Cyrus_Blackfeather

Absolutely. It's a balancing act - you've got to have challenging encounters, but the players also need access to tools to overcome them in a number of different ways. They've said in the patch notes that they're approaching this in a multi-step process focusing on enemies first, so I'm happy about that. Let us see how the current builds fare against more difficult encounters before deciding what needs to be tuned. Or at least, that's the impression I got. It's scientific in a sense, you can't just change all of the variables at once you need to go through things methodically in order to see how one change affects everything else. That's why I like all of the posts talking about how to improve classes that aren't in a good state currently, by the way. One of the reasons I think so many of the overpowered builds stand out is because the rest of the classes need some love, like Ranger, Priest, Druid, and Cipher. Wizard too, I really feel like the bonus to picking a subclass should be a little higher than reduced recovery because of the drawbacks - you're not only removing two entire schools of magic, you're suffering a penalty to all of the remaining ones that aren't of your chosen school. It'd be like if, as a Sharpshooter Ranger, you couldn't use melee weapons, and guns took much longer to reload. I'd also like more unique subclass options for companions, but I get that that's something that's not a priority/could be saved for mods. Does modding this game disable achievements or is there a mod for that? Putting an internal cooldown of just 1sec would prevent procs to proc more procs but wouldn't hurt the ability per se. Rather then skyrocketing enemies deflection to prevent crits from happening And yeah paralysis scrolls were OP in PoE1, but even if ud infinite amount of paralysis scrolls in PoE 1 that game would still be harder then what we have now. Because one shotting the entire screen with a broken proc is more effective then CCing enemies. Okay, that's fair. I come from a lot of MMO communities where when people want internal cooldowns for things it's in the ballpark of, say, ten seconds. One second is fair, it allows the skill to work as intended and prevents infinite chaining. I guess my point about the paralysis scrolls is that there were ways to break open the first game's difficulty as well. You could cheese the Adra Dragon fight with those things, and most other encounters too. I can think of very few enemies that actually resisted/were immune to Paralysis. The difficulty becomes DR bypass/whittling down huge HP while the monsters can't really do anything. Yes, having a powerful character kind of cuts out the middleman so to speak, but the same result would more or less be achieved. I do agree that some of the stronger gear needs to be gated behind actual challenges though.

Well, I have to 'save the world' you see. Very important. Need all the help I can get. Given the description of the armour that seems like a bug to me. After all, if you sacrifice her to the blood pool then she clearly didn't "eventually meet her fate at the hands of the villagers of Maiden Falls". I dunno, maybe you throw her golem body at their feet and say "Here, have at it. I'm done with her"? Since that is, yes, probably a bug, I'll hold off on making my decision until we see the 1.1 patch notes to see if it's fixed. Still though, after thinking about it, I've revised my decision somewhat. Devil of Caroc - +1 Dex/+1 ... Penetration (I'm assuming Penetration, the game says "1 DR Bypass" but doesn't have the PoE2 buffs) Durance - +1 Con/+5% Max Health Durance for the reasons listed, Devil of Caroc because... honestly, it makes sense for a character who's all about looking out for number one to want to find a way to conveniently dispose of his pet murderer. It's either that or let her kill Harmke, any other option and all of the stuff she does could just come back to bite me later. Honestly, I do hope that it gets patched - not only because there's enough bugs with the save editor already but also because while I can support sacrificing a companion for stats (Stats=power, we'll just assume the Blood Pool was nice enough to provide a menu), sacrificing someone because of a material gain five years from now just seems really unnecessarily game-y to me. It should be a trade-off. And, yes, I am considering the ramifications of this from an in-character perspective because I think it's important to do so.

