Role of fighter?

[Njall]

Fighters actually have greater damage potential than Paladins; outfit both for consistent damage and Fighters will come out on top. I've noticed that the argument isn't that Fighters are useless, it's that they are overshadowed by Monks. Reduce a Monk's innate Deflection and maybe Health/Endurance so they aren't as tanky right out of the gate, fix those aspects of a Fighter's kit that should have been changed already (Constant Recovery is supposed to scale now, for example) and give them some bonuses to engagement-based tactics (disengagement attack bonuses that nobody else receives, for example) and they should be fine.

 

Also, strong abilities being per rest isn't really a negative; if anything it shows that some of the per encounter abilities of other classes need to be re-examined. For example, Paladin's having two per-encounter heals that restore more endurance than most Priest spells needs to be re-examined. I would expect their consistent ability to be inspiring the party through the use of auras and actions during combat (kills triggering bonuses, etc), while having a selection of per rest abilities. Maybe Smite and something like Liberating Exhortation should be per encounter.

"Fighters are perfectly ok, you just need to nerf every other class because they're clearly OP" isn't really a great plan , imho. First, the game ATM is balanced around those abilities being per encounter; second, "let's make every other class less fun to play so that the fighter can shine" sounds like a worse idea than "let's bring fighters on par with the other class so that all the classes are fun".

YMMV, obviously.

[Njall]

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

 

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

 

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

 

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

 

 

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

 

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

 

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

 

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

 

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars).

 

"And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

 

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

 

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

 

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

 

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

 

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

 

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

 

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

 

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

 

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

 

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

 

 

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

 

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

 

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

 

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

 

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

 

 

 

 

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

 

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Njall

[View619]

You're kinda jumping to conclusions with your post. If we have a situation where per encounter skills are supposed to be inferior to per rest, yet there are per encounters that are out-right better than a lot of per rest abilities, then you need to balance around that fact. If per-encounters are supposed to be powerful from the beginning then the devs are free to do things like make Clear-Out and Unbroken per-encounter as well, but then they have to deal with the effect those decisions will have on the balance of their game.

 

It sounds like you would rather have powerful, per-rest abilities become per encounter instead of bring certain abilities in line with the other per encounter abilities in the game. And as far as game balance is concerned, if you're playing on the intended difficulty (Hard) then you can roll through everything pretty easily. If that's the intended experience, then there's no problem there.

Edited September 8, 2015 by View619

[MunoValente]

Fighters actually have greater damage potential than Paladins; outfit both for consistent damage and Fighters will come out on top. I've noticed that the argument isn't that Fighters are useless, it's that they are overshadowed by Monks. Reduce a Monk's innate Deflection and maybe Health/Endurance so they aren't as tanky right out of the gate, fix those aspects of a Fighter's kit that should have been changed already (Constant Recovery is supposed to scale now, for example) and give them some bonuses to engagement-based tactics (disengagement attack bonuses that nobody else receives, for example) and they should be fine.

 

 

Yeah I think monk is the class there really stands out from the other fighters.  I don't really like the idea of fully armored monks too much, I think they would be better if their base deflection was cut, but they got a deflection bonus when using leather or lighter armor or something like that.  I think they would fit better both in theme and in balance.

 

For fighters I think a few small tweaks would go a long way, let Defender be active with Savage Attack or Cautious Attack, scale and power up Constant Recovery, give Wary Defender a disengagement attack bonus, maybe make Clear Out per battle, make Guardian not suck.

[MunoValente]

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get.  Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

[Njall]

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get.  Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

Hm? Eder still "paid" for those points at character creation; we're evaluating the usefullness of critical defense here, not eder's stat distribution.

[Pelmaleon]

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

 

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

 

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

 

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

 

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

 

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

 

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

 

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

 

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars).

