Deadfire had the absolute best multiclass system I’ve ever experienced. Being able to combine any two classes while only losing the final tier of upgrades felt so amazing.
You're a legend bro. I saw your name on the video, and I immediately clicked. Still remember back in college following The Ultimate updates day after day.
I recently started Deadfire on your recommendation. Loving it so far, they had some absolutely great approaches to solve the genre’s issues and the setting is terrific. Thanks!
Super hyped for this! It's insane how overlooked this game is. That FAQ you linked is an incredible resource for the game. I'm actually going to listen to an interview because of that.
Chanter was my first and favorite class in both PoE 1 and 2. Aside from constant chants going off, their invocations have no limited spell slots like other classes, so you can use them as much as you want so long as you build up your resources via chants. Combine that with summons and it just feels like it does a bunch of things super well (healing, buffs, debuffs, tanking cc and some damage). I also made mine an off tank so it was always in the middle of the fight and covering as many people as possible with their chants.
Recently found ur channel and I love it. Keep up the good work. U helped me find a bunch of games that I now treasure and wouldn’t have found otherwise. I appreciate u
my heart...my soul... i couldn't have liked this video sooner. on a side note seeing how progressively better and better avowed looks throughout its trailers gives me big hype. reminds me of bg3 progress through it patches I just wish they did more public testing.
You helped me so much to get into bg3 with your guides, it really helped me enjoying it as much as I did. I'd love to see more PoE 2 stuff, since I don't really understand the systems and I'd love to get more into it !
More Deadfire Content! EDIT: to add more words for engagement - i played both games mostly as a single class monk, it was BG3 that really got me out of replaying games in basically the same way. And that Monk imo is very strong in both games, if weak at the early game, but once it gets going... Plus Monk abilities in Deadfire at late levels are insanely good and fun
Hi, I'm Chaospread on Obsidian Forum, I'm glad to have seen the discussion from where this video is "born" :) I only wanna say Wiz for me is also breaking but I agree with Aestus and Thelee. And one last thing, it's a shame Druid is not as great as in PoE1 😢 Anyway good video, appreciated most of all thelee interview 👍 Now we wanna Boeroer!!! :D
Yes! Please start producing content for this awesome game, I love it so much and want it to receive the love and attention it deserves. Subscribed because of this!
dude I love this video so much! I have over 200+ hours in PoE:II and adored it at release, and just watching this video made me miss that game, it's world and the incredible systems they built for PoE so much. itching to do a new playthrough now with a naughty, rude Steel Garrote Paladin multi-classed into something else to amp up it's damage. time to have a think and play around!
Based & Chanter Pilled. My Summoner was one of my favorite characters out of every CRPG I’ve ever played. Never had more fun uncovering everything about a class. Hearing you talk about all the complexities and mechanical depth of even the niche classes like Barb I can’t wait to hear more. Also tempted to start yet another new game with a Vampire Barb, but will wait until I discover a new niche build by the end of the video. (Interested to hear your thoughts on the Turn Based meta if you’re familiar, most of my playthroughs were through Turn Based so I could actually run the game on my crap PC)
There are some neat things you can do with turn-based. Action-economy hacks like procing Disengagement Attacks become really important. You should try Assassin/Soul-Blade! I talk about it in the video, but its even better in turn-based due to the way stealth works with Shadowing Beyond.
Hi Aestus, you've just bagged yourself another patron! Really enjoyed this detailed and insightful discussion of what is one of my favourite games of all time. Visited your channel occasionally whilst trying to get my golden dice but your deadfire content has really drawn me in (and got me hooked on this game again!) Keep up the fantastic work, you're a true scholar 👏
It's a long time ago that I played this game. I don't remember it in detail, but I still know that I got the "Frozen Crown Solo" and "The Ultimate" achievements with the Herald class (Paladin + Chanter) which was very strong with summons (I think the subclass for summons was named Beckoner).
Great video; Forbidden Fist is my favourite too and Blood Mage is just broken basically. I personally love the Trickster, possibly my favourite subclass; that early Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage is so good for 1 guile and the highly spammable Wall of Many Colours for single class is amazing too for just 3 guile. I could write a novel about this. I definitely want to make some lore related content before Avowed for sure myself on Eora.
