Boeroer

People keep saying this - but usually it's not based on actual experience but hearsay. Not in PoE and I guess also not in Deadfire is playing with official companions harder than with hirelings in general. Because stats have rel. little impact and official companions start one level above hirelings - which is a huge advantage over non-optimized stat point distribution. Some of the official companions even have unique abilites (like Pallegina's Wrath of the Five Suns, Zahua's Anitlei, Maneha's Clean Conscience/Satisfied Mind or the afflicition immunities of the Devil of Caroc) which hirelings can never get. Also people are soloing PoE/Deadfire beta on PotD. Why should adding official companions make them aboandon it? They still do.

Character level. So there's no damage drop because of multiclassing when it comes to melee damage. When multiclassing with a rogue you'll get a lot more dps from Sneak Attack (casting something like Tanglefoot first is a good idea). Mulitclassing with a fighter gives you Cleaving Stance and 75% graze-tohit and hit-to-crit conversion as well as sturdyness. But don't pick Devoted because he will be non-proficient with the claws since there's no proficiency for that. Muticlassing with a monk will get you stuff like Swift Strikes/Lightning Strikes and Stunning Blows and so on. Furies should consider Helwalker because he can get +10 MIG and +10 INT with 10 wounds which is awesomest with the elemental druid spells like Storms and whatnot and especially powerful with DoTs like Plague of Insects or Maggots and such. I'm seriously thinking about an Animist/Helwalker (emulation) for my last-last-last PoE run to import to Deadfire.

Yes, it's pretty good. One of the best melee weapons in the game.

The only thing I would like is a "duel" mode where just two people/chars meet on a rel. empty map and fight. I think the whole "real time combat with pause" makes any attempt to introduce multiplayer moot. Just imagine the mess with all the pauses. And PoE's/Deadfire's combat is too complex to play it without pause. Or you'd have to choose very slow combat speed - which is a tedium as well.

Not really. If you want to rush the enemies in the backline and don't want to waste Guile on Escape you can just run,catch one crit from disengagement and then run to your target unhindered.

Druid Boar/Ranger works well because ranger has Wounding Shot (also works in melee) that is a Full Attack and thus good with dual weapons. Marked Prey is giving an ACC buff which is good for the druid who sometimes struggles with grazes. Also the boar's woundig tusks trigger Predator's Sense for the animal companion. Also the healing spells of a druid help a lot to keep the pet alive. And seriously: what's more cool than a were-boar running around with another boar?

Ah, right. Cool.

Troubadour/Livegiver: Ancient Memory + Moonwell = undying party I guess?

I simply forgot about druid/barb. Also a good combo. The attack speed bonuses from Frenzy and Bloodlust work well when shifted. Shapeshifter/Corpse Eater sounds plausible.

Drawn in Spring is the one handed weapon with the highest dps in the game. DiS's 25% Wounding lash is multiplicative (meaning the 25% are calculated with all damage bonuses like Sneak Attack and so on) while V. Leaves' damage bonus from the vicious enchantment is only +20% of the rapier's base damage. This means it only adds avg. 2.2 damage to each hit. Aattuuk's enchantment is even worse. Spelltongue not only speeds you up but also removes buffs on enemies and prolongs your own. In terms of damage Drawn in Spring is the best option by far.

I haven't seen an exception of that active/passive rule (yet). So hats off for making stacking rules more transparent.

Hi! Glad you liked the boar. The Animist druid (normal druid like in PoE) works nearly the same as in PoE. You can shift into one form (same as in PoE),can cast while shifted and so on. The natural weapons while shifted are all dual wielding setups like in PoE. The Shapeshifter can shift into all animal forms one after another in a single encounter and heals after a shift ends - and you are correct: he can't use Taste of the Hunt when shifted. Furies are special: they have a two-handed ranged weapon in the shifted form that does shock damage (works with Heart of the Storm) and after it hits the initial target it jumps to one additional target. If you multiclass with a monk the bonuses from Transcendent Suffering will not get applied to your shifted weapons. Like in PoE where Novice's Suffering didn't boost Spiritshift weapons. But there are synergies: for example Lightning Strikes (+30% shocking lash) stacks with the Wildstrike lashes. The attack speed bonus of Swift Strikes works while shifted and so on. Good candidates for multiclassing (if you want to be a better melee druid) are fighter, monk, paladin, rogue and even ranger. There's synergies with all of them (I or others can elaborate). If you're looking for the same "feel" as in PoE I would use the Animist druid and no subclass like Shapeshifter or so.

