JerekKruger

I can't speak for Sedrefilos, but for me it's not that I'm arguing that the change is for the better but rather that the arguments predicting that it will be terrible are premature and, in many cases, alarmist. I'm actually fairly neutral on the change, but I trust that the devs have thought it through and I'd rather they don't make rushed changes based on these arguments.

That's fair. To be honest I'd probably prefer an in character in game name. I can come up with a fancy Vailian name :D

Presumably it would be voluntary. Each person who backed this by $X should have to let Fluffle know if they want their name included, with the default option being no so that no one gets included by accident. EDIT: also I would suggest an option for people to use a nickname (for example their forum name) in place of their real name if they want to.

Constitution is not bad for Monks. Their high base Health and Endurance means they benefit more from Consitution than most other classes, and their Wounds mechanic means you need to take some damage so having high health means you can rest less often.

In most cases it's a pretty unimportant stat. I mean, it does give you +Fortitude which is nice, but in most cases the Health/Endurance isn't that useful.

And that is okay. And that is why I'm in favor of his idea and why I support it. Because it's fun. And we should do it because it's fun. But not because we try to appeal to people who would not donate on this otherwise anyway. So now let's start an even more trickier discussion: What should be the minimum amount of donation for being mentioned in the game? $10? $20? $30? Well I don't mind any of those numbers, but I wonder if I donate a second time before the end of this campaign will my two donations be combined to determine this? Does Paypal tell you your donor's names?

Oh sorry, I didn't read the or. My apologies.

Quick point, the speed bonuses from Mourning Gloves and Swift Strikes don't stack, see here.

That rings a bell, although I couldn't give a source.

Anyone can disarm traps. I regularly have parties in PoE that don't include a Rogue or Cipher and I just pick someone else and pump their mechanics and, at worst, there is the occasional trap I can't disarm and am forced to trigger. What do I lose from this? Some health and a little bit of experience that I really don't need. The idea that a Rogue or Cipher is mandatory is just rubbish.

This was never really true, and is definitely not true now. People put way too much stock into having optimised, min-maxed attributes, but the way PoE's attributes scale it's nowhere near as important as it has been in other CRPGs. Moreover story companions are a level higher than custom ones, and this far outweighs the negatives of having unoptimised attributes, particularly in the early game which is the hardest part of the game.

It always amazes me the things I still don't know about PoE mechanics. I was almost certain on hit abilities didn't work with Torment's Reach, the fact that they do is kinda amazing. My main reason for focusing on Bittercut was the simple combination of it being available pretty early on (sadly Godansthunyr isn't, at least not in the way I play through the game) and dual Sabres looking good to my mind. I have to say I don't think I'm keen on the idea of dual wielding Godansthunyrs, but Wē Toki is an alternative that achieves a similar end (it misses out on dual damage types and +1 Might, but gets +50% crit damage which easily surpasses the +6% damage from Might and should hopefully fire a lot when your enemies are prone, and to my mind dual axes look better).

Of the three lines you posted I'd probably go with the third. High Might is very useful for Sacred Immolation which pretty much every Paladin wants to take regardless of their role in the party. Personally I don't know if I'd bother raising Resolve much. There are plenty of sources of Deflection in the game and the Paladin already has the highest base Deflection once Faith and Conviction is taken into account. I might go with something like MIG 17 CON 10 DEX 8 PER 15 INT 18 RES 10 Note however that I have a personal rule that I don't like to reduce any attribute below 8, if you don't mind it yourself then you could definitely go with something like MIG 17 CON 10 DEX 3 PER 15 INT 18 RES 15 Though you'll attack very slowly. Another alternative would be the attribute spread from Boeroer's Counselor Ploi build i.e. MIG 15 CON 8 DEX 8 PER 15 INT 17 RES 15 Honestly, as long as your Might and Intellect are decent you can't go too wrong with a Paladin.

Yup, I was aware of that. What's strange about the bonus damage from Transcendent Suffering is that it does benefit from Might. Maybe that's not strange actually, are there any other situations where a flat +X damage is added that we can compared to? Huh, I didn't think of that. Do those abilities gain the +1 Accuracy/level that some other abilities get? If so that goes some way towards making up for that, although of course that would presumably stack with a weapon bonus so it's still not as good. Sure, but I believe Livegood118 took that into account with his calculations. He definitely added the 20% damage from Spirit of Decay and although his lash of choice was Shocking he assumed Heart of the Storm so the bonus damage comes out the same in the end. The damage still comes out to, roughly, the same per hit, but with a slower attack speed and facing off against slightly more DR (due to an additional Lash). I find it hard to judge how powerful the dual damage types is, but I'll agree that the Accuracy difference is pretty big. Does Turning Wheel work with the Long Pain. Your Witch Doctor build says it doesn't. One downside I noticed about the Long Pain Fists is that they're average attack speed rather than the fast attack speed of normal Fists. That means normal Fists attack at least 30% faster. Yeah I'd noticed that. I wonder whether Transcendent Suffering was supposed to be +20 Accuracy at level 16 too. Up until level 10 all of TS, Novice's Suffering and TLP follow the same Accuracy progression - +4 at level 4, +8 at level 7 and +10 at level 10 - but then TS slows to just +2 at levels 13 and 16 whereas NS and TLP continue at +4. The Long Pain does seem like it'll out dps normal Monk Fists. I am not so sure about placing Bittercut above them though. Perhaps I am undervaluing the Accuracy on TS and FoA, but the difference in autoattack speed is pretty huge.

