Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Hoo]

Oh, I forgot to suggest second thing, related to Transmuter.

 

I know this subclass has also been buffed a lot, however, it still needs something more I think. 

Transmuter looks like Shfiter-like Wizard imo, I've felt that the form is a bit still underwhelming comparing with the Spiritshift form, because:

 

1. Shifter's Spiritshift forms give lots of healing (after shift back to human form).

2. The forms never bring any attribute drawback unlike Transmuter's form does (this brings penalties to INT and DEX)

3. The Ogre form consumes Wizard resource instead of being independent.

 

The Ogre form might be stronger than Spiritshift form and has longer duration, but I'm not sure this is comparable with the Shifter's forms. Sadly, there is even no items or whatever that give PL bonus to Transmutation Keyword, so I really doubt whether there is some good synergized multiclass with this subclass despite of the BPM improvements.

 

How about removing the stats penalties first?... I don't have idea how to revise this subclass further yet though.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Hoo

[Elric Galad]

1 minute ago, Hoo said:

Oh, I forgot to suggest second thing, related to Transmuter.

 

I know this subclass has also been buffed a lot, however, it still needs something more I think. 

Transmuter looks like Shfiter-like Wizard imo, I've felt that the form is a bit underwhelming comparing the Spiritshift form, because:

 

1. Shifter's Spiritshift forms give lots of healing (after shift back to human form).

2. The forms never bring any attribute drawback unlike Transmuter's form (this brings penalties to INT and DEX)

3. The Ogre form consumes Wizard resource instead of independent.

 

The Ogre form might be stronger than Spiritshift form and has longer duration, but I'm not sure this is comparable with the Shifter's forms. Sadly, there is even no items or whatever that give PL bonus to Transmutation Keyword, so I really doubt whether there is some good synergized multiclass with this subclass despite of the BPM improvements.

 

How about removing the stats penalties first?... I don't have idea how to revise this subclass further yet though.

If 40% damage reduction at level 20 and +3 engagements isn't enough, I don't know what to do  . And it is especially great coupled with Minoletta's Piercing Sigil/Cloak of Death for SC, or obviously martial MC.

Intellect in Ogre form isn't that significant so the attribute debuff is basically just fluff.

Being a Wizard ressource instead of independant isn't so bad. These ressources can be renewed, while shift cannot.

 

On another topic, maybe I went overboard with Shieldbearer. 200 points of damage shield for 6s while near death is somewhat better than Prevent Death. You're are being healed in the meantime. I might have to reduce the damage shield value to 150 points or 100 points.

[Hoo]

I found another unchanged description:

Wildstrike Frenzy: even though the lower versions of these skills now provide PL bonus, the description doesn't contain it.

 

By the way, I think Garden of Life might need to get Rejuvenation Keyword like Cleansing Wind that has been modified on Community Patch. What do you think of this?

 

and I have a suggestion for expanding synergies for MC about Fury:

 

How about modifying the advantages of Fury (+20% range/+1 PEN) from Elements Keyword to Elements/Fire/Electricity/Frost/Water/Wind? Oh, it seems that a spell that contains multiple Keywords would be able to benefit from all of those, right? like more than +2 PEN. I wish it would be doable to allow the bonus only once.

 

 

I personally felt that some druid subclass should benefit from Poison/Decay Keyword, but it might need to add a new subclass instead of putting the advantage into one of the existing subclass. Hmm...

Edited August 13, 2021 by Hoo

[Elric Galad]

34 minutes ago, Hoo said:

I found another unchanged description:

Wildstrike Frenzy: even though the lower versions of these skills now provide PL bonus, the description doesn't contain it.

I'll check this. Either it's something I forgot and I'll add it, or maybe it's intentional : changing a description has the drawback of making it English only, so if the auto-description is clear enough, I sometimes avoid messing with it.

34 minutes ago, Hoo said:

By the way, I think Garden of Life might need to get Rejuvenation Keyword like Cleansing Wind that has been modified on Community Patch. What do you think of this?

