Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General What happened to Phoenix Dive?

I seem to remember getting this skill on my Warrior quite easily and now I've been reloading for a while trying to see if anyone's selling it but no luck. Was it removed?

I've not seen it either. I've also not seen dust devil, the 2nd tier of that fist knockdown skill, and a few others.

Its somewhat irritating not having access to crucial spells for your school. Im not sure if reloading areas re-randomises what books are available, it seems to happen periodically.

Couldn't they be in another area of the game, now ?

Larian did say that some skill books wouldn't be available in shops any longer, and that you would need to explore/do quests to get them.

Could be.

Barrage for instance is not longer available in the shops and there was at least 1 other that has since slipped my mind.

Sad, since Battering Ram is suicide with all the ground effects. Re-loading still works if you've never opened their inventory since last level/reset.

phoenix dive is now only sold by the fire elemental in your homestead, once you manage to collect 4 starstones to open the first elemental room.

just got there myself, and note that each of the elementals sells a couple of skill books that look to be unique (meaning I haven't seen them in the regular shops at all).

...and, just tried it out.

ok, it works like the ranger tactical retreat ability, allowing you to teleport anywhere up to 15m away. it also applies a 3m diameter firefield where you left from. so, you can use it to jump into or out of a fight, but the problem is... it applies the firefield BEFORE you jump out... so you're on fire when you land.

doh.

poorly playtested to be sure. still functional, i suppose, if barely. you definitely would take less damage than a battering ram through a field of fire, that's for sure.

all they need to do to fix it is apply the firefield to the place you jumped from just AFTER you jump.

Fire Resistance is one of the easiest options to get 100%+

so? it hardly addresses the issue.

Phoenixes burn, dude.

There are whole lot of features in this game that have an upside *and* a downside, both. It's almost like it was a design philosophy or something.

Also, "I do not like this thing" does not actually mean "It is poorly designed or tested or broken."

Sometimes it just means "I do not like this thing that they executed exactly as intended."

Disliking something is not the same as an actual issue. When the fluff on the skill involves a bird that immolates itself and is reborn from his ashes, you may acknowledge that the skill setting yourself on fire is not only thematically reasonable but actually useful in relatively common circumstances from mid-game on.

"Disliking something is not the same as an actual issue. "

funny, but last version they had removed the damage alltogether. period. and made a point of noting it.

read the patch notes.

"When the fluff on the skill involves a bird that immolates itself and is reborn"

uh, does it say that for the description of the skill, or are you just imagining how you think it should work?

...because I'm looking right at it, and other than the name, it says rather little about "rising from ashes".

you're friggen dreaming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYAaN9EMpE0
Play this music for appropriate dramatic effect while you click the links below:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/phoenix
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phoenix
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Phoenix
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/phoenix
http://www.yourdictionary.com/phoenix
http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/phoenix
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/british/phoenix
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/phoenix
http://mnemonicdictionary.com/word/phoenix
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/phoenix
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/phoenix
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/phoenix

There's quite a few spells and abilities which have downsides, or debuffs which have upsides.

The tooltip doesn't tell you that you're going to be set on fire, but the first time you use it you'll figure it out. And really, there are LOTS of tooltips that don't tell you everything they should. The Elemental Shield spells don't mention that they give you extra hp (which is huge), Boulder Smash doesn't mention that it leaves poison, Flurry doesn't mention that it hits 4 times (which is the entire point of the skill), etc etc.

While Phoenix Dive always did area damage at both the start and end of its journey, it did not used to set the user on fire. It doesn't hurt to ask the developers if this is actually intended or a bug.

Honestly, Phoenix Dive already had enough drawbacks. You had to take special care that you were well away from the rest of your group when using it, as the launch would damage every ally around you. And landing amidst a pack of adversaries isn't exactly the safest situation to end up in either.

If setting the caster on fire is intentional (and I highly doubt it is), it seems like overkill on the penalties for what is essentially an alternative to Battering Ram. Yes, unlike Battering Ram it can more easily avoid elemental ground effects when moving from point A to B, but (unlike Battering Ram) it also isn't knocking down and damaging everything along its entire path.

Spoilers: As I'm certain your aware once you reach a certain point in the game Phoenix becomes: A self heal, a teleporter, and an AoE. None of these effects are game changing and I can see why, at lower levels, it's a pain in the ass but if you build your character with fire in mind it's actually a very nice power.

I'm actually very much against the notion that resistances over 100 cause characters to heal in a given element. It makes sense for NPC opponents when you're trying to discourage players from using a particular elemental against certain creatures (e.g. don't fireball a fire elemental or you'll heal it). But (in my opinion) that should not be the case for players. Being magically resistant to fire shouldn't be the same thing as being made of fire or thriving on fire.

I'm hoping that's an oversight and something that will eventually be fixed, as it creates some serious imbalances in the later stages of the game. So, I'm not quite ready to label Phoenix Dive as a "self heal" just yet.



I'm also going to disagree with the above two comments. Skills/spells are designed to benefit the user. These are not Talents (which is an example of an ability that has pluses and minuses).

Friendly fire aside, I think most (if not all?) spells are designed to benefit the caster without costing him health in the process. As spell balance can be achieved through action point cost and refresh times, I'm not sure why people are assuming Phoenix Dive is meant to harm the caster, particularly when it never used to and at no point did the patch notes ever indicate that changed. I think there's a big difference between the spell description failing to mention some obvious benefits versus failing to warn the caster that it will harm them upon use.

Well, the mage spell "self immolate" and "explode" both deal fire damage to the caster.
The elemental shields make you weak to certain elements.
LOTS of spells give you warm/chilled, which if you aren't careful will set you on fire or freeze you, even ignoring the penalty they give to your resistances.
Enrage drastically reduces your chance to hit and armor.

Lots of spells/abilities have downsides, and quite often the tooltip doesn't give you the whole picture.

By the time I got phoenix dive, my warriors were so tanky that being on fire didn't particularly bother me. I don't really consider it much of a drawback.

"While Phoenix Dive always did area damage at both the start and end of its journey"

actually, in 1.072 they removed the damage, and people complained. they added it back in the latest patch, which is probably where the change to when the firefield effect is applied got done as well.



"Well, the mage spell "self immolate" and "explode" both deal fire damage to the caster."

argument is irrelevant.

"Play this music for appropriate dramatic effect while you click the links below:"

all of which have NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS GAME.

run along.

How is it irrelevant? It was in reply to