Boeroer

Depends on the enemy (and how they are positioned). There are an awful lot of enemies which have weak crush AR. For those fists are one of the best options. But there are also some very powerful combos with Resonant Touch, most notable maybe blunderbuss and hand mortars because they apply so many hits with a single attack. It's pretty wild with WotW as you can imagine. I made some videos on that. Same with Keeper of the Flame with its AoE (watch out: self damage) or Sun and Moon (double attack roll). Also everything that has special on-hit chances like Karaböru or Sungrazer can be very nice (if enemies stand together). However - looking at the pure stats of weapons the fists will always be great weapons against enemies that are vulnerable to crush. As I said Battle Axes are good with WotW as well because the recovery malus for Bleeding Cuts doesn't matter during the execution of WotW. Also check out Hylea's Talons which add a lash to your melee attacks while they can put a mild dot effect on you (generating wounds). Good item for a monk. Same with Ajamut's (or so) Stalking Cloak: it stuns with every attack from stealth or invisibility and gives an ACC and dmg bonus as well. You are invisible during WotW so... Another thing as soon as you get WotW: you won't use stuff like Raised Torment or Stunning Surge and most other abilities a lot then (Efficient Anguish I would keep since it targets fortitude and can be handy against enemies with high deflection but low fortitude). So you might want to retrain and take mostly non-attack abilities besides Anguish and WotW.

Pallegina as Herald is a nice offtank. Either focused on offensive support (Shared Flames + Exalted Focus + Mith Fyr) or passive healer (Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory and active Lay on Hands). Chanter is still plenty strong. As Crusader she can totally take the role of the main tank. But I guess that role is reserved for Edér. Xoti a SC Priest is absolutely ok. Besides her lantern there's a ring and boots which improve restoration/inspiration power levels which makes her a good support and healer. I would always take Enduring Dance as SC Monk. Once you get Whispers of the Wind you won't get hit a lot (invisibility). So the dance is very useful then. Lesser wounds isn't that important in my opinion. Good Armor for a dps monk with Abraham is Miscreant's Leather. This + Abraham makes you faster than wearing no armor. Fists should be one of your main weapon choice. They scale with Power Level and are great on SC Monks. Also WotW adds jumps with PL, so you want to stack that. You can use anything non-crush as alternative weapon - e.g. swords, sabres, stilettos, whatever. With WotW a very good melee option is Battle Axes + modal.

Due to the new Penetration/Armor system I think that at least bear and boar are more sturdy than in PoE. If you pick "Resilient Companion" that is. The bear has +2 AR on top which is a lot - and the boar regenerates a bit health every 3 secs with no time limit. Both are more likely to get in the way or get stuck though because they have bigger models and ground circles. But in Deadfire there's also a push mechanism which helps with with pushing party members aside if you want to get through. Also the animal companions do less base damage than in PoE. Unlike PoE the base damage doesn't scale with level but instead they get a scaling additive damage bonus (like a weapon gets when you upgraded its quality from normal to fine etc.) But they have some more interesting abilities. For example their Takedown attack can get upgraded so that the next attack on that enemy get +100% damage. Like a Backstab for Rangers basically. And so on. Rangers have their own healing and resurrection abilities for their Animal Companions.

Pellegrino? The Paladin from the order of the Sparkling Waters? With the special ability "Faith and Carbonisation"?

Hi! Obsidian has a new Social Media Manager. I guess that's the same posting as the former Community Manager @Aarik D? https://twitter.com/MikeyDowling/status/1179131245239754753 I hope we see her often and that you guys behave. Couldn't find her member name here yet. Anyway that's it - have a nice German Unification Day!

Yes, if the buffs come from items they usually stack.

Rejoice. Only if you have bad reputation with the Principi (-3) you will be able to gain Gipon Prudensco, one of the best armors in the game.

I just wrote down every deflection buff I knew from the top of my head. I think Flame Blights don't engage (don't remember) so it might be that they do nothing for Entonia Signet. The ring is based on enemies engaging you, not the other way round. Yes, deflection of Bronlar's Phalanx will drop as soon as you regain health. Since every point of deflection has increasing returns the higher deflection of a dagger + modal can be well worth the lower damage (I'd say it's always worth it on a tank). Fights will take longer but it will be be safer. Also as Arcane Knight one might want to use some special spells to deal dmg - like Ninagauth's Death Ray for example.

