Gromnir

non empowered pillars of fire were doing +700 damage for Gromnir, and salvation of time were adding an extra 20 seconds to effects such as lightning strikes ('cause swift flurry is too exploitive) while the various heal spells were literal life savers for a number o' our glass cannons. seal spells could be cast before combat (and even empowered) so as not to count towards per encounter usage... and am thinking warding seal interrupt quality is overlooked. minor avatar and cleansing flame is as good as folks would expect from the description. curious, but am suspecting something is wrong with pillar of faith as it all too frequent hits and crits for no damage, but it has nice damage and effects as well as a highly useful range. it is true the litany for _______ spells is far too situational for any save specific multiclass builds to choose (e.g. a shaman berserker taking litany of the spirit) and am trying to figure out the thinking behind the tier 9 abilities as they do not appear proportional useful. however, there is many useful priest spells and we got considerable use from our spiritual weapon choice. sure, the blast rod for a priest o' wael is silly powerful, but our priest o' eothas contemplative got more than a little use outta the flail. yeah, now that Gromnir knows the location o' ideal weapons for our projected priest builds, there is less motivation to choose a spiritual weapon, but for our first playthrough (and most folks only play these games once) the spiritual weapon were undoubted worth the investment. our biggest gripe with priests is we do not foresee much variation o' priest play. there is good priest spells, and there is also bad priest spells. unfortunate, the priest spell catalog ain't deep enough to result in hard choices at level-up. am always gonna take the same abilities save for the case o' a few unique multiclass builds. HA! Good Fun!

is a bit more complicated. bug section had a tendency populate posts quick, particular following a new build release. could miss a particular bug or exploit if one only infrequent peruses bug board. converse, is no way josh goes unawares o' swift flurry exploits if he spends as much time reading (not necessarily posting) beta feedback posts at obsidian as 'posed to sa. similar, were shocking how late in development josh became aware o' the multiplicative impact o' might. sure, look only at bug board and one might miss the might problem-- problem were so well-known and discussed it were not getting repeat exposure on submitted bug lists. am genuine baffled how so many o' the clear exploits slipped through the cracks. slipped through 'cause were discussed on beta feedback boards w/o getting repeated exposure on bug lists? makes sense, but then such leads to sad conclusion o' there being almost no obsidians bothering to follow beta feedback other than bug lists. HA! Good Fun! ps many exploits ain't getting bug submissions as there is common the fundamental question o' whether or not an exploit is the result o' a bug or is actual simple unforeseen result o' a working game mechanic.

swift flurry chain crits were one o' the more comical exploits identified... in the first beta release. am understanding how new content from the release build is creating new balance problems, but it is a wonder how a few o' the more obvious and discussed exploits went untouched by developers. am gonna observe again how we believe josh's sa preference for forum interaction does less good than he imagines. yeah, dealing with volatile fans is a chore, and yes, beta folks is often wrongheaded and obtuse to a comical degree, but the image included in the genesis post o' this thread is hardly unfamiliar to anybody who frequented the beta boards on a regular basis. HA! Good Fun!

is worth noting, insight frequent is an "or" option with perception. dialogue checks will often include insight/perception. a few o' the pivotal plot advancing dialogues appeared to be skewed towards metaphysics and religion. cutscene skill checks which had a tendency to lead to combat (or avoid such) were frequent using athletics, stealth, survival, and the aforementioned insight/perception checks. bluff and intimidate were less useful with cutscene and more impactful in dialogues. history is most useful for metagame reasons related to a single late-game magic item. for the most part, history checks got us the option to sound like a know-it-all in dialogues, but rare opened up new options. streetwise were particular useful when dealing with pirates, the poor and the vtc. our impressions. am knowing what the data mining shows, but actual gameplay tells a slight different story in our experience as the datamining doesn't actual explain context. HA! Good Fun! ps our most frequent dialogue checks (not cut scene) were insight/perception followed distant by diplomacy. diplomacy were indeed our mostest frequent check.

and once again, Gromnir is playing at the margins. our first run were completed as a priest of eothas/helwalker contemplative... a build which we purposefully avoided avoided swift flurry as we knew from the beta how broken a crit build with swift flurry could be. even so, our character were powerful and the contemplative starting skill array were ideal for us as we knew we wanted points in insight, diplomacy, metaphysics and to a lesser degree, religion and history. the helwalker mechanic added a layer o' complexity early in the game, which were a good thing. the contemplative we played were a well-rounded character who could heal big, do eye-popping damage with spells and weapons, and were thematic intriguing. were actual considering a shaman for a subsequent run, though am current doing a cantor. unrelated: rodrigo mendoza were first character name, but all subsequent names will be chosen from list o' the following: roberto clemente, honus wagner, willie stargell, arky vaughan, pie traynor, max carey, ralph kiner, lloyd waner, paul waner and fred clarke. the cantor is bill mazeroski as am saving roberto clemente for a special build once potd is tuned better. regardless, am mild curious 'bout telemetry. if am ambivalent 'bout a build choice, may look to telemetry to choose the road less traveled. do our part to try what others dismiss. HA! Good Fun!

at the moment, their teleporter has a few more kinks than does seth brundle's invention. and the vtc ain't only experimenting with baboons. HA! Good Fun!

