Boeroer

Who said that they'd cause interrupts? Aren't they only supposed to interfere (aka accuracy debuff on enemy)? Or do you mean this modal prevents interrupts from happening when you use it with an interrupting ability/attack?

Backstab is only one example. We have the same issues with Flames of Devotion, Finishing Blow, Wounding Shot and so on. Every ability that is limited in how often you can use it per encounter and that gives you a big damage bonus that is based on your weapon's damage. Also future abilities that may work like this will have that issue.

? It's more around 80-100 damage for me (on crits). Depends on the level of course - because the pet's base damage scales with level.

Why don't you go to that hole in the ground instead of using the water closet?

Right - and even further: why are Full Attacks for daggers the same as for swords or hammers? I opened a new tread about this weird behavior of Primary Attacks/Full Attacks and so on. Maybe you want to leave a comment there?

Hi, First thing: did you ever ask yourself why Backstab is best done with an arquebus or a great sword? Because obviously those are the weapons with the highest base damage, and since Backstab's bonus is only applied to the first swing/shot it's best to use a weapon that hits as hard as possible. Now imagine your superstealthy rogue sneaking up on people with his great sword *sneaky sneak sneak* "nobody sees me while I take a biiig swing". Or even worse, how he holds his arquebus, point blank, to the head of an enemy... Erm, yeah. Then this: Flames of Devotion is a nice ability, right? It gives you a good damage bonus but is quite limited in use. So in this case you'd also want to bring the heavy hitting weapons with high damage per hit in order to get the most dmaage out of FoD. But it's a Full Attack, so you can use heavy one handers and get two swings with FoD - or you use a great sword or an arquebus or even dual pistols or whatever. Anything that does the most damage with one or dual swing/shot. This is the situation with every ability that has limited number of uses and derives its damage from your weapon (and which is primarily used to deal damage). You don't want to use light, fast weapons for those attacks. Because they suck with Backstab, FoD and other similar abilities like FInishing Blow and whatnot. Why on earth is a Full Attack not implented as a series of blows/shots that takes the speed of the weapon into account? This would make light weapons a competitor for Backstabs, FoD and so on. At the moment the quickness of a weapon doesn't matter for Full Attacks. If you're holding two war hammers or two daggers: you get two swings for your Full Attack ability. Imagine if a Full Attack was balanced in a way that it would end up with roughly the same amount of damage dealt (generally speaking, has to be balanced around base damage and PEN): - Full Attack with dual light, fast one handers: you get 4 strikes (mainhand-offhand-mainhand-offhand) - Full Attack with dual heavy one handers: you get 2 strikes (mainhand - offhand) - Full Attack with a light one hander and a heavy one hander: 3 strikes - Full Attack with a light two hander (think of estoc with low base damage): 2 strikes - Full Attack with a heavy two handed weapon (like great sword): 1 strike - Full Attack with a bow: maybe 2 shots or only one - depending on the damage and speed - Full Attack with guns: 1 shot That would make light weapons viable for all those abilites as well. And it also makes sense that you can place some more hits with a light weapon when executing a special ability. So, a Backstab coul be a series of quick stabs with a dagger or stiletto OR one mighty swing with a great sword. What Do you think?

Knockdown and Into the Fray are meh while Disciplined Barrage and esp. its upgrade that gives you 50% hit to crit is OP. It stacks with all other conversions and only costs 1 Discipline - cheap and powerful. Grazing and 100% hit to crit (e.g. Barrage/Berserker Frenzy) is ridiculous.

But Hel-Hyraf and Killers Froze Stiff is now as OP as Dragon THrashed was. Another cheesy thing with Hel-Hyraf: the upgraded version prolongs the duration every time the target gets hit. Now shoot at it with a blunderbuss (5 pellets) and guess what happens. Just tried on a chanter/sharpshooter.

An arquebus (activated modal) Black Jacket with Quick Switch and Arms Bearer, multiclassed with an Assassin is pretty nice. You can use Shadowing Beyond three times with enough guile and therefore empty all four arquebuses with Assassination/Backstab. At the moment the only problem is that guns don't trigger Backstab from invisibility. A Black Jacket with Arms Bearer and Quick Switch + Sharpshooter is also cool with dual pistol or blunderbuss. The only bad thing is you have to micromanage the switching. If there would be an AI scripting option that would allow to switch before reloading starts until all guns are emptied, that would be nice.