Im absolutely loving your video so far. I’m scared to finish it because it’s already the best Pillars content on RU-vid. Your passion really shows, and if I desire to play BG3 again, I’ll make sure to focus on your guides. I’m an amateur class builder, so I felt validated when you mentioned stacking ranger accuracy buffs with the cipher, as that’s my most “original” class (I guarantee someone else has mastered this idea far before I even considered it). You inspired me to share it, so here goes. I rolled a high DEX, INT, PER ascendant cipher + ranger who uses the Watershaper’s Focus rod, its Blast proficiency, and Driving Flight to throw double-bouncing AoEs which can also proc decent water explosions. It takes only one or two basic attacks to achieve Ascended status on PotD, and it’s fun to pop an Avenging Storm scroll beforehand. It turned out to be so much better than I expected. I have AoEs, but I can also use Takedown Combo + a Disintegration crit on a big enemy. I still struggle, but I kind of appreciate that. I’m usually a perfectionist, but I don’t want to master this game before I can savor it. Both Pillars games are just fascinating.
Shame to see Pally so low. Imo they're a fantasic multiclass piece and make fantastic offtanks. While fire immune enemies absolutely do cripple your ability to do damage in some encounters, there's also a plethora of gear that gives fire attacks bonuses, many of which are available early. A Bleak Walker's Flames of Devotion with the ring of fire accuracy and the Whispers of the Endless Paths greatsword is one of the hardest hitting weapon attacks in the midgame. In lategame, +4 fire PL from the Magran's Axe and Moon and Sun flail weapon set makes Flames of Devotion and Sacred Imolation pretty lethal. While the fire tag is a drawback in specific encounters, there is a massive host of fire oriteted itemization that can boost Flames into the stratosphere. I'm really keen on Steel Garote/Trickster and Bleak Walker/Base Wizard, both are insane reposte builds with Whispers. Wizard getting passive bulk and giving Black Flames an additional +1 pen from Spirit of Decay is kinda good, wizards bring 14 free abilities to the table with the Spellbook mechanic, so you can power stack a lot of the Paladin and wizard defensives to make a supertank, without trading out offensive utility or requiring a shield. Steel Garote's Lifesteal and Rogue's Sneak Attack have the same trigger, and Endless Paths reposte+rogue reposte+trickster spells, with Paladin's armor and Rogue's mobility backing it, is just a really mobile and sturdy tank. Chanter and melee Cipher are also begging to be multiclassed with something that gives them duability and a couple filler abilities, because they do tend to fill their actions with lame auto attacks, which Paladin can do. Another critical element to Paladin is that it gets pretty decent value out of Reolve, Perception, and Intellect, which are dialog godstats, as well as good choices for pairing with any type of melee-capable caster like Cipher, Chanter, or Priest.
Really hope youll consider doing some companion guides in the future. Companions in this game are much more restricted on build options compared to many other CRPGs so id love a series that goes into some cool ways to build them
This video may be late in the life cycle of this game, but I absolutely love it, and I absolutely love this game! Thanks for keeping it alive and making such high-quality, thorough content!
I am planning a POE 1 and 2 playthrough now. Haven't touch the games since they came out I think, although I played alot back then. This is getting me really hyped. Just need to decide a class to play! Great content, love to see more.
Awesome video! Deadfire has one of the best class systems of any crpg. As excited as I am for Avowed, I really hope that Obsidian revisits these systems in a future game.
Finished PoE1 and am a little ways into PoE2 based on your recommendation in the last video. I couldn't find a class tier list for PoE2 so of course my party currently includes a paladin, barbarian, and ranger! Kicked out a priest and wizard to make room for them too! Might need to reevaluate that.
I feel that Bleak Walkers have so much potential for rp and lore, I don't even care if they aren't mechanically optimal. What a fantastic spin on the otherwise tired fallen paladin trope. Also, corrode damage is resisted by far fewer enemies than fire and the Bleak Walker dishes it out in spades. As you say, it's not game breaking or anything, but it's not useless either.
Honestly, its a good option for paladin. It really helps to get that second damage type, and the damage on Flames of Devotion with Bleak Walker is respectable. Bleak Walker's in the first Pillars are also quite strong, because Lashes in that game are so overloaded.
Maybe consider making individual videos for each class going into all of their multiclass combos? That would be a little more manageable, and let you get into the nuances of the different combos a class has available, and would make it easier to dig into the classes someone is interested in.
