Jojobobo
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Posts posted by Jojobobo
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Have you moused over the Deflection stat? That should show your shield benefit plus a separate benefit for it's enchantment, I think (e.g. Larder Door +16, fine +4), etc.
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as for cast times, spells are now per encounter, having fast fireballs spam every battle would take any difficulty from the game, now its not a problem, people who dont like to be challenged, can play on easy
I always play on PotD solo in PoE 1, so I'm well aware of challenge. Introduction of a benefit doesn't mean that the benefit is broken if casting times are adjusted in accordance to that benefit. Further, the way Dexterity is currently implemented means that there's diminishing returns in buffing it higher - see this PoE 1 post. Casting speed would be implemented I would say by the same system, and as buffing it is asymptotic there's no way you're ever going to become a complete spell-spamming machine by this system.
I like might as a combat system and over all, I agree but because I am a pain in the butt I will have to try and make a correction: might was more elegant and clear. But it wasn’t more customisable. Strength/resolve gives character building more nuance by separating physical and ability power. It allows you to create character which is strong in both AND differentiate each other (he is spiritually strong priest and can heal a bunch but not strong physically in combat). As such I would say strength/resolve has more nuance and gives more character possibilities. Whenever the advantage it gives is worth the change to strait forward system of PoE1 - I am not so sure.
I think this is all entirely subjective, as to me the new system is more simplified - not less.
While it's true that weapon-summoning casters are going to need both Strength and Resolve, this is going to be a minority of character builds. This is because (a) it's already a little bit of a niche concept to begin with and (b) it's now discouraged by the mechanics as inherently having to split between Strength and Resolve makes you more divided and likely less damaging strong than a pure caster or a pure melee/ranged weapon guy - unless they make summoned weapons crazy strong, but that's also not a good approach to game balance.
Therefore you now have a system where nuanced builds slip between the cracks for a lot of people, as they lack power, and 95% of builds will be dumping one stat or the other. This has now removed a complication from character building, and by providing a dump stat weirdly it allows for you to have a greater effective pool of character points to easily play with in character creation - which has far reaching implications for overall game balance when you think of it.
I think objectively they've made a lot more problems for themselves than they realise with making the change, though I guess that's maybe why they're beta testing it so they can get a feel for how these changes play out.
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I also posted this in the other thread, but will ripropose it here: casting times should fixed on their own first, before we discuss an attribute that affects casting speed.
If we left casting times as they are right now, any attribute affecting them would become an absolute must-pump lest your casters can contribute nothing meaningful to combat and/or are unfun.
It would be poor design to leave casting times at their current unfun level and chip in an attribute to ameliorate it.
Yeah, I guess that's the trouble when I post the same idea in several threads!
I agree with this more or less - if Resolve was offering a casting speed increase then casters should still be viable at the base level of 10 Resolve (but maybe feeling slightly below optimal to make an attribute benefit make sense). In this case, you need to do a lot of the adjustment legwork first really, and then think more about the ramifications of an adjustment stat.
At the very least, if you make spell-casting faster, and then added in an adjustment stat, and then it was too powerful - you now have a much better framework for the kind of adjustments that make sense in order to introduce a bit of nerf back into the casting time.
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I didn't see any mention of what blood pool talent to go with.
It's designed as a solo build, so naturally you can't take companions to sacrifice them.
However if you were to use it in party play, really whoever is fine. The attributes are pitched so that the build works nicely already with a boost, so I'd probably take one of the slightly defensively orientated ones (Aloth, Eder, Maneha, Durance, etc.).
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I agree to an extent. The devs wanted casting times to be longer and that’s fair; however, you can’t lengthen them to the point they aren’t fun anymore (as is currently the case) and then just put there a stat to ameliorate it. That’s poor design. The stat would be an absolute must-pump for all casters if they wanted to contribute anything to a fight before melee mopped the floor.
Casting times should be adjusted on their own. If you then want to have a stat influence them, it can be done though I expect balancing to be pretty tricky.
I agree there definitely needs to be adjustment to casting times whether or not benefit was added, and I'm sure there will be at some point.
In terms of it being poor design to tack on a benefit to a stat, I think that's a fairly subjective point. You could say for the sake of argument that Concentration was tacked onto to Resolve in PoE 1 to deal with the interrupts for example. Certainly when accuracy was added to Perception, it isn't became a stat you couldn't realistically dump on 90% of builds in PoE 1.
I would also say that arguably now Resolve is a must pump for casters due to the damage benefit, so changing the manner in which it's a must pump doesn't really change things too much in my opinion.
I guess for implementing all of this, how balance would be achieved is:
1) Adjust casting times first so they feel innately balanced.
2) Introduce the Resolve casting benefit, and if it's too powerful, iterate until it feels better (with the original casting times already giving a guideline).
3) Possibly consider making it so you could dump a little out of Resolve and make up for it to an extent in Dex to better enable weapon-summoning characters to do their thing.
As you say though, this is a very complicated and resource intensive balancing act. However, I would still massively prefer it to the very lazy current implementation of Resolve, where they just moved benefits from Might into it and said "job done". Regardless of how anyone subjectively feels about Strength vs. Might, it doesn't objectively appear to be nuanced mechanics building to just shift benefits from Might into Resolve.
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Personally I think if you're going to have an import system from PoE 1 to PoE 2, it's better for several non-subjective reasons to keep attributes more or less true to their original incarnations rather than change their function. I think regardless of all the subjective abstract ideas about whether Strength or Might is better, the idea of any sort of import (even if you don't import their attributes) makes such a change jarring.
From my point of view, the main issue was that in PoE 1 one of Resolve's primary advantages was Concentration. In Deadfire, the interrupt system was more or less done away with, and so Resolve lost an advantage. What the interrupt system was replaced with was longer casting times, as with nothing to interrupt a caster any more it made sense to have casting times longer (though admittedly this solved other problems too, like Vancian casting).
So why not have Resolve receive a new advantage to reflect its lost advantage and the changes to core game mechanics? As I've said elsewhere, I think Resolve should now increase casting speed for spells and abilities (at the 5% level most likely, giving how long casting times are) which reflects the changes to the game mechanics, and Strength should go back to Might.
