Jayd
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Posts posted by Jayd
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Shifter/Monk is great, yes. Shifter/Barbarian feels really good, too. Shifters get good armour without a recovery penalty, making full use of the Barbarian's focus on armour and HP and their bonuses to action speed. The sizable base damage and lash of spiritshift weapons+wildstrike makes good use of Barbarian damage bonuses too. Plus Barbarian on-kill abilities work with spell kills. Blood Frenzy/Spirit Frenzy work on spell crits/hits. (Spirit Tornado seems to be bugged in base game because it doesn't stagger on spell hits een though Spirit Frenzy does. Can be fixed with the Community Patch mod.)
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Hi, I managed to encounter and isolate a nasty bug. @Elric Galad
Took me a while to figure out what was happening but if you have the Strand of Favor exploit fix in the Nerf package of this mod active and use Cabalist Gameson with the +beneficial effect duration enchantment on a Druid who uses spiritshift, and the spiritshift expires while in combat, then the game will crash. Or, at least, my game crashes.
Doesn't seem to happen if you manually cancel spiritshift in combat or if combat ends before the duration of your spiritshift expires. Only if it expires in combat.
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Sorry for the topic shift, and it might have been discussed before, but has there been an investigation into why Chanters with +1 phrase cost passives don't always start with max phrases? Briefly discussed in this thread.
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I only ever take Hands of Light. The worst feeling in this game is having a key character get chain interrupted so they can't get their actions off. It's also one of the most threatening things about high-level fights. It's also one of those things that it's very hard to do anything about if the enemy AI fixates on doing it. A Paladin being able to completely negate that threat is worth a lot more than the benefits of Greater Lay on Hands, in my opinion.
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6 hours ago, Sandokan said:
Everybody, thanks a lot your for your advice, it was very helpful.
However, after a bit of further research, I am currently leaning towards multiclassing with a Monk(probably a Helwalker). Sure, the Rogue passives and defensive spells from Trickster are great and I like Sun and Moon/Tuotilo's Palm combo, but doesn't the shield need Monk fists to be viable as a weapon? Also, Monk has access to inspirations, still a few usable full attacks, +10 int (and potenially +10 might as a Helwalker), and weaker, but still useful defensive buffs, and as Constentin mentioned, better crit synergy with Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming.
This combination seems like it would greatly improve Chants, Invocations, and overall crits. On the other hand, survivability would be worse (especially as a Helwalker), and neither Chanter nor Monk seem to get a lot of accuracy bonuses to get those crits in the first place.
I couldn't find the answer to this question anywhere, but how do The Long Pain and its upgrades interact with Skald? Are they still considered melee for crit purposes?
If I went as a Chanter/Monk, which subclasses, if any, would you reccomend? +10 Might from Helwalker is very attractive, but looking at taking +50% damage, maybe FF would be a better choice. Also, with lower accuracy and therefore lower crit chance from not being a Rogue, wouldn't a Troubadour or no subclass work better in this case? Is Bellower any good?
I posted this class build a little while back that you might find of interest. One of my favourite characters for sure, maybe the favourite.
Monks get a good accuracy boost from Dance of Death/Enduring Dance. My build uses speed, crowd control, and tanking support from companions to avoid getting hit. Worked great.
The vast majority of your damage with this class combo will come from Her Revenge Swept Across the Land. It's going to be a caster first and foremost if you play it to its strengths. If you're keen on focusing on weapon damage instead, a Rogue multi might be better.
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34 minutes ago, Noqn said:
So with the way the game distinguishes between omnidirectional and straight bounces, would it be accurate to say that Fury+Driving Flight vanilla behavior (although disappointing) is working as intended and can be left as-is for the Balance Patch?
Straight and omnidirectional are much better adjectives!
