[Patch Notes for 4.1.2.0047]

Balance Changes

• Light, one-handed weapon's damage has been slightly increased in turn-based mode.

 

What qualifies as a light weapon?

[Fextralife's Five Turn-Based Combat Builds]

And the written version of their guides: https://fextralife.com/5-turn-based-builds-for-pillars-of-eternity-2-deadfire/

[Fextralife's Five Turn-Based Combat Builds]

The builds FextraLife presents are:

 1)  Psyblade Tank (Blackjacket/Cypher) - Tank

 2)  Forbidden Fist Votary (Monk/Paladin) - DPS, Disabler, Martial

 3)  Berserker Warlock (Barbarian/Wizard)  - DPS Martial

 4)  Skirmishing Scout (Ranger/Rogue) - DPS Hybrid

 5)  Elemental Shifter (Helwalker/Shifter) - DPS Hybrid, Tank

[Fextralife's Five Turn-Based Combat Builds]

After some time thinking about it I really don't think these are even close to the strongest builds possible in TBM. The most powerful builds are IMO, still hold overs from RTwP. Helwalker/Ascendant, blunderbus shenanigans, etc.

[Fextralife's Five Turn-Based Combat Builds]

Fextralife just published a youtube video on five of the strongest turn-based builds.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYEBAhMAxf0

[What benefits most from Brilliance?]

IMO, the caster classes benefit most from brilliant. I've run an extremely successful Cleric (Tactician/Priest of Eothis) multiple times. Getting multiple heals of the same level as a battle goes on is very helpful. The only problem is brilliant from tactician isn't especially reliable, even running a cypher in your party; I'm not sure why.

 

The same idea should work for any class that has class level restricted abilities (Wizard, Priest, Druid). These classes have a limited number of uses of their skills per class level, thus there can be more benefit from getting those charges back. It randomly selects a class level of what you've used per recharge, but it can usually be manipulated easily enough.

 

I'm not sure how well Chanter works with brilliant, but their resource is considered very valuable even though it automatically recharges.

 

Just be careful about pairing Tactician with a melee class that doesn't have an solution for being flanked. It's a hefty penalty for the chess playing warrior.

[[MECHANICS] Power level compilation thread]

How does power level effect conjured weapons? Increased damage, summon duration, penetration?

[trying a trickster...]

you're both right. it's very inconsistent. in my experience, it's not 100%, but definitely people aren't dropping engagement they way they used to patches ago under hard CC, which is good for tanks, but those aren't translating 1:1 into disengagement attacks.

Yeah, it's not 100%, it might be 30% of the time, but it still does trigger a disengagement on occasion, while always applying one of the strongest disables in the game.

 

How triggering the disengagement might work, the Terrify grazes leaving a very short duration. While coming out of terrify the AI decides to change targets/activity and runs away. The engagement is restablished as soon as the terrify is over and triggers on the moving enemy.

[trying a trickster...]

I just finished a run on Veteran with a Trickster/Fighter tank. I had four Magran's Fires challenges going, including Wael's challenge which hides most all numbers which prevents me from determining exactly how strong this build is, but suffice to say that I consider it to be one of the best tanks I've ever tried.

 

The idea is to dump resolve and lower deflection in order to make him a juicy target for AI. Compensate with higher constitution, armor, damage mitigation skills, and a good healer at his back. You also make a lot of use of the fighters [get over here] skill to have at least two enemies engaged at once. After you have multiple enemies engaged you cast Rymgrand's Horrifying Vissage (a tier 3 resolve affliction) which terrifies enemies in melee range. They stop attacking you and sometimes even run away procing the warrior's enhanced attack of opportunity.

 

It benefits from rogue's persistent distraction, riposte, and damage enhancing passives. Thus it becomes a tank, disabler, DPS hybrid, which does a great job at the tanking role. I'm thinking about writing a build guide, but only after I test it on PotD and without expert mode or Wael's challenge.

[Best use of the Chanter Bellower subclass?]

FYI, you left the ] in the link. Removing this trailing character gives the intended URL.

Sasha's Singing Scimitar (with Refreshing Finale) [https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Sasha%27s_Singing_Scimitar]

[What do y'all think of Magran's Fires?]

I've now completed all of Magran's Fires. I did it 3 runs, I think, and all on Veteran.

 

Run 1: Eothes + Magran

The was actually my first time to beat the game. The timer takes away a lot from the game, but it also helped me learn how to speed run the game and huge advantage that doing the main story first thru Magran's Teeth (Act 3 I think). This influenced how I played the next two runs a great deal.

 

Run 2: Berath + Skaen + Galawain + Ondra + Woedica

Woedica's and Ondra's are annoying. I barely noticed Galawain. Berath was difficult but I figured out a team comp that worked until I got resurrect. Also, speed running the main story allowed me to be over leveled for much other content.

 

Run 3 (Nuclear fallout): Abydon + Rymrgand + Helyea + Wael

Equipment decay without being able to see how much funds you have was annoying as hell. I started with 55k via Berath's Blessings. I still ran out of money without upgrading my unique weapons until the end of the game. I had around 900 spoiled food items at the games end. This version was so annoying I speed ran it more than the others and beat the game at lvl 15. Hylea was also very annoying in herself as I made the mistake of running a melee Watcher. Hylea follows around the watcher, thus keeping her at a safe distance from the battle is a thing in itself. If you do Hylea main a ranged hero.

 

 

So I think I really enjoyed having the fires available as an option. I feel like Eothes was the only one that taught me much of anything about the game. I also spent more care paying attention the my AI programming with Magran's challenge. I was quite disappointment that there wasn't a final challenge unlocked after completing all the other challenges. There might have been some teasers on Twitter about this, so maybe it's coming.

