Boeroer

The Juggernaut build fits your description quite well, doesn't it?

So what's passive and active then? - armor bonus of Gilded Enmity? Sounds like active. - armor bonus of the bear form (spiritshift)? Sounds like passive? - Paladin's temporary armor bonus once he gets hit? Passive? - Barbarian's Thick Skinned? This has to be passive... or not? I tried several combos and it's not clear what stacks and what not. I ended up with a character that had multiple AR suppressions. It's not always clear what is considered a passive bonus and what not. Like on PoE: why did Inspiring Radiance and Inspiring Liberation stack with everything? Whay did Devotions (that only raises melee and ranged ACC) stack with universal ACC buffs for melee and ranged? Officially those were passives or had other weird stacking rules, but were triggered by an active ability. This is not very intuitive and thus new players never knew about such things.

Well, it's highly subjective.

If you have a character with high deflection then put on Aila Braccia (small shield, monk in the Celestial Sapling). Present yourself to Thaos while the others retreat. It will turn grazes of Cleansing Flame into misses (100%) and reflect them back to Thaos - who will kill himself with it. It helps a lot to raise deflection with Shields and Crowns for the Faithful (= +50 deflection). For the statues just grab St. Ydwen's Redeemer. If you didn't upscale they should be of lower level than you and you can just destroy them with a few hits. Also, as already said: Arcane Dampener is golden in this fight.

In PoE I always play in Fast Mode while running around and in Normal Mode when in combat. So, Deadfire feels extra sluggish for me now. Also because attack speed bonuses don't have the same impact as before.

Estoc was just an example for a two handed weapon.

Firebrand works with any weapon focus - so you could also take WF Adventurer and use an estoc as backup weapon if you like. It also works with Scion of Flame. Your reputation/dispositions will have no effect on your char values as a barb. It will only influence how people react to you in dialogue. I would also use the gloves, yes. Just because then you can summon FIrebrand in nearly very fight. Usually you will rest after 6 fights anyway (if they are not too trashy).

It's worse. It still gives you +12 ACC automatically if you only put a one handed weapon in your main had, but the One Handed Style got changed from 15% hit-to-crit to miss-to-graze.

Buy the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer at Anslög's Compass after Raedric (only then you will have enough money) and summon Firebrand as often as possible. Seriously: there is no better option than that if you also take Blood Thirst and Bloodlust. Use Raedric's great sword Justice as backup weapon until you find something better.

Yes, I played such a rogue and wrote about it here in the forums here and there, but I never posted a full build. I stacked deflection and bonus deflection against disengagement attacks and used the one handed weapon with the highest damage on hit (Bittercut) and the best bashing shield (Badgradr's Barricade) - I guess you could easily take Purgatory as well to profit from draining. I also made sure I am fast as hell - because the faster you run the more attacks you can provoke in a given time. I did it like so (only things that are somewhat important for this special build idea): Bittercut + Badgradr's Barricade (procs Thrust of Tattered Veils on bash-crit unlimited times per encounter and works with Deathblows) Night-Runner (+15 deflection against disengagement) Cape of the Master Mystic (+12 deflection) Boots of Speed (+3 move speed) Fast Runner (+1 move speed, +5 against disengagement) Graceful Retreat (+12 against disengagement) Executioner's Hood (fear aura lowers ACC of enemies, heal on kill, bonus ACC when attacks miss) Mourning Gloves (heal on kill, +5 to all defenses on kill) Escape (+25 deflection) Weapon & Shield Style Cautious Attack (+8 deflection) Superior Deflection (+5 deflection) Riposte Binding Rope (enemies get stuck when they hit you: easily unlocks Deathblows) Spirit of Decay (for Bittercut + corrosive lash) Vulnerable Attack dumped DEX Most bonuses here stack (esp. the normal deflection + deflection against disengagement). You can reach crazy high values against disengagement - but disengagment attacks also have higher ACC. I helps a ton if you have some party members that can do blind AND frighten or terrify (most likely a wizard). Both will make sure enemies still attack but have very low ACC. A Barb with a disorienting weapon (-5 to ACC in an AoE, Barbaric Yell) and/or Captain Viccolo's Anger (fatigue in an AoE) and GLitering Gauntlets (daze in an AoE). Frighten, daze and fatigue stack their ACC maluses and you can bring down enemies ACC a lot like this. And then I ran around mobs at high speed in order to provoke attacks. It works quite well. However: since engagement stops you you have to click a lot in order to continue OR you have to uncheck the option in the game menu. If you do so you can chain movement points with shift + click and draw circles around mobs right at the start of the encounter. BUT: it is a lot of micromanagement. I did not finish a playthrough with this build because it was too much fuzz for me. But it surely is viable.

