aweigh0101

Obsidian releases seperate patches for the base game and for TWM pt. 1 on GoG, which means users are currently playing either PoE 2.03, or PoE + TWM1 2.03. A Steam user with only the base game will have their game auto-updated to 2.03, same as a Steam user with the expansion pack. Although no official word is out on the next patches, Sawyer mentioned that they're working on TWM pt. 2's content which includes patch 3.0 and that big changes will roll out with the 3.0 patch like Spell Mastery replacing Per-Encounter spells. Changes like the aforementioned spell mastery affect the base game and the expansions, obviously, so expect a base game patch 3.0, a base game + TWM pt. 1 patch 3.0, AND a third 3.0 patch for users with both expansion packs. Steam users should not need to worry about seperate patching, as that is one of the systems main features: taking care of that sort of stuff for the player. Galaxy client for GoG is supposed to do the same thing as Steam, but GoG is less experienced in this and the process isn't as smooth as with the Steam client. One downside for Steam users is that their patches are much bigger in size than GoG users, as they have to include all variable data through the client. I *imagine* patch 3.0 for base game only players will be quite big, probably more than 1 gigabyte; for Steam users each patch will always be big, as the data isn't split into seperate patches like on GoG. TWM pt. 1 shipped with patch 2.0, and the base game 2.0 patch rolled out the same day for GoG users. The GoG 2.0 patch for the base game was around 200-300 MB's, whereas Steam users with only the base game had to download an 800 MB-ish 2.0 update if memory serves, even though the user in this example didn't own the expansion pack.

one thing to keep in mind is that on PotD the best you can hope for is to have afflictions graze instead of hit. this is still unbelieably helpful though, as the difference between being knocked prone or being stunned for 10 seconds (which is a LOOOONG time) is worlds away from being knocked prone or being stunned for 3 seconds. The game rounds numbers down, so a 50% increase/decrease actually benefits the player on a graze or crit on normal/hard this coastal aumaua will basically shrug his shoulders at any affliction tho. on easy i imagine he/she would reflect it back heh.

yeah, monk would be a solid alternative to paladin. the paladin is able to reach higher saves on the 3 defenses without "contingencies" like having their Will targeted first, or needing to utilize a modal. the most difficult encounters in the game (imo obviously) are, in no particular order: - Ogres who spam DoT druid magic and knock prone their regular attacks. (mob type Wilder) - Spirits that Stun with their regular attacks. (mob type Spirit...) - Dragons that Terrify (fortitude-targeting affliction when it comes from Dragons, targets Will when it comes from a spell) and knock Prone with their regular attacks. (mob type Beast) - Vithrack that confuse/charm/dominate and stun with their regular attacks. (mob type Wilder) - TWM fish people from hell that paralyze with their ranged attacks, which target Deflection. Can't remember their mob type right now but i bet it's Wilder. The monk's modal gives +8 to the 3 defenses, and has a contingency ability that boosts affliction-defenses after being afflicted, not targeted, so it doesn't activate if the affliction misses (although on PotD... lol yeah right). The Paladin is just ridiculous tho: +13 to deflection and +27 to the 3 defenses from Faith and Conviction + Deep Faith, plus a further +10 to the 3 defenses from Righteous Soul that doesn't require a contingency. +37 to the 3 defenses from 1 talent pick (Faith and Conviction doesn't count as it's built-in) is incredible, paired with an Body Control (paralyzed / petrified / stunned / weakened / sickened) and Mental Fortress (charmed, confused, dominated, frightened, terrified) amounts to 3 talents, which isn't really that much. Unstoppable talent isn't worth it in my opinion. the tricky part is that a lot of these afflictions target different things depending on what the enemy is doing, so it's better to pick the affliction-resistance talents versus the fort/ref/will-boosting talents as some afflictions target Deflection instead, and these instances are covered by the affliction-resistant talent but not by the the saving-throw boosting one. There is a breastplate from a tier 3 bounty that grants +5 fort, +20 versus prone and +15 versus push, but it won't stack with the (same bonuses) from the boots of stability. Better to wear the boots, and use the brigandine that gives +20 to prone/stunned defenses while the unit is afflicted. there are boots that give +7 versus hobbled, stuck and paralyzed (fenwalker boots) but 1) doesn't stack with the +15 to these same afflictions the orlan bramble ring gives, and 2) is a random drop, versus the bramble ring which is a guaranteed unique loot in the caliban ring map. the only change I might make would maybe be to change the Murrica Arret helm (+12 will) for a helm that gives +2 Perception (the Darkseid helm, which is a random drop, while the Murrica Arret can be bought in Copperlane) and then wear a +9 to the 3 defenses Protection ring, but that would mean both ring slots are occupied (prot. ring + bramble ring) and I prefer to sport the +9 ring of deflection instead of the prot. ring. You can give the unit a Cape of Protection which can be bought in Copperlane instead for a +9 to fort and Ref but its +9 to will won't stack with the Murrica Arret (another reason to change up the helm in favor of an INT-boosting one for Will, or a PER boosting one for Ref). an honorable mention goes out to the Breakout Scale Mail sold in Copperlane that gives +9 to Will but it's overshadowed by the +9 ring of prot. or the +9 cape of prot. since they won't stack. EDIT: i apologize, Righteous Soul gives +15 versus frightened / terrified / charmed / confused / dominated and decreases their duration by -5 seconds. this is even BETTER than the +10 to the 3 defenses I thought it gave! as kaylon says that leaves Petrify as the most difficult affliction to succesfully guard against, with no class or race gaining a specific advantage against it; however this is mitigated by the fact that it's the least common affliction utilized by the enemy by a very large margin, whereas Frightened/Terrify/Prone/Stun are the most common. as a footnote, a lot of people forget the Chanters' level 1 phrase that gives +10 to Fort AND +10 to Will, so there is also that. I don't like having chanters in my party though due to the bug of their summons clogging up the MobileObjects.save file and potentially bloating load times. It's too bad really because I think they're the most unique class in the game, but loading times are long enough already.

