Boeroer

He? How can you finish Heritage Hill without learning the Engwythian language from Icantha?

Nope.

If you feel that it's difficult at the beginning: that's OK. Act I is the hardest part. After that it gets easier and easier (with a few bumps).

It's totally viable in PoE - the summoned weapons will give you a great outcome of a single spell use. They are powerful and last very long. And nothing stops you from nuking everything to the ground with AoE spells, too - if you feel like it.

Fig is also a publishing platform, so I guess it will be published via Fig. Given that Feargus is part of Fig I would be very surprised if this is not the case. I also think they have to publish via Fig because how else are they supposed to handle the crowd-investments? https://www.fig.co/campaigns/deadfire/invest

Mechanics 10 + stealth mode is required to find Tidefall in the drake's nest. A lvl 8 party should have no problems with Cail the Silent.

I would also use Rumbalt and even push INT to the max. High INT is so awesome with Constant Recovery, Disciplined Barrage and crits with Knockdown. Also the prones from Rumbalt will last long. I would also use Bonus Knockdown and Clear Out. Clear Out is supergood with high INT but bad with mediocre or low INT. Keep it for the tough fights and it can really make a difference.

In my opinion the two handed variant with focus on Citzal's Spirit Lance with Savage Attack, Two Handed Style and also Apprentice's Sneak Attack is the most fun. If you take the Doemenel route and use afflictions like Curse of Blackened Sight (or whatever causes long lasting afflictions) before you attack and follow the summoning of the weapon and Alacrity with Martial Power then the damage is almost obscene. If you use Veteran's Recovery, Infuse with Vital Essence and Concelhaut's Siphon you're sturdy enough for melee even without prebuffing. The summoned weapons are pretty strong (also in terms of ACC bonuses) and you don't necessarily need to buff your accuracy yourself either. Priest who does some party buffing anyways is nice though. Wizards are always versatile. No matter his you build them. A dual wielding wizard is also fun because you can reach 0 recovery very quickly due to Alacrity. But even that can't compete with Citzal's AoE damage. With Hardened Veil + Wizard's Double + Alacrity + the lance + Martial Power you can do most bounties alone. Dual wielding is limited to single target damage and thus you will find yourself using spells all the time because attacking with sabres is just inferior. BUT as I said it can be fun. In my last play through I did a wizard specialized on Novice's Suffering and all touch based spells (Jolting Touch and so on). Novice's Suffering works well with Martial Power because its flat damage bonus gets boosted by MIG. It was supposed to be a gimmicky build, but it worked surprisingly well. Martial Power also boosts Veteran's Recovery like crazy. And the best thing: spellcasting is blocked, but spell binding items still work. This leads me to another option for dual wielding. Two times Flames of Fair Rhian, Spell Mastery Fireball, Amulet of Summer Solstice, Sun-Touched Mail, Animancer's Boots, Taluntain's Staff in second slot, Ring of Wizardry for bonus spells lvl 3 and the talent that gives you one additional spell of lvl 3. Scion of Flame... This leads to a wizard who can cast up to 16 Fireballs per rest, 9 of them with Martial Power, 6 Sunbeams and 3 Jolting Touches with Martial Power. This is also quite nice. And you'll have the dual sabres and can attack with high speed.

Besides that 0 recovery doesn't mean max attack speed. It's just a big step towards that goal. There's also the attack animation. It might be shorter than the normal recovery, but you only can influence it via DEX. I won't argue what is the best DEX value - I think this highly depends on your playstyle and what characters you use. I, for myself, don't usually build high DEX guys but prefer MIG, PER and INT for most of my characters.

A dual wielding barb with Frenzy + Bloodlust + Blood Thirst comes pretty close to 0 recovery quite early without special equipment. Not all the time of course, but you can get away with low DEX if you don't wear too heavy armor. But DEX also reduces the attack animation quite a bit. So the difference between a 3 DEX barb with 0 recovery and a 20 DEX barb with 0 recovery is visible. Of course, as I said, once you get HoF and do it right you can totally dump DEX and won't see much of a difference because most enemies are dead or heavily injured anyways. For normal casters I'd say DEX can be pretty crucial. My favorite dump stat is RES.

