Odd Hermit

I disagree, I think it is always useless. The buff is short and insubstantial. The only racials I'd choose are - Coastal Aumaua: Prone/Stun resist - Great most of the time. +2 Might is nice too. Dwarf: Poison/Disease - it's okay, hard to gauge how many fights will involve these but there's a fair amount in the BB content. +2 Might is nice too. Wood Elf: Decent bonus for ranged characters, I like Wood Elf for Cipher. Pale Elf: Burn/Freeze resist - similar situation to Dwarf. I don't care for Per/Dex bonus though. They should get +Int as it does claim they're intelligent in the racial description. Hearth Orlan: Will be good even after it's fixed probably. Death Godlike: Good for offensive AoE casters, only race with +Int and the damage bonus vs. sub-15% endurance is nice. _____________________ In most cases I'd take a single extra attribute over any racial bonus. The main exception is Aumaua, I love the Prone/Stun resist for front-line fighters.

Just because they were overpowered doesn't mean the concept of such a character is bad if given sensible limitations. The default Ranger class on its own was too weak, a Ranger with full Druid/Cleric spells was overpowered. Some happy medium could be found. Keep in mind PoE doesn't have pre-buffing which was a big part of what made "Cleric/Druid-Zilla" builds overpowered.

so, you wanna make'em more like d&d rangers. *shrug* that is okie dokie. personally, we tend to agree with mr.monocle at this point. dump 'em. complete opposite o' hermit, we see fixing ranger either by making 'em a ranged weapon damage dealing class without the unnecessary ranger trappings, or cutting 'em out o' the game complete. in our estimation, animal companions and stealth and outdoor affinity is not gonna make rangers better. get rid o' the ranger crap from the crappy ranger, or get rid o' the ranger. 'course it is too late for our suggestion, so at best we is gonna get half-measures that make rangers less horrible. HA! Good Fun! I know Rangers sucked in most implementations of DnD, but think Cleric/Ranger in 2e(IWD/BG2) minus the cleric weapon restrictions. Cleric/Rangers were awesome. I also like the old 1h/no shield style, but I wouldn't try to enforce that since it seems they want classes to have freedom in weapon set-up. IWD funnily enough had a half-arsed method of simulating dual wield by giving them an extra attack with a one handed weapon and I kind of liked this better than actual dual wielding.

At least in the current build, they seem to be the weakest class by a fair margin. I would also say they're a bit boring. I'm curious how other backers would like to see the class changed. My own preferences would lean toward giving them some magic and more stealth focus, along with making their animal companions more durable - possibly benefiting from/scaling with the ranger's gear, and having their own talent trees could help. They could also use some bonus to traps. One spell/ability I'd like to see come back is something like camouflage, a stealth bonus for the whole party for having a ranger in the group. Maybe outdoors only. Probably implemented as an aura around the ranger. Another is healing. There aren't many health restoration abilities and the few talents that offer it are weak and almost a non-consideration. Rangers seem like a fitting class for healing wounds outside of combat, being rugged wilderness survival-savvy sorts. Nothing dramatic, perhaps 3 per rest 25% health restoration on friendly target, keeps you going a bit longer. As for traps, that's a tough one to implement with mechanics also covering lockpicking and rangers don't have a bonus to it. I'd say perhaps for the express purpose of trap setting, give the ranger a bonus equal to say, having +4 mechanics. Your ranger won't be your lockpicker but having a second character able to set strong traps could be nice on harder difficulties. As for magic I'd keep it very simple, some support/debuff removal(poison/sickness/disease), crowd control(they have binding roots but get it very late and it's kind of weak), and a bit of stam regen. I'd also give a bonus for characters near their animal companion. "_Animal_'s Presence" for example. DT bonus for bear, defense bonuses for antelope, +might and stam regen for boar, flanking bonuses for wolf(pack-style). Something like that anyway. Some stronger animal abilities would be nice too. Wolf should have a howl that summons wolf spirits to aid it in combat, for example(synergy with its flanking bonus!). Stag could have a super-high damage charging ability. Bear could get some kind of rage giving bonus damage and making it immune to will-targeting attacks. I'm just throwing ideas out here. Rangers represent, at least to me, a more difficult style of character to make work in a CRPG without just going very cliche and making them the archer class. They're very "out-of-combat" oriented with their skill sets and it's hard to make that style of stealth/survival feel interesting and matter in a CRPG focused more around direct combat. I hope they manage to pull it off by release.

