Boeroer

There are no overpowered classes per se (just one truly overpowered thing which is Brilliant). Monk isn't overpowered as well. It's just good a many things. Steel Garotte/Trickster with Whispers of the Endless Paths is good and fun. But that also has its shortcomings. If you really want to name a class that can cheese itself into invincible mode then surely it's Priest - just because of Salvation of Time + Brilliant (and then Barring Death's Door). But it's also tedious to do all that SoT-casting in order to reach that state. Bloodmage with Wall of Draining is also a candidate but not as easy to pull off (because you need enemies to hit and drain from). If you want to cheese with invisibility + Brilliant then Tactician/Assassin might be your thing. Becoming invisible can trigger Brilliant Tactician. Applying Gouging Strike will prevent the encounter from ending even if you are invisible. So you can do every encounter like: shooting an enemy with Gouging Strike --> turn invisible --> become brilliant --> shooting an enemy --> turn invisible --> become brilliant and so on. They will all die eventually while you are quite safe. In theory every character could be OP if you just look at Gouging Strike, Brand Enemy and Lover's Embrace. All you need to do is hit an enemy once and then vanish (best is Rogue of course, but also Wizard with Arkemy's Brilliant Departure or somebody wearing Rust's Poignard), hide somewhere out of sight and wait till one enemy is dead. Encounter ends --> repeat. There are a few encounters where that doesn't work due to limited space, but you could win most encounters of the game that way.

In my opinion a Shadowdancer is better off with Lightning Strikes instead of Swift Flurry - but that also depends on the dificulty setting. Swift Flurry is better on lower difficulties than on the higher ones. Reason is higher defenses on higher diff. and because Rogue's dmg bonuses work very well with lashes in general (since they are mutliplicative damage) and he hasn't substancial ACC buffs and "only" Dirty Fighting. Mathematically you will have a hard time reaching the dmg output of Lightning Strikes with Swift Flurry - especially when it counts most: against tough foes. If your Shadowdancer will be hunting behind enemy lines (bringing down casters, archers etc.) then it's another story though because those ususally have lower defenses that the tough nuts and it's nice to be able to one-shot them with a cascade of crits. Transcendant can be better suited for Swift Flurry because (as you said) he not only has some paralysis which helps with Swift Flurry but also ACC bonuses from Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld and then debuffs which can lower deflection further. On the other hand: enemies who get hit with Soul Annihilation seldomly need Swift Flurry on top to die... But a good proc-chain of Swift Flurry can fill up your focus right away which can be cool.

It is not reasonable. Of course it's bad that your CPU heats up that dramatically. But you can't blame it on Deadfire alone because as I said: we don't have that. So some special "negative synergy" of your system, maybe your installed software and Deadfire has to happen there. Maybe you could check if it's the case with all Unity games (if you are willing to install another one) or if it's Deadfire alone. Deadfire is a bit heavy on my CPU as well, but it's not getting significantly hotter than with other stuff.

If you blame Tyranny for poor marketing you must blame Deadfire's marketing even more. Even Josh said recently that it felt that nobody new about the release of Deadfire. Surely a lot of players who didn't follow Obsidian or are part of the "community" had no clue that Deadfire was even out. This was different with PoE. Alone because of Kickstarter but also because it was a "new thing" and kind of a desperate story which naturally got the attention of all sorts of media. The guy responsible for the Deadfire marketing campaign had to leave the company... I also blame Versus Evil: outside of a very small "community AoE" like on Twitter or in the respective forums I saw very, very little of Deadfire before it came out. Add perceived "Pirates of the Caribbean" setting (which it is not, but you can't know from glancing over it on Steam or GoG etc.), more competition, direct sequel, maybe disappointed PoE players, even saturated nostalgia and a small target group to begin with (remember only 40% overlap between D:OS and PoE) and I think it becomes more clear why it might have failed - still foggy enough though. We will never know for sure, we can just make educated guesses. By the way: Josh constantly tried to hit the brake with the pirate stuff during development, but many developers were pretty exited about it and got carried away with it from time to time. So maybe if Josh was more of an autocratic director we would have a game with less pirate-vibes, but he is not so... I was a bit sceptical at first but I came to like it.

