Boeroer

Yes, I would never skip Thunderous Blows unless I'd only do CC or summoning or so. As soon as you want to deal damage (be it with weapons or spells) the +2 Penetration will be very beneficial. It's not even about the +5 Might. Also in case of Thunderous Blows you are not combining "+dmg received" with "+Might" like with your Helwalker Wounds which boosts self damage twice, you "only" add more Might and you take away wounds in the process which isn't nearly as bad for self damage. Also your healing power goes up the same amount as your self damage goes up. If I didn't mention it before: a pet that adds "heal on kill" like the cat Cajux can be very helpful for a build that has lots of self damage (you can even combine this with a pet like Abraham on Edér. It adds a smaller heal-on-kill effect to all party members. This is only doable though if you have unlocked some Berath Blessing points and use them to give Edér a pet slot. You can also unlock Berath Blessing points with a little cheating/altering the file. Or you can just replace the file with one that has all the Berath Blessing Points unlocked..). Anyway: a Helwalker/Bloodmage can kill weak enemies pretty quickly and the heal-on-kill numbers scale with Might. That can spare you a lot of other healing options which might cost some resources (spell or ability use, potion etc.). Also if you have a Priest (highly recommended) then Triumph of the Crusaders is an excellent spell to put on an offensive Helwalker/Bloodmage like yours.

I wouldn't skip Stunning Surge because it's usually free in combination with the Spirit Lance and several enemies. You only need one crit roll and that will give you back the 2 Mortification.

Novice's Suffering is very special because the base damage stays very low (an that's what all the damage bonuses like crits and maluses like graze use as base) but it gets a big, flat damage bonus that isn't influenced by any damage bonus/malus except Might. This leads to very consistent damage with no real high or low rolls. Since this Barb doesn't use a lot of damage bonuses and has very high Might, Novice's Suffering is indeed a viable option. While it doesn't do much more damage with crits, it also doesn't suffer much from grazes which happen more often with a large shield. So actually a decent pick I'd say.

I said "early game" a lot, didn't I? 🥴

Hi. I wouldn't use any bashing shield before getting either Dragon's Maw or Badgradr's Barricade. Before that a non-bashing shield works better. Also in the early game the -8 accuracy of a large shield can lead to many misses. I would check if it works with a small or medium shield first and use the thickest armor in the early game. It won't be great in the early game though. Barbarians are notoriously unimpressive in the early game, and being slow and inaccurate doesn't help at that point. But it will get better quickly.

Hi, I have no experience with Turn Based Mode so I cannot say how the build performs there, sorry.

Just checked in game with the latest game version: still works. It didn't get patched.

If you learn the spell it doesn't work. You have to cast it from a grimoire without leaning it at level-up. I might check if it got fixed, but it would surprise me.

In Deadfire, firearms and crossbows/arbalests don't have a recovery phase. Instead, they only have a reloading phase. Bows - like all other weapons (besides firearms and crossbows/arbalests) - have a recovery phase. Reloading phases are usually longer than recovery, but unlike recovery you can always choose to stop the reloading and do something else - for example cast a healing spell. Afterwards you can resume the reloading. Running around also stops reloading. While you move you cannot reload. A recovery phase cannot be stopped. It always has to pass until you can do something else - except running around. Running around does not stop recovery, it only makes it last a bit longer. The advantage of reloading weapons is that you can react a lot quicker in combat. Imagine you're a Paladin with Lay on Hands and you just attacked an enemy. Suddenly your companion is near death and you want to cast Lay on Hands asap. If your attack was done with a weapon with recovery you will have to wait until the recovery is over until you can cast Lay on Hands - the companion might go down in that timespan. If your attack was done with a reloading weapon you can immediately after the shot cast Lay in Hands. For pure weapon dps characters this isn't an advantage, but for versatile characters with a variety of abilities (CC, healing, support...) it's really nice. Of course it's also possible o have very short recovery (like with light armor, dual daggers and two weapon style for example) which makes you almost as reactive as with a reloading weapon. But dual pistols also pack a good punch with Full Attacks (high damage per shot - for a one handed weapon).

