Nssheepster

It was so satisfying in POE1 when you were geared to the teeth and a higher level, just waltzing into combat and chunking down health. Also had so much flexibility with the casts on the harder bounty / big bosses to summon or nuke while maintaining the chip damage. A mod would be great, but kinda niche and I'm not sure there's ways to specifically target spell mechanics rather than just simple increase / decreases? Dragon and Sure Handed were basically the only reason I ever took a Chanter in POE1. If I wasn't going to be using either, I didn't even take Kana. As for Niche... I mean there are OTHER niche mods, and presumably, they'd not mod ALL phrases, they'd just specifically meddle with the game files for this ONE chant. I'd presume this would take less time than many othermods. Hell, there's a 'niche' mod for Whispers of the Endless Paths, that's pretty niche too. IDK, I don't mod anything, it's not like I'd be doing it.

Sounds like Dragon Thrashed is a good target for a mod to make it more similar to POE 1... Or just to give it better damage/pen.

Just had something amusing occur... Started a Brute character, with the Berath's Blessing for extra levels. Had Mob Stance when I stepped out for the Drake attack. I was also a Berseker Subclass. So, I killed a pirate, then Mob Stance went off, and I instantly crit and killed Eder. Apparently, Second Chance won't activate there, as he just stayed dead, and was dead when I arrived on the beach. I don't mind really I wasn't intending to take him, but it still made me laugh pretty hard, so I thought I'd take a moment and share.

Read and saw both. I agree. Aha! Someone who can find the humor in both The Princess Bride AND Deadpool. Clearly a man after my own heart. Do you also enjoy awesome hats and find baseball caps to be the epitome of lazy head coverings?

I suddenly feel far, far worse about every time I ever sided with the Valians.

If you blast them with your cannons enough, the ship sinks. You're TOLD that it sinks, and yet you still get loot. As for capturing them.... You would need enough crew on YOUR ship to crew your current ship AND the new one, unless you wanted to sink your old ship. Since you don't actually have enough space to do that, unless you've already bought a Junk and are capturing a Voyager..... Also, if anyone comes across you while you're swapping ships in the middle of the ocean, you're a sitting duck and totally unable to defend yourself. So it'd be a risk of an immediate death if you tried this insanity. I'm not perfect on my history but I don't recall ship stealing really being a thing that went on mid-ocean, usually more in port....

The Princess Bride is hysterical, the revised book is even more hysterical, and I will duel anyone who insists otherwise. And NO, The Princess DIARIES is not The Princess BRIDE. Different name, I've no idea how people keep confusing the two.

You'd have to do the math, specifically. OFC, Patinated Plate is only one option, there's also the Devil of Caroc Breastplate and... Miscreant Leathers? I think that's the light armor that does the same kind of thing. The reason I specifically value Contender's Armor is to get the NEGATIVE recovery penalty the easiest, by stacking a stat that's already valuable, Athletics. It's not a bad armor overall anyways, so it's not like that's a bad thing. The idea is intended for a DPS character, the kind of character that you normally want wearing Light Armor if you can get away with it, so Contender's is an upgrade simply by virtue of being a Medium. The extra engagement slot it offers isn't specifically useful in most cases, but it can be, so that too is a benefit. If I was building a tank, I'd not use any of the armors mentioned here simply because I want to be as durable as possible, and none of them are how I do that. Patinated SEEMS good for a tank, with the stun on being hit... But tanks aren't actually HIT a whole lot, so that's not really as valuable as it seems unless you're doing a specific type of tanking with excessive healing and intentionally lowered deflection. I'd use something more like Blackened Plate Armor, for the free debuff and either a little DPS or a little healing out of my tank. It's not huge, but it's better than nothing, and the rare times you come across Decay attacks your tank doesn't enjoy them. Overall, especially if you're stacking Dexterity, Contender's isn't probably worth pushing ALL the way, after you get into Negative Recovery you should probably stop. Diminishing returns and all that. But another advantage of Contender's is that you don't actually NEED Armored Grace to push it into Negatives, just a pet with lower recovery penalty. Even then, if you don't push it into Negatives, and just stack Dex and get 25 Athletics, it's still way better than a similar Light Armor. You could easily use this on something OTHER than a Fighter and STILL get serious benefit from it. As I said in the first post, it's not an OP combination, but it is pretty good, and it's ended up with one of my DPS characters being more durable than they otherwise would be, which can be pretty valuable in clutch situations. On top of that, I like to run solo runs, or with just one or two companions for RP, so that extra durability is a lot more relevant for me than it would be in a full synergistic min-maxed party. Hell, my current run is a Moon Godlike Chanter with Tekehu, gonna finally get the 'Solo' ending instead of siding with someone. Two people only, a Chanter and a Chanter because reasons.... Yeah, durability is a good thing when I do things like this. XD

