Boeroer

You might want to avoid casters then (those develop inbto the strngest classes during the game but require the most micromanagement by far), glass cannons of all sorts and most Monk builds (they are awesome but often require a lot of micro, too). You want to favor sturdyness over damage output. A class that can be build into a very low-maintenance party member but yet be very effective is a Chanter, especially once he gets "The Dragon Thrashed" phrase at level 9. He can basically just stand there and kill stuff with that "passive" chant. It's very good. You can even habe several of them - they all stack their chant damage. Other classes that don't require too much micromanagement are Fighter, Ranger (but you are adding another body to steer around), Rogue (if not build into a squishy), Paladin and Barbarian (after you level him up a bit or go with reach weapons like Pike or Quarterstaff). You can build Monks with very low micro, too if you focus on cumulating wounds for the bonuses abd keep onto them instead of spending them all the time. I guess the most effective yet lowest maintenance party would be six tanky Chanters who first go with Soft Winds and later 5 switch to Dragon Thrashed. All have Ancient Memory and the 6th sings Come Soft Winds + Mercy and Kindness. Basically you'll have 5 of those (or somewhat similar): And one of those: Here's a whole video series from @Raven Darkholmewhere he captured his 6-Chanter party.

Yes, I think there's no reason to pick vanilla Rogue at all. Trickster will always be the better alternative. The little less Sneak Attack dmg is such a minor drawback compared to the great abilities you get. Debonaire is great with Wizard if you have a Cipher with Ring Leader or a Chanter with the charming invocation in the party. The Debonaire/Wizard can then get 100% crit conversion on all charmed enemies because a lot of his AoE spells cause friendly fire. That removes most issues with PEN. Debonaire/Cipher is more limited - but pretty cool for Disintegrate-crits (or Soul Ingnition). And the good thing about Disintegrate/Soul Ignition is that they don't even flip the charmed enemy back to hostile.

Well a lot of people miss that it not only has an AoE attack (which warrants the lower base dmg) but also has a 15% crushing lash (multiplicative dmg bonus) AND +1 PEN which can make a huge difference even against single targets. Even without Offensive Parry it can be insteresting because its recovery bonus enchantment is good as well. It's not the best 1:1 weapon of course - but it's not too bad at that either. Anyway: as soon as the mob is thinned out and you want to deal better single target damage you can easily switch to another weapon. Streetfighter with blunderbusses is lame imo (just too much power gained too easily which takes away all the fun) - but there are some weird concepts with Streetfighters that are really fun for me. For example a shock-themed Chanter/Streetfighter with Deltro's Cage Helm and Sasha's Singing Scimitar who summons two Whisps that shoot disorienting shock bolts at him which causes him to speed up like crazy and give him a lash (that stacks with Mith Fyr and Scimitar lashes). It's like two floating essence batteries that "load" you up with energy and it's not only powerful but also thematically very cool. Also works very well as ranged build with reloading weapons like Red Hand if you use Sure Handed Ila - or a Hunting Bow with modal (Essence Interrupter) which leads to unbelievable attack speed. But yes: in general Trickster is the coolest rogue subclass, I agree.

Yes, most of the number parts are generated. But there are several mechanics that are quite outlandish if you compare them with the "standard" ones that the generation fails to deliver useful information. Disintegrate is an example where the DoT is implemented differently from other DoTs and therefore the original generated number stuff is misleading. The textual descriptions below are not generated - and I guess those "fixed" parts are kept vague for a reason: since the devs knew that there will be several belancing passes after release they didn't want to be too specific lest they have to update the description every time they changed an ability. THat way they can just tinker a bit with the numbers but leave the time consuming "wordy" parts out. I personally would have done a final "tooltip" patch then which would specify all tooltips once I'm sure that not much will change anymore. But maybe that's too expensive. It would be sufficient if the description was vague but the number part was more detailed and systemic though. I mentioned it several times elsewhere: Slay the Spire (roguelike deckbuilder) has a lot of combat mechanics which are very systemic (yet very interesting) - and its generated tooltips are superb and leave no questions unanswered. Very nice example of a tooltip system done right. The tooltips have nearly no flavor text but it wouldn't hurt them - as long as the numbers are explained/displayed very cleary you can add all the text you want imo.