This would give it some overlap with Dexterity, but Dexterity itself already overlaps with effects that reduce Recovery, so I don't really think that is a problem - and it certainly seems more elegant than lifting mechanics from Might and dumping them into Resolve. Dexterity could also be buffed slightly, something along the lines of, "5% attack speed bonus to physical attacks, 3% speed bonus to all other actions". Way too often in PoE 1, people would just reduce Recovery to optimise DPS, this would now give Dexterity a much larger role in melee DPS while keeping it not useless to casters (as for optimal casting DPS, you would need both Dex and Resolve).
If you moderate ability casting times well enough, Resolve could also be not entirely a dump stat for melee classes too (or at least only for the most pure of melee fighters who use abilities hardly at all).
Sawyerism would be restored, stats reflect their PoE 1 counterparts, something is done about the tedious casting times, there would be no obvious dump stats and everyone would get a nice cake of their choosing on their birthdays.
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I don’t think cast time issue should be fixed by any attributes, it needs to be fixed by itself, from its own mechanism.
If a fireball has same power as Minoletta’s Bounding Missile, then they have to be at same cast time. Now they are not. If a level 1 Spell is as strong as a level 3 Spell, then it should has longer cast or recovery time, versa vice.
I don’t think fix a problem by changing another feature is a good idea.
I think it depends on how you view casting time in general. Personally I see it as a new mechanic, as casting time wasn't at all the same in PoE 1. If they've removed a mechanic that effected casting time originally (interrupts being ubiquitous), and removed an advantage that went along with that mechanic from an attribute (Concentration), to me it makes logical sense that Resolve should now benefit from a new advantage that reflects the mechanistic changes that have been made in PoE 2 (longer casting time).
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Let Res reduce cast time seems duplicate it’s function with Dex. And in concept aspect, I don’t understand why a more determined person can caster faster than a normal one.
I think an argument could be made that someone who was wilful would have a better command of magic and that could translate to faster casting - their desire to enact a spell is stronger and so they're better able to make it happen. You could also have it effect ability casting to for all the classes, and modify existing ability times accordingly (likely extend them a little, but not to the same degree we currently see for spells).
To me it seems like lengthy casting time - as a borderline new mechanic - needs a specific form of address. While giving Resolve as casting speed increase would give it a bit of functional overlap with Dexterity, Dexterity itself already has functional overlap with recovery reducing effects, so I don't think adding a different sort of functional overlap is such an egregious thing to do (and Dexterity would be buffed for physical attack speed too to make sure it isn't so infringed upon conceptually).
Personally (though again this is subjective), I think a little overlap with Dexterity is a more elegant approach than shovelling a load of benefits originally belonging to Might into Resolve. I also do think the angle of giving casters a lot of attribute dependencies does make their power more or less self-regulating, as by pumping any one particular attribute very high you naturally can't buff a different beneficial attribute to the same degree - subtly enforcing a balanced approach to attribute distribution (rather than, "I'm a caster, I'm going to dump Strength," like we currently have).
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might does not need to be a spiritual strength at all, because all we know, manifesting high voltage bolts of lighting is not for the faint of heart
The way DnD developers thought of a system of how magic should work is not reality because we dont have magic in real life.
The closest thing we have for reference in real life for magic is Gods of mythology flinging lightning balls, stage magicians, and cannibal tribes thinking that eating hearts and drinking blood will make them invulnerable.
Neither of those dont give an impression of being wimpy and physically inept couch potatoes.
Just because DnD system made it out so mages are wimps, does not mean that every game should follow same rule, and its not like you couldnt make powerful mage with low might in POE1, actually controlling mages who could dump might were arguably more powerful IMO
I get what you're saying, and agree with it. But I think "spiritual strength" is a cleaner concept than bringing the real life physics of shooting lightning bolts out of your hand. It's hard to say really.
@Jojobobo I remember John mentioned about let Concentration also give character power level, so what about let each point of Res boost any power level bonus by 5%. So if a buff or item gives u +1 power level. A 20 Res character can get 50% more power level from the Spell/item.
Since now almost all Spell bonus is tied to power level, boost power level seems to be an universal bonus for casters. Meleer still get deflection and some of their ability use power level, such as self buff ones so Res will not be a dump for them.
And one more thing is Empower, a 20 Res character can get 15 power level from Empower instead of 10, this make sense to me because a more determined person can make a harder strike when he gathers his inner power.
Maybe 5% is too much, but I just throw an idea here to make Res more useful.
I'm sure that could work, but it seems like the casting speed itself is bumming people out the most. Maybe both could be added to Resolve to make it more relevant.
The only real problem with “might” i had in PoE was that game itself was inconsistent in what it is. All of the above is fine. I am fine with might representing mystical capability of the character whenever it is using melee, ranged, guns or spells. I am fine with potent magic requiering physical strength of a wielder. But if the second is true, present mages as such, rather than traditional D&D bookworm, only sourounded by books, stuck in basements, without much light or excercise.
It’s not that “might” wasn’t a stat I was expecting to see (I found character creation straightforward and satisfying). I just count figure out what the stat represents and it seemed like game wasn’t convinced either. There was inconsistency between stat discription, how the stat was utilised incconversation and how high “might” NPCs were presented.
As I mentioned, after saying casters must be physically strong to hit hard with their weapons:
"However physical strength ≠ muscle bound. I've mentioned elsewhere that if you take any of White Wolf's Vampire games (PnP, cRPGs, either oWoD or nWoD) vampires cease to physically change when they are made a vampire, but they can get physically stronger due to becoming more potent as a vampire. The strength itself, while it can be tied to being muscly, doesn't necessarily need to be tied to that at all. Conceptually, therefore, this is precedented in other games and people still 'get it'."
So, to me, all the physical intimidations options in dialogue make sense - though I would have preferred a couple of options that reflected a broader concept of Might making others more powerful.
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I've posted this in the general discussion for PoE 2, but I think it will get a bit more coverage here both for the fanbase and (hopefully) for the devs too. I think Resolve should modify casting speed, and Strength should just become Might once again. In terms of its implication on Dexterity, I think it should still keep a 3% overall action speed increase, but also offer a 4% or 5% attack speed increase (whereas Resolve would just get the spell-casting increase, probably at a 5% or 6% level given how onerous the spell casting times currently are). By this I mean, "5% physical attack speed increase, 3% speed increase to all other actions" (not an 8% increase if I wasn't clear).
