dunehunter

I'm pretty sure you cannot one shot Titan on PotD without backstabbing or crazy high critical damage bonus as a meleer. The Titan has over 400 hp in PoTD and to do that you need to do 200 damage per swing or 400 damage with a great sword or arquebus....

Is it the wizard’s missile spell you use to one shot him? Can’t think of other single class can one shot it (soul blade seems to be nerfed)

if Devoted/Monk is bad now due to no unarmed proficiency. Then why nobody mention BlackJack/Druid :D I hope we can archive the goal of ‘no bad build’ later. But I just can’t think a way to make blackjack work with any classes that wanna summon weapons. Their subclass feature is way too specific to be useful in most case, if this subclass can only be used for one or two combo, I think it is a bad design.

I think we shall uptune spells and downtune melee little by little, until the balance is reached. Only do one side won’t or is very hard to fix the problem. If we only uptune spells, combat might feel too easy, and vice versa battle can be too hard if we only nerf melee. Since all these melee and spell problem are tied closely with enemies and how hard encounters are designed.

Yeah but I afraid if the devs follow more and more common sense (like Strength only affect weapon, constant damage for firearms), the game system will be more and more similar to DND system. I hope they don't change everything to meet the 'common sense'. The Might affect all damage is part of the uniqueness of this game.

Yeah I just accidently find this, because I think in last patch Minor Blight was a two-handed weapon. I think if the devs can make every class/ability/spell useful and balanced, the potential of this game is unlimited, there are just so many fun and powerful combo to be explored.

Found a very OP combo... So now Kalakoth's Minor Blights is a single-handed weapon when summoned, you can put a sword at offhand slot and now your Minor Blights get -50% recovery time from dual wielding. Your attack now has <1.5 second recovery time now. The Blight work same as Rod + Blast, but you have 1.5 second recovery time instead of 6 second (Rod has 3 recovery time and Blast modal doubles it). Now combo wizard with monk, pick Swift Flurry (Lightning Strike is already very good, but we wanna abuse this to max effect ). Okay you got the most OP ranged combo in current Beta

As topic, played a skald and can only reaches max phrases of 2.

-------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Paladin/Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Subclass: Darcozzi Paladini/Troubadour -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Fire Godlike -------------------------------------------------------------- Attributes -------------------------------------------------------------- MIG: 3 - we don't need melees CON: 18 DEX: 4 PER: 15 INT: 19 RES: 18+1 - from background -------------------------------------------------------------- Proficiency -------------------------------------------------------------- Flail Club Medium shield -------------------------------------------------------------- Talents - Paladin -------------------------------------------------------------- Deep Faith Lay on Hands Zealot Aura Brand Enemy -------------------------------------------------------------- Phrases - Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Come, Come Soft Winds of Death Ancient Memory -------------------------------------------------------------- Invocations - Chanter -------------------------------------------------------------- Thrice Was She Wronged -> Her Revenge Swept Across the Land White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead -------------------------------------------------------------- Comment: -------------------------------------------------------------- Tank build that focus on DoT and Retaliation, we raise Res for Thrice Was She Wronged and White Worm damage. Res also boost Brand Enemy, Darcozzi Fire Shield and Battle Forged fire damage, and all the heals we have. Dumping Dex and Might because we don't need melee and most of our abilities have instant cast time (Brand Enemy, Thrice Was She Wronged, Lays on Hands). Troubadour is perfect for 'Come Soft Winds of Death' and 'Ancient Memory' because the Brisk Recitation modal increase Phrase rate, and Lingering time doesn't matter for these two Phrases(because you get an initial tick or DoT when the phrase started). So with this build the DoTs we have are: Brand Enemy, Come Soft Winds of Death. Retaliation we have: Minor Flame Shield, Battle Forged. Heals we have: Lays on Hands, Ancient Memory. The strategy is once combat started, use Brand Enemy to mark as many enemy as possible, and leave one Zeal for Lay on Hands/Flame shield. Then we can just stand there waiting enemies to die while spamming the offensive invocations when we have enough phrases. This is a very low maintenance if we can set the AI to abuse Brand Enemy, being very tanky and does a lot damages even under CC. Later we can added Shared Flame and Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr for 40% fire lash for allies, and Exalted Endurance + Ancient Memory for double healings.

