Deadfire Polishing Thread

MaxQuest · March 5, 2019

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:

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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

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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:

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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

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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?

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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.

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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

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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. -

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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

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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.

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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. -

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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:

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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

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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. -

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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

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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.

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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. -

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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

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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

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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:

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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.