CENIC

I'm excited about faction specific armor! The Huana variants we can see using the console in the beta are pretty neat. Can't wait to see Vailian and Rauataian variant armor!

Give it Deflection.

I remember someone talking about how the writing team wasn't on the same page about Watchers vs Ciphers and as a result some of the Cipher reactive dialogue ended up sounding relevant to ANY Watcher character... I feel like Might ended up being the same. It wasn't intended to be treated like Strength, but that got lost in translation somewhere in the huge team working on it, so you ended up with dialogue checks for high Might treating you like a roided up Big McLargeHuge.

I think aiming for "no bad builds" is more realistic than "no dump stats." Minmaxers are going to find a dump stat. You can't stop them. And you shouldn't. That should be a viable way to play. In the same vein, I want players like myself, who cringe at the idea of lowering any stat below 10, to have viable builds as well. I support a change to attributes like this: Strength (STR) - +3% Physical Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +1 Deflection, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +6% Area of Effect, +/-5% Inspiration/Affliction Duration (Cast and/or Received), +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will I think it's OK for bows to be affected by STR, but not firearms, crossbows, or arbalests. Those need to be tweaked so they are valuable without STR.

I love Pern and played that game so many times... glad I wasn't the only one reminded of the fire lizards when I saw the wurm pets. I will forever be sad that I didn't back Pillars at a high enough tier to get the exclusive Obsidian wurmling.

I thought it would be nice to start a thread where we can share a sentence or two about multiclass combinations we've played with in the beta (good or bad) to give others an idea of how they work out. Here's some of my favorites - I'll edit as I continue testing! Mindstalker (Rogue/Cipher) - A+ You can use Cipher powers like Eyestrike or Phantom Foes on enemies to qualify for Sneak Attack, and Rogue's Escape to get out of harm's way after dealing massive damage. Fanatic (Barbarian/Paladin) - A+ Leap into a pack of foes, Frenzy, and cleave them to pieces with Carnage while they try in vain to breach your defenses. Your Zealous modal of choice buffs any allies fighting alongside you, and you have Lay on Hands for emergency healing. Swashbuckler (Fighter/Rogue) - A+ A surprisingly good tank with enough CON, but it's high risk, high reward. The more damage you take and the more enemies you have Engaged, the more damage you can dish out. Pair with a spellcaster who can help you qualify for Sneak Attack against mobs of enemies. Stalker (Fighter/Ranger) - A+ With a tanky pet like a Bear or Antelope, this is a good frontline combo for locking down enemies in Engagement. Take defense buffs for yourself and your pet. Use Marked Prey against lone targets for extra damage. Into the Fray (or Wounding Shot if you keep a ranged weapon in your second set) can stall enemies that get around you.

Probably much more difficult and time consuming to implement though. Unless you're a software programmer/game designer and know how those systems work.

I really like the idea of Concentration being governed by Resolve. Josh should bring back Interrupt for Perception and all will be in it's proper place! That being said... I am starting to warm up to the idea of magical damage under Resolve. I even revised my attribute spread to something that will be easier to mod in (assuming someone finds a way) Strength (STR) - +3% Physical Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +1 Deflection, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +6% Area of Effect, +5% Duration, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will

Oh right. Well I might be wrong but I think these are just the basic bonuses for those styles. In Pillars you attacked faster or got more accuracy if you used two weapons or one weapon respectively even without the associated talent. It looks like I'm getting something for two-weapon or one-handed style on non-Fighter characters. Unless this is something all characters get? Hasn't that always been the case? Even in the first game? Darn... I got ahead of myself because of that update...

It looks like I'm getting something for two-weapon or one-handed style on non-Fighter characters. Unless this is something all characters get?

So, there was a small update last night, and today when I was puttering around in the beta I noticed something.

That last tweet made me feel bad for Josh We only whine because we love the game Josh! I promise!

Yeah I have. Ciphers have basically three core roles: weapon damage, spell damage, and debuff/CC. Splitting the damage bonus between Str and Resolve means that ciphers are going to have to give up -- all else being equal and depending on stat spread, -- either about 20 to 24% of their weapon damage (if they drop Might to boost Res), about the same range of spell damage (if they drop Res to boost Might), or a corresponding loss to their CC ability by reducing their spell effect durations and areas (if they drop Int to keep Res and Might both topped off). There are other options also -- for example, as you point out, they can just not use the half of their power tree that does damage -- but if they do that they're surrendering a function (spell damage) that before this change they didn't have to surrender. They do get pick which class function they surrender but they have to surrender one of them. (Where "surrender" in this context means "take a 20% hit in effectiveness") That's presuming optimal play and stat allocation elsewhere and ignoring secondary effects (i.e., if Ciphers drop Might to boost Resolve, they'll lose focus gain in a corresponding proportion, etc.) Is not being able to have 18 STR AND 18 RES going to make it impossible to complete the game as a Cipher?

