Boeroer

It's a great weapon in the right hands. Imagine how disappointed I was when I slew Firkraag with my self-invented Wizard's Eye cheese at a rel. low level and got Carsomyr which I couldn't use because I had no Paladin...

Tehehe - but wait: does Shadow Fang's DoT stack (like Bleeding Cuts etc.)?

It was a stretch goal for the Kickstarter campaign and was cobbled together rather haphazardly I think. See Deadfire's ship fights. I liked it nonetheless.

I'm not a fan of Chris Avellone - but I like Durance. Grieving Mother... not so much. Funny thing is - and I will repeat myself the forth time at least (hence the neverending story): if the amount of writing was such a strong repellent then this point would have found its way into reviews of users and critics and be prominent there. Yet the review scores are very good and don't speak about too much text a lot. This doesn't fit. It should at least raise the question whether this explanation makes sense when one applies it to a majority of potential players - or if it rather might be a projection of things one personally didn't like.

It's for weapon attacks only.

Guess it's debatable what's unnecessary fluff and what's enjoyable writing. I did enjoy it immensely the first time I played the game The link to the forum post was there to show you that there's people enjoying reading while playing cRPGs - not to refute the statement that there's a lot of text. You produced a wall of text btw...

Still valid.

It sounds like you read the Backers' NPC stories in PoE. Because besides that I don't really remember "two pages of unnecessary fluff".

I remember that it has the following behavior (might be wrong): if you walk you will create (or "drop") rel. small instances of healing areas that pulse for some time and heal allies (if there's movement or not) - but new ones of those AoE instances only get created (or dropped) if you move. Iirc you can create a lot of parallel healing instances if you move back and forth a lot.

I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say - but maybe it doesn't work as I remember.

Uhhh - good catch, that didn't cross my mind before.

Yes, with every steps you drop a new instance of an healing over time AoE. Those also work when you are stationary (they must, otherwise party members would have to move to profit, too), but new instances only get created when you move.

Nope. It's a bit weird: the initial target can be attacked from ~7m distance (1.2 reach*6), but funnily enough the cone will stay close to you and not change at all. Some spells which are tagged melee do work with Instruments of Pain and give them 6 times their range. At this point I only remember Sunlance - but there were more. Maybe a Cipher spell was among them. I tested it all myself - but my old dried-up brain forgot most of it. Shared Nightmare does enlarge the cone though. But it's not accessible to multiclass Ciphers. This changed several times during the patching cycle but I believe they can? But Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming only procs the rel. weak single target attack, not the additional cone. Also Swift Flurry/HBD don't generate focus. Offensive Parry however does generate focus (just saying). It also procs Swift Flurry/HBD. Which is a pretty cool feature for a Soul blade because it means he can gather focus while being in recovery just by getting missed by melee enemies. It works and is strong if you can terrify enemies often enough - but it's not 100% reliable because the movement of terrified enemies is random. Sometimes they just crouch down, sometimes they just crawl around you. They have to actually leave the break the engagement by walking away too far, yes. But that's a very short distance so it happens often enough. Sometimes they leave, catch a disengagement attack and come right back and leave again to catch another. The best Fighter subclass for this combo would be the Unbroken. Especially later with Deathblows and Overbearing Guard the disengagement attacks become superbrutal. Of course best done with a high-dmg per hit weapon (so, basically two handers - although that prevents you from using one of the Unbroken passives that work with a shield). I don't think this can work too well as a main tank. First of all it would lack engagement. Then the Quarterstaff modal doesn't stack with active deflection buffs and it doesn't work against ranged attacks. Gunshots etc. from enemy rangers and rogues are one of the biggest problems imo (see Boarding fights). You will be slower than with a shield setup so your defenses and your dps will be worse than with a weapon & shield setup. Relying on hitting and dealing damage and then draining health to stay sturdy can be tricky. One hard-CC or a slowdown (Disoriented, Blind) or even an enemy with very thick armor which you can't penetrate well and the survivability will go down severely. Maybe one can make it work with the right party composition. But a good off-tank it would be I think. I did a run with an Unbroken/Streetfighter as main tank - and that totally works and is a nice mix of defense and offense. I mean when we talk about Streetfighter as an ingredient for a tank. But this guy had a large shield and didn't rely on bloodied to speed up. Just got flanked a lot because: main tank.

Yes, or Outworn Buckler.

When I tested Okura's Kettle years ago it never worked as advertised. It simply did nothing. Maybe it got patched but I doubt it.

Ahh... the downsides of almost never using AI!

Yes, I tested it a few times afterwards. You have to walk in one direction, maybe go back a little to catch a trap hit and then stop until the hobble expires (no walk, no trap). Often it's also enough to just run into one direction if your speed is good and INT isn't enormous (seems to enlarge the AoE of the traps, no idea). With enough hostile effect duration reduction that hobble is quickly over. Then walk into one again. I wasn't clear about the details. It's not like you are getting a wound from every drop trap with every step be cause the duration will refresh. It's just a convenient, resource- and action-time-free way of creating bearable and short afflictions on your own. However, all those little movements can be tedious.

