Deadfire Polishing Thread

[thelee]

 

as it stands, accurate empower should be basically the first empower talent that virtually anyone takes because of its superior utility compared to the other empower talents. if one is interested in re-balancing those talents (as MaxQuest signaled the intention), one should focus on reining in accurate empower rather than boosting the others. Because otherwise that's how you get power creep. And I've played D3 long enough to be traumatized by power creep.

 

Agreed, but does 2 points make a change? And how this falls under your "Bugfixes" definition.

 

mathematically, i think it's closer. I think +7 would be better, mathematically, but i hate odd numbers that aren't multiples of 5 when it comes to accuracy adjustments and I think +6 is too weak, so it's also an aesthetic thing, yeah i'll concede it's partly irrational 

 

also, while i wouldn't want to use a non-bugfix exclusive mod, if an effort like this has a lot of sway, I would at least like the balance tweaks to be what I personally think are at least systematic and well-considered with minimal power creep.

Edited March 14, 2019 by thelee

[Taudis]

 

Your current suggestions on Sacred Immolation look good for balancing.

Yeah, that 'eliminates' situations when you could get a longer self-damage DoT due to low resolve; or viceversa reduce the self-dot duration to minimum, and even enable a second Immolation before the first one expired.

 

But also wanted to know if you feel that 12 base duration is enough for 4 zeal cost.

 

 

I'm not really sure you can mess around too much with the base duration, considering it is a self-damage ability. You could maybe do 15 sec, as a nod to TB (way easier to hit 3 round duration that way). I'm more inclined to be conservative and not change it but I don't think that +3 sec is unreasonable.

 

 

Withering Strike should be 2 Guile, plain and simple. It follows the same formula as Blinding Strike (Acc/damage increase plus Affliction, upgrade into either DoT or extra debuff) but applies a lower tier affliction. PER afflictions automatically provide Deathblows, so there's no reason to weight a CON affliction as higher.

Makes sense.

How about the upgrades? Enfeebled and that corrode DoT are both quite potent.

But at the same time, both come with caveats:

- you can't have enfeebled right now

- the corrode DoT builds over time. And although it's most needed vs high-hp targets, such enemies usually have higher resolve.

 

 

The Enfeebled is awkward as all get out and pretty much requires team play and/or a lot of time to make potent use of it. I also think that if it was broken, it would have been broken at 3 guile. It's not like you need to spam the ability.

 

Does Toxic Strike stack with itself? That'd be my main concern at a cheaper cost, if its spamming potency goes through the roof. Otherwise, I think it's fine. You still do the same thing; you open with it, then use your spam abilities. You just have an extra point of Guile to work with.

 

If it's actually a concern, you can just make the upgrades cost 3 again. I don't think 15 sec delay/build around Enfeebled is worth 3 Guile and I only think Toxic Strike needs the 3 guile barrier if you can stack multiple instances.

 

 

Stoic Steel and Pierce the Bell seem fine to me. The most I would change would maybe be to push Stoic Steel to PL8, if you felt there wasn't enough reason to Single Class Pally.

I feel that Pierce the Bell is the weakest upgrade among those three, because the +20% damage bonus is kinda small for a rogue with sneak attack, deathblows, quality weapon and +25% innate ability bonus. Lowering enemy physical armor by 1, such that party could benefit from it, looks to be more useful.

 

As for Stoic Steel - am neutral for now. But have seen Ensign's suggestion and wanting to gather more opinions on this.

 

 

Pierce The Bell: It's not as much of an upgrade as the other options but the base ability is quite potent - keep in mind that +3 PEN can worth something like +300% damage. I think the 25% innate ability bonus is a point for it and not against it, too - +45% damage is good enough for 2 Guile. FWIW, -1 AR would not make the ability significantly more appealing because there's several AoEs that give better AR penalties, meaning a single target -1 AR would have a hard time finding a niche.

 

Stoic Steel: I can see why someone would want to change Stoic Steel but IMO any issues with it are inherent to the AR/PEN system and how it intersects with PotD scaling. They're not actually issues with Stoic Steel. There should be avenues to make an AR tank, just like there should be avenues to make DEF or FORT/REF/WILL tanks because some players like to make nigh-invulnerable Watchers. Stoic Steel is actually in a pretty good spot on that front because of it breaking on movement and pushing you towards heavier armors. Trading mobility and speed for armor is both thematic and a meaningful drawback.

[MaxQuest]

I worry if it will be useful only for the first half of the game and only for player?

