Boeroer

You have to do the first task for them to unlock him. Shod-in-faith are great. If you run out of spells a lot you should try the Parasitic Staff for your last remaining lvl 1 spell.

A good trick is to switch off Cautious Attack, use a gun at the beginning of a fight and fire a Flame of Devotion into one's face - then let the enemy surround you. When they are engaged, switch to shield and turn on Cautious Attack. This way they don't run past you at first because your deflection is so high. When they engaged you, they don't tend to disengage. Your engagement doesn't seem to bother them.

I thought it still didn't work and maybe never will. In 2.01 it didn't.

You only have to do the first quest of a faction to unlock the shop. This doesn't lock anything. You can always unlock all three shops. It's the second quest for a faction that binds you. The ambassador will only give you that quest if you solved the quest with Pallegina/Maestre Verzano in Ondra's Gift. Help or kill Verzano and then speak to Pallegina. Then go to the ambassy in First Fires (don't forget to pick up the Obsidian Statuette there). Pallegina doesn't have to be in your party to get the quest. I'm not even sure if you have to pick her up at all - I think it's enough if you did the Verzano quest. The gear is also great for monks. Frenzy plus Consecrated Ground - what's not to love? Although the 33% speed override the 25% from Swift Strikes. But you can turn that on when the frenzy expires or you add the lightning talent. Or you just skip swift strikes (saving an ability and a talent) and take something else. Or you give the plate to somebody else in your party. Barb, rogue - everybody without his/her own speed ability who goes melee works.

Rending doesn't effect the lash. So don't the gun inherent penetration, vuln. attack and penetrating shot. Ryona's Vambraces with 3 penetration may work though - since they even work with spells.

I forgot about Spelltongue! That's also a great weapon if you combine it with a second speed enchanted weapon of the same weapon focus - like the March Steel dagger or the Sword of Deanysis. Together with Swift Strikes or Swift Aim or Frenzy that's so superfast. Add a potion of Alacrity for absurd speed or wear that padded armor that holds the spell. A Barb is best because he inflicts all the stealing via carnage. With him you can even use a nice trick: hit once with spelltongue - you will have +15% speed for a looong time then because of carnage - switch to your main weapon via quick switch or the belt that gives switching bonus - attack with frenzy for +48% of speed for the rest of the fight. I used that tactic together with Mabec's Morning Star on a barb and it's very powerful. You can stunlock entire mobs with this because you hit faster than they can recover - even if you don't crit but just interrupt them.

And it steals buffs too - that's even better.

Really? You hae to be clever of course: first talk to the dragon the friendly way so you could leave in peace. Then cast all your seals on him and lay Gaze of the Andragan traps. Then equip scrolls of Valor and Defense and Paralysis plus some dps scrolls then shoot the dragon in the face. Cast your scrolls and buffs, keep casting Repulsing Seal under the dragon's ass while he's still prone and fight your ass off. Should be doable even at lower levels than 12. I think I normally do it at 8 or 9. But of course I need some tries.

The last thing is important. I would love to see a complete ability/talent tree or something like that (I know most skills stand alone) when I level up. So I could plan what comes next and what requirements I have to meet (lvl, ability) and which skills don't work together (e.g. Swift Aim and Twin Arrows).

Depends on the base damage of the weapon. On a dagger it's not so big. On Firebrand it's really noticable. It's also good for an alpha shot from a gun or arbalest, combined with (runner's) wounding shot. That way the dot is even bigger and you get sneak attack bonus anyway, since you started the encounter (preferably from stealth). I never tried sneak attack + backstab + runner's wounding shot. That should be a pretty awesome alpha strike. Theoretically you could also add deathblows to that, now that indiv. stealth work, or with shadowing beyond - but that's not very likely to happen a lot of times.

I can also imagine that Veteran's Recovery combined with Beloved Spirits and a Trollhide Belt vor something like that could add up to a nice effect on a chanter tank

Cheesy easy peasy Rogue with Cloak of the Master Mystic - get critted a lot by fear aura and never turn back visible because of that bug - cut the dragon to pieces while beging invisible... But you are right - normally you wouldn't get that bow very early. I forgot that I cheesed (accidentially). But with two priests and a lot of summons you might win even if you're not of high level.

