Boeroer

But how would be b be able to target a if a can't target b?

Yeah I have no idea why the enemy would be able to target Maia and Xoti if the two can't target them back.

Depends. Body Blows works very well with stuff like Mule Kick. But until you get Clear Out you won't do much AoE dmg compared to the Voulge (besides Carnage). But if you have party members who profit a lot from lowering a single enemy's fortitude (and will) as well then the Morning Star (in this case Willbreaker, combined with Spirit Frenzy and also a Yell/Shout) is a great option in order to have a great damage/debuff mix in my opinion. Once you get Clear Out (and use it as your go-to dmg skill) I like Willbreaker better in general because I ususally value a stackable -25 debuff on fortitude in an AoE above the Voulge's multiple stacking of Static Thunder (which is pretty great though - I mean you will apply Static Thunder AoEs with every of the Clear Out hits because of Carnage). It's just two different approaches/roles. dmg/debuff or pure dmg. I guess the Voulge has more appeal to most people because the dmg numbers are pretty awesome and the strategy is very simple - while the bonuses of the Morning Star are somewhat obscured and need more timing and teamwork to really shine.

The problem is that the "world" of Deadfire is actually flat and has no real elevations. It's hand-drawn, isometrical and flat and all elevations are sort of optical illusions. At least that's what it looks like and behaves. Thus, the targeting can be a bit messed up when perceived elevations are involved I guess.

Even better if you deliver the Toxic Strike with Bleeding Cuts from Battle Axes + Deep Wounds.

There is a fun variant with the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer + Forgemaster Gloves. Gives you Firebrand 6 times per rest (which is plenty). The blade, especially when it's doing crits, will give you focus overflow. Once you get Time Parasite the build goes totally bonkers. Stats don't matter that much if you don't dump anything. Pick all dmg bonuses you can get (Two Handed Style, Biting Whip, Scion of Flame - increses Firebrand's dmg by 20% - items with bonus dmg to flanked enemies, survival with bonus dmg to flanked enemies - then use Phantom Foes a lot, go the Doemenel route for Merciless Hand, get Dungepon Delver and so on). It does tremendous damage and is fun to play. Also the key items (belt and gloves) can be obtained pretty early.

There are some encounters that keep being tough - like in Splintered Reef for example.

For a tanky apporach Balanced Shield is very good in my opinion. Outward Spikes' dmg is meh. Swift Flurry/Hearbeast Drumming does work with the bash. But since the base dmg is pretty low it's not jawdropping even if it triggers. The best part about Tuotilo's Palm for a Forbidden Fist in my opinion is Inward Spikes, Balanced Shield and Precision Striker. If you also have Crucible and Imagined Pain (SC Monk at Power Level 9) you can achieve nice defenses while still having decent offense and a constant stream of wounds - which is the most pressing problem for a Forbidden Fist (unless you like to walk through Pulls of Eora all the time). Multiclassed with Paladin or Fighter (or Wizard) you can achieve even higher defenses (afaik Balanced Shield stacks with Crucible and then either Vigorous Defense, Paladin's passives or Wizard's Illusions - and here Llengrath's Safeguard also stacks on top).

Lots of summons didn't scale properly with char level. Did you check if that got fixed? Other than that... you shouldn't have big problems with this fight if you could do the other ones. I never felt like this last battle was particularly difficult compared to the other challenges. Since the Crocs have very high fortitude but most of the really good spells of ciphers and wizards target that you might need a Morning Star to make sure that stuff like Combusting Wounds sticks. What also helps is Death of 1000 Cuts combined with Combusting Wounds and Antipathetic Field (! only that works with Death oTC). This should melt anything - also combine with Disintegration if you can. That also targets Fortitude. Maybe for me it's never that hard because I always focus on fortitude (and will) debuffing.

Funny coincidence: Did this last weekend as well with a lvl-8 party (Edér as SC Fighter with The Willbreaker/Kapana Taga/Endre's Flog of Obedience as debuffer, Tekēhu as SC Druid with Deltro's Cage/Voulge as CC/debuffer/dmg dealer, Aloth as SC Wizard with White Witch Mask/Eye of Wael as CC/debuffer and a custom Debonaire/Bloodmage as dmg dealer) with a SC Beguiler as MC as CC/dmg. No dedicated tanks. Edér and Tekēhu in the front line mostly. Nobody went down because they all kept firing/hacking at their constantly charmed/dominated friends (Poweder Monkeys have rel. low Will defenses). But there was always the threat of getting focused fired if I did mess up the timing of the will debuffs and charms. If you can keep some enemies charmed you really don't need a tank. But if you mess it up you are screwed. But I think that's challenging and fun. What's really kind of broken is Tekēhu's special spells that turn powerful friendly fire spells into foe-only spells (Chillfog for example). Really helps in those messy fights (like this one - it always turns into a mess - no idea why. Those guys run around like crazy. Maybe also because I don't have a lot of engagement in this party). Debonaire/Bloodmage with a Beguiler (or other Cipher) in the party only starts to pay off once you get Ringleader. Before that it's just too much micro to "exploit" the 100% crit conversion. Although against single targets like Torkar it's already nice. You just have to judge if it's worth it to break the charm with a spell-crit or weapon-crit or if it's more benefical to keep him charmed. Some CC spells actually don't break the charm. So you can apply a hard crit-CC which lasts a lot longer and then do a crit-dmg spell and keep on attcking the CC'd enemy. I mean against kith (like in this case) a Debonaire is just great in general. His charm is very long lasting, it's fast and the ACC is also good. 100% crit conversion doesn't work on dominated enemies by the way, only charmed. Key is to charm/dominate enemies from stealth if you can. That way they immediately get focused by their friends and nobody cares about you. Works a lot better with Puppet Master than with Whisper oT - because it has a much higher range (no stealth skill needed).

