TheMetaphysician

I kind of like the fact that speed and recovery are less important. I think they are too important in the base game, and I like some variation. It means we can actually use some things, like the medium shield Block modal, that we would never use ordinarily. That said, I agree with you (from my limited experience) that action speed stuff swung too far toward being just unimportant now. There is one guy in the Builds forum who argued somewhat persuasively that initiative is more important than we are making it out to be, so I'm open to the possibility that we need to play more to be sure about this.

Some of the chants that do an action - like Soft Winds that does damage, or Ancient Memory that does healing or the weakening chant that does a weakening attack on everyone -- trigger twice in a round when Brisk Recitation is on. So it helps some chants and not others. I think that actually makes Brisk Recitation better than in the base game. The whole point of Brisk Recitation in the base game is to get phrases quicker (which it does in the turn-based mode too -- you get 2 phrases a turn). In the base game it doesn't make any chants stronger. In turn-based mode it makes some chants stronger. That evens out the fact that the linger bonus for Troubadour is now pretty much useless, since base Chanters get by default the ability to have 2 chants up all the time, and it looks impossible to me to get linger up high enough to have it last 2 rounds instead of 1.

Same thing happened to me.

See, I'm not sure about this. It certainly makes turn-based mode different -- attack speed stuff is overall less valuable, and certainly valuable in different ways, than in the base game. But balanced differently is not the same thing as unbalanced. You just have to think differently about the strategy. Instead of being an automatic pick every time, you might pass on Armored Grace. You might wear more heavy armor (which often goes under-emphasized in the base game). You might actually want to use the medium shield modal -- I'm happy about that!

I think maybe interrupting abilities break engagement. In the base game, the engagement would just get reestablished right away, but in turn-based, that can be really useful -- break engagement with an attack and then move away. The reason I think this is that the iron construct in the opening cave kept breaking my Eder's engagement on him with his attacks (so Flanked would go away until Eder's next turn).

What makes this weapon good? I've seen it in the grimoire, but never used it.

I love having both options, and I especially love that they are different -- different abilities become more important, different priorities for builds, etc. It makes playing through the game again more fun and more immersive, which is its main value. I myself prefer the RTwP combat, but like playing both. Basically this gives us a similar thing that total rebalancing mods give us: a way to make an old story feel new-ish again. Thanks Obsidian!

This is what I haven't figured out. I tried loading my characters down with lots of speed penalties: dumped dex all the way, armor, medium shield and saber modals active. Then I was really trying to notice if they ever skipped a round. I don't think they ever skipped a round, but the enemies go fast enough (and the re-ordering for the next round is chaotic enough) that I'm not 100% positive about that.

There is a thread in the Builds/Strategies subforum discussing tactics in turn-based that has some discussion of the value of initiative. One post in particular makes a nice case that initiative matters, and so dex isn't a dump stat. I'm not sure how important I think initiative is. It certainly seems to me of less overall importance than action speed is in real-time. But that isn't the same thing as "not important," and doesn't automatically call for a revision to the system by the devs.

I don't know, but it shows up on your character sheet. I bet dex and armor are involved.

I imagined that this would send the spell to the next round, after some characters act. My next pt will be with a Sorcerer, so this could mean that dumping dexterity is a good idea. Yeah, I'm not sure, but I think that the spell always resolves in the same round it is cast. Let me know if you notice otherwise. Edit: now I'm thinking differently. I heard that you can delay your action to later in the round -- but I haven't tried it myself. If that's true, then you can do the anti-interrupting strategy no matter what your initiative is, since you can just delay the start of your casting. Still if you are doing that regularly, dex isn't doing you much good. I wonder if you can move and then delay your action, and then start casting later in the round. I'll try that out when I get a chance.

I started a thread over in the Strategies/Builds forum on turn-based tactics, and have some observations about the value of attack speed. I'll be interested in what others think of it.

