MaxQuest

Makes sense. Plus there are enemies with constitution / body resistances. It doesn't stack with itself. Also as a note: DoT starts with 2 damage, and gets +4 for each tick. It has 15s base duration, so it's mostly good on enemies that don't have high resolve and preferably: are enfeebled (although Toxic strike is mutually exclusive with Perishing Strike), and are affected by Cleansing Flames. That's reasonable) Point taken. Provided that there is little unanimity related to this, I think there no need to address Stoic Steel atm.

These changes are symmetrical and affect both: player characters and npcs. And the idea is: - to make it slightly easier to hit the disabled enemies. - to make it slightly harder for those who have high reflex/deflection and just don't care if they are immobilized/paralyzed, because enemies miss a lot. - a slightly higher incentive to take a dedicated debuffer. As a big fan of cc-parties, was kinda often catching myself thinking that my Deadfire party would get stronger with an extra sturdy-dps instead of debilitator. I forgot to remove stiletto change from the list) As for Warhammers and War Bows, upon longer examination, I think their profficiencies are ok. > War Bows have a very thematic overdraw, which literally takes longer, and penetrates harder. Additionally there are warbows that have enchants that have a 50% chance to skip recovery onCrit; and this helps to alleviate the total action time increase. > And regarding Warhammers, I came to conclusion that I don't really view them as dps weapons. Because they are kinda super-seeded by maces/clubs and spears in this department. Plus there are enough ways to lower enemy AR. Thus I do view them more as utility weapons; and for these am ~ok with recovery increase. Do agree that Accurate Empower is in practice strongest between those options. My initial intention was to bring Potent and Lasting to the level of Accurate Empower. But don't mind lowering Accurate Empower neither. What about Warhammers and War Bows? They a ok? + I prefer to leave alone stiletto, since it's a fast weapon and Recovery penalty don't hurts bad. I don't know why these changes are being proposed, because mathematically +2 PEN for +50% is a no-brainer tradeoff for any PEN vs situation of -2 to -4. The fact that swords are able to get +2 PEN for no recovery time trade off (similar to Estoc) is an advantage that swords have that is diluted by these changes. So I still think the changes in 7/7b are unnecessary. I've forgotten to remove 7b. As for sabres... Yes, going from [-4 PEN -> -2], [-3 PEN -> -1], [-2 PEN -> 0] would for sure be worth some +50% recovery time. But: - sitting at -2 is still bad for a damage dealer (unless he is using Battle Axes and doesn't care for AR at all). - I don't think I would go even for [-2 PEN -> 0] with sabres; because why tolerate that +50% recovery when you can switch weapons? After all there are very few enemies that have slash AR lower than their pierce or crush AR. Specifically: Nemnok/Imps, Krakens, Soul Collectors, Darguls, Bats, Hounds, Dank Spores and Vines. And these are not that heavy-armored. - additionally players can lower enemy AR by 3 (via flanking, blackened plate aura, mace modal) and by 4 more by Sunder Blow / Rust Armor. That said I'm not sure there really is a situation where I would enable sabre modal, unless I have sabre in mainhand, something else in offhand, and use full attacks. The proposed suggestion at least would provide a -15 deflection malus which I can't evade, but am actually ok with. Plus... might start dual-wielding sabres. That's a kinda blurry topic. From one point of view it might be considered as unintended effect that goes like a ripple from the attack resolution change in TB. From another point of view, current riposte is not a result of coding error, and it does precisely what it's description tells it does. It's still slightly closer to a value tweak/adjustment in my book. But I guess it all comes to the definition and personal perspective. Yeah, it would make sense for Obsidian to do something about it. Although looking at some other bug-reports that weren't addressed for a long time, exasperation doesn't feel productive enough) That's sad, provided that a solid part of listed QoLs/fixes are out of reach for modding. Also I do understand your general aversion towards unofficial tweaks. And partially do share it. But at the same time, do dislike the current state of a quite an array of things. To name the most personally striking ones: Haunting Chains, Defensive Mindweb, Soul Annihilation, Dragon Thrashed, Stag Carnage, Sacred Immolation (if without duration shenanigans) and a bit Resonant Touch / Blade Turning exploits. At the same time I can't usually just mod these for myself and enjoy the game. I'd prefer the changes to be endorsed by enough community members (as a sign that the changes are in check), or addressed officially. And that's probably a psychological thing ^^ Do agree here. And also there is kinda a difference between "weapon is out of fire" and "weapon is dealing fire damage". In the first case it makes sense to attach "burn" keyword to the weapon and it's attack (think of firebrand). In the second only to it's attack. This is also partially related to stuff like Essence Interrupter being unable to deal pierce damage to enemies immune to shock keyword. Or pierce damage benefiting from +1 Shock PEN from Heart of the Storm. P.S. I have just went through Phenomenum's list. And he suggested to add elemental keywords to: - Iconic Projection: Restoration, Condemnation >>> Restoration, Punishment, Frost (Health recovery, deals Freeze damage) - Sumbol of Wael: Inspiration >>> Inspiration, Punishment, Frost (Grants Inspiration to allies, deals Freeze damage to enemies in AoE) - Antipatetic field: Shred >>> Acid, Shred (deals Corrode damage) - Soul Ignition: Shred >>> Fire, Shred (deals Fire damage) - Wildstrikes: Add corresponding keywords (Frost, Fire, Acid, Electricity) - Great Maelstorm: missed Frost keyword (also deals Freeze damage) Do some of these keyword suggestions appear broken to you?

