Boeroer

Hi! Besides Cipher there are lots of good options: Ranger - obviously Chanter - Sure-Handed Ila's -20% reload/recovery time bonus is applied twice to reloading weapons such as guns, which is very good Paladin - especially Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols or blunderbusses: White Flames procs twice when dual wielding. Nice damage and nice healing at the same time. Monk - extremely good with your possible companion Serafen's hand mortars: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/133662-class-build-the-mortar-monk-bombed-aoe-disabler-and-atomizer/ Rogue - in general but especially Streetfighter with two blunderbusses + blunderbuss modal "Poweder Burns": Powder Burns distracts the shooter which automatically unlocks the Streetfighter passive "Heating Up" which reduces reloading time by 50% and gives +50% extra Sneak Attack damage, very potent And then any mix of those. For example Arcane Archer (Ranger)/Troubadour(Chanter) is one of my favorite combos because Gunner and Sure-Handed Ila stack their reloading speed bonuses and Driving Flight + Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr do improve damage per hit a lot. Real nice with arquebus, especially Dragon's Dowry packs a good punch and is relatively fast that way. The Red Hand is always great. Streetfighter (Rogue)/Helwalker (Monk) with dual mortars and a focus on using Stunning Surge is also very good. I don't find Fighter particularly good with guns except some gimmiky builds. Other classes such as Barbarian also don't make too much sense with guns . It's doable but there are no good synergies. For example Blood Thirst doesn't work with reloading weapons and that's a pity. Single class Druid has one special build with Avenging Storm and hand mortars (or regular blunderbusses) which is very good - but only works at high levels, before that it's nothing special. Wizard can use blunderbusses and an Essential Phantom (it gets your weapons) in combiantion with Combusting Wounds - which is pretty nice but feels a but one-trick-pony-ish. But then on the other hand: a Wizard/Ranger with Driving Flight and hand mortars + Combusting Wounds would be pretty devastating against certain mobs. Priest can work but has nothing special for guns.

Yes, that's not really a bug though but a unfortunate implementation of elemental keywords and immunities. The attacks of Frostseeker are keyworded as freeze attacks (no matter the damage type) and thus they also profit from all bonuses for freeze (power level bonuses from certain items and so on). On the other hand it also always triggers the immunity vs. freeze (no matter the damage type). So an alternative weapon such as Essence Interrupter (which doesn't have that problem because it's not keyworded with shock but just does pierce/shock dmg) is a good idea.

hhh I wouldn't even upgrade Crippling Strike. Arterial Strike's DoT is situational and doesn't generate focus. Yet you pay 1 ability point. I would simply use Crippling Strike as is. Imo it's also suboptimal to use focus for damaging spells (except Disintegrate bc. great raw damage and Amplified Wave because prone) - might as well keep attacking with a weapon and deal damage AND gain more focus. Focus should be used for buffs, debuffs and CC imo. Frostseeker is great for a Cipher, the AoE explosion generates focus, too. What is the weapon bug? Never had one with it. An excellent weapon for opening the fight is Kitchen Stove with the enchantment "Thunderous Report". It's a 1/encounter cone attack that does immense AoE damage and generates a lot of focus. Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole are great, too. Hand Mortar has "Blinding Smoke" which distracts (in an AoE) and thus unlocks Deathblows in an AoE. Amira's Wing has an "AoE spell" enchantment that only works 1/encounter but works with Sneak Attack and Deathblows and does very high damage in a big AoE. Also generates a lot fo focus.