 

"And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

 

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

 

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

 

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

 

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

 

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

 

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

 

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

 

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

 

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

 

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

 

 

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

 

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

 

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

 

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

 

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

 

 

 

 

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

 

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies. Also, one single point of endurance would not be a "good" pick, because the numbers all have relative strengths in accordance with the amount of damage enemies inflict after damage reduction, the totality of the endurance pool, while also considering the abundance and potency of healing spells/items/passives. Ofc "it can still save you" is an ambiguous statement, but it's quite asinine to make a reductio ad absurdum that that is the same (or even implicitly very similar) as spending an entire ability point on gaining one endurance and saying they have identical consequences.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Pelmaleon

[Pelmaleon]

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get.  Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Belt

 

Girdle of Eotun Constitution: Random loot spawning in various locations.

 

Depending on the percent chance to get lucky and obtain this belt, it is hard to get. (I haven't gotten it in 1.5 playthroughs yet.)

[Njall]

You're kinda jumping to conclusions with your post. If we have a situation where per encounter skills are supposed to be inferior to per rest, yet there are per encounters that are out-right better than a lot of per rest abilities, then you need to balance around that fact. If per-encounters are supposed to be powerful from the beginning then the devs are free to do things like make Clear-Out and Unbroken per-encounter as well, but then they have to deal with the effect those decisions will have on the balance of their game.

 

It sounds like you would rather have powerful, per-rest abilities become per encounter instead of bring certain abilities in line with the other per encounter abilities in the game. And as far as game balance is concerned, if you're playing on the intended difficulty (Hard) then you can roll through everything pretty easily. If that's the intended experience, then there's no problem there.

Meh, the line between what should be per encounter has always been blurry and always felt arbitrary; in the end, high level spellcasters made that line even blurrier.

 

And as far as difficulty goes, PoE is a game that revolves around a mathematical engine, with pause... really, once people get accustomed to the rules of the game and start crunching numbers, the only thing you can do to make it harder is increasing RNG or increasing the enemies' stats, in which case people will just crunch more numbers and tbe game will be easy again.

 

You can't really evaluate it now, with people at their 10th playthrough, it felt significantly harder when I played it for the first time, that's what counts, IMHO. Making it harder now will just frustrate the newcomers, and fulfill no purpose, as it will be just as easy as soon as people adjust to the new underlying math.

[Njall]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

 

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

[Njall]

 

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get. Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Belt

 

Girdle of Eotun Constitution: Random loot spawning in various locations.

 

Depending on the percent chance to get lucky and obtain this belt, it is hard to get. (I haven't gotten it in 1.5 playthroughs yet.)

Guys, who cares.

You're missing the opportunity costs. That's what I was talking about when I referred to a "massive investment".

Every point you dump into constitution is a point that doesn't go somewhere else, and the same holds true for equipment slots. They're not free points in any shape or form.

Now, we can take the time to discuss the relative value of con vs might vs resolve vs perception for a tank, but ultimately it's irrelevant, because if you've dumped half your starting points into a single ability score, you've invested quite a bit of your resources no matter how you look at it.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Njall

[Pelmaleon]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 

 

Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.

 

And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

[Njall]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

 

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.

 

And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, which should be more often than not on a dedicated tank, critical defense is worth about a -2.5% damage. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection, which is worse than a general talent. Edited September 8, 2015 by Njall

[Pelmaleon]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 

Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.

 

And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 

 

I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Pelmaleon

[MunoValente]

 

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get.  Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Belt

 

Girdle of Eotun Constitution: Random loot spawning in various locations.

 

Depending on the percent chance to get lucky and obtain this belt, it is hard to get. (I haven't gotten it in 1.5 playthroughs yet.)

 

 

Fine, but getting +2 constitution is trivial. You can enchant it onto armor or there is a +2 belt you can get every playthrough.  A bunch of food items add +2.  Getting Eder to 20 CON is very easy and doesn't need any real investment, it's not some impossibly high value than requires massive sacrifices.  Sure there is an opportunity cost in wearing a belt, but there aren't a ton of great belts and you can still raise other stats like Resolve with your other equipment slots.  The only Res increasing food is really expensive.

Edited September 8, 2015 by MunoValente

[Njall]

 

 

19 endurance is Eder's base plus Belt of Eotun Constitution, it's not really hard to get.  Eat some cookies and you're up to 21.

