Whipstitch

Well, that and 20 seconds doesn't count for much if you're only conscious for less than half of it. Like I said, I'd rather put it on a tanky dps frontliner/offtank than a wizard or rogue. Still, the utility of the other racials is marginal enough that I see value in one that gives a disproportionate bonus in fights that I actually have a chance of losing.

What the heck are you guys doing that 20 seconds worth of base time isn't enough to help swing fights? Fighting Spirit isn't head and shoulders over other racials, but it's pretty nice on monks since they can serve as tanky dps who can convert incoming damage into crowd control, so getting knocked down to half health often doesn't necessarily mean they have to retreat to the back lines. And seriously, you think the dwarf bonus is better? Really, guy? Really?

Pretty sure people of that ilk attack pretty much everything.

Yeah, I went down with the ship trying that sorta thing just because reloading in the face of a bug didn't quite seem in the spirit of beta testing.

I know it's been a week, but saying such things as if it's particularly relevant is a personal pet peeve of mine. Being part of a category does not mean that you are immune to being prejudiced against that category. Heck, the SJW as an archetype is often viewed as an example of whites hating on whites so this should not even come as a surprise to most of the people in this thread.

I suspect we have vastly different estimations of the value of engagement then. In my experience the AI is simple enough that simple positioning dictates who gets targeted, not engagement.

So far just the devious untargetable beetle bug has gotten me.

I think the real enemy isn't angst and talk therapy but uniformity. Having some people on the team who could use a hug is one thing, but feeling stuck on the Island of Misfit Toys is quite another. Also, there's definitely a point where the amount of influence you wield over people can greatly damage the illusion of NPC autonomy. For example, when I first played through ME1 as a Paragon Shepard I thought Garrus trailed only the humans in the race to see who could be the blandest character possible. By contrast, I can forgive an awful lot about ME2's team interactions just because I was so unexpectedly pleased when Garrus responded to my previous by-the-book mentoring by becoming a friggin' vigilante. I mean, hey, half the reason Bioware did it was probably just to avoid having to write differing characterizations, but whatever, the fact that there was someone I couldn't just up and brainwash was enough to skyrocket him up my favorite NPCs list.

Ya know, for the record, I thought I'd just emphasize that I recognize how small of a "disagreement" we're having here. You already characterized monks as one of the best of the "other guys" and hell, I'll very likely be playing a setup similar to the one you suggested since I fully intend to be play through with the pre-made companions. It just might be with a PC monk as an off-tank in the name of variety.

Who said anything about using the unarmed attacks? Monks abilities work just fine with a shield or two handed weapon.You can fire up Swift Strikes with a pike* just fine and if you take the Lightning Strikes talent you even get the piddly shock damage conversion no problem. Monks also have the same base deflection as fighters and a higher health multiplier. They end up with less total deflection than a Fighter rocking pure defensive abilities does but unlike the poor barbarian they aren't going to be so far behind that they need to pack a shield just to avoid being critted into oblivion by the local livestock. In exchange, monks have more hard cc than fighters do, which is nice when the baddies are stubbornly attacking back liners or don't target deflection in the first place. The emphasis on prone 'n' own also makes their tanking less dependent on pure deflection, which allows 2 hander monks to fit a nice middle ground between sword'n'board fighters and 2 handed fighters. Mind you, adding a monk is still probably not as good as doubling up on Chanters, but hell, I could say the same about Priests or Fighters, which puts monks in pretty good company. *Also, two handed weapons are what make Torment's Reach an interesting alternative to Swift Strikes. A +50% Crush damage Full Attack is mediocre with fists but pretty beefy with an estoc. Oh, and you get the crush bonus damage against nearby enemies too, sorta like having Carnage without the grim reckoning of actually having to be a Barbarian. God, that's kinda sad now that I think about it.

I've found in many games that a balanced party typically ends up being be a distraction from the real cheese. Ultimately, the most foolproof tactic is bound to be some goofy edge case the dev team couldn't get around to addressing, like a buttload of tanky chanters who kite things to death and win ranged battles with Sure Handed Ila and lightning spam. This makes me think you're sleeping on monks a wee bit, at least by mid levels. Their tricks sadly take a bit longer to come online than fighters, but Stunning Blow doesn't require wounds and is rather comparable to Knock Down and Force of Anguish is just plain spicy. Seriously man, dat duration. And somewhat ironically, I actually think it's in melee heavy groups that monks lose a bit of their shine, since as tanks their best trick is retaliating with Force of Anguish to take the poor dumb bastard who hit them out of the fight for 10+ seconds. As a lead tank or replacement for a second fighter they're pretty sweet but as a third tank they're pretty meh.

If they ever did include things like a bagh nakh, push dagger, cestus or knuckle duster I'd hope they'd keep them austere.

Yeah, I noticed this right away. You should see some of the shenanigans you can get up to with Bloody Slaughter and an Arbalest. I mean, sure, it's overkill, but it's quite lovely overkill.

Yeah, I was hoping that max level Transcendent Suffering would be balanced against the assumption that high level characters pack seriously spiffy weapons but c'est la vie.

