JerekKruger

Well of course and it'll be bisexual, or more precisely it doesn't see gender (see Spindle Man). It'll also be the first time the romance won't be optional as the companion will read your mind and see that you are attracted to it regardless of what your character actually says. Won't this reduce player agency you ask? No, of course no, who wouldn't be attracted to a hot, sexy Vithrack?

Do quarterstaffs and pikes cause engagement? The Ogre summons don't unless you force them to get closer to their target (they have reach essentially). Given that, and the description of Instruments of Pain, I'd assume they remain melee but engagement requires you to be withing standard melee range.

Agreed. Obsidian did the right thing in making Twinned Arrow an active ability, but they should at least double the bond cost, if not triple it, to make it balanced

Boeroer = Serafen confirmed?

Not sure what shops sell them, but you can find a unique Pollaxe in the Old City dungeon in Neketaka and a soulbound one southwest of Takenaka (exact coordinates are 37'21" South 55'30" East). But yes, a lot of weapons are severely lacking unique options whereas some have loads (there are something like nine unique sabres and only one unique club). Obsidian have acknowledged this and said they'll try to change it in the three planned DLCs.

Indeed.

There's a conversation early in the game (I think when recruiting Xoti) where you're forced to choose between two conversation options, both of which have disposition tags (iirc honest or clever). I'm sure there are more out there, I just noticed this one because I started a new play through last night. This really annoys: what if I don't want to develop a reputation for honesty or being a smart alec? There should always be at least one disposition free option available. As far as I remember there always was in PoE. As far as I remember this was never the case in PoE, but I always felt it should be. How can I have a reputation for being honest and being a liar (PoE1), or being both kind and cruel?

Well part of the reason I voted "no preference either way" is that I expect Obsidian to do something about the weapon distribution in the upcoming DLCs anyway, so if you feel like Kapana Taga should remain an obsidian sword (and I can see why you do) then I'd say it should remain a sword.

I would love a Vithrack companion in PoE3 (well, in an expansion to PoE2 would be great, but I doubt that'll happen). They're obviously an intelligent species, comparable to kith, but so alien. There's precedent for it with characters like Okku and One of Many in MotB so fingers crossed.

Not quite. You still can't see your health, you still take raw damage over time and you're forced to use Mordwyr. That said it's pretty close to complete removal of the downsides of the subclass.

If they can give it both types that'd be cool. Otherwise I have no particular preference either way. It's true that there are too many swords and hardly any clubs but it's also true that proficiencies mean very little for non-fighters.

I wish I could like this post more than once, particularly the stuff about plate.

Oh definitely, but to be fast requires a certain amount of specific strength/endurance whereas I think a lot of people imagine it'd be easy to wield a rapier and easy to be fast whereas a two-handed sword would be hard work and slow (a longsword ain't slow at all), but we can blame movies there as well.

Not that I know of. They aren't bad actually. The lash is pretty big and is one of few multiplicative damage bonuses (most are additive). Combined with certain multiclass combinations they can be pretty powerful. That said there are so many excellent unique weapons in the game which make them a lot less appealing. Had they existed in PoE1 with a 50% lash they'd have been very strong.

New poster with 1 post to their name and a... dubious username criticising Deadfire. We haven't seen much of that recently have we.

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 is of interest to me as well so here are screenshots of the issue: First here's the normal Barbarian Ability Tree: And here's the Berserker's Ability Tree: So the Berserker is missing Blood Storm, Spirit Frenzy and Spirit Tornado (which seems a shame given they are focused on Frenzy). I checked using the "AddAbility" command and there are Berserker versions of these abilities (Blood_Storm_Berserker, Spirit_Frenzy_Berserker and Spirit_Tornado_Berserker) so I assume this is a bug.

The Priest's Litany of Spirit gives a single target Acute for a base duration of 60s, and as you say there's the Chanter Invocation that gives Brilliant. There may be others but I didn't spot them with a cursory glance through abilities during character creation. If you're going single class then you can also take Prestige at max level for +1 Power Level. So I guess it might be possible to reach +14 (+16 with the Amulet of Stone Power) with Fire spells. Not bad.

If you multiclass with a Fighter you'll lose 2 Power Levels of Wizard so I'm not sure its worth it if your aim is to maximise the Power Level of your, say, Fireball. EDIT: I should note it probably is worth it for the bonus Accuracy (does that apply to spells?), just not if your aim is maximising Power Level.

Immunities in Deadfire are... inconsistent. Lesser Storm Blights are immune to Shock damage, which seems fair enough, but Greater Storm Blights merely have a high armour rating against Shock (12 in this case) which makes no sense.

I was under the impression that rapiers are as heavy or heavier than any other 1H sword, and even 2H swords. Indeed, it's a myth that rapiers are a light nimble weapon suited to weaker but more dextrous fighters. They were typically slightly heavier than arming swords (the classic knightly one handed sword of the early/high middle ages) and their length made them harder to wield (due to weight distribution). In another of his videos Matt states that he thinks the heavier two-handed longsword is an easier weapon to learn for beginners who lack specific strength because it uses two hands.

If you mouseover the in game tooltip for power pool it specifies those classes that get the bonus. Spellcasters aren't amongst them sadly.

The Wiki claims that it's for sale at the Brass Citadel. Not sure if that's accurate.

Huh, thanks for letting me know. That's not at all clear from the tooltip or AoE indicator in game.

As I understand it the standard path is fear -> anger -> hate... sorry