Endless Paths levels 9+ - extremely cheesy encounter design?

[Concordance]

I am playing on Hard with only premade companions - PC melee rogue + Eder + Aloth + Kana + GM + Durance. Eder and Kana are specced for maximum defense, wearing the best defense gear I can find. I had cleared the first 7 levels of Endless Paths with a level 5 party, have completed all quests in Defiance Bay. Combat has been a breeze so far, so I've decided to continue to level 9 and below with a level 8 party, and this is where things started going horribly wrong.

 

It's like a cutoff point where the designers get really generous with 4+ spellcasters per room, all of them armed with room-wide AoE disables or damages, or worse yet, fast-casting Dominate/Petrify. I now have to abuse doorways due to the sheer amount of enemies with Paralyze, and if I fail to stop an enemy dominating my Cipher/Rogue, I have to reload. If a banshee manages to paralyze my entire party at once and teleports next to the squishies, I have to reload. If enemies Petrify my tank and one-shot him, I have to reload. Due to the doorway abuse being made almost mandatory, my melee rogue spends most of his time shooting (which he isn't specced for).

 

I've tried various strategies, including:

 

* Stripping weapons from squishies to help against Dominate - kills my DPS and/or crowd control, 20 seconds with no rogue/caster is too much. And yes, dominated characters will switch slots - standing with fists until you get dominated does not work.

 

* Wrapping squishies in 8+ DR armor - does alright against AoE damage attacks, but they still get massacred by a dominated cipher/rogue.

 

* Using a 100+ Will custom fighter to make enemies burn their best spells - enemies have unlimited casts, and you apparently can't resist dominate.

 

So far I have been opening fights with Tenous Grasp (or Wizard's confusion spells) to start combat and buy time, backing off into a trapped doorway and then trying to either hose down the spellcasters or the mobs blocking my way to them. I still have to reload when I get unlucky with spell rolls or the enemy lands a critical AoE paralyze, but otherwise this strategy works well. The problem is that it is the only strategy that works well, it relies tremendously on enemy's spell and target choice, and it is incredibly boring.

 

It seems extremely cheap that you aren't allowed to buff or immunize against this crap, and have to body block doorways to avoid your tanks from being one-shot or turned against you. Am I doing something wrong, or is this just how these encounters are supposed to be played? 

Edited April 21, 2015 by Concordance

[WebShaman]

Have you tried figurine spam followed by status/ranged/summons spam?

 

That is what I do.

 

What level are you, btw?

[Blovski]

I think the Endless Paths kinda suffers from being too easy after the level 3 difficulty hump until about level 9-10 where suddenly all the tough enemies are out to play.

[Voltron]

The problem is with game disables.

 

My barb has around 98 Fortitude right now and 98 Will, when bump up with special items that gives +15 to Paralyze etc it is about 113, wtih Greater Frenzy Fortitude goes even higher and with Stalwark Defiance my Will is about 123.

 

Still, 80% of time Paralyze paralyze me, petrify petrify me etc. PotD TC solo. If not for "broken" OSA and retalitation I would be dead in Endless Paths 11-15 with my Fire God Barbarian. But thanks to OSA and Retalitation I am able to clear those mobs....that is why I won't patch my game. Barb has no good perma damange bonuses and his best abilities are on ony with at least two enemies or 50% Endurance low. OSA is only thing that compensate for it...

 

Game has some strange resistance mechanic and that piss me a little. Especially Petrify. I have to hit Defiance before they see me, run to them and even if they pertrifyme, my retalitaion plus Carnage is enough, but sometimes barely.

 

Some perma disables are just waaaay too good and accurate in this game. While at the same time all melee mobs are joke really. CC spells are too strong, damage is too low. That is the problem with enemies here.

[MadDemiurg]

Teleporting banshees are easily kiteable. Dominate is annoying, but priest can give good protection vs it (albeit with l6 spells only). CC everyting before it CCs you also works just fine.

[b0rsuk]

Endless Paths have not been designed to be completed in one go. The idea was to have a dungeon players will be returning to. There are barely any quests in there, and combat xp is poor for leveling up.

[Tigranes]

You're clearly not powerful enough to finish the lower levels yet. So come back later.

 

Why do people think "this dungeon is broken" instead of thinking "my party is still only level 8, 9"?

[Nadrac]

Priest's Prayers Against Imprisonment and Prayers Against Treachery helps. Come back at level 11 or later.

[Concordance]

The answer turned out to be fourfold - confusion, figurines, slow weapons and knockdown traps

 

Against Adragans and Crystal Eaters, use confusion-inducing spells. They will usually be torn apart by their own allies before the spell wears off. Crystal Eaters Petrify and one-shot each other just as readily as your tanks.

 

Vithracks' Will is too high to reliably use confusion, so the fights with large amounts of Vithracks can be defused by using a figurine (the weaker, the better) and causing them to burn most of their Dominate casts on the crappy summons. You will still get 1-2 dominated party members per fight, which is where the slow weapons and knockdown traps come in - most of the time, your party members will be in Recovery between attacks when they get dominated, so you have plenty of time to lay down a Repulse trap that will knock them out for 90% of Dominate's duration.

 

It's worth noting that the Adragan and Vithrack segments are harder than they should be because of a bug - enemies can still cast spells while Prone (even if it is not shown), so the disables they are most vulnerable to (due to low fortitude) are not as effective as they should be.

Edited April 22, 2015 by Concordance

[Schyzm]

I agree that most hard fights that aren't the silly dragon at the end can be solved by using ur army in a can figurines.