Boeroer

Erm... she's married. No, not to Jack!

That's right. There are some situations where you'll get status effects that only can be removed via resting (e.g. injuries from scripted interactions). There's the achievement "No Rest for the Pro" which requires that you rest not more than 10 times. Maybe that's a reasonable goal.

The skeletons are especially cool because they only have a 5 second cast time (less with some dex) and they split on death. But the wurms are also not bad because they do ranged attacks at a good speed - and sometimes 6 skeletons don't fit into a narrow space. Four little itsy-bitsy ogres are just cute - but still hit hard. The drake was totally bugged so I couldn't test it. Once you got the summons out you can do a FoD strike for Shared Flames and then start resummoning. Then another FoD and so on. That way you will always have summons on the field without a gap. Yes, the damage chants are all bad atm. By the way: I didn't try the summons on PotD yet. Maybe they suck against higher defenses, can't say.

I never tried such but animal companions and summons seem to be a good starting point. Healing bonuses in combination with a potion of Infuse with Vital Essence can give you back a good amount of health. I would bring a cipher and a high defense paladin tank - only for Defensive Mindweb. With that power you can make sure you won't get hit a lot in the late game. Per-rest spells can be substituted with scrolls. All in all I would use a very defensive and evasive tactic OR use the stealthy approach where you avoid all combat situations if possible.

@Xilva: Glad you like the builds. I'm playing a fire godlike barb with 6*Firebrand + Blood Thirst and Bloodlust atm and that's even more devastating. Since I got HoF I usually don't have recovery in a fight since Firebrand hits for over 100 damage relabily. HoF (kills some enemies) - Barbaric Blow (kills some more) - Runner's Wounding Shot (kills another) - then auto-attacks. Even if I don't kill somebody with a swing I still have Frenzy + Bloodlust which leads to a recovery of about 20 frames or so. And if my Flame Shield + Battle Forged kills somebody the recovery is also set to 0.

The thing about Enigma's Charm is that it not only needs 5 seconds in combat but is also a slow cast compared to the rel. fast cast of Whisper of Treason. Besides that it's quite nice because it's 1/encounter. A good way to substitute this talent is to buy Munacra Arret and later Spirit Spiral (see wiki) for the "real" Whisper of Treason 6 times per rest and also the Ring of Changing Heart (2 dominates per rest which are very fast but have no ACC bonus). All those effects are quite great on any character with high accuracy and good INT. Look at the build "Counselor Ploi" in the build list to read more about the effective use of those items with a paladin. Also works really well with rogue and especially fighter (Disciplined Barrage). Concerning skills: I like Veteran's Recovery and other regenerating effects a lot because with 8 or even 14 survival, decent MIG and an item like Fulvano's Amulet you get a healing bonus of about +100% which is very nice for any frontliner who want to be in the fray but doesn't want to raise deflection (or can't) but still be very sturdy (barbs, monks and so on). The healing bonus works with all healing sources except draining (on weapons). Also the other bonuses can be really nice (accuracy, movement speed and so on). So I usually favor survival. Althetics is a bit poor in my opinion, stealth is only useful for a Backstab rogue (but then it's nice because it grants you two consecutive +150% damage attacks per encounter. Lore is only useful if you want to use scrolls. Scrolls can be very powerful with fighters and rogues (all damaging spells that are not DoT work with Deathblows, spells that do crush/pierce or slash damage also work with Deep Wounds). So lore is very useful if you want to use scrolls. One guy should skill mechanics to 10 minimum, better 12.

Had the same problem once during a boarding. Also in some other places that had nothing to do with ship to ship battle (fightng the Dank Spore for example). So I think it's has not really anything to do with ships & stuff but with how the game determines that an encounter should end.

Same case with inspirations and resistances. Can't see why it should be a problem with grazes and crits then.

Mith Fyr only adds 20%. But yes - you are right. edit: Sorry! I just re-checked and it still adds 25%. Don't know why. I thought it only adds 20%. Maybe that was the case in beta1?

A ravager is a good combo but some synergies that might sound great won't stack (like the PEN of Berserker's Frenzy and the PEN of Thunderous Blows, Frenzy's Speed and Swift Strikes and so on). Torment's Reach + Carnage will do a cone and Carnage will emanate from the initial hit. So no fancy cascading Carnage or so. But all in all it can be a good combo for persistent AoE damage.

But I think the decision to remove grazes also leads to frustration (and now they are back again). Since there's a layered affliction system now they could have tried an reduce the tier of affliction with a graze (still using the full duration) instead of removing grazes altogether. Graze with a damaging ability: -50% damage, graze with an affliction: one tier lower. That means that spells that apply confuse and graze won't do anything, but better than removing grazes altogether I think.