It would be a Fury nerf then. As CP adding Rejuvenation KW to Cleansing Wind / Nature's bounty was. This was one of their few changes I was not comfortable with. I might remove KW from them instead.

It seems Rejuvination should only apply to Heal over Time effect. Garden of Life qualifies for it, but neither Cleansing Wind or Nature's bounty do.

Fury getting access to a couple of healing spell would make the subclass better rounded. Garden of Life is basically Belranga's Kryptonite, so cutting it from Fury isn't innocent. But it's hard to justify why Pollen Patch get the tag and Garden of Life does not.

I will think about it.

34 minutes ago, Hoo said:

and I have a suggestion for expanding synergies for MC about Fury:

How about modifying the advantages of Fury (+20% range/+1 PEN) from Elements Keyword to Elements/Fire/Electricity/Frost/Water/Wind? Oh, it seems that a spell that contains multiple Keywords would be able to benefit from all of those, right? like more than +2 PEN. I wish it would be doable to allow the bonus only once.

Nope, this would change the nature of the subclass and makes Element KW useless. It could have been better this way, but I'm usually reluctant to change this.
It could have worked, technically speaking. It's possible in some case to apply a single bonus to multiple KW, instead of copying them (Secrets of Rime only apply +1 PEN to Water + Ice KW). 

34 minutes ago, Hoo said:

I personally felt that some druid subclass should benefit from Poison/Decay Keyword, but it might need to add a new subclass instead of putting the advantage into one of the existing subclass. Hmm...

Yes, it would probably require another subclass. That said, BPM's Wildstrike Corrode and its upgrade grants PL bonus to decay, which supports Decay spells. 

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Hoo said:

I found another unchanged description:

Wildstrike Frenzy: even though the lower versions of these skills now provide PL bonus, the description doesn't contain it.

Bug confirmed and corrected. Will be included in next version. That comes from having 2 separate files that affect the same list. Rermoving one of them will lead to strange display, but impossible to improve this.

3 hours ago, Hoo said:

By the way, I think Garden of Life might need to get Rejuvenation Keyword like Cleansing Wind that has been modified on Community Patch. What do you think of this?.

Ok, so I went for following principle, in order to make things more consistent without penalizing Fury too much :

- Garden of life is a Heal over Time so Rejuvenation KW makes sense. Livegivers will get a bonus for it, and Fury won't be able to cast it.

- Cleansing Wind and Nature's Bounty heal only once, so Restoration KW makes sens. Livegivers won't get a bonus, and Fury will be able to cast them as his only Restoration spell. Xoti's Lantern will provide a bonus for them.

[Elric Galad]

New version available on Nexus, with the changes discussed above and a few bugfixes.

Deadfire Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

I guess when I'll get back my family, I won't be updating the mod so often  

EDIT : I may disconnect for a while in a few days. I want to be freed from the stress of discovering yet another thing to mod  
I'll come back, don't worry. Just need a few days more to confirm that there isn't something gamebreaking in this version.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Elric Galad

[NotDumbEnough]

Thanks for the changes. Some feedback:

Vielo Vidorio does not play well with the AI system. Sometimes it resets to flames of devotion (unupgraded) in the AI tree after reloading the game. Sometimes you simply cannot set it as an option at all. 

I enjoy the changes to Barring Death's Door. In particular, my glass cannon characters can no longer function as a pseudo-tank simply by attracting enemy fire and watching them waste their efforts on a target they can't kill.

Healing Chain in its current state feels a bit weak. The total healing amount is not that much of an improvement over Lay on Hands by the time you reach PL 8 (especially given it costs more zeal), but it acts much slower.

3 Focus/6s for Great Soul on Ciphers seems a bit weak, and I usually do not bother taking it.

I personally feel the "on KO" abilities (Providence, Vengeful Defeat, fighter's self revive) are among the most useless in the game as getting knocked out tends to happen less at higher levels, at least for me (HP tends to scale faster than most damage sources). While you have buffed Vengeful Defeat and Providence, I think it would be cool if it had a change similar to Barring Death's Door, so that instead something happens when you are near death.

