Sock

For an ability, it's great. But it really should be a higher tier invocation.

For balance reasons, ranged attacks should always provide less DPS in a game like this. Not unless they're going to create some kind of "aggro management" system seperate from the Engagement system; think taunts and feign death, etc. So the role of ranged units needs to be more in the realm of support, not in topping the damage charts. DoTs that build up over time (thus making it so that you can't afford to ignore enemy ranged units) would be an amazing trade off for the low damage with bows. Firearms seem to be pretty awesome in general. The problem lies in how high the high damage is (a crit of 100 damage with a rifle isn't uncommon), compared to how low the low damage is. There aren't enough "vulnerable" creatures in the beta that can be wrecked by a low damage weapon like the hunting bow, which makes all high damage weapons infinitely more appealing, especially when timed to take advantage of paralyzes and prones. IMO, the brunt of the balance problem with 1h vs 2h is, simply, DR. 1h weapons cannot overcome DR and their rate of attack is too low. Even with increased accuracy by using them with a free hand, the DR of most creatures can outright block 30% of a hit (not a crit) with a 1h weapon. Whereas a graze from a 2h weapon might do the same damage, but a hit or a crit far outweigh 1h weapons, as they do more damage than the DR can soak.

I looked at mine the other day. 90 hours, and I came to the beta late. I asked myself; "Am I still going to want to even play this game when it goes live?" And I sat. And I pondered this, giving it all the thought that such an important question was worth. You're god damned right I am going to play this game. I am going to destroy it, devour it, CONSUME ITS VERY ESSENCE. I will probably just avoid Dryford. Tonight I plan to try a monk archer who is a frontline fighter (thereby aquiring wounds). I haven't spent anytime with the monk, mostly because I tend to hate DnD monks, but if I can use monk abilities with a bow, that might be interesting. I love testing just how flexible the classes are.

If they take any advice from this thread, this is it. I still think interrupt is fine though so there! Who cares if it favors duel wielders, it is okay if a stack is not must have for everyone. I kind of agree, but at the same time... a very real stunlock opportunity is to have two chanters who each summon 3 skeletons. That's 6 targets attacking one creature. I did that to the ogre, even without building for stunlock builds, I was able to achieve it by having two chanters. He got off maybe one attack, but that was it once the skeletons were there.

Oh, I agree. And the whole reason why is because it feels like every second counts. You tend to have to ride the space bar to be effective. SOME kind of very basic AI, like one that would hand healing allies, or knocking down enemies automatically. That would help, that would make it feel like you don't have to manage 6 character's different timing. Either that or making it truly turn based, like ToEE.

No, I know. It's not just high might. It's also rouge sneak attack and blinding hit, as you said. You performed a single extremely high power attack on a single target. That's not the entire fight, that's one blow, and then you're entirely reliant on your other characters to enable sneak attack conditions. In most of your balance issues, it's when they have ways to stop the whole party. Your future hits will do 33% less damage and also (assuming a "over long term average") 50% reduced chance to hit above a graze. With that low accuracy, you could never crit. So, you'd go from 3 grazes and 2 hits to 2.5-3 grazes, at 12 damage. It still contributes to the team long term for the whole fight, but it's not going to be as impressive as that screenshot shows except for in very special conditions.

OH, right, I forgot. You build your characters for maximum damage. Yeah, I could see how that would change your results compared to mine. I like flexibility as opposed to specialization. If you build around the lead spitter, then you can of course get very high results with penetrating shot.

As far as the dice is concerned, it is a crit. It's 1 point away from being the highest roll. On a more average roll, most of those hits would've been grazes and misses, they wouldn't have gotten enough damage to reach the DR cap. My point being that it's more valuable to get your accuracy up, as it will increase your damage, and also get your attack speed up. You'll barely be reaching the damage cap, and with higher accuracy you'll land more solid hits with less of a reliance on high die rolls.

Right, that's on a crit. Roll 99's are always impressive.

Yeah that would actually be a very good combo, especially with Lead Spitter. Not really, the lead spitter already has very high penetration. It's problem is just low damage in general.

