MortyTheGobbo

Huh, I didn't know they'd messed with engagement in a patch. Although really, I can't say I noticed much of a difference. That said, I ran a pretty effective DPS fighter when I first played Pillars. He had a greatsword, went light, used Disciplined Barrage. I also took Interrupting Blows, but in retrospect I doubt it did anything. I do wonder what they'll do with engagement and similar in Deadfire. I like to think there's a way to let someone be a tank without an artificial "taunting" mechanic. Maybe it's best to just forget about it and make sure no party member is at risk of turning into a fine red mist the moment an enemy targets them.

Well, that particular fight is probably above my level, anyway. I'll go back there when I'm higher than level 5. Looks like I need to rethink some stuff when it comes to tanking, though.

A major problem I see with Kana as a tank, now that I've tried it, is that he has no way to keep enemies engaged, until I gear up and take the appropriate talent. I got my ass handed to me by the encounter at the crossroads in Magran's Fork.

I feel like PoE does a decent job giving the monk more flavours than a wuxia martial artist. Zahua being a prime example. I'm not sure how viable it is for a monk not to fight unarmed... I never saw much of a point to it, given how powerful and quick the fists are. But maybe others have done that.

I don't know about shuriken for a monk, but I sure wouldn't mind seeing thrown weapons in Deadfire, in general.

Right, so it's an overreaction that kind of snowballed, like it so often happens. With a side of "don't get anime in my fantasy!" it seems.

So, uh... who is Ydwin and why do people want her as a full companion so badly? This is greatly confusing to me.

It's not a D&D-esque RPG if you don't fight a dragon at some point.

I'm not even sure who Ydwin is, other than a rogue/cipher. Much less why her being a full companion is such a dealbreaker.

Feels like a bit of a waste to only use a handful of phrases, but if it works... and I could keep a separate chant with buffs and the like.

Hm. So, if I wanted to build a CC/debuff Chanter, I'd probably want to just keep my chant track filled with Come, Swift Winds of Death, Dull the Edge and maybe Blessed was Wendgrith/At the Sight of their Comrades, because defence bonuses are always good. Then I'd repeatedly use invocations to stun, paralyze and charm.

Huh, I've never realized that lower-level chants build up more quickly. But it makes sense, and would explain why they seemed to do it slower or faster sometimes. The chants' utility kind of varies, in my experience. Some are solid, especially if they do something that's hard to get with other classes' spells. But some just feel way too situational or impractical.

I think biting off more than they can chew is an entirely valid concern to have. Especially when it comes to the multiclassing. What they say they want to do sounds awesome, and I like their approach. But it's also going to be very, very tricky to balance.

Everything I hear does incline me to be optimistic. It seems the devs have a clear vision and willingness to innovate, without getting bogged down by genre conventions. But there's always a long road between ideas and execution.

I've had two barbarians in all my time playing Pillars. The first was an adventurer I tried to make into a tank, so I wouldn't have to take Eder everywhere. He didn't do too well. Mostly he couldn't withstand enemy fire very well, and dealt little damage. He did frighten and sicken enemies, but that just wasn't enough. Then I got White March and recruited Maneha. She was a decent enough damage dealer. Heart of Fury does chew through mooks like popcorn. I kept her as a dual-wielder, since I hadn't used that style much before. It's a shame her 1st level pick is Frightening Yell... I feel like it loses value eventually.

Fair point. Hanging back and sniping is well-covered by rogue's existing skillset. As for a trap-oriented one... traps were kind of pointless in Pillars. But then, it'd make a subclass that actually uses them effectively something new.

Interesting. Between this and multiclassing, the possibilities for character creation are going to be pretty hefty.

Huh, that's a lot more subclasses than I thought there would be. I was under the impression it'd be base class + one subclass. Presumably, we will get to play a base class without a subclass, though. I hope there's a sniper subclass for rogue, focusing on ranged sneak attacks. Not that anything stops a rogue in PoE1 from shooting, but it'd be nice to have a dedicated option.

I guess I've never understood the immersive factor of selling stuff to people. I just want to get the gear I want with minimum hassle and without being on the mercy of loot placement - as long as I can afford it in terms of cash and game progress, of course.

My issue with the "junk items" approach is that it feels easier to just cut out the middleman and give us more money.

I can get behind removing vendor trash altogether, but let's be honest - that's not going to happen. The only games I can think of to take this step are... Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and Witcher 1. They're all much better for it - ME3, particularly, has the best inventory I've ever seen. Witcher 2 and 3, of course, turn Witcher 1's beautiful inventory into something horrid. I feel like my ideal form of gear acquisition would be to move all the unique items into easily-found shops, and let players use crafting to fiddle with them and tune them to their needs if they feel like it. Crafting is also a solution to a problem where an item has traits you want, but falls behind in terms of pure damage/defence/DR. Pillars has a problem similar to Baldur's Gate right now, in that you're at the mercy of item placement, since all the best ones are spread around as loot or in merchant inventories.

That's odd. Neither the game's wiki nor Gamebanshee have it listed. I'll try respeccing Kana and see if it's there. On high levels, I mostly had Kana use Her Courage as Thick as Steel and The Silver Knights' Shields Broke Both Arrow and Blade as chants. They felt like solid defensive ones that felt neither redundant nor situational. Oh, and Sure-Handed Ila, of course. My crossbow-rogue found it very helpful.

I was just using it as an example, not making any statements about its usefulness. It's true that it falls off later, though, when you've got a lot of ways to knock enemies prone, without even spending any resources. The same applies to some other abilities, like the barbarians' frightening yell, I think.

I think the companions' first level ability choices are also locked in - so that Eder will always start with Knock Down, for instance.

What is this "Kindness" chant people keep bringing up? I can't find it anywhere. Also, I admit chanters are one of the two classes I can't quite crack, either (the other being ciphers, although I have a better idea now). I'm planning to build Kana as a tank with Dragon Trashed next time, but I wouldn't have come up with it by myself. A lot of their chants just feel situational, or just unimpressive. Like the 2nd level one that gives a defence bonus against fear - nice, but I can just get complete immunity from a 1st level priest spell, or a scroll.