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To start off, i find the combat system fantastic, with emphasis on having a threat system, promoting more difficult team play at higher difficulty settings. Coming from an MMO background, and mostly experienced as a tank, i love that Grounded has implemented this mechanic! Is there a possibity of a Perk/Talent/Mastery system? It would really add a great amount of depth, replay-ability and additional customization to the game... Has anyone else wanted, or thought of something similar? -NNZ

Hello there, your fan is speaking. Yesterday i checked the latest PoE patch and im still frustrated. What is this really? I consider myself to be the great follower of your games and game decisions. I've played all of your RPG based games, went through the max difficulty of last pillars and that was interesting with my custom builds and party variations. And what do we have now, in 2018? After the great mechanic of first pillars combat and talents? The weapon choice and the 10+ to defences at the talent tree? Seriously? What kind of multiclass are you talking about, if the main classes are incredibly dull and boring? When the 80% of choices are uninteresting and obvious. For example the warriors second update of focus ability - the choosing between 50% gazes to hits and 50% to crits and +5 intelligence? Seriously? If you are talking about multiclass why cant you add somehing like gamechanging mechanics to talents, like furious warrior (just an example) that gives you +to damage for a short time but a loss of accracy, or spellsword when your damage becomes modified by intelligence vs might? Is it so hard? Yes, that is hard to balance, but this is interesting! First pillats was terrible at balance even after final patches, but is had great choices and options for certain types of parties. Deadfire have none. Wanted to buy deluxe edition pre-order, but now im not sure. Please spare more of your time to the talents trees. Now that is just pathetic.

So I've been playing a paladin in the beta and I'm having a great time though there are some aspects I'm missing. I'm hoping there might be a return of paladin order exclusive talents similar to the ones that were in the previous installment, especially for the Shieldbearers. Right now I'm playing a Shieldbearer and they seem kind of bland compared to the other orders, while seeming much more worthwhile when they had access to Shielding Flames and Shielding Touch. Maybe we could acquire these talents in the 10-15 level range as to make the starting bonuses shine more in the beginning?

First off, the dual class system is what I dreamed of while playing PoE1. This kind of thinking really blows the class system wide open. Being able to further specialize an ability like Smite to get another bonus is also a great choice. I acknowledge and like how removing general talents makes individual classes more unique, but without those 30-40 general talents there really are so few options each level. Right now it feels like a 1:1 trade off with dual classing instead of talents; however, if some form of general talents were added, this system would be incredibly versatile. If there are more soulbound items than in PoE1 that allow a character to develop through items, that would also solve this lack of options. I love how the soulbound weapons invite you to pursue certain achievements in the game world. Finally, a personal desire of mine: allow druid wildshape weapons (claws, etc.) to count as unarmed for the sake of being able to use the barbarian's weapon focus or the monk's transcendant suffering. I think creating an unarmed weapon proficiency is all that's needed to rectify this. I love the shifter subclass but a multiclass druid misses out on many of the martial classes' accuracy/defense increases. A multiclass monk also finds itself lacking synergy.

Playing some beta, seeing how the new skill system works, Do you feel in Deadfire transferred character will remain his talents from PoE I such as: Gift from the machine The Merciless Hand / Second Skin / Mob Justice Flick of the Wrist Dozens Luck Mental Prowess and blood pool sacrifice bonuses? I have doubts... Cause it's not mandatory to finish PoE I to start Deadfire, and I don't think there will be a choice to choose all these talents for new Deadfire character... Still transferred character from PoE I to PoE II would have such immanence advantage having these! I wish they would be transferred though... What do you think?

Just wanted to say I love this game, I've played it for over 200 hours now. Very glad to know there are still good games being made at these times. Though there is one thing that sort of bugs me. Namely, the lack of power in certain talents and spells. I wanted to focus on one of them, which strikes me as the weakest, probably the worst talent in the game. Brilliant Radiance: 8-12 base damage. Doesn't scale with level. Doesn't scale with disposition. Why is it even in the game? Why didn't the last patch buff it? Does anyone use this? I read that it was kind of decent early on in the game's development but got a big nerf for some reason. P.S. the Wolf Spiritshift still doesn't give the extra move speed its description says. Tested it myself.