How I see this translating mechanically is:
1) It tackles the long casting times, which are an un-fun mechanic. I think longer casting times are a necessary evil given the move away from Vancian casting and an interrupt system, however I think it's wrong to not empower a player to be able to do anything about it - it feels like a punishment. This should also balance casters with melee classes if pitched at the right level.
2) It gives casters a large number of attribute dependancies (Resolve, Might, Intellect). To me this is fine, huge and damaging AoEs are powerful, having to put a little effort in forge an appropriate caster attribute spread seems like an appropriate counter measure - and self-moderates spell power (e.g. if you pump Might maximally, your casting time and AoE size suffer, etc.).
3) It makes Dexterity more worthwhile. In PoE 1, no one really cared about Dexterity to a large extent, they would typically focus on recovery reduction instead. Giving it an additional bump to melee attack speed makes it more of a consideration for melee DPS builds, and if you want a ninja-fast spell caster you would need both Resolve and Dexterity to optimise your speed. It makes Dexterity more relevant compared to what it was in PoE 1.
It also goes without saying that this keeps all the attributes true to their PoE 1 roots, without any bastardisation (whether this is a good or bad thing is totally subjective). Resolve now would function more or less like it did in PoE 1 by letting you get your spells out faster (as interrupts increased casting time in PoE 1, and... well... increased casting time is increasing casting time in PoE 2). I think if a new punitive mechanic is introduced into a game (which the very lengthy casting time more or less is), the devs should definitely be considering offering a new advantage to counteract that mechanic.
Good idea? Bad idea? I don't have access to the beta, but it seems like a large number of people think the increased casting time is currently a problem - and this somewhat addresses that.
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I think the crux of all the Might vs Strength debate is whether that truly is the devs' vision, or if they're just caving to more established genre tropes for broader?
As Might already was a distinct vision and implemented in that way to avoid dump stats, it feels like to go back on that they're compromising themselves. I guess none of this may be true, maybe the devs have wanted Might to be Strength for years, but it seems like to many that any kind of walk back from a more unique concept to a less unique concept isn't the devs making a bold decision at all - but actually weakening their original ideology towards game design.
I've seen a lot of, "Might wasn't implemented well in PoE 1 dialogue checks," in both this thread and elsewhere, and I thought I'd touch on that too. In my mind:
1) Characters with high Might are physically strong. Their weapons they wield do more damage to enemies than characters with low Might. Therefore the dialogue checks about doing things that require physical strength.
2) However physical strength ≠ muscle bound. I've mentioned elsewhere that if you take any of White Wolf's Vampire games (PnP, cRPGs, either oWoD or nWoD) vampires cease to physically change when they are made a vampire, but they can get physically stronger due to becoming more potent as a vampire. The strength itself, while it can be tied to being muscly, doesn't necessarily need to be tied to that at all. Conceptually, therefore, this is precedented in other games and people still "get it".
While I would have liked to see a few more approaches to Might indicating a sort of spiritual strength, the physical uses of Might always made sense to me personally.
I am also of the opinion if you can import the Watcher from PoE 1 (even if you don't import their attribute spread), then it makes sense to keep the mechanics more or less true to their originals. Beyond that, if guns are also benefit from Strength, that to me undermines the idea of Strength just being physical strength in the first place - there is clearly a sort of mystical component still even though they have re-branded it as Strength.
I really think the devs should be looking into ways to modify Resolve that don't take aspects from existing attributes, and they should beta test both approaches and see which one translates better. With their move from Vancian magic and an interrupt system, longer casting times certainly do make sense but as many people point out at this stage they are too punitive.
As "long casting times" is kind of a new mechanic to the PoE franchise, having Resolve tackle this mechanic by allowing it to reduce casting times makes perfect sense to me. It maintains the role of Resolve almost perfectly (Concentration in PoE 1 allowed spell-casters to better cast spells, reduced casting time would allow spell-casters in PoE 2 to better cast spells). While this gives spell-casters a lot more dependencies than other classes (Might and Resolve and Intellect), I think this is perfectly fine - massive crowd-controlling AoEs are a hugely beneficial property for a class to have, having a few more dependencies keeps them balanced with the single target damage classes IMO.
I guess the only issue with this approach would be what to do with Dexterity, as it already still reduces casting time. I would probably still allow Dexterity to increase the speed of all actions, but maybe increase the speed of physical attacks at a slightly greater rate (so 3% increased speed for all actions, 4% or 5% increased speed for physical attacks). Resolve conversely would be 4% or 5% or 6% speed increase for spell casting only.
Therefore, if you wanted an extremely fast spell-casting ninja, you'd need both Dexterity and Resolve - but for most builds just Resolve is necessary. This mirrors the existing PoE 1 system of weapon DPS, whereby if you want the highest possible DPS you both reduce recovery and increase Dex, but for most builds they just reduce recovery.
To me this sounds mechanically fluent, it keeps attributes true to their PoE 1 roots, and addresses the new mechanic that no one likes in PoE 2 - onerous casting times. I think long casting times are fine in light of moving away from both Vancian casting and an interrupt system, however to not allow the player base to reduce these casting times in any way feels like an un-fun punishment. If they're introducing a new limitation, this should be counterbalanced by a new benefit.
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I guess with so many FO1 and 2 staff working on PoE 1 I've always gone with the drugs-are-good mentality, seeing as they were very prominent in those games. Plus with playing solo for most of my playthroughs, I find they feature more prominently in solo play that in you would have in party play.
Regardless of tactics I think the Goldrot Chew + Svef = a version of Frenzy is easily better than taking Outlander's Frenzy. It's definitely a somewhat worthy alternative, and nice that it's essentially a class-less potent combo.
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What's your opinion on them? I've never really heard much discussion about their use, and it seems mostly people don't bother with them at all.
I mentioned a long time ago Whiteleaf is great for Dragon fights by making you fear immune, and it perfectly offsets Sickened from Mind Grubs - allowing you to further boost your defences. However outside of that known use, I was trying to think about other combinations.
