MaxQuest

Two things: - the inter-action delay, which happens to be ~5 frames between any two actions. I don't know exactly how Unity works, but there seems to be some onUpdate schedule system which ticks periodically and checks for queued abilities, and that could be it's tick rate. If I am not mistaken it's possible to get into the same tick (i.e. get rid of the delay) but you would need to have 500+ dexterity. - the intristic diminishing returns. It's like: 3/2 > 4/3 > 5/4 > 6/5 and so on. Add a drop to a drop, and you get twice the amount; throw that drop into the sea, and nothing has changed. Vs zero-DR 1 point of DEX is always better than 1 point of MIG, provided that they are equal at the moment and your character relies on attacking with his weapon a lot. But for spells; and also for attacks made vs high-DR targets the preference does indeed shifts toward might. But by how much? 15x15 > 16x14 > 17x13 - the biggest area is that of a square. But different variables (like enemy DR, abilities, talents, enchants and especially role in the group) askew it toward a rectangle. And we want to find that sweet spot when we get the maximum benefit. It depends. But shortly: if you was intending to have 10 dex on an attacking character, rising it to just 12 could be worth it, as the first points provide a benefit at higher ration. Correct. Correct) Well, a bit optimization here, a bit there... and suddenly things start to snowball) It's way more noticeably in Tyranny than in PoE, but still. Maximizing cipher's focus gain such that he could cast amplified waves back to back; or increase priest's AoE DoT damage is fun

Yes. And it's used to it's fullest with reloading weapons. Absolutely right. There are many things that can dilute the effect of might on weapon attacks: weapon quality, crits, soul/bitting whip, deathblows, two-handed style, etc. Here is the theoretical model of Might diminishing returns with the same weapons. * Theoretical, because in practice there is also damage values rounding, and we have to also deal with DR. A practical model would include so many variables... like graze/hit/crit rate, enemy DR, 20% min dmg going through, indirect might gain increase via lash enchant,... that table should be 4D

No problem) P.S. Wanted to write about Dexterity diminishing returns for some time now. It was already discussed, but a visualization wouldn't hurt: TL.DR: Each point of dex does not necessary provide a 3% dps increase.

^ I get following association chains: - hazanui -> Rauatai -> Kana. - cannons / fish -> Island Aumaua / Coastal Aumaua.

Heh, that's quite a necro right there. On topic through: probably Neylari or Nerine P.S. Does anyone else get a deeper connection with his character if it's name is starting with a specific letter? Kind of strange gimmick, but (with few exceptions) most of my rpg character names were starting with "N": Nard, Nagtar, Nemesis, Narenthes, Nyara, Neruviel, Naylah, Naijaro, Naylin.

^ Yeap. But generally... 2h or 1h+shield wizard can have 0-recovery with spells, under the same conditions. - If you are casting spells - you don't get the SingleWeapon penalty. - If you are performing an attack (be it auto-attack, primary attack or full attack) while dual-wielding (bashing shields don't count) - you don't get the SingleWeapon penalty.

Check ^ above post. Also have tested spells' speed a little. Generally spells have following "attack phase" durations: - fast: 35 frames (or 1.1666s) - medium: 60 frames (or 2s) - slow: 120 frames (or 4s) And a recovery duration that is equal to: attack_duration / 1.2; i.e: - fast: 29 frames (or 0.9722s) - medium: 50 frames (or 1.6666s) - slow: 100 frames (or 3.3333s) But, there are exceptions:

