Longknife

Peasant You throw rocks at people to attack.

I like the votes for Kana. "Yo, screw that guy, talking about peaceful resolutions and trade and ****. I hate guys like that, just let us blow each other up."

In my defense, I thought the same, but figured "whatever I'll say my thoughts and split."

My biggest problem with this quest is that with a high dexterity you can open the missive. What it says sounds pretty awful but you can't do anything about it when you talk to the monks, I almost felt it was pointless. You can use the info from the missive to get a sweet shirt before they do. It's a really sweet shirt. But again that's besides the point. The point is it's hard to make a playthrough feel truly unique in this game because everyone is treated the same. Different treatments are a pure illusion with no concrete consequences.

Check your privilege, you white cis-het ableist scum! I'm disabled. :U OH WAIT IMSORRY, I'm a person with a disability. Almost offended myself there.

I'm just so jaded and sick of all things SJW. Yesterday I watched a video by that Laci Green girl where some disabled woman was telling people that "disabled," "handicapped," and "crippled" are offensive terms and that the proper term is "people with disabilities." I'm going to challenge that woman to a cripple fight, in which I am a blackbelt.

I've not taken the Druid guy yet with the stupid-to-spell name, and I've limited experience with Grieving Mother. Having said that, Grieving Mother. From what I could discern of her personality, she and I are absolutely not on the same page. I took the confrontational dialog choices every time. Having said that though, she as a character is still well-written and thought provoking, so that I like, it's merely this is not a person I would get along with on a realistic basis. She and Durance both come across as bat **** insane and neither is a person I'd feel comfortable around, but whereas Durance at least makes sense with what he preaches (for the most part), Grieving Mother seems to absolutely cross the line.

How on earth would you even roleplay that scenario? There is no good-neutral-evil sort of options on the table. There is no "you can siphon energy from the machine to your benefit," there is no "you can activate it again to wipe out another part of the city," what you're doing is undeniably good. You gain positive karma regardless of what you choose to do there, and you do a good thing regardless of what you do. Deactivating the machine is half-assing it, blowing it up is doing the full job. To destroy the machine, you have to destroy the souls as well. My character wanted the machine destroyed but ultimately wasn't willing to pay that price. Touche on this point. I'd forgotten that when I wrote that. Still, some of my other complaints remain solid: 1) Community reputations do nothing for you beyond making some merchant prices cheaper or help to end a quest one step faster. The only time you'll encounter choice and consequence is the three factions all have a merchant offering different things. That's it. 2) Dialog reputations seemingly do nothing. It's an amazing illusion of uniqueness, but the amount of times a dialog reputation actually changes your outcome can be counted on one hand. Typically dialog reputation amounts to little more than someone commenting on what a great person you are (Benevolent) reputation before offering you the quest they were going to offer you anyways. Prime example? There's a quest where you find a monk who asks you to deliver a sealed message to his order. If you have Honest reputation he thanks the gods you found him, if you're deceptive he comments on it but also says you're sadly his only hope. In both scenarios, you're treated exactly the same. There is no situation where his monk order will be skeptical of what you tell them because you're deceptive or the like, it plays out exactly the same. All scenarios where dialog reputation is recognized, it has no actual impact on the quest and the quest would be obtainable anyways. The only exceptions I can name off the top of my head is it's possible to psyche out some enemy attackers with Aggressive rep and get them to back off. 3) Endings feel meaningless as far as difference goes, at least on the Gods. Helping a God is always universally good; even supporting Woedica does not support in the game feeding you tidbits about the bad it did, but rather only good or neutral aspects of this choice are mentioned. Betraying a God is always bad. I enjoy morally grey, but I also think trying to be as good or as evil as possible should be a thing. As far as the Gods and Companions go, bad endings are achieved by purposefully breaking a pact with a God or by just not bothering with a companion's quest (usually). It just feels a little weak. Unfortunately, Gods and Companions endings make up the majority of the endings.

If you cannot enjoy a game because the gender ratio is not perfectly even at 50-50, you're an idiot.

Sort of off-topic and not really about an objectively superior reporting method, but anyone ever heard someone complain about Yahtzee's (the Escapist) reviews? Me neither. Know why? Because he makes it a point to try and **** on games as much as possible instead of writing an advertisement for them. If Yahtzee doesn't **** on a game, that says something. If he does, then you know it's flawed and you know what flaws to expect. I don't need someone to write me four paragraphs about why they think Skyrim is pretty. I can look at it myself and say "ya that looks nice." I much prefer a reviewer who will call out all of the mistakes and flaws a game houses.Yknow, someone who puts the criticizing aspects back in the name "critic." Also, can we talk about what a weird little world we've got going where Yahtzee stands out as a video games journalist for actually providing criticism of games that aren't blatantly bad?

