I really don't get why they cut the Cipher. Imo, the Cipher always was the most fitting PoE class. Considering how much the story focuses around souls and Cipher is the soul manipulation class. And i think, a mind/soulbending class with a focus on damage over time would have fit perfectly in a game like this. I think the devs missed out here.
While I'll also miss playing as a Cypher, I think it'd be hell to balance in an action game centered mainly on a single main character. Many Crowd Control abilities would probably either completely useless or overpowered (depending on the hit/miss system) while hit scan ranged attacks and DoT effects would either trivialize the game or be incredibly frustrating to play (i.e. apply DoT from stealth and run away/in a circle).
my guess is, they believe that players in an action game would not really be interested in a crowd control class. It makes sense on paper but the cipher had some baller single target attacks and effects
I think it was more of a technical compromise. Honestly, to play a Chanter, I think that they could've leaned really hard on a action-rhythm game like Hi-Fi Rush, Metal: Hellsinger or BPM. That could create a very fitting and unique experience, but I think it would demand too much from a game that's supposed to lean far more on the RPG side than action. Not to mention that these rhythm games often offer that as the main mechanic. It would be really sick, though.
One thing to note is how, outside of a few skills with links between them, the upgrades seem level based rather than tree based. This suggests that you can actually select skills very freely between the three trees in making you build, never really "locking in" to a path.
The lack of cipher and chanter alongside taking the archmages names out of their spells makes me feel like they’ve lost some of that unique Pillars identity.
It would be really funny if the absence of of the archmages' names was foreshadowing aimed straight at the fans of PoE, because we know it has happened before.
Glad to hear positive news about the monk. I was worried there because the original pillars of Eternity is the whole reason I love unarmed fighting in every game I play.
Ahhh areola. A fantastical land located at the center of the fabled Double Seas. Some folks claim that they're a place of myth, but a brave and lucky few swear they've been there. Who knows the truth?
In the stream, they did say there is an item that boosts unarmed damage and can be upgraded. I guess unarmed will be viable somewhat, but may still need other range type solutions. Edit: My bad, I went back to the charity stream and checked. They said an ability, which should be the one mentioned in this video!
The passive seems to mention the "weapon grades" like Fine, Excellent so I guess they don't have in mind something like handwraps or gloves to upgrade. Maybe we could hope for something like a magic ring that allows punches to deals extra fire damage
The lack of ability variety of fighter and ranger could be improved by adding weapons with active skills. Pillars have them, I don't see avowed can't have them
Its a shame theres no sort of rage mechanic thats implemented. Getting barbarian in there through a few nice talents would be sweet. Just add frenzy from Pillars to the Fighter tree and they're already 70% of the way there.
Why should the summons change anything? Most RPGs have some kind of summon mechanic, with the Elder Scrolls series probably being the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people. Hell, the Ranger even has a summon, as we see in the video. I've no clue why they removed the Chanter, even moreso for the Cipher.
Awesome unique combos like that won’t be possible here sadly. I did a barbarian + rogue (Marauder) with like 8 different sources of bleed dmg that went through armor, enemies would just melt lol. I’ll probably just play Deadfire (with mods) again instead of getting Avowed
I love that Avowed kinda uses the ideas of grimorie's from poe1 style. It will make finding new ones mix up ur build which is always nice, keeps things interesting. I think there gonna be some pretty cool builds you can come up with if you think more about having two weapon sets work together well. The obvious one is going to be melee and range build, but if you can use one to buff up ur other weapon set or debuff then swich to ur dps setup, should be some cool stuff to play around with.
Sorry if this has been asked before, but have you considered making videos about more general design topics? Skill trees are a personal focus of mine, and I'd be interested in what you as a specialist for CRPGs and TRPGs which tend to have fairly deep character building consider to be features of good skill trees/character building systems.
Never a fan of a skill system that differentiates so much between weapon types. "Oh, I found this cool epic Warhammer, well, respec and basically put all my points where they were before, just this damage boost now goes here." 2 Hours later. "Well, found this legendary one handed sword, guess I respec again to give it a try and put every point where it was, except the damage boost" 1 Hour later. "Damn, now they throw this legendary greatsword at me? Well, respec it is I guess."
It's kind of a weird shift for Pillars. For instance, one of my favorite Ranger abilities in Deadfire is Driving Flight, which bounces EVERY ranged attack whether it's from a bow, wand, or gun. Now Bounce is only for wands. There will probably be different weapons with similar bounce effects, but it was cool to bounce certain ranged weapons or add an additional bounce to those already-special weapons.
5 skills each and only fire spells of the higher tier for wizards is kinda crazy, out of the box I think that's the first thing that needs improvement, idk how replayable the game will be otherwise
@@tmoon4596 even so, unlocking a spell and having it in your grimoire will make it 1 level more powerful. Unless that specific skill is capped, it is automatically the highest level skill in the game (outside of the utility spell). That feels like an unforced error.
This was the first problem that I noticed. They should have some representation for all 4 elements in the top tier, or make all of the top tier spells utility.
This game keeps looking better and better. I've gone from "eh... might check it out" passive interest to "I'm really looking forward to playing this!" in the past week.
