drael6464

This is my build and it doesn’t feel “nerfed”. The setup was very powerful before and now it’s just powerful. I’m ok with that. Well, there you go then.

If you take the spell orientated subclass of cipher, you don't really need that time spell. You just grab one of those vampyr staves for back up domination, and dominate, charm, stun and blind your enemies. It's fairly effective. There's very little that is immune, so 99 percent of the time, that's an effective character. And you want it pure class to get as many focus points as you can starting combat, more cypher talents and a decent selection of spells. The higher level spells however have so much higher costs, they are sort of pointless. But a multi-class spell oriented cypher just doesn't work as well. It works okay, but not as well. Now maybe if you had the soulblade subclass and had focused on melee damage, maybe it is a bit nerfed. You could always do a rebuild and pick more controller type spells. Either that or stack every regenerating, or HP or armour boosting, or second wing granting item you can find on that one character, and rebuild with a high athletics skill (two second winds isn't bad for a lower HP fighter as a compensation, and if you get a reasonable amount of bonus damage, and use a really good unique weapon, it should still be worth the trouble). The other option is switching to a ranged weapon. You still get soul whip within a certain range.

Yeah, I agree with this. Maybe not as passionately as you, but I feel they could have focused more on just the most OP combinations and increased the power of the least, rather than taking a nerfhammer to everything in sight. In the first game class choice did feel bland. It felt like, until you got higher level, like it didn't matter what you chose. I still think that there will be useful class combinations here, but it does feel a bit like they might have trimmed too much. Multi-cleave definately had to go, and some of the reproc items (and maybe some paladin stuff), but they really didn't need to nerf that much. On a side note, I always felt like monk and cipher were annoying in that they uniquely had to build up points during combat. It's very micromanagey. A) it'd be nice to be able to play a cipher as a dedicated spellcaster and B) I'm sure they can come with other benefits to light armour for a monk - like perhaps certain abilities only work in light or no armour. From a flavour perspective though, this doesn't gel with me the same way the cat people, and people with glowing blue skin don't gel with me. It's a bit "big, bright and colourful", and I don't really like my fantasy like that. It just feels like throwing colourful stuff at a wall rather than something coherent and compelling.

Interesting character changes. These seem primarily concerned with OP class powers, in particular multi-class combinations. My issues - preist still underpowered. Cipher still underpowered at low levels. Battlecasters/weapon summoners still don't work properly (needs an AI condition - at beginning of every battle, to cast summons) - summoning is too slow, even with the talent, and why did you nerf preists spiritual weapon? The issue here with weapon summoners and battle casters isn't power, it's that you can't use them without micromanaging them, and by the time you use even one buff, and one weapon summon, much of most battles is over. Paladin seems like it still might be a tad OP due to all the resistences/immunities. Debuffs and effects like paralyze are what makes combats extra challenging. Paladin should have some immunity to these, but looks like this wasn't addressed. Restricting cleave to one proc is definately the right move. With the justified rogue boost, a dual wielding fast weapon riposte rouge fighter might be as interesting as a monk/fighter. Or for that matter a monk/rogue. Ranger companion boost probably isn't enough. Perhaps ranger companions should give a buff like pets and familiars. Just add a bit of flavour to make it seem more fun. I can say I agree with MOST of that. As much as I personally enjoy min/maxing, you never want it to feel cheap. And some of the combinations this nerf dealt with were 100 percent cheap. But my misgiving is that you've taken such a hammer to all of this, it makes class selection a bit less interesting - when you could have just nerfed the most OP things, and boosted up the weaker classes.

Ah, so that's the appearance, ship upgrades, crew mates and such that's due soon. And then story next month. Well that's not long to wait for cool things. Appearance mods should be cool. Portrait selection was a little limited (great art, but hard to squeeze a less typical character concept into)

So is this first DLC meant to be out soon, or am I going senile?

