Boeroer

Whirling Strikes is very good, but it comes so late that you can't plan an "AoE run" with it since you would play without AoE for the majority of the game. Same problem with all weapons with AoE that come kind of late (like Keeper of the Flame). SC Mortar Monk is still one the most fun playthroughs I ever had. But SC Streetfighter with mortars or Streetfighter/Arcane Archer Scout are also very nice. Everything with Citzal's Spirit Lance is fun as well (like the aforementioned Sage or Battlemages). The Amra Battle Axe has a Carnage-like AoE on crit and you can get it rel. early. Lord Darryn's Voulge kind of has an AoE capability with Static Charge. The Stag's Spiritshift form has a Carnage-like ability, but in the vanilla game it's really bad. If you use the Community Patch it gets altered to a passive that's a bit weaker than Carnage (and stacks with it). Clear Out and Whirling Strikes also do work with mortars (and then provide AoE*AoE*jumps) if you use a melee weapon in the offhand. The melee weapon unlocks the use of the ability but the ability will still use the main hand with the ranged weapon.

You are no beginner, are you?

SC Monk with Nomad's Briganine (immunity to disengamgement attack --> every disengagement attack is a miss) and Imagined Pain is great. Quite easy to play multiclasses for the beginner are Brute, Brawler and Crusader imo - since they are very forgiving in general, sturdy yet offensively strong, easy/straightforward to level, need rel. low micromanagement and are reliable with almost everything they do.

Il like Devil of Caroc best on damage-oriented martial multiclass characters because it's quite fast for a Breastplate due to its enchantment, then it gives multiclasses +2/+2 resource points which is neat and also the heal on crit is nice for characters who actually land crits. Also I cannot use DoC if I can't also wear the Falcon's Helmet. Because those two obviously totally belong together or else the style police will fine you. Nomad's Brigandine in combination with Offensive Parry is great. I especially like that combo on Soulblade and Shattered Pillar. I like Reckless Briganine on Eder if he's also using a large shield like Cadhu Scalth. The shield modal + CS's enchantment make all ranged attacks pretty laughable anyways so the low pierce AR of the brigandine is no problem. Blunting Belt also helps. Reckless Brigandine + Kapana Taga + Cadhu Scalth is my most often used setup for an Unbroken/Trickster and also for Eder as Fighter/Rogue because the +4 engagement slots from weapon + shield + brigandine allow you to stack the speedups of Mob Stance and Armored Grace with the brigandine's enchantment - and still have the same engagement slots as if you would have used Defender Stance. It's a nice mix of offense and defense. You can still move around with Escape - or switch the modal off after a while. On top of it all three items fit well together visually and make you look like a Huana Mataru. You'd need a visually fitting helmet though - I often use the White Witch Mask (very useful with club modal + Riposte because of Repulsive Visage).

Easily

if it would use Josh's TTRPG class(less) system that would be great. The multiclass system of Deadfire (or something along the lines) would also be nice. I guess the game will not have as many abilites to pick from though (as is the case with most single character first-person games). Passives are easy and cheap to develop, but active abilities are expensive because of animation, VFX and SFX. Since most players only play a game once (and most of those don't even finish) it seems like a waste of resources to develop a ton of abilites that most players won't even see/use. In party based games that's different.

You should know by now that you can't trust descriptions in Pillars games... at all.

Blunderbuss is unmatched against low DR targets (even if you have a lot of DR bypass: lashes don't profit from DR bypass so a high DR usually eats up all the individual low lashes from the individual pellets), arquebus is best against high DR targets (high DR bypass and high base damage per projectile). Best is to use both and switch according to the enemy. If you can employ proper debuffs and ACC buffs you don't necessarily need weapon focus. Or you employ DR debuffing a lot when using blunderbuss as main weapon. Like Body Attunement, a fighter's Sundering Blow and such.