These changes are symmetrical and affect both: player characters and npcs.

 

And the idea is:

- to make it slightly easier to hit the disabled enemies.

- to make it slightly harder for those who have high reflex/deflection and just don't care if they are immobilized/paralyzed, because enemies miss a lot.

- a slightly higher incentive to take a dedicated debuffer. As a big fan of cc-parties, was kinda often catching myself thinking that my Deadfire party would get stronger with an extra sturdy-dps instead of debilitator.

 

What about Warhammers and War Bows? They a ok?

 

+ I prefer to leave alone stiletto, since it's a fast weapon and Recovery penalty don't hurts bad.

I forgot to remove stiletto change from the list)

 

As for Warhammers and War Bows, upon longer examination, I think their profficiencies are ok.

> War Bows have a very thematic overdraw, which literally takes longer, and penetrates harder. Additionally there are warbows that have enchants that have a 50% chance to skip recovery onCrit; and this helps to alleviate the total action time increase.

 

> And regarding Warhammers, I came to conclusion that I don't really view them as dps weapons. Because they are kinda super-seeded by maces/clubs and spears in this department. Plus there are enough ways to lower enemy AR.

 

Thus I do view them more as utility weapons; and for these am ~ok with recovery increase.

 

as it stands, accurate empower should be basically the first empower talent that virtually anyone takes because of its superior utility compared to the other empower talents. if one is interested in re-balancing those talents (as MaxQuest signaled the intention), one should focus on reining in accurate empower rather than boosting the others.

Do agree that Accurate Empower is in practice strongest between those options.

My initial intention was to bring Potent and Lasting to the level of Accurate Empower. But don't mind lowering Accurate Empower neither.

 

 

 

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 in the main hand, and can skip recovery altogether via full attacks.

7b. ...

What about Warhammers and War Bows? They a ok?

+ I prefer to leave alone stiletto, since it's a fast weapon and Recovery penalty don't hurts bad.

 

I don't know why these changes are being proposed, because mathematically +2 PEN for +50% is a no-brainer tradeoff for any PEN vs situation of -2 to -4. The fact that swords are able to get +2 PEN for no recovery time trade off (similar to Estoc) is an advantage that swords have that is diluted by these changes. So I still think the changes in 7/7b are unnecessary.

 

I've forgotten to remove 7b.

As for sabres...

 

Yes, going from [-4 PEN -> -2], [-3 PEN -> -1], [-2 PEN -> 0] would for sure be worth some +50% recovery time.

But:

- sitting at -2 is still bad for a damage dealer (unless he is using Battle Axes and doesn't care for AR at all).

- I don't think I would go even for [-2 PEN -> 0] with sabres; because why tolerate that +50% recovery when you can switch weapons? After all there are very few enemies that have slash AR lower than their pierce or crush AR. Specifically: Nemnok/Imps, Krakens, Soul Collectors, Darguls, Bats, Hounds, Dank Spores and Vines. And these are not that heavy-armored.

- additionally players can lower enemy AR by 3 (via flanking, blackened plate aura, mace modal) and by 4 more by Sunder Blow / Rust Armor.

 

That said I'm not sure there really is a situation where I would enable sabre modal, unless I have sabre in mainhand, something else in offhand, and use full attacks. The proposed suggestion at least would provide a -15 deflection malus which I can't evade, but am actually ok with. Plus... might start dual-wielding sabres.

 

Riposte being adjusted to counter on graze is to me a bug fix (from a turn-based perspective);

That's a kinda blurry topic.

 

From one point of view it might be considered as unintended effect that goes like a ripple from the attack resolution change in TB.

 

From another point of view, current riposte is not a result of coding error, and it does precisely what it's description tells it does.

 

It's still slightly closer to a value tweak/adjustment in my book. But I guess it all comes to the definition and personal perspective.

 

Riposte being adjusted to counter on graze is to me a bug fix (from a turn-based perspective); obviously enough that I expect Obsidian to fix it themselves in the next patch (or else I will sigh in exasperation).

Yeah, it would make sense for Obsidian to do something about it.

Although looking at some other bug-reports that weren't addressed for a long time, exasperation doesn't feel productive enough)

 

Frankly if MaxQuest made a mod right now with all the listed changes, I wouldn't use it, because I like the vanilla experience and am only interested in obvious bug fixing.

That's sad, provided that a solid part of listed QoLs/fixes are out of reach for modding.

 

Also I do understand your general aversion towards unofficial tweaks.

