Does Obsidian plan to address the underpowering of mage weapons such as Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, etc?

[bleedthefreak]

sorry for being off-topic. the character backgrounds are bland shade of darkness. it will be great if they can put some background behind the characters?  

 

You want to be able to focus entirely on the character, putting a background behind them makes the character sheet too "busy" and you can't see the models as well. 

[master guardian]

I remember Josh stated on one of the old Pillars threads in this forum that Nighshroud was extremely powerful.

 

The General consensus of the forum members at the time was that nightshroud was probably and if not the weakest soulbound out of all of them.

 

I too have had great frustration with how josh interprets what is powerful and what is not when it comes to weapons.

 

I personally dont even notice the difference bewteen 90% of the weapons in pillars 1. eg they all have minimal effects

[Osvir]

My Battlemage build with Concelhauts was one of my strongest beta builds I made. That and Crusader w/ Pike weapons (Fighter/Bleakwalker) are tied damagewise/survivability in Beta content IME (in my experience).

[Wormerine]

There is this weird situation now with multiclassing. Summoned weapons can be ridiculous in PoE1 as mages aren’t as survivable in close engagements. However, mix wizard with fighter and some of its perks and he gets much better. Give him summoned weapon from PoE1 and he is ridiculous. Yet, for a pure wizard and new summoned weapon might not be worth it (or more importantly fun). That’s a issue of stretching a system designed for single classes into multiclassing.

 

Having those “situational” or “multiclassing oriented” abilities wouldn’t be an issue in itself, however, single class wizard might have an even smaller selection of spells if we count those “multiclass skills” out on account of not bringing enough to the table. Still, how many single class wizard builds needs there to be, if we can also shake things up by mixing spellcasters with other classes on subsequent playthroughs?

[JerekKruger]

There is this weird situation now with multiclassing. Summoned weapons can be ridiculous in PoE1 as mages aren’t as survivable in close engagements. However, mix wizard with fighter and some of its perks and he gets much better. Give him summoned weapon from PoE1 and he is ridiculous. Yet, for a pure wizard and new summoned weapon might not be worth it (or more importantly fun). That’s a issue of stretching a system designed for single classes into multiclassing.

 

That's why I really don't understand why Obsidian decided to make summoned weapons scale with character level rather than power level.

[George_Truman]

My Battlemage build with Concelhauts was one of my strongest beta builds I made. That and Crusader w/ Pike weapons (Fighter/Bleakwalker) are tied damagewise/survivability in Beta content IME (in my experience).

 

Just because you see success with a spell doesn't mean it is good. The case that peeps here are making is that your build would be just as strong/stronger if you used a regular weapon instead of summoning concelhauts staff. Draining is a great enchantment but when you have to summon the weapon you are trading a unique weapon property (of a weapon you would otherwise be using) plus 5 seconds of cast time.

 

The success you are seeing may be in spite of the under-powered weapon rather than due to it.

[The Sharmat]

There is this weird situation now with multiclassing. Summoned weapons can be ridiculous in PoE1 as mages aren’t as survivable in close engagements. However, mix wizard with fighter and some of its perks and he gets much better. Give him summoned weapon from PoE1 and he is ridiculous. Yet, for a pure wizard and new summoned weapon might not be worth it (or more importantly fun). That’s a issue of stretching a system designed for single classes into multiclassing.

 

Having those “situational” or “multiclassing oriented” abilities wouldn’t be an issue in itself, however, single class wizard might have an even smaller selection of spells if we count those “multiclass skills” out on account of not bringing enough to the table. Still, how many single class wizard builds needs there to be, if we can also shake things up by mixing spellcasters with other classes on subsequent playthroughs?

Well I think a dev would probably see it as a big problem because, let's face it, most people playing the game will never multiclass. That's a feature for people that actually care about learning the game's systems, and most players don't.

 

 

My Battlemage build with Concelhauts was one of my strongest beta builds I made. That and Crusader w/ Pike weapons (Fighter/Bleakwalker) are tied damagewise/survivability in Beta content IME (in my experience).