It depends how you want to play the Rogue. Rogues tend to go down pretty fast once ganged up on, so it's almost never a good idea to rush into battle as the first guy. Rather stay stealthed until your tanks/offtanks/whatever sturdy party members engaged the enemies and the enemies decided whom they want to attack. This takes just a few secs. Only then unstealth and pick a target. Usually it's best to flank an enemy that is already getting attacked by one of the aforementioned frontliners of yours. Should you get attacked by only one enemy then Rumbalt is indeed very effective in saving your skin since the target very often spends the rest of its time on its butt. But once you get attacked by two or more Tidefall will be better for survival. But in general it's obviously better to not get hit at all rather than using healing - because while your endurance will heal your health will not. And as a Rogue you can't outheal damage too much because at some point your health will be so low that you'll have to rest - although you never were in danger of getting knocked out because of the healing of Tidefall. Potions of Infuse with Vital Essence can help you then. They resotre 50 health damage and they scale with MIG and "healing done" and "healing received" bonuses. You can add some more healing with Veteran's Recovery (I find that very useful on Rogues in general) and Shod-in-Faith boots. Combined with Tidefall you end up as a rather sturdy Rogue (I mean compared to the usual dual-sabre-full-on-dps rogue who going down when only looked at). It also depends on the difficulty setting. Enemies' defenses are a lot higher on Path of the Damned, so landing a crit is less likely. This gives Tidefall an advantage oder Rumbalt. On easier difficulties Rumbalt really shines. It also depends on how much debuffs your party can apply and how much accuracy buffs you can stack. For example Inspiring Radiance (priest talent) stacks with everything and Devotions (priest) stacks with most other ACC buffs, giving you +30 ACC (of top of other ACC buffs) which makes Rumbalt a lot stronger since crits are more likely. I'd say playing with Tidefall is less micromanagement and more straightforward or "brute force" - while Rumbalt requires a bit more buffing and picking the right targets/position. But it's not a big difference. If you already get a ton of CC from party (for example constant Amplified Waves from a Cipher or whatever) I would pick Tidefall. Also if you want to pick backstabbing I would pick it since the initial attack is very impressive then and can kill casters etc. on the spot (not late game because too big endurane pools, but on the way there). If you have a Priest you can use prayers to counter all sorts of afflictions so you don't really need talents like Bull's Will and such. Stacking deflection only makes sense if you go all the way (increasing returns). If you have mediocre or bad deflection doesn't make a lot of difference. But there are some enemies who like to pick the target with the lowest deflection (like enemy Barbs - gain stay stealthed at the start of battle). Higher DR prevents archers and gunners from focusing fire on you. So a medium or even heavy armor not only protects you onc you get attacked but also prevents certain enemies from attacking you altogether (players often dismiss that and then complain why their superhigh dps rogue glasscannon always gets gunned down and thus does 0 dps then). In my experience some good medium armor is enough to not get gunned down at once. Heavy armor would better but obviously hurts your attack rate. You might want to find the sweet spot that suits you best. I personally only pick defensive stuff on rogues if want to develop them into offtanks or generally sturdy frontliners who engage first - for example with a bashing shield (Badgradr's Barricade is great sice its spellstriking "Thrust of Tattered Veils" works with Deathblows and is great in synergy with a disabling weapon such as Godansthunyr or We Toki or whatever).

Good question with the AoE since that's not trivial. Iirc: If an ally is actively threatening the same enemy that will get targeted by an attack roll of yours then Minor Threat should work - even if that attack roll is from an AoE attack. I didn't test this exclusively though, but it should work like in PoE where it was done in the same way as the Marking mechanic (which I tested in depth back then). What doesn't work is if your ally is also only dropping AoEs. The ally has to directly target/attack/threaten the enemy afaik.

The best thing is that a vessel-kill by Chillfog will trigger another Chillfog (as if you had used the sabre itself for the killing blow). As a Berserker/Beckoner you can clear whole encounters with a few blows (because Chilling Grave also works on your 6 summoned skeletons which will split into 12 skeletons - and the confusions takes away the foe-only part which makes sure all your skeletons die very quickly from the first Chillfog, creating countless more). It's so powerful that it becomes quite boring after a while and it's also not good for the game's performance because VFX overload.

Blade Turning doesn't rely on deflection. As long as it's active you will reflect 100% of melee attacks no matter what.

It does work with spells.

That's the weaker enchantment though (in my opinion). The Chillfog on vessel-kill ("Chilling Grave") gets all the weapon's quality improvements (ACC, dmg bonus, PEN bonus etc.), is foe-only and with the second upgrade Grave Bound it can also paralyze with every Chillfog-crit (as if you had hit with the weapon itself). This really trivializes all fights against vessels as long as they are not immune to frost, blind or paralyze.

