Game advice reliabe?

[Dykeras]

Bought this game a few years ago and with POE 2 coming out i have decided to go through the game as a paladin (my favourite fantasy trope) and after a few days browsing the forums/checking reddit game advice for beginners, i have come up with a list of advice that is offered to new players and wondered how reliable it is (should i follow it) ...

 

1, Paladins are terrible... poor fighters, poor magic (cut-price priest) so just avoid  -  (I guess my playing  Paladin is out then)

2, Never use 2 handed weapons - either dual wield or sword/board   

3, Monks suck until end game

4, min-maxing stats is essential - even on meduim difficulty (must follow cookie-cutter builds, no room for individuality)

 

 

As I said, these are the general consensus from Reddit/forums and just wondered how accurate they are (maybe some patches change things)?

 

Or maybe just go for POE2  where hopefully paladins are useful?

 

 

[Gfted1]

Ive read that Paladins can really shine when multi-classed. Are you looking for a Paladin only build?

 

Here is a character builds forum where you may find some suggestions.

 

EDIT: Whoops, you are asking about PoE1. Disregard the above post. 

[draego]

4. in POE1 this is BS even on POTD. You can safely do a stat spread that you like. the game is more about learning how to counter enemy strengths with your own spells and abilities and gear. Once you get the hang of it the stats arent that big a deal. I even find with alot of builds you can move all stats to average and find they play almost exactly the same. Its all perceptions from d&d stats which this game is inspired from but the stats are deliberately made to where you can almost not build a bad build. 

 

Also on harder difficulties the early game can be tough but once you get some levels and abilities you start to roll. 

 

1. Paladins in POE1 are arguably the best tanks in game maybe chanter (depending on what you need) but defensive tank for sure. I like to use Palligina a companion paladin as my main tank ahead of say a fighter like Eder. Paladins get access to one of the best shields in the game in the first town. I also enjoyed a run with Pallagina using a two handed soulbound greatsword. Two handed weapons can be powerful on paladins because Paladins have nice first strike abilities with flames of devotion and sworn enemy. Also because they can get really high defenses they can easily be your off tank two hand weapon person

 

I find paladins be be very good in this game. They fill alot of the support for team with passive buffs and other emergency buttons like heals and liberating exhortation (Hostile effects suspended) and remove charms. They have very good defenses. they also get a great AOE dps/healing abilities later in game called Sacred Immolation. You will find yourself using all these abilities in almost every fight well ones that last more than a few seconds because they have very useful abilities. 

Edited August 15, 2018 by draego

[dreamrider]

Reiterating what draego just said above about stats.

 

When returning to the game a couple months ago, after years (and not finishing the first time), my reading and analysis of the effects of each attribute lead me to believe that no stat was unimportant across the range of combat types in the game, and that in solo in particular, balanced was probably as good if not superior, at least after the first 2-3 maps.  I was aided in coming to this view by reviewing the work of, and consulting with, several forum acknowledged build architects, notably Boeroer.

 

Don't get me wrong.  Min / maxing can be very powerful, but it is most powerful when done within a carefully constructed party, and focused acquisition of particular artifacts, to cover the deliberate weaknesses of the min/maxed MC, and, to a lesser extent, magnify the features that you built the lead character around.

 

So I began a test run, to see how well "balanced Attributes" really works. 

I'm soloing a Monk whose initial culture/background-adjusted stats were 13 / 13 / 13 / 13 / 13 / 13.

Difficulty setting is Hard, ToI.  (I didn't go Expert since I had no recent experience with ranges, etc.)

 

I just made L15, shortly after the beginning of Act III, completionist, and progress is actually gradually getting easier.

There have been perhaps half a dozen "You are dead" map start reloads.

There has been NO point where I have said, "This would work better with maxed ____ stat."  In fact, without it really being a goal, I have found myself choosing gear, boons, etc, mostly to keep the stats pretty balanced.

 

Currently, unbuffed for any particular encounter, but wearing my favored all-purpose gear, the character's stats are: 17 / 15 / 16 / 15 / 15 / 16.

