Soulmojo

I agree what you are saying, but you don't count that many ability doesn't target deflection, it targets other defenses. And in most and those defenses are much higher. Yes accuracy is in balance if you look at attacks agains deflection, but I don't think it is against other defenses. Especially because many class has access to +20 affliciton defense, and +10 bonus to one defense raising the bar even higher. All in all though I'm on your side on this. I would much rather see secondary bonuses on stats, like bonus to healing received, reduced affliciton duration, bonus affliction duration... and other stuff like those. These would be very much useful. They don't seem to be strong at first glance, but if you can shake off a paralyze or stun affliction sooner for example, that could be the difference between party wipe and living. Errrr so u agree with my point or not? You know that when enemy's defense is high, accuracy has nearly the same effectiveness as strength, which boost your DPS by around 3%, but when your accuracy goes higher or enemy defense goes lower, the relative gain u get from per accuracy is reduced, and eventually because much less effective. So when u say that spells target other defense and these are much higher. You are proofing accuracy is not that weak so Perception should stay at its current stats In summary, when you don't have efficient way to boost accuracy, accuracy will remain high efficiency. So I think Perception adding 1 accuracy is still OK. No I agree with you. I'm just saying that with spells where damage is not involved, translating accuracy to damage gained is hardly possible, and the value of accuracy is not diminished. Even the opposite, because the more accuracy you have the less rng is involved and the more likely you get longer duration. And since these abilities and spells are facing fort. ref. will. the bonus you gain from perception is not in balance with like it is against deflection, as fort refl and will are 50%-100% more than deflection usually. And if you play with a character who's main focus is not damage based but afflicition based, for example begulier cipher with its charms and dominates, you have to have the max possible accuracy to be able to get your spells be top effective. It is very painfull to see when your charm or dominate spell fails where you probably burned all your focus to cast, or see it graze for half duration... this is where relative accuracy efficiency never decreases, no matter how high or low the enemy defeneses compared to your acc.

You are forgetting that abilities and spells even those which does not do damage can crit and graze, e.g. more duration, or less if nothing else. You also get more penetration on attack and spells with crit which often helps reduce the no penetration penalty. Therefore in all times you should have the highest possible accuracy especially as a spellcaster, becauase it increases the effect of your spells. Ofc much of the game is rng, but I never saw the downside of having super high accuracy. This is my understanding.

I agree what you are saying, but you don't count that many ability doesn't target deflection, it targets other defenses. And in most and those defenses are much higher. Yes accuracy is in balance if you look at attacks agains deflection, but I don't think it is against other defenses. Especially because many class has access to +20 affliciton defense, and +10 bonus to one defense raising the bar even higher. All in all though I'm on your side on this. I would much rather see secondary bonuses on stats, like bonus to healing received, reduced affliciton duration, bonus affliction duration... and other stuff like those. These would be very much useful. They don't seem to be strong at first glance, but if you can shake off a paralyze or stun affliction sooner for example, that could be the difference between party wipe and living.

Not sure the AI is that intelligent. Plus this counts only with melee, nothing we cannot handle easily using other means. Besides it requires a lot of work to make the conditions suitable for this.

Yeah fixing modals and giving weapon classes same damage would be a great start. In essence the modals without the penalties would ok-ish. Though many are just blend numerical bonus. The rod and scepter modal I liked and the battleaxe damage over time modal looks interesting too. Maybe the quarterstaff +20 melee deflecton modal I could mention. but the cost, man those are severe. 100% recovery penalty? -20 deflection? -20 accuracy? early game pre level 10 these are pretty unusable. Level 1 greatsword. can you afford to reducer your accuracy or deflection to close to zero? don't think so... Can you afford 100% recovery penalty in melee? no. maybe 20%-30% but that bonus really have to be good...which is not the case.

Really? Can you post some pics?

Ah ok. But I thought ripost works when the enemy misses. With blade turning you actually get hit and you redirect that incoming damage to some other. Anyhow it is an interesting concept. I will try it out if it still works. Thanks.

