koski

I've noticed a curious behaviour when combining Spiritshift and Outlander's Frenzy. Sometimes my character will do a single auto-attack on himself the moment spiritshift triggers. I've isolated its occurrence to the following steps: Pause Click to Activate Outlander's Frenzy Click to Activate Spiritshift Unpause The character will then proceed to shift into beast form, ignore the call for Outlander's Frenzy (its trigger gets deactivated) and instead perform a single auto-attack on himself. No wildstrike extra damage seems to be applied, only the physical part of spiritshift auto-attack damage. The order of the activations seems to be important, since it never attacks himself unless I accidentally press Outlander's Frenzy first. I am using the non-beta patch branch, so this issue is in the current live version.

I've been toying around about making a ranged fighter. Sure, there are classes that might seem more suited to it (such as ranger or rogue) but I feel they don't really incorporate what I'm looking for. Mostly because rogue talents seem a bit lacking in a sense (backstab doesn't really work etc.) If we look at the features of fighter, we can see that they have these things going for them: High base accuracy (30) Disciplined Barrage (knockdown does not work with ranged?) Confident Aim (reduce grazes count) Weapon Specialization Armored Grace (if you feel like wearing SOME armor) Aside from that, you're forced to take the generic talents available for everyone. Is it that bad though? I know you're not getting Vicious Aim from Ranger line, which might or might not be that great (due to being a modal). Rogue obviously has a lot more damage via sneak attack, but that requires setup.

I'm not talking about realism, I am talking about concepts as realism loses its meaning when magic is involved. But to be honest, most fantasy worlds still follow basic laws of physics, just with added methods of breaking them with magic. Magic is supposed to be special and powerful. That is what fantasy is all about. In a fantasy settings (all I've seen, aside from MMOs) warriors would get their asses handed to them by wizard spells or dragons breaths, the only reason they tend to survive is due to sheer luck of being able to dodge the actual attacks or by hiding behind a more or less magical shield and they beat these powerful & magical opponents by cunning (such as reflecting medusa's gaze from a mirror) or luck (being swallowed by a dragon but able to jam a sword between its jaws), never by actually being more powerful than them. This is exactly what is happening in PoE, in the form of fighters (and paladins) being superior to most in the form of defence, able to come alive from situations where others might have fallen. Complete balance in defence and offence between classes is a ridiculous concept best left for MMOs and PvP games, where such things are needed for competitiveness.

I had a similar issue once. It went away when I saved, closed the game and then started the game again and loaded the save. You could try that. If it does not help or if it happens again, you should follow the bug report guidelines and attach the output log and savegame so the development team can determine what is wrong.

If you add the pets damage, possible flanking bonus and the bonus for ranger attacking the same target together, you should have ranger doing a lot more damage than a ranged rogue would. People think of the pet and ranger as a separate entity way too much. The pet is one of the features that makes the class, you cant just calculate their damage and ignore the pet altogether. Its like comparing wizards damage to cipher but then tell cipher they can't use their abilities and announcing wizard as the winner. So yeah, they might actually be one of the most powerful classes around. They just have drawbacks in that power just like wizards have limited number of spells and ciphers need to generate focus every now and then. For ranger that drawback is having to manage their pet and make sure it does not die while still gaining the benefit of its presence (flanking & other bonuses). As for the topic at hand. Lets take vicious aim versus merciless companion. Vicious aim might be bad for a ranger using a hunting bow or war bow since you'd rather want to use Penetrating Shots modal, rendering most ranger Talents useless to you (as you can only have one modal on). Instead you can have a talent that increases your pets damage output. Now you're comparing a talent that does nothing (unused modal) to an ability that increases the companions damage a little. To me it sounds like the animal companion talents are actually useful. Are they as powerful as other talents (such as arcane veil from wizard)? Probably not. But they're quite good compared to some other things ranger has to offer. Then there is also the talent that increases accuracy when you're attacking the same target as your pet. Thats bound to give a decent bonus to any rangers damage output and it increases the pets damage too. Together those bonuses should make the talent quite good. Better overall damage than say, blinding shot from rogue etc.

