435 Discussion

[Luckmann]

Is it possible to "stunlock" enemies if you have a high enough Interrupt?

 

Currently? Yes. But currently, Interrupt is broken.

[Sock]

 

Combat log is a mess because of the amount of stuff that gets pasted into it. I really hope they implement a filter in a patch/expansion to allow us to control what we see in there.

If they take any advice from this thread, this is it.

 

I still think interrupt is fine though so there!  Who cares if it favors duel wielders, it is okay if a stack is not must have for everyone.

 

 

I kind of agree, but at the same time...  a very real stunlock opportunity is to have two chanters who each summon 3 skeletons. That's 6 targets attacking one creature. I did that to the ogre, even without building for stunlock builds, I was able to achieve it by having two chanters. He got off maybe one attack, but that was it once the skeletons were there.

[Gromnir]

Is it possible to "stunlock" enemies if you have a high enough Interrupt?

depends on the enemy.  ogres or enemy riflemen who take the better part of an hour to make a single attack can be interrupted into impotence. however, even in 435,  we can't manage to stunlock most casters as  enemy casters, particular healers, seem to have more than a few near instant casting times.  also, in hard mode, if we  dedicate our party to interrupting one or two foes by ganging up on them with high interrupt attacks, chances are we gets our party killed mighty fast.  even at present, interrupt is just not a practical tactic for most character builds when facing most enemies. 

 

interrupt is currently useful, but only 'cause it is broken. even so, it is only limited useful... which is kinda what it should be, no? when it is fixed, interrupt looks to again be useless, but we will need see. perhaps with dexterity being fixed so that it actual increases melee attack speeds, interrupt's impending nerfing will be balanced a bit by potential increased attack rates.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited February 17, 2015 by Gromnir

[HozzM]

Ok so I have played through the beta, on Normal.  I created a Druid and hired a Monk and played with the 4 BB characters.

 

Of the 6 classes I have played with, Rogue seems by far the weakest.  Strongest?  I don't know but I say Priest because of Holy Radiance.  Again I don't know if it is a bug or not but it sometimes insta-killed enemies in range at the start of fight.  And it heals as well and is a once per encounter ability?  Sign me up!

 

Healing...the direct healing spells seem weak.  For example, Priest, level 3 spells.  Watchful Presence compared to the same level direct heal...no contest.  Druid passive heals like Nature's Balm and Moonwell I found far more useful than Priest direct heals.

 

As far as the beta content, for the most part I found it pretty good.  I did think the cultist dungeon map was a bit of a drag (the one accessible from the tower in the town and from the statue in the area east of town).  There was a fight around every corner and the biggest struggle was not the enemies, but the path finding.  I am a turn based combat fan in general but this map especially, I felt like the combat system took away from the experience.

 

Still loving the game and looking forward to the release.  I will play through again with a different main character class and a different hireling class.

[wanderon]

Ok this was new for me - was doing the final temple scene with the girl -(avoiding spoilers)  went to combat and was getting my butt kicked - lost my BB fighter. pally, and PC rogue and still had 3 foes left including the damn preacher (chanter?) with only one of them on the ropes -

 

as the hurt foe went down, so did BB priest and BB wizard right behind him just as BB rogue used his last escape which I think the preacher interrupted as he ran right to the spot BB rogue was headed for so I figured battle is over now but lo and behold for some reason BB Rogue is now stuck in invisibility so neither foe is attacking him and he stabbed them both to death -

 

It did take a very long time in spite of every hit being a sneak attack and he's hitting for 8 - 16 each hit with very few misses but these guys both had 4 dots left when he started so I guess that works out right. BB Rogue didn't come out of invisible mode until the next area transition then we took him back to the tavern and poured whisky down him until we passed out... 

[Matt516]

One interesting thing is that if Interrupt favors dual-wielders, and DT favors two-handers (not sure how that's currently balanced - are two-handers still insanely better against high DT?), the end result could be that both types are viable, just in different ways. Which could actually be kinda cool, instead of trying to balance it so that all types of weapons have roughly equal efficacy in all ways. Just a thought.

