half done POE1/skip to POE2, the same build idea

[levees]

Hello. Seems to be the right place to ask, but where do I start?

I come from the never-land of Neverwinter Nights 1, online servers, the like. And, my favourite types of builds were, either the massive dmg-like - multiclass WM, weapon master. (Those would usually end up with 4 APR; action per round). OR, monk. The moment I saw the class available, I had to pick it - try out whether I could make something similar, of massive speed. In NWN multi-classed Monk could reach 8 APR, bare.

And that "bare" is how I liked it most and viewed monks by. No external weapons, your body is one.

So! I'd max (not really knowing what I'm doing) Might, Dexterity, Constitution and have me left-over points put into Intelligence. 18, 18, 20 (DEX), 16 INT - Death Godlike. At the time I knew that DEX = attack speed. MGT = moa dmg. CON more HP. Though, I didn't know that endurance is more-so the governing "HP" pool. But, now I'd imagine that over INT I'd pick PER for the critical % with the attack ratio.

As I went through the game, I picked feats like; Swift Strikes (SPEED!), Torments Reach (jesus), Long Stride (as single target feats didn't seem all that useful), +20% dual wielding (SPEED!), +20% moa dmg, taken accuracy; modal. Duality of Mortal Presence (which was always on the deflection bonus), Peasant WS and the Flagellant's Path. 

That's how far I managed to go with POE 1, lvl 11 or so. Reading wasn't the issue... rather that I was simply uninterested, where I liked the idea of Souls, hollowborn, etc. A cumulative of minor things, with the main offender, the sound glitch. Each time a companion banter started, it kept tickling me brain, having to reload a save. This issue wasn't to me, alone. Just that, I had it on the aspect I couldn't turn off. Like with tutorial pop-ups, one could. There's a solution I found, quite obvious... make your party from scratch. No banter? No sound issues. 

Now! The build did well. Was the main DPS, the best DPS. It had over 100k dmg dealt, where the rest of the party, combined, didn't come close. Did well, until that damn White Marsh dragon, being totally immune to crush dmg, dammit. 

But, yes... Basically a max "APR" monk, dmg dealer (didn't know it'd be such a dmg dealer). The question is... Can I do something similar in POE2, but better? Would it be just (out of what I know - not much) maxed MGT, DEX, CON, PER with similar feats taken? I dunno a lot (nothing) about multi-classing. Weirdly, from all I've read about POE1 builds, I don't reckon anybody going that route - the speed route.

For gear I'd have things like that pirate DLC chest (-10 recovery), +3 dex ring, another stat ring, might gloves, +2 acrobatics for 12 boots with stamina on them. 

Oh, on the side note. Is there a cap to "speed"? I tried boosting it even further with +50% potion... but it did not do anything? How's it in POE2?

Anyway, hopefully it's the right place and I don't start off the wrong foot - having the moderators squinting. Cheers.

 

 

[thelee]

45 minutes ago, levees said:

The question is... Can I do something similar in POE2, but better?

Monks are pretty much an S-tier class in Deadfire, especially single-class. Hard to go wrong with them.

46 minutes ago, levees said:

Oh, on the side note. Is there a cap to "speed"? I tried boosting it even further with +50% potion... but it did not do anything? How's it in POE2?

There is no cap to action speed bonuses. In PoE1, I don't believe there was a cap to speed bonuses, but there were complicated stacking rules, so probably you drank the potion and it got suppressed by a different effect.

In Deadfire, action speed gives you linear returns, so you can stack as much action speed as you want without concern. Though do be warned, Deadfire has its own stacking rules: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/stacking-rules

 

48 minutes ago, levees said:

For gear I'd have things like that pirate DLC chest (-10 recovery), +3 dex ring, another stat ring, might gloves, +2 acrobatics for 12 boots with stamina on them. 

i think you might be a little confused, it sounds like you're referencing PoE1 items. Deadfire isn't simply a PoE1 copy or direct continuation. It has its own gear and its own stuff.

[levees]

All right, so I can go for the Jeremy Clarkson build with no worries, then. 

As for referencing PoE1 items, ahm... Yeah, guess that wasn't needed. 

Cheers!

[limaxophobiacq]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

There is no cap to action speed bonuses. In PoE1, I don't believe there was a cap to speed bonuses, but there were complicated stacking rules, so probably you drank the potion and it got suppressed by a different effect.