You can't say which weapon is the best for a certain class, as you can build every class for different purposes. For example an interrupting/stunning barbarian built would need war hammers or morning stars, since there are some unique weapons that combine high interrupt with stun effect. If he wants max DPS he would need Tidefall. Another thing is: how early can you get a certain weapon. Some weapons are so good because you can pick them up very early. What overall use is purgatory when you get it after 90% of the game is done? That's why I think the following weapons are "best" for building a certain idea around it: Tidefall, Tall Grass, Hours of St. Rumbalt, Mabec's Morning Star (if Azurro shows up early), Shatterstar (later combined with Godhanwhatsoever), Borresaine, Sabra Marie, Bittercut, Hold-Wall, Firebrand (from Forgemaster's Gloves), Outworn Buckler, Cladhaliath, Lead Spitter, Stormcaller.

Ha! Yeah - you're obviously right. But besides that?

Runner's Wounding Shot is also OK if you have somebody who wants to do arbalest or gun alpha strikes but has no special abilities for that - like chanters or priests and so on. By the way: does the dot effect generate focus? Never tested that. And why is Novice's Suffering worse than Transcendent Suffering. I never used it - but it seems to produce nearly the same numbers. So why is a monk with fists OK but a rogue or a fighter is not?

But that's the point: you can get all the gear I mentioned (sanguine plate, shod-in-faith, Tall Grass/Hours of St. Rumbalt) at the beginning of act 2. Most of them you just can buy. You can pick up Tidefall very early too - theoretically - the fight is quite tough when you just started into act 2... and you need mechanics 10 to discover the weapon. If you have all this, then a barb is really great, combining aoe dps, aoe cc and tanking. Monk is totally awesome nevertheless.

Most fun melee classes for me are Barb and monk. Barb really makes fun if you combine high int and per with sanguine plate and shod-in-faith boots plus a weapon that causes afflictions on crit (or hit/crit). Because of carnage he disables so many enemies at once and the shod-in-faith keep him alive. My favorite weapons so far: Tall Grass/Hours of St. Rumbalt/Mabec's Morning Star/Tidefall. Tidefall because then he never goes down and applies a lot of wounding. Helps with a ranger's pet. One handed stunning weapons would be even better, but you only geht them late in the game - except Cladhaliath, which I also renommend. This is also great together with the Vile Loners Lance and dual wield. With enough ACC you will have a stunlocking tank. Monks are so much fun because of Force of Anguish and Flagellant's Path. When you punch the enemy and he flies away - that's so satisfying. At the same time he's very sturdy even without special items. My tip for the later game: the two duplicates combined with the padded armor that gives Alacrity. Your Duplicates will hit so fast - and that works every encounter (if you get enough wounds)!

Or you produced a lot of grazes with carnage?

Carnage worked with the Grey Sleeper's enchantments when I used it so I can't think of a reason why the Redeemer shouldn't. But that was with version 2.01. Maybe they changed that? Don't hope so...

Save, try, reload?

Marking works great when you have a tanky character that marks and another one that flanks. It gives +10 ACC as long as you attack the same target. That's basically +10 ACC for the marker (because -10 deflection is the same as +10 ACC) and +20 ACC for the flanker (-10 defl., +10 ACC). This turns a lot of your flanker's attacks into crits against "normal" enemies and is very useful against hard to hit big ones. I tested it myself a couple of times and it works. Can't say anything about experiences with the paladin's coordinated attacks, but I read that it stacks. I never ran into problems with the range but I admit that my marking/flanking tactic only used melee attacks so far. You can also combine that stuff with coordinating weapons on the flanker (another +4 ACC for him) and hearth orlan's minor threat. So the optimal flanker would be a hearth orlan rogue.

You can only make superb weapons from sky dragon eyes. You geht 3 of them: two from the sky dragon and one form Concelhaut's desk. Adra Dragon scales are only good for armor.

The Blade of the Endless Paths is the best of them. It's superb, has the speed enchantment and is giving +10 to an ally attacking the same target - that's very good when you use Eder to attack an enemy and then use your rogue with Tall Grass to flank. He will get a +10 ACC bonus which will trigger even more crits and prones. Very good when you meet high deflection enemies. The speed enchantment is nice for a heavy armored fighter. Together with Armored Grace and that one item from White March that gives another 10% recovery bonus plus durgan refined armor you will be a heavy armored guy who is very tough AND is hitting fast. You can even afford to take Vulnerable Attack - that would give you a crazy 10 DR bypass and that would just negate your speed bonus from the Blade.

Heh? Sprit Lance has an aoe blast itself and does lots oft damage to mobs around the primary target.

You don't need to minmax your stats. If you want some good dialogue options you can always go with 15 or 16. There are so many items that give +2 or +3 to stats so that even in the few dialogues where you need 18 you can have it without resting bonus and the like. Then you have some more points for the other stats. That's why I used the ">" and "=". You don't need exactly that one special value for this and that attribute. Not even in PotD. It's more like a priority list for me.