Boeroer

Yes, you need Concentration for the longer casts - else you will get interrupted and be screwed. Maybe a passive ability for casters to raise PEN would be ok. Or they will introduce this effect on grimoires or other items (like giving you universal PEN bonus or so). I guess they will come up with something because complaints about casters is massive atm.

Yes, let's wait an see how that turns out. The difference between 3 secs recovery (should be) and 1 sec recovery (like it's now) is huge.

Yeah, maybe that would be better. Or give it only 15% more or so. You don't want to gimp estocs and the like either. They have a LOT less base damage than for example great swords in Deadfire and once you get exceptional (or superb or whatever awesome) gear then the difference between estoc and great sword in terms of penetration gets smaller (relatively). Or just make it additive. 30% addititve is not so powerful but still ok. 30% multiplicative is powerful because it also has a crazy interaction with crits. And crit chance + damage can be stacked like crazy with the right class combo (as can PEN). So if you achieve a boosted crit and manage to overcome 2*AR (which is easy with the right classes/abilites) your damage gets multiplied into ridiculous heights. This interaction between crits (higher PEN, higher damage) and double PEN (even more damage) has do be altered. Either remove bonus damage from crits or remove bonus damage from double PEN (or make it less or additive). THis is why it's so benefical to stack PEN atm (and crit chance of course - look at the fighter's Barrage and so on). I mean seriously: who wants to have 400+ damage crits? Of course it's fun and a "whoop-whoop" moment the first time (as was my first Soul Annihilation use), but it gets pretty boring and also is a balancing issue.

I didn't know that about the grimoires, nice. I wonder what trinkets for other classes may do. Looking forward to it. Of course, what Obsidian always can do is to introduce items that give you special abilites that usually your class wouldn't get. Like the gauntlets and the tricorne hat in the beta. If they compensate the loss of universal talents with such items then I'm satisfied. Because for me it doesn't matter so much how I can achieve out-of-the-box builds (also for single classes) that work but that it's possible at all.

It's nearly always better to stack PEN because a) you don't know what the enemies' AR is unless you have previously met them or have meta knowledge. Better be on the safe side. b) the multiplicative damage boost when having PEN=2*AR is very powerful.

It's great with Devotions and some debuffs and if you can graze.

Exactly. It's a passive and you get it as an Assassin. Called "Assassinate". It works on the same conditions as Backstab (and stacks with that). So basically it's a Backstack.

You really have to prepare your blasting now: you have to make sure your PEN>AR, that you can graze (making Dire Blessing very powerful) and that you don't get interrupted (get Concentration). And if you did all this you can finally let go of a fireball. Wait... encounter's already over? Oh well...

You mean like proficiencies for elements for example? Like Scion of Flame giving you a modal for fire based abilities (mainly non-weapon related spells I guess)? Maybe not a bad idea...

In some ways the new system is better than the old one. The problem I (and others) see is that penetration has become the no. 1 concern now, dominating everything else.

Well good luck with that. One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

True. Also remember that this is multiplicative - also with the bonus crit damage! Bonus crit damage can be buffed via multiclassing as well. I got pretty nasty results with Devoted/Assassin, Devoted/Berserker, Skald/Berserker and so on.

Hm, why don't you try this out with the soulbound dagger in the beta? Just don't choose dagger as proficiency and see if the soulbound dagger gets +3 PEN nonetheless. Doesn't mean that it stays that way, but maybe the result is a hint...?

I just checked and pike still has reach. The modal is also nice: reducing defenses by 10 on hit. I actually did not check if that works with carnage.

Crossbow now interrupts. It's neat to take away spells from casters.

Good thing about carnage is the raw damage - when it comes to PEN.

Hm, didn't really have problems with that even with 6 stealth. It may also depend on the creature. Some are a lot more perceptive than kith. By the way: Backstab with a reach weapon should be easier (I guess), but I never tested a pike. Does it still have any advantage concerning range/reach?

Sure, this also would have been my approach - who needs classes anyway? Even Josh Sawyer thinks this way as he once stated and as his Pen&Paper draft for PoE shows (it's classless). But unfortunately you can't convince D&D/IE games enthusiasts with good arguments...

Death's Usher triggers at 25% of enemy's health (aka "Near Death" in Deadfire). Same with Bloody SLaughter by the way. I got upgraded from 10% in PoE1 to 25% now. Actually it was quite useful on my last Skald/Berserker. Not because of the increased damage when critting low health enemies, but because the crits give me phrases, even if they don't matter that much in terms of damage.

Sure. At least the two I tested builds with (Berath/Devoted and Wael/Sharpshooter).

What? The priest weapon has +60% corrode damage as lash - for example berath's great sword and also Wael's rod. The rod's blast also gets the lash by the way. On top of that it's fine at lvl 6. That's better than flames of devotions (which is limited by zeal). I paired this with a devoted fighter and suddenly this priest does great melee damage with the simlest auto-attacks (because he can graze and penetrate which a single class priest with a great sword can't do). If the first thing you do when encounter starts is to summon the weapon it's not that bad - but still: 6 seconds of summoning time sucks. You can't buff in that time for example. I think doing the same with a monk with Ligthning Strikes or a paladin with FoD (here Berath + Bleak Walker for awesome +50% burn + 85% corrode sadly doesn't work) would also result in good melee performances. The summoned weapon works like a normal weapon in regard of proficiencies and so on.

Yes, I used Envenomed Strike with my melee Priest of Berath (using Tidefall/Abydon's Hammer + Runner's Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike) - and because you can reach 50+ MIG and 30+ INT with this (Aggrandizing Radiance + Minor Avatar and stuff) the Envenomed Strikes become NASTY things. Especially if you combine them with Cleansing Flame... Since the unarmed barb wants to have very high MIG and also INT it's a great talent for him, too.

The worst possible build atm may be a rangere who uses melee weapons.

Yes, that works. I did this. Good combo. In my opinion an Assassin/Soul Blade is even better if you use weapons with high PEN: Deal 100+ damage with a Backstab+Assassinate from stealth to get a ton of focus and most of the time one-shot the enemy, follow up with Soul Annihilation on the second target. That usually deals around 200 damage, also one-shotting. Two enemies dead in the first 3 secs of combat is quite nice. My Devoted/Assassin was good as well, but he couldn't keep up with that. Sneak + Backstab + Assassinate + Soul Whip + Biting Whip is so much damage... I don't use any cipher powers by the way - I only use the focus for Soul Annihilation (ignoring that it's bugged and only uses 5 focus instead of all focus) - it's that good (and raw damage - so screw you PEN mechanics). I two-shotted the titan with Blinding Strike + Soul Annihilation after assasinating the sand thingy that stands close to it. Only thing is I'm really really frail.

What about skills / passives from second class? I guess you mean abilites? Skills are things like mechanics and so on.