[5.0 what builds still work for the watcher/companions/sidekicks in turn based mode]

Try here (I hope the link works):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1391010246

Bear in mind that ALL of these builds are for RtwP, so a lot of them (the swashbuckler and the streetfighter builds in general) refer to using RtwP mechanics where attacking faster >> having more CC. To modify them for Turn-Based, pick a few which you like, you can drop dexterity on almost all of them down to 10 or less and - as a rule of the thumb - pump Perception (esp. on casters), Might, Intelligence, Resolve then Constitution in that order for DPS characters. For the tanks, don't make the mistake thinking you need as much Constitution, at least if you are going to be stacking either deflection or armor. If you're a Beserker or plan to be taking hits, you probably want it.

[5.0 what builds still work for the watcher/companions/sidekicks in turn based mode]

9 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Gilded Enmity shouldn't stack with Zealous Endurance. Is that different in TB mode?

Excuse me, not Zealous Endurance but Stoic Steel (I think that's the name of the passive which grants +AR when standing still).

[5.0 what builds still work for the watcher/companions/sidekicks in turn based mode]

As somebody who played quite a lot of the turn-based in beta... Let's just say for a start that the meat of it has not changed. (From a min-max perspective) DEX went from being the top-priority attribute to lowest priority, since I get the impression turn-based is more of a CC race than a DPS race; initiative isn't all that useful if enemies are constantly stunned. Obsidian didn't really - at least not from what I can tell - amend the issue that INT is only useful in increments of 5 on the most part.

Into the fray/Lower Their Guard went from being a skill I never looked at twice to one of my favorite skills in turn-based. It's a free action (!) which drags enemies toward a location and lowers armor by 10 (!!), which is immensely useful for bunching up enemies for a Relentless Storm or Torment's Reach and generally has good synergy with AOE casters. The Blackjacket free weapon switch is actually immensely powerful: take out your damage dealing weapons, attack, switch back to your shield and dagger at no penalty.

I've also been liking abilities which reduce beneficial effects/interrupt in turn-based. It was really hard to line up a good Concussive Tranquilizer beforehand... but now that bloody Undead Battlemage with his millions of buffs has a much cleaner way of being defeated. The inverse is also true: I've been liking the exhortations and suspension of hostile effects, as in turn based you have a lot more control over managing debuffs.

To actually answer the question: what builds work? Well, builds which stack action speed don't work, but almost everything else does...

A few interesting ones:

Junkie Blade-Turner (Nalpazca/Chanter or Druid or anything else which passively deals damage). This one got especially stronger now that Mortification of the Soul is a free action. Engage enemies, cast mortification, dance of death and blade turning and watch as the (meele) enemies kill themselves. Once you get Duality of Mortal Presence and enough INT for Blade-turning to last 2 rounds, you can cast Blade-Turning -> some other action (like summoning or an overtime AOE like Nature's Terror) -> Blade-Turning. You constantly have wounds being generated by drugs and dance of death. Have a big shield and stay safe.

Zen Liberator (Goldpact/Druid w/ Bear Form). Wear the heaviest armor you can. Walk into some enemies, start marking them with Sworn Rival (get the upgrade which refunds zeal), turn into a bear and your armor rating rockets up (heavy armor + 2 from bear + 2 from goldpact + 1-3 from Stoic Steel). Cast Hands of Light on yourself to get the buff which prevents you from getting interrupted. Stand in the middle of your enemies and cast relentless storm, nature's terror or all those other high-damage low-range spells which druid has plenty of.

Meme Disengager - I don't know if this build still works, they might have patched Riposte triggering off disengagement attacks. Anyway, you need rogue + anything which can stack deflection. Get all the gear that has +deflection on disengagement attack (Great Escape Cape, Gipeon Prudesco, etc.). Walk up to an enemy, let them engage you... then walk away. They will disengagement-attack you but since your deflection on disengage is somewhere around 300, they will miss you, and get a riposte straight to the face. So this build kind of tiptoes around an enemy and watches them kill themselves.

[Documentation/Outline for turn based mode request]

"There needs to be an extensive tutorial for the turn-based mode."

 

Having played a bit of turn based (mind you, my observations are heuristic) this is an assume you know nothing low-down on how turn-based works:

 

Initiative has a base value of 6, is reduced by positive action speed and increased by negative action speed and armor recovery. The increases are percentage based and appear to be additive. E.g. with +55% from heavy armor and +10% from having 5 dex, you get a +65% increase, so your initiative is 9.9 (6 + 6 * 0.65). When a round starts, characters with lower initiative go first (as a benchmark, most enemies have initiative 7 to .

