thelee
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Posts posted by thelee
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3 hours ago, yorname said:
Bashing shields results in slightly less damage, but you are looking at a much shorter recovery time, so if something goes wrong, you don't have to wait for a whole 4s to use Second Wind.
the one exception to this is tuolito's palm if you have monastic unarmed training, i crunched some numbers in a spreadsheet relatively recently.
you get reduced recovery time AND you do actually get a DPS boost. the actual DPS boost goes down the better your mainhand weapon, but monastic unarmed training makes the shield bash so un-bad (and it actually scales up, if slowly) that it's a net positive for most reasonable cases.
edit: also i wouldn't sleep on the +1 engagement you get. downside to straight-up 2w is you lack battlefield control w/out investing ability points or getting specific +engagement items (like a spear). fighter especially has mob stance which can be real good but really needs a lot of engagement, so a bashing shield gets you engagement w/out completley nuking your dps like a normal shield.
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On 12/20/2023 at 2:43 AM, Fruney said:
By the way, are disengagement attacks triggered when enemies are pulled-of-eora or llengrath-staffed out of tank's melee range?
nope. a push or pull temporarily grants immunity to disengagement... importantly that immunity actually lasts a little bit after the push or push/pull effect ends. poorly used, this can actually make it harder to manage/control combat for that reason.
however, when terrified, characters are not granted immunity to disengagement, so you can do tons of damage by terrifying melee-engaged enemies (unfortunately the same is true for you, though enemies that terrify are rather rare).
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yeah it's a pretty neat trick. i think someone here even posted an aI script they used to automate the upgrade to tier 3 inspirations.
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4 hours ago, Fruney said:
By the way, I was about to switch difficulty to Veteran after a very underwhelming encounter with Concelhaut, but I started BoW soon after and man, this is something else.
yeah IMO the DLC are much more tuned for challenge than the main game. you can kinda brute force the main game especially on lower difficulties, but you really need some mastery of game mechanics to help manage the DLC. even though BoW is theoretically an early teens-level DLC based on how many skulls I see for my party level, on PotD especially there are some parts of it (the ones with the burning archers) that are just absolute wrecking balls in difficulty if you're not prepared for it.
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On 12/15/2023 at 12:20 AM, SenSx said:
I don't know if the perception inspiration is that effective on a late game rogue, would he alwready have enough crit chance without the need for more ?
hm, there's definitely some diminishing returns. if you're on a rogue/cipher, you also have access to an incredible accuracy buff. if you plan to pick that one up, i'd definitely go for might or intellect.
ciphers get really punished if you're unable to penetrate the enemy's armor, and for that reason might is probably a good choice.
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On 12/14/2023 at 1:44 PM, Fruney said:
it estimates the chances at, say, 60%, which seems to me like too big of a gamble for the limited resource that is cast-per-spell-tier. So I'd like to debuff him first, but it's same story - usually chances are low and I am not yet familiar enough with all these analytics. But it's already better due to my party higher levels.
60% is still decent for a good CC, especially when a little bit of CC can really swing the fight your way. it is definitely rough early game, but i think ~70% is what i get to by mid-game and i'm pretty happy with that. anything more feels like i'm already trending towards a fight that is one that i'm dominating.
clubs, flails, and morningstars are more foolproof ways to debuff enemy stats.
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i always have a hard time remembering to use watcher abilities for some reason.
but unless you have a lot of ranged, i think immobilization is kind of a weak-sauce debuff. doesn't stop casters, doesn't stop melee that are already in melee range. if you do have lots of ranged or have good mobility, then immobilization can be a handy way to harmlessly take out melee foes. but bc it requires some setup, i tend to like No Time For the Lost (getting rid of debuffs on you is pretty good)
cipher is a little weak with brilliant but rogue is great. getting 1 guile back every 6 seconds when you only have 9 guile or 11 guile at max levels (depending on MC or SC) is huge. with good intellect and PL scaling you could get back most of your guile.
if you have good accuracy and crit rates, you could consider the might one - interrupting on a crit is nice too.
