Racial Traits

[Tamerlane]

Let's talk about 'em!

 

They aren't listed during character creation, unfortunately. In the interest of actually being able to discuss these things, I'll list them now.

 

Aumaua, Coastal: Resistance to might afflictions.

Aumaua, Island: Immunity to "slog zone" attacks.

 

Dwarf, Boreal: Can graze primordials and wilder.

Dwarf, Mountain: Resistance to constitution afflictions.

 

Elf, Pale: +4 burn armour, +4 freeze armour

Elf, Wood: Resistance to dexterity afflictions.

 

Godlike, Death: +20% damage.

Godlike, Fire: +2 burn armour. When bloodied or near death, +1 armour and 2-4 burn damage against melee attackers.

Godlike, Moon: +10 health to allies in AoE first time hurt, bloodied, or near death.

Godlike, Nature: +2 power level when under the effect of a might, constitution, or dexterity inspiration.

 

Human: +7 accuracy, +15% damage when bloodied or near death.

 

Orlan, Hearth: 10% of hits converted to crits when attack same enemy as ally.

Orlan, Wild: Resistance to resolve afflictions.

 

 

 

I think people have reacted generally negatively towards the resistance to X traits. They are very unclear - there's no immediate indicator of what a "dexterity affliction" is, for example, and no indication of what "resistance" actually means. Is it a defence bonus? Is it decreased duration?

 

The human trait returns from PoE 1, and... I've never really liked that one. It's... it's really dull. If a racial trait requires a specific condition to go off - especially one outside of your direct control - you should actually notice when it goes off.

 

The fire godlike trait is, uh... awful. Pale elves make an absolute mockery of them. If anything, I'd expect that fire godlike would get armour to both burn and freeze while pale elves only get freeze.

 

The death godlike trait is fitting on a pretty basic level, but, like the PoE variant (and the PoE wood elf), kind of goes against the "no bad build" idea: death godlike are a huge waste as buffers or debuffers. This is pretty disappointing to me, as I think a controller wizard death godlike is conceptually interesting.

 

I don't have any specific thoughts about the island aumaua change, but I do have to ask: how do you unlock more weapon sets? They still exist in the inventory screen, but there are no neutral talents anymore, so...

Edited November 21, 2017 by Tamerlane

[cheesevillain]

The fire godlike is clearly unfinished, or is incorrectly labelled. No use complaining about that.

 

The inspirations and afflictions are going to have comprehensive explanations soon. In the meantime, I'm personally finding 6 types of status effects a lot easier to handle than the swarm of uncategorized status effects in PoE1.

 

I hate the Boreal Dwarf racial buff. People have been complaining about it in other threads as well.

[KDubya]

The Boreal Dwarf trait is fine for anyone who is not a fighter. Grazes are quite powerful and not having them results in a lot of whiffing.

 

Does the Boreal Dwarf racial graze work with spellcasters and afflictions? As in can a Boreal Dwarf wizard graze a Confusion spell on a pack of wilders and have a reduced effect rather than a complete miss?

[Climhazzard]

Hearth Orlan fighter multi class using disciplined strikes would be pretty great for crit effect builds like monk for example with enervating blows and swift flurry.  Intuitive inspiration might get nerfed I guess.

 

I'm assuming death godlike doesn't just do +20% damage all the time...  how does it actually function?  Is it a execution buff like it was in PoE?  (I mean does it only activate against low hp enemies).

[cheesevillain]

The Boreal Dwarf trait is fine for anyone who is not a fighter. Grazes are quite powerful and not having them results in a lot of whiffing.

 

 

Sure. But a lot of people pick races based on RP reasons. Tamerlane, who posted this, got an unpleasant surprise. Also, Primordials and Wilder weren't exactly the most difficult combatants in PoE1, so it's not the most tactically useful buff.

 

I'm assuming death godlike doesn't just do +20% damage all the time...  how does it actually function?  Is it a execution buff like it was in PoE?  (I mean does it only activate against low hp enemies).

 

Iirc, it currently works exactly like it did in PoE1.

[MaxQuest]

Let's talk about 'em!

