PoTD without Captain Bottleneck?

[stiven]

Just started 1st Act, playing for second time. Aaaaaannnd damn those encounters has not become, less weird even after all paths and tweaks. How you supposed to beat those hordes of 7-11 different enemies with stuns, blind, fear etc. without your favored ally - Captain Bottleneck, on PoTD? How YOU beated PoTD without the Cap. help? What your party was?

[KDubya]

What I did was to make a very durable party of primarily or sometimes entirely melee. Then get a lot of group synergy and regen.

 

My last run was was PotD with a four man team:

1. Juggernaut Monk 3.0 - big damage and big endurance pool. The one who benefits the most from all the buffs from the team.
2. Pellaginna - weapon and shield (the Paladin small shield) and running the zealous endurance aura for the DR and hit>graze. Also uses the anti charm ability and reinforced exhortation to pump up deflection on Kana and Devil.
3. Kana - weapon and shield and using a multitude of spell casting weapons. Running Gallant Focus, the two regen auras, the fire lash chant and the fear chant to debuff enemy accuracy
4. Devil of Caroc - weapon and shield (Starcaller and Balgrdr Barricade), trap monkey

Before I could recruit the actual character I'd make up a merc that was similar and replace when I could recruit.

 

Everyone would stay next to each other and within aura range, except when the Monk would go full Juggernaut and zip across the field wrecking havoc. If no one is squishy then there is no weak link to protect. They might not kill as quickly as glass cannons but they are sturdy as can be. Plus all abilities are per encounter so you don't need to hold anything back and rest is only for health.

 

If you want a full six man team just add whomever into the mix, for me I'd add in a Cipher using a reach weapon from behind the phalanx and a Ranger with Stormcaller.

[Boeroer]

Yes. Make your backline sturdier. Shift a bit DPS to defenses and/or more DR and/or more endurance and self-healing like Veteran's Recovery. Then make your frontline do more damage while still keeping a good amount of sturdyness.

 

This usually leads to an easier playthrough but encounters will take a bit more time. Perfect for a chanter by the way.

 

The reason it that you'll seldomly have the situation where your DPS guys get knocked out and you are screwed because you can't kill stuff anymore. It also leads to less stress because you don't have to bodyguard the DPS guys all the time because the enemy likes to pick those off.

 

That's why I recommend wizard or druid frontliners - or even barbarian tanks. And why my fighters are not tanks, but rushers who try to reach enemy casters and deal good damage and CC, but are sturdy enough to survive those things.

 

Of course: if you manage to find a chokepoint, the approach with one supertank who blocks them all and five DPS guys is still very powerful. But in WM there can be open areas and some enemies really like to rush squishies or take them out with ranged weapons and nasty spells like Cleansing Flame.

[HoopleDoople]

As ever, abusing your own CC is a great way to counter enemy CC. Wizard, Druid, and/or Cipher are your best bets for mass CC but most classes have at least a few ways to disable enemies. Make sure to buff your accuracy, debuff enemy defense, and try to prevent/remove any accuracy debuffs to ensure you can consistently land your CC. I would also recommend investing skill points into stealth. The closer you can get to enemies without them going hostile, the better chance you have to disable enemy casters before they cause too many problems.

 

And as other posters have already mentioned you need a sturdy party for PoTD. On my previous run I had great success with a party of Paladin, Monk, Barbarian, Chanter, Priest, and Wizard. I had the first four equipped with heavy armor giving me a solid front line. If a battle was in a more open area I swapped out my casters light armor for something more substantial.

[Niclole]

Is there a particular reason you don't want to use bottlenecks?  Early game I find a lot of the encounters are centered around bottlenecks to allow you to use them.  Later, access to reliable bottlenecks becomes a bit more challenging to find.  You specifically asked about act I though and I don't see a reason why you shouldn't use the bottlenecks provided for you, as long as you aren't trying to rely on them for the whole game.  That said: scrolls, consumables, traps, summoning trinkets, eating food all of these things can help give you an edge.  

 

You mentioned fear, which frightened is an annoying debuff but also one of the easiest to counter with Lore 2 or a level 1 priest in Prayer Against Fear. As far as blind and stun mobs go...yeah they annoy me too, so I bottleneck them and try to prevent them swarming around my party lol.  One person getting chain stunned over and over is not nearly as bad as 2-3 people being stunned.  Atleast, that is my experience.

 

Debuffing their accuracy and buffing your defenses obviously help.  Personally I am a fan of Scrolls of Protection and Scrolls of Defense and they aren't too terribly difficult to get access to. Particularly with shadows and the like I also find Potion of Bulwark Against the Elements good if you can get your hand on some of those, though Potion of Iron Skin is quite alright in my book too. Obviously, if you have access to spell variants of damage reduction then those can help to.

 

My playstyle might be a bit suboptimal though, but its worked for me on PotD so far.  None of these things are necessary, in fact most of them I don't use all too often myself (other than Prayer Against Fear which I use ...all the time...cause I hate Frightened and Terrified and they seem to show up EVERYWHERE), but they are definitely options you could look into if a fight is giving you an awful headache.

