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

[Safav Hamon]

It is not a 5% lottery, it's something you always have, it's reliable and Haste helps well, literally any class. How is a slot machine item with a bunch of 5% is more helpful I don't understand. (summoning drakes, of course, is great, which is also very amusing because to get that enchantment you have to exchange for it a bunch of useless lottery 5% ones - which means you choose between a bunch of useless things and one actual good thing)

Unless you're playing a wizard that never uses regular attacks, you will end up hitting enemies dozens of times in combat. Even with those 5% chance weapons I usually end up triggering their effects several times every battle. Turning an enemy into a pig or setting them against their friends can be decisive way to turn the battle in your favor.

On your second point, no. Most of the abilities like the Drake are mutually exclusive with something equally as powerful. I find the enchantment tradeoffs in general well balanced.

No, because unlike you I understand probabilities. Drakes are useful (like any summon, but BG had summoning items too), everything else on that wand, after patch, is proc-trash.

Clearly you don't, otherwise you would understand how absurdly broken a 10% chance to turn an enemy into a pig or charm them with each attack is.

 

[Strange Fellow]

There's nothing wrong with %-to-proc effects. You like Wiz 8 Shadenuat, you should know.

 

[Shadenuat]

Then why did you pick drakes? Because here is how wand looks without them: +5% dazzling lights & +5% crushing wave.

You picked free summon instead though. I wonder why.

There's nothing wrong with %-to-proc effects. You like Wiz 8 Shadenuat, you should know.

In Wiz8 character can make up to 12 attacks per round, you fight more monsters, monsters have many hp and high end procs look like something 35% paralyze /20% KO / 5% to kill outright etc. Which, frankly, means just "% to kill" cause any proc status effect generally means double damage against monsters.

I mean, here's a basic, easy to find weapon any character in the game can use:

Spoiler

And somehow players didn't die of unbalance using things like that. And that instant death can kill even things that look like they were supposed to be boss encounters.
Oh and it does what, x4 more damage than basic quarterstaff?

But it's really a different talk cause blobbers are based around killing many tough and unfair monsters in somewhat unfair numbers or literally hordes. Stuff like that would break a game like PoE. (Maybe - IE had vorpal weapons after all)

 

[Safav Hamon]

Then why did you pick drakes? Because here is how wand looks without them: +5% dazzling lights & +5% crushing wave.

A 20% chance to AoE daze enemies, stun them, turn them into a pig, or charm them with every attack is just as powerful as being able to summon drakes for 15 seconds. Especially since wands have amazing recovery speed.

If you don't understand that, then you're ignorant about how to play these games.

 

[Shadenuat]

A 20% chance

Dude that doesn't work like that.

 

[Haplo]

I was kinda waiting for something that explodes all monsters on the screen honestly. Guess my definition on what is broken is very different. I played mage who wore heavy armor, shield with modal and codex-grimoire who did something similar - I was tired of getting shot by guns during ship fights and similar things. Had at most 2 stacks of concentration from items maybe. Blasted everything. Arguably ability to wear tower shields on casters who can press awesome button to explode everything is somewhat too much by itself regardless of dual classing.

The entire premise of PoE's system was to not have builds that explode monsters like this and I was/am fully on board with that. It's much better to have a system in which a lot of concepts are playable than the situation in the IE games, where you have a nagging feeling you aren't playing it right when you aren't a mage. I consciously limit myself to 1 arcane user in them because everything would be too easy otherwise. I also don't see the value in steamrolling the content, we clamor for challenging combat, yet also eulogize the lack of builds that make that challenge go away.

Exploding enemies?
Hm, I suppose a Barbarian with HoF and Wahai Poraga would fit the bill.

Or maybe a Scout (Rogue/Ranger) with Driving Flight and dual hand mortars (or Fire in the hole + another BB/pistol) spamming aoe 4x rogue Full Attack abilities.

Hm, read that it would also work well with the aoe Rod modal when coming out of stealth (recovery is long on the rod with modal, but coming out of stealth yields 80% recovery reduction) + driving flight + Tekehu's rod with bouncing and 15% chance to launch another aoe (on hit... and there are like 2x number of enemies in aoe hits... times 2). Saw a build of Boroer's, who lured the enemies to 1 spot using Trickster's Arkemyr's lights and then exploded whole groups with 1, max 2 rod attacks.
Of course, that could be nerfed in the future.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, PoE2 kinda shat on that whole premise with broken multi-class combinations.

