Last Run... final thoughts

[heldred]

After completing my third, and possibly final, run through POE2, I wanted to share my thoughts on the game and highlight some effective classes.

 

I like to play “tankier” characters with flexibility, which usually means multiclass warrior-casters.  My final team was effective start to finish and cleared every mega-boss, without needing to reroll into specific skills or use large amounts of scrolls (more on that later).  This was my line-up, without going into too much detail:

 

INQUISITOR: Paladin (Goldpact) / Cipher (Soul Blade) – main

Weapon Preference: Great Sword (WOEP), Estoc (Eager), and Blunt Weapon (your call on preference) to deal with certain creatures

Armor: Switch between plate (One Dozen), leather (Miscreant), and papped (Gipon) depending upon the battle

PROS:

+Reliably unloads DPS – especially in long boss fights

+Achieve high AP between Exalted Accuracy, Hammering Thoughts, and Weapon Modals

+Endures damage quite well

+Achieves high defenses across the board

+Decent flexibility with casting (only focused on Secret Horrors, Borrowed Instinct, and Disintegrate)

CONS:

-I always focus on PER and take Exalted Focus, hitting consistently with Soul Annihilation was literally hit-or-miss (random number generator my arse…)

-Attribute spread is tough (PER, DEX, STR… INT, RES, CON), but as your main, with Berath’s Blessing, you can manage

-Starts slow, but post level 9 becomes a force to be reckoned with

 

SPELLBLADE: Rogue (Trickster) / Wizard (no subclass)

Weapon Preference: Spear & Small Shield  (Stalkers and Best Defense) or Sabre & Stiletto  (Scodero and Rust's)

Armor: Switch between plate (Blackened) and cuirass (Casita), depending upon the battle

PROS:

+Reliable burst DPS

+Helpful DPS-trickle in long battles

+Incredible flexibility (damage caster, self-buffing caster)

+Great defenses (Trickster and Wiz buffs)

+Works well in the pack or alone (destroying back-line casters… if they weren’t incinerated by casting… but I tend to melee more, since it is more fun),

+Frugal point spender because of grimoires and only need 2-3 active rogue abilities (escape and gouging strike) which enables picking up lots of helpful passives (dirty fighting, riposte, bears fort, combat focus, persistent distraction, deep wounds, tough, luck, improved crit, etc.)

CONS:

-Look out if this character becomes charmed… but food or items can fix that scenario… almost too easy to make immune to mind effects 

-Starts slower, great mid-game, and good end-game power

 

BATTLEMAGE: Fighter (Devoted-Pike) / Wizard (Blood Mage)

Weapon Preference: Sword & Shield – plenty of options (while buffing), then Citzals to crush all…. 

Armor: Plate (your choice… I liked the looks of new red plate) or Devil (situational, all fine with Wiz Buffs)

PROS:

+Great AOE melee (CItzals + Alacrity + Clear Out + Mob Stance …. Or Mule Kick)

+Good long-term DPS with BloodMage/Fighter combo

+Good Accuracy

+Very tanky (with buffs, over the top – within 3 seconds can have Eldritch Aim, Mirror, Alacrity, Iron Skin, Citzals Lance, Arcane, Citzals Martial, etc.)

+Good defenses

+Quick buffer if specced right

+Grimoire (Citzal’s, Katrenn’s, Brawler’s, etc.) makes for a purpose built, frugal point spender, which enables great passive/active picks

+Flex-ABLE: can always switch Grimoires and nuke away or CC

CONS:
+Starts slowwwww…. Needs Citzals Lance to truly shine (for me)

 

ARCANE KNIGHT: Paladin (Goldpact) / Wizard (Evoker)

Weapon Preference: Sword & Shield (when being defensive), buf for fire-casting DPS used Axe/Flail (Magran's and Sun & Moon)

Armor: Plate (Patinated) or something lighter (Furrante's) if buffed

PROS:

+Decent melee damage

+Great caster

+Good Defenses

+Can be very tanky

+Flexible moving between melee or caster

+Strong all the way through the game

+Arcane 15 enables top level spells to be cast

+If you have 2 paladins you can either buff each other (if you spec that way)

CONS:

+Attribute spread, but usually go with STR: 15ish, PER: 15ish, DEX 15ish, INT: 15ish, CON: 7ish, RES: 7ish

+Skill spread… go Offensive Grimoires and cherry-pick defensive spells (Mirror Image or Llengrath’s Displaced, Iron Skin, Arcane Reflect, etc.).

