Boeroer

Yes, those are mostly the clever dialogue options - the ones with the icon.

Maybe. But Helig was dead.

Thread confusion?

I nearly always take Aloth with me and while he shows some of the reactions during dialogue, especially when Tekehu or Serafen are talking, most of the time he doesn't come over as too critical. But that may also depend on when you last played him (his reactions were tuned down a lot after release) and what PoE background he has. Since I mostly pick the benevolent soul background Aloth is anti Leaden Key. Maybe that makes him more relaxed in general, no idea. Once you play a super "clever" character he can get quite annoyed though.

The Troubadour/Psion is a non-melee character who will mostly cast. You can basically dump CON and RES. You want highest INT and combine that with Lingering Echoes. I mostly used Killers Froze Stiff, Soul Shock and Thrice Was She Wronged in the early game, later also Ben FIdel's Neck, Mental Binding... But you can basically take what fits your party best. With some power levels, high INT and Lingering Echoes the paralyze effect of Killers Froze Stiff last rel. long so that was def. my most used spell. For a good time I simply did a Killers->Soul Shock->Killers->Soul Shock routine. If enemies were resistant to DEX afflictions then Her Revenge->Soul Shock and so on. But I can also see that a summoning approach + charms or even CHanter Charm + Cipher Charm would be very effective. The beauty of a Troubadour: he can do everything well. My latest phrase was Many Lives Pass By - because that endless stream of Skeletons every 3 sec is just too good imo. But a Trobadour can be a real interrupt-machine with an offensive chant (e.g. THe Long Night's Drink) as well: as soon as you get the Champion invocation all his crits will interrupt, including crits from chants(!). You can substitute that with Borrowed Instincts for exampe. Lots of options. But for the beginning the most fun was just the alternating paralyze and then soul shock, then repeat. I used Sasha's Singing Scimitar as a pure stt stick for 1/empower per encouter and the Shocking Prelude which works with all your damaging spells. When going with a Priest as nuker and a Troubadour/Cipher I would most likely bring a Wizard who's able to cast Miasma of Dull-Mindedness and Dazzling Lights (besides all the otehr good stuff they can cast). That easy -50 Will debuff is very helpful for everthing that targets Will (several Chanter invocations, several Priest spells, several Cipher powers) and also a Wizard can profit from Cipher's Ancestor's Memory immensely. Also Wizards are very versatile. I like SC Wizards, but it doesn't have to be. Looking at a Cipher who can potentially mass-charm (and even better a Chanter/Cipher who can charm with both classes) a Debonaire/Wizard with Blightheart might be cool. They get 100% crit conversion when they cast friendly-fire spells onto charmed targets, the arquebus will give your splls a 10% corrosive lash and such a Debonaire/Wizard does quite good arquebus damage, too. Just an idea though. Arcane Knight is also always good. Another option would be a Druid. You are a bit low on healing. Ancient would be a good option, Lifegiver, too. Think about Great Maelstrom.

Keep in mind that items' effects in PoE didn't stack. So +4 was the max you could get if it was in that Ring since it would have suppressed all other INT buffs from items (except weapons). Thus I think the items in Deadfire are actually better/more impactful than in PoE on average and also if I look at Stuff like Scordeo's Edge and whatnot. Also Gwyn's Band of Union came pretty late. Don't understand the question 100%, but I can say that the Ring of Thorns gives you +50 to all defenses while Prone or Stunned, it has the same enchantment as Little Savior (small shield), Blaidh Golan (hide armor), one version of Garodh's Chorus (helmet) and Ilfan Byrngar's Solace (medium shield): Preservation. Only difference between shields and the rest is that shields are weapons and effects from weapons stack with everything, meaning that Preservation for a shield will stack with Preservation from another item (ring or helm or armor). The "empty" shield in the wiki actually means all defenses, not only deflection. Deflection is a shield with a little thingy:

YES! You were flying a pirate flag. It matters which flag you fly. That's why you can collect them.

10 CON on a Monk is enough after some levels. Frenzy or Alacrity (from the Gambeson) won't stack with Swift Strikes. So I wouldn't recommend Sanguine Plate if you also use Swift/Lightning Strikes. Alacrity is a very high action speed buff and might still be impactful in certain fights, even if it suppressed the speed buff of Swift Strikes. Llawran's Stick is great because it has speed and can be enchanted with a lash and also Durgan Steel later on. But you can also just use your fists as backup weapons - they are good, too. Since you want Weapon Focus Peasant a quarterstaff is the right choice. Before getting Llawran's Stick you can use Durance's Staff which is pretty good i the early game because it has two dmg types (crush/burn) and comes with a burning lash already attached. I don't think that Heart of the Storm is worth it if the only thing it affects would be Lightning Strikes (from 25% to 30%). Runner's Wounding Shot is a good talent for somebody who wields a two-hander. Stunning Blow doesn't use wounds if I remember correctly but is 2/encounter (like Skyward Kick).

