Somnium_Meum

I mean, yeah, it's nice to have unkillable glue-like tank, but in reality it's often unnecessary. There are scripted encounters where your Tank can pick up 4-5 enemies an the rest will run to your ranged characters and engage them while ranged enemies shoot them to death. Ship Fights, open maps and encounters in which enemies spawn behind you are primary examples of this Then there are encounters that allow you using bottlenecks to hold aggro and prevent enemies from reaching your back line. This is very tank - friendly, since you don't have more than 2-3 engagers at once and enemies can't advance without killing the tank. The only challenge here is ranged enemies focusing your tank which can be fixed by Large Shield Next you have special encounters, such as first major encounter in Hasongo where you can't really tank Finally there are encounters with moderate-low amount of enemies and simple rules. Most of these are boss fights, but bosses are very unlikely to disengage and they're often too slow to do so. So you see, having nearly immortal tank isn't as useful in many encounters. Having flexibility and utility is much better, which is why i dislike Unbroken.

Randomness is really bad idea. You fail to see problems it has. Right now you can pop Empower in every fight without any penalty. Encounters are scarce and you can rest after every encounter. Hell, you can split groups / drop combat with invis and Empower multiple times per "intended Encounter". Empower affects certain abilities much more than others. Spells that bounce, hit multiple times and/or apply debuff are much more affected by Empower than abilities that do straight damage/buff. Empowering Bounding Missiles is amazing, Empowering physical abilities/buffs/Summons is awful This leads to 2 problems: It's impossible to balance around Empower. Player1 uses Empower as intended and uses it in difficult encounters. Player2 spams Empower in every encounter, so he has much stronger offensive spells or 50% more resources. If you balance PotD around Player1 it will be laughably easy for Player2 and if you balance PotD around Player2 then Player1 will feel awful as he would have to use abuse oversight/exploit to beat the game. Once you find optimal use of Empower you will always do that because it's just superior. On healer you'll be always empowering for more casts, on Evoker you'll always go for that multi-hit spell, on Assassin you'll always empower stealth attack. There's very little actual choice. So, there are multiple solutions to this problem: Remove Empower Allow empowering subclass instead of spell or character. No more free resources, no more OP spells. Empowering no-subclass Wizard would allow you to cast any spell of your PL or lower, empowering Soul Blade would make you cast Reaping Knives on self, empowering no-subclass Ranger would give your pet massive combat boost for a while, Black Jacket would reload all his guns, Troubador would chant 2 phrases at same time for a while etc. Resting doesn't restore Empower points unless you rest in Tavern (doesn't fix the other issue)

Well, at level 19 if multiclassed. Sure, but it's extremely strong since it still counts as melee attack for purposes of Monk's abilities. Citzal Lance is absolutely ridiculous with it, you attack at 8m, creating explosions that have chance to proc further hits (explosions). The other upgrade changes Monk into ranged character undefinitely

Level 13 enemies have 13-14 penetration, which is already more than 18 PEN on crit. It's not overpen but im sure there are stronger enemies

You know a considerable number if foes later in the game go for graze to hit to crit gizmos. It's not 100 % bullet proof. Don't underestimate armour and/or debuffs. Well yeah, but if they crit they ignore armor / overpenetrate anyways. Also, as far as i know no enemy has miss to graze conversions. Things such as Effigy Husk, Griffin Blade, Pukestabber and Medium Shield modal give you damage resistance which is always effective.

The holy trifecta of Deadfire balance breakers Figurines - they should be either outright removed or reworked into "ghostly creatures". For example Imp Cameo would summon "Ghostly Imp" that can do damage at range but he's not targetable and therefore can't tank. Some summons can deal damage, others can buff, debuff or heal. Rest system - abusing rest after every fight or avoiding resting are severely altering game's balance. Rest should be possible only on world map or Tavern, it should have cooldown and there should be Fatigue similar to POE Empower either cheats more resources or adds considerable power to single ability. It's super effective on some abilities (multihit/bounce) while being useless on others (buffs) . I'd love to see Empower as "activator" for class-specific effects, for example if Wizard uses Empower on himself he can cast ANY spell that's accessible to his PL, Cipher can self-cast Echo spells, Ranger's Pet gets massive stat bonus for a while etc.

