Elric Galad

And same with Tier 9 Class Passive : Chopping Wood : 100% Hit to Crit for Empowered ability, 20% Hit to Crit for rest of battle Murderous Intent : (100% Hit to Crit /+100% Crit damages) against foes under 50% health for Empowered ability, (20% Hit to Crit /+20% Crit damages) against foes under 50% health for rest of battle Empowered Strike : +100 Accuracy, +100 PEN for Empowered Ability... hum... this one is enough The ratio has to be a bit lower but I think it is fine like this.

I think I'm going to mode Weyc's Wand into +15% action speed for 20s to avoid overlapping with my new Fast Empower To put some values, every talent would give the equivalent of around 4 stat points (EDITED) +5 stat points for the rest of combat, twice as much for the Empowered spell 1 - Accurate Empower : +10 Accuracy to Empowered Spell, +5 Accuracy for rest of battle 2 - Potent Empower : +30% damages and healing done to Empowered Spell, +15% damages and healing done for rest of battle 3 - "Fast" Empower : Instant Recovery to Empowered Spell (because it works), +15% Action speed for rest of battle 4 - Penetrating Empower : + 2 PEN to Empowered Spell, +1 PEN for rest of battle (Of course, if the lasting effect applies to the Empowered Spell, I will tweak the values so that the effects is effectively doubled and not tripled) Sure, it would be a notable self-boost, but it costs many Tier 7 Talents (and Multiclassed only get a total of 3 of them) and alternative is a refill of half of your ressources rounded up (another Missile Salvo, Wall of Many Colors, Phantom, Shadowflames, etc...). So overall, I don't think it would be THAT strong. Consider that only few people use these talents, to the point almost no one spotted that Lasting Empower applies to everything...

Probably. Or not to all the effects of the spell (Same as Bellower using Eld Nary) Most likely abusable using wand of the Weyc and/or Salvation of time. The issue then is that it won't be in line with your CP Icon Also this would have disproportionate consequences on Multi-projectiles/Bounce spells. To be honnest, as I've said above : I have now a clean effect for this passive, even if not in line with the original effect. Maybe it's not interesting (due to redundancy with Weyc's Wand) but at least it works. If somebody comes with a coded and tested solution, I'll consider it. The main issue is that the Empower Mechanic itself is too rarely used to spend more time on it. It also means that only a few people actually have educated opinion and feedback on it which makes tweaking dubious. The only thing that could save it IMHO is additional effects lasting for the whole battle as Weyc's Shield provide. The benefit from re-filling ressource is much better IMHO except in a couple of case (Missile Salvo) that are already too potent to consider buffing the Empower itself. The reason why I'm thinking about lasting effect (such as + 5Accuracy, +10% damages, no idea about the right values) is that the comparison between refill and empower woud be divided in 4 phases : 1) When you use Empower, Empower is obviously much better. 2) After using it, Empower would be a bit better due to bonus. 3) When ressources have been used, Refill would be much much better for a certain time as long as refilled ressources remain. 4) When even refilled ressources have been used, Empower would be a bit better due to bonus. That would be more or less balanced IMHO. The advantages of these "phases" is that it ensures that the better use strictly depends on the length of the battle, which is less true with a mere "lasting effect" such as Weyc's Wand lasting +3PL. But this is a very speculative design that would deviate much from current one. Just tell me if you think this idea worths considering.

Well I went with the No Recovery stuff that has the advantage of working and being bug free. It is not fun to have redundancy between this and Weyc's Wand but on the plus side it ensures that I'm not creating OP combos since the ability already exists. It is also quite relevant for Martials that don't want to use a Wand. I spent too much time on these Empower Talents compared to how much the whole Empower Mechanic is used. In an ideal World, I think Empower Talents could have provided bonuses lasting until the end of the encounter so using Empower could be more tempting but it is too much change for a "Balance Mod". Sorry to chose the easy route for this Time. By the way, I wonder if People would start to use unmoded Lasting Empower cause it's quite powerful as it is

Ach, it does not work. Action speed buff is only applied after the spell is cast. I have to think about it again.

I'm dumb. Weyc Wand already has 0 recovery After Empower attacks. Which is close enough for not bringing NEW degenerate Combos. Guess I should go +200% action speed si the 2 won't overlap too much.

