[The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2]

Obsidian has disapproved my run of the ultimate, heres the reasoning they gave

Sorry for the wait. After some more prodding Josh was able to make some time to finish going over some of the playthrough to give his opinion on the verification process. Unfortunately this particular playthrough is being considered invalid due to the force closure of the game and loading of a save where it would normally not have been available. From the footage you took, it looks like you were able to find a way around this issue, but we would need a playthrough where you do this without using the force closure method. The thought process behind this decision was that people felt that it wasn't within the spirit of the challenge as the players who accomplish it have done research into potential bugs and know the game inside and out as a result.

One of the most common methods players have used to get around issues is to run consecutive playthroughs where one of them allows them to make mistakes or run into bugs to figure out a way around them and the other is their Ultimate Challenge run.

I'm sorry for the disappointing decision that was made and hope that it doesn't discourage you from trying again and getting your name on The Ultimate challenge board. I'll look forward to that playthrough if you decided to take on the challenge again!

Thanks again for reaching out to us and for your time and effort put into The Ultimate.

 

heres the video where the bug occurred, guess its my fault this random bug occurs only in the ironman save and not the playtests

 

too bad this challenge was so unfun and i'll never ever try anything like this again, more disappointed in the amount of time i wasted on the challenge itself than the result

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

57 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

So my question would be : if we leave the question of Megabosses apart, how did Solo feel with the mod ? Is the general experience was better or worse ? If it was worse, I may consider adding a warning about the nerfs package for Solo play. If it was better, then we have to speak about Megaboss.
 

I liked almost all the changes, it did not make solo play more or less enjoyable, or easier/harder for that matter. I just found myself using abilities that i never would have otherwise, it brings a fresh experience, however the mega boss portions really deserve to be looked at, for example your idea of adding fire blight spawns for doru is a neat idea!

[Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0]

I played this mod a bit on solo potd and found all mega bosses to be completely impossible unless i use bm and summon 3 flame blights for wod by hitting my own phantoms... this is very tedious and i dont see any other way except using a herald, which is kind of even more tedious...

 

the sot/wod cheese is imo just for the megaboss portion anyways since its so much work to set up and I don't think anyone would use it for the regular encounters

[Recommend me a build for solo PotD w/ Megabosses]

4 hours ago, dunehunter said:

Need wit of death's herald for sure, and optimize assassin's dps. With maximized INT, empower, brilliant you will have up to 140 sec before run out of Guile, if you dps is high enough oozie is killable.

 

you are not taking into consideration corrosive solvent from the ooze, wont have enough guile to kill it in time consistently if you fail to vanish just once

[OP Classes]

13 hours ago, dunehunter said:

Why not set up a rule to not let SoT extend any inspiration? Same as WoD.

People would still just default to bm, since you dont really need brilliant at all. Since wod still extends bdd and you can spam blood sacrafice regardless, as far as the harder fights go, everything can be done just by summoning a single flame blight and dragging it across the wall to extend whatever buff you want including blade cascade

[The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2]

11 hours ago, cohlin said:

is there much fire resistant/immune mobs for ultimate? i know constructs are fire immune, one megaboss also. wonder if pure fire damage build is viable for the challenge

The only mandatory flame resistant enemies are :

- The trash mobs gating ashen maw dragon, and ofc the fire dragon itself

- The flame nagas in SSS & in water shapers guild, those are not only fire resistant, but fire dmg will also heal them

-Constructs in SSS

- Construct megaboss dorugan

Don't think i've missed any, but thats all i remember from my run. I was tempted to pick up magrans favor for more holy fire spam, but with vela.... i didnt bother in the end

[The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2]

3 minutes ago, Waski said:

100 Spectrum Center Dr Irvine, California??

I'll give you guys the exact reply I got from obsidian when I submitted the run.

"I just wanted to let you know it may take us a bit of time to review all of the footage as we have a couple others we are going through right now as well, but rest assured we will get to it and let you know when that process has been completed"

So, I'm guessing a lot of people , like me, had tons of extra time during the quarantine period and did this challenge, so I'm not even sure if I'll make it on to the honor roll, maybe just a badge  

So expect frequent updates on the newer hall of fame in the coming days

 

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

 I would say that I have extensive knowledge and that I'm mentally healthy - 

 

 

 

 

This reply speaks for itself, done arguing with the all mighty Boeroer with extensive game knowledge, I admit defeat

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

My problem is your approach to this discussion if that wasn't obvious.

