Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Riddler]

Nah, skills are important in dialogue, not stats. Stats mostly affects story book stuff and those don't have any meaningful consequences.

 

[Piotrovitz]

It's the other way around dude, stats were used in dialogue checks and skills in CYOA stuff.

 

[Riddler]

Perhaps I'm mixing it up with Deadfire.

 

[Piotrovitz]

First, any system which makes magical attacks use the exact same system as physical attacks, immediately removes anything "magical" about magic, and turns it into just another type of "stun grenade" "fragmentation mortar" "caltrops" or "flamethrower." Vancian poetry departs, and scientific mechanics intrude, to the point where magic no longer feels like magic. Magic should feel utterly different than a physical attack, and be a precious resource and dramatic in its effects. AD&D excelled in this regard. In PoE, magic felt underwhelming. Worse, it felt mundane, using Accuracy and Might.

Not sure what you mean by Vancian poetry, spell selection in PoE boils down to almost exactly the same repertoire you have in 2ED DnD - buffs, debuffs, CC, AoE dmg, summons etc etc - just in different clothing.

The only difference are spell protections and their adequate removals. General consensus is that those made mage battles uber-tactical (it's liek playing chess, man!11), but mostly it just boiled down to casting breach (and later on with true sight/ruby ray/spellstrike/whatever) and whacking them in melee. Plus, you got non-combat useless stuff like friends, know alignment etc, that was just filler added for flavour for LARPer types.

One more thing about PoE's magic system which beats the shit out of IE games - you couldn't throw buffs before combat.
This is significant change and provided you with actual tactical choices, instead of buffing the shit out of your party for five minutes every time you know there's going to be tough encounter and then marching in like a boss.

In AD&D terms this is a 14 strength being the same as an 8 for all practical purposes, but an 18 is fantastic. The idea was to put points where they really, really counted, both in character creation and in terms of allocating magic items, and see dramatic rewards. Giving Gauntlets of Ogre Power to Viconia is far more efficient than giving them to your fighter who already has an 18/91 strength. There was a huge payoff for hitting that hard breakpoint and getting her out of the "weak" category into being able to easily wear plate armor and make good melee attacks. It was night and day.

This has only shown how stats did not matter in BG2 - every NPCs shortcomings could be fixed by wonky equipment that maxed out their their stats, whether it be girdles of strength, ring of charisma etc etc. In IWD it was even worse, because creating characters from the scratch you have always ended up in 18/xx str for melees, 18 dex/con for everyone, 18 int for mages etc.
I'd rather have PoE stats that gives tiny incremental bonuses, but at least give you semblance of char customization, instead of 2e DnD binary optimal/gimped mode.

Gradual incremental curves of effectiveness are terribly boring, and if the encounters are hard, terribly hard to understand when you are trying to figure out what works, because nothing makes an obvious difference. Ultimately that is what happened to me - after cruising through Acts I and II and a lot of the Endless Paths mostly due to the easiness of the base game and not my skill at this system, I got White March and tried that, and proceeded to get TPK'd at

Spoiler

the Bluffs

, then by

Spoiler

the Alpine Dragon

, with no idea how to win either fight, so I just gave up in disgust and moved on to more fun games.

I suspect this is due to replaying IE games too many times and getting used to routine of unleashing every buff from priest's spellbook, throwing haste, casting summons, throwing breach at mages etc - basically doing the same thing every time. This reminds me of HoMM3 fanbase, which after having figure everything out, mastering the rules, learning to count enemy moves and shit like that, were outraged by HoMM4 mechanics (which were superior btw), because it has entirely changed the way they had to play now and made their powergaming cheese obsolete.

PoE's fights, especially in WM, are much more dynamic and unpredictable - you cannot just adapt the same strategy that you have used for thrash mobs to alpine dragon fight.

