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Sock

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Everything posted by Sock

  1. Int and Might are key stats for the priest. Int to increase AoE size and duration, might to increase healing and damage. The other stats have varying value, but don't feel like you're required to min-max in order to play effectively. Priests make terrible melee units due to average deflection and low health and endurance. I find a lot of success playing a priest of Magran with their specific talent "Intense Flames", which grants them a significant accuracy bonus with arquebus and sword. I use my priest to throw down a blessing, fire a shot, and then I can cast another spell instantly in the middle of reloading if needed. In the switch slot, I'll give them the sword and a large shield if I need extra defense or just the sword by itself or dual wielded if I need additional melee DPS for anything. I haven't done much else with the priest. I've never been a fan of caster classes, so I just picked a build that I found easy and effective.
  2. Maybe spend an hour or two getting familiar with combat, and then bump the difficulty up. You'll enjoy the game a lot more then. Or start a PotD game, and relive the launch of Witcher 2's tutorial. That ****ing dragon...
  3. If you look in the screen shot, the negative is being suppressed.
  4. You know what would be great? An Auto-Pause toggle for whenever hit by a disengagement attack. And it's on by default. New players can learn about it more directly, and vets can just untoggle it.
  5. Swift Aim's +attack speed overrides Cautious Attack's -attack speed.
  6. Here's a run down of my last PotD run through, with a non-optimized party. Party Records: Most Enemies Defeated: Chanter (35) Most Total Damage Done: BB Wizard (4891) High Single Target Damage: BB Wizard (46) Most Crits: Ranger (31) Most Hits: BB Priest (697) Most Damage Taken: Fighter (4021) Most Times Knocked Out: Fighter (4) Ranger (Tank) - Coastal Aumaua, pet is a wolf. Fighter (DPS Tank), human. Paladin (Off-tank, support DPS) Moon Godlike of Darcozzi Paladini Chanter (Ranged Summoner/DPS) Coastal Aumaua BB Priest BB Wizard Fun note, Wizard had the highest damage for the party, but only by 18 points. While the other tanks out-damage the ranger, the ranger doesn't have any epic weapons like they do. Give my ranger an on crit: prone weapon that also has +12 accuracy and you're looking at a game changer. It's also worth noting that he uses a sword and shield, not a mace (which is by far superior), whereas the other tanks are using a 2H weapon. I am confident that no other sword and board user can reached that kind of damage in melee while still being extremely durable and reliable. Also... I noticed this, and I am hesitant to share it, but... I did find a possible bug with Swift Aim and Cautious Attack.
  7. I can't even imagine playing this game at easy or normal difficulty anymore. Maybe I'm crazy, but I like moderately challenging game play, and easy/normal would quickly become boring.
  8. Yeah, that's my concern too. I don't mind set attributes, those are part of the personality often times. However, I would love if they joined at level 1 and I was able to level them up myself. I could deal with all joinable characters having one talent that I'm not a fan of, but to be pigeonholed into a build due to talent allocation, I don't like that. It's almost big enough an issue for me that I am considering waiting until there's a character editor even for my first play through. I can't stress how much I want to have control over what talents and abilities the companions take. I never used the BB Rogue because it has the dual wield talent, and I hate using rogue in melee because of how fragile it is. So, because the rogue already has such a build defining talent, which would be a complete waste if I were to use a bow with BB Rogue, I always kill the rogue off.
  9. I'd like to remind everyone that min-maxing isn't necessary, not really. I don't min-max (I usually go 10 con, 12 dex, 14 might/res/int/per), and I am quite capable of defeating PotD difficulty on the backer beta. Sure, you can drop a melee character to min con and just micromanage them so that they're never attacked directly, but they're vulnerable to AoEs which will primarily target your cluster. And sure, per and res mean little to a ranged character, but they also provided buffs against non-standard attacks (enemy ciphers will love your low will characters, and wurms target reflexes instead of deflection). For the first time in a long time, I think we can afford to have a wide spread of stats and still play the game with a viable character. Every stat has some value, and the gains you get from creating a dump stat aren't so massive that it's a non-issue. The difference between 4 and 8 is the exact same as the difference between 16 and 20.
