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Hi everyone, I have just finishined the first complete version (1.0) of my own mod which will aim at making the game more balanced. My main objectives are the following : - Make all abilities/subclasses worth including in a build, - Ensure that Tier VIII and Tier IX are interesting enough to go Single Class, - Correct a couple of weird mechanics to make them more consistent with generic rules. I plan to deliver it on Nexus Mod a bit later probably within a couple of weeks. Important notes ; - This mod is designed for RtwP. I "think" most of its content should work for TB, but I haven't tested it, - This mod is in English only. It will work with any language setup though, but modified texts will appear in English, - This mod has been designed and tested with the content of PoE2 Community Patch (I own no rights on CP, but I wanted to promote it). - This mod will apply to any newly created character. For existing ones : The files, version 1.0 : The ones with most of the changes, mostly buffs or minor corrections : BalancePolishingModBuffs 1.0.zip The ones with nerfs for a couple of broken features (such as preventing Salvation of Time abuse, or Troubadour nerf). They will be described in red in the notes below. You may not want to use this package. BalancePolishingModNerfs 1.0.zip The one with Summon Rebalance, with a lot of tweaks (buffs and nerfs) delivered as a stand-alone package : BalancePolishingSummonRebalance 1.0.zip Installation instructions, In order to get the intended experience : Detailed list of changes : I didn't include the full explainations in this thread, but feel free to read them in the "Project for a Balance Mod" thread. Most of the descriptions should be up-to-date, but there might have been a couple of changes. Therefore, the release thread should be considered as the reference. Discussion References per topic : 1) Class changes : A) Fighter Inspired Discipline : 3 Discipline -> 2 Discipline Power Strike & Inspired Strike : 4 Discipline -> 3 Discipline 6s Stun -> 10s Stun 6s Staggered -> 10s Staggered Inspired Discipline only : +200% damages -> +300% Take the Hit : 4s Recovery -> 0s Recovery Into the Fray & Upgrades : 2 Discipline -> 1 Discipline 10 – 14 damages -> 5 – 10 damages Mule Kick : Most upgrades use the PL of the original ability. A PL 3 upgrade of a PL 1 ability used by a PL5 character will for example get a scaling of +4. There was a glitch that counted Mule Kick as PL3 instead of PL1, so I corrected it for ruleset consistency. This basically gives Mule Kick +2 PL. Toughened Fury :25% proc chance, as announced by CP (CP implemented only 20%) B) Paladin Light of Pure Zeal : 5 Zeal -> 4 Zeal Exorcism : 4 Zeal -> 3 Zeal Healing Chain (complete rework) : 2 Zeal Range 5m + 4m Jump Friendly Target + 50 Bounce (yes, 50) Heal 10 health per bounce (no reduction per bounce) Can bounce several time on the same target (0,3s delay) Hastening Exhortation & Upgrades : 2 Zeal -> 1 Zeal - Hastening Exhortation : Nimble for 15s- Zealous Exhortation : Swift for 15s- Hastening Command: Nimble and Strong for 15s Liberating Exhortation & Upgrades : 2 Zeal -> 1 Zeal 20s Duration -> 15s Reinforcing Exhortation & Upgrades : 2 Zeal -> 1 Zeal 12s Duration -> 10s Glorious beacon & Upgrades : 3s/4s Cast -> 0,5s/4,5s Cast 1,5m AoE -> 2,5m AoE 8s Duration -> 12s Duration (for all effects, including upgrades) Sacred immolation & Upgrades : 4 Zeal -> 3 Zeal 32 raw damages per tick -> 20 damages (I overrode the 3,5m radius from Community Patch) Wrath of the Fives Suns (Pallegina special ability) : Penetration : 7->12 Penetration properly scale with PL (currently it does not) Damages : 5-7 -> 5->15 (x5 Projectiles) EDIT : 2 Zeal -> 1 Zeal Greater Lay on Hands : 8s Duration -> 10s Duration Hands of Light : 8s Duration -> 15s Duration C) Chanter Also refer to Summon Rebalance for changes specifically about summons. Troubadour : Brisk Recitation phrase take 4s instead of 3s. Set to Their Purpose, They All Knew Their Part : 6 Phrases -> 5 Phrases (as unupgraded version) (this was justified when it provided Brillant...) Far from Defeated, His Heart Filled with Joy : 6 Phrases -> 5 Phrases (as unupgraded version) +3 Phrases -> +2 Phrases Far from Defeated, His Heart Filled with Joy and Their Companion Braved the Horde Alone are now considered Offensive instead of Non-Offensive (important for Skald) ...Each Kill Fed His Fury : Contrary to the ability it is upgraded from, this ability provides mere +5 stats boost instead of inspirations. As it seemed really random, I replaced the stat boost by actual Strong, Fit and Steadfast Inspirations. Boil Their Flesh From Skin to Bone & Upgrade : Secondary Cones replaced by simple 2,5m radius AoE. This enables the Acid Explosion to be properly centered on the victim. ( I learned that the secondary Cones originated from the caster instead of from the actual victim. This changes also correct this glitch) His Laughter Rang Through the Halls : 8s Daze -> 30s Interrupt on Hit -> Interrupt on Graze His Heart Did Fill With the Light of the Dawn : +1 Ressource -> +2 Ressources Does not affect the caster anymore. D) Rangers Sharpshooter : +20% Range with all ranged weapons Hobbling Shot : Hobbled for 10s->15s Heal Companion & Upgrade : 2 Bonds -> 1 Bond Cast time : 3s/4s -> 0,5s/4,5s Range 4m -> 10m Note : I didn't follow Community Patch change for this one. Revive Companion & Upgrade : Revive with 50 health -> 100 health Vengeful Revival : +20% damage -> +30% Deadly Surprise : +100% damage -> +300% Bonded Fury : 3 Bonds -> 2 Bonds Cast time : 0,5s/4s -> 0,5s/0s Range : 6m -> 10m Twinned Shot : 2 Bonds -> 1 Bond Vengeful Grief : Duration 15s -> Infinite (note that DEX and MIG affliction still dispell the Inspirations you get) Heart Seeker : 4 Bonds -> 3 Bonds Shadowed Hunters : Pet's first bite after using the ability apply a 30s DoT effect (20 raw damages per 3s tick). Note that first pet attack doesn't break invisibility (this is true in the base game). Distracting Training : 6s -> 15s (not that this is the base duration. It will be lower in general because the ability use pet's Intellect) Pet Abilities Keyword :Added Beast Keyword to all pet abilities cast by the Ranger so they benefit from equipment with bonus to Beast abilities.Applied to Heal Companion, Revive Companion, Bonded Fury, Master's Call, Shadowed Hunters & their upgrades.Not applied to Takedown and Play Dead cause they are cast by pet themselves (and PL can be detrimental to Play Dead cause it rise its duration) E) Barbarian Mage Slayer : Removed the Spell Resistance entirely. Added -25% Hostile and Beneficial effect duration. Corpse Eater : Greatly buffed special food (and also replaced bonus MIG and malus INT by more varied effects) : - Kith Meat : -5 Diplomacy, -15% Damages received, +3 Corpse Eater PL - Corpse Loaf : -3 Diplomacy, +3 Health per 6s, +10 Fortitude, +4 Corpse Eater PL - Forbidden Pie : -3 Diplomacy, +4 Resolve, Mind Affliction Resistance, +5 Corpse Eater PL In addition, Kith Meat and Vessel Flesh can be bought from Vithrack and Imp vendors (Kith Meat price set to 100 gold) Instruments of Boundless Rage : 3 Rage -> 2 Rage Added Fire Keyword Heart of Fury : 4 Rage -> 3 Rage Savage Defiance & Upgrades : 15s -> 25s Stalwart Defiance : changed to Gain Concentration every 6s Leap & Panther's Leap : 6s Dazed -> 4s Stun Dragon Leap : 6s Dazed -> 6s Stun Panther's and Dragon Leap are now correctly tagged as Leap upgrades (which basically makes them scale as PL5 abilities -> effective +3PL) Carnage : Can now Crit (so can apply Blood Frenzy ) Accurate Carnage : +5 Accuracy -> +10 Accuracy Blood Surge : 25% Chance -> 50% Chance, but only apply to Hostile Targets (same change as Community Patch did for its Paladin equivalent) Blood Thirst : Cleaned the mess that causes it to proc twice on the same target and prevented it from being stackable with Crushing Blow. Now proc only once except sometimes when 2 targets are killed in a row (it applies twice then, cause Recovery is cleared before second target is killed, so you keep one charge) Barbaric Blow & upgrades : Removed the PR and Damages bonus to make the ability more focused. Now Barbaric Blow & Upgrades do : - 75% Hit to Crit chances - +75% Crit damages bonus (note : Crushing Blow do get this bonus, even if it does not get Crit Damages Bonus in the base game due to a bug) - +200% Carnage AoE (so roughly 2.5m radius instead of 1.5m) - Barbaric Smash : no refund, but cost reduced to 1 Rage - Crushing Blow : no recovery (not conditional anymore) Spirit Tornado : Spirit Tornado applies Stagger on any hit, not only Weapon Hits (as the unupgraded version) F) Wizard Conjurer : Summon Familiar cast time : 3s/4s -> 0.5s/0s (It's not very well known, but Familiars provide a +1 stacking and generic PL Bonus, as well as random +3 to one stat and a minor bonus.) Transmuter : Form of the Fearsome Brute changes : - Form of the Fearsome Brute Armor : +100% Recovery -> +20% Recovery - Form of the Fearsome Brute Fist : 13-25 damages, 6PR -> 18-24 damages, 7PR - Form of the Fearsome Brute duration : 30s -> 20s - Form of the Fearsome Brute duration : +1 Engagement -> +3 Note : these changes also apply to Form of the Fearsome Brute Potions Bewildering Spectacle : Cast time : 3s/4s -> 0.5s/3s Confusion : Added Interrupt on Hit AoE : 2.5m -> 5m Note : these changes also apply to Confusion Scrolls, Wael's priest and Trickster's versions. G) Cipher Wild Mind : Miscast : set to foe only, but damages lowered to 0.5 x Focus. Tenuous grasp : 0.5s/4s cast time -> 0.5s/2s Fractured Volition : Change Weakened for Enfeebled. Haunting Chain : Duration 20s -> 40s. Soul Ignition : Target Fortitude -> Target Will (due to Cipher's passive, this is a buff) 16 damages per tick -> 20 damages Duration : 15s -> 18s Mindweb : Now break after being damages 3 times. Note that this erases the changes from CP that were supposed to make Mindweb break after a Hit (but didn't work) H) Rogue Trickster : Sneak Attack 20% + 5%/PL -> 10% + 5%/PL Streefighter : Indirect nerf : Blunderbuss Modal : Distracted for 10s -> -10 Accuracy for 10s Smoke Veil : 2 Guile -> 1 Guile Shadow Step & Upgrade : 3 Guile -> 2 Guile Paralysis 6s -> 8s Shadowing Beyond & Upgrade : 3 Guile -> 2 Guile +50 Deflection that was weirdly cancelled on 1st or 2nd attack (without any explaination) -> +25 Deflection for whole duration Smoke Cloud & Upgrades : Interrupt on Hit -> Interrupt on Graze Finishing Blow & Eleminating Blow : +3% damages per % health lost from 50% -> +1.5% damages per % health lost from 100% Devastating Blow : +6% damages per % health lost from 50% -> +3% damages per % health lost from 100% I did not change the max value, but I made these abilities count from 100%. Sap : Hobbled for 30s -> Shaken for 30s Added impossibility to receive Concentration debuff on target for 30s. Perplexing Sap : Removed the weird Confusion on target's attack effect. Upgrade Skaken from changed Sap to Fighten. This version of Perplexing Sap is basically a Silencing attack, or a cheap source of Tier 2 Affliction for Resistant foe. Strike the Bell & Upgrades (complete rework) : - Still Full Attack that Interrupts on Graze, with +25% damages and +2 PR. - Now all versions adds a 15s Dazed effect - Melee 1 Hander adds a -25 Will debuff for 15s - Melee 2 Hander adds a -25 Fortitude debuff