2.0 Expansion - Strongest builds right now?

[pi2repsion]

It works fine on any wizard. I got my wiz running atm in full plate almost 30 DR to fire/frost due to being pale elf and a lot more with ele resist spell.

Guess I'm just addicted to speed.

 

I feel the need.. the need for speed!

[anameforobsidian]

 

Something I welcome. Keeps the game and various builds fresh for multiple playthroughs over time. 

 

 

I don't believe that for a second (and in fact suspect that you are making a deliberately contentious statement). This isn't an MMO where the nerf-buff-nerf cycle is necessary to keep players rerolling, regearing and therefore spending money. (Or where, indeed, PvP-and-sometimes-PvE-induced butthurt results in strident cries of "OMG SO OP NERF ASAP SUB CANCELT WAITING 4 <insert next hot upcoming MMO title here>").

 

For most people, PoE will be one-and-done, maybe two-and-done for those who want to go for achievements. There's nothing wrong with it, PoE is not open-ended like Skyrim, it tells one story that is fairly on rails and has a definite end. It doesn't even have two distinct story branches like Witcher 2 for example, so people are unlikely to replay it more than maybe a couple times.

 

For those wishing to do so, there are multiple classes and multiple races. This offers plenty of "fresh" experience. Ripping the guts out of the gameplay of one or another class just to keep it "fresh" is poorly justified at best, and smacks of chronically bad design choices at worst. Outside of fixing outright bug-induced exploits, single-player games should offer a fairly stable and consistent environment - at least compared to MMOs. If it is necessary to rebuild characters and drastically change your playstyle every time a patch drops, then at the very least, it leaves a very bad impression; combine that with the necessity to dodge the ever-swinging nerf bat, and one may start to wonder why they aren't playing an MMO in the first place.

 

 

"Ripping the guts out" is pure hyperbole.  Yes, they do make modest changes so that you can't faceroll the game. Breaking the game once is fun, but you effectively have nothing to do with a character once they've broken the game.  All fights become repetition and repetition becomes boring.  Then the advice spreads online, new players look at it, and complain about the game being too easy.  Therefore, it's in the best interest of game devs and players for the devs to have the best version of the game available at any time.

 

Also, despite bitching, patches almost never make a class or build unusable.  PE is very friendly to suboptimal builds, especially at lower difficulty levels.  Most players play on normal.  The complaining comes from people who are playing PotD runs, yet whining when patching makes a hard mode hard.

 

Furthermore, rule changes in non-MMOs happen all the time.  Chess went through a bunch before it reached its current form.  Solitaire has a bunch of variants.  Pokemon is mostly singleplayer and they've gone through a bunch of changes.  DnD changed 3.0 to 3.5 and Pathfinder made 3.5++.  Even the Witcher 2 changed balance in patches.

[Elric Galad]

 

Per is not only about accuracy. It is also interrupt.

 

With per encounter lvl 3 spells, wizard can chain cast fast fireball while buffed by alacrity. Interrupting blow does apply to spell.

 

So I think interrupt wizard might worth considering now, especially because it uses the same stats as Crowd Control.

Good point. Might even be worth taking the Interrupting Blows talent for +15 interrupt since the effect doesn't mention only applying to attacks; I assume it also works for spells despite the name of the talent. (This needs to be tested).

 

EDIT: Nope, doesn't seem to work.

 

 

Are you sure about interrupting blow not applying to spells  ?

 

I tested it once with a druid and it seemed to work.

 

 

I did test again today with Durance. Divine mark got +14 (why not +15, we'll never know) for interrupt after respecing with the talent.

 

I tried also with iconic projection, I had a good interrupt value. I did not respec to compare, though.

 

Also the spreadsheet shows a buffed interrupt value that does not seem specific to attack.

 

So my hypothesis is that interrupt works with spells (as long as they have an interrupt value).

Unless it is only on some spells ? 

Edited September 4, 2015 by Elric Galad

[pi2repsion]

 

 

Per is not only about accuracy. It is also interrupt.

 

With per encounter lvl 3 spells, wizard can chain cast fast fireball while buffed by alacrity. Interrupting blow does apply to spell.

 

So I think interrupt wizard might worth considering now, especially because it uses the same stats as Crowd Control.

