Jayd

Druid is probably only worth it if you are willing to use its caster side. If you really only want to cast buffs the Priest would be better. You won't regret taking Devoted for the PEN.

Glad I could help. This page should explain the defenses issue (and that guide as a whole is the best one there is for Deadfire). Wayfarer would be good because of the extra healing but any Paladin would work. Make sure you pick one you'd enjoy roleplaying because of the disposition mechanic.

Not sure what your reasoning is here. Defenses and passive AR are two things in the game that do scale exceptionally well at high levels. The higher your deflection is the more +5 deflection matters. And an extra point of AR can give you 25% damage reduction at any level. Since both Paladins and Fighters can make good work of AR and deflection I think Stalker is exactly what you want. Notice that the penalty is only incurred when you are more than 7m from your pet, and why would you be? Wolf is also a squishy pet and Stalker + Exalted Endurance + Lay on Hands (or Kind Wayfarer Flames of Devotion) would make keeping it alive much easier.

Was hoping this could be included too, if it becomes possible again.

When I saw that Shifters were nerfed in an early patch I was pretty shocked, considering what some classes are capable of. That is very frustrating, but I don't find that most classes are unfun.

It's character level only. Glad you like the build.

When I was but a tween, addicted to the original Neverwinter Nights on our crappy family computer that could hardly run it, I refused to play anything but the Shifter prestige class. The idea of shapeshifting into different creatures to face my enemies was too exciting to even consider abandoning. Now that I’m much older and only very slightly less single-minded (sadly my computer can run Deadfire only slightly better than the old junker could run NWN), I’ve imported my love of shapeshifting to this game, resolving from the beginning to make the most of the Shifter Druid subclass. At this time, I believe I have some insights that are worth sharing for others who may be interested in this subclass. This post will be a bit long and unusual, because I will provide a brief analysis of the strengths of Shifters in general as well as my favourite class build to illustrate my points (it’s a Tempest build, so Barbarian fans, stick around). I hope that the post encourages others to give the Shifter subclass a shot, whether in the form of my Tempest build or otherwise. Let’s jump in. First Principles The biggest pitfall one may succumb to when planning a Shifter build is to think of the Shifter as an entirely martial subclass. Spiritshift has the benefit of two strong single-handed weapons in combination with armour as strong as superb Heavy Armor (when fully scaled) without any recovery penalty, and with no vulnerabilities (i.e. the armour has the same rating for all damage types unlike regular armours, which have weaknesses). This is a solid foundation to build on, but it is not equivalent to the martial benefits of an entire martial subclass like Fighter or Rogue. Shifters are still Druids, and Druids are spellcasters. Now let’s take a step back and ask what makes Druids special. What is their niche? I would provide two answers to this: healing and versatility. If there is one single thing a Druid can do better than any other class, it’s keeping a team healed. But that’s far from the whole story. Druids can also do significant damage, valuable crowd control, have some good summons, and a few very useful party buffs. And, of course, they have bursts of martial power from Spiritshift. No other class packs such diverse value in a single team slot, even though other classes will be better at most specific aspects. Druid subclasses leverage this versatility by offering specialization in one of the dimensions of the Druid kit, usually compromising another. This might lead one to think that a Druid subclass should be built to focus on that one specialist dimension and no other, but this is simply the general form of the pitfall that I mentioned at the beginning of this section. Versatility remains a core strength of the Druid class in each of its subclasses. The subclasses emphasize a dimension of the class – they do not invalidate all others. Your Lifegiver can still drop strong damage spells. Your Fury can still summon and do plant/beast DPS. Forgoing such versatility will always just make your Druid worse than they could be. This class is not supposed to just do one thing. Our first principle of building a Shifter follows easily: spellcasting must be respected as a core part of the character. Shifters are Druids, not furry warriors. And because Shifters lose their spellcasting when they shift, each battle must be divided between casting and martial phases if we want to benefit from all the character’s strengths. These are the parameters within which we will be thinking in what follows. Single Class vs. Multiclass I admit that I’ve never played a SC Shifter (I’ve had 3 Shifter playthroughs; a man only has so much time) but theorycrafting it is pretty straightforward. It would