Because there are still forum users who post questions'n stuff about PoE and Deadfire every day. Mostly it's about the community in the PoE/Deadfire subforums. It's a great one. The other reason was rectifying SonicMage's nonsense on a daily basis - but he seems to have left some time ago.

Absolutely viable for non-solo runs. For solo: don't know but I guess it's ok, too. Fire Godlike on a Monk is actually not bad at all - since the Battle Forged retaliation scales very well with character level and also profits from some of the Monk's lashes - and Scion of Flame of course. For further info ona Fire Godlike Monk + lashes read this: Firebrand is a strong weapon, especially early in the game it's absurdly strong. Instead of using Gauntlets of Swift Action I would recommend Blood Testament Gloves and give the Gauntlets of Swift Action to somebody else - but it doesn't make a ton of difference anyways. Although it doesn't fit your burn theme 100% you want Lightning Strikes. Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses and they are usually hard to come by. Since you are using Swift Strikes already I very much recommend Lightning Strikes. You can totally skip Lesser Wounds since it's not worth the point after a few levels. Damage you receive will get higher and higher but the wound threshold is fixed. that means that later in the game wounds will flow in a lot faster than in the early game and you won't really notice if you took Lesser Wounds or not.

I mostly agree - but it didn't meet the developer's bar which they may have set too high. And it also is off the subject which was "why did it sell so badly" an not "what is considered to be bad sales numbers". I'm fairly sure there are more than a few players who went that route and that such stories contributed to the sales drop. But is it a major answer to the question why Deadfire sold a forth (or even fifth?) of the copies that PoE sold at release (or not too far from it - don't know the numbers now)? And why it sold incredibly less than D:OS II and even less (I believe) than Pathfinder:Kingmaker which should have experienced the same (but didn't)? I don't know... I just don't believe that +750K players waited until all patches were done and then all forgot about the game. Imo something led to a collective disregard of Deadfire. This "something" might be a collection of things. Smaller things like disappointment in PoE, forgetting while waiting for all DLCs/patches, Bugsidian reputation etc.. Bigger thngs like the "Pirates" theme while that was rather stale after all the Pirates otC movies and maybe has no appeal to most CRPG players, bad marketing, saturated Infinity-Engine nostalgia, no multiplayer support and so on.

It barely broke even long after release and with a lot of crowdfunding money upfront. No matter how long the tail is (and those are always long with CRPGs), it will always be a huge emotional and financial disappointment for the people who worked on it. Just ask Josh Sawyer today. Your point was that sales were bad because players waited until the game was truly finished, wasn't it? Following that logic those who waited would have bought it by now, long after the last DLC and the last patch were released. But that didn't happen. Sales are still rel. bad and way below the expectations of the developer and publisher - although not as bad as they were at release but that was to be expected.

Unfortunately the empty edits didn't help and I don't know enough about the inner "Cargo" workings of the gamepedia wiki to be able to fix it myself.

There's no Ring with +3 to INT in the White march expansions - but one with +4 to INT with the name of "Gwyn's Band of Union". I guess you mean that? It is not in the wiki list for whatever reason (the lists get auto-generated and sometimes there's a hickup it seems so that entries get omitted and some are double) but has a wiki page: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Gwyn's_Band_of_Union If you didn't mean that I suppose it's the Ring of Changing Heart you are looking for (+3 RES instead of INT but a 2/rest Dominate Spellbind). Will try to edit the list in the wiki. Sometimes it helps to just do an empty edit and save so the list gets regenerated. Let's see... If this doesn't work we can summon @Tagaziel who's one of the main guys behind taht gamepedia wiki.

Some questions: For Kana (official companion), a custom adventurer or as player character? melee defense oriented, melee dmg oriented or ranged? what counts as "buff"? Healing, too? what's the priority, low micromanagement or buffing/summoning? In general I would say that you'll have the lowest micromamagement possible with a tanky Dragon Thrashed Chanter - a guy who only sings the Dragon Thrashed phrase and doesn't do much else. Summons actually do require quite a bit of input to be effective. They are additional characters to steer around after all. Of course they are very effective once they are out - but it takes a while for the Chanter to collect enough phrases. The best way to ensure that Chanter summons can contribute to a fight is to use a tank to scout ahead, trigger combat and then run back to the party where the Chanter waits. Once the enemies reach the party the Chanter may be ready to drop his summons. During that time other party members have the time to buff up etc. (e.g. a Priest can cast Devotions for the Faithful and so on).

