Deadfire Polishing Thread

[Taudis]

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.

 

Level 18+ can be like half the game's content if you don't have a slow XP mod. How fast you can hit level cap is a whole different can of worms wrt game balance but as long as you can play a good chunk of the game at level 20, things being at their best at high level can't be regarded as a serious barrier.

 

A Wizard emptying half their spellbook on Inspirations (from spells that often don't even cleanly stack) is not really comparable to a Cipher casting a single powerful buff that also debuffs an enemy and stacks with all inspirations/afflictions. Nor is Citzal's Martial Power a reasonable comparison to Borrowed Instinct, considering it shuts off your casting for 30 or more seconds and takes long enough to cast that it's interruptable. I basically don't agree with what you're saying here, and you're not providing actual numbers/concrete examples to back it up. You're essentially looking at small parts of the two classes in a vacuum, which is a useless way to evaluate them in a party/multiclass game.

 

Seriously the striker designation 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.

 

Hammering Thoughts, Soul Whip, and Soul Annihilation I'd say contribute plenty to a striker toolkit, and that's before potential Cipher buffs/debuffs.

[DubiousNixie]

Hammering Thoughts, Soul Whip, and Soul Annihilation I'd say contribute plenty to a striker toolkit, and that's before potential Cipher buffs/debuffs.

 

I fully agree, they're great. As a multiclass, it's okay if amazingly boring, pity that it's a use case where you're better off taking as few cipher abilities as possible.

 

They also don't work as single class strikers. They have no mobility, their self defences are less powerful than mage spells of equivalent power level especially once you account for wizard buff casting times and durations most of the time (borrowed instinct is a high-level exception), they have no way to recover from messing up which even rogues get even if they don't get self healing. It's deeply lacklustre.

 

At the very least non-charm CCs in the first game made it possible to get around that.

 

"But it's a striker for advanced players" just confirms my impression, that just means you need to do a lot of working around core class problems to get the same effect as something better like, say, any kind of rogue besides maybe assassin.

Edited March 20, 2019 by DubiousNixie

[Phenomenum]

@DubiousNixie

 

I think, i'll express the general opinion, that we all tired of your whining. Please, stop. Cipher is ok. If you feel any troubles or discomfort playing cipher, i suppose it's only yours personal problems. Create a mod according to your tastes and be happy. No one (neither here, and of course, nor in Obsibian) will don't do anything, becose one's poor Nixie can't play single class cipher as self-buffed damage dealer.

[Rangerpetheaven]

Someone has probably already said it but Corpse Eater needs a change. Thematically a cannibalistic warrior in a South Seas inspired setting is great but mechanically it is not quite there. A passive on kill effect would be a simple fix but it would be a shame to waste the animation/concept of eating the corpse. Maybe add a further power level buff on eating a corpse?

[Boeroer]

Or take away the higher Rage cost through the board (which is the main problem) and give him another penalty. Universal Power Level gain on eating a corpse is also a nice idea though. Eating kith meat (and food made from it) only gives PL bonuses for Barb abilites unfortunately.  

[Rangerpetheaven]

The current Corpse Eater could have no penalty and wouldn't even be that much stronger than the generic barb, just give him -5 reflex 

[Boeroer]

Unfortunately there's no Charisma stat. Would be the perfect thing to put a penalty on.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Boeroer

[Taudis]

A penalty to Diplomacy and Bluff would be kind of like a Charisma penalty. That's basically non-existent as a penalty on a hireling, though.

 

Or you could remove the recovery from Flesh Communion, that might be enough of a buff.

[Verde]

The idea of eating a corpse during battle is odd. I think they should be able to create consumable food from corpses after battle for use in the next battles.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Verde

[Rangerpetheaven]

 Imagine some sort of heart extracting Mortal Kombat style fatality on near death enemies, letting you get on kill effects and giving you rage, I would accept abilities costing 2 more rage in exchange for that. Maybe in POE3.....

 Something else that I think could be improved is the ship combat, a greater accuracy penalty for shooting outside cannon ranges and a reduction in crew injuries would make things more fun for me. 

[Ensign]

There has been a lot of good discussion about the state of priests, and some options there with their own pros and cons.

 

Aside from those discussions, the priest spell list lacks the workhorse spells other casters have in the early levels.  While martial characters get their core abilities from the very beginning and other casters have a mix of niche utility and general purpose power picks for their spells, the early priest spell lists are noticeably lacking in staples that you can fall back on to always get some value out of that spell level.

 

This isn't so much a problem later in the game, as spell levels 6-9 contain a variety of high value spell picks despite their small selection.  Early on though priests really struggle to pull their weight, as spell levels 2, 5, and to some extent 3 are pretty thin.

 

More than mechanical changes, the low hanging fruit for the priest is some more depth at those spell levels, either via reworking existing spells or expanded spell lists.

