fiddlesticks

One of the things a lot of players were looking for with Deadfire is just how many crazy and potentially overpowered builds you could make with the new multiclass system. However, out of personal curiosity and because I think it would be valuable beta feedback, I'm interested in the exact opposite question: Within the current constraints of the beta, what is the absolute worst possible build to play? The best (worst) I could come up with so far is a Mage Slayer/Wizard focused on all the self-buffs. The Mage Slayer's penalty to the duration of buffs makes this combination far less useful than most other martial/caster hybrids. But I'm sure there must be even more broken - in a bad - way combos.

According to the Mage Slayer's description, one of its disadvantages is that beneficial Spell effects have -50% duration. However, this seems to apply even to non-Spell buffs, such as Frenzy. Futhermore, the reduction doesn't always seem to be calculated correctly. My Mage Slayer had a 40% duration bonus from Intellect, giving him a standard Frenzy duration of 21 seconds. Yet activating the ability only gave me around 9, rather than the expected 10.5.

This discussion made me try out a single-class Trickster build. I built him very resilient, using the Medium Shield modal in combination with Riposte and good Con/Res. It works out fairly well. He's more of a support character than your average Rogue, but he still does decent damage and the addition of Mirror Image makes him very durable. The Illusion spells using Guile rather than spell slots also means you can spam them a lot more freely in combat. I do wish you got a bit more choice over which Illusion spells you could pick, since the current selection limits your tactics somewhat.

Hard to say considering how buggy/unpolished a lot of stuff still is. Deadfire's system definitely feels less opaque though. Penetration vs. Armor Rating is much easier to calculate than Damage vs. DR and the lack of Grazes makes the combat log more readable. They did that in PoE too. They used Lay on Hands, but I don't recall them ever casting Flames of Devotion.

It wouldn't be a proper PoE beta without some really silly bugs.

If they add new Ranger talents, I actually hope they focus even more strongly on the pet. That's his main appeal, after all. Lots of classes have melee capabilities, but only the Ranger has such a strong synergy with another party member.

Multiplicative. It's 30/100/130% of the total damage you do to the target.

Yeah, I always thought that a graze should just be a debuff for the spell's duration, but a hit or crit should apply the CC. Example: Mass Paralysis = A graze causes a debuff, but no hard CC (something like Hobble). A hit causes CC. A Crit causes CC plus the Hobble-like effect after the CC wears off. Maybe that is too potent, but I think it's pretty good on paper. IIRC, Obsidian actually hinted at this being the approach they'll take in an early Q&A. Since it's not implemented in the Beta, I'm assuming it was either too complicated (now you have to keep track of two possible effects for every spell), too powerful, or doesn't mesh very well with the new affliction system.

Honestly, I wouldn't mind if the game nixed stuff like Two-Handed Style entirely because purely number-increasing talents are always a boring choice that you only pick because they're mathematically advantageous rather than because they truly offer more interesting gameplay. But I can understand that some people would really like to make a very passive character whom they don't have to manage a whole lot, so leaving them to Fighters or Rangers or whatever seems like the next-best choice. Isn't that the point of multiclassing though? If a pure Wizard were as good at fighting as a Fighter/Wizard, why even offer the second as an option?

The replacement for DR, I would assume, given that Deadfire is moving to a penetration-based system.

I once built a Chanter who managed to permanently interrupt even the toughest foes in the game by dual-wielding Shatterstar and the Vile Loner's Lance. He was pretty fun but didn't get all the necessary tools until level 13 (where The Champion Braved the Horde Alone became available). Dual-wielding a War hammer and Spear also looked really silly, though you could probably replace the Lance with Godansthunyr if you pumped up Dexterity.

You've probably figured this out by now, but the Radiant Spore's spit attack inflicts Weakened, which is what lowered your characters' Fortitude.

Why no Escape or Adept Evasion? Two of the best abilities for a defensive Rogue imo. Your equipment setup is also lacking anything that inflicts standing Retaliation, which wastes some of Deep Wounds' potential. 3. Boots of Stability and Fenwalkers are nice since Fortitude attacks are one of the few things that pose a serious threat to a tanky Devil. Shod-in-Faith are decent as well if no one else has them. Even a tanky character will get hit by a crit at some point. 4. Iron Circle is a solid alternative. Low Health is the major disadvantage of defensive Rogues, and this item remedies it somewhat. Weapon-wise, you've got tons of options. Anything with on-hit or on-crit is nice, so's anything with Annihilating or Endurance drain. I'm personally not a big fan of Nightshroud. Its one good perk (extra Shadowing Beyond) is kind of wasted on this build. I'm also not too fond of the Barricade shield since you're giving up a fair amount of DPS for the chance at a damage proc. It works well enough with this setup though, and it does have some flavour to it.

