Boeroer

I think that this would benefit casters a lot and do not much for the others, since the abilities that profit most from Empowerment are spells. So unless they do a more consistent implementation of Empower I don't think I want it. I also don't like the randomness of it too much.

You mean it's hard for you personally? Maybe got vaccinated too often... I meant it's pretty short compared to other summoned weapons like Firebrand (60 sec) so I guess it has to be better. I still think 50% is too good. Also because most fights are indeed not longer than 30 secs (on normal). So 50% for 30 sec compared to 0% for 60 sec seems a bit unbalanced.

Runner's Wounding Shot takes your initial damage roll with all damage modifiers (Sneak Attack, Two Handed Style, crits and whatnot) substracts DR and then applies 80% *1.MIG bonus as raw damage. In case of a Firebrand annihilating crit with Damaging III, Merciless Hand, 15 MIG, Two Handed Style, Scion of Flame and Savage Attack you'll get 25 avg base *(1+0.45+0.5+0.5+0.3+0.15+0.2+0.15+0.2+0.2) = 86 burn damage + 86 * 0.92 = 86 burn + 79 raw. This will one-shot most squishy targets like casters until late game even on PotD. Every attack roll of Sacred Immolation will use the stats you have at that moment. That means that you can cast it and buff afterwards or switch weapons to Abydon's Hammer and get +12% damage for the attack rolls. Also stuff like Distant Advantage (wood elf) works if your radius is big enough.

I don't think so. At least not in beta1, maybe that changed. What does generate focus are the AoE hits of Blast, Minor Blights and Citzal's Spirit Lance.

In addition to what Josh said I guess what also makes rogues powerful in multiclasses is the combination of additive damage bonuses (Sneak Attack, Assassinate, Backstab and so on) with lashes (monk/priest/paladin). First boost the initial damage roll additively while the second, multiplicatively calculated lash profits immensely from that. I did assassinations with over 300 damage with a Bleak Walker/Assassin in beta1 and keep doing over 200 in beta3 because of that, instantly killing the target. Also Backstabs with a spiritual great sword are mean. Still don't know why Firebrand should be called ludicrously powerful... I mean except if every great sword is ludicrously powerful of course. Citzal's Spirit Lance and Minor Blights wouldn't be so powerful if the on-hit and on-crit effects would be removed from the AoE rolls. I mean Arterial Strike in an AoE... still don't get how you can alter Carnage so that it doesn't do this anymore and then introduce the same game breaking problem to Citzal's Spirit Lance and Minor Blights and Blast. The lash on spiritual weapons is just a bit too high. On the other hand the duration is pretty short...

Since her husband might smack them in the face with some "Knuckles of the Wrathful" inspiration I guess. Also being rel. freshly married is a form of mild resistance that turns down the seduced affliction to the "wanne be friends?" affliction. You'd have to apply "fatally attracted" in order to achieve seduction.

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.