Estoc deals 25% less base damage than Great Sword, but has 4 more penetration.At the same time having a 4 PEN deficit can result in dealing x4 less damage due to underpenetration. So if a player doesn't want to think about penetration / or looking for best performing weapon (math wise); he will be safer with high-PEN weapons in current beta. But yes, he can do whatever he wants) Or, I just keep using a greatsword and focus on accuracy to crit more and more. Plus cast an armor reduction debuff and use penetration consumable buff while I am at it. Or activate greatsword I win modal for +50% damage.

So I looked at what Josh said in this Frog Helms Fan Club Page: melnorme asked: General observation: In PoE2, Penetration take the role that Damage had in PoE1 for penetrating armor. Although Pen differs from Dam in that it doesn't directly kill enemies, it's likely that players will see it just as much of a must-have. If you had a buff that simply increased your damage output across the board for a duration of time, you would always cast it. The same goes for Pen. I think you should be VERY careful with handing out Pen buffs because they could become rote no-brainers. I think that is the instinct that some players will have, but there are circumstances where adding Pen doesn’t get you anything – and the cost for gaining Pen in those circumstances is wasteful. Any time your Pen is significantly (e.g. 5 or 6 points) under the target AR, adding Pen in any number that doesn’t break past -3 isn’t actually doing anything. You’re still so far under the AR that your damage is bottoming out. Similarly, if you’re already matching the target’s AR with your Pen, stacking pen in any amount that doesn’t reach double the target’s AR is a waste. If a target has 10 AR, you will do the same damage with 19 Pen as you would with 10 Pen. If you have 5 Pen and the target has 10 AR, stacking 2 points of Pen gets you to 7 Pen, which is still at the lowest damage rating (currently -75%). It would be more advantageous in those circumstances to boost your base damage, since adding 10% damage will do more to the opponent than moving from a -5 margin to -3. Of course, if you’re Overpenetrating, there’s absolutely no point to stacking Pen unless you anticipate a sudden spike in the enemy’s AR. Why is it a problem if I stacked enough penetration and It is doing nothing to me? Good for me no? Job well done! I mean yes I have more than I need, but since I don't know what I will face next it very well could be a life saver next time no? That on its own is the reward right? Plus I can move on to get stronger on other stats right? Right? Am I missing something here? And let me decide if I want to waste my stats thank you very much! Secondly. If my penetration is soo much below the enemy armor, then instead buffing penetration on everything why on earth don't make a functioning system where this is not a problem? Why do they so so so insistent on the 3 point difference like it is the scripture? Why not make a system where if you 5-6 point below enemy armor translates to 50%-60% reduction? THEN if you ad 1 damn point then it is a 10% increase of damage? If you add two then it is 20%? The same way the made this 1-3 point difference they can just as easily make another with a 10pt system. It's like they don't see the forest because of a tree or something....

Not going to contradict you, but just want to mention that weapons' base damage was stealthily changed (for some reason it wasn't added to changelog) (and for example I noticed these changes just a few days ago, despite the fact that beta3 came 19 days ago). Looking at base damage values (here's the list), it appears to me that approach to penetration system has changed. For example the relative damage difference between 5-PEN and 9-PEN was quite narrowed. And estocs deal only 25% less damage than great swords now (down from 39%). Basically if you don't want to give a damn about penetration, you can travel with an estoc and a pollaxe in offset; and in the worst case you will deal 25% less damage, than if you learned a priori enemy AR values and selected the best weapon using that knowledge; and in the best case you lose close to nothing. Also OBS will likely still re-iterate the penetration system as mentioned here. And there were also some plans to increase the penetration of low-pen and medium-pen weapons by 1 tier, as mentioned here. Although the last link makes me wonder about the tankiness of our frontline. ....Or use a greatsword or a longsword and enjoy the benefits of high damage and full damage.

