Deadfire Polishing Poll

[Hoo]

OK, here are several suggestions for Druids what I've thought. I've felt there are some spells that need to buff, but listing those in this thread seems to make this post complicated and be out of scope so I won't write down about the things. Before starting discussion, I've note that most of my suggestions are for a diversity of playing game, especially when multi-classing with Martial Classes, since Druid has very few self-enhancement spells unlike Priests or Wizards, which makes Druids less attractive for the multi-classing with one of those.

1. I don't exactly remember, but as far as I know the ability of Fury's Spiritshift, which bounces +1 times, is not cumulative with Driving Flight. It seems like a bug. 

2. Another Fury's ability, which provides +1 Pen for Elemental Druid Spells, would be better to be applied on all Elemental keywords.  

3. Shifter’s ability, healing after Spiritshift ends, should scale with character's Level or PL.

4. Spiritshift form's attack type has to be Unarmed attacks in my opinion. They actually don't "equip" their teeth, claws, or horns... It's their natural forms.

5. Lowering Wildstrike Frenzy's required PL from VIII to VII would be very cool for Druid/Martial multi-classing. I think it's acceptable because 1) the passive ability itself is not so powerful as much as the other PL VII passive abilities such as Blood Thirst, 2) SC Druid is barely able to be martial-oriented because of lack of self-enhancement spells or related passive abilities. 

Edited July 6, 2019 by Hoo

[Elric Galad]

=> 5. I would not agree, because it would basically remove the only specifity of Single Class Druid for auto-attack. If anything, Wilstrike frenzy should be tuned a bit.

There might be appropriate tuning to add for martial druid, but the community patch buffed Martial Druid because elemental talent now add PR to corresponding Wildstrike (because they added keyword).

[Hoo]

40 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

=> 5. I would not agree, because it would basically remove the only specifity of Single Class Druid for auto-attack. If anything, Wilstrike frenzy should be tuned a bit.

There might be appropriate tuning to add for martial druid, but the community patch buffed Martial Druid because elemental talent now add PR to corresponding Wildstrike (because they added keyword).

I understand what you worry about. The issue, however, making SC Martial Druid being useful, is not simple imo. The change which adds the corresponding Elements to Wildstrike abilities in Community Patch is not only for SC Druid but also any multi-classes with Druids, so SC Martial Druid is still less attractive than the multi-classes. Even if Wildstrike Frenzy remains at VIII PL, it's barely worth being Martial as SC Druid as it is now. As far as I know there is only one advantage of SC Martial Druid; Avenging Storm. The other Druid spells are mostly for Caster type, rather than Martial. Unlike Wizards or Priests, Druids have very few Martial-related spells so that SC Druid is really hard to be it without some "Big" changes, like adding several self-improvement spells imo. 

I'm not sure keeping Wildstrike Frenzy to VIII PL would really make the SC Martial Druid shine... 

[Boeroer]

4) was removed from PoE and Deadfire because the combo is too powerful. In Deadfire, Monastic UT and Transcendent Suffering both scale with Power Level - while Druid's spiritshift weapons scale with character level. What happens if you have both (=dual scaling) you could see when Priest of Woedica got introduced and the spiritual "fists" did scale with level AND with Monastic UT/Transcendent Suffering: too powerful for obvious reasons.

[Hoo]

2 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

4) was removed from PoE and Deadfire because the combo is too powerful. In Deadfire, Monastic UT and Transcendent Suffering both scale with Power Level - while Druid's spiritshift weapons scale with character level. What happens if you have both (=dual scaling) you could see when Priest of Woedica got introduced and the spiritual "fists" did scale with level AND with Monastic UT/Transcendent Suffering: too powerful for obvious reasons.

Oh, I forgot the Monk/Druid multi-class... I was thinking of Devoted/Druid and just wanted to remove the penalty of the Devoted.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Hoo

[Boeroer]

Druids can be made good martial characters with the help of certain spells, not by concentrating on Wildstrike alone and omitting all spells.

Wildstrike, Nature's Terror and Avenging Storm is a very powerful combo for every SC Druid who wants to go into melee. There is no need to boost the melee dmg to the same heights as those of other classes if you can have such nice and powerful support spells.

I would buff Wildstrike Frenzy though since it's really not good and no motivation to go SC Druid. Avenging Storm is though. 

Edited July 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[Boeroer]

9 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Oh, I forgot the Monk/Druid multi-class... I was supposed to consider Devoted/Druid and just wanted to remove the penalty of the Devoted.

