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Just because it's a great picture...

PoE1 is worth replaying for single fact its much better game than Deadfire.

The only problem with the Legacy Creator I've noticed is that it doesn't entirely acknowledge some of the dragons you might've killed in PoE1. If you killed Llengrath, the variable n_Llengrath_State will be set correctly, but not b_Bog_Dragons_Killed, which is used in at least one conversation in Deadfire. It straight up doesn't ask you about the Alpine Dragon. I made a small fix for this, be sure to make a new Legacy after installing to your Override folder: Improved Custom Legacy Creation.zip

@Rimiu: yes, German expat in Romania. Soon to return to Berlin though (June 15th). I proposed to remove the resource replenishment of Brilliant quite early and instead simply raise the PL bonus. Acute has +1, Brilliant could have get +3. Or increase AoE and durations by 50% (without any further INT bonus). Anything that's not obviously destroying the resource economy. I thought they got it when they started to nerf the Chanter invocation which originally applied Brilliant and now only adds +1 resources instantly (can't prolong that) - but Ancestor's Memory and other sources of Brilliant are still in, so...

I proposed to remove the resource replenishment of Brilliant quite early and instead simply raise the PL bonus. Acute has +1, Brilliant could have get +3. Or increase AoE and durations by 50% (without any further INT bonus). Anything that's not obviously destroying the resource economy. I thought they got it when they started to nerf the Chanter invocation which originally applied Brilliant and now only adds +1 resources instantly (can't prolong that) - but Ancestor's Memory and other sources of Brilliant are still in, so...

Same - except the profanity and ranting and blaming players for sharing stuff. Brilliant is the most broken thing. And if you (as a designer) can't immediately see the gamebreaking combination of Brilliant and any duration boosting ability such as Wall of Draining and Salvation of Time then you have "tomatoes on the eyes" as we Germans say. Wall of Draining itself also broke (even without Brilliant) as soon as the Bloodmage was introduced.

Aaaand again I made some nice discoveries while searching the files. There is a simple string value attached to some quests. They increase the n_faction_strength by 1, -1 or for one RDC quest 2. That's it, nothing too convoluted about it. As I have exams coming up it might take me a moment to write it all but there are basically 24 quest with this string attached. I'll mine it and put it up here and on wiki. Finally it will be solved. Soon.