 

Great mod.

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Thanks for the changes. Some feedback:

Vielo Vidorio does not play well with the AI system. Sometimes it resets to flames of devotion (unupgraded) in the AI tree after reloading the game. Sometimes you simply cannot set it as an option at all. 

Vielo Vidorio was added by CP, not BPM, and I know nothing about IA, so...

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I enjoy the changes to Barring Death's Door. In particular, my glass cannon characters can no longer function as a pseudo-tank simply by attracting enemy fire and watching them waste their efforts on a target they can't kill.

Nice  I wasn't meant to make BDD bad, just less abusable.

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Healing Chain in its current state feels a bit weak. The total healing amount is not that much of an improvement over Lay on Hands by the time you reach PL 8 (especially given it costs more zeal), but it acts much slower.

The fact that it works slowly isn't only a drawback. It's more long term regenreation than an actual heal. LoH is meant to remain the main "quick healing effect", and Light of Pure Zeal the "heal party" one. Healing Chain has an enormous advantage though : it can be cast repeatedly, which even few other Heal over Time can do (you can't cast 2 Moonwells and get double benefits). With the right build (Divine Retribution...) it can literally make the group invincible. Also, it does not require Intellect (which can be an advantages for lowish Int builds), and is better for action economy than LoH (does more with similar cast time).

It is not a must have for SC Paladins, neither it is useful in every cases, but it has situations where it likely to be the better spell.

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

3 Focus/6s for Great Soul on Ciphers seems a bit weak, and I usually do not bother taking it.

No problem, I used Great Soul for balancing a bit SC (that's why benefit for Chanters feels comparatively much stronger). Ciphers (and traditional casters) didn't need something more. I just wanted them to have a small per encounter benefit for taking an additional Empower Point.

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

I personally feel the "on KO" abilities (Providence, Vengeful Defeat, fighter's self revive) are among the most useless in the game as getting knocked out tends to happen less at higher levels, at least for me (HP tends to scale faster than most damage sources). While you have buffed Vengeful Defeat and Providence, I think it would be cool if it had a change similar to Barring Death's Door, so that instead something happens when you are near death.

These are situational abilities indeed. That's why I wanted to make sure they are at least decent when actually useful. But situational abilities does not mean bad.

Providence can be an infinite self rez (or almost, with Adra Potions). This is extremely potent BUT indeed will be useful very rarely. That's why I added this bonus for very long fight. However, spending 1 ability point for this "oh sh*t" situation feels worthy to me. 

Vengeful defeat synergizes extremely well with a high Consitution Barbarian build and the "new" Reviving Exhortation which grants full life ALSO for High CON Barbarian. Still a bit specific, but SC barbarians have other nice tools anyway.

6 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Great mod.

Thanks !

Edited August 18, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

I found a buggy (or at least wrong description) thing about a Paladin's passive ability, Retribution, in vanilla version. Could you consider changing it correctly?

The description shows as below:

When suffering damage, gain a stacking bonus to damage dealt on your next weapon attack. (stacks up to 5 times)

 

The description didn't say "damaged by weapon attack", but it seems that the stacking only occurs when being bit by weapon attack, since Berserker's self-damage doesn't provide a stack. I think every tick of self-damage from Berserker's Frenzy should apply the stack, or the description has to be fixed correctly, at least.

I honestly think that this ability is quite weak, because the stacks are gone whenever you hit an enemy via weapon attack.

 

I didn't test it so much; I'm not sure some dot-like damage, such as Wall of Flame, triggers the ability though.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Hoo said:

I found a buggy (or at least wrong description) thing about a Paladin's passive ability, Retribution, in vanilla version. Could you consider changing it correctly?

