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Your full attacks (so basically your rogue specials, not your cipher attack) hit with both weapons but only recover their offhand, so a high-base damage weapon in the primary can be good.
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Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire |OT| Josh Sawyer's Pirates!
- Thread starter Anno
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Cool, good to know. I'll keep my eye open for anything that fits the bell. As-is, I still don't have any ways of restealthing during a fight (that I know of), so building around a backstab I get to do once per encounter feels a little silly.
Also, jesus, Maia Rua is a monster. Funny how much skeletons shut her down, though.
Also, jesus, Maia Rua is a monster. Funny how much skeletons shut her down, though.
They posted on the Codex that an experimental turn-based mode was spotted (and then quickly removed) on the beta branch on Steam:
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So I'm level 10, just got to Dunnage for the first time. Haven't touched DLC, haven't gone to Hasongo or done any side missions up around there. Have no idea how to gauge how far I am through the sidequests—basically have done everything that I've come across in Neketaka, did the Poko Kahara stuff elsewhere, that's about it.
I assume that between DLC and remaining main quests and side quests, I'm on track to hit the level cap long before exhausting the content that's left to me, right? I'm considering bumping it up to PotD and downloading an exp limit mod—I was originally gonna save that stuff for a future playthrough but this game is so big, I honestly don't know when that'll be. I wouldn't hugely mind spending a good deal of my time finishing this game at level cap, the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun enough to me that I don't think I'll need a carrot on a stick to keep going, but it might be nice to pace myself a little bit.
I assume that between DLC and remaining main quests and side quests, I'm on track to hit the level cap long before exhausting the content that's left to me, right? I'm considering bumping it up to PotD and downloading an exp limit mod—I was originally gonna save that stuff for a future playthrough but this game is so big, I honestly don't know when that'll be. I wouldn't hugely mind spending a good deal of my time finishing this game at level cap, the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun enough to me that I don't think I'll need a carrot on a stick to keep going, but it might be nice to pace myself a little bit.
I installed Deadfire Lite and switched from Veteran to PotD yesterday and I could swear the game got easier. Or maybe my progress along the flattening difficulty curve is outpacing the changes from mods.
I don't really mind but I never use potions and have never crafted anything, hope I get some fights that require me to resort to that stuff.
Also, since getting Shadowing Beyond on my MC and Maia, I've been spending basically all my Guile on that. It seems too good not to use basically, they can each 100-0 any even-leveled enemy with a sneak attack and a follow-up. It's real fun to zip around the fights freely and land big hits, but I am a little sad that my characters' diverse skillsets have been effectively winnowed down to "Shadowing Beyond (2 uses per encounter)".
I don't really mind but I never use potions and have never crafted anything, hope I get some fights that require me to resort to that stuff.
Also, since getting Shadowing Beyond on my MC and Maia, I've been spending basically all my Guile on that. It seems too good not to use basically, they can each 100-0 any even-leveled enemy with a sneak attack and a follow-up. It's real fun to zip around the fights freely and land big hits, but I am a little sad that my characters' diverse skillsets have been effectively winnowed down to "Shadowing Beyond (2 uses per encounter)".
Deadfire is 43rd on Valve's official Top Sellers of 2018 list. Maybe it actually didn't sell as badly as people think it did?
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Those lists aren't ranked within the category (if you refresh the page they should all move around), so it's really somewhere between 41 and 100. But yeah that occurred to me, too.
Man, I really wish I could squeeze one more person into my party. I've cleared out basically all the sidequests in base content and am heading into BoW. I really want to bring Ydwin—I love her character design and want to see her actually being a character—but it feels hard to fit her in my party. I have Eder tank, Pallegina offtank/offheal, Tekehu heal/nuke, and Maia and my MC for DPS. Maia feels like the natural one to swap out for a Cipher, but I like her character and she does a whole lot of work.
e: Maybe I'll try to ditch Pallegina and have Ydwin make up the difference with charm/debuffs. It feels like Pallegina far and away brings the least to the party, although it's hard to tell exactly how much her healing auras are doing. At least, her attacks seem weak and most of her contribution seems to be ...And Their Fear spam.
e: Maybe I'll try to ditch Pallegina and have Ydwin make up the difference with charm/debuffs. It feels like Pallegina far and away brings the least to the party, although it's hard to tell exactly how much her healing auras are doing. At least, her attacks seem weak and most of her contribution seems to be ...And Their Fear spam.
