b0rsuk

Come on, whose idea it could have been ? How cool it would have been to have an animal companion that can chase a lion away by biting him on his balls ? An animal the size of a small dog. You can even see the badger casting voodoo spells at 3:30. Wasteland 2 misrepresented honey badgers. In that game, they're dumb brutes with 200 HP. It would be fun if rangers had animal-specific talents. For example, you could teach your honey badger to reload your crossbow in the alternate weapon set. By the way, figurines are among the very best items in the game and enable you to solo the Adra Dragon on PotD. Animal Companion is like a per encounter figurine. Is that so bad ? And even if it does get knocked out sometimes, it often doesn't matter at all because the fight is almost over.

I posted this proposal because I want to have hard data on animal companion effectiveness. How much an animal deals over the course of a campaign, how much it depends on skills taken, etc.

Was that a solo or party playthrough with druid ?

Why, it totally makes sense that a level1 class ability should be as strong as a full-fledged Fighter companion ! A companion bear should outperform Eder at holding a bear ! A party of rangers should be able to kill an Adra Dragon with their animal companions, without firing a single shot ! That's how strong ogres are. Things you propose should make Ranger class take two companion slots. I'm forced to conclude I'm just a much better Ranger player than you. Why ? Conan the Barbarian used bows on many occasions. I'm not talking about Arnold the Bodybuilder. Why is a tribal warrior one of the worst classes to use a bow ? So having more than 1 frontliner is something outlandish ? No wonder you struggle with Rangers. I blame the default NPC companions. You get only 1 Fighter, no Monk, Rogue or Barbarian. But you get TWO spellcasters right away, and a chanter whose default weapon is an arquebus (even though he has perfectly fine Deflection and does a good job with Weapon&Shield Style).

It means the combat system is interesting.

yeah, but in my experience the skeletons all immediately get murdered because they move around on their own and get hit by a ton of disengagement attacks. Phantom is much more preferable. I dunno, I use Pause (space) and move (left click).

Or you can use Arbalest to crit big enemies prone, and Arquebus to kill small ones outright. I think Soldier is my favorite weapon focus. Two 2-handed weapons, one of which is reaching, two good ranged weaponss. The only thing that stinks is one 1-handed one, and no accurate weapon.

Not all classes are for everyone. If you find chanters boring, use other classes. People like them because they're low maintenance. I personally find Yang boring, it's endless city spam. Phrases can be used in clever ways, for example open with Blessed was Wengridth (+speed while charging enemies), Thick grew their tongues (stunlock enemies), then a damage chant to mop up.

No, so I can send in badgers ! plain badger You have nowhere to hide

So there ARE reasons not to take Penetrating Shot, after all! Also, interrupts seem to be better against enemies with slow attack animation, like ogres. They have to start from the beginning, and you can more easily interrupt them again.

There are enough unique Estocs and Sabres already. You can also get a spear that stuns on hit. Spears have inherent +5 accuracy, so if you wield it without a second weapon or a shield, you get a total of +17 accuracy. Slap another effect on it for +4 accuracy (21), then Exceptional (29). Crits become likely and they stun. Or you can build a Fire Godlike Barbarian with Blooded, wearing He Carries Many Scars (or Pallegrina's breastplate) and dual wielding two spears, each with Valiant. Valiant can grant +10 accuracy AND +25% damage. Mantle of Dying Boar and Stalwart Defiance complete the picture. Basically it's for people with imagination.

I would appreciate if statistics section on Character screen was expanded: * how many interrupts each party member has caused * total interrupt time caused, in seconds * damage stats for Animal Companion (damage taken, dealt, crits dealt, times knocked out, interrupts...)

I think that ranged characters can even potentially be best for interrupting, because they can afford to only care about interrupts. A melee character must be tough enough to survive for a while, and deal decent damage. You can build Sagani for interrupts, debuffs (Wounding Shot, Binding Roots, Stunning Arrows), and flanking (Itumaak). Oh, I was supposed to ask about adding interrupts to Character statistics screen!

