MadDemiurg

I think PoE2 is a good opportunity to correct the design problems of PoE1 which are not so easy to fix in a simple expansion. I hope it launches with epic content and level 10 spells from the start .

I think priests are fine, even though they are the most versatile class capable of performing most roles pretty well (apart from tanking probably). I think access to affliction counters should be somewhat less priest exclusive though. Chanters do have some anti affliction chants, I think they should they should get more, covering a wider array of afflictions. Maybe another class (druids?) can get some form of reactive affliction defense with restoration style spells that remove existing afflictions from the target.

The solution has already been stated: Higher level invocations should not take more time at higher levels, lower level should take less. This is pretty obvious. Average battle duration can be considered more or less the same at all levels, however most of the lower level invocations become less useful at higher levels. The battle duration is the value the ability power should be normalized against. So if a level 1 chanter can use a powerful invocation in the middle of the battle, level 14 chanter should also be able to use an equally powerful invocation (relative to his level) in the middle of the battle, and lower level invocations (which are relatively much less powerful now) should be accessible much earlier. How this is achieved mechanically is another question, but there were some workable suggestions on the previous page. This is not without issues, as some of the lower level invocations scale very well (like paralyze or stun cones for instance), but this change would require rebalancing of existing invocations anyway.

No, you should start the fight with arcane reflection, this way you wouldn't get mind controlled in the first place . As for no save, sounds like a bug. Everything is supposed to have a save. Deprive the unworthy is a confirmed bug (should be will save). Thought it should be fixed by now.

I think 3 con and res are not viable from the start, however you can retrain later. I'd say at the beginning of the game dex is of pretty low value since you don't have much stuff to spam anyway (an argument for dex can be made when soloing). For endgame 3 con and res are perfectly viable, you'll probably wipe out/CC enemies faster than they can retaliate anyway.

CIpher is better at CC and more fun to play overall due to more diverse abilities. DPS is really a toss up, rogues do better weapon dps, but with amplified wave cipher deals very strong aoe dps and ectopsychic echo is good both for aoe and single target if you know how to set it up. Overall cipher does a more damage in total actually. Rogues are a bit better at sneaking and disarming traps, due to higher starting mechanics and Shadowing beyond, so there's that. It's mainly important for soloing though. Personally I haven't been using ciphers much after the nerfs, but I think they are still a stronger class compared to the rogue, at least in a party/direct combat.

It always worked for most of the spells... It's just a few abilities like wounding shot that were bugged. So you've got to test these to tell if it's fixed.

I've briefly looked over the new stuff recently. Did not have a chance to actually play yet. Seems the devs went with the 'safe' approach with the new abilities as most of them seem average or below average. The most notable changes are the perception change and the level cap increase which means L3 spells per encounter. Concerning perception change - no longer a dump stat for dps (to the contrary). The change benefits CC and dps chars the most, although they have a bit too many stats to max now. Melee dps are in a quite awkward position tbh as they can't dump con and res, but superior melee weapon damage is still likely enough to make up for it. Ranged dps and CC casters are getting better though. L3 spells per encounter - obviously a big benefit for all casters, but wizards have the best l3 overall probably (and can have 6-7 l3 spells with items/perks). Per encounter alacrity, blights and fireballs are pretty cool. As for new stuff: Spells - first of all, the number of new spells is quite disappointing. Ciphers even get less spells per levelup now... Most of the spells are also quite UP. Druid - The one that gives potions is decent but that's about it. Wizard - More duplicates (although the new one is not really better than the l4 one. More casts are always good though). Delayed fireball is a decent AoE, dispell wall will be good on very rare occasions (like Thaos fight), chaotic orb is too chaotic and kill bolt is downright UP (there are lower level spells that do more damage). Staff gives a nice deflection boost but as a weapon does not compare to the spirit lance. All in all better than druid but not too impressive. Priest - Fire rain is good. Resurrect is good if you ever need it. Avatar you can get better bonuses combining lower level spells, but as a quick buff is pretty decent. Cipher - Stasis would be good if it didn't cost 40 focus. This is going to be an issue with all new cipher spells (they have to be devastatingly powerful to justify increasing focus costs. The new spells are not). The attack speed stealing one might be actually decent in certain circumstances. (duration seems to be affected by the number of enemies and also bugged, I got 1200 sec for instance). Chanter - pretty good chant vs mind effects, and a damage shield chant that might be decent if the shield is affected by DR. New invocations... they need 6 phrases and that's all you need to know. I'm not even sure why bother implementing them at this point. Other: Druid spiritshift finally got buffed. It's duration still sucks but the damage is quite devastating, I'm pretty sure it can maul dragons now. Abilities. These are not too impressive either for the most part. Fighter - both abilities look decent, transferring damage from an ally plays to the tank role and per encounter armor break is good too. Nothing to change the balance of power though, and defender got nerfed. Barbarian - engagement immunity vs low level enemies and jump per encounter ability, so mostly mobility stuff. Paladin - Got one of the best abilities imo. Per encounter chain heal is superb as far as heals go and the burn aoe/heal one looks pretty sweet too. Monk - Also got really good abilities. +1DT/wound is great and duplicates are super strong, but require 8 wounds, which is a lot. Ranger - Haven't checked if the new twin shot mode works with vicious aim. In any case it increases ranger dps potential, but probably not as much as rogue's deathblows (it's probably the case of latter being too OP though). It also works only with bows, which are not optimal for dps in the first place. Play dead is probably abuseable in the same way as withdraw (haven't checked in game). Rogue - Both smoke bombs and per encounter stun are decent, but nowhere near gamechanging. All in all: Monk, Paladin and potentially Ranger got the best new abilities (not sure about Ranger yet though, and they were rather UP in the first place previously) All "per rest" casters got more powerful with l3 per encounter spells. Priest probably got the best new spells. Wizard probably benefits the most from per encounter l3. CC and ranged dps builds are probably going to be more powerful. Wizard was one of the strongest classes pre patch and it looks like this is not going to change. Druid looks interesting with new spiitshift and Priest looks very solid too. Out of non casters I think both Monk and Paladin are going to be pretty great. Ranged rogues and rangers might be interesting too with the new perception. Rangers got closer to Rogues in terms of dps as well (need to do more testing to actually figure out how they rank now).

