Boeroer

Yes, you can do all that. You can even take it further and export that second character who now has the "cloned" unique item and export him, thus tripling the unique item... and so on.

In general they are worse than in PoE. In PoE the animal companion's base damage scaled which worked very well with dmg bonuses like Predator's Sense - since a raise in base dmg is a multiplicative dmg boost (by the way I think the Wolf was the way to go for PoE1, not the Bear - since DR didn't have that much of an impact anyways but the higher starting base damage of the Wolf has). In PoE the AC was a slow hitter, but it could hit like a truck with the right talents/abilites. In Deadfire the base damage doesn't scale - but instead the Animal Companion gets additive dmg bonuses while he levels. This is a lot less impactful since the non-scaling base dmg is rather low and the additive bonuses don't provide the oomph then. With all the abilites the AC can hit okish - but not comparable to your Ranger and not comparable to an AC's dmg per hit in PoE. Still adds some damage though. The bear can be made quite tanky with the right abilites - Armor Rating in Deadfire is more impactful than Damage Reduction in PoE was - so every point of AR you can put on the Bear will help a lot to make him more tanky. In Deadfire the AC can have some more active abilites than in PoE and some of them are quite good. For example "Takedown Combo" will apply an effect on the enemy so that the next attack on him that hits gets +100% damage. This might also be a mighty spell. So you can do some nice stuff with the AC. But auto-attacks is not the strong suit unfortunately.

You can export a character. Then you can start a new playthrough with that exported character instead making one from scratch. You can keep the level, items etc. if you wish.

No, the imbue spells' scaling wasn't fixed in the unmodded game - despite multiple attempts to remind the devs that those abilites don't work well without any scaling. Especially PEN was an issue. Only thing that scales is the accuracy (with Arcana). Community Patch scales PEN with Arcana skill, too (which helps a lot). No change to ACC (since it already scaled with Arcana as I said) and dmg (doesn't scale - but with Driving Flight and other jumps this might have been too good). With Drivingt Flight you already get like dmg*2 with Fireball and Death Ring. Missiles still scale horribly though (no additional projectiles or dmg) and are bad even with Driving Flight.

It's pretty substantial though (-15).

They will start one level below your Watcher. They will not stay there though. If you get them early the XP difference is not much since low level thresholds (for level-ups) are much smaller than higher levels'. So after a few levels they will catch up on you and when you reach higher levels the difference in XP is barely noticable. Just clarifying so that "always one level beneath your watcher" isn't misunderstood. If we are talking about the moment you hire them it's correct of course.

Unbroken suffers a Reflex malus though.

Imbue spells will trigger with every jump (so Watershaper's Focus will trigger two instances of the spell, with Driving Flight it's even three instances). AoE hits however will trigger NO additional spell instance. It used to be like that (AoE hits each triggered an Imbue spell) in the beta version but that got removed quickly. You can imagine how OP Imbue:Fireball with Watershaper's Focus or Fire in the Hole were... But even now Watershaper's Focus + Driving Flight using Imbue: Death (for example) is devastating. Three Death Rings from one shot kill a lot of enemies right on the spot. By the way: multi projectile weapons like Blunderbuss or Frostseeker only trigger one Imbue spell. Arcane Archer/Priest doesn't sound like a particularly effective combo. Arcane Archer/Paladin is good (if you are looking for a mix of offense and support).

I have no idea why you can't see the AoE. That's kind of meh. I like to use Clear Out with WotEP: at least you can see the exact direction then. Clear Out's radius seems to be pretty big - more than 2.5. What you said (that you maybe can't see it because it can be executed with AoE weapons which have their own AoE indicator) might be the explanation. Makes sense. Although I would have preferred two overlapping AoE indicators instead. 135° for Clear Out could still be the case. Feels like it. I guess somebody could look it up in the code...? Clean Sweep's radius becomes huge with some good INT, so I suspect the base radius is also pretty big. Clear Out and Clean Sweep seem to scale with INT normally. Clear the Path is like Mind Lance, Driving Roar or Rolling Flame: a very long 'line'. But in this case it's also pretty broad. Like Driving Roar's I guess (which you can see). The size of the Clear-the-Path AoE doesn't seem to be influenced by INT at all. It's perfect for Edér and similar lowish INT Fighter's.

True, during early game a large shield really hurts. Using Rapier, Spear, Dagger and other stuff with +5 ACC does help a bit.

It seems to be kind of borked. Somebody reported that it works better with Turn Based mode then with RTwP.

It's only 8 accuracy. That's manageable with some levels. I mean Blunderbuss wielders suffer -10 ACC and I don't consider them to be poor offensive characters. On the other hand you get more deflection, more reflex and an awesome modal (in my opinion). With a large shield modal activated you can get bombarded with AoE spells and only get damaged slightly. One weapon that is very good in combination with large shields is Scordeo's Egde because Adaptive counters the ACC loss easily and also Blade Cascade can remove the disadvantage of not having dual wielding speed. What also works well is fists. Especially Forbidden Fist and most of the Monk's wound-fueled attacks (which are primary). And actually if you use a large shield (and raise your defenses high - you get more deflection AND Reflex after all) you don't need that much of AR which means less armor penalty which means faster attacks. I'm currently using Aloth as my only tank (as a single class wizard) with Cadhu Scalth and only padded armor and he's still hitting stuff while being sturdy. Also if he nukes himself in order to damage the enemies around him his large shield modal helps a lot.

