[Silly and/or strange things you do]

Reloading until I get the dialog option that I think best suits everyone in the party, I probably have like 5 dialog reloads per 1 combat reload (I keep changing my mind).

 

Because if you can't powergame the RP aspect too, then why bother? That's like watching one of those movies that start out amazing but then ends with a twist where the protagonist dies horribly or everything is just a dream, etc.

[Two Weapon Cipher or Wizard]

Damage bonuses work like that or they'd be too powerful. Might is already very powerful as things currently are.

 

Dual-wielding has its pros. Access to more enchantments/spellbinds, access to more weapon types in general... you could even play a defensive dual-wielder with hatchets and talents like Cautious Attack, then switch back to kill mode the moment mobs switch targets.

[Just what IS a Chanter anyway?]

All spellcasters in the game basically use some variation of soul power/energy. Ciphers handle that power directly using sheer force of will (ala sorcerer), while wizards/druids/priests learn to shape that power using the medium of spells - the difference is that the wizard's approach is academic, the druid's is based on nature and the priest's is about faith and the gods.

 

It is also important to consider where these spellcasters draw that soul power/energy from. Cipher magic apparently draws that power directly from living/animate things (including themselves), wizard magic is more from the self, and priest/druid magic seems to draw soul power/energy both from themselves and somewhere else... possibly the gods/nature.

 

Chanter magic is all about knowledge. Using chants based on some of the most significant happenings in Eora, they basically stir soul power/energy around them, resulting in minor bonuses. Once enough soul power/energy is stirred, they are able to shape that power using an invocation.

 

Note that none of these methods actually say anything about what ciphers/wizards/priests/druids/chanters do in their day-to-day - ie, class =/= profession. It's actually the same for D&D - note that the profession of most D&D PCs is actually ADVENTURER and not wizard/sorcerer/cleric/fighter/etc. I'm pretty sure there's a priest somewhere in the realms that moonlights as an acrobat, a thief who does magic "tricks" to entertain an audience or a fighter who is also a philosopher/scholar/teacher.

 

Because chanters don't really need to study soul power/energy directly and really only need lore and knowledge (and experience) to learn new chants, as far as profession goes chanters dedicated on improving their craft can basically be anything that involves learning new things. Explorer, archaeologist, student doing menial work to pay for their education, teacher, spy, traveling merchant, traveling merchant's bodyguard, sailor, pirate... all of these can be chanters along with the traditional storyteller/performer.

[Rogue build help, frustrated with losing end too fast and fainting too much]

You're going to need some way to spend those copper pands after you finish upgrading Caed Nua. Even with hirelings you should be able to buy whatever you need and still make a small profit as long as you try to clear at least 1 map or so per rest.

 

Respec seems to be the only other currency sink.

[Call to action; more chanter builds]

I find too much focus on a chanter restrictive, unless you solo. The summons are nowhere near as useful as another character, for example, but they're always useful for buying you extra time do stuff or just being on the receiving end of some very nasty nukes (Cleansing Flame comes to mind, I find chanters invaluable for blocking those especially in PotD). Disable spam is rather hit-or-miss (literally) and sometimes it's easier to just kill something outright rather than disable them. No chanter should go without nukes like White-Worms-Writhed-in-the-Bellies-of-the-Dead, regardless of your might score - those can clear entire areas by itself if you plan for them.

Finally, you actually need to target something to cast several of your invocations, but because many of your abilities use an AoE cone for targeting you get more mileage out of them if you equip a range weapon - at the same time, melee potentially gives you a much higher DPS with chants and dual-wield.

 

In end I really just plan for what type of warrior I want my chanter to be, offensive or defensive. I make up the details as I go.

The only thing that doesn't change is that all my chanters start with good Int/Per.

[Chanters need a redesign]

I'm not sure I want pillars copying bioware's dragon age series. And definitely no copying action games please. There are plenty of those around already for those who need their fix.... pillars doesn't need to be one of them.

There's a difference between using elements form action games to make your game better and actually turning a strategy game into an action game.

 

As I already pointed out, the change from Baldur's Gate 1 to Baldur's Gate 2 (or BG1 to the Icewind Dale series, if you want to go there) is proof that using elements from action games works. You'd need to be a die-hard fan of the BG1's old mechanics to disagree.