Good point. Might even be worth taking the Interrupting Blows talent for +15 interrupt since the effect doesn't mention only applying to attacks; I assume it also works for spells despite the name of the talent. (This needs to be tested).

 

EDIT: Nope, doesn't seem to work.

 

 

Are you sure about interrupting blow not applying to spells  ?

 

I tested it once with a druid and it seemed to work.

No, I am not sure. I only had time for a few short tests with a wizard and was at the time unsure how to interpret the results where grazes and crits were concerned; My tentative conclusion at the time was that it didn't seem to work, but I didn't feel confident enough to state so categorically.

 

I haven't taken the time to investigate it more closely since then, mainly because I got 4th level spells after which setting up continuous interruption of enemy casters via Wall of Fire became trivial for my Per 18 (16+Torc) wizard.

[Elric Galad]

 

 

 

Per is not only about accuracy. It is also interrupt.

 

With per encounter lvl 3 spells, wizard can chain cast fast fireball while buffed by alacrity. Interrupting blow does apply to spell.

 

So I think interrupt wizard might worth considering now, especially because it uses the same stats as Crowd Control.

Good point. Might even be worth taking the Interrupting Blows talent for +15 interrupt since the effect doesn't mention only applying to attacks; I assume it also works for spells despite the name of the talent. (This needs to be tested).

 

EDIT: Nope, doesn't seem to work.

 

 

Are you sure about interrupting blow not applying to spells  ?

 

I tested it once with a druid and it seemed to work.

No, I am not sure. I only had time for a few short tests with a wizard and was at the time unsure how to interpret the results where grazes and crits were concerned; My tentative conclusion at the time was that it didn't seem to work, but I didn't feel confident enough to state so categorically.

 

I haven't taken the time to investigate it more closely since then, mainly because I got 4th level spells after which setting up continuous interruption of enemy casters via Wall of Fire became trivial for my Per 18 (16+Torc) wizard.

 

 

OK, so I tested it again this morning with Hiravias.

I tested 3 spells : Dancing Bolt, Firebug and Insect Swarm to cover 3 out of 4 defenses. My Hiravias has 15 Interruption base value, 30 with the talent.

I tested by checking the Interruption values in the Battle Log.

 

Without the talent, Hiravias got consistently 15 Interrupt in the log for all 3 spells, and 40 for critical hits.

 

With the talent, Hiravias got consistently 29 Interrput in the log for all 3 spells, and 55 for critical hits.

 

 

Therefore, I can say that Interrupt blows add consistently 14 Interrupt to Hit and 15 Interrupt to Critical Hits.

 

I have no clue about the +14 instead of +15 for regular hits but I had the same problem with Durance so it's probably true.

 

 

In conclusion, I think Interrupt Blows do work with spells (except of course spells without Interrupt duration indicated in the tooltip). 

[Phoynix]

Its not nonsense at all unless you wish to take it out of context.

 

Multiplayer games require classes to be balanced against each other, single player games only require classes to FUN, it does not matter if they are balanced against each other or even balanced against the game world.

 

Being able to instant gib everything you come across on hard could be considered balanced IF the method of allowing it is entertaining for the player.

 

IN MMO balance has to come before FUN or everyone bitches how OP class/race/spell/ability is... in single player games FUN comes before balance.

 

It's utter nonsense to claim balance is not necessary in a single player game. It's something that is repeated again and again, as if it's a fact like the sun rises. Everyone plays differently and hence there are some things that are important to them that don't matter to others. There are some people who do like classes to be balanced. Apparently they are less important than those who don't care.

[Elric Galad]

Single Player Games does not require the same level of balance as MMO.

 

Single Player Games does require classes to be balanced OR complementary enough so that you want to play any class or ability that looks fun without feeling gimped.

[anameforobsidian]

 

Its not nonsense at all unless you wish to take it out of context.

 

Multiplayer games require classes to be balanced against each other, single player games only require classes to FUN, it does not matter if they are balanced against each other or even balanced against the game world.

 

Being able to instant gib everything you come across on hard could be considered balanced IF the method of allowing it is entertaining for the player.

 

IN MMO balance has to come before FUN or everyone bitches how OP class/race/spell/ability is... in single player games FUN comes before balance.