Well, here are the thoughts on the current racials:

 

Resistance to X Afflictions:

- as already mentioned it is not intuitive enough plus these talents are accompanied by a quite vague descriptions.

- also some of these resistances can easily turn way more important than the others. For example in PoE1 having an extra defense vs stun would be much more impactful than a similar defense amount vs hobble, because a hobbled caster can still keep tossing spells.

- additionally it depends on average encounter design. In PoE1 we had to face much more paralyzing enemies than pronning. Not to mention that stunning and pronning enemies were usually already easier to deal with, and that's one of the reasons why I never used a Coastal Aumaua.

- and as usual: the interaction with similar effects, like barbarian's Unflinching talent is still unclear.

 

Immunity to "slog zone" attacks:

- still no idea what a "slog zone" is.

 

Can graze primordials and wilders:

- ability to graze can be crucial, especially vs high AR/Def enemies, as sometimes it can mean a difference between a wipe or kill: example - the graze allows the attack to actually connect and thus deliver the annihilation damage.

- also this racial does not seem to be limited to weapon attacks/abilities; which is making it especially important for spellcasters because grazing with a cc is way better than missing altogether.

- but... we don't know yet how many tough primordials and wilders there are in the game.

 

Elemental Endurance:

- their high AR vs fire looks a bit strange. Not to mention that it is currently twice higher than that for fire godlikes.

- I would propose Elem Endurance grant 6 freeze AR + 2 fire AR, instead of the current +4/+4.

 

Death's Usher:

- in PoE1 Death's Usher was very underwhelming because if the enemy is very low (but not near death yet) he would often get killed in one hit/spell anyway, so the damage bonus from DU was wasted. Technically you would get most of it against high hp enemies, but then again if you brought it to near death you will most likely have no problem to finish it anyway.

- it looks to be most useful for a triumphant paladin or any multi-classer that took the Mob Stance because you want to increase your chances of landing the killing blow.

 

Pallid Fate:

- the synergy with a Shieldbearer teammate and Barring's Death Door spell is obvious

- so how good is this racial will likely depend on party composition

 

Battle Forged:

- I always looked at this as a monk "racial", because otherwise I just don't want my character to get hit, not to say linger below 50% hp.

- This should scale and have some decent penetration to be worthwhile

 

Ashen Skin:

- it looks weird that Fire Godlike has lower AR bonus vs fire than Pale Elf.

- tbh, I'd prefer if this was substituted with "Ashen Affinity": +4 AR vs burn, -2 AR vs freeze, +1 Power Level with fire abilities

 

Silver Tide:

- the most useful racial really. And in Deadfire healing becomes even more important than ever.

- but it has to be scalling in order to compensate for better and better headgear comming along

 

Wellspring of Life:

- my favourite so far. The numbers can be tweaked if needed. But the fact that this can be reliably proc'ed is what makes it interesting to me.

 

Fighting Spirit:

- with the loss of 20s proc duration, this looks as unnecessary nerfed. Personally I try to keep my party at more than 50% hp, in order to avoid someone being one-shot when several enemy spellcasters happen to choose the same target.

 

Minor Threat:

- on the first sight this is a talent suiting a single target dps character. The thing is such annihilators will usually have a target of their own. And having to select a target threatened by a teammate is really limiting.

- but it looks like a great talent for Skalds and Barbarians that upgrade their Frenzy.

Edited November 19, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Gromnir]

am thinking the hearth orlan is underrated. at the moment, penetration is as fundamental a combat concern as accuracy, and deadfire crits is more significant than poe crits.  a deadfire crit results in a large penetration bonus.  in addition to basic crit damage, a large enough penetration advantage will provide a significant additional increase to damage.  yes, the number o' total hits affected by hearth orlan racial will be as small as it were in poe, but the potential damage increase is greater due to penetration bonus.  

 

any build which is maximizing penetration will see a benefit from the hearth orlan racial... and there is a few classes and abilities which is synergizing particular well when attempting to max penetration. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[dunehunter]

Wellspring of Life seems works best with Barbarian and Priest. Since they can get STR boost at lvl 1.

