Boeroer

Why is Ghost Heart considered to be a strong package in the first place? I mean the ability to drop the AC somewhere within 4 meters can be nice - but that range is short and with an AC with big size it's often way too short for my taste. Oh, and the non-engagement which is nice - but I doubt most players who prefer Ghost Heart did even notice. You need to spend 1 Bond every time you want it (Revive Companion is "only" 2 - given that you won't need it that often if you know what you are doing), you can't start an encounter with the AC (my biggest gripe), you can't heal it (not a big deal I think since you can resummon). And you can't summon anything else (which is why my preferred Ranger multiclass, the Geomancer, never comes as Ghost Heart). Somewhat exxagerated, but all it does is making the AC a "disposable" thing for players who don't know how to handle (or simply don't like) ACs in general. I mean that's fine and a good subclass option in order to meet players' needs and wishes. And it's viable - def. not worse than vanilla. But I fail to see why it's a particular strong package. What do I miss?

Don't think so. I grew up in a rural environment (but in Lower Saxony/Germany - so in terms of wealth and cars and roads and stuff it's not that much different from the cities - just more fields, cows and pigs between the houses and a forest here and there) but I very much liked the first city I moved to (during university) and then Berlin. Berlin's pretty great (besides some really annoying side issues). Bucharest is very nice, too (if you pick the right district that is). Heck, even if most people don't know what it is: Tashkent was also great to me. Actually all bigger cities I lived in so far I found nice. And I didn't live in gated communities or something like that. Right beside the clay oven, yeah! I'm not a big fan of the "Open World" approach (as I have stated numreous times now, please bear with me) - and often you find big cities in games with that omnipresent "*gasp* Open World!!11!!1!" tag. I guess it often works as an anchor-point so you always know where to return to when you're totally lost wandering around without any sense of purpose or direction... Big cities with tons of quest hooks in it make those games easier to develop, too. If you'd have to manage the same amout of quests but spread over 10 smaller towns which even may be done by different teams you would be having a hard(er) time. I have the same problem as @draego: first I have this motivation to press forward, explore the "strand" of the game if you will. Then I reach the big city and it feels like that strand gets frayed into hundreds of threads. It takes away my motivation to press forward. I can do it, but only because I know it will get better with every quest that leads me out of that city (I also consider stuff like the Old City as "outside the city" since it's so different and a dungeon). It's way better with smaller cities or towns: they give you the feeling of a save haven with taverns, shops etc. but they don't drop all kind of stuff on you until you're quest-dazed. I don't think it's the city itself that sets me off, it's the function as quest dump. Maybe it would feel less awkward if you could buy/build a home and use that as base of operations. At least that would give you a better connection to the city and a more plausible reason to return all the time. If then all the quests would get unlocked time after time I would be happy I guess. It's not the "flair" of a big city I'm repelled by. I now realize that this might be the reason why I love dungeon crawls so much: no "open world" stuff - usually there's one/two main directions where to go. And no quest dumps... You're doing everything bit after bit. The parts I (and when I read correctly several others) liked most about PoE and Deadfire are those well-done dungeons or other contained areas like Temple of Eothas, Raedric's Castle, Temple of Skean, Fort Deadlight, Drowned Barrows...

You are doing it again? Why am I not getting a Twitch message? Time to join the chat and distract the sheet out of you with bad puns!

Just think if all that stuff was placed in different smaller cities. Even minor content. That horn in Bridgetown, those slavers in Helmchurch, that lich in Undergates.

Exactly. Dyrford, too. The best towns are always the small ones.

?

I dislike if it's too big. Like... all the ones you mentioned.

https://twitter.com/WorldofEternity/status/1202331469726670848 January 28th. You're welcome.

I nearly won the PoE Ultimate with a dual sabre Barb (3 DEX, 3 RES - wichts were my nemesis ;)). That wasn't supertedious after the early game. But Blood Thirst was lvl 7 (not PL 7) and once you got Heart of Fury it was quite ok.

