aeonsim

Yeah as I said in another thread, Blast is actually so good (especially with Penetrating Blast), and it would be awesome if there was a Wizard talent that gave them an accuracy boost with implements like what Priests get with their deity proficiency stuff. Taking the Noble Specialisation is decent for a Wizard gives you +5? accuracy for both Sceptre and Rod (gives you both ranged crushing and slashing damage options) which combined with the range bonus from the Wood elf background give around +10 in on top of the weapon.

Maybe move a couple of points into perception (depending on what the Interrupt % is per point) if your using a two handed weapon with Strong or Stronger Interrupt + another 10% + from Perception and possibly the Interrupting Attacks Talent (50/60 + 10 + 15 = 75/85) then combined with Carnage you could be locking down a decent group of foes and reducing the damage your taking while doing so. That combined with the minor Deflection bonus from perception could help keep your Barbarian alive a fair bit longer.

Sure you need to kill stuff but while your doing it if your Wizard is playing a support role and managing regular interrupts with Blast + Interrupt then it's certainly going to reduce the amount of damage your chars doing the killing are taking. A lot of interrupts with a fast attack speed may also help a bit with the Barbarians survivability. I've been playing through on Path of the Damned and been pleasantly surprised how effective Blast is with an accurate wizard, especially with penetrating blast (Really want to add burning lash as well). Once you've got a group of enemies clustered and hobbled you can easily hit 4 or so at once and with a Chanter in the party that damage can add up quickly. Also noticed if someone paralyses or stuns a group then you can be hitting 4 or so enemies at once for ~20DP each, if interrupt was added to that it'd be a lot of fun .

Glad to see interrupt back but a bit sad to see the range boost go, it was useful for some spells. Can any one remember if Blast has an Interrupt chance? If so a high perception caster with a focus on implements + Blast + interrupting attacks could be rather interesting (AoE interrupt). Barbarians could also be interesting with a Interrupt focused build if the interrupt bonus carries over to there carnage, hearty of fury and barbaric blow abilities.

One other quick change that might help the Ranger would be to give them a Endurance value equal to that of a Ranger + the Animal selected (instead of 36+12/lvl => 60 + 12/lvl). At the moment all the animal companion effectively does is give you an ability to do weak attacks somewhere else and allows flanking for melee. If you have two bodies and are sharing the endurance one would think you should have a bit more endurance to share. Undoubtedly the ranger has some other issues but at least that would improve the survivability of class a fair bit.

I'm pretty sure I've seen enemies (mainly human, and possibly beetles) switch targets among those within melee range if a wizard get's close enough they can attack with out moving they switch...

Interesting you dislike the main story line, as far as RPGs go I thought it was one of the more interesting ones in that it wasn't just Evil dude wants to take over/destroy Town/Country/World/Reality, like PST and NWN2:MotB it was more of a personal story. If your playing a non-evil character then it very much starts as a save my Friend/Half sibling/person who broke me out of jail + revenge on the bastard who tortured me. It's something your character could conceivably care about but the rest of the world doesn't really care. If your playing an evil char then the dreams and the whole more power things I guess is supposed to draw you in. In the second half it becomes even more personal with the whole soul thingy, which I liked but it's still about you and no one else really has any reason to care. This I find to be a big improvement compared to so many of the other cRPGs where "YOU ARE the CHOSEN ONE" who will "SAVE the WORLD/TOWN/COUNTRY" when "NO ONE ELSE CAN" and everyone else doesn't seem to care that the world may end, oh and conveniently you can take your time because the world won't nearly end until your ready to save it... Based on the rumours around the start of PoE it seems like the PoE story line may be a bit more personal as well with something having happened to you in the opening, so I'm looking forward to that.

Lots of little things that we knew about. Polish stuff can sometimes be pushed to the back throughout development. A larger change is going to be a revision to the grimoire UI. People were very confused, so we are going to take another pass at it. Any chance you could have a couple of different Art styles for the Grimoire Icon (Even if it's just a different coloured stripe) at the moment I can't tell them apart once I've a couple in the quick slots. Or allow us to name them so when we hover the mouse over the icon we see the custom name in a tool tip? It's make it a lot easier for me to tell apart my AoE spell book from my, single target or Buffs spell books if each had at least some minor visual difference.

