Boeroer

That fight is not hard. You are just underleveled. Why don't you do some side quests in the city (there are tons from all sorts of bystanders) and then come back?

Is the transformation the same as with Spiritshift or Form of the Fearsome Brute (you retain all items except weapons and armor) or not?

Then stuff like FoD wouldn't scale with PL as well (no tooltip-window on increased dmg) - but it does. 5% base dmg per Power Level. This could also be the case with Unbending - but I don't know if it's the case or not.

Accurate Wounding Shots are a bit bugged: the +ACC only counts for the initial hit but not the hobbling. So I never take it.

Yes, there is. Just look at your recovery bar after taking a shot and then move around. It will slow down considerably until you stop again. That talent helps. It's especially good for ranged solo players or if you like to kite in general. Or use Escape to move around. That has no recovery and no recovery penalty. Another option is to take stuff which buffs movement speed (Fast Runner, Boots of Speed). Your recovery will still be slowed down while running, but you will reach your destination a lot faster and thus the recovery penalty becomes neglectible.

You seem to have missed the clear warning of your steward - who told you that the Torn Bannermen are too strong for you. That stuff is late game content but most people miss that because it's a) on the way to WM (geographically) and b) the warning comes last... and the modern player doesn't seem to like reading stuff until the end. With the Sanatorium you seemed to have followed the critical path without doing any side quests. This usually leads to a situation where you are a bit underleveled. I'm still surprised that you could do stuff like Maerwald and oozes + trolls in the sewer but die in the Sanatorium. That fight isn't considered to be particularly hard. You're past the point where most people complain that the game is too hard (Maerwald). But maybe the situation just wasn't optimal for you (e.g. no resting before or stuff like that). It's kind of difficult to balance XP gain of the critical path and thr side content in an rpg (that's not railroaded). It gets too easy if you do all side quests or too hard if you do none. But not taking the player by the hand all the time but letting him explore a semi-opeen world might lead to some encounters that are too hard for you - but it's also less boring in my opinion. But when I look at Skyrim, Dark Souls and the like it seems lots of recent games did the old-school thing...

That would be PoE1.

Huh? Was he saying something different?

Wizards - like all other casters with fixed spell uses, have 2 spell uses per spell level per encounter. 3 only with the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry (here we have the fist example why grimoires are powerful in Deadfire). As others said: there are a few unique grimoires who contain very powerful unique spells (see Arkemy'r Brilliant Departure, Ninagauth's Shadowflame etc.). Besides that, grimoires allow you to concentrate on non-spell abilites because you can always cast spells from grimoires as if you took the spell ability - without spending a single ability point. That is very good for wizard multiclasses (they actualy don't need to pick a single spell if they don't want to but can still choose from a variety of spell compositions during a fight) but also nice for a single class wizard. Who can then concentrate on passives like Rapid Casting, Accurate Empower and the like - and only take spells they really really want to always be able to cast (no matter which grimoire is equipped).

I personally would only create values for underpenetration. Overpenetration giving bonus dmg is a bit silly in my opinion. You usually don't do more damage if your spear sticks out 10 cm of the back of your opponent - compared to the case where it sticks out 5 cm... So if your armor got penetrated 100% then your weapon can do its highest dmg and that should be it.

Cool, got it.

No, not the ones that don't mimic the abilites of classes. But since lots of potions and scrolls do that I ignore both completely. I think it's a bit lazy design work to just copy existing stuff and put it into consumables. I can't see one positive thing about it.

As is, the whole game circles around PEN vs. AR - especially on PotD. It's not hard - the game is easy enough even on PotD - it's just boring and tiring that one single side-mechanic is so dominant because its implementation is kind of "all or nothing" (not really, but you get the point).

Yes, since you can't stack the lashes on the helmet anymore you need to damage yourself with a really big amount of shock damage. Since I loathe potions and scrolls in their current form this is not for me, but nice idea indeed.

Hm... why Wizard of you are using scrolls anyway? Combo of Barring Death's Door + Salvation + Draining Wall? Or just for the shock based self damage?

You can script switching.

Huh? How does a wizard only have 3 spells per encounter? And I agree that grimoires are the most powerful tool of all the casters.