And I read here in the forums that a guy had his fighter killed because his monk redirected all damage to him.

But what about the low level spells then that only cause a tier-1 affliction? They'd graze and do nothing basically.

Or cast Eldritch Aim? Or dire Blessing. However - casters still suck. Just doing a fifth run with all custom hirelings. All pure casters are really bad while anything with a fighter is good. Chanter, too. Rest is ok if it's no pure caster. Even the OP Nature Godlike Livegiver is a chore to play because you have to time your casting meticulously and keep allies in range for quite some time. Powerful but annoying... I've already put 100+ hours into the beta now. I don't know exactly why... but the combat feels so much worse than PoE's. It's no fun at all. I'm already tired of it and bored. And I can't really say why. It's also very "crowded". All that inspiration counters affliction stuff and Concentration counters Interrupting is all nice and tactical fancy-shmancy and all. But actually while in combat it's just overwhelming so I always end up with "ah well whatever - I'll select all melees and auto-attack that guy there *guy explodes in seconds*". The only thing that I really like is to play solo with a sneaky guy. The new stealth system is very nice. But then of course it's like a totally different game.

Does Sneak Attack work with spells now?

I agree that high DEX helps wizards/druids/priests' a lot atm. The casting times for most (offensive) spells are so long that you can really feel the difference between 15 and 20 DEX.

The blunderbuss also got an additional nerf: now it's 5 pellets instead of 6. But now can dual wield pistols and blunderbusses which makes them good for full attack abilities - also for Backstab theoretically. With 3 weapon slots and dual blunderbusses in each slot you can combine Combusting Wounds with 30 hits. This should annihilate most foes in theory. Can't recall the casting time for Comb. Wounds though. I wonder what would happen if you combine the blunderbuss modal with Backstab...?

Nice testing.

Awesomest so far! :D But does Blade Turning reflect damage back to enemies? I had the impression it also hits allies...?

ABerserker/Skald works even better for me than Devoted (+50% hit to crit, +4 PEN not only for weapons and +4 armor while using frenzy). The raw damage of Sweet Winds of Death adds up nicely in theory with the raw damage of Carnage. You just have to make sure to bring a priest or somebody else who can cast an inspiration that removes confused. Because not only the friendly fire sucks, but especially the INT debuff. I agree that the Hel-Hyraf invocation is too good - or other AR reducing abilities are too bad. Compare it with Expose Vulnerabilities: a lot faster cast and recovery and -5 AR instead of -2. Also not limited by a resource pool.

I can't say how many times I had to correct my auto-correct because of that - until I finally put "durgan steel" into my phone's dictionary. :D

MIG is now a multiplicative damage boost (like DEX always was - sort of). I don't know if it stays that way, but BMac confirmed that it is no longer additive in the current beta. That explains why chars with very high might combos (Ogre/Frenzy/Helwalker/priest buffs) are doing so much damage right now - especially when overpenetrating because that's also multiplicative. Best combo to show this I think is Helwalker/Berserker because he not only gets very high MIG but also +PEN from Tenacious. Add a weapon with a good dmg/pen ratio and behold the Schlachtfest.

Good question. I believe they only share the same level as the summoner. I was level 9 and the skeletons also got "leveled" to 9.

Speaking of a tank who's summoning: did you guys realize that summoned creatures scale with level now? I didn't until I wondered how those weak skeletons managed to murder everyone in Tiki Toe Taka village after I finished a beta run.

Still think best Assassin multiclass combo is with Soulblade. Initial Backstab kills enemy and lets explode your focus, then Soul Annihilation kills the next. Use Shadowing Beyond, repeat... and so on. But the blunderbuss/Confounding Blind combo is very neat. Speaking of blunderbuss: I soon will test a Black Jacket/Wizard with 3 blunderbusses (well actually 6 because dual wielding), Quick Switch and Combusting Wounds. Maybe it can work like it did in PoE where it was lots of fun.

Do engaged enemies try to turn or even disengage your tank if you flank with your scout and attack them with a reach weapon?

Maybe having Guardian Stance's upgrade makes the enemies stick to you because disengaging would be too painful. Then it wouldn't be useless. Imagine the ability name was "Superglue Stance" and the description would be "enemies won't disengage" - then you'd say that it's a very nice upgrade. So - maybe just the name and description don't fit atm.