Crumbleton

Yeah the problem doing this is than initiative becomes super powerful, and then you have to decide how long a turn is in combat, and change the lengths and durations of everything as well, and then it has its own problems on top of that. They could increase weapon damage across the board, creating deadlier combat, making initiative stronger but this would also lead to probably some unintended consequence, they did this for spell cast so I think doing it for weapons could be a possibilitythat would also reduce combat times which would be nice. I think they need a way to let martials take multiple attack actions in a round like in 5e would be the way to go as it would still allow initiative to be powerful since you'd be able to do more damage sooner. I think doing breakpoints for initiative is a bad idea, it will turn it back into the most powerful stat in the game. I guess for me I think they need a way to give martial classes another attack (I think through a talent, maybe even 2 or 3 on higher tiers depending on class maybe too). This would still alow flexibility for builds. I think the talent trees for classes is a good way to address the problems, I think guns amd crossbows need the reload property, and have Rangers gunning ability add an extra attack to firearms/crossbows, and make the two handed or dual wielding traits do the same but with the bonuses they have so 2h increases weapon damage and adds another attack for 2h nonfirearm weapons. Idk I'm just taking my dnd experience and trying to figure how to work it into the existing system, this game mode is pretty close it just needs a few changes

Ap would be terrible, casters would be crazy or completely obtuse, it would make ap the by far strongest stat in game.

Would power level effect the linger? So like a chanter with 20 int at lvl 10?

You can click a title green dot that makes your turn end after you cooler your action. It's sub optimal for micro and what not but it does make easier combats end quicker.

I feel this is needed being able to cast 20 buffs at turn 1 is stupidly powerful. Maybe allow you to spend an action on an additional buff to forego a regular full turn action. Being able to buff up so freely is pretty strong and should definitely be looked at though.

The problem is doing this, CC that last for 1 round is no longer effective, You can alpha strike some enemies off the board with higher initiative, and spell casting absolutely still needs the speed. It's okay if you're not casting but at the same time you're taking on damage you otherwise wouldn't have to with CC or early spell cast, you can go ahead and dump initiative and have heavy armor, but you'll be gimping your casters and anyone else who wants to use CC or interrupt.

I agree, I don't think people are used to thinking about CC as something you want to cast ASAP instead of "at the right moment." Also, I'll respond to you here about rounds. I don't doubt they CAN tweak it to make it work, but why would you want that? I considered things like multiple actions per turn, but it just didn't make much sense when there's already an entire stat and mechanic dedicated to how often you can act which they chose not to translate into turns for reasons that are so far unclear. It just seems like the path of least resistance to get rid of rounds. Off the top of my head, you'd want to account for dual wield being both full attacks and higher initiative, but that could be as easily fixed as modifying damage per hit to be lower when dual wielding. Yeah, I just think like DND certain classes should be able to get an extra attack action in a round. Casters that don't dump initiative are crazy strong while Martial classes fall behind without the ability to get out a little more weapon damage IMO. I really think giving them an ability to make an extra auto attack per round would help balance out the classes a bit more and would also make initiative a stronger stat.

i'd say generally dex was pretty good for most characters in terms of damage output, i'd say a majority of people stacked Action speed reduction for Martial dps. (for the normal game) Yeah in the turn based combat now INT is either useless or fricken amazing if you hit the break points. Especially once you get some levels in your class and your PL increases / using empower. I'm running a single target sniper build and just dumped dex / int so i'm really tanky get the surprise round from stealth and do pretty great single target damage. I feel if you're going straight per round damage, DEX isn't that great, but if you are going for CC /interrupts dex is still pretty good.

I posted this in another topic, but i think they need to add an extra action talent for the martial classes. I think the problem people are having is dex went from a god stat to more situational which is okay in my book. The could change dex it so that might is for melee damage, and dex is for ranged but I think it's to big of a change from the base game, but we'll see. A big difference is if you are using CC abilities, like the rogues blind ETC you want to go earlier in the round so you remove your enemy for the entire round ( which is super strong) It does make it less important for overall damage in most cases though. I think the big thing to overcome is action speed is no longer the god stat of damage is going to be the biggest change for a lot of people, i think it's 100% alright to do. I hate in the base game having to just find ways to reduce my action speed it makes everything a lot more limited IMO.

