Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

Yeah, I'm hesitant to play with heavy mods because I like to write guides after I finish a playthrough (see https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198024054503/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides ) and if I mod the game too heavily, my experience is no longer a useful guide to people playing vanilla. For now I'm basically just back-burnering the game until DLC's come out and they complete whatever rounds of revision they're contemplating.

Ascendant really is a bit of an exception to this though since you just get full focus at the start of the fight from Kitchen Stove or some other weapon ability and spam free high cost spells. sure, *-ish*. Sorta. Kitchen Stove's Wild Barrage can work well sure but it's per-rest so it has the issue all per-rest abilities have -- again, it's just a straight disadvantage vs. the per-encounter casters. Also, while that works on lower difficulties and in the early/mid game,, on higher difficulties and higher levels it gets less and less possible to "alpha strike" your way into instantly full focus, even with optimized gear combos. And meanwhile, the Wizard is nuking with an Empowered Minoletta's (a valid comparison since we're comparing per-rest). Ascendant does mitigate the problems because once you fire your opening salvo (whatever it is) with your weapon and do whatever else you need to do to max your meter, usually a couple more attacks depending, then you can usually cast 4-5 times (a little less now post nerf) and then you have to get back up to max again. When I say ciphers are "playable" that's basically the build I played -- the only full run I've done so far was with an Ascendant cipher using Kitchen Stove + (other gun) as primary and quarterstaff secondary (for crushing). It was a lot of fun initially but there was a huge dive in utility, relative to the rest of the party, after about level 12 or so, and there were multiple levels ranges where my dude was basically reduced to chain-casting the same power over and over (i.e., levels 8 to 12 were mostly "get Ascended, then Pain Block everybody, plus Body Attunement on the boss monster" etc). And even then, a lot of the abilities I relied on were significantly nerfed in the most recent patch (looking at you, Body Attunement and Time Parasite). It's easy to miss the performance difference if you are just microing your main and using base AI, because the class is playable and functions, but if you set up your scripting properly (and there are mods now to set max focus as a conditional trigger, very useful for Ascended) the difference in performance between a properly scripted cipher and a properly scripted Wizard is extremely dramatic. Wizard spells are just across-the-board more effective and in a typical fight Wizards will be able to cast many more times than even a properly built, properly scripted Ascendant will, and each Wizard spell will generally be more effective to boot (compare Ninagauth's Death Ray vs. Ectopsychic Echo ; both powers are the same tier, 3; the wizard gets Death Ray for free from a grimoire; Death Ray does more *raw* damage than Echo does crushing). The whole time you're building up your focus with autoattacks the Wizard is dumping their spellbook, and by the time they finish, there usually isn't much left for the Cipher to cast at. Net result, though -- Cipher has two big issues: 1) too short roster of *quality* power choices, and 2) focus mechanic hurts rather than helps. You can kinda avoid #1 by going multiclass and just splashing in the few good Cipher powers which are still worth taking, and you can sorta partially dodge #2 by going either Soul Blade or Ascendant (as both rework the focus mechanic). That's why all the best cipher builds right now do both, and go like soul blade assassin or streetfighter ascendant or whatever. If you don't explicitly build to circumvent those two big traps, you're borked.

Obvious choice is Bîaŵac and yes the diacriticals show up correctly

Yeah, but that's non optimal for a few reasons -- you don't want to use an empower at the start of a fight before you know if you'll need it, for one thing, and for another, it only gives like . . somewhere between a quarter and half? -- of your focus back, which is usually enough for, like, one cast of your top power, or 2-3 casts of lower level powers; in contrast, a wizard priest or druid can get nine spell casts back (one for each level!) Empower balance is its own distinct thing though so I don't want to go too far down that rabbit hole, i just raise it to point out the disparity between the focus mechanic and per-encounter casting. I get the reasons for the move to per-encounter and it was the right move for the former Vancians but the net result is that CIphers no longer have a niche as "the per encounter caster" and the focus mechanic acts as a hindrance rather than a help.

You can build a decently useable cipher, especially if you multiclass, but for every purpose except a pure charm build, a XX/wizard build is stronger and more versatile than an XX/Cipher build, just because wizard spells are far more potent and grimoires give wizards a far broader power selection. There are a lot of different issues going into that disparity but the main ones are 1) lack of power selection -- the cipher ability roster is shorter with fewer functonal options than any other casting class, partly due to nerfs to CC and partly due to inadequate development of the late-game power list; ciphers get fewer power choices than any other casting class (priests and druids get bonus powers, wizards get grimoires); a lot of the powers they can choose from are poorly balanced or outright useless (wild leech, ancestor's honor; mental binding's duration is the same as its cast time; etc.); and 2) the focus mechanic -- what was an advantage in the first game is now a relatively severe disadvantage now that everyone else is all per-encounter and very few fights last long enough for any realistic fear of running out of per-encounter casts (especially given the Empower mechanic to replenish casts). Net result, in the time it takes the average cipher to attack and cast twice each, the party's wizard has dumped his four most powerful spells, and on top of that each wizard spell is significantly more effective than the cipher's (compare haunting chains, single target, 9th level, vs. ryngrim's terror, AoE, 5th level). To really break it down I'll repost something I threw up on Somethingawful a few days ago regarding single class melee-build ciphers in Deadfire: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3856099&userid=146846&perpage=40&pagenumber=13#post485114123 It honestly kinda feels like Ciphers were just kinda neglected in development, especially at higher character levels. The item lists are the tipoff -- there are a lot of items that boost Wizard and Priest and Druid keywords like Fire or Water but there isn't a single unique that boosts Cipher power keywords (even the cipher powers with corrosive effects don't have the Corrode keyword so don't benefit, etc.).

