Boeroer

For what it's worth: due to its long breath, Deadfire broke even and then made money for some time now - so according to Josh Sawyer it wasn't so bad after all. But the first disappointment after release and the following months must have been immense. You put all your energy and enthusiasm into a game and then it seems to bomb while competitors sell well. That must be really draining - and maybe lets you doubt that you actually know what you're doing. No wonder Josh didn't want to touch similar games for some time.

With summons, Thunderous Blows, Whispers of the Wind, Resonant Touch and the Long Pain. Also you can just keep them for bonus MIG (Helwalker) and bonus INT (Duality of Mortal Presence). If you later use Instruments of Pain you can use melee weapons at range (base range of the melee weapon * 6) - then you can use your fists or any other melee weapons at range and still use all the melee abilities (like Efficient Anguish, Raised Torment etc.).

I personally only pick a ranged Monk (non-multiclass) when I want to use Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole. Turning Wheel enlarges the AoE, Dance of Death gives you +12 ACC, Razor's Edge +10 ACC on top, Lightning Strikes add another lash and with the Long Pain you'll have superb crush weapons as backup. Resonant Touch is superb with mortars, Whispers of the Wind, too. I can use Thunderous Blows and two summons, and Stunning Surge almost always crits if you fire into multiple enemies, stunning most of them (if not all with the very high ACC).

Might does not get diminishing returns. The bonus it grants to damage is additive and can get overshadowed by other, higher additive bonuses. But Paladins have not many of those (besides his weapons' quality and Two Handed Style) - so Might is still viable as a source for damage bonuses. For spell-like abilities like Sacred Immolation it is the only damage bonus (because those abilities can't profit from weapon quality or stuff like two handed style) Might (as all dmg bonuses) helps with overcoming high damage reduction of enemies. While more DEX leads to multiplicative dmg increase and MIG is only additive, DEX doesn't help against armors' DR. Same is true for heavier weapons vs. faster ones: while on paper the DPS of light weapons is better, their dmg tend to get eaten up by damage rediction. So one should balance "damage per hit" and "damage per second" Might also makes all your healing more potent (Lay on Hands for example and also Veteran's Recovery should you take that). It also raises your fortitude defense. The most nasty disables you can catch target fortitude, especially later in the game (paralysis and stun for example). Perception always influences attack rolls. All of them - because it influences your accuracy and an attack roll always uses your accuracy vs. enemy's defense. So Sacred Immolation will be influenced by your Perception because SA does an attack roll on all enemies in its area of effect every 3 secs (with every pulse). The effect of high Perception is most visible in the early game because it will be one of the few accuracy bonuses you will have. Later on it doesn't make that much of a difference anymore because you will gain accuracy with every character level, from items and buffs as well. At the same time you can lower enemies' defenses with debuffs/disables. So for me personally it isn't the state I'm most concerned with. Regarding DEX: it's an impactful attribute (in the scope of Pillars' attributes which aren't too impactful in the first place). It is the only thing that not only reduces recovery time but the actual action or animation time. Thus not only helps with swing a sword faster, but you can also react a lot faster AFTER you swing a sword. For example if you are a slow dude and swing your two hander and only afterwards realize your buddy needs healing, you have to wait a lot longer until you can cast Lay on Hands as if you would be a fast guy. So - it's not only about damage, it's also about reactivity, being able to adapt quickly to changing situations. Two Handed melee weapons are not slower than the larger one handed ones by the way. A great sword is not slower than a sword. A morning star is not slower than a mace. The only melee weapons that are faster are the light ones: dagger, stiletto, rapier, hatchet, flail, fist. What makes one handed (bigger) weapons faster than two handed ones is only dual wielding (and two weapon style on top). A shield + sword setup or a single sword setup is as slow/fast as a great sword. Two handed weapons deal more damage per hit (higher base dmg) and get a bonus from two weapon style (15% iirc). So I wouldn't say that Flames of Devotion (FoD) is bad for them just because it could be better with a dual wielding setup. Against high DR the two hander with FoD will perform better with its singular but high dmg strike while a dual weapon setup will be better against low DR foes with the two strikes with lower dmg. Kind Wayfarers prefer dusk wielding because the healing they do with FoD procs twice then. For the rest of the Paladin orders it doesn't matter that much. Flames of Devotion has a whopping +20 accuracy bonus which is good to have especially in the earlier stages of the game. It helps with reliably hitting enemies. Flames of Devotion adds a burning lash to the attack. Lashes are multiplicative dmg bonuses because all the physical dmg you do with the strike (including bonus from weapon quality, crit, might, two handed style etc.) will get multiplied by the lash and added as elemental damage. So if your weapon strike deals 30 slash dmg overall and FoD adds a 50% lash it will add 15 fire dmg. The lash can be raised with Scion of Flame (from 50% to 60%, increase of 20%). And you can add a burning lash to the weapon as enchantment (25%) and also add intense flames as talent (25% iirc). Both of those also get raised by Scion of Flame (to 30% each). So - it can be fun to use FoD even with a Two Hander. If you use Firebrand I would absolutely recommend taking FoD. If you prefer the attack support route with Coordinated Attacks etc. it's maybe not that important to use FoD. Sacred Immolation is a killer ability. It gets influenced by MIG (dmg), INT (AoE size, duration) and PER (accuracy bonus). But it also comes pretty late so it doesn't make a ton of sense to build your whole attributes around it. It will be nice anyway. I'd say your attributes look fine. 15 MIG would also be totally reasonable. 2 points don't make a lot of difference. In this case just go with an attribute distribution that feels best, also in view of your character role. If you think 15 MIG/9CON or 15MIG/12RES sounds more plausible for your Paladin than 17/7 or 17/10 then that's what I would do. You won't feel a noticable difference during combat from 2 points. A skill which is more useful than others imo is survival. The camping bonuses you can get, especially the accuracy bonus vs. certain enemies, are good. See that you reach a certain threshold so that you unlock the second tier of accuracy bonus (+8 iirc) and then put the rest of your skill points somewhere else (etc. Lore so you can use some useful scrolls when the party is in a pinch or Athletics so you have an emergency heal).