And partially do share it. But at the same time, do dislike the current state of a quite an array of things. To name the most personally striking ones: Haunting Chains, Defensive Mindweb, Soul Annihilation, Dragon Thrashed, Stag Carnage, Sacred Immolation (if without duration shenanigans) and a bit Resonant Touch / Blade Turning exploits.

At the same time I can't usually just mod these for myself and enjoy the game. I'd prefer the changes to be endorsed by enough community members (as a sign that the changes are in check), or addressed officially. And that's probably a psychological thing ^^

 

Counter example, Spiritual Weapons do not have keyword on the ability, so it is much less clear whether or not the developers intended for the summoned weapons to benefit from keyword interactions, so adding keywords there is less of a bug fix.)

Do agree here.

And also there is kinda a difference between "weapon is out of fire" and "weapon is dealing fire damage". In the first case it makes sense to attach "burn" keyword to the weapon and it's attack (think of firebrand). In the second only to it's attack.

 

This is also partially related to stuff like Essence Interrupter being unable to deal pierce damage to enemies immune to shock keyword. Or pierce damage benefiting from +1 Shock PEN from Heart of the Storm.

 

P.S. I have just went through Phenomenum's list. And he suggested to add elemental keywords to:

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

 

Do some of these keyword suggestions appear broken to you?

Edited March 15, 2019 by MaxQuest

[MaxQuest]

The Enfeebled is awkward as all get out and pretty much requires team play and/or a lot of time to make potent use of it. I also think that if it was broken, it would have been broken at 3 guile. It's not like you need to spam the ability.

Makes sense. Plus there are enemies with constitution / body resistances.

 

Does Toxic Strike stack with itself? That'd be my main concern at a cheaper cost, if its spamming potency goes through the roof. Otherwise, I think it's fine. You still do the same thing; you open with it, then use your spam abilities. You just have an extra point of Guile to work with.

 

If it's actually a concern, you can just make the upgrades cost 3 again. I don't think 15 sec delay/build around Enfeebled is worth 3 Guile and I only think Toxic Strike needs the 3 guile barrier if you can stack multiple instances.

It doesn't stack with itself.

Also as a note: DoT starts with 2 damage, and gets +4 for each tick. It has 15s base duration, so it's mostly good on enemies that don't have high resolve and preferably: are enfeebled (although Toxic strike is mutually exclusive with Perishing Strike), and are affected by Cleansing Flames.

 

Pierce The Bell: It's not as much of an upgrade as the other options but the base ability is quite potent - keep in mind that +3 PEN can worth something like +300% damage. I think the 25% innate ability bonus is a point for it and not against it, too - +45% damage is good enough for 2 Guile. FWIW, -1 AR would not make the ability significantly more appealing because there's several AoEs that give better AR penalties, meaning a single target -1 AR would have a hard time finding a niche.

That's reasonable)

 

Stoic Steel: I can see why someone would want to change Stoic Steel but IMO any issues with it are inherent to the AR/PEN system and how it intersects with PotD scaling. They're not actually issues with Stoic Steel. There should be avenues to make an AR tank, just like there should be avenues to make DEF or FORT/REF/WILL tanks because some players like to make nigh-invulnerable Watchers. Stoic Steel is actually in a pretty good spot on that front because of it breaking on movement and pushing you towards heavier armors. Trading mobility and speed for armor is both thematic and a meaningful drawback.

Point taken.

Provided that there is little unanimity related to this, I think there no need to address Stoic Steel atm.

Edited March 15, 2019 by MaxQuest

[DubiousNixie]

Cipher's buff echoes (plus a few of the offensive ones like soul shock) being non-self targetable at this point feels like a weird sacred cow; it's hard to agree that being able to cast Valorous Echoes on self would be inherently overpowered especially when the comparable wizard spells and fighter actives are comparatively free actions.

 

Pain Link was self-targetable in the first game; imo there would be honestly no loss of balance if that was restored and with that list being expanded to Soul Shock, Valorous Echoes, Pain Block, Echoing Shield, Amplified Wave, Ancestor's Memory, Driving Echoes, and possibly Reaping Knives. Focus generation from Brilliant isn't even particularly good compared to recovering full spell slots or resources as other classes, for example, it mostly just opens up options for slightly more selfish play (and in turn-based still doesn't come close to wizard chain buffing anyway)

 

Biting Whip needs a compelling reason to take it besides as a way to slow down Serafen's focus generation; a +1 Pen passive on top of hammering thoughts might be compelling or it might be wildly overpowering.

