Need help with Path of the Damned

Blackthane · April 2, 2015

I'm stuck after rounding up the first 5 companions. I've read the guide which says to stealth past the phantoms one by one at Caed Nua (haven't tried this), but I'm still having trouble with these few encounters:

i.) the 4 will o wisps at Temple of Eothas (Buried Secrets),

ii.) quest: A Mother's Plea, at Anslog Compass. The 5~6 xaurips, the champion and the priest, or the group of 5~6 guls will eat up my party fast,

iii.) and the 5~6 bandits at Black Meadow while pursuing The Smith's Shipment.

I've tried out cipher (charm doesn't last long and level 1/2 AoE spells are weak), wizard (too fragile as well, spells don't hit hard enough) and druid (bear shapeshift only works on wolves but not humanoids or groups of exotic monsters), but my MC dies at almost every encounter from the tutorial to getting the first 5 companions. Essentially, I have to depend on NPCs to carry me through the fights. After several resets, I could finish off the 4 forest trolls and the 3 bears. I've done all the tasks available up until this point, but the most I could hit was level 3. I've tried rearranging the formation to T formation, but Eder and Kana Rua don't last long as well. Their DRs are only 7~10 tops.

So, any pointers to make PoTD a breeze? For instance, equipment enchant, money, or easy quests to level up more? I'm trying to finish PotD with default party members, and since I only have roughly 500+ gold on every attempt by the time I get to the inn, I can only recruit one more hired adventurer, which is something I plan on avoiding if possible.

I did acquire the minor cloak of protection at Cilant Lis and climbed up the cliff with Eder's Atheletics 5 skill at Valewood, but after failing 3 times I came to conclude the presence or absence of these items aren't the main reason why I'm doing it all wrong.

Riddlewrong · April 15, 2015

These are tough encounters, and indeed many more challenging encounters await you beyond them. In PotD, the NPC companions start to show their inadequacies quite a bit more than they do in previous difficulty settings. Taking them is harder, but it IS doable with a lot of patience and ironclad tactics. If you want to start with a group of custom adventurers right away, though, you can get the money easily and immediately.

Early Cash:

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Companions:

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If you'd rather use the game's normal companions... well, you're in for it. I did this, so I know how hard it is. First of all, Eder is a must because he's just a solid tank. Leave his starting armor on him for now -- it lets him get back up when he's dropped. This is important, because he gets KO'd all the damn time before you get him some better stuff. Give him a hatchet (+5 deflection) if all you want is a meatshield, or a weapon with accuracy (+5 accuracy) such as a dagger, rapier, club, etc if you're wanting to land his knockdowns more often. Both of these weapons are acquired on the way to Gilded Vale, so you're already set up in that regard. Spec him into Defender and take talents that boost his defense and engagement potential. Do not worry about him doing damage, because it's not his job.

Aloth is decent despite his low might score, the trick is really to just choose the right spells. For example, the 2nd level spell Bewildering Spectacle seems lackluster on paper, but is an AOE confusion spell that has a pretty good range, and you can use it to open fights. Put him in stealth mode, walk up and cast it on a group of enemies and watch them fight each other for a few seconds while you throw other spells and attacks at them (or buff yourself!). This is an especially useful tactic against Shadows, Phantoms (especially in the Main Hall fight), and Xaurips (which you will encounter GIANT groups of later on that are virtually impossible to defeat without CC. Slicken is also a godsend. When the enemy is grouped, drop it on em and watch them all fall down. It doesn't last too long, but it gives you that crucial time you need to set up your damage and positioning.

Durance is annoying, but he's a really powerful caster. His stats are weird, but it doesn't matter very much because his heals and buffs are the bomb. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that he's a functional front liner. Yes, he comes with a robe and a staff, but screw that. Put him in some good armor and give him a sword and a gun (and the Magran's favor class unlock that gives him boosts with those weapons) and he becomes a very passable offtank that can throw out spells and NOT get one-shot by a teleporting monster. He'll never do much damage with his weapons, but he'll add enough in small encounters and trash mobs that it's worth doing.

Kana kind of sucks, but he's saved by one major thing: Summons.

He doesn't start with the phantom summon (sadly) but the skeletons make good fodder and flankers in a pinch early on. Get the phantom asap when he levels up a bit. It stuns on-hit and has sneak attack, plus really good defenses. It'll win you fights (as long as you can survive the time it takes to summon). Kana can be a decent off tank, but keeping him alive and chanting is better than having him knocked unconscious, so you have to pick and choose your battles a bit more with him.

The rest of the companions aren't all that great, and you'll need to clear Caed Nua first anyway.

