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

[Parabalus]

Moving from per-rest to per-encounter just made most spells feels incredibly underwhelming.
Sawyer can identify problems, but he absolutely sucks at fixing them.

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing. You want to get your higher level spells ASAP, and dual-classing locks you out of your best spells.

Wizards are insane for multi-classing since you get abilities for free with grimoires, meaning you can spend all your points on the other class.

Their spells still rock too, nothing underwhelming.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I should try out a party with frontliners intentionally built for very low maintainance and two backliners - a wizard and a priest, built as backliners. But I really like the fighter's knockdown ability.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Moving from per-rest to per-encounter just made most spells feels incredibly underwhelming.
Sawyer can identify problems, but he absolutely sucks at fixing them.

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing. You want to get your higher level spells ASAP, and dual-classing locks you out of your best spells.

Wizards are insane for multi-classing since you get abilities for free with grimoires, meaning you can spend all your points on the other class.

Their spells still rock too, nothing underwhelming.

idk, wizards are gay so I don't use them

psions >>>>>> mages

 

[AwesomeButton]

Moving from per-rest to per-encounter just made most spells feels incredibly underwhelming.
Sawyer can identify problems, but he absolutely sucks at fixing them.

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing. You want to get your higher level spells ASAP, and dual-classing locks you out of your best spells.

The thing about PoE is that it looks like an infinity engine game, but that's only on the surface. Minmaxing is pretty much pointless because of conscious efforts of the system designers.

It's like the baseline for character building is "this will work solidly", and from there onwards you can only reach different levels of "this is super good".

idk, wizards are gay so I don't use them

psions >>>>>> mages

Similar to how "Might is equivalent of Strength but, actually not really when you look into it", Wizards are not the Mages they appear to be. They still can function as crowd control but classes are much less restricted to traditional (gender hehe) roles than in D&D.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Moving from per-rest to per-encounter just made most spells feels incredibly underwhelming.
Sawyer can identify problems, but he absolutely sucks at fixing them.

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing. You want to get your higher level spells ASAP, and dual-classing locks you out of your best spells.

I made my MC single class Bloodmage for that reason. I didn't really like the spells any better in POE1. On paper they're only about (base) 25% weaker in Deadfire, but at least now you can use them whenever. With POE2 I'm doing my best to appreciate the game for what it is, rather than what I want it to be. Multiclassing seems like a good avenue for that.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Their spells still rock too, nothing underwhelming

I know this is a no-brainer, but a big part of the utility of a wizard (and not only) comes from the context in which one casts his abilities.

The player thinks he should be looking at the spells but actually he needs to be looking at his accuracy vs what defense he is casting and if has means to increase one and lower the other before casting (like by spamming Eldritch Aim). If there is low chance of one spell hitting, maybe cast a buff instead, or cast something on the ground that doesn't require an attack roll.

 

[Parabalus]

Moving from per-rest to per-encounter just made most spells feels incredibly underwhelming.
Sawyer can identify problems, but he absolutely sucks at fixing them.

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing. You want to get your higher level spells ASAP, and dual-classing locks you out of your best spells.

The thing about PoE is that it looks like an infinity engine game, but that's only on the surface. Minmaxing is pretty much pointless because of conscious efforts of the system designers.

It's like the baseline for character building is "this will work solidly", and from there onwards you can only reach different levels of "this is super good".

idk, wizards are gay so I don't use them

psions >>>>>> mages

Similar to how "Might is equivalent of Strength but, actually not really when you look into it", Wizards are not the Mages they appear to be. They still can function as crowd control but classes are much less restricted to traditional (gender hehe) roles than in D&D.

What min-maxing is there in the IE games?

There are no builds at all there. Dumpsterfire OTOH has lots of build optimisation choices.

 

[Haplo]

Put this on the backburner bit, so still haven't left the first island. Finished the dungeon/zone where you find Aloth. It was a decent area. While per encounter casts are helping with the mediocrity of wizard spells, I'm not enjoying how the most powerful thing I can do is summon a weapon and fight with it. Not very wizardly. Chillfog is great, but I'm underwhelmed by the synergy it has with Combusting Wounds. Fighting the urge to restart as a Cipher. Thinking maybe compromising by trying a Cipher (Psion) / Wizard hybrid. Not optimal, but I'm trying to eek out an enjoyable caster out of POE's systems. There are some wizard spells that seem interesting and would actually like to use and several that appear as good synergies with cipher spells too.

Combusting Wounds combo best with Wall of Fire and ray spells (they tick every second). Multi-missile spells are okay too. But of course, whole party can contribute. Dual blunderbuss attacks would be particularly good.
Beware of Fire resistant enemies, though. It will only tickle them.

