Climhazzard

Decided to write out my Brawler AI for an example that people can use or criticize. This is from memory so I might mess parts of it up. I say (max duration of ability) because the duration will vary considerably by level and # of wounds for a monk. For 10 wounds monks I'll usually account for at least 5 wounds in the duration. CONDITION ABILITY PRIORITY RESET TIMER Self: Hp below 75% Second wind None 0 Self: Hp below 50% Vigorous defense none (Max duration of ability) (or unbending) Self: Has dexterity inspiration (not) Swift strikes None 0 Lightning strikes None 0 Self: Has affliction Clarity of agony None (Max duration of ability) Self: Has might inspiration (not) Thunderous Blows None 0 Self: Has perception inspiration (not) Disciplined barrage None 0 Self: Threatened by anyone in melee Force of Anguish Lowest fortitude 5 Self: Threatened by multiple enemies Efficient Anguish Lowest fortitude Self: Has at least 8 wounds Torment's reach Greatest # of enemies 0 Target: Allies in melee range > 0 Raised torment (alternatively: lowest deflection or nearest target) (4 wounds for shattered pillar) The weakness of using Self: has inspiration (not) to cast abilities is that if you get hit by arcane dampener you'll instantly consume all your resources. The strength of doing it this way is that your character will automatically reuse the ability to counter afflictions of that attribute type.

I preferred the human racial the way it was in PoE, much more useful, now you have to skirt death to get use out of it. It would be nice if Nature Godlike wasn't the #1 go to for builds that rely on Power level. Luckily nothing is on the level of PoE moon godlike at least. Feel bad for the slog zone race...

I really do agree that Devotions should be nerfed in place of accuracy stacking being a thing. If Devotions were 15, conquerors 10, zealous focus 5, you'd have 30 on a fighter. Currently you get 25 from devotions and the other two skills are useless. Drugs or other bonuses might still be to much though...

Persistent distraction will give you flanked so you don't need to upgrade anything but you'd still need to use crippling strike. If you were multi classed you could get enervating blows from monk but then it'd be endgame before you got deathblows...

It’s just because ranged weapons are op... That's definitely part of it, she wasn't really doing to bad with just a superior Arquebus though. That's still due to items I guess though since between her armor and Acina's Tricorn she has -40% reload very easily. Another problem is a lot of groups have so little HP that she's already done enough damage by the time the melee get into the battle that they can't catch up anymore, lol.

Maia's damage has slowly been catching up with my MC Nature Godlike monk since she got driving flight and that OP legendary gun that has a 50% damage lash on it. She's the scout mutli class so that helps too. She's more item dependent, but seems quite a viable character. I'm not sure about ranger by itself though.

On Paladin/chanter engagements, there's an armor you can acquire on an unexplored Island around level 7 at the earliest that gives an extra engagement slot, and there's also at least one weapon that gives an engagement slot. To be honest though 3 is more than enough because only so many guys can crowd around your tank, aggro will get spread out eventually which is when you want CC or other ways to help manage it. For me at least the Tank is mostly for taking the enemy alpha or grabbing the attention of the meanest baddies. As for late game tanking, any and all of the combos in the original post will be fine, there's nothing to tank really. Of what I've tried so far my Healing Wall build is my favorite tank, but after level 10 the healing makes the game trivial. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98968-class-build-the-healing-wall/

It doesn't scale up at all with level, tbh I rerolled a few times after making this post and settled on Elf as my preferred race so I might change that in the original post at some point as well. But I want to wait until after PotD upgrades and balance patches before I worry about it much.

I never actually made it past level 18 with this build because I started getting bored. After level 10 you'll have more healing than you'll ever need with current game balance. The most challenging fights will be against some of the Fampyr groups since they have some kind of reactive auto dominate and like to spam arcane dampener which will negate all your healing, but if you bait out the arcane dampener with the tank the rest of the fight won't be to hard as long as you're on point with your suppress afflictions and liberating exhortations. Once PotD receives some upgrades and the wiki loot tables become more comprehensive I'll go back to the original post to suggest more early game items to acquire for the build.

Obsidian has already made it clear they think balance is important for single player games. I don't think the "why balance single player games? I want to be OP" types are going to change their view at this point, so there is purpose to this thread.

I also feel like skill scaling items are way out of line with the rest of the items in the game, they're so blatantly broken I've been purposely avoiding them.

Fighting the Dragons (on PoTD) I kept waiting for the powerful breath attack or wing buffet that would massively hurt my party... they never came. Every boss is a sandbag. Maybe the final boss will be an exception? If you level up past 12 or so the game becomes a big snooze fest. OP abilities and items don't help, but I gave up even bothering to change my gear after a point because there's no need to and the game was still a snooze fest. In other words, I agree encounters being to weak is part of the problem. There's no doubt certain empowered spells are way to OP though.

