MadDemiurg

Druids - would say definitely not. They were maybe above average. Priest and Wizard were some of the strongest, but not stronger than, let's say, Paladin. The biggest disparity between weapon and caster classes in both PoE1 and 2 is that it takes more knowledge of mechanics to optimize a weapon class. I don't see how non specialized Wizards are in a reasonable place now (and why are they so much better than any specialist if you don't have either the uses per encounter or the ability points to learn all spells anyway) when they are inferior to other classes in pretty much every role. +100% damage and -50% recovery not cutting it for you? It's not hard to get yourself flanked (even without actually getting flanked)

Why chanter is OP and Beckoner WTF: Overall chanters got buffed compared to PoE1. They start combat with some phrases and chanter subclasses are better than the vanilla chanter. Beckoner = by far the easiest class to solo everything atm from my experience. For how ridiculous multiple beckoners are see the other thread around here about "PoE in slacker mode". Base chanter is still very strong with summons and some chants can justify the chanter alone a.g. Aefyllath or the 30 pts dmg shield one which with troubadour has 0 linger and basically gives your whole party what is effectively 10/s hp regen. Or soft winds (although it's probably bugged). Why Wizard is low tier: Well, 1st, let's compare to PoE1. In PoE1, Wizards were one of the strongest classes imo, but not so OP to be extremely far ahead of everyone. They got huge nerfs in PoE2: -Resource management. Sure, now all your spells are per encounter. But, at higher levels wizards already had some per encounter spells PoE1. The spell totals are much much lower though, especially at higher levels with only 2 spells per level (3 with restore). This makes wizards bit better in "trash mob" fights where they don't need to hold back, but a lot worse for boss fights. Overall it's a bit of a mixed bag, but it's a pretty big nerf to the wizard "super saiyan" mode. -DAoM nerf. +50% action speed buff was a huge part of what made wizard unique compared to other casters. That and instant self buffs. Instant buffs are still there, but DAoM is basically a debuff in its current state. -Conjured weapons nerf. All of them are massively weaker than PoE1. They still can be good for hybrids (and some of them will rank higher, although not on the top), but pure wizards with conjured weapons are far from great. -Confusion nerf. What was the best wizard CC can now be basically removed from the game for how crappy it is. There are other decent CC spells, but overall wizards are subpar in CC to a number of other classes. -Flexibility nerf. Because you can learn a very limited number of spells now (and have to compromise on them vs passives) you're obviously aren't as flexible. -A number of other spells getting direct and indirect nerfs (the list would be too long). -Arcane veil is now a spell and eats into your limited spell casts even more Overall this is probably the class that got gutted the most. On the flipside, you can now have as much ACC as fighter with scrolls, lol. That, and higher base deflection. But even forgetting about PoE1, if you take optimized PoE2 builds, wizards can not compete in either dps, CC or anything else really. You can deal double the dps of 2/enc single target wizard spells with just autoattack. Wizards still do decent aoe alpha but get outdpsed really fast past that alpha. Multiclass wizards can be still decent for self buffs + conjured weapons for a class that can actually use them well, so some of these combos would rank bit higher. Why Druids and Priests are not low tier if they suffer many of the same problems? Druids have shifter which is very good, at least in current level range. That, plus heals got a massive buff with the removal of health/endurance divide making healers a lot more viable. Plus, Druid DoTs and returning storm are actually kinda OK for dps. Priests still have some really strong party buffs and heals and act as a power multiplier. Both are probably trash tier for solo (except shifter). Note that "Low tier" doesn't mean useless, it just means "weaker than everything above".

In terms of balance concerns, atm anything that boosts spell damage is a good thing in my book. And "damage" vs "weapon damage" should be pretty clear imo. Obviously +damage on a weapon affects only the weapon itself.

How is this a bug when its a damage bonus applied to a character (rather than a weapon). It doesn't say weapon damage.

It's not a bad build by any means but imo you would do better with let's say rogue or paladin as the 2nd class. Shifter/monk was also the first shifter multiclass I tried but this is DnD thinking .

Ok, bit more detailed tier list after playing bit more. Still undecided on a large number of classes, so far from final for me. WTF tier Beckoner OP Tier Paladin Fighter (really any but devoted is probably the best and black jacket the worst. best abilities are universal though) Souldblade Chanter (rest) Street fighter High tier Shifter Berserker Priest (on higher levels, low tier at the beginning) Ascended Beguiler Med tier Rogue non street fighter Ranger Barb (rest) Monk (but not sure, I want to try monks more but not super impressed so far) Druid (rest) Low tier Wizard Cipher (no subclass) Certain classes can go up when multiclassing because of synergies provided.

Tbh the real bug with ascendant/paladin is that all mind blades can hit the same target, no way that was intended. That been said, if it wasn't the case, 120 total dmg from an aoe ability is way too weak when I can casually do 80-180 with weapon abilities single target with much lower recovery. Aoe ability (total)dmg should be at least 1.5 times higher to compete in utility with single target. Probably even more.

Nah, I don't think that's the reason. And personally, I found barb pretty bad for solo. My fav solo classes for poe1 were cipher and wizard (in terms of fun), and I consider rogue to be actually better than cipher for solo post nerfs and wizard better than both, but as you said to each their own, let's agree to disagree here.

I still think that for level 1-16 playthrough, especially solo, rogue was one of the best classes. Maaaybe they got shafted a bit lategame but if at that point you can still solo everything does it really matter? I personally wasn't interested enough in Pillars during WM2 to do the ultimate run (although I've still beaten WM solo, just w/o doing everything), but successful ultimate runs I'm aware of are paladin, priest, wizard, rogue. Tbh I can see why it's that way.

