View619

You're kinda jumping to conclusions with your post. If we have a situation where per encounter skills are supposed to be inferior to per rest, yet there are per encounters that are out-right better than a lot of per rest abilities, then you need to balance around that fact. If per-encounters are supposed to be powerful from the beginning then the devs are free to do things like make Clear-Out and Unbroken per-encounter as well, but then they have to deal with the effect those decisions will have on the balance of their game. It sounds like you would rather have powerful, per-rest abilities become per encounter instead of bring certain abilities in line with the other per encounter abilities in the game. And as far as game balance is concerned, if you're playing on the intended difficulty (Hard) then you can roll through everything pretty easily. If that's the intended experience, then there's no problem there.

Fighters actually have greater damage potential than Paladins; outfit both for consistent damage and Fighters will come out on top. I've noticed that the argument isn't that Fighters are useless, it's that they are overshadowed by Monks. Reduce a Monk's innate Deflection and maybe Health/Endurance so they aren't as tanky right out of the gate, fix those aspects of a Fighter's kit that should have been changed already (Constant Recovery is supposed to scale now, for example) and give them some bonuses to engagement-based tactics (disengagement attack bonuses that nobody else receives, for example) and they should be fine. Also, strong abilities being per rest isn't really a negative; if anything it shows that some of the per encounter abilities of other classes need to be re-examined. For example, Paladin's having two per-encounter heals that restore more endurance than most Priest spells needs to be re-examined. I would expect their consistent ability to be inspiring the party through the use of auras and actions during combat (kills triggering bonuses, etc), while having a selection of per rest abilities. Maybe Smite and something like Liberating Exhortation should be per encounter.

Yeah, I hope the devs consider tweaking abilities like Constant Recovery based on their change to the Wound Binding and Field Triage abilities. Those abilities used to heal static numbers and were terrible until being set to percentages.

This is during combat. I have four ranged weapons equipped and I can chain shoot without being hindered by switch recovery.

Issue When equipped, this item allows a unit to completely ignore recovery upon weapon switching. Steps to Reproduce Give Kana 3 reload weapons, equip Coil of Resourcefulness and Quick Switch (-2.5 weapon switch recovery). Fire the first shot, then switch weapons immediately. You will be able to fire the next weapon as if there was no recovery. This continues on to the third weapon, and possibly fourth if you have the Arms Bearer talent. I have given Kana medium armour as well (the blue padded armour from the Defiance Bay Lighthouse).

yes

I think scaling is only for the late game or Thaos battle.

That's fine, I havnt bought the expansion yet. I will vote with my wallet. Im waiting to see how future patchs balance the game before I commit to anything. I have to wait for the new IE mod anyways, since experience is still horribly broken in the vanilla game. If their idea of balancing an ability is +15 deflection nerfed down to -5 and this trend is applied to other classes, I wont bother buying it. I dont even play fighter but it just shows me they dont really understand their own game. And doesnt really make me feel confident for future changes. It's a part of the 2.0 patch which comes with the vanilla game. So, if you already bought POE then your Defender has been modified. I would expect any balance passes to apply to both vanilla and WM, so there's no avoiding it unless you plan on modding your game or avoiding patches in general (GOG).

Why would you dual wield daggers as a Rogue?

Keeping members of the back-line stealthed while your front-line gets into position and the enemy moves closer into attack range is generally good use of individual stealth. Also, you can select all then un-stealth the entire party if necessary.

Well, good luck convincing Josh and company to roll back the Defender changes. I don't see it happening before nerfs are applied to other classes.

exactly. And you can still have defensive characters but as I explained play offensively with your accuracy. There's still this mindset that you can't tank effectively without maxing deflection. Players need to adjust and re-assess what makes a good tank in version 2.0.

The most likely "solution" to all of this is going to be the nerfing of deflection for Paladins and other classes, imo. If the plan is to reduce deflection across the board, I doubt Defender + Wary Defender will return to their post 2.0 form before other classes are nerfed outright. Then all classes can get used to having lower deflection maximums and fall in line with Fighters.

Enemies don't suicidally rush your back-line if your front-line engages and has enough damage/accuracy to make eating disengagement attacks a bad idea. If you're going for a fully defensive front-line with poor offense, don't be surprised if the enemies disengage without a care.

Using defender puts the fighter at -24 deflection and -21 fort, ref and will (with wary defender) compared to the paladin. That's a pretty steep price to pay for an extra bit of battlefield control. And this is assuming the Fighter has additional abilities like Vigorous Defense, Disciplined Assault, Clear Out, et al, instead of sticking to the argument that "Fighters aren't getting anything other than Wary Defender and Knockdown", right? You know that, using your calculations, popping Vigorous Defense alone will put Fighters only 4 points behind in deflection and 1 point behind in the other defenses while giving them access to more engagement slots, better CC skills and talents to push their damage, action speed and accuracy above Paladins, right? If we're going to compare Paladins vs Fighters, take all of their abilities into account instead of cherry-picking specifics. And for the record, -5 deflection, which is the actual value, is not a "steep price to pay" for free, increased accuracy strikes against enemy units that are now smart enough to attempt disengagement. If you want that and the ability to boost your defenses, pick the class talents that allow it.

Defender is worth it for the extra engagement slot, Wary Defender feels like a wasted pick now.

Modal exclusivity in general is pretty poor. I'm hoping the developers add information to the Journal, it's very unclear. I can agree with Wary Defender being weak since the adjustment, the addition of accuracy on disengagement attacks would provide good synergy with the base Defender talent.

Disagree, additional engagement is useless if you're chance to land disengagement attacks is reduced. If I want to focus on increasing deflection only, there are talents for that. Defending is about more than just making a single unit harder to hit when enemies are willing to switch targets.

Sounds like the final boss mobs need some immunity to hard CC abilities (petrify, charm, dominate, paralyze, confusion).

Confirming that this bug occurs in my game as well. There's also a bug where Gaun's Share's steal attribute is carrying over to secondary weapons.

You want to re-spec companions? Use the console to cheat new stats in, the tools are already there. The devs have made their decision, either deal with it or move on. And no, you couldn't respec companions in the IE games either.

It would suck if you ran into mobs immune to stun, but with stun abilities wouldn't it?

Not worth the extra programming hours just to implement something that players can already do with no additional effort.

POTD Level 5 was a nightmare for me. D: Definitely returning after Act 2 is finished.

Not really, I'm not worried about my tank doing damage, I'm worried about him keeping the enemies heavy hitters busy while my ranged back line and melee fighters take out their squishier/more dangerous fellows. But, Engagement is the ONLY thing that keeps an enemies attention on your tank and it seems the only way now for them to be effective is to do damage. But, if they're doing damage their defenses must be lacking which means their ability to stand toe-to-toe longer than the other guy is compromised. Honestly at this point, I'm gonna try a Pale Elf Barbarian with Cautious Attack, Hold the Line, a few of the elemental damage Utility talents and with high Perception so his attacks will actually land. I'll have to look at the numbers next time I play, but I'm currently using Eder as my main tank (playing on Hard) and with buffs etc. he's doing fine with regards to Disengagement attack (currently level 8 party). What I'm finding in 2.0 is that I have to switch from ranged to melee with Pallegina and Kana more often because of AI behavior. He shouldn't NEED to be buffed to to make him an effective blocker and wall though, that's the thing. He should be able to do that on his own and the buffing should be there to improve that. Besides Hard doesn't change stats, just numbers of enemies. You want to REALLY test the numbers, pull it on TOI mode. Trial of Iron mode doesn't increase difficulty, it just removes the ability to reload. The game was balanced for Hard mode.