Not really. I think they are not really aware since that complaint is not a very frequent one. At least I didn't hear any of the devs addressing this in detail. I guess other complaints just get more attention because the players bringing them forth are louder. I also think most devs deem it too unimportant because it's a single player game and it's enough if the average player vaguely knows what's happening. No idea, just speculation.

My biggest complaint since PoE. There's just too much "arkane" knowledge for a normal player to handle. You don't get what's going on without doing a lot of digging and that can be off-putting and frustrating. If only both games had a system implemented that automatically generated correct and precise tooltips. Currently the mechanics of a lot of abilities are not systemic enough and the resulting tooltips are often too vague or just wrong. Stacking rules: still not clear and so on. I mean I have no problem with that. I even enjoy that digging. What else would we talk about in this forum if we didn't have all those things to explain to each other? But I imagine the normal player is just annoyed by that.

I won't argue against that.

Steel Garrote/Trickster is a great combo as well because Offensive Parry dazes on hit which not only unlocks Sneak Attack but also lets Riposte and Offensive Parry heal you. Deflection is top notch, too. Unbroken/Trickster is also nice. Especially because you can engage a whole lot of enemies and once they cause too much damage cast Repulsive Visage which forces them to break engagement and *wham* Disengagement Attacks with big dmg bonus. Mirrored Images stacks with Refreshing Defense by the way. Lots of options with Whispers of the Endless Paths... ;

An idea: Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke counts as weapon attack (even though it doesn't deal damage). With Clear Out (hand mortar in main hand, melee or bashing shield in offhand) you can generate nearly thousand of attack rolls if the enemy stand tightly together. I didn't try but you should be able to not only flank all enemies via disorient from the smoke but also interrupt so many times that your discipline may be full again. Doesn't do anything for the Skald side though.

I nearly always use Edér as main tank (Swashbuckler or Fighter doesn't matter) and it works. He isn't the most effective tank - but with a second "off tank" like your Troub you will certainly be fine.

I mean it's ok to approach the game in whatever fashion you like - whatever gives you joy. But it's something else to then assume everybody has the same approach and that your struggles are theirs as well - which then leads to abysmal sales numbers. Especially if I follow a quite... pedantic way to play.

DEX does nothing for Ripostes - those attacks will get executed "invisibly" without an animation or recovery. But DEX is still an impactful stat for all offensive actions so I wouldn't drop it too low. You'll get +5 from Swift Flurry which is good. As Trickster you'll get enoug dmg bonuses so you don't really need high MIG. High PER is useful for an MC if you are going with official companions becaus non of them has very high PER - but you need high PER for some hidden secrets etc. CON doesn't need to be high. INT shouldn't be too low (but since you get some with Turning Wheel you can get away with good but not maxed INT) and RES should be high. It's indeed a bit tricky because you can't really dump an attribute. Something like MIG: 10 CON: 08 DEX: 10 PER: 16 INT: 16 RES: 18 could work I think.

Hey no worries! I didn't want to chastise you but just inform you. The thread got moved to the Deadfire forums nearly instantly by Amentep (the moderator I tagged) - so everything is nice and shiny.

Trickster/Shattered Pillar with Whispers otEP is indeed a pretty fun build. It's not tanky enough for the role of a main tank - but as sturdy secondary frontliner with good damage output it can be pretty exciting to play. Riposte from Rogue even procs a cone attack (doesn't generate wounds though) while the Offfensive Parry is a single target "riposte" that does generate wounds. They stack and that's cool. What I forgot: both Riposte AND Offensive Parry will be able to trigger Swift Flurry/Hearbeat Drumming which can lead to crit-chains quite often without you havinng to actually execute a "normal" attack. Ciphers do generate focus from Offensive Parry and the cone oE, too. I once played a Soulblade/Shattered Pillar (gaining both wounds and focus at the same time with Offensive Parries) with WotEP and that's viable, too. Especially because Soul Annihilation works with the cone AoE - giving every enemy in the AoE raw damage. Yes, INT is quite good for a lot of builds. There are some which don't need it but as soon as there's damage over time, debuffs, CC, buffs, healing over time, AoEs etc. involved you want more INT. One reason why Monks with their potential +10 INT are such good multiclass material.