 

I started on a triple crown run, but failed fighting the bats in the cave. I guess I'm not ready for a triple crown and am doing a PotD, Upscaling all, Iron mode. I'm only leaving out expert mode as I find this to be a very important aspect of trying my first run of PotD.

[It's fun but takes too long.]

Am I the only one who have a grudge with the accuracy and dodge system in the turn based system ? I wasn't a big fan for the real time but I get where it's coming from and all, ok sure. But in turn based you can end up missing a lot of actions and it just feels wrong. Having some specific actions that are fairly "chance" based is a healthy thing but having almost every action you perform being based on a % of chance when you get only to act once per turn per character becomes a bit critical and can make fights last much longer than they would otherwise.

I tend to max perception for all characters that do anything offensive, plus I also like to use active skills with bonus accuracy, so I think I miss a lot less than others. TB really highlights how much missing costs you in combat. Also, at the beginning of the game you have much fewer abilities to mitigate misses.

[opening fight against benweths goons doesnt 'end']

I just had this problem. I got the final kill of the battle from a chill fog tick, then the story never progressed after combat ended. I reloaded the auto-save then finished the battle with a weapon kill and the story progressed without issue.

[It's fun but takes too long.]

I share your sentiment that one can get a lot more detail out each fight. Indeed, this also prolongs each fight.

 

However, I for one feel like the “price is right”, the compromise is definitely worth the time investment.

 

Due to the more enagaging combat I found myself care a lot more about what my companions are doing, they feel as if they are a more integral part of my strategy. I don’t think getting to this level of detail was possible in the original play mode, even with detailed auto-pause and more advanced (modded) AI scripting.

 

Aside from the current issues with balance (number actions within the turn, dampened impact of dexterity) I feel like this mode is far superior to the quasi real time based, when balanced properly.

 

Perhaps with mentioned issues tuned away and some enhancement made to the base unit of turns (turns could be made more action packed IMHO) it to offset some of your feelings about the prolonged fights.

I finished the RTwP Magran challenge on veteran difficulty so I'm going to give TB a try again on PotD. There should be a lot fewer trivial fights, at least until much later in the game.

 

You can click a title green dot that makes your turn end after you cooler your action. It's sub optimal for micro and what not but it does make easier combats end quicker.

I think I prefer "wih"'s solution, binding end turn to a mouse button. The game already was putting my default action speed at 5/5, so it was zipping straight thru enemy turns. My concern though was not with how long a fight took, but how many fights there were between quest progression, especially trash mob fights. A good fight feels great, for example the middle of the dig-site before you free the animancers. I'm planning on having at least a couple of simple right clickers in my party so I can run thru right clicking trash mobs down quickly once it comes to that.

 

You can increase the combat/animation speed to slightly reduce combat duration. In RTwP I used to slown down, now I speed up, at the end I don't have the feeling that combat last longer). I also map the mouse right button to "End turn" so I can almost play with only the mouse and it makes the whole thing faster. I don't use auto-end because sometime I need to move, act and move.

Thanks for the tip, I'm going to give it a try! Between your tip and increasing the difficulty to PotD I think I'll enjoy another shot a full run in TB. It'll be first try at PotD though...

 

A single battle is longer in turn based mode, but I tend to win that battle from the first try now. Previously I had the tendency to die and restart several times. So it is not immediately clear for me which mode is faster overall ...

Good point. I noticed I was restarting a good amount of fights in my Eothis challenge because I was playing against the clock. Fewer reloads does make for a faster total game experience.

[It's fun but takes too long.]

Did you really need to bump your own post by starting an identical thread less than fifteen minutes later?  Regardless, I had a similar suspicion that fights would just drag on unbearably long, especially trash fights that eventually don't really need that much player input when using RTwP and cutsom AIs.

The double post was an accident. This was my first post of my account and I didn't read the part where the post was awaiting approval of a moderator so I assumed the post was somehow lost and re-posted.

 

Magran's challenge is the opposite of TB, it's interesting switching between the two.

[It's fun but takes too long.]

I enjoyed trying out the new beta Turned Based (TB) game mode (duh) by starting a Trial of Iron on Veteran difficulty and running an Arquebus based Scout (Ranger/Rogue) Watcher. He mostly carried the party and I was having fun. I've just finished the Digsite quest and talked with Eothis for the first time. So I'm not far, but I've experienced a decent amount of gameplay.

 

A lot of work has been done to make the game mode balanced, which is great. It resulted in the power level of many skills/abilities has being drastically shifted, which is fine. My main issue with the game mode is how long it takes. I generally like scripting my A.I. so that I mostly don't have to intervene much at all. The simultaneous actions keeps things running along quickly. I miss a lot of details relative to TB, but the big things stick out and usually get an automatic pause, except for the fact that my other campaign is currently a Magran's Challenge (no pausing).

 

Comparing TB in Deadfire to other TB RPGs I've played makes me feel like Deadfire isn't balanced for TB on the story to combat ratio. One of my favorite games of all time is Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT). Battles can last a while, but they're meant to meant to be more evenly matched in difficulty and there's almost always story progression after every single battle. I think this is similar in other other classic TB RPGs. Most battles feel like direct progress in the game rather than one of about 3-5 battles for story progress. In real time (RT) the smaller battle can last 15 seconds, so it doesn't matter. When that turns into a full minute long battle while rushing thru it, it get really tedious. I feel like the mode would benefit from lower HP values on both sides. It would require more thinking/planning and less cycling thru hero actions waiting for the inevitable conclusion.

 

I'd like to conclude by thanking Obsidian for making this free game mode, especially for making it free. It's great, and I'll probably come back to it sometime after it's been patched and I'm done with the no-pause campaign.