Looking for some weapons advice for act 2 of Pillars 1 (POTD)

[Vasvary5050]

Hi folks. I'm hoping for some weapon suggestions for my POTD run. I'm currently just at the beginning of act 2 having just arrived at Copper Lane (I've also done levels 1-3 of Od Nua) with characters currently at level 5. Looking for weapon suggestions for:

Eder (tank): Currently using a fine hatchet and larder door (for max deflection) in weapon slot 1, and Measured Restraint and small shield in weapon slot 2 for swapping too when I'm more interested in accuracy for abilities (i.e., knock down). Trying to get the deflection as high as possible on this character as I'm finding that enemies hit hard on POTD.

Kana (chanter and off-tank): Like Eder also using fine hatchet and large shield for weapon slot 1, and then not sure for weapon slots 2 and 3.

MC (kind wayfarer): 2 strong melee weapons for FoD (at the moment using Gaun's Share because it was the first unique I found and at the moment I only have a small selection of alternatives, and a Fine Club) for weapon slot 1, and a ranged weapon for weapon slot 2 for when Eder and Kana are blocking the way.

Cipher: At the moment I'm just using fine war bow (with either a rod, wand or sceptre as weapon slot 2 for pierce resistant enemies). I could alternatively go with a rifle in weapon slot 1 (but have not yet found any fine or unique ones), switching to secondary weapon after first shot.

Ranger: Just started using Sagani. Like Cipher, looking for 2 ranged weapons, again maybe bow or rifle for slot 1.

I also have Durance but I've just given him a hatchet and large shield at the moment as I'm mostly keeping him out of weapon combat so he is always ready to cast spells (he just tickles with weapons any way, and maxing his deflection in case anyone takes shots at him seems more important). 

I've been leaning quite heavily on hatchets and large shields so far as enemies are often hitting like trucks (the ogres in level 2 of Od Nua were rough!)

Any tips gratefully received for weapons (at the moment I only have a handful of unique weapons as only just starting act 2, but nice to have some idea what I'm building towards so I don't waste too many enchanting mats on weapons I'm going to get rid off quickly).

I'd also happily accept suggestions for best enchants to put on weapons 

[Boeroer]

If you are using offensive chants with Kana, a large shield is not such a good idea bc. the -8 accuracy hurts the already not very high base accuracy of offensive chants.

Interestingly enough (only with offensive chants) you can use a one handed single weapon which grants +12 accuracy for weapon attacks but also for offensive chants. I give Kana plate armor and a single hatchet and only switch to hatchet + small shield when he's under duress.

Your Kind Wayfarer should focus on heavy hitting one handers to maximize the potential of his FoD strikes. You only have 2 per encounter, so it's best to squeeze the most dmg out of that - also in regards to Strange Mercy (heal on kill). The mechanic of lashes (have to overcome 1/4th DR separately, no MIN damage, DR bypass does not apply) makes it so that higher base damage (heavier one handers) are much better with FoD than the light ones. 

Not so great: flails, daggers, fists, stilettos, hatchets, clubs, rapiers

Better: sabres, spears, hammers, maces, swords, battle axes

But of course it's best to use the weapons with the highest quality and with the fitting weapon focus first of all. Because if you miss your lashes will miss, too. And if you graze the lashes will have less physical dmg to be based on.

Unique enchantments don't make a big difference that early in the game (see Gaun's Share).

War bow on Cipher is great. There's a unique war bow in Copperlane (merchant) named Borresaine which is good. I would only switch to a gun (arquebus) for alpha strikes against weak enemies at the start of battle if that's what you want. Too much hassle for my taste, but it can give you an edge. 

For Ranger the best two weapons are Persistence (get it asap, it's rel. early in the Endless Paths, use MIG gear and buffs because wounding scales with MIG) and Stormcaller (White March). Before that Sagani's Massuk Hunting Bow is good because it has dual damage - unlike normal bows. So usually, on average, it will roll better dmg numbers than anything you can get before Persistence because it picks the lower DR to overcome (pierce or crush). You will get the same with Stormcaller (shock/pierce) but way better.