One of the things that got me hooked on CRPGs, playing the original Bard's Tale series way back when, was the sense of wonder I got from the names scattered across the spell lists. Those spells were not just game mechanic effect names, but invented by a named character in the world, fragments of a story about that person though the level progression of spells they invented. And by doing that lent a sense of wonder to all the just a game mechanic effect name spells --- who invented those, and why don't we remember? Pillars brought all that back, something I didn't know I had been missing. Sad to see those tiny details, that did so much heavy lifting for my imagination, stripped away. But it's fine, I'll still know their names, even if my Avowed characters will never.
A lot of the skills don't seem to have a pre-requisite besides char level, as such, could you just pick wizard skills 1-14 and then at level 15 pick up bear from ranger tree? Regarding respec, I assume the game still tracks the level of skill points gained, so you can't just respec at level 20 and then spend all your points exclusively on level 20 skills?
Is it possible to equip a grimoire and invest only in fighter/ranger to be a duel class build or does the grimoire not scale with player level alone ? I was thinking the exact same thing Mortym said about endgame and depth. Oblivian have a good foundation here but feels like the skill tree lacks depth to be able to craft several different kinds of builds. I hope there are enough unique weapons and armor to make up for this.
You need to invest in the Grimoire Mastery ability to be able to cast the higher level spells of a grimoire. And obviously the spells you cast will never be above their Tier 1 power.
Just what I wanted to see, I'm a chanter lover and was sad when they said it would be out, but I've been curious about what would be in game. I'm usually a caster by default but if the melee combat feels good I might got for a hybrid build with heavy armor and the occasional high impact spell in between lots of melee attacks.
Tons of speculation cuz I'm lonely: I'm curious how Flurry of Blows works. Is "maximum attack speed" the fastest for that weapon type, or is it just making a greathammer swing as quickly as the fastest weapon? I guess greathammers wouldn't be optimal for someone so heavily invested into Ranger anyways, but hopefully I'm wrong since the two-handed melee damage perk is only in the first tier of the Fighter tree. With so much verticality in exploration, I hope there are many opportunities to knock enemies off tall ledges with Grimoire Slam or Shield Bash. The inclusion of Power Jump is giving me hope. Though I'll be looking for cool stat synergies between "classes," I may do a simple build for throwing enemies around and awing over their ragdoll physics. How does the game define "non-lethal fall damage" for Power Jump? is such a height the same for all characters, or is it based on whether the fall would have done enough damage to your health bar to kill you? It'd be funny for Toughness and other health buffs to improve the distance you can fall without damage. I wonder if accumulations scale with their activating abilities' damage or criticals. Would Bleeding Cut be nastier on a Ranger/Fighter with high crit dmg and crit chance, or would it be a quantity over quality thing for applying stacks? If I felt like maximizing my stun for Parasitic Staff and wand blasts, would I prioritize Might or Dex? Oh, and regarding the Bounce passive, do wands' stuns count as "elemental accumulation?" 19:48 Holy crap, a Paladin ability! XD Overall, I'm a little disappointed over the depth for the RPG side of combat, but the action half looks better every time. I'm just glad they retained speech checks regarding attributes and backgrounds. I may not always feel like using a spreadsheet for combat, but I'll always be in the mood for a story with player agency and strong roleplay. I'll probably play a Wizard who black holes people before slapping them with blast wands or an explosive staff/pike, a mostly pacifistic stealth ranger with high mental attributes for speech checks, or a Fighter with an addiction to spartan kicking people off ledges.
I find myself wondering how much of the skill trees we can actually unlock. If there is a level cap or a max amount of skill points or something that prevents unlocking everything.
Thank you for covering this game. I launched BNet recently and saw it available there. 69.99 money seems a bit too expensive. Maybe I'll wait for the discount. But it's really strange, when you mention that druid forms would be too expensive to animate and etc. The game costs a lot already and from listening to you, I get the vibe it's missing a quite a lot of core things from Pillars universe.
Knowing that unarmed hasn’t been abandoned relieves a lot of my worries. I’ll still miss spiritshifting but I expected that to be to much resources to justify. Being able to go all in on the fighter tree making something like an unarmed barb fighter multiclass from deadfire will be perfectly fine for me.
I'm so bummed out by the lack of Chanter and Cipher, especially with the knowledge that it can be implemented in action games because of the existence of Skyrim's Conjuration and Illusion spells, and Dark and Darker's Bard class. I'll still buy the game because what we have looks good. Hopefully they can add the unique classes back in a DLC or sequel!
Is there actually only 6 ability slots when Mage tree alone has 22 active skills not even counting Fighter, Ranger, Godlike and companion active skills? Edit: After more reviews - seems like grimoire spells have their own ability slots. Are there any more, for example separate slots / keybinds for companion abilities?
