Annihilated in first fight in FS

[Vasvary5050]

So, pulled Vithrack Luminary early on in FS, and it pretty much one-shotted my tank with missile salvo, and perma-killed one of my main backline DPS-ers. A good start! I think FS might be a bit harder than SSS.

Defeated it on second attempt with a wall of summoned meat shields. They die quick but do such much damage if you let them.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Vasvary5050

[Torm51]

5 hours ago, Vasvary5050 said:

So, pulled Vithrack Luminary early on in FS, and it pretty much one-shotted my tank with missile salvo, and perma-killed one of my main backline DPS-ers. A good start! I think FS might be a bit harder than SSS.

Defeated it on second attempt with a wall of summoned meat shields. They die quick but do such much damage if you let them.

Ya FS is really tough, just finished it on POTD Ironman with some god challenges and I lost 2 party members to destroy spells.

 

1.  Intellect Affliction immunity makes you immune to 2 boss spells (spore, and frightened child) that destroy your character they both require a party me member to be dominated and then you are destroyed.  Captains Banquet food makes you immune to that.

 

2. Anyone with a disintegrate DOT on them is a heavy heal priority (a Paladin was my main healer)  because if your HP reaches 0 you will be destroyed and not knocked out.  
 

3. On the spore side the mushrooms do a inject spell that does extremely heavy corrode damage-It’s listed as a poison so any Paladin with Righteous Soul or any character that eats Kapa Tea is immune and instead of taking 200+ corrode damage you take 0. 

4. The Vithraks are tough because of missile salvo and disintegrate but like you said they die fast especially the casters. Focus fire them. If you have an EXTREMELY tough tank like a Crusader most people don’t like Crusader tank cause it’s too tanky but this is the one point in the game where if you tank traditionally they are tough enough to survive, bate their salvos and heal yourself (Greater LOH if you got it for this one).

 

5. Safer than tanking salvos is to focus fire the caster Vithraks and interrupt them. 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Torm51

[Torm51]

Oh last thing I think Paladin is excellent in FS. 1. Mushroom spore injection immunity through righteous soul and if you take aegis of loyalty you don’t need to eat the captains banquet and just melee your party members out of dominate. Those are 2 sort of niche abilities bud they are top tier in FS.

Edited June 5, 2023 by Torm51

[Shai Hulud]

@Torm51 has good suggestions, but pathing and stealth can also be of great help to you. You don't need to fight the vithrack at all. If you do quarantined section first, you can stealth that and don't kill any normal librarians, you can avoid the first oracle fight, then sneak up to sissak's nest and hand him the warden contract.

Most of the FS fights are so tough because the enemy parties are really well-balanced. Like they often have paladins or moon spiders doing massive amounts of healing to their strikers / wizards / ciphers. I've found killing the support characters first makes these fights a little easier. Soloing I've actually encountered some FS fights that appear unwinnable, at least with certain builds. Like had a super tanky arcane knight that simply could not kill certain groups though they couldn't kill me either. Sissak's Nest is good example, the moon spiders provide massive amounts of healing to the vithracks. It appears impossible solo unless you have abilities that can stop healing like forbidden fist.

[Vasvary5050]

11 hours ago, Torm51 said:

Ya FS is really tough, just finished it on POTD Ironman with some god challenges and I lost 2 party members to destroy spells.

@Torm51I'm playing on POTD upscaled, but not ironman nor with god challenges on top. Getting party members destroyed would be pretty rough to continue from on ironman. I salute you for this o7. [By the way, is your avatar name, Torm, taken from the diety in Forgotten Realms by any chance?]

11 hours ago, Torm51 said:

2. Anyone with a disintegrate DOT on them is a heavy heal priority (a Paladin was my main healer)  because if your HP reaches 0 you will be destroyed and not knocked out.  

Yep, I've had disintegrate cast upon party members. Usually it's fine. I have a Paladin/Druid in the party (yes, I know, it's a strange sub-optimal muitlclass combination). I've been using it as a healer/off-tank, with one or two of the druid's HoTs running throughout most fights, and the Kind Wayfarer's Flames of Devotion for healing through dual-wielding attacks, and up until now it has done a pretty decent job of keeping the party alive. Not sure if it will be enough for FS though.

11 hours ago, Torm51 said:

4. The Vithraks are tough because of missile salvo and disintegrate but like you said they die fast especially the casters. Focus fire them. If you have an EXTREMELY tough tank like a Crusader most people don’t like Crusader tank cause it’s too tanky but this is the one point in the game where if you tank traditionally they are tough enough to survive, bate their salvos and heal yourself (Greater LOH if you got it for this one).

I like the idea of an indestructible Fighter-Paladin tank. However, my tank is a fighter-chanter, and whilst I could bench them and put in place a Crusader (either a hirling starting at one level below my MC or Pallegina), I wouldn't have a chanter in my party then, and so would have to replace someone else to get a chanter back into the party (chanters are just too good not to have at least one). Also, I would then have 2 Paladins, which I think is too many Paladins for a party. I guess I could change the tank to a Crusader, and then replace my Druid/Paladin with a Druid/Chanter. But for now I think I'm going to try to push forward with what I have. But in my next run, I might try the indestructible Crusader!

11 hours ago, Torm51 said:

5. Safer than tanking salvos is to focus fire the caster Vithraks and interrupt them. 

Yeah. Problem is that the Vithrak with Salvos killed my chanter-tank before Thick Grew Their Tongues had a chance to rip off its 4xConcentration. I then resurected my tank with my Paladin and the fight continued. I managed to strip the concentration of the Vithrak, and was shooting it with concussive tranquilizer on my Ranger and Debilitating Strike from my rogue, but I presume they both missed and it managed to perma-destroy my ranger (didn't even see what it cast, just saw my Ranger disappear under a hail of animated weapons and whatever the Vithrak was casting), and then it killed my tank again, and it went down hill from there. I was on the backfoot TBH from the moment my tank died 5 seconds into the fight.

Second time around, I had my party hide around the corner, my rogue went and sniped the Vithrak from range and then ran back to my party, whilst my chanter, druid and ranger summoned ogres, primordial oozes and ghostheart bear respectively, and I overwhelmed the Vithrak with the summons, and then when it was focused on my summons, I sniped it down from ranged [Tank got to sit that fight out]. 

11 hours ago, Torm51 said:

Oh last thing I think Paladin is excellent in FS. 1. Mushroom spore injection immunity through righteous soul and if you take aegis of loyalty you don’t need to eat the captains banquet and just melee your party members out of dominate. Those are 2 sort of niche abilities bud they are top tier in FS.

I will respec my Paladin to include these abilities before continuing with FS!!

 

11 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

@Torm51 has good suggestions, but pathing and stealth can also be of great help to you. You don't need to fight the vithrack at all. If you do quarantined section first, you can stealth that and don't kill any normal librarians, you can avoid the first oracle fight, then sneak up to sissak's nest and hand him the warden contract.

