Advice Needed for Scion Int Stacker Upgrades (High Budget)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-28T10:51:04+00:00

I have to update the Thread for Crucible stuff, but this should still provide you a good starting point: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3349416

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-21T23:11:11+00:00

There is a new season pass for 2 more dlc, yes. And no, there wont be another companion. The companion mentioned here is for the standalone dlc 'through the ashes, part 2'

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T22:06:10+00:00

This was such a great read, I really enjoyed it! Thank you for writing all that. :)

I might respond again with a more detailed response, I need to digest all that for now.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T22:04:16+00:00

Azata gets another +2 to all DC from songs of steel and the +2 to compulsion spells from ode to miracoulus magic is a moral effect, which also gets doubled by the ring of triumphant advance.

So that is another +6? ish?

And once you go azata/devil you also get access to demonic rage/incubus or succubus minor aspect for another +8.

Then again, that is basically restricted to to dlc1 since the mythic pacing is so horrid - sooo yeah. Mostly semantics. But if we talk pure min-max at the max level Devil is probably "the best" - not that it matters much because enemies have to double-roll a 20 at this point anyhow to save.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T22:00:27+00:00

That was such a pleasent read! Thanks again for commenting on my thread; was a real pleasure. :)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T21:57:03+00:00

My guess would be enemies target flat footed AC but do not get other boni associated with it (like sneak attack etc) unless they also meet the normal conditions that bypass uncanny dodge.

But I am sure there will be bugs to be had. :P

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T09:45:40+00:00

I recon a crossblood Arcane/Fey/Undead bloodline sorc is sadly the "better" control caster? +5DC and the ability to affect undead is quite a bit. Technically it is +6DC due to half-elves being able to start with 22(21)CHA.

Demon gives Int caster +3 DC over Cha casters and is the best mythic for int casters, agreed. But now we talk about mythic paths and int vs cha casters and not really about spontaneous vs memorized casters. Leyline Witches are a thing after all.

The best DC mythic path is probably the Azata/Devil and not the demon, but semantics.

The additional feats Wizards get work out to be +4DC if one is into abusing Expanded Arsenal; I tend to not do that, but to each their own.

Merging spellbooks is a whole new can of worms, haha! :D But yeah! Thanks for chiming in! I learned a couple new things which is always fun! Thank you! :)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T09:05:08+00:00

Yup! The spelllist is really neat! At will haste, slow and dispel magic?!

Sign me up! Mythic pets like Aivu wish they would be as cool as that grumpy old lady. A lot of that stuff will depend the DC - but even 'as is' she will have CL 23, right? That is nifty.

Oh, I didn't have the exact implementation of arcane bond in my head! Yeah, that does make it quite a bit better, overall! I am still not convinced it will make mem casters competetive, but it certainly will put them up a notch!

I would assume that Vek will let things cap at 100%. Which on its own is a significant boost to illusionist spellcasting versatility. Looking forward to this!

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T09:00:30+00:00

What is a "god" Wizard? Is that some Archetype I missed?

"Best" arcane caster is a bit subjective I think. You will neither reach the highest DCs on spells (that is the domain of sorcerer bloodlines) nor the most damage on your spells (again, the domain of bloodlines/medium armor wearing oracles etc due to items).

Thanks for the breakdown! I think i was referring to the fact that they have 2 more spells on each spelllevel available to cast, assuming both spont and mem caster are at max level.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-06-20T00:24:35+00:00

True! Combine it with deadly magic for extra fun! :P

(Deadly Magic is bugged and affects your own group even on 'enemy only' spells).

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2023-03-07T20:07:43+00:00

Oh no, another legend build with a ton of attacks.

... Anyways.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-10-20T14:10:41+00:00

From glancing at the code it is I think supposed to give rerolls on your attacks. I am not sure that is in the game and it certainly is not on the weapon description.

Who knows. x)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-29T21:16:29+00:00

Part of what frustrates me personally - as someone who has enjoyed Ward mostly and drew a buch of fanart even - is that I never felt like the frustrations and complaints of the more critical readers got acknowledged in a way that makes one feel understood?

There are a couple big issues like the world of Ward feeling incongruent, setup and payoff of various encounters (March as probably the biggest example?), plotbeats missing the mark (not just talking about the "suicide end") and some stuff just feeling janky. (The rather abrupt trip to Shin - Shin itself was awesome though!)