No, I registered here when PoE came out and then I pretty much stopped playing PoE once Deadfire's beta came out. Two or three little runs after that maybe. But I ran it a couple of thousand hours (according to Steam) and also discussed a lot about its mechanics and character ideas here in the PoE forums back in the day. Also wrote a lot of builds (see the build list here in the sorum) - that's why most of the mechanics are still present to me. Some details might be lost though or get mixed up with Deadfire stuff.

Iirc an animal companion counts as party member. I have no idea if Ghost Heart's animal companion is an exception because it's a summoned spirit. I didn't play Ghost Hearts much... Good thing is that non-ghost heart animal companion can be revived without limit because they don't suffer injuries.

Don't think that was the devs' reasoning. All two handed summoned melee weapons I can think of (Firebrand, Parasitic Staff, Spirit Lance) have 30 base damage (which is way higher than a normal weapon of the same kind). Firebrand is the only one which can be used by another class though. I guess they just wanted to give everybody the chance to wield a cool flaming sword. A fully enchanted and durganized Great Sword like Tidefall or Hours of St. Rumbalt usually does more dps - mainly because it will be faster. And the lash and better accuracy and dmg mod will balance out the lower base dmg. At lower levels however, Firebrand is just awesome. Drawn in Spring (dagger), Persistence (hunting bow), Acuan Giamas (morning star) and Boar Tusks (Spiritshifted Druid) do the same. Stacking means in this case that with every hit there will be a new independent instance of the wounding applied - while the old one still ticks for damage until it's over. They get overlaid. So you can apply multiple "parallel" damage over time effects. The outcome is the same as if the tick damage increased. It does. All on hit/crit efftects of melee weapon translate to Carnage. No idea, I never used consumables except in Ultimate runs. Fighter is a rel. weak class in the later levels, at least on PotD difficulty. Charge is very good, but it's again best with a dual wielding setup. It is complicated. The general rule is that passives stack with everything. Talents that upgrade abilities (like Inspiring Radiance for example but also Inspired Liberation etc.) are considered passive (don't ask me why). Then anything from the weapon slots stacks with everything. So a Marking enchantment stacks its ACC with everything. All active buffs however suppress each other if they address the same stat. Blessing and Zealous Focus (both considered active effects) will suppress each other (the higher prevails). But now Devotions for the Faithful doesn't technically give an universal acc bonus but only to melee and range. And that's enough that the game considers it an effect that won't suppress a universal acc bonus like Blessing. I believe Tactical Meld (Cipher) also stacks with everything because it's implemented like Marking (but not 100% sure anymore). Sorry - I forgot that Justice comes with a 25% crushing lash on it. Thus you can't put a burning or other elemental lash on it. But it has an additional, secondary 10% crushing lash on it. You can see it besides the dmg value in the weapon description iirc. So it has a 25% crushing lash and a 10% crushing lash. Lashes have to overcome enemies' DR (armor) separately, but only 1/4th of it. So the 10% lash can somethimes get nullified by thick armor. So it's good to lower enemies' DR value. DR bypass doesn't work for lashes. So only lowering enemies' DR benefits lash damage and high dmg per hit, too. Yes, they also get Time Parasite which can speed you up like crazy if you hit enough first. Also Borrowed Instincts. A Cipher can deal a lot more weapon dps than for example a Fighter can. But once his focus is full Soul Whip (+40% dmg) turns off. So you have to use some focus from time to time to keep the 40% dmg bonus. I guess a Rogue with Tidefall, maxed MIG, high DEX, low INT. Add Runner's Wounding Shot to the usual Rogue strikes (Crippling, Blinding etc.). Could also do Backstabs from stealth and wear the Cape of the Master Mystic to become invisible after a received crit for another Backstab.

For PoE3 @Constentin Lévineshould really really be in the beta-test group. I thought I found lots of broken stuff - but this guy really brings me to bed and tucks me in.

I think so. But of course the complete "hands off" status is only achieved at the higher levels because of Divine Retribution.

Durance was written by Chris Avellone. He's not working at Obsidian anymore and I don't recall a thread or post where this was addressed (could have missed it of course). Maybe there's some place on the Internet where he said something about this. All I find is memes.

I once made a single class Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (Scordeo's Trophy + Eccea's Arcane Blaster) who used all the reloading bonuses he could get. You can hit the reloading floor (can't go faster) rel. early then. This included a Troubadour in the party who sung Many Lives Pass By with Brisk Recitation. There was also a confused Berserker/Devoted who used Amra's Riven Gore and Carnage to accitentially kill those skeletons around him while attacking the enemies. This triggered Blood Thirst and cleaves from Mob Stance which turned him into an human-sized Blender. Devine Retribution of the SC Paladin also triggers when your parties' summons die - and the skeletons died faster than the Troubadour could summon them, providing an endless stream of Zeal for the Kind Wayfarer whom I simply set to AI and let him fire White Flames nonstop. He not only kept the whole party at high health but also did rely decent single target damage with those very fast pistol shots + lash. So - one of the best healers I ever had was a SC Paladin. Also one of the most boring ones to play because I didn't even have to touch him.