Jojobobo

That rings a bell now you say it, do none of them stack (including Might) or is it just the items and rest bonuses that don't? If Might alone worked, that's still a big deal as it'd be 35% health back at 35 Might (20% x 1.75, using Dragon Meat Dish over Duc's Own Beefloaf). Even if none of the multipliers work, Deathblows with Tidefall should do heavy damage in the first place, so if I'm managing 150ish (which doesn't seem too farfetched, I'd dare say it's probably an underestimate but I'll have to wait and see) then that'd be 30 damage healed per hit - and this build hits fast, so I still think Tidefall is worth it's place on the list (and if not, Nightshroud for an extra Shadowing Beyond or an Arquebus would both work well).

I somehow could sense this thread was going to tend towards discussing, "the quality of men's seed." That's always where these threads go.

You can still get interrupted in your attack animation yes, and as mentioned the build doesn't quite manage zero recovery either - just very close to it at 6.6%. However, just like the Barb, if you drop either Ring of Thorns or Gwyn's Band of Union for Ring of the Changing Heart and take Big Durmsey's Boon you hit a Resolve of 8 and really don't lose much. As the build is fast attacking as you say, Resolve of 8 should equal significantly less Interrupts over the dump at 3, and if it really really was getting interrupted to a miserable extent you can throw in a Dragon Egg Dish and the Chapel Resting bonus let it hit Resolve 14 (which I seem to remember is the benchmark for 50 Concentration over a Abbey of the Fallen Moon's monk Interrupt on a crit, meaning on their 1-100 roll you only get interrupted half of the time). As such, I think there's situationally enough you can do to the build to make interrupts not too much of an issue, if the need arises. It's also important to note that DAoM gives a speed bonus, giving you the edge in finding decent positioning so you don't get crowded by too many guys who all may Interrupt you. I think the real question is can it survive a ton of Deflection crits all the time (Adept Evaison and high Fortitude should help well enough with ranged spell attacks)? Currently the build is doing quite well at mowing through enemies, but later I think that high risk factor of can you kill them before they kill you will really come into full force - still that's all part of the fun.