I would say it looks to me like this is working correctly according to the game’s internal logic (what the developers intended and what they simply didn’t think too hard about – who knows). The confusion from our end is that the Fury’s weapon and Caedebald's Blackbow are the only weapons in the game that have omnidirectional bounces instead of straight bounces (and Blackbow isn't available to multiclasses so the Driving Flight question never came up). Players are otherwise led to expect that weapons have straight bounces and spells have omnidirectional ones. That expectation is reinforced by the existence of Driving Flight which is explicitly supposed to give a bounce to ranged weapons, and that is translated in the game’s logic as a straight bounce, stackable with weapons which already get straight bounces. I guess you can interpret Fury and Blackbow as special magical exceptions which don't work like other weapons (including Watershaper's Focus...which also looks pretty magical, but whatever).
I think it's reasonable to want to change Fury to a straight bounce to preserve an otherwise clear distinction in player expectation for ranged weapons but, again, that’s a nerf to a weapon that is not at all too strong.
On the other hand, the weapon itself is intrinsically underwhelming (Furies are all about the spells, not auto-attacks), but can become more interesting if made to interact with Driving Flight, especially with Arcane Archer. So the ‘nerf’ enables at least one interesting edge case to an otherwise underwhelming weapon.
So, this has become a judgement call open to interpretation rather than a bug fix or simple question of balance, I would say.
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48 minutes ago, Noqn said:
@Elric GaladFury Driving Flight fix: Fury Bounce Fix.zip
I think the issue is in ExtraStraightBounces description: "Adds Value bounces (in a straight line) to the target's ranged attacks that have no bounces."
Watershaper's Focus solved it by setting the attack's bouces to 0 but giving the item the Leaping Arc mod which adds +1 bounce instead.
I applied the same solution to Fury's weapons.
This is a nice find and great work, thanks! There is an issue, though. With this fix, the first Fury bounce also becomes a 'straight line' bounce, whereas before it was an 'unconditional' bounce. This is a pretty significant nerf to the Fury weapon in every situation other than a Fury/Ranger with Driving Flight.
Perhaps everyone else here already knows the ins-and-outs of the different kinds of bounces, but I just figured them out after a little testing, so I'm going to explain. Watershaper's focus has a 'straight line' bounce, and this is the kind of bounce that Driving Flight gives. The Fury's vanilla blight form weapon has (what I'm calling) an 'unconditional' bounce. I haven't checked, but I imagine pretty much every spell which has a bounce is also this sort.
The difference between these two lies in whether or not the projectile can bounce along acute angles. Draw a line from the shooter to a target and then from that target to another target. If the angle formed where these lines intersect is obtuse, then either the 'straight line' or 'unconditional' bounces will work to hit that second target. If the angle is acute, however, the 'straight line' bounce won't work, but the 'unconditional' one will.
At a guess, the 'straight line' bounce is supposed to represent a projectile which glances off a target and strikes another, preserving its momentum (not one that is reflected) while the 'unconditional' bounce is supposed to be one that seeks out another target regardless of its original momentum. I suppose the developers didn't want these different bounces to mix.
An 'unconditional' bounce is obviously better than a 'straight line' bounce, except in case you pick up the Driving Flight talent, so changing the Fury's weapon to a 'straight line' bounce is a straight nerf to every Fury that isn't a Ranger multiclass. But it does enable a pretty delightful interaction in that specific edge case.
For my game, I'm currently doing a Fury/Arcane Archer run and I'll install @Noqn's mod once I take Driving Flight (headcannon: my character learns to curve the lightning the same way he curves bullets/arrows, but that restricts the way that it bounces). But @Elric Galad may or may not want this (mostly) nerf as a general feature of his mod.
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3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:
Nope.
I tried what I could but it all failed.
I haven't found any logical explanation for it. If anyone find a solution, I'll be happy to incorporate it in my mod.
Thanks very much for trying. Really curious issue.
This obviously isn't a solution, but if anyone is desperate for a workaround I've created a gamedata file that gives the Fury blight's weapon two bounces instead of one (building off/learning from Elric's files again). If you're playing a Beastmaster you can just drop this file into one of the gamedata folders in your override folder as soon as you pick the Driving Flight talent and you'll be good to go. Just remember to take the file out again before you play a different Fury Druid character (or not - I'm not the police).
Edit: Hmm @Elric Galad would it be possible to write something that gives the fury weapon two bounces on the condition that the player has Driving Flight?
