Ok. But given your erroneous and umbraged claims just now, you do not give the impression of a person whose debating skills are worth taking seriously. Your refusal to actually demonstrate where you think DinoDin accused you of lying (when he didn't) simply lends more credence to this idea.
Do not waste your time @xzar_monty, this is the second or third forum I found that guy saying the same things that he says here, usually every time someone says something remotely good about Larian, and I never reply, it is for the best.
Does anyone know about some mod to nerf Red Hand arquebus? I am playing a rogue gunner in TB, and, even if I like the arquebus I found that I often got 150 crits hit damage and it is... a little too much.
If someone is interested, I found there is a mod that makes pistols do piercing or crush damage, so you can use pistols too to destroy those pesky curse totems. https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/225
I see no future in this tangent. It's not productive, it's not on-topic, and it's not very fun for anyone involved.
For those who might not be aware, it is not just that disrespectful behavior is against the rules; it is that accusations of disrespectful behavior also cannot be made publicly. If you have an issue with another forumite, don't try to fight it out or prosecute it in-thread--that just provokes more arguing and derails the thread. Instead, use the "Flag" function to report the post and the moderating team will address it privately.
This thread is about PoE2, after all. No one comes here to read about personal disagreements.
Ok, fair enough, @PsioVic: I had no prior information and simply decided to bring up an obvious point (that there was no attack or insult) because I thought it would be helpful. It very quickly went downhill from there, as you can see. @semiticgod's comment is right on the money, of course.
A question for those of you who love PoE2 and have replayed it at least a few times: what is your preference for the classes for each of the companions? For example with Eder, do you keep him pure fighter? Go rogue? Curious about how people set up their party. For me it's typically:
Eder - swashbuckler
Maia - scout
Xoti - pure priest
Aloth - pure wizard
Serafen - witch
Pallegina - crusader
Tekehu - theurge
A question for those of you who love PoE2 and have replayed it at least a few times: what is your preference for the classes for each of the companions? For example with Eder, do you keep him pure fighter? Go rogue? Curious about how people set up their party. For me it's typically:
Eder - swashbuckler
Maia - scout
Xoti - pure priest
Aloth - pure wizard
Serafen - witch
Pallegina - crusader
Tekehu - theurge
I've played it only twice, so I'm not that knowledeble, but here's my two cents;
Eder; Both times I've went fighter/rogue since the rogue side offers some versatitly, ie the dash so that Eder can quickly reposition of one of the squishes is being attacked.
Maia; first time I had her as ranger/mage but it was a waste since her mage side didn't contribute enough. Second time i kept her as pure ranger and that was much better since her higher level skills give her beast-mode with the arquebus that fires twice and with twin shot and piercing etc she is often the party member doing the most damage.
Xoti - I've tried pure cleric and cleric/monk and prefer the first one. Sure, adding monk gives her more offensive power but I tend to keep her in the back anyways and more spells means more buffs, so I think I prefer her as pure priest more. But that's because of my playstyle and if I had a squishier charname, maybe adding monk and using her more offensively could be beneficial.
Aloth - I find mages overall lackluster in PoE1 and 2 and hardly use them. Most of the times it's hard firing of any of their spells without the enemies moving around before it lands (yes, I know you can retarget, but still), but mages if you wanna use them I would probably get the higher level spells sooner which speaks for pure mage.
Serafen - I went barb/cipher, mostly for the passive damage buff from cipher coupled with the increased attack speed from barb. mid/later on his cipher skills are really good and with increased damage he gains resrouce to cast them quite often.
Pallagena; paladin/bard is a great combo! Her cone attacks is perfect for a front-line tank! I didn't undertand bards in PoE1 but used them extensively in PoE2 in my second playthrough to the point that I am now a bard lover in this game.
Tekehu: Druid/bard for him as well! Two bards are great and their passive songs can compliment eachother with one buffing defense and attack speed for ranged attacks while the other one buffs the tanks.