I thought it would really be helpful to have a thread in this forum gathering people's observations on turn-based combat -- not on whether they like it or not, but on the strategies, tactics, and character builds that operate differently in the turn-based mode. I'll start with some preliminary observations and speculations. - Am I right to think that, on the whole, attack speed is less valuable? As far as I can tell, everyone goes once every turn. (I'm not certain of that, though; if anyone has observed something else, please speak up!) The attack speed/recovery etc. associated with the ability you use in a turn only moves you up or down the order for the next turn. So you won't lap the other characters in terms of the number of your attacks if you have good attack speed as you would in the base game, which makes attack speed quite a bit less valuable. I can see dumping Dex on certain builds, especially for Per. That would seem to make all the abilities that slow you down actually correspondingly more valuable -- like the medium shield Block modal, the rod's Blast modal, the sabre's penetration-boosting modal, and so on. Similarly, the pistol's increased attack speed modal is less valuable, as is the two-weapon fighting passive. - You might actually want really low action speed on a caster, because it might make you much harder to interrupt. Spells that have a "cast" action speed always resolve by the end of the round; the number associated with the "cast" action speed seems to be the number of initiative points you have to move through in the round before the cast resolves. (So if you had 6 initiative that round, and you cast a spell with a 3 number in the casting time, everybody that had lower than 9 initiative will go and then your spell will resolve at initiative 9. It is like the spell is a character itself that has the caster's initiative + the casting speed.) But if you are the last person going in the round anyway, your cast will immediately resolve. (Again, not tested, but I think this should be how it works. Interested if people test.) This isn't quite right. Sometimes it resolves at the beginning of the next round, I've noticed, though usually I get to go in that next round. That affects things like summoning spells, though, since it affects when the summons get to start going. Not sure how the game determined whether a spell goes in the round it is cast or in the next round. - That is not to say dual-wielding is less good. Now you attack with both weapons automatically with your action point for the round. It does mean that the calculus about dual-wielding fast weapons (like daggers) vs. dual-wielding heavier-hitting weapons (like sabers) shifts toward the higher-damage weapons. - One thing initiative matters for is establishing engagement. Engagement turns out to feel somewhat different than it does in the base game. That's because you actually have to do something on your turn to establish engagement. It doesn't automatically establish when an enemy runs by you. So you can't just plant your tank in a bottleneck and count on him to "catch" any enemy running by. You have to get next to the enemy and do something to establish engagement. I'm not sure what that "something" always has to be. Attacking does the trick. I also established engagement when I cast a standard-action Watcher ability and then just clicked on the enemy I was standing next to (when the red symbol that signified I couldn't do any action was showing). I haven't tried starting to cast a spell and then clicking on a nearby enemy while I'm still not done casting, to see if that establishes engagement. I haven't thought through what this fact means for tactics. I think maybe it means that the first round for tanks is pretty crucial -- tanks might really benefit from having mobility and pull skills to establish engagement with as many enemies as possible in the first round, and they might want to go early in the round. I'm not sure how important that will be. Pull of Eora might be importantly useful for keeping enemies off the backline, and in fact ought to be even more valuable simply because positioning ends up being more important for turn-based. - Some actions you might not expect are "free" actions, where you can still do another action in the round. The Rogue's Escape ability (and all its upgrades), unlike the Fighter's Charge, is a free action, so you can warp and then attack. So too is the Fighter's Into the Fray, which makes it very interesting. You can pull an enemy with Into the Fray and then do another attack on that enemy. Makes the upgrade that lowers deflection more interesting. Or you can Charge one enemy in the first round and pull another (the most threatening) with Into the Fray. - Duration and linger for chants is really interesting. Chants last 1 round and linger for 1 round. So everyone has by default the previously Troubadour-only ability to have 2 chants up all the time. Also, the Troubadour linger bonus would need to combine with Intelligence to get to +100% for it to have any effect at all, since the breakpoint would need take the chant from a 1 round linger to a 2 round linger. I'm not sure it is possible to achieve that -- my guy with Berath's Blessings and maxed Int and an Int-boosting pet isn't close -- which means that the Troubadour linger bonus would be useless. (Which is ok; that class is plenty strong enough as it is.) On the other hand, if you could somehow stack enough intelligence to get a +100% linger bonus, you could have 3 chants up simultaneously all the time. On the other hand, the Brisk Recitation modal strengthens some chants. Chants like the Weakening chant, Soft Winds, Ancient Memory that make an attack or do damage or heal seem to apply twice in the same round with Brisk Recitation, which doubles their value. (I tested Soft Winds and am inferring about the others.) That's not true in the base game. (Don't assume that means Ancient Memory is actually twice as valuable in turn-based. Since the "amount healed" changed, the math to figure that out would have be a lot more complicated, and take into account the "amount healed" proportionally for all the other healing abilities in the game.)

