Another touch on Attributes - Cipher power comparison

[derriesen]

Hi forums,

 

I jsust rolled a cipher and I really, really like this characters style. I stumbled upon the 3rd level ability "Soul Ignition":

Its Insane! 460 damage over 12 secs? That kills probably evry monster you encounter in the beta in one cast ^^

 

I created a seccond cipher to compare the ability with different attribute scores here is what I got:

Cipher One:

( M - 14, C - 10, D - 12, P - 14, I - 19, R - 9)

 

 

Cipher Two:

(M - 19, C - 18, D - 19, P - 15, I - 4, R - 3)

 

SO as you can see:

460 damge vs 496 damage over 12 s.

Apart from being a pretty hefty value (both actually) it only scales with might.

I know I will have to get used to this systems idea of attributes beeing a generell thing but look at this specific example:

Would you not think intelligence should do a thing for this ability? Its mind versus mind.

ALos Int doesnt even change the time parameters even though it states that it affects durations!

So either I would expect it to DECREASE the time while keeping the damage the same for higher Int to increase the effective damage or INCREASE the time of appliance while considerably upping the damage to also increase the total damage done.

 

Or did I get it totally wrong and Int is only meant to  effect BUffs/Debuffs? Even then, "Soul Ignition" can be seen as a debuff as it drains fortitude.

 

Whatever. I think I can get used to the attribute system as it is actually intended but what is the incentive for me to even put points in something else as might apart from roleplaying motives?

 

EDIT: I would really love to play a cipher with high attack rate and dex with a bow to gain charges quily and unleashing severeal abilities. But as it stand I would really gimp my character with not skilling much strength. As it stand I see might to be too much of a necessity for every character at least when combat is considered.

Edited August 20, 2014 by derriesen

[mrmonocle]

Might!

[Myrten]

Intelligence actually does increase duration of this ability but it's not displayed in description, my cipher with 19 I and 21 M did 980 damage over 22 seconds...

[TrueMenace]

Not super relevant, but what does it mean in the spell tooltips when it says this: "On Attack, +5 accuracy"? Does that mean it's +5 accuracy when casting that spell or when the enemy is attacked, your next attack is +5 accuracy?

Edited August 20, 2014 by TrueMenace

[Mrakvampire]

Moreover, with high Might you've got nice muscles! 

[derriesen]

 @TrueMenace - Havent figured that out yet aswell. Would like to no too!

The ability is a cast and doesnt seem to fail? MAybe the ignited target is easier to hit while the duration?

Might aswell just be something that is unintentionally shown there and has not been cleaned up?

[Qiushui]

Might!

'Might makes right' in PoE 

[Fierhorn]

Great catch OP

[mrmonocle]

People are so hung up on might vs magic that they can't take it that wizards in PoE spend more hours in a gym than on studies.

Edited August 20, 2014 by mrmonocle

[SergioCQH]

People are so hung up on might vs magic that they can't take it that wizards in PoE spend more hours in a gym than on studies.

 

No, people are hung up on the fact that wizards and every other class must max might before any other attribute.

[derriesen]

 

People are so hung up on might vs magic that they can't take it that wizards in PoE spend more hours in a gym than on studies.

 

No, people are hung up on the fact that wizards and every other class must max might before any other attribute.

 

Yes exactly. It destroys character variaty. You possibly can play the game with mediocre build characters, there is no need for min maxing. But the feeling you could do 50% more damage if you just picked aumaua and dummped every possible point into might and picked the local option for +1 might....

Its just there at the back of my head...

If magic wasnt effected by might at all and had fixed  damage values I would be totally fine with that!

Alternatively: Might governs melee, Dex governs Ranged and Int governs magic. Why not make it as cliché as that? ^^

 

Also note: I wish I hadnt pointed out the ability above, kept it a secret and enjoyed it in the full game in its present state^^ It will get toned down for sure!

Just made quick progress to the ogre, put all other chars in the back:

Used "Soul Ignition" once and didnt even bother to run away:

 

Poor ogre!

