MaxQuest

Do like warlock concept as well. Although a bit modified. I.e. someone who: - dots and drains his opponents. - can convert his health to spell usages - can inflict strong single-target cc - and spread status and periodic effects from one enemy to adjacent; but at a cost of penalty to his AR and healing taken Although that's already enough for a whole separate class) For wizard subclass, I'd be glad with just lifetap and bonus to corrode damage and healing taken.

Exhaustion makes a lot of sense when designer wants the system to feel natural. But often a direct exhaustion mechanic is omited in games: - in mmorpgs: because in pvp it would skew majority of builds towards insane burst and focus fire - in single player: because the player doesn't want to wait... much. Additionally exhaustion mechanic that feels right would likely be quite complex with some sort of curve, and dependency on STR, CON, AGI, stamina spent, current hp and vigor status effects. Many games use indirect exhaustion though. Like limited resource pool, or limited spell/ability usages. That's the approach PoE uses. Perhaps there could be a relation between CON and resource pool... like if you have higher CON it will take longer to get tired, i.e. the character will be able to deliver more special attacks. But the pool and CON are discrete. So there would have to be some mapping table... Another way to simulate exhaustion could be: character's MIG bonus changes through combat as function of time. Like you start the fight with a MIG penalty of -5. This penalty at first is getting reduced over 10s, and after that it starts to build up again. How fast - is inversely proportional to character's CON. I.e. character is getting exhausted and can't exert the same amount of force. Which indirectly makes his heavy armor less effective. Plus there could be special effects like Frenzy - during which effective MIG is not going down. But, huh, I have aberrated from your comment So back to it. Sure, it would make sense to have heavy armor, some minimum MIG/CON requirement or even combination sum, like some plate armors having min 15 MIG+CON. But there is a fine line for how high this requirement can go in PoE. Because stat system is special here, as it almost like meant to support as high amount of builds as possible, and any armor for everyone concept. And it would be pity to lose the control freak wizards which offtank in heavy armor with something like 2/10/18/18/20/10 spread. Unless there was some spells like Levity, Feather, Vigor, that would partially alleviate the armor requirement. That's what I "feared". Because in this case, designer can't just put something as simple as "decreases your DEX by 30%" property on plate armor. It would have to be closer to: > decreases your [DEX bonus] portion above 12 by 50%, or even the following monstrosity: > decreases your [DEX] by a fixed round{2 + (1/DEX + 1) * (DEX - min(DEX, 14)) / 2}, which would result in the following DEX change: - unarmored->armored - 8->6 - 10->8 - 12->10 - 14->12 - 16->13 - 18->14 - 20->15 - 30->20 But a good mechanic, has to be both natural and relatively simple..

That's some interesting observations. But it also looks to me that the above examples point to a partially different conclusion. I.e. we can make the following proportion: > no armor - 4828m - by 1 minute faster than you > armor on - 800m - by 10s faster than you So the marines that were significantly more agile and athletic than you, were basically getting a 10s lead every 800m. Both armored and unarmored. Thus they were faster by the same coefficient. Btw, if they were running 3 miles in 18.5 minutes on average, and beating you by 1 minute, means you were only 5.4% slower Could it be that when armored you were always told to run shorter distances? If so - the gap would close, even if they still run faster by the same percentage. Hmm, let's think what conclusions can be made. > armor + weapon weight reduce move speed. Up to the point where you can't run. That's kind of expected. Plus there is inertia that reduced the ability for abrupt movements. Body mass and strength can help though. > backscratching is difficult, either because of the extra weight that pushes on arm (and hinders fine motor skills); or because armor limits your arm movement range; or because scratching through armor is not as satisfactory; or a combination of the above) There is also a point to be made about agility vs dexterity. The first one, as ability to move quickly and easily is more affected by armor weight. While skilful use of hands is more affected by the gloves, weight of your weapons and part of armor that is on the arms themselves.

