Vaneglorious

Actually, the adra and the alpine dragons are both easy once you reach a certain level, especially with full party. And they're also easy because they get bodyblocked by their own minions. I think these fights are only difficult if you don't have a priest and/or spellcasters. I remember the first time I encountered the adra dragon. Right after we finished the dialogue, my whole party got oneshot by her breath attack, even Edér. I was like "oookay then, come back later I guess". For Llengrath you need to kill Concelhaut and take his skull, then in WM2 you can find a corpse right at the western exit of Stalwart, which will trigger it.

This might sound funny, but the toughest (or rather, most annoying) fights were in the Abbey. Those priests spamming crowns on their monk/fight/paladin frontliners can be a major pain. I'm not even sure which was the toughest fight, maybe Brynlod. I pretty much melted every dragon with my Stormcaller cipher with priest buffs on.

I think it's good. Having that plus one attack gives Edér another chance for the knockdown, as one example.

If there was a creature or encounter that spammed Arcane Dampener, you would simply lead with CC (this party has tons, even if excluding scrolls and items). In addition, unless it is an auto-hit, Arcane Dampener still needs to land. Finally, if buffs were removed, takes a few seconds to recast the 2-3 buffs you need to dominate most combats. If there was an encounter that had Auto-hit, Multi-spammable, Arcane Dampeners it would be fun for this party, since everyone is built to melee (tank-like). This party also takes advantage of numerous contingency melee/crit items stacked on everyone: Swaddling, Ryona's, Shod, Drag's Maw, Black Sanct, Royal DeadFire, Echoing Misery, Autumn, Master Mystic, etc. In the end, even if everyone's buffs were suppressed, they should be able to adequately handle the engagement. Personally, I favor melee classes and I would enjoy an encounter that fully suppressed magic, even stripping item enhancements. This would be an interesting challenge and make the melee classes shine a bit. Maybe Pillars 2 has something up its sleeve... There could be enemies that spammed Arcane Dampener AND Suppress Affliction with super high accuracy. Nothing is impossible to defeat, but that'd be a major pain.

Guys...I am so confused... https://imgur.com/a/P5KET What's causing this? I used the console prior to this btw, but only to tinker a bit with the fixed followers' base stats. I didn't break anything or did anything overblown. I simply rerolled them from lvl 1, which the game doesn't let you do. EDIT: apparently pressing U (shortcut for my spell) insta kills mobs. Must be the console then :-/ .

I rolled a cipher MC with Stormcaller and it's pretty sick. Would be really sick if the on-hit proc gave focus lol. I'm at 110 very quick. All these acc bonuses I can stack are great. Although I'm also a glass cannon, so can't wait for mindweb. The fights with the enemies in White March can get messy. The lagufaeth or how you spell it can be very annoying. I'm not entirely sure if the "+10 def vs" talents are of any use tbh. I put both bear's fortitude and body control on most of my party, but they're still getting perma-paralyzed and stunned. What's the point even? I have to use priest buffs either way lol.

@Boeroer Does cipher get more focus when the spell procs on Stormcaller?

I hope they will make canonical characters 100% adjustable (except for looks, of course). I very much prefer running with the fixed companions for their stories and banter amongst each other. My problem with Durance is that his DEX is dismal for a priest, so it takes a LONG time to get the buffs off, while a high DEX priest does it in under a few seconds. Spellcasters are obviously the top dogs, but I like having "mortal" classes with me for flavor.

That makes sense. Although later on it happen with Darzir, the leader of the attack on Stalwart. And there were enemies nearby. Wish I made a screenshot of that, as well.

I see. Yes, it was easy to comprehend. So if multiple party members are attacking the marked target, only the closest gets the accuracy. So if I want to use my Stormcaller MC to get the acc bonus firing from the backline, I need to be the only one attacking to get the bonus. Just out of curiosity, can attacking friendly NPCs "steal" this acc bonus? Including my own summons and charmed enemies. Also, could somebody explain this? This is a recurring thing. I charm/dominate somebody, then they just shrug off the effect and become hostile again after a second. You can even see the visual effects of the previous spell Puppet Master before I cast Whispers of Treason, which crit for 22.5 sec, but then the ogre became hostile right away yet again. https://imgur.com/a/pJNY1

New question popped up in my mind. There are multiple "+acc when attacking the same target as an ally" mechanics, on weapons, talents etc... Do they apply to only one ally? Or all? And if only one, which one? Randomly chosen or the closest? The paladin talent Coordinated Attacks says it is for only one ally, the closest one.

This would be interesting if there were enemies that spammed Arcane Dampener on your party. Have fun with 0 buffs..

They are both good. Yes, but do they apply to the spell acc? Thanks again btw.

Great, thanks. That answered everything, I believe, and then some. I feel stupid for giving Aloth a rapier now. So the duration on CW is just the debuff itself? And it stacks indefinitely per damage instance (but not dot ticks)? That sounds pretty powerful. I've been combining chill fog with it, and it's amazing what a level 1 and 2 spell combo can do. So is it then a good idea to go 1h/shield and take weapon & shield style talent? Isn't the spell acc reduced by shields? (well, by medium and bigger, anyway) Oh yeah, and another question came to me. The on-hit effects on weapons only apply to weapon attacks, right? What's your take on the racials, though? Both wood elf and boreal dwarf have them.

