morhilane

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.

You aren't. I just checked while making a melee Stalker an cheating getting to level 9 (you can't go higher). 8 of the 13 passives aren't ranged weapon based all at. It's a mix of pet and defensive passives. I tested Stalker Link it works with melee ranger by the way. 10 of the 15 actives (I'm counting upgrades) do not require a ranged weapon. Only Wounded shot tree and Concussive shot do. Evasive Roll do not, but based on the description Evasive Fire do. Ranged ranger are more DPS-oriented, Melee ranger are more defensive oriented (and pick Stalker for the +5 deflection and + 1 AR bonus).

Why would that make sense? If you don't like it, don't use it. I think the idea was that slow mode was supposed to be the default and you could speed it up if you wanted to. Which would be cool. It's just not slow enough as is. It is quite slow actually. The issue is more that "classic" has way too many mobs. Try on the lower difficulty, it has few mobs and the combat is less crazy.

I think the current issues isn't really that "awareness inspiration" means nothing. Fit, Strong and Smart aren't hard to guess what they do either. The current issue is that inspirations are supposed to counter afflictions but outside of "Inspiration X counter afflictions that affect stat Y" we have no other information. You have to go through each afflictions and find the ones that affect stat Y to know what it can counter..in the middle of combat. I personally like, Fit, Strong, Smart, Aware. I have a good idea what they do without having to check at their stats.

Go to Himuihi (just north under where Vecktor goes to stand after you talk to him after starting a new game). Talk to her until you can pick the rest or recruit adventure options. Pick either ones. After the menu open, click on the bottom (3rd) option. That's the party manager, just click the mercenary icons to dismiss them.

This post (at the very bottom) has a better list for the features not in the beta currently.

I first read that as encyclopedia...as in it's going to be way too long to read through. lol

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). Which seems silly that if your ranged you get a better variety of abilities to chose and if melee.. well here is your sub-optimal one route for playing melee ranger.. You can make a low maintenant ranger that focus on improving his/her pets that use melee weapons. There is nothing sub-optimal about that, it's just low maintenance. Hell, I try another ranger tonight with that passive focus and see how it goes. I wouldn't be surprised if the pet hits harder than the bonus any of the other weapon class gets though.

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).

They went more toward D&D. People actually complained about grazing during POE1 beta and how the combat wasn't "D&D" enough. Now people are complaining that grazing is gone and missing 50% of the time like in D&D. The real issue is how enemies are balanced: every encounters is basically balanced as if it was a boss encounter (in D&D balance). And how spells use the same to-hit calculation as weapons when in D&D they all hit, but might be resisted but that's have higher than a 50% chance of success (unless you are under level). POE1 dealt with that by giving easy access to damage multipliers (increase accuracy to crits more often, weapon enchant/talents, buff) and grazing which means you always did some damage unless facing something with extraordinary defenses. POE2 reduced damage multipliers sources* and grazing is now "optional". You deal less damage (in an encounter) in POE2 than in POE1 without even taking new penetration mechanic into account. We don't die as fast because mobs also do not graze and miss 50% of the time. That leads to players in the beta focusing on dealing as much damage as possible when they hit, so focusing on bypassing penetration. We are still damage stacking, just going at it differently. *Priest buffs were nerfed, Dire blessing is now a +5 accuracy (via + 5 Perception) and "can graze", it used to be +20% hits converted to crits (and level 3). Blessing was the level 1 Priest spell and that did +5 accuracy and +20% damage... As if that class haven't suffered enough.

I already suggested doing that. But people will be either resting after every fight with the current balance or spamming health potions and healing spells instead of resting... No easy solutions.

It was 15% in PoE1. So it's 167% more misses. The 35% was in regard to POE2 deflection/accuracy system gaining 35% misses chance (i.e. 35% graze turned to misses), not the actually difference from both games. Although, that's kinda scary number. and that 40% up there was me thinking misses in POE1 were at 5% at equal deflection/accuracy. doh.

I suggest you do, the devs will tell you if that is intended or not.

People who wants low maintenance Chanter and some buff versatility to deal with situations. Sure some phrases are situational, but it's not like you are limited to make a single Chant nor that you can't switch what you are singing in combat.

I generally agree but the grazes were a little to powerful for some spells like paralyze but i dont think that justifies scraping it all. And there is grazing in this game apparently you just have to pick the right race. Boreal dwarf Or the right passive/abilities/spells. The buff Aware grants "can graze" for example and it's available on a Priest at level 1 (Dire Blessing). Fighters have passive that allow them to graze with their proficient weapons too.

I personally don't feel like combat is too fast. I do feel like some creatures hit way too hard, but that's crits outside some of the enemies DOTs being too deadly, and default stride is too fast (aka movement speed). But in term of having my character dies, that is way slower than in POE1. If I let unintended characters do default attacks against mobs to see what would happens in POE1 they would die in 1-2 seconds, in POE2, the fight last a good 5-10 seconds (unless the enemy is higher level).

