Boeroer

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.

The higher the INT the bigger the AoE of Carnage and other attacks like Barbaric Blow and Heart of Fury. The more enemies you hit the more kills the higher the speed the more kills and so on... Firebrand's duration is pretty long so lower INT wouldn't be a big problem with that.

You can get you key more quickly than a wizard can cast a (good looking) fireball these days.

Firebrand is crap in Deadfire. But two handed weapons like great swords in general are not. There will most likely be a good great sword that you can use. You could also do a Barbarian/Priest of Berath in Deadfire who can summon a really good spiritual great sword (scales with level). Or maybe the designers gather their wits and make Firebrand better. At the moment it's just like a normal great sword that does burn/pierce instead of slash/pierce.

For cipher: Do a two handed build with Firebrand. Use Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer and Forgemaster's Gloves for 6 uses of Firebrand per rest. Pile up as many damage bonuses as you can get (Biting Whip, Two Handed Style, Savage Attack, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, high MIG, high DEX). Get the Merciless Hand (choose Doemenel Faction). This cipher will deal tremendous damage per hit. Focus flow will be enormous. Also: fiery giant sword seems to fit your description. Ranger: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83435-class-build-riptide-the-pit-fright-dps-offtank-melee-ranger-double-team-supreme/ Use it as inspiration. You don't have to follow the build in detail. Just the basic "tricks" matter: using Tidefall and Shod-in-Faith boots to boost your pet's damage and healing. Druid: Choose Moon Godlike and boar form. Take Veteran's Recovery as first talent. Skill survival up to 14 (or 12 if you use an item with +2 to survival) and choose healing bonus when camping. Use Nature's Balm and other healing spells once combat starts. Pick every talent that is useful for the shifted melee damage: Wildstrike Shock, Greater Wildstrike Shock, Two Weapon Style, Weapon Focus Peasant, Heart of the Storm, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, Savage Attack. Use healing and storm spells before you shift. Also Form of the Delemgan is golden. Later use Avenging Storm as well. The only item you really need is the Wildstrike Belt. Use high MIG, CON and INT. This druid is sturdy and does a lot of melee damage when shifted. When in human form you can use dual hatchets for more deflection. All three builds are quite fun to play and also reasonably powerful.

Did you use St. Ydwen's Redeemer to redeem it rightly?

The detailed list is quite nice. Most of the things mentioned there are good changes. I mostly appreciate the raise of Predator's Sense back to 50%.

A monk can be build with ranged weapons (better as muticlass character) because things like Stunning Blows and Swift Strikes (and Lightning Strikes and Swift Flurry) work with any weapon (also with rod + blast modal = AoE stunning or cascading Flurry crits). Shattered Pillar does work with Long Pain. Rangers can now use Wounding Shot and other abilites in melee. I would still consider them to be a ranged class still. It was said rel. often that dual scepters or the use of rod+blast with certain abilites are some of the best options/builds in Deadfire.

Eh - I forgot that the belt also gives you +2 INT. So skip Band if Union and and perhaps wear a Ring of Protection or so instead.

If you want to know how a fun casting setup is done then look at the Chanter - especially Skald: lots of fast casts with good durations and nice effects. Of course you need phrases first. But the Chanter starts with some into combat and a Cipher has the same pattern basically - but his spells take a lot lot longer to cast. Why? Whaahaaaayyy? Ach, dem sacred interrupts, I forgot...

But dem sacred interrupts!

It was skill points - sorry, my fault. :ooops:

If anybody wants to try out a fun barbarian: Race: Fire Godlike Culture: Whatever Background: Colonist Stats: MIG: 16 CON: 16 DEX: 08 PER: 15 INT: 15 RES: 08 Skills: Survival 14 Talents: Weapon Focus Adventurer Accurate Carnage Two Handed Style Scion of Flame Barbaric Blow Savage Attack Vulnerable Attack Bloody Slaughter (in anticipation of Deadfire where it's better than in PoE) Abilities: Frenzy Bloodlust One Stands Alone Blood Thirst Vengeful Defeat (if not, then take Blooded here and Dragon Leap later) Heart of Fury Barbaric Retaliation Blooded if MC: Merciless Hand, Dungeon Delver, Effigy's Resentment: Durance, Blooded Hunter, Gift from the Machine, Song of the Heavens Items: Headgear: - Neck: Marked Amulet or Swaddling Sheet or Hiro's Mantle Armor: Argwes Adra (if Vengeful Defeat) or Coat of Ill Payment Hands: Forgemaster's Gloves Rings: Ring of Prot., Iron Circle Belt: Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer Boots: Echoing Misery Weapons: Firebrand, Backup Weapon: Drake's Bell Firebrand with Blood Thirst is ridiculously good. And with the belt + gloves you will have 6 uses of Firebrand per rest, which is plenty. For vessels bind St. Ydwen's Redeemer. To even add more procs of Blood Thirst (= 0 recovery after kill) we have Battle Forged + Flame Shield from the belt. If an enemy dies from retaliation you also get 0 recovery for your next swing. It is very good if you have some char in your party who can disable mobs so that the barb can crit a lot. Firebrand is annihilating (+50% crit damage) and Barbaric Blow adds another 50% crit damage. WIth Bloody Slaughter you would add another +50% - although this is seldomly useful it can speed up kill against the later bounties where the enemies have a lot of endurance or against ogres and the like. It's quite the show once the killing starts... bug: do not use Second Wind once Battle FOrged is active! You will hit yourself with Battle Forged which might get you killed.

Yes, I find two rangers boring - also the increased party size due to two animal companions is too much bustle for me. Interesting that you find the bow wizard odd. I found it quite fun to go through with the bow until I finally could summon Cadebald's Blackbow. Also, with Alacrity, thin armor (and later Citzal's Martial Power) you can achieve impressive dps numbers with Persistence. It's more of a roleplaying thing though because 90% of the game you will do less dps compared to implement with Blast. But since wizards cast more and more with each level they gain and attack less and less with their weapons I never found this to be a problem. And the Blackbow is pretty cool. Sadly there is no Blackbow in the Deafire Beta. I would love to know how a wizard/ranger would work with Blackbow + Twinned Arrows + Driving Flight. The Blackbow has an inherent Driving-Flight effect (shots jump to an additional target) and how cool would it be to get two arrows that jump once because of Blackbow and then again because of Driving Flight?

I think Single Handed Style is still a ramnant of the first beta where we had no grazes but only misses - and the designers might have thought that 20% miss to graze is a good thing.

You mean ranger with some wizard flavor like Prestidigitator's Missiles or a wizard with bows?

It's like with the reload speed/reload penalty confusion. Sometimes I really think the tooltip guys are stoned half of the day.