Boeroer

Hm, why don't you try this out with the soulbound dagger in the beta? Just don't choose dagger as proficiency and see if the soulbound dagger gets +3 PEN nonetheless. Doesn't mean that it stays that way, but maybe the result is a hint...?

I just checked and pike still has reach. The modal is also nice: reducing defenses by 10 on hit. I actually did not check if that works with carnage.

Crossbow now interrupts. It's neat to take away spells from casters.

Good thing about carnage is the raw damage - when it comes to PEN.

Hm, didn't really have problems with that even with 6 stealth. It may also depend on the creature. Some are a lot more perceptive than kith. By the way: Backstab with a reach weapon should be easier (I guess), but I never tested a pike. Does it still have any advantage concerning range/reach?

Sure, this also would have been my approach - who needs classes anyway? Even Josh Sawyer thinks this way as he once stated and as his Pen&Paper draft for PoE shows (it's classless). But unfortunately you can't convince D&D/IE games enthusiasts with good arguments...

Death's Usher triggers at 25% of enemy's health (aka "Near Death" in Deadfire). Same with Bloody SLaughter by the way. I got upgraded from 10% in PoE1 to 25% now. Actually it was quite useful on my last Skald/Berserker. Not because of the increased damage when critting low health enemies, but because the crits give me phrases, even if they don't matter that much in terms of damage.

Sure. At least the two I tested builds with (Berath/Devoted and Wael/Sharpshooter).

What? The priest weapon has +60% corrode damage as lash - for example berath's great sword and also Wael's rod. The rod's blast also gets the lash by the way. On top of that it's fine at lvl 6. That's better than flames of devotions (which is limited by zeal). I paired this with a devoted fighter and suddenly this priest does great melee damage with the simlest auto-attacks (because he can graze and penetrate which a single class priest with a great sword can't do). If the first thing you do when encounter starts is to summon the weapon it's not that bad - but still: 6 seconds of summoning time sucks. You can't buff in that time for example. I think doing the same with a monk with Ligthning Strikes or a paladin with FoD (here Berath + Bleak Walker for awesome +50% burn + 85% corrode sadly doesn't work) would also result in good melee performances. The summoned weapon works like a normal weapon in regard of proficiencies and so on.

Yes, I used Envenomed Strike with my melee Priest of Berath (using Tidefall/Abydon's Hammer + Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike) - and because you can reach 50+ MIG and 30+ INT with this (Aggrandizing Radiance + Minor Avatar and stuff) the Envenomed Strikes become NASTY things. Especially if you combine them with Cleansing Flame... Since the unarmed barb wants to have very high MIG and also INT it's a great talent for him, too.

The worst possible build atm may be a rangere who uses melee weapons.

Yes, that works. I did this. Good combo. In my opinion an Assassin/Soul Blade is even better if you use weapons with high PEN: Deal 100+ damage with a Backstab+Assassinate from stealth to get a ton of focus and most of the time one-shot the enemy, follow up with Soul Annihilation on the second target. That usually deals around 200 damage, also one-shotting. Two enemies dead in the first 3 secs of combat is quite nice. My Devoted/Assassin was good as well, but he couldn't keep up with that. Sneak + Backstab + Assassinate + Soul Whip + Biting Whip is so much damage... I don't use any cipher powers by the way - I only use the focus for Soul Annihilation (ignoring that it's bugged and only uses 5 focus instead of all focus) - it's that good (and raw damage - so screw you PEN mechanics). I two-shotted the titan with Blinding Strike + Soul Annihilation after assasinating the sand thingy that stands close to it. Only thing is I'm really really frail.

What about skills / passives from second class? I guess you mean abilites? Skills are things like mechanics and so on.

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.