Boeroer

Usually +50% crit damage simply means +50% of weapon base damage gets added when you crit. With a normal weapon you'd do +25% crit damage (meaning base damage * 0.25 as extra dmg) and with Assassinate it would be 25% + 50% = 75% of weapon base dmaage gets added. With an arquebus only +50% because the arquebus itself does not have increased crit damage ("blunted criticals"). I don't know if Assassinate's crit damage bonus is multiplicative, I did not double-check but I guess it's not.

Nope

Arquebus + modal (+20 acc) is nice for alpha strikes like Assassinate + Backstab. Also with Assassination it doesn't hurt that much that guns have blunted criticals - because the +50% on crit from Assassinate and the +30% from overpenetration still work well enough.

Yes, rogues are sturdier in Deadfire than in PoE - so a little less CON might not hurt too much.

Most interrupt abilities interrupt on hit, some on crit and stuff like Knockdown even on graze. All of the rogue's active abilities now interrupt on... hit I think? So ensuring that people only graze you by raising deflection might help a lot with interrupts.

You switch to a different weapon set and will get an additional recovery time for that that comes on top of your normal recovery. If I 'm not mistaken the "penalty" for switching is 2 secs - and unlike PoE you can't skip weapon/spell recovery with switching - it comes on top in Deadfire.With Quick Switch you will have -1.5 sec switching time - so 0.5 sec is left if I'm right. A Black Jacket automatically has -1 sec switching recovery. A Black Jacket with Quick Switch can switch without additional recovery. Guns have no recovery but only reload - so quick switching as a Black Jacket means instant switching and *blam*.

Huh, rapiers having a Penetration modal was what was stated on the Gamepressure guide to weapon proficiencies. Guess I can't expect an accurate resource to exist until after the game launches. DW seems to be the way to go, but I have some concerns about this build's squishiness in the front lines. To that effect, what if I opt for a Dagger in the off-hand instead, with its Parrying Blade modal? That should still retain the DW speed bonus and rapier ACC bonus, while giving some measure of defense from the dagger modal. What sort of bonuses does the dagger modal actually give, and would it work with Riposte? The dagger modal will give you +10 deflection against melee attacks (and -25% damage with the dagger - main weapon's dmg is unchanged) and it works with Riposte, yes.

1) if you don't have Concentration then it may happen that you get interrupted. RES doesn't help anymore, you need something that gives you Concentration. You can achieve concentration through buffing of you can take a passive ability. 2) Good question - I actually didn't test this.

I will drink lots of cappuccinos - does that count?

But only if you look at auto-attacks. As soon as you throw Full Attacks like Flames of Devotion and strong Primary Attacks like (Runner's) Wounding Shots into the mix you'd be better off with dual wielding heavy one handers or even with a two hander (or an arquebus). It really depends on your class and build. If you dual wield you'll be faster automatically (equivalent of a 50% speed bonus). The Two Weapon Style comes on top of that. Single Weapon usage gives you +12 accuracy automatically. Hit to crit conversion comes on top with the style. So it's speed vs. accuracy. It doesn't work if you put the single weapon into your offhand because then the game thinks you want to dual wield fist + weapon. It only works when you put it into the main hand.

Totally. 4815 and counting...

You mean Romania, not Hungary! Dude...

He didn't say that he's picking Trickster/Illusionist. Basically what you can do with a Trickster/Wizard is pay illusion spells with Guile (are quite cheap for a Trickster) and other spells with you normal wizard spell uses.

Impact will most likely create a dent for all I know...

Lol - I overlooked that. Wait a minute... Edit: So, a rpier actually has a modal that gives you bonus accuracy, not more PEN. Seems to be perfect for your character. Although it's debateable if you can crit more often in a given time because it also prolongs your recovery pretty much. Maybe a dw rapier setup + modal ("+/-0% recovery with +20 ACC) instead of a single one (+50% recovery with +32 ACC and 15% hit-to-crit)? Because with Killers Froze Stiff you'll already get plenty of crits (will give you a 50% hit-to-crit chance against paralyzed enemies). Can't say without testing or doing lots of math... which I didn't plan for today.

No, I meant the summoned weapons (fists) of Priests of Woedica. Tried them yesterday on a monk: pretty awesome. Didn't test Monastic stuff though. I'm 99,999% sure that unarmed bonuses don't work for Lay on Hands, even if it's the one from Steel Garrotte guys.

