[How useful is Intellect in Deadfire?]

If NC couldn't dump INT, he would dump something else. Minmaxers need 20+ in their damage stat to be competitive in PotD/TCS.

 

He probably LOVED being able to freely dump STR/RES last patch!

 

So much hate, lol.

 

Try not to stereotype me, plz. I play games for fun and for fun only. That's the sole point of their existence. But fun, for me, is the gameplay. Sure, lots of people play these games for story and atmosphere - great for them. But I'm just finding the writing and thus the atmosphere in the majority of games (Pillars included) to be utter schlock. Like, I'm reading through Philip K. ****'s bibliography right now. And it's awesome. But I have no idea how to enjoy game writing right after that. The discrepancy in writing levels is just devastating.

 

Even the ability to roleplay doesn't compensate for much because all the options I'm given are trash. From my point of view. I'm pretty much forced to agree with the Skaenite priest. I can't tell Iovara that she's stupid trash and no one cares about her preaching. I can't even join Thaos or make peace with him - like, what do I have against the dude? And that's not to mention that I'm not interested in having the tired hero's journey, I want to have a more subdued and existential experience. Call me snob or whatever, but I'm in this stuff for gameplay 'cause that's the only tasty part.

 

And see, strange it may sound, but I want to have my cake sweet. 'Cause that's what the cake is ought to be as far as I know. And you say - no, you're a bad person for enjoying your cake sweet! Immediately, immediately add lots of pepper and salt, otherwise, you're maxing too much! It's unfair!!!

 

What is unfair? If I'm playing the fighter whom I want to see stabby or shooty, he oughta be stabby or shooty. If intelligence doesn't help him to be this, why should I pay the tax? More so, even in terms of the story it has zero bearing - there's no dumb dialogue and stat usage is wholly comsetic. It doesn't truly affect anything. That's just the sad truth. So I should salt and pepper my cake so I can imagine that it's a fair cake and thus it's somehow better?

 

Now yeah, sure, as the game designer I agree that min-maxing is ugly and should be avoided. But, well, if min-maxing is so bad then maybe they should've just disallowed to make stats lower than 8 or something. Or maybe made the system where all stats are actually useful. If something is mostly useless I just refuse to make-believe that it's useful. That's ugly.

 

Mind you, I'm not blaming the Josh for this. PoE is a big game and it's problem that it's supposed to serve just too much people. Too many category of players. It should please all story-no combat crowd, it should please party players, it should please solo players, ironman has to be there, etc. It also shouldn't stray too much from the BG but at the same time it can't copy it too much. However nice BG is (theoretically,  I hate it), the majority of fans here have played the living hell out of it and I doubt that the same gameplay would've actually pleased them much.

 

Now, back to the fighters. They're just not gaining enough from the int.  They just don't.

 

Let's not forget that rest seems to be much more spammier in this game. And Fighters don't have good skill targets for empower. So refresh is the way to go, essentially giving a lvl 9 fighter 10 ability points. That's 30-40 seconds of both Vigorous Defense and Disciplined Strikes. And it's not even a given that you need to use Vigorous - it depends on how much of a tank your fighter is. Depending on your squad, that'll wary. Considering how swift the majority of the fights are (even on PoTD), that's just enough duration.

 

Rapid recovery reduction is a non-factor. Even at 30 seconds it's long enough because, once again, the fights are fast-paced and by that time you'll probably crush all major opposition. So it still helps you to get through the toughest spot and then it's, like, whatever. Another thing is that there are tons of good healing sources in the game. Great, even. So losing a bit of virtual health is not the end of the world.

 

Mob stance is highly annoying to use in the party playthrough. It's difficult to guarantee that it's your fighter who gets the last hit unless you go into full microcontrol mode - like, stop the game every time and order everyone else to change targets. If you don't do this then you'll rarely get those whirlwinds. If you do this, it's cool but it's annoying. 

 

Outside of that, the fighter just doesn't have any worthwhile abilities. He doesn't even have that many abilities in the first place and most of them are meh. You'd rather pump more self-buffs. So why invest into a stat that's not truly used?

 

Losing will is annoying  and even on POTD 14 will actually matters - with Determination, Vigorous Defense and Bull's Will you can reach more or less reasonable levels of resistance. But, as the others have said, there are other ways to prevent domination. Or you'd just better invest into Resolve.

 

The final angle here is that the best hope of intelligent fighters are the goold old "stun on crit' weapons. That is, if they exist in this iteration of pillars. Given how sparse the disables are in this one, I'm not sure if we'll see something like that. Mb interrupt or prone, but probably not stun. And even if it's here, another major issue (not in favor of intelligence) is that the combat is really, really rapid right now. Any decent build deals tons of damage. And fighter is an excellent damage dealer. So why bother locking a foe with something like Dex-Int build when you can just shred him with low-int, high damage build? Dead enemy needs no stuns.

[Your Tiers List [Base Classes, Subclasses]]

Well, first, most of those things you've listed cost guile and that's not exactly endless. Quite the contrary. Second, you don't need 18 penetration - what for? You need enough to pierce through the armor and other classes are already achieving this all right. Third, as long as the casters reside in the current shape, the Assassin will have no real usage. To have a glass cannon that goes through many hoops to deal 100-ish damage to one character or to have a glass cannon that is much more reliable and that deals 100-ish damage to many characters. Isn't much of a choice.

[Your Tiers List [Base Classes, Subclasses]]

My conclusions based on the POTD play:

 

Tier-A:

 

Chanters of all kinds - best casters in the game. Fastest spells in the game which perfectly scale up to any combat lenghth.  The spells themselves are also crazily good - Hel-Hiraf is amazing, summons are great, even after the nerf, The Killers Froze Stiff is still very good as paralyze is incredibly strong debuff and clubs make it very easy to land. Not Felled By the Axe also has some potential to be good, more so after the upgrade. Early phrases are kinda bad, but that ends once the power level 3 comes. Oh, and they're the least stat-dependent class in the game so you can min-max them rather heavily. It's hard to imagine any party without at least one of these.

 

Devoted Fighters - best combination of damage dealing & sturdiness. Penetration is the name of the game right now and, with a solid dual-damage weapon, being stuck to one weapon shouldn't be that much of an issue. Constant recovery became much better and it's a steady source of healing right now. Disciplined strikes are unreasonable and probably will be nerfed into oblivion. His overall accuracy is just great - you steadily convert all grazes into hits and that's a lot of extra damage. His other perks are also some of the best in the game - fighter stances offer lots of utility, he has tons of debuff resistance and plenty of damage too. One of the few classes that you'd actually wish to single-class if only to be able to take all this good stuff. Also an easy stat setup with min-Int and max-Strength, Dex and Resolve - you probably don't need max-Per as you accuracy is already good enough and you'll get most of the criticals you need from Disciplined Strikes.