Pretty sure everything with a green circle during combat that isn't yourself. So summons and even charmed enemies.

This please. I really hate how the human racial was nerfed from PoE (it no longer activates as a buff that will stay until the duration runs out), it wasn't even that good in PoE, but now Nature Godlike became literally the best race for anything involving power level.

Apparently Crushing hammer of doom has made a return. I didn't even notice before I pawned off the grimoire, then later one of my buddies told me about it and I facepalmed.

Confusion is a bit of a miss now, on the other hand terrify is great. So Ryngrim's Enervating Terror makes a great debuff/cc. I also happen to love the tentacles spell, I cast them between my front and backline to safeguard my backline. Otherwise chillfog, freezing pillar, concussive missiles, are all go to spells for me. Arcane dampener is very useful. Pull of Eora makes decent CC. Pretty much all the defensive buffs are good. I think a few to many debuffs target fortitude, so I don't care for them quite as much. But just to name a few semi useful ones since they're usually foe AoE... Curse of Blackened sight (radius is a bit small), Expose vulnerabilities, Arduous delay of motion (radius is a bit small). Well, there's a lot of questionable spells, but I think most of these are a cut above what low level priests and ciphers have access to.

If I combine berserker with devoted and choose sword proficiency, can I dual wield it? or will it remove the devoted bonus? As long as you're using weapons from your proficiency you can dual wield them and still get the bonus. Sword is a good choice too for Devoted.

Basically any combination with Barbarian (carnage), Fighter (Cleave stance), or Monk (Raised torment, rooting pain). They'll all do decent aoe damage without expending much in the way or resources. Even better if you combine them. Dragon thrashed + soft winds of death might be good too, but I haven't tried it yet. And ofc empowering some later wizard spells basically kills everything in the room so there's that...

If it were me I'd either go with something either defensive like hatchet/small shield, or ranged, since you'd probably only be unshifted when casting spells.

Well, good swords are found early and often, so you don't really need meta game knowledge to go Devoted swords. And since they hit two damage types you'll very often be getting the overpenetration bonus (especially if you multi class monk). Big crits and big damage all around, very reliable. If you know the game well enough combining weapons from different categories may be better, but it won't be as easy at the start.

Swords were a good choice for Devoted and totally worth it imo. I think a lot of the other weapon classes wouldn't be though.

As long as it isn't over 90 you ought to be able to set the condition for your max focus level. If your max is 90 then... Self: Has 90 focus.

I see lightning strikes as more consistent and less cheesy... I probably won't touch swift flurry again until it gets tweaked a bit.

Paladin(Darcozzi/Chanter(Troubadour) is exactly what I'm planning for my first big, major playthrough. How are you playing him? Planning on 12/10/10/16/16/14 front-line de/buffer. I know the stats aren't optimal, could sack RES to get better MIG but it's how I roleplay. I could make the split to 15/10/10/14/15/14 for a safer bet but I'm really leaning on the first one. As a Healing Tank. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98968-class-build-the-healing-wall/ Except Elf instead of Moon Godlike. Pretty much invincible after level 10 unless something casts arcane dampener on you. Not my MC though. I just wanted a different healer option to go along with Xoti. wouldn't dual-wielding kindwayfarer be better for healing, flames of devotion is a full attack so you get 2 healing ticks with each FoD, and paladins get enough deflection without a shield anyways, and there are much cooler enchants with weapons than shields in game Stats look fine Although if you have Tekehu as Druid/Chanter, healing becomes trivial with so much regen stacking :D I didn't want to take Tekehu. I wanted Aloth, Maia, MC (striker), and Xoti. So the build needed to be able to tank as well. Kind wayfarer is certainly a good option though, better for just healing since dual wielding would make it much easier to react with lay on hands, and ofc they're FoD heals as well. Shield Bearer really isn't bad though since their lay on hands makes you invincible.

Paladin(Darcozzi/Chanter(Troubadour) is exactly what I'm planning for my first big, major playthrough. How are you playing him? Planning on 12/10/10/16/16/14 front-line de/buffer. I know the stats aren't optimal, could sack RES to get better MIG but it's how I roleplay. I could make the split to 15/10/10/14/15/14 for a safer bet but I'm really leaning on the first one. As a Healing Tank. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/98968-class-build-the-healing-wall/ Except Elf instead of Moon Godlike. Pretty much invincible after level 10 unless something casts arcane dampener on you. Not my MC though. I just wanted a different healer option to go along with Xoti.