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Soloing PoE, Difficulty Settings and Build Ideas


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I think the main reason IE games were easily soloable was due to insane xp you were getting solo, making charname's level way above the content, and easily abusable combat system (best armor+haste=killing machine). I don't see any of these things in PoE so I'm afraid soloing this game, even if possible, would be rather frustrating F5 - F8 fest.

 

I would love to be able to play the game solo tho. 

 

The BGs were actually easier solo than with a full party ironically.  

 

 

I soloed the beta content with a rogue and leadsplitter + using shadowing beyond to escape any tough situations.

 

I tried some other classes as well, but often the faster enemies were an issue(spiders) with no real escape tool.

 

Most important talent for solo is probably fast runner, heh.

 

I doubt there's a class that can do it w/out hit and run tactics.

 

 

Keep in my mind that guns and bloody slaughter were nerfed tremendously since beta. But currently you can exploit alot of encounters by running away and losing aggro so could work. But I'm thinking a tanky Barb/Monk with choice gear could be an option if you don't like resting after every encounter. Wizards get some pretty beast tank spells later but with rest spam and scrolls there could be some exploitable builds there. 

Edited by PIP-Clownboy
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My experience thus far:

 

Progression: Heritage Hill

 

Level 7 Pale Elf Rogue

Max Might

Max Dex

 

8 Stealth

5 Mechanics

 

I have not had many problems outside of enemies who summon additionals, i.e. Banshee.  I do not believe I will get further as a lot of encounters begin with unavoidable combat due to dialogue.  My damage has seemed to plateau as weapons are not dealing damage that scales with level.  I have used the same dagger for four levels.  The best way I can forsee myself progressing is using an arbalest/crossbow combo to sneak, do massive damage, and use Shadowing Beyond to escape.

 

I really, really, want to continue soloing but I have dumped hours for certain encounters and do not believe this game will be fulfilling if I cannot smash through enemies like dragons.

 

It was a fun journey.

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I think the main reason IE games were easily soloable was due to insane xp you were getting solo, making charname's level way above the content, and easily abusable combat system (best armor+haste=killing machine). I don't see any of these things in PoE so I'm afraid soloing this game, even if possible, would be rather frustrating F5 - F8 fest.

 

I would love to be able to play the game solo tho. 

 

The BGs were actually easier solo than with a full party ironically.  

 

 

That is somehow true. Even at times when I ran 3 ppl party, everyone except my charname usually was just standing safe at the edge of the map while I was doing whole exploring and fighting. I basically used them only for a support during boss/dragon encounters. Most fights they were just too easily exposed to being focused, cc-ed etc so it was actually easier to leave them behind.

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But seriously, why are there just SO MANY groups of monsters EVERYWHERE? And why are do they ALL have some sort of CC?

 

I've recently been playing again through whole BG saga and having it fresh in my memory I have to say PoE combat system is by far more punishing and strategic. One character, even with major xp buff simply cannot do it.

 

Example that shocked me: My 4-men lvl 2-3 party was ambushed by group of wolves in the woods. I died quickly. I tried this fight twice again and finally, with better positioning and using of more cc spells instead of damage ones, I've managed to kill them easily, having a lot of hp left. I quickly checked the difficulty setting because I felt like it switched itself to easy by some mistake. A while later same story happened with a pack of boars nearby.

 

CC is king, positioning is king. In older IE games it was kinda whatever, you just used your strongest stuff first and focused the casters, or just cheesed it with cloud kill spell from afar ;-). PoE combat can be frustrating trial and error, even with full party. Nearly every encounter with more than one enemy feels like an mini-boss fight.

 

 

Yea, well....

 

The BG games had more.... pacing? Like the difficulty of the combat encounters in the area varied, rather than all of them being hard or easy.

Also, because the combat had both loot and exp, they were alot more rewarding. 

In PoE, not so much. Extremely poor/unexciting loot, no exp, little enemy variation made the encounters feel like more of a chore than proper gameplay.

 

Also, that encounter -> dialogue -> combat with no ability to save before combat is so frustrating, especially since its almost considered an archaic design mistake.

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But seriously, why are there just SO MANY groups of monsters EVERYWHERE? And why are do they ALL have some sort of CC?

