Boeroer

In PoE rogues were a lot squishier than in Deadfire. That got addressed. Melee (non-reach) Rogues in PoE had to rely on CC or Escape if they didn't want to gear up like a tank (like fat armor and/or shield). Since CC was really strong in PoE my recipe nearly always was to hard-CC the enemy the Rogue was dealing with (with a Cipher or Wizard mostly - even Fighter's Knockdown worked well). Also the Rogue's own strikes help a lot in 1:1 situations (especially Blinding Strike). Later I would make sure the Rogue had a stunning or overbearing weapon, too and I would take Persistent Distraction since that usually leaves the enemy (if not kith fighter) with no engagement. Coordinated Positioning wasn't picked by a lot by players I assume - yet it is a perfect tool for those situations. In Deadfire avoiding/cancelling engagement can be a very powerful tool by the way: unlike PoE in Deadfire an enemy will miss you if you dodge even so slightly out of reach. So a Rogue (or any other melee character) can go in, swing and thrust until the enemy starts to swing the weapon and then retreat a tiny bit from the enemy. The attack will miss (you'll even be able to see the out-of-reach message in the log) - back to business. Of course this is micro-itense. But especially for solo games it's very useful. One reason I like Nomad's Brigandine and Gipon Prudensco. And also Threatening Presence on certain Barb builds.

First of all the crit damage bonus is not a multiplier despite the wording in the description. It's an additive dmg bonus like Sneak Attack or Savage Attack and so on. On/from weapons everything stacks. Passives (like the talent "Merciless Hand" from the Doemenels) also always stack with everything. You could even add "Dungeon Delver" for another 10% crit damage. What doesn't stack with themselves is items (other than weapons) and active abilities (includes spells). So if you had Azalin's Helmet (+10% crit damage) and Rabbit Fur Gloves (+10% crit damage) those two wouldn't stack - one of those would get suppressed. In your case you only listed weapon enchantments and passives. Those all stack. You could now stack one item property on top - for example like I said Azalin's Helmet with +10% crit damage. You would then have: +50% (normal crit dmg bonus) +50% (Annihilating from Resolution) +30% (Merciless Hand talent) +30% (Durgan Steel) +10% (Dungeon Delver talent) +10% (Azalin's Helmet). That's a combined crit dmg bonus of +180% to base damage. Base damage of sabres is 11-16 --> average 13.5. On a crit you will do additional 13.5*1.8 = 24.3 dmg. Your damage roll on a crit would be 13.5 + 24.3 (+ other dmg bonuses like Exceptional, Sharp, Sneak Attacks and so on, left aside for now) = 37.8 slash damage. And to that dmg roll your lashes will get applied. If you had a 25% burning lash that would be 37.8 * 0.25 = 9.45 burn damage on top (which has to overcome 1/4 burn DR). Your 37.8 slash would have to overcome the enemies (full) slash DR. Usually the dmg roll is higher because you also have MIG bonus, higher weapon quality like Exceptional and so on.

If you can't see her in person it sounds like a bug but I'm not 100% sure. Sending her off with an escort (if you have some party member who's parked in the stronghold anyway) seems to be the most reasonable thing I guess?