I don’t really see the point of having the “two point” system from XCOM. The only relevance of movement is reaching enemy targets/moving out of the way. What if heavier armor would decrease the movement range? Well, that's exactly the point. It wouldn't always be relevant, but it's super important when it is, because again, you have to anticipate what's going to happen, not react to it. Plus, it helps out with things like entering combat later than party members in stealth mode, though I'm unsure how strong that'd be for, say, an alpha strike assassin. Not entirely opposed to heavy armor reducing stride, but I don't see too much of a point besidrs incentivizing light armor for characters that need to move around a lot. They could go a few ways about it like DnD. They could make heavier armors give a penalty to certain skills, stealth, mechanics, sleight of hand, maybe arcana? Going early in the round for applying CC is VERY strong. But if you have something like a pure damage dealer like my assassin / paladin going later in the round after my stealth alpha strike doesnt really harm me at all. Idk, i think people are undervaluing initiative as it is, but it does need a few tweaks.

I'm reading a bunch of replies from people who don't play TTRPGS, which the turn based combat seems to be based of off (like most CRPGS are). Rounds are fine, initiative is fine too, we just need some tweaks to get it working as intended. You can see it with some abilities, the damage is much higher, which is what turn based needs. It's hard to tell without me playing some higher level fights in my belt yet but initiative is fairly strong for CC abilities and casting. If you use an ability with 1 round duration at the end of the round it is a waste, although i'm not entirely sure if this is intended or not. I really prefer this system to the action speed % which is the king stat for the most part in the standard mode which really annoys me. Now the problem I have is that weapons like Firearms don't have much of a disadvantage with the reload property. In 5e Crossbows have the reload property so people with access to multiple attacks in a round cannot benefit from using the higher damage crossbows without a feat tax. There is little reason for you to use a Bow, the only reason you would are for interrupts at this point and depending on the enemy casting you'll probably still be able to interrupt with a fire arm. I think an idea they could do is for Martial classes (fighter, barb, ranger) is change the -10% recovery time or what ever into an Extra action feat, to allow multi attacking in a turn, i'd probably limit it to auto attacks though, I'd also consider changing the Gunner ability for Rangers into allowing them to make the Extra attack action with Firearms / crossbows. This would lead rangers as the defacto Marksmen in terms of firearms and crossbows. I really think rounds are 100% awesome and i love it, one other thing that needs to be addressed is engagements / disengagement attacks. I think if you run into an enemies threat range if they have no engagements they should automatically engage you if they have an open slot. Although right now without this, it does kind of make initiative in the opening round strong for tanks in order to get position, but i think it's a little silly to have people who go early be able to run past all your melee characters.

From what I've seen in what I admit to be just really brief experiments.... Dex (initiative) is good for casters / people with CC since you'll want to go first, and have your spells (if aoe)target the right area and what not. I was able to play a scout with an arequebus in heavy armor with great defenses and heavy armor and it functioned quite well, while on the other hand light weapons like the hunting bow just let me shoot earlier but that seemed to be it. I really don't mind the turn based action I love it but they either need to tweak the weapons a bit or have iniative tied to multiple attacks I think (for auto attacks). Like saying if you have 3 iniative you get 3 auto attack actions (just a random example) something that would let weapons like daggers be a bit more viable. Either that or they'll need to mess with weapon damages a bit either could be alright. They could have lower base damage weapons like daggers have higher pen, or increase the damage. I think maybe messing with the modals could be the way to go where they could go a little bit wilder with some of the weaker weapons instead of decreasing initiative maybe adding an extra action or something, I'm definitely much more familiar with ttrpgs and I feel they've done a great job, really phenomenal considering everything with this, but it just has a few things to really becoming great.

