Boeroer

You mean it sure was hard to not add a petty spike - and you failed to resist? I thought this was pretty clear. But adding a "firend of foe" would surely not hurt.

A nasty bug. You should put this into the technical support forum I guess?

Sparkcrackers are the only explosives I use because they are awesome. You throw them near a group of enemies (not hitting anybody!) and the enemies will gather and check out what that noise was. You can then either drop an AoE (usually I cast a combo of Arduous Delay and Pull of Eora) or sneak past them or throw another set of Sparkcrackers to guide them away even further. I don't know where the problem is? Do you throw them directly onto somebody? Or are you only disappointed that the the enemies return rather quickly once they find that there's nothing worht their attention? I see no lost opportunity with Sparkcrackers. Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights can be used to the same effect by the way, but only on hostile characters. Sparkcrackers are the only thing that wll lure a neutral NPC away afaik. I only see another fussy complaint about something that doesn't exactly match your expectations. Explosives not scaling properly: that's something we can agree about.

Looks ok. Slicken!

If you ask yourself why I haven't used quotes: I exceeded the quote limit. I didn't even know there was one... so I went with italic font. Sorry for that - but what can I do? I don't like to mess around with basic (core) mechanics too much. That's a reason why I personally don't like mods which do anything besides UI- or other quality-of-life enhancements. But some mechanics are def. in need of improvement. I will prioritize solutions which are simple and easy to implement over more sophisticated but more complicated solutions. This is because I think if this thread will ever get the chance to change anything then because it's not too much hassle to implement the things we come up with. And also because simple solutions are less likely to cause bugs. I. AFFLICTIONS/INSPIRATIONS 1. increase afflictions' attribute penalty from -5/-5/-5 to -5/-6/-7 per tier. 2. increase inspirations' attribute bonuses from +5/+5/+5 to +5/+6/+7 per tier. Na, I wouldn't want to mess with this core mechanic. -5/+5 through the board is easy to understand. +1/+2 to a stat is not very impactful either so we can safely leave it as it is. Instead better balance the secondary effects of all inspiration/affliction. 3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex) Make it Reflex only and I'm in. Being immobilized should make it very hard to impossible do "dodge" an AoE attack entirely. But you will still be able to raise a shield, parry, turn your upper body etc. 4. increase Paralyzed/Petrified effect from +25% incoming hit-to-crit to: +30% incoming hit-to-crit and +50% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex) Leave it at 25% hit to crit. Following my logic above, give it 25% miss-to-graze vs. Deflection and Reflex. I see no difference between AoE attacks when I look at immobilized vs. paralyzed. But while a immobilized char will still be able to block, parry etc. a paralyzed will not. 5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -15 deflection, -15 reflex I'd make it -10 for both and that's good. Keep in mind that if you raise those numbers too much then the weapon modals of flail and pike will loose appeal. 6. increase Prone duration: a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s b). increase to 2.0s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 6.0s c). do not change c. Simply because you will not only have to balance Slicken but also Amplified Wave, Driving Roar etc. Like... giving them only interrupt capabilites instead of Prone/Knockdown. Too much hassle, too much follow-up stuff. II: BESTIARY: I don't know anything about the Bestiary 'cause I never use it. In fact I think I didn't even open it a single time. 1. allow players to inspect creature abilities in their Bestiary (e.g. via right-click modal). Sounds nice - but also sounds like a lot of work...? 2. fix Bestiary max health calculation; and make it take into account deflection bonuses for enemies with shields and Weapon and Shield Style talent. Yeah - that sounds like something that should have been done from the start. III: CHARACTER CREATION: 1. allow characters to buy abilities and passives in one go, without hitting Next button. This would be very handy when the player levels-up the companions that are not in his active party; and also for respecs. Because going 20 times through [abilities->skills->rewiew] screens is not fun. Hell yes. That would be awesome. IV. GENERAL STUFF: 1. adjust Spell Shaping PL bonus/malus from -5/+1 to -4/+2 or at least -5/+2 Reason: Spell Shaping is cool, but the bonus/penalty seem to be quite disproportionate, and the +1PL is hardly worth of extra micro. You can check these two threads for more info: one, two Nope. I think it's in a good place where it is now. 2. unlock Deep Pockets for all classes. Afterall everyone can have or sew a few