MaxQuest

Oops, got too excited and overlooked

What's the duration of Going Between power? Inb4 wizard in plate with shield, buffed with it + Llengrath's Displaced Image + zealous endurance is tough as wall. And than.. Defensive Mindweb! (if focus permits) Major Grimoire Imprint - Steals 3 spells of Level 7 - "Allows the wizard to temporarily "borrow" druid, priest, or wizard spells of 7th level or lower. For a short duration, the wizard can cast the stolen spells freely." Wow! Just when I thought it would be funny to get Minor Avatar on wizard. To add to Citzal's Martial Power and Lance. Although they probably don't quite stack... Still, cast one per-rest spell, get three for free?

Have started first play-through on Hard. At the end of act 1 (party lvl 7) have switched to PotD. Tbh the extra challenge is quite satisfying. So I'm keeping it. Shout-out to Felisa and her gang, which when stumbled by my lvl 8 priestless-party, has dominated 4 of my characters, and made me re-evaluate the usefulness of scrolls.. and also be more cautious with echo.

Hmm. Multi-classing is usually a nice thing to have. Loved it in nwn and even more so in nwn2 with kaedrin pack. There was 'so much room for activities'. Although it usually resulted in a huge gap between optimized-multi-class build and a simple single-classes one. And imho the point of multi-classing should be adding more playstyles, different in ways they are played, but not so different in power. As for PoE.. I can't imagine multi-classing the way nwn did it. We already have access to all talents and item types. So it will be a more plain approach like: - you don't like priests' spells of rank 7? - then instead of priest lvl 14, you can make a character with 12 levels in priest, 1 level in paladin and 1 in chanter. Or 12 in wizard + 2 in cipher. Or 1 in rogue + 1 in barbarian + 12 in warrior (basically a warrior with carnage and x1.5 sneak attack) Although lets be honest: this can't be balanced in the current system.

Why arbalests? Sabres and pistols would be too strong? Dunno why I had a feeling that there is a connection between tide, lament and arbalest's string. Pistols fit the pirate theme. And arquebusses do. But they were already taken.

Maybe crossbow? Crossbows and hatchets gives me an association with peasants, war, call to arms, thus "The collapse of nations and empires" and subsequent "famine". And Ondra.. it's about oceans, seas, tides, mourning and loss. Makes me think of pirates. And sabres. Sabres and arbalests.

Indeed Actually the more I think about it, the better it gets. With high crit damage modifier and soul/biting whips, cipher can get away with lower might. And all these saved stats can be put into dexterity, for a more linear dps increase. Damn, if you will buff your party anyway (to get such accuracy advantage), there is no reason to not get an extra such cipher) Stacking crit, could be also nice on blight/quarterstaff auto-attacking mage. And maybe.. for a dual-clubbing priest of Skaen with Devotions for the Faithful/Champion's Boon/Minor Avatar. --- P.S. What is the interaction of crit damage coefficients with spells? I suppose those from weapons don't affect them? But what about Dungeon Delver and The Merciless Hand?

Why would anyone transfer an enchant for double the price when they could enchant the regular way for standard price instead? For two possible reasons. Looks and utility: - example 1 (looks): you have found a nice full helm with the stats you need, but it doesn't really look well with the robe of your character. (and same with cloaks) - example 2 (utility): you have found Aila Braccia, but you'd like a large shield with those enchants instead.