Source In Māori mythology, Tāwhirimātea (or Tāwhiri) is the god of weather, including thunder and lightning, wind, clouds and storms. He is a son of Papatūānuku (earth mother) and Ranginui (sky father). In his anger at his brothers for separating their parents, Tāwhirimātea destroyed the forests of Tāne (god of forests), drove Tangaroa (god of the sea) and his progeny into the sea, pursued Rongo and Haumia-tiketike till they had to take refuge in the bosom of their mother Papa, and only found in Tūmatauenga a worthy opponent and eternal enemy. - Wikipedia =================================== Tāwhirimātea, the God of Storms =================================== Difficulty: PotD v2.0.0.0030 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Theurge (Watershaper + Stormspeaker) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Marine Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Deadfire Archipelago (Artist) -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (char creation, no Berath's Blessings): MIG: 12 CON: 13 DEX: 11 PER: 14 INT: 13 RES: 15 -------------------------------------------------------------- Important Skills: none -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) PL1 Druid Ondra's Whip (a) Tanglefoot (a) Nature's Mark Chanter The Skies Opened And Vengeance Rained Down (a) Blessed was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe (a) Not Felled by the Axe, Nor Broken by the Storm (a) The Thunder Rolled Like Waves on Black Seas PL2 Druid Blizzard (a) The Moon's Light (!) Woodskin Chanter The Cave Provided Shelter Through the Storm (a) At the Sound of his Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff ® Common Two Handed Style ® PL3 Druid Chill Fog (a) (!) Returning Storm (!) Chanter Great Amira Let Her Wrath Be Shown (a) (!) The Fox from the Farmer Did Run and Leap Ancient Memory (!) Rejoice, my Comrades! Two Fingers of Daylight (!) PL4 Druid Boiling Spray (a) Moonwell (!) Secrets of Rime (!) Heart of the Storm (!) Chanter Ngati's Power Struck the Shore Again (a) Rise Again, Rise Again, Scions of Adon! (!) PL5 Druid Ocean Burst (a) Relentless Storm (!) Practiced Healer (!) Chanter A Cool Wind Washed Over The Tribe (a) ...And Evil Turned Away from the Sun (!) Seven Nights She Waited While The White Winds Wept (!) PL6 Druid Watery Double (a) Garden of Life Chanter Not One Foe Was Spared Amira's Wrath (a) (!) ...And Face Your Foes ® They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze ® So Singt Biting Winds o'Eld Nary (!) PL7 Druid Blast of Frost (a) Nature's Bounty Chanter Within Ngati's Embrace None Could Touch Her (a) Mercy and Kindness Followed Where'er She Walked (!) Her Tears Fell Like Rain (!) --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (*=additional enchantments; !=important, r=recommended): Weapon set 1: Lord Darryn's Voulge (!) Weapon set 2: Watershaper's Focus (Ondra's Wrath*!) (!) Chest: Deltro's Cage (Conductive Storm*!) (!) Helmet: n/a Amulet: Necklace of the Harvest Moon ® Trinket: Kaihoa Cloak: Mantle of the Seven Bolts (!) Gloves: Woedica's Strangling Grasp ® Ring: Kuaru's Prize ® Ring: Ring of Boundless Stars ® Belt: Ngati's Girdle Boots: Boots of the White ----------------------------------------------------------------- Tekēhu is very clearly the apple of the Obsidian developers' eyes, for much effort must have been put into making him capable of many things his fellow Companions (or even any custom hirelings, for that matter) cannot match. As a Watershaper, Tekēhu gains access to Foe-only AoE Frost spells; as a Stormspeaker, he gets automatically-learned Invocations unique to his subclass, of which two are powerful Shock-based spells. Taking a fair bit of inspiration from my Fate Testarossa Ascetic build, I took the staple of that build - Lord Darryn's Voulge, Deltro's Cage and Mantle of the Seven Bolts - and complemented it with the Watershaper's Focus to capitalize fully on the synergies he enjoys as a Theurge like no other in the Deadfire. The end result: Tekēhu, with the Tāwhirimātea build, is capable of handling the entire party's spellcasting requirements single-handedly. Offensive Spellcasting Tāwhirimātea then sent forth a variety of clouds, including Aonui (dense clouds), Aopōuri (dark clouds), Aowhētuma (fiery clouds), Aowhēkere (clouds which precede hurricanes), Aokanapanapa (clouds reflecting glowing red light), Aopakakina (clouds wildly drifting from all quarters and wildly bursting), Aopakarea (clouds of thunderstorms), and Aotakawe (clouds hurriedly flying). - Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand Much like the Fate Testarossa, Tekehu can make use of the +5 Shock PL from Lord Darryn's Voulge and Deltro's Cage to power his Shock spells like Returning Storm and Relentless Storm, along with the Ball Lightning spell he gets from the fully-upgraded Voulge. That said, since he isn't really able to reach the 35 Might cap, Tekehu can't quite put out the same damage numbers that Fate is capable of. Still useful to be sure, but the gap can be noticeable. That said, Tekehu has a couple of advantages over the Fate build; Firstly, the true extent of the Shock synergy between Tekehu's two subclasses comes in the unique Invocations Great Amira Let Her