Impossible NOT to have in your team

[IamNOOB]

Greetings , all ! 

I have been playing PofE II for some time and going deeper into the game, so now I wish to share some thoughts. They might not be correct, but it is my first time with this game and I have not even reached the 75% mark of the main story yet.  So, no hate, pls.

 

1. it seems like it is impossible for me to play with no paladin in the party... PALADINS are super cool, easy to manage and hard to kill ! What is not to love ?  Not to have a paladin in the party is like torture for me ... LOL 
2. CIPHERS are impossible to miss, I still remember reading a post years ago about a guy in PoE I who had 1 paladin and only ciphers apart from him in his party... I see today why that was cool back then. I have the feeling the ciphers role in any team and any situation is extremely important. MUCH MORE important than the wizard, esp. in tougher situations. I do not claim the wizard is weak, but he seems less useful to me and most of all I feel uncontent with his spell limit per fight... 

3. It is impossible not to have crafting resources and potions on higher difficulty, I have the idea that potions and scrolls are a bit more important than they were in the first game! 
4. I still feel that the ranged elves with a pet and fast attack speed are useless as much as I loved Legolas in LOTR and Windrunner from DOTA and any such characters... I cannot find a place for a bow lover in my party esp. in TURNBASED mode. In Pof E I for some reason I wished to play this class and I enjoyed Sagani but she always sucked in battles compared to the others, I saw her stats in the end of the walkthrough back then and it was there to note that she contributed less /apart from being interesting as ffar as the story... /

5. It is almost impossible to play without a guy with a high enough level of "mechanics".

 

What do you think?

 

Edited June 11, 2019 by IamNOOB

[bringingyouthefuture]

I can go for a good Paladin, they act as a killer second healer / tank, with some cool abilities later on.  Druids are really powerful too ...

In POE1 with my first playthrough I played a cipher who used a hunting bow and clothes for speed, that way she shot the heck out of not so heavily armored enemies to build up focus and sat her in the back of the line to not take damage - it worked really well   I haven't revived that character in POE2 yet, but I was considering multi-classing cipher with ranger / ghost heart or Arcane Archer, maybe with Essence Interrupter.  Not a power build and will carry a good war bow or Arquebus, maybe a melee weapon ...

 

Edited June 12, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture

[Enoch]

Multiple sources of fast interrupts.  (E.g., Thrust of TV; Rogue using fast weapons; Concussive Shot; the Barbarian Shout upgrade with the knockdown.)   

The Club and Morningstar modal abilities. 

 

[xzar_monty]

3. Neither potions nor scrolls are that necessary. I may in fact have never read a single scroll, although I have used potions -- but only healing potions. I think this is a bit of a shame in both games: you have plenty of potions and scrolls available, but there's never a time when you feel need any of them (except the healing potions). It may be a different story on PotD (especially with challenges on).

[Manveru123]

My Cipher was an Ancestral Memory bot as soon as he unlocked it.

Impossible not to have? Eder. Carried this guy with me on every single playthrough. Would do so again.

[Wormerine]

7 minutes ago, Manveru123 said:

My Cipher was an Ancestral Memory bot as soon as he unlocked it.

It took me a while, but I finally discovered Ancestral Memory and Salvation of Time combo. Probably because on my first playthrough on launch the fights didn't last long, and afterwards I didn't have cipher in my party until now. It's a bit amazing, infinite best buffs for everyone. 

Xoti always ends up as must have. Priest spells are simply too good. I did use druid for my 2nd playthrough, but it wasn't nearly as good of a replacement. 

[Enoch]

33 minutes ago, Manveru123 said:

Impossible not to have? Eder. Carried this guy with me on every single playthrough. Would do so again.

Weirdly, it feels like forever since I've played with Eder in the party past the opening stages.  The two saves I've been working on lately have been a pro-Vailian Mindstalker who runs with Pallegina (Herald), Serafen (Barb), Vatnir (Priest) and [rotating], and my usual Priest of Wael who uses Rekke (Brute), Xoti (Monk), Aloth (Spellblade), and mostly Ydwin (Mindstalker). 

I do agree with Wormerine in that a Priest tends to be what I miss most when I lack one. 

[Boeroer]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's called Ancestor's Memory.

I actually almost never use Paladins and Ciphers only seldomly (and then Beguiler mostly).

Thing I always incorporate in a party is a Morning Star. Can't play without one it seems.

There is no class that I must bring - but if it comes to the class I miss most in a playthrough it's actually Priest. Everything else I can easily substitute with another class(build) to equal effect.

 

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, Manveru123 said:

Impossible not to have? Eder. Carried this guy with me on every single playthrough. Would do so again.

 

When it comes to Eder, does anyone else get the impression that this character got about five times more care and attention than any of the other NPCs? This is the general impression I constantly get. It's like, the dedication on display with Eder totally eclipses everything in all of the other characters.

