charmed / confused / dominated resistance

[demeisen]

What's the prevailing opinion on building up those resistances?

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​In my first play through (V1, Hard) I remember those effects being a PITA, so for my second run (V3.01, PoD) I built up party resistances as much as I could.  The whole party has taken the resistance feats, several have resist gear (e.g, Hand and Key = +15/+20, Tempered Helm = +25), and I have Kana chant the song that gives +20.  But even with all of that, it seems like if I'm fighting anything that uses charm or dominated, it hits every time, period, and damn the resistances.

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I end up using that Durance spell that gives your party immunity to charm/confused/dominated effects, and that works.  But if I had to use that spell, I might as well not have taken the talents, used the chanter song, and equipped the resist gear.  All that could be put to better use.

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​Have y'all found that these particular resistances matter much?

​

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[MaxQuest]

Imho, there are several ways to deal with those effects:

- v1. High will defense. But! don't expect this alone to save you. The main point is to shift the resolution from crits to grazes, and accompany it with scrolls of Protection and Potions of Major Recovery. So even if you are affected by these effects, they would wear of in 0-2s.

 

- v2. Paladin with Liberating Exhortation and Aegis of Loyalty. This thread explains how to make the most of it.

 

- v3. Proactive prevention. You can either focus-damage enemy cc-casters in the first order. Or if that is not an option cc them yourself. And there is always something that can affect them, be it prone, paralyze or charm. (tip treasoning Addragans that accompany Adra Dragon works like a charm)

 

- v4. Scroll of Prayer against Bewilderment and Scroll of Prayer against Treachery. Although the later becomes available pretty late into the game, when you already don't need it...and is the only scroll that requires 12 lore.

 

- v5. Priest. Mass prayers and single target litanies.

[Braven]

I have also noticed that they don't make much of a difference, if any.  The creatures that tend to use disables, just spam them over and over (or they automatically happen on every attack as a secondary).  This means there is not much of a difference between being grazed, hit, or crit and you will never get the numbers high enough to consistently have them miss completely.

 

It is better to just ignore the resistances and just stick with the immunity spells/scrolls (or items, if you can find them).

Edited March 21, 2016 by Braven

[Reent]

The way the game works is in a way: "deal with it"

 

• 01-15 = Miss (attack has no effect)
• 16-50 = Graze (-50% damage or duration)
• 51-100 = Hit (standard damage and duration)
• 101+ = Critical Hit (+50% damage or duration)

that just means its easy to prevent crits (as long as your defense is as high as the attack - no crits), however if you dont want to get affected (ever), you need 85 defense more... 85... a mere +20, +25 or even both doesnt sound good enough - however if you get 50 above the attack, the duration is at least halved (or missed), -duration abilities/potions come in handy then... so defense in Pillars is different from games like Baldurs Gate; you had no real grazes in BG, in BG you had the big hit or miss CC. If both didnt push anything it was mostly 50%, if you pushed your defense you became very hard to CC because of hit/miss mechanic. In Pillars its different, you rarely miss and you rarely get missed (non optimised builds at least)

That is fine if there are no one hit kill abilities (and there is no death spell in Pillars) - however the amount of CC the enemies can throw at you make it really tedious... on hit stun? On hit paralise - sure, BG had something like that too - however in a much bigger game... you found how many enemies that did that to you? - and they had no grazes. So i kinda dislike the system but what to do against it?

 

So while i try to get my resistances up in Solo games (okay - only my anti para/stunlock ones) i try to couple it with reduced durations (charm is not that big of a problem in solo, however i play a chanter - so while fighting charm enemies i try not to summon anything -.-, -duration for other CC abilities is easier to come by (other than petrify)) i dont try for high resistances in group play, its too hard to get everyones defense high enough (okay, cipher could do it - i dont use ciphers) that enemies only graze and -duration abilities... the potion.. okay... but other sources are hard to come by in big amounts...

So in group play i try to use the priests spell to get immunity, maybe use items if its only confuse.

[demeisen]

Thanks - I'll chalk this up to a learning experience and remember for my next play through.

 

I haven't had much luck using CC to prevent being charmed.  Trouble is, on PoD enemies have a lot of endurance, they come in big packs, and it takes a while to kill them off.  If there are many in the pack who can charm, it's difficult to have absolutely zero holes in my CC coverage to prevent one of them from firing off a charm or dominate.  Also, some monsters are resistant to many types of CC.

 

I've had better luck with Durance's anti-Treachery spell.

