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nothing can beat that fluffy tall hat would be better if malk come with clown face paint

Mind you, I don't think any man can pull off the male Malkavian outfits either.

From "Light Clothing"... ...to "Heavy Clothing"... Oh, of course, because I didn't already look like a streetwalker in the cheerleader outfit, now I'm straight up tasteless too! I'm gonna ice that Fat Larry (note: that is his actual name) bastard that sold me this garbage. And I just checked, the next armor upgrade somehow manages to look even worse...I knew I should've been a Ventrue: all her clothing options are dope (especially the "Light Leather" armor), while it looks like I'm going to have to stick with this skimpy cheerleader outfit the entire stinking game. Why did being insane have to mean not being able to wear any decent clothing - maybe she has sensory issues and can't handle it...or maybe she just straight up doesn't care what she wears or even mind being scammed? Well, I do, so I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Malkavian after all. Bah humbug!

Introduction and Principles : I have the project to make a "small" balance mod for PoE1. I haven't much time to work on it right now, my target date is more about this summer, but I think it's better to get comment as soon as possible since the activity on this forum is decreasing... Mostly, I would like to gather some feedback before it's too late to get "enlightened" reviews. I am already the author of a rather big balance mod for PoE2 ( Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) ). I don't want to do something that big for PoE1 since modding PoE1 is a bit more complicated and I don't have that much time to invest again. In addition, I won't find it that suitable since I'm in love with many of PoE1 « unbalanced » features (such as Dragon Trashed. builds..). Finally no multiclassing tends to reduce the number of potentially OP combinations. My objectives are only to make every combination of Races and Classes relevant enough. All classes shall be able to fullfill a particular role (or combinations of roles) better than anyone else in a party (Solo is a secondary concern for me). A couple of warnings before sharing the details : - I won't try address all bugs and glitches. By experience, there are just too many of them. - I won't do anything else than tweaking numbers beacuse of the technical difficulty to do so. I can increase damages, duration, values of bonus or even add a scaling per level (seems simple enough). So please try to avoid making suggestions that would require adding new properties to a particular ability. - The total number of changes should be close to the list I will present below (I can include a couple more suggested changes, but not too many...). My vision of current class balance : Tier S : is about casters who can unleash many (great) casts when needed Tier S++ : Priest. Close to impossible to replace as party support (and solid for everything else). Playing without a Priest in one's party is like rising the level of difficulty... literally since PotD adds like +15 Accuracy and Defenses to foes, while a priest get basically adds around +30 Accuracy and +60 Defenses (even if it requires casting time and a party slot). Tier S+ : Wizard. Incredibly strong on its own. Special mention to Ninagauth Shadowflames which is way too strong (even for a special reward) and you can cast it every encounter from lvl 15. Tier S : Druid Tier A : Solid tier All of these classes have some very strong specials. Here are the reason why most of the classes fit in this category : Chanter : Dragon Trashed is crazy strong, and they can do that while standing in the strongest armors (and pocking with weapons). Paladin : similar to Chanters (even tankier) thanks to Sacred Immolation, less powerful but with a lots of other support goodies (instant resurrection, auras, spike damages with FoD, etc...) Ranger : very strong ranged damages with Twinned Arrows (basically doubles DPS), a good pet from the later version of the game, reccursive Stuns from Stunning Shots. Monks : very versatile with summons, Crowd Control, good DPS abilities, and tankiness through Iron Skin Barbarian : great AoE damages with possible added Crowd Control (through interrupts or overbearing weapons). Spike AoE damages with Heart of Fury. Cipher : extremely versatile casters with great weapon damages. Defensive Mindweb is super good. Tier B : slightly subpar Tier Tier B+ : Fighters : some nice goodies, but not something as gamechanging as the previous ones. Just needs a trump card similar to what is Sacred Immolation or Twinned Arrows for their respective classes. Tier B : Rogue : great Single Target DPS... but not that much greater than Ranger with a lots more weaknesses and no really great other goodies. As a consequence of th I will try to do the following : - Give a super endgame ability to Fighters - Improve the Rogue substancially and also give them a super endgame ability - Tweak down a couple of Priests and Wizards spells that I consider particularly annoying. Note that I would include nerfs in an optional component. (as I did for my PoE2 nerfs) - Try to reduce the gap caused by Rest Spamming (see below) Focus on the Rest Spamming issue : Limitating rest is part of the usual game experience. If you rest spam, some classes (casters) are way stronger and restricting oneself from using per rest ressources is part of PoE1 game design. Of you roleplay a minimum, you won't go back to the nearest inn every other fight. You may find this gamplay annoying, but I don't want to touch this. However, it would certainly be a good idea for another mod !! It would most likely require to lower Wiz/Priest/Druid casts to 1-2 per spell level as it was done in PoE2. On the contrary, one of the general principles of this balance mod would be to increase the number of per Rest casts for all non spellcasters. One of the biggest strength of casters (Wiz, Priest, Druids) is that they have a lots of casts for boss fights, making them God tier for such battles. Increasing the number of Per Rest casts of martial classes would reduce the gap. A lot of Per Rest abilities are actually quite good vs bosses (Unbending, Deprive the Unworthy, Finishing Blow), and I feel weird that they usually get 1-2 casts of them while casters get 4 casts on each Tier (not even counting mastery). Since my purpose is to give more Per Rest casts to martial classes in general, my rule would be by default to give 4x Per Rest cast of everything Per Rest. Because 4x Per Rest cast is what casters gain per spell level, it would feel fair. Sometimes I would make exception to 3x if the ability feels a bit strong (Unbending, as it is) or 5x if weak/spammy (Binding Roots as it is, or Hastening Exhortation). Expect +2x Per Rest cast compared to current values, with some exceptions (Unbending and Binding Roots feel quite balanced as they are, so no +2 Per Rest cast). The result of this tweak would probably to have martials/cipher/chanter to do the biggest part of the work for "minor" fights due to passive and Per Encounter spams (until Mastery at least) while Druid/Wiz/Priest would still carry the party for boss fights, but with other classes also contributing more than before. Detailed preliminary list of changes: Fighter Clear Out : 4x per Rest Sundering Blow : duration 8s -> 30s, -8DR -> -10DR I want to make Sundering Blow the best DR reducer of the game by a significant margin. This would ensure the utility of fighters versus bosses. Also note that using it with a blunderbuss makes it basically an autohit, unlike similar abilities. Ney it's melee only Paladin Hastening Exhortation : 5x per Rest Deprive the Unworthy : 4x per Rest Monk Clarity of Agony : 4x per Rest Barbarian Barbaric Shout : 4x per Rest Wild Sprint : 5x per Rest Ranger Revive Companion : 3x per Rest Master's Call : 5x per Rest Rogue - Sneak Attack : +50% base +10% per 3 lvl beyond 1, up to +100% at level 16 - Dirty Fighting : 10% => 15% crit - Riposte : 30% chances on miss too - Withering Strike : 1x => 2x per encounter - Fearsome Strike : 4x per Rest - Feign Death : Prone 10s -> 3s, invisible 6s -> 12s - Deep wounds : add +3 raw damages scaling per 6 lvl beyond 1 up to 9 raw damages per 3s tick at level 13 - Finishing Blow : 4x per Rest Finishing Blow : +5 Acc, +50% damages, +3% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +3% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +300%) Devastatating Blow +5 Acc, +50% damages, +5% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +4% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +400%) Most Rogue changes have already been discussed here : Melee Rogue is too weak on PotD Upscale - Page 2 - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community Wizard (in a distinct nerf component) Shadowflame : Paralysis 6s -> 4s This one is specifically annoying because an AoE Paralysis with a significant duration that can be spammed every fight or 6x times on a single encounter can really break the game. Priest (in a distinct nerf component) Devotion for the Faithful : -20 acc for foes -> -10, -10 mig for foes-> -4, +20 Acc for friends -> -10 (in a nutshell, that's PoE2 values) Crow of the Faithful : +25 Resolve -> +6 Resolve As stated above, Priests are just too good at buffing party. DftF is arguably the best spell of the game since High Accuracy help everything including landing Crowd Control, and you're even debuffing your foes on top of this ! Also Resolve is arguably the worst attribute, but at least it brings a sometimes critical resistance to interrupt. By buffing it so much, CotF basically makes your initial Resolve attribute insignificant. Race changes Death Godlike : damages to foes under 25% endurance : 25% => EDIT 25%+7% damages per 3 lvl, up to +60% at level 16. Nature Godlike : bonus set to +3 to Mig, Dex and Con when under 50% health, +1 per 6 lvl up to +5 to Mig, Dex and Con at lvl 13. Mountain Dwarf : +20 -> +40 vs poison and disease (+20 is too weak and was basically only useful for 1 single build, @Boeroer's Bilestomper) Additional change : 1-Handed Style : 15% Crit -> 25% (basically the same level of power as what I did for my PoE2 mod)

oh you sweet summer child there is only one werewolf in the game, and I think you didn't met him yet if I read well where you are in the progression

Best armor in the game. And whomst amongst us does not feel like a flayed man who is in hell.