 

I've recently been playing again through whole BG saga and having it fresh in my memory I have to say PoE combat system is by far more punishing and strategic. One character, even with major xp buff simply cannot do it.

 

Example that shocked me: My 4-men lvl 2-3 party was ambushed by group of wolves in the woods. I died quickly. I tried this fight twice again and finally, with better positioning and using of more cc spells instead of damage ones, I've managed to kill them easily, having a lot of hp left. I quickly checked the difficulty setting because I felt like it switched itself to easy by some mistake. A while later same story happened with a pack of boars nearby.

 

CC is king, positioning is king. In older IE games it was kinda whatever, you just used your strongest stuff first and focused the casters, or just cheesed it with cloud kill spell from afar ;-). PoE combat can be frustrating trial and error, even with full party. Nearly every encounter with more than one enemy feels like an mini-boss fight.

 

 

Yea, well....

 

The BG games had more.... pacing? Like the difficulty of the combat encounters in the area varied, rather than all of them being hard or easy.

Also, because the combat had both loot and exp, they were alot more rewarding. 

In PoE, not so much. Extremely poor/unexciting loot, no exp, little enemy variation made the encounters feel like more of a chore than proper gameplay.

 

Also, that encounter -> dialogue -> combat with no ability to save before combat is so frustrating, especially since its almost considered an archaic design mistake.

 

 

AD&D, a system I adore, was built on the idea of a person creating a good character through knowledge of the mechanics. 18(100) STR, 19 DEX ELF with good HP rolls, and you were king of the world.

 

A thief utterly sucked in combat. Horrible thac0, beyond horrible staying power etc. The notion of a "combat dps rogue" thing only appeared with WoW.

 

So what you mean as pacing is "combat was rewarding for a select few good builds". Believe me, AD&D would be a nightmare for players who had no idea how to build at the time. Way back in BG1, I would facepalm in every terribly difficult encounter with my level 2s slogging through ruin and suffering vs. kobolds.

 

Pillars has a great system. Maybe they designed it a little bit more accessible, but not that much. There are a few imbalances that the devs will surely iron out eventually, but combat has great pacing. The DNA of the game system is very similar to AD&D as I believe Josh is a great fan of it as well.

 

But dare I say, I think this is a more fun system. Baldur's Gate combat was a means to an end (furthering the plot)-- and despite all my cynicisim about BG RTwP combat being surpassed (no matter how much I respect and appreciate the design pedigree of Obsidian), I think they pulled it off.

 

PoE is a far better game than BG1, and without having a boat load of materials and modules and mechanics errata for years, the combat system is ingenius. As an AD&D fanatic, the Pillars game system has won me over.

 

There is still a lot more balancing to be done, classes to be tuned. Solo play aside, rogues and barbs need to be nerfed (they are ridiculously beyond all other classes in every arena right now), spells to be adjusted, etc. etc.

 

But I digress, if you want a solo run on easy and maybe, MAYBE normal, go for a mobile ranged rogue, or str/con/int twohander barbarian.

 

I don't think Hard and above is possible at solo as of yet.

Edited by AlperTheCaglar
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Of course its possible...

 

Path of the Damned solo tank Chanter, level 4 now, but want to restart to fix stats and spell picks a bit

 

Soloed everything starting from first area

All stats into PER/INT/RES, dump DEX and choose between STR/CON as leftover, need some STR if you plan to do some spell damage, CON to make you even more beefy and let summons do the work
Make sure to pick some Athletics to keep fighting without getting tired too much, since on PotD you are only limited to 2 camps and you need those to heal up instead of fatigue removal (stupid limit if you ask me, but whatever)

Chants to start - reducing enemy damage is good, fort/will and reflex bonus chants are good, you really want these when you face Wizards/creeps with special attacks, reason I am restarting now...

