Elric Galad

Agreed with the general issue, it shouldn't be exploit only. If tweaked this way, it would be too similar in purpose to Concelhaut parasitic Staff (except the weakened part). I think it should stay a one time "powerful" effect working at melee range. Either I could fix it so it won't last on summons. Or anything similar, such as being weaker but coming with a buff applied to only caster granting better damages - similar design as reaping knives (the focus transfer effect is a buff, not a weapon mod). It could stay moderately useful on summons, as for other summoned weapons. Once the technical part is done, I could adjust the values (damages, etc...)

I think multiplicative, because it does not affect caster but receiver.

Where do you get it from so easily ? I mean, sure you have a couple of spells that provide it (Schackle spell is better in BPM), plus the Menzaggo robe (that you can give to someone else), but I think it's still very good to get. For me, it basically a guarantee that your Swift and Nimble Inspiration won't ever be cancelled. I had a SC Enchanter once. Basically used Missile Salvo for spike damages and Blackbow for most of the rest of the fight. The +10% beneficial effect is a decent bonus on its own. This is the only Wiz subclas that gets 2 passive, mostly because enchanting is so meh. Many melee with short self-buff will like it. Arcane Veil somewhat replaces mirror image, and most other stuff can be replicated by the rest of your party. Specialized characters tend to work better in party causes they reduce a bit overlapping while being better at what they do. If you have elsewhere a source Res affliction (or Blackbow, however for SC) and dispell, you won't loose that much by getting Enchanter.

I don't think so, it is active AFAIK. It doesn't stack with Acute/Brilliant and Potion of Ascension. It stacks with Nature Godlike and the few other stackable PL (such as Pike of the woodlord or whatever it's called).

Sometimes yes Sometimes no That's how unconsistent the save/reload bug is. By defaut it does not stack and no one has exactly figure how to obtain the stacking. BPM Soul Mond is on Hit, which excludes Grazes but allow non damages hit to stop Soul Mind. Just a little bit more for giving than vanilla.

Download Balance Polishing Mod, install it normally, then delete all "gamedata" files except "cl.barbarian.spirit_tornado_non_weapon_bugfix" (the instruction on the mod page explain how to install and what to delete) Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Also small buff +10 Acc to Penetrating Strike since it is a bit low on the curve since PEN bonus was downgraded to +3. The +20% damages is basically a compensation for being Tier 3 (and getting +2 PL scaling less than Tier 1 FoD or Wounding Shots).

Nope, since it increases ticks, not damages per tick. Same for Soul Annhilation. I did what I could. Well, sure, until you miss your attack due to the malus. I think because SA doesn't apply weapon quality, the damages increase will be relatively better. About all other special attacks are bad with the new modal, because you need to graze to apply any effect. Barbaric Blow : FYI, my plan for Barbaric Blow line is now simply to add +50% damages compared to current version. I compared BB to other pure damage ability (such as BPM Accurate Wounding Shot) and realized it was lacking a bit (even if the carnage AoE extension add a bit of utility). BB damages should be around AWS. AWS is an upgraded ability (2 ability points) but only cost 1. (When BB is upgraded to BS, it also becomes an upgraded ability for 1 ressource, which make them more comparable) Vs equal Def and at PL 7, AWS does 248% damages of a normal attack (with a DoT component). BB will do 200%* damages of a normal attack, but it is instant and has carnage component. Also it scales much better vs lower Def. BB is initially quite bad, but +% damages are way better in the early game because weapon quality is still low. So the new +50% damages mitigates a bit this until you get the upgrades. "CB + 1 normal attack" also compares compare quite well with Finishing Blow line in term of DPS (FB also interrupts, CB can be chained). Of course, the only thing that can compare chaining CB in DPS is chaining Spirit Tornado. The former is better vs Single Target, the later vs melee crowd.

BPM made Carnage able to Crit. But I've just discovered Carnage Crits have no effect (apart being considered as Crits for the purpose of Blood Frenzy, Interrupting Blows, etc...) Because they are basically instant DoT, the roll has no influence over their damages and Crit bonus damages (both default +25% and bonus ones) don't apply. Graze malus doesn't apply either. Other damages modifiers do work. So it would feel weird to add a Carnage-specific Hit to Crit bonus to Barbaric Blow line, and Carnage-specific bonus Crit damages won't apply.

