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

[Cyberarmy]

Give me my D&D bards, pls.

 

[razvedchiki]

wasnt there a thread were an alt was praising pillars 2 encounter design?

 

[CommunityGoat]

I just registered on this forum and I'm glad I found this thread so I can say that back in 2019 I worked as a game tester for the company that tested Pillars of Eternity 2 for the console updates. I worked both on PS and XBOX. Man, this game was so fucking broken we got showstoppers almost everyday xD. They even stopped the project at some point because of the pandemic and I have no clue if they continued to work on their million bugs or not.

 

[NJClaw]

I didn't even know Deadfire had a console port until now. I had to look it up online to be sure and of course the first line of the first article I found is already a lie:

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, like its predecessor, did exceptionally well on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

Now I really want this Carl Nielsen guy to try to explain how did Deadfire manage to do exceptionally well on Kickstarter without ever launching a crowdfounding campaign on Kickstarter. Online journalists only exist to trigger me.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I didn't even know Deadfire had a console port until now. I had to look it up online to be sure and of course the first line of the first article I found is already a lie:

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire, like its predecessor, did exceptionally well on crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

Now I really want this Carl Nielsen guy to try to explain how did Deadfire manage to do exceptionally well on Kickstarter without ever launching a crowdfounding campaign on Kickstarter. Online journalists only exist to trigger me.

Are you saying that Deadfire didn't do exceptionally well on Kickstarter?

 

[CommunityGoat]

Anyway, even with its bugs, I played POE 2 even after i quit that testing job. Well, I don't have a console, but I do have a laptop and it was more than enough. I enjoyed it very much. Tbh the PC version doesn't have the same annoying bugs, thank god. A funny story from the time I was testing POE 2 is that after some hours of continuous playing and changing the characters in your party, Eder would appear butt naked randomly on parts of the map that weren't accessible to the player. We honestly all had a laugh because we could never find out the exact steps to reproduce the bug. Even so, it was one of my favorite bugs. It happened both on PlayStation and XBOX.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Did you test it only for technical issues or gameplay-related?

 

[TedNugent]

Is there a good reason not to multiclass in this game? Was playing around with it, and you instantly get the bonus of the subclass and the class bonus on top of it, then you get a giant menu of skills to choose from.

Just tested it, and you can get modals from two different classes active at the same time. Seems stupid not to, as the base class abilties are basically free talents.

Paladin gets a stupid defensive bonus just from existing. Considering how they homogenized base class defensive stats, paladin has quite a handsome advantage in this regard. I like the idea of combining fighter stances with paladin auras, and the paladin faith bonus with the fighter constant recovery.

I was also trying to figure out of the unique shield enchantment "bash" works with the two weapon specialization. Unlike PoE, it seems this should work, since it explicitly states that the shield is treated as an off-handed weapon in the bash tooltip. I really wanted to try this out, as it seems like a best of both worlds situation, e.g. you get the deflection bonus and offhand attacks to offset the accuracy malus. But it's hard to tell in-game as the character sheet doesn't say anything about your recovery time and this isn't anywhere in the combat log as far as I know.

 

[Grunker]

Yes. Only single classes get access to the highest tier abilities.

 

[TedNugent]

Yes. Only single classes get access to the highest tier abilities.

None of them seem very good, though. I don't really understand the power level mechanic, is +1 power level worth going single-class?

 

[Delterius]

Yes. Only single classes get access to the highest tier abilities.

None of them seem very good, though. I don't really understand the power level mechanic, is +1 power level worth going single-class?

Power level mechanics are a bit obtuse. You may want to read up on https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/22...ty-ii-deadfire/faqs/76599/power-level-scaling this thing. That said yeah every +1 to PL is super worth it for a pure caster. Spell shaping, extra spell levels, late game Prestige skill and so on amounted to one shotting quite a few dragons and DLC bosses with my Priest.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Single class gets +3 power level (two from levels and one if you take Prestige perk) as well access to last two tier of abilities. It's highly build and class specific whether it's worth going single or multi. In general single is good for casters and some variants of weapon classes, for example single class monk, rogue and fighter are pretty good, while pala or ranger you would typically want to multi.

 

[TedNugent]

Seems like power level doesn't affect passive skills. I just checked with some console commands, and it does indeed seem that two weapon style affects shields with the bash enchantment. Good to know, my dual-wielding shieldbashboi is happening.