For one thing, Gravestep can allow Rogues to reach 100% hit to crit conversion against enemies with low health using a one handed weapon:
Gravestep - 25% Hit to Crit
Dirty + Vicious Fighting - 20% Hit to Crit
Durgan Refined - 20% Hit to Crit
One-Handed Style - 15% Hit to Crit
Bloody Slaughter - 20% Hit to Crit against low Endurance enemies
I guess probably going for a two hander and hitting 85% Hit to Crit is easily better, but I still thought this was pretty interesting. The huge +12 Accuracy bonus from going one handed really allows you to go for much more balanced builds, which I'd say is the largest advantage of going one handed - as purely melee characters can easily dump Per and not feel any pinch about it.
Another thing I was think of is that Svef + Goldrot Chew is more or less a slightly weaker but semi-permanent Frenzy. +3 Might, x1.15 Attack Speed, +1 Move Speed but -2 Per and -4 Resolve for 10 whole minutes, versus +4 Might, +4 Con, x1.33 Attack Speed but -10 Deflection for only 12 seconds.
While it's clear the Frenzy benefits are better it lasts no time at all, while drugs are extremely easy to come by, and when you pair them with Gauntlets of Swift Action, Two Weapon Style and Durgan-Refined weapons you can achieve zero recovery with Durgan-Reinforced Scale or less. If both weapons are speed enchanted - you can now have zero recovery in full plate (without any need for Durgan-Reinforcement... yeah).
While potions of DAoM are unequivocally better, there's also relatively short lived (30 seconds) and way more intensive to mine than buying some readily available drugs.
Those are the two combos I've been thinking about anyway, has anyone else been using any unusual combinations?
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Your screenshot cuts off the total, but it seems to be 64, which is consistent with only one focus actually being applied.
You're probably correct in that they're suppressing one another, I'm probably mistaken. I'll check again at some point, too lazy right now.
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A quick test, I consoled these in but I don't see why that would break anything? Using the belt, not the gloves.
I don't thin it's so broken given Firebrand's accuracy is so sucky in the first place, but for other Wizard weapons I'm it might be quite busted. Even so - it's still single target damage - Rogue will best it all anyway.
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They should employ you Boeroer. You and MaxQuest should slap them about the face until they give you a job on PoE 2.
Do it!
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STR vs MIGHT *is* a separate issue, there's nothing subjective "i see it this way" about it. The problem arose when they changed the concept of one stat but didn't touch the others and only slightly tweaked the others. The STR and MIGHT issue is purely about the concepts involved, but if you think you can change the concepts and just slightly tweak the math, then you're dead wrong. That's why I've always said that they need to rethink the whole package, not just change one thing here and one thing there. Start by deciding with the concepts, separate physical and mental stats and THEN figure out what to do with the mechanical implementation. The point is that the whole process they're going through is wrong and absolutely cannot produce satisfying results. The concepts for the stats are the very cornerstones upon which the mechanical implementation is built upon, that's why you need to begin with them and not worry about "this stat affects this" until your concepts are balanced properly. There is a larger picture here and no one will get anywhere by stubbornly staring at these two particular details. The conflict between the concepts has to be resolved before the math can be built properly.
Oh yeah, and in PoE, a min-max character is always more powerful than a non-min-max character, especially on higher difficulties. If you really want to powergame in PoE, which is to make the most powerful party you can, then you will min-max every single character based on their roles in the party.
And here you've fell apart. And let me say I'm blasted drunk right now, but I'll still try and go for more intellectualised posting than implying people should be called a weasel - because that's quite simply how I roll.
I'm not going to lambast you for cosying up to poor concepts while not being able to properly articulate yourself in the heat of the moment - because I'm just not that guy. However you say things like, "Start by deciding with concepts," like they already did in PoE 1 which is why the Beta testers in PoE 2 aren't necessarily converts - and then you're more than happy to approve the PoE 2 change from Might to Strength, even though they're running entirely contrary to the PoE 1 design spec. Can we please, please, get back to my Resolve casting speed argument - which was the idea in the first place (look at the topic, which I've told you for the second time)?
Jesus, can we please get onto my Resolve changes? Ninjamestari is not a "weasel" for not having done so, just not someone who can separate thoughts from feelings when trying to discuss the issues (again sorry for calling Might "popular", jeez) at this moment in time - I think we're all hoping for a mechanically fluent game which is what I was trying to address. Somehow apparently more min-maxing was worse on lower difficulties than on higher difficulties - which makes the least sense I've ever heard and paints a fundamentally poor understanding of the arguments concerning PoE 1 (despite of merit worthy arguments being available on either side of the fence).
Can we re-railroad this maybe? I mean one day? Even if it is Strength in the end, I was just trying to show another path - sorry guys.
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Grow a thicker skin, you'll go further in life. If I catch someone weaseling in their arguments with me, you better expect me to call them out on that every single time, and I fully advice you and everyone else to do the same. **** the tone of the conversation, honesty and intellectual integrity are far more important and preserving them in the long run is well worth 'lowering the tone' of the conversation. Respect and politeness have absolutely nothing to do with one another, and the first one is important, the second one is not. People are polite when they're either trying to sell you something or trying to feed you their bull****.
You say you appreciate intellectual integrity, but tried to devolve this all into cheap shots at an early opportunity. I would say that demonstrates a lack of intellectualism, as you have been unable to talk about a subject without making things personal - rather than discussing the logical merits of the topic itself.
If I was trying to raise your point I would have called it a "logical fallacy", rather than calling someone a weasel. A person can relay an "honest" opinion in an intellectual way without descending into rudeness and you will get a better discussion from people if you did so, you failed to do that here.
However, I also don't see anything particularly honest about you focussing on a single word as a total strawman to let you ignore nearly all the other points presented, clearly Strength is a hot button issue for you and you're letting it cloud your judgement. As I said, you got me, I could have chosen a more fitting word to articulate what I was going for in that singular position in that particular sentence. However throughout the entire post I think the larger idea of what I was trying to say was clear, so calling someone a weasel rather than someone typing in a rush because it's the holidays and I had other things to be getting on with is a conceit on your behalf.
