Boeroer

I think I looked at the passives of all classes now. There are one or two that might need a little rework (e.g. Psychic Backlash) but the vast majority looks great. Even those I feared would look crappy (like for example Protective Companion and Stalker's Link) turned out good at 42x42. Details via PM.

sure 😄

Death Guards are connected to Berath - at least so far. One was a devoted follower (but not priest): Lord Readric - and the other one a Berathian Priest. Death Knights seem to be "undead" creatures in Pillars: you could find them when going down the endless paths or when fighting Concelhaut (Necromancer). Classes that have direct connection to death/necromancy/undead are Chanter, Priest of Berath and Wizard. If you count "Decay" as well then also Priest of Rymrgand (companion only) and Druid (even has Finger of Death spell). If you picked one of them you would have some abilities that circle around those themes. Also you can find a nice black plate armor with helmet that fits that theme - and some weapons like Voidwheel, Engoliero do Espirs, Grave Calling etc. The only Paladin order that would somewhat fit is Bleak Walkers. They are not really into those things in general but still their dispositions and approach to ending conflicts would fit best. Something like Arcane Knight (Bleak Walker/Wizard) works quite well. Unfortunately you cannot pair Bleak Walker with Priest of Berath (due to disposition clash).

Something special must trigger this I believe. Some combo of certain things that you don't have with every game instance. Because so far I didn't encounter this. I have only been doing lots of fights with test chars lately - no complete playthroughs.

There goes my rigid work schedule for today... 😄 Will install asap and yell "ah screw you work!"

No, afaik all speed bonuses stack in Deadfire (I mean if applicable to your current action in the first place). They are not calculated like in PoE where every stackable additional speed bonus yielded increasing returns (when it comes to absolute frame count). In DF it's just the other way round: the more bonuses you stack the less frames every single bonus will take away. Like if you would want to empty a glass of water by repeatedly talking half out of it. Every iteration will take less water out and you can't reach complete emptyness. That's the reason why it was so easy to reach 0 recovery in PoE and why it's impossible to reach 0 in Deadfire (unless you use stuff like Blade Cascade or Blood Thirst etc. which totally omit recovery). Therefore PoE had to restrict stacking of speed bonuses (which were only recovery bonuses to begin with) to not totally break the game while DF doesn't need to.

Do you have water and food and all?

This has to be mod related. I never ever read about that (hilarious) problem before. Of course I can't be entirely sure. Just a looong shot but: do you use any mod that changes Wild Growth (Ancient Druid)? Or any other ability that might scale models (Beckoner summons for example)? Because there currently is a bug that lets characters try to execute abilities of party members. Somehow the command of char A to use ability X jumps to char B who hasn't this ability, causing problems. Maybe some scaling stuff, related to Wild Growth or Beckoner summons or whatever was transferred to your char. Just a very, very wild guess though.

The problem (for me at least) is that if you declare something as ethically dubious you don't restrict it to yourself. Not as long as you explicitly say so. You automatically project it onto everybody else who min-maxes (in Deadfire). Ethics is not a personal thing, it's a consensus in society as a whole. Ifyou had said that you don't like it, that it's not your cup of tea, that it makes you feel uncomfortable - totally fine. But instead if one reads "ethically dubious" one can't help to feel judged. Saying that you find it ethically dubious is strong stuff. Way too strong for my taste. So bear with me while I rub it in. Using this phrasing either means you a) weren't fully aware of the impression this phrase would make - or b) that you think that you have higher moral standards than people who min-max (in a single player RPG which they play for their own amusement). I hope it wasn't the latter, but the latest "I never min-max" statement, albeit totally fine on its own, reinforces the impression of b). Which I find is a problematic, high-brow mindset to have in general. To be fair you already said that you only mean "ethically dubious for yourself" - but then whenever stuff like min-maxing and cheese comes up in the forums you (maybe unknowingly) send signals for b). As said earlier: some players like to build efficient "min-maxed" characters even more than they like to play them. Like they would build with Lego. Indirectly labeling this as ethically dubious - even if it wasn't meant that way - is not right. Maybe some people find this petty. But this is an important matter to me. You could tell from my first reaction on that matter. Same like the signals that get send when people say something along the lines of "why can't you control yourself? It's so easy to not abuse." I also don't think that this helps anybody in any way. Solution number 1 (only can intimidate once) sounds totally reasonable by the way.

Underwhelming? But why? They are both great as multiclasses (mainly in combination with casters) and also as single class characters (awesome PL 8 and 9 abilities). The synergy of Morning Star's Body Blows + Barbarian (with Brute Force and Spirit Frenzy's Stagger) is already a reason to pick one.

Since when does INT not affect summoned weapons' duration? Ah I guess because it's from a scroll? Speed bonuses from Lightning Strikes and Mob Stance do stack. Nice idea to use Great Sword's modal with the lashes. With Enduring Dance you get an ACC bonus that evens out the ACC malus. And once you wear the Ring of Focused Flames you'll have +10 ACC with Firebrand. Only thing I wouldn't like is using scrolls. Too bad we don't have things like Forgemaster Gloves anymore.

