JerekKruger

I doubt we'd be given the option to mute selected characters. Baldur's Gate 2 would have lost a lot if Irenicus's voice actor had been muted, but it would also have been a lot worse (for me at least) if every single line of dialogue had been voice acted poorly. I'd much rather have only the key characters in the game voice acted, but have them done really well, than have every single merchant and random person on the street have all their lines voice acted badly just because it has become the industry standard.

The Beyond seems like a great location for a battle. Good catch.

Apparently they'd be too powerful otherwise.

@Sedrefilos - If it cost nothing to add full (mutable) voice acting to the game I'd agree, but it does cost money. You are of course correct that we don't know have the details for Deadfire's budget, it the cost of full voice acting; but we do know that more voice acting will cost more money and that Deadfire's budget is finite. Given this, and the fact I find partial voice acting perfectly enjoyable when done well (and full voice acting actually detracts from my enjoyment when it's done badly), if rather Obsidian sacrifice voice acting rather than other sources of the game if they need to do either. Of course if Obsidian do decide they have the money for full voice acting then that's great. I ain't against it in principle or anything.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is removed given Carnage no longer works that way (same for the Rod modal too I suspect).

Something else I'd add is I'd like to see more significant difference between the five animal forms.

I might be remembering wrong, but I thought it had been announced that Obsidian were going to remove restricted trees from Priests in the next beta patch.

Not necessarily. Perhaps it's representing them aging as they level up

I'm rather disappointed with the Shapeshifter. What I'd have preferred to see is the following: Spiritshift becomes a modal rather than a limited duration ability. Spell casting is disabled whilst Spiritshifted. You start with one Spiritshift form but can learn the others at the cost of an ability point. Spiritshift is better than for non-Shapeshifter druids (bonus to power level perhaps?) Ideally there should be some abilities and passives that improve Spiritshift, so that a Shapeshifter who focuses on it can choose them over spells.

I've been so focused on the Deadfire beta I hadn't even really looked at these new items yet. I'm thinking of start an import run and I look forward to trying some of these out (and probably voluntarily not using the three uniforms).

I don't really think you need Arms Bearer to make the benefit of Firebrand's flaming damage negligible. With two weapon slots you could carry a Great Sword and a Morning Star (or a Pollaxe and a Pike) and cover all three of the physical damage types. I highly doubt there will be any enemies in Deadfire who will be highly resistant to all three physical damage types, so the only time Firebrand will give an advantage is when enemies are specifically weak against flaming attacks. If Firebrand was just another weapon you could carry around with you and pull out in those situations it'd be great (paired with a Pollaxe for example), but at the cost of an ability, a spell cast and whatever casting duration it ends up with it's really not. Gromnir mentions Bittercut as an example of why Burning/Piercing is so good and in doing so completely misses the point. Bittercut was good because it was a Sabre with dual damage types i.e. it still benefited from the Sabres inherent +20% damage whilst no longer having to worry about Slash immune enemies. Great Swords are already dual damage type so moving from Slashing/Piercing to Burning/Piercing is a sidegrade.

I also have this issue.

Yeah Skaen and Wael aren't as obvious as Magran, Eothas and Berath. I like your suggestion for Skaen and if it's not too much hassle a random lash would be great for Wael.

If we are given the option of killing him (or at least fighting him) I wonder how it would be done. I can't imagine him being present on a normal map as the statue is just too big. It could be done in a dialogue perhaps, but I imagine a lot of people would find that unsatisfying.

Oh my bad. Given the hatchet proficiency doesn't improve your defences I assumed (without checking) that hatchets no longer did either.

Probably. I certainly hope the weapons get more unique graphics. It also has +3 Deflection against melee weapons as an added bonus too, which is nice.

That's true, until that's added it's hard to say for certain. I'm still not sure a 50% drain would be worth the cost of an ability point but then I was never that keen on draining in Pillars so perhaps I underestimate it. Nope, you're remembering correctly. A burning lash would seem like a good addition to it and couldn't really be called overpowered (unless the Spiritual Weapons are too). As a side note I'd really like to see the Magranite and Eothasian weapons have burning lashes rather than corrosive ones, and perhaps the Wael one could have shocking (corrosive fits Berath and Skaen reasonably well).

No argument from me on that front. I don't think the Priest Spiritual Weapons need anything more than that. Even if the lash isn't supposed to affect spell damage (which I suspect it's not) a 60% lash is pretty damn good.

It was shown briefly in one of the dev blog videos, along with a handful of other full ability trees.

They won't necessarily be fixed, or more specifically their current implementation is what Obsidian intended.

Agreed. For a multiclass Wizard, particularly one who's focusing on the very fast buffs, I'd probably stick to non-subclassed. The Enchanter's bonus is nice but I'd prefer the wider spell selection.

Faster cast time would go a long way to making them more appealing to me. That's a very good point. We haven't really had a chance to see how effective grimoires are going to be. Oh no doubt. I'm not sure summoned weapons, even if made instant cast, would fit in there though. The Evoker's bonus is pretty decent, although it's a bit too random for my liking. When it goes off it can be pretty devastating though. Irenicus, is that you?

And that would be fine if you weren't spending an ability point, a spell cast and the casting time on it. Personally I can't ever see myself using Concelaut's Staff or Firebrand in their current forms (Citzal's is more of an edge case). It wouldn't take much to change that though: make them scale with the Wizard's power level and make the quality enchantments come a little earlier (set it so that for a multiclass Wizard they come at the same character levels as they do now) and they'd suddenly become a lot more appealing.

Me too.

Exactly. What else you read into it is up to you. I want them to be effective in Deadfire because they are fun abilities. Despite what you claim, the non-Priest summonables are not currently Exactly.