Best Companions for Story/Dialogue?

[bmardiney]

I'm someone that doesn't care as much about min/maxing combat abilities in games like these and I care most about having a good party to experience the game with from a personality/dialogue standpoint. Without being too spoilery, what would you all suggest for that?

I've been playing a pirate character since PoE 1 (just got lucky that PoE 2 was all pirate-themed!). So I'm a swashbuckler. I'm thinking having Eder the whole time makes sense (both for combat and for roleplay). I like Xoti a lot (plan to romance her...I think that's an option in this game?). So the last 2 spots are in high contention. I don't really like Aloth very much (especially since he scoffs at everyone else's personality all the damn time). It feels weird not to have a wizard in the party, but it probably is fine not to, right? And while I did have Pallegina for much of the first game, her irritated stoicism starts to grate. Unless she has a ton to say throughout the game, I'm thinking not her either. Feel free to tell me why I'm wrong about her or Aloth, though.

Also I plan on playing on veteran. I'm sure all party configurations are "viable", but that might factor in a little.

[Boeroer]

Bring Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu (with Xoti if you like her - she is easy to romance).

Those are the companions who talk the most. And most of it is funny and/or entertaining. Also those are the companions you can get very early. Besides Aloth who becomes accessible right after Edér. Tekēhu's Druid subclass is very good actually and can substitute a Wizard and can be a good healer at the same time.

Edited September 6, 2019 by Boeroer

[bmardiney]

Also, has Serafen been changed since launch? As in, is his Wild Mind nonsense toned down so he isn't completely worthless (as seemingly all past forum threads maintain)?

[bmardiney]

7 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Bring Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu (with Xoti if you like her - she is easy to romance).

Those are the companions who talk the most. And most of it is funny and/or entertaining. Also those are the companions you can get very early. Besides Aloth who becomes accessible right after Edér. Tekēhu's Druid subclass is very good actually and can substitute a Wizard and can be a good healer at the same time.

Yeah I like Serafen as a character, was leaning towards him. Tekehu I'm very wary of. I just picked him up in the game I'm about to ditch to start over and he has a horrible introduction and seems like a joke of a character (like Prince Charming from Shrek or something). I was leaning toward Maia because she seems pretty cool (a chill sniper lady). But if she doesn't talk much, I guess I can sub her out.

In thinking more about it, I'm still iffy about Pallegina but I'm sure Aloth is out. I never really liked him in PoE 1 (I was only really curious what was wrong with his brain). And his prickliness with everyone is an even bigger turn off. So at least I can firmly cross one person off the list 

Edited September 6, 2019 by bmardiney

[Boeroer]

If you like Maia then pick Maia. She doesn't get along very well with Tekēhu and Pallegina since all three represent different factions (Serafen does as well but is more cool about it).

Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is still as unpredictable as it used to be. But you can also play him as Barbarian.

[xzar_monty]

12 hours ago, bmardiney said:

Also, has Serafen been changed since launch? As in, is his Wild Mind nonsense toned down so he isn't completely worthless (as seemingly all past forum threads maintain)?

I'm not entirely sure what you're referring to with this. I had Serafen with me all the way, and he was excellent, both story-wise and as a member who pulled his weight. So, to suggest he's worthless sounds entirely wrong to me.

The unpredictability is definitely there, but it never once led to insurmountable problems. If I had to assess, I would say that on balance I probably benefited from it more than it hurt me. Besides, I enjoyed many of the unpredictable effects, even some of the bad ones.

I didn't enjoy Tekehu and ditched him pretty much straight away, but this is obviously subjective (I also didn't like Pallegina in either game). I wholeheartedly agree with Boeroer in that you should bring Eder and Serafen along.

[uuuhhii]

tekehu are the best

serafen are interesting enough

depend on ability to understand pirate language

tried to encourage maia and xoti to develop romance once

make maia a little more interesting

[Boeroer]

Tekēhu is good if you get past the initial phase. You should do the Gullet with him - it gives him more depth and shows him being more serious, benevolent and caring. He is a good boy. And as I said his subclasses are good, especially the druid one is one of the best. I my opinion the best of all companions' subclasses.

If you generally loathe flamboyance or are even anti LGBT then I guess you will never like him though.

Serafen's Wild Mind subclass is very unpredictable and that is something that most RPG players don't like. Most of his negative sideffects when casting powers are not too bad and are easily balanced out (and more) by the potential good side effects. But "Miscast" can actually wipe your whole group. It deals 3x actual focus as shock damage in a pretty big AoE around Serafen. At level 20 this can mean over 750 shock damage per attack roll. Of course this rarely happens. But when it happens to players they usually are so annoyed that they declare the subclass as "useless" (forgetting all the times Serafen got a +5 PL boost while casting ;)).

