Concordance

You don't need to build a "super tank" if you have several melee characters. Spread the engagements around to make sure no character is being hit by too many trash mobs or more than one heavy hitter, and you can strike a good balance between durability and damage output. I'll say that poor pathing, lack of a "Hold Position" command and the engagement system heavily discourage melee-heavy parties and push people towards building supertanks, but that is another problem altogether.

Dual wielding does not apply to it, but it attacks as a weapon that probably does much lower damage than whatever you are holding in your main hand. Bashing shields are pretty much useless.

The issue I see with this is that you play the hardest parts of the game as a normal squishy ranged wizard, and by the time your build comes together, your party will probably cruise through most fights by auto-attacking. Not a build I'd roll with for a solo PotD playthrough.

I think the player being a Watcher is a cool concept, but they couldn't decide whether this should make the player feel like he's a dying man, or the Chosen One. The end result ended up being a weird mishmash of both - being a Watcher is described as a curse, but his abilities conveniently manifest when and where they are needed. They are unique and useful, his status as a Watcher opens many doors closed to others and lends him credibility despite his background. Through most of the game, I felt like my character was a "chosen snowflake" reveling in his unique power rather than a cursed man trying to stave off death. It really doesn't help that Maerwald makes a poor example for the player's fate. Maerwald's past lives were tightly related - for example, one of his incarnations was conceived via rape by a raider who killed the mother's family and dedicated its life to exterminating his father's clan. Considering a soul can be reborn anywhere as any living creature, or even several creatures, Maerwald being a Watcher AND his past lives interacting with each other feels like a freak accident. None of the other Watchers mentioned in the game seemed to suffer from such issues, either.

It's not that simple. The cast time on Cipher's charm/dominate is long enough for a dominated Rogue/Cipher to butcher a squishy. Not to mention that Ciphers seem to be priority targets, and my party's Cipher is always the one dominated if she is in range. It's also worth noting that, while counter-charm returns the party member to your side, he cannot do anything but auto-attack until both charms run out. Which is not a problem on a Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian/Rogue, but somewhat disastrous on a Priest/Wizard/Druid/Cipher. Prayer Against Treachery doesn't seem to do much unless your Will is already in the triple digits. If the priest had to pick spells on level up like the Cipher does, PAT would be considered a trap choice. To add insult to injury, enemy charm/dominate has much longer range and faster cast time than the player equivalents, making them much harder to interrupt. Vithrack Dominate has a Fast casting time, and Vithracks have very high Will saves against any magical interrupts. Fampyr Charm is both instant cast AND is the longest ranged attack in the game! Charm/Dominate are just terribly balanced across the board.

Only two spirits are needed to open the door. 1. Talking to the door makes it clear it requires a password. 2. Talking to the spirit in the northeast chamber reveals that the door opens to those who swear an oath of loalty to Od Nua. However, if you swear the oath to the door, it will call you a "traitor" and refuse to open. 3. The spirit in the broken machine room tells you they could not dispel the lock on the door, but they did manage to alter the oath. The door will only let rebels pass. These three clues make it clear that the password to the door is an oath against Od Nua.

The answer turned out to be fourfold - confusion, figurines, slow weapons and knockdown traps Against Adragans and Crystal Eaters, use confusion-inducing spells. They will usually be torn apart by their own allies before the spell wears off. Crystal Eaters Petrify and one-shot each other just as readily as your tanks. Vithracks' Will is too high to reliably use confusion, so the fights with large amounts of Vithracks can be defused by using a figurine (the weaker, the better) and causing them to burn most of their Dominate casts on the crappy summons. You will still get 1-2 dominated party members per fight, which is where the slow weapons and knockdown traps come in - most of the time, your party members will be in Recovery between attacks when they get dominated, so you have plenty of time to lay down a Repulse trap that will knock them out for 90% of Dominate's duration. It's worth noting that the Adragan and Vithrack segments are harder than they should be because of a bug - enemies can still cast spells while Prone (even if it is not shown), so the disables they are most vulnerable to (due to low fortitude) are not as effective as they should be.

Considering the Brotherhood of Five Suns are basically loyal enforcers for the Ducs, Diplomatic/Rational makes the most sense. Diplomatic, because they musn't cause unnecessary conflict - that would reflect badly on their masters. Rational, because they'll do whatever their masters need them to do - whether establishing trading agreements or assassinating local leaders. Pallegina's own personality seems to better fit Rational/Aggressive - she will do whatever she needs to serve her order, but she also seems to opt for violent solutions without a second thought.

How do people deal with petrify/paralyze in TCS? Do you simply reload over and over until the enemy decides to cast something else or abuse scrolls to disable the spellcasters?

Backstab rogue does not work. In bigger fights late game, and especially in Endless Paths, large groups of enemies will contain casters who will either nuke or paralyze your rogue as he runs away. You will have to burn Shadowing Beyond just to escape after the initial pull. Backstab would be so much better if it actually required you to attack an enemy in melee from behind, demanding careful positioning from both your tanks and rogue. As it currently stands, with party stealth, it's a trap talent that will only serve to disappoint you.