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4 hours ago, Boeroer said:
Me personally: not much (in a party). I will have a standard chant and then one or two other chants for special situations. Like resistance chants when I know I will meet enemies who dish out a lot of annoying afflictions. Solo it's different because you need to be more versatile.
this is normally me - it's not only the micro that's annoying, it's that you're blocked out from selecting chants a) a few seconds after an invocation b) a few seconds after a chant starts and c) from stealth. if you do an invocation A & B actually double-up into two distinct phases of blocked out. so even if i wanted to micro, i'm frequently blocked out from changing my chants even when i want to (and then i forget by the time i'm no longer locked out).
my current run is where i actually have two main chants i like to use, one that has the fire lash song, and the other that has the reload/ranged-attack-speed song (among other). it's because i have a "flex" character who switches between weapons, one of which is The Red Hand arquebus. when they switch to arquebus mode I change to the reload chant. when they switch to melee or after a fight ends, i switch back to the fire lash chant. this is probably the most i've ever actually micro-managed a chanter's singing before.
18 hours ago, Fruney said:On tough ones I do the same because CC feels pointless.
CC is absolutely not pointless. I play on PotD with challenges and up-scaling, and CC is worth a lot more to me than just straight up damage (e.g. citzal's). I even use CC on megabosses.
cast Slicken a couple times on a batch of foes and see how little the enemy will manage to get done the entire time.
CC is hard at the start of the game on potd because enemy defenses are really high relative to you bc you don't have much of a choice in progression yet (wheras after port maje you can go do some other quest if something is too hard), but the same goes for basically every attack or spell.
18 hours ago, Fruney said:But no way I am going bare fist. However, if I go with Herald at position 2, I feel I will lack buffs/healing and would need some priest or druid MC here.
why no fist? fists are extremely powerful.
also, frankly a herald is immensely powerful sustain and buffing. if you've never played one, you're underestimating it. if you have played one and think it can't carry your party, you did it wrong
. a herald can be your single point of sustain and defense. heck a paladin alone carries a lot of healing/buff duty.
lay on hands from a paladin is extremely spammable (costing only 1 zeal) and extremely effective healing. you can upgrade zealous endurance to bestow regeneration (in addition to a small AR boost). you can insta-res party members with an exhortation (and if you didn't put on too much might and the target has decent health or you have barring death's door, they'll even stay alive once the exhortation runs out). chanter gives you even more regeneration (ancient memory), with options for more defense (silver knight), more healing (the beams of light), another res source, or even more sustain (there's a vampiric chant and/or the health shield chant and/or the chant that boosts healing effective). and you can also summon powerful allies like ogres, drakes, or ancient weapons.
edit: the first time i ever attempted the ooze megaboss i stumbled into victory because i happened ot have pallegina set up as a herald and she literally carried the entire party/fight between her immense, resource-free health regen and her infinite summons.
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Just chiming in late here to say that the arcane devices are basically a win-more aspect to the fight. They are surprisingly tough, and will soak up a lot of damage. If you’re already doing well you’ll have excess capacity to take down the devices which will stun the oracle and help you there.
so I wouldn’t go out of my way to take them down, but if you already are tuned enough to have the spare capacity to take them out, they’ll help you out.
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21 hours ago, dgray62 said:
I'm wondering if Accurate Wounding Shot is worth the two ability points, or if Stunning Shots is worth it
i'm pretty meh on wounding shot in general. I think it's mostly useful as melee ranger support. And even then, I would prefer Hunter's Claw until I'm maxed out on stacks (20, though you could cheese your way to more)
Stunning Shots doesn't stun like in PoE1, but interrupt is much better than in PoE1. I haven't played too many SC rangers, but all of them have happily taken stunning shots. good enough it might even make a case for putting a point into accurate wounding shot.