Those Skuldraks do indeed have base level 9. They would be level 13... if your party was level 13 with upscaling on. Or if your party was level 9, with upscaling on, and you spawned them via console. So most likely it's the problem with those skulls.

Obsidian already tried the cost-reduction path. But at 1 zeal, the upgrades are a no brainer. That's why I am advocating for the buff route. Something small, like the already mention +20% healing taken; or increase the base healing (e.g. 20 -> 25) per Taudis' suggestion. Yeah, that 'eliminates' situations when you could get a longer self-damage DoT due to low resolve; or viceversa reduce the self-dot duration to minimum, and even enable a second Immolation before the first one expired. But also wanted to know if you feel that 12 base duration is enough for 4 zeal cost. Makes sense. How about the upgrades? Enfeebled and that corrode DoT are both quite potent. But at the same time, both come with caveats: - you can't have enfeebled right now - the corrode DoT builds over time. And although it's most needed vs high-hp targets, such enemies usually have higher resolve. I feel that Pierce the Bell is the weakest upgrade among those three, because the +20% damage bonus is kinda small for a rogue with sneak attack, deathblows, quality weapon and +25% innate ability bonus. Lowering enemy physical armor by 1, such that party could benefit from it, looks to be more useful. As for Stoic Steel - am neutral for now. But have seen Ensign's suggestion and wanting to gather more opinions on this.

There is a check for specific upgrades: Dragonwing Sails and Blackwood Hull. Also you need a rank 3+ helmsman and rank 3+ deck hand. P.S. It doesn't matter what ship to use.

Here's the rev3 version of the preliminary list: Btw, would like to hear more about: Stoic Steel, Withering Blow, Pierce the Bell (upgrade) and Sacred Immolation. And also what do you think if Greater Lay on Hands and Hands of Light also applied a +20% healing taken for the duration of their effect? The thing is they cost an extra zeal and talent point compared to Lay on Hands, but do they provide an enough upgrade in your opinion?

Just in case: https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Bleak_Walkers Yes, that behaviour, together with Plucked Fruit quest are kinda de-immersing. Do disagree here. It's not everyone. P.S. Your title, reminded me of this.

Must be a Wheel, with adra pillars as it's spokes, and Rymrgand being the stick

Couldn't think of a better way to demonstrate how differently people approach these games. Here's a metagamer whose intention is powergaming, plain and simple. I couldn't think of a more displeasing way to play -- if the intention is to be as powerful as possible, why not simply rig stuff in your favor? And if the intention is to metagame, why play at all? I mean, you've already ruined all the surprises the story may have, so why bother? Again: no blame or criticism intended in any of this. I think it's just lovely that our approaches to the same game are so diametrically opposite. There are dozens of us ^^ I enjoy meta/powergaming starting from 2nd playthrough and beyond, as well. And to answer your question about riging: any "I win" button is taboo. As for intention, it is: to figure out how to tackle the highest difficulty, and make it feel almost easy. One gets the satisfaction of puzzle solving here. Sharing your view. Solo or naked full-length runs, is not really my thing, unless the difference in time is not that big; and that depends on the game. In Tyranny my second run was solo, because it was actually faster than with a full party. In PoE1 I've tried to solo-naked Alpine Dragon, because the encounter could be finished under 10 minutes. But huh, now way I am trying this with Deadfire megabosses ツ

