Ganrich

I don't have numbers, so I can't say "most of these people" are running power builds in a game mode that hasn't yet been tuned for difficulty, so of course it is too easy. The curve for the difficulty drop seems to be around levels 10-13 in my experience. Casters aren't immune to this. when you get around PL 4-5 spells (maybe 6 in some cases) using certain spells with empower will start to wipe out large chunks of the battlefield by themselves. A well placed Empowered Minoletta's Concussive Missile is one such example, and wizards get it at PL4. Which is level 7 for single class wizards, or level 10 for MC. This is a mild example in my experience. Some of the late game stuff will do the same thing, but in a much bigger AoE. You do not need a power build for this. I will say that MCs tend to bloom in the level bracket I mentioned, and to some extent single classes a little earlier.

If you are playing a class that is going to play in the Bloodied pocket like a Street Fighter, I think human is more beneficial. However, if you are attacking the same target as a friendly in your party with a class or combo without a benefit from bloodied then Hearth Orlan. As to not dodge the question, I think the Orlan increases crit chance more. I am not 100%, though. I would say that you only get 1 conversion in an attack, and since Fighting Spirit just increases accuracy that means if you have other crit conversion stuff like Dirty Fighting, gear bonus, etc that you would still have that opportunity for conversion. It is also easier to attack the same target as a friendly than to stay bloodied (relatively speaking), but like I said if you are playing a class that benefits from being bloodied and you can also get +7 acc and +15% damage then I think Fighting Spirit wins out because you will already be proccing it. Also, that +15% damage works whether or not you crit. So, technically, probably Hearth Orlan. In the right build, though... Human would be more beneficial. Someone might come in with raw math and prove me wrong though.

@Myrtillo - it could be that we were indeed talking past one another. I have seen the argument of "why balance single player games" a lot the past couple weeks on these forums, and I may have been too quick to respond. As off kilter as the balance is... I am eager for it to be tuned. I still call it being facetious. As you can, as of right now, play on PotD with minimal gear and just roflstomp the entire experience. It isn't just classes that are the issue. It is how some of the items are implemented as this thread indicates. It is how many things stack that probably shouldn't. It is certain classes and abilities. Empower and power level are a huge issue, IMHO. They scale too well with damage, it stacks, and the armor system doesn't do near enough to counteract that. So on and so forth. I try to never tell anyone not to play a class personally. I will tell someone when I think 2 subclasses won't play well together. Earlier I did so on a post about Skald/Assassin. I still tried to help, but I did express my opinion that Assassin and Skald aren't a great mesh IMHO. That is mostly because Chanter doesn't play well with Stealth as it is currently implemented. Or, probably better said, Chanters get really limited in their Phrase selection if you want to use stealth. Particularly the mid-combat rogue stealth stuff. Right now, every class is viable. Some subclasses have too steep a penalty (Wizard subs and possibly Mage Slayer). At least IMHO. Some combos don't work too well together, but that will always be the case with a MC system in a class based game. I will say "That combo doesn't look too great", but then follow it up with general advice on how to best do it. Because even though it might not be optimal... The person on the other end knows what they like better than I do. Their enjoyment should always trump whether I like the combo or not. I can't think of any example of a class I will say sucks in the present game, though. Just to let you know, I tend to build more thematic ideas than power builds, myself. That is why I didn't lump myself in with the likes of Boeroer who likes making certain mechanics play off of one another. Which is typical of the Power Builder. I look for little synergies too, but I like to have a theme more so. My current play through is a Herald (Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour) that is all fire and healing. Basically, I do fire damage via FoD, Mith Fyr, and an upgraded Rejoice. I do healing via FoD, Ancient Memory, Lay on Hands, and that same upgraded Rejoice. Later I will have Sacred Immolation, and a few other things to add in some silliness. Healing Through Fire. Which is unironically the name of the Album I was listening to earlier today when I was thinking about trying a Herald. Will it be OP? Well, yeah, it is Deadfire lol. However, I don't think it will be any more OP than some of the stupidly OP builds I have seen on here.

