Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Elric Galad]

13 minutes ago, Okkes said:

Mr Elric, what do you think about swift flurry/heartbeat drumming doesnt generating focus? Would that be too op?

OP, not that much,but most likely technically difficult to doand not super necessary. 

[yorname]

I'm wondering the role of animal companions for SC ranger, when fully buffed, they end up with 14PEN piercing/slashing and 130+ACC against marked target, which is good enough for mobs but usually can't penetrate bosses even with the common -2AR debuff, so they really need to score critical hits to do any meaningful damage.

A normal party (without going out of the way to stack Blade of the Endless Paths) probably can apply -30 or -40 to deflection with flanking, -10 resolve, -10 from Cap of the Laughingstock, not sure if pike modal stacks with flanking. Which then usually translates to 30% -40 crit chance. There's then also easy intuitive for SC equals 12.5% crit chance.

So against such enemies, about 50% of their attacks are meaningful. Now they have energized, but the ranger should already interrupt the hell out of the target. The damage is still less than ideal, a crit is about 20ish damage with all the passives, factor in the severe underpen for non-crits, for a lion that's about 30 dmg per 4s (2 hits including animation) which is pretty hard to further improve.

I kind of feel that's too expensive for what we get, a ranger needs to pay a lot to reach this number: vicious companion and bonded fury are absolutely necessary, while merciless companion and predators sense are relatively less impactful. That's 4 ability points, and keeping it alive is also a bond drain, when the whole party can easily have over 150 defenses, animal companion with bonded fury only has 90~110 and hard to further improve. Many times I feel I'd just let it die and use the new vengeful grief.

Maybe I'm asking for too much, I feel animal companion is at an awkward position, I either invest a lot and try really hard to keep it alive for mediocre gain, or just go for vengeful grief which is also not bad, but kind of kills the point of ranger, on both "high accuracy" and "animal companion".

I wonder if sharing Hunter's claw and/or (mutual) stalker's link is too much. It kind of bothers me that some of the buffs are shared but some are one-way. Hunter's claw only makes a difference in really tough fights where the animal companion either just sit besides the ranger or stays dead, so I think it will make them more relevant, with the +defense upgrade at least.

 

Edited August 18 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

15 hours ago, yorname said:

I'm wondering the role of animal companions for SC ranger, when fully buffed, they end up with 14PEN piercing/slashing and 130+ACC against marked target, which is good enough for mobs but usually can't penetrate bosses even with the common -2AR debuff, so they really need to score critical hits to do any meaningful damage.

They are not so far from penetrating bosses. PotD megaooze is 16 AR, Belranga is 17 and Doru 18. With the -2, and a little something such as Blackened Plate, it should work. 

15 hours ago, yorname said:

A normal party (without going out of the way to stack Blade of the Endless Paths) probably can apply -30 or -40 to deflection with flanking, -10 resolve, -10 from Cap of the Laughingstock, not sure if pike modal stacks with flanking. Which then usually translates to 30% -40 crit chance. There's then also easy intuitive for SC equals 12.5% crit chance.

So against such enemies, about 50% of their attacks are meaningful. Now they have energized, but the ranger should already interrupt the hell out of the target. The damage is still less than ideal, a crit is about 20ish damage with all the passives, factor in the severe underpen for non-crits, for a lion that's about 30 dmg per 4s (2 hits including animation) which is pretty hard to further improve.

I kind of feel that's too expensive for what we get, a ranger needs to pay a lot to reach this number: vicious companion and bonded fury are absolutely necessary, while merciless companion and predators sense are relatively less impactful. That's 4 ability points, and keeping it alive is also a bond drain, when the whole party can easily have over 150 defenses, animal companion with bonded fury only has 90~110 and hard to further improve. Many times I feel I'd just let it die and use the new vengeful grief.

That's the deal, yes. Vengeful grief if nothing else works. Probably optimal only vs Doru. 

Most of builds will have a noticeable number of somewhat useless ability vs Megabosses, especially vs Dorudugan. Yup, debuffs and interrupt feel bad for this fight. 

15 hours ago, yorname said:

Maybe I'm asking for too much, I feel animal companion is at an awkward position, I either invest a lot and try really hard to keep it alive for mediocre gain, or just go for vengeful grief which is also not bad, but kind of kills the point of ranger, on both "high accuracy" and "animal companion".

I feel the issues you describe is really specific to megaboss fight. 

And for these ones, rangers especially SC have a strong monster hunter identity. Heartseeker will reduce their HP for the whole fight, hunter's claw will give you super stats...

I also consider tranquilizing shot to be Auranic kryptonite. Use is with a multihit blunderbuss or Frost Seeker and are guaranteed to shut down any obelisk showing some sign of arrogance. 

