Silvaren

You mean Iconic Projection? Its damage has to overcome only 1/4 of DR (all spells which deal fixed number of damage do that) so it's pretty good option. Shining Beacon is DoT effect - those don't work with Scion of Flame, Secrets of Rime etc and don't gain bonuses from slayer talents too. Shining Beacon is great damage spell though. It's stacking with itself, so you can cast it several times in a row. Cleansing Flame will twice the damage from DoT effects. Enemies will melt quickly. Cleansing Flame has to overcome only 1/4 DR too, thanks to fixed damage. Best option to scale spell damage: incrase your Might. Penetrating Shot talent will overcome 5 DR so it is 5 more damage most of the time - it affects spells which hit only one target (can do splash damage near the target) and spells which hit in the line (eg. Crackling Bolt, so I guess Iconic Projection qualify too). Best part of Penetrating Shot is that recovery malus doesn't affect your recovery while casting spells, only base weapon strikes. You can use Vulnerable attack for spells like Divine Mark in the same way - it will decrease enemy's DR too for such spell. I've read that Glanfathan Stalking Boots and similar items increase spell damage too, but I didn't checked it. You have to flank the target by 2 party members or cast cipher power - Phantom Foes to activate damage bonus.

I often wait until my priest will cast all buffs and while waiting for oponents and setting up ground (placing Chilling Fog) some characters can use arquebuses for initial salvo. It depends mostly on the distance. Sometimes is better to use selfbuffs, figurine and summon some help or use any different items like potion, scroll or spell granted by equipment.

On lower levels accuracy can be your biggest problem. Inspiring Radiance talent will allow your priest buff acc in every fight. Blessing spells and later Devotion of the Faithful will stack with Inspiring Radiance. You also gain +3 acc per level and additional +1 acc per level while using abilities or spells. Rogue has many active abilities working as full attack, so most of the time dual wielding is the best option unless you know how to reduce recovery to 0 or you prefer to use basic attacks with some passive bonuses.

Dirty fighting has 10% chance to convert hit into crit. If you use only Azureith's Stileto without any offhand weapon or shield you should get +12 ACC (better crit chance) and with One-Handed Weapon talent another hit to crit convertion. Jolting Touch should be triggered pretty easily but only once per encounter.

There are different types of DOTs in different way afected by Int for eg. but in case of Wounding Shot and Runner's Wounding Shot - these stack. They are better with high damage range weapons. Details about DOT:

One important thing about lashes is that they are not affected by minimal damage mechanic, so damage from a lash can be eaten completly by high DR. Normally if your damage is affected by high DR you will deal at least 20% of your damage score, so if you deal 30 damage but enemy has 28 DR then you will deal 20% of 30 so 6 damage (instead of 2 damage) - it has minimal damage afix in combat log. Lashes don't work that way. They can be reducted to 0 damage by that 1/4 DR they have to overcome separately.

Damage formula is: Base Damage * (1 + coefficient 1 + coefficient 2 + ...) You add 0,5 from critical hit and substract -0,5 when you graze. Damage displayed by tooltip are already affected by weapon enchantment (superb) and bonus from your Might. Iirc Arbalest has base damage range 22-32. So you have a number from range 22-32 multiplied by: (1 + 0,45 from superb + your % from Might Bonus + 0,5 from critical hit - 0,3 Crit Damage from Arbalest multiplier) Final value is lowered by DR. Lash damage are multiplicative and calculated from final value before aplying DR and lash damage must overcome 1/4 DR. Eg. +25% fire damage is your damage result (before DR) * 0,25 and then apply 1/4 of Fire DR. It's possibly huge damage boost so lashes are important enchantments. I don't remember if Slayer Enchant/Talent is additive or multiplicative +25% but I would guess it's additive with the rest of the bonuses. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm huge games artbook fan, especially if the game has unique or interesting aesthetics (like Dishonored, Bioshock Infinite and more). I think that the Outer Worlds has very appealing graphical design. It would be cool to get another book published eg. by Dark Horse in the form of very insightful artbook with tons of concept arts, showing how different gear, branded goods, areas, ships and other stuff with important characters developed to the final design. I like details from the graphical standpoint with some interesting bits of knowledge about inspirations. It's great if these type of books shows evolving concept arts and brings commentary from devvelopers. I own both Pillars of Eternity Guidebooks, so I know that you did similar books (or rather any kind of books) before. I hope you can make another deal with Dark Horse or different publisher.

I didnn't even know about this bug. I had solo PotD run with fire godlike monk but I invest mostly in survival skilland didn't bother with Second Wind. I guess it saved my skin

@Boeroer Was it retaliation barb? Congratulations @thelee !

