Need help, im new.. :)

[Celerion]

Hey guys, I just got the game and I have a few kind of dumb questions..

Firstly the bar above my head with the 5 dots (green for me, and red for my enemy) What does that even count for? I know it's probably endurance but
how does it work exactly, for example does one dot go away per hit or it is there to show your total endurance (20% of total endurance per dot??)
or is it simply HEALTH? it's a little weird because I already can see my endurance in my portrait..

Secondly and this question isnt as dumb..  Im at the very start but sometimes when I attack an enemy it says my attacks arent as effective, meaning I need to use a different wepon or spell against that enemy.. but how do I know which type of atatck isnt effective and I don't have a variety of weapons to switch from so I can only keep attacking with my dual swords (im a fighter). can someone give me tips for this

thirdly, where does it tell me my fatigue level?

and lastly... What would be a good stat build for a fighter, but not a tank. I want a more mele DPS build. a damage build pretty much, mostly Might and some constitution and per/ res?

I put: 17 might
         12 constitution
         10 Dexterity
         14 perception ( i think)
         10 intellect
         15 resolve

I'm also a human, a fighter, and have the mercenary backround. so the stats are added to there.

can someone fix a better build for a mele dps. and recommend what weapons, armor type I should wear for that. (Medium?, light?)

Thanks! and sorry for all the noob-ness. I can't find much info anywhere since the game is new.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Celerion

[Celerion]

bump

[ruzen]

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Vitality

[Celerion]

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Vitality

this doesn't help, it had nothing to do with my question :/  I knew all this, I was asking about the dots above the head.

[luzarius]

You'll want max might and dex for a DPS fighter.

 

You can use pike or quarterstaff for reach attacks while standing behind your tank. Based on the situation you can move behind enemies that are attacking your tank, then you'll get that flanked bonus which helps a lot.

 

As a DPS Fighter you have constant recovery which means you'll want to be a backup tank just in case the main tank goes down. 

 

1st slot - two handed weapon, pike, quarterstaff or estoc for DR bypass.

2nd slot - large shield and hatchet for max deflection in case you need to tank.

Edited April 19, 2015 by luzarius

[Leferd]

The green dots (or red dots for enemy combantants) are shorthand visual representations of endurance remaining.

 

You can check out enemy/creature defenses from your bestiary, which you can find in your journal. Match that up with your weapons and or spells.

 

Fatigue is determined by your characters' athletics and is based on time elapsed since your last rest, or from actions undertaken in scripted interactions. There's no visual meter for this.

[Yonjuro]

 

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Vitality

this doesn't help, it had nothing to do with my question :/  I knew all this, I was asking about the dots above the head.

 

 

 Indicates how much endurance the character has left. It's the same information as you get by looking at the portrait but you can see it when you mouse over the character.

[sivasdahling]

The red dots are endurance; every 20% lost erases one dot. For your own party it is redundant, but that's hardly a bad thing.  To find which weapons are effective against which creatures, pause the game, hover your mouse pointer over the enemy, and look at the upper left hand corner. The DRs are arranged next to symbols for each type.  Generally swords do slash, spears do pierce and maces do crush.  Most characters pick 2 types of damage they can do, so you'll have to choose. 

 

Fighters don't make particularly good DPS builds.  In general might and dex are the non-magical DPS stats, so I'd lower Perception and raise Dex.  Accuracy is you're key number to think about, since this is where fighters have a DPS advantage. You'll want to take Abilities and Talents that raise your accuracy and focus on getting crits, like a rogue.  To be honest, however, I think a high DPS melee fighter type fits better as a barbarian.

[Sedrefilos]

The dots above your (and the enemies' head) is the visual equivalent of the 5 classic states of endurance (party) nad health (enemies): Uninjured, Barely injured, Injured, Badly injured and Near death. It's a quick check with tab-pressing to see the endurance and health conditions of your party members and the enemies in a glimpse.

[Celerion]

Thanks guys!

[Xosmi]

Firstly the bar above my head with the 5 dots (green for me, and red for my enemy) What does that even count for? I know it's probably endurance but

how does it work exactly, for example does one dot go away per hit or it is there to show your total endurance (20% of total endurance per dot??) 

or is it simply HEALTH? it's a little weird because I already can see my endurance in my portrait..

 

20% endurance per dot. just there to give you a quick overview of your party and enemies HP in the thick of battle.

