Loren Tyr

More than that, Frenzy will be longer if you use the Tactical Barrage first as well. Obviously a tiny amount of Barrage duration is wasted due to the Frenzy activation time, but nowhere near as much as the Confused debuff does anyway, so Barrage first is always best. In the same way really as it is always a good idea to activate a fresh Tactical Barrage before the first one has elapsed (assuming you want to keep it active of course), since that tacks on 3.75s duration to the new Barrage.

I'm not sure how an irrational, all-consuming lust for vengeance is all that understandable, to be honest. It's certainly not particularly interesting, as far as I'm concerned. He wants vengeance / to kill the protagonist for [random reasons] / world-domination... it's a color-by-numbers villlain, complete with a healthy dose of Bond-Villain Stupidity. Yes, "dude wants to kill you" is effective in a bare-bones kind of way to provide a motivation for the protagonist, but it's hardly going to interest me as the player much. I much prefer a story where the whole world *doesn't* revolve around the protagonist, where the protagonist is at best part of something bigger. Why *should* Thaos care about the Watcher? He/she is just a blip on the radar (if you don't have the benefit of hindsight, anyway)? And conversely, why should the Watcher need to hate Thaos? Certainly, a good story needs to engage the player, and depth or complexity for it's own sake doesn't necessarily do that. But neither does "making it personal" between the protagonist and antagonist in some sense (or having such starkly defined antagonists at all, really).

For you it becomes a one-trick pony because seemingly that's how you're building it. And are then also comparing it in terms of DPS with completely different kinds of builds, when a more specialised Assassin-type build isn't designed specifically to maximize DPS in the first place. Clearly the character doesn't suit your playstyle, but that doesn't mean it is not viable at all. And your claims (and those of unnamed others, apparently) to the contrary, the Assassinate is hardly underwhelming (maybe you just feel that way because you seem to keep forgetting parts of it?). It's certainly quite capable of beefing up my Assassin-Evoker's fireballs, for one thing. And there is also a very nice Assassin multi explosives build in the build section that makes very good use of it.

The Assassinate bonus always applies when you attack from stealth/invisibility, not just on crit. The +50% damage may be crit only, but you still always get the +25 ACC and +4 PER. Those are rather useful by themselves already. I'm also not sure how you end up being a one-trick pony, doing a couple of backstabs and then both becoming useless as well as auto-attacking. I have found auto-attacking to be fairly useful, myself, so this seems somewhat contradictory. Characters hardly stop being useful when they run out of class resources, I should think. Nor do they just keel over and die at that point. Besides, if you have a multi-class character there's all the abilities of the second class to be used as well, even if you've run through all your guile (and invisibility potions). Even if you're a single class assassin there's always consumables you can put to good use. If you're playing a melee assassin with the aim of continuously backstabbing through every fight, you can't really complain that it becomes a one-trick pony; you'd literally be setting it up that way. And indeed it won't work that well, since you'll run out of guile fairly quickly. But just because that particular set-up doesn't work well, doesn't mean you can't play melee assassins at all, you just have to make it more versatile. It will undeniably remain more of a niche build, but I would argue that that's part of the fun of building these types of characters. Arguably it also should be; it's an assassin, in the middle of a melee isn't really their natural habitat anyway. Not that I'd mind if Backstab or Smoke Veil got a bit of a buff, mind you. But as a (sub)class, Assassin certainly isn't below par.

To be honest, that Carnage got toned down a couple notches compared to PoE 1 is not unreasonable. Definitely the attack AOE effects needed to go with the introduction of multiclassing, and it's not like it's useless now. Compared to fighters, indeed as Haplok says, it's faster and more aggressive style, compared to a fighter's generally more defensive set-up. Plenty of room for both I'd say.

