morhilane

And that's bad? If you want a DPS-oriented character, you stack Accuracy and damage modifiers. That's how it should be. If you want a different type of character, you focus on other things. Right now all characters must stack as much AP as possible or be completely useless. Spells don't have enough penetration to do anything (and take too long to cast and are too easy to interrupt to be a tag along) and even an Estoc with its modal is not enough to overcome a lagufaeth's AR. Packing large amounts of AP is disproportionately more important than anything else. Making it gradual isn't going to make people stop hoarding +pen bonuses and -AR debuffss. They are going to try to get the 130% damage boost anyway. That solution doesn't solve anything, it just put a plaster on the real issue: the current balance needs works. A good AR/Pen system should have damage type that always bypass something, not have a base AR that blocks everything. Also, the only things that has penetration checks are damaging abilities and weapons. You can still do other things like CC and debuff, the reason why the other things sucks currently has nothing to do with the penetration/AR system.

Globally, the purpose of the battle is globally to C.C. Not to let ennemy swing all his spells. In this case, and with no potions and scrolls, with divided/2 beneficials effects... I stay on the bad deal. But indeed, this is not the worst/more useless Barbarian. And yes : For ennemies far enough (like I said...) This is not particuliry useful. Just tried one against a few of the encounters in the beta (Delemgan/spores and Lagufaeths). Sprint is great to rush toward the casters and the Mage Slayer cause them to be unable to cast spells for 20 seconds when they "proc" (or something like that, the description isn't very clear). Also, +11 defenses (including deflection) against spells is pretty nice (seems to improve with power level too). On top of that, Yell debuff has more effect on casters than melee characters because Shaken reduce power level. One of the easiest build I played in the beta so far.

Power level cap at 9. Past level 6 you gain new power level every 3 character level instead of 2 (slower for multiclassed, they cap at power level 7).

How do you get 11 Wizard Power Level???? I always see +1 Wizard Power Level when I check my Wizard.

and then you go and give her buff (Eldrish Aim for some +accuracy and grazing) and "always-hit" spells (Trust of the Tattered Veils, use that against enemies that are casting stuff, and the two magical missiles spells). Have you actually played one? It's not just against Wizard, it's against anything that is casting a spell, which means basically every creatures you encounter.

Most enemies are level 7+ in the beta, you are under-geared and under-leveled. If you're character are getting downed in every fights that you need to rest after 2 (if not even each ones), "get gud" and "lower difficulty" are the right answers. You aren't supposed to have characters drop to 0 HP in every fights, if that is happening either the content is too hard for you or you really need to pay more attention to your character builds and tactics.

People would just go back to the next best way to deal more damage. The modifying the AR/Pen system isn't going to change that. In fact, it would work better if none of the weapons could reduce AR or increase penetration. Then they could at least balance weapons pen and armors AR properly and have it act as if it was damage resistant to certain damage type instead of the current system being damage resistant to everything because base AR is higher than most weapon penetration is. For example, a Greatsword has 5 penetration, Fine add +1, which means at Legendary (+4) Greatsword will have 9 penetration. While enemies are going to have ~15+ AR on everything (if armor enchantment are like in POE1, a Legendary Robe is going to have 11 base AR, looks like they gain +1 AR per enchantment so the difference would stay the same for the "normal" stuff...and Greatsword are only useful against Robe, Hide and Padded). The entire balance of the system doesn't work right now. It's like the system was balanced thinking that players would be doing crits 50% of the time. The funniest part, the time when you need to increase your penetration even more is when enemies will have super high deflection that crits are basically impossible... edited armor AR in POE2.

I personally would suggest to just remove graze entirely and re-balance enemies and encounters. POE1 combat issue has always been too much damage dealt (so you die too fast and enemies are HP sponge). Re-putting more in, isn't going to solve anything.

I'd expect chargen to be correct. Otherwise a player would feel cheated. If it only works for melee, then obsidian is taking out half the fun of the subclass. Why would they even do that other than limiting and "dictate" how players should play their characters?. Hope it's not just melee in the final release. The Skald is meant to use offensive invocations which are melee range cone effects. It's a melee Chanter sub-class. Just like the Stalker is designed as a melee defensive Ranger. You got other sub-class for the other type of characters you want to make.

