Why is Ectopsychic Echo so good?

[Raven Darkholme]

Like seriously, you get that with level 5, it doesn't hit friendlies and it only costs focus once, but melts everything which gets in its way.

Because I'm lazy I mainly use it to get my ciher out of trouble if melees atatck her, but I feel if I used intelligent micro positioning and spam that spell it would be one of the best damage dealers ingame.

[Bubbles]

Because contrary to popular memes, the game has not been properly balanced at all.

[Torm51]

Because contrary to popular memes, the game has not been properly balanced at all.

I do not think I have ever played a game where people think its properly balanced.  Whine City all day everyday.  I agree it isn't perfect but it isn't bad.

[Raven Darkholme]

Well they at least are trying to balance, but they don't do it from the gamers perspective, I feel.

[Evange]

This is not a MMO or MOBA...why care so much about balance??? If you feel that it is OP then don't use it.

[tinysalamander]

This is not a MMO or MOBA...why care so much about balance??? If you feel that it is OP then don't use it.

 

Because balance has nothing to do with being MMO or MOBA game.

[Raven Darkholme]

This is not a MMO or MOBA...why care so much about balance??? If you feel that it is OP then don't use it.

I clearly stated in my first post why.

And "not use it" is the most stupid argument ever.

I like the spell, I wanna use it, I like the concept but I don't like how good it is compared to how little focus you need to kill A LOT of enemies.

As I said above I use it to keep melees of my back and don't even use it to it's full potential most time.

[Torm51]

Well they at least are trying to balance, but they don't do it from the gamers perspective, I feel.

 

 

What other perspective do you feel that they use?

[MadDemiurg]

Is it really a question? Why is <random ability> in PoE so good/bad?. Because balancing is often done in a weird way creating new imbalances with each patch and balance wasn't there in the first place. It's not like Ectopsychic echo is special. It has its limitations like very high DT enemies and there are plenty of other OP spells and abilities.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Well they at least are trying to balance, but they don't do it from the gamers perspective, I feel.

 

 

 

What other perspective do you feel that they use?

If nobody complains we don't need to fix.

Is it really a question? Why is <random ability> in PoE so good/bad?. Because balancing is often done in a weird way creating new imbalances with each patch and balance wasn't there in the first place. It's not like Ectopsychic echo is special. It has its limitations like very high DT enemies and there are plenty of other OP spells and abilities.

I feel like high DT enemies are especially vulnerable to it, since the echo relentlessly rolls every second and sometimes with 50+ damage, nobody has that high DT.

Ofc there are other too strong abilities, but can you spam them the same way? Most certainly not.

[MadDemiurg]

 

 

Well they at least are trying to balance, but they don't do it from the gamers perspective, I feel.

 

 

What other perspective do you feel that they use?

If nobody complains we don't need to fix.

Is it really a question? Why is <random ability> in PoE so good/bad?. Because balancing is often done in a weird way creating new imbalances with each patch and balance wasn't there in the first place. It's not like Ectopsychic echo is special. It has its limitations like very high DT enemies and there are plenty of other OP spells and abilities.

I feel like high DT enemies are especially vulnerable to it, since the echo relentlessly rolls every second and sometimes with 50+ damage, nobody has that high DT.

Ofc there are other too strong abilities, but can you spam them the same way? Most certainly not.

 

DT clearly hurts beams more than any other types of attack, since it fully applies to each tick (unlike DoTs where each tick is only reduced by 25% of DT or single hit abilities where it only applies once). 50+ damage is a bit of an exaggeration, maybe on a lucky crit. Overall it doesn't do that much damage to enemies with 20-30 DT, Granted there are not that many of these. As for spammability - well, chanter's Dragon Trashed does like 160 aoe damage over time passively with good stats and some abilities like rogue's deathblows add a ton of damage passively as well. As I said, yes, it's one of the OP abilities, but there are tons of these in the game.

[Krajzen]

Because contrary to popular memes, the game has not been properly balanced at all.

 

Meh, I have seen much worse balanced games.