I would like to do something like that. The problem is logistical. Do I cover the Wizard/Fighter multi in the Wizard video, the Fighter video, or both? I haven't answered that problem yet.
I only played through the game once when it was basically brand new so it was full of bugs, but I played a Cipher. I honestly didn't realize how op it was until I think about it now when I remember not having any trouble at all dominating everything in the game. 10/10 tier list. I might do a second playthrough now that I now that there's a sequel on the horizon.
You could always physically edit the 6 stats yourself, using outside software, like Cheat Engine, to give yourself the max stats, 35, for all 6 attributes. In POE 1, my wiz had 99 stats, but they limited the stats to 35 in 2.
I'm so tired of fighters being called "boring", "set it and forget it", "dull" etc in other games. I love how epic fighter is in this game, and it was really nice to see you talk it up. ...And I'm saying this as someone who focuses on playing casters haha
I created a party of 5 chanters focusing on summons. They literally steamrolled the entire game on POTD difficulty. Basically let the AI do my battles for me...way overpowered.
Heya! Longtime fan of your stuff and crpgs as a whole. I've tried twice to get into POE1 but somehow didn't click (granted both times was a paladin) I want to try again getting into the series, what's a "fun" class for the first game? I know its subjective, just looking for opinions.
Love the vid! I played through Deadfire and loved it, after watching your video I want to immediately play through it again. I hope to see more deadfire videos from you. What are your thoughts on Tyranny?
Cleared the game with Barbarian+Monk multiclass. It has been a while, but stacked some buffs on him with Cipher, Priest and Druid maybe? It has been a while so I don't remember very spesifically. It was ridiculous how much damage that character did.
Regarding cipher, a few things to mention: For non ascendant ciphers, whispers of treason is often better than puppet master as its a third the cost. Dominate is usually not much stronger than charmed, with the notable exception of enemies which have intellect affliction resistance, in which case it is dramatically better. The additional range is a significant perk, however, but often not worth it being 3 times the focus cost. I am bit surprised you did not mention ringleader, which genuinely is a massive upgrade when there are more than a handful of enemies. Even if you end up charming the entire enemy pack, you can force attack. It allows you to lockdown enemy packs far more quickly. Amplified wave is also worth a mention. It is actually a great AoE spell, though the CC effect is far weaker than in the first game. Psion exists to allow multiclassing with casters. I would say the most disappointing thing is how bad the tier 8 and 9 spells are. I seldom use them even as an ascendant cipher where the focus cost is irrelevant. I doubt other ciphers touch these with a barge pole unless you have a very good target for psi blades. The shared nightmare passive is particularly effective for an ascendant cipher in a large battle, but otherwise its hard to justify a pure cipher. As an aside, the extra focus generation of the ascendant cipher would probably be a reasonable trade off without the ascendant buff. The fact that it gets the ascendant buff is just silly, particularly given you can extend it with salvation of time. Soul blade assassin was my first playthrough of time game, though it was subsequently nerfed rather heavily. Soul annihilation used to hit literally twice as hard before the first major patch of the game.
The set up for fights that Priests, Mages, Chanters etc. do are no doubt incredibly strong. However, you need someone to capitalize on that set up and Rangers fill an important role of eliminating enemies without interfering with the front lines. My ghost heart/assassin could essentially eliminate one enemy to open the engagement, continue to thin out fights quickly, provide amazing boss damage, while being able to get off a lot of free attacks with evasive fire. Essentially, they are the prime beneficiary of all the damage related buffs/debuffs swirling around. Not to mention the benefit of providing a disposable off tank to provide flanking bonuses or protect the backline. I'd suggest that the Ranger is bread and butter, just not as flashy. No one does consistent ranged damage like a Ranger, expect for maybe a Mage who have other responsibilities and are spell limited.
Similar to how the Tactician alone could be considered game breaking, I think Maia could be considered bread and butter for the reasons you mentioned. I’m sure there are great ways to build a scout, but she seems to have the best abilities and is my reliable go to for eliminating enemy casters and interrupting bosses
I think some of the best unique elements of PoE 1 were taken out in 2 like the way Wizard grimoires worked and carnage as you mentioned. The multi class system is great but you should have been able to develop everyone just like the main. 2 is also more difficult even on classical setting in my opinion.
