SaruNi

Invocation description says it's supposed to cause Charmed, but it actually only causes Confused.... Edit: Tried it again and it caused Charmed. Maybe the previous enemies had an Inspiration that downgraded Charmed to Confused?... well I'm confused....

Currently it applies Shaken but not Frightened... bleh. I like Frightened.

Interpreted the Enchanter ability as having the offensive functionality of "free action"---cast a dexterity affliction AoE like Binding Web and then use melee attacks from behind with impunity, at least as long as the immunity lasts. Problem is that there aren't any enchantment spells like that---and while Enchanters can cast Binding Web, the recovery malus makes it unappealing. Though since Binding Web doesn't do damage, and enemies unconscious from Sleep are only supposed to wake up on taking damage, an Enchanter could cast Sleep then Binding Web + summon weapon then attack... but on top of that Sleep only lasts 10 seconds... and while you can precast Binding Web, it only lasts 10 seconds too. Haven't tested it yet (got bored of the Web / Free Action combo back in BG2) but seems like even with high int and dex and buffs the combo is barely doable. Of course it's easier with a party... multiclass enchanter/(monk or barbarian) + transmuter/assassin (for accuracy bonus + assassinate appllies to all attack rolls while invisible from smoke veil, including recurring attack rolls from Binding Web, Chill Fog, etc.) might be good. Remove the recovery speed malus and it might be okay, but I'd prefer something more interesting. Enchanters also get access to Arcane Veil (+50 deflection except against Veil Piercing) so the loss of illusion spells isn't so bad in most cases... against veil piercing perhaps have to rely on armor. The transmuter's ogre ability... liked the idea at first (and it goes with the Form of the Hapless Beast thematically) but changing might to strength hurts it. It's still one of the only strength / con bonuses that isn't an inspiration and therefore stacks with them. But you need to multiclass or have another character give you inspirations for that to be good.... There could be some synergy between Ogre form and the Transmuter AoE's that target fortitude (Chill Fog, Malignant Cloud---I like the image of Ogre form wading into the chill fog)... but that would be more appealing if the Ogre were just immune to fortitude attacks. And between casting time and duration.... even if it worked well, there wouldn't be much time to use the combo without maxing int and action speed.

Just tested it, rod's blast uses strength. Obviously, it would be nice if rod's blast used resolve instead.... Seems it's because powder burns is implemented as an AoE attack that supersedes and nullifies the weapon attack (so the Rogue strike abilities don't work with it) whereas rod is implemented as distinct weapon attacks against everyone in the AoE (so it works with all the Rogue strike abilities etc.). Leading to a counterintuitive situation where the Blunderbuss modal is better for casters, while the Rod modal is better for Rogues....

Rangers also have a passive that grants their pets +2 penetration and an upgrade to Takedown that "grants a large penetration bonus to the attack" (not to mention Sharpshooters and war bow's bonus penetration modal)....

Vanilla Rogues have raw DoT to deal with penetration (same goes for Rangers, Druids, Conjurors...). Non-devoted fighters have upgraded Into the Fray (-10 AR)... and if you're 1 low there's the Mace modal. And Empower. Aren't Wounding shot's DoT damage based on the damage you inflict? So if you cannot penetrate enemy armor, your raw DoT will be negligible. Same as Deep wound of rogue. Not sure... the UI makes it difficult to tell. Though Rogue Gouging Strike, Arterial Strike, and (one-handed melee) Strike the Bell do raw DoT independent of damage inflicted. Also ranged Strike the Bell gives ranged weapons extra penetration....

Vanilla Rogues have raw DoT to deal with penetration (same goes for Rangers, Druids, Conjurors...). Non-devoted fighters have upgraded Into the Fray (-10 AR)... and if you're 1 low there's the Mace modal. And Empower.

It stacks with Frenzy, Cat Flurry, and Potion of Relentless Striking, so yes it does seem to stack with all other speed buffs.

On Assassin/Ascendant---did some testing, and you need to do about 200 damage to get "Focus Filled" at level 9. If Assassinate and Backstab were working with ranged weapons from invisibility, this could be good. But now it requires a mixed melee and ranged that barely seems worth it (even with 20 strength 19 perception sneak attacks, using assassinate with a fast one handed weapon with sceptre in the other hand for dual wield speed bonus just takes too long to build focus, and even with 18 dexterity and the pistol modal firearms take too long for the 5 second bonus to be very worthwhile).

The tier 5 drake summons won't attack and its active abilities (breath, roar which grants it +5 perception) are bugged so they won't cast ("abandoned casting" forever for no reason). However it does have a passive Fear Aura which works and it will move. And Ancient Brittle Bones still doesn't work at all (the skeletons don't get replaced by two smaller skeletons when they die). The Will o' the Wisps' Dazzling Lights ability only says it has a push effect, but it also causes prone.

