It might be interesting, though he doesn't only do that. He also cast mass insanity and then begin hammering down the party with attacks

No worries I understand the burnout. You must have been replayed act 1 for 50 times !!

Yes is true that those two skills are similar (Critical Hit & Double Attack), I should probably make them more different... as for the stagger skills, I think maybe they should do more base damage,even if they do also DoT and condition (so for example Frozen also reduces speed).



edit: I had an idea, what if Critical Hit required Stagger too? this way Double Attack would make more sense (otherwise everyone would just use Critical Hit indeed).

It's been already a few days since you posted this. I've been trying to make my mind about it. Yes, I'm currently doing some ridiculous dmg with the Critical Hit. If I'd give less weight to the fact that those killer hits require quite a lot of prep work, I'd instantly say, heck it's overpowered. However, the prepwork is often considerable. Rally with Vaelis. HiS. Take Aim. For a more powerful hit, risk the HUnter getting paralyzed by moving her/him to the front row. And often I'm also lowering the defense of the Boss /enemy with Madness/Shatter/Slumber/Sacred. In addition to this "trouble," some Bosses can eff that prep up by doing Cleanse (I'm looking at you, Deceit) or Mass Dispel. Still, even with less prepare, HiS+Critical hit do deplete those enemy HPs... If the prep goes fine, I often go way-way past 200dmg with it and over 300 ain't exactly rare, either. Record's above 400.

So why not require stagger? Well, because with A LOT of the enemies, at the point when you get them to stagger, you won't be needing that kinda of damage any longer. And I think we have enough "finish them off" skills already. There are so many buggers that only stagger at the end of their rope... As discussed earlier, raising the SP cost is an option but will make that skill largely unusable during act 1 and early act 2. Then again, Vaelis' powerful Dirty Tricks is also too SP-expensive in the beginning... Another option to make Double Attack more lucrative: I guess you could add just a bit more delay to the Critical hit and remove some from Double Attack? No easy answers to this. And maybe...just...leave it as is? After all, Hunter is supposed to be able to do devastating attacks against a single enemy...





Anyway, is it on purpose that Vaelis' Study Opponent turns are the targeted enemy's turns and Vaelis' turns do not affect the counter at all? I've had some fun fights where Vaelis' uses that on a slower/slowed enemy and he gets multiple swings at them with 50% additional dmg without the counter going down.

Yes I think for now will leave as it is, since as you said requires preparation and now some enemies can dispel

Regarding Study Opponent, yes the counter is based on the enemy movements, so if the enemy is slow you can get several hits (of course of normal hits, if you use the throwing axes for example they have longer delays). I thought about changing it, but I want to have some skills that works differently and reward player for having higher speed!

Is it on purpose that the Invincible-defense bonus stays on the frontrow characters even after the Ranger's been knocked out?

Well I could have it disappear, but it would be a rather unique case (the other buffs stays even if the caster is dead). I mean it makes sense, but I am worried to reduce its effectiveness

Alrighty, just checking. I'm fine with it staying.

Haha, my super wimpy party has very little chance to beat the Spirit Bear if it puts up Blood Lust as its first action. From there it can use Freezing Breath which does ~100 damage to every party member and heals it for 200+ health and seems to be a very speedy action. It likes to spam the breath attack after that. That's pretty brutal, even on Easy.



Of course, if it snafus and doesn't use Blood Lust, even my wimp party can trash it in a few rounds. I'd say it's the hardest fight on Easy though, and could be close to impossible for somebody with a less than optimal build. It seems rather unreasonable that Blood Lust + Freezing Breath combos like that.



No other fights in Act IV were difficult on Easy, now that Madness works as intended.



For some reason, I'm seeing Dire Badgers defend a lot. Last Dire Badger standing? Defend!

The spirit bear is supposed to be the toughest fight of the whole game, and since it's optional I think I'll leave as it is, maybe I can make a weaker version of the freezing breath for the easy/normal mode though

Will check those crazy badgers!

Hey fabula,



With this party, are you able to beat Deceit on Nightmare?

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https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4071729/20-1-LT1.save

I'm wondering if I'm missing something or if my skill choices have left me unable to do the boss.

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I can get him to about 800 health, but then he heals to full and immediately mass dispels my party (Cleanse must have a delay of 1-2?).

I can put my mages in the front row so they don't get paralyzed, but they also can't seem to do enough damage or debuff enough to make a difference.

