SilchasRuin

Honestly, the recommended stats in the character creation are pretty inaccurate. As far as it goes, there are 2 damage attributes (dex and might), 2 defense attributes (perception and resolve), 1 mediocre defense attribute (Constitution) and 1 utility/offense attribute (intellect). Damage attributes are good for any character you want to deal damage, might is more important for casters (Wizard/Druid/Priest), dexterity is more important for weapon users (Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger), but both are very useful for both types. Might's healing bonus is okay, and is sometimes more valuable than constitution for Tanky characters with lots of healing. Defense attributes are mostly useful for tanks, but resolve is overall the more useful of the two to have on damage dealers. Constitution can basically be ignored for the most part, it's okay on Tanks and classes with naturally high endurance/health (Barbarian/Fighter/Monk). You probably won't want to drop it too low on an offtank who isn't a moon godlike, but strictly speaking this is the least valuable stat. Intellect is useful for any class that makes use of AoE (Wizard, Barbarian, Priest, Cipher, Druid) but also for any class that wants to buff or debuff, either themselves or their allies, so Intellect can be valuable for almost any class, but is most important for classes that need AoE. it's acceptable to have low intellect on classes like Rogue/Fighter/Ranger as they lack any AoE and their need for longer debuffs or buffs are lower than other classes.

Stats are the only context that matters... The stats you see tell very little as they're predominantly based on what your character could do compared to what the rest of your characters could do. Now, it might be possible to approximate a dps number by calcing damage dealt versus time in combat (for your character it's approximately .37 dps, that's per game second by the way, not sure how much each game second equals in real time) but even that has particular limitations, as whether you were playing on PotD or a lower difficulty would result in different numbers, and there's probably other possibilities that could change how much time you spent in combat other than damage dealt (such as whether the game is more difficult at particular sections). Numbers only matter in context, outside of it no matter how big a number looks it tells nothing. So simply posting a screen of your character sheet and saying hey look how good this is! Is completely irrelevant. You say it's not as terrible, but the reality is that you have very little you're actually comparing it to. You have the pregen companions, so it may look to you like your ranged rogue is going lots of damage, but if you had a melee rogue in the same party you might see a very different story. When I get back home and can access PoE I'll see about posting stats and calcing relative dps numbers. Ranged rogue and ranger both have terrible sustained damage; their burst is actually where they are strongest at. Priest buffs will affect every party member fairly evenly, and only in the early game is there ever an issue of running out of spells. I've never had to backtrack for camping supplies and after around level 4 I've never had a problem utilizing spells in the majority of encounters. The only time spellcasters don't use spells in when encounters are trivial.

I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers, but they're not accurate. A 20% reload buff and a 20% atk speed buff does not equate to a 40% damage buff. First, the attack speed buff presumably only either decreases recovery time or action time, and is likely additive with dexterity's modification to the same. Secondly, both the attack speed and the reload time are only affecting 1/3rd of the process. it's closer to around a 14% dps increase, not including if its additive with dexterity, (it's around a 21% damage buff, if the attack speed buff in total results in 20% greater atk speed without including reload time (as in it affects either both recovery time and action speed, or 1 such that total action speed is reduced by 20%)) not including the accuracy lost. This is a rough number since I assumed each part weighed the same, if reload time takes up more or less than 1/3rd of the total time it takes to attack numbers may be slightly off. Driving flight only helps AoE damage, where ranger falls sorely behind casters regardless. It will also be pitifully behind barbarian in the same regard, though barbarians also lose out to casters. Marked target is once per encounter on a single target, good in boss fights, but almost certainly negligible in an average encounter. Further, melee ranger can use every one of these abilities except driving flight, and melee ranger will certainly outclass in terms of single target dps, and most likely overall damage as well.

Stats only matter in context, and anything remotely optimized will look amazing compared to the very poorly optimized standard companions. The problem with ranged rogue is in comparison with other optimized characters, such as melee rogue and nuker wizard/druid.

Honestly the main thing that animal companions need right now is better accuracy and 3 in athletics. It's pretty dumb that all animal companions have 0 in athletics so they get minor fatigue really fast (I used IE mod to give 3 athletics to my ranger's wolf and make its stats more in line with the wolf in the bestiary, while maintaining the 65 overall stats animal companions are supposed to have). The fact that at base their accuracy is like 20 lower than the ranger's is problematic for using them to deal damage however, and I'd like to see that buffed.

