morhilane

Deflection is important to everyone who doesn't want to be hit often at full damage via weapons. Like Sensuki said, Deflection doesn't help against Reflex (AoE), Fortitude(Poisons/disease) and Will (mental) attacks. A defensive character needs to invest into both the Deflection stat and Constitution to be effective.

We have a bunch of people saying "yeah, AoE increase doesn't really seem that valuable", mostly because the marginal increase can be a liability. Allowing you to scale it down solves the liability problem, but also means that in those circumstances, you get literally no benefit from it at all. I still really don't get why this is such a spot of resistance when making the margins safe doesn't remove friendly fire, it makes INT valuable all the time instead of sometimes being a liability, and it doesn't require adding a UI layer on top of the system just to regulate AoE sizes. I think the only real reason for the resistance (assuming this would be balanced properly) is the RP perspective. I'm personally more of a mechanics focused person myself, so I can look past it - but many people won't like a system like this unless there's some plausible game-world explanation for it. RPer resistance to fixed AOE size? I had the impression that people mostly were "I never use damage AoE and Intellect sucks because fight all end up with my party and enemies dancing in a tiny circle". The thing is, the base AoE size is still quite large in most cases, being able to scale the AoE size between normal and Int-buffed size isn't going to make AoE easier to land. The problem with fight clustering isn't AoE anyway, it's pathfinding, mob speed and AI.

Just think of Resolve has the shounen protagonist main stat: it's all about believing that you can do it!

Int with Deflection makes me think of the Combat Expertise feat (I always made Int-based Fighters in 3.5e because of that feat). I really like +Duration on Resolve, that one fit really well.

That's not a 4e things, my 3.0E DnD Master Manual also suggest 4 encounters per adventuring days (aka each normal difficulty encounter should take about 25% of the party resources). yes. But 3.5 didn't have encounter powers or short resting between encounters. You could make single encounters that used up most party resources. My point is that DnD recommendation of 4 encounters make an adventure day has nothing to do with 4e existing. In fact, they probably balanced the mechanics in the 4e based on that many years old recommendation.

In combat the act of deflecting an attack with a weapon or shield rely a lot on endurance and concentration (you less or more absorb the shock without incurring damage). So Resolve makes sense in that context.

I will ask about them then. All good points, and your theory may be correct - perhaps you have found the class that the attribute would be one of the best for I don't think it would be OP though, as that speed comes at the cost of other attributes. You could probably make a pretty nice glass cannon build with that actually. That would be cool. But this is the type of stuff that I think our proposed system encourages. Whereas currently you just pump might, int and dex, maybe con if youre a tank, and go to town. It's really a non-choice every time. The only thing it really affect for the Cipher is focus generation making one of the talent a bit useless or OP depending how you look at it (it increase focus generation). In term of spell usage, they are relying a lot on positioning, so IAS might not affect their spell slinging speed that much even if it could.

That's not a 4e things, my 3.0E DnD Master Manual also suggest 4 encounters per adventuring days (aka each normal difficulty encounter should take about 25% of the party resources).

Difficulty: Easy/Normal (I started on easy because everyone was saying it was super hard and buggy, moved to normal soon after and it's probably still too easy, but I generally play my games on normal so haven't bother going higher). I used a lot of CC: Crippling Strike, Binding Web, Halt, Repulsive Seal. Basically, used everything that have blind, paralyze, slow, stun, daze in the spell lists. I also use "pause on enemy sighting" which allow me to plan my attacks and surprise mobs most of the time. The DT bug is probably what most people are encountering right now that turn their games into a slow nightmare. Basically, sometimes, mobs will get a boost to their DT (and Deflection I believe) to the point where it is impossible to do anything but craze and minimum damage on them. So a mobs with 100 stamina will take like ~100 hits to go down. It makes fight last longer than supposed and cause your character to get hit more often and lose more health than expected for the encounter. I once encountered it against Medreth's group, the fight took almost 20 minutes and 3 of the 5 party members were at half health afterward (yeah for buff/debuff). The wiki has a lot of info on the gameplay mechanics. edit: About the Wizard. I rarely have anything aggro him, but that's because I changed a my strategy after a while. I used to open combat with a fireball, but I changed it to opening with the Priest's Divine Terror. Then I have the Wizard cast spells. Once they change the AI, it's probably going to be a worthless tactic though.

