Dignity

To extent on this idea while it is probably (definitely?) too late to implement it in POE, something Obsidian should difinitely explore in the future is having said NPCs and upgrades populating the stronghold be obtained through various means/reward structures rather than something that just shows up at a click of a button by spending currency. One thing games like Neverwinter Nights 2 and Dragon Age Inquisition nailed is how they made the respective strongholds in those games feel like they absolutely "belonged" to the player by including a strong illusion of choice (via mutually exclusive upgrade paths) and world interaction and consequence (via events, NPCs and doodads that were triggered by events external to the stronghold space). We can nitpick at the actual level of depth, significance, or gameplay these things added but one what's indisputable is the sense of ownership, agency and continuity these little details provided these game spaces: "hey neat it's that duder I saved from this one quest manning my new smithy" vs "oh I got unnamed scroll seller X manning the church." I'm hopeful the new additions will a ways towards spicing up the stronghold, but there's definitely still room for the system to further be improvbed on in future releases. It's kind of sad to think about just how bear bones it was at launch, but real pleasing to see that it's getting some attention. Definitely added incentive to do a future playthrough.

Agreed on the Stronghold, Items, and Master of the Universe stuff. I think Enchanting is cool so maybe dont get rid of it entirely, but let it simply enhance gear in a way that compliments a play style without completely overshadowing Unqiue/Named items. Although it's interesting reading this forum and seeing how divided people tend to be in regards to the Story. Some people love it moreso than other games in this genre, and others think it was lacking. Agreed, I personally found the story "ok," nothing outstanding or overly memorable but individual tastes differ. The Stronghold thing however is something that can be taken from a completely objective point of view and frankly it was utterly lackluster adding nothing really compelling to the game. You don't really directly interact with any of the events nor NPCs, the upgrades are more or less there just for rest bonuses. The invasion events are more generic than the "you've been waylayed in your travels" events from Baldur's Gate 2 (a 15 year old game). The stronghold isn't your seat of power it's just a glorified inn that takes you 12-20 plus hours of "world time" to get to. While I'm on a rant there was one other thing that really disappointed me with the game, for all the effort that went into crafting the characters and backstories in the game they sure don't let their personalities shine through whatsoever with their character selection/combat quotes. Heck half the time I can't even tell which unit I have selected because they typically just give you a random "Huh?" "Yah?" "What?" quip. Grieving Mother stands out because she's even too lazy to do that and you get wind bell chimes instead (I know, I know it's part of her backstory but doesn't mean she has to be dull and lifeless the majority of the time). At least make it seem like they're invested at being part of your party, they exhude all the enthusiasm of an 8 year old at a congressional hearing. Compare the selection/combat speech you get in this game with Blizzard titles (WC, SC, HOTS), Bioware titles (BG, DA), C&C titles hell, pretty much any other game where you click on a unit and it acknowledges you with a voiced line, it's just dismal and bland in comparison. I think that's where some if not most of the flak for this game "being bland" comes from. They don't let the characters and voice talent express themselves in the single most common game situation. I truly hope they resolve this in future titles, cause while it might seem like a really nitpicky thing, a simple thing like one liners does really help add "soul" and "personality" to a game. Minsc isn't iconic because he's got a deeper background than say Durance; he's iconic because he stands out and his personality resonates through your speakers/headphones and immediately leaves a lasting impression (good or ill) on the player through his one liners alone. That said what the game does well, it does really well. Obsidian built quite a good foundation with PoE, just a little more polish and I bet it could be more of mainstream hit rather than just appeal to a very niche audience.

Yeah the 1000 raw damage appears to be the game's way of creating an instakill mechanism, based on the trap's wording it's a save or die with a +30 bonus for the defender (or a -30 roll on the trap, same thing) vs the fort defense score. Looks like Eder failed his fortitude save in the screenshot and took the instakill. Now the thing that bothers me about your screenshot, more than how the trap works or anything, is how the combat log obfuscates important information when a single effect, affects multiple actors. Why even bother having a combat log if it doesn't relay pertinent information to the user? If the individual rolls (in your example 2 miss, 3 graze, 4 hit) were logged as individual lines rather than aggregated into one (let's face it, uninformative) entry you/we'd be able to pinpoint exactly what happened and we wouldn't be left wondering how exactly pretty much any AOE move behaves (such as dragon breaths and the like).

