MaxQuest

It depends on the lore and the world. Your topic, and Oswald, reminded me of elves in "Labyrinths of Echo" universe. Their lives were long, very long. But... their organisms had zero resistance vs alchool addiction. It was enough for an elf to taste it just once (benevolently or not), and he would rapidly transform into a drunkard. Try to imagine hundred of years of hungover. Once a wise and prideful nation has transformed into wandering and permanently innabriate alchoolics.

Yeap. Feeling the same way. We have cannonballs, chainshot and grapeshot. But, I do use only cannonballs, because in Deadfire I haven't been in the situation when alternatives are better. That said, I have played other games where naval combat was balanced. Specifically I had probably 600h+ in the corsair games developed by Akella studio. It was more than 10 years ago, but I still remember, how great the naval combat was. Not to mention that if you were using only one type of ammo, you were dead. > you had to use chainshot - if the enemy ship was faster than yours and a much stronger crew (which was often); and you didn't want to risk getting boarded and killed. - if the enemy ship was faster but you wanted to capture it - you also had to use chainshot. - if the enemy ship was jibing and firing non-stop; and you wanted to reduce it's maneurebility and sit in their dead zone. - there was also a tactic when fighting 1 vs 3-4 enemy ships. You could chainshot the slowest/sturdiest/weak-firepower ship, sail around it in circles and use it as a partial cover vs his allies. Otherwise would could grapeshot the fastest enemy, full sail away, and annihilate them one by one from distance. > you had to use grapeshot - if you wanted to board the enemy ship and reduce your casualties from deck-to-deck combat. Officers and crew could get killed. But you didn't want to lose experienced officers with selected/tuned percs, nor disciplined crew members with high morale. - in case of a very few unique ships (like Flying Dutchman), you had a hard time even simply approaching for boarding. You had to heavily reduce their crew (in addition to sails), in order to make the ship a sitting duck, and not risk a fatal cannon shot when closing distance.

Melee martial classes often do have cross synergy. Take a fighter/rogue, and sneak attack bonus is applied even if he uses knockdown. Take a rogue/barbarian, and carnage is apllied even when he uses rogue strikes. While caster classes usually lack this. As no1fanboy mentioned, this is partially due to lack of unique and impactful casting passives. And another reason is isolated subclass percs. For example: - a conjurer/druid is not better with firebrand than any other wizard/druid. - a shifter doesn't get a spiritshift bonus from being specialized transmuter. - a beguiler/illusionist cannot cast illusion spells farther than a regular wizard. - a lifegiver/priest heals with priest spells the same as let's say assassin/priest. - a priest of Magran doesn't benefit from master degree in evocation. - a multi-classed ascendant doesn't get a free spell usage with vancian spells when reaching max-focus. and so on.

Not only that, but also the selection of forbidden schools. I mean it would be great if we could choose which two schools to ban ourselves. For example I would gladly take Illusionist in my current party, and ban evocation and conjuration schools, because: - I want a few of those enchanting spells - am not going to cast evocation stuff because the character has 3-MIG and is specced for cc not damage

Tbh will have to test it myself in order to answer this) And most likely will have time only on weekend.

We can also try confuse the enemies (esp. barbarians and AoEers). This way there is a higher chance they will hit our charmed party members.

Hard to tell. Both Streetfighter and Helwalker have their pros and cons. The biggest cons of Streetfighter for me is that you can't use Captain's Banquet; and have to pay attention when using Suppress Affliction. And those of helwalker: enemy rogues being able to focus-fire you; and slower 'ascension'. I'd say roll with the one you want from RP point of view. P.S. Regarding rogue abilities: I don't really find Pierce the Bell that useful on ranged ascendant/streetfighter. There is Devastating Blow - as one of the most time-efficient ways to max focus. And there is Confounding Blind which is quite decent with a multi-pellet blunderbuss in main hand. Enemy gets around 30 deflection malus, and Stormcracker from offhand greatly benefits from it. And lastly there is Debilitating Strike - which first of all is cheap (1 guile) and can instantly satisfy conditions for deathblows.

Nope. Have arrived to the same conclusion. P.S. And do like Boeroer's suggestion of removing +1 rage cost penalty; but reducing max rage pool by 2 instead. If needed, corpse-eater can have a small penalty to deflection and reflex while... consuming. Incendax's suggestion is also nice and looks better than the current state.

I don't quite see how Trickster can work with Ascendant. Character wants to max focus asap and start spamming cipher powers. If he uses trickster spells instead... than he's not better than trickster/fighter. P.S. Cipher dd powers have mediocre base damage. That's why spell-damaging ascendant wants max MIG, since it's one of the best ways to boost spell damage. And either go helwalker for even higher MIG (+lightning strikes) or streetfighter (for faster cast-spamming). Thundercrack may be not the best per-encounter focus-generating weapon. But it has the shock lash and can be enchanted with per-rest Storm Rune Shot. Rune Shot can max your focus alone, also it can win majority of deck-to-deck fights, which is nice in the early game.

