Crucis

This is a fair comment, Boeroer.

Affliction immunities are never useless. I will say that I'm not so sure about having a disengagement immunity (or was it just a very high disengagement defense bonus?) on heavy armor doesn't strike me as the most valuable thing going. Not that there's anything wrong with disengagement buffs. It just seems to me that a disengagement buff would be more valuable for someone wearing light or perhaps medium armor, rather than heavy armor. I have some problems with the loot/booty in a very different way. I have to admit that I kind of like the old school paradigms or tropes when it comes to fantasy stories and games. And that carries over into items in the game for me. I wish that there were more items that seemed aimed at different types of characters. Not exactly specific classes, but did play to the tropes. Such as staffs that feel like they're wizard staffs. Or robes that felt like robes for, well, mostly wizards. I suppose that one could argue that the Chromatic Staff is sorta-kinda a wizardly staff, but to me, not enough. If it was a true wizardly staff, it should probably have the skill that buffs up certain staff abilities be Arcana rather than Metaphysics. Also, a number of the proc'd special abilities seem to be a bit too corner cased and difficult to use. Like the "True Love's Kiss" dagger which has its special proc'ing on stealth attacks, which basically means you can only use it once per encounter, and only if you have exceptional Stealth. I think that it would have been better if the special was more like other specials where the size of the buff increased with the value of the skill. At least this way, you don't end up with an exceptionally narrow set of circumstances where the ability can proc. And honestly, I don't really like all the item upgrades. I wish that the devs had spent that time and effort on creating additional unique weapons, armor, and shields, particularly weapons in types that are rather short in numbers.

One wonders what RL cultures Yezuha (aka Rekke-land) might be inspired by.

The idea of a Bounty Hunter subclass sounds cool, if for the name only. But I'm not so sure about a subclass that centers around Traps. Oh, if traps only "captured" the target, it might fit the concept. But all these damaging traps make a Trapster seem more like a mine layer. Honestly, if I was going to consider a subclass based on consumable explosives, it'd probably be more like a Grenadier. After all, you can load up your quick slots with quite a few grenades and have some good AoE fun. There's no pretending that a Grenadier is going to be doing anything other than lobbing little balls of death, seeking to blow up stuff. Back to Bounty Hunters... The idea/name sounds cool, but what would a bounty hunter do that works within the context of the game where you're usually trying to kill your enemies, not capture them to return to the local jail.

Stalkers really should be better. After all, they are pretty much the dedicated melee ranger subclass. But in my opinion, they're not that good. The special benefit doesn't scale at all, particularly the +5 Deflection bonus. It doesn't improve as you go up in levels, unless I'm missing something Power Level related. The +1 Armor Rating isn't too bad through the levels since you'll just add it to whatever improved armor you use as time goes by. But +5 Deflection? That seems like it gets weaker and weaker, relatively speaking, as the levels progress. It might have been nice if there'd been some sort of offensive bonus, perhaps either a percentage bonus to melee damage or a +1 penetration with melee weapons. Or possibly give Stalkers a sneak attack ability similar to Rogues. That might be a good option. I want to like Stalkers. I really do. But there doesn't seem to me to be too much "meat on the bone" for Stalkers, sadly.

Sawyer wrote somewhere perhaps in an answer to a question or whatever that they wanted companions to be unique, hence the limitation regarding your Watcher character. Personally I prefer it this way even though I'm disappointed with the absolute majority of the companions in Deadfire. I guess that my belief on this is exactly 180o different from Sawyer's. I prefer that Companions/Sidekicks be of races, backgrounds, and cultures that are completely playable by the player. The only exception that I see of the choices currently existing in the game is the "Stormfolk" human sub-race, and that's because the Stormfolk are from the other side of the Ondra's Mortar storms, and stormfolk are super, super rare on "our" side of the world. I can accept that. But the rest, not even a little. I absolutely HATE that I can't use these backgrounds, cultures, and subraces. Frankly, I'd love to see double the number of backgrounds. I don't think that there'd be that many more cultures that could be added beyond perhaps the Vailian Republics, and the Dyrwood and Readceras. Anything beyond that (on "our" side of the world, at least) would have to be something new that's never been mentioned in the historical/geographical background information. Regarding the human sub-races, I kind of wish that they'd come up with different special abilities for them, rather than assuming that all humans, regardless of "sub-race", have the same "special ability". Part of me is wondering if this is some sort of thing because the devs don't want to make any PC waves. But at the same time, some of these special abilities seem more like mere adaptations that these groups of people have developed due to the different environments that their groups came from. And part of me thinks that having different sub-races with different special abilities for the non-human races while not doing the exact same thing for the human sub-races, sort of negates any attempts to avoid PC controversy. Related side thought. I liked how the devs changed the special for wood elves to a Dexterity Affliction resistance. It seems to me that affliction resistances make a great special ability, since there are 6 different attribute-linked affliction resistances to choose from and use. And there are 6 different primary races. Heck, they could have given each primary race an attribute affliction resistance. I could see the primary races having the following attribute affliction resistances, in addition to any other special ability. Human: Resolve Dwarf: Constitution Elf: Dexterity Godlike: Intelligence Orlan: Perception Aumaua: Might Just a passing thought.