  10. I really like my ranger tank with a sword and shield. Not a lot of active abilities, but I am more comfortable micromanaging my pet and ranger as a duo while worrying about abilities with everyone else. Pretty fun, and I enjoy the RP dynamic of it.
  11. Blunderbuss is very reliant on accuracy for damage, too. It comes with a penalty to accuracy to start with, and due to lower damage per hit, you want more hits/crits, a graze would be minimal damage by a large margin.
  12. So now you start saying obvious things. Yes, there more than one way to play the game, but it doesnt make gimped stat-wise characters less gimped. You lose your bet then. And i dont see how your accusations are relevent to this topic. You're entirely missing the point. You're placing too much emphasis on role based on class, with no consideration for what the attributes actually are. I can promise you there is a build that can use Aloth's stat allocation to great effect (an interrupting blaster with wide range and long duration debuffs), or a build that both takes advantage of Eder's high str and decent con. I promise you, it's there, it's very viable, and it does not leave you "gimped", unless you're making a custom tank with min-maxed stats specifically for tanking, and then complain when Eder can't do what your custom tank can. Um, duh. They've actually done a great job at balancing the mid levels if you'd give it a chance. The efficiency gains from min-maxing are not nearly as pronounced in PoE as they were in IE games.
  13. I can't find where I read it, but someone did a comparison with ranged weapons and focus gain. If you take the +2 focus per hit talent that ciphers get, then blunderbuss is WAY better than anything else. Even without it, the blunderbuss still provides more focus, just not as much. It does 6 (or was it 8?) hits per shot, has decent penetration, and with high accuracy or against a paralyzed target, it will do significant damage on a hit.
  14. its say more about game difficulty, than viability of companions. Anyway i will never agree with argument - "its ok that companions are gimped if i can finish game anyway". But if you can beat the game without significant problems then they... aren't gimped? No, they are. It just means that game is not challenging enough to punish you for their poor stats. It means there's more than one way to play the game.
  15. If going with low con like that, it's workable, but you will have to manage the Cipher the whole fight, to make sure they are only targeting engaged units, and are not at risk from enemy archers. Also, a lot of their abilities are AoE, so anything they hit that isn't engaged already is going to come after the cipher. Melee is a lot tougher than ranged for a cipher.
  16. I agree with this sentiment. Some people may enjoy building to the numbers and making the most optimized character, utilizing every facet of the game they can to dominate it. Good for them, seriously. I just want to be able to create the character I want, and not be the weakest member in the party. I like the Aloth has low might, it means that I am going to focus much more on his non-damage spells. Which is also great, since EVERYONE can do damage, but only wizards can cast wizard debuffs. It makes it so that I am not relying on the wizard's damage as a crutch to really learn the class. I've mad two subpar builds, one of which was absolutely worthless. I made a melee range archer monk, who was subpar. If I took only the passive abilities with the monk and swift strikes, it was workable but still hard to get up wounds. The melee wizard was absolutely worthless, though. By the time he was buffed, all enemies were already engaged, and by the time he was on his third attack, all buffs had worn off.
  17. The release version will not change considerably. The best we can hope for are minor adjustments. The entire current system favours heavy specialization and greatly awards min/maxing. While I share your wishes, I say curb your enthusiasm. Nothing will change considerably in 3 days. To say that the system isn't nice to hybrid builds or utility builds is probably the understatement of the century. That being said, it's also pretty hard to fail irrevocably. Even a really bad build should be able to finish the game. I disagree. I found several stat options that I could reach in conversation that weren't all 18+. Further, the skil checks for conversation and scripted events were reachable by a character that was split between 3 different skills. Combat, too, I am making hybrid, unoptimized characters and am taking out PotD difficulty with little struggle. The game encourages all types. There will be some instances where someone with superhuman might will be necessary to do something really cool, and that's great. That's what you get for being a specialist. But they will have had to drop a lot of stats to reach that high might, and would then miss out on dozens of different events. Generalist characters are absolutely viable.