@Shai HuludYeah, I figured I could avoid fighting the Vithracks, but after the first bad pull, I couldn't walk away. In any case, I'm pretty much trying to kill my way through everything in the current run because I'm playing more for the fights than the roleplay this time around. But if I was solo-ing it, or iron manning it, I would definitely take the stealth approach. I'm also learning a lot about the problems with my current build choices through putting them through these difficult fights. Whether my party can cope with the well-balanced enemy parties you mention I'll find out soon. I'm hoping I have enough damage and interrupts to get through their healing. 

[Shai Hulud]

10 hours ago, Vasvary5050 said:

@Shai HuludYeah, I figured I could avoid fighting the Vithracks, but after the first bad pull, I couldn't walk away. In any case, I'm pretty much trying to kill my way through everything in the current run because I'm playing more for the fights than the roleplay this time around. But if I was solo-ing it, or iron manning it, I would definitely take the stealth approach. I'm also learning a lot about the problems with my current build choices through putting them through these difficult fights. Whether my party can cope with the well-balanced enemy parties you mention I'll find out soon. I'm hoping I have enough damage and interrupts to get through their healing. 

Well I certainly understand the "kill everything" approach, though I usually try to avoid killing the regular librarians since they aren't hostile. Pretty sure I killed everything during ultimate run, though I was trying to build max focus and killing things helped. I think with the vithracks and luminescent spore though since the game has built in peaceful solutions you shouldn't feel obligated to kill them all (unless you just want to). It's not like sneaking past enemies and leaving them there, because once you turn them friendly they aren't enemies anymore. 

The FS enemies are just miles tougher than you find elsewhere IMO. Infested librarians and luminescent spores are pretty nasty, but not as bad as the enclosures. The vithrack are bad but the vithrack + moon spiders are worse. Even some of the prisoners, if you attack them or turn them hostile, become ridiculously tough fights. The enemy groups are well-balanced in composition and their AI tends to be more complicated with them supporting and healing each other. Also that whole top level of vithracks is nuts, especially if you mess with the spider eggs. And Sissak's Nest is one of the hardest fights in the game IMO because there's no way to start it stealthed and you start in a cramped area so it's basically an ambush with the moon spiders doing massive healing on the vithracks, and there's several waves of them. You need big AOE damage like missile salvo, great maelstrom, etc., or if you have a FF they can melee through these encounters because enfeeble is incredibly strong when these fights rely so much on the enemies healing each other. Arcane Dampener is also really useful. Frightened Child is also really tough, but you can use the librarians as meat shields if you rush out of the room so it can be made just "hard" if you fall back, use the librarians as bait, and cast long-range high damage spells or bow attacks. The rest of the encounters in FS are "easy" by comparison. 

I expect you'll have quite a few wipes if you try these tougher fights, but the feeling of satisfaction of beating them at least once is worth it.  

---

Oh and crusaders are okay tanks but the really top tier tanks are votaries and arcane knights IMO. I mean crusaders are good tanks due to unbending being busted but they don't have the armor or damage of the best tanks. A FF/SG can solo FS with the right gear. You can easily get armor in 20+ range and still do decent damage. All enemy attacks (save some rare special abilities like skyward kicks) will underpen and miss/graze so you easily outheal them, plus FF interrupts and enfeebles, and you get 15% damage returned as health plus 10 to 15 per FF attack, which combined with exalted endurance makes you unkillable. Arcane knights can tank just as well (better, even) but it's much harder to kill things. I don't love chanters for tanks but a paladin/chanter would be better than a fighter/chanter. Fighters can only tank as long they can keep up unbending, and even then you need lots of things hitting you.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Vasvary5050]

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

The FS enemies are just miles tougher than you find elsewhere IMO.

The funny thing is, since wiping to the first Vithrack pack that I pulled (which included a Vithrack Luminary), its gone fairly smoothly (no KOs or deaths). Now that I know how deadly the Vithrack Luminary can be, I've adapted my strategy for dealing with them (overwhelm them with summons - animated weapons and Druid's primordial oozes, and then nuke them down whilst they are dealing with those). The Frightened Child fight was a long fight, but no one got knocked out or killed. I basically gummed up the doorway with summons, and killed a bunch of the imaginary friends with ranged AoE through the doorway. Things went a bit south for a moment when a wall of many colours landed on my party and summons, but the party held. I logged off last night at the Oracle of Wael fight so that will be where I pick up this evening.

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

And Sissak's Nest is one of the hardest fights in the game IMO because there's no way to start it stealthed and you start in a cramped area so it's basically an ambush with the moon spiders doing massive healing on the vithracks, and there's several waves of them.

Yeah, I had forgotten about this nasty, and ran into his map/room last night (without the contract). I didn't even attempt to fight them (reloaded the save from before I went in there). I really think my party would have a hard time dealing with Sissak and all the other nasties in there (at least 2 Vithrack Luminaries plus a bunch of other nasties), so that's a fight I might skip. ... well, maybe I'll give it a few goes when my party hits level 20 (my MC just hit level 20, everyone else is still level 19 but not far off 20).

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Pretty sure I killed everything during ultimate run

Wow, I can't even imagine doing the Ultimate. So that's POTD upscaled, all the god challenges, ironman, and solo!? o7

For me, playing through the entire game (beginning to end, all side content, and DLCs, except the megabosses), on POTD upscale is challenge enough. Probably next run I'll start to add some god challenges on top and pick a party that is more optimised (I made some mistakes with my multiclass options this time, but I have a better idea now about what classes would synergise well for next time).

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I don't love chanters for tanks but a paladin/chanter would be better than a fighter/chanter. Fighters can only tank as long they can keep up unbending, and even then you need lots of things hitting you.

I have 3 reasons (which may be flawed!) for liking chanter tanks. Firstly, whilst I love chanters, I'm not a fan of the idea of SC chanters (I'm not saying they are bad and I've been tempted to try one as a Dragon summoner). I'm also not a fan of DPS-chanters. I prefer making my DPS characters using 2 classes that both have abilities/passives for increasing accuracy and/or weapon armour penetration (my favourites being a combination of ranger, rogue, Devoted, monk and cipher for this role). Secondly, Chanter seems to be the one class that is only effected minimally by wearing heavy armour as their chants aren't slowed down by armour and their (high-level) invocations are cast infrequently compared to the attacks/abilities of most other classes so less recovery over time, and as I tend to wear heavy armour on just my tank that seems to make sense. And finally, some of the invocations/chants work better on the front line where they are hitting most of the enemies. It may be that my reasoning is flawed, and I would be really interested to hear what you and other people suggest for good multi-class Chanter synergies. I mean, of all classes, Chanters seem to go pretty well with everything, but for me the tank seems to be a logical choice.

