Boeroer

I don't want to sound nitpicky, but no. Not recovery penalty reduction. Plain recovery time reduction. Both armors give you a bonus that reduces recovery time that's independent from the recovery penalty of your armor. May sound similar, bit this is important when it comes to calculating your final attack speed. It's not like: "DoC has +35% base recovery penalty and an enchantment that reduces that by 10% = 25% recovery penalty." Nope - Armored Grace and some pets do this (with different numbers), but not the enchantments of Miscreant's Leather or Devil of Caroc's Breastplate. Instead with them it's like: - Armor has +35% base recovery penalty and an echantment that gives you a -10% recovery time bonus. That way you can actually get faster with Miscreant's Leather or Caroc's than without any armor: Devil of Caroc: +35% + Armored Grace --> +19% --> Pet --> +6% Recovery time - 10% Recovery time from the enchantment = 6% - 10% = faster than naked. Miscreant's Leather: +20% + Pet --> +7% (already enough) + Armored Grace --> +0% (even better). - 10% Recovery tiem from enchantment = 7% (or even 0%) - 10% = faster than naked I know it's a bit complicated. And maybe unnecessary... Those enchantments don't mess with the penalty but directly with your recovery time. Armored Grace and pets like Cosmo, Abraham etc. mess with your recovery penalty.

Sadly, it obviously doesn't attract that many customers as the usual kind-of-middle-age fantasy setting.

addendum: Wow... A Wizard/Streetfighter in his own Chillfog with Resistance to Perception AFF, Infuse wVE, Alacrity, Citzal's Spirit Lance, Zandethu's Draconic Fury and Deathblows is... awesome.

I can't figure out a convenient way (only some that are bit fiddly, see below). Maybe I miss something? Wizard/Streetfighter: Wizard's Confusion and Frightening spells can't hit the caster (if not confused before). But you can be a Pale Elf, cast Bulwark, get a resistance against PER afflictions and walk in your own Chillfog disoriented while the rest is blinded. But that resistance shoukld not come from Defiant Apparel because it only gives you a esistance as long as you are not flanked. The first pulse will disorient you (hat works) but also flank you (hat stops working) and the next pulse will blind you. You'll keep your "Heating Up" status, but meh... Ring of Mule's Wit works! As does the Saint's War Armor (Like a Steel Trap). I mean it grants you a big advantage over the enemies in the fog... You get -50% recovery time (and also the +50% from disoriented and -5 PER), you get +50% Sneak Attack dmg while the enemies get +100% recovery and can't hit you as well with -15 reduced ACC and so on. This new Dragon Grimoire (the unique buff gives you two +15% lashes on weapon attacks) + Heating Up should make a great melee Spellblade character who walks in his own Chillfog. Use Alacrity to speed you up more. THe lashes should work really well with the higher Sneak Attack and the not-so-sluggish attack speed (compared to your enemies). Berserker/Streetfighter: Smoke Cloud/Smoke Bomb can't hit the caster no matter what. You can't engage yourself with Persistent Distraction when confused. You cant hit yourself with Sap. Cipher/Streetfighter: Tenuous Grasp/Whisper of Treason and other INT affliction spells can only be targeted on foes. Phantom Foes can only be targeted on a foe and is foe only. Chanter/Streetfighter: Whisps can be upgraded to cause Distracted on hit. So from PL 5 on you could summon Whisps that attack you, giving you little damage (laughable with very low Shock PEN) but keep you Distracted/Flanked all the time. Heh. I think I also read that in some forum build lately. Which one was it again? Could wear Deltro's Helm in order to profit from the shock damage a bit... Is there more? THere are not that many disorienting attacks in Dedafire, are there?

I just did a quick test and sadly you can't distract yourself with Smoke Cloud. I never noticed it's friendly fire though. So another party member can easily distract you with it. But I guess the friendly-fire aspect is what prevents it from hitting yourself when confused: If an ability if foe only the code doesn't need to exclude the casting character exclusively because he's friendly. If you get confused that may change and and you can hit yourself. If an ability has frendly fire it will have to exclude the caster specifically - and that wil not change when confused I guess. So we need to search for effects which usually are foe-only and disorient or distract and a way to get confused. Hm, can a Wizard confuse himself and then distract...?

