Druid or Cipher (or which NPC is worse, Grieving Mother or Hiravias)

[Koth]

So. After playing for 15ish hours and making it to Defiance Bay as a melee rogue, I've decided to start over as playing rogue is just not my thing largely due to the stealth mechanic being party wide and backstab only working while invisible and 2xPer Rest invis ability just doesn't cut the mustard for me I'm afraid.

 

Anyhoo, after watching Wizards (aka Aloth) in action, I have decided that I want to play as a damaging spell caster of some sort. Probably leaning towards druid at this stage. Anyway, after reading how poorly optimised the NPC characters are, I will probably want to replace either the Grieving Mother or Hiravias depending on my choice. As such which of these NPCs is worse? I realise they both suck, but which one sucks worse?

 

Cheers,

 

Koth

[Nerdwing]

Neither sucks really.  Dont take the optimization complaints entirely to heart.

[Odd Hermit]

Hiravias

• Mig- Con- Dex- Per- Int- Res

• 14 - 15 - 14 - 13 - 11 - 10

Gotten @ level 4 w/ Bonus Lvl 1 Spell and WF: Peasant talents

 

Grieving Mother

• Mig- Con- Dex- Per- Int- Res

• 11 - 12 - 16 - 17 - 12 - 10

Gotten @ level 4 w/ Draining and Biting Whip talents

You will have to rush / skip past some content to get them that low level though.

 

I would say both are pretty bad, but I lean towards Hiravias being the better of the two.

 

Only 11 might / 12 int on a Cipher is just criminal.

 

Hiravias' int sucks but at least Druids are more about damage than CC, and their base AoEs are fairly large so it's not the end of the world for AoE.

Edited March 31, 2015 by Odd Hermit

[Elvarein]

@Koth, do note the following:

Sneak Attack: Uses the rogue's ability to approach unseen, adding additional bonus damage to their attacks when the target is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, as well as when any target is struck within two seconds of combat starting. 

 

In other words, its not just from sneaking. 

 

Also @ Odd Hermit

 

While not optimal, Grieving Mother can still be used as one a CC character and you can build her that way. In this game battlefield control helps you make it through fights with minimal resting. Sure a purpose built cipher would be stronger, but unless you are playing on the highest difficulty, the difference is not that significant. 

Edited March 31, 2015 by Elvarein

[PIP-Clownboy]

Grieving Moms still the best NPC in the game despite low stats. Mind Blades too good. 

[gkathellar]

Grieving Mother is usable, sure, but that just goes to how valuable ciphers are in general. She's just about the worst Cipher the devs could have plausibly included, though.

[Urthor]

They're probably some of the better companions.  Which says a lot about companions.  Ultimately their classes are just pretty great so their attributes don't matter so much.

 

if you can get Grieving Mother b4 level 6 the draining/biting whip combo is pretty good for a melee cipher, but at lvl 6 she takes increased focus iirc which is the pits.  

 

If you are playing a Wizard yourself, you probably want to take Mother, important to give you casting that isn't per rest if your MC has a big per rest limit on his ability to dish out whoop ass.  

Edited March 31, 2015 by Urthor

[mrmonocle]

cipher is better.

[Longknife]

Is there any premade companion that isn't considered to have terriawful optimization?

[falchen]

Hiravias wastes his feats on extra spell (they'll eventually turn per encounter anyway) and weapon focus peasant (presumably to use when spiritshifted, but spiritshifting doesn't scale), and while his spells have decent aoe even without int you won't get a friendly fire safe zone.

 

Grieving mother doesn't have either int or might, but since cypher spells are so good she'll manage to contribute anyway.

 

Both have awfull stats for their class, but since druid and cypher have such strong spells either will do fine.

 

Is there any premade companion that isn't considered to have terriawful optimization?

 

Kana, Eder and Pallegina seem allright, Durance is fine on account of being a priest.

Edited March 31, 2015 by falchen

[Valeris]

@Koth, do note the following:

Sneak Attack: Uses the rogue's ability to approach unseen, adding additional bonus damage to their attacks when the target is Blinded, Flanked, Hobbled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Prone, Stuck, Stunned or Weakened, as well as when any target is struck within two seconds of combat starting. 

 

In other words, its not just from sneaking. 

He was primarily concerned about backstab, and yes, backstab is **** in this game. Either you expose your rogue every time to the enemys´follow-up, or you must use shadowy beyond/coordinated poisitioning with your tank every ****ing time; for the latter you must have very high combat speed, otherwhise the rogue won´t make it out alive.

[gnoster]

Playing Cipher myself and are absolutely loving the class; I use him both ranged and in melee as I built him pretty average, so he can offtank just fine and still deal quite some damage. I haven't played druid myself and only used the companion one sparsely as I find it hard to give up my priest, wizard, or chanter to make room for him.

 

My standard party of companions are Paladin, Priest, Chanter, Ranger, Wizard og then myself as a Cipher and that combo does really well at level 5, though I would like to respec some of them. I do however consider trying to switch out my ranger with the druid only problem is that while Sagani the Ranger isn't exactly optimally built for high dps she is still good consistent dps and her pet can offtank where as the druid is a bit more situational because I don't want to waste his spells. A switch would therefore require more changes: making Kana the Chanter into an offtank on the frontline (which he can with the right gear no problem).

[Sleazebag]

I'd say Hiravias is weaker. I gave Grieving Mother a blunderbuss and even with her awful stats, she jumped to the most damaging party member in my team after a few dungeons. 

 

That said, Hiravias can hit pretty hard and consistently with his shapeshift, but I think it's due to a bug - sometimes it doesn't seem to calculate damage reductions. 

[Arctic]

Grieving Mother

• Mig- Con- Dex- Per- Int- Res

• 11 - 12 - 16 - 17 - 12 - 10

 

 that one is sooo bad, i cant even think on using her ... if she has might ... ok .. you can do damage ... if she has int .. ok you can cc ... but ... no might no int ... and not a so hight dex so ... pssss

 

Well yes she has hight perception ... go in melee with a big sword ...

Edited March 31, 2015 by Arctic

[Mygaffer]

So. After playing for 15ish hours and making it to Defiance Bay as a melee rogue, I've decided to start over as playing rogue is just not my thing largely due to the stealth mechanic being party wide and backstab only working while invisible and 2xPer Rest invis ability just doesn't cut the mustard for me I'm afraid.

 

Anyhoo, after watching Wizards (aka Aloth) in action, I have decided that I want to play as a damaging spell caster of some sort. Probably leaning towards druid at this stage. Anyway, after reading how poorly optimised the NPC characters are, I will probably want to replace either the Grieving Mother or Hiravias depending on my choice. As such which of these NPCs is worse? I realise they both suck, but which one sucks worse?

 

Cheers,

 

Koth

 

Now they've announced that sneak won't be party wide with patch 2.0 and The White March. Much needed improvement. While I like the game quite a lot it definitely shows that a bigger budget and more time would have give us a more complete and polished game.

 

I'm definitely looking forward to the expansion.

[AshenPlanet]

There's no reason not to play a druid and have hiravias in your party.

 

When I played a wizard main char, I had durance, mother, hiravias, and aloth in my party.

We all had the elemental talents (except for mother), and just blasted everything to death.

Another druid will only help your party, not hurt it.

 

Turn on the option to reset levels on all npcs as soon as you recruit them.

That way they reset to level 1, and you can level them up the way you want.

Edited July 6, 2015 by AshenPlanet