Although I understand what you are trying to say, your exaggeration, and the way you distort what has been said discredits your argument. There is no denying that either a lot of stuff is terribly overtuned, or the difficulty in veteran and PotD is too low, and probably both. The topic was about specific items that are indeed broken in certain conditions, and those conditions require min-maxing for the scaling items. It is your character development choice to min/max those. You will indeed gain a lot of defenses, and loose a lot of interaction potential, in a game were combat is far from the only thing to do. Fighters, Chanters, or Monks are not inherently OP. I play Eder as a fighter, and he does not feel broken at all. A handfull of abilities in these classes are OP, and break the game if used repeatedly. Why would you use something else ? Because it looks cooler. Because it is more fun. Find your reasons, it's your experience. Why do I wear a valian froc with low armor and zero bonus instead of a robe that has better stats? Because it looks better and it makes me happy. All i am saying is, if you found a way to break the game, break it, and complain that it is broken, then you did that to yourself. There is no competition, no ranking whatsoever, so nothing stops you from playing it differently if it is more fun for you. Once again, I do agree that Deadfire has serious balancing issues that need to be adressed quickly to increase the fun potential even more. There is no denying that and I am really looking forward to those changes. And in particular to make relevant some mechanics that are gimmicky at best at the moment. What I dislike however, is the general trend of thinking that "this mechanic is broken in my way of playing the game and my way of playing is better than yours". Well in my way of playing, none of my characters really have history knowledge. I think Aloth has 8. And therefore giftbearer cloak is not broken. But that fight you could not avoid due to your low insight that comes with maxed history, I could avoid it. A whole fight won without fighting it, how broken could that be ? Please nerf dialogues. Or don't, because my way of playing is mine alone, and not more nor less valid than another's. Who says that I am exaggerating? Monks can one shot any enemy on the field. Wizards/Druids can wipe the entirety of a battle. Chanters can regenerate every class's resource and give everyone +100% healing. Fighters Cleaving stance is silly. High level Paladins can't die. So on and so forth. This is all on PotD. Asking us to not use the stuff that is overtuned is the equivalent of asking us to not use a good portion of items/abilities in the game, most of the classes in the game, and some of the skills in the game. I was for sure being facetious, but I wasn't exaggerating. These items are but a single example of this issue. They give no satisfaction to anyone who wants to have any type of challenge. If it were one or two things that would be one thing. It isn't. The game is replete with stuff like this. The other people on this forum that are the power builders will be here in 6 months making builds. They will answer questions for those that come late to the Deadfire party. They will keep this forum alive for a few years, but only if they find a challenge in order to justify those builds. The PoE forums stayed pretty active for such a small title. It is all on the shoulders of those folks, and it is good for new players to have a place to look for advice. It is wise to ensure they still have that challenge in Deadfire. As that is why they will be here in 6 months, or a year, or 5 years. PoE1 was a small but active community, and Deadfire needs to be the same. Now, I am glad you are finding enjoyment in the game. I am also glad that you feel that you are getting an appropriate challenge in the game. However, this isn't an either or scenario. These items can be reduced in potency, and still be incredibly powerful and borderline broken in lower difficulty settings. At their current power level, however, they trivialize the hardest difficulty. So much so that they make Triple Crown Solo runs breezy. Now, some of that can be alleviated by ramping up PotD, and we know that Obsidian didn't tune it completely. However, there are for sure things that tuning up PotD won't fix.

Yeah, wrong forum, but that is ok. Mods will move it eventually. As of right now all currently released DLC is free. However, the season pass will give you the 3 big DLCs that will cost money as they release. If you have the Season pass then you should be fine. As for advice. Start on a lower difficulty, and learn what abilities do. Learn what your Attributes effect. EG might = damage and healing, but also increases your fortitude saves. High Fortitude makes spells that target fortitude less likely to hit. Might and Con boost Fortitude. Perception and Dex boost Reflex. Intellect and Resolve boost Will. Then the 4th save is Deflection which protects you from weapon attacks. Fortitude tends to protect from poisons and the like. reflex protects from fireballs and stuff like that. Will protects from mental debuffs and charms. Once you learn this stuff you learn to manipulate your saves to make yourself more sturdy, or manipulate the enemy's saves to ensure that the big spell/ability you are going to use has a higher chance to hit/crit. So, to recap, learn Deflection, Will, Fortitude, and Reflex. If an enemy attacks you it will be their accuracy vs one of those 4. Another form of protection is Armor Rating which works similar to Damage Reduction. Penetration counter acts AR. Hover your cursor over an enemy to see what their saves, AR, and immunities are. Hit them with stuff that attacks their weaknesses. For example, youre fighting an Ogre. If you hover the Ogre you see that his Fortitude is sky high, but his reflex and will are fairly low. Use abilities that attack reflex or will. Try to attack the lowest save. Sometimes you will have to attack the second best option, and sometimes you just have to hope what you have hits. Anyway, in game there is a hyperlink system that will let you hover this stuff and read up. Don't be shy about getting your learn on. It can be overwhelming at first. Once you get the basics down then all will be well.