^ There is also Order of the Obsidian Writers) Josh has mentioned in one of the articles, that they avoid specifying exact locations and borders/outlines until they add them to the game itself, in order to not limit themselves in the future. P.S. There are a few more map variants: one and two: Source

Iirc this was an intentional change by Obsidian, and most likely for the following reasons: - in order to make Concentration more important - to provide the players some additional means to deal with hostile kith spellcasters P.S. As Boeroer already noted, during backers beta, the spell usage was consumed at spell's casttime start. But due to player's feedback this was changed, such that the usage is getting consumed at cast end, or when being interrupted. Source. So now, we can re-position / move without losing the usage. Moreover it is possible to fake cast, i.e. manually cancel casting right before being interrupted, and start again immediately after it landed.

Aha, so the point is not to "add scaling" but to "normalize" it.I've took a look at Dragon Thrashed: https://i.imgur.com/h5ALu0i.png And yeah, it looks that it considers the herald as single-class. Plus Dragon Trashed has AbilityLevel 1 in gamedatabundles. Hence that (9-1) * 5% = +40% damage bonus I do agree, it should use class PL instead. And AbilityLevel set to 5. For consistency. But... this will decrease that bonus to: (7-5) * 5% = +10% Are you sure that Dragon Thrashed doesn't get +0.25 PEN for every second character level at the moment? In either case, I do agree that it was indeed pretty iconic. And although we don't need it to be as strong as in PoE1... at the moment, even tripling Dragon Trashed damage won't bring even to half of it's past glory. That said I would welcome the increase of base damage from 4 to 6. And additionally changing it from apply burn OR slash DoT (at random) to apply burn AND slash DoT. This change will furthermore increase the total damage by ~+50-70% (I mean that total damage won't get doubled, because atm DT_burn and DT_slash seem to stack with each other anyway: https://i.imgur.com/MVzbBQH.jpg) Brisk Recitation aside, chants have: 6s (fixed) chant duration + 3s (influenceable) linger duration. I am rather neutral on PL affecting chants duration. - on one hand it's consistent if PL is increasing linger (provided that chants get proper AbilityLevel). - on the other hand, the difference won't be that big. And it's easier to remember something like "linger can be increased only by intellect". That's interesting. I was thinking that it would prevent disengagement attacks from being made in the first place. I have took a look at "Fight Another Day" data in gamedatabundle now: It looks that "Fight Another Day" grants a permanent immunity vs incoming attacks that are disengagement attacks. So, my understanding is: - first a disengagement attack is performed - if it's a miss - it might trigger Riposte. If it's not a miss - it gets "imm."

Deadfire in my opinion has a really lot of improvements over PoE1 and I liked both a lot. But if speaking about enjoyment... I would answer that subjectively I enjoyed PoE1 more back then, than Deadfire now. At the same time I don't really know if this would hold true, if I played PoE1 after Deadfire. P.S. If I tried to pinpoint what exactly I liked more about PoE1... it would probably be: - longer critical path - less fanatical Pallegina - (might be wrong here but had a sensation that) companions had deeper writing about them and more dialogue options - grimer/darker atmosphere. And gods being rather mysterios, without that incompetent vibe - stronger crowd-control and debuffing - enemies having more crowd control and nasty stuff themselves (shades, cean gwlas, druids, those monks...) - enemies mostly relying on their abilities/defenses and less on inflated health pools

