anameforobsidian

My guess, permanent slow-mode, characters buffed quite a bit, and lot of abilities turned into passives. BTW, who's talking in the trailer. I'm surprised they still have a six person party.

I feel like you've taken a beating in this thread, and feel a little bad for starting it again since you've been polite. Now I'm going to add a bit more:

Just tested it after an interesting discussion here, and the helmet doesn't give a bonus against dragon breath for the Llengrath fight. Maxquest added this: Diving Helmet provides two persistent buffs: ResistKeyword 35 vs DefenseType (5) {None}, Keyword ("DragonBreath") ResistKeyword 20 vs DefenseType (5) {None}, Keyword ("poison") This means that it adds 35 to a defensive roll vs any spell or ability marked with "DragonBreath" keyword, and it doesn't matter which defense is targeted. P.S. Alpine, Sky and Adra dragon breaths are marked with "DragonBreath". While Turi and Gafo breaths are marked with "DragonBreath Poison". But I don't know if this helmet provides 35 or 55 defense vs them, or even if "DragonBreath Poison" is recognized at all, because there are no keywords on their respective tooltips. and this: Have to note that if the project is big (and PoE is), it would make sense to put these keywords in a separate static class and use global constants instead of hardcoded strings. If I remember C# syntax correctly, something like: public static class KEYWORDS { public const string POISON = "poison"; public const string DRAGON_BREATH = "dragon_breath"; }Easier to mass rename, and safer. Thanks for your time!

Just tested, it doesn't seem like the helmet provides any defenses at all against the bog dragons. Will report. That will also explain why Eder could shrug off attacks from the other scaled PotD Dragons and then dropped like a fly against Llengrath.

I don't like all the changes they're making, but I see a lot of positives. I think the new buffs/debuffs/counters and area map will work well. I think dual-class will create some crazy fun characters. And best of all are the graphical improvements. They make the game downright gorgeous, where it was merely beautiful before.

I thought the endurance / health mechanic was brilliant. Resting supplies pushed you to go further, while health was a hard limitation. It had me dramatically changing party role as the health of certain characters dropped lower, and pushed me away from trying to tank and spank every fight. For instance, Eder would take a beating so he would pickup a gun while Kana got the slack. Or Aloth would be so wounded I would do a couple fights without him. Without it there's less of a link between long term goals and tactics. I think we'll see a lot of people barely surviving fights and then wondering why they can't beat bosses that other people faceroll.

Dual-Daggers and Flames of Devotion indicate a priest with roguish tendencies. Certainly the way that he operates is fairly roguish. His mind abilities indicate a cipher, but he doesn't use any of those in combat. So yes, a rogue / priest which could fall under the name Charlatan, Heretic, Cultist, or Inquisitor. Heretic certainly doesn't work. The rest work well, but I would pick Inquisitor because of the psionic abilities.

If dragon attacks work that way, how does the diving helmet prevent them. Are they a unique subclass of AoE attacks, or does the diving helmet look for each one.

Let's not forget that the use of Taunt in a game led to the worst line I have ever read. From an RA Salvatore book: "Your mother's an ore-sucking harlot. The enraged orc shifted targets and charged the Dwarf." A better system would have front-liners trip, stab, or grapple people who tried to run past them. That's what engagement was supposed to model. Then again, I'd like to see a pillars style system with a 12 man party.

Damn, that dagger is useless to me. I would never bind a dagger to a paladin or a priest. Maybe if a character is some weird multiclass with paladin or priest... Paladins with daggers are one of the viable builds for the ultimate achievement. Now part of that is the Flick of the Wrist talent, but paladins with daggers are downright nasty. There's a bounty with them and they're very durable while having a respectable damage output. It may be a little gamey, but it works.

I had heavier armor on in the early game, and the caves were still tough. You can split pull the sporelings though by sneaking, getting their attention, and then moving back quickly. I used a wendigrath I: winds I to give me that running boost. I believe was able to only fight two that way, which was still hard, but much easier. I think you need the horn as a sacrificial summon though. Any single sporeling should have all the spores you need for the quest. If you want money, the best place to get it is raedric's castle. If you can make it past the guards on the parapet, fine weapons and armor are just lying around. There's enough money in the first chapter for the horn and the blunting belt. The cathedral is doable relatively early, you just have to take it slow. Also, invest in stealth early on. 5 stealth means that you can skip the throne room fight in Caed Nua. Go up, talk to the statue, drop a summon, run to the stairs. Then respec.

We'll have to see how grimoires work. They're supposedly going to be a greater part of gameplay & spells will not be transferable. That could mean that wizards have access to many spells on a big fight but also have extended periods of dead time. More importantly if they keep scrolls the same, scroll wielders could outclass wizards because they have access to 30 total spells with an accuracy boost.