 

 

That may be true in some single player games, but if the game gets too easy or hard it ceases to be fun.  However, it is not true in a party-based game.  In a party game, characters are being judged against each other, same as MMOs.

 

Additionally good balance enables multiple runs by creating an enjoyable experience with each class.

[Ymarsakar]

Most of the dps classes got buffed because Perception gives accuracy, just like it did in the final beta build.

 

The wizards have longer spell ranges now and their spells are faster with better defensive buffs. Also lasts longer. So muscle wizard, semi tank, dps, aoe stun crowd, it does pretty much everything now. Just not at the same time.

 

Ciphers have issues building focus, unless you get special items like the neck from White March or the old +10% focus one. They don't seem to generate focus per hit now, it's more like % of total damage is converted to focus. Their base damage with blunderbuss is still pretty good with the DR bypass talent and paralysis combo. Even better with the roar blunder as it debuffs -5 defenses for x seconds on each projectile hit (six projectiles now for blunder). The ciphers are back to the old ciphers if you use the two food buffs, +4 per hit and the 20% focus gain one. Final buff build, if you do about 100-140 damage with blunder each 9-15s, focus gain is more than 50 per shot.

 

Retaliate cipher build still works for focus gain, but is a bit flavorful so to speak.

 

Monks and rangers got buffed with White March because of one thing. Party ai. Now monks don't automatically die if you ignore them while they have too many wounds, they can use those wounds up themselves (although they are kind of dumb at doing combo rotations). So that means ranger pets also get ai, which means less micro, which means overall more dps. The full plate mail monk with +cc defense and some basic swift strike and torment dps powers, is awesome to play. Paladin is also OP, except it does a little bit of dps and a lot of healing while tanking and while giving whole party buffs, while the monk does more dps the more it gets damaged.

 

Rogue talents haven't changed much in terms of their dps op ness, but perception definitely changes how they are built. And solo stealth mode means they don't need the invisibility talents as much.

 

Fighters got nerfed for those using defender. Engagement targets got buffed in terms of importance, although it's not very intuitive how it works. Constitution got buffed, gives more % now to endurance and health, and the class health numbers have been tweaked a little bit to buff up ciphers and wizards. So that they can tank more damage.

 

A lot of items have been buffed or nerfed. Mostly deflection items were nerfed by 10% and some other items were buffed, like +attack speed mods. +attack speed is incredibly good, along with dexterity, might, per, for overall dps.

 

Rangers get a stun ability at about level 11, on targets that is engaged by the pet. Stun on crit and hit.

 

Various weapons that inflict prone or stun on crit, goes very well with the +10% +10% hit to crit conversion from the rogue, the 5% hit to crit from zealous 2 aura, and from orlan's racial.

 

Moon godlike aoe healing ability is pretty op now. Shod in faith boots are like that as well.\

 

Summoning figures are time limited, so are the chanter summons. So the chanter and figurines got nerfed hard on that vector. 20-30s for the drake. It's more like a damage sponge, hope it dies before then drawing enemy aggro. It's no longer the supreme dps of the chanter via summons any more.

 

Charm, dominate, aoe dominate on cipher is still pretty op. Aoe confusion is pretty strong. Druid wave aoe stun spell is pretty powerful. Spiritshift got buffed, duration is about the same 20-30s but the hide of the animal had the Dr raised to about 14 I think.

 

Enemy use of CC and ranged dps is much more efficient now and more powerful. For example, one of the new ice primordians have the old slicken, that does prone every x seconds, vs the nerfed slicken that only prones an enemy once.

 

On a different note, Josh Sawyer said something about wanting to design stats that didn't have dump stats in an rpg. That's why the stat bonuses were changed so often in the beta and now with the white march release. And I think he accomplished that, mostly, in Pillars 1.0 Just that perception was the stat that couldn't be balanced easily at the time so they had it give deflection instead. Which only made the spank/tank strategy even worse in a sense. People still complained about getting killed on hard, Potd, and even normal in Pillars 1.0 because they didn't know how to stack deflection on their party. The paladin was always pretty powerful and useful, it was just a little bit hard to use. Same for the wizard's low duration buffs and short spell ranges. So they took some of those complaints into account for these balance changes, which are mostly good, but for some classes it is too good (paladin lay on hands) vs fighter's constant recovery. Confident aim and armored grace needs a buff or look at, to rebalance the fighter so that it can do other things while tanking.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[MunoValente]

A Ranger with twinned arrows, driving flight, stunning shots, interrupting blows and stormcaller absolutely owns the battlefield just using their base attacks.  Then you get an improved pet on top of that.

