[Are per encounter spells needed? And are they balanced?]

I guess that is one way of looking at it; folks will just cheese the game with resting to refesh slots, so give them just enough re-usable spells and just enough resistence to frequent resting, and hope it sorts itself out.

 

It's really more of how a loose resting system makes it hard to have tuned gameplay. Which isn't really a bad thing! Most people probably don't get their knickers in a bunch due to somewhat loose gameplay, so long as it gives them some freedom how they want to go about it.

[Wounding Weapon Property Interactions]

I'm not real sure 2 or 3, it can be hard to tell exactly how much a DoT is doing. I got extensive use of Tidefall on my first Barb playthrough, and used Hours on my my recent 2.0 one, as Tidefall is broken in 2.0 and makes the game an utter joke. Best I can tell you is, whatever frame the game uses to calculate time for DoT ticks, a it'd tick for 6-8 damage above someone's head.

 

To try to be helpful, I do know crits do extend the DoT length. I don't think it extends the tick damage though, and especially as a Rogue, if you're beating something down, it won't live the regular DoT length, let alone a crit one. B and C are sorta similar, as crits are just a just another + modifer like anything else, so if it takes into account modifer damage, it'll take into account crits.

 

To guess if it does, I'd go with yes, as Lash's are a total of all damage, after modifiers, crit included, and I'd guess the wounding property is treated similar to a Lash. Which makes it one of the best modifers for a weapon, up there with Speed.

[All wizard party - any roadblocks?]

Those are actually pretty valid complaints. Before the AI change, I couldn't even finish a second playthrough due to the need to micro everything, and even with AI, wizards are still really micro heavy to be effective at all. In a normal party, you can be lazy and let the Wizzy just Blast with a Rod on most trash pulls, even though he could use per-encounters, and just save the constant pausing and aiming for the big boy fights. All wizards though, most every fight be a bit of a chore.

 

On the opposite end of a micro managing bunch of a single class, I did a 5x Ranger+1x Chanter play through for PotD/ToI, and it was pretty nice in how I never had to pause the game, and the extent of my input as a player was 'select back line, click nasty caster', 'select chanter, click nasty that got through pets' or (and cheesy) 'use revive scroll to revive all the dead pets.;

[So about my rogue, talents and such.]

Dex and Perception are the key abilites. Dex, because it gets better the more modifers you can add together. And no adds up mods like a Rogue, not even close. Perception is next, as no matter how big the mod, you still need to hit. Acc beyond +15 the mobs Defelection isn't as useful for Rogues as other classes, because, as above, the extra mod's for crit aren't quite as impressive for Rogues. But it's still nice, and Acc/Deflection will bounce up and down from fight to fight and even within the same fight, so you'll want to stack it.

 

I'd also definitely dump Int. Rogues per encounter abilites will be a tiny part of what they do past the early game, and it's not worth wasting points to midly extend a debuff that some caster and you group can toss on the entire team anyways. It also doesn't matter much for the DoT effect from Rogues attacks, as things won't really be in a position to live long enough for an extended DoT to make any impact.

 

After that, you're left with Might, Con, and Resolve. Mights good early on, as starting with it close to cap can give a good +.3 to your base 1.5 mod, which is an impressive boost. Later on though, when you're closer to a 3.0 mod, that extra .3 isn't quite as impressive, and you might like that +50% health bonus from putting those points into Con instead.

 

Resolve, i'm not a fan of. I like Con, as it helps from all kinds of damage, not just attacks and will saves, and will keep you up when a wizard drops a Lance on you or something, where Defelection attacks you can self manage more easily. I wouldn't be shy about taking points away from this to pump either Might or Con.

[A New Beginning! (Finally)]

I can understand the constantly gravitating to the same type of class in these games, even when you want to try something else. It's a barbarain for me, and a few hours into a new game, I can't resist the urge to restart and 'do it right' with a barbarian.

 

Rangers a good thing to be right now. Pets got some much needed buffs in 2.0, and while they still swing slow, they pack a wallop. Sagani's Fox hits in the 70's by level 14, and it's always useful having some pretty high DR Health-free endurance for the enemy to chew through every fight. Also are blessedly hands off for the most part, so you can focus on micro-managing the more needy classes while still doing amazing damage.Also get a really cool new stance on 13 that lets them shoot two arrows at once. (maybe we can dual class some day for Ranger/Ranger for the Quad shot...)

