Boeroer

I would have gone for "Shadow Cheddar" from England - but that's personal taste I guess.

If they are fun for a whole playthrough - or don't make a playthrough too easy and don't turn your charcter into a one-trick pony. If the cheese is so strong it makes most stuff too easy and makes all other stuff meaningless it's not fun anymore. For example the Draining Touch Grimoire trick is cheesy, but it doesn't really break the game - yet is powerful enough to be fun to play. Same with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure with Assassin/Wizard casting only CC/debuff spells which won't break the invisibility. Resonant Touch + Whispers of the Wind with Hand Mortar & Fire in the Hole is gamebreaking and cheesy (Binding Smoke generates Resonant Touches). But it comes so late that it doesn't make a whole playthough boring. It's more like a really good reward. Same with Avenging Storm and Hand Mortar (also Blinding Smoke). Although here it becomes boring if you use a scroll of Avenging Storm instead of a genuine ability - because you can get access to the scroll a lot earlier. Streetfighter with Powder Burns is borderline boring for me personally. But maybe because it's so obvious. Stuff like Brillant + Salvation of Time or Wall of Draining is already too strong and dominates everything the character does so that's too boring for me in the long run.

Just keep in mind that most people just don't bother to write something into "the internet". So what you get to read are often the outpourings of passionate users (passionate for whatever reason) - or simply wackos. I should have said "most players who voiced their dissatisfaction with Sagani", not "most players". That brush was way too broad.

Maybe. If it's legit: the reasons for that are obscure. There was a study some years ago in Germany that showed that progressives (compared to conservatives) are more empathic, have a higher IQ and also higher education on average. I couldn't find the original study now but this other one from London basically says the same (German newspaper) : https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/iq-und-politische-einstellung-konservative-sind-weniger-intelligent-1.13440 At the same time that original study also showed that conservatives were happier/more satisfied with their lives. Like the graph above the study didn't say what the reasons were. It was simply not part of the study to ask for reasons like it isn't part of the graph. For example one could assume that dumb and ignorant people have an easier time achieving happyness and therefore develop mental illnesses less often. Or maybe it could be that intelligent people tend to try to get rid of mental illnesses via doctors and medicine - while the dumb ones are more likely to just beat up their wifes and kids to vent some steam or try to solve their problems with mass shootings more often - on average of course. Not speaking about individuals... Who knows? Graph & study won't say. It's a mystery and everything we can do is speculate. Of course one could just go forth and draw quick conclusions that fit their agenda and confirm their biases and then be a prickish dîck about it. But that would be... dumb.

Especially like Dorudugan: *giant metal construct epically leaps into battle* - *gets poked by tiny toothpick* - *ouf*

I guess it's just a projection of those players' inability to play PoE-Rangers and the resulting frustration with the class - and not that Sagani isn't well written. Most players don't seem to be able to tell "I don't like it because duh" and "It's not well written" apart...

This falls into the same category as this: Because Armor of Faith buffs your DR universally but Form of the Delemgan "only" buffs pierce-, corrode-, shock-, crush- and slash-DR. You can apply this stacking "rule of thumb" to everything in Pillars (and Deadfire): if one effect (buff or debuff doesn't matter) affects a stat universally and another one affects it only partially then they will stack. Hastening Exhortation and Alacrity affect both the exact same thing and are both active effects: no stacking. What stacks with Hastening Exhortation: Durgan Steel effects (on weapon and on shield), Armored Grace, Speed (enchantment on weapons), Bloodlust (passive), Gauntlets of Swift Action (considered passive for no reason iirc), Anitlei (passive), Sure-Handed Ila (only ranged), dual wielding, Two-Weapon-Style (iirc additively only - but still stacks). Everything else will suppress Hastening Exhortation if >20% or will get suppressed if < 20%.

