Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[MaxQuest]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:59 AM, Elric Galad said:

What would you guys think about buffing Confident Aim to 50% Graze to Hit ?

As it is, it feels mehish, especially when already under Aware/Intuitive.

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/51/101+ to 31/45/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 14% damage increase with proficient weapons 
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/51/101+ to 31/41/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 18% damage increase with proficient weapons

^ that is vs enemies who have have defense equal to your attack. And it becomes slowly weaker as your attack starts to be higher.

If you already have Aware inspiration, it would become:

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/41/101+ to 31/38/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 0.7% damage increase with proficient weapons 
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/41/101+ to 31/36/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 2.3% damage increase with proficient weapons

Hmm. Did I make a mistake here?

Edit: seems that yes, the percents are off. See the posts below for re-calculations, and the up-to-date attack resolution.

 

On 12/27/2021 at 11:59 AM, Elric Galad said:

Or to 30% miss to graze so it would be more unique ?

I would advocate against any miss-to-graze bonuses.

It is very tempting  but also opens the path to brute-force any high-defense enemy.

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by MaxQuest

[Elric Galad]

4 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/51/101+ to 31/45/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 14% damage increase with proficient weapons 
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/51/101+ to 31/41/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 18% damage increase with proficient weapons

^ that is vs enemies who have have defense equal to your attack. And it becomes slowly weaker as your attack starts to be higher.

If you already have Aware inspiration, it would become:

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/41/101+ to 31/38/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 0.7% damage increase with proficient weapons 
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 31/41/101+ to 31/36/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 2.3% damage increase with proficient weapons

Hmm. Did I make a mistake here?

Yup. Grazes starts at 26. Your percentage are strange. The second case with Aware should be half benefits of the first.

Base table is 26/51/101, which means 62,5% chances of hitting (counting grazes as 1/2 hit).

Every Graze to Hit add 0,5%

So it becomes :

 

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 26/51/101+ to 26/43,5/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 7,5/2/62,5 = 6% Multiplicative gain
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 26/51/101+ to 26/38,5/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 12,5/2/62,5 = 10% Multiplicative gain

With Aware :

• 30% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 26/38,5/101+ to 26/34,75/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 3.75/2/62,5 = 3% Multiplicative gain
• 50% Graze-to-Hit CA, shifts the attack resolution from 26/38,5/101+ to 26/32,25/101+; and is very roughly comparable to 6.25/2/62,5 = 5% Multiplicative gain 

4 hours ago, MaxQuest said:

I would advocate against any miss-to-graze bonuses.

It is very tempting  but also opens the path to brute-force any high-defense enemy.

 

But why would it be a problem ?

With non-modded version, you can already get about 50% misses to Grazes, 60% with Potion. Fighters getting a little more won't totally change that.

And we are speaking about Grazes with Weapons. Killing an enemy with this isn't fast (I've tried vs Belranga, you're faster killing spiders...)

Edited December 28, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Do you guys use Community Patch Shattered Pillar ? Is it good with Max Wounds at 10 ?

The 30 damages threshold (24 with lesser wound) still feels a bit high compared to the 10(8 with LW) from normal monk. I get why it shouldn't apply to special attacks, but that plus threshold means you won't get more than 1 wound per attack. 

I'm thinking about lowering the threshold to 20 damages (16 with LW) but I need other people opinion.

 

Also consider I'm thinking about rising the cost of some monk wound abilities (6 wounds for the twins, 6 wounds for resonant touch, 9 wounds for WotW which could even be more nerfed).

[MaxQuest]

19 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Yup. Grazes starts at 26.

Aha!

Uff, yes, I have totally misremembered the current attack resolution values.

I was still thinking that they are 31+ for graze, 51+ for hit, 101+ for crit. Both wikis still mention these values btw 

----

Have checked the the globals.gamedatabundle now:

 

          "MinimumRollToGraze": 25,

          "MinimumRollToHit": 50,

          "MinimumRollToCrit": 100,

And have remembered now, that the values were shifted left by 1, to allow crit on 100.

