Boeroer

Nope. But they can use Expose Vulnerabilities for -2 armor (if they even can hit with it and of course if they are not excluded from that spell). The only thing that is powerful about wizards atm are the spells that boost your defenses (all very fast cast, great effect because no grazes) and the auto-hit spells like Thrust oTV and Missiles. I use an Ogre Corpse Eater (Transmuter/Barbarian) at the moment who casts Arcane Veil + Wizard's Double (or something else like Mirrored Image) before transforming and it's quite good - because he doean't go down while dealing awesome AoE damage with his hig dmg "clubs" (not really clubs, I guess more like druid's natural weapons) which get boosted by stellar MIG. CON is also through the roof... And eating corpses seems to be so fitting for an ogre, don't you think?

Maybe it would help if you weren't discussing with that disdainful attitude and bringing forth that "git gud" nonsense every now and then.

Multiclassing doesn't give you more skills.

Fighters can get Quick Switch and an additional Weapon Slot (Black Jacket only). So making a Black Jacket Sharpshooter could be a powerful thing.

My first action would have been to give Armored Grace 40% since the armor penalties doubled as well.

The system needs rework. But what I like is that weapons with high PEN usually have lower base damage. Estoc for example has significantly lower base damage than a great sword. If you combine Hel-Hyraf with a great sword things get really interesting. But as I already said: It's ALL about PEN (or raw damage )at the moment and that's not good.

I would build a Black Jacket/cipher then and cycle guns all the time I guess.

In PoE I could build an Island Aumaua wizard with ArmsBearer + Marksman + Quick Switch and 4 blunderbusses, take Penetrating shot and have a lot of fun with it (using Combusting Wounds). One can say "but now you can multiclass with ranger!". Well that doesn't give me penetrating shots nor does it give me quick switching abilites or even two or one additional weapon slots. To do this build I would have to multiclass with Black Jacked (slot), Devoted (penetration - doesn't even work because only melee) and Ranger (Marksman) to achieve the same goal. This is just an example - I don't expect to replicate all of my wonky/weird/fun builds. It just shows that a lot of flexibility and fun has be taken away - at least for me. There are planty of more examples where this comes from. This feeling of loss could be softened if some quite generic talents returned as rather universal passive abilites (some are already in like Bull's Will and so on - at least partially because they are pickable in different classes). I would just expand this a bit more. And if it's only for RP or the fluff or the joy of building weird stuff that somehow works.

No, you are right. I apologize. I didn't have enough sleep last night now I am a bit grumpy. Of course the combat speed is faster. Didn't you read all the complaints about ho fast it is? In PoE1 combat was forced to normal speed if you had fast speed enabled. In Deadfire it stays at fast. Everything looks like a Benny Hill show then. But even if you trigger normal mode manually in combat it feels faster then in PoE1. So it's better for a gun user to have a longer base reload of 1000 frames and reduce it by 20% (resulting in 800 frames) than having 500 frames and reducing it by 20% (=400 frames) because your get more out of it? More what? You spare more frames but you are still a lot slower. Not really a win situation for the gun user who spared more frames with the talent. Because those "spared" frames don't buy you anything. I didn't do framecounts but to me it doesn't feel like the reloading is so much faster if you compare encounters (at normal game speed in both games).

Cail's Lair in Searing Falls. Go to his dwelling place. In the south there is the hidden stash with Tidefall. You have to be close and scout. Look - where the masked face sits here (south of "1"): For the Black Pages maybe you have to watch the spirit conversation between Ninagauth and scholar and look at the drawn map first in order to "unlock" the hidden stash?

According to what I can find on Google there are no hats in real life that can speed up you reloading nor can a nice song speed up your reloading. So much for the realism. Combat speed is faster in Deadfire so maybe that's why you think they reload so much faster. That's not my impression though. I'm just running around with a ranger/Chanter with that 20% reload hat, gunner + sure Ila and shooting my arquebus or even dual pistols with modal still takes enough time to make a war bow be better. Also, DEX no longer speeds up reloading as it used to in PoE1. By the way guns in PoE1 were terrible interruptors.

Fighter's Armored Grace doing -120% is a confirmed bug though. Should read 20% (and is meh then because recovery penalties of armor got doubled).

Although when I drink Mead it doesn't reduce the recovery by 1100%. I mean in Deadfire. In real life my self-perceived recovery is inmead -1100%.