  18. Then the Wiki is wrong. What does it effect? The wiki is wrong about everything, categorically, all the time. Do not trust it. Never. Perception gives you a bonus to Deflection, Interrupt, and Reflex. It's pretty much exclusively useful for front-liners. Do people really rely on the wikis for games that are still in development?
  19. When it comes to power, nothing tops the arquebus. I'd recommend you go Priest of Magran and take Intense Flames to give you +10 accuracy to Sword and Arquebus, and give him both of those, then take Gunner so that you can kind of set your priest to a reactive play style with their spells, hitting for 60 regularly whenever they get a shot off. Blunderbuss or Pistol on the Rogue usually works really well. It would probably be overkill to use the arquebus on the rogue, especially if you have your Cipher working to enable sneak attack for your rogue. Blunderbuss for certain on the Cipher, to keep him/her loaded in focus.
  20. If on normal difficulty, all ranged. If on any higher difficulty, you're going to need to stay ontop of CC, but neither priest nor rogue are really suited for melee. Slap a shield on the priest in the switch slot, and that might be enough since the priest has other functions beyond attacking. If something gets by, you can hold it back with the priest if needed.
  21. Everyone starts with 1 engagement slot and everyone has access to hold the line, a talent which gives an additional +1. Fighters have a modal ability that gives +2. Barbarians have an ability that gives +1. Ranger pets have 2 engagement slots, but they are NOT suited for tanking. Rangers and Fighters can engage four, but rangers aren't really suited for it. Barbarians can engage three which works great for carnage, but they have low defelection and cannot survive it unless you also boost their defensive capabilities significantly. Everyone else can engage 2. As for potent combos: Wizard with Blunderbuss, Barbairan dual wield, and Fighter with a shield is a great combo to get the most out of the wizard spell Combusting Wounds. It triggers additional burn damage on each hit, so the more hits the more damage it does. Clump NPCs on fighter, cast spell, then wizard blasts the strongest target with the blunderbuss and barbarian rips the rest apart in short order with rapidfire AoE. For strictly class combos: Rogue and Ranger - if you spec down pet damage, since pets can get access to sneak attack too, and between wounding shot and the rogue's blind, you can keep the targets vulnerable. Further, the rogue can get a raw damage DoT applied on every hit, while the pet can take a talent to do 1.2x damage to targets suffering from a DoT. There's a lot of ways that they can compliment each other.
  22. Do they? I know that the occasional spike damage they can do with Backstab is pretty darn unmatched, but I question that absolute claim. My last two playthroughs of the beta was spent vigorously testing that "heavy hitter" label. I built 2 characters, a Barbarian and a Rogue. I built them exactly the same (both Aumaua; both with totally maxed out Might and Perception, and both had the same Dex.) I gave them the same weapon (2-h, Pike) And then I proceeded to watch the combat log. And the result: over the course of the playthroughs I noticed that my Rogue was most definitely getting more Crits than my barbarian. In fact, he was spamming crits. he'd get 4 or 5 in a row. But what was the Point? Both characters were still doing about the same damage. My Rogue would Crit lions and beetles for ~35 points and my Barbarian would hit normally for ~35 points. This only ever changed when my rogue would take advantage of enemy states (hobbled, prone, etc), in those instances he'd do a bit more damage (say, about 40 damage) vs. my Barbarian, who'd still be doing about 35 damage when placed in the same scenario. But the real difference was that my Barbarian's attacks were all carnage. Enemies around his target were taking damage with every hit! I'd like Sensuki's input on this, but at the moment I'm inclined to conclude that when the time comes that I want to build a DPS character, I'll be making a Barbarian. Close testing, but not quite. The barbarian's core ability, carnage, triggers automatically and gains more benefit the more you have clumped together. The rogue core ability, sneak attack, only triggers on certain conditions. Conditions which you said you weren't enabling faithfully. In order to more accurately test the balance of their abilities, you need to keep things clumped for the barbarian, and keep things flanked/hobbled/crippled/whatever for the rogue. Cipher and Rogue are a great combination, and fighter and barbarian is another. Ciphers can use phantom foes to keep enemies in a large radius flanked. They also have a cheap blind which also enables sneak attacks. Fighters can engaged up to four targets at once, thus clumping them for the barbarian. In short, create optimal situations for both classes. I would never play a rogue without a cipher in the party, for example. The barbarian will have the edge if you don't want to micromanage them much, since their core ability triggers no matter what, but I find that barbarians are really dependant on party members having engagement slots, otherwise their AoE will draw unengaged NPCs to them, and then they need a lot of healing.
