Elric Galad

Hijacking this old thread with a random though about tank : A couple of days ago, I faced Huani O Whe and I had to choose a party member to lure away one of the Gigantic Black Ooze. I ended up using my Nalzpaca/Transcendant, mostly because his Nalzpaca side was able to spam the twins who did the actual tanking. Drugs, Food and item provided enough regeneration for the couple of ranged attacks he suffered. I didn't pick my Herald cause she has to remain within the party to help everybody regenerate. It seems that there isn't lots of class option for infinite regeneration which is necessary at some point for a self-sustainable tank. Herald seems the best choice here, but ironically uses a party-wide ability for this purpose. Other than that, it seems trick such as summons are actually better than doing the tanking by oneself. It really feels weird that fighter isn't that much suited for the role, but this is mostly because constant recovery has a limited duration. Limited duration hurts for a few fights, but these are arguably the fights where Tanks are the most needed. The question here is : should constant recovery have been... well... constant ? (maybe with lower base number though)

Pillars of Eternity 3 : Arcanum of Steamwork and Animancy Obscura

Have you tested it with Clear Out and its upgrades ? It might be even more convenient.

But Can only ve applied from stealth so only once per encounter, right ?

Problem is that the game is currently balanced around RTwP. TB isn't bad but it is mostly meant as a bonus. Since the TB Crowd is largeur, I think they should go this route from a sales perspective. Too Bad TB wasn't an ATB so both systems would be close enough to maintain TB and RTwP.

Or Pillars of Empire, the New Microbsidian game. I would pick the Rautai, they are a powerful Gunpowder Civ. Have you ever dream of wololoing with a Cipher Rush ?

Well, not to insist but I think it's relevant to point that Conjurer summoned familiar provides a stacking +1 generic PL (unless Stacking rule changed from the last time I checked).

Arquebus has a higher reload time and -5 Accuracy should not be underestimated. It's about 8% less damages (multiplicative). I feel like Arbalest has slightly better stats.

Conjurer summoned familiar provides a stacking +1 generic PL (and other random small bonuses)

But that's because you want to play Rogue as a sneaky backstabber rather than a backline enforcer. Shadow Step shall be better for Rogues who don't Care about invisibility (but it is currently not) or SC Class Rogues who use Vanishing for this purpose and want more diverse abilities. I'm still wondering about the numbers, you know. Reducing the Guile cost was necessary albeit not necessarily sufficient. As you pointed, the real problem of Rogue Ability Tree is that many abilities tend to do the same thing. So you end up picking the best of them if they are unsufficiently distinguished. Escape isn't technically replaced. So even if picking a situational upgrade isn't better 100% of cases, it might still being worth it for these cases. Shadow Step problem is that it is currently not even Valuable for these cases. Anyway, I thought Shadowing Beyond Deflection and Swift effects were also cancelled when attacking...

Changing the way an ability works is trickier than changing its values Rising Paralysis to 8s maybe ? 10s starts sounding too much, especially for SC upgraded version. Garrote has a prone effect that adds up to its 6s paralysis, and Stunning Blow has its refund upgrade + double chance to apply that both mitigate its cost so I guess it would be balanced. I also have Power Strike in my list of abilities to be buffed. First, its cost should be set to 3 Discipline ; a longer Stun (and staggered) would help too (8s, 10s ?)

Well, the deflection buff is short lived and the dash part situational. 0 recovery Smoke Veil would lead to abuse with Assassin/Caster. Current recovery is not very long either. I would not include it in a mod, but changing recovery of a single ability is quite easy (though tricky, recovery delay are coded as an ID, not a number, so you have to copy/paste the recovery ID of another ability). So if you want to do it, go wild ^^ Other Paralysis abilities (Garrote and Stunning Blow) currently cost 2. So I would align Shadow Step with them. Sure you don't get an attack or additional damages, but you have a Dash and Deflection instead. Also, Shadow Step upgrade also add a bit of AoE (SC only), so 1 Guile would feel too strong. Once more, it's quite easy to mod. Just to say, I'm trying to avoid Power Creep in my mod plan. I'm even planning a couple of NERFS, which might feel weird but I would include them in a separate package anyway.

I get your point about Smoke Veil but the No Recovery part contributes justifying Shadowing Beyond increased cost. You have to think about Smoke Veil as an excellent and cheap panic button with a positive interaction with Backstab while Shadowing Beyond is meant to be used more offensively thanks to its teleporting and no Recovery effects. Edit : Even if Blinding Strike is meant to be used more rarely, both its upgrades are extremely valuable against high prio target. Gouging Strike is even the Most Valuable ability against a certain Mega Boss. Blinding is a fairly good debuff even when decreased to Disoriented, and help Deathblow with ranged weapon and against Perception resistant foes.