Perfection. Ignore that I stripped the quote of the image, it means nothing. If VtMB is any indication, nightclubs in real life would probably look very silly if they didn't have A. the insane lights that half-blind everybody, and B. enough people to make it look like stuff is actually going on. As it is, 5-10 people flailing around in static lighting is just...not quite my idea of a lively nightlife, . On the other hand, if other games are any indication, trying to move around in locations that are way too crowded is really annoying, so it's probably for the best even if it's completely unimpressive visually. This game came out in two thousand freaking four, I really can't complain too much about that - nearly 20 years ago! As for the general vibe of the game...yeah, I mean, I'd accept just having more options at this point. When the literal prostitutes in the game are dressed less outrageously than you are and you can't really do anything about it, I think there's a problem. They have this corset, miniskirt, and nylon stockings that look rather modest (and certainly more stylish) in comparison to what I have - exactly who's prostituting who here, anyways? At least their clothes cover their butts! In other news, I found the werewolf. It was extremely anticlimactic: after having done a couple of Bad Things(TM) recently, my humanity is down to 8/10, and the moment the fight started, my character went into a frenzy for the very first time and literally just about instantly melted the werewolf. I couldn't do anything before he died, and I wasn't even sure what was happening before it was over. It was pretty weird, especially since you only start out with 7/10 in the beginning of the game and I hadn't experienced a frenzy up until now. I ended up reloading to give it a more honest try and found out that the Mac-10 is the worst gun in the history of guns, maybe ever, because the recoil is...well, possibly fairly realistic for a tiny untrained woman trying to shoot it at a werewolf a few feet away from her while backpedalling. Meanwhile, somehow every bullet from Fat Larry's was somehow able to hit me... Ended up going back to my katana and doing some hit-and-run stuff, which took care of it after a couple of tries. Good enough. And this werewolf was not the guy from the diner whom I mentioned earlier, and whom I presume I will meet somewhere else down the line.

Ah, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart got steam page and releases in 8 weeks. Did I miss the announcement? Cool. I wonder how well will PCs handle the rift gimmick. It seems like a feature tailor made for PS5 uber SSD system.

Well KFOR is meant to guard against the Evil Serbs, or something. Nothing is ever simple in the Balkans.

In general when an article says "law enforcement clashed with protestors", you can safely assume that law enforcement initiated and escalated most of the "clashing". No. I looked at the lyrics and it seems to be what TV preachers and Republican politicians have been like for decades.

A while ago, at NVIDIA headquarter: Random person in meeting: "Hey, people made fun weird keynote presentations recently, perhaps we should..." Jensen: "Hold by beer!" What the hell.

Moscow under attack

Decided that this gen's actual mid tier cards are likely to be crap, so picked up a 6750XT for cheap. So it's now guaranteed that the 7700/7800XT will be the apex of efficiency, value for money and computing power.

Welcome to my death machine, interloper. I'm glad to hear that the remake is really faithful to the original. The last thing I wanted was for Nightdive to streamline Citadel Station and make it easier to traverse. I'm glad they kept it labyrinthine.

Yeah, I saw the Nosferatus...boy, that is some rough stuff. As for the Ventrues, I would say classy goth office drones, which I think is great. But I generally like severe/muted colors and understated design, and I usually think the less skin, the better. To each their own. I definitely did not pick the right clan for that, .

That's tame compared to Nozzies, who get to wear bondage gear. Ventroos look like boring office drones which is fitting because they are boring office drones. My favourite lady would be Tremere and dude Toreador. Also, I want to play it again. Of course. Good thing I never uninstall it anymore.

Look, I get that Malkavians are insane, but what the hell? Go be insane in some other style, please. Ventrues definitely got the best options, both male and female IMO.

Eh, the (stripper) police uniform gets better

The puzzles are quite easy. Maybe some will require some time to understand what can be done in this game particularly, but don't expect much. The story is pretty simple too, shouldn't have the "Story Rich" label imo. But the game is beautiful and I don't regret buying it.

For single target dmg I would suggest either Boar form (wounding DoT is strong and stacks) or Cat Form (fastest attacks) with Wildstrike Belt (it's a lot better than it seems) and Avenging Storm. --- When going Boar: the higher the MIG the better because the wounding lash scales with MIG. The higher the MIG the bigger the percentage of the wounding lash of the tusks. With high MIG you can then also pick Novice's Suffering and wear the Sandals of the Forgotten Friar because both boosts the bonus damage of Novice's Sufferung while nothing else does. That way you get good melee dps and fast hits (important for Avenging Storm) even if you are not shifted, while sparing resources that you would otherwise need for enchanting backup weapons. The Boar Form also has passive healing that stacks with Veteran's Recovery. In combination with high MIG you can make the Boar Druid pretty sturdy while shifted which makes it less likely to go down (aka dealing 0 damage ;)). --- For a melee Cat Form I would maybe prioritize DEX over MIG. Also helps to cast buffs etc. faster. --- For a casting setup with Relentless Storm and so on I would probably focus on the Cat form (just because of the faster casting).

