Climhazzard

There are places I think Deadfire innovations were an improvement over PoE, and places I think they were a downgrade. -Didn't really care for the armor/pen system. Armor doesn't really feel meaningful as long as it was enough to prevent overpen There's a mod on Nexus that does a good job with it. I was personally content with the system PoE used though. -Multiclassing is nice, but they definitely shouldn't add in more classes, let alone subclasses, if they're going to retain multi classing. In the interest of balance. Except, I somehow feel that "watcher" should have been some kind of unique progression path, maybe a parallel path or something of the like. -The endurance system from PoE was good, bring it back. As for rest, take a look at Pathfinder, I felt it had a nice rest system. Also, vancian casters, I didn't really mind them. -Deadfire's inspiration/affliction system was a great idea. I'd definitely keep it. Though maybe buff both a little. -Comparing both games to pathfinder or D@D, there's two things I really liked. A: No prebuffing. B: No random rolls on stuff like disarming traps, or conversation checks. Some people might disagree with me I guess but... Playing pathfinder, I felt like I constantly had to manage a million and one buffs before every battle, not fun. As for rolls on traps, etc, I feel like that much randomness should stay in the roguelike genre. It works in PnP because every consequence is permanent, in a crpg it just encourages save scumming. -Deadfire's spellcasting never felt that good. A lot of effects were pretty short compared to the total cast/recovery time. This felt especially bad playing cipher. PoE felt better in this regard, at least I thought so. That's all that currently comes to mind when thinking about game mechanics, which is what I mainly care about. Location, anywhere but an archipelago. Story, just whatever as long as it's good. Characters, the watcher and whoever, Eder's the only one I'm attached to, but him getting to settle down somewhere and have a peaceful watcher free life would be well deserved I think, lol.

It's a shame because the story leaves room for a 3rd game, but now we'll probably never get to experience it. I personally consider it and PoE must haves for CRPG fans. But I guess a lot of people were lost on the first game.

Back to PoE2 after a long time hiatus, to try finishing the new content, but this time with mods to improve some of the things I still find dissatisfying about the game. Found this thread while looking for mods. Just using stuff from the Nexus because I like to close steam when playing PoE2 to save system memory. Feels like it still has memory leaks as it gets kind of choppy if I play for hours. So anyways... -"Community patch". Every part of it. -"More custom AI conditions" Adds a lot of flexibility for programming your character AI that the original game needed, it's unfortunately still missing some things though, like "Self: beneficial effects suspended" would prevent ability spam when using "Self: Has inspiration (not)". Or like, it has clarity of agony in the monk list, but not enlightened agony. -"Deadfire tweaks" Some parts are OP. I like pretty much everything except the "new (class) tweaks", of those I only used the cipher and rogue tweaks I think. I liked the "new" priest tweaks with the extra casting passives, but after playing with it I think some of the new healing spells are to strong. -"Deadfire combat tweaks" The penetration mod. I really disliked the armor/penetration system for PoE2, this alleviates that. And as a side effect of the changes it makes single wielding a more viable build choice (because it buffs crits to alleviate the overall damage nerf of improving armor) -Female portrait packs, like all of them. So many it's hard to choose a portrait. I'm currently playing a Devoted psyblade, which is good, but being stuck with just a sword to generate focus is starting to feel kind of limiting now that I'm hitting the mega bosses, so I might revisit my transcendent build soon. In which case I'll probably also try out the "Deadly deadfire mod" assuming it is compatible with the PotD tweaks from "Deadfire tweaks". The enemy levels of many world encounters are set way to low for the vanilla upscaling system.

They certainly would be for a shifter, especially with the 3rd upgrade bonuses.

My Herald is usually something like ShieldBearer/Troubadour with 18 might/intelligence and 12 resolve. 18 might is necessary for Ancient memory to heal over 1hp per tick when you first get it, and 18 intelligence allows you to overlap your chants for when you get mercy and kindness, plus high intelligence helps it hit more party members. After that I'll either wear items that further boost might and healing, or that reduce recovery. A low recovery is nice so that your lay on hands is responsive while letting your character cast and/or attack normally. The one Herald is the only custom I'll take. I'd actually been considering how to use Palegina instead because I don't like taking customs, but her stats/sublasses aren't near as good for it, so I hadn't thought it through all the way yet.

