Zeitzbach

The one thing good about PoE1 dungeons is that it has more story and culture. This one is bite-size fun, better when difficulty gets fixed.

Doing quests in Neketaka require lots of talking because all factions want to avoid stirring too much troubles as it will alert the other factions to do something. It's logical. And that's kinda why all the combat has been moved to outside Neketaka and towns. All the bounty hunting, small dungeons and so on contain all the fights. PoE I only feels like it has tons of fight because you can't side track or avoid majority of the enemies like in this one.

Every game needs a serious char. She's the super serious and hardened character of this game. If anything, the fact that she can be super serious and is still the queen of retort make her a lot more amazing. Her tongues are sharper than even a legendary unique dagger.

Serafen is the best. He's like a more refined version of Hiravias. Pallegina is the still the queen retort like Eder mentioned in PoE 1. Even Serafen gives up with his silver tongue. Eder will forever be Eder and we all love him for it Maia is like a more cheerful and sassy version of Sagani. I do like her around compared to my 1st playthrough. She says a lot more when you have her questing. Takehu is okay. Aloth is decent, annoying because of his reaction to everything you want to do. Xoti is annoying. If I say, I recommend you play with Pallegina, Takehu, Serafen and MAia in your party. Those 4 are faction-based so they have WAYYYY more to say and constantly fight with each other because of their beliefs. They also add to nearly every bounty and quests you do. Eder, Aloth and Xoti are just neutral. It was hilarious watching Pallegina beat the crap out of Serafen in a verbal fight.

One of the quote requires 10 insight and the other probably require you to know about the slavers from older quests.

Remaro discovered that the Sorceror has actually been used to help in dealing with Slavery all along, which is something Serafen is disgusted with which is why he's keeping it a secret as he runs away and leave the whole principi life behind.

Went exploring all over town and finally found it. Check the Herbalist shop. Has almost everything.

Dragon's Dowry is so busted I want to upgrade it early for +50% fire damage (one of the few arquebus with final damage bonus multiplier) and the +75% action speed skill. While I know that Ashen Maw drops a bunch of em, it also means advancing the story which I'm trying to avoid on my current playthrough because I want everything done right. Where do they sell Curios in this game? I only know about the Gems in the dunnage so it would be great to know where I can grab primal flame early. Edit: Went all over the place. Found it in the herbalist shop. Time to be op.

You can also bring Maia with you and she will vouch for you. THe quests in Neketaka becomes a lot better if you bring all 4 faction-based companion along and watch as they take turn insulting the other faction.

Holy cow. Game needs to get much more difficult. I beat Steel Preacher a long time ago. Level 8 maybe? I felt it was the right level of challenge (playing on veteran). I had some enjoyable fights but in this case I might have been tackling areas way above my level. It has been a snooze fest for a while now. Like PoE 1 base game, the content isn't difficult because the enemy type lack in variety. Right now, PoE II only has the Steel tank, a gunner/archer, a mage and a fighter, all of them doing the same thing. The lack of CC, lack of debuff and lack of reaction skill like dispel turns the game into a battle between DPS and Tanking which, the players will ALWAYS win because AIs are not as good as players in this kind of thing. They might have to start giving these enemies some new skills.

Depends on class. Some of them, like fighter, has talent to improve proficient weapon with more damage.

Really? What abilities make the paladin so OP? Sacred immolation? How about being immune to death on LoH (unlimited with this invocation) and +gazillion to all defenses from faith and conviction. You don't need to do a lot of damage if you can't die. Btw you can spam Sacred immolation all you want if you can't die anyway . That's the issue with the game not having enough anti-buffer. The only one I ever saw being used in PoE1 and 2 combined is the wall of draining, IIRC, and like only once. The AI may have gotten better but it doesn't help all they know is how to deal damage and heal.

that doesn't make sense...or I need more coffee . It does and the reason is there. It's just that.. Without love, it cannot be seen.

Looking at the spells alone, I used to agree with you. Then I discovered Brilliant Inspiration + Salvation of Time. You weave in short duration buffs and spam Salvation of Time over them. As an example, Barring Death's Door is right there. I don't know if Barbarian is BAD per se, but I think they've lost the most from their POE1 implementation and it makes me sad to see where they are now. After stuff get nerfed and damage calculation gets fixed then maybe that will be useful. But atm, you don't need that many buffs unless your team is low on damage. Devotion is the only buff you ever need. Doesn't help that Salvation is a T6 spell so there's still no reason to ever go single priest. Like, the only thing useful on T7 - T9 priest is Magran's Might because it can be used to remove the annoying Unbending. Priest really got the short stick. They scale badly with level as most of the buffs only get bonus duration. Most of their spells are terrible. They are also the only class who barely benefit from OP Empower and will mainly be using that for resource.

