what do others think about slayer, seeker, survivor DLC difficulty?

[thelee]

I had an underoptimized PotD party sitting at level 18 not doing much and used them to give the DLC a shot.

 

The difficulty seems like a good match, though I've only really been doing the survivor challenge track. I'm not sure how well it would scale upwards if I were level 19 or 20 when I first started, but it seems like a good fit. (The survivor track in particular--unless there's some dumb technical trick to trivialize the fights--last so long that I have to put some serious thought into managing my abilities, items, and empower points.)

 

I wonder if anyone else has been trying the other challenge tracks, at different levels, and what their thoughts on the difficulty are. For me at least, I think this fills a nice hole in higher-level content. (Though I have another, more min-maxed character that I'm ready to roll so I guess I'll see in a couple weeks what I think of it then.)

[uuuhhii]

still didn't find titan heart

doesn't know how difficult that boss are

but most fight are interesting and difficult

some survivor fight have so many creature cluster together hard to see what is going on

[InsaneCommander]

some survivor fight have so many creature cluster together hard to see what is going on

 

I'm looking forward to that.

 

I have an underoptimized party too. I may have to respec some people. But not Konstanten, if the respec bug is still there. Tekehu was never the same...

 

[thelee]

well, i took on the final boss at level 19 and it was certainly very challenging--took several tries at many minutes (up to twenty?) each attempt. again, underoptimized party, and i made some critical errors throughout the fight (biggest of which was getting marux amanth's Worthy Sacrifice interrupted, which would've otherwise instakilled the boss at near death with my entire party still standing), but I had loaded up on all sorts of high level consumables (4x copies of Hand of Wael and Woe and Scroll of Miraculous Healing, for example), everything was as highly enchanted as I could possibly do with my mats (lots of legendary, some superb), and it was still extremely hard.

 

it was literally down to the last possible spell on my last standing guy (Vatnir) as i had utterly exhausted every single ability, empower point, consumable and one by one my characters were falling over and Vatnir was the only one left. Vatnir had all of 3 spell casts left, a PL9 and two PL7s. Used PL9 to do Call of Rymrgand to try to eke out a bit more damage and contain the final guy. The only final option after that I had left was Minor Avatar and priest of Rymrgand's Death Ring bonus spell at PL7. Well, my only out was to get lucky (22% hit chance) with Death Ring, so cast once... miss. Boss hits me, brings Vatnir down to 40 health, basically one last hit before complete wipe. Start casting my absolute last spell on Death Ring again, boss's recovery is finished and he's literally in the middle of what's going to be a fatal attack, just as my second Death Ring goes off and... HITS for instakill and victory. I tell you, nothing was sweeter than that moment right there, not even when I got The Ultimate achievement in POE1.

 

So congrats Obsidian. I will literally never complain about a lack of challenging POTD high level content ever again, and all my future parties I roll I will be less forgiving about the "flavor" vs "power" trade-off. DLC is definitely a lot more about sustain rather than burst damage (the boss and lots of enemies in the survival challenge track have literally thousands of health) which will definitely influence how I build out characters in the future.

 

PS. if there's some technical trick to fighting the final boss, please do share. I'm sure there has to be some trick, because otherwise it isjust an unceasing cascade of dots, crowd control, and interrupts, even though all i had Eder do was mule kicks and had near 100% uptime on potion of impediment on my dual-wielding mainchar. (i also had people guzzling those potions that give you affliction resistance)

Edited September 27, 2018 by thelee

[Metaturtle]

The best part I love about the DLC is that I get to replay most of the fights for testing builds. While the fight gimmicks added some new interesting strategies, I liked the fact that the fights had more emphasis on things like stride for interception and sustained interrupts, which will give way to build variations that would not have been optimal before.

[InsaneCommander]

So congrats Obsidian. I will literally never complain about a lack of challenging POTD high level content ever again...

 

I didn't read everything in your comment, but I'm looking forward to fight the boss with my underoptimized party.  

[peolone]

Has anyone beaten the dlc with a solo character?

[misterjimmy]

I'm just curious, Where is the burning titan from poster !?

[house2fly]

It's one of the optional fights, you need to unlock the task The Slaying Face's Hunt for the Titan's Heart

[baldurs_gate_2]

Has anyone beaten the dlc with a solo character?

I can not believe that the enemies there should be harder, than the retaliation berserkers and the 120 hit damage icebears.

[whimper]

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

[Lampros]

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

 

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

[whimper]

 

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

I haven’t tried it with a party yet, so I don’t have a good feel for how difficult it would be party-wise. (Though the above commentaries suggest it’s pretty hard!)