 

Bleak Walkers and Goldpact paladins - the only actually tanky class in the game. And, given how much damage do the enemies pack, it's quite a welcome trait. Generally speaking, the pure paladin is a weak choice - he's too tanky and doesn't contribute much on his own, especially after the Sworn Enemy nerf. So you either splice him on the other Damage Dealer so said class can actually stand and fight without getting wrecked quickly or you pair him with another supportive class. Paladin/chanter, paladin/priest and paladin/druid seem to be the way to go. The dd-hybrids probably have purely offensive stats  (min-int, maxed STR-DEX-PER, although paladin-fighter can also go for the Res instead of Per), the tanks are able to cut down on the strength and to go into high Con-Int-Res mode. Bleak Walkers are good because their flames of devotion are able to focus down enemies fast. Goldpact just have lots of survivability which is the exact point of a paladin. Others are quite subpar - Kind Wayfarer may sound promising, but the amount of healing done is just too low.

 

Berserker barbarians - you know, despite being different class, they're kinda the same as fighters. They both have the excellent damage output and the ability to stay in fight. Frenzy just gives you a ton of damage. The friendly-fire disadvantage is annoying but there are several ways to be fixing it - unlike the previous game, Carnage is quite crappy so you can just cut down on your Int while also spreading your party out. You can also do the barb/paladin hybrid that will eventually get the Intelligence Affliction Resistance, meaning that the Confusion will no longer apply. You can also do a ranged barbarian which just doesn't have Carnage and thus, no friendly fire. In beta 3, that's quite a viable option. So the upsides are strong and the penalty is easy to play around. And, once you combine that Hardy with Thick Skinned, you'll see that even the low-deflection barb is able to endure a lot. Unlike the fighter, the barb isn't that good of a mono-class - there's just not enough worthy perks to be picked, too much chaff inside. But he makes a great multi-class with either paladin or any other damage dealer. Stats-wise its min-Int, max STR, DEX, PER (aka the standard DD fare).

 

Evoker Wizard - tbh, this is probably more of a bug or something. Right now, if you empower the aggressive spell directly, it gets into crazy zone instantly. The Nature Godlike can first Fleet Feet herself, them empower the spell and it produces something like 140 points of damage with 57 accuracy and 11 penetration. That's some nasty damage - with all factors considered, like, 8 times more than it should've been. So yeah, that's good enough. But that's the sole use of the wizard and, once it gets nerfed, he'll revert to being nothing. Because, outside such trickery, the spells barely do any damage. The self-buffs are neither good nor numerous enough to make him a nice second-class. Well, I think that at the later levels you will accumulate a critical amount of them, but when that's gonna be? You need to care about the majority of the game. And most of the good stuff from the first part of the game got nerfed. Deleterious Alacrity is crap. Summoned weapons are bad. Non-empowered offensive spells are bad because their penetration is low (and you can't boost it) and their accuracy is low (and you can't boost it) and the casting time is horrible. And, worst of all, the AI is too smart. Once you begin casting something big, they will go out their way to interrupt you. And those lagufaeth mages with their paralyzing darts don't even need to go that far - they just make a side-spit and you're interrupted. And mind you, this is not a "git gud" complaining. The problem is, most classic D&D tactics were designed to work only against very stupid monster. I mean, fighter holds of the troll, rogue backstabs him. Why doesn't the troll smash the rogue first, lol? Wizard fries enemies from afar - why aren't those enemies a pack of high-initiative archers who just turn the wizard into a cushion pin before he's able to act? And, given how squishy the wizard is, you don't even need a pack. One or two flat-footed sneak-attacking rogues will do. But that's cause D&D is not a competitive game, it's a narrative game so it's designed around everyone feeling useful and stuff. Theoretically - practically you know that non-casters don't matter. But whatever. Here, the wizards retain all their narrative squishiness, but enemies got smart and now it's just too difficult to be casting anything. They're just too good at countering and nothing can be done to prevent that. That doesn't affect wizards only, ofc - all casters are victims (which is why they're crap). Stats-wise, you're a one-shot wonder so you don't need constitution and strength is as useless as it gets for casters.

 

Fury Druid - pretty much the same as above. Would've been tier-D if not for the empower's ridiculousness. Empowered Returning Storm makes 15 or so attacks, with ~55 accuracy and 11 penetration. The only problem is keeping the druid alive for the duration (as we're talking about the min-Con glass cannon build with zero defenses), but worst case scenario, you just combo it out with the Withdraw, it works. Against lightning immune targets, there's also Insect Swarm that deals 20 damage per tick in this mode - enough to melt most of enemies pretty fast. AoE is pretty small, though. So yeah, the brokennes of Empower makes it work. For now. Still, if your top-spell is interrupted, you're in deep problem. Outside of this stuff, the druid is somewhat mediocre, though not as bad as the wizard - the Insect Swarm is a decent enough DD spell thanks to the Raw damage and the Druid has some of the best heals in the game. Outside of the meme build, you probably want to be a lifegiver, though - flexibility is an important part of his profession and losing your healing makes for a critical loss of it whereas the gains are not that big. Shifter looks nice in theory, big damage, good armor, zero recovery, but gets smashed by the fact that it has no accuracy and no real ways of boosting it. I guess you can make a shifter/fighter druid, that's the only solution, but even so that dilutes the offensive capabilities of the shift as they're quite power level reliant. It's also a tough build stat wise - you can't min anything so you're probably just maxing STR and PER.

 

Needless to say, without the empower cheese, the druid goes to C and the wizard goes to D. Have fun while it lasts.

 

Tier-B:

 

Soul Blade Cipher - that's a weird class. On one hand, most of their spells and abilities are trash. On the other, the remaining stuff is really, really good. 40% damage is nothing to scoff at, especially now that Strength acts as a multiplier. The +1 penetration perk is also quite nice. Soul Annihilation, even after the nerf, is a good and decently scaling source of damage. Scaling is of utter importance on PoTD - enemies are numerous, their overall HP pool is tremendous so non-repeatable one-shot wonders just don't reach deep enough into that pool. Stuff that scales with the length of the combat is much superior. Soul Annihilation also drains all your focus conveniently so you just stop caring that your spells are crap - you have a better use for this stuff. Ofc, the class doesn't hold on its own, but it works exquisitely as a fighter/paladin/barbarian addition. Especially now that non-duals are somewhat buffed - Annihilation works best with either the 2-handed or 1-handed style.

