Elric Galad

I'm not set on the cooldown value. Or possible tweaking the stun duration (also considering I added a PL scaling ). The reason why I think a cooldown is specifically needed in this case is that attacks vs will are often unfrequent, unless it's a fear aura/pulsating effect and suddenly happens every 3s. So a % chances would lead to it triggering too rarely OR too often. So it is hard to find balance otherwise in this case. DoT won't solve the problem of the initial backlash (as you point). Even Dazed is not very complicated to apply through Mind Plague as a Cipher. Honestly, I don't like it (or at least I prefer cooldown solution) Just to confirm that changing to Dazed is not too tricky to implement though. At least easier than a cooldown.

Would be interesting to know. Sometimes there's dead code (an example was a condition "on Hit only" which excluded On Graze and On Crit effects. This was useful to debug Entropy)

In term of power, what you suggest is indeed about the right target. In term of implementation, just be aware there are technical limitations. Not to flood with details, some examples : - "If you don't have used spell of the lvl, the tick do nothing. " => Seems technically impossible - "20% tier 6-7" => Seems technically impossible. What is possible is restoring Tier 1 - x, not Tier x to y. The floor level isn't an editable parameter. - For some reason, randomizing separately each Tick seems tedious (or leads to side-effects). As an example Bloodmage Sacrifice does in Vanilla game : - 1/3 Tier 1-4 - 1/3 Tier 1-7 - 1/3 Tier 1-9 But it seems that there is a small bug compared to devs intent, so I moded it to : - 1/3 Tier 1-3 - 1/3 Tier 1-6 - 1/3 Tier 1-9 You can't do the same for Brilliant because randomizing separately each Tick is not that easy. It works for Bloodmage because it is not a tick.

Validated You can't take all talents for all runs. Psychic Backlash is probably going to stay non-mandatory anyway because it is a bit situational. But I have to make sure it is efficient enough when used for a non-optimal-but-still-efficient builds (such a s a Frontline Soulade focusing on Cipher passives rather than picking tons of active powers). Also, I don't like to alter too much the original philosophy. At least when abilities have already a purpose, which is true in most cases. I prefer to tweak numbers. MIG : yes. PL : no, but yes with my mod. Captain's Banquet : no. Why should it be affected by Captain's Banquet ? It is not a spell. The game mechanics are already complex enough, so I would favor not introducing exceptions.

Yup, but you suggested to move it to Tier 8/9. So I supposed you expected a Mod to do that And the initial post explicitly referred to Community Patch and Balance Polishing Mod, so it's legit to explain what they already do.

Are you refering the modded version of SoT which caps at doubling a duration ? Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community I disagree about putting it on Tier 8 - 9. It would be too constraining for party composition. EDIT : to be more clear, my target is that the ideal party would need either a Cipher, a SC Chanter and or enough other characters with infinite ressources (MC Chanters, Monks, Blood Mage, Tactician, SC Martial who all have a ressource regain means in my mod) Ancestor's Memory as a Tier 7 giving about 3 base resources back to Martial characters is something I'm not willing to change. Currently, I'm leaning to : - 6s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 3 - 12s tick +1 ressource up to Tier 9 (cumulative with previous one) - No effect on initial tick (which would solve Tactician rebooting Brilliant) - A couple of additional Tactician changes, but consider I already made some changes in my mod. Except if Maxquest finds something smarter

First, I don't know if it's technically feasible. I would say probably not since the game doesn't have an effect like this. Then, I'm pretty happy with Brilliant giving back to ressources. I fear that My only grip is how broken it is for casters. Changing it would probably make Megabosses battles too hard. Yup, that's 4 fights in the game but I still don't want to make them impossible. Capping it at Tier 3 in my mod spell might have been an overnerf, so we are currently discussing with @MaxQuestabout giving back spell slot without limitation about one time out of three. We want to take time to think about it because of technical tediousness, but I think we will eventually find something. Also, the abilities/subclass you named have all been tweaked or nerfed to avoid abuses in BPM. Once it is done, I also plan to set Chanter Tier IX invocation to (non-self) +2 ressources. Note that casters can only get 2 casts of the same Tier through this so it is more or less balanced (restoring a Tier 7/9 slot costs a cast). I've added this to my TO DO list just before going to bed yesterday

DoT damages does not feel very "brutal" to me. And feels a bit unnecessary if the 30s delay prevents infinite reapplication. My version of Brutal Backlash has 40 base damages + scaling. For the damages part, I think it's enough. Not sure something else is needed. The main issue for me is uselessness Vs non will attacking battles. But I guess it will be useful often enough. And probably challenging to play against.

