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crdvis16

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Everything posted by crdvis16

  1. Yeah... I think losing out on other schools is too high a price to pay for the benefits of the school subclasses. Maybe just a lowered power level with out of school spells would have been better? @Helz Aloth looked pretty nice with One Dozen Stood and the Whitewitch Mask but you're right that Effigys Husk is pretty creepy
  2. I didn't think about using a phantom- that would have been fun too. I did use Kapana Taga for the engagement. I think Maura's belt, too, and a pair of gloves that could terrify on crit. For Trickster I think you'd only have Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage for terrify and would miss out on Ennervating Terror? So against high fortitude enemies you wouldn't have the will targeting terrify as a backup. But maybe the higher damage would be worth it.
  3. Note: I had the community patch and balance polish mod installed (in case that affects some of the interactions of abilities) I modded Aloth's subclass options for this build. I've seen this build talked about before but it was one of my favorite builds thus far so I wanted to post about it. It works like this: Unbroken/Fighter gives you strong disengagement attacks while Illusionist gives you two Ryngrim spells for terrify (one targeting will and the other fortitude) that will occasionally cause afflicted enemies to break engagement. You also get prone on disengagement hit from Guardian Stance. Aside from this nice little synergy you're a decent tank thanks to Fighter/Unbroken abilities (despite Aloth having pretty weak stats for tanking) and have some decent non-terrify CC from the Illusionist/Wizard side so that not only are you locking down the enemy front lines with engagement/terrify/disengagement but also throwing CC/debuffs on the backlines with Blackened Sight, Miasma, Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment, etc. There's also a bunch of items that feed directly into this build, two of which are: Whitewitch Mask = Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage when bloodied, on rest cast of Ryngrim's Enervating Terror, +1 all Illusion spell levels One Dozen Stood (armor) = +15% damage and 10 accuracy with disengagement attacks Aside from those, I stacked a bunch of engagement items and abilities to make sure no matter how many front liners the enemy threw I could gobble them all up. I probably didn't need like +8 engagement but I couldn't stomach the thought that I might run into a situation where I could have engaged/terrified/disengaged another enemy but ran out of engagement. Did the engagement/terrify/disengagement tactic always work? No. Often they would resist the terrify or even if they got terrified might not run far enough away to break engagement. Do the disengagement attacks actually swing fights in your favor consistently? Probably also no. But it was just so damned fun when it worked out that I don't really care if it's not the absolute strongest build. Also, going all in as an Illusionist probably isn't necessary. You gain some power level with Illusion spells but end up unable to cast Conjur/Enchant spells which happen to be some of the stronger self buff spells. But if ever there was a reason to go Illusionist this seems like it.
  4. Imbue:Death is really nice in order to have another AoE damage type aside from fire. And in cases where corrode or fire were viable I usually chose Death to not have to worry about friendly fire. But in most situations you'd still be able to AoE with Fireball. I'm not 100% sure that multiclassing would be stronger than SC but having played SC Arcane Archer I think there's a good chance multiclassing would be more fun. I did take marked prey but often found myself not using it. I like it if you're single target attacking but if you're doing the Eora/Web/AoE combo there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to use Marked Prey, especially if doing so means you end up with 2 bond instead of 3 and miss out on one last Fireball or Death.
  5. I didn't know there had been an issue with their scaling. I do know that they seemed to feel powerful throughout my playthrough which would suggest they are scaling properly (but that's my subjective impression).
  6. Note: I had the community patch and balance polish mod installed (in case that affects some of the interactions of abilities) Just finished another playthrough and wanted to give my thoughts on some of the builds I used. First up is my main character that went single class Arcane Archer. The basic way that I used him was primarily an AoE CC + AoE damager via Imbue Eora, Web, and Fireball/Death. You group them up with Eora, Debuff their reflex and immobilize them with Web, and then unleash damage with either Fireball or Death, depending on their resistances and if your own teammates are too near to Fireball's damage radius. You can also just chain Imbue:Missiles for single target damage, especially when empowered (with the way empower works, Minoletta's Missiles gets a huge power increase relative to many other spells). Probably the most important ability to grab is the passive Driving Flight which will enable your Imbues to hit two targets, effectively doubling the damage of Fireball/Death. One nice thing about this subclass is that you get the Imbue abilities for free and really don't need most of the other Ranger active abilities (wounding shot, etc) because you'd usually prefer to save your resources for the Imbues. This means you can pick up lots of empower enhancing abilities at high levels and/or grab some of the pet-centric abilities along the way. I used Spearcaster as my main weapon because it just fit my character RP wise the best (scientist background and high arcana giving extra accuracy). Weapons with natural bounce effects would have been even better potentially as the Imbues bounce along with your attack. Overall this was a fun build. The AoE damage can be really strong, single handedly wiping out packs of enemies or killing a squishy target right off the bat with empowered Missiles. However, now that I know more about it I'd probably choose to multiclass Arcane Archer. Arcane Archer really doesn't need too many skill points spent in it to make it effective since the Imbues are auto-grant. I've read interesting synergies with Helwalker or Barbarian multiclasses in particular that sound fun. The main thing you'd lose if you multiclassed is access to Imbue:Death or quicker access to Imbue:Eora but I think the synergies you'd gain would make up for that, not to mention it probably being a more fun build overall.