Yeah, I tried to keep Reaping Knives with Draining Touch and Minor Blights - like I did with Llengrath's Great Sword. Sadly Reaping Knives will still disappear. But I didn't notice that the new weapon that replaced the r-knives will retain the r-knives' focus harvesting effect.

Reaping Knives always only give 5 focus per hit to the cipher who cast them. But having that effect on multihit-weapons is pretty cool.

<picture of a moon dropping on an archipelago> You know what? With all that stuff we SHOULD be able to fight Eothas and win. Time for one last DLC "Obscured Oversight"...

Resolve checks in dialogue are mostly about some sort of "willpower" - so to speak... or courage. If you got an option that sounded like bullying that's an exception I'd say. Usually those are the [aggressive] or [cruel] dialogue options. Clever dialogue options are often a bit tongue-in-cheek and smarty-pants answers. It can be cringy. But you don't need to always pick the clever option. There are enough non-cheeky ones that you can reach a good disposition count. But Kind Wayfarers or on other words [benevolent] dialogue options are the most convenient to pick imo. They feel the best so to speak. Honest is also sometimes hurtful (a lot less than clever though), but as with clever you needn't to pick every one of them. From memory I would say Resolve is one of the most checked attributes in PoE's dialogue and scripted scenes. For a tank Resolve it's a good stat if you want to stack a lot of deflection (since increasing defense numbers have increasing return) - but if you rely on fat armor + healing mostly and neglect your deflection anyway it doesn't do much - except that it prevents interrupts! Interrupts can be pretty annoying for a slow (fat armor, not dual-wielding, lowish DEX) front liner, especially if you get attacked by multiple enemies, even if they are weak. I had an ultimate run with a solo Barb end very prematurely because of a bunch of whimpy wichts... So I personally would not drop it too low. Maybe check out the interrupt mechanics in the gamepedia Pillars wiki. A Priest with Holy Meditation can help to compensate for low Resolve and prevent interrupts. If you cast it at the start of combat you should be fine even with low Resolve. Later there are even items that can help against interrupts. If you are waiting a bit while the main tank attracts most enemies and then off-tank and flank - then low Resolve is also less of a problem because you won't catch as many (potentially interrupting) hits.

Base dmg of Wahai Poraga is also very low. My "fix" was a bit quirky with the pull effect (although I liked it that it had a unique mechanic that made "holding the line" a lot more easy). I think @Avaritica's solution is the "proper" way to fix it and nearest to what the devs might have intended. edit: hm, maybe I should try to create a pike that is more like a (bill-)hook or a hooking instrument of Huana whale hunters: reach + pull effect. That would be a nice addition to the arsenal of unique weapons. It could be used by a Frontliner to pull enemies away from party members without the need of being a fighter with the fitting ability. But no build-in AoE...

I did some tests some time ago with Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak and Lover's Embrace to see which invisibility implementation (Shadowing Beyond Skean, Shadowing Beyond Rogue, Smoke Veil, Brilliant Departures, Vanishing Strikes, WotW and so on) works with several items. I thought Brilliant Departure didn't trigger the stun from the Stalking Cloak - but maybe I just accidentally skipped the combination of Brilliant Departure, melee weapon and Stalking Cloak. 🤔 If so: cool to know now. 😄

I'm pretty sure they are all oversights. Designers put a lot of Effort (pun intended) into balancing the game - and those things are obscure and do break the balance. Look at Chilling Grave proccing Avenging Storm, generating focus and such wild stuff. The other cases are just not as savage in their effect as Hemorrhaging is - when explored properly. Engoliero's Blade Feast and Twin Eels' heal only work on kill - which is much harder to stack and chain as crits - and they can't go into a self-feeding loop. They don't lead to chain-reactions. Thus they maybe didn't really push devs to fixing them in the past but were just left in the game - because other stuff was more pressing until the patch cycle ended. Also those other cases don't count as "melee" weapon attacks but just as spell-like weapon attacks as you said. That even puts a fat cherry on top of Hemorrhaging. It's oversight-ception. Leonardo DiCaprio putting an oversight into an oversight while devs were dozing a bit. I think this is the most gamebreaking "unintendedness" we've ever seen (besides Strand of Favor/Cabalist's Gambeson trick and Grimoire Imprint exploit maybe). Really cool stuff - but way too good and way too gamebreaking to be fun to play for a longer time, at least for me in a party. Maybe cool for a cheeky solo run or for loling at devs while doing the Ultimate Challenge. 😄

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...