crdvis16

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.

Ugh yes- I'm trying to figure out how to change it and why it happened in the first place Ok fixed!

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.

Does anyone know off the top of their head if Clear Out triggers disengagement when they get knocked back? Or if spells that push back could trigger disengagement?

Ah good to know. I'm thinking a shifter sorcerer might fit more with how I envisioned her playing now. Use a bunch of wizard instant cast buffs and then shift into a form and go fight. If the shift ends I could rebuff if needed and then shift into the next form. Thanks all!

Fury has the boon where the shapeshift is extended upon getting a kill but I wonder how reliable that is. With Fury I'd probably have to be fine with the shift ending before big fights are finished and then falling back on just casting. Shifter wouldn't presumably have to worry about running out of shifting but can't reapply buffs or casts while shifted I guess. It's hard to know ahead of time if the builds would end up flowing well or feeling clunky. Only one way to find out I guess!

I'm planning to run Fassina as a sorcerer in this playthrough and wanted to make her a melee based character if possible. To that end I am willing to mod her druid/wizard subclasses if it makes it more unique/fun/viable. My first thought was to use the wizard side for the fast casting self buffs then shapeshift and enter the fray. This isn't too far off from how I used her in my previous playthrough where I would self buff, summon a weapon, duplicate myself and then charge in. Though should I include some casting, perhaps some of the AoE lightning spells from the druid? I'm wondering if anyone has advice on subclasses for this kind of build. Which druid subclass has the best shape-shifting? Which wizard subclass might self buff the best? I also wonder if I should instead run her as pure wizard but change her to a transmuter and use the ogre form instead of the druid shapeshift?

Ok this is weird- once I leveled up to lv2 with Eder all of a sudden his blackjacket and street fighter abilities are showing in his character sheet now. He automatically gained the 3rd weapon set and he now shows the +20% recovery malus from streetfighter when not flanked/bloodied. So maybe it worked afterall?

I attempted to mod Eder into blackjacket/street fighter but it doesn't seem to have completely worked. In his character sheet it correctly lists blackjacket/street fighter but he still has only 2 weapon sets (I expected 3 from blackjacket). I can't yet tell if the other parts of his subclass are working yet either but I plan to try to test them. Speaking of which- should there be an indication for the streetfighter buffs when flanked/bloodied somewhere, like the character sheet? When making the mod I did the following: 1) created a .gamedatabundle file in the override directory 2) copied in a gamedataobject wrapper followed by Eder's fighter/rogue data from progressiontables 3) added the subclass IDs (found in the characters file) to his subclassesIDs list Maybe there is more that's needed to ensure the subclass entirely works?

From my memory of the lore behind Kazawari- Galawain created the island with an insulated wheel (separate from the normal wheel) where he could play out his love of survival of the fittest. However, a crisis occurs when one of his demigods decides to break the miniwheel. The above summation sounds a lot like the major crisis in POE2. Eothas decides to break the big/world-wide wheel. In SSS the watcher is able to enter the spirit world, physically mend the broken pillar, and fix the functioning of the mini-wheel. So... perhaps the watcher could find a way to fix the big wheel too in much the same way? We've seen the watcher mend adra pillars repeatedly. We've seen the watcher direct souls (you choose what to do with all those souls at the end of POE1). Couldn't the watcher mend the big wheel after Eothas breaks it and perhaps decide what role the gods get to play going forward?

Bloodmage seems so strong. I think the balance polishing mod changes them in some way but I haven't actually played as one so I don't know the specifics. But it seems like you can multiclass them with the classes that don't have longevity in order to overcome that weakness. Good ideas on how to dish out big burst damage. That could probably end a lot of fights and for those it can't you fall back on kiting/resetting I guess.

How does this play when leveling? Can you generally play the game in a relatively "normal" way? I'm interested in playing solo some but I'm trying to figure out how to do it without having to do things like non-combat leveling. It sounds like you were able to do early content, though?

What settings do people think would be possible to solo if you played something like SC ranger? I'm not aware of any special tricks that a ranger can pull off but maybe assume you're playing the ranger "normally". I know "normal" is pretty subjective but I'm using it here to mean mostly things you'd do when playing with a party- so you wouldn't DoT and hide in a party typically, for instance. It sounds like you'd probably need to not upscale, make use of Berath blessings maybe, and maybe not even go with PotD?

That's a good point about not resting being a normal game choice. When playing with a party not resting means you can't recover injuries from being knocked out but in solo play that's not really a consideration unless you've got revive abilities. So in solo I guess it wouldn't be an abnormal choice to make. I suppose I'm interested in what others have done when they've played solo. Maybe I'll have to drop down from PotD and not upscale if I want to be able to pull off a relatively normal playthrough...

