Boeroer

Sun & Moon has quite some impact on a Skald because you get two chances to crit (the weapon has two flail heads and does two attack rolls per strike). Generally speaking a Skald profits a lot from high ACC, crit conversion but also high attack speed. So stuff like fast weapons (flails, daggers etc.), Two Weapon Style, Frenzy, Streetfighter's passive and so on increase the phrase generation a lot. For example: If you play a Streetfighter/Skald Sun & Moon + Pukestabber, Miscreant's Leather, Abraham pet, Blackbalde's Hood, some booze and get flanked your will be generating phrases VERY quickly. Same with Berserker/Skald. Thematically I find Berserker/Skald pretty nice. Both subclasses' names are of norse origin so it fits imo.

Arcane Knight is a solid pick. I would suggest Steel Garrote/Bloodmage if you don't mind that order's dispositions. Didn't try it with a complete solo run but this combo is great with Whispers of the Endless Path/Offensive Parry - because you can drain life from melee attackers (because Offensive Parry dazes which automatically unlocks Steel Garrote's life draining) while casting Wizard spells/doing Blood Sacrifice/casting Inspired Beacon and so on. Also the dazing helps a lot to mitigate incoming damage that might otherwise penetrate your armor. Obviously for soloing you need more than one weapon setup anyway. But I find WotEP with high deflection and Offensive Parry very fun as soon as you get attacked by a lot of melee enemies (e.g. in the Hanging Sepulchres etc.).

OP said "not using broken stuff". I find Wall of Draining + Unbending or Blade Cascade etc. pretty broken.

WotEP also has the neat side effect that "Offensive Parry" generates focus which you can spend right away for Soul Annihilation. Paladin/Cipher can reach pretty high deflection due to Borrowed Instinct + Paladin's stuff.

"Most powerful" is always tricky. I don't think there's a definitive (objective) answer for that since it also depends on how you play. I would say the most foolproof combo is the Paladin/Troubadour. Really hard to kill and yet plenty of offensive options. Go for high defenses (shield) and AR and stack Ancient Memory with Soft Winds of Death or Their Courage and Exalted Endurance and include some regeneration gear, get some good defensive armor (like Nomad's Brigandine, Magnera's Chain and so on). You don't need Berath's Challenge for Gouging Strike. Combat will not end until the enemy withg Gouging Strike is dead. But note that Shadowing Beyond and Arkemyr's Brilliat Departure will break oin DoT ticks. Smoke Veil however will not break. When it's about "most easy" solo experience I would always vote for Paladadin/Assassin with Lover's Embrace + Brand Enemy + Gouging Strike. But it's not on the list above and it feels cheesy (although it doesn't use loopholes). It's ridiculous how early you can kill almost everything - if you are patient.

The game object "boar tusk" is only a scaling pierce weapon. No raw lash and also no wildstrike lash. It all seems to be applied as passives as soon as you shift. Edit: just checked in game with SHifter Boar + Wildstrike: the description of the tusks (once you shift) doesn't change at all. There's no word about raw lash or elemental lash. So it's def. passives that get added with the shift.

The cat claws have the same base dmg as the boar tusks and come with 3 sec recovery instead of 4. While the boar's raw lash doesn't seem to be part of the tusk weapon the shorter recovery of the cat form directly comes from the weapons. So I guess I would hire a cat adventurer now to get the claws.

Hm, the ones you can give yourself with the console don't have the raw lash. I guess it's tied to the actual spiritshift ability. Also I cannot reproduce your bug. My quarterstaff is still there after the procedure.

I never encountered this specific bug with Spiritshift weapons, but I reported several of similar ones with Draining Touch, Spirit Lance and Citzal's Enchanted Armory. You could summon those, use Form of the Fearsome Brute or Spiritshift and then let the encounter end while still transformed (don't know if that last part was really necessary). You ended up with permananent, removable Draining Touch, Spirit Lance and so on. This was then fixed shortly after my report. It seems they missed what you discovered now. Edit: I would hire a Shifter adventurer and then get my a nice pair of raw lash Shifter-Boar tusks. Those are awesome weapons and it would be fun to use them on some non-Druid builds.

