Boeroer

A pure DoT (with no direct damage component - for example Disintegrate) will profit from Takedown Combo without removing it! It is actually the best combo. Or if the direct damage attack roll has already happened and a DoT remains (Touch of Rot, Necrotic Lance, Barrel Axes Bleeding Cuts, Gouging Strike etc.). I believe stuff like Insect Swarm, Plague of Insects and Infestation of Maggots also work like Disintegrate in that regard. So... if an enemy has a lot of DoTs on them already, Takedown Combo will boost all their damage per tick by 100%. Pulsing spells would only profit from Takedown Combo with their first pulse (first attack roll) and then immediately remove the Takedowns Combo effect, making them the worst choice.

I didn't test it but that should profit from Ring of Focused Flames.

Nice! But won't you run out of space in the action bar pretty quickly as the levels progress and you gain more active abilities?

There is a big difference between Monk's and Cipher's resource mechanic: the Monk doesn't have to use any action time in order to gain wounds - he just turns the (inevitable) damage he receives into wounds. So he doesn't have to pause what he's doing in order to gain wounds, it happens at the same time he is active with other stuff. The Cipher has to stop casting spells in order to deal weapon damage. Here the action economy is way worse. You cannot harvest your resorce on the fly, you must either spend action time harvesting resources xor use action time spending them. Op top of that the Cipher's resource harvesting is extremely reliant on the defenses and DR of the enemy: weak enemies = easy focus gain. Tough enemies = hard focus gain. And in which fights do you actually want to have a lot of focus because they are harder? Right, the fights against tough foes. This is why Ciphers - to me - feel phenomenal againt weak mobs (or in general at lower difficulty settings where good hit quality is easier to achieve) and pretty much suck (imo) against tough foes (especially on PotD difficulty). There are ways around it: Reaping Knives for example shifts the necessity to deal weapon damage to another party member (who wants to use melee attacks most of times anyways) so you can cast non-stop basically. But it's a late game ability. There used to be a very potent way to harvest focus "passively" like a Monk basically: using Retaliation items/abilities. They made it so that you could automatically relatiate with a bit of pierce and/or burn damage which in turn generated focus for you. This decoupled the harvesting of focus from your own weapon attacks and allowed you to gain focus while castig and basically tanking attacks. I made a build anout this, called the Backlash Beldam. It was very powerful and so Obsidian nerfed the mechanic so that Retaltion effects no longer generated focus. Because I play on PoTD this is a constant bother for me with Ciphers in PoE1. I don't need their bombastic performances during easy filler fights - and I'm frustrated with their lackluster performance in difficult fights. With Deadfire it's a bit different because there's the Beguiler and the Psion subclasses who both don't need to deal weapon damage in order to gain focus. But many players don't play on PotD so they will have a lot of fun with Ciphers in all fights and that's cool.

Nope, it does not. Wikdstrike Burn doesn't add a fire/burn tag to your melee attacks. If you were a Druid/Paladin and used Flames of Devotion + Wildstrike Burn it would be beneficial to use the Ring of Focused Flames bc. Flames of Devotion is tagged as fire attack which would profit from the Ring and Scion of Flame. As a Boar Druid/Stalker you can pick Wildstrike Shock and Heart of the Storm (for the lash PEN and also the several shocking storm spells). As a Stalker I would assume that Stalker's Patience is a must-have weapon? ;) Takedown Combo + Sunlance is very good against single enemies with a lot of health btw. Shifter Boar form has an extremely long woundig DoT (same as the whole Spiritshift duration) and thus deals very high woundig damage. It also unlocks Predator's Sense. It stacks with Taste of the Hunt for a quite impressive multi-DoT attack. So I wouldn't sleep on Taste of the Hunt. When not shifted: it also stacks with Stalker's Patience's DoT (which unlike the Boar woundig doesn't stack with itself though). If you tend to be away from allies a bit then Nature's Terror is a good spell as well. I don't see any glaring action economy issues.

