White March New Talents

[Doppelschwert]

As far as I know, there is no release date for the expansion announced so far.

 

I'm eager to replay the game with some less traditional builds by using the multiclass talents that have been mentioned at recent interviews. These talents capture a signature ability of a class and makes a minor version accessable to the other classes as well.

 

So, what do we know of these talents?

 

- Barbarian: Frenzy

- Chanter: Summon Skeleton

- Cipher: Charm

- Druid: ?

- Fighter: ?

- Monk: ?

- Paladin: ?

- Priest: ?

- Ranger: ?

- Rogue: Sneak Attack

- Wizard: ?

 

This information should all be contained in some form or the other in this thread.

 

 

Judging from the cipher, I'd guess the caster classes all yield a spell, maybe magic missile for the wizard and a simple heal for the priest. Monk might be something with unarmed damage, and fighter something equipment related, but otherwise I have no idea what's up for debate.

 

Sneak Attack alone seems to help a lot with turning classes more towards dps and all talents so far seem to make a lot of nice roleplaying concepts realizable as well.

 

I'd just be happy to see a list of the available talents in advance, just for thinking up some nice characters for the time we'll be able to actually play the expansion.

 

So, what do you think are the missing abilities? Do you think there will be additional talents available on top of the multiclass ones?

[Kriber22]

That pretty much sums up what we know, I think. I certainly haven't read anything more.

 

A more important question to me is whether hitting level 13 will make 3rd-level spells per encounter instead of per day.

[AndreaColombo]

Fighter's talent is Constant Recovery (named Veteran's Recovery.)

[Aea]

I've really got my fingers crossed for Blast as the Wizard talent. I've been itching to do a gimmicky Deadly Implement Monk build, so the ability to add a bit of AoE onto it would be great. Though granted, I'd welcome anything to make implements worth having since the only class that can make full use of them is also a class that really shouldn't be caught doing normal attacks to begin with. It's probably more likely that it'll be some form of basic spell though.

 

An unarmed combat bonus does seem like the likely candidate for the Monk one, and would make sense for any non-Monk people with Weapon Focus: Peasant. On that note, I'd also love it if you got a Wildshape as the Druid's one since that would open some interesting opportunities for more combat-oriented classes, though that may again be wishful thinking. Curious what the Ranger's emulating talent would be as well since the companion is such a double-edged sword. Baby's first Binding Roots maybe?

 

But yeah, whatever the specific talents end up being, it's good to see more of them in this direction. Nice as stacking bean counter bonuses can be, I've always been a sucker for character upgrades that give you access to new things your character can do and I can already think of several uses for out-of-class Sneak Attack and Charm. More talents is of course always nice to have, but I'd expect the cross-class ones to be the meat of it for this expansion. If things were planned differently, the announcements would likely have advertised it a bit harder. I'd also expect it to take a while before we actually get a list, since the entire function of the talents might still be subject to change until QA is done with it. It's far trickier to balance a whole new ability than an incremental buff to an existing one after all.

Edited July 11, 2015 by Aea

[Luckmann]

Question is how the "Multiclass" Rogue/Sneak Attack Talent will interact with the Skaen Priest Talent, which also provides a minor Sneak Attack.

[Fardragon]

To stack, or not to stack, that is the question.

[Doppelschwert]

Ok, so the pattern so far is that every multiclass talent covers a talent / a spell that is available to the corresponding class at level 1, apart from the wizard where we could argue that Arcane Assault is too heaviliy tied to the grimore in the lore. So assuming that what we know so far is true, e.g.

 

- Barbarian: Frenzy

- Chanter: Summon Skeleton (If their Bones Sleep Still Under that Hill, None Can Say)

- Cipher: Charm (Whisper of Treason)

- Druid: ?

- Fighter: Constant Recovery

- Monk: ?

- Paladin: ?

- Priest: ?

- Ranger: ?

- Rogue: Sneak Attack

- Wizard: Blast

 

then what is left could be

 

Druid: Some first level spell / Wildstrike (Spiritshift should probably stay unique)

Monk: Unarmed Damage (Wounds should probably stay unique)

Paladin: Lay on Hands, Flames of Devotion (Faith/Conviction would be a no brainer, should probably stay unique)

Priest: Some first level spell / Holy Radiance

Ranger: Wounding Shot / Marked Prey

 

Personally, I think blast should just be available to everyone and wizards should give arcane assault as a multiclass talent, so that everyone can shoot some magic missiles.

Unarmed Damage and Constant Recovery would also seem a bit boring to me since if these talents are weaker versions, they are not very attractive. The normal Unarmed Damage barely keeps up with enchanted weapons and constant recovery can be gained from equipment as well, which does not stack as far as I can remember. Anyway, we'll see.