pockets? Reason: everyone can sew a few extra pockets. Plus if the player wants to make a wizard that carries 6 different scrolls, why not allow him? Nope. Everyone can pick up Fleshmender and Giftbearer's Cloth and max out Quick Slots without an ability. If you give Deep Pockets to anyone you will a) take away some value from the rogue - something that's not dmg as usual b) lower the value of those two items 3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit Here I will deviate from my conservative approach and say 10%. The ability is crap with 5%. Really crap. Most players who want to pick that will follow a crit build. This means they will have several conversion already. Example: 5% "on top" of 25%, 15% and 10% is like nothing (+2.87%). And for somebody who takes this as the only source of crit conversion it's not good enough as well. And why does a rogue get 10% as a passive at lower levels but the much higher PL option "Uncanny Luck" only 5%/5%. Giving it 5% resistance (maybe this also needs a raise cause resistance "stacks" the same multiplicative way) and 10% conversion would be fair I think. 4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 20%. Because it is handled in additive manner. Agree - kind of - but maybe 15%? Because 20% will make crits much more important and reuce the value of other "rivaling" passive dmg bonuses like weapon specialisation and mastery and so on. 5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +25%. Because it is handled in additive manner. I agree. 15% is ver low for such a high PL ability that can only be used per rest 6. buff flails' Arcing Blows passive from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze. Reason: if you understand how Attack Resolution works, you know how low the current bonus is compared with +5 accuracy (from daggers/rapiers/clubs) in average scenario. Oh yes. 7. change sabre and stiletto proficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to "2 PEN for: -15 deflection vs melee". Reason: damage dealers are not really ok with +2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery time tradeoff. They will just use another weapon type. Unless they have the said sabre/stiletto in the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks. I agree that those modals a but meh. You trade one factor of dps for another factor of dps. It's very hard to know when the right time is to switch on the modal if you don#t know the PEN/AR and speed mechanics in and out. Very unintuitive. Don't know if going all half-swording is the right approach. For sabres is may be fitting since you will swing harder in order to penetrate and thus lower your deflection. But with stilettos you will most likely try to find gaps. That shouldn't have an effect on your deflection capabilites. Maybe lower ACC? That would similate that you have to hit smaller spots in order to achieve the higher PEN. It's a bit like the great sword modal (which is meh) and again trading dps fpor dps, but it's quite easy to decide between underpenetration and lower ACC. Easier than between underpenetration and lower speed. I guess... hm... 8. make Arcane Dampener ignore drug effects Totally - makes no sense how it is now. 10. allow consumables to benefit from perception. Explosives and poisons are currently close to unusable at higher levels. And high-ranked scrolls even with perception, will still have lower accuracy than a high-rank spell thrown by a single class caster. Almost never use consumables. I generally think they are a pain in the backside. But they should scale properly in order to be useful throughout the whole game. 10. add "Bonus Spell" talents to "vancian" casters. I.e. wizard/priest/druid can take: - "Bonus Rank 1 Spell Usage" at rank 4 - "Bonus Rank 2 Spell Usage" at rank 5 - "Bonus Rank 3 Spell Usage" at rank 6 - "Bonus Rank 4 Spell Usage" at rank 7 - "Bonus Rank 5 Spell Usage" at rank 8 - "Bonus Rank 6 Spell Usage" at rank 9 Reason: if someone wants to cast an additional lower-level spell per encounter... let them have it. You mean bonus spell use per encounter, not a bonus spell you can pick at level-up to get a broader spell portfolio? I'm against that. Both of it. Wizards have a Grimoire and Bloodmage. For Preist and Druid I would like to see trinkets like grimoires that grant some spells to your portfolio and some bonus spell usages. That doesn't mess around with the core mechanics and abilites - buit it's just items. I think/hope that's easier to do. And I also find it more interesting. V. RACIALS: 1. add scaling to Moon Godlike's Silver Tide: from fixed 10 to: 6 + 2 * CharacterLevel Reason: getting healed for 10 is great when you have 30 hp; but it is really low later in the game, when characters have 200-400 hp. It doesn't need to be as strong ans in PoE - but atm it's pretty useless at higher levels compared to headgear. So yes, let it scale properly. Also Moon Godlikes have no second ability. 2. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged damage scaling: from [{2..4} + 5% per PL] to: [{2..4} + 50% per PL], for it to stay relevan with the ever increasing health pools. 3. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged penetration scaling: from [7 + 0.25 per PL] to: [7 + 0.50 per PL] 4. add Fire keyword to Fire Godlike's Battle Forged ability and damage. Don't know it your sugggestion of scaling is too powerful, but yes: it should def. scale better. It should def. have the keywords. It's a shame it doesn't. Fire Godlike's racial ability without fire keyword? Jeez! VI. CLASSES: Barbarian/Mageslayer: 1. Allow potions usage, but at -35% healing/duration Nope. Instead give him higher spell resistance. Cipher: 1. Mental Binding: Paralyze duration from 6s to 7s. Reason: sturdy parties don't really need this; while glass-cannon parties face the problem that the cc-cipher doesn't have enough paralyze upkeep. I find it pretty good as is. 2. Mind Lance: change from "Interrupt on Hit" to "Interrupt on Graze". Reason: this power, comparativelly, does really low damage. Let it take the interrupting niche. I can agree to that. 3. Wild Leech: tier 1 affliction to enemy -> tier 2 affliction to enemy. Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss. I tried to use it with my Beguiler - it sucks. It was better in PoE and even there it sucked. Would be ok as PL 1 ability with focus cost of 10. I would say tier-1-affcltion to enemy but tier-2-afflicition to you. Much more appealing. Still random as hell which lowers its general usefulness. 4. Body Atonement: add +10 accuracy Nay - instead raise the AR malus. There are several other abilites that cause a more severe drop of AR or do -2 in an AoE (with comparable duration). 5. Soul Echo: change +10% afflictions duration to +15% afflictions duration. Reason: +10%, even with base 20s duration gives only 2s bonus, and that's only for afflictions vs will. ok 6. Bitting Whip: change +10% weapon damage bonus to +1 penetration with weapons and +10% raw damage lash Reason: +10% weapon damage bonus from Biting Whip is a joke compared to +100% focus gain from Draining Whip. Ideally Draining Whip could be nerfed to +70%, but cipher powers have their damage and accuracy buffed to compensate PEN no - Ciphers already get Hammering Thoughts and this would make them the better Devoted without drawback. But the raw lash instead of an additive dmg bonus sounds nice. 7. Puppet Master: when used on a charmed/dominated ally, let it decrease the duration of hostile effect by it's own duration. Currently it switches your buddy back to friendly with a malus to INT. I find this is ok as it is? It shouldn't be a second Aegis of Loyality. You would lower tha value of that Paladin ability. 8. Detonate: let the AoE trigger if the target was killed by Detonate raw damage. Reason: at the moment, AoE only triggers if enemy was Near Death when the spell hit. agree 9. Time Parasite: increase the effect from 25% to 40%. But! disable value stacking on cipher. Reason: at the moment it is possible to get +125% Action Speed if it hit 5 enemies. I actually like the current effect pretty much. 10. Defensive Mindweb: disregard grazes. And perhaps lower duration 30s -> 20 or 25s Reason: it breaks too easy. Agreed 11. Haunting Chains: make the effect re-apply every 3s for the duration; and hobbled to ignore dexterity resitance. Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it. THe hobble stuff is too complicated. Also hard to communicate this effect. A reapply mechanic to circumvent the removal by inspiration is a nice idea though. I like that. Don't know how hard that is to implement though. Or make it a small AoE. Look at Ryngrim's stuff: why is that more powerful on lower PLs? Cipher/Beguiler: 1. Deception spells range: change from +20% to + 2m. No - why? Short ranged spells should stay rel. short ranged. Else you can brake the balance. For example it would then be very easy to charm with Whisper of Treason out of stealth at low levels (without stealth skill). Cipher/Psion: 1. Soul Mind: Hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do. Ok - I find that mechanic to be flawed anyway. I personally would change it to "interrupts pause focus generation for x secs". Then you can play around with concentration vs. interrupts. A spion who can concentrate a lot shouln't get his focus flow interrupted. Sounds nice, eh? Cipher/Soulblade: 1. Soul Annihilation raw damage: let it hit primary target only. Totally 2. Soul Annihilation raw damage: stop benefiting from martial damage bonuses (like Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality). Agree. Currently too many Soulblade/Rogues running around. 