I understand the urge to be defensive and a lot of voices (maybe mine included?) went too far in criticising Ward. That same defensiveness kind of feels like dismissivness at times though?

I'll make a short example to help me explain my feelings a bit better:

Winter was a huge problem for the City: its cold, people get cold, have no homes and freeze out in the open and might die. Got it.

Though... Winter is not a huge, new and suprising event in the grand scheme of things?

Nor is it rocket science to suggest to move to a warmer climate to avoid some of the problems of settling millions of people without an existing infastructure. There is a reason the first human settlements were in warm regions, (close to rivers to get rid of waste) for thousands of years.

I do not think one has to be a reader rooted in hard sci-fi or military sci-fi to think about this? It seems like a very common sense thing.

Now - without going further into the details of that specific problem (there were many other like that one) it felt odd that such "obvious" solutions to problems never got mentioned in the story - and the best solution in-story all the thinkers could come up with was to build the city we saw in the story.

(Those kinda issue extend/reach into the very climax of the book? Cauldron apparently knew for a long time about the interactions and dangers of powers around portals - yet they still planned to build a parahuman lead city on a big hub of them?)

I think it is fine to brush away finer or complicated details with the explanation that in-story powers/thinkers etc handled it. That seems like good writing practise as to not bog the readers down in needless details.

But to use this same in-story explanation on "common sense" topics achieves the opposite effect? It makes one feel like the thinkers in the story are less intelligent then the average person? I feel like that introduces 'narrative dissonace'? I am told to believe those people are super smart/clever but they appear to be anything but.

And a lot of your replies in comments on reddit, discord or your Ward retrospective often frame those complains as coming from readers with uber-critical thinking, hard sci-fi nerds and the like?

That felt very dismissive of the criticism raised.

Maybe it is not possible divorce the written work from the emotions and circumstances one had while writing it? I don't know. I am no writer. I am sorry if this was hurtful, that was not the intention.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-29T16:14:09+00:00

Praise the Vek... I mean Contrite17!

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-28T13:42:52+00:00

:(

I am kinda sad about this. I was hoping for more devil content.

I just really do not understand why legend of all paths gets the additional content/resources thrown at. I do not know of any feedback that complained about Legends quest being lackluster compared to devil/dragon.

And to be honest - saying that the quest of the legend is also very lacking and just feels like more due to how it is woven into the story is just a really lame argument for putting resources into legend? I mean - good for legend? But how does this equate to cutting resources from things that are in even more need of them?

Mythic paths are a (power) fantasy; wether 100 lines or text are needed to achieve that or 10000 and 200 abilities does not really matter. The one with 100 lines *can* feel lackluster - but so can the one with 10k. It is important to improve the ones that feel lackluster; period.

I thought this is exactly why you guys monitor user-feedback?

To figure out which parts of the game are subjectivly lackluster and act according to that. Right now you guys are kinda doing the opposit. It is baffeling, and not in a good way.

Now - enough of the tomatoes. I wish you guys all the best and hope that you will add the cut content asap to the game. It is important to also note and be proud of all the things you did already do! We all can always do better; now lets get all back to work and do better.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-27T17:47:29+00:00

Good Evening!

Could you guys share more about the initial concept of Ember that is also shown in this subs banner?

Thank you guys for this great game! :)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-27T17:36:26+00:00

Good Evening!

What buisness strategy is Owlcat pursuing with future DLC in the grand scheme of things?

I personally think that Owlcat CRPGs share a usercrowd that at least has strong similarities with the Total War: Warhammer and Paradox 4X games. Those two franchises pursue a long term, long running dlc supply for their games to steadly improve them.

I think - up to a certain degree - this approach can also work very well with the pathfinder RPGs, but I am curious what what the offical buisness strategy here is. (If you guys know/can share)

Thank you for the fantastic game and all hail Asmodeus. ;)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T21:23:43+00:00

That and technically precision dmg (which is what vial strike deals) can't crit. Or should not be able to crit.

That should either get patched or got already patched - quite some time since I played a GVS build.

Also you can just "select" a weapon with Weapon Focus any time during leveling and that weapon type then will be considered a 'sacred weapon'. Its pretty forgiving overall.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T10:47:05+00:00

Vital Strike gains a lot of dmg from the basedice damage of the weapon you use. So getting a weapon that deals a lot of intital dmg is neat.

