Has Obsidian Talked about the state of the Might Stat for Damage Dealers?

[Torm51]

Is it me or is every single DPS build Max DEX, PER and INT?  What happened to Might?

[Prince of Lies]

Single-target weapon-based DPS builds would prioritize Might over Intellect unless you're using DOTs.  

[AndreaColombo]

MIG is progressively less important the more damage bonuses you stack.

 

DEX is king because, as mentioned already in the backer beta days, unlike in the first game in Deadfire there is no limit to how many speed bonuses you can benefit from. The inability to ever reach 0 recovery means stacking speed never ceases to pay dividends.

[xzar_monty]

Is it me or is every single DPS build Max DEX, PER and INT?  What happened to Might?

 

It doesn't really matter. You can very easily beat anyone regardless.

[Torm51]

MIG is progressively less important the more damage bonuses you stack.

 

DEX is king because, as mentioned already in the backer beta days, unlike in the first game in Deadfire there is no limit to how many speed bonuses you can benefit from. The inability to ever reach 0 recovery means stacking speed never ceases to pay dividends.

Don’t you think that’s crappy? It’s an rpg different attributes should matter. If it’s the same attributes over and over you aren’t building a character might as well play Doom. Plug and play fight. Edited November 20, 2018 by Torm51

[AndreaColombo]

I agree. I wanted 0 recovery but I was in the minority.

[Torm51]

Well that’s partly my fault I skipped the beta to be surprised so I had no voice but no zero recovery I feel is just bad design. All these 20 DEX ninjas is dumb, take it from someone who wore modern body armor for a living and in combat..it severely reduces your DEX...I’m one of those guys that feel that the heavier your armor the more your DEX should be capped at like 12.

Edited November 20, 2018 by Torm51

[InsaneCommander]

Make the character you want, have fun. As xzar_monty said, you'll win anyway.

 

My next character will be a sorcerer with max MIG. I don't care if it is good, I want to see all reactivity. My first character had high DEX and PER. This one will have MIG and INT and in my third pt I'll choose CON and RES.

[Gromnir]

Well that’s partly my fault I skipped the beta to be surprised so I had no voice but no zero recovery I feel is just bad design. All these 20 DEX ninjas is dumb, take it from someone who wore modern body armor for a living and in combat..it severely reduces your DEX...I’m one of those guys that feel that the heavier your armor the more your DEX should be capped at like 12.

 

being part o' the beta woulda' left you more confused as might, for a considerable amount o' time, were OP.  then might became strength and resolve-- the split implemented for balance reasons.  in any event, strength/might stacking were the clear win 'til almost game release when josh finally responded to a post 'bout might behaving badly indicating he had been unaware o' the issue and would endeavour to address the problem.  the black humor o' the situation being beta folks had been bemoaning broken op might since initial beta release, but since josh (and every other obsidian developer) were apparent only paying attention to something awful and reddit posts, he were blissful unaware o' an issue o' which beta testers were cognizant and discussing for months.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 20, 2018 by Gromnir

[hilfazer]

Higher damage per hit gets better through armor... oh wait, it's a Deadfire thread.

[InsaneCommander]

the black humor o' the situation being beta folks had been bemoaning broken op might since initial beta release, but since josh (and every other obsidian developer) were apparent only paying attention to something awful and reddit posts, he were blissful unaware o' an issue o' which beta testers were cognizant and discussing for months.

 

Black humor indeed.

[Gromnir]

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/94949-should-might-stay-multiplicative-or-return-to-additive/?p=1959119

 

so folks might see-to-believe. november 2017. were multiple threads such as the one linked and once might became strength, the same debates were reinvigorated.  were might behavior posts in main beta discussion board and build board and bug board.  ubiquitous.

 

so, how were it possible for obsidian to be unaware o' the manner in which might were behaving in deadfire 'til immediate preceding game release? 

 

*shrug*

 

only way we can explain such ignorance is to conclude beta feedback from the community posted on these boards were ignored. 

 

we may seem over harsh, but the might oversight is one o' many and such failure should constitute a learning moment for obsidian.

 

 

am hopeful obsidian remembers the lesson. 'course we recognize the impotence o' posting on obsidian's boards as this ain't where obsidian is tracking feedback.  

 

HA! Good Fun! 

[thelee]

Is it me or is every single DPS build Max DEX, PER and INT?  What happened to Might?

