malchiorita

I strongly prefer true expansion over small dlcs but i'm not against them either... My only big concern is that most of the time they "break" the pace of the game if you know what i mean... Cause often you get dlc content you can play before the main game ending, so 1 it somewhat break the linearity/immersion of the game and 2 it remove the challange of the main game content when you resume it cause you got "imba" items from dlc content... I hugely prefer dlcs you can only play after the main game ending

Meh, i knew that you'd destroy my dream of glory QQ. btw i meant whisper of treason after the first assassination, so you got 1 oneshotted and 1 cc'd. About greatsword recovery time iirc i've read that is the same of the 1 handers... Must have got it wrong then :S

I'll probably play on veteran. Plan is to take pallegina as herald, with summon skeletons and its upgrade to create meat shields and myth fir + shared flames as core skills and eder as swashbuckler tank (plus 2 casters, which, if i notice that mage isnt strictly needed, will be xoti and teheku as single class priest/druid),so i didnt want another melee in heavy armor... :S

Besides the Reaping Knives (which make no sense when cast on oneself anyway in my opinion) Rogue + Cipher is actually pretty awesome. That's because you start the game with a +70% dmg bonus and can go to +90% in a few levels. That's pretty cool. Especially Assassin/Soulblade is pretty spectacular if you combine it with Backstab. You can one-shot the first victim out of stealth pretty easily and get a ton of focus for your Soul Annihilation - which usually one-shots the next enemy, then use Smoke Cloud and repeat. Perfect Assassin in my opinion. Detonate works with Assassination by the way. Does the damage of soul annihilation depend only on your focus or does it also depend on your base damage? You said you fight like this: stealth -> backstab -> soul annihilation -> invisibility -> backstab Would it be useful to use soul annihilation from invisibility or is this just overkill and using both things ( backstab and SA ) after another is better? Using SA from invisibility is not really useful because using Assassination + Backstab already kills most enemies and generates a lot of focus for your SA. If you'd use SA from stealth you would also kill the enemy but be left with 0 focus. Alternating between Assassination+Backstab and SA is a lot better. SA's dmg bonus is a flat one that is only calculated based on the focus you have. Weapon base damage is not involved. BUT: SA works like this: you hit the target with the normal attack and do damage (and generate focus for that hit like with any other hit) and then all your focus is converted into raw damage. So it is acutally benefical to use a heavy hitter because then the damage roll is higher, the focus gain from the initial SA-attack is also higher and overall you'll do more damage with the SA strike. Because of this it's also not good to wait for max focus when doing SA. Since it's generating its own focus before dumping the raw damage it's better to execute it with half focus or so. SA + Assassination does more damage than Assassination alone (Assassination will generate a lot of focus which is then immediately dumped into raw damage). But most of the time this is total overkill. Maybe it's a good strategy against bosses though. What's also benefical with SA: Greater Focus. Because you tend to generate too much focus with Assassination (and the focus is overflown and wasted PLUS you'll lose Soul Whip's damage bonus) it's good to have higher MAX focus. Also lets you start combat with more focus which you then can immediately use for SA if you can't stealth (scripted scene or whatever). Sooo after re-reading this comment i pretty much decided i'm going assassin/soul blade cause i love the concept, and i really want to try how assassination plus whisper of treason works out as opening cause it seems amazing on paper. You'd recommend going with a 2 hander for that playstyle then right? Cause from what i'm reading dual wield is better than 2h,but given how assassination and SA work looks like that a 2hander would perform better, not to say that i could use the greatsword modal which should be great, while the 1h modals seem pretty weak, with the exception of the sword maybe? The thing i don't loke about 2h is that all that full attacks skills would be kinda wasted, but i think i'd use basically just confounding blind as rog dps skill (and maybe the bell thingy for the staggered debuff), so maybe it's not a big loss. I'd go with max percepiton and high might/dex and a slight dump in resolve, wearing light/no armor. Do you think it's doable, relying on smoke veil/invisibilty potion to survive and assassinate or that would be too squishy?

Meh, that doesnt seem very useful then, thanks for the answer!

Does cipher "psychic backlash" can still trigger just once per combat? From the wiki it seems they removed the limit, did they?

Not really an expert but the last one is pretty straightforward... Paladin. They have both good offense and defense, you can multiclass with a wizard for self buffs and to be a magic user like you wanted

Well, being forced to get an ability you dont want is indeed a waste. For the first 3 level i wanted to pick backstab, dw style, swift strike and force of anguish and then start picking tier 2 abilities, so i necessarely have to skip one if those if i must pick escape or crippling strike... Well i guess i'll just live with it or cheat it around Edit: just realized that weapon styles are tier 2 abilities... Oh man tier 2 is pretty much crowded with useful abilities...

Mmm even on multiclass? Cause i wanted to start with a rogue/monk picking backstab from rogue and Swift strike from monk, so it would be a pity to waste a precious and rare abilty point on a rogue active i dont want... Can we respec with ingame mechanics or we have to use cheats? Btw do you know if we can keep abilty points on level up or are we forced to use them?

