Ganrich

So, everyone knows these two abilities are not very good. Why? Low damage, no penetration, etc. It has been discussed, and nothing has changed. Well, with patch 1.1 on PotD we now have enemies with higher AR. So, even enemies with couple points or more of AR to fire almost negate these abilities. They will not do any damage whatsoever. First let's look at Dragon Thrashed. Once every 3 seconds you do 4 Burn damage, and once every 6 seconds you do 4 Slash Damage. However, because both have such small damage amounts, and no bonus pen you tend to do no damage. So, you don't have any reason to select Dragon Thrashed when you have Soft Winds. Period. Since Soft Winds does Raw damage it will always do damage, but only in really rare circumstances will DT actually do equal or more damage. Even if it does more damage... Soft Winds gives health back to the caster. So, I would say Soft Winds is always the better option. You will do about 3 damage (depends on might and level) and heal for about the same. So many enemies have some burn AR and that means DT cannot do equivalent damage to a level 1 phrase even if you don't count Soft Winds healing factor. Similar issues with Brand Enemy. The damage amounts are equal to DT's burn damage. 4 damage every 3 seconds. However, once again since so many enemies have AR vs burn you end up doing no damage or so little it doesn't matter. Once again no bonus Pen. Why take this vs Sworn Rival which does no damage but gives Zeal back when the target dies? Your guess is as good as mine. At least Paladin's have access to Scion of Flame to get some Pen, but I have been testing it the past few hours and 1 pen doesn't help much at all with this new patch. You still do no damage in many encounters. The low damage values + no bonus Pen + the buffs to AR in 1.1 = two absolutely useless talents. Prior to 1.1 they at least did some damage, but were pretty bad then. Solutions: 1) So, I think an easy fix is to up the damage values of these abilities. They probably need this regardless of what else you do to these abilities. 8-12 damage every 6 seconds in 4 point increments is useless given the AR system, and even if they bypassed AR wouldn't be the end all be all. Although if they did bypass AR they would be functional in their current iterations but not good by any stretch. 2) Casters get Pen for spells that scales with Power Level. Perhaps it would be wise for these abilities to do the same. Around level 10 a Wizard will have something like 7.8 pen for their spells. It would probably be wise to have this for both of these abilities. I am surprised by how little pen these things get, and it isn't like you can hover the damage when you do no damage. So it is admittedly hard to see what is going on. 3) Add a burn AR reduction Debuff to both of these abilities. Although, I don't know if they should stack if this is the way they go. Although, Chanters only have Mith Fyr, DT, and the heal with burn upgrade. However, if they stacked I would worry about the Paladin side of the Herald with Sacred Immolation. Also, if they stacked you could just bring a Burn focused Caster along with your Herald and it might be a bit much. I would recommend a change to Scion of Flame (and the similar talents for other elements), but it would throw off the hard hitting fire spells from Priests, Wizards, Druids, Ciphers, etc. It also wouldn't help DT as Chanters don't get access to the elemental +1 Penetration talents. Which I think is stupid in and of itself. Chanters have access to Burn, Frost, and Shock elements. I can't figure out why they don't have at least the 3 talents to boost the Pen of those abilities. In the end, I think either increasing the Damage or adding some built in Pen to the abilities is the best way to go. Or a combination of the 2. I was pretty happy initially to see that DT got nerfed from PoE, but this is just silly. So, any thoughts? Something has to be done to these or else they should be removed. Because, more so than prior to this patch (launch and beta included), these abilities have zero purpose other than wasted talent points. They weren't great before, but they did something. Now they don't in a lot of encounters. Hopefully some of you have some thoughts on this, or some thoughts that haven't been discussed ad infinitum.

It was in the patch notes that they fixed it. I am about to test it personally. I will edit it in this post in a moment. EDIT: It is not fixed for me. Once I respec I lose both the point I invested in Sworn Enemy and the point for chanter phrase Soft Winds on my Herald. So, I have Hel-Hyraf and FoD, but nothing else.

Did an edit on Harbinger of Berath build to make it more suitable for the current patch (1.1) with the removal of Brilliant from Set to Their Purpose. Just read the edit at the bottom of the page if interested. Basically just replaced both talents for Set to Their Purpose and the talent for Her Courage as to get a fully upgraded Reny Daret/Ben Fidel and the upgrade to Seven Nights. Also, without Brilliant it makes DoC breastplate an option, but I still find Reckless Brig better for durability purposes when bloodied. So, your choice is more Guile or easier to stay in the Bloodied pocket.

