Kordanor

The "problem" is that there is the alternative of custom characters. So these gimped characters are just a mere option. Like in an RTS where you could either attack with footmen or with tanks. Now if there weren't any tanks, it would just be a higher difficulty. But with the alternative of tanks you would gimp yourself attacking with footmen. So personally I set a rule for myself to never use any tanks/ custom characters. But once you use them I can see that the custom characters might feel gimped.

Arent Vulnerable Attack and Savage Attack modal and therefore exclusive? Barbarians Reckless Assault is also a Modal one. Or did I understand the Modal mechanic wrong? Problem for Savage attack would be that with the additional +15% miss chance (instead of crits in worst case), you would also lose damage multiplicators like from strength or enchantments. In addition active abilities might also not be very reliable anymore.

Nice tips about symbiosis. You got any other classes which work well together? Regarding Engagement slots. You got an overlook about how many of these "slots" a Figher (Eder) and a Paladin (Pallegina) might get in a "normal companion" group? Didnt check into these classes too deply.

Thanks for your answer. Regarding Accuracy via perception: Also consider that this would retroactively make the Path of the Damned difficulty somewhat harder as all enemies would receive a significant accuracy boost if they get +50% attributes.

But then you must have done something wrong. And by that I mean that both characters were probably set up so differently that the result must have been determined from that alone. I mean just take a level 1 Rogue and Barbarian and let them fight against a single target. The Barbarian has 25 Accuracy, the Rogue has 30 Accuracy. By that alone with the same stats with the same weapon the rogue has 5% of crits instead of hits, so 150% instead of 0% damage. Which should be a total dps increase by 7.5% if I am not wrong (probably higher due to the net damage over DT). Now the blinding strike does +25% damage or the crippling strike +25% damage. With 10 int default thats 10s where your attacks then do 150% of damage. The Barbarian however has a Frenzy for 12 seconds, which is 4 Might (12% dmg) and 33% speed boost, where every every additional hit faces the DT again. In addition the rogue also profits from status effects other characters cause. So in single target, also with following abilities I don't see how the rogue can get worse or even equal to the barbarian, or do 35 crits where the barb does 35 normal. Of course if you count in the Carnage damage you have a different total. But thats not the point when discussing a Single Target DD.

Will probably test that with Path of the Damned + Expert. Gimme Pain!

Yeah, but they somehow feel like core/universal rogue abilities. So I hoped they somewhat "fixed" them.

Great video, looking for the following parts and hope to see them before release (no pressure!) Especially looking forward to the skills actually, as hardly anyone talked about them so far (in my perception) Thanks a lot for doing these videos! Question about int regarding Barbarians and Rogues: From what I can tell, the barbarian mainly profits from int due to his basic attack using carnage. So carnage covers a bigger area. And maybe the frenzy might get some advantage as well (was Greater Frenzy buffed btw?). Well the barbaric shout my profit from it if you take it. But besides of that, is there really anything profiting from it hugely? I guess the bonus to carnage alone is worth it? Basically the same goes to rogues, though I see the advantage fron int even less there. Rogues don't have any AOEs, so no profit there. You have a blinding strike, a crippling strike, withering strike and Fearsome strike. All applying debuffs for 10s. Is increasing this debuff time to 14s (with 18 int) really worth the 8 talent points? What about the Rogue ability "Deep Wounds" (additional Dot Raw damage) and the Barbarian Heal "Savage Defiance"? Increasing the Time here would actually weaken the ability. Is this inverted there? Are these skills not affected? While it's not really fitting this topic - did you see any major changes from the beta to the press version? Like with the skills you considered being bugged before? (I think it was Bloody Slaughter, Barbarians "Blooded" and maybe some others)

It's two talents then, as Shadowing Beyond doesnt have much of another purpose (besides of fleeing from combat). Which makes the total count of useful rogue specific talents...well...0

Does anyone know if they changed anything regarding the situation with Backstab which you get on level 2 and requires Shadowing Beyond, which you get on level 4? And whether Shadowing Beyong is still 2 times per Rest, which reduces the use of backstab to 2 times per rest as well. So basically 2 Talents for 2 attacks, which seems to be quite a lot.

