Bosmer

Edit: inserte quote: “ The only possible alternative would be "Oh well, let's make all food bonuses stacking". If you guys ask for it. This would be a buff, but at least it would have clear rules. This one is testable I won't nerf food effect to make it more balanced, though. Just too much headache “ Personally, I think this would be the cleanest solution. And resting is not so much of an “active” act that it would break the games buff logic.

Not really, but something that is always bothering me is that the universal on kill effect of engoliero is lost when taking the soul blade upgrade. So in my opinion it should still be working universally when taking the upgrade (or not work at all but it’s supposed to be a mighty weapon so I guess it’s ok).

Yeah, I had the chance to test the new Backstab and Assassinate a bit and so far it works like a charm. You suddenly have significantly more options, such as chaining two spells at the beginning of combat from stealth. Full-Attacks work great, especially since the off-hand will have only a reduced backstab bonus in many occasions. Arquebus as an assassins weapon is still highly competitive since the fast attack allows to follow up with a fast spell. I've tried a couple of AoE or multi-hit spells but nothing seems to be broken so far, the spells just feel nicely buffed.

Great changes! Adjusting the AoE-size of screaming souls should make it a bit more interesting / challenging. I still find the ability a bit strange. Against very large groups of vessels/spirits (and there are enough of these encounters) it's extremely strong and spamming this the dominant strategy and otherwise it's rather useless and dominated by mind wave. Is it possible to introduce decreasing damage per "jump"? Such as in mind blades or driving flight? Edit: I'm not sure if I've already asked you this, so sorry if I did

Very nice! Can't wait to try it out .. the Assassin passive should now also work with a variety of multi-hit spells (and not only with the initial target).. opening up many interesting combos (hopefully nothing too broken :))

I agree with your points. I think that with the changes you made a stealthy rogue is totally viable. The stealth abilities are not only about dealing extra damage but also providing survivability and positioning. Hence, its ok that a direct crippling strike (or devastating blow etc..) results in a bit more damage output. Your proposed change to backstab sounds actually pretty interesting. Personally, I don't use the CP variant of backstab since I find it underwhelming when you accumulate high lashes (e.g. flames of devotion) or it won't benefit soul annihilation anymore. Providing an additive damage bonus for 1s could combine the best of both approaches.

wow, that's really underwhelming.. IIRC none of these items would be overpowered even with 4 or 5 (maximum?) stacks on it. And besides using your animal companion I can't think of a reliable strategy to use them. It's not like they would buff the "last man standing" of your party for a major comeback.

I assumed that all these effects have a maximum value and that the death of all summons that are considered to be part of your party would contribute to it, but never tested it. Are you sure that it is only working with the rangers animal companion?

I share many of your views / hopes. I also hope that, one day, someone (maybe Josh again?) will have the necessary confidence and passion to tackle a PoE3. I really believe it would be a feasible project, and maybe also significantly cheaper, if they concentrate on the core strengths of PoE2. This obviously includes the gameplay mechanics. In the end, Obsidian seems to have high hopes in PoE's Lore, otherwise they wouldn't put their largest project in this setting. So hopefully, given a succesfull release of Avowed in the next two years, someone at Obsidian might want to tackle another cRPG in Eora and gets the necessary ressources

Yes Riposte is a full attack (without full attack penalty btw) and will lead to shots if you dual wield with a melee weapon. So yes, if you have a bunch of low-accuracy mobs and high deflection this is definitely a viable strategy.

To be fair a stacking behaviour like in mob stance would be easily far too strong. You'll receive the recovery speed increasement of 3-4 points in dexterity with one shot, and as pointed out there are easy ways to accumulate shots. What's the best scordeos trophy-ability against single enemies though? Clear Out has the advantage to hit the initial target twice iirc

If I remember correctly, Riposte is the only full-attack ability I know that has no full-attack malus.. what do you think about this?

