Elric Galad

Worse than before due to what ? Hard CC ? But there has always been hard CC, ney ? Or worse due to having to wait for 3s for the first spell regen and 15s for the first high tier regen ?

Multiple rolls means several chances of success. Simple as that. Several duration affecting effect can interact in a super weird manner. Hard code bug.

Proceed rolling a Devoted

Yeah, 2 per rest would make some sense. There's a good reason why BPM never messed with general item balance. Are items supposed to be balanced in the first place ? Situational items for example shall not consider bad IMHO. Reason is because you can swap items. That's how CRPG worked from the dawn of time. Resounding call useless ? Tell that to Auranic. Beza's tooth ? Good vs spirit, and for Eothas' sake, that -2 AR stackable with other debuff on Crit ! Scourge of Bezzelo ? Best in slot for interrupting (but you get it so late). Weak items are a worthy subject of discussion. But some (Gladiator sword, Reflex Boots) are supposed to be early game items. So should they be good ? Okay weapon quality can help fixing that : an early game item can have good unique properties if the quality is low (you can always improve them later). And maybe blue items (Reflex boots) can be bad as they are not unique. BPM fixed broken stuff for items, not bad stuff. I didn't want to engage on this path. It's extremely hard to define a general rule. You may want all items to be somewhat "balanced", but I'm warning you it is a huge task, comparable to what BPM for abilities. So I'm just going to point a few case where it would make sense to give them a little rework : - Trinkets, for the reasons discussed above - Sad weapon category as a whole (e.g. we can discuss case of the warhammers) - Sad design of a particular ability (Quieting, most of that Godlike amulet properties) - Really scarce per rest ability. Maybe all per rest should be x2, unless they are very great. - Absence of legendary quality on Soulbound equipement. Partially done by this : FG Soulbound Upgrade at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) - Bad concurrent upgrades (shall be really strictly worse... Steadfast on Kill for Quieting just replaces 1s of Quieting, so I will NOT tweak it if it was me) - Absence of weapon/armor scaling for item summons (same as BPM Summon Rebalance did for abilities summon) - Also consider making more obvious obscure display. Too many items have been designed by Wael ("Grants random Mind Inspirations" and the likes...). It would not change gameplay but such a QoL improvement ! Why do I have to navigate through gamedta files get an exact idea of what an item does ? My opinion on warhammer : - Resounding Call : not the greatest, but there are a couple of very annoying battle where it is BiS. Nagas, 1st SSS fight, Auranic, FS final boss. Almost a "quest item". - Glacierbane : 2 great upgrades : one is basically Animancer blade with a twist (not 100% raw but can overpenetrate). One is suspension of beneficial effect. Does I have to comment why it is great ? Still not your "main" weapon, but these 2 abilities are great. - Last Word : just remove the lower level condition. This is ill design. The reason it would great is that it works vs anything. Affliction and Interrupting effect can get somewhat resisted. This not. And bosses get a lots of resistance/immunities. Maybe Splintered Haft shoul be aligned with BPM/CP tweak to Wounding Shot (if using a different status). So yup, it would end up as a situational/backup weapon category, but is it an issue ? One gets several weapon slots for a reason. The answer was implicitly contained in my previous post. They don't. Scaling for Weapons 1) Passive scales with weapon quality 2) Active scales with weapon quality AND "classless" Power Level Reminder of the general scaling rules for other equipment abilities : 1) Passive scales with nothing (so are bad if they are attacks) 2) Active scale with classless Power Level Passive only scales with weapon quality (if applicable). And weapon quality is not about duration. So they don't scale (proc are passive). But consider class passive don't scale either (except exceptions ). Even BPM which gave some scaling to all passive (accuracy, damages, penetration) but never made the duration scale. Active ability duration scales according to normal active ability rules.

In term of balance, you can always rest so it shouldn't be too much of a problem out of... Eothas challenge I guess ? But Per Rest items are sort of mutually exclusive with a "no rest" approach where you try to stack as much "until next rest" bonuses as possible. That's quite niche in term of gamer population but it is still a bit of powercreeping.

Works on summon kills too, I guess ? Reminder of the general scaling rules for weapon abilities : 1) Passive scales with weapon quality 2) Active scales with weapon quality AND "classless" Power Level (classless Power Level scales as Single Class Power Level and ends up at 9 for every character, also used for Monastic Armed Training) => That's why Thunderous Report and the likes have such disgusting damages Reminder of the general scaling rules for other equipment abilities : 1) Passive scales with nothing (so are bad if they are attacks) 2) Active scale with classless Power Level f

New Dorudugan approach spotted The unique are quite niche, that's the main issue IMHO. Both unique wands are quite nice. A Whale of a Wand is very strong with pulsating spells, and Weyc's Wan is a good Empowering casting stick. Granted you don't want to use them as actual weapons.

