Boeroer

Yes. There's no limitation for multiclass characters regarding subclass choice - except some Paladin/Priest combos where the favored/disfavored dispositions (cruel, benevolent, honest, clever and so on) would clash. So for example Kind Wayfarer/Priest of Skaen is not possible. Official companions come with fixed (sub)classes. You can't change those (except with mods or the use of the in-game console). Most of them use the vanilla classes (for example Eder, Aloth) but some use subclasses (Xoti as Monk for example has a special subclass, Serafen has a special Cipher subclass, Fassina is a Conjurer and so on). Sure. Herald is a strong combination. I personally would go Swashbuckler. I even use Eder Swashbuckler as main tank and it works well. At the same time it has more offensive capabilities than a pure Fighter. Fassina as Sorcerer is fine. She is a Conjurer Wizard and an Animist Druid. You can't change that if you're not using mods/console. Priests are good as single class. Their highest spells (that you can't get as multiclass Priest) are very good. Also you gain access to very impactful buffs sooner (single class chars gain access to higher level spells/abilities sooner than multiclass chars). Def. not a waste. Tekehu is fine either way. But the Druid spells he gets as bonus spells from his Watershaper subclass are very good because they are all foe-only. For example a foe-only Chillfog is a very convenient and effective spell. Druids are actually better healers than Priests, so you can use Tekehu for healing, too while Xoti focuses on buffing. Both can deal good damage with spells, too. One of the strongest offensive spells in the game is Great Maelstrom. If you want that Tekehu needs to be single class. But as I said: he works fine either way, even as single class Chanter (Stormspeaker). If I counted correctly you already have 5: Herald, Eder, Fassina, Xoti and Tekehu. In Deadfire your max party size is 5.

Absolutely. I play PotD exclusively and I feel no difference between hireling and official companion of the same class. Except that official companions are more fun to bring along if you care about banter, special dialogues, personal quests and such. Attributes are not that impactful for the majority of the game (they really aren't). And where they have the biggest impact - that is in the early game at very low levels - the official companions have the advantage of +1 level compared to hirelings. If PotD is your choice for a first playthrough it's most likely going to be a very rough ride anyways... Don't blame it on hirelings or companions then. The most impactful stat on game difficulty is meta knowledge and understanding the (often obscured) mechanics. What can happen is that official companions don't have the "perfect class" for your party synergies. But a Herald is so universally useful that this shouldn't be a problem you will run into imo.

I don't remember. I just checked several of the dmg hit rolls while playing Rotghast tennis and always there was the +10 ACC from R's Influence.

How do you survive all the self damage from Voidwheel (except with BDD)?

There are several weapons that are really good with a Phantom. Everything that stacks on hit is great (e.g. Willbreaker, Saru Sichr) because it allows to stack twice the amount of debuffs or dots. And also all weapons that do something on X% hit or crit because the phantom makes it more likely that it really happens (see Sungrazer for example or Endre's Flog or Stalker's Patience etc.). Blackbow is very good, too. I think I like Draining Touch best.

The Phantom will use the natural armor and the natural weapons of the Spiritshift form - but it will look like the unshifted you, with bare fists though. The reason is that both the armor and the weapons of the Spiritshift form are invisible items (they have no 3D model). The Spiritshift form has a complete 3D model - it's one piece so weapons/armor are not modeled seperately. It's best to use the cat or bear form when wanting to use the phantom while shifted. The cat's claw weapons are faster while the bear armor is higher. The boar tusks don't carry the wounding damage (it is governed by the spiritshift ability of the boar not the weapons themselves) and also the goodies of the other forms are tied to the spiritshpift ability itself and not the weapons/armor.

I think he has some Druid spells/abilities withput actually being a Druid. There are some enemies that are implemented like this (some of the later Xaurip enemies and Lagufaeth for example). Maybe Naga shamans are done the same way. If that is so they would have 0 PL for the Wizard/Druid spells they use. Like you would have if you stole a Priest or Druid spell as a Wizard with a Grimoire Imprint spell.

Blunderbusses have another disadvantage: Pierce dmg only - and the base PEN is also not good (like swords, but without alternative dmg type).

Don't know what you did, but with 10+ Guile you should have 100% crit conversion when using Gambit. So actually it's quite hard not to get a crit with 8 rolls if you set yourself up properly. In order to not get a full refund you have to miss or graze 7 out of 8 rolls. This might happen against certain megabosses - but against everything else this seems very unlikely? As I said above: Gambit can have 100% crit conversion. I didn't write it down but I have the suspicion that it's more likely to miss or graze with 1 out of 2 melee weapon rolls (sun & moon would add a 3rd roll making it 2 out of 3) than it is with 7 out of 8 blunderbuss rolls - even if the melee weapons should have a lot more acc. Cap of the Laughingstock can be used with blunderbusses, too. The rest (better cc, dmg) still stands though. And I think that's even more impactful than accuracy (because of the crit conversion). It is a lot easier to spam Gambit on an enemy without getting disturbed if that enemy constantly suffers from hard CC - imo.

He also said "non-violent" on Twitter some time ago. And that the artists whom he works with are doing an amazing job so far...

