The General Builds Thread

[Rosbjerg]

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

[PrimeJunta]

Decouple Health and Endurance. Bind Health to CON and Endurance to RES. This would have two purposes:

 

(1) It would make RES less of a dump stat

(2) It would allow players to optimize builds for maximum tactical impact (pump RES) or maximum strategic durability (pump CON).

Edited August 21, 2014 by PrimeJunta

[lemonrev]

I would like to ask if there will be posted a patch list and upcomming patch notes to the fourm so people can look stuff over and get better at understanding that things are being worked on ?.

 

I know its only been say a day or so but i have only just activated my account and downloading very slowly. But i dont hear of a quick patch or anything like that as of yet.

 

Just saying the more feedback the fourms get the better players can understand where the dev's are on the game as well as what is being worked on.

 

Thanks.

[DCParry]

Step 1: Choose class

Step 2: Pump Might

 

This is a bit of an exaggeration, and I know there has been some discussion on the effect of might vs. int on things like dots and such, but it feels like for any build might has a substantial pay off. 

[PrimeJunta]

Mmh. Not quite, Dex, Con, and Int are extremely crucial too, Con more for melee classes perhaps, and Int less so for fighters with few duration-based or AOE effects. The problems are with Per and Res which really do end up as dumpable.

[DCParry]

Mmh. Not quite, Dex, Con, and Int are extremely crucial too, Con more for melee classes perhaps, and Int less so for fighters with few duration-based or AOE effects. The problems are with Per and Res which really do end up as dumpable.

 

Well, when you say crucial, do you mean you need very high scores, or just not very low scores? I haven't had much time to play around with different an extensive amount of builds, but the idea seems to be get Dex/Con/Int up to a decent amount, then go all might. 

 

I could be insane though. 

[Sensuki]

Decouple Health and Endurance. Bind Health to CON and Endurance to RES. This would have two purposes:

 

(1) It would make RES less of a dump stat

(2) It would allow players to optimize builds for maximum tactical impact (pump RES) or maximum strategic durability (pump CON).

I am against the decoupling of Health and Endurance, I think this would diminish Constitution as an attribute, because Stamina can be recovered by spells and whatnot, whereas Health cannot.

 

There are other ways to fix RES and PER, I've made a few suggestions in other threads. Josh may have to make one concession from the design constraints he has put on the attribute system if he wants to make all attributes a compelling choice for each class.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Sensuki

[PrimeJunta]

I would call high Dex crucial. Landing hits is important, for just about everybody. For some classes, e.g. ciphers, I'd even say high Dex is more important than high Might, since landing hits is what charges up their... whatever it's called they charge up.

 

As to high Int, same thing: I tried playing with a low-Int and high-Int barbarian, and the duration change to rage makes a huuuuge difference. The AoE effect of Int is IMO too big ATM; clerics and wizards at least get pretty massive AoE's even at moderate Int. Tuning that is going to be a simple matter.

[Zansatsu]

I would call high Dex crucial. Landing hits is important, for just about everybody. For some classes, e.g. ciphers, I'd even say high Dex is more important than high Might, since landing hits is what charges up their... whatever it's called they charge up.

 

As to high Int, same thing: I tried playing with a low-Int and high-Int barbarian, and the duration change to rage makes a huuuuge difference. The AoE effect of Int is IMO too big ATM; clerics and wizards at least get pretty massive AoE's even at moderate Int. Tuning that is going to be a simple matter.

I don't disagree, you will need some Dex, the question is how little can you get away with. Through the talents and then weapons themselves how much hit chance do you need to generally land baring a character with very high deflection. Figure that out and people will take the minimum.

[Sensuki]

I would call high Dex crucial. Landing hits is important, for just about everybody. For some classes, e.g. ciphers, I'd even say high Dex is more important than high Might, since landing hits is what charges up their... whatever it's called they charge up.

Even before the beta came out I've been saying that Dex is probably the most important attribute for any class that wants to deal damage.

[Answermancer]

 

Mmh. Not quite, Dex, Con, and Int are extremely crucial too, Con more for melee classes perhaps, and Int less so for fighters with few duration-based or AOE effects. The problems are with Per and Res which really do end up as dumpable.

 

Well, when you say crucial, do you mean you need very high scores, or just not very low scores? I haven't had much time to play around with different an extensive amount of builds, but the idea seems to be get Dex/Con/Int up to a decent amount, then go all might. 

 

I could be insane though. 

 

 

I've found Dex to be just as useful as Might (probably more for what I like in a character build).

 

My PC rogue had massive Dex and pretty high Might and I feel like she does way more damage than any of the premade characters because she hits every time and crits very often (remember very high Accuracy increases crit chance, essentially).