I recently decided to start playing again, on Storytime mode if necessary just to get to see the rest of the content, and (LOL) got TPK'd again by

Spoiler

the undetectable/undisarmable traps in the Hall of Remembrance in Durgan's Battery

. Not a fan of White March so far - the deaths felt cheap, and made it clear to me how hard it was for me to see what I was doing wrong, which has never happened in Fallout/FO2/Arcanum/BG/BG2/IWD/Wasteland2/PS:T

If you are getting killed on storytime mode, then maybe the game is indeed not for you : |

None of the deaths are cheap - you have combat log, so even if shit is happening fast, you can always check what is being casted by whom etc.
You can check enemies defenses, so you can always pick optimal attack for what you are facing. Ogres are susceptible to will/reflex attacks, spirits to fortitude ones etc etc.
Again, it seems that you are to used to IE games, where you select your buffed up hasted melees and click on everything until it dies, without caring about anything.

I am curious where people come down on this. I find the combat in PoE to be so fast - and always in tiny maps where the enemy charges you at very high speeds - that it is impossible to play without pausing constantly, to the point where I never see a combat animation or hear a complete sound - just tiny fragments of them between pauses. I am not sure if other people actually like this, or they just have figured out how to minmax the system to the point where they can let the combat animations run. I definitely miss the pace of BG1, or better yet, the turn-based fun of the post-apocalyptic games where you always get to experience the full animation and sound of every action.

That's true that PoE (and deadfire even more) is fast and often results in clusterfuck on the screen, hence it's more like pause-with-real-time mode.
Guess this is just a matter of preference - some like to having micromanage whole party every two seconds, and some prefer geriatric fights from BG1, where you click on a mob once and wait until it dies.

 

[Shadenuat]

PoE takes this to a new level with attribute/spell/item effects (via stat changes) like "increases radius from 3.1 meters to 3.4 meters" or "5.1 seconds to 5.7 seconds"

Now, the idea of buffs/debuff in increments constantly running out in real time with big party is already completely retarded (and the fact that it was marketed as specifically-for-real time-totally-not-PNP is x2 retardation x12 doublekill bonus) but the truth of evil of this design lies deeper. And that is how it interacts with enemy and player capability

Because enemy defence can be so high you can only end up in grazing them for 0003 seconds, you cannot engage enemies with very high defence unless you are also high level because you cannot even reduce their defence because spell which reduces defence also rolls against defence DEAR GOD (and u cannot go around this with magic missiles, cloudkills or enervation, no), and you might find yourself fighting enemy with resists like 120 110 120 which means your spell to lower their saving throw would last 0003 seconds and then they just pop back to normal. Hilarious

However for enemies lack of hard points is not a big deal, because actual dangerous effects still fuck you up as enemies can spam them sometimes ifinitely and still totally ruin your formation. the best example are charm/dominate spells. where your character fails save, but you know, not entirely, but gets dominated with a graze for 0003 seconds, turns 180 and shoot arquebus into your wizard killin them, then goes back to normal. then next turn, gets dominated again (again for 0003 seconds)... and it goes forever. because you cannot just pass a save. this is why most players just used a hard counter minibuckler to kill vampires in Deadfire since it is a lot less annoying.

what a design

General consensus is that those made mage battles uber-tactical (it's liek playing chess, man!11), but mostly it just boiled down to casting breach (and later on with true sight/ruby ray/spellstrike/whatever) and whacking them in melee.

If you actually need to cast something to remove enemy defenses first, it flows into total action economy of combat. Enemies having protections like that allow AI to survive enough to do something, and it also means you are using your spells to battle enemy spellcaster instead of just blowing shit up. This is good for multiple reasons, one it allows AI more lasting time, two you're doing something else but blowing shit up. And smart AI, like one in Stratagems, can recast these spells, making your work even more difficult and less straightforward. Now see to Kingmaker wizards who uses 3d edition equivalent of Stoneskins which gives a whooping 10 points of damage resistance. As the most dangerous unit on the table, they are of course targeted by all party guns and explode into little pieces before they can do anything. The alternative way of counteracting this, of course, is hitpoints and defences but I don't need to explain what hp bloat does to combat in RPGs do I.

One more thing about PoE's magic system which beats the shit out of IE games - you couldn't throw buffs before combat.
This is significant change and provided you with actual tactical choices

No this leads to opposite effect.

Buffs are a strategic choice, other options in combat are a tactical choice. Buffs are about strategic management of your party (including character building) and preparation, other spells are about making choices inside combat. By removing ability to buff outside of combat you remove the strategic part of building and supporting your party.

