Subclasses: Poor design makes them undesirable.

[Hebruixe]

Let's talk about some of these bizarre tradeoffs that are offered by the various subclasses.

 

To start out, let's examine some GOOD subclass, ones with tradeoffs that are balanced and desirable. First the Assassin (Rogue). The Assassin gets bonuses to penetration, accuracy, and critical damage when attacking from stealth. The tradeoff is a +15% penalty to all damage sustained. This is a classic "glass cannon" design, which gains DPS at the cost of survivability. It's fair and balanced and desirable. 

 

Another example of a good subclass is Fury (Druid). They sacrifice their healing spells for bonus penetration, range, and a superior shapeshift form. You can debate whether or not this sacrifice is worth it, but that's up to you. The fundamental design is good. Trading healing/survivability for DPS is conceptually fair and balanced.

 

Now to examine a BAD subclass. First off, the Lifegiver (Druid). Normally a well-designed healer specialization is the inverse of a glass cannon. They sacrifice DPS for an increase to healing/survivability. The Lifegiver has 2 penalties, one of which satisfies this criteria: (1) Lifegivers can't summon minions. That's fine. If this was the only penalty, then Lifegiver would be an excellent subclass. (2) After shapeshift ends, Lifegivers suffer a -5 penalty to the power level of all healing spells (permanently, until the end of combat). This is insane. What kind of healing specialization is this, that's able to cripple its own healing abilities? A terrible one.

 

Another example of a badly designed subclass is the Unbroken (Fighter). This is supposed to be a "tank" specialization, meaning they sacrifice DPS for defense/survivability. Unbroken gets some modest tanking bonuses: +1 engagement and Shield Mastery (+1 armor). But they also get a mediocre DPS ability, increasing penetration on disengagement attacks. This is fairly pointless, as most tanks deal very little damage. And the tradeoffs for these mediocre bonuses? Unbroken take penalties not to DPS but to defense (!) and mobility, which are two essential tanking traits. What the hell. Who came up with this terrible decision? The -15 penalty to Reflex seriously outweighs +1 engagement and Shield mastery combined. Thus choosing Unbroken for your subclass essentially makes you a inferior tank. What terrible class design.

 

Sharpshooter (Ranger) is another subclass that is supposed to be a glass cannon, but suffers a needless penalty to its DPS: slowed recovery time. It may not be a huge, game-breaking problem, but it is another symptom of the fundamentally flawed reasoning behind Pillars 2's subclass design.

 

These are just a few examples, to illustrate my grievances. But it doesn't end there. To me it seems that virtually all subclasses have serious design problems. Sometimes the bonuses are too weak and the penalties are too severe (e.g., Black Jacket Fighter). Sometimes the tradeoff exists only to support a single multiclass combination (Beguiler Cipher), instead of being an independently viable subclass. Sometimes they take away half your spells just for sh!ts and giggles (see all Wizard subclasses). The list goes on.

 

The bottom line is that it's usually a bad idea to choose a subclass. Not always, but often. Because instead of offering intelligent tradeoffs that allow you to specialize effectively in a given role, the subclasses tend to punish and handicap you for no good reason. I hope class design will be reevaluated in the coming months. 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Despite my complaints, I am a big fan of Pillars 2. I care about the game because I love it and I want it to be the best. 

 

-A fan

Edited May 21, 2018 by Hebruixe

[Anoregon]

I think most of the subclasses are at least functional and have a purpose, but it's definitely true that some are just flat out better than others. I also agree (as do most people, I would think) that the Wizard subclass penalties feel too severe for the relatively modest benefit. A pure nuker Evoker is pretty much the only time the sacrifice is worth it.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Anoregon

[dunehunter]

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

[evilcat]

Lifegiver. Adapt. Dont shapeshift untill it is your last stand. Use final boost to heal harder and after... you run out of spells so it doesnt matter. Lifegiver is example of penalties which dont matter.

 

Unbroken. Adapt. Use boots for stride. Or Charge. Or Into the fray. Waste a point on snakes reflex. Take race with immunity to reflex penalty.

Tanks in general: engading 3 targets is not big contribution (what with rest of mob). So tank need to either buff or dmg. One way is to go Unbroken/Trickster riposte disengement. .