But that's the case for every Rogue. It's not that the Ranger/Rogue is without a party. No need to keep enemies afflicted all by himself. Most of times clustered enemies (and that's where Frostseeker is best) will be afflicted all the the time - at least the way I play. Doesn't mean that's how everybody's supposed to do it, but long-lasting or constantly reapplying afflictions come with so many spells that are also damaging or being beneficial in general (Fear Ward, Wicked Briars, Chillfog, Venombloom, Barbaric Shout and many, many more) that clustered enemy mobs are afflicted 99% of times in multiple ways. I also use a Swashbuckler "tank" (often Edér) from time to time to unlock Persistent Distraction on all attackers around him. That's very convenient when having somebody like a Ranger/Rogue with Frostseeker in the back row. It's unlimited dual affliction time on all who are engaged by the swashbuckler. If you use Hand Mortar with another character you might apply Blinding Smoke all the time. And so on. So I don't agree that there's no synergy with a Rogue in a Frostseeker build. It wouldn't be my pick either though. Also because Guile is very limited and Garland's Rake doesn't transport Rogue's strike effects. A mortar or rod would be better to put stuff like Arterial Strike, Toxic Strike, Finishing Blow onto all enemies in an AoE. A Scout (with Streetfighter) is indeed better with mortars and not Frostseeker. A Helwalker has near unlimited Stunning Shots in theory. And stuff like Tenacious Blows is very nice as well. When you mostly want to shoot the bow and not use other active abilities much (like spells) it's great I think. It's a combo which ensures long-lasting use of active attack abilites with minimal micromanagement. So I think a Ranger/Helwalker is a great substitute for a PoE Stormcaller Ranger.

Once you talk to the first guard at twin elms you can go back to Defiance Bay.

Well - as several of us now have said: we don't have those problems.

That wasn't an analysis, only a possible in-game explanation. Of course the real reason for lvl 1 has not much to do with the story. Only that it's more interesting to play from lvl 1 to 20 instead of 16 to 30 (or something similar, fighting Megabosses all day to keep encounters interesting). But one could argue that you start as a realtive weakling again because Eothas sucked up the biggest part of your soul. And as Eothas states himself: "I can't give back your soul yet, for I still have use for its great power." Gaining levels before getting parts of your soul back is a normal process. Souls grow more potent with proper experience as we know from PoE1. So it is to expected that the part of your soul that was left with you can grow again without Eothas. Nevertheless: it would have been nice to really "feel" (as a player), that you just got back a big chunk of your "old and already powerful" soul. As I suggested above: like to tie this Watcher/lost soul thing to real mechanical advancement like Watcher-levels or so. Taht might have led to more perceived investment and motivation. Most players like it if they get something cool - like for example a new Watcher level where they could pick a new (good) ability on their own - not some per-rest stuff that's predefined by dialogue options. You get a bit of that with Gift from the Machine and Effigy's Resentment (when you get them back - if you had them in PoE in the first place) - but in my opinion that's too weak to really get players excited.

I would also use Helwalker because the +10 INT is great for the AoE of Garland's Rake and the +10 MIG anyway. Stunning Surge is nice, especially with the 3/6 projectiles (3 chances to crit - or 6 with Driving Flight). But afaik Garland's Rake profits from Sneak Attack, Deathblows and such - so why isn't that a good synergy? E.G. with a Trickster who can first lure enemies to a spot with Dazzling Lights, then later rack the hit-to-crit rate up with Gaze of the Adragan.

That is not the story. It's more like: Eothas killed you, Berath revived you and forces you to follow Eothas in order to find out what he wants - or you will die. You just left out the "do this or you'll die" part. Quite significant part if you ask for motivation I'd say. Edér also says that they got you on the Defiant because the farther away Eothas got the worse your condition. If we measure the power of one's soul in character levels then Eoths took 93,75% of your soul when he crushed Caed Nua. Sounds like enough to care about. I guess players would have cared more if the whole Watcher thing would have been like a mini-class with a seperate ability tree on its own. And instead of leveling up that tree by XP you would have leveld that up by talking to Eothas and getting back parts of your soul. So it's not only meanngful for the character but also the player (even the powergamer).

Since you mentioned Paladin: I played a Bleak Walker/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster and is was an absolutely solid build. Also due to the fact that Flames of Devotion counts as elemental attack (so no Arcane-Archer malus), gets +10 ACC by itself and +10 ACC from Ring of Focused Flames plus the Arcana bonus for Spearcaster. Add Zealous Focus, Marked for the Hunt, Survival of the Fittest and Stalker's Link. It's very difficult to graze or even miss enemies. Also works with other Paladin subclasses of course. Bleak Walker just had the higher FoD damage. Also: Eternal Devotion puts its burning lash (10%) onto every direct damage you cause, including the imbued shots and the damaging procs (Missiles, Fireball). Imbue effects will proc with every jump of a projectile (Blunderbusses' 4 pellets count as 1 projectile), so Driving Flight is a must (imbue shots proc twice). An alternative to Spearcaster can then be a weapon which already has a built-in jump, like Watershaper's Focus. Then an imbue shot will proc thrice. This can be very potent (even with non-damaging procs): three parallel Pulls of Eora (applied with first shot from stealth), combined with three Binding Webs (second shot after stealth) packs enemies together very, very, very tightly and takes them completely out of the game for a very long time. As long as there are no immunities one of the 6 parallel procs every 3 secs will always hit. You can then shower that dense cluster with all sorts of AoE nukes while they can't get anywhere. I value this a lot more than Missiles or Fireballs. Also you'll have no PEN issues at all. Enemies with Escape, Evasive Roll or Leap might be able to escape randomly though (see Splintered Reef fampyrs) if the AI is smart enough to time the ability right. In this case an (or more) additional Slicken from a fellow Wizard can be great.

