Sanctuary

Not that it was ever needed prior to this (but it was always available), does this mean now that people will just be abusing empower > rest after every few fights? If so, is that really the "challenge" people were asking for? Taking a difficulty that was so trivial after level 8 that empower > resting was just pure cheese, to now feeling like they might want to use it? In the end, you would end up with about the same difficulty you had before when not abusing that system. Unless they do something about the resting mechanic, it doesn't really matter how many enemies they throw at the screen, and they aren't going to raise the stats so high that you miss more often than not either.

Like the one unique hunting bow that's located on the other side of the map and has +crush damage as its gimmick? Or the war bow that requires Survival and Religion to work? Veilpiercer looks good, but it's endgame so there won't be enough time to use it. I'm rate salty about the lack of bows in this game, if it wasn't apparent. You could literally get this at level 8 on the prior PotD. With the balance changes, you can still probably get it at level 8 on Veteran and 10 - 12 on PotD.

I honestly don't know why it wasn't there from the start, but this is great news.

It really isn't. The Vaporous Grimoire is generally the best for 90% of the game thanks to the extra casts. Concussive Missiles is better than Shadow Flame too, unless you're playing on the lower difficulties.

Except that this is only true if you were going to bother spending points on those spells in the first place. Many of the spells are either redundant, or simply not worth casting over something else right now, so you aren't actually saving anything. The missile spells already hit more than a single enemy, and they scale better than any of the other spells too. It's also better to outright kill an enemy than it is having 3-5 that are half dead roaming around (which happens aside from empower cheese). About the only time I could ever see it being worth switching grimoires over simply keeping the Vaporous 100% of the time is if you've already used up some of the bonus casts that it gives you from a specific tier, but not from another and you really need a specific spell. I've yet to encounter any sceneario where this happens though. I guess we'll see how things look though after the supposed balance adjustments.

Mine only has 13, but it was just because I already maxed out Might, Dexterity and Perception, and there wasn't anything else worth raising. Primarily for buff durations, and that's it. Most of the AoE spells are not worth using aside from Chill Fog until very late game--especially if you're soloing--and you can't even use that as an Evoker. Might, Dexterity and Perception are all way more important.

Unfortunately that's a sloppy bandaid for the game not being able to recognize that you have any given buff on in the first place. It also only works well with buffs that already have low durations. Once you start factoring in spells that last 45s - 80s, it starts falling apart.

You must be confusing playing a game in the late 90s on a 90s PC and playing a 90s styled game with a modern PC as being the same. It's not. There's absolutely no reason why there should be so many loading screens, especially because of how long they take. I just want to exit a building and go to another zone, but instead I have to go up some stairs, through a loading screen, then exit the building through another loading screen, then finally I am able to wait while my characters walk across the map to the nearest egress point, so that I can load up another loading screen. What's not reasonable is having a modern game on a modern system running like it's two decades old. The EE Baldur's gate games have plenty of loading screens too. But they are all fast, so it's not an issue.

Rogues definitely are not better at anything other than the initial opening attack. Otherwise, once the fighting has ensued, their overall contribution significantly drops, despite still being able to do more damage with a single attack than most any other class. They still spend too much time moving around the field to get into the correct position, and they also have to essentially dump all of their points into restealthing. Fighters and Monks are two of the best base classes to multiclass with too. Chanters are another class that fit well with multiclassing. In fact, I would actually say they probably fit with just about every class combination. They are also one of the few classes that has very little trouble soloing the game. I wouldn't say they do everything "better" than the other options though, but they are essentially the jack-of-all-trades class of the game.