Exactly, and also depends on how much penetration buff you get access to. Not to mention that Josh wanna boost average penetration of weapon by 2 in next beta, I feel even less urge to use high pen weapon after. The way I see it, if you start to toss more penetration across the board, then you undermine your mechanic, devaluating it, and then you make the system useless. To be honest I don't really want more penetration. More penetration->my armor will be even more useless->more spike damage Same goes the other way around. I would rather see less shocking damage decrease per point of difference. 1pt difference: -10% 2pt difference: -20% 4pt difference: -40% 8pt difference: -80% 10+ pt difference: -100% How hard this can be to implement seriously?

No argument here. It i also excelent agains anyone now with the current recovery times. It is hilarious when the enemy tries to cast its uber ability over and over again, and I just chain disable it. This is what baffles me really. You push the enemy out of range, and he immediately when able start to cast again and logic would dictate, that you would continue to pummel him with force of anguish until the enemy dies. If you push him away then then you, to remain on the enemy have to also move. I know it is not that plain, as usually you can find plenty additional target to interrupt but still, I find it...kinda wierd? I would love to hear that sometime, lets hope he will turn up at some time to tell us.

Wow it is really hard to point out specific things, as my experiences and feelings about those are quite complex... Penetration It is too complex of an issue, because in a way the current system is acceptable, meaning if you are heavy on armor you should be rewarded, and if you gear towards meeting the enemy armor then you are rewarded with full damage. Right now the system are too harsh on players, you cannot estimate what armor the enemy has, and making the wrong guess on higher difficulty could very well be the end of your party. If you fail too meet enemy armor by one point then you lose 25% by two point 50% by three 70%. The player is forced to make guess into the unknown. The better way to do this is to make penetration less of an impact on combat. 10% per point difference relaxes the game that if you do absolutely nothing to increase penetration or armor and reduce enemy armor you will not be able to hit high armor enemies and vica versa, but does not punish you the way it does now. Penetration has a significant impact on weapons as high penetration weapons do much less damage. And if you are really doing your job, using consumables, spells, and abilities these weapons become suboptimal real fast real soon. I would never use a warhammer, or a mace or an estoc for example because I sacrifice too much damage. I really think it was a bad design choice to make similar weapons do different damage. I have a very bad experience with armor in conjunction with penetration. Each player armor has a huge weakness, which in essence makes heavy armor useless, because the enemy usually finds a way somehow to exploit your armors weakness. In return you give up a lot of combat speed. The armor weakness was fine in PoE1 because your armor rating was divided from the damage received and you could calculate the risk you took. But here where 1-2 point difference means you get 50 vs 15 incoming damage it simply does not working. What I do now is I equip medium armor - usually breastplate - and compensate this with spells or abilities if I can. using heavier armor really does not make a difference on my characters. You really should remove weakness from armor or as I said make penetration impact much less. All the same time you struggle to find a way to do full damage. Lastly and this is much of the problem as the things I wrote above. currently if the enemy penetrates your armor by two times they get 30% damage bonus. Now I explained that the enemy exploits your armors weakness constantly, Either by sheer numbers or by employing lots of different damage types or both. So it is almost a given that you will get spike damage incoming. This is even worse when the enemy crits you and when you crit you get a bonus to penetration therefore it is almost certain that the enemy not only gets bonus crit damage, but also gets the bonus 30% from penetration. I really think this feature should and must be remowed from the game because it pushes toward too big damages. On a crit doing closer to full damage + crit damage bonus should be more than adequate. On a normal hit with high penetration full damage is a good reward.This current system in general benefits the NPC enemy in spiking the player, than it benefits the player.

The force of anguish 'push' feature I don't understand. As a monk how do you utilize this? I mean I see the point with hobbling strike, but on its own it should have a purpose. Which is what? Can someone answer me this? Also there is the blade turning ability. Can someone explain to me that too? As far as I see it, you have it for like 3-4 second, you spend wounds to activate...of which you could spend to more useful stuff. Especially because spells and ranged attacks can in essence still hit you.

