Boeroer

See above. If you go for high CON and have a decent healer it is manageable. Do not drop CON and max MIG though. This will make you extremely squishy at higher levels. the Berserker's self dmaage scales rather steeply and it also gets influenced by your own MIG. Streetfighter/Berserker gets lots of damage bonuses, high MIG isn't even noticable with weapon damage - so you might es well leave it at 10 (will get +5 from Frenzy anyway). High CON sounds suboptimal - but it really helps in this case. Barbs have a bigger health pool from the beginning so that works well with the bonus from CON. Last time I ideed maxed CON on a Berserker/Helwalker (same problems as Berserker/Streetfighter, maybe even more so) and also used Tough (the passive ability) and a Greater Amulet of Health. It made a hell of a difference (related to babysitting) compared to low CON/high MIG. I know raising CON isn't popular (I also usually don't) but in this case I recommend it. Of course Barring Death's Door and lots of constant healing also works. Then you can make that guy a complete glascannon. But that's a lot more micromanagement.

I think the Great Sword "Effort" will be the closest thing to Tidefall in Deadfire. I will bring a pretty weird combo just for the sake of variety: Streetfighter/Skald with Deltro's Cage and Deltro's Helmet. The goal is to summon two (upgraded) Wisps (The Lights Dacned Across the Moor) and let them fire at you (it doesn't cause much damage). This will distract you but also give you a shocking lash for your attacks (from the helmet) as well as it will unlock your Streetfigher passive (-50% recovery time, way higher Sneak Attack). Apart from that little synergy you will be very versatile. The main chant would be Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr for more damage or Ancient Memory for more sturdyness. Of course very low INT wouldn't be optimal for this because the summons' duration on the field would be short and your invocations' AoE will be small - but it also doesn't cry for high INT like most chanter builds usually do. Funnily enough also low RES will be kind of benefical here - because you want the wisps' distraction to last a long time when they hit you - and low RES prolongs negative effects on you. Before getting to the wisps the character wouldn't be especially fast though and would have to make do with other sources of flanked/distracted (like getting properly flanked by enemies). Would also work with Troubadour or Bellower I think. --- When going Streetfigher/any Barbarian note that the Barbarian ability "One Stands Alone" is an anti-synergy with the Streetfighter passive if you rely on getting flanked by enemies. You will suddenly need one more flanking enemy to unlock your Streetfigher passive.

Hello and welcome! I was about to say "Soublade/Trickster" because that would be my favoire combination of the mentioned classes. Imo Paladin/Soulblade can be much more versatile than Paladin/Trickster and it has potentially unlimited resources (focus). But it takes more time to develop, the Trickster is a little bit more front-loaded - and Riposte + Offensive Parry stack which can be cool. If you ignore the rest of the Cipher powers (besides Borrowed Insticts) and only use Soul Annihilation it also might become a bit boring, too. I personally would pick the Soulblade I think. Paladin subclasses: for tanking purposes I like Goldpact Knight who can can sort-of unlimited +4 AR because Sword Rival gives you back the Zeal you paid for the Golden Enmity as soon as the Rival is killed. I also like Steel Garrote because Offensive Parry does an automatic daze and that unlocks the health-draining passive of the Steel Garrote. It's even better with Trickster+Persistent Distraction: every Riposte/Offensive Parry and other melee attacks will drain health which stacks with stuff like Exalted Endurance and so on. But most players have a problem with playing a not so kind Paladin subclass. Goldpact at least has no problem with being nice - as long as he keeps a cool head. From a role-playing perspective I think Darcozzi + Trickster fits very well. Also the Darcozzi Fireshield isn't bad for off-tanking. --- If you are open to other multiclass pairings for this Whispers of the Endless Paths Paladin I can recommend Steel Garrote/Bloodmage (Arcane Knight) which has some great tricks up its sleeves in combination with that weapon and some other items. Forbidden Fist as second class to a Goldpact or Steel Garrote with WotEP/Offensive Parry can also work well. With the Community Patch mod I'd also recommend Shattered Pillar instead of Forbidden Fist.