I think the possible shenanigans with repeated dissengagement and making enemy to hit himself are kinda cheesy; especially in Turn Based mode. But I agree, that running away from melee range when you have Blade Turning, should block 1 attack from each enemy that engaged you, before breaking onMovement. I have tried to mod such a trinket. And it is quite straightforward. Specifically: - create a custom grimoire with these 2-4 priest spells - add +1 PL to protection spells - change icon - set restriction to priest only and that's it. Although, the book is right-clickable, and the prayer spells can be viewed in grimoire view. Also it's easy to make such trinkets not grimoire-based. But in this case these spells won't count towards 2-spells-per-rank-per-encounter limit, and will appear on the bar (and not in priest spells). Stuff like "+1 illusion, -2 fire, -2 electricity" - is even easier. And adding such items to shops, containers and enemy creatures is not hard either (just may be time consuming for getting there, getting the id, and testing after the game restart - AND DEADFIRE IS DAMN SLOW TO START/LOAD). P.S. Although I have no idea how to mod stuff like: "bonus for casting a spell that you both know and is in your grimoire/trinket". For some reason I thought this got fed through the same double inversion as everything else. Of course it doesn't, and 3% is what you want in that case. Ugh, what bad design for the stat to have increasing returns on both effects. The hostile effects duration reduction from Resolve, actually goes through the same system like everything else, and is getting inverted)) For example you have 35 Resolve (-75% duration) and Ring of the Solitary Wanderer (-35% duration). step_sum = [1 - 1/(1 - 0.75)] + [1 - 1/(1 - 0.35)] step_sum = [1 - 1/0.25] + [1 - 1/0.65] step_sum = -3 + -0.538 = -3.538 final_coef = 1 / (1 - step_sum) = 0.22 So a 10s hostile effect would get reduced to 2.2s P.S. Here's a related post. --- The thing is, as already mentioned by other posters and you included: it has increasing returns. That's probably because "each point in Resolve, above 10, decreases hostile effects duration." doesn't sound as weird as "each point in Resolve, above 10, increases hostile effects duration decrease." But at 43 resolve (if we forget about the cap for a moment) there is a huge difference between: > duration = base_duration * (1 - 0.99) > duration = base_duration / (1 + 0.99) Imho it's fine. As Boeroer already mentioned, these effects are not taken in additive manner, but one after another. So it won't be 80% graze to hit, but 65%. Plus, flails were suggested to be buffed from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze. And this is not related to aware/confident_aim because a miss cannot be converted to graze AND after that to hit. (edit: ah, Boeroer already added that ^^)

Yeap. Riposte only cares for the incoming attack to be a melee attack, and to target deflection. Also, iirc Disengagement attacks have a 2s cooldown on same target. So even if the rogue has 240 deflection vs disengagement attacks, that's 1 riposte attack vs same target not more often than 6.66s (with current values) or 4.0s (with suggested values if enemies only graze and miss) or 8.0s (if enemies only miss with their DE attacks). Meanwhile enemies still perform non-disengagement attacks. So dunno... it's strong if you build for it; but that micro plus the fact that it is useless vs enemies without engagement slots, limits the usefulness of this dis-riposte approach. P.S. Although if someone wants to kill that build, we can take Boeroer's suggestion for Blade Turning and apply it here; i.e: moving temporary disables riposte.

^ It's same thing, no?) But yeah, let it be: 25% on miss and 25% on graze.

Regarding Riposte: Phenomenum has already showed that it is currently underperforming when compared to PoE1, and Thelee has pointed out the problem with Riposte in Turn Based Mode. The comparative chances to trigger are: I would propose to change Riposte trigger from 30% on miss, to 25% on miss or graze. With this change it gonna be: Deadfire: a). defense = accuracy + 50 - attack roll: -49..50 - attack resolution: 74% miss, 25% graze, 1% hit, 0% crit - riposte: 0.25 * 0.74 + 0.25 * 0.25 = 0.2475 = 24.75% chance b). defense = accuracy - attack roll: 1..100 - attack resolution: 24% miss, 25% graze, 50% hit, 1% crit - riposte: 0.25 * 0.24 + 0.25 * 0.25 = 0.1225 = 12.25% chance Deadfire (turn based): a). defense = accuracy + 50 - attack roll: -49..50 - attack resolution: 50% miss, 49% graze, 1% hit, 0% crit - riposte: 0.25 * 0.5 + 0.25 * 0.49 = 0.2475 = 24.75% chance b). defense = accuracy - attack roll: 1..100 - attack resolution: 0% miss, 49% graze, 50% hit, 1% crit - riposte: 0.25 * 0 + 0.25 * 0.49 = 0.1225 = 12.25% chance So the benefits are: - it's more in line with PoE1 values, and 12.25% "baseline" chance sounds ok, no? - turn based values are more in line with RTwP. i.e. riposte no longer suffers from wider graze range in TB mode. What exactly do you mean (or want to achieve) by "adding PL scaling" to chants?

