Boeroer

Now I really want to play a Transmuter/Helwalker... aka Friar Truck. I so hope that you can still use class abilities after casting Citzal's Martial Power like you can with Arcane Assault or Grimoire Slam in PoE1. And I really hope that your weapons don't transform into a generic, useless, two handed club. Would be nice if one could just use Transcendent Suffering (fists) instead...

The dialogue line with 15 INT leads to a Heodan who is not injured. This makes things easier for him. Also, send Calisca towards him while he's running towards her. She wants to intercept the followers with a one-handed Knockdown.

Yes, but as I said: no need to take only 10 INT because of Enduring Flames. The duration got fixed and is no longer dependent on INT. So you can have a huge SI AoE AND deal good damage with Enduring Flames. And don't forget high MIG for pumping Enduring Flames' as well as SI's damage.

If you want maximum damage with Dragon Thrashed you need maxed MIG and INT. maxed PER would be the next preferable stat because cirts add +50% duration which is a 50% multiplicative damage boost compared to the usual +50% base damage crits normally do. DEX isn't used at all for chanting and it's also not necessary for anything else this special chanter does, so it's the dump stat here. You don't really need/don't want to use any invocations when focusing on that phrase because invocations disrupt the chanting. But of course you can get away with more DEX and less of the other stats if you want.

Stalker is basically my Riptide & The Pit Fright build in PoE.

You mean a Fighter/Wizard or Goldpact/Wizard I presume?

You are able to pick different abilites on every level. You don't get them automatically. So two fighter/wizards can look and play very differently. That's how I guess.

Erm, I meant SI for Sacred Immolation. But I always type SA (maybe for SAcred Immmolation?). Can't say why, there's a kink in my brain or something.

My strategy: always dump RES.

Ghost Heart Lodge only has a pet that he can summon. So if you don't summon it you'll have no pet. Novice's Suffering didn't work with Druid's natural weapons in PoE1 - on purpose. I don't think this will be different in Deadfire. However, an Ascetic (Shapeshifter/Shattered Pillar) can combine Natural DR + Iron Wheel and Wildstrike + Turning Wheel. With a Shattered Pillar it should be easy to reach your wound cap very quickly with the help of Wildstrike. If the boar still has wounding damage this will be great. Also, Helwalker/Assassin seems to be a nice synergy with wound gaining.

Autumn's Decay will actually trigger one instance of CW because it has an instant damage part and an additional DoT part - if I remember correctly. The initial hit will trigger one instance of CW. But yes, Touch of Rot will do nothing with CW. Chillfog, Wicked Briars, Venom Bloom, Sacred Immolation, Symbol of Whomever and so on will trigger CW with every "pulse". The powerful thing about most DoT spells/abilites is that their damage can be boosted twofoldly: with MIG (boosting damage additively) and INT (boosting damage multiplicatively). Also, in case of a crit you will not add a mere +50% to base damage, but instead you add +50% duration which is more powerful (because it's multiplicative).

I think this one was a good decision. Better to take a step back and rethink than trying to fix a system that is way too complex to take out all pitfalls in a reasonable amount of time and that's too complicated so that even the own designers don't get it right. I also can't see why you would only get half of the power. 7 out of 9 is not 50% - and also people tend to forget that certain synergies can be OP no matter the power level. Like if you could combine Soul Whip with Carnage and so on. The rogue is a good example in PoE 1 how high level abilites do nothing for your power.

I'm on a 2012 laptop and it takes roughly 30 secs for me to load savegames. Transitions maybe half the time.

Lovely. That will work. Just keep in mind: you will be superslow when it comes to anything other than singing phrases. So yes, you can totally forget about weapon damage and concentrate on positioning yourself perfectly well or blocking paths of enemies who want to reach your backline and so on. Some people even take Hold the line and pick up a guarding weapon (+2 engagement slots). That way you can stop up to 3 enemies who want to run past you - briefly, but better than nothing. Getting engaged stops movement and that can buy time for you. Other pick weapons with spell bindings so that they can cast a spell here and there. I did this with the following (old) build: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83491-class-build-the-drakes-ambassador-searing-mesmerizing-chanter-tank/ What you can also do to make your game a bit more "active" is to get a weapon with marking (sword Shame or Glory, spear Cladhaliath) and flank enemies for one of your melee dps guys. He will then get the equivalent of +20 ACC (-10 deflection from flanking, +10 ACC from marking). That would be single ally support mostly but it may be more insteresting than just standing around. But standing around is not a problem - because you combine support (AoE passive healing), tankyness (great regeneration, high DR and decent deflection/reflex) with very high passive AoE damage from lvl 9 on. Lvl 1 - 8 are a bit less exciting of course. Soft Winds doesn't do as much damage. But it's nice to speed up the phrase counter a bit and to cast some invocations here and there (you can totally stop doing this when you have Dragon Thrashed - casting invocations will disrupt your singing and thus stop your damage-dealing).