I don't know the full answer, but we can infer a partial answer. Abilities seem to have at least three speeds: infinite (or instant), 1 action, or "cast." Abilities (including spells) that have a "cast" action cost begin on your turn but then don't resolve until some time later. So your character is still "casting" while other characters are moving. I imagine that if you hit a character who is casting with an interrupting ability, you interrupt them. It does make me think that it will be impossible to interrupt someone doing a 1 action ability, whereas in the regular game you can interrupt even people just doing regular attacks.

The original post for this build is underdeveloped in some ways – it doesn’t have specific gear recommendations, for instance. I’ve been playing and honing a build based on this one and have made it my own. I wanted to post it with all its details, but I want to give credit to Climhazzard for turning me on to the central mechanic that defines it (pairing Exalted Endurance with Ancient Memory, high might and intelligence, stacking healing bonuses). So I thought I’d post the full build here in this thread. The first decision you have to make is whether to do a no-rest run or not. The chief benefit of a no-rest run for this build will be the ability to use the Blessing of the Dawnstars (+50% healing, gotten in Port Maje), at the cost of giving up per-rest abilities. In the below build I’ve assumed that you will in fact be resting. If you do a no-rest run, that will also affect which affliction resistances you’ll use and whether you want Aegis of Loyalty, since on a no-rest run you’ll probably have a great food buff like Captain’s Banquet up on all your characters which might give them immunity to some afflictions. Here’s my take on the Healing Wall. The Healing Wall =================================== Difficulty: PotD v. 4.0.1 -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: not intended for solo -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin (Shieldbearer)/Chanter (Troubadour) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Coastal Aumaua (for Might affliction resistance and Might bonus. And you are a cool giant.) -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Get one that boosts Might or Intelligence. I made mine a philosopher (from Ixamitl) for RP reasons. -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats: Max Might and Intelligence, everything else at 10 Skills: Passive: Diplomacy (for the scaling Captain’s Favor heal on the shield and RP purposes); Active: I went Athletics for the many watcher-only athletics checks in scripted interactions and the great Second Wind, but Arcana might be the best for abusing high might with scrolls, which I don’t like to use. Weapon Proficiencies: Large Shield, Sabre, whatever (medium shield might be useful) -------------------------------------------------------------- Abilities (!=important, r=recommended, (a) automatic) PL 1 (levels 1-3) Paladin (a) Lay on Hands (!) Deep Faith (!) Chanter Soft Winds ® Skeleton summon invocation ® PL 2 (levels 4-6) Paladin Zealous Auras (!) Weapon and shield style ® Inspired Defenses Chanter Wurm summon invocation ® PL 3 (levels 7-9) Paladin Greater Lay on Hands (!) Chanter Ancient Memory (!) Combat Focus Two Fingers of Daylight (could substitute Aegis of Loyalty for either of these) PL 4 (levels 10-12) Paladin Exalted Endurance (!) Mental Fortress Chanter Ogre summon invocation (!) Mith Fyr chant ® PL 5 (levels 13-15) Paladin Practiced healer (!) Iron Gut Clear Head (could sub any or all of liberating exhortation/reviving exhortation/inspired path for the 3 affliction resistances I’ve selected) Chanter Rapid casting PL 6 (levels 16-18) Paladin Inspired Path Chanter Eld Nary invocation Quick Summoning Ogre summon upgrade PL 7 (levels 19-20) Paladin Stoic Steel Chanter Mercy and Kindness (!) Ancient Weapons summon ® --------------------------------------------------------------- Items (!=important, r=recommended) Weapon Set 1: Sasha’s Singing Scimitar (r - +Refreshing Finale, Companion’s Prelude), Shining Bulwark (! - +Defensive Beacon (!)) (Alternative shields: Lathandria’s Devotion, Cadhu Scalth) Weapon Set 2: Watcher’s Blade/Animancer’s Energy Blade, Shining Bulwark Head: Horns of the Bleak Mother or Blackened Plate Helm (better yet, use a regular Vailian Tricorn and have the biggest, bushiest beard you can and look awesome) Back: Cloak of Greater Protection/Deflection (or maybe Badrwn’s Cover) Neck: Necklace of the Harvest Moon or Bone Setter’s Torc (!) Armor: Blackened Plate Armor (! - +Life in Death (!), +Usher’s Visage) Waist: Physicker’s Belt (!) Hands: Gauntlets of Ogre Might/Woedica’s Strangling Grasp (!) Rings: Gaun’s Pledge (!), Chameleon’s Touch or Ring of (Greater) Regeneration Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka (!) Pet: Prissy (! - +10% healing done) Strengths of the Build: Constant Party-Wide Regeneration: The Core Idea The central idea of the build is to stack constant party-wide regeneration effects. There are three: the paladin’s Exalted Endurance aura, the Ancient Memory chant, and the Life in Death upgrade to the Blackened Plate armor. To support those regeneration effects, we want to maximize might and stack +healing gear, which is why I’ve chosen the belt, boots, gauntlets, pet and necklace