Why would that be a bad idea? Three nice Great Sword for rogues are "The Hours of St. Rumbalt", because it does extra dmg on crit (and Rogues tend to crit fairly often) and it causes prone on crit, which unlocks Sneak Attack bonus right away and also is a hard CC effect of course. For this weapon you might want to focus on PER (more crits) and INT (longer prone duration) as well as DEX (prone-lock enemies with faster attack rate). You need some money to buy the sword, but besides that it's obtainable early. "Tidefall", because it's one of the weapons with the highest dps potential in the game. Its wounding enchantment is a raw dmg over time "lash". Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses. And this lash stacks on the enemy. It also gets influenced by your MIG attribute: for example 15 MIG generally means +15% additive damage for everything, but it's also adding 15% to the wounding lash. A Rogue who plans to wield Tidefall shouldn't drop MIG but instead raise it. On top of that TIdefall also drains life for you once you damage foes. This can help rogues a lot who tend to be rather squishy. On top you can put on a second elemental lash as you can with any other weapon. For this weapon you want to focus on MIG as I said but have not too high INT (because then the wouding damage gets spread thinner over more seconds and that's not what you want - it's an oversight and never got fixed). This is also a great weapon for backstabbig since the wounding dmg will be based on your overall physical dmg and that's rather high with a backstab. You need mechanics of at least 10 to find the sword in a hidden stash. "Firebrand", because it has a lot more base damage than any other Great Sword. And this works extremely well with all kinds of damage bonuses - and Rogues have a lot of those (Sneak Attack, Deathblows...). On top it also does extra dmg on crit like Rumbalt. It is a summoned flame weapon though so you should bring a "backup" great sword for the times the summoning duration is over - or when you just don't want to summon it (e.g. when you face fire-immune enemies). There are two items which each let you summon Firebrand 3 times per rest: Forgemaster's Gloves and Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer. While the gloves do not much besides summoning Firebrand, the belt is one of the best in the game (i'd say the best) so you will want to wear that anyway. 6 * Firebrand per rest is absolutely enough to be able to summon it for every fight since you will rest at least every 6 fights in general (there will be exceptions I'm sure). For Firebrand you want high INT (to keep the sommoning duration long), high PER (because of the extra crit damage) and DEX (because you can't enchant it with Durgan Steel like you could do with a regular weapon - which means it will be a bit slower in the later game). This is not a good backstabbing weapon because once you summon the sword your stealth will break. You could of couse backstab with a regular great word and only then summon Firebrand - to get both. Good Great Swords on the way are "Justice" (has an extra mini-10%-crushing lash on top of the 25%-crushing lash it displays and thus does more damage than a regular great sword), "the Temaperacl" (it does the same as Rumbalt but without the extra crit dmg). A great backup weapon for enemies who are vulnerable to pierce dmg or if you can't reach the enemy because you're behind a party member or whatever: Tall Grass. It uses the same weapon focus as great swords and has reach (1.8 meters), causes prone on crit like Rumbalt and has a higher chance to crit (converts 10% of hits to crits which stacks with the rogue ability which does the same - but not additively. Two times 10% conversion translate to overall 19% chance, not 10%, three times 10% would get you 27% and so on). I played rogues with all three great swords above and they were all viable and fun. It's more a matter of taste and character idea which wone you want to stick to, not so much a matter of raw power. I would comment on cipher if you dismiss rogue.

Fallout 3 was named and advertised as Fallout 3. Obsidian is not calling Avowed "PoE3" nor do they drop that name at all. Josh said it's uncertain that there will ever be a PoE3 given the poor sales of Deadfire. This was said when most likely the development of Avowed had already started. And Josh is not known to be deceptive. This will not be PoE3 but a First-Person RPG set in the same world as PoE and Deadfire.

If you want to be able to react immediately after attacking with a weapon you should pick a pistol or blunderbuss. Recovery is not cancelable, but reload is. This means you are a lot more reactive with spells if you a using a one handed reloading weapon instead of a wand etc. This is extremely helpful if you are also wearing some armor. Her small shield (lantern) gives power levels to priest keywords. Power level bonuses can have a lot of impact, especially if you can stack multiple of those. Mostly because their bonuses to dmg/healing and duration are altering the base(!) values and thus are multiplicative. So a +2 PL bonus to restoration means your healing abilities will have 10% more base healing and longer duration (if they are not instantaneous) which already multiplies with itself (and then with stuff like MIG and Practised Healer etc.). That's why I would prefer her lantern. If you are operating at range you won't need the protection of a large shield too often I'd assume. You can still keep a large shield in the second set for times when you get attacked with ranged weapons. Then simply switch to large shield and activate "the Wall". This is especially helpful against opening volleys during boarding fights etc. Besides that it also gives light which is often a nice side effect in dark dungeons. I wouldn't pick the small shield proficiency at all (because: for what?) in this case but only the one for the large shield (which will only be used from time to time but then has a huge impact).