I don't get it. No recovery allows to have regular casting Time but next action happening few seconds sooner. Action speed affects both casting and recovery phases so it would have worked for casters and martials. Martials have more abilities with low casting Time and normal recovery, so they would benefit more from No Recovery (this is intended). I fear Maelstrom and Salvo with very reduced casting Time. But maybe 100% faster casting + no recovery once peut battle would be worth a Talent Point and opens New possibilities for using empower.

Apparently, lasting Empower applis its +20% duration boost to every Inspirations/Afflictions even if not Empowered. It is the case in the base version of the game, but the ability is so rarely used that no one ever realized, except for this guy : https://steamcommunity.com/app/560130/discussions/2/1843566500513031693/ Then, Community Patch tried to change the ability to make it applied to every Empowered Duration, not just Inspirations/Afflications. @Phenomenum realized there was something wrong but thought it was CP's change fault. Then I tried overwrote CP change to go back to base version of the game. But when I tried tweaking the values in order to make the ability relevant I was suprised about what I was. Since there was mods involved, I'm not 100% sure it is true. But I'm quite confident this is an actual base game glitch, especially because of the Steam Post. If confirmed, I'm probably going to address it in some way. I think the glitch comes from Hard Code, so can't be fixed easily. I'm probably going to change the ability entirely. It shall be in line with @Boeroer CP icon (Empowered symbol + Sandglass), so I'm leaning toward giving Empowered Action something like +200% Action speed (helps Empower design toward economy, will benefit any class by "grating" a couple of seconds in critical situations) EDIT : Or Skipping Recovery for Empowered Action to avoid Insta-missile salvo becoming a thing.

Here it is : gn.added_missing_torc_falcon.gamedatabundle Do you think you could test this file ? Just install it in a mod directory, restart the game if needed. Test 1 : I've added it 1x to Una's shop. IJust go there. It should be there. Test 2 : then leave the area and re-enter it. There should still be only one torc.

After a long "meditation", I'm now lining toward a conservative approach. The issue with Passive is that they stacks with everything, so the powercreeping is more direct than with active. I'm especially worried about "Empowered Salvo" builds and Accurate/Potent Empower. I think an equivalent of a "+10 Stat boost" is the base of the balancing for these empowered talents, adjusted for following reason. - Accurate Empower : I will let it at +10. +10 accuracy is a versatile bonus and help damages as well as Crowd Control. - Potent Empower : An equivalent of +10 Might would lead to a +30% increase. However I consider immediate Damages to be the most direct purpose of Empower (Yes, I'm looking at you, Salvo and Maelstorm). Therefore, I will limit the buff to +25%. This is usually a bigger benefit for damages than Accurate Empower (at least for spells) and goes only a bit beyond what CP did. - Lasting Empower : An equivalent of +10 Int would lead to a +50% increase. However, I consider Buff and Debuff to be much less in line with the direct purpose of Empower. In addition, Int would also increase AoE, and the bonus does not apply to non-inspiration/affliction duration. Therefore, a +more generous +75% duration bonus could work. +100% sounded a bit too much. EDIT : even +75% sounds like power creeping. I will limit to +50%. The only reason why it would not have been to broken is because they aren't too many candidate spells to boost. This Empower thing is really tough to deal with. - Penetrating Empower : it's hard to say how much stat point PEN worths. I would say +10 stats could be around +2PEN. PEN could even worths a bit more than that in the general case. That said, I believe that PEN has decreased benefits and that there are other way than a specefic talent to ensure you do penetrate with your one Empowered ability (Elemental talents, Food, High level spells have naturally High PEN, Empower intresically added PEN, you can always empower another spell/weapon with suitable damage types, etc...). This is the reason why I believe this talent to be mostly a convenience. Even if I'm being conservative, I still think +3 PEN is suitable. PS : Sorry for the internal dialogue with myself I'm having in the latest post. Writing here helps me consolidating my reasoning (in addition to potential feedbacks)

Why choosing ? You have 2 sets ! Use the voulge during most fights and keep Sasha's (+shield ) when you want to Empower an Invocation or just tank a little better.