In general I think your ability and especially your spell choices are fine. Here are some abilities I personally would probably not take: Since you don't use any damaging spells besides Recall Agony and Disintegrate - which both deal raw damage - you can drop Penetrating Visions. Unless you are using the Community Patch, Improved Critical is absolutely not worth the ability point. Uncanny Luck: same as Improved Critical. Okay if Community Patch is active, not worth it if not. Deep Wounds doesn't generate focus. Still a good ability for damage, but maybe it could be skipped on a Mindstalker who's focused on delivering debuffs/afflictions. Combat Focus is not worth it in your case imo. You can get Concentration layers elsewhere or even become immune. Also as a ranged Mindstalker you might not need it in most fights? I personally would pick Crippling Strike over Blinding Strike. Just because Blinding Strike is two times as expensive - which means you can only use it half the times you could use Crippling Strike. Besides the bonus PEN, Crippling Strike also has one more Power Level for scaling which leads to higher base dmg and base PEN than Blinding Strike. I wouldn't even upgrade it and thus spare +1 ability point (compared to Blinding Strike + Confounding Blind). Bear's Fortitude is not worth it that late imo. Might as well use a +3 CON belt and get +6 Fortitude without spending an ability point. What I might take instead: Ciphers usually struggle a bit in tough fights against high defense foes. Empowering an attack or a spell can help. You didn't pick any of the Empower related abilities like Accurate Empower for example, maybe something to consider. They can make a difference in tough fights. An empowered, high accuracy Disintegrate can be pretty brutal. Lasting Empower stacks with Lingering Echoes, giving you very long affliction times on something like an empowered Secret Horrors for example or an empowered Puppet Master. Psychovampiric Shield reduces enemies' Resolve by 10 points. This can be very useful in boss fights against foes that have very high Resolve. Because a giant those all afflictions and other hostile effects (Disintegrate for example) won't stick long. -10 Resolve means an increase of duration of 30%. On top of that you get more Resolve yourself (yay). For a ranged character it's only useful occasionally but maybe something to consider if boss fights are something where Ydwin doesn't perform too well. Keen Mind lets you use a better/higher focus spell (+1 tier) right away at the start of battle which can make a difference in tough battles. Use it in combination with stealth: a stealthed character gets a -80% recovery time bonus for his first action from stealth. If you can cast a better spell from stealth and that have basically now recovery that's an advantage. You can also combine it with Empower. The Complete Self is nice with big AoE spells such as Phantom Foes since it most likely procs. In case of Phantom Foes it cuts down the cost in half. Escape is a cheap but effective mobility tool which also grants you a +50 deflection bonus; it can be pronged with Salvation of Time. In combination with a Priest who benefits from your Ancestor's Memory, you can make yourself a lot more sturdy for very cheap. I find Slippery Mind to be very useful later in the game. If you use Potions and Scrolls then Deep Pockets is great in combination with either The Amazing and Truly Incredible Instant Potion Belt or Spellkeeper (belt). I personally like to pick Fast Runner. It helps to outrun enemies and make them stop chasing you (because they quickly realize they cannot catch up and turn to somebody else. Not needed with Boots of Speed though. Bull's Will stacks with Iron Will. So if you want to invest in a defense passive I would maybe pick those instead of Bear's Fortitude. Snake's Reflex can be combined nicely with Adept Evasion instead of using Bear's Fortitude. If you want more versatility and lose the one trick pony feel a bit you can try to pick one or two support spells besides Ancestor's Memory. Pain Block is very good for example. It's very nice to have a good healing (and bonus AR) spell at hand on a character who normally isn't the party healer. That way you can improve action economy in a pinch when it comes to healing. If you only have one healer in the party you can get into situations where more than one party member would need healing - but the healer cannot cast two spells at the same time and maybe doesn't have a powerful AoE healing left. In those cases it's great to have somebody else be able to deliver the occasional healing effect. If you want to try something completely and utterly different you could check out if the Whispers of the Endless Paths with Offensive Parry combined with Riposte is something you would enjoy with a Mindstalker. I did this with a Streetfighter/Soul Blade recently and had a lot of fun with it. I'm sure it could also work with Ydwin. Give Ydwin all the deflection she can get (items, spells such as Psychovampiric Shield and Borrowed Instincts) and put on Nomad's Brigandine with the enchantment that raises melee deflection and the other that grants immunity to disengagement attacks. Use as Boots of Speed. Boost INT with items. You can then attack enemies from the flanks with a cone - and if they attack you and miss you can harvest focus passively with Offensive Parry and Riposte. The action economy of this is pretty nice because you don't even have to attack to generate focus. In this case Blinding Strike and a blinding spell are great because they lower enemies' accuracy (leads to more misses). Secret Horrors is also great for this. If you get damaged too hard you just run away. Since the armor turns all disengagement attacks into misses you will proc Offensive Parry every time somebody does a disengagement attack against you - and sometimes Riposte will proc, too. In this case Persistent Distraction is good to have of course. If you want to use an occasional backstab and don't have the Community Patch: Run Through (enchantment of Whispers of the Endless Paths) in combination with Backstab (and Sneak Attack + Deathblows) can do absurd single target damage 1/encounter. Secret Horrors to unlock Deathblows, pop a Smoke Veil or Shadowing Beyond, use Run Through and watch a very high danger number float up. ;) This also delivers a lot of focus of course. Cheers!

