Gromnir

in spite o' the vast catalog o' spells available to the wizard, we tended to habitually use about two or three spells per spell level. so even though we had access to many spells, we were functionally using the same number o' abilities as the cipher. however, there were three or four wizard spells that we used all the freaking time. there is a handful o' quasi indispensable wizard spells. also, we suspect that in poe proper, we will have three or four grimoires pre-filled to take advantage o' specific types o' foes. those limited-use wizard spells we never bothered with 99% o' the time in the beta will, infrequently, be game-changers. cipher is likely our favorite caster class, but am suspecting that if we could only chose cipher or wizard for our party, we would likely pick the wizard. we has become mighty dependent on slicken, minoletta's bounding missiles, confusion, and, particularly for synergy with our fast attack rogues, combusting wounds and curse of blackened sight. yeah, the cipher has some similar abilities, but we know we has only scratched the surface o' wizard functionality. HA! Good Fun!

we see the recent thread where folks is complaining about backer inscribed tombstones in poe being immersion breaking. brings back fond memories o' the meltdown numerous boardies had when they heard that Gromnir would be included in bg2... which were later changed to tob. Gromnir killed "immersion." HA! makes the tombstones seem tame by comparison. "Rats. You got me. I'll concede the road. " nothing to concede. there is no winners, only losers... multiple meanings intended. HA! Good Fun!

Well...techinically, I was the first one who wrote down March 26th on this thread... Not so fast Grom! well, your choice were not official, and submissions after date X were s'posed to entail a monetary cost. choosing march 26 after march 26 were the announced date would seem to contravene the spirit o' the contest. even so, technically you are correct. after the date were moved to 2015, the poll lost steam. cowards. nevertheless, you is free to bask in the glow o' our prescience or deride our self-congratulatory applause... whichever strikes your fancy. HA! Good Fun!

we got three characters we is still juggling for our first play o' poe, and all three were more than serviceable in our many bb hours o' gameplay. dual wielding priest o' berath or eothas. (maces or flails) or dual wielding rogue likely to use spears. stat breakdown is almost identical for the priest(s) and the rogue: m 10 c 10 d 10 p 16 (18) i 16 (14) r 16 priests will take lore and some athletics skill. rogue will choose stealth (fingers-crossed that obsidian fixes stealth) and lore. what made such characters powerful or weak in the beta had less to do with starting attributes and more to do with talent and ability choices... and weapon choice too. the poe starting attributes are significant, but they are no more impactful than were the starting attributes in d&d 3 point-buy. is our opinion, stated more than once, that people is getting too concerned about the mechanic impact o' attributes. mechanically, talent and ability choices will quickly eclipse the importance o' attributes in poe. HA! Good Fun! ps we will note that 3e d&d starting attributes were actual more significant 'cause o' the threshold issues with saves and bab n' such. an extra wisdom or intelligence point could actual have long term impact that does not similarly exist in poe. most d&d attribute significance were due to post level 1 inflation, but even so, the starting attributes had more importance than poe 'cause o' thresholds.

http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66536-guess-the-release-date/?p=1470995 oh well, assuming poe is released tomorrow, we will need settle for bragging rights. HA! Good Fun!

I'm glad Chris can do exactly what Chris wants, or maybe he just knows him limitations and chooses not to push them. Most of us have to actually do what we are paid to do. Either way with the money they made in KS I think they could have hired someone to do romances. Having more than one writer for a game is not at all uncommon, particularly when there are several different NPC's to be writing for. I just don't accept the "What Chris Wants" as an excuse for romance not being in the game. first, Gromnir is Not a fan o' biowarian tangential and optional side-quest romances. that being said we will note that many a competent writer avoids romance. the fact that chrisA doesn't wanna do romance is hardly a criticism o' game romance. chrisA may not have the inclination or the skill set to do romance well. not all accomplished writers can do justice to romance and we suspect that the biowarian tangential and optional side quest format makes the task o' writing a romance that avoids being cringe-worthy is all the more difficult. chrisA may be a competent writer. chrisA could suck at romance even so. without noting specifics as to why chrisA don't wanna do romance, we do not see chrisA reluctance as equalling a condemnation o' the... feature. HA! Good Fun!

Estoc, yes and vulnerable attack to boot. Rogues can stack a ridiculous number of damage multipliers on a single attack, yeah, the naming choices obsidian used for poe classes is gonna continue to confuse folks. the player who wants to wield a 2h sword and do serious damage is likely to be most satisfied playing a rogue or barbarian. the barbarian does more multi-target and aoe damage, but the rogue is the clear champ doing melee weapon damage. it is not difficult to make enemies susceptible to sneak attacks, and that sneak attack damage adds up fast. backstabs is nice spike damage, but sneak attack is where the rogue earns his/her pay. changes after beta feedback has made the fighter an impressive combatant capable o' dealing impressive damage, but regardless o' weapons, the fighter should lag behind the rogue and the barbarian, and the barbarian is a distant second behind the rogue. HA! Good Fun!