If there would be a way to mark the spiritual weapons as "unarmed" so that they work with the unarmed weapon proficiency (including Haymaker) without giving them bonuses from MonasticUT/TranscendentS I would support that. It's sad that Fighter (esp. Devoted) with stuff like Confident Aim etc. doesn't work with Spiritshift. 

Iirc the spiritual fists of Woedica now work with the proficiency but don't scale with MonasticUT/TranscendentS. So there seems to be a way to realize this. 

Same as allowing Form of the Fearsome Brute's fists, Kalakoth's Minor Blights and Rot Skulls etc. to use a fitting weapon proficiency (unarmed/wand for example).

[Phenomenum]

6 hours ago, Hoo said:

1. I don't exactly remember, but as far as I know the ability of Fury's Spiritshift, which bounces +1 times, is not cumulative with Driving Flight. It seems like a bug

I see no relations here. It's a spell, not a ranged attack. By your logic, all ranged spell should benefit from Ranger's Driving Flight.

6 hours ago, Hoo said:

2. Another Fury's ability, which provides +1 Pen for Elemental Druid Spells, would be better to be applied on all Elemental keywords.  

I imagine why?

6 hours ago, Hoo said:

3. Shifter’s ability, healing after Spiritshift ends, should scale with character's Level or PL.

Seems logical. I'll need to investigate this.

6 hours ago, Hoo said:

4. Spiritshift form's attack type has to be Unarmed attacks in my opinion. They actually don't "equip" their teeth, claws, or horns... It's their natural forms

No, it shouldn't. It will be to powerful, especially with Monk / Druid multiclass.

6 hours ago, Hoo said:

5. Lowering Wildstrike Frenzy's required PL from VIII to VII would be very cool for Druid/Martial multi-classing. I think it's acceptable because 1) the passive ability itself is not so powerful as much as the other PL VII passive abilities such as Blood Thirst, 2) SC Druid is barely able to be martial-oriented because of lack of self-enhancement spells or related passive abilities.  

Absolutely no. Though i agree with @Boeroer that SS Frenzy can be buffed.

All and all, i see only one reasonable suggestion: Shifter’s ability, healing after Spiritshift ends, should scale with character's Level or PL.

Edited July 6, 2019 by Phenomenum

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Would it be possible to buff Hold the Line? Out of the three passive abilities that give +1 engagement it's the only one that doesn't have an additional effect. Maybe grant +1 AR to elemental damage or bump it up to +2 enemies engaged.

Frenzy us bad and should be buffed but should remain SC Druid exclusive, would it be possible to have it add 10 seconds to the duration of SS?

[Lamppost in Winter]

10 hours ago, Hoo said:

 

2. Another Fury's ability, which provides +1 Pen for Elemental Druid Spells, would be better to be applied on all Elemental keywords.  

 

Not to self-promote, but I did make something that did this a while ago. Relevant file attached if you're interested.

fury passives.gamedatabundle

[Hoo]

10 hours ago, Phenomenum said:

I see no relations here. It's a spell, not a ranged attack. By your logic, all ranged spell should benefit from Ranger's Driving Flight.

No, what I meant was that the Fury's Spiritshift form has its own Ranged Two-Weapon Style, and the weapons have an ability that bounces +1 time.  This is not spell, and is a right-click auto attack. 

[Hoo]

10 hours ago, Phenomenum said:

I imagine why?

I read the previous page and saw the discussion about Corpse-Eater.  @Boeroer Said universal PL bonus for the food would be better than huge PL bonus for Corpse-Eater only, and I felt it's very much reasonable. In theory, my suggestion of Fury's Pen bonus were same, making the bonus from Fury only to Universal so that some multi-classing with Fury would be more attractive. But, yeah, if you felt it's OP it would not need to be changed... 

[Boeroer]

13 hours ago, Phenomenum said:

I see no relations here. It's a spell, not a ranged attack. By your logic, all ranged spell should benefit from Ranger's Driving Flight.

It's not a spell. It's the auto-attack of spiritshifted furies. It jumps 1 time but doesn't work with Driving Flight. To me this is a bug. Why does it not work - but stuff like Watershaper's Focus or Fire in the Hole does? Not related to spells at all by the way.

[Phenomenum]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

It's not a spell. It's the auto-attack of spiritshifted furies. It jumps 1 time but doesn't work with Driving Flight. To me this is a bug. Why does it not work - but stuff like Watershaper's Focus or Fire in the Hole does? Not related to spells at all by the way.

