Boeroer

You are not correct though. Maybe it's what you personally do and feel but that's not the actual case. Just because some potions' effects don't stack with other active effects doesn't mean that consumables in general are meaningless or you won't get proper benefit from them. I don't use them (not even healing potions) because the game is easy enough without them. Most of them are just too good (on top of all the other stuff you can use). Food can be very powerful. Look at all the immunity food. Potions and poisons are very useful in most cases as well. Before they were just ridiculously overpowered (with high Alchemy). Same with scrolls and high Arcana.

Interesting. Do you mind explaining why you suggested those class combos (maybe with a spoiler tag even though this is a spoiler subforum)? When it comes to race I would also recommend Death Godlike.

The reason for those vague descriptions is that values and workings of items/abilities etc. may change during development, even after release. But you have to lock the written content at some point because of localisation (esp. if you're not doing it inhouse). That means that everything that is most likely to change because of balance passes, bug fixing etc. shouldn't be too detailed - or you'd have to rewrite the description and give it to the localisation team again. That's one big reason why developers like to auto-generate certain parts of descriptions and other text - Obsidian also tried it and used more generated descriptions in Deadfire than in PoE. Unfortunately generated stuff fails once your effects are a bit unique and out of the line compared to your more systematic stuff. I believe at some point there wasn't time left to go through all the descriptions and check if they are specific enough. For PoE3 I would like a separated tooltip: one section for the fluff and lore and stuff and a vague description what the item does - and then a block that is auto-generated. Every item/ability etc. should display all the game values it influences. You can use icons/symbols to display stuff (and give mouseover explanations for those) to keeop it short.

I tried to click on it like a madman...

I guess those things need a lot of planning and also playtesting. Maybe establishing such a strict regiment and making it fun to play and somewhat balanced takes too much time. At least when you are reinventing the mechanic's wheel once again at the same time (as was done with Deadfire). Maybe this is a step that could be taken with PoE3 should it ever come. Incremental improvements and so on. They should hire a German engineer - those are famous for that. Declaing the weapon modals as active effects and making them not stack (with regard to their "balanced" approach) is an oversight I'd say. And honestly I think nobody at Obsidian knows the workings and stackings and whatnot as well as some of the users here. They are busy developing games - no time for power gaming Deadfire.

Hm... why is that formatted like a hyperlink?

I hope y'all know that Munich is not the capital of Germany... I presume the release dates for Steam are exactly 1 year after the ones shown above? I can only get it via Steam 'cause I'm on Linux. Like - all the time. It taking its toll...

For anybody who's still curious what's this all about I made this quick illustration: It's basically the same as the Barbarian's yell: first it's a cone and then you can decide to go for a broad, straight line (think of Iconic Projection or Rolling Flame and such) or a circle around you. Difference only is that the barb yells have an AoE indicator. Why does Clear Out et al. don't have one? I guess because this ability is executed with weapons. And weapons can have their own AoE indicator. So I think it's just not there to prevent interference of AoE indicators. The yells are no weapon attacks so it's easy to show an AoE indicator for them. By the way: Clear Out with AoE weapons means all AoE grazes/hits/crits from Clear Out will trigger an AoE attack roll from the weapon. So basically AoE² hits. You can also manage to hit targets that are not in the original Clear Out AoE if they are not too far away because the AoE of the weapon may reach them. This works with Whispers of the Endless Paths, Citzal's Spirit Lance, Keeper of the Flame and Karabörü (both sort of) and also hand mortars (unlock the use of Clear Out with a melee offhand weapon or a bashing shield - Clear Out will still use the main hand mortar). If you use a jumping weapon like Fire in the Hole then you will have 2*AoE² hits. This can even mean you hit enemies that are totally out of the original AoE of Clear Out since the jump (with attached AoE) will reach them. If you even have Driving Flight AND Fire in the Hole you'll have 3*AoE² which usually totally annihilates everything. This last thing is only doable with basic Clear Out though (since the upgrades are PL8).