Great point. Personally I see [Deadfire with current naval combat] as superior to [Deadfire without naval combat]. Yes, naval combat is half-baked, and (in my case) doesn't match the expectations at all (for unknown reason I didn't even think that it gonna be a scripted/textual interaction). But still I largely prefer that it at least is in the game. Oh that's sad\ I mean that you didn't finish the witcher games) I liked them to the point that I have read the books thrice, played through W1 and W2 thrice, and through W3 twice - and that's only because Witcher 3 is so huge (my 3rd run is currently on hold in Novigrad, waiting till I forget more about the plot). You have a point about "romance" cards from Witcher 1 though. They have a quite juvenile vibe. But that kinda can be worked-around by imagining that it is not a collection of romances, but rather a collection of moments spent together. I mean it would be a pity if that stopped from experiencing an otherwise pretty good game. P.S. My biggest gripe with Witcher series are occasional talent/decoction bugs, sometimes vague descriptions, relative unbalance between talent trees, and that crits are treated in additive manner (even through I am not going for Cat techniques, it's not nice that they are relatively gimped in the late game).

1. Sounds reasonable. Would you suggest a specific chance? 2. The same thing it did before. When the confused enemy hits one of his allies, that one becomes confused too. I am ok with redefign of it though. 4a. ^^ mindstalker is already squishy in terms of hp; coming closer + extra micro kinda should net some reward) 5. Iirc -1 AR from flanked stacks with active debuffs like Rending Smash and Rust Armor. I don't know yet, why -10 deflection doesn't behave as passively. Personally I am ok with it being left as is; set to passive; or have a faster stacking progression. Although I have a slight preference towards the last two options. 1. Check 2. Check 3. Check Btw, with all the feedback, here's the rev2 of the preliminary list: P.S. Feel free to suggest/argument what to cut/add/edit next.