Yeah, Monks are terrific in Deadfire. Make no mistake. However, most of the classes with a set number of resource points are powerful too. Barb, Fighter, and pally are all great. They are all top tier for sure. Rangers seem ok, but I don't dig pet classes so haven't really messed with them enough to say. Rogues hit like a truck with the right build, but are not cost effective with their resource. However, they get passives later that help with that. EG Persistent Distraction/Deathblows combo. Wizards, Druids, and Priests start out with a little less than the marshal classes, but by end game have 2 casts of each level of spell (there are 9). They have more casts than they usually will use in a fight. How a class's resource works has a minimal effect on whether they are top tier or not. Most classes, if not all, are stupidly powerful by end game.

Items and abilities are so overtuned, and the system is so out of whack that you can make a pretty unoptimized RP flavor character and steamroll PotD. PotD right now is easier than Hard in PoE1. The game needs balancing, and most of that is down tuning some of the more broken and OP things. This whole "well run around naked and don't use any of the stuff in the game to get your challenge from playing the game" argument is awful. There are supposed to be difficulty settings, and these abilities can still be potent enough to make story mode and easy settings give a good power fantasy. However, these items/abilities are far too powerful to even give a moderate challenge on PotD at present. Don't use those items. Ok, but monks are OP as all get out. Well, don't play monks. Ok, but Chanters are pretty crazy too. Don't play Chanters then. Ok, Fighters break the game. Well don't play them either. Ok, well the Barbarians can clear out everything easily. Well, don't play those classes. What about Wizards? Druids? Priests? So, what you are saying is I need to play solo with a backstabbing rogue whose dumped might and perception to minimum, and pumped Resolve and Con. All the while avoiding gear, refusing to use athletics, arcane, explosives, or alchemy... in order to get a challenge on the hardest difficulty? So, really what we are saying is "don't play the game". Avoid everything in the game in order to artificially ramp up difficulty. Makes sense.

