Boeroer

Most of the stuff they nerfed was in dire need of a nerf. Devotions made bringing a priest almost mandatory and stuff like chain-proccing Swift Flurry, Mercy and Kindness and so on don't need to be discussed, they were just awfully bad for the game balance or simply broke the mechanics. Concerning ACC nerf vs. difficulty buff: Where's the difference anyway? Lowering ACC or raising defenses on enemies is basically the same thing - only in the first case you can do it with one adjustment and have an effect while with the second you have to make hundreds over all difficulty settings (since the game's too easy on all settings). I'd say that's efficient, not lazy. And also nobody said they won't do (or plan to do) both: nerfing and adjustments of difficulty settings (on enemies/encounters). Some nerfs were def. uncalled for though.

WotEP is not "useless". The double hit was obviously a bug. The AoE capability and especially the further enchantments are still top notch. Find another weapon that does AoE with every hit without drawbacks that gives you a 100% Riposte chance on miss (for example).

Wounding Shot had the description "20% of weapon base damage" before the patch. Base damage is the damage range of the plain, unenchanted weapon without dmg bonuses. For examole: fists have 5-8 base damage (6.5 average). If Wounding Shot does 20% raw that means 1.3. If the tooltip now says weapon damage (without the "base") again there might have been a rebuff.

Cool!

20% weapon *base* damage. It cannot be worse than that, can it?

Well, the idea is to produce 8x4=32 hits on the targets that suffer from Combusting Wounds in order to get 32 instances of CW's burn DoT going. Since CW is an AoE you don't want to pump all the pellets into one enemy (which would be overkill in most cases). Now also use Driving Flight for even more hits (best case 64). Can't see how to do that with an arquebus. The bow of Frosty the Snowman might work well, too (with all those hits it produces). I'm still waiting for an AI scripting option that lets you switch weapons. It's just too tedious to do it manually.

Yes

I just realized that there won't be that many corpses in the Temple of Eothas.

Swift Flurry procs can proc Swift Flurry again - and so on. There's a certain point where you can trigger a chain reaction that one-shots groups (if you can generate multiple hits per attack). For single target attacks Lightning Strikes is better (30% lash is multiplicative with base damage and damage bonuses).

Sure, but that's a glitch. And there's no merit in using glitches. In PoE you could cancel recovery and reload completely when switching at the right time. Even worked with melee weapons and spells. Never used that as well.

It even works with scrolls and explosives. Will add the builds soon.

Geomancer, Combusting Wounds + 8 Blunderbusses (Quick Switch + Arms Bearer + the Leather Armor that gives you +1 Weapon Set). Driving Flight + Missiles... It's good, but a ton of micro.

Buff ACC, then apply CC, only then start to deal damage. For example: Inspiring Radiance + Blessing, try to time Chillfog so that it goes off right after, then start dealing damage. Concentrate on the most dangerous enemy first, then the next and so on. That early in the game (where PotD is toughest) official companions are easier than hired adventurers because they are one level above them. Kana's White Worms can be very good if you use choke points and lure enemies there so they form a pile of corpses over time (great in Raedric's Castle and Temple of Eothas). Corpses can be reused and don't disappear unless you reload. Turn off the gib option: enemies that explode don't leave corpses.

additem px1_rod_golden_gaze 1

Funny... unlike in PoE, enemies stick to my Engagement-Edér like flies to Cpt. Poopyshoe in Deadfire now. I didn't max his defenses but went for good offense (for a weapon & shield setup) and just increased engagement slots with stance, shield & Hold the Line. Several Unbroken builds I tested were even stickier. Maybe you tanks' damage per hit is just too whimpy so it's no threat to disengage? I don't even know if enemies' AI does take thin into account though. Edit: when gunners are involved and you don't come out of stealth I have the same problem - but only if my watcher is a squishy. If you present a considerably weaker squishy and/or if you are a big threat (caster) then ranged enemies will try to kill you asap.

This is extremely annoying when you want to attack out of stealth with any DoT (Deep Wounds passive, Arterial Strike, Battle Axes and so on) and then want to vanish using Smoke Veil - you'll become visible again immediately and get knocked out.

I suspect that Swift Flurry works with explosives. So Ranger/Monk could be a thing. I know for sure that Assassinate works with explosives. So an Assassin is also a nice option. The beacon of paladins that does +40% damage on enemies around you might be cool with a bomb drop to your feet as well.

Wouldn't it be even more powerful to just spam nukes ridiculously fast?

Reload and Recovery also get a 85% speed bonus from stealth. As long a stealth isn't lifted your reloading/recovery phase will tick down really fast. It's noticable when you attack from far away since then there is some timespan between shot and hit (which lifts stealth I guess) where fast recovery/reload happens.

Same as in PoE1: chilling

I'd say it's a bug. Why would you want such behavior? But there's no official statement yet I believe.

I don't think the curses are meant to get removed after combat. They are another kind of "injury" you can get. But for every "totem" you can find a stone that removes the curse on usage. I don't know if it's intentional that the curses don't get removed after resting though.

This observation would be useful if you had a comparison - like a playthrough with single classes only. From various testing sessions I can say the game is a cakewalk with single classes as well. Especially SC Priests, Chanters, Monks and Barbarians seem to be really strong because they get some very important abilities a lot sooner (or at all - like HoF for example). There are also multiclass combos that are pretty meh (while still somewhat viable).

In PoE their base damage scaled. That was powerful. If in Deadfire they only get additive dmg bonuses with scaling that's a lot less powerful.

aren't all these build interesting? instead of nerfing maybe focus on improving the game and making the game harder? well unless if it's overly broken. That's not for me to decide. I personally think that too much game breaking stuff makes the game boring - especially inventing builds is boring then. But since nerfs are going to happen anyway: why would I put my precious free time into a build that will not work after the next patch?