Boeroer

Generally no. Carnage was nerfed in comparison to PoE. It doesn't work as melee secondary attack that transports weapon effects anymore but instead works like a separate AoE raw dmg spell with center on the initial target. But there are exceptions: - Lord Darryn's Voulge's "Static Thunder" also applies to Carnage-hits. - Spirit Frenzy also staggers foes who are hit by Carnage (Blood Frenzy doesn't because Carnage can never crit, only miss/graze/hit). - Force of Anguish pushes the target into the Carnage AoE before the Carnage attack gets rolled. So the target receives the initial dmg from Force of Anguish, gets pushed back and gets hit by Carnage, too. It doesn't apply the push a second time but I find it quite nice that you can do Carnage+Force of Anguish damage to the same target with one single attack. - Iirc Eternal Devotion (Paladin) puts a 10% burning lash on Carnage hits - iirc Deltro's Cage Helmet add its shocking lash to Carnage...? - Iirc Blood Ward (Furyshaper) also drains life from Carnage hits, maybe Old Siec (Chanter), too - maybe there's more that I don't remember right now...

It's actually a ranged weapon with rather short range (it works with Driving Flight for example), but it is indeed very powerful.

I only tested Assassin/Soulblade during a session with the console. I did not really use any Assassin/Cipher in a playthrough. However: I did play a Debonaire/Beguiler (because Whisper of Treason or Ring Leader give you 100% crit conversion for your Disintegrate - and Disintegrate doesn't flip charmed enemies back). I guess the playstyle was almost the same as Assassin/Beguiler would have been...? Assassin/Soulblade would be more focused on delivering Soul Annihilation from stealth/invisibility with Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Assassinate and Backstab bonuses I guess.

I think it's a road to nowhere to try to replicate all things you can do in a tabletop game (and which might be very nice to do there) in a video game. It's a way less reactive and less fluid environment. Player homes, strongholds, open world, tons of possible reaction, "meaningful choices", consequences, relationships and so on: stuff that is fine during a tabletop campaign might be tedious to implement and even to play in a video game - even if you put a ton of work, good will and money into it. Stuff like inventory management, trading, buying a donkey+cart, riding a horse, getting an old ruin and rebuilding it: easy to do during tabletop sessions because the DM can always improvise, make things up and most of all: communicate a lot until it's nice. Video games cannot do that. I would like if CRPGs concentrated more on what they can do best: presenting nice visuals, fitting sound and music, atmosphere, telling a great story (most professional writers do that way better than DMs), presenting satisfying challenges, good game mechanics (combat, sneaking and other ways to overcome obstacles like picking locks, charming, bribing, talking, you name it). Open world, "realistic" companion reaction and relationship, reputation, managed inventory, crafting and all that: it can be nice but those usually end up as huge expensive systems that only work so/so and don't really add much value to the game. There are exceptions of course. For example it can be very nice to craft anything (items, food even spells) if you can actually play a craftsman/researching wizard/chef... IF the system is easy yet deep enough. The chance to nail that: pretty low.

Fireballs etc. do work well with Assassinate in RTwP - just not with Shadowing Beyond. From stealth I never had issues with all direct/instant damage AoE spells + Assassinate. Spirit Lance doesn't work though and also the other AoE weapons don't. Their secondary AoE seems to have long of a delay to get the bonus.

DoTs also break Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure. At least I can't cast Disintegrate or Gouging Strike or use N.'s Cobra Strike and then use ABD -> leads to instant "revisibility". That only leaves Smoke Veil and Assassin's Slippers (and I'm not sure about the last one) which are so short that it doesn't matter much for DoTs damage - since only a few ticks will get covered. But they can be very useful for applying a DoT and then walking away unseen, waiting in the shadows until the target is dead. Assassinate can help with DoTs since it's a lot easier to land them from stealth/invisibility in the first place. When I play an Assassin/Bleak Walker with an Arquebus+modal I usually open from stealth with an Arterial Strike, then immediately (stealth removes 80% recovery/reload) a Gouging Strike and then immediately (reload is cancelable) use Smoke Veil and walk away until the enemy is dead. For example. But if the enemy is very hard to hit I start with the Gouging Strike to get the 25 ACC for that one and the try the Arterial. One can do the same with Brand Enemy instead of Gouging Strike by the way. It will always hit - so you don't even need Assassinate for it. So you could do Gouging+Arterial+Brand+Smoke Veil with nearly 0 recovery. That's not a move for Assassin/Wizard obviously but just an example how DoTs and Assassinate can work together even if the DoTs don't get a huge PEN or dmg bump.