 

Now, this is just an impression, mind you, but it's very strong. It can also be caused by:

1) The fact that whoever wrote Eder is simply a much better writer than the others,

2) The fact that Eder's voice actor is very good (which he is),

3) Quite obviously, combination of #1 and #2 above.

[Manveru123]

59 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure it's called Ancestor's Memory.

 

Whoops. Yeah.

Eder DOES feel like the best written character in the game by far. Eric Fenstermaker did a great job with him. It is very unfortunate that Chris Avellone did not write anything for Deadfire companions, because his Durance was pretty neat too, but hey at least he wrote Jubilost in Kingmaker  

[xzar_monty]

I agree that Durance was very good. I didn't know he was written by Avellone. But I do think that the Grieving Mother was also. I liked them both, but they both also had a problem: their story developed when you rested in the wilderness (or something like that), and because the game was so easy that you essentially never needed to, I never got to see the end of either's arc.  And some of the vocabulary in the Grieving Mother's story was a bit trying-too-hard-to-sound-literary.

 

I have met Jubilost, but he's only been in my party (like, an active companion) for a second, so no comments on him.

[bringingyouthefuture]

I would say for potions use healing all the time, tend to use the others sparingly.  As for scrolls!  Well, nothing like having a few high powered spells that cast AEO electricity and stun when fighting in the SSS ... without them and no hardcore caster in the party not sure what I would have done, so scrolls can tip the balance of a tough fight.

Drugs for sure are a must in my book in a tough fight, the extra buffs always help!  I agree on the priest, I don't think I have ever played a D&D or POE game without a priest ... and I mean every single one. 

I never recruited Eder in my first playthrough of POE1 lol so that character has no Eder in POE2, too bad really.

Edited June 12, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture

[Wormerine]

On 6/12/2019 at 3:05 PM, xzar_monty said:

When it comes to Eder, does anyone else get the impression that this character got about five times more care and attention than any of the other NPCs? This is the general impression I constantly get. It's like, the dedication on display with Eder totally eclipses everything in all of the other characters.

Nope.

Eder in Deadfire feels weird to me. Oh, he gets a lot of lines, because now he responds to every pet in the vicinity, instead of being a cute quirk (I guess now I know how people around me must feel). It doesn't help that without a character arc, and no tie to any of the faction, he is just there. Even Xoti took over as the Eothas representative. And it is a shame, two of them might have a more fleshed out, conflicting viewpoint on Eothas. Eder has some conflicted feelings regarding Eothas, but they are mentioned but not explored. 

[daven]

Eder turned into minsc by deadfire

[Boeroer]

So I'm doing another playthrough atm in order to test some things in the community patch. I rolled some adventurers and had no priest. After two hours I ran into the Wild Mare, dropped a Black Jacket/Skald who was designed to be the party's debuffer (and worked well) and rolled a SC Priest. Because I missed the buffing at the start of the encounter.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, daven said:

Eder turned into minsc by deadfire

How and/or why?

 

Do you mean the animal love? I can remember a total of one (1) voiced line concerning that, but of course there could have been more and I'm pretty sure I haven't heard all of his lines.

 

I think the comparison is both untrue and unfair in the sense that Minsc is a comic relief character with precious little potential for depth, given his lack of both intelligence and wisdom, whereas Eder is a genuine person whose responses aren't inherently silly the way Minsc's are. Not liking Eder is perfectly fine, of course, but the comparison doesn't ring true. (I only used Minsc once in BG2, disregarded him for my only playthrough of BG1, and did not use him in my only playthrough of SoD, either.)

[daven]

Comic relief

[xzar_monty]

Right. But Eder quite clearly isn't a comic relief character.

[Aeodred]

Probably a Fighter or someone who manages Engagement. I've been able to survive with just Pallegina as both tank and healer but not much else. At least one, preferrably two in some battles where the doorway is simply too large to body-block. Failing that, a Wizard. I can't count how many times the Wizard's AoE CC and Durational AoE saved me from large groups of predators in PotD. I can heal with potions but I can't live without some form of Crowd Control, really.

[IamNOOB]

 I am glad that the topic is full of ideas from different people, that it is an active one.

I also found out I cannot play without a domination spell / cipher/, when I am swarmed by many enemies I often die even if I use AOE, and when I fight 2-skull enemies, i.e. higher levels I also use dominate to win. It is a great skill, to turn the enemy against his mate  

 

P.s. TY for the answers

[bringingyouthefuture]

The diversity is pretty great per encounter, if you have an idea of what you need going into it and plan ahead well.  Just the other day in SSS playing one of the survivor fights, a few web scrolls saved the day literally

Dominate is a great spell, summons come in handy, so many spells and abilities at the right moment can turn the tide of a battle, the game is pretty great like that.