be decent. The main Shifter-specific benefits from SC would be Avenging Storm and Wildstrike Frenzy. Shifters will have good melee attack speed (especially cat form) and relatively low deflection, so AS is liable to put in some decent work (though nothing at the level of what can be metagamed with hand mortars, blunderbusses, Frostseeker, etc.). The Wildstrike Frenzy passives ought to be the #1 draw, but they are unfortunately lacklustre. Their effects only proc on kill with a shifted animal-weapon attack, not on spell kills (thanks to Boeroer for testing this). As we established in our first principle, good Shifter will be doing a lot of damage with spells, and Shifters will emphasize spells that do continuous damage while they are transformed. This means Wildstrike Frenzy will do nothing when the final blow comes from Avenging Storm, Nature’s Terror, Plague of Insects, Relentless Storm, or several other DPS spells you may have cast. Now, ‘on kill’ is an inherently weak trigger condition: the goal of combat is to kill enemies, therefore on-kill effects reward you for having already been successful and can’t help when you are struggling to get kills. On kill effects can still be very good for momentum (see the build below), but they need to be reliable with a trigger with such an inherent drawback. SC Shifters will be doing most of their damage from spells since they lack martial passives to help with melee, get higher level spells, and benefit from high power level (shifting doesn’t benefit from PL). That Frenzy doesn’t work with spell kills is therefore a major disappointment. A great thing about SC Shifter is that Shifters don’t lose access to any Druid spells (before they shift), meaning that you can enjoy the complete Druid spell list with the added benefit of sustained martial abilities. I would recommend SC Shifter to a player who primarily wants to play a caster but likes the idea of having a respectable melee presence without much fuss (i.e. no relying on buff chains or specific gear). Multiclassing is where we can get a bit more creative in drawing out a Shifter’s strengths, most obviously by giving our Shifter access to martial passives that will help their melee power. But if there is one thing you take from this post, let it be this: try to pick a second class that synergizes with the Shifter’s spellcasting as well as its melee ability. You’re going to be spending a significant amount of time casting spells and relying on spell damage so, ideally, you don’t want your second class to be irrelevant to that dynamic. A shifter has two major dimensions, two combat “phases” – you want to build for both. The class build below demonstrates what this looks like. Beast Tempest Shifter/Fury Shaper Dive into your enemies’ midst and thrash them to pieces with spells, claws, and teeth. Game version: 5.0 Difficulty: POTD (upscaled) Solo: Untested Overview: Perhaps most importantly from a synergistic point of view, Barbarians are most effective in melee when going after groups of weakened enemies. That’s because they get damage spikes against low-health enemies and massive action speed benefits on kill (see writeup on Blood Thirst below). This means that their damage per second increases significantly when they can crush multiple low-health enemies, back-to-back. Accordingly, compared to other possible martial multiclasses, you get significantly more value out of your Druid spell damage-over-time effects that you will have casted earlier in the fight. Making every enemy weaker before you start your melee phase therefore has a direct and noticeable effect on Barbarian power. This alleviates the inherent martial-caster action time tension whereby spell damage and melee damage compete with each other since time spent doing one is time not spent doing the other. With a Tempest, time spent casting damage feeds into your melee power directly. Note well that, unlike Wildstrike Frenzy, Barbarian on-kill buffs (Bloodlust and Blood Thirst) do indeed trigger on spell kills, so no need to worry about what gets the final blow (except for when a spell steals your Barbaric Smash kill and you lose resources), and you’ll find that when you have multiple spells going on against a large group of enemies, these buffs will pop up regularly when you didn’t even notice you got a kill. Finally, the action speed and Might benefits from Frenzy obviously help in your spellcasting phase. Furthermore, Barbarians have some tension in their design: with very low deflection, very high health, an armour passive, and more, they are meant to take hits. This screams, “get the highest armour value possible!” They also have multiple ways to increase action speed, so you want to build them them to swing fast. Unfortunately, heavy armour comes with a hefty recovery speed penalty, so if you try to maximize your armour, you action speed bonuses get eaten up compensating for it. You’ll recall, though, that Spiritshift armour has a high rating and no action speed penalty whatsoever. Therefore, while shifted you will fully leverage a Barbarian’s tankiness and action speed perhaps unlike any other context in the game. You can see