The Pale Raiders. No healing, no magic group. Highlight videos.

[chalsengi]

Warning: Possible content (combat and locations) spoilers for people who haven't explored all the game yet.

 

 

 

The Pale Raiders is my group of Pale Elves led by a Bleak Walker Paladin (with the not-very-imaginative nickname of Pale). They do not use healing magic, or magic at all really. No potions and no scrolls either. Their focus is martial abilities. They do use enchanted gear however, so long as its not OP (I dont want combat that is supposed to be challenging to become trivial).

 

The videos and discussion I share here may help others interested in trying similar group conditions.

 

Difficulty: Path of the Damned.

 

Warning: RPish backstory spiel: Pale came to the Dyrwood not because of Raedric's offer to settlers, but (with his Pale Elf associates) to begin guerilla warfare against Raedric and/or to claim Caed Nua. Raedric's insanity and tyranny has made him and his followers targets for just plunder. And a stronghold built upon an underground labyrinth of untold wonders seemed like an opportunity worth looking into. Pale came alone (with the caravan) so as to not arouse suspicion. Once in Gilded Vale he was able to form up with the others, who had also trickled in. Although they're not all Paladins they all fall under the banner of Bleak Walker by virtue of their leader and their allegiances. Please note that Bleak Walker does not mean a-hole. Bleak Walker can be a response to a-hole bullies, to put them in their place, and an attitude of resistance to oppression and abuse that doesnt take kindly to being threatened. Pale actually wants to make Dyrwood a nice, secure and prosperous place again. Anyway enough of this nonsense, bring on the strats and stats!

 

Early game approach: In order to recruit all 5 custom companions asap, I had to sell mostly everything to Heodan. Recruiting 5 level 1s costs 1250 total. I did well from selling to Heodan, and so upon arrival to the Black Hound I just had to sell some armor and items to make up the remainder. I kept the Disappointer, thinking I might enchant it later. With the crew gathered, I went through all the zones accessible before Caed Nua appears on the map, fighting and looting including Raedric's Hold apart from Raedric himself. I avoided doing quests, because I like the challenge of doing difficult encounters with a low group level, and also because I want to save potential stronghold turns by doing quests only after my stronghold is well established. Raiding Raedric's hold is quite lucrative, and has brought in around 20,000 coppers most of which I'll spend on stronghold buildings.

 

Group characters:

 

Pale. Paladin. Bleak Walker. Rauatai, Laborer.

Mig 15 Con 20 Dex 19 Per 5 Int 3 Resolve 19

Group role: Tank. Mechanic. And um... Cook. Player character.

 

Smoke. Monk. Deadfire Archipelago. Raider.

Mig 10 Con 19 Dex 19 Per 10 Int 3 Resolve 18

Group role: Offtank, backup tank, flanker, second row reach damage (quarterstaff), special purpose tank. Zealous Endurance.

 

Five. Barbarian. Deadfire Archipelago. Raider.

Mig 10 Con 9 Dex 20 Per 19 Int 3 Resolve 17

Group role: Warbowman, small AoE, flanker.

 

Sweetie. Rogue. Deadfire Archipelago. Raider. Female Voice: Benevolent (:

Mig 3 Con 15 Dex 20 Per 19 Int 3 Resolve 18

Group role: Second row reach damage (pike), ranged (pistol, blunderbuss), flanker.

 

Bleak. Paladin. Deadfire Archipelago. Raider.

Mig 10 Con 10 Dex 20 Per 18 Int 3 Resolve 17

Group role: Second row reach damage (pike), arquebus, damage, support. Zealous Focus.

Bleak (a not-very-imaginative operation's name) was Pale's contact in the Deadfire. When Pale heard of what was happening in Dyrwood, he contacted other Bleak Walkers for counsel. "Bleak" was one of them, and she was willing to commit to the cause and bring some friends.

 

Furly. Pale Elf. Ranger. Rauatai, Hunter. Bear companion.

Mig 10 Con 10 Dex 19 Per 19 Int 3 Resolve 17

Group role: Ranged damage. Pet for offtank and flanking.

Although mostly a Pale Elf (+10 burn and freeze DR for the win) Furly's family history of interbreeding with Wood Elves (if thats even possible. Yes Im making up an RP reason to hide the fact that I didnt like the remaining portrait choices).