Yes, as soon as there's elevation differences most AoE and "AoE-Line" spells don't work properly when it comes to "physics". I guess that's just a snag of using a 2D isometric system with no "real" elevations.

Mortification works, yes. Enervating Blows' Weakenend will not override Enfeebled. It will simply get suppressed. Parting Sorrow: only when they break engagement with you. In other words: when you would get a disengagement attack against them. Push effects and all afflictions that cancel engagement (terrify, paralyze and so on) will not trigger disengagement attacks. First the engagement gets canceled and then the effect (in this case pushing) takes place. No "breaking" and no disengagement attack here. The Outward Spike's strike is (afaik) just a bash with the shield - but I'm not really sure. I once tested it but my memory is fuzzy about this. Others will know better. The Long Pain will simply replace both weapon slots with the Long Pain fists - no matter what you were carrying. The shield will be gone until the Long Pain expires. Instruments of Pain will give the main melee weapon and the shield a range of +500% (or *6 in other words). Enfeebled + Plague: good question. Didn't test this, so no idea. I mean if the target is enfeebled and then gets hit by a DoT it will surely get the +50% duration. But the other way round I'm not so sure.

Depends: They are pretty handy for ranged casters who only want to use a ranged weapon occasionally but at the same time don't want to get toasted by ranged enemies and thus want more deflection. You'll get higher attack speed and recovery (also good to be able to react more quickly) and higher defelction and reflex. They count as melee weapons and thus unlock tha usage of some melee-only abilites like Clear Out, Hunter's Claw, Whirling Strikes and so on with ranged weapons in the main had. Example Clear Out + Hand Mortar or Blunderbuss + Hunter's Claw (+8 ACC per shot due to 4 pellets). This also works with any other melee weapon instead of a bashing shield, but since those abilites don't use the offhand anyway you can as well go for the added deflection & reflex. But generally I agree.

Nice testing. I wonder what causes this...

Yes. You have to pick both of course in order to profit from the abilities ("styles").

Would be nice. Missiles staying at low PEN is no fun...

Weird - worked totally fine last time I used it with an Assassin.

Wounding Shot is intended afaik. It was too string in beta and on release and got nerfed so that it does lower raw dmg and also only gets applied to the initial target. However the raw dmg calculation seems to be bugged a bit. I guess Driving Flight not working with Fury is not intended. The Fury jump is something different than all other jump effects: it hits the initial target if there's no secondary one. Maybe this messes up Driving Flight somehow.

Retaliation of any kind doesn't generate cipher's focus anymore - so I wouldn't recommend this build - which is focused on retaliation mainly. If you leave this part out it's just a regular cipher build with a weapon & shield setup.

It was in PoE (which made it superpowerful in certain situations), but not in Deadfire. Here the base dmaage is much higher but only one corpse explodes. It also can't be reused like in PoE.

There's no more random elements involved than in a boarding fight. Dice rolls everywhere. Against very good ships like Deck oMT you need some luck though - if you don't have good naval equipment and ranks. For the sloop: check out the Red Dream hull upgrade. Makes a huge difference and isn't as expensive as a new ship (but feels like having one).

Wildstrike Fury <whatever> does its damage in an AoE when you cast, it doesn't add further damage (compared to Wildstrike/Greater Wildstrike) to your melee attacks. Driving Flight does indeed not work with the Fury's weapons. It will add no jump/bounce. I have no idea why. It never did. Wounding Shot does not work with AoE weapons and not with jumps/bounces, also correct. Also no idea why.

The new "Deadfire" White Worms doesn't explode all corpses per cast but only the one you target. Maybe it has something to do with that? Maybe the targeting is messed up somehow and the game "loses" the corpse?

As I said: you don't get the gear of the additional fighting crew if you sink the ship which is some generic weapons and armor. But even if you only would get 20% of the loot (which is not the case) you could still sink ships with exceptional and superb gear at very low char levels. You can't do that when boarding. Thus, sinking ships is way more useful in general. You can get high quality loot, lots of char XP and additonal naval experience at very low levels where it matters most. This is way more useful than getting a bit more exceptional gear at higher levels because you board. You can still do that if you feel you need more exceptional gear. Since ships respawn endlessly you loose nothing if you sink enemy ships instead of boarding them at very low levels. You only gain items and XP faster and easier.

What do you mean? How I sink the ship of an Vailian Expert Captain at lvl 6? The difficulty or solo doesn't matter - ship fights don't get influenced by difficulty and also don't care if you are solo. It's so easy that I will not bother posting anything about it. If you can't do it than you simply don't know how naval combat works. Sinking al ships around Neketaka is the frist thing I will do in most playthroughs. As I already wrote several times your level doesn't matter in naval combat. Only your ranks as captain/crew and your ship statistics matter. You get the same gear when sinking a ship. You don't have to board the ship in order to get the exceptional or whatever gear. I thought I made that clear. Why on earth would I want to fight a Vailian Expert Captain in a boarding fight at lvl 6? The goal is to finish the game at the highest difficulty. It's easier if you are smart. Of course if you want to do unneccessary stupid things just for the fun of it then all power to you. But then you can't complain about the difficulty setting being to harsh. That would be as if you're trying to learn ice skating and complain after your first day that ice sakting is impossible because you still can't do axel jumps - while your instructor just tried to show you to skate in a straight line. The whole point is that you don't have to fight impossible fights. You can always level otherwise and come back when you're good enough. And I repeat: if you can solo the megabosses you can solo everything.