Fury's attack profits from Heart of the Storm which hooks onto the same elemental keywords - so I assume that it counts. Also afaik all Wildstrike talents turn your auto-attacks into elemental ones (afa keywords are concerned). The bounce I didn't test but I guess so. Although it's a bounce that doesn't stack with Driving Flight unfortunately. Which can mean it's coded differently and behaves differently with Imbue spells. Maybe I will bring this glitch up in the Community Patch...

Declaring min-maxing to be ethically dubious repaints the image of a saint and turns it into one of a moralizer - so no worries!

I'm sure that could be done. Best solution would be to just lift that stupid editing restriction though.

I only use the Enhanced UI mod - so none that alters the game mechanics. I am participating in the upcoming Community Patch though - since now all hope is lost that Obsidian themselves will adress some issues that I think could be done better (such as Backstab, several passives, Arcane Archer's imbue spell scaling and so on). It will also introduce unique icons for all passive abilites (purely cosmetic) and also trinkets for Priests and Druids since they suffer from "spell choice railroading" syndrome - unlike the Wizard who has his grimoires (which are trinkets as well). I wouldn't say that any subclass is "pretty bad". There are some that could use a slight buff - like Shattered Pillar which got nerfed a bit too much or Mage Slayer which never got buffed enough.

So, if we are doing trinkets: what can I do? Write down exemplary trinkets as inspirations so we can run polls on them? Do some icons for trinkets? Writing descriptions? If somebody points me to where I can learn everything I need to know about Deadfire modding (fast) I would also be willing to implement them - if that makes any sense from a cost-benefit ratio perspective. I mean I am a software engineer - I just had no motivation to dive into Deadfire modding so far...

I just compared Warlock with Tempest. I like Warlock a lot because of the synergies you describe above (spells triggering Blood Thirst etc.). But actually a Tempest is even better. I thought (and maybe that was the case earlier) that DoTs don't work with Blood Thirst. But now they do. DoTs will indeed trigger Bloodthirst and usually the DoTs and Pulsing spells of a Druid are a) foe only and b) sometimes have a ridiculously big AoE - like Plague of Insects. And because of Spiritshift you can stay at 0 recovery penalty while having great AR without having to cast any self buff. This means it's a lot faster and easier to target nearly all enemies with some DoTs - while your friends will not get harmed. This ensures you get a lot more "accidential" kills via big DoTs while you can attack them at the same time. You can even steal kills from your party members if a DoT finishes off an enemy whom your Rogue buddy was hammering at. And that means Blood Thirst triggers and triggers and triggers...

Can confirm now that DoTs do reliably trigger Blood Thirst. Awesome!

By the way: I just found out that Amra's AoE procs Avenging Storm... just as a random info for SC Druids. PS: especially in tandem with "Entropy"... hahaha

Huh? I didn't realize you quit Obsidian roughly a year ago. What class is Josh?

Apart from that: what does "best" mean anyway? I think that is highly dependend on your preferences as a player and also dependend on you party composition. Best != highest (potential) dps. If you drop dead too soon your average dps drops rather significantly. If you can only hit single targets you won't keep up with somebody wo can hit several enemies at once and so on. It all depends. That's why I usually don't respond very quickly to such vague questions - because there is no definitive "best" of anything basic in Deadfire. Maybe when you solo (but even then it highly depends on the player), but surely not with a party. Once it is more clear what OP really wants it's much easier to give meaningful tips. Often enough there's a question like "what's the best X" and people start givig tips - but then OP comes around and says "Yeah cool cool cool cool - but I want my X to be a bit more Y you know because of Z" - and I'm like "why not mentioning that in the first place?"

Yes, nothing changed basically.

sure - if you're not solo. First of all you don't need to be in the midst of anything as long as you don't pile up engagement slots like crazy. Usually you'll have 1 from Persistent Distraction and that's it. That means you can get flanked quite easily. Or stand where somebody else fires Powder Burns (using a Pale Elf usually leads to hefty underpenetration). edit: That doesn't work at all. Same Pale Elf can be build with a Perception resistance and dance in your Wizard's Chillfog for example. Your Cipher/Berseker buddy can cast Phantom Foes. You can use a Chanter's Whisps to shoot at you (auto-distract). And so on - there are quite a few ways to trigger "Heating Up" at will - if you have a party.

Well the Streetfighter has the same additive bonuses as any other rogue even when not bloodied AND flanked. Getting flanked is fairly easy - and then you benefit from ridiculous attack speed and increased Sneak Attack damage. If you now wanted to also get +100% crit damage then you'd have to be bloodied. But it's the class with the highest additive dmg bonuses and one of the fastest hitters even without being bloodied. Just get flanked and your dps explodes already.

Never forget Reaping Knives on SC Ascendant (if playing with a party)! This plus Time Siphon means very high attack speed and nearly always full focus, ascending you. Also very potent with Soul Blade. Just imagine you buddy fighter generating tons of focus for you with his Clear Out while you can concentrate on spamming those speed spells. I would go SC - also the best passives (Shared Nightmare and so on *drool*). But it is true that a multiclass is more effective in the early to mid game due to faster focus generation.