What are the most dangerous situations you'll find yourself in during a PotD + TWM playthrough? Getting stunned, charmed/dominated, knocked prone or being paralyzed. I was thinking that the best way to create a PC that could, at the very least, be grazed instead of hit/critted by these effects would be to pick the following: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Towering_Physique - coastal aumaua get +20 defense versus a stun or a prone effect, so there's your race. - might 10 / con 16 / dexterity 10 / perception 16 / intellect 10 / resolve 16 = the reasoning for this is the bump to fortitude from CON (to resist stunning, being knocked prone and paralysis, which attack fortitude); a bump to PER (to resist reflex-attacking afflictions like Stuck, and AoE spells, combined with the boost to accuaracy); and a bump to resolve (to resist Will-attacking afflictions like charm, confusion and domination as well as Deflection-attacking afflictions like the Spore's charm-spit, or the Xaurip Skirmisher's paralyzing spear-thrust). - take talents Body Control and Mental Fortress at your leisure; note that you'll start encountering enemies that stun/charm around character levels 6-8, basically beginning of Act 3, and you'll encounter enemies that paralyze in TWM and/or around character levels 10-14, so you can use that to plan ahead when to take them. - Boots of stability which gives +20 defense versus prone and +15 versus being pushed. this stacks with the +20 versus prone from towering physique. - Bramble ring which gives +15 against Hobbled, stuck and paralyzed, which stacks with the +10's from Body control for these afflictions. - Murrica Arrest helm which gives +12 Will, for charm/confuse/domination defense, which stacks with the +10's from Mental Fortress for these afflictions. - Aru-Brekr brigandine which gives +20 defense WHILE stunned or prone, as well as +10 versus standard ranged attacks. - Belt of the Stelgaer which DECREASES duration of prone status by 34 %. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you now have a PC that has: +40 versus Prone +30 versus Stun +25 versus Paralyze +15 versus Hobbled/Stuck +12 reflex, +12 will, +12 fortitude. Most attacks that cause prone or stun target fort, stuck and paralyze and hobbled usually target reflex and charm/confuse/dominate target Will. Make the PC a Paladin and develop faith and conviction to its maximum, plus the Deep Faith talent, and the Righteous Soul talent for a grand total of +37 to all 3 defenses, plus the aforementioned +12's. You can easily reach 120 on all three Defenses before even level 12. ------- on top of the defenses, the Aru-Brekr armor provides +20 to ALL FOUR defenses if/when you get stunned or knocked prone, and your belt decreases the duration of the prone status by 34%.