The description shows as below:

When suffering damage, gain a stacking bonus to damage dealt on your next weapon attack. (stacks up to 5 times)

 

The description didn't say "damaged by weapon attack", but it seems that the stacking only occurs when being bit by weapon attack, since Berserker's self-damage doesn't provide a stack. I think every tick of self-damage from Berserker's Frenzy should apply the stack, or the description has to be fixed correctly, at least.

I honestly think that this ability is quite weak, because the stacks are gone whenever you hit an enemy via weapon attack.

I think the ability is fair. I expect a passive to give around 10% bonus damages to be balanced (weapon mastery is balanced for me). Which divine retribution provides on average, as long as your are on the front row tanking several foes and attacking slowly in your shining armour. You can probably build around this to get a bit more than 10% on average.

Also it is a Tier 1 ability, overall quite balanced for this level.

The description could be changed (but see below about my doubts).

But changing a description means loosing the local translation. So it's a trade off, which is the reason why I don't systematically do it.

3 hours ago, Hoo said:

I didn't test it so much; I'm not sure some dot-like damage, such as Wall of Flame, triggers the ability though.

Then you should (I can't do it for now).

Self damages and DoT ticks tend to be exceptions. Pulsating spells should not be. Sometimes, taking damages actually means taking an actual hit. And "On Damaged" effects usually don't proc on self damages such as barbarian rage. Fortunately for stuff like Dance of the Death...

[Hoo]

43 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

I think the ability is fair. I expect a passive to give around 10% bonus damages to be balanced (weapon mastery is balanced for me). Which divine retribution provides on average, as long as your are on the front row tanking several foes and attacking slowly in your shining armour. You can probably build around this to get a bit more than 10% on average.

Also it is a Tier 1 ability, overall quite balanced for this level.

Ya, I re-thought and it's reasonable as you explained.

The reason it seems weaker was I just compared it with Blooded, which grants 25% damage boosts for any damage source with a relatively controllable status (Bloodied or Near Death)... Blooded probably is too good. 

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Hoo said:

Ya, I re-thought and it's reasonable as you explained.

The reason it seems weaker was I just compared it with Blooded, which grants 25% damage boosts for any damage source with a relatively controllable status (Bloodied or Near Death)... Blooded probably is too good. 

You should test it Vs spell damages anyway.

That being said, I'm not a big fan of Bloodied myself. It's certainly not bad but it doesn't fit my playstyle. It has a specially bad synergy with one of my favourite Barbarian talent : Unflinching.

 

Now that I'm thinking about this kind of stuff, I wonder whether I shouldn't change Death Godlike bonus Vs Near Death to an accuracy one (about 5 +1 / level up to +25) instead of damages. It would have a much much better interaction with all these insta-kill spells that would totally fit Berath.

[Hoo]

I tested it, and the passive works well against spell damage!

It seems fine enough to use, especially via combining with some DoT-like spells such as Beam/Wall Types. 

 

I'm playing the enhanced Fire-Godlike (from BPM) Paladin so that he can easily active the ability very often with Wall of Flame with little risk. 

[Hoo]

I found weird thing about Paladin's Lay on Hands skill.

The basic version of Lay on Hands seems fine, but the upgraded version, Greater Lay on Hands, looks like something wrong.

 

First, The upgraded version of Darcozzi Paladini doesn't receive PL bonus (or receives fewer PL bonus?... My character has low level so I couldn't test it further) for the minor Flame Shield, unlike the basic version. The damage showed on description is lower than the basic version.

Second, As far as I know this should replace the basic with it, but both abilities has been appeared at the same time on my ability pool.

Lastly, the number of how many healing received from this ability, doesn't change according to Paladin's PL or whatever that should be adjusted (The color of the number shows Black instead of Green).

 

Is it working correctly? Could anybody know about this? I've barely played Paladin so I'm not sure this belongs to vanilla or being suddenly occurred by BPM.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Hoo

[Boeroer]

47 minutes ago, Hoo said:

First, The upgraded version of Darcozzi Paladini doesn't receive PL bonus (or receives fewer PL bonus?... My character has low level so I couldn't test it further) for the minor Flame Shield, unlike the basic version. The damage showed on description is lower than the basic version.

