Boeroer

Did you maybe have the pet "Grog" equipped? Chances are extremely small but maybe...?

It really is. After all those hours of playtime still.

Of course the dual mortars are best against groups of enemies. But even as solo Assassin you can group together enemies by simply using a lure from stealth (Sparkcrackers, setting a trap etc.). Then jump into the group with Bounding Boots (cancel the jump before landing, doesn't use the per-rest resource and won't hit enemies and works out of combat) and use Vanishing Strike right away, followed by Gambit until invisibility runs out. Enemies will be standing tight enough together and will be stunned all the time. It's a great setup against all kinds of encounters with lots of pesky mobs. You can't get rid of them faster than with this setup. And you don't even need any optimization for it so it's good as "alternative" weapon setup. Obviously it's not that good against single tough targets. I guess against single tough targets I would always use Scordeo's Edge + Battle Axe (+modal once Blade Cascade kicks in) as long as the enemies are not resistant to slash. With dual mortars you don't need Persistent Distraction - because Blinding Smoke from Hand Mortar distracts (in a cone) on crit. It usually triggers multiple times with every hand mortar shot against several enemies (because every of the initial AoE attack roll will trigger the cone if it crits). Usually all enemies are distracted then (if not immune of course). Also with Gambit they used to be extremely nice because the bonus dmg and crit conversion of Gambit (more dmg and conversion the more remaining Guile) got calculated with "internal" Guile during the execution. So if you did crit a lot with the AoEs during gambit's execution the bonus dmg climbed with every crit roll because internally it seems Guile climbed extremely high before it was cut back to +4. Don't know if that's still the case. But when I did that video I had Gambit rolls with +200% and more bonus dmg attached to them (on top of the other dmg bonuses). As you can see in the animated gif above you can kill a lot of cre_dummies with just three full attacks (and those were only Vanishing Strikes for demonstration, obviously you don't want to spam VS but use Gambit in between). Those dummies have a ton of HP (but low defenses). That's mostly because Backstabs with CP don't care about the base damage but simply add galt raw dmg (based on PL) to every tiny weapon hit that is <=2m away. While Ball and Chain is a great weapon it hasn't very good enchantments for the use under extended invisibility - as OP requested. No need to prone if enemies are stunned anyway. It's very nice if you are not invisible and/or if enemies are resistant/immune to might afflictions though. 100% crit conversion because you have 10 Guile is nice and all - but I don't think it's what the OP wanted since you can't use Vanishing Strike at all then. And I also don't think it's significantly better than having constant Backstabs and +25 ACC, +4 PEN as well as +50% crit dmg and auto-stun on crit. Because with lower Guile you won't have 100% conversion - but you won't fall flat to 0% either (and you also have other sources of conversion like Dirty Fighting and Uncanny Luck which is better with Cap installed) and get the additional PEN and ACC. BUT: in longer fights, when you would run out of Guile eventually with Vanishing Strikes, the almost guaranteed refunding via 100% conversion + Gambit is very good. Unless you just skip out of it with Smoke Veil or with the last Vanishing Strike and reset combat. I also forgot one won't want to wear Miscreant's Leathers because the Cabalist's Gambeson will give you longer beneficial durations and I guess that's what OP's would want to use then.

Right! Aspirant's Mark is very good in the early game indeed. Still useful later but especially good early on.