 

CONTEMPLATIVE: Monk (Helwalker) / Priest (Skaen)

Weapon Preference: Unarmed & Small Shield (Palm) or Unarmed & Unarmed

Armor: Nomads and finally Kahako Nihi

+Starts solid

+Good survivability, but not as high as others

+Decent defenses

+Good healing, especially with Arcane 15 for backup scrolls when needed

+Good DPS, unarmed scales fairly well into the late game

CONS:
+Good, but for me, never great… most likely to be dropped if I did another run… probably back to a Druid/Rogue or Chanter/Pali

+Used Skaen’s powers less than I thought… would almost respect Wael for more defensive flexibility

 

 

Total damage in descending order: Inquisitor, Battlemage, Spellblade, Arcane Knight, and finally Contemplative

Prior play-throughs I also enjoyed playing: Herald, Pathfinder, Warlock, War Caller, and Holy Slayer

 

 

What I liked best about POE2? – To be clear I very much enjoyed the game… enough to sink close to 400+ hours into it!

+Flexibility of classes and multiclass combos

+Game played slightly differently when I sided with different factions

+Large amount of content – it felt like a grand adventure

+Great settings/artwork, especially two of the expansions

+Always enjoy the POE combat systems… although I liked POE slightly better for combat and mechanics

 

What I liked least about POE2? – Just trying to make the next game better (#POE3)

-Plot wasn’t as strong as POE (obviously an opinion) – However, I appreciated the option to use Wael’s body to crush Eothas… he had it coming.

-Final battles on Ukaizo were weak or a least felt uninspiring, especially once you fight some of the Mega Bosses.

-Lack of items… wow, it is so hard to make 4 great weapons for each weapon type?  Great items, not just unique…   I think Warhammers, Maces and Clubs should have their own expansion.  Looking beyond weapons, there were plenty of mediocre magic items (rings, capes, etc.), but only a handful of standouts.  Finally, I won’t miss the “tribal” and “pirate” artwork styles of the armor and weapons… yeah, subjective.

-Inability to customize colors or appearance of items (always an issue for me) – need the Pet Machine for Items!

-Melee felt less impactful over time, especially when compared to a party of casters unloading burst-damage or CC.  To remind myself how potent casting was, with the party above I would just put everyone in light armor and have everyone cast their highest-level nuke (not even empowered),

-How about some great items for killing the Mega Bosses?  Felt like the rewards were lacking considering the challenge. Let's be honest, if the Animancer's Blade falls from some nameless thug, the Helfire Colossus should have dropped a Holy Avenging Vorpal Weapon... just saying.   Maybe I will mod that if I have some free time.

 

Mega Bosses (in order of difficulty):

Belranga – tanky party, with good DPS, made this an easy encounter…  if you have summons (chanter-troubadour) it is also easy.

Sigilmaster – face tanked this encounter, with two party members harassing Sigilmaster, while DPS-melee trio took out the sigils.  Incredible food can make this encounter even easier to mitigate certain effects.

Huana O Whe – this battle is all about positioning and to keep movement to a minimum, while separating the various blob parts.  Consistent DPS on big pieces and AOE-spells on the smaller parts.

Helfire Colossus – I grinded this battle the first time through and completed it with 4 out 5 party members unconscious… it took me seven (7) runs to make it through with zero deaths.  There is a fair amount of luck involved with this battle, to survive with zero party deaths.  One bad role can end a party member below 80% health.  Healing potions and scrolls were very, very helpful for me.  I face tanked the encounter, keeping everyone together in a tight pack for efficient healing and moving between fireball storms.  I don’t know if this victory would have been possible without Soul Annihilation and to a lesser extent Gouging Strike, Wall of Many Colors, and Brand Enemy.

 

Thanks again to the Dev Team for another great game!

