Boeroer

Sorry, I meant the general feedback on sidekicks, not your single comment. And of course "hate" was hyperbolic. I don't actually think anybody really hates some virtual and optional buddies in a computer game. Well... I hope so at least...

I think it even starts before FS. They just started flirting (weirdly but cute) once they were together in the party for some time.

If you grab Watershaper's Focus from Tekehu you can skip Spiritual Weapon I guess. Since it jumps it will most likely generate more focus per shot. I would def. pick both of the Cipher's PEN passives (Hammering Thoughts and Penetrating Visions). Of course you only need Hammering Thoughts if you pick non-raw damage spells like Mind Blades and beams and so on. I would favor Pain Block over Mind Lance. Iron Will and Psychic Backlash wouldn't be my pick when it's about powergaming. Thematically they make sense of course. Despondent Blows is actually pretty good, but I don't know if it's necessary with all the Beguiler's debuffs. Maybe not. Shining Beacon is strong. I would nearly always pick it as priest. I would not use Prayer for the Body. Iconic Projection is nice though in my opinion. I would favour Blessing over Holy Meditation, but if I can I would pick both. Party-wide anti-fear spell can be invaluable at times. I personally am not a big fan of mind blades. No particular reason really. It works with Hammering Thoughts. Maybe others can chime in since I didn't use it a lot and have not much experience. With high Power Level it might be cool. Further spells/abilities I would consider up to PL 4: Puppet Master (can be great against INT resistant enemies), Lingering Echoes (works great with rising Power Level), Greater Focus, Silent Scream (or Mind Lance - both target Will which is nice for some of the later Cipher passives which alter will-based spells). Note that you can cast Disintegrate on charmed/dominated enemies even without flipping them back. This can be a very strong combo. Whisper of Treason almost costs nothing for a Beguiler and following up with Disintegrate means having a "quasi-summon" which disposes itself. When using Disintegrate: against bosses with high Resolve (which lowers Disintegrate's duration) it is helpful to cast Psychovampiric Shield first Which removes 10 Points of RES which means a lot longer duration of harmful effects on the enemy. So maybe you want to pick that as well. It's rather circumstancial though since you might not need the buff for yourself because you're mostly in the backkine but only want the RES debuff. If you have a Wizard with Miasma you don't need it.

Besides doing non-violent quests and exploration ship fights are one of the easiest and quickest way to gain XP and good loot early on - because your char level doesn't matter in ship fights. But you have to know what you are doing. One big step is to either hire Berath-Blessing master sailors or hiring potential 4-star cannoneers otherwise. Potential 4-star means they have no star in anything else than cannoneer. After a few ship fights they will have 4 and you can take on the fat ships.

Hm... I would maybe try again. This always worked before. Don't know about Fireball specifically - but most spells I used with it did stagger the enemies. I played Warlocks, Witches, Tempests and Howlers with Spirit Frenzy (and a Morning Star) only for that reason. Maybe the enemies were resistant to might afflictions? I mean this might have changed with some late patch - but this is the first time I read about it. Or maybe it's just Fireball - that would be weird.

Vatnir is a sidekick and he's pretty great in BoW. Fassina is nice in FS, too. Fassina and Konstanten can even have a romance. Sidekicks are like companions in PoE without quest (so it's mostly about banter). I don't get the hate. They are totally fine for what they cost and they are certainly more entertaining than hirelings.

Avenging Storm is absolute mayhem with high ACC and Frostseeker: the freeze-AoE on crit also procs Avenging Storms. You can also use Heavens Cacophony for Avenging Storm if you don't want to use scrolls. By the way: another good reason for Cipher/Ranger is that Takedown Combo doubles the damage of Soul Ignition or Disintegrate ticks without getting removed. That's a +100% dmg increase for your DoT(s).

1. Beguilers are powerful. They still don't need weapon damage to generate a lot of focus as long as they can target several afflicted enemies with a deception spell. 2. Since you can prolong Ascension with Salvation of Time maybe Ascendant/Priest is the more "synergistic" combo. But I would prefer Beguiler/Priest of Wael for sure for thematic reasons. And Beguilers are plenty strong as I said. 3.+4. As Beguiler I would take Whisper of Treason, Phantom Foes, Secret Horrors. Those are great for CC and generate lots of focus. Eyestrike would also work but it targets fortitude and that's often a challenge early in the game. The spiritual rod (+modal) does some great damage and generates lots of focus for the times you can't get focus from casting deception spells. I would take Blessing over Holy Power. I'd also agree that Cipher should do the debuffs part and priest the buffs, but for damage they both have awesome options. Never skip Devotions for the Faithful... 5. You can absolutely play this on PotD effectively.

I think last status is that Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy both work with spells - but it may be that Blood Frenzy is more "picky"? I can't remember which spells of my last Barb/Druid I used for this but I got Blood Frenzy with some damaging spells (I guess Relentless Storm). And it triggered Blood Thirst, too. Since Carnage can't crit Blood Frenzy doesn't work with it. Afair Blood Frenzy didn't use to work with spells - but nowadays it does. Spirit Frenzy always worked as long as I can remember. I really seem to start forgetting details since I haven't played Deadfire for some time. So maybe test it first before committing.

