MadDemiurg

How are wizards becoming Jedi's? I played a fighter/mage in the BG series and it was one of my favorite classes to play. Are you saying wizards are now able to have a similar play style with the most recent changes? It is. Wizards got a major buff to base health/endurance, heavy buffs on all defensive spells and conjured weapons (staff/lance) are super strong now.

Copy pasting several posts from another thread here: Ok, some first hand experience with the patch: Cipher: Draining whip is now 33% more focus generation instead of +2 per hit. Bye blunder ciphers, hi arbalest ciphers. Carrow golan is still +4 per hit though. So maybe blunder for initial alpha to generate focus in hard fights (still easily pumps you up to ~100 with carrow), switching to pistol/sabers with usual ruffian focus. Quickswitch cipher with 4 firearms also looks much better now. Greater focus adds +10 to starting focus in this build, so it essentially doubles your starting focus at level 2. I still wouldn't pick it, but it became a more viable option. I'd like to see it being less powerful, but scaling better in the next patch. Smth like 2*level. Focus generation on allies doesn't work anymore . I think I was the only one who reported this, so I'm wondering whether devs found it themselves or it was my post that made them change it. Anyway this was broken. Tactical meld still works out of combat. With starting focus nerf I think it's actually fine this way though. Retaliation still works for focus generation and I think it is fine with draining whip changes and gives melee ciphers extra oomph. You can still supercharge it with carrow though. Amplified Thrust now actually works and is a solid single target fast spell, if a bit too random. Recommended! I think mind blades were nerfed too hard in the previous patch, at least for PotD as they're bloody useless needing to roll again for each jump. I'd give them +5-10 extra accuracy at least, they're trash compared to Thrust or even post nerf soul shock. All in all good changes, I'd like to see some improvements to greater focus, psychic backlash (who in their own mind would pick it now?) and buffs to trash spells that no one picks (mainly 2nd and 3rd level) though. No nerf to amplified wave is a big surprise to me. I think it needs an aoe nerf for sure. 8m base is just crazy for this kind of spell. 5m would be good. Wizard: Petrify changed to x3 (not x2 as some report) damage and half duration (10s base). It's still super strong. Displaced image adds 50% hit to graze ON TOP of 25 deflection and 20 reflex. Not sure how Safeguard bonuses have been unified but if it stacks with other defensive stuff now it's quite awesome. Both draining staff and spirit lance got MAJOR buffs. Not fully tested yet, but I think they got their base damage increased compared to their normal counterparts. You understand what that means, right? Both scroll and spell fan of flames got toned down. Scroll jolting touch is still the same though. Devs, if you're reading this please bring them in line. Somewhere in between would be good. Spell is useless (esp. with ghost blades being foe only now) and scroll is OP. Freezing pillar and Death ring as foe only are quite awesome. I think Wizard can be renamed into "Armageddon's blade" and is officially my favorite class now. Still hate grimmoire system though (and it makes no sense) Things I don't like about the patch: Blizzard nerf - needed a nerf, but was nerfed too much. Stag horn nerf - simply unnecessary imo. Edit: Safeguard bonuses DO stack with other defensive buffs. My glasscanon wizard has 170 deflection, ~130 all saves, 41-62 melee damage in 2.5m radius with good speed, 26 DT with exceptional fullplate, +110% action speed (50 aclaricity 60 dex) and 100 melee accuracy. Lol. Most buffs last reasonably long too.

Also tooltips for DoTs have been fixed. My corrosive siphon now says Foe Aoe: Drains 83.9 corrosive damage as endurance in 2.08m for 15.5 sec. Doesn't sound half bad. 50% grazes still leave 50% hits. Nevertheless, it's quite awesome anyway. Things I don't like about the patch: Blizzard nerf - needed a nerf, but was nerfed too much. Stag horn nerf - simply unnecessary imo. Cipher's now the only class that has good retaliation synergy imo. Most retal builds are obsolete. Also, there's a shield from main quest ruins which you can get quite early, Edit: Safeguard bonuses DO stack with other defensive buffs. My glasscanon wizard has 170 deflection, ~130 all saves, 41-62 melee damage in 2.5m radius with good speed, 26 DT with exceptional fullplate, +110% action speed (50 aclaricity 60 dex) and 100 melee accuracy. Lol. Most buffs last reasonably long too.

