dam

Well you know, internet of things, smart watches, gotta keep that step counter up and all...

Another advantage: it's not only flexibility, but the total number of spells you can cast during combat. The 2-casts-per-level restriction on Druids, Wizards and Priests means they run out of spells in any lengthy combat. Dual casters cast more spells per combat. Yes, but single-level casters will get one or two additional spell levels they can access, so in practice it's more like one extra spell... which you're trading for higher-level spells, which you can no longer access (a major loss of flexibility, unless you really want a Wizard that can heal, or a Priest that has fast cast self-buffs). Stronger argument would be for cases where spells of a certain type are clustered at the same low-ish level(s). Presently, fast casting DD spells.... The flexibility argument has potential, but is it really realized? There are some Druid spells that can be useful against specific enemy types, but useless against others... less so iirc for the other casters, aside from elemental resistances. Thing is, by going dual class, you also get double passives. Some of which have excellent synergy. Soulblade + Assassin lets you open fights with a tremendous HP nuke, and even rinse/repeat twice with Shadowing Beyond. In the game's current state and with the current level cap, multiclass characters are more powerful than single classes. How both develop at later stages remains to be seen.

I'm pretty sure it was a joke yes. I quoted it because I don't actually think you need anything more than the name "power level" to understand what power levels are. I mean, how else are you going to interpret "whilst under the effect of a Might, Constitution or Dexterity Inspiration all abilities get +2 power levels"? Sure, you don't know exactly what that means (hence the thread title) but I don't think many people are going to fail to realise it means the ability becomes more powerful. The thing is, "powerful" is both a subjective and vague term. What makes an ability powerful ? To me, powerful goes like this : For instant kill binary spells (flesh to stone, finger of death -like spells), it's their ability to hit consistently. You either get an effect or you don't. For non-instant kill spells (mostly debuffs or CC such as slow, blind...), it's their duration and area of effect. And to a lesser extent, their ability to hit obviously. For damage spells (fireball, ice lance...), it's either their damage, or their duration. And again to a lesser extent, their ability to hit reliably. In the end, we still need to know how this or that ability is made "more powerful".

Fighers, Rogues, Monks, Paladins, Rangers and Barbarians aren't casters, but have abilities that scale with power level. When it comes down to it power level is basically the same thing as caster level except with a name that doesn't imply it only applies to casters. You'd have to explain the same thing if you used to term "caster level" too. Just because the name is familiar doesn't mean people will magically know that increasing it would increase Accuracy, number of projectiles, damage etc. I honestly don't see what the complexity is. As Sedrefilos said: The details of what extra levels of power mean needs to be learnt, but the same would be true of extra caster levels too. 1) Yeah, but they're still *casting* abilities. +1 Knockdown level means Knockdown is being cast at 1 level higher? Easy. It's really super simple. It's not nearly as complex as your making it out to be. Elex, D:OS, Diablo, and a million others use a variation of this system, as do *many* others. It's basic and well-understood as a convention of the genre. 2) Not really. You'd have to give some basic details about how it works in this game, but not *anywhere* to the same extent. You don't have to learn what the **** a caster level *is* the same way you do with a Power Level, which nobody has ever ****ing heard of before this game as this Power Level system is unique. With caster levels, character levels, etc. instead of learning a whole new system and what it means, you just have to learn how this system you already have a framework for applies in this situation. 3) That's a tautology, and I'm pretty sure it's a joke. Saying "Power Levels are levels of power" doesn't mean anything. We all have an intrinsic understanding of the concept of caster level--we understand in theory how caster level works and can grasp it because all have a framework for it in our minds. Nobody knows what the **** a power level is until the Devs explain it, because it's a unique custom-built system that none of us have ever experienced before. With regards to 2/, actually, it only comes down to the spell's or ability's description. In the BG series, you knew your spell dealt 2d6 + 3/level , or 5d6 + 1d6/level up to a cap of 15d6, stuff like that. Absent this description, nobody would understand what the effect of gaining a "power" or "caster" level means. Good/better documentation will take care of that.

To be fair if you want this to get the attention it warrants, you might want to post a bug report. While it's not a bug per se, we're talking about missing functionality here. Obsidian went to the trouble of including a colorblind mode, I'm sure they want to do this right to the end.

Not sure about how smart the enemy AI will be, if they can see through your statistics then your casters will always be the target of their abilities which target fortitude... You mean.. like.. we can ? Works for me. Either way, it always makes (made ?) sense in RPGs to drop casters first.

Really? Resolve gets Healing and Spell Damage, Might gets changed to Strength and only affects weapon damage. Well, I'll have to see how it plays in game, but on paper I would think it's a change in the right direction. Cipher with max mig + dex + int able to do both spell and weapon damage was always one of my favorites in POE1, but still didn't seem fair really.

I must have missed it, what's the planned change with Resolve ?

