Boeroer

Yes, it's quite crappy atm.

I agree. I still find it horrible.

How should I know what you know? I'm just interpreting what you wrote, and that may go wrong sometimes. Since you said summoned weapons don't scale I assumed you could be mistaken with the nature of dmg mods, too. Anyway: the title "Spells don't do any damage" is highly exaggerated. I could agree with "don't do enough damage". Some could indeed be better.

Can cipher powers like echos be cast on summons now? The animal companion obviously works (like it did in PoE), but stuff like wizards' phantoms, too?

Even if Soft Winds is bugged right now so that it heals for every enemy it hits - the "normal" case would be that it stacks with itself and any other healing effect (it's a passive) - so you don't heal 2 base per tick but 4 with linger. A Troubadour could even stack 3 instances. Add some MIG and you are at 6 per tick (Troubadour 9). At the moment it's totally OP of course because it drains endurance from every enemy it hits. But this is a tier list of the beta 4. If it's so OP it should push Chanters into top tier.

Only Bleak Walkers can get +2 PEN with Scion of Flame and Spirit of Decay because their special version of FoD is keyworded with Fire and Acid. All other paladins only have Fire as keyword on FoD and thus can only get +1 PEN with Scion of Flame. Priest is the only class with a party-wide, inspiration-stacking ACC buff of +20. That alone puts him into top tier in my opinion. Why is the Devoted god tier? Just because of his +2 PEN with a proficient weapon? Still good, but not that important anymore after the latest PEN/AR balancing. Did you actually play any of your low tier classes? Because stuff like Ascendant and Beguiler is top tier at least with the new patch. The first profits immensely from the faster cipher casts and the prolonged Ascension status - and the second one can spam fadt-cast AoE deception powers all the time because he often gets back more focus than he spends (see Eyestrike). Also Chanter (+subclasses) is so top tier material that it hurts to see him put under mid/low tier. Just try Soft Winds in the new beta 4 and then reevaluate.

Summoned weapons actually scale with level. Damage mods are additive, not multiplicative (except MIG and lashes). So more dmg mods on weapon base damage is not as effective as a dmg mod on spell damage. Usually spell base damage is higher than weapon damage. A caster like wizard/druid/priest gains a lot of spells per encounter after some levels. Even with the somewhat reduced casting times it's kind of hard to spend all uses in one encounter with a full party. So the argument that you can only do alpha strikes loses its validity more and more with every level you gain. Basically the same as in PoE where casters had very limited options and grew stronger and stronger with every level.

I guess it's the same as with PoE: On release: "Wizards are pointless, rogues are so good". Three years later: "Wizards are so good, rogues are pointless". And that is despite the fact that spell mastery replaced whole-tier-on-encounter spells. If you use Pull of Eora and then lob two Fireballs onto the gathered crowd that's some AoE damage that's difficult to achieve for any melee guy in the same time.

Don't forget that CON influences Fortitude. If Deadfire is anything like PoE then Fortitude is the most important defense.

Well, a lot is relative. 50% base damage is not that much if you stacked a lot of other dmg mods like superb, MIG and this and that. It would be nice if it scaled to 75% till lvl 20. It could start lower than 50% so that multiclasses won't get such high dmg mods when combining it with other stuff like Soul Whip. Single classes would reach 50% and beyond more quickly then.

That would be nice.

Yes, all of it. It doesn't need to scale like +5% per PL or whatever. Sometimes even 1% might be ok. But it *all* should scale with PL, not char level. Summons also scale with char level atm. Not the summoning spell itself (gets more duration) but the actual creatures that appear will have your char level. No bonuses from PL.

That's a bit like asking if it's better to buy an adjustable wrench or a nail clipper. It depends on what you want to do. Please give us some more background infos on your character and how you want to play him and I'm sure we can give better advice.

In PoE this was balanced with the fast casting speed of Fireballs. If you could stack a lot of Fireballs uses per rest you could spam them all the time in quick succession which made them somewhat powerful. But the damage alone is nothing to write home about. In Deadfire an empowered Fireball is ouchy though. Also did an empowered Fireball from stealth with an Assassin/Wizard - ouchy as well.

Stuff that can be influenced by Power Level is duration, number of projectiles, damage, healing, accuracy and penetration.

Right. Some combos are still very powerful despite lower Power Level and/or less ability points. Look at cipher/rogue with the stacked damage bonuses of Sneak Attack and (Biting) Soul Whip. Add high MIG and it's still crazy. Some multiclass combos who don't have nice synergies are now weaker than single classes - but that's ok. It can't all be equally good - that would be boring. As multiclass player you have to put some effort into char building. Now the warning during character creation at least makes sense.

Aaand they touched the cupcake again! Fabulous!

You gain Power Levels by leveling up (multiclass chars have reduced PL compared to single class chars), by having special racial abilites (see Nature Godlike, Death Godlike...), subclass abilites (see wizard subclasses like Evoker for evocation spells, druid subclass like Livegiver for rejuvenation spells...) and the Empower function which can be used twice per rest to boost a single ability use by +10 Power Level. Maybe there will be other source for Power Level such like items or drugs/food.

What level are you? Because Crägholdt Bluffs is high level stuff and should be tackled after the White March (Stalwart and so on). Although it came with the White March expansion, Crägholt Bluffs is not part of the White March region but part of its own little plot that will be continued in WMII expansion but has nothing to do with the White March region and the questline there. Usually your steward also warned you that the Torn Bannermen are to strong for you (yet). So if you are below lvl 10 it's normal that you can't hit the fighters there. Even lvl 10 is tough... Inside Concelhaut's Tower things get even tougher - way tougher. In Stalwart Village there's the Ring of Changing Heart (you can loot it after the initial battle). It will give you +3 RES. You could also enchant your armor with +2 RES.

-20ACC and -4MIG in Deadfire - if I remember correctly. It's still a spell that makes you want to bring a priest.

Only because it stacked with stuff like Disciplined Barrage (also +20), Eldritch Aim (+15) and so on in my opinion.

But only when...

Yes, lvl 8 is more appropriate.

Yes, if duration bonus from power level is multiplicative with duration from INT then it all fits.