Looks right to me. You could take Savage Attack with the Monk's Fists (it applies to the base damage to give +2-3 damage) and Vulnerable Attack with Bittercut (according to MaxQuest's table they stack) but even then this only just brings Bittercut's Damage to parity with the Fists. When you consider that the Fists attack quite a bit faster, and Bittercut's damage has more Lashes and hence more DR to overcome, it's clear the fists do more damage I think (even with Bittercut's higher crit chance and damage). I can't imagine any other single handed weapon doing a better job competing to be honest, so unless you're looking for on hit effects or other things that you can't get from Fists I think Fists are the way to go.

A quick calculation tells me that a Monk with 24 Might, Savage Attack, Sneak Attack and Spirit of Decay does 34.74 - 46.11 damage with his Fists and 29.92 - 43.52 with a Legendary Bittercut. On top of this, Fists are a fast weapon whereas Bittercut is average, which leads to Fists attacking between 30% and 40% faster (40% faster at Dexterity 10, going down as Dexterity rises) at zero recovery. Also Fists get +3 Accuracy in comparison. Now Bittercut can be enchanted with a Lash and can be Durganified. The former is +25% damage (+30% if you have the appropriate talent), which comes close to closing the gap due to Fists' higher attack speed. The latter increases attack speed bonus, which primarily allows you to wear heavier armour, and crit damage and crit chance, which is probably enough to achieve parity or even overtake Fists. On top of this, Bittercut benefits from dual damage types which will sometimes lead to it facing a lower DR and pretty much guarantees you never need to switch weapons. All in all, a Monk dual wielding duplicated Bittercuts will probably do more damage than a Monk using his Fists. The question is whether the investment (a Kraken Eye, the Helwax Mold and some Durgan Steel) is worth it. Thoughts?

At a guess, I doubt you'll gain Soul Whip damage with spells and you won't build focus from spell damage. I might be wrong, but that just seems most likely.

I just noticed a couple of mistakes here. The first is that 1 - 2*0.6 = -0.2, hence max{0, -0.2} = 0 and thus the Fighter's recovery should be 0 in your calculation. However that's not so important, because you also forgot to include the -0.5 penalty for not dual wielding in both calculations. Including this penalty, the two calculations become 30/1.15 = 26 frame attack 26 * max(0, 1 - 2*0.1) /1,2 = 17.33 +5 frame recovery = Fighter attacks once every 48.33 frames 30/1.15 = 26 frame attack 26 * max(0, 1 - 2*(-0.2)) /1.2 = 30.33 + 5 Frame Recovery = Monk attacks once every 61.33 frames This means the Fighter attacks 1.27 times for every attack the Monk makes. This actually puts the Fighter slight ahead of the Monk with five Wounds when autoattacking, and slightly behind the Monk with ten Wounds, but given the way Wounds work, I'd say the five Wound Monk is more representative of what a Monk will do on average (perhaps a little low for a passive Monk not using many abilities, and a little high for a Monk spamming things like Torment's Reach). Of course, once you throw Torment's Reach into the equation the Monk comes out firmly on top again, but it's closer than it appeared at first. By the way, I promise I'm not deliberately looking for mistakes in your working. I was actually working out something else and happened to be using your post as a reminder of the formulae when I spotted the mistake.

Chanters are really powerful, I'm not sure where you get the idea that they're not. The whole point is that each build will only be able to unlock some of script checks, not all of them. If you decide that unlocking them all is important to you then that's your choice, but you are definitely not forced to do so (I don't think about them at all when creating characters any more). In case you're worried, you really don't miss out on much by not being able to select attribute locked dialogue options. Usually you get a single extra line of dialogue and nothing more; sometimes they provide you with an alternative way of completing a quest; very rarely they'll get you a better reward, but not one that actually matters in the long run (gold stops being scarce about halfway through the game, and none of the best items are locked in this way). Good news, they're allowing both in Deadfire.

