Balance Polishing Mod Release 1.0

[Elric Galad]

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

 Very much disagree about paladins v chanter though, sacred immolation and light of pure zeal both do fire/frost in vanilla.

Nope, Sacred Immolation is fire only (and LoPZ is vessel/spirit only). A SC paladin has really no offensive ability vs Fire based non vessel/spirit (and Fire absorbing vessel - at least Doru)

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

They may not work properly on fire-immune creatures but that's another issue entirely. Vanilla paladins have 2 high level abilities that do non-fire, while chanters have just one high level ability that does non-freeze. Yeah there's summons but that's a different type of build.

No, that's really just picking one backup ability (2 if upgrade is counted). A Chanter build without any summon is a bit weird. You will need them at some point, at least vs Megaboss (or the build is suboptimal anyway).

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

And you'd only really use "Boil the flesh" on near death things, so 3/4 of the time mostly ignoring it. Chanters are versatile yes but not in the nuking department, in that they're like 90% freeze. Probably not using "Her Revenge Swept" much once getting other spells since damage is low.

Her revenge has base 30-42 damages (because 3x what displayed...), with bounce on top. It should be enough to spam.

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Would you consider at least making the upgraded abilities freeze/crush or freeze/shock? Particularly on Eld Nary's Curse since that is SC only, though I'd like seeing it on the base abilities as well. With Eld Nary could replace the crushing lash. Her Tears could alternatively do pierce/freeze, as they're described as "bolts of freezing ice" so pierce/freeze really makes more sense than just freeze IMO. 

I just hate caster chanters have few options vs certain foes. The whole Beast of Winter DLC tons of stuff immune to freeze. A small change in damage type could make like caster bellower build (best way to get +power level on spells) much more effective in these few fights while not having a large effect overall.

Bellower are also the best subclass at summoning. As I said above, I don't intend to change much damage types. 

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

They're not expensive. Palm slats, leathery wings, and primal wind are all very common. I didn't even have to buy ingredients to craft them, I had enough. If you can churn out boss killer scrolls for like 10k (7k with berath crafting pick) that seems way too easy. An ability that hits nearly the entire screen, does large damage, and interrupts and knocks up for several seconds with near 100% success even vs megabosses (with my char anyway) seems way broken.

Still, I don't really care that much about nerfing things as I can just not use them, but the same logic applies to plenty of things you did nerf, so I thought you'd want to know about these things... If there were a sword that won fights with zero risk would you nerf that? Even if it cost 10k or more?

Well, I think it is all about Tier 9 scrolls. A Tier 9 scroll is worth about "4 martial ressources". You can have 5 per slot, 4 to 6 slots. That's up to 120 points of ressources. How can it be balanced anyway ?

I don't think Tornado scroll is another league than Maelstorm. Maelstorm deals way higher damages, with an AoE sufficient for most fights. How many fights can one clear with 16 Maelstorm scrolls ? Even if the absence of CC means you have to handle your defense somehow, and manage a bit more the AoE.

I think you have a point that Tornado has a special edge when cast repeatedly. But the risks with Maelstorm isn't that much higher (especially with tanky classes such as Fighter) and the reward is way above.

My idea is that using consumable is a win, but is not a free win. And that it won't work vs certain Megabosses (I think the Oracle has a tolerably high fortitude). 

That's why I'm not considering nerfing the scrolls in general (not limited to Tornado).

The Tier 9 ability itself is limited by its mediocre damages, casting it once is great but isn't going to win by itself.

On 4/1/2023 at 1:07 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Why did you nerf Great Maelstrom?

Benchmark vs comparable Random AoE Tier 9 spells (Meteor Storm, Minoletta's Salvo). There is a dedicated thread about it. That's why the nerf wasn't so big.

[Elric Galad]

Version 2.5.2 has just been released :

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

[Shai Hulud]

On 4/6/2023 at 3:45 PM, Elric Galad said:

Version 2.5.2 has just been released :

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

Excellent. 

Random question, I was running through The Enclosures in Forgotten Sanctum and I destroyed "The Mouth of the Organ" on the left side of the map, then got murdered quite rapidly. Reloaded and toggled "god" and "toggleresourcelimit" because something seemed wrong about the fight, and what it is is that it is completely impossible. Even with invulnerability, limitless resources, super high accuracy, carnage, high attack speed, and rekvu's fractured casque for freedom from interrupts, I could not kill even one of this group. It's a bunch of humans, mostly barbarians, monks and paladins. "Revised Thugs" and "Sanitized Fanatics". I watched it go on for about 20 minutes before concluding it was impossible. It is probably possible with a full party of custom made characters, but I suspect just barely.

