Diffuculty (Hard)

[Killyox]

So i did not really play backer beta besides 2xx or something but I read forums how on hard there is every enemy available and that this could be considered "proper" uncut difficulty without modified monster stats. What I am wondering is whether or not they nerfed the difficulty or is the beginning really easy?

 

I just got to Caed Nua am around 4-5 lvl and so far every fight has been pretty easy thus far. So did they nerf it or does it get harder after?

 

I am not save scumming. Only did twice at the start of the game because it was rather new to me. Made PC Cipher because I was afraid other casters would run out of spells but thus far Fatigue kicks in when casters still have like 50% of their casts available.

Any thoughts guys? I don't want to come in as show-off or anything of the sort. Just genuinely curious

[PrimeJunta]

On the crit path I struggled a bit with one of the fights in the courtyard. Other than that, the fights have been relatively easy. Relatively. I've found them quite enjoyable though.

 

If you want seriously tough ones, go off the crit path. I've hit one fight that seems unwinnable -- or close to -- at my level; will come back for it later.

Edited March 28, 2015 by PrimeJunta

[Ineth]

I've hit one fight that seems unwinnable -- or close to -- at my level; will come back for it later.

 

Just one?

 

I found three optional fights where I simply didn't stand a chance (on hard difficulty), right near the beginning of the game...

 

(In the Valewood. A pack of Wolves, a band of bandits, and a pair of bears. The wolves and bandits might have been possible if I had a more tank'y character, but those bears are brutal. No way my single non-tank 2nd-level char stood a chance. The lone young wolves and band of xaurips on the same map were no problem though.)

 

 

I simply assumed I was meant to come back to that map later on, with companions and higher levels?

 

Or do I (still) really suck at this game?

 

I can by now comfortably play the IE games on hard or insane difficulty & with tactics mods installed, and I was hoping this was somewhat transferable to PoE... :/

[Killyox]

I myself try to avoid using skills that overwrite eachother on enemy as not to waste them. But thus Far I really like Mental Binding + Mind Blades combo. So many crits. For tougher fights i can gulp +15 accuracy potion before that combo and most of the time all blades will crit for ~50.

 

I use Wood Elf Cipher (for Distant Advantage perk, really awesome!) with pistol and reloading trai. 14might 18dex 18 int iirc. So it goes like Mental Binding + Mind Blades + pistol Shot + Mind Blades or Mind Wave if needed. I use companions from the game. Eder Aloth and so on. Played with 5 ppl in party for the most part. Just got 6th. Only at the beginning I got myself adventurer monk which isn't bad (making him full active instead of passive)

 

Thus far it's really cool. Greatly enjoying the game. Also with Cipher I disable & plant traps. With high mechanics they have like 85-90 accuracy at my lvl 4 and crit for 40-60 depending on type of trap.

 

[Zorfab]

It´s just that some abilities are far better than others.

 

Stuff like Priest Holy Radiance: This "one use per fight" power basically renders most undead encounters to non-encounters. As soon as it is activated your characters get healed and the undead take a lot of damage and die and the AOE is insanely large. And you can even boost that damage by 20% with a feat.

 

Chanter has that triple skeleton summon, it`s very potent early on.

 

I haven`t really played with crowd control that much yet, but apparently Slicken is also so potent that it borders on broken on some fights.

[soedenone]

I dunno, I think it was a big mistake for me to start my first game on "normal". I feel like I'm already too far in to restart out of my own volition though, haha! I'll just have to pump it all the way up to path of the damned for the next one.

 

Honestly though, I think I've broken the game by going so far out of my way, delaying main story missions.

A character referenced something that hadn't happened yet already, so that's not good.

 

Anyway I'm not further than you mission-wise, but I think with the fights I'm winning on "normal", that it won't get much harder

 

I'm curious though, what is save-scumming? I save before a lot of fights, is that save-scumming? I find it a necessity, cause I've already had just about a hundred game-over screens!

 

EDIT: I should mention that I haven't hired any adventurers, at any point.

Edited March 28, 2015 by soedenone

[PrimeJunta]

@Ineth You're much further in the game than I am, and I haven't gone actively looking for those fights (much). Barely even dipped a toe into the Endless Paths. I'm sure there are lots.

