MaxQuest

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.

Referred twitch response: I have suggested enchant crafting several times. Was thinking of a system where you could combine a subset of known/learned enchants (that match the item) to any weapon. (always wanted to have annihilation/wounding with speed ^^) Looks like Obsidian decided to give something similar to Tyranny's sigil expressions/enhancements a try. Kinda curious how it will work out. I just ask for a lot of play-testing for balance reasons. This also partially explains the need in ceiling. As such enchants have potential to get out of hand. On the other hand, they could still be gated by character level limitation...

Guys, I am interested in your opinions and gut feelings on the following: 1. Would you like 17/1 wizard/x to have access to rank 9 spells? 2. Should a 1/17 wizard/x have access to rank 3 or 4 of spells? 3. Should a 9/9 wizard/fighter have access to rank 5, 6 or 7? 4. What about a 15/3 wizard/fighter? 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) 6. How powerful would you want Empower to be for damaging spells? A 20% dmg bonus? 30%? 50%? 7. In PoE1, did you feel that Monk's wounds gain speed was accelerating towards the end game? Was that ok for you? Josh mentioned that carnage will not generate focus for ciphers or at least it won't be an issue. I wouldn't be surprised if carnage would also stop proc'ing weapon effects. Although, maybe there is another solution in mind. It could become chance based, and scale with power level. E.g. 1 power_level carnage: your weapon swing has a 20% to hit everyone in AoE. 2 power_level carnage: 30%, 9 power_level: 100%.

Afaik it should work with everything. But personally haven't tested it. Also a good question would be if it stacks with Survival: Accuracy Bonus vs Primordial and Survival: Accuracy Bonus vs Wilder.

Best overall ranged weapons for a ranger would be Persistance and Stormcaller. - Persistance because of the DoT increasing pet damage, AND because wounding is very effective vs high DR targets. - Stormcaller because of the CC component. With Twin-Arrows and Driving Flight you can get a decent proc rate for Returning Storm. - another possible variant could be quick-switching Arquebuses and Pistols, as that would give you the highest opening burst; plus hard-hitting weapons have better synergy with Wounding Shot. Depends on your party composition, and if you use bows vs reloading weapons. Generally for bows you want to have as light armor as possible. And only get heavier one if she starts to fall unconscious more often than you'd like. The best variant would be to apply a prone/stun/paralyze/petrify/push/charm/confuse on the enemy who engaged your squishy. And after that re-position him to safety.

Hah, judging by Josh' response you were not alone Even variable itself is called CritDamageMult

This, Plus deep attribute system, were you reiterate and shift your view on the relative value of stats (minimum two times) Plus weapons working best with different spreads, depending on their enchants, Plus complicated stacking, Plus complex attack speed system, Plus different efficiency scaling for different spells, Plus lots of crowd-control means, Plus lots of anti crowd-control means, Plus immunities and enemies with heavily varied defenses... Is why we like it. P.S. PoE doesn't have to be simpler, easier or include weapon 'ratings' for fast (read: lazy) decision making. It just has to communicate it's mechanics better.

Hiring sounds great. There was a russian Pirates of the Carribean game, where you could hire NPCs and assign them in the following positions: quartermaster, sailling master, boatswan, carpenter, surgeon and cannon master. Each NPC could have a different collection of passive talents; when assigned into a position, matching talents would become ship's passives now.

I... I need those numbers)

I will be that guy that will ask what means "best"?) The RPG's I got most pleasure from, are: (in decreasing order) 1. Witcher 3: Hearts of Stone 2. Morrowind (this and NWN1 were my first RPGs ever) 3. Witcher series (1,2,3) 4. NWN1 5. Dragon Age (Origins, Awakening and Inquisition); Pillars of Eternity 6. NWN2 7. Oblivion 8. Dragon Age 2 (with mods and custom two-handed wizard) 9. Skyrim On the other hand I understand, that if ordered by [quality * amount_of_work_required] there would likely be: 1. Witcher 3 2. - 3. - And only then the rest.

Ehm, a firm no.Spell crafting/customization concept was a success. Spell crafting/customization system wasn't. The concept was fresh and innovative. The idea itself was great. But system's mechanics were askew and ehh, bluntly speaking imbalanced. As result spell sequences you ended up using, and even optimal builds you could make heavily lacked variety.

