evilcat

If the main advantage of class is that it can take generic talents and level up spellcraft to use scrolls... that is not a good sign, not good at all. Fighters have a niche of tanking, since ware able to reach high defenses and have stronk survivability, hardly ever requiring healing, most of the time last man standing. But even with 1.06 people are drfting away to other classes (Chanter, Paladin) since others have better outside effects. And heaving niche in tanking is already bad sign, since for tanking you need generic talents, shield and other gear. If class is useless we can always give it a shield and send as meatshield. I am looking forward to see this Bruiser Fighters since right now they are meh. +20% on choosen weapon set and possibly +15% free speed (Grace) is not impressive. Minimal CC and no Buffs/Debuffs dont make it better. It is especially problematic for story players, since they could like to have Eder in party, but now Eder will be weaker, and it will be harder to give him things to do.

I think that devs know what are they doing. ;-) There is clearly demnad for infinity games. And isometric view is quite popular this days. Even "Isometric cRPG" are doing great (both Shadowrun and Original Sin ware a succes). There is weather and day/night cycle and it matters in some locations. In internet shops (GoG, Steam) it is hard to find sane consumer's negative review. People are beaching about patchfinding and lack of tactical AI at all in first release but that is obvious.

Stronghold is generally fine as a idea. However my concerns are: 1. Proper naming and recognicion, this filthy peasants should learn to name PC Lord/Lady of Caed Nua or suffer wrath of legions of terror. Also having high prestige/upgrades on stronghold should open some doors. Generally people of interest should hear of PC. 2. More occasion to strenght our stronghold in questing. The recruitment of one enemy was good. Time for more. Like asking merchants to come to my stronghold. Or claim Roderick Lands as our own ;-) Time to Gilden Dale to shine again under just rule of Lady of Caed Nua beatufull as Morn and treacherous as the sea.

And opposite points is that Dragon Age is nice (especially Origin and Inquisition) but it has limits, and is end of all. Sometimes game design just work for what it does. ANother example is Civilization, we could expect that "it was good when it came, but now its time to move on", but Civs are still rolling, and there are clones like Galactic Civilizations. Somehow Civ does not turn into Total War. And isometric look just work for players. Witcher or Dark Sould are great, but there is still place for: Pillars, Shadowrun, Divinity Orginal SIn, Satelite Reign, XCOM. even MOBAs. Isometric just works fine, and leaves time/money for storytelling, mechanic, items, sounds. Romance is just redherring here. It could be discussed separetly in another topic.

This is suggestion which could be fun or not. Granades: Basicly traps which you can throw at enemies, and they will blow up their faces. Short range (like 4m) but could be improved with talent. Reasons: - There is pleanty of traps in game, but playing with trap kitting is not very dynamic, maybe individual stealth will improve that. Anyway being able to reforge this traps into something useful would be nice. - It could benefit classes with less potencial of creating aoe zone of death. - Granades and molotov coctails are in setting scope (we have firearms, and bombards).

Isometrick look is fine, and works well with cRPG where stroy/mechanic/gameplay are more important. It also allows for more interesting design for less time/money. Isometric cutscenes and paragraph book cutscenes are fine. There is tactics comming. Even a simple one will be great improvment. Companions not staying idle, finding right path, occasionally using heals or aoe when it matters. It is important to know what exacly players expect from cRPG, and i bet it is not better graphic. Better focus time/money on things accordingly to importance for players. DA:O was nice for the time it come. Good job on character models, but locations had little details.

"Blunt and passive gameplay" <- better do not put that on backcover. I do not think it is discussion "Will Fighter be better tank than Paladin?" since that dosnt matter. But "What will bring Fighter to the party?" and "Will that be better than summon monster item?" Comparing Figher with Cipher/Wizard/Druid/Priest on fields: - Tanking - AoE damage - Boss damage - CC - Buffs - Debuffs - Utility Does not look good for our amored friend.

Some other aproach would be introduction of "Pet Threats", a consumable item (like potion) which is in Ranger inventory, but affect pet. So for exampe we can have threat of healing, or snack of ironbark, that could be a way to save the doggy.

Yes, you are wasting your time. But if we enjoy is the time really wasted? Reaching soul is not important for plot, nor gives you xp or loot. Totally optional. Dont like it, dont do it. This litle stories are to honour backers, and i prefer that instead of 101 DLC if game was published by "Big Company".

That aproach would be time consuming for devs - creating new category of upgrades. Current system with free abilities representing pet leveling up is better. Pet related abilities/talents does not gimp Ranger, they are part of ranger class. And sometimes it is more important to have tankiness over dmg, or some utylity CC. More important problem is that pet cant hold shield, or drink potions, so a lot of attencion need to be paid to heal pet. A bit too much. So abilities/talents which will allow regain endurance by pet from ranger alone are most welcome. Be it pet+ranger healing, pet resurect, pet life stealing, or pet having flat endurance regen.