for 15s - Ranged Weapon adds a -25 Reflex debuff for 15s - All other effects removed. - The upgrades now allow their respective -25 defense debuff to last for the whole Combat (in a similar fashion as Gouging Strike) Confounding Strike : Start at -10 deflection malus, -2 per hit up to a total of -34 (doesn't stack with flanked) Fix the stacking not working from CP. Thanks @Frykas for pointing it. Persistent Distraction : - Deflection and AR malus doesn't stack with similar effect anymore, as for all others Distracted Afflictions. Thanks @Frykas for pointing it. Deep Wounds :Now applies 20% fixed amount of weapon damages in 4 ticks (2s ticks) as announced by CP. CP implemented 3 ticks (3s ticks) for a total of 15%. I) Druid Also refer to Summon Rebalance for changes specifically about summons. Wall of Thorns : No actual changes, but this ability displayed a base PEN of 7 which was wrong : it is actually base PEN 9, so I corrected the display Nature's Terror : - Casting time changed from 4,5s/3s to 3s/3s. Sunlance : - Casting time changed from 4,5s/3s to 0,5s/4,5s. - Added Interrupt on Hit. Nature's Bounty : - Now its effects (20 health restored, +2 PER and MIG, +20% Action Speed for 30s) will apply directly instead of summoning potion. - AoE reduced 5m -> 2,5m to compensate that it now affects summons and everything. Entropy : - Added 3 Base Bounce (Base 4 Targets) - Number of procs raised from 3 to 5. - Charges are not consumed by Graze and Crit anymore - Removed Interrupt part Tornado : - AoE set to 10m radius. - Range set to 20m - Added a true "Interrupt on Graze" effect, which is consistent with the Vertical Launch part. - Casting Time tuned from 6s/2s to 4.5s/3s Touch of Death : - Set casting time to 0,5s/3s instead of 3s/3s. - Add a +25 Acc modifier for this spell. So if your accuracy is equal or greater than foe's Will, the kill is guaranteed. Wildstrike Frenzy : - Changed from Procs on Kills to Proc on Kills Fury Strom Blight Weapons : - Now properly count as weapons (generate focus, etc...) J) Priest Also refer to Summon Rebalance for changes specifically about summons. Divine Terror : - Duration 20s -> 30s Salvation of Time : Change to a lasting beneficial effects which adds 0.5s to every beneficial effects every 1s. That effectively halves their ellapsing speed of buffs (including SoT itself : it lasts 20s with a base duration of 10s). Basically still add 10s but : - Now benefits from PL and INT - Now applies to effects cast after it (especially useful for Vanishing Strikes...) - Useless to cast several times in a row - The most important : now a single effect cannot have its duration more than doubled. It is still a very good spell, even better than before, but it is now impossible to abuse by combining it with Brilliant, and all other buffs will also have to be re-cast again at some point. Hand of Berath : - 5PL -> -10PL - Now auto-hit. Revenge of Skaen : - Range 5m -> 10m - Added a -20 Accuracy effect in addition to Blind. The -20 Acc does not stack with -10 Acc from Blind but the idea was to create an effect that goes through Perception Resistance Blessing of Wael : - +5 All defenses -> +10 - Now works vs any kind of attacks (not just melee ones) - Now targets Will - Changed the Blind affliction (which was too redundant with Skaen's Revenge) for a random effect of -10 PER, INT or RES. Symbol of Berath : Added acid Keyword Gaun Spells : - Added Plant Keyword (bugfix from CP, not base game) Wael Confusion : - Added Illusion Keyword (bugfix from CP, not base game) K) Monk No changes but fixed the glitch from Community Patch that prevented Shattered Pillar to get max 10 wounds after picking lesser Wounds (note that Community Patch add-on also fixed it in parallel) 2) Summon Rebalance : Nerfs are hihjlighted in red, but are part of the same package. Weapon & Armor Scaling :The biggest change is now that all summons weapon and armor scale with level (as Animated Weapons, Summoned Weapons, Companion Pet's Weapons and a handful of other summons already do).They all follow the rules of the table in the link below (+1 PEN, +4 Acc, +15% damages for their weapons and +1AR at level 5, 9, 13 & 17) https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/non-pl-scaling(Only exception are some of the Tier IX Summons because you get them after level 17. But most of them will have legendary quality weapons, or strong enough weapons anyway. ) Wizard & Monk : No Change Druid : Ondra's Whip, Watery Double, Lashing Vine : no changes. I think these abilities are balanced as they are (and they all scale at levels 5, 9, 13, 17 ).Summon Sporelings :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. All Blights Summons :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Call to the Primordials :Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Reduced the number of oozes from 3 to 2. Reduced the duration from 30s to 20s. Bog Ooze removed from the list of potential summons, replaced by Lesser Bog Ooze (but with the added scaling, it's actually somewhat stronger).Fire Stag : (Weapons and armor already scaled) (minor) Change its fire shield so it procs on "damaged" as other fire shields, and not on Hit/Crit. Set Engagement limit to base. Adjust base damages to 13 - 19 with PEN 8 (equivalent of a sword with +2 PEN and fast attack rate).Explosion is now triggered by death instead of ability activation. That means Barring Death Door will prevent it from exploding and doing any damages. But when Fire stag is killed by foe, it explodes as if the ability was triggered. Fire stag can still kill itself to trigger the explosion. Explosion has been set to foe-only.Aspect of Galawain :(Weapons and armor already scaled) Adjusted base damages to 13 - 19 with PEN 8 (equivalent of a sword with +2 PEN and fast attack rate). (Wolf gets higher base damage, and Lion has bonus attack speed as previously). Adjusted armor : - base 5 AR -> base 8 AR, - 25% recovery -> 0% recovery. Bear gets +2 AR on top of this as previously. Added an Interrupt on Hit effect to its base attack. Priest :Spirtual Ally :Added Weapon & Armor scaling (its armor scales up to equivalent of legendary plate). Tune down duration to 25s because scaling weapons make him much better at high level and it was already a decent summon. Incarnates : Changed -5 PL for 35s into -1 PL (stacking if used multiple time) for 120s. This counts as a hostile effect and is decreased by Resolve and similar feat. Now for specific Incarnates : - Eothas : Equipment set to Legendary Quality. Replaced one of the priest incarnate by a copy of the first since it had an infinite recovery and could only act once. Duration reduced from 35s to 20s (triple summons would be too strong for 35s). - Berath : Equipment set to Legendary Quality Duration reduced from 35s to 25s (double summons would be too strong for 20s). - Magran : Weapon and shield set to Legendary Quality. Buffed to be a defensive juggernat : Set her CON to 25, RES to 25Armor changed to 14 AR without weakness apart Cold and its Recovery would be lowered from +67% to +34% (this value is the one from a Fighter with Armored Grace wearing a heavy armor). - Skaen : added +2 weapon PEN, +10 Acc, damages set from 14-20 to 18-25 (fast attack speed). +2 AR. (Basically similar to a scaling from Exceptionnal to Legendary.) - Wael : get scaling bonus (+4 PEN, + 16 Acc, +60% damages with weapons, +4 AR). I also gave him +10 CON so its health pool is more in line with other Single Incarnate, albeit still the frailest. I also added +5 DEX, +5 PER. - Rymrgand : No changes to this monster. Chanter : Skeletons : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. They start as poor so they have "exceptionnal" weapons at level 20. Note : "Many Lives..." phrase skeletons don't really scale anyway. Phantom : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Phantom upgrade duration : 25s -> 60s. Wurms : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Base Duration lowered from 25s to 18s. Upgrade cost : 4 phrases -> 3 phrases (I have already aligned all chanter upgraded invocations with the cost of their original ability) Wisps : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Ogres : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Set their active abilities to 1 per encounter. I didn't want them to be better than Drake at AoE or better than Wisp at Interrupting. Changed their "Down the Hatch" ability : it doesn't provide Tenacious and Robust anymore : this would have lead to too much AR and PEN if added with the scaling. Now "Down the Hatch" is renamed "Ogre Defiance" and only provides 10 health per 3s for 20s. Disoriented drawback has been removed. I added 2 PEN to their attack abilities to compensate for the loss of Tenacious. Drake : Added Weapon & Armor scaling. Duration 25s -> 35s. Added : Ground Immunity, Fear Aura and Dex Resistance that all other drakes have (Dragon Summon gets an improved version of Fear Aura). Knockdowns : - 2 per Encounter -> 3 per Encounter - Damages set to 15 - 25, base PEN set from 7 to 10. - Only affects Hostile Fire Breath : - 1 per Encounter -> 2 per Encounter - PEN set from 6 to 9 Dank Spore : Added Weapon scaling. AR already scaled, but I aligned it with other summons progression. Duration 25s -> 35s. Foul Thing explosion on death : - added 40 - 55 raw poison damages - set Sickened affliction to Infinite duration as announced by the ability. - only affects Hostile - corrected a bug that prevented the Sickened affliction from being displayed. Animated Weapons : Are currently already fully scaled. No change. Dragon : Will receive the benefit of full weapon / armor scaling. In addition to scaling, I'm going to change Dragon stats because they currently don't make sense, with a bottomless pit of health but lower AR and attack than the drake : - Armor 7->10(+4 from scaling) with resistance to Fire and Slash and vulnerability to pierce. (Based on the (scaled) version of the Drake, +1 AR) - Health 200 + 50/level -> 100 + 30/level - Attack : 16-22 CRU/PIER, 7 PEN, normal attack speed -> 20-26 CRU/PIER, 9 PEN, fast attack (+scaling) (this is based on the drake attack, but slightly improved). 3) Miscellanous Changes : Fire Godlike Fire AR : 2 -> 4 Martial Casting : 15% Action Speed -> 100% Action speed when casting summoned weapons. Quick Summoning : 15% Action Speed -> 25% Action speed when summoning. Adra Ban in shop :Added Adra Ban to Una's Shop, for 10000 gold per unit.Binding Block :+15 Accuracy -> +20 Lasting Empower :Corrected CP bug (duration increase applied to many stuff including non-empowered attacks), but I had to go back to base Game version. Bashing Shield : Now Bashing Shield (Magran's Blessing and Best Defense) Accuracy, PEN and Damages upon attacking increase according to the shield quality (example for excptionnal shield : +8 ACC, +2 PEN, +30%) Special thanks to @Noqn for implementing this very clean ruleset. Not applied to Tuotilo's Palm (its stats increase according to Transcendant Suffering / Monastic Unarmed Training as in the base game) Damages and PEN set to base 7-10 with base 7 PEN to match their scaling. Magran's Blessing Fire Shield slightly reduced to compensate for the scaling applied also to retaliations : - 5-7 damages for base Fire Shield - 8-12 damages for greater Fire Shield Last but not least, the expected Cuttlefish nerf !!! : +1 Crew Morale -> +0 Morale