They changed the focus mechanics from Draining Whip to be +33% focus generation instead of +2 focus / shot, so blunderbuss is not that great anymore. Blunderbus, which splits the shots into 6 separate small fragments will be dealing little to no damage/shot. That means you'll be getting really low amount of focus unless your target is wearing no armour. This is because you're getting 10% (without draining whip) of your damage back in focus and if you're doing less than 10 damage/shot you're not going to see major progress.

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It seems this is not entirely fixed yet. Though the stacks themselves are gone, the single buff seems to contain all the effects in the description. I am not sure if this affects the animal companion itself, but it looks a bit silly.

You sort of missed the point, where being hit by lightning is bound to hurt a lot more (ie. deal more damage) than being hit by a sword. One leaves you as a lump of charcoal and the other makes a cut / hole. Realistically, both might be as deadly (such as putting a sword through an eye, into the brains) but a sword can in no way compare to a lightning bolt in actual damage done. The game is already balanced in this account by giving wizards/druids limited amount of times they're able to reduce a target to a lump of charcoal. No further balance should be needed. Literal 1:1 balance you're talking about would be more feasible for a competitive PvP based game, such as Guild Wars or WoW PvP. But it has no place in an actual single player roleplaying game. And fantasy is about warriors being able to take multiple foes and surviving (which they do) and being able to take on bears and dragons (which they can). It is not about swords dealing as much damage as lightning bolts and fireballs.

Nah, the tank "metagame" in most MMO's is a conscious design choice, not simply due to lack of advanced AI. The only "MMO" that I'm aware off where bad AI is part of the issues it's facing, is GW2. However, GW2 has so many mechanical problems when it comes to PvE that blaming it on just poor AI is mistaking the tip of the iceberg that's above water as the entire iceberg. Yes, I consider the actual design choices in modern rpg/mmo very poor and limiting. In my vision, any class should be able to achieve the same level of defense/offense if he chooses so, but by different means. Warriors should have high defense through their heavy armor/shield, rogues through dodge/evade and casters through magic. The damage level should also be the same - fighters through training/specialization, rogues through stealth/poisons/traps and casters with spells. From here you can have variations and combinations for any hybrid you want. The whole notion of fighter being as effective at dishing out damage as the guy who can call up lightning from the sky is ridiculous. Personally I think such balance has no place in an actual RPG. Some people are just better than others, whether they were born with it or trained for it. Its what makes things interesting. I want to play a wizard because of the raw power it holds in its fingers and I am willing to pay the price for it, which is generally the lack of physical endurance. Now if I could have a wizard who is as physically strong as a fighter (without the use of spells to achieve that) and still as good regular wizard, then I could talk about balancing, but only because it would make fighters entirely redundant (to a point where they should then be removed as a class). The problem is not really in the design choices of modern rpg/mmo games. Its the powerplay instead of roleplay mentality. People should roleplay their characters instead of whining that they can't play their characters because some other class/race/build is mechanically superior to the one they picked. If you can't handle fighters doing less damage than wizards, then don't recruit any fighters in your party, just play with a group full of wizards. If wizard suck and ciphers are the best, then by all means make a party full of ciphers (or just don't make/take any wizards). I finished my first game as a chanter, with spread around stats (I think I had like 12 dex) and zero summon invocations. Why? Because I didn't feel the summon invocations fit my character concept. I used one-handed weapons and no shield and used it as an off-tank and damage dealer. I had a rogue recruited NPC who used a crossbow instead of arbalest or war bow. I wore a sword on Edér because I felt he was not a hatchet (or flail) guy and I switched out the door shield because it looked silly. Sure my difficulty was only hard, but if you feel the difficulty is getting in the way of your roleplaying you can just reduce it. People are so overly concerned about effectiveness that they forget what roleplaying games are all about.

The stats in this game are what you're born with. They are not reborn when you recruit them so its natural you will not get to choose their stats. Should be noted that the companions have not had that bad stats since 1.03. They should be doable for most builds you can come up with their given classes.

Pet (or at least Itumaak) is quite useful already. Though the greatest benefit they bring is the instant flanking bonus. The fox moves so quickly it can be behind the opponent flanking before your frontliners would even reach the target. Damage wise, not so much. But you really have to think of their damage as an addition to the rangers and not as their own source.