 

For comparison's sake

- Valorous Echoes is 3 rounds of the T1 might and perception inspirations, not as a free action, and can't be cast as an opener at level 1, it's arguably not much better than either Eldritch Aim (2 rounds of T2 Perception as a free cast) or Disciplined Strikes (T2 perception, 3 rounds, free action, free concentration)

- Pain Block is 3 rounds of single target robust as a level 4 spell; druids get that as an AOE for 2 rounds as a level 3 spell.

- Echoing Shield, one of the only sources of resolute from class abilities and since it's an AOE I assume it's meant to affect the cipher, so the lack of ability to self target just seems weird

- Ancestor's Memory, again, Brilliant is actually total garbage as an inspiration for single-class ciphers due to the way focus regen works with it

- The damage ones: literally no balance is gained from making it impossible to target on self besides a poorly explained class fantasy (I edited out amplified thrust which seems like the one damage echo that might be overpowered but it's single target vs mind lance which hits everything in a line)

 

So long as wizard exists literally none of these spells are balanced by making it impossible to target yourself

 

My opinion on keywords: keyword fixes are good (e.g. Time Parasite should be keyworded as a deception rather than as an illusion), keyword additions though? I think they can be tricky. I'd suggest keywording wildstrike elemental abilities might make them overpowered on a class that already borders on overpowered in general.

Edited March 17, 2019 by DubiousNixie

[MaxQuest]

it's hard to agree that being able to cast Valorous Echoes on self would be inherently overpowered especially when the comparable wizard spells and fighter actives are comparatively free actions.

Yes, I don't think that cipher being able to cast Valorous Echoes on himself would make VE overpowered.

 

Pain Link was self-targetable in the first game; imo there would be honestly no loss of balance if that was restored and with that list being expanded to Soul Shock, Valorous Echoes, Pain Block, Echoing Shield, Amplified Wave, Ancestor's Memory, Driving Echoes, and possibly Reaping Knives.

Driving Echoes aside I don't think that making them self-targetable would result in sensible alteration of balance; assuming you have only 1 cipher in party.

And if you have 2 ciphers: then from balance perspective, imho there is almost no change at all, because we could cross-cast anyway.

 

Focus generation from Brilliant isn't even particularly good compared to recovering full spell slots or resources as other classes, for example, it mostly just opens up options for slightly more selfish play (and in turn-based still doesn't come close to wizard chain buffing anyway)

That's a separate issue. Because +10 focus per 6s is a joke compared to 1 spellusage the casters get (which can go for from Chillfog to Meteor Shower)

Heck even martialists get +1 guile/discipline/etc, and that's around 10% of their resource pool. And cipher with 220 max focus still gets 10. 

 

Biting Whip needs a compelling reason to take it besides as a way to slow down Serafen's focus generation; a +1 Pen passive on top of hammering thoughts might be compelling or it might be wildly overpowering.

+1 PEN was my initial suggestion, but I later abandoned it in favor of lash only - which is simple, effective and doesn't collide with Devout's field of expertise.

 

My opinion on keywords: keyword fixes are good (e.g. Time Parasite should be keyworded as a deception rather than as an illusion), keyword additions though? I think they can be tricky. I'd suggest keywording wildstrike elemental abilities might make them overpowered on a class that already borders on overpowered in general.

Ok, in the upcoming poll I will separate the keywords in more categories, rather than putting them all in a single question.

 

---

Regarding cipher targeting himself: while I do agree that making powers able to be cast on self, won't make stuff like Valorous Echoes, Pain Block, Echoing Shield, Ancestor's Memory, Amplified Wave and Soul Shock overpowered at all; and also while I do salute any QoL improvements especially cipher related, I am actually quite hesitant towards this suggestion, because:

 

- being unable to target self with this stuff, is a quite hard blow for a solo cipher. And I have really hard time imagining that this was an oversight from game designers, rather than an intentional thing, because of how OBVIOUS this is.

 

- cipher's class description explicitly stated:

 

With the exception of Soul Whip, all cipher powers require Focus and a nearby target other than themselves, one with a "housed" soul. In practical terms, this means that ciphers must always target a nearby ally or an enemy with their powers. It is impossible for them to target themselves, a distant target, or open ground

Source 1, Source 2, Source 3 Edited March 18, 2019 by MaxQuest

[DubiousNixie]

- cipher's class description explicitly stated:

 

 

Not that clearly in-game, and even less so in the first game, especially given pain link was at least castable on self (heck you could cast mind wave on yourself in 1), and blood mage's class description clearly states that most scholars don't believe it's supposed to work so clearly one class is allowed to break the game universe's own received wisdom (incidentally blood mage completely, utterly eclipses cipher as anything but a charm stick and soul annihilation battery that also sucks as the spellsword the class is sold as, both of which are unfathomably boring playstyles, a straight barbarian is unironically more fun).

