thelee

interesting post. i don't think i've ever really tried to quantify how i or the game value resources, but i have an intuitive sense of what resources "ought" to be. i think you're probably right in terms of how the game values it, but in terms of "ought" (since the topic of balancing is brough tup): i think of costs more intuitively where 1 martial resource = "cantrip/plentiful", 2 martial resource = "sparing and powerful", 3 martial resource = "rare and encounter-changing." i call them cantrips because by mid game encounters, just using 1-cost martial abilities pretty much last you the encounter for regular (non-spammy) use, like frenzy, disciplined barrage, barbarian yell, crippling strike. 2 martial resources eat up your resources twice as fast and suffer from significant opportunity cost as a result, so they should be used sparingly but should have major impact. 3 martial resources should be very very powerful to be worth the cost. so, i guess my equivalency probably views tiers 1-3 as "ought" to be 1, and then 4-9 as "ought" to be 2, and only special exceptions for 3. in this respect i find a lot of abilities stupidly overcosted (barbarian blow doesn't seem like a powerful-enough ability, paladin light of pure zeal at 5 lolwtf*, barbarian's robust at 3 not worth it until you can bring the cost down, rogue ring the bell doesn't earn its 2, the imbue: missiles at 2, etc.) there are occasional undercosted abilities, especially with how one upgrades martial abilities (if i paid 3 for dazing shout i'd probably still be happy). this also effects how casters compare and their resource equivalency - most of their spells i would consider to be equivalent to 2, with exceptions for a few spells at 3 (some tier 8/9 spells). i don't know if that really adds much to the discussion, but just my .02 * i think the game designers also tried for consideration to consider uses/encounter, and is the only reason i can think of that ability being so expensive, so that you're limited to twice/encounter. but unlike poe's per-encounter abilities, there's a huge opportunity cost, so in practice it just seems like a lot to give up.

the mechanics may be more "user friendly" to you, which is a reasonable opinion (but c'mon, THAC0 is not user friendly), but here I wonder if there's just some confusion around engagement mechanics? Like someone else said, in practice engagement is almost never broken by AI, it's almost too rigid. The main exceptions appear to be fampyrs and rogue-like enemies, who will use their abilities specifically designed to break engagement (like Escape, Shadowing Beyond, Defensive Roll)and in rare cases just eat a disengagement attack to strike someone squishy. The big thing is that unlike PoE, in Deadfire melee-ers do not start with any engagement slots. You have to at least use a shield. Also unlike PoE, it is much easier to lose engagement, via afflictions, or even an interrupt. TBF, megabosses really should be broadcast in-game as completely optional, only do this if you like smashing your head on the wall challenges. They are not meant for diversified parties. They are puzzles, that can only be solved by a combination of extreme metagaming and cheese. They don't even give you good rewards. As well, SSS definitely does have some imbalanced fights, especially for certain party compositions. Even though FS is harder, SSS definitely feels a lot more unforgiving in that it pushes towards megaboss-style metagaming and cheese. In particular, if you go down the survivor's path, the battles can be extremely tedious slogs that are rudely surprising in how many extra enemies keep spawning. Even though it's against flavor, even just having a progress bar showing "enemies remaining" or a more clear indication on the enemies themselves what wave they are would help. Anyway, I think these are pretty fair criticisms, in particular because the system prides itself on "viability". If you have crit-path DLC encounters or main-map (mega)bosses that are significantly harder to do with a reasonable subset of parties, then the encounter design needs a bit of a pass or better scaffolding needs to be done around those fights.

no worries, my non-english skills are terrible. take it as a complement - the interaction you found with hemorrhaging seems so potentially zany, that i had a real hard time believing it at first, at least the way i was beginning to understand it

Sorry I just need to double-clarify this, I think it might be a slight language issue. Based on what Boeroer says, do you mean "transforms everything that crit into a melee attack?" So, if I have Effort and enchant with Hemmoraging, if I crit with Dancing Bolts spell, those Dancing Bolt crits will also trigger Hemmoraging, which will then trigger Avenging Storm bolts? Just want to make sure I got this right, because if so, this sounds potentially crazy.

i'm not sure i'm completely following - what does Effort do in these situations? Does it just provide an additional (on-crit only) effect that can trigger an Avenging Storm bolt?