Regarding Monk: Swift flurry will have a very hard time outperforming lightening strikes. A reliable 15% damage has the advantage of performing consistently. Also, you would need a crit rate of nearly 50% for the average damage to be equivalent on average. And the harder the enemy, the worse it performs. Its basically making your overall damage lower in all realistic cases, less reliable and it performs the best on easiest fights and worst and the hardest. Unless you have very high hit to crit conversion or get significant benefit from the volume of attacks rather than the overall damage, lightening strikes will be the better option. Helwalker is quite bad in my view. Might's damage bonus stacks additively, not multiplicatively. At endgame, you get 80% increased damage from transcendent suffering alone, and there are many other buffs to your damage, like your baseline might, turning wheel, lightening strikes, bonuses on activated abilities, equipment, consumables and third party buffs or multiclass features. The full 10 stack of the helwalker buff is going to amount to less than 15% damage in practice. By contrast, % damage taken increases are rare, so a 50% damage taken increase is going to make you take fully 50% more damage, which is really bad. It is also possible to overcap 35 might with a +10 buff stacking with other sources. Forbidden fist is an excellent tank that still has great damage. If you stack resolve, deflection and take clarity of agony, you can generate wounds just fine.
Love deadfire. I think it’s the only crpg I’ve actually finished. I think I have like 300 hours in bg3 but never finished. Although when replaying I don’t like the ship stuff
8:40 - Just to be a devil's advocate... A very good reason to remove carnage on-hit effects in Deadfire is multiclassing. As you said, in PoE1 the strongest barb builds are still normal might-based attacking builds with some tankiness. That's because they actually make use of the whole barb kit instead of just one ability. As lvl 7-8, the on-hit aoe barb is just a fancy way of making a lvl 7-8 cipher. At lvl 20, that build still plays like a lvl 7-8 cipher. It has to stand in the back line and poke things with a spear because it's too squishy, and it does no damage, so it can't really use the rest of the barb kit. In Deadfire, that would be completely fine, because you could have a whole second class that actually does something, and barb would be there as free aoe control that needs no investment. People already kind of do that with the cipher subclass that dumps focus to nuke (soul-something, some generic edgy name I keep forgetting), play as a bloodmage or something, and the whole other class is just one ability that happens to do insane damage, it's stupid. Imagine a barb/skald, which already plays a similar way to old int barb if you use a morning star, that could also spread debuffs in an aoe with each attack. Wouldn't that be pretty broken? Even if you somehow make that particular interaction fine, you would have to fine-tune every single other class that has an on-hit ability so it would just become broken in a barb multi (curse fist monk comes to mind).
@@Aestus_RPG Maybe I expressed it wrongly. I didn't necessarily mean broken like making the entire party invulnerable, more like powerful while going against how the game is intended to be played. It's like taking 3 levels of sorc on Druid/Cleric/Paladin in BG3 just to quick-cast abuse angelic reprieve potions, though maybe not as strong.
@@omgopet I think you're right that the nerf probably had something to do with the possibilities of multi-classing, but I stand by the opinion that it didn't need to be nerfed.
Idk why some people are still so negitive on POE/Avowed. It's almost like because it initially underperformed some people feel the need to convince everyone else that it's actually bad, even though it did fine longterm and became profitable, it also got great reviews. If you don't like a game that's fine but why continue to complain about others liking it years after release? As for Avowed I was initially not hyped about that cos I wanted POE3, then I have to admit a lot of what they showed earlier did not impress me. More recent reveals make the game look a lot cooler though so I'm more hyped now. Still hope we get POE3 one day.
The narrative among CRPGs fans about the Pillars series has been really out of touch. One of the things that inspired me to make a channel was the idea of correcting the narrative on this series in particular. It should be recognized for what it is, which is one of the best games in genre.
I like that two of probably the worst classes in the game pair together better than any other multiclass I've found. Totem barbarian/Stalker ranger is the best martial I've found that doesn't rely on limiting yourself to one weapon type or building around a specific unique. That pet goes wild when you spend a few points on it and barbarians don't have all that much worth picking up so you've got enough points to spare. And it's another body for the attack speed totem to buff.
Personally, I don't think there is much point in rating the strength of a build based on it being propped up by barring death's door. If you use this as a sustained buff rather than a life saver, it completely trivialises the game.