Wrath be Shown and Not One Foe Was Spared Amira's Wrath; these behave like the Wizard spells Crackling Bolt and Chain Lightning respectively. Not only do both Invocations also benefit from the Shock PL bonus, and not only are both ideal choices for opening fights - especially in the latter case - as Invocations, they can be casted again late in the fight, once Tekehu has built up enough Phrases. So while Tekehu can't bring down the thunder to quite the same extent that Fate can, he makes up for it by being able to do so practically indefinitely. Secondly, should Tekehu face something that's immune to Shock, he still has Freeze synergy to fall back on; As a Watershaper, Tekehu automatically learns Foe-only AoE Frost spells such as Chill Fog, Blizzard and Blast of Frost. He can even complement that with the Invocation So Singt Biting Winds o'Eld Nary, which behaves much like a Frost version of Chain Lightning. And this is where the Watershaper's Focus comes in; the Ondra's Wrath enchantment makes it offer +2 PL to all Frost spells, including his Chanter Invocations, for which the aforementioned Eld Nary isn't the only Frost Invocation that Tekehu has by far. But we'll get into that later. To be sure, the +2 Frost PL offered by Watershaper's Focus isn't quite as much as the +5 Shock PL possible with the Voulge + Cage combo. But it's still better than anything else currently available in the game, even with the new items introduced by the Beast of Winter DLC. Healing Sometimes Tāwhirimātea is content to listen to advice from his parents and forgive his siblings. On those days the weather is fine, clear and calm. - New Zealand Ministry of Education Ondra's Wrath on the Watershaper's Focus also offers +2 Water PL, which is most useful on the Water-keyworded healing spells The Moon's Light and Moonwell. Thus, Tekehu can also double as the party's primary healer, even while he's dishing out the arcane hurt at the same time. To bolster his healing credentials, Tekehu can take the Ancient Memory Chant for additional passive healing, and become an even more powerful healer in the late game with Mercy and Kindness Followed Where'er She Walked. He also make use of Rejoice, my Comrades! Two Fingers of Daylight!, using Phrases for a spot of much-needed burst healing. With the ...And Evil Turned Away From The Sun upgrade, he can even deal Burn damage to Vessels much like Priests do with Holy Radiance. To top it off, Tekehu can even take a rezz option with Rise Again, Rise Again, Scions of Adon!, letting him get fallen party members back on their feet. Nuking To take revenge on his brothers, Tāwhirimātea first attacked Tāne Mahuta – the god of the forest, who had separated Rangi and Papa. The mighty trees of Tāne’s domain were snapped in the middle and fell to the ground. Then Tāwhirimātea attacked Tangaroa, the god of the sea, causing the waves to grow as tall as mountains. After this he turned on Rongomātāne, whose domain was cultivated food and the kūmara (sweet potato), and Haumia-tikitiki, god of fern root and uncultivated food. To escape, they hid within their mother Papatūānuku - Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand Last but not least, Tekehu can indeed pull out all the stops and nuke his enemies with Storm of Seven Bolts - although, once again, it's not quite to the same level as Fate can manage. To be fair, it can still add up to a fair bit of damage, but since he cannot summon the same level of raw power that Fate can, there can be occasions where the Shock nuke fizzles out as a bit of a squib; That said, this is where Tekehu's edge in flexibility pays off once again; he has an alternative Frost-based nuke, in the form of Seven Nights She Waited While the White Winds Wept; With the Watershaper's Focus backing him up, Tekehu can land some huge Frost damage numbers on enemies who would otherwise shrug off his Shock attacks. Even in his most powerful attacks, Tekehu can make up in flexibility wherever he might lack in raw power, with all of the tools at his disposal. Final Thoughts Pros: Takes advantage of +5 Shock PL with both Storm spells, Storm of Seven Bolts, Ball Lightning, and Stormspeaker-exclusive Shock Invocations Takes advantage of +2 Frost PL with Watershaper-exclusive Foe-only AoE Frost spells and Frost Invocations Takes advantage of +2 Water PL with The Moon's Light and Moonwell, and complements it with Chanter's healing Phrases and Invocations A well-rounded spellcaster, able to dole out damage to enemies and heal allies. As the only playable Watershaper, and the only playable Stormspeaker in the entire game, the edge that Tekehu enjoys with the Tāwhirimātea build cannot be matched by any Companions, hirelings, or even the Watcher him/herself. Cons: With only 12 Might, Tekehu can't quite put as much raw power to either blasting or healing as a Might-maxed Watcher or hireling can. Because it uses most of the same equipment, Tāwhirimātea cannot be used in the same party as a Fate Testarossa, for better or worse. High Recovery time due to the use of heavy armor, with no real means of mitigating the effect. For some reason, Tekehu has a dad bod when in heavy armor. I guess that's what comes of easy living as a Mataru of the Kahanga.