I do not think it's reasonable to expect that a character who wants to go into close combat with foam at the mouth, two blood dripping battle axes and a napkin as armor should be left alone and do his thing while the enemy goes like "screw this meatgrinder who's chopping my legs off - I'm going for the turtle over there who's showing me the middle finger all the time"? You do not need a bland mix of semitanks as melee characters. I never had that - not even once. However, you need some strategy that helps you to deal with those situations. One ability can be enough. There are lots of tools to deal with engagement/disengagement attacks and with the problem that your dps character might get targeted. Besides items, CC, healing and support spells/abilities from the party there are dedicated abilities for most classes that are more on the dps side. Especially the more dps-focused classes all have at least one ability that lets you cancel engagement, go invisible or hop away in order to reposition yourself safely should you get targeted - or simply heal: Rogue has Defensive Roll, Escape+, Smoke Veil, Barbs have Wild Sprint+, Savage Defiance+, Leap, Threatening Presence, Dazing Shout, Rangers have Evasive Roll+ and Shadowed Hunter... If you build a pure melee glasscannon (which I deem even more boring than a somewhat balanced semitank by the way) and don't even take one little safety feature you can't blame the AI for reacting reasonably. At least if the enemy is supposed to have some sorts of intelligence and is not a stupid beast or fungus and such. But afaik those enemies don't even switch targets that much. It's the smarter enemies that do this. It also helps to let your tank engage first (in this case Eder) and wait a bit, maybe try to apply a helpful debuff or CC before rushing in with your whirling axes. Some bosses won't care (like in this case) and still turn around once you hit them with the axe - but aganst mobs this greatly reduces the need to fiddle around with engagment and enemies rushing your dps character. And what's the other side of the "bland mix of semitanks" argument? It would be a bland setup of one indomitable tank who uses the Patinated Plate, a hatchet or dagger and Cadhu Scalth and who's taunting all enemies with his Ricky Gervais monologue like there's no tomorrow - or threatening them with his intimidating stare that somehow is more potentially dangerous than a sharp axe - while 4 dps friends with zero defensive capability chop up the scandalized enemy who doesn't really care... I don't know but I prefer the less MMO-ish approach. In this case you'd need one repositioning ability and a reach weapon. You would be useful even if you're not fighting up to your full potential. It's just one enemy though. It mustn't alwys be that a party member is 100% efficient against 100% of enemies. Beguiler for example hates Imps... Of course this is all said with some meta knowledge under the belt. It can be frustrating if you are doing your first (and maybe only) playthrough and run into those issues. Heading back to an inn for retraining is also not the most fun thing to do. I would have really liked it if there was a more educating tutorial on how some of the base mechnics of the game work (like engagement) and how to deal with it and its effects.

I think so.

Basically yes. You'll need some stealth to master the early game. But you can always retrain later in order to distrubute the skill points otherwise. The human racial ability "Fighting Spirit" triggers once you drop beneath 50% endurance - but if you heal back up it stays active. With good INT you can use the bonus for quite some time - and it stacks with everything. You can sneak through the whole Temple of Eothas and you can also sneak past the phantoms in Caed Nua. If you rest in the Black Hound inn in GIlded Vale you'll advance in the main quest which gives quite some XP. You can sneak past the brigands who stole the crate from the smith's shipment and pick up the crate secretly. If you started a fight and there's enough space and you are faster than the enemy you can usually run away until the enemy retreats and combat will stop. You might need Fast Runner for that alse enemies will always be a bit faster than you. ALso when you lure enemies to a spot far away from their roaming area and cast withdraw on yourself you will become invisible, enemies will think you're gone and they will retreat and combat usually stops (which also ends Withdraw). You can also use a figurine to summon a creature for help and while the enemy is battling the creature you run away. Once the summon is gone the combat should also end. Doesn't work in some bounty or boss fights.

Why is it unfair? You chose to build a glass cannon in order to dish out as much dps as possible. You didn't raise defenses and AR. It's totally reasonable for the AI to target the biggest threat which also has the lowest defenses. You'd do the same, wouldn't you? You can either work with different afflictions on the enemy that prevent engagement (like Stun and so on), you could equip a pet that disables engagement (Grog), you could equip an item that prevents disengagement attacks (Nomad's Brigandine for example) and so on. Or use Wild Sprint in case of Barbarian. You could also use a reach weapon for this fight in order to not get engaged in melee but still use melee weapons.

Concerning Lethandria's Devotion don't forget this behavior (in case you don't already use it): If you switch from the shield directly to a copy of the shield (e.g. weapon set 1: sabre + L's Devotion, weapon set 2: axe + L's Devotion copy) you'll instantly get one tick of healing. You can set up a script (like I did above) that switches all the time once you don't need to attack (so switching recovery malus doesn't matter). Maybe you can use that behavior to your advantage.

The human trait is actually pretty good. The bonuses stack with everything. Pale Elves have freeze and burn resistance. Makes it more useful than freeze only. Prepare to sneak a lot to avoid early fights and get XP from quests you can resolve peacefully. Caed Nua will also be difficult. I can't say how early you will be able to solo the Temple of Eothas. But it's going to be tough as nails if you don't have some good spells at hand - so you'll need a few levels under the belt. As I said Priest is difficult at the beginning and gets easier and easier with every level. Quite the opposite to fighter for example.

