Silvaren
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Posts posted by Silvaren
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Sanity is a prison. Let madness release you.
=====================================Tormentor of Mind and BodyIt's excellent crowd controller and debuffer.=====================================Difficulty = PotD v. 4.0-----------------------------------------------------------------Solo: untested-----------------------------------------------------------------Class: Illusionist-----------------------------------------------------------------Race: Pale Elf-----------------------------------------------------------------Background: The White that Wends - Merchant-----------------------------------------------------------------Base stats (without Berath's Blessings):MIG: 8CON: 10DEX: 19PER: 20INT: 18RES: 3-----------------------------------------------------------------Skills: I picked Arcana and Bluff-----------------------------------------------------------------Abilities (! - important, r - recommended)Thanks to grimoires it's often better to pick some defensive talents rather than spells.Bull's Will ®Combat Focus ®Spell Shaping (!)Two Weapon StyleFarcasting (!)Rapid Casting (!)Uncanny LuckImproved CriticalSpell ResistanceAccurate Empower (!)Lasting Empower (!)Prestige (!)Spells (! - important, r - recommended)1.Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights (!) - powerful debuff (-5 Might, -4 Penetration -10 Will), excellent vs damage dealers with low Will defense. Be sure to not hit your party or you know... NO PEN!Chill Fog (!) - long lasting debuff which blinds enemies and deal cold damage periodically. Blind is one of the most powerful status effect. This spell is targeting Fortitude.2.Miasma of Dull-Mindedness (!) - long lasting debuff which will lower Perception, Intellect and Resolve of enemies by 10. It's nice because it means -10 Accuracy, shorter time of beneficial effects and longer time for your debuffs and overall worse Reflex and Will defense. It's grat for removing mind inspirations.Curse of Blackened Sight (!) - very long lasting blind debuff affecting only foes. It's better than Chill Fog against enemies with lower Will defense.3.Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (!) - it's one of the most powerful defensive-crowd controll spell in the game. It will last over 20 sec and trigger every 3 sec causing Sickened and Terrified afflictions. Most of the time it will prevent all surrounding oponents from attacking you. It will leave them vulnerable and allow you escape without provoking disengagement attacks.Llengrath's Displaced Image ® - I used it rarely, only when I was being hit by ranged attacks.Arcane Dampener ® - it suspends beneficial effects on your foes. Useful from time to time.4.Pull of Eora (!) - too bad it isn't illusion spell. It's one of the most useful CC spell, especially combined with Wall of Many Colors or Call of Rymrgand (double pulling effect won't allow anyone escape). It served as my opener spell in most fights.Confuse ® - not so good as D&D version of this spell, but can serve for removing Intellect inspiration and causing friendly fire from hostile casters.5.Ryngrim's Enervating Terror (!) - it will put Weakened and Terrified afflictions on your enemies for quite long time. Excellent CC spell but it has rather small radius (Spell Shaping comes handy with this one). Fear effects in this game are great because even if they won't blocke harmful actions of your oponents they will for sure lock use of active abilities.Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment ® - it lowers Perception, Intellect and Resolve of the target by 10 and when it expires it will jump two times causing half of this debuff to another foe. It's nice because it means -10 Accuracy, shorter time of beneficial effects and longer time for your debuffs and overall worse Reflex and Will defense. It's grat for removing mind inspirations.6.Gaze of the Adragan (!) - another powerful illusion spell. Huge radius and paralyze for about 15 sec. It will give you enough time for cast some buffs, use consumables or destroy your oponents.7.Concelhaut's Crushing Doom ® - great illusion spell but it requires certain grimoire (I prefer Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy for additional spell use of every power level that's why I only recommend this spell). Nice damage over time, knocks target prone and lower its deflection. Because Illusionist can't cast Wall of Draining, Concelhatu's Crushing Doom is probably the best 7th level spell for that subclass. Most of the time I used Delayed Fireball if damages were needed.8.Wall of Many Colors (!) - it's one of the best illusion spells. It may not seems like it, but trust me. The wall is loooooong and it will petrify, paralyze, dominate and damage all targets in the area of effect. It is so good. It is great in combination with Pull of Eora. Just cast Wall of Many Colors to hit the center of singularity. Pull of Eora will... pull enemies toward the wall and catch them. If