 

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Oh and crusaders are okay tanks but the really top tier tanks are votaries and arcane knights IMO. I mean crusaders are good tanks due to unbending being busted but they don't have the armour or damage of the best tanks.

Interesting. I've tried a few different tanks, but I usually end up with either a War Caller or Herald as my preferred tank. I've found the fighter-chanter to be decently tanky (at least with druid's HoTs running throughout most fight), and good at holding a lot of engagement, but it does do crap damage. But the rest of the party deals with doing damage. Would probably be unviable solo, but I run with a party. But I am now tempted to try a Votary or Arcane Knight. I've never played a FF (my monks tend to be helwalkers)!

 

[Shai Hulud]

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

Yeah, I had forgotten about this nasty, and ran into his map/room last night (without the contract). I didn't even attempt to fight them (reloaded the save from before I went in there).

Yep I've tried some solo builds that can do all the megabosses but can't clear sissak's nest. It likely isn't as bad with a party but there are high level vithrack plus moon spiders that come in waves and sissak himself hangs pretty far back so often you get surrounded by animated weapons while being pelted with missile salvos and even if you manage to kill the vithrack through the moon spiders casting robust on everything, they (and the moon spiders) come back. I've found it unwinnable with lot of builds. If you fail that first check and they go hostile it is super super hard. If you pass and come back to kill them it is more manageable since you can alpha strike with a bunch of high damage AOEs (though you can't start stealthed since they're blue). Rough fight. 

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

Wow, I can't even imagine doing the Ultimate. So that's POTD upscaled, all the god challenges, ironman, and solo!? o7

Yeah and expert mode, though expert mode isn't too bad, except it makes placing walls of draining tough since you can't see them. Woedica/eothas abydon and hylea are the hardest. Especially hylea since Velais tricky to control and gets one shot by lots of things. I'm thinking about making an ultimate guide but haven't really started.

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

For me, playing through the entire game (beginning to end, all side content, and DLCs, except the megabosses), on POTD upscale is challenge enough. Probably next run I'll start to add some god challenges on top and pick a party that is more optimised (I made some mistakes with my multiclass options this time, but I have a better idea now about what classes would synergise well for next time).

I went from not playing the game for a few years straight to ultimate lol. I mean I did a practice run first but while it is quite tough it is doable with preparation and research.

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

I have 3 reasons (which may be flawed!) for liking chanter tanks.

I dislike the fighter part of fighter/chanter more than chanter. Chanter/x probably make the fourth best tanks after paladin/x wizard/x and monk/x (particularly combos that combine these are great tanks).

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

I would be really interested to hear what you and other people suggest for good multi-class Chanter synergies. I mean, of all classes, Chanters seem to go pretty well with everything, but for me the tank seems to be a logical choice.

They can fulfill almost any role including tank though I like them more as casters and support. My favorite chanters are troubadour/psion, bellower/blood mage, bellower/priest, skald/berserker, and troubadour/FF.

1 hour ago, Vasvary5050 said:

 But I am now tempted to try a Votary or Arcane Knight. I've never played a FF (my monks tend to be helwalkers)!

FFs make the tankiest monks since they can heal themselves with their basic attack. They also easily maintain max wounds (for iron wheel armor) since you mostly just spam FF which costs 0 wounds. 

The most important thing about tanks is having high armor but that doesn't necessarily mean wearing plate. Mythic plate is 14 armor while mythic leather is 11. The difference is not as significant as some items and abilities. Iron wheel can give up to 3 armor, stoic steel 3 armor, exalted endurance 1, llengraths safeguard 5, and they all stack iirc.

You want enemies to graze or miss but especially underpenetrate. If they underpen your armor by 1 (e.g. 16 pen vs 17 AR) it's -25% damage, -50% and -75% for underpen by 2 and 3. So if your armor is high enough enemies always underpen by 3 you take very little damage. Grazes -50% stack but not additively, combined a graze and underpen is like -80% damage. 

On POTD upscaled you generally need 20+ armor for most things to underpen. 24ish to be super safe. 

So FF/SG can get 

Reckless brigandine (mythic) - 14 to 16 (more armor when bloodied or near death)

Akolas Apex ward and kapana taga - 2

Giftwrapper 1

Exalted endurance, stoic steel and iron wheel - 1 to 7

So they can get armor in 24+ range pretty easily. Arcane knights even easier but I find them less effective solo. Sages also make great tanks.

Engagement is not a problem since shield + kapana taga + reckless brigandine gives you 5 engagement. Can wear blackened plate helm for 6, mauras belt for 7.

I dont know of any build guide for ff/sg though I can outline it.

Can check this build by @Not So Clever Hound for an effective solo arcane knight (would work well as tank in parties). It can't handle *every* encounter though, like dorudugan or fights like sissak nest, at least i couldn't figure them out using tactics in the build. 

 

 

[Torm51]

Does anything have Arcane Dampener in FS? It’s only thing that the Crusader has over the Arcane Knight. You can’t dampen any of their magic cause is there is none. Against Nemnok and his crew Crusader is more reliable in my experience to due heavy use of arcane  dampener by enemies.  But ya with Dampener out of the picture Arcane Knight is better.  

I don’t think Crusader is an OK tank though, if you play vanilla with a group it’s pretty great. It’s just not as meta as Arcane Knight cause Crusader needs heavy Arcana to solo. 

[Shai Hulud]

5 hours ago, Torm51 said:

Does anything have Arcane Dampener in FS? It’s only thing that the Crusader has over the Arcane Knight. You can’t dampen any of their magic cause is there is none. Against Nemnok and his crew Crusader is more reliable in my experience to due heavy use of arcane  dampener by enemies.  But ya with Dampener out of the picture Arcane Knight is better.  

I don’t think Crusader is an OK tank though, if you play vanilla with a group it’s pretty great. It’s just not as meta as Arcane Knight cause Crusader needs heavy Arcana to solo. 

I don't know, I don't recall encountering it in FS. But even if they did have arcane dampener, arcane Knight will defense is so high it will never hit. I was only hit twice whole game with a hierophant (one with sigilmaster auranic) and I dumped resolve completely, in addition to lacking the paladin's faith bonus. In the build linked the stats are 8/15/7/14/13/18. Personally I'd go human over fire godlike unless you're using BPM, since you fight bloodied. This way could dump PER a bit. Also I might dump might for some more INT but even with this stat spread you have 240ish will in combat, nothing but auranic can hit and he'll mostly miss and graze (though the cleansing obelisk will hit if you don't take it out with other party members). But even if you're hit, with 35 resolve you recover very fast, especially since you're more likely to be grazed than hit.