[thelee]

There has been a lot of good discussion about the state of priests, and some options there with their own pros and cons.

 

Aside from those discussions, the priest spell list lacks the workhorse spells other casters have in the early levels.  While martial characters get their core abilities from the very beginning and other casters have a mix of niche utility and general purpose power picks for their spells, the early priest spell lists are noticeably lacking in staples that you can fall back on to always get some value out of that spell level.

 

This isn't so much a problem later in the game, as spell levels 6-9 contain a variety of high value spell picks despite their small selection.  Early on though priests really struggle to pull their weight, as spell levels 2, 5, and to some extent 3 are pretty thin.

 

More than mechanical changes, the low hanging fruit for the priest is some more depth at those spell levels, either via reworking existing spells or expanded spell lists.

 

Yeah AL2 always feels a bit thin for my characters, though I think AL5 is actually really good. I have more problems with AL6 because for some reason it only has 4 spells and only Wael gets a bonus spell that isn't already in the AL6 row so priests end up pretty similar at AL6.

[Ensign]

 

 

Yeah AL2 always feels a bit thin for my characters, though I think AL5 is actually really good. I have more problems with AL6 because for some reason it only has 4 spells and only Wael gets a bonus spell that isn't already in the AL6 row so priests end up pretty similar at AL6.

 

 

The nice thing AL5 has going for it is a couple really strong spells (Champion's Boon, Barring Death's Door) that you can absolutely build around for maximum effect, and Skaen is fortunate to get Shadowing Beyond here.  On the other hand if you don't have elements in your party to take advantage of those it's pretty thin.  AL6 ends up being pretty generic but all 4 spells are both solid and possibly excepting SoT general purpose, so I have never had trouble getting value out of this tier.

 

Big difference between AL2 and AL5 is you can build around the AL5 stuff to good effect, while there's nothing in AL2 worth building around.  How good is your Spiritual Weapon maybe?  Holy Meditation is really good sometimes but most of the time...eh.  Withdraw story NPCs you want to keep alive, it lasts too long on player characters.

 

It's crazy because AL2 had a ton of good stuff in PoE1, they just moved it all out of the tier for Deadfire.  Consecrated Ground was fantastic in the original, then moved to AL3 here and the nuked from orbit in the balance patch.  Suppress Affliction still quite good, but moved down to AL1.  Divine Mark, pushed up to AL3.  No more Restore in higher tiers (in favor of a powerhouse Restore in AL1).    Iconic Projection goes from a generic but modest and super spammable with its fast cast to a slow spell.  So there's probably some juggling you could do with spell levels and cast times to clean this up.

 

But the current list...blech.

[MaxQuest]

Guys, I've finally assembled the poll.

 

You can take a preliminary sneak peek here:

 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1eIzhdSrp2gjfqRybtU_ciksOd50uMLfi7u5Kd_NMrPA

 

Would you like to see any last moment changes? If yes, write them right now. If no: I'll post a new link tomorrow morning, and the poll shall begin.

Edited March 25, 2019 by MaxQuest

[Taudis]

While we're on the subject of Priest (again), I personally think the Prayers/Litanies could go from 0.5/3.0 cast and 60 sec duration to 0.5/0.0 cast and 30 sec duration (duration shorter to be more in line with other 0.5/0.0 buffs). It'd do a lot to make the priest list feel more full, since they'd become more desirable picks in the way that other classes' fast inspirations are.

 

Iconic Projection could be 0.5/4.0. I also think it would be nice if it got boosted 20 base damage to be symmetrical with its healing effect. For what it's worth, Corrosive Siphon effectively has base damage 24/heal 24 in AoE and it's also AL2.

 

Spiritual Weapon really ought to be a 0.5/0.0 spell. I feel like the devs made it cast slower to prevent it from being an effective super Quick Switch but it has a lot of action time competition for what is essentially a DPS spell.

 

The Priest subs could all also get different spells at AL6 to make it feel as though there is more player choice on that level.

Berath: Death Ring

Eothas: Sunlance

Magran: Fireball (Pillar of Flame is very good for Magran, so I don't know about this one. Fireball is extremely underlevel but it also feels weird that the Fire Priest doesn't have the most iconic fire spell? Another option could be the spell from the Godhammer Bomb trinket (Detonator Shard, iirc?), which is essentially a healing fireball. That's a pretty potent spell though.)

Skaen: Toxic Strike or Ringleader (Skaen thematically ought to get a charm but keeping it as the Rogue Priest is probably more in line with the mechanical theme)

Woedica: Nature's Terror, preferably renamed (Not too sure about this thematically but she does get Divine Terror and fear doesn't feel inappropriate. Makes way more sense than Pillar of Flame, IMO. Plus it's another reason for Priests to have Heart of the Storm!)

 

I have some reservations wrt to messing around with the subs as it flies a little close to redesign instead of polish. Just throwing the idea out in case people don't think that's the case.

