kbot

I just joined 1.1 with my lvl 15 party and my faction with Huana took an enormous hit. The prince and queen accuse me of killing all the watershapers (they are still alive and the guild master chats with me friendly) and neither talk to me further. I don't think I've ever killed a Huana, even, ever. I am about to travel to Ashenmaw.

Can anyone confirm that level scaling is actually implemented? I've heard rumblings that, regardless of patch notes, it is not.

Rogues and rangers are still-that-one-class-you-only-multiclass. I don't know how wizard sub-classes are unchanged. Monks and chanters look super awesome. Bets are on beckoner being nerfed. I don't have any at-a-glance complaints about the rest of the classes, they seem mostly fine and/or more interesting than their PoE1 counterparts (I'm looking at you, fighters). I really just don't understand the wizard sub-classes.. was there anything ever said on the rational for them being so.... meh?

Boeorer (you probably know this but to reiterate): Mirror is essentially the same thing as reflection (30 deflection for X amount time. The deflection being reduced by 5% per hit, just with different triggering mechanism, being hit vs. casting). Just one (mirror image) invalidates the possibility of the other one (reflective) EVER working in combat. They both stack but cannot a) be renewed while either exists and b) if mirror is cast first , although reflective mirror will trigger later if mirror expires, you will never actually gain any benefit. Combat log says you gain reflective mirror but no deflection is actually added to your character. You are essentially faced with the following dilemma: Cast mirror at the beginning of the fight to take advantage of 30 deflection BEFORE being hit once. Wait to take damage, without the benefit of 30 deflection (since reflective gives you deflection AFTER you're hit), to gain the benefit the benefit of your subclass ability. Don't know if this is bugged or intentional. Ophiuchis: agree. Dunehunter: agree but I believe veil is a forbidden school.

So, I sort of have egg on my face, but unfortunately noticed some other things annoying about the effect, one of which I am sure is a bug. In line with SaruNi's question about interrupts, I ran out and did some testing. Attacking some of the poor villagers after character creation (they're monks, fyi), as well as boarding a pirate ship and running head first into his death on my illusionist, repeatedly. Rather embarrassingly, I noticed displaced image and mirror image were stacking. I'm not sure if I was imaging things in my earlier test or missing some debuffs dropping my deflection. (the subclass based ability is labeled "Reflective mirror" or something similar, and is a purple icon instead of the blue face). "Well, that's no so bad", I thought. However, through several reloads I noticed the following: 1: If have reflective image active - you cannot cast mirror image. This is an issue because every time you get hit, like mirror image, reflective image loses 5 deflection. E.g., if reflective image only has 5 deflection left, you can't cast mirror image to go back up to 30 deflection. They don't overwrite. You've got to lose the full 30 deflection to do that (the game will happily let you waste your cast time, though). "Well..." I thought "...at least I'll gain reflective image when mirror image is knocked off. That's good if I can't cast from a stun...." 2: Except that doesn't happen. When mirror image wears off, the combat log shows reflective image activating.... but it never does. You never get the deflection (no buff icon, no change in the character sheet, nor in the damage log of hits/grazes/miss). Nor do you see the icon and nor does it trigger anytime later in the fight. In other words, if you cast mirror image ever before the subclass ability activates, it never will. Less relevant but worth noting: the casting of reflective image does get interrupted - only in the combat log. In actual game play, although the log shows the spell getting interrupted, you gain the buff anyways.

It's hard to tell because it doesn't trigger until after you take damage (that also .... defeats the point of an avoidance ability). Honestly, suspect like any other spell - it can. It just casts so fast you'd need to be getting hit at the same time. I think in beta there is only "1" or 2 NPCs with mage slayer, and they have long recoveries, so I don't know how to test mage slayer easily. That being said, unless NPCs with mage slayer are just everywhere in the full game, is that really a strong mark in it's defense?