But even more, you also remove them from tactical system as well, because of how action economy works in combat. In combat, if you can quickly kill the enemy, that tactic is always preferable, which is ideally demonstated by PoE wizard AI who likes to frantically buff themselves as combat begins while your wizard is much smarter than that and is already casting Empowered Fireball which kills half of enemy group HP and maybe enemy wizard as well. In Deadfire they made few buffs require something like 0.2 seconds to cast to combat this though, which means that you just click buffs in combat instead of clicking them out of combat though. It also made all the fighter/wizards with summoned weapons and stuff a pain in the ass to play as you'd recast this shit every combat instead of just using your spellslots on this and then not using magic.
Now there are still buffs (and debuffs) in PoE which are useful of course (those which increase Accuracy, and those which debuff Armor/give you Penetration) but on release it more or less followed the opening salvo > tactics.

Now all this is kinda bad but to me bigger problem is that without buffs out of combat classes begin to work more in isolation from each other, especially on strategic and party building level. No more your wizard can cast mage armor on your pet.
I put a fuckton of time building parties in Kangmaker fine tuning little details like that. I did not invest as much thought into whole process in PoE.

Friends and Detect evil suck good they removed them

First of all this looks honestly like insanity to me. Removing out of combat spells like this means breaking up all ties between systems and splitting game into combat and just walking around respectively. Detect evil might be actually pretty useful esp for new players; and Friends? First thing I do in BG2 is memorize 2 Friends and go shopping at Ribald's, you can get some neat equipment early, like +4 Staff which can kill Kangaxx himself.

Again, IE game never supported out of combat magic in the same as say in Arcanum or Morrowind, but players found a lot of use to it nevertheless, like summoning things and using them to scout around, summoning Nymph to Charm someone or heal your party, and so on.

Removing this shouldn't be praised.

This has only shown how stats did not matter in BG2 - every NPCs shortcomings could be fixed by wonky equipment that maxed out their their stats, whether it be girdles of strength, ring of charisma etc etc.

If stats didn't matter then item which changes stat so dramatically wouldn't matter. You only have option to completely change role of a character in combat because stat does matter. You get a strategic option of changing role of one of your characters - do you give this item to cleric, to a figther/wizard, to a rogue? I see nothing wrong with very powerful items like this provided they are used in moderation (BG2 did not do it in moderation, Kingmaker also is fucked up with all the Belts +8 tbh).

because creating characters from the scratch you have always ended up in 18/xx str for melees, 18 dex/con for everyone, 18 int for mages etc.
I'd rather have PoE stats that gives tiny incremental bonuses

Incremental bonus can work if it has a fine breakpoint somewhere else around the system. For example, action points.

If a total AP cost of an aimed shot from most powerful sniper rifle in the game costs 7 AP, max is 10 AP, and DEX can give you only 10 AP in increments of 1 AP, then you can avoid minmaxing and increase your Perception instead of DEX because you are not getting anything out of minmaxing.

If to maximize your damage (by whatever amount, be it just 0.2 or 500%) you still need to max respectable stat, players will still minmax at which point it doesn't matter if system is in increments or not, ergo - POE builds with 20 MIGHT, 3 CON, 3 RES are of similar nature to 18/00 str or 20 str in 3d edition (except that price of having low stats in PoE is not as high because you do not die if your stats get drained, you still can wear best armor in the game with 3 MIG, etc.)

Double so if stat affects literally all damage, and damage increases are not breaken down by types of damage or types of weapons and things like that - now you're just siphoning part of the system through a single area which leads to, obviously, uniformity for many character builds. "bhut bhut wizards always take 18 int!" - yeah but now not just Wizards will have 18 int, but also Clerics and Druids; for Deadfire it mostly meant that most characters would have 20 Perception though. Four stats up, Two stats down (to 3), and it repeats even in different classes with same stats which is a bit bonkers. People know what matters for the game it seems.

PoE's fights, especially in WM, are much more dynamic and unpredictable - you cannot just adapt the same strategy that you have used for thrash mobs to alpine dragon fight.

Yes because it has a lot of extra spawns appearing out of nowhere.

It is funny how fighting same dragon in main campaign I actually used Slicken on her to make her bend the knee. Not like trash mobs at all.

