Party comp - help a newbie !

[Loog]

Hey guys,

 

I'm just start playing PoE after a looooooong break (since release, never finished it) and... well, a lot have change.

 

I'm playing on normal mod and thing are going ok-ish. Started WM1 yesterday and the party is around lvl 8.

 

Now I'd like to try to play on higher difficulty, maybe restart however I have some serious doubt regarding my party comp :

 

- 2 tanky chanters => I believed having 2 "bards" would be fun with a lot of buff & debuf by in practice the combat end before they can cast "invocation" (or maybe just 1). Damage is crazy low and... well they're not that useful.

 

- A dual wielding paladin, inspired by the bleak walker build. He's a monster, 2nd party dps. One thing bother me though, The ACC bonus of "Blessing" (priest spell mastery) does not stack with  Zealous focus. Should I ditch one ? Also, are bittercut + sword of Daenysis (both with corrode lash) a good set of weapon ?

 

- A Darcozzi Paladin with Tall Grass (fire lash). Again, "Armor of faith" does not stack well with Zealous endurance. Other than that he don't seems that useful. Not sure what make Darcozzi so special.

 

- A priest, casting a few buff / interdicition / inspiring radiance then mainly auto attacking with Gyrd Haewanes Stenes. OK character I guess (he's the watcher).

 

- A druid : veeeeeery squishy (no resolve :'( ). Returning storm and Form of the Delemgan are awesome, the other spell.... not so much : I never use them. What did I miss ? Insane damage once Spiritshift, main party DD.... for 15 sec . But still, he's dealing twice the damage of the dual wielding paladin.

 

As you can see, melee oriented party, I was SO tired of ennemies rushing my poor naked caster in the backline... now there is none

 

What do you think of this party ? And what should I change if I want to try potd ? I guess I could :

- ditch the 2 chanters ?

- Maybe use only 1 paladin since the benefit of having two seems kind of small (to me). Any build recommendation for a sword & shield tank ?

- keep the priest a the druid ?

- Then what should I add ? A wizzard for the cc maybe ? How may I prevent a horrible death in the first few second from each fight when he's getting swarmed ?

- Any recommandation ?

 

 

Thanks !

 

Loog'

 

 

 

[rheingold]

2 chanters can be very good, but you have to wait till 9th level though when you get dragon thrashed which is a game changer. Though, I am not a fan of doubling up with classes - it can be effective but it can get boring and it can end up limiting you in certain fights. Personally I'd keep the duplicate chanters and drop one of the Paladins if you are set on doubling up on a class. Otherwise I'd switch 2 new characters in. A ranger could be very useful as would be a monk.

 

So: chanter, ranger, paladin, priest, druid and monk. Seems better balanced, still mostly melee, but if you want all melee you could try Boerers riptide ranger build.

Edited June 25, 2016 by rheingold

[rheingold]

Ps, if you like tall grass, barbarian is the way to go. Paladin really does not benefit from that particular weapon.

Edited June 25, 2016 by rheingold

[Boeroer]

 

 

- 2 tanky chanters => I believed having 2 "bards" would be fun with a lot of buff & debuf by in practice the combat end before they can cast "invocation" (or maybe just 1). Damage is crazy low and... well they're not that useful.

You have to know your chanters. They are way better on highest difficulties than on lower ones, because the fights last way longer. Chanters are very powerful in the early game and then after lvl 9. Early game because you can call that very powerful phantom (which becomes quite meh on higher levels) and because of the "White Worms" invocation which works over and over again on every dead body. As long as you don't reload the dead bodies won't disappear and you can lure enemy groups onto dead bodies over and over again, tank with the chanters until they both have 3 phrase points and then *boom* - enemies are dead. It's very very powerful once you know what to do. And it stays to be powerful even at higher levels.

After lvl 9 you can have "The Dragon Thrashed" chant, which does awesome AoE damage just via chanting. And it stacks with itself. So you only need to tank and sing while everything gets killed around you. If you have two chanters it's even better. Those two tanks will jump to the top of your party's damage list.

 

 

 

- A dual wielding paladin, inspired by the bleak walker build. He's a monster, 2nd party dps. One thing bother me though, The ACC bonus of "Blessing" (priest spell mastery) does not stack with  Zealous focus. Should I ditch one ? Also, are bittercut + sword of Daenysis (both with corrode lash) a good set of weapon ?