One I always find myself resharing when I stumble across it online... This is what Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like as he was standing in between Wilt Chamberlain and Andre the Giant in 1983 on the set of Conan the Destroyer.

I'm not sure if I 100% understand WHY this works, but I can tell you how it works and why i THINK it works. You might remember from the Ultimate thread that people used this to not get interrupted while casting, you hover the mouse over delay turn and then press the hotkey for ending your turn, somehow the game assigns you the initiative you would get if you actually delayed your turn. (which is at the end of the current turn) Now if at the start of the fight you actually delay a turn AND all enemies are in the range they wanna stay in to attack you (this is important, enemies moving around will break the glitch), from now on your initiative will stay at the end of the turn unless you do something to change it (moving around oneself is one of these things and obviously doing a non cast full round action is another). Now if your initiative is at the end of the turn you cannot delay the turn further and the button will actually be greyed out, but if you cast your spell and instead of simply ending your turn hover the mouse over the delay button while ending the turn via hotkey, you will immediately cast your spell and immediately get another turn. As shown this can be an almost endless loop in which time actually stops, you can have so many dots on the ground that the game will lag more and more (didn't realise that in my first recording thats why it got laggier and laggier), so you have to be careful to only cast one chill fog etc. Eventually the loop will break. don't ask me why, haven't figured that out yet, and as you saw at the end of the video I also haven't figured out how to reenable it perfectly (one enemy kept their turn the others still lost it tho). edit: btw if one was to cast ground dots endlessly the loop seems less likely to break, the game just becomes unplayable after a while and dots only apply their first tick not for the next rounds cuz time is frozen, if with a lot of dots on the ground you intentionally stop the loop the enemies will take all the damage of the non passed turns at once, which is especially hilarious with combusting wounds.

As Boeroer noted, monks should always select Balanced Shield. The only reason to take Outward Spikes if you are using it with a non-monk (fighter, barb, cipher, etc.) with Monastic Unarmed Training. And I agree that the ACC boost from Precision Sticker is better than the small boost to damage from Pugilist. You'll probably end up doing better DPS with the former, as you note.

I think it's very appropriate to feed the troll with lots and lots of Rocks.

You should run while open carrying. No way he's glaring at you when you're strapped.

Some people are just ****. Crotch rockets and douche cars as coping mechanisms for mid life crises just tend to accentuate that. I've always been told to run against traffic if possible, though. And we won't get automated cars until the factories are running again, just saying...

Gentlemen, behold! My aural depression button!

I personally would always pick Balanced Shield: +1 Deflection per Wound, +1 Reflex per Wound instead of Outward Spikes: 20% Chance on being missed by a Melee attack to strike back instantly Because Outward Spikes is not a Full Attack like Riposte but pretty weak actually. Also defense bonuses have increasing returns - and having +10 deflection and +10 reflex (which stack with everything) is pretty great. The other options "Precision Striker" is not strictly better than "Pugilist" but I'll still take the first. Note that Tuotilo's bash itself counts as unarmed attack so it profits from both. I often use Swift Flurry and Precision Striker can help with that. Also helps to apply afflictions more reliably and helps to crit with Stunning Surge more often. +10% additive dmg bonus from Pugilist is not breathtaking. It simply means +1.65 dmg per hit with Monk/Monastic fists and +0.9 dmg per hit with Tuotilo's Palm. To me +5 ACC is more useful in general. But as I said there's not that much of a difference.

Bah, those girlies are way overdoing that "sweet and innocent" voice thing. Not sexy at all.

The characters aren't really bisexual, they're playersexual. Which is a way to save resources while writing and coding the game. Also no random people on the internet getting angry at the devs for not being to romance their fave NPC. Personally, this kind of solution isn't my cup of tea but I don't care much for game romances anyway. And yeah, Xoti hitting on my watcher was kind of annoying. For Tekehu though, it's just part of his character.

