Deadfire Polishing Thread

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Trinkets for other casting classes seems like a great idea for a mod, but not really "polishing" at this point.

 

 

1. please no. Riposte is already a weird ability in that it is either virtually useless or extremely powerful. Instead of leaning into this more by providing what is essentially a win-more effect, i'd rather flatten this variability (that basically mandates metagaming) and provide a % riposte chance on grazes as well (even if lower than the % riposte chance on miss).

 

Yeah, this is something I was thinking but wasn't sure how to verbalize. Riposte needs an on-graze effect if you're going to use it in anything other than a maximally tweaked deflection build. 

 

 

If we're talking other general mods we'd like to see added, I'd *really* like to see the addition of a mod that unlocked all subclass options for the named companions. Let Eder be unbroken / trickster if you want him to be, etc. Let Aloth be a blood mage. So forth. There are individual mods for a lot of combinations but an across the board one would be great.

 

The other mods I routinely use are

 

1) the one that reduces XP gain by 30%, pretty much a requirement if you're playing the DLC's

 

2) the one that makes all the "cosmic" command-line pets just appear on the beach at the start of the game so you don't have to type in the codes

 

3) there's an existing mod that attempts the keyword expansion above but it may not be complete. Cipher spells especially need elemental keywords added in many cases (acid, electric, etc.) 

Edited March 7, 2019 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[MaxQuest]

it's a hack. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I end up doing hacks all the time in my day job. But fixing game issues by layering hacks on top of that does not make for a better game design, it makes for a more complicated game design, especially considering the realities of coding where you are likely also making it more fragile.

 

Also: seals can be cast out of combat and stick around for a long time; ever since PoE1 that has basically been their point. Warding Seal is not the best spell in later levels to cast in combat but remains a great spell to cast out of combat (even sometimes better than Searing Seal because Warding Seal's smaller aoe doesn't cause curious people to walk over it while you're sneaking). The only seal that I could see an argument for adjustment is Repulsing Seal, because laying a prone trap out of combat is extremely underwhelming and in-combat faces a tough competition to Pillar of Faith, which does damage and has a longer range. But in effect PL scaling already helps Repulsing Seal quite a bit because it gets +2 acc/PL on top of prone-ing on a graze, two benefits that do not accrue to Pillar of Faith. So... eh

I am not quite sure how to understand the word hack here. It has many meanings, and there is also a language barier.

But if you mean: a solution that is inconsistent with other spells... yeah, I can agree with that. And you have convinced me on this matter.

 

Just wanted to note that: isn't hazard - a spell or effect that is generally decoupled from it's owner? For example a character layed a trap or seal, and even if it deals shock damage, it doesn't factor his shock penetration talents, because it's a completely separate entity?

 

Taking this into account, what would you propose?:

- 1) leave these seal spells as they are

- 2) remove the hazard tag

- 3) change all hazards (such that they start benefiting from owners PL, penetration talents, etc). But there might be a risk of CTD in some scenes, if not properly implemented.

- 4) increase cast speed (e.g. from 4.5s to 3.0s) as compensation?

 

 

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.

This is my problem with unsystematic changes like this. I don't think you're broadening your perspective enough and combined with other comments it seems you might have a personal bias on making effects more consistent (e.g. accuracy/reliability) versus enabling a broad spectrum of options (the core PoE philosophy). You seem to be mostly just focused landing offensive effects.

 

It's not that I have some kind of prejudice. But I indeed do have a preference for binary effects being reliable (at least vs unnamed/regular enemies)

 

I mean, I am fine with damage sometimes missing, because I know that on average my dps is X, and if X suits me it's ok.

But I dislike when a binary effect that I count on, has a chance to do nothing. For example in PoE1: party priest lands painful interdiction, such that cipher can land paralyze, such that my melee dps'er won't get hit by that big (now disabled) guy, and also will have his attack resolution shifted right - which will increase his dps, because graze damage was sensibly reduced by enemy DR.

Now, if that paralyze misses - all this scheme crumbles. And I am pushed towards a safer/sturdier playstyle.

 

And it's not that I am fixated on hostile effects. I mean if my direct heals had a chance to miss, that would be unpleasant as well.

It still leaves might and intellect as dead stats for people who want to use non-hostile consumables, even though those stats are supposed to be otherwise universal. Enabling might and intellect on top of perception will not break explosives or potions, and will it make it more viable to split your skill points a bit more instead of basically having to invest everything into explosives or alchemy just to get enough PL scaling to use a poison or grenade decently in mid-late game. Yes, scrolls will probably need a rebalancing - frankly the fact that you get arcana/2 PL scaling on top of more powerful effects (that are already gated by a high arcana) is broken game design, but selectively enabling perception will meaningfully skew gameplay choices in the name of "reliability" (hellooooo scrolls of gaze of the adragan).

Completely agree on the dead stats argument. Not to mention that INT does add not only duration, but also area increase. And currently scrolls and bombs are stuck with default AoE.

 

But again, I would separate this problem in two parts:

1) is it worth to enable perception? And how much effort will it take?

2) is it worth to enable might and intellect? And how much effort will it take?

 

And speaking of perception, lets compare accuracy of scrolls vs spells, for the aforementioned Gaze of Adragan:

- spell_accuracy = 20 + 19 * 3 + (perception - 10) + class_power_level + power_level_bonus + ability_rank - 2

- scroll_accuracy = 20 + 19 * 3 + arcana/2 + power_level_bonus

 

With something like: 24 perception, 24 arcana, 9 class_power_level, 2 power_level_bonus, 6 ability_rank, which imo are quite plausible stats, this would be:

- goa_spell_accuracy = 77 + 14 + 9 + 2 + 6 - 2 = 106

- goa_scroll_accuracy = 77 + 12 + 2 = 91

And if scrolls benefited from perception, goa_scroll_accuracy would be: 91 + 14 = 105.