 

 

Secondly and this question isnt as dumb..  Im at the very start but sometimes when I attack an enemy it says my attacks arent as effective, meaning I need to use a different wepon or spell against that enemy.. but how do I know which type of atatck isnt effective and I don't have a variety of weapons to switch from so I can only keep attacking with my dual swords (im a fighter). can someone give me tips for this 

 

Diffrent weapons target diffrent defenses,wich you can see when you check their descriptions. For example, a rapier will say 9-13 Pierce vs Deflection - meaning it targets an enemies deflection. If a particular enemies deflection is really high, your weapon won't do much damage at all and you are better off switching to one that does damage against a diffrent type of defense.

you can see a targets defenses in the top-left of the screen when you mouseover them, but only if the information is available to you - as you kill mobs you fill up your bestiary with their information.

 

 

thirdly, where does it tell me my fatigue level?

When you become fatigued a small icon will appear next to the character portrait (looks kind of like a closed eye) you can mouse-over it to see the level of the fatigue and its effects. the icon also changes color as the fatigue progresses (blue for minor, red for major fatigue etc)

 

and lastly... What would be a good stat build for a fighter, but not a tank. I want a more mele DPS build. a damage build pretty much, mostly Might and some constitution and per/ res?

I put: 17 might          12 constitution         10 Dexterity         14 perception ( i think)         10 intellect         15 resolve

I'm also a human, a fighter, and have the mercenary backround. so the stats are added to there.

can someone fix a better build for a mele dps. and recommend what weapons, armor type I should wear for that. (Medium?, light?)

 

For best DPS results you're going to want to do a bit of min/maxing.

I've had the best results so far with my barbarian, fighters and paladins can do very well too but are more suited for being tanks. a barbarian melee attacks AoE'ing just can't be beaten in my opinion.

 

My barbarians stats : 

16 Might - getting another +2 from my gauntlets for 18 total, gives me plenty of damage, also adds fortitude (one of the 4 defenses, fortitude will save you from poison/disease)

15 Constitution - getting another +3 from my belt, also at 18 total, More then enough endurance and health not to die this way, adds even more fortitude defense.

10 Dexterity - nothing here from items. 10 is just right, no bonus to attack speed and reflex defense (reflex defense works vs aoe attacks) but no penalty either. since my char is dualwielding 2 rapiers wich are very fast, and is getting 1.33 attack speed bonus from frenzy (which i use every encounter) and another 20% from the dual wield style talent, i attack fast enough. there's really not enough enemies using aoe atacks that you can't bring down fast to merit pumping dex just for the reflex defense either.

3 Perception - Minimized so i had points to spend everywhere else. gives me penalties to reflex defense (allready explained why thats not much of a problem) and also to deflection defense (deflection works vs melee and ranged attacks) but barbarian doesnt get much deflection anyway, and any penalty will be offset by a high resolve score anyway(wich gives a bonus to deflection) and lastly, low perception means i dont interrupt enemies as much - but this doesn't matter, i'd rather kill the enemy so fast he doesnt even have tome to get off an attack i have to interrupt. as far as melee dps goes, Perception is the stat you can skimp on the most, leaving it at 3 is fine.

18 Intelligence - +2 from my amulet for 20 total. (trying to find a  +3 int amulet) Most important stat for a barbarian, since it adds to the range of our carnage, wich makes all our melee attacks into aoe. also adds a ton of Will defense (will defense helps against things like confusion/fear/charm) not as important for warriors and paladins since they dont get the AoE effect on their melee attacks though.

16 Resolve - +2 from my armor for 18 total. - First off, offsets the penalty to deflection i get from my low perception score. More importantly, adds even more Will defense (mental attack effects are the worst in this game for sure) an most importantly, gives me a good concentration score. The higher your concentration is, the less chance enemies will interrupt you. very important in being able to apply the most DPS in the shortest time possible.

 

Now, if you are set on going fighter or paladin, i would adhere to most of these stat scores, but i'd probably take the points out of INT and put them into dex & perception instead.

 

As far as gear goes - i prefer using the armor with the lowest recovery rate i can get away with. the higher the recovery rate, the slower you are attacking. as the game progresses i find myself settling with armors at 20% recovery rate which is light armor. currently using an exceptional one, with as much DR as a standard medium set of armor.

 

Weapon wise, it all depends on what you need. like i said, i use dual rapiers because i dont have attack speed bonuses from dex, so i need fast weapons. rapiers also give increased accuracy, giving me a better chance to score hits. 

I could also use hatchets, wich are as fast and do the same damage vs the same type of defense (both vs deflection) but hatchets add a bit of bonus deflection instead, which is a lot less usefull for my barb.

 

had i been playing warrior though, i would probably have a higher Dex score and so i could get away with using a bit slopwer weapons too, like the Sabre for example, which gives bonus attack damage, also not a bad thing to have. There's a pretty good list on IGN's "Pillars of eternity wiki guide" on what weapon does what kind of damage and what bonuses weapons give.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Xosmi

[Serdan]

Diffrent weapons target diffrent defenses,wich you can see when you check their descriptions. For example, a rapier will say 9-13 Pierce vs Deflection - meaning it targets an enemies deflection. If a particular enemies deflection is really high, your weapon won't do much damage at all and you are better off switching to one that does damage against a diffrent type of defense.

you can see a targets defenses in the top-left of the screen when you mouseover them, but only if the information is available to you - as you kill mobs you fill up your bestiary with their information.