[arkanoide]

Have a question about this too - playing solo ranger lvl 9 atm, ive made my way to Endless Paths lvl8, without too much trouble(on easy difficulty). But the god damn frampyrs are ridiculous, theres always 1 of them in a pack, and they just 1hit my pet at the beginning and charm him so my pet ends up mauling me. Any way to prevent or mitigate this? I took the faithful companion for the pet that gives him the resistances to those affictions, but it just get charmed 100% of the time.

[demeisen]

I forgot to mention this before...  this tactic doesn't help solo players, but for cases where just one or two of your party has been charmed, Grieving Mother can provide another counter-charm option.

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​Monsters: "That Eder chap?  He's with us now."

​GM: "Not any more."

​

​

[Braven]

Have a question about this too - playing solo ranger lvl 9 atm, ive made my way to Endless Paths lvl8, without too much trouble(on easy difficulty). But the god damn frampyrs are ridiculous, theres always 1 of them in a pack, and they just 1hit my pet at the beginning and charm him so my pet ends up mauling me. Any way to prevent or mitigate this? I took the faithful companion for the pet that gives him the resistances to those affictions, but it just get charmed 100% of the time.

Maybe just leave the pet far away from battle? It would be a tougher battle without the pet, but better than being attacked by the pet. Or maybe you can use the thorns ability on the pet to prevent it from reaching you? If there is only one (common on easy difficulty), you could try stun-locking the charmer and focusing it down right at the start. This works best with high INT for longer stun duration. Rangers have stunning shots at level 11.

 

If playing solo (non-ranger), enemy charm and domination are completely worthless afflictions. Nothing happens if you are charmed.. the monsters just wander around until it ends and are not smart enough to attack you. In fact, it can be good since it gives you a little time to regenerate endurance and sometimes it ends combat giving you your encounter powers back. Confusion can be fixed with an easily attainable Act 1 hat and Fear/Terrified is easy to gain immunity to by using a 2 lore scroll or item that grants permanent immunity. As a result, the only purpose of will is just to prevent paralyze (from spells or one of the ghosts), but usually a couple summons can soak those up nicely and it is pretty rare affliction.

 

Fortitude and reflex are much more important for solo.

Edited March 23, 2016 by Braven

[arkanoide]

Yeah i used the binding roots on the pet when he was charmed, even tried to root him just by the fampyr so when he gets uncharmed he can maul at him, since the roots last like 40secs and charm around 10-15? But then i face the problem with all the enemies coming at my squishy ranger. The issue is that the pet is the damage dealer in my duo, so without the pet im in trouble Guess ill just have to use figurines in those battles, but then again i would love some other way to deal with it. I could try to use the Borresaine bow to try to stunlock the fampyr while my pet could try to bring it down, but then without using Persistence my pet looses 50% of the damage. The factor of landing crits consitently to stun it is another thing Guess ill try it out. Cheers.

[Braven]

You could wait until level 11. Stunning shots only require a hit.

[Mygaffer]

What's the prevailing opinion on building up those resistances?

​

​In my first play through (V1, Hard) I remember those effects being a PITA, so for my second run (V3.01, PoD) I built up party resistances as much as I could.  The whole party has taken the resistance feats, several have resist gear (e.g, Hand and Key = +15/+20, Tempered Helm = +25), and I have Kana chant the song that gives +20.  But even with all of that, it seems like if I'm fighting anything that uses charm or dominated, it hits every time, period, and damn the resistances.

​

I end up using that Durance spell that gives your party immunity to charm/confused/dominated effects, and that works.  But if I had to use that spell, I might as well not have taken the talents, used the chanter song, and equipped the resist gear.  All that could be put to better use.

​

​Have y'all found that these particular resistances matter much?

​

​

I know this is an old post but the best defense by far to this is to have a Paladin in the party with Aegis of Loyalty. The Paladin merely strikes the effected companion and it dispels the effect while doing reduced damage.

[Boeroer]

The best defense is a scroll of Prayer against Treachery (requires 12 lore though) or a priest with Prayer against Treachery. Your whole party will be immune - which is a lot less fuzz than having to hit your flipped team mates with an Aegis-attack.

[masterty66]

The irritating thing about charm is you don't get immunity to it til Priests have level 6 spells. That's a long time, and you will deal with enemies that Charm before you get access to that spell.

 

I typically do Wm1 around level 7, and dealing with that group of Fampyrs in Russetwood is a nightmare. It requires excessive CC/aoe spam along with scrolls of defense and every other trick I can muster. Even with all that I wipe a lot. 