I mean this fight is by far harder than any megaboss. I tried it in vanilla and while challenging the enemies went down after a few minutes. I think it is impossible in BPM because the humans appear to have limitless resources. The barbarians spam Spirit Tornado and Heart of Fury for high damage and keeping you staggered, the monks spam Skyward Kick, and worst of all the paladins spam Light of Pure Zeal. This is a barbarian / ghost heart I'm testing and it is an incredibly strong and high DPS build but just gets wrecked by this encounter. 

Since the encounter is avoidable by stealth (or just not destroying the mouth of the organ, which I did by accident), it isn't that big an issue, but you might want to check it out yourself, I'd like to know if others find it impossible as well.

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

Also keep running into spore infested librarians who spam savage defiance like 20 times a second. Mostly a cosmetic annoyance since they don't stack. 

 

Edited April 9, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[thelee]

On 3/5/2023 at 10:56 AM, MaxQuest said:

Could the justification be that these animal companions presumably use claw attacks and thus two paws?

Meanwhile:

• boar is more adept at tripping charge and using his tusks.
• antilope uses her hooves (?)
• stag uses his hooves (?) and antlers

Although this still leaves lion, who should also get the same DW bonus as cat/wolf. 

-------

On the other hand, predators also have fangs, so there are bite attacks.

But in any case that DW bonus is not listed anywhere, so it's kinda slightly unfair as is.

sorry to necro this, but any chance of incorporating whatever fix @Elric Galad did for the animal companion attack inconsistency into the community patch?

Edited April 13, 2023 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

sorry to necro this, but any chance of incorporating whatever fix @Elric Galad did for the animal companion attack inconsistency into the community patch?

Maybe better to ask @MaxQuest then

[Shai Hulud]

Was playing a pure paladin, noticed ring of focused flame doesn't apply to light of pure zeal which does fire / frost. Keywords say "Frost, electricity". 

IIRC you had discussed previously changing maybe sacred immolation to fire/shock also? But it always does fire. Not sure if you changed your mind on implementation or it isn't working properly? Or possibly I'm misremembering.

I like the changes to Divine Retribution. Makes resource regeneration more reliable and less goofily based on sacrificing summons. Works pretty well on solo characters. This build would actually be pretty effective if sacred immolation and upgrades did fire/shock, but it's centered entirely on high immolation damage (using inspired beacon to increase damage and lay on hands to not die) so it just won't work on fire immune things. 

------

Also you have done a lot of great stuff with barbarians, but I feel their resource regeneration is lacking, since they only gain resource from "Blood Surge" which has just 33% +1 rage on kill. Compare to paladins whose "Virtuous Triumph" grants them 50% +1 zeal on kill at tier 7, plus Divine Retribution which is effectively 1 zeal per 12s + 0-2 zeal per 30s, for roughly 2 to 4 zeal per 30s depending on party composition. Granted it is harder for paladins to kill things, but having multiple sources of regeneration including passive regeneration,  paladins gain a lot more resources. Comparitively Blood Surge is rather weak in its resource gain. Would propose increasing to at least 66% on kill, possibly even 100%...I think 100% would probably be fine since the high damage abilities like heart of fury cost 3 rage, but it may need some testing to get the right number. 

And I guess casters don't have any resource regen because they have a larger number of spells compared to non-caster abilities? 

----

Bonded Fury doesn't seem to work on ghost hearts, I guess because the statuses have to be reapplied every summon. Probably no way to fix this?

Edited April 14, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Elric Galad]

17 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Was playing a pure paladin, noticed ring of focused flame doesn't apply to light of pure zeal which does fire / frost. Keywords say "Frost, electricity". 

IIRC you had discussed previously changing maybe sacred immolation to fire/shock also? But it always does fire. Not sure if you changed your mind on implementation or it isn't working properly? Or possibly I'm misremembering.

I don't remember that. 

Or maybe once, a long time ago, but discarded quickly. 

17 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I like the changes to Divine Retribution. Makes resource regeneration more reliable and less goofily based on sacrificing summons. Works pretty well on solo characters. This build would actually be pretty effective if sacred immolation and upgrades did fire/shock, but it's centered entirely on high immolation damage (using inspired beacon to increase damage and lay on hands to not die) so it just won't work on fire immune things. 