Thank you for the deep dive Looks disappointingly shallow Monk and Barbarian reduced to single perk picks in the fighter tree? I don't trust them to make it viable or meaningfully different, especially with how dull the combat in Outer Worlds was Maybe the action gameplay will compensate for the lack of depth but I'm not paying $70 on a bet like that
Idk how, but I'm just now learning that this game is being developed! What a pleasant surprise! The class system feels a little bit disappointing at face value. Because Pillars1 was the first cRPG that managed to draw me in instead of completely overwhelm me at the character customization screen. Part of that was actually the uniqueness of the godlike race, part of that was the class system and it's flavor. I feel like a bit of that identity is lost here. However, if I'm being honest, I have infinitely more faith in Obsidian as a developer (and by proxy, this game) than I do in Bethesda and Elder Scrolls 6. And I'm not necessarily coming to a first-person ARPG for the same reasons that I'd want to play a cRPG. I really hope this game is good and performs well, because an Avowed 2 later down the road with a more in-depth character creation system (including classes) sounds like it would be amazing. I've pretty much lost all faith in Bethesda, and genuinely do not think they could ever outdo what modders have done with Elder Scrolls 5 at this point.
I'd rather have a Tyranny 2 than Pillars 3. I tried playing Pillars a few times but it just won't click with me. But this one looks fun, so maybe it helps me getting into the series better.
It would be fine... if the game was low price. It feel very low budget game. Sad to see what happened to Obsidian. They can't even bring back all poe classes. They took the 3 most generic classes.
@@eamk887 Why not ??? They could have adapted all poe classes in a FP ARPG. It's just a question of budget. The game feel very low budget but sold at AAA price.
@@takkik282 That's my main problem with the classes. They removed two of the more unique classes you'll see in an RPG these days and kept the three most generic ones. Did they at least keep some of the skills of the Chanter and Cipher? Maybe you can still roleplay as one. Enderal had a nice system that allowed you to unlock a subclass by building a specific way. I know this isn't Enderal, but something like that in more RPGs (Skyrim should have had this) would be a nice addition.
I think if the skills really have a strong effect on the basic movement and attacking styles, similar to the one you mentioned where it adds a stomp to your jump, then this is more than enough. If by the end of it I can be a ranger darting around super fast, jumping and stomping and kicking people off cliffs, pulling off sweet tricks then I'll be satisfied.
I am/was hoping for some chanter spells, as those could be just summons or buffs, and those shouldn't take more work other than just building the code...
@@xtoadsannom6704 Yeah that's fair, and in the same vain, buffs don't work that well in this style of action adventure game, a la dragon ago, companions just don't put out the most damage, while they can in a classic isometric RPG. I'm still disappointed about it, but it's the nature of things.
Gotta say, the Ranger and Warrior skill trees are really disappointing. Very limited amount of choice and there's really no different builds. Sad to see this.
A slightly unrelated question , but during combat , can the damage numbers be toggled off ? also the ui seems a bit overwhelming , so is it possible to turn off some elements , or tweak it in some way?
@MortismalGaming what is your thoughts about the lvling? Does it feel like we will get new skills and lvl fast or it's a slow burner like bg3 or older pillars?
Damn, flurry of blows is in the ranger tree 😢, but i think I can build a stronk or something like this, the akimbo flurry will probably be the meta too, just like in Deadfire.
Everything I see about the game gives off the vibe off " Lets not be ambitious " out of all the marketing I have seen, I still don't see what the games things is lol. Like whats the big thing I should be excited for from this game
I remember a reviewer from "The gamer" that, talking about the august build, specified about the wizard being able to summon elemental weapons like an ice spear and a fire axe. Wonder what happened to those spells. It was a fine idea for a "weapon summoner" run. 😅
For Poe I themed my build on a gandalf style mystic, with a themed class based on the game, (cypher for the watcher abilities in poe1 and priest of berath for Poe 2, not sure about my build for avowed but with the fungal theme, this character might be my raddagast
Can say I am torn on why game style to play, though currently magic, ranged and stealth appeals a lot. Wonder if a mage gunslinger can be viable, yet the books and wands stand out for being truly unique too. Overall though this is a great breakdown on the skill trees which sounds far more interesting to how Skyrim did things. Most of these skills seem to reward proper abilities over pure numeral boosts to damage and the like. Can't wait to see more content though!
While I also would have preferred a Pillars 3, what I've seen so far of the game does look good. The exploration looks expansive, and very vertical which I like a lot, and the skill tree options have already started my theory craft brain. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so we shall see if the game holds up when we get to release.
As a wizard main, it's bit disappointing by the limited amount of spells you have. Half of them are just elemental attacks. No Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, no Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, no Ironskin etc. I hope that you can get unique grimoires with equally unique spells to help spice things up in the magic department.
Chanter and cipher were the two classes I was most interested in seeing realized... not gonna lie, I get less excited about this game every time I hear/see something new
It's kinda sad to see them do to PoE what Bethesda did to Fallout, more or less just turning a fantastic RPG into an FPS. I'm still mildly positive though as they're not calling this PoE3, leaving a smidgeon of a possibility to see it in the future and Sawyer has expressed interest in making it.
I mean the world/ level design, dialogue and overall story seem great so far. But my god that skill tree is one of the most bland/ boring i have seen in quite some time. I fear for the progression in this game and therefore also motivation to progress after a certain amount of time. Sadly that is probably not something that is going to change anymore. I hope gear progression will balance things out
I wanted to ask which game do you still play and enjoy ?, I know you like the magic system but would like to know which game you still prefer to this day.