Oh, some other things that I'd like to see, that I suspect people would like... Increase the number of playable sub-races. While I'm not a huge fan of playing god-likes myself (hate giving up the hat/helmet slot), it grinds my gears to see these other GL subraces not being available for player use. I'd also like to see at least a third playable sub-race for dwarves, elves, orlans, and aumaua. At this moment, I have to admit that I have no serious ideas for what they might be, but it shouldn't be THAT difficult to come up with them. For example, part of me would like to see the third orlan sub-race be used to explain why some orlans have that outlandish green or blue fur. And perhaps a third race of elves could be some sort of sea elf, though to be honest, if such a sea elven sub race did exist, they probably would have been perfect for Deadfire. I suppose that an underground sub-race of elves might be possible, but it might risk being too much like D&D's dark elves. Anyways, this is just a passing thought. Also, I'd like to see more Backgrounds (i.e. aristocrat, artist, raider, etc.) added to the mix. I'd also like to see the Cultures increased to include not only Old Vailia, but the Vailian Republics and perhaps even Dyrwood and Readceras. Anyways, these are minor things, but don't seem like they should be that difficult and would add a little more diversity to character creation.

You're being disingenuous. I was talking about non-spellcasters. I fully expect spellcasters to have lots of actives, because it's the nature of being a spellcaster.

Guys, thanks for all your help. No, I haven't beaten the Frightened Child, but I do think that I found part of the source of my difficulty, both with the FC, but also with the Big Croc back near the end of SSS as the DracoLich near the end of BoW. I had the level scaling turned on, and had forgotten that I'd done so. So, I'm considering whether to restart from scratch with a new character or not. I've had a lot of fun with this Swashbuckler. She's one heck of a nasty melee-er and quite good at range too. So, again, thanks for the help.

If it bleed you can kill it. I remember it was a tough fight, even on a veteran. I don't think there was any particular trick to it. The problem was that I could, in theory, hit the Frightened Child (FC), but either she has an INCREDIBLE amount of hit points to the point that even a strong hit a meleer or Xoti's Flame Strike wasn't even making an appreciable dent in her HP total, or she's healing back those HP faster than I can even see. Something just doesn't seem right. I can send my Watcher, a strong 2-way DPS combatant, after FC, and even with me spamming active abilities, my Watcher seems to barely move her HP bar in the slightest.

Well, I did say that I might be in the minority. That said, I stand by most of what I said. I would prefer to see generic items limited to a max enchantment of Fine. I would prefer to see much better drop of plain ol' money rather than this silly inflation of Exceptional and Superb generic items. I would prefer to see a big change in Wizards and the Wizard subclasses. The existing wizard subclasses are stale as thousand year old bread. I would prefer to see the remove of "no subclass" as an option in each class, and create a generalist subclass that takes the place of "no subclass". It just silly sounding to say that a generic Ranger or Fighter is a "No Subclass" Ranger or Fighter. Just create a damned name for each generalist subclass. Maybe Armsman for generalist fighter. Mage for Wizard. And so on. To be quite honest, I greatly prefer what I suggested above to the current state of PoE2's mechanics. I prefer non-spellcasting classes to be less dependent on active abilities. Too many active abilities force too damned much micromanagement when you're playing a party. And I ALWAYS play a full party. I agree that there can be an overload of active abilities for non-spellcasters. Frankly, I think that a good number of the current active abilities could be turned into passive abilities. Hell, some already really are passive, despite being on the active side of the selection pages, such as the Fighter stances or the Paladin Zealous Auras. And I see no reason why the Ranger Twin Shot couldn't just be a passive with a to-hit penalty to pay for taking two shots at once. And so on and so on. It may sound like I don't like PoE2. I enjoy the story, I suppose. And I enjoy playing this sort of 3rd person fantasy game. I'm not particularly fond of the details of the combat system in either PoE1 or PoE2. It seems to me that they fixed some things I didn't like in PoE1 (the silly weapon prof groups) but then introduced many things that I didn't like (too many active abilities for non-spellcasters, for example). I preferred the greater reliance on more passive abilities in PoE1 over PoE2's over reliance on active abilities for non-spellcasters. I could go on and on, but I don't want to write up a massive wall of text, so I'll end this here.