 

I took a look at stats: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/106384-mechanics-stats-weapons-and-rules-of-thumb/

 

TL;DR - like other people said, might is an additive bonus so having other damage bonuses reduces the net impact of might. In addition, due to the way Deadfire handles armor, grazes are particularly punishing for damage bonuses, so might doesn't even come close to adding 3% damage (ignoring all other damage bonuses) on a graze (the gory details: it's a non-linear climb out of the graze penalty). Perception, on the other hand, benefits significantly because it helps you graze less (which as I've said are really bad for damage bonuses), and in cases where you are under penetrating the armor, helps you crit more, and critting gives you +50% PEN, which can move you up penetration categories and give you a huge effective damage boost.

 

On lower difficulties, might and perception are very nearly equal and you should probably balance them. (both provide roughly +2% net damage per point on average)

 

On higher difficulties, you should probably invest in perception first (though dex is still king). (both provide roughly +2% net damage per point, but perception is actually very slightly better due to PEN issues)

 

For healers and defensive characters, accuracy isn't as important so might is more important.

Edited November 20, 2018 by thelee

[Purudaya]

Might is still an important stat for healers and damage-focused wizards. It's not as crucial for single-target melee DPS, but that doesn't mean it's implemented badly - pillars is actually better about making all stats at least somewhat relevant to each class than most other RPGs (melee fighters in the BG series could ignore pretty much every stat aside from STR and CON). I think the problem is that people still associate might with physical prowess, which isn't really how it works in the PoE system. That said, it would be nice if it gave something like +0.1 PEN per tick or something; it would give some badly needed help to two-handed tank builds (at least on PotD).

[uuuhhii]

might will be popular if might add penetration

but unlikely

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

(melee fighters in the BG series could ignore pretty much every stat aside from STR and CON)

 

and DEX. every single class in BG was obliged to max DEX - esp frontliners - theres a reason bioware just thought 'fk it' and gave, like, half of their NPCs 17+ DEX in BG2.

 

CON just had to be good enough. ur hp pools not hugely relevant with low enough AC and the right defensive spells + gear.

 

edit: true you could just dump INT and WIS with no consequences, so ur point holds. I used to max CHA as lot just so i could buy **** without mucking about with the ring of human influence.

 

incidentally, 3.5e/pathfinder suffers a bit from this, but with opposite classes. wizards can ignore everything except INT and do their job just fine. martial classes potentially need 13 INT for combat expertise, 13 DEX for dodge, CHA for divine grace etc.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Triple - A Foxy Lad

[Purudaya]

 

(melee fighters in the BG series could ignore pretty much every stat aside from STR and CON)

 

and DEX. every single class in BG was obliged to max DEX - esp frontliners - theres a reason bioware just thought 'fk it' and gave, like, half of their NPCs 17+ DEX in BG2.

 

CON just had to be good enough. ur hp pools not hugely relevant with low enough AC and the right defensive spells + gear.

 

edit: true you could just dump INT and WIS with no consequences, so ur point holds. I used to max CHA as lot just so i could buy **** without mucking about with the ring of human influence.

 

incidentally, 3.5e/pathfinder suffers a bit from this, but with opposite classes. wizards can ignore everything except INT and do their job just fine. martial classes potentially need 13 INT for combat expertise, 13 DEX for dodge, CHA for divine grace etc.

 

 

That's right, good catch - I forgot about the AC adjustment (and THAC0 bonus if you're going ranged). You could still ignore half of the stat pool, though - I never bothered with maxing CHA or using the RoHI because it doesn't take too long before you have more money than you need. Wizards were just as simple... max INT (and WIS if you intend to use wish/limited wish) and DEX, moderate CON. Come to think of it, I'm not sure of any single class that doesn't have at least 2 dump stats.

 

Edited November 21, 2018 by Purudaya

[Torm51]

This has been a really good thread. Thanks guys I appreciate the input. I also think if might added some PEN it would be attractive. That said since I like Paladin front line types I like to add some fort to my already good fort on PoTD so I manage a way to sneak in might. I make up for the flat 10 PER on PoTD by going single handed and gaining + 12 ACC adding to my already +10 ACC with FoD and ring of Flame which adds another +10 ACC to my FoD. I’ve got swashbuckler DW DPS Eder best by 1k damage so far at level 8, maybe that’s not saying much since he isn’t built optimally.

 

This build in the early game reliably downs tough enemies like young drakes and pulverized the Woedican Crusaders (large shield fronliners of the group) even with their mid 70s deflection I rolled hits and crits even before debuffs landed.

