Clerith

The quarterstaff is in a chest behind the 'Nemnok the Devourer' quest boss encounter in Drowned Barrows behind Junvik Village, near the NW corner of the map. I've heard people clear it around 10-12 earliest, but that it was very hard.

I'm guessing there used to be two more gods, who were killed ages past and removed from the annals of history. ...The eastern lands beyond the storms (potential third game location) only has one god they worship, yeah? Maybe we'll find a skeleton in the closet or two over there.

Marofeto Liano, on the northwestern side. My understanding is that one of his dialogue options leads to an amulet (and no training), the other opens up skill training. That is correct,I've just encountered him and avoided talking about his amulet and got the option to ask him to teach me what he's learned. You can get both. First get his training and then ask for his amulet. Would make sense, since that'd cover all the 16 skills.

The biggest ones are paladin immortality, fighter immortality and empowered tier 9 abilities. The rest is arguable, even though the third tier intellect buff is too strong (mostly in combination with immortality and empower). Still, stuff like double focus to nerf ascendant or reduce starting chants? No thanks.

Those are all nice light armor chests and I have them all, but yeah, I was looking for robes, for that zero recovery caster look. I tested the Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff and the damage and action speed only worked for your auto-attacks, it didn't work for spellcasting at all. And what high level wizard is going to attack with a weapon? It's just there for the fire and ice power levels. I used a random ranged 1h before that. It does have a stacking damage resist based on metaphysics... do you know how much it scales? If it's 1% per point of skill like most gear, you can reach 100% damage reduction, so it's probably less. Anyways, I think both metaphysics and history are good options.

Time Parasite, Amplified Wave, Ring Leader are the three best Cipher spells imo. Time Parasite requires you to be a single class Cipher, and any martial multiclass will probably end up spamming Soul Annihilation. Low level Ciphers are pretty garbage, but Soul Blade is a great multiclass. Time Parasite Ascendant shenanigans at high level are no joke.

So I finished the game, but I only found two remarkable robes, and both were rather mediocre. Effigy's Husk and Spider Silk Robe. I really wasn't happy with either one of them, but I never found anything better. If Miscreant's Leathers hadn't already been in use by someone else, I think I'd have ended up wearing that (it didn't seem to negatively influence cast times and recovery at all). My wizard (Aloth) ended up wearing Blackblade's Hood (+2 per), The Giftbearer's Cloth (+20+ fort/reflex/will, depends on History skill), Charm of Bones (+2 int), a **** robe, Firethrower's Gloves (+2 dex, +2 evocation power levels), random boots (PC wizard would probably wear Boots of the Stone for +1 dex, +2 res, resist might afflic), +3 con belt (lots of good belts with +2 con and extra stuff), Kuaru's Prize (+1 int, +1 per, +10% spell damage) and Ring of Overseeing (+10% area). Oh right, and for weapon, Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff (basically +2 elemental power levels). The best pieces are the gloves and spell damage ring. You can buy the gloves super early with the Berath's Blessings vendor, and I imagine you can sail NW early and buy the ring from the isolationist tribe if you pass the skill checks to enter peacefully. If feeling brave, you can also tackle Nemnok right nearby for the cloak and quarterstaff. The rest is fillerish but stuff I was fine with. But the chest. What's the best wizard (or any caster) chest piece you've decided on?

Exactly this, I think. The gods mentioned that the entire thing they've been trying to do for thousands of years, why they were created even? was an attempt to keep kith souls strong. I think the Engwithans realized with their soul meddling that entropy was destroying mortal life on Eora and created a system (gods) to regulate the flow of souls to try to keep life going on. It worked, to a large degree, but it isn't infinitely sustainable and now Eothas wants the kith to figure out something better for themselves.

Fextaralife channel on youtube? https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/99383-class-build-devotedtroubadour-infinite-resources/ Not fextralife lol, those videos are okay introductions to classes for complete newcomers, but not what I'd call actual guides.

Fighter's Charge is pretty much better than anything Barbarian has, and Fighter has much better defensive buffs. It's possible to use 2hs, but they're significantly weaker, since you're spamming full attacks all over the place.