Unmodded Forbidden Fist (without mods) is indeed a spell-like ability like Powerotti said. It doesn't generate focus and afaik it doesn't trigger Swift Flurry or Heartbeat Drumming at all(?). At least I could never proc them with FF when I tested it. And I never experienced the behaviour mentioned above (Bleeding Cuts etc.) in the unmodded game. The Community Patch simply added the "weapon" tag to the Forbidden Fist ability (not "melee" afaik because it already was tagged as melee- but not as weapon attack). It now can generate focus and also triggers Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. However, like Powerotti also already said, you cannot use weapons with the Forbidden Fist ability and thus no AoE whatsoever. Monk's "Inner Death" has the same probems by the way and I believe it was untouched by the Community Patch (we didn't notice this before the patch went live).

You can get more portraits online e.g. here: http://www.jasonseow.com/poeportraits Moon Godlike is especially helpful in the early game. Later you might miss the helmet slot though. But it's a viable choice. Only problem with the Silver Tide Healing + Priest is that Priests have low health. So while you won't get knocked out from low endurance (because Moon Godlike's Silver Tide heals you up) you can run out of health pretty quickly. So bring potions of Infuse with Vital Essence to counter the health loss.

Chanter+Priest+Cipher, needs two preservation items on the Chanter, one shield and one other: Chanter: chants Dragon Thrashed Priest: casts Withdraw on Chanter --> Chanter doesn't stop chanting and gets +100 to all defenses because Withdraw counts as stun effect Cipher: casts Defensive Mindweb --> everybody gets the Chanter's ridiculous defenses Barbarian+Chanter with Firebrand and Blood Thirst on the Barb Chanter: summons Skeletons, sends them to the front line Barbarian: summons Firebrand, hits Skeletons who stand near enemies --> Skeleton will get killed, Carnage damages enemies, Blood Thirst gets triggered also works with Barb alone if he takes Rymers' Summons as talent Barbarian+Wizard Wizard: casts Combusting Wounds Barbarian (need high INT): triggers Heart of Fury while dual-wielding --> creating tons of hits which all apply Combusting Wounds also works with Barb alone if he uses a Ring of Searing Flames Island Aumaua Wizard with Quick Switch and Coil of Resourcefulness equip 4 blunderbusses and suse Penetrating Shot cast Combusting Wounds fire all four blunderbusses on enemies with Combusting Wounds (applying 6 instances with each shot) add some missile spells and a Wall of Flame if needed Wizard + Cipher Wizard casts Combusting Wound Cipher casts Ectopsychic Echo Chanter with one handed single weapon get +12 ACC for all offensive chants Wizard + Chanter with White Worms and Blessed Was Wengridh: deactivate "gib" in the game options Chanter: lure enemies to a spot Wizard: cast Wall of Flames + Combusting Wounds --> kill enemies Chanter: lure more enemies to that spot where the corpses lie --> again Combusting Wounds, then use White Worms lure more enemies there: White Worms --> corpses can be used over and over again. You can clear whole maps with this one alone. don't reload in between or the corpses are gone an tank + Wizard with Blast and Kalakoth Minor Blights: tank engages enemies Wizard: summon Blights cast Pull of Eora cast Combusting Wounds shower enemies with Blights --> each hit from Blights (including AoE hits) will also trigger a Blast --> tond of hits that will all apply Combusting Wounds Rogue with spell binding gear (and scrolls): get Deathblows --> also does +100% dmg with spells get Deep Wounds --> does raw damage also with crushing/piercing/slashing spells pile up spell binding gear --> Flames of Fair Rhian, Sun Touched Mail and so on, everything that gives your rogue offensive spells get some scrolls --> especially of spells that deal pierce, slash or crush damage like Twin Stones or Concussive Missiles for Deep Wounds cast those spells on enemies who have two afflictions --> deal +100% damage with Deathblows Paladin + Fighter + Priest, get Munacra Arret and a marking weapon: Paladin is a Darcozzi Paladini with marking weapon, Coordinated Attacks and Inspiring Liberation (+10 ACC+10 ACC): cast IL on fighter Fighter uses Disciplined Barrage, wears Munacra Arret (and or Spirit Spiral, can also use Enigma's Charm) Priest casts Devotions (+20 ACC), then Inspiring Radiance (+10 ACC) Paladin attacks Dragon with marking weapon --> Fighter casts charm on dragon --> Fighter gets +10(Munacra Arret) +10(Inspiring Liberation) +20(Dispciplined Barrage) +20(Devotions) +10(marking) +10(Coordinated Attacks) +10(Inspiring Radiance) = +90 Accuracy on the charm which will crit-charm every dragon besides the one that is immune (Llengrath). Also works with Knockdown to knock a dragon over very reliably. But charm helps a ton with all the ads. Enigma's Charm doesn't have +10 ACC so its hit chance is slightly lower but it's 1/encounter. If you get Shame or Glory and Cladhaliath (with marking) or clone one of them with with the Helwax Mold you can give a +20 marking bonus instead of +10. Also works very well with a Cipher instead of a Fighter: no knockdown, but you can cast anything on the enemy. Especially if you combine Borrowed Instinct with Tactical Meld (on the Paladin): +30 ACC on top 6 Priests: Priest casts Devotions all Priests cast Aggrandizing + Inspiring Radiance all Priests cast Minor Avatar all Priests cast Shining Beacon with +10 INT, +10 MIG and +90 ACC (+10 from PER, +60 from Radiance, +20 from Devotions) --> delete even the atoms of the enemies from existence variant with one Wizard or Druid for CC and nuking: also nice if enemies are vessels then Radiance alone will evaporate everything (if not fire immune) Paladin with Outworn Buckler + Chanter with Little Savior: Chanter summons Skeletons, chants Blessed Was Wengridh + Comrades Paladin kills skeletons and triggers Inspiring Triumph Chanter keeps summoning if skeletons are all down --> endless flow of Inspiring Triumph --> party has stackable +5(Buckler) +5(Little Saviour) +10(Wengridh + Comrades) +7(Inspiring Triumph) = +27 to fortitude/will/reflex and +17 to deflection at all times with no per-rest resource costs spells etc. like Shields for the Faithful can stack on top Surely there's more but I have to go...

