Boeroer

I agree. If only one employee of Obsidian watched this forum they must have stumbled over this topic a dozen times. Also BAdler answered a question of MaxQuest during beta1, explaining this behavior. So he def. knew.

They are not that frail. But even if: in case of the skeletons you will have 12 instead of 6 then...

Well the spiritual weapons are nice and all - but hey have no special and unique enchantments as unique weapons have. The latest stream showed some pretty interesting weapons with very special features.

Well that escalated quickly! Why does a gaming preference that is different from yours to be considered "scum"? Don't most games made in this genre provide an "advancement of power" in the PC and party? "The only people I knew" does not mean "all power gamers that exist." The power gamers I knew were scum because they would do anything and everything to obtain power within a game (cheats, exploits, bugs, design flaw, etc..) Nothing wrong with power gained within the confines of its intended design. I can assume decent power gamers exist but its all conjucture for me based on my experience. You mixed up Powergamers with Munchkins.

Summoned weapons like Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff and Citzal's Spirit Lance combined with wizards' self buffs will do the trick.

Yes, when you have high deflection you can use the unique shield Aila Braccia (from monks in Celestial Sapling, Twin Elms). It turns all ranged attacks that graze into misses and reflects then back to the attacker. Cleansing Flame is a ranged attack that targets deflection - so it gets reflected if it grazes. If it hits you're screwed though.

Goldpact + Berath is indeed a good combo. FoD with +80% lash, with Eternal Devotions you'll even have +70% without spending Zeal. At the same time improved tankyness via Gilded Enmity. Devoted/Berath might also be good. Great Swords can use some bonus PEN and the crit damage also doesn't hurt. I didn't try it myself though. But a multiclass Priest will lack some nice sounding spells: PL 8 Dismissal PL 8 Hand of Weal and Woe PL 8 Crowns for the Faithful PL 8 Spark the Souls of the Righteous PL 9 Hand of Berath PL 9 Berath Incarnate ​But at least Avatar is still available for multiclass at PL 7.

If you like a 2handed cipher there's a variant that is lots of fun and powerful: grab the Belt of the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and Forgemaster GLoves and use Firebrand as your main weapon as often as possible (6 per rest). With the good dmg bonuses of the cipher combined with other dmg bonuses like Svage Attack, Two Handed Style, Apprentice's Sneak Attack and also Scion of Flame you'll do immense damage per attack - one strike usually is enough to follow up with a good cipher spell. I would prefer light to medium armor - but heavy armor is good in the early game. Just don't engage first but wait until Edér and Pallegina are engaged by enemies. You can make the cipher a lot sturdier with Veteran's Recovery - it works very well with high INT and MIG. If you combine it with survival (4/8/12) and an itemd that lets you receive more healing you will have fighter-like sturdyness when it comes to endurance. But you have to watch your health bar! If you don't like the idea then give it to Pallegina - her FoD strikes are great with Firebrand and she can even use Runner's Wounding Shot as fourth per-encounter attack after Wrath of the Five Suns and 2 x FoD. If you want to build Edér as a tank with a shield then I'd vote for war hammers, not swords. The uniques are way better. I would not build him 100% defensive because... that sucks. You can stil give him Disciplined Barrage and Kockdown and later grab Badgradr's Barricade or Dragon's Maw. Those two shields are great for offense as well. If you pair them with the Godansthunyr hammer you can be great at defense and offense. Durance should be your primary buffer, not healer. If you use his spell uses for healing that's wasting precious resources. Use his spells for stuff like Devotions. Healing is better done via stuff like Veteran's Recovery and Lay on Hands etc. Of course - if you are in danger of going down DUrance should use healing - but in general I would see him as buffer, not healer. Buffing up your ACC is very important on PotD. Make sure he takes Inspiring Radiance. Its +10 ACC stack with everything. Cast it right at the start of the battle (ignoring the whimpy healing) and start your CC salve with +10 "free" ACC. Durance will get rushed if he has low DR AND low defenses. YOu can prevent that with thick armor (=slow recovery) or a shield. SInce he has high RES his deflection with a shield is pretty decent (for a priest) and discourages a lot of enemies from attacking him. General rule: Buff ACC --> do CC --> deal damage. 90% of the dialogue checks are unimportant. You'll get the same results without them. There are some checks that lead do a differnet outcome. For example you can talk a dragon into giving you an item - you'd have to kill him to get it otherwise (which I would do anyway). I another situation you can get some permanent minor stat boost via talking. If you choose the violent way you get very rare enchantment resources instead. I'd take the resources. For the rest of the game the dilogue checks are not very important except for roleplaying reasons.

I meant the ACC bonus of Novice's and Transcendent Suffering not working with abilites, yes. Still didn't test it in Deafire though.