EDIT: FYi, I have not played on PoD level difficulty which I assume change a lot on how you need o maximize the character builds, so take not of this re. the above.
I actually like Xoti as a pure monk, she has a useful kit that gains wounds faster. The Bad thing is that you do not have more priests until beast of winter. Luckily her buckler can be used by any priest.
Tekehu as Chanter or Theurge, because he has a stormchanter class with powerful offensive invocations.
Serafen as a witch, good synergy barbarian-cypher.
Eder and Aloth as fighter and wizard, for tradition. For the same reason Pallegina as a paladin. I concede that you can do more powerful class combinations with those three (rogue-mage for Aloth for crazy spell sneak attacks, or fighter-mage to make him a tank; for example)
Maia... I like the character, but I do not think she is suited to anything that is not a pure ranger. I have her around to find things with her high perception and use red hand to blow heads off.
A question for those of you who love PoE2 and have replayed it at least a few times: what is your preference for the classes for each of the companions? For example with Eder, do you keep him pure fighter? Go rogue? Curious about how people set up their party. For me it's typically:
Eder - swashbuckler
Maia - scout
Xoti - pure priest
Aloth - pure wizard
Serafen - witch
Pallegina - crusader
Tekehu - theurge
I've played it only twice, so I'm not that knowledeble, but here's my two cents;
Eder; Both times I've went fighter/rogue since the rogue side offers some versatitly, ie the dash so that Eder can quickly reposition of one of the squishes is being attacked.
Maia; first time I had her as ranger/mage but it was a waste since her mage side didn't contribute enough. Second time i kept her as pure ranger and that was much better since her higher level skills give her beast-mode with the arquebus that fires twice and with twin shot and piercing etc she is often the party member doing the most damage.
Xoti - I've tried pure cleric and cleric/monk and prefer the first one. Sure, adding monk gives her more offensive power but I tend to keep her in the back anyways and more spells means more buffs, so I think I prefer her as pure priest more. But that's because of my playstyle and if I had a squishier charname, maybe adding monk and using her more offensively could be beneficial.
Aloth - I find mages overall lackluster in PoE1 and 2 and hardly use them. Most of the times it's hard firing of any of their spells without the enemies moving around before it lands (yes, I know you can retarget, but still), but mages if you wanna use them I would probably get the higher level spells sooner which speaks for pure mage.
Serafen - I went barb/cipher, mostly for the passive damage buff from cipher coupled with the increased attack speed from barb. mid/later on his cipher skills are really good and with increased damage he gains resrouce to cast them quite often.
Pallagena; paladin/bard is a great combo! Her cone attacks is perfect for a front-line tank! I didn't undertand bards in PoE1 but used them extensively in PoE2 in my second playthrough to the point that I am now a bard lover in this game.
Tekehu: Druid/bard for him as well! Two bards are great and their passive songs can compliment eachother with one buffing defense and attack speed for ranged attacks while the other one buffs the tanks.
EDIT: FYi, I have not played on PoD level difficulty which I assume change a lot on how you need o maximize the character builds, so take not of this re. the above.
Very interesting. I'm especially intrigued by what you say about Maia. I always end up multiclassing her (with rogue though). Maybe my current playthrough I will try her pure ranger.
And I agree, paladin/chanter is awesome. And since paladin has always been my favorite class to play, even in the IE games and in pnp D&D, paladin/chanter is my default for my PC. That's why I make Pallegina paladin/fighter.
I sorta' agree on wizard, though for me cipher tends to be the class I really dislike. I generally try to minimize spellcasters in my parties given my preference for the martial classes. Have you (or anyone) successfully beat the game with a party of no spellcasters?
@kanisatha I like to keep the returning npcs as the classes they were in PoE1. And have the new npcs as the new multiclass variants. Just because.
I hear you. But for me, in PoE1, I always played Eder as a roguish fighter and Pallegina as a DPS paladin. So the specific multiclasses available for them in PoE2 seem very representative of how I tend to see them.