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Quick question: does the 'treat as weapon' change to the Fury blight form's weapon in CP/BPM allow it to work properly with Ranger's Driving Flight so that it bounces twice? I assume so but having trouble finding confirmation.
Edit: Just remembered you can hire adventurers to test these things in this game! It turns out that Driving Flight still doesn't work properly. The blight's attack only bounces once even after you have Driving Flight. Has anyone figured out why this interaction doesn't work? @Elric Galad have you encountered anything in the code that would explain this?
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9 minutes ago, Majorman said:
* Trust of Tattered Veils - it either missed, or had no impact.
The point of this spell is that it never misses and is a guaranteed interrupt so I'm not sure what you're experiencing here. It doesn't strip away a concentration when you use it?
You say Ydwin is a Rogue but don't mention using the Rogue's many cheap interrupts. If she has two weapons then you've got two interrupt chances from one Guile with crippling strike. Blinding strike gets +10 accuracy but is more expensive. Sap is only a primary attack but it's cheap, gets +10 accuracy, and interrupts on graze instead of hit.
Does Konstanten have Barbaric Roar? That's also a spammable interrupt.
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25 minutes ago, Majorman said:
Symbol of X is not competing with Dismissal IMO, as it is a "free" spell the Priest always receives and does not cost a precious ability point.
Ah, gotcha. I thought you meant competing for the two casts at that level per encounter.
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10 minutes ago, Majorman said:
It also helps that it becomes available at PL 8 and thus has little competition (Crowns and the lighting aura are nothing to write home about).
Sometimes I feel a bit crazy because I feel like the 'Symbol of x' spells are clearly some of the best spells in the whole game but this isn't the first time on this forum that they seem to be forgotten or regarded as unimpressive.
But yeah, Dismissal is sweet.
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OK, I've published my alternate Shifter Spiritshift cooldown rules here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/613/
I haven't noticed any bugs but do let me know if you try it and notice something. I also haven't tried the meme builds I mentioned but I feel pretty satisfied with the 180s cooldown. I don't think I'd want it much longer or shorter. I explained the design philosophy in the mod page but copying it here too:
Design philosophy:
By default, the Druid class is a caster first and foremost, with Spiritshift as an ancillary feature. Ideally, the point of the Shifter subclass is to make Spiritshift the class’s primary feature rather than an ancillary one. Thematic Shifter builds should aim to spend the majority of their time in animal shape, with spells playing an important but secondary role.Because this is my perspective on the subclass, I disliked BPM’s implementation of a global cooldown on the Shifter’s Spiritshift forms. Preventing the Shifter from transforming freely discourages the player from treating Spiritshift as the centrepiece of their build and therefore, in my opinion, runs counter to the spirit of the subclass and the fantasy it encourages.
Accordingly, I altered the relevant file in BPM so that the Shifter has a cooldown on each of its forms independently. For example, if you use the bear shape, you will incur a cooldown on bear shape only – you can still freely use any of the other four shapes, subject only to their independent cooldowns. This should not feel different to vanilla except in extraordinarily long fights, wherein you will no longer be in danger of losing your ability to Spiritshift altogether. This ensures that the player can feel confident building around Spiritshift no matter the length of an encounter.
The cooldowns are set to 180 seconds. That is long enough that the player should not be able to use the same form twice in any ordinary encounter but short enough that a character who spends most of their time in Spiritshift in a very long encounter should always have at least one form available. Keep in mind that BPM has Spiritshift base duration scale with Druid power level.
@dgray62 tagging you because you said you were interested
@Elric Galad Let me know if I did anything wrong with the credits. (Also, I took you to be a “him” because of your name but just let me know if that’s not the right pronoun.)
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Alright family, mission accomplished. My Shifter forms now have independent cooldowns (it was way easier than I'd feared).
I plan to play with it a while to see if there's any unexpected behaviour and fiddle with the cooldowns. They're at 180s right now. My pet goal is to have playable Shifter/Cipher or Chanter builds that go back and forth to cast spells while still making you have to think twice about shifting back and forth too quickly if you don't want to get locked out. I don't know how long it will be before I test something like that properly though - work is rough right now and don't have a ton of time to play.