Hi! I like to have a character that has a thematic and also a class consistency throughout both games. For example in PoE1 I would pick a Nature Godlike Monk with druidic vibes, give him the cross class talent Aspirant's Mark, pick up (and level up) the Greenstone Staff and use several items with Druid spells (spell binding items) such as Rotfinger Gloves for example. And maybe some fitting scrolls, too. In Deadfire I then build a Nature Godlike Helwalker/Ancient and continued the journey with the Spine of Thicket Green (quarterstaff) and so on. Or I would use a Chanter in PoE 1 with Sure Handed Ila and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr, pick up One-Eyed Molina's Spike Flinger (soulbound arbalest) and Runner's Wounding Shot as cross class talent - and then in Deadfire I build a Troubadour/Arcane Archer with Spearcaster (also arbalest). I wrote a build description for that one because it turned out to be very effective and fun to play: Chanter with focus on invocations, using short phrases to get phrase points quickly and using the cross class talent Enigma's Charm and several charm/dominate items (Munacra Arret, Spirit Spiral, Ring of Changing Heart) in PoE -> turn into a Troubadour/Psion in Deadfire: Also playing as a plain Priest of Eothas over both games was enjoyable. In PoE there's quite some fitting unique gear for a Priest (of generally a follower) of Eothas: unique flail, unique helmet, unique mail armor and so on - which is kind of rewarding. Priest of Eothas also fits both games' themes and storylines well. Sometimes it's a bit weird that the game doesn't react/recognize this class choice more though. Priest of Berath with Tidefall in PoE -> Priest of Berath/Helwalker with the summoned Spiritual Great Sword. My most beloved Monk build from PoE (Witch Doctor) who used the Long Pain primary (so a ranged Monk) turned into the Mortar Monk in Desdfire. But some builds that I have enjoyed playing very much in one of the games don't work well (or were not much fun to play for me) in the other. For example the combo Helwaker/Berserker with a Morning Star is one of my favorite builds in Deadfire, but when I went back to PoE and wanted to do a whole playthrough from PoE to Deadfire with this build in mind I couldn't make it work in PoE. I mean a PoE Monk with a Morning Star and Outlander's Frenzy would work for sure, but there's not too much synergy, some stuff just suppresses each other (like Swift Strikes and Outlander's Frenzy) and it wasn't much fun to play. The other way round - Barbarian with Monk features - doesn't really work because the cross class talent Novice's Suffering is kind of useless of you plan to use a Morning Star. Sometimes it needs a bit of playtesting to be sure it holds up in both games. Cheers to you, too. :)

Yeah, usually Steel Garrote Paladins are from Aedyr, that's why I picked it. Also nice for this build bc. of the bonus RES point. Unfortunately the helmet/hood is super late game stuff.

Nice. I also enjoy a high risk/high reward build from time to time. It just makes things more exciting.

That it never misses is probably just a combination of level 13+ (when you already have plenty of accuracy and debuffs to increase hit quality), the stun effect targeting will instead of fortitude (like some other stun abilities) and pure luck. ;) But it's the only hard disable for the Rogue - and that makes it quite valuable and very useful. It would be even better if it was a Full Attack instead of just a Primary one (and I don't get why it is a primary attack only), but still... Getting 2 uses per encounter is also very nice. Since I usually try to give the Rogue as many per encounter abilities as possible I wouldn't skip it. I try to use a Girdle of the Driving Wave (1 Knockdowns/encounter, also Primary Attack despite the Fighter's version being a Full Attack) to get a hard disable before Sap becomes available. The base duration should be 5 secs btw. You seem to have a lot of INT (which I also like on a Rogue).