 

The way how casts seem to work (again, facts drawn from pure examination) is that casts have an initiative which is added to your current initiative and cast at that initiative step. For example, if you have an initiative of 7 and a spell with an initiative of 4 (the spell initiatives are in the tooltips), the spell gets cast at initiative 11. I base this observation partially on the fact that spells with initiative 0 get cast instantly, i.e. at the same initiative step as when the casting character acts. I'm not entirely certain how spells being cast across rounds work - I believe that if your initiative + the spell's initiative exceeds a certain value (12?) then that number has 12 subtracted from it and is cast at that initiative step on the next round: if you have 11 initiative and cast a spell with initiative 4, then you have initiative 15 -> 15 - 12 = 3, so the spell would be cast at initiative 3 next round (I could be entirely wrong about this).

 

There's already been a gripe-post about how durations work in turn-based. To re-iterate what was said there: 1 round = 6 seconds in RTWP but the duration is always rounded down to the nearest factor of six unless it is less than 6. Quick example, Eldritch Aim has a duration of 10 seconds/1 round since 10 rounded down to the nearest factor of 6 is 6. Arcane Veil has a duration of 12 seconds/2 rounds. Unfortunately, the case ATM is that intelligence still affects the per-second duration which is then directly translated into number of rounds duration. At the Sound of His Voice has a base duration of 4 seconds (1 round), and so you would need +200% duration from INT and power level (an additional 8 seconds of duration) for it to last 2 rounds. This is a bit irritating, since a 6-second duration spell needs only +100% duration to get it to 12 seconds/2 rounds.

[Turn based: intelligence benefit for durations]

Intelligence is useless on duration because it is rounded down which means you need 20 intelligence to get extra round on most buffs. Having 20 int or 7 int wont make difference on most durations.

 

I wouldn't strictly call it useless, but there is a big disparity between short-lasting durations and long lasting durations. I believe that 6 seconds translates directly to 1 round, and all durations are rounded down to the nearest factor of 6 - e.g. arcane veil lasts 12 base and you need enough int/power level to make it last 18 seconds before you get it for 3 rounds. This means it's straightforward to get more out of long lasting buffs (e.g. 4 round or 24 second buff with +50% duration goes up to 6 rounds) while its impossible to get short-lasting buffs for long (e.g. At the Sound of His Voice has 4 seconds base... so you'd need +200% duration to get it to 2 rounds duration).

 

In other words, int got nerfed because rounds use more discrete values and should affect per-round value rather than its per-second translation (e.g. a 1 round buff should last 2 turns at +100% duration).

[The turn order is COMPLETELY broken. Needs total overhaul]

Now, that's a whole lot of balancing, bug checking, and miscellaneous work to be done. If done right, I think it could be really cool, but hoo boy would our dev bois and gurls have their work cut our for them. Or, they could get rid of rounds and have dex determine turn frequency and balance around that. Honestly, I'm fine with either, but I really think one is more realistic than the other for a free game mode.

 

Hey, Obsidian made Fallout: New Vegas with less time and resources than Bethesda did with Fallout 76... well, let's not go there.

 

 

And finally, in general, they would have to balance everything with consideration to both it's action time and and recovery time, and I have no idea how much work would have to go into that. The stamina idea seems appropriate for it at first glance, although one glaring problem I just noticed is it doesn't account for concentration/interrupt.

 

Here's a thought: with the stamina idea, why not have interrupts strip off a small portion of the stamina bar (10/20%) - maybe if and only if you get interrupted but you're not casting? That is to say, if you get interrupted, you have less resources to use on your turn. This gives more of an encouragement to go first and use concentration if you're not a caster, since you're not risking losing possible resources.

[The turn order is COMPLETELY broken. Needs total overhaul]

I had a very similar idea, with action points, one point would equal one second in RTWP. Everyone should get a fixed amount of points per turn, speed adjustment would be made to action cost not action points.

 

 

 

Your idea with a 100% power (Stamina?) is even better, cause the numbers from RTWP translate better. If 100% is worth 5, 8, 10 (whatever) seconds of actions has to be figured out.

Every duration effect can be transferred easily to this system as well. Effects should be applied at the next turn, if the target moved already.

 

If leftover power can be taken to the next round I would cap it more, maybe 30% max and only take 50% of the remaining. Otherwise it acts like an expensive buff.

