MaxQuest

Until we know all the combination names, we can use x/y classX/ClassY, e.g. 17/1 druid/fighter. Later it could be named smth like 17d/1f Warden. Iirc there was a talk that you will be able to rename them (ingame).

As JerekKruger already said, it's because of frost resist. Specifically: - spectres deal freeze damage (via auto-attacks) - some of them explode on death, again dealing freeze damage - shades do have draining freeze ability, which is a paralyze + deal high freeze damage. When they decide whom to attack with it, they give a preference to targets with lowest freeze DR. Having a will defense at 40 or 60, will make no real difference as you are likely to get affected by respective effects anyway. Similar situation is when you try to solo a dragon. You either pump your defenses; or don't give a damn about them at all, and look for other means to circumvent the problem. In your case circumvention would be: including a paladin/priest/or having high lore + preemptive disabling of enemy monsters that try to charm/confuse/dominate your party members. Note: for a ranged cipher, resolve is more useful because of concentration, rather than deflection or will. But still, you don't want to be hit at all; so you either plan to not get hit and drop resolve; or you select a more sturdy (melee plate; or leather/blunderbuss) variant of cipher. You will have a party of 4. While the number of enemies will remain the same. This means you will need enough AoE. While also: 1. have a dedicated (high fort/reflex/hp) tank against dragons 2. offtank that would be able to cover your flank. 3. dps + cc 4. and the last spot is flexible The 3rd spot is taken by your MC cipher. The 1st could be barbarian, paladin or monk. So V1: pos1. Barbarian; pos3. Cipher; These have good synergy with melee paladin and melee-or-ranged: priest, wizard, druid and 2nd cipher. V2: pos1. Paladin; pos3. Cipher; You could complement it with a pos2. Chanter offtank (via Dragon Thrashed) and pos4. Cipher/Druid V3 pos1. Monk pos3. Cipher; You could complement it with a pos2. Paladin and pos4. Priest/Druid Now a note about predefined companions: - Their stats are not bad; but they fit into specific niches. E.g. depending on lineup, you might need one sort of priest or another. - Kana fits nicely into the role of pos2 offtank for V2 lineup. Also having a paladin, cipher and druid in the group will guarantee that he won't fall down. - Durance is a meh debuffer, and has too high resolve. I would not use him in V1. But he could fit into V3 and attack with his quarterstaff. - Pallegina has a bit bland stuffs; but give her mig/int items she will greatly fit in V3 and especially in V1. - Hiravias fits perfectly in V3. - GM fits nicely in V2.

While priest's buffs and damage potential are extremely useful; he is not a necessary addition to your party. You can substitute a priest, depending on his niche in your party, by wizard, druid, cipher, chanter or paladin.

Seems really interesting. Although on the other hand.. no longer Penetrating Shots with Blunderbuss... as that modal will be used with Warbows now. Sounds good. It's one step away from [you cast the same list of spells every encounter]. I like it. Aand, we have a first entry to our [stuff that can be potentially abused] list. Max power_level wizard, with lots of damage penetration; who no longer cares how big are his target defenses. In before, main bosses are immune, or have very, very high DR against crush and corrode.

Nice) Btw is there a text version of that Q&A anywhere?

Wait, do you want a ranged or actually melee cipher (alpha-strike with blunderbuss and switch to pike)? My first thought was that for a ranged cipher, wood elf would be the preferred race. But since you are going to have a small party, pale elf could be decent for a squishy cipher, as you will attract much less attention from the spectres, shades and alike. Not much micro means warbows. Specifically: take Rain of Goddath or Cloudpiercer and stick to it. As for stat spread it depends on what niche in your group, do you want your cipher to fit: - cc: 13/8/18/18/18/3 - aoe-dmg: 18/8/17/17/15/3 - versatile: 15/8/18/18/16/3 For armor, I would take Durance Robe or Vailian Clothing. Later you could consider Starlit Garb, Raiment of Wael's Eyes or Angio's Gambeson. And durganize them ofc. From mandatory items there are only Gauntlets of Swift Action. And Talisman of the Unconquerable if you can guarantee having endurance above the threshold. From mandatory skills: 4 survival. Make Mental Binding your best friend, and paralyzed targets your focus batteries. Abuse Whisper of Treason and Ectopsychic Echo. Soul Shock has superb damage per focus coefficient and is very effective vs low-DR xaurips. Optimize your focus generation to the point, where you can chain Amplified Waves and keep non-immune enemies perma-prone. Give Detonate and Disintegration a try. Time Parasite is great. And Defensive Mindweb plus Reaping Knives (on a barb) even better.

