Post your most overpowered/favourite team composition

[Merina]

Fighter has been in my OP list so far. Not as much damage as a monk and rogue ... sure ... but unbreakable, not in need of much support, and if turning them into aggressive berserkers instead of defensive blockers, they become a very dangerous and helpful member of a party.

[Abalon]

From a not needing to rest I rate ciphers Rangers and rogues as top tier, personally I find paladins to be the best tanks now by far they just have sooone much utility,

 

If I was going to power game

2 ranged ciphers

2 paladin

1 rogue or ranger

Priest

[Gairnulf]

- Barbarian: somewhat an antonym of rogue. No ST damage. Loads of cleave/carnage. Has high hp. Wants to be surrounded, but can't tank. Doesn't seem to fill any role that well, aside from standing behind tanks and stunning enemies with a reach weapon. Poor man wizard, which stuns on encounter basis.

The deflection is the problem. Getting surrounded results in the Flanked status effect which takes 10 deflection. The Barbarian already has the second worst deflection in the game - 15, sharing that second-to-last place with the Rogue. The difference is, with a Rogue you tend to avoid engaging multiple enemies, with the Barbarian, you are expected to. And the health pool can't compensate for that. (I'm playing on PotD, the only difficulty that's worth playing at for me).

[KDubya]

 

- Monk: no idea, really. Too controversial. Wants to get hit, but not hard. Could be a tank but has disengagement abilities. Requires lots of DR, but doesn't want to wear heavy armor.

 

If you think Fighters are useful you really need to try out a Monk. Pretty much anything is better with a Monk. Same base accuracy, and endurance, 6x instead of 5x health and 5 less deflection. An easily maintained +25% speed buff and a +25% damage lash, spammable knockdown that lasts 3x longer than a fighter, spammable AoE full attacks with +50% crush lash.

 

Getting hit happens all on its own at PotD, you don't need to do anything special

 

The disengagement and movement  abilities all get made obsolete by Flagellent's Path at level 11.

 

Heavy armor on a monk works fine.

 

As an added bonus a Monk's fists self upgrade, saving you crafting materials at the cost of not being able to durgan or add a lash.

 

At level 13 Fighters get an attack that debuffs DR and adds +20% damage to one attack - it'd be great at level one but at level 13 it is terrible. At level 13 Monks get too summon two kick ass twins that are great.

 

Some of the hardest fights in the game are against Monks - the drunken Orlan, the bounty in White March. NPC Fighters just take longer to kill but you are never in danger of losing to them.

[PrimeJunta]

I don't have just one party, but I have a "backbone" that works really well. It's two paladins + two rangers. The pets are in front, the paladins behind them, the rangers in the back. The paladins use their heals to keep the pets in the game as long as possible, while everybody rains ranged or reach-weapon death over their heads.

 

The remaining two slots you can fill as you like. You'll probably want at least one crowd-control character; if you put it in the frontline, a defensively built druid works really well as does a priest of Eothas with Gaun's Share plus shield. For the second-line slot you can add any non-melee character. If you want to go with just one CC character, go with another ranger in the second line, or put your CC'er in the second line and add a fighter, rogue, barbarian, chanter, or even third paladin for extra aura and exhortation goodness in the front.

[Wolken3156]

 

- Barbarian: somewhat an antonym of rogue. No ST damage. Loads of cleave/carnage. Has high hp. Wants to be surrounded, but can't tank. Doesn't seem to fill any role that well, aside from standing behind tanks and stunning enemies with a reach weapon. Poor man wizard, which stuns on encounter basis.

The deflection is the problem. Getting surrounded results in the Flanked status effect which takes 10 deflection. The Barbarian already has the second worst deflection in the game - 15, sharing that second-to-last place with the Rogue. The difference is, with a Rogue you tend to avoid engaging multiple enemies, with the Barbarian, you are expected to. And the health pool can't compensate for that. (I'm playing on PotD, the only difficulty that's worth playing at for me).

