Arranvin

So even less reason to go a single class ranger then. This probably ought to be changed as it's skewing things too heavily in favour of the multi-class.

Is the effect on the animal companions stats on the hidden stars like armour and damage? I ask because I have in and bought a beta key last night and the stats for the animal companion listed on the character sheet and the animal companions health are the same whether it's a single ranger or a multi class.

It's not a zero sum situation like you're making it out to be. People can beat a fight with ease yet tell themselves that the reason that it was easy was because they're so skillful (be it at micro-managing their characters, building their characters well, making an effective team etc etc), and so still experience a sense of pride and accomplishment of overcome a difficult challenge. It's true that for most people an encounter that severely tests them will result in a greater sense of satisfaction and a challenge overcome than an encounter that could literally be left to the AI to handle, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible for people to believe that they are overcoming a challenge and to derive satisfaction accordingly in the latter example.

I see. So at present in the example of the ranger is the difference in power level enough to make up for the potential of having say 40% extra damage from a cipher multiclass, or 50% sneak attack from rogue, or 25% and constant recovery from a fighter with weapon specialisation and mastery? I'm aware that these values may have changed from POE 1 and what's present in the beta will likely change again, I'm just curious about where the balance between single and multi-classing stands at present. As it happens my main is a ranger and I'm not sure whether I'll multiclass him or not, conceptually druid, fighter or rogue would fit the character, and in terms of being the most fun to play cipher appeals most. I'm hoping that rangers will have more active abilities to use because as it stands in one there's a reasonable amount between wounding shot, marked prey, binding roots and pet talents but it pales in comparison to the options available to a caster. I'm not saying that rangers need to have a number of abilities equal to a priest's casting list or anything but more active abilities means more tactical options and I find that a lot more fun and engaging than simply having a massively strong autoattack.

Hello. I don't have access to the beta but I've recently begun reading the forums here and I'm quite excited about Deadfire. I was wondering, in the beta is there a different effective power level cap for single class characters as opposed to multi-classed? If so, is there an indication of how much difference this makes to class abilities? For example, does a single class ranger's Wounding Shot do more damage than a multi-classed ranger's Wounding Shot, and if so how big is the difference? I'll be grateful if someone who has access to the beta can have a look and advise

Something else that is worth considering is that events on a smaller scale are more relatable. It's easy to empathise with individuals and to understand the contexts of their actions, and to appreciate how events impact upon them. When you magnify events onto an 'epic' scale that relateable personal aspect tends to be lost simply because there are too many people involved or the events involved are too far removed from real life (and therefore our own lived experience) for us to have a solid frame of reference from which to empathise. I think this is the reason that Pillars' writing and focus on individuals, couples and families' tragedies and triumphs is so effective.

I'd just like to add that I'm also having this problem. It made beating the bear cave encounter as a solo level 3 cipher a real pain, however I'm more concerned about the potential impact on my trial of iron 'The Ultimate' attempt ranger. I've had a few close calls due to Whisper of Treason ending prematurely when I've used it as a defensive measure on an enemy that has gotten in my face. I understand that there are higher priorities for bug fixing at the moment but I really do hope that this gets fixed eventually.

