tmoji

I must not be winning fights fast enough. My party always nearly gets wiped whenever I run into Insect Swarm enemies unless I bring along some antidote.

After getting frustrating with sinking a ton of time into normal triple crown runs only to lose them near the end due to bugs or silly mistakes I decided to try to blaze through the game on a pacifist run. My first thought was that such a run was possible with 1 kill (Zihaa) and Slippers of the Assassin/Strand of Favor cheese. To take out Zihaa I figured an Assassin/Bleakwalker was the best option (and I thought it was a hilarious combo for a pacifist run). It worked mostly according to plan, but I ended up with a few extra enemies collaterally defeated (Furrante, and I think some enemy friendly fire on Ashen Maw bridge), but also along the way I realized how much Shadowing Beyond trivialized the game. So I started again with a SC Rogue/Trickster(which fits well, but doesn't really matter), and was able to blaze through the game on Triple Crown + Solo and beat it with 0 kills. Build: - 16 Resolution for Ashen Maw - Max int to make invisibility last longer - Enough perception and mechanics to stay safe from traps - Enough stealth to do the starter island and later the Hanging Sepulchers - Smoke Bomb then Shadowing Beyond then Enduring Shadows - Diplomacy for Blow the Man Down and to get the Fonferrus - Hylea's Bounty is nice of course Nothing else matters as far as I can tell. One nice part is that you get some good +diplomacy and +stealth items without having to go out of your way. I did all of the starter island then went straight to Hasongo, both of which can be easily resolved with stealth. After Hasongo I went Straight to Ashen Maw, and by the time I got there had Shadowing Beyond to get past all the enemies on that map. After getting shunted back to Neketaka I used diplomacy/stealth to do Blow the Man Down/Symbols of Death/A Dance with Death, siding with Furrante. For some reason letting Aeldys get hanged doesn't count as an enemy defeated, but convincing the council to hang Furrante does. I couldn't figure out how to get the ending where Aeldys agrees to takes Nissa's Voyage; I'm guessing there's a skill check the wiki doesn't mention or maybe I needed to do some of the tasks for her earlier. Then straight to Ukaizo. The Guardian didn't show up (sadly I went through the scripted options to get through Ondra's Mortar too quickly to see why not), and like every other unavoidable combat on the critical path the final fight on the Promenade can be escaped from using Shadowing Beyond/Enduring Shadows. Anyhow, I thought it was fun and I haven't seen much discussion about pacifist runs in Deadfire. It's also a fast and easy way to get the triple crown and solo achievements without feeling too cheesy. For some reason I can't get my screenshot to upload here, but you can see the character with 0 enemies defeated about to down the stairs to confront Eothas on my Reddit post if you want a modicum of evidence.

So many people seem to think PoE only has one difficulty setting and that balance is only about player/enemy interaction. PoTD should be hard. Really hard. That will mean nerfing some interactions that are just broken and can’t reasonably be counteracted by tweaking enemy stats/numbers. Player experience should also be balanced between classes for a specific difficulty setting. The game’s difficulty should not be incredibly different for two people playing at the same difficulty setting simply because they use different builds. That means some abilties will need nerfed and others buffed to get everything in line. If those nerfs or buffs mean your character doesn’t feel god-like enough anymore just turn down the difficulty level. It’s that simple. PotD baseline and scaling need to be set first, but it would be nice to have a discussion about what may need balanced without having to fight off all the interjections saying the game should only be remotely challenging for intentionally gimped characters.

So I contacted support about a refund for the backer beta and was told that the intention is for the beta to eventually be available on all platforms. Could Sking or someone confirm and give a rough timeline if true?

​Thanks for the update, Sking. One suggestion: I think the language above might be part of the confusion. Linux is a PC operating system (as opposed to say for game consoles or what have you), and runs on the same PC hardware Windows does. I might have read "supported on PC" in the past, and knowing that the POE1 release supported Linux, assumed that the POE2 beta would as well.​ That's exactly what I did. Some disappointment, but no hard feelings . . . I think I'll be asking for that refund though

Welp, I added the option. I hope it works that way.

Will the extra beta access get you into the beta without the $99 plegde? If not, any beta backers willing to add an extra beta key for a negotiable but likely very small profit?

Instead of asking if it two handers were competitive, I should have avoided the subjectivity and asked what the difference would be in damage output, assuming no build differences other than the relevent weapon talents. I have noticed that Tidefall is on just about every tanky melee build along with Shod-in-faith. I'll definitely give it to someone, just not sure who yet.

I like mobility and positioning effects, so Rogue abilities like Escape and Shadow Step and Shadowing Beyond Monk's Flagellant's Path and Force of Anguish Wizard's Dimensional Shift and Pull of Eora. Barbarian's Dragon's Leap (+Heart of Flury . . . in the middle of Pull of Eora + Gaze of the Adragan) Fighter's Charge . . . Which might be my favorite ability in the game. It's a shame they get it so late. In fact, I think that's going to be my party next play through. Just need to pick a 6th character.

Once 0 or near 0 recovery time is acheivable, are two handed weapons competitive with dual wielding DPS? I'm curious about the general case, but also specifically Tidefall for Barbarian/Rogue characters.