Your battlemage is more generalized and flexible than what I put together last week. It’s probably one of those builds (the battlemage in general) to save for subsequent plays so you get an idea of what type of weapons are available in the game (such as a cool soulbound q-staff. . .then you go devoted subclass and get that staff). But I would really recommend the +2 power level boost you get from the nature godlike race for a battlemage build to offset the loss from being a multi-class. Also good to use something like a pike or q-staff so you fight from the back rank behind a tanky fighter.
To answer BBB’s votary question upstream: for me it just feels less gamey, less restricted. The holy slayer’s dmg output is dependent entirely on coming out of stealth, and with guile costs you can only do that once or twice for the first half of the game per fight (sans spending empower points to get your pool back). My votary went with sworn enemy, so I get that zeal point back when the enemy dies (which they do, gloriously exploding under my flaming fists of devotion). The votary is also tougher with the goldpact pally subclass as opposed to the bleak one (I suppose a holy slayer build could eschew the burn dmg bleak’s devotion flames do since most enemies simply die when you come out of stealth and go goldpact or shield instead). Plus I went helwalker monk subclass for uber dmg with the votary, ending a lot of fights at Might 28-30 without food or an equipped magic item that would boost it even higher and offsetting the increased dmg it would take via second wind and lay on hands). Regardless of everything I just wrote, your mileage may vary, but both builds so far are my favorites. I might just have a fetish for watching a little dwarf run around (I took the fast runner passive so I could move about the battlefield more quickly) going Hulk on everyone with his fists.
I would like battlemage more, especially the one I listed days ago, but the spell restriction of 2 spells per spell level really feels limiting, even though you get them per fight. . .mainly because by the time you’re done buffing yourself to be able to go melee combat the fight has been going on for a bit and you’re out of spells. And if the fight lasts longer than all those buff spells or summoned weapons. . .well, you’re a dude in lighter armor holding a q-staff or sword, a real Fred or Charlie from Finieous.
From that video:
Nature Godllke Ascetic (Monk and Druid)
Death Godlike Inquisitor (Cipher and Paladin)
Fire Godlike Howler (Barbarian and Chanter)
Moon Godlike Crusader (Fighter and Paladin)
All looks interesting.
The guy who makes the videos is clearly a powergamer, but he doesn’t seem to ever commentate his videos.
For that alone i prefer @Scotch_Lufkin
Thanks for the information. I have seen people mention it relies on environmental things more, but not sure what that means. Is that a good or bad thing?
It’s a good thing to me, because it’s a layer of tactical gameplay most RPG’s don’t do much with, if anything. And the idea that your fire spell could leave the ground ablaze and a follow up poison spell could detonate the area is a cool one. It makes for some thrilling moments, imo. I’m not sure what about the system people don’t like, honestly. It’s awesome.
The dulcet sounds of Scott’s voice are indeed soothing. :D
Double Header this time. This weekend is probably the last weekend I’ll have to put these little videos together (at least with this much frequency) due to the next few weekends featuring God of War and BattleTech, and then before you know it the full game will be available. Not that I’m necessarily done making these little videos, but I’m probably not going to make like half a dozen in two days after today. :)
That said, I’m still down to try something if anyone without beta access wants to know how a class might work, or answer/demonstrate any questions anyone has!
And on a personal note, thanks for the kind words, it means a lot!
Not a dislike perse, but it gets a bit overwhelkming towards the later halves of the game, where you absolutely need to “game” the terrain. Battles become less about your tactics perse, and more about figuring out the terrain solutions.
That said, there are some cool synergies, like what @Scotch_Lufkin said.
For example, one guy insta-killed a very tough troll by dragging barrels of deathfog to it’s location and teleporting the troll into them.
Oh, for sure - that’s actually what I meant about it being a bit more puzzle like, actually. In fact, it’s also why I think D:OS2 in co-op is a dream come true, but would never recommend it to someone playing solo. Just a nightmare to come up with all the best solutions on your own. To me, anyway.
I didn’t finish the game to be honest. To me it was a combat simulator and not a RPG. Quest log was a mess at launch, the plot/story is gruel-thin, etc.
Goddamn, Scott, now I have to do my own Sage build. Because there are enough touch spells in the game to make that potentially interesting to play around with. My stats are going to be very different though, since I’ll probably rely on second wind more than all that Con and use those points for Dex and Per (each around 15, and probably a Might around 18 if I go with a nature godlike).
I like going super high CON for Helwalker because 50% health isn’t so bad when that’s still almost 100 health. :) Same with any build based around being Bloodied/Near Death like the Streetfighter or Death Godlike. But Helwalkers get dumped on a lot (Assassin’s as well) so a big bucket of health helps keep them standing to use all that extra +10 Might.
I just realized I want to try an Assassin/Helwalker combo.
“How much damage can I take in a single hit?”
“How fast can I melt in a fight?”
Honestly, although I appreciate all the great analysis and videos from Scott and John and the rest of you here, the discussion kind of depresses me and is disheartening, because so much of the focus in the Pillars games seems to be min-maxing and systems dissecting for maximum effectiveness – and those are the most boring, busywork aspects of RPGs to me - it’s not what I associate with D&D either.
I actually think Sawyer’s heavy system approach hampers roleplaying significantly, because it makes the misfit characters and choices made for roleplaying reasons rather than combat effectiveness MUCH less viable. They’re still great roleplaying games because of the choices and consequences otherwise in the games, but in terms of character development/attributes and skills I much, much prefer the approach of, for instance, Dragon Age: Origins. I actually think the combat in that game was much less chaotic and certainly very tactical, and the 3D camera gave better situational awareness too.
