Boeroer

If you want to compare two daggers vs. two stilettos then I'd say two daggers are better. Mainly because Pukestabber + Lover's Embrace is a very good combo when it's about attack speed. Both weapons' effects apply to both weapons which makes you very fast. But Rust's Poignard (stiletto) is also very good, especially if you critically hit a lot (Bring Down is good), also because it comes in legendary quality which is very nice. With Azure Blade in the offhand you can also have a nice stiletto setup: if you fight near your party members it gains a lot of accuracy (Cloak and Dagger: +15 accuracy if near 2+ allies, but only for the Azure Blade). I would simply do a weapon set of dual daggers and one with dual stilettos. You want a backup weapon set with alternative damage anyway: should you meet enemeis who are very resitant or even immune to slash damage (daggers) you will be happe that you can switch to the pierce damage of stilettos.

Also the special thing about PoE1 and INT influencing AoE is that it has increasing returns, because INT does not actually increase the area size by 6% per point of INT but the radius(!) of the AoE. Because the area of a circle is Pi * radius², this leads to pretty nice effects once you put a lot of points into your INT. In Deadfire this was changed (because it was too good obviously) - there every point of INT does indeed increase the area by 6% per point, not the radius.

Because INT not only prolongs hostile effects on enemies and beneficial effects on you, but it also influences the size of all AoE. Pretty important for a caster in general and especially when he's also using AoE weapons (implement + Blast). If you are using Kalakoth's Minor Blights: they have an AoE (bigger with more INT) and every hit in that AoE creates a Blast (bigger with more INT). So INT is much more important than PER in this case. The impact of PER on accuracy is pretty noticable in the early game by the way - but the further you progress the less significant it becomes because the accuracy bonus from PER is just a flat one and there are so many other influences on accuracy or hit quality (stacking acc buffs, weapon quality, stacking defense debuffs etc.) that the flat bonus from PER doesn't hold as much impact as in the early game (where it's very useful).

Nope. It has to be a Priest of Berath with maxed starting Might. For Durance I'd recommend an arquebus build.

https://x.com/Obsidian/status/1974215697845923976?t=VZRa8zAPXPL4QpGyQ-ZLnQ&s=19

There was a security issue with the Unity Framework and PoE was affected. It (among other games) was pulled off of digital storefronts for a day or so because of that. The patch most likely addressed that.

Correct. Main or offhand hand makes no difference for Pukestabber.

You have to put Lover's Embrace in the main hand if you want to apply its neverending damage over time effect from stealth (True Love's Kiss, it only works from true stealth at the start of an encounter, not invisibility!). So if you sneak up to an enemy (maybe the boss or the strongest foe of the group) and do a Gouging Strike or Vanishing Strike for example, the main hand will hit first (with Lover's Embrace), it will apply the DoT but also break stealth. The second attack with Pukestabber will already be out of stealth. If you put Pukestabber into the main hand it will deliver the first strike, break stealth and then Lover's Embrace with the second strike will not apply the True Love's Kiss DoT. That's probably not what you want. But that's the only thing where it matters in which hand you put which dagger.

Hi! To speed up so you're able to squeeze more attacks into the duration of Vanishing Strike and to maximize the duration of Vanishing Strike's non-breakable invisibility (besides maxing DEX and INT) while looking appropriate for a dagger-type Assassin: Head: Blackblade's Hood (+10% action speed). Heaven's Cacophony (+2 INT) would be good, too - but imo its looks doesn't fit an Assassin at all. You could hide it though. Another alternative would be the Mask of the Grotto Deep - because Shadow Fang (raw DoT from stealth attack) works like True Love's Kiss from Lover's Embrace. Fair Favor can be used to maximize crit conversion for Gambit (I would focus on the duration of Vanishing Strike though). Armor: Cabalist's Gambeson (Arcane Extension, +10% beneficial effects duration), Devil of Caroc Breastplate (bonus Guile influences the crit conversion of Gambit) Neck: Strand of Favor (+10% beneficial effects duration, +1 INT) --> those two "+10% duration" effects work multiplicatively with each other, base duration and INT bonus! Back: Ajamuut's Stalking Cloak (bonus dmg, acc and stun from Vanishing Strike's invisibility and stealth, great for Gambit, too) Gloves: Aegor's Swift Touch (+5% action speed and +1 DEX), Gloves of the Dungeon Warden (bonus accuracy, Lockdown 1/rest can be nice against an enemy you put True Love's Kiss + Gouging Strike on from stealth), Firethrower's Gloves (+2 DEX), Hylea's Talons* Waist: Sash of Judgement (just some bonus dmg) Rings: Drunkard's Regret (only needed while resting with alcohol for Pukestabber to prevent hangovers, you can unequip after resting), Kuaru's Prize (+1 INT, +1 PER), Ring of Prosperity's Fortune (crit conversion for Gambit), Ring of Clenched Muscle* Boots: Rakhan Field Boots (teleport to+full attack + prone target 1/encounter, nice while invisible to spare time with running), Bounding Boots (exploitable as free jumping tool while stealthed/invisible: if you cancel the action mod air you will still land at the target spot but make no sound and roll no attack, great for "sneaking", stealth attacks, and pickpocket), Boots of Speed (it does matter how quickly you can reach subsequent enemies while you are invisible, stack with Fast Runner). Pet: Ooblit (+3 seconds on beneficial effects - it's just a flat 3sec addition to your overall duration, still good), Abraham (mitigate the recovery penalty from Gambeson), Epsilon (same), Cutthroat Cosmo (same), Trixie (+25% stride, see Boots of Speed, crit conversion), Milx (+1 INT, crit conversion for abilities), Levin (+1 INT, +10% stride), give Nalvi, Sheba , Trixie or Pes to Edér (if you have the Berath's Blessing unlocked for Edér to be able to have pets). --- *) the Frenzy from Lover's Embrace stacks with everything and it also procs off of all attack rolls, not only those that come from the dagger - for example attacks from Pukestabber but also spells you might cast (from an item or scroll or so). Because of that it can be beneficial to add additional hit rolls to your melee attacks. That can be done with Hylea's Talons (the DoT it provides will roll a separate attack which can trigger the Frenzy) and the Ring of Clenched Muscle (the affliction it can cause also rolls a separate attack which can trigger the Frenzy). Both of those will also proc Avenging Storm (from Heaven's Cacophony) which will in turn proc Frenzy.

