Gromnir

axiomatic-- the priest is, fundamentally, a support character. is easiest to build a priest without much concern for weapons. focus your efforts on being a better spellcaster is easiest route for a priest. that being said, you can make a very competent combat cleric in poe. am not certain why folks keep saying that it is a bad idea. we played the beta with dual wielding flails priest o' eothas (make sure to take vulnerable attacks somewhere along the way) and made combat priests o' all the other deities as well. in the full release o' the game, we has advanced a priest o' berath and a priest o' wael deep into the game, and we made both o' the priests combat focused as we like to have durance in our party. suggestions: 1) max mechanics. doesn't matter if your priest is gonna be the guy who opens locks for you. mechanics has synergy with priestly seal spells... all of them. a 10 mechanics results in a +30% accuracy boost to all seal spells. is ridiculous useful. 2) if you make a combat priest, you will need more party support. is our opinion that it is ideal to have two priests in a party if one is combat focused. have one priest focus on combat and offensive spells while the other buffs, debuffs and heals. sure, your combat priest will still be buffing and debuffing, but you are gonna use your few talents to maximize combat strengths rather than boosting your support abilities, so work to your strengths. 3) attributes is less significant that talents. as a priest, if you wanna be effective with a weapon, you got hard choices. take the deity weapon focus talent and then a general weapon focus talent to boost further. with eothas, you have morningstars or flails, but that means you should also choose either adventurer weapon focus or knight weapon focus... again, this is assuming you genuine care about weapon use. with adventurer focus you get a boost with war bows, which is actual a decent ranged weapon. crossbows is part o' the knight weapon focus talent, so if you would rather use morningstars for melee, you will be decent with crossbows as well, albeit not as good as with morningstars. two weapon fighting is a must for the flail user. two handed weapons is decent for morningstars. we recommend scion of flame for all priests, but that is a personal preference. scion doesn't appear to boost your seal spell damage, but you will have a goodly number o' fire spells, and if you already have high might, you will see most impressive damage totals from your flame spells. we mentioned already that if you pick up flails, you can go the dual wield route, and if you do so, it is almost essential that you choose vulnerable attacks. flails don't do enough damage to regularly overcome the kinda dr you will see routinely in the game. vulnerable attacks helps... though we find it works better with a mace wielding priest o' berath. our priest o' wael has the following attributes: m 10 c 10 d 10 p 16 i 16 r 10 our attribute choices were meant to maximize rp/dialogue opportunities. is our talent choices that made the character effective in combat. a priest o' wael gets quarterstaff and rod as deity favored weapons, so can either focus efforts on staves or rods. both is fantastic choices if you choose talents correct. point is that unlike fighters or wizards or some other classes, you can't just sorta choose what talents feels right and still be effective. if you are wanting to make a decent priestly combatant, you will do yourself a favor to plan your talent choices from 2-12 before you start playing. HA! Good Fun! ps durance makes a decent dual-wielder o' swords, or (our preference) a viable gunner. give durance inspired flame and knight weapon focus as well as a few gunner talents such as gunner and quick switch.

other than big head modes, yes? ... is likely a good thing that they don't try more humor. some folks simple don't have a knack for funny in writing. am recalling a interview we read o elmore leonard speaking o' his influences. according to leonard, hemingway made writing look easy and getting into mood to write westerns were easy after reading passages from for whom the bell tolls. sadly, leonard realized that hemingway had no demonstrable sense o' humor in his writing and so he needed a new spirit guide as there were things leonard wished to say that were amusing or quixotic or whatever. am thinking that if the obsidians could be as unfunny as hemingway, it wouldn't be a bad thing. 'course lack o' humor don't result in increased writing talent. *shrug* for popular entertainment that spans tens o' hours, humor is something one should try and cultivate. keep reader or player on edge for +40 hours? am not saying that obsidian don't have such humor in their games, but as mc noted, obsidian humor is tending to be low-key or noticeably infrequent. that being said, we enjoyed morte as a humors jnpc. is perhaps a bit cliché, but the sad clown can be more tragic than a similarly preternatural serious character. morte were a good example o' black isle humor done well. side note: in retrospect, am thinking the voice acting actual helped morte considerable. authors can be funny, but if you have a voice-over, the actor better be good. if tiger woods had delivered morte lines, am doubting we woulda' seen the funny. HA! Good Fun!