3. ideally: revise SA completely. Make it playstyle more variate, instead of current lumberjacking. Example is too complicated for my taste. I would just give SA a proper PL scaling and let Shred powers do a bit more dmg and that's it. Druid: 1. Stag Carnage: first of all fix it. Ideally it could be like barbarian's carnage, but have a limit duration of 12-15s. Agree. It's bad atm. 2. Full Moon: add new (rank 5) learnable ability: use Empower charge to restore 1 spiritshift usage. At the end of combat that empower point is refunded. Reason: non Shifter druids, are often stuck with just 1 spiritshift usage per encounter. Having ability to morph one more time is great, even at the cost of 1 talent point, and innability to empower something else. Too complicated. Just do a higher PL passive that lets you get +1 shifting use. 3. Avenging Storm: let only weapons attacks (that deal damage) trigger the storm procs Agree. Stuff like Chilling Grave (Grave Calling), Blade Feast (Engoliero), Frostseeker's cir-AoE and Blinding Smoke (Hand Mortar) triggering Avenging Storm is bonkers as hell. But they count as weapons attacks. "Do damage" is a start, but in case of Chilling Grave etc. you need another variable to switch off the procs of Avenging Storm. Fighter: 1. Deflection Bonus talent: increase from +4 to +6. Hm... since deflection bonuses have increasing returns I don't know... 2. Critical Defence: change +10% incoming crit-to-tit to: 100% incoming crit-to-hit, but can only proc once in 8s. No chance that this is going to get implemented. Instead make it 25%. Doesn't stack well with other coversions anyway and a high defense-fighter doesn't receive too many crits in the first place. Nice to have for dps-fighters. 10% is not worth an ability point. 3. Bonus Discipline talent: change 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit to 25% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit. Franky I think this ability is totally pointless. Who would want to make himself more squishy for such a low chance of getting back discipline? Receiving 10 crits in order to gain 1 Dispicline? Sure. but I'm dead then so waht's the discipline for? Why not change it from 10% on getting crit to 10% on graze/hit/crit? Maybe lower percentage. 4. Clear Out: either adjust the effect, or edit the description: "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon in a large arc" -> "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon (or ranged weapon, if they have melee weapon in offhand) in a large arc". Or leave this as undocumented feature? Don't touch my borked Clear Out! And don't draw attention to it! Monk: 1. Turning Wheel: allow it to work with all weapon attacks, instead of melee only Yes! Else neither Turning Wheel nor Iron Wheel are an attractive option for ranged monks. 2. Resonant Touch: limit stacking to 25 Reason: some bosses have phased behaviour where they use some new abilities at certain health thresholds. Accumulation of 500+ resonances allows to bypass the intended mechanics via insta-killing. Agree 3. Blade Turning: disallow returning damage on attacker himself. Let hostile melee attacks be redirected to adjacent 3rd party only. And if there are none, no one takes damage. Genrally agree, but I think that's to complicated to have a chance. Maybe just leave it be. 4. Blade Turning: when redirecting disengagement attacks: redirect once, and remove Blade Turning buff (to prevent possible shenanigans) Correct. Atm you can do crazy stuff with running around and provoking disengagmenet attacks. My solution: cancel Blade Turning on movement. Easy and effective. 5. Whispers of the Wind: let firearms and weapons that are marked as "Unfit For Melee", fire only once during WotW. Dude what? No! My most favorite gun build! No seriously - besides mortars ranged weapons like guns are not the problem. You get the same pulp with Keeper of the Flame etc. I would just leave it. It such high PL stuff... And with the cap on Resonant Touch also blunderbusses aren't that much of a problem anymore. Monk/Shattered Pillar: 1. increase max wounds limit from 5 to 8..10 Def. 10. The nerf that he only gets wounds from auto-attacks is enough. Max wounds at 5 was ok when he didn't have that restriction. Both is just too bad. Paladin: 1. Sacred Immolation: self damage should have the same duration as the fire-pulsation. And make sure that self-damage has the same base PL as the ability itself sounds reasonable 2. Sacred Immolation: increase AoE from 2.5m to 3.5m Reason: self damage is quite large; let's compensate with a larget AoE Since it's considered to be a bad ability due to the high self dmg I can agree. 3. Improved zealous focus: change 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit Reason: 5% hit is occuring on 2.5% of swings; and 2.5% is just too low Zealous Focus is pretty bad. See Uncanny Luck. But it's an AoE. I don't know. It should be as good as Exalted Endurance. And since conversion don't stack additively anyway: why not 10% 4. Zealous Charge: add +5% Action Speed bonus. Does that really make a difference? In this case I would go crazy and say that the non-spgraded version should all the defense against disengagement attacks and the upgrade should grant immunity to engagement. Since nobody uses Zealous Charge otherwise. But maybe that's too crazy. 