Crusaders aren't horrible, and for party runs if you have even one solid character they're good enough, but there are many better tanks. Not just arcane knights but votaries too (and sages). FF/SG would probably be my tank of choice. They have more armor (3 to 5 more depending on gear and wounds), more health, and heal themselves passively just spamming FF. They are quite indestructible, solo or party, and are trivial to script. Also do solid damage and enfeeblement is very valuable debuff as constitution affliction is rarely resisted and even more rarely immune. Crusaders have slightly better deflection if you use conqueror stance but it generally doesn't even matter if you get hit because it's always a grazing underpen for -80% damage where damage is easily healed just by attacking. And crusaders have armored grace, but keep in mind a robed arcane knight will have just as much armor. I've even run FF/SG naked solo (because abydon) and they do perfectly fine due to how fast they self-heal. Also crusaders have slightly more engagement but it's easy to get 5 to 7 engagement with any class, and if you really think you need more there's tactical meld for +3, assuming you have a cipher.

Edited June 7, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Vasvary5050]

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

They have more armor (3 to 5 more depending on gear and wounds),

That's a lot of armour. I'm not very familiar with Monks - I've multi-classed a couple of backline ranged Dps-ers with Helwalker but never used an FF (or a Monk of any type in a tanking role). And whilst I've used Paladins a lot, I've never used an SG. Could you please let me know how much max armour you manage to get to with your FF/SG, and what gear you recommend for it?

6 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

but keep in mind a robed arcane knight will have just as much armor

Same question. I've not played an Arcane Knight. How much armour do you manage to get to with this build, and what gear do you recommend for it? [I'm just planning ahead for my next run]

[Shai Hulud]

3 hours ago, Vasvary5050 said:

That's a lot of armour. I'm not very familiar with Monks - I've multi-classed a couple of backline ranged Dps-ers with Helwalker but never used an FF (or a Monk of any type in a tanking role). And whilst I've used Paladins a lot, I've never used an SG. Could you please let me know how much max armour you manage to get to with your FF/SG, and what gear you recommend for it?

Same question. I've not played an Arcane Knight. How much armour do you manage to get to with this build, and what gear do you recommend for it? [I'm just planning ahead for my next run]

FFs are the best monks for tanking and offtanking. Ridiculously good melee class that multiclasses well with basically everything.

Max attainable armor for votary (to my knowledge)

Mythic plate/brigandine - 14, up to 16 with reckless brigandine into the breach enchant

Iron wheel - up to 3, usually 2 to 2.5 (also gives up to + 10 CON)

Stoic steel - up to 3

Kapana taga - 1 (lone champion)

Akolas Apex ward - 1 (hide and tooth)

Giftwrapper pet - 1

Fire godlike - 1 (2 in BPM)

Hardy/robust - 2 (can proc hardy from death and taxes enchant on bardattos luxury with dichotomous soul, or some other source)

So up to 28 bloodied (29 bpm), usually more like 24

Arcane knight - same except no iron wheel, and llengrath's safeguard (or ironskin) is +5

So max 30 for arcane knight, 31 in bpm, very easy to maintain 24+ since safeguard isn't dependant on wounds like iron wheel and has like 2 minute duration with good INT

In effect 21+ is very good, normal enemies won't penetrate but bosses probably will, and 24+ is basically invulnerable especially when combined with high defenses both builds have, with defenses typically 200+

Kapana taga and akolas Apex ward are ship battle rewards, but you can get them quite early. Lone champion won't work with allies near though. Reckless brigandine also available early. Only item you get late is giftwrapper which is probably overkill at that point, I don't use it unless it puts me at a threshold value of armor where enemies no longer penetrate (check log attack resolutions for their exact PEN). 

I wouldn't recommend fire godlike for these classes since it's overkill (more attractive with bpm), but you might take it on builds with less but still solid armor that still want to take a hit, like maybe a FF / streetfighter fighting bloodied

[Vasvary5050]

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Iron wheel - up to 3, usually 2 to 2.5 (also gives up to + 10 CON)

Stoic steel - up to 3

Yeah, this is really nice. Makes Votary a very tempting tank.

10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Arcane knight - same except no iron wheel, and llengrath's safeguard (or ironskin) is +5

Even better and even more tempting!

Okay, I admit, now I'm very tempted to try an Arcane Knight or Votary as my next tank (probably Arcane Knight). I just completed FS, so it won't be long now before I'm ready to start another run (though I'm thinking of finishing off all the optional SSS artefact hunts before I head to the end (to pick up the Archivist of Kazuwari achieve).

I really enjoyed the DLCs, especially FS (the most enjoyable of the 3). Makes me sad that they didn't release more DLCs or a PoE 3. I am really looking forward to Avowed (if it ever releases), but would prefer another isometric CRPG in the Pillars-verse.

[Shai Hulud]

3 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

Okay, I admit, now I'm very tempted to try an Arcane Knight or Votary as my next tank (probably Arcane Knight). I just completed FS, so it won't be long now before I'm ready to start another run (though I'm thinking of finishing off all the optional SSS artefact hunts before I head to the end (to pick up the Archivist of Kazuwari achieve).

Could try a solo run, or small party. I eventually got bored with full party runs. You level up faster with fewer people and either of these guys could solo. 

3 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

I really enjoyed the DLCs, especially FS (the most enjoyable of the 3). Makes me sad that they didn't release more DLCs or a PoE 3. I am really looking forward to Avowed (if it ever releases), but would prefer another isometric CRPG in the Pillars-verse.

You and me both. POE3 apparently is still a maybe but I am skeptical it will happen. Also skeptical about Avowed since we've heard nothing in ages. All there is right now in the isometric CRPG scene is Pathfinder, which is good but dizzyingly complex with the zillions of classes, and not as well-balanced IMO.

I played Pentiment recently. It's a very different kind of game but Josh Sawyer directed it, and IMO it's amazing.

[Vasvary5050]

On 6/8/2023 at 1:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Could try a solo run, or small party. I eventually got bored with full party runs. You level up faster with fewer people and either of these guys could solo. 

So, I just finished my first POTD-upscaled run, and have unlocked 53/55 achieves. Now I'm planning my next run to hoover up the last 2 achieves. I don't think solo is my thing, as I enjoy the playing with multiple builds and seeing how they work together, but perhaps I'll impose a 3-person party limit.  Maybe I'll also take some of the god challenges.

I was a bit surprised by just how dark the finale was for Xoti (I had followed the dark-path with her during her quests). When talking to the party shortly before confronting Eothas: 

Spoiler

"If it's all the same to you, Watcher, I'd rather not miss the moment the moment my god brings the darkness down upon us. I want to see Gaun become the true deity of Death". When asked if she thought it was all worth it: ""It was, and I'd do it again, only bloodier this time. Think of all the souls I could've gatered if I'd reaped them right from the living."

And it gets darker from there. To Eothas she says:

Spoiler

"But you seek to break that wheel. I beseech you, Gaun, that when you do, you do it right. Burn to ash every adra root in Hel, so that it may never regrow. Let the darkness reign eternal."

Yikes. I think I turned her from LG to CE.

 

On 6/8/2023 at 1:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

All there is right now in the isometric CRPG scene is Pathfinder, which is good but dizzyingly complex with the zillions of classes, and not as well-balanced IMO.

