Best party

[gilgamar]

Now a best party is subject to preference for sure, in this topic I'd like to discuss easy to play parties that require minimal effort and micromanagement.

 

I saw a funny article about a 6 ranger party and it seemed to be pretty OP. So I set out to make said party on hard mode and it mostly crushed everything except for main boss battles where the bears all died and my rangers died shortly after.

 

So I thought, why not throw a paladin into the mix, they can last a long time, giving my bears and archers more time to DPS. So I tried 5 rangers and a paladin. This worked quite well except in a few cases where the enemies had a high resistance to piercing attacks.

 

To offset the last problem I tossed in a monk for utility. This worked exceptionally well and I've had no major issues stomping my way through to level 6 of caed ruins.

 

So to recap:

 

1 Paladin

2 Monk

3-6 Ranger (same build for each because lazy)

 

Paladin wild orlan

mig 10

con 10

dex 3

per 20

int 15

res 20

 

The paladin build is most important here, this build offers a lot of defense except fortitude is lower than I'd like. It's not a big deal since the paladin doesn't do much other than take damage so even if it gets knocked prone, who cares.

 

I have zealous endurance to reduce hits to grazes on the surrounding rangers. Not sure if it affects the bears but my bears seem to be more survivable since nabbing that skill, probably just my imagination though as I took resilient pet skill shortly after on all my rangers.

 

The monk makes up for the paladin lack of fortitude, I have maxed mig and con, 15 dex, and the rest of the stats can tweak to preference, I've dumped perception and some resolve and increased intellegence to extend the range of torments reach, which is my main skill for monk. The monk is moon godlike to help soak up the damage and it has worked wonderfully in keeping the pally, bears and even the odd ranger alive, although if my rangers are getting hit they're usually dead before I can do anything about it.

 

The rangers can build to preference. Spec them for ranged DPS, dump con some but not all the way, it's really only the difference between getting one shotted or two shotted. I prefer to survive two hits so i at least have a shot of keeping the rangers alive. I'm using wood elf for increased ranged performance. As soon as I've found guns I've given them to my rangers for increased damage to high DR opponents. It is better to use quick weapons on low DR enemy though. I like to have 2 rangers with guns and 2 with bows for a mix of DR punch through and speed. The slow rangers use plate mail for second line defense as they always seem to be targetted once the bear defense is broken. The bow rangers are nakey so they can attack faster, they are far enough back I've hardly ever seen them get targetted.

 

That about sums up my build. I haven't made it too far into the game yet as I've spent many hours testing different classes out and fine tuning stats.

 

This build offers the easiest gameplay in my experience, I hardly have to think about what I'm doing. I use two formations for this setup, one where the pally and monk lead, and the other where I throw the bears at the enemy first as cannon fodder. I mostly use the first formation as the penalty for losing bears is pretty steep.

 

The toughest part I've had trouble with so far is the ogres. I had to use the bridge tactic to pull zolly from the druids, otherwise the druid aoe wipes my rangers in an instant.

 

Oh yeah, and I've built the pally around lay of hands, dont even bother with flames as the paladin is not spec'd for damage and bonus buff doesn't seem to be worth it. Without any other healer, lay of hands is critical for survival.
 

[gilgamar]

UPDATE:

 

One thing I've noticed, my monk has been "tanking" more damage than my paladin. One of the failings of paladin is it's inability to hold aggro, not much use as a brick wall if it can't hold aggro but it's not a huge deal since we still have the "bear wall" and it's been a long time since any enemy has gotten through to my rangers. I might have to swap int for more resolve on my monk since they are turning into a punching bag for the enemy and I've been too lazy to even use torments reach lately anyways so int is less useful. The moon godlike monk is a good setup as the silver tide heals have been a life saver on almost every encounter lately.

 

This party is almost too easy, starting to get bored. I am interested in suggestions for an easy to play less boring party. Maybe switch monk to barbarian to get more aoe without extra effort, and swap one ranger for spellcaster, maybe cipher or druid, wonder if the 3 bear wall can hold as well as a 4 bear wall.

[gilgamar]

UPDATE 2:

 

Started playing POTD mode but made a few changes. I decided 4 bears is too many and mostly get in the way. I reduced rangers to 2x and this works better so far. 2 bears is enough of a meatshield to block doorways and keep enemies from flanking my rangers. My paladin seldom needs to engage the enemies either thanks to bears and can stay back and buff my rangers with zealous focus. I changed stats to 18M, 10C, 3D, 10P, 18I, 19R on paladin. The amount of healing and aoe of aura is over the top, but not sure where else I'd put those points at since the tank doesn't do much damage, I usually dont even engage the tank in battle if I can help it so I can always have a fast heal at the ready. The paladin stays back as a last line of defense for the rangers.

