Advice on defending caed Nua

[Nurgles Socks]

So I have my barracks now, I had won every fight, but some shades and forest dudes came and were giving me a hard time so I opted to auto it and lost a barbican (rebuilding)
I have my barracks now and have picked some people, firstly those with two shields then those with shields and prestige, picking those that sound like they'd be good in a fight.

So my questions are.. when something attacks, do I choose to fight it manually and I'll have the hired help in the fight making it much easier, or do I just let them handle it?

Also I heard that if I go beneath, I can actually clear out the monsters so they stop coming... well if this is the case, the last stuff that came were shades and those big tree dudes, what levels do I need to clear to get rid of them? I think most of my party is level 5 now, I have some level 4's too though.

What is a good party for fighting those shades and tree dudes? they started to mess up my healer and stuff last time, I should have had one guy tanking the tree dudes and another trying to contain the shades, I was just trying to smash the tree dudes fast. I got one down and the other half way, by this point the shades had created loads of adds and were harassing my casters that had no defence from anything. I backed out of the fight when I realised how bad it could have gotten and just rolled auto instead, lost the barbican as I said but I'm rebuilding, I now have loads of hired help so  when they come next time, I'll be ready, just need to have the optimal squad for it. Also I can work on clearing out the basement, knowing what level to go to would be handy too.


Thanks in advance for any help anyone can offer, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Nurgles Socks]

BUMP... I have asked this on multiple forums now and still no help.?? someones gotta know the answers to what I'm asking here!?

[Nurgles Socks]

a guide to the stronghold stuff would do, I'm a newcomer to he game and I don't care about the stronghold. now all im doing is worrying about the stronghold instead of playing the game, it's a hindrance. I just want to know how to make it so stuff will stop bloody attacking every 5 minutes, I'm getting REALLY sick of it!!!

Been trying to get an answer on this for 3 days now.

[the_dog_days]

About the dungeon: Clearing out the dungeon does nothing to stop attacks. The attacks come from outside the stronghold.

 

About willingness to maintain upkeep on stronghold: Even if you don't want anything to do with the stronghold, it will still take a bit of your money from time to time, but ignoring it completely is a valid option.

 

About the shades and lurkers: it sounds like their a little too high a level for you. I would hire some guards to take care of it for you, at least until you've leveled up some more.

 

IF you insist on upgrading the stronghold, to avoid more attacks (but not all of them) focus on building structures that add to your stronghold defense first.

Edited September 29, 2015 by the_dog_days

[MunoValente]

Whenever you can, manually defend the stronghold, even with high security and good hirelings, you will still lose structures if you auto defend.  

[iLurk]

 

 

Most of your attention is required when a group of enemies, usually bandits or faction members that don't like you, us coming to the fortress. Usually, you will be informed about their attack three days before they come. You can order your hirelings and companions that reside in the stronghold to prepare defense. This order doesn't cost much, but virtually always few buildings are destroyed during battle. Rebuilding them not only take few days, but cost thousands of coins as well. A better solution is to return to the stronghold and face enemy by your own. You lose some time on that, but save lots of gold. After every attack you must rebuild basic infrastructure, which costs few hundred gold. If player doesn't have enough money, a loan is taken automatically which then is paid by money generated from taxes. Player can pay the loan automatically as well. -- Stronghold - Pillars of Eternity Game Guide

 

From what I remember, if you decide to fight them manually, most if not all of your hirelings will die. they were really squishy. if auto some of them will die and you lose a building so I recommend to auto since money isn't that hard to come by.

[MunoValente]

 

From what I remember, if you decide to fight them manually, most if not all of your hirelings will die. they were really squishy. if auto some of them will die and you lose a building so I recommend to auto since money isn't that hard to come by.

 

Hirelings can immediately be rehired while structures take time to rebuild.   

[Nurgles Socks]

thanks. I'm gonna look at that guide too to get some more info.

[Nurgles Socks]

 

 

From what I remember, if you decide to fight them manually, most if not all of your hirelings will die. they were really squishy. if auto some of them will die and you lose a building so I recommend to auto since money isn't that hard to come by.

 

Hirelings can immediately be rehired while structures take time to rebuild.   

 

Yeah. I was thinking that not having to rebuild anything would be best.