I actually like Xoti as a pure monk, she has a useful kit that gains wounds faster. The Bad thing is that you do not have more priests until beast of winter. Luckily her buckler can be used by any priest.
I've never tried using her this way. Monk has kinda' been the other class I have tended to avoid, after cipher, because I like using those nice weapons in the game and so don't like using bare hands for one of my party members. But PoE2 is better for monks because they are almost as good when equipped with weapons as with just their fists. Might try experimenting with her as a monk sometime.
I sorta' agree on wizard, though for me cipher tends to be the class I really dislike. I generally try to minimize spellcasters in my parties given my preference for the martial classes. Have you (or anyone) successfully beat the game with a party of no spellcasters?
Theoretically, I think you can use chanters and paladins to heal and buff yourself(And the healing and dispel magic rings), barbarians to CC; and rogues, fighters and rangers to complete the party. I tried an almost non-caster party(Xoti monk, Serafen barbarian, Aloth tank-later Paladin Pallegina-, Eder Rogue, Tekehu chanter) but eventually I had to take the cleric of Beast of winter around because of the heavy magic damage and debuffs in the Wizard DLC and the crazy ice damage in Beast of winter (I do not really use the mercenaries in this game because of the lack of dialogs)
Yeah it's the reason why I've always kept Xoti as pure priest and developed her as a healer, so even if I don't use her all the time she's available for those really nasty situations. I also stay strictly away from the sidekicks for your same reason.
Never understood the folks who solo the game, and that too on PotD! Seems way too stressful and aggravating to me. Defeats the whole purpose of playing video games in the first place.
Pallagina as Fighter/paladin is an awesome combo. The only reason I made her pala/bard was because my mainchar was pala/fighter going for max deflection and almost complete invulnerability. Felt overkill to have two. So it seems you and I chose the exact opposite, hehe..
The fighter/pala's defense is almost unbreakable if you stay true to your alignment and get the +15 or so from that and pick the feats that adds even more defense on ie will saves etc. I also used some meta to know which skills to pump for the armor (edit: and shield) that adds deflection from a skill, and even though that was nerfed it's still a potent combo where most enemies rarely hit and if they do, it's graces.
Maia as rogue/ranger is probably good, but I tend to not really use sneak attacks. Haven't learned that mechanic in the game and only getting a boost on your first attack instead of all of your attacks seems like a waste. Also the rogue has a lot of feats for moving around which the backline shooters seldom have to do. So I rather just pump her ability to shoot fast and hard, and that's about it. Her bird I didn't care about as it seemed lackluster compared to her own abilities and with two tanks, you don't really need to invest points in it.
Never played Xoti as pure monk. I love monks in this game, but singleclass seems a waste somehow. though I haven't seen her unique class, the monk pairs so well with many other classes - my favorite being the druid (healer), but to each their own.
Cipher is almost worth it just for the 30% damage boost from the feat, whatever it's name is, that is passive for Serafen and playing him without cipher is such a breach with his persona I just couldn't do it.
If I play again I should probably play a mage since I just cba to play with Aloth. Tho now in PoE2 where I guess they can actually use their spells more often, they should be easier to use than in PoE1 where I ended up hardly using them at all, saving their spells for tougher fights only to end up resting with a full spell book (just like with potions in BG, hehe).
I didn't undertand bards in PoE1 but used them extensively in PoE2 in my second playthrough to the point that I am now a bard lover in this game.
Chanters got a significant boost between the two games. In Deadfire they start combat with a certain number of phrases, depending on level. Whereas in the original they started at zero.
Cipher is almost worth it just for the 30% damage boost from the feat, whatever it's name is, that is passive for Serafen and playing him without cipher is such a breach with his persona I just couldn't do it.
Soulblade bonuses are still crazy for MC melee classes, even though they nerfed it twice.