For versatility Troubadour is the best pick. Brisk Recitation and the longer Linger Time (when not using Brisk Recitation) are great. Bellower is very strong with some of the high Power level spells, most notably Eld Nary's Curse. Skald is good as melee guy with a focus on offensive invocations. If in doubt I would pick Troubadour.

Yes, INT increases the duration of the curse. But maluses like from RES have a bigger impact than the numbers suggest (due to some mathematical shenanigans under the hood) so it's not too bad as long as you have a lot of "-x% hostile effects" going on. Without Berath Blessins you can simply substract 2 from every stat and be good.

I personally would invest more into INT and less into MIG. Also because the cone size of the Whispers of the EP is influenced by INT. Mediocre MIG is okay.

Here's a quick animated gif I made some while ago with a Steel Garrote/Trickster to give an impression how it's working (attention, 200MB image behind the spoler tags) :

I like both Steel Garrote/Soulblade and Steel Garrote/Trickster with the Whispers of the Endless Paths as main weapon. Key is the enchantment "Offensive Parry". It will proc on every melee miss of enemies and will not only damge them but also daze them, unlocking the Steel Garrote's life draining. Soulblade: Offensive Parry will generate focus via enemies' melee misses. You can then release that focus with Soul Annihilation. Trickster: Offensive Parry stacks with Riposte and gains bonuses from Sneak Attack and Deathblows etc. Both variants are a fun and potent mix of offense and defense. You want max RES and get all RES- and deflection bonuses you can get. That means Cloak of Greater Deflection, Bracers of Greater Deflection, Entonia Signet Ring, Casita Samelia's Legacy or Nomad's Brigandine or Giphon Prudensco, Mask of the Weyc and so on. I personally like Nomad's Briganine best because it also has decent AR. Also use Blinding and other debuffs like a Priest's Devotions for the Faithful, Desponent Blows and/or a Wizard's Miasma of Dull-Mindedness to reduce enemies' accuracy. With Nomad's Brigandine you can also enchant it with "Tactical Withdraw" which makes you immune to disengagment attacks: it turns every disengement attack against you into a miss --> procs Offensiv Parry (and potentially Riposte, too). It's not necessarily your sole main tank but a great hybrid and versatile: tankyness, damage, healing, support, CC - all in one package. When some single targets are left over it's often best to switch to a weapon which is better against single enemies.

A Paladin is a good healer. Don't know what those guides are talking about. Not Druid level but still good.

Hi and Welcome. You posted in the wrong subforum (PoE instead of Deadfire) - but no big deal. Maybe a moderator can help to move this into the proper subforum, @Amentep? Generally speaking: there are some classes who have fixed resource pools. You don't get those points back during encounters. Those are Paladin (Zeal), Fighter (Discipline), Rogue (Guile), Barbarian (Rage) and Ranger (Bond) and Monk (Mortification, although Monks have a second pool named Wounds which is refillable). But there are ways to get back a bit of those resource points you spend or to extend your resource pool (which will grow with level of course). --- You can get back Zeal with the following things: - spend an Empower Point - Brilliant Inspiration (from spells like Cipher's Ancestor's Memory or items) - Chanter's "His Heart did fill with the Light of Dawn" invocation - Virtuous Triumph - Devine Retribution (this also works with summons - if you have a Beckoner or Troubadour in the party who can summon a lot of weak creatures then your Zeal is pretty much endless) - you can get +2 Zeal with the Devil of Caroc Breastplate - you can get a bit additional Zeal from resting in some special rooms in some taverns (don't know which ones from the top of my head) --- The most early option to get Zeal back is to use an Empower point. But it's limited per rest. The most effective way - until you get Devine Retribution - is to become brilliant and then use Salvation of Time (Priest spell) to prolong the brilliance. Ultimately nothing beats Devine Retribution IF you have a Chanter in the party who can summon weak but lots of creatures (look at "Ancient Brittle Bones" but also "Many Lives Pass By"). In the early game there is only Empower though. You have to make sure to only spend Zeal when it counts most and not waste it.

