Boeroer

I wouldn't take it. It does provide an instant wound and +3 ACC on activation but that doesn't warrant the 2 Mortification imo. You could retrain once you get Instruments of Pain though because that often leads to getting hit a lot less. But the ACC still wouldn't stack with Borrow. Instincts so I don't know...

Curse with maxed INT isn't a problem if you also max RES and focus on items and food with -x% hostile effects. Because maluses are far more impactful than bonuses in Deadfire the effects of 10 INT vs. 30 INT aren't that far off IF the maluses to hostile effect duration are big enough. Especially when combined with a high-INT Clarity of Agony. If you solo you can also use the Ring of the Lone Survivor which adds another big malus to hostile effect duration. High INT is only a "problem" in the early-ish game. But there you don't need to spam FF that much imo because less enemies.

Phew - that explains a lot.

Your passive "Faith and Conviction" will get worse. That means the defensive bonus it provides will go down. Not really dramatic if you want to play an offensive character. If you don't want to have that you can always pick stoic, rational and so on - as long as you don't pick benevolent or diplomatic dialogue choices you will at least get no malus. There are a lot of aggressive options that aren't "evil" so that's no problem. The cruel options are often cringy - but even there there are some that don't feel too bad.

Yes, very good. The shock damage also helps to circumvent a lot of PEN issues, too. Look at Iron/Steelclads. The modal + Enduring Dance to counter the acc loss is bonkers. Very viable setup. Also achievable so early. Once you get Borrowed Instincts you rarely need to turn the modal off even. Just go full speed all the time. Stuff like Kitchen Stove (Thunderous Report usually ascends you right away if you hit a few enemies with it) or mortars (AoE blunderbusses from Serafen) are also very good (dual damage, target reflex). Watershaper's Focus + Blast also great if you can hit multiple crowded enemies. The AoE jumps one time, too and Ondra's Wrath generates focus when it procs, ascending you at once. Rod + Bmast also usually suffers from PEN issues but Hammering Thoughts + Thunderous Blows do help a lot.

Maybe one also has to distinguish between quality of writing and quality of storytelling or pacing. The writing in Deadfire is as good as in PoE - if not better (the Beast of Winter is especially good). The main story is a bit short though and presented in a "hopplahopp there we are" way. Where PoE's story took too long to develop and suddenly rushed forward, Deadfire's main plot was over before you even realized it. Or you got overly distracted by side quests that let you wonder if the whole Eothas problem really is so urgent after all.

If you are talking about the English versions and really believe that then I can't take your criticism seriously when it comes to the quality of writing. Might turn out that WOTC has novel prize worthy writing now... I tried Kingmaker and the quality of writing and the non-funny goofyness were so bad that my toenails figuratively curled upwards. D:OS games are not that much better, but sti better. I cut the devs some slack because English is not their mother tongue and I assume the Russian version is much better. I mean the German version of Deadfire is pretty bad, too - so maybe comparing the English version of Kingmaker with the English version of Deadfire is a bit unfair - but still: I have to play them in English since my Russian is not good enough anymore - so I can only compare that. Same problem with Larian (also not native speakers and my French... you have to excuse it ;)). Yet PoE and Deadfire are like... leagues better in that regard. That doesn't mean that one has to like that kind of writing or that it makes it more popular or easy to consume - but in terms of quality its objectively better and there mustn't be a single genuine discussion. Of course that doesn't make PoE or Deadfire "better" games. D:OS 2 sold a ton more than Deadfire - and Kingmaker was also more successful. Which leads to the assumption that they did more things right for the average audience than the Obsidian games did. Unfortunately non-goofy writing and non-cartoony graphics are important to me. I don't like 3D in party RPGs. It always looks too cartoony and also generic to me. Maybe WOTC is better - I didn't look at it until now. I love the more gritty, artistic approach Obsidian did - even if it comes with huge downsides (loading times, performance issues...).

