VahnXIII

I agree with this. While I was able to adapt to how it is done currently, it would be nice to have the narrator piece read first, then click continue to hear and read the actual character dialogue. Perhaps this will be done with PoE2?

I have done multiple wizard parties and find them extremely fun and powerful at the same time. Wizards can go so many different ways it's awesome. And like you noted more arcane assault = multiplication benefits. I second this. My main char is a wizard and I also have Aloth in my party. Sure, their spells are per rest at this point, but having 4 Arcane Assaults is amazing. Not too mention things die fast with having two wizards casting AOE spells like fireball and fan of flames. If things get hairy, you can change the battle easily with slicken, spectacle and other CC spells. If you REALLY want to have fun, cast Alicrity before casting your offensive spells. Things go boom, then everything is dead. My personal favorite is casting Arcane Veil then going to town with Parasitic Staff. On top of this, once you're level 9 you can cast your 1st level spells as per encounter. At level 11 you can cast 2nd level spells as per encounter as well. Let's just say I'm looking forward to having 2 wizards once I get to that point. Fun times are ahead indeed.

I see. Unfortunately I don't believe that is an option.

If you don't mind not getting achievements on Steam, you can use the console to get rid of the fog.

That's very interesting and may be a glitch. I also run with wizard and use a two handed sword as my primary and an Arbeques for my secondary. I no longer see my character carrying the book. Though, you will when equipping one handed weapons.

I'm personally torn between wanting the ability to import my character into PoE2, or have PoE2 be a completely different adventure in a different country within Eora.

I'm anticipating the PoE series will mirror Baldur's Gate in that, the first one is solid, successful and creates the ground work for a more polished sequel (Shadows of Amn).

I agree with a poster above. If you don't like how overpowered something is, then you have the option of not using it. In Baldur's Gate, out of all the fancy spells that are available, sleep is the most overpowered spell. It's level 1 and you can change the course of any battle to your favor by spamming it. You don't have to worry about limited resources because you have an unlimited amount of rests to refill your spell slots. You can spam your wands too. Just use it until your heart's content and then sell it to a vendor only to buy it back fully charged. Sure, its expensive, but there are respawning enemies (Ankhegs) that drop valuable loot that fetch a good amount of coin. So spam away! Hell, you can spam wand of monster summoning and never lift a finger for a lot of fights. My point is this, there are always going to be things that are powerful (even too powerful) within a cRPG that players will creatively find a way to use (even exploit). But the solution isn't to nerf everything that performs this way. If you are not having fun, then change the way you play. There is a reason why there are higher difficulty levels, and according to another poster above, the ogres may wreck in the normal difficulty level but they are rendered useless at higher difficulties. Exercise your options and play the way you want to play.

If you like to min/max your character, you can. If you don't like to min/max your character, you don't have to. I'm thankful we have a system that will suffice for both types of players.

This leveling balance has always been an issue in cRPG's. We've already listed several examples. The fact remains that you'll either hit the level cap early because you are exploring every piece of content you can get your hands on, or you skip a lot of the optional content and you become underpowered for the finale. For me personally, I like the level cap at 12 and yes, I'll probably reach the cap well short of the final dungeon. Fortunately though, I believe the entire game is done well enough for me to remain motivated to continue adventuring.

Yes OP, this game is amazing. I think you're preaching to the choir with your wish for expansions and even sequels. I'm hoping our niche market continues to be healthy and happy so games like PoE will continue to be developed. Now go tell your friends about it so Obsidian can make more sales!

Aren't you overreacting here? All that was changed about ciphers is their starting focus and the focus gain through certain weapons. They are still just as powerful and cheesy as ever. It's just that you can't immediately mind-control and stun-lock three mobs at the beginning of every battle anymore. And seriously, using the blunderbuss pellets to exploit the focus gain was hilariously broken to begin with and I'm glad this is fixed now. From a fellow player that rolled a Cipher, I agree. Sure, the class is fun and has a ton of utility, but I just got bored with spamming mental binding and Mind Blades while refilling my focus pool with one shot from my blunderbuss. I didn't even min/max for RP reasons. Hence the reason why I'm moving towards wizard. I have to be smart with my resources if I'm to be of any help to my party and the overall experience will be challenging (I'm hoping at least). Ciphers definitely needed to be toned down not because they are OP "compared to other classes" but because they single handedly trivialized a ton of encounters. How Obsidian goes about that, well, that's up to them. I'm sure if people scream loud enough there will be tweaks within future patches.

I think the amount of voice acting is about right. To be honest, it could use a little less. I would like to hear more voice acting with random NPC's. I understand a lot of the townsfolk are just filler and ambiance pieces, but it would be nice for them to have a little more writing and a spoken line or two. It helps build the atmosphere.

Got it. I assumed you had to receive a specific password to join. Thank you for the help everyone! I look forward to starting my wizard tonight.

That's what I found. However, I do not have a beta password. Do I actually type BETAPASSWORD into the field? I'm at work so I don't have access right now but I'm going to dive in as soon I get home.

I did some digging and found how to participate in the beta on Steam. It seems like a very easy process. I'll do this tonight! Cheers, Vahn

Greetings everyone, As we all know, patch 1.05 is right around the corner and most of us are aware that means the melee wizard build will be in bloom. Thanks to the input from many theorycrafters across many threads, I have a decent build in mind that I would like to start today, or at least have my character created. Does anyone know if the class changes will be retroactive? If I build my wizard now and get the ball rolling, will the changes impact my character once 1.05 goes live? Otherwise I'll wait on building this character until the patch is officially launched (hopefully later this week). Thank you in advance!