DoTs do get the ACC bonus. But the following ticks will not get a PEN or dmg bonus because those are calculated in real time and you won't be invisible anymore. Also most DoT ticks break invisibility except Vanishing Strikes. On of the best synergies for an Assassin/Bloodmage is that Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure creates an invisibility that will not break as long as you don't damage the target(s). All CC spells without damage can be cast from invisibility without breaking it. You can completely disable opponents with dozens of debuffs before using the final nuke. Also Wall spells don't break it (no even the damaging ones). So you can stay invisible forever with Wall of Draining + Brilliant Departure for example. Fireball usually gets the Assassinate bonus by the way. At least from stealth. It depends a bit on the ability you are using for invisibility and on the spell you use for dealing damage (how it applies its AoE without much delay). For example Shadowing Beyond is fiddly while Smoke Veil is much more forgiving. Stealth is better, too. Also Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure is better.

Enchanting would be fine. But it doesn't need to be the character who does it. I also like if you can bring some stuff to a proper craftsman (armorer, fletcher, weapon smith and so on) who then does the crafting for you. Only a few things, not a full-fledged crafting system with rules and ingredients and recepies and whatnot.

Opps sorry, I thought this was a request programme. Didn't realize one has to justify their preferences. I would argue that you can't dumb down a game if you remove dumb things. Not implemeting stuff that I don't like leaves more resources for the stuff that I do like. Especially if it's resource-hungry quicksand like homes/strongholds and the pale imitation of interpersonal romantic and/or sexual relationships which usually need a ton of good writing to be somewhat non-cringeworthy. PoE and Deadfire have an unlimited stash by the way. If an unlimited stash is enough to turn a game into a shallow action shooter then PoE and Deadfire are shallow action shooters.

I'd like crafting and player homes to be as absent as loading times. Unlimited stash. No romances at all. Thank you!

Fighter's Unbending ability provides a small instance of an healing-over-time effect (also called Unbending in the combat tooltips under active effects) every time the char receives damage. With Wall of Draining every such instance of Unbending gets prolonged. They all stack and thiscan lead to up to thousands of HP regenerated every 3 secs (in extreme cases). The Battlemage becomes unkillable (unless he gets one-shotted which isn't very likely). However, Unbending and Wall of Draining are not really early abilites. Luckily Vigorous Defense stacks with all of the Wizard's deflection buffs (except with Llengrath's Safeguard - the AR bonus stacks though, just not the defense ones). So a Battlemage can be plenty sturdy as slong as he's not hit by an Arcane Dampener. That is the advantage of the Paladin: his passive defense bonuses can't get dispelled.

Raw dmg from Soul Annihilation will get delivered to all enemies in the AoE, yes. But the mechanics are a little wonky. It seems the first target gets the normal raw damage, focus drops to 0 - the next one (in the AoE) gets no raw dmg (since focus is at 0) but generates focus again, the next after that gets a bit raw damage from the newly acquired focus and even generates more focus (it doesn't drop to 0 again but keeps filling), the next target refills focus even more and gets even more raw dmg and so on. The more enemies the better. It's not likely that this is the intended behavior, but it works very well. Also focus generation vs. mobs is absolutely excellent as one might guess (since the AoE hits generate focus).

Hi again. Just my personal preferences/opinion 1. Single class Bloodmage (if you don't like Empower) or non-subclass Wizard 2. Helwalker/Bloodmage (dangerous but fun) or Assassin/Bloodmage (Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure induced shenanigans). 3. Psion/Wizard 4. Arcane Knight or Battlemage 5. totally depends on your imagination 6. Arcane Knight

Carnage only gets triggered by the initial attack roll of the Lance. So it only gets triggered once per attack, no crazyness. If you are looking for some AoE*AoE power you need to combine the Lance with Clear Out (Fighter). Swift Flurry didn't work with the AoE hits of the Lance, then it did... don't know the current status 100%. It's worth testing again. But note that Swift Flurry will never redo a whole AoE attack but will only repeat that singular hit roll that it triggered off. So it's not supercrazy but might be nice nevertheless. Great stuff with the Lance are all attacks that do something special with the enemy, such as Mule Kick, Clear Out (the crazier the more enemies), Force of Anguish, Stunning Surge (high chance of refund, too), Crippling Strike and so on. That all works in an AoE then.

Speaking of wizard multiclasses: Arcane Knight is a very forgiving combo. Bloodmage/Steel Garrote with Whispers of the Endless Paths is still my current favorite Arcane Knight. Sage can be a lot of fun. Especially when using Citzal's Spirit Lance. Helwalker/Bloodmage would be my pick. I personally really like a melee Geomancer with the Willbreaker (Morning Star). Stalker/Wizard. I use Concelhaut's Draining Touch for my Essential Phantom and the Morning Star (+modal) to lower fortitude for my animal companion's Takedown Combo. Warlock can be very nice to play because that combo can reach very fast casting speed, especially once Blood Thirst is available. Berserker/Wizard for the nice PEN boost. Battlemage with Citzal's Spirit Lance is also fun. Once you get Clear Out mobs are flying like puppets.