You don't need stellar deflection to make that work. It also works very well if not every thinkable enemy misses you 100% of times. Because you can also use Miasma, Chillfog and stuff to lower enemies accuracy a lot, giving you a lot more "virtual" defense. So - you can easily use an Arcane Knight for that, sure. But actually a Paladin/Soulblade is much more fun for this. Borrowed Instincts stacks like Safeguard does (so not as high delfection as an Arcane Knight but still high enough defenses). Psychovampirc gives you Steadfast, Eyestrike lowers enemies ACC, so does Secret Horrors. Offensive Parry will give you focus when it hits and WotEP will apply raw dmg to everyone in the cone if you use it with Soul Annihilation. Also works well with a Trickster/Soulblade. Another apporach is to stack stellar defenses against disengagement attacks (e.g. Shattered PillarMonk/Soulblade with Fast Runner, Tumbling and Graceful Retreat, Gipon Prudensco, Boots of Speed etc.). It's easy to reach very high numbers with that - and then disengage intentionally. All of those disegagement attacks will miss and trigger Offensive Parry. I even played that with a single class bloodmage. The defenses are not as high since you lack the passives of paladin or fighter, but stuff like Piercing Sigil or Cloak of Death make up for this. Also Fleet Feet cn be used for the disengagment approach. It 's fun to dish out melee damage while you are casting spells.

You can use Entonia Signet Ring to gain +10 (stackable) to all defenses - but only if you get engaged by 5 enemies. So not much use against single boss enemies. A dagger + modal should give you +10 against melee (at the cost of damage dealt). Bronlar's Phalanx can give you up to +20 deflection (at 0 health, so usually a bit less ). Instead of RES pets you could use Misty (self) & Comet (Edér) which would lead to +6 deflection against melee.

Damn! I tested the heck out of that weapon but that I didn't discover. That's awesome. It's the best assassination weapon. Edit: just tested it and it's true. But you have to make sure that you don't take it as ability. It has to be cast from grimoire and the grimoire you switch to shouldn't have it - then it stays after hit or crit (until combat ends). This is so cool... Assassin/Bloodmage incoming! Tank with it also sounds nice. Maybe even Steel Garrote 'cause it not only drains (which stacks with Steel Garrote draining) but also weakens on hit.

Concelhaut's Draining Touch is one handed. What's the grimoire switching exploit?

Sure, you are playing differently then. It's not that I have 1 tank and 4 glass cannons - it's just so that it's superconvient to have all (or most) of the melee enemies stick to the tank all the time. Differently from PoE1 they will almost never break engagement. And if you use a Unbroken/Trickster with Ryngrim's the forced disengagement (increased ACC and damage from Unbroken with Sneak Attack, Deathblows and Deep Wounds) is a great damage source as well (besides the tanking and CC). It's more of a hybrid and not as sturdy (although Adept Evasion on a tank is cool if you tend to nuke him as collateral dmg) but very effective. Sticky tanks with lots of engagenement are especially useful if you do some AoE shenanigans with WotEP or Karaböru + Clear Out or something on a melee damage char who approaches the engaged mob from the side. Unbroken/Shieldbearer or -Goldpact would be my candidate if I alsoi wanted to facetank megabosses (with a party in the back). Just because he can both engage a lot and soak up damage very well. Funnily enough your example of Unbroken/Shieldbearer has the most engagement slots of any tank.

You can only have 1 wall active at any times. Wall of Draining was an exception but I thought that got fixed at some point...? There is no perfect tank I guess - it depends on the situation. I guess a Herald with all the regneration gear and healing bonuses might be able to passively outheal Dorudugan's attacks if you play smart. He can't stack as much deflection but it's good enough to make the passive healing outheal the incoming damage I believe. Only my guess though - I didn't do too much testing on this. Others ae more proficient here with solo chars vs. megabosses. You can always try to use the Shroud of the Phantasm in order to trigger Brilliant in combo with Wall of Draining (or Salvation of Time if you pick a Priest instead). Also a Tactician/Wizard with Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure will trigger Brilliant against Dorudugan as soon as he goes invisible. Wall of Draining (or Wall of Many Colors) will not break that special invisibility by the way. Again: not that much Deflection (because Refreshing Defense and Llengrath's Safeguard won't stack) but endless resources - but lower PEN and ACC due to solo. If you need more enemies in order to mak Wall of Draining worthwhile you can use the Belt of Magran's Chosen. It will summon a hostile Flame Blight once in a while (chance on your hits) which can be used to drain durations. Burning lashes do NOT heal Dorudugan (luckily). Only direct burn damage. Did you check Gipon Prudenso as armor? Afaik it's the one with the potentially highest defense increase (if you don't want to invest heavily in Intimidate for Casita Samelia's). Also Bronlar's Phalanx has a deflection-raising enchantment (if health drops). I don't kno from the top of my head if it outperforms Cadhu Scalth with high Athletic skill - but you wouldn't be bound to athletics then. Against Dorudugan you might also want to check Rekvu's Scorched Cloak. Makes Dorus burn attacks heal you.