You are right about PoE2 of course but in PoE1 there was a cap on any source of speed bonus except Dexterity since all other speed bonuses only affected recovery, so when you got to 0 recovery  you couldn't get faster (except with more dex).

(The stacking rules in PoE1 are ridiculous however, like some attack speed bonuses multiply to get the bonus, which is then applied as -% modifier on recovery. F.ex. frenzy (+33% attack speed) and bloodlust (+20% attack speed) stack for 1.2*1.33 = 1.596 -> +59.6% attack speed, which is then subtracted from your recovery for 0.404 (-59.6%) of your original recovery. Thankfully no one has to do the math anymore thanks to MaxQuests speed calculator.)

As for OP single class monk is very strong in PoE2, stronger than it was in PoE1 for sure. I wouldn't focus too hard on dexterity at the expense of intellect/might/perception in PoE2 though since your offence is more limited by your wounds than by attack speed and as a monk you also get a +5 dex self-buff which gives a speed boost on top equivalent to another +5 dex that you can have on all the time.

Edited May 3, 2023 by limaxophobiacq

[levees]

*Confusion

Hm, yeah... given that you can stack on everything, I guess I have to remake my Monk, again. I'm a bit baffled as what to do, exactly. Prime idea was speed + power + accuracy, but then - dumping INT is bad for what already lasts only 10 sec - Swift Strikes line. So, here it'd be 10, probably? Dumping RES is not -- Yeah, puzzled. Max Might makes most sense, atm.

So, Dex - what, 10,15? Then I read about perception, its diminishing returns - figured that if you get +3 Accuracy on lvl-up, might leave it at 13? Logic here is insubstantial, better if not explained.

My current stat allocation is 18, 10, 20, 10, 10, 10, because dumping isn't cool anymore. Damn, not that it was in POE1 when I had no RES - would get dominated for like half a minute.

And if to focus on INT/MGT and perception... then wouldn't it be better to just go FF? Getting into the jargon.

 

[levees]

I am getting too much into optimization. But, I'd like to have, at least the main character, up to "speed". The rest of the party I'd give up to what seems good.

[Shai Hulud]

Different sources of +action speed and -recovery time may or may not stack, you can check this link for an attack speed calculator with various effects

https://naijaro.github.io/deadfire-speed-calculator/

I like forbidden fist monks, but they don't work very well except with the community patch, which you can find here

https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/335

If you don't want to install the mod... nalpazcas are generally superior to vanilla monks, so long as you don't run out of drugs. Which it isn't that hard to do but takes some micromanagement. Otherwise vanilla monks are quite good. Shattered Pillar is relatively weak especially without community patch. Helwalkers have a higher learning curve due to the +50% damage they take at full wounds, but they also get +10 MIG.

You don't really need CON with monks because you can take iron wheel which gives you bonus CON based on number of wounds (duality of mortal presence at L10 now gives +10 int or +10 CON, and is upgraded to turning wheel and/or iron wheel). Perception is probably the most important stat, gaining 10 accuracy from 10 to 20 may not seem like much but it could be the difference between never critting and critting 10% (also hitting and grazing more vs missing). Also could be the difference between always critting and critting 90%. This may not sound significant but with the swift flurry and heartbeat drumming abilities, you have a 33% chance and 25% chance respectively (which stack) to attack again on a crit, so with very high accuracy you can often chain crits. The higher the difficulty, the more important it is to max perception, but I would max it on all of them personally...

Also MIG is not as important for damage as it was in POE1. It is good for +healing so FFs want high might for the extra healing from afflictions expiring (extra damage is nice too), but once you are mid level even with maxed might your might could be contributing only about 1/3 to your damage total. This is due to +damage from things like transcendent suffering, equipment bonuses, forbidden curse for FFs, criticals, overpenetration, etc. Max MIG if you can, I'd just prioritize perception and intellect first, and sometimes dexterity. Also monks have swift strikes which is equivalent to +10 dex so you don't need to max DEX. 