Tekehu is a special case though. He has access to Chillfog... which is indeed a wizard spell. Druid Moon's light and Nature's Balm (which is great as the first spell to cast if one positions a druid at the center of the party) are incredibly useful early on. That's the real reason why they are hard to compare : they simply don't play the same role.

I still have troubles deciding what to do with this Ability. First issue is that it is directly supporting Paladin's style. So buffing it is a straightforward powercreeping, even if limited. It will add something to already existing build using it. People pick it. That doesn't mean it is a good ability, but it stacks. EDIT : Dirty Fighting is also mehish, but stacks and works with everything so I didn't change it. Second issue is that it is not clear if the intended design is to protect the Paladin vs single attacker. 3s can mean both. It is a very subtle case where it requires high INT and/or a fast attacker to work. Increasing the duration as you suggest would solve part of the issue but would let the ability unefficient vs dual damages. I think the ability could also be very focused on its main purpose : protecting vs a lot of similar attacks coming simultanneously such as firearms volley. Something like +1AR Stackable 2 times for 2s could do the trick. It would be clear that it won't work vs Single Attacker, except in rare cases. Neither a nerf nor a buff, just a rework. EDIT : But maybe the stacking would make the ability over-complicated. Increasing the duration to 4s or even 5s would make the ability a semi-reliable +1AR, which is good enough. 5s would have the advantage of truly covering single attacker (except dual type, but even in this case it would help compensating for armor type weaknesses). I think it's good if this ability clearly cover a type of situation without having to consider complicated stuff like the speed of an attacker and your own INT.

For inspired Defenses : What about +1AR for 3s, but stacking 2 times (duration of the 1st AR isn't refreshed when the second hit occurs) ? So would be around +1AR vs single target (with sufficient INT, unless dual damages) and +2AR when ganbanged. And bounce I suspect most of the problems of Empower came from the scaling of Bounce + Projectiles + multiplicative damages. I'm not sure that we shall count +1 Acc, +0.25 PEN and +5% multiplicative damages as equals. Consider that intresic spell level gives +2 Acc and +0.5 PEN per Tier, and is still pereceived to be less that what PL scaling provides to low spell. There are talents that provide not too conditional +1 PEN (laugh in Cipher), +10% damages or +5 Accuracy. I would consider them vaguely equivalent for the purpose of damages (PEN being probably a bit ahead). Multiclasses do get Tier VII abilities, but 3 of them, at least 1 from each class. They can technically pick them but it's very constraining because there are very good abilities on this Tier (Deathblow, Dichotomous Soul, Unbending or Frenzy Upgrades, Stoic Steel, Ancient Weapon, Ancestor Memory to name a few). Picking an Empower talent on this Tier is very committing for Multiclass. It doesnt' solve the problem, but it somewhat dampens it. Yep, maybe. But I still think we could be a bit more generous with PEN. High level abilities are the most likely to be Empowered. They come with a natural +3-4 PEN scaling. You might have picked an elemental talent for it (I've added Acid KW on Missile Salvo...). Empower provides +1.25 itself. If penetrating with spells is a problem, you should have picked some food or source of Tenacious to deal with it. You will need it when Empower is consumed. In normal cases you shouldn't have troubles with Penetrating at all. This Talent simply ensure it isn't the case in the last few remaining scenarios (And maybe add double PEN to critical Strikes). That's why I think +4 is justified. The first points of added PEN are more useful than the following ones. Consider that the main point of Empower is Action Economy and swinging the balance. Damages have an immediate effect. Lasting stuff does not swing the balance immediately. It sorts of contradict with the goal of Empower. That's why I've been so generous. +30% should provide a bit more damages than +15 Accuracy, at least for spells. For Martial abilities it's another thing. +15 Accuracy is more reliable and versatile. +50% would feel a bit too much. From stats +15 Accuracy from PER is the equivalent of +45% damages from might. But PER is more useful for Crowd Control which isn't the main point of Empower I think (damages are). I'm not set on this and I'm waiting for more feedbacks. I think it's fine, but I'm still waiting a bit if some expert players have an opinion about it.