 

[Safav Hamon]

A 20% chance

Dude that doesn't work like that.

Uh, yes it does. Four 5% chance abilities means that you have a 20% chance of at least one triggering every attack.

 

[Bio Force Ape]

Sure, but they also didn't have that much of a character arc to them either.

And that's part of the point - in F:NV, that fact was masked by having them be well written and integrated into the game world.

To achieve the same thing here (having memorable characters), POE2's characters should either be on the same level (very hard to do now, as the best writers have left), or make them less static throughout the entirety of the game.

The character arc must be the protagonist's or playable characters, not NPCs (even though they can have them as well). While there doesn't NEED to be a character arc, it can be a series of choices that lead to some kind of outcome, those choices and outcomes must be the thing that matters. Confronting Eothas isn't a result of the protagonist's choices and the outcome is also not the result of that. Eothas is an Ending-Tron 3000.

Exactly, the biggest problem here is that the main story with Eothas would have unfolded exactly the same - with or without the PC's involvement. It's not the way to craft a game story, especially not this kind of story.

It's about weakly and meekly following Eothas and only having some say at the very end. When I was playing it, I was constantly waiting for that moment when the player would have some agency in the story - which never came.

Not to mention how the "decide the fate of the Archipelago" aspect of the story has practically nothing to do with the Eothas part of the narrative (ending slides don't really count).

And if the lack of impact your Pillars 1 import had on Pillars 2 is any indication, those tiny choices you made in 2 will have little impact on Pillars 3.

 

[thesheeep]

I played through PoE 2 a few days ago.

You know what that made me do?
Reinstall Baldur's Gate Trilogy and going for a Fighter/Druid multiclass solo run.

 

[Strange Fellow]

A 20% chance

Dude that doesn't work like that.

Uh, yes it does. Four 5% chance abilities means that you have a 20% chance of at least one triggering every attack.

And four 25% abilities means that you have a 100% chance of at least one triggering every attack.

 

[Shadenuat]

Hm, I suppose a Barbarian with HoF and Wahai Poraga would fit the bill.

Or maybe a Scout (Rogue/Ranger) with Driving Flight and dual hand mortars (or Fire in the hole + another BB/pistol) spamming aoe 4x rogue Full Attack abilities.

Both high level abilities where you severely overlevel monsters and most of them are not a threat at all.

Barb with bunch of legendary stuff HoFs things without wahai poranga.

Of course, that could be nerfed in the future.

Like Aloth's wand for example, yes.

A 20% chance

Dude that doesn't work like that.

Uh, yes it does. Four 5% chance abilities means that you have a 20% chance of at least one triggering every attack.

So if you have 3 abilities for 50% each, the chance is 150%?

5%+5% is 5% for one to happen & 0.25% for both to be applied I think. (Maybe PoE does it some special way, maybe Boeror knows, idk - it's not like game tells me)

 

[Haplo]

Hm, I suppose a Barbarian with HoF and Wahai Poraga would fit the bill.

Or maybe a Scout (Rogue/Ranger) with Driving Flight and dual hand mortars (or Fire in the hole + another BB/pistol) spamming aoe 4x rogue Full Attack abilities.

Both high level abilities where you severely overlevel monsters and most of them are not a threat at all.

Barb with bunch of legendary stuff HoFs things without wahai poranga.

Yes. But with Wahai Poraga attack on each of the surrounding mobs also attacks 3 other surrounding mobs. That's... a lot of hits. And a lot of Carnage procs.

Could also be Fighter's Clear Out I guess. That's available earlier.

A 20% chance

Dude that doesn't work like that.

Uh, yes it does. Four 5% chance abilities means that you have a 20% chance of at least one triggering every attack.

So if you have 3 abilities for 50% each, the chance is 150%?
5%+5% is 5% for one to happen & 0.25% for both to be applied I think. (Maybe PoE does it some special way, maybe Boeror knows, idk - it's not like game tells me)

Dude that doesn't work like that.

