Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Infinitron]

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Hey, somebody was actually reading this.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

That community patch is all buffs though, with which I don't really agree. The most egregious change is -10 Deflection instead of +50% recovery on the sabre modal, that makes them probably the best weapon in the game by far.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Buffing everything across the board is hardly going to improve the game...

On the other hand, the UI improvement mod is really nice.

 

[Haplo]

Fixing some weird stuff and buffing some sad, useless abilities to make them maybe useful is not a bad thing in my book. YMMV of course.

 

[Lacrymas]

For example, Spiritual Weapon having a 1.5 sec cast time is huge because it's a good spell in general, at least at the start.

 

[Haplo]

Yeah, sure, we can't have weapon summon spells that are actually somewhat useful prior to PL 5, now can we?

Frankly, you sound worse then Sawyer lately, Lacrymas.

 

[Tigranes]

UI improvement mod is a must for everybody if only for the colour-coding & icons that clearly show what group each buff/debuff belongs to. Otherwise I'd say game's mostly fine as is.

After the first playthrough, I would recommend turning on the console and using F11 to teleport across areas for stuff like shopping runs or turning in quests in Neketaka - the same thing I do in IE games with MoveToArea.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, sure, we can't have weapon summon spells that are actually somewhat useful prior to PL 5, now can we?

Frankly, you sound worse then Sawyer lately, Lacrymas.

Spiritual Weapon is good the moment you get it. They do more damage than any other weapon at that point and I think they have more penetration. I used it to great effect on the skeleton fight in the ruins. My point is that this balancing patch is all buffs, many of them dubious, where are the nerfs? I want to see tears.

 

[Haplo]

When you get it? At the opportunity cost of consuming 1 out of your 3 available spell slots.
And attacking with whatever you have equipped with whatever additional cool effects it may have. Particularly if you already know your way around the game, you can gather some really cool weaponry right after Port Maje, with no fighting involved. Even in Port Maje you can buy the Esscence Interrupter bow - one of the best bows in the game.
And well, the humble Gladiotor's Sword you find in the ruins is nothing gamebreaking, but really nice for a tanky character due to Skrim +5 Deflection when using a shield.

You want nerfs? Well, Deadfire Balance Polishing mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/438
does have some nerfs.

 

[Lacrymas]

How do you get enough money to buy the bow? You also control 4 characters by the end of Port Maje, having Spiritual Weapon on one and using the Gladiator's Sword on another is better. And SW is better than the sword either way. Outside of that, the only other semi-ok spells at this level are Repulsing Seal/Pillar of Faith (I don't remember whether enemies have lower Fort or Reflex) and Withdraw (excluding the free one you get from your chosen god), so there's not much opportunity cost here. Withdraw can also be cast from scrolls.

 

[Haplo]

If its not your first playtrough, you can buy it easily with the gold from Berath's Blessing.
Otherwise, well, its quite expensive, but if you pool all your resources, you just might.

And Holy Meditation. That's quite good to defend against enemy Interrupts/debuffs.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'm not hating on that community patch or anything, just thought it's kind of weird that it only has buffs when I was scrolling through the changes.

Anyway, I guess to summarize it appears that mods for this aren't really worth bothering with aside from the UI mod.

 

[Quillon]

5 years old pillows franchise twatter following: 12.7k, grounded's: 38.3k lol

 

[Diggfinger]

If its not your first playtrough, you can buy it easily with the gold from Berath's Blessing.
Otherwise, well, its quite expensive, but if you pool all your resources, you just might.

And Holy Meditation. That's quite good to defend against enemy Interrupts/debuffs.

OK I trained a monk just for the fun of it.
Quite agile, surprising good dmg and sometimes extra attacks. Removed my paladin, so suffering from lost healing in bigger fights though.

Also, how the fuck is penetration calculated? I mean, she has no weapons. And can I switch dmg types in csae monsters resist crush?

 

[Tigranes]

Most POE monks can use weapons to great effect, and yeah, you could carry around backup non-crush weapon. Major contributors to Pen are weapon properties - hover over your pen in inventory screen left side pane and it gives you a breakdown of where your current pen comes from. Monks can Tenacious Blows to +3 pen.

 

[Haplo]

If its not your first playtrough, you can buy it easily with the gold from Berath's Blessing.
Otherwise, well, its quite expensive, but if you pool all your resources, you just might.