Yes, the description is misleading. Maybe it's a remnant from the days of development when two handed weapon were indeed slower than one handers. But in fact they are not. Only light weapons like fists, daggers, rapiers, hatchets, flails, stilettos and clubs are indeed faster. The rapier is the fastest weapon of all - I guess that's not intended. It has a little bit less recovery than the other fast one handers. By the way: Novice' Suffering (fists) is a viable option for priests with high MIG. Because of the weird mechanics of Novice's Suffering priests can potentially do pretty good dps with fists. Reason is that with Novice's Suffering the base damage of fists doesn't change. It still stays very low. Since all damage modifiers (includes grazes and crits) use the base damage they don't do much for fist attacks. So it doesn't really matter that much if you do a graze or a crit. So you don't need a priest weaopion talent for the added accuracy that much. The flat damage bonus that Novice's Suffering gives your fists however: that one scales with MIG. Priests can have pretty high MIG with Aggrandizing Radiance and then either Holy Power, then later Devotions, Champions Boon and Minor Avatar. Add some MIG gear and food start off at MIG 21 (like Dwarf or Aumaua) and you can reach nearly 40 MIG which not only boosts your spell damage by 90% but also highly improves your fist damage (same goes for wounding on Drawn in Sping or Tidefall - but let's put that aside for a moment). The good thing is that you won't need to invest any resources like money or enchantments on your weapons since they would scale automatically. Just some food for thought: punchy Priest of Eotahs or something. Cheesing means that you exploit some quirks of the game mechanics to your advantage. Like for example being faster that the enemy and then using a ranged weapon to kite them. Enemies will always return to their spot once they realize they can't get you - and then you can rinse and repeat the shoot-run-return cycle endlessly. That way a forum member did a PotD solo run with a lvl-1-character (never leveled up - look up "Noober"). Another would be that Chanters don't stop chanting when they are withdrawn by a Priest. They turn invisible and become untouchable but still can dish out a ton of damage with chants like "The Dragon Thrashed". That's cheesing. It's not really cheating because you are not actively breaking the game rules with software or console or whatver but it's not playing like the game's meant to be played either.

What Skaen look do you mean? Great Sword is as slow or fast as a normal sword, a sabre, a hammer etc. All two handed melee weapons are as fast as the heavier one handed melee weapons. Only with dual wielding a sword would be faster than a Great Sword. With a shield you'd have the same speed, lower dps but higher protection. With two swords you'd have higher dps, same protection but more problems with Damage Reduction. Especially in the early game where you'll have only few dmg bonuses that would help you to overcome DR. If you want to test out attack speed an recovery setups you can do that here: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/ That handy online tool is from @MaxQuest and very good. So, if attack speed is your concern then a Great Sword is not a problem.

