Haplok

Definately Berserker. The benefits are huge and clearing Confusion is a trivial non-issue. - Modwyr (passive) - Devil of Caroc Breastplate (passive) - friendly Paladin hitting you with Aegis of Loyalty talent - some form of Smart inspiration (priest?) - food I would say Ascendant for more casting focus or Soul Blade for melee focus. Though for Ascendant I would also strongly consider Streetfighter multiclass to reach max focus even faster - and spam powers with machine-gun speed with the Streetfighter Heating Up/On the Edge effects (the first of which can be self-inflicted reasonably easily, for example with Blunderbuss Powder Burns modal or standing in Chill Fog with the beginner Perception Resistance hat that would degrade the Blindness effect to Distracted). I'd say some more Perception and Constitution would be nice. Perhaps at the cost of Resolve (you'll be hit often anyway, so you better maximize armor+damage resistance and manage healing well). Barbaric Blow is good but kinda expensive early on. It becomes very good when you have more Rage points and get the Talent that can refund its cost.

Eh? Good luck with that. Plus you know that DoC BP can be stolen, right?

I don't know about the helm, but Static Charges definitely get placed in aoe on my Berserkers. I thought this was by design, but maybe that's a function of Carnage.

Well, yeah. But he's going two-handed. Plus he won't start the fight with Blooded bonus and probably not with the Streetfighter bonus either. When he starts rocking the damage difference from reduced Might is even more minuscule.

I feel at this point and with Frenzy Deflection malus, you may as well dump Resolve entirely and focus on equipment that will provide Armor Rating, Damage Reduction and maybe Healing bonus. Maybe also stuff that procs when you're hit/crit. Enemies will hit you anyway. You might also get that Con even higher to have more of that health buffer. Definately pick Thick Skinned and wear minimum medium armor (Devil of Caroc breastplate?). I think Nature's Embrace belt, which provides +5 Pierce AR would be massively useful, as it will greatly protect you from ranged enemies focusing on your character. To be honest, that Dex seems terrible, particularly for a two-handed user. I mean with Frenzy, when you trigger the Streetfighter bonus (and later Bloodlust, Blood Thirst) it might be okay, but you have to trigger it first. I'd go with 10 Dex minimum, perhaps 12-14. I also think you can lower Might a lot to improve Dex & Con. It does help quite a bit with self-healing, but Frenzy already provides +5 Might. The damage contribution of that stat is almost negligible in this build. you get +80% from Streetfighter against valid targets, +20% OSA, +15% Two-Handed, +20% Blooded. Not to mention potential for another +200%+ on crit. A few points of Might really won't change much, as they will only add a few more %.

Well, that's why it pays to multi an Ascendant with an aggressive damage class. My Streetfighter/Ascendant needs 1-2 Full-Attacks (of which he gets plenty as a rogue) to reach Ascension. Also if you can get him flanked (possibly by spells or with Blunderbuss Powder Burns), he will cast his Ascended spells much quicker. Sure, he looses 5 Accuracy if you apply Distracted to trigger Streetfighter Heating Up. But you can make up for that by targeting the weaker defenses of enemies and/or debuffing them with spells and/or having your tank use club/flail modals.

Vaporous Wizardry. Available early in Neketaka, in Arkemyr's shop. But there's a catch. With this Grimoire every damage you receive will cause an Interrupt.

Still WotEP and Wahai Poraga have new, nice behaviors, which allow for skill propagating in an area. And some skill effects are obviously more potent then most on-hit effects. The aoe areas are unfortunately much smaller then what was possible with Carnage in PoE1 though.

So I wonder if Blood Frenzy might be more useful for a Marauder. -5 Might is a fairly minor debuff to enemies and yeah, you kinda want to be engaged... I was greatly looking forward to this skill, but now less so. So far I've been relying on gimmicks to get the Flanked status (Powder Burns, Static Thunder, Chill Fog). But: 1. Switching to a Blunderbuss mid-fight is a loss of DPS in reload time 2. I may not always want to use a two-hander, particularly for Full Attack skill spam, plus I think I will need to get rid of the Confusion eventually - as I'm currently dealing way too much damage to my own party 3. With high Fort Chill Fog is not very reliable plus I don't really want the Blind debuff, so I'd need equipment to resist/downgrade the effect. There is the beginning hat which does just that... but then there are other nice headgears as well (like Death Runes for 15% damage reduction... and I need as much damage reduction as I can get). So It would be good to have the enemies actually flank my character sometimes.

Blunderbuss with Powder Burns certainly does ignite it

Yeah, Carnage has been nerfed hard. Lack of on-hit/on-crit effects is particularly sad. Although I hear it does proc Frenzy effects (Stagger from Spirit/Bleed from Bood). Haven't tested myself though. Supposedly it does scale with Power Level. And it feels like its boosted by Streetfighter sneak attack boost. My Berserker/Streetfighter seems to do way more Carnage damage then my Berserker/Monk. Couple that with Lord Darryn's Voulge Static Thunder aoe effect on crit and he frequently does 30-50 damage to everyone near (at level 6).

