New Player - Synergy of Different Classes

[Zaldos]

Hi Guys

 

I'm just starting out the game on normal and I've enjoyed reading through these forums which have been very helpful.  I wanted to post here to ask about players experiences with the party I've created on how the different classes blend together.

 

I've made a party of:

 

Edger:

Main tank, I'll be picking all defensive skills/abilties.  I've positoned him out in front of the rest of the team memebers in the custom formation.

As I understand it, mobs will go to the nearest person.

 

Kana:

I will have a sword/sheild as an off tank, party buffer.  From a classical view of Fantasy, I liked the idea of a bard, singing/summoning.

 

Durance:

I was thinking of putting him in medium armour with a 1 hander/sheild or maybe a bow, healing/buffing/de-buffing (still learing the spells).

 

Aloth:

The obvious dps and spells to help CC mobs.

 

Mele rogue: This is the character I have created, daggers or stileto's. 

 

The last member who I have not reached would be the paladin pallegina, I would equip her with a two hander to stand behind Edger, Kana would then drop back slightly and go more auto attack ranged.

 

My main idea so far is, Edger goes into the mobs, Kana not to far behind to help block any mobs possibly trying to reach the casters.  As the tanks settle with the mobs, I move the rogue around to the back for back attacks.  I then use my priest to buff the party with his aura ability and other spells to boost endurance/accuracy.  Aloth is last, I am finding that to avoid the friendly fire aspect of the aoe, I spend the last part of a fight trying to get him into the right position to dps mobs with fire spells but not damage my team. 

 

Do you guys this is a viable party mix and strategy to compelte the game with?.  All advice is welcome.

 

 

[Ymarsakar]

It looks fine. You've already started thinking about many of the mechanical issues in combat, the tactical positioning. If you add different classes, you'll be able to adapt.

 

The Paladin Monk Ranger 1-2 Cipher Chanter Wizard party composition is what I use the most. Chanter's phantom summons will be very useful as semi permanent cc.

 

Aloth gets the most dps from the staff spells, the lance spells, and the blight spell. Slicken is also a pretty good aoe cc spell for emergencies, or buying time.

[jsaving]

I'm glad to see the OP thinking things through in advance as well, but I would offer some comments.

 

Eder works well as a main tank, but recent AI improvements mean mobs will often bypass your tank and run straight to your casters.  Because of this, a purely defensive build for Eder is less useful to the party than it used to be.  I'd at the very least sprinkle some offensive talents into your build.  If you consider the extra knockdown talent, you might consider replacing it with the cipher multiclass talent -- it attacks will and is much more likely to land against the tough melee foes with whom you'll typically be toe-to-toe.

 

Kana is a sound choice for off-tank buffer, if you can take the "boredom factor" of constantly watching for the phase count to hit 3 and then throwing out the same invocation (phantom summons) no matter how many levels he eventually gains.  Again, no issue with Kana's power or how you plan to use him, only whether you personally as a player can tolerate the way chanter mechanics work. 

 

Durance works well in armor, but priests are much weaker melee combatants in PoE than they have traditionally been in D&D.  Moreover, the priest functions best when he buffs the party as rapidly as possible while occasionally throwing out crowd-control spells like repulsing seal.  Each round you are swinging a sword is a round where you could have done something more useful for the party, making it a bad idea to spec Durance for melee combat. 

 

Aloth's slicken spell works great at low levels and can be combined with chill fog for a formidable one-two punch.  At later levels, Kalakoth's minor blights gives you a means to deliver formidable missile damage over a prolonged duration and is a much better choice for 3rd level cast than the fireball you might have grown accustomed to using in Baldur's Gate or D&D.  Just note that the blights are considered to be cast from a wand, so you'll want to take the blast feat and possibly interrupting blows or dangerous implement to maximize their damage.

