6 man party with low micromanagement possible?

[Arete]

I'm looking for builds and a party composition that, while being a 6 man party, still keeps micromanagement to low levels while still being competative.
Could it be possible by stacking passive effects like auras, chants, party wide buffs to the point that the sum of the partys "right click" damage (ordinary attacks) is enough to defeat most encounters?

A paladin (or possibly two?) would be a centerpiece. Could a chanters party wide chants be a valuable addition? I would probably use a priest for healing and buffing (but I dont want to be too dependant on many casts per encounter).
I would want to reject builds that are good in solo playthroughs, but include builds that give great payoffs from having a party.
 

[Boeroer]

You might want to avoid casters then (those develop inbto the strngest classes during the game but require the most micromanagement by far), glass cannons of all sorts and most Monk builds (they are awesome but often require a lot of micro, too). You want to favor sturdyness over damage output. 

A class that can be build into a very low-maintenance party member but yet be very effective is a Chanter, especially once he gets "The Dragon Thrashed" phrase at level 9. He can basically just stand there and kill stuff with that "passive" chant. It's very good. You can even habe several of them - they all stack their chant damage.

Other classes that don't require too much micromanagement are Fighter, Ranger (but you are adding another body to steer around), Rogue (if not build into a squishy), Paladin and Barbarian (after you level him up a bit or go with reach weapons like Pike or Quarterstaff). You can build Monks with very low micro, too if you focus on cumulating wounds for the bonuses abd keep onto them instead of spending them all the time.  

I guess the most effective yet lowest maintenance party would be six tanky Chanters who first go with Soft Winds and later 5 switch to Dragon Thrashed. All have Ancient Memory and the 6th sings Come Soft Winds + Mercy and Kindness.

Basically you'll have 5 of those (or somewhat similar):

And one of those:
 

Here's a whole video series from @Raven Darkholmewhere he captured his 6-Chanter party.

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

@BoeroerThis is slightly embarassing, but years later I realized I set up my chants wrong with that party.

The proper way to stack several chants is to set up multiple ones in the edit screen (duh lol), but for some reason abck then I only set up one per chanter.

The funny thing is most of the game was still a giant breeze, because of stacking dragon trashed 6x, Adra dragon which is FIRE IMMUNE died in smth silly like 40 seconds.

I did however have a little trouble with bog dragons back then even tho I ultimately ended up killing them.

When years later I started up Poe again, I also looked at my old chanter save and immediately found my mistake.

I changed all my chants to 6x dragon slashed in a row and even had a save before bog dragons and voila, now they also melted in seconds.

[Desmodeus]

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Other classes that don't require too much micromanagement are Fighter, Ranger (but you are adding another body to steer around), Rogue (if not build into a squishy), Paladin and Barbarian (after you level him up a bit or go with reach weapons like Pike or Quarterstaff). You can build Monks with very low micro, too if you focus on cumulating wounds for the bonuses abd keep onto them instead of spending them all the time.  

I also find implement focused wizard rather low on micro, assuming you have "pause after skill" turned on. Basically Infuse with Vital essence -> Delaterious Alacrity -> spam autoattack. Just make sure that he doesn't die permanently from recoil xD

[Arete]

Thanks for all the input.
I'm aware of the strength of the damaging auras of the paladins Sacred Immolation and the Chanters phrase The Dragon Thrashed. I've read about them in a different topic where a player describes his ultimate party. Stacking a combination of 6 characters with Immolation and Thrashed would indeed be the epitome of low micro while being very effective. I want a little more challenge so I'm constraining myself to weapon attacks as my primary damage source.

I do like auras and chants and other sort of buffs that is party wide and thus scales in effectiveness the larger my party is. I would most certainly include at least one (or two?) of each paladins and chanters, but I'd want them to make the party stronger or the enemy weaker so that my team can "right click" the foes down.

Can we elaborate a bit on these classes in such a party setup? I would want to know how to build them (if possible) to include them in such a party:
Priest (low micro possible? cast/rest dependency)
Cipher (depends on weapon attacks to build resource)
Barbarian (inherent aoe from weapon attacks)
Rogue (inherent potential damage scaling, but depends on foes to be debuffed)
Wizard (low micro possible? cast/rest dependency)
Fighter (lack of synergy?)

Another constraint that I should mention, is that I want to not depend on resting that often. I would want to blow through pack after pack without resting in between.
The risk I see with wizard and priest is that I would depend on their limited casts per rest to clear areas. However, wizard has an ability to steal spells from enemy spellcasters, allowing him to go on for longer in some situations.
The problem I see with rogue and fighter (and somewhat in barbarian) is that I don't see much scaling with party size in their abilities, like those that chanters and paladins have.

[Boeroer]

I don't think any caster who's supposed to actually cast spells in combat can be low micro. Only exception may be a Wizard who just summons Minor Blights and uses Blast/Penetrating Blast and then auto-attacks. That's the lowest micro (yet effective) caster I can imagine.