If you keep on to him a bit it will be rewarding. Single Class Wizards do become very powerful. Besides the very good tier-8 and -9 spells he also will gain access to impactful spells a lot earlier than a multiclass. If you have trouble with friendly fire: there are some good spells that are foe-only. The best ones (imo) have friendly fire though. That's where Intellect (INT) comes into play. Slicken/Chillfog etc.: those are very good spells for such low level tiers. I'd even say extremely good. But you have to make sure that your buddies don't step into it. The yellow indicators for your area of effect (deep yellow circle + lighter yellow ring) show you which parts of the spell will do friendly fire (the deep yellow circle) and which parts will be foe-only (the lighter yellow ring). If you have enough INT (or other bonuses for area-of-effect size like Aloth's armor or Ring of Overseeing) you can place those spells in such a way that enemies who stand right besides your front liners will get affected by the light yellow ring but your buddies won't get affected. I mentioned Wizard multiclasses because some of them bring their own accuracy buffs. Like the Assassin/Wizard who can cast a very precise CC/debuff from stealth (or invisibility) with +25 accuracy - which is a massive advantage, especially early in the game. You can build such an Assassin/Wizard into a great debuffing/crowd controlling machine as well. Once you get a grimoire from the Archmage Arkemyr (that is possible rel. early in the game) you can cast the unique spell "Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure" from it - which makes you invisible for quite a long time and thus will give you the Assassin/Wizard's +25 accuracy buff. Usually invisibility breaks as soon as you hit enemies (with whatever attack roll, be it damage, debuff etc.). The obscure "special sauce" (which is not hinted in the tooltip) of Arkemy's Brilliant Departure is that it only breaks when you deal damage(!). That makes it the perfect spell to shower enemies with CC and debuff while being unseen. Its invisibility will not break as long as you don't deal damage, meaning you can cast the nastiest stuff on them with +25 accuracy - and all the while be untargetable and undisturbed by enemies. Imagine a Miasma oDM with +25 accuracy, followed by Arkemy's Dazzling Lights with +25 ACC, too. This will lower an bunch of enemies' Will defense by solid 50(!) points which makes them the easiest prey for your Troubadour/Psion's mind control spells or his "Killers Froze Stiff" invocation (whtever he wants to cast which targets Will). The charm or dominate effects of the Psion/Troubadour will mostly likely critically hit then - which means they will last 50% longer (which is huge). Also note that the Psion's "Lingering Echoes" effect (+20% duration) will stack with the longer durations from critical hits. Very, very long mind crontrol times can be the result. With a Psion/Trouabdour I also could perma-paralyze enemies that way because Killers Froze Stiff with 20%+50% duration (and maxed INT) lasted long enough so that I could recast it before the old cast wore off. However, also a single class Wizard can achieve good debuffing results if he has a Priest buddy. "Blessing" raises the Wizard's accuracy by 5 and "Devotions for the Faithful" will add another 10 points (of yourse you could do the same with the Assassin/Wizard which would make his accuracy from stelath/invisibility even more bonkers...). At the same time the Power Level of SC Wizards is higher than multiclass ones which also effects the accuracy a bit. Then you can make sure to wear some perception gear (like some early unique headpiece - see Horns of the Bleak Mother - for example) and some accuracy gear (Gautlets of Accuracy). Once you have cast Minoleta's Missile Salvo you might not want to play multiclass Wizards again. But stuff like a shady Assassin/Wizard is also very cool.

The formula for the attack speed calculator was implemented by @MaxQuest who pulled it from the game code iirc. As I said: speed buffs that stack often do so multiplicatively and thus if you already have some speed bonuses that stacks with Hastening Exhortation then it may seem it works better than advertised in the tooltip. Since it's an active effect it doesn't stack with other active effects. There are exceptions like Sure-Handed Ila. This is implemented in a way that it's in another "group" and thus stacks. Same as stuff that buffs deflection will stack with a buff that affects all defenses: will stack; or an active, universal buff to ACC (Disciplined Barrage) that will stack with a specific buff to "only" ranged and melee ACC (Devotions for the Faithful). But Hastening Exhortation doesn't stack with Swift Aim, Alacrity, Frenzy, Swift Strikes, Spelltongue's speed buff and so on. If you don't have any of these then Hastening Exhortation mas be useful to you. Yes, then it would make sense to use it. I didn't advise against it, I just said it's not popular because of 3/rest - answering your question why it is in so few builds. Yeah - it doesn't. But can still be used for other party members if you don't have other active speed buffs for them.

