Boeroer

By the time you get Whispers of the Wind there's still like more than 30% of the game left - at least if you own both DLCs and do all sidequests. The nice thing about single classes is that they reach the cool abilities a lot earlier, you get access to awesome abilities (in some cases) and your abilities are more powerful due to higher PL. The advantage of multiclasses is nice synergies, usually more resources and often (positively) frontloaded builds which makes the early/mid game more interesting and fun.

Per rest stuff is weird in a game that eliminated per-rest casting in favor of per-encounter casting, I agree. If an item has a per-rest enchantment and an alternative passive or per-encounter one I will never pick the first but always the latter. I know that one powerful 1/rest ability might be a lot more useful in hard fights than a mediocre per-encounter one - but I still don't take it.

Which game hasn't? They patched it with 5 major patches (PoE only got 3) and they did 3 fairly big DLCs. You have to "walk away" from a game at some point. You can't patch it forever because it makes no sense to patch a game that barely nobody's playing anymore. There's no shame in that. There are still some things that should have been fixed and OP has valid points, but the bugs are not gamebreaking and there are not that many and the game is absolutely playable and fun (at least on PC).

Increasing DEX has linear returns. Besides that: Even if a few fractions of a second doesn't seem like much: an increase of attack speed - by let's say 5% - is a 5% multiplicative dps increase. Giving 5 points of MIG would lead to an additive dmg bonus of 15%. Additive bonuses only apply to (weapon) base damage while multiplicative bonuses apply to your overall dmg output. So 5% multiplicative can be way better than 15% additive. Best for dps would be if you raised both of course. Besides that higher DEX makes you more reactive which can be more fun. Deadfire's combat is already pretty slow. But I think 15 DEX is fine. You also get +5 from Swift Flurry and maybe a few points from items and food or whatever. No need to maximize all preferable stats. If PER is 20, 18 or 17 also doesn't matter that much after a while. Because raising PER ultimately has diminishing returns when it comes to dps, but it depends on your build as well (in this case it's important to stack as much ACC as possible for Swift Flurry) and it also lets you find traps and secrets. If you play with official companions this can be important because most of them don't have high PER. And stepping on traps gives you injuries which is sooo annoying. By the way: there are those things called Berath Blessing points: you get them as achievements when playing the game. They can be used to unlock cool stuff for all next playthroughs - for example +2 to all stats. Or starting at level 4 instead of 1. Or getting a unique vendor who sells special good stuff for a low price (for example a Cloak of Greater Deflection right in Port Make at the beginning of the game). This can help to get your build "clicking" much earlier in the game. Keep in mind that these are only my personal preferences. Other players may think differently.

Haha yeah, I had that every once in a while as well. But not very often. Deadfire has this nice little "push out of the way" effect that solves a lot of small pathing issues. They push only a little but it seems to be enough to avoid the really weird "Benny Hill Show" stuff.

With Frostseeker it's important to critically hit. Without crits it's not that great. If you are using Essence Interrupter then generally speaking it is worth it to raise Metaphysics. Lashes (like the one from Electrical Conduit) are multiplicative damage bonuses and every additional percentage point is good. IIrc every 4 points of Metaphysics you get one additional percentage point of shocking lash (so at 20 Metaphysics it will be a 10% lash instead of a 5% one). You'd be the judge if that's worth maximizing Metaphysics though. It's easier on a party member because their skills are not checked in scripted interactions as much. Maximizing one single skill as MC can mean that you will not pass a lot of other skillchecks. Although Metaphysics unlocks some pretty important checks.

The data that we rely on was not "seen somewhere" but presented here. Therefore claiming that an opinion is based on data and then showing the data makes it so. A difference also is that some claim that X was THE reason for failure while others just say that Y may have been A reason. It's quite baffling how you can't see the difference. And calling people names doesn't make it any better.

