dunehunter

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). Honestly I prefer they first fix cast time inconsistency. Then add whatever spell bonus to Res. Any test or playthrough or feeling is based on a unpolished spell system now, which is inaccurate. Like we all feel fireball and summon spell takes years to cast, but spells like Bounding Missile are Ok to me. They are powerful and has a fair cast time.

Ok. And what about ranged weapon users? If Res is tied to Power level, then at least a ranged Cipher or Chanter will not dump it. But yeah other ranged weapon user like ranger and rogue will still dump Res. It is hard to make a stats that benefit all builds. Even Dex can be a dump stats for retaliation builds... But make Res ties to power level do covers a lot more builds than before.

Even if Res will boost cast speed, players will still pick 3 sec spells than 6 sec ones. Because with Res and Dex both increase cast speed, 3 sec spells becomes super fast. I think cast time still need to be fixed in its own system, not depends on outside factors.

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.

Or make each point of Res grant you for example 0.1 power level. This is easier to understand and because not every class can get power level bonus.

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. But @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. Or maybe more directly, each point of Res grant u power level, for example 0.1 power level per Res. This is better for classes that cannot get power level bonus, but highly rely on them.

@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.

One issue is based on how power level works now, it has much less benefit to Chanter than other caster. Empower invocation is a bad idea now, and u can not empower phrases. Refill resource pool is also bad for chanter because half of max phrases is way less than half of Monk resource pool... One idea is let power level reduce cast time, do u think this will work or not? So empower summon spell = haste it’s cast time.

Yeah agreed. Empowered Spell like Relentless Storm can stun lock everybody in the area as the stun duration is boosted to 4-5 sec and it has +accuracy. Without Empower, Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is already super powerful as it does 500+ damage to the dummy I summoned. With Empower, it can does maybe 1000+ damage on the line of the ray? And also immobilize lock them for hella long time. Even level 1 spell like Chill Fog, when Empowered, can do over 400 damage in its duration to dummies...

Like I said there are different type of spells/abilities, I think it just the devs missed this specific type of ability, that's all. Buff spell does seem to be weak when Empowered compare to other type, maybe upgrade the Inspiration tier when Empowered?

Mark for the hunt and Sworn enemy are an unique type of ability, which is different from all other type, blast, DoT, Ray, CC and buff. I call them Mark ability Mark abilities has permanent duration so they should get some other bonus instead.

I just wanna test Empower's effect on all caster spells Btw it is so weird that +Mas focus is shown as a bonus for Ascendant, if their bonus only works at Max focus, isn't it better to have lower Max focus so we can reach Max focus faster ?????

I'm worried this will be a real case in Deadfire because the new Empower system, imagining that you can empower Disintegrate and it will do ridiculous damage to a single target, so Empower might become a win button for boss fight, and if we abuse the rest system the combat might become too easy.

Ray spells, DoT spells and Projection spells get most benefit from Empower currently because it not only boosts basic damage, but also duration, projection numbers. Jump spells are weaker than Projection spells because usually there are bouncing penalty when spell jump to another mob, so the more it jumps, the less the damage is. One exception is Bounding Missile which gets stronger when jumping. Buff spell gets less benefit from Empower since Empower only increase their duration. Specially long duration buff like IronSkin, Spiritshield, Arcane Reflection. IronSkin has duration until the end of combat or under caster gets strike 10 times, so Empower has 0 impact on it right now

Druid does get Projection spells, you forget Fire Bug but it comes super late compare to wizard. DoT, projection, jump spell get more benefits from Empower as Empower not only boost accuracy, pen and basic damage, but also boost duration, project and jump number. So these spells are boosted twice by Empower right now than plain blast... Specially Ray like spell get a lot from Empower, since they usually tick very fast and have a short duration. Empower have a flat bonus to duration really make these spells overpowered. You can try Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring with/without Empower and the difference is huge. (even Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is already super powerful without Empower.) Fire Bug's description doesn't mention projectiles or number of projectiles at all... only jump. It would be good if it had multiple projectiles.... Jump spells would be better if they could "jump" back to a target they've hit before. Btw Ninagauth's Shadowflame is pretty good for a pre-cast spell---9 second cast time but only one second recovery. (Stronger fireball that does cold damage and paralyzes for base 6 seconds.) Why would you think Jump spell doesn't jump back to original target? They do jump back. But the bouncing mechanism is not welcoming for additional jumps, the more it bounces the less the damage is. Except Bounding Missile, which I think is not intended.

So the +3 power level of Ascendant is not working at all right now, everytime you cast a spell at full focus, the spell's power level is counted as -1 lol. I think it's because spell power level is decided on your current power level, not decided at the time when it is casted. So once u release the spell, your focus is reduce and u get the -1 power level debuff, same as your spell.

Druid does get Projection spells, you forget Fire Bug but it comes super late compare to wizard. DoT, projection, jump spell get more benefits from Empower as Empower not only boost accuracy, pen and basic damage, but also boost duration, project and jump number. So these spells are boosted twice by Empower right now than plain blast... Specially Ray like spell get a lot from Empower, since they usually tick very fast and have a short duration. Empower have a flat bonus to duration really make these spells overpowered. You can try Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring with/without Empower and the difference is huge. (even Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring is already super powerful without Empower.)

real power level = power level - spell level For spells: Spells have two separate accuracy bonus, first is from power level, second is from spell level. In Hold Shift combat info, higher level spell will have an accuracy bonus based on its spell level, level 1 spell get 0 accuracy bonus, level 2 spell get +2 Ability level bonus, level 3 spell get +4 Ability level bonus and so on. accuracy bonus A = (spell level - 1) * 2 accuracy bonus B = real power level damage bonus = ?? projection/jump bonus = class power level / 2 penetration bonus = class power level / 4 duration bonus = class power level * 5% summon/weapon summon bonus = 0 (only ties to character level) For ability: duration bonus = class power level * 5% Increase power level doesn't give bonus to ability accuracy, but it is weird that Empower will give +20 accuracy to abilities. Same as damage bonus, damage is only tied to your weapon, but Empower will grant bonus to basic damage of abilities.

There are self-buff that grant you Concentration if you are afraid of your spell get interrupted, and almost all these buff are instantly casted. But yeah I agree 6 sec is a bit too long. Your weapon attack have a chance to be interrupted too, but since your animation is very fast, it is really hard to interrupt you.

Balancing weapon damage will be much easier when you already have an AR vs Pen formula, but I do agree that the reason Obs use some absolute value than formula is because it is easier to document and understand.

Empower increase all spell/ability basic damage too. So for Flame of Devotion, you get +20 accuracy, +5 penetration and +basic damage. It seems each power level will +0.5 penetration. For spell, each power level will +1 accuracy. For ability, each power level will +2 accuracy.

I'd like to see more Spell binding items that triggers on miss or trigger on being missed. In PoE 1 there are too many items has trigger on crit or trigger on being crit stats, it seems devs favor glass cannon builds.

I tried your savefile and I can load it, I'm on Windows system. Level up your char and save/load works too. I think it is a Linux only problem...

Listed a few spells that have almost 0 gain from Empower as below: summon minions spells summon weapon spells spiritshield ironskin arcane reflection So now summon spell power ties to character level instead of power level, Empower only boost the summon time... Same as Spiritshield, Ironskin and Minor arcane reflection, empower only boost their duration (which is already very long) and does nothing else.

So all the wall spells, Flame wall forcefield wall, how do I rotate them? Shouldn't there be any instruction to tell me how to rotate them?