Boeroer

Barbaric Blow also worked with ranged weapons in PoE1.

Aloth: basically this: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83681-class-build-zeblastian-hurtstacker-autoattacking-double-trouble-dps-wizard/ Durance: basically this: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86277-class-build-fire-priest-ranged-sup-offdps/?hl=+fire%20+priest Sagani: grab Persistence and enchant it as high as you can and also slab on durgan steel. Use Weapon Focus Peasant, Marksman, Twinned Arrows, Stalker's Link and Stunning Shots and Give the fox Predator's Sense, Resilient, Vicious and Merciless Companion and Takedown + Brutal Takedown. Focus on casters. Wounding from Persistence will trigger Predator's Sense all the time, plus Persistence is the best ranged dps weapon against single targets. Cloak of the Frozen Hunt, Gauntlets of Swift Action or Accuracy. Grieving Mother: Forgemaster's Gloves and Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer (6 Firebrand uses per rest), Scion of Flame, Veteran's Recovery, Two Handed Style, Apprentice's Sneak, Maegfolc Skull or some other +3 MIG item. Jack of Wide Waters. Glanfathan Stalking Boots. Skill survial to 14 (is it poissible with GM? Forgot...) an pick bonus damage against flanked enemies. Use Phantom Foes to trigger flanking bonus all the time and use Mental Binding to paralyze an opponent and crit with Firebrand... Hiravias: Veteran's Recovery, Survival 8 or 14 (pick healing bonus), Two Weapon Style, WF Peasant, Wildstrike Shock, Greater Wildstrike Shock, Fast Runner, Heart of the Storm, Wildstrike Belt, Sanguine Plate, Shod-in-Faith boots, Black Sanctuary Shield. Cast Natiure's Balm and Nature's Whatever (later Moonwell) and Form of the Delemgan, Relentless Storm and then Avenging Storm run into melee. When receiving a crit -> spiritshift (if you don't want to wait for a crit just shift right away).

Wouldn't it be easier to pick a Nature Godlike? Sure, it "only" gives you +2 Power Level with an inspiration, but you don't have to juggle around with low endurance (on your and the enemies' side). The 5 second window of the Ascendant is totally stupid. I wish they would just remove it completely or at least extend it to 10, better 15 secs. Most spells of the cipher take longer than 5 seconds to cast (with 10 DEX) and you can't generate focus anymore if you start casting before reaching max focus. Whoever chose that value of 5 seconds didn't really think it through. Besides that: nice!

Frightened and Terrified do not add sneak attacks. Taking Apprentice's Sneak Attack can be benefical if you have means to trigger Sneak Attack. There are several options (less for a solo barb because you can't get some nice items from stronghold adventures like the Binding Rope for example). But there are some nice options left: The aforementioned Colored Coat triggers Wicked Briars which also hobbles periodically in an AoE - so Sneak Attack will also get applied with Carnage. Eldryn's Jacket can cause Blind when you get hit or crit. all weapons that stun or prone on crit can unlock sneak attack on that target (Hours of St. Rumbalt, Tall Grass, The Temperacl, Mabec's Morning Star, We Toki, Godansthunyr, Starcaller, Cladhaliath) Spell bindings or scrolls that cause an affliction (like Amulet of Summer Solstice - Sunbeam/blind or Sun-Touched Mail of Hyan Rath - Sunbeam/blind and so on) However, for a solo barb I would always prefer Gallant's Focus or Vulnerable Attack over Apprentice's Sneak Attack. Even an elemental talent for the lash on your weapon (like Scion of Flame for a burning lash) is better in my opinion. Appr. Sneak only adds 2 damage per swing on a heavy one hander and 2.5 to two handers. Vulnerable Attack will give you +5 damage per swing with a speed loss (which doesn't matter for retaliation, Blood Thirst and Heart of Fury) and is clearly better in this case because it comes with no preconditions. Even an elemental talent on a lash is better: imagine you roll 30 damage on average with a hit and 47 with a crit (and this is only with mediocre dmg bonuses and enchantments). Then something like Scion of Flame will give you +1.5 on hit/+2.4 on crit for the lash without preconditions. With Bittercut or Firebrand it's even better because it also gives you +20% additive weapon damage without preconditions. Of course if you can take Gallant's Focus AND Vulnerable Attack AND an elemental talent then it's good to take Apprentice's Sneak Attack as well if you have talent points left.

That solution sounds reasonable to me.

Yeah. I hope they adress that annoying bahavior as well. At the moment switching weapons is a really tedious process.

