Elric Galad

I've checked most stats of all summons (googlelize thread "summoner's tables" from a while ago) and the general rule is that most summons aren't properly balanced. Some great (Phantoms, Twins, Primordials, Ancient Weapons) some are bad. The most common trait is that even if their level scales with the summoner's, their weapons and armor do not. So you're stuck with whatever the game gives you. For incarnates, they are either Superb Quality or normal quality. Really it depends. The Fighter part of Berath Incarnate has a normal Greatsword... Which leads to penetration issues for most... Meanwhile Ancient weapons or Ranger Companion all end up with legendary quality weapons... Spellcaster ones are good though, basically providing a level 20 caster fellow. One of Eothas Incarnate acts only once. It has a freaking infinite recovery. Not joking. Basically they were poorly tested, and their design was probably too hasty. Then since the malus is so big, no one used them... So not much people actually complained. So their correction wasn't prioritarized by the devs, leading to current situation. Finally the malus applies instantly, reducing the actual duration of the summons... Yeah It's a shame because even with the malus, they could have been somewhat decent without the Eothas bug and random level of quality of weapons. Priest does not have many summons (bar your healer/tank spirit ally) so it could have worked. How good/bad they are currently greatly depends on whichh one we are Talking about. The most balanced one is Rymrgand's, which has basically an "infinite" health pool and a PEN 12 AoE attack.

Version 2.5.2 has just been released : Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Carnage is not supposed to proc on your main target... but sometimes it does. The predictable case is using pushing weapons (Llengrath warding staff). It basically push your target out the position where carnage doesn't work... so it works. For similar reasons, it might proc on moving targets. Not sure what cause the damages to apply in your particular case. Might have something to do with the size. Which would be ok since size prevents the effect from applying to other targets. Anyone with further input on this would be welcome.

It might not be entirely wrong if BPM Scrolls of Tornado provided a viable solution to beat HoW avaiable for all classes. Granted you need to dedicate a fair number of stacks to them, and having scolls of Meteor Shower along might be more efficient to hasten the risky phase, because of its extremely high damages. Also beware that Tornado targets Fortitude (Gigantic Black Ooze has 142+15 Fort in PotD...)

It would be better if it would, but even with Community Patch change, it still doesn't count as a weapon attack in all cases. It works for Focus, but for other effect it depends. And it would be fairly technical to change (without further consequence such as enabling AoE enfeebled with AoE weapons).

Bumped for @Shai Hulud

Nope, Sacred Immolation is fire only (and LoPZ is vessel/spirit only). A SC paladin has really no offensive ability vs Fire based non vessel/spirit (and Fire absorbing vessel - at least Doru) No, that's really just picking one backup ability (2 if upgrade is counted). A Chanter build without any summon is a bit weird. You will need them at some point, at least vs Megaboss (or the build is suboptimal anyway). Her revenge has base 30-42 damages (because 3x what displayed...), with bounce on top. It should be enough to spam. Bellower are also the best subclass at summoning. As I said above, I don't intend to change much damage types. Well, I think it is all about Tier 9 scrolls. A Tier 9 scroll is worth about "4 martial ressources". You can have 5 per slot, 4 to 6 slots. That's up to 120 points of ressources. How can it be balanced anyway ? I don't think Tornado scroll is another league than Maelstorm. Maelstorm deals way higher damages, with an AoE sufficient for most fights. How many fights can one clear with 16 Maelstorm scrolls ? Even if the absence of CC means you have to handle your defense somehow, and manage a bit more the AoE. I think you have a point that Tornado has a special edge when cast repeatedly. But the risks with Maelstorm isn't that much higher (especially with tanky classes such as Fighter) and the reward is way above. My idea is that using consumable is a win, but is not a free win. And that it won't work vs certain Megabosses (I think the Oracle has a tolerably high fortitude). That's why I'm not considering nerfing the scrolls in general (not limited to Tornado). The Tier 9 ability itself is limited by its mediocre damages, casting it once is great but isn't going to win by itself. Benchmark vs comparable Random AoE Tier 9 spells (Meteor Storm, Minoletta's Salvo). There is a dedicated thread about it. That's why the nerf wasn't so big.