we have. We also want to maximize intelligence to make the auras as wide as possible; also, 20 intelligence allows us to use a second chant as Troubadour (I use Mith Fyr until getting Mercy and Kindness at level 19) without any downtime for Ancient Memory. The amount of healing we can achieve with this setup is just massive. (Some of the comments worry that you don’t get good healing until Mercy and Kindness at level 19; that’s not true at all. I don’t even feel the need for Mercy and Kindness once I get there.) As the playthrough goes on, we can switch in and out some of the +healing gear to hit breakpoints; for Ancient Memory’s healing per second, the game rounds up when you get halfway between a point – so if you hit 1.5 healing per second, the game rounds up to 2 per second, whereas if you are at 2.3 the game rounds down to 2, so we might as well drop (say) the Bone-setter’s torc for a while because the +10% doesn’t make a difference. Power Level affects the healing, so recalculate regularly. Since this healing never runs out, this is a perfect healer for a hardcore deadly deadfire PotD run where fights take forever and ordinary druid or priest healers run out of resources halfway through the fights. Resource-using heals Since we’ve stacked +healing gear and might, we can also take advantage of other ways to heal. We have two types of those: per-encounter and per-rest heals. Per-encounter: We have two per-encounter heals, Greater Lay on Hands (which as a Shieldbearer also prevents death), and the chanter invocation Two Fingers of Daylight. (I confess I rarely use the chanter invocation, since I use my phrases for summoning.) Per-rest: We also have a total of five significant AOE per-rest heals (in addition to our own Second Wind): 2 casts of Restore from Gaun’s Pledge, 1 cast of Captain’s Favor from the Shining Bulwark shield, 1 Moonwell from the Necklace of the Harvest Moon (if we are using that instead of or before we get Bone Setter’s Torc), 1 from the Watcher ability Sympathy for the Lost (I always get this one, look up the responses you need to get it). All five are boosted through the roof with all the might and +healing gear. The Harvest Moon Necklace’s Moonwell is almost laughably good on this character; really, all of them are, and I love how fast-casting Gaun’s Pledge is and how useful it is to have a fast-casting AOE heal instead of just single-target with the Lay on Hands. Party buffing and enemy debuffing In addition to providing all the healing your party will ever need, we can take advantage of the large AOE boost from high intelligence and central location in the battle as a tank by getting other constant party-wide buffs. There are four: +1 AR from the Shining Bulwark, +1 AR from Exalted Endurance, stacking action speed from Sasha’s Singing Scimitar Companion’s Prelude buff, and the Mith Fyr chant (until you get Mercy and Kindness at level 19, and frankly you might decide to stay with Mith Fyr at that point anyway). We also get two ways to debuff the enemy. One is the Usher’s Visage upgrade to the Blackened Plate Armor which is an aura that gives -1 AR to enemies. The other is the Eld Nary invocation, which may seem like it doesn’t fit in this build. But since we are using Sasha’s Singing Scimitar anyway for the party-wide action speed buff, we might as well get the Refreshing Finale invocation, for a free empower use every fight (that refunds 3 phrases). Empowering the summons doesn’t do much. But an Empowered Eld Nary is a great fight opener, and then we can still start summoning pretty soon after. Tankiness One of the coolest things about this character is that it is a healer that operates best planted right in the middle of the fight. Defenses, as is typical for a paladin, are through the roof, and the Large Shield modal is very useful. I open fights by telling this guy to run to where I want my front line to be, activate the modal, and then start summoning and healing. He can still engage while casting. With the gear and ability choices I’ve made, he has 5 affliction resistances: might (from race), resolve (Horns of the Bleak Mother helmet), perception, intelligence, constitution (paladin abilities). This guy basically doesn’t get hurt much in my experience, even while planted in front of all the enemies (the summons probably have something to do with that). If he gets hurt more in your experience, go ahead and use a Ring of Greater Regeneration on him. I think that’s affected by all the might and +healing gear too (though I’m not sure about that right now, since I don’t feel the need for it and use Chameleon’s Touch instead.) Summons As Boeroer is fond of pointing out, summons aren’t there for the damage. They are more helpfully thought of as a form of very flexible crowd control: they can distract enemies, fill holes in lines, absorb punishment, flank, get summoned next to casters and provoke the casters into casting on them instead of the rest of the party, and much more. This character has 100% uptime on the summons. The Ogres are the best at that distraction/absorption job (due to their size, their health, and the fact that they can engage enemies, unlike the wurms), while skeletons and wurms will hold us over until we get the Ogres. So with this character you really get three tanks for the price of one (himself and 2 Ogres).