If the bonus attack of Swift Flurry doesn't trigger Swift Flurry again this problem will be solved. It's a lot of fun though...

It definitely only drains 5 points of focus. I can use it all the time with my Assassin/Soulblade. Use Backstab+Assassinate in order to get a ton of focus at the start. Then every following attack can be Soul Annihilation. It's clearly broken.

Did you guys try out if this also works with monk/barbarian - or to be more precise: Swift Flurry + Carnage crits? I was thinking about Helwalker/Berserker or something.

The warriors in the first town always kill themselves when I attack some random dudes in order to test some stuff.

I don't agree.

ROFL for shaftshifting. Best typo since Buttercut. By the way my Assassin/Soulblade can do the annihilation attack all the time because the focus will not get drained. Anyone else experienced this?

It's a speed loss at the moment. At least Kaylon said that he tested it and noticed that it reloads more slowly. Which is obviously a bug.

10 mechanics for Tidefall. That I know for sure. I believe it's also 10 for the black pages. And you have to be in scouting mode (aka stealth mode)! Else your skill check is reduced. Things like resting bonuses or bonuses from items and scrolls work of course. So you can get away with 4 mechanics if you use all that if I'm not mistaken.

It does. This build is quite similar to the ones I usually use for the Devil of Caroc - instead of a spear I use Shatterstar/later Godansthunyr + Barricade. For non-solo runs I'd recommend binding rope. That way you will unlock Deathblows all the time with stun + stuck. Ripostes will be done with Deathblows as will Thrust of Tattered Veil and retaliation from Supper Plate, too (obviously the last two not simultaneously ). Generally speaking: I find Barricade to be the much better alternative over Supper Plate. Deep Wounds can be triggered in an AoE conveniently by the Colored Coat by the way. Also causes hobbled. With another AoE affliction like Blind from Amulet of Summer Solstice you can make Wicked Briars hit with Deathblows with every pulse. Quite good when you get pummeled to hard.

We're looking at it from a different angle. My problem with AP vs AR right now is that being just 1 point short of your enemy's AR means your frontliner is useless in combat. A Fighter with a Fine estoc using the estoc modal has 12 AP; one of the lagufaeth kinds has 13 AR (can't recall which one.) The Fighter is useless against the lagufaeth and there isn't much else it can do in the fight except dealing minimum damage. The dip in DPS for being below an enemy's AR needs to be gradual. The extra 30% damage for exceeding an enemy's AR by 5 points is harder to get unless you are building your entire (custom) party around stacking AP and/or are purposefully fighting under-leveled foes. However, I understand the 30% is currently multiplicative, which is way too much bonus damage. It should be additive. This way it would be just another damage bonus you could pursue, as opposed to THE damage bonus you want because it's so much better than any other. If 30% additive is too little for what it takes to get it, let's go with 50% additive—same as a critical hit. It would still be more balanced than 30% multiplicative. for one beta run we played an orlan street fighter rogue/devoted fighter dual wielding stilettos in a party with a chanter who has the armour reduction invocation and a wizard with expose vulnerabilities. on a crit, at level 6, we were regular seeing 19.5 ap. were getting frequent crits. even without the addition o' the skald for armour reduction, the provided beta wizard will give you ar-2 with expose vulnerabilities, and the fighter's mace knocks off 1 point of ar. is loads o' ways to build ap and reduce armour... but is bad game design. best choice is to make ar a primary concern with correct weapon choices. choose classes such as cipher and devoted fighter to exploit ap... or find a build to maximize crit chances as crits give a huge ap bonus. such requirements is limiting choice. equal bad, casters don't appear to have as many penetration options as does weapon-based characters, so casters feel a bit underwhelming at the moment. obvious best/right/wrong character generation and development choices is bad design. is not difficult to defeat high ar even with the provided party, but defeating armour shouldn't need be an all-consuming concern. HA! Good Fun! You nailed it. The only thing I'm doing right now is to stack individual PEN buffs (like Devoted/Cipher) with AoE PEN debuffs (Hel Hyraf turned into one of the most useful things in the game). So I abandoned all characters if they couldn't contribute to PEN and behold: fights are a lot easier. That's not good.

I have stealth 6 and usually it's no problem to do a Backstab. I will sneak up from behind or the sides, not the front. Don't know if that helps. I also don't use an ability but an auto attack. Just because that was the best option in PoE, no idea if this is needed in Deadfire.