Debuff/CC spells/talents need a buff?

[Archaven]

here's my observation. it seems spellcaster is at a disadvantage compared to melee/range. most enemies has inflated stats that debuff is having a hard time to even graze? that makes deadfire a melee/physical centric game. bear in mind even that IF you have higher accuracy against enemies defense, you CAN still miss. because it depends on a d100 dice roll. how random is random? assuming 0->25 is a miss, you basically miss 1 out 4 attempts. the whole point of debuff/CC is to lower enemies defenses. if you can't even hit with your spells, being a spellcaster is kind of moot. what is the point of having all those nuking spells when you are going to miss all the time? melee on the other hand is different (except class related talents) that every attack cost no resource. for spellcasters you have cast per encounter. even if you give me 5 per encounter, 75% of it will miss. what's the point?

 

this make those duration based CC/debuff very powerful (chillfog for example) because it get's a chance to debuff enemies even few rolls are misses. if you can't debuff your enemies, what's the point in giving all the offensive spells for? for them to miss? in first poe, you get +1 spell ACC per level. i suggest this should be brought back. thoughts?

Edited May 27, 2018 by Archaven

[Boeroer]

You should buff ACC first, then do CC.

 

Applying hard CC on enemies was way too easy in PoE - not only did you get bonus accuracy for spells but also +1 per level and could stack ACC buffs like crazy (Inspiring Radiance + universal ACC buff like Eldritch Aim + Devotions + Champion's Boon and so on). That made CC too powerful in PoE and trivialized most encounters.

 

In Deadfire they might have taken it a bit too far (most afflictions don't lower defenses that much anymore) but I think the general direction is better than in PoE. Although atm everything is too easy in Deadfire except hitting with spells in the early game.

[Archaven]

You should buff ACC first, then do CC.

 

Applying hard CC on enemies was way too easy in PoE - not only did you get bonus accuracy for spells but also +1 per level and could stack ACC buffs like crazy (Inspiring Radiance + universal ACC buff like Eldritch Aim + Devotions + Champion's Boon and so on). That made CC too powerful in PoE and trivialized most encounters.

 

In Deadfire they might have taken it a bit too far (most afflictions don't lower defenses that much anymore) but I think the general direction is better than in PoE. Although atm everything is too easy in Deadfire except hitting with spells in the early game.

 

i did buff the ACC. i feel it's simply not enough to counter the RNG of d100. with low spell accuracy debuff/CC spell couldn't even score a hit. on the other hand my melee characters seems having far easier time to score a hit because there's discipline barrage couple with dire blessing. or you are talking about alchemy? does that increase spell ACC?

[Braven]

Most of the affliction spells are not even worth casting, even if they costed no power source; simply not worth the cast time. The problem is that most afflictions only provide a very minor debuff, like -5 to a stat, and have short durations... and require a accuracy roll. Compared to what POE afflictions did, that is laughable. Meanwhile, damage spells have gotten better and are helped much more by scaling (PL).

 

Buff spells usually have much longer durations and don’t require an attack roll, and the extra effects are useful since you can synergize. Many affliction extras are useless. For example the CON ones reducing incoming healing. Most enemies don’t heal themselves so this does nothing.

 

The only affliction spells worth casting are ones that either charm or disables complely. The head scratching part is that there are really powerful level 1 powers, like the 20 seconds of charm cipher gets, and level 19 spells with longer cast times that do something strictly weaker, like frighten for 10 seconds. Why would you ever use something that temporarily weakens an enemy slightly when you can not only prevent them from attacking you completely, but also have them fight for you?

 

Durations and cast times should better match the strength of the effect and the ability tier.

 

Regarding accuracy, you could try using flail, club, or morning star. The weapon modal abilities greatly reduce defenses to reflex, fortitude, and will respectively. So hit with weapon, then hit with spell. Not so useful for AOE spells, though.

 

I noticed that some DOT spells, like the druid ones, grazes and crits only effect duration and doesn’t change the “tick” damage (they all have really long durations anyway, so graze still lasts for like 30 seconds), so accuracy doesn’t matter so much as long as you don’t get a miss with those.

Edited May 27, 2018 by Braven

[evilcat]

Disclaimer: Wizards>Druids>Priest are useful in party, and make encounters easier, especially late game.

Main complains:

There are no passives to sink my level points in. And i dont need that many spells known. This starts from level 1.

Some spells are garbage, and the whole Priest tier 5 is questionable. It is really bad when there is no good spell at tier. If there is only 1... that is why i want passives.

 

There is a factor that game is not in a healthy state, i mean enemies on veteran have rather low health pool, which means that raining death from above is just better than debuffing, since mobs will die, and bosses are immune to cc anyway.

 

 

Spells i use:

Selfbuffs: Quickbuffs, with 0.5 casting time. Also duration should be close to 60 to be interesting, otherwise i cast it attack 3 times and it is gone.

GroupBuffs: Only with duration above 30s (+int bonus)

Damage + debuff: there is several spells with dmg and debuff, chillfog, acid burst, relentless storm. The debuff may be not very good, but they stack.

