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En Garde Motherfuckers
Apr 29, 2009

Hey. Is it just me, or do my balls itch?

Entropy238 posted:

Just did some testing and it does stack - which is amazing.

Ravenfood posted:

I thought all of the armor debuffs stacked. It's buffs, especially modals, that have stacking problems.

This is extremely good to know! Thank you

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Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Best Friends posted:

Them launching a new ME game right after to me indicates they did not want the end the setting. Though maybe that was a left hand / right hand organizational miscommunication.

bioware, hudson and walters clearly wanted it to end.

EA, however, did not want to lose their money-printing machine.

Heithinn Grasida
Mar 28, 2005

...must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel...

Ravenfood posted:

I thought all of the armor debuffs stacked. It's buffs, especially modals, that have stacking problems.

Are you sure? Debuffs typically don’t stack. I think hel hyraf’s doesn’t stack with the mace modal, for example. I know the flanking armor debuff stacks with everything, even though the deflection debuff doesn’t (which is bizarre, but thank god the armor debuff stacks, considering how much of a pain penetrating AR can be on PotD).

It could be because the debuff on blackened plate comes from equipment. Those can often stack in unexpected ways. For example, the action speed buff from lightning strikes on Lord Darryn’s voulge stacks with other speed buffs, even though speed buff on the lightning strikes skill itself doesn’t stack.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
I think Minoletta's Sigil is bugged on turn based. When I hit an enemy that has it, it knocks me back, but then assuming I don't get stunned I'm allowed to attack again in the same turn. The only time it won't let you attack in the same turn is if the sigil effect misses you.

ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist
By the end PotD is a little exhausting. I have completed Ashen Maw and Beast of Winter. Have 2 DLCs ahead of me - and only Forgotten Sanctum sounds like an interesting theme. It's a little strange that you go hunting with tribes of jerks sometime after you subjugate the domain of the god of annihilation. Would work much better thematically around level 10 or something, at that point I felt like everyone in the world is a higher level than me, but when I crawled to level 13 it was a quick ascend to level 18 when there were only DLCs and end game challenges left.

Anyway, every fight feels like a chore now. Probably my fault for going for maximum defense and sustain. Once my Chanter/Rogue discovered Ancient Memory the party turned into a non-stop machine. My Mage/Paladin gets their resources restored with Ancient Memory and heals again and again, plus there's constant heal from Chanter/Druid Tekehu. I lack proper means to go through armor and deflection (spells fail all the time) but Chanter/Rogue and Monk have a habit of doing criticals. So once I survive first several seconds of the fight and kill smaller critters it turns into a long battle of attrition and only I can replenish reserves. So the tactic is unimaginative but effective; I rarely lose fights but do I get bored in a process.

Thinking about rerolling my party just because. Fearing of the day I'll try Trial of Iron and that kind of boring tactic would be a necessity. Wondering if in Turn-based every turn is meaningful instead of current babysitting over healers.

jerman999
Apr 26, 2006

This is a lex imperfecta
I'm playing a monk/rogue in TB and have a basic mechanics question: do fists/Tuotilo's palm count as melee weapons for the sneak attack bonus?

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

ilitarist posted:

By the end PotD is a little exhausting. I have completed Ashen Maw and Beast of Winter. Have 2 DLCs ahead of me - and only Forgotten Sanctum sounds like an interesting theme. It's a little strange that you go hunting with tribes of jerks sometime after you subjugate the domain of the god of annihilation. Would work much better thematically around level 10 or something, at that point I felt like everyone in the world is a higher level than me, but when I crawled to level 13 it was a quick ascend to level 18 when there were only DLCs and end game challenges left.

Anyway, every fight feels like a chore now. Probably my fault for going for maximum defense and sustain. Once my Chanter/Rogue discovered Ancient Memory the party turned into a non-stop machine. My Mage/Paladin gets their resources restored with Ancient Memory and heals again and again, plus there's constant heal from Chanter/Druid Tekehu. I lack proper means to go through armor and deflection (spells fail all the time) but Chanter/Rogue and Monk have a habit of doing criticals. So once I survive first several seconds of the fight and kill smaller critters it turns into a long battle of attrition and only I can replenish reserves. So the tactic is unimaginative but effective; I rarely lose fights but do I get bored in a process.

Thinking about rerolling my party just because. Fearing of the day I'll try Trial of Iron and that kind of boring tactic would be a necessity. Wondering if in Turn-based every turn is meaningful instead of current babysitting over healers.

