Elric Galad

Well, rangers only get 2 DoT... But it's true that it is the 2 main attack abilities of melee rangers so... I don't specifically want to remove heal and purge effects. It is justthat I am suspicious about abilities that try to do too many things at the same time and ends up too unfocused to be good. So if I end up with something convincing, I might consider removing them. For now, I just got a new Idea : what about an attack bonus (which one is debattable. EDIT : raw damages, as for backstab ?) that increases while invisible, so the attacks from stealth would be more efficient if ranger/pet stayed in the shadows longer. In my opinion, it would fit the "prepared hunters" theme and is quite original. It goes well with the healing over Time effect, so I could keep it.

Yeah, I wondered about Shadowed Hunters too, but I went the lazy way. I think 2 Bonds is enough to make the ability "balanced" as a Deluxe panic button that purge everything over time, but it doesn't make it interesting. It also feels quite redundant with play dead, which is basically an untargetable + full heal, even if it applies only to the pet. A brainstorm on this one is needed. My opinions : What shall be kept from current design : - Appllied to both ranger & Pet - Invisibility Everything else can be removed if necessary to balance the ability. If going a more offensive route, I don't mind removing the heal and hostile effects reduction. What shall be avoided : - Making it too similar to a Rogue ability. This is vague, but basically it means that it shouldn't be another backstab. What could be done (open list) : - Add somehow a bleeding effect, which goes well with Ranger thematic and with the "hunters that follow your blood from the dark while you're getting weaker". But I'm not sure of the details. - Add a "combo" effect, if ranger and pet Attack the same target from invisibility.

D) Rangers The main direction of change to Ranger Class were the following : - Improve their pet support abilities (which doesn't prevent them from feeling slightly redundant, but at least each one is viable on its own) - Improve Single Class Rangers. Many changes are about reducing the ressource cost of their high Tier ability, but I also wanted to guarantee that pet would always be more an asset than a burden for them. That's why I buffed Bonded Fury for when one wanst a strong pet, and Vengeful Grief for when one doesn't want to care. I also buffed Sharpshooter : +20% Range with all ranged weapons I always found that Sharpshooter does get heavy disavantages compared to their specialization, so I wanted to give them some distinctive advantage which isn't merely raw power Hobbling Shot : Hobbled for 10s->15s (aligned with comparable Rogue Debuff) Heal Companion & Upgrade : 2 Bonds -> 1 Bond Cast time : 3s/4s -> 0,5s/4,5s Range 4m -> 10m Tailored to be comparable to Lay on Hands (slightly longer, can only target pet but has more range and an upgrade that doesn't increase the casting cost) Note : I didn't follow Community Patch change for this one, because I thought Heal Companion should be more spammable than Revive Companion or Play Dead so it should costs 1 Bond. Revive Companion & Upgrade : Revive with 50 health -> 100 health Vengeful Revival : +20% damage -> +30% (so the upgrade worth it) Deadly Surprise : +100% damage -> +300% (so the upgrade worth it. It's only 1 attack with low base damages after a 10s of incapacitation so it isn't that much) Bonded Fury : 3 Bonds -> 2 Bonds Cast time : 0,5s/4s -> 0,5s/0s (aligned with my version of Inspired Discipline : the buff is stronger, but affect the pet instead of a "full-time" character) Twinned Shot : 2 Bonds -> 1 Bond (The reason for this is that Accurate Wounding Shot already does similar damages due to lash mechanics and PL scaling plus super high Accuracy. Not to mention it is a full attack. Twinned Shot has an edge with weapons with on-hit effects, but that doesn't deserve 2 Bonds IMHO. Even in this case, it's normal that a Single Class Ranger gets some slightly stronger ability compared to Multi Class) Vengeful Grief : Duration 15s -> Infinite (note that DEX and MIG affliction still dispell the Inspirations you get) (Just to be sure that pet is always an asset. This basically makes Single Class Ranger Immune to Bonded Grief) Heart Seeker : 4 Bonds -> 3 Bonds Shadowed Hunters : 3 Bonds -> 2 Bonds Distracting Training : 6s -> 15s (I initially planned to make it 10s, then I realized the Pet's Intellect is used to determine the actual duration. Base 15s actually results in a ~10s debuff) Feel free to comment anything that feels missing or overpowered. Updated files : BalancePolishingModBuffs.zip BalancePolishingModNerfs.zip