Hi, not stronger in general (lacks the amount of summons for example and no free empowered invocations 1/encounter), but it sure has more strong damage options. Ninagauth's Shadowflame alone is a very tempting spell imo. Not only because of the dmg but because of causing hard disable + dmg simultaneously: awesome use of action time. Also Wall of Draining + Cipher buffs is very good ofc.

You mean for the Monk class or in general? Depends on what you want, where the "power" should go and on which difficulty you play and also on the party composition. All in all the Priest is the most impactful class in the game because it has the most influence on your party's performance. The exact build doesn't matter much, it's the (buffing) spells which make the Priest so good, but until you get Spell Mastery those spells are all per rest. But Priests also have Inspiring Radiance (+10 accuracy to the party, stacks with everything) and (Painful) Interdiction per encounter which are both very useful.And they can get to a Fighter's accuracy level with a weapon of their god (for example Priest of Berath: Great Sword or Mace) - which can make them decent weapon users, too. Many players don't like to main a Priest though because it's "only" doing support and that's no fun to them (although it's very powerful). So if you are looking for a build with more "self-contained" power, all things considered I would probably recommend a Spiritshifting Druid (Cat or Boar form). It is highly versatile (can do single target and AoE dmg and CC, healing and support), doesn't rely on per rest abilities in normal encounters because it has tremendous melee dps output while shifted - but if needed can cast powerful spells, too. Once you get your Spell Mastery picks (each time you pick a per-rest spell that turns into 1/encounter) you will only need your per-rest spells in long, tough fights after which you will need to rest anyways (because of the loss of health). Imo this is the build that usually feels the most powerful because it drops foes so quickly in melee without any per-rest resources - while it then can also do very good spells suchs as Relentless Storm which can decide fights by themselves.

Unfortunately some of the abilities which used to work with the Long Pain and which I described do not work like that anymore. I didn't test in depth again which ones now work and which don't, but I guess we can assume now that the Long Pain does behave like any other ranged weapon and will only work with abilities and talents for ranged weapons. Anyway: the build doesn't work as described anymore. The Long Pain are still good weapons though. It's just that it doesn't synergize as well with all the other Monk abilities anymore which is sad.

Maybe values of deflection you have to achieve if you want to get to 100% misses (enemies' attacks against you) - against certain enemies (megabosses?) I assume?

Edér as Swashbuckler works very well for me as my main tank. I especially like Persistent Distraction in combination with lots of engagement slots (auto-hits). I also like Adept Evasion in combination with a large shield + modal and also Slippery Mind in combination with Fighting Spirit. But a Fighter/Streetfighter is even better since it has no real downsides when tanking comparee to a regulat Swashbuckler. And I absolutely prefer it over a Fighter/Paladin: it has a lot better offensive output than any other Swashbuckler or Crusader and ist still has sufficient tankyness (same as Edér, even better with optimized attributes).

Unbroken/Streetfighter was just what I played while trying to stay below 50% health with the Streetfighter. I didn't mean it as a recommendation. +1 passive AR is great btw. Underpenetration malus is a sort-of multiplicative dmg reduction which pairs especially well with getting grazed a lot. Paladin is even better with AR, but if I plan to use a shield anyway and want a fighter for lots of engagement and increased speed while wearing heavy armor, I personally would pick Unbroken over Devoted any day. Just because of the +1 stackable AR. With a two hander (which I don't plan to switch much) that's another story ofc.