Boeroer

First of all: what is grok/grokking? Edit: nevermind, googled it. Some things work exactly that same as in PoE, some don't. If you want to know what's going on I recommend reading @thelee's GameFAQ for Deadfire. It's in-depth but still brief enough and well-structured with lots of details that you would only grasp after hundreds of hours of playtime otherwise: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599 Imo: the main thing to know about is Armor vs. Penetration. In order to truly understand how important this is, take a look at the part where the math behind underpenetration (and any other dmg malus) is explained. --- Casters like Wizards, Druids and Priests still have a development curve where in the early game they have very little options per fight - but tend to collect an big pile of impactful spells/abilities the further the level progression advances. Like in PoE, but less pressure on balance because in general they can't cast 4 very strong spells per tier/rest which would make short work of even the tougher enemies. Instead they can cast 2 (less impactful) spells per tier per encounter. I think that made the encounter design a lot easier. Classes are more balanced than in PoE and there's a ton of great viable option with whatever class combo. Building a party like you described is still very much possible. One character that immediately comes to mind when reading your description is "Herald" (Paladin/Chanter). The things that are different from PoE and which one should really grasp imo: - PEN vs. AR (very different comp. to PoE). Both very important stats, maybe the most important besides accuracy and defense. - bonus and malus calculation (see "double inversion" - bonuses are the same as in PoE - except speed/time, maluses are handled in a multiplicative way most of times) - Power Level mechanic (low-level stuff scales very well and stays viable) - Concentration vs. Interrupts (completely different, way more impactful) - Stacking rules (item bonuses all stack) - health and healing (no health/endurance like in PoE)

Berserker/Skald with Blightheart and Ancient Brittle Bones and/or Many-Lives Skeletons can do this: Don't mind the monk abilites in the action bar: it was a test character cobbled together with the console. Confusion makes sure that Her Revenge hits your skeletons also. Every kill triggers Bloodlust and Blood Thirst, prolongs Blood Storm and gives +1 phrase via Blightheart - doesn't matter if skeleton or actual enemy. Barbaric Roar is a nice additional ranged CC tool because unlike invocations it doesn't pause chanting at all. Of course Her Revenge will also hit your party members in this configuration, so watch out. Chants don't affect party members in a bad way even when confused - so that's safe. For Many Lives confusion doesn't matter at all anyway (besides duration, but you're going to kill them off way before they disappear anyway). With this setup you want to stick to Her Revenge and not use Eld Nary! Berserker/Troubadour also works that way. Her Revenge and such will be twice the cost - but you will be producing phrases with Brisk Recitation twice as fast AND produce twice the Many Lives skeletons for killing on top. So Berserker/Skald or Troubadour is a matter of taste in this case I guess. --- What also works really well for Skald is a dual dagger setup with Pukestabber and Lover's Embrace and all the speed buffs you can get. SC works, but multiclass also of course (Barb, Monk, Ranger...) --- Another great phrase generator for a Skald is Mohora Tanga. Since it's DoT can proc itself and is considered a melee weapon attack it makes gaining a phrase from crit almost certain instead of only 50%. Great with Ranger as second class (high ACC). --- Saru Sichr has two attack rolls instead of one (1 physical, one DoT). This can be good for a SC Skald but is even better for a Skald/Barb: Use Body Blows and Spirit Frenzy as well as the Long Night's Drink to destroy enemies' fortitude defense and use Brute Force to always attack that low fortitude then. The Morning Star attack will then crit more often and the DoT (also considered melee weapon attack) which targets fortitude naturally will do that, too. Easier to get phrases that way and great debuffing along the lines. --- Skald/Black Jacket is also nice if you want to use a mix of weapon effects, for example Wahai Poraga for skeletons crits, Sasha's Singing Scimitar for that empored invocation and Blightheart evey time you suspect an invocation to kill an enemy. Just switch with 0 penalty as soon as you think one of that setups is advantageous in the next moment --- Troubadour/Mage Slayer with Effort+Hemorrhaging, Hylea's Talons and the use of Come Soft Winds & Dragon Thrashed in combination with Blood Surge and the Champion invocation is one of the few setups where I like to use both DoT phrases. They will cause procs of Hemorrhaging on crit. So basically Effort's Hemorrhaing enchantment procs with everything that crits, even chants. Hemorrhaging is considered a weapon attack which procs Hylea's Talons DoT (which is a melee attack). This also procs the Mage Slayer's spell disruption effect on the enemies. Their Champion (energized) lets you interrupt with every hit. So you basically will have a walking interrupter and spell disrupter who does that all just by singing. This also puts a load of DoTs on the enemies (Hylea's and Blood Storm on top of Come/Dragon Thrashed). And on top of that the weapon damage of Effort is pretty great, too.