Yeah, I've played and completed PF:WoTR (and abandoned PF:KM in the final act). I didn't enjoy it as much as Deadfire TBH even though there is a lot in it to like. In theory I liked the build variety, which makes Deadfire's 121 different single and multi-class combinations look small in comparison, but whereas in Deadfire all combinations are more or less viable (though not optimal), in PF it's easy to create a non-viable build without knowing what you're doing. Nearly all my characters ended up with 17 or 18 levels in one core class, and just a few dips into other classes for some of their excellent low-level benefits, which TBH doesn't strike as interesting as having 2 major classes like in Deadfire (something that doesn't really work in PF). Fortunately I know enough about D&D 3.5 edition to not be totally baffled by PF. From a QoL perspective, I prefer Deadfire's system of having all abilities available again at the beginning of each combat (a move away from D&D's and PF's system of getting spells back only on resting that I applaud from a gameplay perspective), and I'm not a fan of casting dozens of buff spells pre-combat, preferring Deadfire's system of going into each fight unbuffed. And yeah, the balance was all over the place in PF (esp. KM). But mainly it was the unnecessary filler content that I didn't like having to do (stronghold management in PF: KM and the army battles in PF: WOTR). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed PF: WoTR (and PF:KM to a lesser extent), but I only played it once, whereas I've now played Deadfire 3 times.

There are a few CRPGs I haven't yet tried that I probably should. I haven't played T:ToN. I bought Tyranny but it doesn't grip me (I think it's the lack of classes that puts me off it). I'm hoping that Broken Roads will be good (and hopefully RTwP). I would be excited about BG3 if it was RTwP rather than turn based. I should probably try Black Geyser too.

On 6/8/2023 at 1:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

I played Pentiment recently. It's a very different kind of game but Josh Sawyer directed it, and IMO it's amazing.

I should check it out. It looks interesting but I'm not sure it is quite my cup of tea.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Vasvary5050

[Shai Hulud]

On 6/9/2023 at 1:57 PM, Vasvary5050 said:

So, I just finished my first POTD-upscaled run, and have unlocked 53/55 achieves. Now I'm planning my next run to hoover up the last 2 achieves. I don't think solo is my thing, as I enjoy the playing with multiple builds and seeing how they work together, but perhaps I'll impose a 3-person party limit.  Maybe I'll also take some of the god challenges.

I am stuck at 51/55, missing Making Waves, A brighter world, burning bridges, and some hidden achievement. I don't really care about achievements though so it's fine.

If I were to rate the god challenges on difficulty and tediousness/annoyance it would be something like this (1 being easiest, 10 being hardest), though it's hard to give a single number since some challenges are easy by themselves but very hard with other challenges

Eothas - difficulty 2, annoyance 1 - it isn't too hard to plan a route and it adds believability to the story, because it makes no sense eothas would just wait for you indefinitely before proceeding with his plans IMO. If you combine with Woedica it's quite a lot harder and will limit class selection.

Galawain - difficulty 3, annoyance 1 - gives big buffs to beasts, but since beasts usually aren't that big of a deal it's a good difficulty scaling challenge that doesn't really require you do much differently, just beasts are harder to kill.

Berath's - difficulty 1, annoyance 1 - you shouldn't be letting your characters be knocked out for 10 seconds so in my experience this challenge makes little difference. If a build requires fleeing combat like assassin it's more impactful. Also impactful for tacticians due to the weird invisibility = brilliant interaction

Magran's - difficulty 4, annoyance 3 - Inability to pause makes things very tough if you rely on pausing frequently, so this can make the game much harder or make almost no difference if you're good at scripting behaviors. Scripting can be a little tedious but once you get the basics it's easy. For solo runs you can get by without scripting just playing on slow mode. 

Abydon's - difficulty 7, annoyance 7 - more impactful for solo runs. For party runs you can likely still use unique weapons and armor without them breaking, though repairs will be expensive, making it more of an annoyance than a huge difficulty spike. For solo runs it is a big difficulty spike since weapons break too fast for one character to get through a lot of battles, and even armor will break in longer fights

Skaen's - difficulty 1, annoyance 2 - basically you need to carry a torch or xoti's lantern on at least one character. Doesn't increase the difficulty much, but adds a bit of tedium.

Ondra's - difficulty 1, annoyance 3 - makes sailing more circuitous because of the huge storms, but by itself is not very difficult. Combined with eothas and woedica it adds more difficulty since you may have to take a long route to avoid a storm, and hitting a storm causes you to lose days so you have to be very careful on the world map

Rymrgand's - difficult 1, annoyance 5 - makes inventory management of food more tedious, but if you're doing a one-rest run it doesn't really increase the difficulty much, even with a full party

Hylea's - difficulty 8, annoyance 10 - I've actually gotten used to babysitting vela but it is very technical getting her to stay where you want, and she is killed very easily. With a full party the difficulty is less because you have more resources (if you have a priest or wizard) to e.g. cast withdraw or temporal cocoon on her. The other methods for controlling her are complicated but can be done by any class. For me the most annoying part about Vela is you can't tag her in scripts, so you have to manually cast withdraw or whatever, which combined with magran's adds a level of "oh ****" to the game when you see she's gained the ire of an enemy

Woedica's - difficulty 4, annoyance 5 - by itself not that difficult, just requires you to rest between fights. Combined with rymrgand and especially eothas, makes it hard to rest so builds with infinite resources like chanter, cipher, blood mage, monk, go way up in value. If combined in said manner difficulty is more like a 8. 

Wael's - difficulty 2, annoyance 10 - tons of data including stuff in the combat log is replaced by ?, makes ship battles impossible since you can't see enemy distance or how much health you have. Also can't see how much money you have or what things costs. If you know the game well you can work around all this without a lot of difficulty but this challenge is just pointlessly annoying and I wouldn't use it unless you're going for the ultimate

solo - difficulty 6, annoyance 1 - your build has to be well-planned but there are a number of builds capable of soloing the game. First solo attempt is the most difficult but once you're used to it it isn't as bad. Becomes much harder to solo with various magran's fire challenges. Abydon is particularly rough since builds reliant on specific equipment will suffer, and of course babysitting vela solo is very difficult. 

expert mode - difficulty 2, annoyance 3 - removes some helpful features, more impactful on some builds than others, can't see AOEs of spells and the like

trial of iron - difficulty 9, annoyance 10 - getting wiped is supremely frustrating, I wouldn't recommend turning this on unless you really know what you're doing and/or want the ultimate. Combined with hylea makes game very very hard. 

ultimate - difficulty 10, annoyance 10 - exponentially harder than individual challenges since there are synergies like eothas + woedica + abydon + hylea that make a lot of builds outright non-viable, and failing to babysit vela even once and you wipe, even sailing into a storm or ship combat can wipe

So basically if you wanted to try a few, I'd recommend you start with berath, eothas, and galawain as these add some challenge without changing gameplay that much. Could also do ondra, rymrgand, and skaen if you want as these aren't too hard but IMO are annoying. Can then add Magran if you're comfortable with scripting or going solo. I normally play with all of them on except wael and iron, because wael is just annoying and iron deletes the save file and I need to test things. You can turn on/off challenges in game but it requires using iroll20s which disabled achievements. 