This is the stat spread I'd use for a forbidden fist

MIG/CON/DEX/PER/INT/RES - 18/3/9/18/10/19

Other monks aren't as tanky and benefit more from intelligence and dex, and don't have to max resolve, so with them I'd do something like

MIG/CON/DEX/PER/INT/RES - 12/7/13/18/18/10, alternatively with maxed resolve 9/6/9/18/18/18

As thelee said it is hard to go wrong because monks are S tier melee chars, just always max PER, and max INT unless you're a FF (or if you plan to take turning wheel you don't have to max INT), don't max CON, other stats don't matter as much how you spread them (except FFs need max resolve). I've made FF builds with 3 dex that still were still DPS monsters.

Edited May 3, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[levees]

That's wildly appreciated, mate.

Gracious me, this game overwhelms with possibilities. I'd probably have to play it 10 times, studying, to then maybe understand a half of "what's good", or even how calculations work.

Good that there's a Story Mode. Wouldn't imagine playing it otherwise, without the help.

[Shai Hulud]

9 hours ago, levees said:

That's wildly appreciated, mate.

Gracious me, this game overwhelms with possibilities. I'd probably have to play it 10 times, studying, to then maybe understand a half of "what's good", or even how calculations work.

Good that there's a Story Mode. Wouldn't imagine playing it otherwise, without the help.

Yeah I felt overwhelmed when it came out and decided not to play it at the time. But once you learn enough about the game it is very rewarding, and the replay value is outstanding given the staggering number of possible builds with all the multiclasses and subclasses. I think you'll find it's worth it, playing on a lower difficulty setting may be a good idea the first time. You can change it during the game if it's too easy or hard. 

[thelee]

12 hours ago, levees said:

So, Dex - what, 10,15? Then I read about perception, its diminishing returns - figured that if you get +3 Accuracy on lvl-up, might leave it at 13? Logic here is insubstantial, better if not explained.

perception has diminishing returns in general, but monk in particular has synergy with crits, so it's worth investing in perception for many builds.

example of synergies: you can weaken on crit, you can interrupt on crit, you can get resource refunds on crit. with swift flurry, you can even chain together free attacks on crits, an each free attack can trigger further free attacks if you crit. (only a 33% chance, so it's still diminishing returns, but point is for monk even if the returns are diminishing they are diminishing very very very very slowly)

 

also, you should basically ignore from consideration that you get +3 accuracy upon level up. Because everyone also gets +3 defenses on level up, so they cancel each other out. All the accuracy bonus on level up does is help you keep pace with other targets at your level, and make it harder for lower-level characters to fight above their level.

Edited May 3, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

perception has diminishing returns in general, but monk in particular has synergy with crits, so it's worth investing in perception for many builds.

example of synergies: you can weaken on crit, you can interrupt on crit, you can get resource refunds on crit. with swift flurry, you can even chain together free attacks on crits, an each free attack can trigger further free attacks if you crit. (only a 33% chance, so it's still diminishing returns, but point is for monk even if the returns are diminishing they are diminishing very very very very slowly)

 

also, you should basically ignore from consideration that you get +3 accuracy upon level up. Because everyone also gets +3 defenses on level up, so they cancel each other out. All the accuracy bonus on level up does is help you keep pace with other targets at your level, and make it harder for lower-level characters to fight above their level.

IDK. Going from never critting to critting even 1% is technically an infinite return on crits. After that it becomes linear (I thought).

Looking at say the crit range, the returns vs accuracy are linear, aren't they? There is also the case of spells, and the opportunity cost of not landing a spell can be 6 or 7 seconds wasted, for ciphers not landing an attack means no focus, etc. Or in melee the opportunity cost of not interrupting something can lead to you getting hit. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing. Are you saying perception gives diminishing returns on damage or what? Please explain this to me or give me a link that does, because it seems very counterintuitive. In most builds I've made perception is among the two most important stats, and is nearly always maxed. Only exception is tanks, where it is still top 2 to 3. 

[levees]

I wonder if people behind the system knew it to all the means on end.

"We made a thing!" 

"Who's we?"

"Eh, well... Jerry and me."

"Oh, that's lovely. I'll make mind of it, later... if it won't come to a sudden - a deadline, or whatever."

Probably how it's been, somewhere at the Obsidian HQ. #Truestory

Edited May 4, 2023 by levees
that damn cat! not again...

