Boeroer

Gromnir suggested an export or save function for characters like Icewind Dale and so on had. Everybody liked the idea. But I guess Obsidian didn't notice or doesn't want to do this.

I dislike that you wrote Roderick's Hold. His name is Rodriguez. The Endless Paths were a stretch goal. And most of the time developers/designers don't seem to make plans for such things in advance but do it "on the fly" while finishing the rest of the game. One can see that this particular dungeon was not thought through and not fleshed out very well - although the backround story itself with Od Nua and his son, the Adra Titan, the Adra Dragon and stuff was very promising an had a lot of potential. But I guess they ran short of time or ideas when it came to level and encounter design. They had to fill 15 levels and every 3 or 4 levels they made an ok job - the rest was lame fillers. I don't blame them. During they crowdfunding campaign they had to come up with stretch goals all the time - and with the Endless Paths they simply bit of more than they could chew - or so it seems. Same with the whole stronghold stuff (that got improved a lot with patches).

You can also get burn based spell binding gear like Sun Touched Mail of Hyan Rath (3 Sunbeams per rest), Amulet of Summer Solstice (same), Flames of Fair Rhîan (3 Fireballs per rest), Taluntain's Staff (3 Fireballs per rest) and Curoc's Brand (1 Fireball per rest). This is better than taking bonus spells (which you can still do) because those spells from gear work with Citzal's Martial Power which will give them more oomph. You can even clone Flames of Faîr Rhîan, have 3 additional Fireballs and do a bit of dual wielding with Alacrity. Plenty of good fire spells without wasting even one talent or ability point. Spell bindings work with Scion of Flame etc., too. Citzal's MIG boost will give you +24% damage, the ACC boost will give you crits with +50% damage, even +90% with Merciless Hand and Dungeon Delver, Scion of Flame adds +20%. Lots of damage for a "small" Fireball or Sunbeam.

I agree that it can be an "Awww man!" moment when you find a cool weapon that nobody of your party is proficienct with (if it's a more impactful sort of proficiency). That's why I find retraining useful. On the other hand those things made me replay BG and Icewind Dale.

Yes, Hunter's Instincts apply. Moon Godlike would also be good, true, but Boreal is also ok.

High MIG, CON and INT. Only important item is the Wildstrike Belt (rush to Ondra's Gift asap and buy it from Cartugo in front of the Vaillan Trading Company). Talents: - Veteran's Recovery - Wildstrike Shock - Weapon Focus Peasant - Greater Wildstrike Shock - Two Weapon Style - Heart of the Storm - Savage Attack - Apprentice's Sneak Attack Most used spells: healing like Nature's Balm and stuff up to Moonwell, Returning/Relentless Storm, Form of the Delemgan and Avenging Storm Skills: survival 14 (an item with +2 to survival when camping helps a lot) in order to get +60% healing bonus - or alternatively the accuracy bonus Boar druids have wounding tusks and wounding scales with MIG. It's like having two Drawn in Spring Daggers - but with more base damage and higher lashes... Boar druids also have an additional regnerating effect while shifted that stacks with Veteran's Recovery and other healing sources. They have no per-rest ability like cats or stags etc. In kith form you can use dual hatchets if you want. I usually wait in the backline, casting my spells, waiting for enemies to rush to the backline in hope of taking out my squishies and then *poof* they suddenly get pulverized. Also works nice as rusher himself once you get Form of the Delemgan (includes higher move speed).

Wait! Where is the Black Isle Bastars faction on that picture?

I tried the BetaSpeedMod for a week now (I guess it was a week?) and it feels way better than the original beta. I did two playthroughs with several casters in the party and one with lots of melees to compare. Melee still felt better but not as much as before. And maybe my melees were better optimized than my casters, who knows? It's supereasy to "install" and doesn't make the game unstable or anything. Go check it out and report!