OT: As was already said by other forumers, MIG is still good for spell damage dealers. And especially for those who deal DoT/periodic damage (because of multiplicative stacking with INT coef, for total damage calculation). Also we can take into account the limited amount of spell/ability usages. A very raw example would be: you have 4 full attack usages. You can use all 4 of them in 10s. Or you can use only 3 in those 10s, but each will deal x1.33 more damage. That's a theoretical case for 21DEX/10MIG vs 10DEX/21MIG. Although in practice there are more variables to take into account, and first of all your current damage coefficient. For instance for a rogue who already has 200%+ during Eliminating Blow, getting +30% from MIG is not a big bonus. Thus the player might want to run the math for each specific case. I'd like to hear more about this) It's not an easy task to figure out a model that feels natural but still can be easily described. And I am curious what cap (your experience tells you) feels right. E.g. you have 3 guys: a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX b). 10 MIG, 14 DEX c). 10 MIG, 24 DEX If they wear the same heavy armor: v1. should their [DEX] be capped at the same 12 spot? v2. their [DEX BONUS] should be lowered multiplicatively, let's say by 50%, so their DEX becomes: 11, 12, 17 v3. their [DEX] gets lowered by a fixed value (and if gets to zero - they can't wear it) v4. other, or combination of the above And another question, with other 3 guys: a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX b). 14 MIG, 12 DEX c). 24 MIG, 12 DEX Does wearing the same heavy armor impacts them the same? Plus, can we say that there can be heavy armor and there can be clumsy armor? The first one limits your agility mainly due to it's weight. And this can be partially mediated by having high strength. While clumsy armor limits the agility of your movement nevertheless?

Sounds awesome) Excited to see Priest of Woedica. Also always wanted a watershaper hireling... but generally would echo the sentiment that companion unique subclasses better remain companion-only. P.S. Especially would like to see the new cipher subclass (if it is NOT Wild Mind).

Confirming that Boeroer has correctly answered your questions It's indeed so) Btw, given the amount of full-attacks a Marauder can use, you can improve the attack rate even further, by taking a fast weapon in your offhand, because mainhand recovery is waved during FA. E.g: - normal attack (with mainhand battle axe and offhand battle axe): 4.2s (2.1s + 2.1s) - normal attack (with mainhand battle axe and offhand dagger): 3.4s (2.1s + 1.3s) - full attack (with mainhand battle axe and offhand battle axe): 2.6s (0.5s + 2.1s) - full attack (with mainhand battle axe and offhand dagger): 1.8s (0.5 + 1.3s) Moreover there are some fast weapons with extra speed enchantments, like: Rännig's Wrath (Flurry: +10% action speed), Squid's Grasp (Attempted Parley: +30% Action Speed when threatened by 3 or more enemies), and so on.

I got the help of inquisitor only. And on 3rd attempt she actually did something: there appeared some red beam/shackle that immobilized the dragon for 20s. Too bad I switched everyone to melee, so could not capitalize on it ^^ Btw, managed to beat her at lvl 14, but would still second that it's better to fight her at 16+, since everyone gets a new power level and access to rank 8/6 stuff. Also if you have a single class cipher, you might want to wait even for level 19, for the 1000 Cuts and Driving Echoes, as +8 PEN buff, can make a difference.

- as already mentioned: stack enough Moonwell scrolls for sustain. Equipping everyone in heaviest armor will also help, as it indirectly makes HoTing more efficient. - let the rogue use guile only on Confounding Blind. Ideally you want to keep that deflection malus for the whole fight. - lack of damage is solved by equipping Battle Axes on practically everyone, and turning proficiency modal on. You deal n slash damage on hit, and n * 2 raw damage over 1 minute. You don't care how much AR she has, all you need is to not miss with your swings.