they resist paralyze, petrification, then they will be dominated and switch side, constantly taking damage from the wall. It's very good for defense too. Just cast the wall on enemies surrounding you or your most injured party member. Be careful though to not step into the wall. I know it's shiny, but don't.Kalakoth's Freezing Rake ® - you know this is illusion spell? Very good damage. It will cause Weakened and Hobbled afflictions. Sometimes it's hard to target enemies precisly. Overall from 8th level spells I prefer Wall of Many Color.9.Minoletta's Missile Salvo ® - best single target damage (or small squeezed group). Good if you need kill someone very quick and in most boss fights.Arcane Cleanse ® - I used it only once. Very situational but good. It sucks that there is no illusion spell from power level 9 (similar to level 7 with exception of Concelhaut's Crushing Doom). I would like to have an option from D&D, to memorize lower level spell in higher level slot.-----------------------------------------------------------------Weapon proficiency: Scepter, Wand, Rod, Dagger, Arbalet, Quarterstaff, Small Shield, Unarmed (doesn't really matters)-----------------------------------------------------------------Items (! - important, r - recommended)The Eye of Wael (!) - (upgrade: The Hundred Visions, Lidless Gaze) & A Whale of a Wand (!) (upgrade of personal choice, I picked: Tall Tales, Woven Waves)Whitewitch Mask (!) or Helm of the White Void ®Protective Eothasian Charm ® or Tears of Saint Makawo ®Aloth's Leather Armor ® - (upgrade: Elementally Stable, Known Casuality, Casually Fixed) or Robes of the Weyc soulbound ®Ring of Overseering ® & Chameleon's Touch ®Boots of the White ® -> Vithrack Silk Slippers ®Cloak of Greater Protection ® -> Nemnok's Cloak (!) or Shroud of the Phantasm ®Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy (!) & Iron-Clasped Grimoire ®Firethrowers Gloves ®Upright Captain's Belt ®Pet: personal choice really. I used +5 dmg AoE (Watcher) +5% AoE radius (party), then +1 History/Metaphysics (Watcher) +5 Acc with spells (party)About items:The Eye of Wael is simple: +2 All Illusions Power Level, Lidless Gaze has almost instant cast time, huge area of effect and both Petryfied & Terrified afflictions are hard crowd control statuses. Additionaly 5% chance for random Illusion spell on target on scoring hit and 10% chance for invisibility for 8 sec after critical hit may seems little, but it will occure from time to time.A Whale of a Wand: it's one of the best items for offensive casters thanks to 5% chance for Charm the target (all those AoE ticking spells like Pull of Eora, Wall of Many Colors and other AoE spells in general can trigger those). Additionally 5% chance to cast Form of the Helpless Beast is always nice to have.Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardy: it grants one additional use of spell from all power levels. It comes with Confusion, Gaze of Adragan and Kalakoth's Freezing Rake (all illusion spells).Necklace & Rings: there are many interesting choices, depends on party composition and roles. I prefer to maximize Perception and some additional defense measures.Firethrowers Gloves: this item can be helpfull for scrolls and Minoletta's Missile Salvo.-----------------------------------------------------------------Quick items------------------------------------------------------------------ Scrolls of Withdraw (I like this spell, it can be very helpfull in some fights)- Scrolls of Plague of Insects- Potions of Major Healing (or similar)- Potion of Spirit Shield or Iron Skin (because Illusionist can't cast Enchanting spells)Maybe I will upload some videos with that build and my party from last playthrough. I have one but it isn't as good as most of the actions.
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Neriscyrlas' Hope from Beast of Winter DLC provides Rightful Vengeance for the Watcher. Name of that ability (in polish version "Rightful Vengeance" = "Słuszna zemsta") doesn't work as link to description, so there is no way to check what the ability does.
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Have you upgraded it? I noticed back in 4.0.0 (English language version) that the weapon as-looted looked and worked fine, but one of the upgrade options led to an error of some kind.
I can try to check this evening to see if it's still problematic in the current build. (But if I don't get a chance tonight, it'll have to wait until next week.)
Yes, it's fully upgraded.
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New patch broke description of Last Word warhammer. Parameters of this particular weapon aren't displayed anymore. I don't know if this is general issue or only while playing with polish language.
"System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object"
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Then there's other things like how would engagement even work?
I understand that many people prefer turn based, but just imagining an enemy going around my tank is enough for me to want to stick to RTwP.