 

U got me at Sharpshooter. No idee why recovery penalty.

 

Subclasses are not something you are supposed to take by default, more like specialization if you really know what u doing. Even assasin is for backstabbers, when open fight scoundrel is an option.

 

Weakest subclass:

Corpse eater. Full flavour. Very situational. For health you can just drink potion. And for rage it just pays off your higher cost of abilities.

Wizard Enchanter, Ilusionist, Conjurer. On this schools bonus PL is not that great. And after cutting 2 schools not much is left. School abilities outside evocation are meh.

Edited May 21, 2018 by evilcat

[Torm51]

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

 

Its just easier to damage now though.  Like one handers actually hurt because of the new armor system.  My example is the Paladin.  You really do not have to alpha with big hitting range  weapons now.  Range weapon  damage seems to be tuned down a bit more compared to melee.  My sword and board Paladin crits really hard with his one hander and Flames of Devotion.  In POE 1 unless you were Duel wielding, Firing of FoD with a one hander and shield was pointless for damage.  Maybe to fire of a buff ability like healing for Wayfarers or Deflection for Shieldbearers but thats it.  Normally youd want to get passed DR with high base damage.  It seems you do not have to do that as much anymore.

[Ganrich]

Ranger subs are meh, and most Wizard subs suffer too steep a penalty for what they get. 

 

Otherwise, I think most everything else is fine.

 

Also, to add to dunehunter, yeah tanks do damage here.  I know the tank I just did a build on does, and it is fine.  I will probably try an Unbroken/Trickster at some point.  Why?  Escape + Charge negates mobility issues.  That's why.  Also, Mirrored Image + Riposte + Persistent Distraction + Large Shield + Unbroken defenses sounds fun.  Add in Spear Modal for another +1 Engagement?  Maybe. 

[youspoonybard]

 

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

 

Its just easier to damage now though.  Like one handers actually hurt because of the new armor system.  My example is the Paladin.  You really do not have to alpha with big hitting range  weapons now.  Range weapon  damage seems to be tuned down a bit more compared to melee.  My sword and board Paladin crits really hard with his one hander and Flames of Devotion.  In POE 1 unless you were Duel wielding, Firing of FoD with a one hander and shield was pointless for damage.  Maybe to fire of a buff ability like healing for Wayfarers or Deflection for Shieldbearers but thats it.  Normally youd want to get passed DR with high base damage.  It seems you do not have to do that as much anymore.

 

 

+pen on disengagement attacks isn't a DPS buff, it's dissuasion from breaking engagement. Now, if the AI is smart enough to recognize that is another story altogether, but it's an enhancement to the fighter's "stickiness" by making it more punishing to break engagement.

 

Barbarian has the most "meh" subclasses to me right now - they don't substantially change how the class is played, and the cost of 2 of the 3 seem really steep for the limited benefits they get. 

Edited May 21, 2018 by youspoonybard

[Torm51]

 

 

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

 

Its just easier to damage now though.  Like one handers actually hurt because of the new armor system.  My example is the Paladin.  You really do not have to alpha with big hitting range  weapons now.  Range weapon  damage seems to be tuned down a bit more compared to melee.  My sword and board Paladin crits really hard with his one hander and Flames of Devotion.  In POE 1 unless you were Duel wielding, Firing of FoD with a one hander and shield was pointless for damage.  Maybe to fire of a buff ability like healing for Wayfarers or Deflection for Shieldbearers but thats it.  Normally youd want to get passed DR with high base damage.  It seems you do not have to do that as much anymore.

 

 

+pen on disengagement attacks isn't a DPS buff, it's dissuasion from breaking engagement. Now, if the AI is smart enough to recognize that is another story altogether, but it's an enhancement to the fighter's "stickiness" by making it more punishing to break engagement.

 

Barbarian has the most "meh" subclasses to me right now - they don't substantially change how the class is played, and the cost of 2 of the 3 seem really steep for the limited benefits they get. 

 

Agreed on the stickyness.  But for that reason tanks can work well.  And its not that hard to do damage even if you are not speced for it.  Unlike POE 1.