 

But on solo upscaled PotD it’s excruciatingly hard, at least for the builds I’ve tried so far. As in: I’m somewhat doubtful that I’ll be able to do it...

 

(Though maybe that just shows that I’m not hardcore enough!)

[thelee]

 

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

 

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

 

 

having done some more of the challenges, i think the difficulty spikes a bit. it is certainly challenging for a level 18-19 upscaling POTD, but there have been some challenges that are relatively easy compared to others (but still not a pushover). And while I said my party is underoptimized, I definitely play to my fullest.

 

if you're playing at less than level POTD, I don't know what the scaling is like. Some of the difficulty I encountered was because some of the enemies had just sooo much health that normal tricks wouldn't work because they could just outlast them, so just being able to sustain was more important. It might be the case that outside of PoTD upscaling high health isn't as big of a deal.

 

(For reference, in the final boss, I got lucky and hit with two crit Inner Deaths off of Xoti... one for ~250 and the other ~350... and that combined did not even take the boss down a single health category (i.e. "blooded" to "near death"). I even hit with a Resonance off like 40x stack for ~800 damage and that wasn't enough to do a full quarter-slice of health in on its own (though it was closer). So we're talking boatloads of health, all while the boss is constantly terrifying you, stunning you, grabbing you, and applying dots and afflictions. I don't know how much of that is PotD and upscaling and how much of that is just the boss being a hard nut to crack.)

Edited September 28, 2018 by thelee

[Lampros]

 

 

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

 

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

 

 

having done some more of the challenges, i think the difficulty spikes a bit. it is certainly challenging for a level 18-19 upscaling POTD, but there have been some challenges that are relatively easy compared to others (but still not a pushover). And while I said my party is underoptimized, I definitely play to my fullest.

 

if you're playing at less than level POTD, I don't know what the scaling is like. Some of the difficulty I encountered was because some of the enemies had just sooo much health that normal tricks wouldn't work because they could just outlast them, so just being able to sustain was more important. It might be the case that outside of PoTD upscaling high health isn't as big of a deal.

 

(For reference, in the final boss, I got lucky and hit with two crit Inner Deaths off of Xoti... one for ~250 and the other ~350... and that combined did not even take the boss down a single health category (i.e. "blooded" to "near death"). I even hit with a Resonance off like 40x stack for ~800 damage and that wasn't enough to do a full quarter-slice of health in on its own (though it was closer). So we're talking boatloads of health, all while the boss is constantly terrifying you, stunning you, grabbing you, and applying dots and afflictions. I don't know how much of that is PotD and upscaling and how much of that is just the boss being a hard nut to crack.)

 

 

That sounds nuts. I am planning my next run to be PotD, but I don't plan on ever scaling it.

 

As for the need to sustain: I plan on running 1 Zealous Endurance Paladin multi-class and 1 Ancient Memory Chanter multi-class for sustain though. Is the spike damage so much where I do need a dedicated Priest?

Edited September 28, 2018 by Lampros

[Boeroer]

It's def. harder than BoW. I rushed through BoW with a lvl 15 party and stomped all bosses. In SSS I'm level 20 with the same party and in some fights I really have to pull myself together to not screw up. Well done!

[Lampros]

 

 

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

I haven’t tried it with a party yet, so I don’t have a good feel for how difficult it would be party-wise. (Though the above commentaries suggest it’s pretty hard!)

 

But on solo upscaled PotD it’s excruciatingly hard, at least for the builds I’ve tried so far. As in: I’m somewhat doubtful that I’ll be able to do it...

 

(Though maybe that just shows that I’m not hardcore enough!)

 

 

Yeah, I don't ever plan on doing solo anything

[thelee]

 

 

 

Just started trying to solo it, and so far it *definitely* seems harder than any of the fights in the BoW DLC...

 

Is it doable for newbs like me?

 

And do I need to be level 20 to be sure of passing?

 

 

having done some more of the challenges, i think the difficulty spikes a bit. it is certainly challenging for a level 18-19 upscaling POTD, but there have been some challenges that are relatively easy compared to others (but still not a pushover). And while I said my party is underoptimized, I definitely play to my fullest.

 

if you're playing at less than level POTD, I don't know what the scaling is like. Some of the difficulty I encountered was because some of the enemies had just sooo much health that normal tricks wouldn't work because they could just outlast them, so just being able to sustain was more important. It might be the case that outside of PoTD upscaling high health isn't as big of a deal.

