Aestus

Perhaps there is something I don't know about summon strategies. My experience is that they are good, but hardly the most impactful strategy in Deadfire. I find that the armor system in Deadfire strongly incentivizes quality of action over quantity of action. Now, obviously, a high quantity of high quality actions are best, but there is a quality threshold of being able to PENN with your attacks that is really hard to overcome with quantity. However, even if you agree that summons are the best strategy, that would be a reason for me to bump up Chanter but not downgrade Fighter. In fact, it would be a promotion for Fighter, because being invincible via Unbending means more time to chant summons.

I see this as a "perfect is the enemy of the good" situation. Tier lists are imperfect, especially if the listener is too rigid with them, but no form of instruction is perfect. I think they are a decent enough way to express opinions and teach about the game. I think this goes without saying, it would be redundant to say. Tier lists are a format for expressing opinions. Thinking otherwise is a media literacy problem on the part of my listeners that I can't be held responsible for. I guess it doesn't hurt to be a little redundant for the sake of emphasis though. I strongly disagree. I mean, I agree having fun is the most important thing, but for me and many others "just having fun" isn't fun. One big thing that makes Deadfire and games like it fun is playing tactically and trying to improve at the tactics of the game. The "just have fun and enjoy yourself" attitude actually kills the fun, if that makes any sense. Great! What am I missing? Lets focus on just one example. Here is a sketch of my reasoning for why I consider the fighter so good: Unbending under very easily achievable conditions becomes an invincibility button, one of only two in the game. On top of that, they are the best suited class for exploiting Disengagement Attacks, an ascendant, action-economy breaking strategy. This is controversial, but I also think they have the best weapon-based striker kit in the game with the combination of Devoted bonuses, Confident Aim (avoiding grazes is often undervalued due to inversion math), Disciplined Strike (a Discipline and action-economy cheap source of Intuitive), and heaps of attack speed reduction and extra attack triggers (through Mob Stance + Armored Grace + Disengagement Attacks). Note, the drawback from Devoted is practically non-existent due to the free proficiency in unarmed attacks. I’ve tested Devoted runs with longswords, spears, clubs, axes, hatchets, greatswords, and pikes and never struggled to output damage.

Basically I am considering for a full party, not solo. PotD and Trial of Iron are assumed. I try to leave out the really cheesy stuff from consideration, but as you can hopefully see from the list I do consider some game breaking stuff (Ancestors Memory and Barring Deaths Door). I try to consider both class impact on a build (multiclassing) and overall impact in a team composition and a full run. The short version for why I consider cipher and fighter so high and paladin and chanter so low is that I just think ciphers and fighters offer more than paladins and chanters. If we can single out fighter as an example, I find fighters to be horribly underrated by most people I talk to. Unbending is borderline game-breaking. Under very achievable conditions it becomes an invicibility button on par with Barring Deaths Door. Fighters are the best to class for utilizing one of the strongest action-economy breaking strategies, which is procing Disengagement Attacks. Finally, Fighters just have an overloaded amount of weapon attack boosts in their kit. Devoted bonuses, Confident Aim (avoiding grazes is often undervalued due to inversion math), Disciplined Strike (a Discipline and action-economy cheap source of Intuitive), and heaps of attack speed reduction and extra attack triggers (through Mob Stance + Armored Grace + Disengagement Attacks). Its an overloaded kit.

Why the ellipses? No single build can do everything available in a class ability tree. So choosing a subclass is very much like choosing an ability or passive, that is its a class choice with an opportunity cost just like any other. All this is to say, I think its fair to treat subclasses like class abilities rather then like a whole new class.

Yes! I'd like to do a series of videos where I go class by class and rank every single possible class combination. That seems much more thorough to me than doing separate multiclass and single class videos. Don't you think? I did read the entire thread you linked. It was helpful! Thanks for drawing it to my attention.

Why separately? Wouldn't it be best to consider them all individually on a single list? My plan is to do that eventually, but to start with lower resolution list above.

Hello all! If you have the time, I need your advice. I am a Youtuber who’s mostly known for making educational videos on the tactics of Baldur’s Gate 3. The Pillars of Eternity series is, in my opinion, one of the greatest the CRPG genre has to offer. I love to talk about them and am hoping that the overlap of BG3 and the upcoming release of Avowed might renew some interest in these masterpieces. Toward that end, I am currently scripting a series of videos aimed at introducing the Pillars series to my audience of BG3 enthusiasts. The goal is for the videos to be interesting and engaging, i.e. something to get the listener interested in the playing the game so I can then direct them to Thelee’s much better and more comprehensive guide on GameFAQs. I want one of the videos to be a Class Tier List for Deadfire, and that is where I need your advice. I have just shy of 700 hours in Deadfire, which is enough for me to have an informed opinion, but not an expert one. To mitigate that, I am offering my draft of the list to peer review, so to speak. I’ve outlined the list below. I can't include my reasoning without this post being to long, so feel free to ask questions. If you have any thoughts or challenges to offer, I’d appreciate your input. Please note though that the finished Tier List ultimately must represent my opinion. I will alter the list if my opinion is altered. The List: Game Breaking Tier: Cipher, Priest Overloaded Tier: Fighter, Wizard, Monk Bread'n'Butter Tier: Rogue, Chanter, Ranger Niche Tier: Druid, Barbarian, Paladin. Why I want to make a tier list I know that regulars of this forum have been very critical of tier lists as a format, so I will just say something brief about why I am making one in spite of that. If Tier Lists don’t bother you, feel free to skip this. Put simply, I want to make a class tier list because they are an extremely popular format on Youtube. For context, my Class Tier List video for Baldur’s Gate 3 has around 1,100,00 views, whereas my top performing build video has 31,000 views. People find tier lists interesting and, as I said above, the aim of the video is to be interesting and engaging. The way I see it, Tier Lists are just a way to visually summarize one’s opinions so that listeners can review at a glance. I don’t see anything wrong with that. Ultimately, the quality of a tier list will depend on the quality of the opinions it represents, which is why I am submitting my draft for peer review. Thanks in advance for taking the time!