It's not underpowered no, but they are underpowered compared to (some) martial classes. Meteor Shower is overpowered right now yes, but it's PL 9. Fighters get cleave stance at (iirc) PL 2 and that trivialises the game. Similarly with Monks and Swift Flurry. The whole balance is broken right now. The game's a cakewalk on PotD by the time you get PL 9 abilities (actually long before) regardless of class. You're talking about abilities that are exceptionally broken, rather than representative of 'martial classes' as a whole. I stand by my comment, people whined that Wizards were going to be useless, and they are really rather good. got no idea how much resistance Gromnir faced when suggesting wizards were hardly underpowered in the beta. sure, a few multi-class combos were exploitive, particular martial multiclasses, but the problem, from the very start, were particular abilities and synergies, which is why general class or caster fixes were wholly misguided and, well to be blunt, stoopid. folks kept trying to make casters better while ignoring the actual problem o' the particular exploitive abilities and synergies. fact some folks is now, finally, realizing wizards and other casters is similar broken in that particular powhaz and synergies with other powhaz and gear is a problem not specific to any particular class should be an epiphany moment. HA! Good Fun!

the fact it is so easy to stack resolve so as to make a difficult choice nothing save an annoyance is the problem and not the solution. HA! Good Fun!

oddly enough, am thinking the way it played out made the pirates the weakest faction story, but admitted the most desirable from a gameplay perspective. no companions threaten to leave (at least not for Gromnir) if you join the pirates, so no alterations to prefered or ideal party compositions result from your support o' the pirates. aeldys doesn't even demand you murder furrante, and you need not do so as exposing his vtc slavery entanglements is enough to get him hanged by his fellow pirates. you not even need kill the undead manning their ghost ship as you is able to swap boats and give 'em a crappy voyager if you is genuine worried 'bout financial loss. yes, from a moral high ground pov you need also consider results o' your actions more long term, and support pirates is a dubious starting point from which to argue that you chose to align with the good faction, but none o' the factions is offering up a shining beacon on a hill resolution for nekataka and the deadfire, which for Gromnir is a positive. shouldn't be an obvious right choice. unfortunately, as you note, more immediate moral considerations as well as actual gameplay concerns weigh disproportionate in favor o' the freaking pirates. the hard choice o' aligning with factions would be better if there were not a relative soft option included. pirate choice shoulda' been tougher. 'course, even though we wanted to do the ghost ship thing at least once, and will eventually do all faction quests to completion, we will be going ruatai in hopes o' a poe3 import. is the only faction who has their act together. HA! Good Fun!

congratulations. you trained for, competed in and finished your first triathlon. everything else is secondary concerns. however... https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94703-you-did-what-today/?p=1967868 open water swim training is inconvenient but essential-- you no doubt reached same conclusions 'bout two minutes into the swim event. HA! Good Fun!

"that green-blooded son of a bitch! it's his revenge for all those arguments he lost!" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/some-reason-these-lizards-have-toxic-green-blood-180969103/ an alternative to the copper-based hemoglobin explanation for the color of spock's blood? maybe not, but is kinda interesting even so. HA! Good Fun!