Oh man... you will be surprised

On a mildly interesting note... does Fig platform name have any relation with a same-named sign?) I understand it doesn't, but still can't help but chuckle slightly, every time I name it ^^

How about a simple set of two spells: Mark and Return?)

Cipher could have many subclasses... - tempter - cipher focused on cc - psi-storm - cipher focused on aoe damage - torment - cipher getting focus for being hit; masochist (as already mentioned) - psion - cipher focused on premeditation and summoning of short-lasting psionic barriers, (e.g. which could grant 90% damage reduction at the moment they are evoked, and will dissipate to 0 over x seconds) - soulknife - cipher focused on summoning sharp razors of energy, dealing raw damage with unarmed attacks.

So...Feb 9th 2AM EET... I hope there will be a text version of this Great) General questions: - How will you scale monk's ability to gain wounds? (without nerfing his early game) (and with lategame dipping in mind) - Carnage will not generate focus, right? But will carnage still allow for weapon procs? - Will Godlike races get headgear? Or at least headbands? - Will there be barrier spells? I.e. spells which do not heal, but prevent x amount of damage? - Will there be enchants similar to Durgan refinements? - Will there still be weapons with speed enchant? Will we be able to apply this enchant ourselves? - If you are going to make weapons (that you find early in the game) obsolete (as the game goes on) by limiting their capacity of being augmented by more powerful enchants - it means there will be less unique weapon options in the late game. Will you add twice as more unique weapons, or do you have other plan to circumvent a possible situation where there are only a few optimal lategame weapons? - Weapon sets: will you allow to assign the same weapon to different weapon sets? Let's say I hold a single sword x, but once engaged to swap to sword x + shield y? (it could be similar to NWN2 sets) - It looks like PoE1 (at some point) had a stealth / sound alert system in mind; with spells and attacks alerting NPCs and they would rush to join an ongoing fight. Any plans for this? - Sneak attacks deal bonus damage vs vulnerable or flanked enemies. Since some monsters/classes won't have engagement slots (unless they invest into), will this mean that they are flanked by default? - Will enemy AI (at least for high-lvl humanoids), be intelligent enough to focus fire someone? Power Level/Source questions: - Will the damage formula for spells use power_level or power_source_points? - Will this ^ affect damage multiplicatively or additively (in line with might coefficient)? - Will a character get access to the Rank of spells, his respective Power Level is equal to? - If Empower will add 3 power levels to a next spell cast, how will you balance it's relative benefit in early vs late game (i.e. situation when you have low current power level vs high power level). At the moment it looks like Empower will become weaker as the game progresses. (1 vs 1+3; 9 vs 9+3) And I will echo Boeroer's question: - Will you rework unarmed combat, namely Novice's Suffering and Transcendent Suffering? The way it is done now results in nearly the same damage for grazes, hits an crits because all damage modifiers only apply to the whimpy base damage and not to the bonus that the Suffering talents will give you. This also makes things like Savage Attack, Sneak Attack and all other base damage modifiers a bad pick for unarmed characters.

Khm, I already hardly resist temptation of getting Gift of the Machine and Effigy Resentment in full party runs... Partially true, except for DoTs. But shhhh...