Pets should be somewhat tanky, with a full heal for 2 bonds and a 1 bond better Lay on Hand (upgrade also reduce damages by 25% in additional to +2AR.). They won't be pure tank level of tankiness, but still decent hp pool. 

Shadowed hunter should help too, with some offensive buff wrapped in. 

15 hours ago, yorname said:

I wonder if sharing Hunter's claw and/or (mutual) stalker's link is too much. It kind of bothers me that some of the buffs are shared but some are one-way.

It was worse before modding. Some were displayed shared, but were not. 

15 hours ago, yorname said:

 

Hunter's claw only makes a difference in really tough fights where the animal companion either just sit besides the ranger or stays dead, so I think it will make them more relevant, with the +defense upgrade at least.

 

Hunter claw line is already one of the most complex ability of the game. High dev cost to change and potentiel bugs. 

It is also quite strong. 

Stalker's link : how would work with a ranged ranger?

 

I'm not against new ideas, just these 2 are too tedious. And I'm not super convinced pet needs more support. 

[yorname]

Hmmm, I agree with you on Hunter claw and Stalker's link.

I ended up with Shadowed hunter as the only healing ability maybe that's why I'm feeling the squishiness. One thing I didn't realize was that SC ranger is so starved of ability points. I didn't even have wounding shot, so that I could get Beast's claw and Concussive Tranquilizer and some of the passives for ranged attacks. This is the point that I'm still not quite convinced, for the 4 abilities that buff animal attacks, missing even one of them makes the animal perform very bad (and is the reason why MC animal is mostly not worth sending forward), what's the point of getting 14 PEN if their average damage per hit is below 20 at lv20? And for such a high price they're still just okay, and this is only the price on the offensive side. So I'm feeling I need to invest a lot to make the animal not a liability.

As for penetration, not only megabosses, for many tougher enemies piercing and slashing tend to be "high or higher". I'm pretty sure Blackened Plate doesn't stack with active debuff, so except for situational stuff like Sundering Blow or Rusted Armor, a party usually can only apply -2AR I think. An animal's 14PEN already includes active buff and can't switch, so there's not much more to do about it.

Or maybe I should just accept that SC ranger is OP against mobs but more about ultility rather than damage against single target? Although if that's the case I think Heart Seeker is just slightly lacking. It's pretty rare that healing makes a huge difference on enemies, except for solo run, so if the party has a cheap access to weakened, now ranger loses their unique debuff. It's like the modded "XXX the bell" abilities, while having a rogue always frees up a weapon slot for better choices, having say a melee monk or a high accuracy chanter kills most of the point of Heart Seeker, only except for perhaps Doru because 35 res. Something similar to Revenge of Skaen can make it more unique and rewardingI think, like a -7 or 8 CON debuff that doesn't stack with the -5 from affliction.

Also does Concussive Tranquilizer work with blunderbuss? I think I'm only getting -30s on multishots. Can't remember if it works for AOE weapons.

Edited August 19 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

Hmmm, I agree with you on Hunter claw and Stalker's link.

I ended up with Shadowed hunter as the only healing ability maybe that's why I'm feeling the squishiness.

Yup, it's a live saver into long term mitigation. It wont save your pet for long on its own (but party member can) 

1 hour ago, yorname said:

One thing I didn't realize was that SC ranger is so starved of ability points.

Rangers in general are. Those 3+predator's sense initial pet passive + protector pet + stalker link are annoying to get all. 

I can't think about an easy solution that would fix this, granted BPM don't alter ability tree. 

Maybe Predator's sense and Sneak attack one should scale with pet PL (which scale to 9, +1 for a cute) ? That won't address that one feels a bit forced to pick them all. 

Basically I agree that you have named an issue. 

 

Other martial classes tend to have their strengths more concentrated in a couple of active, except monks maybe who are also quite starved. 

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I didn't even have wounding shot, so that I could get Beast's claw and Concussive Tranquilizer and some of the passives for ranged attacks.

Wounding shots are passable for SC Ranger. If you go ranged, get twin shot, if you go melee, hunter claw will be enough. 

 

On a general note, SC Ranger may have an easier time than MC for ability point because their Tier 8 - 9 Active don't have upgrades. 1 point = 1 great ability. 

1 hour ago, yorname said:

This is the point that I'm still not quite convinced, for the 4 abilities that buff animal attacks, missing even one of them makes the animal perform very bad (and is the reason why MC animal is mostly not worth sending forward), what's the point of getting 14 PEN if their average damage per hit is below 20 at lv20? And for such a high price they're still just okay, and this is only the price on the offensive side. So I'm feeling I need to invest a lot to make the animal not a liability.