Just uncheck auto-level companion in the options before creating a new character. You can manually level all the mercenaries.

They did that in PoE too. I don't remember seeing them doing any of that and I killed two Xaurip Champions this afternoon in POE1.

That info is available but only seems to works for some stuff (mostly spells and I saw it on Flame of Devotion). When you open the details of an ability, bring the cursor over the blue text and a tooltip should appear telling your the "power level" improvement currently applied. Example, if beside the word Penetration highlight the blue number and you should see something like 5 + 0.75 Class Power level in a popup. Doesn't work on damage though.

Knockout Injuries were already in POE1 3.0 (and they accrued fatigue which reduced health) which released 10 months before Tyranny. Smaller party size was decided to reduce the cluster that was the combat but then they decided to make 10+ enemies encounters solving nothing...and Tyranny only had 4 party members, not 5. Per-encounter change started in POE1 via patches, that was all before Tyranny was released. It's more accurate to say that Tyranny felt like POE1...

I think they should keep the amount of skills they have. Diplomacy is not the same thing as intimidating or bluffing people and I'm always annoyed when games make a single persuasion skills that everyone cap. Might as well not put any in the game, the end result is going to be the same. Also, I I think they should define level caps, like in D&D 3.xe, so you know that for your level that skill is currently at max and you can spread into another skill. Also, right now you get a share of the rest of the party skills, but it doesn't seems to be used in all cases so it makes it hard to know when to spread and not spread the rest of the party. I wouldn't say no to getting 2 points at level up too, but it all depends on the "level cap" for skills.

More impressions. I like the combat voices, especially the one where someone is coughing (on the Poko map with all the sand around, I just get the image of sand going in someone face...). The map/boat travelling is growing on me. I can't wait for the random encounters though, right now it just feels like I'm trying to reach the "glowies" on a lots of the islands. I like the Inspirations/Afflictions as a concept, but we really need that doc. I actually have no idea how to counter anything right now. I loaded up a POE1 save I had, with a level 5 party. POE2 combat feels a lot more polished to me (pathfinding, animations, enemies using abilities, feedback, etc), but my POE1 party definitively kills stuff faster. I'm wondering if enemies shouldn't get a HP reduction to accommodate more misses. I don't really want to have to cast Aware on the party every fight or hording enchants just to go back to POE1 grazing and I do think missing more often slow down combat. Also, Xaurip Champion using Flame of Devotion and Lay On Hand...that's kinda cool and weird, lol. I personally have no idea. POE2 feels like a more polished POE1 with you dying less fast and hitting enemies less often (because no more grazes by default).

well, just one example: it would be ridiculous op when stacked with barbarian weapon focus. HA! Good Fun! A fist proficiency just mean it gets a modal like they other weapon proficiency.

I'd expect chargen to be correct. Otherwise a player would feel cheated. The chargen is full of missing information/mistakes. The melee crit for Skald is what is said in the Multiclassing II update as well.

+50% to get phrase when you do a melee crit and offensive invocations cost -1 phrase. -not offensive invocations cost +1 phrase.

Haven't they said they added recovery time of crossbows' to their reloading animation a few months ago? Isn't that so in the game? Yes (just tested it), when it is crossbow -> reload, but the priest tend to go with crossbow -> spell -> recovery -> reload -> crossbow.

