Zoso der Goldene
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Posts posted by Zoso der Goldene
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The following options cannot be disabled, even when the boxes are unchecked or playing on expert mode.
-Area of Effect Highlighting
-Show Companion Relationship Info
The AoE circle for spells is always shown. Relationship info is still shown on the character sheet and after selecting conversation options that affect relationships. E.g. when saying something funny, the "lighthearted" indicator will be shown next to Edér and Xoti's reactions to the conversation.
I might add that this is, how to put this, very disruptive if you're used to playing on expert mode.
Good thing it's not "Auto-Level Companions", though
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This still happens, also with Prone, Unconscious, Petrified. I think it happens if there is Status Effect suppression is involved.
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Yeah o fought the Hunters naked. So that solves the cash issue. Still the problem of your party being almost two levels back.
When I get to gilded vale, even if I skip all the rights in the woods, I'm still close to level 3. Just walking past the hanging corpses triggers a huge xp award.
The xp gap becomes less and less of a level as you level up.
It is a disadvantage, of course, but at level 16 it's gone.
And with a full party it's not that much an issue.
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Right. It's fairly easy to get 2500 cp from Heodan. Besides Gaun's Pledge (which is the lion's share) do not forget to sell him the Disappointer and also all the potions you loot. Those are expensive...
Everything, including lock picks, ingredients, wolf hides. Even the beer is worth 2 or 3 coppers; everywhere else, it's 0cp.
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Did you create your 5 adventurers right off the bat at gilded vale? That pretty much depleted all your cash. Plus your party starts at level 1 with 0xp which keeps it almost 2500xp behind you.
Not if you start out selling _everything_ you have (except 1 weapon each) to Heodan, which leaves you with ~3000cp when you leave Cilant Lis.
Yes, that includes Gaun's Pledge, but as Heodan pays 4-5 times the regular price it's well worth it. In solo playthroughs, you can afford to get the Adra Animat early on, which is a game changer if you don't have any summons already.
In a party run, you can afford 5 NPC companions lvl 2 easily.
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I've been trying to settle on a PC for my first playthrough, reading the forums, doing some research on builds and testing a few in game. I haven't got very far yet, but want to feel I've made the best choice as I may only get one playthrough.
I had almost settled on a Human Rogue, pirate type character dual wielding sabres or sabre and dagger (dagger mainhand), with the intention of doing DPS and maybe hunting squishies or pesky wizards and archers during combat, then getting stuck into the main fray.
However I was reading this forum last night and found some (admittedly older) posts and/or comments that said that a Rogue for single target DPS is quite underwhelming compared to what other classes can do. I know that the damage some casters (i.e. wizards) can put out in AOE damage simply makes single target damage almost irrelevant. I still think I'd like to go with a dual wielding melee character, I just want to check what options I have.
Is a Rogue the best for a dual wielding build, and is another class more up to the job?
I'd like to not die right away after a couple of hits, and skirt the edges of the fight picking off VIP targets. Is Rogue best for this with dual wield, or would a duel wield fighter, barbarian or monk be more suitable? (Is it even advisable to kit a monk out "like a pirate" and not use fists?) Who has the best talents/skills/abilities for the job, while not dying too quickly? (I don't want to min max and will maybe put an extra point or two into a survival stat and can change it later).
Thanks!
I can only give you my personal experience on this, I don't have all the numbers or know all the possible builds.
When I started playing PoE, I considered Rogue to be an essential part of the party.
I stuck with this concept until quite recently, tried to tweak in play a slate of different character concepts over time. I arrived at two conclusions: Dual Wielding is best for a Melee Rogue and Rogues are not essential to a party.
That being said, I'd say there are a couple of other classes with talents suited for dual wielding (and that also fit the pirate theme to some extent, if you pick the right background and culture): Barbarian, Chanter (if you think Pirate, that's maybe the most natural pick besides Rogue), Cipher (if you want to go melee, you'd want to gain focus as quickly as possible), and Monk (outfitting them pirate style works perfectly fine).
I have no experience with dual wielding fighters - they always end up as board and stick guys.
The same for my paladins, I just hesitate to give up their strong defense/support capabilities and go dual wield (come to think of it, I wouldn't have to give up much except for the shield, but I also have trouble seeing them in the classical pirate role - although in PoE, I found even the most unusual character concepts work out pretty well).
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For me, on the "Solo Ultimate Wizard" run, it was definitely Concelhaut. I just didn't have the hammer back then, so by comparison, Brynlod, Llengrath, Alpine Dragon, and Adra Dragon were all easy.
(Phantoms in Cead Nua hall were also easy once I got the Adra Animat: Just pull them, run to the souteastern corner of the map, spawn the animat and kill them with whatever - they will stun lock the Animat instead of you if you position it correctly. (That trick requires you to sell Gaun's Pledge - among other things, including your starting armor - to Heodan, as he pays 5 times normal prices.)