Hello again. If you want to play with the official companions then the Druid (Hiravias) will be a Cat build. But that's okay since it's also a great spiritshift form. If you want to use Spiritshift more than once per encounter,out should give him the soulbound scepter Gyrd Háewanes Sténes because it allows the Druid to regain one use of Spiritshift per encounter. Wildstrike Shock, Greater Wildstrike Shock, Weapon Focus Peasant, Two Weapon Style, Outlander's Frenzy (activate shortly before shifting), Heart of the Storm, Savage Attack, Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Will rip through everything while shifted... Get the Wildstrike Belt asap, it's extremely good. A main character like the Monksterlasher would profit from a Chanter build for Kana Rua that eventually uses Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr as main phrase in a chant (and a short one like the +1 Movement/+10 reflex phrase from level 1 that Kana Rua automatically has). The +25% burning lash from it stacks with the rest of the Monksterlasher's lashes and also gets boosted by Scion of Flame. In the early game you should only run short phrases in order to be able to summon the Phantom (pick that invocation up despite Kana already having skeletons - the phantom is way better and can save whole fights that somehow went downhill in the early game - it's that strong). Also pick up Ancient Memory and Beloved Spirits asap. Since a support Chanter like that doesn't need attack speed you can give him a shield (a small one will do so your accuracy won't suffer) and thick armor and use him as offtank. If you don't have a Paladin then giving him Gallant's Focus is a good idea to boost your whole party's accuracy on the fly. The Wizard Aloth is good as a Blaster Wizard because he's a Wood Elf (and gets distant advante as racial ability). Use implements and pick up Blast + Penetrating Blast and fitting talents (fitting Weapon Focus, Marksman, Dangerous Implements) and summon Kalakoth's Minor Blights in tougher fights (it's an AoE weapon and all AoE hits will proc AoE Blasts, leading to absurd dmg if enemies stand near to each other). Late in the game try to pick up Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom (unique weapon summon spell) because it's extremely good. For filler fights it's nice to get a wand/scepter/rod that does something on hit/crit. Because those effects also proc off the Blast AoE. Something like Golden Gaze, Curoc's Brand and the Rod of Pale Shades (my favorite) are nice. In tougher fights it's best to summon Kalakoth's Minor Blights and later Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom. For the Priest (Durance) I almost always give him Inspiring Radiance first, then Inspired Flame (a talent that gives him +10 accuracy with arquebus and sword) because you will get a very early arquebus from Kana Rua and a well aimed arquebus **** here and there can make some difference in the early game. Then I pick Interdiction and Painful Interdiction because it's awesome to have some castings that you can use in very encounter. Then Weapons Focus Soldier (arquebus +6 accuracy) and then Marksman and Gunner. The main focus is still to support and buff the party, but sometimes you want to spare spells and then it's cool to be able to shoot around with some proper impact. For melee you can use Forgemaster Gloves or the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and then summon Firebrand if melee enemies bother you. It does lots of damage per hit and it works with Inspired Flame (+10 accuracy) and Weapon Focus Soldier (+6 accuracy) so you will be pretty good with it. And it's a flaming great sword which fits a priest of Magran very well. You don't need additional talents for it. For Eder I like dual sabres (Sabre of the Seas asap, it's awesome) and Plate Armor, Knockdown, Bonus Knockdown, Weapon Focus Ruffian, Two Weapon Style, Disciplined Barrage, Armored Grace and later Charge. It much more fun than building him into a sword & board tank and the Knockdowns are very impactful in the early to mid game (and still good later on but then there will be a lot more options for disabling enemies so it doesn't stand out anymore). I usually end up giving him Sanguine Plate (because Frenzy + Armored Grace + dual wielding + two weapon style makes him pretty damn fast while being sturdy). I add a Blunting Belt and Shod-in-Faith boots for plenty of DR and healing. I don't fancy Ciphers much so I don't have any glaring recommendations. Usually a war bow Cipher is a very solid approach though. Make sure to give the following (relatively) early items to your party (whom they fit best) because they have a big impact early in the game: Shod in Faith Boots: proc 2/encounter if you get crit and grant great passive healing and that spares you a lot of healing spells. Give it to a front liner who gets attacked a lot. Rotfinger Gloves: the Touch of Rot spell on them is vastly(!) better than the spell from the Druid that has the same name. It is foe only and has a huge(!) AoE size. Can turn fights easily. Doesn't work against poison/disease immune enemies like vessels and spirits. I like to give it to Kana Rua because he has decent Might and Intellect which both boost the spell effect. Also chanters don't have much to do until their invocations are ready so your casting of Tough of Rot won't interfere with other actions much. Azureith's Stiletto: I give it to Edér early on together with the Sabre ofcthe seas. He has enormous accuracy with Disciplined Barrage and the help of Durance's Inspiring Radiance. The Jolting Touch this stiletto procs on crit does very high damage for the early game and makes many fights much easier because usually enemies hit by it die (if not right away then soon) Wildstrike Belt: it lifts the Druid's spiritshift damage a lot because it adds 10 points to both(!) Wildstrike lashes: Wildstrike goes up from 30% to 40% and Greater Wildstrike goes up from 15% to 25%. Combine with Heart of the Storm and they go up even further to 48% and 30% which is great. One talent I find extremely useful in the early game (and which stays useful later) is Aspirant's Mark. It gives you a weaker for of Nature's Mark, but in every encounter. In combination with Inspiring Radiance from the Priest you can shift the ratio of your accuracy vs. enemies' defenses a lot in every encounter. Cast Radiance first and then Aspirant's Mark and you party's accuracy is raised by 10 while the enemies deflection and reflex is lowered by 8. That's an 18 point swing in a matter of seconds. 18 points is the accuracy-equivalent of 6 character levels(!) and you can do it in every fight. Again: I like to give it to the Chanter most of times because chanters don't have mich to do otherwise until their phrase points accumulate for an invocation. Cheers!

