lastpawn

This post got some traction despite being needlessly incendiary, so I'll post on difficulty here. I agree with the CONTENT in OP. Especially with regards to abilities that make the player immortal. It doesn't matter if enemies get 200% more damage and health if the character is literally immune to their attacks, and can do massive damage multiple times per encounter. Please understand that I'm not a min-maxer. Frankly, I think that there should be overpowered abilities and weapons; if anything, the original Pillars was too "balanced." That said, I think that it's fair to fine-tune certain overpowered abilities. Players who desire a sense of overwhelming power can just play on a lower difficulty and achieve that feeling there. Currently players looking for a challenge are required to ignore content and play a less complete game (i.e., intentionally avoiding abilities or entire subclasses). I'd like to be able to use all the abilities and STILL feel like I have to pay attention and occasionally struggle. Anyway, it's up to devs to make the game that they want to make, but there are five difficulty levels in the game, I assume for a reason. I think Veteran should be made somewhat harder, and Path of the Damned MUCH harder.

One, I find sword/dagger much more aesthetically pleasing than dagger/dagger, so that's a personal preference. Two, scimitar/scimitar is already the strongest dual wield in terms of DPS.

I think the class works fine, it's just not up to everyone's taste. It tanks reasonably well, does plenty of damage, has very strong disables, but yes, you have to get hit.

As others have said, min-maxing doesn't make that much of a difference in this game. For example, Might. There simply isn't that much of a difference between 14 Might and 18 Might. Sure that extra 4 Might would give you 1.12 more damage, which is nice, but as a melee Rogue you already have Sneak + Reckless, far better than maxing Might. What this means is that you shouldn't feel pressured to dump any stat to pump any other stat--especially on Normal--unless you want to. I beat the game with a Rogue with 12 Might and high Perception/Resolve because I wanted those (for deflection and RP purposes). At no point whatsoever did I think, "Oh boy, if only I had pumped 20 Might."

Paladins are the Bards of this game. Can do a little bit of everything reasonably well. (Even quite well, when it comes to tanking.) Instead of calling them bad, how about we accept that they're jacks of all trades, masters of none, and move on.

Well, the game already has an Easy and a Normal mode. The issue isn't so much that Hard is trivial, but the reverse difficulty curve. My sense is that the beginning of Hard mode is quite good: it's challenging. Later it gets Easy. So the Hard mode is only Hard for the first 1/3-1/2 of the game or so.

I don't see them as Shaolin-style monks (or how we westerners typically think of Shaolin). If I did, maybe I'd think they're a bit off conceptually. I think they're quirky but fine. I think Paladins are more off, I mean they're... guild fighters who believe in their guild a lot? I do think Monks are a bit off in terms of gameplay mechanics, but that's a different story.

Agreed on feeling a lack of high HP low DR enemies. It makes certain weapons too good too often.

Some feedback on the Druid class. Animal (spirit) forms seem underwhelming in the sense that it's difficult to get excited about them. Spells seem like variation of "element X + affliction A" -- I don't find that particularly exciting. Many spells, few actual uses. Overall, I'm simply not excited to play the Druid class. Priest, Cipher, and Wizard all seem to overshadow it. As a suggestion, consider ways of enhancing animal forms at some cost. Also consider adding more utility spells, such that Priests aren't the obvious and superior utility choice (but that's another story).