Cheap Tactics:

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There is a cheap tactic to get large enemy groups split up into manageable chunks. It's really exploitative, but it works. If you equip everyone with a ranged weapon and shoot an enemy in a group, you'll basically "pull" the group. When you run away, the enemies will chase for a while, but at a certain point, they'll turn around and go back. If you wait a second and then shoot one of them again, it'll come back to you... but the rest of them (for the most part) will continue leaving. This allows you to fight them 1 v 5 in a lot of cases, and in many cases you can just kite the enemy with ranged weapons forever as long as you have the space to move around a bit. it's cheap and slow, but it will work. I use this method to clear the Caed Nua courtyard at level 2. Once you have enough chant stacks after kiting, you can just have Kana summon skeletons on top of the enemy and fire at will while they flank it. You'll have to repeat this a lot, but it's effective when you can't win in straight combat. Dirty fighting ftw. After you get the phantom summon, you can use it to devastating effect when kiting (and also in straight fights, since it flanks, stuns, and sneak attacks).

I employed the above tactic in a large number of fights in The Endless Paths below Caed Nua, and was able to reach the 6th floor with a level 4 party. Of course there were many, many reloads and a lot of trial and error to figure out which tactics worked for certain fights (many can't be kited due to space limitations). The xaurip battles are especially tough due to lots of paralyze effects and enemy priests, and you're forced to just fight huge groups straight-up.

Abuse line-of-sight and choke points. When you're about to fight a giant group of melee enemies, pull them to a doorway and just block it with Eder. He'll only end up getting hit by a couple at a time while the rest get pelted by your ranged attacks until they die. This tactic can backfire, though, so be careful.

I've tried a number of mage spells at low levels, and one of the most interesting openers is the Rolling Flame spell (level 2). It has a HUGE range, and it bounces off walls and generally wreaks havoc in tight spaces. What I like to do is throw it into a room from off screen where I know enemies are, and they take a bunch of free damage before the fight even starts. Then I just have Aloth run behind Eder and by the time the enemies catch up, we're ready and they're already hurt. It's not a HUGE amount of damage, but it can be effective especially if the ricochet comes back and plows through the group a second time. Try it out and see how you like it. Never underestimate the power of a well-placed opener -- it can give you the edge you need.

PC Class:

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What class should you create at the beginning? Any of them.

Druid -- One of the strongest ones (tons and tons and tons of AOE, Damage, and CC). A lot of their spells also have very long ranges, so you can **** people up FROM DOWNTOWN. Ignore the Spiritshift power, though. It blows. Yeah, it sucks. But druids are still very very strong if built around being a pure caster. Don't even bother taking a single talent related to shapeshifting. Seriously! Just load up on spells and BLAST EM TO HELL. I would argue that the druid is actually a better wizard than the wizard in this game. At least you can throw out damaging spells without having to get close and/or kill your friends.

Rogue -- INSANELY strong, especially dual-wielding in melee with Reckless Assault. Blinding Strike lets you 1v1 weaker enemies if you get caught out on your lonesome, and it's also a solid way to guarantee sneak attacks no matter what the situation is. It helps your allies hit and avoid damage, too. Good stuff. The only problem is that positioning is a constant micromanagement situation -- it's crucial to monitor and adjust. Sometimes it's simply not viable to send the rogue in at all.

Barbarian -- Skip it. Squishville and doesn't do enough damage to justify it.

Cipher -- Very strong, go melee for optimal results. Can function at range, but doesn't build up focus as quickly. Don't rely too heavily on charm spells. They have long cast times and short durations, so they're best as openers from stealth or to get a particularly strong enemy out of the fight for a few seconds. Pick up aoe damage and debuffs for the best variety and utility.

Chanter -- Not bad, but has some issues. Pick summons, start with phantom and go from there. Good buffing ability, decent off-tanking ability. Doesn't really do any damage on its own, though, and this will make your team a bit weak if you're using the stock companions.

Paladin -- Decent tank hybrid as a PC, but avoid using the NPC companion and custom adventurers. They can't benefit from alignment bonuses to abilities and end up being mediocre later (scaling woes).

Monk -- Pretty badass, but takes some getting used to. Micromanagement is somewhat higher than other tanks. Has cool attack animations, too.

Ranger -- Ehhhh. They kind of suck in PotD because the pet doesn't scale against the increased stats of the mobs. Without the pet synergy, ranged damage isn't all that great, and your pet can't tank for **** even if it's a bear. It's a dead bear in about 5 seconds, and then you're debuffed for the rest of the fight. Melee is a little easier to work with, but there are better melee options.