Much more that the Might vs Strength, I wanted to talk about giving Resolve a buff to spell casting speed as an alternative - which I really intended to be much more the main thrust of the thread. If you make that change to Resolve, there's no need for Resolve to have any of Might's original benefits I would say. I think Obsidian should have looked more at what other benefits could have been given to Resolve to reflect their new systems, rather than reshuffle benefits from one attribute to another.
My skin is thick, I just think it's nonsense for someone to claim they're championing intellectualism and honesty when they personally have exhibited neither. If you were talking to anyone else like this on the forum who wasn't me, I'd be calling you out just the same.
I didn't raise it as a point in the Strength versus Might context, min-maxing is a separate issue that has to do with the mathematics of the game, not with the concepts of the stats. You know, concepts as in "Strength means physical muscle-power" and "Might is the power of your soul" - stuff. All the "this stat increases this effect by x-amount" is mathematical implementation of those concepts, which is a completely separate issue, and the source of any min-maxing headaches one might have.
And the min-maxing has been a standard argument of the pro-might crowd, so it naturally becomes part of the rhetoric here, even though it is a silly argument considering that PoE1 stat system is every bit as much min-max BS as the IE games with their AD&D stats ever were, saying that the change to STR is bad because it causes min-maxing is simply false.
While min-maxing happened in PoE 1 even on the hardest difficulties, it would likely be one or two members of your party who were pure tanks or heavy hitters. Even if you think that's an exaggeration, I would say objectively two or so party members would at least be not be min-maxed, and if you put limitations on yourself to play with a smaller party or solo the min-maxing becomes less and less.
The difference is in PoE 2, there's readily a situation where everyone in your party will be min-maxed arbitrarily because that's what the attributes lend themselves to - a maximisation of benefit lacking any sort of interesting cost. In PoE 2, it's become innate to a much greater degree.
While you see Strength vs Might as a separate issue, Sawyer originally pitched the PoE 1 stats to avoid min-maxing and the whole choice made made about the conceptual (not only physical strength) and mechanical effects of Might were informed by that desire. Might would have not have been the concept it was without the mechanical underpinning it was based on.
And as I said - the main point here is changing Resolve to casting speed reduction, which means Might doesn't need to be touched to shore up the new short-fall in Resolve. As you keep going back to Might over and over again, when really the main point is a reversion to Might is a byproduct of a better implementation of Resolve, I'm really failing to see the merits of discussing Might in a bubble any more. This wasn't an "in a bubble" discussion from the off (look at the topic title), and proposed several changes that complemented each other.
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1) Revert Strength to Might. The idea of Might being a combination of physical and magical/mystical potency (with characters not necessarily representing as physically muscular) seems to be a popular one...
If anything, switching to Strength would be the "popular" choice...
This here, ladies and gentlemen, is called weaseling. Don't do it
And here's what we call lowering the tone of a conversation. It's surprising from a person calling others ladies and gentlemen.
The point was quite clear, it's a popular concept with a lot of the fanbase. Strength would likely be a more popular concept with a broader demographic. Raking over semantics is pointless, everyone else seems to get the idea apart from you who seems more keen on throwing insults around. I hope next time you pick one slightly poorly chosen word in something you've taken a bit of time writing someone tries to railroad your entire discussion about the subtext of that one word rather than the merits of a particular concept.
I get that you like the idea of Strength, I've seen you post in other threads, but there's no need to stop being civil. I don't think anyone around here is looking to be called a weasel by implication in threads, and I doubt other people enjoy seeing it either for the sake of posturing and bravado.
In other words, the Might versus Strength debate has absolutely nothing to do with min-maxing and vice versa.
You were the one who first raised min-maxing in the thread. If you didn't think it was pertinent then why did you personally raise it as a point? I know you were referring to Resolve, but the two concepts to many have become linked as many of the benefits of Might were moved into Resolve - they're inextricably linked.
Min-maxing isn’t evil and should not be prevented, “combated”, or discouraged. It’s a play style like any other and some people, including me, enjoy it. Playing a character with a mixed bag of average stats isn’t my idea of fun.
I don't really have a problem with it either. However, I always thought part of Sawyer's whole thing was to discourage the idea of particular dump stats - increasing the risk and reward aspect of min-maxing if you take that route. This makes it all an interesting logic-based challenge when it comes to building, as it's not trivial to dump certain stats on any build in particular.
My main issue is that with the current Strength and Resolve, there's no difficult decision to be made when it comes to dumping those stats for a melee focussed or caster focussed builds in particular. I'm all for min-maxing, but it shouldn't be such an easy choice to make that anyone who remotely cares about strategic attribute choice will dump those stats automatically.
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If an artist decides to change a feature of his work based on what 'seems to be popular', he ceases to be an artist and becomes just another craftsman marketing just another product.
While I'm 100% behind this statement, I find it somewhat of a struggle to apply it to attribute mechanic design.
Yeah, I kinda edited my post to elaborate on that a little more, but the main point of that was A) there seem to be two competing designs working at cross-purposes in the stats right now and B) Jojobobo kinda suggested reverting back to Might because that 'seems to be popular'.
I wasn't talking of reverting back for popularity's sake, more so that it offered a unique vision that people liked in the first Pillars that was quite different to what you saw in other IE games and that also worked well in practice (hence, which is why it was popular in the first place). The fondness for that original vision of Might is due to the devs' previously solid design choices, and not just thinking it was neat for the sake of being arbitrary.
If anything, switching to Strength would be the "popular" choice - as it's a slightly easier concept to wrap your head around and so would go down easier with the masses rather than Might which seems to incorporate a few separate ideas (physical strength and mystical potency).
I was also massively addressing the Resolve changes too which you haven't referred to, rather than just looking at Might vs Strength, which seem to lend themselves more and not less to min-maxing than the PoE 1 system (Resolve is a straight dump for most physical builds, Strength is a straight dump for most caster builds, and while there will be multi-classing relying on both melee and casting broadly speaking this picture is accurate). You say you're not a fan of "ridiculous min-max" builds, but I would say the PoE 2 system caters much more towards that than PoE 1 - because the Resolve and Strength changes create non-complex black and white situations when approaching your character build, likely leading to a polarising effect in attribute choice based on class.