On my Frozen Crown Playthrough, the hardest fight was actually Thaos himself - having aced everything else, I went into that fight without too much preparation and thought, completely underestimating it. Aloth got killed, which makes for a fine story twist. On my Ultimate playthrough, though, I totally overcompensated, Thaos and one of the Statues were toast after less than 10 seconds.
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At the beginning +7 is a great advantage. But you have to take away points from other stats to make it happen, so it's not for free. After some levels it's not that important anymore - especially with a priest and/or paladin in the party - and you might want to retrain (if you are not opposed to retraining).
If you want reliable interrupts you have to max PER, but I personally have zero problems with 10 PER on any PotD character. That's because I nearly always bring a priest (sometimes two) and a paladin who can give you plenty of stacking ACC via Inspiring Radiance, Devotions and Coordinated Attacks + Marking. Inspiring Radiance + Zealous Focus alone is like having +16 PER right at the beginning of the game (after tutorial). And if I still can't hit in the early game I just use a single one hander until it gets better.
Maybe a reason why OBS decided to make it harder to stack ACC bonuses in Deadfire.
I agree. Generally, stats distribution is overrated in Pillars of Eternity.
Other factors like synergies from party composition, talents, equipment, etc. are way more important.
That's also true for PotD, and to some extent even for solo PotD. Haven't tried that in a level-scaled run yet, but I'm pretty sure that's the one time when it _does_ matter.
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As I said: it depends on class and build. If you are a barbarian and want to cause overbearing as often as possible and also have Frenzy + Bloodlust you'd be better off with single weapon usage and style.
If you have Blood Thirst you want a heavy 2handed hitter like Firebrand or Tidefall.
For dps dual wielding doesn't do a lot for you if you are already near 0 recovery (with a single one hander, a shield + one hander or a two hander). Of course it's way easier to achieve 0 recovery with dual wielding.
If you want pure dps with auto-attacks and are not already at 0 recovery then dw light weapons is best.
If you have lots of Full Attacks (rogue for example) you should dual wield heavy one handers like sabres, hammers and so on. Just because the resources that provide Full Attacks are limited and you want to get the most out of them.
Another exception is the monk with Torment's Reach: it's a Full Attack with an AoE crush cone that doesn't rely on weapon damage and is not really limited as long as there's wounds. The more speed the more AoE dps. So using dw light weapons (or fists) is best despite the Full Attack. A good compromise between boosting the initial hit that gets +50% crushing lash and the dps of the AoE cone is a heavy hitter in the offhand and a light in the main hand.
Thanks for the reply!I agree that there might be builds where this is different (e.g. I don't know enough about Barbarians to judge, but sounds like it's definitely worth looking into), and some heavier weapons e.g. apply status effects that are desirable.
But I don't get the Rogue / Full Attack part.
While it's true that the additional damage on one attack will help the heavier weapons to make up some of the difference for a given time frame, there are a couple of issues that diminish and ultimately revert that effect:
* Any kind of DR will increase the relative gain with smaller weapons.
* These Full Attacks do 25% or 50% more base weapon damage, but also apply a status effect that allows for sneak attacks or death blows. While it's true that it might not always trigger, or might not always be relevant (as the target might already be prone, flanked, blinded, etc.), it will trigger often enough to turn enough of the follow up auto-attacks into Sneak Attacks (for all rogues) or Death Blows (for those who took it). Again it's more beneficial to strike more often then to hit harder (less then one attack for the duration of the effect is more than enough to offset the 25% or 50% full attack damage).
* On a related note, the more frequent attacks also make it more likely for Finishing Blow to make sense, or for its passive cousins Bloody Slaughter or Death's Usher to trigger. Given, that's usually overkill and depends on your build, but it's a nice side effect of striking and hitting more often.
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Could you elaborate?
Full attacks don't change the math speed-wise, and scale base weapon damage (i.e. effects are not multiplicative), so that should be even more reason to dual wield, because DR is even less of an issue. The same logic applies to conversion; it just scales damage on a graze or hit, so you have to graze or hit as often as possible.
Single-handed accuracy only matters if you wouldn't hit at all otherwise; in all other scenarios if looked at, accuracy pales in comparison to speed. It's almost twice as good as the single handed accuracy bonus when accuracy equlas defense, and it keeps getting better.
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Hmmm... So it's not a constant well of regeneration. Still it ain't bad.
Well, I played a CON 8 wizard as Moon Godlike (MIG 10), with food etc. Endurance was 340 at Level 16. Each time Silver Tide procs, it cured more then 60 hp, so you can think of it as ~200 extra endurance at level 16.
It does this passively, which is great both on solo and with a party, and it does so in a huge circle (base radius 20 iirc) which is usually going to hit everyone in your party.