Draining his SP doesn't seem to matter because he regenerates 15 a turn and can cast a whole bunch of stuff at low SP.

I can put all kinds of debuffs on him that all tick for ~15hp each, but he likes to cleanse and heal and breaking my team out of paralyze takes a lot of actions.

The best I've managed is having Riley Slumber and Confuse Deceit, Shea (Druid) throw down Ice Spike and Inferno for Frozen/Burning, Vaelis Twin Axe for Bleed, and Jariel's song for Scared, but that doesn't let me do more than 50 damage a turn (slightly more with Mighty Blow or Althea's Staggering Blow, but they have a long enough delay that he'll just Cleanse and heal up again). I think I got him to 750 HP once?

Paralyze potions don't appear to work despite not saying they can't be used on the boss, and Deceit's Paralyze resistance is not listed as 100%.

There is no Paralyze resistance gear in town, except through gambling Joe, and I gave up after a dozen tries only yielded a +9 ring. I'm not sure encouraging abusing reloading saves on Joe is a good idea anyway.

I have not tried using Rowinda, but Madness and her SP drain are both not supposed to work on bosses, and I built her as an AoE caster. Plus her ring and six turns of Paralyze seem like a bad mix.

I'll try some more tomorrow, but it'd be nice to hear if someone else thinks its possible.

I'll give this one a go. But I got to do some potion shopping first. :D

Umm... I got him to a point where his SP ran out completely. 0. Then he was dead. o.O That was way quicker than I thought. EDITing more info here in a bit.



EDIT: This is towards the end of the fight. He has 0 SP, so all he does now is defend... He's SP gain is dependent on skills he uses, he doesn't have SP regen like the other one. Is this a mistake? OR maybe he should check for his SP before he uses a skill that will deplete it completely?

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http://oi57.tinypic.com/24ywqi8.jpg" style="max-width:100%">

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Anyway, I bought a bunch of potions. I think Ranger is useless in the fight against him, so I left her out. Rowinda is good, beacuse even when paralyzed, she can use scrolls and be a massive HP & SP healer for the party that way. After the first round when Deceit used mass paralysis on them all, I used the mages in the backrow to throw haste scrolls on everyone in the front. JAriel threw a slow potion at Deceit and then purified Druid before it was Deceit's turn again.

I used your druid for icespikes and purifying. Jariel I used flinging offensive potions (Slow, Confusion, Fear, 1 or 2 heavy bombs) at Deceit and for purification once in a while. Riley: Slumber and Confusion, towards the end whichever spell did most HP damage. Throwing Axes from Vaelis. Rowinda can keep his SP up with SP scrolls (or Riley, if he's paralyzed). I noticed that you didn't have Dirty Tricks on him. That's a really nice buff because it can't be dispelled.

EDIT: Thank you for sharing that file! Never had a chance to go at him with druid before.

Are you sure SP is dependent on skills? Seems to be a flat 15/turn when I fight him.



I didn't take Dirty Tricks because I took Attacker last level (which seems to be pretty powerful) and earlier in the game I had SP issues on Vaelis so I didn't think I could keep it up. I do think it's silly that Stances can be dispelled, but that's another story. Actually, is it a bug that Dirty Tricks isn't dispelled? Charissa's Adrenaline and Krimm's Rage/Ralkor's Blood are all certainly dispell-able.



I haven't really used offensive potions much because I have skills that do the same thing, but I suppose the potions have the advantage of a really short delay.

Interesting. The Regen box says 0 to me. And once his pool went to 0, it stayed there. o.O This is the first time ever fighting against him, though, where I see his SP stuck on 0.



EDIT... Digging out my previous fight saves against him and Jul... (flippingHourGlass)...



...OKay I digged out those previous saves and he really does have 15 on all of them.... He must've bugged out. This is not the first time that I've seen his SP gone 0, though. Hmm...

I'mma fight him a again in a bit.





I don't know if Dirty Tricks was supposed to be dispell-able, but it does use 10SP per/turn regardless if you stand paralyzed or if your power is reduced away by madness.. whereas Rage gives you SP even when you're hit and Ralkor's Blood HP+Speed.

That's strange. On both 0.9.5 and 0.9.6 that save and my other Deceit save say HP Regen 25, SP Regen 15. Even when he doesn't open with Mass Paralyze.



Maybe one of your potions bugged his regen? If I could keep his SP at 0 then I'd have a much easier time.