  7. I didn't know that about when the book was added, that certainly makes it more trustworthy. I don't think I agree that Woedica is bound to truthfulness, though. Thaos was her "champion" and he relied primarily on deception and half truths to manipulate people. It's implied that she manipulated Magran into using the godhammer. I think she's capable of lying or at the very least overstating or obfuscating her case in order to manipulate the watcher. She's a god of order and law but I don't think it's true that order/law = truth. I dont think oaths = truth, either. I think she is very much a "ends justify the means" god. I see her analogue in real life being the politician who is comfortable with deception and lies because in her head she's doing what's necessary to keep order. I should add that I appreciate the response. Part of me is wondering if I missed something in game that makes Woedica more credible because people generally seem to take her at her word and I find her really untrustworthy. Something along the lines of "the fastest way to find out the right answer is to emphatically state the wrong answer on the internet"?
  8. I'm necroing a thread and apologize, but I always feel the need to push back against the notion that the natural wheel was flawed and that the artificial wheel was an improvement. As far as I've seen, the only source that claims that the natural wheel was problematic is Woedica in the burned book and I find her very untrustworthy. She's in the middle of trying to pitch how badly kith need the gods so of course she's going to try to instill fear in the watcher in terms of what might happen without their guiding hand. She has shown time and again that her MO is to manipulate others through lies and deception to get them to do what she wants. Her actions with Thaos, her turning Magran against Eothas in Poe1 (Magran comments that she won't be rushed to action by Woedica again). If her comments about how bad the natural wheel was occured in front of the other gods then I might believe it but she only mentions it when in a 1 on 1 conversation with the watcher where she is obviously trying to manipulate us. Out of all the gods I trust her statements the least, even less than Wael.
  9. Ok that makes sense, especially the part about why the sword is offensive to Berath. It would be interesting to learn more about Lucia's motivations but maybe it's left mysterious on purpose.
  10. I'm in my 3rd playthrough but still don't quite understand why Yseyr and Lucia are mortal enemies and what the significance of the sword is. I think it's insinuated that Lucia somehow offends Berath (maybe by living too long?) so Yseyr wants to kill her as a good Berathian would. Except Lucia becomes a death guard which kind of indicates that she's also a Berath follower? And when she first meets you on the high seas she recognizes your Berath chime and leaves you alone, seemingly out of respect. And the sword she protects is an heirloom of Grand Vailia but does it have any significance beyond that? Why must Yseyr keep it from Lucia? The game makes it sound like Lucia is the rightful protector of it.
  11. I just started using AI scripts in my 3rd playthrough. You don't have to automate every single ability. It might be better to just set up scripts for the simple ones and manually do the rest. For instance- for a fighter you might have a script to use disciplined strikes if you don't currently have a perception inspiration and to use refreshing defense if your health drops below 75%. But maybe don't have a script for "clear out" or "mule kick" since they are a bit more situational and harder to program well. Scripts are especially useful to automate classes that tend to self buff at the beginning of every fight. Wizards with all their fast cast buffs or maybe a Barbarian that casts Frenzy at the beginning of every encounter. But scripting fireball is a lot harder to do well IMO.
  12. My sense for what forms to use when: Bear = need the engagement to control a choke point perhaps Cat = mage or other squishy killer Stag = AoE crowd damage Wolf = single target CC, like if a rogue gets into my backlines Boar = high armor killer (boss fights) where the raw damage helps This run is my first time using a shifter, though, so I could be doing things wrong. Fassina is multiclassed with her normal conjurer wizard so she does all her self buffing before shifting.