BTW, what sort of bonuses do monk fists max out with? I've long been a bit skeptical that they'd really keep up with top flight weapons.

You're taking this way too hard. People like Pokemon--hell, I like Pokemon--and it's a rare example of a game where damage typing really and truly matters. And it accomplishes that by making damage type and full coverage matter far more than I think people would accept from PoE and also by making access to types highly privileged to various "classes" of pokemon--"bulky water" strategies exist and shape Pokemon in ways that simply do not happen when you switch around which melee weapons your PoE group uses. Pokemon's differences from PoE are illustrative ones and are thus a valid point of comparison whether you're offended by it or not. Also, the "I don't think so" comment was simply a response to you calling my post silly. Obviously the game is in large part about party makeup. What I dispute is the idea that the game will be noticeably richer if we have two combat styles that involve having one less occupied weapon slot.

Really? I don't think so. All indications are that this game is not Pokemon. Things are rarely Super Effective. The good weapon and style combinations tend to be at least viable against everything and the bad ones tend to be sad against most everything. All I can gather from your post is that you perhaps think it's worthwhile to encourage groups to try and have full pierce/slash/crush coverage be present in the overall group makeup but ultimately I'm not sure I'd even call that sort of strategic decision a real change in play style. It's certainly less marked than say, re-arranging your spell load out. There's also man catchers, nets and bolas. However, tacking on all-new functionality is likely a pipe dream when the game's coming out in 22 days. If the situation improves at all within the next few patches my money is on solutions that leverage simple math fixes to at least bootstrap everyone into the comfortably viable range. And, as it happens, the D&D feats and weapon bonuses you're talking about actually did end up taking an lot of flak and there's been a steady movement towards decoupling abilities from weapon choice in Dungeons and Dragons ever since. That's because such things up being derided as feat or equipment taxes that were necessary to make various builds or tactics work at all. You only had so much gold, feats, equipment and actions to spend on maximizing various bonuses so the more conditions you had to meet to effectively bull rush or disarm people the further you got from having the resources to branch out into other tactics. In the end people really didn't like being locked into Combat Expertise, Improved Trip and an expensive Guisarme or a Spiked Chain just for the privilege of being able to trip people. Needing a golf bag of weapons to partake in basic combat maneuvers is sort of a raw deal when the casters can friggin' set people on fire with their minds.

When I say something is a damage buff and not a gameplay style I simply mean that player behavior doesn't really change even if there's edge cases where 5 points of armor penetration beats 3 points of damage and vice versa. You're hitting critters with the pointy end and at most you're in a golf bag scenario where you're choosing between 4 loadouts. More likely, you're committing to 2 load outs and one may very well be a shield or ranged weapon swap.

@Shevek See, but a bonus to DT isn't a separate play style, it's just a bloody damage buff! That's why I tend to think of the 1 handed struggle as a bit of a waste of time, especially when one considers that many 1 handed weapons were rather ineffective in open warfare anyway, with the exceptions being cavalry weapons, things wielded with shields and "1 handed" weapons that routinely saw use with both hands. I'd acknowledge that it's a bummer for Errol Flynn, but maybe he should have thought of that before he opted out of using all his item slots. @Odd Hermit I can't disagree more. You're talking about class like abilities and I'd much rather weapon choice be a largely aesthetic thing.

Let's be real here: there's less than a month left. If you really want to make the styles more balanced at this late juncture you need to bite the bullet, accept some parity and address weaknesses as well as strengths. For example, let's look at dual wielding. Right now, the thing to do for most classes is to take Vulnerable Attack because it gives the DT penetration that the style so desperately needs. Then--two levels later!--you can take Two Weapon Style to offset the attack speed penalty applied by turning on Vulnerable Attack. So, I have to ask: Why not just cut out the middle man and have Two Weapon Style provide some DT penetration in the first place? It's what the style desperately needs and when paired with Vulnerable Attack you could actually deal serious melee damage to heavily armored people without being a rogue or having a buttload of enchantments for once. I'm afraid I can't agree with the characterization of the single 1 hander as a "small" balance problem. I actually think pure 1 handed style is a blight and should never have been offered as a viable option in its own right. That's because straight away you run into the issue where you have weapons that are supposed to be balanced whether they're being used to take up 1 item slot or 2, which has nasty interactions with enchantments that do things other than provide on-hit damage. It's an ugly problem and one that most games don't bother with for a reason. And no, I don't think special enchantments or a special "can only be wielded with both hands available but it totally isn't a 2-hander, I swear it!" tag is an acceptable solution, since frankly i think this game would have been better balanced had they taken on less weapon types to begin with. But I guess if we're stuck with 1 handed style then I think the obvious thing to do is to make the style provide a bonus to both critical and standard damage. It's not a perfect solution, but I doubt we'll ever see one where this style is concerned. As for two handed weapons, they're the one style that seems to get broad approval. Their talent could easily remain the same or be replaced with an attack speed bonus instead if you're committed to giving each style a different bonus. That'd flatten out their spike damage a little bit compared to the old talent but of all the weapons 2 handers are by far the most well-equipped to get by with just their standard damage code.

You mean like, a class or something?