I've tried it, and no they are definitely not. They put out crazy damage but they can't take much themselves. You can sort of kite around with Heart of the Storm against some enemies, but to cast most of their spells they have to stand still which = getting mobbed and dying. Even if fairly defensively build. I imagine it could be doable with a druid but you'd be doing a lot of reloading and experimenting. And a lot of resting. Chanter is easily the best because they're super mobile and have infinite summons as long as they keep in combat. Thing is though, we start @ level 4 in the beta, facing groups of enemies around that level. Maybe more classes could do it if given time to gain a bigger level advantage via extra XP. Though there is a cap and you also don't gain nearly as much extra XP as in IE games if you go solo. It's like +25% XP.

But engagement also affects flanking, no? A fighter w/engage limit of three can have 3 targets on him w/out being flanked it seems. Maybe the -10 deflection isn't worth worrying about?

Forgot about that one, although I didn't die to it just stuck watching health bars go down until I gave up.

Early in my experience, the beetles got me pretty hard the first game. I managed to pull two groups at once and handled it...poorly. Next, is traps, sometimes due to bad pathing. Then.. traps again due to attempting to lure enemies into them and having a character attack in response to a ranged attack and run across a floor trap. The spiders got me once, due to over-pulling again and having my casters spam-interrupted. Also died to the Skaen boss dude. My druid opened the fight with Ice Storm, which did no damage and I'm not sure why. Two characters got KOed in short order. Then things got crazy, and buggy, and I ended up with my tank surviving but a seemingly infinite health sentry harassing him. It was all very confusing. Then there's just trying weird solo or duo parties and getting wrecked trying stupid things. So far only played hard difficulty.

Agree with this. I think when designing buffs some consideration has to go into making them situational enough that they're not an "always cast this before anything" sort of buff. All the cat's grace, bull's strength, etc. are examples of buffs that amount to nothing but tedium: you used them, they lasted forever, it was a chore to apply them. However, pre-buffing with something like a Flame Blade spell after scouting out an area with some Trolls... well, that's fine and tactical and all good. It's similar to figuring you should be using detect in an area that just looks "trappy". Then there's prioritizing. If you can just take all the good buffs and stack them on eachother, that's dull. If it's a choice between a few that substantially alter your character in some way, that's more interesting.

I've been doing a 4 man party today: Fighter: Uber tanked w/War Hammer/Shield Fighter: 2h, still decently tanky Chanter: Max int/might, decent resolve for some melee presence Druid: Elemental talents, maxed might/int (Dwarf from Old Vailia = 20 might, 19 int) Strategy for taking out lots of enemies w/out resting: Step 1: Pull some enemies. Step 2: Leave 1 enemy alive. Step 3: Summon a phantom with your chanter. Send it out to pull more enemies. Step 4: Druid casts returning storm. Step 5: Clear a comfortable amount of enemies, summon a new phantom(clear engagements) and pull more into your druid's storm. Rinse repeat. Phantom takes a pretty good beating and absorbs some of the more dangerous stuff like Adra Beetle lightning. It's quite effective for clearing beetles / spiders early on, allowing me to get to the Ogre quickly and level up w/4 people, then fill the party out having an overall higher level party than if I'd started w/6 hired adventurers, making up for them being a level behind the starting BB characters.

This - From this page https://gamezeit.wordpress.com/2015/03/05/everything-you-need-to-know-about-obsidians-pillars-of-eternity/#more-941 Which is from this month. Anyone know if it's an old screenshot being used? I don't recall the attributes being like this in any of the builds I've played but I haven't played all of them. Penetration on perception seems like it could be their answer to the current DT issues. Accuracy on dex but no speed modifier could be interesting. All of the % #s are also much higher.

I like padded armor since it has higher DT vs. pierce [8] than its base, and if you're getting shot at range it's probably piercing.

I'm thinking that what could be done is the Bonus Spell talents could be per-encounter. They're pretty weak otherwise and very hard to justify taking over talents that make spells or weapons more effective.

If only monk got bonuses to weapons instead of puny fists. I realize they can use weapons and it's a good point with Torment's Reach, but I stand by my other reasons for not using them. What really makes it hard to take Monk or Paladin though is their engagement limit. Fighters get +2 along with +5 deflect in a single modal that they can buff further. Other melee have to spend a talent on a single +1 and it doesn't really cut it for me. My current run through is going super-smoothly w/two fighters in front using defender modal. I opted for more offensive stats on the second one and he wrecks things with a 2h while still being pretty durable. I'm thinking I could double up on that approach. My shield fighter is currently at what seems to be deflection cap or something, I've got 92 and a +10 ring but the ring won't put him over 100. I think skipping shield might be the way to go and just having two more offensive tankers.

