Team composition for TC party if I only want to use default companions and sidekicks

[Ouroboros226]

Would just like some quick feedback if anyone is willing to chip in. The plan currently is:

 

Healer: Herald (PC)

Tank: Pallegina as crusader. 

DPS: Aloth as pure wizard. Maia scout DPS.

Hybrid: Teheku as a theurgist for flexibility. Defensive chants + DPS and can help with healing in a pinch. 

 

I think a second chanter is necessary for affliction resistance chants. Though Herald is a very strong healer, there might be situations where supplementary healing is needed. So I decided, since chants are passive. To have Teheku providing anti-CC chants as a DPS build. While also being able to heal in a pinch. I don't like Serafen, so I will sell him out early. I don't like Xoti but I kinda have to pick her up to clear the first island. Any of the side-kick companions worth it maybe? Haven't tried them. I do not want to use custom adventurer companions because they feel so soulless. 

As for race - pale elf for roleplaying reasons and because I think the female pale elf is the most aesthetically pleasing one. +4 fire and freeze DR is solid though? As for paladin subclass. Having a hard time between shieldbearer and goldpact. Kind wayfarer is not a good option as perception is my dump stat, and because I want all paladin resource for heals and support, with the exception of branding bosses for perma damage ticks.

Unsure about Aloth. I will need him for chillfog, but not sure if multiclass or pure wiz is better for him. Also kinda scared that in a long fight Aloth will run out of spells and be useless. Any ideas for who or what can take that spot? Maia is a scout mostly for gouging strike. It is simply too good to have 1x brand and 1x gouging strike on bosses and tougher enemies - IMO. 

 

[Carys]

I am a fan of both Fassina and Ydwin.  Ydwin could be pure cipher in your group, since Maia can handle rogue things, or you could let Ydwin handle rogue things as she can be cipher/rogue, and you can get her basically as soon as you get to Nekataka.  Mirke is also very easy to get, and she can be a lot of fun, too.  I haven't done much with Konstanten. Rekke is solid, it can be annoying getting to him early game as you might get intercepted by high level ships.

[Faraleth]

howler Konstanten is great

[Ouroboros226]

5 hours ago, Faraleth said:

howler Konstanten is great

Good to know! But I don't like his kind. I never liked dwarves - no idea why xD

[thelee]

On 9/10/2021 at 6:59 AM, Ouroboros226 said:

Unsure about Aloth. I will need him for chillfog, but not sure if multiclass or pure wiz is better for him. Also kinda scared that in a long fight Aloth will run out of spells and be useless

single-class wizard is brutally powerful in end game, if you survive that long  

 

early on you may run out of spells, true. i recommend a good bow or something. cast some conjured weapons, they will give you lots of juice as you run low on spells (and all of the wizard ones are either ranged or have reach, which is great for a wizard's longevity). fassina gets extra long summoned weapons as a conjurer (no chill fog or slicken though). 

Edited September 13, 2021 by thelee

[Ouroboros226]

1 hour ago, thelee said:

single-class wizard is brutally powerful in end game, if you survive that long  

 

early on you may run out of spells, true. i recommend a good bow or something. cast some conjured weapons, they will give you lots of juice as you run low on spells (and all of the wizard ones are either ranged or have reach, which is great for a wizard's longevity). fassina gets extra long summoned weapons as a conjurer (no chill fog or slicken though). 

Thanks for the advice. I've seen many people say that conjurer as a specialization is not worth it, because the +2 power level doesn't do much for conjuration spells. Is it that bad? Or was this old information which is outdated?

[thelee]

4 hours ago, Ouroboros226 said:

Thanks for the advice. I've seen many people say that conjurer as a specialization is not worth it, because the +2 power level doesn't do much for conjuration spells. Is it that bad? Or was this old information which is outdated?

i think most of the internet metagame is unfairly sour on wizard subclasses. +2 power level isn't a lot for most conjuration spells, but there are still some spells that benefit from well. the free familiar spell you get at tier one is pretty good too, even if it is some slight anti-synergy with, say, summoning essential/substantial phantom ("[the familiar] grants you a random passive bonus which always at least grants you +1 PL, then +3 of a random stat and an additional bonus."). in effect, conjurers have +1 PL to enchantment/transmutation and +3 to conjuration spells as a result.

