Boeroer

And according to your experience of 38 years: if you never saw something before it must be wrong... Here is the Wikipedia article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollaxe Maybe next time just double-check before ranting in a forum about "what to expect"? It's just a Google search away...

The description is misleading. Not every point of percent counts. Afaik it's only the different stages of endurance ( below 75%, below 50%, near death: below 25%) that matter in this case. I don't know the exact formula though. But generally it's correct: the less endurance the target has the more damage it will get per tick from Maggots.

Not entirely because in PoE bashing shields didn't count as dual wielding. So you alternated between main weapon and bash at normal (slow speed). In Deadfire bashing shields count as offhand weapon and thus get the innate 30% speed boost and also profit from two weapon style. So generally the dps should be higher than with a normal shield (with rel. normal weapons). BUT: most bashing shields don't scale their offensive properties with quality. That means PEN etc. will stay the same even if you enchant the shield to superb etc. This makes their offensive capabilities very poor in the late game because they almost never penetrate. "Tuotilo's Palm": its offensive stats scale with Monastic Unarmed Training (or Transcendent Suffering, but that's Monk) and the "Best Defense" bashing shield can be enchanted with +25% dmg and +2 PEN "manually". But the rest of the bashing shields (there's only Magrans Blessing left iirc) won't do much dmg. By the way: a dagger in the offhand + modal can be a viable alternative to a shield for a Riposte build. +10 deflection is good and while the -25% dmg is a bit sad you can still count on proccing nice effects (see Pukestabber for example). And their PEN and dmg will scale with weapon quality. But again you'll lose engagement. A great offhand weapon could be Kapana Taga (club) which can make you immune to flanking (basically the equivalent of +10 deflection and +1 AR if surrounded) and it can give you +2 engagement. But again: it might look funny with the rest of your gear. Fits very well with Reckless Brigandine and Champion's Helmet though...

That's nice.

You didn't try superhard though. Check the Versus Evil Twitter or Discord to get news. It's too bad they don't have any blog or news on their website. Edit: checked Twitter myself and there isn't much information on patches besides PoE for Switch. But I read that the devs give rel. detailed answer on their discord server. It's not the best PR policy if you ask me but that's where the info is I guess.

I don't know to which company Versus Evil gave the code for porting - but it seems it was done with not that much experience and under severe time limitations. Unity itself can be deployed to consoles, but you never know which hacky (or elegant but non-port-friendly) in-house solutions and plugins a game used. For examples with PoE1 I never could see any cloaks because the plugin for cloaks that PoE used wasn't available for Linux. I guess there are plenty of those problems with porting Deadfire from PC to consoles as well. And usually teting stuff takes the biggest amount of time and manpower but doesn't actually produce things - so it often doesn't get the time and attention that's needed.

You can usually color cloth parts, but not the metal parts of armor. Also certain unique armors (no matter the material) can't be colored if they don't use generic model parts.

I actually never tested, but I guess not. But even if: multiple instances of rel. small speed bonuses don't stack additively. So 5 times 20% recovery bonus doesn't lead to 0 recovery. Rather it's more like 100 recovery - 20% = 80, then 80 - 20% = 64 and so on (not quite what happens under the hood, but just to explain why you can't reach 0 recovery in Deadfire even if you stack a lot of smallish bonuses). That's why big-chunked bonuses (like 50% from Streetfighter or even 80% from stealth) feels so much faster than a whole stack of smaller stuff like Sure-Handed-Ila+Gunner+Maia's Armor+Acina's Tricorn. Also guns/crossbows used to have a hard cap with reloading: you couldn't go further down a certain point. I don't know if that's still the case but I guess. So at some point there's no point (huahua) in trying to absolutely minimize the reloading time. Anyway: a Wildrhymer with a reloading weapon can significantly improve his dps via Sure-Handed lla (2*20% is still way better than 0*20%, even if it doesn't stack to 40%).