Thank you Obsidian for the amazing content delivered from start to finish! We're all so grateful for the support you've offered since day one. I am proposing a way to balance unarmed combat in a way that will scale alongside the skill level and NG+ level of the player by returning Lil Fist's attributes to that of version 1.2.2 (infinite stacks, not 100, but lose them on hit) I've been a dedicated unarmed/fist user from the very beginning, and have seen it at its best and at its worst. As fists are now, it is impossible to tackle NG+ or the infected broodmother on base game with them. In 1.2.2, it was completely reasonable to defeat the IBM with fists so long as you could guard EVERYTHING. I believe this is the best way to go. Infinite stacks would also mean infinitely scaling damage to compete with even NG+4 bugs if you can survive long enough. With 1.4 being the final content update, unarmed weapons are out of the question. So many players love to play unarmed as it provides a ln interesting challenge. Please allow fists to compete with the other weapons!! What do you all think?

Introduction and Principles : I have the project to make a "small" balance mod for PoE1. I haven't much time to work on it right now, my target date is more about this summer, but I think it's better to get comment as soon as possible since the activity on this forum is decreasing... Mostly, I would like to gather some feedback before it's too late to get "enlightened" reviews. I am already the author of a rather big balance mod for PoE2 ( Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com) ). I don't want to do something that big for PoE1 since modding PoE1 is a bit more complicated and I don't have that much time to invest again. In addition, I won't find it that suitable since I'm in love with many of PoE1 « unbalanced » features (such as Dragon Trashed. builds..). Finally no multiclassing tends to reduce the number of potentially OP combinations. My objectives are only to make every combination of Races and Classes relevant enough. All classes shall be able to fullfill a particular role (or combinations of roles) better than anyone else in a party (Solo is a secondary concern for me). A couple of warnings before sharing the details : - I won't try address all bugs and glitches. By experience, there are just too many of them. - I won't do anything else than tweaking numbers beacuse of the technical difficulty to do so. I can increase damages, duration, values of bonus or even add a scaling per level (seems simple enough). So please try to avoid making suggestions that would require adding new properties to a particular ability. - The total number of changes should be close to the list I will present below (I can include a couple more suggested changes, but not too many...). My vision of current class balance : Tier S : is about casters who can unleash many (great) casts when needed Tier S++ : Priest. Close to impossible to replace as party support (and solid for everything else). Playing without a Priest in one's party is like rising the level of difficulty... literally since PotD adds like +15 Accuracy and Defenses to foes, while a priest get basically adds around +30 Accuracy and +60 Defenses (even if it requires casting time and a party slot). Tier S+ : Wizard. Incredibly strong on its own. Special mention to Ninagauth Shadowflames which is way too strong (even for a special reward) and you can cast it every encounter from lvl 15. Tier S : Druid Tier A : Solid tier All of these classes have some very strong specials. Here are the reason why most of the classes fit in this category : Chanter : Dragon Trashed is crazy strong, and they can do that while standing in the strongest armors (and pocking with weapons). Paladin : similar to Chanters (even tankier) thanks to Sacred Immolation, less powerful but with a lots of other support goodies (instant resurrection, auras, spike damages with FoD, etc...) Ranger : very strong ranged damages with Twinned Arrows (basically doubles DPS), a good pet from the later version of the game, reccursive Stuns from Stunning Shots. Monks : very versatile with summons, Crowd Control, good DPS abilities, and tankiness through Iron Skin Barbarian : great AoE damages with possible added Crowd Control (through interrupts or overbearing weapons). Spike AoE damages with Heart of Fury. Cipher : extremely versatile casters with great weapon damages. Defensive Mindweb is super good. Tier B : slightly subpar Tier Tier B+ : Fighters : some nice goodies, but not something as gamechanging as the previous ones. Just needs a trump card similar to what is Sacred Immolation or Twinned Arrows for their respective classes. Tier B : Rogue : great Single Target DPS... but not that much greater than Ranger with a lots more weaknesses and no really great other goodies. As a consequence of th I will try to do the following : - Give a super endgame ability to Fighters - Improve the Rogue substancially and also give them a super endgame ability - Tweak down a couple of Priests and Wizards spells that I consider particularly annoying. Note that I would include nerfs in an optional component. (as I did for my PoE2 nerfs) - Try to reduce the gap caused by Rest Spamming (see below) Focus on the Rest Spamming issue : Limitating rest is part of the usual game experience. If you rest spam, some classes (casters) are way stronger and restricting oneself from using per rest ressources is part of PoE1 game design. Of you roleplay a minimum, you won't go back to the nearest inn every other fight. You may find this gamplay annoying, but I don't want to touch this. However, it would certainly be a good idea for another mod !! It would most likely require to lower Wiz/Priest/Druid casts to 1-2 per spell level as it was done in PoE2. On the contrary, one of the general principles of this balance mod would be to increase the number of per Rest casts for all non spellcasters. One of the biggest strength of casters (Wiz, Priest, Druids) is that they have a lots of casts for boss fights, making them God tier for such battles. Increasing the number of Per Rest casts of martial classes would reduce the gap. A lot of Per Rest abilities are actually quite good vs bosses (Unbending, Deprive the Unworthy, Finishing Blow), and I feel weird that they usually get 1-2 casts of them while casters get 4 casts on each Tier (not even counting mastery). Since my purpose is to give more Per Rest casts to martial classes in general, my rule would be by default to give 4x Per Rest cast of everything Per Rest. Because 4x Per Rest cast is what casters gain per spell level, it would feel fair. Sometimes I would make exception to 3x if the ability feels a bit strong (Unbending, as it is) or 5x if weak/spammy (Binding Roots as it is, or Hastening Exhortation). Expect +2x Per Rest cast compared to current values, with some exceptions (Unbending and Binding Roots feel quite balanced as they are, so no +2 Per Rest cast). The result of this tweak would probably to have martials/cipher/chanter to do the biggest part of the work for "minor" fights due to passive and Per Encounter spams (until Mastery at least) while Druid/Wiz/Priest would still carry the party for boss fights, but with other classes also contributing more than before. Detailed preliminary list of changes: Fighter Clear Out : 4x per Rest Sundering Blow : duration 8s -> 30s, -8DR -> -10DR I want to make Sundering Blow the best DR reducer of the game by a significant margin. This would ensure the utility of fighters versus bosses. Also note that using it with a blunderbuss makes it basically an autohit, unlike similar abilities. Ney it's melee only Paladin Hastening Exhortation : 5x per Rest Deprive the Unworthy : 4x per Rest Monk Clarity of Agony : 4x per Rest Barbarian Barbaric Shout : 4x per Rest Wild Sprint : 5x per Rest Ranger Revive Companion : 3x per Rest Master's Call : 5x per Rest Rogue - Sneak Attack : +50% base +10% per 3 lvl beyond 1, up to +100% at level 16 - Dirty Fighting : 10% => 15% crit - Riposte : 30% chances on miss too - Withering Strike : 1x => 2x per encounter - Fearsome Strike : 4x per Rest - Feign Death : Prone 10s -> 3s, invisible 6s -> 12s - Deep wounds : add +3 raw damages scaling per 6 lvl beyond 1 up to 9 raw damages per 3s tick at level 13 - Finishing Blow : 4x per Rest Finishing Blow : +5 Acc, +50% damages, +3% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +3% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +300%) Devastatating Blow +5 Acc, +50% damages, +5% damages per 1% health loss below 50% => +10 Acc, +4% damages per 1% health loss from 100% (up to +400%) Most Rogue changes have already been discussed here : Melee Rogue is too weak on PotD Upscale - Page 2 - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community Wizard (in a distinct nerf component) Shadowflame : Paralysis 6s -> 4s This one is specifically annoying because an AoE Paralysis with a significant duration that can be spammed every fight or 6x times on a single encounter can really break the game. Priest (in a distinct nerf component) Devotion for the Faithful : -20 acc for foes -> -10, -10 mig for foes-> -4, +20 Acc for friends -> -10 (in a nutshell, that's PoE2 values) Crow of the Faithful : +25 Resolve -> +6 Resolve As stated above, Priests are just too good at buffing party. DftF is arguably the best spell of the game since High Accuracy help everything including landing Crowd Control, and you're even debuffing your foes on top of this ! Also Resolve is arguably the worst attribute, but at least it brings a sometimes critical resistance to interrupt. By buffing it so much, CotF basically makes your initial Resolve attribute insignificant. Race changes Death Godlike : damages to foes under 25% endurance : 25% => EDIT 25%+7% damages per 3 lvl, up to +60% at level 16. Nature Godlike : bonus set to +3 to Mig, Dex and Con when under 50% health, +1 per 6 lvl up to +5 to Mig, Dex and Con at lvl 13. Mountain Dwarf : +20 -> +40 vs poison and disease (+20 is too weak and was basically only useful for 1 single build, @Boeroer's Bilestomper) Additional change : 1-Handed Style : 15% Crit -> 25% (basically the same level of power as what I did for my PoE2 mod)