Dunno how you made that mistake, but all it does is increase your movement speed in combat. It doesn't make you act any faster. Well barnacles, that goes off my list of things to use then. I don't really see the benefits of run speed alone, most combat you've got a formation you stay in/get locked into engagements. Yeah, some of the abilities are just redundant w/imbalanced costs. I rarely feel starved for focus though. Also, one thing worth noting is that not all enemy defenses are the same, so sometimes it pays off using an alternative debuff that targets a different defense. Sometimes it's better to use a less powerful and/or more costly debuff it targets the lowest defense of an enemy. They're a class I haven't played as much as the others since it's not one of the starter BB characters but they've grown on me. I do really like having on-demand CCs that aren't on a per-day basis. I take much less minor damage from smaller encounters due to mine.

This is why Priest of Magran with Arquebus is optimal. Many of the deities only get melee weapons, but you don't want your priest in melee. I wish one got Crossbow or Arbalest. Berath is my favorite thematically but gets junk.

This makes me think you're sleeping on monks a wee bit, at least by mid levels. Their tricks sadly take a bit longer to come online than fighters, but Stunning Blow doesn't require wounds and is rather comparable to Knock Down and Force of Anguish is just plain spicy. Seriously man, dat duration. And somewhat ironically, I actually think it's in melee heavy groups that monks lose a bit of their shine, since as tanks their best trick is retaliating with Force of Anguish to take the poor dumb bastard who hit them out of the fight for 10+ seconds. As a lead tank or replacement for a second fighter they're pretty sweet but as a third tank they're pretty meh. Unarmed attacks are just weak(no enchants), and monks aren't great tanks. Force of Anguish is good, but not good enough for me to give the class a spot. They are a decent second tank just for proning stuff, if I swapped them into the party I'd have the chanter be the third tank rather than second.

I believe the +move speed is equal to the benefits of dexterity - you do everything faster, not just run faster. I haven't done the math/testing to say for sure though. It's a hard one to gauge. Eyestrike is good, I forgot to mention that one. Whisper of Treason and Puppet Master serve different purpose - Whisper debuffs the enemy, making it easy for other enemies to kill it but weak while fighting for you. Sometimes it's better to get it killed. Puppet Master gives you a full alliance flip without debuffs, so it's better at actually helping you kill stuff. Psychovampiric Shield you're right about now that I read into it. I'd been using at as an occasional -deflection against targets but Eyestrike is better for that. I skipped Thick Grew Their Tongues because on current build interrupts are broken and I wanted to minimize abuse of that. Soft Winds/Dull the Edge are what I use when I've got Chanter in Melee, I use Wengridh and Sure-handed Ila when I just need my one tank and the chanter is hanging back with my casters shooting things. Resolve is hard to judge w/broken interrupts as well, but dex is broken too so... I just kinda filled it in after Might/Int for my casters.

It's a cipher thing, a cipher would get less focus(what cipher generate by landing hits to use their powers) per hit while under this effect.

