MaxQuest

It's an ability. Usually has a shape of a cone; but can also be a circular AoE (as in case with Turisulfus). Depending on dragon, breath deals different amount of damage, different type of damage, has different angle and cone length. I've set the mig/int to 10, and took a few screenshots. You can see them here, or check the following table: Dragon Breath base (@ 10 mig/int) values: - Adra Dragon: cone (9.0m, 125°) | AoE | 100-130 corrode damage - Sky Dragon: cone (8.1m, 90°) | AoE | 75-100 burn damage | + dazed - Alpine Dragon: cone (8.1m, 90°) | FoE | 110-140 freeze damage | + hobbled - Gafonercos: cone (9.0m, 125°) | AoE | 60- 90 raw damage | + sickened - Turisulfus: circular (2.5m, 6m d) | FoE | 55- 80 corrode/burn damage | + blindedThat's why Adra Dragon was so nasty. Not only it had higher relative damage (compared to hp of level 12 party); it also had quite wide cone angle. Provided that she has 30 Mig / 26 Int, her breath hits for 163-212 corrode damage, in a cone of 18.72m length. Dragon Breath values at their own might and intellect: - Adra Dragon: cone (18.72m, 125°) | AoE | 163-212 corrode damage | 30 mig / 26 int - Sky Dragon: cone (13.93m, 90°) | AoE | 111-148 burn damage | + dazed | 25 mig / 20 int - Alpine Dragon: cone (12.96m, 90°) | FoE | 166-211 freeze damage | + hobbled | 26 mig / 18 int | note: dont forget about deathblows - Gafonercos: cone (17.64m, 125°) | AoE | 89-133 raw damage | + sickened | 25 mig / 24 int - Turisulfus: circular (3.7m, 6m dst) | FoE | 86-126 corrode/burn damage | + blinded | 28 mig / 16 int There is a cooldown. For Alpine Dragon: Breath is on a 25s cd. Bonus: - Alpine Dragon active abilities and AI target preferences: Notes: - I don't quite understand why Finishing Blow condition makes a GreaterThan check instead of LessThan. And why it checks for HealthPercentage instead of StaminaPercentage. - Easy difficulty uses a different breath spell. It has the same name, but has twice lower base damage. - As for PreferenceType = 0 - it means that AI uses the default target preference, i.e. it calculates a specific proportion (based on target's endurance percentage and distance to it) for all enemies and chooses the most damaged one from nearby. (although current engagements partially adjust that proportion)

Yes) And same goes for orlans if you don't dump Might to 2.

Yeap. But re-tested it just a minute ago anyway. If you try to apply Envenomed Strike with your fists on a crush-immune enemy, combat log will show that you have missed with the second effect (no matter how high your accuracy is). I know that lightning strikes do still go through) They are treated like a lash, and it doesn't matter if main attack dealt 0 damage due to DR or immunity. Envenomed Strike through just wastes a charge. I've even tested if you could apply Envenom with fists WHILE lightning strikes are on (as theoretically there was a chance that it wasn't applied because of 0 damage) and with accuracy high enough to 100% guarantee a hit. But nope, it still doesn't work. You can check these screenshots, and this combat log entry: It even shows Fort:Immune, despite of the fact that Greater Ice Blights have 107 fortitude. Edit: (!) it actually gets applied via fists to crush immune enemies. Just noticed that ice blights which I used as target dummies are actually immune to poison

Don't try to use it on crush-immune targets through. Envenom deals raw damage... but it will just not get applied.

Aaand backed) We are getting lot's of new content, customizable AI, ships+upgrades plus Josh is finally answering mech questions. Through the addressed questions weren't understood in the exact way I meant, I am sold anyway) I know Obsidian will deliver a great story. There is no doubt in that. But now we are sure that the team really looks at multi-classing emerging issues and is serious about mech balance; so there is a solid chance to play a balanced version of PoE2 before 2019. And what more can we ask? Ushas already posted link to transcript #4. I will add a short recap: - Transcript #1 - Transcript #2 - Transcript #3 - Transcript #4

Well, build doesn't matter, because you start from lvl 1. As for class... it's not like I have a choice with 3/3 cipher mains