Gotta be honest.... Monk is a class on the opposite end of the spectrum from Paladin in my opinion. Why? Monk can be TREMENDOUSLY broken and powerful, but achieving this demands that you babysit the monk and micromanage a lot. Every time that Monk gets a wound, you use it. And if the Monk has 10 wounds? Prepare to pause combat every half a second to re-assign another wounded punch, because that's how fast the monk punches. It's tedious perhaps, but the reward payout is tremendous. Paladin seems like the opposite end of the spectrum. You need absolutely minimal micromanagement for the Paladin....but you also get minimal payout. Overall, it's a lazy man's class for if you can't be bothered to buff accuracy and DR with your Priest. The problem is that realistically speaking, if you can't be bothered with two buffs by your priest, you're gonna get slaughtered anyways. There's also not exactly two alternative priest spells in tier 1 that seem like equally viable alternatives to those two, so it's not like you get more mileage out of your priest because the paladin is there.

Am I the only one laughing my ass off at the fact that people know my name for providing criticism and are also convinced I have some vendetta against Paladins because I provided criticism regarding how poor their numbers currently are? Like wtf people, seriously chill out. This is like the fourth person to flip out on me because omg I said Paladins aren't the best thing since sliced bread. Anyways to answer OP, it's not that they're horriawful and undoable, it's just that yes, I would frankly rank them dead last in regards to class rankings. You will never encounter a lost fight and think "I could've won that if I just had a paladin!" This doesn't mean however that Paladins cannot do fine, it's just more of a "if your goal is to be as powerful as possible, don't make a Paladin" sort of thing. Fighter. And that's exactly the problem. If given an ultimatum between Fighter and Paladin, you'll pick Fighter. If given an ultimatum between Priest and Paladin, you'll pick Priest. If given an ultimatum between Rogue and Paladin, you'll pick Rogue. Paladin is a jack-of-all-trades, king of none, but unfortunately it's skills in all respective areas are so sub-par that it's hard to justify picking Paladin if your interest is in a party being as efficient as possible.

How on earth would you even roleplay that scenario? There is no good-neutral-evil sort of options on the table. There is no "you can siphon energy from the machine to your benefit," there is no "you can activate it again to wipe out another part of the city," what you're doing is undeniably good. You gain positive karma regardless of what you choose to do there, and you do a good thing regardless of what you do. Deactivating the machine is half-assing it, blowing it up is doing the full job.

I'm talking base stats plus any per encounter abilities or the like, not so interested in "Priest can buff the hell out of it's accuracy" for example. Still, am I correct in saying that it's Priest? Priest gets an accuracy boost with two weapons belonging to their god, and aside from that I can't really think of any other class-specific accuracy bonuses aside from Fighter's per encounter one.

I'm guessing they thought we'd counter charm with charm of our own, but realistically speaking, for the fight I was talking about at least, I tried that and my cipher's charm speed was completely outpaced by the enemy's, not to mention if your charm classes get charmed then it's GG. As far as I'm concerned, they can put this on the to-do list right next to making paralyze less OP.

Let me guess, you're fighting a certain someone on top of a certain castle in a "Round 2" of sorts...? I just closed my game frustrated with this fight. I beat it first try with another squad that was less caster-reliant, but this new game file I've got is more caster reliant, and I cannot do JACK when half my squad is charmed before I can even blink. I went down the entire list of Priest spells thinking "surely there's some way to counter it." NOPE none whatsoever. Charmed/Dominated is completely 100% counter-proof. A counter would be nice Obsidian....It's kind of hard to properly prepare for a fight when over half my team will be fighting it against me.

But that's just it. Re-read my examples. A Paladin could get superior defenses to Fighter without being OP because the Fighter still has better control skills and a better engagement limit. A Paladin could get tons of damage added onto Flames of Devotion and still fall behind Rogue and Wizard because Paladin's damage output would die the moment both casts were used. A Paladin could get the range on modals tweaked and upped drastically and still wouldn't hold a candle to priest. That's the point: Paladin is so far in the hole that you can buff it's stats across the board and STILL have it be balanced without taking away from other classes.

Because this is hardly an issue. Get Defender Mode, get Wary Defender and GG you're good. Since Fighters are usually brought along specifically for the purpose of tanking, who is going to mind spending these levels on that ability? Likewise, Faith and Conviction is not automatic on NPC Paladins, which is part of the problem.

