The General Classes Thread

[Sensuki]

There's one character concept that I'd like to play that isn't really well supported in P:E

 

You can't play a fast character either. Unless you count wearing no armor as "fast".

 

Leveling up as a whole in this game is pretty darn underwhelming so far for many classes. However leveling up in Baldur's Gate 1 and Icewind Dale 1 wasn't particularly fantastic either. At the moment I'd say it's slightly worse than Icewind Dale 2 in that regard.

Edited August 22, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

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.

 

Why not add a few ranged talents to choose from to go with it, then?

[haffu]

"And while fighters are often thought of as being primarily melee-based, they can specialize in a variety of weapons, including bows, crossbows, and even firearms. They're unlikely to outclass rangers at their own game, but fighters can be almost as dangerous at a distance as they are up close. "

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Fighter

This is from their description but now I don't see how you could build an archer based on Fighter with ranged accuracy 10. 

I though also that fighter is basically the guy in the army. He can be the front line fighter with a two handed spear or fighting with a shield and a gladius or in the melee break force with a two handed weapon. Or he could be the longbow men in back of the lines firing those nasty arrows or the Italian mercenary with a shield and a crossbow. 

Now it seems that an archer in this world is a ranger with animal companion and in love with nature.

[Gonshu]

You can't play a fast character either. Unless you count wearing no armor as "fast".

 

Leveling up as a whole in this game is pretty darn underwhelming so far for many classes. However leveling up in Baldur's Gate 1 and Icewind Dale 1 wasn't particularly fantastic either. At the moment I'd say it's slightly worse than Icewind Dale 2 in that regard.

 

 

 

I agree everything you say here, and I think it is sad.

 

I dislike (and was surprised) by the fact that you cannot choose an attribute build to make your character a "fast attacker" character or a "heavy hitter" (in the meaning of high critic chance/damage). I would appreciate if they add these options to the attribute builds, and the fact that they don't exist is what is making perception, resolve and intelligence a bit underwelmed (ok, intelligence is useful for support classes). I really hope they see it and tweek resolve/perception to allow these kind of build.

 

About the leveling up thing. It was one of the worst implemented things on the IE games. Yes, in both BG games leveling up was a bith meh, no choices, just click a button. You could argue you did the choice at the beggining when picking the class, but that makes leveling not fun and low customizable. ID1 was not much better, ID2 was fairly better. Fallout new vegas was much better. Atm, PE is between BG2 and ID2. I hope that classes get deeper and customization within the class richer, so levelling allow you to make meaningful choices so it is at least as important and fun as in Fallout new vegas.

[Shadenuat]

Too many classes seem to be stuck inside one archetype without any options. Too many things, like ranged options, healing or summons seem to belong to only one particular class.

That makes some classes less interesting than even BG2 kits, which is incredible concidering the point of the new system was to support multiple roles for classes. Take Ranger, for example. In BG2 he could be a summoner, a stealthy melee attacker or a master-archer. Yet in PoE he is just a master-archer with a summon that is forced upon you. Through BG series we've seen a berserkering melee ranger with many hitpoints but so-so defence, a dexterous archer and a mage-hunting lightly armored one who had access to powerful spell turning spells and buffs.

In PoE first thing you get is a slowing arrow ability... so underwhelming. Let me choose what ability I take myself.

Getting rekked because someone focused your wolf is also too big of a penalty, even if animal does some decent damage in melee.

Some classes have innate customization mechanics in them, like Wizard. There is nothing more intersting that taking enemy's grimoire from his cold body and start mixing his and your own spells around. But that's just Wizard.

The Druid is also dissapointing. Josh was talking about how he doesn't like that you instantly lose game while not taking Cleric in party... yet the closest class that often was used instead of cleric in IE has it's slots filled with DPS spells until level 3. Thus, in my experience, making Cleric almost invaluable for any party because of stacks and stacks of stamina regeneration spells.

Other classes also have some of these issues. Fighters are stuck with hold-the-line abilities, many of which belong to a character screen than combat menu (why add stamina regeneration as an icon? hope it's just stock stuff). You can use them for something else, but there is no customization even of 3d edition D&D level, which was shallow, but it was something. At least Fighters there could excel at any weapon, making them very general purpose combatants.

Barbarians seem a bit better, but share combat role with rogues now. It is possible that Barb in full plate, with activated Rage for 1.3 more speed, and his instant +200+ stamina "potion gulp" is a better tank with good damage than a Fighter, actually. Because of wacky nature of interrupts, stamina, combat speed and AI, his immunity to engagement is only useful rarely.