 

I think if I do a subsequent similar run, I will probably experiment with choosing "1 up, 1 down" among the paired Attributes, MIG/CON, DEX/PER, and INT/RES, but not more than that for now. 

 

 

I don't have any personal experience with paladin MCs, but extensive reading of various build architects forum presentations indicates that paladins are one of the favored careers for MC tanks and, especially, off-tanks, along with chanters, barbarians, and maybe monks, in party runs.  Probably a choice ahead of fighters in those roles.  Fighters seem to be viewed as perfectly OK, even great, in the frontliner role, but a little limited or "one-note" for an MC.  Rogues, Monks, and Wizards seem to be slightly favored as solos, for their flexibility I imagine.

Edited August 16, 2018 by dreamrider

[draego]

Reiterating what draego just said above about stats.

 

When returning to the game a couple months ago, after years (and not finishing the first time), my reading and analysis of the effects of each attribute lead me to believe that no stat was unimportant across the range of combat types in the game, and that in solo in particular, balanced was probably as good if not superior, at least after the first 2-3 maps.  I was aided in coming to this view by reviewing the work of, and consulting with, several forum acknowledged build architects, notably Boeroer.

 

Don't get me wrong.  Min / maxing can be very powerful, but it is most powerful when done within a carefully constructed party, and focused acquisition of particular artifacts, to cover the deliberate weaknesses of the min/maxed MC, and, to a lesser extent, magnify the features that you built the lead character around.

 

So I began a test run, to see how well "balanced Attributes" really works. 

I'm soloing a Monk whose initial culture/background-adjusted stats were 13 / 13 / 13 / 13 / 13 / 13.

Difficulty setting is Hard, ToI.  (I didn't go Expert since I had no recent experience with ranges, etc.)

 

I just made L15, shortly after the beginning of Act III, completionist, and progress is actually gradually getting easier.

There have been perhaps half a dozen "You are dead" map start reloads.

There has been NO point where I have said, "This would work better with maxed ____ stat."  In fact, without it really being a goal, I have found myself choosing gear, boons, etc, mostly to keep the stats pretty balanced.

 

Currently, unbuffed for any particular encounter, but wearing my favored all-purpose gear, the character's stats are: 17 / 15 / 16 / 15 / 15 / 16.

 

I think if I do a subsequent similar run, I will probably experiment with choosing "1 up, 1 down" among the paired Attributes, MIG/CON, DEX/PER, and INT/RES, but not more than that for now. 

 

 

I don't have any personal experience with paladin MCs, but extensive reading of various build architects forum presentations indicates that paladins are one of the favored careers for MC tanks and, especially, off-tanks, along with chanters, barbarians, and maybe monks, in party runs.  Probably a choice ahead of fighters in those roles.  Fighters seem to be viewed as perfectly OK, even great, in the frontliner role, but a little limited or "one-note" for an MC.  Rogues, Monks, and Wizards seem to be slightly favored as solos, for their flexibility I imagine.

 

i enjoy your tale of evan even handed 

[dreamrider]

Why, Thank You.

[Boeroer]

Bought this game a few years ago and with POE 2 coming out i have decided to go through the game as a paladin (my favourite fantasy trope) and after a few days browsing the forums/checking reddit game advice for beginners, i have come up with a list of advice that is offered to new players and wondered how reliable it is (should i follow it) ...

 

1, Paladins are terrible... poor fighters, poor magic (cut-price priest) so just avoid - (I guess my playing Paladin is out then)

2, Never use 2 handed weapons - either dual wield or sword/board

3, Monks suck until end game

4, min-maxing stats is essential - even on meduim difficulty (must follow cookie-cutter builds, no room for individuality)

 

 

As I said, these are the general consensus from Reddit/forums and just wondered how accurate they are (maybe some patches change things)?

 

Or maybe just go for POE2 where hopefully paladins are useful?

Those advices are all wrong:

 

Paladins are not terrible. They are versatile and reliable and can be build in different directions (offensive for burst damage, defensive for tanking, build for support - even crowd control is possible).