As for penetration, not only megabosses, for many tougher enemies piercing and slashing tend to be "high or higher". I'm pretty sure Blackened Plate doesn't stack with active debuff,

Blackened plate does stack with everything. So is Beza's toothed blade (with propre upgrade -2AR on crit).

That's not the main topic but worths mentionning. 

1 hour ago, yorname said:

so except for situational stuff like Sundering Blow or Rusted Armor, a party usually can only apply -2AR I think. An animal's 14PEN already includes active buff and can't switch, so there's not much more to do about it.

Or maybe I should just accept that SC ranger is OP against mobs but more about ultility rather than damage against single target? Although if that's the case I think Heart Seeker is just slightly lacking. It's pretty rare that healing makes a huge difference on enemies, except for solo run, so if the party has a cheap access to weakened, now ranger loses their unique debuff. It's like the modded "XXX the bell" abilities, while having a rogue always frees up a weapon slot for better choices, having say a melee monk or a high accuracy chanter kills most of the point of Heart Seeker, only except for perhaps Doru because 35 res.

Monk won't do it in an AoE and crits aren't that reliable. Chanter will eat up one previous phrase.

What do you want more than an autohit permanent enfeebled in a line ? 

Vs crowd, the autohit hostile extension duration is crazy (few non boss foes are con resistant) . Vs bosse, that's the perma guaranteed affliction that matters (buddy rogue will appreciate). 

And if somehow it does not synergize well with your party, you can have Interrupt on crit, deflection debuff+bond regen and shadowed hunters on tier 9.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

Something similar to Revenge of Skaen can make it more unique and rewardingI think, like a -7 or 8 CON debuff that doesn't stack with the -5 from affliction.

Also does Concussive Tranquilizer work with blunderbuss? I think I'm only getting -30s on multishots. Can't remember if it works for AOE weapons.

Yup. But you're almost guaranteed to hit and tranquilizing shot is instant to apply and cost 1 bond (1 Ancestor Memory from buddy Cipher for a complete Obelisk carrousel) . Vs Auranic, allow me to consider this the greatest boon. 

Edited August 19 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

I'm pretty sure that using The Shield Cracks on an enemy affected with the plate aura only further reduced AR by one on my last run, something I kept forgetting and upgrading it into. Can't remember Beza's though.

Yeah the animal issue I realized is probably more about the ability tree than specific ability. A scaling sneak attack does feel justified as the only thing similar is the real sneak attack. I expected it to scale back when first time playeda ranger.

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, yorname said:

I'm pretty sure that using The Shield Cracks on an enemy affected with the plate aura only further reduced AR by one on my last run, something I kept forgetting and upgrading it into. Can't remember Beza's though.

Just checked Blackened Plate with Rusted Armor and AR malus was -5 AR. Usher's Visage aura is small though.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Yeah the animal issue I realized is probably more about the ability tree than specific ability. A scaling sneak attack does feel justified as the only thing similar is the real sneak attack. I expected it to scale back when first time playeda ranger.

Ok, I think I found the main conceptual culprits for Ranger demanding ability tree.

These are Vicious and Resilient companions talents !

 

These 2 are pure stat buff with no gamplay interaction.

Yet, missing PEN is too critical to be missed.

Missing AR is slightly more tolerable (esp for Ghostheart) but also feels a must-pick if you want to benefit from these juicy Hardy abilities.

 

What if I gave pet +2 AR and + 2 PEN per default ?

 

Vicious companion could become a pure unconditional damage talent, but with a lower value compared to conditional ones. +15% damages might be a bit too little if the +2 PEN is removed so I would consider rising its values, but also Merciless Companion  and Predator's Sense values for a better Companion package. The idea is that Vicious Companion shouldn't feel necessary but not bad enough to never be picked, and the other two shall only be picked if you have reliable sources of debuff.

Or I can give Vicious Companion another new effect so it synergizes more with certain builds. 

 

Resilient companion should become something else. I'm leaning toward increased health pool (it work well with Play Dead)

[yorname]

I personally don't have a problem to be forced to pick a few passives if it's worth, and if I want to go heavy animal companion, like if I don't feel like it, only getting the +engagement passive as GH or using vengeful grief is a choice, so I don't have a problem with their base AR and pen. In theory one ability for pen, one for AR, two for damage isn't neccessarily wrong. Ideally getting the latter 2 passives should be choosing extra good pet over focusing on the ranger themselves.

The problem is they kind of never get to be that good pet. Sneak attack and DoT are so common in a party that in like 95% cases their restrictions are not restrictions at all, and with the current numbers, having Merciless Companion + Predator's Sense only feels like a normal, basic hit.