Anyway, I think I made my points. Future readers may decide who made reasonable arguments and if "trash", "garbage" and such were the right terms to describe the caster classes and their abilites in Deadfire. In comparison to PoE or whatever you want to compare it to.

My approach? My statement was that casters in general are way worse in deadfire than in poe1. I never make any statements without extensive testing, and I've proven my points with videos, and I'm willing to prove any of my statements if you have any doubts what so ever. No one with extensive knowledge of both games can say the deadfire casters are not complete garbage compared to their poe1 counter parts, as long as bdd/sot/wod is not abused. 

As for certain buffed spells like slicken, combustive wounds etc, these sure are great vs trash mobs no one cares about, any time a caster is face against any type of hard encounter, their performance is abysmal compared to their poe1 counter parts. 

Like you say, lets let future readers decide. I mean, I'm getting my point across right? Surely no one in their right mind , who has enough knowledge of both games, can say that casters in deadfire are any where near as good as they were in poe1. If I'm not mistaken, thats what this post topic is originally about.

Edit: also lets not go back to the WoD vs Rake argument again, one is a skill you point and click to cast, the other one takes 20mins of metagaming and extreme cheese prep

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

1 minute ago, Boeroer said:

Aha...
 

Read that last quote again, I dont know what your problem is with the amount of mental gymnastics going on here. "Compared to poe1" 

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

13 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

You are moving the goal posts:

You said that casters are disappointing and thrash in Deadfire. I reasoned that they are not and that the changes which were done are resonable ones - because the whole game mechanics got reinvented (see "self buffs are worse now" vs. "item effects do stack now/starting values are higher now/multiclassing" and so on ). I didn't say that Deadfire's casters are more powerful or even equally powerful than in PoE, just that weaker spell effects per se don't mean that casters are suddenly bad or no fun to play.

In PoE casters turned out to be the most powerful classes at high levels - because you could simply rest after each fight and spam those very impactful spells 4 times per rest per spell tier - and on top of that you'd have 4 tiers of spell mastery. That is cheesy as well - as cheesy as using Brilliant + SoT or Wall of Draining with Belt of Magran's Chosen or whatnot. Just because you like one cheese better than the other doesn't mean that this has to be the same for every player. 

With the change from per-rest to per-encounter and the introduction of multiclassing something had to change so that casters don't completely break the class balance. You couldn't just let Freezing Rake do the same amount of damage if you can cast if up to 3 times per encounter compared to 4 times per rest (if you didn't abuse resting). You couldn't let Priests keep their prayers when there's a whole new system of afflicitions and inspirations as counters. Especially when it was clear that Priests were the most impactful class in PoE in the first place even without them. 

The result of those changes is a portfolio of well-balanced classes: casters are viable and fun to play in Deadfire - even if some or even most of their spells got weakened (others got buffed by the way - look at Slicken). If you don't agree: fine. But I won't let you say such things without pointing out where you exaggerate, being ultra-subjective or are simply wrong. Such blatant and unjustified criticism might discourage players from even trying a caster. And what is won then?

Just because you are disappointed (because Freezing Rake does less damage now or because Citzal's Spirit Lance has less base damage) doesn't mean everybody else has to be. 

I don't even like the casters of Deadfire more than PoE's. I actually perfer per-rest casting more than per-encounter. I just try to look at it objectively.   

Thanks for finally agreeing with my point. Deadfire cheese requires 20 mins of prep time, poe1 "cheese" as you mentioned require me to rest after a fight. How is resting cheese?

I'm not saying caster classes are trash in deadfire, I'm saying that compared to poe1 caster classes, they are way way way worse.

Edit: go back and read my original reply , op started the thread asking about wizard in poe1 vs deadfire, I dont know about you, but i sure was disappointed to see how much less powerful casters in general became in the 2nd game.

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I also doubt that any dragon in PoE could get reliably killed by 3 casts of Kalakoth's Freezing Rake but only if you get lucky with the rolls

 

Last video is mine , i purposely did not rest with acc bonus to try llengrath. You can doubt all you want, but console in an adra dragon and test it yourself, you sure don't need any "lucky" rolls.

I've done the ultimate on poe1 with every single class except barb,fighter,rogue. Wizard is by far the strongest overall class on par with fire priest, its even better than cipher abusing brutal backlash vs dragons. Figurines sure as hell do absolutely nothing...

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Sure - and more. 
Taking Wall of Draining out of the equation when comparing wizards of PoE and Deafire is arbitrari. I could also say "But PoE's wizard is lame if you don't use Freezing Rake". Yeah - but why wouldn't I use that if it's good?