  23. Fair enough, I just know that I've been playing on PotD with a ranger, and my pet goes down 1 out of every 5 encounters, typically because I screwed up. Not only am I facing more creatures per encounter than on hard, but they are tougher too. Maybe I am experiencing such joy with my ranger due to my whole party set up. Fighter- 2H sword, defender and wary defender. Focus on DPS otherwise. Paladin- Pike, +DT Aura, Flames of Darconi Palace, cautious attack, warhammer/shield on switch. Ranger- Sword and Shield, Wolf pet, Hold the Line, Cautious Attack, Swift Aim, Stalker's Link, warbow on switch. Priest- Arbequs, gunner, inspired flame, weapon focus soldier, sword (no shield, not dual wield) on switch. Wizard- Blast, Penetrating Blast, Penetrating Shot, spells taken are support/debuff, not damage. Easily replaceable with a Cipher, Cipher's can blind and paralyze cheaply and easily without risking party members. Chanter- Blunderbuss, summons phantom, then uses the Three White Worms ivocation when things are dying/dead. Gunner, and Ila Nocked.
  24. Honestly from the sound of it, you're still using the pet incorrectly. You talk about how much micro-managing it needs, but if you have a ranged ranger then it would probably need LESS management than it would for a melee ranger. You also refer to it as a seventh party member. To me, it sounds like you have the pet on the front lines with your tanks. That's not where the pet belongs, even if it's a bear or antelope. The pet should never be initially targeted by anything for engagement, it should single out a roamer or something presently engaged, and then the ranger follows the target of the pet. Pets tank just like rogues do, which is to say that they are not suited for it at all. Hang back with the pet, wait until the field is settled. If you find yourself missing a tank because the pet isn't grabbing aggro, then your party is imbalanced. The only time the pet can rush in is when the ranger is also melee. The ranger has higher defenses, access to higher DR, and has more endurance than the pet. The ranger will tank while the pet deals damage. The pet is not a meat shield, it is the method by which rangers deal damage.
  25. For those with chanter issues... try White Worms Writhed in the Bellies of the Dead. While it is dependent on where the corpses lie, it is a very potent DPS invocation. While not as great as Thrice She Was Wronged was, it still has a massive range, and deals significant damage in a radius around each corpse. If you've got five corpses around one target, that one target will be hit five times. It also doesn't feel as OP as Thrice She Was Wronged did, as it's not going to be the best invocation to use in every situation, but when the situation is just right, it is devastating. I have been stuck between a Chanter or a Ranger, both sword and shield users, both focusing on the same trio of skills: survival, lore, athletics. I really enjoy the style and complexity of the ranger, and am well satisfied with it's damage output + defensive capabilities. I also love the idea of roaming the world with a loyal pet wolf that rips faces. The ranger works well at melee or at range, the accuracy bonus from Stalker's Link is equally valuable, so even if I take sword and shield, it's still tactically viable to carry a bow to switch to. Very fun to play, and still valuable to the party even if the wolf goes down early. On the other hand, I love the idea of a wandering skald, boisterous and loud, quick to act upon anything that sets him as a hero. I also really enjoy the chanter's role in the party, and the fact that they are still capable tanks with comparable health regen for the whole group as the fighter can provide for himself; a chanter in the thick of it provides significant healing for everyone who's getting hurt. A ranged chanter would get less value from Ancient Memory, since he would be stuck in the rear with everyone else who's not getting hurt. I still haven't decided. I will most likely be going with a ranger, though. Stalker's Link is what turns the ranger tank into a meh off-tank into a great off-tank, but it also means that I will actually have to care about my ranger's damage output. Weapons, stats, gear, etc. All of that will actually matter to a ranger, where as the chanter will just want to stack deflection and constitution, because their primary role will be summoning and surviving. It doesn't sound as fun to me.
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