No, you can drink potions of Spirit Shield or your priest can cast Holy Meditation (lvl 1) or you can wear: - Celebrant's Gloves - The Lost Periapt of the Winding Path - Belt of Chimes I guess your priest is the easiest way. That's why I drop RES to 3 when I have a priest in the party. Also, later the priest has Crowns for the Faithful (which I use all the time) which gives all chars in range +25 RES(!) - and +6 INT which is great for any barbarian. Another way to avoid a lot of interrupts is to lower PER of enemies (Miasma of Dull Mindedness) or to not get surrounded by a ton of people as long as you don't have nay of the aforementioned buffs going. I like to flank with a barb in the earlier game. Later, once said items are there or my priest has Holy Meditation as Mastery I can afford to jump/run right into the fray.

Maybe once or twice. But I try to avoid it. Even in a solo game.

The main problem with Priests and hammers in PoE is that they don't match very well (one xception in the late game). The additional problem is that there is no multiclassing but only some minor cross class talents. One talent for each class. Some of t hem are good. some others are poor. The best cross class decision would be to choose a priest and then pick Veteran's Recovery which is the cross class talent that comes from the fighter. Veteran's Recovery is always a good pick for a front liner with good MIG and INT. Now the problem with the priests is that we have 5 different playable orientations in PoE, each has its own favorite set of weapons: Eothas (god of light/redemption/birth, benevolent and honest): Flail (1h), Morning Star (2h) Berath (god of death/life cycle, rational and stoic): Mace (1h), Great Sword (2h) Magran (god of fire/war/trials, aggressive and clever): Sword (1h), Arquebus (2h) Wael (god of illusion/secrets/perception, clever and deceptive): Rod (2h), Quarterstaff (2h) Skaen (god of defoiance/hatred/rebellion, cruel and deceptive ): Stiletto (1h), Club (1h) As you can see, there are no hammers involved. Things that come close (when we look at blunt force tauma ) are flails, morning star and mace. Club is maybe to whimpy for a stout dwarf. You can take other weapons, but you can't get the nice +10 accuracy bonus that the weapons above can get. Also note that hammers in this game are one handed. THere is one exception. I my opinion one can easily imagine a dwarf with a big, two handed Morning Star. Sadly, the really good morning stars in the game come very, very late. But in general you can easily enchant any morning star to be awesome with some ingredients and special steel. One of the best weapons in the game is Acuan Giamas, a very special Morning Star. It is even better than the TIdefall-setup I mentioned earlier. But Tidefall comes early while this monring star comes so lante that 95% of the game is over once you get it. It's sad. There are some nice flails in the game. The one with the best dps comes fairly early (Unforgiven). Fails are fast weapons with low base damage though. So, no hefty strikes with mights force or something like that. Maces are like Morning Stars: not the best unique ones for the main part of the game. However, there is Ravenwing that is quite powerful when you get it (but not too special in the later game, but still good). There are exceptions to the rule: soulboud and summoned weapons get all the bonuses, they are considered "universal" weapons. Those would be (only listing melee ones that might fit): - Firebrand: very strong Great Sword made out of fire. Has high base damage, does increased ciritcal hits and does burn damage. Can be summoned by the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer (3 per rest) and the Forgemaster's Gloves (3 per rest). Would fit Magran very well. I already used this on Durance and it's great with self buffs like Minor Avatar and so on. Can be achieved pretty early in the game - Abydon's Hammer: a soulbound two handed hammer that is very strong, but comes very late in the game. Would totally fit a dwarf. Also the whole Abydon theme fits "classic" dwarfs. - The Grey Sleeper: a sinister soulbound estoc that is ok-ish but also comes quite late - St. Ydwen's Redeemer: a souldbound great sword that fits Eothas or Berath very well and is awsome against "undead" aka vessels and ok aginat everybody else. Can be achieved mid-game. - Nightshroud: soulbound mace that is quite meh but would fit Skaen and also Berath, comes late mid-game. The strongest melee setup with a priest that I know of and which I also played is a priest of Berath with Tidefall (unique great sword). That is great melee single target damage combined with the great spells of a priest. Firebrand with any melee priest is also nice - the most effective one would be a priest of Skaen with Firebrand. A priest with a war hammer would be doable, but you would gimp your accuracy. The other alternative would be to use a fighter and then pick the priestish talent "Acolyte's Radiance" for a bit of party healing and vessel repellent. You can get some items that contain priest spells. This would be mostly melee though and way less casting. You can pick any weapon without drawbacks. My approach would be a priest of Eothas who uses morning stars until he gets Abydon's Hammer. Abydon's Hammer is also very good for casting damaging spells like Shining Beacon: it gives you +4 MIG which directly improvey the damage of spells. Hope that helps. Let me know what you think.