Because slayer claw basically create a new status, and probably only copy the duration. There are a couple of affliction/inspiration statuses with secondary effect attached to them (such as non BPM Confounding Blind or Perishing Strike Weakened). The additional property is also lost when the affliction is upgraded / downgraded through weakness / resistance.

Carnage can crit only with balance polishing mod. Interrupting Blows applies to Carnage crits only with BPM too. And Blood storm without BPM is extended by kills, not crits (which is useless vs some Megabosses).

No pb I mean compared to MC Chanter, it has a relative cost of 3 instead of 5 phrases. Console command can do this. I don't allow NPC classes for PC since it's not the purpose of the mod, and it is easy to do through Console. Well, I don't change damage type unless absolutely needed. SC Paladin has exactly zero non fire sources of damages apart weapon pocking, while a Chanter can use summons, Dragon trashed, "thrice was she wronged" and "boil the flesh" as backup to deal damages. Summons especially are often fire related (the wurms are extremely cost efficient for damages). PEN 9 or PEN 10 are relatively high PEN for AoE spells. PEN 9 happens but is high PEN on its own. PEN 10 is basically more PEN than 90% of damages spells, even counting the raw one (I mean, apart Minoletta Precise Burst, I can't name another non raw AoE spell with 10+ PEN). So I count it as High PEN. Also both upgrades basically add +1 PEN because it scales the intresic level of the ability (while PL still provides benefit as if non scaled). Deadly Deadfire and the various difficulty options (including solo) will do the trick. This is not the purpose of BPM Well, great to know but spamming expensive consumable is kind of... legit to kill a boss ? Of course, it could have had more expensive component, but my priority is to have a great ability for SC Druid. If someone wants to use such joker to clear a particular fight, why not ? It isn't a "free" win after all.

Prayer for the Body, Prayer for he Spirit, Litany for the Body, Prayer for the Spirit The INT ones are one tier above the CON ones with the same duration. I would set the INT ones to 75s instead of 60s to take into account the tier difference. Even 30s, especially if the Tier 9 chant is buffed to +2. +3 PEN is still way rarer than +2 PEN (Tenacious and Modals give you +2 PEN from an active source). You won't pick both, but the tier 9 chant won't be picked by all the builds (since Tier 9 has a lots of other option). His Laughter Rang Through the Halls : 8s Daze -> 30s Interrupt on Hit -> Interrupt on Graze I think it's ok with the current implementation BPM described above. Daze can really shut down some encounters, it is good enough to have it for 1 ability point. BPM made it foe only. It is also raw damages AoE, so I think it's fine as an upgrade. It is not the most obvious summon to use, but permanent sicken isn't bad, and using it with beckoner double the on-death effect. Boil Their Flesh From Skin to Bone & Upgrade : Secondary Cones replaced by simple 2,5m radius AoE. This enables the Acid Explosion to be properly centered on the victim. (I learned that the secondary Cones originated from the caster instead of from the actual victim. This changes also correct this glitch) <Version 1.3.2> secondary corrode damage 24-27 -> 48-54 (initial raw damages unchanged. <Version 1.3.2> cast time 3s -> 0.5 The AoE is fixed by BPM. Both secondary effects have the same radius. But yeah, Sip from the Marrow has a too short buff duration. 8s should be 15s. The healing is great for an additional effect, but the action speed buff is indeed too short. EDIT : and make action speed bonus stackable. Not that it is easy to get several charge, but should at least be fun when it happens? Agreed. Picking Tier 9 is anyway a difficult choice. What SC Chanter brings : +2/3 PL BPM Great Soul allow generating +25% phrases. Energized is "cheaper", so easier to use in conjunction with other things. Tier 9 summons are great : - BPM dragon is arguably the tankiest thing in the game. It can tank Dorudugan, it even has Fire Immunity. It can applies Frightened cyclically, big AoE damages and a total -45 Fortitude debuff. Really open some great possibilities even if you might prefer other summons for other fights. - The 4th weapon is great. It also has an AoE Daze ability (2x in vanilla, BPM harmonized all weapon abilities to 3x so the Ancient Weapon summons is weaker but the Tier 9 upgrade itself is slightly stronger). Allows plenty of Tier 7 picks. Including these Empower talent, which synergize super well with Sasha's. Overall, I won't say it has as much raw power as a well built MC (though BPM Great Soul reduced the gap) but it really has some gamechanging traits (that's my way of "redesigning" SC). Your proposal for better party-wide PEN buff will also help giving it a distinct role. Now that I'm thinking I might "round down" the Chanter invocation instead or "rounding up" this one time. I have done enough powercreeping overall. The MIG, RES invocation and its CON upgrade will be set to 30s with no extension. (Duration extension are buggy and the CON upgrade is enough anyway. I will displace it to the nerf package) The PER, DEX invocation and its INT upgrade will be set to 35s with no extension. Triple Inspirations are the equivalent of a Tier 8 Priest spell anyway. Well, that's a big can of worms to open. At least kith-abilities-using foes are affected by the same buff as you. I made ONE exception though : giving a infinite spell cast regeneration (every 12s) to Auranic as I felt giving Potions of Enlightenment to players but keeping her with finite ressources wasn't fair.