Priest is superior - but Priest is superior to any other class as well, so...

But Paladin is the much easier class to play during the first levels.

 

There are some great two handers for paladins. My favorite is Firebrand which works extremely well with Flames of Devotion (I've had crits for over 250 dmg). But others are nice as well: Hours of St. Rumbalt, Blade of the Endless Paths... Given that the weapon with the highest dps potential is Tidefall (a great sword) the statement is wrong per se.

 

Monk is the most potent non-caster class in PoE. Great defenses, great offense great crowd control/disables. How anybody can seriously claim that monks suck is so far beyond me that I think they played a different game. Or only rogues...

 

Number 5 is the most hilariously wrong thing of the list. Lots of room for individuality even on Path of the Damned. No need to min-maxed if you want to play with a full party.

Edited August 17, 2018 by Boeroer

[Goumindong]

Bought this game a few years ago and with POE 2 coming out i have decided to go through the game as a paladin (my favourite fantasy trope) and after a few days browsing the forums/checking reddit game advice for beginners, i have come up with a list of advice that is offered to new players and wondered how reliable it is (should i follow it) ...

 

1, Paladins are terrible... poor fighters, poor magic (cut-price priest) so just avoid  -  (I guess my playing  Paladin is out then)

2, Never use 2 handed weapons - either dual wield or sword/board   

3, Monks suck until end game

4, min-maxing stats is essential - even on meduim difficulty (must follow cookie-cutter builds, no room for individuality)

 

 

As I said, these are the general consensus from Reddit/forums and just wondered how accurate they are (maybe some patches change things)?

 

Or maybe just go for POE2  where hopefully paladins are useful?

 

It is partially true that the advise you have been given is bad. But not because of those specific points but because those points ignore how to succeed in Pillars and focus on how to achieve success better once you know how. 

 

Specifically Pillars of Eternity is less about stat optimization as it is about action optimization. There are a few exceptions to this on higher difficulties* but in general success is had by layering debuffs/buffs/actions and not by maximizing stats. The stacking rules with regards to debuffs and buffs are very punishing if you don't realize what is going on. Do you need high accuracy to land those initial debuffs? Not really; since a graze is as good as a hit for the first few seconds of a debuff you can utilize the lowered stats due to the debuff to apply other debuffs for longer. Its also very easy to apply buffs that are already up and not realize it. Zealous Focus does not stack with the level 1 priest Accuracy buff spell as an example.

 

With regards to the specific points:

 

1) Paladins i think are one of the weaker melee classes. But not because they're weak, simply because they're not as focused as some of the others. They don't do AoE damage like barbarians and monks.  They don't produce as much consistent single target DPS as fighters.. And they don't tank as hard as fighters. They don't heal as hard as priests. What they do do is all of those things at once. Adequate single target and burst damage. Adequate tanking. Good healing(especially single target).

 

2) Two handed weapons are great and get better as difficulty increases. Two handed weapons are less effected by armor attack recovery malus when compared to dual wielding** and do a significant amount more damage than sword and board. There are, additionally, a large number of very good two handed weapons floating around the game. Dealing damage is important to keeping aggro on your tanks (if your disengage does not hurt enemies will simply disengage and surround your squishy units) and two handers are tops at doing that against high DR targets.

 

The real thing that people would be likely to suggest not to do would be to run a one handed weapon with no shield. This does give a significant accuracy bonus but unless you're abusing an "on crit" effect that isn't particularly valuable***.

 

3) Monks are probably the best melee class at all points in the game. Melee classes are almost always going to take damage regardless and they not only have good defenses but also get stronger as they take damage. Additionally they have ways to take advantage of taking damage even more. A monk with the deadfire cannoner belt is rightly hilarious

 

4) Min-maxing talents is more important than stats. Every additional point of stats generally has diminishing returns. From 18 to 19 might you gain +3% damage. But you were already at

+24% damage so your relative gain is only 2.4%. Going from 10 to 11 dex gives you 3% attack speed. So 18/11 has s slightly higher DPS than 19/10. Unless attack speed really doesn't matter for you you maximize dps at 14/15 or 15/14. Two handed Style is worth 5 points of might. Interrupting Blows is worth 5 points of perception. Weapon Focus is worth 6 points of perception. Utility elemental damage talents are worth > 7 points of might for spells which are that damage type. Weapon Swapping abilities are worth many points of dexterity for situations... etc etc.