Never played Xoti as pure monk. I love monks in this game, but singleclass seems a waste somehow. though I haven't seen her unique class, the monk pairs so well with many other classes - my favorite being the druid (healer), but to each their own.
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The drawback is that Xoti can only dual priest-monk(without cheating), which is indeed a waste. So, pure monk it is...
Btw, one thing where Obsidian's penchant for balance really shows is that it doesn't really matter how you develop your companions. All combinations work really well. You'd really have to go out of your way to create a non-feasible build. There's a good side to that, obviously, but it's also a bit bland: everything is as good as everything else.
If I play again I should probably play a mage since I just cba to play with Aloth. Tho now in PoE2 where I guess they can actually use their spells more often, they should be easier to use than in PoE1 where I ended up hardly using them at all, saving their spells for tougher fights only to end up resting with a full spell book (just like with potions in BG, hehe).
Hehe. I do this all the time too. It's especially bad in my IE games where I end up with a horde of potions and scrolls and even wands to rival that of any dragon. I'm really happy they cut back per rest abilities in favor of per encounter.
With chanters, it wasn't just the overall upgrade the class received but also that the chants themselves became so much better/more useful. The summon chants are particularly useful, especially with the party size reduction. The skellies are very versatile, but it is just so cool to have ogres and even dragons fighting for you.
Well, there is a mod that allows you to get the unique companion´s classes, like stormspeaker, watershaper or cleric of Ryrmgand or Gaun; but I think unique classes of races for your companions give them more character and "uniqueness"
Other thing about Tekehu is that all his water-based offensive spells are foe-only, so you can spawn frostspells in the middle of the melee non-stop, he surpasses any caster of the game in that. Also has a meatshield summon in lvl 1. He even learns for free powerful unique offensive spells as a chanter.
If that is not enough, he is one of the companions with most banters ingame, I usually take him along, even though he is one of the last companions you can recruit. https://wiki.fireundubh.com/deadfire/dialogue-options
The only drawback is that he cannot use helmets, like all the godlikes. They have to offset the extra abilities of the godlike, but I didn´t care much about the decision of making that race helmetless. I know, hard to put a helmet with the horns of if your hair is permanently on fire, but it would be cool if you had circlets or ioun stones.
Btw, one thing where Obsidian's penchant for balance really shows is that it doesn't really matter how you develop your companions. All combinations work really well. You'd really have to go out of your way to create a non-feasible build. There's a good side to that, obviously, but it's also a bit bland: everything is as good as everything else.
I think it is a plus, you can play any class and race you want, you do not have to worry that your class is subpar.
I never played a mage hunter, a non-kit cleric or a beastmaster in Bg or IWD, at least not for long.
Btw, one thing where Obsidian's penchant for balance really shows is that it doesn't really matter how you develop your companions. All combinations work really well. You'd really have to go out of your way to create a non-feasible build. There's a good side to that, obviously, but it's also a bit bland: everything is as good as everything else.
I think it is a plus, you can play any class and race you want, you do not have to worry that your class is subpar.
I never played a mage hunter, a non-kit cleric or a beastmaster in Bg or IWD, at least not for long.
Yep, that's the other side of it. If we put BG2 versus Deadfire in this respect (as they're both the second installment of a given game), I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer. I mean, I've played BG2 maybe three times, and I'm not going to play Deadfire again (I've played it once), so in that sense BG2 is more important to me. But there's also the factor of time...
However, I'd like to give you another example of how Obsidian's desire for balance -- in my view -- actually hurts the game. The Deck of Many Things is the perfect example. I think it's a superb idea, a special ship where you can go and buy special stuff once you're rich and can afford it. BUT, when you actually board the ship with huge loads of cash at your disposal, you will find that it offers you... nothing. There are no items that could make a significant difference. The stuff you've already found works just fine, and much of that stuff is easily interchangeable with itself, it doesn't really matter whether you use this, that, or the other. Precisely because everything in the game is so well-balanced.