[Are per encounter spells needed? And are they balanced?]

I completely agree with you, it was bad enough with just the first two levels, and is getting really bad with 3. With 4, it's going to be crazy, especialy with that OP Shadow ball spell wizards got that somehow slept through. This game's not even like the old IE games, where without spells, Wizards were completely useless, they really don't need to be able spam spells like this every fight.

 

I actually think they went a bit too far on Ciphers, but you're right, it plays more like a Mini Ranged Rogue right now, who can fire off a few spells in between. Ciphers had both their OP powers nerfed hard, and their starting focus had a bat taken too it, as well as everythign using the same resource means new spells is very meh for them. Back to the balance board, I'd say, with the upcomming expack.

 

Edit: read the above post, and that's a great reason on why per encounter is so good, as those level 1 spells are still very awesome, even on level 14. Compared to say, BG, where by end game, level one spells were mostly novelties. Combined with the fact they can still fight somewhat in this game, by IE standards, the per counter stuff is pretty egregious.

[Paladin Leader in 2.0]

I think this is a great example of the tool tips being grossly insuffcient to give the player an accurate idea of what is actually happening with the numbers.

[Anyone have some basic rogue build suggestions for 2.01?]

Rogue has some play in it's Talent choices, and doesn't have a ton of great Class ones, so it won't make a huge difference there.

 

The key Rogue Class talents to take are:

Reckless Assualt on 3,

Deep Wounds on 5,

Dirty Fighting on 7. (Not as key as the other 3, but a clear step above the rest) 

Death Blow on 11.

On PoTD, there are so many enemies with so much hp, per encounter single target abilites have an extremely minimal impact, to the point you really won't notice any difference if you never use them.  You pick them up because, hey, why not, but they don't really influence what the Rogue does at all.

 

For talents, depends on if you want to go Dual Wield or 2 Hand. You'll also have some 'free' talents to play around with. I normally start 2hand and respect later to Dual Wield. Actually, it changes a lto based on what Act you're in. I personally go:

Weapon Focus on 2. Start With whatever (I do Ruffian), respec into soldier once Tall Grass around 5, back into Ruffian around 11.

Vulnrable Attack on 4. DT penetration gets worse the higher your multiplier, but right now, it's gold.

Two Hand Style- on 6. Boost that Tall Pike Damage.

Improved Dirty Fighting on 8 - Boost that Tall Pike Knockdown.

Savage Attack on 10 - Acc should be firmly in the Black by now, making this a solid + .2 mod.

 

Those are really the only must haves, for the last two spots you can play it by ear. It might even be best dropping Vulnrable attack, as -5 DT isn't so great when Dual Wield is hitting for base 55 or so by end game. I personally go for Bloody Slaugher, as I go Death Godlike, and use crit sabers for +1.4 mod from crits, just to speed up clean up job. I Also take Quick Runner, just to go with boots of speed to help me more easily set up flanks for Deathblow after the casters debuffs start to wear. An elemental boost might be alright as well, basically just +5% damage, which isn't terrible.

 

As for play style, Act 1 is mostly just manually flanking things while other dorks where heavy armor and shields hold mobs, as you have limited team members with no consistent ways to get sneak attacks off otherwise.

 

Act 2 to about half way through Act 3, It's all about hiding behind Tall Grass'n folks for own consistent knock downs.

 

Act 3.5->Act 4 and the end game I go back to dual sabers for pure damage, As deathblow's given DPS a large boost, and even with the heavy nerfs, a Cipher can still keep everything prone for a good 25 seconds. Rangers are applying liberal stuns to everything with with 4x stun arrows a round, and the other casters will generally have some per encounter aoe to help enable sneak attack, making Tall Grass do it yourself approach no longer needed.

[Is there a reason Boots of Evasion exist?]

I always just sorta took them as basically hitting the 'lose a turn' option when opening the RNG (well, day based) loots. Instead of just having nothing on some days, you get a extremely weak item when you could've instead gotten a nice ring of deflection at least.

[Nightshroud is meh...]

