Boeroer

Yes, also Crippling Strikes and so on help. Same with Oathbreaker. They seem to have forgotten that two handers should get +1 PEN through the board.

I tested Amra, Oathbreaker's End and WotEP on my (awesome) Nalpasca/Berserker and for me personally the best outcome (at higher levels) is still WotEP. I guess because of more chances to proc Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming. And fists... I also have compared Oathbreaker's End and Amra on an Assassin/Priest of Skaen (which I love to play) and to me it seems Amra works way better on that. The Oathbreaker's AoE is not proccing often enough. The best thing on both is the combo of big alpha strike + Bleeding Cuts, paired with the 85% recovery bonus that attacks from stealth have.

Paladin has some. Oathbreaker's End and Engoliero do Espirs also have on-kill effects. Essence Interruptor, Grave Calling and Hel Beckoning. Boots of the Assassin.

Nope

Smart from Enlightened Clarity and Duality: INT do not stack. But of course the main feature of (not upgraded) Clarity (=reduced afflicton time) is not influenced. Helwalker's MIG bonus and MIG inspirations do stack.

Amra's "insta-kill near death enemies" is kind of great with Blood Thirst I guess? Also with Cleaving Stance maybe? You can def. skip Finishing Blow, Bloody Slaughter and Death Godlike when using it.

Yes, but the summons can't trigger abilities from gear actively. Those abilities have to be triggered passively. White Witch Mask for example (although that's per encounter).

Amra don't stack with carnage Of course they stack. They just don't trigger each other (like it should be).

Guns have some pros that are esp. important on PotD: they have higher PEN. They also have no recovery but only reload. Recovery can't be canceled but reload can. So for example: if you shoot an enemy with a gun and then see that a party member needs healing you can cancel reload and heal at once. Won't work with a bow. Reload takes longer though. In terms of dps I think Aamiira's Legacy is best atm - it's a Hunting Bow. Very good bows: Aamiira's Legacy, Essence Interruptor, Frostseeker Very good guns: Red Hand, Kirchen Stove, Hand Mortar + Fire in the Hole (dual wield Ed), Scordeo's Trophy. You can look up all uniques in the gamepedia wiki. But use Google to search because the search on site is kind of stupid. Like "unique weapons Deadfire" or so. On the bottom of each page the categories are listed. Those are best to visit for certain uniques (Deadfire pollaxes and so on).

This. This a hundred times.

Why do your summons have BDD and Iron skill effects? And more importantly: what are Iron skill effects?

Ah, ok. Buggy.

Awesome! Thanks for the update. That's great news.

I still don't get what you mean. What charge? Stone of Power has no charge like a Necklase of Fireballs has. Do you mean that if you have two Stones of Power you can us Power Surge two times per rest? Or that a used Stone of Power resets it's use to "unused" once you stack it in the inventory with an unused Stone of Power?

Actually sabres were not the best dps option in PoE (unless you played a rogue who took plenty of Full Attacks). But anyways... weird mechanical specialities of certain uniques aside: all in all the weapons of Deadfire are pretty balanced. What does disappoint with certain weapons is their modal ability that you get when you pick a weapon proficiency. For example I value the modals of flails, clubs and expecially morning stars over most other weapon modals.

Abusing stuff like Effigy's Husk + Mantle of the Seven Bolts (or other AoE on death) + Efford (Full Attack on death) should be quite nice. You could now use a Monk/Wizard to generate lots of wounds passively with Alacrity and send in suicidal Essential Phantoms earlier in the game and later The Dichotomous Twins. You could just send your summons in as cannon fodder and nuke them (along with the enemy) with your nicest friendly-fire spells. BUT - last time I tested this those on-knockout effects didn't trigger with your summons because they don't seem to go unconscious but simply vanish on death - NOT triggerning the effect. Has that changed (which would be awesome)?

Stone of Power's "Power Surge" is only 1/rest. Do you rest after each battle or how can you use it in every encounter? I've noticed that a used Stone of Power is able to still stack with a unused Stone of Power, which resets the cooldown. What exactly do you mean by "resets the cooldown"?

Stone of Power's "Power Surge" is only 1/rest. Do you rest after each battle or how can you use it in every encounter?

What does that mean?

No, they don't have to. But they usually only have 2 casts per spell level per encounter. So at lower levels their actions are rather limited - while weapon based chars can always auto-attack for decent damage.

I would add that for me the biggest advantage of Single Classes is that they can get certain "game changers" a lot earlier as well. I think that more than balances the lower resource pools. Of course that's not that relevant when we only look at the endgame. But since you are bothered by the lower resource pool so much I thought I bring it up.

Yes, I meant either Dazing Shout + Blood Surge (as a good combo) or Instrument of Boundless Rage as alternatives to a HoF-centered barb. Dazing Shout is best with (un-confused) Berserker because of the higher PEN. Instruments oBR already has quite high starting PEN and also works well without Berserker. As a tanky Barbarian who wants to stand in the midst of the enemy group in order to shout a lot (I had Bronlar's Phalanx) Barbaric Retaliation isn't that great anyway. Dazing Shout is also not bad for a Corpse Eater (double the cost but you can refill in most battles) because the +2 PL from certain kith meat food ist nice with those non-weapon abilites.

Not if you want to go for Instrument of Boundless Rage or Dazing Shout + Blood Thirst. Actually being able to do nearly endless Dazing Shouts in a row (when first using Frenzy) with Bloodlust and then -Thirst and regaining rage through Blood Surge is much better than HoF. Dazing Shout costs 1 rage and Blood Surge gives you +1 Rage on kill. You turn into a superspeed cc/nuker with endless resources.

Eh? Why is Barbaric Blow the only active ability? Or do you mean the only active melee ability? And it doesn't really matter that a rogue has more different strikes - they all compete for the same resource. So they don't have "more" ability strikes per encounter - just a wider variety (if they choose different strikes which I usually try to avoid because it's a waste of abilily points). So it doesn't really matter that Barbarian only has one active melee ability until PL 8. I agree that it's too expensive though. And then there is Berserker... What has this to do with single class barbs in the first place?

The Shouts are always nice, not only at lvl 19. Because if you take Spirit Frenzy (which staggers enemies if you hit) you can cause staggered and shaken at the same time with the shouts in a big AoE (in addition to cause staggered with Carnage). You can start combat with Spirit Frenzy and then Leap onto your foes, apply Dazed + Staggered (double chance to causing -5 MIG), then use the yell to again stagger and shake them up. That's Dazed+Staggered+Staggered+Shaken with two actions, giving enemies -5 MIG, -4 PEN, -5 RES and -3 PL. Later on you can even terrifiy them with Spirit Tornado. Savage Defiance --> Stalwart Defiance is great as well: instant cast. I have no idea why you call barbs shallow. Just because of Barbaric Blow? That's arguably not the greatest ability the barb has - but it's not the only nor the defining one. Another great thing of single barbs is that they can use a Morning Star (+Body Blows) + Brute Force quite early (compared to multiclass) which is a great increase in attack quality. Totally fine class to play as single class. Also good as multiclass. I think Obsidian did a good job on this. Barbaric Blow could be better - the "on kill" effects don't work very well since you can't reliably say if the next attack will kill or not, making it fiddly and frustrating to use.