Warlock (Berserker/Wizard) or Battlemage I'd say. Most crit dmaage will most likely come from a blooded Streetfighter or an Assassin when casting from invisibility or stealth.

As "useless" as Combusting Wounds with a bit of underpenetration? But yeah, it's not supergood. It doesn't even profit from Sneak Attack etc. The +1 AR might be the better enchantment. I get like 16-20 dmg from it if it manages to crit (else it can't penetrate most of the time). Another nice dps/tank apporach might be Streetfighter/Unbroken with the same setup or Bronlar's Phalanx (deflection increases while health drops). But you shouldn't enchant Kapana Tage with immunity to flanked then. I could also imagine a Mage Slayer with focus on spell resistance and reflection with Xoti's Lantern might work well.

Yes, that's a bit of a bummer. You have to annoy the hell out of the Huana faction.

What about Riposte? Same thing maybe?

Kapana Tags + Akola's Apex Ward + Reckless Brigandine + Champion's Helm + Trickster/Unbroken is a broken combo (pun intended). You'll get three Ripostes with high AcC (Rogue's + Akola's + Helm), high attack speed, 6 engagement slots although you use Mobile Stance and not Defender and thus 6 enemies with Persistent Distraction. Great attack speed for such a thick turtle, too. Looks very tribal though.

Even with 3 it's nice. You won't refill completely but still better to regain some than to be at 0 when using a single target weapon. Besides that you can always use another weapon in the second weapon slot. For example I like to switch to single handed rapier with modal (+37 ACC) for a guaranteed hit with Soul Annihilation. But you could also use something like Chromoprismatic Staff for single targets and WotEP once you are able to hit more than one enemy.

No problem! Glad everything is in order.

It is lower, but it's still 30+ raw dmg per AoE-hit which is way more than an additive +100% dmg boost in addition to Sneak Attack + Deathblows on the primary physical dmg. It's very easy for a Soulblade to trigger Deathblows with Secret Horrors - which also reduces the offensive capabilites of foes immensely. Soul annihilation with WotEP generates its own focus. The AoE targets will "only" get around 30 raw dmg, but they will regenerate focus. For example when I'm attacking 6 dummies with SA and 200 focus I will still have 200 focus after SA ALTHOUGH I damaged the initial target immensely (most likely killed it) and did serious physical and raw dmg to the rest. You can spam SA as long as there is more than one enemy. I personally use Draining Whip and NOT Biting Whip because of that. You don't need to get surrounded, just flanked in order to be fast. You don't need to get blooded for the +crit dmg in order to deal very high dmg per swing. What counts is the recovery reduction. Barring Death's Door is an option as well. Or just put on a thick armor and use Body Attunement to be comfortable with getting sourrounded - so you can get flanked by frightened enemies without getting harmed too much. You can also use another rogue subclass if Streetfighter is not your thing. Run Through (from WotEP) + Backstab + Assassinate for example is very potent. Trickster can give you more flexibility and deflection and you can lure enemies to a spot with Dazzling Lights an then do an AoE Strike from stealth. Key synergy is that Sneak + Deathblows boost SA and SA with WotEP is applying raw AoE damage while regaining focus at the same time. Another very potent two handed dps build is a Sage with Spirit Lance and Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming and Torment's Reach. The AoE of the Lance and the AoE of TR inteact weirdly and deal a lot of damage. Same with Battlemage with Lance + Clear Out. But those all bloom rather late while Rogue/Soulblade with WotEP works right fom the start with Sneak, SA and WotEP. Thus - over the course of a whole playthrough, it's the superior option. Only thing is you need high INT (which isn't a problem for Ciphers per se). Edit: made a quick animated gif which shows focus generation with WotEP + Soul Annihilation when having Sneak + Deathblows: Focus jumps up from 20 to 200 while at the same time all targets get hit by physical and raw dmg (look at the floating numbers). The higher the starting focus the higher the dmg to the initial target. AoE raw dmg stays the same (usually 30 raw in addition to the physical slash/pierce + 15% crushing lash + Deep Wounds). Hylea's Gloves which add more slashing lash also generate focus by the way. Edit2: Actually I forgot to add Sneak Attack and Deathblows. Above vid is even without them.