Boeroer

No idea. Why would I even use the Redeemer against non-vessels?

Ryona's Vambraces + Vulnerable Attack will give you 8 DR bypass which is OK then. You can even shove the Devil of Caroc into the Blood Pool and make it 9 DR bypass. If you have a wizard in your crew he can add Expose Vulnerabilities and you're at 14 which should really be enough. I would not replace Enduring Flames. It's a great talent when you have low INT. And even better in this case: it doesn't care about weapon damage.

As I said: boar has a regenerating effect which also works with healing bonuses and stacks with Veteran's Recovery and Shod-in-Faith boots. It's not superstrong but it helps a bit. Besides that, boar can reach the same DPS as the cat form because his tusks are wounding. Depends on enemies' DR though (high DR: boar's better, lower DR: cat's better). The boar also has the "advantage" that he has two passives instead that one stupid 1/rest ability.

Redeemer + Eyeless = problem solved. I've always reached the level cap when I get to them. Maybe I should go there earlier...

Last time I checked it didn't but got suppressed.

Flails are not an optimal choice for Flames of Devotions because they are light - and light weapons' base damage is the lowest. You get the most out of FoD with weapons with high base damage or very good crit modifiers - or both. Besides that: cool build. One question though: why not Starcaller instead of Gaun's Share? Gaun's Share's Draining enchantment does not profit from healing bonuses (survival and Belt of Bountiful Healing) and Starcaller has stun on crit and a spell striking - which should be cool once you add Sworn Enemy + FoD and crit with it.

For solo that might be better than putting everything into spiritshift.

Also ok. Don't put too much thinking into stats - a few points here and there are not that important. All summoned weapons use whatever Weapon Focus you take. For example Concelhaut's Staff will work with Weapon Focus Peasant but also with Weapon Focus Soldier (or any other). In this regard, they work like soulbound weapons. So you don't have to use a quarterstaff with Weapon Focus Peasant as backup for Concelhaut's Staff (for the times you don't want to summon it). Of course you can do that, no problem whatsoever. But you could also use a pike like Tall Grass or a great sword like Tidefall or whatever - with Weapon Focus Soldier. Two Hatchets is ok if you also plan to use Expose Vulnerabilites + Vulnerable Attack. Otherwise the damage against higher DR is too puny. I like two handers better because Two Handed Style is something I want to take when I'm using summoned weapons. Since their base damage is so high they work really well with any kind of damage bonus, so I alsways take Two Handed Style at some point with summoned weapons and also use a two handed weapon as backup (for the easy fights or when the summoned weapon expires).

Yes, I'm 100% sure. If it would be possible I'd say 200%. The game says "slow" and "average", but actually both need the same amount of frames for attack animation and also recovery. Heavy one handed melee weapons (mace, war hammer, sword, sabre, battle axe and so on) are as fast (or slow) as two handed melee weapons (great sword, estoc, quarterstaff, pike and so on). Hunting Bows are also labeled "fast" - but they are a lot slower than "fast" melee weapons (dagger, rapier, clubs and so on). So don't put too much trust into the game descriptions.

Ouh - maybe that got nerfed. Actually... I never use them.

Why didn't you summon blights until a rain blight appeared - it would be immune to shadows, shades and phantoms (I think...?).

All but Wildstrike Belt's additional lash. This one's actually an active ability which gets started once you shift. If your INT is very high it can be that your Wildstrike Belt's lash expires before your Spiritshift does (the lash duration doesn't seem to care about INT). A bit stupid that. Nevertheless, the belt adds a lot of damage because of it's weird lash mechanics. Peddroelm once explained how ot works but I forgot. But it's definetely worth it if you want to use Spiritshift a lot.

Shifter: you focus on your Spiritshift form and optimize it. You would take things like Wildstrike, Greater Wildstrike, Two Weapon Style, Weapon Focus Peasant, Savage Attack, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, maybe even Outlander's Frenzy and so on. Non-Shifter: you focus on your spellcasting and never use Spiritshift. That way you have room for a lot of different (e.g. defensive) talents. Stats would be done accordingly, yes.

This might all change by the way. This was the info we got from Josh during the fig campaign.

Sounds plausible though.

That's why I prefer weapons with two damage types. I'm lazy, too.

Good plan. Use reach weapons, they are great for this. All summoned melee weapons of the wizard are reach weapons as well. Durance's Staff is a great weapon in the early game! Stats are fine for me.

I would try Boreal Dwarf. The +ACC against the most common monster groups at the beginning helps a ton. Moon Godlike is also very nice. I never tried (or I can't remember) if Wildstrike also works with Battle Forged (burn retaliation) but I guess not. If you play a shifter I would recommend Sanguine Plate + Shod in Faith (and other spell holding gear) as well. Go in, catch a crit (triggering the spell holdings) and then shift. Frenzy + Consecrated Ground while mauling enemies is pretty nice.