I don't use consumables at all (besides the obligatory food when resting). Still I think that if you introduce consumables you better make sure that they have any worthwhile impact. Best is if they do something different than the other items/abilites. Let them have unique effects. Stacking rules are rel. simple: active effects stack, passives don't. Stuff from items stacks. The problem is: it's often not recognizeable what's active and what's passive (besides in the ability tree). Starts with weapon modals. Is an ability that I get from a weapon an active effect or not? And then you have the cases where debuffs/buffs "to all" do stack with debuffs/buffs "to x". See Vigorous Defense, Borrowed Instincts or Llengrath's Safeguard stacking with Mirrored Images or Arcane Veil and so on. Confusing... A solution would be to only give a certain type of effect to a certain group. For example only give direct defense/offense bonuses (defenses, accuracy, dmg) to items and passives. Only give inspirations and afflictions to active abilites. Make scrolls different active abilities than the ones from classes but communicte that they are actives. Give potions direct attribute boosts but no inspirations. And so on. Keep it separate and you don't run into stacking confusion. And where you have overlapping or where it still might be unclear: communicate the stacking rules for this effect right with the item/ability/consumable - every time (not only on the char sheet once it's all active or having to check the combat log for everything). And while you are at it: put stuff like attack speed and recovery on the char sheet where the other stats like weapon dmg and accuracy etc. are. It's not great having to manually check the tooltip ofthe equipped weapon.

It is very strong. High base damage for a one handed weapon and the poison is very strong (ticks are 20+ with some decent MIG and the duration is very long as well). It even works with Driving Flight and other ranged abilities - making it a nice weapon for a Geomancer for example. The only cons: the range is very short for a ranged weapon (like a reach melee weapon basically), it's pierce only and poison is one of the most resisted keywords in the game. But besides that it's really nice.

That seems to be right when I look at the combat log. Then the wiki is up to date as well. I somehow rememberd that it scaled better.

Same for me. So far at least.

The thing with the PEN modals which suffer a 50% recovery malus is: it's just better to switch to a weapon which either has higher PEN and/or targets a lower AR. For example: it's way better to switch from sabre to war hammer. If the enemy's slash AR is only 1 point higher than pierce or crush. A bit less base damage but no recovery malus and the same PEN compared to the sabre+modal. And you spare yourself a weapon proficiency point. On the other hand you can't sustitude a Morning Star's -25 fortitude debuff (that targets deflection) with something else so easily. That makes it far more valuable for me. Also because a lot of great spells target fortitude while it's the defense that's usually the highest on most enemies.

If you go for a lot of crits (e.g. use Mental Binding + Stunning Surge) I would also argue that Veilpiercer and St. Omaku's Mercy with their recovery-skipping can lead to higher damage output. By the way is the shocking lash of EI broken or did I just have a game hickup? I skilled my char's metaphysics to 20 but the shocking lash stayed really low.

@FleetFeet: Thanks for the update!

I already said that ranged characters have an advantage when enemies stand seperate but melee do if enemies atand near together. Also with Rapid Shots you simply trade attack speed for accuracy. It's a modal that you can't just leave on if you wish to be effective since it depends on the enemy which is better (ACC or less recovery time). Thus it doesn't alter dps and therefore focus gain a lot on average. For example it's a pretty inefficient modal in the early game. Simply awful to use -15 ACC right from the beginning (dpends on the difficulty settongs though). You also need a ton of cash to buy the bow. If you compare dual fists (works right away with no money or resources) with Hunting Bow + modal (actual ingame values at 10 DEX): Hunting Bow: 0.9 sec attack speed + 4 sec recovery with modal: 0.9 sec attack speed, 2 sec recovery, -15 ACC (generally roughly estimated as -30% dmg loss on average) dps with modal: base dmg of 19 * 0.7 modal / 2.9 --> dps of 4.58. If we totally ignore the ACC then 6.55 dps without modal: 19 / 4.9 --> dps of 3.88 Fists: 0.5 sec attack speed, 1.9 sec recovery base dmg of 16.5 * 1.2 Turning Wheel / 1.9--> dps of 10.24 base dmg of 16.5 / 2.1 (no Two Weapon Style, no Turning Wheel - right from the beginning) --> dps of 7.85 If the melee guy wears the most heavy armor (+50% recovery penalty) with no pet you will end up at the same dps (roughly). Then factor in that you can't use a lot of melee abilites of the monk. And that -15 ACC is a bad thing for Stunning Surge (the only attack ability that you can use with a hunting bow), too. So clearly a melee Transcendant can potentially do more dps and gain focus faster than a hunting bow Transcendant. Essence Interrupter has great features, no doubt. Especially since you can get it as exceptional item with a lash so early in the game (if you have the cash). But while your setup def. works well and ranged monks in general can be great - it just doesn't justify to say "melee ciphers or transcendants don't work, go ranged" when somebody asks for a melee Transcendant. They totally work. And then the problem with the Essence Interrupter destroying loot - which I informed you about several times in the past.

