Boeroer

Yes. It is also said in his subclass description. I think the main reason for this is that the double amount of "normal" summons just takes up too much space. So they made the creatures smaller. With the skeletons and the wurms it's bearable because with a little bit of imagination they could be Orlan skeletons, younger wurms and so on. But those midgety Ogres look quite laughable. Fun fact time again: if you take Brittle Bones as a Beckoner, the two skeletons that appear (after one of your tiny skeletons died) have the original size. So suddenly there are two enormous skeletons (so it seems,compared to the rest) where a tiny one stood before. It's kinda funny how a wicht-sized skeleton can "split" into two human sized ones. It's like Jesus was splitting them... You also can't give those two biggies commands - they run on AI only. I think that's a bug though.

With the Unbroken as second class you don't need to buff up in every fight. But since you have spells per encounter - why not? If you switch on AI you can use a custom made setting that casts buffs for you right at the start or once you take too much heat or whatever. It's very customizable and can take away the tedium of manual self buffing. Since most of those buffs are 0.5 sec casts it doesn't matter too much when you cast (very low risk of interrupts), but I prefer to buff up right at the start.

Oops, you are right. Sorry.

I don't want to sound like the smartypants, but recurrent chances in such a setup don't simply add up but get multiplied. You can calculate it like so: Chance not to trigger = 0.9 Number of attacks=4 Chance not to trigger after 4 attacks is 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 = ~0.66 Cance to trigger = ~0.34 or 34% Still good though. The chanter has an invocation called "Hel Hyraf..." that lowers enemies' universal DR by -5. But it's not that useful compared to Killers Froze Stiff for example which is on the same tier. For dps Gauntlets of Swift Action are best of course, but they are rare and random loot, yes. Another alternative would be Mourning Gloves (not in the wiki list), then Gauntlets of Accuracy or Ryona's Vambraces (although those I always reserve for Pallegina if she's in the party). Most of the time I end up using Gauntlets of Accuracy.

I just checked in game and a very small variant of that icon is visible above the tiger's head while he's "casting" (you know - the round symbol in that bar over everybody's head that shows the action). And once it is cast you can see the icon when you do a mouseover on the tiger (tooltip with the enemy's stats and afflcitions and so on pops up). Also smaller than the icon above of course, but you can clearly see that it's a flexed arm. So I guess you were right. I hope they can change its appearance and that not all creatures' ability have the same icon.

Absolutely!

Yes, I have. It's good. But I think the standard wizard is better because the Illusionist loses access to some spells that are also very useful for a tanking setup (Spirit Shield, Infuse with Vital Essence, Arcane Veil, Bulwark against the Elemements, Iron Skin and Llengrath's Safeguard). In my opinion the auto-mirrored image does not balance out the loss of those good spells - at least not in this case. Fun fact: In beta1 you could use Unbroken/Wizard with a lot of engagement slots and then cast Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage in order to drive the enemies away from you, triggering disengagement attacks. This was nerfed recently so that terrified enemies no longer suffer disengagement attacks when they flee. edit: typos

The longer you play the more game objects pile up that have to be loaded every time (not only in the stash, but in the whole game world. Everything has to be persisted so it's in the same condition as when you saved or left the map). As I said: you can get rid of most items in your stash (that really helps). If you are a hoarder you will face very long loading times at some point. But it's manageable if you sell all weapon/armor/other gear/traps stuff except uniques. Luckily in Deadfire there is a new streaming system that prevents long loading times.

Yes, crits with Citzal's Spirit Lance's AoE will generate phrases (at least last time I tried in beta1).

I guess he meant the recommended attributes for each class. Those are marked with gold/silver stars during character creation.

They scale with character level. If you are lvl 9 then all of your summons will be of lvl 9, too.

For the ones who want to make watercolor portraits by themselves here's the post from Aarik D again with instructions, a template and all: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91743-portraits/page-11?do=findComment&comment=1967609

I tested Paladin with Skald, Beckoner and Troubadour. But I think the Skald is better with a fighter (a lot more melee crits because of Desciplined Barrage + upgrade). Skalds get phrases when they do crits, so this feels better. The combination of Disciplined Barrage + Killers Froze Stiff (both offer 50% hit to crit conversion - so all in all 75%) is pretty strong. Troubadour/Paladin is nice because you can build a very good support character with Zealous Endurance + Upgrade (AR+ and party-wide regeneration effect) and Ancient Memory (also regeneration effect) and later "Her Courage Thick as Steel" which will give the party a 30pt-damage shield that gets recast every 3 seconds. I like the Beckoner best because summons are always very powerful - and he summons twice the amount. Since they scale with level now they also won't get obsolete after a while. With Shared Flames + Mith Fyr they also get +45% burning lashes for their attacks (as well as the whole party), that's very powerful. For example six skeletons with +45% burning lash shred most foes quickly while also body-blocking and taking all the heat.