Troubadour/Paladin (Herald) and Troubadour/Rogue (Harbinger) are both solid selections. The former can be really resistant to all forms of attacks, have a plethora of buffs, heal, or do solid damage. It also can be made into a bit of an pbAoE monster with the right build. The latter gets really good damage, good debuffing, and so on. Both are solid strikers with a mix of buffing/debuffing. It is better vs single targets, but hits so hard you can really take out enemies quickly.

I'd bump Street Fighter up on that list. It's harder to stay bloodied in the new PotD, but it isnt hard at all to remain flanked. So, your still attacking fast, doing 50% extra on sneak attack, and now add in that extra damage on rogue Active and you are hitting really hard. Plus, its a good class for Riposte build and stack deflection, and it can punish disengagement like no other rogue. Maybe there is some negatives that I am not seeing, though.

Yeah, Old City has the worm boss... Who is pretty nasty now. The worms in general arent slouches in general. Id also say the fight where you pick up Min's Fortune and the Rotghasts spawn is pretty rough. You just get swarmed by those things. There are some great fights in the game now.

Can't say on Veteran. I havent tried Veteran on the new patch. PotD will make you reload a few times before you leave the starter island. Especially if you havent played it beforr. There are some ruthless battles on PotD that you can walk into. Edit: just make sure you get the beta patch from steam for the updated difficulty patch. It is really stable. So no worries there.

This. I agree that the idea of DoTing the enemy and hiding is kind of silly. Everyone was freaking out about it, though. Now, those abilities have upfront damage bonuses to boot. So, even though I think backstab takes more work to succeed I think I understand this more. Now DoTs arent breaking stealth, or not as much anyway. You get damage bonuses on all the Actives, plus sneak bonus, plus backstab bonus, and you can DoT and hide. That is a lot of bonus damage even if they shaved some off of backstab. I'd have preferred DoTs kept breaking stealth, and rogues had to chose between stealth and DoTs. However, now everyone is going to ignore all upgrades without DoTs except maybe Confounding Blind, and that is only because CB can cause an enemy's deflection to hit the floor fast when combined with some focus fire. Everyone will get Arterial Strike, Pernicious Cloud, etc use them and stealth away. Before you could chose between burst and sustain damage. Now it might be muddled. I dunno. I see both sides of this, and am of two minds about it. I think it is a damned if you do, but damned if you dont scenario.

Yeah, I'm just guessing at their mentality. I don't necessarily agree with it. It's an odd one to nerf.

I'm guessing because they buffed a lot of the Rogue's active abilities thus increasing sustain damage. So, they decreased burst to balance it out. The class as a whole is much better for it imho.

1) It has been good on my machine. Still hitching after a bit of playing. So, you may have to reboot the game, periodically. Every few hours or so. 2) It seems to be working as best as I can tell. 3) Some sections are harder. Some are not. It is definitely a work in progress. It will probably take a good few patches to get it completely up to snuff.

I think Brilliant needs to change all together. Why? Look at the level 9 Invocation His Heart Did Fill With the Light of the Dawn. AoE cone is the same as Set to Their Purpose, and it gives one resource back to those it hits plus the Chanter. So, Set to Their Purpose with Brilliant, as a level 7 Invocation, does what a level 9 Invocation does, but better. So, if they were to retain what Brilliant did, but reduce its frequency then they would have to also do something new for His Heart. I honestly think it is more balanced to completely change Brilliant, and leave His Heart as is. The Chanter can still slowly replenish resources to his team at a large cost of phrases, but not cause an AoE resource regen passively that can be maintained 100% of the time with a smaller cost. What would I do with Brilliant? I have no idea. Perhaps something like Increase all positive durations on targets affected by x%. Perhaps, something that allows targets to use Empower a second time in combat (this would have to be limited to once per combat in and of itself). Or, maybe, they need to do what they do with Each Kill Fed his Fury, and add something else to the upgrade. Each Kill makes it so "each kill" (hyuck hyuck) increases its own duration. Another idea could be that any companion that dies while retaining the buff Set to Their Purpose gives the chanter a phrase. Or something like that. Either way, Brilliant needed to go. However, I agree rolling it all the way back to smart wasn't good. It should at least be Acute. At least give the +1 power level. As of now the upgrade isn't very useful. @dunehunter - They really need to sort out the balance of Shared Flames vs Eternal Devotion. It is stupid that Shared Flames gives your team a better buff than Eternal Devotion gives you. At least toss Eternal Devotion a Flame Shield on top of the extra lash, or something. As good as it is... I kind of don't think Mith Fyr and Shared Flames should stack, but they seem to want everything to stack. So... I don't have a clue.