You want every damage bonus you can get since they work so well with the very high base damage of Firebrand (25 instead of 17 that normal great swords have). That means high MIG, Biting Whip (and of course also Draining Whip for the focus), Scion of Flame (raises Firebrand's damage by 20%), Savage Attack (the ACC malus doesn't matter if you use Mental Binding or Eyestrike first), Two Handed Style, Apprentice's Sneak Attack, survival 12 for +20% flanking bonus (against kith) or accuracy bonus (against other enemies) and an item like Glanfathan Stalking Boots - together +30% dmg against flanked - use Phantom Foes to cause flanked when you chose this camping bonus. I also took Veteran's Recovery (first talent pick) because it's good with high MIG and INT and helps with the squishyness. Merciless Hand from the Doemenels and Dungeon Delver are obviously the best choices when it comes to story-talents since they stack with Annihilation from Firebrand meaning you get +140% damage on crit (or 60 bonus damage on average in other words). The average crit with all this would be around 115 burn damage. It's quite jawdropping. Other items except the belt and Forgemaster Gloves (for 6 uses of Firebrand per rest) are not so important. As you said you want stat boosts, but the belt itself already gives you three different stat bonuses. A bonus to survival is nice. Tempered Helm is great as a defensive tool. Executioner's Hood is also very nice - you kill, you heal. Talisman of the Unconquerable of course, I smply had a Ring of Prot. and a Ring of Deflection. But I guess anything goes.

When I look at the title of the thread, who opened it and remember what the intention was then I suddenly feel the urge to discuss per-encounter vs. per-rest and hardcore vs. casual elsewhere.

Rogue seems fine, fighter also works. You can either drop PER a bit because you have lots of ACC anyways or you build everything towards crits and pump PER. I'll assume rogue: Talents: - Veteran's Recovery - Weapon Focus Ruffian - Single Weapon Style - Vicious Fighting - Runner's Wounding Shot - Fast Runner - Bloody Slaughter - Marksman - Merciless Hand - Dungeon Delver Abilities: - Blinding Strike - Dirty Fighting - Reckless Assault - Deep Wounds - Crippling Strike - Deathblows - Sap - Withering Strike As weapon I would pick Resolution, later Purgatory for sabre and Dulcanale as pistol. Bittercut is also great, but then you should take Spirit of Decay instead of another talent.

Why not? mark the whole party, click on the sword icon left of the speed toggle and force the attack. Better way to use GM: cast Devotions + Inspiring Radiance on her, build a lot of focus on the xaurips, then cast Disintegration on the dragon, followed by Whisper of Treason. Disintegration will keep on working even though she is charmed. Also, the time while she's charmed is great for getting rid of the andragans and xaurips. If you have trouble hitting the dragon: Tactical Meld + Borrowed Instincts or Devotions + Inspiring Radiance + Zealous Focus stack to +56 accuracy. That should be enough. By the way: Tidefall is not the optimal choice for GM. Her MIG is too low and wounding doesn't generate focus. The soulbound arbalest from the Deadfie Pack is crap for a cipher (no lash). It gets slower instead of faster when leveling it up. Must be a bug. Better alternatives: Blade of the Endless Paths + lash, Drake's Bell + lash, Hours of St. Rumbalt + lash and any other arbalest or arquebus which you enchant with a lash. Lashes generate focus!

Oops - I missed the part where you said you wanted a heavy one hander and a shield. Dammit... Dwarven rogue with bashing shield and war hammer is quite nice. Endgear would be Godansthunyr + Badgradr's Barricade. It really rocks (for a rogue ). In the early game you an use Larder Door, mid game Scath Gwannek (if you can get it) and then later the Barricade. A typical strike ability like BLinding Strike will go like: bash -> apply blind -> Godansthunyr crit -> apply stun -> bash crit -> trigger Trhust of Tattered Veils with Deathblows -> enemy dead. It's a nice mixture of tankyness and offense. Also works very well on fighters with Knockdown and Disciplined Barrage and melee rangers with Stunning Shots + Driving Flight (Thrust of Tattered Veils will work with Driving Flight). The rogue however can also use Riposte and Adept Evasion and stand in the AoE area of your wizard's reflex based spells - he won't get hit or even grazed often...

Not really - but I don't oppose it either. I mean the Ghost Heart part. It doesn't add anything exciting to be honest (at least for me). Ranger + Blast (rod) in general is an interesting combo because of how Blast + Driving Flight works at the moment. Every AoE hit will be getting a second hit in the current beta. And since Wael's rod does +50% lash damage also with Blast, Ranger/Wael is pretty cool. Also because Wounding Shot + Blast is pretty awesome (if it stil works like this - it does with rogues' afflicitions so I guess it still works with Wounding Shot as well). My pick would be vanilla ranger or Sharpshooter because the extra PEN (or ACC) is pretty useful with rod and Blast and you'd have a permanent pet that doesn't need summoning (costs time and - even more importantly - bond points).

I first read "Amputations and Fractures". Where did that come from? Weird, since I never whatch splatter movies/war movies or even Dr. House or stuff like that. I didn't even break a bone in my whole life (only plenty or torn ligaments - curse you Basketball!). I have to agree that the picture looks really nice. I doesn't make a lot of sense for me (yet), especially with the party members all spread evenly across that disposition half-cirlce, but altogether it looks nice and interesting.