Rogue is just a different flavour of DPS. It's a lot harder to get his 2-seconds damage buff than amazing, tactical and sharp D&D backstab. No more out of combat skills either. No placing traps. No finding traps. No weapon poisoning. No ability to see through illusions. No stealing items.
Just spike damage. Where are the different and flavour rich archetypes? Again, I'd rather play Bounty Hunter or Assasin from BG2 than this.

For Paladin, I have few things to say except that, again, even BG2 customization offered more interesting archetypes to play. I was also hoping for him to learn at least a small set of cleric spells to allow more flexible party composition.

The Monk, for now, I don't really understand, but from what I've seen managing such a character in real time takes more from player than offering enough rewards.

The Spellcasters, I think, are where most interesting mechanics and important abilities went. As I said, Wizard is flexible enough to survive without things like specialist transmuters/necromancers and so on. The lack of utility spells and summoning spells hurts though. Can we at least get Oracle to open some parts of the map? Players not knowing what are they going into was a discussed problem during development, yet there are no appropriate utility spells. Although with overpowered super-radar stealth...

Priest seems like most balanced caster for now. His spells are all friendly and affect many characters, so instead of, like in IE, thinking on what to do with a Wizard in combat, I mostly was thinking about managing my Cleric. Combination of heals, single-target DPS, mass heals, mass debuffs, saving-spells works maybe even too well.

Wizard has many spells that are harder to manage (some designer really likes ray-spells it seems, that hurt things between wizard and his target). But that's okay I guess.

As a fan of Druids, as I said, I was dissapointed. They are just too focused on various cone damage spells, aoe spells, single target spells, dots and that, instead of presenting a choice from, maybe lacking compared to specialized casters, but more balanced list of spells. Some of druid spells are also a bit too powerful. Who's idea was to make Charm Animal a level 1 AoE? Poor beetles and lions...

Ciphers I would only like if they would get whole Psionic Handbook dumped into them, including utility spells. The Focus isn't bad in itself but you end up spamming just a bunch of best overpowered spells. I never was a fan of Eldritch Blast>Eldritch Blast>Eldritch Blast.

Chanters definitly got a lot of love. They are an interesting take on a passive spellcasters. They are also lore-friendly and can do something in combat except casting. Simple, but effective class with smart design concidering amount of management you usually do in RtWP combat.

I hope Josh would change his mind on 1 talent/3 levels, unless there are ~20 levels in game, it won't be enough to make every class interesting to customize.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Shadenuat

[Meepalasheep]

I second that, 1 talent/3 levels just feels bare. It's alright in Fallout, as you have control over every aspect of your character. As it is now, too much is defined by class for that to feel satisfying.

Edited August 23, 2014 by Meepalasheep

[PrimeJunta]

More feedback:

 

I really, really like what you've done with the wizard. Being able to break free from the pasty bookish anti-social nerd slinging fireballs from a safe distance archetype is immensely liberating. I also think you've hit the trade-offs regarding front-line/armored casting and back-row/glass-cannon casting just about right. The spell selection is great, the grimoire mechanic is great, and I'm finally giving those spells originating from the caster a good workout since I can actually stand in the front-line without pre-buffing myself to a Christmas tree.

 

So basically... don't change anything there, it's perfect as it is.*

 

*'cept the bugs natch.

[Sylvanpyxie]

 

 

Priest seems like most balanced caster for now.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

[IndiraLightfoot]

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 normally start my CRPGs with a ranger, but given the traits of the ranger in this game, I'm actually planning on having a ranged fighter as my first pc - so this is something that I'd love to see get some more love.

[PrimeJunta]

I finally got around to play a rogue. Some thoughts.

 

After playing a muscle wizard, paladin, ranger, and chanter, it feels a little underwhelming. Pumped Dex, Mig, and Res. My tactic was to pull the enemies with BB Fighter, then flank them with BB Rogue and Murderhobo. I had BB Fighter do a Knockdown, one of the rogues a Hobble, and then wailed away. It worked well enough, as in I managed to kill lots of creatures without taking too much damage, while intentionally restricting use of those mad-powerful priest buffs, but it took a good deal longer to kill individual enemies this way than by blasting them with spells.

 

I understand the design intent of the rogue is to excel at point damage. That didn't really seem to be the case though. I was dual wielding a fine sword (piercing/slashing) and fine dagger (piercing), and the experience was broadly similar with Medreth & co, that orlan he was chasing, the beetles, and the spiders. (At that point Mr. Ogre moonwalked off into the landscape and broke my quest, so I left it at that.)

