Priest solo - MC or SC?

[Abrax]

Hello guys, I saw a video on YouTube where someone solo with a Single Class Magran Priest.

Are the PL8 and 9 from priest good enough to worthy a SC or is better to MC?

 

[Elric Galad]

32 minutes ago, Abrax said:

Hello guys, I saw a video on YouTube where someone solo with a Single Class Magran Priest.

Are the PL8 and 9 from priest good enough to worthy a SC or is better to MC?

The main issue of priest for offense is the lack of non-fire based offensive spells. Magran Priest gets even more of them. Symbols are crazy strong, but your  Symbol is also Fire-based !

SC Magran Priest does not feel versatile enough for Solo play. (In a party, you can use support spells instead, so it's workable). But yeah, you'll always find some guy on Youtube who did it (unless speaking about Ultimate).

In general MC are more versatile, so tends to be better for solo play.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Elric Galad

[Abrax]

I was worried about this issue.

I saw in another thread people talking about mage/Druid. Do you think a Magran/Fury could work?

[Not So Clever Hound]

29 minutes ago, Abrax said:

Do you think a Magran/Fury could work?

IMHO it can work on lower difficulties but the lack of renewable resources is going to be hard to work around. If you really want a caster Magranite, as usual Blood Mage MC Theurge will be at the top of the viability list, even if you're allergic to BDD + WoD.

[Abrax]

1 minute ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

IMHO it can work on lower difficulties but the lack of renewable resources is going to be hard to work around. If you really want a caster Magranite, as usual Blood Mage MC Theurge will be at the top of the viability list, even if you're allergic to BDD + WoD.

To be honest I was trying to avoid BM. I don’t dislike them, but I was thinking about something different.

Maybe I could try an hybrid, with a monk or fighter. Paladins could be an option, but Magran only allow Bleak Walker or Steel Garrote, and I don’t like them.

[Not So Clever Hound]

3 hours ago, Abrax said:

To be honest I was trying to avoid BM. I don’t dislike them, but I was thinking about something different.

Maybe I could try an hybrid, with a monk or fighter. Paladins could be an option, but Magran only allow Bleak Walker or Steel Garrote, and I don’t like them.

Yeah, I definitely understand. Well if you do some digging around the forum, I think that @thelee and others had a lot of fun with a Priest of Berath/Fighter but I don't know if it's as valuable for a Magranite (Magran's spiritual weapon are meh for a martial hybrid build) and I can't remember if this was tested/viable for solo play. On higher difficulties, there is still the problem of running out of resources before running out of enemies.

[Elric Galad]

Unfortunately, the game is not very well balanced for Solo. It's hard not to rely on "infinite ressource class/subclass".

[thelee]

Honestly I do not understand how a significant contingent plays on solo here. I did the ultimate, but solo play still sounds to me really hard to do regularly.

 

If you don't want to rely on resource cheese, you could MC or SC a skaen priest. They have shadowing beyond and escape, and so long as you're not on berath's challenge that means you can disengage from most fights and rest or just wait for resources to come back.

All priests can kinda do this with if you're able to get far enough away and withdraw yourself, but skaen makes it a lot easier/foolproof.

[Abrax]

43 minutes ago, thelee said:

Honestly I do not understand how a significant contingent plays on solo here. I did the ultimate, but solo play still sounds to me really hard to do regularly.

TBH I am planning solo because I have issues with party management. I always end up with someone doing nothing, or dying in easy fights.

But you are right, it’s hard to play solo. If I go with a party, what class would you suggest me? I like to be a tank, but I don’t want to be much passive.

I thought about Shieldbearer or Unbroken with Eothas, but I like to have Xoti as my priest. Maybe Bloodmage or any Cipher?

Edited August 13, 2021 by Abrax

[thelee]

if you're open to doing a paladin, i enjoyed an eothas+kind wayfarer setup, dual-wielded. it's very active front-liner while being very defensive - if you spam flames of devotion, you get lots of healing. and you can take breaks to cast a defensive spell, buff, or further heal. for party members especially spellcasters, you might want to do more vanilla setups where you can easily use a pre-boiled AI script to handle some of the party management for you. maia is great because rangers can be easily made fire-and-forget and they'll rack up kills and damage done with minimal micromanagement.

