Boeroer

The barb combos were a reply to another user who asked what broken combos I mean. Why wouldn't you care for empowering spells in a discussion about power? It's integral part of the game and works like intended. So it's totally reasonable to take the effects of empower into consideration when judging the power of a class. If this doesn't fit your criteria of "strongest class" then be it so - but while you said you understand what was said you refuse to acknowledge the points that were made. You may disagree, why not? But dismissing those arguments is ignorant. This thread is about strongest class/weakest class and the reasons why each player thinks they are - it's not about what you want or if you dislike the mechanic. If empower makes the wizard a lot stronger than other classes then it's a fair point to say that that's reason to vote for wizard in this scope. Also the bad subclasses don't necessarily gimp the classes power potential. It only narrows the choice. If there would be a class thst is generally weak but whose one subclass had one single overpowered ability that kills every enemy on the field then it would be a fair point to say that it's the strongest even though most people might not like that ability. It's like saying "Oh the Blackbird can't be the fastest plane! It's only because of its badly designed afterburners that are too strong. I don't like afterburners so I don't understand how you can claim that it's the fastest plane."

You could save scum at ship wreck locations in order to get some more I guess?

The Magistrate's Cudgel is pretty fun with a Barb/Fighter or -/Cipher or -/Monk + Blood Thirst as soon as you fight kith enemies... But a Fighter/Barb with Clear Out and Blood Thirst really "kills it".

Note that power level increases the base duration of summons. It multiplies with the INT bonus. At least it did last time I checked (pre 1.1).

I think I read it in the bug section some time ago. But it surely won't hurt to put it again - just to be sure it gets the attention it deserves.

Yes, with Chanter it's still a problem. I guess they will fix it at some point. Druids and Paladins also got fixed at some point after beta.

Iron Wheel and Turning Wheel are not mutually exclusive by the way. This is a rare case where you can pick both upgrades.

Remember that you only can have one instance of summons on the field. With 1.2 Dichotomous Soul should be viable - at the the moment it's just terrible.

Why Turning Wheel? It does nothing for your summons. You already get +10 INT via Duality of Mortal Presence...?

But... I want them to remove the recursive procs - that's the whole point of the latest discussion.

Not exactly, but partially true. I don't use them a lot because the gain from one debuffing spell in an encounter is a lot higher than the gain from one damaging spell. Mainly because spell uses are so limited then. Later - with a lot more spell uses the situation can shift and I may find myself using high level debuffs but low level damaging spells. You also don't seem to use empower. Because if there's a class that makes the most out of empower it's the wizard. As for Barb's broken combos: try Wahaī Pōraga + Heart of Fury, Lord Darryn's Voulge + that electro-helmet with Berserker's Frenzy. Also try Body Blows + Brute Force. Try Beckoner/Berserker who kills his own puny minions in order to trigger Blood Thirst. Or just use Berserker-HoF on you party's Beckoner-summons just to increase the number of hits that get generated - adding a ton of carnage-damage even if there's only one single enemy.

They can be abused. Didn't I mention before that yesterday I did a one-shot of a whole bunch of Rotghasts with Spirit Lance + Stunning Surge (with Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming)? Or was it in another thread? I will not present you a video - you will have to trust me or try it out yourself... The lowering of Swift Flurry's percentage and the reduction of cleave targets hurts normal players but doesn't prevent abuse of recursive procs. It's a cheap but ugly method. Only the removal of recursive procs can prevent recursive procs without making the abilities crap for the normal player. It's actually quite simple and should be a position that anyone could agree to.

Depends. After a certain point the AoE increase via INT gets absurd. But anyway: I played a maxed CON barb in an "Ultimate" attempt and only died due to a stupid bug I didn't know before. I got to lvl 16 without too much hassle and most fights (except very early game) I didn't even have to pull and kite - because my self heals (that add a lot of endurance to my already huge endurance pool) and especially my health pool was so big I could outlast almost anything even though I had terrible deflection. CON is also great because it raises fortitude - the most important defense in my opinion. Because if you get killed it's a fortitude based afflictons most of times...

True. Especially when compared with the passives that give you additional duration and +10 ACC for will based spells - and the passive that gives you back +5 focus per crit roll on spells. I find them to be powerful enough - at least when playing a solo cipher. Multiclass doesn't help much with the mind control, so...