I am a bit very skeptical about this gifted bonuses IF they include stats or items unobtainable via other means. It's always a great pleasure to overcome a decent challenge. That's why many of us, increase the difficulty of the game to the maximum. Giving a stat increase, would be a great temptation as we try to optimize our builds to their fullest potential; yet it is something that we are not going allow ourselves to take, as it undermines the challenge. Not to mention: Which really makes sense. TLDR: I feel conflicted. Personally I like increasing the difficulty to it's maximum, while I absolutely hate hindering character build and his stat spread.

No, I have added some logging to NotifyAttackComplete() function from AttackBase.cs. Thanks to IEMod Framework for making such injection possible. This way I can get exact recovery duration values after performing any auto-attack attack. It's possible for some abilities too, full-attacks and some of spells are two-phased, so I will see only the data for last phase. In this situations I just use fraps, and count the frames. I don't quite understand your question. Mainhand will have the same recovery in [MH + Nothing], [MH + Simple Shield] or [MH + Bashing Shield] setups. Although yes, a shield can be durganized, and reduce MH's single-weapon recovery penalty from -0.5 to -0.35. To make it clear, imagine a naked 10 DEX character in following situations: 1. DW daggers: {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery] -> [delay + OH attack + OH recovery]} 2. Dagger + Bashing Shield: {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery] + [delay + OH attack + OH recovery]} 3. Dagger + Simple Shield: {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery]} -> {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery]} 4. Dagger + Nothing: {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery]} -> {[delay + MH attack + MH recovery]} {} - repeating sequence [] - full action V1. There are no buffs: 1. DW daggers: {[5f + 20f + 16.66f] + [5f + 20f + 16.66f]} (i.e. 41.66 frames action for MH, and same for OH) 2. Dagger + Bashing Shield: {[5f + 20f + 33.33f] + [5f + 20f + 16.66f]} (i.e. 58.33 frames action for MH, and 41.66 for Shield) 3. Dagger + Simple Shield: {[5f + 20f + 33.33f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 33.33f]} (i.e. 58.33 frames action for MH) 4. Dagger + Nothing: {[5f + 20f + 33.33f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 33.33f]} (i.e. 58.33 frames action for MH) V2. DAoM: 1. DW daggers: {[5f + 20f + 0f] + [5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 25 frames action for MH, and same for OH) 2. Dagger + Bashing Shield: {[5f + 20f + 16.66f] + [5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 41.66 frames action for MH, and 25 for Shield) 3. Dagger + Simple Shield: {[5f + 20f + 16.66f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 16.66f]} (i.e. 41.66 frames action for MH) 4. Dagger + Nothing: {[5f + 20f + 16.66f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 16.66f]} (i.e. 41.66 frames action for MH) V3. Zero Recovery (assuming you have achieved it in all 4 cases): 1. DW daggers: {[5f + 20f + 0f] + [5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 25 frames action for MH, and same for OH) 2. Dagger + Bashing Shield: {[5f + 20f + 0f] + [5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 25 frames action for MH, and 25 for Shield) 3. Dagger + Simple Shield: {[5f + 20f + 0f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 25 frames action for MH) 4. Dagger + Nothing: {[5f + 20f + 0f]} -> {[5f + 20f + 0f]} (i.e. 25 frames action for MH) Summary: 1. [1H + Nothing] - at zero recovery, is the best crit-based dps option, as you deal damage at the same rate as DW, while also having +12 acc and +15% hit-to-crit conversion from One-Handed Style. - it is the hardest setup to achieve zero recovery with - it is the worst setup for full attacks (alongside with [1H + Simple Shield]) 2. [1H + Simple Shield] - at zero recovery, you deal damage at the same rate as DW, but also have a bonus of having a shield, plus extra def and reflex via Weapon and Shield Style talent - it is easier to achieve zero recovery than with [1H + Nothing] because durganized shield reduces 1H recovery penalty - it is the worst setup for full attacks (alongside with [1H + Nothing]) 3. [1H + 1H] DW - is the easiest setup to achieve zero-recovery and Two-Handed Style helps to do it even faster - can keep Vulnerable Attack, without losing zero-recovery - is the best setup for full attacks, as you will strike with both weapons 4. [1H + Bashing Shield] - is a better setup for full attacks, than [1H + Nothing] or [1H + Simple Shield]. It's especially great if it has any procs attached to it, like Barricade does. - allows you to benefit from Shield defences, Durgan Enchant:Shield and Weapon and Shield Style talent - have the same attack/recovery as of small offhand weapon while dual-wielding; but has a higher interrupt duration 0.5 instead of 0.35 - cannot be echanted with weapon quality enchants or lashes. - at zero recovery, it is a clear dps loss (from auto-attack perspective) when compared with any other alternative. But it can be used by non-dps tanks, on whom you'd like to have some special effect, if present. - this setup can provide a dps-gain over [1H + Simple Shield], but mostly in the early game and vs very low crush-DR monsters; and yeah the biggest gain would be if you have no recovery reducing means except DAoM potion.