5% and 5% is actually 9,75% to trigger one or both effects. Only at higher values the effects of additional % start to significantly diminish. So if you have like 50% already, then another 10% is only worth additive 5%.

 

[Lacrymas]

I see we are twisting basic math now to try to defend this game. Two separate 5% chances doesn't equal 10% or similar to that. It's still 5%, you just roll twice.

 

[Shadenuat]

5% and 5% is actually 9,75% to trigger one or both effects. Only at higher values the effects of additional % start to significantly diminish. So if you have like 50% already, then another 10% is only worth additive 5%.

Yeah. 4x5% should be 16.8% as a Friend tells me.
Which is better than expected (I thought less about it and that it would diminish more) but not 20% and still not taking chance to hit, Grazes and possible saving throws into concideration.

 

[Lacrymas]

It still doesn't work that way, though. No matter how many times you roll a D20, it's still a 5% chance to get a 20, the probability of not getting those 5% shrinks, however, but never goes away. Adding separate dice rolls and coming up with a percentage is the wrong way to go at this problem.

 

[Shadenuat]

We still know that 2 imba drakes every battle is better, that's for sure

 

[Haplo]

It still doesn't work that way, though. No matter how many times you roll a D20, it's still a 5% chance to get a 20, the probability of not getting those 5% shrinks, however, but never goes away. Adding separate dice rolls and coming up with a percentage is the wrong way to go at this problem.

However that is how it works in PoE2. Each trigger chance (also for other things, like critical hit conversion) is rolled separately.

 

[Shadenuat]

There's nothing wrong with %-to-proc effects. You like Wiz 8 Shadenuat, you should know.

important correction

I dont like wiz8

Spoiler

I
LOVE
WIZARDRY8


joke on u all that time talking poe I was killing deathsting apuses and helligators with a Jackhammer

 

[Haplo]

5% and 5% is actually 9,75% to trigger one or both effects. Only at higher values the effects of additional % start to significantly diminish. So if you have like 50% already, then another 10% is only worth additive 5%.

Yeah. 4x5% should be 16.8% as a Friend tells me.
Which is better than expected (I thought less about it and that it would diminish more) but not 20% and still not taking chance to hit, Grazes and possible saving throws into concideration.

Actually 4 x 5% is 18,5% according to my math.

It hardly matters though. As you all seem to be missing the description (or I misunderstand it). "Spell Hits have a 5% chance to Charm targets". So, uh, how many enemies can be affected by an aoe spell? 5? Maybe 10 if lucky? That's a lot of trigger chances.

 

[Shadenuat]

The actual effective way to use it is damage over time ray spells like Ninagauth's ray since it hits every second.

However, I believe they broke Charm a bit with last patch as the effect ceases to be the moment anything as much as sneezes on enemies.

18,5%

Not 18.05?

 

[Haplo]

Yeah, it would break too easily now. After a single fireball on the other hand...

Those ray spells are also fun with something like the Cipher's late ability to regain a little focus on spell crit. Its not a lot of focus, but if you can hit 3 enemies with the ray, each one 10 times, then it's a nice trigger chance.

 

[Shadenuat]

I honestly just used Flame axe + Griffin blade and just obliterated enemies instead of fiddling with the wand.

I guess using Dominate now makes more sense than Charm so Ciphers are less OP (even if they already didn't seem much interesting to me).

 

[Haplo]

Yeah, Charm is kinda difficult to use now if you have aoe spammers. Also the range is much shorter. Well that only means Puppet Master is now much more valuable (and it should be, being 2 PL higher and costing 3x more Focus). Whispers is still handy for some difficult fights. Saved my skin in Sayuka.
And I like the changes to Cipher class. Whispers was OP before, now it's still an extremely cheap way to both hard CC an enemy and get a temporary meatshield. Just need to be careful how you use it.
On the other hand many solid powers got a buff - whether the cast time got reduced or the aoe size increased (like Eyestrike, Secret Horrors). It's now a versatile and valuable class - instead of a one-trick pony.
Ascendant is a pretty unique subclass that lets you spam-cast powers to your heart's desire.

 

[Haplo]

I honestly just used Flame axe + Griffin blade and just obliterated enemies instead of fiddling with the wand.

That's a good combo. Hope you had the Ring of Focused Flame as well