Boeroer

If you use a classless system and give a much bigger choice of abilities and ability-upgrades or even trees (also more passive ones and those which influence stats more) - I think you could achieve both.

Hm... that's like saying "I have watched people fly through the windshield because they didn't use the safety belt, but I still think it's better to never put it on". However, for the earlier parts of the game I agree that the SC Rogue isn't super appealing.

You obviously didn't watch the animated gif I included. I don't know a lot of builds that can kill off a bunch of dummies that quickly (besides empowered Missile Salvos, Greater Maelstroms and such). An SC Rogue, properly build, is very good at high levels. But you have to reach those first. SC Rogue isn't particulary great before reaching the highest levels - although the higher Sneak Attack and Power Level scaling work in their favor. Here's a video of @Kaylon as SC Rogue killing the Beast of Winter solo with spamming Gambit (using Rust's Poignard and Scordeo's Edge) quite quickly:

I suspect it will still trigger since the attack roll should still be done? Not sure though. A good cipher weapon is Bittercut. It has dual dmg (corrode/slash), its +20% dmg from Spirit of Decay always applies (even for the slash dmg), it comes with +20% dmg as all sabres and if you also put a corrosive lash on it you profit twice from Spirit of Decay (first you'll get +20% additive dmg bonus and then the lash gets raised from 25% to 30%). Anything with speed and dual damage is also good (Last Blade of the White Forge, Strike Hard). If you later equip a shield with Durgan Steel you can reach 0 recovery with Time Parasite, Vulnerable Attack and durganized mail armor. Which is a great dps boost and at the same time you benefit from the shield's defense. I personally also like Hours of St. Rumbalt because it's obtainable early and stys being good. Cipher's don't have Full Attacks so picking a two handed weapon is ok. Justice (Raedric's Blade) has a "secret" second 10% crushing lash which stacks with its 25% crushing lash. Since lashes (except wounding) also generate focus this is a good cipher weapon. Often the smaller lash can't make it through enemies' DR so lowering it with Body Attunement helps a lot in the long run. But usually I think speed enchantments are the best thing for ciphers. Keeping Fireband as backup is still a good idea. It works with any weapon focus and once you are in White March it can be of great effect againt all those iceish enemies.

My quote above is from the wiki which has a reference to a fig campaign update. So I don't think it was the fig campagin. I suspect it was only misreading, but if there is such a passage in the gamepedia wiki it needs to get edited - hence a pointer to that passage would be cool.

Players who also know other, maybe even classless systems will like PoE's approach a lot more than players who got imprinted with D&D's restricted class system and didn't try much else. If your characters in PoE are not unique then it's due to lack of imagination, not lack of potential. At the same time D&D rogues are very different from D&D wizards, sure, but all D&D Rogues are very similar to each other while all D&D wizard are similar. In PoE a wizard may be a bit less distinguishable from a fighter (because less retrictions) but two wizards may be a lot more different from each other than in D&D. It's a matter of preference and those can be influenced by gaming experience. Usually a broader experience qualifies for a more informed judgement. But taste is taste and not really argueable.

Right. It's difficult to explain something if you don't have a clue what you're talking about in the first place.

Can't say for sure because I don't play Deadfire on Turn Based Mode - but from the top of my head I cannot find a reason why it wouldn't work.

I made an animated gif which showcases the principle (attention, huge file - might take some time to load). Note how health goes up constantly despite Sacred Immolation's huge self damage because my parries drain the life from the tigers:

Try Whispers of the Endless Paths (WotEP) with Offensive Parry(!) as a Steel Garotte/Trickster (basically any combination with Steel Garotte that gives good defletion bonuses will work, but Trickster is a great mix of dmg bonuses and deflection bonus). You need to stack deflection as high as you can (Resolve, Bracers of Greater Deflection, Cloak of Greater Deflection, Nomad's Brigandine, Deep Faith, Entonia Signet Ring and so on) and use CC and debuffs to lower enemies accuracy (Inspired Beacon, spells from other party members like Devotions for the Faithful and Desponent Blows and such). Pick Riposte, too and Presistent Distraction. Stack AR as high as you can, too (with passives like Inspired Defenses, Stoic Steel, Exalted Endurance, Blunting Belt etc.). Don't pick too many strikes from the rogue tree - you want to spend most of your Guile on Mirrored Images and Llengrath's Displaced Images (to keep up the Defenses). Instead use passives like Persistent Distraction, Deep Wounds and Deathblows. One or two strike abilites are ok though because with WotEP you can apply stuff like Arterial Strike or so in an AoE (cone) to all enemies inside that AoE. The trick is that Offensive Parry triggers not only on 100% of melee misses but also dazes the enemies. This results in -4 PEN - which is great to let enemies severly underpenetrate but also unlocks the draining of the Steel Garotte automatically. Offensive Parry and Riposte do stack so often you will "retaliate" twice. The draining is very potent - especially if you are surrounded you can dish out a lot of damage "passively" and getting healed without actually doing anything. You can cast Inspired Beacon to unlock Deathblows for all your parries (its +40% dmg stacks with Sneak Attack and Deathblows) and even use Sacred Immolation without too much risk - the draining + Lay on Hands usually make sure you won't die from it. If you have a Priest with Salvation of Time you can also prolong the delfection bonus of Escape (+50). It's not like a super turtle tank - but it's combines a lot of tankyness with great damage. You have to be attacked in melee though to make it shine - so melee mobs are the most fun. Against single foes you won't profit that much from the parry (but still a good effect) - but you are still a tanky guy with the damage output of a rogue. Switching to another Great Sword will improve your single target damage then. For example Karabörü.