 

For those in favour of RP over minmaxing, and thus dissatisfied with my choice of 3 Intellect for each character, I would like to defend my choice. Given none of them are magic users, their low "Intellect" reflects this. If Intellect here represents aptitude with magical abilities, they have intrinsically little, and thus choose a path they are more suited to. Think of minimum intellect as the baseline for your average person who is not naturally endowed with the ability to emit bolts of flame from their fingertips, or even to empower regular abilities with a magical boost.

 

Video Highlights:

 

Note: because there is a lot of pausing I recommend playing the videos in 2x speed. You can change the video play speed at the bottom right hand corner of the video frame.

 

Location: Raedric's Hold Ground Floor

Group level 2, PC level 3.

Features a couple of the more surprisingly challenging combat encounters the Pale Raiders had on the ground floor of Raedric's Hold. In particular a spellwright who went nuts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6V0ZWICBkA

 

Location: Caed Nua Great Hall. Clearing phantoms and shades.

Group level 3, PC level 3.

By using the corner pocket by the stairs I was able to quite well in this encounter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiVZMEZKx4

 

Location: Endless Paths Level 2.

Group level 3, PC level 4.

Split party strategy, one trio doorway tanking, the other trio assaulting archers and wurms. I tried tanking the doorway with ranged and reach weapons behind, but there were too many enemy archers and wurms so they had to be dealt with somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUNGNHmqYs0

 

Location: Endless Paths Level 2.

Group level 3, PC level 4.

I wanted to take on the entire blood room in a corner spot I found. However, the whole room doesnt follow. The splitting was unintentional... I wanted to be swarmed holding that spot. So it wasnt as epic a battle as I was hoping for. But it does provide a winning strategy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiVZMEZKx4

 

Location: Endless Paths Level 3

Group level 3, PC level 4.

My first time on this level of the Paths and my first ogre druid kill. Them brutes are nasty. Kept most of my group at a distance plinking away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjYJpZlbfkM

 

Location: Endless Paths Level 5

Group level 4.

This is probably my favourite fight so far. No cheese, no splitting, no bear pulling.

So I made it to Level 5 of the Paths and when I saw Xaurips again I decided I should try and adapt. So I decked out my second row with plate armor, shields, and enchanted their one handers with freeze damage. I also made sure they all had ranged weapons. The fight was really difficult because I had to take down the High Priests quickly because their Burning Mark spell was really devastating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PvZlBD5l-0

 

Video technicals:

 

I record using Bandicam with the NVENC encoder. I have an Nvidia gfx card. Record settings are 1280x720p, Quality 90, keyframes 300, 192kbps audio bitrate. These settings produce video files that are decent quality and small enough in size to upload to Youtube without killing my data limit. It only works well for short videos, as long videos will still be very large and require further encoding for compression.

 

To join multiple videos together I use Avidemux. Video output, Copy. Audio output, Copy. AVI Muxer, Auto.

Edited August 18, 2015 by Tigranes
As requested by OP

[Nobear]

It wouldn't be my style, but it's pretty cool. Splitting up the party like that is one way to deal with pathing issues of a mostly melee party .

[chalsengi]

It wouldn't be my style, but it's pretty cool. Splitting up the party like that is one way to deal with pathing issues of a mostly melee party .

 

What's your style? You mean you would use different characters, or you would approach the fight differently?

 

If you notice anywhere I could improve I'd appreciate it

[Nobear]

What's your style? You mean you would use different characters, or you would approach the fight differently?

 

If you notice anywhere I could improve I'd appreciate it

 

 

I just mean that I wouldn't restrict myself as much as you. I've read your other thread about self-imposed rulesets. My only self-imposed restriction is I won't exploit meta-information, like locations for "random" items, that my characters would have no way of knowing about.

 

The only thing I might have done differently (given your ruleset) is focus-fire in certain situations where you split up your DPS a lot, for example with that xaurip and whelp who were both very low. However, maybe they were both so low you were certain they'd each die in one hit?

 

So, given your self-imposed ruleset which is not my style, I'll say it was well-played and I enjoyed watching it.

[chalsengi]

The only thing I might have done differently (given your ruleset) is focus-fire in certain situations where you split up your DPS a lot, for example with that xaurip and whelp who were both very low. However, maybe they were both so low you were certain they'd each die in one hit?

 

I think you're right about that. I probably should treat the Barbarian as single target, with the added bonus of splash damage. Dropping single targets fast seems to be generally more important than many targets slowly. One less enemy means one less source of damage.

