Boeroer

Devotions for the Faithful is a priest spell and gives the party +4 MIG and +20 accuracy while it debuffs enemies with -4 MIG and -20 accuracy. It's one of the best buffs in PoE as well as Deadfire. The estoc modal seems to be good against thick bosses, yes - I can't see a lot of other uses, especially if you are already a Devoted/Soulblade with potential +3 PEN through Devoted's bonus + Hammering Thoughts.

I would definitely stack all conversions. 75% is not 100%, but it's still great. I would also use a Soulblade to only generate focus and dump it into Soul Annihilation. At the moment most other cipher powers are crap. Josh said they have buffed up the cipher powers tremendously, but those changes are not in the beta (yet). So the best thing is Soul Annihilation at the moment. By the way: lashes also generate focus. So stuff like Flames of Devotion/Enduring Flames, Lightning Strikes or priests' summoned weapons generate a good amount of focus that then can be used for Soul Annihilation.

Druid (with Spiritshift) is very strong. Melee prowess + good spells. It's in my top-notch tier of PoE classes (with Priest and Wizard). Also the Rapier + Dagger is really strong in the long run but is weaker in the early part of the game - due to the lack of dmg bonuses and talents. Pick Vulnerable Attack if you feel it's too weak against DR.

Also keep in mind that the base damage of the great sword is significantly higher than the estoc's. Highest alpha strikes you can get with a great sword in theory - but -20 accuracy is bad. Once you combine ACC buffs as Devotions (+20 ACC) and stuff like Flames of Devotion (also +20 ACC) it's good enough though. I find the modal of morning stars to be very useful. A lot of spells and other CC abilites target fortitude and the modal knocks it down by 25 - which is pretty awesome.

Paralyzed/Petrified stops chanting in PoE, yes. Prone does not. You can sit on your bottom and still chant. Makes all sense I think. Stun does normally stop chanting as well, but the special stun of Withdraw doesn't. That's the reason why Withdraw + Dragon Thrashed is pretty OP. I didn't test if this got changed in Deadfire.

They should stack - but the chances don't get added. It's the same with hit-crit conversion from multiple sources. Once an attack roll is done the different abilites will get checked one after another to see if conversion happens. This leads to an overall chance that is not simply added, but the chances not to convert get multiplied (so to speak). So instead of Confident Aim 0.5 + Disciplined Barrage 0.5 = 1 it's like: 0.5 (chance NOT to convert )* 0.5 (chance NOT to convert) = 0.25 chance NOT to convert. In other words: 75% chance to convert. Same with Tactical Barrage 0.5 and the rogue's 0.1 conversion: 0.5 * 0.9 = 0.45 chance NOT to convert --> 55% chance to convert overall. Or Tactical Barrage + Killers Froze Stiff: 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.25 --> 75% hit-to-crit conversion - not 100%. You can also use this method to determine the proc-chance of weapons after several hits - when they say something like "10% chance to cast Glibberball on hit or crit". As one can see, every additional chance has less and less impact. The overall chance after x tries can never be 100%.

Well - the lightest armors actually don't have a recovery penalty - so it would be stupid to not wear them. Especially because there may be other benefits than simply more AR but also enchantments like stats bonuses and so on. I think we will see some cool light armors that have some nice fesatures so it makes total sense to wear them.

Lightning Strikes cost 1 "Mortification" (fixed class resource of monks besides wounds - you'll have 5 mortification at lvl 9 for example) and will speed your attacks up for roughly ten seconds. It also adds a 30% shocking lash to your attacks. That means: if you do 50 crush damage it would add (50*0.3 =) 15 shock damage. Eternal Devotion is an upgrade of Flames of Devotion. Usually Flames of Devotions costs 1 Zeal and will add a rel. high burning lash to a single (full) attack. With Eternal Devotion you will get a lasting 20% burning lash on your weapons which lasts for about 20 seconds. You can combine Lightning Strikes with Eternal Devotion of you have a Monk/Paladin, meaning you can have +30% shocking lash + 20% burning lash during longer periods of time - which is powerful. Inspired Defenses is an ability of the paladin that gives him bonuses against certain afflictions. Zealous Endurance is an aura the paladin can choose to emit, It gives the party +1 armor.

It depends on your position and playstyle. If you want to stay in the front line and smack stuf without flinching you should put on heavy armor, regardless of your class. Light armor is for characters who can handle it. Maybe they are operating from range und thus don't get hit that often or they are so mobile that they can avoid getting hit in melee too much. Actually light armor is good for nobody. Better to wear nothing than light amor. The damage you receive will be roughly the same...

That is true. After an invocation you will have a recovery phase. During that phase there's no chaning and also no Ancient Memory/Beloved Spirits. Heavy armor and bad DEX prolong that phase. That's why I never use invocations when playing the usual Dragon-Thrashed turtle in PoE. I don't think that this changed in Deadfire - but the recovery times of invocations seem to be shorter in general in Deadfire. Ancient Memory/Beloved Spirits in PoE was basically endless: as long as you chanted it was working. It was only interrupted by invocations (or afflictions that made you stop chanting, like paralyze for example). In Deadfire it's not a passive addition to any chant like in PoE but instead it is a chant itself now. So you have to decide if you want Dragon Thrashed OR Ancient Memory for example. But it's more powerful in Deadfire than in PoE. Constant Recovery has a duration (influenced by INT). It's the same in PoE and Deadfire. After 45 sec (base) it's gone. But it doesn't get interrupted by anything.