 

*certain classes are easy to mess up on higher difficulties because they will not be able to optimize their actions without a fairly optimal build. Offensive casters i think are a focus here. Its really easy to choose spells that simply don't do enough, or leave power on the table compared to abusing interrupting blows and AoE re-apply ticks. Chill Fog is one of the better wizard spells not just because of the damage and the blind, but because each damage tick has a chance to interrupt, producing a rolling AoE- mini stun. Wizards who want to nuke that are not focused on this type of build will find themselves unable to effectively contribute unless others are picking up the slack and because enemy HP increases on higher difficulties, AoE DoT's become a lot more valuable.

 

**Dual wielding gives a bonus to attack speed and recovery for each weapon. Because of the way that bonuses stack this means that the recovery penalty applied from armor hurts them the most.

 

***Post white March 2 fighters can do this because they will be able to get prone on disengage. Having a high attack bonus basically ensures this hits. Critting produces an even longer effect. Besides this there aren't ways to AoE proc on-crit effects for weapons as far as i know.

[Boeroer]

Paladins do tank better than fighters. They also do good AoE damage - but only at lvl 13+.

 

How are Two Handed weapons affected less from armors' attack recovery penalty? Or why is dual wieldig affected more? In my opinion that's a wrong statement. Especially when you take into account that it's pretty easy to achieve 0 recovery with dual wieldig while wearing heavy armor and that Full Attacks omit recovery for the offhand completely. They also don't get better as difficulty increases - since DR is not influenced by difficulty unlike in Deadfire. Care to elaborate?

 

While I agree that stats are way less important than talents/ability choice, by comparing stuff like Two Handed Style with +5 MIG you ignore several additional effects MIG has: it influences all damage, even that of the wounding enchantment, it increases healing you do and it increases fortitude by 2 points per point (so in this case +5 MIG means +10 fortitude). Same with Interrupting Blows/Per etc. Thus I find such comparisons problematic. I know you mean this for special cases like when solely looking at dps - but dps and the other effects are connected: if you get paralyzed because your fortitude is low you can't do any damage.

 

Single Handed use can have a big impact. Usually this effect is strongest in the early game where the ratio of ACC/enemy defenses is the worst and you don't have lots of tools to either lower enemies' defenses and/or raise your ACC. Then there are special cases. For example a Chanter with Dragon Thrashed gets +12 all-stacking ACC for his chant when using a single weapon.

 

Building around interrupts is overrated in my opinion. To reliably interrupt a worthy enemy (the squishy ones die rather quickly anyway) who has good RES you need high PER, Interrupting Blows and some gear that boosts interrupts via PER bonus or direct interrupt bonus. All that hassle can be avoided and superceded by simply using hard CC. Especially when playing PotD where enemies' RES is higher. I did several builds around interrupts, for example Barbs with Vile Loner's Lance and Arthek's Cord or a Druid with focus on pulsing spells like Wicked Briars (which are not DoT) which can in theory interrupt in an AoE. All that was strictly inferior to just use an overbearing weapon on the barb or use Relentless Storm on the druid which put hard CC instead.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Boeroer

[Goumindong]

I was under the impression that DR was one of the things effected by difficulty (at least in POTD). If its not then I am wrong there. My estimation was also below 13(as i do not have the expansions). So that effects things as well. As for tanking. I find fighters tend to do it better due to their passive healing and high consistent damage. But the difference isn't big enough to matter most of the time and post 13 Paladins defenses scale better(there is also a margin between a main character paladin and not, with the main character paladin being significantly stronger)

 

 

 

How are Two Handed weapons affected less from armors' attack recovery penalty?

