Boeroer

Afaik he used Blade Cascade from Scordeo's Edge (gives you 0 recovery for 5 sec base) and prolonged it nearly endlessly with the help of Brilliant + Salvation of Time. You can see the tiny sabre symbol besides his portrait - I think that's it. Once you have the buff you can switch weapons to whatever. You cannot reach 0 recovery with several stacked recovery or attack speed bonuses. The attack spped mechanics don't work like in PoE. Have a look here:

I did a quick search in the modding subforum and found this statement from @BMac: So it seems what you are looking for doesn't exist unfortunately.

True

Okay, then I get it. Thanks for your clarification.

Thank you. Indeed: PoE's flat Damage Reduction (DR) on armor had a lot less impact on you survivability than Deadfire's Armor Rating (AR) system. You are absolutely correct. Another thing that has more impact than in PoE: healing. Since there is no endurance/health anymore but only health you can't die if your healing outweighs the received damage. If you combine both (like you already started with bringing a Herald) you will profit a lot.

Correct. It is actually the same ability but with a reduced dmg modifier. Same as Skaen's "Baby Sneak Attack". Both do stack by the way, making a Priest of Skaen nearly as good with Sneak Attacks as a Rogue - but of course you need to pay for that with two talent points.

Huh? It works with every melee weapon attack no matter if it's your main weapon or not. It even works with "bash" from shields like T's Palm and also with Riposte and Offensive Parry. But it doesn't repeat the whole execution of an ability (like repeating a Full Attack) - it only repeats the single hit roll it procs off of. S for example with Sun & Moon it doesn't repeat both attack rolls of both flail heads but only the one it got triggered off. Same with WotEP: it only repeats the attack roll on the initial target but not the AoE cone. Maybe I misunderstood you though. Did you mean that it would get triggered but the additional attacks would be done with the main weapon? That may be correct. Forbidden Fist + community patch worked just fine with Swift Flurry for me (I mean oit got triggered). At least last time I played a Forbidden Fist (which was right after CP was released). So I assume that Inner Death would work the same once the weapon tag got added. If only the weapon gets to do the additional attacks then even better (because less balancing problems). It already has a melee tag. It lacks a "weapon" tag. The use would be that it triggers Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming, yes. Also works with Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel I presume (didn't check if those already work which may well be). Since Swift FLurry usually is a worse pick than Lightning Strikes against everything but non-trash mobs I find it unfair that it even gets excluded from stuff that's not properly tagged. You execute those abilites with your fists I presume which should be weapons (I mean if you picture the monk doing it). So why no weapon tag? I guess it is a mere oversight. You mean it could potentially one-shot enemies? As it already does? Jokes aside: If you want it to make a reasonable aternative to Whispers of the Wind or other empowered PL-9 stuff (look at empowered Missile Salvo or empowered Greater Maelstrom) then you should add this. Keep in mind that it would only play a role against bosses with 300+ hp pool - all others would die anyway. I doubt that you'll get a chain reaction from Empowered Strikes. Afaik the additional attacks from SF/HBD will not be empowered and thus will not get +100 PEN and ACC - and then the high defenses of bosses will prevent a massive flurry chain. And the combined chance on crit is < 50% anyways. Also you can't use it endlessly like WotW because you pay with Mortification, not wounds. Worth a try I'd say. If it's too strong then it's easy to revert.

That is correct. It's more helpful for mob fights. I don't bother with megabosses too much though. With a party they are doable without too much hassle - but they don't drop anything exiting. So why bother? And for solo they are just so tediously boring to battle that I couldn't bring myself to do it more than one or twice per megaboss. The real experts on megabosses are the guys in the forum that do the ultimate challenge or do mostly solo playthroughs, like @thelee, @Kaylon and others. However, the Engwithan Titan isn't that hard to beat with a party and should be no obstacle for you. But to give more detailed advice one would need to know what your party members are etc. In general raw damage DoTs work very well - e.g. Arterial Strike, Gouging Strike, combined with Deep Wounds and Bleeding Cuts and so on. The stacked damage over time that doesn't care for armor usually makes short work of the Titan without the need to poke him mindlessly and to expose yourself. Also you should consider switching to weapons that are better suited to deal damage to armored opponents. While Pukestabber is a nice weapon it's not very well suited for taking on huge constructs with tons of AR. Anything with crush damage works well against the Titan. So maybe use a morning star or if you want to stick to dual wielding switch to some hammers or maces - or as I said try a quarterstaff so you don't have to engage him. Makes you less likely to get hit and deals better damage against this guy. And you should debuff the AR. So a mace + modal on your tank and/or Expose Vulnerabilites (TItan's Will defense is crappy) from a Wizard should help. But generally: do raw damage DoTs if you have them. Maybe you even have Ninagauth's Death Ray or something similar, that would help, too.

