Boeroer

That's what I thought: I all depends what you do with (high level) Empower. For example I had the idea that they could just add other, additional effects (to the missiles in this case) if your power level is just high enough. That way you could always balance those things out if you feel a mere +3 bonus is not sufficient. It may indeed be that during the beta phase it turns out that the linear rise of Empower feels too weak at higher levels - as you feared. But there are a lot of things you can do then (like you pointed out). Still good that somebody points out those little hooks. So thanks! I mean look at bashing. If I had attended the PoE1 beta I would have insisted that this stuff gets fixed. Or the monk's Lightning Strikes doing only +10% lash which was always eaten up by enemies' DR and thus was useless. If somebody would have guessed that right from the start they wouldn't have had to patch it.

I agree 100% to that. It's ok though (for me) if they limit fancier enchantments like burning lash and so on to weapons which are appropriate - like a flaming sword. Or if you could only put a corrosive lash on a weapon like Bittercut. This may lead to more interesting weapon "paths" and prevents that every end game gear has the same enchantments, ok. But the quality enchantments which raise ACC and dmg bonus should stay in the game. I think it's stupid if you have to throw away a weapon that you like very much (not only the enchantments, but also the looks!) just because you can't enchant it past "fine" or so. This will also limit the build options (which weapons with which class with which talents/abilites) severely. Every charbuild will run around with the same end game gear then. Boring and lame.

Yes, just watch the old video on Twitch.tv/obsidian. They keep the videos there for quite some time. Edit: I made a clip out of it https://clips.twitch.tv/obsidian/HealthyEchidnaKappaClaus

Yeah maybe. I also guess the reason why it stacks is that it's applies to a shield. Weapon and shield enchantments most often stack. Exceptions: disorienting, marking (except when dual wielding two marking weapons, those do stack), interfering, persecuting. And maybe a few others I forgot.

Some mechanics did change (Draining Whip does +% focus instead of a flat fous gain which makes blunderbusses less powerful on ciphers, more focus gain on hit, but higher focus costs for tier2-powers and beyond). But basically this build still works like described.

With the high base damage of arquebuses, the priest's MIG buffs are pretty neat. You can build a priest who easily reaches 40+ MIG in the late game. That's +90% base damage and more. Add Runner's Wounding Shot and that arquebus does hurt a lot. Envenomed Strike would also be good, but it doesn't quite fit Magran. You could even use an Isand Aumaua + Arms Bearer + Quick Switch (or the Coil of Resourcefulness) in order to deliver 4 nasty shots whenever needed between castings. Then in PoE2, follow up with some grenades and manical laughter. And all the fire spells of a priest fit well, too. Even the animations and FX of the pillar spells look like if a cruise missile crashed onto the enemies' heads.

They said during several Q&A streams that Deadfire will have some more comical aspects than PoE1 had.

So basically a melee wizard? Like archmage Citzal seems to be?

+15 actually. Heraldic shields "only" give you +5 to all defenses. But you can add priest's Circle of Defense that also stacks with most things and get to +30 to all defenses. Pretty neat.

Definitely rogue. Or a priest(ess) of Magran of course. I mean "Godhammer Bomb"...

yes eaten completely. There are some unique weapons that have inherent 10% crush lash (justice ? 2h sword and a mace or flail ). Which you will seldom see in the combat log since it very rarely makes it past the 0.25 crush DR. One of the main reason lightning strikes was trash before the buff from 10% vs 0.25 DR .. Ah - thanks. Then that's the reason why I never see the burn damage of torches get applied. You can enchant a torch with any non-burning lash and that will show in the log, but the inherent 10% burning lash won't. I always thought it's just bugged.

Yes. Sneak attack works for every direct melee and ranged weapon attack. Summoned Weapons like Kalakoth's Minor Blights or Spirit Lance's initial hit will also work with it. The blast effect, the crush AoE effect of the lance and so on don't work with it. They also don't profit from Vulnerable Attack and such things. Spells don't! But for whatever reason, spells work with Deathblows, making the rogue the best choice for damaging scrolls.

Not yet. But it has to be something that is readable for humans I guess. So it shouldn't matter much if it's XML, YAML or JSON or whatever format they choose. I know that Unity 5 supports JSON serialization. I don't know about any of the other formats. But Unity 5 is scripted with C# and there are tons of stuff in C# which can deal with those data formats.

In case it doesn't work out, write a PM to Aarik D I'd say. But only then!

Yes, so cool. Josh also said that you would be able to place explosives into other peoples pockets (maybe even poison like in Skyrim? He didn't say that, but I think this will work, too). Explosives can be enhanced with the new alchemy skill. So I assume poisons will have a similar skill. Because they said they have a LOT more skills in PoE2. Did they talk about 20 skills or so? Can't remember, but it was a quite high number (see the Twitch stream with Josh and Bobby Null for details). Edit: Ok, looked it up:

@bonus question: Yes, if you plan to attack with summoned weapons a lot then definitely. All +x% dmg mods like Two Handed Style, Apprentice Sneak and also Savage Attack work well with the summoned weapons because those normally have high base damage. That base damage is the... well base on which all the +x% dmg mods are calculated. You should also think about Runner's Wounding Shot if you have talent points to spare. It adds a raw lash DoT effect that is very strong (stronger than the description suggests). Lash damage is not calculated with weapons' base damage, but on the overall physical damage you do, including crit bonus, bonuses from Two Handed Style, Savage Attack and so on. And it ignores DR completely. It's more powerful than for example Deathblows. But it's only 1/encounter. It can still be used to take down tough foes. You could also think about Envenomed Strike if your MIG and INT are high. Before the latest patch the poinson effect worked with the Spirit Lance's crush AoE. It was a powerful combo, but sadly they nerfed that recently. You can try if the Girdle of the Driving Wave (Knockdown 1/encounter) still works with the Lance's AoE. It used to, causing prone in an AoE. I didn't test yet if it still does. In my opinion, if you don't plan to always use weapon & shield but swing the staff or the lance then I would not take the Weapon & Shield Style. Wizards have some awesome defensive buffs. For example: Hardened Arcane Veil + Wizard's Double will give you +115 (!) deflection. And Wizard's Double will only end if you catch a hit (not a graze). I alsways recommend the Veil talents for melee wizards because it can be like a win button: spam deadly spells or attack with the lance while youre are nearly untouchable. Note that certain buffs like Circle of Defense and the heraldic auras from certain shields stack with that. If you plan to use weapon & shield a lot then I would totally go for the style, too.

Ah oops. Sorry for the FoD against 50%. To be honest a got corrected about that already in the past, but it sticks in my head for whatever stupid reason. Edited my post accordingly. Yeah, it's all a bit weird and not intuitive. Wounding works nearly the same, but without the DR of course. A damage oriented paladin with very high MIG and lowish INT should go for wounding (with Tidefall for example), FoD + Intense Flames + burning lash + Scion of Flame + Enduring Flames (doesn't profit from Scion) and Runner's Wouding Shot (or in this case: Strike). Bonus question from me: if the lash doesn't overcome the 25% DR, is there MIN damage or is it eaten up completely? Never thought about that before...

One problem is that the longer you play the game (meaning, the more stuff you explore and the more items you collect) the slower it gets. Also the loading times and the time it takes to do quicksaves will increase. Especially the unlimited stash can slow down your performance a lot if it's packed with items - especially if you use the sorting/filtering functions. If you have a stash that's full of stuff: try to save and then sell all the items you don't need. See if this improves the performance. Besides that: I have a laptop with 16GB RAM, a i7 and a dedicated Nvidia graphics card on top of my onboard HD chip (hybrid shickeymickey stuff) and I have to play on the lowest settings. If willow whisps or certain blights enter the scene: total fps meltdown.

In order to know if one of us has a similar system: what's your operating system (since you're using Afterburner it's obviously Windows, but which one?) and your graphics driver?

Never had this and never heard of this before. So I can't help you with troubleshooting, sorry. Maybe you should send a PM to Aarik D if you don't get an answer withing a few days. Since the dev team is feverishly working on PoE2 it might be that they overlook this. But please make sure it's really a bug (just saying). Maybe the riddle wasn't solved properly? Maybe you miss something to solve it properly (item, quest steps, something like that)? No idea. But if it is indeed a bug, it's a severe one and you should be heared and it should be fixed.

True. But at least shouts have no recovery anymore.

@bonus questions: - Those are two independent rolls. - yes, if they are 25% lashes. A corrosive lash on a weapon will have to overcome 25% corrode DR. A FoD lash of 50% will also have to overcome 50% 25% of the burn DR. A wounding lash will bypass DR completely. A talent like Intense Flames will not increase the original FoD lash but add a second one. It will not increase the original lash from 50 to 75%. So a paladin who uses FoD with an arquebus which has a burning lash and who also has Intense Flames will attack with three lashes: 25% against 1/4 burn DR + 50% against 1/2 1/4 burn DR + 25% against 1/4 burn DR. In this case Scion of Flame would be very beneficial. Same for druids with Wildstrike, Greater Wildstrike and Wildstrike Belt. Although the last has some weird, powerful mechanics. Or monks with Turning Wheel + Lightning Strikes + burning lash on a weapon... and so on. You can see why blunderbusses are not good with lashes against high DR targets. Pen. Shot and all DR bypass things only apply to the initial hit, not the lashes. Things like Expose Vulnerabilities are good in this case.

Have a look here: https://clips.twitch.tv/obsidian/HappyCrowGrammarKing

Nope. Only raw damage DoTs bypass DR completely. The other DoT ticks have to overcome a fractional part of DR. Concerning INT, there are diffferent types of DoT effects: ones that do more damage with more INT and others that are not dependent on INT. The first group works in a way that INT adds more of the same ticks and therefore adds damage with ongoing duration. So here higher INT is better. In the second group the overall damage is fixed and gets spread over the duration. Obviously, in this case it's benefical to have low INT because the damage is applied more quickly. The first group are things like Envenomed Strike, Shining Beacon, The Dragon Thrashed and Deep Wounds for example. The second group would be wounding enchantment, Boar Tusks (druid), (Runners) Wounding Shot and also Enduring Flames (Goldpact Knights). For healing effects: There are a few healing effects which are instant and therefore don't rely on INT at all (Triumph of the Crusaders, Healing Chain and so on). All the others work better with high INT. INT will always add more healing ticks. For more in-depth knowledge on DR and DoTs let's ask Dr. MaxQuest: "Dr. MaxQuest, please take over!"

Actually when I killed the Adra Dragon for the first time and went to her treasure I felt so sorry for her being so poor compared to me that I tossed some thousand coins onto her corpse...