 

as for "not worth it," I think that perception/calculus relies too much on focusing on the spells one loses, versus the spells one keeps. If you can find a comfortable way to live within your means, so to speak, you basically have no downside and get bonus PL as a result. and the school spells are generally balanced enough that i am always comfortable and happy to pick up fassina, and have done so in basically all her different forms and it's great. she'll play differently than, say, an evoker (or a general mage like aloth), but i'm able to find niches where the downsides are basically not apparent at all. (parenthetically, in the few times i've independently rolled a wizard, i keep having to stop myself from rolling a conjurer because that's actually where i keep drifting to play-style wise)

 

also i was wrong upthread. conjurers still get access to transmutation. still get chill fog and slicken.

Edited September 13, 2021 by thelee

[Faraleth]

15 hours ago, Ouroboros226 said:

I never liked dwarves

 

[mjo2138]

On 9/13/2021 at 7:27 PM, thelee said:

i think most of the internet metagame is unfairly sour on wizard subclasses. +2 power level isn't a lot for most conjuration spells, but there are still some spells that benefit from well. the free familiar spell you get at tier one is pretty good too, even if it is some slight anti-synergy with, say, summoning essential/substantial phantom ("[the familiar] grants you a random passive bonus which always at least grants you +1 PL, then +3 of a random stat and an additional bonus."). in effect, conjurers have +1 PL to enchantment/transmutation and +3 to conjuration spells as a result.

 

as for "not worth it," I think that perception/calculus relies too much on focusing on the spells one loses, versus the spells one keeps. If you can find a comfortable way to live within your means, so to speak, you basically have no downside and get bonus PL as a result. and the school spells are generally balanced enough that i am always comfortable and happy to pick up fassina, and have done so in basically all her different forms and it's great. she'll play differently than, say, an evoker (or a general mage like aloth), but i'm able to find niches where the downsides are basically not apparent at all. (parenthetically, in the few times i've independently rolled a wizard, i keep having to stop myself from rolling a conjurer because that's actually where i keep drifting to play-style wise)

 

also i was wrong upthread. conjurers still get access to transmutation. still get chill fog and slicken.

Good to know, I always avoided Fassina, but you are right that a SC Conjurer does have a lot of good spells. Also transmutation is open, so she could even use Nissana's (sp) Cobra Strikes! 

[Elric Galad]

On 9/14/2021 at 1:27 AM, thelee said:

i think most of the internet metagame is unfairly sour on wizard subclasses. +2 power level isn't a lot for most conjuration spells, but there are still some spells that benefit from well. the free familiar spell you get at tier one is pretty good too, even if it is some slight anti-synergy with, say, summoning essential/substantial phantom ("[the familiar] grants you a random passive bonus which always at least grants you +1 PL, then +3 of a random stat and an additional bonus."). in effect, conjurers have +1 PL to enchantment/transmutation and +3 to conjuration spells as a result.

 

as for "not worth it," I think that perception/calculus relies too much on focusing on the spells one loses, versus the spells one keeps. If you can find a comfortable way to live within your means, so to speak, you basically have no downside and get bonus PL as a result. and the school spells are generally balanced enough that i am always comfortable and happy to pick up fassina, and have done so in basically all her different forms and it's great. she'll play differently than, say, an evoker (or a general mage like aloth), but i'm able to find niches where the downsides are basically not apparent at all. (parenthetically, in the few times i've independently rolled a wizard, i keep having to stop myself from rolling a conjurer because that's actually where i keep drifting to play-style wise)

 

also i was wrong upthread. conjurers still get access to transmutation. still get chill fog and slicken.

I think the Internet is mostly unfair about Conjurers. There is even a glitch that causes the familiar bonus to last forever, if it lasts its total duration or (not sure) if another thing is summoned.

+1 stackable PL is a super rare bonus.

Enchanters, Illusionists and Transmuters are really meh in my opinion. Which doesn't help Wiz subclasses is that one of them is OP (bloody blood picker).

Bloodmages OP

Base Wiz and Evokers balanced

Conjurer is balanced because an anti synergy and a glitch

Transmuters, Illusionists and Enchanters are meh.

 

Wizard as a whole is a super solid class, so even the meh choices are good enough.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Elric Galad

[thelee]

10 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

Wizard as a whole is a super solid class, so even the meh choices are good enough.

i would kindly argue that it's not even a case of "meh => still good". For whatever restrictions any subclass has, bonus stacking PL is such a rare gift that I'll happily take it. Even Transmutation, which gets the lamest subclass bonus, I'll happily take +2 PL to things like slicken, pull of eora, petrification.

Enchantment is probably the closest to borderline because of how most of its spells benefit weakly from +2 PL, but even then there's enough stuff I like spamming at +2 PL that I'll happily take it (it also has a pretty decent subclass bonus).

