joshua43214

I love the ranger class, I play one in all my RPG's. The PoE ranger is pretty decent, especially compared to some other games. The real problem to me is firearms. Long bows are far more powerful, accurate, and effective in real life than any of the firearms in the game, but bows are pretty ineffective against late game targets, and the short bow is next to useless. Still they are really fun to play and get some decent talents as they progress, they just do not scale well since long bow damage does not increase to surpass arquebus damage like it should. On the two play throughs I did with a ranger (one as a the PC with a longbow, and another as a mercenary with a pistol) the ranger had the highest total damage (and died the most) in both games.

I am not sure I buy this logic at all. I am doing my current play through with a paladin MT and I am having tons of trouble with monsters leaking past the tank due to lack of engagements, and they almost always chew on the guy in robes first. The pali is seriously hampered by lack of engagements and lack of knock down. I really hope that if the fighter nerf stays, that pali get buffed with extra engagement and a bash stun or knock down. For now I am just using Eder as an OT to catch and trip the leakers because I find fighting in doorways boring. If the reason for changing Defender is because it was so good that every type of fighter took it, why would they then go and add extra powers to Paladins, who got many buffs in the last patch? Are you having your Paladin and Eder stand in front while four ranged guys in robes nuke the monsters? And this is causing the monsters to slide past your two melee guys and engage the guys in robes? If so that sounds like a great thing. Are monsters set to not eat a disengagement attack and thus stick with their melee engager? Does having three engagements mean that three monsters are effectively stuck? No, not every fighter took it, only tank fighters would take it - though yes, all tanks would take it. Nothing wrong with that, most classes have "no-brainer" talents for specific builds. Dis-engagement only occurs after engagement. So if 3 mobs run at the party, only 1 of them is engaged by the pali and the other 2 are free to run right past with no penalty. I take advantage of this frequently when trying to position a character for something like fan of flames. I am not sure why you say this is a good thing. Engagement was created specifically to overcome a melee characters inability to control the space around him in the Infinity Engine. Defender was implemented specifically so that a fighter could control even more space around him. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/63432-update-44-the-rules-of-melee-engagement/ As things stand now, only fighters can take one talent to get 3 engagements. Why is asking for something similar in a paladin too much? What is wrong with giving the pali something like slam or bash to stun an enemy so he can chase down a monster chewing on some poor wizard in a silk robe? Fighters, monks, wizards, and chanters can all break engagement, the pali meanwhile is forced to stand proud engaging one whole enemy while the group perishes around him. I do sort of get the logic behind the nerf even if I don't agree with it - by trying to divide your focus between 5 monsters, you are less able to defend yourself. -5 deflection just scales up badly when fully surrounded. A better logic would be that a mature and experienced fighter would do better at defending himself, but is so focused on his immediate enemies that he is more vulnerable to attacks from elsewhere, so something like Will or Reflex should be reduced.

@bartlebooth I stand corrected. Thank you for pointing this out.

To be clear on this, respect does not allow you to change your starting stats, it only allows you to go back and re-chose spells/talents/etc. If you will want to change your starting stats after 2.0 goes live, you will have to wait for IEmod or Keeper to get updated if you do not wish to use the console. TBH, the respec is seriously badly done. I was really hoping to respec the companions (Sagani is especially badly done), but all you can do is change the talents and junk. The Keeper will let you easily change your stats with out modding the game, IEmod will let you go back to lvl0 and even change your race.

I am not sure I buy this logic at all. I am doing my current play through with a paladin MT and I am having tons of trouble with monsters leaking past the tank due to lack of engagements, and they almost always chew on the guy in robes first. The pali is seriously hampered by lack of engagements and lack of knock down. I really hope that if the fighter nerf stays, that pali get buffed with extra engagement and a bash stun or knock down. For now I am just using Eder as an OT to catch and trip the leakers because I find fighting in doorways boring.

