Elric Galad

Arf, I displaced Each Kill fed His Fury to nerf package. Displacing files can result in errors if people copy the new version on the older one instead of removing the older version first. So I let this file to make sure people won't have both the old file from the buff package and the nerf file from the nerf package, which could have caused issues. But letting this empty file also cause issue. I guess Apotheosis is for advanced users though, so they can just remove this file if necessary.

Not strictly. But it is untested without CP Nope, the cooldown is 75s for BPM shifter vs 120s for other subclasses. And The shift duration is 22s vs 15s for other subclasses. So you'll be able to use them more, or any other form for the matter. For other classes, shift is base 15s with a 120s cooldown. It seems hard to rely on it. 22s/75s with INT and PL can be up majority of time at high level, which is really hard to accomplish with any other subclass.

Yes, FF is always a "fist" attack. It should count as a weapon and maybe applies Wildstrike IF using Community Patch.

I would say none provide an any critical benefit. Streefighter is decent if you have someone that can inflict Distracted. But annoying without. Trickster is a good generalist. It does not bring anything synergetic, but it opens some possibilities. Debonaire is okay if you really plan to avoid melee.

Confounding Blind is devastating with Frost Seeker. Foe deflection will go down so fast (3 times per shots plus up to 3 times due to AoE from crits) and this will trigger even more AoE crits. Other than that, max accuracy and crit chances by all means necessary. Assassin subclass does not provides tremendous benefits to this build though.

Seems legit though. Arcane dampener removes other buff and your buff ressources (spell casts, etc...) have been used regardless. But that's the same issue with any druid subclass. The worst is for lifegiver which also suffers a penalty after the shift. Shifter has no penalty after a shift, and it will even get back a form cast sooner than any other subclass. Arguably, it is still the druid subclass that suffers the less from arcane dampener. That's my point, to make all druid subclass balanced. You're not comparing BPM Shifter with other druid subclasses, which is my main point. That's quite minor, and more intended as a Wildstrike buff/versatility option than a raw power buff. There are many weapon/armor set than would do a much better job at buffing spells when not shifted. Well it's a nerf. It is supposed to work less well. Although in this case, it is also a long duration buff. Against a megaboss, a BPM Shifter will spend a much greater proportion of the time Shifted than in vanilla (60%+ of time instead of a couple of minutes). Note : maybe the issue is that Shifter should have been designed otherwise, with something like mostly unlimited shifts in exchange for most of spell casting power. But it is not BPM intent to redo subclass design. There are also other mods that do this

One hit of what ? Arcane dampener ? I don't get the "vulnerability to enemy casters" thing here, neither do I get the reason why you would be out of spells in this context. You get back your spell after the shift. I know. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to separate all changes, and displacing the whole spirit**** package for all subclasses to nerf package would not have make sense. Sometimes the packaging might be imperfect, I already admitted it.

I does not work for Wiz, Druid, Priest, Chanter, and pretty sure it does not work for Cipher either. UI only provide spells from unlocked spell tiers. It should work for all other classes (non spell abilities) though. Except pet abilities which would work in a weird way. Yes, this is what the OP need to add. Consider you either have to override the whole table, or Append the corresponding table with a carbon copy of Time Parasite. I would do the second one. Please refer to the modding subforum, as it isn't the most obvious thing to do. Or just look for an existing mod that does something similar to another ability.

Oh no, they are still full casters with no penalty to their casting. They are still much better at their martial part. What you trade is flexibility between spell/martial. You trade it for more martial power, more flexibility for your martial sphere and periodical self healing as icing on the cake. So they are perfectly balanced as they are. But you're free to use another mod if you want them to be more fun. I still see no issue. Edit : in case I wasn't Clear, I do think that Shifter is technically overpowered as a subclass in vanilla, since it is basically strictly better than animist. It does not break the game, but one looking for a generalist druid should pick Shifter (I made a SC Shifter once which was great despite not using shifts very often). The reason why it doesn't break the game is also because shifts aren't THAT powerful and many forms have meh abilities. BPM buffed shifts (PL for duration, dual damages Type) AND buffed most forms. This relatively benefits more to Shifters, hence making a nerf more necessary.

Shifter isn't a martial class. It's a caster with a layer of versatility. If you need to cast spell, you can shift out and in. With 5 forms (most of them boosted by BPM), you will rarely run out of charges without a common cooldown. There are other nerfs in the mod. The only annoying part here is that it had to be included in the main package instead of the nerf one for technical reasons. What I should do is updating the mod notes with a link to the "separate cooldown mod". But consider that even the autor of said mod did agree with my reason about balance. (which doesn't prevent his mod to be useful for other reasons)

I've already discussed with the author of the said mod about this topic. Basically I explained why I didn't agree with him for a pure balance point of view (in a nutshell because with this change, Shifter has basically only upsides and no real downsides). And I also gave him some guidance about how to actually implement the change he wanted because from a pure fun/subclass feeling it indeed made some sense as an independant mod. You might find our discussion somemwhere on this thread.

