How do you deal with dominated chars?

[Madscientist]

When your char gets hit by any status effect except charm/dominate, there is a spell that allows you to cure or suppress this effect.

When a char is dominated, you cannot do anything. Just hope to survive until it runs out.

Is this correct or is there something you can do?

 

I was fighting undead readric on normal.  It took me some tries until I made it.

When my 2 tanks managed to block the path to my casters, the battle was easy.

But when one tank tank was charmed, enemies ran around him and destroyed my casters within seconds.

 

I have not finished the game yet and I guess there are more enemies than just fampyrs that can dominate you.

On harder difficulties there will be more enemies who can do this.

At least dominated chars are stupid and they just attack the nearest char with their weapon.

[b0rsuk]

If one of your tanks was a Paladin with Righteous Soul, he wouldn't be charmed. And even if, not for long.

[Climhazzard]

If it's my monk with a crappy hunting bow equipped she always seems to switch to it, so I ignore her.  For the most party my parties often have crappy ranged weapons that they will use so I ignore them, but if it's someone who does have a strong range weapon spec then I try to CC them either with paralyze or re charm/dominate.

[Idleray]

Yep.

 

Use your cipher and cast whispers of treason to "reclaim" the character. They will be uncontrollable for a few seconds but they'll be on your side again. Afterwards you regain control.

[Madscientist]

Thanks so far.

 

I had a paladin and he could resist the attac.

But enemies target the weakest char and I cannot give everyone very high defenses.

Eder was my second tank. (well, he is a damage dealer but with his heavy armor he can take some hits.)

 

The biggest problem was, that when the enemies dominated my char, they could walk behind behind him

because he could not block the path with an engaged enemy anymore.

At this place there was no position in which one or 2 chars could block the entire path by just standing there.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Madscientist

[Eos]

Thanks so far.

 

I had a paladin and he could resist the attac.

But enemies target the weakest char and I cannot give everyone very high defenses.

Eder was my second tank. (well, he is a damage dealer but with his heavy armor he can take some hits.)

 

The biggest problem was, that when the enemies dominated my char, they could walk behind behind him

because he could not block the path with an engaged enemy anymore.

At this place there was no position in which one or 2 chars could block the entire path by just standing there.

 

I found the Priest's level 2 trap which knocks target's prone is very useful for those kind of situations.

[b0rsuk]

"Charmed" gives -25 ranged Accuracy, and lowers most of resistances by 20. "Dominated" doesn't have this flaw.

You might fare better if you equip the potential targets with ranged weapons, as they won't hit anything with them. I had a druid with a blunderbuss, and he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when charmed.

 

By the way, charmed effects of some creatures (including fampyrs!) currently targets DEFLECTION. Not Will ! Big shields might help. Try to cast some deflection buffs - that is rarely a bad idea, but if it also protects from charms... Sounds like a bug...

[Eos]

Btw, was there ever given a reason as to why characters automatically switch to ranged weapons when they're under some sort-of control effect? Didn't they even want to fix that in v1.3?

[Madscientist]

According to patch notes 1.03, there was a bug that has been fixed.

But for me and some others it still happens, that chars change their weapon set when dominated.

 

Maybe if you have a caster with ranged weapons who does not want to fight in melee anyway, it is a good idea to have no weapon in his other slots

when charming enemies are around. ( not advised for monks ;-) )

[Climhazzard]

If Aloth gets charmed try not to get him caught in your Ectopsychic echo, he drops like a rock...

Edited April 28, 2015 by Climhazzard

[Luckmann]

When it happens, I deal with it by doing everything I can to prevent the others in my group from shooting Aloth in the head. The fact that dominated characters are automatically attacked by non-dominated allies is seriously much worse than anything I've actually had to deal with from the dominated character itself.

[kaiki]

According to patch notes 1.03, there was a bug that has been fixed.

But for me and some others it still happens, that chars change their weapon set when dominated.

 

Maybe if you have a caster with ranged weapons who does not want to fight in melee anyway, it is a good idea to have no weapon in his other slots

when charming enemies are around. ( not advised for monks ;-) )

 

I found that if I had no weapons in the other slot the character would just attack with their equipped weapon. I believe the safest tactic, in regards to equipment, would be to have the weakest ranged weapon in the other slot so the dominated character doesn't run into melee combat and still won't do much damage.

[Madscientist]

When it happens, I deal with it by doing everything I can to prevent the others in my group from shooting Aloth in the head. The fact that dominated characters are automatically attacked by non-dominated allies is seriously much worse than anything I've actually had to deal with from the dominated character itself.

 

Thats right.

 

The battle against the undead readric was the only one were Aloth was maimed at the end, even though he started with full health (I mean health, not just endurance).

Durance did a good job as healer.

Maybe I used those spells that heal allies and damage enemies to often at the wrong moment (like a millisecond before some enemy uses his charm spell).

[Sanctuary]

Yep.

 

Use your cipher and cast whispers of treason to "reclaim" the character. They will be uncontrollable for a few seconds but they'll be on your side again. Afterwards you regain control.

This is exactly what I do, then I try to use Puppet Master a bit before that expires. 

[Zenicetus]

Yep.

