JerekKruger

To me this is the bigger problem. I can handle a class being underpowered but if it's also underexciting then I have very little motivation to ever play them. As such, I doubt Rogue's will ever reach a stage where they are interesting enough for me to play in PoE, and I am mainly holding out hope that Obsidian will do something interesting with them in the sequel.

Hmm... Well the bad news is the only way back from jumping down the blood hole is to work your way back up. I believe the hole takes you down to level 5 of the Endless Paths so you'll have to work your way through (parts of) three floors to get back where you started. Depending on how you feel about spoilers, you could check out the Gamebanshee guide for maps that will help you do the minimum of each floor. The worse news is, I don't think there's any way you'll be able to avoid fighting at least one Ogre Druid, and as a beginner, with a level 4 party that's not going to be easy. If you're patient and willing to try out various spell combinations you should be able to beat it, but it isn't going to be easy. The good news? Well, PoE is indeed a good RPG, so when you extract yourself from this situation you should have a lot of fun. Also you learnt a valuable lesson: always make a hard save before jumping down a blood filled hole

I'd say that the balance is much, much better now that it was at release (or indeed has ever been). Even the poor Rogue, (almost) universally recognised as the weakest class at the moment isn't really that bad, and the other ten classes are in a pretty good place balance wise.

As Boeroer says, if you do a 1700 finishing blow against an enemy with, say, 100 endurance remaining, you've actually only really don't 100 damage. At that point you needn't even bother dividing by 2.5, as you could have done that 100 damage without finishing blow anyway. This has been tested. People aren't just talking hypothetically here, there was an entire thread where someone claimed that a spiritshift druid was (when build correctly) amazing at single target damage. Other people (including Boeroer at the time iirc) were sceptical, but after testing it turned out that no, the spiritshift druid really was ridiculously good at single target damage. Lucky crit doesn't refer to the idea that crits are uncommon, it refers to getting a crit, that is also a high damage roll, and which benefits from any other non-guaranteed damage bonuses a class might have access to.

This made me laugh.

What Talents or Abilities is a Rogue going to get in its last few levels that are going to significantly improve its damage that is hasn't already taken by level 13? By that point I'd expect all of the only damage Talents that remain are things like Beast Slayer, which are situational, and there aren't any big damage Abilities at high levels for the Rogue. Also, as Dr <3 says, a Shapeshift Druid can reach 200+ damage as standard, not on a lucky max, so pointing out that a rogue can hit for 200 on what was presumably a well rolled crit isn't exactly proving that the Rogue is at parity with the Druid for single target damage.

Congratulations and kudos on having the patience to find a way to do it your way.

Well it's mostly just fun to discuss this sort of thing. As you say, Obsidian have probably already decided a lot of this stuff and are working on creating it already.

My thoughts: Should we continue story of Watcher? No, for very much the same reasons you give: the Watcher has kinda done it all at this point. I know some people around here would like to see a proper epic level campaign, but personally I'd much prefer such a campaign be handled in the way Throne of Bhall was i.e. a DLC campaign that comes after a main campaign. There's also the question of whether the Watcher would abandon Caed Nua, given his link to it. That said, I imagine Obsidian would do an excellent job of continuing the Watcher's story, it's just not my preferred focus for the sequel. Should we play as some other character? If you mean something like playing Edér then no. There are examples of good CRPGs where the player doesn't get to handcraft their own PC, but I feel that given its heritage, this isn't something PoE2 should do. That said, having some (long) quests where an NPC companion takes the lead (perhaps even having their stats and skills be used for dialogue options) could be a fun change of pace and a good way of fleshing out companions (something which PoE wasn't so good at in many cases). Cameos? Definitely, though they shouldn't be forced and they should fit with the various endings of PoE (in particular, if a companion was sacrificed they shouldn't appear) and the companions personalities (Sagani is likely to want to return to her family, and I can't see Durance leaving the Dyrwood myself). I'd even be pretty keen to have one or two PoE companions actually join the new PC, though once again this shouldn't go too far as having new companions is always fun. Save Export? Yes, but I'd much prefer Obsidian to flesh out well a canonical story than have several stories which are not so well done. Also if all that the imported save will do is have a few NPCs say a few throw away lines then I'm not bothered either way. However, a few well done touches that significantly change the world/story would be very welcome so long as they don't overstretch Obsidian's resources.