 

 

I don't disagree, you will need some Dex, the question is how little can you get away with. Through the talents and then weapons themselves how much hit chance do you need to generally land baring a character with very high deflection. Figure that out and people will take the minimum.

 

I disagree because, again, crit chance.

 

I for one just can't get enough crits (find them so satisfying for some reason, also why rogue is usually my favorite class because Sneak Attack) so I suspect any character I make is going to have massive Dex. And from what I've seen I don't think that will gimp anything.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Answermancer

[Zansatsu]

Hah I forgot about crit. I take it all back!

[Osvir]

Class: Fighter

Race/Culture: Human Meadow Folk
Build: Tank

Name: Rose

 

​13 MIG (+26% Damage & Healing)
18 CON (+36% Health & Stamina)
14 DEX (+14% Accuracy)
14 PER (+42% Interrupt)
08 INT (+40% Duration & Area of Effect)
11 RES (+33% Concentration)

(Skills: Athletics (6) Lore (1) Survival (4)
Abilities: Weapon Specialization: Knight, Hold the Line

Equipment:

Fine War Hammer, Medium Shield (Heater),

Mantle of the Dying Boar, Gauntlets of Puissant Melee,

Trollhide Belt, Fenwalkers, Fine Mail Armor)*

Comment: This build makes a strong Fighter that can take a lot of attention, with good buffs from the Priest, nothing can get past.

Story: Rose is a warrior who has traveled the vast lands in search of adventure, fought in many battles and now joined forces with a mercenary band on her way home from a recent battlefield, they call themselves the Beta Band (BB). 

 

Template:

Class:

Name:
Race/Culture:
Build:

 

# MIG (+#% Damage & Healing)

# CON (+#% Health & Stamina)
# DEX (+#% Accuracy)
# PER (+#% Interrupt)
# INT (+#% Duration & Area of Effect)
# RES (+#% Concentration)

 

Skills:

Abilities:
Equipment: 

 

(Optional) Story/Roleplay/Comment:

 

* Wikia for links, Skills, Abilities, Equipment... too soon?

Edited August 21, 2014 by Osvir

[PrimeJunta]

I am against the decoupling of Health and Endurance, I think this would diminish Constitution as an attribute, because Stamina can be recovered by spells and whatnot, whereas Health cannot.

There are other ways to fix RES and PER, I've made a few suggestions in other threads. Josh may have to make one concession from the design constraints he has put on the attribute system if he wants to make all attributes a compelling choice for each class.

 

Health would still be bound to CON. Endurance would be bound to RES. It would diminish CON obviously since Endurance would be moved away from it, but not this way.

[Answermancer]

Health would still be bound to CON. Endurance would be bound to RES. It would diminish CON obviously since Endurance would be moved away from it, but not this way.

 

Personally I think this will make both stats too boring/weak to make people want to take them. Currently I feel like Con is in a pretty good place mostly because health is rather precious, but if you had to invest into two stats for that gain I'd be reticent to do so, and picking just one of the two would be frustrating (to me at least) since you really need both.

 

Maybe if the boosts were really significant to both it might work but I am skeptical.

 

I've posted this several other places but since this is an official thread about builds I figure I may as well do it again, sorry, but the best I've come up with is still:

• Make Dex give improved recovery time/action speed
• Make Per govern Accuracy as Dex does now
• Make Res give a chance at avoidance (convert enemy glances to misses and hits to glances on the low end, an inverse accuracy/evasion stat if you will)

I like this set because it opens up 2 more "iconic" or archetypal build elements: speediness and dodgeyness.

 

Res might still not be good enough with that setup though, it would be a valuable addition to tank characters but not very compelling for others unless it gave really good bonuses (which would in turn potentially make it overpowered). Still I think it's a more viable option than most games (where your character can either dodge or take full damage, and a low dodge chance is useless while a high one is too powerful) thanks to the sliding scale of miss-glance-hit that this game has.

 

The stat could potentially increase the glance chance substantially without adding too much miss chance, or it could also reduce the damage of all glances on top of modifying the sliding scale.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Answermancer

[Mayama]

Right now it feels like you have to figure out the best mix that does the best damage (crit/damage/accuracy). After you have done that you can applie that template to any class. This makes stats basicaly none existand its only about how close you can get to those perfect numbers.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Mayama

[PrimeJunta]

Personally I think this will make both stats too boring/weak to make people want to take them. Currently I feel like Con is in a pretty good place mostly because health is rather precious, but if you had to invest into two stats for that gain I'd be reticent to do so, and picking just one of the two would be frustrating (to me at least) since you really need both.

