Boeroer

What I just realize: doesn't the Fury have the automatic passive ability that kills (while shifted) prolong the Spiritshift duration? If a Fury now also picks Wildstrike Frenzy: will those effects stack? I mean with Relentless + Returning Storm and Heart of the Storm you can bring down enemies' health pretty quickly and then do some kill-snipes with your ranged wildstrikes. Will have to test what happens...

Atm speed vs. sturdyness is not balanced properly. I wonder if TB mode will see additional attacks per round if you overcome certain speed thresholds.

On kill also works on allies by the way, including summons. It's a bit cheesy but you can make it work very reliably then. E.g. Warlock with Blood Thirst who nukes a Beckoner's skeletons while they are distracting/engaging the enemies. Barb+Paladin has some really nice passive "on crit", "on near death" + "on kill" effect combos. Most of them are sub PL8. Too bad you can't combine any of that with Wikdstrike Frenzy.

Disables in PoE were OP mostly due to the grazes mechanic that didn't downgrade the effect of the disable but only the duration. Combined with the huge defense rebuffs that came with the disables. Immunities are ok if used wisely. For example it makes complete sense that a Flame Blight is immune to burn damage. But we could do with less if not only resistances downgraded afflictions but also grazes (and crits upgraded). No duration fiddling from graze/crit. That way an enemy with resistance to let's say constitution afflictions and high Fortitude would be kind of immune to Sickened and Weakened as long as you can't hit. You could buff the effects of afflictions a bit then. Not back to PoE values (was too good) but a bit more impactful that they are now. Just an idea though.

Let's see what we can do after the passives are finished. My problem is that I can/only want to do rel. simple B/W icons. Just because photoshopping with tons of gradients and stuff takes too much time. But those item abilities would be in the same bar as all the other actives and thus should have a similar style (in other words: not the one I currently use for the passives). Maybe just tinting or slightly modifying the current icons would be an option (that doesn't require a ton of drawing)? @Wildstrike: the icons themselves are fine, but now they look out of place because they work with colors, gradients and shadows while the other passives are all black and white silhouettes. I would prefer to give the Wildstrike abilities different backgrounds (green for corrode, yellow for fire and so on) but also stick to b/w icons for the claw symbol - with a bit of stylized flames, drips etc.

He was mocking another forum user who very frequently recommends heralds. And sometimes Helwalker/Ascendant with Essence Interrupter...

We will see some changes to TB pretty soon. Let's see what they come up with.

They are working on that. It's not supposed to be this way.

Yes. I think TB mode adjustments will be the biggest slice of the patch. Hopefully followed by a lot of happy bug fixes. TB mode currently is in beta status and Obsidian asked for feedback when they released the beta. So it is very unlikely that we won't see some solid changes to TB mode.

Besides the "basic" abilities that all had their own icons (which didn't fit the style of the other passives though) I also redid Unbreakable and Unrelenting since those also had their own "flashy" icon which looked out of place now. Will have to do the same with Wildstrike I guess? Any feedback on the icons above (e.g. the simpler B/W versions of Constant Recovery, Sneak Attack and so on)?

Action and recovery speed translate to initiative in TB mode. So with more DEX etc. you will be further up and can act sooner (but not more often).

I agree that SC druids lack martial capabilities. Especially shifters who can't even use Taste of the Hunt. A few more dedicated passives would have been nice, maybe an active melee ability or two which are not spells. But you can of course use spells to lower enemies' health and then finish them with a melee strike. One thing with my testing though: I didn't make sure that it wasn't DoT ticks that killed the enemies. Maybe that prevented Wikdstrike Frenzy from triggering. I doubt it but to be extra sure I will run another test later today.

I just tested Wildstrike Frenzy. Only kills with your wildstrike-infused claws/tusks/horns/etc. will trigger the effect. Not kills from spells.

Back from Sicily, did some rework on the existing icons (no additional ones yet except a few of the PL-0 abilites). I rearranged them all and sorted them by class:

I think the base dmg of Delayed Fireball is quite ok. I use the delay (which of course is a downside in general) for: - moving party members out of the AoE. I don't have to wait with the cast. - I can cast Delayed Fireball first and Pull of Eora after (instead of the other way round) which gives me a somewhat longer use of PoE. - timing attack rolls from one wizard so that the rolls happen at the same time (or close). What I mean is: if I fight some enemies with healing it's better to have attack rolls with not too much pause in between. So I can cast a delayed and a normal fireball and they go off at the same time, making healing in between impossible (and possibly killing the targets). - what I didn't test but which might be a good use of the delay: if not the casting but instead the explosion breaks stealth (?) you maybe could first cast two delayed fireballs and another dmg spell right from stealth (remember the 85% recover bonus you get from stealth).