 

(For reference, in the final boss, I got lucky and hit with two crit Inner Deaths off of Xoti... one for ~250 and the other ~350... and that combined did not even take the boss down a single health category (i.e. "blooded" to "near death"). I even hit with a Resonance off like 40x stack for ~800 damage and that wasn't enough to do a full quarter-slice of health in on its own (though it was closer). So we're talking boatloads of health, all while the boss is constantly terrifying you, stunning you, grabbing you, and applying dots and afflictions. I don't know how much of that is PotD and upscaling and how much of that is just the boss being a hard nut to crack.)

 

 

That sounds nuts. I am planning my next run to be PotD, but I don't plan on ever scaling it.

 

As for the need to sustain: I plan on running 1 Zealous Endurance Paladin multi-class and 1 Ancient Memory Chanter multi-class for sustain though. Is the spike damage so much where I do need a dedicated Priest?

 

 

I'm just one guy, but to me unless you have lots of DPS and scroll/potion abuse that doesn't sound like enough healing. If your paladin is nothing but a lay on hands heal monkey that might take you pretty far (esp if unscaled).

 

there are some arena challenges that you can be a bit more tricky about without as much healing... in one case I basically just used a fast runner to kite a bunch of invincible shades around while i took care of the non-invincible one.

Edited September 28, 2018 by thelee

[InsaneCommander]

I don't want to remove Vatnir and Konstanten. And definitely not Serafen. So Mirke will have to cede her place to a tank.

[1TTFFSSE]

I don't want to remove Vatnir and Konstanten. And definitely not Serafen. So Mirke will have to cede her place to a tank.

You can make Konstanten tank. Give him good plate, weapon+bash shield, all the +ar barbarian passives. Make him spam stun/push invocation. Recovery in plate is ok with Narvi pet. 

 

Mirke btw is one of the best dps companions in the game from a class/stats perspective. 

[InsaneCommander]

I don't want to remove Vatnir and Konstanten. And definitely not Serafen. So Mirke will have to cede her place to a tank.

You can make Konstanten tank. Give him good plate, weapon+bash shield, all the +ar barbarian passives. Make him spam stun/push invocation. Recovery in plate is ok with Narvi pet. 

 

Mirke btw is one of the best dps companions in the game from a class/stats perspective.

 

I made Konstanten a pure Chanter.

 

And I don't know if it is a good idea to respec him. Did they fix the Chanter respec bug? Tekehu was ruined, he has several chants now, but he can't sing.

[1TTFFSSE]

Well I am doing a playthrough at the moment on hardcore dd with challenges enabled. Did not get to SSS part yet but by then my priest subclass should have salvation of time :)/

 

For healer I am using Paladin/Troubadour this time instead of Lifegiver/Troubadour - and Herald is a weaker healer in early mid levels than a Theurge because the druid gets strong aoe heals earlier than chanter. Later this should be fine with late game chants. Thing is I prefer a Paladin over a druid in terms of party composition because paladin in the end is the stronger party member than a druid. And I could not fit Paladin into my tank because after long deliberation I decided the strongest tank is simply a pure wizard because they get excellent radius damage spells and instant defense buffs, pull of eora, combustive wounds. (could have gone paladin/wizard as too but level 8/9 wizard spells too good to give up). 

 

Other than those two my other damage dealers are Shadowdancer, Contemplative and a Witch. 

 

Ai is probably gonna be dumb on Magran's Challenge with some tactics as I cannot pause and micro to retarget, so I'll see how it goes, hopefully will have enough raw firepower to just nuke all the things. 

[thelee]

 

I don't want to remove Vatnir and Konstanten. And definitely not Serafen. So Mirke will have to cede her place to a tank.

You can make Konstanten tank. Give him good plate, weapon+bash shield, all the +ar barbarian passives. Make him spam stun/push invocation. Recovery in plate is ok with Narvi pet. 

 

Mirke btw is one of the best dps companions in the game from a class/stats perspective.

 

I made Konstanten a pure Chanter.

 

And I don't know if it is a good idea to respec him. Did they fix the Chanter respec bug? Tekehu was ruined, he has several chants now, but he can't sing.

 

 

I've had some multiclass chanters, and after a respec I delete all their songs and recreate them just in case. I haven't run into that bug afaict. maybe someone more in the know can say.

[AndreaColombo]

When I respec with the Unity Console I typically lose one 1st-level ability. In Tekehu’s case that’s usually his Shark Spiritshift form.

[Vonmara]

 

Yeah, I don't ever plan on doing solo anything

I'm pretty sure that's rather impossible for some of the challenges, e.g. the Library Imp one ("In defense of the written word" I believe?), unless someone can find a way to outheal a non dispellable 60 raw damage /3s with no save for about 10 minutes worth of fight