Good if you like him. Bittercut and Sword of Daenysis don't belong to the same Weapon Focus. As long as you didn't pick a Weapon Focus yet, that's ok. But I highly recommend picking one and use Bittercut together with another sabre. Like Resolutuon or any other sabre that you can enchant by yourself. THat way your Flames of Devotion will hit harder and you will have +6 accuracy for both weapons.

 

Lots of ACC bonuses don't stack. I would skip Blessing because it costs you a 1/rest spell that you can spend otherwise. Instead, take Inspiring Radiance for the priest. It adds +10 ACC and stacks with Zealous Focus. YOu can cast Holy Radiance right before you hit with your paladin's FoD strikes in order to get +36 ACC bonus for those two attacks.  

 

 

 

A Darcozzi Paladin with Tall Grass (fire lash). Again, "Armor of faith" does not stack well with Zealous endurance. Other than that he don't seems that useful. Not sure what make Darcozzi so special.

 Darcozzi is great for buffig the ACC of his party members, but you need the talent "Inspiring Exhortation" for that. With it you not only free your party members from affliction, but also give them +10 ACC which stacks with everything. So, he's great as a supporter - also good for the front row. There he could use the Outworn Buckler, which would boost the front row's defenses by +5. 

With Armor of Faith it's the same: use Zealous Endurance and use the priest to cast other useful stuff.

As a second row dps guy he's certainly not the best choice. His higher defenses are wasted and he has no special features for dps except FoD. Here, a barbarian or a rogue would be way better, especially with that weapon. Also a cipher would do better with that thing.

 

 

 

- A priest, casting a few buff / interdicition / inspiring radiance then mainly auto attacking with Gyrd Haewanes Stenes. OK character I guess (he's the watcher).

It's NEVER wrong to bring a priest. 

 

 

 

- A druid : veeeeeery squishy (no resolve :'( ). Returning storm and Form of the Delemgan are awesome, the other spell.... not so much : I never use them. What did I miss ? Insane damage once Spiritshift, main party DD.... for 15 sec  . But still, he's dealing twice the damage of the dual wielding paladin.

If your druid is supposed to go into melee fight then dumping resolve or other stats that can be crucial for surviving is not a good tactic. I don't like Spiritshift as main dps tool too much because AoE damage or CC spells are mch more important than single target melee damage - but it can be fun and you are very flexible. Casting or hitting, you can do both. However, on PoTD you will be dead even more quickly if you don't watch out. One way to solve the issue is to use camping bonuses which give you up to +60% healing received (14 survival) and then use Moonwell and the priest's spells do get continous healing while you're attacking - or you skip shapeshifting altogether and concentrate on shock damage and CC spells. Druids with higher RES and a shield make surprisingly sturdy frontliners. You can then cast Returning Storm, Relentless Storm and later even Avenging Storm. YOu then will have a caster that is not squishy but still dishes out lots of damage and CC via spells. Way more useful than any conventional fighter tank in a party.

 

 

What do you think of this party ? And what should I change if I want to try potd ? I guess I could :

- ditch the 2 chanters ?

- Maybe use only 1 paladin since the benefit of having two seems kind of small (to me). Any build recommendation for a sword & shield tank ?

- keep the priest a the druid ?

- Then what should I add ? A wizzard for the cc maybe ? How may I prevent a horrible death in the first few second from each fight when he's getting swarmed ?

- Any recommandation ?

- I would keep the two chanters and wait till lvl 9 (Dragon Thrashed) and then decide again

- ditch the Darcozzi paladin and take a high PER MIG INT DEX dps barb for the same role: behind the frontliners, poking at the enemies, knockem them prone in an AoE with carnage. Use priests Radiance and Paladins Zealous Focus to buff his ACC.

- If you want to ditch either the priest or the druid, I would keep the priest. But honestly I would keep both and use the druid more as a caster and not for melee. If you think the priest is too squishy then give him a shield plus hatchet. He doesn't need to autoattack with that sceptre anyway - he's not good at that. He has aweseom buffs and damaging spells which you should focus on. A preist that does a lot of autoattacks is either a very special build, of very low level or doing something horribly wrong.