Invocation Ghost, he is just too good at start instead of Skeletons (you are allowed only 1 summon apparently, which game does not even warn about, so no, you cannot be a Necrochanter with ghosts/skeletons small army.. unfortunately, would really add to the flavor of the game)

Later in the game as your defenses rise, Ghost gets focused and dropped alot, by this point you should be tanky enough to keep summoning new ones

- Soloed bear cave on level 3, was crazy fight but eventually did it - need to know a good position so you jumped by 1 bear at a time instead of all 3 humping you
- Pretty much wiped everything on her way, but mages start to be a problem with my low fortitude/reflexes, gonna fix some stats

Overall, I see chanter doing it with summons quite nicely, as later he gets more and more powerful summons and becomes more and more tanky

Tried Ranger, the bear companion just pops too fast. but I think I was wrong to make ranged Ranger, instead need to go full tank and pick a dps pet, tank everything yourself and let pet do the work. One thing I hate about this game is not knowing anything, even about my own pet companions - what are their friggin stats?? Come on Obsidian, you give me 0 info in "tactical" game, gj

Tried Cypher, the charm is ways too slow to cast and not really helping in 1v1 encounters, don't see it happening. 
Everything else just dies, havent found any good combos with other classes.

Of course, you have to use every consumable you can, potions, friggin everything at your disposal.
Every fight except some easy ones is an adventure.

What buggers me most is that some of the harderst fights (a wizard ♥♥♥♥♥ with her 2 paladin friends) dont even give EXP... Maybe a bug

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Of course its possible...

 

Path of the Damned solo tank Chanter, level 4 now, but want to restart to fix stats and spell picks a bit

 

Soloed everything starting from first area

 

Chanters seem pretty solid but is soloing whole game even possible? Let us know how far you managed to get before it gets too hard. Also, if you had to choose one character to keep your chanter company what class would it be? Do you think they would be able to duo whole content?

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AD&D, a system I adore, was built on the idea of a person creating a good character through knowledge of the mechanics. 18(100) STR, 19 DEX ELF with good HP rolls, and you were king of the world.

 

A thief utterly sucked in combat. Horrible thac0, beyond horrible staying power etc. The notion of a "combat dps rogue" thing only appeared with WoW.

 

So what you mean as pacing is "combat was rewarding for a select few good builds". Believe me, AD&D would be a nightmare for players who had no idea how to build at the time. Way back in BG1, I would facepalm in every terribly difficult encounter with my level 2s slogging through ruin and suffering vs. kobolds.

 

Pillars has a great system. Maybe they designed it a little bit more accessible, but not that much. There are a few imbalances that the devs will surely iron out eventually, but combat has great pacing. The DNA of the game system is very similar to AD&D as I believe Josh is a great fan of it as well.

 

But dare I say, I think this is a more fun system. Baldur's Gate combat was a means to an end (furthering the plot)-- and despite all my cynicisim about BG RTwP combat being surpassed (no matter how much I respect and appreciate the design pedigree of Obsidian), I think they pulled it off.

 

PoE is a far better game than BG1, and without having a boat load of materials and modules and mechanics errata for years, the combat system is ingenius. As an AD&D fanatic, the Pillars game system has won me over.

 

There is still a lot more balancing to be done, classes to be tuned. Solo play aside, rogues and barbs need to be nerfed (they are ridiculously beyond all other classes in every arena right now), spells to be adjusted, etc. etc.

 

But I digress, if you want a solo run on easy and maybe, MAYBE normal, go for a mobile ranged rogue, or str/con/int twohander barbarian.

 

I don't think Hard and above is possible at solo as of yet.

 

 

Maybe its due to unrealistic expectations, but I had expected alot less combat in this game, as remarked earlier, due to the removal of kill exp (save beastiary) and the introduction of the scroll thingy before certain encounters allowing you to use stats/skills and make interesting decisions.

 

Please do enlighten me on the fun you find in the game, for now while I love the lore and the world, the combat is just really off putting for me.

Maybe I've been playing it wrong, but I've already given up on soloing, yet I still find the combat wholly uninteresting.

 

You mentioned that BG's combat was a means to an end, which is perhaps what frustrates me about PoE's combat, it seems to serve little purpose other than padding, a means to no end, while being an unending flood.

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BG was 'easier' as character progression wasn't capped so low. Also multi and especially dual classing multiplied the possible synergies - here you have to have 2 characters for that, in BG you could solve it by yourself.

Also itemizing is vastly different. Here you have superb equipment giving you basically 48% damage. In BG you had a Crom Feyr tripling-quadrupling your damage output. Here you have +10 to saves, there you had the cloak of mirroring. Here you have +10 save against spells there you had protection from magic scrolls. And let's not get started on how good simmies, clones and mislead was.