 

It may be that I'm not using weapons optimally; if so I may withdraw this comment, but as it is I think rogues need to be beefed up a bit. If their role is to do point status effects and damage, both the status effects and the damage ought to be more dramatic.

[Shadenuat]

I used dual wielding rogue with stilettos (they ignore 5 DR). Generally same play as dual-wielding barbarian. Rogue gets 1.3 or 1.5 more damage depending on dirty fighting/sneak attack, barb gets 1.33 attack speed increase.

 

From level 5 to 8 Rogue gets a blind attack and even more various DPS stuff, like some sort of a DoT. It's almost a standard MOBA assasin DPS-char. Boring as hell.

Edited August 24, 2014 by Shadenuat

[Adventurer]

Hello Friends and fellow Players ! =)

 

First of all i must say that i have extremly high expectations for this game and i want it to be as good, polished and fine tuned as possible im pretty sure i am not the only one given how long we have been waiting for another game like this. Right now all i have is a first impression didnt play that much yet but im planning to test it out more in the next couple of days / weeks and point out what i notice/ feels important to me. Maybe it wont be the most urgent issues we all know that the game needs a lot of polish right now after all however it will be those that i care about. If we all do that we should get one FANTASTIC game in the end right ? =)

 

So without further delay:

 

Fire Godlike: Am i the only one that would like burning beards ? ^^ their racial ability should also be changed increasiong damage threshold below 50% health ? Come on this is FIRE it should be all about the BOOMM the explosions and dealing damage.

 

Druids: I LOVE Druids but right now i dont feel like YAY i wanna play a Druid 4 out of 5 "Lycanthropy" Forms are kinda greyish thats not cool at all how about a white wolf with red or blue glowing eyes for example bring in some color and diversity people. Also I still have no idea what bonus the Wolf and the cat grant. Is it intended for all of them to do the same amount of damage ? Furthermore i would like to request a Dinosaur Shapechange if it is not already in the game and available by picking a talent  once you level up enough ! =D

 

Ranger: I kinda feel disappointed with the Animal companions i was hoping for a few more extraordinary options amongst those for example a "landshark"  a "tentacle cat" or a "raptor".

 

Thats all for now thanks for reading.

[jcamero]

Small point. Could you please add the precise details of a Chanter's chants into the description e.g. wizard and priest spells include information about how much damage (or other relevant effect) a spell does. This is not in place with chants. Perhaps this is because they will be altered soon? Either way, I think this would be really helpful at some point in the future.

[Sylvanpyxie]

Cipher.

Might + Int.

Soul Ignition.

 

I no longer consider Chanters OP.

[BLnoT]

I am enjoying playing all characters so far, more or less. However as i tend to play ranged classes i do have to admit i am not a huge fan of the Ranger ( as i like to play the class ). The only reason being that i share the same hp Pool as my animal companian. I never relied on Animal companians before it was more of an aesthetic thing. Now however i have to worry alot more as i can get delt for alot damage now that my animal companian ( are all melee ) gets hurt in the thick of battle thus injuring myself far more than what i would expect for one who chooses a ranged class ( Typically to stay out of the main damage highway )

It's true i could use the bear companian for a better defence companian,  however as it is normally a roleplaying option for myself i now cannot imagine I am the brave and mighty FitzChivalry fending off forged ones with my trusty Wolf companian Nighteyes.

 I also Highly recommend Robin Hobbs books. She is a fantastic Writer.

 

I have pritty much decided i will forgo the Ranger class ( and its bonuses )  to make a ranged Rouge ( suffering alittle ) purely because the animal companian is forced to fight alongside me.

[Wintersong]

"And while fighters are often thought of as being primarily melee-based, they can specialize in a variety of weapons, including bows, crossbows, and even firearms. They're unlikely to outclass rangers at their own game, but fighters can be almost as dangerous at a distance as they are up close. "

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Fighter

 

This is from their description but now I don't see how you could build an archer based on Fighter with ranged accuracy 10. 

 

I though also that fighter is basically the guy in the army. He can be the front line fighter with a two handed spear or fighting with a shield and a gladius or in the melee break force with a two handed weapon. Or he could be the longbow men in back of the lines firing those nasty arrows or the Italian mercenary with a shield and a crossbow. 

 

Now it seems that an archer in this world is a ranger with animal companion and in love with nature.