 

Also I'm pretty sure that the monster attacks come from downstairs, for every set number of levels you clear, it stops one of the combinations of monsters that come from beneath. I wanted to confirm this as I have heard this is the case, I haven't seen the list though, it's probably 5 or 10 floors, like the first 5/10 clear the skellies, then the shades and forest lurkers (I had no problem with the skellies, I just was not prepared to deal with a combination of forest lurkers and shades.. it would probably be better to try and keep the lurkers bogged down in effects while killing the shades first next time, keep a warrior on the lurkers maybe  too so they can't attackl the rest of my party, have a couple of less squishies at the front and my rogue and casters at the back doing ranged. I was really poorly prepared for the fight really, I expected to drop the lurkers a lot faster than I did (1 went down but the other was surviving and allowing the shades to run riot on my priest, there must have been about 5 adds and 3 shades or something on 3 ranged guys, all my mele guys were trying to take out the last lurker, I decided to just quit the fight when my priest went down as it was late and was taking it out of me.

 

In hindsight, I already know ways I could have changed the fight around. knowing more about what exact tactics work on them, what kind of armour and weapons etc too is going to give me peace of mind though, then I know, when they come back for more I can smash them..

 

I need to check out the validity of clearing the lower levels in respect to stopping monster invasions. I know the other factions will still come from outside, the monsters definitely come up from the depths though, it's the first thing you learn about the place from the woman in the odra statue (or whatever that stuff is called from the beginning, the green stuff coming out the ground)

[Tigranes]

Raising your security (20+) and building the Curtain Walls should stop most of the invasions. And then if there are a few infrequent ones, don't worry about it. 

 

Scenario 1: You're in the middle of something, you know it'll be a big hassle to get back to fight off the invasion. You autoresolve, you lose a couple of buildings, you rebuild them. Takes you 20 seconds and some gold (which you'll be swimming in after midgame). 

 

Scenario 2: You agonise endlessly over the prospective of losing a buildling or something and you rush back through several load screens, you fight, maybe you ragequit because you're so frustrated by this point, etc. 

 

That's not to say it's your fault (I think the mechanics are poorly designed), but to say, once you stop agonising over it you'll learn it's not a big deal and waste a lot less time and stress. 

[abaris]

 

 

Scenario 1: You're in the middle of something, you know it'll be a big hassle to get back to fight off the invasion. You autoresolve, you lose a couple of buildings, you rebuild them. Takes you 20 seconds and some gold (which you'll be swimming in after midgame). 

 

 

Yeah, I'm not really fretting over it, but I wouldn't call it a well thought out feature either. Regardless how good your security or your henchmen are, you're losing stuff and people in a fight that would be rersolved within seconds manually.

Edited September 29, 2015 by abaris

[Zaret Voruta]

Scenario 2: You agonise endlessly over the prospective of losing a buildling or something and you rush back through several load screens, you fight, maybe you ragequit because you're so frustrated by this point, etc.

Why would you rush back when game offer you teleport to event?

[abaris]

Why would you rush back when game offer you teleport to event?

 

 

 

Because you can't teleport. You're either on the grounds or have to travel there.

[MunoValente]

It usually gives you like 3 days to get back to the stronghold, you're almost never in a single dungeon that long.  The only time I've not been able to get back without going out my way recently was when I was at Durgan's Battery.    

[Zaret Voruta]

 

Why would you rush back when game offer you teleport to event?

 

 

 

Because you can't teleport. You're either on the grounds or have to travel there.

 

I was sure that if you wait for the day attack this window will ask if you solve the fight manually if you accept it just teleports you to the stronghold.

[Nurgles Socks]

so it all just depends how much hassle it is to get back, whether you can be bothered to fight it off manually. Build up my defences and it'll happen less.

Still nothing on the link between clearing the lower levels and stopping monsters coming up from beneath. I have definitely seen this mentioned in a post before, I even seen a diagram that shows you which levels correspond to different monster parties that come from bellow (so far I think I've had skeletons and shades and forest dudes) It's the human parties that come from outside.

Most of my party are level 5 now I think, you guys think I should put my barbarian back and get the paladin out for some extra tanky goodness?

