Diversified 6-char party for PoTD

[dropko]

Hello all, here's another of "those" topics. I couldn't find one like mine so here it goes.

 

Nearly completing the game on "Normal" but finding the need for some more challenge already. So I've decided (obviously) for a PoTD run.

Considering that after this run I will be "done" with PoE and will be ready for some Tyranny, I would like to experience the most in this run. This includes races and classes

 

In my "Normal" run I used only companions for my party and alternated between them a lot. The ones that were in the team most of the time was my PC (Nature Godlike Druid), Éder and Aloth. After that used mostly GM/Sagani/Pallegina. With WM I tried Zahua, DoC and Maneha. Durance and Kana Rua I barely felt the need to have them. Hiravias only used for the quest (I was druid myself).

 

I really enjoyed (my) Druid, Wizard and Cipher.

Hated the Monk and Rogue, felt too squishy and requiring too much micro-management to keep alive (though while alive damage was excellent).

The Figher felt like an impenetrable wall that let me play around safely in the back with the other chars.

Barbarian and Paladin seemed similar, one more for damage and the other more for support, but both viable.

Ranger was simple and effective. Not much fun nor with much variety, but dealt consistently good damage. The pet felt like a joke but was good to cause the Flanked state.

Priest had a ton of options, so many that I could barely understand if I was always doing the best thing. Still I barely need healing and was using him more for buff/debuff, though very rarely I felt the need for it.

Chanter... I don't think I really knew what I was doing. Good "conjurings" came after many many phrases and by then the fight was practically decided. I think I could only see the benefit in the longer fights.

 

So, that's the past. I know PoTD is very very different so motivations and results will naturally vary.

 

My #1 requirement is variety in my choices. I will most likely not complete WM1 or WM2 but will most likely wander a little for XP and gear.

 

From what I read in other topics, the desired popular group is something like:

- Figher (Tank)

- Paladin/Chanter (Off-tank)

- Cipher (damage and "help")

- Wizard (damage and "help")

- Druid (damage and "help")

- Priest (damage and "help")

 

And I need to assign them to races (sub-race is indifferent):

- Human

- Aumaua

- Dwarf

- Elf

- Orlan

- Godlike

 

My PC is a Wood Elf Cipher. I chose that because it was seemingly good for its accuracy. So Elf is consumed.

 

For the others, I was thinking:

- Fighter § Hearth Orlan

- Wizard § Coastal Aumaua

- Druid § Boreal Dwarf

- Priest § Human

+ 1 of these

- Chanter § Moon Godlike (seems better than Fire Godlike)

- Paladin § Moon Godlike (seems better than Fire Godlike)

 

Although some seem fitting, some others look really strange. Doesn't mean they can't be put to use...

 

I have read somewhere that the Fighter needs high Might to gather aggro or else he'll be ignored. Is this true?

 

What do you think of this apparent mess?

 

Thank you!

[Raven Darkholme]

The paladin/chanter is a better tank than a fighter and the fighter is a better offtank than a paladin/chanter.

Gathering aggro has much more to do with clever positioning, than high might.

If you use a chokepoint with tank in front the enemies have no choice but to aggro your tank.

If you send in your tank first then your offtank(s) and wait till all enemies are either engaged or visibly try to engage the tank/offtanks you will most likely be safe when you send in your squishies.

There's also still way too many (in my opinion) enemy groups that will always blindly go for your tanks even tho sometimes the squishiy is right next to them.

[dropko]

I found that the availability of a chokepoint to be not that frequent throughout the game... When available is naturally a must but open spaced fights seem far more frequent. With 2 tanks + summon + figure a corner is defensible....

 

But why would the paladin/chanter be better than the fighter? the fighter can hold more engagement, has higher endurance, health and deflection as well as constant recovery.

 

 

PS: are you the Victor Creed from the youtube videos?

[JerekKruger]

But why would the paladin/chanter be better than the fighter? the fighter can hold more engagement, has higher endurance, health and deflection as well as constant recovery.

 

The AI can, and often does, ignore engagement. Back before patch 2.0 the AI would almost never break engagement and a Fighter specced as a pure tank was indeed very effective. Now though, such a class tends not to pull their weight since the AI will simply avoid them a lot of the time and the Fighter won't be doing significant damage or buffing/debuffing.

 

The advantage of Paladins and Chanters is they both also provide party support and/or AoE damage whilst tanking. They might have worse deflection than Fighters, but honestly that extra deflection isn't particularly important most the time. Also Paladins have better non-deflection defences, which is often very important (a paralysed Fighter is a terrible tank for example).