Probably so, but the weapon aspect kind of ruins the flavour anyway. With a mindstalker, you can fall back on the illusion spells when your points run out, which helps minimise melee/range attacks. However I wonder is their a way you can build a cypher, so that their starting points are so high that you very rarely have to attack? I might see if I can do this. Perhaps with the right stats, subclass and talents you can get that starting figure high enough. The maximum starting focus you can get at lvl 20 is 75. Using an empower point gets you to 190. I tested a pure beguiler a bit, and the combination of beguiler+complete self was enough to decently sustain him in focus. Soul echo+empty soul, with a maxed perception give a lot of crits to restore focus. Obviously, you will not do much damage but you will debuff and cc like there is no tommorow without having to use a weapon. Useful abilities: Eyestrike Mental binding Secret Horrors Ring leader Mind Plague Time parasite (although it will not proc beguiler, it will proc the complete self, is completely op, and there are no really good deception spells past pl6) Haunting chains for fluff if you have the focus to cast it. Silent scream if you want a damaging spell. It will not proc beguiler, but will proc Complete Self Passives: Greater focus, Keen Mind, Complete Self, Soul's Echo, Empty Soul, and the rest of the good stuff (iron will+psychic backlash, shared nightmare, lingering echoes, rapid casting etc.) If this is the playstyle that appeals to you, you should go for it, it will work. I created a second build like this, with ranged weapons as advised above. It works pretty well I think, better than the mindstalker - more ability options, especially lower cost powers. Still some dependence on attacks, but not a lot - and at least you can recoup a little with criticals, and have some power boosts like range and speed. The famypr staff makes a nice addition (or just the item ability if you mod it in), so you have a dominate that's not points dependant. Tis still a shame that there's nothing that trades off attack ability for self-generated focus points, but this is as close as one can get. I hope there's cipher dialogue options in the DLC. Definately a more colourful character than the rangers, monks, paladins and rangers I've played in a million dnd/pathfinder games. When one plays those things too much, one ends up gravitating to weirdness - strange preist characters, swashbucklers, psionicists, summoners etc. I once played a ascetic pacificist, with an aura of peace, lol. It was actually OP, but totally weird.

Probably so, but the weapon aspect kind of ruins the flavour anyway. With a mindstalker, you can fall back on the illusion spells when your points run out, which helps minimise melee/range attacks. However I wonder is their a way you can build a cypher, so that their starting points are so high that you very rarely have to attack? I might see if I can do this. Perhaps with the right stats, subclass and talents you can get that starting figure high enough.

Great. So it is impossible to know what someone means when using that word without asking for definitions first. Nah, if the word is used in a gaming or MMO context, this is always the meaning *Edit, Ignore the names, I snipped to far and can't figure out how to delete and repost lol. I played one MMO, back before everquest came out. I got sucked in, ended up putting in silly hours to outlevel a higher level player who was pvping me, watched people get married, then decided "okay, maybe this isn't for me", and never touched one again.

Yeah. This is where they could have had a small dungeon with the sort of technical detail about how the wheel was made, what existed before it etc.

That mindstalker build works pretty well. With the right talents you only need to recharge in combat, not attack first. It's weak at low level, but mid-higher level all those mind effecting abilities are kind of great. You just stun, fear and dominate everyone, and it changes the balance. Unless they are immune, then you have to fall back on rogue tactics. There's quite few tricks for providing backstab condition too, from the rogue, and also bombs. There's a few items that add to it nicely too (there's a helmet with fear). It's not exactly what I wanted, but it's not far off. I had the two sentinels at the end, fighting each other - that was kinda fun.

Yeah I'd prefer to explore the world more, rather than rush to the end. These types of games are way better if you take the time to soak them in.

Oh. She didn't show up for me, because I'd already exiled her. I got the pirates. If you didn't kill her, she still has all the huana, her guards across the city, and her watershapers, so it'd be hard to buy that she was powerless.

That's what the wiki says. That's also what ingame persons say about the Queen vs the trading companies. How does the queen end up a figurehead then?

That would work. Get those flanked, distracted etc effects maximised - and get a few illusion spells to boot. That's a good one. I'm liking that

Although you are right, the main ending is primarily faction choice. It does kind of "feel" like more than that as you play through the quests tho and their are subendings, like for the gullet, or the fampyrs. It is nice when you have multiple choices though, as with the gullet, and in some cases you don't have many. Not an obvious one? Isn't it a default VTC ending? And most non-pirate endings are good, you just don't know about that when making choices. Well killing the whole palace, and exiling the queen isn't a default thing. I got it by selecting the not so obvious "yes, I blew up the deadfire trading company" option after working for the vallian trading company, because I was in a what the heck mood when it came up. Still made me do a little hmm, should I first. Immediate result was the whole palace attacking me. I also freed the dragon. Basically went out of my way to screw the huana. You could complete the VTC without exiling the queen or killing off the palace. If the queen ends up as the figurehead anyway, that would be disappointing, and not entirely make sense. AFAIK that was influenced by me exiling her, but I haven't played enough to know that for sure.

Although you are right, the main ending is primarily faction choice. It does kind of "feel" like more than that as you play through the quests tho and their are subendings, like for the gullet, or the fampyrs. It is nice when you have multiple choices though, as with the gullet, and in some cases you don't have many.