Second, As far as I know this should replace the basic with it, but both abilities has been appeared at the same time on my ability pool.

Lastly, the number of how many healing received from this ability, doesn't change according to Paladin's PL or whatever that should be adjusted (The color of the number shows Black instead of Green).

Don't know about the fire shield. It may be that it doesn't scale with PL at all.

It is correct that you keep the basic version of LoH. It's because it only costs 1 Zeal while Greater Lay on Hands costs 2. This was done so you wouldn't have a disadvantage but can decide (for example if you only have 1 Zeal left or don't need the upgraded version). Lower level abilites usually only get replaced by the upgrades if the upgrade is strictly superior - Greater Lay on Hands is not because it's more expensive. 

Maybe something is wrong - but it may also be that you confused the ticks of Robust with the initial healing ticks of Greater Lay on Hands? Greater Lay on Hands will give you two healings over time: first the "normal" healing which should be as high as the one from the lower level version and the additional Robust inspiration. It lasts longer than the initial healing but has lower healing numbers per tick. Don't know about the colors (black/green) though.  

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, Hoo said:

I found weird thing about Paladin's Lay on Hands skill.

The basic version of Lay on Hands seems fine, but the upgraded version, Greater Lay on Hands, looks like something wrong.

 

First, The upgraded version of Darcozzi Paladini doesn't receive PL bonus (or receives fewer PL bonus?... My character has low level so I couldn't test it further) for the minor Flame Shield, unlike the basic version. The damage showed on description is lower than the basic version.

Second, As far as I know this should replace the basic with it, but both abilities has been appeared at the same time on my ability pool.

Lastly, the number of how many healing received from this ability, doesn't change according to Paladin's PL or whatever that should be adjusted (The color of the number shows Black instead of Green).

 

Is it working correctly? Could anybody know about this? I've barely played Paladin so I'm not sure this belongs to vanilla or being suddenly occurred by BPM

Lay on Hands "upgrades" are not technically upgrades but new abilities, as explained by Boeroer above.

Hence, they count as PL 3 for the purpose of scaling. Therefore at PL 3, you won't receive any PL bonus for them. With higher PL, then indeed something may not be working. Also if it doesn't scale with MIG or INT.

 

Edit : I think there could be something that mess up Darcozzini LoH. Sometimes secondary effects scale weirdly (spotted it on Whirling Strikes). But it's most likely not BPM related, since BPM only changes upgrades Inspiration duration. If you spot something weird, please consider checking without BPM, since it is probably something I can fix for everybody.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Hoo]

Oh, ya... I've checked it myself right now, and it was just same with Vanilla. The problem belongs to Vanilla.

Thanks for the answers.

 

I'm quite disappointed about the poorly implemented ability... Robust Inspiration is cool of course, but the lower PL adjustments are... just ridiculous for me, because the "Greater" version has lower healing/damage than the previous. Anyway, both can be applied at once, so the double minor Flame Shields would be great combination for retaliation build, at least.

Edited August 23, 2021 by Hoo

[Elric Galad]

13 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Oh, ya... I've checked it myself right now, and it was just same with Vanilla. The problem belongs to Vanilla.

Thanks for the answers.

 

I'm quite disappointed about the poorly implemented ability... Robust Inspiration is cool of course, but the lower PL adjustments are... just ridiculous for me, because the "Greater" version has lower healing/damage than the previous. Anyway, both can be applied at once, so the double minor Flame Shields would be great combination for retaliation build, at least.

Yeah the fact that they are implemented as 2 different abilities is a bit weird, but the results are consistent with the rulset.

I've never realized about the stacking. Honestly, this is great. Stacking is more important than 2PL, especially when you need emergency healing but also for your specific retaliation build. I would have been happy if I were you.