Mortars: If you are a Streetfighter then dual Mortars will be great. They are also great with an Assassin but the way to Vanishing Strikes is more fun with a Streetfigher since he can use mortars/blunderbusses to great effect even before he gets to Power Level 9. The AoEs get backstab bonus dmg as long as the targets are not further away than 2m. Since CP Backstab is not related to the base dmg of the weapon but is an additional fixed raw dmg per attack roll, you can stand in the midst of enemies and AoE-Backstab a lot of them with the mortar shots. Powder Burns makes shure you also trigger "Heating Up" in order to get higher Sneak Attack and very short reloading times for the mortars. If you use Vanishing Strike as soon as you are bloodied you'll get even more out of it (because then you'll also have a lot higher crit damage). Since your INT is already very high the mortar's AoE size will also be very big which is a good synergy. Here's what it looks like if you don't even use Gambit (which would be even better) but only Vanishing Strikes with dual mortars + Backstab + Community Patch as an Assassin: Melee: Sun & Moon: it's dual heads should grant two Backstabs per swing I reckon. It's also fast like all flails. It's great with Gambit because you'll have two chances to crit with only one swing (because dual head). Sungrazer can be used with an Assassin + Vanishing Strikes to great effect. Extinction Event can trigger often because the Assassin gets +25 ACC for all his attacks under Vanishing Strike which leads to a lot of crits which naturally will kill some enemies. This will trigger Extinction Event which will profit from all the dmg bonuses like Sneak Attack, Assassinante and Deathblows, Legendary etc., too. It does enormous AoE damage then. A setup with Sun & Moon + Sungrazer can work nicely with Full Attacks: Sun & Moon brings the enemy down and Sungrazer can already crit-kill. Also very good with Finishing Blow (it takes som time to get to Gambit after all). Stalker's Patience will be good, Rust's Poignard is also good since both are accurate weapons and come Legendary. Stalker's Patience should be worn in the offhand because the recovery-skipping enchantment is of no use if you do Full Attacks like Gambit as long as the spear in in the main hand. Because the main hand's recovery get skipped anyway with Full Attacks like Gambit. This is a bit counterintuitive though because normally you would want the faster weapon (here: Poignard) in the offhand. Like the flails both would not be my only pick though - because they only have one damage type (pierce). Actually a setup of Sun & Moon + Sungrazer in one weapon slot and Poignard + Stalker's Patience in the other would be good. Scordeo's Edge is absolutely great because of Adaptive (ACC for gambit) and Blade Cascade (high benefical effect duration is also great here). You can't guarantee Blade Cascade though and often I find it to micromanagement-intense to look at my guy all the time if Blade Cascade already triggered or not and how long it's gonna last and so on. But of course it's supergood when under the effect of Vanishing Strikes. I would combine it with a Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts because that's just top of the pops if you can skip recovery altogether. Then you would have a good crushing setup (2 flails), piercing setup (stiletto + spear) and slashing setup (sabre + battle axe). You can also do something like 1. setup with Scordeo's Edge + Sun & Moon, 2. setup with Scordeo's Edge + Rust's or so. Other good weapon setups when using Vanishing Strike (+ Gambit) with CP Backstab: Pukestabber: fast weapon, accurate, higher dmg, 20% higher action speed with all dagger attacks + Marux Amanth: fast weapon, accurate, +2 PEN at the start of combat for 20 sec base, chance of AoE attack. Use with Blackblade's Hood. Rust's + Azure Blade: fast, good enchantments, Mob Rule grants +15 ACC with Azure Blade which is great and leads to more crits - but you have to be quite near to 3 allies! But summons/animal companions count afair. Also use Blackblade's Hood. Keeper of the Flame + Xoti's Sickle with maxed Religion: the dmg bonus of the sickle can climb up to +60% iirc with high Religion - the speed bonus when standing near killed enemies is also great with high Religion. Keeper of the Flame does neat AoE damage with maxed Religion and you can get a small ACC boost - so why not? There is no "best" weapon setup in general because it often depends on the enemies you are facing. For example gainst risen undead, skeletal warriors or flame blights Rust's would be useless while Sun & Moon would be great. Having all three damage types at your disposal is a good way to use the optimal tool against any given enemy. In some instances it may be even best to use Animancer's Blade or Eccea's Arcane Blaster (since raw damage). Underpenetration is such a severe malus to your dps that it's nearly always batter to switch ot another dmg type that can penetrate instead of clinging to on weapon with a supposedly op enchantment. Against vessels you should use Grave Calling with Chilling Grave since it's the best against them. The Chillfogs it produces are foe-only and will get all the damage bonuses, too. THey will produce furhter Chillfogs on kill and get Backstabs. And so on. You see there's no clear "best" in general. Full Attacks with a ranged/melee mixed setup tend to be rather bad with Full Attacks because only the appropriate weapon for the current range will be used and not both weapons. Better have one melee and one ranged setup and switch if need be. By the way: If you want to be even faster than naked you should wear an armor like Miscreant's Leather + a pet like Abraham or Cutthroat Cosmo. That combo of recovery reduction and armor penalty reduction leads to a net attack speed gain compared to being naked. Which means you get more attacks out in a given time. Also make sure to wear Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak because Vanishing Strike allows to stun all enemies then with every attack which reduces deflection by 10 (more crits) and is great anyway. I believe that the Helm of the White Void will also give your attacks +10 ACC in this case because a stun effect is attached. It's a great headpiece to have as a rogue anyway (if you're not using it for a dedicated CC guy already).