the bg series included bg. ... thank goodness developers and consumers have higher standards than the benchmark set by bg insofar as writing is concerned. HA! Good Fun!

am not seeing a motivation to be creative. the game is predictably leaving more than a few folks with characters that do not play as any reasonable player would expect. numerous talents, abilities and powers do not work as they is described, or the descriptions o' such is based on beta builds in the 300s and is misleading at best. developer error has resulted in players having their role-play choices thwarted. so, as between offering a fix for folks who is understandably displeased 'cause o' mistakes not their own or accommodating the feel nonsense o' a bunch o' paternalistic nincompoops who thinks respec is cheating or who believes that the mere presence o' a feature they would never use diminishes their gaming experience... well, we think the choice is an easy one for any rational developer to be making. poe should be yet another example to obsidian why the console is inadequate and a respec function would be a boon to many... too many. HA! Good Fun!

bump

repulsing seal doesn't have a huge acc bonus. what it does have is synergy with mechanics. the priestly seal spells count as traps. therefore, if you have high mechanics skill, you get the same boost to your seal spells as you would get for setting a trap. this synergy results in potential near guaranteed crits with seal spells for priests who max mechanics. *shrug* go figure. HA! Good Fun!

no. HA! Good Fun! edit: made it look more like a vol response... for funsies.

lockpicking/trap xp is alternatively a pointless trinket to appease a group o' vocal malcontents or it results in the degenerative gameplay obsidian had concerns 'bout. in either case, it is a joke... is a bad joke. if the xp grants is so small as to be doing no harm, then it amounts to nothing more than a mere token. bloat. puffery. if the trap/lock xp does encourage folks to retrace maps looking for a few missed chests so as to achieve an all-important level-up before a big battle, then it is indeed the bane obsidian were attempting to avoid. *shrug* is no good argument to keep trap/lock xp other than feel. a group o' players claims they needs be enticed with a wizened sardine before they once more leap through poe' hoops. no sardine? then why would they bother doing the tricks, eh? ... were always a silly argument. is no less silly post release. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* is good to see that obsidian finally acknowledged that interrupting blows does nothing. more than once we pointed out that +15% were a meaningless descriptor after the post 430 beta changes and that regardless, nothing were showing up in the combat log to indicate interrupting blow had any impact. and am not being hyperbolic when we say we mentioned the interrupt issue a dozen times. every respec thread had us point out the problem and there were more than a few beta bug threads as well. the elemental stuff... well, am confused why a developer can't let us know what is and is not affected by the talent. HA! Good Fun! ps after some testing, am reasonably certain that the elemental talents do not alter damage output of priestly seal spells. however, am still unclear regarding any of the dot burn effects from all priest spells and abilities that include burn.

is effectively a bump of this thread: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/75683-scion-of-flame-heart-of-the-storm-spirit-of-decay-and-secrets-of-rime/?p=1636156 have been attempting to get visible results with priestly flame-based spells, to no avail. developer feedback regarding what the elemental enhancement talents actual boost would be nice as at the moment there is very little transparency. wizard spells? seems to work with wizard and druid spells... maybe. weapons with burning quality? no... or at least probable not... perhaps? paladin burn abilities? uhm... probably not. priest spells? well, priest spells is complicated 'cause some number o' them somehow get treated as traps, but we can't get positive results for the other priestly fire-based spells either. so which priest spells does scion of flame alter, if any? ... oh, and while you are at it, has anybody at obsidian yet explained what interrupting blows talent actually does post the 430 beta? josh changed interrupt mechanics, and now the interrupting blows talent has no visible impact in the combat log. have asked literal a dozen times or more 'bout the talent. HA! Good Fun!

that did the trick. saved us a couple dozen hours o' replay. thanks. HA! Good Fun!

unique abilities for joinable npcs? sure. better abilities for joinable nps? definitely not. have the joinables along for story reasons is more than enough motivation for many players. if story enhancement is an insufficient benefit to you, then the option to create joinables is available already. the problem, if it is a problem, already has a solution. am much in favor o' giving jnpcs mechanical individualized enhancements that reflect their character and make 'em different than any stock npc we might create, but am believing it is a mistake to make the joinables better than created npcs. have the joinables mere presence make the game easier is antithetical to developer goals and somewhat defeats the purpose o' the poe feature for adding custom jnpcs. unique is good, but better is bad. HA! Good Fun!