Edit: Please note, I intend with each suggestion that only one should be applied. PoE needs a scalpel for balance, not a shotgun. I've said a few of these things elsewhere, but I'll add them here as well: Combusting wounds needs work. I've seen a duration as high as 78 seconds, which effectively means that for over a minute, every small bit of damage this character receives will be amplified by burn damage (possibly by a currently unknown amount, I haven't found where it's displayed at least). I LOVE the effect, it's an excellent damage spike support spell. But for a level 2 spell, it's really too strong. Suggested fixes: Keep its effects as is, but move it to level 5 or 6. Keep it where it is, but lower duration to 20 seconds. Keep it where it is, but lower damage to being only 10% of the hit. Thrice She Was Wronged. This is the trump card of chanters. It has a huge AoE, hits every enemy 3 times, and does extremely high damage when all of that is taken into consideration. Suggested fixes: Keep its effects as is, but move it to tier 3 or 4. Keep it where it is, but change it to one hit per enemy. Keep it where it is, but lower damage to 1/3rd of current levels. Kalakoth's Minor Blights. This spell is excellent as a "set it and forget it" spell. Duration is 60 seconds base, and the damage dealt is some of the "less common" kinds, which can be further enhanced by the elemental damage feats. They also have a blast effect, effectively being as strong as two wizard talents (Blast and Blast Penetration due to higher damage than blast weapon types). Suggested fixes: Keep it at the same spell level, but cut duration in half. Keep it at the same spell level, but remove the blast feature. Keep it at the same spell level, but have it modify the damage type of any projectile being wielded instead of creating it's own. Ranger pets are too fragile. Suggested fixes: Recommend that they have their own development path, their own level up screen. Let the ranger have talents that improve their coordination, but the pet has all talents that impact only the pet. Double all current DR values for pets. Increase by 50% all current defense values, and double the antelope's defense bonus. Give them more functionality; right now unless you specifically take the knock down feat, all they can do is auto attack. AI rarely wants the ranger and his pet to work together, correct that so that by default, the ranger and their pet will automatically target the same enemy. Shields. All other weapon styles have pros, only shields have negatives (accuracy penalty) built in. If you dual wield, you're faster than anyone else. If you single wield, you are more accurate than anyone. If you use a 2h weapon, you have the highest single hit damage. If you use a shield, you are harder to hit AND you hit less often. All other weapon styles, the trade off is "you can do more damage, but you're defended less", but they are just defended less by not having a bonus. Only with a shield is a penalty actually applied. And shields are, currently, not worth the penalty. Recommended fixes: When taking weapon and shield talent, also apply a 10% lash crushing damage so long as a shield is equipped to represent offensive use of the shield as well. Halve accuracy penalties. Allow for accuracy enchantments to be placed on the shield, which work just to reduce the accuracy penalty. Give sword and shield talent an extra per encounter attack, shield bash, which has a high interrupt chance but does very low damage, checks against fortitude. Introduce a new talent, "Shield Fighting", that applies a 20% lash crushing damage so long as a shield is equipped.

Tried it. Could be done, with a wide variety of builds, varying in difficulty from challenging to way overpowered. But it's a TOOOOONNNN of micromanagement to perfect. You basically sit on pause every second for every fight.

4, usually. But when out, blast still does ridiculously low damage and with Scion of Flame, I can turn combusting wounds into a near instant death spell for every target when using a blunderbuss.

I'd argue against blast. Kalashnikov's Minor Blights has a blast effect and does way higher damage and lasts for 60+ seconds. It's vastly superior than the very low damage of blast, IMO. Take the +20% elemental damage talents instead to give it even more of a boost, depending on the type of blight randomly summoned.

Chanters would be best. Highest base deflection and decent accuracy, so you could build them however you want, each one can summon powerful creatures, and they're remarkably durable and with all of them ticking away with Beloved of Spirits, healing would be covered as well. I think each tier has 6 chants, too, so starting out you'd have all 6 active, and then when you get more tiers you can keep the most powerful active. This sounds fun, I think I'm going to do that on my next beta run.

Did you loot the boss with the stash? If so, it ate your soulstone and that's why you can't complete the spear.

Penetrating shot on a chanter with a hunting bow is actually pretty useful. Hunting bow is pretty quick, and Ila Nocked nulifies the penalty. The low damage of the hunting bow also comes into play with it being (basically) +5 damage per hit.

