Boeroer

Stats for a bow wizard are similar to that of a blast wizard. Although you *can* get away with lowish INT if you don't use AoE based spells too much but concentrate on spells like missiles, bolts and stuff that have no duration and no AoE. I would never dump it though. Best race would be Wood Elf of course.

@Stargazer: Both Combos are viable in Deadfire. For example Bleak Walker/Sharpshooter is pretty strong (especially with dual scepter - not very ranger-like though ). Paladin/Wizard is also good because of the awesome self-buffing of the wizard and the naturally high defenses of the paladin. Also Citzal's Spirit Lance + Flames of Devotion = total wreckage. Paladin/Ranger is quite easy in PoE: use an arquebus or arbalest and pick Runner's Wounding Shot and so on. Or the other way round: use a ranger and pick Gallant's Focus. You can also go melee and use Tidefall with Wounding Shots - or even a weapon & shield setup like a marking + coordinating Cladhaliath + Badgradr's Barricade. Vile Loner's Lance + Badgradr's Barricade is also nice. The Barricade's Thrust of Tattered Veils works with Penetrating Shot and also Driving Flight. Together with Stunning Shots it procs all the time. There's also a marking pistol named St. Garam's Spark which can emulate Coordinated Attacks for your pet and works well with Wounding Shot and later Powder Burns. There also is an arquebus with that feature, but it comes quite late. Paladin/Wizard is a bit trickier. But a Darcozzi Paladini with Inspiring Liberation and that marking wand Cgadob's Hazel would be a good ranged ACC support. I wouldn't use FoD though - except if you switch to a quarterstaff like Durance's Staff for it. You could use Prestidigitator's Missiles. They are good with Penetrating Shot and Sworn Enemy. The other way round would maybe be a melee wizard with self buffs and Gallant's Focus. Weapon & Shield wizards are viable - summoned weapons, too. Summons like tentacles and stuff also profit from Gallant's Focus. A Wizard/Ranger with blunderbusses is pretty fun if you use Expose Vulnerabilities + Combusting Wounds with blunderbuss shots. Or aim for late Cadebald's Blackbow and use other bows in the meantime with Alacrity + Martial Power. The Blackbow is pretty strong. You'll be an Arcane Archer sort of. Use Penetrating Shots for Minor Missiles, Bounding Missiles and stuff. Other way round: Golden Gaze with Swift Aim and Driving Flight is good, too.

That's also weird. See, the radius version is simply better. If there were items or consumables that lower INT (like in PoE) you could get to 1 INT. With 11% per point of INT you would nearly reach 0 at 1 INT and wouldn't need to cap anything. 11% is a bit weak though.

Strength and Resolve are still multiplicative damage bonus atm, aren't they (as MIG was in the first version of the beta)? So they have no diminishing returns like in PoE1.

I also wouldn't do it - but you asked for a ranged ranger in the frontline.

Yes, it slows down recovery. But you would have Swift Aim which is +20% speed and high DEX and the Spike Flinger not only speed up reloading but also recovery if I'm not mistaken, so it would no be too bad. Quick Switching Island Aumaua with four blunderbusses would suffer nearly no recovery and also no realoding animation for the first shots of course. But that switching is a lot of micro.

As I said: armor does not affect reload times. So you could use plate and shoot with an arbalest/arquebus/blunderbuss all the time. The new Spike Flinger should reload really fast with Swift Aim + Gunner and decent DEX and you can get it early. Wait... does it bind to rangers? Silver Flash with Powder Burns later on seems to be nice. You want to be in the front row for those friendly-fire-cones anyways. But you would have to get there first of all.

You must have confused Austin with San Antonio: https://jenkinspest.com The guy is a bat-relocating marvel! His jingle is "Show me the way to Armadillo!" which he wrote by himself with the help of his grandpa, Tony Frisbee.

As I said above: they will have to give you 15% increase per point of INT at least. Good to know that this will get changed.

His inner Lady of Pain had too much Ibuprofen with lots of Alchemy I guess.

That blueish guy on the left used to be a Hearth Orlan Rogue from the Ixamitl Plains. But I'm sure he would have no problems with being "retrained" as a wizard.

Yes. Seems there no central stun affliction that gets used but instead the effect either gets composed from several components every time you need a stun - or the affliction got copy & pasted.

And Potions of Deftness. All casters need to be addicted to Potions of Deftness. With a ton of Alchemy... Edit: argh dat ninja!

Heavy armor has no effect on reloading time - so you could do a gun ranger in plate armor who shoots at point blank or something like that. There is no penalty for using ranged weapons in melee range. You won't have any engagement slots though, but that's all.

Did you take Novice's Suffering? If yes, then your damage and accuracy will scale automatically. With Two Weapon Style also your attack speed in thick armor will be good. This is not the optimal approach to FoD damage. It's not bad, but the best results would be with Firebrand or an arquebus - or dual Bittercut with a Bleak Walker's or so. As long as you are too squishy I would keep the thick armor on until you feel it gets better.