Backlash could also be coded in a similar fashion to Tekehu defense vs Fire spell : 100% chance, but has to refresh with a delay (~30s ?). Both Backlash & Brutal Backlash are situational talents. Spending 2 points for something situational is the major problem with brutal backlash, even with a better damage value. But with a good value, it would at least be useful in the right situation, Ney ? If not, what could be your suggestion ? For Enchanter I wonder about giving them permanent Dex Aff Immunity... or maybe a +15/+25% beneficial effect duration ?

Other changes I'm thinking about : Cipher Backlash (and brutal one) : what about making it 25% chance on Will attacks rather than once per encounter ? Illusionist : the unique ability is basically 1 extra cast of tier 2 spell. What about making it 10% chance on being Hit or Crit ? (Not Graze or it would be too easy to keep mirror image 100% of the time). This would be less reliable but much more handy for long fights (and a bit more unique). Enchanter : after dealing with Conjurer and Transmuter, this one strikes me as the subclass with the less purpose (which is even worse than simply being weak). Many of their high level abilities are very situational. Their spells also don't benefit much from +2PL. I think they would have needed an unique ability to be the corner stone of the subclass. Granted their current one is convenient but not much more. I have no precise plan for this one, so any suggestion would be welcomed. @MaxQuest I don't have an opinion about reducing Best Defence attack speed. Maybe it would fit fluff wise as a small shield. What matters is overall DPS so I'm waiting for your own analysis !

For information, Storm's Rage (normal) scaling is planned and being tested for next version of Balance Polishing Mod.

They also have a small DoT on Hit, but it doesn't stack for multiple Wurms. The upgrade would be pretty good but : - it costs +1 phrase to cast so the upgrade isn't really cost effective. - Wurms weapons don't grow stronger with levels which make them meh. PEN is only 9 which is nice at lvl 3, but useless on Endgame.

To clarify a bit my design choices for KW : in most cases I added it as frequently as possible, because : - It makes the ability more clear. This is especially true for the many Poison / Disease abilities that did nothing Vs Poison Immune (because poison Status affected the whole attack). - It granted PL bonus from items by adding KW to ability. I don't think there are a lots of case where it could have been applied to the attack only to avoid weird interactions with Immunity mechanics. Spirit Tornado would have been annoying so you did well. IoBR is questionable since adding the KW to ability makes fire Immune resist the initial attack. But adding KW to ability is necessary to get the bonus from PL. And the ability would still be suboptimal Vs Fire Immune anyway. So I think leaving KW is better. - I don't mind too much having a couple of foes immune to the new keyword. It supports using different abilities vs different foes. That's why adding Acid KW is good in general. The questionable choices would be adding Fire / Frost / Poison / Disease KW to OFFENSIVE abilities since they are the most commonly resisted. However : • I don't remember adding Frost KW to an offensive ability. • I think all Poison / Disease KW added were already fully resisted. • For fire spell, I only remember about IoBR which is discussed above.

After checking again, it's not so simple. The reason I believed that is because I tested Instrument of Boundless Rage with a +fire PL item such as Magran's Axe or Chromoprimatic. The Fireball has the Fire KW, but not the ability itself (in order to prevent the initial attack to be resisted by fire immune). I can confirm (just tested again) that the Fire bonus PL doesn't apply to the fireball. But for some other abilities, it works. 2.0 CP version of Spirit Tornado has added Frost KW on the Frost attack, but not the ability. And it works perfectly fine : only the Frost attack benefit from +frost PL item. So it depends. I think it may depend whether the attack is the "main attack of the ability" in the Ability Gamedata file (in this case it works) or a subsequent one triggered elsewhere (in this case it does not work).