I don't think there will be many more. While I never thought that it's impossible (we know by now - since PoE and the story that QA complained that the Adra Dragon was impossible to beat - that Obsidianites aren't masters of their own games and thus can't really estimate what's possible and what not - which is fine... I don't think I could play a game extensively that I developed myself) I always said it's incredibly tedious. Several challenges by themselves add quite the tedium (Woedica's, Abydon's, Hylea's) - combine them all and I'd rather hang on my nostril hairs than trying to complete that challenge. So... hats off!

I didn't even play the PoE beta. So I doubt that that's the reason.

No Dragon Age: Origins? TTON Is Torment: Tides of Numenunuonumuonera

@Gfted1: That as well. On the other hand: without that tag we maybe would have lost Obsidian some years ago.

You have to take the path of the slaying face, then get the fitting artifact and then beat the challenge. Since it's high level stuff you can't do it too early. Here's a walkthrough: https://www.neoseeker.com/pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire-seeker-slayer-survivor/tasks/Hunts If you want it very early because you find it especially fitting for a character of yours you can open up any savegame, activate cheats, give it to a character via console <open console> iroll20s <enter> <open console> giveitem LAX01_Hide_Armor_Soulbound_Changelings_Mantle <enter> then export that character (he's what you would call a mule). Then start a new game and at some point recruit that mule in a tavern. Take away that item and discard the mule. More complicated than simply cheating with the console like above, but that way you can still gain Blessing points and other achievements with that new game.

I agree 100% to this statement. I'd also add "open world", "your choices have an impact" and "companion relationships" and "crafting" to that list. More or less. Not that they are bad - but it often seems devs are trying too hard with those. In the hopes that such tags on the game make it sell more I guess.

I can't say anything about turn based since I only tried it briefly. But judging by what I read about it it's mostly action speed/recovery time that has less impact in TB mode. Durations + INT bonus should still play a role. Another thing is: the miss/graze ratio in the TB mode is different (misses less likely to happen). So maybe Offensive Parry isn't that strong here. But others might have to verify what I'm only speculating about right now. If it is so then stuff like Piercing Sigil and Cloak of Death (and also Repulsive Visage, Flame Shield, Draconic Fury and other spells that help to avoid getting hit without using defenses but CC) become even more impactful.

Last convulsions I guess.

Yes, if you are willing to pause a lot you can remove her just a tiny bit from the enemy while he's swinging at you, producing an "out of reach" miss. But while that's a good thing in solo runs I find it way to tedious for a normal playthrough. If you could script that for the AI though...

Haha - how awful is that? I think I never actually noticed that it can "miss". Maybe also because I tend to prefer stuff like Killers Froze Stiff over damaging invocations anyway.