Retraining is the exact opposite of immersive. At least give it a meaningful in-game mechanic, like a divine device that reprograms your brain or Cipher surgery. Dat immersion again... if they don't belch, fart and puke in the tavern the game breaks my immersion. Better to invent meaningless proficiencies so that nobody feels offended if they find a weapon they are not proficient with. Errrr... However - retraining doesn't have to be implemented in that "brute force" way like in PoE where you simply do a complete level-up right from the start again. instead you could also do it in a way that you go to a special trainer for proficiencies (think of Osric in Defiance Bay's Expedition Hall in PoE) and simply ask him if he can show you how to use XY better. You would then pick a proficiency you want to lose in order to free up points and then put them elsewhere. That will cost some money and that's it. In Tyranny you had special trainers for stuff. So basically like this but not to improve things but to retrain special stuff. Superimmersive for those who need that to be happy.

As it is now, Assassin/whatever former "vancian" caster is like the perfect combo for nukers. You get good enough PEN, high damage and all time in the world to place and cast your most powerful but also most sluggish spell.

Well, you will have to deal with that burning barbarian of a virus, mind you...

Yes, I think those "wrong" approaches to per-rest spell use on the players' side was the biggest problem. Same like hoarding consumables by the way.

If they introduce cooldowns I swear I'll delete the game and never touch it again. I'll also hack the forums and will install the equivalent of a PoE Barbarian with Vengeful Defeat + Firebrand as a virus.

Some are ok and do their job when it comes to handling special situations. For example dagger, qaurterstaff, morning star and others. But others are simply bad - like sabres' modal for example. Basically all modals that give +2 PEN for +100% recovery. The damage you gain via more PEN will get eaten away by the slower attack speed at best. So it's just bad in every situation except Full Attacks. Single sabre users and war bow lovers are crying... More modals like scepters', swords and so on would be better. Something that does not give you the malus in the same field (like dps) as the bonus. But rather modals where the malus is in a different field (see sword or dagger or scepter: survivability) than the bonus (dps).