The tier 5 Drake summons has two active abilities. Trying to use one of them results in "Drake abandoned casting" and it will never cast. Wasn't being interrupted, tried it with no enemies around and the AI off, same bug. It also won't attack when commanded to, no matter whether its AI is on or off. It will move, however.

One balancing issue is that all chants are now 6 seconds, so the drawback from PoE 1 (accumulate phrases more slowly) doesn't apply. But you only get one tier 5 pick in the beta, so it's still got a significant drawback, and should do more damage than tier 1 Soft Winds of Death....

Just tested Skald a bit: - I'm not sure the crit-to-phrase bug is actually happening---seems to be getting 4 phrases from crit on hit in less than 6 seconds. - 4th tier upgraded The Thunder Rolled gets a +15 accuracy bonus, which partly makes up for Chanter's lack of accuracy bonuses. - Seven Nights is good but takes 6 seconds to cast... if interrupts are an issue can use the Concentration chant I guess. - Single class chanter at level 9 starts with 4 phrases, which means Skald or Beckoner can cast their most powerful invocations right away. But invocations cannot be precast, because phrase count is 0 before combat starts.

The Dragon Thrashed is supposed to attack all enemies within its AoE, but it only attacks one---or sometimes none at all. The issue doesn't seem to involve engagement and they're definitely within the AoE range. Also, while possibly not a bug, the damage is absurdly low for a 5th tier ability that only attacks once per six seconds.

What the...I've just tried it, and it's not even a DoT now?? At 10 MIG, it's just dealing 4.8 (according to combat log, or 6 according to overhead numbers) burn and slash damage once! every 6s (without brisk recitation) or every 3s (with brisk recitation) In PoE1, with brisk recitation at 50% and 20 INT, it would have 4s duration + 6s linger resulting in 10 DoT duration. So every 4s there would be applied a DoT that has a duration of 10s (4.33 ticks) and every tick would deal 10 fire + 10 slash damage (@10 MIG), for a total of 86.6 (preDR) damage. At 10 MIG: - now: 6 preAR damage every 3s, compared to - poe1: 86.6 preDR damage every 4s That's a very severe nerf. The Dragon Thrashed is modified by resolve now, not strength... at 20 resolve it crits for 10 damage (5 burn, 5 slash).

Just tested The Dragon Thrashed: When surrounded by enemies, it will only target 1 enemy per chant started....

Cast it from stealth. You almost certainly won't be interrupted (AoE could get you though). And/or use the chant that gives concentration (will not cause you to leave stealth). Also, max dex. The skeletons only take base 6 seconds to cast, but the rest are 9 seconds... since Ogre et cetera require more phrases too that's an especially long wait. You'll rarely be able to use the Drake unles you purposefully adopt a slow playstyle. Skald is apparently bugged so you can only get two phrases from crits. So rapidly getting crits to cast level 5 invocations early isn't doable currently. Many chants are lacking in descriptions. Soft Winds of Death attacks fortitude, so it goes well with 4th tier chant The Long Night's Drink (causes Weakened for -5 con and also reduces strength, though it doesn't say by how much). Unfortunately Soft Winds currently does "missing string -1" damage according to the UI---it almost certainly does do damage but don't know how much, not very much. So multiclass Beckoner (speed skeletons), Skald (remove armor / stun), or troubadour might be better than single-class currently, unless you want to use (relatively nerfed) Aefyllath or the higher-tier AoE defensive buff chants.

Although a normal cipher's soul whip turns off at max focus... but Ascendant's "soul whip does not turn off at max focus". So if your weapon attacks rapidly bring you to max focus, Ascendant gets a full [edit: just tested this, biting whip adds +30% so it's up to +60%] bonus over other ciphers. So if you want to multiclass a ranged character for soul whip and almost never use cipher powers Ascendant may be better (if you can get to max focus quickly enough). OTOH focus gain with Biting Whip is so slow that a Blackjacket-Ascendant has to do 3 massive arquebus crits just to get to max focus.

Agree that +10% damage barely seems worth it. Though it is a slight bonus.