You can easily just run a low Might high Resolve Barbarian with great success if you think Deflection is problem. Generally you're using a Barbarian to generate Interrupts and take advantage of on-hit effects with Carnage anyway, so the only real stats that need to be high are Dexterity and Perception. Frenzy already gives a +4 to Might, and if you have a Priest you can use Holy Might to boost it further, so you actually don't really need it that high.

 

Barbarians though, are probably the slowest martial class to develop. Since they need a couple of talents to function effectively and are also dependent on gear. Act 2 is when they start to show a lot more promise.

 

At any rate, I ran low Resolve Barbarian and had no problems keeping him alive on PotD. He was a Fire Godlike though, paired up with Heavy Armor, Zealous Endurance and the Thick-Skinned talent, so his DR was pretty ridiculous.

Edited February 12, 2016 by Wolken3156

[Yosharian]

A very interesting read guys!  Thanks for all your posts!

 

So I've been considering the idea of having a party for which rests are at an absolute minimum.  This means avoiding being reliant on per-rest abilities.  So picking Cipher over Druid/Wizard, for example.

 

So with the previous setup:

 

Front line: Monk + Fighter

Second line: Rogue + Ranger

Support line: PALADIN + CIPHER

 

So the Paladin has very little healing ability but he does have the ability to mitigate damage (DR aura) and has other nifty abilities, and can of course off-tank or even main tank extremely well.  I'm wondering whether the Paladin can replace the Priest and make a more durable, less heal-reliant party that can avoid the constant resting that makes playing this game very frustrating (Wizards in particular, as others have mentioned in the thread, are particularly reliant upon resting).

 

Combine that with the wtfbbq Cipher who never needs to rest, and you have a pretty nice party which will basically only need to rest when it runs out of Health.

 

Opinions?

 

PS: some of you are posting obscure builds which I could probably find but I am quite lazy and would appreciate a hyperlink or two to point me in the right direction.

[PrimeJunta]

@Yosharian the weak link with that is the monk. He'll need to take damage to use his abilities, and that'll force you to rest. A single cipher is also a bit weak for CC; I suspect that using a wiz/druid/priest instead wouldn't change things much because your frontline will need to rest up to recover health.

 

If you want to minimise resting, I recommend my 2 x paladin + 2 x ranger backbone. The pets can soak hits with no strategic cost, and the paladins can keep them fighting twice as long. Round that off with some CC and you're golden. A cipher is good, but you might want to consider a defensively-built druid also: he'll be able to hold the line when needed and do damage when spiritshifted, and you will have excellent CC for the boss fights when you really need it.

[Abalon]

Interesting I would say swap the monk for a paladin 2 paladins is just so strong I personally prefer 2 ciphers simply because charm is so powerfull in potd

[Abalon]

If you really wanted to power game 2 paladins 2 ciphers 2 Rangers is probaly your best bet

[Wolken3156]

So the Paladin has very little healing ability but he does have the ability to mitigate damage (DR aura) and has other nifty abilities, and can of course off-tank or even main tank extremely well.  I'm wondering whether the Paladin can replace the Priest and make a more durable, less heal-reliant party that can avoid the constant resting that makes playing this game very frustrating (Wizards in particular, as others have mentioned in the thread, are particularly reliant upon resting).

The Paladin can easily cover healing. Lay on Hands, Reviving Exhortation and Healing Chain are all excellent abilities. Zealous Endurance is good for reducing damage but you might want to consider Zealous Charge since your party is pretty heavy on martial characters. You can always make and use scrolls to cover the buffs for the more difficult fights.

 

You're gonna rest a lot anyway though since your Monk will ideally be taking damage, and that means losing a lot of health. If you wanted to avoid resting I'd probably swap him for another Ranger or Paladin.

 

Combine that with the wtfbbq Cipher who never needs to rest, and you have a pretty nice party which will basically only need to rest when it runs out of Health.

Ciphers aren't really a good substitute for CC when compared to a Wizard, Druid or Barbarian. A lot of enemies are immune to Prone, Charm and Paralyze so it does hinder their CC abilities quite a bit. Also they lack AoE on a majority of their enfeebling abilities.