Sure, one could argue that arcana could be higher, but how much higher? 30? But that would add just extra 3 acc over 24 arcana.

Meanwhile enemy fortitude goes up to 189 for megabosses on PotD, and up to 129-150 for non-bosses.

So, does this look broken for a consumable of generally limited supply?

---

 

Now regarding might and intellect. I do agree that enabling them won't break most of explosives and potions.

But still, this have to be done very carefully.

- intellect has the ability to increase duration for up to x2.25; and area radius up to x1.87

- might has the ability to increase the direct damage for up to x1.75

- and together they can increase the total damage/healing of a periodic/dot/hot effect, by up to x3.93

 

So this will require the adjusting of all scrolls from PL0 to their matching counterparts. And even then, arcane/2 can go higher than class pl. And this gonna be a quite deep change. I am not sure if it can go under the 'polishing' tag.

 

P.S. I don't dislike this suggestion. I actually do like consistency. Just have little hope in that Obsidian will make a change that is not quick enough to implement.

 

Plus, no other heal in Deadfire scales with character level, it would still make the moon godlike effect stupidly good. In PoE1 the character scaling was an attempt to keep it relevant into the late game, and it was too good (and it wasn't unique; Holy Radiance also scaled with character level and combined with disposition scaling was stupidly good). With your suggested scaling you are supplanting PL scaling mechanism with character level scaling - adding more cognitive load about exceptions being made to systems that are allegedly universal

That's an argument.

 

Tbh I've been carried away, by it being so good in the early game, that wanted it to be at least half as good in the late game.

 

I disagree. If you were limited to the same abilities at level 1 when you got to level 20, then yeah, sure. But one of the consequences of getting higher level in a game like this is you get more options. So an AL1 restore or AL3 nature's balm do not need to scale proportionally to health as you get up to level 20 to still be useful at level 20 - instead of being your only heal, they increasingly becomes part of a larger toolkit of options.

Example with Restore is a good one.

 

But still something feels off. I mean AL1 Restore is not something I would be relying in the late game. But I would still rely on stuff like Elemental Endurance and Racial Resistances being as usefull as in the early game.

 

The good thing through, that aside from PL progression, character can aquire items that increase his might and healing done/taken during his journey, which can almost double the effective healing. So you are speaking about: 10 + 10% per PL, where PL is that of a single class, and benefits from potion of ascention, prestige and other PL bonuses?

 

Also iirc Silver Tide has no keywords atm, leave it at that?

Additionally: do you think having one racial is enough for them?

 

 

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?

There's a couple of interrelated issues here. The first is that these are funges of math, because you're not actually looking at the net effect.

 

Case 1: a fighter with might 15, superb weapon, penetrating strike is better seen as having a graze/hit/crit coefficient of .87x, 1.85x, and 2.1x which become .87x, 1.85x, and 2.2x with improved crit. This can be as little as a +0% increase in net damage (in cases where you can never crit) to as much as ~3% (in cases where you always crit). So in this respect I think you're overstating the effect.

 

Rumble/grumble

2.2x/2.1x~= 1.047

2.15x/2.05~= 1.048

Or I am missing something?

 

Re: potent empower, I could maybe follow along that potent empower needs a buff or accurate empower needs a nerf because as it stands they are roughly in line with each other, but accurate empower is more generally useful than either potent or penetrating (or even lasting). I would probably advocate nerfing accurate empower a bit (+8 acc instead?) and making lasting empower effect durational effect instead of just afflictions/inspirations (many martial classes will have very few of these making this talent all the more marginal).

Sounds reasonable.

 

Fighter

1. Please do not adjust deflection bonuses. Deflection is already a weird stat because of its increasing returns and its general murk/meaninglessness for many non-optimized-for-deflection character builds. I don't think +4 -> +6 meaningfully makes this more generally useful and only helps out the high deflection builds all the more. If you want to make it more generally useful, maybe adding a hit->graze chance would be better (high deflection builds aren't going to be hit all that much anyway).

2. I think this is way too good. In even slightly metagamed scenarios this basically seems like it can mean a fighter is immune to crits. I also have to ask - what is the purpose of this change? Is it just trying to de-murk % chance of happening effects? Because this does not seem like it's explicitly intended as a nerf or a buff but rather a lateral change.

3. I think we should be really really careful about making it easier to regenerate class resources. Same with paladin Virtuous Triumph, and arguably this is an easier condition to meet/metagame. I don't see any systematic polish reason why these should be buffed - I personally argued for so long to make existing effects weaker over several patches.

1. Ok, point taken.

2. The purpose is to have a decent effect for rank 8 passive. And atm, Critical Defense is in a weird spot. If a fighter doesn't want to get critted, he rises defenses. And the higher defenses he has, the lower effect this Critical Defense provides. For example fighter has a 10% chance to get critted by enemy X. Taking Critical Defense does not cover this 10% window; but instead, will proc on 10% of cases on those 10% of attacks; effectively reducing the chance to be critted from 10% to 9%. Yay.

3. Regarding Virtous Triumph: resouce generation tied to onKill, is generally limited by amount of enemies. On average there seem to be 6-8 enemies in an encounter. If paladin delivers killing blow to each enemy, on average he will get 1.5-2 zeal. Now, the problem is, paladin in a party rarelly finishes even 50% of enemies (in my experience it is closer to 15%), plus killing the last enemy does nothing.

Although... there are some shenanigans with killing friendly summons. And imo, Virtuous Triumph should not work of those.