 

The best part about the bear meatshield is the rest of the team suffers little long term damage and I don't need to rest as much.

 

I changed a few other members of the team as well, I switched my monk for pike weilding rogue and also brought in a chanter and wizard for disables.

 

Early game the chanter is a lifesaver because phantom is OP. After reaching level 4 phantom becomes a lot more useless and the chanter seems to feel more useless as well. Rogue DPS with the pike not as good as I'd like and it doesn't work as well as ranger in ranged combat either. The only ability, blinding strike one use per combat also makes the rogue feel like it doesn't do much either.

 

So I'm happy with 1x pally and 2x rangers but I want to mix up the remaining 3 team mates. I still think monk is pretty OP but haven't tried it on POTD, the issue I had with my monk even on hard mode is they soak up more damage than anyone and as such require a lot of rest breaks which is something I wanted to avoid. I could always give them wound binding to help them endure longer.

 

Not really feeling the wizard much, I think most mage class don't start to shine until later when they can spam low level spells on per encounter basis. Slicken is nice but doesn't last very long on POTD. The wizard damaging spells seem a touch weak. Could be that I dont have enough wizards. It's just like how 1 ranger sucks but 2x and more start to do well maybe 2x wizard to stack aoe damage might be nice also. Might try 2x druid and see how that goes.

 

Would love to hear some feedback and ideas for the optimal lazy-mans POTD party.

[Merina]

Much depends on how far to go with the definition of a "tank". I don't like pure meat-shields, who cannot do damage themselves. I've played them often enough ... and as often they become boring unless you are addicted to potions. I don't like those situations where such a lazy "blocker" with summons are holding up the enemy in a bottle-neck and my party cannot reach the enemy either ... if not using ranged attacks. There is also the risk that enemies ignore engagement or even teleport into the back of my party. A second blocker tank as last man isn't a safe solution. I do like more versatile fighters, which to buff and support generally ... to not only survive an attack but also to hit reliably and deal some serious damage. The trade-offs are that such a hero will not grab every defensive ability/talent but also learn a few offensive ones ... but, of course, wearing heavy armor, and likely a shield, means speed of attack will not be as high as for ... let's say ... a dual-wielding rogue with almost no armor and attributes tuned for high dps.

 

Else ... you're asking about a "lazy-mans" low maintenance party ... but you're playing with the thoughts of adding two wizards or two druids already, which is exactly the opposite of low maintenance.

 

And judging about a party at level 4 is much too early anyway.

[Teioh_White]

Optimal lazy man party for me would be 5 rangers and a chanter. A priest or wizard or something would be better than the chanter, probably dropping one ranger for both, but that'd take micro to work. For this, just put a pistol on the Chanter so it'll stand between the pets and the rangers to get them both with the chants, and then just let the AI murder it's way through stuff. If something slips through the pets, swap the Chanters gun to a hatchet+big shield and have him hold it steady till the pets are done.

 

Put Shod in Faith on the Chanter, so if something tosses an AoE behind the pets, it'll auto heal the team. Keep the chanter with some Para/Revive/Moonwell scrolls in his quick slots. Normally won't need to do anything, just let the AI handle it, but some fights can be rough. If 3 pets die, use a revive. With the Chanter's stacked Int, it'll hit them all. If a fight gets really out of hand, throw down a para scroll with it's massive AoE, then revive the pets, and let the AI take back over. If it's an obvious though fight, can drop a Moonwell on the pets at the start.

 

Have the rangers with Idols as you get them to summon stuff. If a fight goes really sour, pop all the idols, then follow Chanter fix it solutions above. Rangers can also carry para+revive scrolls for back if you wish, and put haste/power potions in the Moonwell spot for those fights you know are going to be nasty.

 

While that sounds like a fair bit of instruction, the overwhelming number of fights will just be be walking along, team sees an enemy, AI kills the enemy. You might need to select all Rangers, click on a caster or something, but that's about it. The stuff above is just for when stuff goes really squirrly, like a Banshee para'd the whole team and the backline started getting munched on.

Edited October 15, 2015 by Teioh_White

[Wolken3156]

The best party is all casters. Who needs puny weapons when you have magic.

 

...

 

If you're looking into a low maintenance and management party though. What you posted in the OP sounds about right. I'd probably swap one of the Rangers with a Priest since the Protection from ailmentnamehere spells can pretty much make certain fights very trivial.

 

Not really feeling the wizard much, I think most mage class don't start to shine until later when they can spam low level spells on per encounter basis. Slicken is nice but doesn't last very long on POTD. The wizard damaging spells seem a touch weak. Could be that I dont have enough wizards. It's just like how 1 ranger sucks but 2x and more start to do well maybe 2x wizard to stack aoe damage might be nice also. Might try 2x druid and see how that goes.