 

Lots of graze to hit and hit to crit so far works well. Unsure about the late game.

 

PS the might def still worse than having the PER but I feel that the + 32 on FODs makes up for it. Plus my LOH, recovery and white flames benefit from might

Edited November 21, 2018 by Torm51

[xzar_monty]

 

 

(melee fighters in the BG series could ignore pretty much every stat aside from STR and CON)

 

and DEX. every single class in BG was obliged to max DEX - esp frontliners - theres a reason bioware just thought 'fk it' and gave, like, half of their NPCs 17+ DEX in BG2.

 

CON just had to be good enough. ur hp pools not hugely relevant with low enough AC and the right defensive spells + gear.

 

edit: true you could just dump INT and WIS with no consequences, so ur point holds. I used to max CHA as lot just so i could buy **** without mucking about with the ring of human influence.

 

incidentally, 3.5e/pathfinder suffers a bit from this, but with opposite classes. wizards can ignore everything except INT and do their job just fine. martial classes potentially need 13 INT for combat expertise, 13 DEX for dodge, CHA for divine grace etc.

 

 

That's right, good catch - I forgot about the AC adjustment (and THAC0 bonus if you're going ranged). You could still ignore half of the stat pool, though - I never bothered with maxing CHA or using the RoHI because it doesn't take too long before you have more money than you need. Wizards were just as simple... max INT (and WIS if you intend to use wish/limited wish) and DEX, moderate CON. Come to think of it, I'm not sure of any single class that doesn't have at least 2 dump stats.

 

 

There's a couple of spots where abysmally low CHA doesn't give you certain dialogue options (although this might, just, be mod content), and there's at least one spot where you can't give the right answer if your WIS+INT isn't good enough.

 

So if you're a ridiculously strong and dexterously athletic stupid pig-ugly brute, you may suffer some. But very little, it has to be said.

[MaxQuest]

OT: As was already said by other forumers, MIG is still good for spell damage dealers. And especially for those who deal DoT/periodic damage (because of multiplicative stacking with INT coef, for total damage calculation).

 

Also we can take into account the limited amount of spell/ability usages.

A very raw example would be: you have 4 full attack usages. You can use all 4 of them in 10s. Or you can use only 3 in those 10s, but each will deal x1.33 more damage. That's a theoretical case for 21DEX/10MIG vs 10DEX/21MIG. Although in practice there are more variables to take into account, and first of all your current damage coefficient. For instance for a rogue who already has 200%+ during Eliminating Blow, getting +30% from MIG is not a big bonus. Thus the player might want to run the math for each specific case.

 

All these 20 DEX ninjas is dumb, take it from someone who wore modern body armor for a living and in combat..it severely reduces your DEX...I’m one of those guys that feel that the heavier your armor the more your DEX should be capped at like 12.

I'd like to hear more about this)

It's not an easy task to figure out a model that feels natural but still can be easily described. And I am curious what cap (your experience tells you) feels right.

 

E.g. you have 3 guys:

a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX

b). 10 MIG, 14 DEX

c). 10 MIG, 24 DEX

 

If they wear the same heavy armor:

v1. should their [DEX] be capped at the same 12 spot?

v2. their [DEX BONUS] should be lowered multiplicatively, let's say by 50%, so their DEX becomes: 11, 12, 17

v3. their [DEX] gets lowered by a fixed value (and if gets to zero - they can't wear it)

v4. other, or combination of the above

 

 

And another question, with other 3 guys:

a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX

b). 14 MIG, 12 DEX

c). 24 MIG, 12 DEX

Does wearing the same heavy armor impacts them the same?

 

Plus, can we say that there can be heavy armor and there can be clumsy armor?

The first one limits your agility mainly due to it's weight. And this can be partially mediated by having high strength.

While clumsy armor limits the agility of your movement nevertheless?

Edited November 21, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Torm51]

OT: As was already said by other forumers, MIG is still good for spell damage dealers. And especially for those who deal DoT/periodic damage (because of multiplicative stacking with INT coef, for total damage calculation).

 

Also we can take into account the limited amount of spell/ability usages.

A very raw example would be: you have 4 full attack usages. You can use all 4 of them in 10s. Or you can use only 3 in those 10s, but each will deal x1.33 more damage. That's a theoretical case for 21DEX/10MIG vs 10DEX/21MIG. Although in practice there are more variables to take into account, and first of all your current damage coefficient. For instance for a rogue who already has 200%+ during Eliminating Blow, getting +30% from MIG is not a big bonus. Thus the player might want to run the math for each specific case.

