Elric Galad

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.

Whirling Strikes too. Do these Full Attacks receive a malus when dual wielding ? I would presume no, but I haven't checked.

Well, Rogue appears on bottom Tier on most class rankings I've seen. I don't think there is a huge debate about it. It could be said in an even more simple way : their Single Target damages are not distinctively better than other classes, they are squishy and none of their special tricks are great. Still it does its main job in an okay fashion so isn't unplayable. Deathblows + Scrolls is a decent backup feat. And I personnally like Sap+ Blunderbuss to super reliably control and damage a high priority target on every fight even with a melee Rogue. But that's it.

That's a bit the issue. The Player Character dispositions are somewhat controllable. You tend to get disposition point by RPing around the right attitude. Companion dispositions are a bit random for me. Even then, having to max dispotions and companions reaction feel too much constraint to manage. So usually I completely ignore hearth defender. But to be honnest, I even don't like dispositions having consequences on non-dialogue gameplay. I rarely even Deep Faith (yeah that's wrong). I like RPing a bit, but not being constraint into RPing in a specific fashion.

Note that you can get Martial Caster at some point that gives +100% (with BPM) casting speed for summoned weapon. Basically Quickswitch for Summoned Weapons.

Sure, but then it should be pointed that Brillant itself is less powerful since it regenerates spells up to Tier 3, 6, 9 cyclically. Yes, but another component of the mod is the potion of Enlightenment, which regenerates a ressource (no tier limit) every 30s. The potion is quite expensive (3000 base price) but helps for biggest fights. This reduces the gap between Blood Mage and others, but even for Blood Mage it helps by providing 2 sources of regen.

WoD is still pretty usable (+0.5s self buff, -2s foe buff, per Hit) but there should be more situations where it is much trickier to use consistently. And a couple of very powerful effects aren't extendable (Scordeo's Cascade, Prevent Death condition - Barring Death Door also works differently and is just a very big damage shield but for a longer duration). BPM isn't balanced around solo indeed. But the base game isn't balanced around solo to begin with.

It is my next planned character indeed. Granted that I play with my Balance Polishing Mod which nerfs Bloodmage and buffs Corpse Eater.

I don't add scaling rule to shield in general as answered a couple of weeks ago on this thread. Beetle Shell has 3 major advantages vs Withdraw : - It has triple the range, which is quite relevant when the job is to save some party member life - Less duration/breakable means more flexibility. The 20s(vanilla)/fixed 30s (BPM) out of combat of Withdraw is quite constraining for the team. - Doesn't cancel aggro, so your party member still "acts" as a sort of crowd crontrol effect. It has no built-in healing, but druid has plenty of regen spell, so there's a good chance that the target will have one active. Overall I find it not as good as Withdraw for its purpose, also because Tier 3 instead of Tier 2. BUT it has some advantages on its own, and life-saving isn't meant druid's specialty to begin with. Still I think it fullfills its purpose as it is (reducing casting time to 0.5s was absolutely paramount for it), for which druid has no real other option (apart consumables of course, but that has a money and slot cost).

Nope 😉

Well maybe, but it is far from being obvious to say the least. I've discarded fixing the "ranged weapon paired with melee weapon + melee attack" issue, which applies to several abilities, most noticeably clear out. This one isn't big and gives support to "classic blunderbuss" (opposed to mortars) setting. So I guess it's ok.

The difference here is that Takedown Combo applies to all attacks to the target, not only to the one from the ability. So Takedown Combo would enable your whole party to get +100% damages on a single attack. This is quite a big buff. I think the dual claw aspect comes from the Drizzt Do Urden dual wielding ranger trope. They wanted to make an ability for dual wielding melee ranger specifically. Is this good ? Well I don't know, but the ability is still usable with two hander, I think it should even be optimal with WotEP specifically. Also with non dual wielding weapon, you still get a +10 Acc attack with damages scaling with PL, so this part of the effect is quite equivalent independantly from the choosen weapon. To be fair, I think it might be very tedious to change due to the number of subeffect coded separately for this one. So I think I will discard. Nothing prevent you from using it with DW weapons, then to swap to a good 2 handers. There's not ton of builds that favor style swapping.