I fixed it yet, but thank you

So I did what any sane person would have done and I opened an Excel sheet with parameters. I tried various combinations of Damages bonus, crit damages bonus and accuracy malus (I had the intuition that a bigger acc malus would make the modal more defined) And I found -15 Acc +66% bonus damages to be quite interesting balance (no crit bonus damages, this only works for very high acc and could lead to degenerate builds with high Hit to Crit chances). Hypothesis similar to yours, except crit damages only regular +25% vs def +25 : x0.91 damages vs equal def : x1.08 damages (but you get less hit, which is detrimental to various hit based effects, worth a +15% damages talent) vs -25 def : x1.12 damages (worth a +25% damages talent) vs -50 def : x1.22 damages (not that impressive but Proficiencies come for free) Basically you deal ~10% multiplicative damages if you acc is slightly better than foe defense, the bigger the difference, the bigger the benefit. Turn off when you want to hit something with an affliction applying attack, vs high defense target (+10+ higher def, you still do same damages vs a couple of def points), and if underPEN. Turn on if blinded of course. Hit to Crit and Miss to Graze will help you immensely (BPM Citzal Tier IX Greatsword has Unstoppable Force mod granting 100% Miss to Graze ) I think it is perfectly understandable and usable this way. Funnily enough BPM Pistol and Hunting Bow modal do -15 Acc +66% recovery speed, although not perfectly comparable since +100% speed bonus is rare, I think it worth mentionning.

I doubt so. I've never changed the files and I presume it worked. I'm not the author of this specific part though.

Turning my attention to Greatsword modal. This is arguably the worst designed modal from PoE2. You gain damages per attack by sacrifying... damages per attack, since accuracy has a huge impact on damages per swing. The gain is marginal and involves complicated computation just to be sure you're actually getting some benefit. Sure, the better your accuracy the higher the gain, but what is the threshold ? The +2 PEN +50% recovery modals are not super good, but at least it is rather easy to know when to activate them (when at -4, -3, 2 PEN). You're also shooting in the foot for anything you could want to do with a melee attack (such as applying an unique weapon effect or an affliction). Early game, it's probably not too bad, but when you start piling up damages buff (from weapon qualitu especially), it becomes even worse. Not sure how to make it better (without twisting it completely) EDIT : maybe simply adding +30% Crit damages ? So it becomes clear that if you still manage to get some crits even with -10 acc, you win.

Oh, I should have paid attention to this topic, so I could have warned you. BPM nerfed pistol and hunting bow modals to -40% recovery (x1.66 recovery speed instead of x2). Also redhand was nerfed so reload is longer than in vanlla (9s instead of 6.8).

The thing is... I don't like On Kill effects too much (they rely too much on encounter design) and they are quite tedious to implement (even to implement back). But the specific reason here is that I don't like On Kill effects that have an additional condition. I don't like double conditional stuff. Bood lust and Blood Thirst don't have this issue, but having to kill with a specific ability, or even with a weapon add a tedious luck factor. As I declared sooner, you may have your kill "stolen" by your own DoT (Deep Wounds, Bleeding Cuts, various weapon effects...). BPM Barbarian design emphasizes a lot Carnage synergies, since Carnage has been the big looser from PoE1 design. I haven't completely forgotten On Kill strategies though, Bloody Slaughter adding +100% carnage damages vs Near death targets is basically about farming low health targets into kills.

Energized of course, but this is basically Interrupting Blows on steroids. I guess crit damages talent does help a bit for the damages part. Lord Dalryn Voulge would trigger its electric damages earlier. With addition of 75% hit to crit for carnage, you will have access to reliable Disoriented. Ultimately not much better. Related to carnage but not crit, Combusting Wounds and Crushing Blows is a fun combo. BB, BS and CB will get 75% hit to crit and +75% crit damages also with carnage according to my plan. I've reduced BB and BS carnage AoE buff to +100% to avoid too much power creeping. I've increased CB carnage AoE to +300% (X2 RADIUS). CB will be the one to spread Blood and spirit frenzy the best. Also CB could be used to proc interrupt quickly in an AoE. It's not reliable but repeatable until it works. Barbarian vibe here, "smash until they stop whispering their foul magic words"