That's correct. It's a charged spellbind, not a regular one. You can summon Rot Skulls 4 times in total and then it's empty forever. The +18 Fortitude is still sweet though. There are some other items that also have charged spellbinds: https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Pillars_of_Eternity_enchantments#Charged_Spellbind

indeed Yes, when he would be using Blightheart then his kills will give him +1 phrase. This is pretty cool in combination with Her Revenge since it only costs 2 phrases for a Skald and stays viable thoughout the whole game. But of course his weapons crits won't generate phrases then because it's a ranged weapon. But the combination of low cost and phrase on kill (on top of the normal phrase generation) is pretty fun. Later Eld Nary's Curse is also a great option to kill enemies quickly and retrieve phrases quickly for the next "Curse". Yes, in case the Skald uses Wahai Poraga he can "accidentially" hit his own skeletons. Kills don't do much for him then - but crits against the skeletons will be able to generate phrases for him. And since those Many-Lives-Skeletons have truly abysmal deflection he will crit them often. It's an easy way to generate phrases faster even gainst very high defense enemies. I would advise to use the "fixed" Wahai Poraga of the Community Patch which works like the description says - and not the vanilla one (hits less targets than described).

As @dgray62said, Gunhawk might not be the optimal choice of subclass, but I think it would still be good. The Bird is a great animal companion (better than all other ACs) and it cannot be stopped with engagement - which makes positioning and flanking with it a lot easier. So that should work well. Regarding Grimoires: since this combo needs quite some abilities from the Ranger side I tried to only learn very few spells and do the rest with Grimoires. I don't have a particular grimoire in mind right now - it's too long ago and I can't recall which spells are in which grimoire, sorry. I tend to hoard all grimoires I find though and then pick a nice collection for random encounters and some special collections for certain tough fights (for example I'd make sure to have a grimoire with Combusting Wounds against Neriscyrlas and so on). But a ranged Geomancer Maia with the Red Hand for her & her Phantom should also be powerful I think?

For me it would be Troubadour. I like to be able to switch from long linger time to Brisk Recitation. Beckoner Bellower + empowered Invocations does truly great things. I just find Troubadour better for parties - and more versatile in general. What about SC Skald (offensive Invocations +Blightheart for example - or Many Lives + Wahai Poraga...) - or SC Beckoner? Double upgraded Ancient Weapons (8 instead of 4) have impressive offensive output and cc capability. Even at lower levels stuff such as double wurms grills most enemies (as long as their PEN is still sufficient).

It works well apparently. Read here: Reddit stuff It's a question from @thelee by the way and it's over a year old. Maybe he had time to test this himself by now.

It is popular in Turn Based Mode (switching weapons = free action) - but not so much with RTwP. I think most players want to stick to one weapon and only switch if it doesn't work out at all (like an Estoc against Risen Champions and so on). Black Jacket allows to quickly switch to the most suitable setup against certain enemies - and have more setups available. While that is very useful against most enemies (at least it's worth the same as the +2 PEN of the Devoted on average imo) it's just not that "cool" to most players I guess.

I mean you can pretty much shape the aesthetic of your druid. In PoE you'll get all the druid spells automatically (like Priest) so the "building" of your character is limited spell-wise - but it's still your choice which spells you want to use. In Deadfire you have to pick spells at level-up which leads to an even more individually shaped character. But yeah... "nature" will always be a prominent element of a druid. Even if you set aside all the elemental and beast stuff and focus on decay or so.

Debuff/CC "priest" could also lead you to Druid - if you imagine some Druids to be something like priests of Galawain. They have a great mix of damage, cc/debuff, buff and healing. Some summons, too - in both games.

Hi and welcome! Priest of Woedica (Deadfire) has very nice debuffs. But there isn't one in PoE. And doing Woedica's bidding is a bit of an evil path most of times. I'd say Priest of Berath then. Has a nice mix of debuffs and alternative dmg (corrode instead of fire). And of course it fits very well into the Deafire storyline.

Cool!

Sorry, no idea, I didn't try.

Trickster/Steel Garrote uses Riposte + Offensive Parry and all the deflection bonuses you can find. Offensive Parry causes the dazed affliction automatically so the Steel Garrote passive unlocks kind of automatically, a well as Sneak Attack. So you dish out quite nice melee damage even when you are not actively striking. You can of course apply DoTs in a cone, too. And yes, pretty tanky but also good dmg output esp. against common (melee) mobs. Assassin/Bleak Walker is great solo but is also nice in a party for alpha strikes and "part time solo fights". You can take on a lot of way overleveled enemy groups with that one guy and whittle down the enemy before you party steps in, too. Strike from stealth with single handed Lover's Embrace + Gouging Strike (+42 ACC altogether, it's hard to miss), follow up with Brand Enemy (auto-hit), then vanish and wait in hiding until the enemy dies (pretty quickly from 3 unending DoTs). Once you feel comfortable you bring in the party, too. For normal fighting you can use Pukestabber+Lover's Embrace with high speed and nice FoD+Ring of Focused Flame accuracy and also stack Ring the Bell + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy - and later also Toxic Strike. But the true potential is the ability to take down very tough enemies with a strike and hide tactic.