 

You could easily use a Druid though without needing to rest often anyway. Just build a Spiritshift focused one, and use CC abilities when the situation calls for them. If spiritshift wears off you can always swap over to Firebrand.

 

PS: some of you are posting obscure builds which I could probably find but I am quite lazy and would appreciate a hyperlink or two to point me in the right direction.

I referred to this one for my Priest: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83225-class-build-schemers-needler-roguelike-skaen-priest/

 

To sum it up though, basically with a Priest of Skaen you can effectively make a Priest/Rogue hybrid. Prey on the Weak gives you Lesser Sneak Attack which also stacks with Apprentice's Sneak Attack effectively giving you a +35% damage to enemies that qualify for sneak attacks. You can use all kinds of other bonuses to boost it too like the Glanfathan Stalking Boots, weapons with the Vicious enchantment and the camping bonus.

 

This basically allows the Priest to deal good melee damage should you not want to cast any spells during a particular fight. It also helps out during the early stages of the game when the Priest's offensive options are very limited.

[Gairnulf]

Generally you're using a Barbarian to generate Interrupts and take advantage of on-hit effects with Carnage anyway, so the only real stats that need to be high are Dexterity and Perception.

If that's all the Barbarian is good for, I'd rather cast Chill Fog on that group of enemies than keep the Barbarian around. Much better guaranteed area damage.

 

Barbarians though, are probably the slowest martial class to develop. Since they need a couple of talents to function effectively and are also dependent on gear. Act 2 is when they start to show a lot more promise.

You may be right, but I never played long enough to see that. I test classes by seeing how far I can get in soloing Act I on PotD, and beyond, if I happen to like the class and build. With the exception of the Chanter and the Priest, which are only really useful in a party, I'd say if a class is good for soloing, it will be even better in a party.

 

At any rate, I ran low Resolve Barbarian and had no problems keeping him alive on PotD. He was a Fire Godlike though, paired up with Heavy Armor, Zealous Endurance and the Thick-Skinned talent, so his DR was pretty ridiculous.

I'm kind of prejudiced against the Godlikes, they seem too powerful to me, compared to the other races' racial bonuses, and they also break immersion by the fact that no one in the world seems to react to them being Godlike. But that's just me of course. Edited February 12, 2016 by Gairnulf

[anameforobsidian]

The first dungeon lets you light torches with your head if you're a fire Godlike, and the Death Godlike bandit notices it.  I think theres a few more references here or there, certainly nothing like what's in the lore for Death godlikes.

 

Also, I'm playing an Orlan monk on PotD and he kicks butt.  The one problem is enemies immune to crush / high dr enemies, because hatchets only work so well.  I didn't build him right, so he was knocked out a lot early on.  Now he's turning into a little steamroller.  

Edited February 13, 2016 by anameforobsidian

[KDubya]

A monk in heavy plate with a 15+ base constitution is not going to take that much damage and will have a huge health pool. Combine 25+ DR with the Paladin hit>graze aura and some Durgan enchanted armor for additional hit>graze and you can withstand an awful lot of damage. The monk is not going to force you to rest too much.

 

If you have  melee heavy party just hold back whomever starts to accrue too much damage for a few seconds at the start of a fight so that the damage gets spread around between several guys. You can even make good use out of field triage with a high con high health character as it is percentage based.

 

A Monk, 2 Paladins, 1-2 Rangers, 1-2 Chanters, and 0-1 Ciphers will make a durable team that will not need to rest except for health and can handle what ever comes in PotD. It is even fairly low micro except for the Cipher.

[Yosharian]

A monk in heavy plate with a 15+ base constitution is not going to take that much damage and will have a huge health pool. Combine 25+ DR with the Paladin hit>graze aura and some Durgan enchanted armor for additional hit>graze and you can withstand an awful lot of damage. The monk is not going to force you to rest too much.