BG2's combat system was much more streamlined:

-combat and the exchange of blows was faster, for example, which gave you that feeling of urgency, as compared to the rather slow approach of BG1 (and admittedly, PoE)

-the combat screen was cleaner and more intuitive - a lot of the extra clutter from BG1 was removed, like too much unnecessary smoke/sparkles from spell effects, while the TAB key for displaying units stats during combat became more functional which prevented the interface from interfering with immersion. Also, weapon swings and certain other key combat actions became more pronounced unlike the jerk-jab attack swing motions of BG1

-the game gave you actual audio AND visual clues for spells - just about each spell school used a unique casting audio (like if you've played Baldur's Gate 2 then whenever you heard THIS your brain probably went into overdrive because you're expecting an Abi-Dalzim's Horrid Wilting or a Finger of Death - that's the Necromancy spell audio cue)

-spells of a particular type used specific effects (like how demon summoning spells cause that circular gate of bones special animation to appear just before the demon itself materializes - which in player terms can mean anything from "Sunfire incoming, and someone cast Protecftion from Evil 10`" to "OH SH--").

 

Do you know what kind of games specialize and rely on using visual/audio cues to guide their players? Action games.

 

I'm pretty sure most of us don't want another Dragon Age: Origins -> Dragon Age 2, but it would be foolish to completely discount the contribution of action games when the very game we aspire to tells us otherwise.

[Chanters need a redesign]

For me, basic chanter mechanics don't need a change - at least not if you look at it from the PoTD perspective, which is slower than the other ones. And certainly not if you look at PoTD solo. What they could do however is to start with a few phrases - like ciphers start with a bit focus - and OBS could invent better phrases and invocations besides the few really useful ones. Most of the chanters phrases and invocations are lame and seem uninspired - that's a pity. Luckily there are a few really strong ones.

I still think better combat mechanics takes more priority. I mean, if my chanter can execute AoE swings with his melee attacks and perform other combat maneuvers from taking weapon talent feats (instead of the dull passive/modal stat growth we have atm) then combat can be more engaging and you have a lot more options even while you wait for invocations.

 

Basically, if action games are going to steal game mechanics from strategy games, then we might as well return the favor - the poster above was correct in the sense that Bioware was in the unique position to make action games amazing thanks to their strategy RPG background, so why can't we do the same for strategy RPGs? Action games pretty much specialize in making things more engaging.

We're not trying to make another DA:2, but you have got to admit that even BG1 -> BG2 had some modifications that could be considered action-gamey (faster game speeds, dozens more character-defining active abilities from kits, HLAs, etc).

 

Anyway, such an improvement would also make PoR warrior classes a lot more interesting.

 

As an example, imagine a talent like this: (this is all off the top of my head, so please excuse the "meh" specific details)

Weapon Focus - One-handed (normal sized? need a better designation) Slashing Weapons: when wielding specific weapons your weapon swings are now able to hit max 3 targets in a 160 degree arc in front of you (up from max 2 targets in a 90 degree arc without the feat). You also gain the abilities Flourish at 2nd level, Riposte at 6th level and Triple Strike at 12 level.

Flourish (active) - 20% chance to convert a normal hit into a critical hit - usable 3x per encounter, additional 1 use every 6 levels

Riposte (passive) - 15% chance to convert incoming melee hit into a graze and and automatically perform a stunning counterattack (literally, and enemy must be within weapon range, cancels out all other actions except other weapon maneuvers). Can only be used once every 6 seconds (scales with Dex? like I said, details).

Triple Strike - on weapon swing, 10% chance to perform a special combat maneuver where the character attacks two additional times in quick succession

 

If I had talents like that on my chanter I really wouldn't care if phrases needed work (seriously they do of course, but I simply wouldn't care as much... lots of other people likely wouldn't either).

Also the game would likely be a lot more fun for players who love non-Vancian caster classes, though the Cipher would require readjustments.

[Chanters need a redesign]

Since we're talking about PotD, one important thing to consider is that in PotD difficulty enemies often like to ignore the bulky tanky character with lots of HP and will willingly risk disengagement attacks (gimped disengagement attacks, in the case of a pure defensive fighter) to chase down squishies. Essentially a pure "tank" character (ie, only has defensive talents and abilities, etc) is dead weight in PotD which is why people will usually have their frontline character branch out and take offensive abilities to punish or disable nasties or defensive/support abilities to assist allies.

Bottomline, your default tank/support/damage dealer philosophy goes out the window at this point. You're screwed if you try a "DPS is not the thing you're looking for" approach in PotD.

Apparently most Pillars of Eternity mobs are smarter than most of the bosses in WoW, at least until the game bugs.

 

Anyway the chanter, for some reason, is often high on enemy priority targetting list. I think it might something to do with the DR/endurance you have. I suppose this works out fine for a chanter tank in the long run, Chanters have support skills (see phrases - even something as simple as the party-wide movespeed phrase can be very effective in early game), crowd control skills (see invocations), nukes (early game summons like the Phantom definitely count as a very powerful nuke) and can be very tough if you build one defensively (max Resolve, stack deflection, etc). Overall the synergy here revolves around improving the effectiveness of allies and controlling/killing enemies before they start doing significant damage to you.