I have found how to mod it. Made modifications and added logging... Turns out summon duration was already influenced by INT It just isn't reflected in the tooltip. Status: already done Wait, seriously? All this time, I thought they deliberately decoupled summons from Intellect for balancing reasons. That sure would have been useful to know during my solo runs.

On a tangentially-related note, I'm wondering if I could make Devil of Caroc into a ranged rogue... my frontline's getting crowded. Twin Sting... ...is a great weapon, but less so for Rogues in my opinion. The 25% chance to cast Merciless Gaze on kill is considerably worse than the amazing Ranger-specific enchantment. Using it as an opener isn't a bad idea though.

Ranged Rogues aren't particularly great (unless you make heavy use of scrolls or spellbinding items), but they are very easy to play since they basically require no micro whatsoever. Just click on the enemy you want dead and let them do their thing.

Ranged builds in general end up being supbar when compared to meleeing. Rangers and Wizards can get away with it, because they have powerful class-specific abilities/talents which mitigate the DPS disadvantage (and half the Ranger's damage is melee anyway due to the pet), and I suppose casters don't care much about auto-attacks either way, but everyone else is better off in the thick of it. The only reason Fighters et al. would use ranged options is a) for opening strikes or b) for hitting enemies in the back. Though I don't think that's a problem with class versatility so much as an inevitable result of gameplay balancing. Melee builds have to be superior to compensate for the fact that you're directly exposing yourself to enemy attacks. Almost all of the Fighter's abilities work with firearms or bows as well, but she'll never be as good with them as with a Greatsword, and that's honestly a good thing.

The devs actually patched in Stunning Shots working with melee weapons at some point, so they clearly liked the idea of melee-focused Ranger builds.

Come to think of it, a Fighter might actually land on-crit effects more often than a Rogue if we discount potions and buffs. The +20 Accuracy from Disciplined Barrage probably beats the 20% Hit-to-Crit conversion and +8 Melee Accuracy of the Rogue. Only lasts for about 20 seconds, though.

The problem with the ambush mechanic in Baldur's Gate was that it actually encouraged more frequent resting, because you'd much rather face an ambush with half of your spells still remaining than all of them being drained.

Yeah, but implements are poor damage-wise unless you're a wizard, and have big problems from a RP perspective. Those are for wizzards! I don't think damage is an issue with implements. Scepters/Wands do one less damage on average than Hunting Bows, for which the dual damage type easily compensates in a lot of situations. I can see the roleplaying argument, though. Maybe switch the Arbalest's damage type to Crush/Pierce? They're supposed to hit with great force, after all, and it would futher differentiate them from Arquebuses/Pistols/Crossbows.

Isn't that the idea behind implements? Giving up some base damage in exchange for two damage types and thus more flexibility.

I liked the DR system, too, but I can't deny that constantly calculating the expected damage output to assess whether or not switching weapons was beneficial in any given situation was something of a hassle. Eventually I just stopped switching weapons altogether because, hey, if it ain't broke, right? If the new system encourages people to play around with weapons some more, it's a plus in my book. Either Sawyer can't talk about it in-depth because they're still experimenting with different weapon effects and nothing's set in stone yet, or he just enjoys being a tease. Probably a bit of both.

Tyranny didn't have a specific Penetration system, though. The penetration property on weapons was basically the same as the DR bypass in PoE. The new system sounds more like the one in Wasteland 2 where damage and penetration are completely independent of each other. If I understand Sawyer's post correctly, yes. Given that this system is replacing the DR mechanic of the first game, I would guess Armor is applied to the total damage, so multiplicatively. Again, with this system completely replacing DR, I'm assuming the 20% Min Damage effect will be replaced by the 30% one. I would assume spells/abilities that previously reduced DR will now reduce Armor or increase Penetration. Which might make Sundering Blow actually good. I actually think the biggest advantage of this change is that it's very straightforward and intuitive to grasp. You no longer have to calculate around expected damage ranges. Instead, you just compare your Penetration to the enemy's Armor. Is it higher? Keep going. Is it lower? Switch to something else.

So if my hero relies on DEX and really needs prone protection and there's only one item with prone protection - "Boots of Prone Protection" i'm basically f**ed? But wait, i can use those gloves of +1 DEX! Whole one point of DEX... If items work similarly as they did in PoE, the highest stat boost you will get from a piece of equipment is +4. That's nice, of course, but there are plenty of non-stat bonuses I would take above that. In your example, it's not even a contest. What would you rather have? A grand total of 9% extra speed or protection from one of the most debilitating status effects?