Priest -- Solid. Very. Optimizing your PC as a priest has some pretty huge advantages, the best being that you can leave Durance at home (YES PLEASE). Oh, and healy buff-stuff.

Wizard -- Actually a very viable choice, even if you bring Aloth along. Two wizards is twice the bang, and you'll have a lot of opportunities for double-whammy style CC and damage, but positioning is key. All that aoe can end up hurting your tactics as much as helping them if you don't keep it in check. The other downside is that even though you and Aloth will be able to share each other's grimoire spells, it's going to cost you a lotttt of money to learn all those spells between the two of them.

Fighter -- Probably not necessary. You could certainly make a more optimized fighter than Eder, but he's good enough that you don't need it. I'd only do this if you just hate bringing Eder but need a tank.

Anyway, these are all just my opinions from playing a LOT of PotD (especially in the early game when I was trying various builds).

P.S. - Enchanting items is helpful, but I actually didn't do it at all before Act II. In hindsight, it would have probably made things a bit easier, but that just goes to show you that it's possible to get by without being 100% optimal.

billythegreat · April 15, 2015

The Dissaponter price was patched so Heodan will pay only 150 cp for it ( as opposed to 750 before patch 1.03)

Vasya · April 15, 2015

On 4/2/2015 at 12:19 PM, Blackthane said:

I'm stuck after rounding up the first 5 companions. I've read the guide which says to stealth past the phantoms one by one at Caed Nua (haven't tried this), but I'm still having trouble with these few encounters:

i.) the 4 will o wisps at Temple of Eothas (Buried Secrets),

ii.) quest: A Mother's Plea, at Anslog Compass. The 5~6 xaurips, the champion and the priest, or the group of 5~6 guls will eat up my party fast,

iii.) and the 5~6 bandits at Black Meadow while pursuing The Smith's Shipment.

I've tried out cipher (charm doesn't last long and level 1/2 AoE spells are weak), wizard (too fragile as well, spells don't hit hard enough) and druid (bear shapeshift only works on wolves but not humanoids or groups of exotic monsters), but my MC dies at almost every encounter from the tutorial to getting the first 5 companions. Essentially, I have to depend on NPCs to carry me through the fights. After several resets, I could finish off the 4 forest trolls and the 3 bears. I've done all the tasks available up until this point, but the most I could hit was level 3. I've tried rearranging the formation to T formation, but Eder and Kana Rua don't last long as well. Their DRs are only 7~10 tops.

So, any pointers to make PoTD a breeze? For instance, equipment enchant, money, or easy quests to level up more? I'm trying to finish PotD with default party members, and since I only have roughly 500+ gold on every attempt by the time I get to the inn, I can only recruit one more hired adventurer, which is something I plan on avoiding if possible.

I did acquire the minor cloak of protection at Cilant Lis and climbed up the cliff with Eder's Atheletics 5 skill at Valewood, but after failing 3 times I came to conclude the presence or absence of these items aren't the main reason why I'm doing it all wrong.

If you have problems with those fights, you'll suffer much more later. I dont remember anything challenging in the beginning, until i tried to do bounties at party lvl 4.

Kill backer in plate armor near Eothas temple and give that armor to Eder. That should solve your dr problem.

Dont try to tank with Kana. Even after i reseted him with ie mod and gave him right talents he still sucks as tank. Hire proper tank in tavern or be tank yourself.

Use slicken with Alot. Pick it instead of lvl 2 spell, when you get to chose.

Still, you are doing something else wrong, because fights you listed are not supposed to be hard. Try recording some fights and upload them.

knownastherat · April 15, 2015

i. leave the wisps alone

ii. need to kill skirmisher who stuns first. the rest is .. aoe

ii. leave the guls alone

iii. sneak without fight

PotD breeze?

Ceranai · April 15, 2015

Pull the trolls into the bandits, they will kill the bandits for you in the blacksmiths quest, with this method you can do this quest solo with any class

Card nua you can pull the phantoms to the entrace gateway and kill them quite easily that way. The most decisive combat factor after spells and abilities in this game is usually positioning, if you remember that you should find most fights easy enough, the goal being to always try to be the one with the number advantage even if they outnumber you ( ie fight them at choke points in a way that you whole party can hit them but they have to come at you one at a time

Edited April 15, 2015 by Ceranai

Psychevore · April 15, 2015

2 questions:

Does time flow during conversation? I'm at the final battle now, and I'm wondering if I eat consumables before that fight if they'll still be active once it starts. Thaos talks for a long ass time.

And, this is more technical, but... why the hell does the game not autopause before that battle?

Blackthane · April 15, 2015

... am I being trolled? I mean surely the date of posting in OP would suggest that I would have evolved by now.