Terminate her? It seems like I can barely scratch her, in spite of the fact that her deflection rating isn't really all that high. On top of that, her imaginary friends seem just as untouchable. I'm looking for some way to hurt her, but for the life of me I have no idea. Does she have an insane number of HP or is she protected by something I missed? I've managed to kill the boss under the Collections and the Oracle, but the Frightened Child seems like the Invincible Child. I read some note that made me wonder if silencing her could be the trick, but I'm not aware of any ability or spell that actually does silence people in this game. What am I missing?

On one hand, I could see some thinking that maybe a PoE3 might not happen because some might think that, hey, it didn't sell nearly as well as other titles. But OTOH, maybe if it had some AAA game funding from Microsoft, this could turn a PoE3 into a blockbuster. Who knows....

There are soooooo many things that I'd like to see, but here's a few to start with. 1. I'd like them to stop with the exceptional and superb generic weapons, shields, and armors. To me, those generic high grade items seem "unrealistic" (yeah, I know that it's fantasy, but bear with me). I just don't see magical blacksmiths and armorers mass producing such high grade items. To me, if they were making items of that quality, they'd be a lot more unique and rare, i.e. the unique named weapons, shields, and armors. Also, I realize that they're a great source of money for the players, but I'd rather see more actual cash get found instead of the unreality of so many super high grade generic items. 1a. Regarding unique weapons, shields, and armors, I personally wouldn't mind if enchantment upgrades went away, but I suspect that I'm probably in the minority on that. One thing that I hate is these upgrades that depend on ingredients that are rare, because rare ingredients only serve to make me become super hesitant to upgrade anything that requires rare ingredients, and frankly, that's no damned fun. I'd honestly rather have more high grade unique items in the game without any enchantment upgrades, than to put up with the annoyance of these upgrades, particularly those that require the rare ingredients. 2. Again, I'm probably going to be in the minority on this, but I haven't enjoyed all these damned active abilities in POE2 for all the classes. To me, they're just a pain in the behind. I prefer things to be more mindlessly point and shoot, so to speak. I'd like to see more class related passive abilities, and fewer class related actives. 3. Weapon proficiencies. I liked that they got rid of the weapon prof groups. Those were silly, IMO. What I didn't like with the weapon profs in POE2 was those silly special abilities. What I'd rather see is that taking a weapon proficiency gave the user something like a +10% damage and perhaps +1 penetration with weapons of that type. I might even go so far as to allow a player to take a second proficiency in the same weapon. So maybe give 10% extra damage for the first proficiency and +1 penetration for the second point. Or possibly +5 to-hit with the first prof point and +1 pen on the second prof point. And what they heck, maybe have allow a 3rd proficiency point that gives an additional benefit ( bonus to-hit, damage, or penetration, whichever wasn't tied to the first two prof points, or possibly a bonus hit-to-crit chance.) If you think about it, it seems to me that allowing multiple prof points into a weapon type would really be good for someone wanting to specialize in a certain weapon, particularly Devoted fighters, or characters who want to specialize in a particular ranged weapon or 2. After all, let's say that you're Maia, you might specialize in Arquebuses and some other ranged weapon, and because you don't take a penalty to wield non-proficient weapons, she might not worry about taking a proficiency in a melee weapon, or maybe just one or 2. I'd also remove the weapon specialization and mastery passives for fighters as they currently are, and let the taking of 1 and 2 proficiency points in a weapon do the same thing, but for all classes. 