I usually hire a level 1 Priest NPC as soon as possible, with some medium-high Might&Dex (but not maximized). And as soon as I can, I give her a gun. She kicks ass and takes names with it. Considering that a Fighter can specialize in guns/bows, I'd guess that a Fighter would be even better than my Priest (with 10 too in ranged). A Cipher leands more towards ranged combat so it is a good alternative to Ranger if you don't want a pet and don't mind the spells. A Ranger would still be better than a fighter and it'd suck to have a Figher a la AD&D (autoattack, autoattack...).

 

I personally would prefer that each class would at least offer a couple of paths. Be it in the form of selecting one and getting general class common skills plus skills associated to that path (let's say Guardian Path vs Archer Path). Or be it offering some generic common class skills to each class and then let the player pick from some optional ones related to their class to fit their needs (i.e. for my fighter let's ignore tanky stuff and focus on something else). I don't dare to speculate about the possbiel costs of implementing such thing and if it'd really improve the game, but that's what I'd prefer.

 

I'm going to play a dual wielding fighter in the game (maybe my main?) much like I try to do in every game (most fond memories being in NwN2). At least I have an easier time than the archer fighter fans.

 

Having tons of classes is fun. Having some wiggle room in each of them? Feels even better. Having tons of classes and all of them with wiggle room? Awesome.

[Shadenuat]

Since I'm such a park ranger, I've decided to take a closer look at Druid's spells and make a few comments on them.

 

This post will be long as hell. You're warned.

Few notes before that:
- I don't like PoE's shapeshifting. While it's cool and gives you some choices, I liked gaining new interesting  forms in 3d edition more. Part of the charm since D&D playing as druid was ability to turn into any animal, big or  small, to solve a particular objective. I'd rather have a choice between strong boar or weak but stealthy cat than  various easy combat-applicable two-legged monsters. Not that I don't find playing a walking bear extremely  satisfying and cool (has nothing to do with my Location... really), but between one powerful form and two flexible  ones I'd choose the latter.
- I assume Druid is a more general-purpose Cleric who can do many things well, but nothing really great, and to  make character play great, player has to learn to do many things well. So I'm going from that point of view, and  from it PoE Druid is more like an offensive caster loaded with DPS spells for now, less of a hybrid.
- I was surprised to find PoE Druid gets Natural Casting by default in beta. Meaning you can run around as a bear  and call lightning on your enemies. There must be some trick to it, either slower casting or something, otherwise  I'm not sure why not run around as a bear forever. There are also no hints about what happens to your items, and if  your unarmed attack improves every level... but developers would get to it I am sure.

- I can see some Talents working with spells. Maybe one that increases sun spells or healing spells, or adds poison to your every plant-based spell. Things like that.

- AFAIK Druid's bonus to damage wasn't implemented in beta. At least not whole 500% of it, heh. Shame.

So let's get to the spells. They are more like something that can tell us about the class for now. Obviously my  Druid had highest STR/INT possible because why not.

Level 1.
1. Winter Wind. The first spell we notice and it has Cone of Cold icon. Now that's a good start. Winter Wind is a  fairly big cone spell, probably even too big for level 1, but it's damage is 5-7 times weaker than Fan of Flames  that Wizard has. I assume it's a bug, but it is fair to make it less powerful if there would also be some sort of  debuff coming with it. Slow or blind would work well.

The cone size could use a nerf.
2. Vile Thorns. Same as previous spell but does physical damage and has a debuff. Cone size is twice less than  Winter Wind. Damage is about as your basic spear stab, but that's level 1 spell for you. Provides an option if you  meet cold or elemental resistant enemy. Seems logical.