I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment here, but I had to address these two points, since they essentially contradict each other. You complain about offensive spells not being so hot due to the chance to miss, yet then say the resting/empower system is broken because people can simply open every fight with a huge, empowered spell. Well, why would they if they are likely going to miss? Here's the rub with your argument though: everyone needs a high perecption for offense, not just casters. Regardless, the main issue with casters in this game, particularly Wizards is that without one particular Grimoire, their actual offense is lacking through half of the game. Grimoire's were supposed to be "key" to playing a Wizard supposedly, because they allowed you to swap them around during combat for more options, yet ultimately very few of the offensive spells are actually all that useful due to the encounter design (a very select few are the obvious choices every single fight), so sheer quantity trumps variety here. But "Oh, you can just use an empower point, replenish your casts and then rest after each fight!". Well yes, you can, and playing that way makes for a much worse experience too. But hey, the option is there. Buffs are great, offensive spells are not too bad, but as I said, you already are going to know what the best ones are, and there aren't that many. What is truly lacking is any form of legitimate crowd control. The game offers you plenty of CC spells to choose from, yet the majority of them are never worth casting because either they take too long to cast, the duration is too short, the radius is too small, or the risk of missing puts you in a worse situation than either buffing, or doing less damage with an offensive spell. And CC misses a whole hell of a lot in this game, regardless of your perception. Anyway, I just about finished my current PotD playthrough with an Evoker, and do you know what offensive spells I used? 85% of my casts were from the second and third tier missile spells, every single fight, with the other 15% being between Chain Lightning and the first missile spell. Most every other offensive spell is garbage, or requires you to stealth > launch every encounter, because they aren't worth using once everyone has engaged. edit: What is up with the formatting on these boards? Every time I compose something, the forum smooshes it all together and I have to edit for paragraphs every damn time, despite already having done it with my initial post.

I picked the default Ranger, but if I had to do it again, I think I would just use Ghost Hearted since the pet contributed nothing appreciable damage wise (I was using the bear, thinking it could take more than two hits, but it was worthless for longevity), and having to constantly worry about it dying and getting Bonded Grief, sucked. Also, I thought that I'd be able to make good use of the Knockdown combo to get +100% damage on attacks, but I don't believe I got it to work more than a single time. Bear couldn't prone jack. For Barbarian, it was just the standard. The main reason I took it was because: 1. 20% haste for most, if not all of any given fight and I didn't want to use the typical Monk/Ranger build, since that's already well established to be broken. 2. I didn't get any benefit from Carnage, but I did get to put Barbaric Smash to good use. It also synergized very well with the overpowered weapon I was using. Frostcaller. Plus, once I unlocked Driving Flight, it just got stupid. 3. Aside from the above two, it was all about the passives. Blood Thirst, Bloodlust, Bloody Slaughter, Wilder Hunter. Seeing how your MC so far is the only other one in here with 100k+ damage besides mine, it seems Barbarians aren't doing so bad as main damage dealers. Surprising that it even makes sense for ranged combat, but of course the passives you listed will always be useful. Other than the obvious benefit from the haste (the raw damage later on was extra icing on top too), landing crits were vital for this build, since the weapon procced more shots from them. Barbarian was the only class other than Fighter (Devoted/Disciplined Strikes) that would have ensured I landed them more often than not, especially early on thanks to the +30% crit chance from Smash. I was initially thinking about Assassin/Ranger, but the weapon is not good at all for backstab attacks. It fires off three projectiles, but once the very first hit happens, you're considered removed from stealth and the other two arrows gain no benefit. Ironically, for a long time, I had my custom AI screwed up with Wounding Shot, and whenever I wasn't controlling my character, he would just spam it until he had no bond left after the initial application of Marked for the Hunt. Typically on the same target that already had it.