Eh, I came back with Aloth, and I got it. Bum rushed the 3 to the South. Used Aloth to kill the caster outright with an Empowered Necrotic Lance, kept Xoti in the middle with an Xbow healing and Dire Blessing peeps, Eder worked his way toward the porch chucking grenades, and I tangoed with the 3 to the south with my Kind Wayfarer/Troubadour. I am no sneaker. They want a fight... they get a fight. One more issue with this encounter IMHO. Its difficulty is a bit inflated by the fact that most of the enemies are Rogues or Rogue MCs, and that means everyone in your party likely has an affliction on them. This means you will be eating +40% damage in piercing damage. Not much you can do at low level when you are eating 30ish damage, or more, from enemy fire. However, it makes logical sense that the looters are rogues, but... it doesn't make things more engaging mechanically IMHO. Make sure you have your Suppress Affliction ready to go. I will say I am pretty happy with PotD now in the early game. I really like that Empower is more available, and IMHO much more important. Now that some of the stats have been boosted you tend to whiff more, and that means you can use it to get some more resources back. It adds a little of that resource management from PoE1 back in, and sometimes you need to dump a big spell to get things done. However, I think most times (at least in the early game) you are better off replenishing your resources. All in all I would say this is what I want from the game. Obsidian needs to continue down this path IMHO.

All part of Obsidian's clever scheme to convince us that the Island Aumaua racial bonus is worthwhile. LOL. I actually said to myself, "I refuse to give in and spec Island Aumaua."

I think the only issue with Gorecci Street is that there are 3-4 ranged enemies, and upon getting there you have absolutely no protection vs Piercing damage. So, those ranged guys hit really hard. It also doesn't help that they are spread out, the map is incredibly open, and the water makes mobility hard for any class but ranged characters and Rogues. With all that going on there isn't much you can do. Also, you have no resources to craft anything to help you. So, I am going to skip it, and return later. I do agree it is worse than the Bear Cave just because of the number of enemies you have to contend with, how spread out they are, how slowly you move, how little you have in consumables, and how much piercing they bring to the table. At least this is my impression of it.

When they just lost the brilliant inspiration and sacred immolation hasn't got its fix... Brilliant actually wasn't that necerssary on Herald because you only use 1 Zeal during Fights- for FOD since Sworn Rival cost is refunded on kill so it costs 0 as you kill what you "sworned" before casting it again. And you can still empower yourself and get some resources back. Alll you do on Herald really is Sworn Rival- FOD spam. You just add to that Summons, Healing Chants and offensive invocations and nothing really changes for Herald. And Sacred can still be used by Shieldbearer because of 10 sec immortality + Nemnok Cloak with 15 sec immortality + BtDD if you have priest in party. Now on the other hand War Caller is super nerfed with Brilliant lost- Disc. Strikes - cost 1, Vig. Defenses- 2, Unbending -3, Charge - 2. Herald is now pretty much strongest solo melee multiclass when we take into consideration- damage, defenses, self heals and add on top of that summons and heavy CC (paralyze, charm). Yeah, Virtuous Triumph would do as a fair replacement for Brilliant with the right build I think anyways. If you are using AoE enough it will replenish your Zeal. Things like Soft Winds net more kills than you realize. If they make Dragon Thrashed and/or Brand Enemy a bit better that would net some good synergy I'd wager. Being able to dot enemies that are on the outskirts and the like. Albeit would come pretty late in the game, but respec is working now apparently (haven't tested myself, but red about it being fixed on reddit. So, don't take it as fact.) so it isn't a big deal. That is if you were trying to use more than FoD, LoH, and Sworn Rival. Using a better version of DT or Brand Enemy, Soft Winds, or a Damage Invocation in conjunction with Inspiring Beacon might further assist in netting those kills, and keep the Zeal flowing. It would work more burstily than Brilliant did. You would likely dump most of your Zeal, and then drop a hard hitting Seven Nights or whatever damage Invocation you have specced, and replenish Zeal. Also, you get 3 Empower points at level 3 now with the patch. So, resource costs are a little less important than they were before this patch anyway.