that though Barbarian is traditionally a “martial” subclass, it benefits from the characteristically Druid form of spell casting (damage over time across a wide area) and it powers up spell casting as well. Add this to Spiritshift’s inherent speed and armour benefits and you’ve got yourself a beautiful set of synergies. I chose Fury Shaper because access to Fear Ward is worth the Will penalty, especially on a caster Barbarian because you can leverage Captain’s Banquet, which gives you immunity to most of the most dangerous stuff that targets Will. No subclass would work fine too, as the wards aren’t essential to the build. Mage Slayer is out because you’ll resist your own Druid stuff, and I find Corpse-Eaters looks pretty bad, but do your thing if you really want to be a man-eating werewolf. Berserker could do a lot of damage but Confused is particularly bad for a Druid with their dependence on Intellect and powerful foe-only AOEs, so you’ll have to constantly make sure you’re managing that. Also, this build uses high Might, which increases Berserker self-damage, making you significantly squishier. Attributes: I’m not going to give numbers because they depend on whether there are Berath’s Blessings, the player’s comfort with stat dumping, role-playing, and so on. Instead, I’ll give priorities. MGT: High DEX: Medium CON: Medium PER: High INT: High RES: Low Druids rely on a lot of damage and healing over time, so MGT is better than DEX for both (DEX helps you move through your casting phase faster, but it’s not going to make your spells tick faster; this is unlike burst damage/healing or buffs where getting a spell off a little faster can significantly change the flow of the fight). In addition, you’re getting a lot of action speed buffs as a Barb, so it’s better to give more weight to each swing than try to be the Flash. PER is a priority for anything that needs to hit enemies, and Barbarians have some nice on-crit benefits. INT is critical for all your many AOE radii and (de)buff durations (including Spiritshift). You want as much of this as possible. DEX and CON are good but should only be invested into when the priority three are maxed out. Having some RES can be nice so hostile effects don’t keep you down, and you don’t get crit against deflection to a ridiculous degree (crits give bonus penetration, potentially bypassing your high AR), but if you want to dump a stat this should be it (as per usual). Skills: I like a split between Athletics and Stealth. Athletics for some heals and Stealth so you can more reliably get a cast off while sneaking for the reduced recovery. Not super important. For non-active skills pick what you want. Abilities: I’m going to give brief writeups on key abilities so the reader can get a good sense of how this plays. The “no brainer” passives are Combat Focus, Blooded, Two Weapon Style, Wildstrike and upgrade, Thick Skinned, Unflinching, One Stands Alone, and Brute Force. Along with what is detailed below you will have a couple free points. Use them where you like. Frenzy: Blood or Spirit? – The Spirit line has great synergy here: spell hits cause Staggered as well as melee hits, and Might afflictions are valuable for lowering Fortitude, which synergizes with Brute Force and many strong spells. The AOE terrify can also be clutch in buying yourself casting time when surrounded. However, you may be using lots of Might Afflictions elsewhere on your team (I nearly always run Serafen spamming Dazing Shout) and find that you’re not getting much mileage out of Staggered, and would prefer the resource-saving Blood Storm over Spirit Tornado’s short terrify (especially if you’re packing Fear Ward anyway), in which case the Blood line works just fine. I personally find the Spirit line generally better because of the reliable Staggered, and Terrified lasts for about 10secs, which can save your skin and help you to cast in a pinch. I don’t think you’ll usually benefit that much from Blood Frenzy’s extra crit damage because melee targets don’t usually last long enough to experience all the DoT. Barbaric Roar: Your only command interrupt; always good to have. Especially nice as a quick-cast, foe-only, ranged attack. More valuable than the alternative upgrade – you’re not a main tank. Leap: Jump right in. Just do it, you'll be fine (usually). My playstyle usually involves tanks taking the initiative and diving at enemies to start combat, which effectively takes a lot of pressure away from the backline. This character isn't a main tank, but can and should certainly be right up in the thick of things with the tank. You want Leap to get around with no fuss and Daze enemies while you cast. You can take Wild Sprint as well as sometimes that's all you need and it's cheaper, but it's no replacement for Leap. Barbaric Smash + Bloody Slaughter: You can get some big damage numbers with these. A bunch of crit conversion, up to +100% crit damage, and increased base damage can save you a few attack resolutions (plus your animal form gives a little roar with each swing that sounds cool). Depending on the enemy, casting this around 40-30% usually reliably picks up the kill for no Rage