 

Stalker Ranger with Bear - this guy is not fancy or flashy, but he's actually nicely packed. Ranger is a mostly defensive character so he's focused on making your party sturdier. Coupled with another sturdy class (the usual suspects - Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian) he becomes very durable and also adds a secondary punching bag in form of his Bear. The bear is not that much of a tank, but he's still better than nothing. At the same time, ranger has his marks and some sweet accuracy passives so his resulting ranged damage will not be all that bad. I guess it's best to go with the Scepters for him as they're not giving him any melee penalties and they don't suffer that much from heavy armor while at the same time providing good penetration. In terms of stats it's probably a min-Int, max STR, DEX and RES (perception seems to be a bit overkill for them and they need to be tanky). You can also try a sleazy combo of Medium Shield and Pistol (which allows to use the shield's extreme defenses without suffering much), but that leaves you with crappy penetration.

 

 

Tier-C:

 

Nalpazca Monk - I don't get all the hype. I mean, yeah, sure, his damage is great but it's on the Fighter/Barbarian level. But, unlike them, the monk is made of glass. There's no point of having great damage if you're getting two or three-shot. And that's a basic monk - helwalker is even worse as that penalty is ridiculous. Also, his damage output is greatly reliant on being a solo class so, unlike the cipher, you can't just splice something onto him to make him work. Solo monks also suffer greatly from their first level ups being quite weak as early abilities are mostly trash. It gets a bit better later on, but still, their development path is very strict and limited. And, from the beta, it feels like PoE 2 follows the original path in a sense that the toughest part of the game ends somewhere around lvl 7-8 and afterwards its mostly gravy. So the guys who are not getting good until then don't look that swell. So I'd say that the best monk is the nalpazca. The helwalker's flaws are soul-crushing. The Shattered Pillar sacrifices the monks excellent weapon for exactly what? Even in the class hybrid with melee weapons, what does a Pillar do that Berserker or Fighter do not? So Nalpazca is the best one and mostly because he can fight ranged, lol. First with some weapon, then with the Long Fists. It's just that alchemy is very potent so boosting it is good. And, while being high, he gets free wounds so he can stay far away while being able to buff himself non-stop. Dance of Death (the longer you don't get hit, the bigger the accuracy bonus you receive) also makes much more sense with ranged than with melee. So an arbalest-toting Nalpazca Cipher seems like a much more sound solution that everything else here, tbh. Stat-wise, they're no different from other damage dealers.

 

Wael Priest - Arcane Veil is a pretty good and mostly reliable spell so having it available from lvl 1 is a nice kind of a deal. That's one and, TBH, the only thing that pulls priest from the rank-D. You just splice it onto some tank and, as a result, you're making that tank much more efficient and you gain more healing for the squad. Othewise, their spells are just meh. I mean, yeah, sure, they have healing, but there's lots of the healing in the game right now so that's not exactly exclusive. The good buffs are few and between (Devotions for the Faithful is the only really good one), the casting times are atrocious, the amount of overall casts is low. Most of the other gods spells are not that hot either. Summoned Spiritual Weapons have been nerfed and they're also not as good mostly because the priest doesn't have any good damage dealing passives. The weapons themselves are also pretty mediocre in terms of types and their usage. So, while cheap Arcane Veil is pretty good, it's not exactly enough to salvage this class. Stat-wise they're mostly Resolve and Intelligence dependent, but most tanky build will have Resolve, at the very least. Being tied to the intelligence really sucks, though - it's not that good in the PoE 2.

 

Tier-D

 

Assassin Rogue - the thing is, other melee classes have gained a lot of aggressive passives while Rogue lost pretty much everything but the base sneak attack. Also, with the spells getting crappier, debuffs became more difficult to apply so it's not as automatically enabled as it was. And flanking is not that easy on PoTD as you're constantly outnumbered - there are hordes of mobs and getting into the thick of them is risky. More so for the frail rogue. So you can have the unreliable 50% damage of Rogue or the always reliable 40% damage of Cipher - yeah, tough choice. Which is then made even "tougher" by the fact that Rogue's ability guzzle up Guile like it has thousands of it while not giving that much of a lasting effect in return. It scales badly, yeah. And then we take into account that pure-rogue is not half as survivable as to be using either Riposte or the Brawler subclass. Yeah, sure, Riposte should be a Trickster baby, self-buffs, etc, but rogue's basic deflection is so bad that even buffs don't push it into reliable zone - it's no paladin. Also, trickster loses most of the damage so what's the point of those ripostes after all that. The only somewhat perspective style of play (and I'm mostly theorycrafting here as it doesn't really work atm because of the bugs/issues(?)) is the assassination invisibility hopping. So, as the soul assassin, you sneak in, destroy one target, then use as much invisible skills as possible to assassinate more, then the invis runs out and you probably die. Bad scalability, but before the nerf of assassination, it could've been impactful enough. Now - I'm not too sure. Yeah, that nerf was so highly needed. Stat-wise, they couldn't care less about constitution and resolve so you just stack high on everything else. Yeah, they need the intelligence too, othewise the invisibility doesn't last long enough for them to get into position and/or reload their guns. They could've worked well with the soul blade ciphers, but the stats are too difficult there (as you begin to be needing resolve and that's just too much). 

[Question for people with beta access (about multiclassing)]

Ranger is more of a tanky character so Wael should be the best priestly choice for him - he will be holding real good under the Arcane Veil while dealing some ok-ish damage with his Arbalest (which is probably the best ranged weapon right now). 

 

Druids atm are kinda  bad at everything but healing so druid/chanter mix is definitely a good idea, especially given how strong chanters are. That will make a very strong supportive character.

[Assorted, consolidated feedback on the Deadfire beta]

To add another small but annoying inconsistency with weapon specializations - for Great Sword and its Savage Attack, the +50% damage modifier is just basic damage bonus. For lvl 5 pure fighter with 2-handed style, 19 strength and fine greatsword, the damage goes from 36-45 to 50-62. That's +38%, actually.

 

Meaning that the more other passive bonuses you get, the worse it becomes and, since the malus here is a scaling one, eventually this skill will be bringing more harm than help (which is why savage attack was a horrible  choice in the first part of the game - the -5 accuracy was not big enough to put you into negative zones, but in most cases it didn't add enough to justify spending a feat on it).

 

On the other hand, the theoretically similar -50% maluses on Morningstar's Body Blows and Pike's Exposing Strikes work in the other way - they act as an actual 0.5 multiplier. Or even more than that as those  25-36 and  36-45 turn into 11-16 (56% loss) and 16-20 (56% loss as well). 

 

And, to be sure, I've even run the test on the lvl 5 fighter/cipher with 2-handed style, 19 strength, fine weapon quality and cipher's 40% extra dmg. 

 

Great Sword: 48-58 basic, 61-75 Savage Attack (29% of actual increase - given that -20 accuracy is, like, 40% malus, the resulting damage is 129%x0.6=77.4%)

Morningstar:  32-48 basic, 15-21 Body Blows (still 55% of loss - yeah, this totally blows)

Pike: 48-58 basic, 21-26 Exposing Strikes (guess what - same 55%)

 

Needless to say that the methods of penalizing and rewarding here should be similar, otherwise it just makes no sense.