Zandethu's Draconic Fury is a nice spell but not mandatory at all. Other nice unique grimoires with special spells are Ninagauth's Teachings or Concelhaut's Ironclasped for example. Instead of Daconic Fury you can also cast Citzal's Martial Power - but only after you cast Wall of Draining + all the buffs you want.

I mean if you find some cool mechanics for TB mode you can post them right away if you don't want to do a full build writeup. I'm always happy to read about fun, cheesy and effective stuff, TB mode or RTwP. Or post a build that worked well for you in TB mode. Imo it's always interesting to read that stuff - even if I won't play in that mode.

Yes, but being occasional isn't a disadvantage per se. It depends on what the occasion is. If it doesn't work in normal fights where you don't really need the added defenses but makes the really tough fights easier it's just a good passive. It's like Brutal Backlash: it doesn't do much in most fights but makes the hardest ones ridiculously easy. Very occasional but yet very good. Now I don't consider Silver Tide to be a great racial ability - because you can make the argument that if you constantly get beaten down so it procs you might be doing something wrong in the first place. And if you don't need it much but only in tough fights it's... tadaa: occasional. ;)

Battle axes are fine but there aren't many unique ones and they come rather late. However Magran's Favor + Slayer's Claw is an excellent combo once you get them. The Battle Axe modal "Bleeding Cuts" is very good - so good acually that it's usually worth keeping it activated at all times even though it slows you down. But the raw damage over time stacks and every time you hit again the current stacks tick immediately for raw damage. It gets even better once you pick Blood Thirst.