I did enjoy the debuff juggling aspect of PoE combat, getting in the smaller ones to soften them up for the big ones, but I suppose hard CC need not be that powerful. I still think some extra defensive debuffs to hard CC wouldn't be out of place, like automatically applying Flanked (as Blind also does now) to Stunned and Paralyzed. On a related note, does anybody know what the Tier 3 Constitution Affliction is? I remember somebody saying it was called Enfeeble, but I haven't seen what it does. Same, curious about how it works, I feel Weaken and Sickened is pretty similar to each other, one is -5 Con -100% healing effect, one is -5 Con, -50% healing effect. Not many difference here.

Here are screenshots of ranged weapons in the current beta: https://imgur.com/a/fC2wr I don't know what "blunted criticals" means right now because as I understood it criticals only give +25% damage anyway. I've also got a pet thing that the Arquebus should do blunt damage rather than piercing but that's a side thing The +75% critical damage = -25% critical damage, I think this is more confusing than before, newbie may think they get 75% more damage from critical attack but it's not true.

How would you make that work in the game? With the current system you: Start casting which locks your position target a location go through the casting animation all the while prior to casting you can click on a new target location in range cast the spell If you could move you'd have no location selected which would do what as the timer runs out and the spell gets cast? If you somehow put the spell on pause that allows you to 'store' pre-cast spells and then let them rip at a moment's notice. If the spell completion still fills as you move around you now have casting while moving. The solution to the issue is to not cast from extreme range, move up like halfway towards the enemy and you'll have plenty of room for re-targeting. Linear spells like Lightning bolt are affected more than other offensive spell from long casting time. These spells requires you to have a very good cast location to make it useful, but long cast time make it impossible to position because who knows after 6 second where would enemy move to. With spells like Fireball, I can always retarget to find a good spot to hit as many enemies as possible, but for Lightning bolt, it's not about where you target, but where you stand that matters. Thus, although I feel the long cast time is not a too bad thing, but for these linear spell, they do need to be fast enough to be competitive with aoe spells like fireballs.

Wait, you don't lose control? Just friendly fire? Really?? I had no idea, I guess I should actually try that Bleak Walker/Berserker I made then. Shows what I know then, I didn't think it had changed from Pillars 1. That is kinda problematic though, since I don't think most people would expect that, and might write off the subclass the same way I did... (again, I read the description and just noped right out of there). Yeah I think a lot ppls will think Confused is bad because they didn't pay attention or have no access to beta. You can check my post here https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/95330-affliction-changes-from-poe-1-to-2-and-spell-rebalance/ about some big Affliction changes here. Confused won't make u lose control, it just gives u -5 INT and friendly fire.

Nice analysis and idea! :D However, GoldPact/Shifter is really OP, with Bear form you get 16 armor rate at lvl 9 and shirtual form doesn't have armor penalty. And you attacking really fast in spiritual form.

The description in character generator doesn't specify melee, but if you check the description in the character sheet, it does specify melee weapon crits only. (Same goes for Mage Slayer unless they changed it.) Ah I see so no blunderbuss sadly.

I tried a Skald with dual Blunderbuss, but I find crits from blunderbuss doesn't grant me phrase.

Confused is only level 1 Affliction in Deadfire, I think players still think about POE 1 Confused when they play Deadfire, so they have a impression that it's annoying to have Confused on. Imo it's bad for casters, but not a big deal for melees.

I'd rather see small changes to stats than these big changes, need to bear in mind that all Affliction, Inspiration are tied to stats so any changes can make a lot different and need fix latter.

Post of the month! Tactical depth indeed. I really hope Josh reads this, as this idea would just deepen the uniqueness of the Deadfire CRPG. For real, I think you are on to something that really solves this issue entirely, and the modal "technology" with UI and all is already a part of the game. This would make spell casters so much more fun to play!!! Modals that make casting time much faster, like Quick Chant, and perhaps "Arcane Burst" or "Holy Urgency", etc, would help with the sluggish spell casting, and then a few cool modals for more power, like that Enlarge, and so on. Perhaps they should ditch the Empower feature (or rather, it gets integrated into this system and gets much needed new life) and instead diversify it per your suggestion for different spells or spell groups and caster classes. The possibilities are endless here! Yeah I think the encounters are ranged from trash mob fights to miniboss/boss fights in Deadfire. For these easy fights where you don't need long buff and high pen. If there is a Quick chant modal for casters, they can still be useful there. But when you face some real challenge, you might find that the combat would take a lot longer, enemy have higher armor rate so you might wanna turn the Quick Chant modal off, or even want higher power level to make your Pen exceed enemy's armor rate. All these decisions can make caster more fun to play. I really think it's unfair for casters in Deadfire to not have their own cool tools to deal with different battle conditions. No caster passive, no caster modals, but hope we can see more of them in next patch

