AndreaColombo

I used to play with slow combat but not anymore. I don't mind the faster pace, and auto-pause when a party member finishes an ability ensures combat's put on hold often enough for me to plan or rethink my moves. I believe one thing we need is for enemies to act synergistically. Currently they act individually without ever combining their strengths or attacks. It never happens that one debuffs you and another purposefully attacks the debuffed defense, for example, which is something we do all the time as players. Of course some degree of reactivity would be great, but I guess that would be asking for too much at this stage. Perhaps in PoE 2 That, and I agree some encounters should have custom (and partially reactive) A.I. scripts.

Same here. But I don't see that getting fixed for this game unless they just artificially pumped enemy stats further, which wouldn't be a great solution at this point. Stats on PotD are fine imo; we need better A.I., better encounter design and perhaps bracketed scaling for the critical path.

Yeah, forgot to mention I'm also a huge aesthetics b**ch and Sanguine Plate is my favorite

Pretty sure "Stamina" should be "Endurance" Screenshot Subject being singular, the verb should be "feels" Screenshot The correct name is "Krivi" without an "s" Screenshot

Roby, any chance you could look at this for 2.03?

^ In a nutshell: I like to give my build a high score in Survival to make potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion last longer in combat. I generally crank it up to 10, and Sanguine Plate adds +2 on top of that for a total of 12. That's a 60%-longer duration for the one potion that ridiculously boosts your DPS. My build has poor Deflection and is prone to being critted. It offsets this with packing high DR and by wearing items that unleash beneficial effects upon taking a crit: Sanguine Plate and Shod-in-Faith. The -10 penalty to Deflection that comes with Frenzy doesn't really matter much on a build whose Deflection is already poor, especially when Consecrated Grounds is healing you for over 200 points of Endurance and you dish out damage like there was no tomorrow. My build also relies on the presence of a Priest that buffs it, and Priests sure aren't short on Deflection buffs: They can get you as much as +50 Deflection with but two spells, plus another +50 against specific afflictions through the various Prayer Against [...] spells. That said, Frenzy's bonus to Attack Speed doesn't stack with Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and its bonus to Might doesn't stack with that from Priest spells, so its value is diminished in fights in which you heavily rely on buffs. However, it makes a pretty decent trick in fights where you've run out of good buffs or you just can't be bothered to cast them.

Tangentially, Zahua makes a very good Juggernaut. His stats are also quite close to what KDubya's build suggests.

I guess A.I. updates and changes to encounter design are out of scope for a patch and require more manpower than smaller balance changes. I'm actually happy they keep on fine-tuning their system alongside fixing bugs; it has come a long way since release imo. EDIT: To clarify, I definitely hope TWM pt. II brings further improvements to enemy A.I. and encounter design to the table (I also hope most of it will be high-level content, as in 14+)

I'm not getting this bug in my current play through though.

I'm almost there in my play through; I'll post my save.

Sanguine Plate is a better armor for your Fighter than the White Crest (which looks amazing but really isn't special from a mechanical perspective); especially so when paired with the Shod-in-Faith boots. That's the bread and butter of my build, in fact. KDubya's Juggernaut Monk is up there too. But are you sure Wizard only comes second? Aloth has the highest number of crits and highest total damage done statistics in my party (though the Lady of Pain has the highest single-target damage and the most hits.)

SAVED GAME: link OUTPUT LOG: link REPRO STEPS: Load the attached saved game. Access the Journal and observe the Servant of Death quest has been completed to Berath's satisfaction. Face Lord Raederic and kill him. Go back to the lady Fampyr and try to talk to her. Observe she thinks Lord Raederic is still there waiting for you. EDIT: Aarik, while you're tinkering with the saved game above could you write up a ticket for the following? Apologies for not opening a new thread for it but it's the same saved game and output log, plus I'm lazy Load the attached saved game. Select the protagonist and observe she has the Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack modals available. Go to her character record screen and browse her talents. Observe that Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack are not listed. Count her talents excluding those gained through quests. Being a 14th-level character she should have 7, but only 4 are listed. Of the three missing, two are Savage Attack and Vulnerable Attack; the other is Weapon Focus: Soldier (if you manually calculate her Accuracy, you'll see the talent is actually working.) Not sure when they disappeared from the list, honestly. I've just noticed they were missing now—apparently from all of my recent saves.