List of Bugs identified (following recent patch) Dew Collector - Spawns water once but then never again. Insect Spawning inside Solid Objects - The longer I play, the more bugs I notice are 'stuck' inside objects, such as rocks, or tree branches, it's starting to become an issue.. A bug respawn upon sleeping would be good to resolve this? Insects Teleporting through Walls (Note: I have not noticed this since the Larvae spawning on base fix, but I suspect it is still an issue just now less frequent) Spiders and the Lab - Frequent for spiders to get stuck in the entrance to the lab, or just sit and wait outside the lab, making it impossible for newer players to get out. Think this should be made a safe zone somehow. Plant Fibre is Obtrusive - When I've been cutting grass, and there's a lot of plant fibre rolls on the floor, my character struggles to walk because they block your path and you find yourself fighting against them all. Plank Huck sometimes hurts the thrower - Not sure why this happens, but when you huck you sometimes take a lot of damage from it. (Base Building) Walls are... Unpredictable - I can spend almost an hour setting down blueprints, to then find where I wanted to put a wall is impossible, ruining my entire plan. Sometimes the walls can be 50% under the ground, which is good, other times, they can't be 1% under the ground - this is particularly noticeable on rocks. (Base Building) Wall Height - Sometimes my walls will look fine, then I'll come back to my base, and the wall behind my stair case has the jagged top, meaning it comes through the floor, blocking the path to get up. UI Improvement Suggestions (Xbox Controller) 'Back' (change view) button does WAY too much - It takes way too long to scroll through all the menus just to get to my inventory, to then have to move through my items, and then enter the RT menu to do something with an item. Allow option for left and right on d-pad to scroll through select items, rather than just being able to assign each button to 1 item. Add a quick button for 'drop', for example Press X, inside the inventory screen, especially useful for multiplayer when sharing items quickly with friends. Add a "hold button", for example Hold X, for destroy item inside the inventory screen (then a pop up asking to how many to destroy in the stack, or all). Make it so that we need to Hold 'Back' button (change view button) to access the crafting screens, and just Tap 'Back' button (change view button) to open the inventory which is by far the most used. Save Menu Layout - Separate screen for auto saves, and ability to name manual saves. Equipped Gear - Please please please, make it so that equipped gear does not stay in inventory, and introduce the normal RPG gear screen! Balance Improvements Multiplayer Balancing - On 4 player multiplayer, water is extremely difficult to manage - spawn rates should be balanced depending on number of players. Dehydration and Starvation isn't punishing enough - As a survival game, and these being the only 2 resources that need managing, I'd expect the game to punish you more for not maintaining them properly. A good example is Fallout 4 Survival mode, whereby, the more dehydrated or hungry you get, the more punishing the effects become. (I understand this would be bad to introduce as of now due to balancing issues and water spawning issues, but something for the future?) Sleeping (Hunger and Thirst Bars) - Hunger and Thirst when sleeping makes no sense, they always go to a fixed value and can even increase over night? The fall should be dependant on number of hours and starting levels of the hunger and thirst metres before bed. As of now, I find myself letting my characters bar just drop to zero because eating or drinking before bed is completely pointless. Sleeping Need - This should be introduced imo. As well as more sleeping furniture which reap better results, i.e. well rested. Additional Content Suggestions A Weather System Rain Water easier to find on grass Water collector fills up if unsheltered Different insects appear (e.g. worms as they do irl) Potential movement penalty inside puddles? A clover leaf 'floating boat' to compensate for the increase height of water in areas of the garden? (and to avoid water insects from below). Raindrops can hurt if gets very heavy - clover umbrella for protection? Sun Water need falls quicker Water more scarce (Evaporation) Different insects appear (or more frequently, i.e. bees, wasps, mosquitoes) Damp areas of the map start to dry out somewhat Map Expansions More dungeons to explore (like the hedge branch system and also underground), with puzzles and unique rewards at the centre (Not just raw science, it's a great idea and all, but it's not that exciting after a while). Hidden entrances around the map with mysteries/clues inside (and more unique enemies). Quests Not just 'collect this' or 'kill that', but something meaningful... e.g. we need to build this device, collect these parts so we can construct this or further out research etc. similar tasks but with more purpose and have it lead somewhere. BURGL Rewards Selection is currently limited, feel like this could be fleshed out a lot more. As of now, Raw Science feels extremely pointless and I have very little motivation to try and find more. Backpack Upgrades - A rare upgrade, potentially obtained via BURGL after a series of quests? (following research mentioned in my 'quests' section?) - Adding additional inventory slots. Level Up! Some form of levelling system, even if just for combat... Rewards for higher levels such as for Archery, increased bow draw speed, or arrow recovery chance. And for Melee, less weapon degrading, critical hit chance, stun change, evasion chance or damage reduction chance. etc. Would make it more worthwhile taking on more bugs in combat rather than purely for gathering purposes. (Base Building) Wall Height Options - Options to remove the jagged top from walls would be nice, it causes big problems as they tops come through floors a lot of the time when the bottom floor of a structure doesn't have the same skeleton as the floor above. The same can also be said for doors - the top of which peeks through the floor above. (Base Building) Use Furniture - The ability to use chairs etc. in the future would be nice. (Base Building) Colour Options - The ability to use items from around the garden to dye walls etc. or add painted décor to them. New Insects (I know, obviously! - But here's my ideas) Ant Queen (ant nest boss) Flying Ants *Shudders* Wasps Worms Water Skeeters Diving Beetles