My current party is blonde warrior guy as main tank, then  I have a barbarian (or paladin) my character is a druid, then I have durrance, aloth and a ranged rogue of my own in the back (durrance stays in the middle of the party for buffs and stuff, the made and rogue are in the back usually, the fighter tanks what he can while the barb and spirit shifted cat lay into stuff. Druid can obviously help with spells too though.

My problem with the fight I mentioned in the OP was that I was focused on bringing down those big forest dudes, I allowed the shades to get to my squishies and they dropped my priest pretty quick, they'd managed to multiply loads.

I probably could have done with 2 tanks for this, one to hold the tree guys and 1 to try and hold the shades.

Can anyone point me in the direction of some solid tactics guides for dealing with specific enemies? This is my first IE game and I am wanting to soak up all I can, I will get my brain mashed by equations and stuff though as I suffer from dyscalculia which means I have a hard time with maths when first looking it at, it's like dyslexia but only really effects my maths solving abilities (in short it takes me a lot longer to comprehend stuff of a numerical nature) So what I really need is like tactics in words, no numbers explaining it. Sorry for being a massive hassle bumping this and stuff. just some stuff I'd really like to learn more about.

[Tigranes]

I didn't realise there's a teleporting function. Can people confirm? 

 

In any case, it's silly. The fights are trivial trash mobs, so auto or manual, travel or teleport, it's just a time filler. Instead of a real trade-off, it's a tradeoff between annoyances - especially because losing a couple buildings only matters when you're really short on money or you're really itching to, say, get started on bounties.

 

No idea about the dungeon levels / monsters, OP, but I wouldn't be surprised.

[Nurgles Socks]

I'm sure once I'm more familiar with the game, the fights in question will become a lot more trivial. I need to back track and make sure to do all quests in the areas before and do the first few levels of od nua for some extra gold and stuff.

[the_dog_days]

When your fighting a group of a higher level you need four tanks. I would either bench Durance or move him to the back row. (He has high resolve, but low constitution making him a poor tank.)

 

Spread your group out. Use your two tankiest companions to hold the lurkers, and your other two tanks close to your back row (shades spam Escape to hit the squishy guys, so you need to keep them nearby).

[Nurgles Socks]

thanks, I will try this out. need to train more tanks then. What level are those ones that attack caed nua, by the way?

[Nurgles Socks]

four tanks though? the only class that is really an effective tank is a fighter though from what I've seen as they constantly heal themselves and naturally can engage more. you saying get a few fighters? I could maybe pull in one more fighter and have two fully dedicated tanks.

What's your idea of a ghost busting team, especially when they have them big tanky forest lurkers in the mix too. I seriously think I just needed two full on tanks and I would have been good.

[the_dog_days]

A good general rule is to always have three melee units in a party, even on easy.

 

Since Defender got nerfed, there isn't an effective PURE tank build anymore. Usually what you have are hybrids (tank/DPS, tank/CC, or tank/support). However, most classes can be made tanky (fighters, paladins, chanters, priests, druids, monks, and barbarians--the only classes that can't reliably tank are mages, rogues, cyphers, and rangers). You need a crowd control tank with your back row to lock down the shades because they will b-line for companions with low deflection.

[Tigranes]

You don't need four 'tanks'. What do you people define as 'tank', anyway? 18 CON? I probably don't understand the terminology properly, but I don't know why people want to fit their characters into those neat boxes all the time, instead of adjusting as they go. The game can be played without zero tanks, though that's obviously trickier. 

 

Better way to put it might be that you'd want each character to have some way of dealing with hairy situations. You can't just say "only one character ever needs to worry about taking damage, and this guy and this guy will just sit back with 3 HP and cast their spells from home". Your monk and rogue need not be 'tanky' - maybe the rogue has great deflection & reflex which allows it to risk disengagement hits (since it has a chance to dodge) and move away, maybe with the help of boots of speed. Maybe the monk relies on turning wheel, etc. to actually take advantage of wounds. Maybe your ranger invests in the Stuck ability, so that it can stop enemies moving towards it in its tracks. Maybe Arcane Veil for your wizard. Or maybe your wizard really is a complete glass cannon, but your other party members will stock up on ways to help him/her out - maybe the Monk gets Flagellant's Path or whatever the ability was that allows him to dash across the map and knock out the guy attacking the wizard, maybe the Priest uses repulsing seal to knock prone everybody surrounding the wizard.