While we're at it, and because I do not know where else to post news: And from Something Awful:

Agreed. Those resting bonuses are pretty good now. Josh mentioned on SA that creating new content for the stronghold is a focus for him for TWM pt. II but no details are known except that new minor/average/major adventures are being added for companions you leave there. It will be named adventures with fixed rewards.

Not sure about CC immunities; my hope is that they are selective. It doesn't make sense for you to be able to knock a dragon prone but you can probably still stun or blind it. Same with other critters who might be immune to mind control but vulnerable to knock downs etc. After playing Zahua I've come to enjoy Monks quite a bunch. I still have a penchant for Fighters, though, and I too hope there is more to their revamp than Josh wrote. Clear Out could be per encounter, for example.

... to think this happened to me tonight and I overwrote my saved game shortly before seeing that Aarik would need it If nobody else posts one, I'll load an earlier save and get to that point tomorrow.

So, Josh has been tweeting some changes from the upcoming 2.03 patch. Every single one of them fills me with joy. It is known that I am a fan of damage immunities (though I do not necessarily agree with all damage immunities in PoE; but I'm in favor of them as a concept.) Affliction immunities were long called for, and will complement damage immunities nicely. I'm all for wanton massacres but that a tiny orlan Fighter could knock a fully grown dragon prone was a tad on the cheesy, non-sense-making side. It was also about time CC stopped being overpowered; I like CC as much as the next guy, but being able to stun-lock my enemies in every encounter was possibly too much. Fighters getting a boost is something many people were asking for. I was fine with Fighters already, and my Lady of Pain build will become even more powerful. "Armored Grace", "Knock Down", and "Clear Out" are abilities I take all the time and they're about to become even better. +5 Deflection is gravy. w00t! Now to hope TMW II brings even better enemy A.I. to the table

+4 Accuracy and +20% damage when dual-wielding a hammer and sickle.

As promised. https://youtu.be/rEzj9Id9HqA OP said they like "damage and destruction" as opposed to buffing/debuffing. Of course it is not possible to buff before combat in PoE (unless you make use of the relevant option in the IE Mod, which I do not) but here I offer my alternative: Open the fight with an Amplified Wave to buy enough time for a quick buff, and keep the party together (let the enemy come to you, not the other way around) so your Priest can keep buffing while you wait for enemies to come. You'll notice that my micromanagement is rather sloppy. For example, I rarely use my Cipher's powers besides my Amplified Wave alpha strike, and I don't spam Torment's Reach with my Monk as it would be sensible to do. I micro my Wizard and Rogue semi-decently, but that's about it. On easier difficulties, you could get away with a lot more sloppiness in terms of micromanagement (in fact, I could've gotten away with worse micromanagement in this fight as clearly shown in the video, since none of my men were ever down.) On a related note, opening the fight with Amplified Wave usually buys you more time than shown in this video. Enemies in Cragholdt Bluffs are all high level and have good defenses; most enemies throughout the game stay down longer.

New YouTube video link (the one above will no longer work.)

Ahah yeah, when I liked Aarik's post, I did because I like his dedication and his providing that kind of feedback. The fact Novice's Suffering doesn't apply to Spiritshift definitely is not to my liking

It took them about 6 months to release part I after the base game shipped, so I guess 6 months after part I could be a good ballpark. That would be roughly one year after the base game's release, so around March 2016. Again, ballpark based on speculation.

Unfortunately yes.

Already reported.

^ But that would make unique items a lot more mundane. A weapon with the Speed enchantment wouldn't be half as special if I could bestow Speed on any weapon I found (for example.)