daveyeisley

Thank you so much!

Thanks!

I think Torm51 was just making a joke that he had achieved the forum rank 'Necromancer' and I had just necro'ed a two month old thread with my suggestions. At least if I read into his response correctly. Hopefully he can correct me if that is not accurate.

For my spell mastery spells on my Solo expert ToI PotD run I have been having great success with these 4 - many, many fights I don't even get touched: Lvl1 : Chill Fog. Blindness is awesome as they lose 25 accuracy, 20 deflection and 20 reflex which stacks with other debuffs. The movement speed penalty can also be a lifesaver, for example it can stop enemy blights and even slow-moving enemies like Adra Dragon dead in their tracks. All you need is the accuracy to land it. Lvl2 : Binding webs. I know, I know.... it does no damage and doesnt have the largest AoE or longest duration, plus a number of enemies are immune to stuck. However, it still works on the vast majority of enemies, and it is a nice low-level way of keeping baddies out of melee. I usually lead off with this to start the fight, so the enemy front liners can't close with me, and when the second liners try to run past, I will have already self-hasted - and if I have placed things right, just before they get to melee my Chill Fog lands, interrupts their movement, and then the Binding Webs tick and lock them down for me. Then its all about nuking Lvl3 : Deleterious Alacrity. Its a game-changing buff. You may not need it in every fight, but if you get a free cast it is worth it to shorten every fight and reduce any potential incoming damage. This means having to rest far less often. I am not sure if it is a bug, but it appears the endurance loss from the spell does not affect your health total at all, so it makes even more sense to master it with that in mind. Lvl4 : Ninagauth's Shadowflame. Its a very solid nuke in its own right, but it can also bridge the gap in fights where Chill Fog & Binding webs cannot sufficiently lock down the enemy field. Sometimes it will make sense to lead with this and then go Alacrity > Chill > Webs (or no webs at all and just start nuking). Other times because it casts so fast and has little recovery you may want to go Webs > Alacrity > ShadowFlame > Chill Fog or even maybe Webs > ShadowFlame > Alacrity > Chill Fog. In any event this one is so versatile it is a staple for 4th level mastery. In strategizing how to minimize resting, these spells have been amazing for me. I have also found that since I cannot access my stashed consumables, it is extremely helpful to craft in the field (as crafting allows access to your stashed ingredients, but places the newly crafted consumable into your inventory). The following consumables are excellent for field-crafting: +Potion of Infuse with Vital Essence (get to the last enemy of the encounter, then pop this - when encounter ends you will essentially recover health, which reduces need for rest) -Potion of Merciless Gaze (mainly for tough fights or boss fights, I don't always have this quickslotted) -Potion of Iron Skin (same as merciless gaze, don't use it in most fights, unless there is expectation of really getting beat on) +Scroll of Defense (again, not used in most fights, but I do usually have this quickslotted just in case) +Scroll of Valor (duration is basically almost twice as long as Eldritch Aim or Potion of Eldritch aim, plus its AoE for party, though not helpful for solo run) +Scroll of Missile Barrage (Not used much except for really tough or dangerous single enemies like Dragons - cast combusting wounds and expose vulnerabilities first, its hilarious) +Scroll of Maelstrom (These I get a ton of mileage from. Awesome large AoE, multiple dmg types, heavy overall damage, plus targets reflex which is the defense that most of my mastered spells will debuff heavily, meaning tons of Crits on each scroll I cast. On top of all that, easy to replenish from crafting in the field, so I can save my spell slots and avoid resting).

Thaos was the one who flipped the switch to create the gods. I just wonder about the metaphysicas of the PoE setting, like how is the existence of souls and soul essence explained. What is the source? Void, Adra? The planet?