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On 12/3/2023 at 10:15 AM, mjo2138 said:
Mid and late game, which weapons do you have ydwin using: Stalker's Patience and Shattered Vengeance?
mid-game: Kapana Taga and St Drogga's Skull (I play almost 100% of the time with Skaen's challenge so illumination is very important)
i have a second weapon set that is Endre's Flog of Obedience (a flail to penalize reflex can be great with a beam spell, though increasingly i rely on my merc to debuff reflex) with a simple torch (torches count as a club so despite the DPS hit, it's still blunt damage and it can still debuff will). Kapana Taga has low penetration, so a backup is helpful. This second weapon set was/is more important when i have a spear equipped (due to common pierce immunity).
late-game plan: Stalker's Patience and St Drogga's Skull. I probably will sub in Shattered Vengeance for megabosses, that damage debuff is so good for long fights.
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6 hours ago, yorname said:
By the way, how is damage calculated for spells? Since PL is multiplicative I get the impression that might and critical are more important compared to weapon damage.
your intuition is right. there are very few ways to boost spell damage, so what boosts you can find (might, griffin's blade) can be close to a pure multiplicative boost instead of an additive boost for weapons that gets diluted by enchantments and such.
that being said, for offensive casters i tend ot prefer intellect and perception over might still.
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6 hours ago, yorname said:
Is the -15% critical damage on firearms also additive? And for a rogue, are two-handed style and improved critical even worse than they already are?
i have very bad news for you. all negative numbers use inversions, so it's not additive per se. it's not multiplicative either. if you're familiar with harmonic means or how fuel efficiency standards in the US are calculated, it's that.
if you really want to be able to calculate it yourself, there's a post by MaxQuest pinned, and there's also my write up here (which also explains the fuel efficiency standard comparison): https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/inversions
i've been playign enough deadfire that i know a few inversions by heart (-30% recovery speed from 2w style is equivalent to a +42.85% action speed bonus during the recovery, with two weapon style taht becomes +60.5%), but it's definitely not intuitive.
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4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:
I wonder how much more damage one would deal with Two-Weapon Style and two Swords as opposed to One-handed Style and a sword on average. Did anybody of you ever calculate that roughly?
it's a very steep difference, unfortunately. it's been a while so i don't know where my notes are, but i think it's something like a ~30% net damage difference (net, so multiplicative). not as high as the maxed-out speed bonus from two weapon style would suggest because bonus accuracy and the ability to crit from one-handed style does count for something, especially against high-armor enemies, but it's still pretty significant downgrade to go to 1h style.
one-handed style would be better (if still niche) if you use weapons that don't get +penetration modals (like club, flail, etc.) because when you're underpenetrating that chance to crit and bonus accuracy can be huuuge in overwhelming enemy armor when you're down by even just -1 (-25% damage).
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On 12/3/2023 at 11:39 AM, Boeroer said:
By the way @thelee: did you ever test if an Evoker/Priest of Magran (who in the non-CP-modded game gets copied wizard spells tagged with evocation) could stack the echo chance from the evoker passive and Marux Amanth for those evok-ish Priest spells?
ISTR that i did and it worked. i cast a lot of fan of flames in the gullet
10 hours ago, Boeroer said:Seals for example would be really good if their effects weren't so meh: by design you can cast a seal out of combat/from stealth, let the spell use refresh and basically have a seal for free.
this is also why Delayed Fireball is great. NOT a meh spell, and the delay before it blows up is just enough to get back your spell cast.
On 12/2/2023 at 6:54 PM, yorname said:Taking about empower, one thing about blast casters is that empowerment usage seems inevitable, but no rest is also extremely good. Do you find the need to empower or refill spells often?
i play on potd w/ challenges with only moderate min-maxing, so i do find the need to refill (mostly early game) and empower (mostly late game). probably each member of my party empowers, on average, once/two encounters, so i find the need to rest after 5-6 fights. it can be a bit punishing on rymrgand to downgrade on rest bonuses when doing this, but that's just part of the challenge/fun.
edit: early on, empowering a spell for blaster casters is kind of a trap. doesn't meaningfully help your accuracy, and the boost in power isn't significant compared to getting spells back. eventually, your spells are better and additional scaling is hot, and especially with the empowering talents you can easily swing a fight. case in point - i used to be pretty bullish on blood mage, and blood mage is super good no doubt, but alpha-striking the start of a mid-late game fight with an empowered top-level spell can pretty much end a fight right then and there, so the fact that you can regen spells with a blood mage almost becomes moot.
