Eternity Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Pre-Release Thread [BETA RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Just to clarify, this sort of counter is entirely just for the next step, dots are not islands but numbers between 20500 and 22000.

 

I forgot about those. Stunned is monk ability? Others have it?
Paralysed I don't remember, is that cyper only? I had a priest and mage, don't remember being able to paralyze.
Dominate is basically Charm from what I remember, and you could not remove it afterwards which was crap. I don't remember my wizard or cleric having this.
Confusion I don't remember the effects anymore.
Wizard had prone and pertrify and cleric had prone. Both had lots and lots of 5 to 20% buffs/debuffs which were very similar to each other.
Also 15s on crit? Is this a joke or are you stupid? You just proved my point with this comment.

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Status_Effects

You're welcome.

(BTW none of those numbers are percentages. )

 

Base 8 seconds paralyse at level 3 is too low for you? Cipher, chanter, druid and wizard all have paralyse. Dominate is charm without negative effects and lasts for 20 seconds, only cipher has it. Confusion is basically a hard disable that makes the target do stupid shit like standing around or attacking their own allies. Every class but Rogue and Paladin have prone, every class but Paladin and Fighter have stun. These also all last quite bit of time, often more so than you need because most targets will die while still under the effect. In fact, some of ciphers disables last so long they basically remove their target from the combat for entire duration. Petrify is wizard only and that skill is basically a huge aoe hard CC which allows wizard to chain CC enemies for entirety of combat.

Also those 20% debuffs and buffs are also quite strong, like blind which makes killing someone with physical hits trivial.

 

Let's also not forget that status effects have huge reductions to defenses, such as a whopping -40 Deflection / Reflex from Paralyzed / Petrify / Unconscious (Wizard specific status from Call to Slumber). Stack a few of them like Sickened, Blinded,, and Frightened and those minor debuffs become severely debilitating and make you crit happy.

 

Ah I remember why I ignored Stun, because it is also a 5-20% modifier. In BG, it let you autohit enemies.
And they nerfed Petrify (I assume Paralyze as well) after it was assaulted by Sawyer Balance Brigade and made it a small inconvenience that last a short while and it is gone.

And still does not change that all of these last very short duration that in effect needs no abilities that remove these effects making the game simple and stupid.

 

Debuff that lasts minutes and lets you auto-hit enemy -> makes game not simple and stupid.
Debuff that lasts seconds and does not let you auto-hit enemy -> makes game simple and stupid.

'k

 

I'm unsure how I feel about a lot of these changes. I never really got crazily invested in POE

 

Debuff that lets you save him by casting Invisibility, Otiluke Resilient Sphere or other spells = Good game
Debuff that gives some penalty and you can ignore and not change how you play = Bad game.

I understand a game like PoE was made for simple minds not being able to outthink the problem ahead.

 

Playing with those classes I could see why. I think those classes are geared away from pure crowd-control/status effects ArchAngel Arguably, with Cleric/Priest in particular the main niche was protection/immunity from status effects. With Litany Against Affliction you were essentially immune and could throw out buffs and damage spells without problem. You can destroy most encounters with just a priest and a scroll of confusion (to tie up smaller enemies), which includes some of dragon encounters, because you can dish out so much damage without interruption.

As for more crowd control oriented classes, I think Druid and Cipher fill that niche better. Druids had AoE stuns, confusions, etc, whereas Cipher had dominate and flank debuffs if I remember correctly.

 

Stun is a hard CC, what part of that you are unable to understand? The stat debuffs on top makes them easier to hit on top of that. For most hard CC's, such as paralyse, petrify, stun and the like, it becomes much more easier to hit them on top.

 

Cipher has paralyse and prone as well. Druid has lots of stuns and afflictions. Wizard has bunch of hard aoe disables too, petrify in particular is extremely strong. Only Paladin and Rogue don't really have any hard CCs.

 

I disagree with you for two reasons. First, Druid CC was far from futile/useless. The AoE storm spell from Druids could lock down entire groups, and then you also have the Insect Swarm that screwed with enemy casters. Second, I would argue that the debuffs were not just slight penalties, because certain classes such as rogue could sneak attack/crit for a shit ton of damage on debuffed targets. Moreover, lowering defenses could increase the crit chance of certain spells.