I like your observations and suggestions about 1.2. "2" is probably a good idea as well. 3. It is clearly understood summons are powerful. That's why the most powerful summons are on Chanter, the class who can't cast any spell repeatedly in short time frame. Druids can summon Blights, yes, but they're single creatures and not that tough. Aside from that, no one can summon. Many people don't like bestiary XP at all, and they won't like expanding it. That's because it forces them into killing stuff, and not everyone enjoys killing everything on every map. DR already has a limit: it never lowers damage below 20%. It also does nothing to protect from secondary attacks, like Knock Down, Hobbled, poison, stun, Blind etc. High Deflection often makes you avoid those attacks altogether. Of two main ways of protecting characters - Deflection and DR - DR is the weaker and less popular. You pay a high price for it in action speed. If there is a problem, it's that DR is not attractive enough. Finally, what difficulty do you play on ? If it's Normal, then you can get away with all kinds of sloppy play. 4. That proposal would just encourage resting every single encounter and blasting everything with spells. So what that health isn't restored if you lose very little every fight, because you can use your max level spells with impunity ? People who like per encounter abilities have tons of MMO's to play. Per rest resource management is actually something unique these days. 4x camping supply cost wouldn't be enough. Most players are swimming in money. You can end the game with something like 70 000, a fully built Stronghold, pretty heavy use of enchanting/crafting and buying the items you like. I'm not sure what's your stance on resting. For resting limits that can't be circumvented with just traveling to an inn, there are other suggestions in other threads. For example areas with optional quests have their entrances blocked if you leave, or monsters (but not loot) respawn, or there's a time limit.

Even the biggest monster needs 3 hits to kill 3 skeletons, but he might kill your phantom in 1 hit.

There are reasons to believe current MMO tank metagame is not something done on purpose, but rather caused by flawed AI. I believe developers said something like that about AI - that they wanted to work on it more. The wiki mentions a Fighter talent which makes his disengagement attacks stronger. I guess it was later removed when they realized there's no time to make AI good enough.

Ranged interrupts are enough to cancel an attack if they hit at the right moment. If something interrupts for half the duration but it occurs twice as often, it's not wasted. Sagani with a Hunting Bow can buy a melee fighter (or Itumaak) extra time. You can still put Interrupting Blows on Sagani. It helps if you think of Interrupt as a slowing effect.

Coming in the sequel.

But grimoire is almost never a limit ! In practice, it limits you to 4 different spells of the same level per encounter. You can use "only" 4 different level1 spells per encounter. You can replace spells in a grimoire between encounters. 1) How many encounters are easier with 4 different level1 wizard spells ? 2) Your spell limit per level is 4, so it's technically impossible to cast 5 different level1 spells unless you take "Bonus level 1 spell" talent!!!

So a good interrupt build would be something like a Hunting Bow with high Perception and Vicious Aim. Or single-wielded club (fast and accurate), but that would deal little damage and sounds risky. In my opinion you should treat interrupts as a bonus. Don't try to deal interrupts instead of damage.

I think a bigger problem with AI disengaging randomly would be that it would be possible to keep reloading the game until you get the result you want. For example, 1 weak "tank" character, reload until they don't disengage.

They are not strong, but they flank well, and they are greatly annoying to enemy wizards and rangers. And you get three from a single casting.

This thread is Wrong, because there's no mention of Force of Anguish. If you are going to pick just one Monk skill, let it be Force of Anguish. You won't regret it.

AI smart enough to disengage once in a while would encourage more balanced fighters, who are reasonably tough while still dealing good damage. And that would be good.

Cipher and Druid need different stats because of how they work. Druid has limited spells per rest, so having high Might and Intelligence makes sense to get the most out of them. Cipher can get very high Dexterity, and will trade weaker spells for more frequent spells. But a druid doesn't need high Dex.