I spent my first 2 full runs with Harbinger, and you could say I did a slew of partial runs too. I am pretty familiar with it. I did the Troub/SF build, and it wasn't my first attempt by far. It was just the best combo I found. I tried combos with Assassin, Trickster, SF, and no Subclass Rogue. On the Chanter side I tried both Skald and Troubadour. I am not a summons type of player so I didn't try Beckoner, and Troubadour makes non-subclass Chanter pointless. Skald probably works best with SF and no Subclass Rogues. Troubadour can work with any of them. Beckoner would be best if you are Ranged, and as such, most likely works with most of them except SF. So, that said, this combo is rough. I think it can be good, but you have to follow certain rules. Stealth makes it rough, btw. Rule number 1) No DoT's from either class. Any upgrade you select for rogue cannot have a DoT because it will pop you out of stealth. So, no Arterial Strike, no Gouging Strike, no Strike the Bell with one handed weapons, no Pernicious Cloud, etc. Rule 2) No offensive Chants. Soft Winds, Dull the Edge, Thick Grew Their Tongues, The Long Night's Drink, etc. These all will debuff/hurt the enemy, and keep you out of stealth. So you must select buffing Chants. For clarity, you can snag offensive Invocations like White Worms, Seven Nights, and Boil Their Flesh. As these, if you can pull it off (and it is hard to do), do a single burst of damage and can be performed from stealth. Their casting times are long, and it is hard to get them off before you are spotted though. So you will want to reduce cast times if you can. Rapid Casting is a talent you might want if you plan to Assassinate with these Invocations. Rule 3) Two handed weapons. Use them. No one handers. You want to maximize those backstabs, and if you pick up Strike the Bell + it's upgrade for 2 handers you don't get a DoT. I don't think Skald is a good fit with Assassin, myself. Mostly because Skald benefits from constantly swinging at the enemy, and Assassin benefits from spending time going into stealth, and then attacking from stealth. This means you won't gain the benefits of Skald as often. IE you won't crit as much, and as such won't generate those free phrases. Sure, a backstab/assassinate has a higher likelihood of critting, but your spending so much time setting it up that it hurts the Skald side more than it helps. Skalds are better with 2 weapons, and spending their time swinging them. The big reason is that Skalds only get a 50% chance to gain a phrase on crit, and that works best if you are constantly swinging at the enemy with your weapons. Assassins won't be doing that. So, even if you crit on your Assassinate you aren't guaranteed a phrase. That is just my 2 cents though. Take it for what it is worth. To make Harbinger work best with Assassin I think Troubadour is best, but I am unsure if your summons will screw stealth up too. I didn't try that. If summons can attack while you are stealthed then a Beckoner might work too. They shouldn't break stealth, but I wouldn't be surprised if they did either. Anyway, start with Hel-Hyraf and Blessed was Wengridh for the Chanter side, and Crippling Strike with the Assassin. None of the damage invocations at level one are great with Assassinate. If you do a multi-hit spell out of stealth only the first hit gets Assassinate's benefits. So Thrice was She Wronged isn't a good pick. Only grab Thunder Rolled for a knockback. Hel-Hyraf works because once you get some combat stealth options you can use Hel-Hyraf to reduce their Armor Rating, Stealth, Assassinate/backstab. It is a very limited selection as you level up because of the "no DoTs" and "no debuff/damage chants" issue. However, I will give you a few selections that I think might be beneficial, and tell you why. Ancient Memory - AoE heal. It is good because it can help get you health back as you are in stealth between Assassinates. Mith Fyr - Flame Weapons. Adds a little more umph to your Assassinate/backstab. Silver Knights - +10 Deflection never hurt anyone, and definitely won't hurt a class that takes +15% damage like Assassin does. Her Courage Thick as Steel - 10pt damage shield. It isn't much, but if you do decide to go Troubadour you can refresh it every 3 seconds vs 6 seconds and it'll help with incoming damage. Old Siec - 12% life tap. Your assassinates will hit hard, and this could give a decent chunk of health back when they do. It combines fairly well with Mith Fyr, and with Mercy which I am getting to. Mercy and Kindness - +100% heal. I don't need to explain this. Especially if you select Old Siec or Ancient Memory as it will double their efficiency. Now for Invocations: Hel-Hyraf - -2 armor Rating on the enemies. You will hit a little harder. Killers Froze Stiff - Paralyze = you crit more. This is a must pick for Skald. It isn't even a question. White Worms - If your assassinate makes something a corpse you can now make that corpse a bomb. Pretty fun little combo when I tried it. Seven Nights - you turn into an ice bomb. If you can get in the middle of a pack while stealthed, and can get this off it will hurt. The Brideman Slew - +5 Resolve and might. If you upgrade to Each Kill Fed his fury you also get +5 con and kills will extend the duration. Extra damage + some synergy with Assassin. Non-offensive chant so it will cost the Skald more phrases to cast. The Bride caught their ruse - + 5 Dex and Perception. faster attack speed and accuracy. Upgrade gives you Brilliant which adds +5 intellect and you gain +1 class resource every 3 seconds. It is beyond good, and honestly every Chanter MC should pick it up. Non-Offensive Chant so it will cost the Skald more phrases to cast. Boil Their Flesh - does raw damage, and if a target dies it does more raw damage to enemies nearby. So, this has a neat synergy with Assassin if you can get it off before you are spotted. On the Rogue side: If you aren't getting Persistent Distraction then I would recommend Debilitating Strike upgrade. You can't get Arterial Strike anyway, and Deb Strike gives Distraction which causes the target to think it is Flanked and that is a -10 deflection. Lower deflection = more likely to crit. Confounding Blind - Stacking Deflection bonus on target while the blind is in effect. It can help melt targets. It is an upgrade to Blinding Strike. Shadow Step - upgrade to Escape that is a Teleport that lets your next strike paralyze. Once again Paralyze = more crits. This benefits Skald. However, Assassin benefits more from the other upgrade that stealths you when you use the teleport. Killing Blow and Devastating Blow - you have a finishing move on low health targets. Strike the Bell - Only with ranged or two handed weapons. It's upgrades are specific to the weapon type. Most of the other Rogue active abilities are too expensive, and Harbinger has some issues with Guile costs at low levels anyway. Take the higher level stuff at your discretion, but remember you don't have a ton of Guile. DoC Breastplate is purchaseable in Periki's Outlook in Neketaka. This adds +2 Guile to your character. Save money and buy it. Rogue Passives. Backstab - no sense playing Assassin without it. Deep Pockets - This gives you +2 quickslots (6 total), and assassinate works with spells and Grenades. So, it is actually a decent pick for assassin. Obviously, you want Explosives or Arcane skill to make use of it. Combat Focus - if youre planning to try and cast invocations from stealth then this might help if something spots you and tries to interrupt. Persistent Distraction - This is great. Everything you engage with is Distracted and that gives them -5 Perception and Flanked Affliction (-10 Deflection) Dirty Fighting - 10% hit to crit conversion. Need I say more. Uncanny Luck - another 5% hit to crit conversion, and 5% resistance. Deathblows - +50% sneak attack if target has 2+ afflictions on them. Moar damages. Imp Crit - more damage on Crit. Avoid Deep Wounds as it is a DoT. Some Attribute advice. Get perception pretty high. 16+ or so. Skald wants to crit, and the higher your accuracy the more likely that is to happen. Intellect is another important stat as it increases your CCs and Afflicitons duration. Might is probably fine between 12 and 14 on rogue. Sneak Attack, backstab, Assassinate, and Deathblows will boost your damage enough that you don't need it too high. Dex - I would keep it around 10, but that is me. Con and Resolve are somewhat dumpable, but you are already a bit squishy from Assassin so take care to not make yourself too paper thin. OK. That is about all I can say. I would highly recommend looking at Assassin/Troubadour. It is really a better fit. However, if you have any other questions then I will do my best to help.

