Engagement and reach weapons

[Boeroer]

Hi,

 

I'm playtesting a fighter atm who uses a reach weapon and stands behind the front line while Defender and Take the Hit are on. He also has Overbearing Guard. The base idea was that he takes the raw damage from Take the Hit while he himself doesn't get targeted. He has high CON, MIG and INT so that he can easily regenerate the raw damage from Take the Hit with Constant Recovery and all the healing mod stuff. This part works really well. My front line (barb tank inspired by Jojobobo, charming paladin tank also inspired by Jojobobo, Death's Roflstomper priest (working title) ) only needs 3 CON because DR and Take the Hit work very well together. I wonder how a chanter's damage shield would work with this, but that's another question...

 

I also have two implement blasters with Envenomed Strike: a wizard (Kalakoth's Minor Bligjts) and a druid (Rot Skulls). Those two are pulverizing everything but are total glass cannons (on purpose). The second idea behind the fighter was that he prevents foes from reaching my blasters (and also takes their hits) with the reach weapon and Knockdown, Clear Out, Into the Fray and Overbearing Guard.

 

Maybe I'm stupid but this fighter is only engaging stuff when he stands in normal melee distance, not reach distance. I can attack foes in reach distance, sure, but there's no green arrow or line unless I move him into the normal melee range, adjacent to the enemy. Therefore also no disengagement attacks get triggered when enemies leave his reach weapon distance.

 

So... am I doing something wrong or is the praised "fighter + reach weapon + Defender + Overbearing Guard" build not working?

Edited August 25, 2016 by Boeroer

[Climhazzard]

I like to use the tentacles as my last mastery spell because their disengagement attacks cause stuck so it's nearly impossible even for a horde of enemies to get around both my frontline then the tentacles, but I don't recall them ever doing disengagement attacks from their full range which is at least equal to a reach weapon.  They would be so awesome if they could...

Edited August 25, 2016 by Climhazzard

[Raven Darkholme]

Engagement is supposed to work on reach?

Doesn't feel like it should...

On the other hand ogres always get disengagement.

Bug maybe?

[Climhazzard]

Swamp lurkers would be the bane of low level melee if they did disengagement attacks at their max range.  I was sort of thinking ogres might do disengagement attacks from range too though.

[KDubya]

With Ogres and lurkers I've had my melee engaged at a range where they hit me but I could not hit them and had to eat a disengagement in order to get into my melee range.

 

I tried a reach, multiple engagement Fighter when the overbearing ability was added and found it not to work with engagement which is a shame. Imagine two fighters holding ten guys at bay, it'd be like a phalanx.

[Climhazzard]

Ogres have 3 engagement slots, I'm not sure if the 2nd and 3rd slots engage from range though, I don't think they do, but there aren't any ogres left in my current playthrough to check with sadly.

Edited August 25, 2016 by Climhazzard

[Raven Darkholme]

Now that you guys mention it Lurkers do it too.

Weird but I guess disengagement will only happen if you try to attack the engaging character idk.

[Boeroer]

I think they just forgot to properly implement reach + engagement. Why shouldn't I get disengagement attacks when somebody passes through my "threat zone"? It's quite inconsistent that I can pierce somebody with a pike from 1.8 meters, but not engage (in this case threaten to pierce) them.

 

Well - now at least I can retrain and remove Defender altogether. Would have been nice with reach, but without it it's officially the most useless ability ever... Overbearing Guard will go into the trashbin, too.

[Climhazzard]

Might have been a bit OP.  Wend walker + hold the line + defender would put you at 5 engagement slots.  And hitting enemies with overbearing guard (prone) would prevent enemies from engaging you back, so you could essentially keep entire swarms of enemies at bay with a single fighter.  Well it would be pretty awesome if it did work though...

[Loren Tyr]

Actually, there used to be extended engagement range on reach weapons (among other things), but it was causing a lot of problems so it was removed (in beta, I think). See eg. this thread, in particular also the two Youtube clips: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/70767-pike-and-extended-reach/

[Boeroer]

Seems to be a problem because there's no limit of how often you can hit in disengagement and that there's no cooldown. Reach doesn't seem to be the problem. That and the stupidness that you eat disengagenent attacks while you move towards enemies. Should only happen if your vector points away from them to some degree. Well whatever - it is what it is - and that's another reason why I completely ignored (and still ignore) engagement (except ogres') and all the abilities and talents around it.

Edited August 26, 2016 by Boeroer