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

Yes I think it's your primitive monkey brain.

You need to decide what kind of paladin you're making.

Are you making a tank? Then you'll rely on incredibly high defences, passive Auras, and occasionally dropping a Lay on Hands or an Exhortation to get someone out of trouble. ----> dump PER, DEX since you won't need to hit anything, pump INT, RES since you'll want a maximal AoE for your auras, maximal duration of your Exhortations, and maximal defences. Put whatever you have left into MIG and CON -- MIG to pump up your healing abilities, CON to give you more staying power.

Conversely, suppose you're building a back-row alpha striker/commander relying on ranged weapons and Flames of Devotion. Now you need to pump MIG and PER because you'll want those alpha-strikes to bite, but you can afford to dump CON and RES because you don't expect to be hit a lot. The remainder you'll put into INT and DEX because you'll still want nice big auras and long durations, but you will want reasonable action speed too.

Same thing for any other class/concept you might be considering. Do you have important abilities with AoEs or durations? You'll need INT. Do you need lots of crits? Pump the shit out of PER. Are you anything other than a pure tank? Pump DEX (spellcasters can get away with a little less of it). Glass cannon? Dump CON and RES. Fast attacker who doesn't care so much about crits? Moderate PER, pump the bejeesus out of DEX, pump MIG. Fronliner? RES is important. Backrow? Dump it. And so on.

 

In no way is RES a dump stat.

 

Should've pumped DEX and PER. You'll interrupt them first.

 

BTW this is rather amusing. The original complaint was that Pillars stats do nothing. Now the complaint is that they're all too important for all characters. Which is kind of the opposite. I guess some people just love their 18 18 18 3 3 3 fighters/wizards/clerics/whatevers.

 

So the only time I can actually dumpstat is if I'm a ranged guy who never gets hit ever? And if I'm frontline I need a balance of all stats, with a little more in one of them.

Gee it's like that thing I was talking about.

 

No, you can also dumpstat if you're a frontline tank, for example. You won't need DEX or PER for shit. Lots of other similar cases. Or if you're a rogue wielding a reach weapon, stabbing at people from behind a fighter's back. Or if you're a sword-and-board ranger relying on items for situational healing. Or... jeez, as Grunker said, most power builds pump and dump with the best of them.

That in this game stats actually mean something? Why yes, yes they do.

And if you're really confused, there's no shame in leaving everything at 14 or thereabouts. It'll work, you'll just trade off power for versatility. It's not a bad way to go for your first playthrough actually, after that you should have a handle on the mechanics so you'll know what to do when going for a minmaxed build.

Or if you don't want to figure it out yourself, read a guide.

 

Figuring out the dumpstat for each class was maybe what I was getting at? I just could not manage a melee character that had lower stats in pretty much anything.

I'll pack my bags full of those retarded ratings and try to figure out the first game again.

 

Somebody stop this man before he reproduces.

 

There isn't a dumpstat for each class. That's kind of the point of the attribute system. You, however, can figure out specific builds, tactics, and item choices that make minmaxed characters work.

D&D stats are almost pointless because there's only one way to distribute them for each class; you might as well not have stats and bake the bonuses/penalties into the classes.*

*This does not apply to PnP games using the original, strict character creation rules -- i.e., roll 3d6 for each stat without reassigning or redistributing points, pick the class best suited for your stat spread, and make the best of it. To my knowledge, no D&D cRPG ever does this; even ToEE in hardcore mode allows point redistribution.

 

How is it not? Concentration, lol? There is also this very specific build - http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/89991-class-build-the-golden-dragon-barbarian-tank/ , but other than that? In what situation do you need it to be at more than 10, and that's only for tanks?

 

For ranged characters only.

If you dump CON and RES to 3 with an melee (not Tall Grass extended range) rogue you will get instantly swapped to by every enemy you engage.
This doesn't mean that dumping them is bad, but it's not a no-brainer, since you have to tailor your playstyle to it.

It's a purely defensive stat, putting points into it above the average makes you a tank(y) by definition.

On melee's I tend to drop CON sooner than RES since RES has OoC dialogue uses, even though it is worse than CON for battles.

 

No, I mean tanks set it at 10 and that's it. I dumped both RES and CON on all my DPSers (2 melee, 2 ranged) and didn't have problems. Priest buffs took care of everything. I suppose the situation will be different if you don't have a priest, though.

 

It'll be different if you only have one priest, because you'll have half the number of casts between rests. You'll save the bonkers RES buffs for the tougher fights, when it counts.

(I very rarely find it necessary to pump RES much though, I admit. Basically only if I want to turn Edér, Pallegina, or PC into an unsquashable tank. It is the closest Pillars has to a dump stat, just like DEX is the closest it has to a mandatory pump stat.)

 

Didn't you spend past 30 pages complaining that you have to use choke points during every fight?

 

I didn't HAVE to, I COULD and that's what I did, but that's different.

 

You could have your party cleric cast Holy Meditation for a nice boost to Concentration. Or wear the gloves which auto-cast it when critted.
Or, you know, wait all of the 3 seconds it will take the enemy to engage your actual dedicated spearhead tank, like a fighter or a Paladin and then shred them from the flank
(along with all his buddies, via Carnage). It's a party based game after all.

 

Versus Evil, an indie publisher that released Banner Saga, publishes PoE 2: http://versusevil.com/news/versus-e...-eternity-ii-deadfire-publishing-partnership/

 

That's ....weird. What about Paradox? Also, STREAMLINED COMBAT, what?

 

Just from the wording, I don't think it will... I expect it will be activated attacks only, not passives (i.e. sneak attack is an intrinsic abilit of a rogue, not a hotbutton item). We'll see though!

 

Weird indeed. At least it's not Paradox.

 

Thanks for all the press, paradox!

 

The wording on the Wizard schools also doesn't mention extras like the familiar or maluses like -20% speed to schools that aren't your specialty.

 

Didn't the Paradox guys say already after Tyranny that they and Obsidian are wrestling in a tad different and probably not too compatible weight classes, or something to that effect?


Other than that, yeah, I don't really get where they drew Versus Evil from...

 

True enough. We'll see what the actual implementation is eventually... I still suspect you're going to have to stick with a rogue/* multiclass if you want sneak attack, but we're just guessing at this point.

Also, this whole vs. evil thing is odd to me, especially after the paradox-funded press tours. Was that seriously just about building hype for Tyranny's minor DLC?

 

If you do get a sneak attack, then you can simulate triple-classes like Priest/Rogue/X, with the most obvious second class being Fighter with specialization in stilettos (if that's still a thing). Otherwise it seems kinda awkward, you get Rogue abilities, but not sneak attack and end up feeling like a watered down and useless Rogue, so you have to get Rogue as a second class to get them, but then the active abilities from Skaen are redundant.