I see that both #1 and #2 are ascendants. Since soulblade is not considered, I'd say definitely go for a ranged build. Because currently you can max focus in 3-6 seconds from the start of combat with firearms, and thus there is no need to put yourself in melee range. Even in the early game, one can take Hand Mortar in main hand, Scordeo Tropy in off hand; enable both proficiency modals and spam Crippling Strike. Mainhand reload is waved. Offhand reload (with modal and streetfighter passive) is around 1.3s. So you basically make 2 shots every 3s. Moreover, if you need max focus even faster, there are per-rest abilities: - Wild Barrage from Kitchen Stove - Storm Rune Shot from Thundercrack Pistol

Ok, just checked Turning Wheel. It does add fire lash to non-dot damaging spells; and to ranged attacks; even if localized tooltip mentions melee attacks only. Lightning Strikes add lash only to weapon attacks. As for Eternal Flame... never used it. But Shared Flames do add a lash to spells.

Xoti: priestess (of Gaun) / helwalker Aloth: wizard / unbroken Aloth: illusionist / unbroken Pallegina: wayfarer / skald Pallegina: wayfarer / troubadour

So so. Soul Shock gets only +5% damage per power level. And I wouldn't mind it's base damage increased by around 15%. As for damage output, here's my level 7 ascendant/streetfighter (22/9/19/19/17/7) in Oathbinder's Sanctum: screenshot 241 total shock damage, when hitting 5 enemies. I must confess I didn't even learn Mind Blades (in Deadfire) until your reply. Was expecting that it only has 5 bounces, and stops on miss like in PoE1. I have tried it right now. And through the total damage on average is x2-x1.5 lower than from Soul Shock... it has much faster cast time. I like it. Here's screenshot from the same fight: 116 slash damage. So rawly speaking: - soul shock hitted 5 enemies; dealt 241 shock damage; and can be spammed in my case every 4.3s - mind blades resulted in 1 hit and 7 bounces; dealt 116 slash damage; and can be spammed every 2.3s ... and if there are less than 5 enemies, mind blades seem to have an upper hand. Btw, have to note that each bounce gets an increasing damage penalty: That's a nice idea. Lightning Strikes + Helwalker might and int bonuses look sweet. But it's kinda hard to factor if they do outweight the already mentioned streetfighter percs: - Heating Up passive, which is basically same as +100% recovery speed - nice full attacks, especially Devastating Blow - Sneak Attack, Deathblows, Backstab Getting Ascended takes about 1-2 full attacks or 3-6s. I'll take my current cipher, will try to imagine if he multi-classed in helwalker, and make a rough comparison: Ascended/Streetfighter @ 22 MIG (dmg coef: 1.36 * (1 + 0.2 + 0.35) = 2.108): 36-51 Soul Shock every 4.3s (2.4s attack + 1.9s recovery) | ~10.1 dps Ascended/Helwalker @ 32 MIG (dmg coef: 1.66 * (1+ 0.2 + 0.35) = 2.573): 44-62 Soul Shock every 4.9s (1.9s attack + ~3.0s recovery) | ~10.8 dps Not bad. Helwalker might take a bit more time to get to ascendant state, but at least he doesn't have to be distracted and can use Captain's Banquet. Lightning Strikes and Turning Wheel tooltips mention that they add elemental lashes only to weapon attacks. Currently running in Deltro's Cage plate. I like heavy armor in early game on everyone. Plus there is +2 shock PL, and no one focus fires my cipher

I have that tab opened all the time ^^ Yes and no) It definitely has a great impact (and especially if solo'ing). Using it might feel even a little cheap. But have to note that by the time I got it (in my last playthrough with a 5-man party), I no longer needed it. I actually even avoided using Ringleader, because it was faster to kill enemies while they were susceptible to foe aoes.

It depends on perspective. Looking at power's impact during a fight, Disintegration/1000 Cuts, Ring Leader and Amplified Wave do stand out to me. But it also matters on the build and cipher's niche in party. Not to mention how early a power can be acquired. For spell damage-dealing cipher, my (favorite + most-used)/2 powers are: (from top to bottom) - Amplified Wave - Soul Shock - Silent Scream - Disintegration - Detonate - Echo - Puppet Master Streetfighter/ascendant damage dealer feels quite decent in v1.2. Not as OP as devout/ascendant prior to v1.1.. but still deals respectable total damage. P.S. I haven't tried a pure cc-focused cipher in Deadfire yet. They don't seem to be reliable and needed enough. But Dominate/WT/Ringeader and Secret Horrors do stand out for such a cipher.

Googling shows that "Norwegian Blue" is a fictional parrot species. (source) Russian version is correct, but feels weird. Writing норвежский синий like that, kinda means that almost everyone knows what it is. Like with russian blue cat. But this is not really the case. That's why it's better to either add quotes, or specify that's a parrot: > У вас есть норвежский синий попугай? Or even better switch that to plural, since the customer will likely want to view all available parrots before purchasing anyway: > У вас есть норвежские синие попугаи? Or, if you are 100% sure that the person you are talking with, will understand that you are asking about parrots: > У вас есть синий норвежец?