 

Besides "allied target" is generally a bad limitation because it doesn't allow you to target anything that's not a literal party member or a summon; you can't bounce off charmed enemies or non-party allies.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DubiousNixie

[thelee]

 

- cipher's class description explicitly stated:

 

 

Not that clearly in-game, and even less so in the first game, especially given pain link was at least castable on self (heck you could cast mind wave on yourself in 1), and blood mage's class description clearly states that most scholars don't believe it's supposed to work so clearly one class is allowed to break the game universe's own received wisdom (incidentally blood mage completely, utterly eclipses cipher as anything but a charm stick and soul annihilation battery that also sucks as the spellsword the class is sold as, both of which are unfathomably boring playstyles, a straight barbarian is unironically more fun).

 

Besides "allied target" is generally a bad limitation because it doesn't allow you to target anything that's not a literal party member or a summon; you can't bounce off charmed enemies or non-party allies.

 

 

blood mage's class description indicates that the received wisdom of how a blood mage thinks they work is not scientifically backed by in-game science, but it does not preclude the blood mage from working. (as a real life example, we don't quite understand how acetomenaphin (tylenol) actually works and we can rule out some past theories, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work.)

 

also, the blood mage completely, utterly eclipses basically any caster at any offensive role. that doesn't mean much specifically for the cipher. (also, reading your post, it sounds more like you just have a playstyle that doesn't actually map onto a cipher's competencies - i wouldn't put barbarian or cipher or blood mage as remotely comparable.)

 

i would personally agree with/urge MaxQuest to stick with the game design philosophy of the cipher, which is most certainly not as a primary self-buffer. their buffing is primarily party support, and their need to target actual targets generally other than themself (allied or whatnot) is a game design constraint on their abilities.

[Boeroer]

Changing that part of the cipher is not "polishing" in my opinion.

[Phenomenum]

Agreed. It will be dumb move - to change the entire class, becose someone needs self-buffs.

[MaxQuest]

Not that clearly in-game

True that. And even less in Deadfire where that notice/paragraph didn't make it into class' description that a player can see during character creation. Yet I doubt that the class' lore changed overnight.

 

especially given pain link was at least castable on self (heck you could cast mind wave on yourself in 1)

Probably an oversight)

 

incidentally blood mage completely, utterly eclipses cipher as anything but a charm stick and soul annihilation battery that also sucks as the spellsword the class is sold as, both of which are unfathomably boring playstyles, a straight barbarian is unironically more fun

Won't argue with that)

 

Charm bot is indeed suboptimal atm.

And do agree that current soulblade is really repetitive.

 

Besides "allied target" is generally a bad limitation because it doesn't allow you to target anything that's not a literal party member or a summon; you can't bounce off charmed enemies or non-party allies.

Hmm, you have a point here. I'm re-reading the class description, and I don't see what would prevent cipher from targeting Amplified Wave on an charmed/dominated enemy instead of centering on ally only.

 

But here's the implementation problem: atm there are only 4 targeting types:

- Hostile

- AllyNotSelf

- Self

- Ally

 

Your suggestion would require a dev to add some new HousedSoulNotSelf and FriendlyHousedSoulNotSelf types, and after that adjust all powers accordingly.

Technically this might be dll modable.., but it is very time consuming, wonky to maintain and is outside from the polishing scope.

 

That said, I'd like to see these targeting types in PoE3.

Edited March 18, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Enurale]

Suddenly descends to the ground and speaks:

--- Sworn Rival was better with accuracy bonus, paladin needs that!

Flies away...

 

[Phenomenum]

Suddenly descends to the ground and speaks:

 

--- Sworn Rival was better with accuracy bonus, paladin needs that!

 

Flies away...

 

Becose, due to 1 Zeal cost it was a cheap permanent Accuracy buff?

 

I agree that it's useful, but in this case Sworn Enemy/Rival need to be restricted to 2/3 uses per encounter.

Edited March 18, 2019 by Phenomenum

[DubiousNixie]

Deadfire in general seems to shy away from stackable accuracy buffs in general, which considering they've also flattened enemy deflection a lot is probably a fair thing.