Only issue with Tall Grass is it gives prone. Once you hit 11, your Cipher's going to keep many things prone for much of the time, cutting into the time the ability will actually do something useful. A Priests Interdiction will also set you up for a good 15 seconds of Deathblow active on Prone targets at the start, and there's always good old flanking around with boots of speed and fast runner to min downtime as well with whatever other dorks you have up front. And if you don't mind pausing the game and micro'n a bit, one of the casters can easily set up more debuffs for you.

 

On topic though, yeah, that weapon is very underwhelming. As above, you really don't need it to blind, and Finishblow is cool and all, missing out on a Lash is huge, as those are a staright x25% damage, not a +.25 damage. Much rather just have a Haste+Lash weapon with Durgon Steel enchant than that thing.

[Please fix the garbage dragon fights]

Really are poorly designed fights, and the game is just not designed well for trying to position something so a cleave doesn't hit the team. Plenty of times had to reload because the dragon wanted move funky, and cleaved the team dead. Wouldn't bother me so much if it was what the dragon wanted to do, but it was just the engine not handling the mechanic well.

 

I can't say I've ever beat the fight non-cheese style. I guess closest I got was in Chanter+5x Ranger play through, keeping moon well on the pets to keep them up between breathes, and using a revive scroll on them after every breath, as unlike a PC, they have infinite health. But that's really just abusing a different kind of scroll, which are themselves pretty cheezy.

[ectopsychic echo OP?]

It's a cheese tactic, but in a game with so many different things going on in combat, some cheese is expected to slip through. Unlike most single player games, which get maybe one balance patch if you're lucky, Pillars gets a ton, so maybe someday the cheese will be thrown out. For now, you just have to put self-imposed limitations on yourself, or just make the game too easy. Not that it's a perfect solution. It's no fun having to question if something is too good, and hold your back from using everything at hand, while it is more fun to try to get the best performance you can out of the tools provided. Just some of those tools a little too sharp.

 

Not like it's the only cheese in the game. They've thankfully cut some out, but still plenty left to munch on if a player gets hungry.

[Paladin Leader in 2.0]

I've always actually wondered about Vulnrable Attack, and that -20% speed is factored in. If it's just as it says, a straight you'll be hitting the mob 20% slower, it's a pretty poor talent in a lot of situations. From a pure damage perspective, you average hit will need to do less than 20 damage (including enchant buffs such as lash) to make it even break even. I'm not sure exactly how much lower your average hit would need to be justify the opportunity cost of losing an alternate Talent choice, as well. If that's how it operates, it's certainly not useless, but really only for for fast weapons, early game, or classes with very few multipliers.

 

Early game 2handers, for example, you're just doing 1.0, maybe 1.3 with a fine weapon+2hd style, and few accuracy buffs, so breaking that 20 damage threshold average will be rough. Late game, you'll have that number closer to 2.15, as well as buffed accuracy and often a level advantage over mobs, making Vulnrable attack actually lower your damage. That's also not factoring in the lower chance of per-hit things, like a rangers stunning blow, Tall Grass knockdown (with carnage fun times) or the frisky things the Soulbound weapons.

 

On the other hand, it does just say Attack Speed, and if it doesn't also apply the penalty to recovery frames, it'd change things greatly, making the talent weirdly better suited to a plate mail wearing 2 hander, whose got a massive recovery penalty compared to a fast weapon dual wielder in light armor. For both though, the talent would quickly move into must have range, as the recovery penalty is a much bigger part of the attack speed equation than the actual attack itself. I think it'd be really weird if it works this way, but it's the only way I see Vulnrable attack being a good talent choice for more than a few specific builds, or something taken early and later respec'd out of. (Though treating stuff that way always feels a little cheezy to me.)

 

Also on the note of not having a clue how Vuln. Attack works, what does it apply that -DR too? Would it also apply to say, a Fire Godlike Barbarian tank with Retaliatex2 on? If so, that'd be a lot of extra value from it.

[Role of fighter?]

A big issue for Fighters is how massively underwhelming it's starting passive talent is. For the other 10 classes, these starting talents are what make the class, well, that class. If we take away that passive, they'd essentially become, hilarious enough, bad fighters. For Fighters, they get a talent that's somewhat useful at the start, but doesn't drive the classes playstyle like the rest of the passives do, and goes from useful to useless by Act 2.

