PugPug

I've been away a long time, too. Did they ever change anything regarding that huge power bump when pure casters start casting low-level spells as per-encounter instead of daily?

I don't know enough about the game or the wizard to know exactly what patch notes pertain to the class, but generally how these things work is the changes will apply to existing saved games. Health and other stats will be recalculated, spells will work differently, etc. That's the smart way to code a game. With this game in particular they seem to be big on doing things retroactively, as you put it. Bug fixes fix the bugs in broken saved games. I expect it will be the same way with balance changes. My advice is to go ahead.

I agree on the godlike appearance. Moon Godlike is the worst because you have a glowy head all the time. Everywhere you go and at any zoom level.

Yeah, I always have it on a cooling pad with a fan. They do help, but only a bit. Do you need an MSI card to use MSI Afterburner?

You're looking to 2nd Edition D&D for class balance?

In my experience it is something that just happens with laptops. You would think it would just downclock (is that a word?) until it stops overheating, even if it gets to the point that applications become unstable, but it doesn't. It slows down only to a point. Maybe it's configurable in the BIOS? I did just have another idea, though. I could limit max CPU power under Windows power options. Kind of a hassle to do and undo for one game, though. Maybe someone has come up with some kind of batch file... Really though, I would prefer they integrate an FPS limiter into the game. It's becoming a somewhat common feature.

I started out really liking Whisper of Treason, but then I read it becomes obsolete with dominate powers later on. Tenuous Grasp (fear/confuse) seems kind of pointless when you can charm or dominate them for a longer duration. Though I guess you could use it against a solo enemy and have it not break on damage. Antipathetic Field apparently does its listed damage once per second, I read, despite the description not stating this. Which makes it do way, way more damage than Soul Shock. A beam shouldn't be too hard to avoid friendly fire with. Though strangely, the description says nothing about an intellect duration bonus, so I guess it doesn't have one? Eyestrike seems like a great debuff. Mind Wave sounds good because it does irresistible raw damage and knocks down a crowd (no friendly fire, either). Do I have all that right?

Dxtory seems to be video capture software, but I did find instructions on how to use it to limit FPS. I tried using Nvidia Inspector, and the lowest it let me cap it at is 29 FPS. My laptop still overheat to the point of emergency shutdown. I keep it clean, too, so it is getting plenty of air. Hopefully Dxtory will have more options.

There are a lot of durations in spell/ability descriptions that do not say X seconds (Y base). Is this a description omission or not?

The transition of per-day spells becoming per-encounter is obvously a huge game-changer when it happens. It's a big topic of conversation. I would say it fundamentally changes the play of each of the three classes. Isn't that... kind of a bad thing? Shouldn't there be consistency? I see a class having only per-day spells as a big step backward for the genre. I'm hoping to see a balance struck between the two, but I think it's tough to make sweeping class changes after launch. On the subject, it also seems druid spiritshift should be an at-will power and its stats should scale better with level and gear, though I understand it's already one of the better classes when in humanoid form.

Ah, so the higher starting accuracy is more to reflect that the Cipher and Chanter are supposed to get more use out of their weapons. Thanks.

Something that really bothered me in D&D (especially DDO; terrible scaling there) was how frequently spells are resisted. So I'm looking at the accuracy of the spellcasters. Of course, what's not as easy to compare are the accuracy bonuses in each individual spell. A "very low" base accuracy could well be made up for there. Is it much of a concern in PoE? I'm not sure I'd call the Chanter a caster, anyway. From the sounds of things using your invocations is a rare occurence, and the best ones don't target your enemies.

Just wondering. I really like the idea of the moon godlike, but I don't like having the glowy particle effect all the time.

Well, the issue with the spell talent is solvable. It could be given a secondary effect. There could be respecs (controversial, I know). Personally I'm not sure how I feel about class gameplay changing so radically -- even the per encounter change is huge. I would rather a class be designed to be as enjoyable as possible from level 1 to the level cap. All classes should have at-will, per-encounter and per-day abilities at all levels. But that would take a lot of designing and balancing. That said, getting per-encounter and at-will at high levels is better than not getting it at all. I know the per-day thing is why I am playing a Cypher and not another caster. I see it as a big problem with the other magic users.

Yet to get there, you have to thwack enemies with your staff 99% of the time.

In Baldur's Gate games, you had to actively search for traps, but searching for hidden doors was automatic and continuous.

Some games let you do this through console commands or .cfg files. I know you can do it with Nvidia Inspector, too, as long as you have an Nvidia card of course. I guess I'll try that, but I'd like to know of another way, if there is one. It would also be good to know if we can tweak graphics options beyond what is available in the in-game menu. Thanks.

Ugh I don't like autoleveling, either. I like to make the choices myself. Looks like I'll be metagaming on my first playthrough to find them as quickly as possible.

So I was googling for help about this and came across a reddit post from just a few hours ago that hits it right on the money: http://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/318kjy/foe_aoe_vs_skill_description_question/ Some abilities' written "flavor" descriptions conflict with the more detailed "stat" descriptions below, and sometimes even the detailed descriptions are innaccurate. I'm a brand-new player and haven't even left camp yet, but already I know Mind Wave is one such case. The description says it hits "characters" in the area, below it says it is a Foe AoE, and it isn't. It really does hit everyone. My ally's green circle at her feet turns to show she is targeted when I pass it over her. Which is unfortunate, because at 120 degrees, you basically have to be tanking alone to not touch allies with it. Edit: OK, I just tried it again and her circle didn't change. Also the yellow portion of the arc from Intellect is gone.

Higher than you can get it? You mean higher than you can get it without specializing, I assume?

Awesome; I was wondering the same thing as the OP. Oh, I didn't know there were class options. I was thinking of player a Cipher anyway. But I was also curious what classes worked will with well-rounded stats or these particular stats. Mostly Perception, Intellect and Resolve, it sounds like. But I was thinking Ciphers wanted Might and Dexterity for building Focus. How do you raise stats after character creation?

Well, the wiki brought me here. Not a very good citation, then.

The in-game descriptions don't say anything about Dexterity improving Accuracy. That's a pretty serious omission, I think.

So it seems that despite the in-game suggestion, Might should be considered a primary attribute?

Is there anything you can do to speed it up? A stat to boost or something? And when you twist multiple phrases, is that set up to be done automatically, or are you clicking a different button every few seconds?