It's that time again, we're I get slightly bored of my previous build and post another provisional build. I started playing the unarmed Barbarian in this thread (I've finally tweaked everything so I'm really happy with it, with the build hitting 100 accuracy with fists which should be more than enough, and while it dumps resolve a few situational equipment changes mean you can hit Resolve 8 for fights where Concentration becomes an issue), but Barbarians are Barbarians, they play the same whatever you do and so you have to be in the mood to pursue that - which I wasn't. Here's the updated spread for those curious, the key changes were to drop the idea of DR reduction to favour zero recovery (when you think about it a guy in exceptional plate has 16 DR against crush - and they can be considered well armored - this build can do 40-46 fist damage so I don't think DR reduction is necessary), hitting 100 accuracy, and the dumping of Resolve as mentioned: So I was thinking about other ways to do high DPS and whether they would be fun or not. My first thought was a Citzal's Martial Power Wizard going for minimal recovery with a two-hander. If you go for DoAM, Gauntlets of Swift Action, Durgan-Refinement and the Blade of the Endless Paths (the only two hander with a speed enchantment) you can achieve zero recovery in Durgan-Reinforced full plate - which is pretty cool. However at the top end of 40 Might (20 base, +1 Living Lands, +4 Maegfolc Skull, +3 Training Grounds, +8 Citzal's Martial Power, +2 Lyrinia's Boon, +1 Gift from the Machine, +1 Galawain's Boon), with Savage Attack and Two Handed Style and a Superb Blade of the Endless Paths, the damage range is only 38-54. My unarmed Barb by comparison at Might 38 (trading Citzal's Martial Power for Greater Frenzy), with Novice's Suffering and Sandals of the Forgotten Friar, does 40-46 damage, also with zero recovery in full plate (Bloodlust, 3 x Frenzy with Sanguine Plate, Gauntlets of Swift Action), and having a much shorter attack animation with the fists plus access to HoF (and of course Carnage). Whether the Wizard would achieve better single target DPS was questionable, but even beyond that the Barb build in a whole range of different ways simply blows it out of the water. So what other class could take the minimal recovery two-hander ideas I was thinking of and actually make it worthwhile... why it's a Rogue of course! I mentioned in my Sprightly Scorpion build (and to a lesser extent in the Gunslinger build) the idea of chaining on-crit effects, particularly good for a Rogue as Deathblows becomes extremely trivial. One particular two-hander is ideal for this - the Hours of St. Rumbalt - as it also packs annihilation for big bad crits and the two damage types are extremely useful. With Dirty Fighting, Grave Step and Durgan-Refinement you achieve 55% hit-to-crit conversion (I didn't have room for Vicious Fighting to make it 65%) which means crits come all the time (particularly as Prone itself debuffs Deflection). Even in Act II with only Dirty Fighting, I'm already managing to chain crits and Prone thus creating criteria for Deathblows with my Strikes/Figurine Flanking/Shadowing Beyond (though I'm only level 8 currently, so no Deathblows yet). My second thought was that I still wanted to be using Deleterious Alacrity of Motion - and I didn't want to be chugging potions all the time. There's two items with this Spellbind - Angio's Gambeson and Twin Sting - and if I was looking to use the DoAM of Twin Sting with the Hours I would need Quick Switch to dip into it and dip out. The recovery with Gauntlet's of Swift Action, DAoM and a Durgan-Refined Hours, with Durgan-Reinforced Gambeson, is: Recovery = [1 + 0.05 {Durgan-Reinforced Gambeson}] - [(1.5 {DAoM} x 1.15 {Durgan-Refined weapon} x 1.15 {Swift Action}) - 1] = 0.066 or 6.6% recovery - not bad at all. High Dex was chosen to shorten Rumbalt's attack animation and make this even peachier. With an Intellect of 20, these two DAoM's will give you a minute and a half of pure maniacal Deathblows hack and slash action, which as the potions don't scale with Intellect is the equivalent of three potions - neat. It some ways it can be considered innate, which is really what I like to drive for in a build rather than an over-dependency on potions - plus it frees up potion slots. If you really would rather use DAoM potions, then you can use Nightshroud for an additional Shadowing Beyond in its place (and thus another per rest Backstab). The final piece of this puzzle is attempting to keep the Rogue alive. The Rogue therefore got a bit of a Con focus, with a Belt of Bountiful Healing, Shod-in-Faith, Maegfolc Skull Unbending and Veteran's Recovery. With 35 Might, the belt, and the stage 3 Survival bonus, the healing you receive is [1 + (0.03 x 25)] x 1.25 x 1.6 = 3.5 or 250% extra healing. However, this still didn't sound enough to keep me alive for most encounters consider how bad my Deflection is - so I opted for an Island Aumaua and Tidefall. With Quick Switch, at a moment's notice you can slap on Tidefall and heal back around 70% of all the damage you do (20% damage dealt as endurance x 3.5 = 70%, but it has that Wounding Lash so you'll be getting back a little less) EDIT: See Dr<3 's comments below. Wound Binding was taken to make these heals worthwhile, as otherwise the Rogue simply wouldn't have the health pool to survive. The idea then is quite simple - weaken a target with Deathblows, then drop Invisibility and do a Finishing Blow Backstab (I think they fixed it so they stack, even so Finishing Blow should be taken regardless. Again unfortunately no room for Devastating Blow). The beautiful thing about Shadowing Beyond on solo is that once you've killed off a big target with the first per rest use using Backstab, then you can use the second to entirely escape the encounter then rest up and try again. The idea is the healing received should facilitate the landing of a few of these heaving hits early in combat, and then when the more grindy sections of combat begin if they're too tricky you can just get out of there. Without further ado, here it is: I hope someone enjoys the build, and especially for this one going solo the proof of the pudding is in the eating - i.e. will it be able to survive with such low Deflection and crummy DR but such high healing? I think there isn't a single Class Build yet dedicated to stupid-high damage for a Rogue in a single hit, most are DPS or offtank builds, so hopefully this build can fill that distinctly Roguish niche so to speak.

