[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I wonder what causes this. Which manically weird if-clause determines whether an attack roll adds to the stack or not?

I mean, it's not like hunter's claw was pristine coded to begin with . Notably the save/load shenanigans that still happen.

In other news: I don't know if that has already been reported at some point, but apparently only the second hit of sun and moon benefits from the +12 acc from one handed...

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

11 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I wonder when/how that was changed? Because I tried it again a few weeks ago (after final patch afaik - maybe I'm wrong here) and Fire in the Hole with Chain Shot and Driving Flight (=2 AoE jumps) still gave me multiple stacks per ability use. Same as Sun & Moon (2 stacks per swing). It was a great weapon setup for Hunter's Claw.

Edit: @Myrtillo - just tried it, it didn't change I think. I fired into a pack of dummies and got 14 stacks from one mortar shot... Maybe it's just "normal" blunderbusses that got "fixed"? I will investigate further...

 

The 20 stacks come from three attack with Sun & Moon first (each still giving me 2 stacks per swing as they used to) and then 14 at once with one shot with Fire in the Hole (with Driving Flight and Chain Shot). Note that 14 was the limit since the cap is 20. Maybe I would have gotten even more out of that one shot? Edit: nope, I always get 14... strange.

Now testing Kitchen Stove:
Got 3 stacks from one shot (although hitting way more often) with Driving Flight. Then used Wild Barrage: got 6 per shot. It seems that blunderbusses only count the first projectile but jumps do count (somehow - why 3 and no 2? Why 6 and not 4?). Mysterious... 

 

Did a bit more testing and my conclusion is it's completely inconsistent. With a fine blunderbuss I got one stack from 3 hits 1 graze, and on the next try 2 stacks from 2 grazes 2 misses.
Then with sun and moon I sometimes get 1 stack, sometimes 2, regardless if I hit, graze or crit...

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

Update: It apears hunter's claw cannot generate more than 1 stack anymore, even with a blunderbuss shot. Too bad.

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

a) if your ACC is so low compared to the enemy's defense that you can't even crit with +12 ACC (or less than 12 out of 100).

b) if your ACC is so high compared to Defense that +12 ACC will not lead to more crits (or less than 12 more out of 100).

 

On paper yes, but both are very unlikely to actually happen in game given ennemy stats.

Maybe a) has a bigger chance to happen, but the case would still call for 1-handed: When you are struggling to hit is most likely when you want this acc bonus

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

  

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Like in PoE, two handers have the same attack time and recovery as the heavy one handers like sabres.

Thanks for the remainder, I am too used to rapiers and flails lately   

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

+12 ACC does not equal +12% crit chance.

Does it not ? My math is probably wrong then, my logic was : rolls are on a d100, therefore +1 acc in any given situation is +1% additive chance to hit and to crit.

Say you have 50 acc and your target has 40 deflection, your natural crit chance is 10% (rolls between 91 and 100). If you use a 1 hander for +12 acc, your natural chance to crit becomes 22% (rolls between 79 and 100).

What am I missing ?

 

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Since crits only do +25% additive dmg the two handers generally are better dps weapons after the early game than a single one handed. Unless you do a special build and/or use a very special weapon.

Like I said, I'm aware of that, I'm just curious to see if the difference is that massive in the end, given the pen and overpen opportunities, the +25% dmg (or 35% with the passive), and whatever on-crit effects factored in as a bonus.

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Does it have to be a SC Ranger? Because I can imagine that such a melee Ranger/Monk with tons of ACC and Swift Flurry and Heartbeat Drumming might be nice?

I mean Enduring Dance should stack with Hunter's Fang etc. right? With the bonus ACC of Scordeo's edge and Blade Cascade you will most likely proc additional attacks in very quick succession which then proc Blade Cascade again and so on...?

It does have to be a single class ranger, yes. First of all because I don't like multiclass for my watcher (and very rarely for other characters), and secondly because I want to go for whirling strikes with high int + crits, for what I assume should be a lot of raw damage with a fast ticking dot.

 

3 hours ago, Heukalyptus said:

You only listed melee weapons, is that a requirement for you ? Pistol modal gives you -15 Accuracy (easily canceled by the +12 accuracy from one-handed) and -50% recovery.

Both Scordeo's Trophy and Thundercrack Pistol have crit synergies (more dmg or paralyze). 