cost, allowing you to continue your rampage. Don’t overlook the bonus penetration. Blood Thirst: better than I originally thought. Turns out not only does this cancel the recovery of your killing blow, but it also cancels the recovery of the next action you make within the buff’s duration. That means that after you kill an enemy, not only do you not have to recover, but your first attack against the next enemy doesn’t impose recovery either. I kept wondering why I seemed to be getting random Full Attacks in combat until I realized this. Remember, it triggers whenever spell damage gets a kill, too. Moonwell/Garden of Life: This character can be a primary healer. Insect Swarm/Plague of Insects/Infestation of Maggots: Core spell damage, and you get two for free! Stack these on enemies and watch them wither away. Do note that Plague does not affect Poison-immune enemies (and there are quite a few), but Swarm and Infestation do. Plague of Insects is absolute gold because apart from its good damage and stripping Concentration, the Sickened affliction increases your accuracy via Brute Force and lowers enemies’ max health (all the better for smashing). Nature’s Terror: A fantastic spell for this build. You want to be standing in the middle of enemies anyway. Having damage from this constantly wearing them away along with Carnage is great, and the Frightened affliction can block dangerous abilities and make them easier to hit (if you’re using Spirit Frenzy, it debuffs both Deflection and Fortitude). It’s friend-or-foe, so watch your step, but don’t let that make you afraid to use it. Having teammates with resolve affliction resistance can help (Wild Orlans like Serafen come with it, Fighters have a perk, etc.). This spell also seems bugged in that randomly it will sometimes do like 5 ticks of damage to a single enemy instantly. Not sure what causes it. Most important of all, the spell looks really cool (Tempest indeed). Relentless Storm: Of course. Depending on your needs for the fight you can and should cast any two of this, Plague, and Nature’s Terror. Cast all three if you get resources back. Venombloom: Must-have for any Druid, in my opinion. Does nothing against Poison-immune enemies but is devastating to anything else. And with Brute Force it will hit the lower of Deflection and Fortitude. Gear: Weapon: Spine of Thicket Green - unfortunately, your damage bonus on Beast/Plant spells will go away when you shift, but the duration and initial accuracy bonuses from power level are done deals at the time of casting. There's very little reason to use any other weapon. The crush damage and extra effectiveness against Vessels (who are often pierce immune or resistant and tend to be more vulnerable to crush damage) also means this is very occasionally worth using over shifting. Head: Helm of the White Void or Survivor’s Tusks – HotWV gives +10 to every attack roll involved in affliction-causing attacks (i.e. not just the roll for applying the affliction but also for dealing damage, etc.). For this build that means Barbaric Roar, Spirit Tornado, Plague of Insects, Nature’s Terror, Relentless Storm, and Venombloom (Fear Ward, being its own “creature” does not benefit). If you want to use this on another character, Survivor’s Tusks can give you survivability, though the Spiritshift upgrade is less valuable on this build because you will usually have Strong from Frenzy anyway. Neck: Strand of Favor – more INT and beneficial effect duration means longer shifts, etc. Armour: Garari Cuirass – any light armour can work here but I like this one because it gives you as much AR as light armour can so you can take hits before you shift. See also Miscreant’s Leather for the recovery bonus and Cabalist’s Gambeson for the extra effect durations, but remember your normal armour gets replaced when you shift. Feet: Rakhan Field Boots – always nice to dash around and get another interrupt. Footsteps of the Beast can be nice too since you tend to run around a bit. Cloak: Greater Protection Hands: Woedica’s Strangling Grasp – extra Might and AR Rings: Kuaru’s Prize + whatever you like Pet: Giftwrapper or Abraham – Abraham speeds your casting up but Giftwrapper gives you free AR when you get her. Both offer a bit of healing. Food: Captain’s Banquet – Immunity to half of the affliction types, including those which most often target your debuffed Will, is huge in itself. Extra spell damage is fantastic on top. Unfortunately, the action speed buff gets overridden by Frenzy, but with this you don’t need to cast Frenzy at the beginning of your casting phase just for the speed. Being able to wait without much drawback let’s you use Spirit Tornado when it’s most impactful. Closing comments: Embrace a Shifter’s versatility and you’ll be rewarded for it, in both power and fun. The build I’ve detailed has been my favourite to play in the game and is no slouch in power. I hope this post encourages more people to consider playing a Shifter and to play around with getting the most from the subclass. I can confirm that Ascetic builds are great, and I bet interesting things could be done with Wizard, Priest, or Paladin. Thanks for reading.

