GuyNice

Companions are useless and weak in general, also in team play. The bring nothing apart from free Flanked on enemy, which Cipher can do with Level II spell for whole screen... And on PotD pet won't tank much unless you have some priest or paladin baby sitting it. And rnemy AI resetting due to invisibility is not an exploit, it's how the game mechanic works. Blame Obsidian for it. As for reload, i would just have to use hit-n-run tactic with smoke veil and wouldn't have any problem with solo run. Not to mention Spearcaster with Skerwer. If you want I can do rerun of this area for you without reload trick- it will be longer but I will have no problem soloing it. It's how the game works because the game was explicitly not designed based on solo play. Using a loophole that is clearly overperforming in a scenario the developers did not design around, then trying to compare it to something that doesn't overperform in that specific scenario, is a bad basis for comparison. Try comparing them without using combat reset mechanics or the reload glitch and get back to me. That said, I wholly agree that animal companions are very lackluster, they are terrible without talent investment, and investing in them is not worth the opportunity cost, since investing in your own character gives much better returns. The only passives I consider worth it are the +armor and +penetration talents, due to how those systems work in this game. And by the way bears with Resilient Companion make for very decent offtanks in PotD (with difficulty mod), in a full party. But that's not saying much unfortunately.

While I would like to see animal companions buffed, balancing them around solo play is not the way to go. Also it's not really fair to compare your performance with a build to the one you were using that exploits the fast reload glitch and enemy AI resetting due to invisibility. Without those crutches, that build would struggle to solo an encounter like that at level 8.

I went Chanter/Ranger with bear pet, with resilient companion and some party wide buffs (exalted endurance, ancient memory) he stays alive fine. He doesn't do too much damage but he fits the theme (lots of creatures fighting for you with lots of party buffs). I did take vicious companion as his damage is really too sad to watch without penetration. With Pallegina as Herald we are 2 kiths commanding an army. The other party members can sit back and watch if they want a break

Been playing with this for a while, including your 1-hand weapons rebalance, and you really brought the fun back to the game for me, at least until we see what Obsidian can do in the next patch. Thank you for making this.

I feel like the issue with animal companions is they have very low base damage and action speed. Due to how they scale, their talents can't really buff their damage too high, since all the bonuses are additive. In my Ranger/Chanter playthrough, even with double fire lashes from chanter and Paladin, the attack rate is way too slow for the companion to contribute anything meaningful. That said, bears with Resilient Companion make for decent off tanks, with some party support their armor and hp pool goes a long way. For my money they are not much more than a distraction to the enemy, a far cry from their glory days in the first game.

Sounds like Fury attacks are bugged, they should be scaling every 5 levels (not PL) like other spirit forms.

Any news about this issue? Are you expecting to have it fixed in the next patch? Will a potential fix be retroactive, or should I consider my saves lost? Some more feedback would be appreciated.

Yeah I like the idea so if we finished one companion's personal quest, we shall be able to use his/her subclasses next playthrough, or maybe with the help of Berath's Blessing. I also hope we can choose Steel Garrote paladin and Wodica priest in the incoming DLCs. You can do that already with mods, and mod support is part of the game's features. So I would say this should be a low priority. More (sub)classes would be nice as part of a DLC, however. @evilcat I like your list, I can agree with almost everything you wrote. However about Ranger animal companions, I found that the issue is less their durability and more their damage/utility. My main is a Ranger/Chanter with a bear companion and he is very tanky and rarely goes down (despite low defenses). I also regularly use Maia and Ishiza doesn't really die much either. They both have Resilient Companion (+2 armor). Their damage is pitiful though, mainly due to their long recovery time. This also means Takedown can't really be used reactively, as it takes too long to activate. Their base damage and attack speed are so low, it's a waste to invest in any damage talents, as literally any pet talent besides Resilient Companion and Protective Companion (a prerequisite for Stalker's Link) is better spent on the Ranger him/herself. (Sorry for going a bit off topic)

Hi, I have the same issue. My last 5 saves won't load. I tried verifying files on Steam, didn't work. I am able to load a 20-hour old save. Here is a link to the saves that won't load: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/badskfbo7yp75b0/AABSMM7vcCYIe6taKpWWmN8Oa?dl=0 Hope to see a fix soon. Until then I'm going to shelf the game. Edit: Attached output_log.txt and DxDiag.txt

Yeah not to mention Modwyr can be had fairly early to negate Confused. And until then Xoti can autocast Suppress Affliction on your barb every battle. Berserkers are busted.

