Boeroer

Barbarian is the obvious choice. Because high attack speed and especially Carnage will help to proc Firebug more often. Heart of Fury as well. Heart of Fury also helps a lot with achieving all those dmg related soulbound upgrades. Barbarian's Carnage is also the case why the proc chance of Firebrand got nerfed so hard. Firebug-kills trigger Blood Thirst - you you could even try a single dagger or dagger&shield setup (is faster with Durgan Steel than single weapon). Unlabored Blade + Bagradr's Barricade ist also a great combo (less procs of Firebug, but also procs Thrust of Tattered Veils quite reliably and often). Drawn in Spring is great, especially with the high MIG of Frenzy. But with two daggers you'll only have slash damage output. So maybe keep some backup in a second weapon slot. Since Unlabored Blade works with every weapon focus you are free to pick. Spelltongue can be used to prolong your buffs, including Frenzy and Bloodlust.

That shrine is highish level content iirc. 12 Religion is rel. high, but not high enough for that shrine. But you can profit from party assist in this case: if anybody else also has Religion (even if it's low) he/she can assist in the skill check.

Check out Honey wine Hen (-15% dmg), Yolk Bowl (+1 healing per 6sec and -10% dmg) as well as simply Rice (-10% dmg). But I guess the most benefit is using food which improves healing received (Fresh Fruit +25%, Glazed Chops +30% and so on). That bonus is multiplicative with stuff like Physiker's Belt and Bone Setter's Torc. You can also use Cadhu Scalth and high Metaphysics to reduce the self damage even further - if you are willing to suffer the -8 accuracy while casting. It also depends on your recovery time. A slower caster will have less problems with killing himself than a very fast one. Especially if you also use Deletrious Alacrity (which might be not the best spell to use as a spell spamming Blood Mage unless you have good and constant healing sources). And if you are only spamming one particular spell (e.g. Bounding Missiles) the refund is also less random. Since low spells scale with Power Level they don't necessarily do less damage than a high level spell. So you can always pick one spell that matches the resistances/AR/positions of the current enemies perfectly well and then stick to it for the encounter. That makes the use of Blood Sacrifice a lot more manageable. I also like to use Corrosive Siphon a lot (if enemies' fortitude isn't too crazy) since it has a healing and a damage component. I doesn't stack in parallel on enemies but it can still be a nice spell to use in tandem with Blood Sacrifice. Also keep in mind that you can prolong healing over time with Draining Wall. So a Lesser Lay on Hands (Healing Hands gloves) suddenly becomes a nice ability to have.

I believe it does not stack. But trying it out doesn't hurt. Anyway Desponent Blows can be nice in combination with deflection/defense buffs and PER debuffs.

SC Bloodmage, packed with regeneration and healing bonus items (Three Trolls Stiched, Ring of Greater Regen, Ring of Regen, Fleshmender armor, Physiker's Belt, Bone Setter's Torc) can spam his best nuking spell (e.g. Ninagauth's Shadowflame) non-stop because he heals faster than Blood Sacrifice can kill him. Of course even easier to pull off if you have other sources of healing in the party or put Barring Death's Door + Wall of Draining + Salvation of Time on him (hello Xoti). I would say you'd have a hard time doing that much damage with a summoned weapon - although Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Spirit Lance are truly great for Wizard/martial multiclasses. But for SC Wizard I'd go the casting route. Also because summoned weapon sscale with char level, not Power Level. Serafan's Wild Mind Subclass can make him extremely dangerous for your party. On average his wild mind effects have a positive outcome, but one "Miscast" (AoE shock dmg againast Will - height of remaining focus) at high focus can wipe your whole party. So I would give him high AR, especially high shock AR (so no plate armor), high Will (ciphers can have extreme high Will defenses) and not let him cast too near to your party. Or simply live with it and reload once he wipes your guys. Most of the time his effects are benefical or at least not too bad. Miscasts are very rare. And if you have low focus at that moment they don't matter much. As a cipher you can let him use his mortars. Focus generation will be awesome with Draining Whip and if you control enemies to one spot (e.g. lure them from stealth with a Dazzling Lights from Aloth - not hitting the enemies, only luring them), then let the tank engage (all enemies will attack him and stay close) and then shoot them with mortars --> max focus most of times. If you use Heaven's Cacophony you can uise Avenging Storm 1/rest. It procs off of the AoR hits, of Blinding Smoke and of Chain Shot. It's very powerful. Shared Nightmare (PL9 cipher) also works for the AoE of the mortars by the way - giving you a ridiculously large mortar AoE and focus gain. Being bloodied is by no means necessary to make a Barbarian effective by the way. The only thing he gains is 25% additive dmg via Blooded. That's not really class-defining. One of the best debuffing spells is Chillfog - you should give Aloth that instead of Curse of the Blackened Sight. Just my opinion though. The rest seems good.