PotD is hardest in the early game. One level difference is a bigger advantage than min-maxed stats. After Defiance Bay the game gets easier and easier (with some spikes like bounties and dragons) - also on PotD. Durance has 9 PER. Since he's one level above hirelings, he gets more spells. He also gets +3 base accuracy and +1 ACC per char level for all spells, so +4 compared to a hireling. Bringing Durance (when we talk about PER/accuracy) is like bringing a hireling with 13 PER - but with less spells, -3 to all defenses, -12 endurance and -48 health. Also since Durance is one level above hirelings he can have Inspiring Radiance sooner - which makes the game a lot easier in the beginning of the game, especially on PotD. Party-wide +10 ACC which stacks with things like Zealous Focus is golden - the sooner you can get it the better. And with +10 ACC Durance's offensive spells should't miss that often, too. If you give him a shield and hatchet and concentrate on casting then his RES is not bad. He seldomly gets interrupted and the higher deflection helps with swarmers like shadows, phantoms and shades who won't see him as primary target. So I always want to interject when somebody says that hirelings are vastly superior. You don't need them for PotD (if it's only power you're concerned about). Anyway: there are some good reasons why one would want customized adventurers. Like you said it can be fun to build a whole party on your own. I liked Icewind Dale because of that. But being superior to official companions is not a real reason, more like a surmised one. Still speaking about PoE - I have no idea how hirelings will fare against official companions in Deadfire, but in the beta they are also 1 level below. So it seems the situation didn't change much. Sidekicks have a similar level of interactivity like official companions in PoE. The official companions in Deadfire now get more interactivity, including relationsships and so on. If you're doing multiple playthroughs without hireling-bots you might want to have a little bit of variety. edit: typos

Point a) is not true in general, at least not for PoE. Official Companions start 1 level above hired adventurers which is a big advantage in the early game. And later on the game gets so easy that the non-optimized stats don't matter at all and also the impact of stats compared to the impact abilities and items have is negligible. A reason to hire adventurers can be that a certain companion comes pretty late - so let's say you want a rogue in the party but Devil of Caroc comes so late - you'd take a hireling rogue. Sidekicks may give you the possibility to choose from a wider variety of classes (as party members) and still have banter and talks and not a bland and kinda soulless bot. Also: Sidekicks have quests. That alone might make it worthwhile to take them with you.

Yes, very good. I tested a Beckoner/Paladin with Shared Flames + Mith Fyr and it has has some great synergies.

It's +10 ACC and yes: it stacks with everything, even with itself (from different priests). It also is 1/encounter, it's a fast cast and the size of the AoE is big, covering the whole party with ease. If I play an MC priest and also take Durance (two priests are better than one, so I nearly always do that) I will have +20 ACC right at the start of every battle without spending a spell use, landing CC effects reliably.

Since the focus would be on melee I would use a Shapeshifter/Berserker, cast Moonwell and Form of the Delemgan or something like that before shifting and then go into melee. If you cast an intellect inspiration on him before he uses frenzy he will not be confused (= no friendly fire, no maluses to INT).

I agree. This is from the beta forum (discussion about monks): Not a paladin as second class in this case though - but doesn't matter for Blade Turning mechanics. As Gromnir said: this also works with a Votary. It's pretty strong. Maybe too strong. But I have no idea how you could nerf it without rendering the ability useless.

You're just lazy.

Gromnir did. is the point. So you're answering my post and try to argue about something I didn't even talk about? Like *zoom* right over my head? Slick

Right.

Nice. Grumpy Gus would have been a nice dwarven companion.

Merciless Gaze? It's not really a spell, but for me Inspiring Radiance is the best thing about priests.

Hi! 1) still bugged 2) it does only work with bows, no exception. 3) that should be the case - however, during one of my later playthroughs I noticed that the pet didn't get Predator's Sense's bonus when attacking enemies that suffered from Dragon Thrashed. Maybe a glitch, maybe a nerf. You can circumvent the problem by using Persistence (if you like bows), its wounding does work with Pr. Sense. It's the ranged weapon with the highest dps for a ranger anyway. 4) usually not. Driving Flight should only work if somebody's behind the target (it's a rel. wide cone though. It can also be that you saw hit rolls from a special attack like wounding shot (like: 2 hit rolls for the physical damage and two for the hobbled afflicton). Critting the dragon for over 100 damage would need hefty ACC buffs, DR reduction and also petrifying. Dragon's skin is just too tough and the defenses are too high for an animal companion to crit with such high numbers. Maybe if you add Brutal Takedown it would work. It's really good because it only uses 1/4 of enemies' DR.