If I would want to go into melee often I personally would not skip the priest's weapon talent that gives +10 ACC and brings him on par with a fighter. Caravan: without massive cheese (that I can't imagine right now) it will be undoable to kill the caravan as a priest. If you can do it then you'll get points in the "cruel" reputation which - depending on your deity - might hurt your Holy Radiance scaling. Priests have certain favorite and disfavored dispositions. If you get points in a disfavored disposition you will get weaker scaling. Holy Radiance with high MIG, INT and the proper dispositions scales very high (same mechanics as Shining Beacon) and can one-shot (non-burn-immune) vessels later on. I had it do 300+ dmg spikes. This can make several fights a lot easier. So before slaughtering the caravan you should first check if points in "cruel" would displease your deity. I believe Berath and Eothas condemn cruelty. Skaen fits. He likes being cruel. Skaen's also the best pick when it's about weapon dps (because of his weapon talent which not only adds the aforementioned +10 ACC but also a smaller version of Sneak Attack that can be stacked with Apprentice's Sneak Attack to a total of +45% iirc). Real nice with Firebrand which loves damage bonuses due to it's high base dmg. If you don't use summoned or soulbound weapons you are bound to stiletto and club though (for the +10 ACC). But stuff like Abydon's Hammer with an additional +45% dmg passive is nice.

Start the fight with Inspiring Radiance. It's a fast cast and thus you won't notice any difference whether DEX is low or high. This will give your party +10 ACC right away and they can start doing things like casting CC etc. Durance then has more time to cast his next spell without slowing your whole party down that much. If you also pick Aggrandizing Radiance he will get +2 to all attributes, including DEX. It stacks with everything. Also Durance had high RES. If you use him for buffs & heals mainly you can add a large shield and weapon & shield style and skip armor. That will reduce his recovery.

The summoning of a weapon is almost instant (0.5 secs I believe) and it has no recovery. The weapon itself lasts for 30 seconds (base duration) which scales with INT. You can always wear a backup weapon. You don't need to switch weapons: the summoned weapon just replaces the backup weapon and once the summoned weapon disappears you'll have your backup weapon again. Firebrand can also be useful as a backup weapon when you meet enemies who are vulnerable to burn damage and reistant to other sources of damage (e.g. a lot of stuff in the White March DLC).

Good thought. I guess that's the reason. Good point with Carnage and misses/grazes, too. Another question: when playing a Monk/Barbarian and using Force of Anguish you will hit the "pushed" foe with Carnage as well which usually isn't the case. Normally only bystanders get hit by Carnage, not the initial target. This is because you will push the enemy into its own Carnage AoE before Carnage itself gets rolled. Carnage then handles the foe like any other bystander (flying by ;)). The question is: does this also happen in TB Mode? Since Carnage hits a lot more often in TB it should be an even better synergy.

Hmm, why do you think Magran? First of all he didn't use the specific weapon talent of priests in his build and secondly Magran's talent (Inspired Flame) will only work with Swords and Arquebuses - which he didn't use. Since he used Drawn in Spring or Bittercut the Priest class doesn't matter (in this regard) because non of them has bonuses to Dagger or Sabre. St. Ydwin's Redeemer and Abydon's Hammer are soulbound weapons and will work with every weapon focus talent and also with every priest weapon talent (+10 ACC) no matter the deity. By the way: if you want to play a high MIG/INT priest like this one but want to do a bit more melee then Priest of Berath with Tidefall (Great Sword) is very nice. Or use Forgemaster Gloves + Royal Cannoneer Belt and use Firebrand as your main weapon. Since it's a summoned weapon it doesn't matter which deity you pick (all the talents give +10 ACC to Firebrand - like with soulbounds) but of course a Priest of Magran would fit best thematically. I played such a solo Priest of Berath ad it was fun. Tidefall's wounding (like Drawn in Spring's wounding) scales with MIG. So if you have very high MIG (like this Priest) you will do very good damage with the additional wounding lash. Of course you'll have no shield and thus be more vulnerable. I compensated with thicker armor, more CON and RES and less DEX. After all it's the spell damage that will do the heavy lifting for you. But you also might want to have some fun poking things with a weapon. A solo Priest is certainly doable for you on normal difficulty - however you have to know that the early game will be extremely hard with a Priest. He starts quite weak because he has a very limited spell portfolio and very few spell uses while his starting values are bad. Luckily his power curve is very, very steep and from mid to late game I think there is no more (potentially) powerful class - but be aware that you have to kite and cheese a bit in the early game in order to make it to Defiance Bay. From there on it's going to get much much better. This is the case with all per-rest casters by the way - Druid being a little better because his Spiritshift helps a lot early on and Wizard has helpful stuff like Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff. Preist mostly has support stuff in the early levels which don't benefit you as much in a solo game. Later on his spells just kick butts (like Shining Beacon with high MIG and INT).

