Ryzak

I was messing around with the Unity Console mod for Deadfire, (e.g. trying to break the game) and realized it has an "Unlock All Achievements" function. I've seen posts before about people wanting the global.achievements file so they can play through with as many Blessing of Berath points as they want, so I figured I would upload it here. The file attached has maxed out points for Blessings of Berath. I tested it on a vanilla install to be sure, and it seems to work. Hopefully its helpful to someone. It goes in: C:\Users\<your name>\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II\Achievements *Edit: apparently forum doesn't like me attaching .achievement files, so heres a link to my google drive: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1se7YK7e28fqubewArwkobxRRd_Rv6Uoc

I really don't understand why you're saying a paladin doesn't provide solid conventional dps, but a Devoted Fighter does? Flames of Devotion is outright superior to any of the single target damage abilities a Fighter brings to the party except for Power Strike, and Power Strike costs way too much to be useful. I could maybe see the argument if cleave still hit in an AOE, or if charge still acted as an attack, but as of right now if you are comparing Psyblade to Inquisitor, I think the Paladin combo brings more to the table.

Yeah, I'm hesitant to play with heavy mods because I like to write guides after I finish a playthrough (see https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198024054503/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides ) and if I mod the game too heavily, my experience is no longer a useful guide to people playing vanilla. For now I'm basically just back-burnering the game until DLC's come out and they complete whatever rounds of revision they're contemplating. I understand. I've been playing more of Battletech while waiting for more balance changes myself - the modding was mostly a recognition of how desperately disappointed I am in ciphers right now. At least Arcane Knights are fun?

Ascendant really is a bit of an exception to this though since you just get full focus at the start of the fight from Kitchen Stove or some other weapon ability and spam free high cost spells. sure, *-ish*. Sorta. Kitchen Stove's Wild Barrage can work well sure but it's per-rest so it has the issue all per-rest abilities have -- again, it's just a straight disadvantage vs. the per-encounter casters. Also, while that works on lower difficulties and in the early/mid game,, on higher difficulties and higher levels it gets less and less possible to "alpha strike" your way into instantly full focus, even with optimized gear combos. And meanwhile, the Wizard is nuking with an Empowered Minoletta's (a valid comparison since we're comparing per-rest). Ascendant does mitigate the problems because once you fire your opening salvo (whatever it is) with your weapon and do whatever else you need to do to max your meter, usually a couple more attacks depending, then you can usually cast 4-5 times (a little less now post nerf) and then you have to get back up to max again. When I say ciphers are "playable" that's basically the build I played -- the only full run I've done so far was with an Ascendant cipher using Kitchen Stove + (other gun) as primary and quarterstaff secondary (for crushing). It was a lot of fun initially but there was a huge dive in utility, relative to the rest of the party, after about level 12 or so, and there were multiple levels ranges where my dude was basically reduced to chain-casting the same power over and over (i.e., levels 8 to 12 were mostly "get Ascended, then Pain Block everybody, plus Body Attunement on the boss monster" etc). And even then, a lot of the abilities I relied on were significantly nerfed in the most recent patch (looking at you, Body Attunement and Time Parasite). It's easy to miss the performance difference if you are just microing your main and using base AI, because the class is playable and functions, but if you set up your scripting properly (and there are mods now to set max focus as a conditional trigger, very useful for Ascended) the difference in performance between a properly scripted cipher and a properly scripted Wizard is extremely dramatic. Wizard spells are just across-the-board more effective and in a typical fight Wizards will be able to cast many more times than even a properly built, properly scripted Ascendant will, and each Wizard spell will generally be more effective to boot (compare Ninagauth's Death Ray vs. Ectopsychic Echo ; both powers are the same tier, 3; the wizard gets Death Ray for free from a grimoire; Death Ray does more *raw* damage than Echo does crushing). The whole time you're building up your focus with autoattacks the Wizard is dumping their spellbook, and by the time they finish, there usually isn't much left for the Cipher to cast at. Net result, though -- Cipher has two big issues: 1) too short roster of *quality* power choices, and 2) focus mechanic hurts rather than helps. You can kinda avoid #1 by going multiclass and just splashing in the few good Cipher powers which are still worth taking, and you can sorta partially dodge #2 by going either Soul Blade or Ascendant (as both rework the focus mechanic). That's why all the best cipher builds right now do both, and go like soul blade assassin or streetfighter ascendant or whatever. If you don't explicitly build to circumvent those two big traps, you're borked. At this point I would almost be in favor of replacing the cipher resource with the Ascendant mechanic, and working up some sort of different gimmick for the ascendant. Maybe then the class could be re-balanced around lulls and surges of power, with fast casts and hard hitting abilities. It would maintain some unique flavor to differentiate ciphers from other casters. For now I'm personally playing with cipher abilities heavily modded, as I'm not holding my breath on any serious changes coming to them from patches. They're abysmally boring to play otherwise.