 

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Belt

 

Girdle of Eotun Constitution: Random loot spawning in various locations.

 

Depending on the percent chance to get lucky and obtain this belt, it is hard to get. (I haven't gotten it in 1.5 playthroughs yet.)

 

Fine, but getting +2 constitution is trivial. You can enchant it onto armor or there is a +2 belt you can get every playthrough.  A bunch of food items add +2.  Getting Eder to 20 CON is very easy and doesn't need any real investment, it's not some impossibly high value than requires massive sacrifices.

Again, just because the devs allocated his starting points that way, it doesn't mean they're free.

They're there instead of being somewhere else. Getting an ability score to 18 in a game that uses point buy is never hard, but it's nevertheless an investment.

[Njall]

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 

Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.

 

And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

 

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 

I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

 

Played it, finished it, didn't like it one bit (I like playing less optimal characters than PotD forces you to play).

Which still doesn't change the point I'm making. Now, right back at you, do you realize that one one side, you're arguing that fighters are tough enough as they are, while also saying that the equivalent of 3 points of deflection makes a noticeable difference in terms of survival? How about trying a paladin, that gets like four times that amount, like +26 to all the other defenses and 3 more dr on top of it?

[MunoValente]

Tanking with a mix of END and deflection, is quite possible now, deflection isn't really the end all tanking stat anymore.  You don't want to dump deflection, but if you have 16 base CON with a few bonuses on top of that and some regen abilities and not completely terrible deflection, you're going to be hard to kill.   Things like Unbending and Critical Defense are more designed for a Fighter than gets hit and survives using CON rather than one that tries to avoid all hits completely.

[Pelmaleon]

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.
But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.
Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.
Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.
Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.
In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.
If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?
And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.
What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.
Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.
Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.
Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math
Case #1 accuracy = deflection
0-15 miss
16-50 graze
51-100 hit
With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage
With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze
0-15 miss
16-55 graze
56-100 hit
Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy
case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection
0-50 hit
51-100 crit
With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage
0-5 graze
6-61 hit
61-100 crit
damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.
After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better
Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.
19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.
PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 
Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 
Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.
 
And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 
I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

Played it, finished it, didn't like it one bit (I like playing less optimal characters than PotD forces you to play).
Which still doesn't change the point I'm making. Now, right back at you, do you realize that one one side, you're arguing that fighters are tough enough as they are, while also saying that the equivalent of 3 points of deflection makes a noticeable difference in terms of survival? How about trying a paladin, that gets like four times that amount, like +26 to all the other defenses and 3 more dr on top of it?

 

Care to post some screenshots? Because I don't believe someone who thinks that the ability gives the equivalent of a static 3 deflection could beat it without using cheese or broken abilities like Barbarian's old One Stands Alone. Furthermore, while comparing the paladin and fighter, you intentionally fail to mention the majority of the fighter's other abilities and talents which synergize with his tank build. Anyway, I'm done debating someone who litters every retort with logical fallacy after logical fallacy (cherry picking and straw men and reductio ad absurdum, oh my!). Have a good day, and I suggest you spend more time reading books rather than pontificating erroneous conjectures online.

[Njall]

Tanking with a mix of END and deflection, is quite possible now, deflection isn't really the end all tanking stat anymore.  You don't want to dump deflection, but if you have 16 base CON with a few bonuses on top of that and some regen abilities and not completely terrible deflection, you're going to be hard to kill.   Things like Unbending and Critical Defense are more designed for a Fighter than gets hit and survives using CON rather than one that tries to avoid all hits completely.

Nope, tanking is still pretty much where it was. You're talking as if deflection was lowered by like 40 points across the board and endurance increased by like 50%. They weren't, deflection was brought down by 20 points, give or take, with the fighter taking an additional (and totally gratuitious) nerf and endurance was increased by around 10%.

Plenty of tanks managed without being unhittable before 2.0 hit, and you could become unhittable, thus, they can just buff up a bit more now and be exactly where they were before.

