MaxQuest

Nope. Those you have listed (reliable property/enchant, confident aim and zealous focus) are the only sources of graze-to-hit conversion. Flails have an embedded reliable property of 30% conversion. While other weapons with reliable enchant have 20% conversion.

Talents: - Painful Interdiction - Aspirant's Mark - Weapon and Shield Style / Two Weapon Style - Blast and Penetrating Blast As for abilities... here are a 'few': - Heart of Fury, Barbaric Blow - Aefyllath, Dragon-Thrashed, Sure-Handed chants - Whispers of Treason, Mental Binding, Echo, Silent Scream, Detonate, Amplified Wave, Disintegration, Time Parasite - Storms, Firebug, Embrace the Earth-Talon - Unbending, Charge, Triggered Immunity - Torment's Reach, Flagellant's Path - Sacred Immolation, FoD/LoH, Aegis of Loyalty, Zealous Aura, Liberating Exhortation - Shining Beacon, Cleansing Flame, Crowns for the Faithful, Minor Avatar - Twinned Arrows, Wounding Shot, Driving Flight - Deathblows - lots of wizard spells

I just hope there will be more voice presets. Or ability to slightly change pitch and speed. For example if I like 2 female VO presets out of total, and have 4 female characters (MC+hirelings) in may party; some will end sounding the same...

Yeap. Making godlike's bonus ability to scale; or rather giving them a race ability of similar power magnitude like other races have [plus] some scaling passive or active bonus (to compensate for the lack of headgear) could also be a solution. Or tier2 headbands. Whichever devs find easier to implement and balance.

In a way bashing shields already have better interrupt. A fast weapon like dagger has an interrupt duration of 0.35s, while bashing shield (which has the same attack_duration) has 0.5s. The problem is that bash damage doesn't scale into late game. An easy fix (V1) would be to make the following 3 changes: 1. make quality enchants on bashing shields to increase both shield properties and their damage + accuracy (like quality enchants on weapons do). 2. add a "spike shield" improvement which would mimic the lash enchant. 3. and re-balance the damage of bash itself: Bashing 1: 6-9 Bashing 2: 8-12 Bashing 3: 10-15 Bashing 4: 13-18 to something like: Bashing 1: 8-12 Bashing 2: 9-13 Bashing 3: 10-14 Bashing 4: 11-15 in order to make it closer to the damage of regular dagger (9-13), and sword (11-16). Other solution (V2), would be to change the 1). from V1 suggestion into: incorporate [damaging enchant] into bash base damage; and add a bashing_shield_talent that would increase it's accuracy.

It makes a lot of sense to use potion right before the combat, a-la battle preparation in Witcher 2 style, at least RP wise. On the other hand players would just prebuff a lot. Still not good. So I am rather neutral on this. I am completely with you on this. Drinking potions being so slow was very annoying. Not to mention that they don't really queue well, and any interruption forces you to recheck if the potion was applied or not. Tbh, I'd like drinking a potion being instant, with a delayed effect of 3s during which it's bonuses are not yet applied, nor you can use another potion. It would make me hoard them for some uber hard fight, only to never actually use them. Same thing happened with majority of Caed-Nua adventure rewards that had non-replenishing charges.

From the last Q&A Twitch session: Source

I was thinking... some godlikes were intended to have stronger racial abilities, because they can't wear headgear. In a way making them stronger than other races in the early game (when there simply were no head items to be found) and weaker later (because of headgear extra stats). This feels a little bit askew, especially with all new items that came with WM1, WM2 and raising of the lvl cap. What if there were headgear items of tier 2. Twice less powerful than coifs, helmets and so on, but which can be equipped by everyone, including godlikes. For example headbands. So, what do you think?

Depends on what kinds of dps. If you mean from auto-attacking, than yes you can have high dps with [1h+shield] if you have reached zero-recovery (so, late in the game). If it doesn't matter, than there are few decent (per-encounter) dps options: - chanter with [1h+shield] + Dragon Thrashed chant - paladin with [1h+shield] + Sacred Immolation - rogue with [1h+Badgradr's Barricade] if you can make it proc often, with deathblows condition. - barbarian with [1h+Dragon's Maw] as already mentioned And ofc there are vancian classes, that can wield [1h+shield] and dish astonishing amount of damage via spells: - druid, wizard, fire priest; provided they have high might and int.

There are 6: +2 lore backgrounds: Aristocrat, Artist, Clergyman, Mystic, Philosopher and Scholar There is 1: +2 survival background: Colonist Thus I'd like 1 background with +2 mechanics RP wise, hmm: Sailor, Thief, Headhunter, Doctor/Healer.

Tbh I really like the orchestra stretch goal. Especially if it won't simply add orchestrated version of existing soundtracks, but will add new ones. Having a few "special saves" for testing purposes, you can't imagine how annoying hearing the very same piece of music every time you enter a combat can become; even if you liked the soundtrack for first (let's say) 100 times.