Tbh it indeed is so If you want a blast-wand wizard, you have to plan your party accordingly, in order to have: - enough per-encounter cc, to immediately charm or hard-cc everyone who goes for wizard - have a bait. A dedicated character (usually support) whom you are giving low deflection and DR, and whom you are placing a little bit closer to the enemy than your wizard or any other ranged dps-squieshy. It's especially great if that character has something like Silver Tide plus Swaddling Sheet, Gyrd Háewanes Sténes and Raiment of Wael's Eyes due to their spellholding procs. Imho any wizard that has blast talents and high mig + int + per along with decent dex should switch to 1h+shield only when he enters 'caster mode'. I.e. right before a boss fight. Otherwise you could go with an wizard-offtank (which carries a shield 24/7) from the very start) Dex actually is useful for fast spell casting) Look: 23 Dex provides a 39% duration reduction of attack and recovery phases (compared to 10 Dex) 9 Dex provides a 3% duration increase of attack and recovery phases (compared to 10 Dex) A robe provides a -0.15 penalty coefficient to recovery duration. Provided there are no other attack/recovery related stuff affecting your character, that -0.15, will increase your recovery duration by 30%. See here for how it is calculated. So... let's take an average spell of average speed: - it has base attack (casting) duration of 60 frames (2s) - it has base recovery duration of 50 frames (1.666s) Durance would cast it in: (60 + 50) / 0.97 = 113.3 frames Your main would cast it in: (60 + 50 * 1.30) / 1.39 = 90 frames Now if you would durganize your robe, it would be: (60 + 50) / 1.39 = 79 frames Now if you would also drink DAoM potion, it would be: (60 + 0) / 1.39 = 43 frames If you want to wear heavier armor, you can. With DAoM potion and Gauntlets of Swift Action you can achieve zero-recovery while wearing armor up to -0.22 recovery penalty, e.g. durganized scale armor (-0.35+0.15=-0.20). And there are quite a few good armors of this type: Autumn Fire, Hirbel's Protective Skin, The Golden Scales, Pike's Pride.

Yeah, we have asked for more transparent mechanics and precise tooltips for quuuuite awhile) Regarding Tyranny: technically it also didn't show attack speed; nor attack duration, nor action total duration. It was displaying duration of recovery phase:

Expanding on one of the above ^ q&a: In PoE1 if you had an optimal 6-man party, you were resting mostly due to Health, not because of KO wounds. With unlimited health in PoE2, and assuming we would have access to a similar amount of healing, there is indeed a high chance that we'll just ignore this 'core system'; unless enemies will be able to one-shot our squishes via ranged abilities (which is also... not that great). Hmm, we need to know more about empower, since it is a second mean that motivates resting.

Animal Companions indeed have bonus in-combat movement speed. Tbh I don't remember exactly, but iirc it is: 4 for party member; 7 for animal companion.

So far my favorite party was (in terms of how easy it was to stomp everything and at the same time without resting much): frontline: pal, barb, cipher1 backline: wizard, priest, cipher2 formation: __pa__ ba__ci __pr__ wi__ci 1. paladin: main-tank | 17/16/7/6/19/15 | wild-orlan | plate | Outworn Buckler/Little Savior + Shame or Glory | Old Gerun's Wall + Drawn-in-Spring/Strike Hard 2. barbarian: dps | 15/10/10/19/18/6 | human | plate | Shod-in-Faith + Swaddling Sheet | initial idea was to dual-wield stunning weapons; but ended up with Purgatory + Resolution 3. cipher1: dps/cc | 17/9/14/18/15/7 | pale-elf | plate | dual-wielding sabres (later dual Bittercuts) 4. priest: interdiction / sup / bait / lazy nuclear bomb | 18/7/18/12/20/6 | moon-godlike | robe | gyrd-haewenes / abydon's hammer 5. wizard: dps / lazy cc | 16/6/16/18/19/3 | wood-elf | robe | golden-gaze/minor-blights + blasts 6. cipher2: cc/dps | 16/7/17/19/16/3 | wood-elf | robe | borresaine/rain/cloudpiercer The usual plan: Plus you have: I would probably make a similar run in future, but would swap ciphers in roles: The main thing I was missing with this party was Aefyllath chant. If priest or paladin could have it... it would be perfection)

Also curious about the above ^ question. But it was already asked: Tbh I see 4 variants: Main questions: - 1. If empower adds a flat +3 to power_level... won't its relative effect become much weaker in the late game? - 2. What are the thoughts on balancing carnage with multi-classing in mind? We know it will scale But how will it scale? (as it's not just about the damage; but also about hit count) - 3. Is the flat Damage Reduction completely gone? - 4. What is the reasoning behind penetration coefficient values of: 30%, 100% and 130%? As players we like to have meaningful choices. But with such a big difference (30% and 100%) making sure that we always have the required penetration is a no-brainer. I.e. adding this extra decision layer doesn't seem to make the system deeper at all. (By the way are these penetration coefficients additive or multiplicative?) Optional questions: - 1. Will PoE:Deadfire be more mod-friendly? Will we get a /mods folder where we would be able to put our modifications WITHOUT overriding original files? - 2. Do you plan to add powerful talents/abilities on max-level and only available to single-class characters? In order to balance class-dipping? - 3. Will there be talents like Zen Archery from NWN2? Imagine a priest who could use resolve instead of perception when casting spells.