I saw we have some thread talking about spell is not well balanced due to Affliction changes. Prone PoE 1: hard CC; PoE 2: Interruption; Confused PoE 1: soft CC; PoE 2: -5 INT, friendly fire; Dazed PoE 1: -2 Dex, -2 Int, -2 Per, -10 Accuracy, ×0.85 Attack Speed; PoE 2: -5 STR, -4 Pen, disable engagement. Confused is downgraded to a level 1 Affliction instead of CC. Prone is Interruption instead of CC. Dazed is upgraded to a level 2 Affliction, -4 Pen usually means melee damage is cut half or 3/4. A lot other affliction changes, but seems to be at least in same power level. I raise this three because I feel these 3 have the biggest changes. For example, Confusion is a lvl 4 Wizard spell but Confused is badly nerfed. So how to fix the spells that are affected by the affliction changes, shall it be changed to a lower level spell? Similar to Priest spell Pillar of Faith and Repulsing Seal, should it be a lower level spell, or faster cast time instead?

One issue come through my mind is that casters lack a way to boost spell’s penetration. Warriors can swap weapons or use modals, but casters can only boost their power level to get more pen, but currently they also lack way to boost power level, except empower which is only for one spell. One idea is give caster a modal to trade cast time for more power level, so ppls can choose to cast spell fast or harder and slower. It’s pretty similar to POE penetration shot modal, but with another name, maybe called Spell enlarge, and boost power level instead. Or vice versus, add a caster modal called Quick chant, ppl can activate it to trade power level for faster cast time. Wanna have a more devastating fireball? Activate the Spell enlarge modal to prepare it longer for more power. Wanna just buff your team for small battle? Turn on Quick chant to cast it faster, but expect it to last shorter. I think this gives more tactic depth to the casters, and also more flexibility.

So Call the Slumber will make enemy into Unconscious, and the Flesh Communion of Corpse Eater says target a hostile Unconscious kith, wilder or beast and eat their corpse. So why I cannot eat the enemies that suffered from Call the Slumber All description matches.

I’m not sure how “pretty obvious” factors in this discussion; melee builds may be obvious but they are good and fun to play. In answer to your query: Yes The purpose of combat is “to compel our opponent to fulfill our will” (cit.), which in this case is for our opponent to die. Doing so with brutal efficiency is the entire point of DPS-oriented builds and it rewards your effective character building choices by making you feel powerful—which you are I appreciate that not everyone powergames or number-crunches. In fact, I expect the majority to roleplay and incur this issue to a lesser extent than most of us do here. However, I still contend that it should be possible for a full party of casters to be as powerful as a full party of melee combatants. Right now it is probably not even a viable choice for PotD, or it would require luck and crazy amounts of careful planning and micromanagement. You don’t have to build your party for maximum efficiency; you have to be able to if you want it. Currently that’s only possible in melee and not if you want to focus on summoned weapons. But if you can mopping the PoTD super easily, then there are something wrong here, either the difficulty is not enough or some build is too powerful now. Also u know that in beta u didn't have any good gears, you only using fine/excellent weapon and armor. If you're already wiping the map, then it will be even easier if u have full gear equipped. Imo PoTD should be the difficulty that requires you to plan carefully and do a lot micromanagements. But melee classes are too powerful u can easily solo mostly of areas with right builds, thus is the problem.

Yeah GoldPact is a bit OP currently, specially when you can spam Rival Enemy because literally u can use it infinite times. That means you will have permanent +4 armour rate. Darcozzi and Shieldbearer is a bit underwelm compared with the rest 3 subclasses, but that's because they had a milder penalty in last patch than the rest 3.

As screenshot below