 

Also re cipher: let's be honest, the class needs a ground up redesign that turn--based is only going to make more apparent. It basically only shines in the vancian challenge mode and POE1's vancian world for a reason; the capability to self-buff/self heal at least would work around that in terms of giving them more things to do than hope to stack enough focus to cast a level 9 power that's worse than ryngrim's terror after a few rounds of grazes. If focus is going to keep working the way it does at the very least either costs are too high or their spells need to be dropped down in cast times across the board.

 

In terms of keywords it needs items that target class keywords a lot more than it needs the ability to vaguely piggyback on wizard gear for like the one electricy or fire power they have in the whole tree.

 

I'm not sure it's been brought up in here and I figure it's not necessarily the purview, but every class with flat additive damage sources, the devs massively overvalue them; weapon mastery's +15% is definitely not worth two talents on fighter, and conversely trickster only giving up 10% on sneak attacks without otherwise affecting how they scale with PL makes it really hard to pass up trickster if neither streetfighter nor assassin seem interesting; I think it's the same with biting whip.

Edited March 18, 2019 by DubiousNixie

[brasilgringo]

I just want to say that I think it's awesome to have a 7 page thread about how to make Deadfire more "Polish" or to continue "Polishing" the game - but to be fair, we shouldn't ignore the other Eastern European countries like Bulgaria and Hungary     

 

I kid because I love.

[thelee]

Deadfire in general seems to shy away from stackable accuracy buffs in general, which considering they've also flattened enemy deflection a lot is probably a fair thing.

 

Also re cipher: let's be honest, the class needs a ground up redesign that turn--based is only going to make more apparent. It basically only shines in the vancian challenge mode and POE1's vancian world for a reason; the capability to self-buff/self heal at least would work around that in terms of giving them more things to do than hope to stack enough focus to cast a level 9 power that's worse than ryngrim's terror after a few rounds of grazes. If focus is going to keep working the way it does at the very least either costs are too high or their spells need to be dropped down in cast times across the board.

I can't speak for turn-based, but in terms of RtWP I fully disagree with this characterization of the cipher. People keep talking about Ryngrim's spell and all that tells me is that that spell is way too good for AL5 (my best guess is that it was a direct import from PoE1 and they forgot that terrified in Deadfire is way more powerful than in PoE1). Ciphers already have pretty fast cast times, btw.

 

I'm not sure it's been brought up in here and I figure it's not necessarily the purview, but every class with flat additive damage sources, the devs massively overvalue them; weapon mastery's +15% is definitely not worth two talents on fighter, and conversely trickster only giving up 10% on sneak attacks without otherwise affecting how they scale with PL makes it really hard to pass up trickster if neither streetfighter nor assassin seem interesting; I think it's the same with biting whip.

It was raised on earlier pages, but my general perspective is "overvalued compared to what?" There's not a lot of ways to boost damage via talents, so much like the relative sparsity of accuracy in Deadfire, the damage boosts become comparatively better. Unconditional (or close to unconditional) damage boosts are extremely uncommon, and you don't need a lot to make a notable difference. I think the trickster "only" giving up 10% is bad not because 10% (unscaling) isn't worth much, but because the trickster gains back way way way way way way more than that in new capabilities or higher sneak attack uptime. Even if the penalty scaled, the trickster would still be utterly worth the trade-off, and heck they could completely lack sneak attack and the trickster would be a viable class.

 

I think I can get on board with the fact that the +5% fighter damage boost is unnecessary. Linear returns means additional same% boosts are worth relatively less, so it really seems like they could have had both talents provide +10% and the "intrinsic diminishing returns" (MaxQuest's turn of phrase) takes care of balancing out the higher-end talent that *requires* this earlier talent to pick up...

Edited March 26, 2019 by thelee

[Phenomenum]

About Trickster Sneak attack. Hohestly, i think this is a very gentle penalty. Since SA scaled by +5% each PL, this -10% penalty became far less noticeble with character progression. -20% at least should make some difference on low-mid levels.

 

And no, penalty is not scaling. It's implemented as dedicated status effect "Trickster Sneak attack" with Damage multiplier = 1.2, instead of 1.3.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Phenomenum

[thelee]

About Trickster Sneak attack. Hohestly, i think this is a very gentle penalty. Since SA scaled by +5% each PL, this -10% penalty became far less noticeble with character progression. -20% at least should make some difference on low-mid levels.

ironically, this -10% penalty is less severe than when the trickster had much worse bonus spells (and more expensive, to boot). i think this is a rare case of where they overcompensated and tuned something up too much, TBH

 

(trickster did in fact use to have -20% penalty pre-1.2)

Edited March 19, 2019 by thelee

[Phenomenum]

In addition: Devoted penalty is also too soft. Not in terms of value itself, but in terms that it's not works - Devoted use one weapon most of the time, with HUGE pen bonus without any drawbacks, and -10 Acc for other weapons it's like a joke.