Turn based does make every turn meaningful. You'll find yourself slowing down and using a bigger variety of spells and tactics than you did on RTWP. Or at least, that was my experience.

My current party is a good mix of dps/sustain. My Fighter/Cleric has Wael buffs so he's pretty tanky, but he can also dish it out. Xoti buffs and then blows things up with Symbols/Storms. Maia is a dps machine either with the Red Hand or with her wizard spells. The rest of the party I rotate depending on my whims and that can make me lean more dps or more sustain depending on who I bring.

Next run I do I'll be going some kind of dps focused class as most of my mains so far have been more defensive.

jerman999 posted:

I'm playing a monk/rogue in TB and have a basic mechanics question: do fists/Tuotilo's palm count as melee weapons for the sneak attack bonus?

So far as I know any weapon can count for sneak attack bonuses.

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos

Ginette Reno posted:

So far as I know any weapon can count for sneak attack bonuses.

Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, does it?

If that's right it will work with fists and Tuotilo's Palm (and I can confirm that much), but it won't work with Long Pain Fists as they count as ranged AFAIK.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Prism posted:

Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, does it?

If that's right it will work with fists and Tuotilo's Palm (and I can confirm that much), but it won't work with Long Pain Fists as they count as ranged AFAIK.

It should work with ranged weapons. It did in Poe1.

The only ability you can't do with ranged weapons iirc is backstab. And also ranged weapons are a little harder to do sneak attacks with since one of the easiest ways to apply sneak attack is to flank an enemy and you're not flanking when you're a ranged character.

Basic Chunnel
Sep 21, 2010

Jesus! Jesus Christ! Say his name! Jesus! Jesus! Come down now!

You are if you're attacking Eder's target when Eder has persistent distraction :getin:

Digital Osmosis
Nov 10, 2002

Smile, Citizen! Happiness is Mandatory.

Prism posted:

Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, does it?

If that's right it will work with fists and Tuotilo's Palm (and I can confirm that much), but it won't work with Long Pain Fists as they count as ranged AFAIK.

Sneak Attack works fine with ranged weapons. Backstab, the passive that requires you to attack from stealth, has some extreme range requirement (4m?) that means it's effectively melee only, and I guess blunderbusses?

ilitarist posted:

Thinking about rerolling my party just because. Fearing of the day I'll try Trial of Iron and that kind of boring tactic would be a necessity. Wondering if in Turn-based every turn is meaningful instead of current babysitting over healers.

The one-standard-action-per-turn thing in TB does make every turn more meaningful, but if you've built your party for sustain (which I have) on the hardest difficulties there are still going to be fights in TB that end with some relatively boring moments of steadily hacking your way through trash mobs. The action economy makes it more interesting (and I personally love TB enough for that to help too) but there absolutely still have been times I've wished for an auto-attack or some kind of rudimentary AI because there were stretches of the fight where I wasn't making any interesting decisions.

Basic Chunnel
Sep 21, 2010

Jesus! Jesus Christ! Say his name! Jesus! Jesus! Come down now!

Yeah the undead waves in the Undercity / Hanging Sepulchres dragged after a bit.

Mainly I just put myself in a position where I have robust single-target damage but not a lot of AoE damage, esp. if enemies are resistant to frost. Those fights can go on and on.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Basic Chunnel posted:

You are if you're attacking Eder's target when Eder has persistent distraction :getin:

True dat.

Re: slog fights: This is why you bring an AOE caster at all times. Also don't forget about Fighter stances. Cleaving stance gives a free attack when you kill an enemy which is nice for dealing with big mobs of enemies.

Mr. Baps
Apr 16, 2008

Yo ho?

Prism posted:

Sneak attack doesn't work with ranged weapons, does it?

It absolutely does. Ranged rogues can be monsters.

Fhqwhgads
Jul 18, 2003

I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THIS GAME WHO GETS LAID
With the TB action economy, are summons more effective? Between Ishi, my chanters ogres, and Xotis avatar I'm basically doubling the size of my party on large fights and it feels like it really helps control the area. I haven't even started using all the summon figurines...

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos

Digital Osmosis posted:

Sneak Attack works fine with ranged weapons. Backstab, the passive that requires you to attack from stealth, has some extreme range requirement (4m?) that means it's effectively melee only, and I guess blunderbusses?

Oh, that's right, it's Backstab that's limited and not Sneak Attack.

