So heres my party for Path of the Damned

[Mungri]

Im now playing on Potd with a custom party:

 

 

- 2 Wild Orlan tanks

 

- Kind Wayfarer paladin for frontline DPS and healing support (healing with flames of devotion!)

 

- Marksman Rogue (I previously used a chanter on hard but it was useless, and I wanted a heavier hitting ranged character, as well as moving mechanics off my mage so he could take more athletics)

 

- I liek Wizards!

 

- Priest for buffs, Wael for +10 accuracy bonus to Sceptres and Quarterstaffs for more offensive support.

 

All characters prioritize athletics and I took +1 athletics and lore on all the classes that start with lore so they can all use level 1 scrolls, and +1 mechanics +1 athletics on the rogue.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Mungri

[Dongom]

Wizard CC is awesome.  My new party is similar except Blunder Cypher over a Paladin.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Dongom

[Odd Hermit]

I feel like Cipher and Chanter are mandatory for PoD if you don't want to spend a ton of time resting. You will burn through Wizard spells extremely fast. Cipher and Chanter let you deal with smaller encounters without spending them.

[publicpwnerer]

How effective is the Paladin DPS without dexterity?

[Mungri]

Not really, the 2 x arcane assaults and penetrating blast handle smaller encounters fine.

[Mungri]

How effective is the Paladin DPS without dexterity?

 

Im not really sure, dexterity didnt seem useful on him because he can still use his flames of devotion without noticable cooldown. Along with the Larder Door bashing shield, each flames of devotion hits twice and gives double heal and damage.

 

I wanted max int instead for more heal and zealous endurance range.

Edited March 29, 2015 by Mungri

[Odd Hermit]

Not really, the 2 x arcane assaults and penetrating blast handle smaller encounters fine.

 

Lol, not on Path of the Damned they don't.

[Dongom]

Don't wizards teir1 or 2 become per encounter at higher lvl or is that not true?

I can see slick and the ice field being amazing if so.

[Aqvamare]

would change it into 6 chanter orlean wild. 

 

all 2-3 as tank specced.

 

means:

Migt: 10

Con : 14

dex: 3

Per: 20

int: 3

Res: 20

 

2-3 as damage specced

 

Mig:high

Con:10 

dex:18

Per:10

int:18

Res: 10

 

you get 6 phantom summons from the start....phantom summon has highest defence value from all summons, and has a attack which stuns enemy.

 

later you have 6 dragons as summon

 

you get 6 different chants which are perma active, 

your tanks --> fear and damage,

your dps---> 1 buff to range dps, 3 bigger buffs to defence stats.

 

you will steamroll through the game.

[Mungri]

 

Not really, the 2 x arcane assaults and penetrating blast handle smaller encounters fine.

 

Lol, not on Path of the Damned they don't.

 

 

For 'smaller encounters', those along with the rest of the party have no trouble clearing lesser mobs. 

[mrmonocle]

cipher is mandatory

[Mercbeast]

I'm running POTD with the following build.

 

Human Tank Chanter.

 

8

11

8

18

15

19

 

She was squishy for quite awhile and Eder typically out tanked her. However once I got ancient memory and a troll hide belt, shes basically unkillable now to physical damage. Just absurdly tanky. I'm only level 5 at the moment so I haven't really gotten to go very deep into the talents to finish tanking her out.

 

My PC is a Elf Barbarian.

 

16

10

16

8

18

10

 

Soldier proficiency using a Great Sword when she can flank and a pike whenever she has to poke from the back. I bugged my PC out very early on and lost her racial via the double click auto equip bug. Luckily nobody else has been bugged nor have I lost anything else since then!

 

My last custom character is an Elf Cipher.

 

14

10

16

10

18

10

 

Just plain useful. Always good to go, always putting out the DPS. The Barbarian is my top DPS by a good margin followed by the Cipher, however the Cipher probably could be top. I just am lazy with her and only really throw out the nukes when I absolutely need to. On small clean up type fights her nukes are not needed.