You could make the argument that WoD is very op combined with potion of last stand, but its extremely anti fun and tedious to play. I did the ultimate on poe2 copying tenrays zealot strat where I fought every fight with wits of heralds except the inital ashen maw encounter(video playlist is public on my channel), where I proc'd brilliant using flame blight summon / abusing quick swap healing with lethandrias devotion, and despite this I still wanted to jump off a building because of how boring it was. Back to WoD, first of all, because WoD requires rolls vs will, it doesnt do anything vs a lot of the harder encounters, so you have to start fight, disengage with magrans challenge enabled or use some kind of dot cheese and hit your own minions to summon a flame blight, cast wod, and drag the flame blight across the wall multiple times to stack what ever it is that you are abusing. This absolutely sucks. I will never play a wizard for fun, only if I were to multiclass it with a Paladin where I can actually do stuff without abusing the absurd strategies available. Even "bdd" with potion of last stand is extremely tedious because you have to get yourself to low hp first, and summoning a flame blight isnt so easy or reliable unless you enable hyleas challenge and keep hitting vela with a blunderbuss.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

He can face tank most things just by casting Arcane Veil, Wall of Draining and Llengrath's Safeguard. Different spells but it's possible to "facetank" lots of stuff (besides the fact that a PoE wizard couldn't just facetank all encounters with Infuse with Vital Essence and Llengrath's Displaced Image alone - try that against some of the late bounties...

I don't know what to tell you, but the wizard sure can tank anything in poe1, I don't have a full run recorded as proof, but if you seriously doubt this, name an encounter and I'll prove it to you in video form using console. I'll even do it 5 times in a row just so you can complain its because of lucky rolls. In deadfire arcane veil + safeguard cannot be extended and will not last long enough before you nuke down the harder encounters, and if you mention WoD again, then whats the point, why not just take nemnoks cloak or bdd pot and just default to blade cascade and flame blight abuse. You can do this better with a priest + martial class and do it much faster.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Sure - you just become Brilliant (either via Shroud of the Phantasm or the Least Unstable Coil or some Weyc's gear) and then use Wall of Draining. You don't need to be a Bloodmage for that. But even then: if you wanted to play solo - why would you not pick a wizard subclass that is best for this? Sorting out the most powerful option and then complaining that the remaining options are a disappointment doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Brilliant is very good, but without multiclassing it with priest and spamming sot how do you extend it? Again we go back to the flame blight bull****. Whats even the point of playing bm/skaen , I'll post my 9 hour run of the ultimate with a sc skaen in the coming days so you can compare this to some of the other bm included runs and see now unnecessary and terrible bm is even in terms of extreme abuse of game mechanics. Also proccing brilliant without wits of herald requires some extreme rng, just check this video where i spend an literal hour proccing it. Also I do hate mentioning brilliant and taking it into consideration because of how stupid it really is, its borderline anti fun and its not something I would recommend to people unless they are doing the absurd challenges like the ultimate.

 

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Your argements are made from a very subjective point of view and you don't seem to be willing to take counterarguments into consideration.  

Given the changes of the mechanics casters are nowhere disappointing nor trash in Deadfire - especially not with multiclassing and also not with PL scaling and high tier spells.

What else can I say... casters are not in the same league as in poe1, we can even look at ciphers, where any dragons can be soloed without any gear what so ever, and any of the toughest creatures can be killed with one or two casts disintergration + recall agony , because of the resolve changes in deadfire, any sort of dot becomes absolute garbage, console command iroll20s and try to spam unlimited disintegration vs any of the megabosses, see if that even does anything.

 

Edit: before you tell me to use a cipher to proc brilliant, I don't and will never play the game with a party, its simply not fun for me. So lets keep the discussion on solo potd

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

Boeroer, ill just ask you this, can the wizard in deadfire do anything close to what it did in poe1? Kill adra/bog dragons in 3 hits of kalakoths ice rake? How does deadfire's wizard do in comparison soloing any dragon without draining wall / bdd potion? 

Can the deadfire wizard face tank any encounter just by casting vital essence + llengrath displacement? Is the deadfire wizard any where near viable in solo potd without some sort of cheese with blood mage? You can say that the wizard didnt change , the enemies got more powerful, but it doesnt change the fact the wizard in deadfire is absolute trash compared to poe1.

Edit: this applies to every caster class imo, maybe im biased in my opinions since I had way more fun playing poe1 than I did deadfire, but its hard to not admit how much every caster class has been nerfed in comparison, i mean, even look at certain non caster class skill changes like dragon thrashed and sacred immolation, i thought I must have been high as a kite because I couldnt believe wtf i was actually reading when I first saw those changes.

