SaruNi

The description in character generator doesn't specify melee, but if you check the description in the character sheet, it does specify melee weapon crits only.

Frenzy is supposed to give +25% action speed but is only giving +20%. Swift Strikes is supposed to give +20% action speed but is only giving +17%. Edit: Cat Flurry is supposed to give +33%, but is only giving +25%. If it's an intended change (ugh), the descriptions haven't been updated. (If it is intended, it's terrible. These were the main ways to reduce casting speed by multiclassing. Instead of solving the casting speed problem, this exacerbates it. Reduce melee weapon speed by all means, but not these.)

Melee ranger still doesn't really have any usable 5th tier abilities (except upgraded "heal pet")... it would be interesting if Driving Flight could be used in melee (slices through one and hits a second).

On leveling up, I can select ranger animal companion passives (paw print icon)... but they don't show up on the character sheet and in subsequent leveling up they are displayed as not having been selected. Only happens with Ghost Heart subclass. Can use the console to add them though.

Part of the issue is that most casters don't have any fast-cast CC spells. The exceptions being Skalds/Chanters (and also Barbarians or single-class Rogues and Rangers). If you don't want to use stealth or take drugs or potions or use scrolls or cat speed or multiclass, and you do want to open by casting ranged AoE CC, you'll probably need one or more of those....

Ciphers really should have most of their casting times decreased. At least three reasons: - Obviously, they need time to build focus - They don't have any location-based AoE spells with duration that can be cast before combat - They don't have any fast casts except tier 4 Pain Block (which can't be cast on self, really doesn't seem that great for the focus cost) and tier 5 Tactical Meld (which would be okay if it gave a large accuracy bonus but when last I checked it's bugged and doesn't give any at all)

For buff spells and summoned weapons---you can have a Rogue attack from stealth to initiate combat, then use Shadowing Beyond (or for multiclass Smoke Veil) while the spells are being cast. It's functionally equivalent to casting "before combat starts", but with the added bonus of probably taking out at least one enemy (from Assassinate and/or DoT's) at the expense of 2 or 3 guile. (Alternately, of course, you could send in a tank capable of surviving for 6 seconds. Base duration of Smoke Veil just happens to be 5 seconds---just enough time to cast 6 second spells if your Rogue has enough int (only need 14 to get 6 second smoke veil, not evening counting the bonus from power level) and/or your casters have enough dex.)

Is "mopping the floor easily" and quickly really your idea of fun strategic combat? And a lot of the melee builds are pretty obvious. If you're using stealth most casters can get off at least one location-based AoE outside of combat and initiate combat with an attack spell. Though even with grazes spell accuracy still seems grossly unbalanced relative to weapon accuracy unless you attack one of your enemies' weaknesses or use weapon debuff modals first. Casting times should remain long enough that multiclassing for speed boosting abilities (cat druid, barbarian, monk, to lesser extent mage) and/or maximal fast casts (druid evoker) should be worthwhile....

This is a significant issue because it's common for enemies to be immediately present in the new map area, so players lose the ability to cast spells from stealth before combat starts. Only applies to animal companion and was not present before the update. Almost certainly related to the bug that makes the animal companion emerge from stealth when loading game: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95278-ranger-companions-dont-stay-in-stealth-on-load/

Wounding Shot (and Gouging Strike) are also full attack, so they work with dual wielding (one use applies to both weapons, if they hit). Is the raw DoT based on weapon damage before taking penetration into account?....

Yeah I agree, before the patch Wounding shot was pretty awesome, you can do a lot damage with it, but after patch I did some test and the damage is tuned sadly. Mark the prey is worse than Sworn enemy for sure. Edit: Wounding shot is still not too bad, with the previous Helwalker/Sharpshooter I can still shot over 100 damage with crossbow, and Wounding shot ticks 50% of the damage, around 50 DoT for like 4-5 ticks depends your INT. So u can still dd over 300 damage with it, tried arquebus and it's even better, 120 initial damage with a 60 DoT, potential to do 400+ with Wounding shot. And the cost has been reduced to 1, so you can use it twice as many times (if you have the time...). That's a lot of uses. So using it with Hunting Bows or other fast weapons might not be so bad. (Firearms + quick switch being even better but you can only use 3 of your Wounding Shots.) Should be able to stack raw DoT and use Combusting Wounds.....