Have we heard anything about a timeline for the *next* patch? Will we be getting another one this month, or are we waiting for Beast of Winter in July?

This whole debate seems kinda silly to me because the fighter and rogue's power descriptions are both written vaguely enough that you can interpret them both as entirely physical abilities if you want. Well, except for maybe one or two abilities like invisible, but just . .don't take those, or retcon them in your head.

hrm, I thought I'd made this edit but it looks like it didn't save: Alternative, superior suggestion: follow the Party Assist curve math, with break points at 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, and 22.

You don't need to save/reload this -- you can buy the Grimoire of Disruption from the vendor by the docks in Tikiwara.

Highest I can remember seeing is Nemnok at 18. I'm not sure what the theoretical highest possible intimidate score is, 23 or so?

Yeah I've been holding off writing a guide for this game because I assume most everything is still in flux.

The ideal would probably be a diminishing-returns curve, say, something like (left hand column intimidate points, right hand column extra bonus) 1 1 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5 6 Idea being, all you really need to is splash the skill a bit to get a solid bonus, and you can theoretically go all in and get a slightly better bonus, but it isn't worth it to build entirely around the item unless you want to anyway for some other reason.

The most common negative feedback in the published reviews of the game was that it was too easy.

From what I've read it only applies from Stealth.

Classic example of anti-monk bias right here

Except for uninstalling the OS when the game was uninstalled? Different game, that was a ****ty attempt at a remake basically. Boeroer gives his age as early 40's and he mentions the C64, so he means this one: It was the classic before the classic -- Original PoR is to Baldur's Gate as Baldur's Gate is to Pillars, except inherently superior, as it was turn-based, had a tactical grid for combat movement, came with a code wheel (very important), and had the guisarme-voulge.

As a (fellow?) Haligonian this would be amazing. Oh no, I just know it from googling "sea shanties" on youtube last week after Deadfire left me wanting more. It's easily the best modern iteration on the format. You'll be happy to know that a whole bar full of drunk people can still regularly break out into this song in Halifax even though not a damn one of us knows all the words There actually is a Barrett's Privateers reference. One of the background conversations in Neketaka is a guy saying he just signed on for a berth on the Antelope.

you take that back Pool of Radiance was perfect, right down to the code wheel

Yeah, in that case there's very little synergy between monks and priests so the wider pool of powers doesn't add much. This is all a matter of relative degree -- there are single class builds that are perfectly viable (e.g., wizards or monks, both of which have a very good selection of top-level abilities) and there are multi-class builds that are worse than either as a single class (for example, pairing any two caster classes tends to be bad because you don't have time to use both sets of abilities in a typical fight). But generally speaking, presuming you pick a combo that has some synergy, you'll be stronger than either single class would, because you've got a wider pool of abilities to choose from and can build to emphasize the synergy. See, e.g., Fighter/Rogues vs either fighters or rogues.

I think they're basically intended to add replay value, like item versions of Berath's Blessings. You won't know they exist your first time through the game so you won't build for them; second time through you can make a build around them and wreck face. I agree with you that abilities should not scale with skills though and I assume that's a bug they'll fix.

The problem is a lot of abilities are broken or crappy and so characters which pick their abilities from larger pools -- i.e., multiclass characters, but also wizards -- have an inherent advantage, because they can cherrypick the good stuff more effectively. The game needs a generalized positive balancing pass. edit: ciphers, and to a lesser extent priests and druids, and possibly other classes as well (maybe barbarians?) need more active powers to choose from at higher levels.

Just out.of curiosity, do we know what the max deflection build is yet? Can you actually reach 200 deflection or is the functional cap closer to like 120?I have gotten over 230, however you start really giving up other defenses at around 215 and that is really enough deflection anyway. Getting those numbers certainly takes some cheese, like never resting and stacking one-time bonuses that expire on rest. The hardest part is increasing the other defenses which is particularly important if using Wizard’s Double. Reflex and Will are fairly easy to boost up, but fortitude can be hard. This is why I think that helwalker monk / wizard is able to get the best overall defenses. 10 wounds provides 40 fortitude making it superior to paladin, particularly with the F&C nerf. I also use the pet that provides +7 fortitude instead of one that helps deflection. I plan to post a build showing how to do it, but still playing through with it. Another advantage of monk is that you can purposely hurt yourself to lower your health to a very low amount safely. Some items provide scaling benefits based on your remaining health (more benefit the less you have). For example, there is a large shield that provides up to 20 bonus deflection based on remaining health. Getting it to 18-19 makes it quite a bit better than the one based on Athletics. Yow. I take it that's mostly from class abilities? What items were you using? I'm kinda wondering what the max deflection I could get on one of the standard companions is (for Defensive Mindweb purposes).

It's still a decent item. I tend to lean towards the "if you put ALL your skill points into X, it *should* be powerful" line of thinking though. I think there was a broad decision to make "across the board" nerfs to ALL items that gave bonuses based on skills invested. 5 base +5, ok, not necessarily underpowered, but I'm not sure 5 base +10 was either, given the big character investment necesssary.

Just out.of curiosity, do we know what the max deflection build is yet? Can you actually reach 200 deflection or is the functional cap closer to like 120?

Souljammer!