[-% recovery stacking neither multiplicative nor additive?]

In the other thread, someone has said that it took him 1300 dexterity to reach 0 recovery time. Might it be a hint that it's actually the division that gets used here, similar to the reload time from the first game?

[Weapon balance and comparison]

EDIT: Moreover, making 0 recovery attainable by just one style is a bad idea. 

 

Actually, 0 recovery is not attainable by the dual-wielding. It provides a multiplier, not a straight bonus. It can easily put you low and it can negate lots of the other negatives, but it can't get you in that zero zone and, actually, the more action discounts you're getting, the worse it becomes. I.e., if you have full 100% recovery, dual-wielding cuts 50% from that. But if you already have 50 only, you're getting nothing but 25. So actual speedsters (if they'll be present) won't bother with dualing as much.

[Ranged Weapon Damage - Analysis and Comparison]

Don't forget that the Arquebus has a much better modal than Arbalest. Maybe not universally so, but Assassin/Bleak Walker + Aimed Shot + Flames of Devotion is a guaranteed +65 shot with lots of basic penetration to reach that 2x=30% multiplier mark. That's 28 base damage on the average + 56 from backstab & sneak + 4.2 from weapon quality + 28 from assassin crit bonus - 116.2 in total. Next we're having 33% strength modifier as a living lands dwarf or aumaua ('cause this is what this build needs), ramping it into 154.4 zone. Next we add up Bleak Walker's  75% elemental bonus - 270.2 already. And then we're probably having overpenetration so another 1.3 modifier - 351.26. Someone is getting insta-gibbed.

 

Next, Rods really need to account for their special. They lose only 50% recovery time, but attack 2-3 targets at once - surely that increases their dps at least for a little.

 

Pistols need to account for rapid shot, though that's a pain in the butt. Now, if we think basically, that modal is worthless. You gain 69% shooting speed, but lose 40% of damage due to accuracy - 100 x 0.6 x 1.69 = 101.4. Well, that's still a gain, but in reality, that 40% malus from accuracy should be lower because pistols don't get much from criticals - no bonus damage and their base penetration is too low to score over-penetration. So the actual result here should be higher, especially if you go for the heavy graze to hit & miss to graze conversion - a fighter with one-handed specialization and those bracers can have, like, 40% of that. So, under such circumstances, a pistol should behave in a much better fashion.

 

Hunting bows are a bit worse here because for them criticals do matter. But still, not as much - right now, they're only good enough if you can guarantee overpenetration and, well, as a 5 basic Pen weapon that's just not happening often. Another thing is that really high accuracy is not the best way to achieve frequent criticals right now - why bother with stacking it (which is really freaking hard) when you can just get 50% hit to crit conversion from Paralyzed (which chanters spam aplenty) or upgraded Inspired Barrage? 

 

Finally, range also should be taken into consideration. Scepters are very cool, but with their 4 meter range they're not that far off from being melee weapon. I can run a glass cannon 3 con, 3 resolve robed build with a bow, but not with the Scepter. 

[Ranged Weapon Damage - Analysis and Comparison]

So the Arquebus is 12% below median damage, while the hunting bow is only 5% above median damage. If we compare Arquebus vs. Hunting Bow, it's a 17% reduction in DPS. That's huge. Even if we're just comparing against the next best alpha strike weapon, can you really justify a 10% damage penalty vs. the Arbalest? 

 

You really should be taking penetration into account. There's a 4 point discrepancy between the hunting bow and arquebus and that's a world of difference.

[Please turn Wounding Shot back to Primary Attack]

 

Dual pistols are awful so you shouldn't be using them, duh. There, problem solved.

 

Yeah I watched your video and tested myself, I thought dual wielding pistol will reduce reload time but it didn't Really awful for auto attack, only use is for Full Attacks like FoD.

 

 

The problem is, even there it's kinda questionable. Sure, you're getting 4 attacks with +8 accuracy (as you're losing 12 from one-handed style) and 75% extra damage (if you're bleak, 50 otherwise), but at the cost of all other attacks losing 12 accuracy - that's 24% of damage across the board and I think they totally negate the gains here. Actually, I think it lowers your DPS overall as even a powerful build will have to make plenty of shots per combat.

[Please turn Wounding Shot back to Primary Attack]

Dual pistols are awful so you shouldn't be using them, duh. There, problem solved.

[Casters are still slow...]

I'd say that the biggest problem of current spellcasters is not even their speed - it's their accuracy. You can say that debuffs got really debilitating right now and whereas previously, say, Hobble was mostly for lulz, now it's a much more impactful ability. Ditto for sickened - sickened is insane. Ditto for Dazed. Some abilities just were good and remained good - Blinded, for example.

 

The problem, however, is that the amount of casts is really limited while the accuracy of casts is atrocious. And while physical fighters have tons of accuracy boosters available, casters have pretty much none remaining. And that's with spell defenses generally being much higher than the Deflection. And while previously you could've easily switched to attacking the correct one (like, this monster has low WIll, high Fortitude - ok, let's not sicken him, let's daze him), right now you have few spells available so, well, you're not having that will-targeting spell.

 

On current PoTD (even with level scaling applied which makes it easier) your caster can throw spells through the entire battle while barely hitting anyone.

[Constitution Needs Buffing]

Right now, Con is one of the weakest stats in the game. While those +5% of health per attribute point may seem like a lot (and indeed, it was a buff from even weaker +3% per attribute point), in reality, two factors ruin its usefulness:

 

1. Now that health/endurance system is out of the window, Constitution is no longer controlling how much regeneration you can receive. And lots of healing happens in the combat. And every time it happens it's, like, receiving a bonus to your starting health pool - there's no real difference. So 80 hp versus 120 hp might seem like a colossal difference. But 180 vs 220 is an entirely different thing. And 100 hp of healing is not even that much - between moon godlike's procs, paladin lay on hands and druidic regeneration, you can restore so much more than that. In sight of this, basic con becomes a non-factor. And it never scales, it's just a fixed number - that's the biggest issue here.

 

2. Con is naturally weak because it's a passive and reactive attribute. Those aren't really positive traits. Even if you have high con, it's not that easy to force the foe into attacking you. Maybe one or two tanks in front of the party, but you can't just have a, say, full 18-Con party and make the enemy party attack you evenly so each of those 18 cons is working. You can also use tactics to supplant the need for the Con - just keep your glass cannons far out so no one is striking them. Whereas it's much more difficult to use your tactics to supplant the need for the offensive stats, for example. Also, since it's passive, it depends on your foes to be actually acting whereas one of the main supported playstyles is mass disable spammage that has zero synergy with constitution.