It does. Square root of distance from enemy to each of your party members plays a huge deal in their target preference. Placing 2 tanks at the start of combat in the frontline (due to formation) will help a lot your 3 squishes in the 3rd row from being attacked right of the bat. And even more if you would unstealth them immediately after main threats have engaged your frontline. Proper formation (or more exactly: proper order of portraits) made Od Nua bandit fights much easier during my very first playthrough. Enemies might sometimes ignore those who engaged them. But they don't really like to ignore those whom they engaged themselves. With the exception when their special abilities (with custom targeting) came out from cooldown; or you broke engagement via cc yourself (and they have to seek for new target after coming from stun/paralyze/etc) Hmm, how do you imagine that? Select formation before each formation HOMM style?

Lingering bugs I am aware of: - various ways of stacking defenses and damage coefficients by enemy mobs on game reload. - inconsistent red/yellow areas for aoes. For example powder burns still hits everyone in the yellow zone. - envenomed strike is not applied (although the charge is wasted) if you are unarmed and attempt to envenom a crush-immune enemy. - dots's not benefiting from Scion of Flame talent and alike (i.e. elemental talents) - dots's not benefiting from Beast Slayer talent and alike (was a total surprise for me, when Disintegrate was ticking for the same damage) - being unable to normally queue potions. - if you are interrupted during potion drinking, character won't try to drink it again. - charm effects sometimes being dispelled on the enemies (that are off-screen) for unknown reason. - occasional roundelay (running in circles) pathing. - wounding-shot and wounding enchant working best with dumped int. (not really bug, but just... wrong) - second-skin talent providing zero DR bonus if your character is naked. That's right. The only thing that has to do with unity is inter-action delay. DoTs afaik either: - have their raw tick_dmg set appriori. (and there would be no problem to take elemental talents into account as well) - have their tick_dmg reevaluated on each tick, in which case the game would need to have access to attacker and defender objects anyway (hence elemental talents of attacked could again be taken into account)

Glad you liked it) It's a matter of preference: - fix character survivability weakness - or maximize his power, and look for a survivability solution elsewhere. Personally for me... works best maximizing character's points forte, while making other team members compensate for their weaknesses. That's the reason I was advocating dw early. I once started with a frontline consisting of tank pal (1h+shield), tank barb (1h+shield) and cipher (1h+shield). But already by level 4 I have switched barb and cipher both to sabre-dw and was just solving all my survivability problems or inequality in health drop via crow-control means. In your case cipher is ranged, through. Btw, since he is in breastplate now; you can try to give him arquebus (or even blunderbuss) for awhile (mostly for early, early-mid game, until you get gauntlets of swift action and are ok with lighter armor). That's because reloading weapons dps doesn't suffer that much from armor penalties. And also because casting of Eyestrike, Whispers of Treason and Mental Binding specifically, is not as much hindered by heavier armor like regular fast/average spells. You can give him Durance's staff. Also... I understand that you took the bear form because of the extra 2 DR which is great early. But if you will respec in the mid/late game, you can also give Cat Form a try, because it attacks x1.5 faster, and iirc they both hit for the same damage (correct me if wrong) so the dps will also get x1.5 higher. (plus there is also Cat's Flurry) Btw, from lvl 9 onward, you might want to try Embrace the Earth-Talon for the benefits it gives to both your barb and cipher. Barb's burst will get doubled because of petrify bonus, and so will cipher's focus gain.

I was reluctant of using low-cost powers, by a plate-encased cipher at first. Well, because of recovery. I had a second cipher (a ranged one in a robe) who could cast these faster. But it turns out, that some of spells have almost the same action duration for both naked and plate encased characters. These are the ones I am aware of: Eyestrike, Whisper of Treason, Mental Binding and Ring Leader. (i.e. they have longer attack duration than they should for their UISpeed category; but very fast recovery; so plate is not a problem)

Pardon) Have added them to tally. Also for anyone interested, here's the transcript made by Fereed: link

Yes. Health can be a problem. A problem you have to take into consideration before even starting the new playthrough. There are 2 solutions to it: - improve this cipher weakness, and make him more tanky; partially in detriment of his offensive potential. - ignore this cipher weakness, keep his offensive potential; and let a dedicated cc'er cover his ass; in the end you have plate armor against targets that deal low damage; while all higher-hitting enemies are paralyzed as soon they reach your cipher. Tbh I don't like idea of 1h+shield on cipher (until you can reach zero-recovery with that 1h.

Nope, her stats/defenses where not changed. You are just likely having higher level now, or durganized weapons. Although there was something about her movement speed and hobbled effect. She had a slow crawling speed of 3. While hobbled enemies are slowed exactly by 3 units; basically rooting her in place. Do I remember right and some of the updates nerfed hobbled to -2ms? Or it's my memory failing me in favor of imagination?