Ok, some first hand experience with the patch: Cipher: Draining whip is now 33% more focus generation instead of +2 per hit. Bye blunder ciphers, hi arbalest ciphers. Carrow golan is still +4 per hit though. So maybe blunder for initial alpha to generate focus in hard fights (still easily pumps you up to ~100 with carrow), switching to pistol/sabers with usual ruffian focus. Quickswitch cipher with 4 firearms also looks much better now. Greater focus adds +10 to starting focus in this build, so it essentially doubles your starting focus at level 2. I still wouldn't pick it, but it became a more viable option. I'd like to see it being less powerful, but scaling better in the next patch. Smth like 2*level. Focus generation on allies doesn't work anymore . I think I was the only one who reported this, so I'm wondering whether devs found it themselves or it was my post that made them change it. Anyway this was broken. Tactical meld still works out of combat. With starting focus nerf I think it's actually fine this way though. Retaliation still works for focus generation and I think it is fine with draining whip changes and gives melee ciphers extra oomph. You can still supercharge it with carrow though. Amplified Thrust now actually works and is a solid single target fast spell, if a bit too random. Recommended! I think mind blades were nerfed too hard in the previous patch, at least for PotD as they're bloody useless needing to roll again for each jump. I'd give them +5-10 extra accuracy at least, they're trash compared to Thrust or even post nerf soul shock. All in all good changes, I'd like to see some improvements to greater focus, psychic backlash (who in their own mind would pick it now?) and buffs to trash spells that no one picks (mainly 2nd and 3rd level) though. No nerf to amplified wave is a big surprise to me. I think it needs an aoe nerf for sure. 8m base is just crazy for this kind of spell. 5m would be good. Wizard: Petrify changed to x3 (not x2 as some report) damage and half duration (10s base). It's still super strong. Displaced image adds 50% hit to graze ON TOP of 25 deflection and 20 reflex. Not sure how Safeguard bonuses have been unified but if it stacks with other defensive stuff now it's quite awesome. Both draining staff and spirit lance got MAJOR buffs. Not fully tested yet, but I think they got their base damage increased compared to their normal counterparts. You understand what that means, right? Both scroll and spell fan of flames got toned down. Scroll jolting touch is still the same though. Devs, if you're reading this please bring them in line. Somewhere in between would be good. Spell is useless (esp. with ghost blades being foe only now) and scroll is OP. Freezing pillar and Death ring as foe only are quite awesome. I think Wizard can be renamed into "Armageddon's blade" and is officially my favorite class now. Still hate grimmoire system though (and it makes no sense)

To be more specific, they improved Wizards that use buffs to become warriors. Wizards that are played as standard IE casters appear to have actually been nerfed in the undocumented changes (e.g. to nobody's surprise, Gaze of the Adragan has been severely nerfed). RIP one-shotting the Adra dragon. We hardly knew ye. Yeah, you need 2 shots now! This is unacceptable.

Chain type spells also hit confused allies (and you can't aim them). I'm not sure there's a post complaining about carnage and confusion specifically - but as I said it's rather an issue (an annoying one, but not necessarily a bug) with the underlying mechanics - confused allies being treated as enemies.

That's only for traps though, wiz/druid can still petrify all they like.

I think Sanguine armor is still good, just for different builds (dps monk anyone?). It wasn't OP though, OP part was Retaliate + OSA combo, and OSA is getting fixed in this patch. Eder is sooo dead.

I dunno, +33% cast speed looks good for casters . Problem is, you need to get critted first. Cipher looks like he got a buff for solo (starting focus nerf isn't as big of a deal in long fights and endurance buff is nice, while soul shock is useless solo), but a nerf for party play (50% less for initial alpha, plus soul shock is a bit weaker (still pretty good though)). Melee wizards looks OP with this patch, but seems like the devs really want it to happen. It was possible to make it work before with some effort, now his skillset is just asking for it. Jedi Wizard it is.

