Boeroer

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.

That is goes against the aim of the new system is the best part. Also: retraining is a nice feature to ensure you can make best use of a weapon you found and have not the fitting proficiency. Better than making all proficiencies meaningless so that it's no problem to use a weapon with which you are not proficient. Also: getting one proficiency every 3 levels now means you'll have 7 proficiencies at the end of the game. It's very likely that you can spend enough points in the new weapon you found as you go along.

I think it's pretty easy to only trigger the healing once when you activate FoD instead of tying it to every strike.

Proficiencies are half-baked stuff atm. You can see that its not the best approach since the designers obviously had trouble to come up with meaningful and sensible modals for every weapon proficiency. Like rapid shot for pistol (why is reloading a pistol any different from reloading an arquebus? Why can you get +20 ACC with a non-rifled arquebus but not with an arbalest or crossbow?). Would have been better to create those modals for a whole group of weapons like guns (faster reaload)/bows (better aim)/crossbows (faster reaload as well) and so on. But now we have them... The idea of The Balthazar(?) that you can invest thrice in a proficency to: a) get the modal b) increase the bonus c) decrease the malus would be nice to see implemented. You could then leave the modal on all the time after spending at least two points because it would be better most of the time. This also would mean that you wouldn't be forced to take a lot of different proficiencies that don't match with your idea of your character. For example as a rogue duelist who wants to use single light one handed weapons like rapier, dagger and stiletto it's just awkward to be forced to choose mace or axe or whatever just because you don't know where to put the proficiency points. Of course this would render the Black Jacket even more meaningless. Besides Quick Switching builds that subclass is totally underpowered now. Especially since they plan to raise PEN of weapons (not of spells???). The Black Jacket needs something better to counter his harsh malus of not having Constant Recovery. Since the Black Jacket's theme is all about versatiliy, why not give him better versions of the modals - even if the aforementioned solution (a)b)c)) doesn't get implemented at least the Black Jacket could automatically get either b) or c) when choosing a proficiency. Meaning that a Black Jacket always suffers less malus from modals or gets a better bonus. For example: when choosing the proficiency for great swords (modal: Savage Attack) a Black Jacket coud either get +50% damage with only -10 ACC or +75% damage with -20 ACC instead of +50%/-10 like the normal modal would be. Sabre could give +2 PEN/+50% recovery or +3 PEN/+100 recovery instead of +2/+50%.

I can imagine on PotD even +40 ACC is not enough with an arquebus+modal + FoD to avoid grazes entirely. But if you take a single rapier and switch on the modal and use FoD you will have +57 ACC, am I right? Should work also well enough if you don't care about the damage anyways. But I agree that it's kind of stupid why the healing effect is tied to hit/crit instead of just executing the ability like it was in PoE.

I personally prefer the change as per-encounter. It was a big tedium for me that they use campfire as the resource. Could it be per-encounter was badly implemented in DF?. Maybe you should create a separate thread and it be interesting to read through your thoughts about it. Sorry for deviating the thread. And i would like to thank Obsidian team, at least they read through these feedback and concerns and are aware of it. Erm, the emphasis was on "elsewhere" rather than "I feel the urge to discuss". Ach, another ironic post gone wrong on the internt.

If you have ligatures activated then switch them off as well.

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 elsewhere.

Or you take a single rapier in the main hand and activate the modal before using Soul Annihilation. I never had a miss or graze so far when I tried this. Too much ACC. Great modal for a Soulblade "Duelist". But a Kind Wayfarer gets +20 acc when doing FoD. Do you miss/graze often? I don't. The real bugger is the low amount of healing. 14 points... pfff!

Hmm, from a fun point of view? Hard to say. Both will drop down pretty quickly once targeted, so this can be frustrating. From lvl 11 on this is pure fun - especially with a fellow wizard who can provide afflictions. Spell binding gear and scrolls will be rare in the early game, so the beginning will be more rough. But taking Prestidigitator's Missiles and Penetrating Shot early is nice.

