Ganrich

Yeah, set it for whatever in your mod. If it is where you want it at 10 damage then keep it there. I wouldn't expect 10 per hit in an official patch, but I think it needs 6 or 8 per tick for sure. I don't want it to be the end all be all Chant like PoE1. I also think for something like Dragon Thrashed, that just requires a minor damage tweak, is something not to worry about until after they tune up Veteran/PotD. Once they have fixed the difficulty then I would look at it as we don't know if they will tweak AR or Immunities for the difficulty fix, and those things will play into what the phrase needs to be competitive.

It pretty much tanked DOOM's modding scene in spite of the game providing you with decent modding tools from the getgo, so I'd hope Bethesda would have learned. ... Or, y'know, not.Honestly, I hope this happens here as well. The only reason why their games keep staying alive that long is because of mods on the pc. If they are gone, Bethsoft should finally be able to feel the impact. I am sure the consoles will make up for it on their bottom line. Though, I agree that this decision will have ramifications on the PC front. IMHO, Enderal is an example of why I own Skyrim. That is why modding is great. Also, if they keep trying to elicit control over modders there is the long shot of a small company building a game engine and game with mods in mind to take advantage of the vacuum. Which would force Bethesda to up their game and give us a solid TES/FO competitor. Bethesda's mods have been their major strength on pc. As I cant say it is their game design, combat, or story telling. I do think this is a mistake. It's a mistake they have been aiming at for a long while. So, I'm not surprised.

I probably typed it out poorly. Of course, you could have a Comp/merc Chanter to fill that gap by running old siec or running Mercy while your MC runs the other 2. Given how low the dmg is on Dragon Thrashed, and how low the heal is on Old Siec, I wouldnt try that combo except with a helwalker combo... Maybe. Getting around 30 Might (60% damage) could push Dragon Thrashed high enough to get a point of health every 3 seconds. Once again, maybe. I dunno if it would be worth it even then.

It would be kinda hard to have 3 chants up, since you need the linger, so BR is a no go.(Unless you have a 2nd chanter) But yeah on AoE stuff Old Siec is quite solid, I ran it with my Wizard/Chanter and didn't need any heals, mostly used PL IV Minolettas (praise brilliant and by praise I mean nerf it. ) Once I had reduced healing on me and almost died, but when I tried to heal with potions I actually healed for 0, so the debuff was close to 100%. Oh, I'm just saying Old Siec and Mercy. So two chants. Kind Wayfarer/Troub using Brand Enemy DoT tossed out liberally early fight, buff with Invocations, inspired beacon, then move in with Sacred Immolation + spam chanter heal (upgraded for fire damage) and FoD. Oh, and DoC breastplate with crit heal upgrade. Maybe Sasha's Sabre for an empowered Set to Their Purpose to be able to quickly cast Each Kill Fed after. +5 to all stats, then weapon swap to something better, inspired beacon, and SI plus spam.

I'm luke warm on consumables on many characters myself, but a single class Chanter almost makes you use them to fill out the slow aspect of the class. It works great, imho. To each their own though. I am talking about those cast 1 per rest/encounter pieces of gear though. They arent really overpowered compared to most of the other stuff you could have. Not talking about anything that procs on crit or the like.

