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Pillars of Eternity 1 has achieved a pretty good state by v3.0+.

And several bugs aside, it looks that Deadfire is slowly headed in the same direction.

 

But at the moment, there are still a range of spells, abilities and effects that are what we can call: trash (or trap) options. And also there a few things that are either a little too good, or allow to bypass certain design limitations.

 

And it's understandable that comparative power of talents/abilities/effects/etc in practice is not always the same as initially expected, due to overall complexity and changes in mechanics, plus emergent synergies, opportunity costs, variety of encounters, asymmetry in enemy defenses, armor threshold deadzones, max health 'policy' and so on.

 

So the idea is:

  • to come up with a collective set of fine-tuning adjustments
  • to cut-off the least impactful ones
  • and to end up with a list of community suggested changes. So if Obsidian decides to do any balance changes for v5.0.0, they could use this as some sort of survey data. And of course there is also hope that some of these could be modded.
The workflow is gonna be as follows:
  • There will be a preliminary list of suggested changes. And you can: a). suggest to add a change; b). suggest to remove an already added suggestion; or provide an alternative adjustment. Just don't forget to argumentate your opinion.
  • After awhile, I'll make a poll based on these.
  • When the poll is ended, a final list will be made. And it will include changes that have passed a certain threshold of unanimity.
The preliminary list of suggestions (to start the discussion) is:

 

 

 

I. AFFLICTIONS

 

> Preface: At the moment, defense related maluses from afflictions do not feel strong enough. There is a feel of nostalgia towards PoE1 where you would want to have a debuffer that would lower enemy defenses, such that your debilitator could reliably hard-cc the enemy, such that dps'ers could properly deal damage.

 

1. increase afflictions' attribute penalty from -5/-5/-5 to -5/-6/-7 per tier.

2. increase inspirations' attribute bonuses from +5/+5/+5 to +5/+6/+7 per tier.

3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex)

4. increase Paralyzed/Petrified effect from +25% incoming hit-to-crit to: +30% incoming hit-to-crit and +50% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex)

5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -15 deflection, -15 reflex

6. increase Prone duration:

a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s

b). increase to 2.0s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 6.0s

c). do not change

Reason: Prone doesn't feel impactful enough. 1s duration doesn't make big difference when compared to a simple Interrupt, since the enemy quickly gets up.

 

 

II: BESTIARY:

 

1. allow players to inspect creature abilities in their Bestiary (e.g. via right-click modal).

2. fix Bestiary max health calculation; and make it take into account deflection bonuses for enemies with shields and Weapon and Shield Style talent.

 

III: CHARACTER CREATION:

 

1. allow characters to buy abilities and passives in one go, without hitting Next button. This would be very handy when the player levels-up the companions that are not in his active party; and also for respecs. Because going 20 times through [abilities->skills->rewiew] screens is not fun.

 


IV. GENERAL STUFF:

 

1. adjust Spell Shaping PL bonus/malus from -5/+1 to -4/+2 or at least -5/+2

Reason: Spell Shaping is cool, but the bonus/penalty seem to be quite disproportionate, and the +1PL is hardly worth of extra micro. You can check these two threads for more info: one, two

 

2. unlock Deep Pockets for all classes. Afterall everyone can have or sew a few pockets?

Reason: everyone can sew a few extra pockets. Plus if the player wants to make a wizard that carries 6 different scrolls, why not allow him?

3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 20%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +25%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

6. buff flails' Arcing Blows passive from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze.

Reason: if you understand how Attack Resolution works, you know how low the current bonus is compared with +5 accuracy (from daggers/rapiers/clubs) in average scenario.

7. change sabre and stiletto profficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to "2 PEN for: -15 deflection vs melee".

Reason: damage dealers are not really ok with +2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery time tradeoff. They will just use another weapon type. Unless they have the said sabre/stiletto in the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks.

8. make Arcane Dampener ignore drug effects

10. allow consumables to benefit from perception. Explosives and poisons are currently close to unusable at higher levels. And high-ranked scrolls even with perception, will still have lower accuracy than a high-rank spell thrown by a single class caster.

10. add "Bonus Spell" talents to "vancian" casters. I.e. wizard/priest/druid can take:

- "Bonus Rank 1 Spell Usage" at rank 4

- "Bonus Rank 2 Spell Usage" at rank 5

- "Bonus Rank 3 Spell Usage" at rank 6

- "Bonus Rank 4 Spell Usage" at rank 7

- "Bonus Rank 5 Spell Usage" at rank 8

- "Bonus Rank 6 Spell Usage" at rank 9

Reason: if someone wants to cast an additional lower-level spell per encounter... let them have it.

 


V. RACIALS:

 

1. add scaling to Moon Godlike's Silver Tide: from fixed 10 to: 6 + 2 * CharacterLevel

Reason: getting healed for 10 is great when you have 30 hp; but it is really low later in the game, when characters have 200-400 hp.

2. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged damage scaling: from [{2..4} + 5% per PL] to: [{2..4} + 50% per PL], for it to stay relevan with the ever increasing health pools.

3. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged penetration scaling: from [7 + 0.25 per PL] to: [7 + 0.50 per PL]

4. add Fire keyword to Fire Godlike's Battle Forged ability and damage:

 


VI. CLASSES:

 

Barbarian/Mageslayer:

 

1. Allow potions usage, but at -35% healing/duration

 

-------------------------------

 

Cipher:

 

1. Mental Binding: Paralyze duration from 6s to 7s.

Reason: sturdy parties don't really need this; while glass-cannon parties face the problem that the cc-cipher doesn't have enough paralyze upkeep.

2. Mind Lance: change from "Interrupt on Hit" to "Interrupt on Graze".

Reason: this power, comparativelly, does really low damage. Let it take the interrupting niche.

3. Wild Leech: tier 1 affliction to enemy -> tier 2 affliction to enemy.

Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss.

4. Body Atonement: add +10 accuracy

5. Soul Echo: change +10% afflictions duration to +15% afflictions duration.

Reason: +10%, even with base 20s duration gives only 2s bonus, and that's only for afflictions vs will.

6. Bitting Whip: change +10% weapon damage bonus to +1 penetration with weapons and +10% raw damage lash

Reason: +10% weapon damage bonus from Biting Whip is a joke compared to +100% focus gain from Draining Whip. Ideally Draining Whip could be nerfed to +70%, but cipher powers have their damage and accuracy buffed to compensate

7. Puppet Master: when used on a charmed/dominated ally, let it decrease the duration of hostile effect by it's own duration.

8. Detonate: let the AoE trigger if the target was killed by Detonate raw damage.

Reason: at the moment, AoE only triggers if enemy was Near Death when the spell hit.

9. Time Parasite: increase the effect from 25% to 40%. But! disable value stacking on cipher.

Reason: at the moment it is possible to get +125% Action Speed if it hit 5 enemies.

10. Defensive Mindweb: disregard grazes. And perhaps lower duration 30s -> 20 or 25s

Reason: it breaks too easy.

11. Haunting Chains: make the effect re-apply every 3s for the duration; and hobbled to ignore dexterity resitance.

Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it.

 

Cipher/Beguiler:

1. Deception spells range: change from +20% to + 2m.

 

Cipher/Psion:

1. Soul Mind: Hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do.

 

Cipher/Soulblade:

1. Soul Annihilation raw damage: let it hit primary target only.

2. Soul Annihilation raw damage: stop benefiting from martial damage bonuses (like Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality).

3. ideally: revise SA completely. Make it playstyle more variate, instead of current lumberjacking. E.g:

 

 

Soul Blade Bonus:

- Gains "Soul Annihilation" ability: a soul-enhanced melee strike that consumes the cipher's remaining focus, converts half of it into raw damage and adds it to the delivered blow to the primary target.

 

- Shred powers weaken the souls of the affected enemies, decreasing their fortitude by 10 for 15 seconds.

 

- Echo powers used against such weakened enemies, place a "Mark of Echoed Agony" on the affected targets for 12s. Using "Soul Annihilation" against any marked target, also deals half of Annihilation's raw damage to the other marked enemies.

 

Soul Blade Penalty:

- Starts combat with empty focus.

- Deception powers cost 5 more focus

 

 

 

-------------------------------

 

Druid:

 

1. Stag Carnage: first of all fix it. Ideally it could be like barbarian's carnage, but have a limit duration of 12-15s.

2. Full Moon: add new (rank 5) learnable ability: use Empower charge to restore 1 spiritshift usage. At the end of combat that empower point is refunded.

Reason: non Shifter druids, are often stuck with just 1 spiritshift usage per encounter. Having ability to morph one more time is great, even at the cost of 1 talent point, and innability to empower something else.

3. Avenging Storm: let only weapons attacks (that deal damage) trigger the storm procs

 

-------------------------------

 

Fighter:

 

1. Deflection Bonus talent: increase from +4 to +6.

2. Critical Defence: change +10% incoming crit-to-tit to: 100% incoming crit-to-hit, but can only proc once in 8s.

3. Bonus Discipline talent: change 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit to 25% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit.

4. Clear Out: either adjust the effect, or edit the description: "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon in a large arc" -> "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon (or ranged weapon, if they have melee weapon in offhand) in a large arc". Or leave this as undocumented feature?

 

-------------------------------

 

Monk:

 

1. Turning Wheel: allow it to work with all weapon attacks, instead of melee only

2. Resonant Touch: limit stacking to 25

Reason: some bosses have phased behaviour where they use some new abilities at certain health thresholds. Accumulation of 500+ resonances allows to bypass the intended mechanics via insta-killing.

3. Blade Turning: disallow returning damage on attacker himself. Let hostile melee attacks be redirected to adjacent 3rd party only. And if there are none, no one takes damage.

4. Blade Turning: when redirecting disengagement attacks: redirect once, and remove Blade Turning buff (to prevent possible shenanigans)

5. Whispers of the Wind: let firearms and weapons that are marked as "Unfit For Melee", fire only once during WotW.

 

Monk/Shattered Pillar:

1. increase max wounds limit from 5 to 8..10

 

-------------------------------

 

Paladin:

 

1. Sacred Immolation: self damage should have the same duration as the fire-pulsation. And make sure that self-damage has the same base PL as the ability itself

2. Sacred Immolation: increase AoE from 2.5m to 3.5m

Reason: self damage is quite large; let's compensate with a larget AoE

3. Improved zealous focus: change 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

Reason: 5% hit is occuring on 2.5% of swings; and 2.5% is just too low

4. Zealous Charge: add +5% Action Speed bonus.

5. Virtuous Triumph: 25% chance on kill to gain 1 zeal -> 50% chance

6. Beacon Duration: 8s -> 10s

Reason: 2 zeal cost, and small aoe being centered at paladin

7. Aegis of Loyalty: make it work with weapon melee attacks. Not just with fists.

 

-------------------------------

 

Priest:

 

1. Auto-learn Litanies and Prayers when you reach respective level.

2. Repulsing Seal: add +15 accuracy

Reason: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery for 1s Prone in 1.5m AoE doesn't sound like a good deal.

3. Warding Seal: add +15 accuracy

4. Searing Seal: add +15 accuracy

5. Divine Mark: decrease cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

6. Crowns for the Faithful: change tier 1 inspirations with tier 2

Reason: long cast time and small AoE, do not warrant such a low effect. Especially provided the rank 8 alternatives.

 

Priest/of Eothas:

1. Substitute Minor Intercession which priest auto-learns at rank 6 with Enduring Beacon.

Reason: give this priest at least something from another class, yet is still fitting the theme.

 

-------------------------------

 

Rogue:

 

1. Riposte: additionally provides +10 deflection vs melee attacks if not Hit or Crit in the last 4s.

2. Sap: change confused + hobbled to immobilized + asleep. When asleep effect is broken - target is confused.

3. Wall of Shining Steel: effect changed: for the first 15 seconds after leaving stealth or invisibility, rogue's melee attacks have +5 stackable deflection bonus for 4 seconds. Durations scale with INT and PL.

Reason: it was too weak for high-level passive.

4. Backstab: make it efficient with light weapons as well. And several ways come to mind:

a). let Backstab deal 18 raw damage (+5% per PL); instead of the current +100% base damage bonus. But make it so that mechanically-wise it is not a separate attack, yet generates focus.

b). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a melee one-handed weapon. And extra bonus if it is light melee weapon.

c). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a light, melee one-handed weapon.

d). don't change.

Reason: currently Backstab is best used with weapons with high base damage. And it is a bit strange that daggers and stilletos are not efficient backstabing options.

5. Confounding Blind: change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked.

6. Adjust Finishing and Devastating Blow auto-generated descriptions.

 

-------------------------------

 

Wizard:

 

1. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: change -10 accuracy penalty to: -10 accuracy, -10 reflex and -15% action speed

Reason: it is currently too weak for single target spell.