Can you show me the wiki entry? It is clearly wrong and I want to edit it. I can only find this passage here:

3. Show him your your opening post, have a great laugh together and then invite him to some Sex on the Beach and maybe Screaming Orgasms. After that we would be in the right mood to write an entertaining essay about people who can't tell the difference between annoyance, offendedness and sexual harassment.

Wait - wasn't it "Anal Minmaxing Fools"?

Fighter/Ranger can be neat with Karabörü. Due to the Ranger's high ACC and the Fighter's Disciplined Strikes you can crit frequently which can trigger a cone-shaped AoE attack from Karabörü. Combine with Clear Out! There's also the Great Sword "Effort" which has a raw DoT lash which unlocks Predator's Sense automatically like in PoE. Whispers of the Endless Paths can be good if you combine its Offensive Parry (riposte 100% on enemies' melee misses) with Stalker (+5 deflection, +1 AR), high RES, deflection gear (bracers and cloak), Vigorous Defense, Conquerer Stance, Superior Deflection and Beast's Claw. The cone attack of the sword can get you multiple stacks of Beast's Claw per attack and the increased defenses make it easier to parry (or with other words: let enemies miss).

By the way: "Sexual Archetype Force" is the name of my new Manowar coverband.

Ah right. Forgot about that little detail.

ROFLMAYO - the most hilarious thing I read all day. Even comes before "Somebody asked if I'm dating someone before making an inquiry about my sexual orientation and now I feel harassed and offended".

Why did the Chanter cross the street?

Sorry, had to edit my post above heavily because of formatting nonsense with the spoiler/img tags. Now it should work properly.

The only reasons to go Single Class Rogue are Vanishing Strikes and Gambit. And maybe Kalakoth's Freezing Rake for Trickster. Vanishing Strikes because its invisibility will not break(!). This means as long as it lasts you can do free Backstabs (and Assassinations as Assassin). Its base duration is rahter short, but you can prolong it with lots of stuff: Salvation of Time, Ooblit pet, lots of INT, items and food which prolong benefical effects and so on. So basically you will dish out lots of damage while being untouchable. It's quite expensive though so you can't spam it. That's where Gambit comes in: Gambit will refund its Guile cost if you crit. It's a Full Attack so it's best to use two weapons for having the chance to crit twice. If you even use a weapon with multi-projectile or multihit attacks like Sun & Moon or Hand mortars then it's rel. easy to do a lot of Gambit attacks because you will have a lot of chances for refunds. Gambit also gets a damage bonus based on the Guile you have left. Funnily enough Gambit refunds Guile "internally" when you crit while using it but will cap the refund to 4 afterwards. But while your Guile climbs up internally so does the dmg bonus. I had mortar shots with Gambit gettng over +200% dmg (just from Gambit alone) because I shot at a lot of weak enemies with an invisible Assassin (because I activated Vanishing Strikes before). The other PL8/9 abilites of Rogues are meh in my opinion and I would say that most Rogues are better off as multiclass for over 75% of the game. Here's an example of a lvl 20 SC Assassin with the setup I mentioned above (he kills the dummies really fast. Those have a ton of HP) :

What did Elric do again? Explain it to me like you would do to a five-year-old. I really liked that Brillant "fix" @Noqn suggested: Brilliant gives more spell uses like Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry. Could be even +2 instead of +1 for all I care. And make Blood Sacrifice cap at x per encounter (maybe 3... or up to 5?), but let it give back +1 spell uses for all tiers simultaniously instead of that random regain we have atm.

Yes, I would try to just pick up Oswald. It also works if you didn't get the quest from Kahn before (like when you first sail to Oathbinder's Sanctum and then to Nekataka) so I guess it might also solve your problem (just don't nail me down on this ).

Eh shoot! I totally meant that and not Draining Touch.

It's not regeneration of resources per se which breaks the game. Else Cipher, Chanter and Monk would break it all the time. It's the very special situation where the replenishment effect restores an ability that prolongs the replenishment effect. Divine Retribution is totally fine. I would even argue that Rogue and Ranger desp. need some form of resource replenishment at higher levels to keep up with the aforementioned classes that already have replenishable resources.

If you don't want to use Empower to boost spells then by all means pick Bloodmage. In that case it's strictly superior. Doesn't matter if multiclass or single class. Helwalker/Bloodmage is doable but I wouldn't dump CON too much because at 10 wounds you can one-shot yourself with Blood-Sacrifice. Concelhaut's Draining Touch Corrosive Siphon is great in the earlier stages and later, once you get Wall of Draining you just need some good source of healing-over-time to be safe (Wall of Draining will prolong that). Blood Sacrifice generates a hell lot of wounds at higher levels. An very potent combo is Fighter/Bloodmage once you get Unbending: because Wall of Draining will not only prolong the Unbending status itself but also every instance of healing-over-time you get when you receive damage. That can lead to some hundreds to thousands of HP regenerated every 3 seconds. You become unkillable (save for one-shots), can cast Blood Sacrifice without risk at any time and recast Wall of Draining and all other spells endlessly. I personally enjoy SC Bloodmages most at the moment. But I also had great Geomancers, Battlemages, Sages, Spellblades and so on. So just go with what speaks to you most.