Potentially some of this advice could be bad, I am no expert and many more experienced players that dive into the numbers game and min/maxing probably know more.  But I thought I'd try to offer some of my personal experience.

 

I'd also have to agree with the whole "sturdier" thing others have mentioned.  I just don't think its necessary to turn everyone into a plate wearing, shield toting, deflection stacking character. And I don't think anyone has advised that, just be careful you don't push the sturdy thing to far, unless you enjoy the moderately slower, war of attrition play style in which case: go for it!

 

All in all I think there are a LOT of options in Pillars of Eternity and I'd recommend looking at every ability, even ones someone has ranked as "useless" or "not powerful" or "dont use this ability". You can find some hidden gems in your spell book that happen to be the perfect solution to the one problem you are having at the moment, it might be the only time you use that spell or the only situation where that spell is applicable but it could be the one that turns a "What...the...how am I supposed to beat this" into a "Well that was easy".

 

Edit:

 

My last playthrough was: 2 Handed Barbarian "Tank"/DPS, Sword/Shield Fighter Tank, Chanter 2 Handed Off Tank/Support/Scrollmonger, Priest (Skaen, 1hand + Shield support/dps, retaliate items), Wizard AoE Nuke and Cipher Support/Damage. I used bottlenecks when they were to my advantage though, were they necessary?  Probably not as I steamrolled a lot of open area fights as well, but again if its there and it gives me the edge and it isn't exploiting a game mechanic Im going to use it.  And no bottle necks aren't exploiting or cheese, its a time honored military tradition.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Niclole

[stiven]

Is there a particular reason you don't want to use bottlenecks? 

 

It just seems like entire combat system of the game is hanging on ONE combo "bottleneck+slicken spell+dps spell on top". And for most of the time it is work just fine. But also there a lot of fights against hordes on plane field, so it is ended up by sticking whole party into some corner (LOL) and then Eder go to lure horde to that corner. Which is, im pretty sure, is not how fights intended to go by developers. So im trying to find what im doing wrong.

[Boeroer]

As long as it works it's not wrong. May get boring though.

 

It is still a good way to win fights if you are underleveled. For example I still use that approach (crouch into a corner) when I go to Crägholt Bluffs very early only because I want to loot some exceptional weapons for free.

Edited February 14, 2017 by Boeroer

[MaxQuest]

It just seems like entire combat system of the game is hanging on ONE combo "bottleneck+slicken spell+dps spell on top". And for most of the time it is work just fine. But also there a lot of fights against hordes on plane field, so it is ended up by sticking whole party into some corner (LOL) and then Eder go to lure horde to that corner. Which is, im pretty sure, is not how fights intended to go by developers. So im trying to find what im doing wrong.

Imagine your group as members of some fantasy SWAT. They will use weapons and tactics that lead to minimal loses

 

It's the developers task to provide an array of different, yet viable tactics to use.

It's a player's task to find the most optimal ones  

[indika_tates]

There are places in this game where you can't bottleneck mobs. The White March for example is a severe punishment for the player even on higher levels. What I do is to adapt my party to the terrain advantages. Into the Endless Paths is the optimal strategy because it's the way the dungeon is designed. If you have frail characters in your party and you fight into open terrain you have to rely on disables to avoid flanking.

 

Everything is to adapt to each fight. Just try different party compositions, there are a lot of NPC to do it.

[Niclole]

So I just tested some of the strategies I recommended particular the use of scrolls of protection/defense with an all melee party.  Some of the fights that I've previously beat through use of choke points (particularly the spirit fights in Caed Nua) and I can pretty much say that those scrolls alone basically trivialized the fights.  If you grab some scrolls of Burst of Summer Flame it gets even easier.  All on Path of the Damned, Level 4 Protagonist with Level 3 companions.  I will say it was with a full six person party and custom made companions, so it could still be a bit harder without a full party.  But yeah, those scrolls made a huge difference. 

Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Shapeshift Druid, Battlemage.

[stiven]

Just had hit lvl 8 on my main wizard and also on Aloth...and...oh my oh my after all patches wizards has literally become GODS of PoE. Not only with all WIz tals for wands they do decent damage on they own, but under buffs both of them is literally obliterated all what stands behind "tank wall" with just auto attacks. And all this is to addition to tons of CC and aoe Wiz spells. And then...it seems like Sneak Attack works on wands too...for chars with best CC in the game.... i guess now, what will happen with disabled Adra dragon when both my Wiz will hit her with "beast slaying" ench/talents (+50% dmg, right?) and all buffs, - probably universe will explode lol. Also  my main Wizard have 80+ acc on his own, under buffs he has 100, and it is while rarely enemy have 90+ deference atm. It`s makes possible to cast, for example, Fortitude attack spell on high Fortitude defended enemy and just overcome it defenses, right on, instead of picking spell against which the enemy has weaker defense. 

 

With wizard like that, who needs Rangers or rogues, right?