 

That's kind of the point. If you don't feel that you're losing out by dumping a stat (or, conversely, don't feel like you want to pump every stat), then the stats are poorly balanced, ne?

[Answermancer]

That's kind of the point. If you don't feel that you're losing out by dumping a stat (or, conversely, don't feel like you want to pump every stat), then the stats are poorly balanced, ne?

 

For sure, but what I meant was that, for me at least, it would be a harder mental exercise to decide "do I want this character to have this one lower or this one" and the like. It's hard to explain, it just feels to me like it would be an unsatisfying decision, whereas I feel like having to choose between the other 4 currently is pretty satisfying.

 

Also currently if I feel like a character can afford to be a glass cannon I only "get to" dump one stat (Con) whereas with this I would get to dump two stats if I decided glass cannon is what I want and so get a lot more points to spend on other stuff (this is assuming all the other stuff was compelling).

 

I could be wrong of course, impossible to tell without trying it.

[PrimeJunta]

You're right about the glass cannon thing. Still, both Health and Endurance are extremely important; dump one or both and you will feel it.

[Mayama]

You're right about the glass cannon thing. Still, both Health and Endurance are extremely important; dump one or both and you will feel it.

 

But in the end it would not matter, lets asume we know all stats in the game and know which combination of crit/damage/accuracy gives the best damage. If we know that than we would spend our points accordingly and in the end a bow user, spell thrower or whatever you get the point would be basicaly the same. It would also mean that a bow is inferior in every way because spells offer so much more. Furthermore a spell user could always grap a bow and get the same results with it as with a single target spell. Thiers no reason to specialize.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Mayama

[PrimeJunta]

But in the end it would not matter, lets asume we know all stats in the game and know which combination of crit/damage/accuracy gives the best damage. If we know that than we would spend our points accordingly and in the end a bow user, spell thrower or whatever you get the point would be basicaly the same. It would also mean that a bow is inferior in every way because spells offer so much more. Furthermore a spell user could always grap a bow and get the same results with it as with a single target spell. Thiers no reason to specialize.

 

Not every character ought to be optimized for max damage. You could also optimize for durability, buff/debuff strength/duration/AoE, and so on. That's what a lot of the classes are for.

 

Second, not every class uses weapons equally effectively. Check out the base accuracy. Wizards are terrible at that. This is made up by the high accuracy bonus on most spells. Give one a bow and compare how he uses it compared to a ranger or even paladin, and the difference is fairly dramatic.

[Mayama]

 

But in the end it would not matter, lets asume we know all stats in the game and know which combination of crit/damage/accuracy gives the best damage. If we know that than we would spend our points accordingly and in the end a bow user, spell thrower or whatever you get the point would be basicaly the same. It would also mean that a bow is inferior in every way because spells offer so much more. Furthermore a spell user could always grap a bow and get the same results with it as with a single target spell. Thiers no reason to specialize.

 

Not every character ought to be optimized for max damage. You could also optimize for durability, buff/debuff strength/duration/AoE, and so on. That's what a lot of the classes are for.

 

Second, not every class uses weapons equally effectively. Check out the base accuracy. Wizards are terrible at that. This is made up by the high accuracy bonus on most spells. Give one a bow and compare how he uses it compared to a ranger or even paladin, and the difference is fairly dramatic.

 

 

Well I dont think that it matters that much but they made that system so you can make archetypes that are impossible in most RPG's but in the end they only switched it around. Yes you can make a unwise cleric in PoE but you cant make a wizard that is also a good swordfighter because it would break the game. They basicaly just switched it around.

[PrimeJunta]

Well I dont think that it matters that much but they made that system so you can make archetypes that are impossible in most RPG's but in the end they only switched it around. Yes you can make a unwise cleric in PoE but you cant make a wizard that is also a good swordfighter because it would break the game. They basicaly just switched it around.

And you can't make a fighter who casts fireballs. Your point?

[Mayama]

 

Well I dont think that it matters that much but they made that system so you can make archetypes that are impossible in most RPG's but in the end they only switched it around. Yes you can make a unwise cleric in PoE but you cant make a wizard that is also a good swordfighter because it would break the game. They basicaly just switched it around.

And you can't make a fighter who casts fireballs. Your point?

I just wonder what was the reasoning behind removing restrictions but in the end implementing the same restrictions at another part of the game mechanics. I guess I was just thinking out loud.

[PrimeJunta]

They're different restrictions. "Casting spells" or "Ruling at melee combat" are class-related features. "Surviving in the front line," "Dealing damage from the back," or "Supporting other characters" are broader roles. They've kept the former while relaxing the latter, which is a good thing IMO.