Aravane

I had this bug today. Managed a workaround. Did you arrive in the district via the Undercroft boat, or any means other than the intra-city travel screen? If you travel through the city you should get an encounter with the Principi captain involved. Avetta's dialogue should trigger correctly afterwards.

As a stopgap measure here's a table of quest info I extracted from the game files. Good enough for checking the level of a specific quest or deciding on a new direction. (Spoilers, obviously.) Google Drive link (searchable).

Adding my voice to the chorus. That explanation makes sense for scaling everything, but not for the "only scale up" option. The game doesn't differentiate what's below your level, only what's above it - and that remains the same if you're only scaling up. Is there a value to mod or a console command to execute which would allow us to turn this back on manually?

Might in Deadfire has multiplicative scaling, unlike everything else that boosts your damage. Hence people saying Might in Deadfire is all-important.

The wording on DAoM is negative health restored (rather than raw damage taken) so it's ambiguous. Someone with the beta could check. Wizard/Monk seems respectable, though not spectacular. Agreed on the Trickster. Class resources are scarce enough without adding to the issue. Melee Assassin/Wizard? Seems extra squishy if anything goes wrong. I wouldn't take it on PotD, but you could probably make it work on Veteran. Lots of micro involved, but I think that's always the case with Assassin. Most Assassin/Wizard builds I've seen floated around are about nuking from invis with spells (Backstab bonus doesn't apply but Assassinate does) and disappearing again. Melee/magic hybrid characters are in ample supply in Deadfire. Druid does that all on their own (spells and spiritshift), as does a Skald (crit in melee and cast invocations). You could probably multi a Priest if you're stubborn but I don't think they're especially well suited. But most of all there's the Soul Blade Cipher - they melee, they've got a bunch of spells as a sideboard, you can multi them with basically any martial class for good results. They also have a fair few spells with an 0.5 second cast time, though these come with a 3-4 second recovery unlike the fast Wizard buffs. But at least getting interrupted shouldn't be a problem. (Actually, did they end up nerfing Soul Annihilation in the full release? I was worried they would.)

The inspirations are pretty underwhelming, but the accuracy and deflection seem quite good. It's about what I expected, and I think it'd be worth using if it weren't for the duration issues.

Based on this post on Chanter summon durations (I think summoned weapons/transformations interact with PL in the same way) you get +5% duration per power level over unlock level. IIRC Empower gives +10 PL for a spell, so that's potentially +50% duration. The Lasting Empower passive gives a 20% increase on top of that. Doesn't seem worth it. Probably better to do another cast and use the Empower to refresh available spells. The 3 second cast time isn't disastrously long. There are also the passives that speed up the cast: Martial Caster (+15%) and Rapid Casting (+10%). Martial Caster seems awful - with 3 casts of a summoned weapon in an encounter (which seems on the high end of things) it saves you 1.35 seconds. A really narrow and underwhelming effect. The 25 second duration also present a problem when using Citzal's Martial Power. That buff lasts 30 seconds and disables spellcasting, meaning you're guaranteed some time with no spells and no summoned weapons if you try to combo them together. Really unfortunate, since they're clearly meant to be used together. I wish they'd actually nerf Martial Power's duration to match. I'm just left hoping there are items with unique properties that work well for this character archetype, though I'm leaning towards rolling something else entirely.

There's also power level to consider. Does it affect duration for summoned weapons? Since IIRC the stats on the weapons scale with character level.

So the full list of abilities is out now. Citzal's Enchanted Armory turns out to be the capstone spell for a summoned-weapons-centric wizard. We get two weapons (two weapon style ahoy!) and a breastplate. Exciting, though we have no specifics on their stats yet. But it makes multiclassing a melee wizard less of a no-brainer. However, I'm concerned about the duration of summoned weapons. It appears they've all been nerfed to last 25 seconds. I don't have the backer beta, but that seems... rather on the short side. And out of step with other wizard buffs. Hoping for some thoughts from our experienced character builders on how impactful this nerf might turn out to be.