I know it's an old thread, but I just wanted to say thank you for this build. It's hellaciously effective once you get Silver Flash. I just beat Llengrath solo on PotD with it. Here are some things I did slightly differently or some general tactics with the build: - For most of the game I've been wearing Ryona's Armor. The triggered immunity is very useful against high damage elemental attacks, especially against Eyeless beams. You are slower, but then again you don't really do most of your DPS through direct attacks. - This build is great at kiting. I frequently start bounties with a 1:1 Wendigrath, Dragon. - I switched out seven nights for the ogres. The ogres are probably the most useful spell in the game right now, and they're a fairly necessary counterpoint to Ancient Instruments. When enemies can hit Ancient Instruments, they get wiped out pretty quickly. The ogres can take a lot of punishment. Additionally, they make mid-game much, much, much easier. - Magran's Faithful did suck. I'm not sure, but I think I might have aggroed some nearby mobs to help. - Her Courage Thick as Steel is really useful as a way to start fights. Basically it buffs those tough little beetles so they can take another hit each. In the right situation that can be three hits, which is normally enough to get to the Ogres or close to the weapons. For tougher fights I go: Courage 1 : Dragon 4. - This build excels at long, drawn out fights. For some of the tougher bounties I would fight nearby mobs and use them to get my chants up and the drag an animated weapon over to start the next fight while the last one was ending. This was especially useful for SSerkal. - I didn't enchant Pliambo with vessel slaying. This was really helpful later on. The dragon slashed and animated weapons work fine on the Eyeless. - The Llengrath fight took me three or four hours, far more than any other fight. The strategy I won with was this: Wait for a second and then confuse the acolyte. He makes the fight a lot harder. The dragons munch him down in seconds. This may or may not work. Run to the top right and buff. Summon Concelhaut. Have him smash Turi. Hit the clustered dragons/ mobs with paralyze. Llengrath is immune, but just ignore her. Get close for Dragon Slashed, use some envenomed strikes, generally wreck stuff in the six or so seconds you have. Run away leaving some very angry dragons with Concelhaut, his parasitic staff will make him last surprisingly long; go all the way to the bottom. Llengrath will reliably give up if you're far enough away and go back to the middle. After this, move around the outside in a horseshoe shape. Hug the edges to keep Llengrath out of the fight. Use confusion on mobs only if there are no summons out; enemies prioritize summons, thus wasting confusion. To end the fight use crushing doom and paralysis to split the dragons. The larger the split the better. If you keep a mob near them, they'll fight the mob and may give up like Llengrath and just stand there after it's dead if you're far away. I got lucky and split Gafaconeros off; he's weaker, but his damage is more consistent and harder to avoid. Then I went back to Turisulfus, and he's much easier as a single dragon. Spread the weapons around him, shoot with pliambo, and come close when Dragon Slashed is going to hit. I also had Duc's Meatloaf so that you get the might bonus after the Dragon Dish wears off. Gwynn's Band was replaced by the Ring of the Changing Heart. The resolve is nice, but I was really after the dominate. Gafaconeros can be dominated for five seconds, which coincidentally is enough to kill Llengrath. It gave me a nice breather. Both Dragons are weak to Paralyze, Gafaconeros exceptionally so. I brought 10 scrolls and used 9. This let me safely get close to both for The Dragon Slashed. I got rid of healing items to do so. I kept the one scroll that boosts lore for this fight, which made paralysis even better. I kept an adra beetle for if I ever got cornered. I used it halfway through the fight and it saved my bacon. I would have prefered the Ogre Horn, but that hasn't worked right this playthrough. This is a situation where defenses and HP count more than multiple hits, so he was the best for the job. My boss build has mechanics and survival lower with lore and athletics higher. Athletics is really useful for an emergency heal after you separate yourself. I ditched snake's reflexes for Beast Slaying. If I respeced for every boss, I'd ditch penetrating shot too. I kept on the cape of the master mystic, but that was mostly inertia. It didn't seem to make a huge difference either way. I enchanted Pliambo with Beast Slaying and used it. I was having a problem where blind wasn't lasting long enough for me to chain it, and the gun was doing no damage. While disoriented is not as good a debuff it lasts longer. With both beast slaying on the gun and character I would occasionally get shots for 90 or so damage. 10% of their health is fairly substantial. Similarly, enchant Starlit Garb with corrode resistance. Gafaconeros did more damage to me, so the corrode resistance made a noticeable difference. Alright, three bounties to get and then on to Thaos.

How big of a site is Hardcore Gamer?

Smilodons aren't that different from stalgaer.

I think they're over-reacting to a problem they already fixed. People claimed about weapons not being unique enough, and that was somewhat true for non-grognards. Marking doesn't sound that impressive, even though it has a huge mechanical effect. Etc. They fixed that with soul-bound weapons. Non-grogs have Stormcaller, grogs have Borresaine or Rain of Godagh builds.

Just ran into the same issue too as a chanter. Dead dragon, no stormcaller.

a legit weapon for hunting whales and elephant seals. harpoon, at best, is spear-like. is hurled. is barbed. is extreme heavy with the 5' to 6' wooden shaft being as much as 2" in diameter to give the weapon greater heft and penetrating power. has a rope attached the harpoon socket, which were not bolted or fixed to the shaft 'cause the shaft were designed to release from the socket. yes, the harpoon has a pointy end and a wooden shaft of some length, but the harpoon were not designed as a weapon for fighting human beings. Honestly, the setting should probably have more weapons that are designed for fighting large animals. Trolls in particular seem like a common enough nuisance that a specialized weapon would be designed. Remember that Europeans had a variety of spears specifically designed for hunting boars. Fishing spears or Swedish wolf / ski propellers could be cool.