Nobody that actually wants to play on the higher difficulties wants that, so you're talking to a strawman. What some of us do want is: A pace and rhythm to difficulty, and not every encounter to be maximally difficult, but for some (especially outside of level scaling) to still be easy so that the sense of power growth is maintained. I might be wrong about this, but a lot of what I read from the most hardcore players makes it sound like they want every encounter to be as difficult as possible, I suppose on PotD with level scaling that would be okay, although personally I think level scaling is more interesting if it does have a cap so that if you leave an early-game area untouched until you're level 20 you can still go in and one-shot everything. Maximal balls to the wall difficulty fits well in mods for the people who really want that, considering that modding seems to be pretty viable this time around with a lot of extra difficulty mods already out. For currently powerful builds and abilities to remain "powerful" and fun in the sense of remaining viable, rather than having them overnerfed to the point where a totally different set of abilities become mandatory. This, exactly. Frankly, I don't think Cleaving Stance, Heartbeat Drumming, or Swift Flurry even NEED an internal cooldown because, if the mobs are tough enough, the odds of proccing enough bonus attacks to immediately kill something shouldn't be that high. Or the enemy should have enough damage reduction that chaos theory eventually means you hit, graze, or miss while they still have a respectable amount of HP left. It's also worth noting that, even if they did nerf "OP" builds, people would still find ways to cheese encounters because they'd be impossible otherwise. And yes, I consider kiting enemies around and spamming Paralysis scrolls to be "cheesy."

Probably going to go with Devil of Caroc then. It makes sense - as tragic as her story is, she's pretty much only valuable as an instrument of death and destruction. Plus she's dangerous and unpredictable, and could lead to a lot of awkward questions for a Watcher trying to keep a low profile.

Hey guys, Since 1.1 is going to be such a huge patch (Hundreds of adjustments (!), more character customization options (!), PotD and Veteran difficulty adjustments (!!)) I'm currently trying to decide whether I should wait for it or just go ahead and roll the PotD character I was intending to roll and just get to Neketaka at the very least (Because having to play through Port Maje again will probably drive me insane). I'm worried about some things though... 1. We don't know what's going to be fixed regarding save editor stuff. Because sacrificing the Devil of Caroc to the Blood Pool in a generated save gives you her Blood Pool bonus AND the Breastplate, I was going to go with that. But if that's a bug, I don't know if patching my current save would remove the item from the game or not. 2. Changes to classes. I'm worried about what'll happen if they move certain skills to higher tiers on class skill trees after I've already acquired them. I suppose I'd just have to retrain if that's the case. 3. The level scaling feature. Will the changes to the level scaling feature apply in zones I haven't visited before on saves created before the patch was implemented?

What does Engrim say? I know Maia flat out leaves your party if you sacrifice Kana and then tell her about it (Though why any sensible person would think doing that was a good idea is beyond me).

Does feeding her to the bloodpool get the breastplate to show up? I thought you specifically needed the ending slide where she get's torn apart by villagers. I don't know how it's supposed to work but I can confirm that in *generated* histories made using the PoE II history creator, sacrificing the Devil to the Blood Pool also results in her breastplate appearing in the shop. A lot of things behave differently in actual imported saves though. How certain are we that that's working as intended and not going to get patched out, though?

So, I'm making a gamestate for a Neutral Evil character (With some scruples and a soft spot for family) and I'm not sure who I want to let the friendly pool of blood underneath Dyrford eat. My goal is to play something similar to the "Survival of the Fittest" default game state (Focus on empowering myself and my allies). I'm intending to run a Drug Monk/Fighter as my next character, as a frontline fighter sort of Watcher, so I've narrowed it down to these two based on the bonuses they give. I've also been able to justify these two as being the most "convenient" of my Watcher's allies of convenience. Characters like Eder, Pallegina, The Devil of Caroc, Aloth, and Sagani all have useful skills Zahua - +1 Con/+15% Bonus to Beneficial Effects (It was just drugs in the first game, not sure if it is in this one). Pros: He's a bit of a washed up old man when you meet him, it's doubtful he's got long left to live anyway. It makes sense to sacrifice someone who's on their way out anyway, even if it is kind of cheating. Cons: He's Nalpazca, and it makes sense that he could teach my Watcher a thing or two about that in the five years since the story ended. My guy was a Fighter, so it makes sense he'd want to pick up some other combat disciplines just to have a wider toolbox of murder techniques and murder support skills. Plus he's got the good drugs, and generally seems to have less scruples about doing bad stuff. Durance - +1 Con/+5% Max Health Pros: Look at the guy. To list Durance's numerous abhorrent personality qualities would probably dominate this post. He's sexist, racist, and doesn't really have a nice thing to say about anyone. Absolutely no one would miss him. Cons: ... I'm not really sure. His more reprehensible traits really wouldn't matter much to a Watcher who's less concerned with that sort of stuff, sure, but he just seems to offer so much less than Zahua while the Blood Pool offers so much more for him. Granted, going that route we'd have to assume we knew what we were getting out of everyone beforehand, which isn't the case I think.