Nebula is the most worthless pet I ever saw in Deadfire. Why did they put any effort into creating a community pet that's so unlikeable is beyond me.

You didn't pay much attention because you obviously confused the straight small blue dwarfish thing companion with the gay big blue sharkfish thing companion. I hope that's a gayme changer for you... I really hope you don'nt mean gold plated backer npcs. Because if you do I seriously have to question your taste in... anything?

No. Just... no! Edit: Do a google-search for "Direballs" and this following post (and following) will be the third (or so) hit: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84591-best-item-to-use-the-helwax-mold-on-spoilers-probably/page-6?do=findComment&comment=1817257 Since then we had officially introduced Direballs to PoE.

You could do Berseker/Streetfighter with Smoke Cloud maybe? IIRC I terrfied myself with Spirit Tornado on a Berseker (or was it the Whitewitch Mask?) - so maybe Smoke Cloud when confused would hit you as well? P.S: Why do you want to get disoriented and then reduce it to distracted? Why not going for distracted directly?

If you like melee (no matter if shifted or not) I would pick Stalker as the ranger subclass. +1 AR without recovery penalty is always good.

Wait a sec... just had a thought: Can one distract themselves with Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights?

Yes, with spell damage it's a bit different. I was mostly arguing from a char's perspective who gets attacked by weapons. I still don't like the PEN/AR system...

Put it into some random container and forget it. There are tons of containers in every map.

Stacking AR as high as possible is very, very useful because a -3 underpenetration of enemies against you will lead to a 75% dmg reduction which in reality (due to double inversion of maluses) is even higher than 75%. So having crazy AR is great and totally worth it (if you get attacked in the first place). Being somewhere in between high and low feels a bit meh and in my opinion you can go for 0 recovery penalty once you have build up a bigger health pool instead of messing around with leather or padded or whatnot. But some unique armors have nice enchantments that make them worthwhile no matter their AR.

Too bad you can't get the Flames of Fair Rhîan in Deadfire (or SSS) then. One of my favorite rogue weapons in PoE*. * look up "Direballs" in the dictionary

Fury = Frenzy?

First you'll have to decide if you want to use Spiritshift a lot - or not.

Then the crowdfunding campain of Deadfire would have been a lot worse. It wasn't as good as PoE's (judging by numbers), but in terms of money it did equally well. But that decline in numbers seems to be in line with most other sequels. A crowdfunded project has the big advantage that the biggest part of "sales" already happened before you (really) start with the development. And also that you can get a lot of money for something that doesn't cost a lot - like beta access or naming(!) a pet for 500$ or being a top-backer for 10000$ (which got claimed 1 time). So I guess you can't generally say that such a game (that doesn't sell that many more copies than the compain covered) is a financial flop - but of course it would be better for fans (who hope for a third part) and the company alike if it did sell more copies. I personally think the whole "Pirates of the Carribean" vibe repelled people who like the classic fantasy CRPG setting - while it couldn't attract that many new players who might be interested in such things. But the good thing about crowdfunding is that you get your market survey and sales all in one and can decide how big your game should be. Maybe the fanbase for such isometric RPGs isn't that big - but then you can just make smaller games, right? I'd prefer smaller isometric CRPGs over no isometric CRPGs anytime.

Like to believe that Justin Bell resigned?

SC Barbs can take Blood Surge which gives them a chance to regain some Rage on kill.

Nope

Yeah it's a bit fiddly.

Bariarian is decent as single class. HoF is great with a lot of weapons, not only hand mortars. For example Morning Star + Body Blows + HoF is a very nice AoE debuffing/damage tool (if you also have Brute Force: even better). The best part is Barbaric Retaliation - sadly it's PL 9. SC Rogue's Vanishing Strike is actually better than most people think because it allows you to get the Assassinate and Backstab Bonus with every swing of the Full Attack. But I agree that the lowish resource pool is a strong argument against it. Sadly the high lvl passives of rogues are pretty lame compared to Barb's or Monk's. So once your Guile is spend you feel a bit gimped.

I'm also not sure how I do it, but I can.