I'm very much like you - I get as much fun out of optimizing/tweaking/tooling with build options as I do playing. Honestly its probably just easier to replace your achievements file with someone who already did them - unlocks all the Berath stuff. You can have mine if you would like, I all but one achievement I think. Go to: C:\Users\<username>\Saved Games\Pillars of Eternity II\Achievements Replace the global.achievements file with someone else's to get the respective bonuses. You can download a copy of mine here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1se7YK7e28fqubewArwkobxRRd_Rv6Uoc I hope this is useful.

I hate to say this, but I think what you're running into is the current cipher problem - beyond charm spells they don't really offer anything interesting. The point where you stop playing because you become dissatisfied reflects this - there really isn't much that is that interesting/powerful/useful for ciphers until PL5 & PL6, which makes the climb to get there on a multi class a drag. Even then the PL5/6 stuff is just passable, not really "good". The suggestions I would have would be: Focus on getting something to negate the confuse as soon as you can, to avoid the friendly fire issue. (Modwyr, intellect affliction immunity food, etc) Recognize that you're largely a barbarian with some support passives and a few spells - the cipher is the also-ran in this contest. Possibly consider alternate class combos for similar Berzerk-Caster flavor - I am a particular fan of a Berserker/Fury (Barb/Druid) combo using the Lord Darryn's voulge weapon. Its a very fun electrical damage focused theme build with a flavor that may be more interesting for you. (carnage synergizes well with the aoe effect of the voulge as well)

Because content is tailored to average power level. You have to minimize standard deviation of power level to be able to target as many play styles and tastes as possible. Not to be snarky, but the fact that wizards in Baldur's Gate 2 were blatantly more powerful than any other class didn't make the game-play any less fun. The presumption that balance needs to be *between classes* is a mistake. Balance is between you and the enemy you face - if the enemy is as fully capable of exploiting a charge->cleave through your party as you are, then balance is exactly where it needs to be.

I've never noticed Disintegration destroying loot, ever, in either game. Not sure why Verde thinks it does, Boeroer.

Soul Annihilation damage was basically cut in half. I don't agree that they are now in "avoid" territory though, as soulblade with draining whip mixed with pretty much any martial class is still going to be a very effective damage dealer. I think the issue is more that for any situation where you have 60 focus to cast disintegration/amplified wave or use soul annihilation, you're probably better off using disintegration. For an ability that is supposed to define the subclass, its not that great anymore.

I'm having nearly identical issues. Game is largely stable, but reliably crashes on exit. No crash log is generated. Triggering the crash seems to be caused by "Exit to Desktop" directly from in game. Choosing to "Exit to Main Menu" and then exit normally seems to avoid the crash for me. I've included a link to a savegame, output file, and copy of the windows crash report below - its too large to allow me to attach it to this post. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Q2i7NkLKhu8Df9qsgMqwL5-ONGjbpFCf

I enjoy Devoted/Evoker Battlemage. Paladin is nice because of the defenses but I agree that its not worth the disposition annoyances. Rogue can work - strong mobility and very high damage, although you would probably be a bit reliant on your wizard for defenses. Battlemage has been my preferred play style since Cipher is fairly abysmal in 1.1. I think the fun part of the Devoted/Evoker is that the fighter aspect lets you deal with things 1v1, while the wizard gives you a combination of some strong self buffs and enough area of effect damage to handle groups. Torrent of Flame in particular can be nasty for a melee caster.