Needs more damage though.
3. Touch of Rot. And things suddenly started to become crazy. It is not actually a touch, it is an AoE, although  very very small - you could probably hit 2 enemies with it. It does acid (corrosion) damage, starting with generous  ~20 and then 84 (!) DoT through 8 seconds. So not only we have a fairly rare elemental damage (who can actually be  well protected against acid?), but also very high damage. And that's something you should get used to in Druid  spells.
4. Tanglefoot. Every druid's favorite Entangle. Doesn't stop enemies outright, but slows them (hobbles... why use  that word instead of "slows" I'm not sure, maybe developers want to slap us out of D&D? Huh). The range is  humongous. Goes well with AoE damaging spells and Rogue and Barbarian abilities.
5. Talon's Reach. Does Slashing damage about as your normal attack would do in same radii as Touch of Rot. Since  there is already Vile Thorns, I don't see a need for this spell. Sure, some enemies might be resistant to cold...  and pierce... and acid... but I find it unlikely and it seems like a waste to check every damage type.
6. Sunbeam. A very powerful, almost like 3d level Fireball, but with small radii like other druid spells fire  spell. At that point I started to think that maybe all these spells are supposed to be single target, but INT works  wrong. Anyway, it would be good to go with Icewind Dale with this spell and make it a bit weaker and only single  target. Also has Blind effect.
7. Fairy Fir-- ahem, Nature's Mark. A debuff with very large radii. Makes enemies easier to hit. This should be a  spell for Druid to fall back to when his cold or piercing spells don't work, but with so many pure damage powerful  spells, I don't see much use in it.
8. Dancing Bolts. Pathetically weak shock spell. Probably bugged. Has little reason to exist, as it loads Level 1  with even more elemental effects.
9. Charm Beast. The Beta spell. An AoE that targets Will and makes animals fight for Druid. Can be cast outside of  combat. There is a small delay in enemy AI which makes them fight each other even if they're all friendly to party.  Since all classic casters act like Sorcerers now, I see no reason making this one more powerful than just basic  single-target. It's really too good.
Game doesn't make difference between animals and insects, by the way. It's a minor issue but in D&D3 I think  insects had a bonus against Will-spells.

The conclusion. Level 1 Druid spells make him look like wizard or warlock who just spams acid/eldritch blasts. It  is OK to have 2, maybe 3 damage types.

Any character in PoE can use any armor or weapon, and Druid can also shapeshift. That spell selection would be  useful if druid still had 6 hit points, sling and Thac0 of 20, but not in PoE.

I feel it's much more important to establish at level 1 what character IS, not to give enough spells to kill  anything.

Level 1 has: Too much DPS, a bit of Control.
Could use: A single-target regenerating spell. Since we don't want to step on Cleric's feet, Druid spell should  restore Stamina slowly, not instantly.
Maybe some sort of a buff, single-target one.
A utility/summoning spell. Perhaps it could serve as any of the above. If it would seem good summon at level 1  would be too strong, a summon that doesn't attack but heals or buffs party would work.

Level 2.
1. Woodskin. Increases Damage Thresholds for the whole party against 3 damage types - piercing, burning and shock  (huh). Not sure what would be a good time to cast this spell, players must get a very good feedback to know if they  want to, like a prolongued burning effect. Or, if all animals use Piercing attacks, that would be a good reason to  cast it. OTOH, Druid has better ways to do with animals. I guess it could protect party against ranged damage? Then  perhaps it is useful.
2. Taste of the Hunt. Makes caster's weapon restore stamina. My guess natural weapons (unarmed, claws) counts as  one or it's not that of much use. I'd rather cast another powerful damaging spell. Could work for Shapeshifting  build, but again, druid doesn't have a reason to go into melee because many spells do physical damage.
3. Insect Swarm. Favorite dish of Jonatan Irenicus. A... powerful spell, strong enough to finish whole group of  bandits/hunters at spawning point in beta. Humongous radii, does more than 100 damage through 10 seconds and lowers  Concentration. Could use a nerf in both damage and size. It would be better to leave it as more of a debuff spell  than damaging one.
4. Hold Beasts. Paralyzes animals, also AOE, but now it makes more sense since it's Druid's bread&butter. Inferior  to Charm Beast in every way imo. Can also be cast outside of combat.
5. Firebrand. Summons a fire sword that ignores DF. In D&D it just gave profiency and +4 THAC0, so this one is more  powerful. Lasts for a minute. Was fairly useful in BG-games when there were trolls and slimes around, because druid  didn't have loads of sun-based fireballs. Doesn't work when shapeshifted. Personally I wouldn't use it now that I  have damaging spells. Moonblade from IWD was more useful since it worked well against undead at least.
6. Conjure Lesser Blight. Summon minor elemental, basically. Slow, buggy and does nothing in beta, so nothing to  talk about for now. I'd rather have a pack of wolves and leave elemental summoning for higher levels. Would require  big description to tell what each element does.
Doesn't dissapear after combat ends and certanly could use a faster flying speed.
7. Burst of Summer Flame. Fireball, basically, but with smaller radii. Has Fast casting speed so you can spam it as  much as you like. Probably would be most used spell together with Insect Swarm.
8. Blizzard. Does what you'd think it does. Huge radii and moderate damage, and a debuff (slows enemies attacks).  Looks like a spell that would belong to higher (3-5) level.
9. Autumn's Decay. Cone of acid. Damage is weaker than level 1 spell.
10. Rot Skulls. I got this after another reload, so it's bugged for now. Cool idea. Description says it does  Crushing damage, like magic missiles, which I don't really like. Also has an additional corrosion DoT, which suits  it more. I am afraid this spell might get scripted as just another boring magic missile which I won't want to see.