[Qiushui]

Korgrak shoulda put more points into might.

[Mrakvampire]

Most effiecient wizard ever. Conan. 

[derriesen]

Most effiecient wizard ever. Conan. 

With his intellect score he will have tiny (fire)balls however!

Edited August 20, 2014 by derriesen

[Mrakvampire]

There are so many damage-dealing spells without area of effect...  
 

MEET THE MOST POWERFULL WIZARD IN PILLARS OF ETERNITY WORLD. MUHAHAHAHA

 

 

[SergioCQH]

Actually, I just tested this. Casted Soul Ignition on Medrath with a 19 int Cipher and a 3 int Cipher and you can see the difference in duration in the combat log. The 19 int cipher's soul ignition lasts 23 seconds and the 3 int cipher's only lasts 14 seconds.

 

So that part seems working as intended. The fact that neither Medrath nor any of his comrades responded in any way to the Soul Ignition is another matter . . .

[Karkarov]

Not super relevant, but what does it mean in the spell tooltips when it says this: "On Attack, +5 accuracy"? Does that mean it's +5 accuracy when casting that spell or when the enemy is attacked, your next attack is +5 accuracy?

It just means you get a +5 bonus to your accuracy for the attack itself, meaning it is less likely to miss.

 

Soul Ignition (and I think all "dot" type abilities right now) is horribly op however and seriously needs to be toned down.

[Pray]

might²

mīt/

noun

noun: might

1. great and impressive power or strength, especially of a nation, large organization, or natural force.

 

You all are greatly misrepresenting the word.

 

Might does not mean muscular, ripped, jacked, buff, or anything related to exercise and big muscles.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Pray

[Blackstream]

Intelligence actually does increase duration of this ability but it's not displayed in description, my cipher with 19 I and 21 M did 980 damage over 22 seconds...

So assuming the damage is constant per second, that's 534 over 12 seconds or about 44/second.

 

21 might - 534/12s

19 might - 496/12s

14 might - 460/12s

 

Just looking at that, there is some huge gains for the values past racial limits for might, unless I'm missing something. If the other stats don't get that treatment, then getting a class with +2 might is the way to go. 

 

EDIT:

Someone else said their 19 I was 23 seconds and not 22... plugging those numbers in instead, I get 511/12s. That gives approximately a linear increase of 7.2 damage over 12s for every point of might, which seems a lot more legit. So 3 Might should in theory be about 380 base damage if everything is right. That still sounds like a ton of damage tbh.

 

EDIT 2: Went into the actual game and sure enough the numbers are listed, each point of might being +2% damage. I can't quite get the numbers to work out right, so I assume there's some rounding in the above numbers, but that puts the base damage of this spell somewhere around 365 or so, if you were to somehow magically have a 0 might character. That's quite a bit lol. Don't know why I went into all this math trouble when the numbers are fairly plainly listed, but oh well.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Blackstream

[vril]

And the best part about Soul Ignition is that it does NOT aggro anything.   Certainly a bug that has been posted about here.

[Longknife]

 

People are so hung up on might vs magic that they can't take it that wizards in PoE spend more hours in a gym than on studies.

 

No, people are hung up on the fact that wizards and every other class must max might before any other attribute.

 

 

 

Counter-argument: How is the game "so much better" and diverse if instead of magic classes and physical classes sharing the same damage stat, both have their own exclusive damage stat and a Barbarian with INT or a Wizard with Might is absolutely non-viable and ridiculous? You would still be cranking up a damage stat, just two with different names depending on two different character types.

 

 

Don't get me wrong I get where you're coming from and perhaps (stress on PERHAPS cause we've got a rather limited view of game balance atm) they should review the strength of Might to put it more in line with other stats, but it seems like making such a change would do very very little beyond making 1 of 6 stats worthless for certain classes, thus diminishing character diversity as people will minimize those stats and spend more in the remaining 5, resulting in more same-y characters.