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Adding a post to mention that against high level enemies and bosses, SC blaster casters eventually take care of themselves. Many tier 8 and 9 spells for casters are really character-definingly good. Especially empowered (which a pure SC will likely be able to do much better for any spell anyway by picking up the empower passives).
I’ve recounted this anecdote before on the forums but no joke once I had an SC evoker in one run and they empowered the tier 9 missile spell and got a lucky evocation echo and that one casting knocked out a forgotten sanctum boss pretty much single-handedly, on PotD no less
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I’m assuming you’re talking about hard or PotD, and I’m assuming you mostly mean a blaster caster. In those difficulties I think it really, really helps to have a source of penetration advantage. Otherwise you can only really reliably use the high-PEN spells for damage for a long time and they aren’t that great for damage (though way better than an underpenetrating fireball).
Priest SC can work as damage (if a bit underwhelming early on) bc of Champion’s Boon. They can also support a different blaster caster with it.
multiclassing with Monk helps (they get tenacious), also you can make a Berserker barbarian work.
chanter offers best support by far IMO with their AR reduction invocation. With the upgrade you can get permanent uptime on it. You can slot that into any party and make a blaster work real well.
i think a fury naturally works really well. Inherent bonus PEN, extra range, plus Druid also has a ton of great raw damage DoT effects that are really efficient damage/cast.
aside from fury and chanter these are all mid-game solutions. And yeah IME early game for blaster casters is pretty rough. You miss half the time and even when you hit you’re getting like a -50% or -75% damage reduction penalty. It is sort of a fact of life that pure blasting is not as good on higher difficulties because of health and under penetration, at least until you accumulate better levels and gear.
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you know i just realized after writing my last post that i do have some more directly relevant pointers here, because i actually am using ydwin as a front-line character as a pure sc cipher.
some things that i've been doing with ydwin to ensure success: (not saying you have to do all these, but these are how i've been thinking about it and maybe give you your own inspiration)
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immediately picked up spear proficiency and spent money on fine and eventually exceptional spear for main hand, for the engagement so ydwin can actually control enemy foes.
- eventually i got the club that grants bonus engagement, so i've been using that instead of a spear, though eventually i'll swap back to a spear that has the enchantment to get occasionally free recovery attacks.
- magical spears are pretty uncommon so it's a weapon type you just have to shell out for. and it's important to shell out because you have no way to penetration-boosting modal. so you need those enchantments to boost PEN (on top of the other normal benefits of magical weapons)
- i started off keeping ydwin equipped with medium armor, dual-wielding. i gave her items that would boost resolve or deflection. eventually i get fleshmender (superb light armor that has bonus to AR and health regen that goes away if hit). as usual i pick up tough (early on i also use an amulet to boost health instead)
- i use ydwin primarily as an alchemy character, with a tiny amount of athletics. action economy is very tight for melee cipher, esp with medium armor's penalties, but alchemy lets me load up beforehand with drugs (coral snuff, deadeye, and ripple sponge are my favorites), and at the start of fights, while stealthed, i quaff a helpful potion or something (like merciless gaze or deftness). i also almost always rest with Grog for her (and i have the drunkard's regret ring which eliminates hangover effects... more relevant for me bc i'm also using rymyrgand's challenge so it's frequently a waste of money to rest multiple times just to clear hangovers). also, making lesser health potions very effective is good.
- a bit controversially, i picked up the soul whip upgrade that increases weapon damage, not focus gain. just to try something different. in practice there's not many focus powers i want to use, because i also picked up the two beam powers, and you can't double up on each of the beam powers anyway.