The Wizard's burst damage spells are pretty terrible compared to a Druid. You'll want to look at their damage over time spells, buffs and/or summoned weapons for their most optimal use. They are very micromanagement heavy depending on how you approach it.

 

I'll post a quick blurb of my personal recommended spells here. I won't go into too much detail though, since I've done it quite a lot by now =/

 

1st - Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Chill Fog, Spirit Shield, Slicken

Parasitic Staff + Chill Fog will do far more damage overall than two Fan of Flames. Chill Fog also has a blinding effect which has perfect synergy with the staff.

 

2nd - Concelhaut's Corrosive Siphon, Miasma of Dull Mindness, Infuse with Vital Essence, Combusting Wounds

Corrosive Siphon is the most damaging spell this level. The rest are just spells to help support the Wizard or party. Ray of Fire and Fetid Caress are also very good too.

 

3rd - Expose Vulnerabilities, Kalakoth's Minor Blights, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion, Arduous Delay of Motion

Frankly, every spell here is good except Fireball, and even that becomes a lot better once 3rd-level spells become per encounter instead. But the ones listed are just my personal preference. Alacrity of Motion is the glue spell though. Its the key to a lot of the Wizard's overall power.

 

4th - Wall of Flame, Dimensional Shift, Essential Phantom, Ninagauth's Death Ray

This is the big level as Wall of Flame is one of the best spells in the game, though its range will take a lot of getting used to. If you can get the enemy to stay in it, the spell hits almost constantly, with each hit having a chance to interrupt as well! This spell is even better when paired up with Combusting Wounds and Scion of Flame. Death Ray is solid spell all around, but its a hidden one so you may not even find it, Confusion is a good alternative. The other hidden spell, Shadowflame is also worth considering for its ability to AoE paralyze.

 

5th - Citzal's Spirit Lance, Malignant Cloud, Ninagauth's Bitter Mooring, Call to Slumber

First three spells are pretty self-explanatory. Call to Slumber is a nice extra source of prone, but it can be replaced with other spells on this level. Wall of Force can act as a weaker but extra casting of Wall of Fire.

 

6th - Ninagauth's Freezing Pillar, Gaze of the Adragan, Citzal's Martial Power, Minoletta's Precisely Piercing Burst

Even though I scoffed at the Wizard's burst damage earlier, Piercing Burst is a special exception IMO. Its damage is just so high, plus most of the spells on this level you'll probably only really throw out once per battle, so you can afford to cast it multiple times.

 

7th - Substantial Phantom, Concelhaut's Crushing Doom, Delayed Fireball

This level is just... bad overall. You could really run anything it honestly wouldn't matter too much. Substantial Phantom is the only real stand out, and allows you to replace Essential Phantom with a different 4th-level spell of your choice. Crushing Doom is very solid, but its gotten extremely late. It'll probably become much more useful when Part 2 of the expansion comes out.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Wolken3156

[Ymarsakar]

Ranger, monk, paladin, fighter, chanters are the easiest classes for beginners to use. Not weak, but very low micro, especially with the AI now.

 

All the caster classes are a little bit complicated. The cipher and rogue are also complicated, although in different ways. The barbarian is about the same as a rogue. Medium level micro, mostly due to melee positioning issues and/or taking too much damage.

 

"I am interested in suggestions for an easy to play less boring party."

 

Don't use moontide to begin with, that's a rather OP racial. It's about the same as having 2-3 paladins on the same party.

 

The setup I use consists of a ranger, a monk, a paladin, and a chanter. Very easy to micro classes, then I mix it up with a cipher and/or wizard, to make fights more "interesting". Any other spell casting classes like druid or priest can also replace the cipher and or the wizard. Any more than 2 caster ish classes and you start doing too much micro, in my view.

 

What I like to use is IE Mod to class change the story NPCs, although I usually don't class change them as it isn't necessary. This way you get story companions and also some customization, but without going too far such as a moon tide paladin hired npc. The console can be used to change companion stats, but that's mostly for flavor.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[Boeroer]