 

If you have  melee heavy party just hold back whomever starts to accrue too much damage for a few seconds at the start of a fight so that the damage gets spread around between several guys. You can even make good use out of field triage with a high con high health character as it is percentage based.

 

A Monk, 2 Paladins, 1-2 Rangers, 1-2 Chanters, and 0-1 Ciphers will make a durable team that will not need to rest except for health and can handle what ever comes in PotD. It is even fairly low micro except for the Cipher.

Why a Chanter specifically?

 

And why 2 Paladins?  For running 2 auras?

 

 

 

So the Paladin has very little healing ability but he does have the ability to mitigate damage (DR aura) and has other nifty abilities, and can of course off-tank or even main tank extremely well.  I'm wondering whether the Paladin can replace the Priest and make a more durable, less heal-reliant party that can avoid the constant resting that makes playing this game very frustrating (Wizards in particular, as others have mentioned in the thread, are particularly reliant upon resting).

The Paladin can easily cover healing. Lay on Hands, Reviving Exhortation and Healing Chain are all excellent abilities. Zealous Endurance is good for reducing damage but you might want to consider Zealous Charge since your party is pretty heavy on martial characters. You can always make and use scrolls to cover the buffs for the more difficult fights.

 

You're gonna rest a lot anyway though since your Monk will ideally be taking damage, and that means losing a lot of health. If you wanted to avoid resting I'd probably swap him for another Ranger or Paladin.

 

Combine that with the wtfbbq Cipher who never needs to rest, and you have a pretty nice party which will basically only need to rest when it runs out of Health.

Ciphers aren't really a good substitute for CC when compared to a Wizard, Druid or Barbarian. A lot of enemies are immune to Prone, Charm and Paralyze so it does hinder their CC abilities quite a bit. Also they lack AoE on a majority of their enfeebling abilities.

 

You could easily use a Druid though without needing to rest often anyway. Just build a Spiritshift focused one, and use CC abilities when the situation calls for them. If spiritshift wears off you can always swap over to Firebrand.

 

PS: some of you are posting obscure builds which I could probably find but I am quite lazy and would appreciate a hyperlink or two to point me in the right direction.

I referred to this one for my Priest: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/83225-class-build-schemers-needler-roguelike-skaen-priest/

 

To sum it up though, basically with a Priest of Skaen you can effectively make a Priest/Rogue hybrid. Prey on the Weak gives you Lesser Sneak Attack which also stacks with Apprentice's Sneak Attack effectively giving you a +35% damage to enemies that qualify for sneak attacks. You can use all kinds of other bonuses to boost it too like the Glanfathan Stalking Boots, weapons with the Vicious enchantment and the camping bonus.

 

This basically allows the Priest to deal good melee damage should you not want to cast any spells during a particular fight. It also helps out during the early stages of the game when the Priest's offensive options are very limited.

 

 

This is really helpful, thanks a lot.  I hadn't thought of using a spiritshift-focused Druid.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Yosharian

[Elric Galad]

A monk in heavy plate with a 15+ base constitution is not going to take that much damage and will have a huge health pool. Combine 25+ DR with the Paladin hit>graze aura and some Durgan enchanted armor for additional hit>graze and you can withstand an awful lot of damage. The monk is not going to force you to rest too much.

 

If you have melee heavy party just hold back whomever starts to accrue too much damage for a few seconds at the start of a fight so that the damage gets spread around between several guys. You can even make good use out of field triage with a high con high health character as it is percentage based.

 

A Monk, 2 Paladins, 1-2 Rangers, 1-2 Chanters, and 0-1 Ciphers will make a durable team that will not need to rest except for health and can handle what ever comes in PotD. It is even fairly low micro except for the Cipher.

I like this one for a "no caster challenge". Just don't forget to take some Lore on many characters (4+ is not so expensive) so you'll have backup casters for hardest fights.

[scottii]

1)  X   X

2)    X

3)  XXX

 

1) Front line, tanks and stuff

2) Cipher

3) DPS/Support