 

@soedenone Save-scumming generally means "abusing the savegame feature to get around a tough fight." Just saving a lot isn't it, and actually the P:E mechanics aren't that savescum-friendly because there's not a lot of "save or die" type things. 

 

An example of savescumming would be to beat Firkraag by having your mage cast Feeblemind at it and reload until the gods of pseudorandom numbers caused him to fail both his magic resistance and saving throw rolls. 

 

Reloading to try out different tactics until you found one that works would not be savescumming; on the contrary, it's a normal part of learning the game.

[soedenone]

Glad to hear I'm not a "save scummer"!

Some of those fights though, damn, almost impossible if you don't hire adventurers, cause the natural party makeup is really bad, in my opinion-- Or again, maybe I'm just going too far of the beaten path.
 

Either way, I would assume hiring adventurers and path of the damned go hand in hand, no?

[Ineth]

@Ineth You're much further in the game than I am

 

I very much doubt that. The map I was talking about, is the very first one I got to after the "supernatural event" that starts the storyline...

Edited March 28, 2015 by Ineth

[PrimeJunta]

Right, I wasn't paying attention. I didn't find one of them hard at all, and I just didn't do the two others until I had some help.

[Robik]

 

@Ineth You're much further in the game than I am

 

I very much doubt that. The map I was talking about, is the very first one I got to after the "supernatural event" that starts the storyline...

 

 

 

On hard difficulty, from those 3 encounters you are talking about, my pally tank PC managed to do 2, though the one you are referring as brutal was utterly impossible.

[Emerwyn]

 

 

@Ineth You're much further in the game than I am

 

I very much doubt that. The map I was talking about, is the very first one I got to after the "supernatural event" that starts the storyline...

 

 

 

On hard difficulty, from those 3 encounters you are talking about, my pally tank PC managed to do 2, though the one you are referring as brutal was utterly impossible.

 

 

Also managed those two encounters in PotD difficulty with a two-handed weapon fighter, but I don't know how much more difficult PotD is compared to hard. On the third one, same thing. My Fighter just gets mangled in one hit - two at best. Something for later into the game.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Emerwyn

[Endrosz]

How I killed the bear on PotD with lvl 3 party. My main is a barbarian tank, I have a custom ranged DPS rogue from the inn.

 

I selected Blackened Sight and Dull Senses for Aloth lvl 3.

 

0. Tanks engages 3 bears, use the cave wall on the right to avoid being flanked.

1. Dazzling Lights, -10 Will save, -10 Accuracy from Dazed, helps tank stay alive for a few more seconds. Yes, the bear is deadly, no argument there. The bear has relatively low Will save, only 46 even on PotD, and you only need a graze for Step 1!

2. Blackened Sight attacks Will, gives Blindness for a long time, -25 Accuracy and qualifies for sneak attack bonus dmg for my rogue. With -35 Acc on the bears, the tank stops dying. Again, you only need a graze, which is still 12.5 seconds of Blindness.

3. Dull Senses attacks Will, -20 Deflection.

4. Eder flanks the bear, another -10 Deflection (total of -30), uses Knockdown now, another penalty to Deflection. I managed to get the bear's deflection down from 69 to 9, a single digit!

5. Bear drops dead with a few attacks, before the blindness runs out. Meanwhile, the small bears were debuffed to non-issues thanks to all of Aloth's debuffs being AoE and boosted by his Int both ways (duration, area) and their Will save is 10 lower.

 

I think I used a Potion of Minor Regeneration on my tank before Aloth has finished debuffing, but I'm not sure.

Edited March 28, 2015 by Endrosz

[Starwars]

There were some fights early on that I had problems with on Hard but that was solved by hiring an adventurer at the Inn.

 

I kinda wish that Hard would be a *bit* harder so far to be honest. A curveball or two, even in or near the critical path can be fun if you ask me. It does feel slightly too easy for me even though, like PJ says, there are some fights that are quite enjoyable (and where one needs to be on one's toes).

[Ineth]

 

On hard difficulty, from those 3 encounters you are talking about, my pally tank PC managed to do 2 [...]