The relative value of deflection and endurance hasn't changed one bit, yeah, con is now more viable, but, in the end, avoiding or reducing damage is generally better than just soaking it, because as long as healing >= damage taken, your tank will go on indefinitely, health permitting, while, in the end, the bonus endurance you gain from a high con score is roughly equivalent to a single heal of that magnitude. Compared to 1.06, now a fighter with 18 con has 313 endurance at level 14 instead of 278.

That's like getting 35 endurance from your priest.

It's no trivial amount, but it's not THAT impressive either, especially since it will be less noticeable at low levels.

[Njall]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.

But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.

Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.

Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.

Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.

In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.

If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?

And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.

What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.

Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.

Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.

Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the math

Case #1 accuracy = deflection

0-15 miss

16-50 graze

51-100 hit

With nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damage

With Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze

0-15 miss

16-55 graze

56-100 hit

Damage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemy

case #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection

0-50 hit

51-100 crit

With nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage

0-5 graze

6-61 hit

61-100 crit

damage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.

After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better

Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.

19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.

PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 

Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 

Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion.

 

And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

 

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 

I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

 

Played it, finished it, didn't like it one bit (I like playing less optimal characters than PotD forces you to play).

Which still doesn't change the point I'm making. Now, right back at you, do you realize that one one side, you're arguing that fighters are tough enough as they are, while also saying that the equivalent of 3 points of deflection makes a noticeable difference in terms of survival? How about trying a paladin, that gets like four times that amount, like +26 to all the other defenses and 3 more dr on top of it?

 

Care to post some screenshots? Because I don't believe someone who thinks that the ability gives the equivalent of a static 3 deflection could beat it without using cheese or broken abilities like Barbarian's old One Stands Alone. Furthermore, while comparing the paladin and fighter, you intentionally fail to mention the majority of the fighter's other abilities and talents which synergize with his tank build. Anyway, I'm done debating someone who litters every retort with logical fallacy after logical fallacy (cherry picking and straw men and reductio ad absurdum, oh my!). Have a good day, and I suggest you spend more time reading books rather than pontificating erroneous conjectures online.

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the mathCase #1 accuracy = deflection0-15 miss16-50 graze51-100 hitWith nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damageWith Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze0-15 miss16-55 graze56-100 hitDamage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemycase #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection0-50 hit51-100 critWith nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage0-5 graze6-61 hit61-100 critdamage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better :)Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds

 

Not a chance I'm bothering? Care to address my points with logic and maths instead of trying to wave away pretty much every point people have made without even bothering to post a shred of math?

 

If you don't believe that's how much critical defense is worth you could, you know, actually start crunching the numbers instead of just assuming you're right.

Here, I'll do it for you:

 

Critical defense turns 20% of the crits you take into hits, and 10% of the hits you take into grazes.

Thus, if def>= acc (which is pretty much always if you're wearing a shield) , only the latter will come into play, because you'll NEVER be critted. You'll be hit 50% of the time at most, so critical defense will convert 10% of that amount into grazes, halving the damage taken.

So, instead of (0*0.15+0.35*0.5+0.50) *damage, you're going to take (0*0.15+0.40*0.5+0.45)*damage.

 

So instead of 0.675*damage, 0.65*damage.

 

Now, let's say we increase our deflection by 3 points instead:

 

(0*0.18+0.35*0.5+0.47)= 0.64.5.

 

OH LOOK, IT'S THE SAME FRICKIN' AMOUNT, WHO WOULDA SAY?! Anyone that could count up to 3, here's who.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Njall

[Pelmaleon]

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the mathCase #1 accuracy = deflection0-15 miss16-50 graze51-100 hitWith nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damageWith Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze0-15 miss16-55 graze56-100 hitDamage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemycase #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection0-50 hit51-100 critWith nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage0-5 graze6-61 hit61-100 critdamage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better :)Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion. And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

Played it, finished it, didn't like it one bit (I like playing less optimal characters than PotD forces you to play).Which still doesn't change the point I'm making. Now, right back at you, do you realize that one one side, you're arguing that fighters are tough enough as they are, while also saying that the equivalent of 3 points of deflection makes a noticeable difference in terms of survival? How about trying a paladin, that gets like four times that amount, like +26 to all the other defenses and 3 more dr on top of it?

