kayfabe

I know this is necromancy, but yeah, I really do agree that starting with half the Deflection of a Fighter was particularly unnecessary. I'm actually sorta fond of high con, high resolve shield rogues since over time you can shift your itemization away from wearing heavy armor and instead rely on a combination of deathblows, Aila Braccia and low recovery to let you blow through your enemies but even there i have to admit that in Act 1 I'm essentially talking about a character that has comparable damage and defenses to a 2 handed Fighter but without the benefit of Constant Recovery. That's not *unplayably* bad since fighters are actually pretty solid performers in act 1, but it's not like we're talking about a class that scales so well into the endgame that some growing pains are warranted. You get a brief window where you can plausibly shine when deathblows comes online but it's hard to call that too big of a deal compared to the Dragon Thrashed.

No, there is a rank 4 bonus to flanking damage that is universal but fairly minor whereas the ACC bonus has you choose a critter category to bully (kith is not an option, sadly) but is much higher impact. The ACC bonus is king with foreknowledge out but otherwise my generic setup is the +Healing mod on Fighters and +1 Movement for most everyone else.

+1 Movement speed is a pretty underrated Survival bonus. A recurring theme I've noticed is that many of the people who struggle with PoE are convinced that the combat is static because they have an unwarranted fear of disengagement attacks. I mean, sure, there are enemies that hit so hard that giving them a free shot is no fun but a lot of those guys are also pokey enough that giving them that one free shot buys you the ability to kite them with impunity. Fighters in particular ought to be weaponizing their durability in order to bully casters and provide flanking opportunities.