In my mind, the crux of this debate is that no spell or status effect is super awesome by itself in PoE. Often, it takes two or more classes to get the most out of a status effect (Priest Prone + Rogue Sneak Attack, etc). BG2 mages could be gods, whereas PoE mages either need another class to combo with or suffice with summoned weapons/defensive spells.

Edit: How is it simple minded if you need to combine spells for maximum effect, as opposed to an "I-Win" button status effect spell? Your last statement makes no sense to me. I could understand if you called it convoluted, banal, or unintuitive, but simple minded? Arguably, this system is bad for casuals players just because there are so many that do not do a lot on their own.

 

If you play Pillars on Hard or PotD and never use counters, you're going to have a bad time.

 

I'm very excited for new PoE game. I'm still playing the first game and I don't think that I will leave it. lol

 

I am mostly interested in what enemy can do to you, which is not much. I had exactly one fight vs enemy Druids that was remotely challenging and that was the Ogre Druids you get a bounty against.
Fights that made you stop and think how to do them were super rare. Except for two good ones (I mention them below), there were only a few that I still remember as somewhat challenging/entertaining: Fighting Ghosts in that Tower at the docks, that bounty Ogre Druids and fighting that named Drake in the area southeast outside of the main city. The rest of the game was mostly just irritating and time wasting. I would rather have spent time killing gibberlings as trash enemies that give almost no XP but die in seconds and let you go on your way than packs of same useless enemies each map was full of where you had no chance to lose but it took way more time than gibberlings and got no XP for them. Also that combat music, needing to listen to it every few minutes over and over.. fucking torture.

Stun is crap. In no fight enemy stuns made me lose it and in no fight I won because of my Stuns.

I played it on Hard. There were exactly two hard fights in the game (Adra Dragon and Undead Lord and his Vampires) and probably only because I fought them the first time with little knowledge what was awaiting me. Every other fight I did on first try with little danger. I didn't bother with PotD because I read it just inflated numbers and would make combat just more irritating and longer. Both hard fights were because of spells that I am talking about, spells that the game lacked (Vampires have Charm/Dominate and Adra Dragon has helpers with Petrify)

 

Two things: First, did you play any of the White March content? For example, you never fought the fungal spore in the Stalwart mine, Concelhaut, the Eyeless army, or the twin dragons? With the Stalwart mine fight, you have the arachnids with AoE paralyze (I think they also can teleport into groups, or at least have fast movement speed), sporlings with confuse (party members attack your party), backed up by 4-6 tentacles that throw boulders, and a giant spore(s) that can dominate. In that fight, the risk is that the arachnids can AoE stun/paralyze the group, and the 4-6 tentacles each throw boulders on a stacked party. Also, I remember boulders being able to knock people down. Therefore, you have one fight that stacks paralyze, confuse, dominate, and knockdowns, and just one of those killing a tank or a caster can ruin the fight.

Another example are the Fishmen encounters that throw down a metric fuckton of paralyze spells, and the damage is nothing to laugh at on PotD.

Second, the difficulty level does matter, because on PotD (with inflated stated) you have to lower defenses to get good use out of certain spell.

 

I never bought White March, I don't go around giving more money to people that underdeliver.
And I cannot even motivate myself to play PoE again, even if I bought White March I would could not get to access it.

 

Rogue + Paladin = Roguey.

 

Alright, so you never played 3.0 or most of the harder encounters? That makes a big difference in my mind.

Most of the people you are debating have played the full game on max difficulty.

Barbarian + Chanter = Hiver.

Edit: What ever happened to Hiver? I thought he tried to make his own website, started fights in the RPS comments section, got triggered by W3, and then briefly returned. Did he ascend to shitposter heaven?

 

I do have to say TWM featured some of the most memorable fights in the game. Llengrath battle was the best of these probably.

 

Found a Story Mode player.

 

The Llengrath battle was the best, because that fight had one of the few "oh shit" moments, when two dragons walk onto the screen. On PotD, I think my saving grace was Pallengine being able to burn down Llengrath with Sworn Foe, plus Holy Storm/Shining beacon interrupting her casts.

I also would argue that the Hivemind/Spore encounter in the Stalwart mines is a close second. I could not defeat that encounter without using the Resolve option to remove the arachnids. Otherwise, I was getting overwhelmed by the AoE paralyze spells, plus the boulder damage.

 

That was a good one.

I felt insanely proud that I beat it on the first try, if only barely. Maneha with twin Spelltongues keeping up her Defiant Resolve saved the day...