Elric Galad

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.

I'm pretty sure you cannot

I have done the translation myself for new modifications. I can maintain French version even if the initial effort was a bit too much. You can, but restart from this version. Yes, always the case. Already destroyed corpsea ceased to provide the bonus. That's why it is useful to turn off exploding gore effects.

Version 4.0.1 is live. Basically 4.0.0 fixes. Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

My own personal choices would be Amira's Wing or Rod of the Deep Hunt. I do find non watershaper focus rods underrated. Rod modal is crazy vs crowd, esp with Shared Nightmare (same as mortars and watershaper focus). The big difference is that non-watershaper focus rods are good enough vs single target. Nothing shiny but still way better than Watershaper focus/mortars which basically requiring weapon swapping vs single target, instead of just modal toggling. They feel super flexible and have decent enchant. Ciphers do get decent accuracy to use frostseeker, but it requires setup (Borrowed Instinct, Psychovampiric Shield, some flanking). I don't find it reactive enough for most fights. Amira's Wing also has spell like abilities which benefit from weapon quality (+60% damages for legendary, not even counting PL scaling). Sure it's 1 per rest, contrary to Kitchen Stove but Horrid Writting with +60% bonus damages and Shared Nightmare is... Horrid ? And it will most likely replenish full focus. I also love Rod the Deep Hunt. Sure you don't have all of Amira's Wing spells but the minus deflection and recovery time is exactly what you want vs bosses (and is decent vs crowd), when rod modal becomes suboptimal. Again nothing shiny but the whole party will benefit from your boss debuffing (-5 Deflection +15% recovery isn't a bad passive debuff vs a strong single target). Second slot : A few bosses are very resistant to slash AND pierce damages and REQUIRE essence interrupter. Which is also quite good vs single target because of Hunting bows modal. It's a close to necessary secondary slot. Sometimes Redhand is nice for the single target burst/focus gain.

I believe absolutely nothing interacts with DoT or any damages not applied through an attack (such as self damages). The only thing that takes them into account is Monk Wound counter. I don't even know how I could mod it. It should also be noted that some "on damaged" effect actually only take Hit and Crit into account. Not Graze. Iron Skin and Goldpact come to my mind. EDIT: pretty sure mirror image works on damaged, buy Wizard's Double I have a doubt about it requiring an actual Hit (which would be a big plus).

Why these subclasses granted that both are specially about summoning and you can't have GH pet along chanter summons. Are you hating pet that much ?

OK, I'll look into that. EDIT : here is the hotfix. I'll release a new official version soon. cl.paladin.bleak_walker_all_corrode.gamedatabundle I haven't change the text specifically, but Bleak Walker text says upgrades secondary effects would be corrode damages too. Changing the text prevents the translation (apart for English and French, managed by the mod). so it's always a trade-off

Okay, now this is technically a Balance Polishing Mod upgrade. You'll find Animal Companion, Bleak Walker, Darcozzi, Unbroken, Shred spells and Penetration Modal reworks as announced previously. (Note that for Darcozzi, the fire shield stacking didn't work... but it worked by stacking Lay on Hand fire Shield with GLoH/HoL fire shields (always has been). So I doubled the damages of the Tier 3 version and I added a note to state explicitly that it does stack) Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

I tried it (now that I'm developping a new version) but it worked fine.

Okay, this is not technically a Balance Polishing Mod update, but I have just released muy new mod which allows bypassing Dispositions while getting maximum effects for Paladins and Priests (either from the start or through level scaling). Replace Disposition Scaling at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) Of course compatible with CP and BPM, but independant.

Ahem, Arquebus is veil-piecing. It's more a Devoted issue with other weapons.

Why rogue (maybe not streefighter) isn't on the list ? For weapon DPS, there are not that much that can be the sheer DPS increase from Sneak Attack, Deathblows and Deep Wound. Chanter is great for Swift Handed but you can have one in the party, not the gunner themselves. Probably some Ranger/Rogue with Chanter support is more optimal.

Most likely not, but who can say no ?

This. It is not even 2 free talent for a talent starved class since you won't get the +15% damages for vicious. Vicious Companion would become : +15% damages, +25% Stride. Which can be useful (esp for MC without obvious access to Nimble), but not necessary for all builds. Resilient Companion would become : +6+3/lvl hp, up to +66hp (better tough). Healing and damage prevention is usually more important than max health, but max health does help, especially with Play Dead (pets get more benefit from max health than your usual goonies due to that). You gotta be good at something. Anyway getting crit as pet isn't that obvious as you only get marked prey, aware and expensive Shadowed Hunter. A triple attack Frostseeker ranger with max Per will result in a much greater havoc. Thanks !