KDubya

One of the great things about PoE was that it did NOT have any romances. If I want to have some transsexual escapades mixed in with my swords and sorcery I can go to Bioware. Why spend the time and effort to bring this to DeadFire? The chances that it will be done well is slim to none. Anything written will need to be as bland as possible to avoid the inevitable hatestorm from the Perpetually Offended. Even then the wrath of the righteous will echo across the twitterverse. The outrage from omitting all romances will be limited as its hard to rally against nothing, while anything they do put in will be condemned for being too much/not enough/too stereotypical/too edgy etc. You're not going to write something and have the unwashed hordes come out and say 'good job!' and 'everyone should buy this game and support this effort'. Best case scenario is you limit the calls for a boycott which can be better accomplished by omitting all relationships.

Its the same with a Fanatic - Berserker/Goldpact. The accuracy boost stays forever.

Mathematically 17% difference is large. But in game what does it actually do? If it takes you five shots to kill something a 17% difference might require one additional shot. That's not going to break the game. I ran these numbers to see if there was anything that stood out as being too good or too bad. The melee comparison showed how dual wielding is near 50% better than anything else and is in need of being re-tuned. Arbalest vs Arquebus is close enough to balanced. Neither is a good choice for sustained firing, both are good for an alpha strike with the difference coming from the modals. One causes a knockdown and the other gets you +20 to hit. The stand out superstar is dual wielding scepters, something that many might not ever try, especially on a ranged damage dealer like a sharpshooter/cipher where it really stands as king of sustained damage output.

I'd guess that situationally useful is what they were going for. A set and forget would be not very tactically challenging.

How I hate when there is one thing in a game that is bad and devs nerf everything else to the same bad level, instead of tweaking that one bad thing. It's not gonna be fun, trust me, I've seen it many time. Currently a properly tuned melee team absolutely destroys PotD. If I went the extra mile and coded FoD to work via the behavior editor instead of manually controlling it I'd be ending combat even faster instead of having unspent resources remaining after a fight. Dual wielding does like 50% more damage output than two handed. That's not even close to any sort of tradeoff, its self gimping to use anything else. That's a problem that only a nerf bat can solve as adding 50% damage to two handed weapons will just further break the game. I'm a big fan of melee, in fact I rarely use a caster but I'd still be in favor of a serious power reduction in melee. In PoE going without casters, especially Priests, made the game much harder, now going without melee is the harder path Bring melee back to a reasonable power level and then see what can or needs to be adjusted for casters.

For a Sharpshooter an Arquebus for first shot wounding shot and then close to 4 meter and use a single blunderbuss getting extra penetration would work pretty good. Not as good as using dual scepters with modal but would have a whole different vibe and style. Rangers and guns are more iconic than rangers and dual magical implements

What made casters powerful in PoE? I don't think it was damage spells and fast casting. No one rolled wizards who blasted out multiple missile strike spells. Casters were powerful in PoE because crowd control spells with massive afflictions were powerful. Now afflictions are vastly reduced in power so that they are hurtful but not a death sentence like they used to be. Add in slower casting times and greatly increased power for melee and casters become the step child on the team instead of the MVP. I think to balance things you need to look at melee and slow it down. Also dual wielding needs to be toned down as it is near 50% better than two handed.

The Arquebus is still the best Alpha Striker. Activate the modal for +20 accuracy and let it rip. Slower reload doesn't matter when you will fire only once. For sustained firing the Dual Sceptre with modal for +20% damage is king but the single blunderbuss or single pistol both out perform any of the bows or crossbows.

For a Devoted I'd go with dual Sabres for the bonus 20% damage. Swords with dual damage types would be a strong choice as well with Great Sword topping out the choice for two handed. If I ever encountered a slash immune I'd have dual rapier or clubs on switch so their +5 accuracy would partially offset the -10 malus. Or just single wield anything for the +12 accuracy.

Would you share Dex and Con of the two warriors, and what you meant under "super heavy armor guy did way better." It's no surprise he wasn't penetrated, but I suppose the heavy armor guy must have had even higher Dex if their DPS matched. The attack speed was greater for the naked guy so on paper he had more DPS. In game the naked guy took a lot more damage and had to be aware of tracking his own health and looking for heals. The super armored Berserker never needed a heal, he was just a killing machine a sort of medieval Terminator that never stopped. The attack speed boost from dual wielding at -50% is such that armor is barely a deterrent with regards to speed. Attacking 0.4 seconds faster is not enough to make up for the loss of armor. Now two handed ends up with a much larger speed difference of going from like a 4.7 sec recovery to 3.7 seconds, but currently there is not much of a reason to go with two handed weapons as they are just inferior, better to single wield a sabre, or just dual wield. The experiment just highlighted how much better dual wielding is and how poor light and medium armor are compared to either heavy or just going with robes.