Yeah, Hit to Crit only applies to Hit. Still, other abilities give their effect only 75% of time since miss does not count. BB line gives a Crit 50% of non-miss. And this is a rather defavorable scenario. Of course, it is expected to pick the right multiclassing if specifically building for it. Also dual wielding gives you 2 chances to connect. That said, I agree, it is mainly a damage focused ability. On an equal acc/def footing, Hits represents 80% of the damages. So boosting only this part of the roll should work. Also, do not forget Carnage AoE extension. Let's say it is a damages focused ability with benefits. Well, the idea is that it attacks the brain, and the upgrade has a silencing effect (plus loosing concentration). Nope EDIT : I thought you were speaking about Sap. If not, yeah, only eliminating blow should be changed. Sure, sure, I will think about it. But Frightened and Shaken are a bit out of the picture. Maybe a simple AoE Interrupt vs Will could work. Like allies shocked. Conditional or not, that's the question. Or a hard Will debuff. But this one does not have big synergies with Rogue. EDIT : OR maybe a 6s Frightened would be better than a 12s Shaken. This solution has the advantage of being extremely easy to implement It's rather complementary with the single target long duration 30s Frightened from BPM Perplexing Sap.

I know, but I'm not super convinced. Maybe because it would make the upgrade concurrent. Granted that an effect On-Kill that won't be concurrent with Blood Thirst could be a good idea. Giving the refund on kill to the base ability is also a possibility. It would make it better, and Barbaric Smash less impactful. A chore to implement though, especially because of Corpse Eater. This is not entirely true. BPM changes made it way more crit focused. It's arguably the best ability to get crits (bar Gambit), which combines well with Interrupting Blow, Blood Frenzy, Skald and a wide range of unique weapons. My favorite might be Beza's Toothed Blade. BS can be used to enforce its stacking -2 AR debuff. Also BPM gave it a much bigger Carnage area. BPM added a lots of synergy to carnage, enabling Interrupt throw Interrupting Blow and applying Blood Frenzy and Spirit Frenzy side effects. (That's why I'm thinking about giving it 75% Hit to Crit/+75% crit damages also to carnage.) Yes, it's a very bread and butter damages stuff, but it has a good amount of synergies. Of course, Crushing Blow feels more unique. Barbarian sort of needed a brainless attack ability though. That's why BS is this way. Yes. It's not even that it is weak. It is just so common. The normal part is fine, really I'm only speaking about the upgrade. I get why Killing blow stuff would fit thematically, but restricting its power to killing blow would often result in overkilling from the damage part. CON Debuff is Withering Strike stuff though. The unupgraded part feels meh enough as it is to introduce further contest. The vanilla game ability description does speak about Frightened. Maybe they tried it at some point and it felt too strong ? Frightened is a good debuff. That said, BPM Rogue gets Frightened under the Single Class restriction through Perplexing Sap. A silencing strike might feel a bit strong for MC. Or just I would prefer SC Rogue to keep its stuff.

This would work but this is kind of redundant with Blood Thirst. If you time your normal attack for the kill, you already can get a no-recovery free killing attack. Agreed. Part of the issue comes from Barbaric Blow being so lame on its own, even with BPM version which is more crit focused. I'm thinking about adding 75% Crit chance and +75% Crit damages also to Barbaric Blow carnage part (which is already increased in AoE). This would result in much better interraction with Blood Frenzy and Interrupting Blows. Crushing Blow could be given an additional Carnage bonus of some sort (or just better carnage numbers), in a way that "instresically works better with instant attacks". Maybe even bigger AoE (not sure how it would "instresically work better with instant attacks" though). I fear that buffing the single target damage part won't make the ability buildable around. Also I'm thinking about Eliminating Blow. I get the intention, but the AoE Tier 1 affliction isn't super satisfying for party building. Main target should stay unaffected to be keep the vibe though. Maybe an enormous AoE would fit ? EDIT : maybe I'm overthinkng it. The AoE (2,5 radius) is big enough, and it's still an almost free debuff that synergizes OK with new attack cycle. It's just not easy fitting among all RES Affliction debuff, but when used it's good enough. Maybe I can tweak up duration a bit.