Depends a bit on the rough build idea you have and which items you want to use. Generally I would have high PER for more ACC and DEX for speed and also RES if I wanted to stack Deflection and use Riposte and Enduring Dance with Mirrored Images and a shield like Tuotilo's Palm for example. Because every point of deflection has increasing returns. If Mirrored Images etc. ist only there to improve your survivability a bit and you want to dual wield weapons or fists or so then I personally wouldn't invest too much into RES (although getting hit by Arcane Dampener as a Nalpasca is really bad - maybe you still want to raise RES and also INT a bit). MIG doesn't need to be very high because you have Sneak Attack already and CON doesn't need to be very high if your deflection is good. By the way: if you use Tuotilo's Palm or an offhand weapon you could think about a Battle Axe + modal in the main hand (at least before getting something else): if you use Full Attacks (like Stunning Surge) mostly then the long recovery of the Battle Axe will be skipped and only the one of Tuotilo's Palm/offhand weapon will count. Makes you attack as fast as without the modal but the damage will be significantly higher (because Bleeding Cuts stack - also with Swift Flurry as I said). Only with Full Attacks though.

Yeah, that's not cool. Won't get fixed - at least for PC - because Deadfire saw its last patch a long time ago. Don't know if this can get modded out, but since this problem seems to be deep-rooted I doubt it. Can't one do some weird AI-scripting magic to circumvent that problem maybe?

Uh. Was that Swift Flurry on taking offence because I corrected your abridged evaluation? I basically agree with you, but you might have missed that.

That is not generally correct. Lightning Strikes is a 15% multiplicative dmg bonus (also includes dmg bonuses, passives and so on - but not other lashes) while a secondary attack roll is somewhat between 0% - 100% dmg bonus depending on the hit quality. If the secondary attack roll is a miss it's obviously 0, a hit won't do the same dmg as the crit before (25% less base damage, maybe even underpenetrate or not overpenetrate) and only after a second crit it's a real 100% overall dmg bonus). If we take the best case and assume 100% and also assume you got maxed out Turning Wheel and some other lash on the weapon then it might be the equivalent of 10 Lightning Strikes. Most of the time it will not be. Maybe more like 5 - 7 on average I guess. And then the main problem arises: As soon as you don't hit a lot but mostly miss or graze (which can happen a lot if you fight overleveled foes or bosses - e.g. in order to rush equipment) you can't convert hits to crits either - which further limits the use of Swift Flurry. Swift Flurry is a typical "win even faster" ability. If you struggle it won't do much for you - but if you are winning anyways you will win faster. A bit like Bloody Slaughter. This can still be fun no doubt, but as I said it doesn't work so well when you would need it most: in difficult encounters. This is all with a "normal" item setup. Let's assume you have a weapon without any proc shenanigans and have a crit chance of 50% throughout your playthrough against the entirety of enemies (which is already very high): then Swift Flurry will proc in one third of those crits which means 50/3 = ~17% of all attacks will trigger Swift Flurry. And as I said 50% overall crit rate is quite high. I we assume the above 100% dmg increase (which is not really the case but just to showcase) then we have a 17% overall dmg increase while Lightning Strikes is at 15%. And most of times it will help you to win faster in fights you are winning anyways. Again, this is with a weapon/item setup which doesn't proc stuff on hit. Now: Swift Flurry becomes very interesting when combined with Heartbeat Drumming and then used with certain melee weapons that have a chance to proc something, preferably some AoE stuff but also stuff that usually has a low chance to proc but he proc is powerful. For example all Battle Axes, Scordeo's Edge, Sungrazer, Lord Darryn's Voulge, Stalker's Patience, St. Drogga's Skull, Karabörü, Marux Amanth and so on. For those weapons Lightning Strikes doesn't do much besides the 15% lash (and that might not even apply to the procs). Swift Flurry however can lead to multiple attack rolls (because Swift FLurry and HBD can proc off each other) with one single action which all have the chance to proc that special effect. That might lead to a Barb/Monk with the Voulge clearing a whole room with one strike (multiple Carnage attacks all applying Static Thunder, crits from the chain proc immediately releasing the charges and so on) - or a Ranger/Monk to proc Sungrazer's Extinction Event + Meteoric(several times) which is devastating as well. Or you get a literal flurry of attacks from Stalker's Patience with no recovery or Blade Cascade from Scordeo's Edge procs a lot more often. Battle Axes will apply Bleeding Cuts with every proc of Swift Flurry with o added recovery which is really nice. Chromoprismatic Staff gets its 5 consecutive attacks i a hartbeat and releases the raw dmg AoE. And so on and so forth. With such weapons I would totally recommend Swift Flurry. Also with Sun and Moon because procs are much more likely with it due to the double attack roll per swing. Even if it's still kind of unreliable the effects when it procs can be so massive and fun that it's absolutely worth it in my opinion. If you don't use such melee weapons or/and don't want to subordinate everything to ACC and crit chance (like giving max PER, stacking up crit conversion, debuffing enemies etc.) I would recommend Lightning Strikes - which also pays off earlier in the game. But it hasn't the "jawdrop" potential. There is a lot more "cheesy" potential with Swift Flurry and almost none with Lighning Strikes. That's just more reliable. I didn't play Veteran and have no experience with Swift Flurry on that difficulty setting. But it surely works better there than on PotD due to lower defenses. To be honest even on PoTD I almost always use Swift Flurry (if melee weapons are used) because it's more fun in my opinion. Even if it sucks agaist most bosses. Monks are good against bosses even without it - so no big deal if it disappoints on those rel. rare occasions.