I would like to see a classless approach. You can still play a Priest of Eothas - but then it's more of a background thing (like "Clergy" or "Hunter" etc. at the moment). You can also predefine some "professions" or archetypes as developer and put together fitting abilities that a Priests of Eothas usually has. New players can then use those archetypes and play them like they would have played a class, but more experienced players can tinker around with the stats/abilities of said archetypes or even build a completely free character based on their own ideas. Classless doesn't mean that you can't play a certain "class" of character or in other words profession. A downside of classless systems is that sometimes less restrictions tend to lead to less creativity how to bend/circumvent those restrictions - and it's hard to balance. But when I look back on my history of Pen&Paper Role-playing then it were always the classless systems that were more fun (at least in terms of character development).

3-INT barb finally working, yay!

Um, no idea. I depends what family, business and life in general will throw at me. At the moment I'm pretty bored by the beta (the bad shape of casting and the boredom of leveling a single class, all the game-breaking bugs that make certain things totally OP - like Cleaving Stance, Swift Flurry, Blast and so on) and so I find myself playing PoE1 AGAIN. Because I like it so much more than the beta of Deadfire. So maybe I will not be as motivated to come up with stuff as I was in PoE1. I will decide once I see the finished game. Then I will most likely encounter some serious bugs that will prevent that I do quest x or y - or just lets me get stuck in some cellar or so - then I will wait for a patch and then... maybe then the game captivates me and I'm motivated enough to write down build guides. The problem with early build ideas is that the game will get patched and some good combos will get nerfed or removed - andthen the build is rubbish and all the work is for nothing. That's no so cool. Remember the Backlash Beldam (retaliating cipher)? Now it's not working anymore. So I try not to rush things I guess. Still, IF I get excited aboutthe game I think I will write down something after the first finished playthrough - even if it will be obsolete after the first patch. At the moment it feels like Deadfire will not be "my game" though - but hopefully the finished game will prove me wrong.

Yes, Stormcaller's dps is indeed inferior, but the reduced shock DR is very good if you have other party members with shocking attacks or shocking lashes (druid with Wildstrike Shock for example, monk with shocking lashes on weapons and/or Lightning Strikes and so on). Like you said: party composition matters as well. The CC effect of Returning Storm is only affecting single targets and loses appeal once you have stunning shots, but it's a nice addition nonetheless - especially with Driving Flight and Twinned Arrows. Also the damage of Relentless Storm is not bad if you also took Heart of the Storm (which I would do because it also raises Stormcaller's damage by 20% - its shock AND pierce damage by the way) and because of the reduced shock DR. Persistence on the other hand can be enchanted with an additional lash and with durgan steel. Combined with wounding it is clearly the better single target damage dealer (or dual target if one counts Driving Flight). Combined with the higher damage output of the pet (always +50%) you get a lot higher single target damage overall. With Stormcaller you don't want to drop INT that much (because of the duration of Relentless Storm's stun and also because you need Wounding Shot to be active longer in order to trigger Predator's Sense - if you use it at all) - with Persistence you are encouraged to drop INT (and then Outlander's Frenzy is not very good). So it totally depends what you want from your bow ranger. Both are excellent weapons. If you want to take out single targets asap and like to boost your pet's damage I would use Persistence. If you want good single target damage and a bit of "random" CC and shock damage & support and want to neglect the pet (a bit) in favor of tha ranger then I would take Stormcaller. Another advantage of Stormcaller: you don't need any resources to make it a great weapon. So you can spare durgan steel and dragon/kraken eyes for somebody else. I like both a lot. By the way: Binding Roots is a great ability if you have high INT. So if you have high INT on a ranger anyways I would recommend Binding Roots. It stucks like forever and has high ACC bonuses. Thorny Roots is also not bad. It only has to overcome 1/4th of enemies' DR. That makes it attractive as well. The very high range of Binding Roots, combined with the damage, makes taking out enemy casters really easy. Another thing: Prestidigitator's Missiles work with Driving Flight and Penetrating Shots and also have a very high range. It's quite good if you take it early. Together with Thorny Roots you can take out enemies from far, far away. It even works with Stalker's Link and also Vicious Aim (if one likes that - but only the ACC part, not the damage). So - sometimes I use it and a cloak of minor missiles on a ranger.

Hi, I didn't try out which score you need in order to maintain the wounding status on a enemy exactly without overlap. Also later you want to stunlock enemies with stunning shots. So I usually went with 8 or so to be on the safe side. Or I used Sagani... You'd have to find the sweet spot between recovery, DEX, armor penalty and INT. For example: if you have a Chanter with Sure Handed Ila you could have lower INT because you attack faster. Since wounding and stunning have a base duration of 5 secs if I remember correctly I guess that even 3 INT is enough if your DEX is maxed and your armor is thin (padded max). If not you would either need to use an item with +INT or retrain for a bit more INT.

I have an GOG account as well. And I also like the whole approach. My first game from GOG was The Witcher. But as I said: they didn't have Linux support for quite some time and that drove me to Steam.

But there was talking about Spiritshift being OP - and then it was said Shapeshifter is ****ty. What am I supposed to think?

I guess we'll see a lot of patches coming after release.

? Why ist Shapeshifter ****ty? It's one of the best classes in the beta in my opinion.