Recently played: Unbroken/Street Fighter I hoped that the massive PEN of the Unbroken and the increased Sneak Attack and crit damage of the Streef Fighter (once flanked) would make Disengagement Attacks fearsome and also that Riposte may be worthwhile. Dumped DEX and gave him a sabre + modal + buckler + modal and plate armor, mainly relying on disengagement and Riposte. Well nobody leaves that guy now. They just knock him out and then go on with their thug life. Beguiler/Trickster With Blast I had a blast. Start by causing hobbled + bleeding via Arterial Strike in an AoE, then use Eystrike (and gain focus in the process), Whisper of Treason, then Arterial Strike again... Very nice CC character and ok damage. But I played him with a mod taht reduced casting times a bit. Mage Slayer/Goldpact Knight In theory I wanted to rush casters with Zealous Endurance and Golden Enmity and use FoD and Barbaric Blow in combo with the spell disrupting effect. Seems spell disrupting does nothing in beta 3? It applies an affliction but I never saw that attacks interrupted or canceled enemies' spellcasting. Or was this reduced to kith enemies and doesn't work on Lagufaeth anymore? It used to... Evoker/Fury Pure nuker. I wanted to expand the resource pool for damaging spells and only chose friendly fire spells that either do burn or freeze damage - as well as Returning Storm of course. I took a pale elf and gave him Bulwark and the Stormturner Cloak, too. He wore a breastplate then. With that much AR against burn/freeze I could easily cast Fireballs (also empowered, although that still hurts) on myself while doing a bit of baiting/tanking. Pretty nice - but only with the aforementioned mod that reduced casting times (and recovery) a bit. Else I could never spend all the spell uses during one encounter.

Bad: Offensive spell casting with Druid/Priest/Cipher/Wizard in general, especially casting speed. Summoning weapons is way too slow. I played a mod with 1.5 secs and that is fine. The morale of my crew goes down even if I serve them Rum + roasted Duck al'Orange with 3 Michelin stars. Average PEN is always one or two points below enemies' average AR. Spells' PEN is generally too low. Either passives with boost PEN or a buff of spells' PEN is needed. Worst: I don't like all the ship stuff. It's distracting and also unintuitive and gets boring and tedious pretty soon. But I guess that's only me. It would be great if one could just turn that whole thing off with a switch in the game options menue. That's the worst part for me I have to admit. Long recovery times make the combat feel sluggish. Good: Multiclassing is still a lot of fun. Casters' self buffs are generally good (with a few exceptions). Best: Beguiler getting more focus back than he spend when using Deceptive AoE spells in certain situations. It's really nice and not too powerful.

Great

A pure wizard is great if you focus on spells that scale well with Power Level. For example all Missile spells. But as Gromnir said: customisation is not the strong part. This may change though because we will be getting more passives in the future.

Also remember that in PoE a casting time of 4.5 secs was the slowest while in Deadfire it's medium. Placing a fireball in PoE was also easier because it was a fast cast instead of a 6-sec cast in Deadfire. All the damage on the world will not help the Fireball's viability of you have to cancel it all the time because situation on the battlefield is changing so frequently. Spells that target single enemies are in a big advantage because of that. Also because most of them scale really well with Power Level (see Missiles). At the same time some spells which are supposed to help with damage are inferior to a simple auto-attack with a weapon. The high PEN of Thrust of Tattered Veils is nice, as is the targeting and the fast cast, but I do more damage if my fighter just smacks the enemy with a great sword without spending any resources. Some spells need more balancing. I mean upwards. Look at Kalakoth's Freezing Touch: still the worst spell in the game. At least that didn't change...

That's not true. Instead of wildly speculating the "what if" I played a mod this week which reduced casting speeds by shifting most of the spells' casting times (especially cipher's) one category to the "left" (6 to 4.5, 9 to 6 and so on. Also summoning weapons was changed to 1.5 secs. It's still easy to do an interrupt if a spell takes 4.5 secs or 3 secs instead of 6 secs to cast. Interrupts favor fast weapons though - or you have to wait a bit before attacking just to see if the enemy will start casting something horrible. And that adds a bit more tactics. But the combat overall feels MUCH better with casters. Much better. But still it's easier to do the playthrough with melee character than with casters! Main reason is that combat movement is too fast in comparison to the rest and combatants like to change position very often. Most of the time because somebody dies while the caster is casting. Chars die so quickly in melee. I think weapon damage is too high. If you compare weapon damage to PoE you will see that base damage of weapons is higher. It's difficult to land an oh so mighty Fireball when during casting time the situation on the battlefield is changing thrice because melee chars kill two people while doing a 6-sec-cast.