"Slowly kill them" You answered the first question with the 2nd.... Just like the guy the other day bragging he could kill the steal preacher in 40 minutes with 2 Heralds... Wtf I'd rather kill him in a couple minutes thank you very much.

Does this combo only work with the 2nd phantasm spell? I've seen you mention it a few times but when I tried it the phantasm just gets my normal weapons and not the draining touch....?

I like to use the Shield Bearer Herald, their sustained AoE healing is great and their single target healing is fast and powerful. They can't heal themselves though so I usually have a secondary healer like Xoti or a Druid.

The blood sage synergy is pretty good (Monk-Bloodmage), though not for soloing. Blood sacrifice provides spells and wounds so you really never run out of either. High micromanagement though, you want to blood sacrifice after pretty much every spell use. Use corrosive siphon to keep your health up.

Single class monk has some really strong late game abilities too. I personally just don't do it because single class characters are less interesting.

They have good tools for multi classing though. For example a caster will get +5 might, +2 penetration, +10 intelligence, enduring dance, increased action speed, infinite summon support via the dichotomous soul, good get off me ability in efficient anguish, great ability to resist status via enlightened agony, and iron wheel for emergency toughness. They can get and/or offer a lot for martial multi classing too.

Can you strip your character before the fight?

Xoti as a contemplative can be quite useful. That's because with Enlightened agony permanently active she's your most status resistant character on the team, which allows her to resist most status and use suppress affliction to remove them from your team. With Tuotilo's palm upgraded she'll be tanky and be able to dish out her share of damage too, though obviously not as much as a dps character. After that the healing is useful though not as good as a Herald or Druid. Withdraw is a nice spell, though it lasts a little to long imo. After about tier 3 onwards you'll have better support spells, especially Devotions for the faithful. Tier 1 and 2 spells are definitely the boring part of being a priest. They ought to have added some lower level fire spells so you could do a fire priest build right from the start. Oh well, I'll never main a priest because I think they're boring, but it's nice to have one along for their unique support.

Minor MIssiles are minor to say the least, I personally think waving a scepter at your enemy is better. That aside, you'll probably need access to a few defensive spells like spirit shield. Pretty much all the early fire spells are useful if you can line them up. Set the game to pause when finishing a long spell cast so you can retarget the spell for best effect. For an early spell that really synergizes with blood mage take Concelhaut's corrosive siphon, it'll regenerate your health significantly so you can keep casting without a lot of team support, it works pretty well in combination with combusting wounds too. When i don't mind a bit of heavy micro I'll start a round off with Eldritch aim then immediately use blood sacrifice so my first serious spell gets a powerlevel boost and a perception boost, plus as a blood sage I'll get enough wounds that way to use thunderous blows which helps my spells penetrate and do more damage too. The first fire spell that isn't to useful imo is wall of fire, since it has abysmal penetration, I only find it good for proccing combusting wounds, but I'm sure there are plenty of better ways to proc combusting wounds, like chill fog. To be honest it's nice to just carry around a heap of grimoires for various situations. Some of the aforementioned spells target fortitude for example which makes them hard to use on a lot of enemies. Enemies with really high fortitude saves often have low reflex saves though so stuff like fireballs and lightning bolts work better instead. You'll also find the lightning spells to be the only efficient way to apply damage to iron and steel constructs.

Been playing a Blood sage on my current playthrough (Monk-Bloodmage). It's a good combination but requires very high micro to reach it's full potential. If you have a Herald in your party and you're sitting in the backlines then the best way to play it is to just use blood sacrifice after every single spell cast for infinite wounds and spells. Might affects your self damage and your self regen, so it's not bad if you want your abilities to do plenty of damage. Personally I just max perception, use 10 resolve/constitution, then split the rest. I think I had maybe 1 extra point in might than the others.