On my last run had two berserker/goldpacts, one went heavy armor and the other went with robes, both dual wielded sabre + rapier. The super heavy armor guy did way better. With fine plate, thick skin, goldpact gilded enmity and triumphant defense he had armor in the 15-17 and never got penetrated. The robe gut had armor 9-11 but that still gets penetrated. Naked might lose out to heavy armor but it is always better than light and most always better than medium. Pumping con can be good but pumping con and wearing heavy armor is even better.

It might be a case where the way the speed increase is applied is changing. Consider dexterity, it says +3% per point but on a mouseover it actually lists something less as its applied such that 33% faster is a reduction of 25% if I'm remembering it correctly.

This raises the following questions for me: Should fists be a viable weapon for non-monks? ​In my opinion no. Punching a guy in armor should result in you breaking your hand if you have not spent your lifetime at the Shou Lin temple learning the special techniques. In game fists without Transcendent Suffering would never gain damage or penetration. They'd be the worst possible weapon pick for anyone. In fact they should have much less than the five penetration that weapons start with. ​​​Is unarmed fighting by a Monk too weak? ​When it actually works (save/load wipes it) fists seem to be doing more than fast weapon damage at a fast weapon speed. (hard to tell due to bad UI) if so then fists will be the undisputed DPS king. Is Druid shapeshifting weak? ​From the admittedly small sample size of a few playthroughs, shapeshifting seems really powerful. Again not seeing where this needs to be buffed. It looks like it is only the Devoted subclass that has issues and even there they avoid the penalty and just miss out on the bonus.

For the accuracy calcs I did the same as I did in the other weapon comparison, use the graze, hit and crit percentages to arrive at a unit damage and then add or subtract accuracy and arrive at a new unit damage and compare. I go with the basic assumption of accuracy = deflection to make the math easy. As this ratio changes it drastically affects the relative value of accuracy. This gets you the following: 0-25 miss for 0% damage 26-50 graze for 50% damage 51-100 hit for 100% damage 100+ crit for 125% damage. With this you get the following unit damage - 0.25 x 0 + 0.25 x 0.50 + 0.50 x 1.00 = 0.625 unit damage when normalized for accuracy If you want to see the effect of single wield's +12 accuracy you get the following: 0-13 miss for 0% damage 14 - 38 graze for 50% damage 39 - 88 hit for 100% damage 89-100 crit for 125% damage This results in 0.13 x 0 + 0.25 x 0.50 + 0.50 x 1.00 + 0.12 x 1.25 = 0.775 unit damage (You traded misses for crits) 0.775 is 24% higher than 0.625 so the +12 accuracy gets you +24% damage that is multiplicative. In reality it is much more complicated as a crit also adds 50% penetration which might get you another multiplicative 30% damage or could go from underpenetrating at -72% to full penetration at 100% damage. Also the more damage adders that you have the better the increase from accuracy is as its applied to the total damage multiplicatively. A similar conversion to a unit rate of damage is useful for finding out the relative worth of hit>crit, graze>hit. EDIT - even with blunted criticals, additional accuracy is trading misses for crits which do 100% damage with a chance of the extra penetration making an extra 30%

A game like Fallout where you are a scavenger in a post apocalyptic wasteland having strength limited inventory and having to decide what to take and what to leave makes sense and fits the game. PoE is not in the same vein.

I believe the scaling is only up not both up and down.