The main draw of the Assassin is his passive though, which works great for an opening shot, and similarly for getting stuff like that to stick very well mid-combat using invisibility abilities and potions. So yeah, I'd say for any primarily ranged rogue the Assassin subclass is an obvious choice; the damage debuff is much less relevant then so there's little reason not to get it over no subclass, and Trickster and Streetfighter don't work well for ranged for the most part. Even if you only use it for the opening shot it's a very useful bonus to have. Whether a melee Assassin is viable, I'd still say so. It's probably not the most optimal build, but who cares; if it's the kind of character you like playing it's certainly possible. Even with Backstab nerfed down, it's still a +100% you can use alongside the Assassinate bonus, especially if you also have something like Flames of Devotion that scales well off of high damage attacks. In general though, melee Assassin with Backstab is more of a niche build. Much harder and finicky to pull off. But then again, if you're an assassin it wouldn't make that much sense to want to get close to your target anyway. Historically, the types of weaponry that come to mind when you're thinking assassin I'd say are things like poison, bombs and ranged weapons. All of which do work great in game as well, as does the slightly less historical weapon of the Fireball. About getting swamped though, helps a lot to give the enemy a different target first by unstealthing a tankier character to focus on just before you strike. Or by just engaging with some other characters first and maneauvring your Assassin with Escape (which doesn't break stealth if you pick your landing spot well). You probably want your rogue somewhere at their back line anyway, to kill off squishier targets there.

For some reason I'm thinking Chanter, maybe Beckoner / Illusionist or Beckoner / Trickster. That's mroe on flavour though, there's something pleasing about a character spamming a bunch of skeletons or other summons to create a chaotic melee situation, then start twanging arrows into that with random effects everywhere. And that fits in nicely with illusions as well, of course; throw in some Confusion en Terrify with those, drain all their mental stats, etc. Trickster obviously has some less of that but also does fit such a theme very well as well. And you get to bounce around the battle zone with Escape and such. Anyway, that's the way I'd probably go with it. And might do, once it's available .

Yeah, I've had this with every single DLC for PoE 2 as well. I've always managed to eventually get them installed though, so it is possible in my experience. Once it shows up in the PoE page but saying 'not installed', unselecting and selecting definitely works, though indeed it doesn't always show there. I think in one instance where it didn't, it did show a "0 of 1 downloaded" (or something) at the bottom of the PoE Steam window (as you get with updates as well), and then clicking that got me to the download/update screen and hitting the 'update' button helped. Usually this was after repeatedly having gone to the DLC page and clicking install (and then closing down PoE again, because obviously that starts up). It's indeed quite ridiculous that this is so messed up. But it is seemingly still possible with some perseverence and a fair amount of swearing, without reinstalling (or restarting Steam, don't think I ever did that either).

It is indeed a Great Sword, also says so when you summon it and look at it's description. So should work fine with Devoted, and also with the modal. I just did a quick check and made myself a druid / devoted hireling with Great Sword proficiency, which got correct accuracy and use of modal for both spell and scroll Firebrand. And in the past I've had a main character with Great Sword proficiency who occasionally used scroll Firebrand; not devoted, but definitely used modal for that too. So if it's a bug, it's not an entirely general one. Might be an issue specifically with your game files perhaps, I'd try verifying the game files for a start (if you're using Steam, that is).

It's indeed on the current 0028 version, the save attached to my first post is from that as well (made earlier today) so that should work for that.

I was experimenting a bit with spell reflection, and noticed that it seems to drain spells. When casting a reflectable spells at a character with active reflection, as it gets reflected it uses up another cast from that same level. I have attached a save game set up to illustrate. From the save, I spawn a dummy somewhere to initiate combat, then have hireling Bob cast Minor Arcane Reflection. I then have Aloth cast Thrust of Tattered Veils at Bob. The initial casting of course uses up one of his level 1 spell casts for the encounter. However, when the Thrust gets reflected, Aloth's second level 1 spell cast gets used as well (this happens with other reflectable spells as well, at least those I tried; it's not Thrust-specific). Obviously this is with me casting at my own party member, but I assume the same would happen when casting at an enemy with reflection or vice versa. Edit: just tried it against the Skeletal Wizard at the Engwithan Digsite, if he puts up Arcane Reflection and I cast Thrust against it, I get the same effect. I have the beta enabled by the way, but I'm not so sure that makes a difference in this case so I posted it here rather than in the beta forum. Cyrion Ash (000c0880-b951-42d8-9a1d-acaf3dbf6fa6) quicksave.zip