Seems to be the case. You use to get 1 Empower point at level 3, I think. Now you get 3 points at level 3.

Good lord. They really stacked the enemies on Gorecci Street. Not complaining, but I was surprised by it.

Well, if you wanted to use Sacred, all you had to do was to take Shieldbearer for that 10 second of unkillable for when you use Sacred + Nemnok Cloak for BtDD spell and 15 sec unkillable and you can just go to town. However I am still amazed they didn't fix Sacred Immolation at all.... It's still stupid 43 raw self dmg which is just stupid. It only required 1 min work to edit numbers. Seriously Obsidian.... Fortunetely I have fixed that myself and my next solo on 1.1 will be Herald again but this time with Sacred Immolation + Seven Night AOE combo just for that Song of Ice and Fire :D :D Agreed. Other than Deep Faith's scaling Pally only needed a nerf to their self damage from Sacred Immolation. It is pretty stupid that it is a suicide button on all but one Pally Sub. It reminds me of some of those jokes in spy/action movies "Whatever you do... Don't push the red button." Why give us a red button Obsidian? It should be risky, but not a death sentence without an ability that gives immunity to death.

No, it was since launch. im pretty sure i saw it the other way around before this patch? could be wrong No, it was definitely a change that came with launch. It was only really discussed here that I saw. No official mentions of it. Easy to miss.

Yeah, Seven Nights is the best Damage Invocation, and White Worms isn't shabby either. Thrice was she Wronged is ok just because of its short cast time. This patch has me restarting my Herald play through. Mostly because of how easy it was prior to the patch, and the difficulty changes will make doing it again worth while. I was only level 9 anyhow. However, the changes have made me revisit whether I want a pure fire build, or not. As without Set to Their Purpose... Seven Nights looks really tempting. I think it, plus Sacred Immolation would be silly. If you build to survive SI damage that is. Perhaps instead of Healing through Fire the theme should be a Song of Ice and Fire.

I guess it is my old MMO questing habit of "grab every quest I can at this hub, go do all those quests, return and get reward" that keeps me from traveling too much. I have all but one bounty for the first guy in the WIld Mare done by the time I hit Neketaka, for instance. I literally just show up and turn in bounties. This is because almost all his bounties are en route to Neketaka from Maje save the one on the Neketaka main island. Then I clear district by district of Neketaka of quests that don't require leaving the city before talking to the Queen. So, from an RP standpoint, I don't even know where Eothas is at that point and since most of that stuff is local it only takes a few in game days. Once I get the mission to Hosongo I clear stuff in that area, do Hosongo, return to queen, and hit a different small town depending on factions and the like. This gives me plenty of time from an RP standpoint. So, perhaps I could be accused of gaming it a bit via old gaming habits. However, I look at my deviations on my way to Neketaka as looking for signs that Eothas may have passed through there. Similarly, I look at Hosongo/Maw distractions as trying to cut Eothas off. It would be better if they had a few more main quest missions, and Eothas was a little more all over the map for whatever reason. That way, you can easily justify exploring the area much easier. The only areas I think are problematic are the southern and Eastern sections of the map, and maybe the North West. Either way, I do not think the urgency is too bad, but to each their own.

Anyone know if they fixed the Respec bug? EDIT: NM, seems they fixed it. Horay!

I just figured Eothas' travel time takes forever. He is a giant statue that is walking on the ocean floor. It isnt likely flat terrain on the ocean bottom, and he is moving through water. Thus he is moving slowly because of physics, he may need to meander to get from point A to B because of terrain, and he isnt running on full batteries anyway since he keeps having to stop to recharge. Think Statue of Liberty in Ghostbusters 2. But the trip is from Manhattan to South Carolina. A ship travelling on the high seas will move significantly faster than Eothas. Thus you have time before he gets to his destination, and I see it as you are nipping at his heels anyway. I prefer less urgent stories, but it isnt as bad as I think many making it out to be. Scotty isnt beaming him to his next location. You have time.

Yeah, I'm also not at all excited about a multiplayer Fallout. I half expected the next Fallout to be a Borderlands clone given some of 4's design decisions. I think they backpedaled last time because the vitriol of that backlash was so great that it had the potential of hurting sales on the console side, but I could be wrong. I just dont think the PC market is very important to Bethesda anynore. At least not in their eyes. That's my perception anyway.