Boeroer

If you like Maia then pick Maia. She doesn't get along very well with Tekēhu and Pallegina since all three represent different factions (Serafen does as well but is more cool about it). Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is still as unpredictable as it used to be. But you can also play him as Barbarian.

Bring Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu (with Xoti if you like her - she is easy to romance). Those are the companions who talk the most. And most of it is funny and/or entertaining. Also those are the companions you can get very early. Besides Aloth who becomes accessible right after Edér. Tekēhu's Druid subclass is very good actually and can substitute a Wizard and can be a good healer at the same time.

Funny! Maybe Modwyr and some other uniques are special in this regard...? I only used a plain normal sword. Or maybe the setting with dwarves is is especially "small" - also when you look at orlans in comparison (which are even smaller than dwarves). Maybe this sizing can be modded. I know of several weapons that you can add with the console (e.g. ogre weapons) that don't scale at all when you equip them with your chars. They are ridiculously oversized then. Maybe there already is a toggle (or scaling number) in the gamedata files...?

If the DoT spell has no initial direct damage (like Necrotic Lance or Autum's Decay have) then nothing happens: Takedown Combo remains untouched (tested 5 min. ago after reading your post - just to be 100% sure). Only direct damage works (the damage receives a +100% boost and the status effect disappears). That makes stuff like Chillfog and Minor Missiles bad with it but single instances of high direct damage good (Sunlance for example). Very nice Interactions with Disintegrate: Debonaire/Cipher: charm with Whisper of Treason and then cast Disintegrate (yes, it's possible): 100% hit-to crit conversion --> +50% duration of Disintegrate Forbidden Fist/Cipher: Forbidden Fist to enfeeble and then Disintegrate: +50% duration for Disintegrate. Even better if you crit (Enduring Dance, Morning Star - Enfeebled itself lowers fortitude). My last tests with this were today. So I know that Disintegrate does do more damage overall with longer duration. But I'm using the Community Patch which fixed some weird DoT behavior - maybe Disint. was one of them. But iirc it was also patched by Obsidian...?

I took a screenshot from a dwarf holding a sword, took the sword and cut it out, gave it a bright color and then put it into the screenshots of a human (average size), an orlan (smallest size) and aumaua (biggest size): As you can see the sword doesn't get sized down a lot if we use the human as "normal" size. It doesn't look like a child's toy at all. The only significant sizing that happens: on aumauas the weapon gets scaled up quite a bit (most likely because it would look quite ridiculous if it didn't). So if you compare a weapon on a aumaua and then give it to an orlan or dwarf the difference might be way more obvious. On this second screenshot I took the measurement of the orlan sword (left) and copied it besides the human sword (right): Here it's a little more visible. The orlan sword is a tiny bit shorter. I say tiny because it's not really that much - esp. compared to the size difference of their bodies. Since armor also gets scaled (would be unusable as soon as it wouldn't fit your race otherwise) I reckon that weapon scaling is ok, too. I am pretty sure that the development team did some tests and decided that this (rather conservative) weapon scaling looks best (or better than leaving the weapon size unchanged). To be honest I never even noticed that there was weapon scaling before you opened this thread... A toggle option is always nice though. Why not?

Sure, why not? Best synergies are all the ACC bonuses from Ranger which stack with Borrowed Instincts. Takedown Combo (+100% dmg) works very well with Soul Annihilation. You can use the AC as ally for all the cipher powers which need one. Stuff like Soul Ignition will trigger Predator's Sense on the AC and so on. Compared to Stalker/Soul Blade: not much difference to be honest. But with Ghost Heart you can use Screaming Horrors on your Animal Companion (since it's a spirit). It might die in the process but at least you can use this ability and deal AoE damage even when there are no enemy vessels or spirits around. Because the "scream" that the hit AC will emit does damage to all enemies, not just vessels/spirits. You just need a spirit/vessel to cast the spell onto. If I'm not mistaken you can even cast Detonate on your AC. That would be not so great with a normal AC, but with a summoned one which is about to die you can at least make sure you get some AoE damage out of it withoug suffering Bonded Grief. It's not soo much to be honest. Stalker would be the more obvious and "synergetic" pick.