I'm curious about how soloing PotD goes. After my current full party PotD run (which hasn't been exactly easy) I'd be interested in trying a solo run but I'm wondering what kinds of settings would lead to a fun play through. I understand that some solo playthroughs rely on certain mechanics to make them viable. Leveling up a bunch on only non- combat experience, utilizing tricks that give them infinite class resources, or not resting to stack certain buffs. I get that some of these methods are probably just necessary depending on settings- doing an Ultimate run, for instance. But what if I wanted to do a relatively "normal" solo run, game play wise? Where I complete quests in a relatively normal way/order and avoid tricks to stack buffs or get infinite resources. Is it realistic to try that on PotD? Do I probably have to not use upscaling? Maybe make use of Berath blessings? Does it limit my choice of classes pretty strictly or is this something people do fairly easily? Megabosses maybe out of the question? I also play with the community balance and polishing mods if that affects things.

A multiclass that provides AoE buffs?

Multiclassing with Wizard sounds like the way to go. I've never done a solo playthrough but maybe after my current play through I'll give this a try. Thanks for the great theorycrafting! Yeah, fun probably isn't the best way to describe the actual gameplay. I think I was more trying to say that the theory is interesting. I probably could have made a better post title.

Has anyone commented much on usage of Blade Turning for a Monk? I could see it being a pretty meh ability most of the time but for a Nalpazca tank in particular it seems to really shine. Nalpazca passively generate wounds so they don't need to be attacking or taking damage- they just constantly get wounds as long as they are on drugs. They can spam Blade Turning more or less forever and make themselves essentially invulnerable to melee attack while putting out pretty decent damage at the same time due to the melee attackers hitting themselves. You can still take damage from range/casters of course but there are a lot of instances where just spamming blade turning is pretty strong. I just did one of the fights in SSS- the one where you attempt to retrieve the slayer relic out on the island. The encounter has you ambushed by a bunch of high level Staelgar/lions and they come from all sides (so it's difficult to keep squishies alive). My Mirke (modded to be Nalpazca) can just solo this encounter herself as all of the attackers are melee. And it's not just their auto attacks- any of their melee abilities get reflected. They will pounce and knock themselves down, too. You can't really do this with other Monk subclasses I don't think. Spamming blade turning would presumably shut down their ability to generate wounds. Maybe a Shattered Pillar with enough attack speed to weave attacks between blade turning could pull it off? Someone more clever than I could probably build a solo character around blade turning. Just have to figure out a way to deal with ranged/casters.

Yep- I should have specified that if I use ringleader then I'm only getting hit->crit on the AoE charm around the dominated enemy. If ringleader won't hit multiple enemies or I'm focus poor then I'd use Whispers of Treason or Roguish Charm. Good to know about how crits work with DoTs, though. Extended duration is kinda weak I'd say. I assume any +crit damage effects do nothing for a DoT that crits if the crit just extends duration by 25%? Hit to crit on charmed enemies seems difficult to really take good advantage of. TheLee's idea of timing big hits for when charm is about to fall off anyway seems like it might be the best way. Maybe charm->DoT->big hit.

Are you aware that the Debonaire must land the hit in order to get the crit conversion? Graze/miss will not convert to crit I believe. I've definitely gotten hit to crit conversion in the combat log with [Debonaire] listed as the cause.

That worked- thanks!

Hello, I managed to mod Rekke to be a Fighter(Devoted)/Monk(Shattered Pillar) subclass. However, I don't think I did it entirely correctly as he still has his default greatsword and sword proficiencies auto chosen at lv 1. I decided to just roll with it and give him Whispers of the Endless Paths. However, I really want to change course with him now. He's got the Heaven's Cacophony helm and if I give him Lord Darryn's Voulge then he'll have this whole storm/lightning damage thing going on (and he's a storm-folk...). Is there a way to mod him to change his proficiency? Or at least give him a Pollaxe proficiency? I know in his modded progression table he has the greatsword/sword auto picked proficiencies at level 1- is it as simple as just changing one of those to Pollaxe? Or since I already have him in my party (I'm towards the end of the game at this point) would that not work? I know it's sort of counter to the idea of a Devoted that I'm changing him like this but my desire for this cool lightning theme overrides my desire to follow his Devoted doctrine

Maybe I'll try to pay attention to the combat log and do some tests with her. I definitely see [Debonaire] listed when the hits get converted to crit but often the duration and tick damage seems to be the same as a regular hit.

I modded Ydwin to have subclasses but I'm not entirely sure I'm playing this combo right. The Debonaire part seems particularly difficult to pull off correctly- you want to attack charmed enemies to utilize the hit to crit mechanic but attacking them breaks the charm (which is arguably more important than a crit). I've been trying to get around this by using DoTs (Disintegrate primarily) so that the charm doesn't break but I can't tell if a crit DoT actually does anything- in the combat log the tick damage and total duration seem to be the same as a non-crit. Maybe the combat log is inaccurate or maybe I'm just mistaken? In any case, my normal strategy with her has been to throw out deception AoE spells (phantom foes, binding thoughts, secret horrors, and eye strike) that build up my focus followed by ringleader. From there, any charmed enemies get Disintegrate where hopefully the high crit rate is doing something. Most of my Rogue abilities don't really seem worth using other than maybe ring the bell- I'd usually prefer to use a cipher's AoE eye strike than a rogue's single target eye gouge. I guess the rogue tree can just go for mostly passive abilities?