I am playing on Hard with only premade companions - PC melee rogue + Eder + Aloth + Kana + GM + Durance. Eder and Kana are specced for maximum defense, wearing the best defense gear I can find. I had cleared the first 7 levels of Endless Paths with a level 5 party, have completed all quests in Defiance Bay. Combat has been a breeze so far, so I've decided to continue to level 9 and below with a level 8 party, and this is where things started going horribly wrong. It's like a cutoff point where the designers get really generous with 4+ spellcasters per room, all of them armed with room-wide AoE disables or damages, or worse yet, fast-casting Dominate/Petrify. I now have to abuse doorways due to the sheer amount of enemies with Paralyze, and if I fail to stop an enemy dominating my Cipher/Rogue, I have to reload. If a banshee manages to paralyze my entire party at once and teleports next to the squishies, I have to reload. If enemies Petrify my tank and one-shot him, I have to reload. Due to the doorway abuse being made almost mandatory, my melee rogue spends most of his time shooting (which he isn't specced for). I've tried various strategies, including: * Stripping weapons from squishies to help against Dominate - kills my DPS and/or crowd control, 20 seconds with no rogue/caster is too much. And yes, dominated characters will switch slots - standing with fists until you get dominated does not work. * Wrapping squishies in 8+ DR armor - does alright against AoE damage attacks, but they still get massacred by a dominated cipher/rogue. * Using a 100+ Will custom fighter to make enemies burn their best spells - enemies have unlimited casts, and you apparently can't resist dominate. So far I have been opening fights with Tenous Grasp (or Wizard's confusion spells) to start combat and buy time, backing off into a trapped doorway and then trying to either hose down the spellcasters or the mobs blocking my way to them. I still have to reload when I get unlucky with spell rolls or the enemy lands a critical AoE paralyze, but otherwise this strategy works well. The problem is that it is the only strategy that works well, it relies tremendously on enemy's spell and target choice, and it is incredibly boring. It seems extremely cheap that you aren't allowed to buff or immunize against this crap, and have to body block doorways to avoid your tanks from being one-shot or turned against you. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just how these encounters are supposed to be played?

I think the enemy encounters in the main quest scale down to your party, to allow for a pacifist playthrough where you skip as much combat as possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the final boss is beatable with a level 6 party, even if none of the enemies on the way to the final area are.

According to loading screens, killing visitors is supposed to leave a prestige penalty that lingers for a few turns after their death. I have not been able to test it yet as I have had no visitors more than halfway into the game.

Breith Eaman is a point of no return. You will not be able to leave. The game will end after you finish the main quest. Considering the level cap is 12 and the game has at least 14 levels worth of experience, you have probably missed a lot of sidequests. You may want to tend to them before finishing the game.

Since there is a limited amount of turns (quests) but an unlimited amount of time, It seems that this design pushes the player to spam Rests until they finish construction of the Stronghold, to make the most out of the stronghold bonuses before he advances too far into the game for them to matter. I'm aware that this is nowhere near the most bizarre contrivance in the Stronghold's design, but it should be one of the easiest to address - especially with a mod.

It's worth noting that Dangerous Implements is modal (can be toggled any time) and synergizes well with a unique scepter that can be bought in Defiance Bay - http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/The_Lady%27s_Hand The scepter grants a damage bonus if below 50% Endurance, which you can get naturally in long fights by using Dangerous Implements without putting the wizard in harm's way. Overall though, I have found that Aloth's Might is too low to deal notable direct damage, whether with spells or implements. You can build a custom glass cannon Wizard that will deliver serious auto-attack damage, but should you choose to use Aloth, consider maximizing his spell counts instead.

Apparently you need to have used the ladder on the titan's hand at least once in order to unlock the cellar door. I hadn't done that before the ambush (didn't realize you could move onto the hand), so I could not fast travel directly into the yard. If you hadn't done that before the ambush is spawned, you can't do it without defeating the ambush anymore, so you can still get stuck.

I don't have the option to select Caed Nua - the highest floor available is level 1. Did I miss opening another master staircase to the keep proper? Progress-wise, I've cleared most of Level 8 in Endless Paths and have not yet been to Defiance Bay. I've seen a conspicuous cellar door next to the Chapel, but assumed I'd need to renovate the Chapel to use it - which is many, many in-game days away at this point.

While this is a design error rather than a technical issue, it can block player progress all the same, so it qualifies as a bug. After completing Kana's personal quest on Endless Paths level 7, the game sets up a scripted ambush by a large group of Leaden Key at all exits to the Endless Paths. If the player's group is at low health and he has no camping supplies left, the ambush will make it impossible to leave the Endless Paths. Unless the player manages to find camping supplies without engaging in further combat (i.e. he has at least one Mechanics 3< character and did not pick up at least one of the 3~ supplies in the first 7 levels), the player cannot continue the game without reloading a savegame several fights back - which might lose him hours of progress. Steps to reproduce: 1. Go down to the Endless Paths level 7 with Kana in your party. 2. Access Gabrannos' study and complete Kana's quest. 3. Continue descending the Paths and engaging in battles until party runs out of camping supplies and is too low on health to fight another battle. 4. Get wiped by a Leaden Key ambush stationed at each EP exit. Or get wiped by the next unavoidable fight in Endless Paths. Either way, player is now blocked and forced to reload an earlier save, potentially hours back. I have seen several people encounter the issue on Reddit and ran into it myself. Thankfully, I had missed a stash of supplies at level 2 and was able to continue - otherwise, I would have lost several hours of progress. The player has no reason to believe he cannot safely ascend to his own Stronghold after clearing the floors inbetween, especially after he has already done so several times. I think this ambush is out of place and should be either changed to a regular Stronghold Attack (that the player is warned about and can prepare for) or removed altogether.