(White March is best PoE compared to other PoEs though, maybe with exception of DLCs to Deadfire I did not play them all tho, so can't speak of this. As we all know Deadfire on release had bugged difficulty and PoTD didn't work; they fixed it later; and in DLCs fights are certainly more interesting)

Again, it seems that you are to used to IE games, where you select your buffed up hasted melees and click on everything until it dies, without caring about anything.

That is a gross simplification, as even in BG1, which was a relatively simple game, you can't kill everything by "just clicking on it".

You do, however, repeat same strategies in Deadfire, throwing all your abilities until your ability counter runs out, and then restoring them back again, throwing them again, and by that point enemies are usually dead; combat ends and your abilities all restore back. Awesome.

Guess this is just a matter of preference - some like to having micromanage whole party every two seconds, and some prefer geriatric fights from BG1, where you click on a mob once and wait until it dies

"You just click on mob once and wait until it dies".

What a totally not loaded generalization again. It seems like most anti-ad&d-cultists just pop out of the same friggin test tubes.

shooting enemies in shooter is just shooting at them
u just jump on them in mario
u just press space bar in blobber and party kills enemies themselves

The important part of what makes combat tactical and/or fun is context, not abilities or lack of them by itself. Context is what IE games I'd say had in truckloads, especially at their best like wizards/illithids/beholders/golems/party on party combat etc.
If you replace basic attack with Powerful Strike which does 50% more damage and has Cooldown of 5 and now to kill 3 enemy Fighters you need to click 3 + 3 times on them I am not sure we're getting an inherent increase in tacticool combat here.

If every combat encounters allows u do this, or worse, REQUIRES you do this, imo it is even worse. Maybe just allow AI to automate it then and it would be a perfect combat - first you give player abilities (freedum!), then you replace player with AI --

oh wait, we had a game like dis.

 

[Piotrovitz]

If you actually need to cast something to remove enemy defenses first, it flows into total action economy of combat. Enemies having protections like that allow AI to survive enough to do something, and it also means you are using your spells to battle enemy spellcaster instead of just blowing shit up. This is good for multiple reasons, one it allows AI more lasting time, two you're doing something else but blowing shit up. And smart AI, like one in Stratagems, can recast these spells, making your work even more difficult and less straightforward.

This is true to much degree, but at the end of the day, it boils down to a chore of stripping those defenses at the beginning of each mage fight before you can do anything else. That's why in BG2 you always take at least 2 arcane spellcasters, so you can have one dedicated breach-bot

Buffs are a strategic choice, other options in combat are a tactical choice. Buffs are about strategic management of your party (including character building) and preparation, other spells are about making choices inside combat. By removing ability to buff outside of combat you remove the strategic part of building and supporting your party.

The way you put it and wording used makes it all sound more serious and overcomplicated than it actually is. What strategic management? You know there's a non-thrash fight coming up = you are buffing yourself up with everything you got. There is nothing deep nor strategic here, especially when resource management is nonexistant, due to unlimited rests. In PoE1 you had to at least save good spells for tougher fights, if you didn't want to backtrack to town for camping supplies.

In PoE, when the fight starts, your priest have a dilemma which buffs/debuffs to throw, at whom, in which order etc.
In IE games you are dripping with blessings and protections before the enemy even knows you exist.

Again, IE game never supported out of combat magic in the same as say in Arcanum or Morrowind, but players found a lot of use to it nevertheless, like summoning things and using them to scout around, summoning Nymph to Charm someone or heal your party, and so on.
Removing this shouldn't be praised.

Not saying those should be removed, but they are useless, unless you are LARPing or replaying the game for sixteenth time and moping around with stuff you haven't done before.
Casting Friends to get better prices? You are swimming with money after couple of hours in Chapter 2

If to maximize your damage (by whatever amount, be it just 0.2 or 500%) you still need to max respectable stat, players will still minmax at which point it doesn't matter if system is in increments or not, ergo - POE builds with 20 MIGHT, 3 CON, 3 RES are of similar nature to 18/00 str or 20 str in 3d edition (except that price of having low stats in PoE is not as high because you do not die if your stats get drained, you still can wear best armor in the game with 3 MIG, etc.)