[AndreaColombo]

One interesting thing is that if Interrupt favors dual-wielders, and DT favors two-handers (not sure how that's currently balanced - are two-handers still insanely better against high DT?), the end result could be that both types are viable, just in different ways. Which could actually be kinda cool, instead of trying to balance it so that all types of weapons have roughly equal efficacy in all ways. Just a thought.

 

Now we need sword-and-shield and single weapon to also be viable choices.

[Lephys]

Single-weapon really should get something really nice, since you're giving up a whole second-hand's worth of offense/protection to use it. It would be like if you had a "Fighting Armorless" talent. If you're going to give up armor JUST to get any effect from the talent at all, then you'd better get something nice in return.

[Sensuki]

I think it would be better if they made it attack a bit quicker.

 

Currently 1H style recovery is either 1.9 or 2.1 seconds in no armor for a 1H normal weapon and 1H fast is either 1.26667 seconds or 1.4 seconds (depending on whether global recovery mult adds .4 to the mult or multiplies the total mult.

They could make Single1HWeaponRecoveryFactor something like 1.3 instead of 1.5 or something.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Sensuki

[Sock]

Just for theory-crafting...

 

What if you made a DPS role 1h weapon fighter (or rogue), with a focus on crits?

 

Weapon would be a battle axe, rapier, club, dagger, or spear. Boosting accuracy to as high as you can get it would result in more crits, so all weapons that boost accuracy are beneficial. But there are few ways to boost crit damage. Battle axes do that, and so does the Bloody Slaughter talent. The language used for talents is unclear and incosistant, but if I understand correctly, bloody slaughter should improve ALL crits, and not just crits that occur when opponent is at low endurance.

 

Would also take penetrating blows with this, just to benefit from increased DR with a low damage weapon.

 

Fighters have a lot of options, so you could go a +damage route with them while still be a durable fighter. I don't recall if rogues have a +crit damage class ability, but I think they mgiht? Regardless, can still benefit from sneak attack crits, and their blinds/cripples would last longer on a crit, assuming that your improved accuracy with a weapon also improves the accuracy of secondary effects.

[Sensuki]

Sneak attacks don't add more damage on crits anymore. You get the same amount of extra damage, unless your total goes under min dam %

 

That might be my task for day in between reporting bugs, trying to make a good 1H build - so far it's been kinda bad.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Sensuki

[MasterPrudent]

Sword and shield builds can be pretty decent though, right? If you're building a tanky character the deflection bonuses you get from a large shield + taking sword and shield style seem to make it worthwhile to me?

[Sensuki]

Honestly I really don't like them. I think one character with a shield taking aggro is alright, but it's an incredibly rigid style. It significantly makes your party worse the more party members you have using it. I'd probably say two max (probably best paired with four arbalests/arquebuses or something), before it starts to become god awful. If 1H style and shields were actually more useful, I would use them more.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Sensuki

[Namutree]

Sword and shield builds can be pretty decent though, right? If you're building a tanky character the deflection bonuses you get from a large shield + taking sword and shield style seem to make it worthwhile to me?

I find that small shields are better than large shields. The talent, "weapon and shield style" gives you the same bonus no matter what kind of shield you choose, but the DP penalty of using a shield is minimized when using a small shield.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Namutree

[Lephys]

Maybe 1H style should get more bonuses (quantity-wise), but not necessarily higher bonuses than everything else? Since it would kind of be the most versatile style, in a way? You can dedicate all the movement of both your arms/hands to the usage of that one weapon. Or, what if you gained a "counter"-type bonus? Convert some percentage of incoming Hits to Grazes, and every time the enemy Grazes or Misses, your Recovery time is reduced? I dunno... those don't seem quite right, but I'm trying to feel for something a little unique.

[Sensuki]

1H style is horrible, don't use it. 2H or Two weapon is far better. Have yet to make a useful 1H single build yet.

 

Let's break it down.

 

1H style gives you +10 Accuracy, and thus a +10% chance of a +50% increase in damage.

2H style gives you essentially 1H x 1.25 damage (or close enough to), all the time.