Why would that sound sarcastic? Rot Skulls is a ranged weapon which the Priest of Berath can summon. And the imbue shots of Arcane Archers only work with ranged weapons. Since Arcane Archers get an ACC malus when not using imbue or elemental attacks it may even be that Rot Skulls will prevent that (if it's tagged as corrode weapon) - but as I said I didn't test that combination.

I never tried Rot Skulls with Arcane Archer. Could be a thing...

Why do people debate Skyrim now? Doesn't matter if you liked Skyrim or not. Nobody meant that Feargus wants to make a game that's an actual Skyrim clone in Eora. Skyrim's just a symbol to quickly transport an image - to avoid having to say "first person action RPG" in Eora. Of course it wouldn't have the quirks of Skyrim. I mean come on... it would have others. But really: of what use is it to debate if Skyrim was better than Oblivion in your opinion - in regards to a new Pillars game? The reason why Obsidian thinks that a first person RPG in Eora (will not mention another game as placeholder again since the next random guy will write an essay on that game then, too) is simple: first person RPGs sold like hot cakes recently, Outer World's (which is the same but in Space) did very well. So they have the technology/engine, the knowledge and the (financial) motivation to make such a game. I'd say it's a given. Or how did Josh put it: "Feargus wants to make one - and usually Feargus gets his way."

Went. Completely. Nuts.

I repeat: only invocations. There are no other classes with invocations, so...

Only one of the three incarnates that appear is bugged. The other two will work fine. And the buggy one can still soak damage.

Of you want to play something similar to a Stormcaller Ranger then I would take a look at the Frostseeker war bow. Use a Single class Ranger (aim for Twinned Shots) or a Ranger/something multiclass - preferably one that lets you crit more often and does increase your damage (Devoted Fighter, Rogue, Cipher, Helwalker Monk, Furyshaper Barbarian and so on). Judging by your post a Scout (Ranger/Rogue) might be your thing. The bow shoots three projectiles and every one of them can crit which causes an AoE blast of frost. With Driving Flight (and Twinned Shot) you can crit 6 (12) times per attack in theory, causing massive AoE dmg. If you invest in Arcana you can then also use Avenging Storm which will trigger with each projectile and also on the AoE blast. It's not a Stormcaller but a Frostseeker - but the basic idea and vibe are similar. A bow that does shock damage and is focused on single target dmg (and summoning creatures on kill) is Essence Interrupter. It's also quite powerful. Actually there are some really nice bows in the game.

Which is what every developer/publisher should do if there's a good chance that it will sell well on the respective platform. PC grogs who don't play a game just because it was also released on consoles or other platforms - and all those other gatekeepers really - can bite the dust* for all I care. "But it's going to get dumbed down!" :eyeroll * not literally of course.

BG grogs went completely nuts because of TB combat in BG3.

And most of those are from the Deck of Many Things.

Unfortunately that ring does not really counter the self damage from Voidward (recently tested - but other sources of raw damage it does counter).

There is a difference in wishing for something and being sad that you won't get it on one side and being driven away on the other. How can I be mad at Obsidian if Deadfire sells so poorly so that they have to make RPGs which sell better then? It's not like they didn't try. That comparison is flawed because judging by the sales numbers Deadfire is what nobody wanted while Skyrim and other first-person RPGs like Outer Worlds is what everybody wants at the moment. It's just not what you want. Well... yes. Like PoE was jumping on the bandwagon of Infinity Engine games. If you want to make successful RPGs you must either do the goofy D:OS style with multiplayer and silly writing - or a more actionesque first-person RPG it seems. Or pure action RPGs maybe. Skyrim is just a popular example of a first-person RPG. I could also have said Outer Worlds on Eora or Witcher on Eora - but that sounds a bit misleading for different reasons. It has a Metacritc score of 94 (which is pretty impressive) and sold extremely well (over 30 million copies - one of the most successful RPGs of all times). So clearly the majority of users and critics differ from your opinion. I liked it, too. I didn't play it as often as PoE/Deadfire but it was fun nonetheless.

But then it would be bad for everybody who doesn't use Monastic Unarmed Training or Transcendent Suffering, wouldn't it?

Why would it drive you away? Simply not buying would be reasonable if you don't like those types of games. I personally would like to see those games. I'm not limited to isometric, party based role playing games. And after all: if they would aquire two million new fans but lose those 200K who bought Deadfire - should they care (as a company that has to earn money)?