Just to clarify - you get the same number of talents with single class vs multi class, correct? But essentially you get +2 free power levels for active abilities only.

I think I'm going to dump intellect and stack passives, fuck it.

 

[Yosharian]

There are many reasons to stay pure, they are quite often more powerful.

I just find it terribly boring.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

PL does impact some passives, like Monk's fists or Rogue's sneak attack. But mostly yeah you want combine either two classes with good passives, or active+passive. Avoid caster+caster combos.

 

[Butter]

Caster/caster can work if it's something like Cipher/Chanter because they both have to build up resources, so you can spend phrases, attack, spend focus, attack, repeat. For classes like Wizard/Druid/Priest, it's not great because your goal is to spam all of your per-encounter resources as quickly as possible every fight, and after level 7 or so you won't be able to cast them all.

 

[Grunker]

Caster/melee can also work if your plan is to use the caster to bolster the melee part. My last char was Paladin/Cipher.

 

[Haplo]

I'd normally multiclass fighters and rogues also. Some niche SC builds are possible, but I'll rather take the instant potency and synergies of a multiclass.

Monks work great both SC and bring A LOT to all kinds of multiclasses.

Casters can work either way. But they and monks tend to gain the most from staying pure (Aloth is better as SC IMO, support priests too). But wizard multiclasses are great also.

Anyway, Ted, you've selected the most boring combination IMO. Sure, you'll be an unmovable object... but what for? Such extreme tanking is not needed, even on PotD. IMO its better to add one more active/damaging class. Maybe Trickster if you still want even more tankiness.
But streetfighters, monks and even brutes are awesome too.

 

[Delterius]

Caster-Caster multiclass can work. You can get a chanters regen and summons for a Blood Mage and solo the game. You can get an Evoker's special double casting thing to work with the unique Priest fire nukes.

 

[Haplo]

Caster/melee can also work if your plan is to use the caster to bolster the melee part. My last char was Paladin/Cipher.

Well cipher is a special case, as he needs some martial presence anyway (unless Psion... I guess Beguiler doesn't need to fight much too). Psion/Chanter is supposed to be very good with endless resource generation and altering the powers/invocations spammed).
But a very cool class indeed.

Wizard martial multiclasses are good also.
And Spellblades also (assassination bonuses work on spells, including aoes).

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Chanters work with everything since they're not burdened by action-economy problem. You can just play the other class then cast an invocation once it builds up and repeat. With Wiz/Priest/Druid/Cipher multiclassing there's probably some builds to make it useful, but most of the time fight is over before you can to use even half of your spells, so I'd rather pair those with a combat class or play single class.

Ultimately it boils down to how good the top tier abilities are, and how much you benefit from the PL scalling. Tanking focused SC Fighter or Trickster SC Rogue is pretty cool for example, but Barb or Pala I would multiclass every time cause the top stuff is not that interesting.

 

[Grunker]

I like the Monk/Druid AoE-tank. Basically you build the monk tanky with good wound gen, and then use the Druid spell that creates a strong AoE around yourself. Then you bolt around the battle field dealing damage to everyone. Always makes you a Blade Barrier cleric.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Is there a good reason not to multiclass in this game? Was playing around with it, and you instantly get the bonus of the subclass and the class bonus on top of it, then you get a giant menu of skills to choose from.

I had one playthrough where I wanted to try to make the most munchkin dualclass (actually you can't strictly multiclass) choices while coming up with a simple light background for my custom-made party. It was quite fun.

 

[Haplo]

Chanters work with everything since they're not burdened by action-economy problem. You can just play the other class then cast an invocation once it builds up and repeat. With Wiz/Priest/Druid/Cipher multiclassing there's probably some builds to make it useful, but most of the time fight is over before you can to use even half of your spells, so I'd rather pair those with a combat class or play single class.

Ultimately it boils down to how good the top tier abilities are, and how much you benefit from the PL scalling. Tanking focused SC Fighter or Trickster SC Rogue is pretty cool for example, but Barb or Pala I would multiclass every time cause the top stuff is not that interesting.

Actually the barb has decent high level abilities. The problem is getting there as a single class...

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

You might be right, I tried to get SC Barb to work a number of times but it was just pain in the ass, I gave up long before top abilities lol.