Had time to test it now. Yeap, a wizard (with gloves, daom and durganized scale) could cast any spell without recovery. (it doesn't matter what weapons he has equipped, or if he dual-wields or not) And same thing with ciphers powers. Also, tested Nature's Bounty, Vielo Vidorio and Durgan Enchant (Shield). The first two are getting into AttackSpeedMult category and are suppressable. While Durgan Enchant (Shield) is a completely separate thing, and it can decrease (additively) the penalty a character gets when attacking while using a shield OR not dual-wielding. So, updated tables look like this: Also, it turned out that full and primary attacks are not considered "abilities" and can be affected by Single1HWeapRecovFactor penalty. Thus I decided to avoid using the term "ability" and rephrase the penalty condition into "when not casting a spell" or "when performing an attack (auto, primary or full)". P.S.: Primary attack follows the same rules of an auto-attack. Full attack with a single weapon does the same. Full attack while dual-wielding (or using 1h+bashing shield): offhand_attack -> mainhand_attack -> mainhand_recovery i.e. offhand_recovery is skipped. so if using weapons of different speed; it's better to put the faster one in main hand, if the character has many full attacks.

Hmm. There are few boss fights I want to have easy time in dealling with, plus few encounters that I'd like to be able to do as early as possible, e.g: Zolla, Cail The Silent (if I need Tidefall for someone), Od Nua Fampyrs (if I want Botep or Drawn in Spring asap), Foemyna bounty (if there is a cipher in need for Rain of Godagh Field) and of course Battery Sirens for the earliest durganization. Although I'm ok with resting after and before a boss fight, I usually prefer to lose as less health/per-rest-spells (and uniformly between all members) as possible. So... these kind of builds, the ones which have great end-game potential, but are also useful in the early-mid part of it.

Personal preference for a game I enjoy is: - 40 hours for main quest - 80-100 hours for completionist run And for expansions: - 15-20 hours for main quest - 20-40 hours for completionist run So kind of mix between NWN Series, Witcher Series and PoE.

Aah the Benny Hill strat Just don't let him get charmed right before the Dragon Thrashed gets applied)

^ Yeah it's not stellar. The question is: is it better to use [Firearm + Vicios Aim] or [Firearm + Powder Burns]?) Blinding is annoying. But at least there are ways to deal with it (Crossed Patch, Litany Against Minor Afflictions; plus theoretically should work: Potion of Major Recovery and Minor Intercession).

Had a similar build in mind for some time now ^) But obligatorily frontliner (with something like 18/14/15/10/18/3) With AoE stun from a party member or Overwhelming Wave from Swaddling Sheet/White Crest Armor, he can greatly lower enemy reflex for the Powder Burns, plus deflection for the Blunderbuss bullets. Add there Apprentice Sneak Attack, Scion of Flame, Wilder Hunter/or alike, and he will be able to dish ~400 dmg to a single target + ~300 dmg cone AoE in approximatively 4 seconds. And then there is also CW, Wounding Shot, Envenom, esp. with high mig/int, and potential scroll usage (for example Wall of Flame...) The main question is, what to do with pet through. Get Vengeful Grief, let the pet die and a paladin martyr it? Or micro it away from the cone and let it attack a target affected by wounding/envenom?

Plan A: get enough experience till level 11, and let Durance start with Prayer Against Treachery. Than follow with Painful Interdiction -> two Shinning Beacons -> Cleansing Flames -> two Shinning Beacons (preemptively ofc increasing his might and int as high as you can). The enemies should be dead by now, if not, your barbarian will finish them. Plan B: let your paladin skill Liberating Exhortation AND Aegis of Loyalty (plus give him Redfield shield or Executioners Helm; check this thread to understand why). Now, charm trolls, stun/paralyze/ignore spiders, and focus fire those adragans/delemgans (they have low endurance, and their death iirc will also despawn the summoned blights) Plan A: Paralyze ogre frontliners, charm ogre druids. Keep your targets-to-kill disabled (stun/paralyzed) while others should be chain-charm/confused. Plan B: Sturdy party with lots of heals.

I bet it's not intentional. - in v3.00 party members were not damaged while standing in the yellow zone; only enemies... and your animal companion. - in v3.05 everyone is getting damaged. I don't know when exactly was that modified, but at least the interaction between Powder Burns and Wounding Shot with Envenom was finally fixed. Related bug report. A common variant would be a ranged build with arquebuss and swift aim | or blunderbuss and vicious aim + quick switch + flanking bonuses. But I guess something like a: plate frontliner, quick-switching firearms with powder burns (with maxed Mig/Int with Shod-in-Faith and Swaddling Sheet) could also be greatly viable.