Current priest deity-specific talents are weak in my opinion. Additional weapon accuracy is rather fine but deity-specific spells are not worth it. In my latest playthrough as a priest of Eothas I never used Hope Eternal. In my previous playthroughs I almost never used Magran's Summer Flames simply because generic priest spells are much better. Only priest of Skaen has decent talent. So I've decided to suggest enhanced versions of the talents that will be useful during all of the game. Here we go! Eothas Aura range: 5m. Duration: 15 sec. Effects: nullifies Frightened, Terrified, Knocked Down and Struck when casted, grants +20 defence against these debuffs and revives fallen ally with 30 Endurance. Revives only allies that were fallen when aura was active and does not revives the same ally twice(even the god of redemption's gotta have standards). 1 per encounter. Magran Duration: 15 sec. Effects: User: +25% fire dmg, +5 accuracy and 10% hit to crit conversion with arquebus and sword. 1 per encounter. Wael Name: Obscured Face. Duration: 10 sec. Effects: Allied target: grants Invisibility, cannot be hit. Attacking or using abilities/items breaks Invisibility. 3 per rest. Skaen Type: passive. Effects: Baby Sneak Attack, 30% chance to set Hobbled for 3 sec with Baby Sneak Attack. Berath Duration: 15 sec. Effects: Friendly Target: drains additional 20% raw damage as Endurance vs. Fortitude with each hit. If friendly target uses AoE attack, spell drains life of enemy with lowest Fortitude. 1 per encounter.

I've started a few games on 2.0 to try things out, and one thing I noticed is that if I struck out immediately and nabbed Eder before I got enough experience to hit level 3 before reaching him, he wouldn't get his bonus Weapon Type: Ruffian talent. (So, recruit at level 2, no bonus talent. Level 3, bonus talent.)

Hi, I'm torn about how to build my druid, and have started the game about 5 times, based on different things I read/discover about the engine (I was trying to do the "full immersion" by going into the game completely blind, but no respec option means I don't want to risk gimping my PC for the late game). I'm playing in Normal, maybe Hard. I want to build a ranged/spellcasting druid (Wood elf), and I'm debating 2 things: Should I use War Bows/Wands or Rods/Scepters (with their corresponding Weapon Focus talents, skipping Bonus L1 spell)? Whether I should grab all 3 elemental damage talents, together with Bonus L3-4 spells (skipping Bonus L2 spell; or is there something better than either Bonus L2/a third elemental damage talent)? Re: 1, while War Bows have more damage than Rods, I really like the idea of having 3 damage types from Rods/Scepters (pierce/crush/slash), as opposed to 2 from War Bow/Wand (pierce/crush). Also, flavour-wise, implements go better with the intended build, and I can grab the unique implements later in the game. However, not sure if that extra damage type will be THAT useful, as opposed to just more damage. Re: 2, since I'm not soloing, having 10 instead of 8 spells per encounter might not be that useful, because I'll have 2-3 other casters throwing out 8-10 spells per encounter--chances are that, for most fights, I won't run out of encounter spells. And pre L-9, I think +6 Accuracy with a warbow will be more useful than just 1 extra spell per rest (while I'm playing on normal, I really don't like abusing Rest... which is why I'm thinking of playing Hard, just so the Rest "limit" is actually hard-coded). Any help much appreciated (I don't mind item/stats spoilers, just no story/lore spoilers please).