So I was curious about what sorts of class specific trinkets there are in the game (I saw that the grimoire slot is called "Trinket/Grimoire" now) and whether or not they had included an Endless Paths like dungeon (I saw something like that listed as one of the backer rewards).

Hey guys, So I've been trying to decide on what I want my "Main Playthrough" Watcher's culture to be. I'm torn between Deadfire for dialogue checks, and Aedyr for some good old fashioned Imperial superiority. I guess it depends on which culture comes up most frequently. I can definitely see Deadfire and Rautai coming up more than, say, White that Wends and Living Lands for example.

Hey guys, So I've been hearing lots about how bland the companions are in this game compared to the first, and that even the companions that return might as well have just been people you met and picked up off the street. A lot of this has to do with the companion system being bugged, and companions being way too thirsty (I'll give Tekehu and Serafen a pass on this since it's sort of in their character, but Xoti seems way too eager to jump into your pants after just meeting you). This is post patch, by the way, so while I've definitely getting a lot more dialogue regarding choices I've made and how people feel about them, I also sort of feel like a lot of it has come on too fast, or lacks a bit of nuance. Are some of these concerns going to be addressed? Can some of these concerns be addressed? Are the companions fine as is later on, past these issues? Something else that I've been interested in, but that sadly seems to be broken badly, is the interactions between companions. I really liked this aspect when I saw it was included - it seemed like it'd help the companions form more natural relationships outside of the party banter. Eder and an anti-Leaden Key Aloth would get along differently than Eder and a pro-Leaden Key Aloth. A faithful Eder would get along differently with Xoti than a Skeptic Eder. But then... When I recruited certain companions into my party, the whole system seemed to collapse in on itself. I put Pallegina into my party, and then IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS Xoti complained about her being a "godless heathen." This was IN THE THRONE ROOM, mind. The little bars showing companions' relationships with each other would fluctuate randomly. I get that one companion might feel differently about another compared to how that person felt about them. Xoti might really like Eder (Who wouldn't?) despite Eder not feeling any particular way about her. But then it seemed like the bars would just reset, and after the initial "I like this person/I don't like this person" dialogue, nothing would really come of it. Note: I do like that the decision you make at the end of the first game, post 1.02, actually has a genuine effect. If Eder becomes a skeptic, he stops saying "For Eothas!" upon entering combat. It's a nice touch.

Or rather, I should say that I WANT the challenge - I did PotD on Tyranny and I want to do it here. But I want to make sure it's a legitimate challenge that I can overcome with actual strategy and not just using cheesy builds and line of sight tactics. I cleared Raedric's first boss fight in the first game by luring all of his guards over to a door after sending Eder in to trigger the conversation and then hauling him back to meet up with the rest of the party. I wasn't terribly pleased with having to do that but it was kind of funny to imagine my Watcher having a shouting match with him from the opposite side of the room. I've read strategies for other encounters on the higher difficulties that basically amount to "Stealth the rest of your party, then run one person out to grab the group's attention, pull them back, bombard them with spells, rinse/repeat." As mentioned, the Llengrath fight is brutal. I get it, it's supposed to be a challenge, you're supposed to earn that achievement through blood, sweat, and tears. But Llengrath and the Bog Cult Apprentice both love to abuse super annoying spells that gib my party, even defensively buffed. Then the Dragons breathe on me and all of the Corrode DR in the world isn't going to do anything to save me from a wipe. Plus the Endurance/Health system means that I can only pick up my party members but so many times before they get permadead. This is on Hard mode, by the way. I tried turning it down to Normal but since I'd already entered the swamp, it didn't carry over. I guess I'm having some trouble properly communicating what I want. Challenge with fairness? That might be a good way to look at it. I'll definitely be trying for a Watcher who's a little sturdier this time to see if I can survive a tad better. But at the same time, I don't want to feel like I'm compelled to ditch all of these companions - some of whom I actually really like - to go ahead and create a finely tuned custom party of mutes who exist only to slay monsters. I don't like entering combat only to immediately explode five seconds later because two high level casters used Thayn's Friendly Ball of Sunshine [sic] on my party and then a dragon just... existed in my general vicinity. I couldn't even tell what killed me most of the time. I'm hoping that once I get some better armor and weapons, I'll be able to tackle some of the more difficult encounters once the patch rolls out.

