MaxQuest

In PoE1 we had ciphers: - that dealt phys damage to build focus and use cc powers. (these were great as main debilitators) - that dealt phys damage to build focus and use damaging powers. (these were great as damage dealers, who could compete with barbarians, while also providing some off-cc at the expense of being more squishy) (note: damage done via dd-powers was roughly 2/3 of total damage done by such a cipher) In Deadfire, these two do not feel optimal anymore. Instead there is a new variant of cipher, the weapon-damage dealer: imagine that you have a barb, monk or devout, who multi-classes into cipher sollely for the bonus damage from soul and bitting whips. Specifically, such characters choose to multi-class into soulblade, since you can dump your focus into Soul Annihilation, which deals respectable damage, and has no casting time attached (plus you can avoid situations when whip is deactivated due to being at max focus). So yes, as KDubya mentioned, weapon-damage-dealing ciphers are doing fine. While power-casting ciphers... in current beta are pity to look at.

Sounds like a bug, because we were told that armor will affect reloading duration in Deadfire. It doesn't make them OP yet. Dual-wielding two 1H does, because of the wrong base recovery duration (1s instead of 3s). But the thing is, except for Soul Annihilation, there is nothing worthy to do with you focus anyway. Instead of waiting for casting animation, it's better to keep auto-attacking.

But on the other hand it's called "Two-weapon" style, and you have two weapons)

True that. Please don't) Personally I love focus mechanics. It's like: if you can figure out how to generate focus at a good enough rate, you can trump wizards in terms of inflicted spell damage. What ratio do you propose? E.g. a wizard can cast 1 spell of rank 9 or 2 spells of rank 5 or 4 spells of rank 1.

Tbh, I don't quite look for videos. I prefer mech info presented in static images and textual form mostly. And for playstyle... pillars is not really that entertaining to look from aside) But you can check: Wodjee, Victor Creed and Kaylon

The same. Compared to PoE1 they are very weak. Concelhaut's Staff and Firebrand were especially dissapointing. No one is going to spend an ability point + spell slot + 6s of casting to just summon a basically mundane staff / great sword. As was already mentioned, in PoE1 these had much higher base damage. Plus their summoning was a fast cast followed by no recovery. That's 0.966s at 10 DEX. Not to mention that summoning weapons from items (like Firebrand from Forgemaster gloves) was even faster, basically instant. Yes to both questions.

Yeap, it makes sense todo WM1 before Elmshore. Usually I'd go to Stalwart at level 7 if I don't want to upscale, or at level 9 if I do. Have to notice through: sometimes it makes sense to go to Elmshore realyl early, provided you are not going to fight, and just want to run through, in order to get to Hearthsong Market (if your builds require those items) Cipher is good both ranged and melee. But he requires supervision and backup in either case. You can get Sanguine Plate as early as uhm, level 6 in Defiance Bay. As for Eder, you can give him Tidefall, because he can make great use of both of those weapons, while GM (if you make her melee) can't. Currently, both playstyles are good. And it really comes to your personal preference. What I like in cc-and-dps, is that even if enemy accuracy would get increased by 15-30 more, I wouldn't care much. Plus it's somewhat faster to finish combat. But on the con side, it requires more supervision. My last run was with: frontline: dps barb, mt/damage-dealing chanter, cc cipher midline: moon godlike fire priest backline: blast/cc wizard, dps/cc cipher You can check their damage contribution and a few videos: here. For the next run though, I am thinking of a slightly slower but more laid back party: frontline: offtank/damage-dealing chanter, mt/supp paladin, control-freak wizard (2 mig, 1h&shield, plate, infuse vitality, and all cc spells) midline: moon godlike fire priest backline: cc/dps cipher, dps/cc cipher