With BPM, you could also go for a Ranger/Berzerker and stacks pile of accuracy with the reworked hunter's claw. Then just pick a weapon pair that synergize with your Crit seeking build like this one. Beza toothed blade is great to have around too to act as a can opener for your whole party.

That's what I'm going to do. Removing all per rest abilities would lead to another mod with other principles. Changing number of ability use, changing an ability from per rest to per encounter and even changing spells from per rest to per encounter, all these have been done by other mods. The only thing I'm not 100% sur if feasible is how to reduce the number of spell cast per caster level (druid, Wiz, Priest). It's probably a parameter somewhere, but there is a chance that it is hardcoded (especially since it changes per level gain). I'm not sure I would like to do both mods, lack of time to develop and playtest both.

Yeah, I made a Fighter build relying on item abilities and Disciplined Barrage once (Abydon's Hammer stun per encounter, dualed waxed Bittercut, White Crest, Siegebreaker, etc..) and it was really great. That's also a reason why there is not that much changes needed, but I really wanted thme to stand out in their own specific ways. Yes, it is feasible. Actually I hesitated a long time between 4x per rest and 2x per encounter since Clear Out felt like a great ability to promote (no other martial class had a similar AoE CC tool). But 2x per encounter isn't necessarily better. Since I want to give all non casters more efficient tools for biggest fights, Clear Out would fit this purpose with 4x per rest uses. I don't think fighters have that much issues with smaller fights, especially considering Knockdown, Charge and Sundering Blows are all per encounter. Maybe S++- after these nerfs. I don't want to bring them down entirely, but I think these 2 abilities were the most broken ones. At least you'll have to cast more abilities before they start really breaking the encounter. Good points

A couple of chanters can fit tank slots yeah. Not sure they can overpower wizs, but if you're lazy AND powergamy, chanters do fill slots quite well.

It is so horrible that setting Relentless Storm to Tier 7 would actually buff the druid (since Tier 5 has good replacements). I would spam primordials with Tier 7. Not that they are that good (1 out of 18 chance to get 2 black oozes ) but at least they provide some utility to this tier. Druid was arguably stronger at launch. Then immunity happened (And Venombloom, the top tier 6 contender, became resistible by poison immune) and the weirdness of Tier 7 and 8 (when devs seemed to regret making druid so great AoE damages dealers...). Druid are incredible until tier 5, then their only super great spell is arguably Avenging Storm and even it requires your caster to just go punch things in melee. The reasons I (and most people) would pick Wiz : - Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. Because of it, anything Wiz can do, he will do more. - Better Tier 6, 7 and 8. And these are supposed to be the strongest tiers... - Wiz might be a bit better at CC and CC is paramount. Ninagauth's Shadowflame (this thing is fast casting...), Call to Slumber, Slicken (as a mere Tier 1), Gaze of the Adragan, Wall of Many Colors... Only Relentless Storm really provides something wizard has trouble to replicate. Druid is good CC, but Wiz is above. There is even a majority of people that seem to consider Wiz THE top class. Anyway S and S+ isn't very distant in power anyway. I would not even have touched Ninagauth's if I didn't consider it to be a problem on its own rights. And Druid has support capability which sort of make them superior for party composition. Druid has no issue finding themselves a purpose. An hypothetical "strongest possible party" could be 1 Priest, 1 Druid, 4 Wiz.

I thought about that but : - Druid Tier 5 is strong in general. You get stuff like Plague of Insects, Firebug or Embrace the Earth Talon (Petrifying...). So nerfing one spell won't reduce that much this tier level of power. - But Druid Tier 6 is okayish and Tier 7 is meh. I see the strength of Tier 5 as a kind of compensation. - At the very least, Tier 5 has no mastery, so one can't spam it every encounter. Even considering this, Relentless Storm is extremely strong AND convenient. But I see it a bit as the selling point of the class compared to other casters (although healing and Form of the Delemgan kind of make druid stand out vs Wiz...) +60% damages vs 1/4 targets (under 25%) could be seen as +15% damage bonus overall. That's nice but isn't much better than +4 MIG from an unique helm. In addition, Death Godlike special has a similar issue as finishing blow. It looks nice on paper but often ends up in an overkill. Also foes aren't below 25% health 25% of the time. The hits that brings them under 25% could bring anywhere from say 10% to 20% health, reducing the proportion of time spent under 25%. That's why I think they could be given a generous bonus. You can still synergize with it by picking your targets and choosing On Kill abilities/items. Note that I have just changed it to 25% +7%/3 lvl so it is a strict buff from vanilla.