For dual wielding I'd recommend hammers. The two damage types are especially usful when soloing, you get a very nice hammer early (Shatterstar) and later you can pick up Godansthunyr. Both hammers also have higher interruopt power than normal (normal: 0.5 ses, Shatterstar: 1 sec, Godnasthunyr: 0.75 secs) which also helps when going solo. Get high PER and Interrupting Blows as well as Arthek's Cord. This will make your attack interrupt most of the time and helps if you can't always cause stuns. It's a good combo of CC and dps. By the time you get Godansthunyr (stun on crit) you also have high accuracy due to Carnage getting +1 accuracy per char level (because active ability). With Accurate Carnage you will have an ACC bonus of +11 compared to auto-attacks (-10 carnage malus +16 level bonus +5 Accurate Carnage) so crits ae common against most mobs. Also, it a solo char you are overleveled most of the time after the mid game and crits are more common. I always take high CON and Veteran's Recovery + high survival and an item with +25% healing bonus for barbs without shields. They profit from self healing a lot because they tend to have high MIG and INT and their health pool is very, very big so they don't run out of health quickly. You can even dump DEX (which normaly is a gimpage of dps) because the combo Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst (later paired with Heart of Fury) leads to awesome attack speed even low DEX. Early game is tedious though. You can easily retrain after lvl 11 of course and only dump DEX then. This is a great "alrounder" setup. However, to maximize the damage of Heart of Fury you will need Bittercut (+ Spirit of Decay) and Purgatory. The first has dual damage and is the one handed weapon with the highest damage on hit (best choice for HoF) and Purgatory heals you via carnage-draining. THe only downside is Purgatory's single damage type. Other good combos with Two Handers are Firebrand (+Scion of Flame, see Jojobobo's answer), Tidefall, HoS Rumbalt or Tall Grass with a barb. Here I would always use Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst and I wouldn't dump DEX. The most hilarious thing is St. Ydwen's Redeemer as backup weapon for vessels if paired with Blood Thirst. destroying a vessel will trigger Blood Thirst. Since the destroying works with carnage it's always big fun to see groups of vessels getting annihilated in seconds. Another great approach is to stack retaliation and pair it with Blood Thirst: take a Fire Godlike (yeah, ugly, but very powerful with a solo barb), use potions of Flame shield or get the Cannoneer Belt and pick Blooded + One Stands Alone + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst and later Barbaric Retaliation. Best item indeed is the Cannoneer Belt because it geives you Flame Shield on a received crit. This three kinds of retalation are very powerful at higher levels (don't bother with normal retaliation items) and they all trigger Blood Thirst on kill. Same as the Colored Coat which casts Wicked Briars once you drop below 51% endurance. Wicked Briars also triggers Blood Thirst. You will be able to attack with (normally slow) Firebrand having reduced (or nullified) recovery most of the time. It's very good.

Let's see. At the moment a Black Jacket is also useful in a solo game. You can do things like starting with a mace + modal, switch to a pike + modal and then use a great sword + modal. It is effective BUT it is the worst microchore I ever did. Maybe if the whole process could be automated it would be great (if you could script your auto-attack sequences like "my auto-attacking should alsways be slot1/switch on hit/slot2/switch on hit/slot3/switch on hit repeat").

Great suggestion Gromnir! I totally forgot about that feature. How could I? This would really be a very useful addition to the game. Let's beat the big drum for this! Maybe also put it into the backer beta feedback/discussion?

Who said it is?

There will be a console command that will shout down the console...

Actually every single target dps melee build wants to use boots of speed. Else you waste a lot of dps potential with running around too slowly. The faster the better.

You can make a sturdy frontline out of fighters, paladins, barbarians (need some levels to get beefy) and monks who don't wear shields. You can give them Veteran's Recovery to make them more sturdy. As peddroelm said: using chokepoints will not be your best tactic anymore because you want your whole frontline to engage the enemy and not only one or two tanks. If enemies concentrate on one single front liner it may be too much, so try to divide their attention. Also, CC-effects are your friends (Knockdown, Force of Anguish and so on).

I guess you don't really know how Minor Grimoire Imprint works.

That even worked in PoE1 - why shouldn't it in Deadfire?

I had nice success with a comco that dunehunter suggested: pile up engagement slots (I used an Unbroken Fighter with a shield and Guardian Stance) and use Ryngrim's Visage to scare them off. I also added Alacrity because it makes you immune to engagement. You can then run into the thickest pile of enemies, position yourself perfectly so that you engage them all and then cast the ugly visage to scare them off. Not all, but a lot of them will try to disengage and try to attack other party members then. But they got punished quite badly and then reengaged for some reason - Unbroken's diesengagement attacks really hurt, even with a puny spear. But that's the only case where I could make good use of the Guardian Stance.

I guess the name alone gives a big hint who will be attacking us with those weapons. If you can loot them: even better!

Why? Black Jackets start with an extra weapon slot and with faster switching time. You don't need to take Quick Switch and Arms Bearer. You can and get 4 slots and a super fast switching, but the basic idea (adjusting weapon choice to enemy) also works well without that. My problem with that class is that it's of no use if you have some meta knowledge - once you know which enemies will be in the next encounter the additional slot is pretty useless. Then you can only use the Black Jacket for gun switching multiclass builds and that's it.

Nope. I want to find a xaurip spear on a dead xaurip who attacked me with a spear when he was still alive.

It looks like a great sword (more like a big sabre) made from coral though. Maybe it's the Black Isle Bastard's special item...?

I don't think it's a practical idea. What if the AR of the enemy is all uniform? Let's say the enemy has straight 10s. Do you give a bonus for every AR the Black Jacket targets or none at all? I think it's also weird that you get a PEN bonus for adapting to AR - because you already get better penetration just for doing that in the first place. Maybe a simple damage bonus would be better (strinking with more confidence, whatever). Then it wouldn't interfere with the Devoted at all and it also would be okay to grant it against enemies with uniform AR values.

You don't have to pick it up if you can't be bothered to sell it. That solution may be better than denying all other players that loot.

What??? Now nobody here will want to give you serious answers. Concerning your question: AI can use active abilites and spells - also in PoE 1. If it does it in a smart way is debateable though. So far even in Deadfire I turn it off because it totally messes up what plans I have in mind.

That is correct. I never use AI because it never does what I want it to do.

I suggested a system where you'd have 1 point of concentration strength for each point of RES and 1 point of interrupt strength for each point of PER. So if you get Concentration at all then it's stronger with a lot of RES and you could take a few interrupts from a char who has an interrupting ability but has low PER - without fumbling. While a char with high PER can make sure that a single interrupt nearly always takes away concentration. Quite simple to code and not too hard to understand I guess.