Aww, okay. What does it give you? The wiki doesn't say anything about the bonuses it gives.

Intended! Obsidian didn't like DR working poorly against big DPH attacks like dragon's breath so they used % damage reduction this time and this is the result. Honestly, I'm kind of in favor of that. I have war flashbacks of trying to do the Bog Dragon encounter on Hard Mode and getting pretty much insta-gibbed even after buffing because the dragons both breathed on me at about the same time. That said, I feel like there are ways around that. Bigger windup on dragon breath, for one thing, and a more obvious onscreen 'tell.' Maybe a magic item that gives protection against breath attacks - like Dragons in the first game resisted/were immune to "Dragon Breath." That'd be kind of a cool progression mechanic. You kill smaller dragons in an area to collect scales and other materials to give you resistance to their breath weapons, so when you fight the big dragons it's still punishing but manageable. I think I'll just wait for 1.1 and start over. I feel like I'll have better luck with a Fighter multiclass, and not using Helwalker. That might be a little more new player friendly.

Yeah, I'm definitely hitting "No Pen" a lot on certain enemies. My next character is also going to be a Sword Devoted in addition to a Nalpazca Monk, so I'll have more penetration there, too. Honestly I think a lot of my problems came from just picking a subclass I'm not good with. Helwalker takes a lot to manage properly. I'll be waiting for 1.1 to see where everything settles, and then starting a playthrough that'll be going through all of the DLC. I'm hoping that once I'm on a character that's a little sturdier, and with a lot more penetration, I'll be in better shape. Thanks guys! Do you think I should keep level scaling on "Only scale upwards" for PotD?

They are, but I'm mostly using unenchanted gear, so that probably has a lot to do with it. As mentioned I'm also a Helwalker, so taking extra damage is to be expected, and I don't have my Hasongo bonuses yet. I'm going to be doing a playthrough when 1.1 hits as a Fighter/Nalpazca, so that will probably address a lot of the issues I'm having, I would think. Though I'm a little concerned, admittedly. Once you finish Hasongo, is that more or less it for side stuff? I know Dunnage exists, but I don't know if that's sort of like a Defiance Bay -> Twin Elms situation, with not a lot of sidequests and sort of a collision course with the end of the game. I'm going to wait for 1.1 to see if that fixes the issue with the boarding actions. I'd definitely like to do them, but not in the current state. The nature of the bug is kind of funny though. Zombie crews!

Wait, what? What pet is that? I forget where exactly you get it, but you can find a baby Sky Dragon in a Xaurip nest. I think it's in that temple near Neketaka with the Steel Garrote. Wait, free cannon? Where do you get THAT? From binding the souls to the cannons at the Battery? Also, I hope that 1.1 contains a lot more bug squishing in regards to the save imports/created saves. It's annoying not being able to get your completed experience carried over.

Hey guys! So... I don't know if I'm just very bad at the game or what, but I'm actually legitimately struggling on PotD after completing the tutorial. Enemies hit extremely hard, and I do barely any damage to them. Yes, I know that enemies hitting hard is the point - but if I can only scratch them for two damage or so, combat becomes less a war of attrition and careful management of resources, and more an exercise in futility. The thing is, I'm not sure if this is just me being bad at the game (Likely) or me just not taking quests in their intended order. Am I supposed to progress the main quest immediately after hitting Neketaka and level up that way? Do a few bounties and gear up my party? That's not even getting into the ship combat. I don't know if this is the same on all difficulties, but boarding actions on PotD are absolutely brutal. I see a ship that has 4 crew listed out of a total of 16. I figure "Okay, easy mark," and pepper it with cannon fire before going in for the kill, only to find that there are now twenty or so soldiers, including five priests (!) waiting for me. I feel like even if I were abusing functionally immortal builds, I'd still struggle with that. I'm not really sure what the problem is. Level scaling is important, I want the content to be challenging at all parts of the game and I hope that the changes coming fix it on all difficulties. But I'm wondering if something about my approach is just not cut out for PotD and whether Veteran would provide the challenge I'm looking for without the frustration. The fact that I'm playing a Helwalker Monk accounts for why my main character is struggling so much in the damage department, but not why my companions, who don't have that penalty, are taking so much damage from enemies. Well, the fact that they're poorly optimized probably accounts for a lot, but when I start looking at that, this becomes less a roleplaying experience and more "Video Gamey" if that makes sense. So... To wrap this all up. Would Veteran mode with level scaling be a better test of my abilities without leading to as much abject frustration as my party gets massacred before they can even do anything? I want a difficulty that punishes stupid mistakes, but that doesn't require five or ten or fifteen reloads, or super cheesy tactics.