I'm playing this build right now. I called my barb Guy Monntag. I guess it fits because he was burning books (absolutely barbaric!) and originally barbarians were people who didn't speak greek (uneducated - maybe it's oversimplified) but I think fire theme is funny in that context.

I know basics but I wasn't sure about DOT weapons and focus generation but thanks anyway. Is psychic baklash still working against dragons?

I don't have much experience playing ciphers. I would like to roll a cipher for my next run. Any interesting synergies with items or abilities? I know Firebrand is pretty good for this class but maybe something else could be fun?

It took me 38h to complete the game for the first time. I did every quest and I did everything I could to avoid the fights. I explored Monarch before doing any quest there so most of the places on that moon I visited at least twice so there is my unnecessary time sink. Anyway this game is designed for multiple playthroughs thanks to reactivity, companions and gameplay choices so anyone who whines about Outer Worlds being too short - make another, different run. You know, it's like Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines or Fallout. First Fallout is about 13-18h length. I watched Tim Cain's postmortem on Fallout during GDC 2012. He said that slideshow at the end of the game was reason for many players to start the game over and over again to see different outcome of their choices. Because you know - it's computer (or console) RPG, so it's not like you play once and it's done. Maybe I'm partialy insane becasue there are games which I finished 20-30 times and I stil enjoy playing them. So judging the game about its length - stupid idea. There are open worlds RPG with less content than Outer Worlds because some designers thought that copy-paste question marks fillers are good. No, it's waste of player's time. It's good to see that Obsidian's dev team still know how to make interesting content. I hope that Leonard & Tim will stay with hub-areas design for sequel as he said during the interview with Eurogamer. Anyway - the Outer Worlds is very good game. I didn't enjoy it as much as other Obsidian's title (mostly because of the combat, which is fun, but some areas could work better with less combat). I took XBOX Game Pass for PC for 1$. I could start second playthrough right now, but I don't want to spoil the fun. I will probably wait until the game launch on Steam and I need to buy better GPU because my gtx 1060 isn't enough to enjoy stylized visuals of this game with stable performance. When it hit the Steam - it's instant buy for me. I hope that DLC (if there will be any DLC) won't be time-exclusive.

I would buy an artbook for my collection to see how concept arts from Outer Worlds evolved into final design of characters, areas, items and other stuff.

So it's working like that in turn based? I tried build such character in 2018 but Terrify didn't trigger disengagement attacks (at least in RTwP).

Can Wael challenge hide number of stacks?

I enjoy it more than todays AAA RPG. It plays like timeless classic but I like D&D in any form and I like Forgotten Realms. Very faithful adaptation of AD&D first edition. Audio is almost absent and graphics are prehistoric but there is nice amounth of digitalized pictures from Monster Manual. Story is decent, combat is fun and sometimes challenging. Interface require some time to get used to but after 2 hours it becomes intuitive to the point that you can use it with closed eyes. Narration is interesting (paragraphs in printed journal which inspired developers of System Shock to create audiologs). Every area in the game is in some way unique, adds something new. Boss fights are great. There are huge battles with dozens of enemies. It was probably the first cRPG with battles on that scale, where every monster or NPC was graphically represented on the battlefield - and even battlefields are representation of corridors and rooms from exploration map. Large and bigger monster take more space on the battlefield - so there is atention to detalis and rules. You can parley with monsters, intimidate them, make them flee. Finding treassures is exciting - all those chests grant experience for entire party. There are even scripted interactive events. I was chasing thieves, they split and one of them lure me right into the ambush. Really cool stuff. Pool of Radiance is one of Josh's Sawyer favourite game of all time. I can see why. It's funny that turn based combat from Deadfire reminds me more of Pool of Radiance than Temple of Elemental Evil. Casting time is very similar. Some spells are instant, some can be cast, but the end of casting comes after round of other characters. Anyway, great game. I'll complete entire gold box series in the future for sure.

It's about situations like you ask a friend to beat some boss for you during friendly visit in your house

I'm thinking about troubadour/blood mage with Mith Fyr + Zandethus' Draconic Fury, Alacrity, defense buffs and lots of illusion's fear debuffs along with that flail with additional pen against enemies affected by mental affliction. I don't know how it will work against any megaboss or lava dragon. Another build I would like to test is death godlike berserker/bleak walker with focus on additional damage againat near death targets but I don't know if it has any sense at all. There is always a herald but dps may be problematic.

Time restriction with Woedica's challenge force players to pick class with infinite resources and protecting Vela can be really painful problem. The good part of first ultimate was that players could at least try it with any class. I know it was possible to win as mage, priest, rogue or even druid (there was one succesful druid run?) not only those classes like monk, cipher or chanter. Josh said that playtesters wrote many pages about why it may be impossible to finish new UC. I know that PoE1 Ultimate was in the "impossible" state for some time. This time it actually may be impossible.

