Shadows

[grumbold99]

I've avoided knowing anything about PoE pre-launch so I'm relying wholly on in-game information about how to play effectively. Everything's gone smoothly until exploring the Temple of Eothas. My team of 4 (warrior, Eder, Aloth and hired rogue) are getting rolled repeatedly by Shadows. According to the "100% complete" bestiary entry these guys are level 1 and it makes no mention of any special abilites other than impressive deflection. So why are the ones I'm fighting much more dangerous than level 3 Skuldr and willing and able to stun the warriors and teleport en-masse to destroy the mage and the rogue? I don't mind them being hard, but the rating and xp should be equal to the risk and the bestiary should mention key abilities.

 

I'll be off to explore other areas so I can level up a bit to cope with these "level 1" opponents...

[Tigranes]

The bestiary gave you all the information you need.

 

As you just said, the bestiary tells you that they have impressive deflection. If something has 16 DR you need to do more than 16 damage to do any damage. Now look at, say, a rapier, which usually has something like 8-13 damage. No wonder it's hard to kill them. 

 

One solution is to use slower but higher damage weapons, like two handed ones - which, when it hits, will get through. Eder was doing 15 damage a hit when I switched his weapon. 

 

Another thing the bestiary tells you after you kill a few is that they have different resistances to different types. My cipher had great joy with the shock wave ability until the shadows who have high shock resistance - so I needed to switch to something else. (Charm worked very nice, since they are able to hit each other pretty effectively.)

[grumbold99]

Shadow does not have impressive DR. However they have almost double the defences of a "Level 2" Ivory spiderling. The Level number seems to be generated almost entirely from the endurance of the creatures, which is silly. If you regularly miss something it's much harder to kill than a blob with five times the hitpoints but no ability to dodge. That's my main criticism of assigning creatures to a "level" if it is not even close to an indicator of how dangerous they are. XP seems to be awarded based on level, so xp is not commeasurate with difficulty either.

 

The bestiary makes no mention of the special powers of the creatures I have encountered so far. I would have expected the notable attack strategies of any beast to be one of the most important things to mention: Can teleport, will target casters over fighters, can entangle its foes from a distance, can poison its foes with a bite, paralyse an opponent with fear etc.

[gkathellar]

I'd advise you to use magical attacks that target defenses other than Deflection, and to use debuffs. If you have a Cipher, the ability to paralyze them helps a lot. Guns, too, if only because you only need to get lucky once.

 

... but really, the temple is just tough, and it'll kick your ass repeatedly.

[Tigranes]

They have 8 DR and 48 Deflection on the bestiary, compared to 0 and 38 for Skuldr (the othe rprimary enemy type in that area), so it does make a difference.

 

And yes, paralysing shadows makes a big difference since they don't actually have that much HP, so if you can get a couple of solid hits in with war bows or spears etc. you can basically 2-hit kill them.

 

Just finished the temple on Hard with the Cipher, Eder and Alroth at level 3. I died about twenty times all combined but it was worth it, and fun.

[Magrusaod]

Playing on Normal, and yeah, the shadows are a pain. High Deflection, DR which ignores half of the damage of any one handed weapon my guys are using, only really vulnerable to Fire, and they dive the back line randomly beating on my squishy ranged characters. Preventing me from using my solid front line, which is costing me. I can imagine these things being truly frustrating on harder difficulties, and will keep that in mind when building characters on that difficulty. Dumping my defensive stats completely on those back line folks hurts when enemies teleport onto my wizard and stomps her into the ground. Lol. 

I've had to rest twice, once due to just not paying attention and reading something while exploring boxes and crates. Set off a fireball trap that nuked my rogue and half the party. Then afterwards, I tried a new spell on some shadows, and my flame spell lol, bounced off the walls and ripped through my party from my nuking wizard. Did hefty damage to myself. Was not aware the spell would bounce and travel back and forth across a room multiple times like the old 2nd edition lightning bolt spell. GOOD TO KNOW. >.<

 

That being said, just found the pool with the key hidden in the robe. Rested twice so far and wondering how far this temple goes. I may need to back track, sell some stuff, and stock up on goods and continue adventuring afterwards. Not sure yet. Also, Eder and Aloth don't do their jobs well, and your party will suffer for this using them. 

[grumbold99]

Please note I'm not complaining that Shadows are too hard. I like a challenge. I'm also fine with there being a dungeon that goes from being ok for 3 level 3 party members on one floor to needing a larger team of level 4's on the next. I'm just questioning the rating system and why the bestiary excludes salient data about monsters' special abilities. My team of 4 may not be perfect and I don't know the combat system well but they beat the teams of Skuldr, Spiderlings etc without breaking a sweat. Having left the temple and without levelling they've taken down the group of 3 paladins relatively easily. The encounters with 5 wolves and then 5 boars were close run things and by the last one they had Durance with them, but we beat them all down and lived. All those monsters are (according to the rating system) much higher threat level and came in large numbers.

 

Of course party balance is important, and mine isn't because we haven't met most of the joinable NPCs yet. My mix clearly suited those other encounters much better. Perhaps a priest can blow the shadows away? I'm sure Aloth could do a lot better if he didn't become the prime target and get mugged by teleporting shadows before he can even get his first fan of flames off. I'm just saying that labelling them as the lowest level it's possible to be is definitely not appropriate to the threat they provide. It leads you to try, try and try again while the bestiary entry is incomplete, thinking that you must be unlucky or missing the blindingly obvious because you can't beat an encounter of 4 level 1 creatures with your team that have repeatedly dealt with nominally much harder encounters.

[Magrusaod]

I feel that. The scaling system of level for the monsters isn't fitting what I would do. However, I'm going to to complain. I do my best to play without it, personally. Using my own experiences to learn and adjust from. The bestiary is unnecessary. Looking at it to me, is like playing DnD and rummaging through the Monster manual every time you run into a new monster to know its weaknesses. 

[Odd Hermit]

Shadows are annoying because high deflection and teleports makes the fights feel very random, especially at low level and with a smaller party where you may not have a lot of options and you're just whiffing a lot against them.

 

I luckily had a Druid PC and sunbeam spam(due to misses) made them much easier, but they're definitely some of the toughest encounters and not necessarily in a fun way if you're simply not equipped to deal with them so early on.

[termokanden]

Just went through the temple and man, those shadows are much tougher than everything else. There are some rooms with 4-5 of them.

 

Spells seem great against them though. I managed to AoE 4 of them at once with Aloth and my cipher in one room. Once they spread out though, it's such a pain.

[pjotroos]

My main problem with them is the teleport. I use my own fighter, Eder and Aloth. If it's just 2-3 of them, it's fine. The rooms where five of them pops out, though, it's just a game of "watch Aloth get zerged with teleport spam, reload, try again", until I finally get a lucky try. Everything else so far has been a blast, but as soon as I got to the second floor of the temple, my enjoyment dropped sharply. Don't think this was designed or scaled correctly for where it comes up - even less so considering their supposed level 1.