A nice thing about Persistance is that it automatically unlocks Predator's Sense of the Animal Companion. And in PoE the Animal Companion's base(!) damage scales with level. This means the bites of the fox will reach pretty high dmg per attack (albeit slow) which works very well with the +50% dmg bonus of Predator's Sense. Never forget the Animal Companion.

I personally love to give Durance the best arquebus I can find, Weapon Focus Soldier, Gunner, Marksman and Magran's weapon talent that grants him +10 acc with sword and arquebus. That talent lifts him to the accuracy of fighters alone and makes him a pretty good shot, especially if he opens combat with Inspiring Radiance. Later I even give him Runner's Wounding Shot and Interdiction. The reason is that this lets him contribute really well to fights even without casting one per-rest spell. His RES is already high so his deflection usually isn't the lowest one in the party, meaning he usually doesn't get bothered by enemy rogues/barbs/rangers a lot. So I can afford to give him no shield etc. As backup I use a sword + shield setup (sword also has +10 acc) or Firebrand from Forgemaster Gloves (3/rest,works with any weapon focus and with the magran talent's +10 acc, too).

Best enchants on weapons is lashes and quality. If you can get a speed weapon that fits your weapon focus etc.: great. Wounding, too. Marking weapon on a Paladin is great, pick Coordinated Attacks then, too. For example your Kind Wayfarer can wield Shame or Glory + another sword. Most other unique enchantments aren't that important quite frankly.

If you plan to pick an elemental booster talent (Scion of Flame etc.) you should put the fitting lash on a weapon. Scion of Flame -> burning lash. The lash on the weapon then gets boosted from 25% to 30% (*1.2). Lashes are a multiplicative dmg bonus, so this is good.

For example a Paladin with FoD and Intense Flames (50% burning lash and 25% burning lash) should also pick a 25% burning lash for the weapon itself if he plans to pick Scion of Flame. This would boost his lashes to +60%/+30%/+30% which is great.

If you don't want to pick one of those talents you can put whatever lash on the weapon. Sometimes it's good to have some alternative damage and not put everything into one element - just because you might meet resistant foes. 

---

Btw: a Kind Wayfarer's best setup usually is dual wielding because of White Flames' healing procs. BUT with Strange Mercy (heal on kill) it can be better to use Firebrand (from Forgemaster Gloves and/or Belt of the Royal Deadfire Cannoneer). It's does enormous base damage and gets boosted by Scion of Flame (because it deals burn damage). With FoD and Intense Flames it deals enormous(!) damagee per hit (but only proves one healing with White Flames). You can kill enemies very quickly with Firebrand - and while White Flames' will only proc half as much (2 instead of 4 times) you will have a lot more procs of Strange Mercy. 

 

 

 

Edited May 7 by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

Follow Boeroer's advices, after then in act 2 with Defiance Bay, Endless Path, Dyrford Crossing encounters and mercants a world opens to you
In early game you can also give some normal weapons slaying enchantments (i.e. slaying kiths); it is +5 acc and +25% base damage, it helps in some encounters and you don't waste enchantments points on unique ones 

[Boeroer]

Yeah, that's a good tip: creating some anti-kith, -wilder, -vessel weapons from regular fine, exceptional or even superb ones is not a bad idea. Sometimes you find some exceptional stuff early (for example if you take on Crägholt Bluffs way too early but manage to kill two or three enemies there before having to retreat) but don't want to replace your dear unique weapon. Then it's nice to turn it into an exceptional special weapon against <insert enemy type> for relatively cheap and combine it with the testing bonus from survival to great effect against certain encounters. One example: the Dweller bounty is pretty tough, but with a survival bonus vs. primordial and fitting weapons it becomes def. easier. 