I was really just thinking about late game. Start with BR off with Mith Fyr/AM on. Toss some Sworn Rival out, cast Set to Their Purpose, Cast The Brideman Slew (upgraded), switch BR on and switch to Her Courage, Inspired Beacon, Sacred Immolation, spam Rejoice heal with burn upgrade, and spam FoD. With the heals from Rejoice and FoD I think AM/Soft Winds might be pointless. Silver Knight might be a better all around pick vs Her Courage though. The idea was to soften the Blow of the Sacred Immolation damage to myself with Her Courage and try to out heal it with while doing extra burn damage with Rejoice and FoD. Of course if I keep BR off, pick up Mercy phrase, and use Mercy/Silver Knight combo, I would probably out heal Sacred Immolation's self damage anyway. I also wouldn't have to toggle BR that way. Basically, the idea is in the late game to turn my character into a walking ball of fire that heals.

Yeah, I am probably going to look at the difficulty mod on my next playthrough. One more question. Have you tried using Her Courage Thick as Steel, with Brisk Recitation modal on, during sacred Immolation to curb some of the self inflicted damage? That is 10pts of damage every 3 seconds that you don't take. In theory anyway.

Yeah, I am planning it out, and Dragon's Thrashed is already out of the build. I knew it wasn't great, but I wasn't sure there was anything better. There is. There is a lot of better choices. I was definitely planning to stack some PL, and had my eye on Magran's Favor too. Also, I haven't had a great build for Sungrazer yet. So, this one will likely be it. Old Siec worked well with my Street Fighter/Troubadour, but that attack speed plus sneak attack bonus from Flanked/Bloodied pumped it up I am sure. It was ticking for more than AM, and almost as frequently. When your constantly hitting for 70-100 damage every couple seconds then that 12% is pretty good. When you aren't... well, yeah. Probably just a very build dependent Phrase. That makes sense. I figured the pally side was a bit lacking on resources until late game. I wasn't sure if the damage numbers from Brand Enemy made up for it. Cool. Good to know. Being low on Resources until late game was something the SF/Troub suffered as well. I feel Eternal Devotion might still be the better grab for this if I pick up Scion of Flame. It isn't like PotD is hard enough atm that something suboptimal like that would matter. It would still come later in the build in order to take advantage of Mith Fyr. Thanks.