Yeah I took this in my first playthrough because I didn't notice the short range. It was basically completely worthless. With such a short range the character who your swapping with has to be extremely close already and any enemy you try and swap with needs to practically be meleeing you already as well. If it had 6-10 m range it might be decent.

even if your lack of progression is not infinite the results and the impact on the player are not the same. the player treats dying as a hurdle, in fact dying is the basic way to enforce difficulty. backtracking is, again, just tedium, it is not a measure of the game. and to the extent you make the tedium necessary as "punishment" its a bad design. it should also be pointed out that lots of these tedious mechanics have been removed from games over the last 10 years, and that lots of people have pointed out that the rest mechanic in poe is basically just obnoxious tedium. your arguments are nothing but poor conflations with errant reasoning. you basically say, "dying and backtracking are the same because they both take time." but that is not the only relevant factor and you are being ignorant and obtuse if you think I haven't pointed out numerous other factors. btw its curious that you chose to insult me in the same post you say this, "if you can't keep civil in this context what do you do in arguments about things which actually matter?" your lack of self awareness is impressive. Did you read what i wrote? The insult was intentional, I was giving an example of why it was unnecessary and that I could just as well do it and it would have the same effect, to be annoying and fail to convey anything useful. I specifically said, "was that needed?", after saying it. In other words I was flipping the shoe to the other foot and asking: does it fit? As to the rest of the argument, I ask that if you wish to continue it to take it to private message, if you would cease with the insults or just agree to disagree as well, both would be great.

Unless you are literally unable to progress in the game at all due to dying the results are the same. Given the chance of that, for most people the difference between dying and backtracking is negligible except that, if anything, backtracking may waste less of your time since if you had forgotten to save in a large area you could lose a fair amount of progress. Your exasperation is irrelevant when you have not proved your point. If anything you have exasperated me because your points almost all boil down to effectively: no you're wrong, I'm right. Without making any progress at explaining why what I'm saying is wrong other than to handwave it away as: that's not the same and you're stupid to think that. You're a poor debater who relies on pointless personal attacks because of your lack of ability to argue effectively and inability to critically consider the role of punishment and reward in the context of a game system. You can't effectively make a point because you're incapable of understanding and making logical arguments and your arguments fail to withstand even the most basic scrutiny. Now was any of that needed? I could just as well have simply made my points without attacking you; we're discussing a game system here, we're not even debating politics, if you can't keep civil in this context what do you do in arguments about things which actually matter? Also I believe we've derailed this thread enough. If you must continue, please send me a private message, but at this point I think it would be best to agree to disagree.

Dying and backtracking both temporarily halt progression. They functionally have the same goal. You died, now if you don't want that to happen again do better, either leave and get more experience or try better tactics. You had to leave in the middle of the dungeon because you used up your resources, now if you don't want that to happen again do better, either get more experience or manage your resources better. The functional effect is the same, you're being told that you are doing something wrong. The game is not designed around the idea that you should have to go back to town in the middle of content, if that's happening it's a failure on your part, the same as dying. Also insults have no place in a discussion or debate. If you cannot argue a point without resorting to insults, you would be best to simply cease trying.

I see no such clear design. I see a lazy haphazard unlimited resource that enforces tedium, not some subtle brilliance. running back is still not equivalent to dying, the main mechanic in the game is defeating the game, dying hinders that goal, running back doesn't. you're still wrong. parties that are inferior at "going longer w/o resting" are not worse than parties that aren't. they are in most ways equivalent, just one takes slightly longer due to load screens and other tedium. your whole house in built on incorrect, lazy and wrong assumptions about huge numbers of aspects of the game. How does dying hinder your goal other than to force you to reload? What is the consequence of not going back and instead pushing on despite not having enough resources? If the answer isn't death, then clearly you were not required to go back at that point. Your arguments are fallacious and built on poor understanding of game mechanics and game design. See? we can both throw pointless insults at each other. You have yet to demonstrate that the points you are making are true, nor to adequately demonstrate that my points are false. You keep falling back to simply declaring me wrong and yourself right without adequately explaining nor defending your position. Would you prefer if going back to town was instead of a soft failure, a hard failure? You could simply have every mob respawn without dropping any loot. Now that would be a tedious system, but perhaps it would better illustrate that the idea is that the goal of completing the content is to do so in such a way that trekking back is a failure of yours to adequately conserve resources. @Sanctuary Honestly ranged weapon based damage dealers are pretty poor at the moment, their single target at best slightly outshines casters, but loses out vastly in terms of total damage done and utility, and is completely inferior to melee weapon wielders in single target damage, making up for that only in ease of play and lack of risk.