Correct, you wouldn't use the Citzal's "pike" until level 9, but as needed you'd cast it for the AoE damage it provides. Progression by game is: (Hard difficulty here) Arquebus (Durance's) > Arbalest > Fine Pike > (Justice) > Lost Thayn's Reach (Copperlane - Defiance Bay) > Tall Grass > Tidefall Justice is a good greatsword at the time you get it and most of the other classes don't care for it... Only problem is, it has a weird spot as you're too squishy to actually melee, and if you hold off getting it, you probably have better options from Defiance or Dyrford by then. Might 18 Con 3 Dex 20 Per 3 Int 16 Res 18 Armor I used Eder's Saint armor once I went pike, before then it was just naked with the ranged. Might be because I'm old, but it forgives a lot of mistakes when playing due to second chance, and has a little more cold DR if you ever feel like stepping into your own chill fog for example (or by accident) which is handy. Later on Pallegina's armor with Hardened and the wondrous ring that has second chance will do the same. But Sanguine plate is the main thing, so its easy enough to jump from Saint to Sanguine. Consequently, around those levels you'll be using Tall Grass, so more of a second row dps who doesn't need as thick DR. The main synergy I liked was for trash encounters, you were up close with the pike so fan of flames was a good opener at the early levels. I might plug in Fleet Foot now that I think of it, because its just a nice quality of life talent for wizards when they need to position. Yeah, for dual wield, I think monk is probably the coolest looking with 2 sabres using Torment's Reach spam (very Wuxian style like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to me), wizard just gets to walk (well run really fast) in plate and then just beat down with a giant energy weapon. Thank you for posting this. I usually don't min/max and I always cringe when I need to dip attributes so low but it seems like it is necessary for this build. Also, with the buff to the wizard's health, does it make sense to set CON to 3? Or should we be scoring it higher to take advantage of the update?

The Parasitic Staff buff helped majorly with this issue of melee wizards, that they are late developing build. I restarted a 1.05 game w/ a melee wizard and he is happily blowing things up in the very early game with a 38-58 damage staff on most encounters, since it's L1 spell. Thanks for the tip on that. I'm rolling a wizard tonight and I"ll probably pick up Parasitic staff early on. Also, how did you distribute your attribute points?

You're unplayable.

Aloth can definitely pull it off. He has better stats geared to tanking oddly with his weird stat spread and lower might and higher con. Still, like all melee wizards, he needs time to get good, and most of the time its just a nice option to have Arcane Veil + Infuse health as the bare minimums to try and save himself. Yeah, I tried the dual stiletto/blunderbuss Cipher for about halfway through act 2, and debatable with the focus gains and start (1/4 focus) being a bit different. They don't have no recovery like wizards for their "buff" spells, though usually all of their spells (powers) provide double duty as a debuff. OTOH a wizard has no +dmg modifiers which is why fast weapons > slow weapons work for Cipher. Ran the numbers on the spreadsheet and basically, even with all the enchants and 28+ might, you barely out dps to what you get from an Estoc wielding wizard with no talents invested (this is just with Alacrity up). Basically since wizards rule supreme with attack speed modifier, they want to have slow chunky weapons vs the fast ones like rogue or cipher enjoy (sans the opener of blunderbuss). Now with the Lance swinging even faster, that means you get double duty out of attack speed which is hard to get out of other weapons. Think the break point was 90% weapon damage at 12 DR beat out Estoc by 2 dps or so. This was with vulnerable attack > two weapon fighting > alacrity > expose vulnerabilities all up. And also assumed 2 superb stilettos which is quite costly too. The main advantage in this build's case is Tidefall is already superb, letting you equip others with good weapons too and/or earlier getting if need be. I understand what you're saying. To be honest, I'll probably use a similar build to the one posted in this thread. With a Wizard's faster attack speed, it would be beneficial for them to equip a slower weapon that can pack a punch. The polearms mentioned would be a good fit but I understand you don't receive them until later in the game. Also, the energy lance (forget the name of the spell) is something you cannot get until level 9 correct? This seems like a good build but potentially a late bloomer. Also, how would you allocate your attribute points? It seems like many of the attributes are valuable but you're limited to the number of points you can put towards each one (Might, Dex, Con, etc.) What do you use for weapons until you can get Tidefall or the energy lance? What type of armor, if any, would you recommend? When I mentioned the dual wielding, I was simply stating that I miss the days of playing as my fighter/mage in BG that allowed me to dual wield blades. Not only was that build extremely effective, it looked amazing too. I guess I"m a sucker for aesthetics when it comes to my main character. If you're going to be awesome, may as well look good while doing it!

As I've mentioned in other posts, people either like the per rest/encounter system or they want something like a mana pool to use. I prefer the per rest/encounter system because it forces me to manage my resources intelligently. If I had a mana pool to use, it would be very easy to get my hands on mana potions and be able to sling spells all day. This creates an imbalance and a cap on how many mana potions you can carry will have to be set in place. At that point, you're still working with limited resources some how. Not to mention that at higher levels, you can use lower level spells on a per encounter base. At that point, there is a good balance between using spells per encounter and the higher leveled ones at per rest. Then again, it always comes down to preference.

The level of voice acting is great. It allows you to get a flavor for the characters and have enough for your imagination to use as you navigate through conversations. I will always be an advocate for having a few voiced lines woven through great writing and a high volume of choices.Good work Obsidian. I look forward to future works!

Luckmann is a troll. I prefer "Noober". If you know what I mean. Heya.

I stole one of these and I'm excited to use it for my next character of whom will be a wizard. Can you guess which one? Hint, it's my avatar.