ekt0

I just come by to check on this forum once in a while, and I am so glad that Boeroer is still helping others here.

On PotD Upscale, Rouge cannot fight at Abbey of the Fallen Moon without dying in the process. He will be knocked down a lot. If he chooses to hide, his teammates will be downed instead. No matter how aggressive RP Rogue is, they have to do this quest in the diplomatic or sneaky way, which is kinda RP paradoxial. Even using a potion of Llengrath Displace Image might not be enough to withstand the horde of monks, paladins, and priests. They are so tanky and hit hard like a truck.

I think you mean two weapon style ? Anyway, it is a good post and I find it quite valuable. Thanks for your effort.

I have decided to play another run of this game on PotD Upscale, as I had never finished the game on this diffuculty before. I have tried few classes as my PC, mostly melee, as I want to play with my nukers NPCs such as Aloth, Hiravias, and Durance. Choosing another caster would make the party "unbalanced" IMHO of course. Among those classes I had chosen, I found Rogue is the weakest melee attacker. It does nothing good enough, even as a single target damage dealer. I know that many topics like this one had been discussed thoroughly in the past. Creating a new one seem unnecessarily redundant. Yet, I find those topics mentioned are not clear and concise enough. Sometimes, those posts even transformed into a war between Rogue-lovers and the opposite, which I do not mind if it was not dragged too far and too long. Anyway, I hope my new post would suit anyone who wants to find the answer on Google about how good Rogue is on PotD Upscale. Rogue has the worst starting stat. Damage dealer Rogue cannot tank or off-tank. Starting with only 15 deflection, Rogue is the worst tank class in this game, while Fighter starts with 30 deflection and monk has 25. The only way to play melee Rouge is to hit an enemy that had been already engaged by another tank or party member, which seems to be the correct method to play. The problem is that if some archers target you, what would you do ? Walking away, Escape, or Shadaowing Beyond means that you do not attack and thus cause less damage. Not to mention that in order to doing so, you must spend some skill points on non-damage skill first, which is not effective also. This low-deflectioned problem will happen or cause another problem no matter how you distribute your stat points. Most people tend to do it either a glass-cannon way or balanced way. The first one is dumping RES to minimum like 3-4 depending on race, and the other one is keeping RES at 10 so that Rogue might mitigate some damage. The rare one is pumping RES to max and gimping other stats, increasing Rogue survivability. The sad thing is that even at max RES, Rogue still has lower deflection than Monk at 10 RES. Reckless Assault does not stack with Savage Attack. I am not sure who decide the rule like this but it hurts so badly. If these 2 skills stack on each other, Rogue would be considered stronger. The net benefit would be +40% atk damage +3 accuracy -8 deflection, which is pretty good. By the way, in reality, they do not stack, which means that other melee damage dealer classes have a way to get +20% as well. The difference would be that Rogue has +13 accuracy more relatively. Aceeptable ? Let's find out later. Sneak Attack requires a target to be debuffed or flanked. In order to flank an enemy in Pillars of Eternity, 2 characters must attack the same target on the opposite side, which means one character needs to spend time walking to the back side or use some skill while the other one engages in the front. Usually, the one doing the walking is Rogue and tank go in front. This seem to be normal and effective for any melee attacker class since you always want an enemy to be flanked as the stat is lowered. However, in some circumstances, you cannot just walk casually to their back side, because in most situation you need to use a choke point to prevent your party from getting swarmed by a horde of enemies. On PotD Upscale, there are a lot of enemies. Without flanking, you need other party members to debuff for you. They may be required to use certain skill or spell for you at the moment instead of doing their things. For instances, Aloth may use fireball or Hiravias may use Spiritshift. All preparations must be done so that Rogue can get +50% damage from melee weapons. As a result, net party DPS may be not as efficient as you think. Comparing Rogue vs Spiritshifted Druid, I also find that by the time Rogue reachs the back side of an enemy, the Spirited Shift Druid (Hiravias) has attacked 3 times already. The damage per hit is also much more than Rogue's Sneak Attack. Spritshifted Druid, they surely hit hard and fast. Rogue has no attack speed buff. Even though Rogue can hit hard with proper setup. Sneak Attack in a combination with Deathblows can produce a big damage number. Rogue lacks attack speed. This is why most Rogue players must put a lot of stat on DEX in compensation. Per rest abilities are not enough. Shadowing Beyond, Finishing Blow, and Fearsome Strike are per-rest skills. Such constraints limit Rogue damage output harshly. When playing Rogue, unless meta gaming (you know what will happen next), people tend to keep these skills for the hard fight, which they do not know whether it will come soon or not. Eventually, they may not have a chance to use them at all. Limiting 1 time per rest on Fearsome Strike is a joke. Backstab is just an illusion. The skill is really hard to use. In order to Backstab an enemy, you need to be invisible or in stealth. With Stealth, you can do Backstab 1 time per encounter. With Shadowing Beyond, you can do 2 Backstab per rest. With level-15 skill Feign Death, you can do Backstab 1 time per encounter. The number of availability is low and what you get is merely +150% damage. Any normal character can reach +200% damage by attacking 3 times. A minmax Spiritshifted Druid may even attack 5 times while Rogue "prepares" to do Backstab. However, you might take this skill anyway because you do not have anything better to choose. This is kinda sad. Dirty Fighting is just a lesser version of +10 accuracy. Dirty Fighting is a great passive skill for any damage dealer. Everyone likes it. This skill is one of the reasons anybody wants to play Rogue as PC. However, other classes might have similar skill too such as Stalker Link from Ranger and Discipline Barrage from Figher. In summary, I want to like Rogue but the class is just not that good in PotD Upscale. All Rogue-lovers, please read this before comment. My opinion is based on PotD Upscale only. If your Rogue works on lower difficulty, I understand, but that is not the point here. Try playing White March II at level 15-16 and choose level upsacle to High Level and you will see what I mean.