It's the Diablo III approach where nothing about your character is set in stone, you don't have to commit or even decide anything and can adjust your playstyle on the fly at any time - which makes the character development incredibly flexible but also extremely unexiting and boring. It also seems to require a rather bizarre trail of thought to state a) "the game is too easy on hard" and then follow with b) "gotta retrain party every couple levels to cope with optimization" and "the game requires tons of meta knowledge and trial/error". 🤷‍♂️ And again there's little distinction between "I didn't like it, therefore I thought about not to buy Deadfire (but did it anyway so my point is moot from the get-go)" and "this is a problem that most likely happened to the majority of PoE players and therefore it's resonable to think it's the cause for dropping sales numbers". An "IMO" doesn't do the job (although better than nothing I have to admit).

INT influences all AoE sizes, including the AoE of hand mortars, Whispers of the Endless Paths and Lord Darry's Voulge - all AoEs really. But did you know that ranged weapons don't generate wounds for a Shattered Pillar? It has to be melee weapon auto-attacks. Cleaving Stance doesn't generate wounds either. Also Cleaving Stance doesn't proc off of ranged weapons only (one weapon - I think it has to be the right hand weapon - has to be melee in order to proc Cleaving Stance). Ranged weapons also don't work with Swift Flurry - so no crit chains. Swift Flurry procs also don't generate wounds (even if you are using a melee weapon). Mortars are great with Monks (especially with Stunning Surge), but Shattered Pillar is the one Monk subclass they are not great with I'm afraid. Helwalker or Nalpasca is what I would recommend when going for a Monk/Devoted with hand mortars. Use Dance of Death to gain wounds and use Stunning Surge and Penetrating Strikes. Lightning Strikes instead of Swift Flurry. Turning Wheel doesn't work with ranged weapons - the INT bonus does but not the burning lash - as long as you don't install the Community Patch (see my signature). If you don't use that you can skip Turning Wheel, spare the ability point and just use Duality of Mortal Presence (INT). Flagellant's Path is very good because it works with mortars, has its own recovery and therefore skips the whole reloading cycle of the guns. Whispers of the Endless Paths has an AOE which does geerate wouds for the Shattered Pillar. I also has a nice enchantment called "Offensive Parry" - those "Riposte" attacks from Offensive Parry do generate wounds for the Shattered Pillar(!) which makes that weapon a good pick - especially in combination with high deflection and with the armor "Nomad's Bringandine" which has an enchantment that makes you immune to disengagment attacks - meaning all disengagement attacks against you get turned into misses 100%(!). It allows you to break engagment and instantly do an Offensive Parry with the great sword, getting wounds in the process without wasting any time.

Yes: 87.5% - if all three attack rolls critically hit. The only Full Attack for a Tactician/Skald would be Penetrating Strike (and Cleaving Stance procs... but I believe those don't generate phrases - not 100% sure though). So thinking about One-Handed Style isn't unreasonable. Sun & Moon with Clear Out + One Handed Style is def. better for crits than S&M with Clear Out using dual wielding & Two Weapon Style. On the other hand Scordeo's Edge is very strong, not only because auf Blade Cascade but also because of the ACC bonus of Adaptive. Offensive chants only interrupt when they are applied (when the attack roll is done). How long those chants linger or overlap and also their tick rate won't matter. Ticks of DoTs never interrupt, only attack rolls do. A Troubadour with Brisk Recitation reapplies his chants very 3 secs (because his chant phrases only last 3 secs and then comes a new one with a new attack roll) while a Skald will do that every 6 secs (new attack roll every 6 secs). So Brisk Recitation is the reason why a Troubadour works better when we talk about "interrupting with chants". An attempt to interrupt every 3 secs in an AoE is better than the same attempt every 6 secs. Of course you must crit with the chants in order to interrupt. So I would pay attention to what defense is targeted by each chant and which defense of the enemy is the worst. For example Dragon Thrashed targets Reflex, The Long Night's Drink and Come, Soft Winds target Fortitude, Dull the Edge and Thick Grew Their Tongues target Will (remember the Wizard with Miasma + Dazzling Lights ->it just is good combo) and also removes Concentration(!). So you can have a dedicated chant for interrupts against the weakest defense ready at all times.