Here's what I figure is my ideal party. Subject to change obviously, but as of 435 - TANK: Fighter. Defender Modal. Weapon and Shield style w/War Hammer+Large Shield. Basically, choosing whatever talents are best for deflection. Maxed Per/Res/Con at cost of some might/dex/int. Takes Knock Down for saving others from engagement on occasion. Could take two of this character if I wanted to be super safe(I might). Off-tank/Support: Chanter. Mid-high might/int/per/res. Uses a big 2h in melee when needing a second melee. Chants for range attack speed and move speed, pierce/slash resist, OR endurance drain depending on situation. Uses Thrice Was She Wronged as much as possible, of course. All-rounder/Caster: Druid. Max Int and Might with mid Perception/Res at cost of some Dex/Con. Takes Secrets of Rime and Heart of the Storm. Nukes stuff, occasionally support/buffs/heals, fights in melee when needed. Heal/buff bot: Priest. Same attribute approach as Druid. All talents into Arbalest/Arquebus boosting stuff. Wrecks stuff with a ranged weapon with not casting, since I don't always need priest buffs or heals. Damage/CC: Cipher. Same attribute approach as Druid. Takes Biting/Draining Whip then focuses on ranged weapon talents(Blunderbuss once I've got it) Damage/CC: A second Cipher or Druid. - If you didn't take two fighters. _____________________________ All characters use Arbalest, Crossbow, Blunderbuss(Cipher) or Arquebus depending on availability, and other than the tank only entering melee when forced. All characters have decent stealth levels. I often chunk something at the beginning of combat, sometimes even get to gib and re-stealth. I skipped Hearth Orlan's cause they're borked but it would be ideal. I'm a little disappointed in racials overall, with only a few feeling substantial for general combat - many are just way too situational. Some key early spells: Priest: Blessing, Armor of Faith, Divine Mark, Pillar of Faith, Circle of Protection Druid: Tanglefoot, Icy Wind, Blizzard, Returning Storm, Beetle Shell Cipher: Soul Shock, Whisper of Treason, Mind Wave, Mental Binding, Psychovampiric Shield, Puppet Master Many fights can be done without much casting from Druid or Priest. Chanter and Cipher pull more weight on easier fights - along with a super high deflection and durable tank of course. Druid and Priest are the big guns for tougher fights, adding a ton of survivability to the group and/or tank and of course Druid is the king of large AoE control and damage. ______________________ So here's where I ramble about various balance things - I am really enjoying the party dynamic overall as I continue to develop more nuanced understanding of the game mechanics and individual abilities. I think it's a better overall combat experience than the old IE games based on what we have access to at least, if forgiving some of the buggy/broken parts of the beta. But I wish more classes felt like a valid choice, at least for a "power-gamer" like myself(I hate the term - I like roleplay elements, but I also just like optimizing things and can't help it!) Barbarians have no place in melee with Fighter/Chanter IMO - they're too gimmicky and one dimensional. They have lackluster class ability options some which are net negatives(I'd never use Frenzy). Paladins can't engage enough targets to be a main tanker from my experiences and also lack good active abilities and are too limited at low level, while Chanter has superior passive buffing on top of strong active abilities making it a better second-melee choice. --- I've only used Goldpact, perhaps the other Paladin Orders have some better options. Monk could have some value in more melee-heavy parties, and is pretty strong, I just find it better to avoid melee with a strong distance/control approach. Rogue is a bit questionable at the moment - can certainly put out damage but I can't justify the fragility and as a ranged class it doesn't offer as much utility as Ciphers. A Cipher boosts damage output substantially for your whole party while putting out a good amount of its own. Wizard is too fragile, and Cipher/Druid cover everything it brings to the table better together. Ranger is just straight up bad. Some notes: Constitution sucks for lower Stam/Health classes because it's % based. You can't really save Wizard's durability by giving him Constitution since you're getting a % of already low endurance. This is why I don't even both putting anything in it for non-melee classes, or even dropping it below base. Putting points in might makes up fortitude loss as well. Deflection is just more reliable and superior for survivability, and Resolve has the benefit of resisting interrupts which can be more important than a bit more/less health/stam. High damage/DT penetration > everything else. Slashing sucks, piercing rules. This isn't news on this forum though. Many buffs, leaving a decent chunk of spells rather useless. This plagues the Wizard class the most, but there are some pretty weak spells in the other caster-y classes' arsenals as well. Chants work, spending spells per day trying to buff yourself up mid-combat doesn't. There are some exceptions most of which belong to the priest. Wizard's are mostly caster only, making them pretty terrible. Just can't justify spending several spells of your limited spells/day buffing yourself, only to have them gone after what may only be a single short encounter. Caster longevity could use a small buff, I think they should start to get per encounter spells at reasonable levels. I'd say something like: Level 3: 1 level 1 spell per encounter Level 5: 2 level 1 spells per encounter Level 7: 2 level 1 spells, 1 level 2 spell per encounter Etc. Just so that my Druid isn't so bored when clearing easier stuff that aren't worth spending spells/day on. I guess maybe druid was supposed to use shapeshifting for that but eh... heh. It's hard to really conserve spells without this, and in a less power-gamed party it'd be annoying. I also feel like, if I wanted to really play "hardcore" and go for no-deaths, I'd open every fight with tanglefoot - having once per encounter tanglefoot would be so nice. It prevents getting rushed and there are many fights where it's the difference between coming out unscathed vs. getting totally mobbed to death. (I've quicksave/quickloaded some fights to try different strategies). Wizards do bring some alternatives but you know how I feel about wizards at this point. AI has some issues. I can often snipe things from stealth, back out of view, and take individual targets off from a group 1 by 1 with no retaliation. Sometimes I can even pull a group and back up until only one enemy is still coming at my party and the rest have "rubber banded" back into whatever zone they're limited to. This may be abuse, but many encounters really just feel like part of their deal is cautiously pulling them in more limited numbers - such as the spiders which can swarm in large numbers. Many classes may not be durable enough for odd-party compositions to really work or at least work well. The only classes I trust in melee right now are: Fighter, Chanter, Paladin, Monk. Melee Rogues, Ciphers, Wizards, Priests I don't trust as things can go bad for them fast. Trying to build them for it also substantially nerfs the rest of their abilities since you can't afford talents more geared toward offense or casting/support if you're also trying to give them reasonable staying power in melee.