 Care to post some screenshots? Because I don't believe someone who thinks that the ability gives the equivalent of a static 3 deflection could beat it without using cheese or broken abilities like Barbarian's old One Stands Alone. Furthermore, while comparing the paladin and fighter, you intentionally fail to mention the majority of the fighter's other abilities and talents which synergize with his tank build. Anyway, I'm done debating someone who litters every retort with logical fallacy after logical fallacy (cherry picking and straw men and reductio ad absurdum, oh my!). Have a good day, and I suggest you spend more time reading books rather than pontificating erroneous conjectures online.

 

Not a chance I'm bothering? Care to address my points with logic and maths instead of trying to wave away pretty much every point people have made without even bothering to post a shred of math?

 

Oh the irony.

 

Edit: To respond to your edit: So you took into consideration only the situation where "if def>= acc" which just further proves my point that you didn't beat PotD, thus your minmax theorycrafting for lower difficulties (or weak, trivial mobs on PotD) is fairly ludicrous. And if you are attempting to debate my PotD theorycrafting against your non-PotD theorycrafting, then you really need to work on your reading comprehension. Imo it's a waste of time and life for you to minmax for lower difficulties because your theories and tactics won't be challenged enough. But hey, if you have fun steamrolling weak enemies with your virtually invincible party, then go you. That's not my style; I like a veritable challenge.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Pelmaleon

[Njall]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm playing on PotD and the fighter is fine as is. I spec'd him to be pure tank and he is a wonderful tank. I find it quite silly how people cherry pick SO MANY ABILITIES while discussing the pros/cons of a fighter vs paladin for durability; they just choose not to talk about so many of the amazing fighter ones. Anyway, I accessed the White Marches at level 5 with Monk Main, Eder, Durance, Kana, Hiravias, and Aloth (currently level 7), and while the fights are tough, my fighter still survives very well. The harder the fight, the more spells I have my Priest throw on him.But if we are talking relative strength, I do believe that Fighters, Rangers, and Chanters are currently the weakest classes right now in PotD, so some minor buffs would be nice I suppose.Edit: But seeing as it is not a multiplayer game, it's not the end of the world if they don't get buffs. In all honesty, I'd rather the devs work on creating new, unique, and fun talents/spells/items and add them to the game than balance something that doesn't matter as much regarding the amount of fun had in a single-player game.Edit2: I did want to add that enemies on PotD generally have insanely high fortitude, so it makes the fighter MUCH less fun to use because his crowd control abilities will not work very often. So maybe they should make something that scales the amount of added accuracy of those abilities with the fighter's might. I think that would be a cool feature.

No one, or at least I'm not, is saying that Fighters are broken, just that they don't have much of a niche. Also balance is just as important in a single player game as in multiplayer.Eder is going to be used, firstly because he is a great character and secondly because there are only two possible frontline melee story companions to take with you and Pellegrinas stats are a bit wonky while Eder's high might and con are pretty much were you'd choose them to be if you had the choice.In your party you have the main Monk and Eder on the front lines, maybe Kana in plate as another melee, Durance to keep everyone alive and Hirvias and Aloth to blast away from the back. Your Eder's job is to not die, hold the attention of the enemies and any damage done is just gravy, basically a better pet or summon.If there were no story companions would you choose a fighter, a paladin or another monk to be your second frontline melee?And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up? What is the sine qua non of the Fighter?

Kana is currently hanging out in the back so I can make sure he stays alive to get the most invocations for extended fights. To answer your questions, I would probably do a classic party like I had in the Icewind Dale games, Fighter, Paladin (it was another Fighter in Icewind Dale because the Paladins were weak iirc, but the extra heal and auras in this game seem like they would be great to buff up my front-line) Cleric, Rogue, Mage, Cipher/Druid (it was a Ranger in Icewind Dale for more ranged DPS, but the extra crowd control would come in handy for Pillars)."And what are in your opinion the amazing Fighter abilities that no one brings up?" I believe Critical Defense, Unbending, Unbroken, and Vigorous Defense all make the fighter extremely difficult to bring down. The biggest problem is that they are very boring to use. I'd rather have a more glass-cannony party with a higher DPS fighter than have an unkillable tank, which my minmax brain tells me to build-up.What is the sine qua non of the Fighter? To fight in the front-lines without being ran over quickly I suppose. It really depends what your party needs though.