That said, there isn’t another RPG series with as “crunchy” development/combat systems, so it’s good to have one filling that space well. But I mainly like the story, lore, RPG story/quest/dialogue choices much more than the combat in Pillars 1. It’s great that you can avoid combat often in quests, but exploring environments still involves a lot of combat and there are just so many different classes/skills and the attribute system’s complexity just bogs the game down to me.
Heh, pretty much. That combo might be one of the multi-class choices Sawyer had in his mind when talking about how players can screw themselves if they mix classes poorly.
I’ve yet to see anything come even remotely close to the holy slayer coming out of stealth and crit-ing though. I’ve seen hits at level 7 doing over 300 pts, single-shotting the mob into gibs.
To be fair, there is literally nothing else to discuss - we can’t speak to how interesting the side quests might be, the interaction with companions, the central narrative, or even the quality of the writing. So (for me at least) I’m having fun digging into the nuance of the system. The last time I did this was when I was playing and DMing a 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons game, and it was one of the best times of my life. I’m loving the opportunity to crunch these numbers.
That’s not joke. Things go very, very well until you get engaged, but there are some panic buttons for that. The only real downside to this build is it’s very micro heavy, and as you know I don’t micro super well. You would probably get a lot out of the challenge and satisfaction of such a build though, I think.
EDIT - Also, make sure you pick up some ways to spend your wounds. Having +10 Might is great but taking +50% extra damage is not, and if you forget to have ways to burn your wounds off, it’s going to end poorly!
So it’s an RPG. Because that min-maxing has existed forever and in every RPG that has any classes or meaningful choices in builds.
Plus as Scott mentions, it’s not like we have anything else to really talk about.
I haven’t followed PoE2 development too much, but one of the core design decisions of PoE was to make every build mostly viable, which did led to some odd stat mechanics. I believe it hasn’t changed much for the sequel, except that you can gimp yourself somewhat more if you multiclass.
That’s nonsense- few RPGs care about that stuff to this degree, other than some iterations of D&D over the years and a few older RPGs like Wizard’s Crown and Eternal Dagger. MMOs do, and I dislike them for the same reason. Action games like Diablo 3 do, and I dislike them for the same reason.
RPGs like Fallout, Planescape Torment, Dragon Age Origins, Skyrim, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Ultima, Divinity Original Sin, Gothic, Risen, Neverwinter Nights 2, Star Wars Knights of the Republic, Vampire Bloodlines, Temple of Elemental Evil, Arcanum, The Witcher series, System Shock 2, Deus Ex, the Mass Effect series, Avernum/Exile etc. etc. etc. don’t have such complex attribute/damage types/status/combat state/effects/derivative stats/class/skill system. It’s a “crunchiness” that, imo, bogged down late 2nd Edition D&D and maybe current Pathfinder, but it’s not inherent in RPGs.
As I said earlier though, I’m happy for there to be different styles of RPGs though, and every Obsidian/Black Isle game has had no shortage of RPG depth in terms of choices/consequences and quest resolutions - if anything, other than maybe Troika, they’ve been the genre leaders in that respect.
But the stat/equipment/skill min-maxing stuff just bores me and prevents me from just taking what I want for roleplaying purposes. To take a few practical examples - figuring out what armor types for different classes to wear to balance protection/not compromise combat speed: I probably under-use heavier armor because I can’t be bothered doing multiple trial/error comparisons to examine relative effectiveness because that’s just not interesting to me. To a (much) lesser extent, same with changing weapon types.
Same with the multiple enchantment effects for items - is accuracy more important than a might bonus or dexterity bonus? No idea. I tend to just enchant with whatever effects I have reagents for as soon as I have enough to give items some effect.
Same with which resting bonus to pick based upon survival skill. If I know I’m going to encounter a bunch of creatures of a particular type, I always just pick the bonus that grants a bonus against that creature type. Is that better than picking a more general attribute bonus? No idea, as I’m not going to run through encounters multiple times and try to compare them.
I do like some of that “crunchiness” - like the tactical considerations of ensuring that each character has a weapon that can do piercing damage, and one that can do crushing damage, and one that can do slashing damage – that reminds me of old games like Wizard’s Crown, and has been part of AD&D since the beginning to some extent. But I tend to gravitate towards weapons that are effective for more than 1 type of damage, and after playing for an hour or so I tend to stop paying attention to that stuff and only switch if I notice that I’m not being effective. And even then, often getting messages of ineffectiveness can be misleading, because they related to secondary weapon effects (like shield bash) that don’t necessarily mean you’re not well equipped.
And then when you add all the combinations and permutations of enchantment damage (i.e. should I ensure I have a weapon that does Piercing damage and Fire damage, and one that does Piercing damage and Cold damage, and one that does Piercing damage and Poison damage…and the same for crushing…same for slashing…because of the respective defences that creatures have to different elemental damages…it’s just too much and I tap out, because I’d rather just get exploring and talking to NPCs and seeing new things and even listen to Durance blather).
Hopefully that explains what I mean more thoroughly than my earlier post. And again, to be clear, I am still really looking forward to this game, more than anything else coming out this year. And I’m enjoying playing through Pillars 1 now in anticipation of it, and getting much more out of it than I previously did because of my increased familiarity with the lore and setting (as it was initially a bit overwhelming). I loved reading the physical Guidebook and look forward to the next one. I just think the systems stuff is needlessly complex without making the game’s combat/development feel more tactical or interesting than the more streamlined system in Dragon Age Origins, for instance.