 

Also managed those two encounters in PotD difficulty with a two-handed weapon fighter, but I don't know how much more difficult PotD is compared to hard. [...]

 

Alright, so I loaded a savegame from first entering that map, and it turns out one of those two encounters was indeed not that hard, so I must have just handled it badly the first time around. The other one is clearly too tough for my level 2 cipher though...

 

The pack of 1 wolf and 2 young wolves. The best I could do is get one young wolf killed and the big one down to his last health point, but then I'm dead. (Even though I used a regeneration potion). I imagine this fight might be easier with a tank character.

 

 

[Killyox]

My thoughts so far (using game's companions, not adventurers)

 

Cipher is incredibly strong. Mental Bindings, Mind Wave, Mind Blades, Mental Echo (!), Eyestrike are all incredibly good. Mental Echo is somewhat tricky to set-up but BOY-OH-BOY does it hit hard. I get 40-50 dmg hits like every 2 seconds from it. I often engage dudes with my tank, and run other character around them to hit multiple foes. So it's like 50dmg per monster every 2 sec or so + other stuff i cast or blunderbuss shots. Cipher still has a lot more stuff but mine (PC) is right now at lvl 6 getting close to 7.

 

Priest (Durance) - For the most part I find him useless. Most spells yet are never needed and tbh I don't really need his spells since my chars get tired a lot long before I run him out of spells.

 

Aloth the Mage - I am on the fence here. He's not as offensive as Cipher is tbh and I use most of his spells for debilitating effects but he's not the heavy hitter. In general I find make to be rather mediocre.

 

Fighter Eder - good tank, not too good dmg He just doesn't die tbh

 

Pallegina the Paladin - Just started using her in Sagani's place. So far she's ok. 

 

Kana The Chanter - Tbh I find Chanter rather useless. The reason for that is because 95% of fights end before he gets to 3-4 charges for his invocations. So I use him as a backline Arqebus guy with Chant that DOUBLES reload speed for guns and so and makes them fire faster iirc. Goes nice with my Cipher's Lead Spitter Blunderbuss. Other than that he didn't have much time to shine but he snipes enemy squishies nicely (better than sagani if you give him reload chant!)

 

Sagani - With how she's made, hunting bow, fox companion and all I would say she is rather bad because od bow being bad vs DR. She would've rocked with Pistol (unique one with 20% faster attack speed) gunner perk and Kana's chant. Meh

 

Grieving Mother - I did not use her yet but seeing as she's Cipher she's probably strong eitherway and I didn't want to cheese through the game with 2 ciphers.

 

All in all many fights end very quickly so Chanter doesn't have time to shine. One of the very few fights that took enough time for him to build it up was vs Drake at Endless Paths lv5 and when I mass pulled Ogres in lv3.

 

Right now half the time I don't even bother with scouting mode - mostly for spotting traps or secret switches (cipher has mechanics)

[Killyox]

There were some fights early on that I had problems with on Hard but that was solved by hiring an adventurer at the Inn.

 

I kinda wish that Hard would be a *bit* harder so far to be honest. A curveball or two, even in or near the critical path can be fun if you ask me. It does feel slightly too easy for me even though, like PJ says, there are some fights that are quite enjoyable (and where one needs to be on one's toes).

I went on ahead and actually went to higher lvl zone. I went to Backer Beta zone, Dyrwood, at lvl 4 skipping Defiance Bay entirely. Then Skaen boss encounter was kinda cheesy because it forced my Cipher at the front row and he was usually dead in split second after releasing pause. One time he did not get insta gibbed I managed it flawlessly. I barely ever use potions and food never.

 

Other tricky fight was Ogre cave when 90% of spiders from the whole cave somehow came at me (I was at the entrance and still almost all from map came when I started a fight :D) but it was managable too.

 

 

Glad to hear I'm not a "save scummer"!

Some of those fights though, damn, almost impossible if you don't hire adventurers, cause the natural party makeup is really bad, in my opinion-- Or again, maybe I'm just going too far of the beaten path.

 

Either way, I would assume hiring adventurers and path of the damned go hand in hand, no?

 

I dunno. Hard is still easy with default companions tbh. Maybe second playthrough I will use adventurers for Path of the Damned.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Killyox