4. Two handed melee weapons. I think that they need a little help. 2H weapons just don't seem up to snuff compared to dual wielding. Or even weapon and shield uses. The advantages of 2H weapons just don't see good enough for the cost in reduced recovery speed and striking power. Arguably, perhaps they should have more penetration than 1H melee weapons, due to their greater weight. 5. I'd like to see the Wizard subclasses handled VERY differently. I've gone over this a few times in other threads, and won't repeat myself too much. But this is a quick outline of what I'd like to see. a. A generalist wizard subclass that was the equivalent of a "no-subclass" wizard, perhaps called a Mage. He's have access to all of the spells, and possibly gain a benefit of additional Arcana skill, since the Mage would be considered more learned than the more specialized subclasses. b. A "spellsword" subclass that would specialize in offensive and defensive spells that allowed them to act as physical combatants. These spells would include things like mirror image and iron skin for defense, and summoned weapon spells for their weapons, and other spells that increase their martial ability. c. An "elementalist" subclass that would specialize in spells based on the elements, i.e. fire, water, wind, lightning, cold, but not acid/corrode. I could see this subclass gaining access to certain elemental druidic spells. d. A "necromancer" subclass that would specialize in death magics. This would include acid and corrode damage as well as poison and disease, and outright death or disintegration spells. Note that it's possible that there might be some overlapping of spells between the subclass, like I could see the necromancer gaining access to the level 1 parasitic staff spell. 5a. I would love to see Wizards changed in other ways not related to subclasses as well. For starters, dump the grimoires. And simply allow/require Wizards to memorize their selection of spells, same as for priests and druids. And the only way that they could cast spells that they haven't memorized would be from scrolls. 6. Ranger. Reduce the importance of the animal companion. There are too many abilities related to the A/C. First, I'd love it if the A/C was a selectable ability at creation, so basically you'd have rangers with A/Cs and rangers without them. But to allow for rangers that operate without A/Cs there have to be enough abilities that aren't related to having an A/C, whether it's an ability to buff the A/C or enhance the relationship between the ranger and the A/C. Secondly, I really dislike the Sharpshooter subclass as is. In particular, I don't really like the recovery time and deflection penalties. I'd rather see them not be allowed to take weapon proficiencies in melee weapons. And possibly give them a deflection penalty for melee combat only, and heck, perhaps a to-hit penalty with melee weapons, something alone the lines of -5 melee deflection and -5 melee weapon to-hit penalty. But these guys should be hell on wheels with ranged weapons, and shouldn't really take a recovery penalty when using said ranged weapons. Third, I'd like to see a Melee Ranger subclass where the benefits weren't centered around the presence of an A/C. And perhaps make it sort of a reverse mirror image of the Sharpshooter. No weapon profs in ranged weapons allowed, and a focus on melee combat. Maybe a -5 to-hit with ranged weapons, and a -5 or -10% reduction in ranged weapon damage. It might be nice if Stalkers gained access to sneak attack damage bonuses as one way to enhance their melee ability without making them look too much like fighters. Dang, I'm going on and on and on. Sorry for the wall of text, so I'll stop here. Later all.