But let's see how they deal with this and other problems.If this makes battles longer, then I'll definitely play with RTwP because it took a lot of time for me to finish my first pt. One way or another, it's a great option for players.
Engagement can be solved just the same as in D&D. Ofcourse without attacks of oportunity while someone cast spell near enemy, but walking nearby - yes.
The Temple of Elemental Evil done this right. Every character and monster have threat range. Enemies running in or out of this range provokes attack of oportunity. Number of possible engagement can determine how many of those attacks can be performed.
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I wonder how they will resolve action speed, recovery time from armor? Will they affect initiative or allow more actions in one round?
Both Arcanum and Fallout Tactics had alternative comba mode. But in those games player could switch between both modes at any time. And those games had real time. Pillars is real time with pause. But if you think about that - every Infinity Engine game, Neverwinter Nights series and Pillars are quasi-real time. All characters act in turns but all of them act simultaneously (IE turn takes 6 sec, Pillars has more fluid period of time - action speed and recovery time between two actions). In IE games were casting times, weapons had speed factor, characters had number of attacks per round. In Icewind Dale 2, both Neverwinter Nights were initative rolls. NWN 1&2 had all spells with the same casting time (1 action) or certain number of attacks during this 6 sec round.
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Is it just me or the difficulty level of that fight is beyond ridiculous? I play on normal setting so fights aren't too frustrating and also provide some semblance of challenge but I haven't had this much trouble in all fights, even playing PoE 1 on PotD. Is there some kind of gimmick to this encounter?
I played it on PotD (without level scaling) and it was the hardest fight for me in the game with current and previous patch. I managed to win this fight in first try, but I used 3 scrolls of withdraw for few characters (I didn't have any means to resurect fallen heroes so I tried to keep them alive), run from Oracle to destroy those machines. Other hard fight was with Maura/Weyc for me.
Problem is that player don't know exactly what such boss can do, how Oracle's attacks works and what is doing the stuff around the battleground (those machines and flesh bubbles).
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All of my playthroughs looks like that xD Maybe it's like that because of prebuffing being locked. Tyranny didn't have that featire and consumables were instant - but even then I didn't use much of those in case of cooldowns which could block use of healing potions.My first playthrough is always like that.... Hoard all the consumables, cose... well I may need them in some fight later in the game. And then you see the ending slides.
I always thought that you guys are using all consumables to the extend and I'm doing something wrong because of playing mostly without them.
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I played Infinity Engine games for years since the 90's. I never used consumables other than healing potions. I saved all those Potions of Cloud Giants Strength, scrolls, wands and other stuff "for the rainy day" (idioms - in my country we say literally: "for dark hour"). The need never comes.
Every time I start a new game in Pillars 1 & 2 or Tyranny I promise myself that I will use consumables in most fights. It never happens. I'm playing on PotD difficulty only. I'm just finished Forgotten Sanctum DLC. There is one last quest for Ukaizo. Throughout entire game I used some healing potions (during SSS DLC and Forgotten Sanctum), bombs and some Empower charges (mostly during those two DLC). Other than that I used in some situations few per day / per encounter activie abilities from my gear which I find useful. Forgotten Sanctum forced me few times to use Withdraw scrolls (yeah, my illusionist with Arkane skill over 20 didn't use much scrolls during entire game). I keep all consumables "for the rainy day". The need never comes.
Most of the time I don't see it to be worth. Take Pallegina for example. Put on her Blackened Plate Armor or new iteration of Sanguine Plate. Long recovery and rather low Dextirity are slowing character so much that I don't thing it's valid to lose action for drinking potions which will last only 20 sec (I'm talking about characters without Alchemy skill). Often I don't want to lose action even for use of Sworn Enemy.
I was using consumables often only in solo plays and Ultimate Challenge in the first game but while playing with party it feels like waste of time. I rarely use Empower and never give much atention to resting bonuses from food (I'm resting to heal injuries).
I feel that consumables and other limited items along with Empower mechanic can add fun to the game but I'm constantly skip those options of customisation. Help me change my mind and cure old habits.
I would apriciate any advice.
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I know it's not a bug but an immersion breaking issue. It isn't probably worth programer's time.
After reading Llengrath's scroll to kill all people prisoned in the Enclosures the sailros near Bekarna's room were still singing shanties (lying dead on the floor). I guess it's area's sound design and it just triggers there.