MaxQuest put together a list of the inspirations and afflictions here.

Oh, it isn't? Shame. I misunderstood what you meant by "conversation nodes can easily be edited".

I can see a point to editing conversation nodes. If you're trying to mod in a new subclass (like the Blind Priest of Wael mod) you could add some dialogue options/reactivity. It might be rather superficial (in the sense that it wouldn't lead to new outcomes for a given conversation), but it would really improve a custom class in terms of feel.

According to the datamined ability list over at RPG Codex Heart of Fury is a Power Level 8 ability, so only accessible to single-classed barbarians.

I hope I'm missing something, but I see basically zero synergy between a ranger and a wizard. I suppose one could go for a Stalker/Wizard summoned weapons and buffs melee build, though even that is probably worse than the other melee wizard combos. But that doesn't apply to Maia anyway since she's a Gunhawk, which is presumably some kind of ranged/guns focused subclass.

I downloaded the Twitch video to my hard drive via JDownloader 2 and used my normal video player (MPC-BE) to go frame-to-frame when something flashed by. So I had the video in its native resolution and I avoided the screen-darkening-on-pause that Twitch does. I took the actual screen captures with the Snipping Tool just like you - it's pretty handy.

Ah, I guess I didn't explain. Because you can make it kind of an active ability, rather than a modal. You start with the modal turned on, you hit once, the debuff gets applied (for 10 seconds?), you turn it off, you get in a couple of full-damage hits while the debuff persists on the enemy, you turn the modal on to reapply the debuff, and repeat... Microing heavily like that to get some extra damage in doesn't seem intended. Would it work in the current beta? Still no details, but it's better than a YouTube video. Thanks.

I was doing the same thing, hah. Except just for equipment/artifacts. Oh well. My screenshots look somewhat better and I've caught a bunch more items, so it wasn't a wasted effort. Here's the imgur album. 31 items at the start (alphabetically sorted), 7 pets at the end. Plus a few instances of the cut-off tip of Josh Sawyer's head. I also spotted a 'Fragments of Whispers of Yenwood' item, though I didn't take a screenshot.

I've actually been having some difficulty finding a list of the modals. Best I've found is this YouTube video which goes over everything on the proficiency selection screen. Unfortunately that selection doesn't give detailed info. Meaning it tells you that the sword modal allows you to penetrate more effectively at the cost of deflection, but it doesn't give values on how much pen you gain and how much deflection you lose. How long is the cooldown? I'm a little concerned that toggling the debuffing modals (like the morning star Body Blows modal that debuffs enemy fortitude) every X seconds will turn out to be the optimal usage. Seems cheesy.

I wasn't really. It's just not exactly a point in their favor... except for the Soul Annihilation (Primary Attack) synergy. I suppose it most depends on how strong the actual summoned weapons are, and how well they scale. With no access to the beta I can't really see for myself exactly what they do, and nobody knows what the higher-level stuff does. I didn't realize all the buffs (well, except the weapon) were that fast. And I was worried that you'd have to cast a lot of them to get your money's worth out of the melee wizard. How does the overlap look, are the low-level buffs eventually obsoleted by high-level stuff? How's the uptime on them, when compared to the length of a usual encounter? Would you frequently need to recast them in melee, and would that be a problem? I'm not really looking to create a character that splats enemies from the second line with their reach weapon (though that does look like the obvious paradigm given the reach summoned weapons), I wanted an actual frontliner. A wizard/cipher combo also gets the least health per level, and that seems like a disadvantage that will keep adding up (well, if the fextralife wiki isn't lying to me). Yeah, Shattered Pillar appeals to me the most. Getting wounds on my PoE1 Monk felt... inconsistent and spiky. I'd get a ton, I'd spend everything, and then I'd have nothing for an extended period. I probably won't go with a godlike for RP reasons. I thought using fists was kind of a no-brainer? Or is that not the case? Second-liner strategy again. Seems like that's the obvious choice with the summoned weapons. Funny... but true. I get that a fighter would be strong (Devoted seems to feature in all the "top multiclass combos" lists), but they just seem kind of boring to me. Some of that is flavor, some of that is that I had way more fun controlling my Monk PC in PoE1 than I did controlling Eder. Though I still might take a Fighter if they're just a lot better for what I'm trying to build.