2. Ghost Blades: increase the cone to 180 degrees.

3. Merciless Gaze: decrease cast time from 3.0s to 1.5s. OR increase hit-to-crit from 15% to 25%.

Reason: extra 7.5% chance to crit is hardly worth waisting 3.0s

 


 

VII. FIXES:

 

1. Fix AoE weapons not applying status effects to all enemies that received weapon damage.

2. Fix Brilliant Tactician passive, when there are multiple tacticians in party.

3. Fix weapons that have dual damage types not being able to deal damage to enemies that have keyword immunity; even if they are not immune to one of weapon's damage types.

4. Fix ApplyEffectsToPrimaryOnly property. Atm it has no effect.

5. Fix DoTs not benefiting from bonus penetration on crit.

 

VIII. REQUESTS:

 

1. Allow to specify for an ability, attack and status effects, what kind of bonuses it can benefit from: all, only_weapon_bonuses, only_spell_bonuses, just_pl, none.

 

 

 

 

Edit: Based on the first round of gathered feedback, here's the rev2 of the preliminary list:

 

 

 

I. AFFLICTIONS

1. -

2. -

3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs reflex)

4. increase Paralyzed/Petrified effect by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs reflex and deflection)

5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -10 deflection, -10 reflex

6. increase Prone duration:

  • a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s
  • b). -
  • c). do not change - actually this "do not change" clause applies to ALL of these suggestions
Reason: Prone doesn't feel impactful enough. 1s duration doesn't make big difference when compared to a simple Interrupt, since the enemy quickly gets up.

 

 

II: BESTIARY:

 

1. allow players to inspect creature abilities in their Bestiary (e.g. via right-click modal).

2. fix Bestiary max health calculation; and make it take into account deflection bonuses for enemies with shields and Weapon and Shield Style talent.

 

III: CHARACTER CREATION:

 

1. allow characters to buy abilities and passives in one go, without hitting Next button. This would be very handy when the player levels-up the companions that are not in his active party; and also for respecs. Because going 20 times through [abilities->skills->rewiew] screens is not fun.

 


IV. GENERAL STUFF:

1. -

2. -

3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 15%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +20%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

5b. nerf Accurate Empower accuracy from +10 to +8

5c. buff Lasting Empower: from +20% duration with afflictions/inspirations to +20% duration (with anything)

6. buff flails' Arcing Blows passive from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze.

Reason: if you understand how Attack Resolution works, you know how low the current bonus is compared with +5 accuracy (from daggers/rapiers/clubs) in average scenario.

7. change sabre profficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to "+2 PEN for: -15 deflection vs melee".

Reason: damage dealers are not really ok with +2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery time tradeoff. They will just use another weapon type. Unless they have the said sabre/stiletto in the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks.

7b. change stiletto profficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to:

  • a). +2 PEN for: -15 accuracy
  • b). +2 PEN for: -10 accuracy
  • c). do not change
8. make Arcane Dampener ignore drug effects

9. allow consumables to benefit from perception.

Reason: Explosives and poisons are currently close to unusable at higher levels. And high-ranked scrolls even with perception, will still have lower accuracy than a high-rank spell thrown by a single class caster.

10. add some trinkets for priests and druids. Something with a small effect, like a book with prayers; a book that provides +1 PL to restoration spells; +5s to spiritshift duration, stuff like that.

 


V. RACIALS:

 

1. add scaling to Moon Godlike's Silver Tide: from fixed 10 to: 10 + 10% per single-class PL

2. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged damage scaling: from [{2..4} + 5% per PL] to: [{2..4} + 10% per PL]

3. -

4. add Fire keyword to Fire Godlike's Battle Forged ability and damage

 


VI. CLASSES:

 

Cipher:

 

1. Mental Binding:

a). Paralyze duration from 6s to 7s.

b). Do not change.

Reason: sturdy parties don't really need this; while glass-cannon parties face the problem that the cc-cipher doesn't have enough paralyze upkeep.

2. Mind Lance: change from "Interrupt on Hit" to "Interrupt on Graze".

Reason: this power, comparativelly, does really low damage. Let it take the interrupting niche.

3. Wild Leech: tier 1 inspiration -> tier 2 inspiration.

Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss.

4. Body Atonement: increase AR malus from -2 to -3

5. Soul Echo: change +10% afflictions duration to +15% afflictions duration.

Reason: +10%, even with base 20s duration gives only 2s bonus, and that's only for afflictions vs will.

6. Bitting Whip: change +10% weapon damage (over Soul Whip) to +15% raw damage lash

Reason: +10% weapon damage bonus from Biting Whip is a joke compared to +100% focus gain from Draining Whip. Ideally Draining Whip could be nerfed to +70%, but cipher powers have their damage and accuracy buffed to compensate

7. -

8. Detonate: let the AoE trigger if the target was killed by Detonate raw damage.

Reason: at the moment, AoE only triggers if enemy was Near Death when the spell hit.

9. -

10. Defensive Mindweb: disregard grazes. And perhaps lower duration 30s -> 20 or 25s

Reason: it breaks too easy.

11. Haunting Chains: make the Hobbled/Terrify effect re-apply every 3s for the duration. Enemies in 1.5m AoE are hobbled/frightened.

Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it.

 

Cipher/Beguiler:

1. -

 

Cipher/Psion:

1. Soul Mind:

  • a). hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do.
  • b). only incoming interrupts, pause psion's focus generation.
  • c). do not change
Cipher/Soulblade:

1. Soul Annihilation raw damage: let it hit primary target only.

2. Soul Annihilation raw damage: stop benefiting from martial damage bonuses (like Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality).

3. -

4. Soul Annihilation raw damage: can increase it slightly, in order to compensate for the above points.

 

-------------------------------

 

Druid:

 

1. Stag Carnage: first of all fix it. Ideally it could be like barbarian's carnage, but have a limit duration of 12-15s.

2. Provide a posibility to spiritshift twice per encounter:

  • a). add a rank 5 talent, that adds 1 extra spiritshift usage
  • b). add a rank 5 learnable ability: use Empower charge to restore 1 spiritshift usage. At the end of combat that empower point is refunded.
  • c). do not change
Reason: non Shifter druids, are often stuck with just 1 spiritshift usage per encounter. Having ability to morph one more time is great, even at the cost of 1 talent point, and innability to empower something else.

3. Avenging Storm: let only weapons attacks (that deal damage) trigger the storm procs

 

-------------------------------

 

Fighter:

 

1. -

2. Critical Defence: change +10% incoming crit-to-hit to: +25% incoming crit-to-hit downgrade

3. Bonus Discipline talent: change 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit to:

  • a). 20% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit.
  • b). 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit; and 5% on incoming hit.
  • c). do not change
4. -

 

-------------------------------

 

Monk:

 

1. Turning Wheel: allow it to work with all weapon attacks, instead of melee only

2. Resonant Touch: limit stacking to 25

Reason: some bosses have phased behaviour where they use some new abilities at certain health thresholds. Accumulation of 500+ resonances allows to bypass the intended mechanics via insta-killing.

3. Blade Turning: disallow returning damage on attacker himself. Let hostile melee attacks be redirected to adjacent 3rd party only. And if there are none, no one takes damage.

4. Blade Turning: when redirecting disengagement attacks:

  • a). redirect once, and remove Blade Turning buff (to prevent possible shenanigans)
  • b). or clear Blade Turning on movement.
5. -

 

Monk/Shattered Pillar:

1. increase max wounds limit from 5 to 10

 

-------------------------------

 

Paladin:

 

1. Sacred Immolation: self damage should have the same duration as the fire-pulsation. And make sure that self-damage has the same base PL as the ability itself

2. Sacred Immolation: increase AoE from 2.5m to 3.5m

Reason: self damage is quite large; let's compensate with a larget AoE

3. Improved zealous focus: change 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

Reason: 5% hit is occuring on 2.5% of swings; and 2.5% is just too low

4. Zealous Charge:

  • a). add +5% Action Speed bonus.
  • b). add +15% Action Speed bonus for 5s when engaging an enemy.
5. Virtuous Triumph: 25% chance on kill to gain 1 zeal -> 50% chance. But only triggers when killing hostile and non-summoned targets.

6. Beacon Duration: 8s -> 10s

Reason: 2 zeal cost, and small aoe being centered at paladin

7. Aegis of Loyalty: make it work with weapon melee attacks. Not just with fists.

 

-------------------------------

 

Priest:

 

1. -

2. Repulsing Seal: change cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

Reason: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery for 1s Prone in 1.5m AoE doesn't sound like a good deal.

3. Warding Seal: change cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

4. Searing Seal: change cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

5. Divine Mark: decrease cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

6. -

 

Priest/of Eothas:

1. -

 

-------------------------------

 

Rogue:

 

1. Riposte: besides having a chance to trigger on miss, also has a 5% to trigger from graze

2. Sap:

  • a). change confused + hobbled to: immobilized + asleep. When asleep effect is broken - target is confused.
  • b). change confused + hobbled to: confused + stunned
  • c). do nothing
3. -

4. Backstab: make it efficient with light weapons as well. And several ways come to mind:

  • a). let Backstab deal 18 raw damage (+5% per PL); instead of the current +100% base damage bonus. But make it so that mechanically-wise it is not a separate attack, yet generates focus.
  • b). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a melee one-handed weapon. And extra bonus if it is light melee weapon.
  • c). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a light, melee one-handed weapon.
  • d). don't change.
Reason: currently Backstab is best used with weapons with high base damage. And it is a bit strange that daggers and stilletos are not efficient backstabing options.

5. Confounding Blind:

  • a). change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked.
  • b). make Flanked deflection malus a passive (such that it would stack with Confounding Blind)
  • c). change nothing
6. Adjust Finishing and Devastating Blow auto-generated descriptions.

 

-------------------------------

 

Wizard:

 

1. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: change -10 accuracy penalty to: -10 accuracy and -10 reflex

Reason: it is currently too weak for single target spell.

2. -

3. Merciless Gaze: decrease cast time from 3.0s to 1.5s.

Reason: extra 7.5% chance to crit is hardly worth waisting 3.0s

 


 

VII. FIXES:

 

1. Fix AoE weapons not applying status effects to all enemies that received weapon damage.

2. Fix Brilliant Tactician passive, when there are multiple tacticians in party.

3. Fix weapons that have dual damage types not being able to deal damage to enemies that have keyword immunity; even if they are not immune to one of weapon's damage types.

4. Fix ApplyEffectsToPrimaryOnly property. Atm it has no effect.

5. Fix DoTs not benefiting from bonus penetration on crit.

6. Fix DoTs from breaking invisibility. 

 

VIII. REQUESTS:

 

1. Allow to specify for an ability, attack and status effects, what kind of bonuses it can benefit from: all, only_weapon_bonuses, only_spell_bonuses, just_pl, none.

 


 

IX. KEYWORDS (by Phenomenum):

 

1. Adjust Priest keywords:

 

  • Condemnation - spells with this keyword applies Afflictions and other debuffs. Seems logical.
  • Punishment - spells with this keyword deals damage - punish enemies. Logical too.
  • Inspiration - spells with this keyword grants Inspirations to allies of self. Fine.
  • Protection - spells with this keyword grants bonuses to ally's defences, summon creatures (for protection i presume), prevent death and reduses hostile effects duration.
  • Fire / Frost / Electr etc - this keywords used for damage/punishment spells with elemental damage.
Seems fine, but a lot of spells drops out of the general order. So here's my suggestions:

Priest general spells keywords:

 

Blessing: Protection >>> Inspiration (Grants Inspiration)

Iconic Projection: Restoration, Condemnation >>> Restoration, Punishment, Frost (Health recovery, deals Freeze damage)

Watchful Presence: Protection >>> Protection, Restoration (Health recovery when Near death)

Shining Beacon: Punishment, Fire >>> Condemnation, Punishment, Fire (Applies debuff on foes, deals Fire damage)

All "Prayers" and "Litanies": Protection >>> Inspiration (Grants Inspirations)

Triumph of the Crusaders: Restoration >>> Restoration, Inspiration (Grants Inspiration)

Champion's Boon: Condemnation, Inspiration >>> Inspiration (Grants Resolute and Tenacious Inspiration - why is Condemnation here???)

