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Odd Hermit

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Everything posted by Odd Hermit

  1. More of the companions need useful unique things like Vielo Vidorio. Gives a real reason to use a story companion over a custom other than simply for their extra dialogue. Though it would be nice if we could just alter companion attributes without mods. It'd improve replay value for me.
  2. PC: Moon Godlike Chanter, Off tank/support. Max Per/Int/Resolve for dialogue and obviously these are good Chanter stats which is why I choose them for my PC. Dump dex, you can leave Might/Con or dump Might for more Con if you prefer. Tank: Paladin. Wild Orlan, Moon Godlike, Coastal Aumaua are all good race choices. Priest: Wood Elf, Max Per/Int and leave everything else at 10 or drop some might for res if you like. Cipher: Wood Elf. Max Per, Int, drop 2-3 from res/might and put into ~15 dex. You could only dump res instead, though I prefer a slightly more defense build. Wizard: Same as above. Last slot: Rogue, Ranger, Barb, Fighter, Druid, Monk or even a second Cipher are all reasonable choices. I lean toward Fighter myself, and away from Monk and Ranger just 'cause they're more micro heavy than I enjoy. -- Alternatively to some of this advice, you can just stack "solo builds" for each class, that are all tanky(high res and decent con). Just having all casters go hatchet and shield with weapon and shield style talent can really improve their durability. Combat will be slower but safer. Might is actually not that great of a stat right now and can be dropped for defensive attributes easily. The on drawback to that though is item management, obviously solo builds rely a lot on stacking the best gear on one character.
  3. Per > Int > Dex > Mig for me. Perception is at the top because it affects your damage output and how long your spells last, or whether they even hit. It's not too bad missing a few weapon attacks, but missing a high level spell sucks so much more. At least if you're on PotD, it's my no brainer max attribute for Wizard(as well as Druid, Priest, Cipher). Int is obviously important for durations and AoE, and should be 18-19. Dex is arguable, but Wizard CC is more important than Wizard damage so I place getting CCs off quickly over doing more damage, because that's a Wizard's strong point - on demand powerful disables.
  4. Cipher is more interesting to play for most of the game due to per-encounter nature of their abilities. Druids get spritshift per-encounter but it doesn't scale well enough espeically on harder difficulties- you're just too squishy and too low accuracy to be in melee most of the time. Druid spells are also mostly pretty basic, not as many funky combos as a Wizard or Cipher that you can pull. Lots of simple AoE damage/debuffs. On big fights / boss fights where you can let the insects fly the Druid is great though.
  5. Priests are great and I think every fully party is best having one. You can certainly still get away with not having one though.
  6. I think they're fine after the nerf. Spell spamming casters, of course, remain the strongest thing in the game - assuming we're talking a full party with something tanking for them and all that. But that's a separate problem. Casters just gradually get more and more diverse abilities and more of them, so at higher levels they just start getting overpowered. They need a mechanic other than just spells/rest that they can potentially use all in one fight.
  7. But with spell casters the point at which attacking faster/ having more powerful attacks is more valuable than hitting more often is fairly skewed. Casters have limited spells / rest, so faster casting isn't always that big of a deal. They also have powerful debuffs that are important to apply to targets. Once their powerful debuffs land, attack speed/damage output is much less important. There's certainly a point where a damage or speed increase can be more valuable but it's unlikely they'd put that much on a single racial. I expect it'd be too strong for non-casters if it was strong enough for a caster to consider over an accuracy buff.
  8. Was hoping they'd nerf this or change it in some way, or bring others up to par in some way. Right now they are absolutely a no-brainer choice for all spell casters and ranged weapon users. +Accuracy is a very, very valuable stat and there only so many stack-able sources. As a racial it just overshadows anything else pretty substantially. For the same reasons it was removed from perception(back in the beta), it should be removed from Wood Elves. I'm all for strong racials though, so I'd be good with other races getting more substantial/competitive ones as well. But it's pretty hard to compete with +accuracy for casters right now. I'd take +5 accuracy over even +10% damage, since landing crowd control/debuff spells relies on accuracy.
  9. Yes, though with some adjustments for balance. Or, alternate system for caster that limits them in a more meaningful way. Bottom line is it makes no sense whatsoever to hold back in combat outside of extremely trivial encounters which don't matter. If you look at it from a role-playing perspective, who in their right mind is in a fight where they could die and is thinking "well IDK I might need this 3rd level spell for a boss later..."? It's not real resource management. It's just hoarding / dumping based on fight difficulty, but of course if you don't know the fight you should never be holding back since that could get you killed. Trying to get a feel for the difficulty of a fight is not always something you have time to do before a difficult fight gets out of hand.