Hi, for a Berserker I would pick Human: Fighting Spirit: you will drop bellow 50% health often which would trigger bonus accuracy and damage. It's not limited like in PoE1 but procs every time you drop below 50% and stays on as long as you are below 50% Fighting Spirit stacks with Blooded (Barbarian passive ability) you retain the headgear slot most portrait options available Weapon choice: Since you want to use the Devoted (and not use Monastic Unarmed Training I assume) swords are - generally speaking - the better pick because they have two damage types: slash and pierce. With sabres you would be limited to slash damage. If you meet enemies with high AR against slash damage and even slash-immune enemies, you would be forced to either pick Monastic Unarmed Training and use your fists or switch to backup weapons and suffer a pretty nasty accuracy debuff because they are not the weapon type you are devoted to. However, sabres arguably have the better uniques. Scordeo's Edge is especially good for critical hits (up to +20 accuracy due to "Adaptive") and the enchantment "Blade Cascade" is very nice, especially in combination with Blood Thirst and Cleaving/Mob Stance. Another awesome sabre is Grave Calling with the enchantment "Grave Bound" which is also amazing at generating crits (paralyzed enemies get a 25% hit to crit conversion against them). You can steal iw very early if you wish. It also comes in legendary quality - which is pretty bonkers tbh. Spares you expensive/rare resources since you don't have to upgrade it yourself. And there's several other cool unique sabres on the way. Sabres have the most (and most impactful imo) uniques in the game. One of them, the Animancer's Energy Blade, even deals less dmg but is faster than normal sabres and does raw damage that bypasses all armor. This would be a great backup weapon for you btw. Swords also have nice uniques - Modwyr is great - but not as good as sabres imo. My recommendation would be to go for sabres and either live with the accuracy malus in the few cases where slash damage would suck (maybe use spears, rapiers, daggers or clubs since they have an innate +5 accuracy bonus) or pick Monastic Unarmed Training to have good fists without accuracy malus as backup. Those also scale automatically and spare enchantment-related resources. Devil of Caroc's Breastplate is perfect for you. You can steal it very early. The enchantment that makes you immune to confusion needs Vithrack brains. You can buy those in several shops occasionally, so watch out for Vithrack brains in shops all the time and buy some asap. You can even "wait" in shops: every new day the shop's "random" stock of enchantment resources gets reshuffled. Attributes (you only gave 77 points and thus lack 1 point btw. - I guess you didn't include the culture's bonus point): Berserker's self damages scales steeply with levels AND with Might and all other universal damage bonuses (Blooded for example). Because of that it's not a bad idea to NOT raise MIG too high since you also will get +5 while frenzied. You can safely lower it to 10 if you wish and not gimp your performance. You can also add some MIG back with items (all item effects stack in Deadfire unlike PoE1) and food+camping or resting bonuses from taverns. CON at 15+ is a good thing for a Berserker to give you a bit more leeway with the self damage. At the same time DEX is more impactful for DPS than MIG. So I wouldn't drop it too much. I would put 10 at least - but would be comfortable with 15+. PER 16 is solid. In Deadfire all secrets and traps will be discovered by Perception (not mechanics like in PoE1). Most official companions don't have high PER so it's on the main character to provide solid PER (if you want to find all sorts of secrets and traps). Of course PER also promotes crits. INT 14 is good. Carnage grows with INT - but Carnage isn't as good as it was in PoE1 so you don't need to push it too much. It's nice for longer durations of course (Frenzy, Disciplined Strikes and so on). Unbending is much(!) more powerful with high INT. So you could go higher and would still get benefits. But there are also several +INT items - should you want more. RES not only influenced deflection (which is already low due to Barb + Frenzy and thus you can forget about it in the first place) but also influences how long hostile effects stay on you (including your confusion btw.). Because of that I would like to put it at 10 in order to not get a malus (increased duration of enemies' hostile effects they put on you) - but 8 is okay since there will be items/food, inspirations etc. which can lift you over 10. So altogether my attributes would be (I guess): MIG 10 CON 15 DEX 15 PER 16 INT 14 RES 08 Of course a few points here and there (for example taking away points from DEX and giving them to MIG like so: DEX 12, MIG 13) does also work well. It doesn't matter too much compared to the impact of abilities and gear selection. Since your character will be good at offense but will need constant healing, I would recommend to use a pet that grants healing on kill. Abraham for example has such a property and also makes you attack faster in armor. Devil of Caroc's Breastplate also has some healing capabilities (on crit). Also some gear that grants resistance to damage works nicely against Berserker's self damage: Death's Maw helmet, Voidward Ring... Cheers!

Yes, if Heodan doesn't get injured during the fight and the following scripted interaction then he doesn't need to rest - which avoids the whole situation. But minor spoiler: Next minor spoiler:

Very nice. 👍🏻 I assume this mod only works for the Windows version, is that correct?