Depends on the build. Also, you have a song that boosts party damage, why it should exclude spellcasters? Because the song is too powerful then? Well, maybe add another one for spell damage so you have to chose, idk. But there are more OP songs atm imo. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with it (or other abilities) boosting spells tho. We need more of these buffs, not less.

Lash of eternal flames should apply to spells, it doesn't say "weapons only". On that note I would unnerf Aefyllath Mith Fyr to work on spells as well. Whip damage bonus applied to Cipher spells in PoE1, which is weird, but at this point you could call it a feature.

Well, then what's the point of this in context of PoE 2 and specifically nerfing sneak attack at low level? I don't know where Obsidian takes their data from, but if you take a street fighter rogue and micro it properly I'm pretty sure it would come out on top of the damage charts in most parties. So "single class rogues don't do well" meme probably comes from people letting party AI do the work. Although multiclass rogues are indeed a lot better, to the point of compete ridiculousness, because of the frontloaded nature of the class. Likewise, if SA scales I would expect it to end up with more than +50% at PL 9. Should be good for lategame power.

I'm pretty sure it does track at least some dots or my priest would be running with 0 damage done. I know about the pets though, so it's not good for evaluating ranger, although you could probably estimate the % of damage pet does and add it. It does work well enough for comparing let's say rogue vs barb tho. It's obviously highly subjective because it depends on how you build and use your characters, but compared to "but X is better" it's as good of an argument as any.

Well, that's your opinion. The track record of solo runs and the "damage done" number in my parties (when I still played with a party) seems to disagree.

First of all, endgame effectiveness is like 10% of the game at best. I don't understand the obsession on most of the RPG forums with being bit more effective lategame, especially when you have to cripple yourself for 80% of the game to reach that. Pure masochism. Yeah, WM rogue talents sucked, so lategame power level was a bit ???. They could've been better. Earlygame rogue power level is very good if not amazing though. And that's what this discussion started with. In PoE2 we have rogues level 1-9 and sneak attack is as good as ever. Hell, with street fighter it's outright insane. We don't know what each class will get at high level so it's pointless to discuss. I'm not gonna bother doing the number crunching vs druid atm cause I don't see a point and I don't remember all numbers. Let's even say you're right although I wouldn't be so sure. And if we're talking "in a party" you can also buff the rogue through the roof with lashes and whatnot, which has better returns due to higher base accuracy etc. There are recorded ultimate rogue runs, so rogue can beat every single fight in the game. Solo. I haven't seen any with rangers btw (not saying that there aren't but they surely aren't as popular). I'm not sure what more would you want from a class. Speaking of ranger pet, it surely is a nice source of extra dps and some tankiness in a party, but in my experience it was actually a nuisance to keep alive in many fights when I tried ranger solo (and bonded grief sucks). And the best tank in the game? Sorry, it doesn't have the def for that. Not when you have a paladin effectively 100% immune to CC and damage.

I'm pretty sure a tank that can solo tank a dragon wouldn't care for disengagement attacks much. 100% stride can be useful but mostly for kiting builds so it's kinda situational.

What do you need PL when shifted for? Claws don't scale with PL but with char level, swift strikes don't scale with PL. I think transcendent suffering scales with PL but it does't work shifted. You can't cast spells when shifted either. You can also trigger it with precasting nature's vigor but I'm not even sure nature godlike is a good choice here.

Tbh I don't even know if rogue or ranger would do more dmg lategame in WM (and are we talking ranged vs ranged cause then ranger surely wins, but I wouldn't be so sure vs melee). Depends on equipment etc. Also one of the stronger lategame rogue approaches focused on on crit effects e.g. on crit prone to stunlock any target. So what if ranger ends up doing bit more damage in the lategame? They're both dps classes. And rogue definitely does more dmg earlygame. Does that automatically make rogue terrible and not worth taking?

High acc is always great in PoE1, especially with scroll use. I'm pretty sure there's no fight that's not solvable by throwing around some high acc scrolls. And no, druid won't match optimized rogue's single target dps, avenging storm or not, although he's obviously better at aoe. And avenging storm is like what, lvl 15? Game is basically over by then. But yes, rogues got a bit shafted in terms of lategame abilities in WM. Also, druid has acc problems compared to other casters and most of his good spells are vs fortitude which is the highest save for most enemies. So idk, in my experience druid is a weaker solo class than rogue. In a party, he's a better aoe dps class but inferior for single target. Which sounds pretty balanced to me. Imo rogues weren't top tier like palas or wizards in PoE1, but the worst class? ehhhh...

I mean, solo rogue still had to beat Thaos and his 2 buddies. So it's not just skipping. I'm pretty sure it was a much harder fight for quite a few classes like fighter, barb, druid. I actually don't even remember any fighter or barb (post OSA fix) solos, although I'm not saying it wasn't done. But if it was, it was pretty rare. And it's still one of the highest dps classes PoE1 so idk what's this all about.

Eh? "Imo you can do better than just swift strikes with other multiclasses." ©

Yeah, I said "swift strikes". You can get stronger stuff from other combos.

Claws don't count as fists. Imo you can do better than just swift strikes with other multiclasses.

Cipher already starts with only +20%, although another +20% is available too fast imo. And multiclass cipher is too good, in some cases. Just that cipher is a caster class, so taking it just for passives is not always justifiable (often is though). Anyways, I think pretty much all starting abilities need to go through this change. Rogue lowest tier class PoE1? Lol, I think it was the first class to solo PoTD.

I don't have high hopes for Deadfire balance on release. There's so much broken stuff. We should start thinking about patches 1, 2 and 3. Maybe a year after release it would get better.