This is all inside of the frame of reference that PoE 1 was designed with a view of making no dump stats to prevent min-maxing to a large extent, which seems to be a vision the devs are pulling away from in the sequel.
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Very nice idea, you should alredy post it as a build ( since it is ).
I have only a couple of humble suggestion:
- as boots you can even use echo of affliction ( you found them in gavalin lab), they can be a nice alternative over animancer boots
- there is also the new nice saber from the deadfire merchant, that gives you a 10% chance of crushing wave. 10% is a bit low, but the spell in itself is very powerful. For max pawnage effect you can go also for shodding sheet (? The mantle that do a crushing wave on hit on yourself), obviusly only if you are not solo.
- with all your strenght, int and accuracy when buffed, an interesting thing to add could be a plain and simple godshantyur+shield, so you can permastun
I don't know, I want to give this one more of a thorough playtest before posting first. It mentions somewhere that builds should be playtested before submission, so really I need to do that on both this one and the Rogue one I posted up before they should be added to the list.
Echoing Misery definitely seems like a good alternative, I'll edit it in as a potential option. I think the main reason I listed Viettro's Formal Footware as the no. 1 option is that I like the nice round 30 Dexterity gets buffed to when it's equipped (though it's definitely redundant, as the Deadfire belt is already buffing it by +3).
For the saber, I think Gyrd Háewanes Sténes would be used too much to make it worthwhile for it to be on the build. I'm reasonably sure that the Dominate chance of Gyrd effects everyone in the Blast radius, so when you think of it like that the chance becomes quite reasonable over a minute or so. Also, the Raw lash with the two damage types on Gyrd is also very nice to put out consistent damage - whereas the Saber is easier to wall. If I had Arms Bearer maybe it could be stuck in the extra slot with Scath Gwannek - I suppose I still might take Arms Bearer over Weapon and Shield Style anyway as I don't think the Reflex really requires the shield buff (it's +50 Reflex from 20 Dex and 25 Per, plus +20 from Llengraths - not too bad) and you only lose a smidge of Deflection anyway.
Again Godansthunyr is a pretty good option, especially as it buffs Might so it gives a little boost to all the Sunbeams and Torrent of Flame - but as it's single target and Firebrand should do a good job against single target anyway it probably wouldn't pull it's weight as much as more spellbindings if I were to take Arms Bearer.
One thing I was considering was Abydon's Hammer with Arms Bearer. It has a per encounter AoE Stun which benefits from Citzals, and the +4 Might makes Sunbeams and Torrent of Flame extremely potent. Before looking to re-incorporate the Charming angle, I was originally thinking of going pure Might and spell-binds - if you go Living Lands, Lyrinia's Boon and Galawain's Boon with Maegfolc Skull and Abydon's Hammer you can have 44 Might under Citzal's. This means you now do +102% damage with Torrent of Flame, your Sunbeams and Envenomed Strike, which is pretty ferocious IMO - but I think the Charm angle is slightly more versatile so I think the above version is slightly better.
EDIT: I up and changed my mind on the build again, this time dropping Interrupting Blows which I wasn't keen on anyway (I think the build really needs to attack faster to make that work) and Weapon and Shield Style, and instead taking Arms Bearer and Secret of Rime - opting for the White Spire in the extra slot.
I also think Animancer's Boots and Scath Gwannek are a must, and Rotfinger Gloves can be taken over Gauntlets of Accuracy to add in Touch of Rot.
Over the original spread, I would now recommend the slightly modified spread of (with Living Lands background):
Might 21
Con 14
Dex 9
Per 17
Int 18
Res 3
Going for Galawain's Boon, Song of the Heavens, Gift from the Machine, Training Grounds bonus, Lyrinia's Boon, the Cannoneer Belt, Ring of Changing Heart, +2 Per on the armor and Citzal's Martial power, this all becomes:
Might 39
Con 24
Dex 20
Per 20
Int 20
Res 6 or 9 (9 with Gyrd implement)
I think the 4 point shift into Might will be felt, and while lowering the Per and not opting for Gauntlets of Accuracy means a 10 point drop in overall spell accuracy - I think with the debuffs this build has honestly that's okay.
The per rests with the new suggested gear are:
3 Charm
2 Dominate
3 Touch of Rot
3 Spreading Plague (Hobbles, another Reflex debuff)
6 Fireballs
3 Winter Winds
3 Blizzards
3 Jolting Touches
1 Torrent of Flames
You also get:
Gref's Authority (1 per encounter from Gyrd) - a raw damage/Stun single target attack
10% Dominate Chance on hit or crit (Gyrd implement)
That's a hell of a lot to churn out from +20 Accuracy +8 Might, so it really should make for much better stopping power.
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Well ask, and you shall receive!
Alluded to earlier, I recently found out that Citzal’s Martial Power works with all Spellbinds - not just Charm effects. This offers three obvious advantages: (1) the +20 accuracy boost on the spell rolls, (2) the +8 Might adding to damage and (3) the +8 Dexterity increases speed of spell-casting.
With this concept in mind, I wanted to use Citzal’s Martial Power was to combine both Charming and offensive spell bindings to make a very versatile all-rounder, unlike the fairly shrimpy purely Charming build I mentioned above. Citzal’s Martial Power also works with spell-holdings too that proc on hit and crit, so Gyrd Háewanes Sténes can be used for innate Dominate potential after you’ve blown throw all your big AoE spells (with its Dominate effect having +10 accuracy unlike that of Ring of Changing Heart – very nice).