Hey guys, sorry if it looks like a captain obvious question but i still didnt get how abilty gain exactly works... From the videos i have seen from the beta looks like basically every single "skill" (be it a chant/invocation/weapon style/passive class abilty/an abilty upgrade/whatever) needs an abilty point to be learned and you only get 1 point per level and 1 extra point when reaching a new power level... And you can choose between any skills of the power level tiers you have unlocked right? Thought i got how it worked but got confused by a character creation video i've just seen... Where someone create a rogue but he can just choose between "Escape" and "crippling strike" but he had no option to choose defensive roll or backstab, that should be tier 1 rogue abilities aswell, am i missing something then?

Alright, guess it's not worth to assassinate with a 2h and then switching to dual wield then... Thanks again man!

Thanks for the answer! Now i really cant decide between cipher, monk or wizard for my second class :S What about weapon switching though? So you know exactly how it works kind sir?

Wouldn't an assassin /cipher be too much a glass cannon though? I'm trying to figure out how to build an assassin that wouldn't get oneshotted after the first attack from stealth (oh btw can anyone tell me what's exactly the bonus you get from the assassin class? ) but i'm still not convinced(multiclassing with a soulblade was one of the first choice cause i really love the concept aswell, but it looks way too fragile, at least on paper). From what i'm seeing from the wiki, the best bet is the wizard, since there are quite a bit of defensive spells (even though the offensive buffs seems a bit underwhelimg...with the exception of citzal martial power near the level cap) The shattered pillars looks quite cool aswell, since if i'm not getting it wrong you should be able to pop a blade turning just after the assassination (and you'd get other cool monk skills amd synergies) , but you'd still get ganked by casters i guess? I know that maybe the paladin would be the best bet to add sturdyness but it looks so boring (same with fighter) to me, and i dont like the dialogues restrictions... Oh btw while i'm at it... How long does it take to switch weapon sets? Cause looks like the best weapon to use from stealth is a big 2 hander, but then all the rogue skills are full attacks, that should be far superior if used while dual wielding, so i was thinking about going with 2 weapon sets, but dont know if it's worth switching right after the assassination. Thanks in advance for the answers :S

They already nerfed the assassin didnt they?

Does anyone know if it is possible to add subclasses to companions via console commands?

Quite sure it wont be possible by ingame mechanics. But it should doable via console commands? Btw does anyone know if it is possibile to add a subclass to companion via console commands?

Well, i'm still not sure about how much a power level affect a character, but, as a d&d veteran, multiclass looks like a no brainer choice to me. I mean, in bg2 or icewind dale, the difference between a multiclass or a singleclass is huge (let's say you are a cleric/wizard, at lv 20 you'd just get level five spells, compared to poe2 level 7 spells). And beside that, level 9 spells were actually gamebreaking in d&d universe so you'd suffer a lot by not having them, while in poe 1 high level spells were a bit underwhelming iirc, so i would not expect lv 9 spells to be that powerful this time aswell, though it's only speculation for now obviously. Personally i think i'm going multiclass for everyone except the (2) casters, since i want higher lv spells earlier anyway.

Mmm streetfighter? It doesnt seem appealing to me. Or am i missing something? If you get flanked or bloodied doesnt it mean you are doing something wrong?

Mmm but trickster would lose a lot damage doesnt it? What about assassin/basic wizard? I was looking a bit of spells on the wiki (dunno if it is updated) and looks like they synergize well with assassin (btw does the assassin bonus work on stealth only, or with invisibility aswell?). Lots of deflection bonuses from illusion spells (thst should allow melee in light armor) , more status that triggers sneak attack, plus aoe from spells that should compensate the single target only rogue dps... That doesnt seem bad, at least on paper

I dont have much knowledge of wizard spells... Would an illusionist/rogue be able to be a melee dps without being too much a glass cannon? Are there enough defensive spells to keep him alive without problems? I was thinking about going illusionist/assassin with a focus on self buffs and dual wielding. Is that doable or nit worthy/too squishy?

After getting tyranny on day 1 i promised myself i wouldn't do it anymore... Ever

But it involves meta knowledge to be able to recruit the companions right off the bat in BG2. So when you have meta knowledge of Deadfire, I'm sure you will be able to do lots of things in "optimal order", just as you can in for example BG2. Hope so, i remember that in poe, the first time i played it, i decided i wanted to ger pallegina as soon as possible, but still it took a lot.

I didnt say you can get all of them in 30 minutes. I just said they are available to recruit right away (even for mazzy and valygar you get the quest in atkathla and then you can immediately go recruit them). The point was not the time you need in bg2 btw, it was just to say that is not true that for the standard of these kind of games you have to wait one third of the game lenght...

Later than most modern RPGs? Yes. Later than the games POE models itself after? Not at all. What? In bg2, imoen aside you can get the vast majority of the companion as soon as you step in atkathla... That's.. 30 minutes?

Well, from what we have seem so far ship combat looks like a snooze fest, so i'm glad we can skip it