1. Nerilei class: ascendant/devout patch: v1.0.2 race: wood elf origin: explorer from Deadfire * the actual battle gear is Miscreant's Leather and dual-pistols (Scordeo Trophy + Stormcracker): 2. Na'mi class: ascendant/streetfighter patch: v1.2.0 race: human origin: mercenary from The Living Lands

Am guilty of examining weapons first of all from cipher perspective ^^ There are waves, but not of wotah)

Oh, that's good to know.I like this approach of lash scaling with deity matching dispositions. But dam, this really should be in the weapon's tooltip. Watershaper's Focus does a terrible amount of damage, even if it bounces. I don't know why you would think it's directly comparable. Watershaper's Focus is a situational weapon. For that matter, the spiritual weapons are also mostly situational weapons as it is (and it seems that this is what Obsidian is deliberately balancing for).Tehee, to be honest I just didn't notice that Watershaper's Focus has non-standard base damage.Was thinking: that's like a usual rod, but with bounce! Like Keybreaker which had base damage of usual scepter but also had bounce. I have checked Watershaper's Focus now ingame. And yeah, thanks for pointing out, it's a bit of dissapointment: - mundane rod base damage: 15-24 - watershaper's focus: 9-12 + 1 bounce (which deals damage to adjacent enemy with -25% damage coef.) The good thing through is it's property Ondra's Wrath, which: - seems to trigger from main hit, bounce, and blast hits. (vs 9 dummies it was triggering all the time) - aoe crush damage for ~12-15 base damage, seems to generates focus. (ascendant is happy; vs 4-5 targets with rod modal on, one swing can generate full focus)

Feeling the same. If there is an upper cap, it's like something is spiraling out of control and game mechanics can't handle it, which denotes a poor system. Although am ok with bottom caps. Like: at least 20% of damage always go through. An experienced player will find a way to deal more than threshold; but it might help someone less experienced against blocking in combat when they just can't deal damage and being forced to reload the save. Exactly this) -0.5 from additive graze is less stingy, when you have high MIG, can backstab or deathblow) Yup. Been suggested: v4 and v5 from here. Although if graze is to be multiplicative, imo crit should be too. If under-penetration is multiplicative, over-penetration should be too.

Cyberpunk 2077 The Elder Scrolls VI Skull and Bones Edit: forgot Dragon Age 4 P.S. Would be also nice to see Skywind, PoE 3, Warcraft IV and Neverwinter Nights 3 if they are ever released...

They didn't mention they fixed the Mob Stance recursion in changelog To be precise v1.1.0 writes: - Mob Stance - Only strikes a single enemy per kill. - Swift Flurry will no longer recursively proc infinitely. So Mob Stance is still recursive, just the chance of recursion happening was heavily and indirectly decreased. But Waha Poraga doesn't case) The 2 extra attacks on adjacent targets seem to also trigger Mob Stance proc. Since they were able to fix Swift Flurry recursion, I think it would be nice to do so for Mob Stance as well. If an attack is originated from Mob Stance (or has Mob Stance in it's, uhm, stacktrace) - it should not trigger further Mob Stance procs. And if it no longer be recursive, it can even perhaps be buffed to hit up to 2 adjacent enemies on kill... Yeah, Dota uses PRD for procs now. That would solve it, yes) But it would hurt a bit when you use weapons with procs. For example a Mob Stance generated attack hits an adjacent target, but your weapon proc/effect/debuff, won't trigger because it's a secondary effect. And there is no recursion in this specific scenario, nor balance-threat, thus I think it should be allowed... I think allowing chain-proccing should be examined on per-case basis. While recursion should be always eliminated. Btw, since you have mentioned Dota, imagine what happens when two tethered Wisps with "Attack Tethered Ally's Target" talent attack same target ^^ Or what happened with recursive blade mails, or cross-tether regen, before they fixed it)

And that's why you always stay away from recursive scenarios in video games... No matter the proc chance.

I'm pretty sure that's indeed the case Original design was making a heavy emphasis on "cool". Josh really likes to repeat this word ^^ At the same time, I recall Josh mentioning either on twitter or tumblr that they asked one of their min-max employee to go through all the abilities and items stuff. And these changes were incorporated in v1.1 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Brb, checking again what's Josh definition of trash options is ^^

Confirming Dr<3 reply regarding priest spiritual weapons having only +20% lash. Here are their tooltips/values for v1.1.1: Tbh I only find Woedica Fists somewhat interesting. While all other priest summoned weapons look to be strictly worse than regular uniques. I mean why lose an ability point, a spell slot and 3s of cast time to summon Sword of Magran when you can take Watcher's Blade instead. Or for example compare Rod of Wael with Watershaper's Focus. Btw, is there any difference between +x% lash (listed in weapon properties, like on all spiritual weapons) and +x% damage (listed in weapon's damage field, like on firebrand)?