- party support comes from pallegina with lay on hands and my merc, whose build i'll probably post here eventually b.c. it's played out very interestingly. merc is a warden (blackjacket/druid) who has out of the fire, which i use if ydwin is getting overwhelmed.
overall i think it's pretty good and last time i checked ydwin was also party damage leader. those beam spells are really good. especially if you have a neat line of enemies and you empower a beam. outputs tons of damage.
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immediately picked up spear proficiency and spent money on fine and eventually exceptional spear for main hand, for the engagement so ydwin can actually control enemy foes.
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56 minutes ago, fruitsalad said:
What do you think about a Soul Blade as single class Cipher, should that focussing on a melee approach is more appealing to me?
i'll let others w/ more experience w/ soul blade comment on it, but cheap shred is good, and there is some insane cheese you can do with the soul blade's ability, if that's your thing.
56 minutes ago, fruitsalad said:I also thought about going with with a Chanter/Troubadour single class just to have another character being able to tank or use summons to protect the backline a bit. Just relying on Eder for that feels uncomfortable. What do you think about a SC Troubadour with the attributes MIG 14, CON 10, DEX 10, PER 14, INT 16, RES 14? Using a medium shield when tanking and perhaps an Estoc against weaker enemies. I really like the idea of combining the Estoc modal with the -2AR spell chanters to handle heavily armoed enemies. And I could also summon mobs as distraction/cannon fodder, although I'd prefer to focus on damaging spells and buffs.
chanter/troubadour is always aces. i would personally suggest you lean more towards int and con than might in such a build. might is less important for a tank, and getting longer linger/larger chant and more survivability would be helpful if you're going to be on the front line.
if you're not into summons, i suggest giving tekahu a whirl as a pure, single-classed chanter. i've geared him up like a tank, with heavy armor, a high-quality small shield and a hatchet to start (until better defensive gear and chants), and also make sure to pick up chants like ancestor's memory for heal or her courage thick as her shield and especially silver knight (for bonus deflection and engagement). chanters start off a little squishy before you lay on all the defensive chants, but overall it worked out very well as a secondary tank, and tekehu's unique invocations can be very good (chain lightning is great when it unlocks, so is tornado, and tekehu has unparalleled chanter cheese capabilities with avenging storm + sasha's singing scimitar). you lose summons but it sounds like you don't want those as much. (edit: another consideration is that tekehu gets so many invocations for free that you can spend your ability points on tons of passives that aid survivability or general utility. in fact with tekehu i typically don't really pick up any invocations explicitly except for maybe the resurrection or the tier 9 class resource restoration one.)
56 minutes ago, fruitsalad said:What I forgot to ask about: How important is CON? In PoE1 I played a paladin with 10 CON and because my high defenses it worked fine. I rarely took damage so fast that I could not just heal it. For an off-tank/support chanter, do you think that 10 CON and 14 RES would be fine?
not that important IMO. not worth dumping it, but also not worth investing heavily into. i think konstanten is underpowered as a companion because he puts so many of his stat points into constitution. a properly built party with careful enemy management can skate by even with a front-line with minimal constitution investment (my aforementioned fighter only has 12, investing mostly in might, my other frontline in this run is ydwin who has 10). i also always pick up tough for virtually every character (incl ones i've dropped their con below 10), and IMO that's a way better bang for your buck than investing in con with your precious stat points.
res you have to be a little careful. it can be very insignificant but it can also be very good. for a tank i would consider strongly finding a way to get to 19 or 20 that still leaves you happy w/out too much compromise on the other stats. but you have to back that up with a shield as well as weapon+shield style. you get increasing returns from resolve/deflection and it'll all pay off. (but it can feel rough on esp PotD early game some enemies just have such stupid accuracy that it doesn't always feel like a good trade-off, but it eventually works out). an underrated side benefit is the reduced harmful effect duration from res (a new aspect compared to poe1). another reason you get increasing returns here. at 20 res, debuff durations are down -30% which, thanks to complicated inversion math in deadfire, can be much more powerful than you think, able to cancel out up to +43%'s worth of duration boosts from the enemy (mostly intellect). and it keeps getting better the more resolve you add on. basically a high-resolve tank can shrug off attacks and debuffs really easily. in my current run i have a merc that only has 6 resolve, and compared to my higher-resolve fighter it can be a massive difference in debuff duration sometimes.
