Boeroer

Let's make sure that we do something awesome as forum collective once Josh hits 20 years in the industry next year. We should open a thread like "Josh, it's a surprise for your 20th anniversary in the game industry - don't read!" and discuss what to do.

Doesn't it suffer a bit from Finishing Blows Syndrome? Sure, you're doing a lot of damage, but you're doing it to an enemy who doesn't need a lot of damage to kill.If you want to build around on-kill effects (see Barbaric Blow's Upgrade -I also assume there will be items with on-kill effects as well as in PoE) it can be decent.Bloody Slaughter was raised from 10% endurance (PoE) to 25% health (Deadfire). Because it's a passive I find that it's a good ability now. Finishing Blow uses Guile and competes with Crippling Strike/Blinding Strike and so on for Guile - so I find it less appealing. Barring Death's Door and the Kind Wayfarer-stuff (forgot the name) can be pretty cool with a Death Godlike and/or Blooded and/or Streetfighter. Also stuff like Wizard's Double or Blade Turning can be used to stop health loss once you reached bloodied status (50% health). You can also tell the AI to heal you automatically once you hit certain levels of endurance.

Any wizard with rod+Blast or Kaloth's Minor Blights in combo with rogue is great: summon the Blights and apply Confounding Blind in an AoE and then use missile or other multiple-hit spells to debuff deflection like crazy or cause Arterial Strike in an AoE and then force enemies to move (Repulsive Visage, Pull of Eora etc.). An Assassin/wizard can do ridiculous crit damage out of stealth and also out of invisibility (needs fix). Also the PEN bonus of Assassination is very helpful. There are not many other PEN buffs for spells. Backstab, Sneak Attack and so on are not good for spells, but you can cause afflictions in an AoE (be it via spell or Blast/Blights) and then do Sneak-Attack-AoE damage via Blast/Blights. Blights is the better option since it can be used with dual wielding speed and the damage is higher. Spirit Lance is the same as Blights - just melee and you can't use neither dual wielding speed nor single weapon ACC bonus. But Crippling Strike and so on also work in an AoE with the Lance.

Fearsome Brute also can't use Chanter's invocations if I remember correctly..?

As beta player: yes, totally viable.

Contacting email support is what most people helped in those kind of situations with backer stuff. There have been some cases I read about in this forum and as far as I know email support did work well. I guess Aarik and Mickey have tons of other stuff to do atm, so I wouldn't bother them too much. Although they usually write the kindest replies.

It is quite nice if you build around low health - like with a Barb/Streetfighter with Blooded and Bloody Slaughter. The (crit) damage on enemies with lowish endurance (<= 25%) once you are blooded (<= 50%) is spectacular. Spells like Watchful Guardian are cool with this. They heal you automatically if your health drops too low, but they don't heal you all the way.

I guess not.

Yes. There have even been several solo chanters with dumped PER and MIG who used summons as main damaging and defense tool. With Aefyllath and other support phrases it works pretty well. Of course the lower tier summons lose impact at higher levels, but you get more powerful ones - like Ancient Weapons.

First it was put on the bug list by Cdiaz and then it got removed by the devs. The case is clear. In general, single class chars gain a power source point every 2 levels. Multiclass chars gain 1 power source point for both classes every 3 levels. At level 7 the single class char will have 6 power source points to use for active abilities per encounter, the multiclass char will have a total of 10 power source points. And so on.

You could write a PM to Fluffle. He's the contact person of the BiBs to Obsidian. If somebody besides Obsidian knows something then it's him. But as I know Fluffle he would have posted news about the BiBs immediately.

You can write a PM to Aarik D or Mickey Dowling and will most likely receive an answer. But the "official" and save way is to contact email support. There is very little chance that a forum post is going to do anything.

Still a multiclass caster has more active ability uses per encounter which should balance the more powerful spells a single class caster might have. There are also other synergies besides lashes that can be very good: Assassinate + spells, Thunderous Blows + spells, Confounded Blind or Arterial Strike with certain spells, Disciplined Barrage + upgrades with spells and so on. The appliances of weapon lashes to spells was identified as bug right from the start (see technical support subforum of the beta). No surprise they removed it.