Pillars of Eternity 1 has achieved a pretty good state by v3.0+. And several bugs aside, it looks that Deadfire is slowly headed in the same direction. But at the moment, there are still a range of spells, abilities and effects that are what we can call: trash (or trap) options. And also there a few things that are either a little too good, or allow to bypass certain design limitations. And it's understandable that comparative power of talents/abilities/effects/etc in practice is not always the same as initially expected, due to overall complexity and changes in mechanics, plus emergent synergies, opportunity costs, variety of encounters, asymmetry in enemy defenses, armor threshold deadzones, max health 'policy' and so on. So the idea is: to come up with a collective set of fine-tuning adjustments to cut-off the least impactful ones and to end up with a list of community suggested changes. So if Obsidian decides to do any balance changes for v5.0.0, they could use this as some sort of survey data. And of course there is also hope that some of these could be modded. The workflow is gonna be as follows:There will be a preliminary list of suggested changes. And you can: a). suggest to add a change; b). suggest to remove an already added suggestion; or provide an alternative adjustment. Just don't forget to argumentate your opinion. After awhile, I'll make a poll based on these. When the poll is ended, a final list will be made. And it will include changes that have passed a certain threshold of unanimity. The preliminary list of suggestions (to start the discussion) is: Edit: Based on the first round of gathered feedback, here's the rev2 of the preliminary list: Edit: Here's the rev3 version of the preliminary list: Edit: The poll is up and in a separate thread: here P.S. Big thanks to Phenomenum for assistance and theorycrafting on the initial list. P.P.S. Hopefully I didn't forget/miss much)

Deadfire Polishing Thread has been opened for 3 weeks by now, and we gathered enough feedback for a dedicated poll. And the idea behind this poll is to filter through the community-originated fine-tuning suggestions and cut those that didn't make it past a certain threshold of unanimity. After that, the resulting list could be used as some sort of survey data, and maybe it will get attention from Obsidian, or it will be of use for modders (if these suggestions are moddable) Deadfire Polishing Poll (link to google forms) (google login is required to keep 1 submission per person account) (your emails are kept private and not shown to other participants or poll owner) P.S. Results will be posted in this thread. There is no set end date for now. But approximately the poll will last 7-10 days unless otherwise noted. Edit: the Poll has ended. You can check the RESULTS: HERE Or if google analytics is opening slowly, here are the screenshots: General stuff: Classes: Keywords: Bugs:

Hello and thank you to those who are reading this. So I thought it would be nice if the form of the fearsome brute could benefit from the monk spells and abilities, and if it's not possible just buff the ogre modal a bit (more pen, more armor) because it is really weak as of now and I don't know how to do it myself. Thank you

My problem (the bit you might care about) The biggest mechanics issue for me currently is weapon swaps, as dumb as that sounds It feels incredibly bad "wasting" an entire standard action on it; it's really taking it out of the equation because 99.9% of the time the penalty is just too harsh, so you start ignoring the theoretical option. Effectively it locks down combat to one weapon set and makes the other(s) superfluous, which takes away strategic choices and, well, fun! My thoughts on possible solutions (the bit you probably won't care much about) The "easy fix" would be making it a free action - but on its own that would open it up to shield exploitation. However, I think the template "Major, Minor, Move, Free" would work very well in this game. It's almost there, but minor is missing which is the crux of the matter. Minor actions would add a few advantages mechanically: There are some buff spells that could be minor instead of free, to limit how many you can get going in a single turn, and some current standard spells that don't get used could be minor to make them more attractive... and it would make it possible to have a weapon swap without burning your standard action. An alternative, if minor actions is too large an overhaul, would be to make free weapon swaps once per turn class features for melee classes. If that's still not limiting enough, you can add restrictions such as "twice per combat", cooldown or "can only swap weapons as the first action" (to avoid shield exploitation) etc. To be clear: I love what you've done with the game - I just feel it could use a few adjustments here and there Adding turn based pushed PoE2 the last nudge up to GOTY 2018 for me.