^ Sounds solid. I am not completely sure on the paladin's niche through. I never played with a dw-paladin, but I am a bit concerned with his dps after the FoD alpha-strike. If those who have played with that build and it provided a decent dps contribution, while having zero problems keeping enemy frontline at bay, than it's ok. A backup/alternative plan could be to make your barb a little more dps'y, while paladin more tanky. My current party has a core similar to yours. Although I've gone for: - a dw-sabre-barb - tank-support darcozzi paladin (outwarn buckler + shame or glory) without FoD Barb is one of main dps'ers during trash fights. But will be able to tank dragons if needed, with 1H+Dragon Maw. Paladin is a pure tank. He deals like 5-10% of party damage; but is great at body/passage blocking plus has lots of buffs/scrolls. Alternative tactic I use is: send paladin to solo tank the dragon. While keep barbarian with the rest of group. Minions flock around. Get CC'ed and Carnage/HoF/BB served. I like the flexibility, when I can approach any encounter in at least two different ways. Btw, such tanky paladin requires zero supervision. While everything that jumps on Barbarian from another flank, gets instantly paralyzed by cipher. So their health even through goes slowly down over multiple encounters, does that at the same rate. There is no feel that someone drags the party down or force it rest more often than the other members do.

Tbh, PoE1 attribute system is quite deep. From related games I've played and enjoyed NWN, NWN2, DA:O, DA:2 and DA:I. And tbh Pillars' system is deeper than those. And a deep system is interesting in my book. Doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first one?

True that. Although you get Dragon's Maw relatively late in the game. What I meant is, that he'd better use dual-wielding before he gets it. As for use HoF with DW or with 1H+DragonMaw, it really depends on situation) With Shod-in-Faith, Savage Defiance, Lay on Hands and Cipher's CC barbarian should have enough regen already.

No problem) Barb can be used as dragon-tank; but in usual encounters better use him as dw-dps. So it's a barb (in plate and with Shod-in-Faith boots) with high mig/con/int and low resolve; dual-wielding sabres in early game; and [We-Toki + Rimecutter] or [dual-Purgatory] in the late game. And who switches to MH + Dragon Maw shield after he has used his Barbaric Blow and Heart of Fury. I will elaborate on paladin + druid later.

Hmm, what do you mean? Could you elaborate?

If I got it right, the following questions from this thread got answered: Ushas (3/10): - Are Backgrounds in? If yes, in what form and shape? - If the list of races is the same, what changes can we expect in the terms of reactivity? - So scripted interactions are supposed to be different and incorporate portraits, if I recall correctly. Can you elaborate on the changes and improvements? Boeroer (1/10) - Will there be throwing weapons? (answer was: it's not their current focus) + a question about bashing shields (asked from the stream) (answer was: bashing shields were not intended to be crappy; they will look into this, and into single-weapon as well) KaineParker (0/5) DozingDragon (1/6) - Will you reveal at least one Wizard subclass for the stream? (the answer was no. he will reveal it via twitter) Dolash (0/3) Dr. Hieronymous Alloy (1/16) - similarly, will the environmental effects ever matter in combat, or are they just visual? Will the wind and the rain ever push us around? (if I got it right: answer was that they intend to make it a stretch goal) CaptainHammer (1/3?) - Was the specific use of a feminine pronoun for Berath intended or a typo? (A: not sure if intentional, but yes she is female) Doppelschwert (0/2) Gromnir (0?/7?) ShadySands (0/4) AndreaColombo (0/2) CottonWolf (1/1) - What underlying change the game mechanics from PoE1 to 2 do you think has had the biggest positive effect on the game? (answer was: none specifically; mostly refinements in everything) theBalthazar (0/5) TEEN ANIME WITCH (0/3) MaxQuest (0/15) (or 1/15, as someone asked a somewhat similar question about AI) (answer: they intend to improve enemies difficulty via behavioral means and not just increasing their stats) Mazisky (0/1) Joral (0/3) Approximate total: 9/96. Three times less than I expected... But well, that's ok I guess... (as they might not have the answers just yet...) I'm only sad that we didn't get any new info/thoughts on the multi-class balancing. (as stuff explained at 18:00-18:47 was already known).

Yeah, that's a nice idea.Was proposing adding secondary effects as well. (link1, link2) Empowering adds 3 to your power level. But we cannot know how many power source points that is exactly equivalent of, as the conversion function is not bijective:I.e. 3 power_levels can correspond to: 14,15,16,17,18 and even 19 power_source points. Points Power Level 0-2 0 3 1 8 2 14 3 20 4 26 5 32 6 Conversion table source: linkIf the sequence continues with the same step 6, then the formula is: power_level = power_points < 3 ? 0 : Math.floor[(power_points + 4) / 6] Also, here's Josh's excerpt from the yesterday stream (18:00-18:47): There are few things that I find confusing through:- "all active abilities in PoE do scale with your main class's power source" (so knockdown ability of a 15/3 wizard/fighter scales with Arcane???) (he probably meant 'respective class') - "all active abilities in PoE do scale with your main class's power source" (why doesn't empower add 14 to 19 power source points then? You can't add power_source with power_levels without conversion) - "when you use that ability, so it makes it much much stronger than normal" (when your current power level is low, adding 3 to it, will indeed make spells much stronger; but when your power level is 9 adding 3 to it, will make them only by 33% more damaging in the best case scenario, i.e. when power_level is applied multiplicatively; and not additively in line with might and other dmg coefficients, in which case it's effect would get diluted)