 

According to this thread's updated form and its http://associated html calculator you only have that iteration of attack when you use an ability that says "full attack action" otherwise you alternate attacks with a significant positive recovery modifier. Monks in particular have an good time dual wielding because its very easy for them to always have "full attack action" activated abilities to use since they're not encounter limited. (and lets be honest... you're going to take the damage)*

 

The way attack recovery modifications work is linear in simple effect. Linear in simple effect produces diminishing penalties to increase in absolute effect. I.E. if you move from 20 frames per attack to 30 frames per attack you have lost 33% dps. If you move from 30 to 40 you have lost 25%.

 

So if you're wielding two daggers your attack cycle is 5 raw delay, 20 attack, 16.6 attack delay main hand then 5 raw delay, 20 attack, 16,6 attack delay off hand. Dual wielding has produced a 50% recovery reduction on the main and off hand. If you then put on plate mail you're back up to normal 5 delay, 20 attack, 33.3 delay for each since it produces a -50% recovery reduction. A 29% reduction in DPS. Compare to a Two Hander or one hander. Which went from 5, 30,50 to 5,30,75 when adding the plate. A 23% reduction in dps.

 

Because of this, until you're over the zero recovery cap you will always suffer a larger effective penalty from any penalty when you're closer to the zero recovery cap.

 

 

 

While I agree that stats are way less important than talents/ability choice, by comparing stuff like Two Handed Style with +5 MIG you ignore several additional effects MIG has: it influences all damage, even that of the wounding enchantment, it increases healing you do and it increases fortitude by 2 points per point (so in this case +5 MIG means +10 fortitude). Same with Interrupting Blows/Per etc. Thus I find such comparisons problematic. I know you mean this for special cases like when solely looking at dps - but dps and the other effects are connected: if you get paralyzed because your fortitude is low you can't do any damage.

 

This is true. But we're talking about stat allocation here. So adding might is in expense of constitution or perception or resolve. You're always gaining or losing those ancillary advantages and disadvantages in other areas. Once we subtract out the fortitude (because we're now trading off for some other equally important defensive stat) we're largely left with the unique advantage that the stat brings. Attack, Damage, Attack Speed**, AoE etc. If you're thinking to yourself "I gotta have those extra couple of points in might in order to eeek out more damage" you probably don't, you can make up for it with a talent and the marginal value on the stats end up being pretty low once you add a talent or two that specifically addresses that area.

 

 

 

Single Handed use can have a big impact. Usually this effect is strongest in the early game where the ratio of ACC/enemy defenses is the worst and you don't have lots of tools to either lower enemies' defenses and/or raise your ACC. Then there are special cases. For example a Chanter with Dragon Thrashed gets +12 all-stacking ACC for his chant when using a single weapon.

 

There are indeed. And its raw better than DW if you're able to achieve 100% attack recovery reduction. Its just harder to do and so unlikely to be recommended. You're generally either going to want to have a 2H for punching through DR or a 2W for dealing maximum dps. The point wasn't that it didn't have value just that you're more likely to see a guide recommend "don't go one handed only" compared to "don't use two handed weapons"

 

 

 

Building around interrupts is overrated in my opinion. To reliably interrupt a worthy enemy (the squishy ones die rather quickly anyway) who has good RES you need high PER, Interrupting Blows and some gear that boosts interrupts via PER bonus or direct interrupt bonus. All that hassle can be avoided and superceded by simply using hard CC. Especially when playing PotD where enemies' RES is higher. I did several builds around interrupts, for example Barbs with Vile Loner's Lance and Arthek's Cord or a Druid with focus on pulsing spells like Wicked Briars (which are not DoT) which can in theory interrupt in an AoE. All that was strictly inferior to just use an overbearing weapon on the barb or use Relentless Storm on the druid which put hard CC instead.

