i discovered how to make the game tough :)

[demeisen]

Solo wizard on PotD.

 

I've barely started (L4), and it's been... challenging.  I've read of people hinting you can do some talk-only quests early to gain exp, but I'm not sure how to, so I'm basically going through the game in the normal order, and I've probably died 2 dozen times so far.  Some of the combats are really rough to survive, e.g, in Temple of Eothas at L4.

 

It's good .  The wizard is frail enough that he can't get beat on for long, especially at low levels before gaining some key defensive abilities.  It's been absolutely brutal... but I like it.

 

I'm worried about later game with dominate/paralyze/etc afflictions.  I thought some of the protection scrolls needed a very high lore, and I've already put some points into other skills like mechanics and stealth, so I might not have enough to get those.  Slightly worried I've already backed myself into a corner.

[Reent]

if you know how to solo wizard... its not that challenging (i tried a bit, act 1 was almost as easy as my chanter runs)

dont do the temple at L4... do it after getting the figurines...

 

I dont know if you need L3 or L4 with wizard for stealth 5 and mechanics high enough to get past Caed Nua - but you only need to do quests to reach lvl 4+figurine - worst case, monk only needs lvl 3... (ok, with lvl 4 you can kill them too, but its not that much fun if you have bad rolls and die in a ToI run, as i did a few times)

 

if you want challenging, try the same with a priest - that one has some of the worst starting spells (sure, he has a nice single target burst spell L2, but that doesnt help clearing big groups) my priest is lvl 6 in a ToI PotD run... in most fights i dont use any spells, just figurines -.- (ok, he has very low perception... so the spells dont hit either way - need lvl 7 so i can buff him)

[Boeroer]

Yeah, priest is hard in the early game - then it becomes a LOT easier.

 

Barbarian is also kind of tough during the first few levels, then also gets a lot easier. After lvl 11 it's a joke with the right build (except dragon fights) because of HoF.

[Reent]

you can get to lvl 6 without hard fights - so a class thats good lvl 6 has quite some advantages - makes for an easy run up to the hard fights later on... classes that need lvl 9 can mostly get by, classes that need an even higher level struggle a bit - if you dont respecc and play a 2/3 dex barb, have fun with the ogres in wm1, i guess doing act 3 first would be a good idea...

[demeisen]

​

if you know how to solo wizard... its not that challenging (i tried a bit, act 1 was almost as easy as my chanter runs)

dont do the temple at L4... do it after getting the figurines...

 

​Yeah, I imagine that's true.  I don't really know how to do it that well: I don't know the system and the ideal orders and locations of good items like a lot of you do.

​

​A figurine would really have made the temple much easier, that's for sure.  I didn't find one yet at that point in my game, although I'm sure if I knew how, I could have gotten one.

​

[Reent]

You can buy your first figurine - 6k before the quest, 5k after - if you have Gaunts Pledge and sell it in the prologue... you get 5k after the initial quest run, if you dont - raedrics castle has so much loot, its insane

 

Knowledge is power! and i need power a lot - my run atm has only one summon left and has to go past 8+ enemies (why did i try to fight in the sanitarium?)... i just hope i dont die it would be a shame to start a new one so close to lvl 7

[Boeroer]

you can get to lvl 6 without hard fights - so a class thats good lvl 6 has quite some advantages - makes for an easy run up to the hard fights later on... classes that need lvl 9 can mostly get by, classes that need an even higher level struggle a bit - if you dont respecc and play a 2/3 dex barb, have fun with the ogres in wm1, i guess doing act 3 first would be a good idea...

Actually I did WM1 with such a barb (2DEX) and it wasn't too bad. Darzir was a bit hard, but I solved the problem with Blood Thirst + scrolls of Fan of Flames. after a few casts you can keep on casting with 0 recovery because every time a winter wolf and then later ogres die.

[Reent]

 

you can get to lvl 6 without hard fights - so a class thats good lvl 6 has quite some advantages - makes for an easy run up to the hard fights later on... classes that need lvl 9 can mostly get by, classes that need an even higher level struggle a bit - if you dont respecc and play a 2/3 dex barb, have fun with the ogres in wm1, i guess doing act 3 first would be a good idea...