Out of the three, I'd prefer White That Wends, but I expect it the least.... It's supposed to be a snowy, barren land with wandering tribes. The tribes moving around would be an annoying mechanic, and all the scenery would be pretty much the same. It wouldn't actually sort out for a good place to base a game on. As for Juanval's comment... A 'new' character could be good... But TBH, WHY are we all so stuck on Eora? Obsidian made Eora, we can have faith they can make a NEW land. With Eora as it stands, at the end of Deadfire, it would be basically impossible to avoid the consequences of the first two games, and avoid the gods, without it feeling horribly contrived. Why not make a NEW land, with a similar system to POE, advertise it as 'being based on the Pillars of Eternity game mechanics' or some such, and go from there? The more you extend an IP, the more the built-up lore and expectations limit what you can or cannot do. At this point, it's pretty heftily restrictive to try to justify a lore-friendly POE 3 with the Watcher, or one without the Watcher that doesn't interact with the gods. So, why do it? Why labor under countless restrictions when you could start anew? Make a new IP, one that doesn't involve direct influence by gods, only Priests. Make the gods background dressing, and you can even keep Godlikes around, giving them something similar to Faith and Conviction, but unique to each God. That way, gods are THERE, they have influence, but they speak to noone and never directly interfere. We've kept some of the good things about Pillars, but freed up the narrative for new plots, plots that won't restrict or affect the following games as much. Tyranny was an interesting universe, even if the game itself still feels unfinished because of how much was left un-done in the game. This new Outer Worlds or whatever should at least be an interesting lore-wise kind of thing, regardless of the game's overall quality. Obisidian has proven they can and will make interesting new worlds if they want to... Why not do THAT and have a POE3 that isn't named POE, and isn't in Eora, but still has that high fantasy style and the game mechanics we love?

I actually want to know this. I never use Ciphers, but I am still curious regardless.

I'd take Muatu as a companion. He was fun. Sadly, not even a sidekick. Just a head.

Ah THAT I can get behind. Yeah a lot of combat is very... spiky, I guess? It's either easy as hell or it's flooding you with debuffs/numbers and you're at serious risk of wiping at any time. If it was either/or, that could be dealt with, by going up and down in difficulty levels. The weird spikes, not my jam. I expect a spike in a boss fight. I don't expect a spike on the tutorial island when I walk into an area intending to deal with a thug diplomatically.

I honestly hate Neketaka and Defiance Bay. There's so much to do that I either skip a MASSIVE amount of content or I end up feeling trapped in the city, constantly going back and forth, loading over and over as I spend more time talking than fighting... And the talking isn't all that engaging when I have a main quest that's far more important hanging over my head, that the city's quests have little to do with. Sidekicks aren't really my jam but they are... Okay? Like I don't find myself annoyed that they exist, they seem like a nice option, just not an option I choose to take usually. Less Combat Encounters though? Not down with that. At that point, dump the graphics and make it a text based game. There are good text based games to be had, if you don't want a lot of combat, just wandering around talking to people.

The only Clarity we get in POE is Clarity of Agony

Yeah... Pallegina really annoyed me in this one. YOU wanted to do the right thing, and now you blame ME? On top of that, she's suddenly flipped her personality from 'This isn't right' to 'I will murder children and kick small puppies for the Republics'.

Eh.... Outside of either more investment, or a multi projectile weapon, those stats really don't sound worth it the majority of the time. Which is sad, given that poisons seem like a really cool thing to use for the big bosses of the game, and have a decent variety on offer. Alchemy is indeed dissapointing now, it's not great for drugs or poisons.

Good to know. Now if only my high powered flying chunks of metal weren't somehow totally meaningless to skeletons, even if those skeletons are wearing armor and are thus a large target.

Firearm will still give you reload, besides recovery, if I'm not mistaken . True, but AFAIK the recovery penalty applies to reload time as well.

Oh? Well now I need to snag an armor recovery pet, pick up the Burglar's Gloves, and see just how far I can push it. That's pretty neat. Definitely gotta run a build aiming for Dex Cap with a firearm now.