[Urocyon]

I wish all the Wizard subclasses were rolled into one subclass called something like "Specialist". With this subclass, you pick a specialist school that gets a significant buff  but the other schools get some kind of negative. That way you can still specialize but weren't completely hamstrung by banned schools. That would have freed up slots for other kinds of interesting Wizard subclasses like maybe "Elementalist - kind of like Specialist but you get bonuses to an elemental spells but negatives to non-elemental spells); Artificer - (gets Deep Pockets at creation as well as bonuses to consumables but spells have higher casting time); and something else maybe.  

[Clerith]

Let's see which subclasses see play and talk on the forums...

 

Barbarian: Berserker

Chanter: all

Cipher: Ascendant, Soul Blade

Druid: Fury, Lifegiver, Shifter

Fighter: all, though mostly Devoted

Monk: all

Paladin: most/rp choice

Priest: rp choice

Ranger: Stalker? Unpopular class

Rogue: Assassin

Wizard: Evoker

 

Would you look at that, every class has at least something. There are some good, some bad, but choices for every class.

[Mercbeast]

Unbroken fighter is actually really, really, really strong.

 

Match it with something like a streetfighter rogue, and it's arguably one of the absolutely strongest class combos in the game. How do you play it? Pump might (not sure if this is necessary, but it's to keep the AI from disengaging) and perception, drop resolve a bit. Get the reckless mail or whatever it's called, the one that gives attack speed on engagement, gives you extra engagement. Now run into the middle of a pack of enemies, engage 4-5-6 of them, enjoy 50% recovery from street fighter 30% from the armor, 45% from dual wielding and 2 weapon fighting. Take something like battle axes/spear/buckler or medium shield. Pop shield modal/spear modal on a weapon set if you need to lock down even more stuff. If you get the monk specific buckler in Neketara I think, that acts as a punching weapon + a buckler, you can go spear modal + buckler for +2 engagement slots AND 2 weapon fighting bonus.

 

Watch as you sit in the middle of as many as 6 (or more?) enemies engaged to you, while you are swinging your battle axes at like 1.2s, or your spear even faster I think.

 

A solo unbroken build can build for basically the same thing, it just won't get the raw DPS output, and it will lose out on one extra engagement, but it gets more tank overall, and higher PL abilities sooner. Build it to do damage, put it in the reckless mail. 

Edited May 21, 2018 by Mercbeast

[Mercbeast]

Let's see which subclasses see play and talk on the forums...

 

Barbarian: Berserker

Chanter: all

Cipher: Ascendant, Soul Blade

Druid: Fury, Lifegiver, Shifter

Fighter: all, though mostly Devoted

Monk: all

Paladin: most/rp choice

Priest: rp choice

Ranger: Stalker? Unpopular class

Rogue: Assassin

Wizard: Evoker

 

Would you look at that, every class has at least something. There are some good, some bad, but choices for every class.

 

I'd strongly argue that streetfighter is stronger than assassin. Both are strong, among the best subclasses, but they are strong for different reasons. Streetfighters are designed to turn your tank, or front line fighter into a DPS juggernaut. Assassin is for blowing up that caster or ranged. I have a streetfighter/mael priest, that DW's blunderbusses (could be blunderbuss + any other 1h ranged weapon tho), that is comfortably out dpsing Maia, and it's my primary healer.

 

I should add, I am playing heavily modded. POTD has 2x hp, aggressive level scaling, less accuracy/defense from levels, less xp overall. So, sustain is favored over burst, cause it's just not possible to burst much down off of like 1 or 2 attacks.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Mercbeast

[Climhazzard]

Unbroken + Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage or an item with a similar effect is probably a good combo too.

 

To be honest the subclasses are flavor for specializing, they aren't supposed to be better than the base class.  Some of them just happen to be pretty good across the board.  I think a few are a bit weak or questionable, but I expect they'll get their share of love eventually.

[Sotnik]

Sharpshooter. At the moment neither the maluses nor bonuses make him distinct enough (slower recovery does not affect guns, does it?). I think that such things +range, more hit-crit conversion (or accuracy instead of conversion), more critical damage, an effect on a weapon critical hit would make him viable and interesting even at the cost of slower fire.