But I didn't say anything about his comment on multi-classing. I specifically addressed his comparison of SA to shred spells as a strategy for dealing damage. I just think its overly focused on focus efficiency and misses the advantages SA has in build alignment and focus tempo. I'm happy to agree on the rest of what he says about soul blades, it was just that one sentence that I think could be better.

Thank you for the guide! I've read it several times and learned a lot from it.

My thoughts exactly! I'm guessing from the responses that this really isn't as controversial a take as I expected it to be. I'm obviously new to the game, so I incorrectly expected the view expressed by what I assumed to be a popular guide to be more widely held. Regardless, it is still interesting to me to see what C.LE was missing, since they obviously understand a lot about the game and are very good at it. I had a feeling that relying on SA for damage was the better strategy, but it is true that Disintegrate is a much more efficient from a damage-to-focus perspective, and I wasn't sure why it was better when that is the case. I think we've gotten to the bottom of it now.

Yeah, I've actually never tried it, but I've thought for a while it should be good.

Yeah, I never meant to imply that every other ability is a waste. Although, I will say I find practically every buff/debuff that competes for your action (i.e. that isn't quick cast) are seldom as efficient as they seem on soul blades. The more I experience I have with the subclass the less I use Borrowed Instinct to be honest, of course, it depends so much on your party composition/build, I probably shouldn't generalize.

Quick introduction that you can skip if you want: I’m a guy who writes articles and makes youtube videos about CRPG’s, particularly Baldur’s Gate 3. I am drafting some content for Pillars 1 and 2, I consider them to be the best CRPG’s I’ve played and its criminal that more people don’t talk about them. I am fairly new to Deadfire (300ish hours), starting playing last year. I’ve become obsessed with Soul Blades, and I’m writing an article that analyzes the subclass and offers a MC Soul Blade build for all 4 major factions. As part of the research for that article I re-read C.LE’s brief analysis of the class in their masterful FAQ. Concerning Soul Annihilation (SA), they write: “[f]rankly this ability is a waste in many situations--you're better off using the soul blade's discounted shred powers.” However, they go on to note “as a way to quickly finish off enemies--especially when stacked on other martial enhancements as part of a martial class (i.e. a sneak attack or backstab) -- it can be useful.” I think C.LE misses two of the most important factors that make SA so powerful when built around, what I call “build alignment” and “focus tempo.” I just want to bring these factors to your attention for discussion because I find them interesting and I hope you will too. I suspect that SA spam is at least as powerful a strategy to build around as shred power spam. *Note* I mostly play turn-based, so I use that language, but what I say should generally apply to real time. Build Alignment. Basically, a well aligned build is focused on one kind of thing, so that you can invest into building that one thing for maximal returns. In other words, a well aligned build is one that eliminates all dyssynergy. A cipher that wants to deal damage through shred spells has a built in dyssynergy, namely, the dyssynergy between weapon damage and spell damage: you need build towards weapon damage to efficiently generate focus, but then you need to build towards spell damage to efficiently use that focus. Soul Blades which build around SA avoid this dyssynergy. They are very well aligned around weapon damage increases, which will improve both their focus gain and focus use. Of course, many things in Deadfire modify both (like might or accuracy), but many others will only modify one or the other. For a clear example, consider a Soul Blade that is using a mythic quality greatsword with the modal and two-handed style, gaining a 120% increase to their weapon damage. If you rely on shred powers for damage, that will only improve your focus gain, but if you spam SA it improves your focus use as well. Focus Tempo. What I call focus tempo is the rate at which you generate and spend focus, and thus maximize the volume of focus spent in a single encounter. It seems to me that people like C.LE are accustomed to thinking about focus efficiency, but they seem to be ignoring focus volume. Volume can obviously be used to offset worse efficiency. Suppose that a SA focused build is 1/3 as efficient with its focus, but its also able to output 3x as much, in this case the two strategies are equal. And I suspect something like this is actually the case. A perfect SA focused build would have a two turn tempo: on one turn you generate close to max focus and on the following turn you expend it all with SA. Repeat until all enemies are dead. Notice also that a good tempo build for SA is simultaneously a well aligned build. Half of good tempo is doing lots of weapon damage, and when you build for that you are also doing more SA damage. Also, imagine for a moment a build that could generate 200+ focus per turn on average. This would likely be a build with a lot of weapon damage increases. If you spam Disintergrate, a single turn of attacking would generate enough focus to fund your next 4 ish turns of casting, so you end up not attacking that often. There is a tension in the action economy. If you chose to spam SA you would be spending 2x as much, generating 2x more, and attacking every round. Once these two factors are considered, its pretty easy to see what a good SA spam build would be like. Do they actually compete with shred spam builds? Some that I have developed definitely do. Anyways, I found this interesting, so I thought I would share. I welcome your comments and criticism!