[Doppelschwert]

Given this video at around the 2 minutes mark

http://www.ign.com/videos/2015/08/06/pillars-of-eternity-the-white-march-gameplay-demo-ign-live-gamescom-2015

one can make an educated guess as to what most of the unknown abilities do by their name alone.

 

Already known and unchanged:

- Barbarian: Frenzy
- Chanter: Summon Skeleton (If their Bones Sleep Still Under that Hill, None Can Say)
- Cipher: Charm (Whisper of Treason)
- Fighter: Constant Recovery
- Rogue: Sneak Attack

 

Changed:

- Wizard: Magic Missile (Can't read the first part, but it says missile -> hopefully, blast is a general talent, which would make me even more happy)

 

New Information:

 

- Monk: Unarmed damage (Novices Suffering as an allusion to transcended Suffering)

- Paladin: Accuracy Aura (Gallants Focus as an allusion to Zealous Focus)

- Priest: Radiance (Acolythes Radiance as an allusion to Holy Radiance)

- Ranger: Wounding Shot (Runners Wounding Shot)

- Druid:  Natures Mark (Aspirant's Mark as an allusion, although I'm unsure as I never play them)

 

 

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this list. There seems to be a lot of opportunities to come up with fun character concepts in terms of what they will be able to do. I hope the active abilities will be per encounter though, otherwise it would be hard to justify taking them, given that they are already weaker than their counterparts. If they are per encounter, I really like the change of the wizard talent, the paladin aura and the radiance addition.

Edited August 9, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[limaxophobiacq]

Baby Sneak Attack seems a no-brainer for any weapon-based DPS, why wouldnt I want my Barbarian to sneak attack 5+ guys in one swing?

 

Wonder if being able to take blast with Druid (if this is at all is something we'll see) is going to make rot-skulls even more ridiculous than minor blights with blast already is. Hoping for Blast triggered on every target for every tick on DoT. Seems reasonable.

 

Given that these are all supposed to be weaker than the class abilities, much weaker can a frenzy talent be and still really be worth both spending a talent on it and the time it takes to activiate it? I would really hope to make and wizard or druid who casts spells in a fit of furious rage, but it might just not be worth not getting to alpha-strike.

[Francis Ironwood]

Baby Sneak Attack seems a no-brainer for any weapon-based DPS, why wouldnt I want my Barbarian to sneak attack 5+ guys in one swing?

 

Wonder if being able to take blast with Druid (if this is at all is something we'll see) is going to make rot-skulls even more ridiculous than minor blights with blast already is. Hoping for Blast triggered on every target for every tick on DoT. Seems reasonable.

 

Given that these are all supposed to be weaker than the class abilities, much weaker can a frenzy talent be and still really be worth both spending a talent on it and the time it takes to activiate it? I would really hope to make and wizard or druid who casts spells in a fit of furious rage, but it might just not be worth not getting to alpha-strike.

Frenzy increases attack speed by x1.33 might by 4, and constitution by 4. I can see that being useful even slighty nerfed. I don't think and certainly hope that monk ability won't be unarmed damage. That just sounds totally and utterly useless. Is unarmed better even for a monk than just using weapons?

[AndreaColombo]

Right now monks are better off with weapons due to a bug that applies weapons' enchantment accuracy bonus to their special attacks. Once that's fixed, whether unarmed monks are better or not will become debatable.

[Doppelschwert]

The advantage in unarmed is mainly the availability of inherent quality enchantment. As soon as you hit the level where you are supposed to use weapons with fine / exceptional / superb qualities, the fists automatically get these advantages as well, and I think they are quite fast given that they deal crush damage.

 

It's nice to dual wield a sword and a fist to cover up all physical damage types at once, although it's clearly not very optimized in terms of playing the game in the best possible way. Still, from a RP point of view, I really love that the game lets me do that quite efficiently. It emulates a guy that uses one handed swords who occasionally uses his free hand as well, which is probably more close to actual fighting with a single weapon, at least for me.

 

Having said that, you still lose all the enchantments you could have on weapons if you are unarmed, so in a sense the unarmed monk is already slightly inferior to the monk fighting with weapons. How a version that is even more inferior to this should be lucrative is puzzling me as well from an efficiency point of view, but I'll surely make a non-monk character that uses his fists for RP reasons at some point in time.

Edited August 10, 2015 by Doppelschwert

[evilcat]

I wonder how will look the balance of number and quality of abilities and talents.

For casters it dosnt matter since abilities are just keep comming and talents are more for survival or toys.

But martial classes are more dependant on specific ability + talent combo. What if class end with all crappy abilities but to build decent tank or dps you need more talents than you have? For example with Defender nerf it coul dbe better to go with Hold the line + Caution attack so its 2 talents vs 1ability+1talent.

Maybe there will be time for "Talented Class: pick one more talent instead".