So, my next playthrough is a Herald. I am leaning toward a combination of Fire damage and healing. So, KW/Troubadour. I have a few questions as I haven't messed with Pally in a while. 1) will I spread myself too thin to try to be an off healer or passive healer mixed with Fire damage? Basically, I want Sacred Immolation, Chanter heal invocation upgraded for burn Damage, Mith Fyr, Dragon's Thrashed, couple healing chants (Old Siec, AM, and/or Mercy), Scion of Flame, LoH, Reviving Exhortation, etc. The concept is Healing through Fire, but mostly fire. I will likely have either Pallegina, Xoti, or Tekehu to also heal. 2) Is Brand Enemy worth losing the refund on Sworn Rival? I am just thinking that late game with Brilliant inspiration that refund will become less useful, and since you lose a talent point to respec (bug) I would want to be sure. Or have they fixed this bug? 3) Does Shared Flames stack with Mith Fyr? If not should I go with Eternal Devotion? Any recommendations would be helpful. Like I said, I haven't messed with Paladin much since beta. I don't know what has, if anything, changed.

Yeah, you aren't reading the Chant descriptions if you think the +10 Deflection or regen phrases are the best all the time. A Troubadour with Brisk Recitation on and the +10 damage shield is choice. 10pt shield every 3 seconds. The Weaken affliction on The Long Night's Drink is terrific. -5 con is good, but that -50% healing is amazing. Flame weapons - nuff said. Dragons Thrashed - its ok. 12% lifetap is terrific. +100% healing is broken. Concentration removal is really good in a lot of fights. Then the 3 Resistance phrases are all super helpful. I'm planning a pally MC with those 3 phrases to keep my party so resistant to CC/afflictions it isn't funny. As for Invocations, there isnt a bad one. All the summons are solid to broken. The damage ones are all pretty good with the right accuracy buffs and enemy debuffs. The buffs are terrific. The heal and res are good. Both paralyze and charm are gold. So on and so forth. I have trouble building my Chanters because I see so much value at every level. I have trouble finding bad choices. Everything is good.

It works great on a SF build. My SF/Troubadour build used it. Hit like a truck, and covered everyone in DoTs.

I'm happy that my flail is being used in builds. Getting a bit choked up. Lol In all seriousness, if it works on Rooting pain then I wonder if it will work with Dragon's Thrashed?

Gonna echo the Bleakwalker/Troubadour sentiment. There are some great phrases for a Death Knight vibe. Soft Winds - AoE damage and self heal The Long Night's drink - AoE weaken. (-5 con and -50% healing for enemies it hits) Old Siec - 12% lifetap for you and party. Many Lives pass by - summon a skeleton passively. Mix in Mith Fyr with summons for a lot of padded damage. Then we have some good Invocations. Level 1 phantom and or skeleton summons. Hel-Hyraf - Armor Rating Debuff. Upgraded damage to target extends duration. Skeletons work well with this if you put then on the debuffed target. AoE paralyze that can be upgraded to add a Frightened Affliction after the paralyze. White worms explodes a Corpse, and can be upgraded to sicken targets. Seven Nights if you want some AoE frost damage. Boil Their Flesh - does Raw damage and if it kills a target they explode doing more Raw damage. So, on and so forth. Combine these with Bleak Walker and you have a winner.

No. Skald's would be broken with BR. They already have reduced cost to offensive invocations. Now you want to make BR a talent for every sub? So, Skald's now get an 8 second paralyze every 6 seconds. Now imagine Beckoners with 6 second summons. As if they aren't broken enough. Troubadours pay for BR by having an increased cost to every Invocation. That Skald's 2 phrase Killers froze stiff costs the troubadour 4 phrases. That is how it is balanced. Skald 2 phrases takes 12 seconds. Troubadour with BR on takes 12 seconds to build 4. It isnt until higher levels that BR starts paying dividends, and imho it is higher levels that I think it is worth keeping BR off because high level phrases are so powerful.