 

Spellcasting could be taken to the next round, e.g. you have 50% left and cast a spell that costs 90%, it will be cast in the next round and 40% are deducted.

 

I don't mind if DEX is considered the best attribute in RTWP or not, it should have a similar effect in TB.

Initiative however should be determined by PER, cause that is the attribute which determines how good you react on situations, DEX just defines how quick your reactive action is.

 

Engagement has to be default 1 for every character again, otherwise manoeuvring through a horde of enemies feels very strange in TB.

 

 

I liked RTWP in older games but in PoE it feels a bit busy, I often just let the AI do the job or stick to auto attack, for 50% of the fight.

I think the older games just didn't have to many skills to manage, especially for non casters.

 

Really looking forward to see what Obsisian is doing the the new TB system.

 

 

Honestly, I made the suggestion in light of two points that have been generally thrown about here and everywhere else (and one other point that I don't believe has been mentioned enough). That is to say,

1: Action speed went from being the most precious thing to have to one of the least since it only affects initiative, which only effects turn order, and going first isn't that important given that in this game there are no enemies which instantly kill you or chain CC. Action speed should give you a benefit, just not nearly as much as it does in RTWP; you certainly shouldn't be able to walk a 20 DEX devoted/streetfighter into a group of enemies and make something like 7 attacks + Mob Stance procs while they make 1.

2: Martial classes took a big hit in the current version of "everyone gets one action" turn-based since you get to make 1 attack per turn, which is almost always inferior to casting one spell per turn unless you've jumped through the hoops and are fully pimped to reliably crit every time you attack. Hence the suggestion to give martial classes access to more attacks per turn, but also to not punish casters for taking action speed. I guess this idea (in hindsight) would also inadvertently fix ciphers, since gaining focus and spending it has a really poor time spent to pay off ratio as it stands right now.

3: (as someone who likes buffs) It's weird that there are now a lot of buffs which are completely free (cough, wizard) and a lot of buffs which take up your whole turn to use (Minor Avatar, the Litany spells, Druid spells like Form of the Delmegan or Nature's Bounty, consumables, which is relevant for Nalpazca fans). Having buffs cost something is reasonable, having them take up your whole turn... not so much. Again, hence the power/stamina bar idea, with buffs consuming a small portion of it. I guess this even applies to all those fast-casting healing spells.

[The turn order is COMPLETELY broken. Needs total overhaul]

I don't usually post here, but here's a fast and loose suggestion for how turn-based could work:

 

- There are still rounds, as is right now. Initiative and movement works as it does right now.

- Recovery speed is removed as a mechanic in turn-based

- Modals/heavier armor impose a penalty on initiative and action speed.

- Heavier armor also imposes a penalty on movement.

 

Each character has a "power bar" (which starts at 100%). Performing an action eats up a portion of that power bar. Each action has a base amount of power it consumes, which is modified positively/negatively by action speed.

The main idea is to allow "faster" actions (such as attacking) to be performed multiple times per round and slower actions (casting) to be performed less.

 

E.g. On martial characters:

- Base attacks and martial skills (skills which use character's weapons e.g. Flames of Devotion) consumes (rough number) 40% of the power bar, which means you could get 2 full attacks in per round. Having higher action speed means you can get more attacks in, i.e. once you get down to 33% for a base attack (modified by action speed) you can get 3 full attacks in, etc.

- The disadvantage is that this system has hard "cut-offs" for when you get more attacks, e.g. there's no point having 37% per attack since you still only get 2 attacks in per round. This could (possibly?) be remedied by allowing unused power to spill over to the next round. As per the last suggestion: you perform two attacks costing 40% each, leaving you with 20% power left over. Next round, you get 100% + 20% power left over from last round, meaning you could perform 3 attacks (40% * 3 = 120%)

  

On caster characters:

- 6 second cast spells consume around 90% power, 80% for 4.5 casts, 70% for 3 second cast etc. Like with attacks, action speed decreases power consumed for spells.

- Casting spells works as it does now: you target it, then later in the round it is cast. HOWEVER, when the spell is cast, you get to act again, albeit with part of the power bar consumed. E.g. say you have 2 spells you can cast for 50%. You cast the first one, it goes off later in the round. You can now act again, but you have 50% of your power bar remaining.

- Short cast spells and buffs (those with 0.5, 0.4, 0.0 seconds casting) cost a small amount of the power bar - respectively 10%, 5% and 0%.

 

As an additional precaution, the power bar can't exceed 200%, i.e. you can't end turn 4 times and then have a round with 400% power bar.