 

Also PoE has a fairly simple system while D&D is so much more complex. The possibilites you can use are simply less here than it is in D&D resulting in less gimped but also less extremely strong characters.

 

About soloing - I had fairly good results with a cipher solo heavy CCing, aggro juggling, running and using a war bow (firearms were simply too slow and not usable). However the game is poorly designed from a solo perspective - convos resulting in fights in small enclosed spaces are the main reason you can't use the nimble or sneaky approach and you must have a bruiser at least or even a tank. I don't know, maybe I suck but fights like that raedric or something the guy in the castle's called are plainly depressing to solo. And honestly I think this was an extremely bad design decision and the game feels less from it.

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normally yu can see the stats of your pets infight, mouseover your summon/pet, and you get like enemies a small window with stats, unlucky you cannot do more.

 

Chanter, Phantom summon is best defence summon, the later summons have less defence, but more endurance...

 

For example, 

 

dragon 260 endurance, 45+ defence on all for, i think on reflex 35+, speichal abiltiy, fireblast (level 1 wizard spell) and 2 knock downs (like warrior)#

 

phantom, 50 endurance, 60+ defence on all stats, special abiltiy, stunning hit, passiv (stun enemy if normal hit)

 

i hope at the time you get dragon, you can tank long enough, that you get 5 chants summons, and...knock down is strong enough to give enough time to resummon dragon.

 

 

Good think at chanter, he can later pick buff with gives +10mig, +10con, +10dex ---or +10int, +10pet,+10pel, what means really good buff to defence against will or for.

 

 

biggest downside of solo gaming in path of damed...you get no extra Xp for groups of mobs....so you do not level faster, you still need quest XP, what makes game really hard.

Edited by Aqvamare
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Other than Chanter, I can see Ranger doing it

Juts nor ranged one, since your pet cannot tank - instead, full-tank Ranger with Bear (very defensive) or Lion (for Terrify roar)

Facetank yourself, and let pet chew on them, if built right, the Ranger is just as good, since he gets nice buffs.

The drawback is, most of usables he gets are some ranged shots, there are barely 1 melee skill per level to pick from, starting with Hunters Mark at 1.

 

Other options - I am really not sure, some guy on Steam was doing it on Hard with Paladin and Endurance drain weapons, but not sure this is viable for Path of the Damned.

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Of course its possible...

 

Path of the Damned solo tank Chanter, level 4 now, but want to restart to fix stats and spell picks a bit

 

Soloed everything starting from first area

 

Chanters seem pretty solid but is soloing whole game even possible? Let us know how far you managed to get before it gets too hard. Also, if you had to choose one character to keep your chanter company what class would it be? Do you think they would be able to duo whole content?

 

 

Eh, not playing now man, the game is very bugged, waiting for patch.

But yeah, tank Chanter or Ranger are the best bets to go, completely doable if you build tanky, use consumables to full, and engage on your terms.

 

If you want to duo, another Chanter or Ranger are your best bets, because pets pets pets... xD

The problem is, some mobs skip/teleport to your squishies, so having any squish in a party is already a problem.

Edited by Ansa
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Im doing it with my Druid I created a thread for it...

 

I thought of Chanter but his skills really seem like a support to me, idk how good he can perform vs big number of enemies.

 

Well, he looks for a nice doorway... xD

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Im doing it with my Druid I created a thread for it...

 

I thought of Chanter but his skills really seem like a support to me, idk how good he can perform vs big number of enemies.

 

Well, he looks for a nice doorway... xD

 

True... That was my first option but I was afraid of going for it... But how about open spaces? Some enemies you cant pull one by one or into a corner, Im afraid you will have difficulties there.

 

Try to go shield  + one handed weap with draining. Still he has no tankyness ability as far as I know. GL anyway!

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AD&D, a system I adore, was built on the idea of a person creating a good character through knowledge of the mechanics. 18(100) STR, 19 DEX ELF with good HP rolls, and you were king of the world.

 

A thief utterly sucked in combat. Horrible thac0, beyond horrible staying power etc. The notion of a "combat dps rogue" thing only appeared with WoW.

