Elric Galad

I think the very best item for interrupting should be Scourge of Bezzelo, granted that it is dropped by Frightened Child who could be scary to include in a very constrained run. It makes 3 separate rolls, all of them can interrupting with crossbow modal, which reliably interrupt and can even dig through concentration layers. Edit : OK you already mentionned it.

Usually : - If it is a Vanilla bug, best to post on Balance Polishing Mod thread. But as long as you tag me it's OK. - If it is a confirmed BPM (not vanilla) bug, you can post it on Nexus on the bug register. That being said, I'm not too eager to get bug report that could tarnish the reputation of the mod while it is... I hope... less buggy than vanilla (given I solved a few issues). Especially if it is not justified (such as an actual vanilla bug...). So you could use the same method as above. Penetration from active buff don't stack. Penetration from Inspirations are active buffs (with a few exceptions that I usually remove for harmonization anyway). Penetration from weapon modal such as Haymaker are active buffs. This might be annoying but this is not a bug. Beyond redemption. Hostile status display their duration without taking into account who they are applied too. Which is slightly sad when an effect is always self-targetted. Armor from active buffs don't stack. Armor from Inspirations are active buffs (with a few exceptions that I usually remove for harmonization anyway). Armor from modal such as Iron Wheel are active buffs.

BPM halves the buff time to +0.5s per hits (but doubles the de uff to - 2s per hit too)

It might work only on "Party" (controllable) summons, and not allied ones. Or maybe just Clones indeed. I just checked the file, but nothing suspicious, it is supposed to work on allies.

Clones won't get the talent anyway. In Vanilla, their fists are really bad (no scaling). In BPM, they are even worse (0 PEN). As said above, I don't plan to add abilities to classes that don't get them in vanilla, although this one could make sense, and it wouldn't hurt NPC if I couldn't add to them. By the way, I'm also considering adding fast runner to monk and Bull's Will to Cipher as they are no reasons MC Monks could run faster than SC (stacking fast runner with Monk 25% speed talent) and MC Ciphers could have higher Will than MC (stacking +10 Wil with Cipher specific +15 Will talent). Monk Fists were set to 0 PEN and PEN was displaced to Unarmed Talents (to solve foe monk damages issue, search the BPM thread if you're really interested). Tutotilio's benefit from Unarmed Talents, so has to be set to 0 PEN too. Other shields benfit from weapon quality instead. Okay, so if it is a clone specific issue, I think I could add the scaling intresically to the clones. It might work. The scaling only applies to specifically tagged items attacks.

Are the items/fists not scaling on you, or only on the clones ? Might be a side effect of the implementation method (which can't be easily bypassed unless I had my own army of devs). On yourself, sometimes you have to reequip them to get the scaling, it might mess with clones. Tuotilio's Palm/Fist having a Zero PEN is a consequence of correcting a bug for foe monk damages. Having Monastic Unarmed Training / Transcendant Suffering is now the only way to use them, granted that without these talents these attacks are quite bad in vanilla anyway (but in the context of God trial run I can see the point...). I can't see another alternative for this apart non zero but very low PEN (something in the 3-5 PEN range) which might not help you anyway. Other Shield weapons should be scaling appart Tuotilio's. (NB: They don't scale in vanilla.) Please read the Mod Notes before asking (at least the classes/abilities you want to use) As a general advice, it would be a good idea to read them while planning a full run with all trials activated, so you won't be caught off-guard by something you don't expect. Or you can get ideas to use abilities you have discarded by vanilla habits. Yeah potions of Enlightment work for both classes, which can be seen as an indirect buff for Caster/Caster Multiclass.

I won't allow Great Soul for Blood Mage cause adding abilities to classes is a bit tedious and it would cause a confusing display saying it adds Empower Point to a class that does not have any. BPM Great Soul isn't great for caster anyway, so it is Just a minor drawback for BM.