[aartz]

 

Let's talk about 'em!

Well, here are the thoughts on the current racials:

 

Resistance to X Afflictions:

- as already mentioned it is not intuitive enough plus these talents are accompanied by a quite vague descriptions.

- also some of these resistances can easily turn way more important than the others. For example in PoE1 having an extra defense vs stun would be much more impactful than a similar defense amount vs hobble, because a hobbled caster can still keep tossing spells.

- additionally it depends on average encounter design. In PoE1 we had to face much more paralyzing enemies than pronning. Not to mention that stunning and pronning enemies were usually already easier to deal with, and that's one of the reasons why I never used a Coastal Aumaua.

- and as usual: the interaction with similar effects, like barbarian's Unflinching talent is still unclear.

 

 

Heya MaxQuest (and everyone else in this thread),

 

Thought I'd drop in and try to explain what "Resistance to X Afflictions" means. I know we're going to release a comprehensive explanation eventually, but maybe I can help ya understand it for the beta since a lot of people have questions about it.

 

So in PoE2, Afflictions have both a "tier" and an "attribute"; the "attribute" is what attribute it affects, and the "tier" is how strong the affliction is within that attribute subset.

 

For example, let's look at Dexterity Afflictions:

• "Hobbled" is the tier 1 dexterity affliction. It gives you -5 Dex, and is the weakest affliction that affects Dex.
• "Immobilized" is the tier 2 dexterity affliction. It does everything hobbled does with the addition of some other stuff. It's strictly better than hobbled, since it's a higher tier.
• "Paralyzed" is the tier 3 dexterity affliction. Again, it does everything the previous tier (immobilized) does, with the addition of more. It's the best of the dexteritiy afflictions.

With that information in mind, resistance is actually pretty huge: it downgrades afflictions to their previous tier. So if your character has resistance to dexterity afflictions and gets hit with a paralyze spell/ability, they will be immobilized instead. If they're hit with an immobilized spell/ability, they'll be hobbled. And if they're hit with a hobble spell/ability, they'll resist it entirely and not be affected at all.

 

Resistance does not help your defenses against spells and abilities that apply these afflictions, it only downgrades the afflictions once they've actually hit you.

 

I hope that helps!  =)

[theBalthazar]

Aumaua, Coastal: Resistance to might afflictions.

Seems legit with artz explaination.

 

Aumaua, Island: Immunity to "slog zone" attacks.

Useless.

 

Dwarf, Boreal: Can graze primordials and wilder.

Useless, too specific + more if you are very accurate.

 

Dwarf, Mountain: Resistance to constitution afflictions.

Great.

 

Elf, Pale: +4 burn armour, +4 freeze armour

Correct but too specific

 

Elf, Wood: Resistance to dexterity afflictions.

Insane. You pass Paralysed to immobilized. Not the same thing... !...

 

Godlike, Death: +20% damage.

It seems to be too good to really be that. You have test ? If yes, it is 20 % at all time ? IF its all time, this is the best race. If not, the worst because near death (25 % PV...)

 

Godlike, Fire: +2 burn armour.

Strangely bad like said Tamerlane. I think to an error : p Godlike was too good, Obsdian want to destroy them. : p

 

Godlike, Moon: +10 health to allies in AoE first time hurt, bloodied, or near death.

LOL... Nerf of the absolute. No scale = Buried.

 

Godlike, Nature: +2 power level when under the effect of a might, constitution, or dexterity inspiration.

Best godlike in my opinion. (Subject to Death godlike)

 

"Human: +7 accuracy, +15% damage when bloodied or near death."

I didn't feel good when 25 % health. I heal as soon as possible. Totally useless, in all point.

 

"Orlan, Hearth: 10% of hits converted to crits."

Good but...Nothing more.

 

"Orlan, Wild: Resistance to resolve afflictions."

Great.

Edited November 19, 2017 by theBalthazar

[cheesevillain]

Godlike, Death: +20% damage.

It seems to be too good to really be that. You have test ? If yes, it is 20 % at all time ? IF its all time, this is the best race. If not, the worst because near death (25 % PV...)

