limaxophobiacq

The end-fight of Endless Paths Level 7 is SO much harder now. Changed from 5 spectres to 3 Spectres, 3 animats, 3 adragan, and 2 adra animats. It's a huge jump in difficulty now, was very suprised and wiped instantly. Seems a bit much to be honest, or at least the encounters before should scale up to it better. Everything before had been a cakewalk for this party and then this fight was like running into a brick wall. What other encounters have people noticed that have been changed?

What I really don't understand though; how were Aggrandizing Radiance and Brilliant Radiance not buffed, when the bonus for Inspiring Radiance, already a better talent, was doubled? Aggrandizing Radiance is so bad I wouldn't take it even if it was free, the penalty is worse than the bonus without even considering that it costs you a talent pick. Brilliant Radiance damage really needs to scale with level. How was the indisputably best Radiance-improving talent the only one that was buffed?

Inspiring Radiance now gives +10 accuracy to the entire party. In a way this also makes Druids a bit stronger, since lack of accuracy compared to wizards was a bit of a weakness for them. Priests also now even more Barbarian friendly than they were before, given that Barbs also tend to have accuracy problems. Combined with 'Prayer Against' spells giving full immunity 3.0 might not be a huge buff to priests, but as someone who's had priests as his favorite class for some time I am somewhat surprised that any buff at all was thought to be required. It's not exactly a weak class.

CC is key. Ogres have large healthpools and the ogre-druids can put out lots of damage to your whole party, you can't really 'slug it out' with large groups of them (unless you are a paladin or something with defenses to high for them to even touch you). Wizards are good for Confusion, Slicken, and Call to Slumber. Anything to stop them from attacking you. Druids are good for Sunbeam (debuffing and damage), Calling the Worlds Maw (disable and damage), and Insect Plague (hits everything with decent damage even on graze and debuffs). Priests have Shining Beacon but it doesn't have the greatest range and they'll also want to cast Supress Affliction and Consecrated Ground.

Elemental talents don't work on any DoT (anything that says it does X damage over Y seconds), has been a problem since forever (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71355-480-some-damage-over-time-spells-still-have-problems/). Makes Spirit of Decay pretty useless since almost all Corrode spells do damage over time.

Decided to actually to actually try this out, working well so far (PotD). Armor of Faith + rather decent base DR for animal companions is making life pretty easy early game. Had one stag go down against the boars (didn't have armor of faith up) but otherwise they are tough enough even without Resilient Companion (which I'll be getting at level 4). With Vicious Companion the carnage is basically ignoring the DR of foes this early in the game. Edit: Temple cleared now. Shades where no trouble at all but the 2x skuldr kings fight at the end was a pain with all the stags getting stunned. Edit2: Mearwald down, traffic-jam with all the stags in the back at the start of the fight almost killed me, Rangers got to 4th level after that and now have Resilient Companion, the jump from DR 9 to DR 15 is making a big difference.

Thankfully, you don't have to really prioritise different attributes for Spirtshift than you do for spells casting, and druids don't have much in the way of must-have talents so you can be a good caster and be effective in spiritshift. Primary stats for all druids should be Might and Intelligence, since the class is primarally about doing AoE damage, and Intelligence also increases the duration of spiritshift so it works for that as well. Dex and Perception are nice and you certainly don't want to lower them but high Might and Int is what really matters. You also don't want to lower Con since you are going to be at the frontline but I think you can survive while dumping Resolve a bit. You obviously want Weapon Focus: Peasant and Two-Weapon Fighting for the claws. For Wildstrike I think either Shock or Burn, since either or both of those you'll want the elemental damage talents for anyway for your spells.

Change I found just now: BInding Web has been changed to cause Stuck (which was discussed as a possible upcomming change here: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83196-binding-web-5-accuracy-explained/), but now targets fortitude to not let the first application of the effect make subsequent applications stronger.

1. One-Handed Style works even with a shield (and weapon and shield style), yes. 2. As far as I know you can't. 3. No idea, haven't used it. 4. Weapon accuracy is not used for spells, spells have their own accuracy which is your base accuracy + your level + bonus depending on the spell (listed in the spell description), but accuracy penalty from medium and large shields does affect spellcasting.

