Why dump dexterity in turn-based?!

[Lampros]

I am reading a lot of threads - on this forum and in other sites - that you should dump dexterity in turn-based mode. I don't understand why. Sure, recovery is irrelevant now. But since turn-based sounds like a crowd control war, isn't it paramount that your crowd controller goes first? And virtually every class has some crowd control ability. Or are people really just saying that non-crowd control characters should dump dexterity, rather than all characters?

[thelee]

12 minutes ago, Lampros said:

I am reading a lot of threads - on this forum and in other sites - that you should dump dexterity in turn-based mode. I don't understand why. Sure, recovery is irrelevant now. But since turn-based sounds like a crowd control war, isn't it paramount that your crowd controller goes first? And virtually every class has some crowd control ability. Or are people really just saying that non-crowd control characters should dump dexterity, rather than all characters?

there's definitely a snow-balling effect that you can trigger with extremely good initiative, but i could probably count on one or two hands those abilities (mostly charm/dominate effects). and while it can be useful for casters to get their abilities off sooner, the overall risk of interruption and such is lower in turn-based - the turn-based action economy also constrains how eagerly enemies can interrupt, and narrows the window they can do so.

compare that subtle effect to the very real effect of dumping your stat points into stats and armor, both with more direct effects on combat outcomes, and aside from a narrow window of charm/dominate effects, i think it can easily be argued that dexterity/recovery loses its importance.

keep in mind you can also initiate combat yourself in most cases using stealth. while not every ability or item can be used in stealth, this essentially means you already get a good first round regardless of dex/armor in a manner of speaking. heck, i believe some charm effects are usable outside of combat (at least debonaire is), so even from the "snow-balling effect" perspective dexterity might not be as important.

 

edit - to be fair, i don't think there are very many turn-based "experts" out there. we could all be wrong and who knows maybe there is a killer high-dex approach to potd tb combat.

Edited October 12, 2020 by thelee

[thelee]

another thing to keep in mind is that on potd especially combat can be long even considering some of the tweaks to turn-based mode.

in P:K hard/unfair, even in real-time, initiative can matter a crap ton because both the snow-balling effects of flat-footedness and sneak damage, but also because a typical fight might be decided in the first two rounds or so. (seriously, i have sometimes just save-scummed for good initiative rolls on my party members to get through a tough fight, something i never thought i would do in a RTwP game.) in deadfire, outside of port maje, combat on potd can take quite a while iirc (i haven't done too much tb). so even getting some CC in first may have its impact diminished significantly (again, charm/dominate effects would snowball in a way that other CC could not).

Edited October 12, 2020 by thelee

[Lampros]

6 minutes ago, thelee said:

there's definitely a snow-balling effect that you can trigger with extremely good initiative, but i could probably count on one or two hands those abilities (mostly charm/dominate effects). and while it can be useful for casters to get their abilities off sooner, the overall risk of interruption and such is lower in turn-based - the turn-based action economy also constrains how eagerly enemies can interrupt, and narrows the window they can do so.

compare that subtle effect to the very real effect of dumping your stat points into stats and armor, both with more direct effects on combat outcomes, and aside from a narrow window of charm/dominate effects, i think it can easily be argued that dexterity/recovery loses its importance.

keep in mind you can also initiate combat yourself in most cases using stealth. while not every ability or item can be used in stealth, this essentially means you already get a good first round regardless of dex/armor in a manner of speaking. heck, i believe some charm effects are usable outside of combat (at least debonaire is), so even from the "snow-balling effect" perspective dexterity might not be as important.

 

edit - to be fair, i don't think there are very many turn-based "experts" out there. we could all be wrong and who knows maybe there is a killer high-dex approach to potd tb combat.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer! But aren't the huge, AoE crowd control effects fairly widespread across classes? For instance, I plan on using a War Caller as the main tank (unless someone persuades me that a Swashbuckler is better), and even he has a ton of AoE stuns.

Good point about using stealth to initiate combat. I guess I hate to micro-manage, and I didn't even think about that. Like the simple brute I am, I just wade in!

[Haplok]

Well, Initiative matters little even for caster CC. As most spells still have a cast time and will be executed only after the enemies have done their regular (non-cast) actions. You CAN'T change aoe placement during that time when enemies move towards you (as opposed to real time mode!).

Most enemies in a given fight have very similar Initiative rankings and will move "together". You have no tool to finely control when your character will act (there is "Delay" command, but it simply sends you to the end of the queue, can't select when you want to act).