 

you obviously lose out on some cheese options depending on the school (e.g. losing conjuration=>lose wall of draining), but i'm not sure how strongly to weight that when evaluating subclasses. (e.g. blood mage loses out on least unstable coil shenanigans but is still extremely powerful)

Edited September 16, 2021 by thelee

[Ouroboros226]

12 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

 

Base Wiz and Evokers balanced

 

 

In my 3rd and so far most successful triple crown attempt (lvl18 atm), I'm struggling a bit - and found out as @thelee told me how important good DPS and a good offense is (even defensively, as a dead enemy deal 0 damage). Because having a too defensive oriented team as I have currently, it makes every fight into a super long slogfest. Like the skull fortress and that iceberg, I feel I can't die. But the encounters last forever to the point of becoming boring.

So I was wondering @Elric Galad, you say base wiz and evokers are balanced. But are these classes not a liability in PoTD if you can not burst down enemies fast enough? Playing a herald time is on my side. What I fear if I play a wizard, is that time is against me, and a base wiz or evoker can risk being a liability. 

I intend to skip the super bosses on my first current triple crown run. And try them on the next. I've heard evokers can basically one shot some bosses lategame. So that does help argue for them and not against them. That wizards are weak and become exponentially stronger. How do veteran players solve this? Having enchantment buffs to fall back to, to become a combat machine after nuking?  

  

I really want to play either an evoker, or an evoker warlock next playthrough. But it kinda scares me ending up in a situation where my resources have run out, and the battle is tipped in the enemy's favor. Maybe the solution is just "Get good!"  

 

[thelee]

one thing i can say is that if you have access to illusion magic and aren't doing berath's challenge, time is definitely on your side, once you unlock access to arkemyr's brilliant departure. you can basically ditch the vast majority of fights and refresh resources once the going gets tough (though you might leave party members knocked out, since they won't revive if an enemy is in sight).

to a lesser extent, fleet feet and deletrious alacrity of motion can do similar things since you can outrun most enemies and de-aggro them if needed. doesn't work in small areas though.

Edited September 16, 2021 by thelee

[Elric Galad]

5 hours ago, thelee said:

i would kindly argue that it's not even a case of "meh => still good". For whatever restrictions any subclass has, bonus stacking PL is such a rare gift that I'll happily take it. Even Transmutation, which gets the lamest subclass bonus, I'll happily take +2 PL to things like slicken, pull of eora, petrification.

Enchantment is probably the closest to borderline because of how most of its spells benefit weakly from +2 PL, but even then there's enough stuff I like spamming at +2 PL that I'll happily take it (it also has a pretty decent subclass bonus).

 

you obviously lose out on some cheese options depending on the school (e.g. losing conjuration=>lose wall of draining), but i'm not sure how strongly to weight that when evaluating subclasses. (e.g. blood mage loses out on least unstable coil shenanigans but is still extremely powerful)

Loosing enchanting means loosing a lots of small buff, especially DAoM which basically allows you to do MORE STUFF.
Loosing conjuration means loosing summon.
Loosing evocation means loosing the ultimate Tier 9 AoEs...

etc...

It's not just about loosing a couple of cheese, I think. In addition there is this slight recovery penalty... Not much but adds up.

That's why having bad special abilities feel wrong.

But here we face a very subjective line between what is good, what could have been better and what is meh (and my perception is very influenced by what I've modded...), so...

2 hours ago, Ouroboros226 said:

So I was wondering @Elric Galad, you say base wiz and evokers are balanced. But are these classes not a liability in PoTD if you can not burst down enemies fast enough? Playing a herald time is on my side. What I fear if I play a wizard, is that time is against me, and a base wiz or evoker can risk being a liability. 

I intend to skip the super bosses on my first current triple crown run. And try them on the next. I've heard evokers can basically one shot some bosses lategame. So that does help argue for them and not against them. That wizards are weak and become exponentially stronger. How do veteran players solve this? Having enchantment buffs to fall back to, to become a combat machine after nuking?  

  

I really want to play either an evoker, or an evoker warlock next playthrough. But it kinda scares me ending up in a situation where my resources have run out, and the battle is tipped in the enemy's favor. Maybe the solution is just "Get good!"  

Ancestor's Memory from a Cipher buddy is the key here. Restoring a spell up to Tier 9 every 6s is kind of broken but it is the strongest uses of pure casters for long battles.

But yes, it requires party support, from a class specialized in long battles.

The key issue there is that (Mega)bosses battles are just poorly balanced compared to the rest of the game, in that they heavily favor a couple of classes (Chanters, support Ciphers) or subclasses (Blood Mage and Tactician) with infinite ressource.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Elric Galad