Level 2 has: Powerful attacking spells and some good old druid's stuff.
Could use: Something utilitarian, like stealth enhancement or some sort of a single target buff.

Level 3.
1. Twin stones. Magic missile that also hurts anything on it's path and does some piercing aoe. Reasonable damage  for level 3 (50). I don't like spells like that, not only they feel like something that belongs to a Wizard, but  they make weapons and shapeshifting unnecessary. But at least this one seems to be stopped by AC and maybe even  armor.
2. Stag's Horn. Alicorn Horn from previous games. Does piercing damage (about 20% more than Twin Stones) and also  throws a debuff. Was somewhat useful in IE where druids couldn't just shoot people with guns and had poor THAC0,  but here it just looks like an effort to give character yet another thing to throw at people.
3. Spreading Plague. Not an AoE, slows and weakens enemies. Seems alright to me. Works for a minute.
4. Returning Storm. Little brother of old Call Lightning. The "returning" part I've yet to see, and animation is  too fast. Damage is suitable for a long lasting spell. Doesn't look nearly as impressive as Call Lightning from  PST, but that's aesthetics.
5. Purge of Toxins. Surprisingly single-target. Also doesn't cancel poisons absolutely, just improves defences  (+10). No idea how it works - poison in beta is as harsh as in BG, doing continous stamina damage, so I don't know  how can this help. Does it acts as DR? Anyway, you get more for your buck from next spell in line.
6. Nature's Balm. AoE regeneration, finally. Very powerful - average 40 stamina per second for 10 seconds. Nothing  not to like here.
7. Beetle Shell. A save from combat spell. Weaker than Priest's, that also restores stamina or "locks" target from  possibility of dying, but that's fair, since we're not pure support caster.

Level 3 has: A decent combination of damage and heals.
Could use: A summon and a buff instead of one of damaging spells.

Level 4.
1. Wicked Briars. Like Tanglefoot, but also does damage. Lasts longer too. A fine spell, but it seems like a waste  to try and slow enemies with a high level spell when you can expend a level 1 slot instead.
It also makes you feel like spells are starting to repeat itself. Instead of just thorns, it could be something  like sickening fog or like that.
2. Overwhelming Wave. Twin Stones that also have stun effect. Damage is the same. It was one of the best attacking  spells for a druid in Icewind Dale series. In PoE it probably won't stand out as much because of a load of other  damaging spells.
3. Moonwell. Four times weaker than Nature's Balm, but lasts almost 2 minutes and buffs the party. It could use  more interesting mechanic, maybe a bonus against undead, to make a throwback to older games.

All the sun and moon-based spells could also be weaker or stronger during day/night/outside. If all heals would be  based on moon and damaging on sun, it would give at least more flavour to all these spells.
Maybe a bonus visual effect would work at the very least.

4. Conjure Blight. Like level 2 spell. At level 4 I expect to be able to throw hordes of bears on people. I hope it  would get replaced but something different and I won't just summon same creature every level.
5. Calling the World's Maw. It's like summoning a rock where little lion Simba was born. Does average damage for  that level and knocks targets down from their feet for whooping half a minute. Could use a nerf in radii and  secondary effect.
6. Boiling Ray. Weak burn damage in a very small cone (like level 1). Pushes enemies back, but not a lot. I applaud  that this one at least is not another burning circle on the ground.

Level 4 has: It actually just repeats same effects previous levels had, almost. An AoE buff is welcome, but overall  it feels like underwhelming level, like developers just tried to give even more slots of the same druid already  has.
Could use: Something unique.

Next 2 levels weren't balanced for beta, so they're just to learn how druid's design on higher levels might look  like. I got them using ArtMoney for XP.