Wrath otFS def. works with Penetrating Shot. Used that several times with Pallegina as alpha-striker together with FoD and Prestidigitator's Missiles (also work afair). I used Grimoire Slam on a monkish Wizard once (Novice's Suffering and all the "melee" spells like Draining Touch, Jolting Touch and also Grimoire Slam). It's 1/encounter and has fairly high base dmg (25 - like Firebrand or Concelhaut's Staff) so it scales ok-ish with high MIG (Citzal's Martial Power - that doesn't turn it off since it's not a spell I presume) and enhanced crit damage (like Merciless Hand + Dungeon Delver etc.). And because it's an ability it gets +1 ACC per level which lets if crit fairly often later in the game (esp. if combined with Martial Power and Merciless Gaze). I stacked MIG into the sky anyway because of Novice's Suffering weird mechanics that work garbage with dmg bonuses (Wizard doesn't have any anyway) but scales its flat dmg bonus with MIG. Which leads to respectable melee dps for a Wizard (who doesn't use summoned weapons). All in all it's comparable with Runner's Wounding Shot: a 1/encounter attack that can do decent damage - but you might only take it because you a) don't know what else to take or b) it fits your theme. It's not bad if you build around it but surely not a gamechanger either. Was fun though. Especially after you get spell mastery and can use touch spells like Jolting Touch, Sunless Grasp, Draining Touch per encounter. That was my PoE version of Wizard/Monk multiclass before it was even a thing in Deadfire.

Interesting with Spirit Tornado. How is Driving Roar implemented? In RTwP is takes even less time than Frenzy/Spirit Tornado. And right: it is so powerful because its base damage (which you see in the description) scales with Power Level. And since Driving Roar is in upgrade of a PL-1 ability it will scale right away from PL 1 to 9 once you pick it (meaning base dmg * 1.4, additional PEN and ACC and so on). Just mentioning it for players who don't know PL scaling yet.

Didn't test it so I don't know about your first question (blaster + wild barrage) - but it is confirmed that all projectile jumps trigger an additional instance of all imbue effects. The Penetration of the imbue effects shouldn't even rise with a caster class. If so that would surprise me big time. The shot itself scales its PEN normally but the spell effects do not. You can only alter the PEN of the spell effects with stuff like a Tenacious inspiration or Cipher's Driving Echoes etc. Or you use the mod that I linked in my signature. It scales the imbue effect's PEN with your Arcana skill. The mod did some conservative and reasonable balancing on several abilites (no OP stuff) and it also includes unique icons for all passive abilities (in vanilla they are all the same in many cases). But the mod is made in a way that you can even only use the Arcane Archer fix and use nothing else. PS: It's not me who did the mod but itv was a collaborative community effort of this forum. I only created the icons for the passive abilities.

Cool. Thanks! May I add Pallegina's "Wrath of the Five Suns" (works with Penetrating Shot)? Not really a spell but... Did you also test spell-like stuff from other classes e.g. Chanter invocations? I have the feeling that maybe stuff like Seven Nights could work with Penetrating Shot...? I have a question: I thought Grimoire Slam worked with Vulnerable Attack but I might be mistaken. Do you have info on this as well? I think I once knew the answer to my own questions but I seem to have forgotten a lot of the details of PoE...

Never had good results with a single handed Barb so far. Also because Barbaric Smash, Heart of Fury, Barbaric Retaliation etc. are all Full Attacks.

Maybe because playing RPGs used to be a nerdy thing - and people who did it formed rel. secluded groups. And maybe once you find something you can finally identify with it's hard to let go? Also: age and the "everything was better in the old days" syndrome.