PoE min-max builds are not the same as IE ones. 3 CON 3 RES is extremely gimped build as anyone can one shot you, and it's not worth having these +30% or something dmg bonus.
In IE games on the other hands, you don't even have to min-max. What's more, you don't have to even think about stat distribution - it's always 18/18/18/min/min/min for melees, same for wizards except 18 INT instead of STR, same for cleric but WIS etc. No thought is required here - you are either going with only optimal build or gimp yourself.

is funny how fighting same dragon in main campaign I actually used Slicken on her to make her bend the knee. Not like trash mobs at all.

Dragons already have shitloads of immunities - if they could resist every affliction possible, then the fights would be close to impossible.
Funnily enough, this example shows like even low level spells are useful even in endgame encounters, which is definitely an advantage of the spell system.

You do, however, repeat same strategies in Deadfire, throwing all your abilities until your ability counter runs out, and then restoring them back again, throwing them again, and by that point enemies are usually dead; combat ends and your abilities all restore back. Awesome.

We are talking about PoE1 here, where you had limited resting, hence you couldn't throw everything you have in every thrash fight.
Deadfire and it's non-existing resource management is the same decline as IE games.

"You just click on mob once and wait until it dies"

I'm talking strictly about BG1 here. I know it'a a bit oevrsimplified, but that's how I felt it - I recently replayed it with SCS and except few encounters (bandit camp etc), it all boiled down to this, really.Clicking on mobs with melees/archers + casting glitterdust/horror/hold person and occasional fireball.

The important part of what makes combat tactical and/or fun is context, not abilities or lack of them by itself. Context is what IE games I'd say had in truckloads, especially at their best like wizards/illithids/beholders/golems/party on party combat etc.
If you replace basic attack with Powerful Strike which does 50% more damage and has Cooldown of 5 and now to kill 3 enemy Fighters you need to click 3 + 3 times on them I am not sure we're getting an inherent increase in tacticool combat here.

Agree with the context and encounter design, and this is what PoE is severly lacking. But what makes it's combat fun is the interplay/combos between classes and abilities. You don't have that in IE games.

 

[chuft]

If you are getting killed on storytime mode, then maybe the game is indeed not for you : |

I did not get around to trying Storytime mode. I was going to do that later for the TPK fights after finishing the main dungeon of WM1 on Hard. But I got disgusted with the teleporting/abducting/mass paralyzing spirits and decided to move on to better games.

I am not saying there is no skill possible in PoE; clearly some people are very good at it. But it strikes me more as a compound interest problem from a finance class than a game. Adding and stacking percentages and multipliers to get a gradual minor net effect which is only significant over many occurrences. In fact, it reminds me of Stellaris, which also feels more like a spreadsheet than a 4X like Sword of the Stars or Master of Orion II.

You can check enemies defenses, so you can always pick optimal attack for what you are facing. Ogres are susceptible to will/reflex attacks, spirits to fortitude ones etc etc.

But they are very incremental differences, and it's tedious and usually not very significant.

I find gradualism to be boring. I want petrify to turn an enemy to stone, end of story. More fun, more drama, more true to fantasy than some accountant's dream of a system.

 

[Shadenuat]

This is true to much degree, but at the end of the day, it boils down to a chore of stripping those defenses at the beginning of each mage fight before you can do anything else. That's why in BG2 you always take at least 2 arcane spellcasters, so you can have one dedicated breach-bot

"A chore" is a strange non-argument which I do not really understand. Is managing equipment when you meet enemies immune to normal weapons a chore? Isn't walking back and forth to buy camping supplies a chore? If breaking through enemy defences is a chore, what is not a chore?
Fact that you consider changing your party composition to combat this is a fine argument for this design.

The way you put it and wording used makes it all sound more serious and overcomplicated than it actually is. What strategic management? You know there's a non-thrash fight coming up = you are buffing yourself up with everything you got.

You should be buffing yourself with only things which you truly need, and saving your spell slots for something else. That is already a strategic choice.

In PoE, when the fight starts, your priest have a dilemma which buffs/debuffs to throw, at whom, in which order etc.

On everyone, because they're mostly AoE, and +accuracy preferably.
But a much better choice is let Durance cast Flaming storm. Well Shields of the faithful is neat although i think you can drink potions.

Not saying those should be removed, but they are useless, unless you are LARPing

Lowering prices to get OP equipment early is LARPing?

