Boeroer

No, he will be fine. Two opening shots from pistols are nice - and then position yourself for flanking enemies or taking out the ones other party members diabled. You'd leave the left hand empty, yes. This results in +12 ACC for your right hand without any talent. The talent "One Handed Style" adds a hit to crit conversion (wiki is outdated as always). This will lead to a very high crit rate (rogues already have high ACC and can gain hit to crit conversion, you add +12 ACC and more conversion). The sabre Resolution which you can get rel. ealry in the Endless Paths has the enchantment "Annihilating", meaning he has double crit damage bonus (+100% instead of +50%). Lots of ouch. So - this character will be absolutely viable while also being asthetically pleasing... in a buccaneerish way.

What stops you? With the tier-2-chant "Sure Handed Ila", which stacks with the later "Their Champion Braved the Horde alone" you can shoot really, really fast. There are some nice rods and sceptres in the game. And they all have two damage types, which makes them quite flexible. You can even give him the Stormcaller bow - enemies will be shocked... But I remember you don't have the expansions, or do you?

One handed style for your melee weapon of course. The other hand is needed to swing down from the rigging and stuff. Never saw Erol Flynn? I think for a buccaneer one handed sabre or even rapier is even more fitting. But Rapier has a different weapon group, so sabre would be best. Resolution with one handed style (tons of crits), the rugged wilderness hat (looks like a pirate's headscarf) and Dulcanale + Fellstroke as pistols for your Island Aumua from the Deadfire Archipelago - done. What armor would fit? I think Night Runner might fit because of the stripes. And of course Jack of Wide Waters (the description says it's from a swashbuckler) but it also gives +2 survival like the wilderness hat - which is bad because it doesn't stack. Maybe crossed patch for the headslot then? Or Elryn's Jacket - even if you shouldn't get hit too often as a rogue.

Sure, go ahead.

Chanters chant faster every 4 levels every 3 levels, starting with lvl 4. At lvl 16 you will gain points on your phrase counter so quickly with lvl 1 phrases that you don't know where to put all the invocations. With high DEX and light armor you can paralyze-lock whole groups. This is always useful, be it normal or PoTD difficulty. But it's true that on earlier levels a chanter gets better and better the longer the fights last. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to pick PoTD, although this leads to longer fights of course, but can also mean you choose a defensive approach (with many tanky chars) where you don't get hurt a lot, but also don't dish out a lot of damage at the same time. There's also an approach where all party members get move speed bonus and ranged attack speed bonus from the chanter and all pick Shot on the Run.

Just a joke. I will not... or will I?

Hehe - well I hope that with PoE2 things get better when it comes to code and bugs. Thanks a lot.

MIG 13, 14 is also ok. It only affects damage and healing that you do to yourself or to others, not how much healing you receive from others. You can put more points into DEX or PER or so.

Well - for example you can put 15 into everything but INT and RES. Then give INT 13 and RES 10. Or INT 15 and RES 08. Or the other way round if you like RES more. 10 INT isn't too bad after all. This approach would also result in fairly balanced defenses. A few points here and there (like 17 to MIG and 09 to CON and so on) really don't make much of a difference. If you dump something from 18 to 3 or so, that's another story... Making the major stats 16 or 15 and devide the rest evenly is generally a good "non-minmaxing" approach.

Yes, but normally you are in the backline - you shouldn't get hit at all - so you don't need neither high deflection nor a lot of concentration. INT on the other hand gives you longer durations for your Wounding Shot (making it easier to trigger Predator's Sense for the pet), your Marked Prey, your Binding Roots and so on. If you'd use Envenomed Strike, it will also prolong the duration and therefore raise the damage. If you have Twin Sting it will prolong the duration of Plague of Insects (=raising damage) and so on. Sure, it's not the no. 1 stat for a ranged ranger, but I think it's more useful than RES most of the time.

That's all correct as far as I can see.

Not too many. The most useful are items with +2 bonus to survival, mechanics and lore. For survival there's a padded armor, a plate armor and a hat. For mechanics there's only a random pair of gloves - so that's the hardest go get. For lore there's an amulet, a robe and even +3 boots. And there may be more items which I forgot about, but not many. There are also items with bonus to athletics and stealth, but as I said nobody really needs that bonuses unless you want it for roleplaying reasons.

You don't need to pump it all into one char. A bit survival is good for everyone, but it's usually enough to give one or two chars a bit of lore and one does mechanics. If that's your ranger, then great. Fits a dwarven ranger - also for finding traps and so on...

