KDubya

I'm using a Junk with one wormtongue on each side and the rest double bronzers and the cannon from white march. Close to 250-350 and fire, jibe, hold, fire, jibe hold, fire .... The wormtongues seem to start fires and the double bronzers wreck ****. Two or three volleys and its all gone.

You really need to factor in attack and recovery speed into weapon damage comparisons. Faster usually ends up doing more damage than harder hitting unless you are using full attacks. The +5 accuracy ends up adding +10% damage and is very useful. All of you guys wanting deflection buffs to quarterstaffs need to look at the modal for quarterstaffs, it adds deflection

Is there any way to decrease the time for a jibe? Is there any way to maneuver to get to a 'crossing the T' position other than getting the enemy to turn away or towards you? Does higher skill cannoneers reduce the reloading time? I had a situation once where I shot out their sails and they turned to run leaving me with raking shots at my leisure with no chance of their moving or retaliation. Whenever I try and turn across them I just get raked myself. Makes shooting out their sails meaningless as they can still shoot you and trying to maintain a long range doesn't work well as when you jibe you switch sides for their guns as well as yours; no way to stay on their short ranged side and jibe where you shoot with both and they only can respond with one. Trying to see if I can better set up a firing rhythm then: fire port jibe jibe jibe half sail - to reduce firing penalties fire starboard jibe jibe jibe half sail fire and so on. Works for a Junk or a Galleon with nine turns for reloading which is plenty for double bronzers. A Dhow would get me: fire port jibe jibe half sail fire starboard jibe jibe half sail fire and so on Gets me seven turns between firing which is one short of double bronzers.

If you are going pure monk I'd go with fists. They have higher base damage than the hardest hitting one handers and attack at the speed of the fastest one handers. Fist damage is based on power level so pure class gets more as does a Nature's Godlike. Multiclass will do less than a pure class but can have some abilities like Soul Whip, Sneak Attack, or Carnage that can make up the difference.

Shattered Pillar fan here Comments based on PotD companion party. Turning Wheel does fine with the limit of five wounds, +25% damage is plenty. Especially with a pure class as you get so many Monk abilities that you can 'waste' one on Turning Wheel. Even at just two wounds it adds as much damage as a Fighters Weapon Specialization and lashes are better than damage buffs. For stats I'd keep everything at ten and not dump. Might - 10 or 15 - all your Transcendent Suffering buffs to fist damage are percentages so they just sum up with your Might instead of increasing the base damage like in PoE. Con - 10 more is nice but run out of points. Plus focus firing alpha gun volleys can drop you very quickly Dex - 15 - faster actions are always good Per - 18 - hitting is important as is finding traps and hidden areas. None of the companions can serve this purpose and you get a nice weakened on crit ability so more crits is good. Int - 15 or 10 - more duration and bigger AoE for Torments is good. Also gives some good dialogue options Res - 10 - you could dump some and compensate with Clarity of Agony usage but its up to you. Shattered Pillars exist to spam out abilities so spend them on your Torment's, Efficient Anguish, Thunderous Blows and Clarity.

One handed usage is pretty great at +12 accuracy without any ability added. If you are going to fire an opening volley and then switch to another weapon you can skip the ability 'Single Weapon Style". 20% hit to crit gets you a unit damage increase from 0.625 to .0.650 or 4% more damage without taking into account the extra penetration from crits. If you are dedicated to achieving as many crits as possible its a worthwhile pick but for just a typical damage buff its not that great. Single pistol is good as you can hit the modal for fast firing or turn it off when you want the extra accuracy. Dual wielding ranged and melee doesn't really work that great, better to separate into two weapon slots.

So is it better to go for a Junk, Dhow or a Galleon if I want to upgrade from the starter ship and actually win in ship combat?

This is based on my first PotD run. miss the health/endurance system where you'd get worn down over time and you'd have to push on to complete a dungeon without stopping to rest. The attrition style made for a sense of accomplishment when I persevered. Now its just go go go and hit the magic rest button if I get two injuries as risking a perma death would just be idiotic. I like the combat but the challenge is pretty much relegated to how underleveled I am. If PotD gets tuned harder it'll just mean that I'll need to pay more attention to level disparities as they make all the difference in the world. In PoE Eder's armor with Second Chance was good as it tapped into his large health reserve as did his regen. Now I put that in the stash as getting back up just means he'll have two injuries instead of one since he'll get one shot when he stands. How can Obsidian balance the encounters when their are how many hundreds of different class combos not to mention the thousands of different team make ups that are possible?

On PotD I've found her as a pure priest has done pretty well. Her sickle and shield are pretty good and the spiritual summoned version has a nice lash. Priest spells help the party and by going single class she gets the better ones pretty fast. You have the entire rest of the party to be damage dealers, having one priest to support the team seems a small price to pay. Plus aren't there like two or three companions who can be part Chanter already?