This is misleading.

All weapons target deflection.

What matters is the enemy's damage reduction vs different weapon types (pierce, crush, slash). DR just straight up reduces damage by an integer amount.

If the enemy has 10 DR vs Pierce/Slash and 5 DR vs Crush, then you'll want to use a crushing weapon. E.g. a club.

Here's a nice overview: http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Weapon

 

With spells and abilities it gets a bit more complicated, since they can target different defences. The defences are used in attack resolution and along with your own accuracy determine whether you hit and how hard (miss, graze, hit, crit). As with DR you want to target the lowest defence and for difficult enemies lower their defences further with various debuffs.

Edited April 20, 2015 by Serdan

[Jimmysdabestcop]

For a fighter you can totally dump Int to 3. Fighters really have no abilities and will be auto-attacking 98% of the entire game. I would even dump con.

 

I would do this:

         18 might
         03 constitution
         18 Dexterity
         18 perception
         03 intellect
         18 resolve

 

Go two weapon fighting. Say Sabres or dual Reach weapons. Take the  2 weapon talent for +20 attack speed. Then you can take defender talent which is -20% attack speed. They offset. Take Wary Defender which boosts Defender. And your DPS Fighter can tank by default because he wont take damage. Only other non offense talent you need is the one that is -16% recovery speed for armor.

 

You can take Savage Attack as well but it deactivates Defender. More damage -5 Acc but Pet Space Piglet gives PC +5 Acc. So it offsets again.

 

The reason you can dump Con is you wont get hit. In beginning game just where Eder's starting armor which gives you 2nd chance in case you get knockedout.Plus in Act 2 every Attribute can be bumped up by at least 2-3 points.

 

If you dont wont to leave Con at 3. Leave it at 6. And drop Per to 16 and Res to 17. With Items/Enchants you can get Con to 8-9. Plus there are Endurance boosting items as well.

 

And if all of a sudden you need your your DPS fighter to flat out tank just equip one of his weapon slots with a enchanted shield and whatever weapon he has the most Acc with.

 

I do like 3 slots on a fighter like that. Primary two weapons. Shield slot. And the big gun/cannon slot. Open up in range and switch to primary.

[Lightzy]

A DPS fighter is a poor toon in POE.

The right way to play is very heavy armor tank/s and DPS ranged/spellcasters behind.

 

 

A DPS fighter will be at the front line needs heavy armor. heavy armor in this game means no damage because it reduces your speed. This was out of some bizzare and silly notion that all armors should be equal in usability and no armor better than another. Idiotic to the extreme, but whatever.

 

If you use a front line fighter without armor you'll die in a second (but have good DPS )

Edited April 20, 2015 by Lightzy

[Jimmysdabestcop]

A DPS fighter is a poor toon in POE.

The right way to play is very heavy armor tank/s and DPS ranged/spellcasters behind.

 

 

A DPS fighter will be at the front line needs heavy armor. heavy armor in this game means no damage because it reduces your speed. This was out of some bizzare and silly notion that all armors should be equal in usability and no armor better than another. Idiotic to the extreme, but whatever.

 

If you use a front line fighter without armor you'll die in a second (but have good DPS )

 

On normal mode I disagree. I turned Eder into dual wielding sabre monster. Boosted his Dex +3 and his might +3 and he even has boosted per and res. Enchanted his starting armor up to superb. As well as dual wield a pair unique sabres with full enchantments. He puts out some serious damage. And barely takes damage since he dflection is so high by default. And his starting armor has 2nd chance. More danger of a KO early game then mid to late game.

 

Will they out DPS every class? No you have the bugged Barbarian and probably the Rogue if focused on critical chance that will out DPS. But the fighter will be top 3 DPS while not getting hit. You only have to take 2 defensive talents to make this happen. And if something goes wrong just switch to weapon slot that has a shield.

 

Normal mode is setup that you dont really need the MMO tank character. You could just opt for 3 melee characters with 2 of them being some kind of martial class. Then still have your 3 DPS ranged characters. Or 2 ranged and throw in a melee barb or melee rogue with reach weapon.

 

Other difficulty modes might provide better challenge. But Normal modes can be the most the fun becasue you honestly don't have to worry about party or class. You could roll with 6 priests if you wanted and be fine.

[Celerion]

I ended up rerolling a Rogue, and using Eder as a tank.   SO much fun.