 

I used Eder for most of the run so far but atm he is benched for the Paladin girl.

 

I didn't spec him out for a tank build, but I have used him as a tank. His endurance recovery talent is just so good, for most of the run he has outlasted the chanter in fights where I had tanks die based entirely on that talent and not his horrific tanking stats ;p He's been workman like and reliable + his knock downs are pretty useful. 

 

The three I plan to use the remainder are;

 

Pallegina spec'd out to tank.

 

Aloth, as a CC/debuffer.

 

Durance, because priests are without a doubt the most important class in POTD.

 

To give you an example of how important priests are, my first ever game was on POTD difficulty. I had zero knowledge I just jumped into the deep end. I recruited Eder and Aloth and then made 2 adventurer companions, a DPS chanter and a tank chanter. My PC was a barbarian. I spent over 5 hours just in the temple in the gilded vale. At least 2 of those hours were spent trying to do the last big fight with the multiple shades. I eventually gave up, threw in the towel and restarted on hard. I got to the same point and felt disgusted with myself and went back to a new POTD run!

 

This time I went in with Durance and the fights due to his healing and buffs were not even difficult. I think my only wipe was on the last fight and it was totally user error. I screwed up my initiation.

 

I'd say the corner stone of any POTD run is a priest, and as priests go Durance is pretty terrible. A PC or hireling priest is going to be way better. After that I would say a cipher is next. Any tank will do and tbh I think if you go fighter, you don't even need to min/max. In fact a warrior with say a bunch of 12-14's in the pertinent stats would not only tank more than adequately, but put out some DPS. By comparison my chanter hits for typically 1 damage a hit when she hits ;p I'm pretty sure I've seen her hit for decimals as well. 

 

If I were to restart and run a full hireling group I'd probably go.

 

1) Balanced stat fighter tank.

2) Balanced stat barbarian offtank.

3) Ranged DPS chanter.

4) Ranged DPS cipher.

5) Priest.

6) Whatever catches my fancy at the moment. Maybe a second DPS chanter to cut down on the micro.

Edited March 30, 2015 by Mercbeast

[Hety]

I tried a PoE PotD walkthrough and some classes just dont work good enough:

1. Melee Barbarian. Takes a HELL of a beating. With Frenzy you cant control it good enough, so they end up pretty squishy.

2. Wizards. Blasts cant do anything, really. They hit for like 10-15 damage tops and mobs have so much hp its insane. Also limited casts per rest kill the class. Not to mention shades and shadows, who target mages 1st. You wll have to waste all your spells on defense and in the end ont do any real damage. Also almost all wizards AoE spells hit everyone, so you waste time to repositioning.

3. Melee rogues. They get instagibbed, literally. I had enemies do 120(!!!!) damage with a single strike on Eden, who had 97 deflection. Rogues just die.

 

A decent party, in my opinion, looks like that:

1. Pala tank for autoheals from kills. Moon godlike would be perfect, but i'm not sure about losing the head slot.

2. 2xChanters. One melee and one ranged for debuffs/buffs(2x reload and 1.2x ranged speed anyone?) and dps abilities/summons. Double summons are good too.

3. Melee Cipher. They are awesome and have plenty of Foe AoE's. No FF is a good thing.

4. Ranged rogue. Hearth orlan for crit bonus, arbalest for consistent dps. I had decent dps with War Bows also but i havent finished the game ye... so pick yer poison.

5. Ranged Priest for general buffing. Magran for arquebuse as main weapon and sword and shield if those pesky shadows will catch ya.

 

From available companions only Durance and Kana are any good. You can also take Pallegina, but her racial ability (+10 deflection against ranged attacks) is so-so and stat distribution is suboptimal.

[Luj1]

cipher is mandatory

 

 

on HArd or PoTD?