I just thought I'd share this tidbit here, I've also reported it as a bug but I guess at this late stage it's unlikely to get fixed. Anyway, using the Hours of St. Rumbalt and the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer this happened: Not sure how far reaching it is in terms of the Retaliation types it applies to, but it can definitely be something a build could be made of.

^ see topic. I was using the Hours of St. Rumbalt and the Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer, and when I scored a crit on the resulting Flame Shield I also knocked someone Prone. Not sure if this happens with other forms of Retaliation or not, but feels a but weird with Flame Shield as it is in no way tied to your weapon damage.

I think my main problem with all of this is it seems like trading one set of arbitrary constraints for another - and I'm not entirely sure of the intention. I don't mind the experiment per se, but to me it seems like will definitely entirely and radically alter the way people make characters from PoE 1. As the new set of constraints seems more or less as arbitrary as those set in PoE 1, I just can't get my head around it. As I said, as a non-beta player I want to get my head around it, I was hoping someone could sate my curiosity with their beta experience. Anyone? I might not be able to give u the complete answer. But from my experience. For pure tank, a tank + healer or tank + caster is more doable now. For a damage dealer, it hurt a bit because if u dump Res, Second wind will be pretty weak. You will need a support or put some point into Res. For a hybrid, the change makes Cipher, Druid weaker for sure, because u need to split attribution between Str and Res now. For a pure caster, u either use summon weapon and max Str, or max Res and cast spells only. So a Max Res caster has much better defense now, but after he used all spells, he is pretty useless. So in the early game, a max Res wizard can only cast 2 or 3 offensive spell and go idle because he has nothing else to do. That’s my feeling in current beta. It sounds like from what you've said my assumptions about the changes are on point (though I guess other people might feel the changes are different). I think my biggest issue with these changes in general is that it makes certain classes obligate tanks to a much greater extent than PoE 1 (all pure casters are going to be slapping on a shield most likely, etc.), whereas in PoE 1 there was a lot more flexibility in choices (any class could be made tanky, and any class could also focus on DPS). I personally enjoyed the ability to do whatever I wanted with a certain class, rather than it leaning heavily into a specific build. That's the biggest weakness of the new system in my eyes, and shifting healing back into Strength would rectify that at least to an extent (and stop Strength being considered so thoroughly pointless to some classes).

I think my main problem with all of this is it seems like trading one set of arbitrary constraints for another - and I'm not entirely sure of the intention. I don't mind the experiment per se, but to me it seems like will definitely entirely and radically alter the way people make characters from PoE 1. As the new set of constraints seems more or less as arbitrary as those set in PoE 1, I just can't get my head around it. As I said, as a non-beta player I want to get my head around it, I was hoping someone could sate my curiosity with their beta experience. Anyone?

The scientific method is great for breaking things and understanding them, not so much for building things. There is a whole separate methodology for designing stuff, and the implications of simple changes like the one that has been made are quite easy to anticipate to a certain degree. EDIT: what I'm saying is, games are essentially just a bunch of logic and math, you don't really have to experiment in order to know how a design will work when you've done everything from the ground up. If you begin to change stuff on the fly however, then you'll potentially be in the dark. The more so the further you're in the development. Fair enough, and I'm sure you're correct in that the methodologies will be different. Still that doesn't necessary mean there's no merit in looking over a particular element, if all angles get discussed then it has the potential to serve as a frame of reference if the devs were looking to reconsider some part of their overall mechanistic picture.

I'm not so sure, the scientific method is to change a single variable and see its results. While games are complicated and there is a lot of interplay as you say, there's also nothing particularly wrong with the single variable at a time approach either. What I'm hoping is that when the beta wraps the devs will test a lot of other possibilities in house, and try to find a slightly better fit. I guess I want minimal downtime between the game's release and them balancing it appropriately (3 months or so, something like that) - they were going at it with PoE 1 for ages.