Minor Intercession: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Health recovery, reduces duration of hostile effects)

Ressurection: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Reviving, Health recovery, prevents death)

Sumbol of Wael: Inspiration >>> Inspiration, Punishment, Frost (Grants Inspiration to allies, deals Freeze damage to enemies in AoE)

Blessing of Wael: Inspiration >>> Protection, Condemnation (Grants bonus to all defences for allies, applies debuff on attackers)

Symbol of Eothas: Restoration >>> Protection, Punishment, Fire (Grants bonus to all defences, deals Fire damage)

Light of Eothas: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Health recovery, reduces duration of hostile effects)

Call of Rymrgand: Condemnation, Frost >>> Condemnation, Punishment, Frost (Applies debuff on foes, deals Freeze damage)

Symbol of Berath: Punishment >>> Punishment, Condemnation (applies debuff on foes)

Hand of Berath: Punishment >>> Condemnation (applies debuff on foes)

Cleansing Flame: Condemnation, Cleansing, Fire >>> Condemnation, Cleansing, Punishment, Fire (Deals Fire damage, applies debuff on foes)

Symbol of Magran: Cleansing, Fire >>> Condemnation, Cleansing, Punishment, Fire (Feals Fire damage, applies debuff on foes)

Symbol of Skaen: Condemnation >>> Condemnation, Punishment (Applies debuff on foes, deals damage)

Spiritual Ally: Protection >>> Summon Creature Keyword, Protection (Summon ally for help and protect, attack have the same two Keywords but not Ability)

Incarnate spells: Punishment >>> Summon Creature Keyword, Protection, Condemnation (Applies debuff on self, summon allies for help and protect, attack have Summon Creature Keyword but not Ability)

 

Subclass specific spells:

 

Spreading Plague (Berath): Decay >>> Condemnation, Decay (Applies debuffs)

Rusted Armor (Berath): Decay >>> Condemnation, Decay (Applies debuffs)

Sunbeam (Eothas): Fire, Elements >>> Punishment, Condemnation, Fire, Elements (Deals Fire damage, applies debuff)

Fun of Flames (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Deals Fire damage)

Flame Shield (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Protection, Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Grants protection from Fire, Deals Fire damage)

Torrent of Flame (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Deals Fire damage)

Arcane Veil (Wael): Conjuration, Veil >>> Protection, Conjuration, Veil (Grants bonus Deflection)

Mirrored Image (Wael): Illusions >>> Protection, Illusions (Grants bonus Deflection)

Llengrath Displaced Image (Wael): Illusions >>> Protection, Illusions (Grants bonus Deflection)

Confusion (Wael): Mind, Illusions >>> Condemnation, Mind, Illusions (Applies affliction)

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Wael): Mind, Illusions >>> Condemnation, Mind, Illusions (Applies affliction)

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Wael): Illusions, Gaze >>> Condemnation, Illusions, Gaze (Applies affliction)

 

 

 

2. Adjust Cipher keywords:

 

Antipatetic field: Shred >>> Acid, Shred (deals Corrode damage)

Soul Ignition: Shred >>> Fire, Shred (deals Fire damage)

Ringleader: Deseption >>> Deseption, Mind (Whispers of Treason and Puppetmaster have Mind keyword)

 

3. Adjust Druid keywords:

 

Wildstrikes: Add corresponding keywords (Frost, Fire, Acid, Electricity)

Cleansing Wind: Wind, Elements >>> Wind, Elements, Rejuvenation (Restores Health)

Nature's Bounty: Restoration >>> Rejuvenation (it's the ONLY druid spell with Restoration keyword, which generally used for Priest restoration spells)

Great Maelstorm: missed Frost keyword (also deals Freeze damage)

Aspect of Galawain: Beast >>> Beast, Summon Creature

Conjure Blights spells: add Summon Creature keyword.

 

 

 

Edit: Here's the rev3 version of the preliminary list:

 

 

 

I. AFFLICTIONS

1. -

2. -

3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs reflex)

4. increase Paralyzed/Petrified effect by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs reflex and deflection)

5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -10 deflection, -10 reflex

6. increase Prone duration:

  • a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s
  • b). -
  • c). do not change - actually this "do not change" clause applies to ALL of these suggestions
Reason: Prone doesn't feel impactful enough. 1s duration doesn't make big difference when compared to a simple Interrupt, since the enemy quickly gets up.

 

 

II: BESTIARY:

 

1. allow players to inspect creature abilities in their Bestiary (e.g. via right-click modal).

2. fix Bestiary max health calculation; and make it take into account deflection bonuses for enemies with shields and Weapon and Shield Style talent.

 

III: CHARACTER CREATION:

 

1. allow characters to buy abilities and passives in one go, without hitting Next button. This would be very handy when the player levels-up the companions that are not in his active party; and also for respecs. Because going 20 times through [abilities->skills->rewiew] screens is not fun.

 


IV. GENERAL STUFF:

1. -

2. -

3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 15%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +20%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

5b. nerf Accurate Empower accuracy from +10 to +8

5c. buff Lasting Empower: from +20% duration with afflictions/inspirations to +20% duration (with anything)

6. buff flails' Arcing Blows passive from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze.

Reason: if you understand how Attack Resolution works, you know how low the current bonus is compared with +5 accuracy (from daggers/rapiers/clubs) in average scenario.

7. change sabre profficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to "+2 PEN for: -15 deflection vs melee".

Reason: damage dealers are not really ok with +2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery time tradeoff. They will just use another weapon type. Unless they have the said sabrein the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks.

8. make Arcane Dampener ignore drug effects

9. allow consumables to benefit from perception.

Reason: Explosives and poisons are currently close to unusable at higher levels. And high-ranked scrolls even with perception, will still have lower accuracy than a high-rank spell thrown by a single class caster.

10. add some trinkets for priests and druids. Something with a small effect, like a book with prayers; a book that provides +1 PL to restoration spells; +5s to spiritshift duration, stuff like that.

 


V. RACIALS:

 

1. add scaling to Moon Godlike's Silver Tide: from fixed 10 to: 10 + 10% per single-class PL

2. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged damage scaling: from [{2..4} + 5% per PL] to: [{2..4} + 10% per PL]

3. -

4. add Fire keyword to Fire Godlike's Battle Forged ability and damage

 


VI. CLASSES:

 

Chanter:

 

1. fix chants PL scalling

Reason: at the moment chants use single-class PL progression even if you multi-class.

2. set chants proper Ability Level.

Example: Dragon Thrashed ChantGameData still has AbilityLevel set to 1, when it should be 5.

3. Dragon Thrashed: buff from randomizing between burn or slash, to dealing both.

Reason: this chant is currently too weak.

4. Dragon Thrashed: increase base damage from 4 to:

  • a). 5
  • b). 6
  • c). do not change.
-------------------------------

 

Cipher:

 

1. Mental Binding:

  • a). paralyze duration from 6s to 7s.
  • b). do not change.
Reason: sturdy parties don't really need this; while glass-cannon parties face the problem that the cc-cipher doesn't have enough paralyze upkeep.

2. Mind Lance: change from "Interrupt on Hit" to "Interrupt on Graze".

Reason: this power, comparativelly, does really low damage. Let it take the interrupting niche.

3. Wild Leech: tier 1 inspiration -> tier 2 inspiration.

Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss.

4. Body Atonement: increase AR malus from -2 to -3

5. Soul Echo: change +10% afflictions duration to +15% afflictions duration.

Reason: +10%, even with base 20s duration gives only 2s bonus, and that's only for afflictions vs will.

6. Bitting Whip: change +10% weapon damage (over Soul Whip) to +15% raw damage lash

Reason: +10% weapon damage bonus from Biting Whip is a joke compared to +100% focus gain from Draining Whip. Ideally Draining Whip could be nerfed to +70%, but cipher powers have their damage and accuracy buffed to compensate

7. Puppet Master: reduce recovery from 4s to 3s

Reason: for consistency with Whispers of Treason and Ringleader.

8. Detonate: let the AoE trigger if the target was killed by Detonate's raw damage.

Reason: at the moment, AoE only triggers if enemy was Near Death when the spell hit.

9. -

10. Defensive Mindweb: disregard grazes. And perhaps lower duration 30s -> 20 or 25s

Reason: it breaks too easy.

11. Haunting Chains: make them reapply every 3s; such that it pulsates for 20s and applied effects have base duration of 9s. And in addition to Hobbled/Terrify effect on main target, apply Hobbled/Frightened in 2.5 AoE around it.

Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it.

 

Cipher/Beguiler:

1. -

 

Cipher/Psion:

1. Soul Mind:

  • a). hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do.
  • b). only incoming interrupts, pause psion's focus generation.
  • c). do not change
Cipher/Soulblade:

1. Soul Annihilation raw damage: let it hit primary target only.

2. Soul Annihilation raw damage: stop benefiting from martial damage bonuses (like Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality).

3. -

4. Soul Annihilation raw damage: can increase it slightly, in order to compensate for the above points.

 

-------------------------------

 

Druid:

 

1. Stag Carnage: first of all fix it. Ideally it could be like barbarian's carnage, but have a limit duration of 12-15s.

2. Provide a posibility to spiritshift twice per encounter:

  • a). add a rank 5 talent, that adds 1 extra spiritshift usage
  • b). add a rank 5 learnable ability: use Empower charge to restore 1 spiritshift usage. At the end of combat that empower point is refunded.
  • c). do not change
Reason: non Shifter druids, are often stuck with just 1 spiritshift usage per encounter. Having ability to morph one more time is great, even at the cost of 1 talent point, and innability to empower something else.

3. Avenging Storm: let only weapons attacks (that deal damage) trigger the storm procs

 

-------------------------------

 

Fighter:

 

1. -

2. Critical Defence: change +10% incoming crit-to-hit to: +25% incoming crit-to-hit downgrade

3. Bonus Discipline talent: change 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit to:

  • a). 20% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit.
  • b). 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit; and 5% on incoming hit.
  • c). do not change
4. -

 

-------------------------------

 

Monk:

 

1. Turning Wheel: allow it to work with all weapon attacks, instead of melee only

2. Resonant Touch: limit stacking to 25

Reason: some bosses have phased behaviour where they use some new abilities at certain health thresholds. Accumulation of 500+ resonances allows to bypass the intended mechanics via insta-killing.

3. Blade Turning: disallow returning damage on attacker himself. Let hostile melee attacks be redirected to adjacent 3rd party only. And if there are none, no one takes damage.

4. Blade Turning: remove Blade Turning on monk's movement with 1s delay

Reason: to prevent disengagement shenanigans. Especially in Turn Based mode.

5. -

 

Monk/Shattered Pillar:

1. increase max wounds limit from 5 to 10

 

-------------------------------

 

Paladin:

 

1. Sacred Immolation: self damage should have the same duration as the fire-pulsation.

2. Sacred Immolation: increase AoE from 2.5m to 3.5m

Reason: self damage is quite large; let's compensate with a larger AoE

3. Improved zealous focus: change 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

Reason: 5% hit is occuring on 2.5% of swings; and 2.5% is just too low

4. Zealous Charge:

  • a). add +5% Action Speed bonus.
  • b). add +15% Action Speed bonus for 5s when engaging an enemy.
5. Virtuous Triumph: 25% chance on kill to gain 1 zeal -> 50% chance. But only triggers when killing hostile and non-summoned targets.

6. Beacon Duration: 8s -> 10s

Reason: 2 zeal cost, and small aoe being centered at paladin

7. Aegis of Loyalty: make it work with weapon melee attacks. Not just with fists.

 

-------------------------------

 

Priest:

 

1. -

2. Repulsing Seal: change cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

Reason: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery for 1s Prone in 1.5m AoE doesn't sound like a good deal.

3. -

4. -

5. Divine Mark: decrease cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

6. -

 

Priest/of Eothas:

1. -

 

-------------------------------

 

Ranger:

 

1. Master's Call: decrease recovery from 4s -> 1.5s.

Reason: ranger should not have long recovery or suffer dps loss, for actions performed by his animal companion

2. Play Dead: decrease recovery from 4s -> 1.5s.

Reason: ranger should not have long recovery or suffer dps loss, for actions performed by his animal companion

3. Heal Companion: increase duration from 6s to 10s.

Reason: it should be a potent enough heal; otherwise ranger won't take this talent and will rely on priests/paladins

 

-------------------------------

 

Rogue:

 

1. Riposte: change from 30% on miss to 25% on miss and 25% on graze

2. Sap:

  • a). change confused + hobbled to: immobilized + asleep. When asleep effect is broken - target is confused.
  • b). change confused + hobbled to: confused + stunned
  • c). do nothing
3. -

4. Backstab: make it efficient with light weapons as well. And several ways come to mind:

  • a). let Backstab deal 18 raw damage (+5% per PL); instead of the current +100% base damage bonus. But make it so that mechanically-wise it is not a separate attack, yet generates focus.
  • b). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a melee one-handed weapon. And extra bonus if it is light melee weapon.
  • c). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a light, melee one-handed weapon.
  • d). don't change.
Reason: currently Backstab is best used with weapons with high base damage. And it is a bit strange that daggers and stilletos are not efficient backstabing options.

5. Confounding Blind:

  • a). change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked.
  • b). make Flanked deflection malus a passive (such that it would stack with Confounding Blind)
  • c). change nothing
6. Adjust Finishing and Devastating Blow auto-generated descriptions.

7. Withering Strike: 3 guile cost -> 2 guile

 

-------------------------------

 

Wizard:

 

1. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: change -10 accuracy penalty to: -10 accuracy and -10 reflex

Reason: it is currently too weak for single target spell.

