Elric Galad

I think it's true for other martials : - Spamming FoD/LoH/Sworn ennemies work better than basically any higher level paladin abilities - Spamming Crippling Strike often works better than higher tier attacks (but Gouging Strike is cool, as well as SC Rogue's Gambit and Vanishing Strike). Invisibility stuff is too costly. You're better spamming more crippling strikes. - Barbarian can basically spam only Spirit Tornado and (for SC) Driving Roar/Dazing Shout and still be fine. You can even say they are optimal this way. - Accurate Wounding Shot basically does as much damages as Twin Shots which is twice the price (so you'll be only using the later for 2 handers procs Shenanigans) - Monks... well Monks are fine, as always. The fact that SC get less total ressources than MC make it worse.

Sundering Blow feels balanced to me. It is one of the rare SC Fighter abilities I didn't buff with my mod and I was still using it very often. Targeting Def, done through an attack, rod/WotEP abuses make it superior to Rust which is already Tier 7. Toughened fury is counter intuitive for a class with so high defense. I've set it to 8% on damaged and it still doesn't provide that much ressources. Take The Hit shouldn't take any time. Spending a standard attack action time just to transfer damages isn't worth it. I also deleted the cost since Tier 9 abilities shall be worth it and Discipline is scarce. Upgrading AoE wouldn't be a real buff : you need to control a bit how many allies you get damages from. If all summons are affected, good luck surviving the next fireball ! If Take the Hit transferred attacks and not damages, it would be better with fighter defenses. As it is I see it only as a barely convenient damages management tool. It is close to the usual treatment I gave to all Empower Passives : 20% of chopping wood last for the rest of battle after having be used once for Empower.

I would say it is rarely worth it. Inspired strike is overcosted, does not work with AoE weapon, and Empowering it would burn so much ressources that you will fill naked for middle to long duration battles. Sundering blow is great though, especially with AoE weapons such as mortars or rods. Clear Out upgrades are nice, but Clear Out on its own is good enough and can benefit from MC talents. Black Jacket + varied weapon + Clear Out upgrades can be fun, but that's not what you intend to play.

New version available with : - Some rework of Godlike (especially the Companion only ones). New passives correctly appear on Character Creation menu - Screaming Souls reworked - Purge of useless icons close to character portraits You can check full details on the mod page : Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

If I remember well it's because the status is tagged Poison, but not the ability / attack. And the Immunity works somehow based on the status, but not the KW based bonuses.

Yeah, anyway, I don't say that you should use it in priority, just that I think picking both is interesting. In the case of a subclass without Evocation spells, picking Death Ring mitigates the loss of Piercing Burst (esp for Conjurer). (and well, I added Acid KW with BPM, with is good for Chromoprimatic. Really a pity that it wasn't in base game) I think I developped a fear of pierce immune foes during my first run. Now I'm a little paranoid about that. Or maybe also because there is a lot of Pierce resistant too, but it is rarely a pb with MPPB 15 PEN indeed. As a rule of thumb, I like having spells with different damages type or different utility on each tier.

Sure ; but Plague pf Insect isn't tagged Decay though (neither in base game not BPM). But Decay bonus might help a DoT build of course.

It has been fixed by BPM for a while 🙂

Setting the effect to purging only Hostile does not work for some reasons (even if I basically copied the Hostile-Only immunity to water). So I'm going to replace this (rather obscure) bonus. I'm going to add Immunity to Push/Pull instead, which feels right for a Wave Walker.

The good thing is that the new drakes don't count toward summon limit. Still it's meh because Drake Summons are rather bad (unless using BPM Summon package 😁,)

For those who care, I also added 1 point in both MIG and CON to his stats (as a part of Companions stats buff). Sounded like he could get some use of them.

Yup but Death Ring AoE is 4 times bigger (twice the radius) so it's logical that it isn't as damaging ! Also it destroys Near Death targets which is sometimes useful. Destroy spells works on a Graze AND as an assassin you can get a +25 accuracy bonus when using it from stealth. Basically auto-kill everything Near Death with a Fortitude at most equal to your accuracy. Given the later, I would qualify Death Ring as a no brainer for an assassin, even if Piercing Burst is often better. You can still pick both. And Freezing Pillars would apply Assassin bonus only on 1st tick before breaking invisibility so... Also you can't rely ONLY on a Pierce damages spells. Just toomuch foes are immune to it. I would pick both, especially on a Bloodmage who has 2/3 chances of restoring his Tier 6 spells (provided no other slot consumed).

So for Marine Godlike, I think I'm going to give them (or well him) a : - Keep slog zone and water immunity. These are circonstancial, but still nice to have around - Set the Fire status purge to every 1s (so basically, only the initial tick will apply for any fire effect/dot). Also only purges Hostile Fire status (as Water Immunity only affects Hostile effects...) - Add +3 AR vs crush damages as a new bonus. Godlikes need something a little less circonstancial than the previous effect to compensate for the lack of helmet. AR vs crush fits the "resistant to wave/water pressure" theme, and is quite rare to find. Great synergy with Spiritshift (but even in this case less strong than good old Bear form). It can be completed with Pierce/Slash AR items for an overall resistance to physical damages.