I am sorry Elric But the increase is not that super big. And the reasons are: might, soul whip, biting whip and they way this game stacks damage coefficients. Correct me if I am wrong, but we have the following coefficients: v1. (10 might) reg: 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 (regular graze/hit/crit damage coef) cip: 0.9, 1.4, 1.9 (plus soul and biting whip) cri: 0.9, 1.4, 3.1 (with your +120% to crit dmg) v2. (20 might, i.e. +0.3 to damage) reg: 0.8, 1.3, 1.8 (regular graze/hit/crit damage coef) cip: 1.2, 1.7, 2.2 (plus soul and biting whip) cri: 1.2, 1.7, 3.4 (with your +120% to crit dmg) v3. (3 might, i.e. -0.21 to damage) reg: 0.29, 0.79, 1.29 (regular graze/hit/crit damage coef) cip: 0.69, 1.19, 1.69 (plus soul and biting whip) cri: 0.69, 1.19, 2.89 (with your +120% to crit dmg) Now, in order to see how much will we get from the crit stacking, relative to the default crit coefficient, we'll have to do few calculations. As usual... Conclusion: a critical hit will not deal x3, nor x4 damage. Maximum x2.43 (2.89/1.19 in scenario with dumped might). While the total damage (for cipher) would increase up to x1.71. On the bright side, if the enemy has high DR, the crit/hit damage ratio will go up just because a bigger chuck is eaten by reduction from hits than crits.

Who told that it would be for free? It could cost double, or even more. A feature for those who want to transfer useful enchants to other items for the looks. Also something to spend that endgame money on.

Recall Agony does show in the combat log. It applies all the damage you dealt while it was active once it wears off as a (likely) huge chunk of Raw damage. I have triple checked ingame now. Combat log only shows that Recall Agony was applied (that acc vs will check). It doesn't display the damage dealt. Neither after each damage appliance, nor at the end of duration.. ( - update - Have checked it in slow motion. At least there are red fly-over numbers from agony, which popup over the enemy target. Tested it in combination with cipher dots. With Soul Ignition ticking for 12, agony was dealing 3 dmg. With Disintegration ticking for 24, agony was dealing 6 dmg. So it's 25%. And it deals damage after ~1.5s delay from damage appliance.

Think of it as: if you repeat the same action 'A' and have 20 dex, instead of 10 actions in 'dt' time, you would complete 13 actions. If it's a tank you don't lose much from him idling. If it's a cc/dps character... then it's for you to decide. But have to mention that a permanently missing, or laying on the floor cipher is of no big use either So it's per before dex. (and con as low as you can safely afford)

So, probably it would

I am thinking it would be nice to be able to move enchants from one item to another. (ofc only if it is from the same slot) Otherwise it's just /HelmetVisibility False

Under-powered spells/talents in my opinion would be: - [Priest] Barbs of Condemnation: single target, low duration. against fortitude. - [Priest] Divine Terror: small aoe, low duration, weak effect. (i'd better be with chanter for frightening) - [Priest] Barring Death's Door: if it would also restore health, it would be awesome. As it is now - not quite. If you have a priest or just a well-thought party composition, companions fall down usually to the lack of health not endurance. - [Cipher] Soul Ignition: too slow. The damage is nice, but usually overkill. It would be ok if remaining duration would jump to the next enemy, once the target is dead. - [Cipher] Recall Agony: just show in log, total damage dealt. - [Cipher] Wild Leech: not going to cast an average-speed spell for a random effect. - [Wizard] Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: -10 acc on a single target? from melee range? No wonder Aloth was getting slammed so often... - [Wizard] Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage: do I want to debuff my own party? No. With a super long duration I would might come with a specific strategy around this spell. But atm it's meh. Seems like a solo wizard spell. - [Talent] Bloody Slaughter: 10% endurance threshold? The target is already as good as dead. This seems to be good only on BleakWalker/Wayfarer paladin with Sacred Immolation. - [Talent] Mental Fortress: investing in anti-charm, you expect some actual return. You don't get it from this talent. - [Talent] Field Triage/Wound Binding: talents meant to be taken if you have low-con tanks in party. But no, i will just rest. - [Talent] Shot on the Run: could be nice on kiting character with slow ranged weapon. But it doesn't affect reloading time... - [Talent] Brutal Backlash: my cipher deals a ton of damage. Why would I get this? For 20-40 damage on single target that happened to target his will defense? - [Talent] Reviving Exhortation: what can this talent do, what reviving scrolls can't? - [Talent] Greater Lay on Hands: Lay on Hands already heals a lot. It heals for tanks full hp. It would be better if instead of extra 50% endurance restoration it would provide a similar value damage barrier. - [Talent] Marked Prey: average cast time? So I could cast marked prey and send 4 arrows, or don't cast anything and send 5 arrows? So what's the point?