Barb with Dragon's Maw is a solid choice. Also works nice with HoF. Did playthrough and a build around that, it's in the build list (Golden Dragon). However, if you're looking for max HoF power, not much beats dual wielding the heavier one handed weapons. It doesn't matter that much which ones. Sabres have +20% damage, Maces are good because of the +3 extra DR, hammers are good because of the two damage types, spears have higher ACC and battle axes are annihilating. Swords again have two damage types. Concerning early to mid uniques which do something for HoF then sabres have Resolution + Bittercut, maces have Ravenwing, hammers have Shatterstar, spears have Vile Loner's and Cladhaliath. I would say that sabres (one of then Bittercut at least) and war hammers are the best choice for HoF. The best two handed weapon by far in my opinion is Acuan Giamas (a morning star). It has wounding, which is one of the strongest enchantments in the game, and steals spells from casters. This means you can cast the stolen spells for a given time as many times you want. Steal Calling the Word's Maw from an Ogre Druid and cast it with Blood Thirst... Or with Deathblows... or Disiplined Barrage... But this weapon comes so late that it makes no sense to build a character around. You can retrain once you get it though. It's OK to spec around morning stars though if you manage to get Mabec's Morning Star from Azurro.

You forget that the ACC bonus of fists doesn't work with any special attack (Torment's Reach, Force of Anguish and so on - maybe a bug, but it's like that). So I'd say a monk with fists totally needs high PER. Not for auto-attacks though. It's the biggest drawback of monk's fists besides that you can't enchant them with lashes and durgan steel. A paladin might start with lower deflection than a fighter, but paladins gain defenses with every level of Faith and Conviction. Add Lay on Hands and most paladins can be sturdy frontliners if they don't have to entertain all the enemies. Since most paladins have high MIG and INT, I would nearly always use Lay on Hands and also Veteran's Recovery if I need to use LoH on other party members more often.

DEX 3 and RES 3 on the Barb is absolutely OK once you hit lvl 11 and pick Heart of Fury. DEX does nothing for Heart of Fury and this will be your main damage skill. If you combine it with Blood Thirst and Bloodlust, you will have a 0-recovery-attack after HoF and +20% speed because of Bloodlust (stacks with Frenzy). I like to do HoF + Barbaric Blow + autoattacks. Dual sabres is a good pick for Heart of Fury. My favorite is Bittercut + Spirit of Decay and a corrosive lash. Also take Vulnerable Attack and everything that raises damage per hit (not necessarily DPS). And absolutely give him a Ring of Searing Flames if you don't have a wizard who can cast Combusting Wounds on the enemies who will get hit by Heart of Fury. You want max MIG + PER + INT, rest CON. Shod-in-Faith is good. Check out Cape of the Master Mystic on the barb. Positioning for Heart of Fury is supernice while invisible. At higher levels the barb's endurance is so high that you don't have to babysit him. I recommend Veteran's Recovery, too. It's great with max MIG and INT. Check out Binding Rope on the barb: enemies who struck him get stuck which will raise the chance of doing crits with Heart of Fury and Barbaric Blow. If you use annihilating sabres with Barbaric Blow and land some crits, the damage will be awesome (+150% crit damage). Blaidh Golan is nice. A good combo for paladin + fighter is: Paladin with Coordinated Attacks + marking weapon (Shame or Glory/Cladhaliath) + Outworn Buckler or Little Saviour. Fighter with Disciplined Barrage and Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tidefall. A dual wielding fighter is also nice because of Knockdown being a Full Attack and because Charge is better with dual weapons. But a two hander is also good. It doesn't matter that such a paladin doesn't do much auto-damage. He will raise the fighter's accuracy by +30 just by attacking+flanking the same target as the fighter. The fighter will then attack with +50 accuracy - he will even knock down dragons reliably if he needs to. If the fighter has low INT take Tidefall (and Runner's Wounding Shot, too), if he has high INT then Rumbalt. If you give the paladin Munacra Arret and Sworn Enemy, he can crit-charm a lot of enemies (including dragons) which makes some fights supereasy (Ploi build for details). Sanguine Plate might be better on the fighter. I really like arquebus + burning lash Flames of Devotion + Intense Flames + Scion of Flame. It lets you one- or two-shot most annoying casters before switching to weapon + shield. They make a good front line tandem together.