 

After some consideration, I will also add a third factor here which is a bit more global:

 

3. Offensive play just has more multipliers than defensive play. These games are often won by stacking lots of multipliers to produce some serious results. I.e., we have 30% strength damage bonus, 30% dexterity and 20% perception one. But they don't total to 180. Instead, it's 1.3x1.3x1.2=2.028. It's not that big of an advantage yet, but once you add all other attacking abilities, the difference does truly show. Of course, there's also the HPxDeflectionxArmor multiplication going around, but it's just not as prolific as the offensive abilities. Just count the amount of aggressive and defensive ones. Only Paladins and Wizards can truly stack deflection, whereas much more classes have all kinds of damage bonuses. There's Rage & Frenzy, Lightning Strikes, Coral Snuff, various marks, but what are the self-buffs for the protection? Not to mention that offenses are universal whereas defenses and armor are specialized.

 

So what can be done about Con? One of these:

 

1. Make it act as a healing received multiplier. Something like +5% per point - to match the health gain. This fixes the scaling issue.

 

2. Make it act as a buff amplifier. For every point of Con, positive effects last 5% longer. Doesn't matter if they're innate or external. This allows to use constitution proactively.

 

3. Switch deflection from Resolve to constitution and give something else to resolve (maybe the same buff amplifier or give it hostile effect resistance - i.e., hostile effects last 4% shorter for each resolve point).   

[High interupt 1hers?]

Mosquito is the best out of them. While it has "only" 0.75 interrupt, it's also a fast weapon, meaning that it attacks much 1.5 times more than those average speed weapons.

[3.0 Dual Wielding Cipher?]

At release, it was viable to have a Cipher dual wielding stilletos or sabres. In fact, if you look at the Zealot Fenix build in http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844 , it shows a build I had in mind.

 

However, 3.0 is now released and there have been many changes across the board.

 

The changes aren't that big, actually, so the build should work rather well. The only thing is that most of the 4 & 5 level powers are quite worthless now so you'll never cast them. And pain link is no longer free. Otherwise, the build got immensely buffed - psychovampiric provides much more survivability (which was the main thing that the melee cipher lacked), amplified thrust is insanely broken atm (will sometimes get fixed, I guess) and you can even experiment with the outlander's rage in the late game.

[Is Wizard still garbage?]

People should stop reading the title only.

 

What OP means to say is that the wizard is garbage because his nuking abilities (which, in OPs opinion, is the thing that defines wizard for him) are weaker than his weapon summoning abilities. Is that the stick-beating or want-shooting wizard is not very interesting for him to play. And, on my part, there's not much consolation I can give to the OP as the wizard's best 3rd level spell are Kalakoth's Minor Blights (Alacrity of Motion is a strong contender here, though), best 5th level spell is the Spirit Lance and 6th level spell is Citzal's Martial Power (it was the Adragan, but that was pre-nerf). It's just that they, especially when combined, give much more damage output than everything else he has.

[Level 7 Ciphers powers: underwhelming?]

Time Parasite is really good but it doesn't work well (almost at all) with the guns and you need to be lightly armored (best - unarmored) for it to work properly. Some extra speed bonuses will be welcome too. Do that and it can easily double your damage output.

[Ranger is heavily bugged]

Have you respecced? I've also had this bug but it happened only when I respecced the rangers and never when I built them from the scratch.

[Is Returning Storm supposed to be swapped with Relentless Storm?]

Returning Storm hits only one enemy at the time. Relentless Storm hits all enemies in the radius, no matter how many there are. That's why it's a 5 level spell.

[Fun/Viable 2h sword build (?) Forgemasters gloves: Firebrand]

I've used such build in my russian PoTD LP on a monk and it was really, really good. I think that, in 2.0, the variety of the builds with it has been hurt by the fact that you can no longer easily minimise Dex or Con and thus very few melee warriors can actually afford to max out Int. However, it's still golden for the barbarians. No intricate build even required - just 18 might, 18 int, greatsword specialization and you're all set up.

[borresaine changes..]

I think that's a bug because this stealing effect has appeared on a variety of different weapons without costing anything extra. Tidefall, for example, has it too. And yes, 80% extra speed stolen is ridiculous because, for properly built rangers, for example, it will lead to about 180% extra damage being dealt.

[HOW THE **** DO YOU BEAT NALREND THE WISE ON HARD]

Have your high perception character (preferrably with the interrupting blows talent) cast a Wall of Fire scroll under the ogres. Watch them not casting anything ever. A specifically build wizard (one with high perception) will work too, of course.

[Lots of Suggestion on Spell Balance (spoilers?)]

Not sure if this is the right subforum from it but I guess some people may find talking about spells which they haven't seen spoilers so it's better to be safe than sorry.

 

Disclaimer: at the moment, some hardcore rpg players think that Pillars are not exactly fun and are devoid of tactics. There is, ahem, a certain place where that's quite a pervasive abilty and a lots of joke about “balance killing fun” go around. Now, my opinion is the contrary – it's not the balance that kills the fun and tactics, it's the lack of it that does so.

 

PoE combat is not exactly mobile (which isn't necessary a bad thing) and most tactics here lie in choosing the right spell/ability to apply and the right time/place to do so. Considering how many spells and abilities each class haves (especially after adding scrolls and spellbound items into equation), a myriad of tricky question is supposed to be here. On practice, however, it's often almost unfelt – way too many classes have one spell to rule them all on each of their level. Hence, instead of tough decisions and choices we often have dumb repetition.

 

And even if you restrict yourself from using the most overpowered (and thus game-breaking and boring) stuff, the problem is also that many of the spells are way too underpowered to actually do anything. More so on the Path of the Damned (which is pretty much the only difficulty that's actually difficult).

 

So what I want to write are some (well, lots of, actually) suggestions to the spells of the game (and maybe even abilities later on – I'll see how lazy I am) to make them more or less balanced. Now, I'm a reasonable man and I don't expect the devs to put all of them (or any) into the game and I don't really expect them to read this wall of text, lol, but I love game design so I'm never against doing some exercises in it.

 

 

Priest level 1:

 

Divine Terror: frightened is a good early game debuff but this is lackluster, especially when compared to Barbaric Yell. It needs either better cast range, cast speed or area of effect – just one will suffice.

 

Withdraw: needs bigger cast range. You generally want to cast this in the last second and short range of this spell may make this too come too late.

 

Priest level 2:

 

Holy Power: it's almost good and needs just a little push. Either somewhat bigger radius (so you don't need to risk your priest that much when buffing frontliners – they need resolve the most) or perception instead of resolve (so this thing can be useful in the backrow).

