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That would be two times. There are currently no upgrades to increase the number of uses. And yup, it's going to be very effective for solo runs. All the more so if you have a Soulblade and use Soul Annihilation from stealth, to add raw damage to that opening attack.

Thank you for your interest in the topic cheesevillain; please find my answers below. With regards to your first question, it would be unfair for said "duels" to be restricted to wizards. Arcane shields currently work against all spell types, so it follows that most (if not all) spellcasting classes should have a few counters available to them. With regards to your second question, that is a very good point indeed. I do like the addition, it sort of mimics the Counterspell mechanic in NWN and NWN2. Indeed I find it is a move in the good direction, with the following reserve : given the current casting times, it feels like by the time you've countered a spell, it was going to expire naturally anyway

Yeah no you are, in my opinion, mistaken here as well. Rooting Pain is a passive. Rooting Pain is hilarious when it procs all around you and interrupts every single enemy. Three times. Per second. Backstab is a passive. Backstab is hilarious when you crit that unaware priest for 130 pierce damage. And even more so when you get to repeat the process 2 more times during the fight, with Shadowing Beyond's upgrade.

No place in the discussion ? I'm afraid you're very sorely mistaken. This thread is either your personal view of what things should be, and you have no wish to discuss them with anyone, just to get them out here. If that's the case, you should state so and let this thread die of natural causes when it slips from the front page. Or, it is an actual discussion, a debate, in which case it is not for you to set the terms of what are valid or acceptable points of view and arguments. That, my fellow backer, would be a very arrogant (and mistaken indeed) stance. POE1 was not, is not, and will not be balanced around PotD. POE2 is not, and very likely will not be balanced around PotD. Obsidian have made it clear on several occasions (including in the description for PotD ingame really) that this is a special mode intended for the more hardcore of us. PotD is the exception, not the rule. Neither do fighters and barbarians. There is no vanilla, out of the box penalty for using a weapon you're not proficient in. Those come from choices you've made at character level-up when choosing your skills. If you want an example of a character which does get an out-of-the-box disadvantage, refer Rogues. Rogues lose their passive (sneak attack) for attacking an unflanked, unafflicted target. Should sneak attacks be changed to always proc, that they not get a penalty ? Edit: rogue example

That's a fun test eh. I would like to point out you're forgetting that some afflictions either reduce healing by 50%, or negate it completely, now, though.

sshhhhh !!! fck's wrong with you ! DoD's already hard enough to keep up and running, don't give them pointers !

Yeah no you're preaching to the choir, wrt minmaxing That we be in agreement is, to be honest, not very much of an issue for me. Civilized people can very well agree to disagree, it is one's most sacred right to be entitled to their own opinion, for whatever reason they deem appropriate (including having no reason at all). I do find it idiotic from a realism point of view that your one tank be able to hold off 8 or so enemies, that just does not sit comfortably with me. That being said, it is not my place to try and prevent others from doing so, should the option be available to them. I was merely pointing out that, with regards to balance, the game is not tailored for the kind of hardcore runs some of us enjoy, and does offer alternative ways to protect one's backline. That a tank with 8 engagement slots is not able to hold off 8 enemies for no other reason than them being unable to cluster around him, is a different matter. Either it is deemed idiotic in the first place and something other than these extra engagement slots must be offered in lieu, to compensate for the lower battlefield control. Or it is deemed feasible, and the engagement range needs to be adjusted so the slots are usable, or some kind of ability must enable you to have longer reach.