Several people asked themselves a similar question about Tuotilio's Palm DPS and came to the conclusion it was half way between DW Unarmed and Unarmed + (small) shield. That's because the main hand get a huge DPS bonus through DW speed increase. I think this is a reasonable design and should be kept as a reference for all bashing shields. That is what I call the "Tuotilio's DPS ratio" compared to DW Unarmed. Unarmed has approximatively the same damages as a normal speed 1-hander (0,5 higher actually) IMHO the DPS of "Normal 1-hander + Bashing shield" shall be equal to "Tuotilio's DPS ratio" x DW Normal 1-hander DPS. This target is reached by applying the same damages to bashing shield compared as Tuotilio's (0,5 lower actually, I've been a bit conservative because they have dual damage types). The reason why it feels a bit low is because Normal 1-hander DPS is significantly lower than Unarmed DPS (4s recovery vs 3s). Note that Unarmed has an significant opportunity cost : you need to be SC Monk and/or get a lots of PL Bonus to reach the same scaling as an enchanted item. This constraint is comparable for Tuotilio's compared to other bashing shields. There are other subtle differences involved : + Tuotilio's can benefit from a Modal proficiency (relevant, but not that much except for fighters) - Other Bashing Shields get Dual damage types (which is significant) Maybe you'll find that my value is still a bit too low. But I really thing that bashing shield should not have a DPS comparable to normal 1-hander.

Just my 2 cents, but Balance Polishing Mod tweaked Magran's Blessing and Best Offense to align their base damages with Tuotilo's Palm's. Tuotilio's is faster but is based on Unarmed which is also faster than regular 1 hander and requires a specific talent. That leads 7-10 damages 7 PEN for both shields. The only difference is that Tuotilo's scaling is based on Monastic Unarmed Training / Transcendant Suffering while the other 2 is based on (Noqn's) quality scaling. (EDITED because I needed to remind the values and reasoning behind it)

On the technical side, my understanding is the following : - Different attacks from a single ability may have different KW. Provided the ability does not have KW itself, the attack without the KW won't be resisted. But the attack with the KW won't benefit from any KW PL because it requires the ability to be keyworded (but the Elemental PEN talents do work). That's why putting a KW on the ability can be detrimental. - The ability won't be advertised to "carry the KW" if only subsequent attacks or status carry it but not the ability itself. I think this can be an issue for understandability. - Any attack with a keywords substatus will carry the KW itself. That's why some attacks such as Vile Thorns are fully resisted by poison immune despite only the status being keyworded.

My bad, just read the detailed list of changed and 2.0 already appeared. 3). Detailed list of changes (as of v2.0): Since @Phenomenumtold me the version was technically ready I thought the files were updated. I suppose they will be updated soon.

After your suggestion, I kept the idea of adding Frost KW to Spirit Tornado on my TO DO list. But after speaking with @MaxQuest, he agreed to add it to Community Patch. So now it EDIT : is will be included included in CP 2.0 that has just been released. EDIT : It already appears in the Keyword list. Cheers !

It would be OP though.

@theleeNope, I didn't have time for it. My mod overwrite the On Kill effect anyway but I think I have a bug listed with Spiritshift Frenzy so I might find something. Unfortunately I'm quite busy IRL for now, so I only have time for a bit of theorycrafting.

The issue for me is that Single Class Cipher does not bring much to DPS. As Cipher, disintegrate is going to be your bread and butter DPS spell. It does not benefit much from higher tier Cipher Passive such as Shared Nightmare. Casting faster with Time Parasite won't help much your DoT Vs Single Target. Single Class Beguiler with Shared Nightmare is super great to spam Crowd Control while getting focus back. It won't prevent you from casting disintegrate. But it can't truly be described as a DPS Cipher.

Nice, I wanted to know how well Soul Shock worked for Psion for a while !

This is my understanding but you can add an ability to an existing tree through a mod dedicated Gamadata item. But the whole existing tree would be affected, not just Serafen's. You can't add an individual ability to an individual character.