Boeroer

Ha, I actually never looked at it again even after what I wrote. Sorry.

If you don't need him to be a top dmg dealer but just reliable - and at the same time be a top dmg supporter then I would recommend using the ability "Coordinated Attacks" in combination with a "Marking" weapon. This would first be the pollaxe "Half Mast" and later the estoc "Blade of the Endless Paths" (which is one of the best two-handed weapons in the game anyways). Both work with the same weapon focus which is convenient. Coordinated Attacks gives an ally who attacks the same target as you +10 accuracy (ACC), and so does a Marking weapon - so in combination +20 accuracy. And those are stackable with every other accuracy buff (which is the exception). +20 accuracy is a huge advantage and helps to take down very hard to hit enemies which otherwise are a lot tougher to beat. If you also flank an enemy with an ally it will also get the "flanked" debuff automatically which lowers the deflection by 10. That's like having another +10 accuracy. So generally speaking this is a superb way to crack tough nuts. I personally would recommend Darcozzi Paladini instead of Kind Wayfarer then - but Wayfarer is also fine. Darcozzi get a pretty good talent "Inspiring Liberation" that gives an ally +10 Accuracy when you cast Liberating Exhortation on them. That also stacks with every other ACC buff (including Coordinated Attacks+Marking). Note that low CON not only influences your endurance pool (which can get refilled by healing and after combat) but also health (which usually only gets refilled by resting) So in general lower CON might lead to more rests (not a big deal though, camping supplies are cheap and you can rest almost anywhere). Another cool way to play a two-handed Paladin is to get the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer asap and combine it with the Forgemaster Gloves. Then you can summon the flaming Great Sword "Firebrand" 6 times per rest. It is a mighty weapon with huge dmg per hit and great in combination with Flames of Devotion (ability), Intense Flames (talent) and Scion of Flame (talent). For backup you could use any two handed weapon you like and use its weapon focus - Firebrand works with any weapon focus. A huge flaming great sword is pretty nice for a Paladin imo.

Thanks. Imo Hiravias is a better companion than Grieving Mother - but you can give her a hunting bow for example, fire some arrows and then use some cipher powers. Mind Control (Whisper of Treason, Puppet Master, Ring Leader) and also Amplified Wave are very good.

Yes, because apparently the hobbled/sicken proc counts as melee weapon attacks so the DoT of Hylea's Talons will get applied, too (not the lashes though I presume, since the sicken/hobble is not an attack roll with a damage component). This is not only great for Druids but for Stormspeakers, too (Avenging Storm as invocation at PL 8).

The Dichotomous Soul is very good for tanking (two additional quite sturdy bodies) - and I would never build an SC Monk without Resonant Touch, even if it's supposed to be a pure tank. It's just too good.

Xoti's Soul Reaper does indeed work with any kill, but the damage and speed bonuses only work for the sickle attacks.

What is PF again? Don't say Pforbidden Fist.

? Of course they have. Just not many as most other classes. But I can level up a Wizard by only taking passives and using grimoires for my spell selection.

Eld Nary's Curse and Her Tears Fell Like Rain are good, but (Sasha's aside) imo they are not as good as Great Maelstrom or Meteor Storm even when taking friendly fire into account. And I mean even without boosting their PL into the sky with elemental/storm PL boosts.

So let me get this straight: Hemorrhaging is not only applied to the weapon attack of Effort but to all attack rolls while carrying that weapon (compareable to Engoliero dE's Blade Feast for example)? Damn! I always preferred Maiming over Hemorrhaging - because hobbled/sicken on crit seemed strictly inferior to additional bleeding dmg. Who could've known that Hemorrhaging does proc off of all attack rolls? Self-proccing Avenging Storm crit chains indeed! Swift Flurry: I don't think so because usually all those weapon procs do count as weapon attacks but not melee weapon attacks. But on the other hand Hylea's Talons do work which implies Hemorrhaging does count as melee weapon attack. Think about Enervating Blows, Interrupting Blows, Gatecrashers and yes... maybe even Swift Flurry... : Truly wild! Also wild that nobody noticed before. I guess everybody was just thinking "meh hobbled on crit lol"...

Forbidden Fist doesn't gain wounds from getting damaged, so taking damage is not necessary. The Forbidden Fist ability will give you a wound when its curse expires.

Prebuffing (making buff spells available out of combat) also would clash severely with the spell-per-encouter system where you regain your spell uses out of combat. You can get a glimpse of that with Priest's sigil spells that persist after casting out of combat and you'll get back the spell use --> free spell.

