MaxQuest

This is an internal variable related to animation. Attacks made with weapons of the same variation are animated the same; and hit/release the projectile at the same frame from the start of attack. Yeap I agree that knowing the per-tick damage is important, especially because of DR. I guess devs didn't make tooltips display the tick damage, because it quite varies depending on graze/hit/crit/int. While for total damage is enough to just multiply by 0.5/1.0/1.5/int_coef. Also similar approach is used in WoW which spent quite a lot of time to simplify stuff. (e.g: Corruption: corrupts the target, causing x Shadow damage over 14 sec.) I like the proposed variant. Alternative could be: v1. (combat log) Dot of Doom causes 45 fire damage over 10.5 seconds. (4.5 ticks for 10 damage) v2. (tooltip) Dot of Doom: - causes 45 fire damage over 10.5 seconds. - tick rate: 3s - 4 ticks for 10 damage, plus 1 tick for 5 damage. Let's take for example Envenomed Strike which is a poison. Currently we can 'use' it on a poison-immune target. Ofc poison won't be 'applied', and we would just lose one per-rest charge. Maybe the game should make it impossible to even 'use' poison on poison-immune targets? Like you can't even attack a party-member in Tyranny. But since I am not sure if that is a good thing or not, I marked it as just optional. Yeap, Tyranny did show you your recovery duration. It didn't show attack duration. But it was displaying weapon average damage, and it's current dps. In theory that should be enough to calculate attack duration... E.g: att_duration = avg_dmg / dps - recovery_duration But the data didn't compute: avg_dmg = 49.5 12 dps @ 3.2s recovery 32 dps @ 1.2s recovery 39 dps @ 1.0s recovery I agree, it is confusing. And tooltips using more intuitive but kinda wrong descriptions don't really help at that. I've called the system great; I like it, it doesn't have big balance-flaws like the one from Tyranny, and I don't think it should be simplified. But it definitely should be more transparent. And displaying attack/recovery durations for weapons on the character sheet is a great suggestion. - Non-DoT lashes (like all current elemental lashes) benefit from might indirectly. Might increases the damageRoll of weapon attack. And lash uses 25% of that vs 25% of related elemental DR. - DoT lashes (like wounding enchant-property) benefit from might both indirectly AND directly. The direct part is related to the fact that wounding is a damage over time effect and it's damage is increased by might. So for example you deal 60 damage to a zero-DR enemy. If you have 10 might, wounding would deal 15 damage. If you have 20 might, wounding would deal 19.5 damage. This post might be useful on how is lash damage calculated. Yeah. Something like: - Regular (scalable with Int DoTs): .- Might increases totalDamage via increase in dps (i.e. damage of ticks) .- Intellect increases totalDamage via increase in duration (i.e. adding extra ticks) - Fixed (DoTs that deal fixed amount of damage like wounding): .- Might increases totalDamage via increase in dps .- Intellect does not affect them at all (note: at the moment unfortunately int reduces dps of such dots) A yes, I remember that. Adding) Plus weapon status effects, and powder-burns lacking FoE area. 1. Depends what do we call a stat. If attributes like might, dex, int the answer is yes. If reloading duration is also a stat, the answer is no. Would be nice if you will provide an example. 2. On top of that. Example: weakened target gets -28 fortitude (-20 as mentioned in tooltip; and -8 from -2 mig and -2 con). Well said)

Indeed I am. I can hardly imagine other pros of ceiling approach, that would also not be applicable to no-ceiling. Tbh, I had to google what exactly a meaningful choice is in order to know that we discuss the same thing. And judging by that definition, I don't understand why the mentioned pro is exclusive to ceiling only. Makes a lot of sense. When you are going for 2nd, 3rd, 4th play-through, the joy of discovering new items is greatly diminished. It's substituted by planing and joy of efficient usage.

I also am not that into voice-over, but I do like her voice, and it fits Xoti as I see her perfectly. Allegra's voice is nice too, but it's more rogue-like. I'd like to see it as one of mc/hireling voice-sets.

Created such a thread here.