There is a few abilities that bother me in the rogue tree and I would like to know if some people find them some uses : Smoke cloud & upgrades, Positioning, Ring the bell, Shadow Step & Flurry of blades. Smoke cloud feel costy for applying Distracted when you can get persitant distraction. If you need a panic button, just better to use invisibility (that you must take). Applying Blind could be more interesting (alternative to blinding strike and in AOE). Smoke grenade upgrade make the ability a persistant AOE. Another option, make smoke cloud a persistant AOE that distract & Hobble. People stuck inside the cloud have hard time to get out of it. Give you more CC. The dot upgrade add a DMG effect to the AOE. Positioning : An inferior version of Escape that you unlock at PL7... As far I love my rogue to have more low cost abilities, I find this ability just uninteresting. You could add a self buff to it (Rogue have none outside of PL 8 and it's a PL 7 ability!), if you switch with an ally you buff him too, with an enemy you debuff it. Ring the bell : I find Pierce the bell fine (2 guiles for +45% dmg & +5PEN with ranged weapons), but the one handed melee lack luster. It's stuck between crippling strike (1guile) and Toxic strike (3guiles) that apply a more potent DOT. Just better to spam 2 crippling strikes or use one more guile and do more dmg? Withering Strike : for a 3 guiles cost, I would boost the DMG to 40-50% or make the ACC bonus +20. The description say you strike a vital point, you could expect more chance to critic or more dmg. BEfore the up of all other rogue attacks, withering strike was the only ability with a dmg boost. Shadow step : I don't see lot of people talking about it (or using it?). 3 cost to paralyse a target for 6sec? It's very situationnal. And flurry of blades is the ability that do lot of things (teleportation, buff, paralyse, aoe dmg) but nothing well? I would just kill to get a separate flurry of blades ability that work like a buffed ghost blades at PL 7. Or make flurry of blades the first upgrade (you unleash an AOE ring of dagger before teleporting, with the hobbled effect) and the last upgrade (at PL8) Paralyse enemies hit by the daggers. For a PL8 ability at least you do an AOE paralyse. About the bombes, I just wonder why obsidian created a specific skill. Compared to alchemy & arcana bombes offer less options. thematic wise the bombes feel at home with the rogue, I just wonder why they didn't use mechanic or sleight of hand to handle the bombe. The thief archetype is taxed with 3 out of combat skills, why not give them some combat use? Same with stealth, only usefull at the start of the combat and some scripted events just block you from using this skill. Why not, like athletic, give a 1 per encounter hidding ability that allow you to restealth in middle of the combat?

I was wondering if adding more classes with console would lead to being overpowered by versatility. How many effects and damage types does a multiclass have access to? Is there a combination that lets you do almost anything? If it would be much more versatile, how bad would this be considering that the number of abilities and uses would be around the same as a normal multiclass?

So after 1.1 and, as Josh said, a great scythe swiped over items & abilities and "reworked" encounters (I think most people would only ever remember the boars, panthers and dragons living happily together) I began another playthrough with 1+3 custom characters, not very optimized and mostly some fun builds, PoTD+all level scaling, only up. The beginning was promising and game began reminding me of Tyranny on highest difficulty - people who played it probably know that final fight in prologue there was supah difficult, although then it just fell down. So I began using actual healing spells, switch weapons to fit enemy armor. I explored just 25% of the world map, and due to even more xp gains from monsters, and overall enormous amount of xp you gain for quests and such, hit level 15 (!) and almost abandonded the playthrough again. I only kept going to check on possibly reworked encounters, but so far only few were tweaked (the prologue, engwithan titan and it's dungeon was, for sure, gullet dungeon a bit, some random redskulls were placed - a few); most encounters, secondary & faction locations, bounties, mini-dungeons were not touched and are just as easy as they were. So here's the thing. Player abilities got cut in half, all items got Sid Meier'd "cut everything 50% and see what happens", yet the game is still too easy. Well, a few points. By cutting on player abilities, you also affect enemies. For example, enemy fighters are not an unkillable fortresses anymore due to Unbending nerfed. Rogues are still the only ones which can 2-shot your characters, while others don't seem as strong. The items and stacking, sure, may have affected some powah builds, but ideally you should actually balance endgame for player having some high tier items, not just turning them all to worthless junk. But here's the thing. No matter how much you plug the holes, the ship continues leaking. Why? Because PoE leveling system is simply not balanced for an open world game. Cause, a) You gain XP too fast. and b) Levels are everything, and accuracy is everything. Most of your potential, comes from levels, just like in PoE1. Where after first big city, game became super easy. Baldur's Gate countered this somewhat with the flat AD&D leveling system, where after particular level, gains did not matter as much ("you leveled up. you gain +1 to saving throws and +1 hit point"). Also some classes were hard to level up (Druids and their 13 to 14 leveling). And I think PoE2 should have done this during development too, compared to basically linear PoE1. So, why not do something like this now? Without MODS WILL FIX IT agenda, I think 2 things should happen (at least maybe on Veteran/PoTD): 1) Without touching much on XP rewards, it's probably possible to make higher levels require more xp. Most players I've read feel that levels 1-8 are fine, since you need to get them quickly to feel like you well played 1st game. The difficulty during these levels is also pretty good. So I'd keep these levels as they are. Then there is a particular something about going from level 9 to 12 or so. I felt it and many others said that "after level 12" (which is when player vacuum cleans Neketaka) people become overpowered. So maybe this should get 25-30% or so increased xp requirement. Finally, going from level 12 to 20 should give diminishing returns. So the further you are, the more xp you need to gain these levels. 2) At some level, character system should create sort of "plateau" (like levels 8-12 in IE games), and your accuracy and defences, as well as hit points gains, should diminish. Naturally it's same for the enemies. That way, most of Deadfire populaton, which primarely consists of low level critters and various pirate goons won't explode the moment you click on them. Or, you know, maybe scale everything +10/-10. But many believe that level scaling is cancer etc. Naturally, there should also be more high level content. There are nearly not enough strong creatures and crazy encounters in the game, which we haven't seen in PoE1, and many were just copypasted from it or White March. I played up to level 18 after all the super patching, and it's same story as ever - at some point, enemies simply cease to be any threat, and begin exploding from your dudes armed with better weapons, or simply die to a single empowered spell... all while you barely touched second half of the game. Oops.

Overall the patch look like nice, with lot of interesting balance. the new trickster look interesting, but I think the rogue need another balance pass on it's core abilities, ring the bell, whittering strike, positioning & sap. - crippling strike : the +25% dmg feel a lot for a 1 guile cost attack compared to other 2guiles attack. - Ring the bell is great for ranged but feel bad with one handed weapon (the dot is really low & don't stack, don't worth the 2 guiles). Each ring the bell upgrade boost a different weapon type (they don't stack) so why we can't take the 3 upgrades? Perhaps just keep ranged bonus for all weapons and make it your piercing & high dmg ability? - Whithering strike : the 3 cost feel too much. Boost the dmg bonus compared to others attacks? Or make it you main DOT ability as a base. - smoke cloud + dot : the dot is like inexistant. 3dmg / tick at lvl 20 - Positioning & sap : Positionning feel to situational, but the main problem these abilities doesn't feel like PL 6 & 7 abilities. Sap could perhaps worth it if it was merged with the upgrade. If you multiclass you have far better options for confusion or even better charm/domination with cipher. BUG : I loaded a save game with a trickster lvl 20, he didn't get the extra trickster spells. Cipher & Brilliant : a way to boost cipher attraction and pl7 choices, but... Cipher always suffer from spells on allied target only. For a pure cipher that not a problem, but for a multiclass one that don't really fix the problem at all. How cipher generate focus make martial classes a really attractive choice of multiclassing. And with allied target only buff, a cipher is stuck to a support role (for these spells) and can't buff he's second half. PL 7 for an offensive cipher is still 'trash' and not attractive at all. It's a way to nerf brilliant? but you can still take 2 ciphers that buff each other (not necessary fun).