I also played IWD EE and enjoyed it - but I wouldn't want those mechanics in any contemporary CRPG.

Sneak Attack scales with Power Level. A level 20 multiclass rogue ends up with 60% Sneak Attack (and 50% Deathblows which doesn't scale). Tricksters get 10% less for Sneak Attack. So that's something to consider when comparing it to Soul Whip. Soul Whip is nice, but it doesn't add that much damage as Sneak Attack in the long run. Of couse you can do otehr stuff with it, too. Not having enough Guile for active abilities is a reasonable concern. The advantage of the Soulblade is that he has unlimitd uses of Soul Annihilation as an active attack - as long as he can damage stuff - on top of the unlimited wounds. I mean threoretically - in a party it's not that bad with a Rogue - but also practically the refreshing resources are a plus, no doubt. With a Shadowdancer I usually use the Guile for stuff like Escape, Mirrored Images (if trickster) and stuff like that. Not the strikes so much. The monk side has plenty of replenishable actions like Stunning Surge, Torment's Reach etc. But yes: you hve to use your guile very economically if your fights turn out to be longer. Don't get me wrong with Swift Flurry: it can be a lot more fun that the plain old Lightning Strikes with a melee setup. Once you get Heartbeat Drumming awesome chain procs may happen (Swift Flurry triggering Heartbeat Drumming and vice versa). All in all I think there are only few builds where it is ultimately better - but is sure is more interesting and jawdropping when it works. Just don't be disappointed if it doesn't proc much in the tough fights. Nice thing with a monk is that he can choose which defense to attack: if the enemies fortitude is low he can use Force of Anguish, if deflection is low he can use Stunning Surge. So getting crits is even more likely if you pick the "right" attack. Also on Veteran it is def. more easy to proc it than on PotD. Your idea with high defenses-->longer Enduring Dance is solid I guess. Might not always work out (not only hits/dmg against deflection remove stacks of Mirrored Images/Enduring Dance but all hits) but in general it should lead to a longer uptime of Enduring Dance. The nice thing about Soulblade is that you immediately start with one of the most damaging melee abilities in the game - and a Monk usually has an easy time to refill focus quickly with his other attacks. As you can see I would also have a hard time deciding, hehe.

I guess I didn't have those issues with PoE because I tend to play "Pause with Real Time" instead of "Real Time with Pause".

"Char building simulator" is exactly what PoE and Deadfire are for me, hehe. That term never crossed my mind but it fits. I do playthroughs to see if the stuff I tested with console is also good (which mostly meansfun to play) in the "real" game - but it often happens that I abandon the run as soon as I hit a certain spot where I can see "yep, it works well" or "uh it doesn't play as good as I thought". Megabosses are not impossible but unfun for me because they need stuff I usually avoid: consumables, resting bonuses and so on. And because they are such huge bags of HP which makes it a tedious grind even if you have a good setup. Also heavily favours classes with unlimited resources which I find to be a bit lame. I would miss nothing without the Megabosses.