Honestly, I was really sad after hearing the names of the Wizardspells. In Pillars 1+2 they had this nice idea of naming the spells after those archmages who invented it. We had Concelhaut, Minoletta and so on. It did not have any deeper meaning, it was just a nice little piece of lore, which they easily could have kept in Avowed. But NO. They just had to streamline it. Because casual gamers could be confused a single second before reading the description. Meh.
I don't know that I have ever played a first person game where the melee looked good. How it actually feels when using it matters a lot more in my opinion though.
I really don't get why they cut the Cipher. Imo, the Cipher always was the most fitting PoE class. Considering how much the story focuses around souls and Cipher is the soul manipulation class. And i think, a mind/soulbending class with a focus on damage over time would have fit perfectly in a game like this. I think the devs missed out here.
I heard somewhere that they wanted to (mostly?) limit skills to things one can learn.
Ciphers are born, not made, so they don't fit.
While I'll also miss playing as a Cypher, I think it'd be hell to balance in an action game centered mainly on a single main character. Many Crowd Control abilities would probably either completely useless or overpowered (depending on the hit/miss system) while hit scan ranged attacks and DoT effects would either trivialize the game or be incredibly frustrating to play (i.e. apply DoT from stealth and run away/in a circle).
my guess is, they believe that players in an action game would not really be interested in a crowd control class. It makes sense on paper but the cipher had some baller single target attacks and effects
I think it was more of a technical compromise.
Honestly, to play a Chanter, I think that they could've leaned really hard on a action-rhythm game like Hi-Fi Rush, Metal: Hellsinger or BPM.
That could create a very fitting and unique experience, but I think it would demand too much from a game that's supposed to lean far more on the RPG side than action. Not to mention that these rhythm games often offer that as the main mechanic.
It would be really sick, though.
More likely they minimized the cost to maximizing the income! 😁
They cut off most of the classes…
One thing to note is how, outside of a few skills with links between them, the upgrades seem level based rather than tree based. This suggests that you can actually select skills very freely between the three trees in making you build, never really "locking in" to a path.
The lack of cipher and chanter alongside taking the archmages names out of their spells makes me feel like they’ve lost some of that unique Pillars identity.
It would be really funny if the absence of of the archmages' names was foreshadowing aimed straight at the fans of PoE, because we know it has happened before.
@@xtoadsannom6704 yes I'm hopeful since the devs have said that there is stuff sprinkled about for people familiar with Pillars so 🤞
Glad to hear positive news about the monk. I was worried there because the original pillars of Eternity is the whole reason I love unarmed fighting in every game I play.
i'm so excited to explore more of the world of areola
Iv'e explored some areola in my time, and never felt my time was wasted! ; )
Real classic rpg is incoming
Ahhh areola. A fantastical land located at the center of the fabled Double Seas. Some folks claim that they're a place of myth, but a brave and lucky few swear they've been there. Who knows the truth?
The bigger aerola is the better
Areola lmao
The Cipher not being in the game is so disappointing. It's by far the most interesting class in the setting.
Im pretty sure it has to be one of the most played after the fighter. To me the cipher is one of the classes that differentiate poe from other crpgs
Cipher and Chanter missing is so sad!
Very disappointing. I didn't even think it was an option that Cipher wouldn't be included. Such a cool class.
My favorite and go-to PoE class
In the stream, they did say there is an item that boosts unarmed damage and can be upgraded. I guess unarmed will be viable somewhat, but may still need other range type solutions.
Edit: My bad, I went back to the charity stream and checked. They said an ability, which should be the one mentioned in this video!
The passive seems to mention the "weapon grades" like Fine, Excellent so I guess they don't have in mind something like handwraps or gloves to upgrade. Maybe we could hope for something like a magic ring that allows punches to deals extra fire damage
The lack of ability variety of fighter and ranger could be improved by adding weapons with active skills. Pillars have them, I don't see avowed can't have them
I will absolutely ditch my spells and shells plan if the talking sword from poe2 pops back up. She was great.
there are weapons that have on effects. It has been said in interviews, weapons give new skills, so there might be something there for melee builds.
Effects, or active skills, because there's a big difference between those two things.
Its a shame theres no sort of rage mechanic thats implemented. Getting barbarian in there through a few nice talents would be sweet.
Just add frenzy from Pillars to the Fighter tree and they're already 70% of the way there.
Cutting the cipher seems absolutely bizarre. I get the chanter because of the summons component but Cipher is POE iconic.
Why should the summons change anything? Most RPGs have some kind of summon mechanic, with the Elder Scrolls series probably being the first thing that comes to mind for a lot of people. Hell, the Ranger even has a summon, as we see in the video. I've no clue why they removed the Chanter, even moreso for the Cipher.
in deadfire, I did a playthrough of a wizard that could transform into a giant brute combine with a monk that do drug use to extend all buff points
Awesome unique combos like that won’t be possible here sadly. I did a barbarian + rogue (Marauder) with like 8 different sources of bleed dmg that went through armor, enemies would just melt lol. I’ll probably just play Deadfire (with mods) again instead of getting Avowed
Very interesting, looking forward to the game's release to see how impactful all these skills and perks are during the game.