Potions have the advantage of short delay, especially in case of Jariel, because his offensive songs are so slooooow. However, the effect of the potions last for a shorter while and if the character throwing them has debuffs such as Stagger/MAdness on them, then I've seen that it's really hard to hit with those potions, whereas the enemy seems to be less likely to dodge the skill (that can happen too, though)

That's strange. On both 0.9.5 and 0.9.6 that save and my other Deceit save say HP Regen 25, SP Regen 15. Even when he doesn't open with Mass Paralyze.



Maybe one of your potions bugged his regen? If I could keep his SP at 0 then I'd have a much easier time.

I think I have a suspect for this. Just need to duplicate it. I think the Curse Of Khalaman makes the SP regen to go to 0 temporarily (that's what I *think* just saw, anyway), but this corrects itself if he has enough SP pool left and he can use a skill on the next turn (I just saw the SP regen go to 0 and then back to 15). I *might* have hit a rare occasion when I was testing your save just before, where he uses the curse but has 0 SP after that and that's why he got stuck...



EDIT: SP regen went to 0 also after bite.... <.< And now it's back to 15.... MAybe this is a display bug?



EDIT2: What I think I've seen now, is that

a)Certain skills that he uses make the SPregen box at least display 0. Maybe even make it 0.

b)Certain skills will "reset" that SPregen box to 15.

c)He can gain SP from staggered fighters with soulbound

d)It is possible that I got him in that fight in a situation where he had 0 SP, he's SP regen was set to 0 and none of my fighters were staggered. At which point he was as good as paralyzed. <.<

(Note that when I've been testing him previously with my Hunter party, I've seen the SPregen at 0, but never before have I had him completely run out of mana nor seen him hit Defend before.)



Sending Jack a save with 0 in the SPregen box...if that'll be of any help.



EDIT3: Inflict Confusion on him and his SPregen box will go to 0. Either with Riley's skill of with a potion. Doesn't still fully explain all what I think I've seen, though...



EDIT4: So I don't know what was going on with those skills earlier. Forget about it at this point (hence the tiny font)... Tested a bit more... Now the only time I see the SPregen go to 0 is when he has confusion on him.

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Basically survive his attacks until his SP is low. Then make sure that he stays confused. His Defend will clear out confusion off of him, but if you have potions, and Riley active you can reconfuse him quickly. If none of your party members is staggered, he can't get any mana on from them, either. This is not the technique I used to kill him with Hunter, though. Maybe that's why it was so much harder, lol

I guess the main question now is... is Confusion supposed to meddle with SP regen? The description only talks about magic value reduced by 25% (that's why I've used it on Deceit, his chain lighting is less devastating with confusion on)

Yes has something to do with confusion, I think I saw it too a few times. Confusion should lower target magic, so I need to check if it's somehow linked to that. Maybe is one of the 1509 billion changes I did to the framework but I forgot about it

Haha voilà:
[code] class ConfusedEffect(DebuffEffect):
cName = "Confused"
cDuration = 3
cValues = {"Magic":0.75,"SPRegen":0.0}[/code]
ROFL, I completely forgot about that! well is an easy change though, at least. Thanks for finding out!

Troyen, since the verdict was that Confused is currently bugged = too powerful to use right now, I tried to win the fight with your party and without Confusing him at all. Doesn't look too promising....Because:

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it eliminates one of your Riley's offensive skills completely and also Jariel can't reduce his magic values by 25%. I'll test this again after there's a build with fixed Confusion, but right now I'm not too optimistic if I can beat Deceit with this party at NM.



It would help if Shea(and Riley..maybe even Rowinda) had the archwizard trait, so his magic nuke attacks would have more oomph. There's some attack power missing from the mages. I could deliver heavy blows with Vaelis in my own party, when I had both Dirty Tricks and Study Opponent available. Here I could get him to hit 70-80 with Rally and Deceit debuffed, but that's not quite enough when one can't get those in in concert with other heavy attacks.



I see that quite a few of your party members have the restless trait, which, while otherwise useful, is wasted on Deceit since you can rest up anyway when you go battle him. Also, Krimm doesn't have Kick here, so she can't inflict Weakened and Slowed at the same time on him. Jariel doesn't have the speed boost, so it's quite hard to get the whole party going so that you could deliver multiple heavy blows at him without him getting a turn in between. I managed to pound him to 600HP+ but then he always popped back up. :/

I was waiting to see if there are more bugs before doing an update but worse case will do one this weekend.