Sure, I just wanted to be clear (for other people who might read this) that it's not a special advantage of Soul Annihilation alone but is the case with all primary attacks in combinaton with a bashing shield. So in order to keep up this effect (circumventing the bash but still profit from the shorter recovery time) you can even alternate between different primary attacks if you wish. Luckily the Monk has several alternatives. Funny somehow that the Monk turned from a Full Attack guy in PoE to a Primary Attack dude in Deadfire. By the way I consider the fact that Force of Anguish targets Fortitude instead of Deflection a nice feature. It's a good alternative against enemies who have lower fortitude than deflection (for whatever reason).

Maybe save before leveling up and try it out. Might be it got fixed, I don't know for sure. Edit: I just fired it up and did a quick console check: it's still the case. So yeah, best to stay away from Lesser Wounds as a Shattered Pillar when using the Community Patch.

You don't need Weapon Proficiency to use different weapon types (in order to apply the most effective dmg type). In that regard you could do without it. The only effect (besides Devoted's passive and Confident Aim) is that you can use a "balanced" modal that gives you additional options. Maces can lower AR for others but hit a lot slower, Morning Star lowers fortitude but does less dmg then, Sword gains +2 PEN but deflection drops. I generally like this approach. I do agree though that a) at a certain point it feels redundant because you already picked all of those you think are useful for you and b) replay value or -motivation would be increased (at least for me) if the choice were a bit more scarce. I also think that some of the modals are fantastic while others are meh. They seem to be a bit unbalanced. For example the modals of battle axe, mace, flail, club and especially morning star can be very useful while I can't see as much value in the hunting bow or great sword modal (trading one dps stat for the other).

They are not as impactful in the late game though. Their healing doesn't scale or anything.

Chilling Grave is completely broken (balance-wise). Not only does the Chillfog gain all the weapon quality bonuses (legendary) - but Grave Bound will trigger on the Chillfog-hits, paralyzing all foes in the AoE. I think it also procs Avenging Storm. And then it also generates focus.

Yeah. The dual head is quite nice for a Soulblade since the first one dumps the focus as raw dmg and the second one already replenishes your focus. You can also spam other primary attacks with this setup to avoid the rel. weak bash but still use the bonus recovery of dual wielding. E.g. Force of Anguish, Forbidden Fist or Torment's Reach.

The best offense isn't very good. It also comes very late. Akola's Apex Ward is nice but you need to have -3 reputation with the Huana faction and bring down the captain+ship then. Also the retaliation effect is a bit weak. Problem with most bashing shields is that they don't scale their offensive capabilites. So dmg, PEN etc. always stay the same. I'd say the best one (offensively) is Tuotilo's Palm since its stats scale with Transcendent Suffering/Monastic Unarmed Training which makes it pretty unique. Preferably you'd use this shield with a Monk.

If you want to put yout whole focus on casting cipher powers - like you might want with an Ascendant - sure. You want to have very short recovery then. But on the other hand a melee cipher potentially generates focus more quickly even with armor. If you - for example - use Devil of Caroc's Breastplate with a pet like Abraham then your recovery isn't that bad in the first place while you will be a lot sturdier than without. Adding Body Attunement on top and you're sturdy enough yet fast enough to be a good melee character and being able to cast pretty quickly. There's also the question if you want to go armorless if you are ranged - boarding fights for example can be a nightmare if you are without armor. Get focus-fired by some gunners and you're done - no matter if back row or not. Then there is a whole cipher subclass that is supposed to go into melee combat (Soul Blade). If that wouldn't be possible its defining melee-only ability wouldn't make much sense, would it? I mean you played plenty of melee Cipher/something yourself. You wouldn't have done it if didn't work. Also you don't necessarily need to be very tanky to play melee as long as you are in a party. You just need a fitting party composition. Different story for solo of course. But I don't think that the questioner had a solo Transcendant in mind. And if you really want to combine back (or second) row and melee there's always reach weapons (first) and Instruments of Pain (later). That's still melee but with a lot less risk and not much need for thick armor.

It should get its own spell in a unique grimoire.