Priest of Wael can summon a rod with +50% shocking lash and Furies have their Spiritshift weapon (and Wildstrike). That and Lightning Strikes is all shocking stuff "with weapons" that I know of. Melee classes besides monk: nope.

Nope. At the moment only attacks who have a primary elemental damage source (Firebrand - burn damage, Fury spiritshift weapons - shock damage, Concelhaut's Draining Touch - corrosive damage and so on) and abilities that are keyworded with the element (for example Flames of Devotion - fire). If you simply have a shocking lash on claws or fists or weapons this won't work (as far as I know). At least not for the initial attack roll. Might be that the PEN of the lash vs. the elemental AE is affected and compared in the background, but I can't check that. So in theory a Bleak Walker/Fury with Flames of Devotion + Scion of Flame + Spirit of Decay + Heart of the Storm can get +3 PEN with FoD (his FoD is keyworded with Fire and Acid and the Fury's attacks are shocking). He can add +30% burn, +20% corrode and Wildstrike Shock to the FoD. Fun times.

No, usually enemies don't change targets because they lose engagement on you. Enemies with ranged weapons don't even have engagement at all - and some creatures that fight in melee also don't have engagement (tigers for example). Usually enemies pick their targets based on stuff like your current health, defenses or class. If they think that you are worth attacking they will continue to do so with or without engagement. But without their engagement you can run around freely without getting any disengement attacks - and those can be nasty as heck (disengagement attacks have higher ACC and do +100% damage).

It depends. If their costs don't change and you only get bonuses with the upgrade, it replaces your lower tier ability. Example: Flames of Devotion (1 Zeal - Full Attack with +30% burning lash, +20 ACC) --> upgrade to Shared Flames (1 Zeal - same as FoD + a 20% lash for your allies for some time) or Eternal Devotion (1 Zeal - same as FoD + a 20% lash for yourself for some time) Both will replace FoD because it makes no sense to leave it in the action bar. Knockdown/Mule Kick is no Full Attack by the way.

Yeah the Ogre has a dual wielding setup. So maybe this bad armor is intentional just to slow him down a bit. But I hope not. The whole package is just weak compared to other "transformations" like spiritshift.

The only thing that comes close to new game+ is Berath's Blessing: That stretch goal was reached with ease, so it will be in the final game.

The max level of a multiclass character is 20. There are no seperate levels for each part of the multiclass because you can decide rel. freely from which class tree you take abilites. The only time you get forced to take abilities from both class trees is when you reach a new Power Level. The max Power Level (shows you the ability tier as well) is 9 for single class characters and 7 for multiclass characters. Relentless Storm comes at PL 5. It's in the beta so you could try it out.

I searched for reports about the ogre, but the ones I found addressed mostly other parts: the weird "clubs" that now are gone (except that the shadow and char-sheet VFXs of the ogre still show clubs). Then there was a report that he suffers from weapon recovery after transforming (which is weird as well). So for the weird armor I thought I'd make a seperate threat.

As far as I know it's like the spell resistance of the Mage Slayer: 5% chance that the graze/hit/crit is canceled completely (maybe turned into a miss? Don't know how it's done). But I didn't test it. I guess the blocking of the medium shield modal works the same way? Also didn't test that one yet.

Fun Fact with summoned weapons: when you summon Concelhaut's Parasitic Touch (is a one-hit summoned weapon that disappears after use) and use it with Taste of the Hunt you will deal good corrosive and raw damage and the weapon will stay with you and not disappear. Wonder it that also happens when you do other primary attacks with it...

Oh ****. You are right. I totally forgot that I reinstalled it the other day. Gods, how embarrassing. Sorry! Then you are totally right: 3 secs is not so nice.

Defensive Roll doesn't dodge anything. It just makes you immune to engagement after you got slapped with a crit (which can be great if you want to flee or just move over the battlefield unhindered - great in combo with move speed bonuses). Yes, the duration is ifluenced by INT. At 14 INT I have a duration of 2.4 secs (only visible on the char sheet, not in the ability tree).

Hey! I guess this is a relict from the times when all armors had higher recovery penalties and the ogre's armor was simply forgotten when penalties were reduced. The Ogre Form of the Transmuter gets a medium armor that has 6 AR at lvl 9 (if I remember correctly . it scales I assume), but has a whopping +100% recovery penalty. Is this a bug/oversight or intended? The form itself is very weak compared to Spiritshift anyway (which uses no spell resource, has no casting time, no weird alteration of stats, good armor with 0% recovery penalty and better weapons). So why gimp it further with that armor that's most likely made from durgan reinforced concrete?