 

On 6/9/2023 at 1:57 PM, Vasvary5050 said:

I was a bit surprised by just how dark the finale was for Xoti (I had followed the dark-path with her during her quests). When talking to the party shortly before confronting Eothas: 

  Reveal hidden contents

"If it's all the same to you, Watcher, I'd rather not miss the moment the moment my god brings the darkness down upon us. I want to see Gaun become the true deity of Death". When asked if she thought it was all worth it: ""It was, and I'd do it again, only bloodier this time. Think of all the souls I could've gatered if I'd reaped them right from the living."

And it gets darker from there. To Eothas she says:

  Reveal hidden contents

"But you seek to break that wheel. I beseech you, Gaun, that when you do, you do it right. Burn to ash every adra root in Hel, so that it may never regrow. Let the darkness reign eternal."

Yikes. I think I turned her from LG to CE.

Yeah Xoti is a disturbing character, almost as much as Camellia from Pathfinder WOTR amiright?

On 6/9/2023 at 1:57 PM, Vasvary5050 said:

Yeah, I've played and completed PF:WoTR (and abandoned PF:KM in the final act). I didn't enjoy it as much as Deadfire TBH even though there is a lot in it to like. In theory I liked the build variety, which makes Deadfire's 121 different single and multi-class combinations look small in comparison, but whereas in Deadfire all combinations are more or less viable (though not optimal), in PF it's easy to create a non-viable build without knowing what you're doing. Nearly all my characters ended up with 17 or 18 levels in one core class, and just a few dips into other classes for some of their excellent low-level benefits, which TBH doesn't strike as interesting as having 2 major classes like in Deadfire (something that doesn't really work in PF). Fortunately I know enough about D&D 3.5 edition to not be totally baffled by PF. From a QoL perspective, I prefer Deadfire's system of having all abilities available again at the beginning of each combat (a move away from D&D's and PF's system of getting spells back only on resting that I applaud from a gameplay perspective), and I'm not a fan of casting dozens of buff spells pre-combat, preferring Deadfire's system of going into each fight unbuffed. And yeah, the balance was all over the place in PF (esp. KM). But mainly it was the unnecessary filler content that I didn't like having to do (stronghold management in PF: KM and the army battles in PF: WOTR). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed PF: WoTR (and PF:KM to a lesser extent), but I only played it once, whereas I've now played Deadfire 3 times.

For me the main problem with pathfinder system is so many of the classes are really similar and basically do the same thing just in slightly different ways. E.g. wizard/sorcerer/arcanist. And because the rolls are d20 and many enemies even in Act 1 have attacks of +15 or more you have to really stack stats, necessitating bizarre builds and making in the end all that really matters stacking as much AB and AC as possible. Armor also sucks, so the best tanks are usually casters who dip in monk, which makes little sense. And enemy stats are so bloated you're forced to bloat your own stats so much by late game my characters often had like 30 different buffs on them.

The worst thing though for a RTWP game perspective is the AI is really bad. Enemy AI is bad and just picks the first character to attack usually, or sometimes they'll just gangbang the main character. And the party AI is almost nonexistent. For RTWP games to play smoothly you really need decent party AI like baldur's gate, dragon age origins, or deadfire. Otherwise you have to pause every couple seconds and I get why people don't like that. Deadfire does a pretty good job of having accessible AI, though most people don't avail themselves of it, and the default scripts aren't very good. 

On 6/9/2023 at 1:57 PM, Vasvary5050 said:

There are a few CRPGs I haven't yet tried that I probably should. I haven't played T:ToN. I bought Tyranny but it doesn't grip me (I think it's the lack of classes that puts me off it). I'm hoping that Broken Roads will be good (and hopefully RTwP). I would be excited about BG3 if it was RTwP rather than turn based. I should probably try Black Geyser too.

I've played Torment and Tyranny a fair amount (30ish hours and 70ish hours) but haven't finished either one. Torment has a better story but the gameplay is not super great, and Tyranny has an okay combat system but the story is not interesting. Tyranny classes are more limited, companions are not that interesting, and party AI is bad. Also I'm not a fan of the 4 person party. Or even 5 person party. I liked the classic 6 person party, 5 is acceptable, but less is not. 

I wish I could say Black Geyser was a good game but it isn't. You can tell the devs really like Baldur's Gate, and the studio did their best with limited funding and while they got the look of Baldur's Gate down, it doesn't feel like it, and the story is bad. It's also kind of buggy. Still, you might enjoy it. I played about 80 hours before abandoning it. I think if the studio had more funding and experience it could have been a really good game.

I'd never heard of Broken Roads but I just searched for it and am downloading the demo. Looks cool though pretty sure combat is turn-based. That's not a deal breaker for me I just prefer RTWP. 

One other game I enjoyed was Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It's turn-based and 4 person but does a really good job of simulating dungeons and dragons rules, and I played it for.. 175 hours, which may sound like a lot but games I really like I play for 1000+. 

Disco Elysium is unequivocally awesome, but it's a very unusual game not easily categorized. Definitely an RPG just not like other RPGs. 

Yeah I too was very disappointed BG3 went turn-based, also that your party is just 4 people. But Larian is a good studio and I like the Divinity games so it will probably still be pretty fun. I've played the early access for a couple hundred hours but you max at level 4 so I stopped after a while. It will probably be at least decent and worth playing at least once, but IDK if it will have the kind of replay value I've found in deadfire or baldur's gate. Doesn't "feel" much like baldur's gate games either, but that could just be the initial setting. Feels more like divinity original sin in a forgotten realms setting, which isn't a terrible thing, just not baldur's gate. 

Really seems like most RPGs are going turn-based these days. Turn-based games can be fun, but I really like the niche filled by RTWP where it's like almost an RTS, there's just more reactivity and strategy. In turn-based games I typically just wipe things out on turn 1. Also doesn't feel realistic at all to take turns fighting. Maybe it's just the nostalgia in me wanting things that feel like Baldur's Gate. 

On 6/9/2023 at 1:57 PM, Vasvary5050 said:

I should check it out. It looks interesting but I'm not sure it is quite my cup of tea.

I thought the same, and the first hour of playing Pentiment I was like "this is the most boring thing I've ever seen" but by the end "oh my god what a masterpiece, why can't it be longer?"

[Kaylon]

On 6/7/2023 at 5:19 PM, Shai Hulud said:

Mythic plate/brigandine - 14, up to 16 with reckless brigandine into the breach enchant

What matters are the lowest melee resists (the elemental ones being covered easily with items), which is basically 10 in the case of plate/brigandine. For that reason, Magnera's Chain is the best armor overall for a votary/arcane knight, with 12 as its lowest resist.