Thanks) Regarding using character to it's fullest. It helps a lot when only 2-3 are really micro intensive. I usually have 1-2 low-supervision chars, usually non-dps tanks. Plus 1-2 vancian casters. During trash encounters, I usually manually let them fire 1-2 specific aoes, and after that they are mostly on auto-attack. Enemy abilities can be quite damaging at times... Got deathblow-crit by Tail Lash for 784 dmg once. The good thing is we have plenty of crowd-control means to turn it against them.

Nope. You are not the only one. With a proper party composition it wasn't tedious. And with DAO style party AI tactics we will be able to blaze them. My understanding was, that with the nerf to per-encounter usage of low-lvl spells for vancian casters past lvl 9; devs decided to also reduce the number of trash fights, to somewhat keep the balance in perceived usefulness between them and other classes.

So... what you did is cut quite a few x/y class combinations. For the provided ratio = 2.0 and max level 20, that would be: 20/0 - remains 19/1 - is cut 18/2 - is cut 17/3 - is cut 16/4 - is cut 15/5 - is cut 14/6 - is cut 13/7 - remains 12/8 - remains 11/9 - remains 10/10 - remains Hmm, I still want to believe that dipping can be balanced; and limiting possible combinations should be used as last resort.

Well yes. There is a an invisible trigger zone/rectangle around the dragon. Once a party member steps into it, conversation starts. You basically have two ways to start combat: - 1. start conversation. Select attack option / fail check. Combat starts with your triggering character being closer to dragon. - 2. attack dragon or his minion from afar. Although if you are too far, Dragon won't stop to cast a blind spell, and will rush to you immediately. Sometimes it's even better to not start from a corner. In any case, you can rest / use food, inside of the cave, right before attacking or triggering conversation. But. You will have to buff yourself / your party during combat. Afaik it does.

You can end the talk peacefully and get Ryona's Vambraces as reward, if you do have 17 resolve and are on "His better half" quest (if it helps it was on "Discover how Ygadr died" stage). There are many stat checks, but majority are optional: [PASSABLE] I just want to look around [PASSABLE][Per 13] You look ill. ------------- [PASSABLE] What's the problem exactly? [OPTIONAL][Per 16] [OPTIONAL][int 15] ------------- [REQUIRED] Did you eat Ygadr? The young man by the road? ------------- [PASSABLE] He came looking for his soul twin. What did that have to do with you? [PASSABLE] Then why do you look injured? He didn't seem like much of an adversary. [PASSABLE][int 19] Wait, were you his soul twin? ------------- [PASSABLE] Wait, you are his soul twin? Why did you kill him? [PASSABLE] He thought you could ease his suffering. ------------- Next, next, next ------------- [PASSABLE] What happened to the hatchlings that survived? [PASSABLE] I didn't think it was possible to consume the soul of another. [PASSABLE][Lore 12] I'd heard of rare instances in which soul twins could absorb one another essence. ------------- [PASSABLE][Rational] I understand. You do what you must to survive. [PASSABLE] Could you have grown stronger by uniting with your soul twins? ------------- [PASSABLE][Mig 20] Don't start a fight you can't win dragon. [FAIL][Per 16] You are still weakened. Save your strength and leave me be. [PASSABLE][Res 17] Calm down. Friends are more useful than enemies. [PASSABLE] You'll get nothing from my soul - why don't you focus on on your soul twins? ------------- [FAIL] I'll spare your life worm. [PASSABLE] As a watcher, I could sever your connection with your soul twins. [FAIL] I've gathered plenty of treasure on my travels. I'll give you a share of it. ------------- [FAIL][Per 12] You are weakened even now. Let me help you. [FAIL] I mean you no harm. [sUCCESS][Res 17] Listen to my voice and know I tell the truth - I will help you. [FAIL] What have you got to lose by trusting me? So, only the last check really matters. He does stay there after conversation. And if you want you can fight him. But no, you won't get two of vambraces What do you mean? You are out-of-combat and cannot buff yourself (aside from food/resting). Also, you already could attack him or his minions from anywhere in-range, before triggering the script conversation.

