Because I really like the class I messed around with Tactician/Trickster today a little and for the memes tried out defender Stance.

Totally unexpected the range of pcs own engagement seems really high and I imagine it would be even higher with reach weapons and it is very easy to engage a lot of enemies (ranged characters can be repositioned easily with a little kiting) which in turn triggers persistent Distraction and with a flank immunity item triggers brilliant.

I wonder how many engagement slots a Fighter/Rogue can have, 10?

(it does not seem to be limited by the amount of enemies that can engage you, as far as I can see pcs own engagement is separate from enemies)

Afaik the reach of a weapon doesn't increase the reach of engagement. But maybe it does and I never noticed. 

An Tactician/Trickster can have:

• +1 (spear + modal or any shield)
• +1 (Hold the Line)
• +2 (Kapana Taga - also immunity to flanked which is great for Tactician)
• +1 (several armors like Blackened Plate or Reckless Brigandine - the latter also gives a speed bonus for every engaged enemy)
• +1 (several helmets like Blackened Plate Helm)
• +3 (Defender Stance)
• +1 (Persistent Distraction)
• +1 (Maura's Grasping Belt)
• +1 (Sailor's Berth in King's Coffin or similar resting bonuses)

= 12 non-cirumstancial slots in theory. Maybe I forgot something. You can get more with stuff like One Dozen Stood armor (Hold the Bridge enchantment), but those are fiddly and not worth it imo.
 

Usually I can't manage to engage more than 6 due to limited space. Most of times 5. It depends on the space the enemies take. Smaller enemies (like Xaurips and kith) are way better in this case. If you are immune to engagement yourself (e.g. Nomad's Brigandine) it might be a lot easier to position yourself better to engage as many as possible. Escape also helps of course. 

 

Is Engagement distance linked to melee weapon range ?
How does it work with instruments of pain ?

As far as I know engagement is not linked to weapon reach, but simply the distance between the characters. In my experience having a reach weapon such as a spear actually makes it so you do not engage the enemy. It also disallows boni such as flanking. You manually have to move your character into range.

You mean pike I guess, but yeah: I think that's correct. Although I had the feeling (but didn't investigate) that I could engage a but further with WotEP - which has a bit longer reach than the usual melee weapon (1.2m vs. 0.8m). But I never saw enhanced engagement capabilites with the "real" reach weapons like pike and quarterstaff (which have 1.8. range). 

Also you def. can't engage over several meters with Instruments of Pain. That would be so devastating...

Hm, maybe the reach of my fists just felt weirdly high to me, because I never played with engagement slots before because it seems mostly useless.

(Could engage a ranged enemy even when one kith type melee was already between me and the ranged (and also engaged))

I will test out more engagement slots later and see how many I can engage with the help of kiting and escape, but ofc one of my major plans was reach but you guys are right ofc, I forgot u can't even engage from reach.

Useless when solo: mostly I guess since all melee will attack you anyway. In a party it can be very important.

 

2 hours ago, AeonsLegend said:

As far as I know engagement is not linked to weapon reach, but simply the distance between the characters. In my experience having a reach weapon such as a spear actually makes it so you do not engage the enemy. It also disallows boni such as flanking. You manually have to move your character into range.

Item attacks have an engagement radius and I think this is what controls the distance

Example

}, {
                    "$type": "Game.GameData.AttackMeleeComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
                    "EngagementRadius": 1,
                    "IsUnarmed": "false"

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Useless when solo: mostly I guess since all melee will attack you anyway. In a party it can be very important.

 

Well as I wrote in topic I'm using it for flanking with Persistent Distraction.

1 hour ago, coralzombie said:

Item attacks have an engagement radius and I think this is what controls the distance

Example

}, {
                    "$type": "Game.GameData.AttackMeleeComponent, Assembly-CSharp",
                    "EngagementRadius": 1,
                    "IsUnarmed": "false"

Next weapon : a 2 handed battle chain with flail proficiency and very high engagement radius.

We had reach weapons with higher engagement radius in the PoE beta. It was very messy. Enemies that walked up to your front line got engaged by the backline and suffered tons of disengagement attacks while trying to reach somebody in the frontline. Deadfire's Disengagement Attacks fire a bit more conservatively (e.g. not if you run parallel/closely around or towards the engager) so maybe it could work if the engagement radius is not significantly higher (like 2m or so would be too much already I assume). 

Edited April 28, 20205 yr by Boeroer

The main problem with getting Tactician brilliant with persistent distraction is extreme inconsistency in flanking range:

 

In general elevations/stairs/ramps seem very confusing in regard to distance / aoe range.

Oh good to know that terrain plays a role.

In ship combat the highest engagement I've gotten is 8 now, which is already 1 less than I have engagement slots atm, kinda sad but ofc confirms what you guys said.

5 hours ago, Raven Darkholme said:

The main problem with getting Tactician brilliant with persistent distraction is extreme inconsistency in flanking range:

 

You also cannot be flanked yourself.

Since there are no real elevations in the game (it's all flat and elevations are just optical illusions) it's a bit messed up. Try to cast any "line-AOE" spell like Mind Lance or Rolling Flame up a staircase or ramp.