------

Also you have done a lot of great stuff with barbarians, but I feel their resource regeneration is lacking, since they only gain resource from "Blood Surge" which has just 33% +1 rage on kill. Compare to paladins whose "Virtuous Triumph" grants them 50% +1 zeal on kill at tier 7, plus Divine Retribution which is effectively 1 zeal per 12s + 0-2 zeal per 30s, for roughly 2 to 4 zeal per 30s depending on party composition. Granted it is harder for paladins to kill things, but having multiple sources of regeneration including passive regeneration,  paladins gain a lot more resources. Comparitively Blood Surge is rather weak in its resource gain. Would propose increasing to at least 66% on kill, possibly even 100%...I think 100% would probably be fine since the high damage abilities like heart of fury cost 3 rage, but it may need some testing to get the right number. 

Blood Surge works on friendly target though (and add health), making it somewhat more useful vs bosses. 

Barbs are indeed less about resource regen, but they do get extremely cheap stuff, to the point SC Barbs were considered okay even before BPM. 

17 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

And I guess casters don't have any resource regen because they have a larger number of spells compared to non-caster abilities? 

Yup. And they gain 1 tier 7, 2 tier 8 and 1 tier 9 slots when going SC, which is way more resources than martial +2 pool. 

17 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

----

Bonded Fury doesn't seem to work on ghost hearts, I guess because the statuses have to be reapplied every summon. Probably no way to fix this?

Not really. Ghosheart is anyway dubious as SC because vengeful grief fix the main drawback of non ghosheart SC. Still far from unplayable, but works better as a MC (which is fine for a subclass. Anyway if you get enough bond to cast Bonded Fury repeatedly, the problem fixes itself. 

[Shai Hulud]

7 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I don't remember that. 

Or maybe once, a long time ago, but discarded quickly. 

Yeah it was here, talking about changing LOPZ to fire/shock but you did seem to change your mind a few posts later. I must have hallucinated the bit about sacred immolation lol...so do you like sacred immolation as is? Could make it fire/frost or fire/shock, it's "holy fire" so doesn't have to be literal fire. This build just gets kind of stuck vs fire immune things and there's a lot. 

I mean fire/freeze on LOPZ seems fine but it isn't keyworded that way, it is keyworded frost, electricity (and description says "tremendous amount of shock and freeze damage") so it doesn't benefit from scion of flame for penetration nor ring of focused flame for accuracy. Also seems to default to fire...like vs dorudugan it uses fire which of course just heals him. I haven't seen an enemy yet where it uses freeze, though I haven't tested it except in some tougher fights. 

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah it was here, talking about changing LOPZ to fire/shock but you did seem to change your mind a few posts later.

Was Frost / Shock, as KW and description suggest.

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I must have hallucinated the bit about sacred immolation lol...so do you like sacred immolation as is? Could make it fire/frost or fire/shock, it's "holy fire" so doesn't have to be literal fire. This build just gets kind of stuck vs fire immune things and there's a lot. 

I mean fire/freeze on LOPZ seems fine but it isn't keyworded that way, it is keyworded frost, electricity (and description says "tremendous amount of shock and freeze damage") so it doesn't benefit from scion of flame for penetration nor ring of focused flame for accuracy. Also seems to default to fire...like vs dorudugan it uses fire which of course just heals him. I haven't seen an enemy yet where it uses freeze, though I haven't tested it except in some tougher fights. 

Right, it was an oversight of 2.5.0. Somehow I forgot to actualy change LoPZ damage types...

Just released 2.5.3 to hotfix it :

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

[Kvellen]

Would setting summoned weapons effects to end when a character is knock out make for a negative impact on balance? The main reason I ask is that it seems setting status effects that grant summoned weapons to "ClearOnDeath" seems to be a potential fix for NPC casters (such as Katrenn) failing to drop their equipped weapons.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Kvellen

[Elric Galad]

3 hours ago, Kvellen said:

Would setting summoned weapons effects to end when a character is knock out make for a negative impact on balance? The main reason I ask is that it seems setting status effects that grant summoned weapons to "ClearOnDeath" seems to be a potential fix for NPC casters (such as Katrenn) failing to drop their equipped weapons.

Not much I guess. I might consider it if I have time to spare.