Agnosticnixie
Jan 6, 2015
I finally understand how monk fist scaling works and while I get some of the dev concerns about people being stuck in specific cliches (e.g. light armor rogue; medium armor for anyone who isn't ranged or tanking actually does feel better), if they wanted more weapon-based monks maybe they shouldn't have given them a free mythical weapon for no investment whatsoever (like making poo poo like long pain work with weapons at all takes a talent tax)

Also backstab is 2m range which I think basically requires you to fire from the same range as a reach weapon

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Fhqwhgads posted:

With the TB action economy, are summons more effective? Between Ishi, my chanters ogres, and Xotis avatar I'm basically doubling the size of my party on large fights and it feels like it really helps control the area. I haven't even started using all the summon figurines...

Well they can be nice as meat shield since the enemy will sometimes target them and any hits your summons are taking are hits that you aren't taking.

I haven't found them terribly effective at actually doing damage. I have Vatnir using the Drake and Ogre summons in my current game and both seem to have awful penetration. The Drake's fire attack is nice, I guess. I've mainly found them useful as meat shields.

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005

Ginette Reno posted:

Well they can be nice as meat shield since the enemy will sometimes target them and any hits your summons are taking are hits that you aren't taking.

I haven't found them terribly effective at actually doing damage. I have Vatnir using the Drake and Ogre summons in my current game and both seem to have awful penetration. The Drake's fire attack is nice, I guess. I've mainly found them useful as meat shields.

Upgraded Wurm summon is bonkers good damage against anything vulnerable to fire damage, 50-75 per round times three wurms. The animated weapons also have high pen and special attacks, they're great.

I will agree that ogres are garbage. You'd think they would hit hard but they absolutely do not.

I haven't respecced to mess around with all the chanter summons to be fair, maybe I'll do that tonight.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe

Pellisworth posted:

Upgraded Wurm summon is bonkers good damage against anything vulnerable to fire damage, 50-75 per round times three wurms. The animated weapons also have high pen and special attacks, they're great.

I will agree that ogres are garbage. You'd think they would hit hard but they absolutely do not.

I haven't respecced to mess around with all the chanter summons to be fair, maybe I'll do that tonight.

How do you get three wurms? I thought the upgraded Drake Summon just made an enraged Drake appear when the first one died?

Haven't tried the animated weapons. I'll need to respec Vatnir and give those a shot.

Basic Chunnel
Sep 21, 2010

Jesus! Jesus Christ! Say his name! Jesus! Jesus! Come down now!

Pretty sure drake and wurm are two different summon talents.

Fhqwhgads
Jul 18, 2003

I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THIS GAME WHO GETS LAID
So which one is better overall, three wurms or an enraged drake? I'll need to spec out of the ogres at some point.

Nasgate
Jun 7, 2011

Ginette Reno posted:

I think Minoletta's Sigil is bugged on turn based. When I hit an enemy that has it, it knocks me back, but then assuming I don't get stunned I'm allowed to attack again in the same turn. The only time it won't let you attack in the same turn is if the sigil effect misses you.

I've run into this as well. More notably, it does the same thing to enemies and I killed 3 full HP enemies on their turn because they just kept coming back for more.

Fhqwhgads posted:

So which one is better overall, three wurms or an enraged drake? I'll need to spec out of the ogres at some point.

In turn based, the Drake's fire does two ticks per turn. When I used it, that meant a 60-80 damage aoe for two turns. I never got the enraged Drake upgrade, so I can't say much about that.

The Wurns die pitifully and had pretty poor accuracy ime. But if it's something meaty with low deflection, they can certainly whittle hp down on a single enemy well.

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

I ended up restarting Deadfire and changed the low-might and maxed perception+intellect PC wizard over to the illusionist subclass. Losing access to all the enchantment school of self-buff spells is definitely a big tradeoff for the subclass, although it can be mitigated somewhat via priest party-buffs. It works well as a crowd-controller and disabler, although a standard wizard would probably work just as well for that role (maybe even better!). The Spindle Man's grimoire is a good fit given it contains most of the illusionist-compatible cc-spells.

One issue is that the cc-wizard is relatively fragile AND doing basically no damage so other characters have to pick up the slack, constraining group composition a bit. Another is that there are relatively few high-level illusion spells (ie none at all for spells levels 7 and 9), so the impact of the subclass extra power levels for illusion spells is somewhat reduced. However there's a fairly good range of disabling spells in the first six spell levels (esp Ryngrim's Enervating Terror and Gaze of the Adragan), so the lack of high-level abilities is not such a big deal. Overall it's been interesting to see how to make it work.

Working through Deadfire and the writing + gameplay are still impressive, especially the consistent combat challenge using level-scaling. I'm looking forward to getting to the DLC sections.