That is also because most of Rogue active abilities aren't really worth their guile. Even as a MC you spam Crippling and Blinding strike most of the time in my experience. Maybe MC assassin spam Smoke Veil and Shadowing Beyond too but SC should indeed spam Vanishing instead. Gambit is tempting but require even more dedication. I plan to add a +2 Guile Bracer un my mod to help it a bit. Community patch already decreased Withering Strike Cost. Smoke Veil, Shadowing Beyond and Shadow Step should cost 1 loss Guile each. This should diversify Rogue Builds.

You can play a SC Rogue and build it around Vanishing Strike (which is basically the best way to play SC Rogue). Also, Community Patch makes Backstab additional damages, so it provides the same benefit with a dagger or with an arquebus (which fits better thematically). Full Attacks don't provide more damages (except for Vanishing Strikes) but don't provide less backstab damages than 2-hander with this modification.

This is... weird. So now it works only for Single Attacks and pulsing spell ? Does pulsing spell even consume Lion Sprint proc or can you still attack once with a +15 Acc bonus ? I wouldn't be surprise if isn't supposed to be consumed or applied by spell but somehow applied to pulsing for some reasons... Soubds like they changed 1 parameter in the data file with some impredictable consequence. Pulsing spell may simply be applying the caster accuracy (without filtering the spell acc bonus keyword) rather than the casting accuracy, which could explain this.

You may want to cast tier 1-3 buffs just to get something when blood sacrifice random effect restore a spell up to tier 3. Infuse Vital essence boost to Con might be handy for Bloodmages too.

As Tolkien would have said : "All that has an Antidote is not Poison."

Oh, I didn't know that. Bonded Fury has to be compared with Fighter Inspired Discipline which is... good enough. Same Tier, same duration, and same general principle. Difference are : - Recovery : inspired Discipline being basically instant. - Inspiration Tiers : Many Tier 2 are roughly twice as good as Tier 1. I would say it is true for Tenacious, Hardy, Aware and Nimble. But not for Acute and Resolute in the case of pet. So not really twice as good, but not much less. - Target : I would say that a SC fighter is roughly twice as good as a pet, but it might be underestimated. Some of the Improved Clear Out abilities combined with the right weapon really kick arses. I would say that Bonded Fury would be good if it had 0 recovery and 2 Bond Cost. Or maybe lasted twice. Or some combination of all these. The truth is that I would like SC Ranger Pet to be really superior to MC ones, and that a slightly OP Bonded Fury would really be good for this.

It's not that Playdead is useless. But it's only a (better) version of withdrawal that works only on 1 specific team member and cost 2 bonds from your desperately needed ressource pool. That plus recovery. Bonded fury is good on paper, but once more cost a bunch of ressources just to buff your pet and has a quite high recovey time. It's not exactly a Passive pet buff for SC rangers. Everybond spent on the pet is less spent on offensive abilities (which are quite decent for SC Ranger). Tier 2 Resolve isn't that useful on the pet, and I wonder whether Intellect Inspiration has an effect. Is the additional PL even apply to Takedown ? Do pets have a PL ?

The return of the Mad Hornet

OP counted Symbols, that's why I was also referring a pulsing spell. They are DoT too in the common sense even if mechanics are indeed a bit different.

Would you count relentless storm as DoT ? Might not been its primary use but it adds up. Druid are really Kings of Foe only DoT.

Twinned arrows was one of the most OP abilities in PoE1, good enough to make the entire Rogue Class obsolete as single target damage dealee. Stunning Shots were pretty good too, but Interrupt on Croit isn't Bad now that interrupt is basically 2s Crowd Control. Ranger abilities are pretty varied IMHO, with Single Target, AoE, dispell, improved Halt, mobility stuff, combo. "Pet heal/rez" are pretty unimaginative as well as bad and Play Dead feels/Shadowed Hunters are quite redundant though. The Tier 8 pet buff is overcosted and recovery is too long... The entire pet care Line is what makes ranger disappointing...

Ghostheart is good because of its animal companion, not as a way to ignore it. Spammable instant summon is a crazy ability and it is also good to help position it. Concussive Shot is the only 1 ressource interrupt on graze that works with RANGED weapons. Ranged interrupt are far more convenient than melee ones. Overall I agree with you that Rangers are better than the credit they get but that their tech tree is incredibly ability points hungry. Furthermore most of pet related abilities are meh, especially compared to Paladin ones that can target any party membres...