I think you can expect to socially liberal writing when it comes to sexuality (especially with the new romances involved), but that's probably about it. In the PoE 1 development there was talk about potential themes of racism and the Orlan being discriminated against, but it was barely touched upon in PoE 1, so I doubt they'd change course in PoE 2 by starting to try and champion/mirror real world issues. It's also not really something people are looking for in a fantasy game, the fantasy genre lending itself heavily to escapism more so than any other style of genre - and people who are looking for escapism don't typically wanting real world issues rubbed in their faces. So no, I doubt it. Was the point here that the PoE 1 minor scandal that disappeared overnight more or less would influence PoE 2's writing? I guess I'm just not seeing why it would be suggested that a sequel would adopt a different approach to its selection of narratives compared to the first of the series, people expect some tonal consistency.

I gather you mean "trawling", or was it accurate the first time?!

So I wanted to make a thread to specifically target a singular issue, rather than the more wide-ranging debate on Strength, Resolve and Might. What I wanted to see opinions on (more for my own curiosity, as I don't have beta access) is, if we take the division of physical damage in Strength and spell damage in Resolve as set in stone, should healing still belong in Resolve? Broadly speaking, I think how Might and Resolve played in PoE 1 was: 1) For offensive DPS builds, Might allowed for a degree of self-sustainability as it provided healing. 2) Tanks focussed on high defences, and so when you paired high defences to a middling Might for healing they would also be self-sustaining. In PoE 2 from an outsider perspective, what it seems like from the raw mechanical changes to the stats: 1) Tanks now benefit more, as if you pump Res you get healing on top of Deflection. 2) Casters benefit way more, getting Damage, Deflection and healing. 3) Physical attackers lost any kind of defensive benefit, no longer being self-sustaining to any degree if they dump Res, which is a stat that is otherwise useless to them (while casters can dump Strength with zero cost, apart from a loss of Fortitude). I guess I liked in PoE 1 that you can make any class self-sufficient to a degree without the need for a Cleric for support and healing, and you could do so this while making them maximally damaging - with both DPS and damage. It seems like in PoE 2, this is no longer the case, high damage + DPS melee attackers (dumping Resolve) will need some sort of cleric support for survival - or they will have to move away from maximal damage or DPS to have some Resolve and stay alive without a cleric. Casters on the other hand can go for maximal offences without any concern. So I guess there's a couple of questions here: 1) Do you feel like I've accurately represented the current situation, or do you think I've exaggerated the problem, or not factored in larger interplay with healing? As mentioned, I don't have beta access, so I'd not thoroughly well versed in all the ins and outs of PoE 2. 2) With these factors considered, do you think healing should revert back to Strength, or are you happy with the current system? There's been a lot of debate about how much the fanbase should be making these threads (particularly when they're made by people without Beta access, aka me), and how much they are/aren't interfering with the devs' design processes. I made this thread mainly out of my own curiosity (it's a question I'd like to see discussion on), but in terms of it impacting on the devs' decision making why don't we approach this topic as more or less operating as a independent focus group for the devs, which they can either use the feedback from or leave at the wayside at their own discretion? If the devs' have an overarching vision for attributes that they think will work in the long term, then by all means they should stick with that - I would never suggest otherwise. If we're taking the focus group approach, I'd like to see as objective and logical arguments as possible on the mechanistic ramifications of both approaches, so I'd massively prefer it if people check all their "muscle wizards suxxed" arguments at the door. This isn't about those subjective arguments, it's about us trying to rationalise which approach we think has the potential to make a more mechanically fluent game. Have fun!