 

So what you mean as pacing is "combat was rewarding for a select few good builds". Believe me, AD&D would be a nightmare for players who had no idea how to build at the time. Way back in BG1, I would facepalm in every terribly difficult encounter with my level 2s slogging through ruin and suffering vs. kobolds.

 

Pillars has a great system. Maybe they designed it a little bit more accessible, but not that much. There are a few imbalances that the devs will surely iron out eventually, but combat has great pacing. The DNA of the game system is very similar to AD&D as I believe Josh is a great fan of it as well.

 

But dare I say, I think this is a more fun system. Baldur's Gate combat was a means to an end (furthering the plot)-- and despite all my cynicisim about BG RTwP combat being surpassed (no matter how much I respect and appreciate the design pedigree of Obsidian), I think they pulled it off.

 

PoE is a far better game than BG1, and without having a boat load of materials and modules and mechanics errata for years, the combat system is ingenius. As an AD&D fanatic, the Pillars game system has won me over.

 

There is still a lot more balancing to be done, classes to be tuned. Solo play aside, rogues and barbs need to be nerfed (they are ridiculously beyond all other classes in every arena right now), spells to be adjusted, etc. etc.

 

But I digress, if you want a solo run on easy and maybe, MAYBE normal, go for a mobile ranged rogue, or str/con/int twohander barbarian.

 

I don't think Hard and above is possible at solo as of yet.

 

 

Maybe its due to unrealistic expectations, but I had expected alot less combat in this game, as remarked earlier, due to the removal of kill exp (save beastiary) and the introduction of the scroll thingy before certain encounters allowing you to use stats/skills and make interesting decisions.

 

Please do enlighten me on the fun you find in the game, for now while I love the lore and the world, the combat is just really off putting for me.

Maybe I've been playing it wrong, but I've already given up on soloing, yet I still find the combat wholly uninteresting.

 

You mentioned that BG's combat was a means to an end, which is perhaps what frustrates me about PoE's combat, it seems to serve little purpose other than padding, a means to no end, while being an unending flood.

 

 

You know Fallout 1 and 2 were also very combat-padded and they are some of my most beloved games still. I don't think they wanted to emulate only BG, but also BG and Icewind Dale series. I believe Josh's first involvements with the Obsidian seniors began with Icewind Dale (which is itself an awesome example of a combat padded game). I'm just very learned in AD&D so I knew what I expected. I knew Psionicists (Ciphers) would be good because way back when they first came out with TSR everyone was rioting about how insanely useful and overpowered they could be with regards to other classes which used Wisdom (Will here) as a dump stat etc.

 

I have very high standards but I really sincerely like PoE's combat. I realize how sadistically difficult it must be to the Planescape Torment crowd, but remember Torment was the most combat-light of the IE games. I love how it doesn't hold your hand either, like AT ALL, which takes me back to Fallout 2 days where you made a snap decision to go to New Reno early and got owned on the way over by utterly overpowered mobs compared to your power level.

 

In my view Barbarian and Rogue are very overpowered currently (I play a Barbarian main character right now, and a custom rogue and they carry the entire group's dps). I'm level 8ish and the Rogue regularly sneak attacks 80-90s, and he finishing blows 200-250 damage sometimes, obliterating drakes singlehandedly. Barbarian is a little bit more realistic but they went a little overboard with Rogue dps potential. Not even Aloth spewing all his spells comes close to a Rogue's encounter damage with an Arbalest.

 

Again I digress, I just like the system aside from a couple of pet peeves that I KNOW they will adress (xp being divided to 6 by default is a big no no imo / resting supplies is a mechanic that seems like a last minute limitation that could easily be fixed by modifying combat fatigue to require inn / house rest) etc.

 

Other than those I just love the combat. It's like the perfect sweet spot between IWD and BG1. (BG2 was a different beast with LvL 18+ cap its not fair to compare it to a lvl 11+ cap game)

 

 

BG was 'easier' as character progression wasn't capped so low. Also multi and especially dual classing multiplied the possible synergies - here you have to have 2 characters for that, in BG you could solve it by yourself.

Also itemizing is vastly different. Here you have superb equipment giving you basically 48% damage. In BG you had a Crom Feyr tripling-quadrupling your damage output. Here you have +10 to saves, there you had the cloak of mirroring. Here you have +10 save against spells there you had protection from magic scrolls. And let's not get started on how good simmies, clones and mislead was.