I guess the tanks used had not enough engagement slots. And if you present your whole party including glasscannons right at the start of combat (not leaving squishies stealthed) swarming is pretty common, especially with Rogues and Barbs on the other side.

Engagement works a lot better in Deadfire than PoE - where it's indeed a rel. weak mechanic if your tank can't dish out enough punishment when enemies break engagement. But you compare the mechanics of Deadfire with those of an infinity engine game - which has no engagement at all and thus suffers from the same problem even more gravely. I understand the problems you are having. I think they stem from the much higher complexity of the system. It takes a long time and also some research to truly understand the workings of the combat mechanics of Deadfire. And not only mechanics but also the enemies' AI response. This can be seen as drawback (beginners, more casual players, one-time players) - it can also be seen as bonus (system nerds, power gamers, tinkerers). More metaknowledge also means less frustration and I guess most players start with a lot of D&D metaknowledge so those systems seem to work better for them - when in reality they just know and predict them better. I don't have any history with D&D prior to (or after) the Infinity Engine games - and when I compare the mechanics of those with Pillars oE and especially Deadfire the difference in quality (especially when it comes to the question whether they are well suited for a video game) it's like night and day. The combat and class mechanics of the Infinity Engine games are just bad from a systemic point of view. That doesn't mean those games can't be fun. But it's more like they are either fun despite the combat mechanics - or they are fun because one already knows the underlying systems so well that it's fun to play around with them and tinker. Deadfire's aren't perfect either - but the design goals "no frustrating trap choices" was def. met for example. Of course it would be best if the system was complex yet consistent enough and more approachable so that players who don't exactly know what's happening under the hood are not frustrated. The somewhat murky or even wrong documentation of Pillars/Deadfire doesn't help either. And of course it's a very young and not extremely well "playtested" system. It would need more refinements. Check out mods like "Community Patch" and "Balance Polishing Mod" for a bit more refined experience. Sometimes maybe certain encounters cannot be designed in an equally satisfying fashion for all difficulty settings. That wouldn't be something the combat mechanics are guilty of but something the encounter/area design did a bit wrong. The DLC weren't directed by the base game's designer but younger and smaller teams. And while I think they are (mostly) very refreshing in terms of narrative and also new class mechanics it may well be that some combat balancing that needs a lot of experience wasn't done perfectly in encounter design etc. Just an idea though...

Fight mechanics of the Pillars franchise are objectively better than those of the infinity games. So I guess it's more a matter of personal preference than actual quality - which is cool with me. I also don't like certain things that are critically acclaimed or preferred by a majority. One has to applaud the OP for voicing their frustration in a decent manner.

The one which was mentioned was a Bloodmage/Stalker. I think Beast's Claw is often overlooked. It's so good when going solo with decent meta knowledge imo. Stalker puts additional +5 deflection on top of Beast's Claw (and Arcane Veil, Magnificent Escape and Llengrath's Safeguard) and +1 AR on top of Iron Skin or Spirit Shield. Doesn't sound like much, but when stacking up to some serious numbers it makes a noticable difference. I have to say though that I rarely go for maximum effectiveness unless I'm absolutely forced to. Changeling's Dance is truly a sh!t solo encounter. And besides all that the best solo class is obv. Mage Slayer.

blood tennis with the phantom (well actually the phantom is counterproductive when you want to use Arterial Strike - because it always follows up and doesn't let the enemy come). Confused Berserker/Priest with "Halt" to the win!

That's interesting. I would have thought that it doesn't get reflected. Will they reflect chillfog, too? Because "normal" reflection like on wizards and common sigils (of death etc.) does not work on chillfog. And both spells are pulsing damage spells. But maybe Symbol of Eothas is implemented differently - or the reflection of the sigils are.

Try Rogue/Wizard with Arterial Strike and Llengrath's Warding Staff.

Afaik lashes count towards the dmg threshold a Shattered Pillar has to deal for a wound. And afaik Swift Flurry/HBD procs do not. So Lightning Strikes should be the better pick. And if you value wound generation over focus generation then your Shattered Pillar/Cipher should pick (CP's) Biting Whip?

But that's still disregarding the fact that SCs gain access to impactful, higher tier abilities a lot earlier. Since the game is about progress from lvl 1 to 20 and not just a snapshot of a finished lvl-20 char this is important imo. Again the Psion/Troub example: A SC Psion gets Puppet Master a lot earlier than a Psion/Troubadour. And Puppet Master can be a game changer if I can access it early. Same as Devotions otF with an SC Priest compared to MC Priest/whatever. There are of course character combos that are absolutely great as multiclasses and SC chars that aren't great at all. But all those different aspects makes a generalized ranking kind of impossible imo. It's more easy to do a well-informed "my favorite classes" ranking imo that doesn't try to be super objective in the first place but still can show some interesting and important viewpoints and arguments.