It's was confirmed that Edér and Aloth don't have any subclass.

Yes, constant healing (from another source like another chanter or a paladin or both) paired with 30pt-dmg-shield every 3 sec is very good: no casting time, no spell uses "wasted" - just a great way to passively gain a ton of "virtual" health. An otherwise very offensive but glassy party turns into a sturdy one. THis setup doesn't prevent death because of high spike damage though (dragon breath and such).

I guess it stacks because Reflective Image is a passive ability?

It was so in PoE. I didn't test if this is still the case in Deadfire.

Please don't give your shifters Weapon & Shield Style. It hurts my feelings. Veteran's Recovery and a focus on (self) healing is enough to keep them alive if you go with three frontliners (2 druids, one priest), a reach weapon user (wizard) and two ranged (priest & wizard). Quickly you will have so much (hard) CC that enemies won't hit you a lot anyway - if you use them correctly. The early levels will be a challenge, but that's aloways the case with casters. After a few level ups the game will become so easy because of the powerful arsenal of spells that it's not necessary to tank. And if you need to: drop some summons or use mind control (wizard). Just follow the simple rule "buff ACC --> do CC --> deal damage" and it will be a breeze. Your two priests can start every encounter with dual Inspiring Radiances, buffing your party's accuracy by +20 in a second. No spells used! The wizards and druids can start casting CC effects right away because the attack roll's ACC will be determined when the spell hits - and Inspiring Radiance will have gone off already. No time loss, no wating for the bonus ACC. A horde of disabled enemies, ready to nuked/pummeled. I'd also advise to pick Painful Interdiction with the ranged priest. It's a great debuff preperator because it has +15 ACC, a BIG AoE and is 1/encounter. You weaken all enemies in range and the wizards'/druids' CC and DMG spells that target fortitude will crit even more reliably. Also Frighten and Daze stack with Devotion's debuff of enemies' ACC - giving them a really hard time to hit you even if your own defenses are not so great.

If you combine the barb's ACC lowering tools and for example a priest or paladin to buff his deflection it shouldn't make a difference if you have 3 or 10 CON since you shouldn't get hit in th first place. The first few levels are a bit tough though if that is your only tanky frontliner. Because barbs have such crappy starting deflection - and your abilities that make up for this are not developed yet. The higher base endurance and health make no difference (even if you gave him 20 CON). The effects of CON are only useful and visible after some levels. I guess at lvl 6 it gets a lot easier once you have Weapon & Shield Style and Stalwart Defiance. Please note that the abilites/talents are not in the correct order. Maybe I should edit that. You'd pick Yell, Veteran's Recovery, Savage Defiance, Weapon & Shield Style, One Stands Alone and Stalwart Defiance if I remember correctly.

Yes, the AoE also scales with INT. So that combo could be good - in theory. At 10 wounds you are also down very quickly. Maybe stuff like Exhalted Endurance and Lay on Hands will help.

It increases the effect of potions and drugs like crazy - at least in the beta. Maybe they nerfed it in the final version, who knows.

Right. But to be fair: maybe master guardian meant that IWD killed his own personal interest in cRPGs until PoE.

More efficient at tanking? Or what do you mean?

You can use alchemy and potions to reduce action time and recovery time. Potion of Deftness for example makes you very fast with a high Alchemy skill.

I can't remember a talking sword in Divine Divinity (2002). Only that weird pyramid - which was awesome.

I'm not sure what all equipment is available in the beta to test this, but does the INT/CON from Duality stack with items? Cause that would push me back in the direction of monk/skald (though maybe not Shattered Pillar, cause they'd only get max +5 INT, correct?) since with +10 INT I could reasonably reach 30 int to be able to maintain 2 phrases all the time. Stats are capped at 35 in Deadfire. So maybe at some point the +10 INT bonus could be "overkill" - but I don't know. I believe Duality stacks with items - stat bonuses from abilities stacked with stat bonuses from items in PoE and I have no reason to believe that that was changed. So with a Shattered Pillar you could also reach 30 MIG at some point I guess - but way later. Shattered Pillars have less "problems" gaining wounds though - so with a ranged Helwalker you might reach 10 wounds at some point, but a ranged Shattered Pillar can generate 5 wounds a lot quicker. So maybe in average they will be the same in term of "active" wounds? I can't say, just a thought. With a Shattered Pillar you could also use Duality for CON and Crucible of Suffering's Upgrade for +5 INT (doesn't go down when you spend wounds). However, the +10 MIG/+10 INT combo is pretty unbeatable when it comes to DoT effects/spells like Dragon Thrashed. I'm also thinking about Shining Beacon or Plague of Insects or whatever good DoT there is that grows with MIG and INT.

Guess you're in a for a surprise then... Critic/Reviewer?

Orlando Fiore?

They totally work.