2. -

3. Merciless Gaze: decrease cast time from 3.0s to 1.5s.

Reason: extra 7.5% chance to crit is hardly worth waisting 3.0s

 


 

VII. FIXES:

 

1. Fix AoE weapons not applying status effects to all enemies that received weapon damage.

2. Fix Brilliant Tactician passive, when there are multiple tacticians in party.

3. Fix weapons that have dual damage types not being able to deal damage to enemies that have keyword immunity; even if they are not immune to one of weapon's damage types.

4. Fix ApplyEffectsToPrimaryOnly property. Atm it has no effect.

5. Fix DoTs not benefiting from bonus penetration on crit.

6. Fix DoTs from breaking invisibility. 

 

VIII. REQUESTS:

 

1. Allow to specify for an ability, attack and status effects, what kind of bonuses it can benefit from: all, only_weapon_bonuses, only_spell_bonuses, just_pl, none.

 


 

IX. KEYWORDS (by Phenomenum):

 

1. Adjust Priest keywords:

 

  • Condemnation - spells with this keyword applies Afflictions and other debuffs. Seems logical.
  • Punishment - spells with this keyword deals damage - punish enemies. Logical too.
  • Inspiration - spells with this keyword grants Inspirations to allies of self. Fine.
  • Protection - spells with this keyword grants bonuses to ally's defences, summon creatures (for protection i presume), prevent death and reduses hostile effects duration.
  • Fire / Frost / Electr etc - this keywords used for damage/punishment spells with elemental damage.
Seems fine, but a lot of spells drops out of the general order. So here's my suggestions:

Priest general spells keywords:

 

Blessing: Protection >>> Inspiration (Grants Inspiration)

Iconic Projection: Restoration, Condemnation >>> Restoration, Punishment, Frost (Health recovery, deals Freeze damage)

Watchful Presence: Protection >>> Protection, Restoration (Health recovery when Near death)

Shining Beacon: Punishment, Fire >>> Condemnation, Punishment, Fire (Applies debuff on foes, deals Fire damage)

All "Prayers" and "Litanies": Protection >>> Inspiration (Grants Inspirations)

Triumph of the Crusaders: Restoration >>> Restoration, Inspiration (Grants Inspiration)

Champion's Boon: Condemnation, Inspiration >>> Inspiration (Grants Resolute and Tenacious Inspiration - why is Condemnation here???)

Minor Intercession: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Health recovery, reduces duration of hostile effects)

Ressurection: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Reviving, Health recovery, prevents death)

Sumbol of Wael: Inspiration >>> Inspiration, Punishment, Frost (Grants Inspiration to allies, deals Freeze damage to enemies in AoE)

Blessing of Wael: Inspiration >>> Protection, Condemnation (Grants bonus to all defences for allies, applies debuff on attackers)

Symbol of Eothas: Restoration >>> Protection, Punishment, Fire (Grants bonus to all defences, deals Fire damage)

Light of Eothas: Restoration >>> Restoration, Protection (Health recovery, reduces duration of hostile effects)

Call of Rymrgand: Condemnation, Frost >>> Condemnation, Punishment, Frost (Applies debuff on foes, deals Freeze damage)

Symbol of Berath: Punishment >>> Punishment, Condemnation (applies debuff on foes)

Hand of Berath: Punishment >>> Condemnation (applies debuff on foes)

Cleansing Flame: Condemnation, Cleansing, Fire >>> Condemnation, Cleansing, Punishment, Fire (Deals Fire damage, applies debuff on foes)

Symbol of Magran: Cleansing, Fire >>> Condemnation, Cleansing, Punishment, Fire (Feals Fire damage, applies debuff on foes)

Symbol of Skaen: Condemnation >>> Condemnation, Punishment (Applies debuff on foes, deals damage)

Spiritual Ally: Protection >>> Summon Creature Keyword, Protection (Summon ally for help and protect, attack have the same two Keywords but not Ability)

Incarnate spells: Punishment >>> Summon Creature Keyword, Protection, Condemnation (Applies debuff on self, summon allies for help and protect, attack have Summon Creature Keyword but not Ability)

 

Subclass specific spells:

 

Spreading Plague (Berath): Decay >>> Condemnation, Decay (Applies debuffs)

Rusted Armor (Berath): Decay >>> Condemnation, Decay (Applies debuffs)

Sunbeam (Eothas): Fire, Elements >>> Punishment, Condemnation, Fire, Elements (Deals Fire damage, applies debuff)

Fun of Flames (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Deals Fire damage)

Flame Shield (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Protection, Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Grants protection from Fire, Deals Fire damage)

Torrent of Flame (Magran): Fire, Evocation >>> Punishment, Fire, Evocation (Deals Fire damage)

Arcane Veil (Wael): Conjuration, Veil >>> Protection, Conjuration, Veil (Grants bonus Deflection)

Mirrored Image (Wael): Illusions >>> Protection, Illusions (Grants bonus Deflection)

Llengrath Displaced Image (Wael): Illusions >>> Protection, Illusions (Grants bonus Deflection)

Confusion (Wael): Mind, Illusions >>> Condemnation, Mind, Illusions (Applies affliction)

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Wael): Mind, Illusions >>> Condemnation, Mind, Illusions (Applies affliction)

Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Wael): Illusions, Gaze >>> Condemnation, Illusions, Gaze (Applies affliction)

 

 

 

2. Adjust Cipher keywords:

 

Antipatetic field: Shred >>> Acid, Shred (deals Corrode damage)

Soul Ignition: Shred >>> Fire, Shred (deals Fire damage)

Ringleader: Deseption >>> Deseption, Mind (Whispers of Treason and Puppetmaster have Mind keyword)

 

3. Adjust Druid keywords:

 

Wildstrikes: Add corresponding keywords (Frost, Fire, Acid, Electricity)

Cleansing Wind: Wind, Elements >>> Wind, Elements, Rejuvenation (Restores Health)

Nature's Bounty: Restoration >>> Rejuvenation (it's the ONLY druid spell with Restoration keyword, which generally used for Priest restoration spells)

Great Maelstorm: missed Frost keyword (also deals Freeze damage)

Aspect of Galawain: Beast >>> Beast, Summon Creature

Conjure Blights spells: add Summon Creature keyword.

 

 

 

Edit: The poll is up and in a separate thread: here

 

P.S. Big thanks to Phenomenum for assistance and theorycrafting on the initial list.

P.P.S. Hopefully I didn't forget/miss much)

Edited by MaxQuest
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While I appreciate the time it took to put together this huge list, I kind of disagree with its overall mission, since frankly for a lot of these I don't see the underlying systematic "logic" behind a lot of the suggestions and so it seems more like a curated list of personal wants than any general systematic "fix." Which I mean, ok, fine for a fan-made mod, but way too disruptive as official changes to the game without a good underlying logic, except in cases of what I would personally consider objectively-considered balancing failures.

 

Specific sections:

Afflictionsstrongly strongly strongly strongly strongly disagree with making the with making the hard CCs stronger. The fact that PoE1 hard-CCs were also extremely good defense buffs was broken design imo, and harkens back to how obscenely good hard-CC (hold person and the like) was in AD&D/D&D/BG/BG2/IWD/IWD2. Hard CC is good enough on its own, the extra stuff is just to help differentiate them a bit. I also strongly (but not as strongly) disagree with making increasing attribute bonuses/maluses with higher tier inspirations - first in the general sense the increasing side buff/debuff is what differentiates the tiers and the increasing scaling is unnecessary extra cognitive load - second in the specific suggested tweaks because the increased scaling is so marginal that I don't understand why it's even worth doing for the extra cognitive load. Also I disagree (not strongly) with prone tweaks, first of all because they misunderstand how prone works and interacts with interrupt and second because prone is still fundamentally an interrupt mechanism, not a CC mechanism and I would strongly disagree conflating the two systematically. That being said, I agree that Immobilize is weak and frankly both Hobbled and Immobilized are weak due to how conditional they are, but miss-to-graze is way too good and scales way too well (way better than graze-to-hit or hit-to-crit). I think Hobbled and Immobilized might be better fit with a general/additional action speed penalty on top of their stride/immobility so that more characters actively feel the hurt (on top of the action speed loss from the dexterity loss).

 

Spell Shaping - disagree with changing the -5/+1 balance. It's so trivially easy to to adjust the spell size and use conditionally that you have to make the upside narrow. Even as it is now, on smaller encounters or boss fights spell shaping means all your shapable spells have an unconditional +1 PL. Frankly I'm a little uncomfortable that you even get the +1 balance - for foe-and-friend effects you already get a huge benefit in being able to squeeze the aoe smaller, the fact that you also get +1 PL (in exchange for avoiding hurting your own party members) is no trade-off at all.

 

Other General Stuff

3/4/5 - these effects don't need to be buffed. They are not traded off in with other passives, so it's more about "do you want to do more damage" rather than "which talent do you take to do more damage".

6 - by contrast, this is traded off (in that you either equip a flail or equip something else) and 10% arcing blows is objectively extremely weak compared to anything else that a weapon gets. I have to imagine this was some balancing oversight from back when grazes didn't exist or something. I would fully support a buff to 30% (which is more necessary than in PoE1 given that graze range is smaller in RTwP).

10 - I would frankly want all consumables to benefit from might/int/perception again. They already occupy a weird zone in relation to the inspirations because they odn't get the +5 might/intellect/perception benefit, but they would get the +2 PEN/crit-on-interrupt/+1 PL/graze-to-hit/hit-to-crit benefits. And it's an undue cognitive load to remember that might/int/perception do what they say they do except when it comes to consumables. I think Obsidian overcorrected with consumables.

11 - no no no no no no no on bonus spells. casters already have way more actions available to them than martial classes, and this exacerbates the caster action advantage. it also has poor interactions with self-empower and rounding. it also has surprising balancing effects (many spells are balanced in effect by virtue of effectively being limited in number of cast/encounter in most cases to 2, with an occasional +1 from empower).

 

Racials

- Moon godlike scaling was way too good in PoE1, I don't want a return to those days. I also don't like the idea of adding more exceptions to PL scaling by adding yet another place where things scale by a separate dimension. I would rather we fix PL scaling. same thing with suggestion for increased PEN per PL scaling for fire godlike.

 

I'm going to skip over to priest because that's where I have the most expertise:

1. why??

2/3/4 - why???? this to me seems like trying to bring back a broken artifact of PoE1, which was a +15 accuracy bonus to hazard effects. There's no systematic reason why these should have a +15 accuracy bonus. Any weakness should be addressed by fixing the fact that hazard effects in Deadfire lack all sorts of interactions with keywords and stats (though even despite this both warding seal and searing seal are very usable spells).

5 - -25 deflection is extremely powerful if you can land it. 4.5s seems decently in line.

6 - why? multiple tier 1 inspirations in one go across basically your entire party is very powerful. inspirations aren't just there for the buffs, but as a dispel, and also as an affliction shield.

 

priest of eothas - i don't actually dislike this change, but i think it goes against the philosophy of this class which was essentially to be more like the "vanilla" priest experience (like the druid animist).

 

 

 

Anyway, don't take this as me being overly critical or severe - this obviously took a lot of time and thought to put together and I don't want to discount that. If I could summarize my concern, it's that the game design should be well-considered and systematic. You'll note my bafflement in the priest section comes from un-systematic "exceptions" being made to the class, for reasons that I don't feel justify breaking the general game design. In fact, I think the main thing that should be done to fix the core game is to fix the areas where the basic system isn't systematic enough (missing keyword interactions, hazards not working right, places where PL scaling is not applied, where stats are not applied) or the basic system itself is unbalanced (PL scaling un-duly favoring certain types of abilities).

Edited by thelee
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@thelee, Yeah, it indeed took quite the time)

 

And now, it's been quite interesting to see your point of view. Afterall, the sub-mission was to check how much my view matches that of other players. And to find the alternative perspectives in case I missed something.

 

I don't quite understand though why you disagree with the overall mission, since the idea is to come up with suggestions that do satisfy almost everyone. And if the final list is empty, so hey, what's the problem :)

 

P.S. it seems that a proper reply will take some time to put together. So I will elaborate on afflictions, racials, priest and general stuff later.

Edited by MaxQuest
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Sorry, if I were to better elaborate my perspective, I would use an analogy of an apartment building. All of us players are renting an apartment inside a building called "Deadfire." Consequently, I have a really high tolerance for stuff like mods, because whatever, it doesn't affect me what color someone paints their own room or what furniture they decide to put into, or even if they decide to tear down some of their internal walls or build up new ones. So long as the foundation--the structure that is Deadfire itself--is solid and robust. The stated mission in the OP, however, is to not only gather community wants but also as a roadmap/survey for Obsidian. At that point, my tolerance drops real real low, because then whatever adjustments to the "structure" need to be systematic and robust, because we should be making that structure more robust and not adding hacks on top of it. If someone in this building walls up all their windows because it's too cold, that's one thing. But if suddenly the entire building is going to wall up all the windows, including the ones in my apartment, I'm going to be like "whoa hey, why don't we fix the heating instead?"