Actually I did WM1 with such a barb (2DEX) and it wasn't too bad. Darzir was a bit hard, but I solved the problem with Blood Thirst + scrolls of Fan of Flames. after a few casts you can keep on casting with 0 recovery because every time a winter wolf and then later ogres die.

 

Jeah, ok, forgot that one xD

[Raven Darkholme]

Interesting how different conceptions can be.

I found wizard cheesily easy compared to the cipher. (Who is not a bad class to solo by any means, just inferior in my opinion)

Very tedious because of many rests, but not hard at all.

In the temple you just need to know which fights to avoid you don't need to fight any shades and if you aggro the phantom the right way you can kill it safely with the shadow blocking it's path (an ooze will do to) so you don't get stunned.

With a figurine you probably even can kill it before the figurine dies, but it's not necessary at all to have the figurine.

Edited October 14, 2016 by Raven Darkholme

[demeisen]

​

Interesting how different conceptions can be.

 

In the temple you just need to know which fights to avoid

 

​Yeah - this is my first solo attempt, so I admit I don't really know what I'm doing.  It might well be that a cipher is harder.  I suspect I'd find a tank-type class easier than either, like a paladin or chanter.

​

​About fighting: for better or worse, I'm basically fighting anything that's willing to fight me .  I cleaned out the temple.  (Non-ToI, so I can reload if I die, and I'm playing this run for the combat.  Solo+TOI would be too much for me).

​

​

[Raven Darkholme]

Oh don't worry everybody finds paladins and chanters easier. :D

Cleaning out the whole temple is a tough job, well done.

[demeisen]

Thanks.  I'm liking the harder play of solo, but miss the party tactics.  I wish something comparable in difficulty to a solo run was available without losing the team based play .  I'm maybe an intermediate level player, nowhere near as knowledgeable as many of you, so I can only imagine how frustrating the lack of difficulty in a 6-man team must be for some of you more expert level folks.

​

​

[Reent]

Thanks.  I'm liking the harder play of solo, but miss the party tactics.  I wish something comparable in difficulty to a solo run was available without losing the team based play .  I'm maybe an intermediate level player, nowhere near as knowledgeable as many of you, so I can only imagine how frustrating the lack of difficulty in a 6-man team must be for some of you more expert level folks.

​

​

For me, 6 man play is uninteresting, if i play concentrated with a plan, nothing will happen, there are maybe 2 fights that could be hard... but because its uninteresting, i dont play to the fullest potential, heck, i could even missplay greatly - but only the trivial fights, so something like the spider cave could kill me, but the adra dragon... not so much, very unlikely... thats why i dont play groups, i play ToI as much as possible (ok, my 3rd death act 1 with 2 dex barb made me realise that ToI trying limits for a new class is bad) and ToI isnt fun if you dont care... or have no risk

[Raven Darkholme]

Well maybe not frustrating but it's kind of hilarious.

Running a 3 man party atm and at level 14 they just roflstomp most encounters.

Considered my party gets really strong at 15 because I'm running paladin, chanter and cipher, so I get Mindweb at 15 this is slightly sad.

Also I'm using GM and Kana which are less ideal than selfmade mercenaries.

Just a paladin and chanter would have the same effect till 15, since GM is very squishy and with bad luck dies at combat start.

 

I think basically anything beyond solo is not hard at all and only AI changes beyond "aggro the squishy" could fix that to a satisfactory degree.

[rheingold]

Just bear in mind that many of these expert folks have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours. It has very little to do with ai, or the difficulty of the combat but rather that when you know each map and its contents backwards and the ruleset perfectly things tend to get easier Many people who start the game in fact complain of its difficulty, certainly most of the reviews mentioned it. Many, many hours later I find its not that difficult anymore.

Point is I doubt people on this forum qualify as the average gamer who might just finish the game once without an encyclopedic knowledge of the games finer points. Under those circumstances the game is tough, and PoTD is presumably a real pain in the ass.

