Best Talents

[wanderon]

Make sure you switch weapons during the shoot animation, after the hit frame. You have to pause the game after the shot as fast as possible.

 

And after pausing and choosing the next weapon click on where you want to attack or let the AI take over?

Edited February 17, 2015 by wanderon

[Sensuki]

yeah click on the weapon you want, it will change, and then select your target. There's a bug with AI at the moment, especially with ranged AI ... and yeah sometimes your character will just target someone else against your will, and there's nothing you can do to override it.

[Veevoir]

Biting Whip [Cipher] is fairly good. You're not at max focus very often, so you will usually qualify for the x1.2 damage. Might lose its potency down the line, as you'll be casting more spells more often and making less weapon attacks. 

I've been wondering about Cipher + Blunderbuss build lately - this (along with additional +5 DT talent) would allow for a shattering opening (well, this works for any class) that at the same time loads up a lot of focus for the Cipher - after all it does 8 attacks, making it prime choice for Cipher weapons..

 

And at later levels it still remains potent - you can open with spells and when needing focus - just one, well placed shot for all your needs.

 

That is - if soul whip range is far enough to be useful at all with ranged weapons.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Veevoir

[Sensuki]

Yeah it does, there's a guy on the SA forums that's been doing it and saying it adds a stack of focus, so you only need to fire the Blunderbuss once and then start casting again.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Yeah it does, there's a guy on the SA forums that's been doing it and saying it adds a stack of focus, so you only need to fire the Blunderbuss once and then start casting again.

 

Yeah, what I've been doing has been biting AND draining whip, with the Lead Spitter, and usually ruffian weapon set also; Penetrating Shot would be a good choice if Lead Spitter didn't exist. Max focus is twice starting focus and you get (I think) a point of focus for every two points of damage, plus 2 focus "per hit" from all 8 blunderbuss fragments. Usually that first blast + starting focus will take you to somewhere between 60-90 focus, which is usually enough oomph to carry you through until the fight's decided one way or another. 

 

They seem to have taken out the range limitation on soul whip, which I agree with, close range ciphers aren't nearly as much fun.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[J.E. Sawyer]

I know, I said that on the Codex just before. Every time I make a video I'm afraid Josh will nerf something I did 

 

If a tactic is clearly an unintended exploit or a Talent is such an obvious choice that taking anything else is pointless, of course I'm going to tune it down.  If we balance the game ignoring "no duh" options, then anyone who takes that path will find the game to be significantly less challenging.  If we balance the game assuming everyone is taking relatively overpowered options, it narrows the range of viable character concepts considerably.

[Havelok]

 

I know, I said that on the Codex just before. Every time I make a video I'm afraid Josh will nerf something I did 

 

If a tactic is clearly an unintended exploit or a Talent is such an obvious choice that taking anything else is pointless, of course I'm going to tune it down.  If we balance the game ignoring "no duh" options, then anyone who takes that path will find the game to be significantly less challenging.  If we balance the game assuming everyone is taking relatively overpowered options, it narrows the range of viable character concepts considerably.

 

 

First of all I will say that the effort and dedication that goes into balancing a huge game properly is monumental and we all thank you for it. However, I am going to make a case for "niche builds" that could be considered overpowered.

 

There are two types of players that like niche builds. Players that actively wish to use their knowledge of the game's mechanics to generate the builds themselves, and the players who wish to passively take advantage of these builds.

 

Both sides of the coin pursue the knowledge of niche builds out of a desire for player satisfaction.

 

The Active player derives satisfaction from the process of manipulating the underlying mechanics to find interesting and innovate alternatives to normal play, generally leaning toward being overpowered because "beating things to death as effectively as possible" is usually an easy target in a game with combat. 

 

The Passive player derives satisfaction from being able to make the "right" choice. By taking advantage of the Active player's quest for clever exploitation, the passive player rests easy knowing that they can make a correct decision in the giant maze of choices that some RPGs present in this day and age. For some people, choice is simply anxiety. 

 

Removing "wrong" choices does not alleviate this anxiety. It increases Apathy about the game's systems. When all the choices are the same, none of them matter. It makes it much more clear that they are just numbers in a RNG generator.  

 

I use the word "niche" to describe these overpowered builds because the majority of players will never encounter them. They can exist for those players who derive satisfaction from both finding and passively following them, while simply being invisible to those who don't spend hours and hours on internet forums looking for information. 

 

Just my thoughts.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I take it all back! Blunderciph is totally bogus! Fighters out damage me, half the time all the shots miss, and I get knocked out more than the rest of the party combined!