as something similar, mentioned more than once how we intended our first play to be a helwalker/priest o' eothas who would initial one-hand scepters and then switch to a one-hand melee weapon as needed. (the skaen husk armour has 0 recovery and is ideal for such a build btw.) tried to point out how a dual wield scepter wielder would, with dance o' death, make an even better helwalker/caster combo, but seemed to be little enthusiasm for such a build. go figure. *shrug* a priest o' wael with a rod is gonna be better than our eothas priest or even most dual wield builds, but regardless, the advantages o' a ranged caster who has +30 might and +30 intellect in most encounters from early levels onward should be obvious. our helwalker/priest o' eothas is actual kinda a joke build from midpoint o' the game, and once we hit level 19 is plain stoopid as we got avatar state, enervating blows and heartbeat drumming, along with all the priestly heals (including barring death's door) and salvation o' time for an extra +20 second duration on all beneficial effects. the orlan is spamming self procing crits which even without the functional multiplication is already doing big damage and weakening foes-- rare has much reason to cast offensive spells other than pre-battle seals, but if am feeling bored, maybe we use a pillar of fire for ridiculous damage before empowers. can always have the blue monkey cast a pain block on us for a little added safety. is a number o' nice, one-handed, on-crit weapons in deadfire which makes our helwalker/priest build even better, but typical we do the spiritual weapon thing unless am facing fire resistant or fire/blunt immune critters. am knowing it goes 'gainst traditional crpg wisdom, but helwalker sages, ascetics and contemplatives, is all fantastic options for multiclassing casters. 'course am thinking the reason why such builds is so nice is 'cause monks, regardless o' the helwalker option, need serious nerfs. HA! Good Fun!

somebody needs tell us what is the american accent. already shared hobbit cartoon vo with folks such as john huston. casey afflek doing southie and another pulp fiction etc. xoti sounds as if the vo artist is channeling her bestest ado annie carnes... and the character woulda been much different if she were instead doing a rosie perez or katharine hepburn. lump 'em together as american doesn't work for us. HA! Good Fun!

no. deadfire player ships are, by design, a money sink. sure, you will be able to acquire funds through acts o' piracy, but maintaining a ship and crew and purchasing new ships and ship upgrades is intended to suck money. you cannot turn deadfire ships into a revenue generating endeavor save for through most careful resource management and likely a bit o' metagame knowledge... and even then, the effort won't be worth the payoff. "i played poe for 80 hours and ended up with 600,000 cp. there was nothing worth buying with all that money. obsidian sucks." saw many variations o' the 'bove complaint. so, no, you cannot send out idle ships forth to challenge hic sunt dracones, 'cause such would defeat the point o' deadfire ships. money sink, not well. the feature might need tuning as ship combat is a bit too easy a method for overgearing early in the game. even so, we applaud obsidian for getting on board, so to speak, with the notion o' player strongholds as a money sink. HA! Good Fun!

the traditional casters each have a different role... which is expected in a class-based game. am personal not in favor of class-based games, but so it goes. the druid has shape shifting and the wild strike talents in addition to having arguable the best spells for healing allies and damaging foes. the priest is the bestest traditional buffer and has many heals. the wizard has better debuffs than priests or druids and extreme flexibility, particular with the grimoires which are ridiculous op. ciphers and chanters are arguable casters as well, though the caster distinction is itself kinda meaningless. regardless, in a class-based game, no class should be able to do everything well. is no real point in having separate classes if each class may do everything. druids got a few categories o' talents in which they excel. given their role, druids are a fantastic option... and like so many classes, they multiclass particular well with paladins and monks if you wanna get more murder, death, kill outta your beast form. 'course, we would rather gargle broken glass than keep tekehwhtever in our party any longer than necessary. HA! Good Fun!

I'm thinking my next character will be a Rogue of some sort. every hardcore beta player knows deadfire rogues are worthless-- no more than excrement on eothas' heel. ... am being sarcastic for those unaware. am still finding it mind boggling how close minded were many folks concerning deadfire rogue potential, particular as so few actual bothered to try playing a rogue. HA! Good Fun!