Hello. I've experienced an oddity when fighting a Crag Ogre at the beginning of White March 1 in Stalwart. I'm playing a solo ranger on POTD and I initially tried Stalwart at level 7, but found Darzir to be too hard so I levelled up to 8, improved my gear and came back. I've noticed that some of the ogres are significantly tougher than they were the first time. On my second visit, I fought past the initial ogres at the gates (noting that the cannoneer took a long time to drop), then pulled one of the two that stand just south of the gate. This Ogre took over 800 damage to drop. His friend who was standing beside him then took roughly 200. (I'm giving rough figures as I'm aware that the combat log doesn't account for Wounding Shot's raw damage). So I decided to repeat the fight without using Wounding Shot. The aforementioned Cannoneer took 1027 to drop. The Crag Ogre just above him on the map only took 295.6. Of the two ogres slightly further down from them, the closest of the two took 1083.4 to drop him, while the ogre next to him took 344.6. Notably, these two are both 'Crag Ogres'. When I was fighting the ogres at level 7 I didn't notice any difference in their health, but now there's an extreme difference, even between two ogres of the same type. So, I loaded an old game and tried the fights at level 7 again. This time the Cannoneer took 414.7 to drop, and the Crag Ogre next to him took 303.5 (which is close enough to how much he took when I was level 8 that I doubt there was any difference). This time the first of the lower two crag ogres took 325.1 and the one next to him took 341.4 (these two were close enough that I doubt there was any difference in their health). I've taken screenshots and I've added Dropbox links to them below. Where the combat log stretched onto two images I've indicated the break point with a red line. So, I'm not sure what's going on. I haven't received any prompt for level scaling so as far as I know it shouldn't be enabled. If this is a bug, I have a save file that I can upload also. Please let me know what you guys think! https://www.dropbox.com/s/0y6qyealookd0nv/OgreCannoneerPOTD1.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/iffs51e29ar06f8/OgreCannoneerPOTD2.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/hst8o4kw5liuwz9/FirstLowerCragOgrePOTD1.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/pkpo4gcwy4vxdhi/FirstLowerCragOgrePOTD2.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rc30nvtqlacvauf/SecondLowerCragOgrePOTD.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/xvrhe73qwthw38c/Level7OgreCannoneer.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/ktw5z5ghj3cq773/Level7FirstLowerCragOgre.jpg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/c6lyztuy04g0nz8/Level7SecondLowerCragOgre.jpg?dl=0

What do you guys think about trying for The Ultimate with a ranger? I've started a run but because I'm using one TOI file and one non TOI, I find doing everything twice pretty dull and so I only play now and again, making progress slow. So far it seems fine, so hopefully I'll eventually get there!

Cheers, that's helpful, I appreciate it

Thanks for that Loren, the charts are interesting. I'll keep them in mind when trying to decide between more might or more dex.

Thanks very much for all your hard work Loren, that's really helpful. I can't explain the discrepancy between your results and mine. I'll take another look at my save to see if there are any other factors that I may have forgotten. I may even run the test again when I get the time. Not that I think it's necessary, I'm sure your results will be correct, I'm just curious about what has caused the discrepancy. If you wouldn't mind, I'd be really interested to see a visual representation of how increased might would affect the damage for both bows versus increased dex.

I do actually use the Cloak of the Frozen Hunt. I forgot to include that in the run down. And the build does have Apprentice's Sneak attack, but in this test I wasn't applying any of the conditions that would allow it to qualify (and started shooting at the tank after more than two seconds had elapsed, since I attacked Tenfrith, let the recovery period end, and had Durance cast Consecrated Ground then let his recovery period end) so it wouldn't have made any difference. Thanks for the tips though The 18DR was the Pierce DR.

Dex was 27, Accuracy was 118 with Twinned Arrows active, same for both. Burn and Corrode DR were both 8. I hope that helps!

Fair play Kaylon, I'll try Persistence again with higher might when I'm next testing. Out of interest, since I know that you're experienced with doing PotD solos with rangers, if you were making a solo run ranger that was going to use both Persistence and Stormcaller, would you go for the Living Lands background (for more wounding damage with Persistence) or Deadfire Archipelago (for higher dex and more frequent Stormcaller shots)? Loren, the armour penalty was 0 (enchanted cloth) and Int was 8. You're right about the speed bonuses. And if you can work out the maths rather than doing the testing then please go ahead, that sounds much more efficient. My mathematical knowledge is basic, so I don't know how to.

Kaylon, my might was 21. My dexterity was 27. Loren, thanks for the tips, I'll try using those console commands the next time I test something. My standard deviation was 94.09. I did consider doing a range of tests against various DRs, maybe I'll do that next against 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30. I'm just not sure when I'll get the time!