 

 

All these 20 DEX ninjas is dumb, take it from someone who wore modern body armor for a living and in combat..it severely reduces your DEX...I’m one of those guys that feel that the heavier your armor the more your DEX should be capped at like 12.

I'd like to hear more about this)

It's not an easy task to figure out a model that feels natural but still can be easily described. And I am curious what cap (your experience tells you) feels right.

 

E.g. you have 3 guys:

a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX

b). 10 MIG, 14 DEX

c). 10 MIG, 24 DEX

 

If they wear the same heavy armor:

v1. should their [DEX] be capped at the same 12 spot?

v2. their [DEX BONUS] should be lowered multiplicatively, let's say by 50%, so their DEX becomes: 11, 12, 17

v3. their [DEX] gets lowered by a fixed value (and if gets to zero - they can't wear it)

v4. other, or combination of the above

 

 

And another question, with other 3 guys:

a). 10 MIG, 12 DEX

b). 14 MIG, 12 DEX

c). 24 MIG, 12 DEX

Does wearing the same heavy armor impacts them the same?

 

Plus, can we say that there can be heavy armor and there can be clumsy armor?

The first one limits your agility mainly due to it's weight. And this can be partially mediated by having high strength.

While clumsy armor limits the agility of your movement nevertheless?

@max

 

My experience was that Marines who were significantly more agile and athletic than me without armor on we’re A LOT less agile and athletic than me once the armor went on. For example in a physical fitness test that is done without armor on those that were more athletic than me would run around a 18 to 19 minute 3 mile run beating me by about 1 minute, when a combat fitness test would be conducted in body armor a 800 meter sprint conducted for the run portion those same individuals would only beat me by about 10 seconds.

 

The same thing would happen on the obstacle courses, without armor the more athletic guys would beat me by a good a good margin, once the armor came on the gap would close significantly.

 

Another example with modern body armor on unbuttoning your pants to pee is a chore lol, at least what was issued to me.

 

Lastly the weapon system you are using is a big deal. I was a forward observer so if we went on a small 5 man insertion we did not have room for a machine gunner so I doubled as our machine gunner, once you are carrying a medium machine gun (M240B, a debatable tactical decision IMO but wasn’t my call) and body armor there is no more running. Just shuffling and walking. On normal 30 man platoon sized patrols I had a rifle, things are more manageable at this point but still difficult, you can run but At a slower rate. Things like trying to scratch the small of your back get difficult etc

Edited November 21, 2018 by Torm51

[MaxQuest]

That's some interesting observations.

But it also looks to me that the above examples point to a partially different conclusion.

 

I.e. we can make the following proportion:

> no armor - 4828m - by 1 minute faster than you

> armor on - 800m - by 10s faster than you

 

So the marines that were significantly more agile and athletic than you, were basically getting a 10s lead every 800m. Both armored and unarmored. Thus they were faster by the same coefficient.

 

Btw, if they were running 3 miles in 18.5 minutes on average, and beating you by 1 minute, means you were only 5.4% slower

 

The same thing would happen on the obstacle courses, without armor the more athletic guys would beat me by a good a good margin, once the armor came on the gap would close significantly.

Could it be that when armored you were always told to run shorter distances?

If so - the gap would close, even if they still run faster by the same percentage.

 

so I doubled as our machine gunner, once you are carrying a medium machine gun (M240B, a debatable tactical decision IMO but wasn’t my call) and body armor there is no more running. Just shuffling and walking. On normal 30 man platoon sized patrols I had a rifle, things are more manageable at this point but still difficult, you can run but At a slower rate. Things like trying to scratch the small of your back get difficult etc

Hmm, let's think what conclusions can be made.

> armor + weapon weight reduce move speed. Up to the point where you can't run. That's kind of expected. Plus there is inertia that reduced the ability for abrupt movements. Body mass and strength can help though.

> backscratching is difficult, either because of the extra weight that pushes on arm (and hinders fine motor skills); or because armor limits your arm movement range; or because scratching through armor is not as satisfactory; or a combination of the above)

 

 

There is also a point to be made about agility vs dexterity.

The first one, as ability to move quickly and easily is more affected by armor weight.

While skilful use of hands is more affected by the gloves, weight of your weapons and part of armor that is on the arms themselves.

