Firebrand has a lash now - and is finally a serious weapon

[AndreaColombo]

If a summoned weapon is not superior by a substantial margin to "physical" weapons available, it's not rational to use it as: 1. requires resource investment 2. needs to be summoned 3. has a duration. And I repeat, if a summoned weapon benefits from feature affecting spells, its straightforward inconsistency. 

 

I agree with the first part; not so much with the second.

 

Firebrand is never a "real" weapon. It is always the effect of a spell, like the explosion of a Fireball except it lasts longer and takes the shape of a sword. It should benefit from Scion of the Flame; the inconsistency would be if it didn't.

[Aranduin]

Agreed with AndreColombo.

 

The summon weapons need a upgrade. If a nomral weapon is same or better why summmon' And the unique weapons are usually more powerful. In my opinion Obsidian could change them so that when you use Empowerment in summon weapons/armor win special abilities same unique weapons. Or when you have more level they win abilities.

Edited June 30, 2018 by Aranduin

[knownastherat]

Even the description states: Great-sword, Two-handed. It has all properties of a weapon. I understand it cannot be different because else the game mechanic could not treat it as a weapon in combat but that is the point, its a weapon. 

 

Effect of heating up solid steel is liquid steel. What is important here, with regards to interactions with other objects, is not that "it's still steel", but whether its liquid or solid. 

 

---

edit: well, you can all agree but it does not make your argument consistent 

Edited June 30, 2018 by knownastherat

[AndreaColombo]

Nvm.

Edited June 30, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[WHW]

Agreed with AndreColombo.

 

The summon weapons need a upgrade. If a nomral weapon is same or better why summmon' And the unique weapons are usually more powerful. In my opinion Obsidian could change them so that when you use Empowerment in summon weapons/armor win special abilities same unique weapons. Or when you have more level they win abilities.

Adding unique enhancements mirroring upgrading a normal unique, which are unlocked as you advance in power levels, would make them definitely fun and exciting to level up .

[knownastherat]

In-lore it could be, I can see that. 

[thelee]

If a summoned weapon is not superior by a substantial margin to "physical" weapons available, it's not rational to use it as: 1. requires resource investment 2. needs to be summoned 3. has a duration. And I repeat, if a summoned weapon benefits from feature affecting spells, its straightforward inconsistency. 

 

a summoned weapon does have to be substantially better, but that "substantial" is a pretty low amount in practice i think, and it has to be rooted in the PL that you get it. it doesn't even have to be strictly better, it can just offer something special.

 

i.e. spiritual weapon, firebrand, concelhaut's staff, kalakoth's minor blights, and to a certain extent the snake weapon spell are all low enough PL that they only have to be slightly better, or offer something slightly special. e.g. an auto-scaling to legendary weapon with a lash (+30% for spiritual weapon, +25% for firebrand) is a decent effect for a PL2 spell. In PoE1, level 1/2 spells were basically end-game weapons even though they didn't scale.

 

higher level weapons need to do more, and in practice i think they do. I haven't played with the wizard's stuff post 1.2-nerf, but the terrifying war bow, llengrath's warding staff, citzal's spirit lance are all great situational alternatives (the black bow was so stupid good against anything that didn't have resolve resistance, so the nerf/fix is needed i think). the only reason why i wouldn't put citzal's enchanted armory up there is because i don't actually want to wear breastplate on my wizard, even if it is scaled to legendary by endgame. (also it occasionally destroys my entire inventory, so that's a bummer)

 

my main beef with summoned weapons (and summons) is that they really need something other than duration to scale with power level. it could be minor, but right now power level and empowerment and conjurer subclass are essentially pointless exercises, which is not really what you want to do with an entire class of spells/abilities, not to mention an entire subclass.

 

EDIT: that being said, Obsidian buffed summoned weapons in poe1 because even though they were good, they weren't good enough that players felt like they were worth using. so maybe if enough of these types of threads pop up they'll buff them anyway, even if mathematically they appear to be generally good enough to me. i'm not sure how i feel about that, actually.

Edited July 1, 2018 by thelee

[knownastherat]

In practice I do not know, do not have data. Personally, +25% lash is not worth the "bother" (resource, cast, duration) for me. +25% does not decide encounters so to say, it is not significant in my understanding, and in case of Firebrand, Fire/Pierce damage type, it's situational. 