Players tend to value character synergy over party synergy. Which is a mistake imo when it comes to "power". For example it feels cool to use a club + modal in the offhand to lower Will by 25 points so that I can hit better with my Draining Touch in the right hand. Or I use a Morning Star + modal to lower Fortitude in order to land my Brute Force attacks better. But this all could be done faster and more reliably with two different party members. Like a Black Jacket who switches from club + flail setup to morning star setup and lowers three defenses - while two other chars focus on the Draining Touch and Brute Force game. Spares a ton of time. Character-contained synergies might be cooler, but they are not necessarily more effective than party synergies. Most of times the party synergy has way better action economy for example, it can have better impact bc. of deeper specialisation and higher power level, too. I also support @theleestatement that often a multiclass can't give your party a better advantage than two SC chars. Sure, if you want to fill your party with a certain set of roles or combos you might lose a spot. But that assumes that a SC char cannot fulfill different roles at all - which is not correct in most cases. Meaning that you don't necessarily lose a spot when picking two SC over a MC if the SCs aren't one-trick ponies. What they lack in versatility they can often balance out with better action economy (e.g. using Druid & Priest to buff up the party in half the time a Druid/Priest can), higher PL and earlier access to higher tiers as well as access to the most powerful abilities while also being able to either specialize more (e.g. letting the Druid do the healing and maximize MIG while the Priest only does buffing and can drop MIG entirely). I played a run with Troubadour/Psion and one with SC Psion and a SC Troubadour in the party - aside from making it more difficult to fill the roles (but manageable) it didn't make my run more difficult. I'd say it was even more effective. There might be one downside though: I think multiclass characters are more interesting and fun to play. SC Psion was dope (especially with Shared Nightmare + Ringleader, jeez) but essentially a little boring. Psion/Troub was very fun. Like an SC Fighter with a Morning Star and Clear the Path + an SC Barb with Driving Roar are a devastating combo late game, but a Brute is just more fun to play even still. At least to me. Of course the situation is vastly different with a solo character. And of course there are a lot of synergies that only work with multiclasses - especially when only effects are involved that target your char alone (see Wizard self buffs for example) I just wanted to point out that using two SC instead of two multiclasses doesn't mean that you really lose a spot in the party. You may lose some efficiency in one role (e.g. dealing dmg) but you might balance that out with better action economy and more efficient role fulfillment (e.g. buffing).

I'm playing a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade right now and it's pretty awesome because you fill up two resource pools with one instance of damage. I think a CP Shattered Pillar is competetive with other Monk subclasses because it's back at 10 wounds. Imo it doesn't need more. On top of non-ability-damage you can still gain wounds from Dance of Death, Mortification of the Soul, Parting Sorrow, Imagined Pain and Xoti's Lantern (on kill). To me the best thing is that Offensive Parry (WotEP) generates both wounds for Shattered Pillars as well as Focus. And of course the cone attack helps gathering wounds more quickly if you can hit several foes at once. Also Rooting Pain is quite cool to use as an offensive helper, triggering and doing damage/interrupting while you are attacking. While Swift Flurry procs do not generate wounds, Lightning Strike lashes do (when on non-ability attacks). Getting wounds from ability dmg was def. too strong. You could spam WotW non-stop for example. With high quality weapons/fists and Lightning Strikes + Turning Wheel and maybe some other dmg bonuses on top you don't need a lot of auto-attacks to gain lots of wounds. Iirc they do not. Only Offensiv Parry does this. I did some tests a while ago but I don't remember 100% what the outcome was. Maybe I can find the post again...

That's really weird and I never heard about this before. On PC you can keep your saves - I don't know how the XBox does it.

They work with Lighting Strikes though. Hand Mortar's Blinding Smoke generates Resonant Touch instances (lots of them) against multiple enemies. If you use a flail + modal and Hand Mortar then the lower ACC doesn't matter much because the -25 Reflex debuff helps the AoE hit rolls which target reflex (and proc Blinding Smoke cones which also target Reflex). There are already two mortar nerfs in the Community Patch: one removes Avenging Storm from Blinding Smoke and the other one limits the maximum stack of Resonant Touches (which you would easily breach with just one WotW if more than 2 enemies are present and rel. near each other). Because that was OP - at least in the vast majority of the ecounters. I also don't call for further nerfs though. It's PL 9 so the majority of the game lies behind that charcter already - and it's a lot of fun imo. Keeper of the Flame + Saint's War Armor + Imagined Pain is indeed very good.