Boeroer

It does affect Carnage

They just get the best collection of summonend weapons in the game.

We had nearly the same thread some months ago. It includes an answer from Dimitri Berman (developer), too: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91396-better-looking-armors/page--1

There are war hounds in PoE already (Battle of Yenwood Field) who also have a nice howl. I guess it would be pretty easy to transform that into an animal companion.

Yes, since he will not get hit a lot I give him the stats of a ranged rogue: dumped CON and RES. High INT is nice with a backstab rogue because invisibility lasts longer which gives you more time to reach the targets you want to destroy. High move speed is also kind of important. Backstab helps in the early game, too. There are not many abilites that give you such a high damage bonus that early in the game. Just make sure your steakth keeps up. An item with +2 steakth helps a lot in the early to mid game if you also want to take some points of survival or so.

You can start with Concenhaut's Parasitic Staff (profits from the exact same talents as the lance) and later use Citzel's Spirit Lance. The staff is a VERY powerful weapon in the early game. Not only does it come exceptional, but it also has higher base damage than the usual quarterstaff.

It works like a normal pike in regard of talents (e.g. Two Weapon Style, Savage Attack), but only the initial hit is affected. That's still good because the lance has high base damage. Things like Apprentice's Sneak also work. The Blast is it's own AoE effect and its damage can only be boosted by MIG and crits (also Merciless Hand and +crit damage items). It works more like the Blast from implements or Torment's Reach than Carnage. Dangerous Implement or Penetrating Blast don't work. As you said, it works with every weapon focus (it's universal).

The micro isn't that bad. What you basically do at the start of every fight is to wait for the enemy to reach your frontline and then poke from the back row. If your stealth is high enough you don't unstealth before the enemy is in reach and you get two attacks with +150% base damage. So basically it adds no micro. It's like two free +150% boosts per encounter. Cape of the Master Mystic also doesn't add micro. The only thing that adds micro is Shadowing Beyond. This also works with a gun, but you usually don't get two shots with backstab while it's easy to get two stabs with a pike. The best melee weapon for Backstab is Firebrand from Forgemaster's Gloves. But this you can only use with invisibility because the summoning obviously drops your stealth. But if you plan to use Shadowing Beyond I would summon Firebrand before that. The combo of high base damage, annihilation and backstab is pretty impressive. That's - of course - a lot of micro.

Backstab is ok if you have high stealth and a lot of uses of invisibility. Besides Shadowing Beyond you can get it from Nightshroud (1/rest) and Cape of the Master Mystic (spell holding 1/encouter). As mentioned in that linked thread, a reach weapon is very convenient for backstabbing. you don't need to be that close and you still get two backstab attacks in a row after unstealthing/becoming visible. It's obvious that heavy hitting weapons (or to be precise: weapons with high base damage) are best for Backstab.

Wizards have Deleterious Alacrity of Motion which gives them a long lasting 50% recovery boost. You don't necessarily need plate on a melee wizard, but if you want then with Alacrity it's not that bad. It's definitely good in the early game to have plate as a melee char who has low endurance and health.

Wizard is one of the most powerful classes in the game. So of course you can do the Ultimate with it. Besides that, your party is totally fine for PotD. You'll have four casters in you party (cipher, wizard, priest and druid), that alone will make your game easy once you reach Definace Bay. No matter what Edér or Pallegina do. Act I will be a bit harder because the vancian casters won't have a lot of spells and will start with weaker attributes (like deflection and accuracy). But you will manage. Most of my playthroughs don't have pure tanks by the way.

If you give Durance a soulbound or summoned weapon, he can use his Magran talent (+10 ACC with swords and arquebus) on it. So Obsidian should have made his staff soulboud to him after the release of WMI (that's when they gave the staff additional burn damage) or give him a unique ability to summon his personal quarterstaff. I mean it's a piece of the godhammer - why not? It would also have been possible to put a spell binding which summons a weapon on the staff itself - like Forgemaster's Gloves have. This way Durance would have a staff that doesn't look too fancy but could summon a more powerful version of it if he wishes. Would totally fit the lore and dialogue lines of his quest. Besides this: why is it a staff anyway?