What if... there would be? - regular rest (when you restore all of your per-rest abilities) - night-watch rest (when everyone restores 3/4 of their per-rest abilities), but are more or less prepared against ambushes. Same here. Although with the information we currently have at our disposal, I am a bit skeptical about empower "adding 3 power-levels to the next spell-cast". Because if spells scale with power_level (from 0 to 10); and empower is adding a flat +3; we can already see that empower will provide a very high relative gain in early game, and a meh gain in late game. Couldn't agree more. With 90+% of fights being trash encounters, it often felt like vancian casters were under-performing because if you rest once per 8-12 fights, you had to save/conserve their spells. Yet, during boss fights, ability to unload all their powerful arsenal from straight-go, indeed felt a little godly.

Well uh. Let's say that after every action_phase, there is a recovery_phase which (provided there are no affecting buffs/talents/enchants) has duration equal to [attack_duration * 0.8(3)] The only exception are attacks made with single weapon. These do get a penalty. And thus have base recovery of [attack_duration * 2 * 0.8(3)] I mean, I understand it looks weird that dual-wielding and spell-casting have (usually) same attack/recovery duration proportion. But that just happens to be the default behavior

Will there be one more Q&A stream (i.e. this Wednesday)?

From one point of view, yes sure. You have decent deflection, high reflex. Lot's of healing. And since you are talking about dps-tank and not interruption-tank, you probably have high might score as well. Which synergies nicely with both wounding and taste-of-the-hunt dots. From another point of view: not sure. Because: - wounding unlike regular DoT's doesn't benefit from INT. Intellect actually dilutes it's dps. - with the exception of Animats (who are easy); there are rarely many very-high-DR enemies standing together. Mostly it's a boss + minions. I.e. there is rarely any need in spread the wounding over all of them. Thus I would rather see Drawn-in-Spring in hands of let's say a rogue with deathblows and mediocre/low int. - in my opinion there are two main types of tanks: 1. trash/encounter tank - a character with high DR and deflection 2. boss/dragon tank - a character with high HP, fortitude (mig/con) and reflex Drawn-in-spring is great against high DR bosses, but for trash fights, I would probably use Mosquito/Strike Hard/Godansthunyr/Cladhalíath/Bittercut instead (depending on how tanky/tanky/cc/cc/dpsy you want to be; * Godansthunyr/Cladhalíath are mostly good if you can apply Weakened in each encounter).

Finally have tried naked cipher. Have setup the fight. And well, it's certainly possible to slay that lizard with no more than 5 cc-scrolls - video - The problem is to kill the dragon AND his minions without scrolls at all. The best I have achieved so far is kill everyone but two greater ice blights. But without focus... you can do nothing with your bare fists vs crush-immune enemies. (I know the trick is to make dragon kill them, or save focus for Soul Ignitions; but no luck yet) There are also few things make that fight harder than it should be: - We knew that elemental talents (like Scion of Flame) don't work with DoTs. Unfortunately talents like Beast Slayer also don't work with DoTs (*) - Envenomed Strike doesn't apply it's raw DoT on crush-immune enemies, if you try to apply it with your fists... - When you charm someone, part of their endurance is restored. Charming a near-death dragon for 5 times will bring him to barely-injured or even heal him completely. So you can't just chain Whispers of Treason, or you won't have enough focus for damage. - Second Skin talent doesn't provide any DR bonus if you don't have any armor equipped, i.e. are naked. - Greater ice blights, seem to be able to end charm effects prematurely. - I have a feeling that dragon's pathing was improved. I wasn't able so far to make him 'stuck' behind his minions ranks. Without cc, he rushes and reaches you no matter what. * My initial idea was to bring Disintegration to 816 damage, via buffing might, intellect, plus taking beast slayer and fighting spirit. Unfortunately without beast slayer working, and naked, it is not possible. So you have to accompany it with Soul Ignition, or 2nd cast of Disintegration later on.

Yeah, I agree it might be quite confusing The thing is, that spells are also governed by that formula. I.e. spells have the recovery duration akin to dual-wielding (minus TWF talent ofc).

It's a bit imprecise. It's not that dual-weapons get a 50% speed bonus. Rather single-weapon attacks get a 0.5 recovery penalty. (or 0.35 if you have durganized shield). Important: (bashing) shields do not get that penalty. Although main-hand in [1h + bashing_shield] setup does. If something is unclear, I have added a bashing shields paragraph to the conundrum here.

Path of RNJesus...) OT. If it was made an option, and would have no related achievements, why not. Just a nice, shinny Trial of Chaos checkbox near the ToI.