Quarterstaff has a base dmg of 18-24 (avg. 21) at 8 PEN while Concelhaut's Draining Touch has a base dmg of 24-32 (avg. 28) at 7 PEN so I would argue that would be better - if you are willing to use the grimoire-switching trick to keep the Draining Touch after successful hits? Not really highest dmg per hit but nice spammable weapon dmg output that maybe not many have discovered yet: You can combine a Helwalker with a Berserker and use Amra + Efficient Anguish to apply both Wanton Gore and Carnage to the initial target (and not only enemy bystanders) - because Froce of Anguish/Efficient Anguish pushes the target into the Carnage area after applying the initial weapon dmg. That means you'll get an extra +33% raw dmg bonus from Carnage and +33% slash dmg bonus from Wanton Gore if you crit (or use Riven Gore for only 25% but the instakill of enemies with less than 50 health left). This cumulates into very good damage per crit imo. Around 150-200 for Efficient Anguish (including Turning Wheel and Lightning Strikes). This cries a bit for Swift FLurry/HBD because of the crits though but Lighting Strikes also works of course. You can top that with Bloody Slaughter against Near Death enemies for the additional +50% crit dmg. Is that whole character concept great for soloing? Not really... Berserker Frenzy is just too risky. But fun with that good spammable dmg!

Heeeey - what has two thumbs and was probably right? ;)

Frostseeker is pretty great for a Ranger/Cipher since no other combo can have such high accuracy + Driving Flight. Don't know why you want to use a Beguiler as subclass when you're looking for dps though. In that case an Ascendant is better imo.

I played a solo PotD Geomancer (Stalker/Bloodmage) which was pretty fun. I used the trinity of Geomancer, Bear & Essential Phantom. But it was micro-intense. In my case that was no problem of course... since it was solo. Example: I soloed Neriscyrlas without any resting bonuses and bonuses from consumables (not even food) and destroyed her quickly. Or I should say my Phantom did... I didn't try Megabosses though.

Immunity to disengagement attacks: Engagement is not affected. The immunity just converts 100% of all disengagement attacks to misses. That's on Nomad's Brigandine. Same with Giphon Prudensco. Entonia Signet Ring works as usual. Stuff like Grog (pet), Threatening Presence (Barb) and such grants immunity to engagement. Entonia Signet gives no bonus because there's no engagement. In fact Nomad's Brigandine works really well with this setup because you can just break engagement, trigger disengagment attacks and all of them will be misses - which means Offensive Parry will trigger every time. Perfect to speed things up and lauch a bunch of Offensive Parries against slow hitting enemies who engaged you. You only need to step away a little bit.

Yes indeed. Psion is a Cipher subclass who doesn't need to use weapons in order to generate his "spell fuel" named focus. It just comes to him like a steady trickle. Just avoid getting hit because that will stop the trickle for some time. But that's easy because of all the summons & mind controlled foes. You'll rarely have problems with getting attacked too much. Troubadour is a Chanter subclass. It has a passive called "Brisk Recitation" that lets you gather phrases a lot more quickly. Like with a Psion, Chanters' "spell fuel" comes with time: they sing phrases. For every elapsed phrase they get a point which can be used for "invocations". Summoning a bunch of skeletons for example is done by such an invocation. The good thing about Psion/Troubadour is that while you are using the one fuel the other is reloading. The phrases can be used to load up invocation points for summons while the focus loads up and can be used for mind control then. The other good thing is that besides gaining resources so effortlessly and being good at summoning/mind controlling a Psion/Troubadour is very versatile (if you let him be). Healing, support, debuffing, crowd control, damage - it can all be done with such a character. Imagine you meet a bunch of enemies who can't be mind controlled (e.g. imps): just shock them with "Soul Shock" instead. Or there are enemies who can move across the battlefield easily and just circumvent your summons to get to you: paralyze them with "Killers froze Stiff". And so on. But generally speaking the combo of mind control + mass summoning is very powerful. It's good to have some kind of Wizard in the party. Preferably one who can cast debuffs with high accuracy (e.g. Assassin/Wizard or Arcane Archer/Wizard or something like that) because a well-placed Miasma of Dull-Mindedness will lower the Will defense of enemies by 40 points straight and that's the defense your Psion/Troubadour wants to overcome.