I know that I don't agree with you. Yes, it's a bit of a pain, but I like that pain because the idea of a "consolidated" merchant sounds so damned silly to me.

Agree 1000000%. While I haven't seen anything like a full battle, I have watched some how-to videos on turn based, and for the life of me, I don't see what the appeal is. It looks so damned boring watching a "battle" (yes, note the quotes) that stops and starts and stops and starts so freaking constantly. I like the flow of RTwP vastly better. I only pause when necessary and battles have some actual flow to them.

Well, this would be covered if the devs wanted to set the PoE3 story in Yezuha, aka Rekke-land.

Nouser, honestly, *if* there's a PoE3, it seems to me like the devs were lining things up for it to happen in Yezuha, where Rekke is from. There seem to be plenty of hints in PoE2 pointing in that direction. And were that the case, I think that the point would be for the Watcher to take Rekke home. However, I doubt that that's set in stone. Heck, there are no guarantees that there'll be a PoE3 at all, though it'd be VERY sad if there wasn't a 3rd installment in this series.

I'm a bit confused here. I'm currently in the Forgotten Sanctum's collections area (2nd level), but I'm rather confused about what I should be doing. I have the two scrolls from Tayn and Llengrath. But should I be entering each of these containment cells to check out the people? or should I be ignoring them to just try to get to the place where I can use one of those 2 scrolls to deal with the mindless prisoners? This isn't like other areas in PoE1/2 that are fairly obvious what you're supposed to be doing, even if you may not know exactly what to do on one specific thing. Sure, if one wants to do it Tayn's way, killing everyone in a cell is pretty much contrary to what he wants to do. And I suppose a different yet related question might be, if one intends to do it Llengrath's way, will you get all the swag that the prisoners might drop if you use her scroll, or do you need to personally deal with each cell's prisoner to get the swag? I guess that this area (thus far on the first 2 levels) seems rather empty if one just ignores the prisoners, particularly the 2nd level. It's like … look at all the prisoners. Oh, a couple of groups of defenders … dead. Oh, look. More docile prisoners. And there's the path to the 3rd level.... Makes me wonder if I'm supposed to just clear out the first 2 levels' prisoners up close and personal. What am I missing here?

I guess that I just don't get all this wailing and complaining about so-called trash mobs. They don't bother me a bit. Every battle can't be one boss fight after another. That's be annoying and frustrating and boring as all hell, at least to me. I don't mind them that much because I like the combat and play on POTD, but to the folks playing on story mode who don't like the combat, they're just a waste of time. Ideally you want every encounter to have some kind of story attached to it. I guess that I don't have much sympathy here. To me, these games are all about the combat, and the story exists only as the backdrop, entertaining as it can be. I play the game for the fights. The story is, to me, just a way to give some context to the fights.

I guess that I just don't get all this wailing and complaining about so-called trash mobs. They don't bother me a bit. Every battle can't be one boss fight after another. That's be annoying and frustrating and boring as all hell, at least to me.

BTW, thelee, I noticed that FS's suggested companion/sidekicks are Aloth or Fassina. Is this the same as for BoW or SSS, due to some additional comments/observations from the listed characters? Side note: Speaking of "additional comments", I got a kick out of Ydwin landing a real zinger on Xoti near the end of SSS when she told her to be quiet, the adults were talking. ZING. Damn, I hope that Ydwin is a full blown companion, if or when they ever make a PoE3.

I guess that I'm just the oddball here. I love traps. I love having to creep through dungeons, watching for traps. I will say though that there are times when you're in a location and the presence of traps seems wrong for the location. Thankfully, my Watcher is a Swashbuckler with a VERY high perception (and Mechanics skill) and hasn't yet failed to find and deal with a trap or a lock.

That's a thought. I also have yet to finish BoW. I bailed out on that just before the big dragon fight.

1. Nope. Didn't check if summons scaled. 2. In the two tries thus far (haven't tried again, yet), this fight seemed incredibly difficult. It may not be that difficult for expert players who regularly PoTD and know every single detail of every single spell, etc., but that's not my play style. I prefer Normal mode and a fairly brute force play style. 3. I have Pallegina set up to use Morning Star normally, and could add her to my party easily enough. IIRC, I don't think that Aloth knows Combusting Wounds, though it might be in one of the grimoires I have. The thing is that with only 4 characters (apart from the Watcher), I'm a bit limited in my options here. Ydwin may be important to have along for no other reason than she has unlimited spells due to the nature of being a cipher. Konstantin may be necessary for his invocations, though given how slowly he accumulates the chanter resource, it's not like he's going to be chain casting them like crazy. And Xoti seems like a must have for her healing and whatever other spells she can bring to the table, in addition to her sniping. That just leaves Eder. Could it be that Eder doesn't bring enough as a hardcore tank for this fight, and I should replace him with Aloth? 4. Ydwin has Death of 1000 Cuts. I haven't used it much, but she does have it, along with Driving Echoes. But it seems like the Crocs have so damned many HP that merely buffing up my Watcher with driving echoes and using a nice bow isn't going to produce enough damage, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I should add Mirke (instead of Eder) so that I can buffer her up with Reaping Blades. She'd be about the fastest attacker I could use other than perhaps my Watcher Swashy (who I have wearing the Devil of Caroc medium armor, at the moment). 5. Like I've said a few times, I don't pay attention to debuffing with my brute force play style. About the closest thing I do is use Will based afflictions to either confuse/charm/dominate enemies, or hit them with resolve afflictions to take away their will to fight. I suppose that these things are doing some debuffing in the process, but that's not really my intended goal. I like using charm/dominate to get enemies to switch sides, because I enjoy getting my enemies fighting each other as a combat tactic. So it rather screws up my playstyle when certain enemies have INT affliction immunities. Normally, I will just brute force my way past them. But it just feels like these crocs are too much for a brute force solution, at least with only 5 people to do the fighting.