I think it's a case of he's using the Chants for most of the damage, so when playing with the shield he has high deflection so takes less damage and thus is able to play for a lot longer as he's using per encounters. While if switching to two handed weapons the ratio of damage to health lost is less favourable and thus play until rest time decreases (even if he maybe killing them slightly quicker due to the higher attack damage). This is partly a result of the shield usage and partly a result of the less min/maxed char, as the accuracy bonus for the spell cast by the char is probably playing a bigger role than the attribute bonus.

I agree with your conclusion that the accuracy penalties for using a shield are too high. But I would note from a roll playing point of view I don't mind that it allows you to build a fighter who can avoid damage but not really deal much. It's also possible that in certain parties that are focused on other higher damage but low survivability classes such as the ciphers, rogues, mages this can be made to work. Not optimally from a combat point of view but certainly enjoyable for some one who doesn't care about fighters and just wants them there as a movable shield for the characters they want to play with. I also agree that Con seems pretty much useless compared to intellect and perception.

Tool tips or something explaining the details would be really useful!

If the ranger is supposed to be about ranged weapons and the animal companion one way top improve it may be to give a bonus when both the ranger and companion are attacking the same enemy. For example: Coordinated assault, the ranger gets +10 to accuracy when targeting an enemy engaged by their companion and an increased critical hit range as his companion sets the enemy up perfectly for the rangers attack. That'd give them a pretty major boost in damage. Another option would be to apply a status effect. For example the combined coordinated attacks from the ranger and companion apply a dazed effect to the enemy and enemy DT is reduced by 5.

Because it's kinda fun having to work out how to play in such a mode.

Wow, can you read my hand too? Actually I've studied history. Any code I've written and write isn't compiled, so I've never gotten an idea of how much it usually takes to compile something of the size of PoE. Still a full day seems like too long - how would they quickly test small changes? It depends on what exactly they're doing with a build. If they're just compiling the EXE it seems rather long, however if they're doing a fresh build of all their assets (ie compressing/down sampling all maps, artwork, equipment, character and creature models and audio from high resolution master copies) then it seems like a reasonable amount of time.

Wizards can make a decent difference if used correctly though it helps to combine the effects of multiple spells be they there own or someone elses. For example Web + Fireball tends to do 80+ damage to every one in the area of effect (I can often hit 5-6 with one FB, that's 400-500 damage). While the spell that does short term AoE paralyse, stops an enemy and turns them into a big fat target (-100 Deflection, -100 Reflex, plus other big negatives) the next few attacks from any one will be critical hits. Wizards can do a reasonable amount of damage especially if you hit the enemy with what every spell they're weakest against good Def, attack Ref or Will, High Slash/blunt Damage threshold/resistance burn them etc, but it's some of there spells side effects that are particularly nasty. However you need to know what the side effects are and actively exploit them when the wizard triggers them.

I've been playing a bit of PotD some areas are worse than others: Party is main Chr Wizard + Custom lvl 4 Chanter, + BB_party. Managed to clear out Mdth with out much difficulty (no one down). On the crossings map I cleared everything out doors except the bunch of Monsters above the cave. So all Beatles (Stone, Adra, wood), wolves and Elder wolves, Spiders, Drakes and the Bandit party, 3 got knocked out going after the bandits. In the cave I've cleared the way to the Ogre and removed all the patrolling spiders (around 20), but didn't fight the Ogre and his bear pack. Had to rest about 3 times to clear out everything above ground and the part of the cave I had a go at. In the cult ruin I've cleared my way to the bridge with out to much difficult then with most of the party wounded got absolutely stomped by the cult 'party' that guards the other side. In the gorge I've cleared out the monsters above the ruin and all the Lions and Elder lions. In the Ruins I'm getting stomped by the spiders (especially the Crystal eaters) and spectres probably need to go back to town to rest up. In general there are more creatures and they seem to hit a bit harder or more likely there's a shift to a larger number of the more dangerous creatures Adra Beatles, Elder Wolves and Lions. There is a huge number of spiders (killed ~20 in the cave and there were another 10-15 around the Queen). The Ogre has a pack of ~ half a dozen beers guarding him as well. The monster party above the cave numbers around 8 individuals (I've seen other people attack that group and only faced 3 or so individuals) With the party composition I'm running I'm very light of tanks so If I can block or distract the enemies for long enough to start building up multiple spell effects and the wizard accuracy spell to maximise AOE damage I tend to annihilate the enemy but if there are enough enemies to get around or they use ranged attacks to target the spell casters things get messy.