If you're running back because of your wizard that is failure (and I consider the wizard's early game quite poorly balanced, so problems with resting early mostly have to do with the fact that wizard starts off with a small pool of per encounter spells and a just as small pool of per day spells, as they grow in levels, their number of per day spells increase rapidly, to the point where by around level 7/8 they have so many spells it's exceedingly rare to need even most of them). If you don't put 3 in athletics and have to keep running back because of fatigue that is also failure (that's the game telling you, put points in athletics! although i don't necessarily think its a good idea to have a requirement of 3 in athletics to reach reasonable fatigue levels). If you're managing your wizard/druid/priest's spells appropriately you will rest just often enough that at the point in a dungeon where you would find more camping supplies or would naturally return to town (end of dungeon/quest or grand staircase in caed nua) you will have exhausted your resources. If you are able to reach this point you will have optimized the value of both the resources of your per rest spells and of your camping supplies as you will not have wasted time by overconserving or wasted time by spending too freely and being forced to backtrack. Resting and dying are not equivalent. Backtracking and dying are equivalent. Both of these indicate you are doing something incorrectly, in this case not spending your resource at the appropriate rate. You keep saying resting is not a limited resource, but it is limited in the exact same fashion that inventory in the IE/Diablo/pretty much any other RPG ever is limited. The limit is a soft limit, it is completely possible to negate the limit (by returning to town early) but in all cases the cost of negating the limit is the same, time and loading screens (some more than others). The game is clearly designed with an idea of how often you should return to town (hint: it's when the quest/dungeon is done or when you see a master staircase in Od Nua) and the placed supplies are clearly intended as a way to insure you make it to these points by extending the amount of time you can remain without returning.

What does failure do except cause you to reload and run back to try a fight again? The rest system just institutes a soft, rather than hard, failure system, where failure is when you choose to run back early, rather than being forced to enter load screens and run back (possibly with the added tedium of losing additional progress if you failed to make a recent save game). In increasing difficulty, instead of resting more often, I would make use of better tactics, better utilization of my abilities. If I'm forced to rest more often than there are camping resources when playing 100% optimally, then there's a problem with the balance. Given that it is never the case in the game for a 6 party group that it is impossible to complete the content without trekking back to town early, this is a non-issue as harder setups, such as 1-5 man groups, are not what the game is balanced around.

The game is not balanced (and should not be balanced for) around solo. The camping resource system IS LIMITED. It is limited in the same fashion that inventory in the IE games is limited. It is limited in that you can only carry so many resources at one time. You can subvert the limitation, but the price is backtracking, wasting time returning to town at a non-optimal time. Tedium is one of the primary ways you pay for any mistake in gameplay. Repeating a hard encounter multiple times can get tedious, if you're poor at the game but attempting higher difficulties, even relatively simple encounters can become tedious. Tedium is an entirely reasonable punishment for refusing to attempt to avoid it. it is certainly within your capacity to play the game, rest at appropriate intervals and never need to trek back to town to get more supplies. The IE games were arguably worse for a tedious punishment for failure, in that a single character being reduced to 0 hp prior to getting a priest with raise dead/resurrection meant a return back to town to get a priest to raise them, and required you to distribute the character's inventory between party members. The only advantage the IE games had was easy save-scumming to avoid this, if an iron man game mode was instituted. the IE games would be extremely punishing for having a party member die.

The reward is not returning for camping supplies. if you have to return for camping supplies that is the game telling you you are not playing optimally. No, if harder difficulty can be solved by resting more, that's problematic since it removes the actual difficulty achieved by having an attrition based resource system. If you decide to backtrack to get more camping supplies so you can rest whenever your casters run out of spells, and opt to throw as many of your casters per rest abilities per encounter as possible. And perhaps for good measure, don't adequately manage your squishies to prevent them from taking damage, the backtracking is the price you pay to circumvent the intended functionality of limited resources reduced by attrition. An example of how poor a 0 resource rest system can work is the IE games, they're good games, but the per day spells are functionally per encounter, but are balanced to be per day, because it is very easy, and indeed optimal to spam buffs/high power spells and rest every time the buffs wear off. For instance, I'm doing a run through Icewind Dale at the moment, the optimal strategy for most areas is to have my cleric and bard cast all of their buffing/summoning spells (in order from longest to shortest) then to cast haste, turn on Bard song, then have my characters shoot through the map murdering everything in their way. Once haste ends, I send a character with boots of speed to pick up any loot then rest and repeat. This strategy makes little narrative sense, but functions extremely effectively at trivializing all but the hardest encounters.

you still labor under the idea camping is a limited resource, it is not. you also labor under the idea that going "longer" w/o camping is somehow "optimal" that is also false. I will confess that if you continue to believe things that are simply not true then your argument is much stronger. Exactly how is it false? I have yet to have to return to town because I needed camping supplies. Either your argument is it's not limited because it's already effectively free, in which case the solution would be to make it more scarce, or you believe it's impossible to optimally utilize resources such that you don't need to camp constantly, in which case you're just wrong. Or you think that the game should be balanced around single encounters rather than attrition in which case you disagree with the direction they took the game. Going longer without camping is optimal to the point where you are only need more supplies at points where you find more supplies, or when you would return to town for other reasons, optimal is reaching a point where your usage of resources precisely equates to the most optimal division of your time, which is that you never want to return to town in the middle of a dungeon (thus requiring backtracking) or otherwise need to turn back in order to continue onward.