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data. But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC. Yes it was misleading, the base damage of the character didn't increase it got 15%. I will correct the OP immediately. # corrected the OP, it should show the real numbers now. Thanks Dunehunter! And sorry to correct u again... but the damage/accuracy of your natural weapon is not scaled with power level, but your real level. I don't think its your mistake, but because how misleading the info show in beta currently. Natural weapon is considered as a summon weapon when u shifted, so it follows the same rule as summon weapon, which accuracy/bonus damage is scaled by level not power level now. Actually it's kinda weird that summon weapon is scaled with level while monk Transedent suffering scaled with power level. So a Wizard multiclass can have same summon weapon as singleclass, while a Monk multiclass cannot get same fist power as multiclass monk. Ahh indeed. got the same bonuses from multiclassing. This means every 5 level you gain an upgrade. wow this makes spiritshift even worse than before. I will start editing again. If you see something again my man, please post! #edited the OP

I think the damage OP shows is a bit misleading, acutally the base damage of Spritform is not changed at all. It's always 13-20. The OP included bonus damage into its data. But yeah I feel a bit boring while playing shifter because I cannot gain benefit from gears. It seems to be a better class for companion than MC. Yes it was misleading, the base damage of the character didn't increase it got 15%. I will correct the OP immediately. # corrected the OP, it should show the real numbers now. Thanks Dunehunter!

Damage: Each time your damage levels up every second power level you get 2-4 bonus damage. What I want is to break that 2-4 into two, and get 1-2 each power level. I really don't want a damage increase, but to break that bonus in half and give it every new power level instead of two. Accuracy: Same with damage, I don't want an accuracy increase but breaking the bonus to two, and give the druid every level. Armor and penetration: I suggested the +7/+9 with a lowered base number. I don't care if the lower the base number even further, to be in balance, I just don't see the point of this current version. This is not progression, what I wrote down, this is nonsense. This is pillars 1 mechanic put into an entire new system. And please don't forget, that there will be a multitude of items, which will give penetration, extra armor, damage, recovery and other bonuses you will lose when you shift. You don't see the problem because in at this level in the beta characters are more or less geared the same. Later in game when you will have access to end game gear, weapons, armor enchants there will be a big difference in power.

Hello guys! I've been doing some research on the druid especially Shifter, and Spiritshift as a whole. I am sure I'm not the only one having problem whit this feature, and how it is lacking. Special thanks to Dunehunter for pointing out wrong data! First of all I will list some stat info I gathered about this what problems I have with it. Secondly I will go into spiritshift in general, why it is lacking in my opinion, and the one sidedness of it all. Stats: Spiritshift levels up as you gain new power levels - obviously- but to my surprise it does not level up per power level, but instead every second power level, and the bonuses you get is a little weird. level 1-4: base damage of each spiritsift: 13-20 bonus to accuracy: 0 base penetration: 7 base armor: 8 next upgrade: level 5 damage: 15-23 (13-20 + 15%) bonus accuracy: 4 penetration: 8 armor: 9 next upgrade: level 10 damage: 17-26 (13-20 +30%) bonus accuracy: 8 penetration: 9 armor: 10 next upgrade: level 15 damage: 19-29 (13-20 +45%) bonus accuracy: 12 penetration: 10 armor 11 next upgrade: level 20 damage: 21-32 (13-20 +60%) bonus accuracy: 16 penetration: 11 armor: 12 Now if you can look at the numbers alone, there are serious oversights here. You gain an upgrade to the form every 5 level which foreshadows that except the very first few levels you being in spiritshift your character will be disadvantaged. The last bonuses you get at level 20. While spiritshifted you lose all the bonuses from gear, weapons. That would be fine, if the gained bonuses would outweigh the lost bonuses. I think a basic item quality level of increase of stats just don't cut it. You can get much higher armor, penetration, accuracy bonus much earlier with other classes. I want to see a progression of stats similar to the monk transcendent suffering, meaning +1-2 damage +2 accuracy +1 penetration +1 armor / power level both armor and penetration should be lowered to 6 so it is more in line with the power level progression Now I want to move on to the second part of issues with spiritshift and the signature abilities of animal forms which are a bit more focused to shifter subclass. You cannot acquire special form based and generic spiritshift exclusive abilities. Well you have one which you can cast once per form, but that is not much an improvement. And as a shifter you are locked out from using spells. So basically if you are a druid and only in for the shifting you either choose spells you wont really use or you multiclass and end up improving on exclusively on the other class. Now I though about fixing this a bit. A druid does not have power source points. So how? The answer is so blatantly obvious: You insert spiritshift exclusive abilities tied to each form you can put point into which comes available when you assume your form. You get to gain uses similar to as you gain spells, meaning if you put point on to the ability you will get one then it goes up to two. per combat. You ad a lot of form specific, and flavour abilities. If you have one form as a generic druid or lifegiver or fury you can dive into that one forms abilities, if you are a shifter you can choose to put points into each forms abilites and select only those spells which are really benefiting your character. This is really not that different from casting spells in animal form. Thank you and I hope these issues will be addressed before the game goes live. If not the second part then at least the issues with the power level progression of spiritshift.