How exactly are Paladin's unplayable? Also I'm really failing to see how Resolve is Charisma. Sure, Might is thinly veiled Strength, but Resolve is neither similar to Charisma is it's dialogue interactions nor in its in game effects. The only way Resolve is similar to (D&D) Charisma is that it appears last on the list of six attributes.

The stretch goal is rather misleadingly named, it really ought to be "More Sea Monsters". I can remember where, but I am fairly certain Obsidian have stated that there were already sea monsters included.

This doesn't seem to be the case. I was doing some testing with a Monk and as soon as he hit 50% Endurance he got the Accuracy and Damage bonuses. Perhaps it changed at some point?

Oh, that's a good point. I had forgotten about the 5 frame delay. As you calculate though, it's a fairly minor difference. The problem with looking at the reduction in frames per point of Dexterity is frames are (essentially) a measure of time, not speed/rate. Because speed and time are inversely related, the increase in action speed (number of actions per second) is not linear in the reduction of frames per action. Therefore comparing reductions in frames can be misleading. Taking your example we get the following (I've accounted for the 5 fram delay this time): Dex 21 = 5 + 25/1.33 = 23.80 frames per action = 1.261 actions per second Dex 20 = 5 + 25/1.30 = 24.23 frames per action = 1.238 actions per second Dex 19 = 5 + 25/1.27 = 24.69 frames per action = 1.215 actions per second In this particular case the increase in actions per second going from Dexterity 19 to 20 is the same (to four significant figures) as going from 20 to 21 i.e. 0.023, Let's look at the change going from Dexterity 10 to 11: Dex 11 = 5 + 25/1.03 = 29.27 frames per action = 1.025 actions per second Dex 10 = 5 + 25/1.00 = 30.00 frames per action = 1.000 actions per second Here the difference (to four significant figures) is 0.025, so you can see more clearly that you do gain more the earlier points of Dexterity than you do from later ones, though the difference is pretty tiny. Just for completeness, let's look at going from Dexterity 1 to 12: Dex 1 = 5 + 25/0.73 = 39.25 frames per action = 0.764 actions per second Dex 2 = 5 + 25/0.76 = 37.89 frames per action = 0.792 actions per second So the absolute most you'll gain from a single point of Dexterity is 0.028, only 0.005 (0.5%) more than you gain when going from 20 to 21. EDIT: to answer your original question, I'd say from a purely intuitive point of view that it's not worth exchanging Dexterity for Resolve when building melee characters. I think the problem is too complicated to really answer purely mathematically, since there are so many different situations you might be in i.e. enemy accuracy, enemy attack speed, number of enemies attacking your character, interruption value of enemies and, perhaps most importantly, difficulty of fight (if a fight's relatively easy, who cares about being optimal).

In absolute terms, every point of Dexterity gives exactly the same bonus i.e. for each point above 10 you act 3.003% faster* than you do with 10 Dexterity, and for each point below 10 you act 3.003% slower than you do with 10 Dexterity. In relative terms the bonus decreases with each additional point of Dexterity. By this I mean that the increase in speed from going from Dexterity n to Dexterity n+1 decreases as n increases. That said, the difference isn't all that much: going from Dexterity 3 to Dexterity 4 results in a 3.80% increases in speed; going from Dexterity 10 to Dexterity 11 results in a 3.00% increase; and going from Dexterity 19 to Dexterity 20 results in a 2.36% increase. However it's not clear to my mind that the relative increase is what matters. What we know is that for each point of Dexterity above 10 the number of actions you can perform in 1s increases by a flat 3.003%, and to my mind that flat increase is what actually matters. Yes the increase when going from Dexterity 19 to Dexterity 20 is only 2.36%, but that is 2.36% of an already faster speed. *Here x% faster means that in the time it took to perform one action with Dexterity 10, you can now perform 1 + x/100 actions. Note that because Dexterity effectively acts as a overall multiplier, this is genuinely an x% increase in speed (unlike + Attack Speed bonuses which only apply to part of an action resolution).

This implies that the Fighter is attacking slower than the Monk, yet your calculations assume the Fighter has the better speed coefficient so this is wrong. What you actually determine is this. Assuming that 30 frames is a second (which I believe it is, or near enough) you've determined that your Monk attacks once ever 1.33s and your Fighter attacks every 1.17s. This actually means that the Fighter attacks 1.14 times as fast as the Monk, or in terms without decimals, for every 7 attacks the Monk makes the Fighter makes 8. EDIT: another thing, your numbers for Lighting Strikes, Turning Wheel and Weapon Lash are all too high for the Monk (they should be 10, 20/10 and 10 respectively) reducing the Monks attacks by 8/6 for the ten wound and five wound variants respectively.