I'm not sure if you are ignoring me intentionally, but in case you don't one more time: Wall of draining by itself is more op than brilliant by itself. Brilliant is only op coupled with other stuff like SoT or wall or if it is up infinitely via Tactician (this is a lot less op than wall without brilliant tho.) Wall + anything that makes you invincible is enough to win any fight with a bloodmage cause all you need is press blood sacrifice, brilliant only makes fights easier and is onviously very op in the early game before one even gets the wall, but your point about brilliant is wrong, the only thing op by itself is wall, SoT is useless without brilliant and brilliant without duration extenders has a lot less options (still viable but calling something only true op if it is in fact less op is just a wrong definition.) I have never played this game with a party (but I'm sure at least with a smaller party you can make tactician still work) but there is quite a few tactician combos that can solo megabosses without duration extenders. On the ultimate it is a different story but on a normal solo potd upscaled game tactician + anything is very good. Lets not forget how op it is to just turn on Berath's challenge use any char with invis and get brilliant, or use all the weird tb mechanics, or use something like gouging strike, but apart from the obvious cheeses there is a lot more creative stuff you can do. I totally stand by your point of the duration extenders being more op than brilliant, just saying that brillian from tactician is in its own league and very strong. (and obv bugged)

Yes, obviously some combos are more potent than others and are breaking the balance more obviously than others. I was speaking more generally about how the balance of any economy breaks down as soon as you turn something that's limited into "unlimited" or "endless". Thus it's not very logical to introduce something like that into a system you want to be balanced. Unless there are other benefits that outweigh breaking the resource economy of course.

Didn't know that. Cool fix!

Thank You! IIRC I allied with LLengrath and killed the alpine one.

You get asked a bunch of questions about you choices in PoE (some go into fine detail) and I think it's good enough. That "generator" asks the same things that the import would extract from your PoE-savegame anyway - so I suspect the resulting dataset would even be identical.

That is not logical. Like saying: "Exterminating measles will make chickenpox more deadly". Maybe you mean that if you remove Brilliant's resource replenishment then Bloodmage will be the only thing left that breaks resource economy and thus will have more appeal to powergamers - or something along the lines. Which would be correct. But yeah - Bloodmage + Wall of Draining (you need to combine both things to break the resource economy of a Wizard) is broken as well. A solution would be to only allow Blood Sacrifice a certain number of times per encounter or to alter Wall of Draining so that it's proloning effect has a rel. low cap or gives a flat duration bonus like Salvation of Time. I would prefer the first one. You'll trade the ability to empower spells for Blood Sacrifice which will allow you to refresh resources more often than Empower would (but not infinite times). Megabosses are only a very small (and optional) part of the game and are made for 0.x% of players. Also they're kind of a PR stunt. Same as the Ultimate. This should not be a reason for messing up the resource economy of the game (or for not fixing it) for over 99% of all players. Combining prolonging abilities with endless resources is clearly a broken mechanic. You shouldn't design encounters or challenges to justify that brokenness - but rather fix the break and design encounters accordingly then.

Preventing Brilliant from giving back ressources will make Blood mage even more broken and Megabosses borderline impossible to beat without specific party settup (I mean for "normal" players who don't play beyond potd upscaled with a party). The encounter design is currently not made for it. My mod makes SoT unable to extand beyond doubling the duration of a spell. I believe this is enough for SoT. But Wall of Draining + Bloodmage + Priest is still there. Only Works on self and requires hitting though.

I'm no one to tell others how to play but brilliance makes me fall asleep. If it was a limited thing to x per encounter then yea, much better.

I personally dislike all OP that comes from just abusing brilliant to become immortal with endless resources. I mean why would you even pretend you're playing legit this way and not pop god mode with console - pretty much same effect. Brilliant buff is hands down most ****ing moronic implementation in PoE. I feel it was added to game just as an excuse for making insanely boring, grindy fights with mega bosses. Whenever someone posts a brilliant buff build im like "no, **** off with this bs, bring something creative instead of this copy pasta cheat build" I like OP factor if it comes in a form of combos that require mixing synergy between classes, talents and items - then it functions as a reward for putting it together unlike ****ing brilliant which is just console "godmode" in disguise really, don't convince yourself otherwise, you're wrong and you should be whipping yourself as bodily penance for spreading **** ways to play the game. Im sorry that I'm triggered but I feel I need to mock, flame on this design just so that no genius at obsidian find it a good implementation for PoE 3.

Aquaman - had a campy kind of charm to it thanks to Jason Mamoa and Willem Dafoe (oh, and Dolph Lundgren!) Amber Heard is very unlikable. She should only be used as a villain. But overall it was a pretty decent flick. Kind of felt like they were trying to tap the Thor Ragnarok vibe. It doesn't, still felt like an imitation, but it is better than most of the DC stuff. Edit: oh, and Murlocs!