Hi. So I've been trying to find answers to a lot of questions regarding obscure or otherwise ambiguous/unclear mechanics in PoE. I hope someone from the ranks of experts can find the time to help me out in this. I couldn't find these answers on the internet, despite my efforts. Here are my questions: -1- Is spell accuracy directly derived from weapon accuracy? For example, if I have 50 accuracy with my current weapon, and the spell says (+10 acc vs will), does that translate to 60 accuracy vs will? If yes, does this mean I have a significant boost to spell acc if I have a 1H weapon only? -2- Do talents affect spells? i.e. if I, let's say, have the 1H talent (+15% hit-to-crit), does that also apply to spells? Being a wood elf and/or having the marksman talent have any effect on spells? -3- Does sneak attack (including Skaen and apprentice) affect spell damage? -4- Does the spell Combusting Wounds refresh each time damage is suffered? Do dots trigger it? If yes, isn't it a bit redundant to use it with dots, for example from a priest? -5- Do the bonuses from MIG and INT stack when using dots? Or does INT simply make it unnecessarily longer for the same damage output? Also, I read that Wounding effect (from Persistence, for example) does the same damage every time, only affected by MIG, and INT only has a detrimental effect on it. Is that the only dot effect that behaves like this? That's all that comes to mind right now. These questions keep me up at night (not really but it's a nice figure of speech ^^ ). Thanks for your answers in advance.

I'm not really bothered by the loading times. Ever played Dragon Age: Inquisition? Guild Wars 2? You'd go nuts. I also don't have a potato PC, though.

Well, that's a relief. Most of the time I felt like RES is a dump stat, with its usefulness extending mostly to tanks and role playing. And the mixing of physical and magical attributes just made no sense to me, frankly. I'm really hopeful that PoE2 will be an improvement not only visually (which I already confirmed), but also in all the other aspects, as well. I also just noticed that they had announced the release date. That day can't come fast enough.

Some fair points raised. I guess they didn't have the budget, which is unfortunate. I know Obsidian can make a solid RPG experience. My personal letdown with PoE is the attribute system. While it does have merits, it goes against logic and classic RPG mechanics. For example, in order to be a powerful Wizard or any spellcaster for that matter, you need Might (arguably the Strength equivalent) for the damage and healing power. Which is...weird, but I'll let it slide. But when my spellcaster needs Might to do certain actions in dialogue, for example, that's clearly based on physical prowess. It's weird to me that my Wizard needs to be physically buff, or that my Barbarian needs to be a genius (high INT) to be efficient. The other beef I got with the game is that most reputations are meaningless. Yes, they do hold consequence every now and then, but nothing too heavy. Then there's follower disposition. Only a very few specific actions force certain followers to leave your group, but only that can happen, nothing positive, afaik. These are all valid criticisms imo, but I still like this game, and will continue playing it, and will buy PoE 2 on release day.

I made a wood elf cipher that uses the newly added Arbalest (long name, forgot) that's sold by that Aumaua in Anslög's Compass. That thing is pretty sweet. Ciphers aren't micro heavy, either imo. I almost always roll with a fighter tank, and having a chanter as off-tank can be very useful and light on the micro. On ranger I prefer being ranged, especially using Stormcaller.

Where did you see this? So far all of my endings were the same - Thaos kills the Duc and all hell is broken loose. edit: Checked wiki, it's only for the end slides apparently.

Maybe I'm wrong, but for me that whole thing was...kind of disappointing. It was giving me vibes from the NWN 2 trial, but in the end it totally doesn't matter what you say. The end result is always the same with no tangible difference.

I only ever go to Dyrford (but never first) to grab Tall Grass after I got the 10k gold quest reward.

That level 3 wiz spell Dampen Magic, or what's it called, is extremely useful in this fight. The statues and Thaos are all buffed to hell, this will weaken them a ton. My only beef with the end fight (and the Adra Dragon one) is that the game forces your party into a fixed position. I really hate when these things happen. You barely have any opportunity to go into formation. I remember the first time I encountered the Adra Dragon, right after the dialogue ended, my whole party got instantly oneshot. I was like...oooookay this was fair.

No they won't.. I started a thread about this: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91683-good-people-need-some-perm-ability-score-bonuses/ and basically half the people thought it was fine and that "...people who are good shouldn't do things for rewards" or asked questions about "what is good anyway?" completely missing the poing that this is a game not an a study into types of ethical theory. Someone even asked in one of the director's Q&A vids mentioning my thread (i was pleased!) - His reply was basicallly he doesn't think they need to be equal and wont be balancing good/evil perm stat bonuses. So lookfoward in deadfire to bad dudes getting loads of perm ability bonuses while "good" guys get an extra 20 copper pieces from the quest giver for doing the "right thing" Good guys should still get something, if not stat boosts, a good rep that helps them get by. Just like in the original Baldur's Gate. Being evil was pretty difficult there, if not downright impossible at times. Now that was a challenge. Being good required sacrifices, but people (NPCs) recognized your good rep and treated you differently. The only one I know of is GM.

In the previous RPG games it was usually like if you chose to be good, you had much better rep overall, and people helped you out, was easier to get by. I remember back in Baldur's Gate if you were evil, you were in for a rough time, with all those Flaming Fist guys hunting you in every city and town, for example. What I really miss is follower disposition. Like there were 'good' and 'evil' type followers that always voiced their opinion on your actions, and if you strayed too far from their beliefs, they'd abandon your cause or even turn on you. IIRC it was like that in NWN 2, which was also made by Obsidian. I'm not sure what PoE 2 has in store, but I'm secretly hoping they will add something similar. I also hope my decisions will carry over somewhat, at least. PoE resurrected the isometric cRPG genre for me, so I'm really hopeful they will nail it with 2. Either way, I'm getting the game on release day, and that day can't come fast enough. @qEin I'd ask you to spoil it, but this is the no spoiler section, so I probably can't.