So the resolution is: 25+ for grazes, 50+ for hits, 100+ for crits

-------------------------

Let's compute again:

v1. Without Aware

• scenario0: character has no buffs/talents, and has 25/50/100+ attack resolution
• scenario1: 30% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/42.5/100+
• scenario2: 50% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/37.5/100+

v2. With Aware :

• scenario3: just aware buff shifts the attack resolution from 25/50/100+ to 25/37.5/100+
• scenario4: 30% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/37.5/100+ to 25/33.75/100+
• scenario5: 50% Graze-to-Hit (Confident Aim), shifts the attack resolution from 25/37,5/100+ to 25/31.25/100+

 

Now let's imagine a very raw and approximate estimation, where a character keeps auto-attacking and deals:

• 5 damage on graze, 10 damage on hit and 15 damage on crit
• and he has the exact same attack as enemy defense

So, out of 100 perfectly spread attacks he deals:

• scenario0: 25 grazes (for 5 dmg) + 50 hits (for 10 dmg), + 1 crit (for 15 dmg) = 640; so each swing deals 6.4 dmg on average
• scenario1: 17.5 * 5 + 57.5 * 10 + 15 = 677.5; or 6.775 dmg on average (that's 5.8% over scenario0)
• scenario2: 12.5 * 5 + 62.5 * 10 + 15 = 702.5; or 7.025 dmg on average (that's +9.7% over scenario0; or +3.69% buff over scenario1)
• scenario3: same as scenario2
• scenario4: 8.75 * 5 + 66.25 * 10 + 15 = 721.25; or 7.2125 dmg on average (that's +12.69% over scenario0; or +2.67% over scenario3)
• scenario5: 6.25 * 5 + 68.75 * 10 + 15 = 733.75; or 7.3375 dmg on average (that's +14.64% over scenario0; or +4.44% over scenario3)

----=

That's basically what you were pointing out. If the character is affected by Aware or Intuitive inspirations, the benefit from Confident Aim is really small.

-----

19 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

But why would it be a problem ?

I think it becomes a problem/cheese, when a player figures out how to make his character unable to be die.

Now he can just put his character on auto-attack and go with his day

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

Do you guys use Community Patch Shattered Pillar ? Is it good with Max Wounds at 10 ?

I haven't played Shattered Pillar since beta

Edited December 29, 2021 by MaxQuest

[NotDumbEnough]

Ultimately miss-to-graze brute force kills aren't something that are all that common I think. Consider that this is going to be a fighter ability, who already have numerous abilities to increase their accuracy. Unless you are deliberately playing very poorly such as not upgrading your weapons, I don't see it being game-breaking.

[Elric Galad]

Also if you're playing an Uber defence build, ENEMY fighters are going to be slightly more threatening with this new Confident Aim

People often forget BPM buffs also affects (Kith) foes

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Do you guys use Community Patch Shattered Pillar ? Is it good with Max Wounds at 10 ?

I haven't played with it because the threshold seems way too high to be competitive with other subclasses, on top of the autoattack melee limitation (!!!).

I think lowering it would make sense and/or allowing ranged attacks to work as well (maybe at higher threshold then)? Or they could get a buffed Heartbeat Drumming/Swift Flurry?

Ranged could allow cool combos with Ranger for example, on top of the obvious Rogue and Cipher. More repeat Crits would make the melee autoattack limitation less lame...

As it is it looks like a sad class: incentivized to use autoattacks (not very interesting) and then doesn't get great resource regen and damage output because... autoattack. This got me thinking: I assume Shattered Pillar generates wounds from Riposte and Disengagement attacks? maybe there is something to do there?

[Boeroer]

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I haven't played with it because the threshold seems way too high to be competitive with other subclasses, on top of the autoattack melee limitation (!!!).