[pi2repsion]

 

 

 

 

Per is not only about accuracy. It is also interrupt.

 

With per encounter lvl 3 spells, wizard can chain cast fast fireball while buffed by alacrity. Interrupting blow does apply to spell.

 

So I think interrupt wizard might worth considering now, especially because it uses the same stats as Crowd Control.

Good point. Might even be worth taking the Interrupting Blows talent for +15 interrupt since the effect doesn't mention only applying to attacks; I assume it also works for spells despite the name of the talent. (This needs to be tested).

 

EDIT: Nope, doesn't seem to work.

 

 

Are you sure about interrupting blow not applying to spells  ?

 

I tested it once with a druid and it seemed to work.

No, I am not sure. I only had time for a few short tests with a wizard and was at the time unsure how to interpret the results where grazes and crits were concerned; My tentative conclusion at the time was that it didn't seem to work, but I didn't feel confident enough to state so categorically.

 

I haven't taken the time to investigate it more closely since then, mainly because I got 4th level spells after which setting up continuous interruption of enemy casters via Wall of Fire became trivial for my Per 18 (16+Torc) wizard.

 

 

OK, so I tested it again this morning with Hiravias.

I tested 3 spells : Dancing Bolt, Firebug and Insect Swarm to cover 3 out of 4 defenses. My Hiravias has 15 Interruption base value, 30 with the talent.

I tested by checking the Interruption values in the Battle Log.

 

Without the talent, Hiravias got consistently 15 Interrupt in the log for all 3 spells, and 40 for critical hits.

 

With the talent, Hiravias got consistently 29 Interrput in the log for all 3 spells, and 55 for critical hits.

 

 

Therefore, I can say that Interrupt blows add consistently 14 Interrupt to Hit and 15 Interrupt to Critical Hits.

 

I have no clue about the +14 instead of +15 for regular hits but I had the same problem with Durance so it's probably true.

 

 

In conclusion, I think Interrupt Blows do work with spells (except of course spells without Interrupt duration indicated in the tooltip). 

 

Thank you for taking the time to test this. It is much appreciated.

[pi2repsion]

A Ranger with twinned arrows, driving flight, stunning shots, interrupting blows and stormcaller absolutely owns the battlefield just using their base attacks.  Then you get an improved pet on top of that.

Don't forget the Heart of the Storm talent for +20% lightning damage against enemies with lower shock than pierce resistance.

[jsaving]

My "interrupter" wizard (max PER with the interrupting blows talent) works great, especially with some of the wall spells that ordinarily wouldn't even be worth taking on a wizard.  It's a nice change of pace from the cookie-cutter wizard builds you usually see.  I believe the build thread in these forums calls this kind of wizard a "silencer" if you're interested in exactly how to make one.

[dudex]

attack speed builds are godlike late game once u have enough of it.

 

u can interrupt like crazy since most melee got high perception now and u attack every 1 second or so.

[Gs11]

What about Ranger's weapon choice? Still Bows suck compared with Firearms(  advantage dps trick through relod buffs, recovery time etc)???

[Nobear]

What about Ranger's weapon choice? Still Bows suck compared with Firearms(  advantage dps trick through relod buffs, recovery time etc)???

 

If you mean Quick Switch through up to four firearms, that trick will only last four shots. You eventually have to reload after you fire a weapon.

 

Even pre-2.0 I didn't get the impression that bows sucked. You had two modals. Swift Aim seemed better suited to firearms, where Vicious Aim seemed better suited to bows. One advantage of a slow firearm is that Wounding Shot will do more damage, but TBH I don't know which one did higher DPS overall. For the short time that I played Sagani (mostly just for her quest), I preferred Swift Aim with a firearm, but certain other players seemed to prefer bows.

 

Now rangers get a new modal that lets them shoot two arrows instead of one, but doesn't work with firearms. I imagine that, if anything, this would generally put bows ahead of firearms for rangers, but again I don't know for sure.