 

Wizard sub-classes should be useful while using only one spell type. The maluses make great job of demotivating from using other types. If there is a problem here, it is connected with weak bonuses.

 

Corpse-Eater. What could be done with Flesh Communion: 1) no/less recovery; 2) Power Level scaling of Rage received; 3) level scaling of the healing component (start with <50, end with >50). The ability becomes viable, but still too situational. Solution: the rage cost increases only if there are 2 or more dead or alive hostile Kith, Wilder and Beasts within the party vision area or if Flesh Communion was used. Let's call it "distracting appetite". Not much to eat = no appetite.

In this case the Corpse eater will sometimes act as an ordinary Barbarian and in the other cases he will act as a Corse-Eater which, first of all, implies focusing on more expensive abilities.

BTW, that's pity that Flesh Commution does not work vs undead. Eating a zombie would be hilarious .

 

 

P.S. Could anyone advise how disengagement work? In particular, what makes an enemy disengage?

Edited May 22, 2018 by Sotnik

[Verde]

Lifegiver is not a Shapeshifter. The game is giving you a hard penalty for doing so.

 

But I agree that some subclasses have ridiculous downsides. The Wizards specifically. Two forbidden spell classes?! WTF. That should change from 2 to 1 for single class Wizards.

 

Lastly I think the worst class is def...ba da boom...the Mage Slayer. No potions!?!?! Haha wtf. And spell resistance that actually affects friendly spells?! HAHA. Laughable. Plus vanilla Barbarian is clearly a better class, not to the mention the other strong sub classes.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Verde

[Lokithecat]

Unbroken take penalties not to DPS but to defense (!) and mobility, which are two essential tanking traits. What the hell. Who came up with this terrible decision? The -15 penalty to Reflex seriously outweighs +1 engagement and Shield mastery combined. Thus choosing Unbroken for your subclass essentially makes you a inferior tank. What terrible class design.

 

1 Ability basically counters the Penalty to reflexes.  Weapon + Shield Style.  It adds Deflection to your Shield, and then Applies the 'new' Shield Deflection to your Reflexes.  In many games I'd agree that a highly Mobile Tank is handy, it is here as well, but if you go for the Tower Shield Modal (The Wall) then you are not moving anyway.  Intelligent pulling, having the mobs aggro your tank and locking them in, with a significant 'punishment' if they decide to go play with your back rank, makes a great tank.  Plus there are the 'Get over here' moves out of Mortal Kombat.

 

 

Weakest subclass:

Corpse eater. Full flavour. Very situational. For health you can just drink potion. And for rage it just pays off your higher cost of abilities.

Wizard Enchanter, Ilusionist, Conjurer. On this schools bonus PL is not that great. And after cutting 2 schools not much is left. School abilities outside evocation are meh.

 

I'm not really a fan of Corpse Eater, but given the food they can eat (Kith Meat, Forbidden Pie) for basically permanent +Power Level, might be enough to balance the class into an interesting niche build.  Berserker is still going to be the choice of Min Max builds.

 

Wizard (Non Evoker) Yup, garbage.  Its like they took multiple 'penalties' they could think of for multi classing wizard, and then applied them all.  Lock Out 2 schools, Recovery time penalty to all Non specialized schools...  Maybe if you auto unlocked all 'in school' spells, they'd be worth considering.

 

For the Fighter build / gear MercBeast mentioned, there is also a great tank ring (Entonian Signet Ring), which gives +3 All defenses per Engaged enemy, stacks 5 times, and +2 Diplomacy just for flavor.  For a xxx / Rog tank, that's a pile of enemies you have added flanking to and getting sneak attacks from, pinned in place, and received impressive defense buffs from.  If you add in Riposte, even at only a % triggering it, its going to be very high damage done to the mob, and you can always hit area attacks onto the clump, your tank won't care, if you can't manage the 'Intelligence' circle to avoid.

[Sotnik]

To me it seems that virtually all subclasses have serious design problems. Sometimes the bonuses are too weak and the penalties are too severe (e.g., Black Jacket Fighter). Sometimes the tradeoff exists only to support a single multiclass combination (Beguiler Cipher), instead of being an independently viable subclass. Sometimes they take away half your spells just for sh!ts and giggles (see all Wizard subclasses). The list goes on.

