Boeroer

If you're that far you don't need lower difficulty I think. The game gets easier and easier because usually you outlevel most enemies.

The Berserker/Devoted would have +2 PEN from Devoted and +2 from sabre modal. Even +2 from Tenacious if he's a Berserker. I can't see a lot of armor that can't be penetrated with that. Anyway: a ranger with arquebus can pierce very well. Not because he has great PEN per se (also true ), but because Accurate Wounding Shot has +20 ACC and the arquebus modal has +20 ACC as well. As a Sharpshooter you can add +2 PEN from near and even more ACC from afar. Crits give you 1.5 times PEN - and it's very hard to not crit with such a setup. And then there's the war bow with the modal that gives +2 PEN. Another alternative is a Sharpshooter with dual scepters + modal. +4 PEN is cool. Great for woundig shots as well. Add +2 with yet another Devoted multiclass part. That would also balance out the self damage from scepters with Constant Recovery.

I honestly don't know. In the beta - when I use an Unbroken - foes seldomly leave my engagement. So the upgrade didn't really do anything. And you are right: with several engagement slots improvements you will end up with more slots than enemies can fill. You could also use a spear + modal and/or Hold the Line and then pick Cleaving Stance or Warrior Stance for the additional deflection instead. I'm undecided... But it may be that we'll see small, swarming enemies in the future. Smaller enemies can fill up more engagement slots. Then Guardian Stance might be perfect. Who knows?

I liked the casting system of PoE. Per-rest or not. It all has its pros and cons. "Vancian" or per/rest is definitely more powerful for players who have meta-knowledge about the game. For new players it's not so nice (tendency to hoard spells and not use them all until the next rest). After all the recent tweaks the Deadfire one is also ok for me now. If casting times are too short then interrupts lose meaning. If they are too long it plays like tar. Atm it's in a good balance I'd say.

I tried it and it's absolutely solid. I took the hardest hitting one hander I know of (sabre), omitting PEN because the disengagement attacks will have +100% damage and PEN anyways. Engagement slots, defenses and AR are stellar. You can also collect a lot of resistances.

Oh oh oh oh...

I guess they wanted to prevent ACC stacking which made the game too easy for "experts". Inspiring Radiance is also gone.

@MadScientist: all good. I wasn't sure if there is a new high level ability with that name (was too lazy to look it up).

I agree to all of that.

Great! I'll have to bookmark that...

Don't forget Marksman (low lvl ranger passive).

Sadly Dragon Thrashed is more like Dragon Trash in the beta. But besides that: yeah it's a nice combo.

See above, I edited. It's especially good with a paladin. At least in the beta.

It's gone. But all chars start with the same accuracy, so it's not needed anymore. In exchange the priests now have really strong summoned weapons (you have to pick that spell though) that match the talents of PoE. A priest of Berath can now summon a scaling great sword with a 50% corrosive lash, Wael summons a scaling rod with 50% shocking lash and so on. They are very powerful. If you want to be a martial priest this works even better than in PoE (because of those awesome weapons). For example multiclass a monk with Priest of Wael and pick Lightning Strikes and get a rod with +80% shocking lash - also translates to the AoE of the Blast modal (or did the last time I tried). Very sweet. Or a Priest of Eothas + Kind Wayfarer who gets a flail with + 80% burning lash when doing FoD.

there is a functional exception. spells which can be cast before combat but which have a long enough duration to remain in effect following repopulation may be empowered for what amounts to two empowers per combat. for example, a priestly seal spell has an incredibly long duration and may be cast and empowered outside of combat. wait a few seconds before beginning combat and the per encounter empowering will have refreshed... and you will also have your X level ability available for use. regardless, it is possible to have a single character benefit from multiple empowers during a single combat encounter, but the exceptions is limited... and a bit exploitive. HA! Good Fun! ps full disclosure: am gonna confess, have used pre combat empowered warding seal more than once when fighting the greater blights. follow up short thereafter with a second combat encounter use o' empower... pillar o' faith dropped on blights clustered by a wizard's empowered pull of eora. Ouh - good catch. I didn't know that. It's so gimmicky - I like it! Technically it's still 1/encounter though because casting "out of encounter" is not casting "per encounter". But yeah - it's an exception. Sorry!

Both good questions. I didn't look at that extensively but I think casting the invocation doesn't stop chanting. I'm pretty sure. I believe only invocations' recovery pauses chanting. Weapon recovery and martial ability recovery (such as FoD, Wounding Shots and so on) does not pause it. I'm not 100% sure about spells though (for example from multiclassing with a wizard or so). Will test when I'm at home...

Those accuracy talents are gone in Deadfire...

Haha - nope. That one ist just too expensive. No discussion needed.

What happens if you deactivate AI first and then try to retarget?

Yeah, it seems to be broken. I saw it being used in one of the latest streams though - so I guess this bug was already fixed in the actual game build.

What do you think: which other non-weapon melee attacks are there? Maybe stuff like Jolting Touch and such? Concelhaut's Draining Touch is now a summoned weapon that disappears after one attack (it's not so bad actually) so that doesn't count as non-weapon melee attack I guess. Retaliation?

I can't find it either. At some point I guess I'll have to get up and put things into the gamepedia wiki myself.

It actually doesn't matter at all in this case. For two reasons: 1. You have to crit anyways to make this happen and crits do 1.5 times PEN which usually is enough. 2. Since you are triggering a chain reaction that increases exponentially it doesn't matter what tiny damage your crits do. I even dumped MIG completely in one test and it makes no difference. The hits/crits pile up exponentially and everything in range (thus INT is important) is dead after 2-3 seconds. Killed by a staccato of hundrets of hits/crits. It would even kill with 1 dmg hits. Maybe I'll upload a video. I guess this stuff you have to see with your own eyes.

Hilarious! Does that mean you are choking the guy you're healing? Can't test myself, writing from my phone.

Don't you guys think that Barbaric Blow with 2 Rage and FoD with only 1 Zeal is a bit unbalanced? When I use it BB doesn't feel more powerful than FoD. The refund on kill is not very useful in my case and opinion. I want to use BB as a tool to bring down foes' health quickly, not as unreliable finishing blow that might overkill like crazy. Also the 0 recovery on kill upgrade might be moot when I look at higher PL where Blood Thirst waits for me...