The General Classes Thread

[Rosbjerg]

Please discuss your thoughts, ideas, complaints, suggestions etc. concerning classes in Pillars of Eternity here.

[JohnnySideburns]

Rogue has a skill called "riposte" any melee attack against the rouges deflection that misses has 20% chance of getting a free riposte attack.

I like the idea, but this skill seem like a completely random win or lose the combat type of skill involving no skill of the player. If anything it pushes the rogue towards using shield and hatchet.

I would suggest that the riposte skill instead became an active skill (usable a couple of times pr. combat or day) that, when activated, will take the next melee attack against the rogue against either deflection with a bonus or against the rogues reflexes (or perhaps even just let it miss), and if it misses grant a riposte attack. That way the rogue sets up the riposte, gains a defensive, yet offensive skill that takes a bit more skill to use by the player. resulting in a satisfying experience.

[Tibs]

Perhaps it will feel more like I am guiding a character with a class when I start out alone, gain the beginnings of a story, of a life as it were, and must gradually discover/gain my companions one at a time, but in the backer beta it feels more like I am managing a generic party than guiding a character.

[silverlock]

• Chanter — interesting, Bard-like concept. Some of the spells were great and definitely useful in a fight, but Chants felt extremely passive and it wasn't immediately obvious when an Invocation was available (without checking between pauses). I like the flavour but am keen to see how it plays once they tone it down. I think a better UI/notification for Invocations being ‘ready’ would go a long way here.

   

• Cipher – haven't had as much time with the Cipher as I'd like (kept running into quest/item killing bugs last night), but was at least starting to experiment with a greatsword-wielding one. The spells are heavy on the CC, chain AoE and single-target damage: they look like genuinely useful damage dealers. There are some skills that look to cause PBAoE damage (which makes things pretty hairy) as well, but for obvious reasons I didn't pick those up on a melee character. Perhaps rethink those to provide some more range and/or only affect enemies (I do get the need to have some friendly fire stuff in there though!)

   

• Priest — great spell selection. Definitely one of the most useful members of my party. Have the hardest time juggling "casting something" with "attacking something with my mace” on the Priest, since they have plenty of useful (and per-encounter) spells, but the current pace of combat doesn't enable effective use.

   

• Rogue — hard to say. Felt a little passive too: plinking away in the back. Didn’t feel like I needed to flank, so hard to gauge overall contribution to the group. Need more time with this one.

   

• Wizard — similar to the Cleric, although since all of his damage comes from spells, I don't feel as compelled to make him hit things. Grimoire's took a moment to understand (even after reading the Wiki) since their location is non-obvious (your paper-doll). My Wizard has been a major damage contributor in my 1.5 played games: Necrotic Lance and a few other single-target spells have been great against ranged or stronger enemies.

 

Given the number of spells/abilities (great!), I think a limited ability queuing system would go a long way: especially for hybrids/casters. I want to be able to pause, set up a heal, AoE CC, etc, and then focus on another target. I have a ton of spells and I’m resting (for health) long before I run out of casts.

 

My favourite class thus far is probably the Priest (closely followed by the Wiz), but it’s also the class I need to babysit/micromanage the most to get even a half-decent amount of effectiveness out of it. My background is the (entirety) of the BG/IWD series and a ton of MMO’s since too, so I’m no stranger to “tons of abilities to deal with” either.

Edited August 21, 2014 by silverlock

[PrimeJunta]

Overall: so far I love all the classes I've tried. They're really nicely designed, have genuine variety, play completely differently, and are all effective. The Chanter was especially cool and different (although OP with all those summons ATM, but I'm sure you'll fix that).

 

Some specifics --

 

Ranger: The bear companion seems a bit OP. The DT means it takes very little damage compared to the others; it certainly felt a lot easier to play with a bear than a lion for example.

 

Fighter: Needs an endurance/health damage ratio halfway between regular and barbarian. Since he's always in the front line getting pounded, he takes a lot of damage; he gets through individual fights fine but is usually the one who prompts camping because his health has run out. Don't overdo it though as knowing that the fighter will get whittled down motivates me to use the per-rest abilities other classes have.

 

Cleric: I'm not sure if it's already in, but... consider a limited-duration buff that stops health damage. I dig the decision that only resting restores health, but it would be useful to have a way to help a low-health character stay in the fight a bit longer in a pinch. -- Awesome character by the way, easily the best 'support class' I've come across.

 

Paladin: Brilliant. The different paladin order ethoi are interesting, but I'm not quite sure how to apply them as an individual adventurer. Would a Bleak Walker always kill that orlan upstairs for example? Would a Kind Thingamajig always help her escape? If the game is actually tracking this kind of thing, I would like more information about it somehow.