Blacsonn was changed in the last patch to give +20% focus instead of a flat bonus, so now it stacks with Carrow, which gives a flat bonus, since these are different buffs now. Carrow is more important in any case. Blunderbuss with Carrow is good for focus anyway, but you also want weapon dps apart from focus generation, and dual wield wins here. You can combine by opening with a blunderbuss and switching to dw though. Reload it in between fights. Generally sabers and stilettos are the best for dps, sabers will probably win vs statues due to high DR. You can also use status effect weapons you used for rogue, you can crit pretty often with a cipher too. Splitting with summons requires some practice, it's quite reliable if you get a hang of it.

You can use mind control tactics for Thaos: although it becomes less reliable at lower levels, as it's harder to get guaranteed hits. For level 8 cipher, you're missing out on a lot of power without level 5 and 6 powers. I guess if you manage to hit level 9 you can use CC on crit weapons + summons + tactical meld for pretty high chance crit against statues(competitive with rogue I'd say) as their deflection is really low or alternatively your best bet from level 1-4 powers is ectopsychic echo as it deals a ton of damage. Use carrow golan before battle for +4 focus on hit, better yet use both carrow golan and blasconn. You'll need multiple figurines because you'll need 1 for splitting and 1-2 for combat, so deep pockets are a must.

Engaging enemies 1 by 1 with prone/stun on crit weapons is a good option. Another option is to use reach weapons, but they have lower dps than dw. Otherwise CC all the way. If you rely on CC too much though you'll end up babysitting the rogue and hampering performance of other team members to make the rogue work, which can be a net loss in overall efficiency in the end.

You can make a frontline barb if you max CON, wear the heaviest armor and pick talents like thick skinned. Barb is a bad deflection tank no matter how hard you try. Max CON Fire/Moon godlike barb with retal items is pretty good though. Girdle of mortal protection (-crit damage belt) is a good item to offset potential high damage from crits that gets through your DT.

Wizard. You have lower starting stealth and mechanics, which is the main issue for speedrun though. Tbh the fight is not that tough if you split them (they really need to fix the aggro ranges there), and you don't really need SB for that, just pull them with 3x summons figurines, there are many vids how to do it. with that in mind, a lot of classes should be able to do it lvl 9-10 as beating them 1 by 1 is not that difficult. Tbh I think skills make a bigger difference than anything else, mandatory combat is not that difficult.

Most spells have +10 modifiers to compensate for 10 lower base accuracy of caster classes, but there are some inconsistencies. Tbh it would be better and cleaner if they split weapon and magic accuracy as stats. As for changes to minimise the damage - I have a feeling that Perception change would be the least of possible concerns when the expansion comes out. So just buff all enemies across the board and put adragans and fampyrs everywhere .

I'd say ability accuracy overall needs some tweaking for more fun gameplay, like encouraging combo moves. I think accuracy values (from highest to lowest) should be: damage spells - since damage spells are limited (unlike basic attacks) they should be less rng dependant defence debuffs (-def/ref/fort/will) - many spells currently do smth like lower fortitude when also targeting fortitude. This is flawed, and can be compensated by giving these spells higher accuracy. This would encourage spell combos more as well. basic attacks & other debuffs hard cc (paralyse, petrify, dominate etc) (Any accuracy buffs should affect all abilities equally.) However this is a huge change which requires tuning most of the existing abilities. But just slapping a +10 CC resist on everything feels like a crutch.