To be fair, bro, I was also sad to see my pledge level did not give me beta access. I am, however, happy to have paid $20 to get said access. ( The beta add-on is $20, not $115 ) I am happy for several reasons, and if you'll please take the time to read through, here they are : First of all, as you've seen yourself, there is a lot of feedback WRT changes, balance, game mechanics. Said feedback is both noticed, and taken into account : - penetration changes - priest spell restrictions removed - removal of general talents - grazes removed , they're thinking about how they can handle that differently - combat speed and removal of slow mode ? they're on it Second, I was very happy with POE1, Obsidian did an impressive job of delivering updates and bug fixes even years into its release. Third, I do like Obsidian, I like how they approach things, I like the quality of the products they deliver, and I like how they're close to their customers. Obsidian actually sent out a survey on paid DLCs, when the current trend amongst publishers is to push more and more of them, no matter how inane (again, looking at you Total War Warhammer Blood and Gore DLC , had to pay to get blood , lol , real ? if that was a PEGI rating consideration, you could have made it a free DLC). When was the last time EA asked for your opinion ? My point is, the guys listen, they wish for the product to be a resounding success, same as you and I. Even more so than us I say, we're talking not only about their jobs and financial prospects here, but also all the work hours they put into developing the product. I understand not all of us have the same financial means or needs, that much is a given. Personally, I took the hit, I'll just have 2 or 3 less beers during parties over the year. That is a trade-off I can definitely live with. Edit: more examples of balance tweaks based on beta feedback

The Shattered Pillar Monk loses his ability to gain Wounds from damage sustained, instead generating them through dealing damage themself. However, said monks still have access to the Lesser Wounds passive which states more or less (game crashed so... ) : Gain the ability to generate Wounds from damage I can see 3 scenarios here : 1/ Intended, working as advertised This is the intended behaviour and Shattered Pillar monks may take the skill to be able to generate Wounds by dealing damage AND by receiving damage (and at a lower threshold at that). It is my belief that the passive's description should be updated to specifically state that yes, it does work for Shattered Pillar monks. Otherwise it is very unclear (which is why you're reading this ). 2/ Affects Wound generation from damage done This is not the intended behaviour, what the passive does is it allows the Shattered Pillar to generate more wounds from dealt damage, or generate them from a lower threshold of dealt damage. In this instance, the wording of the passive needs to be adjusted. 3/ Has no effect whatsoever, lel The skill needs to be removed from the Shattered Pillar's list of pick-able abilities, or at the very least greyed out.

I can absolutely understand your stance on the matter, and indeed vanilla BG2 could seem unfair at times to parties devoid of arcane casters. It was however, equally (if not more so !) harsh on parties without a rogue to remove traps, some of those were absolutely deadly and impossible to bypass. There were, besides, always means of taking down magical defenses or disabling the enemy spellcaster without resorting to a mage, for those averse to wizards. Vanilla BG2 had : - paladins (inquisitor innate ability, or regular paladins with Carsomyr) - priests - and perhaps even druids who were able to cast Dispel Magic to remove Stoneskin and Protection from magic weapons / mantle - monks, with their innate resistance to magic - wizardslayers, who inflicted miscast magic on touch - divine (priest, druid) silence spells - insect plague (druid) also messed your ability to cast for seemingly forever - or poison attacks, now that I think of it ToB furthermore introduced spellstriking wands which made the job even easier, and were usable by every character. In fact, opting for a spell duel instead of actually dispelling stoneskin and rushing the enemy wizard was actually the more difficult approach. Either way my point is as follows : In BG2 you could opt for the spell duel, or merely bruteforce your way through. I see no reason such balance couldn't be found in POE2. I'm not asking for enemy spellcasters that would require a wizard to take down, I'm saying I'd love to have those duels again. In fact, I regularly replay BG2 specifically to be able to engage wizards (and dark elf priestesses) in fights of the mind.