[Phenomenum]

(trickster did in fact use to have -20% penalty pre-1.2)

 

Hm. Strange. Too much love for Tricksters from someone in Obsidian))

 

Can we revert it to -20%? What do you think?

Edited March 19, 2019 by Phenomenum

[DubiousNixie]

Ciphers already have pretty fast cast times, btw.

Fast cast and long recoveries makes ascended a huge trap option in turn-based for one; by the time you have access to disintegrate, ascending gives you 3 rounds to cast 3 disintegrates (which are slow casts on a class that has basically no way to get concentration outside of Soul Blade melee kills) at +1 PL, the focus cost however would be enough to cast 4-5 of them on another spec.

 

If anything I'd say it doesn't make it a trap option as much as it shows how much of one it already is, it just makes the structural issue of the concept more blatant.

 

That said I realize that you seem to be fine with the fact that cipher's literal only niche is charms, which makes me wonder how did you not see the problem against Intellect immune and resistant enemies.

 

 

 

Too much love for Tricksters from someone in Obsidian))

Honestly it's more that they went from not worth taking to worth taking too much; the same patch that toned down their penalty also gave them illusion self-buffs on even levels AND reduced casting guile costs across the board. Two of those would have been okay, all three is just absurd.

 

Also my opinion on devoted is that it's actually one of the harshest spec penalties; -10 accuracy on everything that isn't fists and your devoted weapon is a huge deal when you're literally never going to be able to pick up something else. The spec basically requires some metagame awareness from the get-go to realize that the most likely best options for that spec are going to be great swords, short swords or sabres by virtue of ease of gearing.

Edited March 19, 2019 by DubiousNixie

[thelee]

 

Ciphers already have pretty fast cast times, btw.

Fast cast and long recoveries makes ascended a huge trap option in turn-based for one; by the time you have access to disintegrate, ascending gives you 3 rounds to cast 3 disintegrates (which are slow casts on a class that has basically no way to get concentration outside of Soul Blade melee kills) at +1 PL, the focus cost however would be enough to cast 4-5 of them on another spec.

 

If anything I'd say it doesn't make it a trap option as much as it shows how much of one it already is, it just makes the structural issue of the concept more blatant.

 

That said I realize that you seem to be fine with the fact that cipher's literal only niche is charms, which makes me wonder how did you not see the problem against Intellect immune and resistant enemies.

 

 

TB-mode is its own balancing problem and I suspect (or hope) that they address the cipher. If we're focusing in on ascendant, a single class ascendant with minimal metagaming can still get huge efficiency out of ascendant status at least in real-time-with-pause. It's not a trap option. (The ascendant also has huge focus generation, so even if you're not gunning for ascendant status and can eat the PL penalty without problem, you get huge quantity over quality)

 

But I disagree with TB just accentuating cipher's structural problems. A cipher gains structural problems because TB mode really upends the action economy, which was fairly carefully balanced over basically many years (including PoE1) and backer betas (Deadfire BB which reduced cipher cast times across the board).

 

That said I realize that you seem to be fine with the fact that cipher's literal only niche is charms, which makes me wonder how did you not see the problem against Intellect immune and resistant enemies.

Ciphers excel at charms and are literally the only player-accessible class that can dominate, but that is far from their "only niche."

 

Ciphers are not in my top-played class (priest is def #1, probably followed closely by rogue or wizard) but at this even point even I have to ask "bro, do you even cipher?"

[Phenomenum]

Fast cast and long recoveries makes ascended a huge trap option in turn-based for one; by the time you have access to disintegrate, ascending gives you 3 rounds to cast 3 disintegrates (which are slow casts on a class that has basically no way to get concentration outside of Soul Blade melee kills) at +1 PL, the focus cost however would be enough to cast 4-5 of them on another spec.

 

If anything I'd say it doesn't make it a trap option as much as it shows how much of one it already is, it just makes the structural issue of the concept more blatant.

 

That said I realize that you seem to be fine with the fact that cipher's literal only niche is charms, which makes me wonder how did you not see the problem against Intellect immune and resistant enemies.