I love that Avowed kinda uses the ideas of grimorie's from poe1 style. It will make finding new ones mix up ur build which is always nice, keeps things interesting. I think there gonna be some pretty cool builds you can come up with if you think more about having two weapon sets work together well. The obvious one is going to be melee and range build, but if you can use one to buff up ur other weapon set or debuff then swich to ur dps setup, should be some cool stuff to play around with.
The spell names are missing certain, important parts. May Minoletta have mercy with you, Obsidian.
Yeah. Going through the Wael DLC in PoE 2 made me appreciate the worldbuilding behind the spells, especially Tayn. Sad the names were cut.
If it turns to all be foreshadowing about the activities of the Hand Occult in the game, I will applaude.
Sorry if this has been asked before, but have you considered making videos about more general design topics? Skill trees are a personal focus of mine, and I'd be interested in what you as a specialist for CRPGs and TRPGs which tend to have fairly deep character building consider to be features of good skill trees/character building systems.
Not currently, but never say never
Never a fan of a skill system that differentiates so much between weapon types. "Oh, I found this cool epic Warhammer, well, respec and basically put all my points where they were before, just this damage boost now goes here." 2 Hours later. "Well, found this legendary one handed sword, guess I respec again to give it a try and put every point where it was, except the damage boost" 1 Hour later. "Damn, now they throw this legendary greatsword at me? Well, respec it is I guess."
It's kind of a weird shift for Pillars. For instance, one of my favorite Ranger abilities in Deadfire is Driving Flight, which bounces EVERY ranged attack whether it's from a bow, wand, or gun. Now Bounce is only for wands. There will probably be different weapons with similar bounce effects, but it was cool to bounce certain ranged weapons or add an additional bounce to those already-special weapons.
I sure do hate little magic missile gun wands, but I sure do like grimoires
5 skills each and only fire spells of the higher tier for wizards is kinda crazy, out of the box I think that's the first thing that needs improvement, idk how replayable the game will be otherwise
im thinking maybe more of the spells will just be locked behind grimoires.
@@tmoon4596 even so, unlocking a spell and having it in your grimoire will make it 1 level more powerful. Unless that specific skill is capped, it is automatically the highest level skill in the game (outside of the utility spell). That feels like an unforced error.
This was the first problem that I noticed. They should have some representation for all 4 elements in the top tier, or make all of the top tier spells utility.
This game keeps looking better and better. I've gone from "eh... might check it out" passive interest to "I'm really looking forward to playing this!" in the past week.
One of the things that got me hooked on CRPGs, playing the original Bard's Tale series way back when, was the sense of wonder I got from the names scattered across the spell lists. Those spells were not just game mechanic effect names, but invented by a named character in the world, fragments of a story about that person though the level progression of spells they invented. And by doing that lent a sense of wonder to all the just a game mechanic effect name spells --- who invented those, and why don't we remember? Pillars brought all that back, something I didn't know I had been missing. Sad to see those tiny details, that did so much heavy lifting for my imagination, stripped away. But it's fine, I'll still know their names, even if my Avowed characters will never.
Thank you for showing off the skills. Already have build ideas floating about.
Having a third person pov considerably increases my inteterest in checking this game out. Curious to see how dual wield melee looks in the game.
Blood magic + thougness +constant recovery here I go
My thoughts exactly.
@SyperDT seems to be a good combo, but we will see, can we weild two grimoire? 🤣
Nice, they was surprisingly a lack of deep dives of what we have seen so far for this game. This is exactly what I wanted to see :D
I'm sad they got rid of so many classes, many that were my favorites too. I hope the game is still good
A lot of the skills don't seem to have a pre-requisite besides char level, as such, could you just pick wizard skills 1-14 and then at level 15 pick up bear from ranger tree?
Regarding respec, I assume the game still tracks the level of skill points gained, so you can't just respec at level 20 and then spend all your points exclusively on level 20 skills?
As far as I am aware, yes
Aww, it looks like they don't put an Archmage's name on some of the spells they authored anymore. I really like the flavor that came with that.
Monkbros we lost ... But hey Fighter is there still.
Maybe they make a DLC with that class or a secret class How knows?
We all lost. Pretty disappointed in these skill trees.
So the preview has peaked my interest for sure! But why do the Ranger and Fighter skill trees look half full compared to the wizard?
My speculation is that they are reserved for DLC. Outer Worlds added perks with the DLC's as well.
@theobell2002 that makes sense. At least there is no penalty to mix and matching. You can take the rangers dodge and still sword n board.
@@theobell2002Lame
@@ssaberwolf I think it would be lame too. We'll see. Maybe they'll actually give us other classes, though.
The skill tree doesn't seem very deep. That's disappointing
Im worried about that to
I wont be nitpicking. A well made 1ps action rpg game is an instant buy for me.
I’m really bummed about the lack of Druid and Paladin. Fury Druid from POE2 was really unique and my favorite
Is it possible to equip a grimoire and invest only in fighter/ranger to be a duel class build or does the grimoire not scale with player level alone ? I was thinking the exact same thing Mortym said about endgame and depth. Oblivian have a good foundation here but feels like the skill tree lacks depth to be able to craft several different kinds of builds. I hope there are enough unique weapons and armor to make up for this.