to say that Gromnir is disappointed regarding the absence o' a retroactive reckless assault fix is woeful insufficient to describe our feelings on the matter. ... fine. restart it is. currently we are looking at the beta for 1.04, and based on other developer feedback, 1.05 is envisioned as a much more substantial patch. am suspecting no less than a month will pass before a retroactive reckless assault fix is provided. so, fine. we can take a hint. for Gromnir this is the line o' demarcation that divides admirable patience from stubbornly obtuse. HA! Good Fun!

ah, am understanding the confusion. we has noted many times that with traditional game software, we typical wait six month to a year previous to purchasing... always wait til first major patch. in this way we could wait on the reviews o' the title in question from fellow players we trusted for feedback. also, our delayed purchase would invariably reward us with a more polished and a more stable game that would likely be less expensive than a pre-order or day 1. for example, we waited one year before playing mass effect 3 and we have yet to play da:i. however, we have also noted more than once that kickstarters is different animals. we were a kickstarter poe backer. Gromnir paid for poe years ago, so waiting to see if poe were worth our gaming dollar is kinda moot at this point. our advice regarding a poe purchase, freely given to more than once, were for those who had not already backed poe as part o' the kickstarter. http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70121-who-is-going-to-wait-till-the-first-update-before-playing/?p=1560626 is a fault o' ours that we is tediously and foolishly predictable. can use us as a game forum compass if you wish. HA! Good Fun!

Just noticed your username. Are you the actual Gromnir that the Bhaalspawn Gromnir il-Khan is based on, or is your username based on the NPC? I remember a piece of trivia saying that Gromnir il-Khan was based on a moderator on an old forum named Gromnir (the username of the moderator, not the name of the forum). never were a mod, but yes, you have the dubious privilege o' bespeaking the original Gromnir who did indeed inspire the tob npc. *shrug* HA! Good Fun!

after playing poe beta for s'posed more than 150 hours, and the actual release for a few dozen, it is our opinion that what poe needs most is a yakety sax toggle for when entering fast mode. HA! Good Fun!

yeah, we agree that your math is good, but the ie games actual hurt you. folks can look at the ie games (with kill xp and trap xp and spell memorization xp, etc.) and observe that the end result o' over-leveling early were not avoided by your proposed scheme. Gromnir is on your side, but we would likely try and bury all the ie games as non-analogous as they is an obstacle rather than support for your scheme. HA! Good Fun!

it is funny that you bring it up, even in jest, 'cause matt's example o' bg shows us just how disruptive the bg style scheme actual were. Gromnir typical hit the bg level cap shortly after arriving in bg city. am not sure that using bg as an example helps matt, and it sure don't help with what should be the obsolete fixation gifted had/has with kill xp. your math is undeniable, but the above is simply wrong. in ps:t, thanks to respawns and kill xp, you could reach ridiculous levels before leaving sigil... could effective have 25s in all abilities before plane hopping. iwd and iwd 2 didn't have side quests, so those is not analogous to poe, yes? the available xp from side-quests in iwd and iwd2 were negligible. it were not the scheme that resulted in predictable xp growth in the iwd games. so, bg and bg2... *shrug* bg had a level cap that had most characters reaching 6 or 7. so, the fact that Gromnir reached level 7 soon after we first arrived in bg city (no doubt thanks to the abundance o' kill xp in the bg hinterlands) resulted in us being no more than ~three levels level'd above and beyond the critical path folks. we hit the level cap extreme early in bg, but the disparity in power were not as obvious simple 'cause total levels available were fixed and low. bg2? *chuckle* chapter 2 could see us much over-level'd in that game as well. hell, we could have end-game gear before going to spellhold and gear were more important than attributes in bg2. ad&d also were rather quaint in that while we could continue to gain levels, our effective power increases after level x diminished to near negligible quantities. unlike poe wherein we have opportunities to improve our character every level, that weren't the case with bg2. the effective difference 'tween a level 20 and level 30 character were not near a significant as the relative power increase from level 1 to 10. the ie games is not good examples for matt. the math may work in your favor, but the ie games ain't fertile soil in which to build this argument. two games is completely non-analogous (iwd & iwd2) and in three o' the ie games (bg, ps:t, bg2), we could either achieve extreme disparate levels depending on the amount o' side-questing we chose to undertake, or alternatively, we hit a level cap 1/2 to 2/3 o' the way through the game. actual, for all the "spiritual successor" mindless parrots out there, poe's experience issues should be a boon, no? bg had us hit the level cap at roughly the same point in the game as we did in poe, perhaps a bit earlier in bg as a matter o' fact. HA! Good Fun!