 

From what I gather from this thread is that it's not +25% lash that makes it let's say interesting, but synergies with passives, items, and classes. And I am not even making a comparison to Legendary uniques with various bonuses and which are Legendary (PEN/Damage) regardless of level. 

 

To use it for flavor sure, it's not going to make or break the game, but "to build around" it to make it worthwhile does not sound to me like very useful. 

Edited July 1, 2018 by knownastherat

[dunehunter]

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

[thelee]

In practice I do not know, do not have data. Personally, +25% lash is not worth the "bother" (resource, cast, duration) for me. +25% does not decide encounters so to say, it is not significant in my understanding, and in case of Firebrand, Fire/Pierce damage type, it's situational. 

 

From what I gather from this thread is that it's not +25% lash that makes it let's say interesting, but synergies with passives, items, and classes. And I am not even making a comparison to Legendary uniques with various bonuses and which are Legendary (PEN/Damage) regardless of level. 

 

To use it for flavor sure, it's not going to make or break the game, but "to build around" it to make it worthwhile does not sound to me like very useful. 

 

i think the whole point is that in deadfire they are trying to avoid summoned weapons being "build-around," at least trivially. In PoE1 level 1/2 spells could be end-game-worthy spells, and that seems a little busted in terms of game design. I think in deadfire they're trying to shoot for "sometimes a good idea" for using summoned weapons instead of "always a good idea."

 

i think there's merits to this approach. I certainly loved summoned weapons in poe1, and in deadfire it certainly is a little more of a stretch, though i will still cast spiritual weapon even mid-late game, depending (because lash damage is really good). +30% lash on an autoscale-to-legendary is kind of on-par with some of the blander legendary uniques, not bad for a PL2 spell (though obviously not POE1-style great).

Edited July 1, 2018 by thelee

[thelee]

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

 

honest question: how does this matter? summoned weapons scale with character level, not power level, so i'm not sure how multiclassing fits into this (i don't know how ogre form or spiritshifter scales, just summoned weapons.)

 

in one of my more recent post-1.1 potd runs i picked up fassina and used summoned weapons all the time. i didn't have any particular penetration issues (except with kalakoth's minor blights which has a stupidly low pen value but is being fixed in 1.2). am i missing something about multiclassing would do or how summoned weapons work?

Edited July 1, 2018 by thelee

[dunehunter]

 

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

 

honest question: how does this matter? summoned weapons scale with character level, not power level, so i'm not sure how multiclassing fits into this (i don't know how ogre form or spiritshifter scales, just summoned weapons.)

 

in one of my more recent post-1.1 potd runs i picked up fassina and used summoned weapons all the time. i didn't have any particular penetration issues (except with kalakoth's minor blights which has a stupidly low pen value but is being fixed in 1.2).

 

 

Of course it matters, you need to pick some class with pen bonus if you plan to build around summon weapons.

 

Summon weapons are among the weapons with the lowest pen in the game, because when it has fine enchantment, you will already get exceptional weapon, when it has exceptional, you will already get something superb. If someone can get through Potd with lowerst pen weapons, it's an issue of Potd too. 

 

And to elaborate my point more clearly, to overcome pen you either need:

 

1. switch weapons for different enemy;

2. multiclass devoted, berserker, monk or rogue for extra pen;

3. debuff enemy with some spells.

 

Since you plan on build with summon weapons or shifting, 1 is closed, so it's either u multclass a devoted, or use your wizard/bard to reduce enemy armor.

Edited July 1, 2018 by dunehunter

[WHW]

Best way to use Kalkoths at the moment is to be a martial class and just spend rest of your life crafting Kalkoth Scrolls. Rogue, Barbarian, Ranger or even Cipher use Blights much, much more effectively than a dedicated, single classed Conjurer. 

[thelee]

 

 

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

 

honest question: how does this matter? summoned weapons scale with character level, not power level, so i'm not sure how multiclassing fits into this (i don't know how ogre form or spiritshifter scales, just summoned weapons.)

 

in one of my more recent post-1.1 potd runs i picked up fassina and used summoned weapons all the time. i didn't have any particular penetration issues (except with kalakoth's minor blights which has a stupidly low pen value but is being fixed in 1.2).