PoE min-max builds are not the same as IE ones. 3 CON 3 RES is extremely gimped build as anyone can one shot you

Nevertheless, lots of builds look like that and players have no problem with this.

Dragons already have shitloads of immunities - if they could resist every affliction possible, then the fights would be close to impossible.
Funnily enough, this example shows like even low level spells are useful even in endgame encounters, which is definitely an advantage of the spell system.

They have now yes. After all the patching.

Clicking on mobs with melees/archers + casting glitterdust/horror/hold person and occasional fireball

So "same as any other RPG?"

But what makes it's combat fun is the interplay/combos between classes and abilities. You don't have that in IE games.

U mean like turning your rogue invisible and hasted, throw breach on enemy mage and pop behind him and do massive damage? Or summon shitton of bears with druid, slap buffs on them and unleash on the enemy? I'd say there's a lot of good stuff.

Any why are the fucking arguing over BG1 again?!

 

[Riddler]

am not saying there is no skill possible in PoE; clearly some people are very good at it. But it strikes me more as a compound interest problem from a finance class than a game. Adding and stacking percentages and multipliers to get a gradual minor net effect which is only significant over many occurrences. In fact, it reminds me of Stellaris, which also feels more like a spreadsheet than a 4X like Sword of the Stars or Master of Orion II.

That may well be true but you don't need to do any of that even on PotD. Just use the priest immunity spells and the aoe debuffs and you'll get through practically everything easy as pie.

 

[Piotrovitz]

"A chore" is a strange non-argument which I do not really understand. Is managing equipment when you meet enemies immune to normal weapons a chore?If breaking through enemy defences is a chore, what is not a chore?

First one is not, since you have to swap your weapons in order to adapt to current fight.
Breaking mage's defenses in BG2 is a chore in my book, because you have to ALWAYS throw breach, since SCS mages has PFMW in their contingencies every single time.
Stripping down mage's protection in BG2 is a routine you have to go through every fight and there's no way around it for most of the time.

You should be buffing yourself with only things which you truly need, and saving your spell slots for something else. That is already a strategic choice.

Good offensive lvl 1-6 spells in cleric's spellbook are very rare, so you will end up having 90% of it filled with buffs anyway, which means you don't have to be stingy with them. Again, there's no resource management, so you can throw all the shit you have before every non-thrash fight.

Lowering prices to get OP equipment early is LARPing?

You are swimming in gold and loot before ending chapter 2 anyway. What's the discount that spell gives? Can you afford stuff like robe of vecna after leaving circus tent or what?
By LARPing I meant using detect alignment or casting friends to see if there's any extra dialogue etc. Stuff you do out of boredom, when you are Lilura-Asperger syndrome and play BG over and over again.

So "same as any other RPG?"

The guy above said he finds PoE fights to fast and misses the pace of BG1, you jokester. Just wanted to remind how simple the gameplay there was, not that it's something wrong.

U mean like turning your rogue invisible and hasted, throw breach on enemy mage and pop behind him and do massive damage? Or summon shitton of bears with druid, slap buffs on them and unleash on the enemy? I'd say there's a lot of good stuff.

Yeah, sounds cool on paper, but try that on SCS.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

lus, you got non-combat useless stuff like friends, know alignment etc, that was just filler added for flavour for LARPer types.

absolute shit opinion

 

[Shadenuat]

What's the discount that spell gives?

-25% if you hit 20+ CHA I think
so can probably afford at least belt of 19 str after you clear circus & tavern faggots with funny imp or a +4 weapon
if you're not a casul you should also have modded robe of vecna further into the game with SCS, btw.

Yeah, sounds cool on paper, but try that on SCS.

How exactly SCS changes power of summons or backstabs? I soloed BGT with single class Druid and beaten whole trilogy probably twice with SCS.
If anything having more varied party is a lot more important there.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Fair enough about the discount, can make a difference early game.
Especially that you get the ring that makes CHA obsolete right after the circus tent :^)

Summons are probably killed outright by death spell.
Not sure about backstabs, since SCS mages tend to throw true sight left and right.