Yeah I discovered this with blunderbuss. A moderate amount of self-lightning damage to absolutely strip away reflection is a nice trade off. i think it helps that even though each individual bolt doesn’t do much it still counts as 8 spell levels per bolt

ah yes, that's probably true. tbh i mostly either consume rum, rymsjodda lager, koiki fruit, or brew battered ysae. i care alot about speed/recovery timing on my casters.

i actually really like the damage boost, but on casters. it's pretty easy to rack up damage bonuses for martials, quite a bit less so for casters, and i almost never invest in might as part of initial character creation, so the +20% is almost a multiplicative 1.2x for my caster's damage output.

i phrased it badly, what i mean is, for example, if you have a ranger/priest to get champion's boon+stalker's link on your pet, is there anything special about it versus a ranger and a priest separately (answer, no: a separate priest can still cast champion's boon on a separate ranger's stalker's link pet)? not literally take up an additional party slot, but does combining the two actually get anything new (the sum is more than the parts), or could you get the same outcomes through other setups and you don't have to have it via multiclass.

tbf this is like the worst UI decision i've ever seen. who on earth would intuitively think of that demon head as a button?

yeah i knew this about arterial strike (had some fun kiting some dex "immune" foes around), but did not know this about gouging strike and toxic strike! i have a mental image of you as a mad scientist in some lab just constantly trying every permutation of ability/class against every permutation of enemy.

you don't have any mods or anything, right? that might be interfering with stuff? are you playing on TB or RTWP mode?

so, some totem/sigils/whatever have stricter immunities IIRC. i know there are some with pierce/slash immunity, which basically excludes all ranged weapons outside of scepters. that being said, in general this is true, though i think elemental damage types might be weird. do you have a specific case that's not working? is it a unique warbow? if all projectile damage is bad uh... it'd be very hard for me to believe that gamepass would be doing this [though i find that gamepass can screw games up], anyway you can post a screenshot or pic of combat log and equipment?