btw, we played through the beta with characters who got identical attributes to those listed in the genesis post. we added a rogue and a cipher to the group, although the rogue were hardly optimal as it is likely one o' our first-play builds: m 10 c 10 d 10 p 18 i 14 r 16 got skill points in lore and stealth... with stealth being largely useless in a beta we has played dozens o' times. not much need to scout if you know where everything is.the rogue dual-wields spears, 'cause doing so is asinine AND efficacious. tickles our sense o' whimsy to play such a character. our group were moderately better than the beta party in spite o' sub-optimal stats. the main reason for the improved party dynamic were our complete control over ability and talent selections, which we realize will not be the case in poe. regardless, a hm beta play with the identified joinable npcs were hardly ineffective and we were able to fulfill every role we woulda' wished for... save for the stealthy scout who can disarm traps. we will note that we had to give rasputin (we renamed the priest for our game because the priest portrait looks more like a rasputin than a durance) one less point o' resolve and kana got one less point in perception when we created him. HA! Good Fun!

you misread. surprise? no. disarm after combat is also what Gromnir referenced. disarm a floor trap after combat and it no longer poses any danger is pointless. only reason to do so is to get the infinitesimal xp boost-- degenerative gameplay. and you complete miss the point by referencing the stealthy guy capable o' disarming traps as a trope. am suspecting that word (trope) don't mean what you think it does, but our observation were not the ubiquitous presence o' such a character so much as the universal utility o' such a character. duh. and coming up with explanations as to why we don't need a universal useful build is no different than pointing out that we don't need a tank and Gromnir offering numerous party builds that can be successful without a tank. you find that ridiculous? fine. is similarly ridiculous to your identification o' how we can avoid using a useful character role in poe. there is no good reason for making the stealthy guy who can disarm traps functional impossible unless our main character fills that role... period. HA! Good Fun!

Interrupt bonus is back, eh? I hope it's not as uber as it was in the beta. it is not uber at all... wasn't really functional uber in the beta either. sure, in the beta you could see frequent interrupt notifications, but it didn't genuine impact gameplay that significant. we would set the bb rogue to attacking a skaen cultist and we still couldn't stifle casting, particularly quick heals. interrupt and concentration is wonky as o' 480. the math got simple, but am thinking that too many interrupt related talents and abilities were not changed to fit the new scheme. there is a chanter chant (that sounds awful... chanter chant? ack.) that is 'sposed to inhibit concentration, but it don't seem to be working correct. am not sure what the improved interrupt talent actually modifies either as it don't improve your interrupt score. +15% interrupt chance improvement means what exact? 15% o' failed interrupts become sucessful? doesn't seem that way. interrupt were changed so that you got ~20%-25% (unmodified) chance o' interrupting a foe if your perception attribute is same as your 'foe's resolve. that were josh's intent for interrupt and it seems to be working correct. unfortunately, too many interrupt related features is still linked to the old scheme that it strikes us as a bit messy at the moment. HA! Good Fun!

for true? in our experience, most crpgs do not place a particular emphasis on the health stat. wasteland 2, fallouts, even d&d 3e and beyond were having the health attribute a bit marginalized save for specific character builds. health is rarely a prime attribute in a class-based system, 'cause every character gets use outta health, so is bad sense to give a class a chance to get double benefits from one attribute. in classless systems, whatever attributes control skill point rates or movement/action capacity typically become most important. health is typical a suck attribute... which is why we were hoping for more from obsidian's endurance/health system. a genuine fatigue system for all actions including spell casting woulda' made constitution universal important, but that isn't what we got, and so con remains a secondary attribute, at best, for most builds. but as we has noted elsewhere, starting attributes in poe is not near as significant as some folks is imagining. HA! Good Fun!

the priest has heals as well as an extensive collection o' buffs and debuffs. the flexibility o' the priest is unmatched by any other support character. now that Gromnir has played the beta for many dozens of hours (we don't believe the 130 steam hours is accurate for our play time based on the way the number is generated) we don't need the priest near as much simply because we know everything in the beta that could possibly occur. the priest flexibility, which allows us to respond to individual crises in an ad hoc fashion, is unnecessary in the beta... unnecessary now that is. we won't run w/o a priest in our first exploration o' poe. as much experience as we have with the beta, we realize that we gots a false sense o' confidence surrounding gameplay. the first few times we encountered beetles in hm, they hurt us, badly. there were a fight with an ogre that seemed near impossible following our first encounter. we got literal more than a dozen spiders attacking us if we didn't stay far enough to the left or right or we didn't attack one mob far enough away from another mob? etc. is tough to turn back the clock and recognize just how differently Gromnir plays the beta simply 'cause we know everything. we do not expect poe battles to go anywhere near as smooth as does beta battles. as such, we is gonna want a priest. hell, we has considered taking 2 priests for a first run as they is potential excellent in combat (though fragile) as well as having a few near indispensable buffs, debuffs and offensive spells. you do not need a priest, particularly if you are playing in normal difficulty mode. however, for a first run o' poe on hard mode or harder, we would highly recommend a priest as a support character. ask folks who have played the beta over and over and overandoverandoverandoverandovaerandover is likely resulting in advice not as helpful for a player who will be new to poe combat and who gots 0 meta knowledge. that being said, with a druid and a wizard, you should have excellent cc functionality. you should be able to do poe hm with your party, but we also wouldn't be surprised by frequent reloads. HA! Good Fun!