Vicious + Resilient turns a temporary engage tool / living +10 accuracy to something that can penetrate and survive, that's fine. But the other 2 combined only adds +8 per hit from animal, which is always worse than +8 per hit from the ranger. Compared to other strikers, 2 ability points for such a small improvement that can't scale and is single-target only is unacceptable.

I don't have an idea though. Changing base damage feels too radical, maybe changing the passives to be harder to achieve and better numbers, so I'd need to work to enable my pet? It feels wrong for animal to get deathblows way before rogues actually get deathblows though.

 

Edited August 19 by yorname

[yorname]

MC ranger can usually get away with minimal investments on their AC, but SC have to make good use of them. Currently the biggest difference between MC and SC animals are energized and intuitive, as other inspirations are either less important or can be (at least partly) accessed in a party. I think it can be pushed a little further, like have the bonuses scale with ranger's PL, so MC's animal don't get too good, and make prestige slightly more attractive.

[Elric Galad]

10 hours ago, yorname said:

I personally don't have a problem to be forced to pick a few passives if it's worth, and if I want to go heavy animal companion, like if I don't feel like it, only getting the +engagement passive as GH or using vengeful grief is a choice, so I don't have a problem with their base AR and pen. In theory one ability for pen, one for AR, two for damage isn't neccessarily wrong. Ideally getting the latter 2 passives should be choosing extra good pet over focusing on the ranger themselves.

No, I think it is really an issue. Ranger is supposed to be the pet class, so having it decent without too much investment should work. 

Compare it to summoners (pet is basically a passive summon - except GH) : summons are very strong with only 1-2 ability points invested.

Also you complained that Rangers are ability point starved, I agreed this was true and came with a solution. More often than not I discard cool and fun abilities I have taken time to tweak with BPM just because the mandatory ones take all the room.

That does not mean there can't be another issue as you think SC Ranger Pet lack "special sauce" that it should get as SC.

10 hours ago, yorname said:

The problem is they kind of never get to be that good pet. Sneak attack and DoT are so common in a party that in like 95% cases their restrictions are not restrictions at all, and with the current numbers, having Merciless Companion + Predator's Sense only feels like a normal, basic hit.

Good  point for them.

10 hours ago, yorname said:

Vicious + Resilient turns a temporary engage tool / living +10 accuracy to something that can penetrate and survive, that's fine. But the other 2 combined only adds +8 per hit from animal, which is always worse than +8 per hit from the ranger. Compared to other strikers, 2 ability points for such a small improvement that can't scale and is single-target only is unacceptable.

No, I think +8 damages per hit for 2 passive is decent compared to what other classes get as passive bar special passive*. 

*One of my design assumption is that Active shall be balanced, while Passive are less critical. They become must-pick passive, which isn't a major issue. Deathblow is one of the better example.

Now compare pet passive with stuff like Confident Aim, Weapon Masteries, Marksman on Gunner... all these are "balanced passive" in my design assumption. Merciless Pet and Predator's Sense are fine. They could be improved a bit , but PL Scaling doesn't work to distinguish MC Pet from SC because (see below)

10 hours ago, yorname said:

I don't have an idea though. Changing base damage feels too radical, maybe changing the passives to be harder to achieve and better numbers, so I'd need to work to enable my pet? It feels wrong for animal to get deathblows way before rogues actually get deathblows though.

See last part

9 hours ago, yorname said:

MC ranger can usually get away with minimal investments on their AC, but SC have to make good use of them. Currently the biggest difference between MC and SC animals are energized and intuitive, as other inspirations are either less important or can be (at least partly) accessed in a party. I think it can be pushed a little further, like have the bonuses scale with ranger's PL, so MC's animal don't get too good, and make prestige slightly more attractive.

Pet own ability doesn't scale with Ranger PL (and changing this would be technically ultra tedious such as coding it as an aura from ranger...). That includes Pet passive and Pet active directly activable by pet (Takedown and Play Dead - esp BPM upgrade).

Pet PL table is one of a Single Class. It scales up to 9. It doesn't depend on Ranger being SC or MC. 

AFAIK, the only way to sadd PL is Acute/Brilliant, but you're unlikely to have it on a pet apart Bonded Fury (Ancestor's Memory on a pet ahahahahah). Unless you have a BPM SC Fighter with Inspired Strike.

In a nutshell SC Pet will have +1 PL over MV Pet.

 

Currently, SC Pet main gamechanging aspect is not damages but Bond regen to its master. That's really something, maybe not what you are looking for, but it's still very relevant as it turns SC Ranger into a more long term (boss) hunter.