Using your criteria, the ranger has only a single offensive ability: Wounded shot. Melee not having any shouldn't have people act as if ranged weapons had 10 and them 0. This is the exact reason rangers need more abilities for themselves. Pet has enough of them yet the ranger only has one direct offensive ability ( also marked prey technically but its more of a debuff imo) in 5 power levels and its ranged only? I don't think he needs a bunch but 2-3 to pick from by power level 5 isn't ridiculous. Plenty of classes that already have that many by power level 3. I dunno Obsidian will do what they do but the ranger is not in a good place.. I don't think we have the same definition of plenty. Ignoring the casters, because the Ranger is not a caster and using the "ranger fans" description of an offensive ability. Barbarian has only Barbaric Blow. Fighter has Knockdown and Into the Fray, but technically these aren't offensive, one is meant to prone and the other to pull. They just happen to use normal attacks to apply the effect. Paladin has Flame of Devotion. Rogue has 5, but 4 of them are debuff that use normal attacks to apply their effects. Monk has Torment Reach with Force of Anguish and Stunning Blow using normal weapon attacks to apply their effects of push and stun. Ranger has Wounding Shot, Evasive Fire and the pet Takedown ability (use normal attack to apply its effect). Don't act as if the pet doesn't exist, you lost that battle in POE1 beta. Oh and by the way, you can have more actives in POE2 at the level range we are than in POE1...

I think recovery was added to slow down combat and balance what was supposedly hard hitting abilities/weapons originally. What I'm seeing right now is that the original issue of combat speed was neither of these things and all recovery did was hide the real issues. Removing graze (well it's optional now) slowed down combat, you die a lot less fast now (well unless focus fired by 10 mobs which is totally possible in the beta because of over populated encounters). The problem was always that everything scored a hits too often, even if reduced in damage (which made players focus on hording deflection and damage multipliers). Now that we all miss more (enemies too), the recovery time is painfully long after a miss...and you miss 50% of the time. The Merc Priest using a crossbow doesn't seems to do anything else but recovery + reload when I'm looking at him...and then his shot misses. Yeah! I would keep a 0.5 second recovery, otherwise some animation transition would look weird and you would end up cancelling actions all the time when re-positioning.

I wasted my entire Evoker * spells on two sand worms last night and didn't kill either of them, melee characters did that. I did more damage to my Rogue (she walked through Ray of Fire....the only thing that spell hit during its duration). The only thing that hit anything were the always-hit spells: the 2 missiles spells and Trust of the Tattered Veils. I had an easier time with a melee Conjurer using Parasitic Staff and buff spells. One of the thing though, outside the Delemgan armies, everything else seems level 7+ so they have higher defenses than your party is going to have accuracy, aka miss chance is higher than 50%. I think Wizard's spell (and other casters I guess) accuracy is too low though. First, you gain +1 level accuracy based on the ability level (from what I saw). That means low level spells will always have an harder time to hit than higher level ones (why?). Next, there is a + Wizard Power level accuracy bonus, but it is only 1 despite being power level 3 though. My highest spell accuracy is 39, when my fine weapon with 0 buff gives me 40 (52 if it was one-handed). Mobs are 50+ defenses unless you are lucky and catch one with low defense to something. With a lot less spells, it is much harder to play "rock-paper-scissor" defense. *Missiles, Fireball, Ray of Fire, Rolling Flame, etc

Using your criteria, the ranger has only a single offensive ability: Wounded shot. Melee not having any shouldn't have people act as if ranged weapons had 10 and them 0.

Me too and even in combat. Sometimes enemies just move "outside" the bound of the screen (like the sand worms).

Nothing currently stop you from putting a melee weapon or two on you ranger in the beta. They can't use the ranged abilities, but the pets ones should still work. Actually, it wouldn't surprise me if that was how the class was balanced: melee Ranger is low maintenance but buff the pets more because you take more passives (which are mostly pet oriented). So...melee rangers are designed around being super boring? Low maintenance isn't boring to everyone. Some people don't want to micro-manage everything. And they aren't even that low maintenance after I got to test one. They can use most of the active abilities already in the Ranger page, just not Wounding Shot, Concussive shot and Evasive Fire. Evasive Roll, the not upgraded version of Evasive Fire, works with melee, I tried it. So you can use Marked Prey, Binding Roots and Evasive Roll with melee weapons, along the pet-related actives: Master's Call, Takedown and Heal pet. So all defensive abilities and all the pet abilities. No offensive melee Ranger abilities that aren't pet-specific. Huh? Marked Prey is an offensive abilities and has nothing to do with the pet. I also consider Binding Roots an offensive ability, even if it "roots" things.