Exactly this. When I saw the original numbers - from 20% damage to either 40% damage or 20% damage + 100% increased focus gain, I was very split, (double the damage bonus or double the focus gain), but with the nerf to 30%, it's now a 10% more damage (ends up more like 5% more total damage) or double focus, the choice was extremely obvious for my Soulblade. Double focus.

Con around ~10, Might 14+, Dex 10+, Per 10+, Int around ~10, Resolve can be dumped. Might, Dex and Per all give you more melee dps, Int is important for your Frenzy and other buffs. Con is not worth increasing but you don't really want to get negative with it either. Resolve is the first attribute to dump in favor of more damage.

If you play as the main tank or only melee character, it's worth it, I'd say. Devoted is just great, Streetfighter works with some playing around it, combined it results in a very effective tank with also great offense.

FYI, ONLY those free spells he gets are foe-only. Other water/frost spells he gets via level-up are NOT foe-only. thats not true, all spells that contain water or frost(if i remember correct) descriptor get this, even from chanter bonus invocations, wave was friendly when multiclassed, and will probably work with water/frost scrolls Tekehu hits my party with water/frost druid spells I picked (Overwhelming Wave) but not with the free wizard spells he gets (Ninagauth's pulse pillar).

Wild Mind can sometimes kill your own party members, so single class Barbarian for me, even if it goes against his lore a bit. Wild Mind makes him the worst party member in a controlled setting imo.

Interesting. It was 80% same info as I saw on a Warcaller hour long video yesterday, so I'm glad you included the Herald build too. My suggestion would be to mention something about the gears perhaps, how you need to resolve the Devil of Caroc's questline in a certain way or the breastplate won't be in the game. This build (both variations) is definitely god tier, though the 'real' fun begins at level 19, so be prepared for that.

Idk, but I noted more unique spells than in Pillars 1 I think, the ****tier Bigby's Hand is there, Shadowflame with 6.0 sec cast time, some other Concelhaut/Ninagauth spells, and a new poison snake grimoire that had some weird snake ****.

You got me suprised there, do you have any pics for them or links so I can check their stats? Last time I mess with taking pics... I only had two, so I'm either misremembering (probably used a large shield sometime) or sold one. I found the weapon resists shield fairly early (Neketaka underground?) and the magic resist shield very late (last island I checked before the point of no return, can get earlier if you know what you're doing). I ended up using Nerian's Ward. https://imgur.com/a/QhlUUmu

There are a bunch of decent medium shields, I had to choose between I think three for my tank, all of which I was fine with.

Dual Wield - for dps Shield - for tanking 2h - some aoe but less damage than duals, slow 1h - fishing for crits, primary attack skills I think dual wield is still the best and most popular. 1h no shield is more viable than in Pillars 1 imo.

In my Deadfire prepationary run two weeks ago, my Barbarian did more damage than the rest of my party put together. Now, there is some 'controlling the player charatcer most of the time' bias, but Barbs are just insane when it comes to aoe.

Chill Fog is way too good for a first tier spell, Minoletta's Concussive Missiles is good and amazing when Empowered, Wilting Wind is a solid heavy lifter that makes Wizards amazing again, and Meteor Shower might be clunky to use but the damage breaks the game. Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar is good enough for the middle levels. As you can see, I like the evoker style damage Wizard, even though I'm not picking a specialization (Transmutation sucks to lose when leveling up), but you can definitely make a case for Evoker, which is probably the best Wizard subclass.

I think single class Barb is okay. Combo it with Fighter or Paladin for a top tier melee unit, though.

My Devoted/Soulblade w/ swords was my strongest character by far until late teens when Aloth (pure Wizard) started doing disgusting things. Even at max level, he was extremely solid and good, would recommend. Never had trouble with enemy armor/immunities except those curse totems, but ranged takes care of those.

I'm playing on veteran, and there's been only a single fight in the entire game (I'm level 20 now, about to do the final place) where my character has died in combat. That was in Neketaka when I punched a pirate captain and his high level firing death squad decided to make an example out of me. That was the only hard fight in the game. Bosses have been a joke dying in ~10 seconds, including the two dragon encounters - none of my characters dropped below 70% during the dragon fights, ffs. Some random fampyrs in the edges of the map were a lot tougher. I haven't been remotedly challenged since level ~8. It's been significantly easier than Pillars 1 and even Tyranny, which I also found very easy once I got the ball rolling.