Elric Galad

Another idea would simply to change the "level design". If there were more areas with limited or no resting (like act 4), or Quests limited in time (like in PnP) vancian casters would be more limited. You'll still appreciate having a few ones, but you'll need other characters. Time limit for quest could even be a mode like expert mode that could be removed for more casual gaming. Limited rest could be an issue for health too. But if food restored a bit of health, that could solve the problem.

Confident Aim bug should be the top priority. For game balance, well... Maybe a slight level 7 druid rebalance ? Remove the useless black oozes from call of the Primordials would be just enough, add maybe add 5-10s to Weather the Storm duration ? But maybe balance patches are over, and I think it was very satisfying overall. So just fight the bugs !

I'm in favor of an option for PoE that would replace the current 4 per rest cast (+1 per encounter mastery) by : - 1 per encounter - +1 at high level when you currently access mastery So caster would not totally be OP during boss fights. And I would totally remove any per rest abilities from non-casters as well. People don't like it. Obsidian noticed it. There was almost zero per rest abilities introduced in WM I&II... (exactly 1 : pet revive, and sworn ennemy and Heart of fury were even turned to per encounter). I developped this idea a lot on this thread : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/88307-class-balance-and-class-system-review-for-poe-2/page-2 (sorry to summon this from the realm of forgotten dead threads) I also noticed from reading all the threads about this topic that there is close to no consensus on the matter. That's why I think an option would certainly be the best solution to make everyone happy.

But how you know which ones stack? to me bonus from dex is exactly same thing OK, let's be a little more helpful than my previous sarcastic post. I you really want to get in this attack speed stuff, the best source of information apart the dev themselves (or maybe including the dev themselves) is following thread : https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86684-mechanics-the-big-attack-speed-conundrum/ If you manage to fully understand all this, you'll win your powergamer degree.

Most of the class system shall be Adragan-gazed. The lore and tone are excellent too. And WM was even better than the original game for this.

By sacrifying a part of precious lifespan to haunt this forum (as I do).

Fighting Styles apply only to summoned weapons corresponding to this style (2h or ranged for most summoned weapons, dual wield for reaping knives and long pain).

Summoned weapons counts as universal and benefits from any weapon focus by the way.

I've played both melee and ranged ciphers, and I found melee ones to be more efficient, more fun and more in line with my playstyle. Melee weapons does more damages. That's the basis. You may loose time due to positionning, you may loose DPS because your stats are a bit less min-maxed, but in the end of the day, ranged weapons do something like 60% of melee ones. More damages, more focus. More focus, more fun. The only exception are firearms. They don't do more damages, but they allow a big spike at the beginning of each battle, especially if you use quickswitch (which I find annoying). Big spike damages means big spike focus, which can be incredibly handy. But noone would stop your melee cipher from opening with (a few) alpha strikes with firearms. Ranged damages are a great tactical advantage, ranged cipher are great but I just prefer melee ones. You don't like "psion with a bow" ? So why not "psion with a two-handed sword" ?

Check on Character build forum section. There was a thread about class tier in 3.03 maybe one month ago. Most people didn't put Cipher on top tier. Wizard, Priest and Druid were on top tier. The rest was argued. Cipher had a coupled of broken spells in 1.0. Most have been fixed now. Even then, they hardly compared to the other casters named above. But Ciphers were (and still are) incredibly convenient and handy in trash fights, that's why they were seen as powerful.

Do you mean zealous endurance is like being drunk all the time ? Now I finally understand why those goody paladins always refused alcohol...

No, it doesn't. I remember Boeroer stated it. It works with blast and rot skull. I wonder if it works with minor blights plus blast by the way.

Check the spell description. Some damaging spells do not interrupt. Some non damaging spells do.

Yop. It was a bit the point of the thread ^^

There is an entire quest and location about pale elfs in act III. It's hard to say that there is nothing about pale elf. Deadfire Archipelago ? Living lands ? Even Old Valia has pretty much zero content. I guess pale elfs are secretive and that conquerors never try to attack their homeland for obvious reasons. So they are not the most famous culture. But for sure, more content won't hurt in PoE 2.

The map does not seem so bad White that wends as a far south antarctica. Living lands in the north...

What I would call animancer is a kind of scientist who has scientific abilities to manipulate souls. Different from Cipher who does it as a natural ability. Gameplay-wise, I'm imagining it as a kind of necromancer, who can perform pre-battle "rituals"... But it could also be a background rather than a class. I've been surprised that you can't actually play one in Pillars (except if you consider it simply as a subcase of "Scientist")

Reading your post, it seems that you didn't take into account WM content. Wizard had a lot of content such as Lvl 4 Shadowflame, Lvl 7 Crushing Doom, Lvl 8 Wall of many colors and freezing rake. Even before this, Lvl 3 alacrity by itself makes a juge difference because you can cast MORE spells or just auto attack with summoned weapon. Lvl 6 Freezing pillars is Venombloom counterpart.

Well, turn-based has a niche appeal. But PoE isn't exactly mainstream either. It is just that it is another niche.

Actually, it is not so far from what I was suggesting in my previous (long) post. Except I'm speaking about 1 spell per encounter per tier instead of 1/2 per encounter in total. Then, in the side-note of this post, I was saying consumables could be used to refresh used abilities. (Could be applciable to non-casters too for balance purpose.) I like a lot of ideas in this thread, but I'm sure I would have liked them even more for an "original game". I personnally prefer ideas not so far from PoE current mechanics. I believe it would be a risk for Obsidian to change completely their mechanics because of players' exceptations. Some posts really support it. New mechanics would be more acceptable if they choose to design a new class... like "Animancer"

Check this thread, it's probably the best "classic" druid build down here. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86064-class-build-the-thundercat-or-crit-me-maybe-on-more-time/

Based on second Murphy Law which says that if something don't work and you tell it to everybody, it would suddenly work, you should beat it soon. More seriously, I think paralyzis works very well on it.

Also Druids and Priests both have a spell anti immobilization. In my experience, it worths it for a moon godlike, perhaps for a fire one (but it was not so efficient for my playstyle). Death and Nature godlikes do no worth it. Pallegina is a special case : her godlike bonus is meh but her unique powers are so good that she worths it anyway. I had a moon goflike rogue once, and silvertide really helped her tankyness, and even helped the whole party. In my experience, silver tide was a very solid choice, but of course you should avoid it on backrow caster, and it can be an overkill on a too resilient front row melee. As a final note, a spiritshifted druid looses bonus of all his/her equipment, but not godlike bonus. So for druids, taking a godlike worths it a bit more.

Well, the problem is that most of the difficulty in this game comes from about a dozen of hard battles. Repeated medium battles are rarely a big threat except in the Abbey. So without classes fitted for those battles, you will feel the difference. (Scrolls and items mitigate it a bit) Apparently, there is absolutely no consensus on this topic. We should recognize it. IMHO, that's a very good argument for an option. (I don't think it would be that hard to implement for a NEW game. But I admit it could be harder to balance.)

All classes are equal, but some are more. For me it is hard to imagine something coming close from Devotion + Crown of the faithful, or chained Shadowflames or a Spiritshifted druid charging with all storm spells active. A balanced party should have a mix of classes, but vancians caster will dominate the difficulty spikes most of the time. Still, there is no huge gap between class. Even with rank #10, the CC level of a Disciplined fighters using Overwhelming wave with an item is hard to beat. Same for rank #11, a Rogue using Deathblows and duplicated fireball sabers to fast cast Direballs is hard to beat for damages too. There might be Ranks, but there are also niche for very specific roles.