You have to actively attack an enemy in order to engagement to "snap" and activate. At that point it will also not only engage the enemy you targeted but other enemies in 0.8m range (if you have enough engagement slots). It is easier to engage enemies if your tank scouts ahead and the rest stays stealthed with a gap (of at least one character circle's width) behind the tank. That way the Tank will initiate combat and will briefly be the only one visible to the enemies - and all enemies will attack him. This allows the tank to easily engage multiple enemies before the rest of the party becomes visible. Once enemies have picked a target they rarely try to switch and leave. If you open the fight with the backline however, the enemies (especially those who got hit by the backline characters) will do anything to reach that party member, tank in the way or not. Then your tank can only stop them if a) you didn't deactivate the "stop on engagement" option in the game options menu and b) you attack them with the tank and enough engagement slots as I said above.

No, I would just try it out with the help of the console. It also depends on the amount of your CON and if you have stuff like Tough, an Amulet of Greater Health, damage resistance from items like Death's Maw, Voidward and food (Rice for example) etc.

PS: I usually like Deleterious Alacrity of Motion a lot because the +100% movement speed + immunity to engagement is crazy (besides the action speed bonus) and the self damage grants constant wounds but is low enough to be manageable.

I guess as soon as you get Ninagauth's Shadowflame you won't use other Evocations that much. Especially with full Enduring Dance bonus and 10 Wounds + Thunderous Blows when it covers a fairly big area and the paralyze effect lasts for a while. Shadowflame + Merciless Gaze + Citzal's Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge is a very nice combo because accuracy and crit conversions will be high, defenses debuffed and you can even convert from graze to crit with an Aware buff from a Priest or so. The AoE of the lance will be big bc. of Turning Wheel so you will crit with most strikes. Very cool for Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming, too. I find Pull of Eora super useful to pull as many enemies together as possible and be able to catch a lot of them with a following Shadowflame or such. Stealth offers -80% recovery time - so its possible to open with Pull of Eora and immediately after cast a Shadowflame. That's why I would put some points into stealth. You don't need many in order to stay hidden long enough at the start of battle. Of course for a Bloodmage Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon is very useful. The only healing spell of the Sage. Essential Phantom will inherit your Spirit Lance (or Concelhaut's Draining Touch without dispelling it on hit) which is pretty cool. It does not inherit Monk fists so it's better to summon it when you carry a weapon. A very potent spell, Concelhaut's Draining Touch, if you are willing to exploit it. If you don't learn it but instead cast it from a grimoire and then immediately switch to a grimoire that doesn't have the spell, the Draining Touch weapon will not get dispelled after a successful hit. It has tremendous base damage and drains health, targets Will instead of Deflection and weakens on hit. Combined with a club+modal in the offhand (-25 Will on hit) and Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (-40 Will) you will crit a ton with Draining Touch and have lots of chances to trigger Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. But it is an exploit... All sorts of pulsing damaging spells (Chillfog for example) and DoT spells (Necrotic Lance and such) scale very well with the increased accuracy, MIG and INT. What else (besides all the nice self buffs)? Hm, I find Fan of Flames is overlooked and actually is pretty dope - IF you can make it so that you don't hit your allies all the time. It scales well with Power Levels with its pretty high base damage, it profits a lot from the added MIG, INT and also the PEN of Thunderous Blows. The only thing that sucks is the friendly fire tbh. It's also easy to buff its power levels further with a pet (Otto Starcat, +1 fire power levels), Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon as stat sticks (+4 fire Power Levels) and Evocation bonuses (Firethrower Gloves).