I'm pretty sure it's a bug, because +20 to all defenses is super overpowered. When comparing, it is mandatory to have a frame of reference. Your current frame of reference for "super OP" is "at the party's level in the beta". It is obvious that the passive will have diminishing returns as the game progresses. You get much more value from it when your regular defense is 20 (as in, 20 + 20 = double) than you will later on when your regular defense is 110 (as in, 110 + 20 = still OK but meh). Following the same line of thought, the attack scores of enemies go up as the game progresses, while the ability's defense boost is static. It is, possibly, too soon to judge.

Perception increases the odds of landing a critical hit. What I'm suggesting is an option for people who'd like to land more critical hits (which is already implemented via perception) and have them be more impactful (more damage, longer duration). I'm not going to answer the "wizard that doesn't care about damage" bit because that's been handled already I'm not talking about introducing a new stat either, I'm actually saying the effect could be tied to one of the current dump stats. 2 birds, 1 stone really.

So, I thought about this. We need a stat, whichever one, to increase critical hit severity. That is, a stat which improves damage and duration for hits that scored a critical. Want a character that lands more devastating and battle-changing abilities ? Sacrifice a bit of dex, or some of your HP, et voila. Want a wizard who's focused on pure CC and doesn't give a damn about damage ? Keep his MIG at 10, pump points into whatever-stat-it-is-that-increases-crit-duration-and-damage, poof. Possibly, this could be put on one of the "least useful" stats, like Resolve. As in, you endure and endure, wait for your chance, and land a battle-ending spell or attack. Thoughts ?

I might be remembering wrong, but I thought it had been announced that Obsidian were going to remove restricted trees from Priests in the next beta patch. Yes they're going to do away with restricted spells. Edit: Source here

That's true but all other projects usually announce their delay way before the promised realeased date. Obsidian is 3 months till release and seem quite confident that'll hit the promised date. I dont know. To be honest, I for one would rather they announce a delay 2 weeks before release, than do a rush job. Contrary to popular belief, a postponed release is actually excellent news for a game. It means the developer and the publisher have managed to reach an accord with regards to game quality vs economic pressure. It also means the developer has found bugs (which is a good thing, there are always bugs, I'd be more worried if there weren't any) and is working on fixing them. As for what constitutes an acceptable advance notice, it all depends on your customer base and the market. They could tell me it's delayed the exact day it was scheduled to go live, and I'd still cheer them on.

My apologies, I was off the whole week for work. Updating the thread.

My Little Pommel

Not to mention, besides bragging rights for big numbers, who cares about critting a 30hp enemy for 219 damage...

Sure. I'm saying there's no tactical recourse for dealing with this (besides CC of course). Maybe CC is good enough, but the point is that it makes the Defender modal pointless because when I make my Scout retreat, enemies don't follow. Well, apparently this kind of behaviour is not satisfactory for you ? I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am satisfied with this. It means the MT did his job of keeping mobs in one place, far from the backline. Now, if someone from the backline comes to them, well, they had it coming ^^

With regards to enemies turning around and hitting your Scout instead of your MT, aye I've got the same problem here. Thing is, it is expected and natural behaviour. If they didn't, we're roll our eyes and be like "lol real ? ok easy game, boring" I am not sure it has to do with your MT generating threat though, I'm not even sure there's a threat counter tied to damage done at all. It may be that instead, your characters are scored in terms of : - squishiness - dangerousness - ease of access Or perhaps a bit of both, seeing how enemies will sometimes retarget. A rogue being both squishy and dangerous, and right there nearby, it makes all the sense in the world to hit them. In fact, that is exactly what we do when one engages our tank in melee. We click on our tank, and we make him attack the rogue specifically (even for not much damage, because every little helps), because a rogue is more dangerous than another shield-bearing enemy with high armor rating and regeneration. With regards to "make enemies hit your MT instead of your DPS", hmmm I don't know. The mechanic doesn't seem to have changed overmuch from POE1 to be fair. You'd start dps'ing a target that was latched on to your MT, they'd turn around, you'd burn through them. As in, your MT's purpose is to buy time for you to pick off the enemies one by one. Once you've started on one, chances are he'll retarget or plain disengage from your MT. That's when you need to burn him down, or CC/debuff him. I for one do not have a problem with that mechanic. Having enemies keep hitting my MT like fcktards while there's a rogue critting them for 80+ a pop would, to be entirely honest, piss me off grandly. It'd be unrealistic, it'd be cheesy, it'd take away from the tactical dimension of the game. We all clamor for more realistic, more intelligent, more human-like AI behaviour. Behaviour looks good to me Reason I always have at most one melee dps (as in, a squishy one like a rogue or cipher) in my team, requires a lot of micro-management.

Oh never's ever disputed that fact, worry not

Somewhere as in, in the bug reports where it's been noted, or in general discussion ?