Priest are the strongest class for a party-run imo but they need to cast buffs. Casting is micro-intense. Without casting buffs a Priest is moot. 

Same with Ciphers. If you only want to weapon-attack with a Cipher and not use his casting powers frequently you might as well pick a Rogue.

A Rogue can be micro as heck if you build him squishy, but a sturdy one can be pretty hands-off. You don't need to actively trigger Sneak-Attack conditions. There are weapons that can do that automatically for you and if you bum-rush enemies with melee guys they will most certainly get flanked which also unlocks Sneak Attack. One of the most low-micro rogues I played was a shield rogue with Godhanstunyr + Badgradr's Barricade and while being strudy he also did very solid dmg.

You didn't say Monk up there in your list - but there are Monk builds that are also potential low micro, for example the Anvil build in this forum that evolves arounr retaliation which doesn't need a lot of input. 

 A quite low-micro Barb is one with Tidefall (Great Sword). You simply hit stuff with great dmg and also heal from it which takes away the necessity to look after him as much. Same can be done wotjh Tall Grass since then he doesn't have to be in the fray all the time but can poke into enemy clusters from the flanks. A Barb with Hours of St. Rumbalt can also be low-micro as soon as he reliably crits enemies. If you give your Barb the Sangune Plate you don't even need to trigger Frenzy manually. Works with every other class as well obviously. 

Fighter is one of the lowest micro classes, especially if you focus on all his passives. Can be good to have as tank because those don't have to do a lot anyways besides binding foes and soaking attacks. You can build them into great rushers  - but that again requires micromanagement. But if you only want to "select all and attack" then they a good fit. 

Rangers bring an additional body which can deal significant damage (e.g. the wolf). You can just select all and attack. Additional bodies are very effective especially if you don't want to invest time into casting/resting etc. Animal Companions don't have health (only endurance) so they won't ge forced to rest to fill up health. You can use them as cannon fodder which is as good as new in every encounter.

 

[Desmodeus]

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

I don't think any caster who's supposed to actually cast spells in combat can be low micro. Only exception may be a Wizard who just summons Minor Blights and uses Blast/Penetrating Blast and then auto-attacks. That's the lowest micro (yet effective) caster I can imagine.

To be fair later on even Minor Blights can be skipped. WM1 and WM2 brough us some very nice implements. Curoc's Brand is a wand that provide combusting wounds on hit or crit and thats damn nice, Golden gaze has Expose Vulnerabilities on hit or crit. Both can be recieved relatively early and without heavy fights.

1 hour ago, Boeroer said:

Rangers bring an additional body which can deal significant damage (e.g. the wolf). You can just select all and attack. Additional bodies are very effective especially if you don't want to invest time into casting/resting etc. Animal Companions don't have health (only endurance) so they won't ge forced to rest to fill up health. You can use them as cannon fodder which is as good as new in every encounter.

Pets do receive wounds though IIRC so they still need resting or well... they become rather lousy meatshield

Edited January 9, 2021 by Desmodeus

[Boeroer]

I don't recall whether Animal Companions receive injuries or not, but if I wanted low micro I would def. turn off knockout injuries in the game options (which is an option that is not related to the general stages of difficulty).

Sure there are nice implements, especially if you have WM I installed you can get Gyrd Háewanes Sténes very early and it's awesome. Engwithan Scepter is also a very good implement because of the speed enchantmemt that allows for 0 recovery with Durgan Steel and Deleterious Alacrity.
But the thing with Minor Blights is that besides their awesome accuracy bonus of +20 they do AoE damage - and every attack roll in that AoE produces its own Blast(!). That means if you manage to hit 5 enemies with one shot of Minor Blights for example it will trigger 20 Blasts attack rolls (25 attack rolls with one shot in total).

With a "normal", even unique implement - no matter how cool it is - you'll only generate 1 initial hit and 4 Blast rolls (5 in total). With the Golden Gaze you'd do 2 initial and 8 Blast hit rolls - but the initial rolls will have low base damage.
So imo as long as the enemies stand tight there's nothing better than Minor Blights + (Penetrating) Blast - especially if you are also using Combusting Wounds (which is debatable in this case because: more micro).
But of course summoning Minor Blights will cost you a per-rest spell use of tier 3 which is the same tier as Deleterious Alacrity. So you cannot have Minir Blights AND Alacrity as spell mastery - which is sad.
So you should def. pick a non-summoned implement as backup and only use Minor Blights in fights where its special advantages would be most effective (like in tough fights with a lot of enemies who stand near together for example).   

A build for inspiration on how you could build a low-micro Blast WIzard without using Minor Blights too much can be found here:

 

Edited January 9, 2021 by Boeroer

[Desmodeus]

Well to  be fair you can just replace DAoM mastery with potions + angio's  gambezon. Crafting isn't exatly micro-control related annoyance