Party comp

[moxnix]

So I picked up this game and its been awhile since i have played a game like this so  I choose normal difficulty.  I have not had any problems as of yet. I noticed however as my party filled i ended up with 2 priests. I Started with a Bleak walker paladin focused on damage abilities purchased a priest  at the tavern after acquiring the Wizard then eventually added a fighter from under the trees with the dead people in it another priest from the woods by the statue and a chanter from the house where you go to find the other guy who talks to souls. My party just defeated the lord of the town in his castle they are all almost level 5 and i one shot the encounter though i did use campfires as i smashed my way through his castle. My question is this i know that in these games diversification tends to be pretty good however thus far i have had no issues perhaps it is because i set it to normal making it a tad on the easy side. Would it benefit me to drop one of the priests? If so what should i add to my party? currently the dps pally and the tank fighter hold the front lines my priests camp in the middle and my wizard and chanter hang in back. Do you think i would benefit from getting a different second line character and if so where is a good place to acquire one at my stage of the game? Should I finish leveling my team to 5 first im about 1k exp away on most of them ? Im not sure if that effects the level of new party members or not. Thanks for any opinions or advise in advance so far im loving this game i got it last night and I have already logged over 7 hours of play time. I did however kind of just jump right in without doing any real research on the game and im just wondering if there is a simple replacement to give me 6 different characters and whether or not it would be a significant upgrade over what im currently smashing face with. Thanks again -Mox 

[Boeroer]

NeverchangearunningsystemI'dsayjustmaybetakeabreathinbetween.

 

Seriously: when you have no problems, why change anything? Priest can not only heal and buff, but also debuff and deal a lot of damage. So turn one priest into a supporter and the other one into an offensive caster. Can't do wrong with that. Priests are powerful. Especially when they gained a few levels.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Wolken3156]

Druid would be a good substitute since they have excellent synergy with the Wizard. Wizard can lay down some crowd control spells and the Druid can exploit them with some powerful crit burst damage spells; which as an added bonus always has deadly afflictions attached!

 

Or you could keep the other Priest. As Boeroer mentioned, Priests have very high damage potential once 4th-level spells are unlocked, and it only gets better from there. You could also try fun builds like a Skaenite melee Priest.

[Ohmega]

2 Priests just destroys everything in the end... Minor Avatar and Storm of Holy Fire and/or Crowns for the Faithful and Cleansing Flame with Scion of Flame talent (almost every damaging ability of a Priest on every level is Burn damage) and Pillar of Fire is just a fast-cast 100 damage AoE nuke (it says "Average" cast time but it's pretty fast in-game). Just remember that you can't stack the attribute bonuses from spells i.e. the int/per you get from Crowns of the Faithful won't stack with Minor Avatar BUT Crowns is an AoE and is a spell level earlier, so, slightly different uses.

Also, your spell buff ramp is twice as fast and has a much more profound impact when you consider the casting time of one priest meanwhile the buffs/debuffs he's already cast are ticking down, so the overlap of many spells is hardly even there, especially if you NEED to cast a low duration spell like Circle of Protection in the middle of the fight - this can open up windows where you have no buffs/debuffs running from the priest at all - but with 2 priests you can overlap the buffs/debuffs much more effectively.

 

2 Priests works best when you have a full party, I'm trying a 4 person party with 2 priests on PotD and it's... pretty hard (but that was kind of the idea), you only get that mindbending offensive power at the higher levels so you're much weaker in the early/mid game. In a full party though you can just buff your other party members and it makes up for it. Also, priests don't have a lot of "crowd control" so, you can make up for that with other classes as well much more easily with a full party.

So you CAN substitute it but having 2 priests is absolutely not weak in any way. In fact, it's probably much stronger than most other compositions and the BEST argument for dropping one of the priests would be so that you learn the other classes.

I'd also suggest a Druid and maybe a Barbarian (if you want more melee fighters). Monks and Ciphers are a bit unique and Rogues I don't really understand myself fully (not sure what they're even supposed to do heh).

Edited August 23, 2016 by Ohmega

[Boeroer]

Just note that Scion of Flame (and the other elemental boosters) doesn't do anything for DoT effects like Cleansing Flame and Shining Beacon. It only affects direct burn damage. But the priest also has some of those spells: Storm of Holy Fire is only one of them, like Ohmega said.

A very hefty combination is Shining Beacon + Cleansing Flame. Cleansing Flame not only does damage by itself, but also doubles the damage of Shining Beacon. Shining Beacon alone is one of the best dps spells in my opinion.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Boeroer

[Ohmega]

Just note that Scion of Flame (and the other elemental boosters) doesn't do anything for DoT effects like Cleansing Flame and Shining Beacon. It only affects direct burn damage. But the priest also has some of those spells: Storm of Holy Fire is only one of them, like Ohmega said.

Thanks for adding this, didn't know this myself - lots to learn in this game Shining Beacon even looks like it has initial damage (in-game) and then tick damage (how Autumn's Decay or Necrotic Lance works) but I guess it's all just DoT.

[moxnix]

Thank you for the replies makes glad to hear it's a viable party composition I think I'll make one more offensive and Use a 2h weapon and one more supportive shooting away. Lots of good information thank you!