  We also have to agree we're all ignorant to an extent. Mind you, by all means voice complaints and concerns in case we stumble upon legitimate ones, but lately I read these forums and can't help but feel people are constantly comparing this to other RPGs they're familiar with and drawing irrelevant conclusions based on previous knowledge of OTHER RPG systems while not focusing solely on this one. For example as someone in this thread just cited, Int increases the duration of this spell, and with extensive testing, it might show that Ciphers gain drastically better pay-off from INT than from Might, thus defeating your argument everyone stresses Might to an extent. It'd still be useful for sure, but potentially it's by no means priority for a Cipher.

   All I'm saying is let's not jump to conclusions. Beta's been out less than a week.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Longknife

[derriesen]

Actually, I just tested this. Casted Soul Ignition on Medrath with a 19 int Cipher and a 3 int Cipher and you can see the difference in duration in the combat log. The 19 int cipher's soul ignition lasts 23 seconds and the 3 int cipher's only lasts 14 seconds.

 

So that part seems working as intended. The fact that neither Medrath nor any of his comrades responded in any way to the Soul Ignition is another matter . . .

Thanks for pointing this out! So the ability does actually scale correct just the tooltip does not update.

I thought that Intelect would be a pretty useless stat for my cipher...

Now I can roleplay the character and am assured that he wont be gimped! ^^

[Mayama]

The problem with might is that someone that is good at smashing faces in with a mace is also very good at melting people with a fire ball. Their is no reason to specialize, one damage stat means you will always hit hard no matter which spell, ranged weapon or melee weapon you use and who doesnt want to hit hard?

Edited August 21, 2014 by Mayama

[morhilane]

I'm trying to understand how an ability that does way to much damage regardless of the amount of Might you have, means that Might is the stats everyone should max first.

 

The Might 19 damage value is only 7% higher than the Might 14 one. If the ability only did 20 point of damage with Might 14, it would only do 21.4 point of damage with Might 19 using the same ratio.

 

At Might 14, this spell does 38.33 point of damage per tick. It's way too much. If it did 10 point of damage per tick at Might 14, it would do 120 over 12 seconds and only 128.4 for a character with Might 19.

[derriesen]

I'm trying to understand how an ability that does way to much damage regardless of the amount of Might you have, means that Might is the stats everyone should max first.

 

The Might 19 damage value is only 7% higher than the Might 14 one. If the ability only did 20 point of damage with Might 14, it would only do 21.4 point of damage with Might 19 using the same ratio.

 

At Might 14, this spell does 38.33 point of damage per tick. It's way too much. If it did 10 point of damage per tick at Might 14, it would do 120 over 12 seconds and only 128.4 for a character with Might 19.

This is true. The scaling of might doesnt make it necessary for a character to contribute to combat. You can be just fine with a low might value and dealing slightly less damage. Its more a problem of which stat to go for instead. If you want your character to be at maximum combat efficiency you need to max might. There is no other stat that achieves this. Im starting to think that might should actually not effect damage scaling at all. Its enough if it gives you stamina and resolves some dialogue and script options.

That would maybe even the feeling of needing this stat maxed.

 

What the developers had in mind when creating the attribute system is not accomplished in my eyes atm.

Might and Con feel like a no-brainers. And you can still create a "bad" character: Play a fighter, dump all stats in dex, int and resolve. There you have it, char will die way to fast, does less damage and doesent even interrupt.

 

If the bonuses are tight more strictly to situations/weapon types/char types/abilites/spells the system gets alot more complicated for everyone to understand but it would feel way more sensible and you could really specialize your character. Why have a wizard thats equally good at smashing with a 2-hander? I like it when I have the options to build such characters but atm EVERY character you build has the options regardless of the specialization you had in mind when creating him/her!

 

Maybe I just need to get used to the system. Maybe the characters will feel different jsut by their abilities. But the  Attribute system feels just bland and doesnt contribute to a character feeling special. You could as well scrape it and isntead pick stuff like:

+30% spell damage

+15 points of stamina

-5 points of damge taken

+ 12% duration of abilites

....

at character creation.

 

 

regrads

Edited August 21, 2014 by derriesen