Boeroer

Would be cool if you described what the nerf actually was. Because I can't remember what really changed. It might be that is wasn't so severe. Or that the overall caster buff balanced that out pretty nicely. I don't count fixing stuff that didn't work as intended as "nerfing" by the way. So for example fixing Wall of Draining so that you can't have multiple instances of it anymore isn't a nerf for me. It's a bugfix (becaue you couldn't have mutliple walls active - except Wall of Draining). Strong ability nerfs I remember: Charge (was way too good though), Evasive Fire (was slighty overpowered but I don't think it had to be nerfed), Wounding Shot (same), most lashes like Lightning Strikes, FoD, Wildstrike, Spiritutal Weapons (were too good), Full Attacks in general (good nerf!). Devotions otF. Maybe more if I contemplated more about it. And all the item nerfs of course. Buffs I remember: new abilities (Hunter's Claw, Heartseeker and so on), casting speeds through the board, cipher focus generation, PEN softening in general, Two Handed weapons getting +1 PEN through the board, Monastic Unarmend Training, Firebrand... So it's not the case that there is only nerfing and the weak stuff doesn't get touched at all. It's just so that not every buff the crowd calls for will get implemented. I understand that designers are cautious to buff too much - because then the other half of the crows goes wild with "PotD is too damn easy!!11!!1!" We are doing a Deadfire Polishing Thread and Poll atm and there aren't so many things that need buffs actually. There are also some things that need a nerf. But all in all: not that much. I think the perception of balancing is heavily influenced by the fact that players only tend to remember the nerf but not the buff. That was not the point. The point was that some players like to play overpowered (be it through cheats or heavily overpowered items/abilites) while others (maybe the majority?) do not.

Err... brown? @raw dmg vs. general dmg: good! I can easily swap out those two. No problem. @Brute Force: the body + arrow - icon looks a bit silly though. As if somebody painted an archery target on his chest and is like "come on! try to hit me!" Hammer shattering the earth at least gives a feeling of "Brute Force". Or I depict somebody using his head to crush a wall...? Or I use an alternative symbol for accuracy - not that target + arrow thing... @One Stands Alone: an icon will seldomly be able to "describe" the whole ability. So if a player really thinks that it only works from the front (judging by the icon) the description should help him. I can also try to bring one ot two spears behind the head. I added a helmet to the head shape because it looked a bit bland before. I like that it looks like Rekvu's Fractured Casque now (which is a barb item and belonged to a Barbarian who is kind of the incarnation of "One Stands Alone" - judging by lore). @crits: yeah, I also tried a D20 (with 20 up) - but it's all too filigree and doesn't look too good because of that. Actually I like the skull stuff pretty much. It's easy to add details to the crit-skull (see Toughened Fury or Bloody Slaughter) and it still looks good, not silly and not too packed. For "kill" I think Berath's symbol is ok. For "death" or "ko" of allies/player I think I will use the tombstone/holy cross symbol that I already used with Vengeful Defeat. It also gets used by Paladin's resurrection abilites and so on - so there will be some consistency. @Chest: I think Phenomenum meant "cross" or "crest" - the plus-symbol I changed a little bit so that it doesn't get confused with the other plus symbol that stands for healing (see Practiced Healer for example.)

Yes, it is viable. You can rebuild it on many ways though. Too many to list them all here. There's the option of multiclassing with several classes like Rogue, Barbarian, Fighter, Monk - but you can also try and do it single classed.

@MaxQuest: I'm totally open for switching the raw-dmg symbol for something else that might indicate increased damage or damage in general. Do you have something in mind? Or maybe I scrap that symbol entirely and go by intuition? For example for Improved Critial on could make a small skull morph into a bigger one or something like that. I also thought about symboly for miss/graze/hit/crit and came up with D20-shapes that er either empty (miss), half filled (graze), filled (hit) and exploded (crit). But it looks kind of weird and and strangly mathematical/geometrical and I don't think most players won't get it anyway. Maybe in this case looks trumps symbolism? Don't know... I do like consistency - but since this is more of an artistical challenge... for me at least.