Yes but single class chanter can basically only autoattack between invocation casts. That's not really much fun, is it? I'm not saying it isn't effective class, it's just not really fun to play. (unless you hate micro) also big issue - how many casts can you get off in a combat encounters, I used chanter (multiclassed) it got off 2 cast in whole fight usually. 3 in long fights. more only in big boss fights (and that only in some) Single class chanter might be fun solo where combat takes long (it was really strong for solo in POE), but in deadfire combat is faster than in POE if played in group, he won't do much compared to other more active classes. I think he's best for multiclassing together with figher. He can buff up any class and add some strong invocations and helful chants. As a single class he's effective but boring to play. Arcane Skill is a thing, and Chanters can't do anything else while waiting for Chants to build. As you said They can auto-attack, and imho casting scrolls > auto attack. They are probably the best single class to use Scrolls with, and possibly grenades too even though they dont get natural bonuses to Explosives at CC. You can dump scrolls or grenades while you wait. Add in gear with casting abilities, and you have things to do, and using these things doesnt clash with any ability usage. Auto attack vs sunbeam or Maelstrom? No contest. I think they need to be tuned down slightly. Single class = to multiclass though imho. Although, the way i play them I tend to MC. Inspiration buff needs looking at, +100% heal is too easy to abuse in some MC combos for immortality, etc. They are potent to be sure. Almost every phrase is good, almost all invocations are good, and I cant ask for much else. Her Courage was probably overnerfed from beta imho. I'd say 15 PT damage shield would be a sweet spot. Dragon Thrashed could probably get a little boost to dmg. 6 per tick at minimum. I cant think of an invocation that is bad except Brilliant makes His Heart did Fill obsolete. Otherwise every Invocation has a place.

@Raven Darkholme - Cool. Thanks for that piece of info. I imagine it is hard to get it to proc for anything under 9 damage or so. Unless you're also running Mercy and Kindness to get it to 24% healing, or you're running something with incredibly high might like a Helwalker... By itself, Old Siec likely needs solid hits and AoE to be really effective. With Mercy and Kindness 4 damage would be the potential minimum.

Personally I would run Mith Fyr + Ancient Memory. Don't know if Old Siec works with spells - if it does then it's probably the best option once you have enough dps. Once my work week is finished I plan on focusing on leveling my new pally/Troubadour to test if Old Siec works with non-melee abilities. In this case, Sacred Immolation. If it does Old Siec + Mercy and Kindness should counter most of the damage (if not all of it) from Sacred Immolation when there are enough enemies in the area. Best general chants are Mith Fyr, Ancient Memory, Silver Knight's Shield, and imho Long Night's Drink for the -50% heal. Of course Mercy and Kindness, but OP chant is OP. I personally think everything from PL 2 up is pretty good. Save possibly Dragon Thrashed, but I havent tested it personally. I hate to knock it entirely until I do. If Old Siec works with Dragon's thrashed it could make a stronger version of Soft Winds as you would also get that 12% from spells/melee/abilities and get roughly 1 health for each dragon's thrashed attack per enemy. Which is better than Soft Winds, but requires 2 chants with 100% up time. This would benefit Troubadour the most, or an odd Helwalker MC as you would need 30 Int to get 100% up time on a non-Troubadour.

Yeah, I'm not saying that sales wont lag. Cod has had 10+ incarnations (I dont feel like counting them up Lol). It is natural that they are declining overtime. Especially since multiplayer fps have more competition today than they did when Cod set those trends a decade ago. Now games like Overwatch, Fortnite, Pubg, Destiny, and even old competitors like battlefield/battlefront are starting to take small bites out of CoDs base. I don't know if I can say quality of Cod games is the only factor in its sales dipping. I will say it is possibly 1 of a lot of factors though. The FPS genre seems to be going through a shake up with the battle royale games becoming popular as well. That genre is in for a shake up no matter the situation. That said, those big AAA "RPGs" dont have an over saturated environment. Fallout, TES, Dragon Age, ME, Witcher. One of those 5 titles a year is about all you can expect, and that is pushing it. Shooters have 5 titles in a single year... If not more.

Wasn't there only one Bioware game since ME3 and it bombed like hell? Inquisition and ME Andromedo. So 2, technically. I also won't buy Anthem.

Just to step in here on this important discussion. Mediocrity sells. How many CoDs have been lambasted for being bad and the next on sells like hotcakes? I haven't bought a Bioware game since ME3, and that doesn't seem to matter to the overall sales. I, personally, have no interest in Fallout anymore outside of booting up NV, 1, or 2 whenever the whim takes me. However, there will be 30 people lapping it up. This will counteract my 1 purchase with 30. We can continue to whine about games not being as good as its predecessors, but until sales dwindle you can hope all you want but you will likely be incorrect about sales. Gamers cry today, and turn around and preorder the next title after some videos and hype from E3. Consumers... Consumers never change. Also, kudos to FNM video.