 

Also PoE has a fairly simple system while D&D is so much more complex. The possibilites you can use are simply less here than it is in D&D resulting in less gimped but also less extremely strong characters.

 

About soloing - I had fairly good results with a cipher solo heavy CCing, aggro juggling, running and using a war bow (firearms were simply too slow and not usable). However the game is poorly designed from a solo perspective - convos resulting in fights in small enclosed spaces are the main reason you can't use the nimble or sneaky approach and you must have a bruiser at least or even a tank. I don't know, maybe I suck but fights like that raedric or something the guy in the castle's called are plainly depressing to solo. And honestly I think this was an extremely bad design decision and the game feels less from it.

 

I'm sorry this is wrong friend. BG1 was capped at level 5+. This game is a rival to that franchise starter not BG2.

 

And comparing game hours BG2 was 100+ hours while this awesome baby is around 60+ (BG1 was around 40+).

 

If anything you can compare level progression to PoE II when it arrives, and is a 100+ hours game which takes characters from 10 to say 25

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Wizards probably have a solid chance of soloing endgame.  At lvl 8 grab confuse and let the monsters do all your work for you.  In a full party normal playthrough, Aloth single handedly turned around a couple of fights I was stuck reloading with that one skill.

 

Otherwise +1 to cipher for charm and buff/ debuff abilities.

 

About to give a solo monk easy playthrough a try.  

Edited by bob54386
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Wizards probably have a solid chance of soloing endgame.  At lvl 8 grab confuse and let the monsters do all your work for you.  In a full party normal playthrough, Aloth single handedly turned around a couple of fights I was stuck reloading with that one skill.

 

Otherwise +1 to cipher for charm and buff/ debuff abilities.

 

About to give a solo monk easy playthrough a try.  

The martial classes are going to have a harder time than the spellcasters in soloing. I'm currently on my second character which is a monk on PoTD solo. The first one was a paladin which I doubt could have cleared any further due to a lack of any AoE. I'm just hit level 7 which is a big power spike for monks.

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I just tried a cipher, but the inability to cast charm as my opening move (can't cast most cipher powers "out of combat") wrecks me as the other non-charm monsters just ignores the charmed monster.

 

Gonna try the chanter now.

 


 

You know Fallout 1 and 2 were also very combat-padded and they are some of my most beloved games still. I don't think they wanted to emulate only BG, but also BG and Icewind Dale series. I believe Josh's first involvements with the Obsidian seniors began with Icewind Dale (which is itself an awesome example of a combat padded game). I'm just very learned in AD&D so I knew what I expected. I knew Psionicists (Ciphers) would be good because way back when they first came out with TSR everyone was rioting about how insanely useful and overpowered they could be with regards to other classes which used Wisdom (Will here) as a dump stat etc.

 

I have very high standards but I really sincerely like PoE's combat. I realize how sadistically difficult it must be to the Planescape Torment crowd, but remember Torment was the most combat-light of the IE games. I love how it doesn't hold your hand either, like AT ALL, which takes me back to Fallout 2 days where you made a snap decision to go to New Reno early and got owned on the way over by utterly overpowered mobs compared to your power level.

 

In my view Barbarian and Rogue are very overpowered currently (I play a Barbarian main character right now, and a custom rogue and they carry the entire group's dps). I'm level 8ish and the Rogue regularly sneak attacks 80-90s, and he finishing blows 200-250 damage sometimes, obliterating drakes singlehandedly. Barbarian is a little bit more realistic but they went a little overboard with Rogue dps potential. Not even Aloth spewing all his spells comes close to a Rogue's encounter damage with an Arbalest.

 

Again I digress, I just like the system aside from a couple of pet peeves that I KNOW they will adress (xp being divided to 6 by default is a big no no imo / resting supplies is a mechanic that seems like a last minute limitation that could easily be fixed by modifying combat fatigue to require inn / house rest) etc.

 

Other than those I just love the combat. It's like the perfect sweet spot between IWD and BG1. (BG2 was a different beast with LvL 18+ cap its not fair to compare it to a lvl 11+ cap game)

 

 

 

 

 

I can see that you like it, but I still don't understand why. Is it the encounter design? The classes? I hope I don't sound condescending or insincere, but could you elaborate because I really want to know what you see/experience that I'm just not seeing.