[thelee]

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

IDK. Going from never critting to critting even 1% is technically an infinite return on crits. After that it becomes linear (I thought). Looking at say the crit range, the returns vs accuracy are linear, aren't they? There is also the case of spells, and the opportunity cost of not landing a spell can be 6 or 7 seconds wasted, for ciphers not landing an attack means no focus, etc. Or in melee the opportunity cost of not interrupting something can lead to you getting hit. Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing. Are you saying perception gives diminishing returns on damage or what? Please explain this to me or give me a link that does, because it seems very counterintuitive.

the easy metric to consider here is effective damage done. you're right in that it's not strictly diminishing returns when you first get a crit chance, but the overall trend with accuracy is diminishing:

a) if you have have -76 accuracy (so that you miss 100% of the time), a +1 accuracy (you graze 1% of the time) would be an infinite% increase in effective average damage

b) if you have +100 accuracy (so that you crit 100% of the time), a +1 accuracy would do literally nothing, so you get a 0% increase in effective average damage.

(it's obviously a little more complicated than just those two points, but it's a broad illustration of it being diminishing)

 

even if the metric or consideration is not effective damage done, the overall trend is still true, because even debuffs need to hit, and you can still make the same A) and B) points with a debuff - a debuff that crits all the time gets literally 0 returns from an additional point of accuracy. i write a little about it here (but it's pretty much the same argument, written slightly different): https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/defenses-are-increasing-returns

 

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

In most builds I've made perception is among the two most important stats, and is nearly always maxed. Only exception is tanks, where it is still top 2 to 3. 

just because it has diminishing returns doesn't mean it can't be very very important. the flip side to it having diminishing returns on high values is essentially that at very low values, perception/accuracy is very important. Playing on PotD where you start off massively down versus the typical enemy would basically normalize this for much of the early-mid game (until you gear up enough or overlevel encounters).

i wrote up a bigger analysis somewhere on the forums where i used a script to simulate lots of encounters and basically walked away with the conclusion that:

• dex is king stat (very close to 3% increase in effective damage done per point) and has linear returns.
• both each point of might and each point of perception average out to about a 2% increase in effective damage done (yes, i know might nominally gives you 3%, but it's "effective damage" and thus takes into account that might is an additive bonus and that there are plenty of other damage bonuses for weapons), BUT this average is heavily conditional on the stage of the game. Perception does really well early on when you're down quite a bit versus enemy defenses, and in cases where you underpenetrate the enemy (and thus crits give you outsize returns compared to crits in other situations), but tapers off pretty significantly the higher your net accuracy. Might is also skewed in importance earlier on when you don't have many enchantments or other sources of damage, and also tapers off, but less so (especially for spells). (edit: and of course might has 0 returns if you're primarily focused on debuffs)

 

also, general trends don't necessarily apply to specific builds. my big game hunter build goes all-in on accuracy, and it's so that you can AI script a fight against dorudugan using the druid petrify spell and never miss. the accuracy is basically overkill for the typical fight, but the point of the build was to be a fire-and-forget boss killer, which requires being "inefficient" with stats, because a 1-2% chance to miss is basically unacceptable across a bunch of boss and megaboss fights.

similarly, my mainchair or main merc (whomever is my typical offensive/debuff caster) almost always is a hearth orlan maxing out at 21 perception for reasons given above - the hardest part of the game by far (especially for offensive casters) is the early-mid game, and heavy investment in perception takes the sting out of that, even if it ends up being overkill for typical mid-late game and a different stat spread would'v been more useful in the end.

 

but outside of specific considerations, the general trends means that for offensive party members, perception is roughly on par with might and because of diminishing returns you're better off maxing out dex and probably int and then balancing out might and perception.

Edited May 4, 2023 by thelee

[Shai Hulud]

4 hours ago, thelee said:

the easy metric to consider here is effective damage done. you're right in that it's not strictly diminishing returns when you first get a crit chance, but the overall trend with accuracy is diminishing:

a) if you have have -76 accuracy (so that you miss 100% of the time), a +1 accuracy (you graze 1% of the time) would be an infinite% increase in effective average damage

b) if you have +100 accuracy (so that you crit 100% of the time), a +1 accuracy would do literally nothing, so you get a 0% increase in effective average damage.