It's mostly about experience of the player and meta-knowledge. No bad build is not 100% real, you can make pretty lame chars - but it's rel. hard. But there are some builds that - especially in a good partY combination - are def. way better than others. Most likely you just need a bit more practice. It's called "Path of the Damned" for a reason. And be assured: the difficulty drops a lot once you completed Act I. Funnily enough Act I is the hardest part of the game for most.

Really? Weird... I tested the blade again yesterday evening after posting the above - because I also thought that maybe a new combat would trigger the malus to reappear. I was in the Old City under the Gullet. I spawned several tiger and dummy encounters (which will trigger combat obvioisly) and every time the bonus didn't reset. Maybe "real" encounters have an additional trigger of some sorts? Anyway: even if it resets on new encounters: the bonus is very handy for scripted interactions it would seem. Also: you should be able to open combat from stealth with the bonus, right?

Divinities are not isometric (rotating 3D camera), has turn based combat and full multiplayer support. Sven Vince himself pointed out that after looking at telemetrics the overlap of Divinity and PoE players is rather small. Thus the conclusion "Divinity did well and Deadfire did poorly - therefore Deadfire did something wrong" is somewhat flawed. I mean it can still turn out to be true that Deadfire did something wrong obviously - but the aforementioned causal connection is not very strong.

Nerd Commando is covering a bigger amount of games which naturally leads to a somewhat superficial understanding of the mechanics of each game (one only has so much time at hand to deep dive into every game). So just forget what he was recommending. You can totally dump RES and go with no armor on PotD if you know what you are doing. High RES is very good if you are going for max deflection or if you expect to get hit frquently and fear the interrupts. Besides that it's of not much use. High DR is good in the early game but not really important later on. The DR values of armor doesn't climb nerly as fast as the damage enemies dish out and your own health pool - so the more you advance the less important it becomes. And yes, you are being impatient. Key to an easy early game is accuracy on PotD. Enemies' defenses are higher and since your starting ACC is low in comparison to the later game every point has high impact. the right class (Fighter, Monk, Rogue, Ranger who all start with 30), good starting PER but also one-handed weapon usage (+12 ACC), accurate weapon like spear (+5), Priest's Inspiring Radiance (+10), Blessing or Zealous Focus (+5), Weapon Proficiency (+6) etc. are very good in the early game, especially in combination they make a big difference. Combine that with good debuffs that make it even easier to hit the enemies, for example Chillfog (lowers deflection)! That one of the best early spells - I'd say the best. Also always use flanking (-10 deflection). Meaning attack from opposite sides. Makes a big difference at first. Then it's not hard anymore. Pike Bleak Walker is not a crap build by the way. It's nothing superspecial but not crap either.

Don't know why she isn't there. But you don't need to meet her. You can carrry on with the quest and find the "real" temple in the Old City and use the conches there. Then go back to Dereo. The quest would even resolve if you never talked to Dereo before.

It works on party members and summons alike. It's also worth noting that the bonus (from Sated and Sated Ravenous Hunger) doesn't expire when the fight is over but seems to be active until next rest. At least when I tested it lately (a few days ago only) it wouldn't go away after fights but only after I rested. If you switch the weapon it will go to no bonus/malus - but if you switch back it's still Sated (+2 or +3 to the 3 stats). Even if you put it into the stash and then get it back the bonus still gets applied. BUT if you give it to another party member they will suffer from the Hunger malus instead. So - totally worth it if you don't hand it around all the time.

I just tested it just to be sure and as expected the Forbidden Fist ability doesn't add stacks of Retribution. Funnily enough Keeper of the Flame's burn damage (which does an attack roll against you) also doesn't add stacks. But if you cast Minor Missiles on yourself (auto-hit, no roll) you do get 5 stacks immediately. So what do we make of this?