The chanter tank is really more like a pointman IMO, and instead of the traditional fighter/support/damage dealer synergy what we have here is a kind of  pointman/tools synergy, where you basically dangle a character in front of mobs just to get their attention (unlike a true tank) while you draw upon the skills of all your party members (actual class doesn't matter, what matters is what theybring to the table) to control and destroy mobs while strengthening your position.

 

For the record, its in similar Baldur's Gate-counterpart parities that classes like the bard truly shine.

 

As a kind of basic example, there's Binding Web (level 2 Wizard spell) abuse. Basically you cast Binding Web/s (which a wizard can cast out of combat), then dangle your chanter in front of mobs using phrases like Blessed Was Wengridh, Quickest of His Tribe (movespeed and reflex defense boost) to lure mobs into it. When mobs try to come after you, you then proceed to start doing buff/debuff rotations while your offense casters hit them with your best nukes/disables (like the very basic Chill Fog, which synergizes with the chanter's "But Reny Daret's Ghost, He would not Rest"'s cold-resistant Phantom summon, and which is ALSO immune to  the stuck effect from Binding Web). The keyword for this particular setup is synergy - clean up then proceeds.

Quite efficient.

Like I said, I personally  prefer other setups since I don't like the "stock" chanter tank but you can use that tactic to beat a lot of early-mid game encounters.

 

That enough details for you?

[Chanters need a redesign]

Are you actually implying that Dragon Age: Origins' strategy combat system is somehow inferior to the action game combat system of DA:2 or ME:2? A system that basically amounts to "aim that cursor, shoot stuff and evade enemy fire"? Do you actually know the difference between a strategy game and an action game ?

There's a reason a "less is more" system works for an action game. I'll leave you to meditate on that. Hint - it's got something to do with visceral nature of playing the game from the perspective of the first person, and how overloading someone with extra info can kill the experience.

 

While you're at it, imagine a room of people  playing a game that uses a complicated system of numbers, rules and dice rolls to define a world. A few portraits are probably all that anchors/defines the characters/setting of the game in a visual way.

Quite complex, but If you think a game like that isn't marketable then you badly need a reality check.

 

Speaking from precedence, you're dead wrong about your assessment simply because of the existence of the game known as Dragon Age 2. Now, taken by itself (as an action game and a precursor to DA:I) DA:2 was actually a good game. Hell, for people who could connect with what it's like to live under the shadow of ethnic traditions/a religious organization or who had to start over from scratch after migrating somewhere, it was probably one hell of a game. It definitely had its flaws, but do you know why so many people "hated" the game, almost irrationally?
Because DA:O was a STRATEGY game, and DA:2 was an ACTION game. Because DA:O was SUPPOSED to usher in a new generation of strategy games.

The backlash from that alone (that makes it possible to "hate" a game that should, objectively, be decent) should prove, without a doubt, that people realized on some level that had been taken away from them. Most people simply couldn't pin down what that "something" was.

 

Also your "less is more approach" failed spectacularly in ME3. The devs pretty much just did their own thing there, guess how well that that turned out.
If only video game development (especially new generation strategy game development, in this case) was so simple.
 

[Chanters need a redesign]

Your post pretty much confirms your bias.

 

"Spec the chanter in odd-ball ways?" "Resorting to a strange build" The chanter was DESIGNED to be a kind of jack-of-all-trades in combat. You can see it everywhere if you just bothered to look at the class from the perspective of a designer - from the way phrases/invocations work to Kana's old build. Customizing him/her is pretty much the point.

Class simplification, as I said. I've seen the same argument so many times in so many games. Almost always it turns out that something else was to blame and so the attempt fails. Spectacularly. To everyone's detriment.

 

My favorite chanter build starts combat using ranged weapons before switching to melee once enemies are engaged or buffs/debuffs are in place. This allows him to gauge what types of phrases/chants/items and consumables to use as well as open the possibility for interesting combinations with caster spells. In melee, he dual-wields - and as a result he actually does a massive amount of damage on his own. For obvious reasons Dex is important to him.

In a pinch, I can set him up to use a shield and help hold the line for a limited time but he's really not built for that.

I actually see builds like the "stock build" you mentioned or (to a lesser extent) Kana's as limiting except for specific party combinations, given the sheer power of the Vancian casters. My chanters never compete for the same slot as any one or two of them, but serve as more of a universal complement/damage dealer - the "third" DPSer/multiplier in MMO terms, basically.

