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Pillars of Eternity |OT| You must gather your party before venturing forth.
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Battles just weren't lasting long enough for me to use their abilities in my experience. So I only had them for the passive chants.
Atraveller
Banned
That's cute.
kamineko
Does his best thinking in the flying car
I've had Kana the whole time, I use the will & fortitude chant pretty much the whole time. It's short, so I get up to 4 or 5 quicky.
Then I call some wurms or a drake. He's got heavy armor and a lot of might so I put him in front with Eder. Pulled him out and put the godlike paladin in for a bit, but she kept getting crushed.
But yeah, I don't use the full range of his chanter stuff, doesn't really seem worth it
Then I call some wurms or a drake. He's got heavy armor and a lot of might so I put him in front with Eder. Pulled him out and put the godlike paladin in for a bit, but she kept getting crushed.
But yeah, I don't use the full range of his chanter stuff, doesn't really seem worth it
Would it be too broken if the chants they gained in battle stuck around after? Maybe with a cap?
PandaPedinte
Member
I think the advised level to do this quest is 6 or 7.
famfrit
Member
Wow, very good.
Both monks and chanters need to start each battle with like, half the max wounds/chants they can hold. Kinda weird that ciphers basically get it, but the other two resource gen classes don't.
I feel that as a cipher character, the cipher having a focus pool outside of combat is an anomaly though. It actually feels more and more broken as the tiers unlock. I don't think introducing this to the chanter class makes a lot of sense because it would break the game even further. Let's say chanters start with 3 chants - if you have one chanter in your party you can summon a phantom right from the start, next to an enemy, and bam, that enemy get dazed while your party attacks from safety and the tanks engage the dazed enemy. That automatically breaks like 90% of all encounters in the first half of the game at least. If you have two chanters or more in your party? Instant victory.
Granted, you can say the same for ciphers, they're extremely broken, but that's not really entirely a good thing. I'm not going to say they should nerf ciphers more, because I'm playing as one, but... yeah they should nerf ciphers more.
I feel that as a cipher character, the cipher having a focus pool outside of combat is an anomaly though. It actually feels more and more broken as the tiers unlock. I don't think introducing this to the chanter class makes a lot of sense because it would break the game even further. Let's say chanters start with 3 chants - if you have one chanter in your party you can summon a phantom right from the start, next to an enemy, and bam, that enemy get dazed while your party attacks from safety and the tanks engage the dazed enemy. That automatically breaks like 90% of all encounters in the first half of the game at least. If you have two chanters or more in your party? Instant victory.
Granted, you can say the same for ciphers, they're extremely broken, but that's not really entirely a good thing. I'm not going to say they should nerf ciphers more, because I'm playing as one, but... yeah they should nerf ciphers more.
I think that's more a fault of how strong phantom is than anything else. It's certainly more powerful than the 4-chant summons, and toning it down while speeding up chant generation or just letting them cast something at the start would help with how the class plays.
And really, if having two phantoms breaks the first half of the game, waiting 12 seconds to summon them is hardly an obstacle for the determined. I'd rather see them tone down the efficiency of their spells rather than the pace of their resource generation, even for ciphers.
Edér having the same voice actor as Kanji (Persona 4) is just perfect. They're totally soul buddies.
Instead of nerfing the class itself in a singleplayer game, how about nerfing phantoms? This is a totally unbiased suggestion, clearly not at all related to playing solo and hating phantoms. *shifty eyes*
kamineko
Does his best thinking in the flying car
I think I started right away, stopped when the fights got hard, came back after a couple of levels. Rinse, repeat
Not sure how high you'd need to be to do level 5
I do agree that the phantom is too strong as a 3-chant summon, but I don't see a way to weaken it without making it useless. Take away the daze and you're better off with summoning the 3 skeletons just for flanking bonuses. Maybe it should be a 4-chant summon instead of being nerfed in effectiveness.
12 second is a long time in terms of PoE combat though. I think it's worth noting that time is a resource as well. Could a determined player choose to play defensively to let the chanters build up the resource to summon really strong stuff to turn the tide of battle? Sure, but that in itself is a gameplay tactic. You'll need to engage an enemy encounter, and stay alive for those 12 seconds before bringing in the game changer. It might not be a particularly hard thing to achieve but it's still an active form of engagement with the game system. On the other hand, having the resource at the start changes the design significantly because the start of the battle can be incredibly important to resolving encounters quickly.