Watcher's abilities are perfect where they are now. I do not thin i am suppose to use them often. More like: "This combat is tougher than i expected, here comes extra spells". The healing is my favorite. They are great to show off that Watcher is not ordinary adventurer, but do not make PC too much dominant over rest of party.

Beware what You say, since when the nerf hammer falls from the sky earth trembles, and there is nothing left, no hope, nor life, just dead builds in barren lands. There will be more than enought time after expansion for nerf (thats for sure), and even if this claws are better than soulbound weapons suffering it for month or two is not big deal considering alternatives (shield and board druid FTW).

At last some good news.

The problem is that people do not call Fighters to be OP. The whole change is (lets be optimistic) some kind of typo mistake from devs. Paladin's auras are not that strong, defensive one is like... Armor of Faith (Priest spell), offensive is like Blessing. Exept you can have two priest spell active at time, but auras not. Chanters do not have chant giving +10 to all defenses. They need combine 3 chants for that and the all 3 will be active for limited amount to time (4 sec/16sec). If you want +10 to all defenses better aim for circle of protection. Really when it comes to buffs or healing it is hard to compare with Priest. All the war Paladin vs Fighter is just comparing 2 second tier classes, the game changers are caster classes. The difference betwean 1st and 2nd tier class is that 2nd tier class can knock down a couple of enemies twice per rest (Clear Out) and the 1st class can knock down all of them 5 time per encounter (Slicken). And it still dosnt matter since roleplayers will just pick whoever is more fun to keep in party. The whole balancing urge in single player game is lost cause. Why to even waste time for that? It dosnt matters. Having ability which allows to kill every creature in the room is a bit OP (anyone miss old mind blades?) sticking 4 minions to one character is not that good. IMHO more important is to keep all classes fun to play and worthy keeping in party. Make them do something, add some active abilities. There is no devs commentary, so it is hard to speculate what is the point. But the better idea would be buff stuff and add more abilities/talents. DPS fighters could benefit from some abilities buffing their dps, give them more abilities like "Sunder: Reduces target armor by 10" so they could do something cool. Or good old "Pommel Strike: Paralyze target" and never forget "Execute: Attack and deal the more dmg the less health target have". Or some crit abilities. "Sharpen Edge: all your slashing weapons deal extra 3 slash dmg per hit" (the idea here is open some dual wielding fighter) Same amoubt of love could go to Chanters. Some of Paladins talents are also horrible (intense flames for example). If they really need to nerf Defender since generally Deflection is nerfed along the board, or wish for less full tanks, then better go for: Defender: +5 Deflection, +2 engagement Wary Defender: +5 to defenses other than deflection Speed reduction is gone since we want shield and board to deal more dmg not just stand still.

But... it is all we ever asked. ( This dual wield stuff sounds dndish. Having "guy with a bow" is ok, since some players just like to pew pew. And pet is a tool to body block/cc badies from your squishy. There are other classes and many of them could be dual wielding in various flavors up to personal taste. Also the guy with the bow itself opens several build options: - You concentrate on tanking with pet or dps pet or minimal pet - Yo concentrate on CC with either pet or own bow - You concentrate on steady dps or single target burst - More single target or more aoe So there are options, and there are already abilities/talents allowing to go for it. However there could be more, and some important are missing (one connected with healing animal companion since that things takes a lot dmg). If someone MUST play ranger 2wf can always pick 2wf talents (there is not as many of them) and pick pet based/utylity abilities. Start combat with pistol wouding shot and switch to dual sabre/stilletto with Hunter Mark.

Maybe it was just a typo. (- in place of +) That would make a fun relief.

They are nerfing duration of all summons including items. And it has merits since rotating summons from items could be more important than class you play. Chanter gets shot in the process, since otherwise it would be unfair or troublesome. They may add chanter talent "Bind Spirit: Summon duracion last twice as long." to make everyone happy. In fact they could any talent/chant/invocation for chanters to make them interesting to play. It is funny, since multiclass talent Summon Sceletors suits Chanters so well. Now they could do something at the start of combat. Wow. But then every caster can do that, and after that we are back at starting point.

Actually i also wish there was Eothas option. Sounds like not that bad option, not more metal than Gawain. Also the candles are still burning, so god of rebirth is not dead yet.