 

Iconic Projection: too good at the moment. Due to it's large template, it almost always hits your entire enemies and a lot of foes. So compare this heal 24.8/deal 24.8 spell (I'm taking the stats with good might and intellect here, if you don't mind) to the 22.3 heal of Restore Light Endurance. I think that projection either needs to be thinner (so it doesn't hit as much foes) or have the average casting time (so restore is better during emergencies which is the entire point of that chain of spells).

 

Repulsing Seal: one of the most game-breaking spells at the moment. Unbelievably high accuracy (is it a bug), good area, foe only, long disable duration (more so since it's either hits or crits – grazes are rare). The entire seal line needs to have a reasonable accuracy and this one needs either weaker effect (stuck will do just nice – it's a rather underused condition) or shorter duration. An alternative here is to make seals castable only outside of combat – that will be rather atmospheric and will solve the problem without other nerfs.

 

Priest level 3 spells:

 

Circle of Protection: somewhat lackluster. Needs either bigger duration or fast cast rate. I prefer the latter option – it makes it similar to the Restore Endurance spells, something that doesn't provide really good benefits for the investment, but you'll still want when in a pinch.

 

Despondent Blows: it has several issues. First, effects themselves don't mesh with each other too well. Even on the PoTD -15 accuracy means your foes won't do that much criticals. Well, maybe if they're hitting the most vulnerable members of your party, but those are usually so frail that they'll drop dead whether this spell is applied or not. So first effect makes criticals almost nonexistent and second effect applies to criticals only. Meaning that if there's 10% critical chance for the monster (that's generous), the second effect will affect only 1.5% of his blows. That's almost nothing. Second, this spell is not much better than 1st level Divine Terror or 2nd level Instill Doubt. It's -15 accuracy instead of -10, but those spells provide other penalties and this one is melee only. Third, it doesn't really compete with its neighbor Pillar of Faith – 15 seconds of prone will prevent more damage than 45 seconds of -15 accuracy. And Pillar even does some damage to its main target. I think this spell needs either a much bigger Area of Effect (something like 5 meters) or somewhat different main ability – maybe no accuracy penalties and just a percentage of crit to hit and hit to graze conversion?

 

Warding Seal: same problem as with other seals – way too high accuracy. Same solutions, I think.

 

Watchful Presence: it's almost good, but needs a faster cast rate to be useful. As an average speed spell, I'd better use Consecrated Ground (or, if to compare spells of the same level, Pillar of Faith – just disable the foes so that 43 damage doesn't get dealt) and eliminate that risk of “when Endurance below 20%” altogether.

 

Priest level 4 spells:

 

Barring Death's Door: same as with Withdraw, needs bigger casting range.

 

Devotions for the Faithful: way, way, way too good. Even without the “foe only” part it would've been really good, as it is it almost like a cheat. Gives you a colossal amounts of extra damage and for the most foes that's like a half of their damage output gone. For the 45 seconds! I think this needs to be a slow spell and with either much smaller radius or duration.

 

Searing Seal: the effect here is actually fine, but once again, Carthage must be destroyed.

 

Shining Beacon: a bit too powerful – compare it with a Pillar of Holy Fire which is one level higher. Sure, it is DoT instead of instant damage, but on PoTD that rarely matters that much. Not for the average speed spells, at least. So the damage output here is very strong as well as the radius and it is foe only. I think making it a slow spell will do the trick. You can also cut the damage, of course, but slow cast is a more interesting option tactically – slow casting speed is somewhat underused, in my opinion.

 

Priest level 5 spells:

 

Pillar of Holy Fire: needs better damage or casting speed. It's much worse than both Shining Beacon and the offensive level 5 spells of the Druid and Wizard. Sure, nuking may not be the Priest's forte, but at the moment it's not even useful as a side option – I'd rather use Champion's boon on my other damage dealer (said Druid or Wizard, for example) and do lots of extra damage that way than cast this.

 

Salvation of Time: I really dig the concept here but the effect is too weak to be truly useful. With 20 seconds of bonus duration, this would lead to some great combo parties. Or, if that's too much (but I think this spell can be a bit crazy – even with long duration, it will benefit only the properly built parties & spell combos, it'll never be an auto-cast to win), at least make this is a fast cast – for example, one of the best usages here is to amplify paladin's Lay on Hands. Even extra 10 seconds is what, +200 endurance healed? Cool. But with lay on lasting only 5 seconds and this being an average speed spell, it's not that easy to apply this in time.

 

Shields for the Faithful: gives extremely big amount of protection for the entire crew. Needs to get nerfed in either amount (20 is a fine number, I think) or casting speed.

 

Priest level 6 spells:

 

Crowns for the Faitful: way too good. Combine shields for the faithful with the crowns for the faithful and your party stops caring about incoming attacks. Even alone it's +31 deflection, +12 reflexes, +75 concentration and +62 will to your entire crew (or, at the very least, the larger part of it). Oh, and some bonuses to spell duration and area – significant bonuses, actually. At the very least, make this a slow casting spell – it absolutely deserves this.

 

Minor Intercession: a bit too minor. I guess on the higher levels in the addons we'll get a Major one, but still, 5 seconds is way too skimpy when in the late game you can easily receive 10-20-30 second debuffs and disables (hello, vithracks). Some extra seconds removed are needed here.

 

 

Druid Level 1 spells:

 

Charm Beast: simply insane. Yes, it's only against beasts, but that's one of the most common enemy types in the game. And this makes most of those encounters much, much easier (if not trivial). I understand that this may be the druid's specialty, but not to this degree. I think it needs to be a signle target spell, maybe with a bit longer duration or cast distance – after all, it's charm beast, not charm beasts.

 

Dancing Bolts: lackluster. I understand that it's supposed to be safe & easy to use option, but the damage here is way too negligible. I think adding a Daze debuff will be great here – it fits the flavor and Daze is somewhat underused in the game.

 

Sunbeam: overpowered. Decent damage plus the insane 22 second of blinding (which is a very, very strong debuff). Compare this to the Wizard's 2nd level Curse of Blackened Sight that is debuff only. This deserves either a slow casting speed or significant reduction of damage.

 

Vile Thorns: even after the buff it's still mediocre. Sicken is a very mild disable so I think this needs to give a much bigger duration of it – something like 45 seconds. 14.5 seconds sicken when you can give 22 seconds of blind for the same spell slot is a joke.

 

Winter Wind – overnerfed. Even before the nerf, it wasn't broken and most of the time you used Sunbeam. Despite the great damage, it's wide cone was not easy to place without touching most of your crew. Which made it actually balanced and not useless. Now it's just worthless. If you want to keep it as it is now, make it foe only, at the very least, so you can use it to break the engagement off your guys without killing them. Sure, you can do this now by placing the yellow part of the template on them but that's not that easy – what if the druid himself is engaged and can't move? What if it's the narrow dungeon and there's nowhere to move? As of now, the payoff here is not worth the trouble. And, with the current crappy damage, fast casting speed would've been nice too.