Alternatives? I have to say: having certain symbols for effects (shield = defense, strongman for fortitude and so on) is nice as a starting point, but if I stick to them too fiercly the symbols become either rather undistinguishable or very detailed which will not work woith 42*42 pixels. They also sometimes become messy und ugly. It's also questionable if one can deduce what the ability does just by looking at the icon. So - I try to incorporate those symbols - but when I can't make it look decent I take some liberty and do something else - just to see if that's any better. When I look at the sheet I also have to say the icons where I didn't stick to the symbolism too fiercly are the ones I like best (judging by the aesthetics and how interesting they are to look at).

No worries. I can alter that. It's just so that drawing new icons is more fun than fiddling with the older ones - so I tend to push the latter. I will catch up on the older ones that are still so-so. Colors: there doesn't seem to be a consistent color schema where blue=defensive, red=offensive and so on? Don't know. Obviously the "blood" stuff has to be red. Afaik there's grey, red, dark blue, light blue, yellow and purple for the more "simple" icons in the passive side. I would also like a kind of greenish color - petrol or so: -petrol- But for the most part I think I would just use the background-color that they had before? I mean if it looks ok and makes sense. As I said: Blood THirst and so on would be kind of silly in blue or yellow.

Forbidden Fist Shadowracer with Toxic Strike is indeed powerful. Just remember that Toxic Strike comes very late for a multiclass. Arterial Strike + Enfeebled or Ring the Bell (one handed weapons) also works well. Also tested Forbidden Fist+Soulblade and Disintegrate + Enfeebled is as nice as one would expect. Only downside: Forbidden Fist = no focus generation.

The point is not that there is an alternative to Steam.

That "different" Skull is the official Symbol of Berath, God of Death. So I thought it's fitting for on-kill effects. I also tried "bangs" for crits, but the plain skull + gimmicks makes for so much more interesting Icons. Afaik the "raw dmg" symbol is also used for dmg generally in Deadfire - if no type is specified...? That's the only reason I use it.

Adding A and B and C and D and E and F makes an OP combo!I've learned that after playing the game 7 times and reading forums for months. It has to be addressed by balance team ASAP! I'm afraid you missed the point?

Haha - good one.

It's rel. easy to proc reliably with any AoE weapon ability like Clear Out/HoF/Whirling Strikes. If you don't have those it's ideed quite random. Monk's additional attacks through crits (Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming) as well as Fighter's Mob Stance can help as well. Also: Riposte or Barbaric Retaliation.

Hi! That is not correct. You can stack Concentration layers. If you take Combat Focus, use the Upright Captain's Belt and cast Spirit Shield (for example) you'll have three layers of concentration. There's also the Courageous inspiration which gives you a layer every 6 seconds - and so on. There are effects (e.g. a Chanter phrase) that remove Concentration entirely though. You can observe layers of Concentration on several enemies. Neriscyrlas for example has a lot of them once encounter starts. It says something like Concentration: 5 or so. I don't know which spells you are talking about, but in general: Arcane Reflection can only reflect targeted spells. THat means spells taht get cast directly onto you. Usually that means no AoE spells since those are cast on the ground and will not be reflected. Example: Slicken will always interrupt you or take away a layer of Concentration (if you have any) even if you have Arcane Reflection. You walk up to the bouncer and ask him to punch you in the face while you are walking past him, trying to remember Goethe's Prometheus. Not right. It's a very simple system: an interrupt will remove a layer of concentration. That's it. Why make it complicated? You will not be very concentrated after the bouncer hit you on the nose. Goethe's Prometheus will be the last thing you remember after that "interrupt". You should be happy that the enemy wasted a precious interrupt on you walking instead of on you casting (and losing the resource). I think this part of the mechanics works pretty nicely. There are other things which I believe could be better, but Interrupt vs. Concentration is none of them. Hope I didn't sound douchy - not my intention.