Strength (STR) - +3% Melee Weapon/Bow* Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +1 Deflection, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Implement Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +6% Area of Effect, +5% Inspiration Duration (Received/Cast), +5% Affliction Duration (Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received), +2 Will *Firearms (+ crossbows/arbalests) will not be affected by Strength. Their base damage and penetration should be higher to compensate, but they take longer to fire/reload. Dumping STR is OK if you are a pure magical damage dealer. Dumping CON hurts - you lose health and deflection. Dumping DEX hurts - you lose action speed. Dumping PER hurts - you lose accuracy. Dumping INT is OK if you are a pure weapons damage dealer. Dumping RES hurts - afflictions affect you longer and your AoE is smaller. EDIT: I do see the points about Resolve being similar to Willpower and thus a good fit for magic damage. This would be easier to implement too. Strength (STR) - +3% Physical Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +1 Deflection, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +6% Area of Effect, +5% Duration, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will

They could buff the spells, that doesn't affect multiclassing much That's the other option -- just make Cipher powers have really big damage numbers. But then someone goes the other direction, makes, say, a Resolve-stacking Paladin/cipher that does take the cipher powers (Say, an Ascendant build). Use paladin powers for the inital phases of the fight, then once you've built up focus incidentally, go crazy casting overbalanced cipher endgame powers. Multi-class builds can use one class as a crutch for the other; single-class ciphers can't. What about this suggestion? Thank you. So the stumbling block seems to be a number of hybrids, as well as much of cipher and druid in part? Perhaps you could add a "specific-hybride-unique" talent that you "must" take early on in the hybrids that really got boned this way. Then cipher and druid need to get a few bones thrown at them as well. It wouldn't be that hard to fix, no? I don't see a way to fix it because anything you give single-class ciphers to "Even it out," would end up making multi-class ciphers ridiculously overpowered. For example, if you gave Soul Whip a bunch of extra weapon damage to balance out the Might losses, then melee classes start taking Cipher as a second class just for the soul whip damage boost, and just ignore the cipher damage powers. Aha! But then only have that soul whip damage ability available for single class ciphers. Or for flexibility: Make it half or something, if multi-classed. These things merely require clever tinkering.

Reposting from another thread:

I like the idea of bringing Perception and Concentration back to attributes. It helped balance out their value. I'm still tweaking my opinion on what should be done with attributes: Strength (STR) - +3% Melee Weapon/Bow Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Implement Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +6% Area of Effect, +5% Inspiration Duration (Received/Cast), +5% Affliction Duration (Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received), +2 Will Deflection should be removed from attributes and applied to armor (heavier armor has higher deflection) If it HAS to be tied to an attribute it should be CON. It would make DEX too OP. Firearms (and maybe crossbows/arbalests?) will not be affected by Strength. Their base damage and penetration should be higher to compensate, but they take longer to fire/reload. With this spread, STR/INT become dump stats unless you are a hybrid character. Characters focused solely on weapon damage/spell damage will still be able to hit higher damage values than characters who want to do both. Not sure how to solve that problem, honestly.

For me, not enougth, because, now damage is splitted. So 5 % ? Then Intellect will have to give +5% to magical damage/healing. +3% has been the standard for damage so far. Dexterity became too interresting. AS + accuracy... Especially that... ...Perception is not equilibrate. Josh want to avoid bad build. Here, if you are not ranged, perception is globally useless. Accuracy is better to perception : Better split ratio. The main reason I suggested making a stat for ranged damage is firearms. Strength can affect a bowstring but it can't affect a trigger. But, I concede your point that giving DEX both AS and Accuracy is too OP. What can be done with firearms to address this?

Is it possible to edit what attributes do?

For me, I care about if something fits into the description of what an attribute does. Deflection fits under Constitution (physically hardy enough to shake off damage), Dexterity (nimble enough to avoid damage) or armor class (heavier armor deflects more damage, depending on type of damage vs type of armor of course) but not so much Resolve, which to me stands for mental willpower.

Hybrid multi-classes are definitely going to be affected by this update... I posted this in the thread discussing Resolve, but I tweaked it after reading some other posts: Strength (STR) - +3% Melee Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +3% Ranged Weapon Damage, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +3% Spell Damage/Magical Implement Weapon Damage/Healing, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +6% Area of Effect, +5% Inspiration/Affliction Duration (Received/Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received), +2 Will I support Aramintai's idea to remove Deflection from attributes and make it armor-dependent.

Is there any way to edit these and test out different methods of reshuffling attributes? Like a save editor or something?

What about something like this? Strength (STR) - ±3% Weapon Damage, ±2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - ±5% Health, ±1 Deflection, ±2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - ±3% Action Speed, ±1 Accuracy, ±2 Reflex Perception (PER) - ±3 Interrupt, ±6% Area of Effect, ±2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - ±5% Duration, ±3 Concentration, ±2 Will Resolve (RES) - ±3% Spell Damage/Healing, ±2 Will EDIT: My bad, I forgot Interrupt and Concentration don't exist in the same way anymore... After reading Climhazzard's post: Strength (STR) - +3% Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +1 Deflection, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +6% Area of Effect, +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +3% Spell Damage/Healing, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +5% Beneficial Inspiration/Affliction Duration, -5% Hostile Inspiration/Affliction Duration, +2 Will or Strength (STR) - +3% Weapon Damage, +2 Fortitude Constitution (CON) - +5% Health, +1 Deflection, +2 Fortitude Dexterity (DEX) - +3% Action Speed, +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Perception (PER) - +6% Area of Effect, +1 Accuracy, +2 Reflex Intellect (INT) - +3% Spell Damage/Healing, +2 Will Resolve (RES) - +5% Inspiration/Affliction Duration (Received/Cast), -5% Affliction Duration (Received), +2 Will I also like Aramintai's suggestion to remove Deflection from Attributes entirely, since it makes sense under either Con or Dex.

While we're tearing apart stats... why does Intellect affect AoE size? It makes more sense for Perception to govern that. Give Accuracy to Dexterity, or have Perception and Dexterity both affect Accuracy half as much.

https://twitter.com/jesawyer/status/935573319121649664