Frostseeker ist absolutely great with Cipher/Rager like Kaylon suggested. It also works well with a Cipher/CHanter but honestly I personally prefer reloading weapons for this class combination - just because the phrase "Sure-Handed Ila" works so well with them (speed bonus applies twice for realoading weapons instead of only once for bows and implements). So dual pistols can indeed be an option. In terms of abilities you don't need many from the Chanter's side. My phrases would be Sure-Handed Ila + Aefyllath Ues Myth Fir and not much else (because you plan to have other chanters in the party who can pick other useful phrases like Ancient Memory and whatnot). As a ranged character you cannot use short-ranged invocation much anyway, so maybe a good summon spell would be my first pick. Wurms are good at first but they don't scale well. Unfortunaltely a lot of summon spells don't scale well so you will have to retrain at some point for optimal results. The best summon later are the animated weapons. And then it depends on what you want to do most. For CC Killers Froze Stiff is good (the range is long enough to be used from the back row with decent INT) and also Hel-Hyraf and Ben Fidel's Neck (defense debuff stacks with almost everything) have similar cone length and are useful. For Ciphers I always take mind control abilities besides the passives for better focus (Draining Whip) and PEN. I personally will use Puppet Master a lot if I can. The combination of summons (chanter) + mind control (cipher) is very impactful in most encounters. I'll always take Borrowed Instincts because it's so good. And then there's a lot of room for other stuff I guess. Oh: Two-handed Style if dual pistol.

Not just you. I noticed that, too.

That explains why that works for me. Should've looked that up myself, but spontaneous lazyness got in my way. Thanks!

Maybe, but still it does have the frost keyword in my screenshot (see below) and yet the enchantment of the shield doesn't apply.

Did you also install the keyword part of the CP mod? It's weird that we both have the same mod but for me Call of Rymrgand will face the +15 defense biff from the shield - but for you it doesn't. Wild...

Uhh, maybe I'm the one with the mod that is tampering with the keywords. I know in the Community Patch (that I use) @Phenomenum added priest related keywords to certain priest spells where they were missing or faulty. Maybe he also fixed Call of Rymrgand and added the frost keyword? Maybe...

It does frost damage with its first or two attack rolls per pulse. Here is the ingame tooltip that lists the frost keyword and shows the two separate rolls, too: Sorry for the unfortunate placement of the lil "Burn" popup there, but I guess one can still read what's underneath with the freeze roll. When you look at the combat log the first crush/freeze attack won't be registered as freeze although it will cause freeze damage. Maybe it has something to do with the damage types - but the second roll with burn and shock gets both defensive boosts, so there both elements register.

here:

But as you can see in my Edit Nr 3 with screenshot where I tested Call of Rymrgand, the +15 defense buff applies properly. Do you use any mods that tamper with keywords maybe?

You mean you'll get the +15 defense bonus against fire attacks but not frost attacks? Well that's lame... Edit: I cannot confirm that. Here Aloth is casting a Chillfog on my MC who wears the (non-upgraded) Mundane Shell: Edit 2: upgraded to Nonconductive (+15 defense against shock), still works. The problem seems to be the implementation of Maelstrom, not the shield. The spell has a separate frost part with a separate attack roll and then a secondary roll with the other elements. The frost part seems to be lacking the proper "frost" keyword I guess, so the shield does nothing - while it applies BOTH defensive buffs to the second attack roll because that is keyworded with fire AND shock: Edit 3: tested Call of Rymrgand with the shield and it works: So I believe only Maelstrom's faulty keywording was the problem. Of course one could find that certain enemies' elemental abilities also might lack the proper keyword, but that's just speculation on my part.

I used a dual pistol SC Kind Wayfarer not too long ago (plan was to shoot White Flames non-stop in combination with the party's Troubadour summoning Many Lives for unlimited Zeal via Devine Retribution). I was able to make all my surrounding casters and shooters almost unkillable because of the constant healing - and I didn't really try to keep them together in a particularly tight formation. So 2.5m base radius sounds right to me. By the way: very useful party member which required almost zero attention (unless some exhortations had to be cast).

Paladins can do more than tank and heal - for example the support abilites of both classes can work together very well. But besides that an Inquisitor could for example combine the Paladin's passive defenses with the Cipher's Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts and become super tanky - while still being able to do other impactful stuff which a more traditional tank wouldn't be able to do. So I wouldn't say that paladin and cipher don't help with the other side at all. For a CC-oriented Cipher with blunderbusses a paladin might not be the optimal choice maybe... unless you are using a Kind Wayfarer, then it's cool if you plan to use White Flames + Exalted Endurace and heal your party while shooting enemies/gaining focus for the next CC thing.