As PIP-Clownboy I am most probably going for a high Int Barb. It’s great to finally have the possibility to play a Melee Character who isn’t extremely dumb. My alternative would be a rouge. But his abilities and talents are extremely unsatisfying imho. Especially Backstab on lvl 2 which is only possible with Invisibility, which is a level 4 talent you can use 2 times per rest. Maybe (and hopefully) that changed with the latest version. Though I also need to check if they did anything on the Barb Skills/Talents Blooded, Greater Frenzy and in addition the Bloody Slaughter. In both cases I am going for high Int and Lore for dialogues. Which also means that my rogue will not have enough points for a high stealth and mechanics skill. This job will then be passed on to some of the Story-Companions.

After Wasteland and Divinity OS I find this very refreshing. Divinity OS on release had only 2 Companions, so the roles of your main characters were almost already set if you didn’t want to take hirelings similar to PoE. Later after launch they added another 2, but that was already too late for me. And then there is Wasteland. Wasteland had various characters you could recruit and at 90% of them you thought “Why did they gimp him so badly?” OBSIDIANs vision of making every attribute somewhat useful (even though not perfectly balanced) for all classes works. While it’s still possible to minmax (there is almost always one best option) the characters don’t look totally gimped. And with gimped I mean like in Wasteland where the character might have been able to shoot twice instead of once if the developers did set one or two points differently. Or where he would have gotten 1 additional skillpoint per level if they didn’t completely waste the int attribute on him/her. So to me the stats on the PoE Companions don’t look too bad. I kinda wished that Eder had higher Perception/Resolve to make a better tank, but he should be able to do the job anyways. I am also wondering about the Skills though. As Mechanics and Stealth seem to be less favourable on the main character due to dialogue options, and I’d like them to have both on one character. Combined with a couple of points in athletics, this character should ideally have some bonus in one of both skills. In the worst case I will be limited to the Grieving Mother, who should bring some class boni.

Imho it's pretty cool to have these characters with unique components. Will be interesting to see if they come up with any special abilities. Personally I probably won't create any custom companions anyways as this feels to be the cookie cutter way which won't just be easier but also leaves out some of the fun you get by their personalities.

Yeah...leave that to the player. ^^

I hope they rather mention OBSIDIAN though

There are a lot of pretty good portraits in the game. And it shouldnt be hard to copy/paste a beard from any picture you like and implement it. Here is a video showing the portraits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgXB1YDxTC4

Love achievements, especially if the game offers modes like Ironman or Hard difficulties. It's not a lot but at least a bit of satisfaction of "you did it!". With steam trading cards - there is absolutely no reason to not implement it and getting some additional money from doing so.

Would love to hear more info about this day one patch. Like does anything change regarding attributes? Some bigger class changes? Any last big changes until they aren't really possible anymore due to release?

But the agggro system is extremely simple and won't be different in the rest of the game.

Well, chosing a race depending on the traits/attributes would be as well. ^^

Don't like the idea of having teeth as ugly as they have. Even if I chose a picture where they arent visible. Kana Rua is definitely not a companion I'd like to keep around for longer than needed. Yeah, I am that superficial

From the videos and the systems it seems like you don't need any hitpoints anyways unless you either make mistakes or get hit by AOEs. So the question is how high these AoEs hit on Hard / Path of the Damned. Would you say that they hit hard enough to take more than 3 Con? Otherwise Con seems to be a pure Tank or "being lazy" attribute.

Check this Post: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/71257-steam-keys-when/?p=1587113

As mentioned in the youtube comments - I watched all of your videos and recommend them to everone else. Nice overview and first impressions of all of the classes. That said, I have got the very same problem... Normally I'd like to play a Barbarian or a Rogue, but I feel like I should take Intelligence and Lore. Well...maybe it's going to be a highly intelligent barbarian then...

I just realized that in the Wiki over here the duration was moved from Intelligence and is now a part of the Resolve Attribute.