 

 

No, it's the same ability from the last game.

 

Godlike, Fire: +2 burn armour.

Strangely bad like said Tamerlane. I think to an error : p Godlike was too good, Obsdian want to destroy them. : p

 

Yes, this is obviously an error.

[MaxQuest]

So in PoE2, Afflictions have both a "tier" and an "attribute"; the "attribute" is what attribute it affects, and the "tier" is how strong the affliction is within that attribute subset.[...]

With that information in mind, resistance is actually pretty huge: it downgrades afflictions to their previous tier.[...]

Thanks aartz! This explains it nicely)

 

And these racials look way more interesting in the new light.

Downgrading some of hard cc effects to soft cc during which characters can still perform actions is really valuable.

 

---

Now, knowing what it is about, here's the tiering for other attributes: 

 

Might:

- tier1: Staggered

- tier2: Dazed

- tier3: Stunned

 

Constitution:

- tier1: Sickened

- tier2: Weakened

- tier3: Enfeebled/Poison? - can't understand exactly (from inspecting statuseffects databundle)

 

Dexterity:

- tier1: Hobbled

- tier2: Immobilized

- tier3: Paralyzed

 

Perception:

- tier1: Distracted

- tier2: Disoriented

- tier3: Blind

 

Intellect:

- tier1: Confused

- tier2: Charmed

- tier3: Dominated

 

Resolve:

- tier1: Shaken

- tier2: Frightened

- tier3: Terrified

 

Edit: cross-link to the post with the actual effects.

Edited January 6, 2018 by MaxQuest

[aartz]

 

So in PoE2, Afflictions have both a "tier" and an "attribute"; the "attribute" is what attribute it affects, and the "tier" is how strong the affliction is within that attribute subset.[...]

With that information in mind, resistance is actually pretty huge: it downgrades afflictions to their previous tier.[...]

Thanks aartz! This explains it nicely)

 

And these racials look way more interesting in the new light.

Downgrading some of hard cc effects to soft cc during which characters can still perform actions is really valuable.

 

---

Now, knowing what it is about, here's the tiering for other attributes: 

 

Constitution:

- tier1: Sickened

- tier2: Weakened

- tier3: Enfeebled/Poison? - can't understand exactly (from inspecting statuseffects databundle)

 

 

 

Happy to help =)

 

And for Constitution, "Enfeebled" is the tier 3 affliction.

[dunehunter]

So can you counter an Attribute Affliction with an Attribute Inspiration? For example if one character is suffered from tier 1 Might Affliction Staggered, can I cast tier 1 Might Inspiration Strong on the target to dismiss the debuff ???

[Aramintai]

That sounds cool, but I've a question to get this straight. For example, if I have a wood elf with Wily Step does it always downgrade a dexterity affliction by 1 tier or does it get better (2, 3 tiers) with higher dexterity? And if it does get better shouldn't the current tier be written somewhere in Wily Step's description? 

[aartz]

So can you counter an Attribute Affliction with an Attribute Inspiration? For example if one character is suffered from tier 1 Might Affliction Staggered, can I cast tier 1 Might Inspiration Strong on the target to dismiss the debuff ???

 

Yep yep, that's the idea =)

 

Afflictions will erase inspirations of the same attribute, and inspirations will cleanse afflictions of the same attribute instead of applying separately.

 

So in your example, your character has a tier 1 Might Affliction, gets a tier 1 Might Inspiration cast on them, and instead of having both, they'll cancel each other out leaving that character with neither buff or debuff.

 

This is another reason why resistance is strong; enemies won't be able to cancel your tier 1 inspirations of the attribute you have resistance in anymore unless they counter it with a tier 2 affliction (since you'll resist the tier 1 every time).

 

That sounds cool, but I've a question to get this straight. For example, if I have a wood elf with Wily Step does it always downgrade a dexterity affliction by 1 tier or does it get better (2, 3 tiers) with higher dexterity? And if it does get better shouldn't the current tier be written somewhere in Wily Step's description? 

 

Resistances never scale. They will always reduce the tier of an affliction by 1.

