Boeroer

If you want to have more deflection then yes. A hatchet can raise deflection even more. Correct, spell accuracy will suffer if you're wearing a medium or large shield. Basically correct - but certain AoE effects that are connected to weapon attacks like Blast, Carnage Torment's Reach will carry the on-hit/on-crit effects over to the AoE. So for example a Barbarian with decent accuracy can cause prone on crit with Carnage in an AoE if he has an overbearing weapon. Same thing with a Wizard who uses Blast with an overbearing/stunning implement or a monk who uses overbearing/stunning weapons with Torment's Reach. Also works with spell chances like on the Redeemer. They are both good.

I would also say that. That stat spread is good for a lot of classbuilds, including the fighter that was posted above and which is solid (always take Charge - also use a bashing shield like Dragon's Maw or Badgradr's Barricade if you like Knockdown). Also a chanter with Dragon Thrashed would work. Low PER is a thing in the early game, but with some levels and decent buffs it doesn't matter that much anymore. With Disciplied Barrage lowish PER is totally ok, too. Hehe - actually... no. It's fine for me to answer questions. I also get some PMs with questions around mechanics and character creation on a regular basis and so far I never felt annoyed because of that.

concerning Combusting Wounds: the spell itself doesn't stack on a target, so if an enemy already suffers from the CW spell a new appliance will just update the duration (makes sense because): But once CW is on a target then all triggers will generate an instance of a CW DoT. And those run parallel - or stack if you wish. So a blunderbuss will generate 6 instances of CW DoTs which will deal their burn damage at the same time. It can be rather devastating. Since one CW-DoT-instance can do around 30 burn damage with decent MIG and INT - six of them can potentially cause 180 burn damage. Good point about Distant Advantage (the wood elf racial). By the way it also works with AoEs that are centered around you if the radius is big enough (for example Sacred Immolation or Torrent of Flame or so).

Hi, No. Spell accuracy is NOT derived from your weapon's accuracy. Weapons' accuracy only counts for attack rolls with that weapon (auto attacks or attack abilites that use a weapon like Flames of Devotion, Knockdown and so on). One handed weapon use has no effect on spells' accuracy. There is one exception (which may be a bug): the chanter has some invocations and phrases which do benefit from the +12 accuracy of one handed weapon use, for example Dragon Thrashed and White Worms. One Handed Style has no effect. Your spells' accuracy is calculated like so: base accuracy of your class + 3 accuracy per character level (counts for ALL attack rolls) bonus/malus from PER (+/-1 per point of PER above/below 10) +1 accuracy per character level (only counts for all offensive abilites, including spells) the spell's accuracy bonus ability buffs (Eldritch Aim or Zealous Focus and so on) item buffs (Gauntlets of Accuracy for example) Nope - One Handed style, Two Weapon Style and so on don't affect spells. Other talents do affect spells though: hater talents like Beast Slayer, Primal Bane and so on work with all spells that do direct damage (additive, no DoTs) Scion of Flame and Co. will boost burn/freeze/corrode/shock damage of spells by 20% (additive, no DoTs) Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver (faction or story reward talents) work with all spells that deal direct damage (additive crit damage, no DoTs) Mob Justice works with spells Gallant's Focus will raise your universal accuracy like Zealous Focus would, including spell accuracy (doesn't stack with Zealous Focus, Blessing or Eldritch Aim or Disciplined Barrage and so on) Outlander's Frenzy reduces your spells' recovery time and gives you more damage because of increased MIG Interrupting Blows works with every spell whoich can interrupt Penetrating Shot works with most spells that work from range and have to be targeted on an enemy (missiles, Necrotic Lance, Trhust of Tattred Veils...) or work in a line-shape (Mind Lance, Rolling Flame...) Vulnerable Attack might work with touch-based spells like Jolting Touch, but I can't say for sure. Maybe not. Would have to check this. Bloody Slauhther works with spells I never tried if Shot on the Run works with ranges targeted spells. Might be, but I don't know. No, it doesn't. BUT: Deathblows (and only Deathblows) works with direkt damage spells (like Fireball, Missiles... no DoTs) and thus doubles the base damage (+100%) - which can be very powerful. And while we're at the rogues abilites: Deep Wounds works with all spells that deal perice/slash or crush damage - AoE or single target. Combusting Wounds gets triggered every time an attack roll is done and damage is caused. DoTs don't work (except the initial hit, but not the ticks). Thus, spells like beams, Wall of Flame, Chillfog, Missiles and such are good with it. Also weapons like Blunderbuss or Golden Gaze or Twinned Arrows which use multiple projectiles will trigger CW multiple times. Heart of Fury + CW is certain mob death. Usually DoT's damage profit both from MIG and INT (and crits). MIG raises the damage per tick and INT adds more ticks. A crit gives you +50% duration which can be a huge damage improvement. Spells like Envenomed Strike, Shining Beacon or Disintegrate become very powerful with high MIG, INT and crits. Dots that don't behave like this are wounding (MIG raises the overall damage but INT just spreads the damage thinner over time), Enduring Flames (I believe INT has no effect) and Wounding Shot (same like wounding). Maybe I forgot one. Thus, the dps with Persistence, Tidefall, Drawn in Spring and Acuan Giamas as well as Boar Tusks is better with low INT. But the overall damage doesn't suffer, it just takes longer to apply. I hope that answers your questions.

Maybe it already is optional in the final game. I'm not that much bothered by the skulls and such, but the floating numbers are somewhat intrusive.

Additional spell options most likely from Grimore.

Yes, a lot shorter. Transitioning maps hardly has any loading times. Switching from initial character generation to the actual game takes maybe 5 seconds for me. But this is only the beta with a lot less content/game objects. So maybe it gets a bit worse with the final game. But I guess it's save to say that loading times overall will be a lot shorter.

In terms of dps Tidefall is superior (with lash and durgan steel vastly superior), but against vessels nothing is better than the Redeemer. By the way: Abjuration also triggers Strange Mercy/Triumph of the Crusaders.

I'd also like to have the option to hide the floating damage numbers. They don't look very pretty and all the other stuff that's going on on the battlefield is already enough visual/UI kerfuffle.

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.