I picked the default Ranger, but if I had to do it again, I think I would just use Ghost Hearted since the pet contributed nothing appreciable damage wise (I was using the bear, thinking it could take more than two hits, but it was worthless for longevity), and having to constantly worry about it dying and getting Bonded Grief, sucked. Also, I thought that I'd be able to make good use of the Knockdown combo to get +100% damage on attacks, but I don't believe I got it to work more than a single time. Bear couldn't prone jack. For Barbarian, it was just the standard. The main reason I took it was because: 1. 20% haste for most, if not all of any given fight and I didn't want to use the typical Monk/Ranger build, since that's already well established to be broken. 2. I didn't get any benefit from Carnage, but I did get to put Barbaric Smash to good use. It also synergized very well with the overpowered weapon I was using. Frostseeker. I actually restarted my first playthrough at level 11 once I found this weapon, and decided to build a character soley around it. Plus, once I unlocked Driving Flight, it just got stupid. 3. Aside from the above two, it was all about the passives. Blood Thirst, Bloodlust, Bloody Slaughter, Wilder Hunter. The next build I want to do (if not for the PC, then for a custom) is a ranged Assassin/Monk, or potentially Assassin/Barbarian, but I haven't found any truly good weapons yet that are good for high damage stealth shots other than the Arcane based Arbalest, and it's rather slow for reloading. I think possibly Veilpiercer would work though. It's relatively fast, and if I crit (which I should with the Assassin bonus), I will instantly attack again, so I'd basically be doing 2.55x damage. from stealth. Only problem is that I'd have to wait kind of long to access it, so I'd need something else in the meantime. edit: 25% haste.

My first playthrough on Veteran: Aloth: 78,609 - Would have been higher if I had just been relegating him to three spells for 90% of the playthrough like my current Evoker. I don't bother with Empower cheese either. Serafen: 54, 776 as a Witch. He would have done better as a full Barbarian I think, or at least never bothering to cast any Cipher skills, which would have just meant that half was only for the whip bonus. Pallegina: 23,593 Xoti: 10,777 Also, the Records log doesn't really tell the entire story either since it counts overkill damage. It only shows how much each character did in the combat log, but it doesn't show how much they contributed to killing an enemy. An enemy with only a single hit point left that's hit for 90+ still only had one hit point removed.

I didn't realize how much of an absolute beast Tekehu was. Didn't use him on my first playthrough, but I've been using him as a pure Druid on PotD (I think Druid/Chanter would be better late game, but for most of the game, having that early foe only Chill Fog and other water/ice spells is almost game breaking). I would actually say that he's better than Aloth until Aloth hits around level 10, and only if you also give him the Vaporous grimoire. If nothing else, I'd say that they are about tied. For Serafen, I went Barbarian/Cipher as well, and it was overall mediocre. The Cipher spells don't have the power to work that well for manipulation (Ringleader is OK) on Veteran+, and nowhere near enough for damage, and the most benefit mine got was the 20% bonus from the whip. If I were to use him again, I would conole (or Unity) his stats and play him as a pure Cipher. After a few restarts, I finally finished with Pallegina as my "tank", as a Fighter/Paladin and the only thing she really brought that Eder didn't get was the aura, and a rez that I ended up using once for a freaking pet. I figured that the Swashbuckler Eder would trump her, but I prefered keeping him with a shield, instead of going the damage route. Turns out, you don't really need it in PotD either.

Exactly. It also makes any secondary, non multiclass Wizard feel less useful, unless you have them more of a melee character, or someone you only use to time an alpha strike with at the beginning.

No Meteor and Salvo. Dumped. So at level 19, you don't get "the most powerful" spell in the game? Gotta wonder what some of your priorities are. When I finsihed my first playthrough, I had just hit level 19 with the majority of the quests I had picked up along the way finsihed, aside from a few of the task bounties. Hurray, I got to play "the most powerful class in the game" for thirty minutes. Had I decided to reload a previous save and mop up all of the quests that I had left, or had yet to find, so what? It wouldn't have made a difference. There's more than level 19 in this game, which is at the point where it's essentially over. Even if you had four or five hours of content left to do, it still doesn't matter. Everyone will be level 19 - 20, and everyone will already be higher level than everything else until they fix the scaling. If there's going to be DLC released similar in size to the previous game, it might make a difference there, but then they also might raise the level cap too again.