[dunehunter]

Thx for the fast reply, that sounds super cool to me

[Aramintai]

And if I have innate tier 1 attribute resistance, will casting tier 1 attribute inspiration save me from tier 2 affliction? Or do I still need to cast tier 2 inspiration to negate it?

[theBalthazar]

1) And... Where is petrified now ? Still exist ?

 

2) If a counter is applied several times, the effect disappear totally ?

Edited November 19, 2017 by theBalthazar

[aartz]

And if I have innate tier 1 attribute resistance, will casting tier 1 attribute inspiration save me from tier 2 affliction? Or do I still need to cast tier 2 inspiration to negate it?

 

Great question! I believe that the intention (and after testing it right now this is currently how it works) is for all tiers of inspirations/afflictions to counter each other. So tier 1/2/3 afflictions will counter any tier of the same attribute's inpsiration, and vice versa.

 

So if your character gets paralyzed (tier 3 dexterity affliction), you can cast a tier 1 dexterity inspiration on them to counter the paralyze and end it early. Additionally, if you have a tier 3 inspiration, the enemy can use a tier 1 affliction to counter it.

 

But for resistances, it removes the threat of the tier 1 affliction; the enemy(or you, if a creature has the resistance =P) will have to use a tier 2 or greater to counter any inspiration for that attribute, since the tier 1 will be fully resisted.

 

1) And... Where is petrified now ? Still exist ?

 

2) If a counter is applied several times, the effect disappear totally ?

 

1. Petrified still exists, but it's considered the same as paralysis for the affliction system (tier 3 dexterity). 

2. The first time a counter is applied the effect is removed entirely. All subsequent applications will stick unless another counter is applied. For example: if you have a Tier 3 Might Affliction, and you use a Tier 1 Might Inspiration, both are removed completely (they counter). The next time you use a Tier 1 Might Inspiration, it will stick and work as expected until it runs out or is countered by another instance of a Might Affliction.

 

If that doesn't answer your question for number 2, let me know! I'll try to clarify =)

[JerekKruger]

I'm liking the Inspiration/Affliction system a lot, and the "resistance X affliction" racials seem really good as a result. Might and Dexterity seem particularly good as they can give immunity to particular hard forms of crowd control.

 

My thoughts on some of the other racials:

• Island Aumaua: I haven't noted exactly what penalties slog zones impart on characters (other than slower speed) but unless they are crippling this will only be good if slog zones are incredibly common
• Boreal Dwarf: I'd prefer that grazes became universal again, but if they remain limited then this might be pretty good for spellcasters.
• Death Godlike: do more damage to enemies you've basically already beaten, and do more damage shortly before you die (or are healed). Pretty bad.
• Fire Godlike: the Ashen Skin bonus is too low at the moment. If Battle Forged doesn't scale with level then it's pretty awful too.
• Moon Godlike: if this scales with level it might be okay, otherwise it's only useful in the early game.
• Nature Godlike: the worst godlike in PoE is now pretty good in Deadfire. I like this ability.
• Human: much like Pallid Fate this isn't great since it requires you to be low on health. At least in PoE it activated and you kept it after healing.

Hopefully these will be tweaked a bit.

[JerekKruger]

Intellect:

- tier1: Confused

- tier2: Charmed

- tier3: Dominated

 

The Berserker subclass causes Rage to afflict the Barbarian with Confusion (if I recall correctly), which is pretty terrible. I wonder if, at the moment, casting an Intellect Inspiration on the Barbarian would remove this affliction, resulting in superior Rage without the downside.

 

More interesting would be whether this mechanic (assuming it does work that way) is intended i.e. whether Obsidian intend for Intellect Inspirations removing Berserker's confusion to be a valid strategy. This would actually make the subclass decent (for those who can be bothered with the micro of always casting an Intellect Inspiration at least).

[Aramintai]

 

And if I have innate tier 1 attribute resistance, will casting tier 1 attribute inspiration save me from tier 2 affliction? Or do I still need to cast tier 2 inspiration to negate it?