By the way there are some passives that do indeed influence other abilites without creating a seperate copy for every ability they work with. For example "Lingering Echoes" of the Cipher works for all outgoing afflictions no matter if it's a cipher power or a wizard spell and so on. I think this is due to the already implemented mechanics around afflictions/inspirations which already provide means of influencing durations via crits/INT/Resolve etc. So it was easy to implment Lingering Echos as a similar effect. Also see Ring of Overseeing or Aloth's Armor: same mechanic basically but with AoE size. But whenever there is an upgrade or effect that doesn't fit into the "generic" mechanics it usually is a hard copy of an ability.

Err... that was not the point.

You also have to rest in the wilderness (camp) in order to proceed the quest if I'm not mistaken. Might be worth a try...?

Accurate Carnage just replaces the original Carnage Ability with a new one (that has the same stats but +5 ACC). It's not that Accurate Carnage is a passive that just "docks" onto your base Carnage or something. Unfortunately... That's the case with all upgrades of abilites: they are actual completely seperate abilites. Think of copy & paste of the original - then add a few improvements. In most cases the orginal ability will be removed from your character and the new one will take its place (there are some exceptions like Lay on Hands/Greater Lay on Hands where you keep the original). Because of this "Copy & Paste" programming/code design choice (non-modular) you'd need a seperate "Accurate Stag Carnage" ability. that would replace the normal one You would need to either a) pick it seperately at level-up OR b) you would need to change Accurate Carnage so that it secretly adds Accurate Stag Carnage as well - IF you had Stag Carnage in the first place (this sounds rather complicated). The first solution a) would be a lot easy(er) to mod. This is the same with all upgrades o passives that "sound" like they could work for different abilities. But if Obsidian didn't create those manually they won't be tehre even if it would make sense. Another example: Beckoner's passive only works for Chanter summons. Only his skeletons/wurms/whisps etc. will be double the number and weaker. Because Obsidia made "Ancient_Brittle_Bones" for the other Chanter subclasses but a specific "Ancient_Brittle_Bones_Beckoner" for the Beckoner subclass. If you now multiclass with Ancient those summons (like the Sporelings) will not be affected. That's because there is no ability "Summon_Sporelings_Beckoner". This can eve be a "problem" inside a single class: most Paladins get "Flames_of_Devotion", Bleak Walkers get "Flames_of_Devotion_Bleak_Walker". Now... if you'd just made one upgrade "Eternal_Devotion" and replace the PL-1 FoD with it the Bleak Walker would lose his spcial corrosive/sickerning lash. So he needs a "Eternal_Devotion_Bleak_Walker". Same with Kind Wayfarer. The upside is: it's straightforward to develop. The downside is that it introduces redundancy and is prone to oversight once you start changing abilities (e.g. when patching for balance): let's say you want to nerf the FoD lash from 30% to 20% - you need not only to change the original ability but ALL the upgrade copies now. THis is also done when e.g. Priests get "cross class" abilities like Preist of Eothas gets Sunbeam (original Druid): this is not the same ability. It is a copy which name is "Sunbeam_Eothas" (or something like that, don't remember 100%). So if you as a designer want to change Sunbeam because it's too bad or good you don't need to forget that tehre are several SUnbeams you'd have to edit. It happens often that something is forgotten. For example Shadowing_Beyond and Shadowing_Beyond_Skaen started out as the same code (copy). But over the course of the patching cycle those two have become different. I guaratee that Shadowing Beyond got some mechanical tinkering while Shadowing_Beyond_Skaen was either forgotten or intentionally left alone.

You mean getting one's focus generation interrupted by receiving damage?

Uhh nice explanation.

Swift Flurry (and Heartbeat Drumming) only works with melee weapons unfortunately.