For what it's worth, it looks like the Endless Paths seem to be designed with door camping in mind - for both players and enemies. There are numerous encounters with large mobs of enemies right next to doorways, that immediately plug up the doorway when the fight starts. A few examples: Xaurip crowds on levels 2 and 5 right next to doorways, with either large amounts of wurms/archers or multiple high priests. The Champions (tanks) plug up the doorway as soon as the fight starts and the high priests continually heal them while standing out of sight. The fights end up taking place in doorways by default, unless you go out of your way to pull the enemies through. Ogres in narrow pathways on level 3, bodyblocking with their huge hitbox and penetrating knockdowns while the Druid hoses you down with spells. The fight with Zolla has so many ogres, it's effectively impossible to win without abusing doorways unless you have multiple heavily armored offtanks and/or are horribly overleveled. Level 7 has circular rooms filled with blights, standing right next to doorways. Again, unless you deliberately pull them out of the room (and probably end up bugging their AI in the process), this is a chokepoint fight right off the bat with wind blights and/or Adragan spamming spells from behind. ...The list goes on. Doorway chokepoints are not a mistake, not a bug, not an exploit or cheese - at least as far as Endless Paths are concerned, they are a deliberate choice in encounter design that players need to go out of their way to avoid taking advantage of.

It seems to be a bug in the respect that the game does not factor in the slots occupied by the enchantment you are replacing. It sees that you have 2 slots left, which is less than the 4 needed for the Fine enchant. Hopefully a fix will make it into 1.05, but as the changelog has not been announced yet, we can only guess.

A simple matter of perspective, what's cheesiest : - 4 seconds worth of free time on a boss, including party movement time. or - people cleaning up the whole room of adds, before engaging the A.D herself ? Every single video, every single screenshot I've seen, people get there with maxed level 12 parties, enchants, potions and scrolls, cheese-clean the room, then get to aggro'ing the A.D, and resort to cheap Walls and Raw damage D.O.Ts to do the job. I'm kinda proud of my sub-level 12 hard mode encounter with the adds still alive. Using traps is apparently cheese. Killing adds before battle is apparently cheese. Using choke points is cheese. Apparently any kind of intelligent preparation of the battlefield prior to engaging the enemy is cheese. Apparently using scrolls, food and potions is also cheese. Is using per-rest abilities cheese? You can rest right before facing the dragon and unload all of your abilities in a row, after all! Is using the Wizard or Druid cheese? Since you can rest just before the battle, you can chaincast all of your spells in a row! That doesn't sound balanced at all! Is using ciphers cheese? You can paralyze the adds and deal raw damage to them and the dragon! How is that not cheese ?! If you didn't kill the Adra dragon in a straight up fight using only unenchanted weapons and per-encounter ablities (no spells though, that's cheese), you didn't actually win the fight. You cheesed your way through it and should be ashamed. Consider uninstalling PioE and playing Diablo 3 instead, you dirty cheeser. /s

There is far more XP in the game than you need to reach the maximum level. You don't need to worry about missing out on any. That said, it's worth noting that Hard difficulty might be too easy with a custom min-maxed party. Consider playing PotD instead.

For a "pacifist" playthrough, you'd have to avoid most side content locked behind mandatory combat - so, most of the sidequests and pretty much all of Endless Paths. There are achievements for completing the game while killing less than 175 creatures, so you might want to make a build dedicated to a pacifist playthrough and nab several achievements in one go - the pacifist one, the 0 knockouts one, the solo one and the 10 rests one. You will be avoiding most fights, so you will need neither a lot of rest nor party members.

I found the game to be made more difficult and enjoyable (on Hard no less) with two self-imposed rules that tie in nicely together: 1) No knockouts. If anyone in the party is knocked out, reload (aiming for the No Knockouts achievement) 2) Rest only when the party physically cannot continue, such as Critical Fatigue, Health < Max Endurance before a large fight, etc. The game is quite exciting with this approach. I actively utilize consumables, craft food and potions and even pull out scrolls to get an extra fight in before my tanks can't carry on any further. It feels like all of the game mechanics fall into place - I naturally ration spells and use food/potions/traps/scrolls to maximize number of fights between rests. Squeezing one more fight of a Moderately Fatigued party with nearly dead skirmishers and exhausted spellcasters is incredibly satisfying. As an added bonus, I don't need to think about resting supplies since I replenish them faster than I use them up.