 

It is fun though. I think it works well in the beta because leadspitter is the best weapon in the beta and it takes advantage of that.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Removing "wrong" choices does not alleviate this anxiety. It increases Apathy about the game's systems. When all the choices are the same, none of them matter. It makes it much more clear that they are just numbers in a RNG generator.  

 

Yes, if all choices are the same, they don't matter, but the presence or absence of bad options does not change the similarity/dissimilarity of the options that remain.  If you have three options, two that are good, one that is bad, removing the bad one does not mean that the two good choices have become more similar.

 

I think the easiest place to see an example of a bifurcated progression system would be XCOM:EU or the iOS game Battleheart.  Both force the player to choose between two exclusive options as they advance.  The option that is left unselected cannot be selected in the future.  Because of this, the player is always doing a direct comparison of one choice to another, and never to other choices that are available at different levels.  Most of these options are quite dissimilar, mechanically.  An XCOM:EU Sniper's choice between Squadsight and Snap Shot or an Assault's choice between Lightning Reflexes and Close and Personal is very significant.  Many people (including I) could make arguments about the superiority of one of those options in each pair, but the absence of bad options doesn't make the choices that remain inconsequential -- far from it.

 

Perfect balance has never been a goal in PoE, but if something really sticks out like a sore thumb (insanely good, really bad) I will try to address it.  When F:NV first launched, all sniper rifles still had the x5 crit chance multiplier on them that they had in F3.  Practically speaking, it meant that you may as well use a sniper rifle in virtually all circumstances because even in an open firefight you could score crits with extremely high frequency.  The only real issue was .308 availability, which wasn't much of a problem at all.  I removed the x5 crit chance multiplier in the first patch and people complained about it, but the sniper rifles were still incredibly good as sniper rifles (i.e., at long range, especially from stealth).  Importantly, it didn't stop people from using sniper rifles at all because they were still very powerful, but in open firefights or at close range, they were more likely to switch to other weapons that worked better in those circumstances.

[Sensuki]

 

I know, I said that on the Codex just before. Every time I make a video I'm afraid Josh will nerf something I did 

 

If a tactic is clearly an unintended exploit or a Talent is such an obvious choice that taking anything else is pointless, of course I'm going to tune it down.  If we balance the game ignoring "no duh" options, then anyone who takes that path will find the game to be significantly less challenging.  If we balance the game assuming everyone is taking relatively overpowered options, it narrows the range of viable character concepts considerably.

 

Yes, and I agree but do you think 3 Knock Downs as of v435 is OP?

 

I think it's probably "really good", but not OP. Soul Shock and Thrice She Was Wronged - now they are OP.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Personally, I don't think 3 Knock Downs is overpowered, no.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

I tried Thrice She Was for the first time this morning and was kinda blown away by how good it was, even with minimal Might.

 

Gunswapping for huge alpha damage seems kinda exploity but people actually did that with muzzloaders so it's period accurate.

[Sensuki]

Weapon switching is bugged though, it shouldn't be THAT quick - bug reported though, so I assume it made the fix list.

[Sock]

For an ability, it's great. But it really should be a higher tier invocation.

[Infinitron]

 

The Passive player derives satisfaction from being able to make the "right" choice. By taking advantage of the Active player's quest for clever exploitation, the passive player rests easy knowing that they can make a correct decision in the giant maze of choices that some RPGs present in this day and age. For some people, choice is simply anxiety. 

 

 

Well, that's certainly a novel argument. But I really don't think anxiety works that way. If anything, the knowledge that there is "secret knowledge" out there about making the "right" choice only increases the passive player's anxiety. Because he'll constantly agonize about the possible long-term negative effects of making a "wrong" choice.

 

When there's balance between choices, players might be anxious about them when they arrive, but when they finally get over their anxiety and choose something, they can put that feeling behind them and move on with the game without worrying too much.

Edited February 24, 2015 by Infinitron

[Odd Hermit]

 

There are two types of players that like niche builds. Players that actively wish to use their knowledge of the game's mechanics to generate the builds themselves, and the players who wish to passively take advantage of these builds.

 

 

I enjoy building the strongest characters within the rules that I can, but at the same time I don't want my builds to trivialize the game. What's the point if the reward is essentially a lower difficulty setting?

 

It's a situation where you can't please everyone I guess. I personally would rather have very strict balance. 

 

I have a personality that just doesn't let me accept weaker builds, and thus strict balance ensures a player like myself has more variety. There were classes/races in the Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate games that were simply a non-option as far as I was concerned - as much as I wanted some of them to be good they just were clearly a downgrade from any objective perspective.

