Boeroer

No, not really. But since you can multiclass now it should be pretty easy to combine a Monk with a Cipher in a decent way. Helwalker/Ascendant is pretty popular. Single class Cipher (again Ascendant maybe) with Monastic Unarmed Training (Deadfire's Novice's Suffering) is also viable.

Most of them come with ads (you can get focus from deceiving them), then cast a Disintegrate. Or Antipathetic Field + Death of 1000 Cuts. If not you need to either use a very cheap deception or attack with a weapon. Beguilers still can do that just fine. Besides that, Ciphers just don't shine vs. lonely bosses in general.

Uniques aside Battle Axes are totally fine for a dw Fighter. There are good unique ones, too - but as draego said they show up a bit late compared to unique sabres. However, a self-enchanted Battle Axe (exceptional + a lash) will get you a long way. You can even buy an exceptional axe (fake-unique one "Silver Crow Axe") in Defiance Bay a lot earlier than you could usually loot it. Also for a reasonable price. If you get this and put a fitting lash on it (to your liking, most likely you will have collected the required stuff for a burning lash first) then you'll have something nice. "Rimecutter" is among the best dps weapons in the game (because of the speed enchantment) but it's a random thing because it is sold by Azzuro, your travelling Stronghold merchant. Often he didn't offer it to me at all in many playthroughs - sometimes he sold it to me thrice in one playthrough... You can trick the game and Azzuro: at the entrance to Lle a Rhemen on the map Stormwall Gorge you can find a seal on the ground. This can be used to trigger a "wait" dialogue. You can trigger it as often as you want, letting time pass by in the process. Once you unlocked Azzuro you can use this to skip time between Azurro's visits and wait until he offers you Rimecutter. Or you can use the console to give it to you (losing achievements in the process).

Pragmatic and efficient approach. I'm going to do the same with your post. Bye!

Ha - then maybe don't use it.

In kill or on knockout? On kill wouldn't really matter.

If you have a caster with a corrosion spell in the party you can simply cast it onto the guy who needs a minor injury to knock him out. For example Necrotic Lance. You can even cast it onto yourself. It's only the last hit that kncoks him out which needs to originate from the spell. You will get an Acute Rash which is one of the mildest injuries there is. Alternatives would be fire damage (Serious Burn) and so on. Maybe, if you shoot your friends with Essence Interrupter (while they are wearing an armor with low shock AR) they will also get the according elemental injury. Never tested though. Anyway: using a spell is maybe the most simple and least tedious way to get a minor injury for Rekvu's gear.

That is correct. It's always the same order. For example when you summon K's Blights and then immediately summon an Essential Phantom it will always use the burn version (and will hold it until the phantom vanishes or gets killes - doesn't cycle). So if you want more shock attacks you can wait until the Blights cycled to shock version, then use Salvation of Time and an Essential Phantom to have two sources of AoE shock damage for a long time.

Mob Stance gives you higher action speed (includes attack animation time and recovery) universally - not just weapon attacks. Like Frenzy or Alacrity and Swift Strikes and so on do. Just keep in mind that a +x% bonus for action speed is less potent than a -x% bonus for action- or recovery time. Because... math. Armored Grace will also work. And, as Ophiuchus said: some pets also reduce armor penalty and stack with Armored Grace - like Cutthroat Cosmo (you'll have it right from the start of the game) or Abraham. Also there are some armors which will give you action speed bonuses: Devil of Caroc's Breastplate, Reckless Brigandine (stacks its engagement-based bonus with Mob Stance), The Bloody Links and whatnot. Taking Two Weapon Style only reduces your weapon recovery - but it may lead to a more flexible build nonetheless because you can react faster after attacking with a weapon. Don't know your subclasses, but as a Kind Wayfarer you usually want to use two weapons anyway because your FoD-healing will trigger twice then.

Concussive Tranq. does work indeed. However, I only played a solo Geomancer with Morning Star, not summoned weapons.