I'm playing a Shattered Pillar/Soulblade right now and it's pretty awesome because you fill up two resource pools with one instance of damage. I think a CP Shattered Pillar is competetive with other Monk subclasses because it's back at 10 wounds. Imo it doesn't need more. On top of non-ability-damage you can still gain wounds from Dance of Death, Mortification of the Soul, Parting Sorrow, Imagined Pain and Xoti's Lantern (on kill). To me the best thing is that Offensive Parry (WotEP) generates both wounds for Shattered Pillars as well as Focus. And of course the cone attack helps gathering wounds more quickly if you can hit several foes at once.

Also Rooting Pain is quite cool to use as an offensive helper, triggering and doing damage/interrupting while you are attacking. 

While Swift Flurry procs do not generate wounds, Lightning Strike lashes do (when on non-ability attacks). 

Getting wounds from ability dmg was def. too strong. You could spam WotW non-stop for example. 

With high quality weapons/fists and Lightning Strikes + Turning Wheel and maybe some other dmg bonuses on top you don't need a lot of auto-attacks to gain lots of wounds. 

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I assume Shattered Pillar generates wounds from Riposte and Disengagement attacks? maybe there is something to do there?

 Iirc they do not. Only Offensiv Parry does this. I did some tests a while ago but I don't remember 100% what the outcome was. Maybe I can find the post again...

Edited December 30, 2021 by Boeroer

[Constentin Lévine]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

 Iirc they do not. Only Offensiv Parry does this. I did some tests a while ago but I don't remember 100% what the outcome was. Maybe I can find the post again...

This is because Riposte, like Swift Flurry, count as an ability, and Offensive Parry is also an ability but from weapon. Like for Wilting Wind, as a wizard's spell, do nothing but generate focus from Amira's Wing. Maybe could that generate Wounds for Shattered Pillar ?

[Not So Clever Hound]

4 hours ago, Boeroer said:

To me the best thing is that Offensive Parry (WotEP) generates both wounds for Shattered Pillars as well as Focus. And of course the cone attack helps gathering wounds more quickly if you can hit several foes at once.

Thanks, that's interesting. If Offensive Parry works then I can see how this would be a nice setup with Soulblade. Even nicer if you use e.g. Nomad's Brigandine Tactical Withdraw to trigger enemy disengagement attacks automisses that will trigger Offensive Parry. You just generate Wounds and Focus by standing there and making small moves.

That said, I hear your other points but outside of this particular build, I fail to see how this can be competitive vs a Nalpazca, Helwalker or FF in other setups. I probably need to stop whining, play one and see for myself.  

I mean after all it is the only class in any game that gets smarter by punching people in the face.  

2 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

Like for Wilting Wind, as a wizard's spell, do nothing but generate focus from Amira's Wing. Maybe could that generate Wounds for Shattered Pillar ?

I haven't tested but I don't think so: Whilting Wind is ranged, from a ranged weapon. Shattered Pillar only gets wounds from Melee attacks (so Offensive Parry works).

[NotDumbEnough]

Would it be possible to further raise the wound cap beyond 10? Say, to 15. It would be goofy but an appropriate compensation for difficult wound generation.

[Constentin Lévine]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Even nicer if you use e.g. Nomad's Brigandine Tactical Withdraw to trigger enemy disengagement attacks automisses that will trigger Offensive Parry

As a better alternative, the Gipon Prudensco : Fight Another Day,immunity to disengagement attacks too and also only -20% recovery time and some deflection and reflex bonus, sound nice for Soulblade

8 minutes ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Would it be possible to further raise the wound cap beyond 10? Say, to 15. It would be goofy but an appropriate compensation for difficult wound generation.

that would mean +15 intellect or constitution, and +15acc for sc monk, it is more than a compensation !

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, NotDumbEnough said:

Would it be possible to further raise the wound cap beyond 10? Say, to 15. It would be goofy but an appropriate compensation for difficult wound generation.

I like this kind of daring idea but I think 15 Int/fire lash could be a little too much.