I did some testing, the effects do indeed stack but not additively. They seem to stack in the same way as attack speed / recovery time effects (see stickied thread), which means that it can never be zero. It can be quite low though, and the duration reductions are essentially 'stronger' than duration buffs from the caster's Intellect, due to the way the formula works. I tested with some Chill Fog, with Aloth at 35 Int and Eder at 35 Res, so +125% and -75% duration respectively, but that actually ends up with a blindness duration of about 5.5s, so 37% of the base 15s duration. It also applies to anything negative as far as I can tell, so Aloth's Chill Fog but also Blunderbuss modal. 'Hostile effect' can just be interpreted as 'negative effect' in this context, essentially. Provided they have a duration anyway. I didn't test drug crash, but those don't have a duration as such so I'm quite sure they're not affected. Confusion from Berserker Frenzy should be though (it will get somewhat counteracted by your own Int though). It also doesn't necessarily show up properly in effect descriptions, at least it didn't for Powder Burns. Setting Eder's Int and Res both to 35, the duration of the effect when I clicked the modal was given as 22.5s, only showing the Int 'bonus'. The actual duration was only 3.7s though.

Turn off the gib option in the game options menu - then you can eat all killed enemies (I mean kith/wilder/beast of course), no matter how they died (except Dintegration). It's the same with White Worms and Death's Maw and so on: doesn't work on exploded enemies and enemeis that leave no corpse. Gib option is the first thing I turn off - even before turning off companion auto-leveling. It's ridiculous anyway: exploding enemies on crits? Yeeeeah... meeeeh... Good to know! I don't mind the gibs myself, but it's rather ridiculous that what's essentially a graphical option affects game play in this way. It would never have occurred to me that that might be a factor (though now you mention it, I recall something like this being the case in PoE 1 as well; presumably White Worms there as well, at the least). Presumably the corpses still get gibbed once you eat them though? This certainly helps for a Corpse-eater, it still needs a more varied diet though. And at the very least, they should also put "turn gibs off in the Graphics menu" in big bold font in the Corpse-eater class description.

I can't see them doing that though, if nothing else because a) it doesn't fit the description of the subclass in terms of flavour, they're corpse eaters after all, and b) switching to passive, automatic consumption on kill is a much larger change mechanically than simply giving more food options, and rather changes the class. The rest of the ability would have to be rebalanced around it as well, just getting +3 Rage and 50 base HP would definitely be too much if it's on kill. It also removes the ability to consume corpses killed by others (unless it applies to all nearby kills, but that would require even more drastic rebalancing). Obviously point b) can be gotten around by just keeping the mechanics the same (but applied to all dead enemies). But then it's mostly just the change I proposed plus an awkward shift in flavour, in which case there doesn't seem much reason to change the flavour at all. They can just keep that as is, and just change what enemies can be consumed (just leaving out spirits). As said, in terms of flavour there is plenty of room to include Vessels and Primordials. We can easily interpret what they do as absorbing some of whatever animated their slain enemy (souls for the most part, but I'm not sure for example Oozes actually have those) by physically ingesting part of them. Clearly there's something rather supernatural going on there anyway, so that's as good an explanation as any. They eat part of their enemy and gain some of their power from it, that it's not technically 'flesh' in all cases should be that big of an issue I should think. As for it being unhealthy: sure, probably. But given that they are already engaging in cannibalism and such, I rather doubt that's much of an obstacle for them. And I'd imagine eating, say, Dwgra bark is actually less harmful than eating raw kith flesh.