 

Rogue: I like it, but needs an individual stealth system. I'll post a message about it in the Combat thread since it's combat-related.

[Osvir]

Link, I made a lengthy thread post. Will try out different classes...

 

But I want try 6 Chanters because so OP. 18 skeletons + 6 Chanters xD

EDIT: Most overpowered classes:
- Priests Buff Spells are really strong (from a utility perspective) almost all of them are AoE.
- Chanters are rather squishy if they get targeted. I haven't quite figured out the best way to build tanky builds but regardless, the Chanters abilities are SO strong.

Classes I know have impact but can't always "feel" it:
- Fighter & Rogue.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Osvir

[limaxophobiacq]

First, why is my deflection so godawful? It says in character creation Paladins are a class with High deflection but in game it's worse than the wizards and far worse than the clerics and this is with Faith and Conviction giving me a +10 bonus.

 

Speaking of that +10 bonus, there is no indication of if that's a high or low number? Is it the maximum bonus? An average one? A poor one? Displaying a scale with best to worst possible bonus and showing where on it you are would be appreciated.

 

Also it would be nice if what you had to do to act in accordance with your order was more explicit, I had to look up the wiki to be sure.

[Osvir]

Should this thread should be pinned?

[limaxophobiacq]

Paladins:

 

-Orders are cool, but unclear exactly what behaviour is encouraged/discouraged by your order, had to look up wiki to be sure.

-No good feedback on how well you're folliwing said behaviour, you start with a +10 Faith and Conviction bonus but with no idea if that's good or bad

-Intellect doesn't seem to affect Paladin abilities? (AoE of auras, duration of other abilties like Liberating Exhortations)

 

Edit: Actually seems to affect durations when you actually use them but its not displayed in the description. Doesn't seem to affect aura AoE at all though.

Edit2: Turns out its not my defense thats low, after making some non-paladins who ended up with worse deflection, it seems its my NPCs deflection values that are weirdly high.

Edited August 21, 2014 by limaxophobiacq

[Bryy]

Paladins are like Affleck in Phantoms. 

 

They are the bomb.

 

Powerful but not OP and not overshadowing of the rest of the group.

[Bazy]

...and this is with Faith and Conviction giving me a +10 bonus.

F&C isn't supposed to give a deflection bonus according to wiki

[limaxophobiacq]

 

...and this is with Faith and Conviction giving me a +10 bonus.

F&C isn't supposed to give a deflection bonus according to wiki

 

 

According to the in game description it is though.

[Rosbjerg]

Should this thread should be pinned?

 

They will be seeing enough activity that it won't be needed and allowing other threads to form and be seen. If we pin all the General Discussions, it would fill half the page

[Sensuki]

In the IE games, there were two main AoE heal spells

 

Mass Cure Light Wounds

Greater Restoration (which was only available at like level 13 or something)

 

PE Priests have A_LOT of AoE heal.

[Bazy]

PE Priests have A_LOT of AoE heal.

Which are way too strong. But at the same time necessary to counter the bursty damage. 

[limaxophobiacq]

First, why is my deflection so godawful? It says in character creation Paladins are a class with High deflection but in game it's worse than the wizards and far worse than the clerics and this is with Faith and Conviction giving me a +10 bonus.

 

Speaking of that +10 bonus, there is no indication of if that's a high or low number? Is it the maximum bonus? An average one? A poor one? Displaying a scale with best to worst possible bonus and showing where on it you are would be appreciated.

 

Also it would be nice if what you had to do to act in accordance with your order was more explicit, I had to look up the wiki to be sure.

 

This post seems to have been merged from another thread I made before i saw and posted in this one, as far as im concerned you can just delete it.

[tjorb]

Cipher: The cast time and recovery time of certain spells are too long. Sometimes I only get 2 spells off in a fight. Some damage spells do not do enough damage with cast/recovery time taken into account. I rarely run out of focus and haven't had the need to hit an enemy to regain it since you always get 20 focus back when a fight ends.

My cipher and wizard are running around naked since the armor penalty is not worth it, they never get hit anyway.

[Eldram]

In most crpg games there is always one or two classes I know I will play as, after playing around with most of the classes in the beta this will be the first time I am at a loss on what class to pick. They all feel great and unique, classes I have never enjoyed playing (such as the warrior) are incredibly fun with the number of abilities now available. Great job! Once the chaos of combat calms down, which I am confident is fixable, the classes and abilities will really shine making some very cool party compositions!

[Osvir]

 

Should this thread should be pinned?

