Playing in Classic Mode. How do I avoid making characters who suck?

[Aldath]

Hey there guys.

Been playing in Classic so far, plan to do all content except Mega Bosses. I've been enjoying this game so much.

I'm a roleplayer, I'm a Game Master and I came to CRPGs because I almost never get to be the player. The great majority of the CRPGs are quite hard for people like me who don't care about min-maxing, but I heard Pillars 2 was quite forgiving compared to other games of the same genre (I played PoE1, didn't really enjoy it).

It still itches that I know my characters COULD be better than they are, that there might be optimal choices. It keeps spinning around my head. Every time I'm playing and my full druid Tekehu feels useless in combat, I sigh. It's damn fun to play whatever I'm building him up to be but at the same time I notice that maybe I'm gimping myself...

How do I avoid making bad characters without becoming a min-maxer either?  I'm not having a particularily tough time with the game (I've found some walls and spikes tho, like those ghost wizards in Poko Kohara), but I feel my characters get on risk more than I would expect them to.

Also, is it normal that at level 11the Hanging Sepulchers are horribly difficult? My journal says I should be able to tackle them but the enemies are insanely strong and stealth isn't proving to be very helpful there.

[Wormerine]

It depends what you look for? If you want everyone to do massive damage some classes will simply be better then others, and on classic some really useful support/buff/debuff spells might not be valuable enough for those characters to feel necessary. I was never a fan of Druids so I am not the best person to discuss good Druid builds, though I do remember my full Druid Takehu doing quite well on my PotD playthrough (I am by no means a minmxer and never managed to reach absurd levels of power some people’s builds do).

Hanging Sepulchers are notorious for being oddly balanced compared to its difficulty level indication. It’s been reported by multiple users as a difficulty spike, and indeed on my last playthough it did stand out as a more difficult section.

[Jayd]

The question is a bit too open-ended for a direct answer. Building good characters is just a matter of understanding the game's mechanics and putting in some thought and effort. Since you mention Tekehu and I am a massive Druid fan I can give some tips there. His unique subclass has the benefit of foe-only frost and water spells (i.e. spells that would normally hurt your enemies and your own team now only hurt enemies). The most consistently useful one of this is easily Chill Fog - normally a Wizard spell. Chill Fog is a persistent spell with a long-lasting blindness effect. Blindness hurts enemy accuracy a lot and inflicts a massive +50% recovery time penalty. This means your enemies will struggle to hit you and will take significantly longer between attacks. Because Tekehu's is foe-only you can drop your Chill Fog directly on your team so that anyone they fight in melee will be effected. You should use it in nearly every fight. Other general good spells available to Tekehu are Moonwell for great healing and support, Relentless Storm for great disruption, and Venombloom for good, debilitating damage (against enemies vulnerable to poison). Versatility is a Druid's strength, so you should always have something for him to do.

In order to get a better sense of what is good and how to use it I'd recommend this great guide, which has analyses of classes as well as mechanics.