So the power_source points to power_level conversion was changed....Initially Josh posted this response. And we could say that the formula was: power_level = Math.floor(power_source / 3) With the new conversion table: Points Power Level 0-2 0 3 1 8 2 14 3 20 4 26 5 32 6 It looks like the formula now is: power_level = power_points < 3 ? 0 : Math.floor[(power_points + 4) / 6]This changes the final power_level of a level 18 character in the following manner: lvl (18 + 0) = power_source points: 54 + 18 | power_level = 9 lvl (17 + 1) = power_source points: 52 + 20 | power_level = 9 + 4 lvl (16 + 2) = power_source points: 50 + 22 | power_level = 9 + 4 lvl (15 + 3) = power_source points: 48 + 24 | power_level = 8 + 4 lvl (14 + 4) = power_source points: 46 + 26 | power_level = 8 + 5 lvl (13 + 5) = power_source points: 44 + 28 | power_level = 8 + 5 lvl (12 + 6) = power_source points: 42 + 30 | power_level = 7 + 5 lvl (11 + 7) = power_source points: 40 + 32 | power_level = 7 + 6 lvl (10 + = power_source points: 38 + 34 | power_level = 7 + 6 lvl ( 9 + 9) = power_source points: 36 + 36 | power_level = 6 + 6 Also, we can hardly estimate the relative power of a single vs multi-class character, until we know at least some basic coefficients for spells and abilities. For instance what is the formula for fireball's hit damage??dmg = base_value * (1 + power_source_points/54 + might_coefficient)? Edit: I mean that would make sense as a lvl 18 pure wizard would have by 20% more powerful spells than a 9/9 wizard/fighter of the same might, plus Josh mentioned in that video that damage of class specific abilities would scale with power source. On the other hand, I remember that when explaining empower mechanic their idea was that empower would add 3 power levels to the next spell cast. Would that mean that there will be a conversion back to power source points? And how will they do it, if the function is not bijective?

Weird.Have checked, and indeed it does increase accuracy of Dragon Thrashed by 12... Also just in case, have tested if DT would benefit from some weapon enchants, like overbearing. But at least here we are safe. Since this is Alpine Dragon thread, probably someone would make use of encounter stats. So, on PotD, Alpine Dragon has 8 starting minions: - 2 ice blights, 1 greater ice blight and 2 frost oozes, to the north of him - 1 greater ice blight, 1 frost ooze and 1 ice blight, to the south. Once you cast something that affects the Dragon himself, or more precisely: when the dragon makes a defensive roll, a few more minions are spawned: 4 spectres, 2 bitter spirits and 1 wraith. The stats of Alpine Dragon and his minions, do not depend on the fact if content is upscaled or not. Their stats (for PotD) you can find here: Bonus: you can find some info on dragon's AI here.

Afaik: - Combusting Wounds does not trigger from DoT damage. - Endless Host causes Frightening effect, which does not enable Sneak Attacks. - ranger/chanter is valid; (although Sure-Handed reloading part is suppressed by Swift Aim reloading bonus; but yes, it's great with bows and Twin-Arrows)

I like the already proposed: Cipher+Barbarian: Mind/Soul Ravager Cipher+Chanter: Enchanter Cipher+Priest: Oracle Cipher+Rogue: Beguiler Cipher+Wizard: Animancer And to add to cipher's list: Cipher+Druid: Soul Keeper / Soul of the Forest / Symbionte Cipher+Fighter: Psy-Blade Cipher+Monk: Psion Cipher+Paladin: Ardor Knight Cipher+Priest: Eldritch Cultist / Shadow Priest / Disciple of the Wheel Cipher+Ranger: Soul Tracker / Soul Hound

It's the same. Just putting the class with more levels in first place...

We don't know yet. Judging by PoE1 it could be: - pal/priest - paladin with painful interdiction... priest/pal would be more interesting, because of priest getting Lay on Hands, Zealous aura and maybe some order-specific stuff. - pal/fighter - dual-wielding pal with 2 more per-encounter full attacks (knockdown) + disciplined barage - fighter/priest - no idea; but priest/fighter could be a combination of scaen sneak attack + minor avatar + again knockdowns and disciplined barrage. As for fighter/monk - there could be some synergy between wounds gain and take the hit.

You are not missing. It's an error we?, or at least I often do.There are prone, stun, paralyze and petrify somewhat similar status effects. The idea is to hold him in place, without him hitting you back; and there is no creature, immune to all of these effects. You can hit him; but he will become hostile.An often used tactic through is: to charm him with low-costing Whispers of Treason, in order to lower his defenses before applying the real hard-cc, or costly power (like disintegration).

How could you forget the best aoe damage in the game Shining Beacons being affected with both Might and Intellect, scale tremendously, and stack with themselves. Also I just realized. After the first playthrough, I've never taken rogue or fighter in my group. Partially because they lacked hard-cc / passive party buffs, to really justify their place in my party. And partially because they lacked AoE; and there are tons of enemies on PotD. Maybe that was one of the reasons to reducing party limit to 5? As it will also reduce amount of enemies thrown at us, and indirectly increase the value of single-target damage.

Iirc there was "create an inn" option on Fig. Sitting at Valhalla Crossing... ordering Asgard fries with Mimir's ale; and your chanter singing about the last battle. Yes, it's more immersive, than eating all your food, right in dragon's lair.

Hmm, does that ^ mean that food works similar to survival bonuses now?