I played some Ravagers. When I use Berserker I wouldn't pick Forbidden Fist (although I love Forbidden Fist). There is one exception though *. Simply because any other Monk besides Shattered Pillar would gain a ton of wounds from Berserker Frenzy. In your case the initial idea was nice - but I don't think it can keep up to the sheer amount of wounds you can get from Berserker Frenzy. For damage, especially against single targets: check out Force of Anguish: it will push your enemy into the Carnage AoE before Carnage is applied - giving the target the initial weapon damage AND Carnage damage on top. It's a nice little detail for Ravagers. I think for a Forbidden Fist Ravager I would have used a Furyshaper. The Fear Ward is strong and although it will most likely not benefit from your increased ACC for afflictions (since it's like a summon with its own ACC and attack roll) it will make it even easier to put afflictions on enemies because it lowers Will and Deflection when it hits (and hard-CCs the enemies). By the way: with high RES and items that reduce hostile affliction duration you can use Hylea's Talons as a great source of wounds on a Forbidden Fist. The DoT you put on yourself will be very short and once it expires you'll get a wound. Don't know it it counts as affliction but it's good. *A nice synergy with Berserker/Forbidden fist: have high RES and items and food which reduce hostile effect duration. Pick the Footsteps of the Beast, then run around confused. You will hobble yourself from your own frosty drop-traps with very short-lived afflictions which will give you a constant stream of wounds while keeping you afflicted. If you combine it with wound spending and Rooting Pain this will interrupt enemies a lot. It also heals a lot (due to FF mechanics) which helps with Berserker Frenzy. And on top of it it fits your theme perfectly well.

Depends what you are doing with her. For a priest the lantern is pretty awesome. The Monk's part is okay but playing with a small shield is reducing the capability to kill enemies quickly in melee and also makes Stunning Surge less effective - which negates the bonus of the shield a bit. Cadhu Scalth is awesome but an item for tanks mostly. Or for somebody who doesn't need a lot of ACC (let's say a priest mostly doing buffs and healing).

It does support Linux in theory, but it's much more complicated to get to a functioning build (when your main focus is XBox/Windows) than with Unity3D (where's it's also not a sure-fire success).

Translation was indeed outsourced.

The Outer Worlds was done with Unreal while PoE and Deadfire were done with Unity3D. If guess it was just easier to build a Linux version with Unity than it is with Unreal. Since Avowed is also using Unreal and the official release platforms are XBox and Windows and Microsoft has no reason to support gaming on Linux I don't think there will be an official Linux version... ever.

That is not a unique feature of watchers though. Many people in Eora have old souls (you can meet some of those in the Sanatorium or the White March for example), not only Pale Elves or Watchers. But Pale Elves seem to be special in that most (or all of them) get born with continued souls which won't get fractured by the Wheel/Rymrgand. Usually the process of rebirth takes away some essence to feed the gods. Usually people with old souls don't remember their past lives (one exception: Thaos). Only if you become "Awakenend" you will remember (bits) of your past lives. If you manage to deal with it: maybe you can remember all of it. But that doesn't make you a Watcher, only awakened. A Watcher is able to fold/look into the In-Between. Being a Watcher, being born with an old soul and being Awakened are three different things. It may be that Pale Elves enjoy a special treatment because nearly all of them are dedicated to Rymrgand? So that he leaves their souls untouched when they pass the Wheel? But yeah: according to the lore above a Pale Elf Watcher should have been a Pale Elf in the past as well.

The announcement only says Xbox and Windows - and I highly doubt that Microsoft will put in any effort to release it for Linux navitely. But since it's the Unreal engine you will be able to play it on Linux via Steam Proton soon enough I guess. At least I didn't encounter a game that I couldn't play via Proton at some point after release.

It's also a crapload of more work.