As long as you pick up grimoire mastery to use the higher-level spells in your grimoire, I believe you'd be good to go
You need to invest in the Grimoire Mastery ability to be able to cast the higher level spells of a grimoire. And obviously the spells you cast will never be above their Tier 1 power.
Imagine seeing a *Dwarf Chanter* or an *Orlan Paladin* in the Living Lands while being limited to a Godlike human/elf fighter/wizard o_o
Seems like I can essentially just build my Pillars wizards again. I was going to go wizard either way but this is great.
Just what I wanted to see, I'm a chanter lover and was sad when they said it would be out, but I've been curious about what would be in game. I'm usually a caster by default but if the melee combat feels good I might got for a hybrid build with heavy armor and the occasional high impact spell in between lots of melee attacks.
Tons of speculation cuz I'm lonely:
I'm curious how Flurry of Blows works. Is "maximum attack speed" the fastest for that weapon type, or is it just making a greathammer swing as quickly as the fastest weapon? I guess greathammers wouldn't be optimal for someone so heavily invested into Ranger anyways, but hopefully I'm wrong since the two-handed melee damage perk is only in the first tier of the Fighter tree.
With so much verticality in exploration, I hope there are many opportunities to knock enemies off tall ledges with Grimoire Slam or Shield Bash. The inclusion of Power Jump is giving me hope. Though I'll be looking for cool stat synergies between "classes," I may do a simple build for throwing enemies around and awing over their ragdoll physics.
How does the game define "non-lethal fall damage" for Power Jump? is such a height the same for all characters, or is it based on whether the fall would have done enough damage to your health bar to kill you? It'd be funny for Toughness and other health buffs to improve the distance you can fall without damage.
I wonder if accumulations scale with their activating abilities' damage or criticals. Would Bleeding Cut be nastier on a Ranger/Fighter with high crit dmg and crit chance, or would it be a quantity over quality thing for applying stacks? If I felt like maximizing my stun for Parasitic Staff and wand blasts, would I prioritize Might or Dex?
Oh, and regarding the Bounce passive, do wands' stuns count as "elemental accumulation?"
19:48 Holy crap, a Paladin ability! XD
Overall, I'm a little disappointed over the depth for the RPG side of combat, but the action half looks better every time. I'm just glad they retained speech checks regarding attributes and backgrounds. I may not always feel like using a spreadsheet for combat, but I'll always be in the mood for a story with player agency and strong roleplay.
I'll probably play a Wizard who black holes people before slapping them with blast wands or an explosive staff/pike, a mostly pacifistic stealth ranger with high mental attributes for speech checks, or a Fighter with an addiction to spartan kicking people off ledges.
And this is why you are my favourite RPG reviewer!
I find myself wondering how much of the skill trees we can actually unlock. If there is a level cap or a max amount of skill points or something that prevents unlocking everything.
Devs said you can't unlock everything but I wasn't given a specific max level
Thanks! This is much nicer than spamming pause on other people's recorded footage.
Thank you for covering this game. I launched BNet recently and saw it available there.
69.99 money seems a bit too expensive. Maybe I'll wait for the discount.
But it's really strange, when you mention that druid forms would be too expensive to animate and etc. The game costs a lot already and from listening to you, I get the vibe it's missing a quite a lot of core things from Pillars universe.
it'll be on gamepass
@@oourdumbmost people would rather buy their games and play them whenever they want
@@oourdumb but it's a temporary thing, right? Like it will only be available "for free" for four or so months?
@@LemonGingerHoneyno ms own obsidian so the game stays on gamepass for as long gamepass exists, so forever tbh
@@justablindman1443 sounds nice.
Knowing that unarmed hasn’t been abandoned relieves a lot of my worries. I’ll still miss spiritshifting but I expected that to be to much resources to justify. Being able to go all in on the fighter tree making something like an unarmed barb fighter multiclass from deadfire will be perfectly fine for me.
Just about to sleep. Opened bro's video. His voice is like a lullaby to my ears...
Only 3 classes??! Where's Druid, Priest, Paladin?
I think you skipped one of the wizard abilities. The one in the middle of the second row that can go up to level 4. What does it do?
Thats the grimoire mastery level I was talking about
Is the range parry limited to certain weapon types? Can I parry with my wand or fists?
So do you only get 1 point per level ? If so what is the level cap? Wondering how flexible building your character is going to be.
Yes, not sure what the cap is
@ thanks for the reply! Hopefully the cap is up there a ways so we can do some really fun stuff.
I'm so bummed out by the lack of Chanter and Cipher, especially with the knowledge that it can be implemented in action games because of the existence of Skyrim's Conjuration and Illusion spells, and Dark and Darker's Bard class.
I'll still buy the game because what we have looks good. Hopefully they can add the unique classes back in a DLC or sequel!
Do scepters and rods from the Pillars series get carried over as well? Or are wand the only magical implements that are there in Avowed?
Wand & Grimoire
my hope is that for potential DLC they also unlock a new tree. it would be great to get new content that also adds a cipher tree, for example.