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I noticed that my Watcher's HP drop in some strange way. My Watcher didn't lose conscious but his portrait turned red. He wasn't at 0 HP but the game displayed it like it was no HP value at all - " /200", in other words - "empty space/max HP" and "0/200" on the portrait.
I uploaded video of that fight:
Healing and resting didn't help at all so I reloaded previous save. This bug appeared with Vatnir's HP this time.
I uploaded second video:
I put save files in dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2b7k5jmxxcbgxse/AAAo4uzrl6mOU0JUMi2w2ih0a?dl=0
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Maybe someone will find this useful. If you upgrade Effort (2h sword with Raw Damage over time) to Hemorrhaging, it can cause Hobble or Sicken on crits. It works with abilities like Wrath of Five Suns (so I guess it should work even with spells and other AoE effects).
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I like first kind of romantic interaction with Xoti. But the rest of it - meh. I like that Pallegina is unavailable for watcher. It suits to her theme.
There were only few romances in games made by Obsidian which I like. Visas and Handmaiden in KotOR II and Safiya in Mask of Betrayer.
Maybe it's better thaylt Tim and Leonars won't put romances in the Outer Worlds.
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It's common display bug and easy to reproduce. It requires player to quickly spam dialogue choices via keyboard (during conversations) or during interaction on the world map (scripted events, places like abandoned village etc.). All those little numbers will stay until reload/entering new area.
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Illusionist with that mask from Vihtrack and Eye of the Wael Scepter. Many illusion spells are great for hard CC or simply debuffing stats like penetration.
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Alpha Protocol has great reactivity. It's very underrated game. Dialogue system is fluid and great for C&C, reputation and roleplaying certain type of character.The dialogue screenshots shows a clock on the upper right of the box. Timed responses a la Alpha Protocol? Who knows!
It looks like The Outer Worlds will have skillchecks too.
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I will buy it asap. It isn't Spacer's choice. It's my choice.
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Beholders in D&D build hives so it makes senseIt will not be Beholder, it will have very similar name but not exactly same.
Obsidian is above plagiarism.
Beeholder, a holder of bees, a bekeeper.
*Taps head knowingly*
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I remember gold box games from SSI. There was one particular sci-fi cRPG as fun as Pool of Radiance and rest of gold box series - Buck Rogers. There is pretty good story why SSI made AD&D game with that license (Matt Barton made interview with people from SSI). Buck Rogers has that oldschool retro sci-fi atmosphere I would like to see in new game from Obsidian team.
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We need space opera with unique setting from Tim & Leonard! I'm hyped.
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Does Dragon Trashed from multiple chanters stack? I have that pretty stupid idea of making Magran Priest/Troubadour with party of companions/sidekicks who can multiclass as chanter - Pallegina, Konstanten, Fassina, Vatnir (Tekehu can't use Dragon Trashed iirc), puting Prodigy - Firestarter on the playlist and having fun until my entusiasm burns out.
I never had more than one chanter in PoE 1 nor in Deadfire.
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1. Did you play Age of Decadence? Did you play Torment Tides of Numenera? Did you play Deadfire at all? Or did you play old Fallout from 1997, Fallout 2, New Vegas? There are dialog choices that end up in unique way. Gives different outcomes, build reputation, express player's agency, character. I'm not talking about lore dumps. It's far better than behave good or behave bad + some optional questions as Geralt who is riding on the railroad conversations most of the time.Again, you are not playing as a random nobody that you can shape however you want to, you are playing as Geralt, who has a set in stone character and morals. You are not supposed to have a lot of choice in conversations. You say it's bad, me and millions of fans say it's awesome because Geralt is awesome. Sucks to be a hater I guess. Nobody needs to have a **** ton of dialogue choices that end up in the same thing, not to mention that in most crpg, 90% of the dialogue is just asking god damn questions "hey tell me about this place".
Most of the dungeons you mentioned are 10% story 90% combat, where the story is mostly at the beginning and at the end. Every single dungeon follows the same principles and the only difference is that the corridors are not the same. In Witcher 3, every dungeon is unique. Thank god (or a game designer) for that. If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again, well go have fun with that.