Right... unless somebody would do a big survey just to find out - which sounds unlikely to me.

Yet again this fails to wholesomely explain Deadfire's low sales numbers because: 1. Once players experience issues with the release version they already bought the game. 2. If many players would have had massive issues with the release version it would be reflected in the user reviews (which were fine). 3. If players were disappointed by PoE and thus wouldn't want to buy Deadfire it would find its way into user reviews (which are fine) 4. If players, based on their experience with PoE, waited until purchase until all DLCs and patches are out, Deadfire sales should have surged after Patch 5.0 was out. Which didn't happen. --- Whileyour story is 100% understandable and I can relate - it fails to explain what happened on a big scale. You can't just assume that your personal experience is like a blueprint for millions of other potential players: because that would have resulted in certain observable signs like mediocre user reviews, bad critics or whatever. Or it would have lead to increased sales once the product was truly finished. As of today Obsidian still has no def. clue what went wrong - it's a bit of a mystery even with tools like telemetry etc. It seems more like a lot of potential cRPG players just didn't care (or maybe didn't know?) about Deadfire for whatever reason.

It's one of the easiest to steal items in the game. I guess because it's very helpful to have it on Motare o Kōzi and devs didn't want the player to make it too unlikely to have it by then.

Hang me by the thumbs! "At your service" he says.

It says so I guess you're good. The subclasses in that build are Bleak Walker/Soulblade - which is nice generally - but you said you want to play a good guy so I suggest to pick anotehr paladin subclass like Kind Wayfarer for example.

Keep in mind that several Cipher spells can't be cast on themselves though.

You would want high perception and intellect. Might is not that important but you wouldn't want to lower it too much either. I'd say the two most important invocations are the Lightning Cone and Killers Froze Stiff. Ben Fidel's Neck is also very good because the defense debuff stacks with almost everything. White Worms is a very powerful invocation, too (if you understand how it works). One important thing about Chanters: their phrase pool size is determined by the most costly invocation they have. Meaning if your most expensive invocation costs 6 phrases your max phrase count will be 6. No if a Skald only picks offensive invocations (which he gets a discount on) he will have a rel. small phrase pool. You want to pick an expensive (yet useful) invocation at some point to get a bigger pool. As multiclass Skald a great condadate for such an inv. is for example the Animated Weapons which will give you a phrase pool of 7 ( 6 and the Skald's increased cost of +1 because it's a non-offensive invocation). Maybe take another costly summoning invocation on the way to max level to enjoy the benefits of a bigger phrase pool before the end game. At the start of each encounter you'll have a phrase boost and can cast even your most costly invocation right away. Summons are very impactful early in the fight. Or use a buffing cone. Those are also quite good because long-lasting.

Yes, at least all strike abilities of the Rogue class. Flames of Devotion, too. If you don't want three Rogues then you can play rel. similar with a Paladin/Soulblade and have more spell variety but a bit less weapon dmg. Paladin/Skald as well. Flames of Devotion + Ring of Focused Flames means +20 Accuracy which leads to a lot of crits, giving the Skald phrases. You can use Killers Froze Stiff for CC and the Lightning invocation is pretty strong, especially if fueled with a lash from Eternal Devotion. Even a Paladin/Monk with that setup can be lots of fun.

Did you just call people "sh!ts"?

ROFL... I just tried a Trickster/Shattered Pillar with Offensive Parry and Riposte + Swift Flurry/Heartbead Drumming. Riposte and Offensive Parry can trigger Swift Flurry/HBD. While Offensive Parry is a single target attack the Rogue's Riposte does the whole cone attack (!) - and all attack rolls in the cone can trigger SF/HBD, too. Just annihilated 10 tigers in seconds. Also Blinding Strike is cool because it not only lowers enemies' ACC (=more misses) bus also their deflection (because flanked) which means more crits for SF/HBD. Offensive Parry is giving wounds obviously. If you use Avenging Storm from Heaven's Cacophony it gets really ridiculous. What a fun test that is. Maybe I'll do an animated gif. Edit: I'm getting way too many Ripostes. Like nearly on every miss. Maybe Offensive Parry somehow confuses Riposte or something?