 

I have thought for long about how to make SC Pet better than MC Pet.

And the only possible answer has always been Bonded Fury. Why ? Because BPM doesn't add abilities, so only Distraction Training and Bonded Fury are candidate. Distraction Training is a Tier 9 and I have a rule against turning Tier 9 into "must pick" (you only have 3 points for that, so it restricts the build a lot). Tier 8 are less a concern as "must pick".

About Bonded Fury :
- Energized is great
- Nimble is great (no easy way to get it for so long, BPM Paladin can technically do it , but it would cost them 1 Zeal - AoE DEX Inspiration are rare, AoE Nimble non-existant)
- Acute has few uses, especially if you apssed play dead because of not enough ability point. But at least you're unlikely to get it from another source.
- Resolve isn't great, a party can provide it. But if party doesn't, it's still there.
- Hardy and Aware... well, at least they enable delaying Ranger ability granting them.
- Having the six of them guarantees to provide +20 against all secondary defenses and 1 Joker/Removal vs all Afflictions

Anyway, I already thought about adding an Action Speed boost to Bonded Fury (33%, as for Vengeful Grief ??). This makes sense fluff wise, so if you want to discuss about buffing SC, this is probably the easiest way. Action Speed is a multiplicative factor locked for SC, so it would make sense. It would multiply any bonus added to the early damages passive.


As a summary, possible design directions :

- Pet gets +2 AR and +2 PEN by default
- Vicious and Resilient Pet reworked to be useful for certain builds, not "must pick"
- Predator's Sense and Merciless Pet rised a bit (maybe)
- Bonded Fury may (to be discussed) grant an action speed boost sor SC Pet get a multiplicative damage boost (% of regerated bonded lowered accordingly).

Edited August 20 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

Does MC ranger need a better default pet though? They already have +20~40 accuracy over other classes, Driving Flight has huge synergy potentials, a cheap reposition and a non-spell dispel. That's a lot and already holds their own as a multiclass, albeit with pretty heavy investments. Sometimes for a MC combination, it's perfectly fine if they don't have a pet at all, so I just pick Ghost Heart and never summon them. Now if their pet AR and PEN get increased by default, they seem to be getting too much for free.

The one thing that I do think is mandatory but shouldn't be, is Protective Companion. By default animals don't have engagements so even if I don't need it to do damage and not pick Vicious, I have to pick this so the animal companion isn't completely useless. Instead of AR and PEN I'd want them to have 1 engagement by default so they can "cover the flanks temporarily" without any investment. That seems to make more sense than a default pet that "can survive and do some damage by can't engage", it would be better if the default pet offers ultility, instead of being a mediocre striker. But the order of Protective Companion and Stalker's Link makes less sense then, if you don't touch the ability tree.

Edited August 20 by yorname

[yorname]

On the topic of that 2 passives, Confident Aim, Weapon Masteries, Marksman, Gunner vary greatly in terms of importance despite all being "non-core" passives.

Weapon mastery is better than before and good in it's own, but weapon specialization is so weak that I practically never find a reason to pay the 2 points. Especially at a pretty high tier when fighter has a lot to pick.

Confident Aim I just never picked in BPM, because it only helps a little in extremely unfavorable situations. If my accuracy is so low, I'd never want to waste resources on a one-hit ability if miss chance is so high. For repeated attacks like weapons or pulse AOEs, it feels slightly better but is essentially a pit I really want to crawl out of. When ACC = defense (which is not hard to get except for early game), Confident Aim only moves 6.25 rolls from miss to graze, and loses value with every additional ACC. Compared to Dirty Fighting, the latter is much better because it keeps its value until ACC is 50 higher and there're so many ways to make use of a crit.

On the other hand Marksman and Gunner I pretty much always pick. If I'm using ranged and reload weapons.

So if we compare "3 or 5 dmg per hit from a pet" with them, I think it's better than weapon specialization and confident aim, but much worse than Marksman or Gunner. Pets are stuck with their weapons so factor in underpen, despite being pretty fast, the power increase is limited and there's no way to scale except making the pets even faster. It's made worse by the already demanding ranger tree, that you need to squeeze a couple points only to get these very mid passives.

Edited August 20 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Does MC ranger need a better default pet though? They already have +20~40 accuracy over other classes, Driving Flight has huge synergy potentials, a cheap reposition and a non-spell dispel. That's a lot and already holds their own as a multiclass, albeit with pretty heavy investments. Sometimes for a MC combination, it's perfectly fine if they don't have a pet at all, so I just pick Ghost Heart and never summon them. Now if their pet AR and PEN get increased by default, they seem to be getting too much for free.