Yes, it is not retroactive. Like I said before, expect this to be fixed when the stacks are gone. Peddroelm already confirmed its not retroactive fix but it does prevent new stacks from appearing. Expect your problems with the marked prey to go away once the stacks get removed. Either that or start a new game.

But its pretty much the only way to do it without causing option a) all the time.

My point was, that unless the AI would disengage completely randomly there would be no real benefit to it. Programming the AI to react to reasoning (like it does now) is easier. For example what the AI seems to do is: Attack the guy with the lowest defence in range while avoiding movement if engaged. If you remove the "avoid movement when engaged part" from the equation, its your squishies and non tanks that get targeted. Always. This is because your tank tends to be the guy with the highest defence in every category and there is little to no reason to target your tank. I do get what you mean. I would also like it if fights weren't just about a) "hug the corner to cover squishies"-shades b) stick your tank(s) on everything and they wont move for the rest of the fight But having things disengage only causes every fight to be like option a. No one would like that, there is actually a reason why they made the engagement system and that would just undermine the whole thing. To be honest the system itself is a lot better than what most games have. And I prefer it over the usual "aggro" mechanics that are in most MMORPG games. What needs to happen is that the enemies are actually smarter. Move into better positions. Don't just queue to the door but instead stay away from it shooting ranged weapons at the tank. You know far enough so they won't be able to retaliate without breaking the door blockage. Maybe even just fire a single shot from ranged weapons (towards someone else than the tank maybe?) before moving into melee range. Little things that the players also do to maximize their effectiveness in fights.

Its not about one tank being enough. Its about no one bothering to stick to any tank, as they wont be any kind of threat even with disengagement attacks. The problem is probably in the engagement system itself, which is a blessing and a curse. Two tanks would not cause any more engagement attacks, as unless they're fighters, specced for tanking they will not be able to aggro even the mobs they're supposed to hold themselves, let alone have enough engagement slots left for the "extra" guys to double hold for the second tank.The point however is, that if the AI was designed to take disengagements every now and then, then most of the times they would do that would pretty much include all the time. On all tanks. No tank would be able to hold aggro as there is little to no actual reason to attack the tanks. a) they got too high deflection to actually hit -> any smart AI would just leave them there, good thing the AI is not smart. b) they're wearing too heavy armour to damage properly -> any smart AI would just leave them there and kill them last, good thing the AI is not smart c) they deal little to no damage and pose no threat -> any smart AI would just ignore them and go for targets with actual threat, good thing the AI is not smart Add a,b and c together and you got foes going towards your mage, ranger, priest, rogue, whoever else than the tanks. This is what you do as a player too. You stick your fighter towards the big guys running straight at you and focus down the mages. Up to the point where you'll get your ass handed to you in a second if you do not do it but the whole fight is a cakewalk and you'll lose no HP on anyone if you do it. And to be honest, eyestrike is a hard counter for pretty much everything. Blind & dazed opponents rarely do anything useful. But you know who else doesn't do anything useful? The guys who are standing in line to be slaughtered one by one. Shade is probably the one you mean with the ranged attack? And yes, it does work. They gank Aloth almost every time. Spirits in general are the representation on what would happen if foes were able to freely ignore engagement. And I can't really say I've ever heard anyone praise the spirit type enemies. Quite the opposite. They're probably the most hated creatures along with the vampire things. And yes, AoE attacks hard counter corner hugging, but its a risk you have to take when your tanks have no way of holding aggro. Then again you could build every party member like you'd build a PotD solo character. Able to tank for himself and deal with any enemy. That'd be fun.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78868-animal-companion-combat-bonuses-stacking-with-itself/?p=1681293 Well there a developer said he had fixed it and since it is not fixed yet, I am assuming we're not in the "next" fixes cycle yet. Ie. " expect it to be fixed once the animal companion stacks are gone." like I said. And contrary to what is written in the patch notes, patch 563 is NOT the next version we're looking for. At least it was not for me as both of my saves (old and a new game I started while waiting for a fix) are boasting multiple stacks on the animal companions.

The developers promised it to the next version, so expect it to be fixed once the animal companion stacks are gone. Should also be noted that BUILD 563 is NOT the next version, it is the "latest" as you said. They've promised a new build today so keep looking at the number changing.