Yeah, mostly melee, but I don't mind the ocasionnal pistol dip into some pistol play when the situation calls for it. I just did too many pistol using builds already. Single hand pistol+modal is not that different from dual wield pistol+melee, and has less reactivity if you go for a hybrid. I did a build back in the day focusing on pistol+sabre, easily the character I spent the most time on (I think it's still in the build lists, "the intelligent captain")

 

3 hours ago, thelee said:

one more thing - ime, the attack speed of 1h is really a bummer, so you should strongly consider going robes/light armor with high dex even on higher difficulties, on top of preferring lighter weapons (3s base recovery). it's not so much about the damage, but maximizing your crits/second and also maintaining responsiveness in combat. not a big deal for turn-based mode, but in real time mode having ~5-6s in between each attack (easily possible with a slow one-hand weapon and medium/heavy armor and low dex) makes you real slow to respond to events happening without the tankiness of a shield or the boost in baseline damage/PEN from 2h weapons that makes it worth it.

I do agree, however on previous similar builds I found that using mail/scale/breastplate with cuthroat cosmo as a pet and mid range dex (I think I have 14) gave me acceptable responsiveness. I would be curious to do the DPS maths of using a 2 hander (more damage and pen, but longer action speed and recovery), as opposed to a 1 hander with faster recovery, +12% crit chance and 20% hit to crit. In anycase I'll always go for swag points over stats points. I play veteran with a non optimized party of story companions so it's forgiving.

[One-handed ranger / weapon ideas.]

One handed (no off-hand) is considered mostly suboptimal, but it happens to be my favourite combat style rp wise. For my next character I want to try to make the most out of it. My idea is to put the emphasis on the high accuracy, therefore my watcher is going to be a single class ranger (ghost heart for rp reasons). With passives, a bit of hunter's claw metagaming (does the blunderbuss trick still work ?), high per, and of course 1 handed style, my hope is to crit a lot, but since nothing in the ranger kit emphasizes crits until pl9, I am looking for suggestions of weapons with good on crit effects.

So far I'm thinking about ball and chain (before getting stunning shots), last word (making a great boss killer If you can land a crit every 6 sec+ your int bonus), and maybe scordeo's blade (with a lateral approach to the question: if you trigger the no-recovery and put a salvation of time on it, all of a sudden 1h is way superior to dual wield).

Do you guys have any other idea ? General advice on the build ? 

[Paladin attributes]

27 minutes ago, Gakkie said:

 

I found those two families and got the quest. But it is 3 skulls, so I guess I will not be solving it anytime soon and get that reward

Solving it peacefully doesn't involve any fighting, just diplomatic sense in dialogues.

 

Edit: Ninja'd by @Boeroer

[Project for a Balance Mod]

7 hours ago, Boeroer said:

So no Accuracy bonus - but graze to hit? 

I think that's redundant because a decently build Ranger at PL 9 doesn't graze much.

 

 

Yeah I specifically wrote this with takedown combo in mind. The AC grazes quite often even with Mark and Stalker link.

And I didn't want it to be a 4th/5th acc buff

[Project for a Balance Mod]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Yeah, I wondered about Shadowed Hunters too, but I went the lazy way. I think 2 Bonds is enough to make the ability "balanced" as a Deluxe panic button that purge everything over time, but it doesn't make it interesting.
It also feels quite redundant with play dead, which is basically an untargetable + full heal, even if it applies only to the pet.

A brainstorm on this one is needed. My opinions :

What shall be kept from current design :
- Appllied to both ranger & Pet
- Invisibility
Everything else can be removed if necessary to balance the ability. If going a more offensive route, I don't mind removing the heal and hostile effects reduction.

What shall be avoided :
- Making it too similar to a Rogue ability. This is vague, but basically it means that it shouldn't be another backstab.

What could be done (open list) :
- Add somehow a bleeding effect, which goes well with Ranger thematic and with the "hunters that follow your blood from the dark while you're getting weaker". But I'm not sure of the details.
- Add a "combo" effect, if ranger and pet Attack the same target from invisibility.

I don't think another dot would be so exciting, ranger have plenty.

And I think the defensive applications should be maintained. I think it would work well as a multi purpose tool to turn a bad situation around: heal, repositioning, debuff reduction, and it's just missing an offensive incentive. Something cool for both characters, that may be combined with takedown combo and other ranger abilities if the player wants to.