 

Once you start finding ways to handle the battlefield, there are many different ways to escape sticky situations without necessarily having two, three, four burly men blocking the doorway. (And maybe that's what other people meant by 'four tanks'? If so, apologies for being an idiot.)

[Ymarsakar]

"My problem with the fight I mentioned in the OP was that I was focused on bringing down those big forest dudes, I allowed the shades to get to my squishies and they dropped my priest pretty quick, they'd managed to multiply loads."

 

Have Durance the priest cast repulsing seal when your front line is broken. The accuracy on that seal is very high and will buy you several seconds of prone crowd control.

 

Paladin + Monk generally holds the front very well and can do a significant chunk of dps.

 

Aloth also has emergency CC like slicken and confusion, which you can pop to buy some time if your party needs it.

 

"I probably don't understand the terminology properly, but I don't know why people want to fit their characters into those neat boxes all the time, instead of adjusting as they go. "

 

A tank is something with a lot of heavy armor plate on that stops incoming hits and damage, shielding the infantry behind it, and a big main gun on it to punch back twice as hard.

 

That would probably be a paladin or heavy full plate user with a big weapon on hand. The monk would be a hover tank, like an attack helicopter with the toughness of a hover tank.

 

Some tank and tank/dps builds would be monk with heavy plate or iron wheel plus lighter armor. The fighter's endurance regen can be substituted by Shod in Faith, the boots you get from the Crucible knights sub quest npc store. Paladin with conviction and full plate is also good for the tanking and melee roles, healing role too.

 

Having 3 or 4 melee (the pet counts) does make it easier to block the enemy from going around you, but you can adapt to that situation using crowd control spells if you time it right. 

 

The lurkers and other big hp enemies can be taken down easily with party focus fire. Debuff their deflection, flank them, and/or use fetid caress from wizards or paralysis from ciphers, on them and they will take a lot of damage from the entire party.

 

Also as for level of enemies, look in the creature glossary. If you kill enough of them, they will tell your their stats and weaknesses.

 

The team I like to use has a paladin, 1-2 ciphers, a monk, a ranger, a wizard, and a chanter.

 

The paladin and chanter can hold the main line, and the monk can either penetrate enemy's backlines or defend our own backline, the ranger and the wizard, from enemies like spirits.

 

A nice trick with durance if you are fighting spirits and lurkers, is to bunch everything together, have the tanks aggro the lurkers and face them away in case they had any aoe cone attacks. Then position the priest close enough so that consecrated ground heals everyone. You will have far less trouble from those spirits then. By keeping your people together, it stops enemies from flanking you and focus firing people down. They can only reach the priest with ranged fire, if the priest is surrounded by his fellows.

Edited October 1, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[the_dog_days]

Better way to put it might be that you'd want each character to have some way of dealing with hairy situations. You can't just say "only one character ever needs to worry about taking damage, and this guy and this guy will just sit back with 3 HP and cast their spells from home". Your monk and rogue need not be 'tanky' - maybe the rogue has great deflection & reflex which allows it to risk disengagement hits (since it has a chance to dodge) and move away, maybe with the help of boots of speed. Maybe the monk relies on turning wheel, etc. to actually take advantage of wounds. Maybe your ranger invests in the Stuck ability, so that it can stop enemies moving towards it in its tracks. Maybe Arcane Veil for your wizard. Or maybe your wizard really is a complete glass cannon, but your other party members will stock up on ways to help him/her out - maybe the Monk gets Flagellant's Path or whatever the ability was that allows him to dash across the map and knock out the guy attacking the wizard, maybe the Priest uses repulsing seal to knock prone everybody surrounding the wizard.

 

Once you start finding ways to handle the battlefield, there are many different ways to escape sticky situations without necessarily having two, three, four burly men blocking the doorway. (And maybe that's what other people meant by 'four tanks'? If so, apologies for being an idiot.)

Every party member does need a means of handling pressure, but a tanky character can deal with a good portion of that pressure head on through good fortitude, deflection, and damage reduction provided by attributes allocation, equipment, talents, and abilities. The difference between a tanky ability and, say, escape for rogues is escape is entirely character specific and does nothing to actively help the rest of the party (aside from the character living to fight another day).