I feel like Grimoire's are really just a trap. Or at least, they are when you factor in the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry. To do much of anything up until you have at least four spell tiers unlocked (so up to eight spells per encounter, but that's including self buffs that are mandatory), you have to choose between having "more options", but limited casts, or +1 cast per spell tier. I don't see there being a reasonable choice, especially when there are still only a select few spells that are good per tier for the longest time. You shouldn't actually run into an issue of not being able to cherry pick all of the best spells, because there aren't that many per tier. Even after you get the grimoires that have unique spells in them, they still aren't worth using (to me) over just spamming the missile group of spells as your primary damage dealers. Yeah, yeah, you can cheese the hell out of the game and make it easier than it already is by using Empower points every fight and then resting each time, but none of the other classes need to actually do that to matter for the duration of any given fight.

It's still inferior to dual-wielding after the first attack thanks to the recovery time. Also, Full Attacks don't get the Backstab bonus with the off hand, but they do get the Assassinate and Sneak Attack bonuses. edit: I suppose you could always just open up with a two-handed attack and then weapon switch, but you also end up giving up a ranged item unless you grab the extra arms slot. I'm also not sure how much of a delay there is between attacks when weapon switching in melee.

If you only want them to be used once you can set them to "Always true" then use a long timer like 5 minutes on the reset. I just have all of mine set to Always True, but I also set the cooldowns to the particular duration of that character if they are buffs I will want permanently active. For trash fights where I'm steamrolling and I bounce from fight to fight before the cooldown is up, it honestly doesn't matter. For any of the "real" battles though, it works as I need it to. I just tested the 999 limit too, and it does act as a global timer, not just a per encounter one. Although, 999 should be sixteen minutes, and I'm not sure if it will lock out abilities for that long (*I was at the three and a half minute mark before moving into the next area). It also seems to only count for the currently loaded area you are in. If you make a transition, it seems to reset.

That was actually my first Assassin combination, and yes, it does do well for the initial burst damage, especially if you need to open up from range. The other three are for higher difficulties/longer fights. Thing about the Soul Blade variant is, that although it's taken primarily for Soul Annihilation, you could eventually open up with an Assassination attack that gives you enough focus to cast Ringleader right after.

Assassinate was nerfed to +50% crit damage. I also thought they went back to Might being additive too. It's still a strong build for Backstabs, but a Shattered Pillar/Assassin is probably stronger overall, similarly with the aforementioned Soul Blade/Assassin; neither of which locks you into one weapon either.

What exactly would you use that condition for? It's already handled by the Self:Enemies conditional and Greatest Number of Enemies or Allies priority. Just using greatest number of enemies won't prevent your character from using a skill on a single target if the enemies aren't grouped up. With target: allies in melee range > 0 or Target: allies in melee range > 1, you have a bit more control over when the ability will activate. I haven't really run into an issue yet of the spells that I will let the script cast that can hit multiple enemies don't. Most of the non friendly fire skills that I'll be using, I will use regardless for the damage bonuses. Crowd Control spells typically want player precision, and the same goes for non foe specific area of effect spells and skills. If nothing else, I suppose it wouldn't hurt cloning all of the AoE spells and skills that I am always using to also use the Allies in Melee Range > 0 conditional, with it first, and then the version without it below it. That way, it should check to see if there are any groups of at least two enemies before casting and go for that first, but if there's not, then it will fire at the next best target. Does anyone know what "Best current threat" means? Threat to who: the character using the script, or threat in general on the field?

What exactly would you use that condition for? It's already handled by the Self:Enemies conditional and Greatest Number of Enemies or Allies priority.

You get the accuracy bonus from Assassinate. Although I'm not sure if +25 Accuracy on up to four spells (if you start the fight casting one from stealth) justifies multiclassing just for that. Single class Wizards are far better nuking than anything else other than a Fury/Wizard. Primarily due to number of casts and power level. Helwalker/Wizard has a lot of potential, but it's ridiculously fragile.