The temptation of using dual hand-mortars for a rogue/ monk is to strong. Highly unlikely he will stick to single target dps when he discovers these weapons and what you can do with them. Hand Mortars... they're good for AOE abilities, but that's it. They have like 8-10 base damage and they require substantial INT investment

+You definitely need nemnok's cloak, because you can't see your health bar in frenzy status. It is usually not a problem because you set something like second wind (when near death) to high priority in ai, as well as any potions. It's not a problem but it's certainly uncomfortable. Plus the fact you're slowly bleeding health

Cookie cutter ranged build. Replace Ranger with Monk or Rogue and you'll be doing more damage. Furthermore The Red Hand suffers against pierce-resistant or pierce-immune enemies so i'd suggest adding alternative weapon. I personally dislike such builds because there's very little innovation and they are better suited to AI-controlled companions than to MC because they are very easy to autopilot (Hi Maia!)

I think they're pretty equal power-wise, however: Monk can use melee weapons at distance (4m for standard melee weapons, 8m for reach weapons). All Monk's subclasses offer unique gameplay while Barbarian has only 1 unique and 2 "generic" subclasses Monk can be used as single class very successfully while Barb has a bit of trouble when single classed. When multiclassed, Monk has amazing synergy with most classes while Barb has synergy only with few of them.

To be honest, i think Soul Blade is weird and it doesn't quite fit the theme it's supposed to have. Soul Annihilation does okay damage but it's simply not fun ability. It's primary attack that does damage and nothing else, so it's pretty boring. There's little difference between using it as soon as you can and using it at high focus levels. Furthermore it eats all your focus even if you miss, so it feels really bad to build up huge focus reservoir only to miss. If only we had self-cast Reaping Knives instead of Soul Annihilation... one can only wish. There's another approach to playing Soul Blade - ignoring Annihilation and using discounted Shred Spells, but i think Ascendant can do this much better. As for multiclass, Monk and Wizard work very well with both Annihilation and Spellcaster build while Fighter and Rogue are great options for melee build.

Well, it is very squishy build that focuses on doing as much damage as possible. There are many ways to "fix" the issue, one of most obvious one is using ranged weapon with 12m range. Another possibility is to use Pistol with Bash Shield, i personally use Scordeo's Trophy with Tuotilo's Palm and Sharpshooter's Garb. With this setup you still gain full DW recovery bonus AND you get great deflection bonus from shield. Coupled with Sharpshooter's Garb, you get very high deflection against ranged attacks as well as amazing reflex due to natively high DEX/PER, shield bonuses and Rogue talents. Furthermore i have AI that uses Smoke Bomb if the character gets near-death (which is super reliable because pistos have no recovery and character has enough deflection to be uncrittable)

Hunting bows are fine, even on PotD. They have low base penetration, however they have 2 damage types (pierce/slash) and there are many ways to increase PEN or decrease Armor. HB's penetration is good enough for trash mobs, and for boss mobs you can just give Edér Warhammer, turn on modal and enjoy -3 AR. If that's not enough there's Marksman Ring, food that gives +2 PEN etc. I belive HB that penetrates outdamages War Bow that overpens (+30% damage) due to higher base damage, bonus accuracy and faster action time.

Yes, you just set up AI to spam mortification until bloodied. It's done very quickly (depending on your MIG and CON) and it's definitely worth it. I have AI set up like this: If you don't have DEX inspiration- Use Swift Strikes/equivalent - CD 10s If you don't have it active AND it's less than 10 seconds from start of the encounter - Use Dance of Death - CD 10s If you don't have MIG inspiration- Use Thunderous Blows - CD 10s If you aren't bloodied - Use Mortification of Soul - no CD 1-3 is done instantly, 4. takes a bit of time but increased MIG from Thunderous Blows and extra might from wounds (helwalker) should allow you to reach Bloodied in 2 casts, and these 2 casts are accelerated by Swift Strikes. In the meantime Dance of Death generates accuracy and extra wounds. The other way how to do it is running Nalpazca and abusing the fact Drug Crash prevents all healing (including out-of-combat recovery) so you just do it once and you're bloodied until next drug/rest. The downside is that you cannot be healed unless you remove Drug Crash. This is much better than inflicting PER affliction on yourself, because it doesn't decrease accuracy, it allows you to use PER inspiration and it's much more reliable. The downside is that you are more fragile

On one hand, yes it would be awesome. On the other one, this exact theme is thoroughly explored by Souls Series. You're constantly in some ruined/abandoned city hunting souls, killing undead, demons and beasts. Sure, it's a bit different, but i doubt there's anything left to explore. As much as i'd love new souls game, i don't think this is the way to do it. If anything, this game could avoid "soul" stuff or at least make it uncommon. I am sick of being the Watcher, Deadfire would be much better story-wise if the PC was ordinary kith instead of Watcher.