 

The bottom line is that it's usually a bad idea to choose a subclass. Not always, but often. Because instead of offering intelligent tradeoffs that allow you to specialize effectively in a given role, the subclasses tend to punish and handicap you for no good reason. I hope class design will be reevaluated in the coming months.

 

A very unfair statement. Most sub-classes are great if used for a specific role or with synergies. There are just some specific sub-classes that need a boost, probably 1/4 or so.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Sotnik

[Frog Man]

 

 

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

Its just easier to damage now though. Like one handers actually hurt because of the new armor system. My example is the Paladin. You really do not have to alpha with big hitting range weapons now. Range weapon damage seems to be tuned down a bit more compared to melee. My sword and board Paladin crits really hard with his one hander and Flames of Devotion. In POE 1 unless you were Duel wielding, Firing of FoD with a one hander and shield was pointless for damage. Maybe to fire of a buff ability like healing for Wayfarers or Deflection for Shieldbearers but thats it. Normally youd want to get passed DR with high base damage. It seems you do not have to do that as much anymore.

+pen on disengagement attacks isn't a DPS buff, it's dissuasion from breaking engagement. Now, if the AI is smart enough to recognize that is another story altogether, but it's an enhancement to the fighter's "stickiness" by making it more punishing to break engagement.

 

Barbarian has the most "meh" subclasses to me right now - they don't substantially change how the class is played, and the cost of 2 of the 3 seem really steep for the limited benefits they get.

You spoony bard!

[GuyNice]

I should add, I am playing heavily modded. POTD has 2x hp, aggressive level scaling, less accuracy/defense from levels, less xp overall. So, sustain is favored over burst, cause it's just not possible to burst much down off of like 1 or 2 attacks.

Can you share your method/files for increasing PotD health? I found the other mods for increased difficulty but not that one.

Edited May 22, 2018 by GuyNice

[Hebruixe]

Maybe you played too much WoW, in this game tanks do do damage.

 

I haven't really played WoW since MoP ended, years ago. I played a lot of Pillars 1 (steam says I have 792 hours on record) and have played my fair share of Pillars 2 since it came out (199 hours on record). I've never played on a difficulty lower than PotD, so maybe I've never seen a situation where having my tanks deal damage instead of take damage is viable. To me it seems that having a tank with high survivability is extremely important. Sacrificing DPS for that is usually the smart tradeoff. I just wish the Unbroken subclass had been designed with that in mind.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Hebruixe

[Mercbeast]

 

I should add, I am playing heavily modded. POTD has 2x hp, aggressive level scaling, less accuracy/defense from levels, less xp overall. So, sustain is favored over burst, cause it's just not possible to burst much down off of like 1 or 2 attacks.

Can you share your method/files for increasing PotD health? I found the other mods for increased difficulty but not that one.

 

 

It's in the global.gamedatabundle search for "pathofthedamned" it will take you to the difficulty settings. It allows you to change HP and damage at each difficulty level. The AI already hits really hard, and has massive accuracy/deflection advantages with the mods I'm running, so I just boosted HP and not damage!

[Crucis]

I wish all the Wizard subclasses were rolled into one subclass called something like "Specialist". With this subclass, you pick a specialist school that gets a significant buff  but the other schools get some kind of negative. That way you can still specialize but weren't completely hamstrung by banned schools. That would have freed up slots for other kinds of interesting Wizard subclasses like maybe "Elementalist - kind of like Specialist but you get bonuses to an elemental spells but negatives to non-elemental spells); Artificer - (gets Deep Pockets at creation as well as bonuses to consumables but spells have higher casting time); and something else maybe.  

 

It's kind of a tradition in D&D style games that when you have specialist wizard schools, the banned school is one which is perceived as the opposite of the selected school.

 

I will say though that I wish that the devs had gone a very different route with wizard subclasses, and not used the old wizard schools concept.  But rather gone with different concepts.  Elementalists could be one subclass, specializing in elemental spells.  I'm sure that there are other ideas out there.  Like maybe a "conjurer" (not like the conjurer school, though maybe it would seem that way), where the conjurer greatly favored spells that "conjured" up things like weapons, possibly summoned creatures.    Maybe some kind of hardcore Arcanist whose spells weren't elemental in nature but were based on "arcane" damage.