You discovered the reason why so few builds use fast weapons. If you (or the weapons themselves) have some means of overcoming high DR (Drawn in Spring or Persistence with Wounding for example) or if the higher rate of fire helps to trigger spell chances more often (Stormcaller) then it's ok. But besides that fast weapons with low base damage pretty much suck.

A quick addition to what I said above: The elemental "boosters" like Scion of Flame and such only work with weapons' base damage if the elemental damage type of the weapon comes FIRST. In that case the talent also works with the second damage type (if there is one), it doesn't matter which kind of damage gets applied in the end. You will have a +20% dmage boost for both damage types. So, for example: Bittercut gets a +20% damage boost on its base damage from Spirit of Decay - because it does corrode/slash (NOT slash/corrode). Durance's Staff does NOT get a +20% damage boost from Scion of Flame - because it does crush/burn (not burn/crush) Starcaller gets a +20% damage boost from Heart of the Storm - because it does shock/pierce Curoc's Brand does NOT get a +20% damage boost from Scion of Flame because it does pierce/burn It's silly, but it works like this.

Yes, it's the Robes of the Tidebringer (https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Robes_of_the_Tidebringer) and Citzal's Spirit Lance.

FoD is best with an arquebus, not two sabres for example. But with a rogue, dual wielding is generally better when using his Full Attack strike abilities. That's because his first swing with the offhand will already apply the affliction and the second swing with the main hand will get Sneak Attack bonus. Besides the bonus damage, you will also have a second chance to apply the affliction in case you missed the first swing. An extreme example where dual wielding with Full Attacks is a lot better is monk's Torment's Reach.

Yes. It stacks. Deflection is not bound to weapons. You'll have +10 deflection if you are wielding two hatchets.

There are some rare weapon enchantments which grant universal buffs or debuffs, but usually weapon enchantments only apply to the weapon itself. For example speed (+20% attack speed - meaning less recovery after a strike with that weapon).

With Merciless Hand (Doemenel), Scion of Flame, Quick Switch and Arms Bearer it's quite nice. Use Blunderbusses and "flank" enemy groups. Put on the Crossed Patch if you got it from a stronghold adventure (prevents self blinding). A priest with a liturgy against blind would be an alternative. Penetrating Shot doesn't work with it, but it's good for blunderbusses of course. Make sure to put a burning lash onto your weapons as well and get Silver Flash. Lead Spitter is also good, as is Scon Mica's Roar. Fire Scon Mica's, then Silver Flash, then Lead Spitter. Also use Driving Flight. A wizard with Expose Vulnerabilities and Ryona's Vambraces for you are also good. If you want you can even dump the Devil of Caroc into the blood pool and gain an additional DR bypass. As I said, lashes don't care about DR bypass, as well a Powder Burns - but they both like Expose Vulnerabilities. I don't know if Archer's Gloves/Cloak of the Frozen Hunt or items with +10% spell damage work with Powder Burns. AoE CC is essential to cause crits which work very well with Powder Burns.

You don't have Wodewys or We Toki yet? Both are nice with a barb. Especially Wodewys + We Toki. One lowers deflection, the other causes prone more easily then.

Hater talents like Sanctifier or Beast Slayer also don't. Dragon Thrashed is still one of the best abilities in the game.

I did a solo barb run on PoTD without retraining. Not ToI though... During an ultimate attempt I retrained once but it would also have been possible without. I died at lvl 16 during a non-boss fight, so...

Dammit stupid phone! Double post...

Looking at all of my numerous playthroughs (where I didn't use the random loot table) - I got them twice.

Like they do with Novice's Suffering. The Long Pain with Deathblows might be quite awesome - if the boost from Deathblows is higher than the power_level scaling of Long Pain. Since the Long Pain works with all sorts of "melee only" abilities (even Knockdown from the Girdle of the Driving Wave) maybe it also works with Carnage? One can dream...