Spells and Abilities Discussion Thread

[JerekKruger]

Whilst we've know what Spells and Abilities each class will have since Cohh's first stream, we haven't had all the details. With yesterday's release this has changed and I thought it would be good to have a place to discuss them.

 

One of the first things I did upon loading up Deadfire for the first time was create a Wizard, level her to 20 and check out Citzal's Enchanted Armoury to see what exactly the weapons do (I'm a huge sucker for Summoned Weapons). Turns out the two weapons you summon are a Great Sword and a Morning Star (yes, you get to dual wield two-handed weapons).

 

First here's what they look like

 

 

Here's the Breastplate

 

 

Here's the Great Sword

 

 

And here's the Morning Star

 

 

At first glance they seem a bit disappointing, but that's because they aren't properly showing their scaling effects. When you mouseover the relevant values in the main inventory screen you find out that they are the equivalent of Legendary items (+4 AR on the Breastplate, +16 Accuracy and +60% Damage on the two weapons).

 

That said I'm still not convinced by this spell. The biggest advantage (dual wielding two-handed weapons) can't be fully taken advantage of since Wizards don't have any Full Attacks (and multiclass Wizards can't get this spell), and the Breastplate is something of a liability (by the time you get this spell you'll likely have access to very good non-summoned armour which will be suppressed by this spell).

 

Anyone got a good argument as to why this is actually a good spell?

 

What other abilities have people now taken a closer look at? Are they better or worse than you expected?

[dunehunter]

Both Deep Wounds and Persistent Distraction is a bit buggy. DoT breaks invisible currently, Persistent Distraction will cancel any Perception Affliction on target if u disengage or turn invisible.

[Urthor]

I have absolutely no idea which of the druid wizard and priest spells are good, and it probably doesn't matter because my melee classes are doing all the work anyway

[JerekKruger]

Firebrand now has a +25% Burning Lash. It also looks awesome.

 

I have absolutely no idea which of the druid wizard and priest spells are good, and it probably doesn't matter because my melee classes are doing all the work anyway

 

It matters insofar as it'd be useful to build up a picture of how good/bad various classes are in comparison to each other so that they can be balanced. Also discussing abilities is fun (or at least I find it fun).

[AndreaColombo]

Could you post a shot of Firebrand?

 

Looked the same as in the beta when I consoled it in.

 

What about the spirit lance?

[JerekKruger]

Here's Firebrand. Perhaps this is the same as in the beta? I vaguely remembered it just being a generic Great Sword but that might have been in an earlier version of the beta. Apologies if this is the same as you'd seen Andrea

 

 

As for the Spirit Lance it's almost unchanged from the beta. As far as I can tell it has some more sparkly vfx which does improve it a little, but sadly the cool model from PoE is gone.

 

I also quickly checked Berath's Summoned Great Sword and, sadly, that's still just a generic Great Sword with a Corrosive Lash, no unique model.

[JerekKruger]

Also Llengrath's Blunt Wisdom: garbage. It's a point blank AoE knock back that summons a scaling Staff as a level 7 spell. No additional properties on the weapon. Meanwhile Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff gives you a better weapon for a level 1 spell.

 

It looks okay though.

Edited May 9, 2018 by JerekKruger

[AndreaColombo]

Firebrand:

 

Glad to see it has a burning lash at long last. It made no sense for a sword that is literally made of fire not to have one.

 

Visually it's the same as the beta and to me it looks unfinished; just a VFX without a proper weapon, like the Spirit Lance. If these were their final looks, I'd be very disappointed (especially in comparison to how good the summoned staves and armory weapons look.)

 

Citzal's Armory:

 

Looks really good, but stats are underwhelming. I spend of my few precious 9th-level spell picks and find myself with a regular breastplate that has no special enchantment? By that time I guess I'll be bathing in legendary gear; I don't need to summon one. Dual-wielding two-handers looks cool but without full attacks, the benefit is moot compared to dual-wielding enchanted unique 1H that have powerful properties.

[JerekKruger]

Agreed, although I would have liked to see it have the same lash as the Priest Spiritual Weapons.

 

Yeah I can see what you mean about the look. For some reason it doesn't bother me for Firebrand but it does for the Spirit Lance. It's a shame because the Spirit Lance is probably the best of the Wizard Summoned Weapons (well, apart from the Minor Blights, but I view them as a different category).

 

Yeah I think I am fairly convinced that the Armoury isn't worth it. At least it makes the choice as to whether to multiclass a gish Wizard easier. I checked through the game files and all weapons have a generic Legendary variant so it doesn't look like Legendary is going to be rare at higher levels. Some thoughts on how to make the spell seem more appealing:

• Make the Breastplate have no recovery penalty (it's magical after all).
• Make it so that, whilst summoned, you get a full attack ability of some sort (the spell works the same way as Druid transformations which give extra abilities, so I imagine this would be doable).

[atommsk]

Did you test which passive you benefit from while using the armory, dual weapon or two handed? Maybe even both?

[AndreaColombo]

It doesn't help that itemization in Deadfire is fantastic. I used the console to check out some items and there are estocs and great swords that are pretty darn good. Same with sabres, and I believe the best armor in the game happens to be a breastplate. Indeed, the armory's breastplate should at the very least have no recovery penalty, and the weapons perhaps some unique ability.

 

The black bow looks underwhelming too. The VFX itself is cool but the bow is very meh.

[JerekKruger]

Did you test which passive you benefit from while using the armory, dual weapon or two handed? Maybe even both?

 

Not yet. I'll do so at some point, but the time it takes to get a new character to a point where you can test things makes it tiresome to do.

 

If it benefits from both that would be nice, but probably not good enough to make it worthwhile (compared to a Devoted/Wizard using Citzal's Lance say).

 

It doesn't help that itemization in Deadfire is fantastic. I used the console to check out some items and there are estocs and great swords that are pretty darn good. Same with sabres, and I believe the best armor in the game happens to be a breastplate. Indeed, the armory's breastplate should at the very least have no recovery penalty, and the weapons perhaps some unique ability.

 

The black bow looks underwhelming too. The VFX itself is cool but the bow is very meh.

 

And Josh said summoned weapons were super powerful

 

Yeah I spent a bit of time looking at items using the console. A surprising number of weapon types have only one or two uniques but generally speaking they are actually pretty cool. There are a huge number of Swords, which is an improvement on PoE.

Edited May 9, 2018 by JerekKruger

[Koth]

speaking of which I tried to use the AddExperienceToLevel 20 command in the console so that I could test out some skills... and it came back saying that this command wasn't available.. so.. which console commands did you use to achieve this?

[JerekKruger]

speaking of which I tried to use the AddExperienceToLevel 20 command in the console so that I could test out some skills... and it came back saying that this command wasn't available.. so.. which console commands did you use to achieve this?

 

Did you use the "iroll20s" command first? You have to do that to activate other cheats.

[Koth]

 

speaking of which I tried to use the AddExperienceToLevel 20 command in the console so that I could test out some skills... and it came back saying that this command wasn't available.. so.. which console commands did you use to achieve this?

 

Did you use the "iroll20s" command first? You have to do that to activate other cheats.

 

You sir... win my favourite person on the internet award for today... that is all...

[JerekKruger]

You sir... win my favourite person on the internet award for today... that is all...

Glad to be of service

[rheingold]

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

[KDubya]

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

 

Not sure on the polaxs but with the large number of weapons proficiency picks you can cover a bunch. Plus there is no penalty for using a weapon without proficiency unless you are a Devoted. You just lose access to the modal which may or may not matter.

[rheingold]

Thanks, but I'm not concerned about weapon proficiency as such, just hoping that there are some decent pollaxes, because there were not many options in the first game...

[JerekKruger]

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

There's a soulbound one. I've no real idea what it does as I didn't level it up, but it looks pretty cool (like a bardiche).

 

Other than that I think there's only one other unique one, though I may be wrong about that.

[Urthor]

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

 

  Yes https://i.imgur.com/CLB4lv1.jpg

 

I'm curious though, why poleaxe in particular?

Edited May 10, 2018 by Urthor

[Hazmy]

 

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

 

  Yes https://i.imgur.com/CLB4lv1.jpg

 

I'm curious though, why poleaxe in particular?

 

Pollaxes are quite unique. I tend to use weapons I can't use in other games aswell usually. Also they have good penetration and 2 good damage types.

[JerekKruger]

More on Pollaxes (spoilered in case people don't want the details revealed)

 

 

 

 

This has been fully upgraded.

 

 

As far as I know those are only two, though there may be more if the naming conventions aren't strictly adhered to.

[rheingold]

Thanks, hopefully it will be a good one.

[rheingold]

 

Off topic I'm afraid. But does anyone know if there are any decent pollaxes this time around? It's compulsory for my Dwarven berseker, and would be nice if it was any good in comparison to greatswords.

 

  Yes https://i.imgur.com/CLB4lv1.jpg

 

I'm curious though, why poleaxe in particular?

 

I have no real answer other than I really like poleaxes, and they seem to fit dwarf barbarians, though some would say its a bit of cliche...

I just don't fancy any other weapon type for him. And the first game had some fantastic greatswords, but no decent 2h axes. (excluding the one in Adra dragon quest - never killed the dragon hunter - and it came really late) so it's nice to know that I can hopefully run with them this time and not feel slightly gimped because of fashion reasons...