As for Bonus Discipline talent: what do your propose?

[MaxQuest]

Rogue

1. please no. Riposte is already a weird ability in that it is either virtually useless or extremely powerful. Instead of leaning into this more by providing what is essentially a win-more effect, i'd rather flatten this variability (that basically mandates metagaming) and provide a % riposte chance on grazes as well (even if lower than the % riposte chance on miss).

2. What would Perplexing Sap do? I think Sap is fine as it is, Perplexing Sap is fundamentally broken though. I would and have happily taken Sap as a skill, but after one ugly run where I discovered just how borked Perplexing Sap is, I will never upgrade. (maybe Perplexing Sap should be a redesign and that redesign could mean knocking the opponent asleep and when they wake they are hobbled and confused. A developer noted on my reported bug for Perplexing Sap that this was on their list of abilities that need a revisit so they are aware that it is also broken, but I'm guessing they just can't spare the time to retool it.)

4a. (lol at paying special attention to the cipher interaction. not judging, i paid special attention to the priest suggestions.)

5. I actually don't think it's too big a deal that flanked suppresses low stacks of confounding blind (mentioned as such in the bug forum thread), but this change smells to me like another hack, because it's possible that the designer who implemented this ability forgot that flanked suppresses confounding blind's early effects (or maybe flanked was added into perception affliction later in design and the interaction here was forgotten). I don't have another good suggestion though unless we're willing to go really strong or change the effect altogether, because with the current flanked/perception afflction/stacking system the ability at its core just doesn't work. (Go really strong: make each stack -10 deflection, so the first hit is equivalent to flanked, and it's all upside from there, cap at like 5 stacks. Change the effect altogether: one stack is -1 AR. So the first hit is a no-op (since Flanked also provides -1 AR), and it's all upside from there, though less generally obscenely strong as the previous suggestion)

1. Sounds reasonable. Would you suggest a specific chance?

2. The same thing it did before. When the confused enemy hits one of his allies, that one becomes confused too. I am ok with redefign of it though.

4a. ^^ mindstalker is already squishy in terms of hp; coming closer + extra micro kinda should net some reward)

5. Iirc -1 AR from flanked stacks with active debuffs like Rending Smash and Rust Armor. I don't know yet, why -10 deflection doesn't behave as passively. Personally I am ok with it being left as is; set to passive; or have a faster stacking progression. Although I have a slight preference towards the last two options.

 

Wizard

1. I fully agree that Kalakoth is way too weak, but I prefer a less-murky debuff (to me it's murky because it's a bunch of effects that don't seem like they are connected) of just a deeper accuracy penalty.

2. Ghost Blades is fine as is. It is a party-friendly effect that also debuffs. It does not need a buff.

3. Probably better to shrink cast time. The effect and duration seem like in a good place for AL2, it is just weird that it has such a lengthy cast time considering basically every other wizard buff. I feel like this spell got missed in that one patch where they shrunk cast times for litanies/prayers and even Eldritch Aim.

1. Check

2. Check

3. Check

 

---

Btw, with all the 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/inspiration 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: Deception >>> Deception, 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.

 

 

P.S. Feel free to suggest/argument what to cut/add/edit next.

Edited March 7, 2019 by MaxQuest

[thelee]

 

Hazards aren't consistently affected by many things but the big one is keyword interactions (so wall of fire and warding seal don't benefit from Scion of flame or heart of the storm)

 

Then it's clearly a bug, becose all these abilities have proper keywords (Punishment and Fire/Electricity) in both abilities.gamedatabundle and attacks.gamedatabundle. I guess something in the code prevents game from reading/using these keywords.

 

U can create a topic in Technical support and write about it. If someone haven't done it already...

 

 

I've reported hazard issues sooooooo many times. And keyword interaction is just one aspect. All hazard effects do less damage than stated in tool-tip (which is odd considering tool-tips are auto-generated), they don't get PL scaling for damage, they don't get empower bonus for damage, etc. Hazards were also extremely weird and buggy in PoE1, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson for Deadfire, but... (From what someone else mentioned in one of my bug reports, it's not that the ability is missing stuff, it's that the ability creates a separate hazard effect, and it's that effect that is missing keywords or stat interactions).

 

@thelee: Well, my examples that added 1 spell per trinket were just examples. As I said I can totally see trinkets that only add one single spell - or two or three. Not necessarily one per PL progression. And als not necessarily at the usual PL. You could do a trinket that adds a PL 8 spell to your PL 6 or so... endless possibilities basically.

A trinket named "Book of Prayers " that only adds the Prayer and Linany spells and gives them +1 PL could be a thing.

 

I also would like to add "unique" spells that only come with that trinket (I love the unique grimoires). That, added with some "special" features like bonus PL for certain keywords (+2 PL to punishment or whatever), bonus durations, bigger AoE, you name it - should solve the problem that some spell levels of the Priest and his spell selections are very narrow and motivate to use some spells that you normally wouldn't consider. Ot take a route with your build you didn't consider before. 

 

Same with Druids: no need to give them a 1:1 copy of the grimoire mechanics, but add some nice trinkets that are cool, fitting and help them a bit to develop more specific build ideas/routes that are fun. For example: currently there's not much motivation to build a Decay-Druid (not a single item with special Decay bonus afaik - besides Chromopr. Staff that does +1 PL to Acid) while Beast/Plant Druids (Spine of Thicket Green, Ancient), Healer Druids (Lifegiver, Spine of Thicket Green, diverse +healing items), Summons Druid (Ancient, Animancy Cat) and Elemental Druids (Fury, Fire PL bonus gear, Storms PL bonus gear, Shock PL bonus gear) get all the love. Hence my example ot the shrinkhead. 