You can somewhat circumvent the action economy problems of ciphers in TB mode with either a Beguiler or a Psion. Both don't need to attack with weapons in order to gain focus. A Beguiler gets plenty of focus from casting big AoE deceptions (like Phantom Foes and Secret Horrors) so you can cast those spells non-stop - and the Psion simply gains focus with time (the focus gain scales with Power Level). If you combine a Psion with some other caster class you can always alternate between cipher and non-cipher spells without pausing - which is very nice because there's nearly no casting downtime. The advantage over pure wizard/priest/druid is that you have at least one unlimited resource pool. I played A Troubadour/Psion as pure caster which game me two unlimited resource pools which refill automatically and it was lots of fun. I reckon it works equally well in TB mode. But I can also see a Wizard/Psion working nicely.

I don't actually prefer RTwP in general. It's just so that it was the only mode when Deadfire came out. If Deadfire would have been shipped with Turn Based as main combat mode I would have used that. Usually I prefer TB combat because I'm starting to grow old and everything that induces hectic in games starts to annoy me (like Action RPGs, shooters, platformers... ewww). The pausing obviously helps... I played countless hours with RTwP and my expertise lies there - there is so much obscure knowledge I gained about RTwP in Deadfire... I'm not motivated enough to do all that again and dive into TB mode now. The main difference between RTwP and TB is everything related to durations and attack/recovery speed. It's true that all the things that makes you faster (DEX, action speed buffs, recovery reductions) have a lot more impact on RtWP than they have in TB. Haplok will get a forum notification (usually E-Mail but also the bell icon in the upper right will show a notification) from me tagging him. No need to contact him further.

I have zero experience with Turn Based Mode, sorry. Iirc @Haplok played some TB Bloodmage or so.

Skalds can't generate more than 1 phrase from an attack - no matter how often you crit with that attack. It is true that Sun & Moon and Clear Our etc. will give you a lot more chances to gain 1 phrase via crits in the first place, but you can't get more than 1. Still good though. Scordeo's Blade Cascade is great with a Skald: every (auto) attack is seperate so every one of them can generate a phrase but at the same time they are coming so fast that you can refill your phrase count very quickly. Due to the lower cost of offensive invocations a Skald can perma-paralyze with Killers (only 2 phrases) which is very cool, especially with highest INT. I nearly always end up ONLY using Killers Froze Stiff - unless enemies are immune or resistant to DEX afflictions. So maybe don't "waste" too many ability points on other invocations. But everybody plays differently so maybe that doesn't apply to you. Keep in mind that your max phrase count will be determined by your most expensive invocation - so at some point it's benefical to pick a costly non-offensive invocation even if you don't plan to use it. A Wizard with Miasma and Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights is a great partner for a Skald with Killers Froze Stiff because the -50 Will debuff is excellent to force crits with Killers - which gives you a huge duration increase. Variantion: Interrupting with offensive chants + Energized is better with Troubadour because he will interrupt every 3 secs instead of every 6 secs with Brisk Recitation. He can cast Killers as fast as a Skald if you ignore the Skald's extra phrases from crits (iirc).

Hello, you posted this in the wrong forum. This is the subforum for PoE, you want advice for Deadfire (PoE2). Maybe a mod like @Amentep can move this thread for you. Tanks should max Resolve. The returns for every point of deflection are increasing and Resolve directly improves your deflection. It's the same with the other defenses, but those can be buffed more easily and also don't get attacked as often as deflection. More about defenses and their increasing returns: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/defenses-are-increasing-returns DEX and PER are good offensive stats but also raise Reflex. But Reflex can also be raised with Weapon & Shield Style. Also large shields have a modal named "The Wall" which reduces damage from AoE attacks (spells for example) considerably. Most of those do target Reflex. So with a large shield the defensive impact of DEX and PER are not that important because you're already covered. The most important defensive stat in Deadfire is armor (AR). You should try to get the highest AR possible. The potential damage reduction it gives you doesn't sound like much, but the mathematics of maluses is quite complicated and obscured - let me just tell you that it makes a massive difference whether you receive a strike that penetrates your armor or a strike that has an underpenetration of 3. If you want to know more about the math read this: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/armor-and-penetration Summons are very strong in general. If you want to mainly call summons and/or give support via invocations you don't need high accuracy/PER. Same with healing. Only when you want to hit enemies with debuffs, damage and CC you will need higher accuracy. Passive healing like Ancient Memory is very useful, too.