Thats because BG3's spells were made for tabletop play where players have to calculate and track everything themselves without the help of PC. BG3 did not invent its spells itself, it just copied DnD on PC (which is not bad itself). Attribute modifiers (+3% dmg from might, +3% action from speed), varying defences, accuracy with its miss-graze-hit-crit scale. It all is MADE for PC game, because PC can compute it fast and smoothly. DnD had to be simple for people not to waste 10 minutes on every turn (still they waste 5 on each and every one of them, unless they are fighters or barbarians).
Wizard and Monk are the strongest in the game, tier above both Cipher and 2 tiers above Priest. Priest is nice if you want that brilliant/salvation of time combo. Monk kills with everything, and wizard is insane (bloodmage is demigod). Blackbow spamms terrify so enemies are not able to do pretty much anything. You don't even have to focus, that spell is like turning on story difficculty. Meteor showers can kill megabosses. 5 wizard party would be able to defeat Eothas 😀
Hopefully Avowed will continue where Deadfire left off, on that crazy cliffhanger. Pillars 1 was almost perfect comparable to BG1 a chefs kiss, Did not like Pillars 2 Deadfire however, mainly because of the stupid ship mini game and and small islands to explore, the whole thing felt incomplete and disconnected from world building aspect of the the game and the story felt shallow, also some characters in that game are completely different to what they were like in the first game. I'm looking at you you feather brain paladin, whose name i don't care to remember. It seems they've been cooking Avowed for so long i nearly forgot it even existed or thought it might have been cancelled at some point during the years. Thanks for jogging the memory. Hopefully we will have a decent sandbox RPG that buries Skyrim for good. As its constant reappearance like a rotting zombie for over these 13 years, leaves something to be desired.
I’m just a random dude but if you ever so feel inclined to help out us lonely turned base players with a video with some builds or overview etc…. Theres not a lot of info out there about turn based and it changes the balancing a good bit.
Turn base takes way too long, IMHO, like Solasta, BG3, Wartales. Each battle takes around 15-20 minutes, for just trash mobs. Switch to real time with pause. There's a speed slider, it's under the fast & pause button, half arc. Far left-slow, far right-fast. Default is in the middle. You need to slide it to the far left.
youre missing shared flames since lashes stacks naturally its a second fire lash option. so a paladin chanter can buff fire lash twice for summons. herald pallegina can summon weapons all with fire lash which are frigging awesome
I dont really agree with the analysis of chanters and the action economy or the power of stacking chanter multiclasses. Firstly, they only truly excel as summoners. In every other role, their invocations are significantly outclassed by other casters. Summoning invocations are very long casts, so it does impact your action economy significantly. Also, summons are not great damage dealers. They are better at soaking up damage than dealing it, and there are only so many meat shields that your party needs. The same chants I assume (I haven't checked to be fair), probably don't stack with each other. If so, between their being diminishing returns of summons and a declining marginal value to additional chants (the 3rd or 4th best chant is going to be of lower value than the 1st and 2nd best chants), making everyone a chanter is not going to be a great option. But the main flaw in the analysis is that any class which provides significant passive bonuses is adding power without a cost in terms of action economy. All martial characters have powerful passive bonuses and stacking these significantly increases the effectiveness of both basic attacks and activated weapon attack abilities without any cost to your action economy or finite resources. Is a martial character better off with quite weak chant auras and periodically standing still for 6 seconds to summon something, or getting sneak attack damage on all their attacks? It depends on the specifics of the build, as a low damage tank build probably is better off spamming summons than buffing low weapon attack damage. But you certainly do not want a party of 5 characters like this. A cipher will often be a much better option for building resource without a cost to your action economy. Their options for CC and damage are far superior and they generally cast spells much faster than chanters, as well as significantly buffing weapon damage passively. If you specifically want the passive generation of an additional resource, a cipher is a much better option for most martial multiclasses. Ciphers do require that you use weapon attacks, however, so do not multiclass well with other casters. Multiclassing with other caster classes is where chanters shine.
I think you misunderstood me. I didn't say "you should have a chanter class in every build" I said "its worth asking why not have a Chanter in every build?" Do you see the difference?
Made me want to reinstall. But then I remembered I always end up using the same characters and builds. Wish some of the more RP builds like steel garotte/priest of woedica were at least somewhat viable.