I get that there are still some advantages. It being reactive and recovery free is nice. However,just off the top of my head, it is still: 1:) The only wizard subclass ability that does something that is not unique 2:) The only wizard subclass ability that can be easily replicated by a spell (at the same tier or others) and I'd argue extremely likely to be so. A show of hands everyone that is going to cast, or depend upon, mirror image over displaced image in PoTd or harder fights in hard when getting mob'd. 3:) Does not benefit from empower (enchantment has the same issue but to my knowledge there isn't an ability that straight up frees you from a dex affliction so it doesn't suffer from 1 and 2, at least) Some other issues but those look to be the most glaring. Almost all defensive buffs can't be cast outside of combat---with the exception of Llengrath's Safeguard, which only applies its buff after the caster is Bloodied (so a one-shot assassinate backstab, or Wizard Slayer initial attack, won't get stopped). So it is pretty unique. And in terms of deflection a higher bonus than Llengrath's Displaced Image (which is useful for the reflex defense bonus). Imagine if enemies can ambush from stealth to initiate combat.... I don't understand what you're saying. Mirror image, both as a spell and as an illusionist subclass feature, can't be cast outside of combat. Just like, as you said, other buffs. What are you saying is unique about it? When attacked, the illusionist automatically and instantly gets the effects of Mirrored Image applied to that first attack, right? So it's equivalent to having it cast outside of combat, and applies to ambush scenarios. Whereas Mirrored Image has a cast time (0.4 seconds iirc) and a fast enough enemy (say, Wizard Slayer barbarian) could hit you first (and possibly interrupt the cast, etc.). I think I can see where you're going with this. I don't know of a situation with auto-pause on that you can't get off a .5 sec spell in PoE2 (beta, at least). If it was an initiative based turn-based game, I'd agree. I'm also not sure if mirror image triggers when someone swings at you (and the deflection might prevent damage) or AFTER you've been attacked once. If it's the second case, it's not like pre-buffing. I'll need to check after I'm home unless someone knows off the top of their head. Edit: I just checked the combat log. The illusionist mirror image does not trigger until AFTER you've taken damage. It's not like pre-buffing when you can gain the advantage prior to combat beginning.

I get that there are still some advantages. It being reactive and recovery free is nice. However,just off the top of my head, it is still: 1:) The only wizard subclass ability that does something that is not unique 2:) The only wizard subclass ability that can be easily replicated by a spell (at the same tier or others) and I'd argue extremely likely to be so. A show of hands everyone that is going to cast, or depend upon, mirror image over displaced image in PoTd or harder fights in hard when getting mob'd. 3:) Does not benefit from empower (enchantment has the same issue but to my knowledge there isn't an ability that straight up frees you from a dex affliction so it doesn't suffer from 1 and 2, at least) Some other issues but those look to be the most glaring. Almost all defensive buffs can't be cast outside of combat---with the exception of Llengrath's Safeguard, which only applies its buff after the caster is Bloodied (so a one-shot assassinate backstab, or Wizard Slayer initial attack, won't get stopped). So it is pretty unique. And in terms of deflection a higher bonus than Llengrath's Displaced Image (which is useful for the reflex defense bonus). Imagine if enemies can ambush from stealth to initiate combat.... I don't understand what you're saying. Mirror image, both as a spell and as an illusionist subclass feature, can't be cast outside of combat. Just like, as you said, other buffs. What are you saying is unique about it? Edit: You mean safeguard is unique? It's an enchantment spell so it doesn't even figure into the discussion with illusionists I think since it's a banned school..

I get that there are still some advantages. It being reactive and recovery free is nice. However,just off the top of my head, it is still: 1:) The only wizard subclass ability that does something that is not unique 2:) The only wizard subclass ability that can be easily replicated by a spell (at the same tier or others) and I'd argue extremely likely to be so. A show of hands everyone that is going to cast, or depend upon, mirror image over displaced image in PoTd or harder fights in hard when getting mob'd. 3:) Does not benefit from empower (enchantment has the same issue but to my knowledge there isn't an ability that straight up frees you from a dex affliction so it doesn't suffer from 1 and 2, at least) Some other issues but those look to be the most glaring. Almost all defensive buffs can't be cast outside of combat---with the exception of Llengrath's Safeguard, which only applies its buff after the caster is Bloodied (so a one-shot assassinate backstab, or Wizard Slayer initial attack, won't get stopped). So it is pretty unique. And in terms of deflection a higher bonus than Llengrath's Displaced Image (which is useful for the reflex defense bonus). Imagine if enemies can ambush from stealth to initiate combat.... It's 25 deflection (displaced image) instead of 30 (mirror image). In exchange for that 5 deflection, you get 50% hits converted to grazes, +20 reflex, and your deflection isn't reduced with each hit (mirror image, again). I don't know, would you trade 5 deflection for all that? Also, it has 0 recovery time, like mirror image, so that's not an advantage.

