AndreaColombo

Hi mukurome, what game version are you on? 2.02 or 2.03 beta?

Not sure, honestly. I haven't really done much at all with him in the first place: Basically I recruited him, leveled him up, gave him equipment and saved. In fact, I've just tried to load an earlier save and do exactly those very things, and upon saving/reloading he was invisible. Odd stuff; never happened to me before with any companion or character.

What game version are you running? WF definitely works - and shows - for me.

^ all credit goes to KDubya for that build

If there's no bar overhead, there's no recovery. Only a 4-frame delay that can't be eliminated for it is not affected by any mods; I guess it's there to avoid animation glitches or other silly behaviors when you speed up like that. Don't look at me with that, though. My main build is a Fighter and I can get it down to 15-frame recovery with a two-hander and plate armor

Dual-wield durgan-enhanced weapons, wear durgan-reinforced hide armor, start with 18 dex + 3 from item + 3 from resting bonus in Caed Nua + 2 from Rauatai Sweet Pie, and sip a potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. Voilà - no recovery. (of course also take the Two Weapon Fighting talent.)

St. Ydwen's Redeemer also isn't bad on Paladins. The Divine Mark proc is quite dandy.

I perceived it as happening before the game. It explicitly says Sagani's quest for finding Persoq is nearing 5 years, whereas when you meet her she says she's been out looking for him for 5 years already.

SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Observe that one of the six party members is invisible. Select him and observe it is Hiravias. Further observe that moving him around doesn't make him visible. Select the whole party and access the inventory. Back to the game, observe that Hiravias is still invisible. Access Hiravias's inventory. Back to the game, observe that Hiravias is now visible. Odd bug; not really sure what might be causing it. Never had anything similar before.

Josh on Something Awful: New Stronghold content seems interesting. It's not going to make the Stronghold BGII-grade, but it looks like they'll add some much-needed flavor. I'm not big on the change to Survival as I like my potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion to last as long as possible Option for Knockout injuries is potentially interesting to add some challenge, though I'm not sure I'll be using the option; personally, I'm much more interesting in the fine-tuning and up-scaling of Act III and IV content. The change to per-encounter spells isn't mentioned in the 2.03 patch noes, which is interesting considering how big of a change it is. Either it didn't make it in, or it was forgotten but that seems odd.

Looks like a female to me as well. If she really is from Raedceras, she might have some very interesting banter with Edér and Durance. Really looking forward to trying a Barbarian NPC, too. Hopefully she'll have all her legitimate stat points and they'll be allocated somewhat decently.

I keep hoping modals' VFX get fixed so I don't have to remember to deactivate them before saving and reactivate them after loading XD

Hey Brandon, since Fighters got an overhaul, do you know whether Confident Aim was also fixed? It's supposed to add +20% minimum damage but it isn't as of 2.02. Also, could anyone with the beta patch check whether this issue was fixed? Thanks! -Andrea

I disagree. The gap between casters and non-casters in terms of CC capabilities is already disproportionately big to the point that a small tip either way won't make much a difference, and this is by design—it is not melee classes' job to CC; it is casters' job. It is only fair that casters are better at it than non-casters. That melee classes in PoE are offered a small array of CC abilities to enable for more varied tactics than just auto-attack is gravy, but in no way implies that melee classes should rely heavily on CC to win a fight. Their thing is still to win fights by withstanding more punishment than their foes and dealing out damage faster. * * That Wizards can be better than Fighters or Monks at melee through a number of incredibly powerful spells, on the other hand, contributes greatly to the gap between casters and non-casters. Basically casters can become as good at melee as non-casters, but the opposite isn't true. CC immunities are going to hurt more those classes that more heavily rely on CC—casters. Suddenly, Slicken-spam won't be an insta-win move in all fights (though it will likely stay so in most; only a specific subset of enemies is going to be immune to Prone) and you'll have to do something differently. But when my Fighter can hit for 50 damage per swing with a recovery time of 15 frames, I don't really care if my Knock Down doesn't render my enemy Prone. Besides, in 2.03 Knock Down is getting a 20% damage bonus that lands regardless of whether the enemy is immune to Prone, so it will remain a relevant ability even in those fights; Slicken won't really do much if the Prone affliction doesn't work (the same is true for a Monk's Force of Anguish, for example; I'm talking Fighter because it's the melee class I know best.) As an aside, when a Wizard can deal 50 damage to 10 enemies simultaneously with a Fireball without going through the same degree of optimization that my Fighter underwent to be able to deal the same damage to a single target, I'd say the root of the gap problem isn't really on the ability of Wizards to be better at CC. The last thing we need right now is an even easier game. More like, if only enemy A.I. could be as smart as the player... While this is true, it is also true that melee classes in PoE are generally more varied and complex than their AD&D or 3rd Ed. D&D counterparts (haven't really played 4th or 5th Ed.)