List of PoE1 stuff that in my opinion is inconsistent or potentially confusing. It would be nice to have it fixed, changed or improved in PoE2: 1. Modals Problem: - there are no clear rules which would state which modals are mutually exclusive - it is unclear why Galant's Focus is mutually exclusive with any of ranger's modals - it is unclear why Reckless Assault is not mutually exclusive with anything, why Savage Attack switches-off Cautious Attack, Defender and Guardian Stance - modals exclusivity table for reference: link Suggestion: - create modal categories and two category groups: .- Unrestricted (can have any number of modals of this group active at a time) .- Restricted (can only 1 be active at a time), for example: Defensive Self, Offensive Self, Ranged Mastery, Supportive Aura - this way it's clear, you can have one defensive modal, one offensive, one ranged (swift/vicious/twinned-arrows/powder-blast), one aura and any number of unrestricted modals enabled at the same time. 2. Lashes Weapon damageRoll goes against enemy respective DR. Weapon lash, is 25% of damageRoll that goes against 25% of enemy respective elemental DR. One could expect that lash has similar behaviour to regular weapon damage, just is multiplied by 0.25. But it doesn't deal MIN damage, meaning that it can be completely eaten by DR. 3. Weapon UI speeds Expected behaviour: - fast weapons are faster than average - average weapons are faster than slow Encountered behaviour: - slow 2h melee weapons have the same speed as average 1h melee weapons - fast ranged weapons have the same speed as slow 2h and average 1h melee weapons - weapons base speed values for reference: http://i.imgur.com/QqMIkII.png Problem: - creates confusion for the player, when he tries to evaluate relative efficacy of one weapon over the other. One will think that all fast weapons have the same attack rate. Suggestions: - rename fast melee weapons into "very-fast" - rename average and slow melee weapons into "fast" - this way all weapons of the same UI category will have the same speed. 4. +x Attack Speed tooltips Problem: - not a single talent, property or buff that states that it increases attack speed, actually affect it. - instead they reduce recovery duration Suggestions: - update all related tooltips to reflect the true state of things "+x attack speed" => "reduces by x% recovery duration" / "reduces by x% base recovery duration" - change recovery_factor from 1.2 => 1.0; this way x% at least will reflect a closer to reality reduction in action duration (provided there are no other similar effects active yet) Notes: - current attack speed system is actually great. It is deep, and in current "ecosystem" (items/talents/buffs/encounters at hand) quite is balanced. There is no need to revamp it, just to tweak a little; update tooltips and overall make it more transparent to the player (perhaps even showing system-calculated action duration) - reference: link 5. Damage over Time Problem: - DoTs do no benefit from Elemental talents like Scion of Flame, Spirit of Decay and so on - DoTs do no benefit from Creature Slayer talents like Beast Slayer, Ghost Hunter and so on - The rule of thumb is that DoT DPS is not influenced by INT. Regular DoTs obey this principle, increases both their duration and damage, DPS remaining the same. But DoTs with fixed damage (like wounding shot) violate this idea. Duration gets increased by Int, total damage remains the same, and DPS is going down. - There is a lack of unambiguous rules regarding stacking. Wounding does stack with itself. Deep Wounds doesn't. There is no way to tell if Dragon Thrashed or Shining Beacon stacks with itself, until we test it. Mouseover tooltips display only one appliance active at a time; but they do stack. Suggestions: - DoTs should benefit from Elemental and Creature Slaying talents. Or at least explicitly stated in their tooltips that they do not. - DoTs with fixed damage, should not have their duration affected by Int. - DoTs should have an extra field in their tooltips. Stacking: .- Stacking: (unrestricted or) complete .- Stacking: (restricted to) one per caster .- Stacking: (restricted to) one appliance Current DoT mechanics for reference: link 6. Shield Bash Expected behaviour: - in terms of dps [1h + bashing_shield] is between [1h + shield] and [1h + 1h] Problem: - provided enough recovery reduction, [1h + bashing_shield] falls behind of [1h + shield] in terms of auto-attack dps (provided there are no special proc effects) 7. Immunities Problem: - When trying to apply Envenomed Strike to a poison immune enemy you get "misses with addional effect (Fort:Imm. = Imm..)" message in combat log. That is not that descriptive Suggestion: - When an effect is "missed" due to an immunity, combat log should state just so. - It would be nice to have all Ground, Poison, Diseases spells and abilities have it stated in their tooltips. - (Optional) If the target is immune anyway, maybe it would make sense to make it impossible to try to apply related effect, which results in a waste of charge/spellusage/casttime. 8. Self buffs that last until hit or crit Compare the following 3 wizard spells and their tooltips: - Wizard's Double: +40 Deflection until hit or critically hit (no duration limit) - Mirrored Image: +25 Deflection until hit or critically hit for 60s - Ironskin: +8 Damage Reduction until hit or critically (no duration limit) Problem: - inconsistency - wrong tooltips Reality: - Wizard's Double: +40 Deflection bonus; bonus disappears on first incoming hit/crit - Mirrored Image: +25 Deflection bonus; bonus is reduced by 5 on each incoming hit/crit - Ironskin: +8 Damage Reduction; bonus disappears on 10th incoming hit/crit Suggestion: - ... at least make tooltips reflect real spell effects and decay) 9. Elemental talents Problem: - as was already mentioned in #5, they do not increase damage of elemental Damage over Time effects - the second problem is related to inconsistent interaction with weapons that deal elemental damage: .- Matching elemental talent (e.g. Scion of Flame) increase damage dealt by pure elemental weapons (e.g. Firebrand) .- Matching elemental talent (e.g. Spirit of Decay) increase damage dealt by elemental/physical weapons (e.g. Bitercut corrode/slash). And they even increase the physical damage. (i.e. in case of Bittercut, Spirit of Decay increases slash damage as well) .- Elemental talents DO NOT increase damage dealt by physical/elemental weapons (yes, even if enemy has high physical, but low elemental DR, and elemental damage is dealt) (e.g. Durance's Staff, crush/burn) 10. AoE/FoE inconsistency If you have high int, AoE spells get increased area of effect. This yellow zone is FoE meaning that friendly targets inside it should not get hit. Problem: - Powder Burns disregards it's FoE zone. Allies standing in yellow part of the cone are still being hit. Note: - When the system uses a check for party member, Animal Companion should also pass it. Iirc, depending on patch, pets had problems with FoE zone of some AoE abilities. 11. Weapon procs and status effects Problem: - there is no way for a player to know exactly how long is the proc duration (e.g: the stun of stunning weapons; or prone of overbearing weapons) - game also doesn't communicate if duration is modified by hit quality or not Effects for reference: Will probably add more stuff as I remember it. P.S. Feel free to add to the list, I will append it.

