The farther I get in the game, the more TWO Tanks feels mandatory.

[Benedictous]

I am just getting plain swarmed by monsters.  It's not like the beginning when it was 2-3 monsters, or Raedrics Castle with chokepoints, no it's just 5-7 monsters swarming over my tank and spilling onto my squishies.  My tank can't pick them all up, my barb and rogue go down in almost 3 hits, and my caster's debuffs are so important I can't be wasting them with CC (seriously Druid Nature's Mark is OP as all get out if you want to land any sort of damage spell). I feel like the only viable thing I can do is rock a Paladin/Chanter tank combo with a Barb w/ extra reach weapon.  The melee's have to wait SO LONG before the enemies finally settle in to place around my tank. 

 

Had to vent but is anyone else feeling this way? ESPECIALLY on the dragon.

[Enoch]

And this is a problem because? 

 

Was your expectation that a single warrior optimized for melee would be sufficient to keep 5 other characters neat and clean to wail on the enemy with impunity?  One man can only do so much. 

[Benedictous]

And this is a problem because? 

 

Was your expectation that a single warrior optimized for melee would be sufficient to keep 5 other characters neat and clean to wail on the enemy with impunity?  One man can only do so much. 

Because there is no respeccing, hiring an adventure mid level is inefficient, and nothing during the first half of the game hinted this would be the preferred playstyle.

[Dongom]

Yeah the party makeup and builds in this game seem like they have to be very very tight compared to the IE games.

 

 

I want to try to make a 6 chanter-tank party tho lol.  All with summons.

 

Do the song auras stack tho?

Edited March 29, 2015 by Dongom

[Enoch]

Yeah the party makeup and builds in this game seem like they have to be very very tight compared to the IE games.

Compared to BG2, sure.  But that game starts off at a pretty high level, with access to plentiful abilities and equipment that allow characters to fill roles other than the ones typically associated with their class.  To me, this game feels reasonably comparable to BG1 or the first half of either IWD game in this respect.  In any of those, a single ToughGuy is going to have a difficult time shielding a crowd of Squishies from harm. 

 

The party makeup is "tight" mostly in that the menu of joinable NPCs is quite limited. 

[PIP-Clownboy]

Doing just fine on iron/hard with 1 super engagement tank. Usually have Paladin/Chanter with pike and shot playing midfield while glasscannon Barb sweeps around cleaning everything. 

[Mercbeast]

I don't know about anything beyond Act 1, however playing on POTD, I am inclined to partially disagree. POTD seems to change character builds to a degree anyways. If you want to go full cheese and build a super front end heavy burst group you could totally get away with one tank and most encounters even on POTD would end in 1 or 2 rounds.

 

If you don't go cheese ball however, I am coming to realize that you could probably get away quite nicely with 1 pure tank. I haven't gotten my hands on the paladin companion yet, but the endurance recovery of a fighter seems to put them on top of tanking. You could easily supplement 1 tank with 1 or 2 less DPSy, slightly tanky characters like a barbarian or a monk. Super high HP/Endurance with a more balanced stat approach than the typical all in might/dex/int builds that are popular. Barbarians are really quite effective as book ends and even my barbarian that is the aforementioned all in might/dex/int holds her own while holding a flank just wearing plate. Her damage is great and by cranking her dex way up her action time isn't horrible. 

 

My current group uses a chanter tank + eder and while the chanter is far more difficult to hit, she dies far more quickly than eder due to his end recovery. This is why I think you could get away with melee dps that are more balanced in terms of their stats. These off tanks will complement your overall damage decently. You just then need 1 or 2 really strong ranged DPSs to put in work while your 2 or 3 man front locks things down.

[Kingsy]

Doing just fine on iron/hard with 1 super engagement tank. Usually have Paladin/Chanter with pike and shot playing midfield while glasscannon Barb sweeps around cleaning everything. 

 

Same here. One super tank getting the job done, he'll get swarmed by 5-10 guys and my compatriots (all using arquebus) pick them off. 8D

[Yosharian]

I'm not sure why anyone would think that one tank would be enough for a game like PoE, and I don't buy for one second that that was a valid strategy in BG2, at least not until your mages became super OP.

[Tigranes]

You don't have to minmax every single character, and you also don't have to engage every single enemy. Right now I'm going about with a ranged cipher, Sagani, Durance and then just Eder up front, and given all the hobbling, paralysing, dominating and knockdowning around them, half the time I don't need any tanks. Of course, then there are points where I wish I had two. It's nice that the game gives you a variety of challenges so you can't rinse and repeat the same thing all day long.

[Kingsy]

I'm not sure why anyone would think that one tank would be enough for a game like PoE, and I don't buy for one second that that was a valid strategy in BG2, at least not until your mages became super OP.

 

It actually does work, maybe a couple bumps early on but if built correctly one will be extremely tanky. I thought more than one tank would be required too but seeing just how durable they are and how many combatants they keep occupied.. having more than one tank would be unnecessary. Not that there's anything wrong with people wanting to play safe.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Kingsy

[isms]

Try a fighter tank with defender modal. The fighter can hold the largest number of enemies because the engagement system indirectly translates into aggro in this game. If your tank can "engage" and enemy, they won't run away from them as often. I'm only  around level 7 but I've survived PoTD with only one tank and 4 total characters in my party, and I pretty much have my invincible fighter to thank for that.

