Boeroer

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.

I read through these posts rather quickly so maybe I missed it, but did nobody but me find the coral great sword? I mean with the console? You can use tab to complete commands and then cycle through all options. Therefore it's quite easy to cycle through a lot of items that are in the beta. For example type Giveitem great_sword and then press tab several times. Each time it suggests a different great sword, like great_sword_fine until it suggests the coral version. Check it out, it's good. Used it with an Assassin...

Dual scepters is great because of the modal. +20% damage and +2 PEN without slowdown or ACC malus is great. However: I played a Bleak Walker/Helwalker (so basically a Bleak Helwalker ) and the modal kills you after five shots or so if you have 10 wounds. Really easy to get wounds though.

I tried a Black JackET/Sharpshooter with 8 blunderbuss or 8 pistol shots or 4 arquebus shots + Quick Switch and it's powerful but a LOT of switching. What also annoys me a lot is that you have to activate the modal again every time you switch. Game looses the state of the modals when you switch back and forth - they are always off after switching. This means you have twice the clicks... not so nice.

Well it depends on how many slog zones we will see. In the beta there's only one, so yeah: bummer! But who knows which other slog zones there may be an which effects they may have. Imagine a black dragon who lives in a pool of tar... But generally I agree that it sounds a bit weak and situational at the moment. I don't think Black Jackets are that bad. First of all they are quite nice to multiclass with anything that wants to use guns (made a Black Jacket Sharpshooter for testing and it was quite powerful). Here you also don't need Constant Recovery. If there will be an AI scripting option that lets you switch automatically after a gunshot this would be very powerful without the tedious micromanagement. Secondly you can crank up your dps like a Devoted in the current PEN system if you play a Black Jacket and have no meta knowledge. Because if you carry around let's say a great sword, an estoc, dual clubs and dual sabres you can always choose the right weapon. Enemy with super high PEN? Attack with maces, quickly change to estoc, attack, switch back to maces once the PEN malus is gone and so on. Same if one of your party members causes an affliction and you can switch to the great sword modal to finish the enemy off very quickly. The difference between base damage (compare estoc to great sword) is quite big so you get very different results if you know how to adapt the weapon to your enemy (and his current state) properly. However, it's very cumbersome business. Also here: if there would be a way to script AI so that a char would automatically switch his weapon so that it matches AR it would make this guy better. I also think they should have come up with something else than taking away Constant Recovery.

Only listing builds with which I finished: Unbroken/Wizard: ++ (VERY tanky and nice synergy with multi-engagement + Ryngrim's Visage, but tedious self-buffing although superfast casts - with a scripting tool that would take care of that buffing sequence it would be +++) Assassin/Soul Blade: ++ (awesome offense but also very squishy) Berserker/Skald: +++ (lots of crits and lots of PEN) Berserker/Devoted: +++ (yay - 100% hit to crit and awesome PEN) Devoted/Skald: +++ (like Berserker/Skald) Priest of Wael/Sharpshooter: +++ (really good AoE damage with the summoned rod's modal + PEN of Sharpshooter) Bleak Walker/Helwalker: +++ (awesome damage with FoD+Lightning Strikes + MIG with dual Scepter + modal - but kills himself quickly if you don't watch out) Sharpshooter/Beckoner: ++ (lots of creatures, but otherwise a bit boring) Berserker/Streetfighter: +++ (good PEN paired with good dmg bonuses, +60% hit to crit) Livegiver/Priest of Wael: ++ (very powerful heals that can break the game, but tedious to play like all pure casters atm) Transmuter/Corpse Eater: ++ (fun and powerful combo, but Form of the Fearsome Brute takes too long to cast, lacks a bit PEN) Fury/Shattered Pillar: ++ (awesome ranged damage potential because of stacking lashes, but lacks PEN) Priest of Berath/Devoted: ++ (good if you finally could summon your great sword) I tried several pure caster combos, but I stopped with every one of them (except Livegiver/Priest) because they are just too bad and tedious to play atm.

That is correct

Well, with your defenses being all very high Wizard's Double will not fail in the normal fights I guess. But against dragons 150 will is not enough to prevent a hit.

Another monk with The Long Pain would be the best single target dps. But either you run around a bit to catch some attacks in order to get 2 wounds or you attack your own monk right at the start of encounter to get 2 wounds. Also the summoning takes some time. If you follow the tipps from the Witch Doctor build there's nothing more powerful in terms of single target dps than The Long Pain. But it's a bit of micromanagement. Other than that... you ruled out ranger, rogue, cipher and wizard. There's no class left that's great at ranged single target dps. Ranged fighter: meh. Ranged Barb: supermeh. Ranged Druid: supergood BUT not before you get Rot Skull. Before that it's meh. Priest: meh (priest of Wael has decent ACC with a rod - like Golden Gaze - but casting spells is still better with a priest than auto-attacking). Ranged Paladin: ok, but only with spike damage (gun + FoD). Also his great defenses are wasted in the backline. Another setup which is really good but requires a lot of micro is wizard with 4 blunderbusses (basically what Jojobobo said but as wizard) + Combusting Wounds. This really pulverizes single enemies. But even more micro than just switching. You'd have to cast one or two spells first and then start the fire-switch-fire cycle. Rogue with Persistence, maxed MIG and DEX and 1 INT is nice. The dps is really high because of wounding's damage getting applied very quickly. Dump INT and RES to 3 and then put on the Ultimate Hat of Alluring Perfection. This rogue could also use Prestidigitator's Missiles (doesn't care about INT) aswell als missile scrolls and the CLoak of Magic Missiles. Those all work with Deathblows (not Sneak Attack though).

Mechanics that concern this build haven't changed, so it still should be viable. I did not try to solo with this build. It's build like a glass cannon and that's not good for a solo run. When soloing with a rogue I would always use Shadowing Beyond.

What happens when a tier-1-affliction like hobbled grazes? No cc at all or lowered duration?

Sorry, I didn't know you are on a console.

However, Wizard's Double + Arcane Veil is supergood in the early game, especially if you also have Weapon & Shield Style, large shield and high RES.

Just learn to be economical. Per-Rest spell use is one of the big advantages of PoE casters - if you get behind it. Because in tough fights you can spam ALL of your spells without any restriction - and in easier fights you can use only few spells or even your per-encounter-abilities only (Arcane Assault and Blast/Inspiring Radiance and Interdiction/Spiritshift). Actually an encounter based spell system makes casters less powerful. Because now you can use your spells in every encounter and their uses regenerate after battle they have to be balanced in number of uses per encounter and also in power. This makes casters stronger in your everyday-trashmob encounter (where it doesn't matter) but makes them less useful in the really hard fights (where it would matter). You can observe this in the beta of PoE2:Deadfire where caster use the exact system you proposed (and badly suck).