I also found that if you can curcumvent the recovery malus of bleeding cuts (eg. with Full Attacks while holding the axe in the main hand, Barbaric Retaliation, Riposte, Blood Thirst etc) there's not much else which is better. Barbaric Retialiation is best with Battle Axes even if you use non-unique ones. That's how good Bleeding Cut are.

What do you mean by "class suggestion"?

Optimal... depends. There are many ways to build a ranged cipher. Going Ranger/Cipher will give you more ACC and Driving Flight (and I didn't even test if Arcane Archer's Imbue spells generate focus), Black Jacket/Cipher can mean a big focus spike through switching, a Helwalker will give you additional dmg and duration and PEN, a Beguiler means you don't need to use a weapon that much anyway and so on. Streetfighter with Blunderbuss means very high dps but it also has rel. low ACC and low range. And it's not very sturdy. If you can overcome or accept those disadvantages it is a very powerful combo for an Ascendant. Because as I said the recovery bonus also applies to casting and you want to cast as many spells as possible while ascended. For Ascended I think Streetfighter/Blunderbuss or Helwalker are some of the potentially most powerful combos (if you are not going single class which is also very good due to great abilities at higher PL8+ levels).

Too bad. But don't let that demotivate you.

You shouldn't forget that you not only get Power Level scaling from additional (item) bonuses but also from your own level progression. Fireball is a tier 3 spell with 7 PEN. At the time you can cast it 7 base PEN isn't the end of the world. The you'll add PEN with every additional PL over 3 AND the bonuses you accumulate. A PL 7 char already gets a bonus on Fireball of +4. And I think to compensate for all that burn resistance in the game Obsidian put all those burn bonus hear into the game: +4 PL from weapons, Scorched Cloak (heal yourself with fire), Otto Starcat (+2 PL) and Ring of Focused Flame (+10 ACC - crits do help with PEN)... If then also can add Scion of Flame and get the Tenacious Inspiration then PEN is not a big deal. Also because you will always have backup spells to fireball. If you specialize in fire damage that will give you plenty power with those - but that doesn't mean at all that you suddenly can't cast a frost spell as backup option.

Yes.

No news while I sit on a playground in Catania, waiting for my last day of vacation to end?

He chose Streetfighter because a bunderbuss + modal will distract you with each shot. Distracted contains flanked. That means you always suffer the penalty of distracted but get the Streetfighter's "Heating Up" bonus which lets you reload with a 50% recovery bonus and deal a lot more Sneak Attack dmg. If you also become bloodied: even more dmg, but it's not necessary to be a top notch damage dealer. The recovery bonus also applies to your spell casting. Since ciphers have some spells with short casting time but long recovery the synergy is a very nice one.

Yeah, yes. Elemental Bolts is usually the better enchantment since lashes are a multiplicative dmg modifier while Missiles are just additive dmg. Also those missiles won't scale with Power Level afaik since they originate from a weapon and not you. They might scale with weapon quality though. Usually I also value random dmg bonuses (proc chances) lower than lashes since they are unreliable. Example: even if the average dmg is the same on paper, the proc chance means that the dmg roll has to be high in order to balance out the randomness. High dmg rolls have a tendency to overkill. That means you have damage on paper but a lot is actually wasted. Stuff like Combusting Wounds, Confounding Bling and The Shield Cracks might nugde you towards missiles, but in general I think Elemental Bolts is the much better enchantment.

Exactly. Novice's flat bonus is higher, but usually the higher base dmg of Transcendent is the better deal. Lashes work best if you can combine them with additive dmg bonuses and also an elemental talent (like Scion of Flame and Heart of the Storm). Additive bonuses like Apprentice's Sneak Attack and Savage Attack will get multiplied by the lash and Scion of Flame etc. boost elemental lashes directly and increase them by 20% (e.g. from a 25% lash to a 30% lash which is an increase of 20%). The game will not tell you that though.