[Gs11]

Generally I mean it's relations  between  whole firing cycle,attack speed, reload speed and recovery time from this : https://www.reddit.com/r/projecteternity/comments/30rso5/ranged_weapon_dps_some_rough_numbers/
 

Hunting Bow
1.5s att
1.5s rec

Warbow
1.7s att
2.5s rec

Crossbow
2.0s att
2.5s rec
3.5s rel

Arbalest
1.7s att
2.5s rec
5.5s rel

Pistol
1.7s att
2.5s rec
5.0s rel

Blunderbuss
1.7s att
2.5s rec
5.0s rel

Arquebus
1.7s att
2.5s rec
6.5s rel

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[–]Evil4Zerggin 1 punkt

4 miesiące temu  

Thanks!

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[–]incognito253 1 punkt

4 miesiące temu  

An offshoot of the above time breakdown is to note that it sort of verifies bows are not useful later in the game - and not only because their DPS is atrocious against high DR.

Because that DPS is based on a function of only Attack Speed and Recovery Time where recovery time is 50 to ~60% of the 'firing cycle', adding on an armor that reduces recovery speed by 50% is going to submarine a bow's DPS more than the DPS on an Arbalest or Arquebus with a 9.7 or 10.7 base firing cycle, where the 2.5 second recovery time is only about a quarter of that.

There is some decent light armor later in the game, but even as a back line, having better protection is obviously better; that improved protection won't really affect gun/arbalest DPS very much but ruin the DPS on bows.

Edited September 7, 2015 by Gs11

[Ymarsakar]

Late game bows benefit from the attack speed buffs now (or more), since if you stack +100% attack speed, you get more than 2x the damage. It's easier for wizards and rangers to stack this because of items and the Durgan steel buff, given the wizard's alacrity spell and the ranger's attack speed modal.

 

Low DR or naked/clothed rangers are very practical even in Path of the Damned high level content for White March, you just sort of have to keep them way way away, while using tanks and healers to block the enemy from moving past you. Or give them someone else more annoying to shoot at like a druid/wizard/priest spell caster.

 

Generally for war bow, Borresaine with the stun on crit, until ranger is level 11 and can take the talent. Even then, the war bow can fire very very quickly with the attack speed stack trick.

 

That 14/15 interrupt issue might be a rounding error or something of that nature.

[Elric Galad]

Lenas Er hunting bow.

-5 all defenses per shot.

Stunning per shot.

Double shot.

 

That's what I'm planning for my ranger.

[brindle88]

IMO there aren't really any strong builds right now. Sawyer and his team have successfully concluded there agenda of nerfing the **** out of everything. The name of this game should be changed to " pillars of balancing". Rogues and wizards play there roles extremely well, all other classes apart from rangers are quite balanced if you ask me, with rangers still being ridiculously pointless.

 

Don't get me wrong I love the game but if I could get a job as a producer with the obsidian team on this I would:

 

- make magic items more meaningful; seriously about 95% of the items you find in this game are complete oxygen wasters with token powers like a cloak +2 athletics or unique weapon that let's you engage +1 opponent. Magic items in games like this are supposed to be the spoils of hard worked adventure, not crappy insignificant cantrip poppers.

- make the abilities and talents more significant and meaningful. Level ups with most classes achieve nothing of note and does not give you any talents to chose from that will make a significant difference to combat. Level ups are not rewarding enough.

- path of the dammed is the only difficulty I needed to cast spells on and even on POTD only now and then. Give you wizard/ priest/ cipher/ druid an arquebus and BOOM you win. No need for spells just join the pillars special forces navy seals to eradicate all terrorists that you may find. Solution to this problem = make more boss type fights

[brindle88]

And to all you blind sighted ranger lovers out there who will undoubtably throw there 2 cents in with regards to my above comment about rangers; i shall explain to you why rangers so gloriously suck, even after all there enhancements;

 

1. Any class can use a ranged weapon

2. Classes that use ranged weapons tend to sit on the outskirts of battle and generally avoid melee combat

3.wizards, priests, Druids, ciphers fit into this above category of sitting on the outskirts of battle

4. Now you have a choice; you can give you ranger a ranged weapon or you can give a spell caster a ranged weapon.

 

If you picked a ranger you still will fire the same weapon that the spell caster can fire at the same speed (slightly better with a ranger talent) and you will have no more then 2-3 useful talents/ abilities to choose from that may involve you having to use a useless pet that will get slaughtered as soon as it enters combat front line combat.