 

For example, the priest prayer/litanies which you suggest should be auto-learned. I'll concede that Prayer for the Body is pretty underpowered. And I can understand the logic for making that auto-learned to avoid having to spend a valuable ability point on it (and even make it a free action, as I've seen suggested for TB mode). From a mod perspective, doing that is the equivalent of one person walling up their own windows because they are cold--basically sure, whatever, you do you. As a blanket suggestion for Obsidian to pursue, however, that smacks to me of trying to have the building wall up everyone's windows instead of fixing the heating. The "heating" in this case is the fact that defensive stats are not appropriately balanced, and specifically +5 Con is just a really lame buff because most of the time it literally does nothing (unless you were just about to die, at which point it acts as a temporary and extremely-oddly-scaling heal) and is mostly useful for dispelling Weakened or Enfeebled on someone who really needs to be healed. Fans and mods shouldn't be expected to be able to fix how basic stats work (it's probably not even accessible for modding), but Obsidian should be, and Con and Resolve have long needed balancing help compared to the "offensive" stats (and w.r.t offensive stats, intellect is a bit too good, which is why I will and have explicitly chosen and used Prayer/Litany for the Spirit and used them unconditionally as buffs in combat and making them freebies would be too good).

 

Same thing with adding +15 accuracy to the seals. Why? What's the underlying cause that needs to be fixed? As a fan-made mod, +15 accuracy buff to hazard effects, sure whatever. As a suggestion for Obsidian to pursue - uh, definitely not. What's the systematic reason to do so? Is it because the seals feel a little weak? Maybe hazard effects are a little weak because since 1.0 they are only varyingly affected by stats, keywords, passives, talents, and the like (I first reported Warding Seal's lack of interaction with Heart of the Storm despite having an Electricity keyword in like Backer Beta i think) and they should devote time to fix that instead of duct-taping a +15 accuracy on top of the seals.

 

Same thing with moon godlike/fire godlike scaling or spell shape +1 PL boost. Rather than add more exceptions to PL scaling (I think it is already confusing cognitive load to recognize that some thigns scale with character level even though PL scaling was suppossed to subsume that), we should be fixing PL scaling to be more robust. If people think +1 PL is too weak of a spell shaping bonus, maybe it's because PL itself is extremely murky, or because they like to use spells that don't benefit nearly as well from +1 PL as others. (Or maybe because there should be an explainer on how getting +1 PL on a spell with no trade-off in some cases is extremely good - comparable to Prestige, which is an AL9 ability.) Similarly, maybe the Moon Godlike scaling is weak because +5% heal per PL doesn't save it from becoming completely forgettable by level 20. (I would personally want to rebalance PL scaling so that the fewer effects an effect has that scale, the strong the scaling effect.) I would go so far as to fix chanter chant scaling (which is its own unique character-level scaling; remove that and replace with PL-based mechanism) and also make summon/weapon scaling linked to PL scaling in some (even if partial) way.

 

Same thing with why I agree with bringing back stat scaling to consumables. Removing the scaling effect of consumables from their skill was one thing (high alchemy + potion of impediment = interrupt lock anyone). Removing might/per/intellect effect on consumables was a whole other thing - Obsidian's equivalent of deciding to ban drying machines from the building because a few people started some dryer machine fires because they didn't clear out their lint trap - so now the rest of us are stuck with washing machines but no drying machines to go with them.

 

(I also had specific disagreements with some things that I feel don't need buffing, like hard CC).

 

edit - I also think there's a big problem of conflating "this ability is unpopular or underplayed" with "this ability is weak and specifically needs a buff" - those two are not even close to 1:1. I suspect that's what's leading to some suggestions in the priest section (and in some of the other classes that I skimmed). I think some allowance for buffing "underplayed" abilities just to increase usage is OK, but only in limited careful quantities.

Edited by thelee
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I don't really see the case for scaling attribute bonuses/maluses on inspiration/affliction tier. I'd like a few specific conditions to be revisited (Fit and Confused often don't really do anything, Immobilized is underwhelming for Tier 2), but I don't think the basic system needs changing.

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I don't agree with everything in the list but I do like a lot of it. I particularly like the changes to weapon modals (some weapons I just plain don't ever specialize in because the modals are weak or self-defeating).

 

I also like the changes to afflictions though they would have to be tuned.

 

The change to prone would be very good. Right now prone is not useful to be honest, I never use it, I don't even use slicken.

 

Deep pockets should be unlocked for all classes. If nothing else it would make solo playthroughs more fun.

 

I like bonus spellcasts as talents. I think it would encourage people to empower things more instead of using empower to replace spellcasts (which I think the devs want anyway, considering how many items in the expansions give bonuses for empowering things). Also it would make grimoire of vaporous wizardry less of a mandatory choice for wizards.

 

I like the cipher power changes. Especially to defensive mindweb, which is almost a useless ability as it is currently. High-level cipher abilities should be powerful. Right now I generally use low-level ones even at high focus, since spamming low-level cipher abilities is generally better than using high-level ones.

 

It would take forever to list my thoughts about every single thing on the list, but overall I like it.

Edited by Yougottawanna
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If you ask yourself why I haven't used quotes: I exceeded the quote limit. I didn't even know there was one... so I went with italic font. Sorry for that - but what can I do? :)

 

I don't like to mess around with basic (core) mechanics too much. That's a reason why I personally don't like mods which do anything besides UI- or other quality-of-life enhancements. But some mechanics are def. in need of improvement.

 

I will prioritize solutions which are simple and easy to implement over more sophisticated but more complicated solutions. This is because I think if this thread will ever get the chance to change anything then because it's not too much hassle to implement the things we come up with. And also because simple solutions are less likely to cause bugs.

 

I. AFFLICTIONS/INSPIRATIONS

 

 1. increase afflictions' attribute penalty from -5/-5/-5 to -5/-6/-7 per tier.

2. increase inspirations' attribute bonuses from +5/+5/+5 to +5/+6/+7 per tier.

 

 

Na, I wouldn't want to mess with this core mechanic. -5/+5 through the board is easy to understand. +1/+2 to a stat is not very impactful either so we can safely leave it as it is. Instead better balance the secondary effects of all inspiration/affliction.

 

 

3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex)

 

Make it Reflex only and I'm in. Being immobilized should make it very hard to impossible do "dodge" an AoE attack entirely. But you will still be able to raise a shield, parry, turn your upper body etc.

 

 

4. increase Paralyzed/Petrified effect from +25% incoming hit-to-crit to: +30% incoming hit-to-crit and +50% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex)

 

Leave it at 25% hit to crit. Following my logic above, give it 25% miss-to-graze vs. Deflection and Reflex. I see no difference between AoE attacks when I look at immobilized vs. paralyzed. But while a immobilized char will still be able to block, parry etc. a paralyzed will not.

 

 

5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -15 deflection, -15 reflex

 

I'd make it -10 for both and that's good. Keep in mind that if you raise those numbers too much then the weapon modals of flail and pike will loose appeal.

 

 

6. increase Prone duration:

a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s

b). increase to 2.0s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 6.0s

c). do not change

 

c. Simply because you will not only have to balance Slicken but also Amplified Wave, Driving Roar etc. Like... giving them only interrupt capabilites instead of Prone/Knockdown. Too much hassle, too much follow-up stuff.

 

 

II: BESTIARY:

 

I don't know anything about the Bestiary 'cause I never use it. In fact I think I didn't even open it a single time.

 

 

1. allow players to inspect creature abilities in their Bestiary (e.g. via right-click modal).

 

Sounds nice - but also sounds like a lot of work...?

 

 

2. fix Bestiary max health calculation; and make it take into account deflection bonuses for enemies with shields and Weapon and Shield Style talent.

 

Yeah - that sounds like something that should have been done from the start. :)

 

 

III: CHARACTER CREATION:

 

  

1. allow characters to buy abilities and passives in one go, without hitting Next button. This would be very handy when the player levels-up the companions that are not in his active party; and also for respecs. Because going 20 times through [abilities->skills->rewiew] screens is not fun.

 

Hell yes. That would be awesome.

 

 

 

IV. GENERAL STUFF:

 

 

1. adjust Spell Shaping PL bonus/malus from -5/+1 to -4/+2 or at least -5/+2

Reason: Spell Shaping is cool, but the bonus/penalty seem to be quite disproportionate, and the +1PL is hardly worth of extra micro. You can check these two threads for more info: one, two

 

Nope. I think it's in a good place where it is now.

 

 

2. unlock Deep Pockets for all classes. Afterall everyone can have or sew a few pockets?

Reason: everyone can sew a few extra pockets. Plus if the player wants to make a wizard that carries 6 different scrolls, why not allow him?

 

Nope. Everyone can pick up Fleshmender and Giftbearer's Cloth and max out Quick Slots without an ability. If you give Deep Pockets to anyone you will

a) take away some value from the rogue - something that's not dmg as usual

b) lower the value of those two items

 

 

3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

 

Here I will deviate from my conservative approach and say 10%. The ability is crap with 5%. Really crap. Most players who want to pick that will follow a crit build. This means they will have several conversion already. Example: 5% "on top" of 25%, 15% and 10% is like nothing (+2.87%). And for somebody who takes this as the only source of crit conversion it's not good enough as well. And why does a rogue get 10% as a passive at lower levels but the much higher PL option "Uncanny Luck" only 5%/5%. Giving it 5% resistance (maybe this also needs a raise cause resistance "stacks" the same multiplicative way) and 10% conversion would be fair I think.

 

 

4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 20%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

 

Agree - kind of - but maybe 15%? Because 20% will make crits much more important and reuce the value of other "rivaling" passive dmg bonuses like weapon specialisation and mastery and so on.

 

 

5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +25%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

 

I agree. 15% is ver low for such a high PL ability that can only be used per rest

 

 

6. buff flails' Arcing Blows passive from 10% miss-to-graze to 30% miss-to-graze.

Reason: if you understand how Attack Resolution works, you know how low the current bonus is compared with +5 accuracy (from daggers/rapiers/clubs) in average scenario.

 

Oh yes.

 

 

7. change sabre and stiletto proficiency from "+2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery" to "2 PEN for: -15 deflection vs melee".

Reason: damage dealers are not really ok with +2 PEN for +50% weapon recovery time tradeoff. They will just use another weapon type. Unless they have the said sabre/stiletto in the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks.

 

I agree that those modals a but meh. You trade one factor of dps for another factor of dps. It's very hard to know when the right time is to switch on the modal if you don#t know the PEN/AR and speed mechanics in and out. Very unintuitive. Don't know if going all half-swording is the right approach. For sabres is may be fitting since you will swing harder in order to penetrate and thus lower your deflection. But with stilettos you will most likely try to find gaps. That shouldn't have an effect on your deflection capabilites. Maybe lower ACC? That would similate that you have to hit smaller spots in order to achieve the higher PEN. It's a bit like the great sword modal (which is meh) and again trading dps fpor dps, but it's quite easy to decide between underpenetration and lower ACC. Easier than between underpenetration and lower speed. I guess... hm...

 

 

8. make Arcane Dampener ignore drug effects

 

Totally - makes no sense how it is now.

 

 

10. allow consumables to benefit from perception. Explosives and poisons are currently close to unusable at higher levels. And high-ranked scrolls even with perception, will still have lower accuracy than a high-rank spell thrown by a single class caster.

 

Almost never use consumables. I generally think they are a pain in the backside. But they should scale properly in order to be useful throughout the whole game.

 

 

10. add "Bonus Spell" talents to "vancian" casters. I.e. wizard/priest/druid can take:

- "Bonus Rank 1 Spell Usage" at rank 4

- "Bonus Rank 2 Spell Usage" at rank 5

- "Bonus Rank 3 Spell Usage" at rank 6

- "Bonus Rank 4 Spell Usage" at rank 7

- "Bonus Rank 5 Spell Usage" at rank 8

- "Bonus Rank 6 Spell Usage" at rank 9

Reason: if someone wants to cast an additional lower-level spell per encounter... let them have it.

 

You mean bonus spell use per encounter, not a bonus spell you can pick at level-up to get a broader spell portfolio?

I'm against that. Both of it. Wizards have a Grimoire and Bloodmage. For Preist and Druid I would like to see trinkets like grimoires that grant some spells to your portfolio and some bonus spell usages. That doesn't mess around with the core mechanics and abilites - buit it's just items. I think/hope that's easier to do. And I also find it more interesting.

 

 

V. RACIALS:

 

 

1. add scaling to Moon Godlike's Silver Tide: from fixed 10 to: 6 + 2 * CharacterLevel

Reason: getting healed for 10 is great when you have 30 hp; but it is really low later in the game, when characters have 200-400 hp.

 

It doesn't need to be as strong ans in PoE - but atm it's pretty useless at higher levels compared to headgear. So yes, let it scale properly. Also Moon Godlikes have no second ability.

 

 

2. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged damage scaling: from [{2..4} + 5% per PL] to: [{2..4} + 50% per PL], for it to stay relevan with the ever increasing health pools.