You sound more like Fury Shaper Barbarian since they are defined by past trauma. That would combine the directness you mentioned as well as the trauma. Note that Goldpact Knights have aggressive and passionate as disfavoured reactions, which might conflict with your stated impulsiveness.

Stalker is the clear choice here since both the bear pet and Barbarians make very good use of the extra armour point (bears get extra armour and Barbarians rely on armour to take damage) and you will be meleeing. Berserker is going to have easily the highest potential specifically because of Slayer's Claw as mentioned above, but Slayer's Claw is a late game item and it's reasonable to not want to deal with Confused and the added squishiness. You could run a Priest to use prayer for the spirit to cleanse confused until you upgrade Modwyr as your primary weapon, then go for Claw when you are able. It is a bit of trouble but it would pay off in a big way and is a synergy that is quite unique to this multiclass. If you don't want to deal with Berserker's downsides (Confused isn't the only one), no subclass or Fury Shaper are the best imo. Make sure you pick up Interrupting Blows (the same thing as Energized but only works half the time) and Blood Frenzy to get the most from all your Ranger crits (Blood Frenzy also synergizes with Predator's Sense). Stalker's Patience is a weapon to prioritze unless you are sticking with Modwyr and Slayer's Claw.

Chanter too. As far as I noticed there is no benefit whatsoever, even though there is a buff which says '+1 casts with Chanter/Cipher spells'. Would be nice to hear I missed something.

I had this bug. Reloading an earlier save fixed it, I think. I might have restarted the entire game as well, can't remember.

I can't overstate how much more I enjoy this game because of multiclassing and subclasses. I love making builds and I find it was implemented very well. As for the step back, I feel like most companions in PoE had internal conflicts they were struggling with. By the end of the game they felt like they developed, and that you could really roleplay your character's feelings about their conflict. In contrast, Deadfire companions feel mostly set in their ways; their companion quests are just things they want to get done and rarely anything that changes them significantly, or that your character has much to say about. Unfortunately, Xoti is an example of a companion who does change but she is not well written.

Right, that makes sense. Always a technicality...

Personally, unless the character is also a tank or committed 100% to electric abilities, I don't find the recovery penalty from that armour worth it.

Depending on how much you're willing to metagame your role play you can play so that you attempt to resolve the conflict only for negotiations to tragically break down. You get everyone's loot and you can say your character tried their best

I have a desire to run around with a SC Assassin, a Priest, and a Cipher, and just have the Assassin run around with permanent Vanishing Strike invis, spamming Gambit, while the others have permanent BDD. Now that's gaming.

The question is a bit too open-ended for a direct answer. Building good characters is just a matter of understanding the game's mechanics and putting in some thought and effort. Since you mention Tekehu and I am a massive Druid fan I can give some tips there. His unique subclass has the benefit of foe-only frost and water spells (i.e. spells that would normally hurt your enemies and your own team now only hurt enemies). The most consistently useful one of this is easily Chill Fog - normally a Wizard spell. Chill Fog is a persistent spell with a long-lasting blindness effect. Blindness hurts enemy accuracy a lot and inflicts a massive +50% recovery time penalty. This means your enemies will struggle to hit you and will take significantly longer between attacks. Because Tekehu's is foe-only you can drop your Chill Fog directly on your team so that anyone they fight in melee will be effected. You should use it in nearly every fight. Other general good spells available to Tekehu are Moonwell for great healing and support, Relentless Storm for great disruption, and Venombloom for good, debilitating damage (against enemies vulnerable to poison). Versatility is a Druid's strength, so you should always have something for him to do. In order to get a better sense of what is good and how to use it I'd recommend this great guide, which has analyses of classes as well as mechanics.

Casters shouldn't be relying on their weapons for much damage. Make sure you're picking the right damage spells. You can look at builds for the classes you're concerned about to see what others pick. At a high level your casters should rarely be auto-attacking (unless cipher, of course). A Ranger's greatest tool against a boss like Neriscyrlas is arguably the ability Concussive Tranquilizer. Not only does it interrupt on graze but it's a fantastic cleanser because of the accuracy it's capable of reaching, and 30 seconds of buff is a lot of buff. Don't stress out too much on party composition, just try and make sure you have some abilities that will do good damage to a boss, and make sure you can interrupt.