As requested. Two Handed Ranged ArbalestBlunted criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee 23 - 28 pierce damage Avg = 25.5 penetration = 9 Range = 12 Attack time 0.7 seconds Reload time 6.0 seconds (not affected by armor) DPS = 3.81 ArquebusBlunted criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee an unmarked -5 accuracy 24 - 32 pierce damage, Avg = 28 Penetration = 9 Range = 12 Attack time 0.7 sec Reload time = 6.8 sec (Not affected by armor) DPS = 4.12 ​3.73 DPS w/-5 accuracy = 3.79 ​ 3.43 CrossbowBonus crits - 10% hit >crit conversion, roughly = +2% damage w/o considering penetration effects Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee 19 - 24 pierce damage, Avg = 21.5 Penetration = 7 Range = 12 Attack time 0.7 Reload 5.0 (not affected by armor) DPS = 3.77 DPS with hit>crit = 3.85 Hunting Bow+5 accuracy Unfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee 12 - 17 slash pierce, Avg = 14.5 Penetration = 5 Range = 12 Attack 0.9 Recovery 3.0 DPS = 3.72 DPS with +5 accuracy = 4.10 War Bowunfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee 14 - 18 damage slash pierce, Avg = 16 Penetration = 7 Range = 12 Attack 1.1 Recovery 3.0 DPS = 3.90 Rod13 - 19 slash pierce, Avg = 16 Penetration = 5 Range = 8 Attack 1.1 Recovery 3.0 DPS = 3.90 ​One handed Ranged BlunderbussBlunted Criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps ​unmarked -10 accuracy ​5 -8 pierce with 5 projectiles, Avg = 6.5 Penetration = 5 ​Range = 4 Attack = 1.1 ​Reload = 6.0 (not affected by armor) DPS with shield in off hand = 4.58 (3.84 w/accuracy malus) ​DPS with single wielding for the +12 accuracy = 5.46 (4.59 w/accuracy malus)​ Dual wielding lets you fire one then fire the other before reloading, or you can have a melee in other hand and it benefits from dual wielding for -50% recovery Pistol Blunted Criticals - no extra damage from critical hits but the extra penetration still helps 19 - 26 pierce damage, Avg = 22.5 Penetration = 5 Range = 8 Attack = 1.1 Reload = 5.0 (not affected by armor) DPS with shield in off hand = 3.69 ​DPS with single wielding for the +12 accuracy = 4.40​ Dual wielding lets you fire one then fire the other before reloading, or you can have a melee in other hand and it benefits from dual wielding for -50% recovery Sceptre10 - 14 crush slash, avg = 12 Penetration = 7 Range = 4 Attack = 0.7 Recovery = 3.0 DPS with shield in off hand = 3.24 (3.89 w/modal) DPS with single wielding = 4.02 (4.82 w/modal) DPS with dual wielding = 5.45 (6.54 w/modal) WandUnfit for melee - enemies have +10 to hit you in melee 7 - 11 pierce, avg = 9 Penetration = 5 Range = 8 Attack = 0.7 Recovery = 2.0 DPS with shield in off hand = 3.33 DPS with single wielding = 4.13 DPS with dual wielding = 5.29 ​Analysis Best Alpha Striker is Arquebus for range or dual Blunderbuss Best Alpha Striker with a Full Attack is dual pistol for range or dual blunderbuss (dual scepters when criticals are plentiful) Best sustained DPS in heavy armor single wielded pistol or single wielded blunderbuss Best sustained DPS when penetration is needed Dual Sceptres Best sustained DPS when in melee Dual Sceptres Firearms are currently bugged where your dexterity makes you reload slower not faster Prior to this I did not think that firearms could compete when it came to sustained damage output. A Ranger Sharpshooter's malus of +10% recovery does not apply to reload.... My typical ranged expert was a Sharpshooter/Cipher using Dual Scepters and a War Bow for initial contact who wore plate as the dual wielding compensate well for armor. I'm thinking now that a Sharpshooter/Cipher using Arquebus and a single Blunderbuss while taking Gunner could be good, or stick with the dual scepters with modal and use the Arquebus for the alpha. Besides style a traditional bow ranger doesn't have a lot going for it. Will have to see what the higher level abilities are like. EDIT - i busted the math on Arquebus and left out the attack time. Thanks Hilfazer for catching that

I'm all for faster casting, I just don't see how letting you move and retarget would actually work in game.

If I were to hazard a guess as to why it was changed it'd be to stop hard CC from being an 'I win' or an 'I lose' button. How many party wipes do you think were caused by the phantoms and spectres in the Eothas temple and at Caed Nua? The reason was primarily due to stun causing the target to quickly get critted and killed with no recourse. How many people hate the Lagefeth due to PTSD caused by remembering the slaughter caused by mass ranged paralysis? Or for that matter, how many youtube guides/playthroughs are their detailing how to sequentially buff and cast in order to luckily land a graze of petrify on the Adra Dragon and then follow up with more and kill it before it ever gets to move again? PoE played much differently if you actively pursued applying a hard CC on the enemy at every opportunity or you choose not to. In DeadFire it looks like they are making afflictions helpful in taking out the enemy but not completely dominant like they were.

How would you make that work in the game? With the current system you: Start casting which locks your position target a location go through the casting animation all the while prior to casting you can click on a new target location in range cast the spell If you could move you'd have no location selected which would do what as the timer runs out and the spell gets cast? If you somehow put the spell on pause that allows you to 'store' pre-cast spells and then let them rip at a moment's notice. If the spell completion still fills as you move around you now have casting while moving. The solution to the issue is to not cast from extreme range, move up like halfway towards the enemy and you'll have plenty of room for re-targeting.