I'm half way through Pool of Radiance. I already left city of Phlan but it looks like it's time to go back to Deadfire Archipelago. I will try new Ultimate Challenge but I didn't do proper solo run yet neither aby god's challenge.

I'm hyped. The Outer Worlds looks like good old cRPG experience, where player agency is at its peak. No hand holding, no binary choices or dumbed down dialogues which prevent player from expressing his character. I like esthetics of the game, music and sound effects. VO is that part of development cycle which takes place near the end of the process, when every line of dialogue is finished and there won't be future changes. If you compare Interplay/Troika/Obsidian dialogue lists to BioWare/CDP Red/Bethesda dialogue list you will see huge difference and understand, why VO wasn't recorded yet. Combat looks fun. Some animations can be better, but it's still more time to polish the game. I keep my fingers crossed for Obsidian, but I will buy Outer Worlds when it will launched on Steam. The dialogues... Those options are fluid, based on skill checks, reactivity from previous quests and deeds (if you seen first gameplay material) or situational options like the one to bribe the guard with grenade launcher. Those dialogue options reflect player agency, character's skills and personal approach to encounters via preffered means. Playing second time with different character, sets of skills etc. you will get different experience with the game. I'm sure there will be more or less options in some conversations (and the limit comes from budget, because of fully voiced dialogues) but those options will allow to express type of character anyone want to play. It's much better than eg. anything what Cyberpunk 2077 showed. In CP conversations are limited as hell and most options have the same meaning. Why noone is reacting to CP 2077 the same way as it always is to structure of dialogues in BioWare/Bethesda games? In Cyberpunk 2077 were dialogues options like: 1. I have an offer for you. 2. I know the guy who has an offer for you. 3. I'm gonna kill you (meeting with Militech's agent) or the one which conclude buisness with that agent: 1. No. 2. Probably no. - roleplaying masterpiece xD

For me, the difference is that from Steam's perspective, there is no such thing as "Steam exclusives". Steam does not offer exclusivity deals: Valve is perfectly fine with publishers also selling their games on GOG, Humble Bundle, their own service, the Microsoft Store, etc. In cases where a game is "exclusive" to Steam, it just means the publisher is crappy and hasn't bothered pursuing other avenues, and that's, quite frankly, not Valve's/Steam's fault, but the publishers. Hard me to direct much ire at Steam outside of recognizing the fact that Steam is the most dominant distributor on a number of levels. With exclusivity deals on the EGS, the blame falls pretty squarely on both the distributor for offering such deals as well as the publisher for accepting them. A big screw-you to both parties involved here. I assume Obsidian wasn't a part of the decision. It took me long enough to get used to Steam, I am not allowing another garbanzo beans app be constantly up and running on my PC unless they make a really compelling argument, of which the EGS has done the exact opposite from a consumer perspective (quite contrary it seems from a publisher/developer view based on these exclusivity deals becoming more and more common...but that does not affect me and therefore does not serve as a compelling argument). So...2020. I am perfectly fine with people not wanting to play a game if it's a Steam exclusive. Personally, I've grown to hate Steam more and more over the years (I think it peaked around 2009-2011), so I barely buy anything on there, either. It's still an option for games that are only there because of publisher decision, though. It's not Valve's fault that some games are released only on Steam. I follow the longest topic (it was created in 2001) about dungeon crawlers on one of the polish forums and there were several situations when poeople were talking about GOG. GOG didn't want to publish even good and well recieved games which can be purchased on Steam. I'm talking about some niche but high quality games from indie developers, not some RPG Maker copy+paste lazy ****. Situations when developers themself reached out to GOG and GOG refused to sell the game on that platform.

@Obsidian As a long time fan of your work since time of Interplay, throughout Troika and Obsidian I'm incredibly disappointed. You should be selling it everywhere or not sell at all. You should allow your fanbase and other consumers buy your games wherever they want. I would even pay a little more (the difference of margin for Valve) to get the Steam key this year at launch, because it would be my choice It should be my choice on which platform I want to buy the game. So maybe you delay the console version by a year too and see how well the Outer Worlds will sell just on Epic Store and Windows Store. It could be as great deal for you as for all of us. What could possibly go wrong? You should rebrand SPACER's CHOICE to NO CHOICE ;] Tim Cain: "I personally guarantee that the Outer Worlds will launch this year!". And... the magic is gone. However the rest of 2019 looks promising, at least for me. Two full playthroughs of KotOR 2, at least 4 runs through VtM Bloodlines and perhaps another 100 or 200 hours in Pillars.