devoted and universal weapons

[Gromnir]

devoted fighter is current not working as intended. however, regarding universal weapons, am not certain of intent. for example, will a devoted fighter/priest o' eothas be able to create a firebrand and benefit from devoted fighter keenness, or will the firebrand suffer a -10 accuracy penalty if the player is devoted to pollaxes? one would assume 'cause o' the nature o' soulbounds, the devoted benefits would apply to all weapons which would be categorized as universal, but am not certain. 

 

developer feedback would be appreciated.

 

thanks in advance.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[TheC]

I doubt they would change the mechanic of a class just because you went multiclass. Devoted gets the benefit of a single weapon type and penalties to the rest. Kinda of easy and simple to understand. That is a great step forward for POE2 across the board.

[Gromnir]

I doubt they would change the mechanic of a class just because you went multiclass. Devoted gets the benefit of a single weapon type and penalties to the rest. Kinda of easy and simple to understand. That is a great step forward for POE2 across the board.

devoted already changes the mechanic o' a class.  am simple curious 'bout how far the developers is taking the change.  at the moment, particular with the penetration aspect o' deadfire combat, choosing a high penetration weapon is a no-brainer.  devoted stacks additional ap to whatever the weapon has inherent. most penetrating weapons is piercing, save for the warhammer.  so Devoted Dan chooses an estoc and is cutting through deadfire foes like a wolverine set loose in a chicken coop... right up until he meets the foe with piercing immunity or piercing armour o' 45 or some such similar nonsense.  

 

the advantages o' devoted is significant.  however, once the devoted bug is fixed, the appeal o' devoted is gonna dwindle somewhat when the single weapon limit is enforced.  -10 accuracy and no devoted benefits for any weapon save the devoted.  is a serious penalty to balance serious power. 

 

soulbound and universal is a proverbial monkey wrench in the gears. for example, the priest classes all have a 2nd tier spell which creates a universal weapon.  priest o wael gets quarterstaff, yes? so our devoted/priest o' wael with devotion to estoc can have crush and pierce covered easily with all benefits o' devoted applying to the quarterstaff, and will be covered quite early in the game.  is not as if you will need play half of the game before you get a spiritual weapon as a devoted/priest o' wael.  maybe find a soulbound greatsword? pretty much got all the basic damage types covered and all his 2h fighter weapon benefits is gonna apply as well as all the devoted goodies. the big limit for the devoted becomes... less.

 

am curious.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Boeroer]

Hm, why don't you try this out with the soulbound dagger in the beta? Just don't choose dagger as proficiency and see if the soulbound dagger gets +3 PEN nonetheless. Doesn't mean that it stays that way, but maybe the result is a hint...?

[Climhazzard]

Do we even know these are universal weapons in PoE 2?

[Gromnir]

is one reason we asked for feedback.  figured it would be much easier for obsidian to tell us how is intended to work than to experiment and then not know if results is due to devoted bug... or not.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Boeroer]

Well good luck with that.

 

One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

Edited November 21, 2017 by Boeroer

[OlleDenStore]

Well good luck with that.

 

One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

 

I guess that would be a question of how it's implemented. If I was designing the system I would make the modal a feature of the weapon and not the proficiency. So if you have proficiency in that weapon class, you can use the modal for that particular weapon. That would allow you to create more powerful and/or unique modals for high end gear, and it would allow for universal weapons like in POE1 where any proficiency would do. That would be kind of cool.

[CottonWolf]

Well good luck with that.

 

One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

 

It also relies on you trusting the devs to make cool weapons of every type. In PoE1, some weapon type had almost no uniques, and this'll be even more obvious in Deadfire because of the changes to enchantment, so you can't just make a good weapon of that type. If you end up of a devoted of a weapon type that has very few uniques in the actual game, you're screwing yourself at character creation without even knowing it.

[Gromnir]

 

Well good luck with that.

 

One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

 

It also relies on you trusting the devs to make cool weapons of every type. In PoE1, some weapon type had almost no uniques, and this'll be even more obvious in Deadfire because of the changes to enchantment, so you can't just make a good weapon of that type. If you end up of a devoted of a weapon type that has very few uniques in the actual game, you're screwing yourself at character creation without even knowing it.

 

soulbounds were the obsidian solution to the difficulty o' making certain every poe weapon had equal appealing uniques. it makes sense to have the soulbound solution carryover to deadfire.  however, soulbounds, if implemented in deadfire same as in poe, would likely result in a significant dilution o' the devoted's penalty/handicap.

 

as far as we can tell, priestly spiritual weapons and the firebrand are not current having the universal quality.  am admitted not certain if the lack o' universal is intentional, oversight or bug.  absence o' such a quality does make spiritual weapons and similar such far less appealing as other than skaen stilettos, the weapon choices is armour piercing weak. at the moment, a weapon-focused character not utilizing an ap weapon is a suspect proposition.

 

didn't check, but am assuming skaen priest spiritual weapon is stilettos.  if such is the case, am seeing early game benefits to taking spiritual weapon on a skaen priest or skaen priest multi-class.  otherwise...

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Boeroer]

Skaen priest summons stiletto & club.

 

Magran summons sword and pistol, Berath great sword, Wael rod and Eothas flail.

 

The appeal of those weapons is that they scale now. They not only become fine/exceptional and so on with level, they also gain a scaling lash (in case of Berath and Wael it's 60% corrosive lash at lvl 6 which is powerful - the rod also has the lash on its blast AoE).