Penetration is usually not an issue if you are willing to use two weapon sets with different damage types and use the one your current enemy is more vulnerable to. Dual wielding is great for all builds that make use of Full Attacks - and especially the Full Attacks that can get a refund (Stunning Surge, Barbaric Smash, Gambit...) and it's also great for characters for whom attacking very fast (Skald for example). However, it's less good than it was in PoE1 (compared to the other weapon styles). No, they are great actually. A single pistol + modal has -50% reloading time (!) but only suffers -3 accuracy (+12 from one handed usage and -15 from the modal), with Single Weapon Style you can add a nice crit conversion on top. This is great for all ranged characters who don't use a lot of attack abilities (Cipher, Chanter...) but mostly do auto attacks. There are great unique pistols, too. Pistols, like all reloading weapons in Deadfire, have no recovery but only reloading times. Reloading can be canceled so you are a lot more reactive with a pistol than with an implement or bow. I played a single class Kind Wayfarer with dual pistols (no modal then, Flames of Devotion is a Full Attack and procs the White Flames healing twice) and it went very well.

I totally forgot: summoned weapons with an AoE effect (Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Citzal's Spirit Lance) are awesome with Stunning Surge: they turn this ability into an AoE stun that often doesn't cost anything (because you get a refund on crit - and it's easier to crit at least once if you manage to attack multiple enemies).

It's a good multiclass. It can be squishy, but the upside is that Blood Sacrifice not only lets you regain spell uses but also gives you a lot of wounds. I didn't see which race you used (maybe my eye skipped it): human should be one of the best choices because you can drop below 50% health willingly (and get something out of it). As a multiclass Wizard it's most efficient to not take a lot of spells at level up but mostly pick passives and active abilities of the second class (Monk in this case). The reason is that a Wizard can cast all spells directly from a Grimoire, even if he didn't learn them. So you can have a decent collection of a few grimoires with your favorite spells in the quick item slots and not having to pay for the spells with ability points. This also has some cheesy side effects with some spells, namely Concelhaut's Draining Touch and all the "spell stealing" spells. If you cast sich a spell from your grimoire and then switch to a Grimoire that doesn't have that spell, the part of game logic that governs the removal of those effects (Draining Touch summoned weapon or stolen spell) will be not active anymore, and thus you will keep the Draining Touch weapon until combat ends - and you will keep the stolen spells forever. 😲 But that's just a sidenote. However, persistent Draining Touch on a Monk/Wizard as mad fun imo. It not only heals via draining (which is useful for Blood Sacrifice) but it also does a ton of damage, especially with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming and Miasma of Dull-Mindedness+ a club + modal in the offhand. Draining Touch (the weapon) targets Will instead of Deflection, and Miasma + club+modal lower Will by 65(!) points. Crits are the norm then and Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming will proc often. It's also fun that Draining Touch has the highest base damage of any one handed weapon in the game... Anyways - picking some spells (usually the ones you really, really want to have ready at all times) can still make sense though and also might be more convenient, but in general you should be hesitant to put too many ability points into spells as a Wizard. Cheers! PS.: using Blood Sacrifice at 10 wounds (when MIG gets +10 points, which raises your self damage AND damage received is at +50%) might be a death sentence no matter how high your CON is. Just watch your wound counter before using Blood Sacrifice and make sure you spend some before activating it. Stuff like Blade Turning is a nice way to spend wounds quickly but with meaning. You will get a lot of wounds back via Blood Sacrifice anyway.

You will meet the following official companions in that order most likely (default class|optional classes): Fighter|Rogue|Fighter/Rogue Priest|Monk|Priest/Monk Wizard|Wizard/Rogue|Wizard/Fighter Cipher|Barbarian|Cipher/Barbarian Paladin|Paladin/Fighter|Paladin/Chanter Ranger|Ranger/Rogue|Ranger/Wizard Druid|Chanter|Druid/Chanter Maybe that helps you to figure out which class you want to play as the main character.