 

Of course, this might involve coming up with a bunch of new spells, and might be considerably more complex than the wizard "schools" concept.

[aweigh0101]

I just removed the recovery penalties for Wizard sub-classes, increased Power Level of chosen sub-class school to +2 (one level for each school lost), and added +1 spell to Level 1-tier to each sub-class.

You lose access to 2 schools but gain +2 PL to chosen school casting and gain +1 Tier1 spell (comes in handy for first half of the game, especially for Evokers and missiles).

You can do this easily by editing the statuseffects.gamedatabundle file, and for adding the +1 spell control + F and search for "volatile" in the file until you find the status effect for volatile casting's bonus spells, then take that status effect ID and go to ABILITIES.gamedatabundle file and control + F for "Evoker", and in that entry's status Effect ID list go ahead and add the volatile bonus spell one.

I went through almost all sub-classes and reduced the numerical values on almost all penalties and reduced the benefit as well in most cases, for example made Unbroken give +2 armor rating w/ shield, +2 engagement and only -5 reflex and -5% movement.

You can do this super easy by opening statuseffects.gamedatabundle file in Notepad++ (google notepad++) or using JSON online viewer website (google JSON online viewer, then in the website load the bundle file, edit it, and save/download it).

For rangers I just minimized all penalties (like reducing bonded grief's effects, and removing the recovery penalty for sharp shooter), but then also reduced the benefit.

95% of Ability values are in statuseffects file, including spells and stuff. I went and increased by 5 or 10 most Ranger abilities' damage/benefit, etc.

Edited May 22, 2018 by aweigh0101

[Boeroer]

Did you overlook that Livegiver gets +5 Power Level for Rejuvenation spells while shifted? This stacks with all other PL boosts (like the +2 he already gets and stuff like Wellspring of Life) and makes his healing *extremely* powerful. The -5 after shifting is an ok trade-off for that.

 

The Unbroken is actually a good subclass. +10 PEN on disengagement is huge and nearly always leads to overpenetration with disengagement attacks which means that they deal +30% damage combined with the +100% the usual disengagement attack deals. This leads to a situation where enemies will not leave the Unbroken once he engaged because it's too painful. Try not to think "superhard tank" but "supersticky tank". If you combine engagement abilities/items with Cleaving Stance: whatch the gib once one of your enemies disengages... Also very nice for multiclassing with stuff like Streetfighter (Heating Up, Riposte) or Barbarian (Yells,Blood Thirst) as somebody else wrote. Tanks that play the taunting teethless tincan don't work in PoE/Deadfire.

 

Why is the Sharpshooter supposed to be a glass cannon? He trades recovery speed for accuracy/penetration with ranged weapons, that's all. Totally legit. Then, if you look at reloading weapons (from crossbows to guns) you will see that they have no recovery... exactly the weapons you would expect to see on a Sharpshooter will give him no penalty at all.

 

So some of your complaints don't seem to be justified.

 

Black Jacket or Corpse Eater need some rework, I agree. The malus of BJ is too big for the rel. weak bonus (since the PEN/AR ratio was changed). And the Corpse Eater's increased costs are too high at the first 1/3 of the game.

 

What I also think is pretty poorly balanced are most wizard subclasses (loss of a whole school is too much), Darcozzi Paladini (the Flame Shield is too weak), Mage Slayer (why the malus on non-spell/non-"magic" buffs like Frenzy?), vanilla Chanter (why not always take Troubadour?) and some others.

Edited May 22, 2018 by Boeroer

[Skazz]

I'm fine with Black Jacket since it's clearly meant to be a gimmick sub. It's not meant to compete, it's there for fun reasons mostly.

 

On the other hand, I can definitely agree that the wizard specializations do not offer enough for all the penalties they bring. They kind of suffer from the same problem most of the wizard specs from NWN2 suffered: they'd probably be fine in an environment where you have access to a virtually infinite number of different spells (so, P&P), but in a situation where you have a limited spell repertoire (video game), giving up access to an entire school of magic is way too punishing.