That's a lot of healing and tanking but sounds like you might be missing damage - especially boss DPS which has different dynamics to mob killing. It's a good idea to invest in spell casters who can stack reliable damage over time effects. Venombloom is a strong one for Druid, as are the insect spells (but you have to land the hit or they do nothing. Wizards can lay down damaging walls and cast combusting wounds on top for some great damage, as well as cast 'nukes' like missile salvo and meteor swarm. Priest symbol spells have great damage, as well as storm of holy fire. Also, for bosses that aren't immune to interrupts, interrupting is utterly vital. Neriscyrlas is the prime example. When she gets Llengrath's Safeguard off she becomes extremely hard to damage and possibly impossible to beat. So it must be interrupted. Strip her concentration (Insects do this for as long as the effect lasts) and spam abilities which say they interrupt in their descriptions while the boss is casting (not recovering, but casting) the spell you don't want them to use. Lock the dragon down with interrupts and have some reliable damage on her and you should be fine.

The only decent boss spell Chanters have is Seven Nights. Other than that the floating weapons are your best bet. edit: If you mean when it comes to Skald vs Bellower, then it depends on whether you want to take advantage of the weapon summon or not. If you do, Bellower is better because their weapons last a very significant 30% (base) longer and are cheaper to summon (having to summon less often also allows you to take advantage of other invocations more often during a fight where otherwise you would have needed to spend phrases refreshing your summon - an advantage Bellower has that is rarely mentioned, and a further advantage for Cantor because of the extra intellect). If you're only using Seven Nights, Skald might be better.

With max INT I was pleasantly surprised at how forgiving the Bellower chant radius still was. On a Cantor I don't think it would be very noticeable because of Duality (mine hasn't even gotten to that point yet). The annoyance of "wasting" phrases is there, though.

Multiclassing with Helwalker Monk is a quick hack for creating bonkers casters because the bonus might and intellect have incredible impact on spell power. I recently started a Bellower/Helwalker Cantor with a mind to maximize invocation power. As soon as he got the upgrade to Thrice he got a power spike beyond any other character I've had at that level. Thrice just one-shots small groups of mobs easily. Using Sasha's Singing Scimitar you can empower one and then follow up with another - suddenly about half your enemies have been deleted (this is on POTD-upscaled). The secret sauce is that power level, being a boost to an ability's base power, stacks beautifully with extremely high might and intellect. Power level also increases the number of bounces on spells (Thrice bounces on upgrade). This means that though you won't throw out invocations as quickly as a Scald, they will be significantly more powerful. And the smart metagamer will realize that sustained damage is not as important as burst damage provided that the burst damage passes a threshold in which it kills enemies in fewer casts. Something some people fail to grasp (based on an experience I've had in this forum) is that the object of the game is not to have maximum average damage over an extended period of time, but to kill enemies. Obviously these are closely related, but they are not identical. It might be the case that a Scald can cast so many more spells within, say, 10 mins than a Bellower, that the Scald ends up putting out more damage despite having weaker spells. However, if the Scald needs to cast Thrice twice to kill a mob when the Bellower needs to cast it only once, or the Scald's Eld Nary needs to hit a mob twice or three times to kill where the Bellower's only has to hit once or twice, the Bellower is going to kill enemies more effectively in practice. Now I don't actually know how these balance in the actual game. It was just the reasoning I used to go with the Bellower instead of Scald (justifying my general preference for explosiveness) so I thought it might help you. Main issue I'm having with my Cantor is that there are so many abilities I think would be cool to have and I don't have space for them

This thread makes me feel better about how I can still enjoy the game on my bargain bin laptop. I thought I was only experiencing all these performance issues because I am poor

I can tell you that one handed style is only really useful for triggering on-crit effects more often (think a skald who plans on doing most damage via spells). It's not a good idea for a cipher who relies on good weapon damage.

I had this issue but my monk froze up as if he were casting a priest spell. Couldn't cancel the action or do anything. I ended up loading the save. It never happened again, though, so I didn't bother reporting it as I didn't know how to trigger it. I didn't even think it had anything to do with Stunning Blow or the monk class. Have you replicated it often? Also I find your jab at Obsidian uncalled for. Games are going to have bugs, and these bugs have arrived alongside waves of free content that go well beyond what many other studios would consider. Frustration is no excuse for disrespect.