5. Virtuous Triumph: 25% chance on kill to gain 1 zeal -> 50% chance Hm... thinking about multiclasses who can kill fast...? Imagine Blood Thirst + Virtuous Triumph. Is 50% to hight then? 6. Beacon Duration: 8s -> 10s Reason: 2 zeal cost, and small aoe being centered at paladin ok 7. Aegis of Loyalty: make it work with weapon melee attacks. Not just with fists. I have no idea what this fist stuff is supposed to be in the first place? A slap in the face? That would make sense - but I can also imagine hitting my party member with the flat side of the blade or with the hilt/pommel etc. Priest: 1. Auto-learn Litanies and Prayers when you reach respective level. Nope. I'm for priest trinkets 2. Repulsing Seal: add +15 accuracy Reason: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery for 1s Prone in 1.5m AoE doesn't sound like a good deal. 3. Warding Seal: add +15 accuracy 4. Searing Seal: add +15 accuracy Frst fix seal scaling, then we'll see. 5. Divine Mark: decrease cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s Ok. It is indeed a rather lengthy thing for a single target dmg spell. 6. Crowns for the Faithful: change tier 1 inspirations with tier 2 Reason: long cast time and small AoE, do not warrant such a low effect. Especially provided the rank 8 alternatives. ok Priest/of Eothas: 1. Substitute Minor Intercession which priest auto-learns at rank 6 with Enduring Beacon. Reason: give this priest at least something from another class, yet is still fitting the theme. He already gets Sunbeam. I would like to see Moonwell, but as "Sunwell" (yeah not the best name). Look at Sun & Moon flail for inspiration. Can be the same spell - maybe another icon and description though. Rogue: 1. Riposte: additionally provides +10 deflection vs melee attacks if not Hit or Crit in the last 4s. Too good since deflection has increasing returns. Instead add a chance on grazes like in PoE. 2. Sap: change confused + hobbled to immobilized + asleep. When asleep effect is broken - target is confused. Don't know why it's not stunned like in PoE? 3. Wall of Flashing Steel: effect changed: for the first 15 seconds after leaving stealth or invisibility, rogue's melee attacks have +5 stackable deflection bonus for 4 seconds. Durations scale with INT and PL. Hm... don't get that ability anyway. +10 non-stackable per crit isn't too bad though if you play a high-deflection rogue with riposte though (see Trickster). 4. Backstab: make it efficient with light weapons as well. And several ways come to mind: a). let Backstab deal 18 raw damage (+5% per PL); instead of the current +100% base damage bonus. But make it so that mechanically-wise it is not a separate attack, yet generates focus. b). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a melee one-handed weapon. And extra bonus if it is light melee weapon. c). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a light, melee one-handed weapon. d). don't change. a) easy, simple and works equally well with all weapons - but light weapons will have a slight advantage since you can react faster after a Backstab due to lower recovery (from invisibility - from stealth recovery doesn't matter much). Don't know about the numbers. PL scaling is a must. 5. Confounding Blind: change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked. Or just make it so that it stacks? 6. Adjust Finishing and Devastating Blow auto-generated descriptions. Oh yes Wizard: 1. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: change -10 accuracy penalty to: -10 accuracy, -10 reflex and -15% action speed Reason: it is currently too weak for single target spell. It def. needs a buff. 2. Ghost Blades: increase the cone to 180 degrees. Hm... no need in my opinion. 3. Merciless Gaze: decrease cast time from 3.0s to 1.5s. OR increase hit-to-crit from 15% to 25%. Reason: extra 7.5% chance to crit is hardly worth waisting 3.0s I agree VII. FIXES: 1. Fix AoE weapons not applying status effects to all enemies that received weapon damage. Yes please. Also chance Ranger's Woundng Shot accordingly. Its wounding got nerfed anyway so there's no need for single target only anymore. 2. Fix Brilliant Tactician passive, when there are multiple tacticians in party. Sounds reasonable, no experience with it though. 3. Fix weapons that have dual damage types not being able to deal damage to enemies that have keyword immunity; even if they are not immune to one of weapon's damage types. Totally 4. Fix ApplyEffectsToPrimaryOnly property. Atm it has no effect. DOn't know what this is about. But fixing is always good. 5. Fix DoTs not benefiting from bonus penetration on crit. And while you are at it, fix some DoTs from (still) breaking invisibility, VIII. REQUESTS: 1. Allow to specify for an ability, attack and status effects, what kind of bonuses it can benefit from: all, only_weapon_bonuses, only_spell_bonuses, just_pl, none. That would be really nice. And finally: create more unique icons for all the different abilites. It's confusing that they all share the same few icons. Create some trinkets for Priests and Druids that let them broaden their portfolio and/or give them some other special effects fpr their spells or spell uses. Not that per-rest stuff. Just look how good grimoires are. A shame that Priests (hello Symbol of Faith) and Druids (Shrinkhead anyone? ) have nothing that comes even close.

