gkathellar

Why would you want to play a character who is frustratingly ill-suited for their role? All of this aside, I would like to see some more anime fightan magickz in the expansion - multiclassing, more magical abilities for existing melee classes, talents, whatever. I want me some magic sword dudes, and also a ranger skill which transforms their companion into an arrow because BEAR ARROW.

Neither of these statements are true. Wizards always had save-or-suck from level 1 on in D&D (except 4e), and they're perfectly effective from level 1 in PoE. Their crowd control spells are still usable and quite effective - just not as good as they used to be.

Here's the other issue: a good tank in PoE is not a damage dealer, but an attack sponge. Using a wizard as an attack sponge is both a waste of a sponge, and a waste of a wizard. It's doable, yes, but also thoroughly suboptimal.

I understand their goal; they didn't just want to take down Harond, they wanted to take down his whole structure of power. I just couldn't let them hurt the innocent girl to do it! That's part of what they wanted, sure. But having his niece kill him wouldn't have accomplished it more than anything else would. Mostly, I expect, they wanted a stooge to do the job for them. You saw that cult - they could've dealt with Harond, but chose not to, because Skaen teaches them not to be interested in justice or improving the world so much as revenge, cowardice and resentiment.

Cipher ending is best ending. And yeah, Harond needed to die. Too bad the Skaenites planned to do it in the dumbest, most cartoonishly evil way possible.

Considering the sheer size of the IE modding community even today, the number of mods released by day seven, and the fact that backers have been modding PoE since before the game actually released, I get the feeling that your concerns are unfounded. (But yeah, unfortunately, a Weidu successor seems unlikely due to Unity.)

Waitwaitwait Someone changed their mind? Shoot, this isn't the Internet. Where am I? Did I make a wrong turn?

My guess: an issue with the hotfix. Also, Bester, I know we all share a common hatred for the Memorials, but is there any chance you could restore the deleted/changed Memorial as a core part of the mod? The tears of insane SJW everywere that just can't possibly use the mod when it includes such "transphobia" would nourish all thinking people everywhere, I think. Is this something people are actually complaining about? The fact that Obsidian caved to the demands of a small sect of Twitter lunatics playing the "I'm offended"-game, and removed one of the single few memorial notes that weren't objectively horrific, and which a backer invested $500 USD in the game for? Yeah, you might say that people are a tad upset over that issue. You're going to need to be more specific. I haven't been keeping up with whatever dumb Internet drama plays out on a day-to-day basis.

IEMod gogogogo

It's technically doable, but in practice it doesn't work well. The thing is, your natural lack of accuracy and Deflection are going to hurt. A lot. Honestly, if you want a melee mage, go Chanter. Hulking armored necromancer-skald gogogo

My guess: an issue with the hotfix. Also, Bester, I know we all share a common hatred for the Memorials, but is there any chance you could restore the deleted/changed Memorial as a core part of the mod? The tears of insane SJW everywere that just can't possibly use the mod when it includes such "transphobia" would nourish all thinking people everywhere, I think. Is this something people are actually complaining about?

You're having fun. You disgust me. In other news I never even used slicken on hard. Talk about an overreaction. I didn't start using Slicken until this patch, because I didn't realize it was very good. And you know, it's still pretty good. AoE prone is solid crowd control, even with a short duration.

YHBT, gentlemen.

For talents, grab the electricity and frost damage enhancers. They will serve you well.

Wow that is terrible. Unavoidable. They'd have to force the companions to respawn entirely in order to enable the new stats.

Blunderbuss takes the lead again.

You're not alone, I feel the same. I don't understand why people are so obsessed with discussing balancing changes as if it was a MOBA. Don't forget to have fun playing the game, guys... When you complain about other people's complaining, you do yourself no credit.

Oh, absolutely, the classes as they are wouldn't go well with Cipher mechanics. They could've built a whole game off of those mechanics, though. I wouldn't complain. Just idle banter, mind.

That's not the problem. The problem is that there is only one kind of minmaxing, and it is unintuitive and dumb. Well, I think all min-maxing is dumb, but whatever floats your boat. That's cute, but any attempt to build a character who is effective at some things by sacrificing their efficacy in others constitutes minmaxing. This is not the entire spectrum of character creation, but it's a big part of such. It needs not be taken to extremes to be the same essential process, and likewise, it needs not be taken to extremes for the problems of a game to show themselves - subtly. The thing is, when we do take it to extremes (inevitable, as every system allowing for choice can be stretched and twisted), the problems become clearly visible. That doesn't mean said problems aren't systemic, only that they're much easier to see in an optimized environment - like a piece of wood about to be broken, the flaws it will splinter along are embedded in the grain. And there ARE problems, especially considering that PoE at least wanted to be a system in which a character with a block of 13s could stand up next to one with 20s and 3s. That was a design goal, and there's been a complete failure to meet it. Every system can be approached optimally: good choices and variety at extremes of optimization results in better choices and variety closer to the center. Right now, there only one big choice at the extreme, and this has a real impact on the game as it's played by someone who minmaxes less. You may not like optimizers, but don't dispute their premises because you think optimization is dumb.

That's not the problem. The problem is that there is only one kind of minmaxing, and it is unintuitive and dumb. ... that's mostly just because Thac0 started scaling faster than AC once you get into ultra-high levels. Very simple math issue, having little to do with the structure of gameplay. If anything, tanking can be at its most effective by ToB by using the plethora "exotic" defenses such as Stoneskin and Mirror Image, which don't interface with numerical stats in any meaningful way. On the other hand, for 90% of SoA, AC remains totally relevant and AC tanking is a viable strategy against lots of opponents.

@Luckmann - That's a larger problem with the wizard, though, and I don't feel this one spell having increased numbers is a remedy for said problem. The remedy, I think, is having more spells of this type (good AoE spells that blend damage with debuffing), and more advancement of spells through the tiers (a second-level version of Chill Fog that is an Enemy-AOE, for instance).

If you're not a tank, then getting into situations that put you at less than 50% is a bad idea (and it's not nearly good enough to serve as a panic button). So again - it doesn't help tanks, and it's unreliable at best for anyone else. None of the abilities that proc at below 50% last the entire fight. They're either active at <=50%, or (in the case of folk) they have a short duration.

Because you only get it when you're half-dead, and most of those benefits are of minimal value to tanks. But it seems to me like it "super charges" you. I mean more health, hitting harder and faster, plus harder to get hit! (a) you're half-dead, so you're already taking damage too fast (b) the tiny endurance bonus is useless, and it doesn't slow down all of that damage you're taking in any meaningful way © hitting harder and faster is not very useful on a tank (d) the people who need to hit harder and faster are also the ones who absolutely cannot afford to get into situations placing them at <=50% endurance. (e) the ability shuts off when someone heals you

Because you only get it when you're half-dead, and most of those benefits are of minimal value to tanks.

Naw, I understand why there's an appeal to the idea, but I do like the use of separate resources for separate spell levels, and the way it motivates you to use spells of different levels. Which is probably the best-designed class, barring its lack of variety. But that's neither here nor there.