Any chance to add a way to active level scalling and change up difficulty in middle of playthrough??? Both seems to be locked for now, only startting new game is possible to change.

Low-level gems (like Ta Ondra Tara or Pyrite) that are used for low-level crafting recipes are incredibly rare (which doesn't make sense considering their low cost of like 80cp). After scouring about 70% of the map and thoroughly ransacking every dungeon, I have found less than 10 total. Some merchants occasionally sell one or two, but that's not nearly enough for regular crafting and enchanting. Similarly, I have found only a single Amber. Is this intended? Unlike the original Pillars of Eternity, Deadfire doesn't feature an option to automatically procure crafting materials over time. To compensate, merchants and alchemists in the Deadfire should stock larger numbers and variety of crafting ingredients in general.

So, everyone knows these two abilities are not very good. Why? Low damage, no penetration, etc. It has been discussed, and nothing has changed. Well, with patch 1.1 on PotD we now have enemies with higher AR. So, even enemies with couple points or more of AR to fire almost negate these abilities. They will not do any damage whatsoever. First let's look at Dragon Thrashed. Once every 3 seconds you do 4 Burn damage, and once every 6 seconds you do 4 Slash Damage. However, because both have such small damage amounts, and no bonus pen you tend to do no damage. So, you don't have any reason to select Dragon Thrashed when you have Soft Winds. Period. Since Soft Winds does Raw damage it will always do damage, but only in really rare circumstances will DT actually do equal or more damage. Even if it does more damage... Soft Winds gives health back to the caster. So, I would say Soft Winds is always the better option. You will do about 3 damage (depends on might and level) and heal for about the same. So many enemies have some burn AR and that means DT cannot do equivalent damage to a level 1 phrase even if you don't count Soft Winds healing factor. Similar issues with Brand Enemy. The damage amounts are equal to DT's burn damage. 4 damage every 3 seconds. However, once again since so many enemies have AR vs burn you end up doing no damage or so little it doesn't matter. Once again no bonus Pen. Why take this vs Sworn Rival which does no damage but gives Zeal back when the target dies? Your guess is as good as mine. At least Paladin's have access to Scion of Flame to get some Pen, but I have been testing it the past few hours and 1 pen doesn't help much at all with this new patch. You still do no damage in many encounters. The low damage values + no bonus Pen + the buffs to AR in 1.1 = two absolutely useless talents. Prior to 1.1 they at least did some damage, but were pretty bad then. Solutions: 1) So, I think an easy fix is to up the damage values of these abilities. They probably need this regardless of what else you do to these abilities. 8-12 damage every 6 seconds in 4 point increments is useless given the AR system, and even if they bypassed AR wouldn't be the end all be all. Although if they did bypass AR they would be functional in their current iterations but not good by any stretch. 2) Casters get Pen for spells that scales with Power Level. Perhaps it would be wise for these abilities to do the same. Around level 10 a Wizard will have something like 7.8 pen for their spells. It would probably be wise to have this for both of these abilities. I am surprised by how little pen these things get, and it isn't like you can hover the damage when you do no damage. So it is admittedly hard to see what is going on. 3) Add a burn AR reduction Debuff to both of these abilities. Although, I don't know if they should stack if this is the way they go. Although, Chanters only have Mith Fyr, DT, and the heal with burn upgrade. However, if they stacked I would worry about the Paladin side of the Herald with Sacred Immolation. Also, if they stacked you could just bring a Burn focused Caster along with your Herald and it might be a bit much. I would recommend a change to Scion of Flame (and the similar talents for other elements), but it would throw off the hard hitting fire spells from Priests, Wizards, Druids, Ciphers, etc. It also wouldn't help DT as Chanters don't get access to the elemental +1 Penetration talents. Which I think is stupid in and of itself. Chanters have access to Burn, Frost, and Shock elements. I can't figure out why they don't have at least the 3 talents to boost the Pen of those abilities. In the end, I think either increasing the Damage or adding some built in Pen to the abilities is the best way to go. Or a combination of the 2. I was pretty happy initially to see that DT got nerfed from PoE, but this is just silly. So, any thoughts? Something has to be done to these or else they should be removed. Because, more so than prior to this patch (launch and beta included), these abilities have zero purpose other than wasted talent points. They weren't great before, but they did something. Now they don't in a lot of encounters. Hopefully some of you have some thoughts on this, or some thoughts that haven't been discussed ad infinitum.

Few suggestions on the rogue abilities tree, feel free to leave you're own ideas. I really dislike the fact that the rogue get something like 7-8 differents attacks skills. It feel really too similar, and the cost of some abilities feel off too. Keep the passives. Don't touch at : Escape, crippling strike, blind strike, finishing blow & smokeveil and their upgrades. Remove ring the bell & withering strike. Shadowing beyond : replace invisibility by swift inspiration, 2 guiles cost. Next upgrade add the invisibility for 3 guiles Shadow step : 2 guiles the first upgrade. Smoke cloud : detach from smoke veil, cost 1 guile. Both upgrades can be taken and give you new ability at 2 guiles (like they are). Or remove smoke cloud and just keep the two upgrades as separate abilities. Merge coordinated positioning & sap. When you switch position with an enemy you confuse him. Increase range and 2 guiles cost? Upgrade same as perplexing sap. Gambit : increase cost to 6. Even if you double crit, the ability cost some guile and make spamming it unwanted (diminish return). High risk high reward. If you double critic you have a superbe attack for 2 guiles, if you miss/dont critic you lose 6 guiles. New buff abilities : Poison : cost 1-2 guiles. For x sec, all your weapon attacks add a DOT to the target (x raw or corrode dmg). Upgrade to more dmg or add weaken affliction (replace toxic strike and one handed ring the bell, work with all your attack abilities). Reckless assault : 1-2 guile cost. For x sec you have strong & + action speed, but a deflection malus & take more dmg (too easy to offset the deflection malus?). Upgrade : replace strong with tenacious (+ 2 pen). other possible abilities : Throw knife : low dmg med range attack with high chance to interrupt. Upgrade with a dot or an affliction. Fan of knifes : work like wizard ghost blades. DMG + hobbled. upgrades to a 240 or 360 attack, or add a bleeding like arterial strike.

I was looking through some ability trees and I just couldn't wrap my head around how powerful some abilities were and the tier they were placed at. Am I missing something here or is this really unbalanced? Here is a power level 6 ability: and here is a power level 9 ability: One does roughly a 1200 damage in 15 seconds (guaranteed because its raw), the other does a 1/5 of that in twice as much time (possibly even less since its not raw damage), and is a higher tier ability. Is there a buff or a nerf required here?