  13. I'm using Fassina as a shifter this playthrough and I'm liking all of the forms. Looking at the combat log I was usually fairly happy with the AoE damage from the Stag but if it's interrupting in an AoE then that's pretty strong.
  14. Ha, I'm actually playing Konst as a Beckoner/Berserker so the confusion he automatically gets from the Berserker Frenzy would probably work
  15. I'd feel guilty if I gave myself the +2 might from pork as a passive. At least with the IRoll20s method I was able to also lower his Constitution by 2 to compensate and I don't think I care about it disabling achievements. But thanks for the alternate idea anyway!
  16. That worked, thanks @Boeroer! I was originally trying to do the console commands while on the world map and didn't realize I needed access to the combat log to see reply messages. I ended up having to set his might to 17 to get it right (I guess his +2 might from being a dwarf is part of his base attribute score or something). I thought about modding all the companion stats before this playthrough (I modded some of their classes/subclasses pretty far from their originals) but got too lazy and figured it wouldn't matter THAT much. But this Amra thing was going to bug me so thanks again!
  17. I want to use Amra with Konstanten so I need to get to 25 Might. His base might is, unfortunately, 13. He's got "The Maker's Own Power" belt which gives +1 might and he's got Gauntlets of Ogre Strength for another +2. He's a dwarf so that's another +2 putting him at 18. Frenzy gives him another +5 getting him to 23 but now I'm stuck. Consuming Pork on rest for +2 just gets suppressed by the +5 from Frenzy so that's no help. Where can I find the other 2? Is there a ring, helm, or cloak perhaps? I looked into changing his attributes via console command but can't seem to get it to work. I planned to give him 15 base might (and drop his constitution down from 16 to 14 to make it even) but I've never used console commands and can't seem to get it to work as described by others in the forum posts I've found. For the console I hit ~ and type IRoll20s and hit enter but there's no response (the console input just goes away). I tried "FindCharacter Konstanten" and get no response. I tried "AttributeScore Konstanten Might 15" and no response (and his base might still shows 13 in his character sheet). The console does show the auto complete suggestions but there's just never a response after typing something in and hitting enter, even if I purposely mess up the command to try to get it to show an error or something. Help!
  18. Ah good call on the power level issue. That could make quite a difference, especially the extra penetration since that seemed to be the biggest factor in the comparison. I'll try to recalculate and see what the result is. And yeah- without the polishing mod, a 2 guile smoke veil would probably make the comparison moot. Edit: I didn't initially see in your post that crippling strike ends up giving almost as much pen as a smoke veil auto attack when at PL7, in which case your conclusion that smoke veil auto attacks aren't worth it is definitely correct. I could see smoke veil + crippling still be useful over non-stealth crippling strikes if it helps with underpen so maybe I'll try to model that instead.
  19. Ok, I made a relatively simple spreadsheet to try to simulate this. The basic premise is that one ranger/assassin using an arquebus attacks every turn using 1 guile for an attack like crippling strike. The other ranger/assassin uses 1 guile to cast smoke veil and then do a regular attack out of stealth every turn. I'm only concerning myself with the damage done and ignoring the utility of the afflictions of crippling strike vs the defensive utility of stealthing. I also did not try to simulate all the buffs and passive bonuses that could be in play that might affect damage or rate of fire- I *think* that adding those wouldn't drastically change the top line takeaways I'll get to later. Can skip to the bottom for the top line takeaway if you don't care about my methodology. Also note- this is with using community patch and balance polishing mod... not sure if that changes my assumptions from what the base game would be. The "normal" ranger/assassin attacks roughly 3 times with a +25% damage bonus from crippling strike for every 2 attacks from the "smoke veil" assassin (the added cast/recovery from smoke veil ends up being ~50% of the attack/reload time from a normal arquebus attack). The "smoke veil" assassin gets the bonus accuracy, penetration, and crit damage from the assassin buff when attacking from stealth. To simulate, I gave the "smoke veil" ranger/assassin 100 attacks where the "random" roll was set to 1, 2, 3, ... 100. The "normal" ranger/assassin got 150 attacks where the first 100 had "random" rolls of 1, 2, 3, ... 100 and then another 50 where the "random" roll was set to 2, 4, 6, ... 