The only time you which you hadn't picked this is when you're charmed or dominated and it procs...
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Three Wise Men (i.e., Wizards). One is enough to wipe everything in this game, but THREE?!
Other than that, add a Priest and/or Chanter to the Mix, or replace one of the Wizards with a Druid.
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Zoso der Goldene, the Wizard I earned The Ultimate with. As he was a Tiefling in his former life, he should have been a Death Godlike, but I had to compromise in order to get the Achievement, so he ended up as a Moon Godlike.
Stats MIG 10 / CON 8 / DEX 19 / PER 19 / INT 19 / RES 3.
What h*ll of a ride that was!
Most intense combat imaginable - no full party playthrough even gets close to that, and playing with a full party now somehow feels hollow.
One thing that really annoyed me, though, which I didn't realize while playing with a full party, was the "move/attack/cast while incapacitated (unconcious/prone/paralyzed/petrified)" bug. It happened ~50% of the time, but never to my character. If I had to guess, I'd say it almost always happened when one of the status effect on the target was suppressed because of another, more powerful one. THAT makes your life really tough on solo POTD, as if it wasn't tough enough already.
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Sabre and dagger, rapier and stiletto, whatever the case may be.
Or is it better to not, and wield two harder hitting weapons like swords or axes?
I think my mind is being led astray from my "DPS" days in WoW, so not sure there is any benefit in this game to wielding a fast offhand.
Is there any math or calculation which suggests one is better than the other, or that it's the same, or different scenarios where one is better than the other?
Side note: why does this forum seem to love hatchets?
If you do the math for raw DPS output (not counting Damage Reduction), nothing beats dual-wielding two light weapons.
The effect becomes stronger the heavier your armor is.
If you rely on hitting at all, you're better of dual-wielding light weapons, unless your accuracy is ~80 lower than the target's deflection.
If you factor in DR, the break-even is somewhere north of 30 depending on the exact context (e.g. stiletto? dagger?).
So if you don't focus on interrupt or status effects only found on heavier weapons and don't need the extra protection from a shield, chances are you should be dual wielding light weapons.
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I meant that it's totally useless though.
"All art is quite useless".
So it comes as no surprise that the better it looks, the more useless it is.
(There is a sweet spot between 25% and maybe 40%, where it looks worse, i.e. does less damage, but for bosses like dragons, it makes getting through count.)
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I forgot about the chant giving 30%dmg vs beasts - that puts beasts on the top of the list for the highest single target damage. Here are all the bonuses you can have:
55% legendary enchantment
25% slaying (beast) enchantment
25% beast slayer
10% drake's den resting bonus
30% chant
10% ranged damage (cloak of the frozen hunt)
20% death's usher
20% survival flanking bonus
10% item flanking bonus
10% blessing
84% might bonus
50% sneak attack
100% deathblows
150% backstab
50% finishing blow
150% critical (20%base+30%durgan+30%merciless hand+10%dungeon delver+50%bloody slaughter+10%rabbit fur gloves)
30% burning lash multiplicative bonus (with scion of flame)
30% burning lash multiplicative bonus from chant (with scion of flame)
250% multiplicative bonus from finishing blow if target under 1% end (finishing blow+devastating blow)
And the maximum damage possible would be 36*(1+799%)*(1+250%)*(1+60%)=1812 (1132pierce+679burn) - that's if you score a critical hit with your max weapon damage on a beast with under 1% endurance left.
In practice however (average dmg, beast under 10% end) with the optimal setup you can expect close to 1300dmg with a critical.
PS. It seems the 6 hits of the blunderbuss are added together for the final damage - thus it has even higher damage potential than the arquebus. However the blunderbuss is limited by the endurance of the target (a target with low endurance will be likely killed by the first hit, while the others will do no damage...)
Nicely done! Just two things:
- Death's Usher requires a Death Godlike, so the might bonus drops to 82% from 84% (which it would be for a human). The 20% is well worth that, though.
- Killer's Work would be better than Rabbit Fur Gloves, as it gives 10% on the Finishing Blow Damage, so 25% overall, as opposed to the Rabbit Fur Gloves' 10%.
That pushes "Overkill" onto a whole new level.
I totally agree!
the decision to not give casters a lot of spells (like POE1)
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
After playing as a Wizard on PotD for maybe 10 hours, I can say that I understand the attempt to balance game play by introducing power sources for everyone, and having them restored between battles, and reduce the power of individual spells: In PoE, casters could make there special, high-power spells that were intended to be per-rest into per-encounter spells by just resting between each and every encounter. That made them outshine any melee-based character in my opinion, and it creates an insurmountable balancing challenge. (Whether balance is indeed a challenge to be taken on in single player computer games is another matter.)
So the move to per-encounter actually levels the field for everyone, and from a balance perspective, that's a good thing, I guess.
I just noticed two negative side effects: