Three fights was all it took...

[cavemandiary]

..For my hired barbarian(1 level lower) to have done more damage than my tank paladin, in twin elms. One stands alone with retaliation on a fire godlike max int/might barb is just crazy broken, especially with the jolting touch boots. Granted, this interaction is probably bugged and unintentional*, and tank pala is not exactly known for doing a lot of DPS, but still it was pretty funny looking at the statscreen, considering my barb had been in my party for 5-10 minutes, while the paladin had been in my party for 22 hours of playtime.

 

Not suggesting that you do this, but if you want to cheese POTD, this is one way to do it.

 

*OSA adds 20 flat damage to your normal attack when engaged with 2 enemies, each of your retaliations(with the retaliation mod found on a couple of items), your godlike ability when below 50% END, oh and jolting touch works with carnage (I was instagibbing ogre druids on POTD with it).

[Parsong]

They should change OSA and Carnage to only work with your weapons attacks and he'll be balanced out.

[cavemandiary]

They should change OSA and Carnage to only work with your weapons attacks and he'll be balanced out.

Probably what was intended, but sloppy programming/oversight I guess.

[ShadowTiger]

To be fair even without OSA and the boots my barbarian is the biggest damage dealer in the party.

[Matt516]

Or just change OSA to be a percentage modifier like literally everything else. ;P

Make it 50% and it'll still be a great ability. Critting all the time for free is no joke.

[MadDemiurg]

Well, you're abusing several bugs at the same time. Might as well stack infinite DR while at it. None of these is working as intended. Also, pala is probably the worst dps class, especially when fully tank specced. I have one mid level party where everyone is 30k+ damage and pala is like 2k.

 

I'm pretty sure OSA should be 20% and is a coding error.

 

Jolting touch/battleforged are just bugs.

Edited April 9, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Parsong]

Well, you're abusing several bugs at the same time. Might as well stack infinite DR while at it. None of these is working as intended. Also, pala is probably the worst dps class, especially when fully tank specced. I have one mid level party where everyone is 30k+ damage and pala is like 2k.

 

I'm pretty sure OSA should be 20% and is a coding error.

 

Jolting touch/battleforged are just bugs.

 

How do you stack infinite DR? I doubt it's as easy as simply clicking a talent on level up.

[Infares]

 

Well, you're abusing several bugs at the same time. Might as well stack infinite DR while at it. None of these is working as intended. Also, pala is probably the worst dps class, especially when fully tank specced. I have one mid level party where everyone is 30k+ damage and pala is like 2k.

 

I'm pretty sure OSA should be 20% and is a coding error.

 

Jolting touch/battleforged are just bugs.

 

How do you stack infinite DR? I doubt it's as easy as simply clicking a talent on level up.

Basically sometimes the +4 DR you get from the FG passive doesn't go away, and successive applications are additive. 

[Parsong]

FG passive?

[cavemandiary]

Fire godlike

[cavemandiary]

Well, you're abusing several bugs at the same time. Might as well stack infinite DR while at it. None of these is working as intended. Also, pala is probably the worst dps class, especially when fully tank specced. I have one mid level party where everyone is 30k+ damage and pala is like 2k.

 

I'm pretty sure OSA should be 20% and is a coding error.

 

Jolting touch/battleforged are just bugs.

Pretty much repeating what I already pre-emptively wrote in the OP.

[Shadenuat]

TBH things like that, ability to put weapon, race and item procs inside class ability is what makes building characters fun. If developers would start balancing all that and put various barriers around our ability to experiment there won't be much left to the combat system of the game, because game is easy and most of the enemy encounters aren't fun to beat. Changing classes during play at least is.

 

And barb is good. I made a barb on PoTD after act 2, finished bounties and a bunch of mega-dungeon levels with him and he has almost 100k damage, 2-5 times more than any character in party. That's just Frenzy, clothes, Tall Grass pike & chanter's fire weapons aura.

[MadDemiurg]

It's not balancing, it's bug fixes.

Edited April 10, 2015 by MadDemiurg

[Infares]

It's not balancing, it's bug fixes.

Indeed. Balance isn't a conversation we can even have until the exploits are gone.

[Ichthyic]

you can also stack DR with items.  any item that specifically only adds damage reductions, like the blunting belt, can be equipped on a character, and any place that you can save/laod and add stats, the dr will add as well.

also, this works if you leave it equipped on a character you leave in the keep.  come back in a few turns, and the dr will have permastacked.

not saying this is a GOOD thing, mind you.  I consider it a very annoying bug, and has caused me to backtrack to previous saves on numerous ocassions, before I figured out just to entirely strip anyone you leave in your keep.

this is all the release version, I have no idea if they have tried to fix this in the current patch, which I don't ever plan to touch.

I'll wait a month or so, until there actually is a stable patch, and the first serious game balance issues have been decided.  then I'll apply whatever that patch is.

 

Edited April 10, 2015 by Ichthyic