Help Building a Party - DeadFire First Time Player

[Arthain]

I need help building a party and choosing a class in this game. I don't intend to play this game through more than once, I don't have time, so I want to be able to experience as much of the game as possible in a single play-through. Unfortunately I've hit a road block at the character creator. How odd, it seems this is a difficult boss to overcome.

 

I want to create a character that complements my party, so no doubling up on classes unless it's multi, but at the same time, I don't want to play a character class I dislike. I hate monks/barbarians/chanters and while I don't mind druid, I'd never want to play one, all else is fine.

 

There are a few things as well. There are 3 characters I've decided WILL be in my party, two for nostalgia's sake. I've beaten PoE1 and its expansions so Aloth and Eder are almost a guarantee in my party. That and I love Iselmyr. The third companion I've decided upon is Xoti, because I wish to romance her. If having her with Eder prevents me from romancing her, Eder will get the boot, please let me know if them being in the same party will cause a conflict with me pursing her.

 

Aloth - Pure mage, although subclass is possible.

Eder - Meat shield, no idea on class composition and am taking advice.

Xoti - Pure Priest for heals/support.

 

As for the fourth companion, I'm undecided at the moment, but I have been looking at a dual-class Scout Maia Rua. I'd go with Pallegina, but she and Xoti will not get along so that unfortunately locks me out of a second melee because I wish to romance Xoti.

 

As for me? I don't know what I wish to be. There are the classes I will not be, as stated in the second paragraph. There are also roles I do not wish to be. I don't wish to be pure support or pure tank. I'm the hero and I want to be able to throw down with the best of them.

 

Which brings me to my personal favorite class, the Cipher. In every CRPG or RPG game I ever play, I always try to go the caster class. Was this way in the Baldurs Gates, WoWs, FFXI, FFXIV, etc, etc.,. In PoE1, I was a Cipher and I loved it. I really want to be one in PoE2, but I'm not sure how well it'd fit with the above group composition. That's a lot of range, and only Eder to deal with melee (unless I swap out Maia to include a second companion for melee?).

 

The above being stated, I'm not opposed to being a Rogue or an offensive type Paladin, but I'd rather make the Cipher work. Also taking suggestions on Cypher subclass (if any). I prefer to play a spell slinging, battlefield dominating caster class through a combination of both debuffing and raw damage.

 

Any advice would be appreciated!

Thanks.

[Cartoons Plural]

i don't believe any of the character relationships are going to prevent you from anything if xoti and palle are mad at each other its not like they're going to quit the group like in BG

 

aloth as a battlemage is an absolute beast (rp wise you can also attribute it to islmyr, since she even says that stuff to the effect of he's here for the brains and casting and i'm here to knock heads), a tremendous damage fighter next to eder and would free you up to do a shred cipher. i love aloth as a battlemage i may never be able to play him as anything else (though i would like an even more min/maxed version)

 

so with your preferences:

 

Tank - eder (pure fighter)

melee dps - aloth (battlemage)

ranged dps - shred spells on a cipher, pure class or ascendent is good soul blade if you want your weapon damage to shine.

healer - xoti (pure priest)

 

this is a fabulous core that you can do a lot with imo

 

usually i set things up as: tank, melee dps, flex support, ranged dps, ranged support

 

i think xoti rules as a monk/priest aka contemplative and still does good healing and she slides in perfectly as that melee support spot. where its not like they're the main dps of the group but they have a big tool kit and can still hammer when they need to. one thing i like about pillars is how many sources of heals there are i often run in a party that doesn't really have a dedicated one. popping off holy radiance mixed with some potions & second winds seems to be fine most of the time. making xoti a contemplative or a front line priest would leave up another spot in your entourage for long range CC or support caster.

 

however, you could also keep xoti a pure priest of gaun and then say, make pallegina a chanter/palledin aka herald which would cover that front line flex support role. Lot of stuff you can do with this line up and i think if you pick a pure dps caster you'll still have a ton of options since every party member has several choices for what class they get to be.

 

also don't be afraid of hiring characters that fit your party perfectly its a deep system & a lot of fun to play with. for example, right now I have a shephard (stalker ranger/dracozzi paladin) frontline tank that has a pet lion for dps. and i could have probably picked shieldbearer to make it even more min/maxed but i wanted the rp aspect of being a paladin from old vailia. she cannot be knocked down, she has all of the defender perks from both trees combined with the buffs she gets from being near her pet.

 

i would say if you like being the nuke caster and you don't want to make aloth a battlemage you can still do something else with him, he's a pure wizard and might score wouldn't be wasted on being kitted to do a bunch of debuffs and stuff. however you'll be missing out on citzal's spirit lance + mule kick flipping an entire front line

 

my last bit of advice is that games like this shoudn't be speed runs or played through once. i've spent at least 100 hours simply making characters with this system.