Just for the sake of being exact: If both racial bonuses are active (i.e. all conditions are considered as satisfied), orlan's hit-to-crit bonus will lead to a higher % of crits, with the exception when your effective acc is higher or equal to enemy_deflection. In that situation they will both be equal (i.e. you will get 5% extra crits from both racials). But since wood elf's bonus acc shifts all attacks resolution right by 5, you will also shift all misses and grazes to next category too. So for a ranged class with acc >= enemy_acc, wood elf race is a nobrainer. Some math:

Made a quick test on lvl 5 Lion from Woodend plains: Hard: acc: 64 def: 39 fort: 68 ref: 60 will: 32 dr: 4 PotD: (reloaded save, left the area, /difficulty 3, came back to area) acc: 79 def: 54 fort: 83 ref: 75 will: 47 dr: 4 So accuracy and all defenses were increased by flat 15. DR remained the same. And for hp, it's hard to say, since combat log doesn't display overkill damage. On hard it was 130 + 23 last hit. On potd: 143 + 39 last hit. And one more test (Forest Lurker lvl 7)

Hmm. That's something I have to think about. Till now I was under impression that stacking deflection provides increasing returns. Yeah, that makes sense. It doesn't really matter if tanks deals 10% of his damage-dealer's damage, or 15%. So better buff him with marking. It is Well, "Weapon & shield" talent coupled with large shield and Cloak of the Fox and Hunter help a little, but yeah.. I am keeping an eye on him, every time he takes a chunk of damage, i check the log. So far he is only level 7 and mostly loses endurance due to ogres or drakes lucky hits. For some reason AI mostly casts AoEs on my mid and backline. So, to resume it all. There seem to be 3 ways to play a tankish chanter: - v1. MAX MIG, 10 CON, 3 DEX, 16 PER, 18 INT, 10 RES (coastal aumaua / moon / fire-godlike / dwarf), focusing on dragon-thrashed chant, all-around chants and scrolls. With large shield till you get that chant and medium/small afterwards. - v2. 19 MIG, 15 CON, 4 DEX, 3 PER, 19 INT, 19 RES (same races), focusing on utility chants that don't require accuracy, summoning chants and healing/buffing scrolls. Wearing large shield all the way. - v3. 2 MIG, 15 CON, 3 DEX, 20 PER, 18 INT, 20 RES (wild orlan), focusing on utility/debuffing chants (like the frightening one), paralyzing invocations and scrolls. Wearing small/medium shields, targeting for Little Savior. v1 looks sweet. But gotta think if I want Durance back in the party to make it up for the deflection.

At the moment I run my very first play-through. I use default companions, but with stats as if they were custom-made. So: - Front-line: Eder and Kana tanks with maxed resolve - Mid: Pallegina and Sagani, both with maxed might/per, and equiped with arbalests. Prones everywhere. - Backline: MC (pure-dps cipher, maxed mig/dex/per) and Grieving Mother (cc/dps, maxed mig/per/int), both with warbows So far I was playing on Hard. And at first it felt like it. But once I've delved into mechanics, built the party and respec'ed them, it feels easy and OP as hell. Sly Cyrdel and his gang evaporated in 4s, against a level 5 party. Clearing Od-Nua levels 5,6,7 without rest at level 6. Send Itumaak scouting ahead, let tanks engage, alpha-strike those who would run past them, and cross-ectopsychic echo Itumaak who just arrived in position behind enemy ranks. Or, if he got stuck, just double 2xmind blades. The amount of damage is insane (Eder once got dominated and got in the way of two echo-rays. He has evaporated before I could even charm him back, together with all the enemies) And that's with everything cast on per-encounter basis. Perhaps I should not wait for next play-through, and just switch to potd.. I believe it is important to consider how often are you going to rest. Lets take wizard for example. If resting mainly on fatigue or when tanks run out of health, then he feels somewhat lackluster. Always saving spells for that big fight and contributing close to nothing on trash/medium encounters; he just isn't worth his spot in party, at least not before level 9. Now if you are going to rest often... it's a different story; he will out-cc even cipher. My opinion on class balance so far would be the following: If resting very rarely: - op: cipher, ranger, fighter - good: paladin, rogue, chanter - average: druid, barbarian - bad: wizard, priest If resting very often: - op: wizard - good: cipher, druid, priest, chanter - average: paladin, rogue, ranger, fighter, barbarian - bad: none And if I had to elaborate on each class:

Yeah, min-maxing, trying to get maximum efficiency out of the main character but also make him wear that hat.. Or finding a better armor, which happens to look like a pajama. So to the stash it goes. Also being unable to MC as barbarian, paladin or priest. Zealotry prohibited.

How do your spread your chanter's attributes? The reason I ask is: I have a chanter tank (moon godlike with 19/14/4/3/19/19, focused on Sure-Handed and Aefyllath chants, summoning invocations and use of buffing/healing scrolls). Now I was also thinking If i can squeeze somehow dragon-thrashed chant there too. But even with 19 int the linger duration probably won't be enough, not to mention the 3 perception. Or you are playing him as second-row offtank with pike/hatchet+shield? (something like 21/10/2/17/18/10 dwarf?)

It seems that besides companion's stealth value, the distance from enemy to ranger himself is also important. In Woodend Plains (where you meet Sagani), I was standing at the north-most point and sending the (stealthed) pet to Forest Lurkers (located at south-east), practically bumping them. And they didn't aggro. But if the ranger was coming closer (like two 'screens' away), and after that sending his companion scouting, he would be easily detected.

Good guide Although I have to second that 3 CON / 3 RES might be a problem. When I have started the first play-though (on normal, with 5CON / 8RES cipher) ogre druids (from Od-Nua 4th level), were one-shooting my MC (which was also level 4) with Talon's Reach. I didn't know of the endurance amulets at the time, and had to reload until druid has rng-selected to one-shot Aloth Also I would mention in the guide that there are more than one possible build for Cipher (i.e. cipher is not required to be strictly with a gun), and maybe some comparison (math/numbers) between different types of ranged weapons. And.. correct me if I am wrong, but war bow seems to be a quite decent weapon: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WcgHNkpy-JDuJUhPe4fJc6yilxZaaDET1DKwch19yK4/edit#gid=0

So 'willfully' is the keyword. Can't think of other way to force enemy to disengage... So monk + disengagement-based figher/barbarian is not that great as it could be. And luring enemies with low-dr, speedy caster seems a bit too much of fuss. The ones listed in the talents section of PoE gamepedia: Lesser Invulnerability Spell Heuristics Greater Invulnerability Spell Heuristics I understand gamepedia can be / is outdated. But I couldn't find related patch notes, which would hint that these talents were deleted. The damage is not raw, so I bet it does. Iirc the damage is not auto-hit, and a roll against reflex is made. Increasing perception should increase the damage (less grazes, more crits).

Checked Prestidigitators Missiles. Nope, they don't give focus. On the bright side, "Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr" chant does. That's basically +25% focus if you don't have other lashes. ----------------------- P.S. I've got few more questions: 1. if two characters are engaged in melee, and you push one of them, will it trigger the disengagement attack? (thinking of a frontline monk with fighter in his back (with a pike and defender talent) 2. are wizard "Invulnerability Spell Heuristics" talents still accessible in-game? I am 100% sure I have the requirements, but don't see them on level up; and neither the patch notes that would mention their removal.