Hi All, I wanted to make a list of spells affected by elemental talents for Wizards, Druids and Priests to plan my next builds. I think it could be a good idea to share it. If you see anything that isn't true or something missing, don't hesitate to correct me. ??? means that I'm not sure. I also assumed summons are not affected by Elemental talents. Wizard Spells : Fire : Fan of Flames (Lvl 1) Combusting Wounds ??? (Lvl 2) Ray of Fire (Lvl 2) Rolling Flame (Lvl 2) Fireball (Lvl 3) Flame Shield (Lvl 4) Wall of Flame (Lvl 4) Torrent of Flame (Lvl 5) Corrode : Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon (Lvl 2) Necrotic Lance (Lvl 2) Concelhaut's Draining Touch (Lvl 3) Noxious Burst (Lvl 3) Death Ring (Lvl 6) Ice : Chill Fog (Lvl 1) Kakaloth's Sunless Grasp (Lvl 1) Blast of Frost (Lvl 5) Ninagauth Bitter Mooring (Lvl 5) Ninagauth Freezing Pillar (Lvl 6) Lightning : Jolting Touch (Lvl 1) Crackling Blot (Lvl 3) Chain Lightning (Lvl 5) Special : Kakaloth's Minor Blight (Lvl 3) : summon a wand with a random element. Druid Spells : Fire : Sunbeam (Lvl 1) Burst of Summer Flame (Lvl 2) Firebrand (Lvl 2) Boiling Spray (Lvl 4) Firebug (Lvl 5) Sunlance (partial) (Lvl 6) Corrode : Autumn's decay (Lvl 2) Rot Skulls (Lvl 6) Ice : Winter Wind (Lvl 1) Blizzard (Lvl 2) Hail Storm (partial) (Lvl 4) Lightning : Dancing Bolts (Lvl 1) Returning Storm (Lvl 3) Relentless Storm (Lvl 5) Nature's Terror (Lvl 5) Priest Spells Fire : Divine Mark (Lvl 2) Searing Seal (Lvl 4) Shining Beacon (Lvl 4) Pillar of Holy Fire (Lvl 5) Cleansing Flame (Lvl 6) Lightning : Warding Seal (Lvl 3) Spark the soul of the Righteous ??? (Lvl 6) And that's all for the priest ! Apparently, PoE gods like fire. EDITED ON 30/05/15

So talents in PoE are mostly pretty lame, right now. With a small number of significant exceptions have your basic boring-but-good talents (ex. Two-Handed Style, Weapon Focus), your interesting-but-bad talents (ex. Brilliant Radiance, Ancient Memory), and why-would-I-ever-take-this talents (ex. Field Triage, Unstoppable). I think this is a regrettable state of affairs, and I wish it were different, so I thought we (the board) could come up with some examples of talents that we think would be interesting, or of fixes for existing talents. I'll start - this is not a super-exciting example, I'll admit, but I think it could be interesting. Demanding Presence - As long as you engage an enemy, they can't make disengagement attacks against your allies. In addition, whenever you and an ally have both engaged an enemy, that enemy is flanked, regardless of your positioning.

Not surprisingly, I thought the ranger was prett lack-luster. Although I don't think the ranger's in danger of winning any overpoweredness contests, I actually didn't think the ranger was too weak. The ranger is really just the pet-owner class. Other than the fact that D&D also had (and struggled with) animal companions, the class barely feels like a ranger at all. This wouldn't be a huge problem if it didn't mean that, in the end, there's almost nothing to do with the ranger in both character building and combat. In my opinion, the ranger would make more sense (and probably be a lot more fun) as a series of talents available to any character. (Think about it: then Sagani could be a rogue!) That's a pretty dire verdict on a class. I'm not joking though. At this point, if I had to fix the ranger I would just get rid of it completely and allow any character to buy into the ranger pet through a series of talents (starting with something weaker, of course, since a whole ranger pet would be a bit OPed for just one talent). The remaining abilities could be divided among other classes as made sense. I'm not being hyperbolically negative here either. I actually think this would be a nice improvement to the game--allowing characters to be distinguished by the fact that they have an animal companion rather than defined by the fact they have an animal companion. The fighter with a pet wolf would feel a lot different than one without, both mechanically and from a storytelling perspective. Same for every other class.

