Talent Choice: Mental Fortress vs Body Control vs Bull's Will

[Omnicron]

Hey, just wondering what people think is a better use of a telent in this game. My party is going to level 10 and I have 3-4 chars for whom I do not have a class talent which interests me. I went down to level 13 of Endless Paths on Level 9 party before I got stuck (Too many Cean Gwla casting Silent scream, I think my party got killed in 2 turns :/ ) Now I had some issues with domination earlier, but I survived ok, just cast my own dominate spells. I still find it annoying, so tempted for Mental Fortress. But if I think about the reasons I am stuck then Body control seems better since my whole party gets stunned, and it will also help for petrify later (not sure body control will help too much with level 10, the raw damage might be the problem too). However, Wont a better will save help me with both of these problems? Wondering what people with more experience think. 

Edited April 28, 2015 by Omnicron

[Voltron]

We could use more info, like your main class, difficuty you play on and party composition. And levels of your characters of course.

 

If you have in mind Endless Paths past 10 level: both talents are very useful but won't give you absolute defense. You need more than that. And Endless Paths has CC that are covered by both talents.

 

I don't know if you are a monk, but here is my monk build that was specificly built around those two talents and anti CC skills/gear: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/78627-endless-paths-1-15-potd-solo-monk-achieved-story-also-ofc-build-and-details-inside/

 

But generally if you are in party CC should not be a problem. Clerics and other classes have some ant-CC abilities and their own CC to counter enemies with it.

 

As I mentioned- we need more details to help you properly .
 

Edited April 28, 2015 by Voltron

[Omnicron]

Thanks

 

This is my 1st playthrough on Hard 

 

Level 10 Party now (need to choose talents for level 10)

 

Main: Rogue - Orlan, Vicious Fighting, Tall Grass Abuser (almost 50% hit to crit conversion)

Eder: Tank (Sword and Shield style)

Pallengina: 2nd Tanky (Also Sword and shield)

Grieving Mother (Stuns and dominate abilities prioritized + mind lance. Not sure what I want for level 10, got ring leader and detonate already)

Durance (nothing special here, thinking of taking the +10 accuracy for arquebus and sword, or a definsive talent)

Aloth (focus on CC spells, and then some crowd damage, a few personal defensive buffs)

 

I usually try and position so that Eder and Pallengina take the aggro in a narrow spot. Pull with a bow, or use Rouge + escape to pull them and jump behind eder. Something like that.

 

Level 13 of Endless Paths is pretty hard with all the Stuns. just got mobbed. So just focusing on the main quest fr a change unltill I am stronger But wondering where to focus my talents. 

[b0rsuk]

What's the difference between Bull's Will and Mental Fortress ? They seem extremely similar. Last time I checked Mental Fortress gave exactly 10, as much as Bull's Will.

 

Maybe Mental Fortress was just added for the sake of consistency, to have a talent corresponding to Unstoppable and the third one. I believe Unstoppable (or whatever it's called) gives +10 vs prone and other stuff, but there are attacks which cause prone but don't target fortitude. Cipher ? Mind Wave ?

[gkathellar]

I wouldn't take any of them, unless you're trying to hit very specific build goals or you really have no other talents worth taking.

[Omnicron]

I wouldn't take any of them, unless you're trying to hit very specific build goals or you really have no other talents worth taking.

 OK so I went looking really hard at what talents I can take and I have picked these:

 

Eder: Weapon Mastery: Ruffian (+2 damage on exceptional Sabre)

 

Pallengina: Deep Faith (+2 Deflection +5 all saves)

 

Rogue: Savage Attack (stacks nicely with reckless assault)

 

Durance: Inspired Flame (I am keeping him at range, bonus accuracy would help I guess, just have to swap him from bow to gun and gives a nice extra ability. Open to alternatives. He has inspiring flame and painful interdiction already, the other mods for his abilities look bad)

 

Grieving Mother: Sword and Shield Style (swapping between dagger and shield and bow with her. Alternative is to boost her accuracy with a weapon focus, or take one of the defensive talents mentioned above or +5 deflection, unless psychic backlash is better than I think)

 

Aloth: Arcane Veil (other choices would be a defensive talent I guess, or some kind of weapon focus, or a bonus spell for level 1-4. Gave him Envenomed strike a while back. Using it with Blunderbuss and he also has a rod. Confused now if envenomed strike is per projectile or not...) 

Edited April 29, 2015 by Omnicron

[Concordance]

In my experience, it is not possible to immunize against Paralysis, Petrify, Charm or Dominate, so it's not really worth defending against to begin with. Even with 100+ fortitude and will and +50 defense from priest buffs, my main tank still got petrified/dominated... on Hard.