 

If you can just confirm me that MIG, INT and PL beyond 3 applies normally.

[Hoo]

2 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Yeah the fact that they are implemented as 2 different abilities is a bit weird, but the results are consistent with the rulset.

I've never realized about the stacking. Honestly, this is great. Stacking is more important than 2PL, especially when you need emergency healing but also for your specific retaliation build. I would have been happy if I were you.

 

If you can just confirm me that MIG, INT and PL beyond 3 applies normally.

Ya, all the other factors such as MIG, INT and so on worked fine in Vanilla. So it would be same on BPM unless you've changed those.

 

Stacking seems cool, but the problem is always limitation of resource.  Since the damage is lower than the basic version, 1 resource consumption vs 3 for additional but lower damage is... a bit questionable for me. Of course, it's situational. 

[Elric Galad]

16 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Ya, all the other factors such as MIG, INT and so on worked fine in Vanilla. So it would be same on BPM unless you've changed those.

Good

16 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Stacking seems cool, but the problem is always limitation of resource.  

Yeah, at low level, it would have probably been better to have better benefit from PL. At higher level, when you're tanking the Ooze Megaboss Vulnerable to elemental damages while your Cipher cast Ancestors Memory, I think the stacking would be much more precious.

I'm usually not taking the Lay on Hand upgrades, but for Darcozzini, I would consider them must pick from now.

16 minutes ago, Hoo said:

Since the damage is lower than the basic version, 1 resource consumption vs 3 for additional but lower damage is... a bit questionable for me. Of course, it's situational. 

However, being an ability from a Higher native level also grants some benefits : +2Accuracy and +0.5 PEN for each native level beyond 1.

This is better than what you gain from PL scaling for both Acc and PEN.

That should partially mitigate it (even if it does nothing for duration and damages).

[Hoo]

22 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

I'm usually not taking the Lay on Hand upgrades, but for Darcozzini, I would consider them must pick from now.

Oh, so now BPM should buff the higher tier versions of Lay on Hands further! 

......

 

Just a joke. 

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, Hoo said:

Oh, so now BPM should buff the higher tier versions of Lay on Hands further! 

......

 

Just a joke. 

Consider that the lower benefit from PL was basically one of the reasons why I set Robust inspiration from GLoH to 10s instead of 8s.

[Hoo]

This is very small thing, but I'd like to share it;

The improved One-Handed Style is shown at the right side of character portrait, where most buff status is displayed, unlike the other weapon style, with wrong description.

 

The One-Handed Style has been changed to "20% Hits to Crits, 20% Grazes to Hits, 20% Misses to Grazes", but the description of the icon what is shown in the buff status is "20% of Misses converted to Grazes with weapons". This is just a partial explanation of the ability. 

 

I think the buff icon just needs to be removed as the other weapon styles, including the One-Handed Style in Vanilla, are.

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Hoo said:

This is very small thing, but I'd like to share it;

The improved One-Handed Style is shown at the right side of character portrait, where most buff status is displayed, unlike the other weapon style, with wrong description.

 

The One-Handed Style has been changed to "20% Hits to Crits, 20% Grazes to Hits, 20% Misses to Grazes", but the description of the icon what is shown in the buff status is "20% of Misses converted to Grazes with weapons". This is just a partial explanation of the ability. 

 

I think the buff icon just needs to be removed as the other weapon styles, including the One-Handed Style in Vanilla, are.

Yes, I have some cleaning to do with some added passive and status. Evergreen Vigor, Mage Slayer, Enchanter, probably Crescent Purity and extra range for Sharpshooter too.

[Torm51]

@Elric Galadlove the mod.

 

Question: how do you feel about the damage absorb shield Shieldbearers get on top of their prevent death mechanic for lay on hands? Do you feel that it’s a bit OP? I have not tried it yet just curious because I noticed it. I think before your mods buff it was still one of the better subclass abilities Paladin got.

Edited August 26, 2021 by Torm51