This was the case for me with the 2nd beta as well.

Crossbow: holy cow! Faster than two handed weapons in plate armor. So it's apparently easier to reload and fire a crossbow than it is to swing a sword. Erm... Also: dw pistols. :/

It also seems that Armored Grace is crap compared to PoE

I guess you meant Two Weapon Style and not Two Handed Style in the "Affects Recovery" section?

Ohooo! Suppression rules are in! Greys out the suppressed bonus? Sweet! Why don't you just do PoE3 on your own? I volunteer as part-time developer. I have the impression that DEX has much less impact than in PoE.

I also had that question. Would be great... Dual scepters with Carnage would totally be my style. It's Carnage in- and outside my character.

Yeah it's totally bonkers. However, when getting no bonus whatsoever nobody would ever use something like melee + ranged dual wielding like the piratesque sabre + pistol. Which would be a shame as well. Maybe one could come up with a seperate and interesting style for that.

Is the whole "economy of action" thing really that bad that spells like fireball take a really long time to cast? I'm assuming you've been playing the beta. Compared to PoE where Fireballs were pretty fast: in Deadfire you summon a 1000 year old turtle that has to be fed with some slow growing chillies and then burp up a fiery ball after digesting... Your assumption is correct.

In case of Firebrand the Doemenel's talent "Merciless Hand" is especially good. But it's not mandatory. For the Cipher: the strongest spells are Whisper of Treason (and basically all other powers that do mind control like charm/dominate) and then Mental Binding, Silent Scream, Borrowed Instincts, Disintegration, Amplified Wave... You don't need to take damaging powers because you want to deal damage with Firebrand. Exception is Silent Scream and Amplified Wave because they also disable. Disintegrate is an exception because it does tons over tons of damage over time which is great against dragons and all sorts of tough enemies.

WM and WM II as well as Endless Paths can be done whenever you like. I would not go to WM before lvl 8. I would also not go to Dyrford before lvl 8. I would not go to Craigholt Bluffs before lvl 10. Major spoilers ahead: I'm sure I forgot something, but that's what I remember while lying in my cosy bed. After the initial patches that removed some quest breaking bugs I never encountered problems with messing up quests so that they don't work anymore (I did over 20 playthroughs (didn't count)). Except of course if you kill people that are involved in solving that quest. So I would say you can't really break something when you go bananas. Only bummer: don't jump into the pit on Burial Isle before you are 100% sure you did all the stuff you wanted to do.

Sure: MIG: 15 CON: 15 DEX: 06 PER: 15 INT: 15 RES: 12 Grab Fulvano's Gloves asap and you're back at 8 DEX in the early game. 6 is pretty sluggish. Luckily Frenzy and Bloodlust help with the speed until you get Blood Thirst. I personally would dump RES to 3 - but I know you don't like that.

Unfortunately there is no lightning great sword. But you can enchant nearly all weapons with a shocking lash once you have collected or bought the right ingredients. Only exceptions are soulbound and summoned weapons. Such a shocking lash will add a lot of damage and also give your sword a crackling aura with lightning effects and whatnot. But Firebrand (the flaming great sword that you summon from said items) is special because its damage is higher than that of most other weapons. If I were you I would try out the druid. He needs no fancy gear beside the belt which you can buy in Defiance Bay (district Ondra's Gift, Cartugo - a merchant standing in front of the Vailan Trading Company). He plays fairly easy because he's a good mix of sturdyness and damage and he can cast awesome stuff, too. Try Returning/Relentless Storm - it's awesomest. Yes, barbarians' most beloved stat in PoE is Intellect. You can build a smart one and take Firebrand for him, too. Also lots of fun.