Removing accuracy from CC spells would be a straight up nerf though (which I don't think is necessary). This is a tricky situation tbh. Accuracy is very important, so it's good to keep in in check with predictable accuracy for each character at any given level. Which is why I don't like perception change at all - it makes balancing enemy defences more difficult if not impossible. A character that didn't max Perception should not be a whimp. Likewise, a character that did should not be overpowered. I don't think there's a good solution for this.

It's not in the spell description, but it's visible if you right click on the conjured weapon to see its properties. It's pretty much the same with all other conjured weapons, although some are easier to guess from the name. Rot skulls are also a wand btw. I agree that it would make sense for conjured weapons to benefit from any weapon focus. I also agree that current weapon foci seem a bit random atm.

Minor Blights are a wand for all intents and purposes, so everything that works with a wand works with Blights.

Circle of protection gives +x to all defenses, so it is treated as a different bonus than +x to a particular defense. To make it more clear, if an ability says +x to all defenses and another ability says +x to deflection/will/fort/ref these are actually 5 separate effects (2nd ability is composed of 4 effects), which are considered different and thus do stack. Circle of protection will not stack with vigorous defense fighter active though, and Wary Defender's deflection bonus will be suppressed by smth like Shields for the Faithful, while say, will bonus, will not stack with priest's Meditation.

Deflection boosting spells would be things like a Shieldbearer paladin's talents? So one of these would be suppressed if both were active? What about deflection-boosting items (I assume they stack, since they are in a different category) and talents that directly increase deflection, like Superior Deflection and Faith and Conviction? PS I still argue for the value of a ranged weapon for between spells being higher than the situational value of a small shield, but to each his own. Perhaps from level 9 (and moreso from 11) some casters might not have occasion to fire off a shot in most battles. That's the logic I gather... Passive deflection talents stack with everything. Some actives do stack too and I haven't tested shieldbearer's talent specifically as I've never really used one. However wizards spells like displaced image or priest spells like shields for the faithful do not stack with cautious attack, it's one or the other. As for ranged weapon and shield, no one prevents you from having both and switching to shield if attacked directly (or using a shield while casting spells and switching to a ranged weapon for auto attacking if needed). It's also possible to combine this with quickswitch, but quickswitch is extremely cheesy on casters as it overrides the spell recovery, so I tend to avoid it.

While true as per the default changes described, this might not turn out to be entirely true in the end. At the very least, it opens up for the possibility to have Abilities that takes you back into Stealth during combat, simply because it's possible for it to happen now, which is a pretty sweet prospect. OP can forget about the mobility, though. The restrictions to mobility of any kind isn't a rogue issue, it's an issue that permeates the system and it's a concious design decision. It would be technically possible yes, but shadowing beyond is a similar mechanic anyway, and anything else that would allow to stealth on per encounter basis is potentially OP. As for mobility, with escape and coordinated positioning buffs (I'm thinking cast speed and range buffs), rogue would be a pretty mobile class compared to many others.

120+ deflection is easily reachable with mix maxed chanter with stats, items and talents alone, no buffs. Body control and Mental fortress are a waste, use priest prayers. And +10 to save talents are better anyway. Don't build any "tank" wizards stat wise - as I said just use tank spells with dps stats. Build chanters like tanks. For wizards just use arcane veil, infuse with vital essence, mirrored images, bulwark against elements, displaced image, safeguard etc when needed.

Small shields have no accuracy penalty though and thus are a very good for any caster who does not attack with a weapon. It's also worth mentioning that cautious attack does not stack with deflection boosting spells.

A sporeling companion. After leveling up a number of times he evolves into a dank spore and becomes completely stationary, so you have to say your farewells. A very heartbreaking moment.

2x chanters + 2x wizards + priest + x? Actually this setup will be stronger than your average party. Build both chanters like tanks, this also gives you multiple summons to help tank. Multiple chanters is cheese already. Your math on deflection is off, fighters only get about 15 extra deflection compared to chanters. In these conditions you don't really need a "tank" wizard, although wizards may be forced to defend sometimes. Anyway, "tank" wizards don't need to max RES & PER like other tanks, they tank very well anyway. It's more of a matter which spells you cast and which talents you pick. You can reach 200+ deflection with buffs if needed (albeit for a short time) with below average defensive stats. Anything above that is an overkill tbh. Basically, you can easily build a wizard that is both tank and dps at the same time. Actually there's no reason not to.