Ok, les talk about critters with paralyze on attack

[KDubya]

I started at level 9 PotD and took the upgrade difficulty option, so was between 9 and 11 for the fish people fights. They were tough but not game breakers or anything.

 

Team was Monk, Zahua, Pellagrina and Kana all in heavy armor, with Sagani and Hiravois (replaced with Devil). The low armored range guys got dropped quickly but the heavy armored guys could carry the day. The Paladin aura also helped with converting hits to grazes. Paladins and Monks both have abilities that help with defenses so if I gat afflicted it was usually just a graze and the high endurance and high DR was enough to protect even when paralyzed.

 

A less squishy party will do a lot better with these guys. If you can avoid crits and convert some hits to grazes then the grazes don't last that long. With really high DR getting hit while paralyzed can still be doing only minimum damage, the enemies fast and weak attacks help make big DR more important.

[drunetovich]

Paralyze can be dealt with, but stuns have no counter-spell, and ghosts spam aoe stuns while instantly teleporting in the middle of party - that is a major party wipe source for me.

[KDubya]

Paralyze can be dealt with, but stuns have no counter-spell, and ghosts spam aoe stuns while instantly teleporting in the middle of party - that is a major party wipe source for me.

They still have to hit you with the stun effect. This is where high defenses can stop the crits and push the hits into grazes. Zealous Endurance helps here as well. Then you just need to have enough endurance and DR to survive the beating while stunned from the graze.

 

Getting critted with a stun is what gets you killed, especially with low DR. The stun debuffs your deflection a bunch so you will get hit and crit'd more as well.

[sapientNode]

On PoTD unless you are fairly high level the Lagufaeth are extremely harsh in some spots.

The 5 man teams are ok but when you get a pack of like 8 and 5 of them are using stun guns it can be game over very fast depending on who they target.

 

I like to pull them but some of those Lagufaeth will simply not pull away so I had to trial and error a pack until I got the roamer who yanked a 7 man team on me and then I ran.  Then I could go back and rush the sidewinders.

 

I like and hate the Lagufaeth for their extremely challenging encounters.

Spirits early game and now Lagufaeth are some of the most difficult enemies I have fought.

 

Which again I like and dislike.  The prayer strategy can work as can pulling with any of your characters who have move speed and high defense against that type of attack.

 

If this style of design was throughout the game I would likely say this is bs but because there are so few encounters that are truly challenging it was refreshing to have my first run in with Lagufaeth who went berzerk mode and ate my party alive since I had 0 idea what i was facing.  I just assumed ok there some kind of difficult enemies to fight.  I sued my traditional strategy and one by one stunned and blasted to bits.

 

So I switched to a break up strategy where 2 people were one each.  They have so pathetically low hp and if you go straight toe to toe with one at a time they will focus fire certain characters which usually means death to whoever they are focusing on.  My rogue and Monk are the best characters for those enemies.  I never tried barbarian which could potentially be good. 

Edited October 4, 2015 by sapientNode

[LaSpeakeasi]

Honestly? I enjoy the challenge. The rest of the game gets a bit too easy TBH. So it's good to switch it up a bit.

 

I like how much combat resolves around inflicting status. It gives PoE combat a tactical depth. But I do wish there are less of them. Frighted/confused; terrified/frighted; confused/charmed; paralyzed/petrified, etc... they don't do enough different things to be distinguishable from one another. Especially when you play a rogue, it gets really confusing what enables sneak attacks and what doesn't.

 

I think it's a problem for most parties though, because Durance probably doesn't cast 'Prayer Against XXX' spells fast enough. And status ailments can't be removed once applied. Those Lageufeths are FAST.