The Animal Companion is a separate "character" so to speak. You pick stuff for them (such as Merciless or Vicious Companion) via the Ranger's level-up GUI - but in reality the ability is added to the Animal Companion and not the Ranger. Because of this, talents and abilities you pick for the Ranger do not apply to the Animal Companion (unless it is designed to be added in some shape or form to the Animal Companions and sometimes the Ranger, too - like Marked Prey or Stalker's Link). Talents and Abilities that aren't tied to the Ranger class and don't explicitly mention the Animal Companion (like Apprentice's Sneak Attack) only apply to the Ranger, never to the Animal Companion. So no: Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Merciless Companion cannot stack. I actually don't remember if resting bonuses from inns apply to the Animal Companion. I don't think so. Bonuses from survival do not apply to the Animal Companion. They only apply to the Ranger. Animal Companion's base damage scales very well with level. This means that all sorts of additive damage bonus (Merciless and Vicious Companion, but also Predator's Sense) work very well here. Predator's Sense is especially good because it's a 50% damage bonus. To unlock Predator's Sense you need to apply some sort of DoT on the enemies. This is impossible if your Rangers are not allowed to deal any damage. Besides Wounding Shot or a wounding weapon (Persistence, Tidefall, Drawn in Spring, Acuan Giamas) spell binding gear like Rotfinger Gloves (have a huge foe only Touch of Rot spell) is extremely convenient for this. Scrolls of Insect Plague/Plague of Insects are also great. So, by not allowing your Rangers to use any DoT you are directly gimping the offensive performance of the Animal Companions - because Predator's Sense won't work. Something to keep in mind. Maybe applying DoTs can be taken out of the restrictions the Rangers face in your challenge? Otherwise you need to accept that the Animal Companions won't be able to use Predator's Sense. It could be that you can circumvent this a little bit by using traps. If an enemy gets hit by a trap that does a DoT, the Animal Companions could gang up on that enemy with +50% dmg each. Another thing you will not be able to use (and which is very good) is Stalker's Link. Since you won't allow your Rangers to attack an enemy (like, command an attack action) you cannot fulfill the requirement of Stalker's Link which is that Ranger and Animal Companion have to attack the same target. In theory it is enough to just command the attack, you don't have to actually execute it. So you could command a melee attack from farther away (so the Ranger would have to get there first) at the same time as you command the Animal Companion to strike - and then cancel the attack again so the Ranger doesn't actually strike. But this means extreme micromanagent and likely be no fun at all. Another drawback by not letting your Rangers attack is that you cannot support your Animals Companions with Marking weapons. A weapon such as Spectacular Spetum or Blade of the Endless Paths or Shame or Glory can give your Animal Companions +10 accuracy if they attack the same enemy as the Ranger with the marking weapon. It would stacks with Stalker's Link and Marked Prey. Also, by forbidding your Rangers from attacking you obviously will have to skip one of the best passives of the Ranger class: stunning shots (which also work with melee weapons despite the name). I'm not saying you should ditch your challenge's rules. It's just stuff you should know before entering an all-Ranger PotD run I think. How would you feel to allow your rangers to use their fists (even without taking Novice's Suffering)? The damage would be incredibly low so it shouldn't have any impact by itself - but that would allow them to apply DoTs with Wounding Shot for Predator's Sense, use Stalker's Link, Stunning Shots and so on for the Animal Companions. Or maybe only use torches? They also do very low damage. Marked Prey always played a hit reaction afair. That's different than an interrupt. A mere hit reaction stalls the receiver a tiny bit but doesn't prolong recovery like a proper interrupt would - although the difference between a hit reaction and an interrupt from a light weapon (only 0.35 sec) aren't that big and noticable. It's more obvious when you compare a mere hit reaction with an interrupt from a morning star or so (1 sec interrupt/+recovery time). I don't think this has changed with the recent updates. Cheers and good luck with your rowdy rangers' rumble. :)

That is the quintessence of the Cipher class I'd say. Very good against weak mobs - but not so great against bosses and other tough enemies. The Barbarian has a somewhat similar profile btw. But since most fights are against numerous foes and a lot of them are relatively weak the Cipher in the party can still make a lot of sense: makes short work of "filler fights" without spending any per-rest resource so the other party members with per-rest resources (wizard, priest, druid) can spare their spells and use them in the tough fights. This problem also gets better with higher levels, a good accuracy buffer (priest) and complementing cipher spells (for example Borrowed Instincts).