Agreed. And a mixed system where a percent (which depends on weapon type) of incoming damage ignores armor; or a system where armor has both flat and percentage reduction could be the next step. Well, not gone.. Am still lurking) Just felt burnt-out a bit, and switched to something else for a time. Specifically am having a blast with Total War: Rome 2) And btw, there is a defense/armor system too. I don't have a solid opinion on this matter yet. Since there is many things to take into account. But here are a few unfinished lines of thought: > Gradual approach will feel more natural. And will partially decrease the "all-or-nothing" effect. > Comparing base damage and pen values of weapons (especially those of Great Swords and Pollaxes) it looks like there is a 16.666% decrease in base damage for every +2 PEN. So a -10% step is somewhat fitting. It might not be perfect math-wise, but it's easier to use since 0.1 is short/finite and easy to add/substitute. > I would perhaps limit the bottom threshold at -70% damage taken instead of -80%. Because having a situation where enemy benefits from x5 damage reduction can result in slow and boring fight. And if there is a situation when your character face tanks at that reduction - could result in "can tank forever" effect. > Personally I rarelly had the under-penetration problem. But that's because I pre-planned my parties. Plus, enchanted weapons quality asap and used +PEN items, food, flanked status and occasionally Body Attunement. So if I will use your mod and load a save, all it will do for me is: just make my party squishier. And from some PoV it could even be a good thing, since it ups the difficulty,..(which would be welcome in late game) but we would need a slight buff to crowd-control speed or accuracy to compensate for that. > Late game difficulty could actually be partially addressed by lowering hp-per-level gain a bit, because player hp pool increases faster than enemy weapon quality and other bonuses. > Overpenetration is weird because we can't understand at which PEN-AR it actually penetrates through armor; at which it penetrates the skin; at which it penetrates muscle / breaks bones; and at which it penetrates the body completely. As Boeroer said: "You usually don't do more damage if your spear sticks out 10 cm of the back of your opponent - compared to the case where it sticks out 5 cm...". And I do agree, it looks silly if it would. On the other hand if at PEN == AR, a sabre only cuts the armor and just scratches the skin; an "overpenetration" that cuts skin, muscle, tendons, arteries, makes sense to "deliver" extra damage. That's why I think that different types of weapons could have different overpenetration damage bonus. And different minimum underpenetration malus. Underpenetration from morning star kinda should be more sensible than underpenetration from rapier. All that kinetic energy still hit you. And overpenetration from great sword perhaps should have higher damage bonus than from a fist. On the other hand if a character can overpenetrate with his fist... *thinking...*

Not a MaxQuest, the MaxQuest! Is that.. THE Iron Bull reference? I haven't read the whole thread yet, so will suggest later) As for numbers, it depends how much you want to reduce the incoming damage. Example: > if you want to reduce incoming damage at -5 (AR minus PEN) by 75%, let it be case (a) > if you want to reduce incoming damage at -5 (AR minus PEN) by an amount that can be countered by having a +75% damage bonus, let it be case (b) For case (a) it's pretty straight-forward, and the threshold values (for PenetrationMultipliers from json bundles) would be: OverPEN: x2.0 => thresholdValue = 1.3 x1.6 => thresholdValue = 1.2 x1.3 => thresholdValue = 1.1 UnderPEN: -1 => thresholdValue = 0.85 -2 => thresholdValue = 0.70 -3 => thresholdValue = 0.55 -4 => thresholdValue = 0.40 -5 or more => thresholdValue = 0.25 For case (b) the threshold values (for PenetrationMultipliers from json bundles) would be: OverPEN: x2.0 => thresholdValue = 1.3 x1.6 => thresholdValue = 1.2 x1.3 => thresholdValue = 1.1 UnderPEN: -1 => thresholdValue = (1 / 1.15) = 0.8695 -2 => thresholdValue = (1 / 1.30) = 0.7692 -3 => thresholdValue = (1 / 1.45) = 0.6896 -4 => thresholdValue = (1 / 1.60) = 0.6250 -5 or more => thresholdValue = (1 / 1.75) = 0.5714 I.e. if you attack a target that has AR higher than your PEN by 3, you will deal your usual base damage if your weapon is of superb quality: step_sum = (1.45 - 1) + (1 - 1 / 0.6896) = 0 Edit: I see you have went for a variation of (a) with that mod) And at -7 (PEN-AR) characters will deal x5 less damage. I haven't tried the mod in practice yet, but looking at numbers would expect the following ^^: - it will increase the average dps of classes that lacked passive +PEN bonuses (i.e. almost everyone except rogue, warrior and cipher). Perhaps evoker will benefit the most. - it will make player's party substantially squishier. For instance at -3, characters take x2.5 less damage now, compared to x4 less before. Enemy rogues will hurt badly. - if you can't get rid of Neriscyrlas safeguard, you are even more pushed towards using battle-axes (because of their proficiency DoT, which is strong as hell, in prolonged battles) - but on average: > there will be less frustration from under-penetration > the specialization into dps vs tank will become stricter (if you want to tank, you will have to really heavy invest into it) > healing will become slightly less efficient (one thing is having a HoT and taking 25% of damage; and another is having a HoT and taking 40% of damage; the sustain-power is reduced) > and there will be more knockouts)