 

And that's pretty much the reason why it's bad. They attack at the same speed, so hit for hit - 2H is always better, and benefits more from damage multipliers. 

However if 1H style were a bit quicker, then it might be better.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Sensuki

[Luckmann]

Maybe 1H style should get more bonuses (quantity-wise), but not necessarily higher bonuses than everything else? Since it would kind of be the most versatile style, in a way? You can dedicate all the movement of both your arms/hands to the usage of that one weapon. Or, what if you gained a "counter"-type bonus? Convert some percentage of incoming Hits to Grazes, and every time the enemy Grazes or Misses, your Recovery time is reduced? I dunno... those don't seem quite right, but I'm trying to feel for something a little unique.

 

Imo, Duelists should have a significantly higher bonus to Accuracy than they do now, and a bonus to Disengaging. But I do love the idea of incoming Grazes and Misses reducing a Duelist's Recovery Time. It'd be really unique and interesting.

[SergeantHans]

1H style is horrible, don't use it. 2H or Two weapon is far better. Have yet to make a useful 1H single build yet.

 

Let's break it down.

 

1H style gives you +10 Accuracy, and thus a +10% chance of a +50% increase in damage.

 

2H style gives you essentially 1H x 1.25 damage (or close enough to), all the time.

 

And that's pretty much the reason why it's bad. They attack at the same speed, so hit for hit - 2H is always better, and benefits more from damage multipliers. 

 

However if 1H style were a bit quicker, then it might be better.

Is it intentional that they attack at the same speed? I thought i read somewhere that 1H should generally be quicker?

 

Maybe give the "one-hand" style an innate armor penetration because "you have better control and can place the blows better"

[Sensuki]

It is intentional, yeah. The simplest solution would just to change it's recovery speed so it attacks faster than 2H and shields, IMO.

[axedice]

Doesn't the recovery time penalty compensate the damage loss for duelist style? IIRC from the attack speed/recovery charts, the system should be like this

 

Type             Attack Time        Recovery Time            Recovery Penalty          Total Time

Duelist           1.0 sec         +         1.0 sec           +             0 sec          =         2.0 sec

2Hander         1.0 sec         +         1.0 sec           +             1.0 sec       =         3.0 sec

 

1H+Shield has the same recovery penalty with 2 hander, so that would also be 3.0 secs total. Without armor etc.

[Sensuki]

I believe that chart is out of date.

 

Just did some testing, 1H style is actually faster now I think. Undocumented change.

 

edit 2: nope, they're the same ... the other thing might be a bug (BB Dwarf and PC with 10 Dex attack at different speeds without armor).

Edited February 28, 2015 by Sensuki

[Mazisky]

Did they change colour saturation at night?

 

Cause in the last videos on youtube  (435 build) night seems darker than before in the village.

[wanderon]

Just wanted to mention I've been fooling with some builds trying to decide on PC choices at release and have bumped the difficulty up to hard for the last half dozen teams which turned out to be - well not so hard compared to normal (which is what I have been playing all along).

 

There's a few more creatures but I don't notice much beyond that and I have been backing off on the resting so even if the party is kind of beat up I just carry on (after a quick save) and for the most part have been able to finish fights anyway (often with some party members napping by the end) which kind of surprised me.

 

Last two teams to meet the ogre for instance were both very beat up from the gazillion spiders but I thought - that's ok I'll finesse him into leaving except I screwed up the conversation and off to battle we went but managed to pull it off with almost no spells to work with and only a couple guys left standing at the end.

 

I'm getting used to the combat chaos and finding myself able to mostly sort it out - which should get even better when the action que is fixed and I can assign 2 or 3 actions at once to the back line guys so I can micro the front liners a bit more.

 

I am really getting hyped to start this game! 

[SergeantHans]

The bestiary doesent include monster damage type - it should definately include that!

[aeonsim]

The one exception for 1H builds maybe against enemies that significantly out level you giving you little chance to hit against their deflection. In that case a 1H build is likely to be able to get significantly more hits in or may shift you from all grazes to a mix of hits and grazes.