Boeroer

What? Promote Heralds further? As far as I can tell you completely switched to praising single class Monks now...

Single class monks are nice and all. But that doesn't mean you have to praise them in every single thread no matter if it fits or not. Seriously: you come up with two monks as strikers while the OP asks how to improve his healing. "What's the best way to heal?" "Take two single class monks as strikers because Whispers of the Wind and Iron Wheel are great. Also: Herald!" Sweet sweaty Jesus...

The respawning ships are generic ones. It's not that Captain Veen or Firgyst are respawning. It's just a random VTC galleon or a RDC dow with some fitting loot.

Sweet Jesus...

Thanks for testing.

Not the damage from overpenetration, but the threshold for overpenetration (2x armor) and bonus from critical hits (1.5x penetration). I like how those behave at the beginning of the game or when you're still in fine equipment, but late game with legendary gear and max level enemies neither of those functions all that well. I think it'd work better with, say, +2(3?) pen on crit and +3(4?) pen over armor for overpen, or similar - something that made it work consistently throughout the game. Ah, ok. Thanks for the clarification!

Who seriously states that the mechanics of BG are better than PoE's (no matter if I or II) is either trapped in nostalgia dreamworld or has no clue at all. Story and overall experience is hard to judge. My "involvement" with the story of BG I and II was certainly more intense and I was more impressed. I still remember parts of the game's dialogues as if it was yesterday. But I was younger, less experienced and more naive. Easily impressed. I also had much more time to play. And yet I didn't even finish a second playthrough with BG and BG II while I did countless with PoE and several with Deadfire. I restarted BG a lot. But once the story was told it was over for me.

Which one is? To make a cheese-proof RPG you would need to keep the combat rules and abilities very simple or spend too much time on playtesting and balancing.

You don't need to use it if party members are near. It makes not that much of a difference in this case anyway. I fact I don't use it at all with a monk - only accidentally. Or when enemies stand in a pack, are vulnerable to fire and no friends are near. The AoE of Mortars works very well with Stunning Surge, Flagellant's Path and Resonant Touch. That is important because you get Whispers of the Wind so late that you want some cool stuff for "in between" and not get starved on fun actions.

They can be very good with the right party members (Beckoner) and items (Woedica necklace. But that's quite niche and not comparable to a single class Monk.

Ha - thanks. Good news. So maybe bug. Or a hickup. Any mods installed that may mess up things?

Lots of players (over)stated that Herald are very strong in the beta phase of Deadfire. Including me. And they are still top notch. Stacking Mith Fyr + Shared Flames for boosting party's dps, giving party-wide passive healing via Ancient Memory + Exalted Endurance while stacking AR and being tsnkyas heck. It's easy to build and easy to play. Look at the oldest builds in the build list and you will see Heralds. That's not new and nothing that became obvious just because you dropped the term "herald" in every of your last 10 posts. I mean if you want to promote Heralds because you think they are not recognized enough then please go ahead - I just don't think it's necessary.

Dang! That's rulebreaking though. A resistance should downgrade an affliction no matter what. If you don't want that as a Dev you should rename the Berserker Confusion so something else (madness or whatever) and don't make it an INT afflicton.

Eh. Staves aren't really my thing. I'll consider Willbreaker. What's your opinion about the two-handed axes? They look pretty cool too.Bleeding Cuts is very good with Blood Thirst. And both axes are nice. But they have the same problem: single damage type (slash) which is bad for a Devoted. If you are no Devoted then they are a good pick. And Amra you can get very early. Amra also allows to put Blood Frenzy onto enemies in an AoE since its Carnage-like ability can crit. You need 25 MIG though. In a testing setup with a single class Barb + Retaliation (which omits recovery and thus favors battle axes with bleeding cuts) the Willbreaker was still equally good because you will hit/crit more often. Seriously: I think there is no better weapon option (if you look at the whole playthrough from beginning to end) than Morning Star for a Brute - if you don't want to switch weapons. If you want to switch then of course there's always an optimal weapon for every encounter. And Chromoprismatic Staff is very potent. If you have a Beckoner in the party and you are a Berserker then Grave Calling is also top notch. Of course it's not two handed. Just as an example for a weapon that is very good with the right "conditions". Morning Star is always good and never bad for a Brute - that's why I think it's he best pick overall.