Are you sure you read that correctly? They gain +2 more END per level. That's not really what I'd consider crazy. It won't really affect that much. As it stands right now, a melee Wizard wants to drop CON kind of low anyway to raise RES, especially since you can give yourself 50 END anyway. I do think Wizards overall though got some extremely useful buffs. Well, +2 end was exactly the difference between wizard/cipher and rogue/druid. Wizard also got bumped up to 4*end health. While health increasing buffs are nice, this is still a major buff. Basically +20% survivability and +~40% sustain. Con is still a dump stat, but higher base still means 20% more endurance with dumped CON. New defensive buffs and Citzal's lance look extremely strong. Priests also got a major survivability buff. Remeber firearms can hit through Veils, they ignore the deflection bonus from arcane veils. Just tested the new melee style wizard, the 1st level spell 'Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff' is just OP, it is an exceptional weapon that deals around 40 damage, plus drain property. And how many enemies exactly use firearms throughout the game? I'm not even sure it works properly since I never got a chance to test it. Extremely gimmicky penalty at best. You might as well make it +75 and be done with it.

So, cipher's initial focus has been reduced, the rest unchanged. They are also tankier and now are as tanky as a druid. Melee cipher carrow golan addict it is . Melee wizard looks CRAZY with new changes. 4*endurance health and 12*level endurance? On top of all these buffs? 50% hit to graze? 75 deflection on hardened veil? Weapon ineffective...

I've only played PotD (1.5 times with a party so far and 2 times solo). My usual tactics included sending tank in to get swarmed and then casting soul shock for low levels when facing swarms of weak enemies. mental binding for strong enemies. Later on soul shock can be replaced with ectopsychic echo and some flanking if the situation allows it. I had 1 wizard max and he was throwing arcane assault in there as well as soon as the enemies clump up. Later on I switched to casters in the front nuking formation and just opened with winter winds/mind lance/Fan of flames combo, mixing in some CC to stall advancement. First party I had was Druid/Wizard/Priest/Cipher/Chanter/Fighter. No Rogue to compare but Cipher was slightly ahead of everyone until the lategame when the damage dramatically spiked with AW. Wizard was #2 and even #1 for some levels, but no contest after level 11. 2nd is Paladin/Monk/Rogue(pike/arbalest)/Ranger/Cipher. Cipher is still #1 so far with a slight lead, 2nd one surprisingly is monk. I've noticed that being a PC helps with damage dealt a lot since you get a level lead on mercs which is more important than one might think. PCs for my parties were Druid and Paladin for the record. As for Ranger/Rogue, I think AC needs some improvements and Ranger needs some extra damage buffs, like +30% when attacking the same enemy with AC or when attacking enemy under DoT or whatever. His base is much more suitable for a ranged character than a Rogue. That would make a good physical ranged character. i don't think rangers need SA, there are other mechanics to add extra damage. I think rangers have +50% damage for AC when attacking enemies affected by DoT (called predator's sence or something like that), so if that worked for the ranger at least at half strength that would be pretty good. Recovery in my experience doesn't affect total damage all that much (+50% recovery is actually like 80% attack speed in reality) and is more than compensated by higher dps of melee weapons (unless you put a fullplate on the archer).

I think AC definitely should't be a free fighter, but (significantly) lowering accuracy and defenses seems like a bad way to balance that since their effect is non linear. Modifying attack speed and endurance looks like a better option since these give linear scaling. Defenses and accuracy should not be significantly lower than an average melee char,

Rangers are decent shooters, but companions should scale better. Now they are essentially a running marklight for stunning shots/stalker's link that can tank somewhat decently if you buff it with pain block. They should get +12 accuracy and +12-24 to all defenses @ level 12. DR and dmg bonuses look more or less fine. Same for druid's spiritshift (not that druids are weak without it but I want to play a decent shifter for once).

For what it's worth I've spreadsheeted the damage of rogue and cipher accounting for main passives vs 50-150 deflection range and 5DT(can say it's 10 + vulnerable): Ranged rogue deals about 1.33 of ranged cipher damage on average (which is more than what I've expected, but still not a big difference considering extra dps from spells). This assumes 100% sneak attack, no deathblows and no cipher buffs or spells, just autoattack. If you add tactical meld rogue deals 0.86 of cipher's damage. If you add borrowed instinct rogue deals 0.64 of cipher's damage. Finally, if you add deathblows (assuming 100% deathblows) for the rogue rogue deals 1.61 of buffed cipher's damage, however these would have to compete vs AW rather than autoattack, which is pretty much impossible to beat in terms of total dps and are more difficult to setup (your casters pretty much need to babysit the rogue). Melee rogue with reckless assault deals 2x of cipher's DPS. Vs tactical it's 1.28 and vs tactical&borrowed it's 0.94. If you add 100% deathblows it's 2.08. Overall as expected ranged rogue doesn't hold a candle to melee rogue, and if you count the aoe dps from spells in, to cipher. It's also worth noting that rogue brings almost no utility compared to casters. I'd say that damage they deal is probably enough anyway, but their utility options need to be improved.