[Mungri]

Im finding the following frontline to work very well in a custom group:

 

- Max defection Wild Orlan fighter tank

- Glass cannon barb

- Kind Wayfarers paladin with decent enough deflection to support the barb and provide more mob control

 

The paladin uses The Sword And The Shepard to keep the barb healed which is very useful. Then for my backline I have a debuff focused chanter, priest and wizard, which can be changed to anything else.

[Voss]

It depends on the situation.  In the open, one tank can be problematic.  If there are any chokepoints, on the other hand, the problem can be on the other foot.  Stupid pathfinding and disengagement attacks. 

[Asmodan]

I currently have 2 Tanks (fighters) and have often the Problem that the Enemies run away from my Fighters and straight in the back rows to attack my Wizard and Ranger. I'm not that far in the Game and will try and give my fighters the ability to engage more Enemies, hopefully that will result in some indirect "aggro" like isms mentioned above.

[revial]

I said screw the intricacies of the combat system. All my characters wear the heaviest, most enchanted, damage reducing armors possible, plus whatever accessories I can find for +deflection and +accuracy. All use the slowest, highest damage weapons on hand, highest base quality possible (for the accuracy bonus).

 

The Endurance difference can't really be compensated for, but while my party is slow as all hell, they all tend to hit (relatively) hard, and the high defense + slow, but hard hitting attacks, tends to be a far simpler approach than micromanging the squishies to death while trying to play "correctly" with balancing armor types, weapon types, worrying about recovery rates, utilizing traps, any spells that aren't buffs/heals/damage absorptions, and choke points, etc. 

 

Boss fights are the only real fights that can get hairy since probably level 7ish (currently level 10), but that's simply due to the sheer swarm of mobs that tend to accompany those fights, and my chanter just keeps summons rolling to help spread the incoming damage around (only times I've had to reload since level 5 were when the chanter went down first, and I didn't have those extra meatbags around to absorb incoming damage).  

 

"Normal" fights have been a complete joke since probably level 5ish. 

 

I play on Hard. 

 

Scout mode always and play every character, regardless of class, like a siege tank, while utilizing spells and skills as support (rarely used in normal fights). It's incredibly homongenous, and a bit boring, but the alternative of playing "correctly" was faaaaaaaaar too far in the busywork territory. Just my opinion, and experience. I could probably get away with putting far lighter armor back on the three ranged, as they rarely get attacked outside of boss fights anymore, but if it works, why break it, and all that. 

[ShadowTiger]

My strategy has been exactly what you described and works really well (custom party of 6) on hard difficulty.

Chanter, Paladin and Cleric tank on the front lines, usually a wide enough formation to keep enemies from running behind. Barbarian has a reach weapon and does a TON of damage. Cypher can lock down enemies with paralyze or just use mind blades to wipe them out. Finally wizard lends ranged support and also AOE spells.

[Mercbeast]

I said screw the intricacies of the combat system. All my characters wear the heaviest, most enchanted, damage reducing armors possible, plus whatever accessories I can find for +deflection and +accuracy. All use the slowest, highest damage weapons on hand, highest base quality possible (for the accuracy bonus).

 

The Endurance difference can't really be compensated for, but while my party is slow as all hell, they all tend to hit (relatively) hard, and the high defense + slow, but hard hitting attacks, tends to be a far simpler approach than micromanging the squishies to death while trying to play "correctly" with balancing armor types, weapon types, worrying about recovery rates, utilizing traps, any spells that aren't buffs/heals/damage absorptions, and choke points, etc. 

 

Boss fights are the only real fights that can get hairy since probably level 7ish (currently level 10), but that's simply due to the sheer swarm of mobs that tend to accompany those fights, and my chanter just keeps summons rolling to help spread the incoming damage around (only times I've had to reload since level 5 were when the chanter went down first, and I didn't have those extra meatbags around to absorb incoming damage).  

 

"Normal" fights have been a complete joke since probably level 5ish. 

 

I play on Hard. 

 

Scout mode always and play every character, regardless of class, like a siege tank, while utilizing spells and skills as support (rarely used in normal fights). It's incredibly homongenous, and a bit boring, but the alternative of playing "correctly" was faaaaaaaaar too far in the busywork territory. Just my opinion, and experience. I could probably get away with putting far lighter armor back on the three ranged, as they rarely get attacked outside of boss fights anymore, but if it works, why break it, and all that. 

 

I'm playing on POTD and I basically came to the same conclusion.

 

I'm running 3 customs. Min/Maxed Chanter Tank, Barb and Cipher. I went super heavy on the dex at the expense of some might on the barb/cipher because I knew that running around naked was just too risky/finicky. You can do it, and you also might end up reloading fights for an hour if one of your two real DPS'rs get one shot. Now I run all my DPS in enchanted breastplates. Ya they are a little slower to attack, but they also can stand in the mix. I'd rather do all the fights in 1 or 2 attempts a little slower, than have DPS get one hit by something I can't control. 

 

On the plus side dex impacts armor recovery time or so I've read, so going super high dex can offset pretty easily 40% of armor penalty.