To add to that, pretty much anything where you have two attacks that both target the same defense while at the same time lowering that defense (like Slicken + Sunbeam)

Just find something new in 3.0 beta that might help duids tank even more: Woodskin now also increases Slash DR by 6 in addition to Pierce, Burn, and Shock. (I think this is new to 3.0 or I guess I look a bit silly.) Once your druid is level 11 you can have it + Nature's Vigor per-encounter to help you tank and protect those around you.

I feel like this might have been changed to make weapon-talents and per-encounter abilities for casters feel like less of a waste. If you can cast 4 4th level spells per encounter as a priest, investing 2 talents to get painful interdiction or one for your deity-specific weapon focus seems not that usefull. Same for druids and investing talents in wildshape. Obviosly you can but if we are going to balance like that then we might as well make all abilities per-encounter. If you actually do rest after every encounter this change actually makes casters more powerfull since now you can cast one more spell per encounter for every spell you've mastered.

50% reload speed means you end up with (base/1.5) and if you add gunner it will be (base/1.8 ). So even with Swift Aim + Gunner an arquebus will still always have 108 frames reload before Dex. I love the concept of gun-rangers but bow-rangers certainly seem to be getting the better deal with their double arrows and stunlocking. Alacrity of Motioned 0-recovery bow-ranger gets 8 arrows in the time arquebus-ranger fires one shot.

Well this thread's a blast from the past. I voted chanter in this poll way back when but chanter didn't feel right for me on release so my actual first playthrough was as a wood-elf druid. Still have big love for druids, but a bit dissapointed with their 7th level spells since WM1 and not having anything big to look forward to after getting 5th level spells, hoping they will get some serious 8th level spells in WM2.

So how does Reload Speed work? Does +50% Reload Speed mean you end up with (base/1.5) reload frames or (base*0.5) reload frames? If you have swift aim (+50%) and gunner (+20%) do you get +80% (1.5*1.2) reload speed or +70% (1.5+0.2) reload speed?

Merciless Companion (Sneak Attack) I can say works for sure with Stag carnage, as it's displayed in the combat log when it hits. Can't be sure if the bonus damage vs. enemies suffering DoT works since it doesn't display in the combat log (even for non-carnage hits). Effectively having Rending + Vulnerable Attack (-8 DR on hits) with no penalty at all time also helps the carnage a lot. Vicious Companion should probably be first Talent pick. You could maybe avoid the abilities that give a bonus when attacking the same target as your companion, if you want your ranger to focus a big-bad or caster while the stag uses carnage to take down the trash. Would give room to take other abilities.

Speed from Swift Aim is just Attack Speed, while speed from Sure Handed Ila is Ranged Attack Speed, might be the reason one doesn't supress the other.

Happens in combat with these wolves as well. Accuracy 74 + Distant Advantage + Marksman should be 84 accuracy but only get 79.

I still think you'll have a significantly easier time soloing PotD with a character with Lore 10 Survival 0 than one with Lore 0 Survival 10 though. Overall this change is obviously making the game easier but if you consider balance between skills survival still isn't the strongest one, but everyone is going to want at least 7 points in it.

Combined with having to activate carnage on every stag every fight, it is going to be pretty micro-intensive.

They feel too strong I agree, +4 DR for tanks that easily seems a bit much, but that's the only problem I have with them. They're still not as gamey as stacking 10+ different food bonuses which has been in the game forever. OTOH, Lore is and always has been stupidly powerfull so if the skills are going to balanced at that level Survival is now right where it should be. If skills are supposed to be balanced with eachother non-Lore skills had to be buffed or scrolls have to be nerfed to hell and back.

Distance well over 4 meters as can be seen in screenshots. Marksman OTOH works fine.

3.0 beta is a beta and still has some bugs. I'd recommend either starting without the beta or waiting for 3.0 and white march 2 to be released in 2 weeks.

Should work even better in 3.0 with survival giving you DR. I had good results using Hiravias to tank/off-tank wearing Sanguine Plate. A frenzied druid is no joke. Nature's Vigor per-encounter helps a lot.

Happens to me to at times. What happens is after I choose destination to transition I'm taken back to the regular view for a brief moment watching my party walk to the exit point and then it goes black.