Necrobro

Recently finished a POTD run with a mostly caster party with a tank, using story npcs. Kinda sad finding a ton of melee weapons and well... not having anyone to use them though, so I'm in the mood for a custom made melee heavy party for my next POTD run. Could really use some help though as frankly I only uh... managed to succeed last run because I would keep enemies permanently prone and such with my casters. One priest is fine I guess. How is one to survive the tons of dangerous enemies on POTD with mostly melee? I kinda shiver thinking about the Ogre Druid Insect Plague spam...

Level 11 should be fine unless you have a super melee heavy party. Level 11 is actually my favorite dragon starting point as it's when priest gains access to Crowns for the Faithfuls which is an amazing buff for your casters. The trick is to leave the draggy permanently debuffed which ain't hard even on POTD. You can knock down, petrify, confuse him. Remember to debuff his saves first with hobbled, blind, weakened etc. You basically only need the tank to survive for a few seconds before setting up a field of doom that will ensure the dragons get permanently debuffed. Priest starts with Crowns for the Faithful, then the improved Daze with weakening effect or Holy Radiance with acc boost. After that the usual buffs like dire blessing ,the party wide accuracy +20, etc Leave a level 2 trap seal near the prone dragon so it'll immediately activate when they get up. Druid goes Relentless Storm to cc the draggy's allies, then Tanglefoot + Sunbeam + start spamming Calling the World's Maw or Embrace the Earth Talon for petrify or knockdown as needed. Mage casts Confusion to handle the adds then Enervating Terror to hopefully terrify and weaken the dragon. After that Slickens for reflex based knockdowns or Gaze of the Adragan to petrify. If you have a Cipher I like starting with the level 4 power I think that converts crits to hits and hits to grazes because frankly dragons have overpowered stats/damage, and still hit for a ton no matter your tank stats.

Slicken no doubt. Most enemies have high fort in POTD. Don't forget even if Slicken does not have a long duration, it knocks enemies down which is by far one of the most useful debuffs and waaay better than Blind since it completely takes enemies out of the fight (amazing against casters like Ogre Druids). Most enemies aren't immune to prone, in fact I can only recall spirits and some oozes. I also find Slicken more useful than Chill Fog during the beginning when your tank still doesn't have good deflection and DR. Like in the bear cave for example, way better to knock the bears down than to blind them for 2 secs while they still have a good chance of hitting or even criting Edér for tons. It's also not hard to crit with reflex based spells, just use Dire Blessing from priest and hobble the enemies with a druid's Tanglefoot before casting Slicken so you get double prone duration.

My Spell Masteries for POTD Wizard 1st: Slicken. Huge aoe with reflex based knockdown? Yes, please! 2nd:Miasma of Dull Mindness. Extremely crippling debuff. 3rd: Minor Blights. Amazing damage, will last for the entire fight. 4th: Confusion. Life Saver, foe only, decent area. Druid: 1st: Tanglefoot. Instant cast, huge area, hobble is an amazing debuff, especially when most druid spells target reflex which is the weakest enemy save even on POTD. Great synergy with Slicken. If you go with two druids, then have the other master Sunbeam. Awesome range, damage and blind for a very long duration. What's not to love? 2nd:Autumn's Decay. Good area, amazing damage for a level 2 spell. The cone is rather easy to get off against knocked down enemies or the ones being held at chokepoints by your tank. 3rd: Twin Stones. Great damage, huge area, foe only. Perfect. 4th: Calling the World's Maw. Great damage, huge area, knockdown. Gotta love knockdown. Priest: 1st: Blessing. More accuracy and damage are always nice. 2nd: Supress Affliction. Even if you have a paladin, one more way of stopping afflictions can be very useful, especially since you can use it as party wide. 3rd: Dire Blessing. More crits = more fun. Instant cast time is great! 4th:Devotions for the Faithful. Great buff AND debuff all in a single spell with good duration to boot! Shining Beacon can be nice but I find the super short range rather awful, especially since my priests don't wear armor.