 

last note: only played through it twice on veteran with scaling so i'm no potd pro

Edited November 25, 2018 by Cartoons Plural

[Arthain]

Thank you for the information. I didn't know Xoti and Pallegina could be in the same party. I thought we'd have a Mass Effect or Baldurs Gate scenario where I had to choose one over the other. Having Pallegina as a Herald really fills that second melee niche I was hoping to have so that the other three could stay range.

 

I'm not entirely sure I want to make Aloth a Battlemage, I'd have to look into how that plays, gameplay wise, before I commit to it. Battlemages have typcially never really been done very well, at least not how I've envisioned them. Basically they've all been 'cast buffs on myself and then go ham in melee' which doesn't really seem like an interesting gameplay style.

 

Anyways, I don't intend to do a speedrun. I'm a completionist. When I play a game, I do everything, which means games often taken twice as long for me as the average person. It's why I generally don't have time for a second playthrough.

 

Anyways, thanks for the help.

 

Now I just gotta figure out how to build my Cipher. I'm thinking a 12/10/16/19/18/3 stat spread.

[msyoung]

If you only play once then you are going to miss a feature called Berath's Blessings.

[protopersona]

If you only play once then you are going to miss a feature called Berath's Blessings.

I wouldn't call those a feature people must experience. They're all more like pre-order bonuses really, since all they do is give you a leg up on subsequent playthroughs. The Magran's Fires you could make an argument for, but so far I've found them to all be more trouble than they're worth.

[Arthain]

It'd be nice to replay the game several times, but that's not really any option, as I've said. There's just too many games these days for me to be able to do so. I've got until January to finish my backlog of games before we get a massive storm of titles.

 

Anyways, if Pallegina doesn't work, who is a good companion to have alongside Eder, Aloth, Xoti, and a Cipher MC?

[Enoch]

It'd be nice to replay the game several times, but that's not really any option, as I've said. There's just too many games these days for me to be able to do so. I've got until January to finish my backlog of games before we get a massive storm of titles.

 

Anyways, if Pallegina doesn't work, who is a good companion to have alongside Eder, Aloth, Xoti, and a Cipher MC?

Could go with Serafen as a pure Barbarian.  Tekehu is fun to have around, but, with that cast, you probably want more front-line beef.  (Unless you Battlemage Aloth or build Xoti to be particularly tanky.)

 

That said, Pallegina will work OK-- she'll squabble with the preachy types and you'll have a tough time getting both of them to like you, but it never comes to blows.  Also be aware that some of the Companions who care deeply about particular factions may not go along if you choose to ally with a different one. 

 

If you're open to using the "Sidekicks" (companions with less narrative content-- no personal quest or intra-party approval mechanic), Rekke is a beast of a front-liner in any of his class options (FIG, FIG/BAR, FIG/MON).  Konstantin makes an okay BAR or BAR/CHA.  Mirke can be a pure Monk, and pure Monks are great.

[Gromnir]

as enoch mentions, xoti is having tank potential.  maybe not primary tank, but off-tank.  in point o' fact, +90% o' the time am using giving xoti weapon and shield talent and tank appropriate gear.  'tween her and eder, you got more than enough meat shielding.  

 

the thing is, there is no reason for keeping your party fixed and immutable.  is more than enough xp to go around, so mixing your party composition to take advantage o' individual character quests makes much sense.  as such, we typical got pairs o' characters who fulfill similar combat and skill roles.  such pairs often have ideological conflicts-- keeping 'em separated allows us to more effective gain influence. 

 

aloth and tekehu (as a pure druid) is both great for ranged damage spells.  sure, we are able to get heals outta tek which we cannot achieve with aloth, and aloth has debuffs which tek does not have access, but we is able to plug tek in for aloth rather easily.  am admitting we dislike tek as a character, but regardless o' personal feelings, his tendency towards the irreverent conflicts with aloth. 

 

pallegina and xoti is not ideal squadmates.  solution is to keep 'em insulated from each other for much o' the game while assigning 'em similar roles.  pure priest xoti is a fantastic buffer and healer who we have off-tank.  pallegina as a paladin/chanter will be able to fulfill a similar role, albeit with a bit more melee dps potential.  

 

maia as a scout and serafen as a cipher is our usual pairing.  ideologically, the blue monkey and the gubhawk is hardly polar opposites, but from a skills perspective, we have 'em doing similar stuff.  serafen is our trap\stealth guy... so too with maia.  if you personal play as a cipher, then switch serafen to barbarian or witch makes perfect sense.  is a few comical effective barbarian+blunderbuss builds which we do not actual recommend using as they is kinda cheesy one-trick ponies, but is worth investigating to at least see just how flexible is deadfire barbarians. 