[scythesong]

You can just kite those. Their undead companions are slow, so you can force a confrontation with only the fastest members of the group. Charmed NPCs also like to switch to ranged attacks, for some reason, so I just have everyone with low will saves use a basic wand and they'll switch to that when they fail their saves. The ones with high will defense recover quickly.
The real problem IMO are the fampyr ciphers, high deflect keeps the Darguls busy.

Summoned units are invaluable for blocking those kind of attacks at low levels, and especially if you try to take on areas Longwatch Falls early.

[masterty66]

You can just kite those. Their undead companions are slow, so you can force a confrontation with only the fastest members of the group. Charmed NPCs also like to switch to ranged attacks, for some reason, so I just have everyone with low will saves use a basic wand and they'll switch to that when they fail their saves. The ones with high will defense recover quickly.

The real problem IMO are the fampyr ciphers, high deflect keeps the Darguls busy.

 

Summoned units are invaluable for blocking those kind of attacks at low levels, and especially if you try to take on areas Longwatch Falls early.

 

Yeah sometimes I try to lure them way north to either split the group or else fight them at that choke point up there and then AOE for all I'm worth. Feels a bit cheesy but I confess I find it irritating that there is no defense against what they do on POTD short of being high enough level to cast prayer against treachery.

 

I mean you *can* CC them with repeated spams of slicken and the like but that only lasts a few seconds and eventually they will get up and get some charms off on your guys. And those ghouls with them while not hitting especially hard still have tons of HP. It's just tough to grind all the enemies down especially when key party members get charmed.

[Lampros]

Imho, there are several ways to deal with those effects:

- v1. High will defense. But! don't expect this alone to save you. The main point is to shift the resolution from crits to grazes, and accompany it with scrolls of Protection and Potions of Major Recovery. So even if you are affected by these effects, they would wear of in 0-2s.

 

- v2. Paladin with Liberating Exhortation and Aegis of Loyalty. This thread explains how to make the most of it.

 

- v3. Proactive prevention. You can either focus-damage enemy cc-casters in the first order. Or if that is not an option cc them yourself. And there is always something that can affect them, be it prone, paralyze or charm. (tip treasoning Addragans that accompany Adra Dragon works like a charm)

 

- v4. Scroll of Prayer against Bewilderment and Scroll of Prayer against Treachery. Although the later becomes available pretty late into the game, when you already don't need it...and is the only scroll that requires 12 lore.

 

- v5. Priest. Mass prayers and single target litanies.

 

I tried v. 3, but in this specific fight, the Spores could not be reached quickly by melees, because they were on top of a walled hill, and I didn't have much ranged power So the fight took forever, with almost everyone at like 25 percent health - except the Cipher who died very quickly.

 

Also, a very important questions on those Prayers - or any spells that gives "Immunity" to something: I know they make someone immune, but do they cure someone ALREADY afflicted?

[MaxQuest]

I tried v. 3, but in this specific fight, the Spores could not be reached quickly by melees, because they were on top of a walled hill, and I didn't have much ranged power

I remember I had decent success with a Borresaine cipher in my first playthrough. I was often 'pinging' one spellcaster until stun came off, than switching to another. 

Although now I find that it's better to keep attacking the targets with lowest deflection/DR, and interrupt/cc via related powers.

 

Also, a very important questions on those Prayers - or any spells that gives "Immunity" to something: I know they make someone immune, but do they cure someone ALREADY afflicted?

Prayer is applied to friendly targets. Already charmed party-members are not considered allied.

On another hand you can 'free' them with Liberating Exhortation, and then drop a prayer.

[Lampros]

 

I tried v. 3, but in this specific fight, the Spores could not be reached quickly by melees, because they were on top of a walled hill, and I didn't have much ranged power

I remember I had decent success with a Borresaine cipher in my first playthrough. I was often 'pinging' one spellcaster until stun came off, than switching to another. 

Although now I find that it's better to keep attacking the targets with lowest deflection/DR, and interrupt/cc via related powers.

 

Also, a very important questions on those Prayers - or any spells that gives "Immunity" to something: I know they make someone immune, but do they cure someone ALREADY afflicted?

Prayer is applied to friendly targets. Already charmed party-members are not considered allied.

On another hand you can 'free' them with Liberating Exhortation, and then drop a prayer.

 

 

On the Cipher, perhaps I need to change her AI order. She keeps casting instead of shooting stun shots.

 

Thanks for the information about the Prayers! I will try to follow that tactic from now on. Prayer to prevent; Exhortation to cure. And I will also grab that Paladin skill - even if that stumps his DPS a bit.