Boeroer

The ability "Resilient Companion" along with some other (active) AR buff (like from your party's paladin or a cipher or whomever) helps a lot - given that high AR is the most impactful defensive stat you can have. AC's AR also scales with level. But a passive +2 is a big deal actually since underpenetration leads to a lot of damage reduction. The numbers -25% (-1 PEN), -50% (-2 PEN) and -75% (-3 PEN) don't do it justice because it's actually a lot more after the numbers come out of the damage resolution. The bear has an additional +2 which stacks - so he is the tankiest AC of them all when it comes to high damage spikes (like when he gets targeted by several enemies). The boar has infinite health regeneration which means that when concentrated on he will go down a bit faster, but he can absorb a lot more damage when it doesn't come too quickly. Both are pretty ok as offtanks and sturdy flankers. Maia's bird actually has the best stats by the way (if you sum them up: highest stat number). You can't tank with any AC though. They don't have the defensive stats for that, not even the antelope (although it helps). And that's not what they are for. Use them as flankers or as bodyguard against rushers or even as path blockers (some of them, like bear or lion, have bigger models and tak up more ground space which helps with blocking pathways a lot). Always unstealth and egage with the tank(s) first - only then send in the ACs. Besides that ACs can get healed and they also don't suffer injuries when they go down (and then potentially revived). If you have a PL9-SC Paladin in the party he canl get +2 Zeal every time the AC goes down. So you can revive quite often without any hassle with injuries. Never forget that they are like permanent summons which you can upgrade. If you would present a n item which would invoke a permanent summon in every fight (and even buff and revive it etc.) everybody would be "Whoa how useful!" - but somehow with the Ranger everyboy just goes "whoahy is de pet so bad?". I don't get it. One of the most fun solo chars I had so far was a melee Geomancer (Wizard/Stalker), combining very high AR with three bodies (bear, me and my Essential Phantom) with great damage, debuffing and top accuracy. That build relied heavily on the AC. Also fun was a ranged Scout I posted in the build thread who uses Watershaper's Focus. It's still fun and viable but doesn't use the AC a lot. So both can be nice and viable.

You know what? What if they had made a mechanics lesson/explanation that would have been presented before the game starts (skippable of course). Done in a P&Paper rulebook manner (meaning description + examples) and in style of all the other scripted scenes and ship combat "on sepia paper" you have in the game. With those watercolor drawings/paintings left and right which help to visualize the explanations and examples. Fully voiced. Like if the Dungeon Master read the rulebook for you. Maybe even interactive so you could navigate to certain chapters. Not necessarily superlong an in detail, but at least to cover all the basics. Do you think that would have worked? And would that have been worth the effort?

I think it's ok if mechanics are simple - as long as they allow for nice character builds. Sometimes they are not even that simple but simply well explained and rational in themselves - not many exceptions, no tables to look up etc. For example Dragon Age Origin's mechanics don't seem to be very complex. But in tandem with the effect combos that you can discover it allows for some nice and cool character concepts. For example I made a CC mage and mostly focused on stacking several seal spells on the ground in order to create that one truly awesome repulsing seal that sends enemies flying in all directions. At first I thought "meh what a boring ability system" - but actually it was ok the way it was.

I always found that Rangers were pretty good - mostly because of their insane accuracy buffs (and Driving Flight which allows for some awesome shenanigans). The Animal Companion has one very impressive ability (if you build around it a bit): Takedown Combo. It raises the next attack's damage by 100% (additive), which works very well with all attacks that have high base damage... AND damage over time. Especially dmaage over time. It raises the ticks' damage by 100% and will NOT get removed like after a normal attack. That means that for example a Disintegrate (which already does high tick damage) can get double damage ticks which destroys almost everything on the spot. Also the Animal Companion himself does quite good damage once you manage to unlock Predator's Sense all the time (for example with a Battle Axe + modal or Brand Enemy or Gouging Strike or Deep Wounds and so on).

I agree. We once discussed some unique mechanics with which Barbs, Rogues etc. could regain some of their resources in another thread some time ago.