[Boeroer]

Yeah, that's a good tip: creating some anti-kith, -wilder, -vessel weapons from regular fine, exceptional or even superb ones is not a bad idea. Sometimes you find some exceptional stuff early (for example if you take on Crägholt Bluffs way too early but manage to kill two or three enemies there before having to retreat) but don't want to replace your dear unique weapon. Then it's nice to turn it into an exceptional special weapon against <insert enemy type> for relatively cheap and combine it with the testing bonus from survival to great effect against certain encounters. One example: the Dweller bounty is pretty tough, but with a survival bonus vs. primordial and fitting weapons it becomes def. easier. 

[Vasvary5050]

Hi folks. Just logged in this evening, and wow, thanks Boeroer and Chaospread, this is really amazing information. I'll just reply here to some of the ideas which I'm really taken with:

Chanters weapons: The funny thing is that after reading your suggestion, I now do remember reading a post a while ago (I think by you, Boeroer, now I think about it) about how the one handed single weapon bonus grants +12 accuracy for offensive chants, but I had completely forgotten about that. I've been operating under the assumption that chants, like spells, are completely unrelated to weapon accuracy. I presume this applies to "Lo, their endless host, the harbingers of doom," which I've been using whilst carrying a large shield, not realising it was suffering a -8 accuracy because of the large shield when I could have had +12 accuracy without it (so a relative increase of 20 accuracy). I'll drop the shield and just use a hatchet and heavy armour for my #1 weapon slot. 

So can I check with you, what exactly does effect accuracy on offensive chants? If they get the +12 bonus from carrying just a one-handed weapon, and they suffer the shield accuracy penalty, do they also get any accuracy bonus from the weapon itself for their chants, or from weapon focus (e.g. would they get the +17 accuracy bonus from measured restraint). And I presume this only applies to chanter's chants and not to chanter's invocations? (Out of interest, does this apply in Deadfire as well?)

Kind Wayfarer: Great advice. I'll switch to two heavy hitting one-handers, even if they are just fine without being uniques. 

Ranger: I'm actually really close to Persistence as I cleared my way through the ogres on level 3 yesterday, so I'll make a dash for that this evening!

Cipher: I'll go get Borresaine now. Thanks again! I do love the fantasy of guns and magic (I'm a big fan of the powder mage series of novels) and in previous runs I've tried to make guns work on a cipher, but it does seem to be a strategy that only works comfortably with extra weapon slots. For example, in Deadfire, I had a cipher/rogue which opened with an arquebus, but then had 2 other ranged weapons to switch to so as to cover multiple damage types (I recall that a lot of enemies had pierce immunity in Deadfire; I'm not sure if that's such an issue in POE 1). I'll probably just not use guns this run unless I find a really good one.

Durance: Good tip regarding using arquebus (maybe I get that guns and magic fantasy after all, just on the priest rather than cipher  ). 

Lashes: Yep, I'm going for the fire lashes and Scion of Flames for my Paladin.

Enchanting non-uniques: That's clever. It hadn't occurred to me to put some slaying enchants on good non-uniques in order to create some specific-enemy-type killers. And the idea of putting some other lash types on weapons to give more flexibility for specifically resistant enemies is good.

Thanks again Boeroer and Chaospread!

[Boeroer]

25 minutes ago, Vasvary5050 said:

So can I check with you, what exactly does effect accuracy on offensive chants? If they get the +12 bonus from carrying just a one-handed weapon, and they suffer the shield accuracy penalty, do they also get any accuracy bonus from the weapon itself for their chants, or from weapon focus (e.g. would they get the +17 accuracy bonus from measured restraint). 

Shields (medium and large ones) lower your accuracy universally. Spells, chants, weapon attacks etc.: it all suffers from the shield malus.

Usually nothing besides your weapon attacks profit from single weapon usage (+12 accuracy). Offensive chants are an exception (and most likely that's an oversight and not intended). 

Weapon quality etc. does not influence chants' accuracy. Also one handed style (crot conversion) doesn't work. Only the single one handed weapon usage that gives +12 ACC works. 

I don't remember if all offensive chants without exception profit from the +12 accuracy. Dragon Thrashed certainly does profit. Iirc "Come Soft Winds" also does - so I assume the frightening "Lo" chant also works like that. But that's easy to check in the combat log.