But... actually you can use Miscast to your advantage (although it's fiddly). If you just give Serafen a lot of Will defense (Miscast targets Will) and AR (especially shock AR - a druid might help - Mantle of the Seven Bolts also helps) and place him near enemies and not near your party members he can sometimes wipe the whole enemy mob with a miscast and survive. So for example you could try to tank with him as a Witch (Barb/Wild Mind) and use the barb yell for +engagement and dazing while casting powers in the hope of a Miscast.  With Deltro's Cage + Helmet you can benefit from the Miscast in two ways: either turn on Shock Shield in order to get healed by the shock damage instead of getting toasted - or getting toasted and receiving a huge shocking lash for your next attack rolls from the Helmet. Or it simply misses because of your high WIll defense. Note that a Witch can get +15 Will from the cipher passive "Iron Will" AND +10 from "Bull's Will" (generic from barb). They do stack. Add some items with Will or +all defenses. Maybe eat fitting food. Raise RES and INT...

Even if he goes down from that Miscast - several enemies will do so as well. Give him an item with Second Chance or revive him: easy. Just accept that he might die from time to time while killing everything around him. It's not a bad thing then. Several items can add more AoE dmg when he goes down (Skaen Robe, Mantle of the Seven Bolts, Effort Great Sword etc.). You can play with this. It can be fun.

So... "useless" is - as always in these forums- a lot of hyperbole.  

 

Edited September 7, 2019 by Boeroer

[xzar_monty]

43 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Tekēhu is good if you get past the initial phase. You should do the Gullet with him - it gives him more depth and shows him being more serious, benevolent and caring. He is a good boy. And as I said his subclasses are good, especially the druid one is one of the best. I my opinion the best of all companions' subclasses.

If you generally loathe flamboyance or are even anti LGBT then I guess you will never like him though.

Hmm, the point about the Gullet is interesting. I never had him there with me. For me, it was precisely the initial phase that turned me off. He seemed ridiculously full of himself, and in a humourless way, too. In fact, this was the reason why I didn't like Edwin in BG2, either: he was just too full of himself. Obviously there's the difference that Edwin is mean and cynical whereas Tekehu is not, but it was precisely their ridiculous overconfidence that turned me off.

I love flamboyance, I think it's lovely. Haer'Dalis, for instance, in BG2, is superb because of it. LGBT is neither here nor there -- it can work or not, it's not a decisive factor in itself.

[Boeroer]

Then you should maybe give him a chance. The overconfidence is a bit of a facade.

[xzar_monty]

I'm sure it is. I mean, nobody who truly is supremely confident goes around making noise about it. Except maybe Zlatan.

[bmardiney]

I do find it odd that suddenly every medieval fantasy setting has totally-accepted gay people running around. Sort of spits in the face of the actual struggles people went through back then. But whatever.

I think my final party is going to be Me (Swashbuckler DPS), Eder (Swashbuckler tank), Xoti (Priest), Serafen (I guess ranged Cipher? No idea here), Maia (Ranger or Scout, suggestions?). And I can switch out Maia for other people to do their personal missions.

[dukeisaac]

On 9/6/2019 at 4:49 PM, Boeroer said:

Bring Edér, Serafen and Tekēhu (with Xoti if you like her - she is easy to romance).

Those are the companions who talk the most. And most of it is funny and/or entertaining. Also those are the companions you can get very early. Besides Aloth who becomes accessible right after Edér. Tekēhu's Druid subclass is very good actually and can substitute a Wizard and can be a good healer at the same time.

I ran my last playthrough with Tekehu as a single class Druid. He was a beast with lightning AOEs and healing (I gave him the conduit plate and Lord Varrin's Voulge, so, yeah).

I also liked his backstory albeit if it was not the most engaging. Gave a nice dive into Huana lore. In a maybe unrelated note, I really liked Travis Willingham's voice acting for the character. Top notch and outside of his usual work.

I haven't had the same cool moments yet with Serafen, but I didn't bring him on any of the DLCs. Next playthrough

[Boeroer]

If you are looking for more talks in the DLCs you should bring Konstanten to SSS, Ydwin to BoW and Fassina to FS. They do get more lines there than the usual companion.

[xzar_monty]

14 hours ago, bmardiney said:

I do find it odd that suddenly every medieval fantasy setting has totally-accepted gay people running around. Sort of spits in the face of the actual struggles people went through back then. But whatever.