Level 5.
1. Wall of Thorns. This is the first not-circle or cone-like spell I learned about in the game. You get a line  (very long one with my INT, whole screen) and a wall of thorns grows. It does piercing damage, as well as poison  and weakness. It's a spell I would prefert to have at level 4, since that one was fairly dull. You can really made  barricades out if this stuff.
2. Relentless Storm. Same as level 3 spell but probably would be stronger. Druid had 2 spells like that in Temple  of Elemental Evil. I don't really like having same mechanic return again at higher levels. I would prefer a stormy  cloud that stays for some time, for example.
3. Plague of Insects. Lower level spell on steroids. Four times more damage and radii on whole screen. Damage type  is Raw, so I guess it must be harder to protect yourself from this, and there is also sickening effect with  concentration penalty on top. I'd keep this for level 6 or higher, unless previous insect spell gets weaker and  would have different animation.
4. Nature's Terror. Self-buff. Does shock damage and terrifies enemies in melee. I've been waiting for something  for melee for a while.
5. Firebug. Chain lightning but with fire damage. I'm not sure about this spell, it feels too wizardy for me.  Summoning horde of actual bugs and making them run into enemies exploding would be a lot more druidy and less  click-n-nuke.
6. Embrace the Earth Talon. I'm starting to feel person who wrote names for these spells is a little... odd. And  this spell also looks kinda like a... anyway, it's like Maw but smaller and with chance to petrify. So it's another  damage-in-circle. It would be better if it would look like a huge spear and act as a ray spell that pierces  multiple enemies, I think.
7. Cleansing Wind. Heals party and pushes back enemies. I'd move either it or Moonwell through levels. However real  crowd control spell is welcome, but we have wall of thorns for that.

Level 5 has: Some new interesting effects, even more raw damage.
Could use: An interesting summon spell.

Level 6.
1. Venombloom. Creates a field of poisonous flowers. Great concept, but it acts almost just like Plague of Insects.  Instead of just another Raw aoe dot, make it a trap. Make it a field of dormant flowers that explode when enemies  walk into them.
2. Sunlance. Ultimate sun spell. Chooses best from fire or piercing. Single-target. Seems fine.
3. Garden of Life. Turns corpses of enemies into healing for party. Cool concept, but I'm not sure players would  use it instead of low level aoe heals druid already has.
4. Conjure Greater Blight. Druid summoning spells can really use something new.

Level 6 has: It seems like a level still in the working entirely.

That's it with the spells.

 

Overall I'm really missing on druid flavor here. Spells like goodberries or fire seeds, controlling plants or plant-like enemies, buffs, stuff like summong plants to increase your stealth, that sort of thing.

But most of all I miss on summoning animals and how variable druid spells were in other games. For example, in Baldur's Gate 2 I could summon fast lions, winter wolves who had ranged ice attacks, powerful bears with crushing attacks or elementals immune to normal weapons. There was even a spellcaster-summon (Nymph) who could charm enemies. That would be missed.

 

Purely from mechanical standpoint, there are too many damaging spells. Nothing makes you want to use shapeshifting, or to use new weapons and armor mechanic. I was looking for playing druid with a bow and spear&bukler, but with that richness of spells and free shapeshift, that won't matter. Spells ask for more variety and less "magic missiles" and "fireballs".

Edited August 25, 2014 by Shadenuat

[PrimeJunta]

Thoughts on the cipher --

 

First off, Soul Ignition needs to be nerfed big-time. Being able to zap it at unlimited range combined with the massive damage turned the whole thing into cheese.

 

Second: consider adjusting the size of the focus pool vs. the rate it charges up during combat. With the pool big enough to open with any of the highest-level spells, it felt somewhat overpowered, like giving wizards a couple of per-encounter fireballs. On the other hand, the pool charges up relatively slowly. 

 

IMO it would be a better balance to, say, halve the size of the pool, and have it charge up twice as fast. It would still permit opening casts, just not the most powerful ones, and would force the cipher to get down and dirty early on. I like having really punchy magic effects that aren't per-rest, but they need to be throttled a bit more. Having them come into play later in the encounter would do this.

Edited August 26, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Sylvanpyxie]

First off, Soul Ignition needs to be nerfed big-time.

Yeah, Soul Ignition is off the freaking charts. It scales incredibly well with Intellect and the base damage is moronic. It also doesn't help that it ticks per second. 40-45 damage per second for 20-25 seconds. RIP everything in the game ever.

 

Problem is, when I put Soul Ignition aside, I didn't see my Cipher doing much damage at all. I don't know if this is just because the majority of their other damaging spells are physical, thus mob resistances are affecting them, or if the damage itself is just low. All I know is, in comparison to what the Beta Back Wizard was doing, without Soul Ignition my Cipher had very little damage output.

 

Which wouldn't be such a problem, but the focus system doesn't exactly encourage the spamming of low damage spells and without a reasonable damage output Ciphers would just be CC bots. Soul Ignition definitely needs a Range/DPS nerf, but I think Ciphers on a whole have a couple of issues going on.

