Loren Tyr

It is, so the yellow part is always safe. Though Combusting Wounds is actually just Foe AoE, with that you'd be safe anyway.

What does Athletics now? Except for the climbing and swimming. It grants a once per encounter(I think) instant self-heal. It's Fast rather than Instant, actually. It heals 20 + 5*Athletics (plus any bonuses from Might, etc.), so putting a couple of points in nets you some very cheap healing.

Just tried it with Aloth, but don't see any discrepancies. At sufficient range the accuracy increases by five, doesn't go down again at greater distance. Must indeed be the Zealous Focus.

It does, but it seems to only get it on the first pellet, not the other five.

Having played with it a while now I've found you can quite consistently get a second backstab hit (provided your victim doesn't expire before then). Walking up behind one of your tanks and poking people with a staff or pike seems to work quite well for that, since the reach means you don't need to get as close (so more time before stealth expires), and unlike with ranged weapons you're sure you're within the 2m backstab range. I'm looking forward to getting some boots of speed to run at enemies with my staff like a pole vaulter, this should help with stealthing the harder targets problem as well. Anyway, I agree that it isn't necessarily the most reliably useful skill, but it is good fun trying to get the most of it. And it is very amusing having your level 2 rogue one-shot killing bandits with The Disappointer. An arquebus would admittedly be better due to the higher base damage, but it feels counter-intuitive walking to point-blank range wielding a rifle. Note, by the way, that unfortunately a blunderbuss is useless for backstabbing.

Since the individual stealth seems to make it potentially more worthwhile now, I was experimenting a bit with the Rogue's Backstab ability to get a feel for it. I was wondering about the exact mechanics of it though, since I encountered some unexpected results. I didn't find a full answer in existing threads, so I thought I'd ask. Firstly, when attacking from stealth at the beginning of combat the Backstab seems to trigger for the first two attacks, rather than just one. This doesn't seem to have clear time limit as it even worked with a crossbow, reload time and all (I tried a pistol as well, but the Spear Spider I was experimenting on kept dying on the first shot). Is this a known feature? And would it still apply if the second attack was aimed at a different enemy? I would expect not since clicking Cancel after the first attack and immediately reattacking the same target stops a second Backstab, but I'm not sure if that would also happen if the second attack at a different target was automatic. Secondly, when applying a special attack (Blinding Strike, in this case) the backstab doesn't trigger; this is known, going by previous threads. However, when using two weapons this applies only to the attack with the first weapon. The second attack did again trigger the Backstab (in addition to a second dose of Blinding Strike). Again my questions is, is this known behaviour? And more generally, does Backstab have any other undocumented properties of note?