 

Of course it would be nice if we could find a special approach for both class-trinkets that seperates them from each other (and grimoires) a bit but still keeps things consistent and kind of uniform.

yeah, I could be down with something like that. if Obsidian feels like doing some new content...

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Ahh, I found some other suggestions I'd made in a different post, many of which would transpose well here:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105086-what-would-you-like-to-see-in-future-dlcs-and-patches/?p=2087105

 

Game could still use a few more unique wands, the ones that exist are either late-game or build-specialized.

 

I'd replace miss-to-graze on flails entirely with a best of crush/slash damage -- it doesn't make a *huge* amount of sense but it's at least conceptually possible, there's a hole in the weapons that crush/slash could fit (warhammers being already crush/pierce), and miss-to-graze is so awful that it's basically not possible to make it good -- even at really high, like, 75% miss to graze bonus, you're still mathematically worse than any other weapon class bonus. It needs replacement not tweaking. 

 

I'd change the trigger to release the 'faction enemy" ships -- they're impossible for most people to see in most playthroughts due tot he weird way factions work. I would change them so they trigger and appear on the map when you have slain all unique named ships belonging to the respective factions.

 

I'd still like to see a unique Vailian jacket style armor.

 

I'd like the game to remember what speed I set the walking and the combat on when I  start up the game. 

 

I agree on the mental binding improvement. Maybe even up to 8 seconds. 

 

Haunting Chains needs a large AoE. Compare with tier 5 Wizard spell Enervating Terror (1.5 m radius terrify, weakened). For Haunting Chains to be worthwhile it has to be, at minimum, an AoE terrify with the same radius as Secret Horrors, which is a tier 3 power with a 2.5 m radius. 

[thelee]

@MaxQuest (boy this thread is getting hard to quote/parse, so here's some specific responses):

 

Riposte - currently it's 25% on miss, right? I propose something like a 15% chance on miss or graze. I think my original idea of having a separate chance for miss and graze is unnecessarily complicated. But maybe it's unavoidable considering TB's very huge graze range.

 

Sabre/Stiletto - I also strongly disagree with these changes. I also disagree with the assessment that the +50% recovery time penalty is not worth it for damage dealers. It is definitely worth it in most underpenetration changes. But I mostly disagree because not suffering a +50% recovery time penalty was something that was special to swords, and you're taking that away.

 

Perplexing Sap - in case you don't know, the reason why this ability is broken is because "confused" means that you don't distinguish between ally/enemy... including for the perplexing sap ability. So you actually end up basically confusing/hobbling the entire battlefield (yourself included) from this. It's awful and one should never upgrade Sap. That's why I'm proposing leaving Sap alone and re-designing Perplexing Sap to be something less stupid, because even Obsidian has acknowledged that Perplexing Sap is an ability they wanted to revisit.

 

Prone - I mentioned this in passing, but I strongly disagree with lengthening the actual prone-on-ground duration. Prone is not hard CC and we shouldn't blur the line with it. It's a stronger interrupt (+50% interrupt time on a perfect interrupt, can be conditionally much better against fast enemies). The only thing I would change about prone is to make the actual interrupt effect +3s instead of +2s like a standard interrupt (so you're proned for the same duration but the recovery time is now 3s instead of 2s) because it seems like an unnecessary complication/murk about interrupt vs prone.

 

Seals - I really don't think they need adjustment, I think they need bug fixing. By "hack" I mean "a fragile workaround". If hazard effects ever get fully fixed, I think seals become gangbusters (except for repulsing seal) and they definitely don't need a 3s cast time. I could get down with repulsing seal having a 3s cast time though, since the out-of-combat cast is pretty negligible, and the distinction between it and pillar of faith at AL2 is very murky in combat (raise your hands if you knew that repulsing seal prones on graze vs pillar's prone on hit, and hands up if you knew that repulsing seal gets +2 acc/PL instead of +1 acc/PL for pillar of faith) and so it would help differentiate it without being notably that much more powerful. (Note that everything I say about seals also applies to other hazard effects, which include some wizard walls and I think a druid effect or two).

 

Kalakoth - I actually don't think -10 acc and -10 reflex make it that much more usable. Again I reiterate that a stronger single acc debuff (-15 or -20) is more usable for AL1. edit - for that matter priest Barb's is only barely useable and has longer range and is -10 all defenses and wizards really should be better at this kind of effect than priests at this level I think.

 

Resource generation - given that there exists a paladin talent that unconditionally grants +1 resource and that costs an ability point, conditional resource generation seems gamely targeted at 0-2 resources for a typical fight with minor metagaming (hence me sayign so for Virtuous Triumph in a different comment). I would think that the current fighter talent is close to this range--albeit requires particular metagaming so you don't have an anti-synergy going on, and has higher potential upside than Virtuous Triumph. If there's one thing I would fix, it'd be the aforementioned anti-synergy - a Barbarian gets special "on-being-crit" effect because they actually are expected to get lower deflection on top of having low inherent deflection, whereas fighters have inherently high deflection and have a lot of passive boosters. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is a moon godlike-type effect where you get +1 discipline the first time you are dropped a health category. Maybe that's too good, but seems to me you limit the upside (like paladin Virtuous Triumph) and it's a little bit less anti-synergy and also a bit less murky (low probability odds for impactful events strikes me as murky).

Edited March 7, 2019 by thelee

[thelee]

Also, re: moon godlike scaling:

 

The good thing through, that aside from PL progression, character can aquire items that increase his might and healing done/taken during his journey, which can almost double the effective healing. So you are speaking about: 10 + 10% per PL, where PL is that of a single class, and benefits from potion of ascention, prestige and other PL bonuses?