Yeah, that Kapana Taga thing happened to me. But the no loot from other ships hadn't happened until now. I just fought the VTC super-ship and got some loot, but not the Wicked Beast. That sounds more like the Kapana Taga thing. Weird.

Have any of you guys seen this behavior before? At some point my ship boarding battles stopped dropping any gear. The only loot I get is food, the colors of the captain, etc. That includes unique gear -- I just fought Whenana Eel's Kiss and was supposed to get the Apex Ward; no luck. I've killed quite a few Crookspur slavers; could it be that loot stops dropping once you've killed too many ships?

What exactly counts as a "beneficial effect" for the strand of favor to extend? All spell buffs -- like Citzal's spells? The duration of a cipher ascendant's Ascension?

Some questions about the Azure Blade: - Does the bonus accuracy when near 3 allies apply to both weapons when dual wielding, or only the Azure Blade itself? - Do summons count toward the "3 nearby allies" requirement for the accuracy bonus? Generally, do you guys think this is a good weapon to pair with Rust's poignard on a melee rogue type, or would Grave Calling be better in general?

This is a cool idea. A couple of ideas: - This seems tailor-made for playing with Magran's Challenge enabled, which disables pause. It seems like the key to beating Magran's Challenge is writing good AI routines. - I highly recommend installing the "more AI" stuff mod that's available on Nexus. It gives you a lot more options for AI, and some are pretty important.

I'm glad that the testing shows the idea still works. There's a necklace that has -10% hostile effect duration that would go well -- the Strand of Favor, you get it from Sugaan the chief naga in Hasongo.

If PB expires before the next attack, won't that mean the attack won't get the +50% damage buff from Streetfighter? Doesn't that really defeat the Streetfighter/PB synergy? (I suppose you'll still get the +50% reload speed, at least for as long as PB is up.)

I think maybe Whispers has the same problem where it doesn't apply afflictions on the AOE attack. Now that I've seen in on Citzal's, I seem to remember it happening earlier. I just shrugged at the time and figured I was missing something.

I had the same experience as you. No luck.

Ok, I posted a report. Meanwhile, my Spellblade Aloth build is shot for this run. Any ideas how to re-build Spellblade Aloth? I'm happy to go ranged; I have enough tanks and healing in the party, and need damage or CC. I have an injury and Rekvu's Helm and Gloves with the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry, so I've got lots of spell casts, but I'm limited to that Grimoire and the spells I select. Would using Watershaper's Rod w/Blast (and Gouging/Toxic Strikes) and blasting spells be a good dps build? (I'm doing a no-rest run, so no Empower.) Should I have another weapon I switch to after I apply the afflictions? What blasting spells are good -- I've never used a damage-oriented wizard? Edit: poking around I found a cool idea. I'm doing a no-rest run using Captain's Banquet on all my characters, so they're all immune to Mind Afflictions. It didn't occur to me that this would make me immune to Chill Fog -- all my Chill Fogs are party-friendly like Takehu's! So I think I should take advantage of that. I'm not sure where to go from there with the build.