Boeroer

Two Handed Style should give +15% (or even +20%) and +1 PEN - or two handers should have higher PEN per se. More force = more penetration. More penetration translates to additional damage without raisig the dmg modifier.

Push attacks don't lead to disengagement attacks. Only willfully leaving the engagement triggers it. Even frightened or terrified targets who leave you will not get punished (anymore - was the case in beta1).

Yeah but that's due to the bug that attack speed mods also reduce reloading time in beta4 while armor penalty doesn't.

The only thing that made 2-handers awesome in PoE (without drinking potions of DaoM the whole day) - known as "Blood Thirst" - was taken away and converted into that not very useful upgrade of Barbaric Blow.

Thanks for testing! And now the question is: will any npc ever use a Great Abjuration scroll against your skeletons? Would be a nice twist in an encounter though...

When comparing abilites with each other one has to be aware of the advantages of passives over actives. For example Constant Recovery is a passive while Exhalted Endurance is an active ability. A passive will stack with everything (won't get suppressed) while the robust regeneration may get supressed by other active healing effects. I'm only assuming this (did not test this case yet) - but given the general stacking rules of Deadfire this may happen. THat can be a reason why the bonuses of passives are generally lower than those of active abilities. Also (in this case), the Robust inspiration will get removed by an appropriate affliction. Constant Recovery will not get cancelled by anything. Weapon & Shield Style gives you +6 deflection (and even more reflex) while it forces you to wear a shield (loosing dps) - while Superior Deflection stacks with it and has no drawbacks. But I agree that +4 is laughable. Why nerf it from 5 to 4 in the first place? It's like somebody said "Whooha look at that! +5? Let's stomp this overpowered thingy down to 4, that will balance things out a bit and teach it a lesson, show it some modesty!". Escalating resource costs: yeah totally! They make the same mistake again they did with cipher and chanter in PoE and which they fixed in Deadfire - just to introduce the same flaw with the ability trees. Those are higer level abilites for a reason. It's a higher level, you had to do work to get there. It's ok if they are more powerful than tier-1 stuff. No need to increase the resource cost a lot. I mean active low level abilites should still stay viable, but the ratio is pretty harsh sometimes. I mean 2 compared to 1 is double the cost. Maybe the resource pools need to be more granular. Mage Slayer: I agree to that, too.

Hm... maybe I was too near when summoning (it's labeled "loud") and that's why stealth was broken? I only tested once and it was a while ago when I was also testing explosives from stealth. Good to know you can get around that.

Oh no! One of two per-thread uses of "Wall of Text" has been wasted.

On the fragments and the diminishing of souls: Josh also said that souls can grow a lot more powerful over time (see the Watcher level up). So the fracturing only puts those back a bit. If you factor this in it may even be that there is a balance or even a growth of global essence and no diminishing.

I tried to come up with a squaring to get a real (though negative) isle joke but came up short. You mean something like "Imaginary Island Illegiti-Mates"?

Nope. But for correct attack speed calculation you can use this: https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/ Calculating dps is easy once you know the frames. But of course no tool can tell you how Blood Thirst influences dps.

It's actually less important than in PoE.

I have 50% wrong-to-correct conversion. But it only lasts for 20 secs so I try not to write too lenghty posts.

How convenient - because you don't have to use spoiler tags then.

Not so well. Summons don't generate focus, cipher's buffs are for single allies mostly. Only thing that's good is that ciphers donÄt have spells with friendly fire. Maybe Reaping Knives can be cast on summons.

Paladin Abjuration will probably be in Deadfire. Scroll of Greater Abjuration definitely is (you can add it with the console---yes it's basically Weapon of Mass Summons Destruction). Beckenor's summons are immune to Abjuration.

I raise it all with a licked Tic Tac that I found among the dry catfood nuggets. Now that this is settled, off to...

Like what? Weapons of mass summons destruction?

Else we're going to be the Imaginary Isle Bastards.

Single Rapier + Style + modal with Swift Flurry used to be ok. Used to... Tested it with Soul Annihilation and that works quite well (helps a lot to land SA reliably) - but the switching is so tedious without AI support.

I guess the spreadsheet has a flaw. As soon as you hit 0 recovery the two hander MUST do higher dps due to the higher base damage but same attack speed with auto-attacks. But it's a lot easier to get to 0 recovery with dual weapons than with a two hander. Over the course of the whole game dual it will be the better alternative when it comes to dps. Also because of the rogue's Full Attack abilities. Rumbalt is cool because of the prone proc (and how early you get that) and its synergy with Annihilation. And it's better for Runner's Wounding Shot and Sap - but that's it (until you reach 0 recovery). Barbs with two handers are in a special place because of Blood Thirst.

I said "for the sake of (viable) variety". Not for the sake of optimization.

Unbroken seems to be a bit broken because the +10 PEN seem to glue all engaged enemies to the Unbroken. Nobody dares to leave his engagement. Or so it seems. Still searching for new ways to make them break engagement. Another question regarding Fighter/Monk: since Transcendent Suffering scales with Power Level, wouldn't this be a chance to use the other upgrade of Disciplined Barrage? I mean the one with +5 PER, +5 INT and +1 Power Level? Always forget the name... It should stack with Wellspring if Life since that's a passive. So +3 PL for Transcendent Suffering basically. I know +50% dual conversion is maybe better - just for the sake of (viable) variety?

No, but Devoted and Unbroken do.

Right. I overread your "ever".