You are right: it's only +10 deflection against melee attacks with dw dagger + modal. So no point in using two daggers, which is stupid. Because if you use one dagger and let's say an axe you also get +10 deflection but the axe will not have the -25% damage malus - while when you use two daggers you will have +10 deflection as well but BOTH daggers will suffer from -25% damage (just tested in beta4). Really stupid.

Besides the Reaping Knives (which make no sense when cast on oneself anyway in my opinion) Rogue + Cipher is actually pretty awesome. That's because you start the game with a +70% dmg bonus and can go to +90% in a few levels. That's pretty cool. Especially Assassin/Soulblade is pretty spectacular if you combine it with Backstab. You can one-shot the first victim out of stealth pretty easily and get a ton of focus for your Soul Annihilation - which usually one-shots the next enemy, then use Smoke Cloud and repeat. Perfect Assassin in my opinion. Detonate works with Assassination by the way. Does the damage of soul annihilation depend only on your focus or does it also depend on your base damage? You said you fight like this: stealth -> backstab -> soul annihilation -> invisibility -> backstab Would it be useful to use soul annihilation from invisibility or is this just overkill and using both things ( backstab and SA ) after another is better? Using SA from invisibility is not really useful because using Assassination + Backstab already kills most enemies and generates a lot of focus for your SA. If you'd use SA from stealth you would also kill the enemy but be left with 0 focus. Alternating between Assassination+Backstab and SA is a lot better. SA's dmg bonus is a flat one that is only calculated based on the focus you have. Weapon base damage is not involved. BUT: SA works like this: you hit the target with the normal attack and do damage (and generate focus for that hit like with any other hit) and then all your focus is converted into raw damage. So it is acutally benefical to use a heavy hitter because then the damage roll is higher, the focus gain from the initial SA-attack is also higher and overall you'll do more damage with the SA strike. Because of this it's also not good to wait for max focus when doing SA. Since it's generating its own focus before dumping the raw damage it's better to execute it with half focus or so. SA + Assassination does more damage than Assassination alone (Assassination will generate a lot of focus which is then immediately dumped into raw damage). But most of the time this is total overkill. Maybe it's a good strategy against bosses though. What's also benefical with SA: Greater Focus. Because you tend to generate too much focus with Assassination (and the focus is overflown and wasted PLUS you'll lose Soul Whip's damage bonus) it's good to have higher MAX focus. Also lets you start combat with more focus which you then can immediately use for SA if you can't stealth (scripted scene or whatever).

An Assassin has much higher crit damage, penetration (which leads to overpenetration most of the time which does +30% damage) accuracy when doing Assassination (automatically done from stealth or invisibility). He suffers from +15% damage received "only". You can feel it but it's not that you get one-shotted all the time. Just don't drop CON to 3 because you want the ultimate glass cannon. Rogues start with 40 health and gain +10 per level. Fighters start with 42 and gain +12 per level. Ciphers start with 38 and gain +8 per level. So as an Assassin/Cipher you are basically as sturdy/fragile as a single class cipher. You get more health because of the rogue part but also suffer a bit more damage because of Assassin. Give yourself a bit more CON and you won't feel a difference. If you are afraid that enemies insta-kill you after unstealthing then pick Defensive Roll: it makes you immune to engagement after you receive a crit. Because of that you can just walk away once an enemy swing his weapon. Unlike PoE he will miss you when you are out of reach. It's quite effective. Just step a bit out of reach when he swings, let his swing hit the air, await his recovery phase and then step back in and kill him. Because of this mechanic in Deadfire suddenly the defensive bonuses against disengagement attacks (Fast Runner, Graceful Retreat...) are more powerful than in PoE. You also will want to use Smoke Cloud all the time. Diring that period you can't get attacked anyway.

Right. Or do it like in PoE. I liked the weird implementation.

Not 100% - but I did try it in beta1 and think it was that way. Maybe it got changed since then. I can check again in a few minutes and will report.

Yeah, cool stuff!

I guess it prevents Barbarian from repeatabe AoE avenging thunder. Usually, Druids can't attack in an AoE. Oh wait...

@Wormerine: the new avatar is just a vector-based impression of the old pixel-based one. So basically it's still your first PC's face.