arkteryx

The removal of re-targeting in TB somewhat incentivizes action speed so you can aim more precisely. I don't like the change personally, but I suppose it's something.

They mention in the video that they redid some content including new voice-overs. Mainly relating to Woedica and Eothas so don't expect the whole game to be new but supposed to make the gods' motivations clearer.

So does this make the final boss easier or harder after killing the megabosses? Another case where they should really let us see tooltips for enemies.

Only if you choose the optional challenge when starting the game. Otherwise you can take as long as you want.

And there was much rejoicing!

They are presumably focusing on the console port which should be coming out any time now (was originally listed as march 31st, now TBD). Hopefully that will include fixes and the non-beta version of TB that then will also appear in the PC version.

My problem with the sundial part was that the door to the tower didn't show up as interactable like every other door in the game, so I just kept going back and forth looking for the last fragment. Finally had to look up a youtube guide.

What do the arcane conduits and bile ducts do on him? I tried killing them at first, didn't seem to do anything so I just burned the boss. But I wonder if there was a better strategy there.

Not sure if that's a bug or intended, you too can perform some free actions like changing stance even when it's not your turn. I haven't figured out which you can and which you can't (you definitely can't use second chance the most obvious one) but some work.

But would you? Pausing every other second to swap weapons in RTwP would be incredibly tedious. Suppose there was an ability that let you instakill any enemy if you could solve a fiendishly difficult math problem but would kill you if you answered incorrectly. No one would use it because it would be too hard and the penalty too harsh. Now suppose they changed the math problem to simple addition. It would break the game even though this would only technically be a "quality of life" change. The hypothetical strength of the ability hasn't changed (in perfect play it automatically wins in either case) but its real life applicability certainly has. I would argue TB affects several abilities, such as spirit tornado or free weapon swapping, in the same way. It doesn't matter that you could hypothetically get similar (though again I'd argue not identical) performance in RTwP, the increased ease of use materially affects the strength and balance of abilities.

Yeah it's kind of sad that you can't use smoke bomb to make stealth attacks in turn based since it runs out before your next turn (unless you have stupid amounts of intelligence). The only useful way to use assassin is the stealth upgrade to escape since it's a free action, but it costs 3 guile instead of 2 like smoke bomb so you can't use it much. Still does work on my cipher/assassin, open from stealth to fill focus, spam spells for a while, then vanish to refill. Works because I can get several turns worth of cipher spells off of one stealth attack, wouldn't be as good for a true melee that was trying to attack every turn since you'd run out.

But you can​ spam spirit tornado... in RTwP. TB only makes more apparent some strong features already existing in RTwP. I recently found a reddit post about how convenient Black Jackets are becaus eof instant swapping. But this isn't a new feature from TB. Good luck getting the enemy to stand still for even 4 seconds to dump your spirit tornados. The ability to perfectly position yourself against stationary targets is what makes spamming it OP. As for black jacket swapping, it's not just convenient, it's broken. If you could swap once per turn, allowing you to always have the best weapon for a given target, that would be reasonable. But swapping to that weapon to attack then swapping back to a dagger and large shield for huge defense on the enemy turn is not. I suppose you could hypothetically swap in RTwP in between every auto-attack (not sure how that would affect your recovery, does it still go off your old weapons even after you switch), but that would be insane. I challenge anyone to say that they played this way. And even then it wouldn't be as good as the current TB system since you would at least be more vulnerable during your attack animation as opposed to always having the higher defenses against all enemy attacks.

The common request is to let you use any number of unique free actions but each one only once. So you can buff your battlemage but you can't spam spirit tornado.

Appears to be fixed. I tested Frygist and Kapana Taga at least, dropped as intended from boarding.

I had this happen with Lord Darryn's Voulge too, supposed to be slash shock. If one AR is lower it properly switches types but if they were simply immune to shock it did nothing (didn't test on slash immune targets). Luckily there are very few shock immune enemies so just fake your way through those fights and move on. There are however lots of pierce immune enemies, have you tried it on them, would be interesting to see what it does.