3. increase Fire Godlike's Battle Forged penetration scaling: from [7 + 0.25 per PL] to: [7 + 0.50 per PL]

4. add Fire keyword to Fire Godlike's Battle Forged ability and damage.

 

Don't know it your sugggestion of scaling is too powerful, but yes: it should def. scale better.

It should def. have the keywords. It's a shame it doesn't. Fire Godlike's racial ability without fire keyword? Jeez!

 

 

 

VI. CLASSES:

 

 

Barbarian/Mageslayer:

 

1. Allow potions usage, but at -35% healing/duration

 

Nope. Instead give him higher spell resistance.

 

 

 

Cipher:

 

1. Mental Binding: Paralyze duration from 6s to 7s.

Reason: sturdy parties don't really need this; while glass-cannon parties face the problem that the cc-cipher doesn't have enough paralyze upkeep.

 

I find it pretty good as is.

 

 

2. Mind Lance: change from "Interrupt on Hit" to "Interrupt on Graze".

Reason: this power, comparativelly, does really low damage. Let it take the interrupting niche.

 

I can agree to that.

 

 

3. Wild Leech: tier 1 affliction to enemy -> tier 2 affliction to enemy.

Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss.

 

I tried to use it with my Beguiler - it sucks. It was better in PoE and even there it sucked. Would be ok as PL 1 ability with focus cost of 10. I would say tier-1-affcltion to enemy but tier-2-afflicition to you. Much more appealing. Still random as hell which lowers its general usefulness.

 

 

4. Body Atonement: add +10 accuracy

 

Nay - instead raise the AR malus. There are several other abilites that cause a more severe drop of AR or do -2 in an AoE (with comparable duration).

 

 

5. Soul Echo: change +10% afflictions duration to +15% afflictions duration.

Reason: +10%, even with base 20s duration gives only 2s bonus, and that's only for afflictions vs will.

 

ok

 

 

6. Bitting Whip: change +10% weapon damage bonus to +1 penetration with weapons and +10% raw damage lash

Reason: +10% weapon damage bonus from Biting Whip is a joke compared to +100% focus gain from Draining Whip. Ideally Draining Whip could be nerfed to +70%, but cipher powers have their damage and accuracy buffed to compensate

 

PEN no - Ciphers already get Hammering Thoughts and this would make them the better Devoted without drawback. But the raw lash instead of an additive dmg bonus sounds nice.

 

 

7. Puppet Master: when used on a charmed/dominated ally, let it decrease the duration of hostile effect by it's own duration.

 

Currently it switches your buddy back to friendly with a malus to INT. I find this is ok as it is? It shouldn't be a second Aegis of Loyality. You would lower tha value of that Paladin ability.

 

 

8. Detonate: let the AoE trigger if the target was killed by Detonate raw damage.

Reason: at the moment, AoE only triggers if enemy was Near Death when the spell hit.

 

agree

 

 

9. Time Parasite: increase the effect from 25% to 40%. But! disable value stacking on cipher.

Reason: at the moment it is possible to get +125% Action Speed if it hit 5 enemies.

 

I actually like the current effect pretty much. :)

 

 

10. Defensive Mindweb: disregard grazes. And perhaps lower duration 30s -> 20 or 25s

Reason: it breaks too easy.

 

Agreed

 

 

11. Haunting Chains: make the effect re-apply every 3s for the duration; and hobbled to ignore dexterity resitance.

Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it.

 

THe hobble stuff is too complicated. Also hard to communicate this effect.

A reapply mechanic to circumvent the removal by inspiration is a nice idea though. I like that. Don't know how hard that is to implement though.

Or make it a small AoE. Look at Ryngrim's stuff: why is that more powerful on lower PLs?

 

 

Cipher/Beguiler:

1. Deception spells range: change from +20% to + 2m.

 

No - why? Short ranged spells should stay rel. short ranged. Else you can brake the balance. For example it would then be very easy to charm with Whisper of Treason out of stealth at low levels (without stealth skill).

 

 

Cipher/Psion:

1. Soul Mind: Hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do.

 

Ok - I find that mechanic to be flawed anyway. I personally would change it to "interrupts pause focus generation for x secs". Then you can play around with concentration vs. interrupts. A spion who can concentrate a lot shouln't get his focus flow interrupted. Sounds nice, eh? ;)

 

 

Cipher/Soulblade:

1. Soul Annihilation raw damage: let it hit primary target only.

 

Totally

 

 

2. Soul Annihilation raw damage: stop benefiting from martial damage bonuses (like Sneak Attack, Deathblows and weapon quality).

 

Agree. Currently too many Soulblade/Rogues running around.

 

 

3. ideally: revise SA completely. Make it playstyle more variate, instead of current lumberjacking.

 

Example is too complicated for my taste. I would just give SA a proper PL scaling and let Shred powers do a bit more dmg and that's it.

 

 

 

Druid: 

1. Stag Carnage: first of all fix it. Ideally it could be like barbarian's carnage, but have a limit duration of 12-15s.

 

Agree. It's bad atm.

 

 

2. Full Moon: add new (rank 5) learnable ability: use Empower charge to restore 1 spiritshift usage. At the end of combat that empower point is refunded.

Reason: non Shifter druids, are often stuck with just 1 spiritshift usage per encounter. Having ability to morph one more time is great, even at the cost of 1 talent point, and innability to empower something else.

 

Too complicated. Just do a higher PL passive that lets you get +1 shifting use.

 

 

3. Avenging Storm: let only weapons attacks (that deal damage) trigger the storm procs

 

Agree. Stuff like Chilling Grave (Grave Calling), Blade Feast (Engoliero), Frostseeker's cir-AoE and Blinding Smoke (Hand Mortar) triggering Avenging Storm is bonkers as hell. But they count as weapons attacks. "Do damage" is a start, but in case of Chilling Grave etc. you need another variable to switch off the procs of Avenging Storm.

 

 

Fighter:

1. Deflection Bonus talent: increase from +4 to +6.

 

Hm... since deflection bonuses have increasing returns I don't know...

 

 

2. Critical Defence: change +10% incoming crit-to-tit to: 100% incoming crit-to-hit, but can only proc once in 8s.

 

No chance that this is going to get implemented. Instead make it 25%. Doesn't stack well with other coversions anyway and a high defense-fighter doesn't receive too many crits in the first place. Nice to have for dps-fighters. 10% is not worth an ability point.

 

 

3. Bonus Discipline talent: change 10% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit to 25% chance to gain discipline on incoming crit.

 

Franky I think this ability is totally pointless. Who would want to make himself more squishy for such a low chance of getting back discipline? Receiving 10 crits in order to gain 1 Dispicline? Sure. but I'm dead then so waht's the discipline for? Why not change it from 10% on getting crit to 10% on graze/hit/crit? Maybe lower percentage.

 

 

4. Clear Out: either adjust the effect, or edit the description: "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon in a large arc" -> "Sweeps the fighter's melee weapon (or ranged weapon, if they have melee weapon in offhand) in a large arc". Or leave this as undocumented feature?

 

Don't touch my borked Clear Out! And don't draw attention to it! ;)

 

 

Monk:

 

1. Turning Wheel: allow it to work with all weapon attacks, instead of melee only

 

Yes! Else neither Turning Wheel nor Iron Wheel are an attractive option for ranged monks.

 

 

2. Resonant Touch: limit stacking to 25

Reason: some bosses have phased behaviour where they use some new abilities at certain health thresholds. Accumulation of 500+ resonances allows to bypass the intended mechanics via insta-killing.

 

Agree

 

 

3. Blade Turning: disallow returning damage on attacker himself. Let hostile melee attacks be redirected to adjacent 3rd party only. And if there are none, no one takes damage.

 

Genrally agree, but I think that's to complicated to have a chance. Maybe just leave it be.

 

 

4. Blade Turning: when redirecting disengagement attacks: redirect once, and remove Blade Turning buff (to prevent possible shenanigans)

 

Correct. Atm you can do crazy stuff with running around and provoking disengagmenet attacks. My solution: cancel Blade Turning on movement. Easy and effective.

 

 

5. Whispers of the Wind: let firearms and weapons that are marked as "Unfit For Melee", fire only once during WotW.

 

Dude what? No! My most favorite gun build! :)

No seriously - besides mortars ranged weapons like guns are not the problem. You get the same pulp with Keeper of the Flame etc. I would just leave it. It such high PL stuff... And with the cap on Resonant Touch also blunderbusses aren't that much of a problem anymore.

 

 

Monk/Shattered Pillar:

1. increase max wounds limit from 5 to 8..10

 

Def. 10. The nerf that he only gets wounds from auto-attacks is enough. Max wounds at 5 was ok when he didn't have that restriction. Both is just too bad.

 

 

 

Paladin:

 

1. Sacred Immolation: self damage should have the same duration as the fire-pulsation. And make sure that self-damage has the same base PL as the ability itself

 

sounds reasonable

 

 

2. Sacred Immolation: increase AoE from 2.5m to 3.5m

Reason: self damage is quite large; let's compensate with a larget AoE

 

Since it's considered to be a bad ability due to the high self dmg I can agree.

 

 

3. Improved zealous focus: change 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

Reason: 5% hit is occuring on 2.5% of swings; and 2.5% is just too low

 

Zealous Focus is pretty bad. See Uncanny Luck. But it's an AoE. I don't know. It should be as good as Exalted Endurance. And since conversion don't stack additively anyway: why not 10%

 

 

4. Zealous Charge: add +5% Action Speed bonus.

 

Does that really make a difference? In this case I would go crazy and say that the non-spgraded version should all the defense against disengagement attacks and the upgrade should grant immunity to engagement. Since nobody uses Zealous Charge otherwise. But maybe that's too crazy.

 

 

5. Virtuous Triumph: 25% chance on kill to gain 1 zeal -> 50% chance

 

Hm... thinking about multiclasses who can kill fast...? Imagine Blood Thirst + Virtuous Triumph. Is 50% to hight then?

 

 

6. Beacon Duration: 8s -> 10s

Reason: 2 zeal cost, and small aoe being centered at paladin

 

ok

 

 

7. Aegis of Loyalty: make it work with weapon melee attacks. Not just with fists.

 

I have no idea what this fist stuff is supposed to be in the first place? A slap in the face? That would make sense - but I can also imagine hitting my party member with the flat side of the blade or with the hilt/pommel etc.

 

 

 

Priest:

 

1. Auto-learn Litanies and Prayers when you reach respective level.

 

Nope. I'm for priest trinkets

 

 

2. Repulsing Seal: add +15 accuracy

Reason: 4.5s cast + 3.0s recovery for 1s Prone in 1.5m AoE doesn't sound like a good deal.

3. Warding Seal: add +15 accuracy

4. Searing Seal: add +15 accuracy

 

Frst fix seal scaling, then we'll see.

 

 

5. Divine Mark: decrease cast time from 4.5s to 3.0s

 

Ok. It is indeed a rather lengthy thing for a single target dmg spell.

 

 

6. Crowns for the Faithful: change tier 1 inspirations with tier 2

Reason: long cast time and small AoE, do not warrant such a low effect. Especially provided the rank 8 alternatives.

 

ok

 

 

Priest/of Eothas:

1. Substitute Minor Intercession which priest auto-learns at rank 6 with Enduring Beacon.

Reason: give this priest at least something from another class, yet is still fitting the theme.

 

He already gets Sunbeam. ;)

I would like to see Moonwell, but as "Sunwell" (yeah not the best name). Look at Sun & Moon flail for inspiration. Can be the same spell - maybe another icon and description though.

 

 

Rogue:

 

1. Riposte: additionally provides +10 deflection vs melee attacks if not Hit or Crit in the last 4s.

 

Too good since deflection has increasing returns. Instead add a chance on grazes like in PoE.

 

 

2. Sap: change confused + hobbled to immobilized + asleep. When asleep effect is broken - target is confused.

 

Don't know why it's not stunned like in PoE?

 

 

3. Wall of Flashing Steel: effect changed: for the first 15 seconds after leaving stealth or invisibility, rogue's melee attacks have +5 stackable deflection bonus for 4 seconds. Durations scale with INT and PL.

 

Hm... don't get that ability anyway. +10 non-stackable per crit isn't too bad though if you play a high-deflection rogue with riposte though (see Trickster).

 

 

4. Backstab: make it efficient with light weapons as well. And several ways come to mind:

a). let Backstab deal 18 raw damage (+5% per PL); instead of the current +100% base damage bonus. But make it so that mechanically-wise it is not a separate attack, yet generates focus.

b). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a melee one-handed weapon. And extra bonus if it is light melee weapon.

c). let Backstab have higher damage coefficient when used with a light, melee one-handed weapon.

d). don't change.

 

a) easy, simple and works equally well with all weapons - but light weapons will have a slight advantage since you can react faster after a Backstab due to lower recovery (from invisibility - from stealth recovery doesn't matter much). Don't know about the numbers. PL scaling is a must.

 

 

5. Confounding Blind: change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked.

 

Or just make it so that it stacks?