 

Dominate/Petrify doesn't seem to miss often, if ever, and it whether crits or grazes doesn't really make much of a difference - you either have ways of dealing with it, or you die. The best way to deal with Dominate is by disabling your Dominated party member, Petrify can be avoided by confusing/disabling/focus firing Crystal Eater Spiderlings and Adragans, and banshee Paralyze can be avoided by using chokepoints and either keeping away squishies (so only tanks are paralyzed) or wearing some armor on your squishies and clustering everyone together (so everyone is paralyzed but banshees can't teleport to the squishies)

Edited April 29, 2015 by Concordance

[cavemandiary]

Simply pick another talent. It is not worth a point. The most annoying CC in the game in charm, which seems to be extremely hard to protect yourself against, and petrify, which is rare. Sometimes (and by sometimes i mean often) the best defence is either damage migitation or just more offensive power.

[Voltron]

In my experience, it is not possible to immunize against Paralysis, Petrify, Charm or Dominate, so it's not really worth defending against to begin with. Even with 100+ fortitude and will and +50 defense from priest buffs, my main tank still got petrified/dominated... on Hard.

 

Dominate/Petrify doesn't seem to miss often, if ever, and it whether crits or grazes doesn't really make much of a difference - you either have ways of dealing with it, or you die. The best way to deal with Dominate is by disabling your Dominated party member, Petrify can be avoided by confusing/disabling/focus firing Crystal Eater Spiderlings and Adragans, and banshee Paralyze can be avoided by using chokepoints and either keeping away squishies (so only tanks are paralyzed) or wearing some armor on your squishies and clustering everyone together (so everyone is paralyzed but banshees can't teleport to the squishies)

Disagree, if build properly you can defend against them. Immunize- no, but that would be broken. My anti-CC monk build was at least haf less CCed and all CC last super short so if you build your char properly you can avoid perma- CC and let him kill all mobs in Endless Paths as face-melee on PotD. CC total immune? Immposible. On solo as melee char however it is great tacitc

 

If I were you OP I would create monk or paladin character tank just for anti CC tank and then took both those talents, all paladin abilities that increase defensives and two talents that pssively increase Will and Fortitude. He should be able to defend himself in Endless Paths 80% of time and even if CC hit him- duration will be short and he can tank and heal himself quite well. And take Moon godlike for his race for more healing.

 

At the beginning of fight, throw your monk/paladin in front and let him eat CC. As a monk you can cut durations of it by half, as a Paladin you can tank or shrug most of it.

 

However OP- you are in party. so you have tons more tools then I had in solo Endless Paths. Keep your priest on back and let him use anti CC spells on your party and boost deflection or DR for your main tank. Let your wizard open EVERY fight against hard mobs with- Chill Fog, Slicken, Phantom/other AOE CC and go in there and use fan of flames on Shades and ghosts in general. Don't underestimate 1 lvl spell- they are awesome.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

Those talents would have to be +30 to be useful. +15 does nothing. Don't bother with them I would say in 80% of all situations.

[azmodael]

+15 is an extra 15% chance to be missed and an extra 15% chance to get grazed (half duration) and additional -15% chance to NOT get hit for the full duration. Don't dismiss them so fast.

[Jimmysdabestcop]

I would say most parties it isn't needed. Cipher can just mass confuse the enemy anyway. I wonder if the cipher can confuse an already confused ally. Never tried it. i doubt it will work but curious now.

[Kaylon]

In my experience, it is not possible to immunize against Paralysis, Petrify, Charm or Dominate, so it's not really worth defending against to begin with. Even with 100+ fortitude and will and +50 defense from priest buffs, my main tank still got petrified/dominated... on Hard.

 

 

In theory it's possible to become immune to petrify with a paladin if talents like Body Control, Mental Fortress, Unstoppable, Righteous Soul, Berath's Boone, etc... would work properly. However in my game they are desactivated once you reload the game. Maybe other people can verify if it's only my problem or another bug.

[cctobias]

+15 is an extra 15% chance to be missed and an extra 15% chance to get grazed (half duration) and additional -15% chance to NOT get hit for the full duration. Don't dismiss them so fast.

 

 

I am sure this will sound backwards to most people, but it is correct.  

 

For characters with low defenses +15 is going to be fairly crappy compared to other things.

 

For characters with high defense +15 is incredibly strong and extremely good compared to other things.

 

 

The curve for the effectiveness of defenses is not linear.  1% at the high end does not equal the same amount of absolute mitigation as 1% on the low end.  When you are at 98% and you increase to 99% you have doubled your absolute mitigation.  When you move from 0% to 1% you have increased it by ... 1%.  So we have 100 fold difference in the effectiveness of "1%" from one extreme to the other.

 

Due to the nature of things you can get truly wildly varying statements about such things that are actually both true in context. 

Edited May 1, 2015 by cctobias