By the way: why exactly do things like Stalwart Defiance, Shielding Touch, Shielding Flames and Inspiring Triumph all stack (also with Reinforcing Exhortation)? I mean code-wise. What's the difference or which "group" are they in? I'm playing a Shieldbearer atm with said talents/abilities and when he decides to fully buff the deflection of my barb tank (who has Stalwart Defiance of course) and pick up Outworn Buckler, too, it gets really ridicilous. Shielding Flame and Insp. Triumph alone stack to a nice +19 bonus to all my party members when I shoot some squishy foe with my arquebus. I also have the impression that Circle of Defense stacks with everything, or is it in the "AllDefenses" section and therefore stacks with the above because of that (but would not with Defiant Resolve for example)? Since all other racials stack with everything (like Wellspring of Life stat bonuses stack with every other stat bonus) and also all talents attached to abilitites (see above, or Inspiring Radiance, Inspiring Exhortation and so on) I guess Defiant Resolve also stacks with everything. I recall that Kaylon said something like that in one of his videos where he kills a dragon with a wild orlan paladin.

I think weapon speed is important, but overrated. On the other hand, dual damage types seem to be underrated in my opinion. So, Bittercut (besides getting a nice, unique boost from Spirit of Decay) ist still one of the best weapons in the game. Only worthless against earth blights. Slash only is a disadvantage - I think the most resisted damage type in the game is slash (no proof for that though). But sabres did so much damage in the past that they could easily make up for the dps loss when meeting resistant foes. Speaking of balancing: did you guys realize that there was a hidden (minor) buff to stilettos when OBS introduced the WM? Lagufaeth stilettos do slash damage instead of pierce. So, as a stiletto-guy it's easy to backup for pierce resistant or immune enemies now without picking up an ugly club or a conspicious sabre. Good thing for priests of Skaen and any other MC who profits from Flick of the Wrist and Weapon Focus Ruffian, too. If they now change Durance's staff from crush/burn to burn/crush I'll also quit my whining that quarterstaffs are left out in the cold. Like Wend-Walker. A late game weapon with the lamestest enchantments (for a reach weapon) of all... booh!

Too random. I seldomly get it when I don't use brute force. Like in every 10th playthrough or so. And it's only speed enchanted, so nothing too special.

If it's viable for solo it's also viable for party play. This one's no exception - you just shouldn't hit your party members with the blind effect, so it could make positioning and targeting a bit tricky.

Stealth only affects how quickly you are discovered after you enter the enemies' range of perception. The range itself never changes. I never put any point into it. Survival 10 is nice for the +15 ACC bonus. I usually leave mechanics at 10 when I have no rogue. Athletics: usually 0 points. Offensive scrolls are great for the party members with the highest base (not weapon) ACC. This can be a fighter or ranger or rogue or monk and so on. Fighters can be really good with them because of Disciplined Barrage. They tend to crit a lot with scrolls. You don't need scrolls to beat the game though. But they can make hard encounters a lot easier. Lore 6 is easy to get and you can cast Fireballs and Twin Stones with it. I like Twin Stones: foe only and good AoE and damage.

We still have two annihilating sabres in the game - one can be obtained very early - so battle axes are still a bit underwhelming until you get We Toki. And there's Bittercut. Not only the values of a standard sabre or battle axe or whatever define which weapon type is the best - also the unique ones (and when they can be obtained) will influence "balance". And since we have three really nice unique sabres in the game it will still be one of the favourite picks I guess.

Why? Just crop a nice picture so that only the face is on it. Resolution is good enough most of the time.

Good nerf I say. Now 2handers make more sense. And war hammers and swords will get more love.

Here are my portraits that I made myself with the help of gimp when I absol. couldn't find anything that fit (I usually do): All except the first one (island aumaua chanter) and the last (hearth orlan dw sabre rogue - my my very first MC) I used for an evil playthrough with a Bleak Walker as main - and most portraits of PoE are simply not evil looking. Not great pieces of art, but they did the job. When they are smaller - in the gui - they look ok. Edit: I just remembered that the evil stag druid wasn't photoshopped by ne at all - I found the picture on deviantart.com and build a character around it instead!

Yes - for orlans you have to use a picture of an elf, goblin, gnome and so on and do some photoshop-magic - or gimp magic in my case. Aumaua, too, but it's rel. easy to paint some pattern on a face.

Go to deviantart.com. Search for "dwarf ranger" and "dwarf crossbow", "dwarf marksman", "dwarf assassin" and so on. Plenty of great artwork (and loads of crap, too ). And google's picture search reveals some great pictures if you search for "dwarf ranger" etc. (the following is my favorite - 100% boar ranger ): This one I also really like - that great hairdo:

That could also explain it. Defenses of foes are higher on PotD.