It wasn't. And no idea how and why I typed that. "Ö" isn't nowhere near the "A" on a QWERTZ layout.

You mean Disciplined Strikes (Intuitive). Tactical Barrage gives you Acute + Aware. My take would be Helwalker/Ranger. Not only does he get the MIG bonus and the speed and lösh from Lightning Strikes, but also +2 PEN and +5 MIG from Thunderous Blows and +12 ACC from Enduring Dance. Also the Scepter's modal will give you wounds while firing but will not break Enduring Dance. With Stunning Surge you wil make sure deflction drops even further (-10 Deflection equals +10 ACC) and with such many crits you can use it a lot of times since the cost gets refunded. Of course you can't use Backstab/Assassinate then. But the Stalking Cloak would be cool enough I think...? From a roleplaying perspective an Illusionist or Illusionist/Assassin makes most sense. The best part of the Eye of Wael is the Power Level bonus. If you'd be an Illusionist and have two of them and the mask you'd have +7 Power Level with illusions. Try them with Kalakoth's Freezing Rake...

I guess dual mortars + Powder Burns would still be king with a Streetfighter + Vanishing Strikes. The Backstabs get applied to a lot of the AoE hits if you stand between the enemies (at least without Community Patch). Without Powder Burns it's very difficult to get flanked while invisible.

No, it's not dropping when you get hit. But usually the duration is very short so it may seem so.

If you want to increase crit chance you should pick Ranger. Driving Flight gives you two attack rolls per shot (both can crit) passively - and no class has as high ACC bonuses as Ranger.

Uh uh uh! And Cabalist's Gambeson! I just did a quick test with a 25-INT-Rogue (19+items+food) in my party and with the sushi, the shark teeth, the gambeson, Prestige and the adre ooze I get a duration for Vanishing Strikes of 14 seconds. Not bad! Deflection bonus of Escape lasts for 12 secs now...

Shared Nightmare is pretty cool with an Ascendant (or Beguiler). You'll increase your AoE by a lot (1% per 1 point of focus you hold) and your focus doesn't drop once you are ascended (or Beguiler gets focus back while casting). So you can cast a lot of cipher powers with immense AoE. I'm playing a SC Soulblade with WotEP atm (although I thought I wouldn't play Deadfire anymore and the size of the cone is pretty ridiculous with Greater Focus and Shared Nightmare. Would be even bigger as Ascendants (higher max focus than Soulblade). I guess even with a base of only 1.3 Minor Blights' AoE would also be nice. And of course all your wizard-AoEs...

Which Blights? Kalakoth's Minor Blights? They have pretty low PEN (7 base). And the AoE is "only" 1.3 base which doesn't scale as good. Spirit Lance seems better (1 more PEN, 1.5 AoE base) - also if you include Draconic Fury. It only applies to the initial his but it's still a 2*15% lash. Or what did you mean?

Inspiring Triumph was the same in PoE1. No idea why the Paladin her-/himself isn't included. But that's also the case with several (if not all?) Exhortations: can only be cast on allies, not the Paladin - while stuff like Lay on Hands can. Maybe because it would raise his defenses too high (since it's a passive and stacks with everything) while he could be skilled for total offense. This is very easy to mod though.

Yeah, I saw the job offer wasn't online anymore.

Enduring Beacon works on the Paladin as well. Inspiring Triumph does not.

I guess that's because it's a copy of the orignal Rogue ability. All those "foreign" abilites (Sunbeam on a Priest of Eothas, Arcane Veil on a Preist of Wael etc.) are just hard copies of the original ability. In this case it might be that Skean's Shadowing Beyond never got updated like the Rogue's version was. Lots of players were complaining that Rogue's DoTs were breaking Shadowing Beyond so I guess Obsidians tried to fix that ability for the Rogue - but forgot to transfer that to the Skaen version. Basically like in PoE were they forgot to change Knockdown from primary to full attack on the Girdle of the Driving Wave while it was done for the original Knockdown of the fighter.