Aw man. Sorry. Thanks for testing. Do I misremember so badly or was it a melee-only bonus at some point? Or was I confusing it with hatchets in my mind? Yet another case that shows that weapon modals should have been classified as passive, not active effects. Now after the first "damn" I just thought about using the Gladiator's Sword (+5 stackable deflection with Skrim) as a somewhat decent compromise between offense and defense when it comes to Riposte...? Skrim only works with a shield though - but maybe... maybe Skrim also works with weapons that can only be put in the shield slot? Like St. Drogga's Skull? Never tried... guess not, but worth a try? Other alternatives for the offhand are Kapana Taga and Squid's Grasp (both can grant immunity to flanked), hatchets (+3 against melee and modal reduces enemies' ACC), Duskfall (+10 stackable deflection at the start of combat for 8 seconds). Maybe something else?

There are some ice beetles in the White March maps. They are pretty tough (lots of endurance) so I'd say they will be sufficient for leveling up the staff.

I'd say a melee Cipher is more interesting as a multiclass. Subclass totally depends (on playstyle, multiclass combo and role in the party). They are all nice in their own ways. Psion is not well-suited for melee though. An often used subclass for melee is Soulblade. This is best paired with rogue in my opinion. For example Soulblade/Streetfighter. Soulblade/Assassin is also nice. If you want to stick to swords then Soulblade/Devoted or Ascendant/Devoted can also be good. Devoted's +2 PEN stacks with the Cipher's +1 PEN passive. Ascendant/Helwalker can also be a great combo. Or Berserker/Beguiler or Berserker/Ascendant. Since Modwyr makes you immune to Intellect afflictions you can counter Berserker's confusion with it. Even Paladin/Soulblade can be great. I personally like Berserker/Ascendant because while ascended you'll have higher attack speed and 0 recovery on kill (Blood Thirst) for your casts (as well as +3 PEN due to Berserker Frenzy + Cipher passive).

Bear Spiritshift/Stalker is pretty cool because you'll get quite the high AR without any recovery penalty.

Ah, ok. Reasonable change even without TB mode.

Blade Turning ending on movement is a Community Patch thing. In the original game you can move with it afair.

Once again I have to point out that Hunter Claw also works with a ranged weapon (like Blunderbuss) in the offhand. With Driving Flight you can get a lot of stacks just by firing one blunderbuss shot. So you don't have to use a melee-only setup if you don't want to get too close to enemies. Hand mortars do even work with the AoE hits - although not all of them will count (it's kind of weird). You do need to put a melee weapon in one hand though. Sun & Moon does give you 2 stacks per swing by the way. So it's a great Hunter's-Claw weapon as well (melee of course).

This. A hundred times. Also I'm sick and tired about people judging the quality of writing when they have not one single qualification to be actually able to determine what's good or bad writing. "I didn't like it, therefore it has to be bad" is so common right now. Why is that?

Reading your post I genuinely wondered: was buying PoE on Switch really the worst decision of your life?

It used to. Once had a Paladin/Wizard with that setup. I haven't played that for a looong time though so it might have changed. Am not at my desk for another week so somebody else would need to check.

Geomancers can be awesome with blunderbusses (in combo with Combusting Wounds), but not with bows in my opinion. I suggested Barbarian/Ranger in this case because not only are the speed buffs great for everything, but also Blood Thirst synergizes very well with the St. Omaku's Mercy/Veilpiercer enchantments that set recovery to 0 on crit (50% of times). This happens a lot with Driving Flight and high ACC already and you kill quickly - and then get another 0 recovery instance. Also Intimidating Presence can be very cool later in the game in addition to Wild Sprint and Leap for mobility. I tried it with Berserker/Sharpshooter once and it was powerful und more importantly fun. No idea about turn based though where speed/recovery buffs don't matter as much.

Patinated Plate still has the highest potential persistent AR, yes. Also the rebound enchantments raises you survivability a lot. Monks can block melee attacks entirely and also have Rooting Pain. Besides that you could also pick Iron Wheel. So there are several things that can make up for a lack of AR from armor.

I don't play him purely ranged though. The range of blunderbusses makes it nearly impossible to not get engaged on a regular basis. And Aloth's armor really isn't very good in terms of AR - but totally sufficient if you don't plan to tank all the time.

For Hunter's Fang etc. you can also use a melee weapon in the main hand and Blunderbuss in offhand and gain a lot of stacks with one single shot. So no need to go melee. Hunter's Fang stacks are very nice to have for St. Omaku's Mercy/Veilpiercer.

Scout with St. Omaku's Mercy or Veilpiercer is maybe one of the best in terms of dps. You want very high ACC and some crit conversion + Driving Flight in order to trigger the 0 recovery enchantments as often as possible. Barbarian/Ranger with Frenzy/Bloodlust/Bloodthirst or single class Ranger are also not bad with both of those bows. Paladin/Ranger or Paladin/Rogue can also be great: good mix of sturdyness yet good damage. But I think overall what you're looking for is a Scout. Essence Interrupter and Aamina's Legacy are also very good bows by the way. They are better against enemies with high defenses or pierce/slash resistances (without the modal) while the first two I mentioned shine against low defense mobs. The modal of Hunting Bows can be pretty great against low defense mobs as well though.

They provide you the spells that are in them without learning. The more grimoires you have in the trinket + quick slots the bigger your selection of spells you can cast. You just have to switch to the grimoire the spell is in. With this mechanic you could pick only passive abilities at lvl-up as a wizard and still cast all sorts of spells from the grimoires.