 

For me, I don't like it because it seems to prevent to from doing alot of interesting things while not giving much in return. Its 1 steps forward, 2 steps back, in terms of likeability for me.

 

For example: Ooo... endurance + health system to solve the d&d health system? Awesome.  Can't drink potions before combat? Whut. Can't cast spells from stealth to start of combat? Lame.
Hey, nice variety of weapon differenciation! Choose betwen DR bypass/accuracy/graze-to-hits/bonus deflection, diff interrupt lengths, seems cool. Accuracy bonus/deflection bonus/DR bypass doesn't scale? Huh?  TWF uses a strange attack speed formula that is not explained? Weapon set switching takes 2 sec unless you waste a talent, whereby you would just use crossbows/guns to alpha strike at the start of encounters? Err..  All weapons follow the progression of fine/exceptional/superb, except you can't have fine and accurate together, or damaging and fine, and the fine tree is always strictly better than the accurate tree? And you can't override fine with exceptional, or accurate I with fine?

 

It just seems like one after another.

 

 

Back on topic though, I realized I found a pretty potent bug/exploit. If you take the talent that cuts your weapon set switching recovery time from 2.0 to 0.5, you can abuse it making ALL your recovery times set to 0.5. Basically, after your THF attack animation or spell animation or crossbow shot animation is complete, simply cycle weapon sets back to your intented weapon, and do your next action. Instead of the 1.0 sec it takes for THF to attack again, or the 1.5 for crossbow to start reloading, it will allow you to attack again/cast again/reload in 0.5 sec, basically making recovery time a moot point for most weapons. I don't know if this is affected by armor modifers though.

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The martial classes are going to have a harder time than the spellcasters in soloing. I'm currently on my second character which is a monk on PoTD solo. The first one was a paladin which I doubt could have cleared any further due to a lack of any AoE. I'm just hit level 7 which is a big power spike for monks.

 

 

Really? I think that perhaps Barbarian would be quite good because of carnage, though after having a Fighter solo till lvl 5, I can't live without constant recovery any more.

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Problem of wizards is to get to lvl 8 imo... if It was hard as Druid I cant imagine as a wizzy

 

Wizards are more versatile since they swap out grimoires and have more CC. There is cloak that gives 20% endurance for freeze dmg and seems to be working out quite well. 

 

 

 

The martial classes are going to have a harder time than the spellcasters in soloing. I'm currently on my second character which is a monk on PoTD solo. The first one was a paladin which I doubt could have cleared any further due to a lack of any AoE. I'm just hit level 7 which is a big power spike for monks.

 

 

Really? I think that perhaps Barbarian would be quite good because of carnage, though after having a Fighter solo till lvl 5, I can't live without constant recovery any more.

 

 

Well Barbs have do have a nice self heal. There is a flail/stiletto with endurance leech you can procure quite early which works well with carnage. 

 

Rot finger gloves look like they will be essential for solo playthrough. They are a bit too good.

Edited by PIP-Clownboy
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Wait wait wait wait wait

 

Carnage works with leech?

 

Please tell me that is true.


and Rot finger gloves... where do you find it again?

 

A barb with carnage + leech  + RFG seems like pure madness

Edited by Slashe
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Wizards probably have a solid chance of soloing endgame.  At lvl 8 grab confuse and let the monsters do all your work for you.  In a full party normal playthrough, Aloth single handedly turned around a couple of fights I was stuck reloading with that one skill.

 

Otherwise +1 to cipher for charm and buff/ debuff abilities.

 

About to give a solo monk easy playthrough a try.  

The martial classes are going to have a harder time than the spellcasters in soloing. I'm currently on my second character which is a monk on PoTD solo. The first one was a paladin which I doubt could have cleared any further due to a lack of any AoE. I'm just hit level 7 which is a big power spike for monks.

 

Lvl 7 with PoTD? I don think I would be able to beat the game with my Druid on PotD... FIrst stages are easy, more numbers than quality but then game will turn harder I expect, with bosses you cant fool and stuff... I think PotD really needs a party 

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