Upvoted. Maybe in a big patch, like "2.0" patch for PoE 1. That's really sad that the most dissapointing part of the game is the most crucial one. I mean, hunting for a god across Deadfire could play so well with exploration theme, but this game rushes it way too much. Agreed, i think the main quest is much too time sensitive, the game keeps telling me to do the main quest, and then i can't do the side content because the game ends after the main quest, they should either give us the ability to play the side content after the main quest, or make the main quest much less time sensitive in my opinion. Just wondering, how does the game rush it? Do you end up with a timer at some point in the game? No, but the antagonist is moving quickly towards a place on the map while we travel around the entire map several times in the main quest alone, meaning the antagonist could have reached his goal and won long before we even finished the main quest, and realistically we wouldn't even manage to think about most of the side quests, just poorly structured in my opinion, Pillars one was even worse, there was no logical reason to do the dlc in that game. Pretty much just an issue with this style of crpg in general. You can't have some world threatening narrative without a real, or false sense of time urgency. If the world is going to end in 1000 years, it's not much of a story sell. Likewise you can't have an actual time pressure, and have deep exploration. In a pnp game, the DM can sort of moderate and justify these things, but in a game, you kind of have to go with "it needs doing now! (but not really). I disagree there, it would be easy for them to make it make sense if they wanted to, all they would have to do is make the majority of the side content post game, and/or find some explanation that made sense for why the big guy is taking so long, maybe he is spending a lot of time and energy doing something we don't know about, maybe he is destroying or using some old engwithan tech or magic for some reason, maybe he is setting some things in motion for the future, there are many possible ways of fixing the structure of the game, my guess is that they just don't see a need to do it because only a few people care about logic in games. I guess I kind of felt like there was some mystery around what he was doing. Like visiting adra sites that you don't get to see. But that still didn't mash with me exploring every inch of map in the second playthrough because I could. I guess they could have made most of the side content post game, but then that would have changed the whole story structure quite a bit, and seperated "the direction of society" from the main plot, which would have its own downsides. Basically that would make it two stories or acts, and then the main act would have seemed quite lacking. Perhaps you are right in that this could have been handled differently. Or better. But my general point was, that this is an issue that's inherent to this format of game, even in pen and paper. In a pen and paper game, basically will put up with a certain amount of messing about and then put the pressure back on when it feels like the energy is lost. I guess one solution would be to have _some_ of the side content prior, and some after. It didn't ruin things for me, but my initial instinct was - better rush for this thing! And that subtracted from all the interesting side content. So I get your point. Another solution would have been to only make things seem urgent toward the end. Keep guans movements and plans relatively secret until you got towards the end of some of that other content. But it does seem like everything has a trade off here.

Am I really the only person who doesn't have a problem with the story, at all? It's primarily a story of the factions fighting over Deadfire with the equivalent of the industrial revolution raging in the background and a hugeass naked god destabilizing the fragile balance of power that existed in the region. It's not that different from Fallout: New Vegas, hailed as the greatest RPG since sliced bread was invented. Public opinion is an interesting one. Some things get more hated as time goes on, as it becomes more popular to hate them. Some things get more popular over time, as it becomes more popular to like things. We call those things classics. And then you get the edgy types who after time has passed, hate the later things, if only to be contrarians. When something first comes out, there's somewhat of a war between the cheery optimists, and the brooding skeptics. I honestly don't notice the faults of things sometimes, until critics point it out. Like the force awakens. Now while IMO, the last jedi is pretty terrible, and I thought so at the time, I kinda enjoyed the force awakens at the time. Then, people pointed out it was basically the same movie as the original star wars. I was like yeah, you are right. And then they were like, oh well there's a sort of creeping narrative that opposes the lore of the world. And I was like, hmm, yes. Same business here. I didn't really think about the main plotline, until I heard people critiqueing it. It's not entirely perfect writing, but it's also not wildly different from the level of influence you actually had in the last game. It does at least have a pretty god animation, and feels pretty epic. The greater game is where the bulk of the story is. I didn't really think about the combat challenge until I heard others mentioning. Some fights were plenty hard. Others not so much. Wasn't as hard as poe1, but then in poe1, the AI was broken. This definately felt less micromanagey and that is a good thing more than a bad thing IMO. At the end of the day, it's the only rpg I've ever played twice, and kept going back to build characters. People are influenced in a viral manner. Doubt begets doubt. Optimism, optimism. I think mostly people are more critical of this game because they were more hyped about it. And there's plenty about it that lives up to that hype too. The other element is that the isometric space is growing now. We are getting, and have more games for comparison. So people are getting picky.

