Yosharian

Source: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/109231-patch-notes-for-500/ Thoughts? Does this dramatically reduce the effectiveness of builds such as the Fate Testarossa in turn-based mode? Or is this spell, and builds which use it, still viable?

I am currently in the middle of a turn-based playthrough and I can tell you that Dexterity is pretty much a dump stat in this mode. Going earlier in the turn order is a dubious benefit at best. It could be somewhat useful for controller characters, but personally I'm not convinced it's anywhere near as important as Perception, Might, Intelligence, etc, on 99% of builds.

Not anymore!

That's only for very short-duration abilities that last, say, 1 or 2 rounds. And even ones that last 2 rounds can quite easily reach 3 rounds if you have decent INT. Abilities that last for 5+ rounds are easily boosted dramatically by INT. I recently build a custom 5-man party and almost every single character had maxed INT because the boost in buff/debuff duration is really powerful. I can't deny that for some characters, average or only slightly above-average INT is fine, but a dump stat? No way.

How is INT a dump stat in Turn-based mode?

Everyone in 'combat' is using plate armor, got it In case you miss my point, I'm trying to say that your point about daggers is ****ing absurd because not everyone in 'combat' is using plate armor. A statement like "No one in their right mind would actually use a dagger in actual combat" (word for word quote from what you said earlier) is completely nonsensical. If what you actually meant was 'no-one fighting someone in plate armor would use a dagger to fight them', then of course that's fine. But that's not what you said. So you should probably try and say what you actually mean. Because the entire reason daggers and knives are so popular is precisely because they are brutally effective in many types of combat, precisely because of the qualities that set them in complete opposition to heavy, large weapons like a spear, or mace.

No-one uses a dagger in actual combat? U wot m8

Wow man thanks for the info. I believe Magran's Favor is Legendary, not Mythic? Is that wrong?

Could I bother you to detail exactly the steps needed to get the staff with minimal effort? I have no idea who Bipara is, where the Drowned Barrows are, who Nemnok is, what the wardstone from Dorudugan's island does, what the grimoire quest is, etc

If action speed determined the number of actions per turn, almost every character would require max Dexterity and as much Action Speed as possible. In other words, exactly like the RTWP system. It's boring. At least this system does something to upset the 'Action Speed Is King' dynamic.

Exactly. Dex and Action Speed are almost worthless in this mode. With a caster, it can be of some value to go earlier and be able to throw out spells earlier in the turn. But, I don't think it's worth it, compared to being really tanky. All my characters are wearing high armor (mostly plate) and have low-ish dexterity. I'm having tons of fun.

If it provides any insight, I think pretty much the two main differences are that 1) attack speed becomes almost worthless, because you can only attack once per round no matter what, and 2) dual wielding is quite strong because any basic attack action you perform attacks with both weapons. I suspect this means that dual-wielding is quite strong in this mode, but I'm not sure.

Hmm, cool, guess I'll go for the damage reduction enchant

I wasn't referring to immunes, but relatively high armor creatures mixed in with other types But with this food buff I think it's not so big an issue (although the food is quite expensive when you start dishing it out to every party member and using it every rest)

For ****'s sake. So much math and mechanics that is hidden from the player. Thanks for explaining, guys.

I don't care at all about recovery malus because I'm playing on turn-based, my character already has low dex and wears plate armour

I'm on turn-based, though Also, Battle Axes only do Slashing damage, right? So, they'll be rendered weak (higher armor) or useless (immunity) much more often. So, I don't see them as a comparable choice to Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff, which has a much less resist/immune damage type. Am I wrong here? Chromoprismatic Quarterstaff: - increased reach - not commonly resisted damage type - 12% multi-lash - raw damage AOE every 5 hits - X% increased damage (metaphysics scaling) - +20 Deflection modal (initiative penalty does not matter)

Ok this is a good suggestion

Ok but for AOE we better hope that there isn't a mix of weaknesses in a given group otherwise why bother using AOE at all.

Otto grants +1 Fire Power Level, I believe. which is about +0.25 penetration. PL 7 is near max level for a multiclass character. +4 PL from weapons is only during the day. Not everyone wants to cheese the game by only fighting during the day (ugh). Ring of FF by itself isn't going to suddenly make crits a reliable occurrence. My single-class evoker has max Perception, and that item, and doesn't see crits that reliably when casting Fireball, mainly because many targets have very high saves. Tenacious on a caster? Ok, that requires multiclass, or very specific characters. There are only three abilities in the entire game that grant that, and only one of them has any kind of decent duration. Scion of Flame is obvious, but it doesn't magically solve penetration problems when even relatively weak critters have like 10 armor. Not using Fire spells for every single encounter is obvious, I'm not talking about using them versus creatures that are weak to other elements.

I don't think it is sufficient compensation, actually. For example, my Druid that I'm using right now has a massive +3 Power Level bonus to his Storm-keyworded spells. You know how much penetration that adds? 0.8. Not even +1 penetration. So Power Level is really bad at adding penetration. Even Meteor Shower only has a penetration of 7, for ****'s sake, and that's a level NINE spell! Minoletta's Missile Salvo, another level 9 spell, only has penetration of 6... yet that spell has a reputation of being completely overpowered? I don't get it.

Penetration is a massive issue for these spells on POTD. Fireball, for example, has a penetration of 7. That's awful. That means in most cases, you're going to under-penetrate, which massively reduces your damage. Yeah, Fireball does decent damage, but in practical terms, it'll do almost nothing, because it'll underpenetrate. And that's IF you can even hit targets reliably with it. Example:

That is not what I was responding to.

Yeah... no.

You're arguing about how the weapon 'feels', rather than which is mathematically superior. Which is fine, but you should realise that's what you're doing. Dunehunter is absolutely correct, mathematically speaking, there is no difference between a proc chance vs a percentage lash, all other things being equal. However, that's not to say that your point is weak in any way - how a weapon feels is often a large part of why people choose to use weapons!