Are Soulbound weapons worth it? It seems I could make better

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>>382267249
free bump for interest

>>382267249

The rod that mind controls things when you hit them seemed pretty neat when I used it but I never got too much into min/maxing because I'm too lazy to craft or enchant anything. Probably why I had such a hard time with the late game because from what I hear you need to enchant to get the best gear

I upgraded all of them to their max level just for the sake of it. Some of the objectives were a pain in the ass but there were a few easy ones.

I remember that by the end I still had some characters using non-Soulbound weapons. I wanna say I had an enchanted Arbalest on Durance, for example.

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Cipher or Wizard for a first playthrough?

>>382267891

Cipher. I don't like to have more than one of any class in my party, it's kind of an autism thing for me, and the Wizard companion (aloth) is one of the better companions so I normally take him along.

>>382267891
Cipher, you get Aloth early. Grieving Mother is not worth having with you.

>>382267891
Cypher is kinda OP in the game.
Probably the best and most useful class.
There is only one other character in the game who is a Cypher but she only interacts whit the MC and no one else in the party so after you play her Character quest she is best replaced by an other party member.

>>382267891
Smart apple

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>>382268076
>>382268219
>>382268369
Thanks for the replies, wasn't really sure because I always like wizards but cipher looked unique and new. Something like a psionic almost from DnD.
>>382269330
Very smart apple, it knows that magnets are an invasive species!

>>382268076
>>382268219
>tfw you like wizard and priest the most, but feel redundant with Aloth and Durance who are too cool not to bring with you

>>382271049
Pick druid and go full vancian

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>>382271049
>Durance vomits profound philosophy at you like a priest should
>If you're also a priest, you don't get any particular beliefs to spread, just a billion questions to ask that you should already have answers to

>>382271290
>Priest of Berath in a temple of Berath
>tell me about Berath

>>382271704
Hello I'm Berath, son of Berath and Berath and follower of Berath. Can you tell me about Berath?

>>382271290
>>382271704
>roll a slave
>meet slaver/slave/Skaenite
>[Slave] Yes, I realize you are a slave. No, I don't care.

Okay, so what's the point? Not even fucking Skaen gives a goddamn shit.

>Zahua gained Anitlei

>>382272113
>That ending where he actually becomes the master he wanted to be and creates the great warrior tribe all over again

>>382271153
Druid pisses me off because spiritshift invalidates all of your hard earned equipment, and the werebeast form has absolutely dogshit accuracy on PotD.

>>382267249
they're the best weapons in the game no doubt

>>382272353
I'm playing Potd and have no problem hitting enemies when shifted

>>382271290

Yeah this is the sort of thing that annoys me in this game. Sure, there's far more room for roleplaying than in basically any other RPG since New Vegas but it becomes surprisingly limited in what should be really obvious situations. I think class differences in roleplaying should be like Malkavian dialogue in VtM:B. Sure it's a lot of effort to rewrite everything and have everyone react differently but you're making an RPG, you're SUPPOSED to put effort into these things

>>382272768
absolutely this, they were ambitious with the disposition stuff, and having race/class/background/etc. affect dialogue options, but it ended up being way too limited

>>382272321

he never learned that final technique
his friends(male) were castrated and enslaved
his friends (female) were AEDYR'D out of existence and died giving birth to their third colonizer baby

Durganized uniques (tidefall, blade of paths, rain of godagh field, etc.) are better than soulbound weapons. Only downside is they cost resources to upgrade, whereas just need to do objectives to level up soulbounds.

>>382273010
Can you call something that basically only exists in theory ambitious? Normally it's called "the illusion of choice" or basically fooling the player. Writing a paragraph and then inserting a
>[Cruel] So you really are as heartless as they say.
>[Benevolent] I see now that the rumors of your good heart were not exaggerated.
>[Honest] You don't like to beat around the bush, huh?
in front of it and then carrying on like nothing happened is far from ambition. It takes like 10 seconds to write, and doesn't even require a reputation system. Torment had it only in the most limited way, but it still had these same reaction alterations simply based on what option you picked.

Now I'm not saying that fluff is not nice, but it's not ambition.

>>382273729
People occasionally react to stuff like that, if you known to be benevolent you don't have to convince people hard that you want to help them, plus it's nice that the world recognizes that.

>>382273849
It's pretty cool when it happens.
At the beginning of Act 3 when you exit in the canyon after the water receded you can skip the fight with the assassin.
Have enough cruel points and the assassins party will chicken out. Then have enough benevolence or honesty and the assassin herself will agree to surrender and be taken to your prison.

>>382273729

>only exists in theory

Yes there are a lot of encounters where the responses are only for flavor and allowing you to build up a reputation but the outcome stays the same. However there are as many situations where having enough reputation as say honest, cruel whatever can defuse situations or even change the outcome of quests.