If with the Watcher boss fight you mean the fight against Maerwald then that's normal: The Fighter is a front loaded class, mostly because of the very good starting values (defenses and accuracy mostly). There's no class that has better ones. On top of that the Fighter also has some very good low level abilities such as Disciplined Barrage which have a really nice impact in the early game. In order to catch up and then outperform a Fighter, most classes need a few (or a few more) levels - especially the caster classes.

Yes, I personally would pick Draining Whip over Biting Whip (CP version) for a Beguiler because Draining Whip - besides improving focus generation from weapon dmg - also improves the Beguiler's focus generation when using Deception spells (!). Biting Whip does nothing for that special Beguiler feature but only boosts weapon damage.

Hello and welcome. 🤗 I never used the Epic Games platform but a Google search result leads here: https://www.epicgames.com/help/en-US/epic-games-store-c-202300000001639/launcher-support-c-202300000001735/achievements-are-not-updating-in-the-epic-games-launcher-a202300000014828 Maybe it helps. That's also the answer Gemini suggests in general. So it's not a general problem with the game (because PoE's achievements usually work with Epic, too) but rather the Epic cloud services not synching properly for whatever reason.

Imo the original Biting Whip is almost never worth taking (with the original value of +10% additive dmg). With Soul Whip, +20% dmg are done and 0.5 points of damage get transformed into Focus (or half your damage in other words). Other dmg bonuses aside (who all work in favor of Draining Whip because Biting Whip just adds additive damage) let's just assume you rolled 100 base dmg with an attack (which is absurdly high,so this example is actually shifted in favor of Biting Whip, and still...): Soul Whip (+20%/0.5): 120 dmg/60 Focus Biting Whip (+30%/0.5): 130 dmg & 65 Focus Draining Whip (+20%/1): 120 dmg/120 Focus This is so unbalanced it's ridiculous imo. Every additional point of damage (from other damage bonuses) make Draining Whip perform even better in comparison -because its effect is multiplicative while Biting Whip's is only additive. You can decide between +10% additive dmg gain (which translates into a tiny bit more focus, too via more dmg) - or no additive dmg but +100% focus gain which is multiplicative because it is based on all dmg dealt (including lashes). I mean even if you want to build the absolute weapon dmg monster cipher you would be better off taking Draining Whip, forget about the measly 10% additive dmg and instead cast Recall Agony for 30% multiplicative and even have spare focus left. Even in case of Soulblade, Biting Whip is a trap choice, too, since you can convert focus into damage directly and a ton more focus per strike translates into much more raw dmg via Soul Annihilation. The only build I can imagine where I maybe wanted to use the original Biting Whip over Draining Whip is with an Ascendant/Ranger or -/Rogue -/Shattered Pillar or so who wants to keep attacking even when ascended and not spam spells (because Soul Whip doesn't turn off while ascended so you keep the dmg bonuses from it). One cast of Borrowed Instinct maybe and then keep attacking. In that case Draining Whip wouldn't do anything while ascended (because you're already full - takes you longer to get there, but if that's okay with you...) but Biting Whip would still add +10% damage on top of the already elevated Soul Whip dmg of a currently ascended Ascendant. But even then I guess it would be better to ascend more quickly with Draining Whip and cast a Recall Agony for more weapon damage. Back when CP was created I believe it was@MaxQuest who did some calculations and tests on how high Biting Whip (as a multiplicative lash instead of an additive dmg bonus) should be just to be on par with Draining Whip. That's how he landed at the current solution which is in the Community Patch. There has to be a discussion/thread about it somewhere here in the forums. 🕵🏾‍♀️

Draining Whip is very good in general - Biting Whip's original dmg bonus is a joke in comparison. CP just brought Biting Whip up to the power of Draining Whip. For a Beguiler I would always pick Draining Whip.

You can use them of course, but you will get the accuracy malus and so on and also you cannot use the modal since taking a shield proficiency is weird for a Devoted (unless you go with fist a main weapon). As Okkes said: Tuotilo's Palm is an exception because it works as an "unarmed" weapon. I would use Unbroken then because you also get +1AR when using a shield - which is very good to have as a tank.