 

 

I'm pretty sure that it's better to leave TB balance to Obsidian for now. It's not right to make any suggestions, based on beta. And more that that - it's not right to suggest rebalance half of the cipher spells for TB.

So it's better be close this topic (cipher dpells i mean) until TB release.

 

About Devoted. Yes, it's meta-class, but you can pick Devoted Monk with Swords and Fists and have all three damage types with high Pen bonus with no penalty.

[Taudis]

 

Ciphers already have pretty fast cast times, btw.

Fast cast and long recoveries makes ascended a huge trap option in turn-based for one; by the time you have access to disintegrate, ascending gives you 3 rounds to cast 3 disintegrates (which are slow casts on a class that has basically no way to get concentration outside of Soul Blade melee kills) at +1 PL, the focus cost however would be enough to cast 4-5 of them on another spec.

 

If anything I'd say it doesn't make it a trap option as much as it shows how much of one it already is, it just makes the structural issue of the concept more blatant.

 

That said I realize that you seem to be fine with the fact that cipher's literal only niche is charms, which makes me wonder how did you not see the problem against Intellect immune and resistant enemies.

 

 

It's super easy to get Ascended to hit 4 rounds, and quite possible to get it to hit 5. It's also +3 PL iirc and Ascending is so easy in most fights that it's basically a free bonus.

 

The whole "niche" thing also puts the burden of proof on Ciphers. Like, what niche does a Wizard have? Nuking? Druids arguably nuke better. So do some Priests, TBH. Self-buffs? What self buffs do they have that're better than a Cipher's +20 everything in Borrowed Instinct? Are they better at self-buffs than a Fighter/Trickster or a Priest of Wael? Debuffing? Only if you don't count single target, because every martial class beats them there. Versatility? Can you call that a niche in a system so friendly to multiclassing? I of course think Wizards are quite potent with any of these things as their "niche" but the point is that they're not actually niches. Cipher being the clear best at Charms might actually have them as the only class that does have a niche.

 

Ciphers also do have a bunch of individually powerful abilities. Disintegration has got to be at least top 3 for action-time-spent-to-total-damage-done if it isn't straight up the best in that area. Borrowed Instinct is one of the best self-buffs (+20 everything!) and it adds a fairly unique debuff on top of that for just 0.5/4.0 seconds cast time. Psychovampiric Shield is another potent self-buff/stackable debuff that's also a source of concentration and is cheap and fast enough to open combat to all but guarantee your other abilities don't get interrupted (EDIT: Mixed up what Steadfast and Resolute do). Hammering Thoughts and The Empty Soul are strong unique passives. I could go on.

 

I don't really understand the issue with ciphers and TB either. I actually think they feel more natural to play in TB - you tend to only do one round or two rounds of focus gen, allowing you to be mostly a caster if you want to. Is that the 0.5/4.0 cast time powers are effectively nerfed to last 6.0 seconds?

 

 

Trickster stuff

 

I don't really have a big issue with -20% sneak attack damage (Tricksters would still be good enough even with that penalty) but -10% is currently fine for putting them solidly in their role of "rogue subclass where defensive tricks and debuffs are the focus over damage". Plus the actual penalty of a Trickster is sustain. Even being fairly cheap, their spells eat through Guile like crazy and compete with abilities that are the reason to be playing a Rogue and not a Wizard. It's way too close to "not broken, so don't fix it" IMO.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Taudis

[DubiousNixie]

By the time you get Borrowed Instinct (which you can only open a fight with at level 18) a wizard can chain cast enough self buffs in your recovery time to stack more nspirations at the time when it actually matters 99% of the time, namely the opening of a fight. Llengrath's Martial Mysteries literally makes a completely unoptimized mage better at cipher's striker role than a cipher. Even taking into account that Citzal's Martial Mysteries is PL7 and Borrowed Instinct is PL5 most of the useful mage melee buffs are still lower level than both, and by the time a single-class wizard gets CMM, a cipher is still gong to be unable to open a fight with Borrowed Instinct for a couple levels.

 

Seriously the striker designation (which I will remind is the only thing it's designed for besides CC according to the game, not support) is utterly misleading for anything but a multiclass annihilation battery and most of the striker toolkit there comes from focusing on **** that isn't actually cipher.

 

Gripes aside: Borrowed Instinct and Psychovampiric shield don't seem to be considered proper afflictions on the target which seems backwards.

Edited March 20, 2019 by DubiousNixie