Did you check if it works in combat? Watch the combat log and hover over an interrupt message in order to see your interrupt value that was used for the dice roll. Sometimes it's just the GUI that doesn't show things right. If you are over 75% endurance your interrupt value should be lower than at 75% and below endurance. Also, you didn't get the description right: it says +1.8 move speed while over 75% endurance and +21 interrupt when under 75% endurance.

Cool! Second Wind is totally broken. When you use it while Battle-Forged is on you will hit yourself with burning retaliation. This will kill you at higher levels.

It shouldn't stop combat as long as there are still (uncharmed) enemies left. But maybe you are right. I can't think of another reason. Such wondrous healing doesn't occur when my party members get charmed. Unfair!

By the way: the mechanics skill does nothing for seal spells' accuracy.

Mysterious... did you have a chanter with Ancient Memory in the party or something? I guess not...

As I wrote above, the speed enchantment is nice if you already reduced your reloading time a fair bit with Swift Aim + Gunner + high DEX. It then makes a bigger difference because your recovery phase will be nearly be as long as your reloading phase. Sadly, things like Swift Aim + Ila + Gunner - which reduce reloading - don't work together als well as speed enchantments do.

When using arbalests with high accuracy (=high crit chance) the prone effect helps your pet of course. But when using such heavy hitters plus your pet on targets (for Stalker's Link bonus and so on) there will be the problem of overkilling. I don't care that much, just saying. Arbalests: Pros: prone on crit, high base damage Cons: reduced crit damage, long reload Unique enchantments: speed (Hold-Wall), stunning (Aedrin's Wrecker) Crossbows: Pros: normal crit damage, fastest reloading Cons: lower base damage Enchantments: Coordinating (Good Friend), Predatory (Wendgär) And there's Twin Sting (soulbound) which is probably your best choice for the late game. Coordinating is a decent enchantment when you plan to attack the same targets a lot. But I honestly don't get it why they placed only two unique crossbows and arbalests into the game - and Good Friend is lvl 8 of the Endless Paths, so rather late. Good thing that Hold-Wall comes so early.

Once I find some more time I will post a build. @MaxQuest: No, I didn't to be honest. That's interesting. Why is that? Most of the time I use the charm to get rid of the adds like Adragans and the dragon is still at full endurance at that time. Spares me some figurine uses. Then I try to place myself between some xaurips but in melee range of the dragon (basically getting surrounded by xaurips + dragon) for HoF. Then the only thing that's left is the dragon with injured or badly injured endurance. Then I will finish with kiting + scrolls. But not this time. Definitely doable with other races. I did a solo barb run before with a similar approach but with a boreal dwarf and finished it, but PotD only, no ToI. But of course I played more recklessly and therefore reloaded a lot.

Well, if you want game's best ranged single target DPS (you'll have it early), combined with highest possible pet damage, you need Persistance. There's nothing better than that.

Tehehe - hopefully with at least two stacking Gwyn's Bands of Union...

So basically what you want to do is to have highest DEX (+attack speed, +reload speed), Swift Aim (+recovery speed, +reload speed), Gunner (+reload speed), a chanter with Sure Handed Ila (+recovery speed, +reload speed) and the speed enchanted arbalest "Hold-Wall" in Gilded Vale (+recovery speed), later also durgan steel, no armor penalty, no Penetrating Shot. Actually you will shoot pretty fast (for an arbalest wielder) once you have those things. I managed to shoot fast enough with Aedrin's Wrecker so that I could chain the stun/prone affliction on crit (if the afflictions crit, too). Once you get stunning shots that's no advantage of the arbalest any more, but before that it's quite nice. That, and the high base damage of course. It fits Swift Aim pretty nice. Arbalests have normal ACC, so the malus of Swift Aim doesn't hurt as much as with guns, but they have reduced crit damage, so the reduced ACC of Swift Aim doesn't lower your overall damage not as much as with bows or crossbows. Some people say that speed enchantments on an arbalest makes no big difference since the reloading is the longest part and that doesn't get speed up. But with Swift Aim + Gunner and stuff you can totally feel the difference in recovery between speedy arbalest (Hold-Wall) and non-speedy (any other arbalest). You will shoot faster and you can feel it.

That sounds more like an enchantment but not like the general property of a piece of garnment. Would make sense when naked or having no sleeves though. Undershirt wizard for the win!