Pretty much agree with this. Cyphers were head and shoulders above pretty much any other class in terms of utility, power and alpha burst. The changes brought them more in line with the other characters however the 50% nerf was a bit overbearing. I wouldn't go so far as to call it draconian, but the change definitely lacked finesse/sophistication. I think reducing the starting amount of focus is fine, but they should either let them start with a little more (if for nothing else but to give the non-capped levels a bit more opening power) or an approach I'd prefer change their generation model both at baseline and via talents. Right now, especially with the blunderbuss change (which was way more necessary than the starting focus change, especially with the new reload mechanics but I digress) rebuilding focus once it's been expended feels painfully slow. I'd like to see a cycle where you can spend-build (relatively) quickly-spend rather than the old spend-spend-spend-shoot once-spend-spend or the current spend-stick your thumb up your backside as you become a glorified rogue hoping to get focus-spend models Cyphers work with. A middle ground is definitely achievable and would probably be more fun while still being in line with other character classes.

Visual indicators for modal abilities (such as Vunerable Attack) stop working when loading up the game. This is of course an old bug which has already been reported and the workaround still works (save with the modal OFF, load the game, reactivate the modal). Minor issue of course, but would still like to see this squashed once and for all.

There's one thing Rogues have that Rangers can't touch in terms of the ranged dps slot: ridiculous alpha strike/burst damage potential. Rogues can give you such powerful openings to fights thanks to their full attack per encounter/per rest abilities in conjunction with sneak attack which can have incredible tactical value on fights with targets that actually matter by taking out a priority target before starting a full engagement. Against most stuff though Rangers will probably pull ahead given enough time for the reasons you point out but when I need that annoying target taken out from range before it becomes a problem (Fampyrs, etc) give me a Rogue over a Ranger every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I agree with quite a lot of what you said, OP, but this (aside from the bugs) is what really, really disappointed me with the game. Their twist on naming and language I can take or leave, typically I read what they use, either sigh, roll my eyes or shake my head a little but move on. I can see why some people can enjoy it, it was one of my critiques with Witcher 2 as well but overall it didn't really bother me too much in the end. The Stronghold though, holy crap what a complete letdown. 0 sense of ownership (aside from having to spend your coppers or whatever weird term they used for gold in this game) 0 personality, and honestly almost no real sense on how the thing runs. I mean does your chair telepathically send out work orders to the nearby labor union? How does the southern wall even get fixed in the first place? For a game that likes to babble on and on explaining even the slightest of minutae in its storytelling seemingly just for the sake of being wordy (just get to the freaking point Durance, monologues don't have to all be dissertation length rambings) the way the Stronghold storytelling was handled is incredibly jarring. And I mean can your stronghold come accross as more bland. "Renegade Wizard," "Merchant," "Groundskeeper guy" you can't even have a conversation with people you recruit (except for maybe 1 exception). None of the visitors amount to anything (I forgot my green clothes!). And the stronghold "invasions" are even more lifeless (and pointless) than the "you have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself!" encounters between Amn maps in BG2. I could go on (dungeon and prisoners) but it just gets me depressed thinking about such a missed opportunity. Aside from the Endless Paths, it's gotten to a point where I actively avoid heading back to the stronghold just to save on dealing with that many more loading screens. At least the bounties are somewhat interesting I guess, though feel quite disjointed from the rest of the game. Overall I still think it's a solid game, but some parts are definitely a total letdown (bugs, pathing, stronghold, bland companions being the biggest offenders). What I will say though is I totally dig the game engine they've made for POE and just feel that they can totally build on it and come up with some truly amazing stuff using it. I look at it kinda like how NWN vanilla was full of promise but was ultimately just somewhere between "solid" and 'pretty good" but Hordes of the Underdark really took it to the next level (same deal with NWN2 and Mask of the Betrayer). I'm hoping for more of the same with POE.