I was trying to think about it's impact on gameplay in more detail. I think the way I see it is, in PoE 1: 1) Pure tanks would go for high Res for Deflection, and middling to good-ish Might. 2) Offensive builds had the option of dumping Res, and could instead rely on healing from Might to make up for it. This offering two clean broadly applicable paradigms to character building, as if one stat was poor (Res or Might) you could get by as a while rounded character to an extent with the other. Any character, from any class, could be balanced to be self-sufficient to an extent with these principles. Now with what's proposed for PoE 2: 1) Pure tanks benefit a lot, getting healing on top of Deflection. 2) Casters benefit a lot, getting damage as well as healing as well as Deflection. 3) Physical attackers get a big slap in the face, losing a defensive benefit while already likely dumping Resolve and having low Deflection. I think the whole split was to give casters large benefits to make people less concerned about their casting times, but I'm not a fan that approach as it means physical attackers have been unduly punished and left in the dust. It seems like there's no easy way to make melee guys self-sustaining without compromising heavily on damage or DPS. I liked that potentially you previously didn't need any sort of Cleric in PoE 1 to support melee characters if you didn't want one, it seems like this has stopped being the case and strong melee characters are also now entirely unsustainable if you wanted to solo them too. I think it also makes Strength too niche an attribute, giving that it only provides a single benefit, which is precisely why people are complaining about Con currently (and were complaining about Res before the change). I guess I think that healing should still go back to Strength to appropriately divvy up defensive benefits more equally between casters and melee attackers, and the shortfall of casters should be addressed more or less independently from the whole attribute discussion. This would at least go back to making each style of build self-sustaining to an extent (melee attackers would get high healing, casters would get high Deflection), which I would say plays better as it's a bit of a drag to have melee attackers highly dependent on clerics for survival if you want to go for damage and DPS. Really I think the devs should have looked at solving the casting problem first (potentially implicating Resolve) and then try and fix attributes. It seemed like the more fundamental problem, from an outsider perspective. However, if they're insisting this is the way forward, healing should revert to Strength in my opinion for the reasons stated.

It adds on at the end. See MaxQuest's thread and cmd/ctrl + F "additive" for details, it classes as a separate category and so is added on. Also, recovery for dual-wielding only counts as a half for each weapon, so you don't have to put in so much work to get zero recovery, particularly with the talent.

Blinding with the Dragon Thrashed works very well even with the average Might (though as mentioned you can use Maegfolc Skull, and I did for boss battles for slightly more). You get many crits and overlapping durations, and the damage from the animated weapons is pretty solid too (look at the comments as other people had some pretty solid improvements to the original design). The only thing is you get the gun late in the game, so most people should probably play whatever Chanter they like then respec at that point. I just wanted to play guns only to prove it could be done really.

IKR, I made the thread and then I come back and it's like, "What has happened here?!?"

To add to JerekKruger's great answer, you could go for one of the more unique backgrounds (Scientist as you both have said, or Mystic/Clergyman/Philosopher). I think most of these jobs can be considered vocational and therefore you could be drawn to them and to that particular region from any race IMHO.

Fun log in quest journal too. I wonder of this: you can go to Calisca's sister and tell her how you kill caravan. You can kill elf-miller, then go to Sweynur and...well he regret what you done, but he will agree to steel all grain in the night. Yeah I just met with Aufra and told her something along the lines of, "Your sister and everyone in the caravan are dead. I made sure of that." She instantly attacks you and you obviously can't do A Mother's Plea, but roleplaying man! It's all about the roleplaying!

I re-rolled my Barbarian (I'm still strict on my no re-spec rule when I want to tweak a build) and tried again. Contrary to what I said above, Calisca's Scale Armor + Beer means that for the most part you get min rolls on people's unarmed attacks (except for high attack rolls on crits, which is very rare) - so it's good enough and saves you buying the Brigandine. This time I went for maximal experience by lockpicking the encampment chest (using the two found lockpicks and one bought from Heodan seeing as I had zero Mechanics), and I made sure to get the Springberry with Calisca (it does provide additional experience compared to just straight killing everyone). The experience total after the slaughter is as follows: An in-joke from the devs, or BEELZEBUB HIMSELF SPEAKING TO US THROUGH THE GAME?!?!?! You decide!