Ascendant/Helwalker is supergood imo. Tops SC Ascendant easily for me. Offensive phrases are great in combination with "The Champion" invocation because you can interrupt enemies via chants then. With Brisk Recitation that means interrupts in an AoE every 3 secs (on crit). Yet the best phrase to run all the times is Many Lives Pass By imo. It comes late though. I mainly used Killers Froze Stiff as invocation. Its duration can be so long on crits that you can perma-paralyze enemies. Because Cipher's Lingering Echoes (+20% affliction duration) also works with the invocations. Her Revenge is also very good at all times. Ben Fidel's Neck stacks with nearly all other debuffs so that's a good alternative when enemies are immune or resistant to Killers. The Charming invocation is also good. In the early game I could spam Killers + Soul Shock all the time nearly non-stop without enemies being able to do much - except die.

Nothing special. I used the ones of the Berserker/Skald who was the MC in that savegame and whom I turned into a Devoted/Bleak Walker with the console. But FoD gets massive PL bonuses at high levels (those are multiplicative) I already had 14 PEN on the staff without PL scaling and Scion of Flame, so 15 + PL scaling (I guess another +2). Then it was a crit and Devoted + Improved Critical + Overpenetration + Inspired Beacon + Sworn Enemy + Weapon Spec + Weapon Mastery + Two Handed Style + Chromo's dmg bonus via Metaphysics skill + FoD's double lash + the Chromo's lashes leads to such numbers. It's not even tricky to achieve: sneak to enemies and cast Inspired Beacon from stealth: no recovery because out of stealth. Then Sworn Enemy (no recovery anyway). Then Eternal Devotion which really profits from the PL scaling and the lahes, followed by Clear Out (it hits the initial target twice which leads to such high numbers, the individual rolls were about 100 each). It's not really micro-intense besides the Inspired Beacon part which could be left aside (but it's a nice setup for other party members). I didn't even use Retribution! But I had Infamous Captain which adds +5% - so that balances it out a bit I guess. Might was 17. So nothing wild.

By the way I just rolled a Devoted/Bleak Walker with the Chromoprismatic Staff and did a 170-dmg crit with FoD, followed by a 204-dmg Clear Out, nearly two-shotting the dummy I was attacking before I could even finish the 5 consecutive hits. The Helm of the White Void did not work on the FoD attack itself, but with Helm of the Falcon, Devil of Caroc and Abraham as well other shenanigans I get to a recovery time of only 2.5 secs (from 4) which is cool. FoD accuracy was 134 in my case. Clear Out had 114. That's better than I expected tbh. I use the community patch which moderately addresses some of the Paladin's and Fighter's subpar abilites though. So grain of salt and all that.

In TB a Black Jacket can switch weapon sets as a free action - which means he can attack with the most offensive weapon setup and then afterwards freely switch to the most defensive one to await the attacks of enemies.

I was more addressing the "terrible idea" in your post, not that other class combos can do more dps (at least until they get knocked over, hehe). I don't think Crusader is a terrible at all. It may not be very exciting in most cases but def. not terrible. Especially not for beginners. I think Crusader is a good pick for a beginner if you really want to roll a Devoted multiclass. Somehow Devoted is very popular among new players (while Black Jacket es extremely unpolular). I guess most players initially dislike the idea of switching weapons but rather like to "marry" themselves to a certain weapon. Fantasy tropes and all that. On the other hand Devoted isn't that impactful on the lower difficulties anyway (which would be difficulties a beginner might choose)... eh I've run into an argumentative dilemma...

Not really worth it if you want it to be your main weapon and if you wish to do melee dmg mostly (no matter if Devoted or not) imo. As backup weapon it's great if you use the scroll I guess. But I don't like using scrolls so I'm not an expert on that matter.