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Well, there is a mod that allows you to get the unique companion´s classes, like stormspeaker, watershaper or cleric of Ryrmgand or Gaun; but I think unique classes of races for your companions give them more character and "uniqueness"
Other thing about Tekehu is that all his water-based offensive spells are foe-only, so you can spawn frostspells in the middle of the melee non-stop, he surpasses any caster of the game in that. Also has a meatshield summon in lvl 1. He even learns for free powerful unique offensive spells as a chanter.
If that is not enough, he is one of the companions with most banters ingame, I usually take him along, even though he is one of the last companions you can recruit. https://wiki.fireundubh.com/deadfire/dialogue-options<...>
Yep. Makes the companions more unique, at the expense of making your charname's less unique. His water skills and shapeshift abilities are so cool that i wanna use it by myself
Btw, one thing where Obsidian's penchant for balance really shows is that it doesn't really matter how you develop your companions. All combinations work really well. You'd really have to go out of your way to create a non-feasible build. There's a good side to that, obviously, but it's also a bit bland: everything is as good as everything else.
For me it is an CON. I mean, i don't wanna see for eg, an companion who have low might/CON being able to melee strong creatures. Balance comes with tradeoffs. For eg, consistency, variety and immersion. The fact that you can have an Wizard with low INT on PoE 1/2 is cool for an balance point of view, but makes no sense according to the own game story and lore who establishes that arcane spells are hard to understand.
Between the 3 main "pos renaissance" rpg's(dos2 / pf:km / poe2 ), only one of then is "unbalanced" as older games and this is why pfkm has much more variety and immersion than other rpg's of the same era. Hell, look to BG1/2, some builds can solo the game on hardest difficulty and some builds are an pain in the....
For me it is an CON. I mean, i don't wanna see for eg, an companion who have low might/CON being able to melee strong creatures. Balance comes with tradeoffs. For eg, consistency, variety and immersion. The fact that you can have an Wizard with low INT on PoE 1/2 is cool for an balance point of view, but makes no sense according to the own game story and lore who establishes that arcane spells are hard to understand.
I like the character creation in PoE2 well enough, but I´d have to say that they put too much into the "might" stat ( physical prowess, spell damage, healing made).
I found it... peculiar that my orlan priestess of Eothas could pull out the crashed Dawnstars wagon by herself and pass all those intimidate(might) checks in the dialogs; all because she has to raise that stat to heal people. I keep imagining her as the bodybuilding´ tauren priests of WoW
For me it is an CON. I mean, i don't wanna see for eg, an companion who have low might/CON being able to melee strong creatures. Balance comes with tradeoffs. For eg, consistency, variety and immersion. The fact that you can have an Wizard with low INT on PoE 1/2 is cool for an balance point of view, but makes no sense according to the own game story and lore who establishes that arcane spells are hard to understand.
I like the character creation in PoE2 well enough, but I´d have to say that they put too much into the "might" stat ( physical prowess, spell damage, healing made).
I found it... peculiar that my orlan priestess of Eothas pulling over the crashed Dawnstars wagon by herself and passing all those intimidate(might) checks in the dialogs ; all because she has to raise that stat to heal people. I keep imagining her as the bodybuilding´ tauren priests of WoW
I don't think there's any evidence for that, personally. The mechanics of the OS games, frankly, blow away PoE2. The OS engine itself is far superior in terms of being able to represent things in a 3D environment.
Well, it looks like I missed some drama in this thread, I just want to say to this, my opinion genuinely, is that whilst the 3D environment thing is technically superior to doing 2D pre-rendered backgrounds, I do think it is both aesthetically and artistically inferior, and so I consider all that a net negative, and really thats my attitude to gaming in general lately. I don't really care for games that spend millions more than they need to on the graphics, I just don't care that much about it anymore, and I think its kind of wasteful.
Its a different argument from why I otherwise think PoE2 is a vastly better game than OS2.