Maybe an empower refund like sasha's singing scimitar ? Graze to hit and hit to crit ? (but ranger acc is sky high). Or maybe keep it at 3 bond and refund 1 bond on crit (from ranger or pet so max 2 bonds) if you attack while invisible ?

[Project for a Balance Mod]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

D) Rangers

Shadowed Hunters :
3 Bonds -> 2 Bonds

 

Ok so I've been thinking about this one a lot lately, because I really want to like Shadowed Hunters.

I think there is much better to be done with a pl9 ability, and the only pl9 active melee rangers can use. The thing is, there isn't any real offensive use for invisibility in the ranger's kit, and sure it's good for repositionning and a little healing, but you can always use play dead and evasive roll, getting about the same "get to safety"result with extra damage on top.

I think that to live up to it's name, "shadowed hunters" must have an offensive component, to get the feel of "we stalk, hunting our prey". And something more exciting than +acc, +%dmg or dots, the ranger has plenty in his kit.

My suggestion: Drop cost to 2 bonds, keep the invisibility and healing, and add a 100% graze to hit on the next attack for both the character and the AC.

 

Thoughts ?

 

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

1 hour ago, wih said:

Edit: But if I place two regular attacks, then I will have to depend on the cooldowns only. I'm somewhat afraid of that.

I think cooldowns work really fine. It's only wonky with long cd's because they don't reset per encounter, but there should never realistically be less than 20 sec between the beginning of one encounter and the beginning of another. And 20sec is enough to do the full rotation unless you get hard cc'ed.

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

1 hour ago, wih said:

So I made a concept party, all multiclassed blackjackets with four weapon slots, 1 to 3 slots are for automated opening salvoes. Here is the script of the party leader, who carries 6 pistols and a melee weapon. Requires the More Custom AI Conditions mod.

Blackjacket/Rogue
Both scripts should be executed in list order. The script is in two parts, to be more manageable.

Part 1. Melee script
- Self: Aware      NOT -> Disciplined strikes cooldown 5

- at least 2 guile NOT
  Range weapon equipped-> weapon set 4 cooldown 5

- Self: Only melee weapons equipped -> Attack...
  ... Whatever rules are there, they should be accompanied with the condition Self: Only melee weapons equipped.

Part 2. Salvo script
- at least 4 guile -> weapon set 1 cooldown 10 (guile is 4)
- at least 4 guile -> Crippling  strike  cooldown 10 (guile is 3)

- at least 3 guile -> weapon set 2 cooldown 10 (guile is 3)
- at least 3 guile -> Crippling strike   cooldown 10 (guile is 2)

- at least 2 guile -> weapon set 3 cooldown 10 (guile is 2)
- at least 2 guile -> Crippling  strike  cooldown 10 (guile is 1)

The second script is placed in the second AI slot, but is actually executed first. Only after it is executed, the conditions in the first script become true and the melee fight can begin.

The script requires some maintenance. Those seven rules that refer to the guile resource count need to be incremented when the character levels up and gets more guile.

With cooldowns you don't really need to tie the actions to the resources. Put a 20 sec on everything with a time elapsed>20 sec / not, and every order will be executed only once from top to bottom, even after levelling up.

 

Also, I don't remember the exact mechanics of reloads and full attacks but I know that under some conditions they can give you a free bullet. It might be possible to go attack>crippling strike without triggering a reload, effectively giving you 3 shots with no reload before swapping sets.

Or maybe the free bullet thing only works when the off-hand gun is empty?

EDIT: with your setting you also get the -35% damage from a full attack, so if the 3 shots thing is not working, it is better to use 2 regular attacks instead of crippling strike.

[Paladin attributes]

9 minutes ago, Gakkie said:

I only have 10 perception on my main and two companions with 12. Don't know if i'll encounter one with high perception, how bad is that ?

It's not bad, you're just missing on some secret stashes but you can always revisit areas.

Later you find a companion with 17 per (if memory serves) that can cover all your needs.

I wouldn't worry too much about your per, especially if you play on normal/veteran. You're just going to hit/crit a bit less but that's not really a problem for a character using a mace. crit +%dmg is meh in this game, but +pen is good. A mace character usually won't need pen.