I didn't say that you need to.

Yeah, but White Worms has a huge AoE and very high base damage for such a low PL ability (scales very well with PL) - so I often use it as damaging invocation if it's not against single targets. When I do the same with Her Revenge the result is meh compared to that. But as I said I never tried it against single (or few) targets and thus never discovered how it really works.

Why don't you just put more skill points into stealth and drop mechanics for example? If you have somebody else in the party with mechanics it's no loss at all. Or did you mean solo?

I always thought White Worms had a lot higher effect/cost ratio. Of course you need to find a corpse first. I never tried Her Revenge on single targets though which now sounds as if I should have done that.

Again some of your examples are not well picked: Is it obvious that DEX should make an archer deal more damage? It's not. The obvious thing is that DEX would make him move faster and fire arrows faster. Why should his arrows deal more damage? In a simulationistic ruleset an archer should deal more damage because he hits more vital spots. In PoE DEX does increase an archer's dps though which his not the worst solution I guess. Why does his Might increase his arrows damage? Well you coukd explain it with some in-game soul blabla but what it boils down to is that you'll simply have to accept that this system is not going to simulate arrow damage properly. It's only an abstraction. There is no Strength in PoE, there's only Might. The term was chosen for a reason since it includes not only bodily power (which should get resolved with Athletics) but also the power of your soul which everything evolves around in PoE games so far. For the same reasons I would guess. As I said above: it's a systemic approach instead of one where the rules should mimic some real world cases or meet the expectations we have from other systems. Fewer exceptions and edge cases, more generalisation and robust system. That's the idea at least. It's a matter of taste. Both have their pros and cons. Systemic approaches need you to let how of the idea that the rules have to simulate every action "properly" while simulationistic approaches tend to be very (often too) complex - because life of an adventurer is complex. With a simulationistic system you always need a rulebook by your side (which table to look up for damage when falling down a stair?) while a systemic approach forces you overlook some cases where things might seem weird (INT + Carnage for example). And come up with explanations that might explain the workings for people who are not willing to accept it (e.g. explain the higher dmg of spells with the Might of your soul). As I said above your general observation that PoE doesn't explain it's mechanics very well is totally true. I complained about that right from the start and sadly it didn't get much better in Deadfire.

Not possible to do it briefly, sorry. What changed: instead of having random afflictions and other CC effects you'll have a rationalized system of inspirations (buffs) and afflictions (debuffs, including CC). They counter each other. So if you become smart (+5 INT inspiration) and then get hit by confusion (-5 INT, friendly fire) both go *pouf*. They all come in three tiers per attribute. So every attribute has three tiers of an affliction as well of three inspirations. INT has smart, acute and brilliant as well as confused, charmed and dominated. Each of those cancel each other out, tier doesn't matter. There are also resistances which you can have. A resistance lowers the affliction you get hit with by 1 tier. Resistance to INT affliction would mean that if a charm hits you you only become confused and so on. Penetration is important. You will have a PEN value for all your damage-dealing attacks. If you can't meet the armor value of your opponent (let's say 8 PEN vs. 8 AR) you will suffer severe dmg loss. Math "behind the curtain" is different when it comes to dmg maluses. Without going into detail a -25% dmg loss goes through some facy operations and "in reality" is much more severe than the number suggests. So avoid underpenetration (-25%, -50%, 75% dmg if PEN is 1,2 or 3 points below AR) at all costs. Same with Grazes. If you meet the enemies' AR then their armor does nothing. So it's not a very granular system but more like "top vs. flop". If you overpenetrate like crazy you can get a 30% dmg bonus. Crits do PEN * 1.5. so a Crit can often lead to overpenetration which will give you overpenetration dmg as well as crit dmg increase. You can multiclass. Or better: dual class. The rules are very straightforward and easy enough to grasp. You basically mix two classes and get all the goodies but they progress more slowly and can't reach the final power levels of single classes which means their abilites can't scale as high and they can't get the last two tiers of abilities. It's pretty balanced. Multiclasses tend to be more front-loaded which makes them fun to play right from the start while single classes shine at high levels and progress faster. in Deadfire classes don't have x/encounter abilities like for example the Rogue or Fighter had in PoE. Instead, they all have resource pools now like the Monk or Cipher had in PoE. Difference is that they can't usually refill that pool. So instead of getting 2 Crippling Strikes per encounter a Rogue gets a pool named "Guile" and he pays his Crippling Strikes with Guile (in this case 1 point per Strike). spellcasters get 2 spell uses per encounter for each spell tier. So no per-rest anymore. you can empower abilities. It's 1/encounter and x/rest. It means you are adding a lot of Power Levels to a spell/attack/whatever active ability. You can also use empower points to refill your resource pool a bit. You get more used per rest with more levels. Low level abilities scale with Power Level (different from char level, but is connected). That means that low level attacks etc. stay being useful throughout the game. Often those are even the best picks since they tend to be cheap but scale beautifully (see said Crippling Strike or Flames of Devotion - payed for with 1 Zeal). Crits only do 25% increased dmg now, not 50%. But as I said they tend to result in overpenetration so there's that. INT's impact on AoE size changed: it now doesn't increase radius but instead increases the actual area. The value per point is increased but still this means that it grows a lot more slowly - and not quadratically like in PoE. Stacking rules are different: active abilities don't stack their effects, passives always stack (they are visually separated in the ability tree). Passive effects on items always stack (unlike PoE). So a ring +1 INT and a helmet with +2 INT will stack. The most important things to grasp: Inspirations/Afflictions, PEN/AR, Stacking, Resource pools/spell uses and Power Levels. And multiclassing of course.