This seems as good a place as any to put my thoughts regarding each focus talent. Adventurer: pollaxe, estoc, flail, wand and warbow If your idea of a "balanced" load out is switching from one 2-handed weapon to a different 2-handed weapon, then boy, do I have the focus for you! Alright, snark aside, it's actually a pretty defensible idea in this case. All other things being equal, the estoc is the single hardest hitting 2 hander in the game thanks to it's natural armor penetration while the pollax's best of crush/slash damage typing nicely squishes the odd critter that turns out to be ridiculously resistant to piercing damage. In the end someone so dedicated to 2-handers will probably pick one weapon and throw all their money at optimizing it, but hey, if you're going to do that, you may as well do it with an estoc! Flails are nothing to write home about but wands and warbows are both decent enough. I could see someone making a case for a priest, rogue or chanter who mostly plinks from the back but pulls out the ol' 2-hander when they're sure they can enter combat without being engaged. Knight: battle axe, sword, morning star and crossbow This one is pretty decent if you want to fight at range with a crossbow but there's better focuses if you intend to mostly be in melee. Morning stars are decent enough weapons but until I see the incoming interrupt changes in action it's awful hard to recommend them over the estocs and pollaxes. I'm not particularly fond of battle axes or swords but I'd take them over fast weapons as a crossbowman's emergency weapon-and-shield swap. Noble: dagger, rapier, mace, sceptre and rod I don't care for daggers or rapiers but anything with maces can't be all bad. This also covers 2 out of 3 implements, which is also pretty cool even if wizards would probably look to Blast and maybe Penetrating Shots before giving this talent a serious look. Peasant: hatchet, spear, quarterstaff, hunting bow and unarmed I don't have much nice to say about this one, since it's pretty niche. Hatchets are best used on characters who genuinely don't give a crap about their auto attack damage, in which case they have better things to do than to blow a talent on weapon accuracy--for example, I've cheerily used a hatchet on on a tanky chanter right before he blew people's doors off with Thrice Justly Avenged. Hunting bows can actually be pretty decent when supported by chanter and ranger abilities but even then you'd rather grab Penetrating Shot before giving this talent the time of day. Ruffian: sabre, stilleto, club, pistol and blunderbuss Actually trying to deal serious damage with one handed weapons is a bit niche in this game, but if you're going to do it then sabres and stilletos are the best weapons aside from maces. Where this talent really shines is by pairing good 1-handers with the blunderbuss, making it a nice choice for rogues and other accurate classes who want to minimize grazes and do some nice spike damage at range before picking off people in melee. Soldier: great sword, pike, war hammer, arbalest and arquebus This one's probably my favorite overall. Much like the Ruffian talent the nicest thing about this one is the way it helps otherwise melee oriented characters participate in strong opening volleys. Firing off a single shot from an arquebus or arbalest before introducing people to the business end of your pike or greatsword is a great way to get the party started. I'm a bit less enthusiastic about war hammers, but they're still quite decent. In fact, in the absence of Lead Splitter or Penetrating Shot one could make a pretty decent argument that the gap between a war hammer and a sabre is less than the gap between one shot from a blunderbuss and one shot from an arbalest or arquebus, so I wouldn't be shocked to see someone dual wielding them. In the end, I'd expect to see Soldier, Adventurer and Ruffian to be selected the most, in part because they're tailored to characters who genuinely care about auto attack damage as part of their main shtick--I'd expect to see a lot of support characters packing a mace and a shield or a war or crossbow, but I'd also expect them to be more aggressive about spending their talents elsewhere.

Whether dual wield barbarians are really less micro intensive depends a bit on the level of efficacy you're willing to settle for and how open you are to dabbling in other weapon setups with your rogue. Barbarians have a bigger health pool and mind getting beat down as much as rogues do but they're also a bit less accurate and most of their advantages don't really apply to ranged attacks. By contrast, rogues are pretty good at just standing back with a gun or arbalest and nailing people until an obvious melee target presents itself.

That's such a ridiculous suggestion that I suspect you're being disingenuous. I'm all for voting with your dollars but giving people money for doing things that disappoint you is a rather perverse and ineffective way to go about it. Furthermore, Project Eternity went over like gangbusters on Kickstarter but I've yet to see any evidence that romances were ever given serious consideration by Obsidian as even a stretch goal--certainly their interviews seem to dismiss romances out of hand rather than pine for them. It seems that the decision to release without romances was an artistic one at least as much as it was a financial one. I largely agree with and even respect that choice but if it's the case then giving Obsidian money in the hope of future romances is bound to end in disappointment.

I'm afraid it isn't nearly that simple. Ranged attackers flat out have natural dissonance with melee attackers. Ranged guys want to win by not being successfully attacked at all and melee guys want to win by being within targeting range and having math that can beat up your math. Thus melee goons have natural synergy with other melee goons just by virtue of lining up and making it harder for opponents to flank the group or focus fire. If melee characters also deal more damage than ranged attackers on top of that then you're left with a situation where you only use ranged attacks when forced to by the terrain. That's the situation the poor ranger is in right now, a class that can neither tank or spank and thus needs either a lot more damage or a lot more utility to fit into groups with even a passing interest in melee.