56 minutes ago, fruitsalad said:Do different classes have different health and defense base stats or is it all the same for everybody, apart from class specific skills that aid survivability?
not as different as in poe1, but there are still differences: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/classes-single-classing-focus. the most notable one is fighter, who gets a +5 deflection bonus, which makes them already pretty tank-appropriate, and any fighter multiclass will get only part of that deflection bonus (i forget if it rounds up or down). on the other side barbarians get -5
pretty punishing combination with frenzy
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4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:
My MC is a human SC Cipher Ascendant with One-Handed Style. I planned on concentrating on melee (apart from an opening shot from my pistol), but it seems to be very hard to get enough focus to ascend with my attacks.
one-handed style is very niche in deadfire compared to poe1. and that niche is not focus generation, you are tanking your focus generation unfortunately (for more info on the niche, i wrote it up in one of the sidebars here: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/weapon-styles). two weapon style is overall best for dps/focus, two-handed style is also good and has other advantages (quarterstaff and pike give you reach like in poe1 so you have good dps/focus while being relatively safe like a ranged attacker if you have a good tank to body block).
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:But sometimes putting my Cipher in melee range is very risky. Because of that I chose Tenuous Grasp as first level ability. But it seems rather useless to use it to lower Will because it targets Will in the first place. When I would need to use it to lower Will, I often fail to apply it. Does this get better as the game progresses? Do you use Tenuous Grasp at all? This ability would have been way more helpful if it targeted another defense.
with party support a club will work best. also, the cipher doesn't need to use a club, you can have someone more melee-capable use a club to keep enemy will low. ciphers will actualy suffer with club because of the -25% damage penalty from the modal. eventually you get a high-level passive that you can take that gives you bonus to accuracy vs will which will help. edit: same thing goes with morningstar modal. put it on a front-line tank, hit an enemy with it, and suddenly you have a juicy target for a cipher disintegrate.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:Low level damaging spells probably have a better focus per damage ratio, but as Ascendant this should not really matter, given that you are able to ascend early into the fight.
IMO the tier 1 beam spell is always good although the targeting can be a bit challenging.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:4. For a melee Cipher that wants to start using abilities as soon into the fight as possible, would you recommend another sub class? I want to stay single class for now, because I want to reach higher power levels earlier into the game.
ascendant is not really meant for front-loading powers, since you have to build it up. there are other ways to super charge focus generation for an ascendant (there's a unique blunderbuss that can be enchanted with a once/encounter massive push back attack that will top you off with focus almost assuredly). aside from psion, the other ciphers will do overall better with front-loading attacks, and the beguiler can generate tons of focus real fast with the right powers.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:5. I am not a fan of min-maxing so I chose the following attributes: MIG 14, CON 10, DEX 14, PER 14, INT 16, RES 10. Do you think that's okay? Sometimes I feel I am a little bit squishy with only 10 CON/RES, but I played a Paladin in the first game, so I am probably a little spoiled.
i think those are decent stats. unfortunately a cipher on hard/potd is just going to be squishy for a melee-er, you don't have survivability-boosting abilities/passives compared to martials and heavy armor is really taxing on your ability to use powers; so additional con/res may help a bit but won't help the big picture that much. eventually by mid/mid-late game with more powers, the ability to pick up Tough, and the slowdown of the AR vs PEN arms race on hard/potd will make things easier. in the meantime, rely on your party to support you.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:6. Are firearms and crossbows viable to use apart from the opening shot? The reload time is atrocious and really off-putting in my opinion, which is one reason I chose swords for my Cipher. But most Cipher players picked Two-Weapon Style and guns, so I am certainly missing something.