Now now, that is the exception not the rule A Soul Assassin (hey, I like this name !) character actually requires some planning, and, for a rogue, it comes with a huge trade-off : you're going to invest heavily into stealth to land those assassinates, instead of mechanics. This means if you want a trapper, and by the looks of things with traps inflicting injuries we'll all want a trapper, you need to have another character dedicated to mechanics. I very much like the assassin/soulblade synergy, and yet it's quite the investment, party-composition wise. I don't agree, with good stealth character u can solo the game. And u don't need very high stealth to do it, 6 stealth is enough so u can invest in mechanics. Wait, you've seen the whole game ? Look at you lucky guy I'm jesting, the point is, you've not seen 5% of the game, so allow me to correct your statement : you can solo 5% of the game

Now now, that is the exception not the rule A Soul Assassin (hey, I like this name !) character actually requires some planning, and, for a rogue, it comes with a huge trade-off : you're going to invest heavily into stealth to land those assassinates, instead of mechanics. This means if you want a trapper, and by the looks of things with traps inflicting injuries we'll all want a trapper, you need to have another character dedicated to mechanics. I very much like the assassin/soulblade synergy, and yet it's quite the investment, party-composition wise.

Yeah that's one good, balanced build indeed; and yet it is my opinion that Soul Annihilation is sort of wasted on a character who's not focused on dealing damage (as in, high perception, high might). The rationale behind this is, the raw damage from SA benefits from multipliers, including sneak attack. In the game's current incarnation, I cannot imagine using SA with anything other than a rogue to be honest. Seems like a waste of focus when it (supposedly) drains all your focus pool.

Aye, which is why we'd like to get some kind of list to reference against. Problem with the search function is, it's prone to a lot of failings like people miss spelling items and abilities, or using a slightly different wording than what one search for, and so on... I actually struggled to find my own original post reporting the issue -.-

Although... the tooltip does say : 10 + 10% cipher power level + 21% might Where the hell's my 10% here... 45 focus lists 67.8 raw damage = 1.5066 damage per focus 51 focus lists 75 raw damage = 1.4705 damage per focus 85 focus listed 116.2 raw damage = 1.3670 damage per focus Scenario 1 10 base damage is flat and no multipliers are applied Bonus damage before focus = 10 Let's discount our alleged 10 base free damage before focus is factored in, because that one skews results. 45 focus lists 57.8 raw damage (+10 base) = 1.2844 damage per focus 51 focus lists 65 raw damage (+10 base) = 1.2745 damage per focus 85 focus lists 106.2 raw damage (+10 base) = 1.2494 damage per focus Yeah, nope, shoulda gotten equal damage per focus, and we don't. Standard deviation is 0.018 (give or take), which is insufficient. Samples fall within the 2 sigma 95% range, but no better. This is insufficient and scientific proof is not established. This bit of math is incorrect (even a larger sample pool wouldn't help much at only 95%) Scenario 2 10 base damage gets bonii, bonii are additive : 1 + (0.21 + 0.1) = 1.31x multiplier Bonus damage before focus = 13.1 Or maybe the 10 flat damage gets multiplied by 1.31 as well ? Let's redo, and shave 13.1 from our initial numbers. 45 focus = 54.7 damage = 1.21555 per focus 51 focus = 61.9 damage = 1.21372 per focus 85 focus = 103.1 damage = 1.21294 per focus std dev is 0.001339 this is a huge improvement. This formula shows 99.33% confidence on this small sample size, aka 0.67% error rate, aka 1 error every 149 events. This is not quite 3 sigma (99.7) but we're getting closer. This means using this formula we need to make 149 tries before the game engine delivers a result which doesn't match. C'mon I'm so close -.- Scenario 3 10 base damage gets bonii, and bonii are multiplicative : (1 + 0.21 ) * ( 1 + 0.1) = 1.331x mult Bonus damage before focus = 13.31 Or maybe the 10 flat damage gets multiplied by 1.21 first (might) then 1.1 (cipher levels) ? Let's redo, and shave 13.31 from our initial numbers. 45 focus = 54.49 damage = 1.20960 per focus 51 focus = 61.69 damage = 1.21047 per focus 85 focus = 102.89 damage = 1.21088 per focus std dev is (rounded down) at 0.000653. This formula also shows 99.33% confidence, again on this small sample size, aka 0.67 error rate, aka 1 error every 149 events. Well, technically it's 0.6694 error rate, so 1 error every 149.39 (rounded up) events ^^ Sadly it's not that either. However, we're not working with floats (as we should for confidence calculations), we're working with what the engine gave us. It seems, from empirical evidence, that the game engine rounds its floats, at the very least display-wise. It wouldn't make much sense to show users damage numbers like 13.4894394 . We may, therefore, assume the samples aren't perfect and account for the margin of error in one of the formulae (scenarios 2 and 3). Given the rounding, given 99.33% hit rate on both formulae, I'm gonna stand by them and claim one of them works to calculate Soul Annihilation's damage. That means the tooltip is still off ^^