 

If the way, if there are some veteran from PoE1, I'm starting to discuss a (much less ambitious) small Balance Mod for PoE1. I'm starting on this thread about Rogues :

Melee Rogue is too weak on PotD Upscale - Page 2 - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

[Noqn]

4 hours ago, Kvellen said:

Would setting summoned weapons effects to end when a character is knock out make for a negative impact on balance? The main reason I ask is that it seems setting status effects that grant summoned weapons to "ClearOnDeath" seems to be a potential fix for NPC casters (such as Katrenn) failing to drop their equipped weapons.

Ooh this works flawlessely!

Here's a file with ClearOnDeath set to true for all summon weapon status effects -> statuseffects.gamedatabundle

[Elric Galad]

7 hours ago, Noqn said:

Ooh this works flawlessely!

Here's a file with ClearOnDeath set to true for all summon weapon status effects -> statuseffects.gamedatabundle

Granted that only lazyness prevented me from doing it for next BPM version, would you allow me to include this file (with usual credits) ?

[Shai Hulud]

9 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Not much I guess. I might consider it if I have time to spare.

 

If the way, if there are some veteran from PoE1, I'm starting to discuss a (much less ambitious) small Balance Mod for PoE1. I'm starting on this thread about Rogues :

Melee Rogue is too weak on PotD Upscale - Page 2 - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

 Cool, definitely a POE veteran here but I haven't played it in so long I've forgotten too much to give useful feedback. Think I'll play it again soon so I can contribute (and because it's awesome). 

[Noqn]

3 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Granted that only lazyness prevented me from doing it for next BPM version, would you allow me to include this file (with usual credits) ?

of course

[Arentil]

Hello !

I'm new on this board, and this mod really interest me. I have a question concerning the summon rebalance, mainly about chanter summons. Does PL affect them a bit more now ? In vanilla deadfire, If I remember correctly, PL does next to nothing for summons (it only increases duration I think ?). Does this change with this mod ? I'm wondering If I should take a bellower subclass with this mod, to create more powerful summons.

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Arentil said:

In vanilla deadfire, If I remember correctly, PL does next to nothing for summons (it only increases duration I think ?)

That is correct.

[NotDumbEnough]

Summons only get increased duration from PL boosts. However certain summons keep up better depending on your character's level by scaling their armor and weapons.

Note that increased duration by itself is still quite powerful. Non-beckoner summons tend to be incredibly tanky and only really die from running down their timer. Having a longer duration means that you can use other invocations too and not just recasting your summons.

[Shai Hulud]

20 hours ago, Arentil said:

Hello !

I'm new on this board, and this mod really interest me. I have a question concerning the summon rebalance, mainly about chanter summons. Does PL affect them a bit more now ? In vanilla deadfire, If I remember correctly, PL does next to nothing for summons (it only increases duration I think ?). Does this change with this mod ? I'm wondering If I should take a bellower subclass with this mod, to create more powerful summons.

As @NotDumbEnough indicated the PL bonus from a bellower will not help summons (besides duration). In BPM they do eventually get legendary gear, so the Instruments of Death for example are quite powerful, and they're tanky enough that increased duration can help them stay alive longer. 

However if you max INT which I'd recommend you're already looking at duration of like 60s. A troubadour can build up phrases faster and resummon things, so it's a bit more responsive if things happen to die. 

The power level boost from bellowers most benefits spells, like So Sings Thy Biting Winds O Eld Nary (and upgrade Eld Nary's Curse) and Her Tears Fell Like Rain gain significant bonus damage and penetration. The bonus penetration can be really important especially on higher difficulties. These two spells will destroy things that aren't immune to frost. There are also some very good multiclass bellower builds, like priest / bellower, though it is not as OP in BPM due to salvation of time nerf.

[Elric Galad]

The thread for PoE1 "small" BPM has been initiated : 

PoE1 (small) Balance Polishing Mod - Pillars of Eternity: Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!) - Obsidian Forum Community

Edited May 7, 2023 by Elric Galad

[Lunateric]

Hey @Elric Galad, I am trying a Shifter/Monk build right now and I am having the issue of not being able to shapeshift more than once before entering universal cooldown for all spirit shifts. IE: turn into cat, cat form runs out, I can't shape shift into any other animal because of said cooldown. 