Yes, it stacks with most other debuffs that reduce accuracy (via PER affliction or even direct PER reduction - see Miasma of Dull-Mindedness). But I never tried if it stacks with Devotions (which also has an ACC debuffing component). Mostly because I tend to cast Devotions right at the start where it's hard to hit enemies with it anyways. Which is maybe suboptimal...

I guess you would need a ton of meta knowledge, lots of unguents, the right items, notes of every skill check and Berath's Blessings (double skill bonus on startup) to achieve this with a fixed party (if it's possible in the first place - don't know). Since you can swap out party members and every party member can have a different skill maxed it would be doable this way - but I think not many people like to play this way.

Why don't you simply look up your reputations with the factions on the character sheet - reputations tab? And check which flag you are flying in the ship menu.

I also have another question: Once you get Scordeo's Edge and you triggered and prolonged Blade Cascade: why is nobody switching to some non-unique Battle Axe + Bleeding Cuts then? When using Attack Abilites your weapons will not break - and if they do you can then use summoned weapons or fists or whatever. But by then you will have stacked a crazy amount of DoT instances on the enemy that last for a fairly long time (way over a minute with decent INT). And they will continue to tick while you cast stuff or have to run around, helping Vela out and whatnot. What am I missing? Or is it just not worth the hassle?

Bit of a LOL moment when Dorudugan enters the stage with his earth shaking signature jump and your Cleric just casually says "No problem!".

By the way: for tricky stealth passages you can use Necklace of Fireballs to lure away hostile npcs. So you don't waste precious spells (before getting the Brilliant Cloak or whatever). With a Tactician/Skaen you can also use other spells that can be cast outside of encounters (Desponent Blows for example or even a Repulsing Seal). Since you can get resources back when going invisible the loss of a spell shouldn't be such a problem as for other class combos. If you have 2 Necklaces oFB you can even cast 8 Fireballs per encounter - and then after encounter replenish by stacking them in the stash. I wonder why nobody used this so far...? Doesn't it work with Woedica's Challenge? Since it's an oversight in th first place I don't think so. You can also stack two Ivory Wurm Figurines and thus cast that summon in every enounter. At least that worked last time I tried it. Not that it's powerful or so but it gives you a free distraction in every encounter.

Well we can guess what's going on...

I once did it the other way round: accepted Raedrics quest to kill Kolsc, then also killed Raedric. He returned. I believe the only trigger that's needed is to kill him.

Afaik you can add any NPC to the party - even dragons. So that should be no problem. I don't know how they behave with XP gain and leveling though. I have no idea if npc priests may have other "subclasses" than the usual playable ones. I don't think so. But you can check with Marshal Eldrid Wenfeld for example. Lore-wise he should be a Priest of Abydon.

Crookspur slavers attack anyone anyhow. About the rest... let me get this straight: When sailing around you are getting attacked by Huana, Rauatai and also Principi ships. But then on the other hand not every ship. It's only some Huana and Rauatai ships. I guess this makes perfect sense after some malcachoa...? Anyway: you will get attacked if your reputation with those faction is bad (or not good). This may happen if you sail around a lot very early in the game without making friends first. Or by stepping on the toes of several factions via dialogue and actions. If you don't want that you can change the "colors" of your ship (the flag you are flying, not the actual hull and sail colors) to match the one the pursuing captain is flying. They will then not attack you. Afaik They did not patch aggressive ships.

Then my congratulations! Which class did you use and what did you do and so on and so forth? I guess I won't have time to watch the whole season.

Does that mean you're starting it or that you already completed it?