durance is an obvious joinable npc to try and max with mechanics, 'cause mechanics boosts his seal spell accuracy. however, durance must need dumps almost all available points into mechanics to become effective (he actually is a bit behind the curve initially) and regardless, we shouldn't need feel compelled to have durance as our mechanic. how many new players know o' the synergy 'tween seals and mechanics? how many folks playing poe for the first time would expect that if they wanna make aloth even plausible effective as a mechanic, they should do so as soon as the first level-up opportunity. ganrich notes that kana is already feeling a bit gimped as a mechanic in spite o' a class bonus. *shrug* the kinda meta-knowledge we would expect from players is not the kinda minutiae we is getting into with the joinable npcs and their potential to be a party mechanic. as an aside, we will again note that the boosted seal accuracy and mechanics synergy should be made more clear in the skill description. without beta experience, who would guess, eh? HA! Good Fun!

disagree... and that is a good thing. cipher's, particular 'cause o' the resting mechanic in hard mode and a couple current weapon/focus "exploits," is a bit much. all the other classes? wizard, monks and paladins has all offered us considerable use and we do not currently see as behind the curve. we can make sword & board monk tanks that is not only effective, but interesting to play. the wound mechanic makes monks intriguing to Gromnir in the tank role 'cause we can actual do something with them. paladins is boring, but they is 'posed to be boring to Gromnir. we like to micromanage, and they don't require much micromanagement. even so, as a low-maintenance support class that is far less squishy than priests, we don't see them as weak... just boring. and wizards? wizards get a serious bad rap 'cause a few loud boardies suggested that wizards is gimped, particularly after 1.03. hogwash. we still have our wizard spam slicken and miasma of dull mindedness and those two spells alone would make the wizard a win in our book. be able to effective cripple an opponent's reflex or will saves with low-level spells? with three different prepared grimoires, we is ready for pretty much any and all opponents. the wizard can not only dish out extreme hurt, but with the correct spells and synergy with other classes, he/she can turn nightmare encounters into personally, we haven't played the ranger or barbarian much, but we see some folks claiming that barbarians is dps dynamos and that rangers is at least playable. ciphers is indeed too much, but in our admitted personal experience, the rest o' the classes is all balanced well enough.. with the opportunity for additional minor tweakage. oh, and keep in mind that balanced don't mean that the classes must be equal powerful, but they should be equal useful and equal fun. sure, as we noted above, the low-maintenance aspect o' a paladin makes 'em decidedly less fun for Gromnir, but that is actually one o' their selling points for many players. am actual surprising impressed with poe class balance, particularly in light o' the fact that we loathe classes in rpgs. ironically, the single biggest shortcoming we see regarding the classes is that the developers listened too much to fan feedback during the beta. the class roles were a bit better defined early in the beta. is our view that many o' the classes has been diminished through addition... but ours is not a popular pov. regardless, we think it is a good thing that we got so much disagreement regarding which classes is good and bad. if there were complete consensus, that would be bad. HA! Good Fun!

"Take that to the extreme," did you learn nothing from our earlier hyperbole criticism? you don't even try to make a point. seems reasonable to us that demand meta knowledge is ok if you make such knowledge accessible and transparent. the new player o' poe has no such means at his disposal. Gromnir had many dozens o' hours in the beta and we were still disappointed at how stealth were implemented in the release. we knew how stealth were working pre-release, but given developer equivocation, we didn't genuine know how it would be implemented day 1. "You claimed that companions were inferior mechanics monkeys. I don't need to prove that wrong with statistics, in that case all I need to do is present a case which falsifies. Companions do just fine as mechanics monkeys, even if they don't start by putting all their points in it. There's enough leeway." fine. you are wrong. our experience says that the companions make poor skill monkeys. they need put all available points into mechanics from the moment you acquire them and they is still gonna be initial behind the skill curve. not only that, it potential hampers the ability to take small quantities o' equal necessary skills such as the aforementioned athletics. so, has Gromnir proved you wrong by supplying our own anecdotal? utter nonsense. ... you are so not getting the point about anecdotal. point out that our early beta is also anecdotal should offer epiphany or realization at the very least. nothing? you can't keep having it both ways and look anything other than ridiculous. HA! Good Fun! edit: odd. our quote o' tig somehow had the quoted material embedded in the middle o' our reply text. weird. sorta fixed.