Durance - i simply dont like religious fanatics, and there was not enought dialogue options to tell him "you are stupid madman". The good thing is i got with him good ending (if you know what i mean). ) I wish they will add another Priest in expansion since it is very useful class. Pellegina - she has not enought screen time. ( there is great potencial in Paladin being conflicted betwean need of heart and orders, and conflicted about relation with mother, and meaning of life and stuff. But... there is no screen time, storytime to explore it. The moment at council of gods was nice, but otherwise... such waste. It is generally big waste, that there are godlikes, but they are not existing in lore. If you pick godlike as PC, you will get nothing. Pellegina gets nothing but Hivalris wicked desires. Havent played with Greaving Mother much. Others are mostly ok, however many of them have very simplistic aproach to life (sagani, eder). So it may look simple, but provide memorable quotes: "- If i cant pet it why he is so soft?" "- If you could go anywhere, what would you choose? - Home, of course."

Wait isnt Int increasing chants aoe size and linger? That would be horrible design. I think Kana linger was longer than 2 sec. Here is a question: How people play chants? Do they go for small ones to quic get Invocations, or pick one of big chants if so then which one?

But now nobody will take Defender + Wary Defender. Why would you? People will now just combo Cautious Attack + Hold The Line. All the devs have done is flipped the problem around. (I.E people taking one talent while ignoring the other). They havent solved any problems with this nerf. There is also a small problem of Cautions Attack + Hold the line being both talents, so it will come to play later or will hold other defensive talents. And leave defensive fighters withour good abilities to take. Cant stack Guardian, Confident Aim not important and so on. Maybe the Master Plan is to nerf fighter so Unbending / Unbroken will be useful. But it will not work that way.

It makes sense to me thematically, basically the fighter is protecting others at the expensive of themselves. A fighter with -5 deflection is still going to have more deflection than whatever back row character the enemy would be attacking if it got past the fighter. There are already a bunch of attacking abilities that reduce accuracy, don't see how this is much different. Much better would be: Defender: +5 Deflection, +2 engagment Wary Defender +5 to ref/fort/will Balanced, giving enought punch for class ability. Otherwise...why waste party slot for figher? Just pick druid. Give him shield. Cautions Attacks, Hold the line. Casters anyway dont need talents. With high resolve and maybe some item concentracion should be fine. There is several center on me healing spells on druids (and what brings fighter?), other spells brings some cc which is even better way of tanking, also if enemies are blinded this pumps deflection even higher, and having relentless storm just keep going. It seems that fighters will not even be close to that. Nature is addaptive, nerf one class, other will rise in that place.

I wonder how will look the balance of number and quality of abilities and talents. For casters it dosnt matter since abilities are just keep comming and talents are more for survival or toys. But martial classes are more dependant on specific ability + talent combo. What if class end with all crappy abilities but to build decent tank or dps you need more talents than you have? For example with Defender nerf it coul dbe better to go with Hold the line + Caution attack so its 2 talents vs 1ability+1talent. Maybe there will be time for "Talented Class: pick one more talent instead".

I played with Sagani with warbow in my party and it was fun. Hard to fully evaluate Rangers since cant check pet dps (maybe it is greater than rogue, but we just cant see that), also without AI greatest impact have companion you pay most attencion to (Not one staying around doing nothing). However the fun part: - Penetrating shot brings dmg to interesting level - Warbow from the Twelve is great - Pet knock out and Ranger stuns gives extra layer Problems: - Wizards/Cipher/Druid brings more to party - Pet dies more than other party member, using Paladin lays and resurent for keeping AC rolling does not feels right. There is also path with Quick Aim and Soldier ranged, probably should be more dps, but adventurer kit suit better to Sagani from RP reasons. Firearms have more synerg with wounding shot. Things i wish: Talent: Sturdy Companion which will kick up Pet defenses even more if we wish so and just want it to stop dying. Talent: Herbal Balm, which heals over time both Ranger and Pet at the same time (only these two) so there will be less dead pets. Talent/ability: Apex Predator, Each Animal COmpanion attack recovers part of dmg done. Talent/ability: Annoying Pest: Animal Companion attacks distrupt target lowering his Accuracy and Concentracion. Talent/ability: Natural recover, pet heals over time as fighters do. Ability to resurect your pet in combat to full health (Paladins can do that). Basicly i was using Paladin healing mostly for ranger pet, so just giving it to ranger would mae it easier while not making class more significant or ourshinning. Just ease of use. Wurm animal companion for double ranged fun. Dracarys! (it could be balanced by lower attack values than melee pets) More tricks for AC. LIke "For the Eyes (Boo)" blinding the target. Or Savage attack (temporary boosting pet attack speed and dmg). More good bows. DR penetracion, crit shot or DoT is the way to go. ;-) More crit stuff to use that Acuraccy bonus.

Wow it is impressive that there is something like this in game... good writting. However it is hard to imagine sacrifizing story companions, the part of fun is to take what is given and see what can be done with them, and everything can be. Missing all this little talks... not worth stat boost.