 

Anyway I think what's really sad is that you're on the cusp of figuring for yourself what's really wrong but then you fall back back to old biases. Fine, I get that you want things simple. Class simplfication doesn't help though, because we don't really need another unique class. Hell, we already have 4 different casters that run the gamut of offensive/defensive and we have even MORE warrior classes.

The thing is you apparently see past your biast whenever you play that "favorite" archer chanter. He was obviously working well for you, but the COMBAT SYSTEM made it boring or less rewarding. You probably couldn't make that logic leap because you are not actively comparing PoE combat mechanics to that of a game that actually has (and rewards) an active playstyle. Other games improve on general combat by introducing weapons with unique (active) attributes, for example, like swords being automatically AoE (wide swings) and maces causing bash. The equivalent of weapon talents in these games gave you access to improved combat maneuvers automatically gained on level up instead of static +x modifiers PoE currently has, resulting in engaging gameplay for characters that spend a lot of time swinging a weapon.

I'm honestly not sure why new generation strategy games like PoE don't implement their own version of these mechanics, when it seems like action games are only too happy to steal mechanics from old generation strategy games and add their own unique twist to them.

 

In case you didn't notice, the "boring" combat system (specifically the role of actives/passive and modals) that is integral to what makes the chanter work is something of a major problem among ALL classes that rely almost exclusively on it . Or haven't you tried playing a fighter recently?

 

As for the comment below, that is actually a very accurate observation.

Like bards, chanters just need a little work and creativity to get them going. Bards in BG can use bows, can steal things so your party ends up better geared, can defend the party from fear (which low level casters love to use) and can use wands to overpower foes despite their own lack of proper spell progression (among lots of other things). None of these benefits fall under your neat "everyone must have a defined front line/caster/damage dealer/whatever role" philosophy, and yet they are obviously significant (to the point of actually being OP, in the original BG).

Chanters are much the same, though the devs "fixed" that OP phase and phrase-scaling needs work.

[Chanters need a redesign]

If you think the class is boring then you can blame that on the way general combat is set up because you've basically just eliminated roughly half the classes in the game (and just about all of them from mid-early game perspective) from being "interesting", as you seem to define it.

 

Phrases and invocations aside (and it's nice to note that, at least, most people agree that phrases-scaling needs work and phrase length should not be balanced around the level of phrase) the chanter is basically a jack=of-all-trades talent-dependent combat class. How it well performs in combat directly reflects PoE combat in general.

Its conceivable that if combat mechanics involved a more dynamic combination of active/passive skills rather than mostly just modal/passive talents + lots of questionably useful actives then people would appreciate the class more because from a purely results-based perspective the whole "one-tricky pony" and "underwhelming" thing makes zero sense. Pomp and fireworks =/= effectiveness, though I suppose with players these days it doesn't matter that your character can destroy things so much as he can do it with style or "engaging" combat mechanics.

[Chanters need a redesign]

Have you people actually tried playing a chanter as a warrior? Melee? Ranged? Two-handed? Dual-wield?

 

I'm really not sure what posts like these are getting at. The thing that has always made chanters amazing for me was the fact that you could fully customize them. If your party could use another ranged attacker, then stack as many ranged talents on your chanter as you can. He may be a subpar archer but ONLY in comparison to other specialized builds - fact is, as far as the game is concerned your chanter may as well be just another beastly ranger. That tends to happen given the relatively class-neutral game mechanic PoE has regarding the power of normal attacks.

And the best thing about chanters is that their most powerful abilities - their phrases/invocations - are available regardless of whatever else you set them up to be. Hell, the mechanic even ignores recovery speed. AND many of them are game-changers

"Hello, my subpar chanter-ranger has a drake companion. Yours has a... fox. Cute."

And I have never seen any point in introducing more chanter-specific talents. You're never going to run out of useful warrior talents, so what's the point?

 

The weirdest thing about all this is that some of you people are basically arguing that the chanter should just be another caster. You are arguing for the class to be dumbed down because you see class' versatility - the best of its type among all the other classes in PoE - as a bad thing (assuming you even see it at all).

Personally, I don't want another dumbed down class because some people can't use their creativity to make playing the current one more interesting or because some people  have become far too engrossed in the current "meta" that they've pretty much killed their own ability to invent/improvise.

 

As for PoE2 chanters there's always room for improvement, especially with how phrases work.

If people really want a dumbed down version of the chanter for PoE2 then perhaps the devs should come up with chanter-specific talents to compensate..  but generally speaking and relative to other classes (as far as PoE1 goes) the class is fine the way it is.