Naa, challenge is fun) On the other hand, upscalling Elmshore was added such that you won't feel it too easy after WM1. So if you want a more comfortable ride, wait for lvl 11 or 13. Depending on party composition it can be done earlier, but your team doesn't feel optimized enough to me. Oh yes there is. The problem is that for cipher to really shine, he must be placed in... a specific environment. I have been mentioning for quite awhile that there are two good approaches in PoE1 to party composition: v1. soft cc + sturdy party. The idea is to make enemies mostly miss and graze vs higher DR, and killing enemies over time (mainly via dragon trashed and sacred immolation), while they try to scratch you. v2. hard cc + high-dps. The idea is to lock-down enemies completely, and dispatch them while they cannot retaliate. Ciphers generally prefer the second style. High dps means that more damage will be dealt in the same time-window that cc offers. It also allows to build focus faster, which allows them to cc even more, which allows them safely to deal more damage, which allows to build focus faster... you got the idea. It's a virtuous cycle. Also they like when there is a second cipher in the party, because being usually built for cc and dps, they are quite frail and need someone to take enemies of them in case of emergency, and who can do this better if not another cipher? As for Grieving Mother there are only two (apparent to me) ways you can built her effectively. First one is: give her Rain of Goddath warbow + Penetrating Shots + a few DAoM potions and try to achieve zero recovery. If you want you can open up with one shot from Lead Spitter, and switch to warbow after that. Also you can use Angio's Gambeson for the DAoM enchant. Use it in one fight, and switch to a good hide armor (wayfarer or maneha's) after combat end and till the next rest. Another variant would be make her a melee cipher. Sanguine plate (prior to lvl 13) + Blade of the Endless Paths. Prior to lvl 12, you can also use Tidefall and Firebrand. Tbh GM has really nice stats for such a cipher. Also she can work nicely in a roaming tandem with Eder. She paralyzes a target, and they hit it together, additionally Eder can knockdown anyone who threatens her in melee. Imho, it's a good idea to charm enemy druids, and paralyze/prone their adragans. That's the job of your cipher + wizard (slicken, shadowflame, call to slumber, gaze of adragan; and if there are too many enemies: mass confusion). And Painful Interdiction should help in landing all this stuff.

Finally have found time to test UPMod with the new Definitive Edition. DE didn't incorporate any fixes from UPMod, nor changed the affected classes, so UPMod v1.01.306 works fine, but it no longer displays it's version on the Start Screen. Reason being that PoE has migrated to different versioning and has modified the UIVersionNumber class. You can continue using UPMod v1.01.306, or you can download the new v1.01.370. It's the same thing, but incorporates the fix for version display, so it will become visible and you would know that it is installed, like this: Have updated the post with downloads: here

Zen, no stress and patience Since his reply is 3h old, the raw ETA is 4-7 hours.

Majority of cipher powers (I mark these as unusual) and wizard self-buffs in PoE1 had short recovery). Do note through, this means that armor doesn't hinder their casting much.

For pure spell-damagers it will. It looks like a control freak wizard-skald with 2 MIG I was going to use, will now also be able to contribute with spell damage as well... This is tasty from one point of view. But ciphers get into a somewhat bad spot after this change, as they suddenly happen to need ALL stats now. Usually they deal physical damage to get focus, in order to: - cast cc powers - or cast damaging powers - or both (amplified wave) And unless it's addressed, we won't see many casting ciphers. They can potentially end up being multi-classed into just for their martial damage coefficients. P.S. Funny enough, Helwalker will suddenly stop being that useful for spelldamagers. P.P.S. Needa check the RES bonus from Crowns for the Faithful...

So that's why Knockdown and Mind Wave were sooo bad. And I was futilely trying to find their durations in the combat log...

PoE1 petrify was equal to PoE1 Paralyze + 1.0 incoming damage coefficient (aka deathblows for everyone). But yes, new Paralyze is weaker than it's PoE1 counterpart =\ > -40 reflex with -100 dexterity were resulting in target having 0 reflex, so all of your AoE stuff (like fireballs and especially Dragon Trashed) would land even if casters had dumped PER. > -40 deflection is a stronger deflection debuff than 50% incoming hits to crits: - minus 40 deflection would shift something like [15 miss / 35 graze / 50 hit / 0 crit] to [10 graze / 50 hit / 40 crit] - while 50% hit to crit would shift same resolution to [15 miss / 35 graze / 25 hit / 25 crit]; and if you can't hit the target (due to very high deflection), then you will get not shift at all, and it will be as hard to connect your swings on paralyzed target as it was while it was unparalyzed. Tbh, cc becoming weaker, slower and more unreliable saddens me. The only good thing about new paralyze is that hit-to-crit conversion seems to affect all defences and not only deflection.[/color]

Yeap I remember it. A barbarian with 2H was swinging his weapon twice during Full Attack from Barbaric Blow. But iirc there appeared only 1 overhead damage number, so I thought it's just a custom animation.

Gafonercos has 26 RES iirc.

Who says that? They have lower base damage and therefore have to be faster to do the same dps. If they don't they are just not balanced. Afaik no one yet did. But, if PoE1 would move from additive AR to percentage-based AR, that would indeed be the case. Compare: - rapier: 9-13 base damage @ 19 frames attack + 31.8 frames recovery => 30 * 11/50.8 = 6.49 dps - spear: 11-16 base damage @ 30 frames attack + 50 frames recovery => 30 * 13.5/80 = 5.06 dps We can't make such an estimation for Deadfire yet, as 1H weapons were told to have wrong recovery. But if recovery's base value is proportional with attack duration (like it did in PoE1)... fast weapons would be better for auto-attacking by ~10%, because: - rapier: 11-15 base damage @ 0.5s attack + c * 0.5s recovery => 13/(0.5 + 0.5c) = 26 / (1 + c) - spear: 14-19 base damage @ 0.7s attack + c * 0.7s recovery => 16.5/(0.7 + 0.7c) = 23.5 / (1 + c) (but then again there are sabres with +0.2 damage coefficient...)

