Ivanfyodorovich

Lucca Act III, White March II Things go fast in Act III, and again I do not scale up the difficulty to keep it quick. I like to do all of the god quests. This time we let the elves go through the frost hewn breach and convince Rymrgand that he's cool with it. The Sky Dragon goes down very quickly to our level 12 party. We clear down to the bottom level of the Endless Paths, including a peaceful resolution with Od Nua, but I decide to wait to talk with the dragon until I have an actual chance at beating it if I click the wrong dialogue options. I'm not sure I need the loot from her, either, but I hate to leave it undone. We take care of Raedric again, and Kana snags some new armor. We also complete a few of the other Twin Elms quests (Hunter, Brother; Sagani's quest; collecting the 3 birds (don't worry, we didn't let him eat them)). Next, we head back to Stalwart for the fastest WM2 run I've ever done. We head straight to the fort and bust through the front door. I didn't look up what options were needed to peacefully negotiate with Adaryc, so we end up killing him. C'est la vie. From there off to the Monastery. We get in peacefully and drown the sad people in the basement. High Abbot goes down pretty easily, though I still convince a few of his people to change sides for the fight. From here we reforge the Hammer and give it to Kana. Onward to Cayron's Scar. The Kraken goes down faster than I expected. Thanks Pallegina! Pallegina with Caed Nua resting bonus and the +4 CON ring hits the crystal and survives. We return Abydon's memories to him. Take that Ondra! Now to finish with Thaos.

Let's leave both as disease, and do some smaller polish here. I think Boeroer and Thelee have a good point that the ability as it exists now is pretty strong, even with the disease KW on both the base and upgrade. There are only 2 other disease abilities in the game, so it's a cool flavor/niche. Making it auto-hit fixes most of the problems with it. Keeping both disease removes the upgrade being inferior, as Boeroer pointed out.

Gotcha. Please do add the KW. I wouldn't think of it as a nerf, since it's already flagged that way internally.

I tested, and it already is flagged disease. It seems good to leave it.

If we can't separate the debuff from the damage in terms of disease flagging (as it seems based on this latest test), I think we should buff the upgrade slightly or it will be a case of the original ability being stronger than the upgrade. Corrode DoT (9 per 3.0 for 10 seconds) or dual debuff (Distracted or Hobbled) is my vote.

Lucca Act II & WMI We head to defiance bay at level 4 and quickly build up to level 6 doing as many nonviolent/low level quests. We are going to ally with the Crucible Knights, though we complete Osric's Breastplate to get access to the Dozens shop. At level 6 we go back to kill Raedric. A bit easy, as expected, but that's my plan with this run. No level scaling, stay a few levels ahead of the content to reduce the risk and speed up the playthrough. I have done enough PoE1 runs now to not miss the challenge. Back in Defiance we do Catacombs, Brakenbury (including Aloth's quest) and some in Ondra's gift. Then head to the Endless Paths to clear through to Persistence. Back in Defiance Bay, we do Heritage Hill. I went in through the left side in Valtas Manor, pulling the whole house at once. Things got a little interesting for a moment. In Ondra's Gift, I fight Lillith, thanks to a careless dialogue choice with Maerwith. This fight also poses a challenge with no Prayer Against Imprisonment. We speed through Dyrford, peaceful solution with the ogre, kill our way through to Wymund and have Grieving Mother wipe her (drop GM after the quest). Tie up the loose ends in Defiance Bay, and Head out to the White March. I do not enable level scaling here - I want to make this go as quickly as possible. I'm also playing a lot in the middle of the night in between feeds for my newborn baby, so it helps to have things be a little more forgiving. Here, I'm really trying to not get caught up in side quests. I do not pick up either companion in Stalwart. In Russetwood I snag the Bear belt for Pallegina, who is now rocking Leadspitter and a Pistol. We grab Bittercut, though no one is set up to use it. I make peace with the Ogres, snagging Golden Gaze for Aloth, and we head to the Battery. I grab the other half of Stormcaller for Sagani. I have to double back to start the Giftbearer quest in order to have Urthal spawn to pick up St. Ydwen's Redeemer for Pallegina. This is really just for another instakill proc on the Eyeless and the Thaos fight. It will be easy to level it up as we clear the battery. Back in town we awaken the woman in the inn, and return to clear the Battery. Things go smoothly here, though I make the classic mistake in the corner fight where spirits spawn inside the room and aggro along with the vessels in the hallway. Thankfully my priest doesn't die in the initial salvo, and I'm able to stabilize. For most of these fights I have the AI on and just spot check as needed. It still takes so long to clear through. The final fight went smoothly, and we durganize Pallegina's armor & Leadsplitter, Outworn Buckler, and Sagani's armor. Onward!