Some musings on the story, not really looking for debate.... just curious how some of these questions could be explained, or if I maybe missed something - or if they were left unanswered on purpose. If Thaos created the gods out of harnessed soul essence, where did souls come from? What force or other entity ensured death/life/rebirth before the gods existed? If the gods were created, how did Abydon get a giant body (before he sacrificed himself)? If Wael continually wants knowledge concealed and hidden for people to seek it out, never letting anybody actually retain it, then shouldn't Wael be considered the God of Ignorance? If the Engwithans sacrificed their souls to create the gods with Thaos, how could he allow or approve of the gods destroying his entire civilization? If his plan was to empower Woedica to punish the gods, why didn't she stop them before they did it in the first place? And if the other gods really are that sort of lying betrayers of their creators and the people they were created to shepherd and preserve, then why is Woedica protrayed as the bad one? Why does Ondra get away with causing people and even other gods to lose things just to she can lay claim to them in perpetuity? Its one thing if losing a memory or posession is a willing choice, but she basically admits she has engineered for certain things to be lost. And she doesn't seem to see the problem with laying claim to them (isn't that stealing?) Especially the White Forge and the Eyeless, even while Abydon technically still exists, and the memory she took from him was not by his choice. Just seems like there should be some way to punish her for being such a douche.... sort of like how Durance eventually calls Magran on her BS and vows to punish her. If the Player chooses to absorb the souls of the machine in Heritage Hill, and they gain power from it.... doesn't it stand to reason, when faced with an option to empower a goddess to reign over the other gods with another massive boost of soul essence, that the player might decide to give all the gods and Thaos the middle finger and instead absorb the souls and make themself a deity? I mean, considering how ethically bankrupt and incompetent some of the gods are, the PC would probably do a better job....

I tend to agree with jojo on his characterization of the sailent points on this topic. I also agree with his workaround suggestion. I just found out that Iqali will not grant a buff from my stronghold on my PotD ToI Expert Solo playthrough.... rather irritated about it.

That sounds quite reasonable, I just hope it can be patched. I was *really* starting to enjoy that arbalest and then all of a sudden it started sucking so hard I thought there was a problem with my installation or my system....

That is not what is being proposed. The spells gained at level up currently are and should be lost during retraining, because they were *free* (and can be regained during the train without issue). The spells that were paid for should be retained because they were *purchased*. Also, considering it a bit, I think the potential for 'abuse' early game is so limited as to be nearly inconsequential. You only get 1 active grimoire, swapping takes over 10 seconds before you can cast, and you get 4 total spell slots per level - and your level restricts access to higher level spell slots. Maybe you can help me see a truly 'abusive' or 'exploitative' behavior pattern that would be available if one was able to pay to retrain a bunch of times to learn all the spells at low level? I am not advocating for this to be possible, I just can't see any significant way to benefit from it in a practical sense.... if you retrain at low level, sure its fairly cheap.... so you could conceivably do it multiple times... but you still only have access to low level spells.... so what if you eventually learn them all? OK, maybe it would be comparatively cheaper than learning them from captured grimoires.... sure, so that might be the 'exploit' that the design was chosen to prevent.... other than saving some money, how else would it effectively empower the character beyond what they would otherwise be capable of? And on the flip side, the trade-off to prevent Wizards from being able to cheaply learn all the spells is that they have to hang onto captured grimoires for the whole game, and pay the cost to re-purchase every spell they already paid for every single time they want to re-train in addition to the cost of the retrain itself, which no other class has to deal with. Sounds legit p.s. I woudn't mind grimoires if there was some mechanical benefit to them - ie. different grimoires can give certain bonuses, etc. Rare ones give really sweet bonuses, etc.

So it appears that the level 5 "Upgrade" for the soulbound weapon mentioned in the title is in reality a huge *downgrade*. Instead of the weapon getting *faster*, it actually gets slower than the lower upgrades. Gaining attack speed of 25 or 50% only reduces recovery by between 18-38 frames (higher than 10 Dex means less frames saved by the attack speed boost). Losing 50% of reload speed costs upwards of 45 frames, effectively cancelling out the bonus and making the weapon *less* powerful. I suspect the final upgrade was supposed to be +50% attack speed and -50% reload *time*, but instead it got -50% reload *speed*. This is partially offset by the Quality enchantment bump from Exceptional to Superb, but +4% accuracy and +15% damage does not make up for the increased reload time, and even if one were to erroneously call it even... then what is the point of the 5th upgrade level? The weapon was better at the 3rd upgrade level. Can this weapon's final super-upgrade please be fixed so that it actually boosts the weapons power instead of nerfing it?