And Holy Meditation. That's quite good to defend against enemy Interrupts/debuffs.

OK I trained a monk just for the fun of it.
Quite agile, surprising good dmg and sometimes extra attacks. Removed my paladin, so suffering from lost healing in bigger fights though.

Also, how the fuck is penetration calculated? I mean, she has no weapons. And can I switch dmg types in csae monsters resist crush?

Sure you can switch weapons. Monks in Deadfire work just fine with all weapons.
I think its best to use actual weapons for most multiclass monks (although fists do remain competitive). In case of SC monks, fists are tough to beat - fast attack speed, base damage of slower arms and grow in power every 2nd Power Level (+1 PEN, +4 Accuracy, +15% Damage). At Power Level 10 (SC monk 19 with Prestige ability or some other PL boost), they are equal to Mythic weaponry (normally gotten only after killing a megaboss). But you can use for example a Potion of Ascension to boost it further - to PL 12 and post-Mythic level.
One reason why Nature Godlike are a popular pick for monks - they can semi-permanently boost they PL by +1 with Wellspring of Life and using Thunderous Blows.
Of course, there are nice helmets you'd be missing on....


I've been converted to a Forbidden Fist lover. I mean low wound gain initially, so have to be a little skimpy with active abilities - but get a free one that's very good if cannot be spammed all the time.
Later Hylea's Talon gloves do help and once you get Parting Sorrow (triggers also when you kill an enemy) and maybe even Imagined Pain (if SC), your Wound trouble are gone. Meanwhile Forbidden Fist Enfeeble is really crippling: blocks enemy healing entirely, extends hostile effects on enemies by 50% (including CC but also DOTs for example). It also deals +50% damage (cumulative each time you spam it - BUT your health leek grows quickly too, so you usually don't want to spam it, but rather wait for the previous Curse to expire).

Of course, high Resolve is a must (to reduce Curse duration) and food with -20-30% hostile effect duration is a boon also.

 

[Prime Junta]

I recently fired up Deadfire again properly, first time in a couple of years. Tried it in turn-based mode. Guess what? It's much better than I remembered. I'm pretty sure Josh's balance stick has done it a power of good. I've just been wandering around the Deadfire murdering things and pretty much ignoring the story and it's a quite a lot of fun. I still have some beefs with it, but overall it's really not bad. I also recently replayed Pillars 1 and man is the combat in it a giant opaque clusterfuck by comparison. Josh also seems to have done something to the relationship flags, the party isn't trying to jump on my cock the minute I meet them anymore. I've been playing with more sidekicks in the party though, which helps; they're also much better written than the companions.

Likes:

- Boy is it pretty.
- I love the sense of discovery. There's a ton of hidden stuff on the map just to stumble upon.
- The sidekicks are cool. I like Vatnir and Ydwin especially. Mirke isn't half bad either although she gives me PTSD from real life.
- Some pretty cool maps and encounters. The Hanging Sepulchers is a terrific dungeon.

Beefs (apart from the usual ones about story, writing, silly ship combat, and bugs):

- Some bosses have obscene HP, making the fights much grindier than they ought to be. Once you've figured out how to beat their debuffs and get through their defences there's not much of a challenge there, but it still takes a long, long time to whittle some of them down. Neriscyrlas and the jumbo megaboss black pudding, here's looking at you.
- On PotD at least, armour levels are so high that Pen becomes too important. Low-Pen weapons just aren't very useful until the very late game when you get the really good Pen buffs / Armour debuffs, and by that time you're already committed.
- Priests are a bit too necessary. Fights are radically easier with Crowns for the Faithful, Triumph of the Crusaders, Dire Blessing etc. than without them. The high-level Symbol spells are extremely effective also, as is Dismissal when applicable. Both Xoti and Vatnir are racking up incredibly high personal damage numbers too.

Other notes:

- Troubadours are LOLpowerful. With the rapid chanting perk you get a wide-area Paralyze every other round (or something even more powerful a bit more rarely), or a really strong Summon continuously up, plus one continuous buff that's situationally super good; at high levels these get really strong as well. And the tornado Invocation is hugely strong; my troubadour is a wimp with 8 STR and he still does hundreds of HP of damage with that.
- I'm no longer so bothered by the "everything per encounter" thing, largely because PotD is hard enough that you really need to use everything you have on many of the encounters.
- There's too much XP in the game. I'm not even close to finishing all content and I've been at max level for a quite a while now.