Entropy238
Oct 21, 2010

Fallen Rib
Managed to down Bel Ranga after nine or ten tries. Had to google what the deal was with the spider killing mechanic but after I got that down things started to fall into place.

Pinned my herald close to Bel Ranga with “the wall” but still out of melee range so he’d absorb all of the ranged hits, used the other party members to kill about 2/3rds of the nests so I had a steady stream of manageable spiders to generate focus for Ydwin.

Shifted everyone to the left side of the screen and slowly killed spiders till her defences were low enough/her damage was getting ridiculous. Dropped a plague of insects scroll to get rid of her concentration and then went to town with about 25 concelhaut’s crushing dooms powered by brilliant from my cipher. Everyone else just chipped away while the hammer kept on smacking. Really cool fight.

Agnosticnixie
Jan 6, 2015
Some of the god challenges look fun but mostly a bunch of them look more like encouraging relatively moderate playstyle changes to work around (at least after going through Maje island with Skaen and Hylea on: Hylea makes being the worst parent on Eora properly nerve wracking, I'm just glad I haven't accidentally blown Vela up yet; Skaen otoh seems like barely noticeable).

Sadly I'm not sure I'll finish that run since it also turns off mods which I wasn't prepared for (losing crushing on guns wasn't a fun surprise in the training rooms; I really hate that weird bit of D&D grogness where bows are objectively more reliable than guns in a 17th century pirates game). Plus I'm pretty much 99% sure Vela would have gotten killed by poo poo like construct aoes because I still have no idea how to do that one bounty in Neketaka without a disturbing amount of collateral damage.

Digital Osmosis
Nov 10, 2002

Smile, Citizen! Happiness is Mandatory.

I'm kind of considering trying the Vela challenge in the near future. She follows the PC very closely, right? Seems like the ideal party would be pretty tank heavy, with the PC and another party member doing backline single DPS. I imagine that might end up with the fights taking forever, though. Has anyone found success with Hylea's challenge?

Banjodark
Jun 10, 2001

Beautiful and good
Punishing with his kindness
Jacob is perfect

Digital Osmosis posted:

I'm kind of considering trying the Vela challenge in the near future. She follows the PC very closely, right? Seems like the ideal party would be pretty tank heavy, with the PC and another party member doing backline single DPS. I imagine that might end up with the fights taking forever, though. Has anyone found success with Hylea's challenge?

I’m thinking you’ll want lots of scrolls of withdraw & barring deaths door, a priest and maybe a Druid (beetle shell).

Turn based may make it a lot easier, as withdraw lasts like 5+ rounds.

Having a tank or two built around punishing enemies who disengage could be a good way to go as well.

If you’re going turn based, a skald can cast the paralyse & stun shouts 3 rounds in a row (then empower to cast more) locking down large fields of enemies for a very long time.

Fighters can also stun large packs with charge.

You can also use a stealthed character to lay a trap before combat so you can corral the enemies closer together before the turn based combat kicks in (letting you stun and drop lots of aoe on them in round 1).

ratchild13
Apr 28, 2006

Fun Shoe
I've done Hylea and a couple others up through BoW and lvl 20, as a ranger/cypher. It worked pretty well, but was definitely super frustrating with the dragon in BoW, or other fights where usually rogue type enemies will do a teleport attack to the lowest deflection party member, which is always Vela. I'd just started the SSS fights but hadn't gotten very far, but I reckon some of those would be quite challenging. Extra summons or the protective cocoon spell are helpful to keep her safe.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
Just beat Belranga last night on turn based and I guess it's still possible to do the cheese combo of Ancestor's Memory + Barring Death's Door + Salvation of Time. Haven't tried the other bosses yet. I think the Ooze debuffs on crits so it might be harder to do that there.

I probably could have beaten Belranga without abusing Death's Door. Just Salvation of Time plus Mage buffs is probably enough to tank her as long as you eat a shark soup.

Entropy238
Oct 21, 2010

Fallen Rib
Am I looking at things right or is the generic wizard sub-class the best option from a long-term/balanced/powergaming perspective on a pure Wizard?