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Yeah, very possible. So much of her stuff is less flashy than anyone else in the party.
Having Ydwin in for her instead is working out alright so far, although, holy moly, focus generation on a pure Cipher seems pretty pokey. I have Frostseeker and Draining Whip on her and she's still starved all fight. Meanwhile my MC is hitting cap and dumping it into a SA over and over.
Having Ydwin in for her instead is working out alright so far, although, holy moly, focus generation on a pure Cipher seems pretty pokey. I have Frostseeker and Draining Whip on her and she's still starved all fight. Meanwhile my MC is hitting cap and dumping it into a SA over and over.
Man, I stumbled into Forgotten Sanctum stuff on the way to BoW. I left as soon as I figured out what it was, but I can't wait to go back. That is extremely my kinda setting.
Started BoW. It seems surprisingly harder so far? Even with PotD on and Deadfire Lite running, I was cruising through all vanilla game content, but The Messenger fight and that Frozen Shade fight outside the temple were real chuggers. I think I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing when I'm underpenned. MC and Ydwin both have Body Attunement, Tekehu has that 7th-level (or whatever) Armor Rating debuff, I turn on everyone's pen stuff, but I still spend the whole fight hitting for 25-50% on most of my guys, and Frozen Shades being veiled doesn't help. Is that just how these fights are supposed to be?
Started BoW. It seems surprisingly harder so far? Even with PotD on and Deadfire Lite running, I was cruising through all vanilla game content, but The Messenger fight and that Frozen Shade fight outside the temple were real chuggers. I think I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing when I'm underpenned. MC and Ydwin both have Body Attunement, Tekehu has that 7th-level (or whatever) Armor Rating debuff, I turn on everyone's pen stuff, but I still spend the whole fight hitting for 25-50% on most of my guys, and Frozen Shades being veiled doesn't help. Is that just how these fights are supposed to be?
Hot Razor Skewers help with +2 weapon pen, anther food I can't remember is spell pen. Mace modal on a tank/non-DD is an easy way to snag an extra 1 pen on top of any other modals. Pike modal lowers deflection -> increases crit rate, and crits have +50% penetration. And of course, upgrade weapons to legendary if they aren't.
Yeah, heralds in general are the quiet MvP's of the game. They aren't super flashy or DPS monsters but man do they just make every encounter smoother. I have Pallegina as my main tank as well as summonbot and she is more than carrying her weight.
I just started using her with that frost bow and it's been really effective, but I'm sure something like Dowry works great too.
I really wish melee characters wouldn't swing at/automatically miss enemies that are technically out of range. It especially stinks because they'll blow resources on it, and because enemies get to connect their attacks. Losing 200 focus because an instantaneous, awkward knock-back effect suddenly repositioned a whole lotta guys, pushing my target out of range, feels pretty bad!
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You can use it on defense, at least. Give someone a 100% stride buff and they can dodge some big boss attacks once you learn the animation.
I haven't been able to consistently use it on defense, and I've very regularly had experiences where my character gets jiggled out of range as the animation is starting but their attack still hits—exactly the privilege my own characters aren't afforded. I'd gladly take both sides getting to land their hits over my own characters losing cooldowns over it.
Also this second DLC is no joke.
Also this second DLC is no joke.
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Yeah I wish they'd just left it like the first game and let attacks extend beyond their normal range, even when it looked/felt bad.
I'll probably start this game in the coming week. Any suggestions for starting class/race? Also what difficulty? I've played a lot of RPGs including older stuff like BG, NVN etc so I'm not too concerned about combat but I don't really want to get bogged down by it. I want to move through at a pretty solid pace as I have lots of games to play.