It would be really interesting to see this. As how it currently stands there is little to no reason to not disengage from the tanks. I bet the whole community would be shouting shenanigans if that started to happen. I mean everyone and their mother tends to build tanks for survivability, which always leads to less damage that ends up with their disengagement attacks not being any real threat. In fact, the current NPC AI actually hurts from targets doing disengagement (my tanks tend to start following the designated target and if that is the one who disengages the tank will happily take attacks from the rest of the guys he is engaged with). In the end tanks would hold no aggro as its always smarter to just take the hits and run to one-shot the wizards/priests in no armour/cloth. Every fight would be reduced into huddling in the corner covering all paths to your squishies (like many of us do against shadows/phantoms/shades) or just the usual door blocking. The real way to fix these problems would be to give enemies ranged attacks. Currently, only designated ranged attackers use ranged weapons but the game would change completely if the enemy would be able to use the same tactics as you. Having your fighter block the door while the rest of the party attacks with reach weapons or ranged/spells? How would you like it if the enemy at the second row would switch to using a pike or the knight in the back row to his crossbow and return the favour against your squishies? Suddenly you'd be in a hurry to deal with the tank blocking the door to get inside to deal with the actual threat. Its hard to justify a person in a fantasy world that would not carry some sort of ranged weapon with them. When it is about life or death, you'll want to at least have a shot of ending the fight before it even starts. Many enemies even have bows, but they never switch to them. That is really what the AI needs, not something that breaks the whole engagement system and reduces the whole thing to anarchy. As for the whole topic at hand. There is a huge difference in building a tank in the "approved potd"-Mazeltov way and building it like Achilles does it. If your Tank™ is there sitting with 3 might, 3 dex, 3 int (if fighter) and per,res and con capped then of course you should wear the heaviest armour available. The tank will be dealing no damage so there is zero difference between wearing no armour and wearing full plate so why not wear full plate? And if you build your "Tank" in a way you'd build a damage dealing warrior with talents towards tanking (which is what I am assuming Achilles is doing), you might actually have a reason not to wear plate. Though to be honest I think Achilles might have to check his math on when 5% faster attack rate is better than 3 DR. The fight will have to be over a whole lot faster with that 5% recovery gain for it to offset even a single graze that ends up doing reasonable damage.

I was pointing out why they were grouped like they were and how it made perfect sense. Stating the obvious is not debating.

Well, health and endurance are linked. Accuracy, damage and interrupt are linked since interrupts are based on attacks and damage (and weapon used). Concentration defends against interrupts... it is a defence and thus grouped with other defences? Currently they are grouped as: Endurance ----------------- Offence ----------------- Defence Seems to make perfect sense.

For now, you're best off leaving that save and starting a new game (try TCS while you're at it!) if you have objections about advancing your game while under the effect of advantageous bugs. It is caused by saving & loading, so there is little hope on avoiding it unless you're playing a no-reload game on a single sitting. Developer appears to have promised a fix on the next iteration of the patch (mon or tue), so you only have to lay off your save with hunters for the weekend. Not too long to wait.

Yeah, Itumaak is a beast (lol) now. He is making short work of everything. As a side note, I was thinking of attaching the save game and the debug log here, but for some reason I can't find the upload method anywhere. Which is strange, since I was able to upload the picture in my original post. You should be able to follow the steps here to find the appropriate files.And thanks for all of the information, everyone. We're looking into the issue but haven't yet found the cause of the duplicating combat bonuses. But once we find the cause, it should be relatively easy to fix. Does anybody have any ideas? Yeah I noticed that and was going to follow it, but I can not find the upload function anywhere. The only thing remotely close to it is the My Media menu and it contains that one screenshot I uploaded. But for some reason I am unable to find any sort of upload function anywhere in the posting (or post editing) UI on the forums.

Nope. They seem to be written open though, so instead of seeing a total of +2000~% damage, I get like 22 times +12%

Yeah, Itumaak is a beast (lol) now. He is making short work of everything. As a side note, I was thinking of attaching the save game and the debug log here, but for some reason I can't find the upload method anywhere. Which is strange, since I was able to upload the picture in my original post.