 

 

Of course it matters, you need to pick some class with pen bonus if you plan to build around summon weapons.

 

 

Like I said, I ran with fassina throughout doing lots of summoned weapons (lit. custom AI script that would summon different weapons in different situations) and didn't notice any particular penetration problems except against enemies that anyone would have penetration problems against. I don't see why it's necessary.

Edited July 1, 2018 by thelee

[dunehunter]

 

 

 

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

 

honest question: how does this matter? summoned weapons scale with character level, not power level, so i'm not sure how multiclassing fits into this (i don't know how ogre form or spiritshifter scales, just summoned weapons.)

 

in one of my more recent post-1.1 potd runs i picked up fassina and used summoned weapons all the time. i didn't have any particular penetration issues (except with kalakoth's minor blights which has a stupidly low pen value but is being fixed in 1.2).

 

 

Of course it matters, you need to pick some class with pen bonus if you plan to build around summon weapons.

 

 

Like I said, I ran with fassina throughout doing lots of summoned weapons (lit. custom AI script that would summon different weapons in different situations) and didn't notice any particular penetration problems except against enemies that anyone would have penetration problems against. I don't see why it's necessary.

 

 

Summon weapons are among the weapons with the lowest pen in the game, because when it has fine enchantment, you will already get exceptional weapon, when it has exceptional, you will already get something superb. If someone can get through Potd with lowerst pen weapons, it's an issue of Potd too. 

[WHW]

I'm playing a Conjurer right now, and while I'm having a lot of fun with it, I'm aware that I could be doing identical stuff as a generalist, because nothing I do is actually influenced by Power Level in a meaningful (other than "extra duration to already encounter-long spells") way. There are some fun strategies you can use, like using a summon weapon spell, and then casting a phantom spell, spawning a phantom that copies your summoned stuff - I'm excited to see how strong it will be with the Blackbow - you probably can do something as good, if not better, using just a strong unique like The Red Hand or Frostseeker. 

The "weapon spell" I understand the least is probably Concelhaut's Draining Touch. It's a 3s cast 4s recovery spell that gives you one use of a medicore (about one shot of kalkoth, i feel?) damage weapon that heals you and has a chance to weaken the target, and then puts you again into recovery for 4s. I love the concept of the spell, but I have very hard time finding a reason to cast it over Kalkoths, using a normal weapon, using any other lvl3 spell, or even just using Parasitic Staff.

[thelee]

 

 

 

 

The problem with all summon weapons, including natural weapon of shifter, ogre form is, they don't scales well with new PoTD difficulty adjustment. PoTD enemy has +2 armor, which restrict what you can multiclass if you wanna play with summon weapons/shifting.

 

honest question: how does this matter? summoned weapons scale with character level, not power level, so i'm not sure how multiclassing fits into this (i don't know how ogre form or spiritshifter scales, just summoned weapons.)

 

in one of my more recent post-1.1 potd runs i picked up fassina and used summoned weapons all the time. i didn't have any particular penetration issues (except with kalakoth's minor blights which has a stupidly low pen value but is being fixed in 1.2).

 

 

Of course it matters, you need to pick some class with pen bonus if you plan to build around summon weapons.

 

 

Like I said, I ran with fassina throughout doing lots of summoned weapons (lit. custom AI script that would summon different weapons in different situations) and didn't notice any particular penetration problems except against enemies that anyone would have penetration problems against. I don't see why it's necessary.

 

 

Summon weapons are among the weapons with the lowest pen in the game, because when it has fine enchantment, you will already get exceptional weapon, when it has exceptional, you will already get something superb. If someone can get through Potd with lowerst pen weapons, it's an issue of Potd too. 

 

 

Summon weapons lagging behind stuff you find can certainly be true, but imho the vast majority of my levels were/are spent at par with weapons I find, barring some special cases (e.g. doing ship bounties and getting a superb saber at like level 6-7). That alone doesn't mean you need to multiclass (and what would you multiclass to, a devoted?); for the wizard in particular their summoned weapons do enough special stuff that even if it lags behind by an enchantment level it can still be worth using. 