Ok I definitely said some stupid things. But it came with some truth. So all weapon attack, ability or spell, which harms an enemy breaks stealth. I tested it with ranged weapons, priest and wizard spells. I am sorry If I spread misinformation. BUT. If your character is in stealth, If you cast defensive spells, and buffs e.g healing, bless disciplined barrage etc. those will not break stealth. This is why I came to the false assumption of quiet abilites does not break stealth. This last weekend when I did combat, My wizard and priest remained in stealth during the combat although they casted spells. This is where my mistake came. Anyhow it is good to know that casting purely defensive stuff keeps stealth.

Yeah that jacket... And we know it can survive a nuclear holocaust.

It definitely works with spells. My priest remained in stealth while casting spells the whole fight. I didn't tested it with weapons honestly. will do today.

well I could certanly see some focus towards grenades and explosives. You just have to spec for mechanics. One black jacket to the other: Where did you received your special forces training? Dyrwood. You? Ruatiai. I knew it. You use explosives like no other! :)

I dabbled a bit with black jacket some time ago. I was trying to play under the assumption that i have to equip different weapons for different damage types. Well truth is this requires a rather unorthodox playstyle. Meaning what you want is dual damage weapons and guns. Scepters or guns, greatswords and swords and shields specifically. Greatsword you use when you need to do a ton of damage in one swing. scepters to dual wield and to attack from ranged, when you cannot reach someone, or you need extra armor pierce. (scepters are great) or arquebus. whatever is your preference. sword and shield when you need to be defensive. The strength is that you can adapt to literally every situation. Tank when you need, do ranged when it is better, dps with greatsword in melee when you can. Or equip multiple guns, shot ->switch->shot->switch etc. think about the alpha strike you can unleash to the enemy. The fighter has disciplined strike of which you have the highest chance to score a hit due to conversion. The basis for arquebus. One fun fact, that warrior dual wield style, two handed style, and single weapon style applies to ranged weapons (tested). Another fun fact is if you attack with silent ranged weapons or spells from stealth it does not break stealth. so essentially you can remain safe. There is a reason there is the sound effect listed in the descriptions of abilites in other stuff. So all in all there are plenty of chance to abuse black jacket. Basically Black jacket is the dedicated 'commando class' in the game.

Well we've seen an Abydon's Hammer in the first game which was two handed instead of one. I don't see a reason not having a ranged staff in the game. Though that it will be is doubtful. What you are describing requires coding an entire new animation set. As far as I saw you can change the skin of items or edit some of the stats but attack animation? I don't think so. At least I didn't saw mods like that. Rods are supposed to be the two handed caster weapons in the game. Maybe if we're lucky we will see a staff soulbound weapon with properties of a Rod. That would be cool. At least you can equip shields with some implements and dual wield them now. that is a huge step forward.