Oh, thanks for the clarification Boeroer. It is funny though, that the Sky Dragon wurm still appears when you killed both of them in PoE 1.

So, in summary, you can't have a dragon pet in POE 2 unless you create a custom history save file ?

Single class Barbarian is one of the classes I find fun to play as a main character. However, as I prefer my main character to be strong in their respective role, I wonder if Barbarian would do well enough against those megabosses, which are the most challenging fights in the game. I do not want my main character to be the weakest link while doing those fight, because it would make me feel bad, really bad. While SC Barbarian has many fantastic skills at PL 8 and 9, most of them seem to not work well against the megabosses on PoTD upscale, especially the best one Barbaric Retaliation. Megabosses mostly attack in range or via spell. Even though some specific bosses have melee attack, the boss itself is just a single enemy. So, Heart of Fury and Barbaric Retaliation will not affect them much. Compared to Rogue or Monk, Barbarian normal attack does not scale well, and the attack speed is low too as you cannot rely on the on-kill attack speed bonus / reset on any megaboss, resulting in low overall normal damage output. So, as skills are quite inapplicatble and low overall damage output, what does Barbarian do against Megaboss ?

The dig site is one of the hardest fight in game, excluding mega bosses.

I always farm exceptional weapons and gears by boarding slaver ships. They are reborn immediately after they are sunk. So, you can have unlimited gold if you are willing to spend time. You can even set all characters in the party to AI, and do something else in real life while farming. Some might argue that they do not want to spend time chasing those slaver ships across the map. Here is the tip. If you board those ships at certain spot, they will be reborn immediately at the same spot. You can simultaneously board them again and again, until you are satisfied. The golden position is around the 3-wayed channel intersection near Crookspur. If I remember correctly, the farm rate is about 50k-70k per 30 minutes.

I have believed for a long time that Engwithians had become Gods after they created the Wheel and sacrificed a lot of souls to complete the ritual. However, after I played the Beast of Winter DLC, I am quite confused. The Huana king Wingauro o Waturi I clearly mentioned in the dialogue that God had existed even before some Engwithians tricked him to build the Wheel, destroying Ukaizo. He even knew about Ondra. If Gods had existed before the creation of the Wheel, how did they ascend to be Gods then ? And who are those Engwithians that had arrived on Ukaizo to trick the king ? I thought that all Engwithians had sacrifice themselves to create Gods. Did I misunderstand something ?

I have just watched the analysis of Avowed on YouTube from Lyle Shnub channel, and I think he made a good point. The background of this game might be set up on the War of Black Trees event, or based on it as history. The first scene is depicted as forest on fire. "War, it forged our empire" Galawain is worshiped by Glanfathan. "Now our oaths are lost ..." Underground ruins look like Engwith's. "Is an oath worth the weight of a crown ?" Especially the last quote, it can be related to the incident in Pillars of Eternity 2 : Deadfire that the main character party comes to rescue Oswald from Steel Garrotes.

I am now curious about this new game Avowed. Perhaps, it is a new PoE disguised in a new name ?

I really like this game and it saddens me that the current sale total is less than expected. Thus, I wonder if there is any way for Obsidian to increase the game's sale count as of now in year 2020. For me, I would propose : Fix bugs, maybe not all of them but at least all major ones. Persuade streamers to play this game on their channel with the minimum cost required.

You are correct. I would like a great sword build that induces main damage.

I think the location would be something least relevant to Pillars of Eternity 2 factions, in order to mitigate the effect of ending choice as much as possible. Otherwise, it would require immense effort to set up the environment based on PoE2 endings. The location should be Ixamitl, Living Lands where the story can be created anew.