Rogues do get sneak attack for free. Paladin get +10 all defenses for free, plus 1 active and 1 special bonus for free depending on "drawback free" subclass. Ciphers get +20% weapon damages for free.

Most classes do get free cool stuff, or as I told, passive way above the curve.

 

The idea is less to give them more raw power than to have them cost a little less in term of ability points.

You can have a functional "chanter half" with 1-2 chants and 1 invocation (plus whatever you pick at creation). 

You can have a functional "rogue half" with Deathblow, Deep Wounds and upgraded Crippling Strike.

You can have a functional Wizard without picking anything at all.

(all this discounting the fact that you have to pick 1 Ability per tier)

 

Then there is Ranger. Name me a Ranger ability that is so much above the Curve as Deathblow or Stoic Steel. Maybe Driving Flight, but that's all. Rangers have multiple little things that stack up, so aren't in a terrible position. Still they cost too much ability points and I persist that these 2 Tier 1 abilities don't bring anything in term of gameplay.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

The one thing that I do think is mandatory but shouldn't be, is Protective Companion. By default animals don't have engagements so even if I don't need it to do damage and not pick Vicious, I have to pick this so the animal companion isn't completely useless. Instead of AR and PEN I'd want them to have 1 engagement by default so they can "cover the flanks temporarily" without any investment. That seems to make more sense than a default pet that "can survive and do some damage by can't engage", it would be better if the default pet offers ultility, instead of being a mediocre striker. But the order of Protective Companion and Stalker's Link makes less sense then, if you don't touch the ability tree.

There are a couple of spells for that. The Silver Knight chant is ideal for that task and synergize with its chanter own summon too.

Stalker's Link requiring Protective companion is another issue. 

Protective companion would be a total waste if pet had already 1 engagement. It would feel even more frustrating. Remember that Stalker's Link is supposed to be one the core aspect of ranger design, but even for it you have to pay 2 ability point.

I targetted the AR/PEN talents because I could. Sorry but I have to think about concrete solutions (And I have in mind technical aspects that are a bit obscure).

1 hour ago, yorname said:

On the topic of that 2 passives, Confident Aim, Weapon Masteries, Marksman, Gunner vary greatly in terms of importance despite all being "non-core" passives.

Weapon mastery is better than before and good in it's own, but weapon specialization is so weak that I practically never find a reason to pay the 2 points. Especially at a pretty high tier when fighter has a lot to pick.

CP added it +5 Acc. +5 Acc +5% damages is enough, although not jaw dropping for a tier 7.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

Confident Aim I just never picked in BPM, because it only helps a little in extremely unfavorable situations.

But that's the one situations you need to win the most  ! 

I rarely take it either, the important thing is to be happy to take it for those who do ("Now I can graze Megabosses, youhou !")

1 hour ago, yorname said:

If my accuracy is so low, I'd never want to waste resources on a one-hit ability if miss chance is so high. For repeated attacks like weapons or pulse AOEs, it feels slightly better but is essentially a pit I really want to crawl out of. When ACC = defense (which is not hard to get except for early game), Confident Aim only moves 6.25 rolls from miss to graze, and loses value with every additional ACC. Compared to Dirty Fighting, the latter is much better because it keeps its value until ACC is 50 higher and there're so many ways to make use of a crit.

"Win more" vs "loose less" always favors "loose less" even if "Win more" shines more.

And it till helps a little vs equal defense.

I would argue it should be good to ensure Rogue Strike. I is very bad on a Fighter/Ranger for example.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

On the other hand Marksman and Gunner I pretty much always pick. If I'm using ranged and reload weapons.

So if we compare "3 or 5 dmg per hit from a pet" with them, I think it's better than weapon specialization and confident aim, but much worse than Marksman or Gunner. Pets are stuck with their weapons so factor in underpen, despite being pretty fast, the power increase is limited and there's no way to scale except making the pets even faster.

And why making them faster would fail ?

Also I think 14 PEN double type is the maximum PEN you get from any summon (Lashing vine). 

Really I don't get your issue.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

It's made worse by the already demanding ranger tree, that you need to squeeze a couple points only to get these very mid passives.

You complain about the demanding ranger ability tree, then don't agree when I make it less demanding because "one should have to pay for PEN / AR". Why this assumption ?

Once again, I try to save 2 ability points. I also deal with a lots of design contraints such as :
- not changing ability tree
- avoiding "must pick"
- avoiding "never pick"...

Do you have any other ideas that could spare ability points ?

I'm not opposed to buffing Predatory Sense and Merciless Pet a bit (even a PL scaling - just beware that it won't address SC buffing issue), but I do prioritarize the "free PEN" over buffing acceptable passives.