The idea is that classes with higher ratio can take more punishment on their health which will make them require less frequent resting to replenish it. The system remain unchanged beside this. For example, a Barbarian might have a 100 endurance and 500 health (5 * Endurance). In the first encounter, the Fighter is hit for a total 80 points of damage. His health is now down at 420. In the second encounter, the Fighter is hit for 120 points of damage. His Health is now 300. In the third encounter, he gets hit for 50 points of damage. Health is now 250. In the final boss fight, he gets hit for 200 points of damage (this was boss). Health is now 50 and resting should be envisaged. Except, the multiplier that you use as an example would cause a barbarian to need to rest a lot more often than current. At present, from third level on (IIRC) a barbarian takes 1 health damage for every 8 stamina/endurance damage. So for a barbarian to be on par with current, in your example, they would need to have 800 health (8 * endurance). For them to become "more resilient" they would need an even higher multiplier. 9 or maybe even 10 would probably be appropriate. I don't think they are going to remove the Barbarian "thick skin", they are probably going to keep it that their endurance/health damage conversation is different than the other classes once they gain the passive. The system is already in place for it.

Aka fast, average and long. I know that the Wizard's spells have the speed information in their tooltips right now.

The idea is that classes with higher ratio can take more punishment on their health which will make them require less frequent resting to replenish it. The system remain unchanged beside this. For example, a Barbarian might have a 100 endurance and 500 health (5 * Endurance). In the first encounter, the Fighter is hit for a total 80 points of damage. His health is now down at 420. In the second encounter, the Fighter is hit for 120 points of damage. His Health is now 300. In the third encounter, he gets hit for 50 points of damage. Health is now 250. In the final boss fight, he gets hit for 200 points of damage (this was boss). Health is now 50 and resting should be envisaged.

From my limited experience with the beta. 1. Pretty much which is why I always play a ranged Wizard and have my Fighter, Rogue and Priest on the front line. You also have to aggro an enemy with your Fighter first otherwise the enemy will dog pile onto your Wizard. And PoE is better viewed as an isometric party based MMO. You're quite right in thinking that. The default strategy at the moment in the beta is send defender in to tank, other characters to help with dps and crowd control. Rinse and repeat. Tip: Play as a ranged wizard. Ignore any melee type spells. I've found Wizards are quite poor in melee situations and aren't really designed for it. There's a good strategy with playing a ranged Wizard. Don't wear any armour. Wearing armour incurs penalties, and as long as you're playing a ranged Wizard without armour, you shouldn't get hit while your defender is tanking. And combat is better and faster. If PoE is a isometric party based MMO than so were the IE games. Party roles is the basic of every party based RPG ever released and you will always have a defending frontline and a ranged backline. How these work has some flexibility though. Saying that, if you use the "pause on enemy sighted" you can pre-plan most encounters in advance. This mean place you party members, decide who will do the opening salvo, etc. I never have anything attack my wizard despite him casting spells all the time that way. Have you ever played an MMO? None of the IE games has remotely this kind of all-against-the-tank gameplay, except when you need to degeneratively need to stack on AC to survive Heart of Fury mode for IWD. It's also far less punishing, 95% of the time, for a non-"tank" to recieve "aggro" in the IE games (case in point, priest classes could also serve as a meat shield, and with the right set up so could rogues (bards more than thieves) and wizards). Here, so far I've found that everything needs to go against your designated tank - that constant stamina recovery essentially means that no one else is going to be able to withstand a remotely similar amount of punishment (whereas in D&D, the difference in damage soak between a d10 and a d8 was not too huge). Melee engagement essentially acts like aggro. *Unlike* an MMO, there is no way to cancel engagement (except for the really buggy "Escape" ability), and the healing possibilities on a tank are extremely limited (because they only treat the per-battle Stamina). Much *like* an MMO, however, if my tank goes down, it generally means a party wipe. I'm not sure I like this kind of gameplay. I stopped playing WoW (with its incredibly specialized class roles and over-prescribed combat flow) for a reason. Considering I've played my first playthrough of PoE with everyone mostly on ranged weapons (using CC spells/abilities to stop mobs from swarming the party) I fail to see the requirement to have a tank in every fight or how the Figher needs absolutely to be played has one. I do find it extremely funny that everyone who seem to have issues with the combat are always talking about how they need to use the Fighter has a tank and play the game like a MMO though. Also, the only time any of my characters lose a lot of health in a fight is when I encounter the DT bug. I wonder how much people complains are actually a failure to detect bugs at this point.

You might want to skim the spell list of the class, note that it is probably incomplete and things might changes.

This is hilarious as he just posted on his blog this: That doesn't contradict the first part you know.

No. The Fighter in the IE games were more flexible. They could dual or multi-class. They also had DPS. The Fighter in PoE is a straight up front line tank, inflexible and more to the MMO/4th edition type. They aren't the DPS of the party. Classes like the Rogue in MMO/4th ed are. While you do have some similarities, the classes play quite differently. Fighters are pretty bad with ranged weapons in PoE. So they usually stick with melee and they aren't the DPS of the party, so their damage output isn't that great compared to other classes, like the DPS classes. The Fighters in the IE games could be very good at ranged weapons and have the DPS, and can contribute to a barrage of ranged fire power with the rest of your party, and could take out enemies before they hit your front line. How the f*** does IE games Fighter being able to use ranged weapons have anything to do with the fact that you still needed a defensive line in those games?