[AndreaColombo]

I disagree with the notion that INT is useless for Fighters. I'm currently playing a high-INT Fighter and she's pretty badass INT is mainly for Prone duration on Knockdown.)

 

Of course there can be low-INT Fighter builds that are equally good or even better. But still, high-INT Fighters are pretty rad

[Xosmi]

I disagree with the notion that INT is useless for Fighters. I'm currently playing a high-INT Fighter and she's pretty badass INT is mainly for Prone duration on Knockdown.)

 

Of course there can be low-INT Fighter builds that are equally good or even better. But still, high-INT Fighters are pretty rad

 

Int really is only for the spellslingers, and barbarians (since it increases the range on their carnage ability which turns melee attacks into AoE.)

Arguably for the paladin as well, though you can get away with a medium int score on them and still make decent use of their buffs.

[Celerion]

by the way.. i just got Durance the priest in my party. But i noticed his level 2 abilities  said (cant be used any more) or something similar. Does that mean they are all per rest, and if i use one I cant use others? (his level 1 spells are still fine) If so is there any place that tells me how many uses I have left.. how does this work?

[Celerion]

Because I don't see anything that tells me how many uses I have, or if theyre per rest or not.. same thing with my level 2 wizard spells.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Celerion

[Xosmi]

by the way.. i just got Durance the priest in my party. But i noticed his level 2 abilities  said (cant be used any more) or something similar. Does that mean they are all per rest, and if i use one I cant use others? (his level 1 spells are still fine) If so is there any place that tells me how many uses I have left.. how does this work?

 

Initially, their spells can be cast a limited number of times per rest. As a priest gains levels, their lower level spells eventually shift to per-encounter use.

You can find a table on what spells you can cast #amount of times per level here : http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Priest#Abilities

Edited April 21, 2015 by Xosmi

[Abel]

No respawning at all, which is great.

 

You'll see the number of spell uses left on the button of the spell level Icon. I >>3; II >> 3, etc. hard to miss it. Spells are per rest. Some abilities are per enounter. If you use all your spells at the first ennemy in sight... well, you need to carefully think how and when to use them. If you can use 3 level 1 spell per rest, you can cast 3 times the same, or 3 different onces. But once you have cast 3 level 1 spells, you'll need to rest the have them available again.

 

My PC is a tank priestess. Heavy armor, large shield, Eothas flail (and all abilities spent in weaponry at level 7). She is a good tank (helping Eder), correct melee DPS (same accuracy as a base fighter), and she uses her spells only during hard fights. That helps me avoid the unrealistic problem of 1 fight/1 rest in difficult mode. So, i barely use any camping supplies. Melee capabilities for a priest make them usefull even when not using spells. And i have a rule of 1 rest max every 26 hours (and another saying that any knock down character or animal companion means game over). So, my idea is: if you think you don't have enough spell to make Durance usefull all the day long, try give him some ranged or melee capabilities.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Abel

[Celerion]

Ah thanks guys, and BTW not having respawn is NOT great. It makes the game feel empty after you cleared away the areas.. im not even saying add exp per monster. Even pointless encounters are fun for me. Monsters would inhabit a forest again, so just having no monsters left in the game is pretty dumb. There would be nothing to do if you cleared all of them out.

[NegativeEdge]

All priest and wizard spells are per rest, there should be a small number in the corner of the spell level icon that tells you how many uses you have at that level remaining. At higher levels (9 I believe?) wizard 1st level spells become per encounter rather than per rest.

 

Before that the wizard has arcane assault as his twice per encounter ability (small blue book icon) and Durance has Holy radiance (blue man icon) as a once per encounter ability. Holy radiance can be upgraded through talents and there is another per encounter use called Interdiction which priests can get at level 4.

 

Every ability and spell should say on the tooltip, just underneath its name, whether it is per rest or per encounter.

[Ferrante]

Ah thanks guys, and BTW not having respawn is NOT great. It makes the game feel empty after you cleared away the areas.. im not even saying add exp per monster. Even pointless encounters are fun for me. Monsters would inhabit a forest again, so just having no monsters left in the game is pretty dumb. There would be nothing to do if you cleared all of them out.

 

Well, I agree with "Monsters would inhabit a forest again"  but not with There would be nothing to do if you cleared all of them out.  This is not the kind of game you will return an area often and if you do, it is because of the story and you WILL have encounters. PE is totally story-driven so you will busy advancing and there is not reason to return an area you already cleaned. And that's fine, because there are a LOT of new areas ahead, so, don't worry about the areas you left behind. Now, a bit of respawning could be realistic, because the experience point system avoid the farming, so there are no reason to creatures no returning an area. In the other hand, this could be just time consuming without adding anything to the story.

Edited April 21, 2015 by Ferrante