There's been some discussion of this talent on the gen discussion forum, but I don't believe I've ever seen any official dev word on if this talent is working as intended. Is OSA really supposed to provide an integer +20 damage bonus? Or is it supposed to be (like the recently fixed Ranger mark ability) +20% of base weapon damage, in a similar manner to literally every other damage modifier in the game save the monk fists? It seems really strange for this ability to break the mold. Would love some dev feedback on this, even just a "It's intended" or "It's a bug".

There is a range of "hidden" Talents in the game, that were cut during Beta, and isn't normally assignable during levelups. However, they were addable through the AddAbility command. However, 1.03 seem to have broken them. Not removed them, just broken them. And I'm asking why. I was using them to get around what I consider to be design flaws, and adding raw Skill Points is far from a workaround. I realize that they are not meant to be used, but breaking them just seems senseless to me. Unfortunately, I wasn't smart enough to do a backup of my ObjectBundles before patching, and I can't restore functionality. Guess I'll just stop playing, I'm tired of fighting the game at every turn. Edit: Actually, this is only broken for pre-existing characters, and re-adding the Talent creates a duplicate talent that actually works, so this is a legit bug after all.

Hello there, I recently leveled up my first character to the lofty heights of 2nd level (woop!), but found a number of class nuetral Talents were absent from the available options. The Wiki doesn't currently state any Prerequisites for Talents beyond class, but do some only become available beyond a particular level or with certain attribute stats? In particular I was looking for Interrupting Blows, but feel free to post regarding any Talents that are not instantly available.

Hello there, I'm planning on playing through as a Chanter, but don't want my character to end up with a build too similar to Kana Rua, as he seems like the kind of guy I might like to go adventuring with down the line. Does anyone know what abilities / talents he already has when you meet him, so that I can avoid having two identical chanters in my party? If anyone wants to post the same for other NPCs too feel free!

I have the secrets of rime Talent on my druid but it doesn't appear to be working properly. The five extra could DR is working fine. The 20% extra cold damage isn't. Winters wind does base damage of 30-50 (which does feel a little high as a sidenote) and is 38-64 on my character which has 19 might. Since 30-50+27% is more or less 38-64 I am pretty sure that the extra 20% damage isnt being applied. I would be expecting more like 55-95 damage at that point. If it did work as advertised it would probably trivialise the content though. Perhaps the tooltip is just wrong and the extra damage isnt intended, which would be fine except for the fact I wouldn't have chosen it then. The secrets of rime effect doesnt show up in active effects on my character either. A lot of passives don't actually. I have tested the spell itself to see if the damage is being applied secretly and all I can confirm is that so far with limited testing I am getting the 38-64 bracket on hits. I crit for around 74. The druid cold spells do feel pretty powerful even without secrets of rime, so perhaps the talent should be removed or the cold spells nerfed or something.