Island Aumaua is a natural race for the build, giving you an additional slot to house a Spellbound weapon for free, and I added a slight Interrupt focus too. With that, here’s what I came up with:
Starting attributes (Island Aumaua, The White That Wends):
Might 20
Con 10
Dex 8
Per 19
Int 18
Res 3
Buffed Attributes:
Might 35 (Citzal’s Martial Power, Training Grounds bonus, Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer, Gift from the Machine)
Con 22 (Citzal’s Martial Power, Iron Circle)
Dex 20 (Citzal’s Martial Power, Viettro’s Formal Footware)
Per 25 (+2 Armor, Song of the Heavens, Hylea’s Boon, Aldwyn’s Boon)
Int 22 (Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer, Aldwyn’s Boon)
Res 6 or 9 (Ring of Changing Heart, Gyrd Háewanes Sténes when equipped)
Weapons and Armor:
Set 1: The Flames of Fair Rhîan + Little Savior
Set 2: Taluntain’s Staff
Set 3: Gyrd Háewanes Sténes
Bonus: Firebrand
Armor: Sun-Touched Mail of Hyran Rath (+2 Per)
Rings: Ring of Changing Heart plus Iron Circle
Gloves: Gauntlets of Accuracy
Headgear: Munacra Arret
Boots: Viettro’s Formal Footware or Shod-in-Faith or Animancer’s Boots or Echoing Misery
Necklace: Amulet of Summer Solstice
Spells featuring in discussion:
Level 1
Spirit Shield (Mastery)
Eldritch Aim (Mastery)
Level 2
Merciless Gaze
Level 3
DAoM (Mastery)
Llengrath’s Displaced Image (Mastery)
Level 5
Llengrath’s Safeguard
Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror
Level 6
Citzal’s Martial Power
Talents:
2 – Veteran’s Recovery
4 – Blast
6 – Gallant’s Focus
8 – Envenomed Strike
10 – Quick Switch
12 – Interrupting Blows
14 – Scion of Flames
16 – Weapon and Shield Style
This leads to the following juicy effects:
Spell accuracy...
20 (Wizard base) + 45 (level 16) + 15 (25 Perception) + 5 (Gauntlets of Accuracy) + 16 (+1 per level for spells/abilities) + 4 (Gallant’s Focus) + 20 (Citzal’s Martial Power) = 125
Defence Debuffs (factoring in attribute debuffs):
Blind (Sunbeam) = -28 Reflex
Weakened (Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror) = -24 Fortitude
Weakned + Terrified (Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror) = -28 Will
Modifiers: 35 Might, 22 Intellect, Scion of Flame
Sunbeam (+10 acc) vs. Reflex, 135 accuracy total, 6 per rest
42-73 Fire damage, 24 second Blind
Fireball (+15 acc) vs. Reflex, 140 accuracy total, 6 per rest
53-73 Fire damage
Torrent of Flame (+15 acc) vs. Reflex, 140 accuracy total, 1 per rest
84-126 Fire damage
Envenomed Strike (+5 accuracy – I think) vs. Fortitude, 130 accuracy total, 3 per rest
121.9 Raw damage over 14.4 seconds
Ring of Changing Heart Dominate (base acc) vs. Will, 125 accuracy total, 2 per rest
16 seconds
Munacra Arret Whispers of Treason (+10 acc) vs. Will, 135 total, 3 per rest
16 seconds
Gyrd Háewanes Sténes Dominate (+10 acc) vs. Will, 135 total, 10% on hit or crit
16 seconds
Given that any of these can hit a severely de-buffed stat and be cast rapidly, there should be plenty of crits all over the place.
Here are some nice combat manoeuvres, which you should probably use more or less in the order written:
“Plain Ol’ Defensive Buffing” – Spirit Shield (per encounter), Llengrath’s Displaced Image (per encounter), Llengrath’s Safeguard. The Concentration on this build isn’t great, so Spirit Shield helps a lot with that. Llengrath’s Displaced Image helps with your shoddy Deflection, and Llengrath’s Safeguard is always a nice panic button.
“Death Sentence” – Eldritch Aim (per encounter) + Ryngrim’s Enervating Terror, followed by Citzal’s Martial Power + Envenomed Strike + Dominate/Whispers of Treason. Use this to effectively mark a troublesome enemy for death (e.g. a spell caster), making their buddies attack them and having them take 100+ raw damage from Envenomed Strike. The massive debuffs to both Will and Fortitude from Ryngrim's Enervating Terror should hopefully facilitate crits due to the already massive accuracy.
“Barbeque Pit” – Citzal’s Martial Power, a couple of Sunbeams, 6 Fireballs, Torrent of Flames, also any scrolls you want to use. Drop your Sunbeams to get good Blind coverage on a mob, and then start lighting them up with your spellbindings. It’s that simple.
Then:
“Kite and, erm, Domin-ite” – Merciless Gaze, DAoM, Citzal’s Martial Power, Gyrd Háewanes Sténes blasts. Once you’ve dropped your AoEs, you can start blasting away at the remaining mob, getting semi-frequent Dominates and interrupts.
Or...
"What can only be described as 'Cast AoE Spells'" - Eldritch Aim, any AoEs you have as spells that you haven't been able to cast due to Citzal's Martial Power. Everyone loves a nice Ninagauth's Shadowflame - I left the spell choices purposefully vague so people can use whatever they like.
And finally...
“Fiery Finisher” – Merciless Gaze, DAoM, Citzal’s Martial Power, Firebrand, Sunbeam if any left. When there’s only a single guy or two left, Firebrand provides an effective punch to wipe them out quickly, if you can Blind them with a remaining Sunbeam even better.
And here’s a quick Q&A to cover any anticipated questions...
Q: Talking about spell-bindings, where’s Bittercut, Scath Gwannek, White Crest Armor, White Spire and… well that’s pretty much all the good ones? And why isn’t Arms Bearer taken?
A: I wanted to focus on spellbindings that could benefit from Scion of Flames, and also provided debuffs – hence all the Sunbeam bindings. However, all these items can be carried along to give you some alternate per rest uses to stop such frequent resting and to in case of fire immunity. As Taluntain’s Staff and The Flames of Fair Rhîan are late game, you’ll probably want to use the White Spire mid-game with Curoc’s Band and Gyrd Háewanes Sténes.
Arms Bearer wasn’t taken as there simply wasn’t enough room for it while trying to keep the build an all-rounder. In party play you can easily dump off either Veteran’s Recovery and/or Weapon and Shield Style for it and maybe Secrets of Rime – taking both Scath Gwannek as the shield pairing to Fair Rhîan and the White Spire in the extra slot.
Q: What if I want to use Looped Rope and an item of Protection for the defensively challenging encounters?