Just to say that the reason why the game (initially) sold very poorly has also been debated a lot. Pirates theme has been pointed without evidence about it being the main cause. If it is part of the problem it is a bit sad, because it's mostly well done (bar naval combat that is 99% skippable) and quite original. It would mean that audience isn't interested by unique content, even in a sort of intellectual genre.

Lack of playtesting, I think. I've corrected many obvious bugs for abilities that are a bit meh based on their description and doesn't see a lot of play. They corrected bugs and balanced based on player feedback, which means "unattractive" abilities were caught in a vicious loop where nobody cared. The game sold poorly, so don't expect a super high level of quality in term of balance. It is not even a top priority in term of post-release additions. Adding the (poorly balanced) Turn Based mode is way above proper balancing for usual player satisfaction. Also Balancing a single player game could lead to player dissatisfaction (if you nerf the ability that everyone loves). Theoritically, I agree that balance feels more legit to be left to the devs. And Gameplay mods are... often somewhat poorly balanced. But I'm also the author of the mod above. Because it's clear that there is zero change of getting balance update now. I've done my best to create something as.. well.. balanced as possible while remaining quite faithful to original intents, including gathering "peer review".

Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) Basically the subclasses you name are the ones that got buffed (but in other ways that you suggest).

I don't think it would be too powerful since Shifter can't cast. Loosing casting is a super big deal (with a proper cooldown). Druid, even Shifter, is meant to be a caster. Cat form does about x1.6 time the damage of a weapon of equivalent quality. With Wildstrike counted. Mowdyr is about x1,4 without any downside. The gap is much more significant for Spiritshift armor though. I would have preferred it too. I do think that Shifter subclass is interesting too, but maybe there could have been another subclass which allows permanent spirit****.

Sort of : Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) <Version 1.4.3> Watery Double can be controlled by player (Watery Double AI wasn't able to use its abilities).

So the "special version" for you (akka the normal one, but that applies to all targets) : cl.cipher.screaming_souls_all_targets_scream.gamedatabundle.zip It's nowhere near the same league of convenience as Powder Burns though. - It costs 2 guiles (which are very precious for Single Class) - It costs 2 ability points, one of which is Tier 7 (extremely precious for Multi Class) - The duration is rather short (12s base) - It is absolutely not guaranteed to hit. It has very bad interaction with Adept Evasion, high PER, high DEX - You need to mitigate somehow the Sicken affliction that Smoke Grenade applies (as well as Corrode damages BPM adds to Smoke Grenade... but this part can actually be a benefit for Streetfighter) I can't simply delete all the mini combo that enables Streetfighter passive. If I go with non-frienly fire Screaming Soul after removing Distracted frol Powder Burn, I think it's a bit too much for this subclass. Yes, it's convenient to have it on Rogue side, but MC/Party combos have much better tools, such as the Wisps, Pernicious Cloud or Debilitating Strike from a friend, etc...

Also Power Strike and Strike the Bell line.

Also the main source of healing for a Paladin is Lay on Hand (except for Kind Wayfarers). So investing in Intellect can be a better choice (especially because it affects Summon duration from your Chanter side).

It would be foe only (except screaming target won't take damages from its own scream) 2.5m radius 12-20 raw damages per Spriti/Vessel. Keeping the original 2.5m radius would be more similar to original intent and would cap damages vs single target (while being an excellent 1000 cuts enabler for SC Ciphers) A bit different from Spark the Soul of the Righteous AoE, and thematically linked to Silent Scream.

I will share a zip this evening. Possibly "your final version" if I can.

Yes, I understand that. But I'm not sure I will be able to do it given the technical issues I had. What I can do is to make a variant for you 🙂. But including it in the mod would lead to non autonomous files (one requiring another), which I want to avoid. Now I'm also thinking about setting screaming soul to its original AoE but with Silent Scream damages (12-20 raw) That would lead to respectable damages, esp Vs vessels/Spirits, but will cap it Vs single target. Smoke Grenade isn't an explosive, it's one of the Smoke Cloud upgrade. Powder burn Distracted has been removed by BPM nerf anyway (it was stupidly easy to activate). But that's why I'm reluctant to remove other self inflicted Distraction from Streetfighter.

Now that I'm thinking about it, @theleemight be right about making this abilities for only. There are few abilities in this game that doesn't display their AoE. Clear Out is a good example, and it's quite annoying. But Screaming Souls would become the only ability with unclear AoE that can cause friendly fire. I believe this could really be super annoying. Setting it to foe only would solve the second issue. It could be : -5m wide base AoE -1.5m wide foe only secondary AoE, excludes center target (foe hitting themselves with their own scream while allies don't would be weird) -30-50 raw damages -Distracted affliction What do you think ? Would it be too powerful ? It compares well with Spark the Souls, less damages but raw and instant. Also more conditional. But Spark the Souls is for SC priests only that are good AoE nuker, while Ciphers should probably not be. I'm considering adding self-target to Smoke Grenade to give another option to Street fighter to activate his effects. Throwing a Grenade at your feet should hurt. That would be to compensate the loss of a potential party inflicted Distracted.