I wrote above why Devoted/Paladin specifically can have a good dmg output. The point still stands. But I can go into more detail to make the point more clear: A Fighter can deal good - and more importantly reliable - dmg. Paladin with FoD + Ring of Focused Flames, too. You can combine both. Once you get Clear Out the martial damage ouput of the Fighter side will be great: it's rel. cheap, has a big AoE component and hits the initial target twice(!) which makes it even good against single targets. It's good with Chromopr. Staff, too - because you only need three attacks to trigger the AoE (instead of 5). Also: Eternal Devotion adds 10% lash on top. Nice. At the same time a Fighter/Paladin can survive their own Sacred Immolation quite easily which adds significant damage output. Should he go down there's multiple ways to get back up again - even stronger. Turning the "meat" into dmg. The combined +10 ACC from Disciplined Barrage and Zealous Focus (+5 PER and +5 ACC) and the +20 ACC from FoD translates to damage output that you won't always see in the indiviual hit numbers. The multiple graze-to-hit conversions do the same. Those are more like "hidden" damage bonuses because they don't lead to high numbers but consistently above-average numbers. Armored Grace and Mob Stance add have a significant influence on attack speed which directly translates to dmg output. So on average the dmg output will not be that far off from other martial combos - because your hit quality, attack speed and PEN will be great. If you picked a Bleak Walker you could even wear the Helm of the WHite Void and do your FoDs with +40 ACC I guess. That's great accuracy for a 1-Zeal attack. And you can get back zeal by killing enemies, too. At the same time you will be hard to kill even if you put most ability points into offensive abilities. And if you don't: you can achieve great defenses and encompassing resistances to every affliction with very few ability points. Dead or disabled characters don't deal damage. As a party you also spare action time that you would otherwise have to use for CC, countering afflictions and healing to babysit your more potent but more squishy damage dealer. This can also translate to more dmg outpout - if not from the Paladin/Fighter himself then from the party. It's not that easy to evaluate the offensive impact of a class. It's not like you could watch at the bare dmg bonuses and conclude this character will lead your party to more dmg output. As always it depends. Paladin/Devoted can be build into a good offensive character. Maybe he will take a bit more time to kill stuff - but he will finish the job very reliably and can also crack the really tough nuts. Maybe he's not rushing from squishy-kill to squishy-kill like a Monk/Rogue would do but often that's only cool but not necessary ("winning more"). Besides that one of the highest (non-cheese) weapon dmg output you can do is with Cipher/Ranger + Frostseeker - so I dare to question your simplified assement of which classes will boost martial output the most and which won't (sorry ). In TB mode you might have some more points. But as OP said it's a RTwP build. So it's not all about dmg bonuses, it's also about PEN, speed and hit quality. And also a bit about not going down too soon. I'll give you that Paladin/Fighters can be quite boring to play though - at least until you reach the higher levels. So myabe some won't like that for MCs. On the other hand for AI-controlled party members this can be a blessing. I have to say that Paladin/Fighter is not really a preferred class combo of mine. I'm mostly playing devil's advocat here to give a more fair review of Paladin/Fighter as offensive option.

That is indeed nice. Iirc this only works with summons that are not on auto-AI right? So for example normal skeletons will work, but skeletons from Many Lives Pass By (great phrase with Brisk Recitation for a Psion/Troubadour by the way: enemies will not come at you because you're throwing skeletons at them without even blinking) cannot be targeted. By the way: combining mass-charm with multi-summmons (e.g. Ancient Weapons + Many Lives Pass By) lets you create an army of flipped + summoned allies that can gang up on few remaining hostile enemies - which can be extremely powerful. And right before the charmed ones flip back you shower them with an AoE from the Debonaire/Wizard. Perfect synergy: an SC Paladin with Divine Retribution who then gets +2 Zeal for every summon that gets killed (by enemies or your own spells).