Let's look the huge advantage ciphers have because of their starting resource pool - you can start a battle by freezing an enemy with mental binding. Low 15 focus cost. This makes the enemy an open target for the tanks to engage for a few seconds, and in this time, the cipher can immediately follow up with mind blades, which should also soften up all surrounding enemies. Depending on the cipher's level, you can then follow up with 1-2 more mind blades before having to even attack to regain focus. All this time, the other characters in the party will be attacking with their weapons or special attacks as well. This is just with a single cipher. And I'm not even touching on the totally unfair other stuff you can do with puppet master and whisper of words, or ringleader (loooool).
Thanks. Does anything in the game indicate this?
Only in the dub of the anime, not the games.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Pretty much the only thing is if you're getting smashed in the face. Judging from how strong the enemies are there, though, the entire area does look like you're supposed to go there after a little time in Defiance Bay.
Got it. I'll go back to Defiance Bay and do some quests.
Matthew Mercer voiced him in a few of the games too. Q and Arena Ultimax.
hemtae
Member
PandaPedinte
Member
I was surprised to find
on act 2. The fool was stupid enough to
Wirtan
join a band of mercenaries and theur leader was just dumb enough to attack me trying to avenge Wirtan just because I told him to leave Gilded Vale and never came back
Reneledarker
Banned
I feel that as a cipher character, the cipher having a focus pool outside of combat is an anomaly though. It actually feels more and more broken as the tiers unlock. I don't think introducing this to the chanter class makes a lot of sense because it would break the game even further. Let's say chanters start with 3 chants - if you have one chanter in your party you can summon a phantom right from the start, next to an enemy, and bam, that enemy get dazed while your party attacks from safety and the tanks engage the dazed enemy. That automatically breaks like 90% of all encounters in the first half of the game at least. If you have two chanters or more in your party? Instant victory.
Granted, you can say the same for ciphers, they're extremely broken, but that's not really entirely a good thing. I'm not going to say they should nerf ciphers more, because I'm playing as one, but... yeah they should nerf ciphers more.
The summoning abilities of the chanter should require the use of 3 chants, some of the other abilities should only use 1 or 2 since they are not that good.
Ciphers, as much as I love them they are very powerful, but I do not want them to nerf their spells, maybe lower the focus they have, but then you can just use one of the multi hit ranged weapons in the game and get lots of focus...
I think getting rid of their stun on hit and toning down their hp/endurance pool would do. I don't like the idea of leaving it untouched and moving it to a 4-chant, due to how crowded that tier will be, summons-wise.
As for ciphers, I used to feel the same way. It still sounds like a clean solution to how strong they are, but after playing with Grieving Mother for a few hours, I dunno - in Path of the Damned, at least, focus generation feels just right, liable to be spiky, sometimes strenuous, and I never feel like I have enough. I think that's a good contrast against the steady interval-based model of chanters, or the inherent masochism behind playing monks. Removing that pool would cripple them, and here, too, I think it's a better idea to tone down the power of their abilities than to cut down their ability to cast them. That they can utilize their toolkit at the start is a plus, I think, and I'd rather not take it away.
I guess another thing is that ciphers feel so powerful due to the general undertuning of content in hard and below; I think encounters are designed around greater periods of time than are normally experienced by players, and as such the classes designed around generating and consuming resources per-encounter without a cipher's advantages suffer as a result.
That's true. It's also why casters operating on a vancian system grow in importance the tougher the content gets; the ability to unload their toolkit at will makes them incredibly powerful in encounters that matter.
LurkerPrime
Member
Man... fighting in any encounter where more than one opponent can charm is a true test of RNG for the most part.
I think it would be. I actually ran into a bug on my first playthrough that did exactly that - my Chanters (there were two in my party) kept their accumulated Chants after a fight had ended. What I ended up doing just to fuck around with the bug was dismissing the other four members of my party, and having every fight open up with me summoning four Ogres on top of whatever enemies I was going to fight.
It was still total overkill, and that was on Path of the Damned. If I'd been able to start the game with that bug in place, there's really not much doubt in my mind that I could have done a Triple Crown Solo playthrough.