>>382273849
I don't know. As a system to me it was just smoke and mirrors and not very believable either. In many other games the same effect is achieved with flags. Have you finished x quest y way? Then you have proven yourself with your actions, and when the game checks for that flag it feels natural. In PoE your actions and reputation don't have to be consistent. Call everyone a little bitch or treat them like they were 5 year old kids, and you'll have your cruel or benevolent reputation, even if your actions are that of a saint or a murderous bastard.

So at least to me this number system doesn't feel like ambition that never reached its potential, but a system they made for the sake of having another system that suggests depth that is not really there.

>>382274715
But those two systems are identical, the second one is just more granular. Unless the game has exactly one quest where you can make a benevolent/cruel choice, you can do half of them benevolently and half as a crazed psycho. It's up to you to be consistent with your moral choices, or not.

I don't think PoE tracks that bipolar behavior though (I might be wrong, never done that). Interestingly, New Vegas had something similar - if you get both bad and good rep with a faction, your title will reflect that people don't really know what to make of your actions. Not sure it had any mechanical consequences, but at least it was considered.

>>382273849
It can be pretty easy to miss sometimes if you don't have show qualifier/reputation checked

>>382273076
Not if you give him the best possible ending

>Zahua came to understand that the time of the Tacan had passed. With his soul no longer fettered to worldly concerns, he grew to become the enlightened Anitlei his shaman had foreseen.
>He took up in an empty monastery near Coldflow Lake, and word began to spread of his presence there. He taught pilgrims and students how to leave behind their vanity, their fear, and even their past.
>He invited those who studied with him to share their newfound knowledge, so that all might free themselves from suffering
It's almost impossible for him to get this one, though. You have to get all the dialogue choices just right. In my ending, he accepted the end of his lineage and merely wrote about their legacy and left never to be seen again.

>>382275053

>not sure if it had mechanical consequences

Nope, they shoot you on sight regardless if you've helped someone else too much

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>>382275083
Good luck figuring out what arbitrary reputation they assigned to half of the dialog options without the tags active. It feels less like roleplaying and more like a guessing game where you try to figure out what the writers meant by it.

>>382275531
Pretty sure I got that ending, feelsgoodman, Zahua deserves it

>>382276648
what about, like, just picking the line you feel fits your character the most

>>382277247
In a game that doesn't track emotional reputation that would be fine, because it's up to your interpretation. But here the game knows how these options were meant to be interpreted, while you do not. The reputation change can often feel like a complete what the fuck.

>>382276648
>without the tags active
Unless you are one of those tryhards that play cRPG to feel superior about other people there is no reason to play without the tag active.

>>382277247
>Wow you're really cruel aren't you
That's why

>>382277468
>>382277648
The cruel thing are kind of obvious. Like, breaking a kid's arm because he refuses to share some information with you. Taunting a pregnant woman about having killed her sister. I'm not sure how you can accidentally do these and then go WOW BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THAT WAS CRUEL I WAS PRESSING BUTTONS BUGGED REPUTATION MECHANICS

>>382277623
That's great, but the game was intended to be played without the tags active, because Obsidian said they didn't want the players to minmax in dialog or automatically go for the skill checks. Except it doesn't really work because it can be completely nonsensical and catch you off-guard with the result, which is the opposite of what they wanted.

>>382277998
Cruel and benevolent are usually obvious. But the rest? Not so much. Go ahead and guess the ones on the screenshot.

>>382278162
>the game was intended to be played without the tags active
ah I see, that's why they're on by default

I guess Sawyer really didn't want it though, even though he always was pro-transparency in computer RPG mechanics

>>382278342
And the rest are less impactful and probably won't bite you in the ass.

>>382277998
what's cruel about breaking a kid's arm if he doesn't want to share some important info?
what if that info is going to save thousand of people?

>>382278473
>And the rest are less impactful and probably won't bite you in the ass.
Unless you're playing priest or paladin

>>382278605
Turn on the tags. The option to remove them is really there because of purists (so basically, Codex). "Muh BG didn't have that crap!"

Besides, I'm not sure what alternative would be. Have Aggressive options be interspersed with ARGH and GRRRRR? Most options are technically honest, but they're only Honest when you're saying the truth in a situation where it's not the best choice, I guess. "Stoic" is generally just being silent. Again, if you care about minmaxing that, tags are your friend. If you don't, they're cool for RPing and the system recognizing it, but the system is not perfect and should be improved.

>>382278473
>And the rest are less impactful and probably won't bite you in the ass.

See? You are thinking about consequences, minmaxing. It doesn't matter, because it won't bite you in the ass. This shit exists for roleplaying, if you can't do it without helpers it isn't working. It doesn't matter if it won't have an effect later, it is annoying to the player because the reaction they get is not what they expected.

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>>382279126
>Stoic

>>382279328
Stoic was oddly handled. I feel like instead of just silently staring at someone who asked you a question, it should have been denial and stonewalling. Deceptive on the other hand, should have been about fabricating a story rather than just saying no [Lie].

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>>382279494
Speaking of Stoic,

>>382279668
What a mess

>>382279668
Most of the time, the answers are much more consistently in tune with the reputation factors. I had no trouble interpreting stuff.