My concerns for character class is also partly for party synergy. I'd like to use some of the newer companions probably and maybe Ed and Pal. While I won't keep these two mainly I'd definitely like to revisit them.
My concerns for character class is also partly for party synergy. I'd like to use some of the newer companions probably and maybe Ed and Pal. While I won't keep these two mainly I'd definitely like to revisit them.
I'm sure a lot of possible main characters feel this way, but Cipher/Rogue Death Godlike has felt like a really, really good fit for the game, both in terms of minute-to-minute dialogue options and overarching plot stuff. RPing as someone who reveres Berath and who cares about the sanctity of the Wheel more than the tragedy of individual death has been rewarded in some really surprising, satisfying ways. The class takes a lot of micro, but I don't mind that for an MC, and having all the damage records feels like a good fit for the protagonist—as does being the one dashing around blasting people out of stealth while your partymembers stick together.
If I were starting fresh, and I wanted to be someone else, I think I'd do a single-class Pale Elf Wizard or Monk. Wizard because they're always fun and satisfying to play in these games, and Aloth is a wet blanket; Monk because it seems like a high-mobility, high-micro class that isn't redundant with any of the other companions. I bet there's some Barbarian/Chanter melee nut that's pretty fun to play, too. Basically, some combination of damage caster, debuffer, offtank, and/or melee DPS seem like the good protagonist fits with how combat works and the companions the game gives you. I would not play a tank (they seem boring and Eder is plenty good) or ranged martial DPS (Maia is a great character and excellent in the role).
That said, I bet there are a whole lot of satisfying characters in this game.
If I were starting fresh, and I wanted to be someone else, I think I'd do a single-class Pale Elf Wizard or Monk. Wizard because they're always fun and satisfying to play in these games, and Aloth is a wet blanket; Monk because it seems like a high-mobility, high-micro class that isn't redundant with any of the other companions. I bet there's some Barbarian/Chanter melee nut that's pretty fun to play, too. Basically, some combination of damage caster, debuffer, offtank, and/or melee DPS seem like the good protagonist fits with how combat works and the companions the game gives you. I would not play a tank (they seem boring and Eder is plenty good) or ranged martial DPS (Maia is a great character and excellent in the role).
That said, I bet there are a whole lot of satisfying characters in this game.
I don't have any particular suggestions for starting class, but I'll try to answer some of your other questions and then come back to it. Any race is fine. Deadfire gives the different races a nice amount of reactivity, but there's no race that gets like a whole race-specific questline or radically different experience of the game. So if you want to choose based on min/maxing your stats, go ahead. If you want to choose based on aesthetics, that's fine too.
For difficulty, classic is the setting for people who are familiar with these types of RPGs and like engaging with combat but don't want to get bogged down in it.
As for your companions, Eder and Pallegina can give you lots of flexibility with your last two slots. Eder as a Fighter or Swashbuckler will make a solid frontline fighter. Make Pallegina a Herald (Paladin + Chanter) and she will provide both a secondary tank and a lot of passive/active healing and buffs.
The new companions have the following class options:
Xoti: Priest, Monk, Contemplative (she's best as a priest)
Serafen: Cipher, Barbarian, Witch (I thought witch was not a strong fit for him at release, but maybe that's changed)
Maia: Ranger, Scout, Geomancer (she's VERY strong as a scout)
Tekehu: Druid, Chanter, Theurge (note that his chanter tree includes some unique offensive invocations, so he wouldn't necessarily be redundant with Herald Pallegina)
So returning to your question about your MC's class and synergy, you can see that you have a lot of options. It may help to think first if there's a particular playstyle not represented among the companions that you would like to have in the party. Do you want someone who does monk things? Do you want a wizard so that you don't feel weird about benching Aloth?
The feedback of the latest changes to Veteran difficulty make it sound like its well tuned for experienced players at this point. I would take a XP reduction mod with it though, just in case. You can always take it off or make up for it in a variety of ways if you feel it isn't your thing.