Firstly, I'll be pedantic and point out that we weren't talking about that, we were talking about the fact that you already have potentially four extra engagement slots that are useless, and I was proposing a way to make them useful. If you wanted to do away with those extra slots entirely, I wouldn't be opposed. I'm actually really bad at multitasking, so I tend to only play with two min-maxed characters of my favorite classes, a Fighter and a Rogue. What you're arguing for is to necessitate a full party, which I think is a more roundabout (but still valid) solution to the problem of all those useless engagement slots. I would prefer, instead, to have both options. Either I can make a full party like how you described, or I can stack engagement and defenses on my Fighter/Paladin while my Rogue/Ranger goes to town. So I guess now I'm trying to figure out why having one super tank is a bad thing. Balance issues I see are that it leads to one main tank and a bunch of DPS. I guess you could add enemies that can escape engagement, or attack other characters while engaged to counter that. You could also call it boring, but in that case, it's a matter of player choice whether or not to go with it. Regarding point the first, I would have to agree these engagement slots appear, at the time, wasted. Regarding point the second, I can definitely see your stance on the matter, I myself am not a big fan of micromanaging too many characters (didn't prevent me from bitching when they announced 5 instead of 6 party members). We need keep in mind, however, that the game's balance is established around a full, somewhat balanced party. The game is not tuned for 2-3 member parties, let alone solo runs. This, Obsidian has made clear over the years (but I'm too lazy to go and find references, really) if memory serves. I do agree with you on having the option being nice, it would give those that wish for it more flexibility. That'd come at the cost of realism, but it is not my place (nor anyone else's) to tell people how they should play their game, if the option exists.

Make you a deal, the talent no longer represents the fact you've had them custom-fitted. It now represents your ability to retract your horns, thus enabling you to wear helmets \o/ fck me, is that a good recover or is that a good recover ? :D I'm confused here, I do not see myself writing this, or at the very least not using such a violent phrasing as "is a stupid design decision". Trying to find it in my original post to rephrase more softly, like "It is my personal opinion that this was a stupid decision" (as in, not made by stupid people, but that one (myself in this instance, apparently ?) finds stupid, devoid of sense), but I can't seem to find the sentence there, and my OP was never edited. Yeah, I'm confused, I believe that's the right word here, confused o_o Edit: yeah no, not my post, not my post indeed, that would be someone else's @cheesevillain would you kindly reflect that in your latest post ? I wish to try and maintain an image of, reasonableness say

Dance of Death does not state that it maxes out at +12 accuracy, which it does. While we're at it, in the character sheet, under Active Effects, DoD says : [TEMP]None 0, +12 Accuracy per 3.0 sec, +1 Wounds per 3.0 sec. Aside from the TEMP thingy, mousing over the first "3.0" sec for the accuracy correctly reveals a tooltip which says "Total amount: 12".

Yup had the same. IDK if it's expected because you've raised your reputation, or if it's an unintended side effect or raising your reputation, or unrelated entirely.

For those who think about multiplayer arenas or duels, I think the OP means it more in a Black Pits / Baeloth style Loved these arenas, and the one in the Underdark as well. Would kill for an endless dungeon / arena.

Sign me up

1/ Anything but a ranger, priest, or main tank figther Allow me to explain, a MT is boring as fck to me, in the game's current state. I loved tanks in DAO, because you could shield slam and that looked sooooooo cool, just absolutely amazing. You could spec full tank and still have fun, land crits, and CC like a boss. In here I merely find them boring, they're a tool and nothing more -.- 2/ Way too subjective, not going to lean in here 3/ You'll need to be more accurate with that question, are we talking about specialist classes' disadvantages ? 4/ see item 2 5/ Liking that now we can interrupt spells without resorting to CC, liking that we get subclasses, liking that we can multi Disliking the loss of spell scribing, this is a huge turn off for me

I get your point, I just do not agree with it. If what you're saying is : Any class can pick wands, even if it's suboptimal Then I raise you : Any class can pick fists, even if it's suboptimal

Em... arcane implements proficiency much ? Like, who other than your wizard is going to use a wand...

So, how many of you bros played Baldur's Gate 2 ? Remember all these spell deflection, spell turning, school immunity, spell trap and all ? Also remember spell thrust, khelben's warding whip, pierce magic, ruby ray of reversal... ? Now these allowed a wizard to go spell for spell with an enemy caster. With these, you could have true wizard duels. While there are some (well, two, if memory serves) arcane deflection spells in the game, I do not remember seeing anything designed specifically to take them down ? I miss that, those duels were just so cool.