I guess it has a duration because it had one in PoE1 - and also because if you make it really "constant" it would have to be lower per tick (else too strong). But if it's lower per tick it's actually a lot less useful in 80% of the encouters (when having a party). On lower difficulty settings even more so. A good approach would have been to add a second, low but infinite regenration on top of Constant Recovery with Rapid Recovery. Or even better the other way round: Constant Recovery is a low but endless regeneration but Rapid Recovery adds a higher but time-limited heal. Regarding the question: now, after having played Deadfire a lot and using a dedicated tank (or even two) in most of my runs I would say that a Fighter is a must - at least how I play tanks/what I need them for. Not because of regeneration or even the highest possible defenses or whatever but because of engagement. When I have 6 or so engagement slots I can bind up to 6 enemies (if they are not too big in size) and it seems nobody wants to leave my engagement ever. It's the perfect CC. Especially if the tank is the only one unstealthing first. If I want a good mixture of engagement, defense and offense I choose Unbroken/Trickster which has some awesome synergies and doesn't even need Defender Stance at some later point (gets enough engagment due to passives and items) and become a murder-riposte-tank with Mob Stance. Sure, Arcane Dampener hurts because it removes 50 points of deflection immediately - but it's still not too bad then. If I want the absolute impervious turtle I go Unbroken/Shieldbearer (many engagement slots to begin with - gives me more freedom with my items and such) or Goldpact Knight (highest AR but will have 1 less engagement). The defenses are stellar, you're resistant to everything, the support is cool and Exalted Endurance (combined with a Ring of Greater Regeneration perhaps) is enough to keep me near 100% health all the time. Also because the damage I receive (if I receive any in the first place) is puny. Cadhu Scalth reduces it, the stellar AR reduces it, Death's Maw reduces it, Defender Stance reduces it... At the same time a Herald is surely nice to have because of the dual healing aura (can spare me another healer, also because of Lay on Hands and such). But in my experience he can't bind foes very well. You'd have to use a spear+modal (+1) or Kapana Taga (+2), a Shieldbearer (+2) and some other gear that may come rather late - and you still wouldn't have the amount of engagement I would like to have. I work a lot with AoE effects - and unsurprisingly those work best if the enemies are all in one place (where they can't hurt anybody). I will just nuke on my tank if I can't avoid it- doesn't get hit a lot and if he does he shrugs it off. At the same time a considerable amount of enemies will run around my Herald and get to my other party members pretty quickly. While that is no a big problem because the Herald makes everybody sturdier it makes the combat a lot messier and chaotic. I can't use AoE then a lot and have to use single target damage - which is just less effective (than debuffing and pulverizing a whole group of foes). I'd rather use a Crusader or Swashbuckler tank and then a Herald offtank/CC/support. That works well with few engagement slots and can still deliver all his goodies. If we talk about perfectly facetanking one single powerful enemy - that's a different story of course. But I guess the Crusader would also do very well then (while the Shwashbuckler would stink at some point). No need for engagement, sure, but still stellar defenses and resistances and ok regeneration. You can switch to Warrior Staance then (the deflection bonus stacks with Refreshing Defense and tha Paladin's passive).

Wait... I didn't even know that was possible.

That could be possible. Easier if you're solo. You can give yourself Shadowed Hunters or use Withdraw on yourself, set INT to 35 and use RestoreResourcesFromRest or SetResourceLimit to have (nearly) endless uses.

