker to start the avalance of Chillfogs with Confusion on. Best approach imo is to start with Confusion - and when enough Chillfogs got created quickly switch to a weapon setup with a fully leveled Modwyr in order to get rid of the Confusion. That way all the active Chillfogs immediately become foe-only. Of course any other way to remove confusion also works (for example let a Priest cast Prayer for the Spirit or something like that). But switching is the easiest way because it always works (also during recovery or hard disables, even when the game is paused).

But once you killed one of them (which isn't that hard) the resulting Chillfog, in combo with Confusion, will kill another one, resulting in another Chillfog and so on. Also, the Skeletons from Ancient Brittle Bones are stronger with the Troubadour, that's right - but the skeletons from Many Lives Pass By are similar for Beckoner and Troubadour. And those are the ones that make the build a lot more playable at the higher levels because you don't have to manually summon them and "waste" a good amount of action and recovery time. In the earlier game Beckoner's skeletons are easier to exploit though, that's correct.

Indeed. I sometimes use the class combination (Berserker/Beckoner) with very high INT and Amra (and a backup Morning Star to cover all types of physical dmg) instead of Grave Calling. Just because using Grave Calling makes the game stutter and sometimes even crash - bc. of too many stacked VFX effects.

Imo Berserker because Blood Thirst and a heal-on-kill pet in combination with killing your vessels is great.