Boeroer

I want to focus a bit on the summoning part: If you want a summoner but don't like to micromanage a lot of characters (which is a bit contradictory in general to be honest because you'll have to steer the summons all the time) you can focus on summons that automatically get controlled by the game AI and are not steerable by the player (most Chanter summons are of the controllable type). Those autopiloted summons are for example Essential Phantom and Substantial Phantom from Wizard, Many Lives Pass By from Chanter (absolutely awesome with the Death Godlike Troubadour/Priest Kaylon suggested since they will pop up so quickly you will have a small army at all times that automatically attacks), Ancient Brittle Bones skeletons (the ones that emerge if the first skelli does), The Dichotomous Soul from Monk. There may be a lot more, but since I don't use summons of other classes very often (Priest, Druid come to mind) I can't recall which ones are controllable and which not. Many Lives Pass By skeletons don't count towards the individual char's summon limit. So said Troubadour/Priest can summon a Spiritual Ally and still pop up skeletons while doing so. Which is also great. There are also other sources than class abilities with allow to put autopiloted summons on the field. Look at Essence Interrupter: if you crit an enemy with it and said enemy dies you will get a summon (that doesn't count towards the summoning limit). Without further enchantment that summon maybe hostile. But with the right enchantment it's always friendly. Another option is the sabre Grave Calling. It has an enchantment that summons an imp every time you kill a vessel with it. It also works with your own vessels (e.g. Beckoner's Skeletons). The same thing can be done with the sword Hel Beckoning - just that you have to kill Spirits instead (also works with your own spirits, see Beckoner's Whisps). If you manage to crit a vessel/a spirit with Essence Interrupter and then kill it with Grave Callings/Hel Beckoning you will get a random friendly summon + an imp! So having a Beckoner in the party and then shooting his skeletons with the bow first and then ki it with Grave Calling gives you 4 summons from one skeleton (1 dead skeleton splits into 2 + imp + random summon) -> all on autopilot. Looking at Grave Calling more: it has an enchantment named "Chilling Grave" that is mutually exclusive with the imp summons. But the beauty of it is that the Chillfogs it produces count as weapon attacks and thus get all the goodies like dmg bonus from weapon quality, Sneak Attack (if you have) and so on. A Berserker/Beckoner with Grave Callings/Chilling Grave can summon 6 Skeletons with Ancient Brittle Bones -> Frenzy (become confused) -> kill one of his skeletons -> skeleton will split in two and trigger Chillfog -> Chillfog will kill all other skeletons, splitting them and triggering 5 more Chillfogs -> all split skeletons will die from Chillfog and produce 12 more Chillfogs. Meanwhile your skeletons from Many Lives Pass by will run into the Chillfogs all the time and get killed, producing more Chillfogs. It's the Deadfire equivalent of an atomic bomb. If you also use the helmet Heaven's Cacophony with Avenging Storm every Chillfog will also produce lightnings. However, this might fry your graphics card and is the quintessence of a gimmicky build, so...

I never used a walkthrough so I don't really know which ones are good. I know that Gamebanshee had a very comprehensive walkthrough of PoE (vanilla) so maybe they also have one for Deadfire? By the way: casting direct damage spells on charmed enemies will turn them back hostile. So it's not bad to time the damaging spell towards the end of the charm. Pure single target DoTs like Disintegrate or Corrosive Skin can also be cast on charmed enemies and will not flip the charmed target. What I really miss is a spell that charms the target and let's it explode with AoE dmg if it gets killed while the charm lasts. 😄

You can use St. Garam's Spark for a good Paladin marker build. Darcozzi Paladin with Inspiring Liberation, Coordinated Attacks, Zealos Focus. You can give an ally +30 all-stackable accuracy against an enemy which is very potent against tough foes. Combine with Priest's Inspiring Radiance + Devotions for the Faithful and one of your allies will have a bonus of +66 Accuracy and can hit everything reliably.

I like Blaidh Golan a lot. With a shocking lash on Llawran's Stick + Lightning Strikes Heart of the Storm could make sense.

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.