 

They will be seeing enough activity that it won't be needed and allowing other threads to form and be seen. If we pin all the General Discussions, it would fill half the page

Yeah I noticed, the pin you did with a list of all these threads were much better *thumbs up* my signature thanks you

 

Predefined tags could be tossed into "How to: Bug Reports Format" as well btw. Output_log that Sensuki made as well~ would make the Bug & Support forum have a better formatting (more threads, less pins).

[Meepalasheep]

Just how customizable will classes be in the full game? It seems like fighters and rogues have an awfully linear progression, with there not being much to differentiate between characters of the same class.

I'm aware talents are limited in the beta, and are said to provide that extra bit of customization, but something like a choice of abilities for these classes would be nice.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Meepalasheep

[FunGrinder]

Monks....

 

A slightly better combat animation and an "en garde"/weapon drawn stance as it would just make watching the combat, which will have no other changes since we get no sexy weapons, a lot more interesting for the hundreds of hours I plan on playing.  Cosmetic I know, but it would improve the overall experience for me. Yes I posted about this but damn it I'm going to cry about it til someone takes me seriously 

[Gonshu]

I feel like some classes have a very defined path and there is space for little costumization. Those being: Fighter, Monk, Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue, Paladin, Priest. Actually only Mages, Cipher, Chanter and Druids have some customization in the way of picking abilities (for druids and cipher probably would not be enough, but it is something).

 

As a player who always has liked to make a Ranged weapon character I am very disappointed to see that I am forced to make a hunter (that's what a ranger is), the fact that there is only one ranged weapon class is also a disappointment, I expected that there were abilities to support ranged weaponry at least in the fighter, rogue, probably in the ciphe and hey, why not in barbarian?

 

I dislike the fact that I have to pick an animal when what I want to do is an Archer, as the classes are at the moment, every ranger is a beastmaster, every fighter is a soldier, every barbarian is a berserker, every paladin is a knight, every rogue is an assasin, a priest is a cleric, every monk is ... mmmh a monk? So every class has 1 path to walk, and that's not nice.

 

What would I do? Taking into account that you added some flavor to Paladins and Clerics, fact that I love, I would add that kind of flavor for every class (why you did not do it in the first place? I guess time), and make that flavor not only to decide your background but also decide with which abilities you start the game with (and thus deciding what type of character you will play). For instance in the paladin could be something like: Bleak walkers -> Damage abilities, Darkozzi paladini -> Support healing, Goldpact Knights -> Support defensive, Kind wayfarers -> Support offensive, Shield bearers -> Tank abilities. I don't know, I hope you get the idea. Same can be done to all other classes: Rogue (Assasin, Thieve, Smuggler, ...) Ranger (Hunter, Gunslinger, Archer,...) Fighter (Gladiator, Legionnaire, Archer,...) just have to make up names to make flavor more interesting and make packs of initial abilities (that is the hard part).

 

Once created the character I would allow everyone to take and improve abilities of the other subclasses if they want, but the initial abilities are chosen your background, because if you were enlisted on the Bleak walkers they taught you on doing damage, not healing people, if you made a living being an assasin you know how to backstab, but maybe not how to throw sand to an enemy eyes (you did not need that). But of course, you can learn that during your adventure!

[PrimeJunta]

There's one character concept that I'd like to play that isn't really well supported in P:E -- the ranged fighter. In D&D this would be one of the high base attack classes with ranged feats and specializations. I realize we have the ranger, but his gameplay is totally focused around the animal companion which is cool but changes the way it feels.

It would be easy to address simply by making the Rogue's, Paladin's or Fighter's ranged attack bonus High or at least Average, and/or adding a few Talents to support it. The Fighter would still be playing a bit against type, but it might still be fun.

Edited August 22, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[haffu]

I would add that kind of flavor for every class (why you did not do it in the first place? I guess time), and make that flavor not only to decide your background but also decide with which abilities you start the game with (and thus deciding what type of character you will play).

 

I would say that this really would need to be added. For being a RP -game this would add more depth to character build when you can build front line fighter(soldier) or background fighter(archer), or you can make coward thief who don't like to fighting or rogue who loves a dagger fight. I hope they add more flavor and customization to the classes so it gives more options like for example in BG -games had.

[Prometheus]

There's one character concept that I'd like to play that isn't really well supported in P:E -- the ranged fighter. In D&D this would be one of the high base attack classes with ranged feats and specializations. I realize we have the ranger, but his gameplay is totally focused around the animal companion which is cool but changes the way it feels.

 

It would be easy to address simply by making the Rogue's, Paladin's or Fighter's ranged attack bonus High or at least Average, and/or adding a few Talents to support it. The Fighter would still be playing a bit against type, but it might still be fun.

I think the fighter shouldn't get ranged talents, it would be a trap choice. All of his abilities are melee abilities. But I think it would be a good idea to add ranged talents to rogues and paladins, both class abilities could work at range.