That might be true. Beta is not the whole game. And resistances usually don't cover the whole party. If the casting times of most party-wide inspirations weren't so slow... Most prayers in PoE could be cast quickly. However - in addition to the usual inspiration priests still have Devotions which is one of the few sources of direct ACC buffs in Deadfire atm - and it affects the whole party (I mean besides the good stuff it additionally does).

Nope. Got changed.

But Shared Flames doesn't add its lash to the paladin (I guess?). So if you want to build a dps paladin and the rest of the gang is casters/support/healing/cc chars you better pick the Bangles' song.

In Deadfire: Blooded = below 50% Near Death = below 25% Disciplined Barrage and later Tactical Barrage will give you bonus PER and convert 50% hits to crits and 50% grazes to hits. It's quite awesome and only costs 1 point of Discipline (the resource the fighter uses).

By the way the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer is pretty great on this. Not because of Firebrand, but because of the automatic Flame Shield (no need for potions) and the Torrent of Flame. And the stat bonuses of course.

It's in a hidden treasure room in Blood Sands/Twin Elms. Sometimes you have to reequip and reload to make them work. If you can't see a raw lash in the combat log once you have some wounds then they have a hickup.

Yes - at least all the advice I give is based on PotD. The good thing is that whatever works well on PotD usually also works well on lower difficulties - but I might miss or skip things that would be fun on normal/hard but don't work well on PotD. I think the game on hard or even normal is challenging enough for a new player - you have to put some effort into building a nice party that feels powerful. But once said player has gained meta knowledge and understands the mechanics he/she can get away with a lot of stuff, yes. Not only on on the lower difficulties, also on PotD. Once you know the tricky stacking rules and some other rules, tricks and synergies and that the key to success is nearly always "buff ACC -> do CC -> deal damage" PotD is also not very challenging (with a party). I mean I can just buff ACC on a cipher with +70 in seconds with the right party, cast a Disintegration on a dragon and then charm him. Good riddance. One can even feel sorry for that wurm. But it takes some time to figure that out. For most players it's just "Wooot! He wiped me whole party with a wing slam! Wtf this is too damn difficult! *ragequit*" Concerning monk: if you never take damage then obviously a monk doesn't work too well. Especially if your party is heavy on CC. He's also tricky to play in the early game because the "1 wound/max endurance" ratio is pretty high. Meaning in order to have 10 wounds you'd basically have to get knocked out and your health bar will suffer a lot - while at higher levels the endurance pool and especially the health pool are so much bigger that you can easily accumulate 10 wounds without feeling threatened. A nice way to make the monk easier to play in the early game is to put on heavy armor and pick Veteran's Recovery since this gives you a lot more "virtual" health and endurance and the wound management becomes less stressful. Maybe the monk is another class that works best on PotD where you can't avoid to take some damage anyways und thus can make good use of it. However, although I think monks are the best melee class overall I don't play them as much with a party of six - because they require a hell lot of micromanagement and often enough I don't want to spend that much attention on a single character. It's like the opposite of a DT-Chanter whom you simply steer into the fray and say "and now sing" and that's it. I'm always willing to give advice - also for rogues, even on Story Mode. If somebody asks for advice on rogues I will not say "but they suck, use a monk instead" but try to point out things and tricks that I think are powerful and fun when playing a rogue. Doesn't need to be the potentially most powerful way or so - because when I look how different the approaches of players are I don't think that a definitive "most powerful build" even exists.

It's nice but it needs levels. You get Shared Flames early enough but Mith Fyr comes a bit late for multiclass characters. Make sure to use most of your zeal for FoD in order to hold up the Shared Flames. A Kind Wayfarer can also prevent his summons from dying prematurely. I used a pike with modal to "prepare" the enemies for my summons.

Summons scale with char level in Deadfire - which makes them useful throughout the whole game. With a Beckoner you get 6 skeletons. They are small and have less health - but they hit as hard as the "normal" ones. And they hit pretty hard compared to those noodle-skeletons in PoE1. With two burning lashes from Shared Flames and Mith Fyr their combined damage is actually pretty crazy. If you combine it with some AR debuff they shred most enemies pretty quickly. And on tp comes the awesome body blocking with six skeletons - which break apart into two lesser skeletons each after death! I mean in theory there yould be 12 skeletons fighting for you... You can summon them behind the enemy line so that they don't get into the way of your shark. Another plus as I said: the two burning lashes also apply to all the other party members which is quite powerful. It's like everyone has Flames of Devotion all the time.