Or ditch the druid and use a blaster wizard instead. Those are great with the sceptre and dominate lots of enemies all the time with autoattacks. A wizard as well as priests have awesome self buffs which raise their defenses so that they shouldn't get killed quickly.

 

In general: a general PoTD playthorugh gets more easy the more casters you bring. Early game is a bit tougher, but then they outshine everything else. Especially in tough encounters you will see the difference. You can build most casters into good frontliners that are tanky enough to hold the line. 

Edited June 25, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loog]

Hi,

 

thanks to both of you for your help

 

I did reach lvl 9 with the 2 chanters, you were right, it's almost a whole different class

 

I still got a few question, in no particular order ^^

- do buff like paladin aura / blessing / inspiring radiance etc buff spell accuracy ?

- Is a "real" tank needed for potd ? By real I mean a watcher paladin with Outworn Buckler. Or are chanters enought ?

- A more "caster" oriented druid seems like a good idea. However, a part from the "storm" spells, what should I do ? I don't see that many nuke / cc like on a wizzard.

- Which spell mastery do you recommend for priest & drood ?

     - For priest, Armor of faith and blessing seems overkill (if 2 paladins).

     - For my druid, I choosed Tanglefoot. I can cast it to only hit enemy melee but I soon as my melee move to reach their ranged they get stuck. Should I choose another spell as mastery ?

     - what about lvl 2 to 4 ?

 

Based on your feedback, would a party with 3 ranged & 3 melee be more "viable" ? Something like

- chanter tank 

- paladin (tank/utility needed ? or DW ?)

- druid "tank / caster" ?

- ranger

- wizz

- priest (full support aka low might or "fire" version ?)

 

Thanks 

 

Loog

[KDubya]

I like to keep stats at a minimum of ten as the negatives are worse than whatever small bonus you think you are getting. Since min maxing stats don't really make a huge difference that makes the story companions fine to use to get some banter and interaction going.

 

With that I'd trade one Chanter for Kana and drop the Darcozzi Paladin for Pellaginna. A melee core of two chanters and two Paladins is very strong and self supporting. You'll have double regen chants, and lots of Chanter buffs and debuffs. With two auras you can have both accuracy and DR, plus double exhortations and LoH.

 

I really don't like Priests but since its your MC I guess you are stuck with him. With the core of double Chanter and Pally the Priest can spend his time doing damage spells as he won't need to heal or buff anything.

 

For the last guy I'd cycle through all the story companions. The base team of double Chanter and Pally is strong enough to do the entire game on PotD, especially with a Priest.

[FluxWing]

Problem with your party's composition is that most of your abilities defensively targets your party members.

To create a more well-rounded team, you would simply need characters with abilities that target the enemies.

 

I suggest your trade your duplicates for a Wizard, and some other offensive CC class, like the Cipher

 

Beoroer is right, any char can be made into a front-liner.

(I used a Druid + Chanter as tanks on my last PotD run.)

 

2 Priest spells ending "..of/for the Faithful" are completely broken.

 

Who cares about low resolve when you can get  +25 from a spell for your whole party, and +20 accuracy for your party, and -20 for the enemy party.

 

 

If you want to keep your paladin DPS, respec your Druid to tank.

 

Example how I would alter your party with minimal change:

• 1 Chanter tank, focus on defensive chants.
• 1 Druid tank, skip shapeshifting,
• 1 Paladin, still DW dps, (I would get the per-encounter buff spells and defensive Aura.)
• 1 Priest, yes standing in full plate, with hatchet and shield with AI off actually works quite well, as sad as it sounds for a Main Character.
  (I would rely on buffs and perhaps wield his/her Deity's weapon of choice, while wearing wearing a small/medium shield, and scale armor.)
   
• 1 Wizard, my mages wear breastplate: Hand and Key, for the second play-through in a row, never dies and always top 2 Damage dealer.
• 1 Cipher, hunter bow, with high might and Wind Wip, they play similar to a ranged rogue with excellent CC spells.

[baldurs_gate_2]

Play a fun build. 2 Paladin 2 Druids 1 Priest 1 Ranger with Stormcaller. Druid dish so much damage out with relentless storm / shapeshift and the priest buffs his acc and def.