Boeroer

Hehe. No, the style itself (hit-to-crit conversion) only affects the weapon attacks. Best tactic for a Dragon Thrashed Chanter in a party: max PER, max MIG, max INT, one handed weapon with some nice sideeffect (like a spellbinds or whatever). Buff ACC with items and buffs as much as possible, also INT and MIG. Also bring a priest and choose Withdraw as first Spell Mastery. Walk into the fray chanting Dragon Trashed, cast Withdraw on him and you have a high ACC/damage, invincible totem that can block doorways, block dragon paths and whatnot while chanting away while withdrawn. Also works with other phrases of course - like Soft Winds right from lvl 1 on. Chanters are a cheesefest.

It's the procs that make Lance/Blast/etc. crazy, not the damage. Swift Flurry for example doesn't care about the damage as long as it can trigger an endless chain reaction that snowballs everything to death in seconds.

If you use Assassin/Priest of Skaen the additional skaenite invisibility uses for Assassination+Backstab make it a fun combo. Also the summoned weapons hit really hard (as all spiritual weapons), but sadly Backstab/Assassinate only affects the first hit - so as light weapons they are not optimal for Backstabbing. You can backstab with an arquebus (or whatever heavy hitter) though and summon the stiletto+club once invisibility is out. Also the summoning breaks stealth (at least it did in beta3 when I was testing). Assassinate also works with direct damage spells - so I guess a Pillar of Faith or whatver might be cool with the additional PEN/ACC and the higher crit damage. And who knows what Preists of Skaen will come up with at higher levels (I know the names but don't know the effects). By the way: did anybody test what happens when an Assassin/Priest cast a damaging seal spell from stealth and an enemy then later trips it (I mean while the party is still stealthed)? Does Assassinate work with traps? never tried...

Yes, did they approve the Orlan exclusive swinger club & spa "Furnicula" I was asking for?

Eh? Where did you see that? I agree that Carnage is a bit weak. I mean all right it doesn't need PEN and all but 30% is pretty whimpy. Also because Carnage's radius is smaller due to the nerf of the effects that INT has on AoE size. Carnage has always been utter crap. The only thing that saved it in PoE was weapon procs. Without that, it's trash, even if it is raw damage. In PoE it's not. It gains +1 ACC with every char level und thus has +6 (+11 with Accurate Carnage) accuracy compared to barb's base accuracy at lvl 16. Or in other words: it's like an AoE auto-attack with a higher "base" accuracy than a fighter has. The 34% damage malus loses its impact soon enough once you get other dmg modifiers. It's only bad in the early game due to abysmal ACC and low damage (=low DR penetration). And that's when people start to judge and toss it aside. Shame if you ask me. It's one of the most powerful passive abilites in PoE if you know what you're doing and when you have to do it. But I wouldn't want Deadfire to reintroduce the weapon procs with Carnage. You can already see which horrible balancing problems come with that: look at Spirit Lance/Minor Blights/Blast and how they are implemented (like PoE's Carnage basically...). Proc BLinding Strike in an AoE - use Soul Annihilation in an AoE - Cascade Swift Flurry to one-shot groups. Ach! Again: I would want Carnage to be a bit better in Deadfire though. At the moment it makes me sad to look at those disappointing numbers (at lvl 9!). For starters they could give the Mage Slayer spell disruption for Carnage, too.

Please stop smoking your worn-up shoelaces! I mean zero-waste is cool and all, but also think about your health!

Haha - now I saw it. Was on the phone and somehow missed the red square. Well - then I'd call it a bug - or oversight. Negative defenses are nonsense.

Haha! Superembarrassing! I love it...

I put carrots into mine. I'm so special.

Ok... right... Now off to something completely different!

My evil macho mole-brother approves this massage!

I don't think they got nerfed. They even got immunities now which they didn't have before. Thing is that you can get to higher levels now and have access to a lot more effective abilites/talents. So maybe that's why it feels easier. Ultimate (without cheating) is no joke... It's not even the dragons - it's the WMII bounties.

Nice. Goldpact Knights can be cruel without any drawback by the way. In Deadfire Paladins and Chanters are even better and have even more synergies. Speaking about synergiy with a two-man-party: you should try Barb + Priest.

I was mainly answering Christliar. I'm just trying to answer the initial question: "Why?" and look at it from Obsidian's perspective (with lots of speculation of course).

I find it way better than Shadowing Beyond (which is too expensive).

No. Dragons are Adra, Sky, Alpine and the two bog dragons. The rest are only drakes. The easiest dragon is the Sky Dragon.

You forgot that one-handed weapon use gives +12 ACC to chants (and some invocations as well). So for a purely offensive chanter - even if he only does damage with his chants - one-handed style can be good.

As a Helwalker/Priest of Berath (or whatever god) you can make use of Barring Death's Door. This would work well with a Death Godlike since his racial ability kicks in when he's low on endurance. Death Goldlikes' can look like demons... especially if you pick the Aumaua body shape. I sad Berath just because of the summoned great sword.

Yes, it's very good. Lots of Full Attacks per encounter (FoD and Wounding Shot). And also good defensive synergies if you choose Stalker. The pet can be healed with Lay on Hands, it's damage raised with Shared Flames. You can be ranged or melee.

As I said before: subclasses don't have unique passives except the starting ones. I don't believe that Obsidian will make an exception just for one priest subclass. Priest of Skaen do get unique actives though - maybe one grants temporary Sneak Attack as a buff, who knows?

Rogue because it's superpopular. High (perceived) dps is always cool and popular. And if something's popular chances are higher that you hear something about it. I found barb, monk and chanter (way) easier in PotD solo games. Especially monk. Paladin is superboring solo. But doesn't really matter. To each their own.

No, I meant exceptions from general rules (like "all passives stack") are bad. Newbies or not. It leads to a system where you can't predict the outcome of your actions. I would have no problem if Skaen's Prey on the Weak stacked with rogue's Sneak Attack. But I would have a problem if one passive supresses the other because it would be a violation of a general rule of Deadfire. And you can see where such things lead in PoE - you have to read a whole subforum for years to know all the "exceptional" mechanics.

Eh?

In PoE I achieved negative defenses on enemies in an AoE with a barb + dual disorienting weapons before that got nerfed. But those negative defenses (and also DR) did nothing (internally capped at 0). Just the UI showed the sub-zero values. I guess it's the same here (but don't know - didn't test). You can see what happens if yopu check the actual hit roll in the combat log (hover over the hit and press shift - you can see the resolved roll with the used deflection value).

That is correct. It's just a design decision I agree with. An upgrade to Mith Fyr (so that it helps all damage) is a nice idea. Also a passive for casters that would add a lash (or some ohter benefical effect) to spell damage would be nice. I like clear, easy to understand effects/abilites - and many of them.