Why not? It's flesh after all; maybe not as tasty as fresh kith meat and such, but still edible (or drinkable if we're talking oozes, I guess). Arguably not all Vessels have flesh on them, but it would get a bit finicky to have to make subtypes of Vessels for this. Besides, there might be some good marrow left in a skeleton's bones, and maybe gnawing on them might be sufficient as well. The game is slightly vague on how this "gaining their power" actually works lore-wise. Presumably it's more mystical or psychological rather than in some way a physiological side effect of them eating the flesh, since it happens instantly; no digestive system works that fast, and even absorbtion of something into the blood stream wouldn't be that quick. So in terms of lore, as long as there's something physically there to consume it can easily be justified in some way. And certainly, combined with the idea of varying the bonus by meat type, perhaps have Vessels not give any HP gain to signify the inferior quality of flesh, or lack of proper flesh altogether. As I recall, some of the 'special' food you can make with Corpse Eater bonuses acually uses Vessel Flesh as an ingredient as well, so it's hardly unprecedented in that sense either. And it would mostly solve the issue of not being able to use the ability in many encounters, only ones with only or predominantly spirits would remain an exception. Mechanically, combined with the crit thing it would solve a lot of problems with the current version of the class.

Bonuses and penalties from active effects (this includes modals) all work the same way on yourself as on enemies, and indeed do not stack. The biggest bonus and biggest penalty apply, everything else is suppressed (they're still there though, should the bigger effect expire they kick in). And when I say 'all', I mean... well, 'most'. Because some do actually stack somewhat. Stuff like hit-to-crit conversion chance does stack, though not additively (eg. two 50% chance effects combine to 75%, not 100%); as far as I know this applies to all 'chance' effects, I know it works the same for chance to interrupt on hit. Similarly, some effects are similar but still different, such as "+10 Deflection" and "+10 Deflection against melee attacks". Against a melee attack, that will net you +20 Deflection. Some are even more obscure, I think "+5 to all defenses except Deflection", "+5 to all defenses" and "+5 to Reflex" will all stack with each other (I'd have to check though).

The effects should definitely stack, it's only among active abilities (including modals) where stacking doesn't happen. My guess is that the 'hostile' might actually refer to all negative effects actually; compare for example Suppress Affliction, which also says 'hostile' effects. Similar effects use it as well, I think that it's just the generic opposite for 'beneficial'. It's relatively straightforward to use the console and experiment with it though. If I remember, I'll have a try tonight to see (provided no one beats me to it).

I think making it a passive could easily make it too powerful though, and it also doesn't really fit the theme of the class. I think for the most part the Flesh Communion ability as it stands is fine, it has good flavour (depending on taste, I suppose) and provides an easily repeatable source of Rage (and health) so it can definitely be used for fun and interesting builds. Maybe not top-tier, PotD solo material, but not everything has to be. After one snack you're essentially almost at the same level of Rage as other Barbarians (depending a bit; you can't go over the max. amount of Rage so you might not get the full three Rage in all circumstances), and with a nice bit of HP gain as well. I played around with it a bit though, and the big issue I've found is indeed just the limited diet, in two different ways: firstly, obviously that you can only eat kith/beast/wilder, leaving lots of fights with no opportunity for some light snacking. But secondly, and perhaps even more annoyingly, you can't eat anything that died from a crit. Especially for Barbarian, that's rather unfortunate given the assorted crit-enhancing abilities the class has. I think to make the class viable, at the very least it would need: - ability to eat vessels and primordials as well; leaving out spirits would probably be fine, and it wouldn't make sense anyway - ability to eat critted enemies - allow gained Rage to overflow the maximum Rage, so you always get 3. (certainly the first two, but the third would also go a long way I think) For added flavour, what would also be nice: - give each different meat type an additional different side effect when eaten (maybe a small negative side effect for eating eg. vessel flesh, as a price to pay for being able to eat it) - allow critted enemies to be eaten faster (they're already chunkified, so makes sense) - add a small AOE effect like Sickened or Shaken to Flesh Communion (dude is stopping in the middle of battle to eat a dead guy, you'd think that would give enemies pause; probably allies as well, though they might get used to it after a while) I really hope they make some changes to this effect, because it is a very flavourful subclass and I'd love to be able to really use it. But as it stands it's just much of a picky eater, and there are too many fights where you can't use Flesh Communion at all or too infrequently (due to critting), and then the drawback is just too steep.