 

Though I have to admit, in my team Aloth used this black-oil-knockdown level 1 spell for the entire game and till the last fight, it has been absurdly good :D Meanwhile some late level spells were absurdly weak. 

 

Spell level 3 - ton of AoE fire/shock/acid damage

Spell level 5 - wait, seriously, few seconds of Hobbled?

 

or for my Monk Girl:

 

Skills I learned at first few levels - wow amazing let's see what late levels will bring!

Level 11 Flagellant's Path - wait, that's it? That was the effect? I didn't even see that! Let me use these skills <I used for the entire game> again...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, this is what I would work with - skill balance and timing. I also went through the entire game at Hard without even thinking about taking these 'attack bonus against x type of opponent' and 'defense bonus against y element' enhancements/talents. If I have 6 characters in my team and there are 6 main groups of enemies, taking one 25% dmg bonus for one character means overall, in team terms, few % of dmg more overall... But maybe I failed to discover hidden potential here.

 

I think between-classes-balance is quite good, as between-companions-usefullness-balance. At first I thought Wizards suck but then Aloth became my favourite companion to use besides my main character. Now only Ranger and Shapeshifting skill of (overall good) Druid need some buff.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Krajzen

[Nobear]

I'd say this game's balance is on the better end of RPGs. Optimizing stats/items/etc. makes things marginally easier than they would be otherwise, as should be the case. Compare this with games where optimizing makes things orders of magnitude easier.

 

I am thinking of Oblivion, or any Elder Scrolls game for that matter. To go with Oblivion, let me just name one example. If you pick the Breton race, you get a flat 50% resistance to ALL magic. Why would you choose any other race unless you were trying to cripple yourself or RP? Then you get ONE ring (ironically called the Mundane Ring) with another 50% resistance, which adds to give you complete immunity to magic. Then you're immune not just to damaging spells, but to any and all magic effects, making the game so trivial it feels totally cheap, even at maximum difficulty. There are tons of other legitimate ways to make yourself ridiculously overpowered. This also means the difficulty curve is ridiculous. On max difficulty, the game starts out hard, but becomes trivial as you progress. Fortunately the game (and series) has other merits, like the story and open world, but this level of imbalance made me lose interest anyway.

 

So... saying PoE is imbalanced, when such a hugely popular and successful RPG series as Elder Scrolls is orders of magnitude worse, makes me roll my eyes. PoE is balanced enough to keep my interest, and that's all the balance that's really necessary for a single-player RPG. Minor balance tweaks would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: some might improve the game, whereas some might go too far, or take development time to present a trade-off that isn't a net benefit. As for bug fixes, tooltip accuracy, consistency across different interface elements such as the character sheet... yeah, those things would make the game feel more polished, and improve an already great game.

 

Just my 2c.

[Raven Darkholme]

DT clearly hurts beams more than any other types of attack, since it fully applies to each tick (unlike DoTs where each tick is only reduced by 25% of DT or single hit abilities where it only applies once). 50+ damage is a bit of an exaggeration, maybe on a lucky crit. Overall it doesn't do that much damage to enemies with 20-30 DT, Granted there are not that many of these. As for spammability - well, chanter's Dragon Trashed does like 160 aoe damage over time passively with good stats and some abilities like rogue's deathblows add a ton of damage passively as well. As I said, yes, it's one of the OP abilities, but there are tons of these in the game.

 

 

You gain that chant with level 9, Echo is a level 5 power.

Same goes for deathblows.

 

 

Because contrary to popular memes, the game has not been properly balanced at all.

 

Meh, I have seen much worse balanced games.

 

Though I have to admit, in my team Aloth used this black-oil-knockdown level 1 spell for the entire game and till the last fight, it has been absurdly good :D Meanwhile some late level spells were absurdly weak. 

 

Spell level 3 - ton of AoE fire/shock/acid damage

Spell level 5 - wait, seriously, few seconds of Hobbled?

 

or for my Monk Girl:

 

Skills I learned at first few levels - wow amazing let's see what late levels will bring!

Level 11 Flagellant's Path - wait, that's it? That was the effect? I didn't even see that! Let me use these skills <I used for the entire game> again...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, this is what I would work with - skill balance and timing. I also went through the entire game at Hard without even thinking about taking these 'attack bonus against x type of opponent' and 'defense bonus against y element' enhancements/talents. If I have 6 characters in my team and there are 6 main groups of enemies, taking one 25% dmg bonus for one character means overall, in team terms, few % of dmg more overall... But maybe I failed to discover hidden potential here.

 

I think between-classes-balance is quite good, as between-companions-usefullness-balance. At first I thought Wizards suck but then Aloth became my favourite companion to use besides my main character. Now only Ranger and Shapeshifting skill of (overall good) Druid need some buff.

 

That's my point exactly some spells come very early and are super good.

 

 

I'd say this game's balance is on the better end of RPGs. Optimizing stats/items/etc. makes things marginally easier than they would be otherwise, as should be the case. Compare this with games where optimizing makes things orders of magnitude easier.

 

I am thinking of Oblivion, or any Elder Scrolls game for that matter. To go with Oblivion, let me just name one example. If you pick the Breton race, you get a flat 50% resistance to ALL magic. Why would you choose any other race unless you were trying to cripple yourself or RP? Then you get ONE ring (ironically called the Mundane Ring) with another 50% resistance, which adds to give you complete immunity to magic. Then you're immune not just to damaging spells, but to any and all magic effects, making the game so trivial it feels totally cheap, even at maximum difficulty. There are tons of other legitimate ways to make yourself ridiculously overpowered. This also means the difficulty curve is ridiculous. On max difficulty, the game starts out hard, but becomes trivial as you progress. Fortunately the game (and series) has other merits, like the story and open world, but this level of imbalance made me lose interest anyway.

 

So... saying PoE is imbalanced, when such a hugely popular and successful RPG series as Elder Scrolls is orders of magnitude worse, makes me roll my eyes. PoE is balanced enough to keep my interest, and that's all the balance that's really necessary for a single-player RPG. Minor balance tweaks would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: some might improve the game, whereas some might go too far, or take development time to present a trade-off that isn't a net benefit. As for bug fixes, tooltip accuracy, consistency across different interface elements such as the character sheet... yeah, those things would make the game feel more polished, and improve an already great game.

 

Just my 2c.

 

You can't compare Elder Scrolls IV or V with a tactical game, they are extremely dumbed down. I played Skyrim on Legendary extensively and while it seemed super hard when I first tried it out, you learn so many exploits that fast it takes all joy out of playing. In Skyrim you can get filthy rich and level at the same time, without doing any quests OR fights. You could go level 50 before you even start the main quest and the only quests you would do are the ones unlocking free alchemy stuff, which are pure messenger quests that last less than half an hour. While making money and leveling you would level alchemy and enchanting which are super important for max armor and weapons. With the money you make you can go to skill trainers and level smithing and before you know it you are at the armor cap and your weapon damage is not capped so expect it to oneshot most things you encounter.

What you say about bretons is almost true for Skyrim as well, only that the cap for MR is 87% but you can also get 87% elemental resistances which in the end leaves you with total immunity to spells anyway (They do like 1 damage if you're facing a high level dragon, otherwise 0.)

 

A tactical game SHOULD NOT compare to a dumb game, that appeals to the masses.

[Nobear]

You can't compare Elder Scrolls IV or V with a tactical game, they are extremely dumbed down. I played Skyrim on Legendary extensively and while it seemed super hard when I first tried it out, you learn so many exploits that fast it takes all joy out of playing. In Skyrim you can get filthy rich and level at the same time, without doing any quests OR fights. You could go level 50 before you even start the main quest and the only quests you would do are the ones unlocking free alchemy stuff, which are pure messenger quests that last less than half an hour. While making money and leveling you would level alchemy and enchanting which are super important for max armor and weapons. With the money you make you can go to skill trainers and level smithing and before you know it you are at the armor cap and your weapon damage is not capped so expect it to oneshot most things you encounter.

What you say about bretons is almost true for Skyrim as well, only that the cap for MR is 87% but you can also get 87% elemental resistances which in the end leaves you with total immunity to spells anyway (They do like 1 damage if you're facing a high level dragon, otherwise 0.)

 

A tactical game SHOULD NOT compare to a dumb game, that appeals to the masses.

 

While certain people from the outside might group all RPGs together, you do have a good point that they can differ significantly in style and focus, and, by extension, in audience. So PoE, belonging to a lineage of RPGs considered spiritual successors to Baldur's Gate, has an audience that is, generally, more demanding in the details of game mechanics. Granted.

 

That said, balance is still not as paramount in any single-player game as in a multiplayer game, and some people are acting as if the various classes in PoE were competing against each other in PvP, or for raiding spots in an MMO. I think one advantage of a single-player game is that it doesn't have to fall victim to what I'd consider over-balancing.

 

I'll give WoW as an example, at the other extreme from Oblivion, as a game that became over-balanced at the expense of classes being unique and fun. As just one of many examples, take healing. Each class of healer once had its niche: druids were best for HoTs (heal over time), priests or shamans for AoE heals, and paladins for single-target throughput (typically as a main tank healer). But instead of embracing their class's uniqueness and taking pride in what they brought to the table, many players complained that they couldn't heal as well in the niche of another class. In response, Blizzard gave all healing classes the same basic healing spells, that differed only in graphical appearance. More balanced? Yes. More fun or interesting? Hell no. A better game? Not in my book!

 

Before you point out how different a game WoW is from PoE (even though they're both RPGs), that's the point. A single-player game doesn't have to fall victim to overbalancing if it sacrifices uniqueness between classes or - ultimately - fun. I grant that there are probably a number of options for balance tweaks to PoE that would be overall positive changes, I'm just arguing that the balance doesn't need to be so close to perfect as it would if it were a multiplayer game. I like looking forward to a spell or ability with my mouth watering thinking "this is godly, I can't wait to see the pain this brings." It doesn't bother me that some spells are better than others, as long as they're not game-breaking and the overall experience is sufficiently challenging and enjoyable, which it is for me so far.

Edited June 18, 2015 by Nobear

[Raven Darkholme]

 

While certain people from the outside might group all RPGs together, you do have a good point that they can differ significantly in style and focus, and, by extension, in audience. So PoE, belonging to a lineage of RPGs considered spiritual successors to Baldur's Gate, has an audience that is, generally, more demanding in the details of game mechanics. Granted.

 

That said, balance is still not as paramount in any single-player game as in a multiplayer game, and some people are acting as if the various classes in PoE were competing against each other in PvP, or for raiding spots in an MMO. I think one advantage of a single-player game is that it doesn't have to fall victim to what I'd consider over-balancing.

 

I'll give WoW as an example, at the other extreme from Oblivion, as a game that became over-balanced at the expense of classes being unique and fun. As just one of many examples, take healing. Each class of healer once had its niche: druids were best for HoTs (heal over time), priests or shamans for AoE heals, and paladins for single-target throughput (typically as a main tank healer). But instead of embracing their class's uniqueness and taking pride in what they brought to the table, many players complained that they couldn't heal as well in the niche of another class. In response, Blizzard gave all healing classes the same basic healing spells, that differed only in graphical appearance. More balanced? Yes. More fun or interesting? Hell no. A better game? Not in my book!

 

Before you point out how different a game WoW is from PoE (even though they're both RPGs), that's the point. A single-player game doesn't have to fall victim to overbalancing if it sacrifices uniqueness between classes or - ultimately - fun. I grant that there are probably a number of options for balance tweaks to PoE that would be overall positive changes, I'm just arguing that the balance doesn't need to be so close to perfect as it would if it were a multiplayer game. I like looking forward to a spell or ability with my mouth watering thinking "this is godly, I can't wait to see the pain this brings." It doesn't bother me that some spells are better than others, as long as they're not game-breaking and the overall experience is sufficiently challenging and enjoyable, which it is for me so far.

 

I never played WoW, so don't worry I won't argue, you can't compare them. :D

For me personally balance in a game like PoE means I get a tactical challenge.

I not unlike you also love a spell I can look forward to and which brings the pain.