WIth Blessings of Bereth you can start with main char wizard at level 4, extra gold,+2 all stats and vendor that sells gloves with +2 power level to evocation spells in Port Maje. Mix that with Infuse with Vital Essence Nature Godlike for another +2 power levels and you are probably highest damage dealer at level 4. Chillfog ticking for 37 damage in big aoe that also blinds? I would understand if you called that imbalanced but weak or worst? Nah, you just haven't found enough game breaking **** that make wizard strong. I just hinted you one above. I'm sure there are more. So now those blessings, and race are exclusive to the Wizard? Also, not only have I already mentioned empower, I mentioned Chill Fog. Twice now, and you can't use it every fight. Not every enemy is going to bunch up and stand perfectly still for you, especially early on when you're using a tank that can only hold three enemies at most. Ranged enemies generally don't bunch up with melee either, so you're either hitting melee, or you're hitting ranged, but not both. It also makes using any class that has a flanking bonus way more obnoxious to micromanage than they need to be if the blind gets resisted, because either they won't be getting their damage bonus, or you risk blinding/damaging them as well. Are you telling me that for every fight, if there's any kind of corner or choke point, you try to draw the attention of ALL of the enemies, and then run them all the way back to that point (if they all happen to aggro, since often when you do that half of them don't move) just to make good use of Chill Fog (and then later Fireball)? If so, you're going out of your way to set up a scenario that puts the Wizard in a way better light than what actually shines on them right now. For the time it takes to do that, you could have already killed at least half of the enemies or more through other means. Things start looking different if you're talking about stacking multiple Wizards, but the same is true for a few other classes too, especially stuff like a Black Jacket/Ascendant or Devoted/Soul Blade, or how about 2x - 3x Barbarians? BTW, those gloves don't affect all spells, only Evocations. Chill Fog is a Transmutation. The gloves slightly boost the damage output early on with Fan of Flames (should you bother using it) and Missile, but inconsequentially so. The best thing about them is the accuracy boost. Edit: Is the difficulty level of the game even being considered here? Despite it still not being very challenging, enemy health pools scale up a little more on Veteran and then PotD don't they? I'm playing solo so I'm not having muchos problemos with wizard friendly fire. You points are valid but they state only that wizards don't work as good in melee centric comps so its more composition related issue than wizard itself. Anyway I don't dig your argument about how bad it for wizard vs other means because he's not equally autopilot class and can't just derp in half of his arsenal like other classes. I'm roleplaying this game to a bigger degree I suppose so I don't mind doing clever even if time consuming things while playing a wizard to make him shine. About your issue with mobs placement, go and experiment with Pull of Eora, its insane in deadfire. I'm not saying those gloves are best item but they truly made my early game a breeze paired with nature godlike, I just put Infuse with Vital Essence, drop Ray of Fire on some stationary target (archer, caster), kite a bit back and drop chillfog between him and me so melees get blinded and get damage by both chillfog and ray, it sounds complicated by seriously the damage with 4 more power levels early on just makes things die super fast. Later once you get to Nekataka you can steal/buy grimoire of vaporous wizardry that give damage from spells an interrupt effect and it also gives you more spell uses per encounter. At level 10 now I can use 3x (level 1 -4) 2x (level 5) and got 3 empowers, you can easily abuse Withdraw scrolls to reset many encounters if you run out of juice but I haven't so far. I honestly don't know how can you say wizards are bad, maybe they don't fit your playstyle cause you like to autopilot on AI more or they just don't compliment your party composition and that would be fair to say but to say they are bad, I respectfully disagree on that bit. Even if you want more autopilot wizard you can build one that is focused on quick cast no recovery selfbuffs that buff up in blink of an eye with veil + infuse + spell reflect and then cast citzal lance + martial power and go ham in melee alongside with your regular barbarians, devoted cleavers etc Not sure why you're touching upon party composition while playing solo. I already know too that playing 4 ranged + one tank (or maybe even just five Wizards) would be better suited for going nuts with AoE, but how many people normally set up their party like that on a first playthrough? And while the game offers enough companions that allows you to play primarily ranged, their stats aren't particularly well optimized for the class options given. Also, not every encounter needs to be some "master of tactics", epicly drawn out scenario, and autopiloting it doesn't make you less of a player, especially if it's just a bunch of trash that plays out like