[chalsengi]

Okay I figured some people (not that anyone asked for it) would appreciate a strategy explanation video. So I made one in Endless Paths Level 4.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMQAy7E6iz4

 

In the video I explain a little about my strategy for taking on difficult encounters with a low level group and no healing or magic. Over the course of the playthrough I've decided to make my monk into a more dedicated tank, and its working quite well.

I used the bridge in Endless Paths Level 4 as it is nice and open to view, to clearly show formation and two tank blocking with second row and ranged support.

The first half of the video did not record properly. In that, I showed my group stats and explained their roles. Also, a Stone Beetle burrowed up behind the group and attacked the ranger. The second row and his pet all swarmed that beetle and killed it pretty quickly.

Most of the damage done to the group was from the Adra Beetle's Shocking Blast, which it fired twice in the battle (only the second blast was recorded). The entire group has relatively high reflex, so avoided taking too much damage.

 

At level 4 all of my second rowers took Vulnerable Attack (-20% attack speed, -5 Melee DR). It was a hard decision to make, but since they all have low might and may switch to one handed weapons sometimes I figured it would be better than Two Handed Style or Savage Attack.

[Raven Darkholme]

Nice ogre kill.

[chalsengi]

Nice ogre kill.

 

Thanks

 

Positioning was crucial. I knew from MMORPGs thats its typically a good idea to face bosses towards walls. I cheesed avoiding the plague of insects (which I had only encountered with the dweller before, but had heard people complaining about ogre druids having that ability also) by sending in my bear first, but my monk has +run speed so probably couldve dodged it instead of the bear. I noticed most of the damage I did to ogre druids was through grazes, so it was death by a thousand cuts.

[chalsengi]

Just updated the OP with another video of possibly my favourite combat encounter so far. It took place at the entrance of Level 5 of the Endless Paths. I like it a lot because I didnt cheese it at all, its just pure combat and 3 of my group was knocked out.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PvZlBD5l-0

[chalsengi]

The Dweller

Location: Black Meadow

Group level 4, PC level 5.

Just took down the Dweller. Cheesed it by splitting him off from the group. Dont think it would be possible otherwise at such low level (unless I wasnt using a no healing, no magic playstyle). The actual fight with the Dweller begins at 7:20, before that it was just various stages of splitting off the other enemies, dealing with bandits, etc. Eventually I led him into a clearing and did quite well except my main tank (PC Paladin) died.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0VNDR8tDZs

 

 

 

Please note the "That's Alotta Guls" video listed in the OP has been taken down because it was too long and contained a failed attempt. It was not worth watching. Unfortunately I cannot edit any longer the OP to remove the video link.

 

Also I respecced the stats of the rogue Sweetie, hence her higher endurance. All I did was lower her Perception and increased her Constitution.

Edited August 17, 2015 by chalsengi

[chalsengi]

Managed a couple more bounties and Raedric yesterday. I came prepared to each fight and although I had some knockouts it wasnt terribly difficult to succeed. Raedric was disappointingly easy. Sly Cyrdel I cheesed with a terrain funnel. Raedric I used a two tank door block. Warchief Iklak I used the stream crossing and gap between the trees leading to the clearing area where he is located.

 

I feel like POTD is becoming trivial when Im still only mid-level :/ Gear wise I have a unique hunting bow, fine grade of weapons and armor, slayer and elemental damage enchants. So nothing terribly OP as far as gear is concerned. The only character specced for range is the Ranger, the rest lean towards a melee focus apart from their particular Weapon Focus' ranged weapon accuracy increase.

 

Sly Cyrdel

Group level 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t15Ll71qJk

 

Warchief Iklak

Group level 5.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7arLrGmgFo

 

Raedric

Group level 5, PC level 6.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIN2LQAjygs

 

I was thinking that for most of these fights that if the enemies had a ranged weapon set to switch to then it would be much much harder. Unless Obsidian can make AI that counters the terrain funneling or door blocking its only a matter of player choice as to how to approach such a situation. Obviously its not realistic the way that it is (not that it should be). One thing the AI dont do is flank by finding alternate routes. They instead seem to want to find the shortest path to their target, rather than the smartest one. For the Sly Cyrdel fight and Raedric, simply having enemies flanking my group from the side or rear would destroy my strategy rather quickly. Also its silly that drakes cant just fly over terrain, or that enemies cannot pass under them.

Edited August 18, 2015 by chalsengi

[Raven Darkholme]

Only problem with your strategy is, you've got to do the easy defiance bay quests at some point and will get less use out of the xp, than if you did them before the bounties and Od Nua, since leveling up becomes slower with additional levels.

Other than that, good on showing how early you can do these with your setup.