Let's be simple, I will set the duration of "the bride..." and upgrade to 40s. This would also make the duration strictly superior instead of slightly inferior due to higher PL Tier. Basically "The bride" would be slightly more cost effective (40s for 5 phrases vs 30s for 4 phrases), but the upgrade will arguably be slightly less good, but more reliable. Might go for 75s for Smart and Acute from the related prayers for similar reasons (Fit and Hardy from lower tier lasts 60s). I'm also going to try to tweak "prisoners turned to their captor" so the Strong inspiration is also triggered when Grazed/Hit/Criy dexterity affliction attack after the initial effect. I'm also considering tweaking the Strong duration to 45s to take into account its conditionality. Which will also refresh when caught in the middle of some Web, for an overall great conditional duration.

All shouldn't stack if coming from active abilities. Somehow I think INT, PER, DEX is a kind of better combination. All three are kind of offensive, while MIG, RES, CON is more mixed. I won't say I'm not a bit annoyed by the assymetry though. Set to their purpose could get an extra something (used to be Brilliant Inspiration, Brilliant was removed and wasn't changed after that). I won't go for duration extension, cause duration extension have weird underlying bugs. Cause "Their Champion Braved the Horde Alone" is a self buff with offensive effects (more damages, more PEN, Interrupt), not a support ability. It felt really close to the lore AND mechanic of Skald subclass, and Skald is the only subclass where these KW matter.

-5 RES from an active affliction does not stack with -10 RES from another active effect. It might from a passive affliction though (Echoing Horror Frightened stacked with PVS in vanilla, but BPM tweaked it for clarity - as well as buffed Echoing Horror). BPM tweaked most afflictions from abilities so they don't stack with untyped debuffed. But not from passive items affliction (such as Willbreaker)

It is soul ignition indeed. All BPM Cipher DoT targets different defence. Nice to ear BPM Tenuous Grasp is used And exactly the way it is meant to be.