Considering how Act III falls flat on its face, I think we can assume that Obsidian spent little if any of it's own money on development. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, it just has the feel of something that was developed until they ran out of money, and is now using sales profits to continue development. Obsidian is not a huge company, if they have $10,000,000.00 in sales at this point, I am sure they are quite happy.

Hahaha! No good deed goes unpunished! Here comes the Nerf Stick... (I am pretty sure that getting Ruffian at lvl3 is working as intended)

You are dead right about the core issue here. Even if you respect him ~lvl 5 it will cost probably >1000 copper to respec and get the good spells that he is missing back. On the other hand, you might decide you do not want all those spells back. Keep in mind you are playing a beta. You should net get upset over things not working properly or fairly in a beta. Finding issues like this is the whole concept behind a beta. Solving the problem should be just a bit of code that puts the spells you have learned into the selection tree and credit to select the extra spells at each level. Take a breath and relax. If the issue is still present when 2.0 goes live and it is not on the list of planned fixes, then you can feel free to pack up your marbles and leave. We are all playing around problems in this beta.

To the best of my knowledge, none of the cities have fog of war.

Hey, I found I have the same bug as viledruid with Guan's Share. I noticed it still had draining when it dropped, but it went away when I loaded the save. It also does the same thing when you sell it and buy it back. here is the interesting thing though, if you sell it exit the vendor and then buy it back, it costs ~1250 copper and does not have draining. If you sell it, leave the building, then return to buy it, the draining returns and it costs ~2500 copper. Before and after saves, https://www.dropbox.com/s/878lwyiuxqzk6fv/PoEBug.zip?dl=0

Just skip the quest for now. I know it leaves you a bit short on exp and reputation, but it is not a game breaker. Once the fix comes in, just go do it real fast. Hopefully the exp will still be useful then

I wanted to give a heartfelt thank you for the changes being made in 2.0. Being able to re-roll the NPC's is such a valuable thing, especially on the characters you pick up later. The one thing I really wish for though is to be able to change their starting stats. I get the idea that people will abuse it by changing their stats to match some fight. Who cares? Seriously, who really cares? I want to be able to do for two main reasons: Some of the NPC's are just badly made, and I would like to make them useful rather than purchase a mercenary. If I can custom make any companion to my liking, I should be able to remake any premade char to my liking. The game is more fun when you play with the premade chars. Second: I wish to change the alignment the NPC's. I get that Durance is struggling from internal conflict, but he is any thing but clever (he is passionate). I want him to share my alignment. I know it does not matter, he does not suffer from my alignment, but neither does he gain from any alignment. Preventing people from abusing the system is just a waste of time. There is nothing stopping us from using the Keeper to change stats right now (including granting 20 to all). Let people who want to "abuse" the system do as they will.

And this of course is the clincher. It is all good provided we can all (most of us at least) can create a character set that matches our play style. We have to play the game by it's own rules, and set aside our expectations and pre-conceived notions. I see far too many people stuck in a DA:O or DnD mindset and can't seem to break out of the mold. Personally, I love to play paladins and rangers in most cRPG's, but I fully understand why many people hate paladins. I love the fact that I am not stuck with having to play Lawful/Good in PoE, Lawful/Good can get really boring really fast. I rolled a balanced fighter for my first partial play through to get a feel for the game. After meeting with Pelagina, I decided that paladins are worthless. I just rolled a paladin tank where I min'd per and dex (full plate and helm = slow moving and limited vision). So far I have to say I am very impressed with him. He holds up far better than Egan, he does not hit enemies a lot, but really hammers them when he does. So far I am really happy with the 2.0 changes, though I am ambivalent about the fighter nerf. Unless this gets balanced elsewhere it will be a problem because paladins will suffer trying to engage extra enemies.

