Jasta11

Hopefully this puts this silly ''controversy'' to rest. Oh, who am I kidding.

I don't know, the range advantage of pikes and quarterstaff can be really useful, especially if you have more than 2 melee characters and even more on melee dps. Morningstar's interrupt is useful vs foes with crushing vulnerability and/or low concentration (such as Ogres). The Estoc is probably the best for everyday use, but other weapon categories are still very useful. I'm actually pretty impressed at the balance between weapon types.

crpgs have programed people to think that the quarterstaff is a sucky weapon for candy arsed wizards. the poe quarterstaff is a most unappreciated weapon and we look forward to playing a combat priest o' wael (too close to weal for a dyslexic like Gromnir) who takes incomprehensible revelation, peasant weapon focus and 2h weapons talents. HA! Good Fun! And the first Superb unique I found was a quarterstaff, too. You won't lack for material if you stay frosty.

I got a pretty beastly flail in a side-quest somewhere, can't recall which one. It's named Unforgiven and is an Exceptional quality, converst grazes to hit, increased attack speed, and 25% extra fire damage. Edér is still using it. he used one I found in a certain Temple earlier on, and Kana is still swinging around an Exceptional morningstar I pried from the freshly dead hands of a priest of a certain quiet deity. Meanwhile, i didn't find a single unique arquebus for Durance. It's simply the nature of a having a big pool of weapon types, you won't find too many uniques for each.

As I saw, the quest has three stages that I saw; after resting at level 6, after resting at level 9, and then in Act 3 after a certain event.

Hi there folks, just a quick question. I'm in Act 3 now, but before proceeding too far I'd like to know if I'm close to the ending. So my question is, is Act 3 the final one? because I'm getting some pretty serious endgame vibes even if I'm just level 10 and did a good number of sidequests and Od Nua exploration beforehand. Specifically;

So far I've really liked Hiaravias and Kana a lot. The former in particular is pretty funny. Edér reads like an Alistair (from DA:O) with more gallows humor. He's also a blond sword ans shield warrior type whose quest revolves around family issues. Not that it's a bad thing at all, the similarities are just amusing. Haven't used Grieving Mother a lot since my PC is a Cipher. Durance, however, is freaking fantastic. He's a classic ChrisA character, but you can talk back to him and unlike, say, Ulysses, his struggles made me feel for him. he's going through the mother of all crises of faith.

I remember, in my foolish younth, downloading a few quest mods for Oblivion that boasted full voice acting for all NPCs, made by fans, for fans! The result was... less than inspiring.

The ranger pet should be used to tie up specific targets in melee combat (mostly mages and ranged). If you send it at an Ogre, it will die in two hits and your ranger becomes useless. Definitely keep it out of combat unless the target cannot fight back in melee. Druid shapeshifting is worthless at higher levels. I honestly have never seen an RPG that properly balances shapeshift. Whenever in this game, BG2 or DA:O, it's always useless. Diablo 2 is the only game where you can actually be semi viable playing a shapeshifter. Chanter's reload speed buff is a bit over the top. Then again, without it guns and crossbows have pretty woeful damage output. Ciphers seem to have all the benefits of a being a spellcaster with very few of the drawbacks on top of doing great weapon damage. Their spells are only marginally less powerful than wizards/druids and they can use them far more often, and some Cipher spells (such as Mental Binding and the AoE Domination) are borderline OP even then.

Barracks, to recruit hirelings. A few NPCs can be convinced to work for you, including a large fellow. Warden's Lodge to get bounties, which award good xp and unique items. Tough fights, so don't get it right away. I finished Act 2 and still haven't been able to put anyone in prison, albeit I did only complete the dungeon recently. General merchant and armorer don't have anything special. And start with Keep and Bailey so that the place doesn't look abandonned.

I agree stealth should help detect hidden objects, not mechanics. I'm also somewhat annoyed that the only way to make mechanics worthwhile is to put basically all a character's points in it, otherwise the locks start to outlevel them. And remember to put at least 2 points in Athlethics for every character unless you want them to be fatigued after every single map transition or 5-6 battles. That's really annoying.

Same with people voting EA as the worst company in America, having people laugh at them for doing so, and then saying "uh, it was a joke". Don't get me started on that bullcrap. Loads of companies in the US do incredibly shady stuff, such as embezzling billions of dollars, laying off thousands of workers while giving the suits golden parachutes and bonuses, or hiring mercenaries in order to kill people and protect their interests in foreign lands. But sure, the worst company in American is totally the one that makes video games you don't like! /sarcasm off. I have no lost love for EA at all, but the frothing hatred is just silly.

Seriously. I get not liking what Bioware does nowadays (even if I personally like it just as much as games like PoE, I know burn the heretic) but the way loads of people go around with it (not just here, the Codex is also a hotbed) you'd think people who are so up in arms about wanting mechanical depth and less romance content wouldn't act like whiny manchildren. And the ''it's just a joke, yall', attitude is not much better. Even if it is true, that hate is so played out, it's just not funny anymore. Bioware makes a certain style of RPGs. Obsidian makes another. I like both, and I'm glad I don't have to choose between the two like some people seem to think I should. These two studios have influenced each other far more than people think, and I'm certain they have a lot of respect for their respective work, far more than bitter forumites do. Also I'm jealous because I lack cookies and cookies make everything better.

