Boeroer

No, but I doubt that holding a pistol in only one hand gives me more accurate shots nor do I think that holding a rifle in two hands makes the bullet do more damage if I hit correctly... Hm... I just tested a Bleak Walker/Wizard with dual fine blunderbusses (8 PEN) and FoD with Scion of Flame AND Spirit of Decay and I get 10 PEN instead of 8 on a hit. Am I missing some hidden PEN bonus from FoD or do Scion + Spirit indeed give me +2 PEN in this case? It all seems to work with keywords and NOT the actual type of damage you cause - because Noxious Burst is keyworded without Acid and thus doesn't get +1 PEN from Spirit of Decay despite doing corrode damage - while Fireball does get +1 PEN because it's keyworded with Fire. FoD is keyworded with Fire, Acid for Bleak Walkers. So I guess it works, hoorray...?

Then it must have been rods, because wands are one-handed. Well, since one handed ranged weapons like pistols/wands/scepters and so on also profit from +12 ACC when single wielded I think that's just fair. A bit weird though. How does one increase the damage of a ranged weapon by using both hands...

Do they? In PoE the styles were melee only.

If you are a shifter with two claws, tusks, horns etc. you want to take two weapon style because it speeds you up (see PoE). As a Fury you'd want to take Two Handed Style. As a non-shifting Animist you can take Single Weapon Style for your spear or whatever. No subclass has unique ability trees - so I don't see the problem here.

I think because he got severely bitten here in the past.

They said no (it was possible in beta1 with Bull's Will and so on) - But I didn't try it out. Edit: oh thanks Balthazar. I was too slow. My question is: What happens if you are a Bleak Walker/Animist (FoD keywords: Fire + Acid) and take Scion of Flame with the paladin side (+1 PEN with attacks keyworded with Fire) AND Spirit of Decay with the druid side (+1 PEN with attacks keyworded with Acid)? I didn't try because I have nearly 0 time atm but I would want to know. +2 PEN with FoD in this case? It's passive and should stack...

That is not correct. At least not for all godlike racials. Silver Tide is very powerful - which headgear can compete with a big AoE healing burst at 75%, 50% and 25% endurance - from lvl 1 on? Also Battle Forged (when used properly) is more powerful than any helmet you can find in PoE. While being pretty underwhelming at the beginning of the game at higher levels it can retaliate for over 200 burn damage. Wellspring of Life and Death's Usher are indeed pretty lame in PoE though.

I don't mind the overlap. That way you can now take your favorite ability with class A and still pick another one that you also wanted with class B (that formerly only was pickable with class A).

Yes

I don't know why you would ever pick Shadowing Beyond when you can use Smoke Cloud. I really start to dislike that different active abilities compete for resource points (like Guile). I will only pick one active ability, maybe two and the rest is passives. I liked the old per-encounter system better. It would be different if you could somehow regain resource points (like Monks/Ciphers/Corpse Eaters can). And I don't mean Empower.

Why would you want to make a soulbound weapon worse with every upgrade? Because they made this mistake with several new items/modals in Deadfire as well I strongly believe it's a bug that occured because they changed some internal denominators (going from reloading *speed* to reloading *time*) and then forgetting to flip the sign (+/-).

Eh? However - I can't play the new beta release until Monday. But I guess there will be enough cool builds you can realize with it. Following the detailed patch notes I think that stuff like AoE + Strikes (Minor Blights + Arterial Strike - or Spirit Lance + Stunning Blows and so on) still works, as does Swift Flurry or Cleaving Stance with AoE attacks - for starters...

Only briefly, but it worked quite well. Mob/Cleaving Stance is really nice with the higher damage output of Sneak Attack. Also enemies with afflictions leaving engagement get punished very hard with disengagement attacks that do +150% damage and more and +10 PEN due to the Unbroken's feats + Sneak Attack + eventually bloodied/flanked bonuses (like Blooded, Streetfighter heating up and so on). This can trigger a deadly chain reaction with Mob/Cleaving Stance if some enemies are bloodied or near death. However, the best combos with Unbroken so far I had with wizard (using self buffs and Repulsive Visage to scare off enemies who then get killed by disenggement attacks - now nerfed), monk (using Soul Mirror + Blade Turning + thick armor + shield extensively). And with the Streetfighter it was Berserker - because he wants to be a solitary warrior anyway and the stacking crit damage modifiers of Berserker and Street Fighter, the stacking attack speed buffs and the buffs on low health (on yourself and the enemy with Blooded, Heating Up, Bloody Slaughter) add up pretty nicely. I did this with a Death Godlike to add even more bonuses when being low on health (me and enemy). Fun but risky. Unbroken adds more survivability and leads to a more "rounded" char I think.

That's 2 out of 56 builds in the build list (Backlash Beldam is actually outdated and not working anymore because of a nerf via patch: retalation stopped generating focus). You said I think that is highly exaggerated. Also those two builds count towards the "weird-but-powerful" category I was talking about. Most people won't want to post a straightforward standard build but try to create something interesting. The Anvil still works well enough without retaliation items because the main source of retaliation damage is indeed Battle Forged (and Rooting Pain). See the Monksterlasher build who uses the same principle but no retaliation items. However - I think your idea (including some kind of tag or label that gives a hint if the build relies on special items) is a very good one. I would also add a tag/label that hints if a build is a late bloomer or works well right from the start/in the early game. Or just add the level from which the basic build idea starts to work out.

According to the "simplified" stacking rules of Deadfire, every speed boost that stems from passives should stack. Bloodlust seems to be the only one atm, but hopefully we see some more in the final game (also from items like Gauntlets of Swift Action had). Maybe something like Anitlei? Sadly Blood Thirst got replaced by an upgrade of Barbaric Blow. It was a nice mechanic that also could be triggered by killing your own summons and with every kill (no matter the ability/spell/attack you used - except DoTs).

If he uses Brisk Recitation he has no linger time - but I get where you are going. 24 damage every 3 secs in a big AoE is pretty nice.

Sadly not. Rangers' ranged abilities are pretty nice though. Wounding Shot and Accurate Wounding Shot are neat for example. For a ranged rogue I would use rogue/wizard and use Kalakoth's Minor Blights with Arterial Strike and then AoE Sneak Attacks.

They lowered the damage of all guns (or raised the damage of other weapons). Also blunderbusses no longer have 6 pellets but only 5. The modal for arquebuses is a lot better than for blunderbuss or pistol (in my opinion) tough.

It's good. What's also good is Paladin/Ranger with dual blunderbuss or pistol because of lots of Full Attacks (FoD + Wounding Shot). Also Blunderbuss + Ranger/Monk is kind of bonkers with Driving Flight and Swift Flurry.

In Deadfire it's just like a regular quarterstaff but with draining. Only thing it does is heal you a bit with each hit you score. There will most likely be a better unique staff than this. In PoE it had draining and 20-30 (!) base damage while a normal quarterstaff had 14-20. That's what made it so good...

His German is ok (and fluent) but not perfect.

It's heavily bugged. Instead of raising reload *speed* it raises reload *time*. Once it works like it's supposed to it should be great.

There are few chars that can crit as often as Edér with Disciplined Barrage. Maybe the item is broken. Fulvano's Blunderbuss also doesn't charm in my game. And in one playthrough the Sabre of the Seas wouldn't proc Overbearing Wave (now it does).

Sometimes you need to save, quit the game and reload for those problems to disappear. It sometimes happens that the spellbinds don't show up in the bar after equipping the item.

Funnily, if you stun with the thunder invocation (tier 1) while holding the Flinger it also counts. Made upgrading it a lot easier...