We talked about those weird DoTs a couple of months ago. I just looked it up again and according to Kaylon: So you will not have to worry about SA with gimped INT. High INT is also not too bad with Runner's Wounding Shot and/or Tidefall. Because it's all raw damage the DR is no issue and thus the longer timespan where the DoT is applied over more and smaller ticks is not a problem. The overall raw damage stays the same, it just takes a bit longer to apply it completely (few seconds). You don't lose overall damage - you just lose a bit of dps (damage per second). So enemies die a few seconds later - that's the worst thing that will happen. Longer wounding duration can also have benefits - for example if you try to time Cleasing Flame + wounding on the same target or when you have a pet with Predator's Sense in the party.

Yes, good spread for that. But dual Bittercut is a bit of a waste for a chanter to be honest. No synergy with Spirit of Decay whatsoever. But if this is your whish I can't stop you. If you're going to use the Mith Fyr phrase then take a look at "The Flames of Faîr Rhîan". It's a sabre that gives you 3 Fireballs per Rest. Because Mith Fyr also puts lashes on spells - it's powerful because of that.

And because you know that you don't test them out...?

Ah, ok. For a second I thought that you thought that you have to kill them in order to get their gear. Can't say how many times I smacked Durance to death because he was offending me with his gargling "Come to pray at the statue!"-nonsense.

In Path of the Damned difficulty, encounters have many more enemies. Enemies also get +15 Accuracy and +15 to all Defenses. They can use abilities/spells on PotD which they don't use on lower difficulty levels. Afaik DR is not changed.

I think this decision will lead to less patches. I really want to try a Shapeshifter/Shattered Pillar with Wildstrike Burn and Turning Wheel. >+100% burning lash on those claws/tusks/horns seems to be... awesomest? Also Lightning Strikes on top I guess...

Only with the initial hit I think, but not with the following ticks, no. But this is a quite old nerf.

Your MIG score is awful for a phrase-based chanter with dumped DEX. Raise your MIG to the max if you can, lower RES and CON to 10, it's fine. DEX can be completely dumped. Get a plate armor, hatchet + shield, weapon & shield style, wait till lvl 9, then only put one single phrase of "The Dragon Thrashed" into your songbook and let your jaw drop... just forget your weapons. You also want to take Ancient Memory, Beloved Spirits and Veteran's Recovery. Then you want to get a Belt of Bountiful Healing and survial min 8 in order to get the +40% healing bonus that will work for all three of those regeneration effects. Then look out for an item with Overseeing (Celebrant's Gloves, some rings) and search for the amulet Voice of the Mountaintop (in Dyrford Village). You will cover a huge AoE with continous burn and slash damage while you are very sturdy. By the way: the "Come, Soft Winds" phrase also stacks with itself (like Dragon Thrashed). You can use it until lvl 9 to deal some AoE damage. You only need to place one phrase of it into your songbook. Because phrases have linger time they will overlap and the damage will stack. With lots of MIG and INT even Soft Winds will do ok damage. Remember it's raw damage and it's AoE, it's not too bad. In the meanwhile tank around, heal your chaps passively via Ancient Memory adn Beloved Spirits (same AoE as your chant) and occasionally drop a phantom, cast "White Worms" or "Killers Froze Stiff" from time to time. White Worms can be insanely powerful if you pile up bodies at a chokepoint. Turn off gib-effects in the options menu so that bodies don't explode. It's silly anyway. Corpses can be used over and over again as long as you don't leave the map or reload. This way Lord Raedric is always a one-shot for me. Just don't wear headphones when using White Worms on a huge pile of corpses...

Yes, why not take them into the party, take their gear and then park them in the stronghold?

It's ok if you can deal more than 10 damage per hit via Rooting Pain or retaliation (like Battle Forged) and stand in a crowd. But all in all I think it's quite lame. And a lot of hassle, too.

Runner's Wounding Shot does work with melee weapons.