I think there are 2 possible ways to play a druid solo: melee tank and pure caster. Druid has the best base tanking stats out of casters (apart from chanter which i consider only 50% caster), and better than a rogue or probably even barb since extra deflection > health. He also has nice self heals. For pure caster approach wood elf/moon are pretty obvious. I'd say moon is less valuable for druids since they have decent healing spells, but it's good it any case. For stats Int, Might, Dex in that order, Con/Per - dump as usual. For tank you still need Int and Might but I would dump Dex and transfer it into Res/Per/Con. Con is still pretty bad as a stat but fortitude is pretty important. Good tank races as usual are Pale elf/Moonlike/Wild orlan/Aumaua. Pale elf druid will have the least problems with shades, wild orlan is good for dragon/vithrack fights and moon is just good all around. Aumaua is probably the weakest option, but still decent. You can also still go wood elf since you're going to be at range anyway some times. Fast runner is a must have for ranged and still a consideration for melee. Deep pockets is awesome for anyone solo, probably the best talent you can pick for harder fights. Some thoughts on druid spellbook: Druids have straight up nukes, DoTs, lasting damaging effects like returning strom, summons, heals and some buffs, mostly defensive ones, and some debuffs/CC, often mixed up with damage. Straight up nukes are only good for caster as you want to spam them fast. Tank variant can still use one as an opener. DoTs and lasting effects naturally synergize with tank approach since you cast them once and they deal significant damage over time (while you can tank). Main weak points of the druid are cast speed (use aclaricity potions for hard battles - deep pockets!) and accuracy (no inherent way to boost it unlike all other casters). The most potent spells from my experience are returning/relentless storm and earth talon (petrify vs reflex!). It is possible to stunlock enemies indefinitely with storm spells and int > 20. You want accuracy boosts though (when it lands it gives -30 reflex so subsequent hits are MUCH easier, but you need to at least consistently graze first). Reflex being the weak save of many tough mobs helps. For what it's worth I was able to solo the Adra Dragon using a test druid permanently stunlocking her with storm :D. Best shape is probably Cat as it has the highest DPS. Some arguments can be made for Bear, as it has more DT. Wolf is an option for a ranged caster because it gives you move speed so you can run away (shift is instant). It might be even able to replace fast runner (haven't tested). Forms go out of fashion as an offensive form pretty fast, but are quite decent at the start of the game.

If you're just building for support go wood elf 18/3/19/4/19/15. Might lower might/dex/int a bit and go 17/3/18/4/18/18 for better dialogue if this is your PC. If you want to melee the build would be different though.

Well, level 10 is pretty high. You get +3 to all defenses per level so that adds up.

This is just a scaling issue. By the endgame you're often fighting the same mobs you meet in mid or even earlygame.

This is just how confusion works now and not a barbarian issue. Whether it should work like this is more of a balance topic and not a bug.

I'm pretty sure his fear aura would hit even a paladin quite often. Cipher can also buff up his defenses to almost paladin like by using borrowed instinct on the weak willed xaurips.

What about an enemy immune to all physical damage?

You should've used potion of recovery or prayer against fear scroll :/. His will save is also quite low.