Always has been. It is probably not that hard on focus to maintain them, but it still decrease DPS a bit due to cast/recovery. But well, it also debuffs. Critting all the time has its own merit though. Soulblade ney ? Only subclass that should NOT pick it IMHO. It is great, I would not count it as an absolute must pick. It is still some "advanced user pick" I think. You have to combo it a bit to make it worth it. My point was really that you can make a Cipher work with a raw minimum of abilities, it is not even meant to be an optimal build. But yeah, it is almost as good as Enfeebled BUT goes through affliction resistance, helps weapon accuracy, is fast cast, benfits from all cipher vs will passives (that sweet +10 acc), is spammable and even provide a bit of defense. It is among the very best boss debuff, if not THE best and synergizes with bunch of stuff. I did mean Bonded Fury. I think Bonded Fury is comparable to Shadowed Hunter in raw power, although arguably a bit weaker (and of course, I take into account to it is only 2/3 of the price). It really grants a bunch of buffs. I would say twice more in raw power. Of course, it only applies to the pet. Ranger can really build around Intuitive from shadowed Hunter, which makes SH more central in a decent SC ranger build. I also think that the Pet to Ranger comparison is really more defavorable in solo, since you really have to stack all the good stuff on the single character, and the pet can't benefit from any party buff that could come from another source. Finally you have been playing for a long time with pet type (the boar) which was secretely 1.42 less damaging than it should have been until BPM 2.5. Which may have gievn even worse impression. Anyway, that's not a very important debate since we both agree that Bonded Fury is strong enough (not even counting the pseudo-passive bond regen).

For MC, Duality of Mortal Presence can give +10 INT which can act as a baby substitute. Even some INT inspiration is decent to abuse AoE. SC must get something anyway. They are all a bit niche (more that than utterly bad), and vanilla Haunting Chain is plain bad. Death of 1000 Cuts is a combo version of disintigrate. BPM made it target Deflection rather than fortitude, and we all know how high fortitude can be on foes that you wish to target with DoT. Driving Echoes is caster support version of Reaping Knives. Situational but can be really devastating in the right circonstances (many AoE spells have meh PEN and will be turned into armored targets bane - even Chillfog starts doing damages with Driving Echoes !). BPM Hauting Chain has super high duration. I think it is interesting as the only Terrified inflicting cipher spell. The neat part is that it can "silence" offensive abilities of a Resolve Resistant boss for a great duration (and it target Will, which benefits from nice Cipher passives), especially if "opened" with Psychovampiric Shield. The beauty of Cipher spells is that you can always use the right one in the right circonstance and then you have plenty of ressources to spend on the right spell. It doesn't matter if a spell is a bit niche, when you are in the battle that requires it, you can spam it like crazy. Ciphers have enough bread&butter abilities anyway, so the most important for the other spells is to be able to offer new possibilities. But the raw power of SC Ciphers IMHO come from Shared Nightmares, Additional PL and the bread&butterness of Time Parasite (which is arguably the only SC Active Ability that is useful independantly of party build and specific battle).

My own pet build is SC Cipher with Rod modal. Shared Nightmare + Rod modal (+Time Parasite) is hilarious. Usually refill focus takes one strike Mortars or WotEP work too, but the range convenience is neat.

This one is debatable. A ranger can grab +20 Accuracy (non stacking with Borrowed Instinct) through Hunter's Claw line. Pros and Cons, the best part is that when it's done it's done on Hunter's Claw side. For sure it's really inconvenient for ranged ranger, but not having to rely on hitting / refreshing / Lasting debuff is huge, especially vs Megabosses. Not sure where from the remaining +10/+15 comes from. I can think of tactical meld for +5 from Aware, +10 acc vs Will (quite conditional, esp when considering weapon attacks). Not to say Seer isn't great. As I always say, a Cipher MC adds tremendous utility with just a couple of points spent on Cipher side (Hammering Thought, Draining/Biting Whip, Ancestor's Memory, Pain Block, Disintigrate, Whispers of Treasons, built-in +20% damages, et voilà !) I'm always reluctant to overbuff stuff. But as stated, my main concern was about other SC Buffs. BPM Shadowed Hunters vs BPM Enduring Shadows is an interesting comparison. Intuitive vs Swift => Quite similar 12hp/3s + -50% hostile effect duration vs +25 Deflection => Quite similar (+25 Deflection is huge) Tier 4 + Tier 8 ability point vs super scarce Tier 9 ability point => Quite similar Affect self + pet vs Affect pet only (but arguably both count as 1 party slot) => Quite similar Both invisible (better synergies with Rogue class) No Teleport vs Teleport 45s for 3 Bonds (with some flexibility to get Intuitive after the invisbibility) vs 20s for 2 Guiles (but the later has a native Tier 4 PL, so duration at PL 9 is 25s). => I would say the last 3 items have a comparable level of power when summed up. Invisibility is more useful per cast than based on duration so better to have it for 2 ressources than for 3 ressources. So Bonded Fury comparing well to Shadowed Hunters should be enough to establish that it is roughly OK as a SC buff.