 

 

6. Adjust Finishing and Devastating Blow auto-generated descriptions.

 

Oh yes

 

 

Wizard:

 

1. Kalakoth's Sunless Grasp: change -10 accuracy penalty to: -10 accuracy, -10 reflex and -15% action speed

Reason: it is currently too weak for single target spell.

 

It def. needs a buff.

 

 

2. Ghost Blades: increase the cone to 180 degrees.

 

Hm... no need in my opinion.

 

 

3. Merciless Gaze: decrease cast time from 3.0s to 1.5s. OR increase hit-to-crit from 15% to 25%.

Reason: extra 7.5% chance to crit is hardly worth waisting 3.0s

 

I agree

 

 

 

 

VII. FIXES:

 

 

1. Fix AoE weapons not applying status effects to all enemies that received weapon damage.

 

Yes please. Also chance Ranger's Woundng Shot accordingly. Its wounding got nerfed anyway so there's no need for single target only anymore.

 

 

2. Fix Brilliant Tactician passive, when there are multiple tacticians in party.

 

Sounds reasonable, no experience with it though.

 

 

3. Fix weapons that have dual damage types not being able to deal damage to enemies that have keyword immunity; even if they are not immune to one of weapon's damage types.

 

Totally

 

 

4. Fix ApplyEffectsToPrimaryOnly property. Atm it has no effect.

 

DOn't know what this is about. But fixing is always good. ;)

 

 

5. Fix DoTs not benefiting from bonus penetration on crit.

 

And while you are at it, fix some DoTs from (still) breaking invisibility,

 

VIII. REQUESTS:

 

 

1. Allow to specify for an ability, attack and status effects, what kind of bonuses it can benefit from: all, only_weapon_bonuses, only_spell_bonuses, just_pl, none.

 

That would be really nice.

 

And finally: create more unique icons for all the different abilites. It's confusing that they all share the same few icons. Create some trinkets for Priests and Druids that let them broaden their portfolio and/or give them some other special effects fpr their spells or spell uses. Not that per-rest stuff. Just look how good grimoires are. A shame that Priests (hello Symbol of Faith) and Druids (Shrinkhead anyone? ;)) have nothing that comes even close.

Edited by Boeroer
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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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Sorry, if I were to better elaborate my perspective, I would use an analogy of an apartment building. All of us players are renting an apartment inside a building called "Deadfire." Consequently, I have a really high tolerance for stuff like mods, because whatever, it doesn't affect me what color someone paints their own room or what furniture they decide to put into, or even if they decide to tear down some of their internal walls or build up new ones. So long as the foundation--the structure that is Deadfire itself--is solid and robust.

I understand your perspective, and partially do share the sentiment)

 

Additionally, I do usually prefer the systematic approach as well. I.e. when all mechanics are deep-thought, balanced, and blue-printed apriori, before the construction has even started; and without drastic changes to the load bearing elements during last stages.

 

Yet, I do find the presented example (with the building) a bit askew, because:

- the listed suggestions are not really changing the foundation; as I haven't proposed any changes regarding stats, armor/penetration, stacking logic, damage/speed formulas or getting rid of power level concept, multi-classing, subclassing or classes altogether.

The most drastic suggestion so far was related to harsher afflictions. But even this, won't cause the walls to crumble. Not to mention that this is a preliminary / brainstorm suggestion, which will pass further only if almost everyone will like it and no valid counter-arguments given. Otherwise it's gonna be just discarded.

 

- this thread is about polishing. And following your methaphor, the mission is closer to "asking the renters what color of paint they would want to see in the common hall". So if the owner decides to refresh the hall, he would already have the surveyed data about renters' preferences. And if 80%+ want the same color - that's great. And if everyone wants different thing - that's also great, because it means that there is no need to lose resources on repainting. Win-win situation. And again, this is not about walling the windows.

 

For example, the priest prayer/litanies which you suggest should be auto-learned. I'll concede that Prayer for the Body is pretty underpowered. And I can understand the logic for making that auto-learned to avoid having to spend a valuable ability point on it

The point of that suggestion was getting more flexibility.

In PoE1, priests auto-learned all of their spells when achieving new rank. And thus priests often had the right spell for the right situation.

In Deadfire though, there is often a problem of: do I take this highly situational spell, or na? Provided that there are viable alternatives to deal with incoming cc (like food, racials and preemptive cc) plus the opportunity costs, I find current prayers and lithanies as suboptimal IF you also have to spend 4 talent points on them. Simply because if I need a healo-buffer-cleanser so badly, I would just go for a trickster/wayfarer instead, who does the same thing but faster.

 

Also, there is a direct comparison with wizards. Grimoires currently provide up to 18 spells, which greatly increases the wizard's flexibility.

Priests in return auto-learn only 9 spells on level up. So giving them 2 prayers and 2 litanies; OR some kind of psalter "trinket", is imo not so bad. Not to mention that this is kinda thematically fitting, no?

 

Fans and mods shouldn't be expected to be able to fix how basic stats work (it's probably not even accessible for modding)

It is possible to a degree. For example I could probably make CON add +5% healing taken per point, via patchwork/framework modding. But it is really time consuming. And can be quite complicated depending on the needed effect.
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Same thing with adding +15 accuracy to the seals. Why? What's the underlying cause that needs to be fixed?

2/3/4 - why???? this to me seems like trying to bring back a broken artifact of PoE1, which was a +15 accuracy bonus to hazard effects. There's no systematic reason why these should have a +15 accuracy bonus. Any weakness should be addressed by fixing the fact that hazard effects in Deadfire lack all sorts of interactions with keywords and stats (though even despite this both warding seal and searing seal are very usable spells).

The reason is simple: reliability.

If I let a character spend 4.5s cast time and 3.0s recovery on something; it better be reliable. And a priest spending 7.5s on a 1s Prone vs Fortitude in 1.5 AoE, doesn't really strike me like a good bargain. Not to mention that with such a cast time, it can hardly be used as a timely interrupt.

 

As for Warding Seal - it's probably one of the last spells, a spell-damaging priest will use. I mean, only after all those Shining Beacons, Cleansing Flames, Storms, Symbols and Hand of Weal and Woe. Imo, having an extra accuracy won't make this seal OP; but it's one way to make it more competitive; plus this will provide consistency with the previous seal. And similar thinking goes for Searing.

 

And now regarding systematic approach: lets be realists here, changing 1 value in gamedatabundle takes less than 1 minute; i.e. it is much faster than dive in the code and try to figure out why hazard spells have such limitations, make the chances, and double-check if it doesn't throw off-balance any other hazard effects, or even breaks them, if their caster is not defined.

 

Sure I do like the systematic approach, but it better be used from the start, not to mention that Obsidian is known for iterative approach and for heavily prioritizing high_gain/low_time changes, with others being cut.

 

priest of eothas - i don't actually dislike this change, but i think it goes against the philosophy of this class which was essentially to be more like the "vanilla" priest experience (like the druid animist).

Tbh, I can hardly comment on this. As I am not aware of subclass philosophies being documented somewhere.

What I know is: if I need a support priest, I usually go for Wael, and can learn all the stuff that priest of Eothas can.

 

On the other hand, Boeroer made a good point about partial redunancy with Sunbeam. And also there is that Searing Seal. And that's an argument.

 

Racials

 

- Moon godlike scaling was way too good in PoE1, I don't want a return to those days.

I do agree: Silver Tide healing was too good in PoE1.

Yet I can hardly agree with your argument, because I didn't suggest the same scalling as in PoE1. For reference:

- current: 10

- suggested: 6 + 2 * character_level

- PoE1: 10 + 3 * (character_level - 1)

 

At lvl 16, this would be: 38 vs 55

 

Similarly, maybe the Moon Godlike scaling is weak because +5% heal per PL doesn't save it from becoming completely forgettable by level 20.

It is weak because of the fixed value of "10".

Which doesn't scale properly between starting hp of 30-40, and late game hp of 300-400.

 

I also don't like the idea of adding more exceptions to PL scaling by adding yet another place where things scale by a separate dimension. I would rather we fix PL scaling. same thing with suggestion for increased PEN per PL scaling for fire godlike.

Well... perhaps I am missing something?) But am not adding another PL scaling place.

Silver Tide is suggested to scale with character level.

As for Battle Forged... it already scales with PL. Just really poorly.

 

And I wish you good luck for coming up with an universal pl scaling ^^

Because some things make sense to scale closer to hp progression.

 

And if one would go for the route where:

- character starts at level 1 with: x hp, a*x dps, a*x hps, b*x accuracy

- and ends at level 20 with: k*x hp, k*a*x dps, k*a*x hps, k*b*x accuracy

i.e. everything scales proportionally, this would be a quite deep change. And you wanted the foundation left intact.

 

Same thing with why I agree with bringing back stat scaling to consumables. Removing the scaling effect of consumables from their skill was one thing (high alchemy + potion of impediment = interrupt lock anyone). Removing might/per/intellect effect on consumables was a whole other thing - Obsidian's equivalent of deciding to ban drying machines from the building because a few people started some dryer machine fires because they didn't clear out their lint trap - so now the rest of us are stuck with washing machines but no drying machines to go with them.

Hmm, I don't get the relation between scrolls and drying machine. It sounds like few people didn't read safety instructions on scrolls; or started a fire by telling others how good scrolls are.

 

Additionally, if consumables just suddenly started to benefit from all stats right now, it would lead to balance problems.

You know that scrolls have PL0, and thus would have higher damage values and duration than regular spells.

Take a look at this image:

 

utljWeh.jpg

 

and imagine if we had +35% level + 30% might on the right.

 

So there would also be a need to change ability_rank/base_pl (you name if) of all scrolls. And that's not polishing. That's a complete revamp. Which will take time, and will also bring back the over-reliance on scrolls.

 

Imho, for a quick, yet already beneficial change, enabling just perception is enough. Because scrolls will stop missing that often; while high-ranked spells will still have a better accuracy.

 

3/4/5 - these effects don't need to be buffed. They are not traded off in with other passives, so it's more about "do you want to do more damage" rather than "which talent do you take to do more damage".

Good point about the trade-offs.

 

But let's take the Improved Critical and examine the "+10% Crit Damage" in 3 scenarios:

1). Fighter with 15 MIG, superb weapon, using Penetrating Strike. On crit that's: 2.05 damage coefficient that becomes 2.15. That's a +4.8% damage increase... which occurs only on crit.

2). Rogue with 10 MIG, superb weapon, sneak attack + deathblows, devastating blow vs 25%hp. On crit that's: 4.7 that becomes 4.8. And that's a +2% damage increase... which occurs only on crit.

3). Wizard with 18 MIG, 7 PL casting a rank 4 spell. On crit that's 1.64, which becomes 1.74. That's a +6% damage increase. But than again, what's your crit rate in a challenging encounter?

 

(I also had specific disagreements with some things that I feel don't need buffing, like hard CC).

I for one, really like hard cc in single player games.

Especially I liked that in PoE1 were you could make a sturdy party (without hard-cc) and party of glass-canons (with a lot of hard-cc). And both approaches worked great, and were effective.

 

In Deadfire though, I feel like I am stuck with heavy armor. Taking 4 times less the damage thanks to enemy underpenetration, coupled with an AoE Terrify (which even if dowgraded, prevents majority of hostile special attacks) and with a few passive or overtime heals, provides tremendous EHP increase. And I struggle to get a comparable uptime with stuns and paralyze, that would net a similar survivability; nor they provide enough damage increase in order to warant taking 2 damage-dealers + 1 hard-disablers instead of just 3 damage-dealers. It's almost like you want to play a specific playstyle, but it's either not there or not efficient enough.

 

But whatever. You have your point of view, and that's completely fine :)

That's one of the reasons I made this thread: to know others opinions.

 


@Boeroer, hah! I just hit that limit too)

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The stacking effect of Time Parasite is three-fourths of the joy of it =) don't break things that are working!

 

I agree that Defensive Mindweb needs to break on *hit*, not on graze, and that's even after testing it with a fully specialized party built for it across the board.

 

Haunting Chains is worthless unless it's a large-area AOE Even then it's probably insufficient. 

 

I'd tone down the across-the-board Armor Rating bonus enemies get on POTD because it blows out the scale at the top end for casters -- should be +1, not +2.

 

 

Driving Echoes is probably *too* strong and should be, like, a +3 Penetration buff max, because the current implementation trivializes the entire ar/pen system  (but make it a party AoE buff because you run into action economy issues using it). 

 

Oh, and the Enhanced AI Conditionals mod needs to be implemented into the game directly (along with some bug testing on it) if they want to make the switch to console happen with the RTWP mode at all. 

Edited by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy
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So in my opinion, the number one bug fix that needs to be implemented and finalized (i.e. it doesn't keep coming back) is effects lingering when they shouldn't. I'm sorry to come across on irate, but how after a year, is this still a problem?