 

As a side note: Would seriously recommend a Cipher Utility/CC build. It's pretty good.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Sylvanpyxie

[Shadenuat]

Aren't they supposed to be manipulators aka CC bots though? I'd probably base their damage around something to do with their weapons as they gain focus, while making spells predominantly CC-based.

Edited August 26, 2014 by Shadenuat

[Ashen Rohk]

Started a YT series on the classes:

 

First up, Fighter: 

[Mayama]

Started a YT series on the classes:

 

First up, Fighter: 

You could have also selected your party and left clicked the weakest enemy instead of pausing constantly and thinking about the fight

[PrimeJunta]

Problem is, when I put Soul Ignition aside, I didn't see my Cipher doing much damage at all. I don't know if this is just because the majority of their other damaging spells are physical, thus mob resistances are affecting them, or if the damage itself is just low. All I know is, in comparison to what the Beta Back Wizard was doing, without Soul Ignition my Cipher had very little damage output.

 

Which wouldn't be such a problem, but the focus system doesn't exactly encourage the spamming of low damage spells and without a reasonable damage output Ciphers would just be CC bots. Soul Ignition definitely needs a Range/DPS nerf, but I think Ciphers on a whole have a couple of issues going on.

 

As a side note: Would seriously recommend a Cipher Utility/CC build. It's pretty good.

 

I get the vibe that the intent for the cipher is your gish class. Many of the abilities are debuff/control with some self-buff, and they have decent base accuracy. I.e. it might be more fun to play that way; use the magic to make them easier to kill, then hit them until they fall down.

 

Gonna try that next, and not take SI.

[PrimeJunta]

Okay, tried it. Rolled up a cipher, did not take Soul Ignition, and went wild. It was a lot more interesting. Strangely enough the bugs bit a lot less too; I managed to play until the dungeon under Trygil's tower before I got hit by any of the force-reloads and had to quit.

 

I have a hunch BTW that the disappearing item bug is related to the mysterious duplicate items that appear on the floor of Dracogen when coming down from the second floor. Don't touch those, and stuff seems to stay put a lot better. Just a theory though.

 

The cipher is quite interesting to play this way. I picked control/disable type spells, and combined them with melee. It was a potent combination. It felt a good deal more powerful than any other class except the (broken) chanter, but not outrageously out of line. The durations could be toned down somewhat I think; 50 seconds multiple-target paralysis is somewhat over the top. The charm-type ones were lots of fun to use, as were the self-buffs. I'm a little fuzzy on what the fear and sickened status effects actually do, but once I figure that out, I'm sure that one's extremely useful as well.

 

Anyway, when I first tried it I was a bit lukewarm about the cipher, but it is actually quite cool. I like it. Can't really think what should be done to it other than nerfing the abilities a little; Soul Ignition obviously but also the durations on the others. In any case I understand how the Glanfathans scared the willies out of the Aedyrans when they started fielding these.

 

So far, in order of preference, the most fun I've had with the classes --

 

1. Gluteus Maximus the Muscle Wizard -- mostly because it was just so much fun to play a wizard that wasn't a glass cannon, also the only time I made it through the beta without being bugged to oblivion.

2. Dyrtipix the Barbarian -- I really like the tactical uses of Wild Sprint + Rage + Defiant Resolve. Not as versatile as the mage classes, but clearly my favorite melee class.

3. Murderhobo the Cipher -- see above. Yeah, cool take on the gish. I would still like gish-oriented wizard talents/spells too, would make a different one.

4. Mullet the Paladin -- hits a nice balance between the low-maintenance fighter and high-maintenance cleric. Nice melee support class. Could explore its capabilities when used with ranged weapons from the back row.

5. Friendly the Ranger + Pooh Bear -- Frankly? Felt a little gimmicky. Mr. Bear was also overpowered and it offended my ego to be outshone by my furry friend. I would like a more straightforward ranged build option, based on the fighter or rogue perhaps.

6. Pintsize the Rogue -- meh. Maybe I wasn't making the most of it, but he felt underwhelming. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, but for a damager class I expected better damage output. I also couldn't think of any other tactics than hobble stab stab stab which wasn't very interesting.

 

I haven't yet really gotten far enough with any priests, druids, or fighters to be able to say much about them.

 

(Character names may be fictional.)

Edited August 26, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[Shadenuat]

Barbs seem to combine best of all worlds. They're tough with their stamina regain and unique ability to take less damage to their health directly, can work for DPS or rush with sprinting like rogues do.