Is there actually only 6 ability slots when Mage tree alone has 22 active skills not even counting Fighter, Ranger, Godlike and companion active skills?
Edit: After more reviews - seems like grimoire spells have their own ability slots. Are there any more, for example separate slots / keybinds for companion abilities?
Companions have their own abilities/slots you can bring up a radial to use them
Having all the most interesting POE class options not in this game is a massive buzz kill.
Is the Avowed the only game(currently?) that lets you hold a wand in one hand and a blicky in the other? 😅
afaik lol
Thank you for the deep dive
Looks disappointingly shallow
Monk and Barbarian reduced to single perk picks in the fighter tree? I don't trust them to make it viable or meaningfully different, especially with how dull the combat in Outer Worlds was
Maybe the action gameplay will compensate for the lack of depth but I'm not paying $70 on a bet like that
They should have gone all more unique classes for something fresh.
It'd be so nice to play chanter but I'll take what I can get I guess.
I hope this game is available on Steam Deck.
Idk how, but I'm just now learning that this game is being developed! What a pleasant surprise!
The class system feels a little bit disappointing at face value. Because Pillars1 was the first cRPG that managed to draw me in instead of completely overwhelm me at the character customization screen. Part of that was actually the uniqueness of the godlike race, part of that was the class system and it's flavor. I feel like a bit of that identity is lost here. However, if I'm being honest, I have infinitely more faith in Obsidian as a developer (and by proxy, this game) than I do in Bethesda and Elder Scrolls 6. And I'm not necessarily coming to a first-person ARPG for the same reasons that I'd want to play a cRPG.
I really hope this game is good and performs well, because an Avowed 2 later down the road with a more in-depth character creation system (including classes) sounds like it would be amazing. I've pretty much lost all faith in Bethesda, and genuinely do not think they could ever outdo what modders have done with Elder Scrolls 5 at this point.
I'd rather have a Tyranny 2 than Pillars 3. I tried playing Pillars a few times but it just won't click with me. But this one looks fun, so maybe it helps me getting into the series better.
Tyranny ain't coming back.
I really can't wait to Pull of Eora + Meteor Swarm the random bandit trying to make a living by stealing
Of the 2 "melee classes, ranger definitely sounds like the more jack of all trades useful.
Hopefully the monk builds are viable. Really wanna be able to John Wick it up with a ranger's flintlocks and kung fu
3 main skill trees is dissapointing, especially after having playied poe 2 wich had a lot of classes and subclasses
It would be fine... if the game was low price. It feel very low budget game. Sad to see what happened to Obsidian. They can't even bring back all poe classes. They took the 3 most generic classes.
especially for 70 dollars game.
@@takkik282 You seriously think all the classes that were in PoE, with the same exact complex skill trees, would work in a first person ARPG?
@@eamk887 Why not ??? They could have adapted all poe classes in a FP ARPG. It's just a question of budget. The game feel very low budget but sold at AAA price.
@@takkik282 That's my main problem with the classes. They removed two of the more unique classes you'll see in an RPG these days and kept the three most generic ones. Did they at least keep some of the skills of the Chanter and Cipher? Maybe you can still roleplay as one. Enderal had a nice system that allowed you to unlock a subclass by building a specific way. I know this isn't Enderal, but something like that in more RPGs (Skyrim should have had this) would be a nice addition.
I think if the skills really have a strong effect on the basic movement and attacking styles, similar to the one you mentioned where it adds a stomp to your jump, then this is more than enough. If by the end of it I can be a ranger darting around super fast, jumping and stomping and kicking people off cliffs, pulling off sweet tricks then I'll be satisfied.
Is this Early Access or the Launch version? I would like something similar to Skyrim regarding spells and skills.
It was a preview, so the launch version will be different in some ways for sure
I am/was hoping for some chanter spells, as those could be just summons or buffs, and those shouldn't take more work other than just building the code...
Summons are probably the worst ability to test and make work, I can understand why they didn't go chanter!
@@xtoadsannom6704 Yeah that's fair, and in the same vain, buffs don't work that well in this style of action adventure game, a la dragon ago, companions just don't put out the most damage, while they can in a classic isometric RPG.
I'm still disappointed about it, but it's the nature of things.
I think I'm gonna play KCD 2 this February and wait on a avowed, I'm entirely sold on it yet.
Gotta say, the Ranger and Warrior skill trees are really disappointing. Very limited amount of choice and there's really no different builds. Sad to see this.
Seems kind of similar to the recent Dragon Age game in that it's more of an "rpg-lite" type game. There's a few choices to make, but not very many.
The different builds come from how you mix and match with the other classes. Like, nothing is forcing you to limit yourself to one "class."
A slightly unrelated question , but during combat , can the damage numbers be toggled off ?
also the ui seems a bit overwhelming , so is it possible to turn off some elements , or tweak it in some way?
Yeah it can be adjusted
@MortismalGaming so both the numbers and the ui can be adjusted?
What the max lvl?
At lvl 15 we get the ability to summon a bear...
Not sure, they were a little noncommittal about it, just said you wouldn't be able to get everything
@MortismalGaming what is your thoughts about the lvling?