Oh, i understand.

[Phenomenum]

Well, i've looked into game files and figured out that Fury auto-attack don't treated as weapon. On other hand it seems logical, because it's not a weapon, but a lightning bolt. On the other hand it still a default ranged auto-attack.

[Boeroer]

Funny. That would also mean a Fury/Cipher can't generate focus while spiritshifted, right?

Sounds wrong.

I would pot for changing it to a weapon attack. Kalakoth Minor Blights etc. are also balls of fire/acid/ice/shock but still count as weapons and work with Driving Flight. I can't think of a single reason why Fury's auto-attacks should be treated differently. 

[srulz]

Inactive party members during boarding battles will permanently die if knocked out for some time under Berath's Challenge.

[Phenomenum]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Funny. That would also mean a Fury/Cipher can't generate focus while spiritshifted, right?

I haven't tested but it seems so.

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I would pot for changing it to a weapon attack. Kalakoth Minor Blights etc. are also balls of fire/acid/ice/shock but still count as weapons and work with Driving Flight. I can't think of a single reason why Fury's auto-attacks should be treated differently. 

Agreed. I don't think it will be OP, because of limited duration. Maybe it's worth to tune down damage a bit.

[Phenomenum]

1 hour ago, srulz said:

Inactive party members during boarding battles will permanently die if knocked out for some time under Berath's Challenge.

You should revive them within 10 sec. I can't fix this via modding.

[Boeroer]

6 minutes ago, Phenomenum said:

I haven't tested but it seems so.

Agreed. I don't think it will be OP, because of limited duration. Maybe it's worth to tune down damage a bit.

I don't think that damage needs a tune down. The original jump already suffers from a dmg malus and an additional one (from Driving Flight) would get another malus. 

The base dmg itself is already rather low.

[Phenomenum]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

The original jump already suffers from a dmg malus

Ah, yes: 0.8 mult. and 8-13 base dmg. Ok, then all we need is setting TreatAsWeapon=True

Edited July 8, 2019 by Phenomenum

[Boeroer]

I agree.

[Purudaya]

Sorry if this has already been posted, but I spotted a small text-related bug/oversight in the current patch: the sabre modal Windmill Slash tooltip still says "gain penetration at the cost of recovery time" rather than "at the cost of deflection." Thanks as always for your continued work on this

[ocelotter]

14 hours ago, Purudaya said:

Sorry if this has already been posted, but I spotted a small text-related bug/oversight in the current patch: the sabre modal Windmill Slash tooltip still says "gain penetration at the cost of recovery time" rather than "at the cost of deflection." Thanks as always for your continued work on this

I don't seem to have this problem in my game. Speaking of the sabre modal, though, I don't quite understand why it was changed. Sabres seem like a much better version of swords: they exchange a second (often weak) damage type, Pierce, for +10% damage/+1 Penetration, and have the same powerful modal with less downside (-10 Deflection instead of the sword's -15). Furthermore, why change only sabres and not all of the "weak" offensive modals: stilettos, war hammers, maces, rapiers... Seems out of balance.

On a different note, any thoughts about changing another abusable item: Lethandria's Devotion? Since the first tick of healing happens instantly when you switch this in, you can spam switch with this to have effectively infinite healing. I know it's easily avoidable, but if it's an easy fix somehow it might be a nice tweak.

Finally, has anyone else experienced my issue with Chain Lightning refusing to bounce back to targets it's already hit? Still curious if a mod I'm using changed the ability somehow or if it's an intentional limitation by the developers.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

9 hours ago, ocelotter said:

Speaking of the sabre modal, though, I don't quite understand why it was changed. Sabres seem like a much better version of swords: they exchange a second (often weak) damage type, Pierce, for +10% damage/+1 Penetration, and have the same powerful modal with less downside (-10 Deflection instead of the sword's -15). Furthermore, why change only sabres and not all of the "weak" offensive modals: stilettos, war hammers, maces, rapiers... Seems out of balance.

I assume it was because the +50% recovery malus is a massive negative because of the inversion Deadfire uses. I think reducing the malus is better than shifting it towards a deflection penalty if it needs a buff, but looking at the list of modals on the wiki half of them seem to be the same thing so maybe they should introduce deflection, damage, or accuracy penalties instead of recovery.

Is Pierce that underpowered? If this is the case would it be possible, and feasible given time and effort required, to bring enemy AR /Immunties to a place where there is generally equal representation of damage types?