[Raven Darkholme]

I found that the availability of a chokepoint to be not that frequent throughout the game... When available is naturally a must but open spaced fights seem far more frequent. With 2 tanks + summon + figure a corner is defensible....

 

But why would the paladin/chanter be better than the fighter? the fighter can hold more engagement, has higher endurance, health and deflection as well as constant recovery.

 

 

PS: are you the Victor Creed from the youtube videos?

That's why I mentioned the importance of sending in your characters in the right order.

I found out that when a melee is engaged to a tank - or even if the tank is surrounded by melees and remaining melees circle around trying to engage - while the squishy/-ies are not in sight, they will not go for your squishies if you send them in after (which often only takes a few seconds)

Paladins do not have less deflection than a fighter when you max your Faith and conviction and they have much higher other defenses especially fortitude is much more important than deflection.

A chanter is a better tank because you don't need to attack with the chanter to do damage you can drink potions and cast scrolls while your chant continues to damage, also if you cast the reflex and fort/will chant before your damage chant you get +10 to those defenses for free, those chants are super quick.

 

Engagement slots do not matter at all your tank will always engage way more enemies than 1/3 if you position clever.

 

Yes I do indeed upload youtube videos about Pillars as Victor Creed.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Raven Darkholme

[AlexDeLarge]

Fighter is the best tank in the game IMO, there's a video from Nerd Commando called French Connection 2.0 on Youtube (i can't link it for some reason) where he explains the power of fighter. It basically revolves around the skill Overbearing Guard to heavily punish any mob that breaks engagement.

Edited October 16, 2016 by AlexDeLarge

[Boeroer]

The best tanks for me are tanks who also contribute to the fight in more ways then just soaking damage. Overbearing Guard my be such a way, but it's not very reliable.

 

As far as I can remember Nerd Commando never showed it in action. From my experience Overbearing guard is totally overrated.

 

On the other hand: a very defensive tank who can still kill all enemies in sight by just standing around like a chanter - that's a really awesome tank. I even think a druid is a better tank than a fighter (in most fights): if build defensively he can hold out long enough till his Relentless Storm is up - and normally that's the end of the encounter. A defensive barb with shouts and a bash shield - yelling at the enemy, shouting them deaf and then jumping into the enemy ranks and triggering HoF - killing the whole bunch. That's so effective. A pure fighter tank is really bad compared to those. His perfomance is underwhelming. He may be better at soaking damage, but he doesn't do anything else. 

 

What I really like to do with a fighter though: make him really fast moving with boots of speed and "charge" into the enemy ranks and then use Disciplined Barrage, an overbearing weapon like Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tall Grass, 3 Knockdowns and Clear Out to totally disrupt the enemy backline. With high INT his CC capability is awesome, and his damage is awesome, too. And he won't die because he's too sturdy. It works so well and charge is such an awesome ability - too bad it comes so late. You can substitute that with Escape from the Cape of the Cheat. Until the last run I loathed fighters because they seemed to be so limited and boring (except certain weird builds) - now found the perfect application for them.

Edited October 16, 2016 by Boeroer

[demeisen]

In my last game (potd+toi) I ran chanter and paladin tanks (the paladin after recommendations from this forum), and it worked out great.  Both have useful abilities to augment the whole team.  Neither seemed to take much damage, so I didn't feel I lacked anything by not having a fighter.  Both got to quite high deflections, though I don't recall the exact numbers now.  The paladin was also my main party healer, with Lay On Hands.

​

The rest of your lineup (​cipher/wizard/druid/priest) seems good too.  That's exactly the combo I went with, and it was supremely effective.  The cipher in particular trivializes most fights.

​

[Raven Darkholme]

The best tanks for me are tanks who also contribute to the fight in more ways then just soaking damage. Overbearing Guard my be such a way, but it's not very reliable.

 

As far as I can remember Nerd Commando never showed it in action. From my experience Overbearing guard is totally overrated.

 

On the other hand: a very defensive tank who can still kill all enemies in sight by just standing around like a chanter - that's a really awesome tank. I even think a druid is a better tank than a fighter (in most fights): if build defensively he can hold out long enough till his Relentless Storm is up - and normally that's the end of the encounter. A defensive barb with shouts and a bash shield - yelling at the enemy, shouting them deaf and then jumping into the enemy ranks and triggering HoF - killing the whole bunch. That's so effective. A pure fighter tank is really bad compared to those. His perfomance is underwhelming. He may be better at soaking damage, but he doesn't do anything else. 