[...]Each class holds the line in its own way. As covered in Update 52, the monk absorbs damage to fuel special attacks through the use of accumulated Wounds. These attacks can stun, push, or weaken individuals or small groups around them. While monks have to be monitored to ensure their Wounds do not overwhelm them, they can absorb a large amount of punishment and hamper enemy movement on the battlefield. In contrast, the fighter holds the line the traditional way: by standing her ground, blocking opponents, and being infuriatingly difficult to knock out. Barbarians are designed to jump into the fray swinging wildly. Lacking the accuracy and strong Deflection of the fighter, the barbarian makes up for his lack of discipline through sheer speed, savagery, and abilities tailored for fighting groups of enemies.[...] http://eternity.obsidian.net/news/update-81-the-front-line-fighters-and-barbarians- Thanks for the link. This still does not mean that the devs are not trying to break the paradigm. My own personal opinion is that fighters should be high dps melee chars. They should have above average defenses, high accuracy, hit hard, etc. I don't mind using them as tanks, but I prefer them in light/medium armor doing heavy and methodical damage. The fighter is the guy you send on a suicide mission to kill the enemy wizards while a big hulking tank in full plate defends the line against the enemy horde. Once upon a time, I played a paladin in EQ. When I stopped playing he was lvl75 and in the top 50 paladins in the game. Over the years, I watched him get "rebalanced" from being the top tank class to being next to worthless compared to a fighter, and useless for DPS. Now I realize that is an entirely different game with an entirely different rule set, but there are good lessons to be learned. A chain class (EQ version of medium armor - EQ fighters wore only chain) should never be able to have a higher armor class (DR in PoE), than a plate class. On the other hand, a plate class should never be able to avoid damage or swing as quickly as a chain class. I also tend to be a bit cynical about the future when I hear a dev use the word "balance." It is still my hope that this is an attempt to balance the game in another direction. Folks have complained for a while that paladins are meh. My hope is that they are waiting to see how this nerf works before they take a shot at improving the paladin. Remember, they have to make the game work for all players. Casual players should be able to play with a balanced character on easy/normal. RP'ers should be able to play mostly balanced chars on hard. Min/max should really only be needed for PotD, or small groups. As it stands pre-2.0, you can make a fighter tank that is near immune to damage - this is not balanced game play.

So this bug is still not fixed in the Steam version. Did this not actually get fixed? Any idea when this goes live on Steam?

I have to agree, they are a bit lackluster. Hopefully they will get some love in the expansion. It is almost more fun to recruit them then leave them in the stronghold and use custom characters.

The question every one seems to be missing is "What class is meant to be a tank?" PoE is NOT DnD, it is not Icewind Dale, it is not BG, etc. If we are all going to persist in thinking this game is the same as the old games, we are all going to sit around being unhappy about the game. That said, if the fighter is meant to be a tank, then this nerf is stupid. As a fighter gets better he should be able to engage more enemies and take less damage from them at the same time. The best solution for balance would be to delay the talent two levels so he has to really become a better fighter instead of a slightly better fighter. On the other hand, if fighters are meant to fight then there is nothing wrong with the nerf. It just means that PoE has broken the current paradigm of fighter tanks in favor of something else.

Personally, I love strongholds. I have no idea where people get the idea that RPG players do not like them. Player houses are one of the most popular downloads for Skyrim for example. For me, not having a place of my own breaks immersion unless I am playing a drifter character. I tend to play Hero chars though, so I want a castle or something where I can take a rest from my labors, and the common folk can come ask for help. I would love to see the strongholds expanded with more side quests (good and evil), and the reputation of the stronghold expand through out Dyrwood. My biggest complaint though is not getting Raedric's land. With out giving a spoiler, there is an event later in the game that should let you take control of the area.