Honestly, high DT armors and high DTpenetration/piercing weapons in the current beta build are just the way to go. So far my easiest run through the game is a party using mostly arbalests/guns and heavy armors along with a super high deflection tank. Hide isn't really high DT, but you could get away with it as your barbarian isn't your tank - which he shouldn't be because barbs make sucky tanks. As a flanker you'd be fine, at least judging by the limited backer beta content. Your attribute plan is fine. I'd put a decent amount into perception too, for +deflection and interrupt. Personally my skill priorities are: 1 high-ish lore character 1 very high mechanics character 1 high-ish athletics character 1 high-ish survival character - optional +Stealth on everyone so I can sneak attack with my heavy hitting ranged weapons. I put the highest stealth on my two front tanky characters as they're closest to enemies - plus if I want to scout, better to pull with my most durable characters if I get spotted. I don't currently have a place for a barbarian in my "ultimate party" but hopefully by release they'll be better. Right now they're hard to gauge since interrupt is bugged which is heavily favorable for the class. I think the problem for me with barbs is that AoE melee is just <<< AoE place-able/ranged spells.

Because... it isn't. You can do better damage in melee outside of it, and your casting is more limited while shapeshifted(increased recovery time, so longer time between castings). You can't enchant your bear's claws to be anywhere near as good as melee weapons wielded in human(oid) form. Basically entering into a spiritshift is just making yourself weaker at everything, at the cost of an action.

Really? I don't think so. All indications are that this game is not Pokemon. Things are rarely Super Effective. The good weapon and style combinations tend to be at least viable against everything and the bad ones tend to be sad against most everything. All I can gather from your post is that you perhaps think it's worthwhile to encourage groups to try and have full pierce/slash/crush coverage be present in the overall group makeup but ultimately I'm not sure I'd even call that sort of strategic decision a real change in play style. It's certainly less marked than say, re-arranging your spell load out. There's also man catchers, nets and bolas. However, tacking on all-new functionality is likely a pipe dream when the game's coming out in 22 days. If the situation improves at all within the next few patches my money is on solutions that leverage simple math fixes to at least bootstrap everyone into the comfortably viable range. And, as it happens, the D&D feats and weapon bonuses you're talking about actually did end up taking an lot of flak and there's been a steady movement towards decoupling abilities from weapon choice in Dungeons and Dragons ever since. That's because such things up being derided as feat or equipment taxes that were necessary to make various builds or tactics work at all. You only had so much gold, feats, equipment and actions to spend on maximizing various bonuses so the more conditions you had to meet to effectively bull rush or disarm people the further you got from having the resources to branch out into other tactics. In the end people really didn't like being locked into Combat Expertise, Exotic Weapon Focus and an expensive Guisarme or a Spiked Chain just for the privilege of being able to trip people. Needing a golf bag of weapons to partake in basic combat maneuvers is sort of a raw deal when the casters can friggin' set people on fire with their minds. In PoE they can easily avoid that pitfall though. You've got styles and groups of weapons, rather than being too "married" to a single individual weapon type.

I got a ring of +10 Deflection. My tank has 99 deflection at the moment.

In DnD and some DnD based games there were "feats" that could grant usable abilities for any class(disarm and knockdown for example) and nobody seemed to mind. I don't see the problem with some weapons getting abilities that are sensible for the size/shape/weight/etc. Some weapons historically had secondary purposes besides just damage output. For example, just copy/pasting from wikipedia: Much more interesting than just a DPS stick. Weapons being merely an aesthetic thing just seems boring to me. I like functional differences.