 

Now if you picked a spell caster you get to do almost all of the above plus rain down hell on your enemies with fire/ lightning or you can summon, heal, buff, confuse, charm, petrify, paralyse.

 

......? No brainer

[sapientNode]

In a game like this it is very situational what is the strongest build.

 

For AoE I will go with Druid hands down

For single target my favorite and tops all my damage charts is a Rogue

And for buffs its the Priests

My Tank is a Pally and she does not get scratched from almost anything rarely gets turned has high elemental resistances and move speed.

And ciphers are undoubtedly amazing with charming.  Especially that contagious charm of theres.  I can sneak in to a group of enemies and launch and contagious charm spell and then run over with my rogue in stealth and take them out one by one while they are distracted.

[Teioh_White]

Right now, the caster classes are clearly the strongest classes by a long shot. Cipher is up there as well, if we're going strictly by using all the tools at hand. But unlike the casting classes, which are just built powerful all around, Cipher is pretty decently balanced, but has a few completely cheesy powers that can wreck things. Basically, it takes a pretty constant effort to not be OP with casters, where a Cipher can be just fine if you don't choose a few of their powers on level up.

 

Between the non casters though, balance is pretty solid, with everyone having a decent niche. Rogue does the single target damage thing very well. Barb does the melee range trash cleaning duties well. Paladin stands tall as the last pure tank+support. Monk does a great job of being a solid tank+solid single target damage.Ranger's a good compromise between wanting half an extra body up front, but still wanting some ranged, and gets some nice CC ability with Twin Arrows. Chanters....well, they get the job done with one amazing group buff and then do a meh job at one of the above niches, though would be nice to have the mechanics for them reworked in PoE 2.

 

Fighter's the only real standout class that's got issues for it. It's like they let us select the filler class that generic mooks are all.

[MasterCipher]

Combat isn't hard enough where optimal parties are needed, but 2.0 Rangers are high on the power spectrum. Stormcaller is class defining because they're the only class that procs Returning Storm. Min-max Dex-Mig-Int in that order (dex = more attacks = more procs). 10% proc chance per arrow when you usually shoot 4 arrows every 2 seconds. (15% haste gloves - stalker torc - +10% damage vs flanked boots - +10% aoe overseer ring).  AOE proc can crit for 100 damage (125 with bard buff) with 6+ second stun. Other classes only get 1 proc chance very 2 seconds. Ranger usually gets to dps entire duration of fight where other high dpsers have to spend time positioning or split time casting CC. Protaganist nature godlike ranger with +1 Dex effigy, 3 Dex gear, 2 dex food, 3 dex rest bonus, 2 dex racial (beat down pre-fight) can walk around with 31 DEX = 60% action speed (33 dex with brothel boon, but that's not always available). There are plenty of spells that buff MIG, but not a lot of options for DEX.

[Crucis]

And to all you blind sighted ranger lovers out there who will undoubtably throw there 2 cents in with regards to my above comment about rangers; i shall explain to you why rangers so gloriously suck, even after all there enhancements;

 

1. Any class can use a ranged weapon

2. Classes that use ranged weapons tend to sit on the outskirts of battle and generally avoid melee combat

3.wizards, priests, Druids, ciphers fit into this above category of sitting on the outskirts of battle

4. Now you have a choice; you can give you ranger a ranged weapon or you can give a spell caster a ranged weapon.

 

If you picked a ranger you still will fire the same weapon that the spell caster can fire at the same speed (slightly better with a ranger talent) and you will have no more then THAN 2-3 useful talents/ abilities to choose from that may involve you having to use a useless pet that will get slaughtered as soon as it enters combat front line combat.

 

Now if you picked a spell caster you get to do almost all of the above plus rain down hell on your enemies with fire/ lightning or you can summon, heal, buff, confuse, charm, petrify, paralyse.

 

......? No brainer

 

 

Yeah, it is.  Not everyone plays the same way that you do.  Not everyone has the same priorities, likes, or dislikes.  Some people LIKE playing bow using rangers.  Get over it, and get over yourself.  And learn the freaking difference between THEN and THAN!!!!