At level 9 / 5th spell tier Priest of Berath is supposed to automatically learn Rot Skulls. It hasn't been implemented (isn't in the Druid spell list either) and they don't learn anything else in its place.... (Too bad, Rot Skulls might open up some interesting Druid multiclass possibilities too.)

Devoted bug is not fixed (annoyingly) and general talents remain unchanged. Although I think a couple of abilities have been added, like the rogue's smoke bomb. (Or was that there before? I forget.) I really appreciate that the shop now sells all weapons and armour. Makes it easier to create a full party. Smoke Cloud was there before, but Smoke Veil wasn't. Looks really good: - 5 seconds invisible / untargetable - 2nd tier ability, so it can be used by multiclass characters in the beta without the console cheat - doesn't force you to choose Shadowing Beyond rather than Shadow Step if you want to use stealth/backstab more than once/combat Very much looking forward to testing this....

Ranged only would also lose out on the advantage of the Mage Slayer effect... it's only applied in melee. Frenzy and Wild Sprint don't have long durations to begin with, so the penalty can be very significant. Barbaric Yell has limited range. Firearms can benefit significantly from upgraded Barbaric Blow (instant extra attack on kill), but bows... not so much (unless you mean crossbows, which do have the nice interrupt modal). The Barbarian passive that lets you interrupt on crit is melee only. The passive that grants bonus stride... doesn't grant very much (10% as opposed to 100% from Wizard spells). On the other hand the only Ranger self-buff with a duration is iirc Evasive Roll. And fast ranged weapons can be used to increase your chance of landing the killing blow and triggering Bloodlust. Berserker Sharpshooter (especially with the bonus penetration from Berserker Frenzy) or Paladin Sharpshooter (+15 all defenses, not just spells) would be better. But if you want to do bow-only Mage Slayer/Sharpshooter for rp reasons and don't mind giving up most of the Mage Slayer and Barbarian abilities... it's not like you'll die quickly or be completely unable to do damage most of the time, if that's what you mean by "viable"....

Also, the Mage Slayer effect doesn't prevent enemies from using Frenzy (or at least combat frenzy). If it counts as a "spell" for the duration penalty, it should also count as a "spell" for the debuff.... 25.2 s Frenzy duration was reduced to about 10.9, instead of the expected 12.6....

The Mage Slayer anti-spell effect doesn't prevent affected enemies from using Frenzy (at least, not the Skulking Terror's combat frenzy)... but the Mage Slayer penalty affects their own Frenzy duration. (And is bugged to be closer to 60% reduction rather than 50% (assuming it's even supposed to treat barbarian abilities as "spells").) So it doesn't count as a spell for the bonus, but it does for the penalty?...

Oddly enough, the Barbaric Roar upgrade to Barbaric Yell changes it from targeting Will to targeting Fortitude... while not mentioned by the tooltip, the Dragon Leap also targets Fortitude. So the Mage Slayer does have ways to debuff casters with high deflection but low fortitude (or low Will, without the upgrade)....

Eh?In PoE mages have like the best defenses... With deflection over 200 they aren't so "easily butchered" Yeah I'm just kidding, you get the point, if the mage have such high defenses, it's hard for Mage Slayer to touch them, so Spell Disruption is kinda pointless until u can dispel mage's protection. So you open by attacking them from stealth, applying the 20 second disruption effect?... unlike BG mage's protection can't be cast outside combat, with the exception of that one 5th tier spell that only activates once Blooded (so it would still allow the first hit), and the Illusionist's automatic mirror image.... Then why not use assassin Well, I haven't tested it yet myself, but presumably because Carnage AoE can hit multiple casters at once (though they have to be close enough together)... also some enemies with spells/abilities aren't easily one-shotted even by an assassin. And the defensive bonuses could be a major advantage once AI is intelligent enough to use foe-only AoE attacks to try to hit invisible assassins....