This all means that, beyond the initial alpha strike, its often best to let the enemies come to you and only then start a serious counter-offensive.

 

TL DR

Yes, dump Dex. Don't neglect it entirely on casters, as it affects cast time (and enemy interrupt window), but its very low priority.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

Nearly all offensive abilites or abilities that have an offensive component (I mean which will do an attack roll against the enemies' defenses) and that have enough resources (see wound count out of combat, also focus out of combat) can be cast out of stealth, giving you the advantage of the first strike. Even Leap can be cast out of combat from stealth which makes it an awesome tool. Just because it has an attack component (daze roll).

[Lampros]

4 hours ago, Haplok said:

Well, Initiative matters little even for caster CC. As most spells still have a cast time and will be executed only after the enemies have done their regular (non-cast) actions. You CAN'T change aoe placement during that time when enemies move towards you (as opposed to real time mode!).

Most enemies in a give fight have very similar Initiative rankings and will move "together". You have no tool to finely control when your character will act (there is "Delay" command, but it simply send you to the end of the queue, can't select when you want to act).

This all means that, beyond the initial alpha strike, its often best to let the enemies come to you and only then start a serious counter-offensive.

 

TL DR

Yes, dump Dex. Don't neglect it entirely on casters, as it affects cast time (and enemy interrupt window), but its very low priority.

Ah, ok. I forgot that there is cast time delay after you cast. Damn. That really means it'd be difficult to crowd control! How come then did folks keep complaining the pre-nerf Relentless Storm let you trivialize turn-based mode?

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Nearly all offensive abilites or abilities that have an offensive component (I mean which will do an attack roll against the enemies' defenses) and that have enough resources (see wound count out of combat, also focus out of combat) can be cast out of stealth, giving you the advantage of the first strike. Even Leap can be cast out of combat from stealth which makes it an awesome tool. Just because it has an attack component (daze roll).

 

Got it!

Edited October 13, 2020 by Lampros

[thelee]

3 hours ago, Lampros said:

How come then did folks keep complaining the pre-nerf Relentless Storm let you trivialize turn-based mode?

because of the way rounding works, once the first blast of lightning bolts go off, every enemy hit gets auto-targeted and stunned for 1 round (no partial rounds) for like the next 3+ rounds, and in this case IIRC the rounds last until the start of your next turn, at which point a new blast of lightning gets triggered. Because of the expanded graze range in turn-based mode, pretty much you are guaranteed to hit enemies with it, even on PoTD. And again, remember that there's no partial rounds, so even a graze on a tiny stun duration would still last a full round. Combined, relentless storm basically stunlocks enemies out for the fight and basically enemies had a single window of opportunity to interrupt your druid before the first round of bolts were released.

The nerf was necessary because otherwise every druid with relentless storm could trivialize all non-might-resistant encounters. Now, a crit-build can still kind of partially do it, but it's not a trivial thing.

Edited October 13, 2020 by thelee

[Lampros]

25 minutes ago, thelee said:

because of the way rounding works, once the first blast of lightning bolts go off, every enemy hit gets auto-targeted and stunned for 1 round (no partial rounds) for like the next 3+ rounds, and in this case IIRC the rounds last until the start of your next turn, at which point a new blast of lightning gets triggered. Because of the expanded graze range in turn-based mode, pretty much you are guaranteed to hit enemies with it, even on PoTD. And again, remember that there's no partial rounds, so even a graze on a tiny stun duration would still last a full round. Combined, relentless storm basically stunlocks enemies out for the fight and basically enemies had a single window of opportunity to interrupt your druid before the first round of bolts were released.

The nerf was necessary because otherwise every druid with relentless storm could trivialize all non-might-resistant encounters. Now, a crit-build can still kind of partially do it, but it's not a trivial thing.

 

Got it; so the problem was the graze boost

[thelee]

19 minutes ago, Lampros said:

 

Got it; so the problem was the graze boost

that was only partially the problem. the big problem is that in real-time with pause, grazing and getting like a 1s stun duration isn't terribly broken when it happens like every 6 seconds. with turn-based mode, all those gets rounded to getting a 1 round stun duration for bolts that happen every round, even on a low-intellect, weak graze against high-resolve enemies (if you had even a .1s stun, that would get rounded up to one round). that is why the nerf made is so that you only stun on a crit, and you get a dazed otherwise. it makes it much harder to stunlock that way.

Edited October 13, 2020 by thelee