 

Druid Level 2 Spells:

 

Blizzard: overnerfed. Sure, 80% to the enemy attack speed was probably too much (though, if it works as every other attack bonus or penalty in the game, that's applied only to the recovery time so it's not actually 80% - it's from 40% to 53%), but 20% is too little (especially when it's more like 10% to 13,3%). And the damage is also negligible now. Nerfing one of the aspects is fine, nerfing both doesn't make sense. So either give this a 40% of slow (that should be reasonable) or return its previous damage.

 

Burst of Summer Flame: absolutely worth it. I get that it's the fast and long-ranged spell. But if I need fast casting, I'll use 1st level Talon's Reach – better damage and much greater interrupt time. If I need to begin combat from the long range (that's where the 15 meter range is usually used – for the actual battle that's mostly an overkill), I'll use 2nd level Insect Swarm – much better damage there coupled with some disables. So what's the point of this? Its absent. This needs a serious damage buff.

 

Conjure Lesser Blight: small blights are really, really weak. Especially on PoTD where they pop almost instantly. They're not really enough to be a 2nd level summon. Not sure what can be done, though – maybe upping the cast speed? But then this probably needs to be in line with the other conjure blight spells (which are fine and shouldn't be changed). Mb downgrading this to level 1?

 

Hold Beast: same as with Charm Beast. Paralyze is incredibly strong and this is even a fast cast spell. Beasts are too common to be bypassed this easily. It should be either Stuck (a much safer form of disable) or single target only.

 

Taste of the Hunt: needs to be demoted to level 1 to work. As of now, the best reason to go for melee druid is not the Animal Form – it scales too badly and just isn't worth it. It's the Firebrand – the damage is great there. And, well, Firebrand is also a 2nd level spell so if you cast it (on PoTD, you'll probably need to cast it twice per battle), you don't get to taste much. If at all. So it's just on the wrong spell slot to be efficient – make it 1 and this problem vanishes.

 

Druid level 3 spells:

 

Returning Storm: even with the slow casting speed, it's still too good. Lots of procs over its long duration leading to great amount of damage and stuns. I think one of the aspects needs to get the significant reduction here else there isn't much point to most of the spells on this level, pretty much.

 

Spreading Plague: this one needs a slight improvement. The time between the jumps is too slow at the moment – after all, you lower their saves (which is the main effect of hobbled & weakened) to hit them with some other spells and the wait doesn't make that convenient. Faster spread would've made this much better.

 

Stag's Horn: was perfectly fine before the nerf. Combined to the Returning Storm, the horn is much weaker. Heck, combined to the Sunbeam it's not that insane – Sunbeam is just 20 damage and 5 deflection less, but it's AoE and 1st level. I understand that they're currently overpowered, but that still makes Stag's Horn not that crazy for its level – it's a single target spell, after all.

 

Twin Stones: it's an interesting spell due to the weird template but at the moment the damage doesn't make it worth to suffer through the problems of aiming it. Needs a buff to compensate for the aiming issues.

Druid level 4 spells:

 

Boiling Spray: just as the Winter Wind, is not exactly convenient to use and also it can't compete with both Overwhelming Wave (worse damage but great disable added), Hail Storm (same damage, bigger and more convenient template) and Calling the World's Maw (slightly less damage, convenient template, decent disable added). I think this needs a fast casting time to become useful (or simply bigger amount of damage but fast cast is a more interesting choice – the druid lacks those on higher levels).

 

Druid level 5 spells:

 

Cleansing Wind: doesn't do enough to merit the cost. I understand that instant heals is not the druid's forte, but healing here is really weak and pushing is not that strong of an effect. Especially when it's only 3 meters – perhaps something like seven or even ten would've been nicer? Even then, it'll probably need a fast casting speed to become good. Or maybe some debuff removal? Like, -5 seconds to all afflictions? It's a cleansing wind, after all. And it's actually a bad thing that most of the anti-debuff and disables in the game belong to the priest atm.

 

Nature's Terror: needs either bigger damage or faster attack rate. I like the idea of tanky druid who goes up close and personal, but in current form this is hardly enough to enable that. And can't really compare with the Relentless Storm. Sure, this is fast cast, Storm is slow (and overpowered), but the problem here is not the casting time – it's the fact that your average druid is too squishy to go to the frontline. To make him sturdy, you'll need to make sacrifices. And while this could pay off for those sacrifices theoretically, in the current shape it hardly does that.

 

Plague of Insects: probably needs slight nerfing. 150 raw damage in one spell is just too much, even at the level 5.

 

Relentless Storm: needs slight nerfing. Considering it's higher level, it's not as overpowered as the Returning Storm is, but is still probably too strong. I guess a bit lesser stun duration (or maybe no accuracy bonuses?) would do it.

 

Druid level 6 spells:

 

Sunlance: incredibly weak for it's level. Yeah, it's 70-80 damage but that's one target only. Make it a fast cast, at least. Even then, it needs bigger damage to get actually used.

 

Venombloom: it's almost good, but the damage could've used a slight buff. I mean, compare it to the wizard's Noxious Cloud (which has been buffed in the previous patch). And this one is an ultimate lvl 6 spell, after all, it needs to be flashy.

 

Wizard level 1 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights: it's really lackluster when compared to the innate Arcane Assault of the wizard. Daze here lasts longer, of course, but it's not a per encounter ability (not until level 9, at least) and Assault is a fast cast ability. I think it either needs the area increase or a greater Will debuff.

 

Chill Fog: needs slight nerfing. As of now, it just does everything well – long duration, good area of effect and cast range, strong debuff, decent damage. It's extremely hard for the other spells to compete with this. I think the easiest way is to make the damage here really negligible – then it will be more about debuffing and less about being the ultimate answer.

 

Ghost Blades: after the recent patch it got almost alright, but the Hobbled duration here needs to be longer for this to compete with other spells on the level. At least a dozen of seconds, I think.

 

Jolting Touch: while it's great at the enchanted items, it doesn't serve any purpose for the wizard. First, getting into the close combat is something that your average caster doesn't want. Now, after the 1.05, the wizard can play as a tank, but even then he'd rather cast Fan of Flames than this (or Concelhaut's Parasitic staff – that also works great). If the wizard is ambushed by someone, that's also not what you use to survive – it's an average cast time spell and the damage is not that great so it kills your assaulter faster than he kills you. Hence, this thing needs either more damage or a faster cast rate. I guess the second is a safer option as it won't do anything to the spell striking weapon damage.

 

Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: same reasoning as above. This spell needs a faster cast rate (it's a touch, after all) and a bigger accuracy penalty. Something like -20 would make it useful as an alternative last ditch attempt.

