NZV

PotD in this game is easier than PoE1 on normal. Your expectations of difficulty are actually higher than the reality.

Full attacks use a single weapon rather than both, so it's less than ideal for those.

Thanks for the info! On a related note, is there anything similar for the Eder Night Market bug? Or alternatively, does it make enough of a difference in Eder's dialogue/personality for it to matter?

This isn't really the sort of game where I'm super concerned about the framerate. Even if you aren't getting phenomenal FPS, it probably won't impact things too much.

Tried my hand at the GIMP tutorial for the portrait I used on my last PoE1 character and it turned out, uh, not super great. If anyone else wants to help rectify the lack of female Orlan choices, I can think of at least one incompetent image manipulation artist who would appreciate it.

There are one-handed ranged weapons now, so I could see myself slapping a small shield on a backline caster. They aren't going to put out much weapon damage either way. All the better if something like Little Savior is in.

The action speed bonuses from swift strikes and frenzy don't stack, right? With those being such a strong appeal of both classes, combining them could be a bit of a bummer.

I'm not sure that I'm convinced 2H is absolutely the way to go for an assassin. You get more damage from assassinate/backstab, but you aren't going to be making 100% of your attacks out of stealth. During those times you get a lot more out of dual wielding thanks to full attacks. Some multiclasses are going to benefit from quicker attacks too. Faster swings and double hits on full attacks = higher number of crits, which helps out a lot of combinations. Assassin/monk procs weakness on crits. Assassin/barbarian interrupts on crits. Assassin/skald gains phrases on crits. There are probably other synergies out there as well.

I was thinking of playing a Trickster, but the wizard spells costing guile really put me off. Nerfed sneak attack was bad enough, but it seems even worse if your new defensive skills are competing for the same resource as your regular offensive ones. Anyone have any opinions on Assassin/Wizard? Might end up going down that path for a similar character concept that's hopefully more effective, with wizard buffs helping to cancel out the squishiness of the assassin. Maybe going Assassin + another martial multiclass would be stronger, but I really like the idea of melee/magic hybrid characters, and wizard seems like the only one who has spells without excruciatingly long cast/recovery times.

I didn't really like PoE1 until replaying it on semi-recently on PotD. It wasn't crazy difficult, but it was difficult enough that the game mechanics actually mattered, and encounters lasted long enough for otherwise lackluster abilities to have a use. This is a pretty big bummer to hear, honestly.

What do folks think of the Trickster subclass anyways? Was thinking of mixing that with something since I like it thematically, but the penalty seems fairly harsh. Do the defensive skills you get even help survivability much?