So OK, if I were to take a stab at a tier list, I think I would actually re-sort the multi-class one quite a bit. A big thing for me is that a multiclass really should give you something better than if you had two characters single-classing the respective classes or if you just remixed some of your existing MCs in your party; in other words something truly synergistic, and as a result some classes fall off pretty hard, with a few notable exceptions. I'll mostly ignore subclasses unless something is very notable. This isn't saying the lower-tier classes are bad for MC, just that you might just be better off not MC-ing or that the lower the class is on the tier you may have to work harder to get synergistic results (maybe by mixing with a higher-tier class). Within a given tier, classes are not in any particular order, though I may group classes that are in the tier for a similar reason. S tier: Fighter, Monk <- extremely useful passives and abilities/buffs that are useful for all sorts of mixins. Tactical Barrage or Duality (intellect) are both great for casters for example. ironically, i would find a fighter/monk multiclass not that exciting, but a fighter/anything-else or a monk/anything-else is pretty darn easy way to get a synergistic MC. Ranger <- a little more strictly limited to damage dealers and you have to work for it, but you can get a ton of generic accuracy and, later on, damage bonuses or defensive boosts. Stalker can get you unconditional bonus passive AR, which is really hard to come by (even a Barbarian's is limited to a few damage types). I was tempted to rank this down but to be honest it's only because you have to metagame and work for that max-ed out hunter's claw (and you can cheesily exceed the 20 max no problemo), not because it's weak in any way. Top tier (may be situationally S-tier in the right setup, but not as general as actual S-tier) Priest of Wael, Priest of Skaen, Trickster <- spam defensive spells for glass cannons Shifter <- some interesting synergies with extended shape shifting, but mostly only works with martial multiclass Psion <- the action economy benefits for a caster are wonderful, and multiclassing with a caster means unlike a SC psion you don't get completely shut out in fights with huge aoes or lots of annoying ranged enemies Wizard <- lots of useful buff spells mixed in that provide a great deal of utility for all sorts of classes, whether you're high-deflection (wizard's double, arcane veil, mirror image), melee-ing (summoning weapons, phantom), tanking (spirit shield, bulwark, corrosive siphon, repulsive visage, flame shield), ranged (different summoned weapons, eldritch aim), or just a caster mix (infuse with vital essence, deleterious alacrity of motion, picking up tons of passives while still getting a lot of extra spell casts due to grimoires). The payoff is a little bit worse for mixing in with other caster classes, hence why it's not S-tier. Pretty good tier (may be situationally top tier in the right setup, but not as general as actual Top tier) Barbarian <- frenzy can be pretty useful for various setups, bonus armor & blood thirst also pretty handy. bloodlust comes very late but on damage-dealers can be spam-city. mobility of leap or wild sprint can help out mixins that are a bit squishier. Rogue <- riposte and escape are great, but the opportunities for riposte are a little more limited. But martial damage dealers will love sneak attack. Cipher <- bonus weapon damage is nice and you get some effects that only benefit the cipher, which means multiclassing onto a decent body can get you more than if you're just a SC cipher Paladin -> extra defense can be nice and in certain situations can be godly, but it's pretty niche in terms of what other classes can offer and most of the stuff you really want someone else to be the paladin anyway, so that they can use exortations on you. Nothing special tier (may be situationally pretty good in the right setup, but otherwise nothing special) Druid, Priest -> really hard to come up with synergies outside of any subclasses mentioned above. you might still have a good time multiclassing them, but nothing special. Ancient and Priest of Magran/Berath have some edge interactions with their bonus PL/spells that can be slightly interesting. Fury unfortunately hurts itself by limiting its benefit to just druidic elements abilities. Chanter <- energized, skald crit-hit synergy (which chanter alone is kinda bad at), sometimes you have a build that needs to be up close and personal anyway and can advantageously position chant AoEs. but most of what a chanter can do can be done just as well or better as an SC chanter, you don't necessarily get anything special by MC-ing it.

i'm partial to spellcasters, and I think you'll find a melee wizard a fun and interesting way to play. There are some pitfalls (an enemy's arcane dampener can ruin your day), but with things like Arcane Veil, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion (to freely avoid engagement), Wizard's Double, your survivability can shoot through the roof, while you can summon powerful weapons or just dart around the battlefield to drop some powerful but low-range spells. only downside is that aloth can be either a fighter/wizard or a rogue/wizard, so you can technically explore this option without having to build your mainchar as melee wizard.

Auch spiele ich "Wrath of the Righteous" mit der deutschen Sprache. Das Komische ist, dass ich Klasse auf Lingoda nehme, mein Hören und Sprechen zu verbessern. Dort haben die Lehrer mir gesagt, dass mein Wortschatz überraschend und beeindruckend ist. Aber weil meist mein Wortschatz von Videospielen kommen, vergesse ich manchmal etwas Einfaches, zum Beispiel wie man einige Buchstaben des Alphabets aussprachen kann, aber ich könnte sprechen über komplizierte aber seltsame Themen, z.B. das Entweihen eines Heiligen Orts oder ein Komplott des Schurcks. The best part of playing with German is simply just having the opportunity for regular practice with something I'm keen on. Sometimes it can be exhausting when I get a wall of text and I don't know half the words/expressions, and I find it a little odd that Deadfire and WotR (despite being both similarly fantasy RPGs) having different "domains" of words that they use (at least with the german mod, some very similar concepts get translated differently between the two games), but it is rewarding the umpteenth time I see a word and I no longer need to look it up without having to do flashcards, (which I did a lot of at first, ~2000 words over a few months), even if I can't ever foresee needing to use those words in a future trip to central europe. (edit: Unless something geopolitically terrible happens and I get to use all those Kreuzzug, Kreuzfahrer, etc words)

this is a particularly neat trick, good find!