Found and corrected. Will be included in next release. I don't know. +1AR for an ability point feels okay, albeit powerful. Thick Skinned almost gives that + engagement. But I consider Thick Skinned to be a "beyond balance" passive (every classes has a couple of them, such as Stoic Steel, Deathblow, Deep Wound, Driving Flight, or the various modals). What I see now is a mere conditionnal +1AR, which doesn't seem too great. Plenty of cases where it won't work. - Double types of damages - Alternate foes with different damage type - Single foe with attack speed < 3s+INT modifier How much does it worths now ? Half an AR ? Half an AR is meh. But the old +2AR was too strong in a number of cases especially when one get hit by a single ennemy. OK for this one, unless someone comes and claims it OP. Unfortunately, there is no coded status that provides +1 Max Phrase to chanter. What could be done is an increased phrase generation speed. Honnestly it won't be so bad to help SC Chanters to shine vs MC ones. (got several men down yesterday when Fampyrs somehow reflected the Eld Narys that my SC Skald likes chaining...) Something like +15% speed would fit. What do you think ? For Casters, it's a small boost but +1 level 2 spell isn't going to destroy the balance. For Cipher, it's doable to increase base and max focus. Edit : I don't think I will apply these changes to Luminous Bath cause it would cause powercreeping for Multiclass.

Nope, I will check this. Yes, I think it was the purpose. I don't want to change too much abilities (source of bugs too). And I have already coded the change (I was waiting for feedbacks about the other proposed changes but this one seemed rather painless). I also wanted to keep the stackability with Tumbling because... ... the most obvious application is for Riposte or Imagined Pain builds. And even in this case, Nomad Brigandine is the easy choice. I don't like talents to have too narrow goals. And monks do have great choices to pick from so waiting for Tumbling was a too obvious possibility if one does not absolutely need to stack them. That's why I thought this one could have just a little more raw power. +5 Reflex is indeed small, but worth half a talent on its own. I'm extremely curious about the proposed changes about the 5 Empower Talents and Inspired Defense by the way. I am really not sure what to do about them. (and to a lesser extant, spell resistant buff).

Cipher Main Character + Bring a Chanter Companion along Chanters were incredibly strong in PoE1 (Edit : not PoE2 of course) due to how Dragon Trashed melt things around you. But they were quite boring and Dragon Trashed was about 80% of their usefulness.

What I have in mind currently : Graceful Retreat : Monk Tier 2 passive that grants +12 vs disengagement attacks. Basically a lesser tumbling that probably exists only to compensate the absence of fast runner. I would advocate adding it a mere +5 Reflex so it's not entirely worse than tumbling. It's really weak at the moment. Inspired Defenses : Used to be +2 AR before being cut in half. Now it's only a +1 AR that doesn't work in many cases and require high INT to have a chance work vs a single attacker. Maybe the nerf was in a wrong direction. Maybe they should have kept the +2 AR but lowered duration to 2s so it won't usually work vs single attacker. I'm unsure about it. Currenlty it feels meh but I can see it become degenerately good. Spell Resistance : We know from Mage Slayer example that spell resistance is situationnal. This ability also happens to be lowish. I'm thinking about setting it to 15% resistance. Tier 7 Empower Talents : This is basically a bunch of meh talent about Empower which aren't very great to begin with. The issue is that there is a couple of case where Empower is good (Missile Salvo, Elf Nary, Inner Death + Empowered Strike), so buffing them could cause some balance issues. I don't want to do more that changing their numbers. Don't want to waste to much effort on such low used abilities. Here are my thoughs : - Penetrating Empower : could be set to +4 PEN without much risk. Empowered abilities already get some additional PEN from PL so this one would essentially ensure your ability will penetrate. With only +4 PEN, the risk of double PEN isn't so high and would be limited to +30% damages in SOME CASES only, which doesn't seem too degenerate for an ability point. - Accurate Empower : could be set +20 IMHO. (EDIT : +15 Accuracy would be enough) +10 is too low for a single attack. Once more, this one is more an assurance than anything. Benefit from Accuracy are capped by nature. - Lasting Empower : could honnestly be set to +100% without much risk. I don't see many case where buff or debuff applied this way could break the game. It does only apply to Inspiration and Affliction (and changing it has been proved to be tricky by the Community Patch) - Potent Empower : the tricky one. Contrary to Acc or PEN, the benefit from additional damages isn't capped. Could be set to +40% but might be degenerate with stuff like Missile salvo (EDIT : +30% damages would be enough). Great Soul : Currently a worthless talent. I'm considering to upgrade it to the effect of Luminous Bath (+1 Empower Point but also additional ressource). And recall it ""Luminous Soul" for consistency I would probably rebalance Luminous Bath ressource effect this way : - Martials : + 1 ressource - Chanter : + 1 phrase - Cipher : +20 Focus - Casters : +1 Tier 1 and +1 Tier 2 spells. It would worth taking in this case, mostly for martials but still. I would have to check it stacks properly with Luminous Bath effect. What do you think ?