You don't need to abuse rest to do well on PotD, I rest if someone has two injuries. Use your own gunline to start, an opening volley from stealth can drop the first guy. My team is Shattered Pillar Monk, Serafen witch, Aloth fighter/wizard, Eder Swashbuckler and Xoti priest. The opening salvo is pretty harsh and tends to shoot my Monk. Now at level seven he will live with a sliver of health and then can get a second wind, at lower levels he tended to just get killed. Avoid Pirate ships. Every time I come up on one they have double my hull, sails and guns so duking it out is a losing proposition. If I run away I take a big morale hit for fleeing a weaker (??) enemy and if I fight it out on the decks I'm outnumbered and out gunned. I'm going to save up for a Galleon (I think that'd be the best gunboat) and then get my revenge. Finally don't be afraid to leave an area and come back in a level or two. Levels make a huge difference in whether or not you can take an encounter.

Go Unbroken/Chanter. Use a shield and spear for additional engagements. I'd go robes for the faster action speed as armor does little unless you have an awful lot of it. Any of the Chanter subs will work - Skald for faster offensive invocations, Beckoner for summoning a horde or Troubadour for fast chants and stacking chants. A Chanter/Paladin would work as well. Basically combine any two of: Unbroken - fighter buffs, regen and shield mastery Paladin - heals, auras, deep faith Chanter - chants, foe only AoE, summons Priest of Wael - illusion spells and priest spells Trickster - illusion spells Wizard - illusion spells

I also find the narration annoying. When I read something my mind puts the pieces together and I get engrossed in the story. When the voiced narration happens I don't get that same immersion, in fact since I read faster than she speaks its just distracting and makes it harder for me to appreciate what I'm reading. Maybe we can get an option to turn it off?

Your basic attack formula gets you this when accuracy = deflection 0-25 miss 26-50 graze 51 - 100 hit The numbers might be off by one, basically you miss 25%, graze 25% and hit 50%. So no critical hits (it might be 100 is a crit not a miss) One handed gets you 13% miss, 25% graze, 50% hit and 12% crit. With Single Weapon style you get 13% miss, 25% graze, 40% hit and 22% crit. So single wielding is much better than dual wielding. If you add in some sort of hit to crit like Berserker or Disciplined Strikes it gets interesting. At 50% conversion, Dual wield then gets 25% miss, 25% graze, 25% hit and 25% crit. At 50% conversion single weapon gets 13% miss, 25% graze, 20% hit and 42% crit. You'd need dual wielding to attack 41% faster for it to outpace single weapon style with a 50% hit to crit conversion. I think dual wielding gets you 30+15 now for +45% but I might be wrong. So unless you have something like a 50% hit to crit its better to single wield if you are totally pursuing critical hits. Even then its pretty much a wash.

I guess the devs wanted some consequences to go with your choices

Monks with fist and shield - or anyone with fist and shield - do not benefit from single weapon style. The off hand must be empty. Two handed style only works with two handed weapons, nothing for a Monk kicks.

Not sure on the polaxs but with the large number of weapons proficiency picks you can cover a bunch. Plus there is no penalty for using a weapon without proficiency unless you are a Devoted. You just lose access to the modal which may or may not matter.

Also remember that Perception now governs finding traps and hidden items not mechanics. In Beta you needed 16 Perception to spot everything, not sure how high it needs to be to find everything but having a few things locked behind some really high number would not surprise me. I'm also unclear on how best to skill the MC and the team - specialize all, jack of all MC with specialists, everybody jack of all? Also I'm not sure how high you need to take something, will there be skill level 22+ checks basically an optimized background and class with 100% skill placement or is a 10-12 sufficient?

I'm still downloading so this is from Beta Single class will basically be two powerlevels ahead of a multiclass. This only really matters for fists. The two powerlevels amount to +1 penetration, +4 accuracy and +15% damage. The nature godlike ability also gets you +2 powerlevels so it has the same benefits (which of course stack) so unless there are hats (+racial bonus) out there that are better than +1 pen, +4 Accuracy and +15% damage, going for a Nature Godlike looks pretty darn good. Fists base damage is higher than the slow one handers and attacks at the fast one handers speed. They do the most DPS in the game. Transcendent Suffering adds damage %, penetration and accuracy as you gain power levels. Might is now additive damage not multiplicative so your 15 Might adds +15% damage which is the same as the +15% you get from 2 powerlevels. Might is not the one stop shop for Monk like it was in PoE where the base damage of fists was increased. Single class gets one ability per level and one bonus when they gain a powerlevel, multi gets one ability per level and one bonus when they gain a powerlevel but it has to be split. So you get creation ability + 19 + 8 = 27 ability picks plus creation for pure class and a multi gets creation from each class + 13 free + 6 class one + 6 class two = 25 ability picks plus the two creation.