And it's not that the abilities of classes with refilling pools are any weaker than the ones of classes with fixed pools.

@rtokar: If you are on Steam you should have the latest version. You'd need to do complicated things to NOT have it. It's weird that you are at 4.something. Did you deactivate automatic updates? If so you can probably deinstall and reinstall and that should solve the problem. With cloud saves enabled your saves should be fine. You can also save them manually. Weapon bug: I guess you are wearing a certain necklace named "Necklace of Unlocked Possibilities" which summons a random unique weapon into the character's hands at the start of combat. Look for it. If you have it it's not a bug but a feature. If you don't have it then it's the weirdest bug I ever saw here and you would be the first one to ever report it. In this case: congrats!

I agree that the rationalization is better in Deadfire. I was also thinking about your suggestion that taking an active ability should raise your resource pool. So maybe that's not the worst idea of all times.

While we are at "PoE vs. Deadfire" when it comes to mechanics: which approach did you like better for the per-encounter abilites? PoE: picking an ability like Crippling Strike and Blinding Strike and then get x uses per encounter? Deadfire: picking an ability that feeds from your non-replenishable resource pool (like Guile)? I am undecided. While I like the flexibility that a resource pool gives you it also makes it so that abilities compete for said resource and that it's generally a bad idea to pick too many active abilities. In PoE picking an ability always meant that you increased the uses. Maybe there yould have even been a hybrid system that would have given you the flexibility of a resource pool but wouldn't punish you for taking too many active abilites that feed from that pool?

Which is not so bad I think - having to make those decisions. Real world example: you wouldn't want some wounded boxer to get back up if an additional blow would endanger him or maybe even kill him. You'll tell him to stay down or throw the towel. At first this kind of mechanical quirk sounds ugh. But I don't think it is that bad. It is indeed very frustrating if your guy gets revived unintentionally (like from Second Chance) though. Happened to me sometimes. Luckily you can always reload so it's nothing that got me ranting...

But only the "explosive" upgrade of Seven Nights, right? Will it give you 7 inspirations?