Barbarian is an ok choice. Your stats spread will depend on your party composition and especially the weapons you are going to use. I'd advice one of the following: - Frontline DPS | Great Sword (Tidefall) 20/10/18/10/15/5 - Frontline DPS | Estoc (Blade of the Endless Paths) 15/10/18/10/15/10 - Frontline DPS | Dual-wielding Sabres (Purgatory or Bittercut) 15/10/15/18/15/4 - Frontline CC | Dual-wielding Stunning Spears (Cladhaliath) 15/8/15/18/15/7 - Midline CC | Pike (Tall Grass) 13/8/18/18/18/3 For armor: Plate; For feet: Shod-in-Faith (if you choose a frontline variant) For race: Human or Boreal Dwarf For party-members: Priest (with Painful interdiction), Paladin (for emergency Lay-on-Hands/Liberating Exhortation), and 1-3 of: Cipher, Druid or Wizard for stuns/paralyze (which will fix your survivability and also increase your dps, due to lower enemy deflection)

That's close to what I've played with. 17/7/15/16/16/7. I've chosen Pale Elf that time through. I wanted to get a bit extra survivability against fire AoEs and to be less of a target for Ice Blights and Shades with paralyzing Draining Freeze. As for lower perception, it's due to having other team members that would lower enemy defenses for me. (e.g. a priest would weaken everyone; a ranged cipher would paralyze my melee cipher's target; while melee cipher would charm an enemy behind his target, a hammer an anvil tactic of some sort, especially vs ogres) Usually you will build focus hitting paralyzed targets and criting a lot. Whisper of Treason the enemy hard-hitters and Amplify-Waving everyone if the fight is not near it's ending phase. Once all enemies are low.. boom detonate/lance spam depending on positioning, or just Silent Scream. Melee cipher can achieve a higher focus gain than a ranged one. But yeah there are a few problems: - he has to come close to enemy first, and ranged cipher is already one shot ahead - plate armor makes casting slower; it will be especially noticeable if you cast low-cost powers a lot Imho, melee cipher starts to shine when you already have a ranged one. Btw, I was once tracking the party stats (damage; hit/crit, knockdowns). And melee cipher (2nd playthrough) had the potential to be on par with barbarian in terms of total damage

Reload speed bonuses stack multiplicatively (or would it be right to say divisively? ) For example blunderbuss has base reloading speed of 5s (or 150 frames) 150 / (1 * 1.5 * 1.2) = 83.33 framesUnfortunately it won't be -70% in reloading time, but only -44%. Too early to judge, as more testing is required. But it seems so. (also casting speed is independent from weapons, dw or not)

That's what I like about PoE. It all depends on party composition and personal playstyle. And you can come with a lot of optimal choices and have even non tier 1 class contribute a lot if it fills the right niche in your party. Unlike in Tyranny.. where is one godly power build, 2-3 almost-godly builds, and everything else is tier 9.

Thanks for suggestion, as indeed I meant single weapon and not one-handed. So, in the end which variant does sound better?: - "when not using an ability, and having single weapon (1H or 2H) or wielding a shield" - "when not using an ability and (wielding a single weapon or using a shield)" - "when auto-attacking while wielding a single weapon or shield" Fixed. Ok, I'll check Nature's Bounty later. (reminder to self: plus durgan enchant (shield)) When you use an ability or spell, or when you make an auto-attack while dual-wielding (and without a shield) you don't get a 0.5 penalty coefficient. When you auto-attack while having a single weapon (1h or 2h) or shield equipped, you do get a 0.5 penalty coefficient. For spells it doesn't matter what you are wielding in weapon/shield slots. Updated tables: Seems so. speed_coef = (1.15*1.5 - 1) + (0.65 + 0.15 - 1) = 0.725 - 0.2 = 0.525 recovery_duration = attack_duration * max(0, (1 - 2 * speed_coef)) / recovery_factor recovery_duration = attack_duration * max(0, (1 - 2 * 0.525)) / 1.2 recovery_duration = 0 Will test it today, but I bet it will be zero. P.S. But as peddroelm noted, not all stuff listed in the attack categories list does apply to spells. Spells are affected only by AttackSpeedMult (and only those which do not come from weapon or shield passives), RangedAttackSpeedMult (if it is a ranged spell), ArmorSpeedFactor and StatAttackSpeedMult (dexterity).