Probably just remove the 5 second duration of the +3 power level buff. Because your soul whip is less effective while under max focus. It is a fair trade off. Now the only playstyle an Ascendant has is reach max focus -> blast -> reach max focus -> blast. +20% lash damage will never work now because you can only cast spell when max focus. The +20% lash applies to weapon damage too, right? That's how they implemented the "soul whip does more damage when at max focus" part of the description. So if you can quickly reach max focus (assassinate) then you have 5 seconds at +50% damage from biting whip (because base soul whip is reduced to +10% and does not change when you reach max power level), so you can alternate your assassinate blows with ranged sneak attacks (assassinate tends to kill its target anyway without extra cipher damage, this should spread out assassin dps and give greater survivability---even with ranged assassinate from smoke veil bugged, can alternate melee assassinates with ranged attacks... assuming assassinate gives you full focus). Having the +20% lash also apply to spells may not have been intended, since it's not in the description (just power level increase---btw 3 power levels doesn't exactly seem like "greatly increased power level"...).

Would obviously be better to give Ascendant more starting focus as well (or instead).... The bonus lash damage at full focus is only 10% over an ordinary cipher. (Because Ascendant soul whip has 10% rather than 20% damage, and full focus grants +20%. Btw to test this it wasn't sufficient to give my Ascendant 100 perception and 100 dexterity---everything still died before he got max focus---I also had to give him 1000 strength.) Theoretically a ranged assassin ascendant might be pretty good but ranged assassinate from invisibility isn't working either.... Cipher (other than Soul Blade using Soul Annihilation) is so bad and so bugged right now it's almost comical. All the restrictions on Ascendant make it seem like they were really worried about making it OP, and yet the result....

Druid does get Projection spells, you forget Fire Bug but it comes super late compare to wizard. DoT, projection, jump spell get more benefits from Empower as Empower not only boost accuracy, pen and basic damage, but also boost duration, project and jump number. So these spells are boosted twice by Empower right now than plain blast... Specially Ray like spell get a lot from Empower, since they usually tick very fast and have a short duration. Empower have a flat bonus to duration really make these spells overpowered. You can try Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring with/without Empower and the difference is huge. (even Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is already super powerful without Empower.) Fire Bug's description doesn't mention projectiles or number of projectiles at all... only jump. It would be good if it had multiple projectiles.... Jump spells would be better if they could "jump" back to a target they've hit before. Btw Ninagauth's Shadowflame is pretty good for a pre-cast spell---9 second cast time but only one second recovery. (Stronger fireball that does cold damage and paralyzes for base 6 seconds.) Why would you think Jump spell doesn't jump back to original target? They do jump back. But the bouncing mechanism is not welcoming for additional jumps, the more it bounces the less the damage is. Except Bounding Missile, which I think is not intended. Ah, the Skulking Terror and Aegis of Decay encounter must be bugged then (or the Aegis is different from an ordinary enemy) because it won't jump back to a previously hit target there. But it will jump back in other encounters, and that does make jump effects better....

Druid does get Projection spells, you forget Fire Bug but it comes super late compare to wizard. DoT, projection, jump spell get more benefits from Empower as Empower not only boost accuracy, pen and basic damage, but also boost duration, project and jump number. So these spells are boosted twice by Empower right now than plain blast... Specially Ray like spell get a lot from Empower, since they usually tick very fast and have a short duration. Empower have a flat bonus to duration really make these spells overpowered. You can try Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring with/without Empower and the difference is huge. (even Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is already super powerful without Empower.) Fire Bug's description doesn't mention projectiles or number of projectiles at all... only jump. It would be good if it had multiple projectiles.... Btw Ninagauth's Shadowflame is pretty good for a pre-cast spell---9 second cast time but only one second recovery. (Stronger fireball that does cold damage and paralyzes for base 6 seconds.)

Evokers gain more from power level partly because evocation spells are the only ones that gain additional projectiles. Druid and Chanter spells with projectiles don't gain more projectiles at any power level. (One could argue that the presence of "Twin" and "Seven" in the names precludes having more projectiles at any power level, but I don't find that convincing. An empowered version of the spell at least should be able to have more projectiles. The other argument is that Twin Stones gains more from an extra projectile because it only starts with two. But Bounding Missiles starts with three. And the Twin Stones projectiles are at an angle to each other so it's difficult to hit the same target with both. The Twin Stones AoE is powerful but only triggers if you hit a solid boundary in the environment. Perhaps one projectile / two power levels is too much for twin stones but one projectile / 3 or 4 power levels seems fine. OTOH seven nights starts with seven projectiles so each extra projectile is only 1/7th extra damage as opposed to 1/5th for Minor/Concussive missiles and 1/3rd (+ jumps) for Bounding Missiles.)

If you want summoned weapons to be more like a self-buff rather than an extra weapon set (per summonable weapon), how about a 1st level fast cast spell "summon weapon from [magical item... maybe a charred or icy or corroded fragment of grimoire]" that corresponds to a set of items you can equip in your weapon slots, with each item letting you summon a different magical weapon by using the spell? So it's basically a wizard-only item that you equip like a regular weapon but also have to summon with a spell point. (Just don't call it a lightsaber....)