Happy to make it available to others if there's any interest. Maybe when I'm happy with it I can upload it to my own Nexus as an optional rule change for BPM? Would that be appropriate, Elric?
Oh, I've also changed that other file to make bear claws Slash/Crush and boar tusks Pierce/Crush. Thought those suited a mauling bear and charging boar better
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24 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:
Yes, it is technically feasible. Slightly tedious, but not so much. Cooldown for Spiritshift is already BPM biggest change by far in term of file size.
It IS intentional. Shifter is an overpowered subclass in Vanilla. How much time 5 cancellable forms would be worse than 1 single form that can cast spell in vanilla ?
Also consider that buffing underpowered forms and Wildstrike comparatively buffs shifter. Shifter can spend about 60% of its time in spiritshift form with the current setting.
The only reason Shifter is not seen as OP in vanilla is that Shifting becomes increasingly relevant at high druid levels.
I know, but the code is entertwined so impossible to separate them.
You can
It is not impossible but even with BPM basis it would be tedious.
You need to copy 5 times the cooldown status, allocate it for each form, and allow shifting for each form based on this particular status. I can't see another change to make but Cooldown for shifting has surprised me several times with side effects.
Thanks very much for the response. My perspective is that specifically because shifting becomes increasingly irrelevant (I think that's what you meant) at high levels, the vanilla Shifter can't be considered overpowered - it's just a choice in emphasizing a playstyle. Not having substantial downsides doesn't make something comparatively more powerful if, in the final analysis, it's not noticeably more effective at overcoming the game's challenges than what it's being compared to. And for a Druid that's not focused on shifting all the time, what free spells you get is a much bigger deal than whether or not you have five shifts. Anyway, that's just my perspective. I respect yours and don't want to start a debate.
I'll probably see if I can figure out the code when I have some time to spare. Thanks for the hints. If I can't, there are always less elegant solutions ('set duration: 10' or 'delete key')
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@Elric Galad I was wondering whether it would be possible to implement the cooldown to each of the Shifter's forms individually instead of as a global cooldown on all of them. I'm not asking you to make this change (though I'd like it if you did) - I just want to know whether it is possible and perhaps a note or two on what work would have to be done to implement it?
My reasoning is that the current global cooldown denies the Shifter some of its unique playstyle options and flexibility. For example, if you wanted to try a quirky (almost certainly underpowered but maybe fun?) Shifter/Chanter or Shifter/Cipher who uses animal form to build up their spells, then reverts back to cast before immediaetly taking animal form again. Or, if you wanted to try some kind of low-INT build focused on Spiritshift and use the Shifter's multiple animal forms to compensate. These kinds of offbeat options certainly aren't overpowered or cheesy but the current implementation of the cooldown takes them away.
The cooldown is also, of course, a nerf to the Shifter in anything other than megaboss fights and maybe a couple SSS fights, because in any other fights (mid-late game, I'll get to early game in a second) you are not going to use all your animal forms anyway. So, the cooldown is strictly a penalty compared to vanilla for the vast majority of the game (maybe this was intentional...?). This is worse in early game when your shift durations are still quite short, and fights don't drag on for ages, so hitting the cooldown just makes it more likely that you'll get killed. Again, maybe intentional, but the end result is that, while the cooldown is a straight buff to every other Druid subclass, it's a straight nerf to the Shifter (except megabosses) despite being in the buff package.
What I would like to try is a 120s (or higher) cooldown for each of the Shifter's forms independently. That would be insignificant compared to vanilla in normal play but would mean that the Shifter doesn't have a hard time limit to its playstyle in very long fights (virtually just megabosses). And it would make some of the more unique, quirky, suboptimal uses of the subclass more viable where the current implementation just makes them impossible. But is this doable? I took a peek in the file and to my novice eyes it looks like it might not be.
Also @dgray62 check your inbox, I'm trying to ask you about Forbidden Fist stuff!
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Nice one, thanks. Embrace always looked cool but I rarely use it because Lv. 5 spells are crowded with Plague, Relentless Storm, and Nature's Terror. What do you think of Embrace vs. those spells? Do you/would you frequently choose it over them on any Druid or only when you build around it?