Yeah, I agree with that. And they also had to be careful about overpowered multiclass combos. PoE1 class balance was weird and revolved around a couple of incredibly powerful class abilities (namely Twinned Arrows, Sacred Immolation, Dragon Trashed, Carnage...). But what was unexpected is that some abilities which were "on the top of the pile" suddenly found themselves on the bottom and some never recovered. What doesn't help is that High Tier Abilities ressource cost scales too much IMHO. Even Twinned Shots feels overcosted compared to Accurate Wounding Shots (Power Level scaling of the later make their damages dealt comparable, and Accurate Wounding Shot is even a full Attack). What saves Twinned Shots is obviously that it has very powerful interactions with a couple of weapons and can be used to get many procs. But if you don't meta, it's meh for such a high Tier. I think it could have been 1 Bond and still be balanced (would still be a downgrade compared to its gamebreaking modal ancestor). In the case you're using Twin Shots in optimal condition with Frostseeker, the fact it costs 1 or 2 Bonds wouldn't change that much to the resulting slaughter anyway.

You were right. The DoT part doesn't work on AoE, and seems coded in a such tricky way that makes it complicated to change (if not impossible at all).

Owww tested the Hobbled effect from Hobbling Shot. I thought it was about the whole effect. Maybe I should test again to be sure. Tranquilizer dispel works, on this one I'm sure.

Not according to my testing, they get exactly the same accuracy as other imbued effects, and the pulsing effect has the imbued keyword in the gamedata files. That, Web has a secret -5 Accuracy malus (I've spotted it in Game data file), applied both to wizard's and Arcane Archer's versions of the spell, which may explain. By the way, I remember we discussed about Wounding Shot and Concussive Tranquilizer not applied in an AoE, but it seems OK after testing.

To be more specific : They nerfed it because they nerfed everything. They didn't buff it because it was not a priority, and they didn't think twice before nerfing for the same reasons. I think they didn't change any of the companion subclass from the initial version. Some are good (as you said It's good if official companions have one thing that's a little bit better), some are bad, some are okayish, but it was set it stone from the beginning.

They turned a lot of stuff into meh or just okay soup : Twinned Arrows, Sacred Immolation, Dragon Trashed, Carnage (Not close to its former Glory). Wrath of the five suns is even buggy (PR don't scale with PL). But hey, feel free to use my modded version (or to criticize it if you think it's OP).

The Lord of the Gliding Dale ? Who comes back to life as a Dread Blight and cast Direballs on your party ? On the main Topic : I hate Pallegina. Umbearable temper in PoE2, a worse version of her PoE1's self. AND SHE BETRAYED MY PARTY ON MY FIRST RUN. Her race is super meh, and subclass is the worst Paladin one. She can be Herald, which is a plus, but it's sad because she will be worse than a herald hireling.

Friends with Adar, Woti, Sephirem, Rana Mua, Aphew & Takeabow

This is also a convenient mean to play Slayer, Seeker, Survivor as a stand-alone game !

Depends on Spell Tier. On some spell Tier, there's often a spell that can be used for most fight, so you don't really have to select another (Druid's Storms, Devotion for the Faithful, Healing spells). If you're multiclassing with a class that requires a lots of ability points (such a monk), you may want to do this for a few Tiers. For other spell Tier, you might prefer getting complementary spells to face most situation. Also, there might be a couple of situational spells that you want to pick anyway (such as various resurrection). If you're multiclassing with a calss that does not requires a lots of ability points (such a rogue IMHO), you may want to pick a lot of various spells. Ultimately, it is a matter of playlist, but if you plan to pick few spells, be sure to pick spells that are always useful. Priests and Druids subclasses become extremely relevant in this case. For example, Priest of Eotas isn't the best priest subclass in the general case, but it provides a backbone of Healing spells that can save a lots of ability points for multiclasses.

