Takkik

Playing right now tactician/bloodmage and love it. Infinite resources. Early on can trigger Brilliant tactician with chill fog.

Ship system/combat feel like poe1 stronghold, not really great system just put in but not really well integrated. Really repetitive. Always felt strange to me that when you have casters that can summon dragons, cast meteor storm, lightning storm, control wind etc... people still fight only with canons. As anthi magic shield weapon (like the guns) it make sens, but where is the magic/fantasy? Big regret : they could have dedicated a DLC/expansion to redesign it (and exploration in general, I never got the feeling to be an explorator). The dlc are nice, but the 'open world' design of the game coulmd have allowed them to expand existing system, refine what wasn't great at release.

Corrosive siphon add extra tick of health regen more enemies you hit with it.

But if you're not playing solo, you can get paladin LoH and heal aura from a companion/mercenary. And a wizard have access to healing spells... that a blood mage can spam with blood sacrifice (they should give you more health you loose).

Lot of games end game is about killing harder & harder boss and getting better stuff for the next one. But that not Deadfire design since there isn't any tiered gear. Your items never become useless. In my opinion it's something Obsidian need to fix in a futur game if they continue in this way : How to keep the player interested in loot, feel character progression, when he's at max level and found the gear that match his build. I talked about it in another thread, there is lot of ways (factions, a more developped trinket system with more slots, runes/gems slots etc...).

Concelhaut spells (and unique grimoire) are your friends. Anything that restore health (corrosive siphon & draining magic missile). Blood sacrifice have a random element. The level of spell restored depend of the dmg. You're sure to restore a low level spell (1-3 I think, not sure about the numbers) but it's more hazardous for late spells. Need more testing, but you should be able to use more low level spells, have a wider range of low level spells to use.

The problem isn't really xp & levels. You have plenty of games that keep progressing (end game) even when you're at max level. The designer made the choice to have a more (too much?) horizontal progression. Often you keep getting more powerfull items that replace the first ones you acquired, but in deadfire all items are viables, they don't have levels. If you're lucky (or unlucky) to get the right item that complement your build early on, all futur loot will feel bad and not rewarding. The dev should have added more abilities (passives/actives) as quest reward. Not more powerfull, but adding extra flavor/progression. No need to add extra levels. Adding more levels & PL mean rebalance lot of things. Planescape Torment use this a lot (Ad&d2 is pretty limited when it come character customisation). If you're a mage you can learn new spells/way to cast them from your companions. You have the tattoos. They work a lot like trinkets but you can have 2 or 3 I don't remember. The tattoo represente your choices in the game, like faction, quest etc... and give you some abilities/passives. Deadfire could have more trinket slots and expand their use to customise your build. Factions: Often used in MMO, but it's another layer of customisation. As you progress in a faction rank you unlock new faction abilities. Items : Tricky part in deadfire. Lot of ARPG have gem/runes system. Why not be able to convert/destroy some magic items to transform them in magical runes and transfert some of their enchantments? A way to fusion items. There is lot of path to explore when it come to character progression that don't use level & xp (& power gain).

I've always seen soul annihilation as a way to dumb exces focus or when you have no abilities interesting to spend. Since Poe1 I've found it's easy to end up with too much focus in short fights, and with multiclassing you end up with a limited range of abilities. For me it always worked as a extra option. Forbidden Fist on the other end, since it alter the way you gain wounds, make other wound attacks less appealing since you gain far less. Be able to 'spam' your attacks feel more powerfull than using a few time forbidden fist. Forbidden fist would be closer to soul annihilation if it was using all your aviable wounds and doing dmg depending of the number of wounds.

ah, and actualy I think I tested and Mortification work too (it did when the 4.0 came out). Ok time to go to bed. But still feel not that optimal. And the monk don't lack attack abilities. I would have prefered something that work with his existing attacks instead of replacing them.

I would love to heard what is the intended design. Bad wound generation that make hard to use wound abilities and the dmg bonus apply only to the new attack, that make you only use this one? I like the idea of curse and ability to build it, but what's the point? The curse dmg bonus could apply to all monk attacks. You generate wound only when cursed. You generate wound only when attacking enemies afflicted by your debuff/curse. Or if you want a different way to generate wound, you gain wounds when you apply some afflictions. The problem I find is that a solo forbidden fist don't have any way to produce wounds outside of the curse. Getting debuffs to remove mean getting dmg. Just better to be a vanilla monk? If you want a kamikaze monk hellwalker already do it with no problem to generate wounds.

There is in my opinion a design flaw with difficulty scaling. Most classes have finite resources, but as you push the difficulty, you have more chance to miss (and waste resources), more enemies and they are strongers, that make fights drag in length. It's why classes with infinite resources fit better deadfire 2 new system in my opinion, because they don't loose potency as fight last longer. They scale better. Now, perhaps it's just an impression, I get the feeling they add more way to regenerate/get brilliant inspiration. You have the new tactician & blood mage that can potentialy have infinite resources. I would not be surprised there is more source of brilliant through items in the dlc (I noticed one of the librarian NPC in the stream used a spell Deep Learning that give them Brilliant + insight). I think they should let the chanter have brilliant too like before now the inspiration have been toned down. I don't mind long fight, but when that end up with auto attack only for lot of your character that not really interesting.