Wonderful points I'll readily concede. To the back line in most nearly every situation deflection is effectively irrelevant since if the player is managing his/her party properly the majority of threats they'll be facing should be from area attacks and incidental splash damage. This of course steers the player (conciously or not) towards doing the "smart" thing which is to focus on defenses that protect them from these effects which are traditionally Reflex and Will, and lo and behold backline types inherently tend to have high Reflex (physical back line) and/or Will (caster types) at least on the premades which reinforces this line of thought further. The monkey wrench in all of this of course (which you point out) is due to the mob compositions in the game this doesn't play out quite this way in practice. True caster types are rare and more importantly behave similar to player characters (they have to deal with cast range, cast times and recovery times). On an even playing field such as this players once familiar with the combat mechanics of PoE easily dominate these fights. Think of which mobs typically give players problems, mobs that break the rules: Spores with their spammable, uniterruptible confusion. Fampyrs with their instant, battle opening, long ranged heat (mage) seeking charms, and Shades/Shadows with their engagement ignoring instant teleports with the same AI tendencies Fampyrs have (straight beeline towards the backline). Coincidentally, or perhaps not, these mobs also happen to exploit deflection and specialize in causing cascade failure scenarios. In the old IE games dangerous mobs would perhaps use the same tactics, but they would pressure you via the Will/Fort/Reflex equivalents (saving throws) not via deflection (armor class) and casters in general were much more powerful/dangerous in the first place (on both the player and NPC sides). So in a weird way, when you need defense the most in pretty much every situation in this game deflection is what you're looking for. Be it to protect your backline from the specialists that murder them or to protect your front line from their banes (Crystal Eaters, Ogres, etc) and everything else in general (generic mooks).

Right this is the primary issue the fact that Will defense "doesn't do what it says on the tin." So what tends to happen to unaware players is they spread out their defenses, try to up their will and use talents like mental fortress and items that increase will to shore up that defense only to have it completely ingnored anyway and wonder why the talents aren't helping. Also Khalid I get the point, as I have said YES there are some enemies that don't target deflection, but the earliest enemies you run into (spores) and arguably the most annoying charmers you run into (Fampyrs due to their one track, mage hunting AI) both target deflection. So 2 of the 3 major charm users in the game target deflection. Yes Mental Fortress helps stack vs this but guess what so does superior defleciton (+5 def) AND helps vs 95+% of the attacks you face in the game. You can list mobs til you're blue in the face but to the general populace who weren't aware why their talents and gear weren't helping here's your reason plain as day. You want mental fortress to help? Stack it on top of deflection. And even so you get far more return on talents that stack generic deflection than conditional ones like these since they help vs nearly eveything, not a tiny list comprising of a handful of mobs.

Nice list. however you might have noticed that it comprises of 6 creatures with only 3 of them that actually don't target deflection, To be fair there are others too such as random hostile Monk NPCs with their stunning blows (direct attack vs Fortitude). So even trying to disprove what's been said, you only further emphasize the "problem." In addition to this there are a myriad of CC effects that are first delivered via an attack that inititally compares against deflection with a tack on secondary effect that compares against a different stat (one such example being the incredibly dangerous crystal eaters). Avoid the initial hit, and guess what, having a 0 fort, will, ref won't hurt you anyway (extreme example but shows the point). The point still stands however. The overwhelming majority of CC effects are either directly or indirectly countered by simply stacking deflection. Simply pointing out few exceptions to the rule doesn't magically turn these junk talents into suddenly useful ones, nor does it suddenly make heavily investing into the 3 non-defleciton defenses suddenly worthwhile. I wish this weren't the case, but as things currently stand, Obsidian has overemphasized Deflection to the detriment of the other defensive stats. Note too that deflection is the primary defense when it comes to protecting you from dropping to 0 endurance from direct damage attacks, and the few cases where direct damage is directed against your other defenses smart use of DR is enough to carry the day. (Such as the Shade example I pointed out before).