A: Take Looped Rope, change the headgear to Maegfolc Skull to maintain good Might, and change the Gauntlets of Accuracy to Spirit Spiral if you still need to Charm enemies. You can easily drop Amulet of Summer Solstice for a Cloak of Protection if you feel like you're defences need an extra boost for a particular fight.
Q: Terrible Resolve and Dexterity, this build must suck early on for getting interrupted!
A: That’s not really a question, but yes it does a bit. Fortunately the Deadfire Belt gives you a form of retaliation with Flame Shield on enemy crit, so that with good armor and Spirit Shield to keep your concentration up does a good enough job Act I. In Act II you can start using resting bonuses for things like more Dex until you get Citzal's Martial Power, then you can change it to Might.
Q: No Penetrating Shot or Penetrating Blast, what gives?
A: It’s again a case of their being little room for them, and really you need Golden Gaze to make best use of a Blaster in the first place. These can again be options if you shed some of the defensive talents in party play.
And there you have it. This build, as I think it'll be ridiculously good fun, has become my top priority and I'm testing it as we speak.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears. While I think the Talent set is solid for solo-play, I'm not too sure if the order is quite right for my tastes. Arguably Interrupting Blows is maybe the most useless Talent so could be taken later - but if you're taking it at level 16 then what's the point in taking it at all? I guess that's why I've pitched it at level 12 - but I'm not wholly convinced.
Sorry for typos and general incoherency, it's late so I'll try and catch that in the morning. Hope you enjoy!
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Jojobobo, do you think you can keep up those truly impressive numbers during the whole fight when soloing?
I played a melee solo wizard in an ultimate attempt (given my unpatient nature I failed in WM II in a random encounter of course
) and while the self buffing (and the awesome summoned weapons) are truely great I often had problems to uphold the high defenses during longer bounty fights (for example the WMII bounties have some guys with very high deflection + reflex defenses that are hard to hit reliably and take some time to pin down).What do you think?
Granted: in a party this wouldn't be an issue at all and make this guy a very effective tank. What I always like about non-paladin and non-fighter tanks is that they not only withstand most things that get thrown at them but also can contribute in some/several other ways. Wizards can do so much cool stuf during a fight even if you skill them completely for defense.
For some encounters yes, for others it's hard to say. No one's ever tried, so that's kind of the point in looking into it - as while in may look shaky on paper it might be fine in practice.
I don't think there's much of an issue keeping the Deflection up against Thaos. Anything else apart from Deflection should be more or less always maintainable I would say in other fights, and Deflection in some fights isn't as important as the other defences (probably against Llengrath it's less important than Reflex and Fortitude for example).
In any case, I would say regardless of whether or not the defences can be maintained at optimum levels while your Citzal's Martial Power lasts, I think the build is still more than tanky enough to take on a lot of encounters. Elements of tanky gear can easily be swapped out for CC gear if pure tanking isn't working well enough (as mentioned in the provisional builds thread, all the Dominate gear and Charm gear works with Citzal's Martial Power and benefits from it's accuracy bonus, and I'm pretty sure that one of Llengrath's dragons is susceptible to Dominate and the other to Charm).
As mentioned I'm putting a pin in this build for now, as I would want to restart it for 3.08 given that the build was benefitting from the pirate Deflection and Fortitude bonuses that the devs have now deemed over-powered - and back-to-back solo tank playthroughs can be a bit much to bear! I'm going to focus on a Citzal Charmer similar to what I stated in the provisional builds thread, but with a lot of other stuff thrown in. Part of the idea behind these threads was the mental exercise of working out what can be possible anyway, and if it works even only 50% of the time in practice I would be happy - as that still makes it all a worthy concept.
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Yeah I'm pretty pleased with the new dominator Wizard build, it's one of the playthroughs I've got on the go alongside the unarmed Barb. Considering Ryngrim's Enervating Terror is a -28 Will debuff, adding that onto the Citzal's Martial Power boosted Gyrd Háewanes Sténes Dominate accuracy of 131 means it has an effective accuracy of 159. As far as I'm aware, Will isn't even a strong defence for enemies on the whole, so those 27 second Dominate crits should be relatively common - which is an thoroughly ridiculous time to have an enemy on your side for.
Adding onto that the spell-binding Dominates and Whispers of Treason (which as mentioned work under Citzal's Martial Power), you can use a couple of them to get the ball rolling (though the accuracy is 5 to 15 lower than Gyrd Háewanes Sténes Dominate) and then try for the high interrupt Gyrd Háewanes Sténes Dominate blasts for more procs (with even Confuse procs periodically from Company Captain's Hat on any hit you receive - even spells).
My only concern is that the build might not be tanky enough for some of the bosses - but I'd imagine taking control of the enemy (even a lot of the dragons) should mean you won't be targeted too often. I also wouldn't be surprised if they nerf the new Vailia outfits seeing as the defence boosts are very high (as they're going to have to hotfix a lot of the texture issues people are having, the might want to rebalance at the same time too), which would knock the defences a little further, however I still think it will be solo PotD viable.
Your build sounds great! Have you had time to test it further?
I'm tweaking it and playing it as we speak - I'm just not going to dump Might as mentioned somewhere for the build. I'm also going to package it up with a few other ideas that I've not mentioned here to round it off a bit better. Should be an extremely versatile all-rounder when it's finished, while being on of the best builds for Dominating given the Martial Power/Gyrd Háewanes Sténes combo.
One nice thing is that the build makes it incredibly easy to dump Resolve, as if you take both Ring of Changing Heart and Gyrd Háewanes Sténes even with 3 base Resolve you now have 9, so this build shouldn't feel near as much a punch for dumping it on solo compared to other builds.
Resolve, Strength vs Might and Casting Time
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire General Discussion (NO SPOILERS)
Posted
I think with Wizards having a huge repertoire of spells to use, even if you want to make the main focus on summoned-weapons people will still want to be using spells too. I know when I play PoE 1 with a melee centric Wizard, I will always be using offensive spells too.
Besides, if a melee Wizard is just going for Strength, that makes the issue of a known dump stat worse not better. It would mean there's truly very few situations where many classes would take both Strength and Resolve, with the exception being I guess a melee tank.