To an extent, you do have a point. But consider for instance the Florence of Leonardo and Michelangelo. Both were gay, both were known to be gay, both were among a fairly large number of artists known to be gay, and neither got into considerable exterior trouble about it. (Leonardo was twice accused of sodomy, but nothing became of it, whereas Michelangelo's interior troubles were considerable indeed, but only a part of them had to do with his sexuality.)

[Boeroer]

Quote

I do find it odd that suddenly every medieval fantasy setting has totally-accepted gay people running around. Sort of spits in the face of the actual struggles people went through back then. But whatever.

Construct the same statement but with women (or people of color etc.) and you can see how nonsensical that statement is. Would you favor a fantasy setting where women can only choose to pick the handmaiden or midwife class?

Because if women in medival fantasy settings could pick any class and if that would be totally normal in that setting - wouldn't that be a spit in the face of the actual struggles women went through back then?

Well, let me put it this way: ROFL NO!

To which extend is there a point to have?

The only spit in the face that might occur when you depict a setting in which certain minorities are treated as equal is the self-perceived spit in the face of those who don't want that minority to be treated equal.

Ask gay people if they think that medieval fantasy settings in which gay people are accepted do spit in the face of the actual struggles of past gay people.

 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Boeroer

[uuuhhii]

22 hours ago, bmardiney said:

I do find it odd that suddenly every medieval fantasy setting has totally-accepted gay people running around. Sort of spits in the face of the actual struggles people went through back then. But whatever.

 

ancient history have plenty gay or bisexual people around

not every society decide to persecute the same few group of people all the time to avoid acknowledging the real problem

decade old game doesn't have much gay or bisexual character are the weird thing

[bmardiney]

Okay. Whatever you guys want to think. It was foolish of me to bring it up in the first place, I suppose.

[Boeroer]

[bugarup]

On 9/7/2019 at 2:41 PM, Boeroer said:

 But "Miscast" can actually wipe your whole group.

*scribbling down uses of Miscast* Then you reload and voila, problem solved. I'm kind of experiencing similar things in BG extended, where the wild mage occasionally wipes the party, but more often she drops a cow on an ankheg. 

As for "no free gays in Medieval times", then first things first, PoE setting is no way Medieval and does not even try to emulate the age, unlike various DnDlikes, so going "Forsooth, dost thou thinketh about thy gayes in Medievale tymes" is a little hypocritical. 

[Boeroer]

Quote

"Forsooth, dost thou thinketh about thy gayes in Medievale tymes"

Hehe, never read that quote before. 

Well the Dyrwood is kind of medieval - a bit "rednecks in the dark times". Witch hunting included and so on. Homophobic tendencies would also fit there I guess. But maybe that would have been too much for poor Dyrwood's reputation. They are already orlan-, animancy-, eothas- and xenophobic.

On the plus side: slavery is forbidden. So it's not all confederate stuff, höhöhö. 

Edited September 9, 2019 by Boeroer

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

 

On the plus side: slavery is forbidden. So it's not all confederate stuff, höhöhö. 

readceras looks more like the confederate

slavery still exist

only notable product are vorlas dye

religious zealot abundant

so dyrwood are the relatively better side of the coin

[3x0du5]

On 9/8/2019 at 7:43 AM, Boeroer said:

If you are looking for more talks in the DLCs you should bring Konstanten to SSS, Ydwin to BoW and Fassina to FS. They do get more lines there than the usual companion.

I was pleasantly surprised when Konstanten who was awfully quiet for most of the base game started talking a lot in SSS, also he has killer line that happens in Beast of Winter when dragon resurrects    

[xzar_monty]

I'm still kind of disappointed that Konstanten isn't a full-fledged companion, because goddamn his voice actor is good. It's a great voice, superb diction, marvelous overall. I don't know who he is, but he's seriously good. He even manages to make Konstanten sound completely convincing when he makes a stupid joke that he knows is stupid but still likes and very much hopes that others like it, too. (I think it had something to do with ablutions/absolution, so it was a forced pun indeed.)

Edited September 9, 2019 by xzar_monty

[Boeroer]

As I already said in some other thread: if your MC is a damage dealer and you give him the noble male voice and then also bring Konstanten you are in for some laughs. Both voices have similar tonality - and both have an infectious laugh. Especially if they land crits. Konstanten is hilarious but the noble is close behind. I played Konstanten as Barb/Skald and used a Morning Star with Clear Out - so the crits were plentyful. My MC was a Mortar Monk. It was all like Barry White and his long lost brother doing "hohoho", "hahahaha" and "teheeehehe". I was smiling constantly because of that. 

Edited September 9, 2019 by Boeroer