 

For example, the 5 casters all get the ability to cast spells as their class passive. This is, obviously, extremely core to their class, and without the spells they'd be just dreadful. This passive also gets increasingly better as they go up in level, with more and more uses per combat (with the per encounter thing sorta snapping the balance in half for the Vancian casters).

 

The other 5 physical classes all get a passive, that while not the entire reason for being like the casters ability to cast spells, nonethless are incredibly useful and inform on how that class will play, as well as scaling with the player, so it's always a similar level of use. (the old, linear War/Quadriatic Wizard thing). Rogues get their passive .5 damage mod, letting you know they'll hit single things hard. Barbarians get Carnage, making them a trash mob cleaning machine. Paladins get Devotion, a massive boost to all Defense's, giving a clear advantage for tankings. Rangers get their pet, which sets them apart from being a bad fighter/rogue with a bow. And Monks get the wound system, which doesn't fit this analogy very well.

 

What do Fighters get? Some regen ability. At the start, it somewhat acts like Pld's passive, and makes the Fighters seem a decent tank. But unlike the other Class Passives, it doesn't define the fighter, and instead is quickly rendereed entirely forgetable. What happens to the other classes when they lose their starting passive? They become bad Fighters. What does that make a fighter who essentially has no Class Talent? An average fighter. Which isn't a good thing to be.

[Best 1hander melee weap for pally tank and Eder tank...]

Pally's are the only class I'd go pure tank for, as they really can't do much worthwhile damage. Flames is fairly garbage for damage, Sworn enemy is way to limited (should be like marked prey, 1/encounter), and the rest is support. Luckily enough, they're really the only class that can work pure tank as well, due to Defenses in this game getting increasing returns on investment, and pally's get a good bit more than anyone else.

 

As for weapons, I agree with the Shatterstar or Measured restraint. Drain weapons aren't good on pally tanks, as they aren't doing the damage (great on monk and barb tanks though), and engagements are still useful on most mob types. Sure, some mobs just ignore them, but that's not really a gamewide design, just specific extremely annoying creature types. The rest of the time, the mobs seem to dutifully pile up to flanking+engage limit on my frontliners.

 

And Shatterstar's nice in that the times they do break engagement (generally  when they're engaed to the tank, but the tank isn't physically between them and a squishy), it'll has a chance of a solid smack. But hatchets are fine, too, and I normally do use a hatchet on my Pld if I have two other off tanks up there with him, as that's enough engaments to go around. Once you hit 13, the big chunk of damage for Pld will come from their AoE burn+heal, making it sorta pointless what weapon you're using.

[Ravenwing or a 2hander for a tankish Paladin.]

Yeah, you can do without a pure tank, though Pally is so ill suited to doing DPS (outside of it's ridiculous lvl 13 ability), might as well make them go all in and anchor down the middle of the line with a super Will save and High deflection.

 

Marking is pretty bad though. I'm fairly sure the tests show it only gives the +10 acc to a single hit, with some other awkward restrictions, sorta like the Pld's own version of marking, that make it pretty close to useless.

 

If you really want to spend points on FoD, it's best to use an Arb or Arq with it, figher damage+knock down. Then just swap to the Outworn shield plus melee weapong of choice, and go hold the line. Soldier's a good focus for this, as you can easily get that warhammer that has +1 guarding and +.5 to crit damage, useful for things disengaging, as well as your choice of big gun.

[Paladin Leader in 2.0]

Yeah, Righteous Soul (and the crazy Devotion  passive)  was pretty much the entire reason I did a Pally play through of ToI/PotD/Ex. After so many play throughs of Eder getting charmed and letting the Huns through the front gate, it was really nice to have a tank that just largely shrugged off any Will save, and I could count on still standing there. (On that note, really wish Pallagina came with, say, level 2 in Devotions for +6 to saves, annoying how I have to be a Pally myself if I want the full Pally experience).

 

And also agree Silver Tide is OP. Especially if making a custom party, if you make the entire team Moon Godlikes, it pretty much removes the risk of losing a ToI play through do to poor planning and getting your back line eaten, or blanking out whatever nasty AoE a caster just did. I think for my next playthrough, it's going to have to go on 'too cheesy to use' list with things like Scrolls, Echo, Amplified Wave, and petrify.