But when you get level 5 spells like detonate, which are absolutely worthless and then look at a level 3 spell Echo which absolutely destroys things, you wonder whether you enjoy the level up as much.^^

[Luckmann]

Because contrary to popular memes, the game has not been properly balanced at all.

 

That particular joke is about the obsession with balance, not the successful implementation of it.

[Raven Darkholme]

 

 

 

Well they at least are trying to balance, but they don't do it from the gamers perspective, I feel.

 

 

What other perspective do you feel that they use?

If nobody complains we don't need to fix.

Is it really a question? Why is <random ability> in PoE so good/bad?. Because balancing is often done in a weird way creating new imbalances with each patch and balance wasn't there in the first place. It's not like Ectopsychic echo is special. It has its limitations like very high DT enemies and there are plenty of other OP spells and abilities.

I feel like high DT enemies are especially vulnerable to it, since the echo relentlessly rolls every second and sometimes with 50+ damage, nobody has that high DT.

Ofc there are other too strong abilities, but can you spam them the same way? Most certainly not.

 

DT clearly hurts beams more than any other types of attack, since it fully applies to each tick (unlike DoTs where each tick is only reduced by 25% of DT or single hit abilities where it only applies once). 50+ damage is a bit of an exaggeration, maybe on a lucky crit. Overall it doesn't do that much damage to enemies with 20-30 DT, Granted there are not that many of these. As for spammability - well, chanter's Dragon Trashed does like 160 aoe damage over time passively with good stats and some abilities like rogue's deathblows add a ton of damage passively as well. As I said, yes, it's one of the OP abilities, but there are tons of these in the game.

 

So Mad, I just did the Cail fight with my 3 chicks group and again massively used echo. Killed all drakes with it including Cail

Against Cailk who has a whopping 24 DT I regularly did over 20 dmg all hits no crits. One graze even did 16, the highest hit did 29.

Crazy about it is the number of hits grazes I land on that mofo without any debuffs or accuracy selfbuffs I destroy him in the duration of 2 beams. The damage done by my bow and my pally + fighter is not even nearly on the same level. (cipher level 9)

Edited June 24, 2015 by Raven Darkholme

[MadDemiurg]

Might be some glitch with DT calculation, I've encountered these a few times. Realistically you should be doing (20-30)*1.7 damage on hits and (20-30)*1.2  damage on grazes at 20 might, which implies less damage. Unless you somehow have much more might? And paladin and fighter tanks are not supposed to do damage anyway .

[Raven Darkholme]

In that fight I had no resting or food boni, so "only" 20 MI.

[swordofthesith]

I run a party with a Dwarf Fortress (Fighter) 2 Rogues (one setup for a 2H spike damage build, other setup as a DoT/DPS build)... and 3 Ciphers.

 

Combat begins. I engage with the Dwarf Fortress, flank with one of my Rogues and then hit the Escape power while at the same time targeting the rogue with Ectopsychic Echo from all 3 of my Ciphers.

 

Ectopsychic Echo triggers, Rogue teleports behind the enemy line around my fighter and absolute carnage ensues.

 

I am ROLFSTOMPING pretty much everything in the game with this setup. Ectopsychic Echo = Easy Mode. They ought to change it back to being capable of friendly fire at least. Right now, without friendly fire, it's just too easy to position and clear out fights with this power. 

Edited July 1, 2015 by swordofthesith

[Raven Darkholme]

I run a party with a Dwarf Fortress (Fighter) 2 Rogues (one setup for a 2H spike damage build, other setup as a DoT/DPS build)... and 3 Ciphers.

 

Combat begins. I engage with the Dwarf Fortress, flank with one of my Rogues and then hit the Escape power while at the same time targeting the rogue with Ectopsychic Echo from all 3 of my Ciphers.

 

Ectopsychic Echo triggers, Rogue teleports behind the enemy line around my fighter and absolute carnage ensues.

 

I am ROLFSTOMPING pretty much everything in the game with this setup. Ectopsychic Echo = Easy Mode. They ought to change it back to being capable of friendly fire at least. Right now, without friendly fire, it's just too easy to position and clear out fights with this power. 