The thing is that it should be not only balanced but also really easy to remember. A rule of thumb of sorts. I'm still not completely sure that they should have the same amount of damage. In PoE1 you could have a rogue and have to decide: do I want higher auto-attack dps (via fast weapons) or higher burst via special abilities + heavier weapons. I mean I'd like: - to have weapons' impact be somewhat balanced when speaking of Full Attacks. - but at the same time to evade the situation when "it doesn't matter what I use". No Uhm, when you put it this way... I never thought of what do Darcozzis like. Tbh I have never even taken FoD on Darcozzis. My rationale was: - if I want FoD, there are Bleakwalkers and Kind Wayfarers directly linked to it. - and if I take Darcozzi it must be because of Liberating Exhortation, so that's my FoDless tank-support. I could still give them some rapier. But I would look for utility enchants not for dps though. But overall I understand what you mean. And there is a specific FoD related example that speaks to me: FoD with a melee 2H weapon is quite subpar to DW with slower weapons; which resulted in Greater Sword paladin being a bit sub-optimal.

You bet I did) It's even more weird having to draw your warbow at that distance. On the other hand I can imagine doind this with a pistol. Probably because of PoE1 interruptions. But I don't know which came first. Also weapon procs, carnage, combusting wounds. I'm not sure I'm liking this. The baseline damage for fast melee weapons currently is 11-15 damage. x4, that's 44-60. The baseline damage for average melee weapons currently is 14-19. x2, that's 28-38. I.e. you are not really getting roughly the same amount of damage dealt. Tbh, I'd just make Backstab deal: x2 damage with firearms x4 damage with daggers and stilletos x3 damage with other weapons ... and leave Full and Primary Attacks as they are. Or make Full and Primary attacks with a fast (0.5s attack time) weapon perform an additional instant swing. Edit: Or both of above mixed together, i.e.: Backstab deals: x3 damage with daggers and stilletos x2 damage with other weapons Plus Full and Primary attacks with a fast (0.5s attack time) weapon perform an additional instant swing.

Yeap. Resolve now is a completely dump stat on majority of character builds, with a possible exception for some sort of pure tank, provided there gonna be some bosses that deal heavy damage vs deflection and whose penetration is enough to trump your AR in case they score a crit. CON can often provide more survivability per-point. And not to mention that: - MIG has became more important, and is now a stat which every healer and damage dealer has to heavily invest into. - DEX became a bit more important. Unlike in PoE1, there is stuff that increases attack/casting duration besides DEX. And they stack multiplicatively. - PER became more important as well. Previously it was enough to have a 15 acc lead over target's defenses, because by shifting the attack resolution to the right you were eliminating misses completely; effectively changing misses for crits; and afterwards the diminishing returns were kicking in, as past 15 it was already graze -> crit trade which was less of impact. In Deadfire though... As a quick idea, Resolve could increase the interval of scoring a (outcoming) Hit: 10 RES: 0-50 miss (16-50 graze), 51-100 hit 20 RES: 0-30 miss (16-30 graze), 31-100 hit Or provide some incoming crit-to-hit downgrade.

Ehh, arguably... if you want to land hard cc - you want hard cc, even if for just 3s such that you could recast it. The point is to prevent target from damaging your party completely. And if's not feasible... bye bye high-dps-heavy-cc party composition =( hello tank and spank style.

If you can't graze, you need to get 51 in order for swing to connect. And you had 46. I.e. you have 8% chance to miss. Just random thought: what if grazes were only disabled for auto-attacks, while spells and (optionally) abilities could graze like in PoE1?

> It seems that rogue class fails to match the lore description when it comes to versatility. > How to fix? By making them more versatile and allow them to easier evade incoming damage, without making them tanky: - give them some ability to temporary trade their damage output for a really big boost to evasion, deflection and disengagement. - some kind of AoE smoke bomb, that confuses everyone in area, and gives invisibility to any affected rogue (including enemies) for a number of seconds equal to their power level. > In the current iteration of beta, they are probably worse at ranged physical damage dealing than monks, black jackets and berserkers. > How to fix: by giving them some expert ranged specialization and some perception inspiration.

Yeap) And stating the obvious, uhm just in case: -50% recovery duration == +100% recovery speed Josh told us exactly so. Everything what affected recovery duration will affect reloading duration, in Deadfire, as well. While stuff that states reloading exclusively will affect only reloading. There is a thing though, reloading and recovery used different formulas in PoE1. So I was curious how it gonna be in the sequel. But had no time to test it yet. Well, looks like they forgot about: Source: transcript #6

That's hilarious)