Toying with Blood mage, can be fun. The big advantage is that you can keep spamming some specific spell levels. In my opinion it favor low level spells because you have more spells and more diversity (buff, dmg, afflictions) than other high level. Exemple at Lvl 2 you have lot of buffs and some cool spells for a blood mage like corrosove siphon or the unique draining magic missiles. With the sacrifice you don't have too choose. But it need more micro. And focus on spells that restaore life. I still miss some flavor. Perhaps there will be some blood magic grimoire in the DLC (and hope some madness magic too). You don't have the temptation to sacrifice more health for more power. And right now no themed blood spells. Blood mage tend to be more 'evil', hunger for more power, ready to sacrifice allies etc... EDIT: don't know if anyone reported it. Blood sacrifice dmg is random and don't depend of used spell slots (blood sacrifice dmg you even if you have all your spell slots). But it's the other way around. If the random dmg aren't enough, they don't restore high level spells you've used. Sometime BS didn't restored my only used lvl 7 spell slot. Need comfirmation, but I'm sure it will be more apparent on a single lvl 20 wizard. Design wise, could mean it's intended to push you to spam lower level spells and not high level ones. One thing they should add to Blood mage : when you kill yourself with Blood sacrifice, you need to go with a 'bang'! A blood nova, or summon for a limited time a blood avatar. For a battlemage tactician, I just noticed wizard summon don't engage. Never noticed before, but phontom or tentacles they don't threaten enemies and so don't help you with the accuracy malus.

I found the error. ;-) Why would anyone want to use a subclass, designed for teamwork, solo? That's like eating living cheese by not grilling it. Mmmm, grilled cheese. +1 Don't know if summon work to overcome the penalty, need to test it. You can regenerate discipline by interrupting abilities too, not only by flanking. Abilities that intterupt on graze/hit are your friends.

so much existancial questions! Anyone have tested if summons count to avoid tactician acc malus?

I'm curious why arcane archer isn't a wizard subclass. Imbue spells could have been added as new spells. Give an accuracy malus to spells not used with imbue. Often arcane archer is a wizard archetype. I would have prefered a ranger/druid that work like the trickster with beast spells at each level, or a storm ranger (lightning/storm spell for a more melee build).

Subclasses, like prestige classes, add flavors in a classe system. And I think people love flavor, that why prestige classes are often popular. The problem is that in most game systems like Pathfinder/D&d3 and Deadfire, subclasses (and prestige classes in p&p) are balanced with tradeoffs. You get something unique but loose something else (sometimes some core classes features). But like Josh stated in some GDC panel (or even Paradox stream about their games), people tend to dislike/avoid malus. Anything with a '-' or red tend to be negatives in player perception. And it tend to make gameplay more complicated, because now you have malus to take into account. Take blood mage, now you have to take into account bloodied enemies and remember they have advantage on you. I think subclasses (&prestiges classes) as only positive advantage are more interesting. Easier to keep track, feel more positive/rewarding, and you loose nothing to add more flavor to your character. D&d4 got a great concept for prestige classes, too bad they didn't kept it for 5e. Lvl 1-10 you progress you're base class, level 11-20 you pick a prestige class (or another base class for MC). The most interesting way to implement prestige classes & balance them. They feel like some career system and natural progression. Always though they should have made multiclassing obligatory (no more balance problem between single/MC) or made multiclassing as Hybrid classes : same progression as single class & you can balance each abilities inside each class individualy (or made multiclassing as subclasses).

Because on paper a subclass should not be better or worse. The bonus & malus should balance each other. In practice, nothing is perfectly balanced and subclasses can be very situationnal/specific. I prefere d&d 5 subclasses : you must pick one, they only give you bonus. But even in D&d5 some subclasses are more suitable to combat oriented compaign and others not.

I noticed during the last boss fight of the dev stream, one of the librarian casted Deep Learning spell : Brilliant + Intuitive. Potential new unique spell for a grimoire or just unique NPC spell?

I would love a prestige classes system : Instead of continue to become more powerfull, you gain in diversity & specialisation, unlocking extra abilities (linked or not to factions). 2 games where animancy is every where and still no real possibility to play one. Just animancy could lead to multiples prestige classes that mix magic & science. Necromancer/Lich (defy your own mortality), alchemist/artificer, soulmancer (use souls to fuel magic items)...

Wouldn't it be better to alpha strike from stealth with something like delayed fireball plus fireball or ningauth's fireball, perhaps empowered, rather than arquebus? So you get the assassin bonus as well? Do we know if Blood Sacrifice breaks stealth (due to self damage)? I wonder if it's worth it if you lose empower for stealth strikes, probably not. blood sacrifice interrupt the invisibility from arkemyr spell, just tested.

It restore a spell slot used. If you don't use spell from a specific level there is nothing to restore.

you have the whispering greatsword that have a cone effect. And there is a polearme that do a short 360 aoe.

the rogue need a specific way to generate guile, the tactician is too much focused on teamwork (for the brilliant tactician ability). You could get something like while invisible the rogue get the brilliant inspiration, encouraging him to stay invisible longer & preparing next attack. Anything that promote preparing stealth attack that take too much time & resource in a team fight. Assassin is more about solo run right now.

I'm not a fan of adding some bonus to all enemies like they did (and most dev do). Increasing armor, deflection, accuracy etc... just force you to optimise and use some specific abilities. Not much tactics. The problem of backstab is that it just give you a +x% and don't work with dual wielding. It was already suggested when the game came out, but the bonus could be replaced by a specific amount of dmg not depending of the weapon that could scale with PL (add the dmg to your attack), so it would be more dagger friendly, the weapon of choice for an assassin. If you're dualweilding, just increase the dmg (only apply once). Another problem is the guile cost and time to setup. Why not add a +x guile when you kill a target with backstab? Like for ring the bell, backstab could add a specific debuff depending of the primary weapon you use. Dagger : Bleeding. Mace : stun. Two handed sword : prone etc... I would just love a tactician version of the rogue that can regenerate resource.

Ok wasn't long, tactician already nerfed. Now you only gain discipline back when interrupting an ability cast. Need to test how it affect the subclass.