Edited January 2, 2019 by heldred

[uuuhhii]

no idea how to kill the massive ooze

don't have enough stun or paralyze to keep them apart

[Frog Man]

Gosh I love write ups like this. Really cool to hear your perspective and to hear how your party fared. Curious about your war caller and pathfinder from previous runs! Mind sharing the details?

[heldred]

no idea how to kill the massive ooze

don't have enough stun or paralyze to keep them apar

 

I feel like Huana and Helfire battles were a lot like "learning on the job."   

 

The Huana battle frustrated me the moment I watched the two massive blobs reform back into Huana... yeah, that was definitely upsetting.  The key for me was that I had the entire team attack Huana in melee.  Once Huana split, I moved my two toughest tanks (fighter-wiz and paladin-wiz) between them, with the two focusing on one holf, while my other three party members threw everything at the other half.  Wall of Many Colors can help slow down each half (a well placed one might hit both), but some of it is luck with the positioning on the split. 

 

I did the battle a couple times and became frustrated if couldn't wedge one of two team members between the two halves.  Once you know you need to move quickly on the split it becomes easier.  You can also use summons (tendrils, clones, avatars, etc.) to keep the halves split.  Finally, if you have a bunch of pieces, don't be afraid (with high defenses) to dump you own AOE nukes on top of yourself, while someone on your team dropping a heal...  hey, it beats watching those smaller pieces reassemble into bigger chunks.  

[heldred]

Gosh I love write ups like this. Really cool to hear your perspective and to hear how your party fared. Curious about your war caller and pathfinder from previous runs! Mind sharing the details?

War Caller (troubadour) was a great support character for heals and damage.  Heals can come from Winds of Death or Mercy Kindness, with Mercy and Kindness later.  Your damage comes in the form of:

1) Deltros Cage + brisk recitation + Her Revenge Swept across the land = Lightning small AOE (good damage, that keeps coming back to cast in longer fights) . Note, if you want to switch weapons you can use Lord Darryn's for extra Lightning PL, but I got lazy and just kept sword and shield.  For armor, I went plate because I like the added defense.

2) Her Tears Fell = positional Ice DPS blast, that offers good burst damage and as a fighter your can fearlessly wedge yourself against your target and hit it with a multiple bolts of ice

Great synergy as a fighter by taking Tactical Barrage + Refreshing Defense (start with this each fight) since it buffs accuracy and intelligence, which helps AOE radius and buff times. For abilities, focus on PER, STR, INT

 

Pathfinder (streetfighter for more offense or trickster for more defense) - I went streetfighter originally and specced only Gouging Strike and Escape as my active abilities as a rogue (just spam Gouging Strike) and focus on taking as many passives as possible (dirty fighting, deep wounds, persistent distraction, tough, etc.).  On the Druid side, I went Shifter, invested only in storm spells, and took Greater Wildstrikes for added DPS.  Cast avenging storm from scroll to add to your DPS onslaught, but Natures Terror (auto spell for Shifter) is all you really need in most fights.  By the time you hit the highest levels, you don't even bother to cast anything since you have diminishing returns on spells, since it is usually more efficient to just cast one spell and commence the beatings.  For abilities, focus on STR, CON, DEX, and PER...  you need almost everything, which makes it tough.  I usually go 15 STR, 15 CON, 15 DEX, 15 PER, 8 INT, 10 RES   If I do a third run, I might try trickster version of Pathfinder since I tend not to be bloodied too often to benefit from Streetfighter perks.  This build was a monster for melee DPS and would destroy back row targets.

[Boeroer]

Victory would have been possible without Soul Annihilation and to a lesser extent Gouging Strike, Wall of Many Colors, and Brand Enemy.

Brand enemy heals him.

[heldred]

 

Victory would have been possible without Soul Annihilation and to a lesser extent Gouging Strike, Wall of Many Colors, and Brand Enemy.

Brand enemy heals him.

 

Yeah, I ran it once without and once with, and it looked as if my Pali's DPS outpaced the heal with 2-hander, but without running a log, it is simply an observation.   Thankfully, the colossus fell either way.  

Edited January 2, 2019 by heldred