I even wondered if putting back the limit to 5 but with a super low 10 damages threshold wouldn't have been nice, since it would favour a totally different playstyle.

But I plan to nerf some monk ability with a cost above 5 so it would conflict.

Currently, I would still favour 20 damages threshold. Offensive parry is not enough build to make the subclass relevant, 20 damages threshold wouldn't make it that broken and there are other pretty good Offensive Parry build anyway.

With 20 damages threshold and rooting pain, shattered pillars would be great.

Generate wounds from ranged auto attack would basically make Shattered Pillar into a ranged subclass.

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Generate wounds from ranged auto attack would basically make Shattered Pillar into a ranged subclass.

I see your point Elric, but it can already be. For example, I just tested a Sage with Instruments of Pain and Citzal's Spirit Lance. You can poke ennemies from as far as 10.5 range. Autoattack piercing damage will generate wounds... but not the blast effect (!). Because the blast is tagged as ranged (e.g. it benefits from Harley pet) but the main piercing attack isn't.

So in this case you could think that Shattered Pillar would be pretty strong (dealing damage from afar while generating loads of wounds from it), but anyone else will be equal or better:

• Helwalker will ultimately bring +10MIG and spam Stunning Surge right from the start, building wounds via Enduring Dance and Mortification of the Soul if needed (as anyone else).
• Nalpazca will build wounds faster with Enduring Dance + Drugs and also just spam Stunning Surge.
• FF can alternate between FF ability and Stunning Surge on tough cookies.
• Shattered Pillar is basically like a No Subclass, but that could get wounds via autoattacks... except Stunning Surge will just be strictly better to use anyway and autoattack wound regen won't take advantage of the blast damage or of Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming procs, so it won't be very synergistic.

That's my point: apart from the Offensive Parry build Boeroer mentioned which sounds very synergistic and fun, I struggle to not see Shattered Pillar as strictly subpar. That's why I threw the idea of expanding wound regen to Ranged. Maybe then putting down the wound cap lower than 10 or something like that to not make it too strong... 

Anyway, this is just my opinion, as I said I haven't really played with it precisely for that reason.  

[Constentin Lévine]

3 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Shattered Pillar is basically like a No Subclass, but that could get wounds via autoattacks... except Stunning Surge will just be strictly better to use anyway and autoattack wound regen won't take advantage of the blast damage or of Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming procs, so it won't be very synergistic.

I agree with you, and I add that if Shattered Pillar could gain Wounds with abilities (meaning potiential wouds's refound for most of them), then the "5 wounds only" made sens, the penalty for Duality of Mortal Presence too. I think I had tried this subclass at less once in this case.

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Constentin Lévine said:

I agree with you, and I add that if Shattered Pillar could gain Wounds with abilities (meaning potiential wouds's refound for most of them), then the "5 wounds only" made sens, the penalty for Duality of Mortal Presence too. I think I had tried this subclass at less once in this case.

There was an issue with WotW in particular, which basically refunded itself.

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I see your point Elric, but it can already be. For example, I just tested a Sage with Instruments of Pain and Citzal's Spirit Lance. You can poke ennemies from as far as 10.5 range. Autoattack piercing damage will generate wounds... but not the blast effect (!). Because the blast is tagged as ranged (e.g. it benefits from Harley pet) but the main piercing attack isn't.

So in this case you could think that Shattered Pillar would be pretty strong (dealing damage from afar while generating loads of wounds from it), but anyone else will be equal or better:

• Helwalker will ultimately bring +10MIG and spam Stunning Surge right from the start, building wounds via Enduring Dance and Mortification of the Soul if needed (as anyone else).
• Nalpazca will build wounds faster with Enduring Dance + Drugs and also just spam Stunning Surge.
• FF can alternate between FF ability and Stunning Surge on tough cookies.
• Shattered Pillar is basically like a No Subclass, but that could get wounds via autoattacks... except Stunning Surge will just be strictly better to use anyway and autoattack wound regen won't take advantage of the blast damage or of Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming procs, so it won't be very synergistic.