Speed bonuses do not stack additively in any case. For details about speed bonus stacking see MaxQuest's pinned post about attack speed. However, Sure-Handed Ila applied BOTH 20% bonuses to guns and crossbows (including arbalests). @thelee: Yeah - Sure Handed Ila used to apply both 20% bonuses to guns and other reloading weapons (I guess because usually recovery bonuses do also apply to reloading speed - see Streetfighter etc. - and devs didn't realize that guns will profit from recovery bonuses as well as reloading bonuses because of that. The correct solution would have been to only grant a 20% recovery bonus). Used to be like that right from the release. Don't think it got fixed lately (or during port to consoles) but may be. I'm not at home right now so maybe somebody else wants to give it a quick test.

As I said they stack - I meant that you can proc stuff like Offensive Parry AND Riposte (or other stuff like from the shield thelee mentioned) from the one same attack that missed you. So yes, they all seem to get checked and executed seperately. Tuotilo's Palm also has a riposte-like enchantment (Outward Spikes). I don't know if those non-weapon ripostes do drain life (or would generate focus for a cipher if you were one) but Riposte (Rogue) and Offensive Parry (WotEP) def. do drain life for a Steel Garrote. I hope you don't play on Turn Based Mode because there the miss/graze ratio is heavily shifted towards grazes and misses don't occur often. In that case Retaliation and Offensive Parry and stuff are ineffective. Engagement can be a powerful tool for a Trickster/Steel Garrote because Tricksters can terrify enemies with Repulsive Visage and if terrified enemies leave your engagement there is a chance that you proc disengagmeent attacks. Doesn't happen always but often enough. Disengagement attacks have increased stats and will also drain life for you. Also you can stack up defenses against disengagement attacks (see Boots of Speed for example), then willfully disengage and provoke disengagement attacks that will miss, proccing Ripostes for you at an insane speed.

I play on Linux and my last crash was... well I can't remember.

Persistent Distraction applies Distracted which is a regular affliction: Steel Garotte draining works. Paladin passives + Trickster buffs + Riposte makes a lot of sense. Note that Riposte will also drain life for you once the enemy who gets hit by Riposte is afflicted by something. Riposte is an invisible Full Attack that has 0 attack time and 0 recovery. It always works - doesn't matter if you are currently casting or recovering or whatever. Draining effects do NOT profit from any healing buff (not MIG, not Practiced Healer - nothing) because it already scales with the damage you are dealing (more dmg = more healing). Steel Garotte draining stacks with other sources of draining (e.g. draining weapon and Blood Ward from Furyshaper and Chant...) Stats: sounds right. A superb weapon for such a class combo is Whispers of the Endless Paths - because its Offensive Parry (just like Riposte) drains health from enemies and procs on 100% of misses. It stacks with Riposte. But you'll lack the engagement slots of spear and shield (and have lower deflection although it comes with a melee deflection buff). You could get more slots with Reckless Brigandine and helmet of the Blackened Plate etc. - but that will look rather funny. For spears there's a nice backup-spear that deals slash/pierce damage instead of only pierce. Besides that I guess Stalker's Patience is the way to go. The best large shield imo is Cadhu Scalth (with high althletics/metaphysics). Its damage reduction stacks with the ones from underpenetration (and Death's Maw with its Death Runes). Akola's Apex Ward has its own retaliation effect but it's rather weak. Bronlar's Phalanx has the highest potential for deflection (scales with lost health).

Citzal's Spirit Lance is a pike. Only the initial hit applies the modal effect (not the AoE). Cobra Strike has no weapon proficiency. Same as Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Concelhaut's Draining Touch. C's Parasitic Staff is indeed a quarterstaff. Citzal's Enchanted Armoury are a one-handed Great Sword and a one-handed Morning Star. Reaping Knives: don't actually know. I guess daggers or none...

Check out "Kapana Taga" - it's the best club in the game. But the very first unique eone you can buy ("Shattered Vengeance") is also not bad. However - every club lowers Will by 25 points with the modal, so it doesn't really matter which one as long as you can hit with it. There are a few spells that lower Will but target another defense. For example Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage targets Fortitude and lowers both Fortitude (-10 points) and Will (-10 points). Also Barbs of Condemnation (Priest, lowers all defenses by 10, targets Fortitude). Don't know which else from the top of my head.