Vasya · April 15, 2015

On 4/15/2015 at 9:04 AM, Blackthane said:
... am I being trolled? I mean surely the date of posting in OP would suggest that I would have evolved by now.

It looks like a work of necromancer!

knownastherat · April 15, 2015

A Mother's Plea, Anslog's Compass, kobolds

----

Skrimisher because Chuck Norris is not playable character and resorting to cheap play like this .. works

Oh 3 came? Champ too. QA gj on aggro

Lets use beetles to save spells for later

Alright

Scout the camp to find spot for another cheap play also called use of environment

And the conclusion. First try. Breeze, albeit level 5

Eos · April 15, 2015

On 4/15/2015 at 7:24 AM, Riddlewrong said:
Aloth is decent despite his low might score, the trick is really to just choose the right spells. For example, the 2nd level spell Bewildering Spectacle seems lackluster on paper, but is an AOE confusion spell that has a pretty good range, and you can use it to open fights. Put him in stealth mode, walk up and cast it on a group of enemies and watch them fight each other for a few seconds while you throw other spells and attacks at them (or buff yourself!). This is an especially useful tactic against Shadows, Phantoms (especially in the Main Hall fight), and Xaurips (which you will encounter GIANT groups of later on that are virtually impossible to defeat without CC. Slicken is also a godsend. When the enemy is grouped, drop it on em and watch them all fall down. It doesn't last too long, but it gives you that crucial time you need to set up your damage and positioning.

Did you really have good experiences with confuse spells? From my playthroughs they are pretty much unusable unless you can be absolutely certain that the mobs are completely shut off from running into your party while confused. My fights usually evolve around having all the mobs on my tanks and as far away as possible from my squishies. One confuse spell though and they are all over the place, engaging whoever after the (pretty short) confuse wears off. I first saw the spell and thought: 'Neat, aoe disable', then used it and, once the confusion wore off, had 3-4 mobs standing right next to my casters without having a chance to stop them from walking there in the first place (because you can't engage friendly targets and disabling them any other way breaks confusion/makes confusion obsolete in the first place)

Otherwise useful tips

Eyonik · April 24, 2015

PotD is really all about positioning. I had so much problems with the Banshee fight in the lighthouse. Then I moved the party to this spot and it was totally easy.

I put a Firewall in front of my party and pulled them over to me. Only poor Ithumak had to die when he pulled them :D

kaiki · April 24, 2015

On 4/2/2015 at 12:19 PM, Blackthane said:

I'm stuck after rounding up the first 5 companions. I've read the guide which says to stealth past the phantoms one by one at Caed Nua (haven't tried this), but I'm still having trouble with these few encounters:

i.) the 4 will o wisps at Temple of Eothas (Buried Secrets),

ii.) quest: A Mother's Plea, at Anslog Compass. The 5~6 xaurips, the champion and the priest, or the group of 5~6 guls will eat up my party fast,

iii.) and the 5~6 bandits at Black Meadow while pursuing The Smith's Shipment.

I've tried out cipher (charm doesn't last long and level 1/2 AoE spells are weak), wizard (too fragile as well, spells don't hit hard enough) and druid (bear shapeshift only works on wolves but not humanoids or groups of exotic monsters), but my MC dies at almost every encounter from the tutorial to getting the first 5 companions. Essentially, I have to depend on NPCs to carry me through the fights. After several resets, I could finish off the 4 forest trolls and the 3 bears. I've done all the tasks available up until this point, but the most I could hit was level 3. I've tried rearranging the formation to T formation, but Eder and Kana Rua don't last long as well. Their DRs are only 7~10 tops.

So, any pointers to make PoTD a breeze? For instance, equipment enchant, money, or easy quests to level up more? I'm trying to finish PotD with default party members, and since I only have roughly 500+ gold on every attempt by the time I get to the inn, I can only recruit one more hired adventurer, which is something I plan on avoiding if possible.

I did acquire the minor cloak of protection at Cilant Lis and climbed up the cliff with Eder's Atheletics 5 skill at Valewood, but after failing 3 times I came to conclude the presence or absence of these items aren't the main reason why I'm doing it all wrong.

I'm in the process of doing the triple solo achievement after doing my potd run. Here are tips for encounters 2 & 3

2) Get the mobs to chase you to the point they start walking back to their camp then pick them off one at a time. Potd is alot about positioning and buffing yourself. Almost never attack monsters on their terms.

3) You can get the bandits to run over to the trolls to the west and the trolls and bandits will attack each other. Kill the stronger group to keep them balanced until only a couple are remaining.

As the posters above have said, positioning, positioning, positioning.

Need help with Path of the Damned

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