Pillars of Eternity Beta Discussion [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Hah so indeed it works! This will be my first build to try, no question about that.

Any reason to use Blunderbusses instead of arquebuses? Attack animation speed?

 

I thought rogues were currently one of the weaker classes? They look crazy good here, are some classes even more insane?

 

They are really squishy from what the beta testers say. But at the end of the day - I guess the multigun trick can be done with any fighting class (or even the whole party, because why the hell not).

The musketeer seems more like a question of a carefully making a build and following through. Note though that all those builds are lvl 8, you have to survive til lvl 8..
EDIT: also note that build relies on pimped equipment

 

Yes both of those builds are based around good weapons. The Estoc character is level 6, because at that stage of the beta when you find the Estoc, you'd probably be level 6.

That said, you can make that character in the beta. You can find that weapon. You have the crafting materials for those enchantments etc

Better weapons make a BIG difference.

in v392, Rogues were actually the best damage dealing class because of the way damage multiplier stacks worked. Now, they are still very good but you have to build them a certain way to take advantage of their damage stacking. I also could have applied more CC in that fight to get more status effects and thus sneak attacks in both of those videos.

They're not a bad class, some might say they're a bit boring, and some of their abilities are horrible/don't work properly.

IMO atm I think the Ranger is *easily* the shittest class. They've nerfed the fuck out of the Paladin too, so now they're pretty mediocre. Athelas super deflection build seemed to be okay for solo though.

Chanters, Monks, Ciphers and Druids are probably the best classes, but the Druid Shapeshift ability is fucking terrible. Priests are good. There's never been an issue with them. Wizards are useful, but they're pretty one dimensional compared to BG2 Wizards.

Fighters ... they're pretty good? I think like in D&D, they'll get eclipsed by most other classes by the end of the game. I need to make some more, but they're not really great at anything. In earlier builds their Defender Mode was critical in keeping enemies on you, but now it's not, really. The best thing about them is probably Knockdown now, actually. Make sure you have a good accuracy and land those knock downs.

Barbarians are also pretty good. I discovered a nice Intellect/Perception/fast attacks interrupt build this patch but we'll have to see how it goes in the next one.

Yes, absolutely. Blunderbusses fire 8 projectiles. As a Rogue with Sneak Attack, you get a Sneak Attack on every one of those 8 shots, and Vulnerable Attack also gives 5 DR bypass for EACH shot.

You can do very good damage with an Arquebus doing that build as well though, but you'd need to enchant the item for it to be as effective as the Lead Spitter Blunderbuss. Blunderbusses also have a faster reload than an Arquebus.

 

I tell you what, two Fighters with 3 Knockdowns per encounter each is amazing lol.

 

Every time I make a video, I'm afraid that Josh will nerf it

 

Do you think combat and combat builds are getting more interesting/tactical with each new patch or is still a bit of a chore to slug through? I've barely played 3 hours of the BB, because the combat just hasn't been fun.

I still find the lack of feedback, unit spacing, and lack of pseudo-rounds a problem a month from release, but i'm probably just too slow nowadays. SitS has RtwP closer to my ideal at the moment.

 

Sounds like a team that parties like hardcore skinheads. I want a skill for kicking the shit out of prone enemies!

 

I will quote myself from Something Awful yesterday where I was talking about character builds, but IMO character building has morphed into THE best thing about the game on the combat side of things, from being mediocre at the start of the beta

The problems you listed are fair complaints tbh, and valid ones. Combat itself definitely has problems with speed, clarity, camera angle, unit spacing, unit obscurity - all that stuff. It also has problems with pathfinding, AI and reactivity in combat. It's not very tactical, combat is usually decided by the effectiveness of your build and whether or not you fucked up your opening actions and positioning.

 

Josh did it, he fixed D&D, good job.

 

Character building is fun, but the actual gameplay has quite a few problems. Regardless, as I said in the SA post - it's a strong foundation to build upon.

Attribute design still needs help/tweaking - but class/ability/talent/gear selection is really good. There's a plethora of combos, and lots of unexplored territory as to what you can actually do with builds.

 

They have a month of tuning left to do and they're in a better position than inXile was when they had one month left to go.

 

There are some weapons which get bonuses against prone enemies, and of course the rogue gets sneak attacks against them...

 

Sure, they can tune stuff. My problem with the combat isn't necessarily tuning it's more things missing from the design. The No Engagement mod will probably fix some of the issues with tactical movement, but they need to work on AI/Pathfinding/Animation Blending when attacking moving targets and probably need some more complex spell/ability systems to promote actual tactical gameplay that illicits reactions from the player based on enemy actions. Currently I'm finding that if I don't stuff up my positioning and opening set of actions (Ability choice/targeting choice) in combat, that's pretty much it for me other than selecting new targets, healing allies and in some encounters, casting something that suppresses Afflictions.