Ok, go for Inspired Discipline 45s duration. The ability feels sometimes annoying to build around so it kind of derserve of reward. Great duration would be. Ok for Bonded fury buff 45s (I'm still considering the infinite duration bond regen as a bonus passive for SC Ranger and I'm leaving it out of the cost / duration equation). I think this duration would compare well to Shadowed hunters. Bonded fury as a twice more powerful effect in my book, but only to the pet which is vaguely 1/3 of SC Ranger power. 1/3 x 2 = 2/3 the effect for 2/3 cost feels eventually right. I felt it could have compare too well to some other SC only buffs, such as Enduring Shadow or Hastening Exho upgrade, but the first has a lots of utility (and +25 deflection / Swift for character is really strong) and the later can target anybody else than Pal. Anyway SC locked abilities can slightly be over the top.

I didn't like Bonded Fury costing Bond because you could run out of bond, but setting the bond regen to infinite duration solves this. I didn't like Bonded Fry costing 1 Bond (even with a duration balanced around it) because you could use it to purge afflictions too efficiently. To be fair, the ideal solution would be an actual passive with 15% Bond on Graze/Hit/Crit. This one won't be particularly overpowered compared to other SC Passives. As part of an active effect, it's weird to evaluate because active aren't supposed to give back ressource, so I have no ability to compare. At best, some have a refund. So the 15% Bond on Graze/Hit/Crit part can be seen as a "class buff" to SC Ranger more than a buff to Bonded Fury. I only use Bonded Fury as a "host" for this effect cause it is more or less pickable by any build. The point is to make the buffing (not bond regen) part of Bonded Fury "exactly as desirable" compared to the other active, since it is the part that would cost Bond in the long term in this design. Or more accurately to make it desirable in the right situation and less desirable in the wrong situation (as for all active abilities). Of course, the "right values" have to be found to accomplish this objective. To avoid complex calculation about whether it cost bond, allow marginal or big bond gain. As I said, the point is to make the pure buff part balanced for 2 bonds which leads to following point... You don't like buff that aren't active all the time. I do think it is important for defensive buffs though, since you don't want your defense to sometimes drop. But Bonded Fury is more all around than defensive buff. Shadowed Hunters and Hardy Companion are there to play the role of defensive buffs for the pet. More Offensive buff can be active "as much as they can" and still be relevant to that extant. Basically an offensive buff active 75% of time is 75% of the efficiency of the same buff active 100% of the time. This is actually the question I am still unsure about : we can still discuss about the level of power (mostly tied to duration) of the active buff part of bonded fury. Bonded Fury level of power is not that easy to compare to self buff from other classes because : - It is about the pet which only has a fraction of power of a character. If pet is "half a character" in terme of power, it needs to have "twice the effect" in term of power. But that factor is up to debate. - It comes in the form of a multiple Inspiration buff, which sometimes feel redundant (a problem shared with Inspired Discipline). Hardy Companion and Shadowed Hunters make a third of the ability not that relevant (Intuitive / Energized do synergize though). Resolve and Acute are not that great for a pet (still useful and needed to promote pet active ). Since 2.5 it is a bit compensated by the uniqueness of Energized, but it might not be ideal. I'm still thinking about this point, the closer comparison I can find is Inspired Discipline, but it isn't that intuitive because of the 2 issues above. I do think Shadowed Hunters (because it provides healing for pet and offense for ranger) and Heal Companion (because healing) are inherently better suited for your playstyle (pet tank, ranger spank). So they will have natural priority over Bonded Fury. Which doesn't discard the question about when you'll want to cast Bonded Fury. One need to feel "Bonded Fury buffing part" good enough for 2 Bonds, even if not necessarily no brainer to cast.

