Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Ok so how to keep the enemies engaged to my tank? Enemies have been breaking engagement or becoming impossible to engage and keep teleporting or dashing to my casters or ranged attacker.......... I just restarted playing the game after several months, I am playing with WM2 installed with the latest patch on Steam..... I am having this problem specially in Abbey of Fallen Moon where monks keep breaking engagement with my tank and dashing to my spell casters. How do I keep them engaged? Or in fact how do I engage them? Because I have been dashing into the fray with my tanks and unloading attacks that hit them but still the enemies teleport or run to my ranged party members...... I have also noticed this in few other encounters through out the game as well........ Thanks.....
View619 Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 You make a wall now, or give tanks some ability do deal damage with disengagement attacks. The AI has been improved to the point where it will ignore defensive targets with poor damage potential.
demeisen Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 I've noticed this tendency in my V3 run so far too, and I like it. I feel it makes for less one-dimensional play and more positionally dynamic battles than in the V1 days. Keep in mind that casters get some excellent defensive and CC capabilities. I play PC=Wiz, and in V1 I was able to get through the game building him up as almost pure prickly offence. In V3, I'm finding that I have to be more balanced, taking some defensive skills like veil and loading up on defence and crowd-control spells. Different CC is suited to different kinds of monsters. Other classes can help a lot too. I like building up fighter's knockdown. It isn't "great" in and of itself, but if there's a troublesome bad guy taking an interest in your casters, Eder can knock it on its keister for a while . There are other such CC abilities that other classes add to the mix - even some pets IIRC. Add it all together, and you can find strategies for almost any fight. Just not the same strategy for every fight. 2
Teioh_White Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Engagements too clunky to be relied on, even just in the sense of getting free disengage attacks on things running by. It's more a tool for the AI to lock down a character trying to kite than it is for the player to have some sort of battlefield control. Unrelated to the core issues with engagement, I think leaving engagement is based on some defensive measure of the target, rather than offensive might of the engager. Zahua throws out some crazy damage, but that doesn't stop a mob from bailing on him to go beat up Grieving Mother if it gets into the mobs head to do so. I like the idea of the system, it just doesn't play out as written in the clusterduck that fights tend to be in this game. Generally better to just get a melee heavy team, and out buff/debuff the enemy and steam roll them, or CC spam them so they can't move, then steam roll over them. There's not a lot of back and forth going on, just making sure you're on the right side of a curb stomp. Edited February 25, 2016 by Teioh_White
anameforobsidian Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 If you keep pursuing a running character eventually they give up and face you instead. I had a paladin hell-bent on getting to sagani who eventually gave up and went for my monk instead (monk had boots of speed / could not be outrun).
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 You make a wall now, or give tanks some ability do deal damage with disengagement attacks. The AI has been improved to the point where it will ignore defensive targets with poor damage potential. make a wall?
Teioh_White Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Pretty much what it sounds like; get about 4 guys, have em spaced out to block as much real estate as possible, and the enemy will largely crash against them. They might try and go around the wall, but it takes them time, and the AI sometimes gets bored and sticks to the wall instead. Either way, it gives you time to see them coming, so your ranged can see them coming, then either just move around to the far end of the wall, fire of a CC at an enemy coming off the edge, or just use an Idol to temp make the wall bigger.
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Also It has become quite hard to flank attack with melee rogue now..... I had 3 enemies attacking Eder, so I snuck my rogue around and sneak attacked one of them, as soon as my attack landed, two of them turned around right that moment and one knocked my rogue down right away and the other chopped off 75% of endurance in a single attack......and I was like...WTF?!?! Recently what's been happening is that, as soon as enemy sees my non tank party members he forgets all about my front liner despite of the fact that my front liner is chopping that enemy's face off. This mechanics seems very unrealistic, e.g. this just happened....... my paladin was splitting the head of enemy archer with his great sword standing right in his face but that archer keeps shooting at my wizard who was standing 50 feet away and was not even attacking that archer........this makes the combat totally unrealistic........ And now I am wondering that what's the point of giving some classes tanking abilities but then making them unable to coax enemy into attacking them? EDIT: Also I have noticed that my guys (ranged) become engaged right away but the enemy doesn't engage no matter what I throw at them........It seems like that engagement mechanics now only works for the AI to engage my vulnerable party members where as my tanks can't engage crap...... Edited February 25, 2016 by Brimsurfer
Rosbjerg Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Isn't it just mirroring player tactics? Take out the damage dealers at all cost and then handle the slow movers who are now without support. I always take out the wizard or ranger first, precisely because otherwise I'm putting my head on the anvil for the hammer. edit: I try to counter by doing what would work against me - traps, cc etc. 3 Fortune favors the bald.