I managed it with the Barb, so I think it can be managed with any build/class more or less, so long as you're not a massive weakling. What you will need: 1 Rapier or other +Accuracy weapon, purchased from Heodan 1 War bow, purchased from Heodan 1 Brigandine, purchased from Heodan 2 Potions of Minor Endurance in a quick slot, one found at the encampment, one purchased from Heodan 1 Beer, found in the tents over the bridge As with all epic fights in Pillars - when your very life hangs in the balance - you will need pre-buffing, so make sure to take your beer before you slap on your brigandine. Attack someone, then as everyone has mentioned run south and position yourself between the horses and the fence. Using the war bow pick off the two caravan guards with shields and Heodan, followed by Calisca and Odema (leaving them until last so their Constant Recovery times out), healing when necessary. Switch to the one-handed rapier, and finish everyone else in quick order. With non-Barb builds a quarterstaff should work just as well instead of the war bow. I needed both potions and my Second Wind from Athletics 2 to survive, but this character is quite frail and inaccurate (Resolve 3, Con 11, Perception 7) so I doubt other classes would need all that. I also made sure to get the Springberry as there's experience awarded for that (though I think they actually deduct it from the experience from killing everyone anyway, so maybe you needn't bother). I guess it's always worthwhile to sell it to with Heodan for more cash-money, like I do all ingredients in the area.

Seems like a solid strategy, I did try the pike while positioning Calisca so she would come in front of Odema and while doing minimal damage so I could hope to pick him off - but with Carnage that approach isn't so easy. Plus I think my spread was practically the worst possible for this (low Per, Res and Con, as Novice's Suffering gives high Accuracy anyway for unarmed purposes so it's not entirely stupid to dump some Per). I'd imagine a Wizard with Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff would also do well with your strategy, given it's Exceptional and has reach.

The challenge is simple - kill the starting encampment on PotD (Expert is optional). Everyone turns on you as soon as you attack someone, so it's inherently a solo challenge. Has anyone ever managed to do this? I'm trying currently, and extremely tough - Odema is a bit of a badass and hard to kill off quickly. I'm trying it with a Barb (was thinking of taking another pass at my unarmed build alongside the Wizard build I've got going on) and so far I'm getting creamed. There's nice corner positioning round the back of NW caravan, and you can buy a Brigandine from Heodan to give you some DR. Plus you can strip Calisca and rob her weapons so she's not too much of a problem. Even so, Odema hits hard and has Constant Recovery. Let me know if any of you manage it!

I like that idea, maybe more so than my own of the casting speed. I think it's important to at least give it some new benefit, rather than just taking those of Might - possibly it could still get healing but Resolve needs to be made a risky dump for all classes I would say.

Yeah, but there are plenty protection, debuff spells to use, which don't benefit from resolve. In case of summoned weapon mage Investing in resolve is benefitial, but so is dexterity, perception, intelligence and constitution (the least in my opinion) and that is the goal no? Similarly, every specialized build will have a dump stat. I don't think the goal is to make every stat important to every build, but to have every attribute interact with the class in a way that makes it possible to build around said attribute with said class. The problem with resolve is that spellcaster just didn't benefit from it at all. Whatever you wanted to do, it was a dump stat. Still, my worry stays - do classes have enough variety in them to support both str and res builds. I would say spellcasters did benefit from it, just that they did so the least. Partially spells like Spirit Shield and Crowns for the Faithful compromised the original interrupt mechanic in PoE 1 but giving both Wizards and Priests an easy way to dump it. I'm still not convinced on the Resolve/Strength split, or even if it is the best possible option I think it's still good to trial options like Resolve factoring into spell-casting and see if it plays better - even if it is a resource intensive approach. If anything it would make it clearer that Resolve/Strength is the best possible option moving forward - but it's difficult for anyone to be objective about the new system without an appropriate alternative to compare it to (seeing as Resolve sucked at the start of the beta, I don't consider that a valid comparison).