 

Yeah, that's why I want to push for making things more integrated systematically into the game, instead of creating parallel effects. I think Bellower subclass showed just how poorly chanters are integrated into PL scaling to their detriment. If a Moon Godlike can improve their healing with improved might, Prestige, or Potion of Ascension or heck, the Heart-Chime Amulet (+1 PL for moon godlikes at night, seems like a perfect match), that seems to me a better scenario than either their current fixed 10 healing or a separate character-level scaling.

 

Like I said, ideally also chanter chants would also use some sort of PL scaling, so that PL scaling is more impactful for them (as befits a caster) and also doesn't create a weird situation where multiclass chanters can chant just as well as single-class chanters.

 

I'll probably add more responses throughout the day or two, but those are the big ones I wanted to mention real fast.

Edited March 7, 2019 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Reminder about Riposte: It had a 30% (!) chance to trigger on graze in PoE. 

[Phenomenum]

Reminder about Riposte: It had a 30% (!) chance to trigger on graze in PoE.

 

Yes, but in PoE 1 Minimum Roll to-Graze was 15 so it was far easy to land a Graze.

If we go for systematical approach then:

 

PoE 1: 20% when Missed, 30% when Grazed.

If Rogue Deflection higher than attacker Acc by 50 points (scenario when 100% of incoming attacks leads to Grazes or Hits and Riposte will have chance to trigger after every attack), then all incoming attacks have 30% chance to Miss and 70% to Graze.

Simple calculations will shows us, that Misses will trigger Ripost in 6% of all attacks: (30 * 0.2 = 6); Grazes will trigger Ripost in 21% of all attacks (70 * 0.3 = 21)

21 + 6 = 27% of all attacks will trigger Riposte (in scenario without Hits and Crits).

If Acc = Defl (15% Miss, 35% Graze, 50% Hit) then: (15 * 0.2) + (35 * 0.3) = 3 + 10.5 = 13.5% of all attacks will trigger Riposte.

 

So this is Ripost efficiency in PoE 1.

 

PoE 2: 30% when Missed.

In the same scenario (without Hits and Crits) all incoming attacks have 50% chance to Miss and 50% to Graze.

Simple calculations...

Calculations...

...

... 15% of all attacks will trigger Riposte (in scenario without Hits and Crits).

If Acc = Defl (25% Miss, 25% Graze, 50% Hit) then: (25 * 0.3) = 7.5% of all attacks will trigger Riposte.

 

So this is Ripost efficiency in PoE 2.

 

 

Conclusion 1: Ripost in PoE 2 almost twice weaker and barely worth 1 ability point.

Conclusion 2: if we add +25% Miss to Graze for Ripost then total efficiency will be 27,5% (in scenario without Hits and Crits) - similar with PoE 1.

If Acc = Defl, then another 6,25% will be added >>> 13.75% of all incoming attacks will trigger Riposte - similar with PoE 1.

 

I'm done.

 

P.S. Reminder for MaxQuest: if some Ripost adjustments will be added in final list, don't forget to add this calculations. Or some another calculations. For Obsidian.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Ensign]

Stuff off the top of my head:

Resolve 3% duration -> 5% duration. I think we've seen this doesn't matter for min-maxed solo runs where you stack immunity anyway, but matters for nudging its value in parties and for less optimized parties. More relevant is how it would move resolve debuffs from +15% to +25% duration, increasing their importance. (Doesn't go through double inversion, irrelevant)

Swords and Greatswords - may just be me but they pay far too high a price for their two damage types. High pen type weapons only lose 1 pen for dual type (see mace vs hammer; estoc vs morningstar), but low pen types lose 1 pen *and* the additional bonus. I'd stick something minor (+3 / +5 deflection vs melee) here, it just irks me that the iconic weapons are under budget.

Cipher:

Biting Whip - like the raw lash suggestion. Would need to be at least a +30% marginal vanilla bonus for me to look at it.

Mental Binding is fine as is. A lot of power budget in the immobilize. Hard CC is strong yo.

Psychovampiric Shield: Steadfast -> Resolute. While interesting for the big stacking will debuff, would be an effective tool for tankier builds with a small change.

Fractured Volition: Hobbled -> Staggered. I look at this if it does -20 Fort.

Puppet Master: 4s recovery -> 3s recovery. Consistency with WoT, RL.

Body Attunement: additional -10 / +10 deflection.

Mind Lance: interrupt on graze, as suggested.

Wild Leech: I would just give it a 5m radius (foe), making it effectively a better Phantom Foes.  Back and forth if the inspiration should be AoE as well - how fast would that turn into a 'stack all the things' ability?

Mind Plague: 3c, 3r -> 0.5c, 4r. Underappreciated spell, but doesn't need to be slower than Secret Horrors.

Stasis Shell: 3c 3r -> 0.5c, 4r. Need to be able to react quickly, otherwise why not just Puppet Master.

Haunting Chains: 2.5m radius.

Agree on Defensive Mindweb not breaking on graze.

Time Parasite is fine. The debuff isn't very exciting and the speed buff, as good as it feels, loses a lot of its sheen once you price in the 5s cast and recovery.

Ranger:

Wounding Shot: +10 accuracy. Accurate Wounding Shot is a good skill, but the base version is a waste of resources compared to the other 1 resource attacks.

Heal Companion: 3c -> 0.5c, bond 2 -> 1, range 4m -> 6m, duration 6s -> 8s. Throw the kitchen sink at it. Healing your own pet should be at least worth considering over just offloading that job onto the party healer.