anameforobsidian Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Don't forget that both rogues and wizards have position switching talents. For outdoor fights with a large group of opponents (gleaming society), it pays to keep an off-tank to the side, draw aggro with the squishy, and then switch positions as soon as fights have been stabilized.
Njall Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Fighters now get a level 7 passive that knocks down an opponent who breaks engagement. Coupled with Hold the Line and/or Defender you can probably actually hold the line properly now Edited February 25, 2016 by Njall 2
falchen Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Don't bother with engagement, use CC or body blocking tactics. 1
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Fighters now get a level 7 passive that knocks down an opponent who breaks engagement. Coupled with Hold the Line and/or Defender you can probably actually hold the line properly now Enemies don't engage no matte what I throw at them with my fighter..........they just run past the fighter even if my fighter hits'em like a truck and when they run past him, it doesn't trigger that passive knock down attack since there was no engagement to break to begin with........ Edited February 25, 2016 by Brimsurfer
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Don't forget that both rogues and wizards have position switching talents. For outdoor fights with a large group of opponents (gleaming society), it pays to keep an off-tank to the side, draw aggro with the squishy, and then switch positions as soon as fights have been stabilized. What difficulty you play on? By the time you cast the talent, enemy usually get a hit or two in before the cast is complete taking a huge chunk of endurance away (in some cases even interrupting the cast) and then no matter even if I switch the place with a tank an aoe from enemy caster would knock the rest of the endurance away before I can heal....... And this is happens pretty much every time ....... Honestly what's the point of having tanking talents but being unable to goad enemy into attacking you......I don't want to make tanking easy but at least enemy should take into account if some one is standing on his face and bashing his skull in with a big ass hammer, don't just keep shooting at a caster who is 50 feet away and is not even targeting him...... BUT THIS MAKES FIGHT EASY FOR ME......because even if my wizard falls unconscious I am still winning the fights because my frontliners are getting ignored......but its just the overall feel of the fight and how it plays out, it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel realistic, it feels mechanical and repetitive rather than organic (this feeling was not there in BG or PST games), if I was fighting machines then probably it would make sense because they can't emotionally rationalise and react to the situation and act always the same as per their programming but when you are fighting humans they should react randomly, every encounter shouldn't be a mechanical copy of the previous one.......if you know what I mean....but this is kind of off topic. My frustration is not in regards to losing fights because I am not, its rare that I lose a fight.........my frustration is in regards to the fact that I am unable to tank with my tanks....... Or should I just retrain my tanks to be melee juggernauts rather than damage soakers? Go with Two Handers and ditch the shield? Edited February 25, 2016 by Brimsurfer
Njall Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Fighters now get a level 7 passive that knocks down an opponent who breaks engagement. Coupled with Hold the Line and/or Defender you can probably actually hold the line properly now Enemies don't engage no matte what I throw at them with my fighter..........they just run past the fighter even if my fighter hits'em like a truck and when they run past him, it doesn't trigger that passive knock down attack since there was no engagement to break to begin with........ The passive should work on disengagement attacks, IIRC ( I'm at work atm and can't check the wording ). Thus, it shouldn't matter if they don't engage you, disengagement attacks trigger when they move away after you've engaged them. Edited February 25, 2016 by Njall 1
