Ingroed took me down before she died, normal difficulty.

[luzarius]

I'm in gilded vale and I got into a scuffle with Ingroed.  She managed to take me down before my mage companion finished her off.

 

How is it that I manage to make the most god awful characters in this game.

 

1. I start off using a crossbow attack that misses, no problem though.

2. I switch to mace and shield.

3. I cast holy radiance which has the burn upgrade.

4. By now she has me down to low life.

5. I hit her a few times with the mace.

6. She takes me down with her last dying breathe.

 

As cool as this scenario turned out, it pains me to think I made such a horrible character.

 

I'm a level 2 priest.

 

might 18

con 10

dex 15

per 10

int 15

res 10

 

1. I have mail armor 7

2. medium shield

3. mace

4. cape with +5 to each defense

5. I always start the fight with holy radiance with the burn upgrade.

 

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

 

Can someone recommend a ridicuslously overpowered build that even a noob can dominate with on normal difficulty?

Edited April 4, 2015 by luzarius

[Merina]

You could get the fighter companion that's waiting at Gilded Vale.

 

You could visit the inn and hire someone there ... and turn him into whatever you like.

 

You could drop the shield to get the single-weapon accuracy bonus. Sometimes it can be easier to hit than to survive. The attributes of your priest don't make him a blocker. Try to explain each of the attributes to yourself.

[StevenTheMathGuy]

It's not the build, it's the tactics. Have tanks (typically Eder) up front to engage the assailants when combat begins. Your main character is not built to take hits, so your mistake was being in a position to get hit. Unless it's a ghost mob, if your DPSers are getting hit, you made a positioning error with the front line. Any great DPS build will go down like wet rags without a tank, just like any great tank build does minimal damage. There is no build that can do everything well, by design.

 

Practice with formations and character ordering, and always keep the tanky characters up front.

[luzarius]

So before I talk to people, I should put the tank between me and the person I'm speaking to?

[Infares]

You can talk to them as the tank and it'll still be your character answering the questions.

 

That'll presumably make the tank the target by default cuz he's all up in their grills.

[Odd Hermit]

Priests aren't tanks. Your character build isn't that bad really - though I always ALWAYS max intellect on priest.

[Infares]

Priests aren't tanks. Your character build isn't that bad really - though I always ALWAYS max intellect on priest.

Indeed. Everything meaningful you do as a priest has a radius, a duration, or usually both. I like putting them in clothing and giving them ranged weapons (Magara + Arquebus) and maxing Might, Dex, and Int and having the others at 6-8 depending on which stats are higher to balance out fort/ref/will saves. 

[luzarius]

You can talk to them as the tank and it'll still be your character answering the questions.

 

That'll presumably make the tank the target by default cuz he's all up in their grills.

 

Oh, I get it. 

 

 

Priests aren't tanks. Your character build isn't that bad really - though I always ALWAYS max intellect on priest.

Indeed. Everything meaningful you do as a priest has a radius, a duration, or usually both. I like putting them in clothing and giving them ranged weapons (Magara + Arquebus) and maxing Might, Dex, and Int and having the others at 6-8 depending on which stats are higher to balance out fort/ref/will saves. 

 

I see.

Edited April 4, 2015 by luzarius

[Infares]

You don't want the priest too far away from the front line, though. Just far enough that the leading edge of their per-encounter AoE can hit the enemies from where they're standing (if you're in a situation where it works on the enemies).

[Ceranai]

I'm in gilded vale and I got into a scuffle with Ingroed.  She managed to take me down before my mage companion finished her off.

 

How is it that I manage to make the most god awful characters in this game.

 

1. I start off using a crossbow attack that misses, no problem though.

2. I switch to mace and shield.

3. I cast holy radiance which has the burn upgrade.

4. By now she has me down to low life.

5. I hit her a few times with the mace.

6. She takes me down with her last dying breathe.

 

As cool as this scenario turned out, it pains me to think I made such a horrible character.

 

I'm a level 2 priest.

 

might 18

con 10

dex 15

per 10

int 15

res 10

 

1. I have mail armor 7

2. medium shield

3. mace

4. cape with +5 to each defense

5. I always start the fight with holy radiance with the burn upgrade.

 

Not sure what I'm doing wrong.

 

Can someone recommend a ridicuslously overpowered build that even a noob can dominate with on normal difficulty?

Simple, you are playing probably the second worse class for DPS in game, priests are great with larger groups as they have many buffs and heals that work over a large area and they start to pick up the pace at higher levels with stronger spells but yea you really shouldnt be relying on your priest to do any damage at all, hell most fights when i have a prist i dont even bother making him autoattack.

 

If you want an OP build try running with 4 custom created chanters with 4 intel and 18 con 18 res 18 per. get each of them running a different buff and get the phantom summon on all of them. give them shields and the heaviest armour you can find. engage, kite/wait for ten seconds, cast 4 summons=win, phantom summon is probably the strongest level one spell in the game, up there with slicken for sure but unlike slicken it can be cast every 12 seconds. For a build with 4 chanters in it this means 4 phantoms and even though its only 1 summon per chanter that one summon effectively has infinite life because you can resummon it when it gets low (and very few monster can kill it before you are ready to resummon it. I full cleared raedrics keep with this build at level 3/2 and it didnt require anything more difficult than spamming summon phantoms, oh and making sure you dont get swarmed (always fight with your back to a wall)

[luzarius]

Hey guys, I finally figured the combat out. I appreciate your help, especially with the formations.

[Ichthyic]

also, radiance has decreasing value as you gain levels, it makes a good finisher, if you have a bunch of nearly dead targets nearby.

instead, try interdiction.

painful interdiction is a great thing to start combat with, I have found.  really throws the enemies for a loop (weakens, interrupts and slows!), it's VERY fast to cast, and has a huge radius.  it's not the damage in that case, it just weakens every opponent immediately.  It's like dropping their level by two to start every fight.

cast blessing next to increase your own teams damage relative, and now it's like you have 3 levels seperating you from your opponents.

divine mark is a good single target damage dealer, especially against fire sensitive opponents.  I also frequently use halt, repulsing seal, and pillar of faith to immobilize enemies, making them a non threat for a round to several rounds.  pillar also does good damage.

another spell I make fairly frequent use of is "suppress affliction", which laughs in the face of anything that tries to use a DOT or basically any kind of disability spell on you, as since your priest has high Intellect, your protections will always outlast any disabilities cast on your characters, thus essentially nullifiying them entirely.  awesome spell.

so yeah, priests are a great class in this game, but MUCH more like how I would have played a mage in any of the old infinity games, instead of a cleric.

once you adjust to the idea that priests in POE are not really meant to be melee tanks, but back row casters, they become very useful indeed.



 

Edited April 4, 2015 by Ichthyic