I can check in the (German) evening if/how it works exactly and report afterwards.

Didn't test this specifically, but if it works anything like Dance of Death and such it will only trigger upon actual hit rolls, not self damage. For example Dance of Deaths doesn't get removed from self damage no matter the source (Alacrity or Sacred Immolation or Forbidden Fist Curse or Mortification of the Soul and so on). So I'm 99% sure Retribution will not get triggered by Forbidden Fist or Hylea's Talons. Maybe it gets triggered by Keeper of the Flame though? Its AoE has friendly fire and even procs Avenging Storm, so it's not far-fetched to assume it also triggers Retribution.

Really weird. Did that fight a lot of times and never saw this. Maybe some unintended interaction of the multiple effects that were going on.

Good point.

I believe if the giant grub grabs you there is a chance that it might swallow you which mean instadeath? I never had that happen myself though - maybe you need to be near death in order to trigger that effect or something. I usually only engage the giant grub with my tank and he doesn't get damaged a lot. Sometimes he gets grabbed - but after some wiggle-wiggle-wrestle then just gets slammed down for a bit of dmg.

First of all you missed your third companion: besides Aloth who's standing in front of the tavern there's also Edér, appr. 20 meters north of Aloth, standing at the tree with the hanged people. In order to get im to join your party you talk to the soul of the animacer dwarven lady that was hanged. After that he will say "seventeen and a half" when you pass by him and that opens up a dialogue where you can invite him to your party. He's a fighter. Then you don't need to do the Temple of Eothas right away since it's quite hard. First do some other quest in town. Some of those will lead you out of town (and back). On the way you will cross Magran's Fork where you can pick up Durance, a priest. He's hard to miss. Priests are the most impactful class in PoE if you play with a party because their buffs are extremely good. Give him Inspiring Radiance as talent since it stacks with everything and +10 accuracy in the early game is a lot and it's usable 1/encounter. You can combine this with Blessing (+5 ACC) - they stack but Blessing is a normal priest spell which means it's a per-rest spell. Then - while it's counterintuitive but still very helpful - you can also pick up Kana Rua (Chanter) at the entrance of Caed Nua. You don't need to go in (it's tough!) but just talk to him and return to town with him. You can go back later. Temple of Eothas isn't easy in general, especially the Shades which you will encounter on the second level are very strong. Besides getting Edér, Durance and Kana I would highly recommend to also hire an adventurer (custom party member) in the tavern for a few bucks - even if he/she's just filling a gap until you find more "official" companions later. Pick what you like. Rogues (high ACC, high DMG), Monks (high ACC, high defenses, lots of resources), Fighters (high ACC, high defenses, auto-heal) and Paladins (high defenses, great healing ability) and Priests (Inspiring Radiance) are quite good at the early levels. What early stuff you want to pick/use: Wizard/Aloth: - Arcane Assault: it's 2/encounter and really not bad. - Chillfog: this spell is the best 1-level spell. It applies blinded which is very strong and does freeze dmg periodically. Even if the enemies are resistant to frost dmg they still get blinded which helps a LOT in the early game. You can cast multiple Chillfogs - they stack. - Combusting Wounds: it will get triggered by every pulse of Chillfog which makes for an awesome combo - especially if you have two wizards who can stack up several Chillfogs. - Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff: it comes with exceptional quality which is very good in the early game and it has enormous base damage. It also heals per hit which is a neat bonus oon top. It's def. the best dmg output you can have for a single spell use in the early game. Durance: - Inspring Radiance as I said. If you have two Priests (Durance + custom) you can haven them both cast this - it stacks with itself. - Consecrated Ground: good healing. You can cast it right before you calsh and don't need to wait for a party member to get injured (because of then it's too late to react). Edér: - Disciplined Barrage: +20 ACC is insane in the early game. Stacks with Inspiring Randiance (+10) but not Blessing (+5) of the priest. - Knockdown: Edér has it anyway iirc. - Weapon Focus <Edér's favorite weapon>: +6 ACC is very good in the early game. Kana: - But Reny Daret's Ghost, He would not Rest: while the Phantom is not that great later in the game it's extremely powerful in the early game. If you manage to stall the fight long enough to bring this out it's often winning the fight for you. - White Worms: this invocation is very impactful if there are a lot of corpses lying around. Every corpse in the area of effect will explode and deal damage. The more corspes the more ridiculous the damage. Corpses don't get cosumed by this - they can explode over and over again. They also don't get removed unless you reload the map (like load a savegame or leave/re-enter the map). So you can imagine if you manage to lure a lot of enemies to a certain narrow spot (for example a doorway) over and over again the pile becomes quite big and often you can one-shot whole groups of enemies with the corpses of their fellows . It's best to let Edér scout forward and then pull enmies towards Kana who's already starting to sing his song so when Edér arrives Kana can directly unleash the invocation. For this invocation you should decativate the "gib" option in the game menu. Gibbed enemies explode on crit-death and will leave no corpse. No corpse = bad. Also certain enemies like spirits and oozes don't leave corpses. This invocation is very, very useful in Raedric's castle which is also in the early game. In the Temple of Eothas it's good on the 1. floor (spiders and stuff leave corpses) but not so much on the second floor because most enemies leave no corpse there. Here the Phantom is def. better. The best general tactic is to use Edér as tank and place him at a chokepoint like a doorway, blocking the way to the rest of the group. Heal him if necessary and do stuff like Chillfog + Combusting Wounds + ranged or reach attacks from behind him. Make shure Chillfogs don't hit him but only the enemy. In gerenal you might find some places that feel extremely hard to deal with. Nearly always those are places you can come back to later. Don't force it. The only encounter which is really hard and mandatory is the fight in Caed Nua (the castle) against some Phantoms. The rest is always optional and you can come back after gaining another level. Often that's all the improvement you need to win then.