As a main tank I really like Streetfighter/Unbroken or -/Devoted. Devoted is nice with swords as main weapon, especially the Gladiator Sword which already has +1 PEN (when fully enchanted) and is perfect for a sword & board build which is obviously nice for a tanky setup because it also provides extra defense and a bit of additonal dmg. With additonal +2 PEN from the Devoted you will have very few "no PEN" issues - if if there are you can switch to your fist + shield (take Monastic Unarmed Training). Unbroken is great if you go for clubs (namely Kapana Taga) as main weapon and if you have party members who can terrify enemies. The club+modal lowers the Will defense by 25 points, making is a lot easier to terrify enemies. Terfifies enemies disengage randomly and then catch the nasty disengagment attacks for the Unbroken/Streetfighter (higher Sneak Attack, higher PEN, Deathblows potentially - all unlocked by Persistant Distraction). Alternatively Unbroken/Trickster can do all that by himself and doesn't need another party member with terrify and be even tanker - but will lose quite a bit of offensive outpout (lower speed and supstancially lower Sneak Attack while flanked). The main reason is that a Streetfighter/Devoted or Unbroken Swashbuckler can tank as good as Edér as a Swashbuckler (which is absolutely suffcient on PotD difficulty) but will have a significantly higher damage output. This makes playing a tank a lot less "boring". Once you get flanked - as it's common for a main tank - your streetfighter passive unlocks immediately, giving you +50% Sneak Attack damage and -50% recovery time. Even with a weapon & shield setup this is serious melee damage output by itself. Add Riposte for the occasional free attack and also Mob Stance (more speed and free attack when killing foes) this tank becomes a decent werecking machine while not giving up much tankyness (if any). I played a Streetfigther/Unbroken themed as a "gladiator" as main tank with Bronlar's Phalanx and the Gladiator Sword (and later the Contendor's Armor and helm - those just for aesthetic reasons) and had a great time. I really like large shields on main tanks because the modal + Adept Evasion makes them pretty much impervious to AoE attacks - even if they come from my own guys. ;) Other good tank combos are: Paladin/Chanter (most prolific maybe Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour - needs attention towards additional engagement slots though) Unbroken/Trickster (as I said) Unbroken/Furyshaper (Fear Ward + disengagement) Paladin/Forbidden Fist (I particulary like Steel Garrote Paladin: enfeeblement + life drain) Shieldbearer/Trickster any Paladin/Fighter (Goldpact/Unbroken can have insane AR) any Paladin/non-Berserker Barbarian (engagement via Barbaric Shout) Tactician/Priest of Wael (if flanked -> becomes confused -> is now able to cast Withdraw as auto-hit on enemies to remove them from the fight for a long time) any Paladin/Wizard (except maybe the wizard subclasses you cannot cast Illusions, can be extremely tanky early on but needs additonal engagement if not Shieldbearer) any Fighter/Wizard Fighter or Paladin/Stalker Stalker/Ancient (lots of bodies: Sporelings + Animal companions - who help tanking) Lifegiver (Bear)/Goldpact (Gilded Enmity + Bear's hide grants very high AR with 0 recovery + lots of healing - needs more enagement though. Later great "aura-like" AoE dmg while tanking dmg via Sacred Immolation + Nature's Terror) And lots more... ;)

The combination Unbroken/Wizard is especially fun imo if you are able to cast Ryngrim's Repulsing Visage and Ryngrim's Evervating Terror*. Illusionist covers that (sine both spells are Illusions), but the Enchanter subclass will make you lose access to all Illusions spells, including both Ryngrim spells. Besides that there are also several Illusion spells which provide nice defense bonuses. So I personally would not pick Enchanter. Illusionist would be cool with me, but honestly I would rather pick the Bloodmage subclass because the combination of Constant Recovery and later Unbeding with Blood Sacrifice (get back spells, pay with health) is pretty neat. You cannot use the Empower mechanic then, but in my experience players new to Deadfire forget about Empower anyway (or don't forget about it but try to save its uses for the perfect time - which seldomly comes because you have no meta knowledge yet). ;) Your attributes could be pretty balanced. I woudn't go below 10 with any and put a focus on INT, PER and RES. PER mostly because if you play with official companions, most of them have not very high PER - and PER is what determines whether you discover traps and secrets in Deadfire (NOT Mechanics like in PoE - in Deadfire Mechanics is only for opening doors and containers and disarming traps). INT for your spells and RES for more dialogue options and higher deflection as well as shorter hostile effects on you. If you pick a Bloodmage there's benefit in picking the human race - because you can regain spells with health (Blood Sacrifice) you might get bloodied in the process. You can use that to unlock the human "Fighting Spirit" passive (higher accuracy, more damage output). If you pick Illusionist it's not that important which race you pick imo. There's a cool and rel. early large shield for a Battlemage spoiler: name of item which scales some of its defensive enchantments with Athletics (active skill) and Metaphysics (passive skill). It's best to skill those two from the beginning if you plan to use that shield. But you could also retrain with some money when you find it and decide to use it. )* the reason is that both spells terrify enemies. And terrified enemies will crouch down and move around randomly, potentially triggering free disengagement attacks (if you had engaged them in the first place). The Unbroken has paritculary strong disengagment attacks to that's a nice synergy.