The Soul Mind focus generation of SC Psion is better due to Power Level - but you will still have more casting downtime compared to Psion/Troubadour. The (not that much) better focus generation cannot compete with the dual resource generation. Also phrase generation doesn't stop on getting hit (or crit) which is a nice backup - and unlike chanting Soul Mind doesn't stop after invocations. I played Psion/Troubadour and it was one of the most entertaining classes I used because it was so versatile: damage, CC, debuffing, summons, healing, support - he can do it all and is also his responsiveness is great if you invest into DEX and you're not armoring up like crazy. I had almost no "waiting" time. Weapons can be pure "stat sticks". It also helps that a lot of the Troubadour's invocations are 0.5 sec casts which makes it all more dynamic. Another plus of the Troubadour: 1 empowered invocation per encounter via Sasha's Singing Scimitar. Late game: combine with the Weyc's Wand. The good thing about he Psion/Troub (always something to do) can also be a bad thing for some people: because he won't work with AI so well he needs attention. For me that's okay if it's the MC and I'm fine with micromanagement in general. And I even a SC Psion would need that anyway so maybe in this case it doesn't matter when it comes to comparing the two. I'm usually an advocate for Single Classes because I think they are underrated in party setups - but in case of Cipher in general I'm not that much. The high level abilities aren't as impactful imo as the ones of Wizards, Priests and Druids for example. Time Parasite can be very cool - but it doesn't help the focus generation of the Psion like it would do with the other Cipher subclasses so there still would be more downtime where you wait for more focus. And SC Psion's weapon attacks are really nothing to write home about (no Soul Whip bonus for example). I haven't played Psion/Wizard so I can't say how nice it is - but I would assume it would be more fun than SC Psion, too. Speaking of Wizard: If I were playing with a party and did another Psion/Troubadour, this time I would bring a Deboniare/Wizard along. Nice synergy: the first mass-charms (Ring Leader or The Lover Cried Out - doesn't matter) while the latter already prepares and then fires off a friendly-fire AoE spell on the charmed enemies with 100% crit conversion. No PEN issues, good dmg. Also a nice thematic fit imo.

Cool. Very elaborate.

I like to juggle Grimoires and try to take mostly passives with a Wizard. But the spells I always want to be able to cast I will pick eventually.

Devoted/Monk is a good combo imo. Swift Flurry + Hearbeat Drumming can be cool with Disciplined Strikes and the Chromoprismatic Staff (5 consecutive hits - sometimes possible with only one attack), Thunderous Blows stacks with the Devoted's PEN bons, the quarterstaff modal stacks with Vigorous Defense and fits nicely with Crucible of Suffering, cone attacks with Clear Out and Raisen Torment and so on. Devoted/Paladin: I don't think they are offensively nerfed. FoD crits as Devoted are quite good as you very often combine the higher crit dmg of the Devoted with an overpenetration bonus - and landing crits it rel. easy with Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC) + FoD (+10 ACC) and Disciplined Strikes (25% conversion). Devoted/Wizard was mentioned above (good). I also like Stell Garrote/Bloodmage. Like all Arcane Knights: top notch defensively. The life drain of the Steel Garrote stacks with the one from Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff - which is cool. If you also have an SC Furyshaper with Blood Ward in the party and a Chanter with Old Siec (they all stack) you will be the uberdrainer. Devoted with quarterstaff has one problem: can't use Monastic Unarmed Training or Transcendent Sufferring (as Devoted/Monk) as crush backup. Quarterstaffs already deal crush dmg. And there are none that deal other dmg. I case you meet crush immune foes you have to live with a -10 ACC malus. But that's not too bad imo.

And that's one big turn off for me.