Estocs are okay, and have the distinct advantages of universally good ones being accessible early (BofEP and Eager Blade) , which is priceless for a two hander (No purchasable Stalker Patience or Sun&Moon). BofEP has excellent properties, I think. Granted, yeh, they are more about PEN, but so are half of two hander, and two handers as a whole are more about PEN. Probably not top tier for a optimized DPS, but works well for reliable DPS. Estoc modal also doesn't trade damages for PEN but deflection. Having base 12 PEN on demand is neat. The issue is Pierce damages type is often resisted, so you need a backup weapon. No way for Devoted, but apart for them, I think they are okay.

Blunderbuss (and Frostseeker) trades DPS (and a bit of PEN) for multi attacks. Multi attacks is a bonus on its own and has a lot of combo potential : - Tranquilizer as you said. Bane of Auranic life IMHO. - BPM Gambit - Really any condition inflicting or interrupting attack, just for getting more rolls. Worth mentionning Stunning Surge (almost guaranteed refund vs single target) and Confounding Blind - Combusting Wounds, Avenging Storm (28-40 additional base damages per attack), resonant touch, - Dispelling mirrored image, iron skin, etc... Without this advantages, they are indeed meh. Worth mentionning Kitchen Stove cone attack is one of the most potent per encounter weapon activable ability.

New version availble, Mostly addressing Wild Mind and Biting Whip reworks, so feel free to test them. Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) By the way, Wild Mind works with existing save by re-adding the "ability" by console command.

Cipher's Whip abilities are supposed to turn off at full focus (except for Ascendant). But Draing Whip does not turn off at full focus for Vanilla Cipher, Soulblade and Wild Mind. You still get +20% weapon damages (focus drain bonus is of course irrelevant). This is clearly an oversight since it does turn off for Soul Whip and Beguiler's Draining Whip. (ascendant does not turn off but this is normal and it's a different ability). Note that the error in the data file was pretty obvious once the issue was spotted, so it will be corrected in next BPM version.

Skyward kick should work, regaining 3 wounds should be doable. (Hylea's Talon, Voidwheel, Nalzpaca, Enduring Dance...)

Also remember that Barbaric Retaliation has an intresic +16 accuracy and +4 Penetration compared to normal attack (nothing exceptional, most similar abilities have similar bonuses, albeit lower cause they are from lower tier). It might be useful if building upon axes, because they deal only splash damages which can be limited vs some bosses.

Only Serafen Wild Mind

At least a Skald Barbarian has to be on front row so its tanking stats are not wasted. But yeah, when thinking about poorly allocated stats, Konstanten is indeed the first to come to my mind. (Geomancer Maia has bad INT too, but at least has a Smart self buff). There is a reason why BPM raised all companions and si de kick stats by 2 (in total) and why I gave 1 of the points to Konstanten Intellect.

I think Intellect is probably the most important stat for min maxing. Any build requiring Intellect have major issues when not having it. Might is paramount for a healer. Might be less important for a damage dealer caster since high Perception instead can somewhat replace it. A few builds absolutely require high PER. Keep in mind that a lower stat means another stat will be higher. And all stats are somewhat useful, even if more than a couple points of CON/RES on a backrow character can feel a waste.

OK, I'm happy to announce that I haven't changed my mind again for about 48h, so I'm quite comfortable to implement this solution. That said, BW may only increase SA damages by 1.33 when active (technical constraint, can't do otherwise). Which means it won't work at full focus. That said, this isn't too much illogical since the bonus will be said to come from BW so it makes sense if it works only when active. Also SA is already a bit worse at full focus since missing the +20% Bonus damages for both the weapon and added raw damages, and CP raw damages lash for the weapon attack part. (so use BPM Tenuous Grasp or whatever)

My current run is with a Corpse Eater and his joyful companions. I think I have seen food buff cleared unexpectedly, but I have no idea if it's related to a forced rest because I have never been paying too much attention to that. All food buffs cleared, not just Kith Food. I'm pretty sure I have seen it with Inn bonus too (rested at Luminous Bath before the Quest... After a while there was only Adra Glow bonus, but not the rest one). I didn't care cause I love RP my party resting and having a good meal. Now for related BPM changes : all food was set to stacking but how could this be related? Also inn bonuses were already stacking and weren't modified by BPM so it can't explain why they went away too. Possible theory : this is a vanilla bug, but the reason no one every spotted it was because once a food bonus was transformed into a stacking passive, it somehow becomes immune to the bug. Have you ever noted that inn bonus mysteriously go away in Vanilla game ?

I changed my mind again cause I feared Cipher could become too much of a martial damages dealer, and I'm going to pick this solution you were rooting for. SW/BW 0.625 focus per damages BW generates 75% of DW focus vs full penetration without further lashes. But I will still pick something from my previous solution, SA damages increased with BW, but only x1.33 : With BW : primary_weapon_final_dmg + [10 + (focus - 10) / 3] * [1 + 0.05 * (pl - 1)] * (1 + damage_bonuses + weapon_damage_bonuses) BW generates 75% focus from DW so multiplicating by 1.33 will ensure similar damages for the raw damages part. This is the safest solution cause it does not create raw lash monsters, but ensure DW does not provide a better raw lash than BW by the magic of SA. Final (I hope) nutshell : - BW does x1.2 weapon damages from DW - BW provides x0.75 focus for spells from DW when full PEN (better ratio when underPEN, slightly worse with other lashes) - BW does the same damages as DW for SA raw damages part with similar previous attack (the weapon attack part will do x1.2 weapon damages)

Yes, just a note for soulblade BW. The actual effect will be coded within SA though, but you won't get indication it is there, only by SB BW. Not entirely sure about setting BW to 25% raw lash. Feels a bit powercreeping. But the SA change part would fix a big part of the issue.