Jeez. Well, the plus side is Dragon's Thrashed isn't trash anymore. At least for a bit anyway.

All those look fine. Anything with regen and weapons is probably what you want to do. You could look at Chanter combos with some of those classes. Troubadour/X and focus mostly on Phrases. The occasional debuff/CC invocation could be considered typical Deadpool trash talk/banter causing the enemies to lose hope and freeze in combat. This would let you grab Soft Winds, Ancient memory, and Mercy and Kindness to up your Regen. Invocations like Hel-Hyraf, Killers Froze, Reny Darett's Ghost Spake, etc would work with this. Some Explosive skill tossed in for grenades would also be a pretty good fit. If you went this route I would look at fighter, rogue, pally, or Monk mixed with Troubadour. I'm admittedly partial to Chanters. So, I can make it fit with anything. So, I could be stretching. Obviously, whatever you to you will dual wield pistols and swap to swords/sabres.

I don't think so. Things like every item bonus stacking are because PoE1 had a mix of things that did and didn't stack. It was convoluted. Gear bonuses stacking would be fine, but some gear has such high bonuses that it becomes a problem. So, that fix has nothing to do with consoles in my estimation. Going from 6 to 5 people in a party might help consoles, but with all the actives that every class has every fight it still makes sense even if you don't consider the console port. The melee in this game are very active vs the IE games where they just auto attack. Mix in multiclass and wizards/druids/priests having 2 casts per spell level in each encounter and you have a lot of abilities to throw around. So, to some extent, love it or hate it, reducing party size makes sense given the game's design. Reducing combat's overall speed could also be attributed to consoles, but I think that would be a dubious proposition as well. Going back to PoE1 after Deadfire and seeing how absurdly fast your Monk can spam Torment's Reach will make you realize that the combat speed needed to be fiddled with. Empower is there to give an incentive to rest, but not be as overbearing as the pseudo-Vancian system of PoE1. So, they are trying to retain something of the IE experience while trying to move forward. Some hate this, and some don't (I have grown fond of it tbh). However, I can't attribute it to the console ports. Empower just does too much for a lot of damage spells/abilities. Simultaneously, it may do too little for some buffs/debuffs. So, IMHO you either use Empower to get back resources, or you use it to make your next AoE wipe the field. There are some situations where either one of those options are optimal. So, to sum up... No I don't think it is because of future Console versions that the game is the way it is. Some of these changes will make the console port easier to be sure. I just think there are other equally valid reasons things were implemented this way, and that they just happen to coincide with making the port to consoles easier. @dunehunter - Absolutely. Enemy compositions are just way out of whack. AI is strange at times. And so on. I would also say there are a few late game encounters that could be bumped up by adding more enemies. There are still a few "trash fights" that are a bit too trash, imho. @mazeltov - yes you have to be careful with the AI for sure. It could get obnoxious very easily, and it is something that they need to keep in mind when working it out.