I get that there are still some advantages. It being reactive and recovery free is nice. However,just off the top of my head, it is still: 1:) The only wizard subclass ability that does something that is not unique 2:) The only wizard subclass ability that can be easily replicated by a spell (at the same tier or others) and I'd argue extremely likely to be so. A show of hands everyone that is going to cast, or depend upon, mirror image over displaced image in PoTd or harder fights in hard when getting mob'd. 3:) Does not benefit from empower (enchantment has the same issue but to my knowledge there isn't an ability that straight up frees you from a dex affliction so it doesn't suffer from 1 and 2, at least) Some other issues but those look to be the most glaring.

Well, the hour is very nigh, but.. The wizard: illusionist subclass - casts mirror image upon first being hit (a .5 second cast spell). It's a spell that's easily overwritten by higher spells with the same cast time and similar, over very, superior effects, e.g Llengrath's displaced image (that's just a single rank higher), and I'm sure other stuff as we get higher than is visible in beta. Why does this one subclass get such a redundant skill when all the others get unique ones (automatically being freed from dex afflictions, an ogre transformation, possible double damage from evocation spells... etc.)? I'm kinda surprised we got through this many patches with it yet unchanged...

Would it be too much to have some very obvious indication you have concentration (I'm not logged in atm, so if there is, disregard this post)? I don't mean the buff icons. I mean like a "C" in the corner of the character portrait. Something obvious but not intrusive.

Soft is healing for each target hit and I believe stacking with itself. It's almost (maybe is) broken good. I can't see it not being good and wonder if you have tried it out.

Have you ever shot a gun, like a pistol, one handed vs. two handed? Big difference. Ok, fantasy game, don't bring in RL examples, etc.

Wizards, and casters in general, feel like they're in a good place now. Maybe too good in some cases (looking at you, fury druids and evoc wizards).

You haven't played with an evocation wizard, post patch, to continue leaving them in trash tier. Just using an empowered fireball at level 5 I got: crit 132 hit 115 hit 125 hit 109 crit 121 hit 142 From one fireball - and this is par for the course. As best I can tell, empower is a) doubling evocation spell damage b) adding +acc c) guaranteeing a double cast proc (the number gets added together in the combat log). This results in empowered spells hitting for 4x base damage and one shoting several npcs at once. With the lower level spells that convert grazes to hits, and hits to crits, you're not going to get a lot of straight misses.

Eh, if they beef up spells to compensate for the longer cast times, they would feel better. Not sure I'd like the pace, personally, but at least it's workable/improvement, and you can feel like a return on taking the time to cast a spell. Right now, you have the worst of both worlds: Long cast time Little result It's readily apparent just by glancing at POE1 spell list. Concelhaunt's staff, for example, was a "fast" (.5 second) spell in POE1. Now it is 6 seconds (plus 3 second recovery time). That's 8.5 seconds before you can even do anything with it. I wish this was an outlier but that's common across the board. More disheartening is JS seems to think people think casters are slow just because melee is moving at a brisk pace and/or some bugs with melee. No. People think casters are slow because most everything takes an additional 3-8.5 seconds.

I apologize in advance for the harshness of this post. I am a big fan of the developers and loved POE1 and CRPGs in general. Now that is out of the way... The POE2 cast times are, to put it as gently as possible, terrible. I know the developers are aware of this, but really, they can't be made aware of it enough. I think I've got 450+ hours in POE1 (hard and POTD) and I struggle to push my way through a second play through of beta. Not due to difficulty - but due to how unenjoyable casters are. I'm not a grognard, I can deal with change. I know "it's just beta" (Insert your standard disclaimers here). It's just not fun watching my casters sit around for 3-9 (!) seconds to cast a spell (that might just miss, since graze no longer exists) followed by a 3 second recovery. Probably my biggest fear is that the game is already balanced too deeply based upon these cast times to change. Say it ain't so?