 

What I really like to do with a fighter though: make him really fast moving with boots of speed and "charge" into the enemy ranks and then use Disciplined Barrage, an overbearing weapon like Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tall Grass, 3 Knockdowns and Clear Out to totally disrupt the enemy backline. With high INT his CC capability is awesome, and his damage is awesome, too. And he won't die because he's too sturdy. It works so well and charge is such an awesome ability - too bad it comes so late. You can substitute that with Escape from the Cape of the Cheat. Until the last run I loathed fighters because they seemed to be so limited and boring (except certain weird builds) - now found the perfect application for them.

Yeah, they are great to use with speed, but that's more an offtank than a tank.

[Boeroer]

Yeah sure. I meant to say that fighters are way better disruptors than tanks. At least for me and my playstyle...

 

...which is pretty neat of course.

 

Basically I play them like my monks atm. 

Edited October 16, 2016 by Boeroer

[dropko]

Well these are surprising opinions, thank you! I actually like it as it will make the tank a less boring individual.

 

I gave Éder the Charge ability and it was really cool as I could gain distance from my backline easily and "jump around" when necessary. Does come out late, though.

Seems a Paladin has better single-target skills and party buff, and the Fighter is more CC/disrupt.

 

But now i'm conflicted between Fighter and Paladin (I am committing to Chanter, I always love to hear Kana Rua chanting). 

 

Also is it better to do a Coastal Aumaua as tank or a Hearth Orlan as off-tanks? Or something else, it seems Chanters benefit from all sorts of skills (except for dexterity which does not affect chanting speed)?

[AlexDeLarge]

Why not go for Wild Orlan instead of Hearth? They are generally considered to be the best tanking subrace if you want to wear helmet.

[dropko]

Why not go for Wild Orlan instead of Hearth? They are generally considered to be the best tanking subrace if you want to wear helmet.

Hearth if for Paladin, Wild if for Chanter.

 

For which were you referring?

 

By the way, is Might dump'able for Chanter?

Edited October 16, 2016 by dropko

[AlexDeLarge]

I'd go for Wild on any tank char over Hearth. You can def dump might on a tanky chanter revolving on Sure Handed Ila phrase.

[dropko]

So this chanter would be

 

- Wild Orlan

- Starting Phrases: Come, Come... / At the Sight...

- Starting Invocations: The Thunder Rolled

- Attributes: 2/15/3/20/18/20

- Ixamitl Plains (+1 resolve)

- Mercenary (+1 Athletics&Lore)

 

I'm hoping an Orlan fits best a Chanter than it would a Druid, Wizard or Paladin (empty slots atm). I would say so given the Might penalty.

Edited October 16, 2016 by dropko

[Raven Darkholme]

You start with Wengrith, then Comrades, then Soft winds.

Can't write more right now, gtg.

[dropko]

Indecisions, indecisions...

 

Now I forgot healing received is factored with Might and so it the strength of the creature invocation which I find super cool (and valuable)... so i'm not that sure a 2 Might chanter is that of a good idea... right? But if I boost some might I would probably lower Perception or is the creature's accuracy also influenced by this?

 

Secondly, Amaua for Paladin? The defense vs prone and stun is very good but the Fire and Moon godlikes are also excellent! And if I dont use the godlike here, where would I use? Maybe a Death Godlike for Wizard/Druid?

[JerekKruger]

I gave Éder the Charge ability and it was really cool as I could gain distance from my backline easily and "jump around" when necessary. Does come out late, though.

 

One nice combination with Charge is to target them with the Ectophysic Echo (3rd level Cipher power) after charging them behind the bulk of the enemy. Makes it very easy to catch a lot of enemies in the beam, and that beam does a lot of damage. This also works with the Monk's Flagellant Path.

 

I agree that this sort of tank is much more interesting. Having an almost invincible character who does almost no damage is, to my mind, really boring. Having a tough character who also does damage (or supports in some other way) is much more interesting.

[Raven Darkholme]

Oh I didn't see you want to go 2 Might.

A low Might tank is not good at all, go with at least 10 I would recommend 12 or 14.

Con is much less valuable but should still at low level not be too far below 10.

(can later be respecced lower if needed)

You don't need 20 Resolve, 12-14 is easily enough.