 

So maybe being universal would be too good. I also don't see how the universal thing could work once you have more than one proficiency. How would you choose which one to use with that universal weapon? You would need the whole list of your possible modals once you equip that weapon. I don't think this is gonna happen.

[draego]

Well good luck with that.

 

One could check if soulbound weapons are still universal without using a Devoted. I might roll a barb with proficiencies other than dagger and look if I can use any modal (am 99% sure I can't because the UI would have to list all modals I have) and then try weapon focus. Or fighter with weapon spec. Until I do that my guess is that this universal thing with soulbound and summoned weapons is gone and that you need to pick the fitting proficiency (might cause bad feelings for devoted fans if they find a cool new weapon and can't retrain).

 

Another reason i dont like the weapon proficiencies. I dont see why they cant boil all those modals down to generic modals or talents that you can apply to any weapon you want. It seems to rigid for a POE game.

Edited November 21, 2017 by draego

[Gromnir]

Skaen priest summons stiletto & club.

 

Magran summons sword and pistol, Berath great sword, Wael rod and Eothas flail.

 

The appeal of those weapons is that they scale now. They not only become fine/exceptional and so on with level, they also gain a scaling lash (in case of Berath and Wael it's 60% corrosive lash at lvl 6 which is powerful - the rod also has the lash on its blast AoE).

 

So maybe being universal would be too good. I also don't see how the universal thing could work once you have more than one proficiency. How would you choose which one to use with that universal weapon? You would need the whole list of your possible modals once you equip that weapon. I don't think this is gonna happen.

penetration still makes weapons such as flail and great sword sucky, regardless of lash for the falil and in spite o' the burn/pierce for the firebrand-- the weapons am particular familiar with is firebrand and the flail for eothas.  sure, with a chanter skald constant reducing armour we can achieve functionality, but is not worth usage save in extreme limited situations... which would be fine in poe, but not deadfire.  the priest spell catalog is far too small.  even for specific multiclass builds, am not seeing much utility as long as the current penetration scheme is in place

  

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Ok yeah that's a good point re : penetration and I haven't seen raised; priests are kinda "locked in" to their weapon choices by virtue of their subclass magic weapons. You could of course take the proficiency for that weapon BUT the optimal strategy right now is to be proficient  in one high-pen/low dps weapon and one high dps/low pen weapon and priests have a harder time doing that.

[dam]

Hm, why don't you try this out with the soulbound dagger in the beta? Just don't choose dagger as proficiency and see if the soulbound dagger gets +3 PEN nonetheless. Doesn't mean that it stays that way, but maybe the result is a hint...?

 

Soulbound items benefited from any weapon proficiency you had in POE1, even if said proficiency applied to a different weapon type.

So, if it's like POE1, any weapon proficiency ought to trigger the bonus.

[Climhazzard]

It seems to me that with the exception of Devoted we're going to get enough weapon proficiency's that weapon spells and soulbound weapons really shouldn't need to be universal anyhow.

 

Also take note that soulbound weapons are class restricted...  so wouldn't a cool idea be a soulbound weapon for Devoted that transforms into the weapon of your chosen proficiency?  

[Boeroer]

Soulbound items benefited from any weapon proficiency you had in POE1, even if said proficiency applied to a different weapon type.

So, if it's like POE1, any weapon proficiency ought to trigger the bonus.

Funny - it sounds as if I didn't know that.

 

Soulbounds in PoE were universal and profited from any weapon focus. There were no proficiencies. They even worked with the +10 ACC talents of priests, like Hope Eternal (Eothas) or Inspired Flame (Magran).

 

That was easy to code - but now with the profiencies giving a modal which has to be represented in the UI instead a passive +6 ACC it's a coding nightmare. What if a char has 4 proficiencies and finds a universal weapon? Should the game display all modals side by side so that you can choose or should it pick one for you? It's difficult...

Edited November 21, 2017 by Boeroer

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Well, currently, devoted aren't limited to a single weapon, just to the weapons they're proficient in. And they'll have a couple of slots, or at least they currently do. If you're going devoted / priest of Berath, pick greatswords at start.

Edited November 21, 2017 by Dr. Hieronymous Alloy

[Boeroer]

Yeah sure. That will be the way you have to do it. Same with soulbounds.

 

Devoted having more than one profiency atm is a confirmed bug though.

[draego]

 

Soulbound items benefited from any weapon proficiency you had in POE1, even if said proficiency applied to a different weapon type.

So, if it's like POE1, any weapon proficiency ought to trigger the bonus.

Funny - it sounds as if I didn't know that.

 

Soulbounds in PoE were universal and profited from any weapon focus. There were no proficiencies. They even worked with the +10 ACC talents of priests, like Hope Eternal (Eothas) or Inspired Flame (Magran).

 

That was easy to code - but now with the profiencies giving a modal which has to be represented in the UI instead a passive +6 ACC it's a coding nightmare. What if a char has 4 proficiencies and finds a universal weapon? Should the game display all modals side by side so that you can choose or should it pick one for you? It's difficult...

 

 

Nice reason to not have any weapon specific proficiencies and just make them into general ability models like other class abilities. Then you could apply them to any weapon you want and roleplay the weapons you find interesting

Edited November 21, 2017 by draego