[boon]

Cipher is not mandatory. I beat the game on hard and now playing on POTD I don't even notice much of a spike in difficulty. (Probably due to game knowledge. Shadows and what not sucked on hard so I knew what to expect on POTD.) Rolling with my PC monk, a merc wizard, Eder, Aloth, Durance, and Kana.

 

I like the party banter, so I play under my own weird rule of one hired adventurer.

[Lasci]

Cipher is great on PotD because it greatly reduces resting downtime. If you're willing to constantly lug yourself back and forth to an inn, they're not necessary.

[Luj1]

Cipher is great on PotD because it greatly reduces resting downtime. If you're willing to constantly lug yourself back and forth to an inn, they're not necessary.

 

Weird, how is that?

[Ohioastro]

Their resource resets to full at the end of each encounter.  It's as if a wizard etc. had all "per encounter" spells.

 

I'd replace one of the fighters with a tank-spec chanter and the paladin with a cipher.

Edited April 4, 2015 by Ohioastro

[Luj1]

Ah I see

[Ceranai]

Im now playing on Potd with a custom party:

 

 

- 2 Wild Orlan tanks

 

- Kind Wayfarer paladin for frontline DPS and healing support (healing with flames of devotion!)

 

- Marksman Rogue (I previously used a chanter on hard but it was useless, and I wanted a heavier hitting ranged character, as well as moving mechanics off my mage so he could take more athletics)

 

- I liek Wizards!

 

- Priest for buffs, Wael for +10 accuracy bonus to Sceptres and Quarterstaffs for more offensive support.

 

All characters prioritize athletics and I took +1 athletics and lore on all the classes that start with lore so they can all use level 1 scrolls, and +1 mechanics +1 athletics on the rogue.

Coolm my one comment though would be I dont see where you are going to get your dps from, from my experience paladins are the worst dps in game

[Ceranai]

Cipher is not mandatory. I beat the game on hard and now playing on POTD I don't even notice much of a spike in difficulty. (Probably due to game knowledge. Shadows and what not sucked on hard so I knew what to expect on POTD.) Rolling with my PC monk, a merc wizard, Eder, Aloth, Durance, and Kana.

 

I like the party banter, so I play under my own weird rule of one hired adventurer.

I sometimes wish the compainions were less terrible as i like RPing but i find it easier to 'connect' to characters I have made

[danielkx]

Install IE mod and you can respec the companions and still get the story benefits.

 

You lose steam achievements but I've never paid attention to that sort of thing (plus I have gog version)

[Kaji_9]

Install IE mod and you can respec the companions and still get the story benefits.

 

You lose steam achievements but I've never paid attention to that sort of thing (plus I have gog version)

 

IEmod does not disable achievements. Only Iroll20s disables them. 

[boon]

 

Cipher is not mandatory. I beat the game on hard and now playing on POTD I don't even notice much of a spike in difficulty. (Probably due to game knowledge. Shadows and what not sucked on hard so I knew what to expect on POTD.) Rolling with my PC monk, a merc wizard, Eder, Aloth, Durance, and Kana.

 

I like the party banter, so I play under my own weird rule of one hired adventurer.

I sometimes wish the compainions were less terrible as i like RPing but i find it easier to 'connect' to characters I have made

 

Ya I agree the stats aren't ideal, but they don't make POTD impossible or anything. The worst part is some of the talent choices!

 

First time using a monk on this run, think I found my new favorite class! Last run it was a hired barb with a 2h and the retalliation plate armor, she was supposed to offtank and ended up dealing the most damage in the team by far once she got sanguine armor and later the other one.

 

Bulwark of the elements let my wizards tank shadows, love finding new ways to dominate the temple. I also am not running back and forth to inns, don't need all spells every fight. I do see the appeal of a cipher not being per rest on the spells though!

[mrmonocle]

I'm getting a lot of fun with my path of the damned custom party of 2 fighters, 1 chanter, 1 priest, 2 ciphers.