Does it feel like we will get new skills and lvl fast or it's a slow burner like bg3 or older pillars?
@@ARAFELI I only played the first area so I wouldn't really know
Damn, flurry of blows is in the ranger tree 😢, but i think I can build a stronk or something like this, the akimbo flurry will probably be the meta too, just like in Deadfire.
Real shame there is no paladin anything at all, I was very much looking forward to making a Bleak Walker.
I am very excited to play a magic user in this game it looks very fun!
I am soooo glad spears will be available. Sorely lacking in too many first person RPGs.
Everything I see about the game gives off the vibe off " Lets not be ambitious " out of all the marketing I have seen, I still don't see what the games things is lol. Like whats the big thing I should be excited for from this game
Yeah it looks like another 7/10. I'll still play it, but it's clearly not as good as it could have been.
Which is the exact problem the outer worlds had. Beat for beat.
Game Pass ftw.
I remember a reviewer from "The gamer" that, talking about the august build, specified about the wizard being able to summon elemental weapons like an ice spear and a fire axe. Wonder what happened to those spells. It was a fine idea for a "weapon summoner" run. 😅
Am okay with not massive skill tree like poe etc ,enough to play around with is good instead of being over blown
No chanter or cipher? Buhhhh….those were the most interesting
Basically the just didd the boring warrior/rogue/mage trifecta…
I fear this game will tank brutally against the seemingly very strong lineup of games coming in February of 2025. But I'm very intrigued by it.
I’m 50/50 on this game. The enemy types look boring. But I’ll still tryout the game.
Damn, I knew they would cut monk heavily
For Poe I themed my build on a gandalf style mystic, with a themed class based on the game, (cypher for the watcher abilities in poe1 and priest of berath for Poe 2, not sure about my build for avowed but with the fungal theme, this character might be my raddagast
I have to make a choice between Avowed and Kingdom Come deliverance 2 in February. Tough choice.
Are there combat finishers?
Sort of, when you fill an enemies stun bar your next attack performs a special combo that is unique to each weapon
Can say I am torn on why game style to play, though currently magic, ranged and stealth appeals a lot. Wonder if a mage gunslinger can be viable, yet the books and wands stand out for being truly unique too. Overall though this is a great breakdown on the skill trees which sounds far more interesting to how Skyrim did things. Most of these skills seem to reward proper abilities over pure numeral boosts to damage and the like. Can't wait to see more content though!
how is he reloading a flintlock pistol one handed and in seconds
It's an ARPG, having realistic flintlock pistols would make those weapons unusable. Sometimes you have to choose good mechanics over realism.
While I also would have preferred a Pillars 3, what I've seen so far of the game does look good. The exploration looks expansive, and very vertical which I like a lot, and the skill tree options have already started my theory craft brain. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so we shall see if the game holds up when we get to release.
As a wizard main, it's bit disappointing by the limited amount of spells you have. Half of them are just elemental attacks. No Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage, no Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, no Ironskin etc.
I hope that you can get unique grimoires with equally unique spells to help spice things up in the magic department.
The numbers of skills in different trees seem not balanced... wired
Thank you for the coverage!
Chanter and cipher were the two classes I was most interested in seeing realized... not gonna lie, I get less excited about this game every time I hear/see something new
It's kinda sad to see them do to PoE what Bethesda did to Fallout, more or less just turning a fantastic RPG into an FPS. I'm still mildly positive though as they're not calling this PoE3, leaving a smidgeon of a possibility to see it in the future and Sawyer has expressed interest in making it.
The issue isn't that Fallout was turned into an "FPS". The issue is that they dumbed down the writing and RPG elements.
It's not a sequel though, it's a spin-off. Spin-off games usually have drastically different gameplay mechanics than direct sequels.
they really did bring in some of the other class abilities into the 4 class available
I mean the world/ level design, dialogue and overall story seem great so far. But my god that skill tree is one of the most bland/ boring i have seen in quite some time. I fear for the progression in this game and therefore also motivation to progress after a certain amount of time. Sadly that is probably not something that is going to change anymore. I hope gear progression will balance things out
I wanted to ask which game do you still play and enjoy ?, I know you like the magic system but would like to know which game you still prefer to this day.
Ive made videos about it
Godlike? Finally a videogame that represents me.
You have me excited for it. I didn’t want fallout to change to action but it turned out great I hope this does too. 🎉
Honestly, I was really sad after hearing the names of the Wizardspells. In Pillars 1+2 they had this nice idea of naming the spells after those archmages who invented it. We had Concelhaut, Minoletta and so on. It did not have any deeper meaning, it was just a nice little piece of lore, which they easily could have kept in Avowed. But NO. They just had to streamline it. Because casual gamers could be confused a single second before reading the description. Meh.
is summoning or necromancy a thing?
Not that I saw
These skills are cool for combat. But what about character defining perks? New Vegas had several like sneering imperialist for example.
What do you mean no Cipher? No antipathetic field, no soul reading?
First person melee looks so clunky omg.
I don't know that I have ever played a first person game where the melee looked good. How it actually feels when using it matters a lot more in my opinion though.
@@Blasted2Oblivion Vermintide series has the best feeling regarding melee combat in my experience.