The game mechanics regarding the stronghold are pretty obscure. My hirelings have the ''unpaid'' tag but deduct funds from my total every so often, with no discernable pattern to the payments. They also give me their prestige/security bonus so I'm assuming they work, the tag is just a bug. Random encounters are also weird. I got the same cruel lord visiting, 4 times in a row.

No. The current Bioware are scum. All the cool people left them ages ago. Aren't you quite the edgy one. Props to Bioware for that. You can never go wrong with cookies.

Rest as a mechanic requires lots of suspension of disbelief. You often rest for 8 hours not even 30 feet away from the next pack of monsters, who are polite enough for you to wait until you're done with your bedtime stories before trying to spray your insides over the walls. It was particularily silly in Irenicus's Dungeon. ''Oh noes, we have to make our escape from the hideout of the big bad mage NOW! but we have more than enough time for a nap or three''. Yes, yes this is a fantasy game and yadda yadda, but it still hurts immersion. Or ''versimilitude'' since that's the politically correct replacement often used. Honestly I would have been OK with doing away with rest entirely and tie ressource management to a different mechanic (like, say, limited potions ala Dragon Age Inquisition, and limit spells per encounter).

Six melee characters will have troubles with bottlenecks and narrow corridors, and some enemies (such as Ogres) are pretty punishing to fight without spells, but since magical protection is far less powerful in PoE and you don't absolutely need someone to dispel them in order to win, I would bet that you indeed can complete most quests as well as the main story with a melee-only party. If it counts you can also give someone in the party high Lore and use scrolls if required. Which was one of my biggest gripes with BG2. Fights with mages were mostly a case of figuring out what protection to pierce, then right-clicking on them with your fighters. because of Engagement, I usually have to CC them in PoE first.

I disagree. Engagement could maybe have been made less punishing, but no kiting is good design. It also allows the player to use tanks without relying on some sort of obtuse aggro mechanic. Camping supplies is a good idea. It forces you to think forward and not just hurl all your spells and use all your quick items (some of which are quite powerful) in every fight. Having only 2 on Hard is a bit overkill, but the base design is good. I haven't encountered a dungeon yet I couldn't finish with my 2 rests, apart from Endless Paths of course. I disliked how BG2 could be trivialized by just hitting rest whenever you could. Sure, you could discipline yourself but the button is still there. Pre-buffing... meh, never cared for it honestly. It ties in to the above, you won't go into every fight at your absolute best and that's OK. Ressource management and all that.

It's one of the first quests in Act 2, and the shortest one. You can easily be done in an hour and resume the Paths.

In my experience, hunting bow is better early on, but at level 6+ enemy DR catches up and you will often end up just scratching the enemy. War bow is then better. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if hunting bow is just an unviable weapon later on. You just need stuff like arbalests or firearms to punch through the 20+ DR some enemies have.

AoE is good for several spells, including one available at level 1. Duration is amazing. Cipher has several great CC spells, including the borderline OP Mental Binding, and more duration is always welcome. It's definitely up there with Might and Dex as the top Cipher stats. Mine has a base of 17 and performs very well indeed.

I wouldn't want requirement for equipment. At all. I very much enjoy the current system where I can have my mage in full plate armor wielding a battle axe or a barbarian with a backup blunderbuss if I want to. It's not very viable, sure, but I can do it and it pleases me. Besides that, I think Obsidian did a decent job for attributes overall, but balanced them wrong. Perception should affect more than tanking ability (accuracy? critical chance/damage?). Constitution should be more potent overall, with boosts to defensive saves and perhaps lowering armor penalty to provide small dps boost? Might seems fine to me. Dex might be a bit too useful for everyone. Resolve is pretty much a tank stat, I'd maybe add interrupt resistance to aid casters a bit. Intelect is kind a niche stat for AoE damage dealers, it seems OK that way to me that way too. Really, Perception is the only one that needs an overhaul. Resolve and Constitution are already tank stats, we don't need a third one. I'd be comfortable shifting some of Per's defensive bonuses to Con, and add an offensive component to Per.

Sagani seems like the only really poorly built character I found so far (thanks to Perception being useless for ranged characters now). The others are average, Edér is a decent tank and Kana does a good job overall I find. If someone finds the game too easy, they can always gun for the Triple Crowns (PotD, Expert, Trial of Iron) solo achievement. What's nice about PoE is that the difficulty is very scalable, from Easy which is relatively faceroll to the aforementionned achievement which is probably impossible for any but the most dedicated and skilled players. For me, Hard is just right; difficult enough to keep me on my toes in a good half of the fights, but not so much that I start pulling my hair out.

For a 4 million dollar Kickstarter title, the game is remarkably finished. I have seen very little bugs myself, albeit I've heard about a few serious ones. Par for the course for Obsidian games. Most of what is stated is minor convenience. Others might simply have been design decisions (no lock bash for instance). No ammunition is also a blessing if you ask me, that would just be annoying and limit ranged character's usefullness in longer stretches between merchants.