I'm finding a use for prone with regards to spamming Force of Anguish (works better with the upgrade that reduces cost to one wound) Get a dual wielding (needed for the speed) Shattered Pillar (needed for generating wounds by attacking with FoA, sort of perpetual motion here). Set the Ai to use FoA as often as possible. What that gets you is a prone knockback every 2 seconds or so that also interrupts. The enemy gets knocked back, runs back to you and gets knocked back, runs back to you and gets knocked back .... This only works due to Monks getting unlimited number of FoA as they're based on wounds (unlike Fighters and Knockdown/Mule kick) and Shattered Pillars being able to generate wounds by causing damage which also works with ability use. I had a team of five Monk hybrids doing this in PotD and it worked well except when enemies had massive Fortitude. Was it fun, sure but five raging Barbarians all with carnage would probably have cleared the map faster.

No stacking with Hardy or with the Zealous endurance aura, which also do not stack with each other.

Unarmed are bugged in that after a save/load you lose the benefits of being a Monk and the damage drops to nothing. It also doesn't help that you can't mouse over your fists and see the attack speed and recovery like you can with everything else. I think fists are as fast as fast weapons but have no idea what their base damage is or how it compares to weapons.

The armor and penetration discussion in another thread gave me an idea: What if instead of dexterity and wearing armor, you instead went heavy constitution and went naked? Consider one with 16 dex and one with 16 con ​​The naked guy has robe for 3 armor,​Two hander attack is 0.7 attack and 3.0 recovery, 3.7 seconds total ​Dual wield slow is 0.7 attack and 1.5 recovery, 2.2 seconds total Dual wield fast is 0.5 attack and 1.0 recovery. 1.5 seconds total The 16 dexer with light armor (5 armor) has this for attackTwo hander is .6 attack and 3.1recovery, 3.7 seconds total Dual wielding slow is 0.6 attack and 1.5 recovery, 2.1 seconds total Dual wield fast is 0.4 attack and 1.0 recovery, 1.4 seconds total The 16 dexer with medium armor (7 armor)Two hander is 0.6 attack and 3.5 recovery, 4.1 seconds total Dual wield slow is 0.6 attack and 1.6 recovery, 2.2 seconds total Dual wield fast is 0.4 attack and 1.1 recovery, 1.5 seconds total The 16 dexer with heavy armor (9 armor)Two hander is 0.6 attack and 4.1 recovery, 4.7 seconds total Dual wield slow is 0.6 attack and 1.8 recovery, 2.4 seconds total Dual wield fast is 0.4 attack and 1.2 recovery, 1.6 seconds total ObservationsWorse case is over-penetration attack and you take +30% damage which is offset by your 16 con's +30% health Two handed weapon users want as little armor as possible Dual wielding should go as heavy armor as possible A naked two hander is equal in damage output as a light armor dexer and only less survivable when penetration =3 where you take full damage and the dexer takes -50%. At 4 pen you take full and he takes -25% but you have +30% health, at 5 pen both take full, at 6 pen you take +30% and he takes full. A naked dual wielder is equal in damage output as a medium armor dexer and only less survivable when penetration =3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, at 8 pen you are at +30% and he is at full damage which equates your con. Unless you have enough armor to stay above the enemy pen, its better to go naked as long as you invested in con. I'm thinking a naked GoldPact Corpse Eater (goldpact armor suppresses the Berserker armor) with at least 16 con is the next I'm trying or the old Bleak Walker/Berserker and lose out on two armor and gain 2 penetration .....

So much will be dependent on how armor is tuned in relation to penetration. Consider a melee who does not have any special penetration boosters. At start using mundane weapons he has a 5 penetration, 7 if using certain ones and 9 if using an estoc.Light armor (5) is susceptible to damage from all weapons and is only good for stopping overpenetration Medium armor (7) is 50% resistant to most weapons, and susceptible to everything else Heavy armor (9) is -75% resistant to most, -50% to a few and susceptible to an estoc Is this pattern supposed to hold for the game? As you acquire a Fine weapon for +1 penetration will the enemy acquire Fine armor to maintain the balance? What if you lag behind in the penetration race?Fine light armor (6) is now 25% resistant to your normal weapon Fine medium armor ( is now -75% resistant to your normal weapon and -25% to a few Fine Heavy armor (10) is now -75% resistant to all but estoc which is at -25% If you fall behind the curve you will really feel it. Now consider the above but you are now a Berserker with +2 penetration or a Devoted. All of a sudden armor and penetration are not that much of a concern. keeping a Skald on the team with their -5 armor debuff and everything becomes massively easier to damage. If the game is balanced around not having additional penetration then it'll be much easier when you make use of them. If the game is balanced around the assumption that you are a team of Skald Berserkers ..... This armor and penetration issue has a huge bearing on spell casters who have very limited access to anything that raises penetration.