Btw, one thing where Obsidian's penchant for balance really shows is that it doesn't really matter how you develop your companions. All combinations work really well. You'd really have to go out of your way to create a non-feasible build. There's a good side to that, obviously, but it's also a bit bland: everything is as good as everything else.
After thinking about my experiences with some other games, I feel that this is the correct way to make the kind of RPG that PoE2 is. Its more important that the player be allowed freedom of choice in what they want to do, thereby allowing them to roleplay what they want, in an RPG thats mostly focused on playing a part in an epic story within a fleshed out world, than it is to design things which might impede their options and favour powergaming over the role playing.
A hardcore strategy game is a different matter, but I do think Original Sin 1 and 2 are just kind of annoying to play for combat.
Every build being viable is pretty ESSENTIAL for an RPG. It makes roleplaying easier if you don't have to worry about screwing yourself over becaue the concept you want to play simply doesn't work. Its one of the biggest reasons I have no interest in Pathfinder:Kingmaker. I've read dozens of pages in that thread, and the whole game seems balanced around being able to powergame your party.
Comments
Does anyone know about some mod to nerf Red Hand arquebus? I am playing a rogue gunner in TB, and, even if I like the arquebus I found that I often got 150 crits hit damage and it is... a little too much.
If someone is interested, I found there is a mod that makes pistols do piercing or crush damage, so you can use pistols too to destroy those pesky curse totems.
https://www.nexusmods.com/pillarsofeternity2/mods/225
For those who might not be aware, it is not just that disrespectful behavior is against the rules; it is that accusations of disrespectful behavior also cannot be made publicly. If you have an issue with another forumite, don't try to fight it out or prosecute it in-thread--that just provokes more arguing and derails the thread. Instead, use the "Flag" function to report the post and the moderating team will address it privately.
This thread is about PoE2, after all. No one comes here to read about personal disagreements.
Eder - swashbuckler
Maia - scout
Xoti - pure priest
Aloth - pure wizard
Serafen - witch
Pallegina - crusader
Tekehu - theurge
I've played it only twice, so I'm not that knowledeble, but here's my two cents;
Eder; Both times I've went fighter/rogue since the rogue side offers some versatitly, ie the dash so that Eder can quickly reposition of one of the squishes is being attacked.
Maia; first time I had her as ranger/mage but it was a waste since her mage side didn't contribute enough. Second time i kept her as pure ranger and that was much better since her higher level skills give her beast-mode with the arquebus that fires twice and with twin shot and piercing etc she is often the party member doing the most damage.
Xoti - I've tried pure cleric and cleric/monk and prefer the first one. Sure, adding monk gives her more offensive power but I tend to keep her in the back anyways and more spells means more buffs, so I think I prefer her as pure priest more. But that's because of my playstyle and if I had a squishier charname, maybe adding monk and using her more offensively could be beneficial.
Aloth - I find mages overall lackluster in PoE1 and 2 and hardly use them. Most of the times it's hard firing of any of their spells without the enemies moving around before it lands (yes, I know you can retarget, but still), but mages if you wanna use them I would probably get the higher level spells sooner which speaks for pure mage.
Serafen - I went barb/cipher, mostly for the passive damage buff from cipher coupled with the increased attack speed from barb. mid/later on his cipher skills are really good and with increased damage he gains resrouce to cast them quite often.
Pallagena; paladin/bard is a great combo! Her cone attacks is perfect for a front-line tank! I didn't undertand bards in PoE1 but used them extensively in PoE2 in my second playthrough to the point that I am now a bard lover in this game.
Tekehu: Druid/bard for him as well! Two bards are great and their passive songs can compliment eachother with one buffing defense and attack speed for ranged attacks while the other one buffs the tanks.
EDIT: FYi, I have not played on PoD level difficulty which I assume change a lot on how you need o maximize the character builds, so take not of this re. the above.