There is none - at least on PC. In the Deadfire sequel you can activate a smart camera but not in PoE afaik.

In PoE afflictions and buffs are so strong it's usually not hard to reliably hit enemies even with mediocre ACC. If you bring a Priest you already have +30 stackable ACC through Inspiring Radiance and Devotions that help to land the good CC effects which then make hitting fairly trivial. Also Monks start with a whopping 30 base ACC (like Fighters, Rogues and Rangers). So they can afford to wield a weapon that hasn't the highest ACC. Against very high defenses you can always switch ot a more accurate weapon if you feel the need. I mean Firebrand is not glued to your hands.

I think you should tag some devs on order to get a qualified response. Like @Aarik D or @BMac or so. Maybe there's some easy answer to this question.

I'd say that using a drill to make holes into solids is objectively boring. *schenkelklopf*

That toally depends. Refreshing Finale turns the "x per rest times Empower OR refresh resources" into "1 per encounter Empower AND x per rest refresh resources". Also Refreshing Finale might lead players to actually use Empower frequently instead of saving the use of Empower points for later and then not using any until next rest. Also the difference in phrases after using Encore or Refr. Finale isn't that blatant for a good part of the game (where you don't have a big max phrase count anyway). Only later in the game (once you get access to invocations with 6 or even 7 phrases it will make a bigger difference). Because of those points I believe Refreshing Finale is the better enchantment for the majority of players, especially the ones with no or only a little meta-knowledge.

The point was that besides the food buff all the Power Level buffs you listed are not Corpse-Eater exclusive. They can be used by every character who has some fire ability - even a non-Corpse-Eater Barb. The only difference in your comparison is the food. An informative comparison could be done between a normal Barbarian with ability X and with some good food and the same ability with a Corpse Eater who ate Forbidden Flesh Pie. And if you do that you can see that Forbidden Flesh Pie with +5 PL is good but not really that OP - given that the ability costs 4 instead of 3 rage and that other classes can simply eat different but also effective food (e.g. Crusted Swordfish). It's even worse with the Roars/Shouts because their cost is doubled - which means you can only cast half as many. Even +5 PL will not compensate for that.

But besides the Forbidden Flesh Pie which is supposed to balences out the otherwise rel. weak subclass and has to compete with other good food (like +2 PEN food) all those PL buffs are accessible to any class with a fire ability. Try Meteor Swarm with the setup you wrote down and an Evoker with Firethrower Gloves or a Druid with Great Maelstrom. Instrument of Boundless Rage, even if maxed out by modded Flesh Pie, is kind of weak compared to that.