The thread for PoE1 "small" BPM has been initiated : PoE1 (small) Balance Polishing Mod - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

Introduction and Principles : I have the project to make a "small" balance mod for PoE1. I haven't much time to work on it right now, my target date is more about this summer, but I think it's better to get comment as soon as possible since the activity on this forum is decreasing... Mostly, I would like to gather some feedback before it's too late to get "enlightened" reviews. I am already the author of a rather big balance mod for PoE2 ( Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) ). I don't want to do something that big for PoE1 since modding PoE1 is a bit more complicated and I don't have that much time to invest again. In addition, I won't find it that suitable since I'm in love with many of PoE1 « unbalanced » features (such as Dragon Trashed. builds..). Finally no multiclassing tends to reduce the number of potentially OP combinations. My objectives are only to make every combination of Races and Classes relevant enough. All classes shall be able to fullfill a particular role (or combinations of roles) better than anyone else in a party (Solo is a secondary concern for me). A couple of warnings before sharing the details : - I won't try address all bugs and glitches. By experience, there are just too many of them. - I won't do anything else than tweaking numbers beacuse of the technical difficulty to do so. I can increase damages, duration, values of bonus or even add a scaling per level (seems simple enough). So please try to avoid making suggestions that would require adding new properties to a particular ability. - The total number of changes should be close to the list I will present below (I can include a couple more suggested changes, but not too many...). My vision of current class balance : Tier S : is about casters who can unleash many (great) casts when needed Tier S++ : Priest. Close to impossible to replace as party support (and solid for everything else). Playing without a Priest in one's party is like rising the level of difficulty... literally since PotD adds like +15 Accuracy and Defenses to foes, while a priest get basically adds around +30 Accuracy and +60 Defenses (even if it requires casting time and a party slot). Tier S+ : Wizard. Incredibly strong on its own. Special mention to Ninagauth Shadowflames which is way too strong (even for a special reward) and you can cast it every encounter from lvl 15. Tier S : Druid Tier A : Solid tier All of these classes have some very strong specials. Here are the reason why most of the classes fit in this category : Chanter : Dragon Trashed is crazy strong, and they can do that while standing in the strongest armors (and pocking with weapons). Paladin : similar to Chanters (even tankier) thanks to Sacred Immolation, less powerful but with a lots of other support goodies (instant resurrection, auras, spike damages with FoD, etc...) Ranger : very strong ranged damages with Twinned Arrows (basically doubles DPS), a good pet from the later version of the game, reccursive Stuns from Stunning Shots. Monks : very versatile with summons, Crowd Control, good DPS abilities, and tankiness through Iron Skin Barbarian : great AoE damages with possible added Crowd Control (through interrupts or overbearing weapons). Spike AoE damages with Heart of Fury. Cipher : extremely versatile casters with great weapon damages. Defensive Mindweb is super good. Tier B : slightly subpar Tier Tier B+ : Fighters : some nice goodies, but not something as gamechanging as the previous ones. Just needs a trump card similar to what is Sacred Immolation or Twinned Arrows for their respective classes. Tier B : Rogue : great Single Target DPS... but not that much greater than Ranger with a lots more weaknesses and no really great other goodies. As a consequence of th I will try to do the following : - Give a super endgame ability to Fighters - Improve the Rogue substancially and also give them a super endgame ability - Tweak down a couple of Priests and Wizards spells that I consider particularly annoying. Note that I would include nerfs in an optional component. (as I did for my PoE2 nerfs) - Try to reduce the gap caused by Rest Spamming (see below) Focus on the Rest Spamming issue : Limitating rest is part of the usual game experience. If you rest spam, some classes (casters) are way stronger and restricting oneself from using per rest ressources is part of PoE1 game design. Of you roleplay a minimum, you won't go back to the nearest inn every other fight. You may find this gamplay annoying, but I don't want to touch this. However, it would certainly be a good idea for another mod !! It would most likely require to lower Wiz/Priest/Druid casts to 1-2 per spell level as it was done in PoE2. On the contrary, one of the general principles of this balance mod would be to increase the number of per Rest casts for all non spellcasters. One of the biggest strength of casters (Wiz, Priest, Druids) is that they have a lots of casts for boss fights, making them God tier for such battles. Increasing the number of Per Rest casts of martial classes would reduce the gap. A lot of Per Rest abilities are actually quite good vs bosses (Unbending, Deprive the Unworthy, Finishing Blow), and I feel weird that they usually get 1-2 casts of them while casters get 