So I built a party with 3 druids.

[Odd Hermit]

I've been playing through with parties heavy on single classes, and just did druid.

 

Druid is by far the most hilarious so far. I went with only 3, a fighter and chanter frontline, and a wizard. In retrospect I probably didn't need the wizard.

 

 

3x Returning Storms w/Heart of the Storm maxed might druids is insane output while your druids can do other things at the same time. And it's an AoE that travels with you, so you position it as necessary by moving your character. Sometimes I'd even just toss AoE CC on top of my druid's, 'cause it doesn't really matter if they get CCed along with the enemy. "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!"

 

Using 3 big opening AoE nukes also meant many fights were over before they begun. I'm a fan of some of their level 1 nukes as well, which I hadn't used much before since I saved those for tanglefoot in my parties with a single druid. I wrecked the beetles so hard.

 

Their heals are also more serviceable than I'd expected, I'd been ignoring them for priest heals but they have some contenders of their own.

 

 

 

Anyone else tried any odd combinations, stacked classes, weird builds?

[mrmonocle]

druid or priest is a sort of to be or not to be question. On easy I think you can replace a priest with a druid np.

Edited March 4, 2015 by mrmonocle

[Odd Hermit]

druid or priest is a sort of to be or not to be questions. On easy I think you can replace a priest with a druid np.

 

I'm playing on hard. A priest definitely isn't necessary, although this is a party with 3 druids, not a single druid taking over for a single priest. Priests are nice though and I do plan on taking one(probably the NPC) in my first party.

[Elerond]

druid or priest is a sort of to be or not to be question. On easy I think you can replace a priest with a druid np.

 

Druid are meant to be class that can replace wizard, where paladin and chanter are replacement classes for priest, but by my experience with backer beta I would say that you can make party work with any possible composition of classes in any difficulty level.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Elerond

[Sensuki]

Druid has always been one of the best classes in the game in PE due to their massive AoEs and hilariously imbalanced damage on spells. Pity their shapeshift isn't very good though.

[Odd Hermit]

Druid has always been one of the best classes in the game in PE due to their massive AoEs and hilariously imbalanced damage on spells. Pity their shapeshift isn't very good though.

 

Thing is, they get massive AoEs, yet they don't do less damage than the small AoEs of other classes. And the large AoEs combined with int let you get a lot of AoE damage where other classes would struggle to avoid friendly fire.

 

They're also significantly more durable than Wizards which matters. In my 3 Wizard playthrough that I didn't finish, I actually had a wizard perma-die from an Adra Beetle. :/

[mrmonocle]

My Backer Beta dps statistics for wizard and druid

druid - 

wizard -

[Bazy]

Wait till you get to chanter. So broken right now. 

 

But you only need 2 to complete destroy everything at the moment with thrice she was wronged. 

Edited March 4, 2015 by Bazy

[Lephys]

Wizards are pretty horrendously squishy. I don't think the HP divide between classes needs to be quite as extreme. It's a bit of a mixed message when the game's like "want to wear the thickest armor known to man and wield a halberd, as a Wizard?! THAT'S TOTALLY FINE! Just prepare to inherently still go down in about 3 hits, and also suck at casting! 8D!"

 

Fighters, Barbarians, and Monks can inherently be better frontline combatants than Wizards without Wizards being made out of balsa wood. Ideally, I'd leave the majority of Health and the like to stats and something akin to traits. You can always give Wizards some kind of penalty, like a defense penalty for each additional foe who's attacking them simultaneously or something. So, maybe you can make a Wizard who's pretty good, actually, at 1-on-1 melee combat, but when others start joining in, you're going to want to get out of there (even if it's like 3 "wussy" foes, because they'll be collectively a bigger threat to you than to another class.)

 

Casters should be friggin' scary. Not "as long as I can thump him before he kills me, I win!"

[mrmonocle]

chanter with arquebus -

 

druid quarterstaff, wizard rod on previous screen

 

chanter's hit counter broken

Edited March 4, 2015 by mrmonocle

[Bazy]

Wizards are pretty horrendously squishy. I don't think the HP divide between classes needs to be quite as extreme. It's a bit of a mixed message when the game's like "want to wear the thickest armor known to man and wield a halberd, as a Wizard?! THAT'S TOTALLY FINE! Just prepare to inherently still go down in about 3 hits, and also suck at casting! 8D!"

 

Fighters, Barbarians, and Monks can inherently be better frontline combatants than Wizards without Wizards being made out of balsa wood. Ideally, I'd leave the majority of Health and the like to stats and something akin to traits. You can always give Wizards some kind of penalty, like a defense penalty for each additional foe who's attacking them simultaneously or something. So, maybe you can make a Wizard who's pretty good, actually, at 1-on-1 melee combat, but when others start joining in, you're going to want to get out of there (even if it's like 3 "wussy" foes, because they'll be collectively a bigger threat to you than to another class.)

 

Casters should be friggin' scary. Not "as long as I can thump him before he kills me, I win!"

Later on wizards get some pretty strong defensive spells. Not sure its worth it though. 

 

But I agree the Heath/Stamina divide from Wizards and Priests to other classes is very noticeable. 

Edited March 4, 2015 by Bazy

[Odd Hermit]

Wizards are pretty horrendously squishy. I don't think the HP divide between classes needs to be quite as extreme. It's a bit of a mixed message when the game's like "want to wear the thickest armor known to man and wield a halberd, as a Wizard?! THAT'S TOTALLY FINE! Just prepare to inherently still go down in about 3 hits, and also suck at casting! 8D!"