^ Could you YouTube that? Rather interested in the tactic

So if Wizards can trivialize any encounter via CC-spam, they're too powerful; but if CC immunities are introduced to make that trickier, they are even more powerful, right? Would type in red but the mobile version of the forum is scant on formatting options.

While it is true that Might is desirable on every class, the same is true for almost every stat. Sure, there will be classes (or better, character builds) that benefit more from some stats and less from others, but in this game it's hard to go wrong (this was one of the design goals.) For example, it is not true that melee is out of the question without pumping Might. You may want not to dump it, but an average Might score can still do pretty decent damage when using a two-hander with Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack, especially if you have good Dexterity and/or use Deleterious Alacrity of Motion. Paladins make great "conversation" PCs as they are quite good at tanking, and Resolve (which is the stat that unlocks the most dialog options) is a tank stat. As well, Intelligence broadens their auras' AoE, and Perception can make up for the Accuracy loss they incur when using a shield. I have to disagree Wizards are weak; quite the opposite: They are the strongest class in the game even without min/maxing (Aloth can wreak some serious havoc, and he's got jack-of-all-trades stats with an unimpressive Might score.) Of course if you want your Wizard to be optimized, you'll have to go low on Constitution and Resolve, and you need the latter for conversation options if that's something you're after (personally, I've never played a high-Resolve PC.)

Heh. Yeah, two-handers are pretty slow. That's the price you pay for the higher damage output. If you build your character correctly and use the right buffs, you can bring that down to 15 (11 frames + 4-frame delay) frames recovery while using plate armor and vulnerable attack, which leads to a remarkable DPS. Of course that means you also lose flexibility

Two-handers actually have a 45-frame recovery time on a naked character (or, to be more precise, it takes 46 frames for the bar to go from full to empty, then there's a 4-frame delay until the attack animation starts again.) Wearing plate it brings it up to 75 (plus the 4-frame delay, for a total of 79 frames before the next attack animation.)

Indeed you are. Another difference from D&D Monks is that PoE Monks have the same Accuracy as Fighters, whereas Monks in D&D (at least in 3.0 and 3.5) had a lower attack bonus than Fighters. I too was lukewarm at best towards Monks but playing a Monk in PoE is all kinds of fun.

So, I've read The Ratcatcher. Honestly, I found it a bit disappointing. Part of it has to due with its living up to its "short story" denomination—it is indeed short, perhaps too much to develop any kind of significant plot and/or relatable characters. As a result, most characters as well as the setting fall flat, and the atmosphere fails to build up to a satisfactory extent before the story is over. Likewise, a plot hook with potential is delivered too hastily, with a predictable resolution reached in steps that sometimes come too quick and leave a sour backtaste of triviality. The prose is OK, but not fantastic. I know from what she wrote for the game that Carrie Patel can do better than this (I found the in-game prose for her characters to be superior to the prose in this short story) so perhaps the time and "space" constraints didn't do justice to her skill. That said, this is in way meant to be a bash toward Carrie. I really like her writing in the game and look forward to her upcoming Aloth short story All in all, I wouldn't mind if these short stories were actually novellas, as that would give the authors more room for character and plot development. I also don't mind waiting a longer time for more and/or higher-quality content.

A high-dex Barbarian that sips a potion of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion can dual-wield battle axes with Vulnerable Attack and attack with no recovery time. The bar never appears overhead between attacks. Replace the battle axes with the Blade of the Endless Paths and you attack with almost no recovery time, but deal a ton of damage with 10 DR bypass (the downside is that you have no on-crit CC effect.)

If you are particularly keen on keeping story companions but want them customized, you can use the IE Mod to change their stats, class, and pretty much everything else. But frankly, that's more trouble than it is worth. Better to play with Obsidian companions, then roll a custom party for your second play through

^ If Steam Spy is anywhere near accurate, they passed the 500K mark a while ago when factoring in GoG and Origin sales.

Fine combines the benefits of Accurate and Damaging together, so go for Fine if you have the resources (which you probably do, since resources are hardly an issue in this game.)