There is only "instant" stuff like Watchful Presence that triggers as soon as you drop below a certain threshold. Besides that it's way better to either anticipate who will get hit a lot and cast a healing over time in advance (Lay on Hands, Moonwell and so on) or to use passive healing that doesn't need to be triggered at all (Ancient Memory, Exalted Endurance etc.).

It should have. Both things give you resistance against INT afflictions which did remove Berserker's Confusion in previous game versions. So either it got patched out or you are encountering a bug.

Yes, def. overthinking. There is no optimal build. Most fun build for me is Firebrand-Barb (see Cauterizer build in the build list) - but maybe that's just me. Official companions are actually better than custom made adventurers (unless you are following a very special build) because they are one level above adventurers when it matters most (early to mid game). PoE's stats don't have as much impact as stats have in other games. So the non-optimal stat distribution doesn't hurt as much as you might think. The builds of your official companions you will do yourself (if you opt out of auto-leveling). If the build is ****ty it's your fault then. Also some of them do have unique abilities (Maneha, Zahua, Devil of Caroc, Hiravias, Sagani, Pallegina...).

Sure, but it's permanent defenses without any buffing. And no, regenerating is NOT very high health pool. Potentially, it's INFINITE health pool. Dude, that's what the weaking is for. Then you'll definitely do more damage than he can regenerate and then it's quite finite. You can try the stuff or not. But don't abuse a (or multiple) "help" thread to praise the awesomeness of heralds. It slowly gets boring. Your stats are nothing op and can be overcome quite easily - depends on your party comp. and if you are willing to change it. Or go the easy route and strip or even retrain before entering the arena.

I posted this like ten times already but here you go: Bonus points if you use the Stalking Cloak because it stuns when you are invisible - and you are indeed invisible during the duration of WotWind. And if you combine it with Resonant Touch. No need for the lately omnipresent Herald.

Whispers of the Wind (and Heart of Fury and Whirling Strikes) skip recovery. With reloading weapons: no reload animaton. You will fire multiple times without any reload. Same with Flagellant's Path by the way. With AoE weapons: depends. Three Bells Through, Wahaī Pōraga and Whispers of the Wind will NOT apply the AoE with AoE abilities like HoFury or WotWind. Citzal's Sprit Lance, Minor Blights, Blast from rods do work.

Single class Monk and single class Barbarian are actually the best options for both classes in my experience. At least for the higher levels (which you reach quickly). Because the abilities from Power Level 8 and 9 are very, very good. In addition to that you get access to some key abilities a lot earlier which also makes them more powerful. Look at Stunning Surge or Enduring Dance or Turning Wheel etc. Let me post the gif of my single class Monk once more: There's a similar one with Serafen as a single class Barb using Barbaric Retaliation with dual battle axes + Bleeding Cuts + Blood Storm + Patinated Plate (Juggernaut). Gets attacked by 20 tigers and retaliates them to death in 30 seconds or so. I somehow can't find it.

Not really in my opinion. With a rogue, you can get it pretty early, if you buy two death wardstones at the orlan peddler in neketaka. You can lure the mobs away with sparkcrackers and to be safe, get the leap boots. You can always use smoke veil to get out, if they see you. With 8 diplomatic you can be friends with nemnok. The downside is, you miss out the blue items, because the enemies vanish i believe. No matter what you do, you still can get the Willbreaker earlier - and it's still the superior weapon. I mean sure: if you don't go Devoted then nothing is stopping you from using weapon A first and change to the staff later once you get it. For Devoted running around with a meh quarterstaff until you get Chromoprismatic Staff is suboptimal.

The PL 8 and 9 stuff of monks and barbarians just scream "single class me!"

Crush only = inferior once Devoted is involved. Also inferior modal. And comes pretty late.

Yes, solo punishes fixed resources. Like PotD punishes everything that doesn't raise PEN...