am admitted only level 12 as haven't been playing overmuch, but ciphers actual strike us as needing a bit o' a nerf. after beta 4 changes to both cipher specific and general penetration mechanics, the capacity for a cipher to build focus quick is erasing focus generation concerns-- no wonder there is sudden so many ascendent builds being suggested by the powergamers, eh? our blue monkey companion were gonna be a witch, but we decided straight cipher would be the way to go and we don't feel as if we made a bad choice. charming is indeed powerful, but am not having difficulty finding other useful abilities. amplified wave is no longer a You Win button ability, but aoe is enormous, does decent damage and interrupts. as we level, more foes have concentration and echoing shield is becoming a go to ability. secret horrors, borrowed instinct, mind blades, etc, is all useful to us. the only ability we took so far which has disappointed is pain block, but even pain block is useful in our party as am playing a helwalker contemplative. am thinking am doing something wrong with rangers, 'cause our maia is underperforming compared to other stiker kinda characters. dunno. had this issue in the beta as well. priest? *sigh* is a handful o' sooper powerful buffs and abilities for a priest, but much o' the divine spell catalog is filled with highly situational inspirations and spells which almost nobody in their right mind will choose given how few power choices a player has available. litany for the body is a single-target, second tier inspiration and a 4th level spell. who takes this save for some specific multiclass build... and even then am having a difficult time imagining usefulness. sure, is gonna be times when fighting critters who spam constitution afflictions and a priest is gonna likely wish they had litany o' the body, but what percentage o' encounters? wizards also have many situational useful spells, but they got grimoires so not need actual take such spells at levelup and may instead swap grimoires for particular battles. holy radiance is a nice ability, particularly 'gainst vessels. the spiritual weapons are also powerful, but extreme limiting as one needs build a character 'round the specific weapon type to get real use from it. am suspecting folks is gonna soon discover just how powerful a few priestly buffs is and is gonna once again be difficult to have a party sans a priest. salvation of time, when cast by a priest with high int is impressive... most impressive. am getting an extra 19.5 second duration on beneficial abilities... which may not sound op until one considers how such impacts abilities such as monk swift strikes, eh? those ten second buffs begin looking a bit better when one considers the impact o' salvation o' time. is only one example of many. am guessing priests once again become quasi-essential. even so, we suspect single-class priests is gonna be extreme limited in build diversity. deity choice will be the only meaningful choice for a single class priest. one simple change which would improve priests is, much like poe did for priestly favored weapons, offer two spiritual weapon options per deity. wael priests would, for example, be able to choose rod spiritual weapon or staff, or even both if the priest were so inclined to spend two talents. is genuine baffling to us how original deadfire priest plan, with the first beta, had 'em suffer "school" prohibitions. if deadfire were pnp, we would have all kinda options for improving the curious limited priest spell options. pnp changes is so much easier to implement than pc game. example: in addition (or alternative) to the one deity-specific "free" spell per talent/ability level, we would designate an open spell slot per talent level which could be changed with every rest opportunity. our suggestion would make the highly situational spells worthy o' use beyond as a scroll cast. return the free spells to the priests general general catalog o' options if such a thing is too unbalancing. unfortunate, am predicting such a feature would be prohibitive implement, particular post release. perhaps for an expansion the developers could work on a priest "trinket." each class were original 'posed to have a trinket as does wizards, no? prayer beads or vade mecum or medicine bag or some deity-specific object which performs a similar but lesser role as does the wizard grimoire. 1 spell per talent level imprinted on the trinket. 'course the trinket could do something complete different and such would be grand, but am specific considering ways to improve lack o' priest casting options. etc. is not difficult to come up with imaginative ways to improve the priest and ranger, though am suspecting most suggestions will tend towards munchkinism... as is the case with most fan feedback. am thinking the biggest problem is finding a way to improve classes which is not gonna be resource intensive, cause at the moment, developers is gonna be bug hunting. after bug hunting is no longer dire, then we expect rebalancing o' potd. address ranger and priest issues is thus more o' an expansion/sequel fodder, no? such a recognition is terrible for Gromnir as we see priests as being particular relevant in a game such as deadfire. HA! Good Fun!

pets are borked for Gromnir. no pet tested so far is providing bonuses to any party member save for the watcher. HA! Good Fun!

The one saving grace is that the members of their lowest caste are guaranteed to be reborn into a higher caste in the next life. If you think about it long-term (in which souls are cycling from caste to caste and every soul gets to inhabit all statuses multiple times), it actually makes a weird kind of sense. Every culture in POE has its downtrodden, but only the Huana guarantee that theirs is reborn into a better station. How (or if) they're able to actually manipulate the wheel in that way, I have no idea. sounds like traditional "opiate of the masses" sales pitch for oppressive cultures and/or regimes to be using organized religions to maintain order. promise o' reward in the next life helps keep the populace placid. HA! Good Fun! Except in POE reincarnation is a confirmed reality as opposed to a dogmatic belief. We can also probably assume that in a world with watchers/animancers/awakened, the Huana reincarnation mechanic of rotating castes has probably been confirmed to some degree. I think a lot of people are looking at it the way we look at caste systems irl, which are entirely socially constructed. In POE it's part social engineering, part metaphysics. I'm not *for* the Huana caste system or anything, I'm just saying it's more nuanced than at first glance. even if we accept unquestioned, the fact the system is a fact is actual making it worse. to get out o' the prison o' your caste you must die, and in so doing you is condemning some other poor soul (literal) to take your place. as one who suffers as a caste victim, you accept a future in which somebody else will need suffer the same limits and indignities as did you, but is ok, 'cause you personal will be moving up in the social strata. is pretty freaking grim and, well, soulless. HA! Good Fun!

based on the start to the post, we thought he were taking 'bout ps:t. 'course the ps:t journal were far more confusing, and in spite of a few great characters it had more than a few "dumbo" encounters as well. regardless, the notion you could wander 'round sigil or baldur's gate or athkatla for hours without fighting (if such were your choice) were frequent the Big Selling Point of such games. brass ring kinda quality for many. wanna have party v. party combat for 10 hours? do ship combat and force boarding action. deadfire allows for near inexhaustible combats encounters, if such is the goal. potd is tuned poorly, but such were a known issue before release. sadly, is too few potd players for such to be a major concern when there is so many import, mechanical and game breaking bugs which need attention. HA! Good Fun!