i'm actually playing through BG1: EE literally right now and PoE's reactivity is way better than BG1's from that sort of stuff is waaay better. Although obsidian did have almost 20 years to "get it better" hah. aside from reputation drops, which don't affect ANYTHING important in the game besides locking you out of eder's quest in defiance bay (the historian won't give you the archives) i can't think of anything really bad or any important content you'd lose from wanton murder. besides losing access to shopkeepers of course. but then the enchantment system would make up for the loss of access to shopkeepers as you can just enchant your own junk. it would be great if party members left, cities closed their doors to you, you became a wanted criminal, etc, all sorts of things that were done in earlier CRPG's like fallout, the BG's, arcanum, and tons of others. sorry, i think we've officially gotten off-topic from party builds lol speaking of party builds, the more i think about it the more i realize that in their attempts to make all classes balanced they ended up making them all pretty much the same. any time there's talk about a good build it's mostly realized via gear or spells or stat distribution, or a combination of those three aspects, but not necessarily from their innate class abilities. i think the most unique class is really the chanter, he's the only one really that can do stuff no other class can without need of gear or stats. cool stuff like stacking winds of death, hobbling via frost rime traps, buffing and debuffing, etc. they just need to do something about the long waiting times. all the other classes is stuff we've already seen before in other CRPG's if you think about it.

sensuki mentioned how it would only be feasible for this imaginary melee scenario to play out in a similar way to a disengagement attack only if the attacker was using a reach weapon and thus could "catch" the evader on a backswing/etc. so, uh, that actually sounds p. much perfect to me. make disengagement attacks apply only to reach weapons, and make them more useful in the process.

you know, an arena where your party can fight Specially Crafted Enemy Parties (backers maybe?) in progressive tiers of difficulty yielding better and better loot would be super awesome for POE 2. definitely easier to implement and way more satisfying than another facebook-app stronghold every tier would have parties/builds plucked straight from the forums for you to face lol

invisible rogue counting on alpha-backstab... ok, let's see here: clueless Fighter suddenly gets backstabbed by de-stealthing rogue, combat initiates, let's assume the absolute worst-case scenario that the alpha-stab killed him, so Unbroken activates and Fighter immediately gets back up with 125~ish endurance and boosted stats. fighter knocks rogue prone. activates Unbending. fighter lands sundering blow on prone rogue. fighter keeps rogue prone, while regenerating endurance from his recovery And Unbending. Unbroken is guaranteed resurrection with better stat boosts than frenzy, and Unbending is capable of staving off death even if the blow would reduce endurance to zero while it lasts. the only way the fighter loses is if his 1st knockdown misses. EDIT: remember the fighter has Critical Defense, and unbending has 3 uses per rest. unbroken revives him with +5 DR, 100+ endurance and +10 to all defenses including deflection and lasts for a full base 15 seconds. the casting time on Unbending, the damage-into-healing ability, is "Instant". seriously, don't you guys remember how ridiculous enemy fighters are on PotD? the Eothesian Warden fighter bounty that you fight in the Easternwood graveyard is hilariously hard to kill. Sure, he can't do anything once you're focusing on him and killed off his buddies, but it's pretty funny how much concentrated whaling is required to make the dude go down lol. the fighters in cragholdt bluffs are another prime example. unless you focus them they just WILL NOT GO DOWN ! on the flip side, you fight tons of enemy rogues throughout the campaign, but in the cragholdt map the most numerous enemies are casters and fighter/monks. i think that says it all concerning who are the top dogs in imaginary pvp.

there aren't really any worthwhile "end-game" items worth buying at the dozens HQ IMO, so i always kill Penhelm, then refuse to give it back to osric (there are no stat checks IIRC if you decide to just attack him); in fact i ALWAYS make it a point to massacre dozens HQ for xp/loot since there is literally no consequences for doing it other than obviously not being able to buy from them or get their special perk. in case you're wondering you even get Cloudpiercer bow to boot lol I always massacre the doemenels HQ as well, for exactly the same reasons, BUT unlike with the dozens i do make sure to complete their 1st quest so i can buy finneah's grace cloak from their merchant before commencing the slaughter. if you're following the story path and you do this stuff in the same time-frame as when you first reach defiance bay then killing the doemenels bosses will yield the very earliest EXCEPTIONAL piece of armor you can possibly get, an exceptional leather armor. it's quite a while before you get more exceptional pieces "for free" like that hehe. you can get a guaranteed helm of antler (The helm that gives +1 dexterity) super early by killing a druid backer NPC standing alone in the copperlane district, right in-between the southern pathway that connects the March Steel Dagger little boy and the Goose Inn. unlike almost every other NPC in the district this guy doesn't give rep loss AND it seems Obsidian did this intentionally cos he's actually kind of hard to kill if you do it as soon as you reach defiance bay. he's p. high level. slaughtering the knights doesn't yield anything good though, like, at all, just trash loot