Except Blunderbuss Scout Streetfighters... those are OP but less fitting the archetype I guess. Or Bloodied for Shadowdancer Streetfighters (which is superior as you don't have decreased Accuracy and overlaps nicely with Human Racial for extra damage and accuracy)

AFAIK terrified and forced movement (think of knockback) now provides immunity to disengagement attacks, so forcing enemies to reliably disengage is really difficult. And yes, Unbroken is quite bad because Engagement slots are useful only up to certain point. Tanking fighter should have Defensive Stance (idk name) that gives him +3 engagement slots plus 1 additional engagement from talents. It's very rare for tank to engage more than 4 targets at once due to space constraints and engagement is completely useless if you are body blocking bottlenecks (which is by far the most efficient tactic and you should be always doing it if possible) Armor in general is quite bad/weird. Unless you're heavily stacking it, you'll be always taking about 100% damage and you'll get overpenetrated on crit no matter what. You can only reach meaningful armor protection if you invest into stacking armor. Stacking deflection is much more efficient and doesn't decrease your recovery/damage output. In other words, you can equip something like Effigy Husk and stack Deflection and you'll be much tankier than character with Patinated Plate but low deflection.

Why these 2 bows when you can have Essence Interrupter with higher DPS and accuracy and with it's amazing lash and summon passive?

Definitely Sage Citzal's Lance + Swift Strikes + Heartbeat Drumming for melee AOE carnage. Also it's very tanky with all the Wiz buffs. Fun stuff: use Instruments of Pain to be ranged (attacking from 8m range) while still using melee weapon and reaping all melee benefits. Mortars have awful base damage, unless you're applying DoTs with them i don't see how they can beat other stuff

Multiclass Streetfighter with Helwalker, go with Human. Set up AI to spam Mortification of Soul until bloodied, proceed to destroy everything with mad dps. Character with build like this deals 90ish damage every 2 seconds before leaving Port Maje

Eh? Unbroken: +1 engagement, +10 Penetration on disengagement attacks, Shield Mastery (+1 AR while wearing a shield), -10% stride, -15 reflex. That's 5(!) changes to the vanilla class. And not really minor ones. It's the fighter subclass that gets altered the most. The point is that Unbroken plays just like no-subclass Fighter. Sure, Unbroken is a bit better tank but that's it. Upsides and downsides of Unbroken aren't high enough to force change in gameplay

Devoted is probably best of the 3 subclasses, as Black Jacket is still pretty bad (despite the buff) and Unbroken is basically no-subclass with one minor change. Just remember to pick that sweet Monastic Training, Devoted is always proficient in Unarmed so you have nice fall-back weapon with great penetration and ability to increase it even further with modal.

Scepters have modal that makes you do more damage at cost of tiny amount of health. Full attacks with scepters would damage the character twice, which drastically increases proc chance on Brilliant. When it procs it would give you enough resources to spam full attacks. It's pretty self-reinforcing

Yeah, 1% is good number for ARPG, but not for Isometric Game That cloak with Brillant buff can be built around. You basically want 3 things: Means to proc the buff as reliably as possible Means to heal damage caused to yourself Meaningful ways to utilize Brilliant buff. So, this is my idea Brute (Berserker & Devoted) dual wielding Scepters and spamming full attacks with Scepter modal on You'd get: High accuracy (10 accuracy, 30%+50% graze to hit, 30%+25%+5% (+30% on Barbaric Blow) hit to crit). Additionaly, you can attack either Deflection or Fortitude Great crit damage (+30% plus additional +50% on Barbaric Blow) Penetration from both subclasses (+4 passive, +2/3 from full attack skills) on weapon that already does split damage. If that's not enough, look at how often you'll be critting for additional +50% PEN Action Speed from Frenzy (15%), DW Style (30%+15%), Bloodlust (20%) Recovery from Fighter's Armored Grace and Barbarian gets instant recovery on kill Continuous self-healing from Barb's Robust and Fighter's Constant recovery Great defensive stats (+3 armor from Barb alone) and CON buffs Brilliant Cloak isn't relied upon as this Brute can function even without it, but Brilliant proc would put it into overdrive, ensuring enough resources for constant barrage of massive crits from full attacks. Eye of Wael (unique Scepter) would be great for this build because it works very well with high crit chance and provides invisiblity and random illusion buffs. Keybreaker's Scepter in off-hand for Frighten on crit

AFAIK there are few things you have to do: Get her disposition to +2 Feed the bird Take her to Hasongo