Upvoted. Maybe in a big patch, like "2.0" patch for PoE 1. That's really sad that the most dissapointing part of the game is the most crucial one. I mean, hunting for a god across Deadfire could play so well with exploration theme, but this game rushes it way too much. Agreed, i think the main quest is much too time sensitive, the game keeps telling me to do the main quest, and then i can't do the side content because the game ends after the main quest, they should either give us the ability to play the side content after the main quest, or make the main quest much less time sensitive in my opinion. Just wondering, how does the game rush it? Do you end up with a timer at some point in the game? No, but the antagonist is moving quickly towards a place on the map while we travel around the entire map several times in the main quest alone, meaning the antagonist could have reached his goal and won long before we even finished the main quest, and realistically we wouldn't even manage to think about most of the side quests, just poorly structured in my opinion, Pillars one was even worse, there was no logical reason to do the dlc in that game. Pretty much just an issue with this style of crpg in general. You can't have some world threatening narrative without a real, or false sense of time urgency. If the world is going to end in 1000 years, it's not much of a story sell. Likewise you can't have an actual time pressure, and have deep exploration. In a pnp game, the DM can sort of moderate and justify these things, but in a game, you kind of have to go with "it needs doing now! (but not really).

""As you have probably guessed, Deadfire is a huge game—significantly larger than the original Pillars of Eternity." Obsidian Studios in a backer email. The results of this poll says otherwise. I definitely didnt get the feel it was significantly bigger when i played it. I reckon its about the same size. There are also hundreds of user/ critic reviews all over the internet suggesting the same, in fact worse then this alot of people are saying its shorter. Thats why i put this poll up to see what the players think. I looked at the poll results and you voted for bigger and IMO you have been out voted This is what happens when people split poll results into lots of options, people reading the poll results get confused. People who think it's bigger (WM included or not) = 53.8 percent. People same size = 15.38. People who think it's smaller (WM included or not) = 30.77. So taken as a whole, the drift seems to be that it's bigger, but only by about the same amount, or less than white march. The constant motif in these comments - that the smaller, but more multiple area sizes make it FEEL smaller, probably accounts for the variability. Because "how big something feels" does not equal "how big something actually is". Some of that is very subjective. I mean there were large areas in the city in poe1, where there was basically nothing to do (unlike here, where there are always a few local quests), but conversely the larger dungeons in poe1. Unless there is something to quantitively measure the amount of hours spent on every quest with a fair controlled comparison, it's a matter of perception as much as it is truth.

Seems to me that the simple thing to do is only select Will-based cipher spells, in addition to the obvious ones related to holding/charm/domination. There may not be quite as many Will-based cipher spells as one would hope for. And it might have been nice if ciphers were a lot more focused on Will-based attacks. After all, it seems like that's what ciphers really are ... psionicists. That said, that shouldn't have to mean that all will-based psionics need to be simply charm or holding. There's no reason why they can't also be damage related or do other things. But having said all that, I can see a good reason for NOT having all cipher mental attacks being strictly will based. What if you run up against enemies that have amazingly high Will saves? Ciphers would be essentially blocked from using their powers against such foes. It'd be like being stuck with only piercing weapons while having to fight enemies that were immune to piercing attacks, though at least ciphers do have their own physical weapons to fall back on when their mental ones aren't cutting it. That would have the added effect of maxing out will (ideal), and I believe there are talents to cause stun when other people try will attacks on you, which fits. Obviously a character like this would face enemies it couldn't do as much against. That's pretty much always an issue with this type of character - some enemies don't have minds (golems, undead). As you say, time to whip out a sword and be ineffective for a battle. But it is a shame there isn't a slight more will based focus. And there's no reason why there can't be will based damaging attacks, like the old "ego whip" in d20 games. One would also think that ciphers would get a variety of debuffs - producing weakness, fear, lowering attacks etc. But AFAIK, they don't.

This does seem like the only way to do it. Ranged weapons + beguiler + draining whip. Doesn't appear like there's anyway to pick up points without an attack, and because of that multi-classing with say, illusionist or enchanter wouldn't work that well (or a summoning chanter, which otherwise would be badassed as an option - summon creatures and turn the foes against each other). An an AoE based attack doesn't work that well for this either (bombing) I'm fond of the dual pistols possible in this game. Maximising attack speed seems to work, so long as you seek out the unique items at higher level. Shame though you can't build a character like this without the melee focus.

I always thought a pure telepath or enchanter type character would be fun in a game like this. Someone that relies entirely on stun, confusion, charm and domination. I figure cyphers won't get special dialogue options for reading peoples minds (do they?) but all the same I wondered if this could be done. Cyphers do have some of these abilities. Maybe not as much as I'd like, and usually the depend on dealing damage. Perhaps a subclass with wizard or chanter could make a build like this? Thoughts?

I admitted that I bombed the deadfire trading company, she attacked me, and I ended up killing the whole palace, and all of the deadfire trading company. hahaha. Huana didn't like me much, but it worked out well. As for the dragon, high metaphysics and you can set him free. You'd channel some of his energy into the watershapers for a pro huana plotline.