Tekehu as Chanter or Theurge, because he has a stormchanter class with powerful offensive invocations.
Serafen as a witch, good synergy barbarian-cypher.
Eder and Aloth as fighter and wizard, for tradition. For the same reason Pallegina as a paladin. I concede that you can do more powerful class combinations with those three (rogue-mage for Aloth for crazy spell sneak attacks, or fighter-mage to make him a tank; for example)
Maia... I like the character, but I do not think she is suited to anything that is not a pure ranger. I have her around to find things with her high perception and use red hand to blow heads off.
Very interesting. I'm especially intrigued by what you say about Maia. I always end up multiclassing her (with rogue though). Maybe my current playthrough I will try her pure ranger.
And I agree, paladin/chanter is awesome. And since paladin has always been my favorite class to play, even in the IE games and in pnp D&D, paladin/chanter is my default for my PC. That's why I make Pallegina paladin/fighter.
I sorta' agree on wizard, though for me cipher tends to be the class I really dislike. I generally try to minimize spellcasters in my parties given my preference for the martial classes. Have you (or anyone) successfully beat the game with a party of no spellcasters?
I hear you. But for me, in PoE1, I always played Eder as a roguish fighter and Pallegina as a DPS paladin. So the specific multiclasses available for them in PoE2 seem very representative of how I tend to see them.
Theoretically, I think you can use chanters and paladins to heal and buff yourself(And the healing and dispel magic rings), barbarians to CC; and rogues, fighters and rangers to complete the party. I tried an almost non-caster party(Xoti monk, Serafen barbarian, Aloth tank-later Paladin Pallegina-, Eder Rogue, Tekehu chanter) but eventually I had to take the cleric of Beast of winter around because of the heavy magic damage and debuffs in the Wizard DLC and the crazy ice damage in Beast of winter (I do not really use the mercenaries in this game because of the lack of dialogs)
Never understood the folks who solo the game, and that too on PotD! Seems way too stressful and aggravating to me. Defeats the whole purpose of playing video games in the first place.
The fighter/pala's defense is almost unbreakable if you stay true to your alignment and get the +15 or so from that and pick the feats that adds even more defense on ie will saves etc. I also used some meta to know which skills to pump for the armor (edit: and shield) that adds deflection from a skill, and even though that was nerfed it's still a potent combo where most enemies rarely hit and if they do, it's graces.
Maia as rogue/ranger is probably good, but I tend to not really use sneak attacks. Haven't learned that mechanic in the game and only getting a boost on your first attack instead of all of your attacks seems like a waste. Also the rogue has a lot of feats for moving around which the backline shooters seldom have to do. So I rather just pump her ability to shoot fast and hard, and that's about it. Her bird I didn't care about as it seemed lackluster compared to her own abilities and with two tanks, you don't really need to invest points in it.
Never played Xoti as pure monk. I love monks in this game, but singleclass seems a waste somehow. though I haven't seen her unique class, the monk pairs so well with many other classes - my favorite being the druid (healer), but to each their own.
Cipher is almost worth it just for the 30% damage boost from the feat, whatever it's name is, that is passive for Serafen and playing him without cipher is such a breach with his persona I just couldn't do it.
If I play again I should probably play a mage since I just cba to play with Aloth. Tho now in PoE2 where I guess they can actually use their spells more often, they should be easier to use than in PoE1 where I ended up hardly using them at all, saving their spells for tougher fights only to end up resting with a full spell book (just like with potions in BG, hehe).
Chanters got a significant boost between the two games. In Deadfire they start combat with a certain number of phrases, depending on level. Whereas in the original they started at zero.
Soulblade bonuses are still crazy for MC melee classes, even though they nerfed it twice.