(it's obviously a little more complicated than just those two points, but it's a broad illustration of it being diminishing)

 

even if the metric or consideration is not effective damage done, the overall trend is still true, because even debuffs need to hit, and you can still make the same A) and B) points with a debuff - a debuff that crits all the time gets literally 0 returns from an additional point of accuracy. i write a little about it here (but it's pretty much the same argument, written slightly different): https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/227477-pillars-of-eternity-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/defenses-are-increasing-returns

 

just because it has diminishing returns doesn't mean it can't be very very important. the flip side to it having diminishing returns on high values is essentially that at very low values, perception/accuracy is very important. Playing on PotD where you start off massively down versus the typical enemy would basically normalize this for much of the early-mid game (until you gear up enough or overlevel encounters).

i wrote up a bigger analysis somewhere on the forums where i used a script to simulate lots of encounters and basically walked away with the conclusion that:

• dex is king stat (very close to 3% increase in effective damage done per point) and has linear returns.
• both each point of might and each point of perception average out to about a 2% increase in effective damage done (yes, i know might nominally gives you 3%, but it's "effective damage" and thus takes into account that might is an additive bonus and that there are plenty of other damage bonuses for weapons), BUT this average is heavily conditional on the stage of the game. Perception does really well early on when you're down quite a bit versus enemy defenses, and in cases where you underpenetrate the enemy (and thus crits give you outsize returns compared to crits in other situations), but tapers off pretty significantly the higher your net accuracy. Might is also skewed in importance earlier on when you don't have many enchantments or other sources of damage, and also tapers off, but less so (especially for spells). (edit: and of course might has 0 returns if you're primarily focused on debuffs)

 

also, general trends don't necessarily apply to specific builds. my big game hunter build goes all-in on accuracy, and it's so that you can AI script a fight against dorudugan using the druid petrify spell and never miss. the accuracy is basically overkill for the typical fight, but the point of the build was to be a fire-and-forget boss killer, which requires being "inefficient" with stats, because a 1-2% chance to miss is basically unacceptable across a bunch of boss and megaboss fights.

similarly, my mainchair or main merc (whomever is my typical offensive/debuff caster) almost always is a hearth orlan maxing out at 21 perception for reasons given above - the hardest part of the game by far (especially for offensive casters) is the early-mid game, and heavy investment in perception takes the sting out of that, even if it ends up being overkill for typical mid-late game and a different stat spread would'v been more useful in the end.

 

but outside of specific considerations, the general trends means that for offensive party members, perception is roughly on par with might and because of diminishing returns you're better off maxing out dex and probably int and then balancing out might and perception.

I see. Thanks for the detailed response.

I always play on POTD upscaled where not hitting (or sometimes not critting) is very bad. Even if maxing PER provides less damage than maxing DEX, there are a lot of other things that can make PER superior, like a debuff or CC spell that lasts 30s and takes 5s to cast grazing vs hitting vs critting affects greatly how often you have to cast that spell, as well as how much damage your follow-up attacks get. And if you get energized, which I try to do if possible, by critting you *always* apply interrupt effects, so consider a character that does 30 DPS and always crits, vs a character that does 40 DPS and crits 80%. I would generally rather have the former, since not interrupting the enemy is worse than the loss of damage. And there are many effects besides energized that interrupts on crit or proc some other desirable effect (e.g. mercy strike on stalker's patience).

Also the metric I use for enemy defenses is typically the hardest encounters, and I know of no build that will always crit Hauani O Whe for instance (unless you SOF and stack adaptive from scordeo's edge). If we always crit normal enemies, adding more accuracy doesn't help against them, but they are not the hardest encounters anyway, and adding accuracy always helps against the toughest enemies. 

I do think crits don't apply enough damage in this game, though so I can see why hitting vs critting doesn't make as much difference in damage versus increasing attack speed. In most cRPGs a crit does at minimum double damage, but with all the other sources of damage the +25% from a crit is very little, even with "improved critical" +35%, and even with +65% from both improved critical and overpenetration, this is still likely less than half of your +damage effects. But one thing that is very important that hasn't been mentioned yet is penetration. It is difficult to get enough penetration for the toughest enemies, so that a hit will often get -75% damage, whereas a crit gets 50% more pen, which is almost always enough to remove the -75% damage malus, so when considering underpenetration crits can contribute a huge amount of damage.