 

Just because you see success with a spell doesn't mean it is good. The case that peeps here are making is that your build would be just as strong/stronger if you used a regular weapon instead of summoning concelhauts staff. Draining is a great enchantment but when you have to summon the weapon you are trading a unique weapon property (of a weapon you would otherwise be using) plus 5 seconds of cast time.

 

The success you are seeing may be in spite of the under-powered weapon rather than due to it.

 

If 5 seconds is that decisive I have to wonder if maybe combat encounters just go too fast in PoE2. I mean, they could be pretty decisive in some of the nastier PoE 1 battles but surely every fight in Deadfire isn't Concelhaut?

[George_Truman]

5 seconds + a level 1 spell cast to side grade your weapon. Also the cost of selecting the ability over another on level up.

 

You could get away with a 5 second "do nothing" spell in every fight in PoE but why would you?

Edited March 30, 2018 by George_Truman

[The Sharmat]

Is it really no better than any other weapon you could have?

[Boeroer]

In Deadfire it's just like a regular quarterstaff but with draining. Only thing it does is heal you a bit with each hit you score. There will most likely be a better unique staff than this.

 

In PoE it had draining and 20-30 (!) base damage while a normal quarterstaff had 14-20. That's what made it so good...

Edited March 30, 2018 by Boeroer

[AndreaColombo]

Yeah, the staff is pretty meh for the cost (plus the risk of being interrupted during the cast and losing the spell.) If you're a melee-damage-oriented character, you're better off just attacking from the start of combat with your non-summoned staff.

 

Same with Firebrand, which is just a great sword with Fire/Pierce damage instead of Slash/Pierce. Not even a fire lash on a sword that is literally made of fire.

 

The Blights and the Lance are good but the cost is still pretty steep and we don't know what magical items will be there to compete...

[The Sharmat]

In Deadfire it's just like a regular quarterstaff but with draining. Only thing it does is heal you a bit with each hit you score. There will most likely be a better unique staff than this.

 

In PoE it had draining and 20-30 (!) base damage while a normal quarterstaff had 14-20. That's what made it so good...

Well that just sounds awful. Why would you ever use it outside the first level? Even if you're doing the melee wizard build, seems like you'd just do the old melee wizard buffs but forego a magic weapon and fight with nonsummoned equipment. What's Josh on about?

[JerekKruger]

Is it really no better than any other weapon you could have?

In terms of doing damage it's no better no.

 

It has draining, which is a nice property to have but not one that directly raises damage output.

 

Note that, as a first level spell I think it's in a good place (apart from the long casting time). Yes it was much better in PoE, but you couldn't multiclass with a melee class in PoE (also in the long term the scaling quality enchantment means it'll end up at least as good). The objection is to Josh's claim that is actually ludicrously powerful and, hence, doesn't need a faster carrying time. Unless it's completely different in his version of the beta that's clearly rubbish: it's no more powerful than a mundane staff with the same quality enchantment.

 

A 5s delay night not be much (with the current speed of combat is quite a lot) but ultimately it is a DPS drop when compared to using a non-summoned weapon.

[JerekKruger]

Well that just sounds awful. Why would you ever use it outside the first level? Even if you're doing the melee wizard build, seems like you'd just do the old melee wizard buffs but forego a magic weapon and fight with nonsummoned equipment. What's Josh on about?

It has a scaling weapon quality enchantment. From level 1-4 it's ordinary, 5-8 it's Fine and 9-12 it's Exceptional. Presumably, though we can't currently check, from level 13-16 it's Superb and from 17-20 it's Legendary.

 

Obviously we can't say for certain when you'll find non-summoned Fine, Exceptional, Superb and Legendary weapons, so it might give you a headstart on some of those, though I doubt by much. By the to end of that range I'd expect you to have found some powerful enough non-summoned weapons that completely outstrip it, but then you'd be using Citzal's Lance out some other summoned by then.

 

Actually that leads to another problem with it, and any other spell you'll eventually stop using. Because you can't learn should from grimoires, picking something like the Parasitic staff eventually becomes dead weight, taking up a slot that you could have used on another, more long term useful spell.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Just to verify, summoned weapons give the proficiency automatically, right? Or not?

[Boeroer]

Not