 

I think using Cleric domains in Icewind Dale II is a good way to explain what kind of "niche" building I'd rather see.

 

There were certainly some duds, but I ended up using some of the less popular ones because they weren't a direct downgrade and served certain purposes. My favorite being Mask. Mask had some worthless skill bonuses since Clerics just weren't suited to be using thief skills due to limited implementations of various things in IWDII's version of 3.0e, and thus was mostly overlooked. But it had some great defensive spell options(ones that you can't just have a wizard or sorcerer buff you with) along with free blind fight. I preferred it to the much more popular Tempus for a melee cleric. That's the kind of balance I like to see, where there's at least an argument to be made and personal preferences can factor in.

 

OTOH, there're imbalances like Half-Elves vs. Humans. There is literally no reasonable argument for taking Half-Elves in IWDII, other than "RP reasons". Humans get stronger and more versatile racial bonuses. Actually, I'd say Humans were fairly clearly > most non-ECL races for most builds. This is the kind of balance - or lack of - that I don't like.

 

IWD also ran into issues with casters just being completely dominant for HoF, but HoF was crazy and imbalanced, plus 3E favored casters at higher levels already.

[Whipstitch]

 

 

 When all the choices are the same, none of them matter.  

 

This sentiment is a surprisingly popular one, but in my experience it's largely an empty aphorism that rarely if ever applies to the games being discussed. That's because games can easily be complex enough that two choices can both be valuable to different types of characters and/or reward different behaviors and synergies. For example, passive health regeneration increases your durability in a manner that is independent of your personal damage output while life steal effects increase your durability in a manner that scales with your offensive capability but does not function at all in the absence of a target. Which one is superior is thus a pretty complex question that depends on a lot of moving parts, and in many cases the answer will depend entirely on what synergies come into play or what role the character tends to take during combat.

[constantine]

Make sure you switch weapons during the shoot animation, after the hit frame. You have to pause the game after the shot as fast as possible.

Isn't this an exploit ?

[wanderon]

 

Make sure you switch weapons during the shoot animation, after the hit frame. You have to pause the game after the shot as fast as possible.

Isn't this an exploit ?

 

 

Is it? If you are packing 3 guns and they are all loaded shouldn't you be able to use one and switch to another the same as you might switch from any weapon?

[Lephys]

Personally, I don't think 3 Knock Downs is overpowered, no.

Regarding this -- and this may be a dumb question, but -- Knockdown can fail, right? Or is it a guaranteed Knockdown no matter what?

[Sensuki]

You've used the ability in the game right?

Everything can fail (Knockdown attacks Deflection first, then Fortitude), except one of the item properties called retaliation, which is overpowered.

[Luckmann]

 

Make sure you switch weapons during the shoot animation, after the hit frame. You have to pause the game after the shot as fast as possible.

Isn't this an exploit ?

 

 

Depends on who you ask. If you ask me, it's very powerful but a completely reasonable action, packing 3 guns, all loaded, using one and switching to another; same as any other weapon, and historically how weapons like this might've been used at times - and certainly in the adventuring format presented, at least.

 

So if you ask Sawyer, it's probably an exploit.

[Odd Hermit]

 

 

Make sure you switch weapons during the shoot animation, after the hit frame. You have to pause the game after the shot as fast as possible.

Isn't this an exploit ?

 

 

Depends on who you ask. If you ask me, it's very powerful but a completely reasonable action, packing 3 guns, all loaded, using one and switching to another; same as any other weapon, and historically how weapons like this might've been used at times - and certainly in the adventuring format presented, at least.

 

So if you ask Sawyer, it's probably an exploit.

 

 

It's a reasonable use of the weapons but obviously if it requires precise pausing like this, it isn't intended.

 

I think they should just allow it to work more normally though, and balance guns as necessary.

[Sensuki]

There's a bug with the recovery of action cancel. I reported it. When fixed (if fixed properly) it still should be a good build, you won't be able to fire AS quickly though

[Lephys]

You've used the ability in the game right?

 

Everything can fail (Knockdown attacks Deflection first, then Fortitude), except one of the item properties called retaliation, which is overpowered.

Yeah, I've used it, but, truth-be-told, I don't pay much attention to what my Fighter does, since I'm all about some Wizardry.

 

I figured it used attack resolution, just like everything else, but I wasn't sure. Dunno. Just never really thought about that one ability before. I think in an earlier build, it was 1/encounter, so I just kind of assumed "maybe that can't fail," since having pretty much your only active ability as a Fighter fail three encounters in a row thanks to bad luck would be terrible. But, now that it's multiple uses per encounter, the only way I could see it being even possibly overpowered would be if it couldn't fail.