 

1. Equipment no longer equipped providing bonuses

 

2. Night or day bonuses applying regardless

 

To give you two recent examples -

 

1. Whale of a Wand abilities being available to my MC who only equipped it once.

 

2. Steeled in Darkness and Lunar Heart applying during the day.

 

I'm going to keep pestering the devs bc this is not right and needs to be fixed. If this does not fit with the polishing theme, feel free to ignore :)

Edited by Verde
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I will prioritize solutions which are simple and easy to implement over more sophisticated but more complicated solutions. This is because I think if this thread will ever get the chance to change anything then because it's not too much hassle to implement the things we come up with. And also because simple solutions are less likely to cause bugs.

That's reasonable)

 

1. increase afflictions' attribute penalty from -5/-5/-5 to -5/-6/-7 per tier.

2. increase inspirations' attribute bonuses from +5/+5/+5 to +5/+6/+7 per tier.

 

Na, I wouldn't want to mess with this core mechanic. -5/+5 through the board is easy to understand. +1/+2 to a stat is not very impactful either so we can safely leave it as it is. Instead better balance the secondary effects of all inspiration/affliction.

It can be useful for getting enemy defenses lower than previously possible. Hate missing)

But I get your argument. Also liked thelee's point about "cognitive payload".

So yeah, I think we can discard this.

 

3. increase Immobilize penalty by adding +25% incoming miss-to-graze (vs deflection and reflex)

 

Make it Reflex only and I'm in. Being immobilized should make it very hard to impossible do "dodge" an AoE attack entirely. But you will still be able to raise a shield, parry, turn your upper body etc.

Provided that an opponent can miss, it looks that deflection is also at least a bit about dodging and footwork.

But coupled with your next point (about paralyze), I like it. It's pretty clean.

 

5. increase Stun effect from -10 deflection to: -15 deflection, -15 reflex

 

I'd make it -10 for both and that's good. Keep in mind that if you raise those numbers too much then the weapon modals of flail and pike will loose appeal.

Good point. But afaik Pike modal doesn't stack with flanked, Confounding Blind and Divine Mark, no?

 

6. increase Prone duration:

a). increase to 1.5s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 4.5s

b). increase to 2.0s. And increase Slicken periodic interval from 3s to 6.0s

c). do not change

 

c. Simply because you will not only have to balance Slicken but also Amplified Wave, Driving Roar etc. Like... giving them only interrupt capabilites instead of Prone/Knockdown. Too much hassle, too much follow-up stuff.

And there is also Knockdown. But I was thinking that going from 1s to 1.5s is not a big enough change, and unless an ability has periodic Prone, leave it as is. And thus no hassle, no?

 

3. buff Uncanny Luck talent from 5% hit-to-crit to 8% hit-to-crit

 

Here I will deviate from my conservative approach and say 10%. The ability is crap with 5%. Really crap. Most players who want to pick that will follow a crit build. This means they will have several conversion already. Example: 5% "on top" of 25%, 15% and 10% is like nothing (+2.87%). And for somebody who takes this as the only source of crit conversion it's not good enough as well. And why does a rogue get 10% as a passive at lower levels but the much higher PL option "Uncanny Luck" only 5%/5%. Giving it 5% resistance (maybe this also needs a raise cause resistance "stacks" the same multiplicative way) and 10% conversion would be fair I think.

Fair enough

 

4. buff Improved Critical talent from 10% to 20%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

 

Agree - kind of - but maybe 15%? Because 20% will make crits much more important and reuce the value of other "rivaling" passive dmg bonuses like weapon specialisation and mastery and so on.

Point taken)

 

5. buff Potent Empower damage bonus from +15% to +25%. Because it is handled in additive manner.

 

I agree. 15% is ver low for such a high PL ability that can only be used per rest

thumbs-up

 

I agree that those modals a but meh. You trade one factor of dps for another factor of dps. It's very hard to know when the right time is to switch on the modal if you don#t know the PEN/AR and speed mechanics in and out. Very unintuitive. Don't know if going all half-swording is the right approach. For sabres is may be fitting since you will swing harder in order to penetrate and thus lower your deflection. But with stilettos you will most likely try to find gaps. That shouldn't have an effect on your deflection capabilites. Maybe lower ACC?

My first thought was: I wouldn't like to give up accuracy. Because if I attack an enemy I can hardly penetrate, chances are he has high deflection.

But on a second thought: it's actually fine, as there are enough means to lower it. And thematically... stilletos go well with rogue archetype and there is confounding blind.

 

You mean bonus spell use per encounter, not a bonus spell you can pick at level-up to get a broader spell portfolio?

I'm against that. Both of it. Wizards have a Grimoire and Bloodmage. For Preist and Druid I would like to see trinkets like grimoires that grant some spells to your portfolio and some bonus spell usages. That doesn't mess around with the core mechanics and abilites - buit it's just items. I think/hope that's easier to do. And I also find it more interesting.

I am totally fine with going for trinkets instead of bonus spells.

Some kind of psalters or portable shrines or whatever.

 

But could you make some specific example?

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3. Wild Leech: tier 1 affliction to enemy -> tier 2 affliction to enemy.

Reason: the random nature and possible duplicates, coupled with how often enemies have resistances and immunities, make this power really unreliable for a mere tier 1 affliction fuss.

 

I tried to use it with my Beguiler - it sucks. It was better in PoE and even there it sucked. Would be ok as PL 1 ability with focus cost of 10. I would say tier-1-affcltion to enemy but tier-2-afflicition to you. Much more appealing. Still random as hell which lowers its general usefulness.

You mean tier1_affliction_on_enemy + tier1_inspiration_on_self -> tier1_affliction_on_enemy + tier2_inspiration_on_self.

Well, that's good too. Although I am not sure if cipher will get any inspiration if you rolled an affliction to which the enemy is resistance.

 

4. Body Atonement: add +10 accuracy

 

Nay - instead raise the AR malus. There are several other abilites that cause a more severe drop of AR or do -2 in an AoE (with comparable duration).

So from -2AR/+2AR -> -3AR/+2AR?

Oh my :) I thought initially that it is a quite powerful buff, but, I am totally up for it)

 

 

7. Puppet Master: when used on a charmed/dominated ally, let it decrease the duration of hostile effect by it's own duration.

 

Currently it switches your buddy back to friendly with a malus to INT. I find this is ok as it is? It shouldn't be a second Aegis of Loyality. You would lower tha value of that Paladin ability.

He turns friendly... but is uncontrollable. Quite often it would be better if he would remain hostile, at least enemies would not hammer on him.

But you made a point about Aegis. I think this suggestion can be discarded.

 

9. Time Parasite: increase the effect from 25% to 40%. But! disable value stacking on cipher.

Reason: at the moment it is possible to get +125% Action Speed if it hit 5 enemies.

 

I actually like the current effect pretty much. :)

The stacking effect of Time Parasite is three-fourths of the joy of it =) don't break things that are working!

Well then... I will stop considering this power as cheesy,.. and will start using it! ^^

 

11. Haunting Chains: make the effect re-apply every 3s for the duration; and hobbled to ignore dexterity resitance.

Reason: it's a rank 9 power damn it.

 

The hobble stuff is too complicated. Also hard to communicate this effect.

A reapply mechanic to circumvent the removal by inspiration is a nice idea though. I like that. Don't know how hard that is to implement though.

Or make it a small AoE. Look at Ryngrim's stuff: why is that more powerful on lower PLs?

It's not hard to make it periodic. There is already Repulsive Vissage that applies terrify every 3s.

 

Cipher/Psion:

1. Soul Mind: Hits and grazes no longer pause focus generation while psion has concentration. But incoming critical hits still do.

 

Ok - I find that mechanic to be flawed anyway. I personally would change it to "interrupts pause focus generation for x secs". Then you can play around with concentration vs. interrupts. A spion who can concentrate a lot shouln't get his focus flow interrupted. Sounds nice, eh? ;)

It indeed sounds better than the original suggestion. Although I don't know how to mod it)

 

4. Blade Turning: when redirecting disengagement attacks: redirect once, and remove Blade Turning buff (to prevent possible shenanigans)

 

Correct. Atm you can do crazy stuff with running around and provoking disengagmenet attacks. My solution: cancel Blade Turning on movement. Easy and effective.

Sounds reasonable.

 

5. Whispers of the Wind: let firearms and weapons that are marked as "Unfit For Melee", fire only once during WotW.

 

Dude what? No! My most favorite gun build! :)

No seriously - besides mortars ranged weapons like guns are not the problem. You get the same pulp with Keeper of the Flame etc. I would just leave it. It such high PL stuff... And with the cap on Resonant Touch also blunderbusses aren't that much of a problem anymore.

Hah, ok)

And not drawing attention to it which cannot be called)

 

5. Confounding Blind: change deflection malus progression from -3 for 10 times, to -5 for 6 times; in order to overcome faster the -10 deflection from flanked.

 

Or just make it so that it stacks?

I.e. make flanked - passive effect that stacks with everything?

 

 

P.S. Thanks for responses Boeroer. I'll wait for a few extra feedback, and will be assembling a rev2. list.

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I agree A LOT on the AR raise for PotD (I mean not having it). It narrows everything down to PEN vs AR - which already is balanced on a knife's edge.

 

I like Driving Echoes. It's PL 9 after all. 

 

Something completely different what I would have likes and which is only a matter of taste:

I would have liked that Shifters don't shift between several forms but instead still pick a form but their shifting is a modal. Modal on = shifted, no casting. Modal off = not shifted, able to cast. No healing in between. I don't like that you can't "devote" yourself to a form but shift to everything.

 

Yes, I meant "cause tier-1-affliction -> get tier-2-inspiration" with Wild Leech. Sorry.

 

Periodic Haunting Chains sounds nice. I would still add a smallish AoE centered on the initial target.

 

Specific examples for trinkets:

 

- Holy Symbol of St. Spasematucki (a big fat golden coin that shows a helping hand): you get the following spells added to your spell selection:
Lvl 1: Blessing

Lvl 2: Holy Meditation

Lvl 3: Consecrated Ground

Lvl 4: Triumph of the Crusaders

Lvl 5: Champion's Boon

Lvl 6: Salvation of Time

Lvl 7: Minor Avatar

Lvl 8: Crowns for the Faithful

Lvl 9: Prestige

All inspirations gain +1 PL and/or +20% duration.

 

This would be a good trinket for a support priest.

 

- Witch Doctor's Shrinkhead (a shrinkhead):

Lvl 1: Touch of Rot

Lvl 2: Autumn's Decay

Lvl 3: Infestation of Maggots

Lvl 4: Spirit of Decay

Lvl 5: Plague of Insects

Lvl 6: Rot Skulls

Lvl 7: Rusted Armor

Lvl 8: Entropy

Lvl 9: Touch of Death

You get +3 PL on all decay spells - but you can't shift. 

 

Stuff like that. I would also like to change PLs of spells - for example give Rot Skulls at lvl 1 and that would the only thing the trinket does. Or give a Priest trinket Firebrand as spell. But I don't know hopw much hassel it is to "copy" a spell and give it another PL and/or to another class.

Edited by Boeroer
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Deadfire Community Patch: Nexus Mods

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Priest/of Eothas:

1. Substitute Minor Intercession which priest auto-learns at rank 6 with Enduring Beacon.

Reason: give this priest at least something from another class, yet is still fitting the theme.

 

He already gets Sunbeam. ;)

I would like to see Moonwell, but as "Sunwell" (yeah not the best name). Look at Sun & Moon flail for inspiration. Can be the same spell - maybe another icon and description though.

Hah, I like that)

And tbh Moonwell is the first thing that came to mind. But felt that it is too related to Ondra's portfolio.

Sunwell - workarounds this nicely.

 

I like Driving Echoes. It's PL 9 after all.

I like it too.

And it's the whole point: to be able to use current weapons even if they would be unfavorabale otherwise. And there are enemies that have 6-7 AR difference between pierce/slash/crush. And up to 8 AR difference for elemental damage types.

 

I agree A LOT on the AR raise for PotD (I mean not having it). It narrows everything down to PEN vs AR - which already is balanced on a knife's edge.

AR vs PEN is a very sensitive topic.

 

I share the sentiment, that +2AR on PotD rule out (or at least hinder) a range of weapon options, and thus limit the amount of possible builds.

 

But at the same time, it could possibly result in an asymmetric situation when enemies keep underpenetrating, while we as players rarely face such problem. Or you think it's ok?

 

Holy Symbol of St. Spasematucki (a big fat golden coin that shows a helping hand)

Witch Doctor's Shrinkhead (a shrinkhead)

Aha, so just like grimoires, but with some effect and smaller selection of spells.

I am like 80% sure that this is moddable.

 

Stuff like that. I would also like to change PLs of spells - for example give Rot Skulls at lvl 1 and that would the only thing the trinket does. Or give a Priest trinket Firebrand as spell. But I don't know hopw much hassel it is to "copy" a spell and give it another PL and/or to another class.

It's easy to make a copy, with a different PL/rank.

But will have to manually update it, everytime a patch changes the original ability.

 

And purely theoretically... where would like to find these priest/druid trinkets?

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