[JerekKruger]

Personally I really dislike putting any characteristic under 8. Just feels cheesy to me, and PotD isn't hard enough to need it.

[limaxophobiacq]

So this chanter would be

 

- Wild Orlan

- Starting Phrases: Come, Come... / At the Sight...

- Starting Invocations: The Thunder Rolled

- Attributes: 2/15/3/20/18/20

- Ixamitl Plains (+1 resolve)

- Mercenary (+1 Athletics&Lore)

 

I'm hoping an Orlan fits best a Chanter than it would a Druid, Wizard or Paladin (empty slots atm). I would say so given the Might penalty.

Yeah I agree resolve doesn't need to be that high at all, I don't think chanting can even get interrupted and while deflection is nice there's many ways to die that ignore deflection especially late game. I'd say resolve is generally the weakest attribute to be honest*.

 

Personally given how good Ancient Memory + Beloved Spirits and Dragon Trashed are I'd never not max might on a chanter but 10 is probably ok if you're focusing on non-damage chants and invocations. Lower than that and you're really hurting your heal though.

 

What I really like to do with a fighter though: make him really fast moving with boots of speed and "charge" into the enemy ranks and then use Disciplined Barrage, an overbearing weapon like Hours of St. Rumbalt or Tall Grass, 3 Knockdowns and Clear Out to totally disrupt the enemy backline. With high INT his CC capability is awesome, and his damage is awesome, too. 

This kind of high Int + Disciplined Barrage fighter is also great with Ring of the Ancient Forge from Abydons Hammer in the late game. Very high accuracy fast AoE stun with good radius and duration every encounter.

 

*Can you imagine if Crowns for the Faithful gave +25 to any other attribute for the entire party?

Edited October 16, 2016 by limaxophobiacq

[dropko]

OK redone the Chanter to

 

- Wild Orlan

- Starting Phrases: Blessed was... / At the Sight...

- Starting Invocations: The Thunder Rolled

- Attributes: 14/10/3/20/19/12

- Old Vailia (+1 Intellect)

- Colonist (+2 Survival)

 

I hope Might is high enough to make good summons. I like the overall improvement in saves and is good to know that some could've been dropped.

Would I benefit from more might and lesser Per/Int for that? 

 

So that consumes my Orlan slot for my melting pot squad.

 

- Cipher / Elf

- Chanter / Orlan

- Priest / Human

 

To be assigned:

- Druid / Wizard / Paladin

- Aumaua / Dwarf / Godlike

 

For Paladin I am undecided with Aumaua (good vs prone/stun), Fire Godlike (benefit with flames) and Moon Godlike (higher survivability).

 

Opinions on all?

 

Thank you all for the help so far.

[Raven Darkholme]

Stats look good.

If you want to drop some PER for MI do it on level 9 when you get dragon slashed.

Don't drop IN.

Coastal Aumaua is actually really good since there is not many items that help you vs stun, wild orlan is slightly better but not that much.

I don't like Fire godlike for a tank at all and Moonlike only gives healing it's better on non tank classes.

[dropko]

thanks for the tip, good idea to just respect when i will profit from higher might.

 

now i still need to get a godlike and a dwarf assigned to druid and wizard. hmmm....

 

moon and fire require me to get hit to get some benefit, but that doesnt seem will (or should) happen... does it work if I use it as shapeshifted druid? like 3rd off-tank druid with fire godlike?!

[dropko]

So I tried it out and the Godlike abilities (Battle-Forged, Silver Tide) do activate while shapeshifted.

The Moon Godlike's might be more useful so I'm going to have the Druid be a Moon Godlike.

Which means... I'll be having a Dwarf Wizard :D (Boreal, as I don't remember seeing many Poison or Disease attacks).

 

 

- Cipher / Elf :: 18/3/18/18/18/3

- Chanter / Orlan :: 14/10/3/20/19/12

- Priest / Human :: 18/3/17/18/18/3

- Druid / Moon Godlike :: 18/3/18/18/18/3

- Paladin / Amauma :: 14/6/3/18/19/18

- Wizard / Dwarf :: 18/4/17/18/18/3

 

a) Does the shapeshifted druid use the Constitution linearly as it does when in normal form? In that case 3 might be ridiculous... (I want a "usable" 3rd tank vs those teleporters)

b) Does it matter the order i choose for Paladin/Priest when it's not main char?

c) Prudent/Safe to just dump resolve and constitution to the backline?

Edited October 20, 2016 by dropko