Just like you mention with free actions being limited to once per round, you should only be able to swap weapons once per round on black jacket. Even just swapping fighter stances back and forth seems wrong. They already have something like this with grimoires, it's free to swap but you can't swap back the same turn. Not the it matters there since no one cares what grimoire you have equipped during the enemy turn (other than vaporous), should do the same with weapons. If you want to make predator's sense work, I recommend gouging strike, lasts forever. It seems like the damage on wounding strike is bugged, most abilities that ticked once every three seconds got their damage/healing doubled in becoming per round since that's six seconds, but not wounding. Hopefully it gets fixed. So many action speed abilities are worthless now, like swift strikes and time parasite. I'm hoping they swap to an ATB/speed based system so we can use them again. Letting you attack twice per round with sufficiently high action speed would just make every dps build aim for that breakpoint, a fluid system would be better. Knock down is bad since prones are bad but mule kick with the knock up properly stuns them for a turn so it's quite useful.And I don't agree about dual wielding being strictly better. Before it was +35% speed now it's +100% speed but -35% damage so 2 x .65 = 1.3 roughly the same amount. Of course this is napkin math but primary attacks still have their place with two-handers, one handing is still trash.

Yeah you should be able to use as many different free abilities as you want but each one only once per round.

It's an interesting attempt but I would take it with a giant grain of salt. Way too many variables, different people with different ideas about the basis of the ranking, fun versus power versus popularity.

I agree that SSS is the worst, disjointed fights with no real context and annoying fetch quests. The one thing they could do to redeem it would be to let us add modifiers to the fights, change the level, the terrain, special modifiers like everyone is perma-blinded or limited range. You beat one fire titan, but now can you beat three at once that are level 25 while in a slog zone but you have infinite casts? Would be unbalanced as hell but who cares, nerf xp and loot so people can't farm it, just for fun. This is after you've beaten the fights properly once of course. Make it a proper combat simulator. Would be good for playing with builds if nothing else. I thought BoW was pretty good, only major complaint is giving us a companion who's special attacks are worthless against the majority of its enemies. I get thematically that an ice expansion would have a character that uses ice attacks, but it disincentives you to bring him along. My favorite though was definitely FS, maybe just because I love dungeon-crawling. Big, interconnected areas are more interesting to me than so much of deadfire where you go somewhere, have one fight, then go back to the world map. Even if walking around an area map between fights like in PoE1 is functionally the same thing, it just feels more immersive, cohesive. I felt like there were more meaningful decisions too, not only which order to tackle things, but what to do with the fungus, the organs, and of course the body. I look forward to playing it again and doing things differently, see what happens. On the other hand I guess I'll make the opposite choices in SSS and BoW next time just because but I don't expect them to change much. Thematically it worked well with my irreverent Watcher though I could see how it might conflict with a more serious RP.

Not disputing that willbreaker is good for devoted and barb gains from the fort debuff, but there's no synergy from a brute himself wielding it. Having a teammate wield it is just as good. Lord Darryn's specifically gains from the extra carnage hits making it better on a barb than on anyone else. The upgrade that makes it disorient on proc is also really nice.

Blood mage caster or hybrid. I currently running a blood mage/monk using citzel's spirit lance. Evoker if you just want to blow **** up. Chanter/marital hybrid can also be great, skald can paralyze every other round.

The fast forward thing is a known bug that obsidian is working on. As for kills spawning other enemies, you aren't using the essence interrupter bow are you? Because it has a special enchantment that does that.

Also note that you can always use the unity console to force soulbound items to bind, cheating I know.

Glad that resolved. Luckily it seems like non-combat requirements are retroactive, I re-bound the Guardian's Plate and wasn't sure how I would re-reforge the soul of a follower since it's a one time only event but it just auto-completed as soon as I put it on someone else.

I highly recommend brute. Berserker/devoted with lord D has +4 pen, can self cleanse the confused, lots of good passives, and clear out works like a mini heart of fury. There are some synergies on howler about summoning skellies then killing them to proc grave calling and other on kill effects, but it feels gamey and clunky to me and anyway works just as well with someone else summoning the skeletons for you.