I get this problem too and it's incredibly annoying. Pathfinding in general in this game is abysmal and this issue just compounds it further. As bad as it is for the OP's case, with a melee heavy party I find it infinitely more annoying with spell casters, especially priests with their short ranged spells. What typically happens is I have my frontline move in to create an engagement wall and gather enemies in. From there the idea of course is to bombard the melee with buffs/debuffs and other AOE shenanigans. What tends to happen however is Durance runs up in range to cast his spell, somehow decides that he has to take the path that gets him beside an enemy and even if he does on an already engaged enemy's flank (in other words he's not being engaged by the enemy) he then completely forgets everything I've ordered him to do and instead chooses to get stuck in the melee clump autoattacking away at said mob. As much as I don't mind microing battles, its situations like this where I have to immediately go into mass pause fests to peel my casters off their self imposed melee engagement, reposition (sometimes multiple times because they have the habit of repeating said issue) just to get a spell off, that I sometimes sigh and think to myself that they may as well have just gone with turned based combat ala Divinity OS to save us the headaches of dealing with the incompetent party AI and pathfinding. And no I don't want to turn off stop on engament because it is useful where it's intended to be (your warrior types) but seriously the pathfinding and the autonomous control and behavior (such as stopping what they're doing to autoattack a charmed party member, I mean are you even serious right now) of the characters in this game are far worse than the original releases of the IE games from way back when. I really hope they work on improving these deficiencies with the combat engine of this game, because when everything is flowing and your party members are in fact doing what you tell them to do combat in this game is an incredible joy.

Unfortunately I don't have a save with easy access to a live Endless Paths level 8 to check on Fampyrs specifically but the point still stands that for the vast majority of status effects in this game, the chosen delivery system compares versus the Deflection stat while the payload (status effect itself) may or may not check vs Reflex, Will or Fortitude. You can pretty much conclude that unless there is a casting sequence to the attack in question (which is why it's possible that the Fampyr spitball does actually check directly vs Will) the best way to defend yourself against being disabled is to just stack deflection. After all if the injection misses in the first place, the contents of the syringe are a moot point. Consider the most common and status effects in the game: Crystal Eater paralysis (probably the single most dangerous disable in the game), Fungus Confusion, various Knockdown effects, and so on. The overwhelming majority of them are delivered via some sort of strike (usually melee) that checks against deflection, that's just a fact. What the developers original intent was, we can largely put aside insofar as the OP's original question. These talents aren't broken per se, they are just flat out terrible in the present and you'll find that you'll be safer from disabling effects by simply concentrating on stacking deflection. Personally I too find this as quite weird design, it severely devalues the other 3 defensive stats, since while there are attacks which are directly checked against them (in other words they don't first have to beat your deflection) they are a minority of what you'll be facing in the game. Most of them in fact can be worked around with Damage Reduction anyway since they typically are direct endurance attacks with no disables attached to them (think the freeze lances that Shades cast.) To reiterate I'm not here to say that the current system is intuitive or argue its virtues or downsides, I'm just giving the reason why these talents don't seem to have a discernable impact to the people like the OP. TLDR: these talents are working as advertised however they are currently trash tier. Spend your talent points elsewhere. If you're concerned about protecting yourself from status effects you're better off simply stacking deflection.