Corrode isn't a Keyword, it is a damage type (Same difference with Burn damages and Fire - there is even a Water Keyworded Burn damages spell) But what I've self-ruled so far is that all spells with Corrode damages should either have either Acid or Decay KW. Decay is specific to Druid and White Worms spell. All the other spells should have Acid. (But BPM did not change Spirit of Decay itself.) So I will add Corrode damage type to all the ability and attack that miss it. For Walls, I suspect that is because they are coded as a hazard zone and not a direct attack. It is most likely impossible to change. I might be considering buffing a bit Fire Wall to compensate (for this and missing Scion of Flame and Fire KW beneifits). Wall of Many Colors does not require buff.

Noted, should be addressed for next version. I see no valid reason for Wall of Many Colors to be an exception (of course, each individual talent has less value here).

For memory, it would lead to a fixed amount of (10 + 2 x character level) x (1 + Might bonus) for blood sacrifice. So 50hp at max level at 10 MIG. The idea is to cut healing entirely and it is what it does. A -100% penalty always negates every bonus. It's a double inversion thingy and quite complicated to explain, although there might be another topic where it is explained. Basically penalties act multiplicatively with bonus up to a point where they compensate each other. -25% negates 33% bonus -50% negates 100% bonus -75% negates 300% bonus -100% negates every bonus So if you have 150% bonus and -50% malus, the malus negates 100% bonus and you end up with a 50% bonus.

I don't think I would remove the healing cut or recovery time, but I've been thinking about 2 actually unfair traits of Blood Sacrifice (that are hidden by its OPness in vanilla) : - The raw damages do have a PL scaling and a level scaling, making it quaadratic and making PL bonus kind of detrimemtal. I'm thinking about cutting the PL scaling. - Encapsulated randomness. When you finally get the major version of Blood Sacrifice (up to tier 9) and loose the most hp, you might end up regenerating a tier 1 spell anyway. Health loss should be IMHO either proportional to the actually regenerated tier (technically impossible to mod) or fixed. So I'm leaning to set health loss to always average, making it predictable AND FREAKING DISPLAYED (godd side effect). Both changes would be fair and a slight compensation for my nerfs I think.

Short casting time, it was the case in PoE1. And yeah, it was broken!

Right, I'm not dicarding your critic, but I won't make a change based on a single feedback. What I could be considering is reducing Blood Sacrifice recovery to 2s, but right now I don't plan to make a BPM upgrade anyway (no critical issue identified, although I keep a list of minor ones - mostly display). All things considered, it's probably a good thing that Blood Mage can't pretend to be a strict upgrade of Wizard anymore. Few observations : - Consider also DEX. Blood Mage is indeed meant to be uber versatile more than anything, and DEX helps this goal for a potentially unlimited ressource class (which other wizs are not). - Potion of Enlightenment and Blood Sacrifice aren't mutually exclusive. For the fights where you want to afford the Potion, Blodd Mage is really great. You could have Blood Sacrifice renew your low tier spells (which include great instant self buffs) while the Potion tick renew the high level one. With the Potion only, you will really have to use only 1 spell every 30s. - several possible multiclass had their self-healing enhanced, especially Fighters (Actual constant recovery) and Barbarian (Defiance). I had good feedback from a BPM Blood Mage / Corpse Eater user if I remember well. - 33% renew on Tier 7 is important to lower the convenience of infinite Walls of Draining.

OK, your request is perfectly clear. Based on the assumption that Blood Sacrifice always restores a spell in Vanilla, your request is that it should always restore a spell in BPM. I'm just dubious that Blood Sacrifice actually always restores a spell in Vanilla. This wasn't my understanding and the actual modification should not have caused this divergence between the Vanilla and BPM. But I don't pretend to fully understand and I possibly made a mistake. I did a lot of testing with BPM Brilliant which has similar properties, but I might have overlooked something. I will test it by spending a lvl 5+ spell slot and using Blood Sacrifice, and repeat it several time with vanilla just to be be sure. Either it should work 66% of time (my understanding) or 100% of time (your understanding and testing) (for spell lvl 8+, it should work only 33% of time) Any third party tester will be welcome for sure But I agree that if Blood Sacrifice always restores a spell in Vanilla, it should always restore a spell in BPM.