 

[Haplo]

Their spells still rock too, nothing underwhelming

I know this is a no-brainer, but a big part of the utility of a wizard (and not only) comes from the context in which one casts his abilities.

The player thinks he should be looking at the spells but actually he needs to be looking at his accuracy vs what defense he is casting and if has means to increase one and lower the other before casting (like by spamming Eldritch Aim). If there is low chance of one spell hitting, maybe cast a buff instead, or cast something on the ground that doesn't require an attack roll.

Group effort is recommended. Devotions of the Faithful benefit everyone.
Morningstar modal debuffs Fortitude by 25! Clubs debuff Willpower and flails - Reflex.
Chanters and Ciphers have mass heavy debuffs. A Wizard's Miasma and Fear spells are very potent as well.

Note if you multiclass your mage with Assassin, his spells will have +25 (!) Accuracy from Stealth (and +4 Penetration and +50% Crit damage). Chillfog Assassinations were destroying early enemies. And with Arkemyr's Departure your CC spells won't even break Stealth.

 

[AwesomeButton]

What min-maxing is there in the IE games?

There are no builds at all there. Dumpsterfire OTOH has lots of build optimisation choices.

That was my next point. The only min-maxing you can do in the IE games is when creating the character and when choosing the order in which to play quests. The equipment choices are quite obvious. I wasn't saying the above from the viewpoint of comparing the IE games to PoE in a positive way.

Group effort is recommended. Devotions of the Faithful benefit everyone.
Morningstar modal debuffs Fortitude by 25! Clubs debuff Willpower and flails - Reflex.
Chanters and Ciphers have mass heavy debuffs. A Wizard's Miasma and Fear spells are very potent as well.

Note if you multiclass your mage with Assassin, his spells will have +25 (!) Accuracy from Stealth (and +4 Penetration and +50% Crit damage). Chillfog Assassinations were destroying early enemies. And with Arkemyr's Departure your CC spells won't even break Stealth.

This is what I meant. Approaching the game with the mindset and preconceptions from the IE games regarding classes which seem familiar will only lead to frustration and comments like "Class X sucks".

 

[AwesomeButton]

Rekke seems receptive to Disco Elysium Moralism:

Maybe Dollarhyde really intended his religion to be the PoE version of Christianity.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Put this on the backburner bit, so still haven't left the first island. Finished the dungeon/zone where you find Aloth. It was a decent area. While per encounter casts are helping with the mediocrity of wizard spells, I'm not enjoying how the most powerful thing I can do is summon a weapon and fight with it. Not very wizardly. Chillfog is great, but I'm underwhelmed by the synergy it has with Combusting Wounds. Fighting the urge to restart as a Cipher. Thinking maybe compromising by trying a Cipher (Psion) / Wizard hybrid. Not optimal, but I'm trying to eek out an enjoyable caster out of POE's systems. There are some wizard spells that seem interesting and would actually like to use and several that appear as good synergies with cipher spells too.

Combusting Wounds combo best with Wall of Fire and ray spells (they tick every second). Multi-missile spells are okay too. But of course, whole party can contribute. Dual blunderbuss attacks would be particularly good.
Beware of Fire resistant enemies, though. It will only tickle them.

I'm particularly interested in Wall of Draining from the wizard to keep up the Cipher buffs. Ectoplasmic Echo is also very underrated and I think can be mixed in. In POE1 I had my cipher MC and Grieving Mother cast it on eachother, then run laps adjacent or around the battlefield. It was ridiculous but devastating.

 

[Haplo]

Put this on the backburner bit, so still haven't left the first island. Finished the dungeon/zone where you find Aloth. It was a decent area. While per encounter casts are helping with the mediocrity of wizard spells, I'm not enjoying how the most powerful thing I can do is summon a weapon and fight with it. Not very wizardly. Chillfog is great, but I'm underwhelmed by the synergy it has with Combusting Wounds. Fighting the urge to restart as a Cipher. Thinking maybe compromising by trying a Cipher (Psion) / Wizard hybrid. Not optimal, but I'm trying to eek out an enjoyable caster out of POE's systems. There are some wizard spells that seem interesting and would actually like to use and several that appear as good synergies with cipher spells too.

Combusting Wounds combo best with Wall of Fire and ray spells (they tick every second). Multi-missile spells are okay too. But of course, whole party can contribute. Dual blunderbuss attacks would be particularly good.
Beware of Fire resistant enemies, though. It will only tickle them.

I'm particularly interested in Wall of Draining from the wizard to keep up the Cipher buffs. Ectoplasmic Echo is also very underrated and I think can be mixed in. In POE1 I had my cipher MC and Grieving Mother cast it on eachother, then run laps adjacent or around the battlefield. It was ridiculous but devastating.