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Fighters now get a level 7 passive that knocks down an opponent who breaks engagement. Coupled with Hold the Line and/or Defender you can probably actually hold the line properly now Enemies don't engage no matte what I throw at them with my fighter..........they just run past the fighter even if my fighter hits'em like a truck and when they run past him, it doesn't trigger that passive knock down attack since there was no engagement to break to begin with........ The passive should work on disengagement attacks, IIRC ( I'm at work atm and can't check the wording ). Thus, it shouldn't matter if they don't engage you, disengagement attacks trigger when they move away after you've engaged them. I checked it, it only triggers if an enemy is 'engaged' to your fighter (when you can see red arrow shooting out from enemy red circle to your fighter green circle) but if the enemy is 'not engaged' to your fighter and is only running past him, then it doesn't trigger. At least that's what's been happening for me, for several hours..... Enemy needs to be engaged to you, if your Fighter is engaged to enemy it doesn't mean anything and its been going on since I have restarted playing the game after WM2, enemy doesn't get engaged to you as you engage him, he needs to engage you on his own otherwise he can still move away from you without any disengagement penalities (doesn't matter if your fighter is engaged to him) and that doesn't trigger that passive knockdown disengagement counter by the fighter......it has happened so many times now. Edited February 25, 2016 by Brimsurfer
HawkSoft Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 I don't like low damage output tanks, they may be a video game staple but they make no sense (to me) in a believable RPG like Pillars. It's good that the devs have nerfed them in PoE. I like the engagement mechanic but hate that the enemy AI can dance pixel-perfect around the edge of your characters' weapon reach
Njall Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 Fighters now get a level 7 passive that knocks down an opponent who breaks engagement. Coupled with Hold the Line and/or Defender you can probably actually hold the line properly now Enemies don't engage no matte what I throw at them with my fighter..........they just run past the fighter even if my fighter hits'em like a truck and when they run past him, it doesn't trigger that passive knock down attack since there was no engagement to break to begin with........ The passive should work on disengagement attacks, IIRC ( I'm at work atm and can't check the wording ). Thus, it shouldn't matter if they don't engage you, disengagement attacks trigger when they move away after you've engaged them. I checked it, it only triggers if an enemy is 'engaged' to your fighter (when you can see red arrow shooting out from enemy red circle to your fighter green circle) but if the enemy is 'not engaged' to your fighter and is only running past him, then it doesn't trigger. At least that's what's been happening for me, for several hours..... Enemy needs to be engaged to you, if your Fighter is engaged to enemy it doesn't mean anything and its been going on since I have restarted playing the game after WM2, enemy doesn't get engaged to you as you engage him, he needs to engage you on his own otherwise he can still move away from you without any disengagement penalities (doesn't matter if your fighter is engaged to him) and that doesn't trigger that passive knockdown disengagement counter by the fighter......it has happened so many times now. Weird, it seems to be working fine for me. Did you try saving and reloading after selecting overbearing guard? It didn't look like it was working until I did.
the_dog_days Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 I don't like low damage output tanks, they may be a video game staple but they make no sense (to me) in a believable RPG like Pillars. It's good that the devs have nerfed them in PoE. @OP:this is the thing to keep in mind, pure tanks were nerfed. The best way to get an attacker to 'stick' to a tank is to give him some DPS, avoid min/maxing the other companions, use crowd control skills, and give all your squishies disengagement abilities so they can break engagement.
rheingold Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) I stand to be corrected but the ai makes decisions on who to target based on deflection and damage reduction. I have way less issues with squishes if I put them in heavy armour even the casters. They don't get targeted as much, and an interesting side effect.... They don't die as easily:) Edited February 25, 2016 by rheingold "Those who look upon gods then say, without even knowing their names, 'He is Fire. She is Dance. He is Destruction. She is Love.' So, to reply to your statement, they do not call themselves gods. Everyone else does, though, everyone who beholds them.""So they play that on their fascist banjos, eh?""You choose the wrong adjective.""You've already used up all the others.” Lord of Light
Edrin Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 It seems that whenever a character uses an active ability like knock down or a spell all its engagements are broken. I didn't really check on it, as I figured this out only recently, but if this is right, it's good to know. But what really seems strange to me is when I get disengagement attacks on stationary targets. Then I wonder if I really got the meaning of this mechanic… When I say stationary, I mean absolutely stationary. Most of the time, it's hard to tell if the IA didn't decide to check if the next pixel wouldn't be more comfortable, but sometimes, they really couldn't have, like in this case: As you may know, dank spores cannot move, giant or not. It seems a bug to me.