I tried obviously. But there is better spells to inferior level. It is all. So, after that, there is not -superior- valors at these level to use them. Simple. I don't say all was bull****. I say : Spells at level 16-20 MUST be Very very effective to compensate their late arrival. More effective than level 12-16 spells of POE1. Because these spells was equivalents or less than certain spells at lower levels. The difference is: spells at level 12-16 has an efficiency in POE1. But no ... They must be MORE effective this time !^^ I get your point of view, and I agree that top tier abilities should make enough of a difference that one is willing to sacrifice multiclassing to pick them. I just cannot agree with your opinion that top tier spells in POE1 blew though. Major Grimoire Imprint, seriously, gamebreaking. I cannot think of an example of another ability that has such a strong impact on a fight, except for un-nerfed Petrification which applied a 400% damage taken debuff.

No Wall of many colors ? No Llengrath's warding staff ? No Major Grimoire Imprint ? (as in, steal three level EIGHT spells from an enemy spellcaster, level EIGHT seven ^^', SPAMMABLE FOR FREE FOR THE WHOLE DURATION). Man, you've missed out on the whole game until you've tried those. The - whole - game.

This is an oft-overlooked point. In a game like Pillars, where many enemies use the same abilities as the PCs, per-rest spells favour them immensely. Apart from that, I'll add my voice to what everyone else has been saying. Per-rest spells are impossible to balance and completely wreck pacing. It was possible, in Pillars, to have your spellcasters consistently and strongly contribute with their passive and per-encounter abilities. Which, of course, is a problem, because then they contribute closely to the other classes while still sitting on spells that can decide an encounter. I don't know what problems spellcasting has in the beta right now, but per-rest spells belong six feet under. While this is a cogent point indeed, that enemies get to use their full repertoire against you, there are other much more impactful elements they do not get. They don't get to pause the game and think on the situation. They cannot predict your behaviour, while you can definitely predict theirs. They have no real intelligence, they're merely using weights to influence the "decision" they'll be "taking". They don't get to set-up (position characters, eat food, change gear, even set traps...) like you do. They don't get to reload once you've wiped them. They don't get to revive their comrades, you do ! (chanter evocation, paladin exhortation...) Seem like oft-overlooked points as well ? You bet they are, and these work in our favour. All in all, enemies get more power, but you get prediction, unlimited time to think, gear swapping, buffing, positioning... Ours is an immeasurably stronger position than theirs.

I somewhat agree with your first point, strongly disagree with your second. Nothing stops you from unleashing your strongest spells ? Except, I don't know... friendly fire perchance ? That, and enemies ruining your casts ? Furthermore, nothing stops the enemies from unleashing their more devastating spells either... Lastly, you get more spellcasts between rests, but you can use less of them every fight. In POE1, pretty much all of us ended up saving our spells for that one big fight where they would actually make a difference. Then, you'd empty your daily allotment. So yeah, your spells felt awesome I absolutely agree with you there ; you just never got to use them ! I'm still not sure how I feel about per-encounter spells (because one feels like they have to be less powerful, to make up for the increase in availability), but I know I disliked the idea of regular per-rest spells on wizards/druids/priests when ciphers could spam theirs for free.

I'm no fan of simplistic, repetetive combat from Dragon Age Origins. It was better in sequels, where you could put status effect on enemy and then triggered it with cross class combo. It added more tactical value to combat in the series since DA:O. About Taunts - it could work similar to Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Tank use ability which do something + taunt enemy/enemies. Taunted enemy can attack whoever he wants, but all attack rolls against other than tank who taunted him are made with great penalty to hit chance (-5 if I'm correct, so after translation to d100 in Pillars it would be like -25 accuracy). I would like to see abilities from p&p RPG rather than computer games. If I could, I would pick Time Stop (it was hell of a fun in soloing Baldur's Gate II and Neverwinter Nights) so it's doable (probably) plus some kind of teleport spell - in combat or world map. We already have some abilities from Diablo, like leap. Dragon Age Origins never had any sequels. There were, however, hack-and-slashes with similar-looking names like Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age Inquisition. The resemblances stopped there though.