DoTs cool thing about dots is that they stack with Might and Int.

Armour Strippers - without them some enemies take too long

Buff + Debuff - if duration is good. Like Borrow Instinct, Or devotion of the faithfull.

 

Things i dont cast:

single target, long cast, single buff, short duration buffs: why should i do that? What is the point? There is bunch of spells which are not worth 3s+4s cast time.

Just debuffs, they generally have short duration. and generally there is dmg+debuff variant.

 

CC, is there even good CC spells?

Rymgrins Terror, is worth time, but mostly since it has low competiicion at tier.

At the sound of voice (invocation), it is "free" and fast cast.

Ringleader, or other massive charm. However you may as well kill enemies, that would be even faster.

 

On casters i generally go with Per 15 to begin with.

 

Something could be done, like adjustment of casting times/duration. Sometimes even buffing, buffs. (higher tier) Make debuff duration sometimes longer, but give more means to drop duration of debuffs.

Readjustment of spell dmg scaling, having all spells balanced around PL0, and tier 9 spells having +9*5% bonus by default. That would prevent PL stacking (at least slow it down)

Would love more passives for classes which have no passives, could be class specific, or neutral. Ideally from level 1. Something to sink level point in.

SOmething like +5 accuracy with spells is ok (although looks as autopick).

Edited May 27, 2018 by evilcat

[Braven]

Paralyze of “sound of voice” invocation is strong. I made a ranger/chanter that used that chant. The trick is using dual rapiers with the modals on that provides +20 accuracy. My ranger/chanter was hitting with an accuracy of over 100 (no items but normal rapiers) at level 7 and critting constantly to trigger the +1 phrase generation of the offensive chanter subclass. Combined with high Int, you can recast every 8 seconds on average. Since most of the accuracy buffs were either single target or weapon-based, the paralyze would miss or graze sometimes, though, so it wasn’t quite the perma-stun I was hoping for.

Edited May 27, 2018 by Braven

[Myrtillo]

I totally agree on casters not having enough passives, and it is true for all of them, except cipher if you count them amongst casters.

 

Now on CC: I don't feel like I struggle applying it even on PoTD. My chars have decent/good per though. And with duration increasing with PL, even grazes are good enough most of the time. 

 

The real problem is that "hard" CC are very potent compared to debuff.

Charm/Dominate, Paralyse and Terrify completely turn battles.

Everything else is lacking once you get passed the early game. Maybe the CON afflictions are ok on tougher ennemies due to how much they reduce hp pool and healing.

 

If anything, I would nerf the accuracy of abilities that cause the hard CC. That would give some relevance to other debuffs.

A -5 debuff on resolve means that every attack targeting will have 10% more chance to hit/crit/graze, which is irrelevant when you can never miss, but very important when you hard CC misses half the time.

[Braven]

A -5 debuff on resolve means that every attack targeting will have 10% more chance to hit/crit/graze, which is irrelevant when you can never miss, but very important when you hard CC misses half the time.

Well, it never is so drastic that you always miss. And wasting power source to slightly debuff then cast is worse then just casting the same spell twice most of the time. Two rolls of the die is better than one. And if you are lucky in the first cast, then you just saved a spell and time. Lets say you only had a 1 in 6 chance of hitting (16.6%). The example 10% increased chance to hit would make this 26.6%. Except it is not really 26.6% because you could miss with your debuffing attack making it still 16.6%. If instead of debuffing, you cast the same spell twice, there is a 11 in 36 chance (30.5%) for at least one to hit and it is possible both hit. It is extremely rare to have such a low base chance to hit and it is still better simply casting twice. Debuffs only really make sense if you will cast many spells targeting that defense after debuffing (before the duration runs out or they die). Since you are limited in spell casts, and enemies tend to die in very few hits, the best defense “debuff” is one that targets deflection so you can follow it with several weak melee attacks against a high health enemy with high defenses. Other than that one specific situation, it is better to just not debuff when the debuff amount is so minor.

 

This is the same reason it can be better to duel-weild to land more crits vs using one-handed style’s +12 accuracy bonus. More hits also provide more opportunities to crit. Really depends how much of a difference there is between accuracy and defense to know which is better.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Braven

[Braven]

My proposal for making debuffs better, without being over powered, is to simply reduce the cast time. Single target debuffs should be near instant; maybe a little longer for deflection ones since multiple characters can target the enemy. AOE debuffs should be faster than casting damage spells, AOE buffs, or “hard” CC like paralyze and charm.

 

I am not sure why wizard gets instant buffs, yet debuffs have long cast times and require an accuracy roll unlike buffs. Unlike buffs, none of the duration is wasted because, while enemies die, your character are expected not to. Thus buffs run thier full course. Also, no accuracy is needed for buffs so you can dump your perception and hold a large shield without penalties if you are the party buffer. Debuffs should be better than buffs because debuff specialists will gimp themselves if they dump perception or use a shield.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Braven