True. Bashing shield auto-attack damage starts to lag behind even before you achieve zero recover. There are many variables to take into account. And unfortunately I don't have time to run the math right now. But I feel that bashing shields were mostly made for low-level tanking when enemies don't have much DR. And had their potential used to the max, against hordes of low level xaurips (if you have stumbled somehow upon a DAoM potion). Scâth Gwannek and Larder door become obsolete very fast. Barricade is mostly used by a rogue with Deathblows. And Dragon Maw for Fear Aura / Taste of the Hunt. Btw, just checked: naked character with sword and bashing_shield who uses DAoM: has his mainhand recovery reduced by half, AND has zero recovery with shield bash attack. So it's confirmed, bashing shields do not get Single1HWeapRecoveryFactor penalty. They also don't benefit from Two-Handed Style. (had to check just-in-case)

I know it may sound weird... I've just took a look at my table of base attack/recovery logged values, plus some old spreadsheet of frapsed data of [dagger+shield] vs [dagger+bashing_shield] and it looks like: - when you make an attack with main-hand, it is not considered as dual-wielding, and you get the Single1H penalty for that hand. - when you make an attack with off-hand that holds a bashing shield, you do not get that penalty. I will retest it later, but for now can say that attacks with bashing shield have the same recovery as attacks with an offhand dagger while dual-wielding. Main-hand through has the recovery as if not dual-wielding. In any case: at zero-recovery bashing shield is still a dps loss.

Trading. Shipping cargo between isles of archipelago for money (if you watch the difference/trends in prices for different goods). Becoming a privateer. Capturing ships. Making a small fleet. Participating in naval battles. Ability to improve your ship: durability, speed, maneuverability, cannons and crew count. Becoming an admiral. Build a port or fort. Improve it. And the list goes on.. but it looks like I answered a different question: "Crazy ideas you like to have (but most likely not won't get)"

Inb4 everyone takes a ranger as his second class and goes for Riptide & The Pit Fright build