It's fairly easy to spot the extremely blatantly broken OP stuff. So you can just ignore them. With the recently released difficulty mod the game is a lot of fun already. And this is coming from someone who was turned off by the lack of difficulty initially.

Wow, absolutely furious? You must get a heart attack whenever you leave the house. Talk about first world problems.

You can add it with console using GiveItem MISC_Fragments_Blade_of_the_Endless_Paths command. You can then use the Unity Console mod to re-enable achievements if that's important to you. Annoying that it's bugged but at least there's a workaround.

For me it is a vast improvement over the last game. Playing on SSD the loading times are quite reasonable. However performance in some areas should still be improved, there are some noticeable frame rate drops (my PC is over the recommended specs). And there must still be a memory leak, as performance degrades over time. But for me it's not a huge issue, I just restart the game after an hour or 2. The game is so good I'm willing to forgive a lot. Especially since mods have started to fix some of my biggest pet peeves (mainly difficulty).

Tested the new version, works as advertised. Thank you so much!

I installed the mod and had new guns drop with Blunted Criticals, so something isn't working as intended.

Also valid. Combat is slower in POE 2. I still think a 4 or 6 second cast time for a single target buff is kind of bleh It's also a tier 1 inspiration and nothing else. Compared to something like Valorous Echoes which takes 4.5s (cast+recovery) and gives Insightful and Strong, at level 1, for just 10 focus. The increased duration on the Priest inspirations just isn't meaningful enough. IMO they should have lower cast time AND be tier 2 inspirations, at least.

Thanks for the very detailed explanation! Now I understand why I still see some enemies lower level than I am. Anyway your mod has definitely made things a bit more challenging and enjoyable while we wait for the official PotD tuning. It's greatly appreciated.

I started a new PotD playthrough with upscaling only 'all' enabled and your mod installed. I'm not sure if it's working correctly since I have been encountering enemies with lower level than my party already (party level is 6 currently). Last example is the Steel Garrote temple (southwest of Neketaka), Xaurips and those bloated corpse enemies were receiving less accuracy/deflection from level than my party was (checked attack resolution in combat log).

Can you share your method/files for increasing PotD health? I found the other mods for increased difficulty but not that one. It's in the global.gamedatabundle search for "pathofthedamned" it will take you to the difficulty settings. It allows you to change HP and damage at each difficulty level. The AI already hits really hard, and has massive accuracy/deflection advantages with the mods I'm running, so I just boosted HP and not damage! what value you suggest to put in HP? 2 or more? I edited this in my game to 1.5 but I don't think it's working. Maybe it's just for ships (I didn't test extensively). Enemies I fought were just as easy as before.

Yeah that Priest's single target inspiration spells are kinda trash. Hope that gets looked at.

Can you share your method/files for increasing PotD health? I found the other mods for increased difficulty but not that one.

I noticed on my Wildrhymer (Ranger/Troubadour) that Marked Prey gives accuracy to offensive invocations (and spells in general). So that's another +10 that stacks. Haven't tested Stalker's Link yet (only level 6 in this playthrough) but if that stacks too I would be set from level 10 onwards. I have pretty high Perception (18 or so with items) so I've been finding offensive invocations pretty reliable with just Zealous Aura and a Perception inspiration from Serafen or Xoti. I just target the lowest defense and debuff with some Druid spells from Tekehu. Consumables aren't necessary. If the enemy defenses are still too high for some reason I toss some skeletons at them. TL;DR Ranger and high Perception helps.

I'm also interested in this feature. It's really silly how crits do less damage than hits with blunted criticals since they changed the damage formula for deadfire. For now I'm using the unity console mod to remove it manually, but it's a bit of a hassle since I don't want to have it running all the time (I think it impacts performance), so if I find a gun I want to use I have to restart the game, remove blunted criticals from the gun, and restart the game again.

Skald also works off of melee crits, so that wouldn't work with pistols regardless. Troubador is excellent however. And yeah, that bug is really annoying and has foiled several build plans I've had. Especially when you consider the pirate theme of the game.