You usually only "lose" the loot. That may be not worthwhile at all (like Gorecci Street where the looters drop nothing that's exciting) or quintessential for you build ideas (e.g. with Familiy Pride/Bardattos vs. Valeras: Casità Samlia's Legacy and Deltro's Cage can only be yours if you kill both family heads). It is possible to do a pacifist run. You will have to fight every now and then - but most of the time fights can be avoided with dialogue and stealth. A "problem" will be bounties though. You can't do them without fighting. In those cases the nearest thing to not fight is to sneak in and deliver a gouging strike, go invisible, run away, grab a coffee and watch a Netflix show and come back later when the enemy is dead. Repeat.

To be fair you don't have to fight in Gorecci Street to solve the quest. The high difficulty is done on purpose. It's like the bear cave in PoE1. Maybe it's even a reminiscence. The digsite is also quite tough (not so much the drake + adds but the skeletal warriors in the western catacombs) - but also here you can do it all with sneaking (even without stealth points). But yeah - it can be a hard slap in the face for a newcomer, that's for sure. I like that (not that newcomers get slapped - but more that I get challenged so early). Most following encounters might be not that difficult (depends how you progress though) - but I think that's due to the habit of most players to build rather efficient characters and tend to level rel. quickly with non-violent quests in Neketaka and so on. It's hard to keep the difficulty up for good character builders while making if still possible to win for more "casual" players. Even if you can tune the difficulty level.

Josh really hates those names with colons though.

What do you think of me - sure I have. Doesn't work unfortunately (only initial target receives True Love's Kiss with Clear Out). By the way this also means that stuff like Stalking Cloak's "Bushwack" and Mask of the Grotto Deep's "Shadow Fang" trigger on all the AoE hits from stealth. Stuff like Assassinate and Backstab would, too - if you could only get them as SC Ranger or Barbarian. But if you are a SC Ranger with high INT and MIG and Harley pet (adds 10% dmg to DoT ticks for whatever reason), wearing the Mask, use Lover's Embrace in the main hand and a battle axe with Bleeding Cuts in the offhand and executing Whirling Strikes from stealth it's a death sentence (also because Whirling Strikes DoT is so freakingly strong of course). I lured mobs to one spot (and loud AoE spell taht you can cast onto the groud or explosive will do) and then executed it from stealth. Man... Of course stuff like Fire in the Hole in offhand and Keeper of the Flame in the main hand are even more devastating (superdevastating to be honest). Even two Battle Axes are more effective against "normal" enemies. But sometimes that dmg isn't enough (duration too short) to bring down the really tough nuts wihtout getting overwhelmed. So I was searching for something like Gouging Strike and True Love's Kiss came to mind. I just found it very convenient to be able to "curse" several opponents at once. If I then kill a weakling to trigger the Slippers of the Assassin or use Rust's Shadowing Beyond (on the stiletto) I can remove myself from combat (if there's enough space) and simply wait for the "cursed" enemies to die (which ends combat). Like you could do with a rogue + Gouging Strike. I killed Nemnok that way now at low level (before using Whirling Strikes). Hitting several opponents at once just makes sure you don't have to wait that long and you don't need to repeat that process so often. It's more for solo runs I'd say and I only found out accidentially. But I thought it might be good to know.

More like animancypunk ('cause who needs hot wet air when you can use soul essence, right? ) - but yeah. It wouldn't be such a big step since Eora already seems to be at the brink of some kind of industrialisation (see the luminous adra milling and stuff). It wasn't a medieval setting to begin with. Not saying I would want that for PoE3 necessarily, but a game in the Pillars universe - maybe with a small time leap (see the animancer experiment in Sacred Stairs) could be a nice little side project. I think the lore and setting are perfect for such a transition. I also have a name for that: Gears of Eternity. BAM - now it's official: I'm a genius.

That's right.

To be fair: Owlcat Games is a rel. new independent game studio from Moscow. Most likely they don't have that much choice when it comes to affordable writers (if they had dedicated writers in the first place) and the original writing is most likely done in Russian. The cultural differences can lead to different perception of what is good/funny writing - or maybe they don't find the same things silly that we do. But also the translation can play a role (especially if it's not done by "professionals" - and even then... I mean look at the German version of PoE and Deadfire: brrrrr). And then - as you said - it may also be that these guys are a bit togue-in-cheeky, don't know.

Hi, just so you know: I discovered that both Whirling Strikes and also Heart of Fury do apply True Love's Kiss (neverending DoT effect like Gouging Strike or Brand Enemy) in their whole AoE. Enjoy!