Bobby Null left a really suiting reply in an adjacent thread. Especially relevant is point 3. JS indeed has more practical experience in mechanics design than we do have combined. And in a way he indeed has the right to try new things in an attempt to move the genre forward or at least make it more diverse. Tbh, I don't know how the AD&D style multi-classing system works. So I cannot comment on that. But after fiddling with numbers around the presented by JS system, and trying to think what would I do in his place (with all those power levels, sources and so on), I strongly believe that a balanced multi-classing actually can be achieved. I.e. a system where for each 18/0 pure class there will be at least one x/y equally viable alternative for each second class. In order to achieve such level of balance, I can imagine a designer to need 3 things: 1. ability to adjust to what spell/ability ranks a character of any x/y combination has access to. 2. ability to adjust spells/ability damage based on x/y and character level. I.e. scaling. 3. ability to adjust the linearity curve of the above points. This would be basically a lever that would swing the relative power between 18/0 and 9/9. Each of the above balance-levers should have a variable attached. For example: 1. Rank Level 2. Power Level 3. Power Source Points Tbh, power_source was a brilliant idea, as it's bassically a balance knob, where by rotating it left-right (i.e. changing the relative points gain) you can basically change the balance between pure-class and multi-class characters as you like. Another idea was making the system simpler, in accordance to KISS principle you have mentioned. You have probably noticed, that in the last presented [power_source points to power_level conversion] table, JS made it such that power level ranges from 0 to 9. What a coincidence there are also going to be 9 spell ranks, as the maximum character lvl is 18. It looks like Josh decided to merge Rank Level with Power Level into a single entity. The good thing: the system is now simpler. The bad thing: he has severily restricted himself in fine tuning the [amount_of_spells a pure class vs multi-class has access to] versus [damage of <z> spell when cast by x/y character] separately from each other. So Rank Level is now thrown away; and it leaves us with the following levers and axis for their use: V1: - 1. Power Level, used to determine which spell ranks any x/y combination has access to. - 2. Power Source, used to determine spell and ability damage; linearity of it's scaling and power_level curve. V2: - 1. Power Level, used to determined which spell ranks any x/y combination has access to AND their damage. - 2. Power Source, used to determine the power_level curve. That's why I have asked those questions: 1. Would you like 17/1 wizard/x to have access to rank 9 spells? 5. Should a 18/0 wizard deal slightly more damage with wizard spells than a 17/1 variant? (don't take in consideration any passives from second class) I wanted to know if anyone would answer these two questions differently. But so far I've got two yes/yes answers, which match the V1 but contradict the V2 approach. Because according to V2 both 18/0 and 17/1 wizards would both have the power_level 9 AND the same damage as result. (while according to V1, 18/0 would deal 54/52, i.e. 3.8% more damage than 17/1) At the same time V2 is the direction in which JS is moving. As he already hinted that power_level and not power_source_points will be used in damage calculations: There is one more thing that worries me. The relative gain from empowering your spells. If power_level is going to affect spell damage, which it is; there are 2 variants for it to do so: 1. dmg = base_dmg * (1 + might_score + other_dmg_coefficients + power_level_coefficient) 2. dmg = base_dmg * (1 + might_score + other_dmg_coefficients) * power_level_coefficient Where power_level_coefficient can be: A. of wide range, where the difference between end points is very big. For example: power_level_coefficient = power_level / 9 B. of restricted range, where the difference between end points if smaller. . For example power_level_coefficient = sqrt(5 * power_level) / 9 The 1st problem I see is: no matter how you do it (1A, 1B, 2A or 2B): empowering spells while having high power_level will give you a much, much less dmg increase, than using empower at low power_levels. The 2nd problem I see is: - there are spells affected only by power_level, might and usual damage coefficients like scion of flame for instance - there are spells affected by those above AND intellect. I am talking about DoTs. The thing is, due to high coefficients, DoTs will scale way better and will have the potential to deal broken damage in the late game; OR if nerfed, will be useless in the early game. P.S. Watching this increasing wall of text, I just hope you will understand what I mean, in the way I meant it. They did scale, indirectly with wounds gain. And wounds gain... wasn't linear along all 16 levels. - At levels 3-4, you have around 80 endurance. And without healing you are limited at 8 wounds per encounter; with those xaurips poking you for low amounts of damage. - While during during end-game boss fights, monk has high endurance; healing and lots of health. He can take lots of damage in a short amount of time, resulting in fast wounds gain, and thus much more damage coming from his abilities. The reason I asked that question is: there are 11 classes. It's easy to balance the starting class-specific ability of 10 of them via scaling. But it's hard to balance it for... monk. Because: - monk already is limited in taking wounds in early game. And he does accumulate them slowly. But he does accumulate them faster in late game. Hence it is already scaling. Applying a power_level to it, would make monks early game much weaker. - any class in the late game, can take 1 level of monk; and get lots of free torment's reach casts.. which are full attacks, moreover in a cone. Without being limited by hp pool anymore; you can put a rogue in a situation where he takes a lot of beating, but he dosn't fall because of permanent healing. Now imagine the turret machine such a character can become.