Hah, probably because I confused him P.S. It's not the first time, the question about poison list appears... Imho such stuff should be included in spells' tooltips.

No. Just tried to apply it with fists upon Alpine Dragon (who is immune to crush, but not to poison). And envenom was applied. My bad for that false positive.

Khm, I've just noticed that Ice Blights are immune to poison. I've just checked. The problem was not in the fact that I was trying to apply Envenomed Strike with fists vs crush immune enemy; but in that that the enemy was immune to poison itself. Fort:Imm notice in combat log could be a little more descriptive. But yeah, should check my target for all immunities)

So to resume: Pros of no ceiling: - if there are 100 unique weapons in the game; all 100 will be available in late game as well. This increases the number of unique builds you can come up with. Pros of ceiling: - "joy of finding new equipment." "The sense of discovery and excitement." I can hardly empathize with the pros of ceiling, as there is also joy in getting "the right weapon" asap, like getting Bittercut as early as lvl 7-8; which kind of compensates for the joy of finding new shinny, because you have just found a shinny that is best-in-slot for your build. On the other hand there are players for whom permanently finding new stuff is important. I suppose both parties would be satisfied if: V1: - there was ceiling - AND there would be 5-7 times more unique weapons and equipment than in PoE1, in order to guarantee enough lategame item variety for building purposes. V2: - there was no ceiling - AND the unique weapons/items we find in the mid-late game would have even more unique properties.

I had a similar feeling. Like if clever somehow included {clever, sassy, clowny} responses, instead of {clever, witty, ingenious}. class: cipher (but could be also monk, druid, wizard or rogue) (tbh I never ever main a paladin, priest or barbarian in a rpg game, provided that all classes are balanced). disposition: personal preference goes for benevolent + clever. In PoE through I usually end up with benevolent + honest + diplomatic.

What we know precisely is that ciphers can interact only with housed souls, while watchers can see all of them. Are ciphers able to see the past of a soul, is a bit unclear. I will quote two questions from the last two Q&A streams: Stream #3 Transcript: Q: What's the difference between a Watcher and a Cipher? In Pillars 1 a Watcher felt like a weaker and less versatile Cipher. CP: So, this is something we've discussed a lot in the team as well. A Watcher is someone who can—a Watcher can do a lot things that literally no one else can do. I'm trying to stay out of things that are new to this game that we're not talking about yet. Watchers can see the histories of souls, and they can specifically see past lives. Ciphers can still interact with housed souls, which would be like a soul in a person. They can not see a free-floating lost soul like the Watcher can. They can't see into the tween, which is... you have a...the body has perished and the soul is moving into the beyond. A Watcher can see that...a Cipher cannot. [the recording was garbled for the end of this question] Stream #4 Transcript: Q: In the third Twitch Q&A stream Carrie answered the question on the difference between Watchers and Ciphers by saying Watchers can see the histories of souls and they can specifically past lives, and ciphers cannot, presumably. But it's a plot point in Pillars 1 that the Dunryd Row Ciphers check the soul lineages of Crucible Knights. JS: Just confusion among writers. Just an error. That was a reason why people were asking that question. People were like, "It doesn't seem clear which is which", and that's something in the beginning of Pillars 2 I said: okay, let's sit down and talk about exactly what people can and can't do, so that moving forward we don't confuse things.