Armor is the most important defensive value in Deadfire. Even one point can make a difference. If you can bring the enemy to multiple points of underpenetration (-2 or even -3) you'll see a massive increase of survivability. With a pet that reduces armor recovery penatly (Abraham for example) and Armored Graze a heavier armor won't slow you down terribly - and also your passives as a Streetfighter should help a lot with your overall attack speed. The reason is that damage maluses (like from underpenetration) go through a series of obscured mathematical operations (search for "double inversion" in the forum) which finally leads to a situation where the actual damage loss is way higher than the 25%/50%75% description suggest. WAY higher. You could immediately feel it IF you manage to let the enemy underpenetrate. A problem with the streetfighter is that he wants to get flanked but flanking implies a -1 AR debuff. So thicker armor indeed. Shield is not needed if your Herald can give you enough passive healing via his two auras (Ancient Memory + Exalted Endurance) and has some Lay on Hands for you. Greater Lay on Hands will even give you +2 AR but has double cost - don't know if that's worth it since it won't stack with Exalted Endurance. Deflection is nice but you don't need to bring it to stellar highst in this case. Just enough so that you don't catch a hell lot of crits - because crits have 1.5 times the PEN of a normal attack which will hurt you (not the additional dmg bonus but the removal of underpenetration). Once you get Refeshing Defense and Unbending your survivabilty problems should come to a full stop. Also Unbreakable is a good passive in your case because it gives you +2 stackable AR which is a big bonus. And the base duration is 30 secs. Sure, you will have to go down to get this bonus but I find that once you free yourself from the irrational fear of a knockout this is no problem since you can rest nearly everywhere and always. If brought to legendary then better armors than the Garari Cuirass (which is a good armor in itself, just too thin for your task) could be: Devil of Caroc Breastplate: 7 (base) +4(comes ledendary) +2 (Self Mending, if under 50% health) = 13 AR when bloodied --> great mix of AR and offense, also gets you +2 Discipline and +2 Guile The Bloody Links: 7 (base) +4 (legendary, have to enchant yourself) +2 (Crimson Steel, if under 50% health) = 13 AR when bloodied --> as DoC Breastplate, but less offensive capabilities Patinated Plate: 9 (base) +4 (comes legendary) +2 (Bronze Juggernaut, against melee only) = 15 AR in melee --> this is the armor with the highest AR against melee weapon attacks. Also its stunning retaliation helps a ton with survival. This will slow you down a lot but make you a lot more sturdy. Also get a Blunting Belt (+1 pierce/slash AR, stacks with everything). Depending on the enemy (which damage type he enemy delivers) you can exchange that with a belt that does +1 crush AR instead (like Maker's Own Power or Ngati's Girdle). You can also use a Dragon Pendant since it gives you +1 burn/slash AR. So with Exalted Endurance + Blunting Belt/Ngati's Girdle + Dragon Pendant you'd have +2 pierce/crush AR and +3 slash AR on top of the armor. Alco check consumables for AR bonuses. I don't remember if food stacks with Exalted Endurance or Robust from Greater Lay on Hands (then Aedyrean Mead would be your best friend) but others here will def. know. But there are other consumables which give even more bonus than +1 or +2 ---> like Potion of Spirit Shield (+3) which you should really consider taking in tough fights. I guess I would try the Breastplate (with the Helm of the Falcon - they look great together and the helm is good for a Great Sword user). This is a very good offensive setup due to the speed bonuses both items give you - while being reasonably thick for somebody who gets surrounded often. And only if the problems contuinue I'd try the Patinated Plate.

Isn't the 2 million copies of PoE including console sales? If yes then we should compare that number to the sales of Deadfire once it comes to consoles (release shouldn't be too far away). Besides that: exactly (one of) my point(s) but phrased way better.

You could add the "weapon" tag to Inner Death like it was added to Forbidden Fist. 👍

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.