Smoke Veil Upgrade Questions, no more stealth? Veil still useful?

[QuiteGoneJin]

I have never upgraded it, I am wondering if doing so makes you loose access to Veil as it seems like the upgrades don't put you back into stealth?

[mosspit]

Yes, the 2nd upgrade has no stealth component. Didn't try the 3rd upgrade but it should not have the stealth component too.

[dunehunter]

Save the game, upgrade smoke veil and check if it gives u stealth, if not reload.

Edited June 12, 2018 by dunehunter

[QuiteGoneJin]

Not a bad idea Dune, however was curious about level 3+ as well. but ty. The mod I use has shadowing cost 2 guile so I am considering having shadowing upgraded as well as smoke veil.  he also lowered the toxic strikes to 2, should be a fun test on POTD w/ DeadlyDeadfire. 

Edited June 13, 2018 by QuiteGoneJin

[dunehunter]

Imo some of the fun is once u have some idea, go do some test or experiment in the game. At least to me

[thelee]

I'm pretty sure the 2nd selection is a distinct skill from smoke veil that just happens to have smoke veil as a prereq. On the other hand, the 3rd selection is an upgrade to smoke cloud. The same thing also happens with Escape -> Shadowing Beyond or Escape -> Shadow Step (distinct abilities that have Escape as a prereq).

 

AFAICT, obsidian has not made any skills upgrades unless they were strictly better (i.e. better in every way) than the skills that were their prereqs. If it's not strictly better, it is instead a distinct ability. (Example of strictly better upgrade: mule kick upgrades knock down because it does everything knock down but more. Example of different so not an upgrade: Pallegina's sworn enemy is a distinct ability because while it does do more than sworn enemy, it also has double the zeal cost.)

 

Back to the Escape examples, those are new abilities, not upgrades, because while they do everything Escape can do and more, they also cost sigificantly more guile.

Edited June 13, 2018 by thelee

[Braven]

I'm pretty sure the 2nd selection is a distinct skill from smoke veil that just happens to have smoke veil as a prereq. On the other hand, the 3rd selection is an upgrade to smoke cloud. The same thing also happens with Escape -> Shadowing Beyond or Escape -> Shadow Step (distinct abilities that have Escape as a prereq).

 

AFAICT, obsidian has not made any skills upgrades unless they were strictly better (i.e. better in every way) than the skills that were their prereqs. If it's not strictly better, it is instead a distinct ability. (Example of strictly better upgrade: mule kick upgrades knock down because it does everything knock down but more. Example of different so not an upgrade: Pallegina's sworn enemy is a distinct ability because while it does do more than sworn enemy, it also has double the zeal cost.)

 

Back to the Escape examples, those are new abilities, not upgrades, because while they do everything Escape can do and more, they also cost sigificantly more guile.

Upgrades are not always strictly better. Sometimes the extra perk just gets suppressed or is not needed and the original effect is worse due to less power levels affecting it. Paladin Lay on Hands is an example of this. If you were already getting the inspiration bonus from another source (or don’t need it), you are better off just not using the upgrade at all since it will heal for less and not last quite as long due to PL.

 

This is not consistent by the way. Sometimes upgrades do benefit from the original power’s tier as far as PL goes. “Branded enemy” paladin upgrade is one such example.

 

BTW, Branded enemy doesn’t get a lot of love here, but it can be quite powerful. It lasts forever ticking away and hits 100% of the time. In theory, you could just dump perception and intelligence and kill every enemy in the game that is not fire immune with just one cast of the branding. Just need to find a way to not die. I was doing about 11 damage a tick with it at level 7 with no PL boosters. With the cheap zeal cost and near instant cast time, you can just cast it on everyone at the start of battle. I learned how deadly it can be when NPCs cast it on my normally unhittable max defenses build.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Braven

[thelee]

 

I'm pretty sure the 2nd selection is a distinct skill from smoke veil that just happens to have smoke veil as a prereq. On the other hand, the 3rd selection is an upgrade to smoke cloud. The same thing also happens with Escape -> Shadowing Beyond or Escape -> Shadow Step (distinct abilities that have Escape as a prereq).

 

AFAICT, obsidian has not made any skills upgrades unless they were strictly better (i.e. better in every way) than the skills that were their prereqs. If it's not strictly better, it is instead a distinct ability. (Example of strictly better upgrade: mule kick upgrades knock down because it does everything knock down but more. Example of different so not an upgrade: Pallegina's sworn enemy is a distinct ability because while it does do more than sworn enemy, it also has double the zeal cost.)

 

Back to the Escape examples, those are new abilities, not upgrades, because while they do everything Escape can do and more, they also cost sigificantly more guile.

Upgrades are not always strictly better. Sometimes the extra perk just gets suppressed or is not needed and the original effect is worse due to less power levels affecting it. Paladin Lay on Hands is an example of this. If you were already getting the inspiration bonus from another source (or don’t need it), you are better off just not using the upgrade at all since it will heal for less and not last quite as long due to PL.

 

 

Hm, the PL scaling is something I didn't think about. It sounds like a bug if some abilities retain their original PL while others get the new PL with less scaling. If you have specific examples, you should report it in the bug. I would only think it's not a bug if it was consistent one way or the other.

 

By the way, ignoring the PL issue, even if the extra perk is suppressed the fact that you even have that perk to be suppressed still means it is strictly better. Having the option (even if suppressed) is better than not having the option at all.

[Braven]

PL levels are normally the difference between the “tier” of the spell/ability and your current tier. Some, but not all (yay inconsistency) abilities you get as part of your class mechanics that you didn't explicitly pick are considered ”tier zero”, and begin with a +1 PL bonus. Why do you need built-in power scaling for an ability you have at character level 1?

 

Greater Lay on Hands is not actually an upgrade, despite having the exact same healing effect and a very similar name as Lay on Hands. You can tell because the non-upgraded version still shows in the ability bar. Abilities like monk’s lightning strikes replaces swift strikes completely, which is how you know it is an upgrade. Same with branded enemy and sworn enemy. Sadly, nothing in the UI lets you know before you pick if an ability replaces an existing ability (keeping the lower tier for PL scaling) or is actually a completely seperate ability that just has a requirement of owning the proceeding ability.

 

I think the “bug” is that the devs made Greater Lay on Hands a seperate ability when it should, in my opinion, have been an upgrade instead. It just makes intuitive sense that it is an upgrade. Also, upgrades should appear different than non-upgrades in the user interface so you at least know what you are getting.

 

I wish abilities with upgrade paths were always treated as upgrades and not seperate abilities and that the base ability is used for power level scaling. That would remove a lot of the confusion and lack of transparency regarding mechanics and make the upgraded version always better.

 

While options are always nice to have, they don’t come free. Upgrading costs a valuable ability point, which could have been used for something like a +10 passive fortitude which stacks with everything all the time.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Braven

[thelee]

Greater Lay on Hands is not actually an upgrade, despite having the exact same healing effect and a very similar name as Lay on Hands. You can tell because the non-upgraded version still shows in the ability bar. Abilities like monk’s lightning strikes replaces swift strikes completely, which is how you know it is an upgrade. Same with branded enemy and sworn enemy. Sadly, nothing in the UI lets you know before you pick if an ability replaces an existing ability (keeping the lower tier for PL scaling) or is actually a completely seperate ability that just has a requirement of owning the proceeding ability.

 

 

Wow I even use greater lay on hands and never noticed till just now that I still have the original lay on hands. Definitely seems like a bug to me.