I did this with a lvl12 party of custom min/max chars. Orlan fighter MT min/max for deflection Aumaua fighter offtank min/maxed for fortitude Elf ranger Elf range-rogue Human priest Human chanter This is a lazy mans party, basically you just send in the tank and range down all the monsters. Requires minimal micro-managing, and no spell casting means you can play until someone actually dies before you rest. I agreed to help him out, but after talking to the dragon slayer I changed my mind (I am playing a good char after all). When you enter his dungeon, he will be just a few steps away to the right and will agro instantly if you move to the right. I made as many of the lore 8 single target scrolls as I could. I think I made 17, and I think they where some kind of fire damage. They looked like the lvl1 wizard missile spell when you cast them. I am pretty sure it is the second or third scroll on the lore 8 recipe list. I had 3 chars with enough lore to use them so I divided them between them. Run the party to the far left. Run the tank to the dragon and run around him about 80 degree counter clockwise. This will put you between the dragon and the xaurnip adds, and slows down the adragons as they figure out how to path around the dragon. While the dragon is engaging the tank, run the party over and start working him down. You want to move the offtank slightly counterclockwise of the rest of the party. When the MT gets charmed, you want the dragon to engage the offtank while you try to run the party back a bit to avoid the breath attack. The OT will also pick up any adds the wander in the parties direction. Let the chanter run 5 quick chants and summon up the ogres (the ogres seem to be a better distraction than the drake), run the ogres wide around the fight and engage the dragon counter clockwise of the MT, for some reason the dragon will prefer to engage the ogres over the OT when the MT gets charmed. Once the ogres are up, chant the Foe AoE that does damage and position the chanter so it just hits the dragon, with high Int, you will not get hit by the wing sweep. Not sure, but the wing sweep seems to have less power and less range than the tail sweep. My MT did not need any food, and only used 2 potions of restore moderate endurance + Watcher spells to survive the fight. If you do not have a min/maxed tank, just use some food and more potions. The tank is only there for distraction, not to do any real damage - just keep him alive and the dragon will kill all the adds with his breath attack. Just unload everything on him, pop the scalebreaker right as you start to hit him with the scrolls and you should get him down to ~1/2 health then just wear him down. The basic idea is to put the tank all by himself far enough away from the party so that the adds do not become aware of the party. If you try to run a toon over to heal the tank, you will get wiped. You also need to have some kind of offtank to grab agro when the MT gets charmed.

Noting wrong with getting something nice early, especially when you have 6 chars that need nice stuff. The problem is that ALL the nice stuff drops early, and most of it from wimpy mini-bosses. The ogre queen on the 3rd level is much harder and this would be a better place for a downgraded version of Oidbreacht to drop. Draining is fine, it should just be on something weaker and slower, not what is arguably the best tank weapon in the game. I want end-game stuff to drop in Act III near the end game, and I want to really work for it. A slightly upgraded version of Oibreacht should drop from the Sky Dragon, not a wimpy spider queen that can be killed at lvl4. I gave my min/max Orlan fighter Oibreacht and tanked the Adra Dragon + adds and only used two potions of restore moderate endurance plus the Watcher spells while my group wore him down. The weapon is not just nice, it is extremely nice and is seriously OP for anything under lvl9. Hopefully all the early OP drops are getting a nerf and the disappointing late game drops with get a boost. Maybe leave a few really nice things as a reward for hard bosses or the harder early quests - the reward for finishing the Knights quest for example pretty much sucks and could use a nice enchantment.

I honestly doubt this is a bug. Oidreacht in particular is way OP for when it drops, it is arguably the best tanking weapon in the game and it drops ~lvl4 off of a gimpy very easy to beat monster. On my last play through I used it until ~lvl11 when I just didn't need the draining anymore and something marginally better dropped. Act I and Act III are totally out of balance. You end up getting all the gear you will ever need in the beginning of the game. I hate to see the enchantment go, but hopefully this is part of an over all rebalancing of the game, and the effect has been added to some Act III unique item.

I am having the same issue still today. The proper way to respond to a person offering information and help is "Thank You!" The OP is right to be put off by your reply, and I would also feel as he does about not bothering to come back if this is the sort of response that ones gets for offering help on this forum. Like the OP, I also accessed the Beta from Steam. The bug still exists as of this moment on the Steam version. I have tried validating the files. How does one go about updating the build? -Josh