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

[Desiderius]

Pretty much git gud. Every class has tools for those situations and Cipher ends up being a little narrower and at times clunky compared to first game. Had fun discovering Borrowed Instinct this time around - has some nice combos with Serafen’s Barb abilities.

 

[AwesomeButton]

A character may seem strong, but if you run into an enemy with unusually high armor for all their damage types, they're a dead slot in the roster. If you start an encounter and none of that character's weapons can do anything against an enemy type, it's also quite difficult to drop combat without a rogue that can vanish and you cannot swap out your weapon slots in combat.

The inanity of the Sawyer school of damage types is summarized in the IWD2 Crystal golem fight on the wall of ice, where the golem is immune to any damage type except bludgeoning and your characters do 0 damage with a two handed sword, but can kill it with bare fists.

Has someone tried a playthrough with it ? How does it feel ?

I've been thinking of a modded playthrough, but as usual, it will be going very slowly.

 

[Grotesque]

The author took special care to avoid using the words "experience", "less", "slower", "reduced" or "gain" in the title, so it's more difficult to find.

the author of this mod is the same of the Deadly Deadfire mod.

Besides less XP gain, the Dadly Deadfire mod brings tweaks to monster scaling, ship combat and the hardcore version of Deadly Deadfire also brings increased mob HP

 

[Reinhardt]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

 

[AwesomeButton]

the author of this mod is the same of the Deadly Deadfire mod.

I didn't imply it's a different author, but that the choice of name and tags was bad.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

POE2 barbarians are just sort of bad,

Compared to POE1 sure, but POE1 Barbarians are broken as fuck.

 

[Grunker]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

 

[Desiderius]

POE2 barbarians are just sort of bad,

Compared to POE1 sure, but POE1 Barbarians are broken as fuck.

Yeah but they nerfed Carnage in some annoying ways that preclude some interesting and in no way unbalancing combos with Cipher for Serafen.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Fair enough, I guess you could say that Barbarians are a good class, but they're not good barbarians. I typically play Konstaten as a frontline debuffer and he is great, and I also did a run where PC was a bow wielding Barb/Ranger, but that's not exactly a "big Viking smashing people's brains with a club" kind of barbarian.

 

[Parabalus]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

Is the game even that easy on 5.0?

Outside of abusing immortality and Brilliant the DLCs and megabosses are pretty decent.

 

[Grunker]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

Is the game even that easy on 5.0?

Yes. I recently picked up my 5.0 playthrough to finish it. It is still a cakewalk post-13 with the exception of Forgotten Sanctum.

Megabosses are still great, tho (except for the fights that are horrificly designed).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Grunker

With mercenaries or companions? I didn't find it that easy with companions at least, I feel like weird power spikes is the real problem, rather then content being too easy. Opening up some tiers of abilities is game changing.

 

[Grotesque]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

Increasing just the level cap doesn't mean that the game becomes less and less challenging as you approach the end of it?

 

[Efe]

they also nerfed that aoe two hander and piercing rifle right?
Guess sawyer didnt like people found good uses for them

 

[Grunker]

Grunker

With mercenaries or companions? I didn't find it that easy with companions at least, I feel like weird power spikes is the real problem, rather then content being too easy. Opening up some tiers of abilities is game changing.

I only play with companions. Also only with kind of gimped homebrew builds usually

 

[Desiderius]

Fair enough, I guess you could say that Barbarians a good class, but they're not good barbarians. I typically play Konstaten as a frontline debuffer and he is great, and I also did a run where PC was a bow wielding Barb/Ranger, but that's not exactly a "big Viking smashing people's brains with a club" kind of barbarian.

Borrowed Instinct into Leap is indeed a very nice one.

 

[Jackpot]

I've done two playthroughs of this on rtwp, thinking of doing one more but playing through it completely turn-based.
Any suggestions for a class to play that is fun/good in turn-based combat? Also any new archetypes that were added in this game, since I've only played imported characters from poe so far.

 

[Parabalus]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

Is the game even that easy on 5.0?

Yes. I recently picked up my 5.0 playthrough to finish it. It is still a cakewalk post-13 with the exception of Forgotten Sanctum.