[Not So Clever Hound]

12 hours ago, thelee said:

Honestly I do not understand how a significant contingent plays on solo here. I did the ultimate, but solo play still sounds to me really hard to do regularly.

I will never do the Ultimate and of course I very much respect that you (and others) did that.

IMHO the game is not significantly harder overall Solo vs. party based if you truly optimize for Solo play. It narrows down options a little bit and maybe the very beginning and very end offer a bit more challenge. But beyond the achievement, I usually play mostly Solo in RPGs because I find it simpler. In many cases, I find that one really good toon will plough through encounters more efficiently than a suboptimal full party. Don’t you think?

One exception I found is Tyranny. I didn’t find it particularly fun to Solo. Which BTW makes me think that I need to add an entry to the list of things @Boeroerdoesn’t like: Cooldown mechanics.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Abrax]

That’s why I hate play with party. I was doing the digsite , that room with 4 skeletons. I can clear that room with a proper solo build, but now with the group is terrible. The skeletons engage my melee together with the tank, and I can’t reach the mage while he kills my ranged. 
Party play is boring as hell

[Boeroer]

Or you are not very good at it (yet).

 

[thelee]

i wonder: do people make aggressive use of pausing? I have terrible gamer reflexes, but I get through fights on PotD by just spam-pausing every half second or so and taking my time with every decision. I remember watching a bit of a playthrough of someone doing poe1, and i was surprised how little they paused.

[dgray62]

I also pause often, and I set the game to autopause frequently. I like to micromanage my MC, but when I play with parties, I generally let me companions and hirelings run on AI, interrupting only when they do something stupid, like charging into a chill fog.

[Boeroer]

13 hours ago, thelee said:

i wonder: do people make aggressive use of pausing? I have terrible gamer reflexes, but I get through fights on PotD by just spam-pausing every half second or so and taking my time with every decision. I remember watching a bit of a playthrough of someone doing poe1, and i was surprised how little they paused.

I'm pausing like a madman and micromanage everything into the ground - unless the fight is very easy, then I just select all and auto-attack one enemy after the other.

Because of that habit I now want to do a mostly AI-run playthrough where I only have to micro one character most of times. I did that in PoE1 as well but the AI was so bad (hello Benny Hill show) I abandoned that back then.

 

[Not So Clever Hound]

14 hours ago, thelee said:

i wonder: do people make aggressive use of pausing?

Same here, I pause like there is no tomorrow. Pausing is life.

Which is one of the main reasons why I'm so impressed by you Ultimate-finishers... Magran's Challenge is more than my nerves can ever take.

[Not So Clever Hound]

6 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I did that in PoE1 as well but the AI was so bad (hello Benny Hill show) I abandoned that back then.

One dumb party comp that works well on AI autopilot in PoE1 is 6 tanky Chanters with Dragon Thrashed... until half of them get Dominated by Vithrak... then the entire party can be very dead before you had a chance to yell "oh sh*t" .

It's like Benny Hill x Battle Royale. I almost lost a ToI run like that!

[thelee]

7 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

Same here, I pause like there is no tomorrow. Pausing is life.

Which is one of the main reasons why I'm so impressed by you Ultimate-finishers... Magran's Challenge is more than my nerves can ever take.

Magran's challenge is a lot easier at ultra-slow speed, with only one character, with an AI script to spam salvation of time like there's no tomorrow, and of course when you skip 90% of the fights in the game

 

I actually tried a "conventional" magran's challenge run with a party and hoo boy. Even with all the (vanilla) AI scripting I could muster, and sharpest WC3-style micro I could manage, enemy AI front load all their attacks at the start of the fight, and with each passing level it becomes increasingly harder to manage all your party members in a way that won't result in some of them getting knocked out through sheer stupidity or inaction in the first few seconds. As a fight goes on, it gets quite a bit easier because enemies space out their special attacks and such a bit more irregularly instead of all at once. But I gave up on it at around level 8 because I knew that front-loading of enemy attacks would only get worse over time.