Yeah I was actually thinking of a ghostheart/devoted (or maybe something else?) Using a morning star and focusing on knockdowns between my fortitude debuff and pet against backliners I have trouble reaching

Yeah I thought about it since I really like the flavor of druid. I was actually going to go fury druid (the elemental spell caster) because I didn't want to use healing abilities just for flavor reasons than I realized cipher or wizard would be better than but I really liked the storm thing. I may even use the mod to get the companion druid subclass just because it seems like it fits with what I want pretty well... or the blood mage for spamming out abilities

Hmm interesting I figured it be flanking with targets engaged with my fighter, I guess I'll test it out and see. I guess worse comes to worse I'll make a witch using the new barb and maybe ascendant seems like it could be fun.

I was trying to do a ghost heart / frenzy barb to try and make a shaman from WoW but you aren't allowed to have them both up at once which is sad.... So I was thinking of a ghost heart since it's immune to engagements and let's you get an easy flank / enemy engagement + a crazy amount of knock downs available from both the classes. I was thinking of using the morning stars for the modal not sure which one. Would this work how I think it would? Or am I overlooking something?

Last time I played everything was quite... insane and they just started doing a re-balance of POTD and only finished the first island. Is the game a bit more balanced? Are there going to be some patches upcoming soon? I've been really enjoying playing PoE 1 so i'm in no hurry to jump back to deadfire, just wondering if i should wait still or if its pretty good!

Just for fun if you had to make a tier list for multiclass / single class where would you rate things? Solo potd and party potd separately. Just curious to what the community thinks are the strongest specs atm! Also bonus points for anything that comes online pretty early or doesn't require super specific equipment

Always a question I had thanks for that

That sounds nice - but often only a part of an active ability gets suppressed. In PoE at least that worked with all modals that were mutually exclusive: switching on one would deactivate the other. But a more obvious visual feedback would indeed be nice. Yeah you still get the deflection malus I believe or no?

I'll parrow previous replies saying I don't care what it's classified as whether active or passive as long as it more intuitive. If they made it so when you frenzy your modal turns off it would be intuitive and actually make some sense. On a side note they need to take a look at the action speed malus modals they're incredibly harsh.

I will say its fairly unclear in design. When you click a modal Ex: Brisk recitation you understand you are gaining X losing Y it's clear it makes sense. With weapon modals that do not stack with frenzy etc it does not make sense. You have something that is clearly passive in nature (modal) interacting as if it were an active ability. The previous example of paladins aura is spot on. If you gained 1 bonus armor from a modal (theoretically) you would expect it to stack with the aura because of the inherent passive nature of a modal. If it did not stack i would assume it was a bug, a simple tool-tip under modals could be a simple fix but it is pretty unclear. The game seems to make an active ability = cost resources, you can click a modal on and off at will so in a sense the design space behind it is incredibly unclear and should be remedied. I don't care if the ability works with x or y but regardless it is unclear and poor design. I believe this single modal is really the only culprit i can think of so it's not the end of the world but it is so counter intuitive to all of the systems present it should be changed or clarified

Seriously, you've never heard of toggle-able passives?I have heard of a lot of things. That doesn't mean that they are the one and only acceptable truth. If Deadfire put modals into the passive category I wouldn't object. I'm sure you can make a case for that and bring forth some good arguments. But on the other hand I can also see why you might want to put it into the active compartment. I simply said that I find it "ok" that modals are actives since you have to actively trigger them. I didn't say that this is the only and undisputable way to do it. You can agree or disagree, but no need to get cheeky. Ad a random bystander and someone who has no stake in any of this I'd say you definitely started off with the cheeky passive agressive tone

For me perception is just to strong of a stat to pass up unless my character is mainly healing or buffing than I feel okay ignoring it. It's probably tied for the best attribute with int for me. Per >int > mig > dex > con >res I typically enjoy spell casters a lot so that probably explains this for me