Hello again, I played some more with the monk leveraging new weapons and skills, and I wanted to share my findings. So first things first, I have to say, I'm more inclined to not choose a multiclass for monk. The slower progression of power level makes it difficult to reach to the desired effectiveness. What I mean is that monk get the 'good stuff' from tier 4 and well multiclassing puts that level to lvl10 which means that you already progressed almost half of the game before you start to get access to useful abilities. The more I play with monk the more I find that this is one of the classes which is very well balanced in terms of abilities, and cost of abilities compared to other classes. What do you think? I tried out different weapons too, and I found that to no surprise the best weapons are dual damage weapons. Much more relaxed playstlye. Two weapon was especially great to the monk. 1. Scepter. The scepter does not do that much damage, but its modal have a powerful synergy with monk. there is ofc. the 20% damage bonus, and there is +2 penetration which on its own is very great combined with dual damage. the synergy is self inflicted raw damage (20% of the damage you do) now this doesn't cancels the dance of death ability, and generates wounds through self inflicted damage. which in turn you can translate to wound based abilites and bonuses. It functions something like the shattered pillar bonus, but with self damage. Steady wound generation with dance of death. 2. Greatsword. Greatsword do great damage has dual damage. and it has brutal synergy with wound abilites, like force of anguis and torments reach. Since those are primary attack abilites, you do full greatsword damage. If I was lucky to score a crit i dealed 40+ damage in additon to the debuffs. This weapon is though more likely benefits multiclass than pure monk. Fighter or paladin for example. Abilites: Swift strikes: I struggled with being effective with the monk (as per my playstyle) I tried to force swift strikes. But despite the benefits it is sooooooooo not worth it, at least with this duration. Why I think this: The combat was slowed down considerably (this was one of the balance changes I found great). But with around 3-4 sec recovery times, By the time you get to swing the third-fourth time the duration runs out. It is a resource sink, with little to no return. It's duration scales with power level very bad (5% per power level) and because the short duraton it scales very badly with intellect too. I was more effective by not putting points to it. Essentially the duration of this ability needs to be buffed to 15 seconds to be useful. And I still would hesitate to put points into the ability. My breaking point would be 20 second...but that is an irrational expectation in my opinion. Force of anguish + stunning blows + torments reach. I have to say, I didn't really understood what is the point of these abilites, untill this last weekend. I went around on the combat field and whenever I saw someone start to cast something I rushed and punched them with one of these. Every fight become much-much easier, as I chain interrupted everyone. It was glorious. :D Now going about breaking engagement was a bit rough on my character so I put points to engagement defense and stride, and employed some defensive spells with my priest. Overall it was quite satisfying I would say. ++torments reach+++: the wound cost is a bit pricy, I would say 2 wound cost or an upgrade which reduces cost by one would be awesome. I still expect a higher tier second upgrade whihc makes this full attack... :D Thundering blows: This is a great supplement but I think it should be tier 2-3 instead 4. would help a great deal with early gameplay. Duality of mortal presence: This is a good ability. Well balanced Rooting pain: Honestly I didn't get the opportunity to try this out. Maybe next time. Blade turning: very short duration and counter intuitive imo. You spend wounds for a 3 sec melee immunity. Meh. All in all I cannot name a single ability which is more or less not usefull with the exception of blade turning. Sublcasses: Nalpazca: The best monk sublcass, great trough and through, you just have to put a lot of points to alchemy to further increase the duration of drugs. I recommend it to all. Shattered pillar: Still think it is garbage, but only because the reduced wound amount. If that penalty would be lifted, I would recommend as much as Nalpazca. (It is great to know though that the most expensive wound based ability will cost five) Helwalker: Fairly balanced though I would only recommend this if you play with scepters or other ranged weapons, or ranged fist. (potentially powerful if monk will have iron wheel) Stats: Intellect simply does not worth it. All monk skills are interrupts they serve their purpose with low int, so If they not tweak the duration of lightning strikes it is a worthless stat. Resolve: since your focus should be having a ton of hp and armor, you can decrease this. Worthless. Only useful if you multiclass to a caster. Constitution: The single most important and most useful stat for monk Perception: The second most important stat, especially because some monk abilities target fortitude. which is much higher than deflection. Dexterity: On par with perception the more the merrier. Strength: not that much vital, 14-15 is enough. Some addional info: Flagellants path Skyward kick Exploding palm These three ability will be tier 7. I rewatched the video about the revised multiclass system. The example monk character had 9 power source point. At level 1 you start with 3 power source, you gain one point at each new power level. 3+6=9 = tier 7 Let me know what you think.