 

[Diggfinger]

I recently fired up Deadfire again properly, first time in a couple of years. Tried it in turn-based mode. Guess what? It's much better than I remembered. I'm pretty sure Josh's balance stick has done it a power of good. I've just been wandering around the Deadfire murdering things and pretty much ignoring the story and it's a quite a lot of fun. I still have some beefs with it, but overall it's really not bad. I also recently replayed Pillars 1 and man is the combat in it a giant opaque clusterfuck by comparison. Josh also seems to have done something to the relationship flags, the party isn't trying to jump on my cock the minute I meet them anymore. I've been playing with more sidekicks in the party though, which helps; they're also much better written than the companions.

Likes:

- Boy is it pretty.
- I love the sense of discovery. There's a ton of hidden stuff on the map just to stumble upon.
- The sidekicks are cool. I like Vatnir and Ydwin especially. Mirke isn't half bad either although she gives me PTSD from real life.
- Some pretty cool maps and encounters. The Hanging Sepulchers is a terrific dungeon.

Beefs (apart from the usual ones about story, writing, silly ship combat, and bugs):

- Some bosses have obscene HP, making the fights much grindier than they ought to be. Once you've figured out how to beat their debuffs and get through their defences there's not much of a challenge there, but it still takes a long, long time to whittle some of them down. Neriscyrlas and the jumbo megaboss black pudding, here's looking at you.
- On PotD at least, armour levels are so high that Pen becomes too important. Low-Pen weapons just aren't very useful until the very late game when you get the really good Pen buffs / Armour debuffs, and by that time you're already committed.
- Priests are a bit too necessary. Fights are radically easier with Crowns for the Faithful, Triumph of the Crusaders, Dire Blessing etc. than without them. The high-level Symbol spells are extremely effective also, as is Dismissal when applicable. Both Xoti and Vatnir are racking up incredibly high personal damage numbers too.

Other notes:

- Troubadours are LOLpowerful. With the rapid chanting perk you get a wide-area Paralyze every other round (or something even more powerful a bit more rarely), or a really strong Summon continuously up, plus one continuous buff that's situationally super good; at high levels these get really strong as well. And the tornado Invocation is hugely strong; my troubadour is a wimp with 8 STR and he still does hundreds of HP of damage with that.
- I'm no longer so bothered by the "everything per encounter" thing, largely because PotD is hard enough that you really need to use everything you have on many of the encounters.
- There's too much XP in the game. I'm not even close to finishing all content and I've been at max level for a quite a while now.

AHHH...another Codexer sees the light!

Worried about the XP thing too though tbh. I've played 100h, only got 25% achievements and already lvl 16....

 

[Roguey]

I'm no longer so bothered by the "everything per encounter" thing, largely because PotD is hard enough that you really need to use everything you have on many of the encounters.

This should not be the way a D&D-throwback RPG is paced. -_-

 

[pomenitul]

Have you tried Woedica's Challenge?

 

[Verylittlefishes]

Mirke isn't half bad either although she gives me PTSD from real life

:cheers:

 

[Prime Junta]

I'm no longer so bothered by the "everything per encounter" thing, largely because PotD is hard enough that you really need to use everything you have on many of the encounters.

This should not be the way a D&D-throwback RPG is paced. -_-

I agree. I guess I’ve shed my D&D throwback expectations somewhere along the way and am just enjoying it for what it is.

 

[Lacrymas]

Have you tried Woedica's Challenge?

That challenge isn't well implemented because you aren't given more spell slots on top of resting not having any downside (apart from other challenges like Eothas), so it seems pretty pointless to me.

 

[pomenitul]

That's fair, although consequence-free resting has always been a problem for the IE games and most of their spiritual successors. I've yet to attempt the Woedica Challenge myself, but when I do, I'll likely have to impose artificial will-based constraints to make it work. We shall see.

 

[AW8]

5 years old pillows franchise twatter following: 12.7k, grounded's: 38.3k lol

The silent majority doesn't use Twitter.

You'll see. You'll all see.