Andrzej Sapkowski literally said that games are for stupid people. That is, until it turned out that the game made millions; then he was suddenly back with "GIMME MAH MONAYZ!". The fact that game Geralt is similar to novel Geralt is one of the biggest hooks of this game, but it has nothing to do with Sapkowski, who did absolutely nothing with the game itself (in fact, he stated that the game is no canon at all).
And then you mention Andromeda, the game that was so horrible that they didn't even bother making any story DLCs for it, because nobody would buy them anyway. Well except for you I guess. Andromeda basically killed Mass Effect. At this point this just looks like pointless rambling.
2. Maybe they are 10% story and 90% combat in some, but it is still better than 1% story with almost non-interactive conversations, 19% witcher sensen and 80% borring&repetetive combat with two different slash. Open world exploration in Witcher 3 is 100% combat. And Wild Hunt rarely rewards players for exploration because Geralt is probably already overleveled and itemisation sucks so much that only gear of certain witcher school is worth using. "Every single dungeon follows the same principles and the only difference is that the corridors are not the same" - you just described Witcher 3 but there are little to none unique locations in the open world. Cities are like empty forest with buildings instead of tress and non-interactive people. Compare Novigrad to Athkatla, Sigil, Sagus Cliffs, the Bloom, Maadoran, Neketaka or other cities in cRPG. There are more quests and interactions with poeple than in Novigrad where you can talk only with questgivers and traders and finish chekclist while railroading through simple and short sidequests. "If you want to keep playing the same thing over and over again" - another feature of Witcher 3. Let just dive for contraband 100000 timne, blow up XX of monster's nest, slash few bandits in their copy-paste camp or search for treassure because those stinking socks must be better than your Cat School Gear! xD "well go have fun with that"!
3. Yeah, Sapkowski made only few consultation for the game but he wrote most of that cool characters you can met in the game. You know - Geralt, Yennefer, Ciri, Dandelion, Zoltan, Avallach, Djikstra, Radowid (CDP Red twisted him into psycho), Triss (she's much different than in books). You should give huge credits to original author. CDP Red just copy-paste all those characters and break some of them by doing so. What I meant though was that Sapkowski wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri... And then writers from CDP Red wrote the story about Geralt searching for Ciri. You clearly can see some repetition here.
4. Andromeda wasn't bad game. Black PR was strong, peoples who repeated all bad words about the game without even playing it. Meta plot about Jardaans who created life in entire cluster and over a dozen different part of that worldbuilding story are more complex than the surface about colonisation in new galaxy. And imho better than the story about Geralt searching for Ciri and fighting against Wild Hunt. But story is subjective thing - it's based on individual taste, context of known stories encountered before. Andromeda is better than Witcher 3 at least in combat (every weapons have different feel - not only stats) - so there is another good thing about itemisation. Most weapons and armor and consumables are useful. Character progression is much better (you learn new abilities throughout entire game and those abilities add new mechanics, can change playstyle while in Witcher 3 at some point I had nothing to do with skill points - CDP Red even bring new skillpoints-sink mechanic in Blood and Wine DLC), exploration - though as in Witcher 3 you follow questmarkers, there are no "?" on the map. In Andromeda you go where you see something what stands out - and in most of places you will activate sidequest or find something to add to the worldbuilding and metaplot.
Overall I'm not saying that Witcher 3 is bad game. It's average, has great characters, some quests are good, atmosphere and music is awesome. But the gameplay is just bad, character progression and itemisation are badly designed. And in terms of computer RPG genre it's below expectation and standards set back in the 90's - I mean it's below expectation in terms of combat mechanics, conversation options, quest construction, exploration, rewarding player, roleplay, C&C.
And I'm not saying that Andromeda is great game. It's average like Witcher 3. Some things does better, some worse as in other AAA cRPG from last few years (Fallout 4 and Inquisition too). Gameplay wise I would say that Andromeda > Inquisition > Fallout 4 > Witcher 3. When someone makes open world cRPG where main story can take 20-30 hours and leaves 100 hours for watered down exploration - he should be sure that the gameplay is fun enough to keep player interested and engaged. CDP Red failed at that.
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But let's see how they deal with this and other problems.
The Obsidian Boards' Build List - Last modified: 22-October-2018
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
I published my build from last playthrough. I had lots of fun with it:
https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107446-class-build-tormentor-of-mind-and-body/
I never thought that illusions can be so enjoyable. Great CC capabilities.