firearms are great. their #1 feature is that while reloading, you can do switch to doin anything else, like quaffing a potion, using a power, etc. one-handed pistol with modal is also a super way to do firearms w/ basically minimal reload time (the math works out heavily in your favor doing one-hand pistol with modal that it doesn't with any other weapon). crossbows/arbalests are similar, but they especially come with utility for interruptions, which is more important than any damage they can do.
there are also some frankly stupidly good unique firearms. there's a pistol that can do raw damage and be enchanted to do even more damage on top. there are two blunderbusses that instead of firing 4 bullets, fire one bullet that explodes (also decent for focus generation). there's an arquebus that lets you fire twice before reloading--basically eliminating the slow reload tax.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:7. What's your strategy will skill point allocation? Are you spreading the points across the characters or are you focussing on a certain skill with each party member. My strategy for mechanics for example has been to give each character 2 points for the party assist bonus (because of the diminishing return later on) but focus on mechanics on my main. Is this viable or are there better strategies?
that's kinda what i do. i give each character a main skill to focus on, maybe two tops. the diminishing returns on party assist are pretty nasty. more important for watcher to focus because there are lots of checks that are watcher-only, but that's the general idea.
4 hours ago, fruitsalad said:8. Skills like Alchemy and Arcana seem to be useful for any character. But I have the feeling that choosing those would leave too few points for other skills. Are there skills that you would pick anyway with each character? And how many points would you put into them? Alchemy seems to be universally useful to me, because unlike scrolls, potions of all levels are usable to any character, no matter their Alchemy skill. Alchemy just would make them more powerful. On the other hand, because all potions are usable no matter the skill, this could be an argument against going for Alchemy at all. What do you recommend?
the main argument for not giving everyone these skills is that IME keeping your characters stocked with enough potions and scrolls is expensive. eventually by late game you'll be overflowing with high-powered scrolls (through forgotten sanctum dlc) but good potions will always be hard to keep up. I max out at two characters investing in those skills at a time. similar with explosives, though explosives are honstly easier to keep stocked up (most explosives recipes give you more than one bomb/craft, and even really basic ones are good).
in terms of potions being usable by all, the best benefit from alchemy to me is making even lesser health potions extremely useful. combat is slower than in poe1 so drug durations won't get too high relative to fights, but high alchemy is needed if you want to do more than one fight (+ some exploration) with the effects of a drug. edit: also if you are interested in poisons maxing out alchemy is basically mandatory for them to be usable at all on hard/potd. on potd you also need additional help from items and miscellaneous general buffs (like a source of aware to get graze->hit or independent accuracy bonuses not tied to perception).
athletics is also good for a lot of characters. it falls off quickly, but even with the fall off it's very useful heal. i have a fighter mainchar right now that is maxxing athletics (for an item that gives you -% recovery based on athletics), and at level 12 i can heal ~200 health with athletics (at fast speed with no recovery). for mercenaries i might need i tend to pick up laborer as a background since that's +2 athletics off the bat, and that's basically a free, no-recovery potion every encounter.
56 minutes ago, fruitsalad said:I forgot something: the way concentration and interrupts work changed with PoE2. It seems concentration is a buff you need to have stacks of in order to not be interrupted. Is there any way during combat to see how much concentration you have?
if you hover over your character, there's a tooltip to the top left of hte screen by default. There should be a number next to a "Concentration" label near the top of that tooltip that will have a number if you have more than one layer of concentration. Plus I think there's "Concentration" next to whatever effect is granting it in the list of active effects. edit: there's also a visual indicaiton in the above-your-head combat short tooltips - the circle that shows your current action will be glowing if you have any concentration. very important for at-a-glance info on whether that enemy caster is interruptible.