I ran a very similar Paladin to KDubya's. His stats were Mig 18 Con 8 Dex 10 Per 16 Int 16 Res 10, the extra Intellect was for Sacred Immolation as wel as other auras. He was tough enough to off tank and did a decent job of damage dealing.

I hope Xan told us how vane our quest was :D

I wouldn't be opposed to a lengthy side quest, or even DLC, that puts an NPC companion in the spotlight, but I think obsidian would be crazy to make him the main character.

Isn't the priest's AoE anti vessel power fire based? If so the eyeless are immune, as are a handful of other high level vessels. If not then I am fairly certain an in game tooltip is incorrect as I was recently toying with a vessel killing Berathian and I am sure the tooltip said 'burning' (can't check now as I'm away from my desktop for Christmas)

I'm guessing that's because any order can work.

Indeed, Shadows of Amn ignored your choices in Baldur's Gate. Did you love Montaron and Xzar and hate Khalid and Jaheira? Not according to SoA. I really hope you didn't have Xan or Alora as a major part of your party in BG since (unless I am remembering incorrectly) they don't even have a cameo in SoA.

The "random" loot table? I don't know where to find an up to date copy as I believe Obsidian change it in some patches, but the basic idea is this: loot isn't random. Instead the loot a container contains is decided, when you first open it, based on which day of the month it is (I believe every month in Eora has the same number of days). So on day 6 it might contain Gauntlets of Accuracy, but if you had opened it on day 7 it might have contained the Gloves of Manipulation. If you want to abuse this system, you can save before opening a container, then rest to change the day a test what it contains (until you get something you want). The table just tells you what will appear on what day, but the last time I used one it was only about 75% right. I would only recommend doing this if you're trying to get achievements and there's an item you absolutely need (for whatever reason). If you're not chasing achievements then you'll save yourself a lot of time using the console (and ultimately, what's the difference?).

1: If you're playing solo as a Vancian caster, I can see why that would be annoying. For party play I quite like it. It forces me to play more conservatively, not casting all of my most powerful spells at the start of every fight, and I also don't have my emergence broken by the realisation that my party spends about 90% of its time asleep. It's perhaps not the most elegant solution to rest spamming, but I prefer it to random encounters (which get irritating quickly and can be avoided with save spamming). 2: Well, you can always abuse the "random" loot system to guarantee a pair in Raedric's Hold . More seriously though, I don't see any reason every character should be able to detect and disarm every single trap. If doing so becomes routine then traps go from being a danger to being a nuisance. What I might agree with is that it was a mistake to include an item like the Gloves of Manipulation at all, particularly as a random drop, since their existence leads to frustration. 3: No argument here. Josh said it's something they hope to be able to improve in PoE2, both because they're using the newer Unity Engine and they intend to pack the data in a different way. Whether or not they'll succeed remains to be seen, but it's nice to see a dev acknowledge a problem and say they intend to improve it next time. 4: Once again, this is a lot worse in solo than in group play, and as I've mentioned in another thread the game was specifically not balanced for solo play.

Thanks for the tip, those damn Lagufaeth are going to pay in my next play through (once I settle on a class).

I understand I think. I have various little role-playing "rules" that I set myself that I don't like to break. Good luck spell stealing or charming a priest.

Abydon's Hammer gives +4 Might, though being two-handed you can't have it equipped at the same time as Steadfast so I'm not sure whether it'll unlock it.

Well, from a narrative point of view the quest is written with some urgency. Once Lord Whatshisname declares his intention to attack it feels pretty unnatural for the player to be able to wait for as long as they want before dealing with the battle. That said, you could probably finish off Act II before this happens (or be close) so level 10 probably isn't that far off.

I knew that was the case with attribute bonuses on weapons and non-weapons, but wasn't sure it was the case with other bonuses. I suspect +100 defence whilst stunned is a bit overkill in most situations, although if combined with Defensive Mindweb that would lead to some ridiculous party wide defences.

So it would have been better if Obsidian didn't give some extra content for free to those with the base game?

Good point, I'll try to avoid going off topic.

I'd assume that multiple +50 defence whilst stunned items won't stack (with the exception of Ilfan perhaps?).