100 (counting by 2s from 2-100 to still get a representative sample). This maintains the 3:2 attack ratio between the two tactics. I set the base accuracy and penetration to 10 and 100 respectively (so 14 and 125 for the "smoke veil" model). I then changed the target's armor/deflection to various values to try to get a feel for how things shake out. These are the top line takeaways: Target's armor/defl "normal" dmg "smoke veil" dmg % dmg incr 10/100 111 117 5.1 4/100 144 134 -6.7 14/100 28 104 273.0 18/100 28 59 111.2 10/0 233 228 -2.3 10/150 18 35 93.1 Row 1 (10/100) shows that when attacking an "equal" target (penetration = armor, accuracy = deflection) there is hardly any benefit to doing the "smoke veil" stuff for the assassin bonuses. Similarly, there is no real benefit to the "smoke veil" tactic if the target's armor is already being over penetrated (row 2) or if the target has such low deflection that you're critting every hit already (row 5). The times when the "smoke veil" tactic is really valuable are when: 1) the added penetration from the assassin bonus (+4 as well as a 1.5x multiplier when you crit more often with +25 accuracy) allows you to avoid underpenetration penalties (rows 3 and 4) or 2) when the targets deflection is so high that you desperately need the +25 accuracy just to not miss (row 6) So yeah- it terms of damage, it can be very worthwhile to take the time to cast smoke veil to re-enter stealth and unlock the assassination bonuses but only if it helps you get out of underpen, get into overpen, or if your accuracy is far below their deflection and you REALLY need that +25 accuracy just to sometimes graze instead of miss every shot. In fact, if I set the target's deflection to 170 then the "normal" model misses every shot and the "smoke veil" model does low but non-zero damage from grazes and therefore gives an infinite increase in damage! Of course, this is just a very simple model and just for damage but I think it's somewhat interesting.
  20. Yes, I should have been more specific that my setup for Maia was potentially worthless, not the assassin subclass in general. I am working on a little simulation to figure out just how worthless or not it is and will report back what I find in case anyone else is interested.
  21. That would suggest that the Assassin subclass is pretty much worthless, then? You can often benefit from an opening volley from stealth but then after that it would be a dps loss. Maybe I'll try to do a simulation to test the accuracy/crit damage component to see if you end up ahead or not.
  22. Ugh yes- I'm trying to figure out how to change it and why it happened in the first place Ok fixed!
  23. I've modded Maia to be a Gunhawk/Assassin. I played a SC melee Assassin as my MC in my previous playthrough and figured that big arquebus shots from stealth could be fun for Maia this time around. With my melee Assassin I would attack from stealth and then immediately use smoke veil to go back into stealth to repeatedly regain the assassinate bonuses. The biggest headache with that playstyle was that any target that was moving would often move out of range when I was trying to do my melee assassinate attack and cause an out of range miss. But that won't be a problem for Maia with a gun! However, with Maia the recovery+reload time for a gun takes so long that if I immediately cast smoke veil after an attack (say, by queueing up smoke veil after wounding shot or something) the 5s of invisibility ends up timing out before she gets her next shot off. Right now I have to watch her reload animation like a hawk (har har) and as soon as I see her start to raise her rifle I pause and cast smoke veil to put her back into stealth and then have her perform the attack. This is super annoying. If the fight is chaotic with a lot going on it's very easy to miss her animation that shows her reload is complete and she's ready to fire. I was hoping to use scripts to automate this but either it's not possible with the available in-game script options or I'm just too inexperienced with scripting to figure it out. This is the first playthrough that I've even started using scripting and even then I'm just using it to automate self buffs for things like disciplined strikes, etc. So question 1: Does anyone know of a way to script Maia to cast smoke veil but ONLY when she's actually ready to shoot so that she is still invisible when the fire actually happens? Also, question 2: Does anyone have a sense if this playstyle is even worthwhile? I'm adding in a cast time of 0.5s and a recovery time of 3.0s when I use smoke veil and what I'm getting in return are the assassinate bonuses of accuracy, penetration, and crit damage (and I guess some survivability from being invisible a lot which is probably less valuable for Maia than it was for my melee Assassin). My guess is that if the extra penetration avoids underpen or puts you into overpen then it's probably worth it and that's pretty easy to see in real time. However, the accuracy and crit damage bonuses are harder for me to wrap my head around as they are more probabilistic- you never know if the accuracy bonus is going to be what puts you over the threshhold to go from miss->graze, graze->hit, or hit->crit. Similarly, the bonus crit damage obviously only matters if you crit. In other words, there will be situations where the bonus penetration results in no change in damage and individual shots where the bonus accuracy doesn't change my attack resolution simply due to what random roll I get. In those situations I'm just adding cast/recovery time and wasting rogue class resources on smoke veil for nothing.
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