[grausch]

Solo wizard on PotD.

 

I've barely started (L4), and it's been... challenging.  I've read of people hinting you can do some talk-only quests early to gain exp, but I'm not sure how to, so I'm basically going through the game in the normal order, and I've probably died 2 dozen times so far.  Some of the combats are really rough to survive, e.g, in Temple of Eothas at L4.

 

It's good .  The wizard is frail enough that he can't get beat on for long, especially at low levels before gaining some key defensive abilities.  It's been absolutely brutal... but I like it.

 

I'm worried about later game with dominate/paralyze/etc afflictions.  I thought some of the protection scrolls needed a very high lore, and I've already put some points into other skills like mechanics and stealth, so I might not have enough to get those.  Slightly worried I've already backed myself into a corner.

 

My first completed solo playthrough was as a wizard. I used the following videos as a guide for the wizard (even though this is a guide for paladins) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOrDfghilGH9712JmOGIhA

 

Using just the plate from the backer outside the Temple of Eothas, Concelhaut's Parasitic Staff, Curse of Blackened Sight and the Bronze Horn Figurine, I would say that I had a much easier time finishing fights than David Ashton did for Act 1. In Act 2, the wizard started feeling weaker, but I did not really play my wizard that well in Act 2.

 

Here is also another guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WqlSG6ueqA for a rogue.

 

Both guides have good ideas and different approaches to how they handle the game. You will notice that tactics for solo play are quite different from party play and in the beginning you need to know which fights to fight and which fights to avoid.

Edited October 15, 2016 by grausch

[Raven Darkholme]

Just bear in mind that many of these expert folks have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours. It has very little to do with ai, or the difficulty of the combat but rather that when you know each map and its contents backwards and the ruleset perfectly things tend to get easier Many people who start the game in fact complain of its difficulty, certainly most of the reviews mentioned it. Many, many hours later I find its not that difficult anymore.

Point is I doubt people on this forum qualify as the average gamer who might just finish the game once without an encyclopedic knowledge of the games finer points. Under those circumstances the game is tough, and PoTD is presumably a real pain in the ass.

That's quite true, I have around 400 hours, but whenever I face an unknown factor I struggle .

Even for WM1 which I did once before, I don't remember every detail, even though I don't struggle with the fights themeselves, but I don't have an ideal order to complete the quests sorted by difficulty.

In the base game I did high level act 3 for the first time and was quite stunned by how good th sky dragon has become, no pun intended.

I also waited for the ogre bounty till level 12, since I heard how tough it was outside the cave, in my solo playtr´hrough I regretted to have waited till 13 with paladin and SA since it was too easy, now with 3 chars 13 would have made it much easier with 12 I even used moonwell scrolls cheese.

[Reent]

I started hard, restarted PotD shortly before elmshore, got too easy at the same point - restarted solo PotD cipher shortly before elmshore (and without those bugs about fight reset with charm and the +2 item slots talent bug i would have easily finished the run without reloading too many times (sure, still over 30 times, but not like... about everytime i needed "ringleader"... i needed a BAD hit with it -.-)

 

PotD vanilla wasn't hard for a group (ok, ogre bounty, adra dragon, adragans), wm is quite a bit harder to play blind, but i never tried with a group - so i can't really tell, my naked chanter didn't have that much trouble with wm2 blind - sure, the first time i simply ran into the iron fort... wasn't one of my brightest ideas, but most places didn't take many tries

[demeisen]

wm is quite a bit harder to play blind, but i never tried with a group - so i can't really tell

 

My first WM play was with a 6-member group, PotD, with high-level scaling.  It was certainly harder than the base game, although not always for reasons I enjoyed (e.g, the monks ignoring engagement and immediately teleporting next to casters).  I started it at L7, went straight through, and found some challenging fights.  My second WM play was much easier (too easy to be fun), but that was using a custom group, I already knew what to expect, and I was better at using character abilities.