Why shouldn't it?

Hm, I think at least with BoW and FS there's quite some history of he Deadfire getting revealed. But overall I agree that the historic events in PoE felt a lot more substancial to me. Dang... it might be that I need to install and play PoE again. Off to 5k+ hours!

I think it's fine. There are lots of ways to escape engagement and I didn't intentionally use Spirit Frenzy as anti-engagement tool so far. More as fortitude debuffing tool. There are many other ways to escape engagement (first of all hard CC) so I never saw the appeal to use Spirit Frenzy for that specifically. Spirit Frenzy is one reason why I think Barb/Chanters are awesome & fun debuffers (Barb/Druids, too). And it also kind of makes sense that a brutish bard burps out phrases so horrible that enemies get staggered. I mean we have Dazing Shout, invocations that stun and paralyze and so on. Why shouldn't AoE effects that don't deal physical damage stagger foes with "Spirit" Frenzy? I mean it's about the spirit, not crush/pierce/slash/raw.

I checked the scripting tool but I couldn't find as condition. You maybe can achieve what you want with setting up two Marked Prey actions. The first one is for the start of combat and will have a very long cooldown (to make sure it only gets used once). The second one might also have a cooldown (but just a rel. short one, like 10 secs or so) but it will have a condition that makes sure that only one enemy at a time gets marked. For example you could use your Animal Companion's attack as condition (If Animal Companion attacks, cast Marked Prey). Anyway - as soon as you get Marked for the Hunt this problem should be solved. Marked for the Hunt will jump to a nearby enemy once the first one is dead. So you just need to set up Marked for the Hunt for the start of combat (give a 500 sec or so cooldown) and set up auto-attacks prioritized by Marked Prey. The Mark will jump top the next foe after death and the Ranger will attack that foe because of the prio. Until you get there I suggest using your Animal Companion as condition I guess. Too bad there are no conditions that take the whole encounter into account. Something like "If there is no marked enemy left, apply Marked Enemy".

Those are all matters of taste and not objective criteria of quality. I also like the darker mood better and I also am a fan of per-rest casting and 6 party members - but claiming that PoE is the better game than Deadfire just based on those things is wrong. It's just the game I like a bit better because of those things. From game mechanics/RPG rules point of view, PoE is bad in comparison. Nearly all systems of PoE are objectively worse than Deadfire's because their workings are inconsistent, unpredictable and obscure while communicated poorly. It also has some technical issues that were improved on in Deadfire (loading times for example, no accumulating summons in memory, capes-physics for all platforms etc.). That is objectively wrong. Besides that: PoE has a lot less maps (and portraits and general content).

Afaik players are very happy with the way Spirit Frenzy and Blood Frenzy (and Blood Storm) work. I know that I am. At the same time it's not really an overpowered mechanic since Barbarians aren't considered a particularly powerful class in the first place. What's fun about the current Spirit Frenzy/Blood Frenzy implementation is that it opens up so many interesting synergies. Would you implement the changes how you describe them you would kill those synergies and make the use cases of Barbs more narrow. Currently, due to Spirit Frenzy, Barbs can be more than dumb damage dealers. They can be nice debuffers, too. So your change would take away options - but at the same time nothing interesting/fun would be added. I personally would just alter Spirit Tornado so that the stagger works like with Spirit Frenzy. It's also way less complicated. Also no change to description needed. Sometimes a more "realistic(TM)" approach isn't he better game mechanic. This is such a case imo.

Spearcaster also has extremely high accuracy - if your Arcana is high. And the modal of arbalests is underrated. With enough reloading speed you can pin easily keep a single enemy down with Spearcaster. Watershaper's Focus pays its additional jump with base damage: compared to other rods it has low base damage. But yes, the jump is very nice for Arcane Archers.

If I understood you correctly your goal is to cast Marked Prey on a single target (and nobody else) and then attack that marked target with auto-attacks, right?

Yes, especially because it's an ambush you can't talk yourself out of. And what leads to that encounter is all easy-peasy non-combat stuff.

I often play without scaling. Even then Talfor is harder than most other encounters at that level. I wonder if Eamund the Fox in Dunnage is also borked or just intentionally difficult.

Watershaper's Focus with Blast (the modal) should have slower recovery than Spearcaster (especially with Gunner). And I would use Blast because Ondra's Wrath also procs off of Blast hits. If you cast Imbue:Work from stealth as opener (as I most often did) you can follow up with another shot almost immediately (because Stealth grants -80% recovery time).

Interesting. Which files contain those settings?

Lots of corners not cut.

Right... since the Blood Mage is there I never used something else - so I always forget what specialized wizard subclass loses access to which schools.

They all have no proficiency afair. Tested Minor Blights, Cobra Strike, Rot Skulls, Ogre Fists (Form of the Fearsome Brute) and Draining Touch quite some time ago. Maybe something changed since then but I don't think so. Don't recall how Woedica's claws/fists work after the nerf (they used to work with unarmed profiency when they still worked with Monastic uT/Transcendent Suff.). Cool find with the Reaping Knives! Too bad Devoted's +2 PEN does nothing for them.