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 I don't like low damage output tanks, they may be a video game staple but they make no sense (to me) in a believable RPG like Pillars. It's good that the devs have nerfed them in PoE. @OP:this is the thing to keep in mind, pure tanks were nerfed. The best way to get an attacker to 'stick' to a tank is to give him some DPS, avoid min/maxing the other companions, use crowd control skills, and give all your squishies disengagement abilities so they can break engagement. You are assuming a lot , how do you know that I am using min/max approach and that my tank does no damage? My frontliners do very good damage and as for disengagement abilities there is no time to disengage, the enemy just teleport from the tank to the wizard and one shot him in less than a fraction of a second........which difficulty do you play on? I hope you are not talking about normal difficulty....... This is specifically happening in the WM2 late game where I am fighting large groups of Monks ....
the_dog_days Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Did I say you were min/maxing? My point was that pure tanks aren't viable, and using twiner builds, for everybody in your party, is the best way to get engagements to stick (or rather, keeping mobs from spamming disengagement abilities to race right for your back line). Not an infallible way, but the best. Engagements aren't meant to make mobs stick so much as giving font liners an extra attack. Edited February 25, 2016 by the_dog_days
anameforobsidian Posted February 25, 2016 Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Don't forget that both rogues and wizards have position switching talents. For outdoor fights with a large group of opponents (gleaming society), it pays to keep an off-tank to the side, draw aggro with the squishy, and then switch positions as soon as fights have been stabilized. What difficulty you play on? By the time you cast the talent, enemy usually get a hit or two in before the cast is complete taking a huge chunk of endurance away (in some cases even interrupting the cast) and then no matter even if I switch the place with a tank an aoe from enemy caster would knock the rest of the endurance away before I can heal....... And this is happens pretty much every time ....... Honestly what's the point of having tanking talents but being unable to goad enemy into attacking you......I don't want to make tanking easy but at least enemy should take into account if some one is standing on his face and bashing his skull in with a big ass hammer, don't just keep shooting at a caster who is 50 feet away and is not even targeting him...... BUT THIS MAKES FIGHT EASY FOR ME......because even if my wizard falls unconscious I am still winning the fights because my frontliners are getting ignored......but its just the overall feel of the fight and how it plays out, it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel realistic, it feels mechanical and repetitive rather than organic (this feeling was not there in BG or PST games), if I was fighting machines then probably it would make sense because they can't emotionally rationalise and react to the situation and act always the same as per their programming but when you are fighting humans they should react randomly, every encounter shouldn't be a mechanical copy of the previous one.......if you know what I mean....but this is kind of off topic. My frustration is not in regards to losing fights because I am not, its rare that I lose a fight.........my frustration is in regards to the fact that I am unable to tank with my tanks....... Or should I just retrain my tanks to be melee juggernauts rather than damage soakers? Go with Two Handers and ditch the shield? I play PotD, and I would say ditch the shields. Tanking is easier on normal difficulty, but there's just a lot of enemies on PotD. Edited February 25, 2016 by anameforobsidian
Brimsurfer Posted February 25, 2016 Author Posted February 25, 2016 (edited) Did I say you were min/maxing? My point was that pure tanks aren't viable, and using twiner builds, for everybody in your party, is the best way to get engagements to stick (or rather, keeping mobs from spamming disengagement abilities to race right for your back line). Not an infallible way, but the best. Engagements aren't meant to make mobs stick so much as giving font liners an extra attack. You obviously play the game on a lower difficulty.......btw you did tell me to avoid min/max'ing, very bluntly. Edited February 25, 2016 by Brimsurfer
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