You can have 54 points in a single power source at most. If you would be able to select wizard2, you would be able to achieve 72 points in arcane. There is no way you would balance that under presented by JS system. Or you would like to have arcane2 or arcane_horizontal?

Isn't it both? And yes, I am again advocating for two ciphers in party) Anyway, if you have barb, I bet you do use Reaping Knives first)

Makes a lot of sense. Although no skyrim chickens please Interjections/banter was a thing I liked in NWN2 and DA series. Glad to have more of them in PoE2.

Very good question. When I was starting my second playthrough, I have given that enough of thought. There are few things that we can take in consideration: - you need one mechanics guy; - you would want your steady dps guys have 4 or 10 survival for the bonus accuracy vs creature - you might want your burst characters with no high bonus dmg coefficients (like a quick-switching ranger) to have 6 or 12 survival for the bonus damage vs flanked - you might want a character with maxed per and int (if you have such) to have ability to cast cc-scrolls - you might want a character with maxed mig and int (if you have such) to have ability to cast healing-scrolls - you might want a character with maxed mig, int and per (if you have such) to have ability to cast aoe dmg-scrolls - you might want to take into account opportunity cost .- every moment a character is using a scroll, he is not doing something else .- a character with low amount of abilities or spells, might be partially "idling" if he doesn't have the ability to use scrolls. - chanters, ciphers and wizards get a +1 bonus to mechanics - rogues get a +2 bonus to mechanics Taking into account all of the above, my mech guy would be (in descending order): 1. cipher - because he doesn't really need scrolls (as he'd better keep attacking and using powers); and can take 4 points in survival and bump the rest in mechanics - has innate +1 bonus 2. rogue - but only if my party is short on CC, because otherwise I'd like to exploit deathblows+scrolls combinations (+30 starting acc). On the other hand, if my party is short on CC, why do I have a rogue in the group? This would also mean that rogue has to be able to use cc-scrolls, so back to lore again. - has innate +2 bonus 3. wizard - because wizard has low starting acc and I don't always skill lore on them - because he already has enough stuff to do in a fight - because he also has a +1 bonus to mechanics Depends on the type of that barbarian. - for a dps or interrupt barb: [4 or 10] in survival; or [6 or 12] in survival if you have a cipher with Phantom Foes. - for a cc/interrupt barb: [4 or 10] in survival for the extra acc - for a tank barb: could consider [8 or 14] in survival for the extra healing - if barb has maxed int: could consider investing in lore. Specifically: .- maxed [int]: any defensive scrolls .- maxed combination of [int + per]: could consider 6 in lore for scrolls of paralysis | or maybe even 8 for confusion + valor (although valor doesn't require per) .- maxed combination of [mig + int]: could consider 8 in lore for scrolls of moonwell .- maxed combination of [mig + int + per]: could consider 10 in lore for scrolls of maelstrom, boiling spray and insect swarm

Agreed. Cannot think of any balance-related explanation either. Maybe only of a "realism" related one: You find a rusty dagger. - You cannot apply a Flaming Burst enchant to it. The dagger will crumble. - You can polish it a bit, and increase it's quality by a limited amount. Maybe you will even be able to enchant it with something basic. - But you still cannot increase it's capacity enough to hold a powerful enchant. A rusty piece of iron, won't become mithril. Having low level weapons (of low-level metals?) have limited capacity removes the necessity in unrealistic gating based on character-level. Also it gives you incentive to periodically dive into a latter game content in order to get that [i+1] weapon earlier (be it good or bad). Tbh it wasn't an issue for me. But maybe Josh was emailed with tons of immersion-breaking reviews? Anyway, that's the only reason that I can think of right now.

Watching an NPC hitting a warrior being insta-healed back by a priest, was always making me wonder, how could a character suffer such health-swings without any consequences. Endlessly.