It depends but they may not if they are always active. Trickster nerf shoudn't work unfortunately. Yop, can't do better

Okay, after thinking about many solutions, I have the first proposal I feel satisfied about. First why simply rising the focus gain for SW/BW does not satisfy me : - low level power creep (minor) - to be honnest, this one has a relatively high risk of introducing bugs and is annoying to fully test - Major game design flaw : it would make BW / DW much closer in term of gameplay. Which isn't the point of mutually exclusive committing abilities. So my idea : a big part of the issue comes from Soul Annihilition providing benefit as Biting Whip with additional flexibility. Soul Annihilation with DW will always be pretty equivalent as Soul Annhilation with BW but more flexible. So why not just adjusting Soul Annihilation formula to ensure BW is always the better choice with it ? It makes sense after all that an ability used to increase weapon damage improve the unique weapon-based subclass ability of Soulblade. Proposal : 1) Soul annihilation formula : With SW/DW : primary_weapon_final_dmg + [10 + (focus - 10) / 4] * [1 + 0.05 * (pl - 1)] * (1 + damage_bonuses + weapon_damage_bonuses) With BW : primary_weapon_final_dmg + [10 + (focus - 10) / 2] * [1 + 0.05 * (pl - 1)] * (1 + damage_bonuses + weapon_damage_bonuses) So Soul Annihilation would always be better since it generates 0.625* focus (with full PEN) 2) *Round up BT to +25% raw lash damages. This value ensure BT being strictly better than DW in case of full underpenetration (without further lash, but even with other lash, BT feels like way better in this case) . Consequences for subclasses : - Psion : meditates on the subject - Soulblade : wanna do more weapon damages (including SA) ? Easy. Pick BW. Wanna be more versatile ? Pick DW. - Ascendant : BW benefits a lot from subclass bonus focus generation. BW Ascendant would be doing x1.2 damages (counting the minus -10% additive damages as minus -5% multiplicative) and generates about 90% focus compared to vanilla cipher. Also once ascended (a bit harder to achieve, but you have tools to do so), BW is strictly better (cough cough Wall of Draining, Salvation of Time, etc...) - Beguiler : Beguiler is quite a lot about casting. That said, if using a lots of cheap/AoE deception spell, Beguiler may need less focus. So it could make sense with a damage oriented multiclass to pick BW (Shattered Pillar, Rogue). This would create a versatile character, very focused on weapon attacks, but with backup deception spell (this would probably never be the most likely choice, but the important is that it could work) - Vanilla : a bit like Beguiler without the benefit of other focus sources. Probably the worst pick for BW, but overall the worst pick for Cipher as a whole. Note that the Soul Annihilation focus to damages ratio is around 0.25 * 2 (bonus damages) * 1.35 (PL) = 0.675 damages BW "not-gained" focus to damages ratio for other class would be 0.25 / [0.5 - 0.25 * 0.5)] = 0.6667 We are at similar order of magnitude (when full PEN and without further bonuses benefitting more to Soul Annihilation such as lashes/sneak attacks). That's a bit "non-deactivable" "potentially ranged" soul annhiliation for everybody. I think it's OK when it comes to balance.

I think the duration is visible. Granted that the shield only becomes active while Near Death. Before that, duration is infinite. Yes, but it can't be extended and can only be cast from knockdown. So for each 30s of unkillability, you have to pay "1 wound". Potion of final stand also has a non extendable cannot die effect. But since it is a consumable, number of uses per encounter is limited.

2.5 multiplier is super hard to get with anything but a mindstalker. x2 multiplier is a reasonable assumption I guess. Currently, I feel like 25% raw lash could be enough. Without further lash, it also has a strict advantage when missing 3 PEN or more (double damages, equal focus) . This is something. Underpenetration does happens, especially when using mortars or rods (and those are very optimal weapons for a cipher). Also the damages benefits is neat is certain cases. Such as when using big Active AoE from weapons or when multiclassed with Shattered Pillar.

I think the main idea is to use a big weapon AoE such as thunderous report, then an empowered attack. I think it's fine if the class has more upside than downside since it's a companion class (looking at you Maia). Also the random part is so unpopular (even with more upside) that a little help won't hurt. 3) isn't even a strict advantage since it force depleting your focus pool on an empowered ability, which one may not like. But since it's predictable, one can play around. Finally, Cipher subclasses tend to have more upside than downside IMHO.