with this criteria i'm surprised SC druid also doesn't make it into the "great" category. their heals and dots do a lot of work for a lot of party playstyles and i've really grown to appreciate woodskin and form of the delemgan and weather the storm (for similar reasons, chanter has also bumped up my personal tier list because of that AR invocation), which buys you plenty of game time before you can start spamming great maelstrom. for related reasons, priest bumps down a bit. i've stanned priests before, but there's no denying that a lot of players in the past have had trouble fitting a priest in, or finding a use for it - buffs and debuffs aren't relevant for lower difficulties as much, and can be harder to use, and all the nuking doesn't come online until much later (and excluding cheese excludes some of the priest's strongest stuff). i know subclasses excluded for simplicity's sake, but i think i agree with the overall ranks (still digesting it though) but subclasses and other details can crazy mix up the specifics. i think psion is probably a tier above wherever any generic cipher lands; despite the "no cheese" rule, auto-genning focus is pretty much built-in cheese. SC bellower/troubadour for similar reasons goes up for me if i consider megabosses because the dragon summon does a lot of work in 2.5 of the megabosses (dor, belranga, and then a bit in HoW). probably will have more of an essay after i recover from some traveling. (edit: bellower/troubadour because they're the ones that can get easy 100% uptime on the dragon)

funnily enough, i've been doing this trick for a long time, mostly for ambushes. i say funny, because i just replied in that other thread never knowing/thinking to equip items without soulbinding them, so it just goes to show you what you think is well-known might not actually be. in ambushes you can do it if you have auto-pause: enemy spotted, just stealth as soon as the game pauses. it doesn't always work because sometimes i feel like the game forcefully unstealths you (esp coming out of dialogue), and other times the enemies are so close they break stealth very quickly, but when it does work you can get off a few buffs or improve your positioning before you get revealed. (and very occasionally positioning works out that you can scurry away and set yourself up with buffs or start doing cheesy stuff) i actually think it's slightly more of a hassle. sometimes you get frame skips, sometimes your timing is a little off (at least for me and my terrible gamer reflexs) and it doesn't work out. might be fine for a typical run where you can reload, but if you're doing ironman mode or the ultimate i would stay safe and use traps (which is what i did).

wow i'm an idiot. 1700 hours and i never ever ever thought once to equip an item without soulbinding it

i might be missing something, but this method of getting energized is only available to partial fighter/barbarian/monks, because slayer's claw is only available for those classes. edit: also, i never ever before found a use for resounding call's destructibles enchantment, but i'm guessing with SoF that's a good way to trigger tenacious/energized? or do you actually destroy destructibles in fights?

i think they explicitly patched this out, so as of whatever that patch was you can't do this. that doesn't preclude the fact that they may have undid this change unintentionally later. but they definitely didn't handle the much more ubiquitous case of disintegrate annihilating hauane o whe, so there's a way to bypass the split

huh, i actually did not know this. i think it's quite a bit of setup for a tier 8 spell, but locking out an enemy with hard CC and high-power DoTs does sound like it can be fun to pull off.

In fact, the buff triggers upon starting the invocation cast. This has a perverse effect where if your intellect and dexterity are a little low, it is actually possible that the buff wears off before you can even benefit from it on slow-cast invocations. And, as I think mentioned before, the Eld Nary upgrade will most likely see only minimal benefit because the spell effect is so slow compared to the duration of the PL increase. It's a weird implementation of the effect to be sure. It does mean if you play turn-based mode, SC bellower is much better than RTWP. SC bellower using the upgraded Eld Nary in turn-based mode is guaranteed to complete the spell before their PL buff disappears, which would probably be akin to opening a fight with a spell like Greater Maelstrom in how much of an advantage it would get you in the first round.

I didn't see this directly answered, but no, the bellower PL invocation doesn't apply to anything other than chanter invocations. It doesn't even seem to boost chants. Regardless of the mechanics of how it is implemented, it is definitely intended to be an invocation-focused subclass.