Alright, so I backed Pillars on Kickstarter, watched in joy as it was developed and run, enjoyed the dev commentary, appreciated the race and class previews, and I thought it all looked great. And I started playing and noticed few problems (aside from the bloody Kickstarter NPCs whom I ignored), but more and more built up as the game progressed. Finally, I came to a terrible conclusion as I attempted a second playthrough: This writing is dreadful. Not the dialogue, no, that's fine. Purple sometimes, but generally pretty good. What sucks is the epilogue and the player 'choices' made in-game, as well as the marginalization of classes in gameplay/story integration. For starters, I played a Monk. Yeah, I remembered Monks being lame in DnD, but I assumed that in Pillars, based on the previews, it'd be fun. And it was fun, until every encounter became slogging it out with broad-sword wielding thugs in plate or Elder High Mega Dragons, or Invisible Deathtouch Demons or what have you. Monks lack the durability, dodging power and damage to be fantastic PCs... but what annoyed me the most was the supposition that every class would have something interesting to contribute to the story. For example, if I were say, a follower of Eothas, I could go to the temple or talk to Edir or do all sorts of things and get a little snippet in relation to the plot at large or just giving more insight into the characters and the world around them. Priests, Paladins, Cyphers, Wizards, all of them get little extra options and such they can choose. Oh, except the Monk. The class that doesn't even get an NPC partymember. The only five Monks in the game outside of the waves of cannonfodder I carved through are one dying messenger who was mauled to death by a mountain lion, and his four brothers who waited patiently in a tavern while their companion was mauled to death by a mountain lion. Speaking of that tavern, I have words for that as well. There's no real plot important reason to go into that place. You can just saunter past it accidentally, as I did three times. I did the Monk Scroll quest and then left, assuming nothing more. SPOILER ALERT: If you don't talk to one ordinary looking man named "Frightened Man", the entire city of Gilded Vale is exterminated in the epilogue. Whoopsy. The village I went on a long, epic quest to save, defeating an entire castle of badasses over is now dead. Oh well. Sometimes a random NPC just spontaneously returns to life and invalidates all your work. If they'd wanted to live they'd have given a messenger five gold to actually deliver the message instead of relying on gossip, right? Well, then there's the other problem of the people of the Dyrwood. They're all horribly monstrous, evil scumbags barring maybe ten individuals and the Glanfathans. Cultists of Skaen, Cultists of Woedica, the Volunteer Anti-Cypher Nazis, the Knights, one cruel, decadent, evil group after another. And then, then, after you bend over backwards and ensure that everything is perfect to make sure the Soul Arts get a fair trial? DIDN'T MATTER! An evil reincarnating wizard jumps into the body of the defendant lightnings to death the entire city aristocracy, causing a mass riot to break out and destroy everything, including murdering all the Soul Doctors. If you switch off the evil machine in the Northwest of the city instead of blowing it up? OOPS! NO ONE STUDIED IT! SOMEONE SWITCHED IT ON AGAIN AND IT KILLED EVERYONE! So you understand why I think the "Choice" system is overhyped and doesn't really matter. It's either "Do what the lead writer wants or 100% of the population dies" or it doesn't matter at all because Woedica Ninjas jump out of a closet and murder 100% of the population. Why would I want to play in this setting? Hell, why would I want to save the Dyrwood? Apparently EVERYONE is evil and stupid! So yeah. It's a game with POTENTIAL for a good series, but it has little to no replay value. ...Also I played it when it first came out so it was pretty dang buggy too, but honestly they weren't really that bad for me. If pressed for a rating I'd say Pillars was an above average game, but it could have been excellent with more writing and polish and... well, MORE in general.

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.

Just doing the math and testing it in combat, 2 handed weapons are inferior to both 1 handed and dual wield options. The overall DPS for 2 handed weapons is MUCH lower. I have yet to find a scenario where using a 2 handed weapon would be more advantageous overall. Either 1 hand/dual wield styles need to have their respective recovery times doubled or the recovery time for 2 handed weapons needs to be halved or the dmg of each individual 2 handed weapon needs to be raised by 50%. Yes, that's right... as of now, there is that much disparity in their overall dmg output. lowering the recovery time for 2 handed weapons by 50% would probably be the best option because of the faster combat in POE2. Watching a character just stand there motionless for extended periods while all other characters and enemies around them are moving in frantic combat appears odd and out of place.

Hi! I am happy both for PoE2 being made as well as multiclassing making the cut. If single class characters were to be treated closer to how multi class characters will work a lot of the balancing issues can be sidestepped. If you were to add a second duplicate of each class which either is only available to main class characters, or as a virtual second class for single class characters. The comparative progression of single versus multi class characters would balance out more nicely. Consider the following example: Class/Power source + Class/Power source ----- Wizard + Fighter -> Battlemage Wizard + Wizard2 -> Wizard Were Wizard2 could contain more horizontal progression for Wizards, and/or unlock a few perks/talents only available to single class characters. (Though this might not be necessary, and is only an additional suggestion.)

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.

Talent upgrading abilities seem to follow a trend - they make it 50% stronger. Examples would be upgrades to Arcane Veil, Lay on Hands or Flames of Devotion. How does Critical Focus compare to them? Very poorly, unfortunately. Zealous Focus gives 6 accuracy (let's ignore second bonus for a moment). To make it 50% more we need 3 more accuracy points. How much is 3 accuracy? In best case it converts 3/100 from misses to criticals: 3 * ( 1.5 - 0 ) = 4.5 weapon damage / 100 attacks. Not bad. But there are situations where accuracy gives less. It may also convert misses to hits or grazes to criticals. How much weapon damage per 100 attacks is that? Let's see: 3 * ( 1 - 0 ) = 3 weapon damage / 100 attacks. 3 * ( 1.5 - 0.5 ) = 3 weapon damage / 100 attacks. And now the Critical Focus, that converts hits to crits. Max hit chance is 50% so it can affect up to 2.5% of your attacks. 2.5 * ( 1.5 - 1 ) = 1.25 weapon damage / 100 attacks. Ugh.. that's bad. It's 3.6 to 2.4 times worse than it should. Fortunately Obsidian is not afraid to do 'doubling and halving' even after game release. Heck, they even divided some skills/spells by 4 or 5! It shouldn't be any problem for them to triple Critical Focus bonus.

So there is a big nerf to Defender Fighter coming, but it is not topic about it. Lets asume that devs want to push Fighters to be more than meatshields, and be usefull in combat. However, there is little builds of DPS fighters, and i hardly see reason to build one, since for bruiser there is Barbarian and Mon, for DPS Rogue, for utylity Paladin/Chanter. And if we want it all there is always Druid/Cipher/Wizard. Being tought is nice, but dosnt help much if you dont do much. So far the best things to say about Fighters is that hey offer "blunt and passive gameplay" (quote), and they always "can pick neutral talents and learn Lore skill" (also quote). So the question is: what need to happen to DPS Fighter be a viable party member? What new items, abilities, talents should aprear? Which existing talents, abilities need to be changed? Of course there is a big challenge how to even balance with 4 time per encounter slicken bunch of enemies prone. But the hope is that fighters could combine some tactical debuffs, and normal attack dmg in one ability, and have it avaiable 2 times per encounter. Existing talents/abilities: Disciplined Barrage - Is just soo weak. Accuracy is not big problem for FIghters, and if is, there is more than enought ways to buff accuracy or debuff enemies deflection, all this in longer duracion and as aoe. Could be +20 Acc, +30% attack speed, 20 sec, 1/encounter. It is barrage after all. New talents, abilities: Shatter - Powerful Strike which tears enemy armor into pieces. Reduce DT for -10 for 30 sec. 2/encounter. Also deals normal dmg. Pommel Strike - You forgot to stick them with pointy end, but they are stunned now so its ok. Normal attack.Stuns for 10 sec, 2/encounter. Under the plate - Fighter is master of armors and knows every weakness. Gain passive 3 DT reduction with all attacks. Higher Ground - What falls down shall never raise again. Against prone targets fighter gets +50% dmg bonus. Passive. For synergy with knock out, and also some weapons, and other classes. Synergy builds are fun. Shake it Off - Could be used always as long as fighter is alive. Instantly ends all negative status. Like stuns, paralyze, blidness. 2/encounter. Neutral Talents (all classes) Weapon Precision: WeaponType - You learn how to use your favorite weapon type in most deadly way. Gan +0,25 critical multiplier in your favorite weapon type. That could be better as neutral talent since we can't exacly say that critcals fit better fighters than barbarians, or rogues, or rangers. End there could be much more. Much more is needed. So this topic is often for other suggestions. Some may look like overpowered from level 1 perspective, but in comparison to end game caster it is just what needs to be done to bring some fun, and at least click something. EDIT: Disciplined Barrage is more widely viewed as lucklaster. There is more need for offensive Fighter class abilities than talents, since as talents you can always pick neutrals, and for abilities you do not have choice.

There is ab it of problem with the agro mechanics. I have noticed it in small amounts in some interior dungeons but sometimes when you agro one group of enemies it chain agro into other groups obscured by unexplored FoW. This has manifested itself worst to date on the Northweald Map. In the far north I agro the first group of stilgears to the right of the cave and after they are dispatched I remain in combat mode, resulting in being unable to rest, use consumables or transition to other areas. As far as i can tell I have also agressed the additional packs across the stream but the AI does not consider me in its engagement radius. I don't think this will be patched int time for 2.0 but it still needs logging. Supplemental video in case My written text is less than clear. https://youtu.be/RZGsFUWgYWE output_log.txt