The bests potd-party for me so far was the one with a paladin tank, monk, barbarian, priest and two ciphers. And with "best" I mean it was the perfect balance between fun and effectivity while doing not too much micro. Paladin's Zealous Focus plus Coorinated Attacks plus Priest's Repulsing Seal, Inspiring Radiance plus Painful Interdiction plus Barb's Threatening Presence plus Monk's Enervating Blows plus Ciphers' Mental Binding, Ectopsychic Echo and Amplified Wave made the playthrough supereasy. Adra Dragon died at first try without much planning, so did Alpine Dragon. Thaos was not even worth a laugh. That's because you can stack ridiculous amounts of ACC (more than +60) on one char and a good amount on all others while lowering the Fortitude and Will defenses of enemies by ~40 when stacking sickened and weakened. After debuffing the enemy the Barb (with stunning or overbearing items) will stunlock whole groups while the ciphers will cast Tactical Meld before combat and then (after debuffing) Amplified Wave. The monk I used was an autoattacker and prone-machine with enervating blows and Force of Anguish. He and Mr. Barb ran around and proned the ones that were left over after two amplified waves. Paladin just stood around and shot Flames of Devotion into faces (if needed) and then switched back to his marking weapon and small shield and turned on Sacred Immolation. All this didn't require too much micro after the first seconds of combat. You just set up your buffs and debuffs, let the paladin take aggro, cast 2x amp. wave, pick your remaining melee/ranged targets and that's it. The fact that I only had 2 ranged (cipher) squishies - the rest was relelatively heavy armored melee - helped immensely against foes' AI. Nobody rushed to my ciphers because all these fat bastards stood in the way. Just be sure to equip some reach weapons as backup on monk and barb. As primary weapons I would prefer dual wielding with heavy armor since the recovery time while dual wielding is very short - and +50% of 20 frames is not so much as +50% of 30 frames. The monk can use light to no armor if you took Iron Wheel and can then use the Staff of Lawran (speed) and lightning strikes = awesome speed (+45%) with great auto-damage (Turning Wheel, Blood Testament). Barb can use the quick switch belt and Spelltongue to get long lasting +15% attack speed at first, then switch to main weapons and turn on frenzy. That will stack to +48% attack speed. If you don't want to use a cccweapon but want to go for full speed: I would either recommend Sword of Daenysis plus March Steel Dagger (both +20% speed) plus 20% speed two handed style - resulting in +88% attack speed without buffs from others. Or use a two-handed weapon with speed like the Blade of the Endless Paths. The damage output will be bigger because the two handers' longer recovery time profits more from +speed modifiers and the Blade has DR bypass and high base damage - but it's just so much fun to watch this barb when he's going crazy with his speedy toothpicks.

And don't forget to stack all the spell binging gear in your monk when he gets his duplicates. Unlimited Firebrand, Alacrity, Spreading plague and so on is just too good. It's like having two additional powerful meele caster - summons in the party.

Edited October 21, 2015 by Boeroer

[aweigh0101]

I find that the best PotD party is something that works very similarly to what Boeroer describes: 4 melee units that disable with 2 ranged units that crowd-control.

I'm currently steam-rolling PotD 2.02 with:

Paladin PC (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with The Hours of St. Rumbault
Eder NPC (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with Tall-Grass
Zahua (Knight Focus) prone-critting enemies with We-Toki one-handed-style
Pallegina (Soldier Focus) prone-critting enemies with The Temaperacl

Durance (Soldier Focus + Inspired Flame for Arquebus auto-attack, all other picks "spell plus" talents) spamming Shining Beacon, etc.
Grieving Mother (Ruffian Focus for Lead-Spitter focus generation) spamming Amplified Wave.

As Boeroer just mentioned having a solid WALL of 4 melee units disabling the enemy horde with frequent prone-crits thanks to paladin aura and priest buffs is the most effective way of controlling mobs on PotD. Amplified Wave every few seconds prones whoever hasn't been prone'd yet while Durance spams either Shining Beacon for massive DoT + burst-damage or spams the healing laser beam spell 7 times in a row.

[Raven Darkholme]

If you want literally almost no micro go for paladin and 5 ciphers. You do some micro but you just repeat the same thing over,w hich amkes it easier since you don't have to think.

[Boeroer]

Yep, ciphers really make it easy and comfortable. And after you pick 5x Ectopsychic Echo, cast it on your Paladin who has Boots of Speed (Landslide in Russetwood) and/or Zealous Charge and let him run behind the enemy lines nearly all encounters become trivial. You can exchange the pally with a chanter who sings the lvl-2-phrase that drops frost traps - because then you can hobble the enemy (=lower reflex and -move speed) quite effordlessly while running away before you turn your chanter and run around them with 5 beams on your tail. Or you use one of his summons that pops up behind them. But a speedy char is better since he can run zickzack at ermormous speeds which results in more hits. A monk with Long Stride and Boots of Speed also works fine: just let him take aggro to get some wounds while casting Echo on him and then use Flagellant's Path to dive through with the beams, then zigzag. End of encounter. Not so much micro. Later on just spam Amplified Wave - nearly no micro.

 

6 Priests are also pretty nice with all the seals and a bunch of Iconic Projections that can be spammed after lvl 11. That Party not only kills mobs very quickly but also works great against dragons: Repulsing Seal plus 5 damaging seals really... seal the deal.