Some nice improvements to the game with this build. Nice per encounter ability for the wizard, the changed stats for everyone, and a lot of spells seem to fit better with there descriptions now. Also the cheaper adventurer higher is great and chanter summons seem to be working a lot better. Appear to be some bugs around the Wizards grimore though. Lots of changes not listed in the notes. This isn't really fixed. http://i.imgur.com/lm94CeY.jpg It's no where near as bad as it was before, the per char effect is alot smaller and less overwhelming at least for web.

Well some people will start dissing the X-pack I'd expect, and others will start complaining about how PoE2 may or may not end up :D.

Looks like Wizards/Priest/Druids may get a little boost or some type of per encounter ability in the near future.

Which makes them very boring to play it as it becomes a case of do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, do nothing, BOOM everything dies. Not at all interesting for people who use Wizards/mages as there main char. I find a wizard is a lot more fun to play when they regularly do stuff that makes a difference, and have abilities that allow them to manipulate the battlefield or do certain types of damage that work better, regularly not just once or twice a fight.

The only real problem I have with playing the wizard at the moment is that there aren't enough spells per rest. This could easily be fixed by allowing a couple of per encounter uses of spells by the time you get to 6th level. What I'd like to see is something along the lines of every 2 or 3 levels you get 1 per-encounter cast of a spell from any of your lower spell classes. What I mean by this is your level 5 wizard (from the start of the beta) would get 1 per encounter cast of any level 1 or 2 spell (but not level 3) this would get used before you start using up your daily casts. So if you had 2 level 1 and level 2 casts left your effectively have 5 in total with the free cast from the per-encounter option, thus if you only cast 1 spell in a fight from level 1 or 2 at the end of the fight your regain the cast, if you cast 2 however your'd end the fight with one less cast. Then when you get to level 6 your'd gain an extra per-encounter cast so now your'd have 2 free casts from level 1/2 spells per combat. When you get your level 4 spells your then have those two free casts available for your level 1,2 & 3 spells. The spells are primarily combat orientated and there is nothing wrong with that. There probably needs to be some more balance work done but that's it. You do realise very few games offer proper levitation or teleportation spells (Morrowind for example) the Infinity engine games did not have levitation, or between map teleportation spells. Currently PoE has Illusion spells (defence), Item creation (a staff, pike spell), as well as direct damage, mental manipulation, magic defence spells (spell reflection etc), and short range (combat) teleportation which is a good proportion of the IE game spell types.

I've also seen this but usually only after the first quick save.

Thanks, comm's like this are excellent!

Eldritch Aim, is pretty nice you can usually get a couple of spells off after it. I'm also finding "Fetid Caress" (lvl2 Wizard) to be pretty effective it doesn't have a massive AoE but you can usually catch 2-3 enemies (and the poor fighters :-D) with it and the combination of Paralysed and Sickened (big -ve to all defences and most attributes) makes them an easy target for anyone and anything. The wiki claims -40 for Def, Ref & -100 dex (P) and -20 Wil, Fort & -1 all Ats (S) though I think it may be a little higher in the current build (not certain though).

I don't object to a game that is difficult when it is set to 'Normal', or 'Hard'... Call me crazy, but when you set the game to 'Easy', I don't think it's unreasonable to expect the game to be, you know - easy... My wife would never play the game as it stands --- she'd get her party wiped a dozen or so times and she'd give up and go on to some other game... I think there's a fairly large class of gamer out there who will not play the game if it stays this difficult even on the 'Easy' setting... ..so they basically did what I predicted after all..? That they removed the "puzzle-like" difficulty, where every enemy had weaknesses and strengths you needed to figure out (and if you found that weakness, it would always turn the fight around). Then turned them into IE style wars of stamina attrition. And then to compensate so the fights wouldn't be too easy for the might maxed characters the super-testers tend to have, they've upped the stamina again. To the point where the battles now really are too difficult, even on easy, to beat without a max-min'ed party. ..success! I think the puzzle like elements are still there to some degree, as each enemy type has different resistances to damage types using the wrong weapon against them can make a fight a lot harder. If you use slashing weapons vs Beatles for example expect a long and difficult fight, while if you change the crushing weapons you can tear through them. For human enemies some of them have exceedingly high defence that makes them very hard to damage, however hit them with a knockdown, or paralyse them (insanely powerful) and there defences will decrease drastically making them easy to eliminate. Also making sure to target the correct enemies first seems important, leave ones with dangerous abilities alive and you'll pay for it.