I think it's pretty save to say that resting when having low health was the behaviour that the designer expected. I think thelee at al. mean the situation where health drops from max (or high) to zero over the course of one single fight (bounties, boss fights etc.). This can happen if you rely on strong "healing" (restoration of endurance) but use chars with low CON and/or low defenses and DR. So basically glasscannons. CON's influence on endurance isn't that big, but its impact on health is quite significant. If you tend to use low CON glasscannons and like to prevent knockouts with lots of healing (instead of good defenses and/or DR) you will run into that problem quite often. Solo runs naturally have longer fights - so during a solo run you will also experience this a lot more which might blur your judgement on this mechanic. For most players that use a party and don't min-max a lot I suppose it was a non-issue.

It wasn't particularly well implemented - especially the edge case when health nears max endurance (and then got lower) like you mentioned are a bit weird - but I still like it better than the Deadfire solution for the reasons mentioned. Some of the confusion you mention stems from unclear nomencalture though and not from complicated mechanics: endurance/health is clear, but what was called "healing" in PoE was actually just some sort of "catching your breath" in most cases. "Healing" should have been reserved for abilites that actually restored health, not endurance. I'd still argue that all the confusion wasn't the result of a bad or complicated mechanic but of poor explanation and wording. I also wouldn't say that it's unintuitive. I understood the concept at once even though I didn't experience it before. Those unelegant "edges" where you would rather get your companion knocked out than go to 0 health could have been shaved off by some additional options like I said (like feigh death). Other options are already there: namely the maiming option as well as the abilites Wound Binding and Field Triage as well as potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. I know those situations you talk about, but after utilizing the options above (even only two: maiming + potion) they were a non-issue. Not the best solutiuon for the underlying problem maybe but not as bad as you describe it either On one hand you have a system that carries over the results of one battle to the next (via health depletion) - on the other hand a system that does not do that and where every battle is an insolated event. Both have their problems. I can't really see why one would argue that one of those approaches is objectively better. There is no better or worse when it comes to the underlying concepts - execution details aside. There is no reason to call one approach stupid or ridiculous nor to impute players who like a over b with stockholm syndrome (because they are obviously not clear in their head when they don't prefer b).

It's not the best turn based system you'll ever see - but it works well enough.

Generally you are right: PoE does a very poor job of explaining things. But your examples are mostly ill-suited to prove your point: the combat log goes back to the start of the battle at least - you just have to expand the window and scroll. A weapon is ineffective if its damage gets eaten up by the enemy's damage reduction (DR). This can be seen in the combat log where you can inspect the dmg roll + dmg modifiers, damage type, the enemy's DR against that type of damage, your DR bypass and then the resulting dmg (+ eventual lash damage). A "MIN" tells you that the dmg you did was actually so low compared to the DR that it would have been near zero or lower and that the game granted you a minimal dmg value instead. Sawyer not simply decided about a bunch of stats because "Hey why not smart Barbs lol?". He chose to make the attribute system more systemic instead of simulationistic (is that even a word?). Systemic approaches lead to an easier implementation, easier balancing and less trap choices - and they are also easier to predict for players: INT always impacts AoE and duration (no matter if Carnage AoE or spell AoE) - MIG always impacts damage done and healing done. That's not unintuitive. You are just used to a different take on attributes. It's not your intutition that tells you what a certain stat should do - it's your expectation based on experience. You might like that or not, but it's nothing that an experienced designer decided because he had a stiff gin tonic for breakfast.

Pallegina went through something what we would call .

I think a Witch (Berserker/Beguiler) would work best with a Morning Star (first Saru Sichr, then The Willbreaker). But I consider the Morning Star to be the most useful weapon choice most of times, and maybe others might object. But the synergy of Spirit Frenzy + Secret Horrors + modal + Brute Force is just too good in my opinion. If you have a party member who already uses a Morning Star then you can use something else of course. For example Endre's Flig of Obedience or that soulbound mace which is very strong with Blood Thirst (against kith) and also very good with stun on crits (see Berserker crit conversion). Instead of Berserker one could also use Furyshaper. The terrifying totem is very strong. You'll lose PEN and melee crit chance - but on the other hand gain a very potent summon. If you like Disintegrate and Silent Scream (both not caring much about AR since raw dmg) I would consider this. If you like hitting stuff with a weapon more then Berserker I guess.

Riveted by that of reasoning.