From my limited experience with the beta. 1. Pretty much which is why I always play a ranged Wizard and have my Fighter, Rogue and Priest on the front line. You also have to aggro an enemy with your Fighter first otherwise the enemy will dog pile onto your Wizard. And PoE is better viewed as an isometric party based MMO. You're quite right in thinking that. The default strategy at the moment in the beta is send defender in to tank, other characters to help with dps and crowd control. Rinse and repeat. Tip: Play as a ranged wizard. Ignore any melee type spells. I've found Wizards are quite poor in melee situations and aren't really designed for it. There's a good strategy with playing a ranged Wizard. Don't wear any armour. Wearing armour incurs penalties, and as long as you're playing a ranged Wizard without armour, you shouldn't get hit while your defender is tanking. And combat is better and faster. If PoE is a isometric party based MMO than so were the IE games. Party roles is the basic of every party based RPG ever released and you will always have a defending frontline and a ranged backline. How these work has some flexibility though. Saying that, if you use the "pause on enemy sighted" you can pre-plan most encounters in advance. This mean place you party members, decide who will do the opening salvo, etc. I never have anything attack my wizard despite him casting spells all the time that way.

But it's not a 1:10:100 exchange rate. It's like a 1:3.33:5:6.66:10:20:30:60 exchange rate. Table: Coins Exchange Value CP SP GP PP Copper piece (cp) = 1 1/10 1/100 1/1,000 Silver piece (sp) = 10 1 1/10 1/100 Gold piece (gp) = 100 10 1 1/10 Platinum piece (pp) = 1,000 100 10 1 This is the exchange table for coinage I have for Dungeons & Dragons. You can skip the Platinum. He's talking about PoE, not D&D. Go down to the Currency section here to see the different coinage value into copper. You can loot all of them right now in the beta. I guess, but you cant buy anything for these coins as you have to sell them first as standard loot - as you have to do with all ordinary loot. Also, they are from different cultures arnt they. So it will be much like different currencies in our world - like between the Pound sterling, Euro and the dollar. I WILL however acknowledge I didn't know about this currency set, but I still think Obsidian could easily fix this if they wanted to... The game auto-change them into copper when you pick them up right now.

Sssh! That's a secret, nobody is supposed to know that there is beetle that makes the waterwheel rotate.

The Cowled Dwarf is a priest from what I understand, I saw him cast spells like stamina regen and armor of faith. Now there are other issues with crazy DR, but it is still possible that he is responsible for his own buff too.

But it's not a 1:10:100 exchange rate. It's like a 1:3.33:5:6.66:10:20:30:60 exchange rate. Table: Coins Exchange Value CP SP GP PP Copper piece (cp) = 1 1/10 1/100 1/1,000 Silver piece (sp) = 10 1 1/10 1/100 Gold piece (gp) = 100 10 1 1/10 Platinum piece (pp) = 1,000 100 10 1 This is the exchange table for coinage I have for Dungeons & Dragons. You can skip the Platinum. He's talking about PoE, not D&D. Go down to the Currency section here to see the different coinage value into copper. You can loot all of them right now in the beta.

It doesn't. That's the point. It was kickstarted and crowdfunded for it to not cather to everyone and their mom but to have a fixed target audience. If Obsidian dumbed the game down just for the sake of cathering to more people, broader audience, like is so popular now with big brands, then it would be the last time they saw my money. Poe is only supposed to be as difficult as BG2. Even if it were meant to be more challenging (which it isn't), having the trash mobs, special encounters, and bosses be tactically challenging is simply poor game design. It will be mentally draining and the game will feel repetitive since every battle will go on too long and the difficulty won't ever spike thus lacking variety. Not to mention a flat difficulty curve will make special battles less memorable. Remember that in the IE games the trash mobs died easily. It served the IE games well and poe would be wise to emulate them. I think you have a skewed memory of BG2 encounters difficulty in your first playthrough. That is the difficulty that PoE should be compared too, not the difficulty after your 10th playthrough of BG2 when you know exactly all encounters and already pillaged the best weapons and armors.

Fighter in PoE is not a pure tank, it has the best melee accuracy available among the melee classes, which correlate directly into DPS, and only the Rogue sneak attacking or some classes trading defense for offense can do better burst. You only lose that melee damage efficiency by engaging the defensive mode (it's not always on). They can still use ranged weapons, nothing stop them from picking them up or even specializing in them, you will want to increase their Dex though because their accuracy with ranged weapon is low.

My rogue died after combat ended last night because of Corrosive Siphon. It stayed on her longer than on the other party members. Last night adventure was a bit of a bust overall though. Melee Priest trying to cast Suppress Affliction while being poisoned is a no go. We really need another class that can remove these things (Chanter only remove a subsets, Paladin only delays, Monk is too selfish) or scroll/potions (actually there might be potions, I didn't check the entire listing).

And it hurts...a lot.