DigitalCrack

@Baltic. Its not that you coldnt play them melee. As Boeroer said just looking at the names of abilities is enough to know that the intended design was for them to be used as ranged, even though you can use most abilities (at least partially) with melee weapons. Anyway just glad to see for PoE2 that the base class is actually getting melee on its own aside from the melee focused stalker subclass.

Awesome! Like that the melee issue is already taken care of in a satisfying way.

A ranger should be versatile, should be effective with many weapons including melee and ranged but game makers tend to make them mostly about ranged weapons. Ranger does not mean Archer as Quillon said.. the animal companion does more than enough to make the class unique and not just a "woodsy fighter". Also PoE was made with the philosophy of playing classes how you want to play them except for Rangers which were DESIGNED to be ranged only. Its only by the creativity of the community (and mercy of devs for not patching it out) that we have melee ranger builds. A Ranger is the fantasy Macgyver, and should be capable of more than just firing ranged weapons. Almost his entire PoE1 ability\talent list are all either ranged buffs or pet buffs... (Melee aside) No traps, snares, or natural remedy style abilities which are all things that could have been capitalized on and would fit the class. Heck even the pet actually having some learn-able active abilities of its own would have helped make the ranger less of a passive ranged snooze fest to play... The community melee builds are by far more interesting to play than how the class was actually intended to be played. EDIT: I shouldn't have to resort to playing a subclass (or have devs waste a subclass slot) just to get access to melee, AT ALL, for the Ranger class. No other base class got pigeon holed to melee only or ranged only.

I beat the game on the Ultimate and I still think the priest list is somewhat confusing. Part of the reason for that is that the priest list is the best counter for most status effects. All of the counter effects are spread out on different levels, sometimes in a way that doesn't make sense. Prayer against infirmity counters two very different status effects. Prayer against restraint doesn't affect paralyzed, which is healed in the more powerful prayer against imprisonment. Isn't imprisonment by definition restraint? Prayer against bewilderment is far too high-level, especially since it's next to litany against minor afflictions. Same is true for litany of major afflictions. And bizarrely, stunned is the most powerful debuff in the game since it can't be healed. The whole thing is a bit haphazard. I actually like that spells are going to be broken down and actually have a different pool based on diety. Makes the priest class diety selection, as a whole, exceedlingly more interesting.

we shouldnt need a melee subclass for rangers.. melee should have a place already in the class. At its base the ranger should have been a melee/range hybrid along with having a pet and skills that play into him being a versitile combatant. Ranger should have basically been the Macgyver of PoE.

Because if the big nuke is per encounter now, the normal fights have to be hard enough to justify using it. The big bad dragon can't be that much harder than the average adventure group, because how would you beat it without that special spell that you kept in reserve all the time. Eiher that, or every fight except for the big bad dragon is spam that can be nuked away easily. Or there is no big nuke anymore. Just lots of firecrackers. Please correct me if I misunderstood or overlooked something. My guess is that the per rest spell empowerment function is how you will get the "big nuke" effect. otherwise mormal cast are all scaled as "fircrackers"

I'm not aware of there being one new gun type weapon. Though the gun types could use a new one, and it could be explained off as being a relatively new development in the Deadfire that hasn't spread beyond the Deadfire and wasn't available five years prior. To be fair though, adding new types would just mean more work for the devs and if they add one new type, they'd have to add at least two more (if it was melee) types to balance it out in the other two weapon speeds. Yeah I am hoping that in the new weapon proficiency setup will add a lot of "new-ness" to the existing weapon types. From what I've heard each proficiency tier actually adds something akin to talents and abilities as opposed to a simple accuracy and damage buff for each tier

The benefit I see with five is encounters feeling less claustrophobic. In PoE1 there were many areas and encounters that a six person party just took up too much space. I also often found myself with at least 1 character every fight thinking "what do I even need this person to do that I havent already covered? well auto attack away I guess.." Really for me if the maps and encounters are going to be about the same scale 5 will fit/feel better than 6.

I am kind of bummed that it sounds like they are not going to have any new weapon types at all (outside of 1 new gun type weapon).. Not like we needed more, there are just more types that could be added and it would be fun.

Traps have to be there, because they are cool. In what possible way are they cool? There are only two outcomes a trap can have. Either you have a high enough skill to disarm them, or one of your characters takes an injury. Or you very carefully edge your way around it, which does absolutely nothing except slow down the game. Why are they so terrible? Is it a bad thing that it slows the game down? I mean we shouldn't be able to sprint through dungeons without a care. If anything I would go the opposite way with them making them have a bigger role maybe even a subclass that can get trap bonuses and unique talents that boost their capabilities or augment them.