I am not quite sure how to understand the word hack here. It has many meanings, and there is also a language barier. But if you mean: a solution that is inconsistent with other spells... yeah, I can agree with that. And you have convinced me on this matter. Just wanted to note that: isn't hazard - a spell or effect that is generally decoupled from it's owner? For example a character layed a trap or seal, and even if it deals shock damage, it doesn't factor his shock penetration talents, because it's a completely separate entity? Taking this into account, what would you propose?: - 1) leave these seal spells as they are - 2) remove the hazard tag - 3) change all hazards (such that they start benefiting from owners PL, penetration talents, etc). But there might be a risk of CTD in some scenes, if not properly implemented. - 4) increase cast speed (e.g. from 4.5s to 3.0s) as compensation? This is my problem with unsystematic changes like this. I don't think you're broadening your perspective enough and combined with other comments it seems you might have a personal bias on making effects more consistent (e.g. accuracy/reliability) versus enabling a broad spectrum of options (the core PoE philosophy). You seem to be mostly just focused landing offensive effects. It's not that I have some kind of prejudice. But I indeed do have a preference for binary effects being reliable (at least vs unnamed/regular enemies) I mean, I am fine with damage sometimes missing, because I know that on average my dps is X, and if X suits me it's ok. But I dislike when a binary effect that I count on, has a chance to do nothing. For example in PoE1: party priest lands painful interdiction, such that cipher can land paralyze, such that my melee dps'er won't get hit by that big (now disabled) guy, and also will have his attack resolution shifted right - which will increase his dps, because graze damage was sensibly reduced by enemy DR. Now, if that paralyze misses - all this scheme crumbles. And I am pushed towards a safer/sturdier playstyle. And it's not that I am fixated on hostile effects. I mean if my direct heals had a chance to miss, that would be unpleasant as well. Completely agree on the dead stats argument. Not to mention that INT does add not only duration, but also area increase. And currently scrolls and bombs are stuck with default AoE. But again, I would separate this problem in two parts: 1) is it worth to enable perception? And how much effort will it take? 2) is it worth to enable might and intellect? And how much effort will it take? And speaking of perception, lets compare accuracy of scrolls vs spells, for the aforementioned Gaze of Adragan: - spell_accuracy = 20 + 19 * 3 + (perception - 10) + class_power_level + power_level_bonus + ability_rank - 2 - scroll_accuracy = 20 + 19 * 3 + arcana/2 + power_level_bonus With something like: 24 perception, 24 arcana, 9 class_power_level, 2 power_level_bonus, 6 ability_rank, which imo are quite plausible stats, this would be: - goa_spell_accuracy = 77 + 14 + 9 + 2 + 6 - 2 = 106 - goa_scroll_accuracy = 77 + 12 + 2 = 91 And if scrolls benefited from perception, goa_scroll_accuracy would be: 91 + 14 = 105. Sure, one could argue that arcana could be higher, but how much higher? 30? But that would add just extra 3 acc over 24 arcana. Meanwhile enemy fortitude goes up to 189 for megabosses on PotD, and up to 129-150 for non-bosses. So, does this look broken for a consumable of generally limited supply? --- Now regarding might and intellect. I do agree that enabling them won't break most of explosives and potions. But still, this have to be done very carefully. - intellect has the ability to increase duration for up to x2.25; and area radius up to x1.87 - might has the ability to increase the direct damage for up to x1.75 - and together they can increase the total damage/healing of a periodic/dot/hot effect, by up to x3.93 So this will require the adjusting of all scrolls from PL0 to their matching counterparts. And even then, arcane/2 can go higher than class pl. And this gonna be a quite deep change. I am not sure if it can go under the 'polishing' tag. P.S. I don't dislike this suggestion. I actually do like consistency. Just have little hope in that Obsidian will make a change that is not quick enough to implement. That's an argument. Tbh I've been carried away, by it being so good in the early game, that wanted it to be at least half as good in the late game. Example with Restore is a good one. But still something feels off. I mean AL1 Restore is not something I would be relying in the late game. But I would still rely on stuff like Elemental Endurance and Racial Resistances being as usefull as in the early game. The good thing through, that aside from PL progression, character can aquire items that increase his might and healing done/taken during his journey, which can almost double the effective healing. So you are speaking about: 10 + 10% per PL, where PL is that of a single class, and benefits from potion of ascention, prestige and other PL bonuses? Also iirc Silver Tide has no keywords atm, leave it at that? Additionally: do you think having one racial is enough for them? There's a couple of interrelated issues here. The first is that these are funges of math, because you're not actually looking at the net effect. Case 1: a fighter with might 15, superb weapon, penetrating strike is better seen as having a graze/hit/crit coefficient of .87x, 1.85x, and 2.1x which become .87x, 1.85x, and 2.2x with improved crit. This can be as little as a +0% increase in net damage (in cases where you can never crit) to as much as ~3% (in cases where you always crit). So in this respect I think you're overstating the effect. Rumble/grumble 2.2x/2.1x~= 1.047 2.15x/2.05~= 1.048 Or I am missing something? Sounds reasonable. 1. Ok, point taken. 2. The purpose is to have a decent effect for rank 8 passive. And atm, Critical Defense is in a weird spot. If a fighter doesn't want to get critted, he rises defenses. And the higher defenses he has, the lower effect this Critical Defense provides. For example fighter has a 10% chance to get critted by enemy X. Taking Critical Defense does not cover this 10% window; but instead, will proc on 10% of cases on those 10% of attacks; effectively reducing the chance to be critted from 10% to 9%. Yay. 3. Regarding Virtous Triumph: resouce generation tied to onKill, is generally limited by amount of enemies. On average there seem to be 6-8 enemies in an encounter. If paladin delivers killing blow to each enemy, on average he will get 1.5-2 zeal. Now, the problem is, paladin in a party rarelly finishes even 50% of enemies (in my experience it is closer to 15%), plus killing the last enemy does nothing. Although... there are some shenanigans with killing friendly summons. And imo, Virtuous Triumph should not work of those. As for Bonus Discipline talent: what do your propose?

Hah, I like that) And tbh Moonwell is the first thing that came to mind. But felt that it is too related to Ondra's portfolio. Sunwell - workarounds this nicely. I like it too. And it's the whole point: to be able to use current weapons even if they would be unfavorabale otherwise. And there are enemies that have 6-7 AR difference between pierce/slash/crush. And up to 8 AR difference for elemental damage types. AR vs PEN is a very sensitive topic. I share the sentiment, that +2AR on PotD rule out (or at least hinder) a range of weapon options, and thus limit the amount of possible builds. But at the same time, it could possibly result in an asymmetric situation when enemies keep underpenetrating, while we as players rarely face such problem. Or you think it's ok? Aha, so just like grimoires, but with some effect and smaller selection of spells. I am like 80% sure that this is moddable. It's easy to make a copy, with a different PL/rank. But will have to manually update it, everytime a patch changes the original ability. And purely theoretically... where would like to find these priest/druid trinkets?