The moment a manager/boss pulls something like that, is the moment I'm heading for the door. No kidding, I've left well paid jobs before, because I didn't like the management style and for that reason only. Having your mutually agreed upon bonus snatched away with no warning would be a 5 minute trigger for me (the 5 minutes it takes to clear my desk and return the door key/swipe card to the company)

I agree. Especially with the newest update. I think once the cap is reached, one should keep all stacks regardless of getting hit until combat ends. But only if you reach tge 100 stack cap. I also really like the gauntlet idea and do believe is should still be considered a generic form of damage and it's use would be a multiplier for the fist dmg. Like tier 1 does 1.2x dmg or somethin. In terms of it getting nerfed. The first nerf that made stacks reset upon taking dmg was a good idea, but I don't think having a stack cap AND having the reset aspect is good. It makes little fist very impractical. I only ever used little fist for the infect broodmother as it was only super useful against her. Not to mention the grind it takes to get maxed lil fist. In my honest opinion, I wish lil hadn't been changed at all in 1.2.4. I think it had been balance pretty well after the 1.2.3 nerf and made it so one had to be decent at perrying in order to get good use from it. One final idea is instead of nerfing the stacks (i.e. the dmg) make it so that when using lil fist you have less block strength (could also apply to the power droplet).

@thelee points this out in his gamefaqs guide but in general action economy is a big reason why if you are going to multiclass a character you should make sure the synergies are worth the sacrifice of doing two classes. For instance I ran a Ranger/Priest recently. It was fun but I would not call it optimal. The extra accuracy helped my spells a bit and the pet added some dps but I don't feel like the benefits there were worth losing PL 8/9 spells. On the other hand, in the past I ran a Berathian/Helwalker multiclass that focused on melee and some offensive magic and that was a lot of fun and felt synergistic. The key there was doing what @Boeroer mentioned above and bringing another Priest along. If I had to use my Berath/Helwalker character to do all the buffing then I wouldn't have been meleeing or casting offensive spells as much as I would like to. So instead, I brought Xoti or Vatnir along frequently to do that. That freed me up to play that character more like a gish and get in there and melee and occasionally toss a nice offensive spell out. And that was fun and effective and felt worth the tradeoff of losing spells. I also think it's important to not get too habit driven when doing combat in this game. It's easy (for me at least) to fall into a trap where I approach every fight by casting certain buffs and then attacking. Sometimes it's actually more efficient to skip the buffs if I don't need the extra accuracy or if I need to CC or otherwise attack certain enemies in a hurry. One example of that is the fight against those burning enemies in Beast of Winter in Eothas' realm where you get ambushed after speaking to Waidwen. I like to get onto those archers and CC or get in their face ASAP because when they spam confounding blind on my party and snipe me I feel like party members go down rapidly. So if I spent some time just sitting there grouped up buffing I feel like my party would die. Instead, I get on the enemies asap to disrupt what they're doing to me. Yet on a lot of other fights I might just unstealth Eder and keep the rest of my party stealthed while I get buffs up. So it depends. And of course, sometimes you don't even need those buffs either if it's a trash encounter or what not. It can be more efficient/fast then to just get to bashing immediately instead of wasting time buffing.

This isn't Overwatch, Rainbow Six or Fortnite. It's a survival crafting game, by the end of the game things should be easier, its called progression. So stop nerfing builds that make the game easier, the only people who seem to be bothered by strong builds are you, because anyone else who plays the game doesn't like them can just not use it. Like the Unarmed build, it got nerfed into the ground, why? I don't think anyone complained. I don't think anyone suggested nerfing it. And it's not like the players are being forced to use it, it's entirely optional. So I really don't see what the point in nerfing it is, other than you guys wanting to maintain an iron grip on the fun experience that this game has the potential to be.

It is currently Hungarian forces turn Who have practiced civil and de-escalating tactics past 8 years on Hungarian borders from which this article gives an example https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/on-the-hungarian-border-no-refugee-escapes-violence/ and Hungarians are supported by Italians who also have practiced how to be human towards people when they have handled refugees coming from Africa with boats. Somehow these troops don't start to use different tactics when their command moves from their government to international organization where there is even less oversight.

And you had to pay $19.95 for the privilege!