I need more time for a detailed answer. It's quite the list. Stay tuned!

You mean every time you want to drink a potion you spill it all over your frock coat because of the immense anticipation? #ParkinsonsChallenge I like how my chanter in PoE sings his chants with only one hand and thus gets +12 ACC.

No. And it's neither half nor even a quarter as bad as you claim it to be. PoE had a lot more severe bugs in its early days. And even today there are several things that are left unfixed. But in every one of your posts about Deadfire you not only point out flaws (which is fine and might be helpful) you also always add a personal spike as if the game itself did hurt your feelings by being different than you expected it to be.

Or! It's the cone of their bad breath. It bounces off of you and then they can smell the reflection.

All your complaints make it sound as if you really want to play another game.

It's fun with a chanter who has the Old Siec chant. The blood ward and Old Siec stack. I added a Steel Garrote/Wizard with Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff just to toy around with draining: also stacks.

That's the cone in which they feel changes of atmospheric pressure and movements of the air - with their eyeballs. And in which they can smell you. Better take a shower!

Which one?

Some good synergies: Alacrity + Enduring Dance + Drugs = constant stream of incoming Wounds. You can spam wound powered abilites all the time. Use the self buffs - Mirrored Image and Llengrath's Safeguard stack their defense bonuses. Citzal's Spirit Lance + Instruments of Pain is great! You'll get an AoE attack with 11 meters range that works with all the melee abilites (Force of Anguish, Torment's Reach, Enervating Blows etc.) Lighting Strikes + Turning Wheel can be stacked with Zandathu's Draconic Fury (this is high level stuff though). However, that will not properly stack with Minolett's Piercing Sigil which is also very strong. But you'll do a ton of lash damage. Race doesn't matter much. Nature Godlike can be nice because Wellspring of Live gets triggered by Swift strikes, Alacrity, Infuse and others - so most likely you will have +1 PL all the time. Stats: you need high INT. If you make a lot of use of Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon you can get away with not so high CON. DEX should be good. If you go doe Swift Flurry + Hearbeat Drumming PER should be superb. In theory you could drop RES and take Clarity of Agony - but if you want to have certain dialogue options you need RES.