Nah, you see Martials being discussed because they MC better in the sense of synergy. The caster combos just get more spells from a second class, and maybe something like Spirit Shift, grimoire swap, or holy radiance. Martials get to mix their fighter's tankiness with their Rogue's single target DPS, or the Paladin's FoD damage for quick focus generation on a Soul Blade. Another example is the Monk Swift Flurry giving another instant attack on crit meets the Skald's 50% chance to generate a phrase on crit. These synergies are what power builders look for. The casters are just as good, but the guys making builds look for those synergies. That is why they discuss them so much There is a fighter or paladin (can't remember which) combo that was on the Build forums that was mixed with Wizard that gets upwards of 200 Deflection. Single classed casters nearly just as broken. They can wipe the whole battlefield (or enough as it doesn't matter) in a single spell. The issue is a combination of stuff. 1) Gear stacks its effects now, and there are some stupid powerful gears that give a lot of stats + gear that stacks with it. When you have 3 +15ish deflection items stacking things get out of hand. 2) Empower and PL stacking makes certain abilities hit like a truck. This seems to be worse with spells. 3) Encounter composition mid-late game. Still a lot of smaller skirmish battles. Your party vs 8ish enemies with a boss/sub-boss mixed in. 4) AI for enemies could be further improved. 5) Some synergies make certain MC combos immortal (see Fighter/Chanter with Unbending, Mercy and Kindness phrase, and Set to Their Purpose Invocation). That is 50% of damage converted to healing, +100% healing phrase, and a buff that replenishes 1 class resource per 6 seconds. So you can keep all 3 of those up 100% of the time, and you will never die. A Troubadour can gain 3 phrases every 6 seconds with Set to Their purpose running and they need 6 phrases to cast Set to Their purpose, and the fighter side gets 1 Discipline every 6 seconds and needs 3 discipline to cast Unyielding. The plus 100% healing phrase makes Unbending go from 50% to 100% damage converted to healing. Unbending lasts 15 seconds at 10 Intellect, but a Chanter combo would have closer to 20. So that 15s just turned into 22.5s. 100% uptime on not dying. 6) Probably some stuff I am not thinking of. And yes, I would say Chanters are a spell caster. They just have the benefit of having nothing to do while they are building phrases. Some of their phrases are a bit overtuned for something that can be used nearly 100% of the time, and some of their Invocations (the buffs in particular) are stellar.

It doesn't stack. It seems to only extend duration.

Not sure. Give me a few. Let me find something to test it on.

True, but you also get the Enchantment Mortal Wounds which gives "Hits with this weapon cause 20% damage as Raw damage over time" on top of Ambush. So, you get added damage up front plus DoTs, and this all goes on with whatever your Street Fighter is doing too. Deep Wounds, Ring the Bell, etc. It just isn't quite as front loaded as Modwyr. Also, almost everyone you fight with a rogue will have flanked from Persistent Distraction, but in cases where you don't get that switching to another weapon definitely makes sense. I'm not saying the spear is the end all be all, but it is a great spear that does great damage, and has that modal capability which helps SF a lot. EDIT: Also, another Enchantment upgrade is called Mercy Strike. "33% chance to recover immediately on Crit" I forgot about that.

Sorry it took so long. It looks like Ambushing on Stalker's Patience scales at 1% per point of Stealth. So, it scales incredibly well depending on your Skill loadout.

Lol. Nazpalca/Bleakwalker sounds like a series of bad trips. Sounds fun.

RIP TB. I already miss ypur option menu reviews

Unfortunately, I am at work, and won't have time to log on to check Stalker's patience scaling until sometime tomorrow. I forgot the modal decreased stride. I must have confused it's tradeoff with something else. My apologies.

You buy Stalker's Patience in Sayuka off a vendor. $30,000. My build was Spear and Shield, and outside of the odd fight where immunities or piercing AR made me swap I had little trouble with spears. Dot from Ring the Bell + Stalker's patience DoT + deep wounds DoT + bloodied/flanked street fighter sneak attack + death blows = bananas. That is what I can say. I remember that weapon that procced 0 recovery on crit being discussed, but not which one it was. So I cant be much help there.

Might want to consider Stalker's Patience. Spear modal add +1 engagement, and if you have Persistent Distraction it will add give you one more distraction target. Since you won't have +1 engagement from shields this will help. Also, it does great damage if you spec into some Stealth. Since distraction lowers perception it helps reduce the times you will get hit, and help maintain bloodied. However, all the weapons you listed are also good. Also, the longer recovery on Spear Modal to get the +1 engagement isn't really too noticeable on SF when bloodied/flanked, or at least when I needed it with my SF it was a worth while trade. When bloodied, flanked, and the target has afflictions... The spear hits like a truck.

Yeah, with berseker I would pick human anyway. Especially if you grab the Blooded passive.