I'm really glad I took Mental Fortress on Eder

[AncientToaster]

Oh wait, no I'm not. I still get charmed/dominated every time without fail.

 

Is it me or does this game become annoying with the spell casters in Act 3? Almost all fights now with an enemy spell caster turn into AoE = Your whole party is dominated, proceed to panic and quick load. 

 

To rectify this, I gave Eder Mental Fortress which supposedly gives him some sort of extra defense against this attack, but it hasn't helped once. The fact that I cannot pre-buff in battle makes me pretty frustrated, more often than not the enemy is gonna lay down it's confusion spell or something before I can even defend against it. 

 

Any tips? 

[View619]

What's your total will defense?

[AncientToaster]

Here's a screen of Eder's defenses and bonuses. 67 isn't super high and I don't even think that takes Mental Fortress into account, but it would be 77 against those attacks. Is that still too low? I'm guessing that you need 90+ for it to make a difference, kind of like deflection. If so I know that talent is pretty much garbage then. 

Edited April 19, 2015 by AncientToaster

[Rostere]

67 is a bit low .

[AncientToaster]

So just like Deflection I have to stack my defense to 90+ for them to make a difference?

[View619]

So, that's 77 with Mental Fortress? It may be due to grazes still triggering spell effects. I really hope Obsidian removes that, as it makes no sense imo.

 

The spell system should really be:

 

Crit = Increased Damage + Normal Duration

Hit = Normal Damage + Normal Duration

Graze = Reduced Damage + No Duration

Miss = nothing.

 

This would also make creature defenses more meaningful.

 

 

77 should be high enough in most cases, but it's due to the way grazes work. You would have to stack it like you have deflection to see a difference.

Edited April 19, 2015 by View619

[Raz415]

67 is low. My Eder has 89 base, plus 10 from Kana's chant, and Mental Fortress, and he still gets Charmed 100% of the time from Fampyrs. But don't take it too seriously, the more I play on PotD the more I realise that they took balance as a joke.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Raz415

[AncientToaster]

As it is now, I think defenses are pretty much meaningless. I know for a fact that deflection really did Eder no good until I got it past 80. It seems like everything needs to be very high for it to make any bit of difference, and that just isn't feasible for a build unless you want to take trash talents like Fortitude +10?

[AncientToaster]

67 is low. My Eder has 89 base, plus 10 from Kana's chant, and Mental Fortress, and he still gets Charmed 100% of the time from Fampyrs.

 

How did you get 89 base will?

[Raz415]

Wary defender (+10), Munacra Arret (+15), Outworn Bucker (on my Paladin, +5), The rest not sure, he has 13 Resolve and no Resolve bonus from items, Could have had more I guess if I enchanted for Resolve.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Raz415

[gkathellar]

As it is now, I think defenses are pretty much meaningless. I know for a fact that deflection really did Eder no good until I got it past 80. It seems like everything needs to be very high for it to make any bit of difference, and that just isn't feasible for a build unless you want to take trash talents like Fortitude +10?

 

Well, an extremely defensive paladin can push their defenses into the high 110s for Fort and Will and 130s for Reflex without taking those Talents.

 

This still isn't enough to guarantee misses from a lot of enemies, so yeah, Defenses kinda suck.

[AncientToaster]

Well I guess my party is going to have a rough go in late game if Domination attacks are the norm, because Durance has the second highest with 74.

 

Is it true that Graze's still Confuse/Dominate/Charm but for lesser duration? That is still flat out stupid if so. 

[amallric]

This is funny because everybody seems convinced that the Will save is needed to avoid Charm but I just fought some Fampyrs and unless I am blind it tested against Deflection. Not that it helped any of my characters to avoid getting charmed though.

 

That said, there is a very good countermeasure against charm in this game: do nothing. It just lasts 10 seconds and at best the character will perform one attack. He doesn't use any advanced ability and is severely weakened so you'll get him back soon enough without much problems. I understand it can be complicated if Edér gets charmed and he's your only tank, but usually it is Aloth.

[gkathellar]

It is so, yes.

 

It is super-problematic, yes.

[tnc]

One thing i found out is that when you do defend against a mental attack it's hard to notice because a lot of stuff are going on during to combat and it's easy to miss in the combat log because it moves really fast. It might actually seem like your will save doesn't work but it actually does once you get it to high levels. You feel like you're getting hit by mental attacks all the time because it's very noticable once you do get hit; it really affects the combat and sometimes it may cause a party-wipe in higher difficulties. Also the fact that grazes still affect you with half duration contributes to this feeling of getting charmed/dominated all the time.