Hey guys, So I'm curious about how to get the Whispers of the Endless Paths. I select the option in the history generator to say that I reforged the Blade of the Endless Paths, but it only gives me the fragments for one of the swords that I need. I recall reading that the option is bugged and that to get both, you have to select that you didn't reforge the blade. Is this the case, and are there any other options in the history creator that are bugged? Also, which other notable options give significant tangible rewards? I know that if you don't let the Devil of Caroc complete her revenge you get access to a really good piece of armor, though I probably won't be pursuing that for roleplay reasons. I also know that if you let the Sky Dragon live, you get a pet - but I'm not sure if mortally wounding her counts as "letting her live." Basically, which decisions are broken - assuming they even come up at all - and which ones are tied to actual items in the game, rather than characters having a slightly different attitude/set of dialogue options with you?

Yeah? Well, I do. And so, it seems, do plenty of others. This isn't an MMO and doesn't need to be balanced like one. A few of the ways to make the game essentially trivial wind up gimping characters in other ways. For example, let's look at the skill-scaling items. If there's an item that scales based on History, and you decide to build fully around that, you're left either constantly retraining for history whenever you decide to go tackle some combat encounters, or you've effectively gimped your character when it comes to any other sort of passive skills like Bluff, Diplomacy, etc. Congratulations, all of the History knowledge in the world isn't going to help you against the group of bandits who'd be much more scared by you pulling a weapon on them. In fact, that's honestly something that could be limited on PotD - make it so you can't retrain off of some random street peddler or tavernkeeper, or limit the amount of times you can do so. If you want to start another playthrough with the knowledge of how to get that item that scales off of History or Metaphysics or whatever, go ahead and buff those scores through the roof - but don't expect to be able to negotiate properly with anyone else. If that's too much for PotD, it'd make a good Magran's Fires challenge. I definitely agree that the level scaling needs work, and that it'd be nice if enemies actually utilized more abilities that they should have, as long as they're held to the same standard that we the players are. For instance, I've recently started a playthrough of PoE1 while I wait for this patch - Wolves can use knockdown. That's cool, that adds a new layer of challenge, and it's utilizing tools that players should reasonably expect to see. A Fighter should be able to use Knockdown, as well as Disciplined Strikes, or whatever other skills are reasonable for them to have at that level - and a Wizard should be able to use more than Spirit Shield and Minoletta's Missiles. So, yes, adjust the way enemies behave, give them immunities where appropriate, fix level scaling, maybe even add more. But be gentle with classes. Yes, some skills need to be brought down 'slightly' but it's a careful balancing act between bringing something down from 'OP' to 'Fun to use' and bringing something down to 'Trash tier.' Too much, and we're left with a bunch of relatively samey, boring classes that struggle against the various threats that await them in PotD. I hope Obsidian understands that some of us WANT the power trip. We just want to feel like the enemies have a chance of fighting back. For those who absolutely want the most brutal, punishing experience possible - the true test of their real time, pause-based combat, isometric gaming cajones? Wait for more mod support. I'm sure there will be plenty of mods coming out that will make the game an absolutely brutal slogfest. There might even be some that restore the Endurance/Health system. For games like these, it's often the mod communities that are the only way the difficulty junkies can get the fix they need. Closing thoughts. By all means, if PotD isn't at a point where the DEVS want it to be, they should definitely take steps to address those problems. But please keep in mind that this isn't a game with a meta, or with "World Firsts" or DPS meters. It's a single player RPG.

Also, am I the only one who 'doesn't' want the Devil of Caroc armor? Let the poor woman have her revenge, she's honestly suffered enough (And besides, most of the people she killed were **** anyway).