 

Use your cipher and cast whispers of treason to "reclaim" the character. They will be uncontrollable for a few seconds but they'll be on your side again. Afterwards you regain control.

 

Same here; Ciphers are the answer. For anyone using the default party members, you get to Grieving Mother before running into most of the mind control stuff in the latter part of the game (well, unless you do Endless Paths early, I guess). If she wasn't available for whatever reason (charmed, dominated, or just out of range for the spell), I had Aloth use Slicken to knock down the affected party member. Although Aloth himself was usually the target, later in the game.

 

It also helps to be proactive, and focus-fire the whole party on whatever enemy is using dominate attacks. It might not stop the first attack, but it will keep the whole party from being affected by things like 'shrooms that have a fairly fast cooldown on their attack.

Edited April 28, 2015 by Zenicetus

[the_phew]

My fighter Tank uses Vigorous Defense, which is usually enough to resist most charms/dominates. 

 

With my squishies, I usually just go one-shot them with my Tidefall-wielding Barbarian and them quickly resurrect them with a Paladin or Priest spell. It's definitely the fastest way if you don't have a Cipher in your party. Downside is that you usually have to rest after every dominate fight to recover all the health loss.  

 

I also made sure everyone's secondary weapon was a plain hunting bow, so they couldn't hurt anyone while dominated. 

[Concordance]

I found that the following tactics work wonders:

 

A) Give your squishies a weak unenchanted ranged weapon in the second slot for fights against opponents with Dominate. The best option is the unique The Disappointer pistol with its Very Slow reload, 0.66x damage and -13 accuracy - failing that, a hunting bow will suffice.

 

B) Once Aloth can cast Arcane Reflection, cast it at the start of every fight and keep him the closest to the enemy spellcasters, right behind your tanks. It almost never succeeds in dominating or charming the enemy casters, but it can successfully defend against several Dominate casts. Enemies seem to have cooldowns on their individual spells, and you will end most fights faster than their Dominate cooldown wears down.

 

C) If anyone does get dominated, use the priest spell Repulsing Seal to safely disable them until Dominate wears off.

 

D) If you have a Cipher, you can Dominate your party member to turn him to your side. You can't control the party member until the spell wears off, though.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Concordance

[Crucis]

When it happens, I deal with it by doing everything I can to prevent the others in my group from shooting Aloth in the head. The fact that dominated characters are automatically attacked by non-dominated allies is seriously much worse than anything I've actually had to deal with from the dominated character itself.

 

^This.  1000% this.

 

The moment you start getting characters charmed, dominated, or even Confused (IIRC), I have to start aggressively micromanaging the rest of the party to force them to ignore the affected ones.  Furthermore, some offensive spells affect enemies only, which means that they'll affect the "charmed ones" as well.  Having party members charmed, etc. means that my cipher, Grieving Mother, has to stop casting Mind Blades spells, so that she doesn't unintentionally damage a "charmed one", which is a real pain for her since I love using that spell so much.

 

[Slapstick87]

poorly - more often than not

 

The biggest issue is most of the time the rest of my players going mental about killing him/her though. I also hate that I can't heal a dominated character. WHY NOT? Is my god suddenly telling me I can't heal my friend who's temporarily enslaved under a flying insect? However, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I CAN and WILL heal the Troll that I've temporarily confused, which will turn back to it's previous favourite passtime of dwarf-kicking in an instant. Why... whyyyyyy *sob*

[Crucis]

poorly - more often than not

 

The biggest issue is most of the time the rest of my players going mental about killing him/her though. I also hate that I can't heal a dominated character. WHY NOT? Is my god suddenly telling me I can't heal my friend who's temporarily enslaved under a flying insect? However, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I CAN and WILL heal the Troll that I've temporarily confused, which will turn back to it's previous favourite passtime of dwarf-kicking in an instant. Why... whyyyyyy *sob*

 

It bugs me that the game's AI just isn't smart enough to know the differences between real enemies and team mates who have been charmed, etc.  Members of the party should be smart enough to NOT blindly attack charmed team mates, at least without a direct order from the player.

 

And it should be possible to heal charmed team mates as well, I suppose.

[basketofseals]

 

poorly - more often than not

 

The biggest issue is most of the time the rest of my players going mental about killing him/her though. I also hate that I can't heal a dominated character. WHY NOT? Is my god suddenly telling me I can't heal my friend who's temporarily enslaved under a flying insect? However, for no apparent reason whatsoever, I CAN and WILL heal the Troll that I've temporarily confused, which will turn back to it's previous favourite passtime of dwarf-kicking in an instant. Why... whyyyyyy *sob*

 

It bugs me that the game's AI just isn't smart enough to know the differences between real enemies and team mates who have been charmed, etc.  Members of the party should be smart enough to NOT blindly attack charmed team mates, at least without a direct order from the player.

 

And it should be possible to heal charmed team mates as well, I suppose.

 

What they SHOULD do is follow the "no auto attack" option we can toggle. From what I can tell, this either does absolutely nothing, or is very spotty as best.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

I typically deal with by just charming/dominating/mass confusion the enemy. Then its like 2 dozen characters running all over for 15 seconds.

 

Or just throw a prone trap at your members who are dominated or cipher paralyze spell.