I'm now imagining how hot a Hearth of Fury must be.

By the way check out Fire in the Hole in the main hand and flail in the offhand as 1. weapon set and the same setup copied to 2. weapon set but mirrored: flail on offhand. Avenging Storm + Flail-ClearOut and then switch and do FireInTheHole-ClearOut. It still works (even with community patch) and procs so many lightnings if the enemies are plenty.

It can happen with every unique piece of equipment. In my current run Xoti's Lantern lots its enchantments. No idea what's causing it and how to get them back.

What is the 'Doomfist" build?

Wow. I never noticed.

Certain chants do indeed stack. Most prominent examples are Dragon Thrashed and Soft Winds of Death. Others do overlap but it's of no use - like Mith Fyr or Sure-Handed Ila. There is no way that I know of how you can alternate between Dragon Thrashed and Sure Handed Ila and not lose dps - speaking about the Chanter's own performance. If you have a party with mostly gun users it might be different. The most easy and at the same time effective way to run Kana (in my opinion) is to make him tanky, raise MIG and INT as much as possible and use Dragon Thrashed all the time. INT makes sure you can overlap more phrases. Clean up with White Worms or Seven Nights if you feel the need. Voice of the Mountaintop and Overseeing items do stack! So with high INT and that amulet and let's say a ring with Overseeing you can cover a huge AoE. In some fights a backup plan might be good. For example against a single dragon (after add got burned/slashed) the chant will have issues with hitting and also losing a lot of damage to DR.

I think this is one of the rare cases where I would consider a Shattered Pillar as well. But: what does the ranged Shattered Pillar use the better wound generation for? Everything besides Thunderous Blows doesn't work ranged (Force of Anguish, Torment's Reach and so on). So you wouldn't spend a lot of wounds anyway. You would concentrate on Mortification with Stunning Surge. So... my point might be: what's the faster wound buildup good for (in an unmodded game)? On the other hand the Helwalker might build up wounds less quick, but at least he would gain +1 MIG per wound. And it's rare that you won't get damaged at all in a fight. There are always ranged enemies or some sort of AoE or rushers after the early game.

Turning Wheel's lash doesn't work for ranged weapons in an unmodded game. Lightning Strikes does.

With high accuracy and hit to crit conversion. That might involve a Ranger since that's the class with the most ACC bonuses. Example: Ranger/Monk (stacking the Ranger's ACC passives with Monk's Enduring Dance). Stunning Surge lowers deflection even more. Ranger/Fighter with Warrior Stance and Disciplined Strikes. Ranger/Paladin with Flames of Devotion and Ring of Focused Flame (+20 ACC) as well as Accurate Wounding Shot (+20 ACC). Ranger/Berserker with Berserker's Frenzy, Barbaric Smash, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst. The recovery skip on kill combines well with the 50/50 recovery skip on crit. Ranger/Cipher with debuffs and Borrowed Instincts. Ranger/Wizard with Citzal's Martial Power and debuffs (Miasma and such). Ranger/Troubadour with Sure-Handed Ila, Mith Fyr and Ben Fidel's Neck/Killers Froze Stiff. Devoted/Berserker also works though. Not that much accuracy but the crit conversions from Disciplined Barrage and Berserker Frenzy stack up (though not additively but still). And Blood Thirst etc. Aided by a Priest with Devotions and Blessing. Stuff like that. Note that Driving Flight (Ranger) raises the chance to trigger the effect significantly. Hit rolls done by Driving Flight do count. This also works really well with Stunning Surge (refund on crit).

Heh, thanks.

I don't know how much experience with solo PotD you have - but every build is difficult in the early game. Port Maje (Gorecci Street) and the Digsite are very hard. You simply lack good abilites and items that would give you an edge. Most solo builds become easier once you reached Neketaka and leveled a bit without fighting too much. Some key components get unlocked (for example Borrowed Insticts which is important for this build) and suddenly it's way easier. Also you have more freedom in picking your fights. Something which is more easy than most builds in the early game is Arcane Knight if you pick some self buffs and Chillfog. Fighter is also a bit easier because of the good starting values. I also find Cipher quite good if you start right with a club + proficiency because -25 Will is enormous if you can then reliably land a Whisper of Treason. Mind Control usually takes away one enemy which then functions as throw-away-tank for you. Also Ranger feels easier because you'll have an additional body + high accuracy. That doesn't mean that those builds that feel easier early on will shine later though.

There are no problems when using the original addability command with the Deadfire console. Also the icons were added according the tutorial of BMac (afaik). So maybe it's a fault of Unity Console? It messes around with the game a lot more than the Community Patch. Just a guess though. A warning on the mod page would be fair of course. Did you try to fix the issue by changing the load order of mods? E.g. load CP as last mod or try UC as last mod?

Also some items have changed (Cloak of Greater Deflection now stacks with Bracers of Greater Deflection) or are new (patches, DLCs). One Ring (Entonia Signet) gives you +2 to all defenses for every enemy who engages you (NOT whom you engage). This is very useful on PotD solo (as long as the enemies can engage - many beasts cannot even if they are going into melee). It is useless if you become immune to engagement. And so on. Maybe check the wiki to see if there are new items that fit the idea even better.