Megabosses are still great, tho (except for the fights that are horrificly designed).

Did you just plough through SSS without a reload?

I found some encounters there pretty decent too.

 

[Haplo]

I've done two playthroughs of this on rtwp, thinking of doing one more but playing through it completely turn-based.
Any suggestions for a class to play that is fun/good in turn-based combat? Also any new archetypes that were added in this game, since I've only played imported characters from poe so far.

Assassin / Bloodmage. Human, with Deltro's Cage Helmet for up to +130% damage shocking lash on your spells, max Con. Shadowing Beyond free action stealth. Million of Free action buffs AND Free Action Blood Sacrifice to recover all slots. And Devil of Caroc Breastplate for extra stealth uses for those sweet aoe Assassination spells with +25 Accuracy, +4 Pen, +50% Crit damage. Ningauth's Grimoire primary - Shadowflame is very good, but maybe Death Ray even better in Turn Based.

 

[Haplo]

they also nerfed that aoe two hander and piercing rifle right?
Guess sawyer didnt like people found good uses for them

The Whispers aoe two-hander still has its uses (mainly as a riposte weapon, as Offensive Parry gives 100% riposte proc - single target - and can Daze enemies). Good synergy with for example a Steel Garrote/Bloodmage, who can stand between enemies, fling spells, while passively riposting their attacks, afflicting them with Daze and leeching their life trough Steel Garrote special.
Can also apply attack afflictions/DoTs to multiple enemies at once. Or use Soul Annihilation on several enemies (only first will get full power, but the others will also be hit with some bonus damage, as it gains and spends Focus on-the-fly with each enemy hit.

Not sure about the rifle. Dragon's Dowry? Its attack speed boost carrying over to other weapons sounds like an exploit to me. Still the highest damage per shot arquebus and a very good weapon for certain builds (like an Assassin). Red Hand is better for most.

 

[Haplo]

Pretty much git gud. Every class has tools for those situations and Cipher ends up being a little narrower and at times clunky compared to first game. Had fun discovering Borrowed Instinct this time around - has some nice combos with Serafen’s Barb abilities.

True, cipher's relative power is much lower this time. Other casters recover resources now also (between encounters, as least), and cipher's powers are generally weaker then wizard spells or some of the stronger priest stuff. Still one of my favorite classes. And love the Seeker's Fang rapier on a Transcendant! Grave Calling with chanter skellies is pretty cool also.

 

[Reinhardt]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

Yes. Why not. Everyone loves more levels.

 

[Grunker]

Less xp is gay. Increase level cap instead.

...to make a game which has the core issue of being too easy even on PotD even more easy?

Is the game even that easy on 5.0?

Yes. I recently picked up my 5.0 playthrough to finish it. It is still a cakewalk post-13 with the exception of Forgotten Sanctum.

Megabosses are still great, tho (except for the fights that are horrificly designed).

Did you just plough through SSS without a reload?

I found some encounters there pretty decent too.

Pretty much. Which actually surprised me - it was my first playthrough of the DLC and I was using an ultrajanky Eder Fighter/Rogue ranged built, yet only reloaded a few times, mostly due to not understanding an encounter's mechanics in the first go.

 

[Sharpedge]

I've done two playthroughs of this on rtwp, thinking of doing one more but playing through it completely turn-based.
Any suggestions for a class to play that is fun/good in turn-based combat? Also any new archetypes that were added in this game, since I've only played imported characters from poe so far.

Assassin / Bloodmage. Human, with Deltro's Cage Helmet for up to +130% damage shocking lash on your spells, max Con. Shadowing Beyond free action stealth. Million of Free action buffs AND Free Action Blood Sacrifice to recover all slots. And Devil of Caroc Breastplate for extra stealth uses for those sweet aoe Assassination spells with +25 Accuracy, +4 Pen, +50% Crit damage. Ningauth's Grimoire primary - Shadowflame is very good, but maybe Death Ray even better in Turn Based.

Death Ray is definitely better in turn based. Using it is extremely satisfying.

 

[AwesomeButton]

BTW, Jason Seow's portrait pack has been updated on jan 26th this year: https://www.jasonseow.com/poeportraits