High MIG can make Veteran's Recovery really good. I take it with almost every melee build. Since ciphers have awesome CC and thus don't get pummeled & interrupted a lot I nearly always dump RES. Concerning weapon damage: All damage modifiers (except lashes and raw DoT effects like wounding) work like so: weapon base damage * (1 + dmg_mod1 + dmg_mod2) = damage. For example an estoc (base damage: 14-20 = avg 17) with Soul Whip, Biting Whip and Savage Attack will deal: 17 * (1+ 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.2) = 17 + 17*0.2 + 17*0.2 + 17*0.2 = 17 + 3,4 + 3,4 + 3,4 = 27,2 (+5 DR bypass) a sabre (11-16, avg 13,5) would do: 13,5 + 2,7 + 2,7 + 2,7 +2,7 (sharp) = 24,3 Weapon base damage is the damage range of weapon without any enchantment, without MIG bonus and so on. So, a superb estoc has the same base damage as a normal one. So, the higher the base damage, the higher the bonus damage you will get from things like Savage Attack, Soul Whip and so on. You can see that the more dmg mods you can add (MIG, exceptional or superb and so on...), the more the weapon with the lower base damage falls behind. But in the case above it's not much of a difference. (Some summoned weapons have a lot higher base damage than normals weapons. For example Firebrand's base damage is much higher than that of a normal great sword. Therefore all damage mods work really well with it. A cipher with Soul Whip + Biting Whip + Savage Attack who crits with Firebrand - it also has +0.5 crit damage modifier - will deal a lot of damage and thus get a lot of focus. Actually Firebrand is one of my favorite cipher melee weapons until I can get durgan steel). The heavier one handed weapons (like sabres and so on) have the same attack speed and recovery as the two handed weapons. That means that a sabre with shield will attack as fast as an estoc. Now Bittercut has two damage types (corrode/slash) which in itself is a huge advantage over an estoc. But in addition to that it also profits from Spirit of Decay which will add another +2,7 damage and will also boost a corrosive lash from 25% to 30%. This is nice and makes Bittercuts one of the best one handed dps weapons, but an estoc with a lot of damage mods will still deal more damage per hit (if the target is not resistant to pierce damage). But Bittercut is about to close the gap. Now with a durganized shield you can even attack faster with Bittercut than with a durganized estoc. But the Blade of the Endless Paths has speed, too. So your favorite estoc BotEP will still deal more dps compared to Bittercut + shield. Not THAT much more, but still. But with Bittercut + Little Saviour you'll have a lot better defenses of course - and the advantage of two damage types (never underestimate this in PotD if you don't want to switch weapons).

I also don't think those transistions were unedited, but Josh and Adam mentioned several times (in the twitch streams they did during the campaign) that they now have a streaming system that handles area transitions. What this basically means (I guess) is that the parts of the new map (all the game objects that will be visible where you enter the map) will be loaded first and thus can be displayed immediately - while the rest gets loaded while you move/explore. Maybe they even preload stuff while you move to a navigation point, don't know. It's comparable to a streaming video (which you can start watching seconds after you get to the page) or a video file that you have to download completely in order to watch it. So transition times should be a lot shorter than in PoE1.

That portrait with the blonde woman in bronze plate looks really amazing.

Most of the time one: Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. It's smart to cast that one first because it speeds up the rest as well. Then Eldritch Aim if you don't use other ACC buffs like Zealous Focus or Blessing. And when you expect to get hit then the defensive stuff, too. Eldritch Aim should be last because it is very short-timed and is best used right before your first AoE-CC spell. And if you want to use a summoned weapon then that, too. The more you advance the more often you will just skip self buffing and often also a summoned weapon - because it's not necessary for most of the normal fights. You will use Arcane Assault and most of the time that will be enough. Self buffing needs some time - so what you can do to give your wizard (and also your priest) some time for buffing is to lure enemies to your party with one of your scouting frontliners. Encounter will start once the scout attacks or stealth ends - and while the scout is running back to the party you can start casting buffs. Once the enemies reach you you will be prepared.

Hopefully Adam will also explain what Josh meant when he was talking about multiclassing in the E3 video.

As long as you're not doing Trial of Iron there's nothing wrong with save & reload. I did this non-shifting druid build once (Batsh!t Crazy) and although I didn't do a full solo run with him I did some bounties solo (PotD) just to see how he fares. He was one of the easiest ones because some of the mid to high level druid spells are very powerful. Once Relentless Storm is up it's all a cakewalk. But a strong spiritshift build is a lot of fun, too. Speedy melee hits with over 100 damage are very satisfying.

Druids CC spells will also do damage, which is great. Some of the druid's hard CC spells are like they are made for a solo game (Relentless Storm, Overwhelming Wave, Calling the World's Maw and so on). They also have summons which can be very handy (blights have immunities and if you happen to summon the right one it may be that it will become the ultimate tank for that special fight - think of phantoms + shades gainst a rain blight). In level 1 they have Sunbeam which is very strong in my opinion. And Blizzard in lvl 2 is also nice as CC+damage. Of course there's no hard CC like prone or stun, but blind is very good as well. Druids also have pretty amazing healing spells - some of those also strengthen your defenses (e.g. Moonwell). You can become quite the sturdy guy with Veteran's Recovery + healing spells + healing bonuses (survival, items). If you choose the boar form you will also have an additional regeneration effect (while you are shiftet) that stacks with all other healing effects. So, even in that offensive form it will be hard to kill you quickly. And if you don't want to boost your Spiritshifting but concentrate on defenses instead you can achieve pretty nice defensive values with a shield and all the defensive talents while dealing damage with your spells. Immunities can be achieved with scrolls if you must (dragons' fear auras and so on).