I wouldn't use too much MIG because you will get up to +15 from the Helwalker side (Helwalker passive + Thunderous Blows) and that, combined with the +5% damage received per wound, leads to Blood Sacrifice doing a lot of damage (scales with Might). Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, too. Imo 10 MIG is enough. You will not get a damage malus (which would be multiplicative and that's bad) yet you somewhat control the self damage a bit. CON on the higher side is not something I consider often, but here it makes sense. Monks have a big health pool and half of it goes into the multiclass, so the effect of CON leads to a fair increase of health in absolute numbers. Imo high INT is a must for any AoE weapon such as Citzal's Spirit Lance. For Race I would pick Human because of the Fighting Spirit passive. Due to Blood Sacrifice you will find yourself bloodied or near death fairly often and the increased accuracy and damage (also self damage though!) are nice to have then. Everything that heals is nice, especially if it heals "on the fly" such as Devil of Caroc Breastplate (on crit) or a pet such as Abraham or even Cajux. Even better: using Cajux for yourself (20 healing on kill) and Abraham for Eder (effect for every party member: 10 health on kill) for a combined +30 health on kill (base value) when you kill an enemy. Stunning Surge is extremely good with Spirit Lance - if you can hit multiple enemies. It's a free AoE stun attack then basically. Zandethu's Draconic Fury (unique grimoire) is a great spell for a melee Sage.

Wild Orlan is great against dragons and drakes (and everything else that emits an aura against Will) since their fear aura procs the defense buff every 3 secs.

I'm not a big fan of the Cipher class in general but I really like the Psion - and I really like the Psion/Troubadour, too. It's one of my most beloved class combos: The Ceaseless Siren

Single class Rogue is fine. Mostly because both Gambit and Vanishing Strike are good abilities and fun to use. By the time you get Gambit you will usually have over 10 Guile (+2 if you use the Devil of Caroc's Breastplate) which means the crit conversion when using Gambit is at 100% or only a bit below (Gambit's cost of 4 Guile gets substracted before the conversion check). That means unless you miss or graze you will critically hit all the time, giving you back the 4 Guile (if you are using a dual wielding setup, else only 2 Guile). This lets you spam Gambit endlessly which is very powerful, especially with weapons and other items that do something good on crit (see Ball and Chain, Rust's Poignard, Boltcatcher Gloves and so on). It also works well with ranged weapons such as hand mortars, blunderbusses and pistols so a Debonaire who doesn't want to go too near to enemies or doesn't want to leave allies can also make good use of it. If you have a party member who can charm all sorts of enemies for the Debonaire then the critical hits for Gambit are even more likely, at least for the first attack (which will flip the target back to hostile). Vanishing Strike gives you an invisibility that doesn't break until its duration is up. This means you stay invisible even if you are damaging enemies with attacks. Since the duration is rather short you want to: a) prolong it with high INT and items (Salvation of Time is not working because the spell will not hit you because you are invisible and not targetable) b) be very fast with your attacks while invisible to squeeze the most out of it. Both Assassin and Streetfighter are nice for this. The Assassin because of the Assassinate passive being at work while invisible and the Streetfighter because of the reduced recovery which allows more attacks while invisible. Debonaire can also use it of course. Obviously Backstab is a great ability to combine with Vanishing Strike. You can use both - like turning invisible and then slam Gambit - but imo it's better to concentrate on one of them to maximize the effect. Debonaire as a subclass is charming (pun intended) but its uses are fairly limited. Because charmed enemies immediately flip back to hostile if you hit them, the 100% crit conversion isn't a very exploitable feature. The added damage charmed kith do (if you charm them with the Debonaire's own Rogueish Charm) is okay but not really impactful. Imo something like a self-contained Skald/Debonaire (focus on the charm invocation + melee crits for phrases) or a Psion/Debonaire (charm and then use Disintegrate as an almost guaranteed crit, this doesn't flip back the enemy) is most fun, even if a combination of a dedicated Charmer + a Debonaire on the party is usually better in terms of action and resource economy. One charms and the other immediately profits (instead of having to wait for recovery to finish). Single class Debonaire works and can be used like any other Rogue with the known drawbacks of a Debonaire. I just find the other Rogue subclasses more suited for single class operation. Assassin in combination with Vanishing Strike, Streetfighter with Gambit and Trickster with stuff like Freezing Rake, Wall of Many Colors or even Gambit in combination with Wall of Flashing Steel. The Debonaire's special thing at level 18 is that the kith enemies they charm with Rogueish Charm get any tier 3 body inspiration. It's nice but very situational imo. Like... why would you want the charmed enemy to become Robust? So when looking at single class Rogues the Debonaire isn't more attractive than a vanilla Rogue to me. PS: iirc you can combine the Chanter's charm upgrade (charmed enemies deal more damage) with the Debonaire's body inspiration on the same (kith) target somehow (don't remember how I did it). Not really worth it though imo. The most annoying thing about a melee Debonaire is that Persistent Distraction doesn't work and is a trap choice because they cannot ever engage enemies in the first place.

