Boeroer

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).

WotEP has an enchantment "Offensive Parry" that lets you Riposte on 100% of misses (stacks with Riposte - meaning that you can witness two Ripostes being executed on a miss) - is also adds +5 deflection. As a Trickster you can blind enemies (which results in less ACC). Of course you cannot achieve the deflection of a shieldbearer but it's still possible to get missed a lot in melee. However, the Offensive Parry has its own damage and effects - it does not do a cone-AoE-riposte or something but is only single target. But it causes Dazed which is not bad.

Yeah, but then this last person seems to be a bit sloppy - if he/she thinks that a Firebrand Great Sword with +25% burning lash and 60 sec duration is balanced with a Faith Attuned Great Sword with 20% and 30 secs duration. I will cut her/him some slack when it comes to Scion of Flame and the Ring of Focused Flame - which both push Firebrand further away from the spiritual weapons. Because this can be overlooked by somebody who doesn't play the game a lot and/or theorycrafts build all the times in their head. But the balance mismatch of the plain weapons is obvious now. How can you "balance" this in such a bad way? It's like having a scale with 1 pound on the one side and 2 pounds on the other and in order to balance it you put 1 pound onto the weaker side and take away 0.5 pounts on the stronger...

It seems to be a bug of Wahai Proraga that somehow doesn't stop attacking when too many enemies are near. At some point it gets confused with its "only attack 2 additional targets" mechanic. Good bug find!

This one is fairly ok, but some minor changes from 1.1 are not yet covered and the class-specific upgrades are not displayed properly: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Category:Pillars_of_Eternity_II:_Deadfire_soulbound_items Best woud be to use the console to spawn them all into your inventory with [giveitem], bind them and then use the [levelSoulBound] command to bring them all up to end tier. Since there are not that many (yet) it's not that much work and you'll get the exact data. In my current playthrough I have them all (besides the Cudgel because I have 3 RES ) and all in all I find them to be nice.

@last question: no idea. It seems to work the same. I don't understand why they nerfed the spiritual weapons while they buffed Firebrand. The faith attuned weapons only have half the duration and don't work with elemental talents - which makes them STRICTLY worse than Firebrand now. I guess it's not the same person(s) who nerf and buff around? What a mess! ANd seriously: who determined that Spirutual Weapons need a nerf in the first place? I saw no build so far that used them on a regular basis.

The Palm shield is awesome with anything that multiclasses with monk. It scales with Transcendent Suffering, it gives you deflection and relflex with Weapon & Shield Style, it gives you dual wielding speed and more speed via Two Weapon Style and gives you additional wounds once you get damaged. Lantern go home! It also helps to trigger Riposte more often since the deflection with a shield is so much higher than without (or a dagger). And since it scales with Transcendent's Suffering the damage becomes respectable (for a shield bash). It's hard to hit you when you stack its deflection with Wizard's Double and deflection rings + cape for example and have some serious RES. Using it on a Minor Blights-based Wizard/Monk with Stunning Surge. It's awesome.

I guess they didn't change the "procs off itself" problem at all. They just made sure that it's less likely to happen (=reducing chances with Swift Flurry and only let cleaving stance attack one additional target only). But if you use AoE melee weapon attacks + enough enemies (hello Pull of Eora + Binding Web) it still will happen. Just did it wirth Xoti + Wahai Poraga and several Rotghasts: one-shot. So it seems the recursive problem is hard to fix...?

Yeah it's cool. I guess they will nerf Whispers of the Wind so it doesn't work with ranged/reload weapons anymore. After that try Whispers of the Wind with Wahaī Pōraga.

I'd like to see Transmuter's Ogre fists altered in a way that they profit from Transcendent Suffering and Monastic Unarmed Training. I would like to have two handed war hammers and two handed battle axes (double bladed/headed or danish/norse style would be nice even it they don't fit the Deadfire carribean theme). I would like whips. They can be considered flais when it comes to proficiency, do less damage but automatically reduce will or resolve on hit. Cat o'nine tails could mechanically work like a blunderbuss: multiple smaller hits. Maybe a special enchantment that lets you flangellant yourself and raise resolve/will: perfect for monks, eh?

The soulbounds in Deadfire are better (compared to uniques) than in PoE. My favorite so far is Magistrate's Cudgel. Marux Amanth is also useful - especially great on a Priest of Skaen (also multiclassed - but you have to bind it to the priest class). Lord Darryn's Voulge is also very nice. So yeah - I think they are pretty nice overall. Also spare you a ton of coins because you don't need to upgrade them via enchantments. Two superb/legendary enchantments already will cost you a junk.

You assume that the majority of players don't want an animal companion. Yet you have no proof of this claim. I personally liked the animal companion in PoE a lot (after it got buffed in one of the more early patches) and I think a lot of people felt the same. But since I can't say how many I don't claim that this is the general consensus. I also ask myself if this is a poll or just a "rangers suck!" rant in disguise. First you asked everybody who voted something else why they did it - and once ranger got mentioned the ranting started. I think the "ranger" part of the class is strong enough - due to the high ACC the ranger can stack. It is also quite boring... The animal companions are indeed too weak. It's not fun to make something weak merely viable with a lot of abilities. But still: an additional body in a party (that you can control directly) is a huge advantage. How else can you balance it other than nerfing other parts of the class? The animal companion is part of the class after all. Now one can like that or not, but it is as it is. A way out of this would be to make the animal companion a pickable ability and not an automatic one. It would nerf several other parts of the ranger (to balance the additional body). All abilities tied to the animal companion would be upgrades of that single ability that gives you an animal companion. If you didn't take it then your petless ranger could be made stronger (or not nerfed). Or you could make a fork: one ability branches out into pet stuff, one into non-pet stuff (making the petless ranger stronger) and the rest would be universal. Whatever... What I really really don't get is why Obsidian nerfed Evasive Fire. Sure, it was *really* good (and most people here didn't notice) but it wasn't that overpowered and gave me a reason to take ranger in the first place. Ah well... Concerning the poll: I have a hard time to name the weakest class. Too many variables (multi/single for example). And also I think currently there is no clear "weakest" for me as it was in PoE. That might be a sign of good balance or that I didn't play enough. However, I will pick ranger just because the nerf of Evasive Fire annoys me and Barbarian as strongest because of some broken combos of items+abilities...

Robust only comes from actives afaik. Things like Gilded Enmity/Iron Skin etc. won't stack with modals/other actives that give +AR. Passive stuff like Thick Skinned will stack.

No. Both. AND Dance of Death. The wounds fly in whether you get damaged or not.

The point is to have a build that's fun to play. Some builds and especially (support) abilities are only useful with a party. Are they all pointless aswell when posting a nice build?