Yes, but why? It is not an example that is suited to prove or illustrate your point - because it shows the exact opposite. I don't think so. I've played the game from open beta until now and I really have trouble naming a wizard spell that was heavily nerfed. But a few come to mind that were buffed: first of all we got a general casting time improval. Then we got adjusted PEN values - or the other way round: PEN got an overhaul - casters profited the most from that. Summoned weapons' casting times got shorter, we got some passives that improve casting speed, we got spellshaping. If you must complain about nerfs then you should maybe give examples that actually support your claims: item nerfs, Chanter nerfs (Beckoner, Briliant Invocation for example). Because if you just make a claim and then back it up with something that brittle it makes it difficult to take the criticism seriously (in addition to the language you used). Because I do care. And I'm not alone. Generally speaking: the players who play this game more than once or twice do care more about balance. An overpowered ability/item - like an underpowered one - leads to boredom. If something is too good to pass it - that actually takes away fun and does not foster it; for the player who plays this game repeatedly, mind you. A one/two time player doesn't need to care. I'll give you an extreme example of a (still) very overpowered combo and why it is no fun to play it after the initial "Oh my!" hype: Grab a Berserker/Beckoner and give him Grave Calling, enchant with Chilling Grave. Summon 6 skeletons that split into 12 (overall) after death. Frenzy and become confused. Send the skeletons onto the enemy. Hit your skeleton in the back. It will die, creatig a Chillfog. That CHillfog will kill all other skeletons, each creating a Chillfog. All those dead skeletons will spawn two additional ones who immediately die, creating Chillfogs. This all takes les than 5 secs. You'll have 18 parallel Chillfogs going - each profiting from all the weapon's enchantments (Legendary and whatnot). Every encounter (except against frost immune foes and Megabosses) clears nearly instantly. It's fun at first, but very boring after a few fights. Because you're Superman without the Kryptonite. Obsidians wants to make sure that there are no "must take" options. You can decide to not like that approach and that's fair enough - but don't believe that your take on this is self-certified and obvious. I, as a player who does multiple playthroughs (but don#t play a lot of different games), do like balancing. I don't say that I always agree with Obsidian's balancing moves, but I don't question balancing itself. It's a bit like with cheats: some people do enjoy playing on god-mode and find delight in this "illusions of grandeur" - but most players find it boring and no fun at all. You can read the reasons why Josh Sayer thinks that balancing is a good thing even with a single player game: https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/161302725596/balance-in-single-player-crpgs

Please tell me: Do you think Kevin Hart is funny? Because I tried to watch the Netflix show "Irresponsible" yesterday night - and I stopped half way because until then it wasn't funny to me at all. Is that me? A week before I watched Ricky Gervais with his "Humanity" show. And while I wouldn't say that I laughed a lot - at least I grinned and snorted. I'm not too fond of standup comedy in general (although I think Mrs. Maisel is quite funny) but this really made me think: is Kevin Hart really that bad? Home come he is successful in the US then? Why did the people in the audiance laugh? Is it my taste of humor? I am seriously interested in what's going on there.

Cool!

Further icons (also changed some older ones): Ignore the second Bloody Slaughter.

PC or console?

Which settings? Graphics? Sound? Gameplay?

Unfortunately I don't know a way to do this with the console. This isn't helping at all of course: bit I fear that you'll get zero answers on this complicated matter - so I thought I should write something so that you don't get the impression that nobody cares or so.

Bored lately?

Hylea's Talons: good idea. Stuff that works really well: Footsteps of the Beast o a confused char, Pull of Eora (but that's often annoying - combine it with push/pull immunity from items like belt). To make the healing worthwhile you need to shorten and weaken the curse as much as possible. That means a ton of RES and some items that reduce harmful effects' duration - and self damage (Voidwheel). Because if you do not then the curse will be outdamaging the healing.

Only cast tier-6 spelling before restoring. @breaking out of mind control prematurely: no idea, never experienced that.