A build that triggers Disengagement Attack aggressively.

[Hoo]

Hello.

 

I'm curious the character build as I mentioned topic, and I've found several thread that Terrified status can trigger Disengagement Attack when the character has Engagement against enemies.

Is there any other way to trigger the disengagement attack? Are abilities pushing/knocking back able to trigger it? Thanks in advance!

[Not So Clever Hound]

2 hours ago, Hoo said:

Are abilities pushing/knocking back able to trigger it?

Nope. Besides Terrify, I don't think there are consistent ways to compel the enemy to disengage (sometimes they do out of sheer stupidity  just like party companion AI).

If you want to take advantage of the Disengagement mechanic, it's better to do it in reverse (courtesy of @Boeroer):

• Use an item like Nomad Brigandine that has immunity to Disengagement attack
• Equip WotEP with Offensive Parry
• Get engaged by many enemies and then make small moves to disengage
• Enemy disengagement attacks will auto-miss, which will proc the Offensive Parry riposte from WotEP
• This effect can stack with the Rogue's Riposte talent and crits will benefit from the Monk's Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming
• What I'm not sure about is whether the Riposte can still benefit from Persistent Distraction, knowing that the riposte happens when you've just disengaged... (so enemies maybe aren't Distracted anymore) EDIT: it doesn't work, see post below.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Not So Clever Hound

[Haplok]

I will add that, in my experience, the disengagements from Terrify were not particularly reliable/frequent.

An SC monk can additionally benefit from triggering Disengagement Attacks while having Immunity to such attacks, as with Imagined Pain he will gain a wound each time an enemy would try to use a Disengagement attack on him.

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Haplok

[Not So Clever Hound]

1 hour ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

What I'm not sure about is whether the Riposte can still benefit from Persistent Distraction, knowing that the riposte happens when you've just disengaged... (so enemies maybe aren't Distracted anymore)

So I just did a bit of testing and while Persistent Distraction doesn't work with WotEP Riposte in that situation, of course you can set up all enemies with Distracted using Smoke/Pernicious Cloud, which will make all your attacks including Ripostes benefit from Sneak Attack/Deathblows. With a Streetfighter/Monk the result is quite impressive, maybe for overall survivability Trickster/Monk is better. I don't think the Monk class matters much but a high RES FF could be nice (high Deflection to trigger Riposte also without the Disengagement trick).

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Not So Clever Hound said:

• Use an item like Nomad Brigandine that has immunity to Disengagement attack
• Equip WotEP with Offensive Parry
• Get engaged by many enemies and then make small moves to disengage
• Enemy disengagement attacks will auto-miss, which will proc the Offensive Parry riposte from WotEP

You can also do this without enemies engaging you if you run out of range right as they start winding up a melee ability.

The combat log will say "missed (out of range)" for the enemy's attack, and that miss will still count for riposte effects. For mechanical reasons, ripostes appear to ignore range considerations, so I've triggered free attacks against enemies like this.

 

edit: a rogue/wizard will work because a wizard gets deleterious alacrity of motion, which gives you immuinty to engagement as well. gives you more freedom for armor selection.

edit 2: if it's not crucial, you can also rely on other mechanisms to accomplish what i'm talking about here. Staggered and other might afflictions disable enemy engagement. Barbarians have an incredibly easy way to spread staggered everywhere via Spirit Frenzy (don't upgrade it, so that spell effects and other such also spread staggered; it's a bug in your favor). Priests and wizards can daze or stagger depending on spell selection. Ciphers eventually get an extremely long Daze (+Confuse). Many enemies also just don't have engagement, so you can do the move-out-of-range trick freely against those.

Edited August 18, 2021 by thelee

[Boeroer]

Or you get the Grog pet. It removes engagement from the game completely. It will also outright kill any party member that gets knocked out. But that's a small price to pay, right?   

Edited August 18, 2021 by Boeroer

[Not So Clever Hound]

[thelee]

44 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Or you get the Grog pet. It removes engagement from the game completely. It will also outright kill any party member that gets knocked out. But that's a small price to pay, right?   

but then you can't engage enemies! that's a pretty big price to pay

 

i tried playing iwd:ee the other day and i had forgotten how much i had gotten used to more modern rpgs with engagement (or attacks of opportunity mechanics). bad AI/pathfinding + no engagement = orcs that would just stutter step their way away from my fighter trying to get their one THAC0 roll per round off.

[Not So Clever Hound]

9 minutes ago, thelee said:

 

i tried playing iwd:ee the other day and i had forgotten how much i had gotten used to more modern rpgs with engagement (or attacks of opportunity mechanics). bad AI/pathfinding + no engagement = orcs that would just stutter step their way away from my fighter trying to get their one THAC0 roll per round off.

Yeah going back to Ad&d 2e games can be brutal in that regard but it’s like a « Madeleine de Proust ». Unmistakable taste of old times past . Ah, burning everything to a crisp in IWD with a Dragon Disciple bathing in his own incendiary clouds. Fun times. No worries about pathfinding and the lack of AoO then .

[Viryu]

Would rogue's defensive roll trigger disengagement attack? In theory you're suddenly stopped from being engaged, would that count as such?

[Boeroer]

If you are not engaged then there will be no disengagement attack. Evasive Roll will make you immune to engagement for a few secs so you will not suffer disengagement attacks when you leave during that time. 

Movement abilities like Escape, Leap, Evasive Fire, Flagellant's Path etc.) never trigger disengagement attacks. It's basically moving without "officially" moving and cancels all engagement for a short while.