Edited November 21, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Torm51]

Very true, something to be said between dex and agi. And the movement limit on your armor really is range of motion. Gloves do mess with fine motor skills. Still I think at least Might/CON requirement for heavy armor should be a thing. Someone with a dumped 3 CON is going to get exhausted moving around in body armor after a minute or less sometimes lol

Runs in armor were shorter due to the fact that they are trying to simulate how long you will be running in combat with armor. You are never going to run or jog for 3 miles straight in a firefight. So Ya definitely. We did run for miles with it on but it was just punishment for doing something stupid or bad performance. I know I ran my guys for very long periods in armor for that reason but the training value is limited.

I still think armor is an equalizer to a point. I knew a guy who was a semi pro body builder and trained with him on machine gun ranges, he was quite a bit stronger than me but he could not run with a MG either. The extent of how much armor reduces your speed/movement I don’t know but it does. And ya this could be different than dex but even fine motor skills suffer to a point.

Edited November 21, 2018 by Torm51

[MaxQuest]

I think at least Might/CON requirement for heavy armor should be a thing. Someone with a dumped 3 CON is going to get exhausted moving around in body armor after a minute or less sometimes lol

Exhaustion makes a lot of sense when designer wants the system to feel natural.

But often a direct exhaustion mechanic is omited in games:

- in mmorpgs: because in pvp it would skew majority of builds towards insane burst and focus fire

- in single player: because the player doesn't want to wait... much.

Additionally exhaustion mechanic that feels right would likely be quite complex with some sort of curve, and dependency on STR, CON, AGI, stamina spent, current hp and vigor status effects.

 

Many games use indirect exhaustion though. Like limited resource pool, or limited spell/ability usages. That's the approach PoE uses.

Perhaps there could be a relation between CON and resource pool... like if you have higher CON it will take longer to get tired, i.e. the character will be able to deliver more special attacks.

But the pool and CON are discrete. So there would have to be some mapping table...

 

Another way to simulate exhaustion could be: character's MIG bonus changes through combat as function of time. Like you start the fight with a MIG penalty of -5. This penalty at first is getting reduced over 10s, and after that it starts to build up again. How fast - is inversely proportional to character's CON. I.e. character is getting exhausted and can't exert the same amount of force. Which indirectly makes his heavy armor less effective. Plus there could be special effects like Frenzy - during which effective MIG is not going down.

 

But, huh, I have aberrated from your comment

So back to it. Sure, it would make sense to have heavy armor, some minimum MIG/CON requirement or even combination sum, like some plate armors having min 15 MIG+CON.

But there is a fine line for how high this requirement can go in PoE. Because stat system is special here, as it almost like meant to support as high amount of builds as possible, and any armor for everyone concept. And it would be pity to lose the control freak wizards which offtank in heavy armor with something like 2/10/18/18/20/10 spread. Unless there was some spells like Levity, Feather, Vigor, that would partially alleviate the armor requirement.

 

I still think armor is an equalizer to a point.

That's what I "feared".

Because in this case, designer can't just put something as simple as "decreases your DEX by 30%" property on plate armor.

 

It would have to be closer to:

> decreases your [DEX bonus] portion above 12 by 50%, or even the following monstrosity:

> decreases your [DEX] by a fixed round{2 + (1/DEX + 1) * (DEX - min(DEX, 14)) / 2}, which would result in the following DEX change:

- unarmored->armored

- 8->6

- 10->8

- 12->10

- 14->12

- 16->13

- 18->14

- 20->15

- 30->20

 

But a good mechanic, has to be both natural and relatively simple..

Edited November 22, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

A good reason to raise MIG (besides fitting your role) is self heals. So Fighters, Barbs, Paladins and such are classes that might profit from the increased dmg AND the stronger heals. In addition to that: higher Fortitude!

 

PER and DEX need to be more potent than MIG when it comes to weapon damage - because they lack the "tertiary" effect that MIG has. They "only" raise ACC/speed and a defense (now that interrupt chance got removed from PER). And they raise Reflex - which is still among the more unimportant defenses in my book.

 

Because of that I think MIG is in a good place.

 

Also, as MaxQuest said: everybody who deals damage with DoTs should raise MIG. It's the only thing (besides PL in some cases) that affects the height of otherwise "fixed" ticks from Gouging/Arterial/Toxic Strike and the like.

Edited November 22, 2018 by Boeroer