Potency- worth it?

[GriezzTO]

Okay, here is the deal. As I understand it, Potency operates like extra Strength. When you use the Discipline, your Strength shoots up by however many points you invested in Potency. Unfortunately, that may well make this the worst power in the game. Why? Because, as far as I can tell, there is an absolute Strength limit of 5, which you cannot get passed. Right off the bat, that tells me that, since you have a minimum 1 already invested in Strength, Potency 5 is a guaranteed waste of points.

Speaking of which... there is Blood Buff, a Discipline that you automatically get which temporarily boosts by 2 all your physical attributes, including Strength. That means that your Strength can easily be boosted to 3; that also means that it is again a complete waste to spend any points in Potency past 2 at most.

Now, yes, there are downsides to doing it this way, such as spending two Blood Points instead of just one. For one thing, you can't use Disciplines in Elysiums, but that won't matter since there are no fights in Elysiums. There is also the added blood cost, but you should be able to deal with that. Besides, if you'd still prefer to spend only one point, Blood Buffalo is better, since you also get Stamina & Dexterity in the deal. Just make sure to max those attributes out at 3 to avoid wasting XP.

The last issue is the "special" damage that the Potency description hints at; I can't tell if it exists or not. Besides, I've never seen enemies heal, so it doesn't matter whether or not the damage is normal or aggravated, right? As such, I gotta believe that Potency is a waste as a power. Any arguments?

[Bloodartist]

I don't remember there being an absolute strength limit?

That said, potency isn't as good as some other disciplines imo. I consider the best combat discipline to be celerity by a long shot.

[Huh?]

If i remember correctly the special damage provided by potence are unblockable. I am not sure but I think some of it can bypass fortitude.

[__-__-__]

There is no limit on attribute values if you push them up with disciplines. If you push your melee and strength to five with experience then add potence level five your melee combat feat will be at 15. In damage terms that's a difference of 30 to 50-60.

Aggravated damage is much more difficult to resist for all creatures, regardless of no healing. The player can get around 11 bashing resistance (soak), 4 lethal, and one aggravated resistence without special disciplines (just Exp and items), this is likely a good guideline to all creatures, meaning it is fairly rare to find a creature that has substantial resistance to aggravated damage and that resistance will almost always be lower than for the other two types of damage, therefore aggravated will generally cause better damage than other types of damage.

Disciplines let characters breaks the rules, not reach the limits faster.

[Blade Runner]

I always felt that potence was mishandled in the computer games. Potence is not an activated discipline, it's always on, and that's the way that it should be. I don't like running low on blood, because I'm having to constantly re-activate potence, it makes it to where I don't bother playing brujah most of the time.

[Leper Kahn]

Just FYI, and I hope some genius doesn't "fix" this, as the game explicitly states that it is possible and permissible to blood-buff in Elysium areas, at least in the latest UP and at least combined with the "interact" (default: E) key.

How? Simply buff at the same time that you interact. (simultaneous key/r. mouse click)