 

tank eder is kinda our staple unless we personal play a tank.  eder gets along with everybody, or so it seems, and he is kinda ideal as a tank.

 

the thing is, even if you have pallegina and xoti in same party all the time, chances are they won't rage-quit on you 'cause they dislike each other.  your potential problem arises if you are constat telling xoti what you believe she wants to hear with pallegina, particular a disloyal pallegina, in your party.  if you import a poe1 save in which pallegina were disloyal to the ducs, then she is gonna be a bit less forgiving o' your god talks with xoti.  there were an early release bug which resulted in the possibility for a disloyal pallegina to leave your party after a single such pro-gods discussion.  the bug were fixed, but am honest not knowing what is pallegina's current faith threshold.  we got in the habit o' avoiding any vtc entanglements or god talk with pallegina in the party, which is a bit limiting.

 

as for player character builds with a party most often composed o' aloth, eder, xoti and maia/serafen...

 

*shrug*

 

am personal seeming always to be playing priests, so our personal first choice involving cipher would be a cipher soul blade + priest o' berath. might sound like an odd combo, but unlike mages who have grimoires which they may switch out at any time to be getting access to potential every wizard spell in the game, priests are not so lucky.  even with xoti as a pure priest, you will still likely need forgo a few nice priest spells.  play a priest multi as a main character solves dilemma.  xoti prefers passionate dialog responses, so berath's dispositions ain't ideal, but simple choose benevolent and godly options whenever possible and you will be fine.  could play a cipher + priest o' eothas for ideal pairing with xoti, but the spiritual weapon for eothas is a flail, which while nice enough doesn't synergize as well with a soul blade cipher as does berath's great sword.  

 

is nothing wrong with going vanilla cipher.  such a character can be built for melee as easily as ranged.  early beta release deadfire ciphers had issues with gaining focus rapid enough to be useful casters, but such is no longer the case.  ranged or melee is gonna build decent focus with almost any weapon or weapon combo. soul blades and soul blade multi-class ciphers will actual need be engaging in melee a significant portion o' the game to be getting the benefits o' the subclass.  cipher + paladin is a fine melee option and you are even able to build such as a tank if you so desire.  cipher + fighter is also a fantastic option with which you might also be taking advantage o' critical hit builds. our only caution 'bout soul blades is how the soul annihilation mechanic has a tendency to limit gameplay.  is not an actual limitation as there is no reason a player need build focus and then exhaust with soul annihilation at the expense o' casting, but there is a tendency for soul blade players to do so. 

 

is too bad you do not like playing monks, 'cause in addition to vanilla monks, virtual all multiclass monks have nice options.  as with poe1, deadfire monks is a powerful and versatile class which may tank or dps (or a bit o' both) with high effectiveness. armoured or unarmoured monk is equal viable.  pillars monks is not relegated to fighting armourless and empty-handed.  monks also got some significant variety o' gameplay from the available subclasses.  along with chanters, we would suggest monks as being the most versatile deadfire class. 

 

as an aside, we wouldn't feel limited 'bout class choice based on your desired party config o' eder, aloth and xoti.  other than going immortal tank with eder doing the same, you could play just 'bout anything and still achieve great party synergy.  as we noted already, with a similar core party we typical play priest multis and priest characters.  deadfire is flexible.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Guest Psychovampiric Shield]

Aloth should be fine as battlemage. Pure wizards (to a degree priests/druids too) are imo annoying to level up, because they have few passives and grimoire coupled with spell casts split between power levels discourage from taking active spells. On the other hand, the fighter part of fighter-wizard can contribute active/passive abilities, some of which are highly desirable for casters.

Avoid beguiler subclass on cipher unless you want to flat out abuse a glitch with low tier deception spells.

[Prince of Lies]

If you want to get Eder to dish out some extra damage, I'd suggest making him a riposte build Swashbuckler (Fighter/Rogue).

 

This would let him dish out more damage without sacrificing tanky-ness. 

[Haplok]

Never had a problem having both Xoti and Pallegina in my party. Sure got a few minuses in relations with Pallegina, but who cares?

She's a great support and offtank as Herald.

Eder: definitely Fighter/Rogue: still more then durable enough and actually capable of dealing damage.

Aloth: I also prefer battlemage. Not so much to melee (although you can!), but more for easy cruise mode. Having a wizard, who'd durable, capable and I don't have to babysit all the time is actually great!

 

If you like Ciphers, Ascendants are a blast! Soulblades are a bit one-trick ponies. Personally I recommend Transcendet, as a Helwalker monk simply supercharges all Cipher powers - durations, aoes, damage (and ability to generate Focus also!). Best synergy IMO.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Haplok