 

The Poll:

Starts at 3. Afflictions for me. Not sure if marking afflictions #3 instead of 1 is the error or if I'm missing points 1 & 2.

 

I think a while back Boeroer suggested 10% instead of 8% for Uncanny Luck and I really think it should be. It's a high level skill so it could stand to be even that little bit stronger and non-round numbers look weird. Do it for the aesthetics.

 

LOL at Stag Carnage "do not change (keep it broken)"

 

Speaking of broken stuff, I don't really understand where the line is on bug fixing versus polishing. I'd definitely like to Arcane Archer's no-scaling fixed, and that feels like it could be on the list?

 

I would like to see more "yes, but low priority" options. Most notably on things that I consider minor exploits, like Avenging Storm Procs and Resonant Touch stacking. I would like to see those changed but they're even lower on my priority list than the character creation stuff (especially since you can just avoid the broken parts of them manually, even while still using those skills). I'd just generically add the option to everything that is just binary "Yes, do this" or "no, don't change" because I think figuring out what is consistently a higher priority for players taking the poll is also helpful information.

 

Does the poll program allow for "Other, Please Describe: [insert form here]"? Because that should likely be an option on a lot things as well if it's implementable.

Edited March 25, 2019 by Taudis

[Phenomenum]

I think a while back Boeroer suggested 10% instead of 8% for Uncanny Luck and I really think it should be. It's a high level skill so it could stand to be even that little bit stronger and non-round numbers look weird. Do it for the aesthetics.

 

Agreed. 8% seems weird. Also i don't like numbers, which is not divided by 5, like Thelee))

 

Does the poll program allow for "Other, Please Describe: [insert form here]"? Because that should likely be an option on a lot things as well if it's implementable.

 

Agreed.

[thelee]

I don't think it's really been mentioned that uncanny luck is more than just a 5% hit to crit, it's a 5% resist as well (not even a hit->graze or graze->hit, just an absolute 5% generic resist). I think any considerations of its net effect on damage has to taken into account that it has a strong defensive angle (versus say weapon specialization).

Edited March 25, 2019 by thelee

[Boeroer]

The resist also doesn't stack additively though and thus is rather weak if you combine it with other sources of resistance (medium shield's modal for example or Kidney Guard from Miscrant's Leather) - and on its own it's also kind of weak for that PL tier. It's better than +5% crit conversion though.

 

Still Uncanny Luck is of higher PL than Dirty Fighting but atm is weaker. If it would be a bit stronger (10% crit conversion and 5% resistance) compared to the low-PL Dirty Fighting that's totally ok with me. Why should the high-level stuff not be stronger?

[thelee]

The resist also doesn't stack additively though and thus is rather weak if you combine it with other sources of resistance (medium shield's modal for example or Kidney Guard from Miscrant's Leather) - and on its own it's also kind of weak for that PL tier. It's better than +5% crit conversion though.

 

Still Uncanny Luck is of higher PL than Dirty Fighting but atm is weaker. If it would be a bit stronger (10% crit conversion and 5% resistance) compared to the low-PL Dirty Fighting that's totally ok with me. Why should the high-level stuff not be stronger?

 

if it stacked additively it would have really strong increasing returns though. 

 

i think comparison to dirty fighting is a bit unfair though, because dirty fighting is a rogue-specific talent, whereas everyone can get uncanny luck, i think from a mechanics perspective that has to dilute uncanny luck.

[Boeroer]

Why that? General abilites should be worse than class-specific ones?

Edited March 25, 2019 by Boeroer

[thelee]

Why that? General abilites should be worse than class-specific ones?

 

kind of.

 

rogue has a specific combat role. dirty fighting leans into that combat role. uncanny luck is a generic talent. comparing its baseline strength to a talent that is available only to a dps-y glass cannon-y class doesn't seem like an adequate point of comparison.

[Boeroer]

I would agree if they were on the same level - but DF is PL 2 while UL is PL5.

 

My rule of thumb: if nobody (who knows the mechanics) picks it then most likely because it's too weak.

[Taudis]

I think that being on PL5 and still being smaller than the PL2 hit-to-crits is ok for Uncanny Luck. Rogue still gets its niche earlier (plus it still gets more hit-to-crit even if they don't stack well) and non-Rogue crit-based builds get lifted up.

[Waski]

Stil if you stack Uncanny Luck , pet, Ring of Prosperity's Fortune and Bone Setter's Torc you will end with around 27% hit-to-crit conversion. Not to shabby imho.

[thelee]

I would agree if they were on the same level - but DF is PL 2 while UL is PL5.

 

My rule of thumb: if nobody (who knows the mechanics) picks it then most likely because it's too weak.

 

how do you know that "nobody" picks it? only obsidian knows that for sure with their telemetry.

 

also, trivial counterexample - i have and do continue to take uncanny luck in varying builds.

Edited March 25, 2019 by thelee