Thanks As for software I have used ILSpy to inspect Assembly-CSharp.dll. No, no, no. I have indeed made a mistake in the simplified recovery formula. I have re-checked: - recovery_factor is not changing if you dw or not. It's a constant 1.2 - when not using an ability, and having 1h or wielding a shield incurs a 0.5 penalty - naked and with just DaoM, you have zero recovery on spells - naked and with just DAoM, you have zero recovery when dual-wielding (I already knew this; dunno how I could make this mistake) I have reflected this, in the updated table: Blue category uses multiplication. It would be: (1.1*1.5*1.15) - 1 = 0.89 But yes, those multpliers are increased by 1. That was done to skip an extra step later. Consider you have swift aim, swift gloves and cautious attack. AttackSpeedMult should be: [(1 + 0.2) * (1 + 0.15) * (1 - 0.2)] - 1 = 0.104 Instead, it can be presented as: AttackSpeedMult should be: [1.2 * 1.15 * 0.8] - 1 = 0.104 (that's why I wrote those multiplers that way)

You get marking bonus when you issue an attack order. And lose it once your character does anything else except continuing to attack the same target. They are also really great against melee ogres. It's great vs druid ogres too (as they won't cast talon's reach nor their aoe dots on you), but it will be harder to land against druids, without weakening pre-debuff. Only if you are dual-wielding marking weapons. For more info check this post)

I will quote one of my recent responses on similar question: "the target to receive +10 accuracy, is decided at the moment when casitas_character receives an 'attack order' on an enemy. The target (for the buff) is the closest party-member to casitas_character at that moment. If the casitas_character receives another type of order like: stop, move or cast some spell not on that target, the 10 bonus accuracy are lost." Completely agreed) Also Enigma's Charm might useful as well. My current paladin (1h + outworn buckler; maxed mig, avg per/dex) has killed 81 enemies out of 1310. Imho, unless you dual-wield or use hard-hitting reloading weapons, it's not worth taking Strange Mercy.

Thanks! I knew I had to triple check before posting... Updated the list. I understand what you mean. And from end-results this is correct for auto-attacking. But it's a bit more complicated than that. It's not that dual-wielding provides a bonus. Rather having having only 1 weapon provides a penalty. I will have to check the recovery of spells (with DaoM) to be sure, and also check the deal with recovery_factor. Will try to test these once I get home. It's more likely I've got an error when trying to simplify things. I will dig this. First approach was frapsing and counting the frames. Second approach involved checking the decompiled source code. (I'm probably not allowed to post it as it's considered intellectual property, but the way recovery duration is calculated can be found in AttackBase.cs NotifyAttackComplete() function) (the problem is, it's a bit complex and I've struggled with reducing it to a simple and elegant formula/explanation) Third approach involved injecting a function into Pillars' dll, that would print in log base (attack, recovery, reload) durations of currently equipped weapon.

I've been receiving few requests about full list of speed categories (since my list was incomplete), plus if it is possible to explain recovery duration calculation formula in a simpler way. So: Updated tables (17th January 2017): Btw, big thanks to Loren Tyr for this post. Now, the formulas: (tried to simplify as much as I could ^^) Note: the referenced image with weapon attack and reload durations, is this one: http://i.imgur.com/QqMIkII.png Note to self: check dual-wielding.