I encountered a minor visual glitch on the level-up screen, see attached screenshot. As you can see, for the passive abilities at selectable levels the images are now square, with the selection circle layered underneath rather than on top. This doesn't change if you select them either. I did a file validation in Steam to be sure, but no change. Only noticed this today, so presumably this is specific to the latest 0028 version.

Yeah, definitely a greater degree of consistency would be good. Not just have a single score, with the good cancelling out the bad. Not that it necessarily has to devolve into an overly simplistic ultimatum of some sort where they decide to leave of course, that tends to be annoying as well. In some cases that's clearly warranted, if you do something that clearly goes against their fiber, but for it to really be immersive I'd say it needs more range. They may set aside their dislike of the main character (maybe they're quite religious and you keep mocking their faith or something) and stick around for a greater good, but still express that dislike in various other ways (preferably ones that do actually affect gameplay as well). Though conversely I'd argue that the disposition system could maybe do with more of a "two extremes of a single axis" kind of thing, because as it stands the ability to be known as both the spirit of benevolence and viciously cruel at the same time is a bit... odd. Would be even better if that's actually worked in in a more complex way, but I'd say opposite dispositions at least to some extent cancelling each other out would be better than what it is now.

I agree with the contrast you're sketching, but not with the conclusion. As a rule, I find real people to be considerably more interesting than larger than life fictional ones (they have much better graphics too, most people are very realistically rendered!). Fiction of course has an inherent advantage of being able to show you aspects of people that in real life you often wouldn't have (direct) access to at all and/or would learn about much more slowly. And additionally that you don't actually interact directly with them, which handily gets around the fact that some people can be both interesting and deeply unpleasant to be around at the same time. But fundamentally, I would say that the aspects that make people interesting in real life and in fiction are fundamentally the same. To me, anyway.

This might indeed be a factor. And perhaps in tandem with that, the relative development costs: branching and conditional dialogue trees take more work for less reward at least in the sense that fewer players are likely to encounter a particular path the more it branches out. Though of course there is a lot of pay off if it helps improve immersion and make the world feel more cohesive and alive. So definitely, more reactivity and interaction would be great. Though I'd love to see more of that beyond the companions as well, applied to other characters and the world itself; see those vary and change over time and in reaction to events more as well.

I'd say it's more about perspective than arguments. Certainly, you focus on rather different things than I am inclined to do in this regard. I can't speak for anyone else of course (but it seems reasonable to assume that this indeed just varies from person to person), but for me the sense of personality I get from a character is much more important than being able to somehow influence their decisions etc. And a lot of that I get from smaller things like interjections and reactions in dialogue, the brief pop-up conversations between companions, etc. That to me adds depth. The ability to steer their path in some major way is a distant second. It can certainly be a good addition as well, if done organically, but it's hardly crucial. Moreover, having that would only add anything to the extent that I am indeed invested in a character to some degree. Taking Keldorn for example, indeed there was assorted conflict and decisions there. I just never cared much about it, because I had no particular investment in the character. He never felt like much more than a collection of fantasy paladin tropes to me. And more generally I'd say, I don't see a need for all major characters to go through some major character arc or development over the course of the story. Again, if it fits well, then it can be great. But it's hardly necessary to tell a good story or to have a good character as far as I'm concerned. Often, getting to know the character over the course of a story is plenty, there is no particular need for that character to undergo some kind of major change as well.

But is it supposed to be a good thing, if you can reasonably describe (the personality of) a character in one sentence? Because to me, if I would be able to briefly sum up a personality (though admittedly I am quite bad at that in general), that would just suggest there's very little depth or substance to them.

Yeah, it's in the container (a chest or tomb or something) against the wall above the Skeletal Sorcerer in those training rooms.