[Raz415]

Once you hit level 11 on your Priest you will get a spell that casts pretty fast and gives you +50 defense against Charm/Dominate, in most fights you will be able to cast it before you get hit. Even with that though, it will still happen. At the end of the day, the random roll means a lot too. I was fighting a tough boss earlier, his attack targeted Eder's Reflex (132) with an Accuracy of 101, it rolled a perfect 100 and my high defense didn't do much anyway, because of random luck.

 

It's the major crime of this type of game and the reason I don't really enjoy their gameplay.

[NathanH]

Major debilitating attacks like dominate and paralysis should probably give lesser related effects on Graze, rather than just reduced duration. So Charm and Dominate could give say Dazed or Confused on graze (still at half duration). Paralysis might give Hobbled or Stuck, that sort of thing.

[View619]

Well I guess my party is going to have a rough go in late game if Domination attacks are the norm, because Durance has the second highest with 74.

 

Is it true that Graze's still Confuse/Dominate/Charm but for lesser duration? That is still flat out stupid if so. 

 

Yeah, grazes still cause the effect to trigger. I've heard this is a major issue with Wizard's Petrify, where a graze and a hit are basically the same in terms of ending a fight.

 

I think it's the entire philosophy of no hard counters, including defenses vs spells on both sides.

 

 

Major debilitating attacks like dominate and paralysis should probably give lesser related effects on Graze, rather than just reduced duration. So Charm and Dominate could give say Dazed or Confused on graze (still at half duration). Paralysis might give Hobbled or Stuck, that sort of thing.

 

 

This seems like a more elegant solution, to be honest. Makes a strong reference to the different tiers of status effects, while allowing all spells to have some sort of influence on a graze.

Edited April 19, 2015 by View619

[tnc]

Major debilitating attacks like dominate and paralysis should probably give lesser related effects on Graze, rather than just reduced duration. So Charm and Dominate could give say Dazed or Confused on graze (still at half duration). Paralysis might give Hobbled or Stuck, that sort of thing.

 

actually that might be a good idea for disables. The ranking on the disables is already pretty clear imo and it wouldn't be so hard to implement this into the game. For example petrify>paralysis>prone>stun.

[AncientToaster]

Major debilitating attacks like dominate and paralysis should probably give lesser related effects on Graze, rather than just reduced duration. So Charm and Dominate could give say Dazed or Confused on graze (still at half duration). Paralysis might give Hobbled or Stuck, that sort of thing.

 

That would be fine, at least not make it work, but just to a lesser extent. 

 

Seems that Dominate attacks are so prevalent in Act 3 so far it's maddening (no pun intended)

 

 

I just did a quest called Prisoner of Ice and every Pale elf sorceress in there Dominated half my squad.

 

Edited April 19, 2015 by AncientToaster

[James Harrison]

Umm, that really felt like a spoiler, even if a minor one. please don't post it without putting it in a spoiler box... It genuinely makes me sad when I read about upcoming quests before getting there.  No worries, just try not to do it.

 

 

 

 

I just did a quest called Prisoner of Ice and every Pale elf sorceress in there Dominated half my squad.

 

 

 

 

Edited April 19, 2015 by James Harrison

[Anthile]

Even my paladin with near maximum will defense and righteous soul talent got charmed worryingly often. The priest spell is the only thing that really makes a difference but even then certain bosses roll their fear aura with a +35 bonus or something like that. At least righteous soul cuts down the status duration so he can shake off almost all status grazes.

[Zenicetus]

I agree that graze triggering the full effect is at least part of the problem. Having it fall back to lesser effects like confusion sounds like a good idea to me. 

 

Another problem is that there aren't that many +Will trinkets in the game to protect against mental attacks, and the game has weird ideas about not letting them stack. If you wear a minor cloak of protection with +5 Will, and a minor ring of protection with +5 Will, you don't get +10 because the game will disable the second item. Whose idea was that? It makes it even more difficult to get +Will protection against mental attacks.

 

 

 

[Anthile]

That how it works in D&D 3rd edition (and upward, if I remember correctly). Only the highest item bonus is applied in order to prevent crazy stacking. You can only stack bonuses from different sources (spells, talents, gear, etc.).

[WebShaman]

I normally use summons against charm/dominate foes, then slam on the status spells and concentrated ranged fire (pistols, blunderbus, rifle, warbow) and those casters go right down, fast. The charmed/dominated summons wear off, and are negligent threats to my tank.