Hi, a dual pistol Paladin may not need the good defenses he or she naturally comes with, but it's not bad to have a ranged Paladin standing among the backline/behind the front line. Stuff like the zealous auras and also White Flames (healing in Flames of Devotion) but also Shared Flames (burning lash for your party members who stand near) work better if your party members don't move too much - which usually is the case with fellow party members with ranged weapons. And you will be standing among them. One of my best Paladin characters was a dual pistol Kind Wayfarer (single class) and it was a LOT more practical than I imagined it first. Arcane Archer is a great class imo. It has a little flaw though (if you are not using the Community Patch mod): the damaging imbued shots (Missiles, Fireball) don't scale their penetration. This makes them lackluster in the late game. However, I personally think the other, non-damaging imbued effects (Binding Web and Pull of Eora) are much better anyway. Other classes that work well with pistols and might bring a "magic bullets" kind of vibe in combination with a Rogue: Cipher: the accuracy bonus from Borrowed Instincts work very well on addition to the pistol modal Rushed Reload, which is excellent if you can balance out the accuracy debuff Wizard: the Essential Phantom you can summon will carry all your items, including the pistols, in Deadfire. A Wizard can also prolong all benefical effects on them with Wall of Draining. There is a special pistol in Deadfire that gives you a stacking recovery bonus. If you prolong each stack you can reach incredible shooting and casting speed. Chanter: Sure-Handed Ila works with pistols and applies its -20% recovery bonus twice (!) to reloading weapons. It doesn't stack with Rushed Reload, but you can then achieve similar reloading speeds without the accuracy loss. If you pick a Troubadour with enough INT you can overlap Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Uses Mith Fyr which is a great DPS boost for you and any other party member who attacks with weapons, especially ranged ones and extra especially the ones with reloading weapons. All these have the benefit that they have more options than pure shooting which adds a lot of versatility. I think I personally would like the Kind Wayfarer option best. The healing while shooting is very useful and leads to great action economy. The accuracy of Flames of Devotion (especially if combined with the early Ring of Focused Flames) is enough to balance out the accuracy loss of Rushed Reload. So you will have a fast shooter with high reactivity who's also doing high dmg per hit and can do support and healing (on the fly and actively with Lay on Hands etc.), too. It's a complete package and a good combo imo. Also a Rogue/Paladin will be more sturdy/have better defenses than most other Rogue combos and most backline/ranged characters - which usually leads to less enemies targeting you. That means they won't bother you as much and that can remove a lot of potential frustration where you'd have to heal yourself, run away etc. Cheers!

The sniper thing from stealth or invisibility is nice at the beginning but doesn't really hold up later imo because the damage per shot isn't climbing as much as the enemies' health pools are. Assassin is really good in combination with spellcasters though. The high accuracy from stealth/invisibility is very useful then. If you want to maximize the damage per shot from stealth/invisibility you can try Assassin/Bleak Walker and pick up Dragon's Dowry and the Ring of Focused Flames. The second option Streetfighter/Kind Wayfarer works very well right away because it's pretty front loaded with good abilities. But it also keeps getting good new abilities on the way. Great damage dealer and good healer rolled in one.

Hm... depends on the difficulty. On anyting lower than PotD I think it's fine - as long as you don't try to be the main tank. Arcane Knight is a pretty strong class combo in general due to the combination of Wizard's self buffs + Paladin's passives. On PotD it's more difficult to tank enemies without a shield because the enemies' accuracy is higher and also their penetration. So a bit more experience is good to have in that case. I think for a first playthrough something like Herald or Crusader is pretty forgiving no matter the difficulty setting.