Admittedly I haven't played shifter in years but I remember being able to use every form at least once in the same encounter, which leads me to believe it's a bug. If it isn't a bug then it's just a giant downside to shifter, already not being able to cast spells while shifted and relying on that weave in and out of animal forms to heal and cast things (75 second UNIVERSAL cooldown sounds awful for this particular subclass).

Edit: nevermind what I wrote, seems to be intended and someone already made a mod that alters this implementation here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/613

The mod maker makes very good points that I think you should take into consideration for shifter in particular.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Lunateric

[Elric Galad]

11 hours ago, Lunateric said:

Hey @Elric Galad, I am trying a Shifter/Monk build right now and I am having the issue of not being able to shapeshift more than once before entering universal cooldown for all spirit shifts. IE: turn into cat, cat form runs out, I can't shape shift into any other animal because of said cooldown. 

Admittedly I haven't played shifter in years but I remember being able to use every form at least once in the same encounter, which leads me to believe it's a bug. If it isn't a bug then it's just a giant downside to shifter, already not being able to cast spells while shifted and relying on that weave in and out of animal forms to heal and cast things (75 second UNIVERSAL cooldown sounds awful for this particular subclass).

Edit: nevermind what I wrote, seems to be intended and someone already made a mod that alters this implementation here: https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/613

The mod maker makes very good points that I think you should take into consideration for shifter in particular.

I've already discussed with the author of the said mod about this topic.

Basically I explained why I didn't agree with him for a pure balance point of view (in a nutshell because with this change, Shifter has basically only upsides and no real downsides).

And I also gave him some guidance about how to actually implement the change he wanted  because from a pure fun/subclass feeling it indeed made some sense as an independant mod.

You might find our discussion somemwhere on this thread.

[Lunateric]

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

I've already discussed with the author of the said mod about this topic.

Basically I explained why I didn't agree with him for a pure balance point of view (in a nutshell because with this change, Shifter has basically only upsides and no real downsides).

And I also gave him some guidance about how to actually implement the change he wanted  because from a pure fun/subclass feeling it indeed made some sense as an independant mod.

You might find our discussion somemwhere on this thread.

Well, shifter will always have the downside of not being able to cast spells while shifted, isn't that enough?, also not benefitting from the PL levels granted by wild strike because of said inability to cast anything. I do think the current implementation of it will make people just not use it at all, specially considering longer fights where a proper martial class doesn't have to deal with such large downtimes in damage. I think it breaks the flow of doing damage > casting spells > doing damage again pretty hard.

I'll look for this discussion just to understand a bit better.

[Elric Galad]

2 hours ago, Lunateric said:

Well, shifter will always have the downside of not being able to cast spells while shifted, isn't that enough?, also not benefitting from the PL levels granted by wild strike because of said inability to cast anything. I do think the current implementation of it will make people just not use it at all, specially considering longer fights where a proper martial class doesn't have to deal with such large downtimes in damage. I think it breaks the flow of doing damage > casting spells > doing damage again pretty hard.

I'll look for this discussion just to understand a bit better.

Shifter isn't a martial class. 

It's a caster with a layer of versatility. 

If you need to cast spell, you can shift out and in. With 5 forms (most of them boosted by BPM), you will rarely run out of charges without a common cooldown. 

 

There are other nerfs in the mod. The only annoying part here is that it had to be included in the main package instead of the nerf one for technical reasons. 

What I should do is updating the mod notes with a link to the "separate cooldown mod". 

 

But consider that even the autor of said mod did agree with my reason about balance. (which doesn't prevent his mod to be useful for other reasons) 

[Lunateric]

13 minutes ago, Elric Galad said:

Shifter isn't a martial class. 

It's a caster with a layer of versatility. 

If you need to cast spell, you can shift out and in. With 5 forms (most of them boosted by BPM), you will rarely run out of charges without a common cooldown. 

 

There are other nerfs in the mod. The only annoying part here is that it had to be included in the main package instead of the nerf one for technical reasons. 

What I should do is updating the mod notes with a link to the "separate cooldown mod". 

 

But consider that even the autor of said mod did agree with my reason about balance. (which doesn't prevent his mod to be useful for other reasons) 

I didn't say shifter was a martial class, I did say a proper martial class will do more damage than shifter will ever do. And considering you have no spells while shifted that's a valid point of comparison. The question that has to be asked is: why pick shifter?, other than roleplay/people like animal forms. 

Unless you have a brilliant source the subclass as a whole runs out of steam surprisingly fast, I abandoned shifter for PotD really quick.