Game is very well balanced and lets you roleplay in Normal/Veteran without having to optimise your stats. From what you described and what you expect from your character, your stats are good and you will enjoy your play through

One final word of advice (with a very minor spoiler if you want to stop reading). Relatively early in the game you will stumble upon a quest about a feud. Either resolve it peacefully or side with the Bardatto family. Your character will very much enjoy the reward

 

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

only three? oh you sweet summer child.

 

the worst part about wael's incarnate is that being a ranged creature, it's really bad at tanking enemies (no engagement) and absorbing enemy hate - the AI even tries to escape from them using its storm teleport thing. and the damage it does is not nearly worth having a summon that doesn't do two of the things i expect a good summon to do..

Yeah I remember when I was testing out all the incarnates after release, after the awesomeness of Eothas and Berath, Wael was puzzling. But none of it really matters now, unless there is a mod to bring back the control of the summons, incarnate is definitely not viable compared to other summons available to priests (even figurine ones). On the plus side, my biggest grief against (priest) Xoti was that her pl9 summon was very underwhelming. Now it feels amazing in comparison. Small victories.

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

5 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Afair the change of phantoms from controllable to non-controllable came shortly after they made it possible that phantoms carried clones of all items of the wizard. So if you gave the wizard a necklace of fireballs or a per-rest item like a figurine (they were not charged back then) the phantom could use all those attached abilites of the cloned item during its summoning duration, effectively removig the charged/per-rest restriction that the (uncloned) item usually has. So for example a wizard could have put on the Shroud of the Phantasm (wasn't there back then, but so you have a gamebreaking example) and summon a phantom. Phantom would then summon 6 Living Illusions every time (which themselves summoned Phantoms which...).

So I think this was one big reason to change the phantoms. You can't trigger those abilites if you can't control the phantom. Was also the easiest solution I guess. 

I don't know why the rest of the other summons got changed though (can't recall which ones really changed or were uncontrollable right away). 

-5 PL is hefty, but as @thelee sad: infinite Robust from the Spiritual Ally can be pretty great to have. The summon itself is not breathtaking, but those "unlimited" stuff can often be used to great effect. You only have to know about it (description etc. don't mention it).

What I don't get is the Druid's Aspect of Galawain. It's great fun with an Ancient + Wild Growth (I mean visually mostly) but still: it's way too meh. Or did it ever receive a buff I know nothing about?

What is so bad about Wael's Incarnate? I never used it...

That's the thing: spiritual ally doesn't trigger -5pl penalty, it's an incarnate thing. And the summon has more use than incarnate and is not a pl9 ability. 

Wael's incarnate is just a simple summon of an eyed-cloud that does nothing special. It was horrendously bad (given the pl penalty) even when controllable.

The two best were by far Berath and Eothas, giving you a full caster for the duration, with fighters as a cherry on the cake.

I do understand that some phantom shenanigans were broken, but the change to incarnate was very unwarranted. I mean, who uses incarnate now ? (Myrtillo, ranting about 2 years old patches )

And yeah, aspect of Galawain is still just a  plain big bear that doesn't even do much damage. And Druids have good pl9 spells as opposed to priests so the opportunity cost makes it even worse. Just wild growth that fire stag.

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

6 minutes ago, thelee said:

i suspect it's to keep the summoning competency firmly in the hands of chanters and druids (who have mostly summons you fully control). 

though thankfully they left out priest spiritual ally, and honestly that alone makes priest a decent summoner since you have infinite uses of Robust via spiritual ally.

Which in my opinion makes even less sense to remove the control from a pl9 summon that comes with one of the heaviest penalties in the game (-5pl is just so taxing).
But it could be worse, it could be Wael's incarnate.

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

3 minutes ago, thelee said:

that was half the fun! i also knew every time it would happen because i would hear a rapid succession of *chunk* noises as they switched through their weapon sets rapidly. adds to the dance fever

I am just too attached to clean aesthetics I guess.
I mean, I am depriving myself of one of my dream builds (a greatsword wielding wanderer forbidden fist/ghost heart) just because the FF animation looks terrible with a weapon in the main hand. I wish I had the abilities to mod that, but I digress.