 

I'm playing a Conjurer right now, and while I'm having a lot of fun with it, I'm aware that I could be doing identical stuff as a generalist, because nothing I do is actually influenced by Power Level in a meaningful (other than "extra duration to already encounter-long spells") way. There are some fun strategies you can use, like using a summon weapon spell, and then casting a phantom spell, spawning a phantom that copies your summoned stuff - I'm excited to see how strong it will be with the Blackbow - you probably can do something as good, if not better, using just a strong unique like The Red Hand or Frostseeker. 

Yeah definitely the dumbest part of the conjurer subclass is that you get like +5% to base duration of already very long spells and lose a lot in the process. That's why I feel like conjured weapons and summons really need something extra to scale with power level. 1.2 beta bumps it up to +2 bonus PL, and while that certainly boosts other subclasses, going from +5% base duration to +10% base duration doesn't really change that much. (Similar with Enchanter, though they have a wider variety of spells.)

 

That being said, Llengrath's Warding Staff and the Black Bow were so good that I used them almost unconditionally even when I had legendary unique weapons.

 

The "weapon spell" I understand the least is probably Concelhaut's Draining Touch. It's a 3s cast 4s recovery spell that gives you one use of a medicore (about one shot of kalkoth, i feel?) damage weapon that heals you and has a chance to weaken the target, and then puts you again into recovery for 4s. I love the concept of the spell, but I have very hard time finding a reason to cast it over Kalkoths, using a normal weapon, using any other lvl3 spell, or even just using Parasitic Staff.

 

Wow I totally didn't notice that it changed from poe1 from a direct-damage-at-melee-range spell to generating-a-one-shot-weapon. That's a lot of opportunity cost. :| It seems like an oversight because most of the other weapon summoning spells have 0 recovery (except for e.g. llengrath's warding staff, but it has an on-cast effect unlike most other weapons), and at the very least it seems like you shouldn't have to wait 4s to attempt an attack with a one-shot weapon.

Edited July 1, 2018 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Concelhaut's "Fist" is weird. If you use it with special full attacks like Crippling Strikes it doesn't disappear. You can use it over and over. If you do an auto-attack it disappears. I think it has something to do with the full attack and that your second weapon/fist will strike last. Bug I guess. And no, unfortunately Transcendent Suffering does not improve it.

 

Back to Firebrand:

 

Scion of Flame and also the Ring say: +1 PEN / +10 ACC with fire attacks, not only spells. An attack with Firebrand (whose primary dmg type is burn) can be seen as an attack with fire. And it is labeled and coded that way intentionally. Some other weapons like the Blackbow have the same features (primary dmg src corrode) but here the devs forgot to label its basic attacks as acid. Kalakoth's Minor Blights with the same feature are labeled again.

 

Does the +10 ACC of the Ring of Focused Flame get applied twice with Firebrand + FoD? Unfortunately not. It works with FoD alone and also on Firebrand without FoD. But since FoD + Firebrand still counts as one single attack with fire it's consistent and logical that there's only +1 PEN I think. We might wish there's two, but it would be cheesy.

 

Does Scion of Flame get applied twice? Nope. Same reason.

 

Does Fury + Scion add +2 PEN to Firebrand? No. The spell itself is a non-offensive one and just summons Firebrand. It can't get any PEN. The sword itself doesn't seem to fit the Fury criteria. I wouldn't be sad if it did though. But as is the Fury bonus only gets applied to the druid spells that have the keyword "elements", even if there are others that do corrode damage but then have the word "plant" instead for example. Firebrand itself doesn't seem to be labeled in a way that the Fury bonus gets applied.

 

Does Wildstrike profit in any way? No. Just adding a lash doesn't work. The basic attack has to be labeled as fire attack. Same with Eternal Devotion and Turning Wheel and so on.

 

My build ideas are not always min-maxed in terms of pure power. The whole package should be nice: There has to be consistency with a certain theme and style as well. So of course one can find a better weapon than Firebrand at some point. But the fun will come from coming up with an idea to make Firebrand viable for a whole playthrough. Before it was just a "maybe" because I thought the +10 ACC and the +1 PEN could somehow make it work if I would have those items/abilities anyway (as a druid who also casts). Now, with the +25% lash I'll give it a go.