Exactly

Heh - glad you liked the Golden Dragon. We also have to thank Jojobobo for this. May I present the following: - Buttercut (cipher): cuts soul and tissue as if it was butter. Melee Cipher with the new Royal Deadfire Cannoner Belt + Foremaster's Gloves. I did this in one of my latest playthroughs and it's just so much fun. Firebrand is for damage/focus and spells mostly for CC (except the mandatory Silent Screams and the awesome Disintegration and Amplified Wave and so on). Firebrand with Soul Whip + Biting Whip + Apprentice's Sneak + Two Weapon Style + Savage Attack + Merciless Hand + crits (easy with Mental Binding for example) is just... wow! Even works nice in the late game. You will also spare some nice resources like dargon eyes/kraken eyes, durgan steel and stuff. Not on the tankiest of sides but his reliable CC prevents knockouts pretty well. Somebody hits you? cst Whisper of Treason, done. Or just kill him with oine or two strikes... I didn't use Vet. Recovery on this one but it could be cool. For Deadfire: Cipher is going to get a decent buff in Deadfire now after Obsidian did their inhouse playtesting week. Everybody and their uncle complained about cipher there. So I'm confident they will make him good again. Ciphers already have grea passives in Deadfire - only their powers were too slow casting and didn't last long enough. Also, the Soulblade subclass is a great melee cipher already (if you mostly skip the power use atm and dump all focus into Soul Annihilation strikes - which do a ton of raw damage). You could do Devoted/Soul Blade and have a great melee cipher in Deadfire, even if Firebrand is crap in Deadfire atm. - Cauterizer (barb): I know, I know: no barb - but I'm playng a barbarian with the same item setup like above (belt & gloves) atm, centered on Bloodlust + Blood Thirst, Battle Forged and Barbaric Ret. Combine it with somebody who can do good AoE CC like blind in order to trigger more crits. Blood Thirst triggers from kills through Firebrand and all kind of this stacked retaliations so your attack speed is quite fabulous - and that's with a non-enchantable great sword. Lots, lots of fun, too. For Deadfire: Berserker is a strong class and in combo with a paladin (who can simulate a burning sword via Flames of Devotion) even more so. Great, really great resistances and tankyness and great offense at the same time. - St. Gangrene (priest): Priest of Berath as damage character with maxed out MIG, using Tidefall: you may have read about this. Combine Runner's Wounding Shot + Enevenomed Strike + Tidefall + Aggrandizing Radiance + Champion's Boon or Minor Avatar and use Cleasing Flame... even dragons will die pretty quickly. It's frail at the beginning but a lot of fun (at least for me) after Act I. I really liked it - even if you will hit stuff less and less and cast more and more (max MIG and INT is also great with Shining Beacon and stuff ). Plus: Berathians are no jerks. I used Veteran's Recovery on this guy and also Tidefall's draining with a ton of MIG works pretty well so that he doesn't fall over all the time. For Deadfire: The spiritual great sword of berathian priests is pretty awesome and you could again multicalss with Devoted in order to do more penetration and damage with it. Another aspirant would be paladin or monk instead of Devoted. - The Shock Hog (druid): Shocking Boar druid with focus on regeneration and melee damage via Spiritshift. Circumvent the relative squishyness with a ton of healing and DR (and Relentless Storms of course ) and at the same time boost your melee attacks. Doesn't go down easily (not a real tank though of course). I also wrote some stuff about this here and there but never made a full build. It's also fun to play because it has good offense while being reasonalby tanky. For Deadfire: spiritshift works as good in Deadfire as in PoE and the healing spells are good. You can multiclass with monk in order to get three shocking lashes for your tusks = great melee offense - or with fighter in order to get Constant Recovery as additional healing source. - Arcane Spanker (wizard): unarmed wizard with maxed MIG. This is not the most powerful thing, but it's fun nonetheless. I aimed for a monkish vibe and good melee damage via Novice's Suffering + Citzal's Martial Power (the bonus of Novice's Suffering doesn't work with damage bonuses, but gets multiplied by the MIG bonus) . Due to the mechanics of Novice's Suffering lacking ACC is no problem since grazes and crits do almost the same damage as hits. And since yo cast more and more and auto-attack less and less anyways you could at least use some weapons that you don't have to enchant and which stay being viable at the same time. I tried to use a lot of the touch-based spells like Jolting Touch and stuff all in all try to use spells that somehow could be a monklike "thing", like spell reflection, self buffs, cones and so on. As A side effect I found out that Grimoire Slam and Arcane Assault are pretty awesome when used with Citzal's Martial Power and maxed base MIG. For Deadfire: obviously Wizard/Monk. The wizard has awesome defensive self buffs and the monk has the melee offense and tankyness. Should be a nice mix. - Scattergun (wizard): Island Auamua with Arms Bearer and Quick Switch. Use Expose Vuln. + Combusting Wounds and combine it with Penetrating Shots and Ryona's Vambraces. Get four blunderbusses. Cast Expose + Combusting Wounds and shoot every enemy once with the blunderbuss. THis leads to 6 parallel CW instances on each of the four and will grind down their endurance pretty good (if they don't have enormous burn DR). Every instance of CW will do more than 30 burn damage with decent MIG and INT vs. lowish DR, so you can apply 180 additional burn DoT with every shot . Even if enemies have high burn DR, one blunderbuss shot with max DR bypass and Expose Vuln. is already quite punishing. Combine with multiple-hit spells like Chillfog, Wall of Flames, Malignant Cloud and so on. It's fun but it's also a lot of micromanagement. Not only the buffs, especially the switching and the timing. On the upside you can quickly take out up to four priority targets like enemy casters or rogues pretty quickly. And Expose + CW also helps your party members a lot. For Deadfire: Multiclass Black Jacket and Wizard. With blunderbusses in Deadfire you can now also choose the modal that does Powder Burns (that also works with RES as damage boost instead of strength). With the right passives for resitances even the automatic distraction of Powder Burns for the shooter will go away I think. Also use Missile spells and stuff. I tried this in beta1 but CW didn't work at that time. But I'm sure it will work well in the finished game. So you could do awesome single target damage via the shot itself and additional AoE damage with Powder Burns. Those are the things I had the most fun with lately. They are not necessarily OP. But they are all viable and for me they were more fun to play than many others. If something sounds interesting I can go into more detail.

But it's the desire of most players to be able to master one particular weapon - or being better with it than with others. As I said: retraining would meet both needs.

Yes. Every class now has some resource pool that they can use freely until it's empty - if they don't have any unique mechanic like focus, wounds or phrases. It's kind of a mana system basically. Only the former vancian caster don't but have 2 uses per spell level. The result is you always choose the most oomphy ones and you always cast the same spells over and over in every fight. Why not give them a class resource pool as well and give every spell a resource cost? Maybe there are reasons and I just can't see them at the moment though.