Revive Companion: 100 health. Again, should be more accessible and powerful than using a general purpose revive.

Hardy Companion: Hardy -> Robust

Vengeful Companion: Cannot die for 15s.

Master's Call: 4r -> 0r.

Play Dead: 4r -> 0r.


Good thread concept. More later.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ensign

[Boeroer]

RES 3% to 5% doesn't work. Simply because at the cap of 35 RES you would have a reduction of 125%...    Even 4% wouldn't be ok since you would end up at 100% meaning immune to all timed harmful effects - because it not only shortens afflictions but also stuff like self damage from Scared Immolation, Berserker Frenzy etc.

 

This is one reason why Josh originally didn't want to introduce such an effect for RES right from the start I believe. 

 

RES already has increasing returns for deflection and now also shortens harmful effects. It's still a pure defensive stat, but in a better place than before.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

Some old stuff from Josh about Resolve:

 

I also did some, hm... experiments with the stats (for my own curiosity) and tweaked bonuses for Might, Dexterity and Resolve to +4%. The MIght +4% damage feels ok, Dexterity +4% Action Speed feels ok too (becose +4% give nearly the same result as if current +3% were counted properly). As for Res... +4% cut off too much effect durations , so i reverted it to deafult 3%.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Ensign]

RES 3% to 5% doesn't work. Simply because at the cap of 35 RES you would have a reduction of 125%...    Even 4% wouldn't be ok since you would end up at 100% meaning immune to all timed harmful effects - because it not only shortens afflictions but also stuff like self damage from Scared Immolation, Berserker Frenzy etc.

 

For some reason I thought this got fed through the same double inversion as everything else.  Of course it doesn't, and 3% is what you want in that case.  

 

 

Ugh, what bad design for the stat to have increasing returns on both effects.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ensign

[Ensign]

Quick thoughts to be torn apart:

 

- I don't think there's anything resembling a 'polish' solution to make Priests (and to an extent Druids) feel as good as Wizards at spell casting.  At face value you can balance the lack of flexibility with more raw power per spell, but that's not going to buy you much at typical levels of play.  Adding something like grimoires is a non-starter in my mind - between the lack of depth in the spell lists that quickly turns all priests into clones, and the enormity of the workload that would be needed to seed a bunch of holy symbols or whatever into the game in a way that would feel organic...you're not getting that without a pretty massive rework.

 

The path of least resistance would be having Druids lean into their spiritshift more - through trait support or the like - and doing something similar with priests that shifts them from the head-to-head comparison with Wizards over who casts spells better (spoiler: Wizards win) into more of a comparison with Druids as a spellcaster that also does this other thing isn't that cool.

 

No idea what that other thing should be another thing.

 

 

- Trickster is really overtuned.  Rogue at least has other strong subclasses to compete with it, but there's virtually no reason to ever play vanilla Rogue when Trickster is there.  Giving up ~5% damage throughout the game for 7-9 strong spells on attractive Guile costs is a no brainer.  I think it could lose Sneak Attack entirely and still be a good pick.  I don't think that's a good design though, what would be better?

 

- Troubadour too.  We all get that it's a massive upgrade over base Chanter, and unless you're doing something very specific with one of the other sub-classes you always take it, right?  I don't have any good ideas here, but any comprehensive list should have it on the chopping block.

 

 

- Rogue mid-tier abilities are pretty underwhelming.  Crippling Strike, Blinding Strike, Finishing Blow?  Good.  Ring the Bell, Sap, and Withering Blow?  Super niche at best.  The suggestion to put a hard CC on Sap is a good one.  Perplexing Sap is still broken (in the doesn't work sense) though, and Ring the Bell and Withering Blow could use some attention too.

 

 

- Sacred Immolation getting a second look would be good.  Was super iconic and a big power spike in the first game; here I haven't even taken it in forever.  I want to spend half my zeal on this why?  I defer here, with the caveat that this is a design issue with the game - it's hard to make a high level, high cost ability a better use of a very limited resource pool than just spamming lower level abilities.  Those cases where it works are places where those abilities just straight blow up the whole fight when used right, too (looking at you, Heart of Fury).

 

- The Zeal nerf to Greater Lay on Hands and Hands of Light has made those pretty bad.  Does anyone take them still?  They're generally considered a downgrade on the base ability I think, and need another look.

 

- Stoic Steel is dumb.  Like we all get how strong 1 passive penetration or armor is given the centrality of those to the damage system, right?  Cap it at 1 armor and it's still the first point you spend at this tier.  Or, possibly, bump it up to tier 8.  At least then you have to make a hard choice to get it, instead of 'I dinged 19, now my Paladin/Who Cares is unkillable.'

 

 

- The Dragon Trashed.  There are enough ways to play a Chanter (that I am unfamiliar with) that I'm hesitant to critique any of the invocations, but Dragon Trashed...leaving it this bad doesn't somehow make it even between games.

 

 

- Fighter isn't a bad class (plus Tactician herp derp) but its late game is really underwhelming, especially single classed.  Power Strike, Critical Defenses, Weapon Mastery...once you finish off your PL5 abilities Fighter just stops getting appreciably better and gets outscaled by basically everything else in the game.  What needs re-concepting here?

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

 

RES 3% to 5% doesn't work. Simply because at the cap of 35 RES you would have a reduction of 125%...    Even 4% wouldn't be ok since you would end up at 100% meaning immune to all timed harmful effects - because it not only shortens afflictions but also stuff like self damage from Scared Immolation, Berserker Frenzy etc.

 

For some reason I thought this got fed through the same double inversion as everything else.  Of course it doesn't, and 3% is what you want in that case.  

 

 

Ugh, what bad design for the stat to have increasing returns on both effects.