 

Great question! I believe that the intention (and after testing it right now this is currently how it works) is for all tiers of inspirations/afflictions to counter each other. So tier 1/2/3 afflictions will counter any tier of the same attribute's inpsiration, and vice versa.

 

So if your character gets paralyzed (tier 3 dexterity affliction), you can cast a tier 1 dexterity inspiration on them to counter the paralyze and end it early. Additionally, if you have a tier 3 inspiration, the enemy can use a tier 1 affliction to counter it.

 

But for resistances, it removes the threat of the tier 1 affliction; the enemy(or you, if a creature has the resistance =P) will have to use a tier 2 or greater to counter any inspiration for that attribute, since the tier 1 will be fully resisted.

 

That doesn't really answer my question - are innate resistance+inspiration additive or not?

[KDubya]

Fighters can get resistance to resolve, might and dexterity afflictions which would stack with the racial from Coastal Aumaua, and Wood Elves.

 

So then a Wood Elf fighter with the Unstoppable tier four ability would be immune to Hobbled, immune to Immobilized and Paralyze gets downgraded to Hobbled.

 

A Coastal Aumaua with the Body Control tier four ability would be immune to Staggered, immune to Dazed and Stun gets downgraded to Staggered.

 

Wow!

 

That makes them a really good choice as the big threat is from afflictions that cold stop you like stun and paralyze. 

 

 

 

 

EDIT - Forgot that Wild Orlans get Resolve resistance so a Wild Orlan Fighter with Fearless would be immune to Shaken, immune to Frightened and Terrified gets downgraded to Shaken. Not as good as the others but not too shabby.

 

 

 

EDIT 2 - A Monk with Swift Strikes active gets the Quick Inspiration so that would mean a Wood Elf Fighter/Monk  would be immune to even Paralyze while under the influence of Swift Strikes.

Edited November 20, 2017 by KDubya

[Katarack21]

 

 

Let's talk about 'em!

Well, here are the thoughts on the current racials:

 

Resistance to X Afflictions:

- as already mentioned it is not intuitive enough plus these talents are accompanied by a quite vague descriptions.

- also some of these resistances can easily turn way more important than the others. For example in PoE1 having an extra defense vs stun would be much more impactful than a similar defense amount vs hobble, because a hobbled caster can still keep tossing spells.

- additionally it depends on average encounter design. In PoE1 we had to face much more paralyzing enemies than pronning. Not to mention that stunning and pronning enemies were usually already easier to deal with, and that's one of the reasons why I never used a Coastal Aumaua.

- and as usual: the interaction with similar effects, like barbarian's Unflinching talent is still unclear.

 

 

Heya MaxQuest (and everyone else in this thread),

 

Thought I'd drop in and try to explain what "Resistance to X Afflictions" means. I know we're going to release a comprehensive explanation eventually, but maybe I can help ya understand it for the beta since a lot of people have questions about it.

 

So in PoE2, Afflictions have both a "tier" and an "attribute"; the "attribute" is what attribute it affects, and the "tier" is how strong the affliction is within that attribute subset.

 

For example, let's look at Dexterity Afflictions:

• "Hobbled" is the tier 1 dexterity affliction. It gives you -5 Dex, and is the weakest affliction that affects Dex.
• "Immobilized" is the tier 2 dexterity affliction. It does everything hobbled does with the addition of some other stuff. It's strictly better than hobbled, since it's a higher tier.
• "Paralyzed" is the tier 3 dexterity affliction. Again, it does everything the previous tier (immobilized) does, with the addition of more. It's the best of the dexteritiy afflictions.

With that information in mind, resistance is actually pretty huge: it downgrades afflictions to their previous tier. So if your character has resistance to dexterity afflictions and gets hit with a paralyze spell/ability, they will be immobilized instead. If they're hit with an immobilized spell/ability, they'll be hobbled. And if they're hit with a hobble spell/ability, they'll resist it entirely and not be affected at all.

 

Resistance does not help your defenses against spells and abilities that apply these afflictions, it only downgrades the afflictions once they've actually hit you.

 

I hope that helps!  =)

 

That explains a hell of a lot.