Yeah, the debuffs pass through the graze/hit/crit system like active cast CC/DoTs/debuffs from other classes. At least this is how it seems to work. I expect if you crit on a 3 seconds phrase you get longer than 3 seconds. I dont believe it is reliable, though.

No. It is to reduce the time it takes to generate phrases in order to cast invocations. A troubadour can build 6 phrases to cast a high level invocation in 18 seconds with BR on. Any other Chanter takes 36 seconds to build 6 phrases. Skald might get lucky on crits and be a little faster. BR is anything but useless. So, yes, you lose linger, but you can pump out invocation casts much faster than other Chanters. It's a trade off.

Ignore the tooltip for the 10 second stuff. A chant lasts 6 seconds and lingers for 3 seconds. A troubadour's linger is 4.5 seconds with BR off. If your intellect is 20 that adds another 1.5 seconds. This means a Troubadour can achieve double coverage of 2 phrases because both will have a 6 second cast, and a 6 second linger. When BR is on the cast time of a phrase is reduced by half to 3 seconds, but you lose all linger time. So when BR is on you can only have a single phrase up at a time. I dont believe it is possible to get 100% up time on 3 Phrases. I could be mistaken, and with a specific build it might be, but I doubt it. As for the phrase stacking with a Paladin ability. It should. I havemt personally tried, but most phrases stack with this sorts of things. Like I said, I'm not 100% sure though.

Chanters are godly. That is all.

Every phrase after level 1 has a place imho. Thinking of a Kind wayfarer/Troubadour with all the Resistance phrases so he is extra durable to saving checks and has resistance to Afflictions. All the while he is the party healer combining FoD, LoH, with the Chanter heal/burn invocation. I am not much of a summoner guy, but all summons have their place. I have grown fond of both attribute buffs even if Brilliant sees a nerf they are both potent. If you have a good melee MC for killing targets Each Kill Fed his Fury can last a good long while. It works well with Street Fighter/Troubadour for instance. I also mean to try out Boil Their Flesh in a future play through. I haven't given it a solid go thus far.

Yup, soft winds and blunt the edge are the two you avoid at first level if your harbinger uses stealth at all. Thick Grew their Tongues, The Long Night's Drink, and Dragon's Thrashed are also "no nos." Grab buff only. Use the phrases that increase Resistances, Ancient Memory, Old Siec, etc. Anything that buffs the party.

With Brisk Recitation I think the Troubadour can cast invocations faster than the Skald unless they cost 2 phrases. In this case they cost 1 for the Skald, so they can cast them every six seconds, whereas they cost 3 for the Troubadour, so they can cast them every nine seconds. Once you hit a base cost of 3 phrases the two are equal (2*6 = 4*3) and beyond that the Troubadour can outcast the Skald. For non-offensive invocations a Troubadour using Brisk Recitation is faster across the board I believe (I don't think there are any invocations that cost 1 Phrase). This. Unless your RNG luck is greater than mine then the Troubadour will cast anything higher than the 2 cost invocations faster than Skald. That, and they have the same cast time for every Invocation. What i mean is that they aren't penalized for summons, nor offensive, nor non-offensive necessarily. Yes, everything costs one more than normal, but BR means you still cast higher level invocations faster than any other Chanter no matter what kind of invocation you're talking about. If you are leaving BR off then you won't, but you easily get 100% uptime on two Phrases as a benefit. Troubadour is a very micro dependant sub if you want to make the most of it, or it can be passive for quick invocations, or it can be passive and have the 100% uptime on 2 Phrases. It is the most diverse chanter sub, and outside of requiring more of the player has no real negatives to speak of. Where Skald can cast low level Offensive Invocations quickly, and potentially generate phrases on Crit. However, that is RNG, and because you are reliant on crit you tend to only use it to cast Killers Froze. This is in order to increase melee crit chance. God forbid the enemies have good Will saves. It works wonders in some builds, but not in all. Also, the most powerful invocations are buffs and summons as they arent capable of whiffing and they have OP outcomes. Regenerating class resources, and Drakes/Dragons with infinite Empower. The Skald is penalized for these phrases. The troubadour is not simply because of BR.

Items and pets both have some perception bonus items. They also stack. I dont know where these are, but there are more than a few. There is a pet vendor in North West Serpent's Crown that probably has one. I am not home to check specifics atm unfortunately.