Yes, the initial target will again be affected by the cone attack. It also triggers from any attack with Karaboru. So with high-crit chances its a decent weapon.

that's neat, I'll have to give it a chance I guess! Btw, have you been able to make any use of Wild Leech? I'm using the community patch which upgrades the self-buff to Tier 2 Inspiration.. but still it seems a bit costly and time-intensive to use. However, in contrast to PoE1 it can stack now (even on the same target) potentially allowing you to have all Tier 2 inspirations at the same time while debuffing the target. Do you by chance know if the self-buff doesn't work if the enemy resists the affliction?

Wow, so each kill with frostfall (or kills while frostfall is equiped) will extend the duration of the hostile effect AND the self buff multiplicatively by 20%? Does this work for all cipher "draining self-buffs"?

Yes, SC Ascended cipher will do very nice DPS throughout the game and having different options to do so: Ampl. Wave for very large crowds, Mind Blades for 2-4 enemies, Disintegration for single-target and later on death of 1000 cuts. Key is finding and upgrading weapons that help you to reach the ascendant state as fast as possible. Frostseeker works great for me with high enough ACC or hit-to-crit. For single target + high deflection the red hand is nice as well!

I haven‘t done the math, but “intuitively” I always found it a nice pick. It’s roughly half as powerful as the secondary effect of a tier 2 inspiration which is in line with other passives (with the exception of prestige).

Is it possible to allow carnage to generate Focus? This would make at least picking witches more attractive. Then again, it’s a decent multiclass already, although IMO weaker than multiclassing cipher with rogue/paladin/ranger..

Ah cool, thanks for the clarification! Do you know if Stasis Shell is implemented in a similar way? I always skipped these spells because I assumed that the targets I really want to "lock away" might just have the according immunities/resistances and that in the worst case I would just make them untargetable ..

Does Stasis Shell work exactly the same? (except sunned for paralyzed) I'm still not understanding how these spells work on Dex (or Might in case of Stasis Shell) immune / resistant targets..

I hope that your issues were already solved, but just to leave my impression here for people who search for it: I'm playing Deadfire on M1 Pro and it works perfectly fine (modding as well). Loading times are super fast, so it's definitely a viable platform. I will try out Pillars of Eternity 1 as well, eventually!

Hey! Are you playing on PC? Then you could/should try the Balance Polishing Mod (in addition to the Community Patch!), which decreases the costs of Smoke Veil and Shadowing Beyond, such that playing a "stealthy" rogue becomes totally viable. If frequently re-stealthing is your playstyle (some people love it, others don't) than soul blade has obviously a great synergy with assassin (soul annihilation gets really boosted by the backstab damage bonus). But other cipher subclasses also benefit from assassin, since +25 accuracy for spells on high-defense enemies is really nice! In my opinion the increased damage taken by assassins doesn't affect your playstyle all too much, since you aren't supposed to take too many hits in the first place, unless you stack deflection. And smoke veil and shadowing beyond are not only great offensive abilities (in combination with backstab) but also serve as good "oh-****"-buttons when something is going wrong!

I agree that the nostalgia sales pitch worked for selling the first one, but I'm not even sure if they "nostalgia pitched" the second one.. in retrospective I believe to remember that they were far more confident in highlighting the gameplay and graphics advances they made in Deadfire, than trying to speak to the atmosphere of BG1+2. Maybe they should have pitched it more as a "standalone" game than a direct successor to reach more people that never touched the first one or just didn't enjoy the first one. Anyway, it comes down to a failed marketing campaign.

Yeah that's a good point, Tacticians might really make use of it! There might also be some synergy with complete self (BPM "buffed") and soulblade. Maybe Mind Wave might also benefit strongly from higher attack speed with time parasite (for single class non-ascendants), I'll have to test that out

Since we are talking level 1 spells with interrupts .. does anyone of you use/pick Mind wave? I could see it's potential due to aoe-interrupt .. however, the casting time makes it nearly impossible to interrupt a specific activity. I think the damage is ok and somehow in line with the other abilities, e.g. soul shock, and after BPM all other spells have their usefulness .. what's your take on this?