It's rather a dual class system. You pick two classes and then advance in both of them at the same pace. The progression through power levels (= the ability tiers) is a bit slower than with a single class character and you cannot reach the two highest power levels (8 and 9) which are reserved for single classes. But you will have access to the resource pools and ability uses of two classes instead of just one. You are rel. free when it comes to which abilities you pick at level-up. You can mainly pick abilities of the first class and only a few of the second class - or the other way round - or balance them out. Multiclass characters are not generally better or worse than single classes. It depends on a lot of things: build, synergies, class abilities (of a class has very good abilities at power level 8 and 9 it make a single class build more desirable than if a class only has okay-ish abilities at Power Level 8/9). Imo, Rangers are better when "multiclassed" because I find their abilities of Power Level 8 and 9 a bit lame - but their lower level stuff is pretty nice. Ranger/Rogue is very straightforward and also impactful. It combines very high accuracy (Ranger) with very high weapon damage per hit (Rogue). Druids (focused on spellcasting) are great as single class. The highest spell level tiers are very powerful (see Great Maelstrom). They also work well as multiclass though. Some special multiclasses (for example Bloodmage/Lifegiver or Helwalker/Ancient) are very good but take a bit longer to fully "unlock". Barbarian is both good as multiclass (for example Barbarian/Paladin is nice, Barbarian/Fighter, too) but also as single class (look at Driving Roar in general or Furyshaper's Blood Ward). I think I would recommend playing with a single class for the first try and use one or more multiclasses with the companions to try that out and learn a bit.

Imo the most fun combination is Wizard/Monk and especially Bloodmage/Helwalker (or Nalpaszca or vanilla) because there's lots of synergies and the active abilities are most fun to use imo. Turning Wheel (+10 INT and burning lash) is great with an AoE weapon such as Spirit Lance since the AoE size grows a lot with wounds. Stunning Surge is awesome with Spirit Lance and also Kalakoth's Minor Blights. Blood Sacrifice is not only trading spell casts for health but also results in instant wound generation. Force of Anguish is hilarious with Spirit Lance (send enemies flying into all directions). Blade Turning with Wall of Draining is bonkers. You can just ignore melee attackers (they will kill themselves) while you calmly cast some spells. Paralyzing spells such as Ninagauth's Shadowflame work well in combination with Merciless Gaze + Swift Flurry & Heartbeat Drumming because of the stacked crit conversions. And so on and so forth. Wizard/Soulblade is good but imo it's too one-dimensional. Wizard/Fighter is also good (Wall of Draining + Unbending is bonkers and so is Clear Out + Spirit Lance) but imo it's less entertaining than Monk. Wizard/Druid can actually be a good melee combo of you like spiritshift. It's not that great early but had tremendous potential later in the game. Something like Bloodmage/Lifegiver (Cat form), combined with Wall of Draining, numerous self buffs and Zandethu's Draconic Fury does good melee dmg, casts very fast and is almost impossible to kill even if Blood Sacrifice is used a lot because the Restorations can be stacked and are so strong when shifted. For Wizard/Paladin I made a build that was very fun to play (Bloodmage/Steel Garrotes) - search for a "Bloody Parry" class build in this forum if you are interested. But it's less about melee damage and more about using a special melee weapon to combine passive healing with defense and constant spellcasting. I like Wizard/Rogue with AoE weapons (Blights or Lance or even a rod + Blast in the beginning) and Arterial Strike + spells that slows enemies movement down further (Arduous Delay, Chillfog etc.). They will run slowly but still get the raw dmg from Arterial Strike per 0.1 sec (the game doesn't count actual steps but just applies the raw dmg every 0.1 secs as long as enemies move). Assassin/Bloodmage can cast such a spell from stealth and immediately follow with an AoE Crippling Strike (stealth has a -80% recovery time bonus). If you then follow up with a Pull of Eora most enemy groups are usually done. Or you combine Gouging Strike + Arterial Strike at the start of combat for more raw ticks. That's also fun imo.