I was rather curious about how the Heavy Mobility Enchantment on Contender's Armor and the Armored Grace passive from Fighter sorted out. Turns out, with both and 28 Athletics, I recover from attacks FASTER with my armor ON rather than off, it actually ends up a net GAIN if you start pushing it far enough. And that 28 Athletics? I could push it even further. The character's only L19, so there's another 1 Athletics there. 2 more could be gained from the Burglar's Gloves that I'm not wearing as well. Right now, I'm using this on a 2Her build, but I can only imagine it'd be even better with a dual wield build, or perhaps a firearm character. Anyways, just hadn't seen this noted anywhere and I think it's a particularly interesting interaction. Not bugged, almost certainly not OP, but definitely cool and useful. I'm using it on a Fighter/Monk with the Sanguine Great Sword right now. I might end up using a similar combination for a firearm build simply to see how hard I can push it. Helm of the Falcon is currently improving my recovery time even further, so I expect I'd run with Acina's Tricorn for the firearm variant, and presumably go Fighter/Ranger, costing myself a base Athletics but gaining the Gunner passive. If anybody has any cool ideas for more ways to abuse negative recovery time with this combination, I'd love to hear them... And throw them on my always-growing list of characters to make.

Maybe if there is a handful spells you are interesting in using. Can’t imagine playing pure Wizard without Grimoires. You put couple of those in your quick-switch tab and you have entire spell repertoire. Stick to just what you picked during leveling up and you will be casting inappropriate spells a majority of time. Shrug. Minoletta's Minor Missiles alone is valuable in almost every fight. There are more than a few spells that may not be 'the best' in every situation, but are generically good at almost all times. Sure, maybe you don't have a spell for every level that's good in X fight... But you're bound to have more than one that IS useful. Empower for extra casts, and the Wizard will be just fine... As long as you have a party. I don't suggest it for solo play unless you're running a Blood Mage in a very specific setup and have a good reason. As for Multiclassing, Boro... Yeah, true. But as a pure Wizard, in a party? Extra passives is extra good. The small defense passives can make a hell of a difference in the long run, and there are more than a few items that grant per-rest spell casts that you want on your Wizard anyways, so you're really not lacking for resources or options.

I would argue that Fighters are the best, simply because if your build doesn't require those last two power levels, you can multiclass with Fighter and your build becomes strictly better by virtue of all that free durability Fighter provides. Generic durability as well, so it's fine for multi with ranged, melee, and spell builds.

I noticed it the most with Great Swords, sadly. I tried to make a Great Sword character, planning for Twin Eels, going full Religion, RPing with Death Godlike.... And it went terribly. Planned on using Whispers of the Endless Paths until I got Twin Eels. I regretted that. Managed to struggle along anyways, got Twin Eels. Regretted getting it. Struggled along, tried to get to Voidwheel... Couldn't pull it off, sadly, no matter how cheesy I tried to get. Now, granted, this was a Solo run on Classic... But I didn't have this issue with, say, Sabres.

To go with this, we really should have something on the tooltips that tell us what power levels DO. Some of the things, if you specifically hover over the right thing, will tell you what your current power levels are doing, but not what more will do. But then, Clarity really isn't a big thing from Obsidian on tooltips.

After "Rogues are the best class" and "Wizards are useless" in PoE forums this is the crassest misjudgement I read so far (at least from a mechanical point of view). Grimoires allow Wizards to skip all spells at lvl-up (and only take passives - or in case of multiclass: take only actives from the second class) and still be able to cast spells as if he had learned them. How on Earth and Eora is that almost useless? It's THE biggest complaint of players when they compare Priests and Druids with Wizards: that the Wizard has those omnipotent Grimoires. This is so outrageous that I'm about to summon Gromnir! This is true... But you could ALSO just focus on ONE spell per level, and NEVER need a Grimoire. Granted, because Trinkets are so late game, there's not really a big reason NOT to take them... But compared to POE 1? POE 1 where the lore and game FORCED you to carry a Grimoire or you can cast basically NOTHING? Of course, POE 1 told you that Grimories were why you COULD cast spells, and POE 2 promptly ignored that entirely, which hasn't helped. Really the only reason to NEED a Grimoire in Deadfire is for a Grimoire only spell, of which there are very few, and for the Grimoire of Vaporous Wizardry. Other than that? Pick one spell per level, and as long as you either have a party or are running Blood Mage, you really won't even feel the lack of a Grimoire. Unlike POE 1, which is what my comment specifically referenced, the disparity in Grimoire value between 1 and 2. As for the Priest/Druid comparison? Wizards don't get a free spell every time they level up. If you choose to, you CAN play a Priest/Druid with ONLY those free spells and still do pretty well, so if anything, Priests and Druids have just as potent an advantage.