Animal Companions and Megabosses

[nem0]

Hey Guys! 

I have been looking into strategies for Megabosses and bosses and in particular it seems the most effective thing against them is accuracy and defense stats. Compared to PoE1 it is much harder to stack buffs and debuffs which is generally a better idea I think. What I have been seeing while reading through classes is that there are only a few straight accuracy buffs between classes. Most notable the Ranger has more available class Accuracy buffs than anyone else, upwards of 30 or more not counting active abilities. 

However, one of the +10 Acc buffs and some other skills are dependent on your animal companion also attacking but based on their stats there is no way to survive against the megabosses. Are there any strategies other than Barring death's door to keep them alive and still get bonuses. I know ghost heart is an option but seems like a waste of bond to have them die over and over again.

[Boeroer]

You mean solo? Because with a party it's not that hard to keep an animal companion alive. Since you want to take on the Megabosses at highest level anyways your AC will have scaled AR and there are some nice AR buffs which makes them rel. sturdy. Add passive healing or healing over time (Chanter, Paladin, Druid) and you're good.

 

I soloed the Dracolich several times (when there were no Megabosses yet) with a Stalker Geomancer because of the awesome ACC and some other nice synergies against single targets and my AC wasn't even attacked that often. I didn't use any consumables so I guess there's still room for improvement.

 

A nice synergy against tough single foes is Paladin/Stalker - because you and the AC have bonus AR and defense, more heals, an AR+ aura that heals passively, Flames of Devotion does +20 ACC with Ring of Focused Flames on top of all the Ranger ACC bonuses and other things that can be good for your AC. And you can evade very nicely with Evasive Roll - although that can trigger the Stalker debuff for a short time.

 

Paladin/Troubadour is also nice because you can stack more passive healing and also create summons that distract from the AC. An endless stream of summons can be very helpful (see the chant phrase "Many Lives pass by" that summons an autopiloting skeleton every 3 secs that "stacks" with other sumons...).

 

Another way to reach high ACC without ranger is single class Monk. With Enduring Dance and Razor's Edge you can get +22 ACC on top of the other stuff. And The Long Pain's ACC scales very nicely. Run around and kite while firing with those flying fists is pretty nasty. Another nice thing is Chromoprismatic Staff with Instruments of Pain. Also look at Empowered Strikes... just saying...

Edited December 21, 2018 by Boeroer

[nem0]

Thanks Boeroer!

I was not planning on doing solo at the moment however I noticed it was very difficult to keep my not tank built characters alive vs the ooze and spider. Their accuracy is around 140 or 150 I believe and I was getting crit for around 100 something. I will need to check their armor penetration but I figured they would get hit about the same. 

I need to go test what all stacks as far as abilities between the monk and ranger but I was considering a crit based MC with them. The staff idea is really good though, in my head for some reason I figured the instruments of pain wouldn't work with 2H idk why.

Also does the game consider the companion a teammate for the Hearth Orlan bonus? I remember I tried the cipher reaping knives on pets and it wouldn't work but that may be because they do not technically have weapon slots. 

Edited December 21, 2018 by nem0

[Boeroer]

Hearth Orlan's Minor Threat + Animal Companion: yes. Even summons and charmed enemies work afaik.

 

Quarterstaff and Pike are especially great with Instruments of Pain because it gives you +500% range. And both weapons already have a range of 1.8 meters instead of the normal melee range (reach). So with IoP you get a range of nearly 11 meters. Attacking with all the melee goodies from 11 meters is... awesome. The Long Pain is also great, but it's considered a ranged weapon and thus doesn't work with melee-only stuff.

 

Very high ACC can also be achieved with Monk/Ranger. Enduring Dance stacks with the Ranger ACC bonuses. Also Long Pain with Drivin Flight is great. Or dual mortars + Stunning Surge + Driving Flight. But honestly the PL8/9 stuff of monks is so good...