Hello folks. I'm someone who really enjoys playing rangers in this game, and I love bows. I'm an archer IRL and I'm quite happy extending my obsession with bent sticks into games. So, my ranger's main weapon is always a bow. When I last played through the game I used Rain of Godagh Field for the majority of it, as I found it to be the most effective bow. However I saw ottssffe's 'Bow Damage, a rough guide' post earlier in the year which found that Persistence had the highest damage, followed by Cloudpiercer, with Rain lagging behind and it made me wonder. So, I decided to test it myself. I made a tank character with as much health as I could manage and with 18 DR and 104 Deflection, as this seemed like a reasonable amount for an example of a relatively tough PotD enemy. I wanted to run my test under the same conditions that my ranger would normally play, so I had Kana singing, alternating between Swift Handed Ila and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr (which causes some gaps in Ila but I like that burning lash). My character was wearing Gauntlets of Swift Action and both weapons were Durganised, Legendary (this was more to reach their full potential than to be an example of normal play) and had a corrosive lash. My ranger had Twinned Arrows active throughout. I started a fight in The Black Hound and my other characters blocked access to the back room while my ranger shot the tank. I ran each test for 30 seconds, ten times, with Durance healing the tank throughout. I then averaged the health damage done to the tank in each run. Persistence's average was 927.6, Rain's was 1019.7. Obviously 300 seconds of shooting each isn't long enough to be statistically significant or to guarantee that the variations in attack rolls are averaged out, but I think it's long enough to give a reasonable idea of each weapon's damage. So under the conditions described above, Rain seems to slightly out damage Persistence. (I also did a separate test for Persistence under the same conditions with Penetrating Shot active, however its average was only 917.2. This will have been highly influenced by the randomness of attack rolls but it seems to me that under these conditions Penetrating Shot isn't worth the talent point). Now, while Rain had a slight edge, for rangers there's also their animal companion to consider. If Predator's Sense has been selected then Persistence's DoT effect can offer a substantial boost to the companion's damage. So I repeated the test again, this time upping the damage reduction of the tank to 28, just so I could keep him alive for long enough! With both ranger and animal companion (in this case a wolf) attacking, the average for Persistence was 1178.0 and for Rain it was 982.2. So, for rangers, who have selected Predator's Sense, Persistence appears the better pick. For other classes, Rain may be preferable. Of course, Persistence is available a lot earlier than Rain as well. And this only tests single target damage. For general use against mobs Stormcaller is probably still the best weapon for a ranger. Just in case anyone was wondering, I also ran the original test with Sabra Marie to see if its crit damage boost would help it compete. However, its average was only 825.5. Of course, it also has the bonus of being able to confuse enemies, which is excellent. Anyway, I hope this was of interest for some of you

Thanks for the most entertaining posts I've seen on the forum. And very well done! :D It's been a pleasure to follow Noober's progress.

I'm enjoying reading about Noober's progress

Oops, never mind, I was viewing this on my phone and it looked like Sagani's circle was fuller than it is due to the position of Ituumak's tail. I guess animal companions don't get skill ranks. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise, if I remember correctly they used to get really fatigued from not having athletics.

Hmmmm, that's really weird. I do feel that more recently (as opposed to 1.06, where I played a fair bit then stopped and started playing again at 2.0) stealth just seems to influence the range at which people notice my characters, rather than how quickly they are noticed. Maybe there's a minimum range where your skill doesn't matter?

Excellent, I look forward to the Excel file

Hi theBalthazar. I just want to say, thanks very much for doing this, it's really helpful for my TCS attempt I just hope that they aren't all changed again with the next patch. I think I'll hold off on installing it just in case!

So knockout injuries for animal companions are intentional then? I'm just surprised that I've never noticed them before. And I think I'll do some testing tonight with different stealth values, see if it makes a difference.

Hello folks. I was wondering if someone with more experience of the game than I have can answer a couple of questions for me. First off, how is an animal companion's proficiency with stealth calculated? Do they become more stealthy when you put points into your ranger's stealth skill, or is the value determined by the animal companion's level? Secondly, are animal companions meant to take knockout injuries? I've been noticing this since I started a solo PotD run (3.01), given how often my wolf is tanking for my woof elf. It seems a bit odd given that animal companions are essentially unkillable as long as their ranger survives but if it's intended fair enough. Thanks for reading!