The one saving grace is that the members of their lowest caste are guaranteed to be reborn into a higher caste in the next life. If you think about it long-term (in which souls are cycling from caste to caste and every soul gets to inhabit all statuses multiple times), it actually makes a weird kind of sense. Every culture in POE has its downtrodden, but only the Huana guarantee that theirs is reborn into a better station. How (or if) they're able to actually manipulate the wheel in that way, I have no idea. sounds like traditional "opiate of the masses" sales pitch for oppressive cultures and/or regimes to be using organized religions to maintain order. promise o' reward in the next life helps keep the populace placid. HA! Good Fun!

am also disappointed in a few poe import bugs and am knowing we will face serious conundrum if such is fixed before we finish deadfire. am not certain how deep we will need be in the game w/o being tempted to restart with the correct import values. half game? more than half? HA! Good Fun!

our difficulty is actual more with the companions. the only thing we changed from planned character to actual character is cultural background as a few o' the skill point distributions were altered somewhere along the way. male, hearth orlan, deadfire hunter (wanted drifter, but no insight bonus anymore) playing as a priest o' eothas/helwalker contemplative. am gonna stick with this build even though ship boarding is a nightmare with a what amounts to a ranged helwalker invariably getting an alpha strikes from foes as we is always placed front and center at start o' ship combats regardless o' formation choice. we might respec minor, but respec is busted at the moment so... certain skills appear more useful than others, and in spite o' obsidian feedback on the matter, there is one attribute which is getting disproportionate use in dialogues. am comfortable with our current skill choice spread, but am also still not having recruited all party members. we will eventual be able to respec companions, but 1) we did not know the order in which we would get companions and 2) it seems there is irreconcilable differences which may make having certain party members together prohibitive-- such concerns is making us reconsider the initial class or multiclass choices for our companions. our first run is gonna be our orlan contemplative. period. is the other stuff we might wanna change. unfortunate, if we wanna change our original companion class/multiclass choices, we need restart. HA! Good Fun! ps respec being busted is causing us some sadness. might change a few skill choice distributions, but is not a big deal neither.

all caps and excessive exclamation points aside, Gromnir does want better implementation o' potd. however, ... 1) there are more than a few bugs lingering in deadfire post release. 2) this thread is misguided first priority needs be game breaking bugs and import bugs and fundamental mechanics bugs, 'cause those problems affect everybody. potd players, such as Gromnir, is not representing much o' the total deadfire fanbase. sure, the hardcore fans is louder and more visible, but we ain't representing much insofar as total sales is concerned. worse, as hardcore fans, most o' us will wait. if it takes a month to get potd balanced better, chances are most o' us will not rage quit and refuse to ever buy another obsidian product. if you did multiple potd runs, chances are you is a poe addict, a junkie. you will moan and holler, but you will then buy the dlc (probable already have) and the sequel... if such happens. there is more than enough bugs to keep the obsidians busy and the motivation to address potd is not great. which brings us to point 2. let's say this thread manages to get +100 respondents. 200? how 'bout 300? well jeepers. is sad, but the only thing threads like this actual reveal is how few potd players there actual is. am understanding the desire for a potd fix, but am not thinking it is helpful to draw attention to the lack o' potd players. makes potd appear even less consequential when you turn into a numbers thing. personal am gonna be getting great use from a potd fix, but truth is it cannot and should not be a priority compared to obvious needed bug fixes. regardless, few posting styles says, "ignore me" quite so emphatic as all-caps and multiple exclamation points... and this is coming from Gromnir who has been posting in a challenging/questionable way for 'bout two decades. HA! Good Fun!

regardless of rolls, the damage resulting from xoti's blessed harvest ability is 152.6 damage, though damage calculations are not showing up via the hold-shift feature. oh, and complete unrelated, but near 50% o' the time, Gromnir needs resort to a forced shutdown o' deadfire as attempts to quit end in interminable blackscreen w/o a return to the menu. also, and am apologizing for mentioning this one as we didn't look to see if other folks had experienced, but our poe2 beta saves are populated in the deadfire game save list. have not tried loading a beta save, but all our beta4 saves are showing. HA! Good Fun!