That's my point: apart from the Offensive Parry build Boeroer mentioned which sounds very synergistic and fun, I struggle to not see Shattered Pillar as strictly subpar. That's why I threw the idea of expanding wound regen to Ranged. Maybe then putting down the wound cap lower than 10 or something like that to not make it too strong... 

Anyway, this is just my opinion, as I said I haven't really played with it precisely for that reason.  

That's just an example, and in this particular case, you'll probably pick Helwaker anyway.
Stunning Surge wound regen (because it does give 2 Wounds too...) combined with Enduring Dance give enough wounds for about any of your needs anyway.

For any other Instrument of Pain build, I would say Shattered Pillar can feel optimal (for spamming raised torment)

 

I'm still unsure what is the right solution. But I just feel ranged weapon monk niche is quite well fullfilled with Helwalker.

I feel I need more inputs about the current status of the subclass.

[Elric Galad]

New version uploaded as usual :

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

Included various tweaks to Fighters and Barbarians and a couple more (slight buff to SC Chanter).
Basically this version is the consequence of my thoughts about general class balance.
As usually check the <Version 1.5.4> tag in the description.

Nexus editing is becoming weird, and I have to switch to Code mode to update the dexription. It makes keeping perfect track of previous version with barring super tedious. Anyway barring made the page sometimes a bit messy, so it isn't too bad.

NOT INCLUDED : scaling issues with WotW and similar abilities, WotW nerf, wound costs possible nerf, possible Shattered pillar nerf and BPM Empower abuse prevention. This would be for next version.

Happy new year 2022 to everyone !

[Not So Clever Hound]

Hi Elric,

FYI the 1.5.4 buff component is still not available, it reads "This file is currently being uploaded to our CDN servers. If this is taking longer than expected, please contact a moderator or email us".

The Nerf and Summon Rebalance are available alright.

Thanks!

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Hi Elric,

FYI the 1.5.4 buff component is still not available, it reads "This file is currently being uploaded to our CDN servers. If this is taking longer than expected, please contact a moderator or email us".

The Nerf and Summon Rebalance are available alright.

Thanks!

Seems ok now !

[Not So Clever Hound]

16 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Seems ok now !

That's weird. I still get the error message and BalancePolishingModBuffs isn't available. Anyone else?

[Elric Galad]

45 minutes ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

That's weird. I still get the error message and BalancePolishingModBuffs isn't available. Anyone else?

No, you're right, it's not working for me either, even if there is a green checkbox.
I'll check this evening.

[Elric Galad]

7 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

That's weird. I still get the error message and BalancePolishingModBuffs isn't available. Anyone else?

It works now

[Elric Galad]

What do you think about Clear Out additional attack vs main target ? It makes Clear Out a bit too good against single target, and I'm not sure it is intended.

 

Also Clear Out & upgrades having no AoE display is annoying.

But displaying AoE may lead to unpexpected consequences, such as applying spell scaling rules (basically added ~12-20 Acc and ~+3-5 PEN) to Clear Out. But this could compensate the loss of the additional attack. I may add a little damage malus to compensate a bit. 

What would be your opinion about such tweaks ? Would you prefer to let Clear Out as it is ?

[Not So Clever Hound]

28 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Would you prefer to let Clear Out as it is ?

I personally think Clear Out is fair and balanced as it is. At 2 Discipline anyway you can't really abuse it. And even with e.g. the interaction with Carnage I don't think it's too strong. The lack of AoE display is annoying but with a bit of practice it's ok - and that's what makes its charm .

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

I personally think Clear Out is fair and balanced as it is. At 2 Discipline anyway you can't really abuse it. And even with e.g. the interaction with Carnage I don't think it's too strong. The lack of AoE display is annoying but with a bit of practice it's ok - and that's what makes its charm .

Ok, I will let it be.

I should try to stop my modditisis anyway.