I agree. MIG doesn't need to be stellar because of Sneak Attack/Deathblows. Instead of the Casita Breastplate you can also use Nomad's Brigandine (if not solo). It will give you +10 deflection in melee if your buddies aren't too far away without skill requirements, it has higher AR (which is good on combo with the Paladin's AR passives and the dating from Offensive Parry). It also has a great enchantment that makes you immune to disengagement attacks (not engagement itself): that means that if you disengage the following disengagement attack will miss 100% --> Offensive Parry and potential Riposte. Although Casita's Breastplate with Intimidate fits a Steel Garotte nicely. Besides that you want Bracers of Greater Deflection, Cloak of Greater Deflection, RES items, Entonia Signet ring and so on. Inspiring Triumph, too At the same time you (and your party members) want to reduce ACC of enemies with stuff like Blind (see the Beacon abilities) but also Devotions for the Faithful and such. Escape can be prolonged with a Priest's Salvation of time and gives you +50 deflection, too. Again: not solo of course. A great late game item is the Mask of the Weyc because its +50 deflection bonus at the start of combat stacks with everything (except Escape). In solo runs it's a bit too short but with a party it's quite great (also because Salvation of Time etc.).

I won't say RTwP is bad. I like it. It has several advantages compared to TB and vice versa. Besides that it's all trends and circles. I just don't think that die-hard RTwP fans behave any better than TB fans, hence my "nuts" comment. If you have the impression that TB fans are worse: it just might be that there are more of them, especially in the Larian forum. But when I look at that forum: the RTwP guys were def. the more unreasonable ones by far - which is understandable because they were mad (while TB guys got what they wanted). But still that illustrates my point: one group isn't better than the other.

If I would go for Offensive Parry I would max RES - because deflection has increasing returns. 10 points of stackable deflection is a lot. Mirrored Images is nice but it gets lowered per hit (also includes spell hits that don't target deflection) and it also doesn't work when Arcane Dampener hits you (which is common at higher levels against wizards and wizard-like enemies like liches, fampyrs and so on). Also if you get hit by Minor Missiles all Mirrored Images will be gone. If you take Blade Form then you can leave RES where it is.

If you have high Deflection (e.g. Paladin/Trickster) then Offensive Parry is always the better choice because it's an attack with 0 attack time and 0 recovery which can take place while you are casting stuff or drinking a potion or are in the middle of recovery. It procs on 100%(!) of melee misses and stacks with Riposte which has only a 20% proc chance (you can trigger Offensive Parry AND a Riposte from the same miss). This is very good with a Steel Garotte/Trickster because WotEP dazes automatically with Offensive Parry - which means the Steel Garotte can drain life with his parries without doing anything. Blade Form is okay if you don't have high deflection. But then I'd also skip Riposte. It is also better if you play with Turn Based because in TB mode very few misses occur (the grazing range is much bigger than in RTwP mode where misses are much more likely to happen).

That highly depends on the abilites/perks etc. available. In theory a classless system should lead to a bigger variety of builds - because everybody has access to everything. Think of a Deadfire where your character had access to all abilities of all classes. If a system pushes you to only take a certain type of abilities because else your character would suck then it sounds as if that system wasn't designed with much synergy between different abilities in mind. Or it uses a lot of deep vertical trees which also prevent good "hybrid" builds. Classless doesn't mean you can't have archetypes (basically a pre-defines package of values and abilites which can emulate a class - can be nice for beginners who don't understand mechanics too well yet).

He also prefers classless. PoE only had classes because of "spiritual successor of BG" limitations. Same as RTwP (with which I'm fine). Would you also be ok with the removal of classes (and an big ability pool - with prerequisites I guess) or would that be too much? The TTRPG changed quite a bit during the last year. I don't know if the inverse initiative is still a thing. Makes sense though. I find myself passing on my turn in Battle Brothers a lot because it's often beneficial to have the last turn - especially during phases of tactical movement.

This is such a red flag when writing down an opinion piece. Writing down ones opinions is fine. But please don't claim it's fact or "the truth". I'm also posting a lot of opinions but you'll never see me claiming that it's the unwithspoken truth.

They went nuhuuuuts. Nutsy nutsy nutsy nuts. But now they cooled off. One can read the BG3 forums again without seeing a rant about TB in BG3 (or one about BG3 looking like D:OS 3) in every single thread. What also cooled down: "Please Larian don't push a leftist political agenda in BG3" - as if Larian ever did that in the first place. Or as if they would listen to some guys who think that everything they don't agree with is "shoving politics down their throats". "Grand Wizard" or not: you won't see me getting ridiculously mad about developers' decisions for a game. Obviously it's easier to be reasonable if you don't get mad. It's also a lot easier then to refrain from personal attacks.