This could perhaps be considered a bug, but there's a critical design issue with the description boxes of... well pretty much everything. Mostly, things are confusing, inconsistent, and rarely give any sort of useful information. Let's take a few talents. It will be illustrative of a general trend, and devs should IMO pay attention to this. The main thing is whenever we're presented with a levelling choice, we're rarely told what exactly what it is we are choosing. Below, I'll use green to denote useful and precise information; blue for useful but incomplete information; red for useless/redundant information; yellow for low-value information that could be implicitely assumed without being stated. Consider the Weapon Focus family of talents. --------------- Weapon Focus Adventurer Trains the character in the use of the Pollaxe, Estoc, Flail, Wand and War Bow, gaining Accuracy with all weapons of those types. Grants Weapon Focus: Adventurer. Passive. ---------------- What does this tell the player? Well if you use a weapon from the group, you'll be a more accurate with them. By how much? Who knows. Likewise, consider Marksman. --------------- Marskman Increases the character's Accuracy with ranged weapons used on distant targets Grants Marksman Passive Effects: Self: +5 Accuracy against distant enemies --------------- This is a bit better, you know the exact bonus (+5 Accuracy), but you're fuzzy on what exactly "distant" means. Now let's take a class ability --------------- Strange Mercy When the paladin defeats an opponent, nearby allies gain Endurance Grants: Strange Mercy. Passive Area of Effect: 4.0m radius (base 4.0m) Effects: Allied AoE: +23 Endurance --------------- This one is fairly OK. Few problems, save maybe the layout isn't very effective. Now consider Deep Faith --------------- Deep Faith The intensity of the paladin's faith deepens, granting them increased defensive bonuses to Faith and Conviction Modifies Faith and Conviction. +2 Deflection, +5 Fortitude, +5 Reflex, +5 Will Faith and Conviction Passive Effects: Self: +5 Deflection, +10 Fortitude, +10 Reflex, +10 Will --------------- This one is confusing... Does it add +2/+5/+5/+5 to the previous +5/+10/+10/+10 bonus, for a total of +7/+12/+12/+12? Does it take the current +2/+5/+5/+5 and brings it to +5/+10/+10/+10? Does it modify F&C to +2/+5/+5/+5 from +5/+10/+10/+10 (i.e. an automatically generated message with the wrong values in because the balancing pass is incomplete)? And there are other problems, in all cases, you need to read everything, both flavour and non-flavour text to obtain all the available information (and still misses vital stuff that just isn't there). You're presented with completely redundant information (selecting Marskman grants you Markman... duh). Text is also wasted clarifying things that don't need clarification, and could just be assume by anyone with half a brain. If a character gets an ability, by default one assumes the bonuses apply to that character. Consider instead this style of talent description (with my guess for what the missing values are). All effects are fully stated in the effects section. Flavour text is unchanged, but now fulfill it's role as flavour text -- A general description meant to assist role-playing, which could be completely overlooked without any mechanical detriment. --------------- Weapon Focus: Adventurer Trains the character in the use of the Pollaxe, Estoc, Flail, Wand, and War Bow, gaining Accuracy with all weapons of those types. [Passive] +5 Accuracy with Pollaxe +5 Accuracy with Estoc +5 Accuracy with Flail +5 Accuracy with Wand +5 Accuracy with War Bow --------------- [Could also be +5 Accuracy with Weapon 1, Weapon 2, .... in inline format] -------------- Marskman Increases the character's Accuracy with ranged weapons used on distant targets [Passive] +5 Accuracy against enemies 10 or more meters away --------------- --------------- Strange Mercy When the paladin defeats an opponent, nearby allies gain Endurance [Passive] Area of Effect: 4.0 m radius (base 4.0 m) Allies gain 23 Endurance whenever the paladin defeats an enemy --------------- --------------- Deep Faith The intensity of the paladin's faith deepens, granting them increased defensive bonuses to Faith and Conviction [Passive] Faith and Conviction grants an additional +2 Deflection, +5 Fortitude, +5 Reflex, +5 Will to defenses. --------------- This redesigning of the descriptions of talents and abilities would go a long way into clarifying what it is they actually do without cluttering the description windows. Likewise, weapons could mention to which weapon group they belong. It's much easier to remember "I'm an Adventurer" then remember "Right, I have a Pollaxe... now I found this Mace... was I proficient with Flails or Maces or something else entirely?"

Not sure if this was mentioned in the past and cautious to post anything regarding the skill system considering the rage it tends to generate lately. What about simplifying the skill talent merger to talent skill tiers. What I mean by this is remove skills linked to talents and simply have different tiered talents that give you access to the skills you want. Such as basic athletics > intermediate athletics > advanced athletics > master athletics. This would allow you to make balanced combat/skill characters, combat focused (no skills) characters, or even a more passive skills based character (with little to no combat talents). I think it would be simple to implement and allow for varied and flexible builds. Any thoughts?