You mean tier1_affliction_on_enemy + tier1_inspiration_on_self -> tier1_affliction_on_enemy + tier2_inspiration_on_self. Well, that's good too. Although I am not sure if cipher will get any inspiration if you rolled an affliction to which the enemy is resistance. So from -2AR/+2AR -> -3AR/+2AR? Oh my I thought initially that it is a quite powerful buff, but, I am totally up for it) He turns friendly... but is uncontrollable. Quite often it would be better if he would remain hostile, at least enemies would not hammer on him. But you made a point about Aegis. I think this suggestion can be discarded. Well then... I will stop considering this power as cheesy,.. and will start using it! ^^ It's not hard to make it periodic. There is already Repulsive Vissage that applies terrify every 3s. It indeed sounds better than the original suggestion. Although I don't know how to mod it) Sounds reasonable. Hah, ok) And not drawing attention to it which cannot be called) I.e. make flanked - passive effect that stacks with everything? P.S. Thanks for responses Boeroer. I'll wait for a few extra feedback, and will be assembling a rev2. list.

That's reasonable) It can be useful for getting enemy defenses lower than previously possible. Hate missing) But I get your argument. Also liked thelee's point about "cognitive payload". So yeah, I think we can discard this. Provided that an opponent can miss, it looks that deflection is also at least a bit about dodging and footwork. But coupled with your next point (about paralyze), I like it. It's pretty clean. Good point. But afaik Pike modal doesn't stack with flanked, Confounding Blind and Divine Mark, no? And there is also Knockdown. But I was thinking that going from 1s to 1.5s is not a big enough change, and unless an ability has periodic Prone, leave it as is. And thus no hassle, no? Fair enough Point taken) thumbs-up My first thought was: I wouldn't like to give up accuracy. Because if I attack an enemy I can hardly penetrate, chances are he has high deflection. But on a second thought: it's actually fine, as there are enough means to lower it. And thematically... stilletos go well with rogue archetype and there is confounding blind. I am totally fine with going for trinkets instead of bonus spells. Some kind of psalters or portable shrines or whatever. But could you make some specific example?

The reason is simple: reliability. If I let a character spend 4.5s cast time and 3.0s recovery on something; it better be reliable. And a priest spending 7.5s on a 1s Prone vs Fortitude in 1.5 AoE, doesn't really strike me like a good bargain. Not to mention that with such a cast time, it can hardly be used as a timely interrupt. As for Warding Seal - it's probably one of the last spells, a spell-damaging priest will use. I mean, only after all those Shining Beacons, Cleansing Flames, Storms, Symbols and Hand of Weal and Woe. Imo, having an extra accuracy won't make this seal OP; but it's one way to make it more competitive; plus this will provide consistency with the previous seal. And similar thinking goes for Searing. And now regarding systematic approach: lets be realists here, changing 1 value in gamedatabundle takes less than 1 minute; i.e. it is much faster than dive in the code and try to figure out why hazard spells have such limitations, make the chances, and double-check if it doesn't throw off-balance any other hazard effects, or even breaks them, if their caster is not defined. Sure I do like the systematic approach, but it better be used from the start, not to mention that Obsidian is known for iterative approach and for heavily prioritizing high_gain/low_time changes, with others being cut. Tbh, I can hardly comment on this. As I am not aware of subclass philosophies being documented somewhere. What I know is: if I need a support priest, I usually go for Wael, and can learn all the stuff that priest of Eothas can. On the other hand, Boeroer made a good point about partial redunancy with Sunbeam. And also there is that Searing Seal. And that's an argument. I do agree: Silver Tide healing was too good in PoE1. Yet I can hardly agree with your argument, because I didn't suggest the same scalling as in PoE1. For reference: - current: 10 - suggested: 6 + 2 * character_level - PoE1: 10 + 3 * (character_level - 1) At lvl 16, this would be: 38 vs 55 It is weak because of the fixed value of "10". Which doesn't scale properly between starting hp of 30-40, and late game hp of 300-400. Well... perhaps I am missing something?) But am not adding another PL scaling place. Silver Tide is suggested to scale with character level. As for Battle Forged... it already scales with PL. Just really poorly. And I wish you good luck for coming up with an universal pl scaling ^^ Because some things make sense to scale closer to hp progression. And if one would go for the route where: - character starts at level 1 with: x hp, a*x dps, a*x hps, b*x accuracy - and ends at level 20 with: k*x hp, k*a*x dps, k*a*x hps, k*b*x accuracy i.e. everything scales proportionally, this would be a quite deep change. And you wanted the foundation left intact. Hmm, I don't get the relation between scrolls and drying machine. It sounds like few people didn't read safety instructions on scrolls; or started a fire by telling others how good scrolls are. Additionally, if consumables just suddenly started to benefit from all stats right now, it would lead to balance problems. You know that scrolls have PL0, and thus would have higher damage values and duration than regular spells. Take a look at this image: and imagine if we had +35% level + 30% might on the right. So there would also be a need to change ability_rank/base_pl (you name if) of all scrolls. And that's not polishing. That's a complete revamp. Which will take time, and will also bring back the over-reliance on scrolls. Imho, for a quick, yet already beneficial change, enabling just perception is enough. Because scrolls will stop missing that often; while high-ranked spells will still have a better accuracy. Good point about the trade-offs. But let's take the Improved Critical and examine the "+10% Crit Damage" in 3 scenarios: 1). Fighter with 15 MIG, superb weapon, using Penetrating Strike. On crit that's: 2.05 damage coefficient that becomes 2.15. That's a +4.8% damage increase... which occurs only on crit. 2). Rogue with 10 MIG, superb weapon, sneak attack + deathblows, devastating blow vs 25%hp. On crit that's: 4.7 that becomes 4.8. And that's a +2% damage increase... which occurs only on crit. 3). Wizard with 18 MIG, 7 PL casting a rank 4 spell. On crit that's 1.64, which becomes 1.74. That's a +6% damage increase. But than again, what's your crit rate in a challenging encounter? I for one, really like hard cc in single player games. Especially I liked that in PoE1 were you could make a sturdy party (without hard-cc) and party of glass-canons (with a lot of hard-cc). And both approaches worked great, and were effective. In Deadfire though, I feel like I am stuck with heavy armor. Taking 4 times less the damage thanks to enemy underpenetration, coupled with an AoE Terrify (which even if dowgraded, prevents majority of hostile special attacks) and with a few passive or overtime heals, provides tremendous EHP increase. And I struggle to get a comparable uptime with stuns and paralyze, that would net a similar survivability; nor they provide enough damage increase in order to warant taking 2 damage-dealers + 1 hard-disablers instead of just 3 damage-dealers. It's almost like you want to play a specific playstyle, but it's either not there or not efficient enough. But whatever. You have your point of view, and that's completely fine That's one of the reasons I made this thread: to know others opinions. @Boeroer, hah! I just hit that limit too)