Snake flail - Enchanted snakes twisted together that bite the victim when they hit them. Bottle o' Rum - Trinket that permanently gives you the effect of one of the in-game alcohols. Severed Arm - Club that's exactly what it sounds like. Cannonball on a stick - Soulbound mace. "Xaurip Spear" - A legendary xaurip spear that all others are copied from. Looks indistinguishable from all other xaurip spears. Bag of cats - Flail. Blunt / Slash damage. The double monocle - has twice the power of a normal monocle. As a side note, I would really like to see them add a Macuahuitl. These are the Aztec version of swords. Long paddles serrated by pieces of Obsidian set in them. They were supposedly brutal in battle.

There's another way to handle power creep. Both Geneforge and Gothic do it. You can level up, but trainers teach new skills and power ups are findable in the world. When you start getting powerful it feels hard-won. Normally systems that do this are brutal to early game players though.

It would if the rider could dismount (or be dismounted) and fight separately. Didn't we have mounted units in Icewind Dale2? I remember goblins were riding some kind of wolves, and if you killed wolf the goblin would still fight as regular goblin unit. I don't see much reason for a horse, when you already have ship, but it might be an interesting idea for future. If the islands were sufficiently large, horses would make sense as farm animals and for towing wagons. But it might be interesting to have a unique mount type rather than a horse. Maybe a domesticated giant beetle? A seahorse.

Ok, apparently we've forgotten what the IE games were like. Not that many enemies? Did you clear out a different gnoll fortress, go to a different mine filled with kobolds, miss the xvart camp, or just completely forget about the bandit camp? That's just BG. BG2 & ToB have sendai's lair, orc ambushes, infini-drow city, the siege, a murderous demon for every party member fight, and summon monster frequently made swarms. SCS liches are boring to fight. Teleport field + 30 buffs + melfs meteor's do not exactly make for an interesting fight. Basically you strip their counterspells with the mage and heal the mage if they get too hurt. The the fighters who have been useless except possibly as a meatshield take like three hits and the lich is dead. Once is fun; twice it gets old; third lich and SCS goes off for mages. There's a difference between challenge and tedium. Also, BG II throws healing potions and invisiblility potions at the enemies. So many random encounters have rogues that use them. Yes there are rarer and cursed potions, but frequently they're outclassed by a superior spell, or rod of resurrections make them obsolete. Pillars honestly distributes potions & scrolls at a similar rate. Now, onto Pillars supposed lack of tactical complexity. That argument is complete and utter tripe. Engagement provides a tactical decision for attackers. I'm doing my Ultimate run right now, and I was facing a nasty vithrak. I had to face the decision: do I risk an engagement stun attack and let the dragon roared do its work, or do I hope I can avoid a stunlock and summon ogres, or do I hope that they one of its fellows mind controls me so I break engagement while they fight my beetles. Without engagement, I could simply dragon slashed kite most of the game. Pillars has granulated movement speed, so it becomes an issue. A troll will never wipe a mage with expeditious retreat. Teleporting enemies are a real problem (that was most absent from BG); do you take the hits, retreat to a corner, or get a knockback talent like grimoire slam? Using knockdown at the start of combat? Only if you're sure it will hit before debuffs land, and the enemy isn't immune. Use and understanding of the power of prone is one of pillar's strengths. Charm can wreck your party. How do you counter? Charm them with your own cipher or chanter, knock them down, hit them with a paladin, use a chant to buff defenses or break it, suppress affliction from a ring or priest. In BG2 if you get hit by domination, reload and cast chaotic commands before the fight. Characters are pushed and pulled in Pillars, changing positioning. Really, looking at Pillars the only mechanics it lacks which BG2 had are instadeath (which sucks), petrification (which breaks some sidequests) and is pretty much instadeath, and rock, paper, scissors spell-fights. Well that, and whatever the **** beholders do. None of those are terribly good mechanics. Timestop was kinda interesting, but it was the purest distillation of the magic system; everyone else stood still while the mage did all the work; you hardly ever saw timestop though. I love the BG series and beat it with SCS and the Acension mod. That doesn't mean that other games are without merit merely for being different.

I could see Ogres carrying light cannons. The game stats gives them decent Int, so an Ogre civilization could potentially learn to build and use them. They already do in WM. Ogres can't be a character cause it ****s with doorways. But lore says an Ogre civ would be unsustainable. It would only last as long as the leader.

Corpse-eater sounds great. The Beckoner is a terrible name for a cool class idea. How about summoner, or shardcaller, or lifesinger, or anything else.

Not necessarily, but even at a base level you could have a unit with different abilities mounted and unmounted. That could create a fun combat decision, especially if you could charm the mount separately from the rider.