Chanters are a weird class, because the amount of time they take to ramp up is basically the entire length of the fight when you play on Hard, Normal, or Easy, and they seem pretty weak and shitty, but on Path of the Damned when fights actually take quite a while to finish, your Chanter ends up turning into a walking, singing god that can basically carry the rest of your party, as long as they can handle the first thirty seconds or so of each fight.
So I abandoned my hard rogue play-through shortly before going into Defiance bay,
Bored to tears by how easy it was to steamroll most things.
Now I am rolling a Cypher on PotD. Much better.
Question to those playing/played PotD: more challenging to gather a full party immediately and diffuse experience or a small unit?
Bored to tears by how easy it was to steamroll most things.
Now I am rolling a Cypher on PotD. Much better.
Question to those playing/played PotD: more challenging to gather a full party immediately and diffuse experience or a small unit?
No. I think they are keeping it open for now.
I feel the stun/daze is pretty important for the phantom though. Without it I see little reason to use it at all. Maybe toning down the endurance is a good idea though. Make it easier to take out, but still effective for the duration it is in play.
There's definitely some truth to this. I don't like how Path of the Damned is done at all though, due to the stat doubling, but maybe if enemies had a bit more endurance on Hard it would balance it out better. If it takes just a bit more damage to remove enemies from play, the cipher's abilities would feel less overpowered, and it would also extend the duration of encounters enough for other resource driven classes to show off more often.
Ultimately, I don't think chanters are a weak class, far from it, but I think what people feel disappointed with in practice is that in most encounters their abilities don't get a chance to shine. I've definitely had longer encounters with larger mobs where Kana felt very useful even beyond the Phantom summon. With summons in play, being able to change chants tactically from back row support to more front row stuff affecting foes, using invocations to daze enemies just long enough for Durance to throw up the heals needed to keep the melee line going, etc. Stuff like that happening more often would probably give the chanter class a better rep with players.
Thinking about abandoning my Hard/expert game.
Difficulty felt pretty good to me when I completely Dyrford
... but it seems like that's an area the game expects you to do after you gain a few levels in Defiance. Once I made it to the actual city I pretty much started steamrolling every battle.
So I know PotD actually effects enemy levels/stats/whatever. How extreme is the jump? I have a big issue with difficulty levels that just kind of expect you do everything 100% perfectly to succeed since you get pretty much 1-shooted at every corner. Is it still fairly manageable with maybe a less then completely optimized party?
EDIT: Basically I am a big fan of the way Obsidian creates party members to be actual characters and not just combatants. I really don't want to min-max my MC.
Difficulty felt pretty good to me when I completely Dyrford
ruins
So I know PotD actually effects enemy levels/stats/whatever. How extreme is the jump? I have a big issue with difficulty levels that just kind of expect you do everything 100% perfectly to succeed since you get pretty much 1-shooted at every corner. Is it still fairly manageable with maybe a less then completely optimized party?
EDIT: Basically I am a big fan of the way Obsidian creates party members to be actual characters and not just combatants. I really don't want to min-max my MC.
Coma Ecliptic
Member
I haven't played one of these games since Planescape: Torment, which is still my favorite RPG of all time, but I'm very happy I bought this a couple days ago.
I find myself feeling a little stupid about one thing though, combat damage. When I look at what is factoring into my damage I get a little confused when it comes to the actual damage from the roll.
I understand that it is, ACC - DEF= +/-: Roll 1 - 100 +/- ACC/DEF Difference = 1 - 100+(above 100 is crit): DMG (<--How does it factor that damage?!?!) - (DR - DR) = Actual Damage.
So in the example above my Accuracy:43 - Defense: 25 =18. Rolled:81+18=99 (Hit). 41(where is this from?) - (Damage Reduction: 6.0 - 5.0) = 40 Pierce Damage total.
What I figured that 41 was from was the weapon's damage variable?
In the screenshot below my Crossbow can do 29-43 Pierce, so how does it determine what of the 29-43 I do? Is that another roll I'm not seeing? If yes it is, why not show me the roll?
Lastly, is the Damage higher because it has a base of 25-37 but a x1.15 dmg buff (29*.15= 33.35 Rounded down to 33 and 37*.15 = 42.55 rounded up to 43)
I probably shouldn't care, but for some reason I want to understand how it works. I'm a dork.
I find myself feeling a little stupid about one thing though, combat damage. When I look at what is factoring into my damage I get a little confused when it comes to the actual damage from the roll.