Ahhh - cooldowns:

I played an evil Assassin/Bleak Walker (focus on True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike + Brand Enemy) and enjoyed it very much. Might as well have been Assassin/Steel Garrote. Trickster/Steel Garrote also isn't bad imo. Did that with Whispers of the Endless Paths (Offensive Parry). How about an evil Herald with Steel Garrote/Skald or Troubadour or so? Combining Steel Garrote passive + Old Siec maybe?

Hi! Weird, I never ever heard about that one. Unfortunately I have no idea what might fix this. First I would try to verify the file integrity with Steam. If that doesn't yield any results I would try to completely purge the game from my computer and reinstall it anew. But maybe you have already done that? Sorry if that's not helping. PS: It may be that this 5-minute explanation will not get played at all if you are offline...?

I wouldn't say that. Fire Godlike is also not bad imo there's no helmets with bonus AR iirc. Stacking AR can be a very good tactic - and +1 all-stackable AR can make a lot of difference. Death Godlike is very good with certain setups (mainly with Barring Death's Door and Wall of Draining or Salvation of Time). Moon Godlike grants some occasional minor healing - but that's a racial ability that's is indeed pretty lame imo.

But you became a necromancer instead. Also not bad imo...

Community Patch's solution is really too good. I think I wrote about that after I played a decent amount of Psion hours and iirc correctly also talked with @Elric Galad when he wanted input about Soul Mind with BPM. I also played Psion without mods and found it to be fine. It's still my preferred cipher subclass (then Beguiler) even then. The reason is that the action economy is so much better if you don't have to attack with weapons in order to get fuel for casts - and at the same time don't have to hit enemies at all which makes this subclass more useful against the tough nuts in the game. With a full party you can avoid to be damaged frequently pretty easily. Again decent deflection (and not having the lowest AR of the party) helps not only against occuring attacks but also disincentivizes enemies from attacking the Psion in the first place. If you then focus on mind control and other disabling CC (and as MC: also summons!) you make getting damaged even less likely. All the while you generate focus without doing anything (chanter style). Imo a caster/Psion hybrid is better and more entertaining. Being able to alternate between Focus and other resource pools and you never have to wait for resources - but the SC route grants access to impactful stuff like Puppet Master a lot sooner which is also good. I did NOT use Time Parasite much with SC Psion - because it messes with the timing of casting times/recovery and focus generation too much. It doesn't do much good if you suddenly have to wait for focus because you cast too quickly. The focus for Teim Parasite was better spent otherwise imo. Perfect spell for SC Ascendant though.

Wellspring of Life works like a passive. It stacks with everything.

?? I find it works extremely well in practice - at least with the Community Patch (it changes Soul Mindin a way that not receives damage stops the focus gain but receiving a critical hit). The best Cipher subclass for me personally. Soul Mind (Psion focus gain) scales with Power Level. It starts with 1 focus per second. Iirc it's +1 focus per second for every 2 Power Levels. So an SC Psion with Prestige and 2 more Power Levels (for example Wellspring of Life + Stone of Power's Power Surge) will get you to 7 focus per second if I'm not mistaken. I played an SC Psion with a small shield and weapon & shield style (less crits agains me - also less attention from enemies) and focus on Whisper of Treason and Puppet Master and I couldn't spend my focus as fast as it came in at some point. Keep in mind that Soul Mind regenerates focus even while you are in recovery or run away, are prone etc.

No, both scale with Power Level. But for whatever reason the Monastic UT fists always scale with the Single Class Power Level progression - even if you have a Multiclass. Which is nice for multiclass chars of course: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/monastic-unarmed-training And yes, universal Power Level buffs like Wellspring of Life (Nature Godlike) can increase both fist types (every 2 PLs with Monk, every 3 PLs with Monastic UT). A Forbidden Fist can use Lord of the Forest (from the Lace of the Midwood Stag) for +2 stackable PL and use his Forbidden Fist attack (it scales like Transcendent Suffering). That's one more scaling step. I usually use Wellspring of Life with Stone of Power for another easy scaling step. I think if you gain Acute or Brilliant from an item (like Least Unstable Coil) it's also stackable?

You didn't play the Forbidden Sanctum?