Sure, it's all guesswork and opinions. The difference is that some people try to look at this objectively and try to weigh the arguments - which sound reasonable and which sound unlikely, which infos and data do we have? They try to guess regardless of personal preference. They don't try to blame something they particularly didn't like for the low sales alone. They are trying to make educated guesses. In the older thread we had stuff like "it's the main story because I hate it", "it's the bugs because they ruined my playthrough", "it's the constant nerfs because it screwed my build", "it's the narrator because she sounds awful" (or maybe that was another thread) and also "I didn't like PoE in general and that means the majority didn't like it so they didn't buy Deadfire" - despite critical acclaim and good user reviews. That's not educated guessing. If personal preference meets solid argumentation: fine. I think being a sequel can be a problem. Don't think it's the main reason for flopping, but it can contribute. But often personal preference seems to interfere with solid reasoning and then it's only obout "I didn't like it and since my taste is paramount this must be the reason". I don't have any problem with the setting. Yet I suspect it to ba a (not THE) major reason for Deadfires low popularity. Also I don't have any stakes in the marketing - yet I believe that this has a bigger impact than some bugs, stutters, some nerfs or a somewhat lame main story. I make sure to say "I suspect" and "maybe" and "could be" instead of "fact is", "no doubt" or "unmistakenly", "useless" (my secret pet peeve) and such. My biggest gripe with PoE and Deafire are the pretty bad descriptions and tooltips when it comes to abilites or mechanics in general. Also some overly complicated mechanics. Yet I would not insist that "this is THE reason why Deadfire tanked".

Cool you liked that Berathian Priest. Ouf... that highly depends on preference I would say. If you like less micro or more (casting usually adds more) for example. Personally I like Monks a lot - and Rogues and Ciphers (except Beguiler) not that much - so that's kind of a tie here. In my opinion Trickster is a very nice subclass though and Soulblade can be very powerful. Erm... I think I like Shadowdancer more due to his mobility (Escape is very cheap), the no-fuss damage output and the better survivability in the early game. I like Ciphers more in other multiclasses I guess. If you are willing to use Swift Flurry then some weapons are particular fun: Willbreaker Morning Star with modal + Force of Anguish, Stunning Surge and Enervating Blows: lower enemies' Fortitude by 45 points via stun/weaken/Body Blows and then use Force of Anguish wich targets Fortitude. The Willbreaker also has hit-to-crit conversion. Sun & Moon: hits twice and thus has double chance to crit. It procs Stunning Surge refund and Swift Flurry more often than other weapons. It's also very good with a Soulblade (either less risk of missing and also gain focus with the second flail head if the first one applied Soul Annihilation). Sungrazer: it has an enchantment which procs on kill-with-crit. Usually that's hard to proc - but with Swift FLurry it's rel. common to kill with a crit. And the following explosion is powerful and also gains from Sneak Attack/Deathblows or would also generate focus. The other enchantment that triggers on x% hits is also great when Swift Flurry procs (additional procs count). Usually it's best to only hit with this weapon then. So it's one of the few cases where one handed style can make sense. Stalker's Patience: it has an enchantment that removes recovery on 20% of crits. If Swift Flurry procs it will remove recovery very often. I had like 5 or more stabby-stabs without recovery sometimes. Also here one-handed style can make sense. Usually it's strictly inferior but here it's ok. Whispers of the Endless Paths: Offensive Parry procs 100% on melee misses against you. It stacks with Riposte. Both work with Swift Flurry. A Soulblade is especially fun because he can gain focus just passively while "parrying" blows and then burn that focus with a cone attack of Soul Annihilation. But of course the deflection of a Nalpasca/Soulblade wouldn't be too great unless you get Borrowed Instincts. Trickster has an easier time to get high deflection sooner. Soulblades can make good use of Tuotilo's Palm - because Soul Annihilation is a Primary Attack- You can use the main hand weapon but will not attack with the (weak) shield bash - yet you keep the recovery bonus from dual wielding. Nalpasca/Tricksters can also make good use of it - with Mirrored Images + shield deflection (especially with the +1 deflection per wound) Riposte can be used and you become even more sturdy.