I'm quite reluctant to go in this direction, even if I feel it could be legit. I had a glimpse of everything wrong about scaling from passive abilities. I would suspect there is a bunch of weirdly scaling issue within item abilities. If I had at least a "general rule" about how items scale or not (I think special attacks from weapons scale sometimes with weapon quality as I found when fixing Magran's Blessing), I could estimate how much work it would require to fix them all. Is spearcaster an exception or a rule ? If this is the rule and the rule is rotten, it would require a lot of work to make everything right. So if anyone can make a few test and inform me about the situation, it would be great. How are activated abilities ? How are attacks triggered on event ? Do they get weapon quality bonus ? If yes, do weapon "passive" abilities scale better than non-weapon ones ? Are there known exceptions ? For now, I prefer avoiding any commitment about items. Honnestly, this kind of testing could have its own thread. Findings would interest everybody including people not crazy about mods.

I read Somewhere that Dragon Trashed is the exception. I might be wrong. Anyway, Dragon Trashed is super bad in PoE2, so...

Loot list : I don't think so. Vendors ? If people here tells me it is indeed nowhere, I could add it to a vendor of your choice. Worst case scenario : it would be one additional occurence of an existing item. It is not a specially strong one, so it won't really cause powercreeping.

The idea is legit. As you tested it won't work with Heart of the Storm (it would have required attacks to be Lightning tagged, but this would cause Lightning Immune to be immune to monk attack, so it won't be that great). But it will work with Deltro's Cage and Chromoprismatic staff (will only increase duration, but still a nice interaction. Draconic Fury will have to be Fire tagged for consistency (it provides a Fire lash). I think about Fire and Ice tagging Dichotomous Soul. Still only provides increase spell duration but I feel it would be a nice touch too. I'm not favorable about tagging a summon just because it does a certain type of damages, but the twins are literally made of the said elements. Fire Stag is fire tagged so the twins shall be tagged too. I'm going to wait a bit, gather a couple of ideas and (bug) feedbacks before releasing a new version though.

From Steam PoE2 page it is now written : Owners: 500,000 .. 1,000,000 https://steamspy.com/app/560130 Is that steam only ? I suppose so. Does it include console ports ? This number does not look so bad. Did the game have a rather long tail ?

Not related, but I am currently thinking about a "Magic the Gathering Color Pie" party. It feels like a good idea since there are exactly 5 colors of mana in Magic the Gathering (and they have strong connection to game style and are not that cliché).

So, Version 1.3.2 is released : Boil their flesh and upgrade :0,5s/4s cast time24-27 -> 48 - 54 corrode on near death kills Magran's Priest version of Torrent of Flames (which they get at Tier 7 instead of 5) : Cast with +15 accuracy and foe-onlyPurge of Toxin :30s -> 60s0,5s/3s Cast time (aligned with the priest single target "prayer" line of spell ; it was too weak for a single target situational Tier 3)Beetle Shell :0,5s/4,5s Cast time (aligned with Withdraw)Fox & Farmer chantAdded -15 Reflex penalty to foes Carnage (also for Community Patch Stag Spritishift) : Added +1 Accuracy per PL as for other abilities Pet Stag Carnage : Added +1Acc, +0.25 PEN and +5% Multiplicative damages as for other abilities EDIT : White Wurms & upgrades : Corrected the "bug" that required to hit the corpse to trigger the explosion Added a bunch of Acid/Decay/Poison/Disease Keyword that were missing (see the mod for details, also apply to priest and scrolls equivalent of these spells) https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438