 

Minoletta's Minor Missiles: needs a minor buff. It's a fine spell as it is a fast one, but the damage done here could've been made a bit more competitive. You're fighting hordes of monsters most of the time which really devalues reasonably done single-target spells, that's the problem.

 

Wizard level 2 spells:

 

Binding Web: it's really pathetic. Compare it to the druid's Tanglefoot which is a fast cast, huge area of effect and larger duration. Oh, and a 15 accuracy difference (+10 instead of -5). It's also the same problems with the scrolls – why would I craft 2nd level web over 1st level Tanglefoot? This needs to be stuck to not suck.

 

Combusting Wounds: it's almost fine but could've used a bit bigger radius. Nothing crazy, just 25 centimeters or so.

 

Curse of Blackened Sight: overbuffed. It was fine as the affect all spell, as the foe only it is overpowered – blind is too strong of debuff to last almost half a minute. Needs either shorter duration or the old friendly fire mode.

 

Miasma of Dull-Mindedness: deserves either a huge nerfbat or a shift to the higher level. Sorry, but this makes the victims lose 20 deflection, 20 reflexes, 40 will and 30 concentration. Oh, and they'd better not try to cast any spells as those will be absolutely pathetic. The Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (which is a fifth level spell, mind you) cannot compare to this. I think this needs to be a slow casted spell with a single target – then it will be sorta ok. Weaker effects (-5 to all, I guess) could also work.

 

Necrotic Lance: a bit lackluster. The damage seems great but it Concelhaut's Syphon does almost the same to a small group of foes. I guess fast casting speed would make this fine.

 

Rolling Flame: seriously needs to have more damage. While it sounds potentially strong (roll it over enemies several times to drown them in damage), practically it's a very hard thing to do – isometric perspective makes it really difficult to predict the ball's deflection angle. I guess you can learn to do that if you invest enough effort, but there really isn't any reward for this atm – much easier to use Concelhaut's syphon, realiably dealing twice as much damage than this.

 

Wizard level 3 spells:

 

Arduous Delay of Motion: needs stronger speed debuff. Unless I'm wrong, it goes to recovery only and so it's just 15%-20% of enemy speed lost. Some movement too but that doesn't matter often enough. For a third level spell that's weak – Curse of Blackened sight provides much bigger penalties to enemy's damage output than this. So I guess it needs to be 50% base – would mirror Deleterious Alacrity nicely.

 

Concelhaut's Draining Touch: same as with the other touches, needs to be fast. Maybe a bit bigger damage too – it's a very weak spell atm.

 

Minoletta's Bounding Missiles: could've used just a little bit of improvement. About 5 damage to both damage values and it's fine – at the moment, it's slightly below average.

 

Ryngrim's Repulsive Image: needs a fast cast rate and a longer duration (seriously longer – a minute or so). At the very least. Compare it to Llengrath's Displaced Image – it serves the similar purpose of protecting the wizard but it gives reliable protection and much more of it. I guess you can use this to stand nearby enemies and prevent them from hitting your allies, but most wizards don't want to operate that closely and even for tanky ones it's probably more reliable to just use Curse of Blackened Sight instead – gives the same accuracy debuff but is much more convenient to use.

 

Wizard level 4 spells:

 

Flame Shield: the damage is too pathetic at the moment. Especially since the retaliate attack still needs to hit. Needs bigger damage to be worth it.

 

Ironskin: really weak. Let's compare it to the 2nd level Infuse with Vital Essence – that gives you 50 endurance and 50 health. This gives you 8 damage reduction, meaning up to 80 endurance and no health. And mind you, health is a huge issue as the wizard is really easy to knock into the red territory. Not to mention that pure health&endurance protect better against certain things – lots of really weak hits or raw damage, for example. So, in many cases, Vital essence will provide as much endurance as this one. Only, thanks to its health bonus, that endurance will be “free”. Ironskin needs to have a much stronger DR bonus to compete with it.

 

Minor Grimoire Reprint: that's really useless and the only way to fix that is to downgrade the level. Why would I spend a 4th level spell to gain an 1 to 3rd level spell which I may not even need? Now, if this was a 2nd level spell that allowed stealing 3rd level spells – then we'd be talking. As of now, it's useless.

 

Wizard level 5 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment: as I've said before, it's weaker than a 2nd level Miasma of Dull-Mindedness. And even if you fix that, the duration here is still rather disappointing. I think it needs to be 30 seconds at least to be ever considered.

 

Call to Slumber: a bit lackluster. At this point Slicken becomes per encounter so you can get all your prone needs by that (more casting time involved, of course, but less investment) and it also isn't that great when compared to the 4th level Confusion. I think 11.6 seconds of confused is much better than 14.5 seconds of prone – mostly because the majority of your foes have various disables which are very strong when applied to the monsters themselves. So this could use somewhat better duration.

 

Ryngrim's Enervating Terror: almost decent. Almost. I think that 29 seconds is a bit short for this (when compared to what level 5 spells can do) so something like 40-50 would fit the bill better.

 

Wizard level 6 spells:

 

Arkemyr's Capricious Hex: you really hate Arkemyr, you know? I think the disparity between the disables is too great here – sure, 29 seconds of paralyze is very strong, but 29 seconds of either daze or sicken is almost nothing by this point. So it's a 33% success rate spell – less than a coinflip. It just can't compete with the Gaze of the Adragan – sure, its radius is much smaller and its duration has been nerfed, but it always delivers what's promised. I think daze and sickened need to be swapped with the blinded and stuck here – the spell would remain whimsy but at least non-paralyze options wouldn't be blank anymore.

 

Chain Lightning: needs higher damage. At the moment, it has exactly the same damage as 3rd level Crackling Bolt. And a slower cast speed. Sure, it's easier to aim but that isn't worth extra 3 levels of casting. Or compare it to the druid's 5th level firebug – firebug does pretty much the same damage only it's 1 level below (and it also can bounce nicely between two foes). And the precision of Chain Lightning's aim became very irrelevant once all other spells on this level became foe only.

 

Death Ring: needs higher damage. The potential destruciton is more of a gimmick than actual utility and in terms of damage output this absolutely loses to the Minoletta's Precisely Piercing burst (that is also a fast cast).

 

 

 

[Noob here: any advice?]

do a youtube search for the poster above ( NerdCommando ) his excellent guides will tell you everything about the game, classes, skills and everything

ATM, I'd probably recommend my steam guide more - videos are still decent, but the guide is more updated for the 1.06 realities (and I'm somewhat lazy to redo them atm as I'll still have to redo them all once the addon comes out).

[Dex, DPS, tanking and PoTD]

Yep that was my thought process.  As skip do you mean dump it completely or leave it at 10? I know there isn't a correct answer but I am curious as what you would do.

I prefer min-maxing in PoE so for me skipping is leaving it as low as possible.