Like a 6th party member would be annoying I guess...

Sharpshoter/Troubadour with Red Hand and Gunner, Sure Handed Ila, Sharpshooter's Garb, Acina's Tricorn, Aefyllath Mith Fyr is fun.

Wizards have no summons besides Essential and Substancial Phantom* (which are great though since they get all your items you currently wear) and no charm or dominate. But you can do both with one character: summoning tons of creatures AND charming/dominating foes. Use a Psion/Troubadour and focus on summons (Troubadour) and Mind Control (Psion). Start with summoning Skeletons and charming enemies with Whisper of Treason. Just note that charmed enemies will turn hostile again if you or your allies hit them. So leave them be until they flip alliance back. Later you can dominate foes (no flipping back wheh hit by allies) and summon additional skeletons "passively" with the phrase "Many Lives Pass By". You ca fill half the screen with friendly creatures this way and gang up on the only remaining hostile enemy. Repeat until all enemies are dead. )* and maybe some tentacles later

I might remember that wrongly. I did a test about additional attack rolls (Disengagement Attacks, Offensive Parry, Riposte, Swift Flurry, Cleaving Stance etc.) and focus generation a while ago and some of those don't generate focus. Maybe Riposte did, not sure anymore...

How did you determine the time need for a swap? And did you guys know that you can swap SoF etc. a lot faster if you move the mouse cursor a tiny bit on the icon after each click? That way you will prevent the game from registering a double-click.

Why massive? It doesn't stack with other active speed buffs like Swift Strikes, Swift Aim, Deleterious Alacrity or Frenzy and 20% is not particularly high. However some speed buffs in PoE - if they stack - will have increasing returns. So if you already have Durgan Steel, Gauntlets of Swift Action and maybe even Sure Handed Ila (which does stack with Hastening Exhortation) then it might seem supergood. But its effect does the same as for example Swift Aim and is worse than Frenzy. I mean it somehow is good because its duration is quite long. But 3/rest makes it unpopular really - even though x/rest has the advantage that you can indeed use it x times in one encounter when you really need it - and just skip it if you don't. I would be tempted if it was 4/rest - like most spell uses are. 4-5 big fights per rest sounds reasonable. Resting every 3 fights seems a bit too frequent.

Yes, but the freeze-paralyze which circumvents resistances does proc with the Chillfog-crits - and that's what matters most. Focus is coming anyway for a Psion - Soul Mind is not a reason not to use one of the most powerful effects in the game. Would be even better if you gained focus from it, but still extremely good imo.

I would strongly recommend to use Berath Blessing points to unlock the merchant in Port Maje. The Cloak of Greater Deflection makes a difference. Bracers of Greater Deflection come way later. Entonia Signet Ring comes rel. earl in Fort Deadlight and is very good if you fight enemies who have engagement. Offensive Parry and Riposte will stack (Offensive Parry is a single target retaliation while Riposte does the normal cone attack of WotEP) but only Offensive Parry will generate focus. I personally favor Nomad's Brigandine over Casita Samelia's Legacy or other armors (when with party) because the +10 to melee deflection is rel. hassle-free, the AR is good and also the immunity to Disengagement Attacks is just great with Offensive Parry + Riposte (because the immunity is handled like a 100% auto-miss).

Don't be discouraged. The Digside fight is just too difficult compared to the other content around. You can sneak around and avoid the fight - and maybe that's what Obsidian wanted you to do - but most new players just reload and reload until they become extremely frustrated. Maybe not the best encounter design in hindsight. If one knows the mechanics better it's not that tough - or one addicentially or knowingly has more front-loaded characters in the party. But rel. new players will notice a huge spike in difficulty. Don't give up - it gets a lot easier after that.