Loaded up an earlier save to make 100% sure, but yes certain attacks do not actually behave as one would expect, especially given with the secondary effects appended onto them. The most egregious one being the confusing spores from the various stationary fungi in the game. First for comparison's sake, here a screenshots of various monster attacks on the combat log: Notice the difference between the 2. On the first the Dank Spore is attacking one of Eder's defenses, the roll was a hit and he was confused by the attack. Notice this rolled against a 66 defense rating which we'll get to in a moment. On the second, the attack of the Troll against one of my custom party members was a single attack that did 2 separate rolls against the character. A 25 slash damage attack and a second roll vs Fortitude for the poison effect, which also hit resulting in a Weakened status effect. I should've moused over this as well, it was careless of me not to think ahead, but rest assured the for this single attack the initial strike was compared against deflection while the additional effect rolled vs fortitude as one would expect. Now back to Eder and the 66 defense rating. Here is a screenshot of Eder's character sheet from the test in question: If you'll notice his deflection is at 66 while his will is a mere 45 for this test. No where in the combat log does the 45 ever show up. There is no secondary roll that compares the confusion attack vs his will. Vs the Dank Spore a 0 or an infinite Will defense would result in the exact same outcome. THIS is why the talents the OP brought up feel useless, not because of the underlying math that your post beautifully illustrates btw, but because I'd surmise that 9 times out of 10, the defense you'd expect the attacks to be checked against are in fact not being checked. Additionally let's go back to the troll example. While the poison effect does indeed get compared to Fortitude in this particular case, the fact of the matter is, if the initial strike, which compares against deflection missed in the first place, then the fortitude roll would have never come into question anyway. This just goes to show, especially given how rare caster type enemies are which use spells that directly attack defenses that aren't deflection, the actual best way to protect oneself versus status effects is to actually stack deflection rather than bother with the other defenses, especially since concentrating one just one defensive stat is far more likely to let you reach numbers where you have an actual significant impact on your characters survivability (with the non-linear returns on investment.) So in conclusion, it doesn't matter what type of effect you're thinking of preventing, as long as the source is not a direct spell cast (Trolls, Spiders, Fungi, et al.) Deflection, and not the talents in question will give you far more bang for your buck. So while the talents might not be broken per se, what they are in fact are terrible noob traps.

While people are 100% correct that the way defense works in this game is it gets way, way more valuable the more you have, I believe that isn't really the issue with these talents in PoE. The real problem is, the most common attacks that you would think these talents would help you against; at least according to the combat logs, actually attack the deflection stat not will, fortitude or reflex. Fighting those annoying Fungi and think that your massive Will defense is going to help you? Well too bad because their confusion spores only checks against deflection. If they hit you through this you're getting confused no matter what. Don't believe me? Check what the combat log says the next time you run into a pack. I'm pretty sure the same applies to the crystal spiders but haven't really bothered to confirm if it does indeed just check vs deflection or if their petrify effect actually would check against fortitude as you'd expect it to. As for stuff like Fampyrs, well they seem to be able to spot your mage even from 2 screens away and are able to dominate him/her the nanosecond combat starts. If this particular attack actually checks against will, you'd need it on Aloth since the AI seems to be drawn to him like moths to the flame, even if you think you have them distracted with tanks, summons or what have you similar to how Shades and Shadows behave only far more annoying.

I'm aware, however I only had room to upload 2 screenshots out of the 7 I took displaying all 3 bugs in action. Are you to tell me that Elemental Endurance also requires armor to be active, no it doesn't but you can clearly see the big fat 0 damage reduction to cold and fire in the screenshots. I was hoping that it would be obvious enough from the screenshots what I'm implying but apparently not. My character when not naked walks around with a 7DR light armor piece. Guess what her base DR is in that armor? You guessed it 7 not 9. Please don't take myself or anyone else who posts here for a fool. This game is so full of bugs gamebreaking and minor both, that it saps the enjoyment out of what is otherwise a really good game.

Update: Just tried out the beta patch, and the reported bugs still persist in it (DR passives no longer working). Can also confrim Evange's workaround to the Vulnerable Strikes visuals does indeed work. Thanks, that's one less thing bothering my OCD now.

I would personally buy a voice DLC pack even if all it did was change how characters go "huh" "yeah" "yup" in the most generic way imaginable when controlling them in combat. The one thing that really disappointed me with this otherwise fine game was just how bland the companion characters are, especially during combat. Compare them to let's say Minsc, Sarevok, Edwin or Imoen from the BG series who have their very distinct personalities come through the limited voiced lines they have in those games. I just know that for my future playthoughs in POE I won't even bother playing with the pre-made party members, given how uninspired they feel both on a character/personality and build optimisation level. Just my opinion, I'd get why other people might enjoy them.

Note: Did not have the problem before the latest series of hotfixes. My character's damage reduction passives are no longer working. Saving and reloading, equipping and unequipping different gear, trasitioning maps, resting and other things I have tried do not resolve the issue. Also the visual indicator for vulnerable strikes (glow effect on weapons) no longer works for my player character. Attached are a pair of screenshots showing the bugs in question. Please note that this is with the latest version of the Steam release of the game, and was not caused by the "double click equip" bug. Thanks for the support.