Yes, all Full Attacks (while dual wielding) get a 35% dmg malus. This was done to counter the massive advantage that the combo "dual wielding + Full Attack" would have otherwise (see Full Attacks in PoE1). It's part of the vanilla game and has nothing to do with mods etc. Also see: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/full-attack-vs-primary-attack

The only tips that I can give: If going SC Paladin you want at least one Chanter in the party who can summon very weak summons frequently. Optimal would be Beckoner with Ancient Brittle Bones+ Many Lives Pass By or a Troubadour with Brisk Recitation, Ancient Brittle Bones + Many Lives Pass By. But any Chanter who can do either works. Also an Ancient with Summon Sporelings works well. A Ranger with Animal Companion is also nice to have. The reason is the Paladin's ability "Divine Retribution" at Power Level 9. It's a late game passive of course, but it's very powerful: for every ally that goes down you get +2 Zeal points. With the weak summons of Chanters that basically means your Paladin will have endless Zeal at his disposal. Since his Exhortations and other stuff are fast (but expensive which usually limits the usage) this is very impactful. You can also spam Flame's of Devotion endlessly. With a Ranger's Animal Companion you can revive it "for free" unlimited times because you get 2 points when it goes down and it costs 2 points to revive it. If you use a Ghost Heart Ranger a downed animal companion just gets you 2 Zeal (and costs only 1 Bond to summon). In addition the usage of the Essence Interrupter Bow in the party is great: with the upgraded enchantment "Soul Diplomacy" every time you crit an enemy, when that enemy dies an ally summon will pop up in its place (with long duration). If that summon dies you get +2 Zeal. Also a Goldpact should use Sworn Rival. You will mark one enemy for +20% damage for 1 Zeal. You also get your +4 AR (against 7 hits). But if that enemy dies you get back the Zeal point, so basically it getting bonus damage and +4 AR for a time for free. Because this is very cost efficient you can to it all the time and this get away with lighter armor (which increases DPS). However, since I don't play Turn Based mode, I cannot say whether this is impactful or not. As far as I can tell action and recovery speed are not that crucial in the TB mode of Deadfire. Since Shared Flames is good but very short lived (and the AoE is kind of small) I usually prefer Eternal Devotion (both mutually exclusive upgrades of Flames of Devotion). However: as soon as you can spam Shared Flames mindlessly it becomes the superior upgrade for the party performance as a whole. I don't know how good it is in TB mode, but in RTwP an ability which is severely underrated for a Paladin is Zealous Charge. It adds a lot of movement speed to the party which directly translates to higher dps for all melee party members. And since Goldpact's Gilded Enmity (+4 AR) doesn't stack with Exalted Endurance's +1 AR (which is also very good in general) so you might want to try Zealous Charge in TB mode, too (although I don't know how movement speed works there tbh).

Sure, I'm not recommending Psion for a melee weapon user either (I mean if the intention is to actually attack with the melee weapon and not only use it as stat stick). Beguiler is perfect for this I think. Good luck and lots of joy with the character! A pleasure! 🤗

Yeah, because I dislike the "normal" Soul Whip mechanic and its shortcomings I favor Psions (and then Beguilers). It's a matter of taste I guess: does one like the spells/weapons hybrid playstyle or not.