Chillfog alone can turn hefty encounters into easy ones. Just one example. It's not about the damage, it's about applying Blind (a tier-3-affliction) at lvl 1. Pull of Eora is one of the best CC spells in the game in my opinion. Ninagauth's Shadowflame... There are some spells in the Wizard's portfolio that make a huge difference in a fight. Actually I almost use no damage-only spells with my wizards in the early to mid game in Deadfire. And of course good buffs and debuffs can make a class the strongest. Priest wasn't the strongest class in PoE because he was good at dealing damage (which he also was) but because of his insanely powerful buffs. While I don't consider Wizard to be strongest atm - for me personally - I can understand why people think so. Also the last two spell tiers can lead you to that conclusion.

So - you are saying that 20-30% for 30 sec is balanced with 25% for 60 sec? 30 sec with 50% lash (3 sec. summoning time) vs. 60sec with 25% was acceptable for me. Not perfectly balanced but ok - also when I now look at how I can improve Firebrand further with an ability and an item.

Not if it doesn't have a shock keyword. For example basically every druid elemental spell only have the keyword "elements" so none of the druids fire spells work with the fire axe or the fire ring etc etc. If you want to boost spell dmg with specific gear u need to be a wizard or a priest Are you sure that is still the case? Because Scion of Flame (+1 PEN) and also the Ring of Focused Flames (+10 ACC) work with the Druid's fire spells (e.g. Firebrand).

Exactly. Stop the recursive nonsense and raise the chances again/ allow more cleave targets. This would be better for the normal player while it's not that abusable. The bug of the weaopon was already acknowledged and reported. No need to discuss it further, right?

That would make PEN even more impactful. It already is on PotD. Multiplicative graze/crit: no problem for me. If it becomes too severe you can always tweak the numbers a bit.

As I mentioned before: Firebrand and Spiritual weapons are not balanced to the point: Firebrand lasts twice as long (60 secs). Afaik Spiritual Weapons last only half as long. Scion of Flame and the Ring are not part of the weapon, so I'll leave it aside when comparing those two. But even without I think a weapon that last twice as long and has the same lash (on average) as another one that has only half the duration is better. For me half duration but double the lash was acceptable.

Thank you for the bug report. Yes - I agree on Cobra Strike. It's not really an elemental attack. I just tested it because I thought "Poison? Maybe...?". I also think that Magran's Favor should do slash/burn and also profit from Scion of Flame. Just because the weapon seems to be so full of fire - it has a fiery core and whatnot, right?

Yeah well - that didn't really get implemented so far. Ooor the well-informed players of Something Awful and Twitter do see things fundamentally different than we do...?

I tested Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming with Spirit Lance yesterday and it still procs endlessly. Might be only Heartbeat Drumming though. But seriously: if they fix it on Swift Flurry but leave Heartbeat Drumming untouched then I really have to question their intellect. Affliction maybe? Confused seems to fit... It should be easy to tag an attack with a certain label, let's say "bonus attack" in this case if it's from Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming or Cleave. And once a method/function checks if a bonus attack may proc it can see if it's tagged with "bonus attack" already and can cancel. Other labels like let's say "afflction attached" may pass and lead to a proc. I do such things all the time with decorators - but I'm pretty sure that's not the way to go in a video game because of performance issues. But I guess there's a decent way to do it that doesn't drop the performance. Like - implementing a certain set of interfaces or whatever "not so flexible but fast" solution there is.

The "problem" with nerfing the possiblilty of recursive procs happing (lowering chances of first proc and removing it from ranged weapons which have more AoE uniques) is that it nerfs the ability for the normal player who doesn't abuse it and doesn't build around it so that it becomes unattractive - while the powergamer/munchkin still abuses it. Because it doesn't matter how nerfed it is for the usual player as long as you can make it happen. It's not a very solid balancing approach to lower Swift Flurry from 50% to 33% and just hope that the issue is fixed then... (while introducing another ability that adds a 25% chance). It's a quick and dirty at best.

Yes, that is one big problem and the most important problem here. Another one (that is not so important here and is getting obscured by the bugged weapon) is that attacks (let's call is a cleave) that are done by Cleaving Stance/Mob Stance and kill enemies trigger another cleave and so on. Now with the reduction to only one additional Full Attack per cleave it isn't that obvious anymore, but it's still a problem. Not such a big one as Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming + Wahai Poraga/Citzal's Spirit Lance though (which still one-shots mobs).