  10. I'd prefer not having traditional "tanks", as it leads to pretty dull/repetitive tactics. "Balanced" melee characters are usable but very far from ideal and make things considerably more difficult on PotD relative to min/maxed tanks that are night invulnerable.
  11. PotD would suck so bad for the player if it didn't. Trust me, we're better off this way. Player relies on debuffs/CC way more than any of the enemies in the game do. There are some counters to charm/dominate as well, priests have Prayer of Treachery - a late-game spell that gives +50 to defenses against them. Also Circle of Protection early on gives +15 to all defenses, might be worth it. Personally I try to CC enemies that charm/dominate first.
  12. Shadowing Beyond 2/encounter would be really quite cheesy for solo tactics, but OTOH backstab will be awful until it is per encounter. I would be for it becoming per encounter if it came to a vote I suppose. The others don't seem necessary.
  13. I wouldn't want to play through with that but I'm sure it is possible. Trade one melee for priest and it becomes much stronger.
  14. I personally haven't gotten Gaze of the Adragan off on anything substantial in PoE either. OTOH I recall Chromatic Orbing multiple dragons in BGII. And in PoE I think I've gotten my tank hit by Petrify once on Path of the Damned and that's it so far - and I still won that fight. I don't mean to defend "save or die" spells necessarily, I'm just surprised people are upset about an IE inspired game having a few.
  15. Aloth is just missing the Might to make a low damage weapon deal substantial enough damage. I gave him an Arbalest to make up for it, ignoring his Blast talent entirely. I consider Rapid Recovery a waste. However if you get him @ 3 instead of two he sort of makes up for it with a free Ruffian focus, although it's not great for tanking either it's sort of redeeming .. a little bit.
  16. If only all classes got blast talents. :[ I tried making a Wand Monk. It still did decent ranged damage but it's just not worth it w/out blast.
  17. It's an RPG with many hours worth of combat, and combat-focused character building. Some people like building efficiently and want classes to offer variety with balance. You can create an entire custom party so clearly they've made this game for people who like either or both, and there's no good reason for you to tell people to talk stopping about one aspect of the game. Especially in the character builds and strategies sub forum...
  18. It is a full attack and gets all the bonuses from whatever modals and passive talents you have and so on. You can have enemies kill themselves on you even while you're disabled for most of the fight with a good retal build. And with weapons with draining or spell strike effects it gets pretty insane. Relative to literally every single other enchant property in the game it is dramatically overpowered.
  19. I agree with most points but - Regen is not a big deal at all, other classes can provide enough healing and you can even get it from items.OSA is almost certainly a bug/unintendedEngagement limit and offensive capability have never mattered on a pure tank, for me.I went through PotD just recently with a PC Paladin tank, and once on Hard with a hired adventurer Paladin which was serviceable. I prefer having a tank/support to a tank/control since my squishies can CC things off themselves better as they have higher accuracy. On Path of the Damned especially since Fighter/Monk abilities will often miss anyway especially if using a large shield. Aura, heals and dispels from Paladin tank can't miss, OTOH. I do think Auras need to be larger though. As a damage build though, Paladins are garbage. Solo PotD is all about cheesing retaliation, traps, stealth/move speed/fog of war, and summoning items. It has absolutely nothing to do with class balance in the context of normal party play.
  20. It's not amazing enough to be an issue. Plus, taking the goody two shoes route isn't hard enough in most games so I appreciate the games where you have to take some losses if you're trying to do the "right thing" all the time.
  21. Nah many people like less micro heavy combat, it's something that's been requested multiple times. Some people also like the idea of their companions kinda doing their own thing. It can even be fun(sometimes) to add some chaos to fights even when the AI does something dumb. Just a different kind of experience. The devs are planning on working on it though which is why I didn't mention it.
  22. Lacking enemy AI or lack of companion AI? I am into micromanaging the whole group so the latter doesn't bother me at all. Either way, we've already gotten a response from the devs about it - they couldn't fit it in for release and plan to implement in either patch or expansion. I'm hoping it comes with enemy AI improvements, 'cause that's what bugs me more since enemies are just too predictable/simple right now.
  23. Attributes and starting choices of ability/talents matter a lot. They're what you go through the whole game with. Even getting them @ level 2 doesn't save them for me. Being behind 1 or more talents/abilities from the start and having a weak attribute spread ruins any potential they have of being built into something both interesting and powerful, for me. This is especially true if you're kinda stuck on PotD. Hard isn't very hard anymore for me, given how well I know the mechanics and encounters. But having weak characters on PotD difficulty often forces me into tedious and "cheesy" tactics(kiting/splitting) to make up for their weaknesses. And just generally, I like having an interesting synergy to my groups which the companions don't really provide.
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