If you summon your familiar you can't summon Essential Phantom (I mean you can, but what was the point summoning the familiar then?). And this (for me) is the biggest flaw of the Conjurer: you are specialized on conjuring/summoning stuff but can't have your class defining familiar and a phantom at the same time. And yes, you lose access to all the illusion spells. Those are not only some really nice self-buffs but also very good stuff for (melee) wizards in general, like Dazzling Lights (lvl-1 access to Daze=-4 PEN but also great to lure enemies from stealth), Miasma (not only lowers Will like crazy as I said but also drops enemies' ACC by 10 through -10 PER, stacking with other ACC debuffs like from Blind from Chillfog or Curs of the Blackend Sight), Repulsive Visage, Enervating Terror and Wall of Many Colors - amongst others. Besides that you'll give up on all evocations, too. You will never be able to cast a Fireball and friends. This may not have been your go-to spell in the first place since you are a spellsword. But skipping them all? And then there's the recovery malus for all other spells that are not conjurations. All in all it's not worth the potential +2/+3 PL on some of the conjuration spells that do actually profit from it (like Death Ring or whatever). Now - if you never planned to summon a phantom then my first point is not a big deal - but given the synergy of phantom + summoned weapons it's just another drawback. And what makes the single class "Spellsword" worthwhile is - as I said above - the possibility to reach Piercing Sigil and Cloak of Death (and getting to Draconic Fury earlier which is also a beast - and here th +10% recovery time would also hurt). They don't stack too well so you shouldn't use them at the same time. But those are pretty cool for a melee wizard. Especially if he also uses Offensive Parry with Whispers otEP. By the way Draconic Fury's lashes don't work with the AoE of Spirit Lance or WotEP. I agree on the INT: it's still important. Self buffs and summons do get influenced by INT and so does AoE of Spirit Lance or WotEP etc. A nice trick for melee wizards: once you get the Mask of the Weyc you can use Wall of Draining to prolong its +50 deflection buff. Since it comes from an item and is passive (automatically starts once combat starts) it stacks with everything, making you basically untouchable if you also use self-buffs like Mirrored Image etc. Offensive Parry will trigger nearly 100% of times then. My recommendation for subclass would either be vanilla or Blood Mage. Blood Mage + Corrosive Siphon is a pretty nice combo. You can spam it at some point since the healing you receive from multiple opponents will be way higher than the damage you get from Blood Sacrifice (given your defenses are good so you don't get pommeled too hard). I seriously don't recommend any wizard subclass besides vanilla or Blood Mage for any build (besides some really special weird builds or the occasional Evoker who hopes for double casts). Their drawbacks are worse than their benefits if you are looking at a whole playthrough. It would be different if all spells from grimoires could be cast no matter the subclass and if the limitations were only for "learned" spells. It would also be different if their special abilities such as Conjure Familiar (can't stack with other summons, can't choose the familiar) or Form of the Fearsome Brute (look at the armor...) etc. weren't too weak. And yes: Arcane Dampeners will screw you. You could counter with Thrust of Tattered Veils - but it's an evocation.

Yes, it is. It's like the Engwithan Titan on Poko Kohara. Only that it's burning.

My first advice is: Don't take Conjurer. It locks you out of to many good spells while the benefits are meh. Summoned weapons' quality scales with char level, not Power Level, so the additional PL won't do much for summoned weapons except longer duration. The whole concept is viable because you get some nice self buffs - but mostly because of high level spells like Minoletta's Piercing Sigil or Cloak of Death. I played a melee wizard with lots of RES and focus on defenses (buffs like Mirrored Image + Safeguard etc.) + Offensive Parry from Whispers of the Endless Paths. While there might be other class combos that rock Offensive Parry even more - it is cool to deal melee damage via retaliation while casting a lengthy spell. It works quite well - but only once you get up your buffs. But it was fun. Obviously you can also use the summoned weapons like Spirit Lance which is strong. Never forget Essential Phantom when you have a potent weapon/armor setup - the phantom usually does pretty well and if you summon it while holding Spirit Lance in hands it will also have it. One summoned weapon that's very powerful but usually not worth investing in is Concelhaut's Draining Touch. It has the highest base damage of all one handed weapons, it deals corrode damage, has ok PEN, targets Will instead of Deflection (cast Miasma first to drop Will into nothingness) and also drains 20% of the dmg as health. And while it is my no.1 weapon for the Essential Phantom (where it will stay until the phantom vanishes) it's usually not that useful because it vanishes after a successful hit. But there's a trick: Don't pick the spell at level-up but rather get a grimoire with the spell in it. Cast it from the grimoire. Now switch to another grimoire which doesn't have the spell before attacking. Now you can hit with it as often as you want - it will stay until the end of the fight. If you get a shield for the offhand you can be more tanky - if you choose a club with modal for the offhand you can drop Will even further (by 25 - together with Miasma that's -65 Will). Crits are common with this method. Also in this case: Essential Phantom is great, even though it can't use weapon modals.

There are three different paths you can follow: Seeker, Slayer or Survivor. Once you follow one particular path you won't see the enemies of the challenges the other two would provide.

You can add any character (enemy, npcs etc.) to your party with the console. But the UI will not accommodate for more than 6 party members. I don't think there's any mod that will change that since it would be very difficult, maybe impossible without de- and recompiling.