Re: class/race, I would 100% recommend choosing what appeals to you regardless of any other factors. The companion class options are extremely varied, the options within each class are equally varied, and you don't really need anything in particular to have a 'viable' party. Four slots is plenty for a functionally complete party in terms of roles, the fifth slot for your Watcher can be anything and everything. Even if you're overlapping with the exact same multi class as one of your companions, there are so many viable options in each class that it would still be easy to make them play differently.
The console command "addexperiencetolevel [level]" is a great tool to help you mix and match and test companions. People not in your party get less experience, so insta-leveling them to your Watchers level makes it much easier to to freely test combinations.
My experience largely lines up with this. Playing on veteran in my current run and there have been quite a few encounters that required me to reload and adjust strategies a bit. Also, quest level indicators are still a bit wonky, as you can have a quest with no "this is higher level than you" indicator but show up to find it full of red 3-skull enemies.
This spider fight on the Seeker path in SSS is brutal. Everyone's constantly being paralyzed, I can't keep a frontline because the big spiders keep teleporting, them being ranged means that one of my party members will just melt if they take too much aggro, and the little guys aren't even all that squishy. Tempted to dip to the Slayer path (I've already done the first 3 on that one) but I really want the dang seeker sword. My MC has been dual-wielding Stalker's Patience/Modwyr foreeeever, Seeker's Fang seems like the rare sword that's good enough to try swapping it in.
I tried switching back to 2h for the big backstabs, but Stalker's/Modwyr both hit for 22-32 (before their respective damage bonuses), and Engoliero de Espirs hits for...22-35. That's without the 15% talent or the Soulblade bonus, but still, woof.
I tried switching back to 2h for the big backstabs, but Stalker's/Modwyr both hit for 22-32 (before their respective damage bonuses), and Engoliero de Espirs hits for...22-35. That's without the 15% talent or the Soulblade bonus, but still, woof.
This one was a pain in the ass for me too. Shark Soup gives you immunity to dexterity, might, and constitution afflictions, which'll clear up all your paralysis issues. The big spiders are ranged and will stay in back, so you should be able to hit at least 2-3 at a time with a single Wall of Many Colors that'll keep them in place and non-functional. What I did was stealth everyone, send my tank in left, line everyone else up to the right, unstealth the tank and have him pop all his defensive stuff so that he can hold aggro from everyone for a little while, and then have everyone else work their way up from the bottom/right towards him and through the big spiders in back. Combusting Wounds/Wall of Fire also works really well with the number of spiders and their weakness to fire.
Oh, that soup advice woulda gone a long way. I never know what defense stat different afflictions target, so I never really use the things that boost them. I wish that information were a little more legible. Finally got the spiders down with a couple Ironskin potions and some very steady work. Fun fight, but I'm glad the crucible is over—I get wanting to do a gauntlet of hard fights, but a lot of them felt more like slogs than interesting challenges.
I'm at the end (I think) of SSS now, and I have a spoiler question:
I'm at the end (I think) of SSS now, and I have a spoiler question:
I agreed to fight Whehami, started fighting him, he's almost down, and an aggroed Aexica just ran in from off screen. Is that supposed to happen? She wanted me to fight Whehami, odd that she'd aggro when I fight him.
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The enhanced UI mod from the Steam workshop helps more quickly ID inspirations/afflictions by giving them a color code if you want.
What do these arcane channels on (what I assume is) the last fight of Forgotten Sanctum do? I have no idea if I'm supposed to be focusing them.
Had a similar thing with the
fight where I
I like how creative they're getting with these fights but it isn't very clear what the game wants from me a lot of the time.
Had a similar thing with the
Maura
focused the power conduits, thinking that'd stop the big laser beam, only to discover that they basically didn't do anything except let you choose when to move to the next phase of the fight. Which is nice and inventive, but, cmon, you point a giant laser at me and put two power sources in the room, whaddya think I'm gonna do?
Huh. I sided with the Principi and Pallegina up and left. Which isn't itself that weird, but everyone else on the internet says that no one left when they sided with the Principi. I even did her quests and did a bunch of quests for Vailia.