He is correct with every answer. Especially when I read about the "monk/crush immune enemy complaint" I would like to bite into the tabletop.

Well Barbs have some other cool stuff now. I also thought that Carnage was too dominant in PoE (despite being a barb lover). The whole class was solely circling around Carnage (and Heart of Fury) and not much else. I think the effect is too weak in Deadfire at the moment, but it's hard to say. Maybe there will be some nice abilites that alter/buff Carnage a bit. What I don't get though: they changed Carnage so that they won't have all those problems with procs anymore. But at the same time they changed Blast (into something that works like Carnage on PoE) and made it a modal so that everybody can use it with a rod. Now a rogue can do Blinding Strike in an AoE, monks can stun enemies in an AoE and trigger Swift Flurry like crazy with the multiple hit rolls, Paladins can do Flames of Devotions with Blast and so on. Same with Citzal's Spirit Lance and also Minor Blights (AoE now works like PoE's Carnage did). Why?

Depends on the languages I'd say. Try not to mix up names in !Xóõ...

EXPLAAAAAIN!?!Those are different Polish cities. I guess people from Stargard don't like it if you tell them they are in Starograd. It's like telling a guy from Düsseldorf that Kölsch tastes better than Altbier... There's also a German place called Stargard by the way. We also have a lot of places called Neuenkirchen and Neukirchen (both basically meaning "New Church"). Not exactly all Bobs and Phillips here...

1 for active skills (contains Athletics/Stealth/Arcane/Alchemy and so on) and 1 for the passive skills. There is no cost progression like in PoE. So, getting from 0 to 1 costs 1 point and getting from 9 to 10 also only costs 1 point.

I thought you played the beta yourself?

Yes. For PoE I could have turned the argument around and say: "but don't you think that is a bad decision? Letting soulbounds dictate how Carnage works? They should change the proc chance instead of making Carnage useless." So that has two sides. Carnage is the integral part of a whole class. Changing the mechanics of Carnage when introducing soulbounds would have changed (and maybe broken) the class. So I guess they went with the easier way that is most likely causing less troubles. And there's not only Carnage, there's Torment's Reach, Blast and Driving Flight/Twinned Arrows, too. The best solution would have been to give dedicated proc chances for each class. But that might have been too much work. Now in Deadfire Carnage doesn't proc anything anymore. But Minor Blights/Blast/Driving Flight and Citzal's Spirit Lance do. So if there will be a soulbound rod or non-weapon items with on-hit proc chances (a bit like Glittering Gauntlets for example) there will be the same problems again.

He meant Dyrford. Edit: eh, he already said that. Missed some posts, sorry. Edit2: Bob and Phillip is easy. But try to remember Nizhnevartovsk and Dnjepropetrovsk...

You can always do the first quest that a faction gives you without locking yourself in with that faction. Those are: - get Osric's Family Breastplate (Dozens) - get the research papers for the Forge Knights (Crucible Knights) - get the Heart of the White March (Doemenel) Only when doing those quests you get access to the shop of that faction. In case of Dozens and Crucible Knights those contain some good items, so make sure you do all three quests. On case of Doemenel you'll have to do a second one (punish Kolfec). This one has no effect on faction lockout as well. After that initial quest Wenan, Commander Clyver and Daddy Doemenel will want to give you a second quest. It's that one that will bind you to the faction. Actually it's only that one quest and the work for the faction is already finished. So you don't miss a lot. There are no other quests that are for a specific faction only. The quest around Heritage Hill (missing sentry) has no effect on faction lockout. So, again: just avoid to pick the quest from Wenan, Commander Clyver or Daddy Doemenel. The rest is safe. You don't need to tiptoe around other quests in Defiance Bay.

Only time will tell. Depends on how many other melee guys you have.

Combusting Wounds + Heart of Fury: this makes a big difference with tough, numerous foes (bounties, abbey and so on). CW + Expose Vulnerabilities + Blunderbuss CW + Expose Vulnerabilities + Wall of Flame ...and so on. The Backlash Beldam build used CW + multiretaliation + Pain Link which was effective as well. With Battle Forged, Flame Shield, Supper Plate and another retaliation item plus Pain Link you can stack 5 hits and thus 5 instances of CW on everybody who hits you. I once played an Island Aumaua Wizard with 4 blunderbusses (+Quick Switch). It's impressive single target damage.

I wouldn't go below 10 with PER. Instead of Fast Runner I would probably use Interdiction & Painful Interdiction - or Scion of Flame + Bonus 4th level spell - or Bear's Fortitude + Body Control.

I think that hide armor is really ugly in Deadfire - at least in the beta.

Erm... that Japanese original is actually of American origin.

In Germany they were also called TM "Hero" Turtles. At some point they changed that - maybe they realized how stupid that initial change was. Anyway - us Germans have a long and painful history of altering the titles of movies and TV-shows "for the "better".