The herald has basically the second best AR because he can cover the pierce weakness of the brigandine with ...Nor Flame... 

[Shai Hulud]

18 minutes ago, Kaylon said:

What matters are the lowest melee resists (the elemental ones being covered easily with items), which is basically 10 in the case of plate/brigandine. For that reason, Magnera's Chain is the best armor overall for a votary/arcane knight, with 12 as its lowest resist.

The herald has basically the second best AR because he can cover the pierce weakness of the brigandine with ...Nor Flame... 

I don't think it's that simple to say Magnera's Chain is the best armor, and you're overstating its advantages.

Assuming we fight bloodied (as indicated in the build I linked), reckless Brigandine pierce is more like 11 to 12 since the armor value increases as you lose health, and there are other benefits to reckless brigandine like +action speed and +engagement and +damage. And enemies do variable damage types so the maximum value does at least sometimes matter. The Bloody Links are also competitive armor (better even) compared to Magnera's Chain given crimson steel gives +2 armor and blood price +5 all defenses. I do like Magnera's Chain for riveted links, padded underlayer and magnera's commitment, but it's typically acquired quite a bit later given the prerequisite bounties and map collecting, so for most of the game I'd use one of these two I mentioned, and sometimes not switch. So bloody links (when bloodied) gives +2 all armor, +5 all defenses, whereas magnera's chain gives always +2 pierce/crush and +10 fort/will, which overall is just less bonus but could be preferable for builds with low fortitude and will, or ones that don't fight bloodied. 

You can also cover pierce with lance of the midwood stag's woodskin + wall of draining. For arcane knights anyway. And "nor flame" is a cone AOE, so you don't really need your tank casting it. Also I'm not convinced +4 slash/pierce/shock/burn that requires spent resources is better than iron wheel which does not, particularly since an FF/SG can heal itself so rapidly, but I agree heralds make good tanks. 

[Boeroer]

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also I'm not convinced +4 slash/pierce/shock/burn that requires spent resources is better than iron wheel which does not

Iron Wheel also requires resources. If you would constantly spend your wounds (= Iron Wheel requires no resources) you could not have a meaningful AR increase.
The "cost" is basically the same - you don't have resources to spend or you have resources you cannot spend.

 

 

[Vasvary5050]

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I am stuck at 51/55, missing Making Waves, A brighter world, burning bridges, and some hidden achievement. I don't really care about achievements though so it's fine.

I'm usually not too fussed about achievements (a lot of games have really obscure achievements that aren't worth the hassle), but Deadfire's are pretty easy to hoover up. I just have Making Waves (the Huana ending) and Archivist of Kazuwari (the optional artefact hunts in SSS) left to collect, and I'm currently finishing off the Archivist one (some of the optional SSS fights from hunting the artefacts are good fun).

 

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

If I were to rate the god challenges on difficulty and tediousness/annoyance it would be something like this

Thanks for this. Those rating are really useful as I don't want to make my next run too too difficult. Just looking for a nice challenge on top of vanilla POTD upscale. The Eothas one sounds good from a roleplay perspective. The Magran one sounds like a nightmare for someone like me (I pause A LOT, use minimal scripting, and micro-manage fights intensively). Your suggestion of berath, eothas, and galawain sounds sensible. I like the idea of doing Hylea's Challenge, but I think it might be a nightmare. Maybe I'll do a berath+eothas+galawain challenge run, and then a hylea-only challenge run.

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah Xoti is a disturbing character, almost as much as Camellia from Pathfinder WOTR amiright?

You are right. Camellia telegraphed her disturbed personality a lot more obviously though from the start.

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Also I'm not a fan of the 4 person party. Or even 5 person party. I liked the classic 6 person party, 5 is acceptable, but less is not. 

Yeah, 6 does seem like the perfect number (probably because of playing BG1/2, IWD1/2 and PoE1), though after hundreds of hours playing Deadfire I've got used to 5.

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

For me the main problem with pathfinder system is so many of the classes are really similar and basically do the same thing just in slightly different ways. E.g. wizard/sorcerer/arcanist. And because the rolls are d20 and many enemies even in Act 1 have attacks of +15 or more you have to really stack stats, necessitating bizarre builds and making in the end all that really matters stacking as much AB and AC as possible. Armor also sucks, so the best tanks are usually casters who dip in monk, which makes little sense. And enemy stats are so bloated you're forced to bloat your own stats so much by late game my characters often had like 30 different buffs on them.

I had a similar experience and I wasn't even playing on unfair difficulty. I nearly abandoned the game because I got fed up manually re-applying all the buffs until I found a mod that allowed me to automate the buffing (one button to get all the buff spells cast). I come from a D&D background originally (pen and paper though not for a long time, and the IWD/BG games, but I was never a huge fan of the AC system (heavy armour making you harder "to hit" is a bit silly), or the limited number of casts per rest (i.e., resting every 5 minutes to re-memorise spells). The latter is okay in pen and paper sessions, but not so fun in a computer game (IMO).

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I wish I could say Black Geyser was a good game but it isn't.

Shame

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

I'd never heard of Broken Roads but I just searched for it and am downloading the demo. Looks cool though pretty sure combat is turn-based. That's not a deal breaker for me I just prefer RTWP. 

Yeah, I just watched a YT for it, and it looks like the combat is TB. Not a deal-breaker for me (I enjoyed Wasteland 3 recently, and have played a lot of TB RPGs), but I do have a huge soft spot for RTwP.

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

175 hours, which may sound like a lot but games I really like I play for 1000+. 

Yeah, I have several games over 175 hours (PoE 1 and 2 and PF: KM and WoTR among them), but just a couple of 1000+ hour games (got 1,500 hours in Stellaris - a great game I strongly recommend).

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Yeah I too was very disappointed BG3 went turn-based, also that your party is just 4 people. But Larian is a good studio and I like the Divinity games so it will probably still be pretty fun. I've played the early access for a couple hundred hours but you max at level 4 so I stopped after a while. It will probably be at least decent and worth playing at least once, but IDK if it will have the kind of replay value I've found in deadfire or baldur's gate. Doesn't "feel" much like baldur's gate games either, but that could just be the initial setting. Feels more like divinity original sin in a forgotten realms setting, which isn't a terrible thing, just not baldur's gate. 

I couldn't quite get into the Divinity OS games, and I don't quite know why TBH. Maybe it's just the setting, and hopefully I'll be fine when its in the Forgotten Realms (big fan of the FR setting). I've held off playing it at all because I may only end up playing it once, and if that's the case, I want my playthrough to be as complete as possible. I suspect I'll bounce back to Deadfire after BG 3.