 

Fighters, Barbarians, and Monks can inherently be better frontline combatants than Wizards without Wizards being made out of balsa wood. Ideally, I'd leave the majority of Health and the like to stats and something akin to traits. You can always give Wizards some kind of penalty, like a defense penalty for each additional foe who's attacking them simultaneously or something. So, maybe you can make a Wizard who's pretty good, actually, at 1-on-1 melee combat, but when others start joining in, you're going to want to get out of there (even if it's like 3 "wussy" foes, because they'll be collectively a bigger threat to you than to another class.)

 

Casters should be friggin' scary. Not "as long as I can thump him before he kills me, I win!"

 

Yeah I'm planning on not taking a wizard at this point unless they get some changes.

 

Wizards still have some noteworthy spells, but since the game has perma-death for individual characters - without resurrection/raise dead as far as I know, I'm going to want to skip anything that drops like a stone when you make a mistake here and there. I've had some trap deaths due to pathing being retarded and characters not going around the un-disarmable traps but wizard so far is the only class I've had drop dead in combat on hard difficulty anyway.

[Lephys]

I have a feeling we'll see a boatload of numbers tuning in the final version. Just look at all the proposed changes to Interrupt (interrupt potency on different weapons, differing chances of Interrupt, effects of crits/hits/grazes, etc.), and that's just between two beta builds. And that's just one combat factor.

 

Again, I don't expect Wizards to be specifically tanky. But, they really don't need to be the-opposite-of-tanky, when everyone else is already either average, or quite-tanky. Or, at the very least, the likelihood of your character taking some damage is still way too high, even with heavy armor and a shield, so it's silly that a Wizard trying his best to just hold his own in Melee can still be dropped pretty easily, while a Barbarian just standing there naked laughing at the enemy and saying "CUT ME AGAIN!" can last like three times as long.

 

I'm going to make a Wizard regardless, but I'd really like to make a somewhat-melee-oriented Wizard. I'd understand if it was "Oh crap! 10 enemies! Might wanna fall back, Wizard!". But, if it's "Oh crap! Anyone in melee range at all! Might wanna fall back, Wizard!", I'll just be sad.

 

In our PnP campaigns, I always actually gave my Mage some weapons skills and such. He didn't rush into the fray to annihilate everyone with his mad skills. But, he could easily hold his own against one target. Depending on the target he could still be in trouble, as compared to another class who wouldn't be. But, it wasn't dire danger just because something was fighting back up-close.

 

I really kind of wish we had weapon skills, so you could actually tweak your melee-ability on some kind of scale. I get that there are all the weapon focus talents, but they just feel like "One proficiency point on 5 weapons! 8D!" Doesn't feel like much room to adjust the own-holding capabilities of a less-than-deadly class. And if you took nothing but weapon focus/specialization (just for example, you maxed out your Wizard's melee weapon-using abilities), it feels like having piddly Health just completely contradicts that decision. Like putting yourself into melee is a just plain bad idea, instead of just not the best idea.

[bonarbill]

A priest's health is way too low for tastes.  They should at least have higher endurance than druids and chanters since Priests are more of a defensive while those classes are move offensive.

Edited March 4, 2015 by bonarbill

[Sensuki]

The Priest low health kinda =/= the range limitations on many of their spells too.

[Odd Hermit]

Yeah it'd be nice if priests were tweaked slightly more toward the "Cleric" side. I personally like them to be in the middle, for best PBAoE/healing range access on the whole party.

 

So far I haven't had a priest drop though, except the one time a character's pathing went awry and he ran into an already spotted trap while we were in combat near it. :/

 

If they had Wizard's Wand/Scepter/Rod talents that'd be perfect, but I've been using Crossbow/Pike on mine, and eventually I'd go with Arbalest/Pike and take the Soldier focus. That way I can swap between melee and range, but have the extra reach in melee to not put the priest too much in the thick of things.

 

 

A priest's health is way too low for tastes.  They should at least have higher endurance than druids and chanters since Priests are more of a defensive while those classes are move offensive.

 

Druid is more offensive, but I see Chanters as a defensive melee class personally. They have many conal invocations that make you want them on the front line. I use mine as back-up tank along with a Fighter.

[Odd Hermit]

Wait till you get to chanter. So broken right now. 

 

But you only need 2 to complete destroy everything at the moment with thrice she was wronged. 

 

 

I'm definitely going to take a Chanter, but multiple Chanters is weaker than multiple Druids. They make a good second or third melee, for Thrice Was Wronged + a couple good chant buffs. I see them as a less tanky but better damage/buff version of the Paladin, they're very passive other than the occasional invocation.

 

Yeah, Thrice Was Wronged does hit like a truck, but it's something you have to build up to. It's also conal, albeit a large cone, but it's just not as good as a Druid that can cast several high damage, large AoEs that are easier to place in the time it takes to build up chants to use a single Thrice Was Wronged.

 

Druids can drop serious damage at the beginning of a fight, sometimes killing things outright. Granted, sometimes it's better to wait for a few buffs, but Druids can also open with a massive AoE tanglefoot to control the field giving your party time to buff up a bit too. You can drop the AoE and even drop out of sight for a bit to buff if against ranged enemies as well.

 

I don't see them as competing roles and I don't see Chanter as a good class to stack more than one or two of.

Edited March 4, 2015 by Odd Hermit