Look at Withering Strike, maybe? It is not poison, but Toxic Strike is? I'd be glad to test a file, too!

What if you remove the disease flag from the initial ability, but keep it on the upgrade and add something to strengthen the upgrade. Maybe increase the duration, add a corrode DoT, or add a second affliction (Hobbled or Shaken)?

@Elric Galad What if you set the cast time to .5, leave the raw DMG what it is, but increase the corrode explosion to 50-60 corrode?

I like that approach - buff the on-death effect to make it worth casting for 1 instakill. If you get more than 1, you are getting much better than average results.

14 is the magic number, I think. With +1 from gear and any INT inspiration, you can hit 20. That's very achievable. You are probably getting INT from Duality, as well.

Does long pain have summoned weapon scaling or unarmed scaling or both?

That's fair. Maybe a more modest damage increase along with a phrase reduction and cast time reduction would be better to prevent power creep?

I was just looking at the base DMG, so that makes White Worms slightly stronger. Some info for fun below. PL3: Noxious Burst: 32-43 corrode vs. FOR (+sickened) // White Worms: 48-61 crush vs. REF (w/ PL scaling) PL4: Calling the World's Maw: 32-54 pierce vs. REF (+prone) // White Worms: 51-64 crush vs. REF (w/ PL scaling) PL5: Ocean Burst: 50-62 crush vs. REF // White Worms 53-67 crush vs. REF (w/ PL scaling) PL6: Pillar of Holy Fire: 65-78 burn vs. REF (smaller AoE) // White Worms: 55-70 crush vs. REF (w/ PL scaling) PL9: Tornado: 45-72 crush base vs. FOR (+knockup, double the radius) // White Worms 62-78 crush vs. REF (w/ PL scaling)

I do think the damage is low. It seems like the "budget" for the ability was spent on the "on death" effect, which you are right, is a little too situational. Wilting Wind is PL8 and does 55-68 base. Maybe you could tune up Boil Their Flesh to 30-34? 25% increase over current.

I did some digging and the closest spell is Ocean Burst, which is PL 5 and only Tekehu, deals crush, interrupt on crit, same 2.5m radius, but you can cast it when/where you want. You don’t get a higher base damage AOE until Tornado for Druid. For priest Pillar of Holy Fire at PL6 is the first aoe with higher base dmg (though smaller AoE). For Wizard, Torrent of Flame at 5 is the first spell with higher base damage.

Resolve is a funny stat. You either want to max it out, because you want high deflection, and every point gives increasing returns, or you want to dump it, because you gain very little from each point at lower levels of it. With FF and SC Paladin using Sacred Immolation, Resolve has the added effect of hugely mitigating a self-damage component of a signature ability, making it much better. A FF with high resolve can cast their Forbidden Fist ability on cool down, without worrying about the self-damage being too high. The debuff is called Forbidden Curse. I'm not sure how it works in TB, so you may need less resolve to cast Forbidden Fist on cooldown, gaining 1 wound per turn easily (on top of any other effects expiring). You might be able to get away with low resolve and instead just use Clarity of Agony to get it to 1 would per turn (though you have to spend 2 wounds on it every few turns). Forbidden Fist costs 0 wounds if you have 0 stacks of the Curse, and it deals great damage with a very strong debuff (enfeebled).

I think these are reasonable, though the dual damage might be a little too strong (without checking every class, I'm confident this is the highest damage AoE spell at PL2 for any class by a big margin, which means it scales very well with PL). You could reduce the damage a little to compensate, or instead, add a corrode DoT to the upgrade to make it more compelling. Coming back to adding Poison Keywords, to confirm, we want to add Poison to these abilities: Vile Thorns Plague of Insects Venombloom (check to make sure it isn't double dipping, since it already benefits from Poison PL now) Toxic Strike (needs the antidote KW added, too) I'm happy to test these if that saves you time. Let me know!

Yep. Forbidden fist does not gain wounds from taking damage. They only gain wounds when a hostile effect expires on them. That includes their main ability they get at level 1, which puts a self damaging debuff on them. They are the ideal Brawler tank subclass. Make sure you max out resolve, but Clarity of Agony also does wonders. Tuotillo's Palm has great synergy, too (the deflection per wound upgrade). You can add some items to help increase wound generation (Hylea's Claw). If you search Forbidden Fist here, you can find some great discussions on how to maximize their unique abilites.