Even with dedicated tanks I get targeted anyway. Unless using a reach weapon in a chokepoint (without ranged enemies and casters), but that's hardly the standard.

+12 ACC? Not on a frontliner, no. That's one of the biggest weaknesses of the Monk IMO. No accuracy boosts (unless he can avoid being hit). Plus it's max 40% Lash now, after the Monk Mega-Nerf. Only 15% before level 16 for multiclass characters.

I'd say that yes, if you're dying every other fight, you should probably try wearing heavier armor. I think that your Perception is kinda low for that kind of character (though that also depends on difficulty).

I didn't manage to split this stack. Maybe I didn't run away far enough.

That you can get at level... 16 if multiclassed. Neat, but the game is mostly over then. Earlier at least Lightning Strikes provided a healthy punch

Yeah, it's sad. Now I don't see any reason to use any Godlike race (outside of RP reasons).

I managed to do this in 1.1 PotD with Berserker/Streetfighter, Eder and Xoti. Took many tries and I needed to pull the enemies to the second, upper set of stairs. Only 2 mobs can engage you there and I slowly whittled them down while healing the party, using empower to recover resources and gulping healing pots. A lot of attrition fire from the Wurms too. When Boar and Drake came into engagement range, I instantly focused on them and spammed Crippling Strike as fast as I could.

It now gives -25% damage instead of -75%, so it's not a lifesaver anymore. Almost all damage reduction items and abilities were nerfed, though they never been that great anyway. You might have -40% damage reduction and expect recieving only half damage, but with enemy using superb weapon you will get 100%+40%-40%=100% versus 140% instead of 60% vs 100% (0.7 damage multiplier vs 0.6). Overall more damage modifiers for the enemy - less useful damage reducing effects. Ouch, that's gonna hurt! I was really counting on that reduction for my Marauder. Seems like I will not be staying Blooded much. And good points about Escape I guess. If I were the TC, I wouldn't entirely ignore Backstab / Smoke Veil and/or Shadowing. It's a part of the Rogue package and rather potent tools to eliminate priority targets. Particularly if he goes with the 2handed weapon option. Btw. from what I read seems like Lord Darryn's Voulge might be the most reliable way to stay permanently Flanked as a Berserker (as long as you don't clear Confusion). Also Withering Strike seems a bit expensive for what it does (3 Guile). On the other hand, if you go 2H, Sap seems a very nice, cheap attack (1 Guile) - Primary weapon only though. Also no Blinding Strike -> Confounding Blind? Not very cheap (2 Guile), but an early Blind with a Deflection destroying upgrade? Plus Reflex save for even wider selection which defense to target? What's not to love?

Eder: Definitely Swashbuckler. Helps both his tanking and aggro-holding ability and tremendously ups his damage output. Xoti: Pure. I want those Priest spells and I want them ASAP. Aloth: Wizard-Fighter. If only not to babysit him much. The Disciplined Strikes bonus Accuracy shouldn't be underestimated either. Reroll his starting spells ASAP! Pallegina: Herald. A TON of utility and support! Reroll her starting abilities ASAP!

Isn't the Devil of Caroc breastplate useless now? Or is that another example of people overreacting? Still sounds very good to me. Better then any other armor in fact. Has good AR, the Recovery penalty is still reduced, the bonus Power Pool is awesome (particularly for multiclass characters). I think it lost the other Resistance upgrades, but the Intellect one was left? Will probably skip the nerfed heal on crit though.

I wouldn't worry about Frenzy Confusion much. There's Modwyr, there's Devil of Caroc Breastplate upgrade (provided your PoE1 flags include it in your game). There are Priest spells. Aaaand my new StreetFighter may not even want to remove it. Since I plan to use Lord Darryn's Voulge which Distracts enemies - but when Confused also Allies - which means easy Flanked status all the time. So I really wouldn't worry about "assasinations". Plus its still a Rogue specialization and you can STILL backstab from stealth/after a smoke bomb, shadowing/shadowstep etc.

I doubt the modal effects would get transferred on Carnage?

Off the top of my head, at work atm - Barbaric Blow damage bonus was decreased by 5% Berserker lost access to second upgrade to blood frenzy and both spirit frenzy upgrades I believe that not being able to see Frenzy upgrades is just a bug (sometimes) showing up when creating a character. Hopefully. Anyway it existed prior to 1.1 as well.

1. Yes. 2. Not sure. I think T2 is possible somehow. Fighter has Tactical Barrage, but that doesn't really help. 3. Activation Int value. If you use Swift Strikes before going Frenzy, the duration will not be reduced by the Confusion effect (but it will still expire before Frenzy, which has a longer duration).