Sorry, late to the party. I build a patio in my garden so not much time at the PC.

I would bet it does. It seems the translucent images are not really optimized for performance.

Even better!

First: tell me what "SwF" means. Outside of pistols single weapon usage is good in the early game but falls behind later (compared to dual wielding and two handers). There are exceptions though. Usually that involves weapons which have some special effect on hit, on crit or on kill (see Sungrazer, Skullcrusher, Scordeo's Edge, Stalker's Link, Grave Calling, Magistrate's Cudgel etc.). For example Edér can be made into a decent single spear user. Grab Stalker's Patience and enchant it with "Mercy Strike". Then try to stack as much accuracy and crit conversions as possible (One Handed Style, Disciplined Strikes, Dirty Fighting, your Ranger/Troubadour can cast "Killer Froze Stiff" and so on). Have some backup weapon for pierce immune foes. Like a mace (e.g. Magistrate's Cudgel) or so.

Dazzling Lights only works on enemies. Neutral NPCs usually only get lured away by Sparkcrackers. But besides that: yeah!

Don't think there is. I don't know if you can reduce the number of images - I guess it's a hard-coded visual effect? But I think it would be rel. easy to remove all the visual effects from Mirrored Images with a mod.

I think I'd use Sharpshooter/Troubadour. The slower recovery will be countered by modal, Gunner and Sure Handed Ila (there is a bottom cap for reload speed anyway). The +1 PEN or crit conversion is nice. You can use CC/debuffs and also let your animal companion do some damage while preventing it from getting knocked out with summons.

For a single pistol build you want high ACC and action/reload speed. If pistol damage alone is your concern then Ranger is nearly a must imo - because of the accuracy bonuses and the Gunner ability + Driving Flight. As second class I'd recommend Beguiler (Borrowed Instincts is great and you can combine weapon damage and Deceptions for focus gain) or Troubadour (running Aefyllath + Sure-Handed Ila) since they both will improve your shooting but also provide a lot of other utility for the party. Which is more important than a smidge more pistol dps imo. They also don't have full attacks so a single pistol doesn't induce the "but I'd rather use those full attacks with two weapons" thought. Devoted also works - but you need to get Eccea's Arcane Blaster asap because there will be enough pierce resistant/immune enemies later on and you don't want to switch to a non-pistol since it will give you -10 ACC which hurts in combination with the pistol modal. I'd recommend getting the blaster anyway - but with Devoted it's even more important. A Wizard will not improve your shooting much. But a Wizard should provide a lot of other options for a party. If you still want to buff up your shooting damage with a Wizard you should look at the Essential/Substancial Phantom. It will get all your gear, including your weapon. It will not have One-Handed Style and will not use the modal or any of your abilites - but it will get the +12 ACC from single handed usage and will use all passive gear enchantmens. Then it's two guys firing their pistols, not only one. If you use Scordeo's Trophy with the ranged enchantments then phantom can get to really nice shooting speed after a while. If you meet very high DR foes then two Eccea's Arcane Blasters are better than one obviously. I played a Debonaire/Beguiler with single pistol. No extra speed buffs but the combination of charm + crit conversion made the lower ACC a lot less impactful right from the start. Since a Beguiler doesn't need to deal damage to gain focus it wasn't a big deal that shooting charmed enemies with almost guaranteed crits won't give you focus - but deal good damage. Scordeo's Edge has an enchantment that lets crits do extra damage. Mind Control is always good. And if you can finish off a charmed enemy with a Devastating Blow + crit that's cool. Or a charm-crit with Disintegration. It's not about the shooting dmg in the first place but since Debonaire is a Rogue the shots still have oomph. There's lots of options. But get Eccea's.

I would leave it. There's other speed/weapon stuff that also works for all weapons equipped - most famously Blade Cascade.