There was a related question asked in the recent AMA. TL.DR: Q: Do you agree with the assessment that the games gets much easier towards the end even on higher difficulties? JS: Yes Q: Do you consider this an intentional design choice, or mostly a balancing issue. JS: It's mostly a balancing issue, largely due to the widening gap of bonuses and the increased gulf of efficacy that arises between system masters and non-masters. Q: Do you plan to handle the difficulty (curve) differently in Pillars of Eternity II? JS: Yes. We're paying much more attention to the widening of that gulf in the mid and late game to have more consistent challenge.

I wouldn't say that it is a priori clear. For example there are stunning spells that roll vs Fortitude (Relentless Storm,Overwhelming Wave) and also spells that roll vs Will (Silent Scream, Dimensional Shift). But yeah, stunning and overbearing indeed do roll vs Fortitude only. Here are the results of a few quick tests: Desiccating (Captain Viccilos Anger)(on hit) : roll vs Fort | duration: 0 on miss; 3.0s on graze; 6.0s on hit; 9.0s on crit Disorienting (The Vile Loners Lance)(on hit) : auto-applied | duration: constant 5.0s Interfering (Lost Thayns Reach)(on hit) : auto-applied | duration: 5.0s on hit; 7.5s on crit Overbearing (We-Toki)(on crit) : roll vs Fort | duration: 0 on miss; 1.5s on graze; 3.0s on hit; 4.5s on crit Persecuting (St. Wygelts Cudgel)(on hit) : auto-applied | duration: constant 6.0s Stunning (Starcaller)(on crit) : roll vs Fort | duration: 0 on miss; 1.0s on graze; 2.0s on hit; 3.0s on crit Stunning (Godansthunyr)(on crit) : roll vs Fort | duration: 0 on miss; 1.0s on graze; 2.0s on hit; 3.0s on crit Wounding (Drawn in Spring) : auto-appliedProperty meanings: P.S. All durations scale with Int. P.P.S. Marking and coordinating, do not make a roll, and also do not apply a visible status effect.

That's not a bad party comp at all. But since you play on PotD (i.e. there are more enemies) and since you don't employ an alpha-strike opening, a 3 melee + 3 ranged would be a better approach compared to 2 + 4; because with 3 melee and 1 charmed/stunned enemy you can body block quite a lot of passages/hallways. I like the idea of utility/main-tank paladin that is also used as reactive anti-cc. I've also grew fond of blasting wizard; as he can deliver a decent aoe-dps (during trash fights) even without casting per-rest spells. For off-tank I would advice either barb or monk, for that sweet phys aoe damage. Plus both are comfortable with the spell-holding approach. This leads to: one of [cipher, priest, druid] should be melee. - cipher can be played as ranged-dps with a warbow, or melee-cc with dual-sabres / botep. - priest can be played as ranged fire priest (providing huge amount of damage during boss fights) or melee "How I Buffed The Others" focused mainly on buffs and off-tanking. - druid... tbh, I don't actually see how a ranged-druid can be useful without casting. So it leaves us with melee only. Either Batsh!t Crazy off-tank. Or Thundercat if your cipher can cover his ass 24/7. But tbh, your party already has great boss-fight potential. Thus I would take a second cipher instead. Afaik, many players enjoy more sturdy and less min-maxed (in terms of stats) parties. Such parties usually include fighters, paladins, barbarians, monks, and especially druid + chanters. Storms + Dragon Thrashed are a great combo that will wear down most of the enemies hordes.

Hehe, something like: - you are a wizard, Frodo (© the innkeeper of "The Prancing Pony" probably)

Sounds interesting. Animancer is more suitable than bartender to do the job anyway As a compromise it could be made such that animancers would be able to reshufle only mental stats (int, per, res). If Aloth suddenly drops to 3 int, we could always blame them for it.