15 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Really seems like most RPGs are going turn-based these days. Turn-based games can be fun, but I really like the niche filled by RTWP where it's like almost an RTS, there's just more reactivity and strategy. In turn-based games I typically just wipe things out on turn 1. Also doesn't feel realistic at all to take turns fighting. Maybe it's just the nostalgia in me wanting things that feel like Baldur's Gate.

TB is fine. RtwP somehow feels more "realistic" - if that make sense for this type of game - but I like me some turn-based strategy as well. It's probably also nostalgia because BG1 and 2 will always have a special place in my heart. And there are actually a LOT of TB RPGs out there, but very few RtwP RPGs.

 

[Vasvary5050]

On 6/8/2023 at 1:40 AM, Shai Hulud said:

Also skeptical about Avowed since we've heard nothing in ages

Obsidian must have heard you! They just posted an official gameplay trailer video for Avowed a few hours ago (I just saw it now!)

[Shai Hulud]

On 6/11/2023 at 4:35 AM, Boeroer said:

Iron Wheel also requires resources. If you would constantly spend your wounds (= Iron Wheel requires no resources) you could not have a meaningful AR increase.
The "cost" is basically the same - you don't have resources to spend or you have resources you cannot spend.

Yeah IDK boeroer. I was comparing FF/SG with a herald. With FF/SG I literally do nothing but spam FF, and once it hits 10 wounds it stays there. Even scripting to maintain Enlightened Agony and/or Thunderous Blows, which usually isn't necessary, I can attack fast enough to stay at 8 to 10, so iron wheel only costs resources in the since I can't use abilities I haven't taken and don't want to use anyway. Whereas using phrases costs you 6*phrases (or 3*phrases plus linger) seconds for the invocation, and chanters usually have lots of other invocations they'd like to use as well so it's a more serious blow having to maintain one for the armor, which also doesn't cover crush/corrode. 

I mean I do agree with you that IF maintaining 10 wounds was preventing me from using abilities I wanted to use, then it's costing resources, but that's just not how I run a FF/SG. 

15 hours ago, Vasvary5050 said:

Obsidian must have heard you! They just posted an official gameplay trailer video for Avowed a few hours ago (I just saw it now!)

Ha. The power of skeptical thinking bears fruit. Just watched it and read some articles. Looks Skyrim-esque and Living Lands setting is cool. Apparently won't be as large as Skyrim despite initial claims of being larger, which Obsidian is spinning as a positive so the game can focus more on stories or something. I'll almost certainly play it whenever it comes out, though I'm skeptical (crosses fingers) the game will be awesome. 

Oh and I've thought about buying Stellaris at times but there's so many DLC IDK. I usually want all the DLC for a game but in this case the "ultimate" bundle on steam is $230 on sale. This the kind of game where you need/want the DLC or it's more like extra content? 

Edited June 12, 2023 by Shai Hulud

[Vasvary5050]

2 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Oh and I've thought about buying Stellaris at times but there's so many DLC IDK. I usually want all the DLC for a game but in this case the "ultimate" bundle on steam is $230 on sale. This the kind of game where you need/want the DLC or it's more like extra content? 

None of the DLCs are absolutely required, and there are a lot of them, but some of them add really good and/or important functionality and extra stories. Some add extra layers to the alliance systems, or espionage systems, etc, or entire story lines. Others just add extra species packs (in some cases 100% cosmetic, or 99% cosmetic but with an extra trait or two you can pick for your empire, which is pretty minor). 

That said, even the basic game (without DLCs) has a lot to it, and it probably makes sense to just buy the basic game, play that, and decide if you like it. 

My first game of Stellaris took about 150 hours. Since then I've played dozens of games of Stellaris, ranging from some I've completed in a long weekend, to others that have taken 50+ hours. The first game was the most magical because I was figuring stuff out, and a lot of events that happened - some very random, others scripted - felt just incredible (and that was just the base game with a couple of DLCs that were bundled together on sale). With Stellaris, I would always recommend buying the DLCs on sale as they go on sale a lot.

The DLCs that I think are the most important are: Nemesis, Apocalypse, Horizon Signal, Utopia, Megacorp, Synthetic Dawn, Federations. (I haven't bought Galactic Paragons yet so I can't comment on that one).

The following are either entirely cosmetic, or mostly cosmetic with the option to play a few new species which isn't so important for your first game or two: Aquatics, Plantoids, Humanoids Species pack, Lithoids Species Pack (actually this one is pretty good, offering some unique Lithoid traits that are a bit more than just cosmetic), Necroids (same comment as for Lithoids), Toxoids (I haven't bought this one so I don't know much about it but probably mostly cosmetic).

If you like it, you'll probably get a good 50-100 hours out of the base game before you feel you need to start buying DLCs, so maybe just buy the game without DLCs when its next on sale to see what you think.

Note: the AI is not great, and it is a game about micromanagement (IMHO) as much as it is about grand strategy and emergent stories. It's also RTwP rather than TB!

 

 

[Vasvary5050]

3 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:

Ha. The power of skeptical thinking bears fruit. Just watched it and read some articles. Looks Skyrim-esque and Living Lands setting is cool. Apparently won't be as large as Skyrim despite initial claims of being larger, which Obsidian is spinning as a positive so the game can focus more on stories or something. I'll almost certainly play it whenever it comes out, though I'm skeptical (crosses fingers) the game will be awesome. 

It looks a lot like Skyrim to me, but with a more vibrant colour palette (so perhaps a bit like Outer Worlds), and set in the Pillars universe. None of which is a bad thing, especially if they make it highly mod-able like Skyrim, though I hope the combat is less wonky than base-Skyrim. I just hope that (a) they have a class system that is at least as diverse as Deadfire's (i.e. all the classes and multiclass combinations of Deadfire), and that the lore, setting and ambiance feels like proper Deadfire (also, whilst I'm happy for their to be humour in it, I hope they don't lean into that side of things as much as they did with Outer Worlds). It could be amazing, though I'm a little sceptical (it wouldn't surprise me if they scale back a lot of the class/multi-class complexity of Deadfire).

[Torm51]

28 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

It looks a lot like Skyrim to me, but with a more vibrant colour palette (so perhaps a bit like Outer Worlds), and set in the Pillars universe. None of which is a bad thing, especially if they make it highly mod-able like Skyrim, though I hope the combat is less wonky than base-Skyrim. I just hope that (a) they have a class system that is at least as diverse as Deadfire's (i.e. all the classes and multiclass combinations of Deadfire), and that the lore, setting and ambiance feels like proper Deadfire (also, whilst I'm happy for their to be humour in it, I hope they don't lean into that side of things as much as they did with Outer Worlds). It could be amazing, though I'm a little sceptical (it wouldn't surprise me if they scale back a lot of the class/multi-class complexity of Deadfire).

They said it was classless. Not my fav thing but I’ll still play…hopefully the abilities etc will be distinct that I can play a proper wizard or Paladin or rogue etc