we got a nice portuguese woman who cleans our house approximately once a week. she does an ok job, but the real selling point is she makes food for us. frequently we get some kinda portuguese feast along with our house cleaning. we did her and her family a solid a few years ago and she feels obligated to pay us back. HA! Good Fun!

what's in a name? http://www.nameoftheyear.com/2015/03/presenting-2015-name-of-year-bracket.html HA! Good Fun!

Grazes aren't as huge a damage loss as they used to be, they have changed the formula extensively over the BB beta to move away from a "accuracy and not grazing is better dps than pumping things that straight increase dps" formula. So while that is a good bonus, don't expect it to make the weapon somehow the be all end all of dps. Many classes have talents that will even give you 20% or more graze converts with any attack. change all grazes to crits woulda' been pretty darn impressive for a weapon attribute. 30%? far less impressive. is still better than old weapon feature for flails, but it ain't as great as it looked to be based on reading o' manual errata. HA! Good Fun!

flails just became a great freaking weapon, unless there is a missing % in there somewhere. HA! Good Fun!

people will complain. ferris bueller broke the fourth wall? *gasp* HA! Good Fun!

am still getting this in 480. HA! Good Fun!

I know that's why I also said Im sure there will be a few situations like that. So inititate combat and don't step on the trap. Disarm after. No one promised a pacifist playthrough. The first line was just me being jocular. I wasn't misrepresenting. I thought it was incredibly ridiculous to compare max stealth/mechanics to the usefulness of a tank. There would have to be a hell of a lot of such situations to compare to the ability to use a tank in every fight in the game. So I responded in an equal amount of jest. You need not respond. but we will respond, 'cause it is equal stupid to suggest that we want a stealthy guy who can disarm traps because o' a single situation in the beta. don't be so hypocritical. and no, initiate combat with a trap that limits our movement is unnecessary if we can apply skills rationally... and we didn't take your advice serious 'cause you suggested disarming after we initiated combat. hell, ain't no real reason to disarm after except for the degenerative gameplay josh criticizes. ridiculous indeed. the stealthy guy who can disarm traps is not an unknown quality in crpgs. poe is a crpg that boasts 'o customization options. the stealthy guy who can disarm traps clearly will have uses in poe. with the joinable npcs, we will be unlikely to be able to create a stealthy guy who can disarm traps. this should not be confusing. you don't need to respond... if is more o' the same. HA! Good Fun!

... you do realize that you are misrepresenting us. we noted that we expect considerable more such situations, particularly as much o' poe bb were wilderness. *shrug* such stuff makes difficult to respond. HA! Good Fun!

am not seeing paladins as underpowered in support, not by any stretch o' the imagination. yes, they is less flexible than the other support characters, but am not seeing lack o' relative power as a fair claim. the aura modals is excellent, and the per encounter/rest abilities you are able to choose are situationally useful. however, we will concede that if you plan on making a paladin your only support party member, you will likely find its lack o' flexibility annoying. we suspect that one reason folks try so hard to make a paladin a tank is 'cause in a support role, the paladin is mostly just kinda... there. the paladin stands near front-lines, and then waits for the situation where one o' his/her abilities could become useful. is not that paladins is weak, but they is largely passive. at least as a tank, the paladin is active. HA! Good Fun!

even in the beta, there were at least 1 trap that were well-nigh impossible to disarm without initiating combat unless you were stealthy and had high mechanics. needed extreme high mechanics and stealth. am gonna bet that there is gonna be more than a couple similar situations in the remainder o' the game. "must have" have a tank is not "must have" neither. nevertheless, we wouldn't wanna play poe without such. have stealth and mechanics separate may be necessary, but (big picture) we got no idea why level one skills were made class-specific anymore than we understand the starting skill distributions (little picture). story/character rationale? HA! Good Fun!

It's knee-jerk gamergate nonsense, mostly. Best to disregard. you should know better than to invoke gamergate. it is the godwin's law for a new generation, yes? whatever complaints we got o' kotaku is most assured not gamergate related, but we shouldn't need make that claim. HA! Good Fun!

it's so gauche linking to our own posts, but... http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70208-who-fills-the-rogue-shoes/?p=1564919 HA! Good Fun!

in a vain attempt to keep kinda on-topic... http://kotaku.com/south-park-the-stick-of-truth-the-kotaku-review-1535203089# had never read the review. we typed "bugs south park kotaku" into google. HA! Good Fun!