Edited August 20 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

For a functional ranger half, I think (unupgraded) mark, (unupgraded) Hunter's claw, stalker's link and driving flight are really necessary. Which isn't that bad in comparison, considering accuracy helps anything offensive, a MC with such abilities is good enough as a supporting half. Protective companion - stalker's link is the part that's probably problematic.

MC Barb is similar in lacking an op ability and relying on small upgrades. Even non-tactician fighters. Unbending is op but that's rarely why people pick a MC fighter

Resilient can be something more situational, but I think vicious does serve a purpose of distinguishing "SL only pet" and "having any offensive potential", and it is a meaningful choice imo.

Not sure what can be done to stalker's link, does switching SL and protective's effects make sense to you? Even if give pet default 1 engagement, +2 engagement can be situationally useful if I want to get accuracy on more than 1 enemies, or just in case multiple enemies jumped to the back. Makes more sense if this one is behind a mandatory pick.

[yorname]

I meant SC ranger was not getting what's worth the points on the pets, who must rely on pet damage. I agree with resilient which is like pure potd tax and feels bad to pick, but I think paying for PEN is fine because even without it MC's pet can still serve a purpose, so it's not that mandatory for all rangers.

Maybe to put it this way: I think pets should have a low base power, somewhere near current version, because MC are okay, but ceiling should be higher than current one, even if some passives are harder to trigger. I think the low base power part is where we disagree.

14 pen is very high for a summon, though SC ranger is also the only pure striker class that relies on summon damage. Chanter and druid has a lot more to do, so for SC ranger maybe let them hit just a little bit harder when they penetrate or crit, that's why I'm more into merciless and predators sense. I don't have a problem with 14 PEN after discussion, currently crit chance is pretty good.

Edited August 20 by yorname

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, yorname said:

For a functional ranger half, I think (unupgraded) mark, (unupgraded) Hunter's claw, stalker's link and driving flight are really necessary. Which isn't that bad in comparison, considering accuracy helps anything offensive, a MC with such abilities is good enough as a supporting half. Protective companion - stalker's link is the part that's probably problematic.

MC Barb is similar in lacking an op ability and relying on small upgrades. Even non-tactician fighters. Unbending is op but that's rarely why people pick a MC fighter

Resilient can be something more situational, but I think vicious does serve a purpose of distinguishing "SL only pet" and "having any offensive potential", and it is a meaningful choice imo.

I don't think it's a meaningful choice because the price is too cheap to pass. Never ever I will advise not taking it, even on a GH without a single other pet talent.

How would you not pay the price of 1 Tier 1 talent that makes your auto-attacker (with an auto-scaling weapon) into a decent attacker ?

That's the reason why it feels so forced for me.

3 hours ago, yorname said:

Not sure what can be done to stalker's link, does switching SL and protective's effects make sense to you?

3 hours ago, yorname said:

Even if give pet default 1 engagement, +2 engagement can be situationally useful if I want to get accuracy on more than 1 enemies, or just in case multiple enemies jumped to the back. Makes more sense if this one is behind a mandatory pick.

I wanted to say "yes, it works !!" but I remembered a technical issue.

First ability is a pet ability while the second is a ranger ability. If not, it would have been possible to intervert effect, name, etc...

2 hours ago, yorname said:

I meant SC ranger was not getting what's worth the points on the pets, who must rely on pet damage. I agree with resilient which is like pure potd tax and feels bad to pick, but I think paying for PEN is fine because even without it MC's pet can still serve a purpose, so it's not that mandatory for all rangers.

PEN is also PotD tax since PotD also rises AR. For other mode, it could have been a choice. 

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Maybe to put it this way: I think pets should have a low base power, somewhere near current version, because MC are okay, but ceiling should be higher than current one, even if some passives are harder to trigger. I think the low base power part is where we disagree.

Remember our disagreement is about what you get for zero talent spent.

With 1 talent spent (which is pretty unsignificant price to pay), pet will be at similar level since I now only plan to add +25% stride to vicious companion instead of +2 PEN.

We are quarelling over the opportunity to have a super bad pet to save 1 talent point.

 

For higher Ceiling, I have the opinion that Predatory's Sense and Merciless Companion could stay as they are for MC, and Action Speed will enhance them for SC.

2 hours ago, yorname said:

14 pen is very high for a summon, though SC ranger is also the only pure striker class that relies on summon damage.

Not only, it also relies on High accuracy, potential interrupt on crit. 

2 hours ago, yorname said:

Chanter and druid has a lot more to do, so for SC ranger maybe let them hit just a little bit harder when they penetrate or crit, that's why I'm more into merciless and predators sense. I don't have a problem with 14 PEN after discussion, currently crit chance is pretty good.