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@Elric GaladI think when you uploaded the most recent version I felt it a little in my soul because I’ve suddenly been thinking about Deadfire this week after having not played for a while and then I come back to find the best balance change I could have hoped for. I love shapeshifting more than anything in RPGs and these changes to Spiritshift look like great adjustments which are in line with the vanilla experience while being more generous to people (like me) who try to build around this fantasy. Just wanted to say thank you for your continued work on this project. Your effort is deeply appreciated!
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What are people's feelings about the buff to Paladin Beacons?
Glorious beacon & Upgrades :
3s/4s Cast -> 0,5s/4,5s Cast
1,5m AoE -> 2,5m AoE
8s Duration -> 12s Duration (for all effects, including upgrades)Having played with it a while I'm beginning to think it's too much. Inspired Beacon's debuff is so strong and this makes it trivial to apply it to big groups of enemies for a long time (even with just Pallegina). I understand from reading earlier in the thread that the idea was to make the base ability comparable to Eyestrike, which is a good intuition, but when Inspired Beacon comes into the picture I feel this is such a strong, no-brainer, no-downside effect as to make many/most fights significantly easier than vanilla/Community Patch, which isn't what I want from the mod and I don't think is what you want, @Elric Galad.
I was thinking of simply deleting this file but, because I like the change to the base function of the ability, I'm going to try turning the duration of just the damage debuff back to the original base 8s (keeping in mind that even the CP set it to 10). I see that all the different effects are nicely differentiated in the files. Enduring Beacon is also probably fine as is with the long duration (compare with Shields for the Faithful).
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23 minutes ago, SArgentus said:
Combined with the findings for the Squid's Grasps Certain Mutiny upgrade, this could potentially be a fun combo by confusing the chanter and charming the whole team for an extra +30% damage bonus + Squid's Grasp bonus - It does however disable abilities and the int debuff will hurt an already short duration, so it's probably in the very niche category.
Haha you know, this build would also work very well on a Berserker. Charming your team and zooming around with absurd hit-crit conversion while everyone auto-attacks would be pretty amusing.
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Sometimes Chanter subclasses which have +1 phrase costs start with their true max phrases and sometimes they start with their max phrases ignoring the +1 from subclass.
Eg. from level 19 on my Skald multiclass had Called to His Bidding which costs 7 phrases for a Skald (6+1). Usually he would start combat with 7 phrases but there were some stretches when he would only start with 6. It seemed to correct itself so I didn't pay attention.
I thought I'd try out a SC Beckoner and it's very annoying to start combat unable to cast my best summon. Respecing and resting don't seem to do it. Anyone know what sets this right?
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55 minutes ago, Abuachumi said:
What I've realized is that the most powerful classes are combining classes, right? All classes gain more than they lose by mixing with others.
I don't think that's the right takeaway. SC Monks, just for example, are nuts. But more importantly, this conversation has been about solo characters and the classes that can beat the game comfortably solo are not necessarily the ones that are strongest in a party. One reason I prefer not to play games like this solo is because having a party allows you to build characters that excel at a certain role - and usually they will be much better at that role than they could be if they had to be built to take on the whole game by themselves. Single class characters usually shine in a party because they're intrinsically stronger in their specific niche (and will often be stronger at it than a multiclass could be). Multiclasses dominate solo because they need the tools to do everything themselves, and often rely on specific combos.
edit: Raven ninja'd with similar comments
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40 minutes ago, Boeroer said:
I guess he meant a guide for Lifegiver specifically?
Oh, perhaps - but can't hurt to show them in case they hadn't seen it.
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3 hours ago, Andres Arigon said:
BTW you should write some guide because there are 0 guides on the Interent
There's a really good guide for the game here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599
Written by the user who posts here often as thelee.
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List of some way to increase DoT's damages
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted
Power level boosts also increase DoT. For example, having Spine of Thicket Green with Empowered Instinct equipped will increase the damage dealt by Plague of Insects. And this isn't just on cast - it's reactive. If you unequip the Spine the damage of the spell ticks will immediately decrease on the creatures it is affecting.