I understand your perspective, and partially do share the sentiment) Additionally, I do usually prefer the systematic approach as well. I.e. when all mechanics are deep-thought, balanced, and blue-printed apriori, before the construction has even started; and without drastic changes to the load bearing elements during last stages. Yet, I do find the presented example (with the building) a bit askew, because: - the listed suggestions are not really changing the foundation; as I haven't proposed any changes regarding stats, armor/penetration, stacking logic, damage/speed formulas or getting rid of power level concept, multi-classing, subclassing or classes altogether. The most drastic suggestion so far was related to harsher afflictions. But even this, won't cause the walls to crumble. Not to mention that this is a preliminary / brainstorm suggestion, which will pass further only if almost everyone will like it and no valid counter-arguments given. Otherwise it's gonna be just discarded. - this thread is about polishing. And following your methaphor, the mission is closer to "asking the renters what color of paint they would want to see in the common hall". So if the owner decides to refresh the hall, he would already have the surveyed data about renters' preferences. And if 80%+ want the same color - that's great. And if everyone wants different thing - that's also great, because it means that there is no need to lose resources on repainting. Win-win situation. And again, this is not about walling the windows. The point of that suggestion was getting more flexibility. In PoE1, priests auto-learned all of their spells when achieving new rank. And thus priests often had the right spell for the right situation. In Deadfire though, there is often a problem of: do I take this highly situational spell, or na? Provided that there are viable alternatives to deal with incoming cc (like food, racials and preemptive cc) plus the opportunity costs, I find current prayers and lithanies as suboptimal IF you also have to spend 4 talent points on them. Simply because if I need a healo-buffer-cleanser so badly, I would just go for a trickster/wayfarer instead, who does the same thing but faster. Also, there is a direct comparison with wizards. Grimoires currently provide up to 18 spells, which greatly increases the wizard's flexibility. Priests in return auto-learn only 9 spells on level up. So giving them 2 prayers and 2 litanies; OR some kind of psalter "trinket", is imo not so bad. Not to mention that this is kinda thematically fitting, no? It is possible to a degree. For example I could probably make CON add +5% healing taken per point, via patchwork/framework modding. But it is really time consuming. And can be quite complicated depending on the needed effect.