 

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

16 minutes ago, thelee said:

I set up an AI script with the axe in SSS that upgrades might inspirations a tier. With a blackjacket/barbarian multiclass, whenever I lacked a might inspiration, my AI script would do frenzy (for strong inspiration), then switch to the axe to upgrade strong to tenacious, switch back to main weapon, then switch back to axe to upgarde tenacious to energized, then switch back to main weapon. It took a while to get right, but it was real nice to have this tedious micro happen automatically and get like 100% uptime on energized. (importantly, when set up correctly, the script switches through the weapons so quickly that you only get the 1/2 second weapon witch delay from blackjacket once)

That's a bit too exploity for my taste.  Also, I imagine it would produce some wonky macarena-like animation.

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

I wonder what may be the rationale for a dev to reduce the player's control in a game where combat are supposed to be tactics... I can understand that it is an articficial nerf, but in that case, it makes the pl plenalty very uncalled for. Without being able to control them, as a pl9 summon for a class that doesn't regenerate ressources, they would be perfectly balanced without penalties.

As is it becomes meh, like the rest of pl9 priest spells.

Oh well, still the coolest and most RP summon in the game, so there's that. 

 

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

Ok so with the mod and the various discussions I was finally able to get the behaviour I wanted, which is:
Opening volley, then swap to your main weapon and proceed as normal, and at the end of combat swap to ranged again to prepare for the next encounter.

There is something VERY satisfying (especially in ship battles) in seeing your entire party firing an opening volley of bullets/bolts, de-popping one or two ennemies in the process, then autoswap and proceed with their regular roles with a very small recovery. 

Pushing it even further: I always avoided blackjacket gunslinging for the tedious micro, but being able to set the AI tactics to an automatic initial rotation between 3 slots of guns/crossbows and swapping to melee suddenly has a massive appeal.

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

3 hours ago, thelee said:

sorry, i haven't used incarnate in a long time, do you actually gain control of your summons?

So I just re-tested it and apparently you don't. I have a clear memory of a time when you actually did control them, though. So it probably got changed at some point.
A long time ago, mind you because in my memory the Usher was still glitching at that time and just appear to be two floating weapons. But unless I am going crazy I am fairly certain that at some point all incarnates were controllable.

EDIT: Looking back at some of my older posts from the forum, I last tested that between May 25th and somewhere in June 2018. So that was a few versions ago 

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

35 minutes ago, thelee said:

 i'm not as wild about incarnate as myrtillo

How dare you .

Seriously though, I don't think any summon in the game comes close to it except maybe the Eothas incarnate. Honestly if it was only summoning the Usher it would be great already. 2 free casts of salvation of time, symbol of Berath and rust armor, and after that a lot of nice spells. Even hand of Berath is good when it's free. But on top of that you get a great meatshield with ok melee damage. Maybe I am biased by the awe effect of summoning the Pallid Knight, but I really feel like any other summon is dramatically less efficient than this duo.

[Help transitioning from PoE 1(party setup, character build,etc)]

So my main comment would be:

With only a limited amount of gaming time, aim for full roleplay and experience the game the way you want to play it. Play on normal/veteran without upscaling and anything will work.

Now if you want to roleplay a Priest of Berath and still swing your 2 hander around a lot I see two options:

1: Multiclass with fighter instead of Paladin. Fighter will give you a lot of passives, stances and primary attacks that will make you hit really hard and reliably, and armored grace since you favor heavy armor that will make you hit and cast faster. You would have a few select spells that compliment the playstyle.

2. My recommendation would be: play as a pure Priest of Berath. It will give you a stronger spiritual weapon (greatsword), longer lasting melee buffs, like minor avatar, and just feels great from a RP perspective. The cherry on the cake will come at power lvl9 though when you have access to Avatar (of Berath) which is in my opinion the coolest and strongest summon in the game. The massive drawback is a -5power level penalty but with your intention to attack in melee that's a non problem. Cast your buffs and spiritual weapon, then cast Avatar and whack them in the face with your high damage Berath Greatsword, while enjoying an extra fighter AND an extra priest with a great selection of spells. You might want to avoid heavy armor though, but with -armorpenalty pets and ok dex it wouldn't even matter that much.

[Is there any trick to do "per encounter" in the AI tactics ?]

I imagine that "combat time elapsed" is probanly a mod feature, though because I have never seen it. I really need to check out this mod.

Swapping at the beginning of combat will trigger the recovery so it's suboptimal if you are not a black jacket with quick switch. I don't know if it's possible to autoswap at the end of combat because, well, combat is over. I'll tinker a bit more.