Debuff Will with either a spell (for example Miasma of Dull-Mindedness lowers Will by 40 points), apply an Intellect-affliction (Confused/Charmed/Dominated: -10 Will points - for example Cipher's mind controls) and/or a Resolve-affliction (Shaken/Frightened/Terrified: -10 Will points - for example Barbarian's yells) and/or with weapons (all clubs with activated modal: -25 points; Willbreaker Morning Star: -3 per hit). Best is to first hit them with a club and then cast Miasma, followed by a fear effect (like Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage and such). There shouldn't be much Will left after that. "I hit him with a club: he left no will after that..."

Sure-Handed Ila is particularly good with reloading weapons (guns and crossbows/arbalests). Because the -20% recovery and -20% reload bonus both get applied to those weapons. Add stuff like Acina's Tricorn and Maia's armor and you can reload pretty quickly. The other chant you might want to have is Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr (gives your party's weapons and also your summons a burning lash). As Chanter subclass you have different options: Beckoner for the double wyrms (they do quite some nice ranged damage) and later double Ancient Weapons etc. Or Troubadour because you might want to stack Sure-Handed Ila and Mith Fyr without a gap. I think I would pick Troubadour. He ca also run just one chant (like Sure Handed Ila) with Brisk Recitation and then dish out summons and other invocations like crazy. You can go Arcane Archer and raise Arcana and then pick Spearcaster. It also profits from Arcana. You could take some other subclass and aim for Dragon's Dowry which has the highest damage per shot in the game. Both work very well with the Ranger's Takedown Combo (+100% dmg for the next attack). Red Hand is also always a great option. When using blunderbusses maybe Sharpshooter is good because of the +1 PEN (blunderbusses tend to have a bit low PEN). Another nice weapon is Watershaper's Focus: with Blast modal the recovery will be lengthy, but the chant and gear can counter that somehow and the build-in jum stacks with Driving Flight, making proccing Ondra's Wrath enchantment rel. reliable. Because ofthe two jumps this is also a great weapon for Arcane Archers (since their imbue shots will trigger their spell on every jump which is quite hilarious with something like Pull of Eora and Binding Web). I wouldn't pick Ghost Heart though because your summoned Animal Companion can't be on the same battlefield with your other (chanter's) summons. A Wildryhmer with Dragon's Dowry/Spearcaster/Red Hand/Watershaper's Focus, Sure Handed Ila, Mith Fyr and a pack of Wyrms is pretty devastating at range.

Both: initial hit and also blast.

Taste of the Hunt with Citzal's Spirit Lance is pretty nice. Only heals once but applies the DoT to all hits.

Well - us Germans say "ach".

Ach when I think about it: who am I to judge. I have a sense of direction like a headless chicken at best (my wife always makes fun of me), so...

Yes, it's a charged item like some others and not a real grimoire. You can use it in some tough boss battle or something and then sell it. The special thing is that it goes into the pet slot which normally is only cosmetic (besides Concelhaut's Skull). I can't remember if Essential Phantoms (Wizard spell) can use items from the pet slot. If so the phantom you summon could use the spells every time without discharging them because phantoms get clones of your items and not the actual items.

It's good that you made a detailed list. The only problem is that it's not Obsidian who did the port. That list should go to Versus Evil (I don't know which company they enlisted to do the port). I doubt that anybody from Obsidian will take this list and forward it to them - since they don't support Deadfire with patches etc. anymore. I doubt they are even reading the technical support forum atm. Maybe they do though, but my experience suggests otherwise...

Yeas. To be a bit more precise: BUT I agree that this should have been made more clear. Even if you read the corresponding scripted scene you might easily miss what's actually going on and what exactly he did.

I can only imagine the feeling of that punch in the gut: Divinity:OS sells well --> PoE sells well --> Divinity:OS II sells like hot cakes --> Josh expects the same for Deadfire --> Deadfire tanks (despite good critics). I mean that sure does hurt. It's like when I was young and doing websites for clients in my freetime and I would always include four designs: three that I really worked on and which i liked and a forth that was just trash cobbled together. And every time clients said: "Oh we like the forth one best!" Ouch...

Thanks. Too bad it got turned from an automatic ability (see Priest's Holy Radiance) into a normal spell where it has to compete with much better alternatives. Same with Grimoire Strike (which wasn't so good to begn with even as an encounter-based ability).