Let me start off by saying I'm very excited for Patch 1.1; Like many people, I've found PotD to be a challenge in the beginning, but once you get access to certain pieces of gear fairly early on in the game it gets trivial. As someone who beat Tyranny on PotD, I really want to try to give Deadfire a fair shot on the hardest difficulty. That said, with any sort of balance patch, I definitely have a few concerns - and I'd like to address them now. Please feel free to respond to them - I might just be overreacting. My biggest concern is overnerfing, honestly. While I definitely understand not wanting immortal characters that remove all sense of challenge from the game, I'd much rather see underappreciated classes/multiclasses get some love than seeing things that are overpowered if used in a certain way get nerfed for everyone else. For example, I want to run a Fighter/Monk for my next playthrough because I think it could be a lot of fun - Monk gives Fighter some nice augments to damage, and Fighter has solid defenses. Plus, playing a drug Monk would provide a lot of really neat roleplay opportunities. But I've talked about all of that before. Fighter and Monk are, unfortunately, two of the classes that are used in a lot of the "Become a functionally immortal god" builds. And while I agree that some skills need tuning (Changing a lot of Full Attacks to Primary Attacks to encourage Dual Wielding, for instance) I hope they don't put too many desirable abilities behind PL8 and 9 (I'd be okay having Unbending go down to, say PL7 and then the enhancements go down to 8 or 9, for example - but I'd hate to lose it altogether. Similarly, while I think that the 25% chance on Crit to trigger an extra attack hardly qualifies as "small", I'd rather that be reduced to 10% or even 5% (So it's more of a reward) than have it go up to 8 or 9. Same thing with Turning Wheel - for a multiclass, that comes at level 16. The Chanter Invocation that renews class resources could be moved to 8 or 9, because that seems like sort of a capstone Chanter ability. By the same token, some skills at higher levels really don't make sense at those levels, and could stand to be made a little bit stronger. I know a lot of people have complained about Cipher and Priest, for instance. Cipher has some super powerful skills like Time Parasite or Defensive Mindweb, but then there are spells like Haunting Chains. Oooh, Terrified AND Hobbled. It's not like there's a lower level Cipher spell that causes Paral- Oh, wait. Basically what I'm trying to say is, there has to be a way to pick apart the builds that allow people to be completely invulnerable, while still keeping character creation robust and enjoyable. At the same time, I hope the balance changes and tweaks focus just as much on uplifting certain classes as on adjusting nigh immortal builds. TL;DR: What are your thoughts on the changes coming in 1.1 from a class balance perspective? What changes can you see coming to each class (Be as specific as you like).

Well, a lot of my gear will grant Dexterity either way so it'll be respectable, and then Fighter ensures I basically have no Recovery time... I dunno. I just don't like the idea of having a super low Might, because there are some conversations where it comes in handy - like threatening certain people. I think you need a high Might for certain Valera/Bardatto quests. Plus, drugs.

Yeah, that's fair. Hopefully they don't roll out a bunch of nerfs or anything like that. So far it seems like the only class they've thought about tuning was Chanter. I wonder if that's still the case? Certain Wizard spells or power level scaling for those spells really need nerfed. They mentioned chanter summons. I think a couple other chanter things need nerfed or shifted to a later tier. I hope certain full attacks get changed to primary attacks, such as charge. In fact I would like to see most full attacks changed to primary attacks to also balance dual wielding, or perhaps just the ones that cost 1 resource. Inner death + empowered strikes ought to be adjusted imo. I personally think Faith and conviction + deep faith ought to be more evenly split with Deep faith only obtainable at a high tier. Certain things just plain need fixed for better or worse, like unbending or time parasite. Beyond abilities, a lot of equipment needs some solid hits from the nerf bat as well. Ideally some of the garbage would be brought up as well, like many cipher and priest spells. If they are serious about balancing I expect to see a lot more than just a few chanter adjustments anyways. Oh, definitely tweak the stuff that allows people to roll characters that are functionally invincible, but it's also important to still keep things balanced with the updates to PotD in mind. Honestly, part me just wants to get started right away. I guess it depends on how early "Early June" is.

Yeah, that's fair. Hopefully they don't roll out a bunch of nerfs or anything like that. So far it seems like the only class they've thought about tuning was Chanter. I wonder if that's still the case?