I think it was the bug, limitating the duration to 15s on the animal companion (when ranger is downed). Granted that it is probably not the most frequent case, but still. Corrected. OK, I tried a little thing that worked with Toxic Strike : I have put the Poison KW on the corrode DoT only. (This tweak is very technical and will not work to put a Poison/Disease KW on an affliction only ; this works only when the subsequent effect has not a distinct roll. Afflictions tend to have distinct roll - Plague of Insects, Vole Thorn, etc...). Now Toxic Strike does work on Poison Immune target, but only for the attack and Weakened parts. The DoT still does not work. I think this is a good compromise because it will be identical to Withering Strike vs Poison Immune targets. You're not "loosing an ability" by picking the upgrade (you just have 1 useless upgrade for a specific battle). This won't make Toxic Strike too universally powerful. Also, about Crushing Blow : Barbaric Blow & upgrades : Removed the PR and Damages bonus to make the ability more focused. Now Barbaric Blow & Upgrades do : - 75% Hit to Crit chances - +75% Crit damages bonus (note : Crushing Blow do get this bonus, even if it does not get Crit Damages Bonus in the base game due to a bug) - +200% Carnage AoE (soroughly 2.5m radius instead of 1.5m) - Barbaric Smash : no refund, but cost reduced to 1 Rage - Crushing Blow : no recovery (not conditional anymore) I think this change was good, but Crushing blow with no recovery costs twice as much as Barbaric Smah, making it overall much more situational. I might add some simple buff to it (maybe +15 Accuracy since you really want your 2 rage ability to connect...)

How do you guys would feel about removing Poison KW from Toxic Strike ? The ability text doesn't even speak about poison. Poison/Disease are annoying keywords because they don't have many positive interactions and they are often resisted. Withering Strikes and Persisting Strike don't have Poison KW. Baiscally one shoots oneslef in the foot by picking Toxic Strike, which renders even Withering Strike unusable vs a rather wide range of foes. They said, Toxic Strike is a strong ability (BPM Persisting Strike is better than in vanilla). I fear that it could become too much of an universal solution to all fights. What mitigates the issue is that it has Acid KW in BPM, so there are still a couple of foes that would be totally insensitive to it (or just Corrode resistant). Similar case for "Their Putrid Stench Waffs Across". It adds disease KW, making its unupgrade version useful against more targets. I'm pretty decided about this one to remove Disease KW, since it is already a bit situational (need a corpse, only provide benefit vs non CON resistant foes). Also the Dank Spore summons. I think both the Charm ability and the ultimate explosion are Poison/Disease KW, altough the issue is somewhat lesser since even the base ability has a drawback. I think the upgrade is rarely great (even after BPM Summon Rebalance) cause concurrence of all Chanter summons, require 2 ability points from only SC chanter. Infinite Sickened isn't bad but does nothing vs many foes. I have to think about a better On Death effect, maybe a poison raw DoT, maybe even an infinite one. Don't hesistate if you have a cool idea (but I think I should keep the exploision On Death).

I think I will go for : - Instant melee attack on any kills from the Fighter. At leats it would avoid having your kill stolen by your own DoT. On Kill effect are already a bit luck-sensitive, so avoiding this restriction would help a lot. Quite some MC potential, albeit not as much as Blood Thirst. - +10% Melee Weapon Crit damages per threatened target (count threatened targets as Mob Stance). (restriction to mele weapon because damages bonuses are more beneficial to spell and this is a melee stance after all). Crit damages are quite useful versus trash foe mobs, so I guess it would fit. This would still be inferior to uber versatile Warrior/Conquerer stances vs single target (and crit damages aren't very reliable), probably around equal vs 2 targets until the extra attack happen (if it does). The current description is wrong anyway as it is.

I don't think so but I'm not sure. Arterial strike is 0.33 tick, which is the minimum I know. I would not go lower. 1s seems satisfying. Theoritically, it should be 5/12 of the previous power when abused. I think it's enough. It's an oversight. The ability is unfortunately not working as intended. It should be corrected. It seems a display bug. Yep. A bit like BPM Stag form is a good choice for SC Druid with BPM Entropy.

Cleaving Stance may not provide enough reliable benefit compared to other stances after 1.1 nerf. It is basically a very underwhelming version of Blood thirst. Guardian Stance is a direct concurrent when facing a mob. I might change it to proc when anything is killed in melee range. Or something this style.

I have tweaked Into the frail upgrade a bit further than BPM into the frail (almost no damages but 1 Discipline). These are somewhat situational so I wanted spending 2 ability points to provide... Less situationalality. Out of the Fire range was tweaked up to 8m (already the most flexible, wanted to emphasize it) Lower their guard dazed was set to 10s (-10 AR is cute for 1 attack it won't do that much). Lower their guard should be somewhat spammable now. This is also a way to emphasize Fighter Tanking gameplay.