I'd thought about doing an Evoker for a new playthrough to get some big honking numbers but the +2PL to Evocation spells and the 15% chance echo effect really doesn't seem worth losing Transmutation Spells (Slicken, Combusting Wounds, Arcane Dampener, Pull of Eora, Freezing Pillar, Arcane Cleanse) and Conjuration Spells (Chill Fog, Arcane Veil, Wall of Flame, Spirit Lance, Wall of Draining, Piercing Sigil) + the recovery malus. Spells by school here

Two additional power levels for spells is (where applicable):

+1 Projectile
+10% Damage
+10% Duration
+ 0.5 Penetration
+ 2 Accuracy

Maybe I'm not fully appreciating the numbers (in practice, +2PL for some spells is probably a 25%/40% damage increase) but it would seem to me that combusting wounds alone would more than make up for that in a lot of cases. It's hard to argue against the value of the echo effect but it doesn't seem worth the overall loss of utility/adaptability. The recovery malus has to be factored in too.

Blood Mage looks like it could be super strong in the early/mid game or as part of a multi but the benefits of blood sacrifice look like they might fizzle out once you get access to other resource replenishing skills.

Entropy238 fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Mar 20, 2019

Entropy238
Oct 21, 2010

Fallen Rib
Alternatively, I might just be a bore and the Echo effect is a game changer in practice?

Agnosticnixie
Jan 6, 2015
Evoker seems okay for blasting, at least finding grimoires that work for it seems easier.

Blood Mage is pretty good though, it's like, imo better than brilliant since you get it at level 1 and it allows the class to pair extremely well with anything you might initially fool yourself into thinking would be a good idea for a cipher multiclass. I've honestly not tried to finish a game with it but that's mostly obsessive restartitis. The endless sustained healing is obscene especially paired with a chanter or paladin auras and you're still a wizard.

Agnosticnixie fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Mar 20, 2019

PirateBob
Jun 14, 2003
Ashen Maw or w/e it's called: What is supposed to happen when you speak to Eothas and interact with the piece of your soul? I didn't have the disposition requirements to merge with it.

Nocturtle
Mar 17, 2007

Entropy238 posted:

Am I looking at things right or is the generic wizard sub-class the best option from a long-term/balanced/powergaming perspective on a pure Wizard?

I'd thought about doing an Evoker for a new playthrough to get some big honking numbers but the +2PL to Evocation spells and the 15% chance echo effect really doesn't seem worth losing Transmutation Spells (Slicken, Combusting Wounds, Arcane Dampener, Pull of Eora, Freezing Pillar, Arcane Cleanse) and Conjuration Spells (Chill Fog, Arcane Veil, Wall of Flame, Spirit Lance, Wall of Draining, Piercing Sigil) + the recovery malus. Spells by school here

I've been having fun playing through using a PC illusionist wizard, but wouldn't really recommend it. For most group-roles it seems like the generic wizard works just as well as any of the subclasses, while the subclasses have less overall flexibility due to the lost schools. Maybe the wizard subclasses are more useful for multiclass characters?

Agnosticnixie
Jan 6, 2015

Nocturtle posted:

I've been having fun playing through using a PC illusionist wizard, but wouldn't really recommend it. For most group-roles it seems like the generic wizard works just as well as any of the subclasses, while the subclasses have less overall flexibility due to the lost schools. Maybe the wizard subclasses are more useful for multiclass characters?

I thought about that the short time I tried enchanter but the lost schools are really not great (if it was Enchantment with Illusion and Conjuration minor it would probably be close to perfect as a war wizard subclass), you're probably still better off multiclassing with a base wizard.

edit: I'm not sure this is an import bug but I can't see Maneha in Dunnage even though I picked the "live with your regrets" option that's virtually impossible to get in the history builder (also the lack of Zahua's Tacanaquin ending in the builder seems weird, it's not like it's some obscure hard to get quest ending like tempering Abydon, heck, kidnapping Vela after murdering Simmoc is less obvious than that and it's a choice)

Agnosticnixie fucked around with this message at 03:04 on Mar 20, 2019

Nasgate
Jun 7, 2011
Does what happened to Zahua do anything? I haven't noticed if it has. Also, I thought Maneha only shows up if she loses her memories.

JawKnee
Mar 24, 2007





You'll take the ride to leave this town along that yellow line
I think I saw maybe one mention of Zahua in DLC dialogue. That's about it though afaict

Agnosticnixie
Jan 6, 2015

Nasgate posted:

Does what happened to Zahua do anything? I haven't noticed if it has. Also, I thought Maneha only shows up if she loses her memories.

I think the only Zahua impact is if he writes his conquered country's history the book exists ingame or something.

Also yeah I guess that should have been obvious, I'd forgotten what the slides said.

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ilitarist
Apr 26, 2016

illiterate and militarist

PirateBob posted:

Ashen Maw or w/e it's called

Not sure what requirements those are but it upgrades you Sympathy for the Lost ability.

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