Wow. What an elaborated answer. Very concrete. It's basically like saying: "Because I really really think they are powerful." Concelhaut's Staff only adds draining. So how can it cause +30% damage in a playthrough? Most likely because you will attack with it more often because you have the feeling you have to since you invested summoning time and a spell use. You would do the same damage with a regular quarterstaff of the same quality. This only shows that melee and offensive spells are still poorly balanced (assuming the staff wasn't buffed in Josh's game version). Or that you can't find a good quarterstaff... No word about WHY they are supposed to be powerful. Firebrand is total crap. Not because of its values alone (it's a scaling great sword with a different damage type) but because you use summoning time,a spell use and an ability point for something that is as powerful as a normal weapon you can carry. Minor Blights and Lance are powerful because: - Blights profit from dual wielding speed if you carry a one handed melee weapon in your offhand - Blights and Lance apply afflictions/lashes/on hits to all enemies that are hit in an AoE - Blast does the same with all rods (there will most likely be very broken combos with unique or soulbound rods). But the power of one or two summoned weapons don't make all summoned weapons powerful. Concelhaut's Staff is ok in its current form if Draining works. It's lvl 1 and draining, besides the scaling, is good enough I think. But Firebrand is crap. Instead of saying that summoned weapons are powerful "well because!" over and over again I would like to see some more differentiated approaches.

There are three companions that also appear in Deadfire as potential party members: Aloth, Edér and Pallegina.

Form of the Fearsome Brute: it works like Spiritshift (you transform and your gear is gone temporarily). You'll have a club as weapon and can't switch. Other than Spiritshift you also get -4 INT but +MIG and +CON (can't remember the exact numbers).

Combining AoE attacks (Minor Blights, Blast or Spirit Lance) with offensive abilities and Swift Flurry and/or Cleaving Stance seems to be the most broken thing right now. Also: Blade Turning with high INT and high DEX. You can make yourself invulnerable against melee attacks 100% of times while reflecting the enemies' disengagement attacks back at them.

Once the Spike Flinger is fixed and upgraded it's quite fast. The only drawback is that stacked reloading bonuses have reduced impact with every added bonus. That's because it is calculated like so: 100 frames reloading time (just an exemplary number) with Gunner (-20%) = 80 frames. 80 frames with Sure Handed Ila (-20%) = 64 frames. 64 frames with Spike Flinger's bonus (-50%) = 32 frames (I assume). And so on. But maybe the Flinger does it differently because it's a bonus on a weapon. But generally you can't reach 0 reloading time because those bonuses get multiplied, not added. Of course every bonus still does something, but it's effect is diminished the more bonuses you stack.

After the first 4 or 5 levels I seldomly use summons.

It's a Coastal Aumaua with the brownish head and red skin color.

No, but if you use heavy armor and a slow weapon your recovery will be long after an attack und you have to wait longer until LoH will get casted. With low recovery on weapon attacks you can be more spontaneous with active support abilities.

There are Death Knights in the game (those are vessels - see lvl 8 Endless Paths and also Concelhaut's Tower) but I always had the feeling that they don't really fit into the game's lore (other than Alguls and such).

With Gunner and Sure Handed Ila you can reduce reloading times a lot, too.

Thing is: if you post a build that you played on PotD and which worked pretty nicely, the chances that this build will perform well on all other difficulty settings is very high. It doesn't work that well the other way round. That's the main reason I always play on PotD and talk about mechanics/gameplay/viability of builds with PotD in mind. I don't think that a lot of people who intend to play PoE or Deadfire once or maybe twice will play on PotD. I started my first PoE playthrough on normal, too (because I wasn't part of the PoE beta).

Please elaborate... On your "full first game?", I don't believe it's that high. Even for this forum.I've put 200 hours into the Deadfire beta so far - most of them with PotD as well - and I don't find Deadfire's PotD to be particularly different from PoE's PotD. Why shouldn't I start with PotD when Deadfire comes out? For me it's not very difficult (based on the experience with the beta) for obvious reasons. So why should I start with classic or veteran? Thus I think that calling me a liar is a very strong (and wrong) statement. My hours for PoE are 4800+ - can't say how much of it is actual gaming time. Maybe 3/4th or so.