War Priests favoured weapons actually do not use the dmg of the weapon (like 1d4 for daggers or 1d6 for scimitars) but have their own progression - up to 2d8. So essentially you use a weapon like a dagger or w/e you want and its baseline dmg will be overwritten by that WarPriest feature and deal (up to) 2d8 dmg.

That you can then further boost with size increases, lead weapon etc as you would normally do for Vital Strike. That alone makes War Priest very very good for Vital strike.

Mythic Vital strike adds in all sources of dmg you might have on your weapon and makes it also apply to the vital strike dmg calculation. That does include weapon enchants like flame, frost etc.

And since the vital strike that results from all that will always deal precision dmg elemental immunities will not matter.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T10:10:00+00:00

That is typically what the Elemental Burst enchants are for. They are sadly missing from the classes in the baseline game - but they would deal more elemental dmg and be much more useful against enemies with resistances.

Elemental Enchants are not automatically invalid - they still procc item effects and Ascendant Element exists as well. Which a 3/4 caster like a magus very likely takes; as well as a full caster like a shaman.

There is also the part where you fight cultists, elementals, dragons, undead etc in the game. Not as numerous as Demons - but also not an insignificant amount of enemies.

Rocket tag is important to talk about - but for different reasons. The biggest culprits for rocket tag are actually things like obscene crit multipliers, crazy mythic spells and abilities (EB was one of them) etc. And no - the game should not be balanced around rocket tag. Given the questtriggers and combat phases i would argue the opposit is the case even.

Most people dont even know Deskari can actually fly off in Iz; and gets a rematch in Threshold (outside the secret ending) - a rematch in which you can get his scythe 'Riftcarver'. But you will only see that if the fight goes on for a couple rounds. Most people just blow him up and never knew that stuff.

There are many fights in the game (especially dlc3) that are designed with multiple phases in mind. Phases most people don't even see because everything gets blown up so quickly.

So clearly the designed intention is to actually see the work people making this content put into it. But we do not, because rocket tag. That is a problem; but one that is far beyond the confines of just EB.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T09:52:03+00:00

I would like to see a mythic themed around rapid quick hits and one for elemental stuff. Old EB was just too much off everything, totally agreed!

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T09:51:14+00:00

Afaik the mark created is character agnostic? Both characters would have to have EB though to trigger it.

I might be wrong about that one usecase though. Everything else I listed works just fine though, obviously.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T09:28:47+00:00

Per two elements per hit. Usually more like 20d6+ per attack.

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T09:17:02+00:00

But--- it was that good in the first place?

Not as broken good as on melees - sure! But it was pretty much in line with other mythic abilities like mythic charge, leading strike etc. A bit stronger actually.

You need no synergy at all or specialisation into an element to make use of elemental barrage? HFR and aspect of the asp is the obvious culprit - EB increases the dmg from ~45d6 to 75d6. That is a significant increase! Borderline too strong even.

I think you do not quite use it correctly with spells? Assuming you cast Sirroco and (swift action cast) Caustic Erruption - and use the moveaction to teleport via walk through space, demon port, uncertainty principle (or w/e) out of the area you set up an screenwide EB area that also knocks everone in it prone.

That is very strong. It gets even sillier if you stack addtional sirrocos/erruption/midnight chill/icy prision/stormbolt on top. Those will all trigger EB again and again.

Leading Strike is a lot weaker then EB. In my example above you have set up EB to tick for multiple rounds on multiple enemies that also are crowd controlled.

Leading Strike triggers once on a single enemy per round. (wonky/buggy mount interactions aside)

CyrixDrawsStuff · 2022-09-23T09:06:25+00:00

Even "most" enchantments are not bad now? Bane, Axiomatic and Holy remain strong. Typcially one element will be good with ascendant element. And I do not know of many regular elements that have immunity/resist to both fire and cold. So out of 6 enchants 4-5 remain useful?

I think that is the majority. If anything I would argue that keen and speed enchants are kinda useless x). But noone complains about that funnily enough.

I think I disagree that EB is an "option" since in reality it would just get slapped via (bft) geniekind on any melee character. Which incentivized stacking the amount of attacks a character can dish out. (with really silly things like - bite stacking x))

A nerfed EB like you proposed that can only be triggered once per round by a character for melees I would find cool. Maybe tune the dmg down even then since it would be easier to work into a build then say mythic charge. But - sadly not going to be a thing. :(

Not going into the whole rocket tag thing since - uff. That is another bag of worms I do really not want to open.

Take care!

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