BTW yesterday I submitted my 100th bug report thread for this patch Probably made around 400-500 total now.

 

Sensuki, do you have build ideas for priests by chance?

 

From what I've seen in the Beta and from what Sensuki has shown throughout the last few months, my conclusions are:
1. Abandon all hope for balance in combat at release and at least for a few months after that
2. Enemies' targeting logic is wide open to abuse, if the player wants to take advantage of it.

Personally, I'll try to know as little as possible about the AI and targeting, otherwise I expect won't resist playing optimally and I'll ruin my first playthrough.

 

^ Pretty much.

Priests don't have as many character building options because you don't select abilities, you just get new spells. One downside of Priests and Druids is they build very similarly. Personally I don't care about that, because it's the way you play that matters. Priests, Druids and Wizards are also kind of hamstringed a little bit because of the per-rest limitations of their spells. I don't like resting often. I play on Hard, where you get 2 camping supplies only. So on easier difficulties where you can rest more often - they'll play a lot better because you will be able to use their spells more often. On Hard and PotD you'll have to be careful about using their spells.

Priests aren't really a class that goes into man-fight mode like my other demos. I'll try and think of something gimmicky to show off in a few days or something. There'll probably be something hilarious to discover.

 

I dunno, I think attributes are at a much better place than talents and abilities. Taking the wizard for example, something like Arcane Veil that is supposed to be a mage's panic button is utter garbage. And I find most of his spells are useless; there's less than a handful of spells each spell level that are good (making the system of switching out grimoires also superfluous).

And yeah, they nerfed the paladin auras so that you literally have to be standing side by side to them in combat to benefit from them.

 

Arcane Veil is fucking horrible - yes. However Arcane Assault is great. Blast (and Penetrating Blast) are also great. Lots of their spells are quite good. I'm reluctant to use them a lot of the time because they're per rest. I have some Wizard builds in mind, and I'll make some videos of those soon. One of the obs board users found some roflcopter uses for some of the spells.

There's this one called Combusting Wounds which adds 10 burn damage to some dudes every time they're hit in combat for a short duration. Cast that on someone and shoot them with a Blunderbuss - potentially up to 80 damage from that spell, on top of what you did with the Blunderbuss.

They overnerfed Paladins way too much. Currently they're down in SHIT TIER with the Ranger, but not quite as bad.

 

I've been saying for a while that they are useful in combat, but they're basically just AoE damage dealers. They have one of the best CC spells in the game (Slicken) and some other ok ones. Their self-buffs are useless though and they're pretty one dimensional to play.

They're an effective class IMO, it's just that they lack the depth of the D&D Wizard.

The self-buffs are useless for a few reasons. One of them is because PE maps are smaller than the IE games and encounters are a lot more 'focused', you don't have enemies coming at you from different sides of the screen like you would in IWD1, BG2 or IWD2 you walk somewhere and there's a bunch of guys tightly together, and it's very easy for you to position your frontline to protect the backline.

The second reason is because of no pre-buffing. When you cast a self-buff, you are wasting actions in combat that could be otherwise used for dealing damage. Third is because it's a waste of a spell slot. Sure you could buff yourself, but that's one less Fireball, Slicken or whatever other more useful spell that you could have cast instead that would actually help you win the encounter.

The fourth reason is because the self-buffs have been nerfed. The PE equivalent of Mirror Image won't protect you from a few attacks, it will just raise your Deflection, which means you will probably get hit anyway, with your abysmal base Deflection. There's no Stoneskin or anything either. Just stuff that gives you DR. Miserable DR. You could just drink a Potion of Iron Skin for +20 DR, and even then, it would be a fucking waste most of the time, because if you're actually thinking about drinking a Potion of Iron Skin on a Wizard, it's because there's something like a Dire Bear about to hit you, and 20 DR isn't going to save you, you'll get critted for 90 damage and dropped in one hit.

 

Holy fucking MCA jumping on a pogo stick. I just imagined what would happen if that was used before your Blunderbuss rufian goes into full auto mode.


As for Arcane Veil - it is just another step in a long trend PoE has to capitalize as much as possible on alpha strike and damage dealing. Investing in defenses anything other than a few coins for an armor - is folly.

 

You get Arcane Assault automatically at chargen, so that leaves only the Blast talents for class talents - which isn't much of a choice on odd-numbered level-ups.

They have a huge amount of spells, but only a few are good. I.e. Binding Web is 1 spell level higher than Tanglefoot, yet the former has a fraction of the area of effect and duration of the latter.

Their resource pool is less flexible than the other spellcasting classes, since they're still following the memorization routine. The obvious solution would be to bump up the power of their spells (or *gasp* even make them hard-counter...ish).

I know. Combusting Wounds is my favorite wizard spell.