And Sworn Enemy will get used how often...? It's nice, but it's something you might touch maybe five times per game, assuming you don't spam it on enemies it's unneccesary for out of a demand to make it useful. No. Infact even a Fighter has superior damage capacity, it's just unlikely you'll realize this potential because given the choice between an offensive Fighter and a defensive one, the defensive role is far more vital to the squad and the Fighter specializes in it whereas an offensive fighter would still get outpaced by the damage dealing classes. But yeah, if you made a Fighter and a Paladin and built both purely for damage, the Fighter has a couple talents that up it's hit percent by a huge margin, temporarily boost accuracy or let it attack faster. Paladin just has Flames of Devotion and Sworn Enemy, plus any Modals they might have. They'd look very similar, but Fighter's gonna have more control skills (Knock down) to up it's damage output. It's 30 endurance. It's....not that great. Upgraded it does more, but that's again part of the problem. Paladin has numerous abilities which are subpar and need an additional talent to upgrade them and make them....respectable. Still not amazing, but decent. The result is to service any one job, you're spending twice the levels every other class is spending, and you're STILL doing mediocre. Flames of Devotion has the exact same problem, as does the Paladin's Faith. It's good, this one I do like, but it's also not irreplaceable. Both Priest and Chanter get the same ability. Chanter's is a flippin' AOE whereas Priest can already do much of the same things Paladin can except 100% better, so the question remains "why not just bring a second Priest?" Seriously, name something a Paladin can do that a Priest can't and you'll find the list rather small, or most of the things listed will be things that a Paladin can do consistently (tank) but a Priest can also do via skills in an emergency battle. Let me put it this way: If you go to the Pillars of Eternity Gamepedia, classes get listed with different roles. Wizard and Druid are "mob ruler," Fighter, Barb and Monk are "Front Line," Cipher, Ranger and Rogue are "Heavy Hitter," and Chanter, Priest and Paladin are "Leaders." Try to imagine a squad where you only bring one of each type. AKA, imagine you're forced to choose between Wizard and Druid, to choose between Fighter Barb and Monk, to choose between Cipher, Ranger and Rogue.... If you have to choose one of each type to build a four man party? You will never choose Paladin for your leader slot. Chanter and Priest is a toss-up, cause even though Priest feels like a staple, a Chanter's summons can single-handedly turn a fight around. Paladin? You'd never in a million years choose to skip Chanter and Priest to bring a Paladin. That's exactly the problem.

Two things: Firstly, there is some degree of strategy and logic in getting different characters that all specialize in different jobs. For example let's imagine a party where instead of a pure tank with a pure support priest and a pure damage wiz/cipher/whatever, you have all three being middle of the road. The result? Chaos breaks out when your tank dies (aka enemies aren't collected in a bundle), your priest is buffing slower, and for any fight where the enemy never even touches your damage-dealers, any defense is moot and all you've done is killed slower than you could've. Specialization in that regard can be very effective. Likewise it of course makes sense to add 30% damage onto the guy dealing big 50 damage AOE hits in a matter of 5 seconds instead of adding 30% damage onto a guy who does maybe 30 damage to one target in the same amount of time. Second and more importantly, it's not that I think a jack-of-all-trades can't work, but rather I feel the Paladin is currently too weak on all fronts. Imagine it as though, for example, a Fighter is A+ on Tank, C- on damage dealing and B on support, on the opposite end a Wizard is A on damage, D- on tanking and B+ on support, and then a Paladin is a pure C- in every category. I would like to see those bumped up to at least straight B's, because that's possible while still being completely balanced. Today I learned there are people on these forums assuming all kinds of stuff about me for the most random reasons imagineable, to the point I'm not sure what the hell they're even talking about. :U Yknow I do it over-the-top specifically to annoy people like you who can't take a joke worth a damn? I'm 100% serious here.

By no means would my suggestion for defense make them superior tanks to Fighters. Fighters would still offer endurance regen, superior engagement and superior support control (knock down, aggro pull). That's the point: you can safely apply almost all of these suggested tweaks without Paladin becoming superior to the classes they compete with in that area. With my defense suggestion, Paladin would be the superior class for raw defense, but not neccesarily the one for keeping your squad alive, or even for staying up for that matter since endurance regen and knock down can be useful for a lot of different things. My offense suggestion wouldn't break Paladins either, nor would the support ones. The point is Paladins are abysmally sub-par across the board, to the point where minor tweaks could be made to everything across the board and they'd still be balanced. You lose me the moment you stop speaking plain english and start speaking computer geek. What the heck is "aggro", FFS???!!! The only aggro I know relates to farming, not computer games. (And I've got nothing to do with agro related business whatsoever. Just some comon knowledge.) Aggro = aggression. It means if I have an enemy go for my Cipher or Wizard, Fighter can pull the attention away with a skill (forget the name) without even needing to move. No other class can do this. MAYBE Monk could rush that enemy down and knock them on their ass quick, but aside from that, no one else offers this.

And why not just trade out the Paladin with his +5 accuracy bonus for a Priest who can provide exactly the same? That's exactly the point: Paladin is Jack-of-all-trades, master of none, but he's currently not jack-of-all-trades enough to warrant his existence in a party, regardless of what you want from your 6th man.

No it doesn't because: 1) Gaming websites will report on updates made within communities. They do this all the time. I know Edmund posted an update on his blog with info on the upcoming Isaac Rebirth expansion and gaming sites grabbed it, copy-pasted it and reported it. That's their job. 2) People read Polygon wtf?

By no means would my suggestion for defense make them superior tanks to Fighters. Fighters would still offer endurance regen, superior engagement and superior support control (knock down, aggro pull). That's the point: you can safely apply almost all of these suggested tweaks without Paladin becoming superior to the classes they compete with in that area. With my defense suggestion, Paladin would be the superior class for raw defense, but not neccesarily the one for keeping your squad alive, or even for staying up for that matter since endurance regen and knock down can be useful for a lot of different things. My offense suggestion wouldn't break Paladins either, nor would the support ones. The point is Paladins are abysmally sub-par across the board, to the point where minor tweaks could be made to everything across the board and they'd still be balanced.