I never tried, but I guess Wizard/Steel Garrote could be cool with the Steel Garrote's draining passive against afflicted enemies. No idea if the AoE also drains health, but maybe... Eternal Devotion + Ring of Focused Flames + Zandethu's Draconic Fury gives your lance's AoE a pretty impressive lash combo. Before that you can use Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff in order to get combined draining from the staff itself and the Garrote's passive. That I tried and it's viable.

Keep in Mind that Mirrored Image or Arcane Veil stack their deflection with Llengrath's Safeguard or Vigorous Defense (Battlemage). Speaking of Battlemage: Citzal's + Mule Kick is pretty cool as Wizard/Tactician. And of course Citzal's + Clear Out is great as well. For Sage: Force of Anguish + Citzal's is funny, but most of the time not that practical. Stunning Surge + Citzal's is great. As is Instruments of Pain + Spirit Lance, especially if you summon a Phantom then (which uses the same Lance then for the whole summoning duration).

Actually Spirit Lance never changed (except there was a bug that prevented all AoE weapon to work properly but that was fixed). So most attack abilities apply their effects in an AoE with it. Exception: Wounding Shot. And maybe others. But afaik the Monk and Barb and Rogue stuff all works. And yes: you can use other (summoned) weapons to good effect with e.g. a Sage.

I think he's the only one right now. At least he's the only one who got mentioned by Josh on Twitter so far. Maybe somebody else did it secretly and asked Obsidian not to say anything, but I doubt it.

You can try to kill the Vithrack and take his note (and read it), too.

Same talents, different abilites...?

Spellblade (Wizard/Rogue) with Watershaper's Focus (for the jump which will give you two Blasts) + all the Rogue DoTs, especially Toxic Strike is very potent. Max MIG and INT. Community Patch reordered and added keywords. Stuff that does corrode damage usually has the acid keyword now. Dedicated poison spells should all have poison and antidote keywords.

I even had more fun with Ancient/Berserker and Whispers of the Endless Paths (using Taste of the Hunt). The DoTs (like Plague of Insects or Insect Swarm) will kill a lot of weaker enemies during the fight without you having to do anything while you can hit them with a weapon. With Community Patch (=fixed Stag Carnage) it's also fun to shift and have dual Carnage while hitting enemies. Without Community Patch Stag Carnage is just ridiculously bad.

Warlock is cool, especially with all the Rekvu items. They key to fun is always Blood Thirst + spellcasting. Yeah, Carnage can't crit. Even high rolls are condiered hits. I don't know why. The main downside of this is that Blood Frenzy won't get triggered by Carnage attacks ever - while Spirit Frenzy will (since it procs on hit, not on crit). Druid + Barbarian is equally fun I'd say. Other than in PoE death by DoT does reliably trigger Blood Thirst in Deadfire.

I only use the Community Patch and the Enhanced UI mod (which is very good).

Iirc I already suggested to fix this issue (at least the one with Cleaving Stance. Mob Stance is just the upgrade to Cleaving Stance that gives you an attack speed bonus based on your engagements). SA's damage calculation already got altered by the (extended?) Community Patch if I'm not mistaken. I think the problem is that SA itself is not considered to be a weapon attack and thus it will not trigger a cleave on kill. THe problem might be: if it's a weapon attack it might generate focus. I guess that's not wanted. But I don't know the details of the implementation so I can't say for sure. But I did put it on a list of "things to fix" - because it is indeed annoying and not plausible to players. I can't say that it will get fixed though. The next step of the community patch - trinkets - seems to be on halt as well since I didn't hear anything about it since weeks. Atm @MaxQuest and @Phenomenum seem to roam these forums less frequently than they used to. Me as well. It's summer after all.

@Decadency: My congratulations! Now I'll keep my fingers crossed that it gets valididated by Obsidian.

My main reason is Blood Thirst combined with DoTs. Frenzy and Bloodlust are also nice of course.

No idea. I was speaking about Blade Feast in that old post of mine from 2018. So I guess this wasn't patched.