 

Sure, but you don't get relentless storm early in the game. And can get interrupting blows and high perception early in the game. And its not like you cannot use stunning abilities like the above with high perception and interrupting blows (indeed they're better with high perception as an increased probability of crits/reduced grazes means an increased incapacitated duration). Building around interrupts on a barbarian is pretty iffy since your attack range isn't that great and your tick rate is always going to be low, limited by your attack speed, and its AoE. But AoE recurring interrupts stack with each other because you can stack them by casting more AoE recurring interrupts in the area.

 

*Additionally it is worth noting that if you are attempting to make use of this you may want to use a fast main hand weapon (like your fist or a hatchet) and a large off hand weapon (like a spear or saber) in order to maximize your overall DPS against foes with decent DR

 

**Attack speed is a funky one for a number of reasons but its also the only ability that is fully summable with other stats and so makes dexterity unique.

[Boeroer]

Yeah... so the weapon with infinite recovery time is best to use with plate armor... Because it has no dps drop. While mathematically correct it doesn't really have a positive effect on your in-game performance.

 

 

It's also a lot harder to reach 0 recovery with a two hander if you slap on heavy armor. But zero recovery with heavy armors aside: to gain any real benefit from the slightly less dps drop from armor Two Handers would need to do similar dps than a dual weapon setup in the first place - and you would need to use only auto-attacks only. Both is not the case most of the time.

 

Also, even when the auto-attack dual wieldig setup suffers a bit more (percentage wise) you'll still have a lot shorter recovery in general which is good for any kind of stuff you want to do in between - like a Paladin who wants to stop attacking in order to heal a companion for example.

 

So all in all (looking at the actual game and not a theoretical, isolated situation) the general statement that two handers are better with heavy armor than a dual wieldig setup is misleading in my opinion.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Boeroer

[Goumindong]

Uhh well... yes. If you had a weapon that had an infinite recovery time there would be no penalty to using full plate.

 

It is indeed harder to reach zero recovery with heavy armor on anything other than DW but that does not negate the fact that the penalty (so long as you're not over cap) is still larger.

 

I don't know about you but i find that in any of the fights that particularly matter i still do a lot of auto attacking; simply because the duration of the fight means that I am out of activatible abilities long before the fight is over.

[Mygaffer]

Bought this game a few years ago and with POE 2 coming out i have decided to go through the game as a paladin (my favourite fantasy trope) and after a few days browsing the forums/checking reddit game advice for beginners, i have come up with a list of advice that is offered to new players and wondered how reliable it is (should i follow it) ...

 

1, Paladins are terrible... poor fighters, poor magic (cut-price priest) so just avoid  -  (I guess my playing  Paladin is out then)

2, Never use 2 handed weapons - either dual wield or sword/board   

3, Monks suck until end game

4, min-maxing stats is essential - even on meduim difficulty (must follow cookie-cutter builds, no room for individuality)

 

 

As I said, these are the general consensus from Reddit/forums and just wondered how accurate they are (maybe some patches change things)?

 

Or maybe just go for POE2  where hopefully paladins are useful?

That's all terrible advice. Paladins are not a gimped class, there are plenty of builds that use two handed weapons, monks are awesome, and min-maxing is so not essential in this game, it was literally designed around not having players min-max.

 

I never min-max in Pillars and I play on PotD no problem, with every class. Just have fun with it.

 

And if you're not playing on PotD all of that stuff makes even less sense.

 

EDIT: I finally got around to playing a rogue, I've made him a disgraced Vailian noble who had to flee his home country before being killed for various indiscretions and excesses, many coming at the expense of his subjects. Think Lord Gathbin but even worse to his people. While on the run he had a profound religious experience which compelled him to dedicate the rest of his life to improving the world for common folk.

 

It's been a lot of fun, the singe target damage is nice, highest single target damage 318.6 (I imagine from finishing blow), and currently I've got him built as a crit machine, they have some great mobility abilities, debuffs, it's been a fun class to play.

 

I still haven't played more than 2 hours of Deadfire. I'm waiting for all the DLC and the majority of the patches to happen.

Edited November 6, 2018 by Mygaffer