It's a considerable design change, but I like it because: It's more strategic. It's now harder to mindlessly max out a specific skill. You actually have to sacrifice a talent if you want to be maxed Mechanics, maxed Lore, etc. You can have more/deeper talents, focus on more/deeper skills, or find a balance. This is more interesting to me than deciding which guy is going to max Mechanics, which one Lore, etc. It's more logical. Linking talents and skills makes flavor sense--Hold the Line tying into Athletics, for instance. Having skills exist in their own vacuum, completely independent of talent selection, seems odd now. It's more fun. I don't miss the dull process of pumping more points into whatever skill I want to max in order to reach gated content or unlock chests. Let's see what you guys think. If you don't like it, how would you redesign it?

I like talents andI think it would be good to give Obsidian some new ideas for talents. Here are a few of mine: A Fighter talent that reduces the speed penalty of wearing armor by 20%. By 20% I am saying that a speed penalty of 30% would go down to 24%; not to 10%. A Ranger talent that would make the Ranger (not the animal companion) do 30% more damage against wild animals. Those are two of my ideas. Anyone else got some?

First I'm not a backer, but I have this game on my focus. (Buying it at release if I think it's worth it.) So my only experience is from reading the wiki and footage from the beta. At first the concept of godlikes has appealed to me, but now I think the effects are to low for "godlike". Now there are only marginal effects. Pro: - few people will love you - small attribute bonus - one unique passive ability Con: - most people will hate you - no helmet How about giving it more impact? The people thing can stay, but instead of small boni it should be big boni balanced out with big mali. So it will add choice especially in combination with the classes. (And thus diversity.) So you can choose a godlike to further increase the strength of some classes (in return to increase their weakness) or balance out weaknesses of others (in return to decrease their strenghts). Easy to add: There could be added a skill bonus/malus, like nature godlike with bonus to "survival" and mauls to "mechanical". Or the fire godlike with bonus to "athletics" and malus to "stealth". Harder to add: There could be some boni to related abilities and mali to nonrelated, like death godlike with a bonus to any debuff ability and a malus to any buff ability. Or the fire godlike with a bonus to any "fire" and "combat" ability, but a malus to any "nature" and "heal" ability that is not fire or combat. This would add to some interessting choices between godlike/nongodlike and classes. For example you can choose to be a fire godlike as druid and therfore greatly improve your capabilities with your spirtform (combat) and the few fire related abilities in extend of weakening most of your other abilities (nature). Maybe the nature godlike is the exact opposite and if you choose to be nongodlike you stay balanced in all your abilities. Maybe add some weak related abilities which the godlike gets regardless of class. So if you chose the fire godlike and mage you improve your "fire" magic but you will learn it's fire abilities anyways or you chose fire godlike and barbarian and miss the boni to "fire" magic, but that may be your only way to gain some fire magic with that class at all. (Ok, it would be OP with the boni to "combat" and the mali to "nature" and "heal" which the barbarian most likely doesn't have anyway, but that is only a suggestion to show what I mean.) TL;DR: Give the godlike more impact (positive and negative) to make it a true choice. Note: I understand why a godlike may not be able to wear "any" helmet, but since you can craft armor yourself why not adding a few non-lootable helmets specifically for crafting and godlikes? If you are allready able to craft a helmet you will have no problem making some holes in it for horns or something individual that fits your own head regardless how "special" it may be formed.

Description: When leveling up my rogue character, he gets the option to chose the talent "Devastating Blow" on level 3, which improves "Finishing Blow". However, he does not get "Finishing Blow" until level 4. Expected: I would expect to gain the base talent first, before the improvement of said base talent. Reproduce: 1. Create a new rogue character in Backer Beta 2. Start game and level up twice

Skills vs Abilities vs Talents what the difference? So far I gathered that Abilities are class specific things that we can do, gained with level. Talents are the same only not necessarily class specific and gained every three levels. While Skills are the same only can be gained by everyone and have levels?