[Translating wizard builds from PoE1]

If you liked caster classes in poe1 , deadfire caster classes are such a disappointment in comparison. Everything from damage/accuracy to spell use has been severely nerded. The defensive spells are all really garbage compared to poe1 as well. Unless you want to abuse the really silly brilliant or wall of draining combos, I would pick a martial multiclass like kaylon suggested

[The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2]

Question regarding the trip to ukaizo

Some background: I've been trying to get a speed run of the ultimate, and i've done a test run of a single class skaen so far where i go to ashen maw at level 11.5, skipping the tomb in neketakka and most of the fetch quests, doing justdereo (since i need to come back later for the grub anyways) and arkemyr, then its a quick trip to deck of many things, plus a respec to sneak for the 1% cloak). I've finished every single objective except for the guardian at the end with ~ 10 hrs of playtime (9hrs actual since i died and reloaded a few times)

However I cannot survive the journey to okaizo, what can I actually do without getting floating hangman and still complete this run? Is a single class priest pointless to play since I have to sail to fort deadlight /dunange for blade cascade anyways, so i might as well play a multiclass and just fight at lvl 16?

Edit: some fun little things i found, since the run is entirely based off wits of herald after the first fight in ashen maw, and a single class priest has so much free ability points, i ended up taking all the empower buffs and killing pretty much every single non fire resistant enemy encounter just spamming empowered holy flame, the fights were ending so fast it was a bit insane. For encounters like the BoW undead dragon, i actually used effigys husk and holy flame spam, and he died before the armor broke twice.

[OP Classes]

The solution to balancing is very simple, limit sot to a certain amount of casts unless solo mode is enabled. Lets be real there is no way to solo potd the megabosses without resource regen, or flame blight cheese with bm, unless you follow Kaylons strats as a herald or use a monk, but armor and weapons degrades with abydon enabled so you cannot do it on the ultimate. His video on herald vs ooze was so painful to just watch, who the hell would actually wana kill it that way.. As far as sc monks go, how to survive sss with vela on ironmam mode is another issue that I dont think anyones figured out yet

[OP Classes]

45 minutes ago, Raven Darkholme said:

  

 

Ye vela is the deal breaker, you have to keep her completely out of fights instead of just soting her with a priest, which is just so much more work.

One way to completely take vela out of any fight is to activate the fight while in stealth with a trap, this way both vela and you will still be in stealth, then run to a corner and summon a phantom, and use the phantom to pull enemies to you. As soon as vela sees the enemy she will panick and stay in the safe spot, then you can withdraw her and cast arkemyrs departure on yourself. This method is very tedious, and doesnt work for some of the harder fights i mentioned before. I did use this way to keep vela out of the fight for nemnok & a few of the dlc encounters

[OP Classes]

4 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

Tactician/Bloodmage is the most fun of the op classes for me personally, but in the ultimate it is annoying to keep Vela alive with it (possible but annoying).

 

I did try to copy your tactician/bloodmage for some trials of the ultimate, but for the dangerous fights like various sss encounters and the forgotten sanctum maura fight it was so hard, if nemnoks cloak worked for vela also this would be a really really fun build!

[OP Classes]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

degenerate-combo level of powers that others have mentioned (or have been used in ultimate runs).

Thats the perfect word for it, "degenerate" , the absurd things we do in this game to overcome some of the absurd challenges is truly madness

[OP Classes]

I've tried out a paladin/wizard & paladin priest and I have to say it is seriously broken! Paladin/anything is great for the extra defences, plus power level wise, fire based spells can be boosted by 3 power levels using magrans favor and the otto cat pet, plus we even get a ring with +10 fire spell accuracy from the dark cupboard that stacks with all the other acc bonuses. This combo melts away any trash mobs with fire aoes, and for the mega bosses, you also have the option of cheesing it with sot/brilliant/bdd and blade cascade for priest, and draining wall/blade cascade for wizards as long as you summon a flame blight with magrans belt. 

[The Ultimate discussion thread Pt 2]

reviving this thread with my first post here.

Finished recording my ultimate run, I just copied tenray's zealot run (woedica priest/streetfighter rogue) with some very very minor adjustments here and there. I even encountered the same bug that made me alt f4 and waste 2 days in game time at the SSS bridge repair interaction. 

Heres hoping obsidian approves it

 

Shoutout to Victor Creed & jaggedjimmayjay82 for helping me figure the dragul sss fight, and ofcourse tenray since i basically copied his strat!