Classes are already pretty balanced in the original game, and Community Patch already helped a bit too. So now it's about caring about abilities themselves, emphasizes some aspects of the classes that aren't as nice as they could be (such as Paladin's commands). A couple of subclasses also need a little "care" (I already "cared" about Troubadour). Cipher is not my priority for the reasons you mentionned, but I already have a short list of abilities that I plan to change or buff. Haunting Chain is indeed among them. My current plan : - Tenuous grasp -> set to 2.0s recovery, to be used as a chep enabler (eat that quick -20 Will). - Fractured Volition -> Change Weakened for Enfeebled. Enfeebled is a pretty rare Affliction, and I think it would work well as a Single Target Debuff - Haunting Chain -> Duration 20s to 40s (?). It would be an extremely potent Single Target CC. Note that even a Resolve Resistant boss would suffer from it cause Frightened is very strong debuff on its own. Frightened is also easier to actually use in battle than Charmed. - Soul Ignition : this one is basically poor man's disintegrate. Probably going to change target defense to Will for variety, and might tweak it for an extremely long DoT with rather low damages to differentiate with Disintegrate. EDIT : Oh and I forgot to mention I also plan to tweak Wild Mind to something actually usable. Basically turning Miscast into foe-only (nice for Witch builds) but greatly reducing its damages. Not sure Mind Plague or Time Parasite are that much in need of a fix, but it's good to know anyway.

I changed a bit my mind about this. All Tier 3 Inspirations are not equal. Robust sounds really better than Courageous that doesn't upgrade that much compared to Tier 2 Resolve Finally, I changed Robust from Greater Lay on Hand to 10s. This isn't exactly twice the effect of Lay on Hand due to initial tick and worse PL scaling (Greater Lay on Hand is a Tier III ability), but I think it's good enough considering Robust also comes with AR and CON buff. Hands of Light is buffed to 15s. It might not be as universally useful, but still good enough if you want to prevent a frontliner from being interrupted. It is still the only ability of the game that does this. Apart for this, I didn't make much changes, but I had to take time to clean up what I previously did. The Mod files are now much lighter, in order to avoid conflict with other mods. I also corrected the description, but in english only... I don't plan to make a multi-languages mod for the moment. Even if I do, I can only do it for French, Spanish, Polish and Russian by my own means. I had to re-test everything, so I think I will avoid dirty programming next time. It ultimately costs time ! BalancePolishingModBuffs.zip BalancePolishingModNerfs.zip

Hauani o Whe being arguably the hardest fight in the game (provided you have half a priest to trivialize Belranga and Dorudugan), any team member that can be the MVP for this fight is a good asset.

If Turn Based PoE3 is the price to pay to get PoE3, I'm willing to pay it. Provided that the game is balanced for Turn Based of course. Anyway, I need a backup plan for when I'll be old and without reflex.

Given that they are most likely separate effects from original ability, I guess it would be easy to add them the "Imbue" Keyword.

Yeah, same as Boeroer. No opinion on the balance aspect of the stuff, but there's a huge amount of creativity in this one.

To answer your question from PoE's wiki (Based on White March Part 2) :

Priest is mandatory because of Salvation of Time and Barring Death Door. Even in a normal party game, a single priest (even Multiclassed) basically trivializes Dorudugan and Belranga fights.

As I said, I plan to tweak Salvation of Time to make it as lasting buff that halves the speed for Buff ellapsing for its duration. The idea is to cap Salvation of Time for a given buff to a x2 and prevent the stackability of the current version. It's not even a pure nerf since it will apply to buff cast after SoT and benefit from INT/PL. But even with this (3s base + INT/PL) + (+3s if Ooblit is used) could be crazy strong. Reducing the duration would not work because one can still use Ooblit for a guaranteed "Blade Cascade".

Nobody Mentionned Arcane Archer yet ? For Multiclass, Imbue:Fireball is basically their best Attack ability. With 2 bounces, you'll have 3 fireball per cast, (and even +2 with Kitchen Stove Wild barrage if necessary). That's the cloest I can thing from a Mayhem of fireballs. Not sure about multiclass, but I guess Helwalker would be cool for massive MIG and INT bonus. Once Bond is depleted, you will be able to spam Stunning Blow with high Ranger accuracy

But I really love the idea of an attack ability with 0 recovery Minus recovery would also have non-stacking issues with various abilities anyway. But if I don't manage to fix BT, I will think about your suggestion. 3s would be abusable with Salvation of Time, but I plan to rework it too, so... I've thought about giving BS refund on Crit, but it would make it too similar to Gambit. 1 Rage BS would be okay, but feel a bit plain. Still, it's most likely what people would like, a simple spammable barb attack. So it worths considering.

Jesus Eothas was in front of an adulterous woman going to be stonned. "Let anyone among you who is from a class without sh*tty ability be the first to throw a stone at her." Then a Monk threw the first stone.