[Predator's Sense and Chanters]

Yup, it does. It was a key part of my Trials/Expert/PotD-no pause playthrough of 1x Chanter+5x Ranger. Great in Act 1 when the Rangers themselves are lacking their super talents and gear, but starts getting a smidge awkward in chapter 5, as Chants really aren't that big, and sometimes miss hitting both the enemies with the DoT effect, and allies with the Ranged attack speed boost without micro-managing. It's also really good in Act 1 as it's a very fast chant, and will build up invocations to summon stunning phantoms very quickly.

[What do you think of the 5 skills?]

I do think the skills could use a little re-work. Right you just need one Mechanic Monkey (brings in a lot of money through traps+hidden loot. often which has gear you can't buy) one Athletics dude (this one's not nearly as key, most atheletics checks can be skipped with cheap items, and there are very few items to get with soley atheletics). After that, it's maybe 3 points in stealth so you can open with an Alpha Strike if you like to micro that much, and then whatever left into Lore. Survival is really weak, not a ton of worthwhile potions to use, and often they last long enough on their own. Maybe it'd be more pressing if potions required survival to use, like scrolls do Lore.

 

Lore's actually so good to the point I'm starting to consider it cheese on my play throughs. No matter what my team build is, if I struggle with even the toughest fights in the game, I know I can just scroll spam to beat it. Still never go without 4 guys doing it in Trials of Iron/ExpertMode/PotD though, I'd have a ton more failed games if half the team couldn't revive half the other team, or just have half the team fire of a volley of paraylze scrolls to get some breathing room. Or make a Moonwell for everyone to stand in.

[I wonder if anyone else noticed - AI behavior]

I've seen something similar to your issue, where a team mate just runs off. It normally happens to me when the AI would try to use an ability, like Flames of Devotion or Knockdown, it'd glitch out and just run off in some random direction instead, or sometimes just do a weird stutter step around the area where we're fighting. I just now have my AI on just 'None+Aggressive'  for most of my team, so they'll just auto attack without me having to manage them, and really, most abilities are neglible enough the random use of them by the AI won't matter.

 

As for the AI doing dumb things with the abilites, I see that too, of course, but I think that's just working as intended. It's probably a lot of work to get them actually having something like a 'real' AI, or even set up a Tactics system like DA 1+2 had. (Which 3 mostly got rid of....). The best I think we could hope for is just the ability to go through and click certain abilites that the AI will never use, so when it randomly does something, it at least be the right something.

 

That said, I love the AI, and really makes the game more enjoyable, even in this state. I had quit the game months ago, in large part to how horrible the micro-managment was in this game, to an ungodly degree. The micro is still the same in those tough battles, but now, for most fights I can just let the AI do it's own thing, with me only really needing to manage at most one character.

[Best part is the start]

I would agree Raedric hold is the high point of the game for me. Also I agree with topic in general, with the first Act I by far being the most fun I have in the game. Of my dozen or so playthroughs, only 3 have ever actually made it to the end. The majority die out in Act 2 ,or after the chain of bounty quests that start Act 3.

 

It doesn't bother me overly much though, as a better beginning is fairly common in RPGs. Even classic Baldur's Gate 1 has my interest always take a hit when I reach Cloakwood, and normally completely derailed in the city of Baldur's Gate. (For similar reasons why Defiance Bay always sinks my interest.)

[Is Wizard still garbage?]

Yeah, agree with everyone saying Wizard has always been great, and is even better now, if not the best. To be fair though, at launch, a great many people were down on Wizard, and said it was one of the waker classes. This was likely due to a combination of everyone not knowing the in-an-out of the game, as well as mostly being based on Act 1, where a wizard only really has enough spells to dominate 1-2 fights, then take a bit of a rest break, assuming not cheesing the rest.

 

The only real 'downside' I have with Wiz is you have to micro-manage it to get it do much. The new AI is great, and really cuts down on the horrible tedium the game launched with, but some classes still need a lot of manual control under them, wizard being one of them. If the rest of your part is mostly fire-and-forget characters, it's fine to just mostly pilot the Wizard without the need for massive pausing to slow the flow to a crawl, but if you have a team full of attention-needy classes (multiple wizards included), it can be a drag.