Huh? Psion and Beguiler usually don't. One of the most versatile and fun cipher multiclasses I ever played was a Psion/Troubadour. It can just do everything well (except melee fights). It doesn't need any special items and almost never has to use a weapon for anything. Besides that it can focus on summons + mind control (very impactful combo), CC (loads of options from both classes), damage (invocations + chants + cipher powers), support and even healing. It's best to keep this guy out of trouble though and not make him the party's weakest target because he doesn't generate focus when getting damaged. If you like to stick to blunderbusses Cipher/Troubadour is still a good combo, just not with Psion but either with Ascendant or Beguiler. The Troubadour can uphold a chant with "Sure Handed Ila" & "Mith Fyr" at the same time without gap - which leads to very good shooting speed (because the reload AND recovery speedup of the Ila-phrase both apply to reloading weapons such as blunderbusses) while the fire lash from the second phrase Mith Fyr adds some damage and additional focus for every hit with the blunderbuss. And of course both phrases also help your party. A Beguiler can get focus from either casting Deception spells or dealing damage (which is versatile) while the Ascendant only gains focus from dealing damage - but can ascend very quickly against either mobs with dual Serafen blunderbusses (mortars) or with the special shot "Thunderous Report" from the unique blunderbuss Kitchen Stove - or simply with regular blunderbusses against single foes. If you really like to use blunderbusses a lot then Ascendant/Streetfighter would be my pick. The modal of blunderbusses triggers the streetfighter's passive which makes him reload faster than anybody else while dealing crazy high dmg per hit bc. of higher Sneak Attack bonus (= more focus). Which makes him ascend fast which in turn lets him spit out spells on quick succession bc. of his reduced recovery time. Struggles with accuracy from time to time until he gets Borrowed Instincts. Cipher/Ranger is the multiclass with the potential highest accuracy. So if you want to shoot and cast with high accuracy then that's the way to go. Also Rangers have Driving Fligjht which lets your shots bounce once. It stacks with weapons' own bounces (see Fire in the Hole, one of Serafen's mortars he can get) which can be quite a show and also adds quite a lot of damage and focus against mobs.

If I were a smart game AI I would use Wizards with with Miasma, Enervating Terror and Draining Touch against a Furyshaper.

You can apply it, but due to its rel. short base duration and Dorudugan's very high Resolve (and pretty high Will which makes crits unlikely) it won't last very long unfortunately. I just applied it to him and he still used Helfire Barrage against my party. So I guess it doesn't work properly against him. Not 100% sure though since I only tried it for a minute or so.

Sorry, I never tried. But for testing you can use any savegame and just spawn Dorudugan with the console using: spawnPrefabAtMouse CRE_Construct_Helfire_Ironclad after activating cheats with iRoll20s

Usually they are "better" because players are good at emphasizing the advantages and circumventing the downsides.

I believe some players underestimate the impact of PL bonuses. Per 1 PL (where applicable): Healing +5% Damage +5% Duration +5% Accuracy +1 Penetration +0.25 (one has to ask: why not AoE size...?) With stuff like damage and duration the PL bonus increases the base value, so it can be multiplicative (with other damage bonuses for example). Even with the least impactful way to use Power Levels (summons) this could be good enough: A dragon summon with a base duration of 25 secs and a PL bonus of min 7 will suddenly have a "base" duration of ~34 secs - which might mean you could uphold a dragon summon at all times with few cast (didn't actually try but I guess this should be pretty valuable). A Troub could simply cast it more quickly again but would have to cast the invocation twice. On the flipside the Troub's second dragon will have fresh HP... But way better than Vanilla chanters' dragons though. In some cases it can be more valuable to cast an invocation with +5 PL than casting two invocations with no PL bonus of the same kind - for example when the normal invocation would frequently miss or graze or if it underpenetrates. And one has to remember that the Troubadour has increased invocation cost which doesn't let him dish out invocations twice as fast - and not only bc. of the +1 cost, but also because of one added "singing" recovery which stops the chanting for some time. +1 phrase cost isn't a big deal with the expensive invocations - but hurts with the cheap ones. So the situation dictates whether +5 or +7 or so PLs are as good as a non-buffed invocation followed by a faster non-buffed invocation. The small chant AoE is not cool - but it can become meaningless with the right phrase - for example Many Lives The real advatage of the Troubadour is its versatility - not only during the game but also when planning your character and the role. Is it more about cool chants? +50% linger time! Is it about fast invocations of all different sorts: Brisk Recitation! And versatility is a big boon in this game imo. Then also some phrases simply don't care if you cut off the linger time (again Many Lives, but also several others) - little design flaw if you ask me. Imo Bellowers should use pricey invocation in a way @theleedescribed: cast them when available, don't try to collect more phrases (which will be cut after the invocation). I find they don't perform notably better than vanilla chanter in normal encounters, but against tough nuts and bosses the always present PL buffs do work quite well.

I don't know why they didn't add controller support for the PC version - but the console versions were not done by Obsidian.

Gibbs are mechanically disadvantageous.

Never encountered that item in thousands of playing hours. CP didn't add that for sure. So I went through all the trinkets with the console and didn't find any that would come close. Also tried Grimoires and lore books. Sure it's not a mod?

Yeah, but doing both and then combine it with lowering enemies' defenses is when things really start to take off.