Instead of ability stats having effect on dialogue they now have several skills that handle that like Intimidate, Diplomatic, Insightful, and others.

From Beta, it might be changed now: I found armor to be not worth using unless you had additional armor buffs like a Gold Pact or a Berserker. If you had plate at AR 9 and add 4 to it you've got a real tank. At just plain plate at 9 AR you're just 50% slower and will get hit for full damage from any crush weapon and from any armor piercing weapon like Estoc or Stiletto. Dual wielding is also pretty mandatory if you are wearing armor, a six second recovery on a two handed sword or sword and shield is just painful to watch. Light armor is pretty much totally worthless at 5 AR with normal weapons having 7 penetration. Medium at 7 AR is only good for avoiding the +30% from over penetration, at -35% action speed its a very bad deal. If you go naked you just get over penetrated for +30% damage if they hit you, plus you'll have no action speed malus. You're part Wizard so you'll have some great defenses like Arcane Veil, mirror image and what not so your deflection will be very good. Plus you can use the summoned staff that heals on hit to replenish any health lost.

I try not to dump anything below ten, just messes with the roleplay too much. A 3 Intellect guy gets the same conversations as everyone else. If they had dumb speech like Fallout 1 and 2 had that'd be different. From a mechanical stand point I'd not want to dump Resolve due to affliction duration. Getting stunned sucks, but getting stunned for +25% duration because you dumped Resolve is even worse. For deflection it's better to get some illusion spells than to pump up Resolve, pump Constitution instead. Add Priest of Wael (illusion spells), Wizard (illusion spells), Trickster (illusion spells), Paladin (deep faith) or grab a shield if you want better deflection. With Resolve removed from dialogues there's not much of a reason to either add or drop anything to the base ten.

I'm still downloading so this is from Beta Single classes get to power level nine and have access to an ability that adds another power level to get to ten. When they gain a new power level they get another ability pick so they get 19+8 for 27 picks plus creation. Multi class gets to a max of powerlevel seven and at each power level gain they get a pick in each class. So you get 13 free picks and 6 picks that have to be in each class, plus the creation picks for a total of 13+6+6 for 25 plus creation.

Unless they changed a bunch from the Beta all classes have the same accuracy barring some ability. Health is class based so Ciphers have lower but its not so bad that you'd need to buff constitution. Maybe drop it to 10. Might is one of the few ways to buff spell damage so keep that in mind. If you'll be casting damaging spells Might is your friend. Wizards buffs like Fleet Feet (+5 dex), Infuse with Essence (+5 int and +5 con) will help with your stats as well. They cast in 0.5 seconds and can be set up to automatically cast at the start of combat. You have another 3 stat points, you only used 15 when you get 18 at start. I'd go with a general wizard not a subclass, too many downsides. Also remember that a found Grimoire = free ability points as choosing spells costs the same as taking an ability. For melee I like the Soul Blade, Beguiler was nice mixed with Ranger as your pet can flank to set up lower cost casting, makes for a nice target for spells and the Ranger is good at ranged combat. The Soul Blade/Wizard is on my entirely too long list of builds I'd like to run.

I've still got a few more hours of download, been chugging away for a few days now. I'm trying to follow your test data - are the numbers shown what you actually did in game for like five attacks? It'd be better to straight up math calc it out. A few questions: What about the +5 dex buff from swift strikes? This would make Swift strikes faster than Frenzy. Swift Flurry benefits the Berserker with their 50% hit to crit much more than it does the Cipher. I'd guess that Lightning Strikes would be better for the Cipher, plus its a sure thing. You can't equate an attack that costs two rage and might return the cost if it kills with an attack like Soul Annihilation that is limitless in the number of uses. Alternating Torments Reach with Soul Annihilation would generate focus to burn. Did you add in Thunderous Blows? Especially for the Cipher as the Berserker already has the buffs from Frenzy. Also you need to consider the deflection malus from Frenzy and the friendly fire aspects of the Berserker. The carnage damage will add up quickly against your team as well as being constantly interrupted by the Rooting Pain and the occasional stun from getting in the way of a Torments. The Cipher also has access to all of the Cipher powers and there have to be a few great ones in there. Both are going to put out great damage, so the better one probably comes down to playstyle and perhaps even role playing

So should I take the points from Might in my Monk/Cypher and distribute it to Dex? *Currently 18 Might 14 Dex, Eyeing 16 Might 16 Dex... When Might was multiplicative the more bonus you had then the more Might you wanted, so Cipher and Rogue wanted max Might. Now as an additive, like it was in PoE, the more bonus you have the less effect that Might has, so Cipher and Rogue can go lower. Fortitude is still really important so adding to Might is always good but more dex would probably be best, especially for a Cipher who wants to cast quickly. I'd even think about 14 Might and 18 dex. Also Monks and Ciphers get some cool on crit abilities so adding more to Perception could be a good thing as well. Character building just got interesting again