 

For the PC, a melee rogue is a solid choice.  You'll presumably be maxing the mechanics skill for traps/locks, which is fine given the very small number of in-game instances where your skills would help you get better dialogue options.  (Alternatively, you could use Aloth for locks/traps -- he wouldn't be as good at it as your rogue but you would then be free to raise your lore skill for dialogue/scroll purposes.)

[bonarbill]

 

Durance works well in armor, but priests are much weaker melee combatants in PoE than they have traditionally been in D&D.  Moreover, the priest functions best when he buffs the party as rapidly as possible while occasionally throwing out crowd-control spells like repulsing seal.  Each round you are swinging a sword is a round where you could have done something more useful for the party, making it a bad idea to spec Durance for melee combat. 

 

I take it you never used a priest of Skaen?  They are definitely one of the most deadliest melee fighters in the game if you spec them correctly.

[LaSpeakeasi]

A rogue is not only a solid choice, it's an endgame necessity as they are the only class with enough mechanic skills to handle all the locks and traps in WM.

 

A rogue is also highly reliant of CC support. So choose your Aloth grimoire carefully for status-effecting spells. Aloth himself is a poor DPS due to mediocre might. So have him provide a foil for your rogue is a solid idea.

 

Kana, and chanters in general, is sadly not very good at lower levels of the game (the only "weak" class in 2.02 IMO). Combats don't last long enough for his spells to charge up. His usefulness significantly goes up if you a) play on hard or above, or b) have a lot of ranged attackers, as he has that one buff that speeds up ranged attacks.

 

Have Durance wear heavy armor, use an arquebus, off-tank and always be in range of Kana's chants - sounds counter-intuitive but he is so slow anyways. If he needs to cast all the time he will not shoot more than 1-2 times per battle, so might as well maximize every shot.

[daver]

A ranger is also a good choice for mechanics/stealth/perception, they also give you  a solid ranged character with bows and/or guns.  I'm on my 2nd ranger build and at level 9 his natural mechanics is at 9, buffed with the right accessories he's up to an 11 in mechanics.  Also good for scouting ahead in new areas to see what you will be up against.  Haven't played a rouge yet, so I imagine they are similar, except in the skills they can take, the ranger having the better ranged skills.  They also get an animal companion which gives you a party of 7 instead of 6.

 

Kana, or any chanter, is also a good choice, their chants can give you decent buffs while your priest casts other buffs.  Just be aware that a chanters spells take awhile to become available during combat.  Many combats are short, and he never reaches that 3rd or 4th chant in time to cast.  Also, in addition to his summoning spells, he has some others that are cast in a cone with very short range.  His positioning in combat, I've found, is very crucial to his success.

[Zaldos]

Hi Guys

 

Thanks for taking the time to reply, its much appreciated your input/insight.

 

[LaSpeakeasi]

A ranger is also a good choice for mechanics/stealth/perception, they also give you  a solid ranged character with bows and/or guns.  I'm on my 2nd ranger build and at level 9 his natural mechanics is at 9, buffed with the right accessories he's up to an 11 in mechanics.  Also good for scouting ahead in new areas to see what you will be up against.  Haven't played a rouge yet, so I imagine they are similar, except in the skills they can take, the ranger having the better ranged skills.  They also get an animal companion which gives you a party of 7 instead of 6.

The problem with mechanics and any class that isn't rogue is they only start at 1 in mechanics tops. So in order to get to the bare minimum of 13 points (13 + 2 = 15, the highest skill check in WM), you need 108 skill points. That's all the skill points you'll ever get all the way to lvl 14. You won't even have points left for athletics. And just one character with < 4 athletics will slow down the entire party significantly due to frequent resting. Rogues on the other hand only need 85.

 

Ironically to get to the only rogue companion in the game, you actually need to pass a DC 15 skill check first. And that's quite late in WM already.

 

The +2 mechanics gloves makes all the difference. But due to some weird design decisions you can only obtain it via random loot. So it's probable you won't get it in an entire play-through at all.

Edited October 3, 2015 by LaSpeakeasi