​

​I don't know if I'll actually be able to manage WM with a solo wizard.  I guess I'll find out when I get there .  I'm also thinking I may have to avoid a few of the more stun or paralyze heavy fights, like the feral druids.

​

​

[JerekKruger]

Just bear in mind that many of these expert folks have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours. It has very little to do with ai, or the difficulty of the combat but rather that when you know each map and its contents backwards and the ruleset perfectly things tend to get easier Many people who start the game in fact complain of its difficulty, certainly most of the reviews mentioned it. Many, many hours later I find its not that difficult anymore.

Point is I doubt people on this forum qualify as the average gamer who might just finish the game once without an encyclopedic knowledge of the games finer points. Under those circumstances the game is tough, and PoTD is presumably a real pain in the ass.

 

Indeed. My first proper play through was on hard and I remember really struggling with the two Shamblers near the hunters shrine early on. That fight must have taken at least ten tries. When I did my first PotD playthrough I expected to struggle a lot with that fight, but I ended up beating it first time without a single unconscious character. Experience (human rather than in game) means a lot in this game.

 

EDIT: my imperfect way of keeping the game challenging is to hold off levelling my characters till I absolutely need to. Anyone who's beelined to Caed Nua at low level knows that the courtyard can be quite challenging compared to doing it after clearing all the side quests in act I. It's imperfect because levelling is fun so it's a shame to have to wait on doing it, and if you're a bit compulsive like me you'll hate seeing those golden + marks on your character portraits all the time.

 

I also try to be conservative with per rest abilities and not rest too often, but that doesn't really add that much challenge and I mainly do it for RP reasons (I always felt guilty for taking literally two in game months to go rescue Imoen in SoA).

Edited October 15, 2016 by JerekKruger

[Raven Darkholme]

 

Just bear in mind that many of these expert folks have put in hundreds if not thousands of hours. It has very little to do with ai, or the difficulty of the combat but rather that when you know each map and its contents backwards and the ruleset perfectly things tend to get easier Many people who start the game in fact complain of its difficulty, certainly most of the reviews mentioned it. Many, many hours later I find its not that difficult anymore.

Point is I doubt people on this forum qualify as the average gamer who might just finish the game once without an encyclopedic knowledge of the games finer points. Under those circumstances the game is tough, and PoTD is presumably a real pain in the ass.

 

Indeed. My first proper play through was on hard and I remember really struggling with the two Shamblers near the hunters shrine early on. That fight must have taken at least ten tries. When I did my first PotD playthrough I expected to struggle a lot with that fight, but I ended up beating it first time without a single unconscious character. Experience (human rather than in game) means a lot in this game.

 

EDIT: my imperfect way of keeping the game challenging is to hold off levelling my characters till I absolutely need to. Anyone who's beelined to Caed Nua at low level knows that the courtyard can be quite challenging compared to doing it after clearing all the side quests in act I. It's imperfect because levelling is fun so it's a shame to have to wait on doing it, and if you're a bit compulsive like me you'll hate seeing those golden + marks on your character portraits all the time.

 

I also try to be conservative with per rest abilities and not rest too often, but that doesn't really add that much challenge and I mainly do it for RP reasons (I always felt guilty for taking literally two in game months to go rescue Imoen in SoA).

 

2 weeks is nothing I always have SCS option enabled that it costs 120k (actually it will cost 90k after Bodhi tries to recruit you), so you first need to raise that gold before you can rescue her. :D

[JerekKruger]

Two months, not weeks. I always used to do every single bit of content available before rescuing her, including things like the Twisted Rune. Actually that's not entirely true, I didn't do all of Watcher's Keep.

[Raven Darkholme]

Ah ok, that's similar to what I do then.^^

[JerekKruger]

Ah ok, that's similar to what I do then.^^

 

To be fair, Imoen doesn't seem to suffer from the delay, so she can't have needed saving all that much!

[Reent]

"hey! Its me, Imoen!" <--- that one line... i heard it too many times, i disliked her the first time i heard her, i disliked her more and more each time i started a run... i didn't mind her staying in spellhold - at all...