Absolutely doable. Always remember that official companions are +1 lvl above hirelings which gives them an advantage in the early game. And once you gained some levels it doesn't make that much of a difference anymore that their stats and classes aren't minmaxed. Pallegina can also be a Herald. I mention it because it is considered to be one of the best tank/offtank class combos if you don't like to micro all of your party members all the time. You can stack Exalted Endurance and Ancient Memory. This makes for a great passive healing aura for the whole party. She will have less engagement slots than a Crusader though. Tekehu can't be played as a summoner. His subclass "Stormspeaker" loses all summoning invocations. However... he gains Avenging Storm at PL 8. If you are open for unusual suggestions: try him it with Hand Mortar (Blinding Smoke) + Fire in the Hole (Chain Shot) and Sure-Handed Ila (maybe combines with Mith Fyr if you can manage to neatly overlap both with lots of INT). It's absolutely devastating. Mostly because Blinding Smoke - although not doing damage by itself - triggers Avenging Storm. And you will proc a lot of Blinding Smoke rolls. Especially if you use Killers Froze Stiff (crit conversion) and Ben Fidel's Neck (-10 to all defenses). Guns + spells is a great combo anyway since you can always skip reload and cast a spell immediately. Deltro's Cage will improve his shocking invocations just fine (including Avenging Storm). Of course this nice combo comes late so you have to make sure to find some fun while getting there. But since he has some great offensive invocations that shouldn't be hard. Corpse Eater is a bit underbalanced because of that +1 Rage cost (which doubles the cost for his go-to ability Frenzy and also the PL9-shouts which otherwise would be extremely cost-effective). But in encounters with kith and wilders it's good. I think even with 2 Rage Driving Roar is still plenty good if you combine it with Blood Surge and Blood Thirst and of course the +2 Power Level from forbidden flesh pie and such. Afaik the Corpse-Eater-only bonus to Power Level stacks with universal Power-Level buffs. You could also play a Monk/Corpse Eater by the way. For example Forbidden Fist/Corpse Eater. That way you can attack with wound-driven abilities but use the Rage for Frenzy and then the nice passives of the Corpse Eater. You can use a Morning Star (apologies - I suggest that a lot) - it works very well with Barbarians (Brute Force) and also Monk. Monk has Force of Anguish which targets Fortitude. Morning Stars lowers Fortitude by 25 points. Monks can also weaken with Envervating BLows - Forbidden Fist can enfeeble with his base ability. Lowers fortitude by another 10 points. And finally the Barb can use Spirit Frenzy to stagger opponents on hit, lowering Fortitude by another 10. Your opponents will have -45 fortitude and then you can use Force of Anguish to target that. Combine with Swift Flurry (and later Heartbeat Drumming) to generate a lot of additional attack rolls. Once you get Brute Force you can do that with all attack abilites. The Willbreaker is an awesome weapon in general. Also Force of Anguish + Carnage have that werid synergy where the target gets hit by FoA first and then again by Carnage (because the victim gets pushed into the Carnage AoE). This actually raises the dps of Force of Anguish quite a bit.

Yes. jumping into the pit (especially without any camping supplies left) could mean trouble if you tend to only use quicksave. On the other hand the game does have a list of the three last autosaves - so you really had to make some bad decisions in a row. The example with Kana's quest is more severe if you don't know what awaits you and if have little meta knowledge. But you can always bypass them and leave Cad Nua "manually" by using the exit route to the throne room. In my first playthrough I did just that (unknowingly) and didn't meet the Leaden Key Assassins until I came back from slaying the Adra Dragon...

Salve of Dissolution and Luminous Adra Potion remove injuries. You can't craft the salve, but you can do it with the potion. I think it's unfortunate that some potions don't stack with similar active affects. On the other hand it would be too good. That's why I said they should do something else entirely. But they can still be very useful - for example a +2 PEN potion is very useful if you don't have other means of raising your PEN (no source of Tenacious or a fitting modal). Scrolls are very good if you are not a caster yourself or if your resources get used up too soon (as many solo runs show). So I don't think that the consumables (including potions and scrolls) are not impactful enough - it's just so that giving them similar or same effects as class abilites sometimes feels a bit uninspired and redundant. It also takes away the uniqueness of some abilities or even (sub)classes (see Transmuter <--> Potion of Form of the Fearsome Brute). That's why I said I would be happy if consumables did something else (mechanically) as abilites. First of all you won't run into stacking confusion and secondly it doesn't make you feel that your cool abilites got copied and pasted onto a scroll - or distilled into a flask. Unguents are a step into the right direction: they usually only raise skills - which is pretty unique (except some items also do it but that's ok - they don't interfere with abilites).

Right. I forgot that soulbounds and summoned weapons are universal and work with every weapon focus (even with the priests' +10 ACC weapon talents). Didn't play PoE for quite some time now. So best to take the weapon focus that fits your "backup" non-summoned weapon.

If you are planning to use the break-disengagment-and-reflect mechanic then def. Gipon Prudensco because of the +25 to defense against disengagment attacks (stacks with Tumbling+Graceful Retreat+Fast Runner+Boots of Speed). I would say it's better anyway. You'll be immune to flanked (so no -10 deflection) and you'll get up to +10 deflection. Lower AR might be a factor though. However - usually you can get Casita Samalia's Legacy earlier. So I would use both: first the Breastplate and later the Padded Armor. I even use Nomad's Brigandine when I think my AR is not high enough in certain encounters. It can also give you +10 deflection and also helps with the disengagement while having a lot higher AR.

Priest of Berath/Rogue does pretty solid damage with his Spiritual Great Sword.

I cast Arcane Dampener