every other encounter. It makes you efficient with your time in the game. Spending three minutes to do what can be done in one doesn't mean you're magically more skilled. For the record though, not that I actually need to justify anything, I don't autopilot anything, other than the very first buff that they always get in combat, until my group stumbles upon areas that they've grossly outleveled (even with the "working" leveling scaling on). Another thing is that the damage summary per character in this game counts overkill damage, and it also counts damage dealt to breakable objects. So looking at your summary, and seeing that maybe your Wizard seems to have a higher contribution of damage dealt doesn't really tell the whole story. It shows how much damage the combat log recorded the caster doing throughout the game, but it doesn't say at what point in the fight, nor how much of it actually mattered. The EE BG games have this same issue too. Unless you're starting fights from stealth and launching a big nuke, or as I said, pulling groups to chokes (or using something like Firewall, Malignant Cloud or Wall of Force on a protracted fight with a lot of enemies), you could have very well been bursting down enemies with AoE spells that were already so low in health by the time the spell landed that much of it was completely squandered. The combat log doesn't care about that though. It only records the calculation results. It's not just an exclusive issue with the Wizard though. I find it a bit puzzling too how some of you are acting as though the class isn't particularly weak right now (or actually believe the balance is very skewed, in favor of the class), because of the "end game" spells, when at least my argument has been this entire time the transition from zero to hero. It's not linear at all. Are you suggesting that Wilting Wind (level 16) or Meteor Shower (level 19) somehow justifies the slog it was to reach that point? Most other, not purely healing or support classes will be powerhouses by those same levels too, and they would have been generally more useful up until then as well. With how few casts you have (yes, the Vaporous book helps, but it's like everything else with the class. Much better as you gain new spell tiers. It also kind of locks you into a single Grimoire), the class really isn't very good as I said already, until around level 7. That is the point in which they actually start making a definite contribution, but they still aren't really doing that much. Once the balance pass finally happens months from now, this issue with be even more exacerbated on Veteran and (especially) PotD. It really does seem like Empower/rest cheese was how they tuned this class too. Even with a high DEX, many of the crowd control spells are still too slow, and they also don't really have effects that justify casting in the first place over simply nuking. Especially if they get resisted. Until Death Ring, most of the AoE spells (other than the already established Chill Fog) don't do nearly enough damage to justify casting without having more than a single Wizard doing it either because of the friendly fire. If you raise your INT high enough for the safe zone to be large enough for groups that have more than a tank for melee, you're going to suffer in other areas. You need max MGT probably more than any other class, max, or at least very high DEX and max, or at least a very high PER. Both Wizards and non Soul Blade Ciphers have really stringent requirements. I've been using Aloth for my first completion run (after about a week of experimentation and restarts), and he already starts with a high INT and relatively high DEX. Right now, mine has 18 INT and 18 DEX, and but you know what? That INT isn't justified at all. The diameter of the spells is still way too low to hit more than three enemies that are engaged with the tank the majority of the time due to how spread out the enemies are in most fights. The "contribution" (even couinting overkill history) of my Aloth was pretty bad for the longest time. Until I just gave up bothering with anything other than the missile spells. They scale very well, and they have high single target burst damage. But if that's all I'm using the majority of the time, why not play another Ranger, Black Jacket, or Ranged Assassin? My own character is a Ranger/Barbarian, and as of level 13, the summary shows 59,823 damage dealt. Meanwhile, Aloth has done 26,314 (the ratio was even worse until I just started focusing on missiles). Having a bunch of enemies that get a third of their health removed all at once is not better than bursting single targets down, especially priority targets. Would a hired Adventurer do better? Potentially, but then I'd also have a much better party composition than what is allowed with the companions. Lastly, as it has been mentioned by more than a single person, BG Wizards were not nearly this weak starting out. That includes the early levels in the first game. It wasn't level 5 where they became good, it was level 1 with Sleep. Which was borderline overpowered for the early trash. Nuking didn't get good until Fireball at level 5, but they were far from useless for group contribution prior to that point. Also, you could grab the Ring of Wizardry at level 1.