I personally dislike the mask idea. One time use masks for short periods of time? Sure. Making people wear fabric over their faces for extended periods of time? Not for it at all. I firmly believe, in the long term, the science will show that it did very little to help or even hurt. It would be incremental either way and I don't believe much of an increment. That said, there are studies with opposing conclusions right now and I don't have time to wade through them all. I mean, I have an 'essential' job and I have a full time school load. lol All that said, I follow the rules. I mean, if things got too crazy, I would literally protest, but I'd follow the guidelines while I did it. Frankly, rather than worry about face masks and fomites, I'd simply provide more places for people to handwash. Hell, make it part of new building design. lol I joke about the NCLEX. If there's a question with a possible answer of "wash your hands," it's the right answer. I only have a year and a half or so before the nurse practitioner boards, but I'm assuming the same strategy that served me so well for my license will come in just as handy.

This is my video, made due to the fact GOG Galaxy don't take screenshots in IWD2. I apologize if video is of bad quality, you should be able to twinkle the settings manually,

My favorite part of that scene has always been how at 1:56 Eric Idle has to bite his scythe to keep from laughing.

Why are we still here? Just to suffer? Every night, I play on 720p . . . and 30fps . . . even 32 bits. The hours that I've lost . . . the games I had to uninstall . . . won't stop hurting. It's like we're all still there. You feel it too, don't you? I'm gonna make them give back our past!

Looks like the proposed Captain Pike Star Trek show ("Strange New Worlds") is going ahead, covid19 permitting. Yeah, it is. Sisko's actions work because they are the culmination of 5(?) prior seasons of plot and character development; and the other involved parties act entirely in character. They also work because Brooks wasn't telling everyone who'd listen that they were a commentary on [late 90s social/ political issue] instead of being plot driven. Guess what I'd say overall is that it isn't a matter of care for Trek that made Picard's (or Discovery's) plot so shambolic, and it isn't absolutely inconsistent for the Fed either (bit like seemingly half the Fed's officers being Romulan spies, there is a precedent). The key problem is that they simply aren't very good writers, not good enough to make a coherent overarching plot woven from multiple threads, and certainly not good enough to weave a commentary on real world politics seamlessly into the tapestry. But that ultimate problem is the one many other programs have as well and which is a bane of most modern TV writing; that characters and factions have the motivations and capabilities demanded by what the plot needs at any given time, not what has been established by previous characterisation or motivation; ie simple bad writing is the problem- and they'd do (and have done in some cases) the same to any other franchise they were writing for.

It's for balance reasons

I'm always hoping for PoE 3.

POE3

my thoughts as no one in particular: I agree. I've said it before elsewhere, but BoW also has my narratively favorite pillars sequence in the entire game (the bridge ablaze sequence), which explored an area of the lore that most games and game worlds would be content to leave as mere mythos. And the lovecraftian setting in FS has surprisingly been underdone in these types of RPGs and I really liked it (the closest equivalent I can maybe think of is the illithid lair in BG2, but there wasn't much plot to that area). I totally convinced Wael to let the spore colony grow and thought the ending slide for it was great. From a replay perspective, though, FS is my favorite. Better dungeoneering, high-level encounters, interesting fights (whereas BoW sometimes gets real repetitive with the umtpeenth soul collector or big beast guy, and all those burning archers that keep popping up from the ground gets old and feels a bit unfair at times). Plus, even if it doesn't have the same kicker of story that I thought BoW did (and Rymrgand got fleshed out way more interestingly than Wael I thought), well, now tayn I can get into! I didn't care much for SSS the first time through, but I like it more on replays for this reason. It's fun having these isolated battles just to throw my parties at and see how they perform. The story is thin, but for replays that works out fine for me since I'm skimming/skipping through text anyway. I really hate the seeker challenge where you get transformed, though... just awful. You spend so much time carefully leveling your party and then they all get replaced by the same transmogrified group of creatures that any party gets, and you're expected to fight with that, not to mention that the transmogrification is imperfect so some classes do obscenely well (paladin auras, martial classes with lots of passives).

Mostly the fact that it lets me douse people in oil then set them on fire.