Note that this part only works with BPM. Other exceptions are : - Secondary skeletons from Chanter Skeletons invocation upgrade - Secondary drake from Chanter Drake invocation upgrade - Skeletons from Chanter skeleton phrase I didn't touch them. Touched Water Clone because the IA was broken and he wasn't able to use his spell. So I made it longer to compensate (I have no idea how to fix the IA). This is not a bug, it is an intended nerf. Minor is up to 3, Medium up to 6 and Major up to 9. When Noqn make the 3 blood sacrifice activable separately he remarked the displayed levels was 3, 6, 9 and this was most likely what the devs intended. But somehow it ended being 4,7,9 in vanilla. This change is a small nerf and a way to harmonize with BPM Brilliant Cycle, which is 3,6,9.

Yeah, but BPM isn't really made for such extreme gameplay. For standard gameplay, I think I'm pretty satisfied with Blood Mage having more significant drawback but being still enjoyable. And also... Indeed, it is fully hardcoded. So can't be fixed at my level. The only thing I can do would be to remove these spell from the game or giving them a completely different effect. Not fun at all. Basically yes. For withdraw and similar effects, one can't say whether high INT is a buff or an issue. That's why fixed duration was a better way to balance the spell. I get that in Vela's case it's a nerf. I had this on my radar once, but somehow I discarded. The reason why I discarded is that it is pretty simple to avoid by simply not doing this (given that it is significantly tedious to do it evey time one gets an affliction). The reason for some other nerfs was to make the nerfed ability usable without braking the game or running into an easy auto-win combo. Outworn buckler really has to be used in purpose to get the "problem"*. *Granted that Strand of Favor & Friends are in the same case, but you have to do it only once per run, making it way more tempting...

Great. Seems simple and consistent.

Yes, it's nice with the right party, but a simple Ciper, even Multiclass can help a buddy casting a Missile Salvo or Maelstorm every 6s thanks to Ancestor's Memory. In certain cases (SC chanter + 4 SC spellcaster party) the SC Chanter can do better, especially as an opener, but I would consider the Cipher to be in the same league. Granted that BPM uses this particular invocation as a base of SC Chanter design (it regenerates 2 ressources / 2 spells of the same tier except chanter's - but it is basically the same for Tier 9 since this Tier only has 1 cast) while it nerfs Brilliant.

Extremely powerful, yes, but has the unfortunate habit to bounce back on my party quite often. I don't know it it was due to Confusion (stronger against your party than vs foes) or Spell Reflection effects. IMHO Chanter is meh as Single Class, since a MC can do ~75% of what SC can do while doing some other stuff too (hence the BPM buff). But yeah Single Class Skald can cast 4 Tornadoes in a row by empowering the second with Sasha's full phrase back ability. If it is not bounced and you're not facing a Megaboss, you win.

Yup, it is developped and tested with it. Nice to hear !

Except, ahem, BPM nerfs package disables strand of favor exploit But sure if one only uses BPM buffs package, things are by definition better

I confirm the +10 ACC, a +50% DMG and a +2.5 PEN to Cape of the Falling Star is from BPM. It comes from scaling at character level 20. I confirm the +10 ACC, a +50% DMG and a +2.5 PEN to Apex Ward is from BPM and is 100% intentional and is supposed to be exactly the same bonus as Cape of the Falling Star. What happens exactly is listed as a warning about BPM scaling : Warnings : - If several items from the following lists are equipped simultanneously, the bonus above will appear as being applied by the first one. However, all the equipped items of the following lists will benefit from it, so this is only a change in the combat logs. You can unequip them and equip them in a different order, you will see Apex giving its bonus to the Cape this time. It works like this because implementing different scaling effects would have been horribly more tedious (and the scaling implementation was already quite tedious to implement and test...). All in all, you're legitimately happy about this. Hard Counter damages would be only 7 PEN without this change. There is a reason why I added scaling to all items passive attacks.

Note that pulsating spells duration isn't affected by PL, only by INT.

The area increase is so convenient at time (for any Crowd Control especially, sometimes for healing too in my experience) and +2 PL from a single ability point even situational would be too powerful. I still cling to the idea that the values are fine and that improving them would make it an almost "mandatory" talent, which I don't want it to be.

No, I never truly considered it, but I kind of remember speaking about it. Increased AoE is really convenient when needed, even for the cost, while increased PL is just icing on the cake to reward your character with optimum effect.