Anyway, I'm making another attempt at Deadfire now, but once again I'm losing steam after 10-20 hours.
I like PoE1, even though it's popular on codex to shit all over it, but I guess I'm just too burned out to enjoy anything similar again

 

[Shadenuat]

SCS actually changes some wizard spell selections, they become like evokers, enchanters, etc. so not everyone has deff spell. In BG1 it doesn't even exist. Plus if they cast that they don't cast other nasty spells. And even in ToB, Elemental Princes for example are actually immune to Death spell.

Cloak of Non Detection if I remember right protects you while you're using natural stealth. (In ToB they all cheat around everything tho)

...isn't it fun when you actually have invisibility and spells out of combat and what cancels a cancel to invisibility (hardcounterception) and can talk about this, huh?

 

[RaptorRex888]

TOO
LONG
DIDNT
READ

 

[Shadenuat]

u think this is long, should have seen sea argue over some bioshock infinite criticism from youtube

 

[PsychoFox]

I enjoy these long ass rants a bit too much. Keep at it folks!

 

[JDR13]

If you guys are done pulling each other's puds over PoE vs IE, can you answer a question?

I'm going to start a PoE+PoE II run for the first time soon. What classes are best for maximum enjoyment for a first-timer in your opinion? I'll probably play on Hard difficulty.

I'm not too concerned about power-gaming. I just want something that offers variety and is overall fun to play. I'm currently leaning towards a Druid.

Also, since I plan on importing my save from PoE to PoE II, what changes in the sequel should I take into consideration when creating my character? For example, are there classes that rock in PoE but suck in PoE II?

 

[Shadenuat]

Druid is solid and probably one of the most powerful casters in game, and that is true for both PoE1 & 2.

In PoE1 also Cleric is way stronger than in 2 I think. Rogues I think were made better in 2. Ciphers were nerfed but not like to dirt but probably reasonably.

What you want to take into consideration in PoE2 compared to 1 is armor (DT) and Penetration mechanic. You want tons of accuracy/crits to pen enemy armor and maybe even carry different weapons (although tbh crits go around this). But it also means that effects which lower enemy armor on increase your penetration is something you should look at. Something like summoned fire sword actually can help early in Deadfire. Also it means if before your Druid probably was Might 20 INT 20 now you want Perception 20 as well.

However in PoE2 you can multiclass so everything becomes a bit more complicated. At least for martials, because casters I think mostly enjoy staying single class still.

 

[JDR13]

Can a Druid hold his own on the front line though? I read that the Druid's shapeshifting ability doesn't scale with level. Is that true? Does that mean shapeshifting becomes useless after awhile and I'll be regulated to mostly just being a support caster?

About Rogues, did you mean they were made better in I or II?

 

[Shadenuat]

Druid can hold a bit at least early, due to innate high stats of early shape form. I don't remember using it much late game however because of how powerful Druid spells are in comparison. In Deadfire you can multiclass and try something like Druid/Barb but I am not sure it is worth it much. I remember some trouble with natural attacks and ability stacking. Maybe there are some builds however.
Just that most things instantly died to Empowered Insect Plague raw damage, sort of.

In 2. Not that they were ever bad but since now you can multiclass like Fighter/Rogue you get best things out of two worlds.

 

[Tigranes]

Enjoyment is very subjective, and there aren't any obviously "bleurgh so much less fun than other classes" options in Pillars.

Very generally, monk and thief stand out as fiddly melee classes that require management but give the pleasure of big spectacular payoffs. (Rogues are more than strong enough in both games.)

In POE1 especially a melee wizard can be great fun to play and a change of pace.

Chanters, paladins, fighters, rangers, are probably the relatively less micro-heavy classes if you care about that either way.

Once you've played through 1 you'll know systems fine, so multiclassing will be recommended for 2, and we can talk about that once you get there.

 

[AwesomeButton]

enjoyment

You already lost.

 

[Shadenuat]

Enjoyment is very subjective, and there aren't any obviously "bleurgh so much less fun than other classes" options in Pillars.

Sorta Ranger. I cast my accuracy+.

Also I remember quite a few subclasses (kits) in Deadfire to be just an extra difficulty+ mode. Where you exchange something critical and good for larping.

 

[JDR13]

Thanks. I'm going to consider the possibilties of multiclassing before I make a final decision on class.

The sub-classes can also be muitliclassed, right? Also, how good are those final 2 levels of Druid abilities? Is it worth giving those up to multiclass for most classes?