 

 

 

"Good" design in this instance would probably be to cut resolve entirely, but we had to have six ability stats for legacy reasons. 

[Boeroer]

Fighter gets access to Clear the Path/Clean Sweep. Although you can also get Clear Out at PL7 those two are better.

 

As far as I understood making trinkets is not very complicated when modding. And then it also shouldn't be complicated to put like 10 trinkets into the game.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Boeroer

[Taudis]

- Trickster is really overtuned.  Rogue at least has other strong subclasses to compete with it, but there's virtually no reason to ever play vanilla Rogue when Trickster is there.  Giving up ~5% damage throughout the game for 7-9 strong spells on attractive Guile costs is a no brainer.  I think it could lose Sneak Attack entirely and still be a good pick.  I don't think that's a good design though, what would be better?

Further lowering the sneak attack or dropping it won't solve this, the issue is really that the other subclasses are better than no-sub in the niche it has over Trickster - damage. I think Trickster is in a pretty good place right now, and it's fine if no-sub is the loser in that set of subclasses considering we have three big winners (Trickster, Streetfight, and Assssin) and a sub with a strong niche (Debonaire paired with Whispers of Treason). It's important to note too that 4 companions/sidekicks have vanilla Rogue as a subclass, so it probably gets played way more than any of the other subs. Another point: No-sub is a reasonable beginner option, since the other subs are definitely harder to play. The game after all isn't geared 100% towards veterans.

 

- Troubadour too.  We all get that it's a massive upgrade over base Chanter, and unless you're doing something very specific with one of the other sub-classes you always take it, right?  I don't have any good ideas here, but any comprehensive list should have it on the chopping block.

Split it with base Chanter. Give base Chanter the best linger and leave Troubadour with Brisk Recitation. Bonus: Remove the Chant radius nerf from Bellower and the +1 Summon cost from Beckoner since they now have a "new" penalty applied; the removal of the longer linger. Maybe boost Skald with a fairly small hit-to-crit chance, like 5%, so it's not left out? It's the only sub that I feel like is anywhere close to as good as Troub right now but it'd feel weird to buff the others and not Skald. Anyways, the point of the combined buff/nerf is that the reason Troub is so desirable is also partly because the other subs have really big penalties.

 

If that's too much for "polishing", just remove the linger from Troubadour and make Brisk Recitation "always on". Brisk Recitation is plenty powerful (and frankly more interesting than the bonus linger letting you be better at being passive) and not having Troubs also be able to maintain 2 Chants at 100% uptime would be enough of a nerf to bring them in line with the rest of the Chanters.

 

- Rogue mid-tier abilities are pretty underwhelming.  Crippling Strike, Blinding Strike, Finishing Blow?  Good.  Ring the Bell, Sap, and Withering Blow?  Super niche at best.  The suggestion to put a hard CC on Sap is a good one.  Perplexing Sap is still broken (in the doesn't work sense) though, and Ring the Bell and Withering Blow could use some attention too.

Withering Strike could easily just cost 2 Guile instead of 3. Or keep it at 3, remove Perishing Strike and upgrade Weakened to Enfeebled. It's frankly a bit insulting that you can apply a tier 3 affliction for 2 guile at PL2 but a tier 2 affliction costs 3 at PL4. Ring the Bell could stick an accuracy bonus bonus on one-handed weapons, I suppose. I'd personally like to see Strike the Bell moved up from the cramped PL3 to PL4 and given a small boost for being higher level (an acc bonus? more damage?), since I find its upgrades mostly suffer from the fact that the base ability has so much competition at its PL.

 

- The Dragon Trashed.  There are enough ways to play a Chanter (that I am unfamiliar with) that I'm hesitant to critique any of the invocations, but Dragon Trashed...leaving it this bad doesn't somehow make it even between games.

Do what thelee keeps saying; make Chants get proper PL scaling. You'd probably have to lower the base damage of Dragon Thrashed and Soft Winds to keep them from being totally OP but really Chants should work like everything else in the game. Bonus suggestion: Give Chanters the elemental PEN abilities, and keyword Dragon Thrashed to Fire.

 

Note that this could also be a solution to the "Troubadour is too good" issue, since presumably PL would apply to Chant durations and slowly allow the other subs 100% uptime on 2 chants at once. Even if Troub hits 3 chants at 100% uptime, it's only 50% better than other subs at maintaining multiple Chants rather than 100% better.

 

- Fighter isn't a bad class (plus Tactician herp derp) but its late game is really underwhelming, especially single classed.  Power Strike, Critical Defenses, Weapon Mastery...once you finish off your PL5 abilities Fighter just stops getting appreciably better and gets outscaled by basically everything else in the game.  What needs re-concepting here?

High level Fighter definitely isn't underwhelming. I think the real solution here is to have the ingame tooltips be more transparent about how PL-scaling affects martials - it's actually quite helpful and completely non-obvious.

[thelee]

 

RES 3% to 5% doesn't work. Simply because at the cap of 35 RES you would have a reduction of 125%...    Even 4% wouldn't be ok since you would end up at 100% meaning immune to all timed harmful effects - because it not only shortens afflictions but also stuff like self damage from Scared Immolation, Berserker Frenzy etc.

 

For some reason I thought this got fed through the same double inversion as everything else.  Of course it doesn't, and 3% is what you want in that case.  

 

 

Ugh, what bad design for the stat to have increasing returns on both effects.