...and if you can dispel the mage’s protection, you can then interrupt with hits and kill him very quickly regardless, bringing us back to the wizard slayer’s problems. Well the 'real' mage slayer in bg2 is the Inquisitor Edit: I feel Monk is way better than Wizard slayer in killing casters, Monk has a lot cheap interrupt/stun ability that doesn't target deflection, and Rooting pain cause AOE interruption. A monk with single hand weapon is the king of interruption imo. After a few test, I found that ranger might be better than monk for interrupting because blunderbuss provides 5 Interrupt with a primary attack interrupt on hit ability, 10 interrupt with a full attack one. You can interrupt anybody which makes concentration useless under blunderbuss. It's too bad Barbarian doesn't have PoE 1 Brute Force (target fortitude rather than deflection if fortitude is lower)... at least in the levels shown in the beta.

Eh? In PoE mages have like the best defenses... With deflection over 200 they aren't so "easily butchered" Yeah I'm just kidding, you get the point, if the mage have such high defenses, it's hard for Mage Slayer to touch them, so Spell Disruption is kinda pointless until u can dispel mage's protection. So you open by attacking them from stealth, applying the 20 second disruption effect?... unlike BG mage's protection can't be cast outside combat, with the exception of that one 5th tier spell that only activates once Blooded (so it would still allow the first hit), and the Illusionist's automatic mirror image....

You're aware of the changes coming in the next beta patch right? A number of currently Fighter exclusive passive abilities are going to be added to the proficiencies, allowing all classes to take them without using one of their ability points. Fighters aren't getting anything to replace this loss, in fact they're still going to be able to take those passives as abilities even though they could take them as proficiencies for free instead. Wouldn't be so bad if you could take both and they stacked... but I'd prefer something more interesting.

There are lots of fighter possibilities: - As several have suggested, a passive which significantly enhances weapon modals - Passive which grants additional weapon modals - an enhanced two-handed style etc. which grants an interesting additional modal for all two-handed etc. - enhancements to the stances - maybe a "disarm" ability if it's not too hard to implement (and enemy AI can pick their weapon / shield / potions / grimoires back up)

It would be great if they could send beta backers an email when it's about to launch.

Another advantage: it's not only flexibility, but the total number of spells you can cast during combat. The 2-casts-per-level restriction on Druids, Wizards and Priests means they run out of spells in any lengthy combat. Dual casters cast more spells per combat. Yes, but single-level casters will get one or two additional spell levels they can access, so in practice it's more like one extra spell... which you're trading for higher-level spells, which you can no longer access (a major loss of flexibility, unless you really want a Wizard that can heal, or a Priest that has fast cast self-buffs). Stronger argument would be for cases where spells of a certain type are clustered at the same low-ish level(s). Presently, fast casting DD spells.... The flexibility argument has potential, but is it really realized? There are some Druid spells that can be useful against specific enemy types, but useless against others... less so iirc for the other casters, aside from elemental resistances. Thing is, by going dual class, you also get double passives. Some of which have excellent synergy. Soulblade + Assassin lets you open fights with a tremendous HP nuke, and even rinse/repeat twice with Shadowing Beyond. In the game's current state and with the current level cap, multiclass characters are more powerful than single classes. How both develop at later stages remains to be seen. Caster passives apparently only apply to spells which use the resource of the class they're associated with. Fury only gets the bonus for elemental spells cast using Druid spell points (and not Priest spell points even for a Priest of Eothas using them to cast Druid elemental spells, if what I've read is accurate), the Evoker's bonus only applies to Wizard spells, Cipher's +1 spell penetration is only for Cipher spells, Rejuvenation Druid's bonus only applies to Druid spells cast with Druid spell points, et cetera. (Incidentally, the caster passives also don't seem to apply to scrolls.) The one major exception being Wildstrike, which might not be intended.

Another advantage: it's not only flexibility, but the total number of spells you can cast during combat. The 2-casts-per-level restriction on Druids, Wizards and Priests means they run out of spells in any lengthy combat. Dual casters cast more spells per combat. Yes, but single-level casters will get one or two additional spell levels they can access, so in practice it's more like one extra spell... which you're trading for higher-level spells, which you can no longer access (a major loss of flexibility, unless you really want a Wizard that can heal, or a Priest that has fast cast self-buffs). Stronger argument would be for cases where spells of a certain type are clustered at the same low-ish level(s). Presently, fast casting DD spells.... The flexibility argument has potential, but is it really realized? There are some Druid spells that can be useful against specific enemy types, but useless against others... less so iirc for the other casters, aside from elemental resistances.