Unbending at best heals you 50% of your total health over a 15 second period. At level 11 with a 12 con you have 201 endurance. Without Unbending you take 201 points of damage and get KO'd. With it you take 100 points of damage, sounds great but it is only a 100 point heal that is limited to 3 per rest. A Paladin's Lay on Hands heals more, over a shorter period of time, can be used twice per encounter and can be used on anyone. The Barbarians Savage Defiance at level 11 heals base 120 damage over 15 seconds and it scales with Might. Lay on Hands is worlds better and Savage Defiance is at least as good plus is available at level 5. Plus you need a decent intellect for the duration to not be laughable.Unbroken is better than Second Chance in that it gets you defensive buffs after activation but it cost you a level 11 ability instead of an equipment slot. Maybe it useful for Eder in case you want the ring and the two armor sets with second chance to go for other characters but your main character will have first dibs on equipment.Vigorous Defense at +20 to all once per encounter is good but only lasts 15 seconds if your intellect is 10. A Paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation buffs +25, can be used twice, and lasts longer and can't be used on yourself but two Paladins get buff each other and have two left over for others or in case the first wears off.Critical Defense - I always take it but lets run the mathCase #1 accuracy = deflection0-15 miss16-50 graze51-100 hitWith nothing you take 0.15*0+0.35*0.5+0.50*1 = 0.675 unit damageWith Critical Defense you get 20% crit>hit and 10% hit>graze0-15 miss16-55 graze56-100 hitDamage taken is 0.15*0+0.40*.5+0.45*1 = 0.65 damage or 3.8% less damage ..... not real good but maybe it is better with a tougher enemycase #2 Accuracy is 50 points higher than your deflection0-50 hit51-100 critWith nothing you take 0.50*1+0.50*1.5 = 1.25 unit damage0-5 graze6-61 hit61-100 critdamage taken is 0.05*0.5+0.55*1+0.40*1.5 = 0.025+0.55+0.6 = 1.175 unit damage or 6.38% less damage ... still not looking very good.After actually running the math I'd have to say that Critical Defense looks to be pretty damn poor, and here I was always taking it because I thought it made a difference. Superior Deflection at a mere +5 deflection is better :)Actually my thought now is that Vigorous Defense is the better of the defensive buffs but the duration is short enough that dumping intellect to place in resolve is a good course of action. You'd have +7 deflection all the time and would be -13 deflection for 5.2 seconds each fight which seems like a suitable trade off.

Regarding Critical Defense: I ran the numbers a bit further and it appears that for a 300 endurance fighter (not difficult to achieve at level 12 on Eder), your effective endurance would be 319. So you are deepening your endurance pool by 19, which does sound a subpar compared to other level 9 abilities, but can still potentially save you in tough battles.

By that token ("it can still save you") even a talent that adds a single point of endurance would be a good pick.19 endurance with a massive con investment and a class ability at level 12 doesn't sound paltry, IS paltry.PoE, like every game that features hitpoints, is a game of attrition; you're out of endurance, you lose. 19 endurance at level 12 isn't worth a class ability, just take an offensive ability instead and you'll see much better returns in a tough fight.

 Do you play on PotD? Because you can't make your party fully offensive (at least for your main frontliner) on that difficulty. Oftentimes you have to take the slightly worse by the numbers, synergistic-with-your-party, defensive ability to not get trounced by extremely potent enemies.

"Making your party fully offensive"differs quite a bit from "taking every defensive ability the game throws at you no matter how bad". I didn't tell you to send Eder on the front line wearing only his smallclothes, I told you that critical defense is entirely skippable.