I say we meet midway. No lesbian couple. Gay only, and Serafen gets a full romance.

They are more fleshed out. It's not all "click companion and trigger conversation" like in POE1. They comment a lot more (or do things) when you visit places or during quests. They change barks depending on disposition. Some have ship only stuff to say. They have auto-dialogues based on disposition with the watcher and companions, although they seems to trigger too fast in many cases which probably cause others to never trigger and some disposition are bugged as well. There are a few adventure-text where they will have opinions. They have banters which aren't all about saying funny things. The biggest change is really the quests/places commenting though. I don't think I've done a single quests where there was no companion comments and it's not all flavor one liners. For example, Maia intimated the Ruatai ship captain in All Aboard for me without me asking her. Yes I like that they chime in more often but that's the only improvement. Everything else is a step back. At least none of them are quite as pointless or short as Pallegina or the Devil of Caroc in Pillars 1, but none of them even come close to the ones that had good arcs in Pillars 1. It's a trade-off because the freedom for the writer in PoE 2 isn't anywhere near as high as PoE 1. In PoE 1, companions tag along because something nice might happen if they tag along so they just do. Unless you ask them to leave or kill them yourself, they will stay until the end. Even WM companions are like that, including Zahua who is all about "My tradition and legacy". In PoE 2, the companions are actually linked directly to the world and your actions now affect them as much as you affects the other factions. Beside Eder and Aloth, everyone have their own faction and a red flag. They have their own opinions now and you MUST travel with them to let them grow. I'm on my 2nd playthrough now and I actually have to recruit most of the chars early and plan who to bring for a certain faction quest in order to maximize the reputation dialogue and growth. It's something I never bothered in PoE1 and if they are on my "no1care" list, they never leave the stronghold when their quests are done. It's different and give them a real place in the world more than PoE 1 did.

Priest in the current patch is really only good for devotion and maybe a few heals. Terrible at everything else compared to the other classes. Mediocre damage, low cc, long cast time, non-stacking buff and weak high tier skills. Even their buff removal is nothing compared to RAnger with -30 sec from buff shot.

Multi-class is still mediocre on Druid/Wizard simply because Salvo, Maelstorm and Wilting Wind exists. Synergy helps but i-win button helps more. IF anything, multi-class seems to only be good if you want one of the classes to function as a bonus stat with the other having all the good stuff within the first 5 tiers.

The first half of the balance changes are QoL nerfing and tedious balancing more than actual challenges just to avoid nerfing classes. What needs to be nerfed are 1) Magic skill damage scalign especially the large AoE. Right now, magic easily outdamage anything that isn't bugged to deal bloated damage or if you're not wearing legendary gear at level 10. 2) Armor rating damage bonus. Easy +100% damage on giant empowered AoE is ridiculous. 3) Empowered damage skill. Almost doubling your damage is WAYYYY too high. Something like +30% is already generous in most game. Then we can buff the gutted skills like Conjuration type magic and shapeshifting. We can avoid it all we want but if classes can easily get up to 200 or 300% damage bonus with a few buff and crit while the more fair options are stuck at 130% or something, it shows that player damage are currently as bloated as the economy post level 13. It's kinda dumb the game has to rely on giving enemies double unbending proc just so they don't die right away.

Known bug and the trigger seem to be asking about other conversation choice before picking "Welcome Abroad". He should appear the Deadfire Fort at the south door when you are at the exterior side of the map. That's where I got him when he suddenly went poof.

I made a mistake there. You can sail below* minimal crew just with super terrible ship stat.

I have a feeling people say single-class ranger suck simply because none of the T8/T9 skills really allow them to just stand around and wipe. Many want Ranger to be a pure range class only for T8 T9 to be pet-based with a melee skill. The skills are already way better than say, Paladins and Priests.

The CC are still good, like Chill fog, Wall of Color and Slicken. The problem is that right now, damage bonus is way too easy to get that it's better to kill something in 1-2 hits than to CC em. The Empowered Mechanic itself is a major boon to this. Empowered stuff get almost twice the damage. Utility stuff? A few more seconds. Who care about a prone hitting when I can be doubling my Death Ring damage.

You can sail with minimal crews except the boat will be at the minimal possible stat and you will fail all sea encounter that require certain crew level.

IIRC, there's a bug if you ask some other questions about Serafen before saying "Welcome abroad". This will cause him to appear at Fort Deadfire instead near the door at the south of the court.