The drawback is that Xoti can only dual priest-monk(without cheating), which is indeed a waste. So, pure monk it is...
https://pillarsofeternity2.wiki.fextralife.com/Watershaper
Well, there is a mod that allows you to get the unique companion´s classes, like stormspeaker, watershaper or cleric of Ryrmgand or Gaun; but I think unique classes of races for your companions give them more character and "uniqueness"
Other thing about Tekehu is that all his water-based offensive spells are foe-only, so you can spawn frostspells in the middle of the melee non-stop, he surpasses any caster of the game in that. Also has a meatshield summon in lvl 1. He even learns for free powerful unique offensive spells as a chanter.
If that is not enough, he is one of the companions with most banters ingame, I usually take him along, even though he is one of the last companions you can recruit.
https://wiki.fireundubh.com/deadfire/dialogue-options
The only drawback is that he cannot use helmets, like all the godlikes. They have to offset the extra abilities of the godlike, but I didn´t care much about the decision of making that race helmetless. I know, hard to put a helmet with the horns of if your hair is permanently on fire, but it would be cool if you had circlets or ioun stones.
I think it is a plus, you can play any class and race you want, you do not have to worry that your class is subpar.
I never played a mage hunter, a non-kit cleric or a beastmaster in Bg or IWD, at least not for long.
Yep, that's the other side of it. If we put BG2 versus Deadfire in this respect (as they're both the second installment of a given game), I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer. I mean, I've played BG2 maybe three times, and I'm not going to play Deadfire again (I've played it once), so in that sense BG2 is more important to me. But there's also the factor of time...
However, I'd like to give you another example of how Obsidian's desire for balance -- in my view -- actually hurts the game. The Deck of Many Things is the perfect example. I think it's a superb idea, a special ship where you can go and buy special stuff once you're rich and can afford it. BUT, when you actually board the ship with huge loads of cash at your disposal, you will find that it offers you... nothing. There are no items that could make a significant difference. The stuff you've already found works just fine, and much of that stuff is easily interchangeable with itself, it doesn't really matter whether you use this, that, or the other. Precisely because everything in the game is so well-balanced.
Yep. Makes the companions more unique, at the expense of making your charname's less unique. His water skills and shapeshift abilities are so cool that i wanna use it by myself
For me it is an CON. I mean, i don't wanna see for eg, an companion who have low might/CON being able to melee strong creatures. Balance comes with tradeoffs. For eg, consistency, variety and immersion. The fact that you can have an Wizard with low INT on PoE 1/2 is cool for an balance point of view, but makes no sense according to the own game story and lore who establishes that arcane spells are hard to understand.
Between the 3 main "pos renaissance" rpg's(dos2 / pf:km / poe2 ), only one of then is "unbalanced" as older games and this is why pfkm has much more variety and immersion than other rpg's of the same era. Hell, look to BG1/2, some builds can solo the game on hardest difficulty and some builds are an pain in the....
I found it... peculiar that my orlan priestess of Eothas could pull out the crashed Dawnstars wagon by herself and pass all those intimidate(might) checks in the dialogs; all because she has to raise that stat to heal people. I keep imagining her as the bodybuilding´ tauren priests of WoW
Well, it looks like I missed some drama in this thread, I just want to say to this, my opinion genuinely, is that whilst the 3D environment thing is technically superior to doing 2D pre-rendered backgrounds, I do think it is both aesthetically and artistically inferior, and so I consider all that a net negative, and really thats my attitude to gaming in general lately. I don't really care for games that spend millions more than they need to on the graphics, I just don't care that much about it anymore, and I think its kind of wasteful.
Its a different argument from why I otherwise think PoE2 is a vastly better game than OS2.
After thinking about my experiences with some other games, I feel that this is the correct way to make the kind of RPG that PoE2 is. Its more important that the player be allowed freedom of choice in what they want to do, thereby allowing them to roleplay what they want, in an RPG thats mostly focused on playing a part in an epic story within a fleshed out world, than it is to design things which might impede their options and favour powergaming over the role playing.
A hardcore strategy game is a different matter, but I do think Original Sin 1 and 2 are just kind of annoying to play for combat.