Field Triage and Wound Binding. 1 use per rest? Pfft. Especially since it doesn't scale with level. I also hold no stock in any of the +defense talents, since they are a mere +10, and Superior Deflection is a mere +5. Talents are rare, I need something of constant use, or if not of constant use then of extremely high value when used.

I've been playing with Paladin a lot more lately, trying to figure it out. As a main tank, they currently take a big hit in functionality simply due to their combat only aura mechanic. Everytime combat starts, they are stationary for ~1 second. In that one second, your enemies are rushing you, your backup is passing you, and you're entering a battle field that is already at least 50% static. So, I really wouldn't recommend a paladin as your main tank. I have found that using a pike is very effective, as it allows your paladin to take advantage of the fact that they're joining the battle late, it balances itself very well and takes advantage of the range of the pike. Further, you can take the cautious fighting talent if you want to turn your paladin into an off-tank. However, something to keep in mind is that you will very rarely be hit like this. Light armor, like padded or robes, or no armor at all might even be best for this build, but that's a high risk/high reward type of build, and you could be found with your pants around your ankles if your fighter gets overwhelmed. If you're dead set on being in the thick of things, then consider dual wielding or a two handed weapon. Paladins have the ability to get very high defenses naturally, and a shield would be overkill in most cases. These are just my observations and impressions. Others may have developed their paladins differently and found great success, perhaps even avoiding the auras altogether.

Specifically this point. I don't see how the change would avoid the situation he specifically mentions. Six guys dual wielding clubs with 20 perception would still attack fast enough to continually reapply the same .35 second delay, right? Since it would tick down inbetween each hit, the reapplication would bump it back up to .35, or am I misunderstanding?

I don't know how badly they were nerfed, I came into the beta after this nerf. They are a very passive class at the moment, but their passive bonuses are obscene. I have seen in the beta some reptuation dialogs requring a 4 in the value. So, with two favored dispositions at 5 (and we can probably safely assume at least 5 if not higher), you can get +15 defelection and +30 all other defenses from JUST Faith and Conviction, also assuming that the 5/10 base value is not an artifical boost since we're starting the beta mid-way. Add in another +15 defelction from cautious attacks, and then stick a supurb shield on that with sword and shield talent, and you're looking at a build that is as untouchable as that "can't touch this" video paladin, but is also capable of dealing damage because you wouldn't have to cripple it's offense as much in the full game to reach those defense values thanks to disposition bonuses. I don't even want to imagine how you'll be able to tweak things with magical gear, too. If any magical effects work similar to Riposte (retaliate on a miss), then it's going to be a class that wrecks everything.

100% agreed. As it stands, I find the most effective paladin build is to use a pike. Since they have to go through the animation of activating their aura, they will always lag behind your front line, and with the pike they can bunch up much cleaner than if using a normal range melee weapon.

Either everything got weaker, or I just got better. I obliterated the first beetle group on hard. I think I lost a sum total of 60 endurance from that fight. With an unoptimized group, 14 str/per/int/res, 12 con, 10 dex for paladin/ranger/chanter/priest. Fighter (with 2h weapon and defensive stance) with Eder's stats, and a wizard with Spirit of Flame and Aloth's stats. It could just be that combusting wounds with spirit of flame is brutal, especially when combined with the level 1 missle spell (3 hits = 3 triggers for combusting wounds). I do have a lot of balance concerns with certain spells and abilities. Kalashnikov's Minor Blights is brutal for a "set it and forget it" ability. Thrice She Was Wronged is exceptional. Either of those combined with Combusting Wounds is god-tier, since Combusting Wounds triggers damage on each hit, so add in a dual wielding barbarian and we're talking obscene damage levels from that spell. I do love the mechanic of Combusting Wounds, but it needs to be a much higher spell level. I'm thinking 5 or 6. Thrice She Was Wronged needs to be a tier 3 invocation. Kalashinkov's Minor Blights should have it's duration halved.

That's not what many of us envisioned when they talked about exploration XP. That implementation just seems lazy to me. IMO it would have been better to give XP for finding 'secret' areas and finding things within areas (such as hidden caches). Problem 1 is that there is no exploration at all, give me world map ala fallout and we can start talking about exploration There absolutely is exploration. I've done the beta area around 20 times, and just found a fight I have apparently missed 19 times. Stick a cave in that area and bam, I found it.

Found it. Thanks. LleaRhemen.zip