correct! i'm pretty sure half-mast is the only magically unique pollaxe in the game, too. too bad it's a fairly late acquisition, as you need to reach the bottom level of Caed Nua and talk to the adra dragon as a requisite. another thing about most of these unique weapons from the soldier focus group is that you can get them all relatively early. You can get the The Temaperacle great-sword as soon as you reach ondra's gift, then go and buy Tall-Grass over at Dyrford village, along with The Hours of St. Rumbault. let's talk about estoc's tho, cos I've been using the following ridiculousness in this current playthrough: Drake's Bell estoc, which has the 3 DR "rending" enchantment, which of course stacks with the estoc's natural 5 DR bypass; tack on another 5 DR bypass from Vulnerable Attack, and finally ANOTHER 3 DR bypass from the Vambrace Bracers which you can get really early by making a bee line to the alpine dragon and sweet-talking him (resolve 17). that adds up to 3 + 5 + 5 + 3 = 16 DR bypass... sure, it ain't no fancy prone/stun on crit effect, but 16 dr bypass per swing is no laughing matter!

soldier focus really is the absolute best weapon group in the game. great sword 1: tide fall. nuff said. great sword 2: the hours of st. rumbault = prones on crit, extra crit dmg. great sword 3: the temaperacle = prones on crit, comes w/ corrosive-lash already enchanted. pike: tall-grass. prones on crit, extra crit dmg, AND higher chance of critting. this is what my 4 martials rock; PC/Eder/Zahua/Pallegina prone-critting everything in sight is hilarious ! for my two casters they ALSO rock soldier focus... caster 1: long-feller arquebus = reliable enchantment (!) caster 2: pliambo de casita = disorienting effect on hit (!) all 6 weapons from soldier group. plus great swords deal slash/pierce, for dealing with pesky immunities. but wait! there's more! WARHAMMERS. for the crushing backup weapon, we get from soldier focus group the excellent Strike Hard, the Godynthur (STUNS ON CRIT!!) and the other one that's sold in Hearthsong that has the Speed enchantment.

if you guys were rolling a crew of 4 martials and 2 casters (my preferred setup, just because more than 2 casters makes the game too easy) which unique armors would you equip on the two squishies? i usually roll with Durance sporting Osric's Family Breastplate for the second chance and the second caster being GM with eder's scale mail, again for the second chance. i prefer durance in the second chance breastplate because his priest spells usually force him to approach the mosh pit, whereas GM can get away with less. If there was a second chance armor lower than eder's scale mail that's what i'd use on her. i'd love to hear what you guys use tho.

tldr paladin op

they are definitely tuned into what the modding community does from what i've seen so far, case in point being the fighter mod someone made leading to the fighter changes. besides that i'm certain sawyer has all sorts of ideas concerning engagement considering it's his baby and i'm certain he is well aware of the flaws (and merits) in the mechanic. it is no coincidence that each successive patch has belittled the engagement mechanic in favor of striving to design more interesting combat encounters (TWM encounters; plus 2.0 enemies intentionally breaking engagement constantly). it's good to see the dev team is self-aware enough to realize when they should "let go" of something if it just ain't working as expected; i assume PoE 2 will either feature a drastically different engagement mechanic, or none at all. as things stand right now playing 2.02 PoE is ESSENTIALLY the same as playing it with engagement disabled.

how hard would it be to modify one of the existing Defensive disengagement talents and add a status effect on its properties? i'm thinking something like opening the ability asset file (i assume inside assetbundles folder) in either the Unity editor or the Modding Framework tool (that isn't being updated anymore, sadly) and basically... uh... copy/pasting the code from an ability like Deep Wounds(as an EXAMPLE) and adding it to the disengagement talent then recompiling. am i talking out my ass or is something like this doable?