This seems like a pretty active thread generally focused on multiclass combinations, and I've been considering the character build for my PC now that the mechanics are mostly finalized. So I thought I'd get some feedback here from the people who actually have the backer beta. I'm pretty set on going with some kind of gish build. Wizards and Soul Blades seem like a good base for that in Deadfire, and I've always been partial to Monks (that's what I decided on in the one PoE1 playthrough I ended up sticking with - had a lot of restarts ). I generally really like the flavor of those three classes. Though I'm not totally opposed to taking a different class if there's a compelling reason... I'm just not sure what's actually viable/synergetic. Melee wizards seem to be based around summoned weapons (and self buffs). The summoned weapons are AFAIK all 2-handers - does that mean melee wizards are locked into going with two-handed style? Is the "universal" weapon property from PoE1 still a thing here? Is this summoned weapons schtick even good, considering you have to cast them at the start of every fight and that 2-handers seem like the inferior option in Deadfire? Multiclass wizards get access to summoned weapons up to level 7, so Citzal's Spirit Lance and maybe Llengrath's Warding staff (which sounds more defensive) would be their strongest. How convinced are we that the summoned weapons will stay competitive with the artifact weapons we'll be able to find? There's (probably) also the Citzal's Enchanted Armory at level 9, which seems to suggest a single class approach even for a melee wizard. I've been considering a Soul Blade/Wizard multiclass - it seems like Soul Annihilation (a primary attack AFAIK) would work well with the 2H summoned weapons, the various wizard buffs would cover defensive weaknesses, and other Cipher/Wizard powers could make for a utility sideboard. But I'm worried the combination will be too weak defensively - I want a frontliner. But maybe the right attribute distribution can cover for that? And spending ages buffing yourself at the start of every fight isn't terribly attractive. I also have my doubts about the Soul Blade. I like the soul whip and some of the passive options, and I really like the Soul Annihilation... But are the active Cipher powers any use for a melee fighter? I had a bad time trying to make a melee Cipher work in PoE1. And Soul Annhilation is a primary attack, which seems best suited to 2-handers, apparently the weakest weapon type. The monk might be able to round out either of those classes for a frontliner combination, and I enjoy their flavor more than the other martial classes. Good passive boosts, Swift Strikes... Their strong spammable active melee abilities seem like they'd work well to utilize the power of a buffed wizard with a summoned weapon, or they could be interweaved with Soul Annihilations. But one of their key features - the powerful fists - are wasted on a wizard using summoned weapons, and AFAIK they're not especially effective with the primary attack of the Soul Annhilation. Feel free to tell me if I'm missing some other, obviously superior class combination for this kind of character archetype. I gather that fighters are strong, but I find them kind of bland (though the cleave sounds cool/overpowered). The paladin orders feel a bit limiting in terms of RP... I'm probably running Pallegina anyway and it feels "wasteful" to double up on a class with only 5 party members (though I actually think that's a good move from OBS as a whole). I kind of feel like the companion stories and personalities are a huge part of the game. Can't really imagine going with a mercenary party unless I felt like I'd exhausted all the companion content in previous playthroughs already. I did end modifying companion attributes a little for my PoE1 playthrough (using the Unity Assets Extractor). I didn't actually minmax, just shuffled the attributes around slightly - I think that was a nice compromise between RP and gameplay. Plus I actually globally raised the XP requirements by 25% in that playthrough, so I didn't feel like I was cheating to make it easy on myself. But that's a whole tangent on difficulty that doesn't really belong in this thread...