Heart of Fury makes them good against mobs. But you need a priest with BDD to prevent him from dying constantly. Even more if you use frenzy and the raw damage ticks in. Spirit Storm is very good for CC, it works very often. Serafen is a vanilla Barb. There is no raw damage when he uses Frenzy. Also a non-Berserker Barb is not too squishy and will not die contantly - especially not with Savage Defiance which makes him rather sturdy once you reach certain levels where the higher starting endurance has more impact (Serafen las lowish CON though, so give him 1 or two CON items). It sounds as if you were confusing Barb with Berserker..? @Jayd: which char level is Serafen currently on? Due to his stats he's not minmaxed for anything but some builds work better than others. For example once you reach PL9 you should totally skill him towards "The Bloody Mess": Blood Storm, Blood Surge, Bloodlust, Blood Thirst and Driving Roar. Acina's Tricorn works with Driving Roar. That would be the "ranged" variant. Backup weapon can be his mortars or whatever ranged. Melee variant is basically the same but also use Brute Force - jump in using Panther's Leap, then Willbreaker & Heart of Fury + Body Blows, then Dazing Shout non-stop. Wear the Bloody Links - just because of the name. You can also pick Blooded on this one, the +25% dmg also works with the shout. Once your endurance drops a lot you can trigger Savage Defiance. If you have a lot of Rage left due to Blood Surge use HoF from time to time - the Willbreaker's enchantments "The Mind makes Real" and "Battered Mind" work very well with the shout which shakens enemies (=RES affliction). Int this one also Spirit Tornado can make sense. Depends though on how often he goes down without it. The melee variant is more risky and you don't do as much dps most likely (base dmg of Dazing Shout is lower than Driving Roar) but at the same time you debuff Fortitude (Dazed + Body Blows = 35) and also Will (Willbreaker + Shaken) which might be great for your party members. I personally like Driving Roar better - it's less dependend from items and it also knocks enemies down. Once you are "in a frenzy" with Blood Thirst they won't get up again. The second variant is better if you not only want to do dmg but also debuff - and if you already skilled Serafen for Morning Star etc. and don't want to retrain. Before getting to PL9 one must maybe accept that Serafen with a Morning Star is not your best dmg dealer but more of a fortitude debuffer/dmg dealer hybrid. You can't measure the effect he has on party's damage if he lowers enemies' Fortitude by 35 constantly - but I guarantee with the right party members it can be very useful. If you want to maximize Carnage dmg you have to pick Monastic Unarmed Training, Accurate Carnage and all the speedups you can get. Also bonus INT and AoE bonuses are necessary. In general a Barb is better against tight groups, so something like Dazzling Lights from stealth followed by Pull of Eora are very good to improve a Barb's performance. If you want to maximize HoF I would pick Battle Axe in main hand (+ Bleeding Cuts) and Scordeos Edge with Adaptive + Blade Cascade in offhand. I think... Circumventing the recovery malus of Bleeding Cuts with HoF is pretty nice while doing a lot of raw DoT.

Yeah that's a bit counterintuitive - and also frustrating to use as well as to test. You won't guess how many times I thought "wtf - this doesn't do anything" until I used a dw blunderbuss quickswitcher (Black Jacket/Streetfighter) and found out that you have to overcome the malus from flanked first.

The last part is really weird though. It's the same weapon used with he same ability. Why would you get an ACC malus on impact? And if the keyword is attached afterwards - how do you know that Essence Interrupter profits from Heart of the Storm and thus gets +1 PEN for the shock dmg in order to pick the "better" dmg type?

Two Handed Weapons DO have higher PEN and base dmg than one handed while they have the same speed as the heavier one handers (sabre, sword, spear, mace, hammer, axe). If you look at some of the dps comparison sheets or posts you can see that they are in a pretty good spot. One handed single weapon use is the loser, not 2H. I don't agree with most of above, but I agree that too many active abilities can be bad. First of all they make the fights harder to manage. But that's not my problem with them. My problem is with actives of classes with fixed resource pools (Fighter, Rogue, Ranger, Barb) is that usually there are clear winners in terms of what do I get for x resource points". And since all actives compete for resource points you end up using those winners only anyway. If not: taking too many actives is a trap choice. More passives for those classes and only a few great actives (that are truly differentiated - see Disciplined Strike and Mule Kick) would be nice. The resource pool system leads to the opposite of PoE where fighters, rogues, barbs and rangers wanted to take as many active abilities as possible because it added per-encouter uses. I like the pool system better, but it has to be tweaked more.

I guess because it's too much hassle to alter the code for that one single NPC kith?

It is a bug. But it doesn't affect lashes in general because those don't add keywords automatically. Only items that are keyworded will experience this bug. Those are Dragon's Dowry, Essence Interrupter, Sun & Moon, Firebrand, Frostseeker, Kalakoth's Minor Blight and maybe some more. I think those had keywords added manually because it fits their "lore" or nature - that kind of thing. Also got added because people complained that stuff like Firebrand or Frostseeker didn't profit from keyword abilities (+PL, +ACC, +PEN etc.).

No. It's only a couple of weapons. Having a lash does not automatically entail the keyword.

Let's hope for the best.

That's not a mistake. That's access control. Drives away players who can't read three lines without breaking out in a cold sweat and starting to drool. If you think Deadfire has too much text then try a book. That stuff is totally over the top with... letters. I'm no native speaker nor did I ever live in a country where English is the first language. I only have my English lessons from school an the Internet. And books and movies. I have zero problems understanding everything in PoE or Deadfire.

Nobody I their right mind would call Divinity one of the best RPG ever as well. Seriously. I mean I like Larian in general and I played the heck out of the original Divine Divinity. But calling any of the Divinity games best RPG ever is like calling Jamie Oliver the best chef ever.

I agree. Most likely it's just missing.