I find that the best PotD party is something that works very similarly to what Boeroer describes: 4 melee units that disable with 2 ranged units that crowd-control. I'm currently steam-rolling PotD 2.02 with: Paladin PC (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with The Hours of St. Rumbault Eder NPC (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with Tall-Grass Zahua (Knight Focus) prone-critting enemies with We-Toki one-handed-style Pallegina (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with The Temaperacl Durance (Soldier Focus + Inspired Flame for Arquebus auto-attack, all other picks "spell plus" talents) spamming Shining Beacon, etc. Grieving Mother (Ruffian Focus for Lead-Spitter focus generation) spamming Amplified Wave. As Boeroer just mentioned having a solid WALL of 4 melee units disabling the enemy horde with frequent prone-crits thanks to paladin aura and priest buffs is the most effective way of controlling mobs on PotD. Amplified Wave every few seconds prones whoever hasn't been prone'd yet while Durance spams either Shining Beacon for massive DoT + burst-damage or spams the healing laser beam spell 7 times in a row.

Actually I've been getting that effect all game long. It's barely noticeable but it is most definitely present in my GOG 2.02 playhrough. Places that I can distinctly remember getting the Deja Vu purple poof were in Oldsong after talking to the two Dryad sisters; after walking over the bridge in Elm's Shore, and many other places. However this is a very subtle thing and I don't personally think it's worth Obsidian's time looking after. I wish they'd optimize the game code instead of adding more balance passes. They can continue to optimize the MobileObjects.save file cleaning/reduction with each patch, as it still collects tons of garbage as its size increases making end-game saves horribly slow. They could also tweak selection circles further and optimize them since they're the biggest drain on performance right now. For reference merely go into any highly populated area and watch your frame-rate fluctuate as you enable/disable selection circles on NPC's. My favorite place to do that and watch the frame-rate dip is inside the Celestial Sapling Inn in Elm's Reach. There are about 20 NPC's crammed inisde the INN and if you stand in the middle of the screen and disable/enable selection circles (for all, not just your party) you can see the framerate die as soon as they're turned on. Another thing they could do is tweak the visual FX for spells which not only obscure ****ing everything during battle but also murder the frame-rate. This is not something that would be impossible; it's entirely possible since this is just texture crap. They could also introduce a slider for the LOD Bias (Level of Detail) and allow users on 32-bit machines with 4 GB of RAM to utilize a positive modifier on the LOD, which blurs textures and reduces the game's memory consumption by more than half. This also shortens loading times by half. Currently I do this using RadeonPro, and with the LOD Bias set at "0" (or in nVidia terms, "Clamped"), my OSD reports that 400-500 MB's of Video RAM are being utilized in Russetwoods to the west of Stalwart Village. If I set the LOD Bias to a positive modifier of +1.0-1.5, this very noticeably blurs the textures but allows the same scene to run with only 150-200 MB's of Video RAM, and almost halves loading times.

I noticed that the console command SelCircWidth no longer functions in the current builds of the IE Mod, and looking at the game's registry entry I found the corresponding entry but I don't know how to change it. The value it shows is a long text entry referencing an XML document that I don't know what to do with, or if it's even possible to change anymore. Any answers would be great PS. Yes, I already googled.

my mind. it is blown. i can see the code now, the 1s and 0s. anyway, started PotD today after finishing it on hard and i am having a blast. this is the way the game was meant to be played. i just recruited durance and encountered the blight near the wooden hut, and it's the first enemy in the game that can charm you AFAIK. he charmed eder, and i just up and had aloth zap him with his low-level charm spell and my god it charmed eder right the hell back to normal. tl;dr i'm all excited cos i thought i knew most of the game's stuff, good to know i don't.

-force-d3d11 and -force-opengl no longer work for me

The Spellsward Amulet's +10 "spell-defense" stacks with items like the rings/capes that give you +5/+9 in your defenses. For example, if you equip ring of +9 to ref/fort/wis and the spell amulet, and have aloth cast something like fetid caress which targets will (it paralyzes) then you the combat log will show that your saving throw was the +9 from your ring and also +10 from the amulet. however it doesn't affect the most deadly/annoying status attacks from enemies like the fungus or the fish monsters from WM because those aren't spells but are considered special monster abilities, as such the amulet's +10 won't register against those. it is absolutely awesome when dealing with enemy wizards tho, or fampyrs and such. you get +19 right there against their charmed/etc spell shenanigans