Edit: hrr, double-post. Thanks for noticing. That's just a typo. It is 1.0 For some reason I have divided the value by 1.5 (hence 0.67). I will re-check that later (at home). Edit: found one of my older posts. It should be a 0.5 multiplicative malus. Updating that post, so it becomes:

1. DoTs do cause an interrupt. They do it on initial hit. 2. Hmm, don't remember testing those. Iirc, marking and disorienting don't have a separate roll and are auto-applied if you landed a hit with your weapon. While overbearing and stunning make a roll vs fortitude (and that prone/stun effect can also miss/graze/hit/crit). Firebug proc also makes an attack roll (but vs deflection). Afaik Ironskin, Mirrored Image and Wizard's Double are not dispelled immediately on being hit; rather their protection is diminished by 10% of base value or something like that. Tbh, I haven't casted them at all yet.

Just a change of racial abilities is enough RemoveTalent Companion_zzz distantadvantage AddAbility Companion_zzz elementalendurance Makes sense, from RP point of view.

Not yet But we'll get there. The thing is that such errata should be well structured, and each listed item have to be accompanied by [title, expected_situation, current_situation, reason_for_change]. Also we need to take balancing into account. For example Wounding Shot's raw DoT damage being affected by enemy DR as mentioned by Kaylon, breaks consistency, but in a way is more balanced than if it wasn't. Otherwise we would probably see a heavy shift towards blunderbuss rangers. Yeap, all tooltips that mention "+x% Attack Speed" actually reduce recovery duration. "Reduces recovery duration by x% of base value." is a good start. Although the x itself will still be inexact, as it depends on the fact if you dual-wield or not, have durganized shield or not, as well as other recovery-modifying effects (because some do apply multiplicatively, some additively). The thing is: [1h + bashing_shield] was meant to be somewhere in between [1h + shield] and [1h + 1h] in terms of dps. The problem is: at some point [1h + bashing_shield] starts to deliver lower dps than [1h + shield] (provided we don't take onHit and onCrit effects of barricade and dragon's maw) Absolutely right. I would also like to mention a series of wizard buffs, that last until hit or critically hit, according to their tooltips. For example Ironskin reads: "+8 Damage Reduction until hit or critically hit". No one would use a per-rest spell if it would just block 8 damage Even if used by a very high-def character vs fast-hitting low-acc enemies, in a hope that they will graze or miss only. The message is almost always wrong for non-raw dots. It shows you the damage as if the target had 0 DR. And ofc it has no way to take into account something like Cleansing Flames.

1. Yes, stacking with itself. For example you can cast 4 Shining Beacons one after another, and no ticks will be lost. While with Envenomed Strike you'd better wait it's full duration before applying it again. 2. Depends on Int. If you have 12 int, coefficient is 1.10. If you have 20 int, coefficient is 1.5. If damage coefficient is 1 and hit_quality is 'hit', than yes total damage of regular dot is directly proportional with int coef. 3. Yes, no DR). Also a HoT is auto-hit. There is no attack resolution.

I've read the books. Thrice The thing is I imagine Geralt fighting in silence. While chanter always chants something under his breath.

All companions indeed have a couple of optimal builds that can suit them. But there are few scenarios when you need something specific. For example I may like Aloth, but he is not super fitting for Zeblastion or Bilestomper builds

First of all there are two swords. I'd say Blade of the Endless Paths vs enemies with medium-low DR, and Tidefall vs enemies with high DR. The character could switch them like witchers do. Second, there are signs: Aard, Igni, Yrden, Quen and Axii. Aard - basic sign is similar to Mind Wave; while sweep upgrade is somewhat similar to Amplified Wave. Igni - fan of flames plus ray of fire, and to a lesser degree soul ignition. Yrden - this one is hard, maybe Time Siphon for mass slow Quen - there are no phys damage preventing shielding spells. Perhaps Spirit Shield , Llengrath's Displaced Image, Ironskin and Psychovampiric Shield? Or maybe Unbending + Triggered Immunity? Axii - Whispers of Treason / Tenuous Grasp / Enigma's Charm I would go for: - wizard or cipher, if you want to play like a witcher of Griffin school. - cipher or fighter for Wolf School - fighter for Ursine School - and rogue for Cat/Viper School feel

Animancer class... hmm. ^ There is already a confusion between ciphers and watchers It was told that only watchers can see the past of a soul. Yet ciphers from Hadret House seemingly had no problems checking Penhelm's past life. Although it was more of a miscommunication between writers.