 Again, you are making a blatant reductio ad absurdum after misconstruing my contention (I said "Oftentimes", not "no matter how bad"). My second sentence was obviously a hyperbole, so I apologize if you did not correctly infer that notion. And every ability is technically entirely skippable. You will just be gimping your party and characters if you skip more synergistically stronger ones in favor of others.

Yeah, so if I say that critical defense isn't synergistically stronger at all, because, in fact, it grants you lower and lower returns the higher your deflection, and thus sucks, does it sound better and make more sense to you? Anytime you manage to push critical hits away from the combat table, critical defense is worth about 2.5% points of damage reduction. That's pretty much as good as +3 deflection.

 I would answer your question with another, unanswered question. Do you play on and have you beat PotD? If I weren't playing on PotD while focusing my party on defeating the toughest enemies (who crit often), then I would definitely agree with you. Not only will an offensive ability instead of Critical Defense be more fun, it would make fights faster and easier, as you will destroy the enemies before they hit you with a comparatively higher number of non-crit attacks. In conclusion, I also think that Critical Defense could use a minor buff, yet I would still rather take it over an offensive ability in its current state because it synergizes better with my party composition and strategy.

Played it, finished it, didn't like it one bit (I like playing less optimal characters than PotD forces you to play).Which still doesn't change the point I'm making. Now, right back at you, do you realize that one one side, you're arguing that fighters are tough enough as they are, while also saying that the equivalent of 3 points of deflection makes a noticeable difference in terms of survival? How about trying a paladin, that gets like four times that amount, like +26 to all the other defenses and 3 more dr on top of it?

 Care to post some screenshots? Because I don't believe someone who thinks that the ability gives the equivalent of a static 3 deflection could beat it without using cheese or broken abilities like Barbarian's old One Stands Alone. Furthermore, while comparing the paladin and fighter, you intentionally fail to mention the majority of the fighter's other abilities and talents which synergize with his tank build. Anyway, I'm done debating someone who litters every retort with logical fallacy after logical fallacy (cherry picking and straw men and reductio ad absurdum, oh my!). Have a good day, and I suggest you spend more time reading books rather than pontificating erroneous conjectures online.

Not a chance I'm bothering? Care to address my points with logic and maths instead of trying to wave away pretty much every point people have made without even bothering to post a shred of math?

 

Oh the irony.

 

 

Just in case you missed the edit:

 

Critical defense turns 20% of the crits you take into hits, and 10% of the hits you take into grazes. 

Thus, if def>= acc (which is pretty much always if you're wearing a shield) , only the latter will come into play, because you'll NEVER be critted. You'll be hit 50% of the time at most, so critical defense will convert 10% of that amount into grazes, halving the damage taken. 

So, instead of (0*0.15+0.35*0.5+0.50) *damage, you're going to take (0*0.15+0.40*0.5+0.45)*damage.

 

So instead of 0.675*damage, 0.65*damage.

 

Now, let's say we increase our deflection by 3 points instead:

 

(0*0.18+0.35*0.5+0.47)= 0.64.5.

 

OH LOOK, IT'S THE SAME FRICKIN' AMOUNT,EVEN LOWER WHO WOULDA SAY?! Anyone that could count up to 3, here's who. 

And that's if deflection = accuracy, if deflection > accuracy, it's worth even less.

 

Discuss.

Or count up to three. And, after you do, feel free to post a screenshot of the abacus you used, please.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Njall

[Pelmaleon]

I edited in an answer to your edit. TLDR for my edit: You are theorycrafting for relatively easy encounters and discussing the merit of an ability called CRITICAL Defense in a situation where you never get crit, thus strawmanning my PotD theorycrafting.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Pelmaleon

[Njall]

I edited in an answer to your edit. TLDR for my edit: You are theorycrafting for relatively easy encounters and discussing the merit of an ability called CRITICAL Defense in a situation where you never get crit, thus strawmanning my PotD theorycrafting.

Dude, start debuffing your opponents sometimes.

 

And you still didn't post a single number. That's not theorycrafting, that's theorybabbling.