Not sure why you'd want WoD for a Cipher. If you told me you wanted to WoD extend Fighter Unbending, Barring the Deaths Door from a Priest, some Brilliant inspiration or... well, yes, Ascension (but there are better Ascendant multiclasses IMO).

And yeah, Ectoplasmic Echo is cool, if requires quite a bit of micro management to be effective. Guess it's my favourite offensive power prior to Disintegration and Amplified Wave.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

That's some advanced tactics yo, I just script my Ciphers to spam blind/sickness/flanked all day and never touch it again.

 

[Lambach]

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing

They're alright if you use the Wizard part of the build primarily for buffing. They have some pretty powerful (mostly defensive) buffs that can be insta-cast in rapid succession, which is especially good in turn-based mode. You're not gonna be much of a nuker, though, but you can still cause some pain with offensive spells if you play it right.

 

[Haplo]

iirc, wizards are terrible for dual-classing

They're alright if you use the Wizard part of the build primarily for buffing. They have some pretty powerful (mostly defensive) buffs that can be insta-cast in rapid succession, which is especially good in turn-based mode. You're not gonna be much of a nuker, though, but you can still cause some pain with offensive spells if you play it right.

True.
But you can be a great nuker if you combine wizard with the right class. Did I already mention Assassins?
Though Helwalkers should have some potential also.

 

[Nano]

While we're on the topic of multiclassing, help me understand how Focus works. Why doesn't it increase from using nuke wizard spells? What's the lore justification?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Some of the gods' challenges are such an afterthought that Wael's challenge hides even the numbers for the audio volume sliders in the game options

It's supposed to hide the numbers from ingame stats. It seems to hide all numbers from almost everywhere in the UI, including your money. Good luck trying to keep track of what weapon upgrades you can afford.

 

[AwesomeButton]

That's some advanced tactics yo, I just script my Ciphers to spam blind/sickness/flanked all day and never touch it again.

From what I've (not) seen in player feedback, it looks like only Obsidian employees/owners are using the programmable behaviors. Which is honestly a shame.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Excluding some of the boss fights you basically do the same shit every fight, so yeah I pretty much script everything and play mostly unpaused.

 

[Haplo]

While we're on the topic of multiclassing, help me understand how Focus works. Why doesn't it increase from using nuke wizard spells? What's the lore justification?

It only grows from "weapon attacks". Note that includes spell-like abilities on weapons. Like Grave Calling conjuring party-friendly Chillfogs when you kill a vessel (including your summons...) - they DO generate Focus for you when damaging enemies.
Lore explanation is something along the line of enemies wounded by "martial" attacks sort of bleeding soul energy that you can manipulate. While spells are a manipulation of soul energy already.
Not that its consistant, when some weapon attacks/abilities look extremly magical...

 

[Nano]

It only grows from "weapon attacks". Note that includes spell-like abilities on weapons. Like Grave Calling conjuring party-friendly Chillfogs when you kill a vessel (including your summons...) - they DO generate Focus from you.
Lore explanation is something along the line of enemies wounded by "martial" attacks sort of bleeding soul energy that you can manipulate. While spells are a manipulation of soul energy already.
Not that its consistant, when some weapon attacks/abilities look extremly magical...

tl;dr Sawyer doesn't even bother hiding how much he favors balance over realism.

The mage/cipher multi is useless because of this. Just stupid.

 

[FreeKaner]

It only grows from "weapon attacks". Note that includes spell-like abilities on weapons. Like Grave Calling conjuring party-friendly Chillfogs when you kill a vessel (including your summons...) - they DO generate Focus from you.
Lore explanation is something along the line of enemies wounded by "martial" attacks sort of bleeding soul energy that you can manipulate. While spells are a manipulation of soul energy already.
Not that its consistant, when some weapon attacks/abilities look extremly magical...

tl;dr Sawyer doesn't even bother hiding how much he favors balance over realism.

The mage/cipher multi is useless because of this. Just stupid.

Sawyer cares more about streamlining than balance.

 

[plem]

The mage/cipher multi is useless because of this. Just stupid.

not if you pick the Psion subclass

 

[Haplo]

It only grows from "weapon attacks". Note that includes spell-like abilities on weapons. Like Grave Calling conjuring party-friendly Chillfogs when you kill a vessel (including your summons...) - they DO generate Focus from you.
Lore explanation is something along the line of enemies wounded by "martial" attacks sort of bleeding soul energy that you can manipulate. While spells are a manipulation of soul energy already.
Not that its consistant, when some weapon attacks/abilities look extremly magical...

tl;dr Sawyer doesn't even bother hiding how much he favors balance over realism.

The mage/cipher multi is useless because of this. Just stupid.

Not useless, Plem gave you the solution. Just play a Psion.
Though I think personally I'd prefer to play a Blood Mage and focus on spamming the mage spells.