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yeah like boeroer says it's pretty rare. it's corrupted a handful of items in my ~2k hours personally but because it's so rare it can be really devastating* when it does happen, because i normally don't catch it in time so being able to restore a save becomes impossible.
* though this was back when i cared about not using cheats, now i just iroll20s and fix it.
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lol oh yeah. somehow i almost always end up picking a background (not intentionally) that gets all three maerwalds. pretty rough, iirc maybe the roughest SSS fight in the required critical path.
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2 hours ago, Boeroer said:
What I like about Insect Swarm (besides the raw damage and that it's not tagged as poison)
i might be misinterpreting this, but want to clarify that Autumn's Decay isn't tagged as poison. (though many other druid spells are surprisingly affected by poison immunity, like the very-similar-but-definitely-affected-by-poison-immunity plague of insects)
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On 11/7/2023 at 7:04 PM, mjo2138 said:
I think you cannot play no subclass, or am I mistaken.
"Animist" is the no-subclass option. It gets bonus spells like other subclasses, but has no special class features.
If you like shapeshifting, Shifter is stupid-good. You can't cast spells while shifted, but it's a pretty minor drawback for the sheer boost in power you get (and the free healing). Shifter boar form is insanely good because it's bugged where the damage-over-time effect it has lasts a really long time compared to other druids' spiritshift.
Do you play Path of the Damned? If so, I highly recommend Hold Beasts and/or Charm Beasts, will make the digsite fight waaaaay easier. (don't pick it as your character creation spell so you can respec out of it later if you don't need it... though they are still handy against some dangerous beasts)
I second Sunbeam. Super-solid all-around performer. Damage is low, but the Penetration is high (very useful on path of the damned), and blind is really really a good debuff. It ain't hard CC so it might seem less obviously powerful compared to other tier3 afflictions, but it so terribly punishes recovery, accuracy, deflection (on top of the normal reflex defense debuff) that it is a huge survivability buff.
other spells i like tier 1-3:
- the moons's light (solid heal over time spell)
- firebrand (couple with ring of focused flame from the dark cupboard [steal or buy]) to be a powerful melee-er
- woodskin - basically instant cast, if you cast it from stealth it's basically instant cast and instant recovery. bonus piercing armor can be a life saver (basically makes you harder to punish with ranged damage), and burn and shock are pretty common enemy damage types esp early on (especially early drakes). as a bonus, it's a plant effect that activates the +2 PL bonus for lord of the forest upgrade on lance of the midwood
- spreading plague - i'm very bullish on this. lasts a super long time, bounces a lot (if slowly), and making the entire enemy battlefield hobbled and weakened is very effective, both in terms of making it easier for your various spells to land, but also making it easier for your squishies to escape danger and to make life a nightmare for enemy healers
for doing damage, do not sleep on Touch of Rot and Autumn's Decay. They do insane damage, just over time. But compared to other classes, pound for pound you get way more damage efficiency from these little guys. Unlike same-rank Insect Swarm, Autumn's Decay does instantaneous damage as well, has a huge area, and casts faster; it also targets reflex instead of fort, which tends to be a lot easier for the typical druid-inclusive party to debuff, especially early on (on PotD fortitude is a really tough enemy defense in the early-mid game). Insect Swarm is still a good spell, too, just that I think Autumn's Decay might get slept because no subclass gets it for free, and it doesn't do raw damage or remove concentration.
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. a herald can be your single point of sustain and defense. heck a paladin alone carries a lot of healing/buff duty.
pretty punishing combination with frenzy
Eder Swashbuckler build help
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted · Edited by thelee
yeah, it'd be better than what i was saying because monk fist scaling is better than monastic unarmed training. that's how i play xoti as a monk or monk/priest. even if you did keep her sickle, tuolito's palm would still scale pretty well as monk/contemplative.
i don't mind the lantern that much on a contemplative though because it can be a way to restore mortification available in the early game (it hurts monk dps quite a bit, but as priest you get that tier 1 harvest spell that is very good at finishing enemies off)