Quite a selection of interesting items) - Contender's Armor - is awesome)) With the nerf of +action speed potions and alchemy in general, one can focus purely on athletics instead. - Keeper of the Flame - is awesome as well. It's auras are passive, and should be stacking with everything. Also if Magran's Wrath can crit.. it might have a synergy with chance to prone from Gatecrashers. And it wouldn't hurt to check if Magran's Wrath can trigger Nimbus of Death (from Heart-Chime Amulet) which gives a 10% chance to instantly destroy a Kith or Beast with less than 100 Health on hit. - Survivor's Tusks helm - already am seeing using it on my herald. - The Best Defense shield - doesn't seem to deal enough damage, but is potentially great on a melee spell damage dealer, if kills with spells trigger those effects. P.S. But there are also items that appear to be so-so. For example Crucible Token. The effects are nice, but last only 20s, and you have to spend 6s (cast) + 2s (recovery) to benefit from them. Do you see any scenario where this Token is worth it? The catch perhaps is that this is a situational item) The DoT is nice, but we assume that cipher has high current focus and can relatively easily crit his target. An ascendant in such conditions could spam: Disintegration or Amplified Wave. Also, majority of enemies that are easy to crit, have usually low hp, and the Spider's Patience DoT duration would be partially wasted on them, because they would die fast anyway. The rapier is great though vs high-HP/high-AR enemies with low deflection through. Guardian of Ukaizo, and to a less extent Neriscyrlas.

I assume you meant "alive"? The irony of confusing "alive" with "online" at this day and age certainly isn't lost on me. Nope) "Come online" is a widespread phrase/idiom from Action RTS games that have leveling system (e.g. Dota). "Come online early" - means that a character doesn't need a lot of items or levels, in order to have high impact, and that he starts contributing to his team much earlier. "Come online late" - means that character needs a specific level, late-game ability or item, in order to become super-effective/impactful. But before that moment his contribution is mediocre. Hey! Same here) Although I worked around that. Barb - doesn't have to be my main. And when I use a hireling, can always pretend he's a phlegmatic who 'explodes' only during combat. Chanter - can work fine even without summons. E.g. do use a skald/wayfarer, and like him.

Warlock comes online on lvl 13 right, once he gets access to Citzal and can focus on phys dps? And before that is played like jack of all trades offtank/offdps/off-cc? P.S. Ehh, got the nostalgia again about WoW warlock playstyle (from the TBC times..) It doesn't make Blood Thirst and Heart of Fury available earlier; plus by using such overhaul mods it will make harder for me to comment on the vanilla game experience. But I will think about that

In beta have played them all. But after release, the only class I haven't tried yet is barbarian. The reason being: - Blood Thirst comes too late. - Heart of Fury is available only to single class, and again only in late game. So the question I ask myself is: do I take barb who can save me in the late game encounters like 5-10s of combat via killing stuff faster because of Blood Thirst; or do I take another dps character who is better during first 70% of the game, which is also currently the harder part.

Btw Neriscyrlas has 6600 hp on PotD. (you can check this if you enable cheats, mouseover her and press "K" for insta-kill) Interesting, the defenses/AR seem to be a bit different from those posted in this reddit thread. In any case, it looks like non-raw damaging spells won't be effective enough here. And that this gonna be a slow auto-attack to death fight that favors: - ranger/paladin (cose high acc) (dw battle axes, cose modal) - ranger/rogue (cose Confounding Blind deflection malus) (battle axe / Rännig's Wrath) - pure chanter (for the beast chant) - pure monk with fists (cose high acc, and crush damage) Or.. maybe there is some mechanic that lowers her defenses in response to some player actions (like killing adds?) and there is no need for a specialized party roster.

Ranger indeed was asking for more non-pet-based abilities. Interesting through that other classes got zero tuning. Ah, so no more rapid totem destruction from 12m from stealth. P.S. Love the idea of Eothas and Galawain challenges btw.

Warlock A spellcaster that can specialize in: - DoTs. Some of them healing the caster for the amount equal to damage dealt. - Single target damage. Some of spells having splash effect. Spell roster could include terryfying stuff, sacrificial stuff, lifetap (conversion of own hp into spell usages), taking control for combat duration of one enemy vessel or spirit (that has lower level than warlock), shadowflame (destroy a subcontrolled creature and deal a % of it's hp as damage to enemies and prone them in aoe), mark of suffering (25% of damage taken is redirected to marked enemy), and so on. Plus few spells could fork into mutually exclusive paralyze/weakened effects. Or self_AR_increase/enemy_damage_dealt_decrease/enemy_damage_taken_increase. I.e. you can deal havoc from distance in glass-cannon style, or drain-tank at close quarters.

Just wanted to note: "all hostile spells or abilities". Frightened characters can still use buffs, heals, etc. Frightened ciphers can even cast stuff like Soul Shock, since it is ally-targeted. P.S. Just-in-case: rogue strikes with mortar (and other aoe blunderbusses) do apply strike effects to all enemies in the aoe, in v2.0.1.

Am a bit late to the party, but just finished the DLC, and thought to chime in) After reading reviews, I was worrying that "Beast of Winter" will be too short. It actually took 9 hours for me to complete. Still a bit shorter than WM1, but judging by the art, puzzles + scripted stuff, extra lore and VO, it likely took a comparable amount of development+qa+x time. From story perspective, I liked most of it. - It was nice to see Waidwen. - Weird but interesting to watch Naxiva's victim/accuser duality (not to mention that Watcher was and inquisitor him/herself). - Meeting Vatnir, who unexpectedly turned to be quite likeable. - Getting more lore insights into the soul stuff - and ofc Rymrgand admitting in plain text that being a jerk is his nature. From difficulty pov, it was great. So far the hardest piece of content I have met in Deadfire. Special props to Burning Archers, whom my Helwalker fire priest hates like no other. Perhaps, it was probably better to visit the place latter. I've arrived and fought the Messenger at level 13 (upscalled PotD), Neriscyrlas at level 14, and Beast of Winter at level 15. Messenger and Beast were easy. But Neriscyrlas has put a formidable fight. Initially have persuaded him to fight Rymrgand, but was too curious how strong the dragon is, so had to reload. And to be honest, only on 4th attempt have managed to bring him down. From character-building impact pov, BoW is a bit underwhelming though. But that's only when taken in comparison with WM1, because: - WM1 not only added a few items, but their "power level" was often stronger than that of vanilla items. Remember Bittercut, Golden Gaze, Stormcaller, Spelltongue, Redeemer, and so on. - level cap was rised by 2, and new spells/abilities added to the game - appearance of cross-class talents - and ofc durgan enchants All in all: it was a nice, creative and enjoyable DLC.

Keep forgetting that it exists... I think I used 1 empower per 10 rests on average so far. Heh, even had to constantly remind myself that I have Sasha's Singing Scimitar on a herald, during previous run. On the other hand, refunding resources was handy during my first and blind encounter with The Messenger yesterday.

Majority of forum search engines are so so) MaxQuest uses google-fu. It's super effective google.com/search?q=site:forums.obsidian.net+"Player.log"

Nope, scepter+pistol is bugged since launch as far as i know. I made a reddit post about it few weeks ago Hmm, that means I couldn't replicate it back then just like Kaylon. Exactly) Edit: after various tests, I managed to replicate both dunehunter's and Kaylon's experience. v1. If I disable AI: I can attack without recovery/reload just like dunehunter. Easy, reliable, and without any timing. v2. if I enable AI: I get the same results as Kaylon. I.e. the weapon usually goes in reload before the next Full Attack. But... I can still skip that reload with perfect timing, e.g: if I issue next FA right after the pistol shot and bullet is on the fly, but before recovery/reload start. I suppose the explanation is: with AI off, character stays idle after FA. And with AI on, after FA, he tries to auto-attack which triggers recovery or reload start; and even if you issue a new Full Attack you can't skip them now.

You seem to be using the wrong elf, duh. Try using the correct one On serious note: I don't even have Player.log generated on steam/windows. But here are 2 ideas: - try disabling steam overlay for Deadfire: howto - if that doesn't help... you can symlink the Player.log to /dev/null as posted by ShadowApex here P.S. Dunno it it's of any help, but here's the code for Onyx.OnyxObject.Finalize():

^ I am less fixated on dps-per-se, and more inclined towards finding a party that would handle all combat encounters combined, in the least amount of real time. Having higher dps is usually directly correlated with that. Plus, the faster you kill, the less time enemies had to damage your party. But if party setup requires heavy micro of more than 3 characters, lots of pausing / slow-mode, or even worse: get knockdown or have to reload, then it goes against that metric. Usually there is a golden mean between the [high-dps] and [high-sturdiness] extremes. And what I liked about PoE1, that there were even 2 such means: [high-dps + lots-of-hard-cc] and [over-time-damage + sturdiness] were both great.

Combat tooltips are not properly aligned to each other: - when there are few effects: image - when there are many effects: image That's an old bug that was partially fixed in one of betas, but which came back at release. P.S. 1920x1080 resolution.