You can "one trust to the right spot" and kill with many things; a knife, a pencil... You wouldn't enter a medieval battle with a dagger in hand if you have options. Daggers are essentially medieval side-arms, but made so they can be main weapons & used in open battles in RPGs, so RL references & how good daggers are in RL meaningless here, talk about daggers for what they are in RPGs. And again, I'm not questioning daggers' place in the game; I like daggers when a rogue dual-wields them the best and I frown upon if a paladin or priest wields it If you can find a valid concept and the game allows it so you can make dagger wielding paladins & priests, good for you. To summarize.. He just feels this way, nothing anyone says will sway his opinion. It really is the fault of the fantasy community for assuming paladin's are always associated with a "knight" type role. As well as assuming that Knights are only allowed to be meat headed sword and board types.. There is no right way, its everyone's fantasy why would I need my opinion swayed? I don't have to like certain/all concepts. I usually like traditional norms, maybe cos I'm used to them but also my canon PoE character is an intelligent barb, I think its great game lets me make this, some other person could hate the idea of intelligent barbarians and I don't need to sway their opinion cos its their likes/dislikes. Never said you were wrong ha, its a personal opinion that your entitled too. just didnt want to see the thread drag on with replies to you from people trying to change your mind on it.

You can "one trust to the right spot" and kill with many things; a knife, a pencil... You wouldn't enter a medieval battle with a dagger in hand if you have options. Daggers are essentially medieval side-arms, but made so they can be main weapons & used in open battles in RPGs, so RL references & how good daggers are in RL meaningless here, talk about daggers for what they are in RPGs. And again, I'm not questioning daggers' place in the game; I like daggers when a rogue dual-wields them the best and I frown upon if a paladin or priest wields it If you can find a valid concept and the game allows it so you can make dagger wielding paladins & priests, good for you. To summarize.. He just feels this way, nothing anyone says will sway his opinion. It really is the fault of the fantasy community for assuming paladin's are always associated with a "knight" type role. As well as assuming that Knights are only allowed to be meat headed sword and board types..

Or a Robin Hood style kind wayfarer.

For sure I feel like most other games with pickpocketing require a huge investment to even get to a point where it is feasible to accomplish.

Never had any trouble with either those class kits. Probably from a power gaming standpoint but I am not a min-maxer type. but yeah thats why I brought up doing something more like the priest deity talents for subclasses as the alternative for PoE "limiting equipment"

Yeah thats why I was thinking of subclass specific talents (like the priest diety talents) that give them bonuses to using specific types of weapons and potentially armor. Partly for roleplay and partly to reinforce the change in playstyle the subclass represents compared to the base class.

I dont remember hearing anything in the q&a's specific saying yeah or nay but I wonder if some subclasses will have equipment limitations similar to BG2 kits? I actually liked that some subclasses had equipment limits as a trade off, it made them more interesting to play. for instance the beast tamer only being able to use leather armor and wooden weapons or the wizard slayer not being able to magic trinkets. playing a dual club weilding Beast tamer was some of the most fun I had in BG2 and I would never have played a ranger that way without the limit on the subclass. I know PoE is kind of counter in design to equipment limitations but maybe they could do the inverse which would be bonuses for using certain types of equipment (like priests get in PoE1).

1. I like focus. If it HAS to signify "connection" of some sort, "Synergy" would be better than "bond"..

Never knew that she could in the first one. Given that its been stated that Pallegina's order (five sun's) is a unique subclass only useable by her I am fairly confident that it is subclass specific. Which means we should see similar things with (at very least) the other paladin orders and potentially with others. There's a couple of good game guides online to poke around on, here's the one on Paladins. It lists Pallegina's special Abilities including that one. http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Paladin Frermàs mes Canc Suolias (Pallegina only) Vielo Vidòrio - When the paladin uses Flames of Devotion, nearby allies gain increased Attack Speed. Wrath of Five Suns - Whenever the paladin uses Sworn Enemy, five orbs of flame leap from his or her hand and fly toward the target. Wasn't Wrath of Five Suns added (in patch 3) because people thought Pallegina was underpowered? With NPC's they can balance special abilities against weak attributes... whereas the subclasses are balanced by having drawbacks relative to the base class. So if a subclass had an ability like that it would probably be balanced by a major drawback. The pic I was referring to show the sworn enemy skill and then various ways in which it gets upgraded (if you have taken certain talents I am guessing) Just meant to point out that subclasses may be getting access to talents that augment existing class abilities (like palidins in PoE1) based off that photo showing pallegina's sworn enemy description.

agreed on "Bond"...

Never knew that she could in the first one. Given that its been stated that Pallegina's order (five sun's) is a unique subclass only useable by her I am fairly confident that it is subclass specific. Which means we should see similar things with (at very least) the other paladin orders and potentially with others.

So based off the pic of pallegina's five sun's mark enemy ability (which I assume is a subclass specific ability or altered core ability) looks like subclass skills/alterations will be pretty substantial. One of the upgrade tiers for that ability lets pallegina fire off flaming projectiles at the target its cast on, on top of its original function.

Not resource related but the fact that the paladin has so many active abilities lined up on the bar is nice to see. Looks like all of them are returning abilities but if they have the upgrade tiers similar to the Mark enemy skill that's displayed, that is going to make things a whole lot more interesting.

1st run. Watcher-soulblade(cipher)/ghostheart(ranger) Xoti-priest Takehu-either Aloth-wizard Eder-fighter may change once more subclasses are revealed.

Subclasses, multiclass-ing, the ship as a stronghold, the new sailing/exploration mechanic, (to name a few)... and yet Ydwin is someone's deciding factor.. to each his own I guess.