I understand that it is, ACC - DEF= +/-: Roll 1 - 100 +/- ACC/DEF Difference = 1 - 100+(above 100 is crit): DMG (<--How does it factor that damage?!?!) - (DR - DR) = Actual Damage.
So in the example above my Accuracy:43 - Defense: 25 =18. Rolled:81+18=99 (Hit). 41(where is this from?) - (Damage Reduction: 6.0 - 5.0) = 40 Pierce Damage total.
What I figured that 41 was from was the weapon's damage variable?
In the screenshot below my Crossbow can do 29-43 Pierce, so how does it determine what of the 29-43 I do? Is that another roll I'm not seeing? If yes it is, why not show me the roll?
Lastly, is the Damage higher because it has a base of 25-37 but a x1.15 dmg buff (29*.15= 33.35 Rounded down to 33 and 37*.15 = 42.55 rounded up to 43)
I probably shouldn't care, but for some reason I want to understand how it works. I'm a dork.
It almost feels like Chanters need to be played 2-3 at a time to really maximize how useful their normal chantings can be. If you had a PC chanter, Kana and maybe one more you'd quickly realize that having the various chants stacked up can give you quite a number of bonuses. With only one Chanter you don't feel the bonuses until later when you get the more powerful buffs.
Path of the Damned is a pretty huge jump up from Hard, but the difficulty lies mainly in the fact that you can no longer just ignore most of the tools in your toolbox. When you play on Hard, the real challenge is to actually use all of your Per Encounter abilities before the enemies are dead; when you play on PotD, it's a given that you're going to use most of your Per-Encounter arsenal and probably some of your Per-Rests, that you're going to keep backup weapons with different damage types/wielding styles for different encounters, that you're going to pay close attention to enemy DR values and defenses, etc.
Overall party composition is important - you're going to have a bad time if you want to bring Pallegina, Eder, and Sagani, especially if your PC is a Fighter/Paladin/Rogue/Monk/Barbarian/Ranger - but attribute spreads are generally not, and the story companions are more than adequate to get through the game.
Edit: At least until level 9, at which point even PotD can't keep up with the runaway train that is your party.
Jest Chillin
Member
The 29-43, as I've understood it from games that use damage range, is technically another roll, yes. 29 being the minimum damage that can be rolled before variables and 43 the largest before variables.
The damage buff does increase that damage range, though I don't know the formula that's used (I've never been a number cruncher).
WanderingWind
Mecklemore Is My Favorite Wrapper
Anybody know of a fix for the Reckless Assault bug. It's supposed to be modal, but it remains on and if you try to turn it on, it remains and it will stack the effect. This is bad because it lowers a key defense. A light sneeze is currently crippling my PC rogue.
act 1 is rough - there are more enemies, they do a lot of damage and have higher deflection than your accuracy. Even a fight against a horde of not-kobolds or a group of bandits can be very challenging (and fun) and you might have to reload quite often. In act 2 the game becomes considerably easier but some encounters like banshees or drakes can still be rather tough. In short, I think that PotD is the intended difficulty level for me, it just feels right
I don't know about that, I have a paladin/warrior/monk/priest/druid group + Sagani and I'm doing just fine in act 3
hemtae
Member
Well your rogue should be able to one hit everything. My fix was just to convert to a ranged rogue.
LurkerPrime
Member
Welp, after hours of steamrolling I am now woefully unprepared for the steaming BS that is the final battle.
Go figure, I guess...
Go figure, I guess...
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
A question for anyone who got a key from a backers 3-for-$60 deal and has activated it on Steam: did you get the Steam achievement for being a backer?
I was wondering why I liked his "I gotta pet this animal" lines so much. I figured he was a voice actor I knew from some other game, but I didn't realize he was Kanji from P4! Definitely very similar characters, Kanji was one of my favorites in P4 and Eder is definitely one of my favorites in PoE.
Definitely more fun to have around than Durance or Grieving Mother, at least, though I suppose the latter two had far more intriguing back stories. Even if I found the characters a bit.. Boring.
Jest Chillin
Member
Funnily enough, I've still only played a couple of games on that list, and of the ones I have only P4 and PoE have him in a named role lol
e: no I've played FE:A too, but I don't actually remember any voice acting. Weird.
Either has the custom character lockpicking bug hotfix, or the unopenable doors' hotfix as well.
Previous patch was 1.0.3.524, while this is 1.03.530