Good

 

Edit : Finally, please try to accomodate with my proposal if you don't see glaring issues. The modding won't fit 100% your own vision. 

I'm absolutely willing to take comments into account (I was willing to use your suggestion to invert Stalker Link and Protective until I spotted the technical issue). 

But I really feel we are arguing about minor stuff. It's really not easy to find technically doable tricks that address major stuff, it would be even harder to try to comply to everyone vision. 

Edited August 20 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

I can see your point if you put it that way. If resilient is changed, then vicious stands out to be the only price to make it half decent and thus a must pick, I didn't think about it that way but it's true.

I think action speed on bonded fury is good, my only concern is that would energized interrupt become better than they should be? Especially for lion.

I must say I'm absolutely grateful for your work on this, even though sometimes I might get tunnel visioned, it's always great to have a discussion like this

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I can see your point if you put it that way. If resilient is changed, then vicious stands out to be the only price to make it half decent and thus a must pick, I didn't think about it that way but it's true.

This. It is not even 2 free talent for a talent starved class since you won't get the +15% damages for vicious.

Vicious Companion would become : +15% damages, +25% Stride. Which can be useful (esp for MC without obvious access to Nimble), but not necessary for all builds.

Resilient Companion would become : +6+3/lvl hp, up to +66hp (better tough). Healing and damage prevention is usually more important than max health, but max health does help, especially with Play Dead (pets get more benefit from max health than your usual goonies due to that).

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I think action speed on bonded fury is good, my only concern is that would energized interrupt become better than they should be? Especially for lion.

You gotta be good at something. Anyway getting crit as pet isn't that obvious as you only get marked prey, aware and expensive Shadowed Hunter. A triple attack Frostseeker ranger with max Per will result in a much greater havoc.

1 hour ago, yorname said:

I must say I'm absolutely grateful for your work on this, even though sometimes I might get tunnel visioned, it's always great to have a discussion like this

Thanks !

[Elric Galad]

Okay, this is not technically a Balance Polishing Mod update, but I have just released muy new mod which allows bypassing Dispositions while getting maximum effects for Paladins and Priests (either from the start or through level scaling).

Replace Disposition Scaling at Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Nexus - Mods and Community (nexusmods.com)

Of course compatible with CP and BPM, but independant.

[Elric Galad]

On 8/1/2024 at 1:29 AM, lewis_cb said:

Hi, it looks to me that Glacierbane's Shattering is bugged and doesn't suspend beneficial effects on crit. Was it known or could someone confirm? I thought of reporting it in case BPM could fix it in the future. Amazing work btw!

I tried it (now that I'm developping a new version) but it worked fine.

[Elric Galad]

Okay, now this is technically a Balance Polishing Mod upgrade.

You'll find Animal Companion, Bleak Walker, Darcozzi, Unbroken, Shred spells and Penetration Modal reworks as announced previously.

(Note that for Darcozzi, the fire shield stacking didn't work... but it worked by stacking Lay on Hand fire Shield with GLoH/HoL fire shields (always has been). So I doubled the damages of the Tier 3 version and I added a note to state explicitly that it does stack)

 

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

Edited August 26 by Elric Galad

[yorname]

I encountered some bugs/annoyances with Bleak Walker's FoD:

They can only pick Spirit of Decay when they haven't picked an upgrade for FoD yet, otherwise it's greyed out saying "require FoD"

Also Eternal Devotion's text still says burn damage.

[Elric Galad]

6 hours ago, yorname said:

I encountered some bugs/annoyances with Bleak Walker's FoD:

They can only pick Spirit of Decay when they haven't picked an upgrade for FoD yet, otherwise it's greyed out saying "require FoD"

OK, I'll look into that.

EDIT : here is the hotfix. I'll release a new official version soon.

cl.paladin.bleak_walker_all_corrode.gamedatabundle

6 hours ago, yorname said:

Also Eternal Devotion's text still says burn damage.

I haven't change the text specifically, but Bleak Walker text says upgrades secondary effects would be corrode damages too.

Changing the text prevents the translation (apart for English and French, managed by the mod). so it's always a trade-off 

Edited August 27 by Elric Galad

[Elric Galad]

Version 4.0.1 is live. Basically 4.0.0 fixes.

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

[SenSx]

Hello Elric,

thanks for the update, do I need to make nay kind of translation for the french version ?

I think I saw some translation mistakes and will try to correct them.

 

By the way, I have a question about the cipher ability Borrowed Instinct.

It seems that the ability still works even after the target with the debuff is dead.

I don't know if it is supposed to work like that, and your mod propably don't alter this spell, so I don't know what causes this issue, if it is indeed one.