Because Rogue, Barbarian, Paladin, Monk get class flavored version that do similar things that didn't exist in POE1 (for the most part, some stuff was tweaked too). Ranger need to be "fixed" to get their own. That leave out the "casters" (Wizard, Priest, Chanter, Druid, Cipher). Out of them, Druid gets more wildstrike upgrades than in POE1 and Cipher have a few more options for soul whips. Wizard/Priest/Chanter have no passives to pick from, so no surprise they don't have any. Whatever that is per design or not is unclear. I need to check if the Wizard weapon summons have those bonuses included or not for example. I know that the Priest god's weapon do have perks (just not good enough perks, but that's balance). Making the Weapon style available to all would mean removing these new things, reducing the class options as a whole or inventing something else for the Fighter and balancing everything for a +15/20% more potential incoming weapon damage from all classes. Right now the POE2 classes feels a lot like D&D 5e classes. While POE1 was a bastard version of D&D 4e and D&D 3.0e without any multiclassing.

Only Barbarians do. Fighters only get a +5 accuracy when using the Warrior Stance modal (Weapon Specialization is just +15% damage with proficient weapons). Saying that, other classes have other way to increase accuracy for certain things, it just need to be balanced. Some examples. Berath's favored weapon summon grants a +4 accuracy at level 6 (using a fine greatsword would be better). Wizard/Priest attack spells have a +X ability level + X Wizard Power Level accuracy increase but that currently doesn't come close to weapon quality available at those level, aka attack spells have low accuracy and miss more than half the time currently and there is no graze. The accuracy gain balance and removal of default grazing is one of the reason why I think talking against the penetration system is premature. They changed the systems, but don't seems to have done much balance tweaking.

Hunter is still there for the culture that had in POE1...and that is the only place where you could pick "hunter".

It's also funny to watch how party members constantly run around from one enemy to other because AI can't seem to properly prioritize enemies. I didn't touch the AI settings and I don't have that. Characters move to nearest enemies or the one I tell them and start to attack. Nor do I have enemies disengaging outside sand worm low in health moving away from melee via their version of Evade. My fights are all pretty "static".

Scion was a +damage multiplier (+DR increase) it was removed for balance reason along all the others because the devs considered there was too much +damage multipliers in POE1 (and the +DR is op with the new penetration/DR system). Yeah, I know, and I'm saying there was more to the universal talents than +% damage ****, like Scion. There were literally pages of identical talents shared by all classes that you could freely choose from as you wished, without prerequisites or requirements, to customize your character. You are talking about +percent damage like that's the only thing one could be missing from PoE 1 universal talents, which is just not the reality. Off those 46 general talents (not counting cross-class because we got multiclassing), only 16 are gone from POE2. Out that, 3 are out for mechanic change reasons and 14 for balance reasons. 22 are spread out among the classes (it's not 1 for 1 for all of them, some of them are present in more than one class). 8 appear in one shape or the other among weapon proficiency and we got 22 new one for a total of 30 modals (rapier and estoc currently have the same modal).

Might be a bug or something. Mine shows 20 as the base for all of my characters, including a fighter and a fighter/ranger and a rogue. Just reloaded and now everyone is at 20, even in combat (the 25 base was while in combat). This does look like a bug...now to reproduce it.

Scion was a +damage multiplier (+DR increase) it was removed for balance reason along all the others because the devs considered there was too much +damage multipliers in POE1 (and the +DR is op with the new penetration/DR system). Savage Attack is the Greatsword weapon proficiency modal (renamed to Rending Slash). If you are talking about building characters based on theme you can still do that. It's not like the classes or race changed that much. You can make a better fire themed Priest now (Priest of Eothas or Magran) and that saying a lot because the Priest is the most limited of all the classes right now.

Looked at math tonight and discovered why my wounding shot was so good. The penetration I get is 7 + 1 + 50% for a total of 12. The 7 is the base for wounding shot. The + 1 is from using a War Bow. The 50% is from critting (accurate wounding shot accuracy is 70). Critting increase penetration of normal weapons too, I saw it on rogue weapon attack. In other word, you'll have better penetration with one-handed weapons, because of the accuracy bonus. Also, looks like Josh lied again. Class do not have all the same base accuracy. Rogue/Fighter have 25, Ranger/Priest/Wizard have 20 (that's my current party, didn't check the others). Now Wonder wizard misses all the time now that grazing is gone.

You couldn't pick Weapon Focus at every levels in POE1 either. You can pick any of the 31 weapon proficiency at level 1 (two of them actually) and get a total of 3 at level 6...3 is how many talent you could have in POE1 at level 6 (level 2, 4 and 6) and those were a mix of class and general. In POE2, that's all general. The only "locked" thing is that each weapon has its own modal which only really affect if you want a defensive or offensive build. You can use any weapons in POE2, you just don't have the modal without the weapon proficiency. Accuracy is only increased via weapon enchantment, buff, perception value and character level (minus Barbarian). The class trees are pretty much POE1 class trees if you displayed the class features the same way it is done in POE2 (minus Priest/Wizard). I don't get how people can complain it is more limiting here. Some of POE2 classes actually have new features and it is way easier to build a passive Fighter/Barbarian/Cipher/Druid/Chanter/Paladin/Monk/Rogue than in POE1. Some classes clearly need more work, but it has nothing to do with the system itself and how the information is displayed. If people are crying about "it's more limited and consoly" because they can't stack accuracy and +%damage multipliers I'm going to have to wonder if they understand what build variety actually means and if they really played a console RPG in their life (they are full of generic +%damage).