 

 

Resolve does get fed into the double-inversion system, but probably not in the way you were anticipating. If you have a -% bonus on hostile durations due to having resolve greater than 10, that gets inverted to cancel out much more +% duration effects (so a resolve of 20 would get you -30% hostile durations, which when inverted can cancel out up to +42.8% worth of duration bonuses, e.g. from intellect). You might have been thinking that each point of resolve gives you a separate -3% bonus, which when inverted can make it impossible to get up to -100% or more duration (which would be absurd), but no stat works like this, they all sum up their effects first before being tossed into the inversion grinder.

 

and yes, it is unfortunate that it has increasing returns on both effects. at least increasing returns means that high-end resolve can be extremely powerful, whereas Con is just forever kind of a lame stat right now.

[Ensign]

Fighter get access to Clear the Path/Clean Sweep. Although you can also get Clear Out at PL7 those two are better.

 

As far as I understood making trinkets is not very complicated when modding. And then it also shouldn't be complicated to put like 10 trinkets into the game.

 

I really like Sundering Blow too.

 

Granted I think I suffer from 'not liking what Fighter does' a little too much, but it and Paladin are still the classes I am least inspired to single class.  If lots of other people like those two single classes great, but if not, well, what do you do?

 

 

Creating 10ish different trinkets as item IDs wouldn't be particularly difficult.  Putting the hundreds of instances of those trinkets into the game to make them feel like an organic part of the game, as opposed to tacked on expansion content, could very well be.  If there's a strong enough design maybe that's worth doing!  If you're re-balancing and designing the class around them having access to trinkets, though, they would really need to be available throughout the game as though they were there from the start.  Form is really important here.

[Ensign]

Resolve does get fed into the double-inversion system, but probably not in the way you were anticipating. If you have a -% bonus on hostile durations due to having resolve greater than 10, that gets inverted to cancel out much more +% duration effects (so a resolve of 20 would get you -30% hostile durations, which when inverted can cancel out up to +42.8% worth of duration bonuses, e.g. from intellect).

 

Yes, it is consistent with how other modifiers are messaged and work in the game.  I'm just "surprised" that it was implemented to work on the increasing returns (inverted) side of the ledger (as 'reduced hostile durations') instead of the linear side of the ledger (as 'hostile effects expire faster').

 

-3% reduced duration and 5% faster expiration have roughly the same efficacy in the 20-25 range, so not going to belabor this.  The game's version just blows out harder at higher values and has pathetic marginals at low attribute values, which is what I would like to address.

 

Feh.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ensign

[Boeroer]

Creating 10ish different trinkets as item IDs wouldn't be particularly difficult.  Putting the hundreds of instances of those trinkets into the game to make them feel like an organic part of the game, as opposed to tacked on expansion content, could very well be.  If there's a strong enough design maybe that's worth doing!  If you're re-balancing and designing the class around them having access to trinkets, though, they would really need to be available throughout the game as though they were there from the start.  Form is really important here.

I don't think that there was that much effort put into the placement of grimoires. They drop like everywhere a wizard goes down - and you can find them in many shops.

 

I don't ask to put hundrets of Holy Symbols and Fetishes into the game as well. A few for each (Priest, Druid) will already help.

[Ensign]

I don't ask to put hundrets of Holy Symbols and Fetishes into the game as well. A few for each (Priest, Druid) will already help.

 

Sure, mechanically you could just have each Druid or Priest you roll come with a holy symbol and stick the rest on the vendor in Port Maje.

 

But if it's going to be a core part of the game, style matters, and that means going through and sticking them on all NPC priests etc.  I do see that it takes very little to solve it from a raw mechanical perspective, but if you're going to re-design and balance a core class around that being their mechanic it really should feel like an organic part of the game, not just something kludged in.

 

This is something reasonable people can disagree on, but the amount of polish, especially on the critical path with core classes, is an experience that should reflect top quality production.  Kludging in a solution for your most dedicated players isn't worth damaging that.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Ensign

[Boeroer]

If there are only unique onces I see no reason why every Pries or Druid should have one? After all all trinkets except most grimoires are unique and rare. If there were 5 unique priest-only trinktes and 5 druid-only ones that could probably already be enough to cause a bit of relief.

 

Also: in recent patches where new uniques were presented (besides items that were tied to a DLC) Obsidian didn't exatly put a ton of effort into placing them in most meaningful ways. Essence Interrupter and others just got placed into some merchant's inventories. So I can't see why this should suddenly be a reason not to introduce some more uniques that imprive gameplay for two classes.

 

Besides that there are some temples in the Deadfire: perfect place to place some trinkets. Oathbinder's Sanctum (I'm sure there are some containers), Berath's Temple, Gaun's Temple and so on. You also have enough places that are druid-themed (Sayuka, Cauldron place and so on).

 

All in all I see no problem. Just don't overdo it, that's all.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Boeroer

[Phenomenum]

About Dragon Trashed phrase. Currently is random effect: You can deal Fire OR Slash damage, but not both at the same time. I'm pretty sure things get better after removing "Random" flag and adding Fire keyword to attack.

As for pharases PL scaling - i'm doubt that Obsidian will do this. Trough it can be easily fixed by mod, there's a several questions pop up:

 

- If all phrases will be scaled, it requires rebalancing all initial values from scratch.

- Some non-offencive phrases (immunity and resistances, concentration and so on) can't be scaled.

- You need to avoid exploits with Brisk Recitation.

 

It's too complicated and i don't call it "polishing" - it will be a total rebalance of Chanters. So i prefer leave it alone, exept tweaking some values and adding few keywords. (Fire to Dragon Trashed, Resoration/Rejuvenation to Ancestor's Memory - somehow i had missed this flaws during my keywords inspection).

Edited March 9, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Woopee]

RE: rogue mid-tier abilities sucking

 

Why is Withering Strike 3 guile again? Can't understand the logic there.