What's the deal, bird paladin
Also, tried the Hellfire Colossus just to see if I could take a megaboss. Think I did about 120 damage to him before getting wiped. Nuts. No thanks!
e: Aaaand there's a giant nude Pallegina in the middle of the ocean. no wonder she had to leave
What's the deal, bird paladin
Also, tried the Hellfire Colossus just to see if I could take a megaboss. Think I did about 120 damage to him before getting wiped. Nuts. No thanks!
e: Aaaand there's a giant nude Pallegina in the middle of the ocean. no wonder she had to leave
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I'm mad at myself. Only ten hours into my second playthrough did I bother to look up how to redeem all my Blessings of Berath from the first run. Obviously they're only available right when you start a new game. I guess I wasn't expecting them in the difficulty setting screen and clicked through too quickly to notice. Would have been happy to take a leg up on cash and all that.
Ah well. This run is still a pretty serious, getting-to-know-all-the-DLC sort of run. I guess I'll be glad I have all those bonuses for a boost if I ever do a third playthrough.
Ah well. This run is still a pretty serious, getting-to-know-all-the-DLC sort of run. I guess I'll be glad I have all those bonuses for a boost if I ever do a third playthrough.
I gotta say, permanently and irreparably removing a companion from your party with no forewarning in response to a decision that you're pretty well locked in to making by the time you make it is not thrilling design. I get that they were trying to make these choices feel meaningful but...this doesn't feel meaningful, this feels like arbitrary punishment
I think they don't leave your party if they're not in your party for the actual conversation in which you make your decision, if that helps. Dunno if that's rig or if they changed it, but I remember Maia bailing when I went Huana but not leaving once I took her out of the party for my conversation with the queen
Hey folks. I'm playing Fallout New Vegas right now and really enjoying the quest design, the choice variety, and the way it uses skills. I'm curious to play POE, given it's the same studio and director, but I've never played a CRPG (the closest I've cone is Dragon Age Origins on console.) I'm wondering if POE is an OK starting point and if it has the things from NV I mentioned above. I'm playing on console. Any tips/advice is appreciated.
Yeah, POE has all of those elements. Though if you like the faction stuff that's given a much, much bigger focus in POE 2. If you've played DA:O you'll be fine with POE. It even has a Story-mode difficulty if you find it too overwhelming.
Yeah, I read about the faction stuff. It sounds like POE2 is even more like New Vegas, but I want to use the time between now and the console release to get familiar with the lore.
Thanks for the reply. Gonna go ahead and grab POE1 then.
Finally got into some DLC stuff over the weekend, starting with Beast of Winter. Definitely some harder fights in here than most of what I've encountered in the base game. I ended up not beating one of the major boss fights last night, but realized this morning that I can probably make it a lot easier on myself
I was quite surprised by how much lore is filled in from that area of BoW. Lots of insight into some major events from Eora's past that directly effect the plots of both games.
The 2nd time you fight the Dragon, I wasn't really taking advantage of the chains debuff the inquisitor lady casts. If I activate it when the dragon casts Llengrath's safeguard (which makes it pretty much impossible to do reasonable damage), I can basically just move my party away and wait out most of the buff while pallegina's passive healing tops everyone off.
I was quite surprised by how much lore is filled in from that area of BoW. Lots of insight into some major events from Eora's past that directly effect the plots of both games.
Maia's Concussive Shot thing that reduces beneficial effects on the target wound up being extremely clutch in that fight. Before I remembered I had it, I was basically stuck waiting that spell out, which included losing value on a bunch of cooldowns; being able to just blast it down and keep going made it MUCH easier.
Do you guys really recommend the reduced XP mods? I bought the collectors edition (with all dlc) and am currently roughly 4 hours in (just got the boat) and I'm at level 5 already which feels really fast.
I'm also playing on Hard mode so don't want to make the game a misery for myself either by making it too difficult but also don't want to make it a cake walk.
I'm also playing on Hard mode so don't want to make the game a misery for myself either by making it too difficult but also don't want to make it a cake walk.