Hi and wecome! First of all: if you want a Druid then pick up Hariavias. He's fun imo (and good). Priests are one of the best classes in the game (I would even say the best) because their buffs are so insanely good, they can provide immunity with their prayers (which is important because some afflictions are really nasty) and at higher levels also have very good offensive spells. At lower levels it might not be that obvious how good they can make your party. But if you know some tricks they can have a big impact at low levels, too. Tanking is not the best option for a priest like Durance. His Resolve is okay, but he's still a priest (meaning his starting defenses are bad) and he is quite slow. This means it takes some time for him to put out spells - and every chance that he gets interrupted by enemies makes this process even slower. Better use Aloth for tanking if you must. He has very fast self buffs that help with defenses a lot. Later you can also use Sagani's Fox. He will go down from time to time but Animal Companions have no health bar (only endurance) so it's not bad if he gets pummeled - he won't force you to rest because of low remaining health. I always strongly recommed to take Inspiring Randiance for any Priest. It provides a +10 ACC bonus for everybody in range. It's rel. short-lived - but it can help enormously to land the first debuffs/CC abilities of your party. And that can make fights a LOT easier, especially in the first levels. Also Inspiring Radiance's ACC buff stacks with EVERYTHING (even itself if you have more than one Priest). You can combine it with Zealous Focus (Paladin), Disciplined Strikes (Fighter) or Blessing (Priest) - and because the tier-4 Priest spell "Devotions for the Faithful" also stacks with those a Priest can provide a stackable +30 ACC bonus to your party. Which is huge. That's like 10 levels worth of accuracy. What helps Durance a lot to become a better buffer is higher casting speed. The easiest way to achieve that is low recovery penalty from armor and more importantly: more DEX. DEX not only affects recovery (like all other speed bonuses do) but is the only(!) thing that also speeds up the casting time itself. So if you see some item with a bonus to DEX: give it to Durance. Attribute bonuses on items don't stack - so just pick the item with the highest DEX bonus. Another way to give him more DEX for some time is using Aggrandizing Radiance. It buffs all attributes by 2, including DEX. It's also short-lived but it gets applied at the same time as Inspiring Radiance (so no additional casting time) and helps you to cast your first important buffs in battle faster. I like it but it's not everybody's cup of tea. Durance can wear a shield no problem. But I wouldn't put him where he constantly gets attacked. You could turn him into an offtank and it might work - but it will slow down his spell output and that's what makes Priests so valuable, not their tanking capabilites or their weapon usage. I usually have him use an arquebus and give him the fitting weapon focus and priest talent - sincee this gives him the same accuracy with the weapon that a fighter has. So he can also shoot stuff reliably if you want to spare some spells or are simply out of spell uses. You could also give him the Forgemaster Gloves + Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and let him use Firebrand. That's a summoned Great Sword made of flames which is thematically fitting. Good thing is that summoned weapons will just profit from any weapon focus and also any of the priests' weapon talents. The are "universal" which is cool. Soulbound weapons do the same, so that's also an option. Sword + board also works well because he comes with good Resolve as I said. But that's mainly to discourage enemies from focusing on him, not for real tanking. Enemies prefer to focus on soft targets. If you give him good defenses via a shield they will often target somebody else and won't disturb him. Usually it's the arquebus for me though. It's convenient and works. It has high dmg per shot but is very slow. But a Priest doesn't shoot non-stop anyways like a Ranger would but may only want to shoot every now and then between spells - so that's okay. Theoretically you can build Priests in all kinds of fashion - melee, nuker, healer, buffer of course - but Durance has a rel. particular set of attributes which make him most suitable for buffing and healing I think (good MIG and INT for buffing and healing power but low PER, making it harder to actually hit enemies).

If I were you I would have done a second playthrough of PoE with the WM expansions. They are quite good imo and I think PoE has a lot of replay value. Currently a third installment of the PoE series is not likely to happen because in comparison to PoE,Deadfire was not a convincing financial success and the developers were pretty disappointed. Deadfire broke even some time ago so it wasn't a financial desaster - but I guess as developer/publisher you just expect more. Maybe the the aquisition by Microsoft and the Game Pass programm there's still hope, but so far there are no official infos about it. The next game set in Eora will be "Avowed", but it's a 1st-person game like Skyrim etc., not a isometic-ish party RPG.

With "irresistible" I meant that Resistance won't do much. Guess the wording was too fuzzy. Immunity is something else of course. I knew from my latest Psion/Troubadour run that there were quite a lot of enemies with resistances and some with immunities - but I couldn't remember specificly annoying high level immune enemies. I didn't fight the Water Dragon but made the deal - else I would have rememberes that... I guess. And I was too lazy to properly research the wiki because doing a quick text search with "immunity to dexterity" yielded quite chaotic results. Thanks for the list.

It's 3 per rest (not encounter). Per-rest abilities are very unpopular.

Okay, you go first. I'll be right behind you, I promise...