Hi! I personally - in the scope of your ideas - would prefer Beguiler/Trickster: thematically very fitting and also works well mechanically. What I like about the Beguiler (and even more so about the Psion - but that subclass doesn't fit the play style you're aiming for) is that weapon damage is not the only way to generate focus. In fact, as soon as you have Phantom Foes and Secret Horrors you will generate a lot of focus and often don't even need any weapon damage as long as you can reach enough enemies at once. And if it's against singular foes you can still rely on weapon damage as focus generator. Also the synergy of Deception spells with the several Will-based passives is great. The best thing about the Beguiler mechanic is that you don't need to afflict the enemies beforehand in order to generate focus with Phantom Foes or Secret Horrors: the afflictions they bring already count because first they get applied and only after that the game checks whether you generate focus with that same spell or not (which you do unless you missed). Which is hilariously good imo. Also those spells easily unlock Sneak Attack and Deathblows of course. Since Guile (the resource of Rogues) is limited, the danger of Trickster powers overshadowing Cipher spells is non-existent imo. You also need guile for Rogue strikes, maybe the occasional Escape or Invisibility etc. While multiclass Ciphers have a lot of charm/dominate potential, they don't have terrify - which the Trickster can provide. Also the all-defenses bonus of Borrowed Instincts stacks with the deflection-only buff of Mirrored Images for example - which makes a Cipher/Trickster surprisingly sturdy. Also makes sense to pick Riposte then. Even with a dual wilding setup, the combo of Mirrored Images and Borrowed Instincts make it worthwhile. --- Streetfighter is very strong once flanked/bloodied, but imo it's most fun on either blunderbuss users (who can automatically unlock the SF passives with Powder Burns) or if you play a main tank who still wants to dish out great damage despite tanking - because in that case you'll be flanked all the time anyway. --- For a Soulblade I personally like Assassin a lot. Just because it's so frustrating to miss with Soul Annihilation (all focus lost and all I got was this stupid "I miss you" t-shirt). Soul Annihilation profits from all weapon damage bonuses, so from invisibility you'd get the assassinate accuracy bonus (+25) as well as bonus PEN (doesn't matter for the raw damage but matters for the physical weapon damage) and also bonus crit damage (matters because with +25 accuracy from assassinate and maybe even a one-handed Rapier + modal which gives + +37 accuracy on top - all in all +62, jeez). Hard to miss with that one... On top of that Sneak Attack and even Deathblows bonuses apply to the raw damage portion, too: deadly strike from invisibility indeed. Add Backstab (also applies to Soul Annihilation) and that's pretty hefty stuff for a single strike from invisibility or stealth. Single handed Rapier (check out Rännig's Wrath) is perfect for this because of the modal and the inherent +5 accuracy bonus of Rapiers. --- The best late game weapon for a Cipher of your playstyle is Seeker's Fang, no matter the subclasses. Its raw damage is very strong and stacks with stuff like Deep Wounds and Gouging Strike/Ring the Bell/Toxic Strike. It comes late though. --- My pick as I said would be Beguiler/Trickster though. It's more versatile with focus generation, sturdier and has more stuff it can do to impact combat in different ways. Imo that is more fun to play than a somewhat one dimensional build that focuses on a single thing too much (such as hefty strikes from invisibility - although depending on the player that can be a lot of fun, too). Soul Annihilation usually leads to a behaviour where you spend all your focus for the attack and almost none for spells. It sounds like that isn't what you want to do.

You can use the Community Patch (Basic or all of it) right away. The changes it makes are reasonable, unobstrusive and improve the gameplay and balance. Also I nowadays would hate to level up without the unique icons for passive abilities from the CP - because I 'd have to mouseover every passive ability to check which one it actually is. Some few standard icons get reused for a lot in the vanilla game which is a bit annoying imo. I would also highly recommend the Enhanced UI mod (by Spherical), I wouldn't want to play the game without it. It just adds some additional UI bits for more info and tooltips which is really useful without messing with the game mechanics at all.

Hi, your Scout should work well. As backup weapon you can take a bow at first and then use one of Serafen's mortar blunderbusses or Eccea's Arcane Blaster. If you'd want more sustained damage potential instead of a few high accuracy hits from stealth/invisibility you could swap Assassin with Streetfighter and mainly use dual blunderbusses (AoE and regular) with the Powder Burns modal. This added cone damage also distracts you - but this unlocks the Streetfighter's passive which leads to -50% recovery/reloading times and +50% Sneak Attack damage which leads to pretty crazy DPS output.