Heh, I was actually thinking the same thing when I wrote that about shadows. Glad I wasn't alone. But we are still playing a game in the end and there's simply has to be a way to fight your adversaries or there's no point in playing. If the reason why you can hurt those shadows is consistent with the game world, it's enough, even if it requires a slight suspended disbelief (ex. they are semi-corporeal and through brute force you can destroy them but not restrain them by tangible effect). As for the fire vs fire thing, I do think that it refers to the means one uses to address a situation and not to the nature of the one addressing it, ie in a threat of violence use violence instead of diplomacy etc. It would be strange indeed to try to put out a fire by lighting up a bigger one. Finally I'd like to point out that I'm not too hot for an all out rock-paper-scissors kinda system. I actually prefer a mix of hard and soft counters. Taking D&D as an example there are the specific hard counters (protection from petrification) and there the broader "soft" ones (bless, protection from evil). As long the counters are not too narrow (for one ability or spell only) or too broad to become god mode, it's much better than what we have in PoE. As it is now I sometimes feel more like an accountant doing spreadsheets than a powerful mage weaving mystical powers. No, I think shadows totally should not be affected by physical afflictions, physical damage and cold damage. They should only be affected by fire damage! That would be fair. Thing is, caster defenses are not "permanent" immunities. They can be worked around (dispelled). I'm ok with that. I'm not ok with permanent immunities you can do nothing about. If a considerable portion of your game contains enemies that ignore a classes primary damage source, then that's a problem with the level design. PoE has plenty of enemy variety even within dungeons. I don't see a few immune mobs being much more of a problem than, say, teleporting shades or confusing mushrooms. Sure, if you've built a character a specific way which makes him all but worthless for the next 3 fights, that's a shame. But it's not the end of the world. Yeah, but I still don't see any big profit in introducing these, and pretty much all immunity systems I've seen suffer from devaluating certain abilities because of how common certain immunities are to some extent. I'd rather have more shadows and mind controlling mushrooms.

I think the reasons you bring a Rogue are different then the reasons you have a Ranger, Wizard, Druid, Cipher in the party. The Rogue doesn't really have to be managed. The normal course of an encounter will get them their Crits and there Sneak Attacks. To do any type of damage with those other range classes requires you to actively manage abilities and spells. The Rogue can hold their own weight. Is it the best character to bring along in a fully optimized party? Probably not. This really is not true at all. You still have to use their abilities 4x per fight at least and you have to constantly force them to attack after a target dies, or they just stand there doing nothing. Simply putting them on some high health target while the rest of the group focus fires down others isn't really the way to go either unless your sole purpose is to inflate the Rogue's contribution in a really useless way. I mean, it's not so much a Rogue as it is ranged classes in general. They can all do what you're suggesting, while also adding significantly more damage overall per encounter. I'm also at a loss as to your last statement. Are you suggesting they only do well in unoptimized groups? That's not really helping their case much. edit: I know casters deal AoE damage, and I even pointed that out in the original post. I said I'm not sure how much single target damage the Rogue is actually doing, and all of the AoE stuff really skews the damage among classes. But 95% of the fights have 4+ enemies. You've already mentioned that, and I also already said that I was using offensive spells. I didn't just use blunderbuss auto attack with Mental Binding the entire time. Most of the early game was actually Soul Shock spam, or Mental Binding if really needed and then Soul Shock spam until I needed to fire. The main reason the Cipher was falling behind mid-game was because of where I had him placed in the formation. It was way too annoying having to slowly pull him from the mid-back around to the side in an attempt to Mind Lance. After one simple change, especially in the later dungeons, he started catching up to the Rogue (and then finally passed her). On my current playthrough I'm going out of my way to skip as much CC stuff with the Cipher as possible and focus on damage where applicable as well as opening with Mind Lance as soon as it unlocks. I'm also not using the 50% XP requirement of IE mod this time just to give a fairer assessment of what each class can do over the course of the game, since they will be unlocking more accuracy and abilities sooner. Honestly though, I'll be really surprised if the damage numbers are some night and day difference as you're suggesting. On the playthrough with the numbers recently posted, I didn't even get Amplified Wave until only a few hours were left in the game due to the XP mod. Well, I have a different experience. At low levels cipher deals more damage because of soul shock. At mid levels (like 3-5) rogue gets a better weapon and cipher starts to spam more mental bindings, so rogue might pull ahead. Cipher pulls ahead again when he gets ectopsychic echo (you said it's difficult to setup but it's really not if you have a tank) and keeps the lead until the end of the game. When cipher gets AW his damage done just skyrockets (you said you didn't use it much so maybe that's why). You can check if by fighting 1 battle with level 12 cipher and rogue where you cast 3+ AWs and compare the damage done difference after the battle. It's easily 5x.