I don't want to discuss this in lenght and unravel every paragraph. You wanted to know why a lot of people say that the rogue feels weak to them - and we gave some reasons why that might be the case. If in your game the rogue is very good (also because you taylor your party accordingly) and you like to play him then everything is fine. Also if interrupts play a major role in your game and you can use them to your advantage then that's also nice. If monk isn't your thing that's also cool with me - I just want to interject one or two opposing arguments if somebody says something like "class X is definitely bad" - just so that other reader's don't get the impression that this is more than a personal opinion and never try that class. How I play the game the rogue usually is the least useful class because of the reasons I stated above. Some other experienced players think the same way I guess - but that doesn't mean that this is the universal truth and applies to every player and every playstyle. I also don't think he's rubbish. The classes are fairly balanced when it comes to a full party. But if you ask me as a quite experienced player which is the least useful class I'd always say rogue. That doesn't mean that he's not fun to play for me. I fact I think he's more fun than the usual DT-chanter - but he's less useful/powerful nonetheless, at least for me. That doesn't mean that this applies to all other players. The most important part is that the game is fun to play.

Paladin/Beckoner with Shared Flames and Mith Fyr. Nice support (gives them all two burning lashes, heals, zealous aura...) and also is immensely helpful with his summons (who also get supported).

It seems that you haven't understood some mechanics correctly. For example the Dragon Thrashed chant is a DoT effect that doesn't have to overcome the full DR. It's also stackable with itself - which means that at higher levels (due to Brisk Recitation and high INT) three instances can be stacked at a time. That means that 60 base damage get applied every 3 seconds, more with a crit (10 base slash + 10 base burn per 3 sec). Add high MIG and you can see where this is going and why it "melts" enemies. On normal or hard most foes will be dead before a rogue can kill three of them. On PotD it's even better because there are more enemies and they all get hit at once. More enemies is meaningless for the Chanter because he hits them all. It has to do an attack roll and thus can also crit. It is not awesome against bosses, but not bad. I mean you deal lots of damage passively - that's quite awesome. Also your perception of the cipher deviates a lot from what most people here think about them. First of all they can achieve similar single target damage as a rogue with auto-attacks (Soul Whip + Biting Whip) whithout the need for afflictions - which is awesome for a caster. Then a cipher is unmatched when it comes to mind control which is the most powerful crowd control mechanic in the game. Ask the dragons... If you think the monk is bad you simply didn't understand how he plays. After playing several playthroughs with all classes and after countless testing session and also solo runs I believe that the monk is the strongest melee class in the game overall - from the beginning of the game till the end - if you handle him correctly. But needs a lot more micromanagement - more like a caster. He's also one of the best ranged dps classes in the game (from lvl 7 on). I'd say THE best ranged class. He can have awesome single target damage via lashes, very good AoE damage, very solid defenses, great starting values, some very potent single target CC options and a very big endurance and health pool. There's a reason why most players fear high level enemy monks - but enemy rogues? Not so much. You also didn't seem to understand that a monk can use any weapon with all his abilities. He's not restricted to fists in any way, but they are a good alternative to weapons. It sounds as if you didn't really play one. How can you say a monk is bad if you didn't play him? The rogue is especially weak on PotD - but even on the other difficulties he's not top notch. And at higher levels the "ultimate CC effect aka death" takes some time to get applied. Especially once the rogue lies flat on his face again. I guess if you'd do a poll in this forum then most people would say that priest is the most powerful/impactful class, followed by wizard/druid. By the way: two handers have the same attack speed and recovery as swords/maces/spears (all the heavier one handed weapons). Dual wielding and every other speed bonus except DEX only affects recovery time. So once you can achieve 0 recovery with a two hander it's the better dps option (except with Full Attacks of course). It's way easier to achieve 0 recovery when dual wielding. Especially from early to mid game dual wielding is superior in most cases. But some mechanics favor two handers over DW (abilities with primary attack & Blood Thirst for example). Dps wise the best auto-attack option for rogues are fast one handers for the most part of the game. The melee weapon with the best dps in the game is Drawn in Spring if you are not at 0 recovery. Great weapon for a rogue. Once you can hit 0 with a two hander then then best dps weapon is Tidefall. Single target interrupts become less important if you have other good CC options and if you are fighting a lot of enemies.

Yes. A lot. Basically all melee heavy classes work well with monk. Swift Flurry + Cleaving Stance is a (not so) secret tip for example. Also monk with ranger works quite well. The Long Pain and Swift Flurry work with Driving Flight...

Oh, I think I can answer this. He was suggesting those two items for the Paladin, because of the increase in burn damage that class can get natively and easily, plus I literally asked for a 2-handed paladin build, and that's a pretty standard one from what I've seen. Basically with Firebrand and Bleak Walker you can get the highest spike damage possible in the game (besides Backstab + Deathblows which requires a heck of micro). Lady of Pain with Tidefall is a solid choice. Runner's Wounding Shot isn't about the hobble, it's about the +80% raw multiplicative damage. Usually it does the same overall damage as a strike woth FoD + Intense Flames. It's great to take out high priority targets asap. Especially because the paladin has no other special attacks besides his 2 FoD strikes. Of course Charge is better, but that's lvl 13 (!) while Runner's Wounding Shot comes very early.