For Active Skills only. Arcane is certainly the skill with the highest potential because it turns any character into a caster... for a cost. That being said catsers are the ones that need it the least because... well they are alredy casters. Main character has skill check to do on its own, so I tend to specialize them less than others. My "rules" : - a couple of Athletic (needed for some check and helps in general) and Stealth (helps positionning) for anybody - 1 specialist for each skill except Sleight of Hand : mechanics (the most important, but only 1 character needs it), arcane, alchemy, stealth, athletic, explosives (by approximate order of priority). Yes, you have 5 members for 6 skills, so one of them has to pick 2 skill speciality. I tend to give 2 speciality to main character since they have to do some checks by themselves and main characters ultimately get +1 to all skills. - a couple of Sleight of Hand points to the Stealth Specialist - spare points can be put into Arcane (the most powerful, and 3 points give access to Tier 3 Scrolls) or Alchemy (healing potions) - try to use starting skill point to your advantage, but only Explosives, Mechanics and Sleight of Hand points tend to be lost since arcane, alchemy, stealth, athletic are at least a bit useful to everyone. Finally, there are no utterly bad choices, and you can respec later. For Mechanics, I would give it to either Eder if Rogue or the "mysterious 4th party member" from Port Maje.

Probably going to discard this one. Item abilities might be different from spells sometimes. "Iridescent" scales may hint toward any Blight type rather than ice one. That being said BPM summoned blight scaling should work normally.

Theoretically yes, but the dragon hp is so high that I doubt anything can kill the dragon before the end of its duration.

All Dorudugan fire based attacks can be avoided, including Magnetic Overdrive with the right equipment. That's why I'm specifically asking about Cleave because it's not avoidable if one goes melee.

Is Cleave considered as a melee attack ?

Hi everybody, I released a new version 2.4.1 yesterday Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) Some minor changes mostly, included some previously buffed abilities that has been tuned down. To give a global picture about Enfeebled Affliction with this version : - Forbidden Fist : no changes from vanilla. Still the best way to inflict Enfeebled for a Multiclas. - Perishing Strike : Closer from the original than in Version 2.4. But now, Weakened is replaced by Enfeebled either when Weakened ellapses OR WHEN HEALTH DROPS BELOW 50% (immediately for target already below 50%). So contrary to before your target will get Enfeebled at some point before dying Still not ideal way to play around Hostile Effects extension, but at least systematically useful. - Writ of Mending : added in 2.4.1 a hard -100% healing received so it affects target even if resistant to CON Affliction, in a similar fashion as other Woedica Writs. I thought it was justified as a Tier 9. Probably the easiest way to apply Enfeebled in an AoE, but accessible only to Single Class from a specific Subclass. - Heart Seeker : BPM set its Enfeebled to Infinite Duration for a while as a way to promote SC Ranger as justify its 4 Bonds cost. Note that this is an Auto-Hit attack and has no synergy with AoE Weapons. - Corrosive Skin : BPM upgraded Weakened to Enfeebled for a while, based on people suggestion. Still locked behind the (anyway very powerful) Tier IX Wizard Slot. Contrary to the 2 previous ones, only applies to 1 target, so does not feel overwhelmingly powerful as a way to apply Enfeebled (but is good as a spell as a whole) Fractured Volition does not apply Enfeebled anymore in 2.4.1, but Duration is very long (30s) and recovery very low (3s). This is a similar change as Tenuous Grasp 2s recovery. I think it would be especially adapted to play as a "Mindstalker Death Mark". This way, Enfeebled remain a rare and powerful effect (but you can still pick Fractured Volition from older version, I don't think it would break the game anyway).

OK, I will do it within a couple of weeks (let's not be too ambitious 🙂 ) You should probably add all basic food (such as egg and pork) if you haven't. For the sake of completeness. But honnestly, it isn't a big issue. SSS rooms are also quite decent.

Indeed, that is what I was thinking. This kind of stuff is "obvious" afterward.

That being said, out of the "harmonizing" part that I don't believe to be necessaery, I don't think Draconic Fury compare that much favorably with Minor Avatar from the same Tier. Draconic is an unique spell so should probably be a bit better. The Terrified part is less convenient than the Tier 3 Repulsive Visage and the lash part, albeit good because lashes are great, is not as good as the bunch of stats from minor avatar. Therefore, setting its cast/recovery to the same as Minor Avatar (4.5s/0s) is probably a good idea.

I'm still learning things about the game mechanics...

I see what you mean but there isn't an absolute rule about that. Most self buff are indeed without recovery but their casting time varies (Minor Avatar being a good example). So why not recovery too ? If the spell is very good anyway, I don't think it's necessary to change.

I think I wouldn't have realized it if I hadn't done so many "testing" on wild mare patrons.