guildwriter

I prefer my offtanks to be able to go where they're needed and murder the thing in question. If something slips through the lines and approaches the backline, I like to have the offtank be mobile and deadly. I generally have not seen the use for more than one durable tank. If he's the last one up and can't do anything, then I would definitely look into restructuring him to kill things. Paladin paired with something like Chanter or Fighter is fine. Remember a tank that doesn't maximize engagement slots and can't threaten a significant penalty for going past him is not going to be able to hold attention in this game (though there are some things like Beasts which don't engage).

EDIT: NOT correct, see later in thread. IIRC hit to crit starts with the largest bonus as the "base" and then every stacking benefit is a multiplier on top of that. So for example: Let's say you start with 25% HtC (Hit to Crit). Then you get a 15% HtC benefit.0.25 + 0.15 = 0.40 would be what we call "Additive" as it gives an additional stacking benefit. 0.25 + (0.15 * 0.25) = 0.2875 is what we call "Multiplicative" as it is a multiplied off the the existing benefit. This helps keep HtC from going out of control but it's also completely opaque to the user without testing. As for what to do with the offtank I think it's fine to sacrifice some durability for offense. After all they're not meant to be the primary damage soak, but another engagement sponge to prevent the AI from pushing through. I think focusing more on mobility and damage to support the back if someone slips through is best.

I agree, not seeing the draw of a Crusader here for a crit focused build. Paladin is mostly a passive defensive focused class overall. Once you get past PL3 it's hard to find many offensive actives or passives worth mentioning. Here are some general thoughts: One option is to go something like this build and use crits to farm phrases to then power affliction spam. Note that many of these afflictions can cause -Deflection through Flanked, loss of Resolve, or straight +hit to crit. Another approach is to go Ranger and take advantage of the hefty accuracy bonuses they can get using Marked Prey and Stalker's link for a +20 acc bonus right off the bat. This will result in more crit chance gain than hit to crit due to the multiplicative stacking effect of the latter. Drop the enemy's deflection into the ground for more chance at crit. Rogue's Confounding Blind can help with this (Dirty Fighting is a nice crit chance bonus as well). Priest has Divine Mark along with +ACC spells. Look into Monk as well. Dance of Death gives +ACC and there are a lot of abilities that give fun bonuses for landing crits. As a general caution, remember the rules on stacking buffs.

It's a general problem throughout the game right now. In the crypt with the reckless brigandine I managed to pull the entire map with one fight. There's an open topic on the issues forum where the devs have stated it's not intentional and they're trying to figure out what is going on.

For those curious about crafting poisons and what can be done there, for each point of Alchemy you get 0.5 PL for Poison. The benefits mirror what OP has given for general abilities (5% damage per point etc.) It should be noted that when to hit calculations are done for poisons, the value listed in the description is generally what you see in the end result. That means against Fortitude or Will, poisons get no additional bonuses to accuracy aside from global bonuses like from Assassinate. [Testing has shown poisons benefit from Assasinate] As a case study, at 20 Alchemy and a +2 PL from Spider Silk Robes, Storm Toxin has an Accuracy against Fortitude Check of 89. Assuming a boss fight on POTD upscaled, unless you attack the defenses of the target in many cases the poison in question will either miss or graze (for reference, the Guardian of Ukaizo has a Fort of 143 and the recent slime megaboss has a Fort of 189). Even on harder fights like the Ancient Fampyrs you should expect mostly grazes. Feels like Obsidian threw down the nerf bat a bit too hard here.

So if a character is under the effects of Smoke Veil and they recast the ability, this has the effect of canceling the current Smoke Veil buff rather than refreshing it. This becomes a problem with Slippers of the Assassin in the case of killing multiple targets at once using an AoE such as Fireball. The deaths seem to occur at the same time in terms of evaluation, resulting in the buff canceling itself out after the first kill. Thus killing 2+ enemies with an AoE causes the effect to fire, but my character is now quite visible in the face of multiple singed and angry enemies. Not sure if this kind of behavior is intended?

Drops off the captain the Huana send after you if you drop your rep to -3. IIRC once you have +2 with the Huana this can no longer trigger.

Monks work great with weapons in PoE2. Honestly monks are just kind of bananas right now.

Don't need to be a rogue to have mechanics. Stealth Sniper (Sharpshooter [Ranger] / Assassin [Rogue]) - Strong alpha attack from stealth using an arquebuse. Sniper (Sharpshooter [Ranger] / Devoted [Fighter]) - Loses stealth, but gains frequent crits through Disciplined Strikes. Massive Burst (Bleak Walkers [Paladin] / Streetfighter [Rogue]) - Use Double Blunderbusses. Single pistol could be good as well with the pistol modal. Dual Pistols (Black Jacket [Fighter] / Sharpshooter [Ranger] or [Rogue]) - Have 4 sets of two pistols and instant swap to the next after one is done firing. AOE (Hellwaker (Monk) / Sharpshooter [Ranger]) - Swift Flurry, Driving Flight, Blunderbuss modal and laugh your ass off when you crit. Can also do interesting defensive builds like Paladin/Chanter.

Probably don't want to dump Con if you're going to be front lining unless you have something that can steroid your deflection. Might probably can be flexed as it's an additive bonus now to base damage. So it's not as effective as it used to be. I'm not sure about dumping it altogether though. Also unsure about where the points would be better spent. Those three attributes are fairly important to martial classes.

https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Pillars_of_Eternity_II:_Deadfire_skills Here, a developer posted this: (Total Companion Skill, Assist Bonus) 1, 1 2, 2 4, 3 7, 4 11, 5 16, 6 22, 7 29, 8 And I extrapolated this: 1, 1 100% 2, 2 100% 4, 3 75% 7, 4 57% 11, 5 46% 16, 6 38% 22, 7 32% 29, 8 28% https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97881-best-skills-to-get/?p=2011431

If he's using guns, this is untrue. Dual wielding's inherent bonus affects recovery not reload speed. As guns have a zero recovery speed, dual wielding does nothing to make guns shoot faster, just make their initial burst higher [EDIT: Just found out that effects that improve recovery time also affect reload speed now]. Furthermore, an issue with dual wielding pistols is that the initial hit is with both weapons, but the auto attack just reloads one weapon at a time. Therefore without micromanagement, double pistols autoattacking is pretty iffy. What you say is true if he swaps to dual scepters. If you want to use pistols, rather than a shield make that slot empty and use the modal. One handed's inherent acc bonus (+12 ACC) will mostly overcome the modal's ACC penalty and give you a -50% reload rate.