 

I don't plan to use it as primary source of damage anyway. Of course as a Druid I will also cast lots of fire spells. That makes Barbarian with Bloodlust and Blood Thirst appealing as well, I agree. But my current char is a Devoted/Berserker and thus I still think I'll try out either non-shifting Fury or Animist/Bleak Walker's. Fury... I don't like the restrictions and that you can't choose your elemental form (always shock), but the name of the class itself sounds so fitting for a Bleak Walker's who's aggressive and cruel.

Edited July 1, 2018 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Interesting finds; I’ll be doing some testing and reporting later today.

[MaxQuest]

If you ask yourself why Firebrand has +25% lash while the priest weapons have 50%: Firebrand lasts a lot longer: 60sec (base).

Confirming Dr<3 reply regarding priest spiritual weapons having only +20% lash.

 

Here are their tooltips/values for v1.1.1:

 

 

Berath:

 

 

 

Eothas:

 

 

Gaun:

 

 

 

Magran:

 

 

 

Skaen:

 

 

 

Wael:

 

 

Woedica:

 

 

 

 

Tbh I only find Woedica Fists somewhat interesting.

While all other priest summoned weapons look to be strictly worse than regular uniques.

I mean why lose an ability point, a spell slot and 3s of cast time to summon Sword of Magran when you can take Watcher's Blade instead.

Or for example compare Rod of Wael with Watershaper's Focus.

 

 

Btw, is there any difference between +x% lash (listed in weapon properties, like on all spiritual weapons) and +x% damage (listed in weapon's damage field, like on firebrand)?

Edited July 1, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

@last question: no idea. It seems to work the same.

 

I don't understand why they nerfed the spiritual weapons while they buffed Firebrand. The faith attuned weapons only have half the duration and don't work with elemental talents - which makes them STRICTLY worse than Firebrand now. I guess it's not the same person(s) who nerf and buff around? What a mess!

 

ANd seriously: who determined that Spirutual Weapons need a nerf in the first place? I saw no build so far that used them on a regular basis.   

[Dr <3]

@boeroer: thks for the extensive reply

@maxquest: i think the answer is no, but have not tested it. Btw now i want to build a pugilist priest of woedica...

[MaxQuest]

I guess it's not the same person(s) who nerf and buff around?

I'm pretty sure that's indeed the case

 

Original design was making a heavy emphasis on "cool". Josh really likes to repeat this word ^^

At the same time, I recall Josh mentioning either on twitter or tumblr that they asked one of their min-max employee to go through all the abilities and items stuff. And these changes were incorporated in v1.1

 

ANd seriously: who determined that Spirutual Weapons need a nerf in the first place? I saw no build so far that used them on a regular basis.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Brb, checking again what's Josh definition of trash options is ^^

Edited July 1, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Yeah, but then this last person seems to be a bit sloppy - if he/she thinks that a Firebrand Great Sword with +25% burning lash and 60 sec duration is balanced with a Faith Attuned Great Sword with 20% and 30 secs duration. I will cut her/him some slack when it comes to Scion of Flame and the Ring of Focused Flame - which both push Firebrand further away from the spiritual weapons. Because this can be overlooked by somebody who doesn't play the game a lot and/or theorycrafts build all the times in their head. But the balance mismatch of the plain weapons is obvious now. How can you "balance" this in such a bad way?

 

It's like having a scale with 1 pound on the one side and 2 pounds on the other and in order to balance it you put 1 pound onto the weaker side and take away 0.5 pounts on the stronger...  

Edited July 1, 2018 by Boeroer

[mant2si]

Yeah, but then this last person seems to be a bit sloppy - if he/she thinks that a Firebrand Great Sword with +25% burning lash and 60 sec duration is balanced with a Faith Attuned Great Sword with 20% and 30 secs duration. I will cut her/him some slack when it comes to Scion of Flame and the Ring of Focused Flame - which both push Firebrand further away from the spiritual weapons. Because this can be overlooked by somebody who doesn't play the game a lot and/or theorycrafts build all the times in their head. But the balance mismatch of the plain weapons is obvious now. How can you "balance" this in such a bad way?

 

It's like having a scale with 1 pound on the one side and 2 pounds on the other and in order to balance it you put 1 pound onto the weaker side and take away 0.5 pounts on the stronger...

Yep, I also asked this question to myself when first time saw street-fighter passive which in summary give you more than all damage/recovery-reduce passives from barbarian tree :D