PS: thank you very much. I have to inform you though that I'm happily married.

Unfortunately deflection (and the other defenses like will etc.) have increasing returns. That means that the more you stack the more impact any additional point has. If your deflection is already low (and fourty-something is rather low) then a few points from Psychovampiric Shield won't change much (it can if you also apply ACC debuffs like Eyestrike though). With low deflection chars I usually see it as a waste of focus. You can stack Veteran's Recovery with Shod in Faith Boots and other sources of endurance-healing which will make you more sturdy, yes. Especially if you combine them with "healing done" and "healing received" modifiers (see camping bonuses from Survival skills). But it won't affect your health - which usually isn't that high with Ciphers in the first place. You can, however, combine all that with some potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. Once your health drops very low (but you're still healing endurance) you can drink such potions and regain health. The amount of health restored is influenced by "healing done/received" mods as well. Besides that: hard disables on enemies and high DR.

Night Runner + Cape of Withdrawal do not stack - that much is correct. Wayfarer's Hide is great imo, also I'm a fan of Blaidh Golan (especially against ogres). But both will not give you more protection when getting pommeled with melee attacks. Usually Whisper of Treason and other mind control abilities are the best way to prevent getting attacked (later Ring Leader). You basically turn an enemy into a summon for a limited amount of time. During that time the charmed enemy not only stops attacking you but also keeps other enemies from attacking you. Just don't hit the charmed enemy: it won't give you focus. I mean you can and charmed is actually a pretty hefty debuff so the enemy falls faster - but I wouldn't do it as slong as there are non-flipped enemies around which would give you focus.

Yup, that's the only cultural background with +1 INT.

indeed I think all healing/dmg over time abilities (Disintegration, Plague of Insects, Lay on Hands and whatnot) also scream for bonus PL instead of Fighting Spirit. Also Fighting Spirit only influences offensive actions, Power Levels influences all abilites: offensive, supportive and defensive.

Why is he supposed to be very old? He recently got killed by Moedred of the Sanitarium where they were both doing research and only since then was "undead". Also: being great at necromancy and animancy doesn't necessarily lead to being great at fighting random murder hobos. But ok: with such an impressive curriculum vitae a group of murder hobos might rightfully expect a bigger challenge. Especially because it was said that Helig single-handedly fought against the Northwatch Rangers and wiped them all except Dalton. Man, those rangers must have had dayflies as animal companions...

Basically yes. Auto-attacks don't gain anything from Power Level directly, but passives like Sneak Attack do scale with PL which might also affect the performance of auto-attacks. But generally I would say that auto attacks (weapon attacks with no use of an active ability) are better off with Fighting Spirit. But don't forget that Death Godlikes also get a dmg bonus against near death enemies. The good thing about Power Levels is not only the multiplicative dmg (or healing) but also the multiplicative duration bonus (especially good with healing and damage over time - since both the ticks do more dmg/health but also you get more ticks from longer duration - which means multiplicative dmg * multiplicative duration). And also improved PEN can mean a huge difference in damage since underpenetrating is a severe dmg loss due to the double inversion that all maluses go through when dmg calculation is done. The -25% of 1 point of underpenetration is not additive! -75% from 3 points of underpenetration is so severe that you will only deliver a tiny fraction of your usual dmg. So more PEN is always great. Especially with spells and other non-weapon attacks since you can't boot their PEN with the use of weapons. Helmets aside of course - since there are some that put +3 PL to absolute shame with the right character (like Fractured Casque or Deltro's Cage Helmet and so on) - and under the prerequisite that you are near death at all times (which is either not very likely or extremely tedious to manage). In general I would prefer Human over Death Godlike because keeping the Death Godlike at near death is too tedious to enjoy it (for me personally).

+3 Power Level is superior. Besides a 15% multiplicative dmg bonus for all abilites you also get more PEN, more ACC and longer (multiplicative) duration for them. Fighting Spirit's dmg bonus is only additive and it also it has a limited duration. If you want to use autoattacks mostly then Fighting Spirit is better though I'd say. Power Levels are especially powerful once you use weapons and/or abilities that scale especially well with them - for example Monk's fists or stuff that scales projectiles (missile spells for example) and jumps (Eld Nary, Mind Blades, Whispers of the Wind etc.).

I am not. Chilling Grave does trigger Grave Bound as I explained above.

Sorry, zero time to play any games right now. Not even the new Blazing Deserts DLC from Battle Brothers which I so anticipated...