You pretty much thought of an awesome strategy I was too lazy to come up with myself, but I saw the theoretical capability of EE, thats why I opened this post.

As to FF, as soon as somebody said"Echo doesn't do FF", I was like wtf, didn't it do FF before?

Many people denied it ever was, but I'm pretty sure it was at least in 1.03 maybe in 4 also.

[swordofthesith]

 

I run a party with a Dwarf Fortress (Fighter) 2 Rogues (one setup for a 2H spike damage build, other setup as a DoT/DPS build)... and 3 Ciphers.

 

Combat begins. I engage with the Dwarf Fortress, flank with one of my Rogues and then hit the Escape power while at the same time targeting the rogue with Ectopsychic Echo from all 3 of my Ciphers.

 

Ectopsychic Echo triggers, Rogue teleports behind the enemy line around my fighter and absolute carnage ensues.

 

I am ROLFSTOMPING pretty much everything in the game with this setup. Ectopsychic Echo = Easy Mode. They ought to change it back to being capable of friendly fire at least. Right now, without friendly fire, it's just too easy to position and clear out fights with this power. 

You pretty much thought of an awesome strategy I was too lazy to come up with myself, but I saw the theoretical capability of EE, thats why I opened this post.

As to FF, as soon as somebody said"Echo doesn't do FF", I was like wtf, didn't it do FF before?

Many people denied it ever was, but I'm pretty sure it was at least in 1.03 maybe in 4 also.

 

 

Hey Raven!

 

Keep in mind that the range for Escape is quite short. There are times when it's better to slap Boots of Speed your designated EE magnet and have them run around the enemy line as they engage your fighter.

 

But the Escape teleport with EE is extremely bad ass. You should try it sometime. ^_^

[Nobear]

I run a party with a Dwarf Fortress (Fighter) 2 Rogues (one setup for a 2H spike damage build, other setup as a DoT/DPS build)... and 3 Ciphers.

 

Combat begins. I engage with the Dwarf Fortress, flank with one of my Rogues and then hit the Escape power while at the same time targeting the rogue with Ectopsychic Echo from all 3 of my Ciphers.

 

Ectopsychic Echo triggers, Rogue teleports behind the enemy line around my fighter and absolute carnage ensues.

 

I am ROLFSTOMPING pretty much everything in the game with this setup. Ectopsychic Echo = Easy Mode. They ought to change it back to being capable of friendly fire at least. Right now, without friendly fire, it's just too easy to position and clear out fights with this power. 

 

Wow, now that is a really awesome strategy. I'd be inclined to try a 2nd tank instead of 2nd rogue for PoTD but still, that sounds ungodly.

[swordofthesith]

 

I run a party with a Dwarf Fortress (Fighter) 2 Rogues (one setup for a 2H spike damage build, other setup as a DoT/DPS build)... and 3 Ciphers.

 

Combat begins. I engage with the Dwarf Fortress, flank with one of my Rogues and then hit the Escape power while at the same time targeting the rogue with Ectopsychic Echo from all 3 of my Ciphers.

 

Ectopsychic Echo triggers, Rogue teleports behind the enemy line around my fighter and absolute carnage ensues.

 

I am ROLFSTOMPING pretty much everything in the game with this setup. Ectopsychic Echo = Easy Mode. They ought to change it back to being capable of friendly fire at least. Right now, without friendly fire, it's just too easy to position and clear out fights with this power. 

 

Wow, now that is a really awesome strategy. I'd be inclined to try a 2nd tank instead of 2nd rogue for PoTD but still, that sounds ungodly.

 

 

Yeah. You can drop the 2nd rogue. Put in a Priest and you've basically pressed the Auto Win button for Pillars of Eternity. Very, very few encounters can wipe you with that setup. 

 

With my Ciphers protected by Consecrated Ground the Lighthouse was absolute cake. Cail the Silent and his horde of drakes from Cinders of Faith quest line got WTFPWNED. I don't think there's many fights I could lose with this party configuration. 

Edited July 2, 2015 by swordofthesith