4 casts on each Tier (not even counting mastery). Since my purpose is to give more Per Rest casts to martial classes in general, my rule would be by default to give 4x Per Rest cast of everything Per Rest. Because 4x Per Rest cast is what casters gain per spell level, it would feel fair. Sometimes I would make exception to 3x if the ability feels a bit strong (Unbending, as it is) or 5x if weak/spammy (Binding Roots as it is, or Hastening Exhortation). Expect +2x Per Rest cast compared to current values, with some exceptions (Unbending and Binding Roots feel quite balanced as they are, so no +2 Per Rest cast). The result of this tweak would probably to have martials/cipher/chanter to do the biggest part of the work for "minor" fights due to passive and Per Encounter spams (until Mastery at least) while Druid/Wiz/Priest would still carry the party for boss fights, but with other classes also contributing more than before. Detailed preliminary list of changes: Fighter Clear Out : 4x per Rest Sundering Blow : duration 8s -> 30s, -8DR -> -10DR I want to make Sundering Blow the best DR reducer of the game by a significant margin. This would ensure the utility of fighters versus bosses. Also note that using it with a blunderbuss makes it basically an autohit, unlike similar abilities. Ney it's melee only Paladin Hastening Exhortation : 5x per Rest Deprive the Unworthy : 4x per Rest Monk Clarity of Agony : 4x per Rest Barbarian Barbaric Shout : 4x per Rest Wild Sprint : 5x per Rest Ranger Revive Companion : 3x per Rest Master's Call : 5x per Rest Rogue - Sneak Attack : +50% base +10% per 3 lvl beyond 1, up to +100% at level 16 - Dirty Fighting : 10% => 15% crit - Riposte : 30% chances on miss too - Withering Strike : 1x => 2x per encounter - Fearsome Strike : 4x per Rest - Feign Death : Prone 10s -> 3s, invisible 6s -> 12s - Deep wounds : add +3 raw damages scaling per 6 lvl beyond 1 up to 9 raw damages per 3s tick at level 13 - Finishing Blow : 4x per Rest Finishing Blow : +5 Acc, +50% damages, +3% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +3% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +300%) Devastatating Blow +5 Acc, +50% damages, +5% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +4% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +400%) Most Rogue changes have already been discussed here : Melee Rogue is too weak on PotD Upscale - Page 2 - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community Wizard (in a distinct nerf component) Shadowflame : Paralysis 6s -> 4s This one is specifically annoying because an AoE Paralysis with a significant duration that can be spammed every fight or 6x times on a single encounter can really break the game. Priest (in a distinct nerf component) Devotion for the Faithful : -20 acc for foes -> -10, -10 mig for foes-> -4, +20 Acc for friends -> -10 (in a nutshell, that's PoE2 values) Crow of the Faithful : +25 Resolve -> +6 Resolve As stated above, Priests are just too good at buffing party. DftF is arguably the best spell of the game since High Accuracy help everything including landing Crowd Control, and you're even debuffing your foes on top of this ! Also Resolve is arguably the worst attribute, but at least it brings a sometimes critical resistance to interrupt. By buffing it so much, CotF basically makes your initial Resolve attribute insignificant. Race changes Death Godlike : damages to foes under 25% endurance : 25% => EDIT 25%+7% damages per 3 lvl, up to +60% at level 16. Nature Godlike : bonus set to +3 to Mig, Dex and Con when under 50% health, +1 per 6 lvl up to +5 to Mig, Dex and Con at lvl 13. Mountain Dwarf : +20 -> +40 vs poison and disease (+20 is too weak and was basically only useful for 1 single build, @Boeroer's Bilestomper) Additional change : 1-Handed Style : 15% Crit -> 25% (basically the same level of power as what I did for my PoE2 mod)

You can also plan to bring along a good backup weapon such as Voidwheel (which benefit from your Crit seeking build up) when facing single foe or scattered archers. As a fighter you can pick Quick switch and Black Jacket just to be able to pick always the appropriate weapon. If you plan to use mostly Voidwheel and WotEP, you may also select Devoted.

Until you get Salvation of Time...

Aggrandizing Radiance is another option in Solo, since it stacks with anything.

But as soon as you get to level 2, you can have it add +10 Acc to your whole party. Neat

Maybe it's better I start a separate thread about modding. With the complete list of changes for all classes, so I can explain what are my actual objectives and principles (and limitations, since I don't want to customize as many things as I did in PoE2). This will allow me to present the "bigger picture" I intend.

Of courses not. If anything it would be because they are too strong Compared to other classes. Or too strong when rest spamming (but I will add per rest charges to other classes instead). I only intend to nerf about 3 spells that cause other balance issues. Could have been great but modfing PoE1 is difficult, so I prefer to limit my intentions to tweaking a couple of numbers. For the reason mentionned above I would rather go with a simple scaling mechanics. Your idea wouldn't alter Deep wound though, since it would trigger from the weapon attack itself (not the raw bonus), but Deep Wounds damages don't depend on inflicted damages in PoE1.