again, this is bad logic. use other games or meta knowledge is bad logic. and no, not every game effective forces you to max skills to be effective, so it is arguable not nearly as reasonable as you suggest. we could indulge in similar hyperbole and state that every crpg also allows us to build a stealthy character that can effectively disarm traps as well. a character that is either good at stealth or locks is aberrational in our experience. poe is different. hell. we got at least 2 athletics on all characters. other folks says they need a few points in stealth for all. does other crpgs also let us know that seal spells for priests count as traps in poe, so all priests who plan o' being offensive effective should boost mechanics? clear as day. and yes, pointing out that your anecdotal experience were less helpful than you seemed to believe were necessary. "I can't say without actually doing the numbers." HA! says the guy who tells how it is done in any crpg? indulge in hypocrisy much? is particular funny 'cause you admit that your anecdotal is nothing but anecdotal and then suggest that other pov ain't reasonable based on other crpg experience. ridiculous. the genesis poster were confused by the skills curve. tell us you think he were unreasonable? well, thanks. oh, and is particular funny 'cause with early beta releases, we could be effective with balanced mechanics and... whatever. in spite o' what any and all crpgs do, poe didn't. we didn't need max mechanics in early beta. HA! Good Fun!

actually, the skills curve were a surprise even to many beta folks. is no way to know, before playing poe, that you do not have enough skill points to effective max more than one skill per character. why would it be unreasonable to think that you could be endgame effective with 2 skills? sure, after playing the beta we learned very quick that the game were skewed towards encouraging us to max at least a few o' the skills (+11) on different characters, but with absolute no knowledge o' the system or the game, that isn't a logical assumption to be making. regarding skills, am glad we played the beta. HA! Good Fun! This is a good point, and likely I was biased by having played the beta. Having said that though, it's pretty standard to have to pump a skill sky-high in most RPGs to be able to cope with any high level/end game situations that require that skill. And these locks/traps that require 11 mechanics: are they game-stoppers if you don't have your skill that high or is there another way around them? If the former, then that's pretty bad game design. If the latter, then I don't think it's a huge issue. huge issue? perhaps not. however, the genesis poster is nevertheless correct that the game does a poor job o' communicating many aspects o' rules mechanics-- skills is one such example. is now considerable time post release and we still can't tell you how, or if, interrupting blows talent does anything. and tig's anecdotal experience is no more relevant than is that o' the genesis poster. HA! Good Fun!

actually, the skills curve were a surprise even to many beta folks. is no way to know, before playing poe, that you do not have enough skill points to effective max more than one skill per character. why would it be unreasonable to think that you could be endgame effective with 2 skills? sure, after playing the beta we learned very quick that the game were skewed towards encouraging us to max at least a few o' the skills (+11) on different characters, but with absolute no knowledge o' the system or the game, that isn't a logical assumption to be making. regarding skills, am glad we played the beta. HA! Good Fun! But from the early game, you start to encounter a steadily increasing scale of locks and traps, which teaches you that you should increase mechanics at least every two levels for your mechanics character, right? yeah, so by level 4 or 5 you should realize that you need ~max skills. great. unfortunately, you may already have borked yourself outta that being a possibility...level 4 or 5 is too late to reach that realization. is one o' the reasons why it makes sense to make a pc with mechanics, 'cause even at level 3, the starting companions ain't ideal mechanics monkeys. HA! Good Fun!

stealth is admittedly broken at the moment. the developers has said that stealth ain't working the way it were envisioned. unfortunately, we got much equivocation regarding when we would see a fix. release? patch? expansion? obviously not release. so, patch or expansion? bets? HA! Good Fun!