I don't understand your concern about 0 bond, but maybe I expressed it confusingly. My proposal for bonded fury (second thought taken into account) : - 2 Bonds, no cooldown, 0.5s/0s cast/rec - Energized and all tier 2 inspirations for 30s (not 45s or it would compare too well to some other active) - 15% chance of bond on Graze/Hit/Crit until the end of encounter. This effect won't require any refresh. You will just have to refresh the Inspirations. So once Bonded has been cast once, there won't be any issue about zero bond anymore. Your pet will always get %15 Bond chance, and when you hit zero, you will still have as much chance to generate bond. Granted you may have to make some choice to maintain Bonded Fury all the time, but you will generate more bonds than currently (chance 10% to 15%, and 100% uptime for the bon regen). So in a way it is more versatile (it would be super easy to have 100% Hardy Companion uptime). In the rare case you hit 0 Bond without having cast Bonded Fury even once, well... you still have Empower point... or Potion of Enlightenment... or just you shouldn't have made this mistake anyway. Well, I've made clear why I don't want 1 bond cost for Bonded Fury. Nice

Okay, for Bonded Fury, an alternative idea would be to : - Set it back to 2 Bonds with no cooldown - Set the Bond regen mechanism as lasting till the end of battle. So once you cast it once, you won't have to think a lot about whether casting it again will result in a big Bond gain, marginal gain or loss I would consider being a bit more generous with other parameters (inspirations set to last 45s instead of 30s, 15% Bond gain when dealing damages) to compensate for the upfront cost. Better than 1 Bond cost in my book to avoid a "semi immunity" to Afflictions. Basically it would be "2 abilities for 1 Point", an active to reasonably buff your pet and a passive to regen bond. Both would fill balanced as individual abilities, so it is a bit generous to get both for 1 point, but you still have the constraint of casting it once to get the passive effect. I would aslo set back Healing Chain to 2 Zeal with no Cooldown, with a minor buff to 12 health per tick. I had the concern that even at 2 Zeals it could be too strong in favorable conditions (targetting only 2 narrow targets) granted the potential infinite Zeal of SC Paladin, but this issue was solved by Divine retribution rework. The recent Jump range reduction was also made to allow easier focusing. The ability isn't easy to use, but giving 300 base health to 2 targets for 2 Zeals feel quite good to me. This would completely eliminate Cooldowns, except for Spiritshift and Holy Radiance since I have no good alternative for them (and Cooldown is a strict improvement from once per encounter anyway). Since I'm buffing Bonded Fury to 45s, I plan to do the same with the sorta similar Inspired Discipline. It feels sometimes hard to optimize since Tier 1 inspirations feel a bit redundant with some Fighter self buff or Party buff.

So you're telling me that a Wiz / Monk is now able to gain Monastic Unarmed Training and Trasncedant Suffering through normal levelling ? Ahem, I should check this one, I bet there's a way to prevent it from happening. OK, basically it is becasue I didn't include the "not Monk" condition in the added ability. It is easy to correct. That's part of the point. With a lower cooldown, PL/INT won't get any benefit ! I thought about it again for 2.5.1, but until now, I haven't found an alternative way that fits what I was trying to do (allow a "clean" way to gain bond) If at some point I get an idea that fully satisfies my views, I will consider removing the cooldown. Hey good luck !

Indeed. Corrected.