I would like to add my voice to this. The base cost of re-training is the same for all classes, as it should be. For Wizards, their primary class feature is spellcasting. The versatility of their repertoire of spells learned determines a great deal of their functional capabilities, and they have to *pay additional money* to expand this beyond what they gain at levelup (because levelups provide only a *fraction* of the total available spells for the class). Compare that to Priests as an example. They Level up, they don't have to carry a Grimoire, they don't have to pay extra, and they get *all* the spells available each time they gain access to a new spell level. If the Wizard character pays the same amount to retrain like everyone else, how can it logically follow or be even remotely fair that they would need to hang on to Grimoires for the entire game that they *already paid* to extract the spells from - and further have to pay *all over again* for the spells they already learned from those Grimoires. I suspect this was an oversight, not a design choice - because as a design choice it is nearly indefensible.

So PoE2 has slowed down casting, is that right? Also, am I to understand that Quick Switch + Coil allows one to swap weapons instantly after casting, and this totally skips the recovery time, allowing the nest spell immediately?

Not only am I not seeing my "Weapon Focus: Noble" affect this soulbound Arbalest, I actually made the effort to upgrade it to level 5 and the last upgrade utterly *ruined* the weapon. It got +50% attack speed, which is nice (but only affects recovery but still saves between 18-35 animation frames depending on your Dex), but then it also got -50% reload speed which basically cranked the reload frames from 90 up to 135! Totally counter-productive, and no longer worth using.... it wouldn't matter if the thing got 0% recovery from the attack speed, the reload takes back all that gain and loses more speed on top of it.... it did get upgraded to Superb Quality, but the accuracy and DPS from Quality is again totally lost by the reload speed loss. I have to hope this was not intended... when I first saw the last upgrade I got excited because I thought it read +50% attack and Reload.... what a bummer.

Glad to hear it. Seems that I motivated you to even make first post That was an oversight. Maces and Spears have 30 frames base attack duration, and 50 frames base recovery duration. Fixed and updated the calculator) Awesome, thank you again! And yes, you may totally take credit for me registering and participating in the forums. I admit that the mechanics and systems in PoE seemed initially very strange to me, and it took me until finding the Adra Dragon on Od Nua 15 with my level 10 party (and getting completely stomped a few times) to really begin to wrap my brain around the finer points (because I knew I needed to in order to win). Once I got the Accuracy axiom sorted out (ie. you need sufficient accuracy before you can land any debuffs, and in deadly fights you need time to buff accuracy - therefore, you need action speed then Summons, and then accuracy buffs to give yourself a chance to win) I started trying to figure out action economy. By comparison to Accuracy, the action economy was incredibly confusing between weapon types, action animation, recovery, reload, action speed buffs, recovery penalty reduction, and then which ones will stack. I googled the crap out of it nearly every single useful thread had a link back to your thread here as a definitive authority on the topic. When I finally dove in, I was extremely impressed by the clarity and disciplined methodology you used to ensure the information was as accurate as possible. When I saw something wasn't making sense to me, I first questioned if it was me misundertsanding, but after investigating and not being able to reconcile it, I knew my best course was to ask. I am glad that it wasn't me being dumb, but I do kinda wish the correct recovery value was 33 frames lol Excited to have an answer, and even better that it helped improve the tool you made!

Yes, maces ans spears should have the same speed as sabres - it was probably an oversight. Thanks for responding. I suspected it might be, but this also makes me wonder which value is the correct one. Should it be 50 recovery frames do you think? Do you know if MaxQuest is still active on this thread, or did I miss the boat?