They do work independently somehow. There are 5 disease immune, but not poison immune enemies (various forms of bats), and there are several poison immune and not disease immune enemies (skeletons, naga). White Worms works on poison immune only and does not work on disease immune only. Same for Rot Skulls. Noxious Burst works on disease immune only, and not on poison immune only, etc. Based on that, and the fact that no abilities are flagged as both, I wouldn't want to add the Poison keyword to any disease abilities. If we want to create a disease keyword, just to make it clear how those abilities interact with immunity, that seems fine. It would also allow future modders to create gear or abilities that take advantage of that keyword. This seems great. I wouldn't remove anything from the disease flagged abilities. Their flavor is suitably disease-y (corpse explosion, rotting skull tossing, etc.). I'd suggest instead that you add a keyword, or at least update the descriptions. A Disease Keyword has no mechanical interaction currently, but it does clearly indicate what's happening with the ability. It also opens room for future mods w/ gear or abilities. That would affect these abilities (That I'm aware of). Druid Spreading Plague Rot Skulls Chanter White Worms & Upgrade (I can confirm that they both are flagged internally as disease.

Also, Athletics & Cadhu Scalth gives you an additional +3 to +10.

I don't think this is the best move. It feels much better to just make the abilities work consistently with +Poison PL. That opens up more build possibilities, and holds closer to developer intent, i.e. if a poison immune creature is immune to the spell, add the Poison keyword to it. As Boeroer showed in that DoT thread you linked, Druid has lots of spells that deal corrode/raw and/or are DoTs that work against poison immune foes. It would also make this work more consistently, as all of the wizard poison spells have the keyword and work as expected with poison immune foes. (Nannasin's Cobra Strike is the exception here, but summoned weapons work weird with PL, anyway). I also wouldn't mess with any of the disease flagged spells. There's no special powerlevel mechanics for them, and the descriptions of the abilities usually are clear enough. If desired, you could add clarifying language on spells that don't mention disease. Chanter White Worms invocation and it's upgrade do not work against disease/poison immune enemies. Description doesn't mention either disease or poison, so perhaps this could be changed to work against those enemies. If we don't want to change it, I think it makes the most sense as a disease ability, i.e. doesn't need any keywords added. What Rua Noka Found . . . (Dank Spore) summon regular attacks work against poison/disease immune and are not keyworded poison or antidote. The Spore Cloud charm attack is keyworded poison/antidote, and does not work on poison immune enemies. I would not make any changes here, seems to be working correctly. Boil Their Flesh From Skin to Bone does damage poison/disease immune enemies, and is not keyworded poison/antidote. Seems to be working correctly. Wizard All abilities with Poison keyword work as expected and have antidote counter (Malignant Cloud, Noxious Burst). The others are not keyworded Poison and work fine against poison immune enemies. Rogue Pernicious Cloud works against poison immune and is not antidote or poison keyworded. Toxic Strike does not work against poison immune. It does not have the Poison keyword or the Antidote counter. Note that Withering Strike DOES work against poison immune enemies. Note: it does not seem like Poison PL is affecting the ability, but because it's a weapon attack based one, it's hard to see exactly. Someone with better testing skills might be able to answer more definitively.

I agree! Empowered Eld Nary is just so damn strong; that alone is worth it most fights. The debuff build is really strong, too. In particular, Ben Fidel's Neck Was Exposed (unique -10 all DEF), The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning (unique -2 MIG + Weakened), and the stagger from Spirit Frenzy (which applies in AoE when used with offensive chants like Long Night's Drink) are such strong and unique interactions with very little investment. They also set up Eld Nary really well by lowering FOR defense in an AoE quite significantly, without even needing the Morningstar Modal. You can still keep the saber in the mix with the Howler, though of course less room for the empower talents.

I was considering a debuff/support oriented Spiritualist for my next run in place of a priest. I had thought Beguiler, but now that you say this, Psion would work better, I think.

Here's that list of spells to add Poison keyword to. Venombloom is funky, in that it's only a display issue, so I'd want to test to make sure it doesn't benefit twice if we gave it the keyword. I'd also love to know what is going on in the code there. [Vile Thorns] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL [Plague of Insects] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL [Venombloom] has counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed DOES benefit from Poison PL Edge case [Wall of Thorns] does not have counter: Antidote, does not have Poison keyword, confirmed does not benefit from Poison PL, but description says "Applies a poison that causes a Weakened state." I personally would not make changes to this spell. Poison immune is so common, and Druid already has 3 spells that won't work on them.