My 1st PotD group: A new Middle Earth Fellowship

[JFutral]

Don't be afraid. Heroes are never afraid!

 

Joe

[Lampros]

Don't be afraid. Heroes are never afraid!

 

Joe

 

Okay, I forgot I had quite a few CC tools - as I didn't really need them at Normal!

 

Once I started using the Wizard's Bewildering Spectacle and the Priest's Repulsing Seal, I was able to control fights much better. Clearing Caed Nua lawn. I think I will be okay.

 

Right now, the most stunning development is how well the Fighter's performing DPS-wise. I am shocked. He has done about 60 percent more damage than anyone else now. More incredibly, he's averaging about 35 percent crit - when nobody else is even averaging more than 5 percent, LOL! Wow. I guess Disciplined Barrage plus the Fighter's inherent Accuracy really makes a monstrous difference, huh? Or at least in the early going.

 

I would be very interested in seeing how he maintains his DPS pace once we hit mid- and late-game, and the Chanter and the Paladin get their uber-AoEs.

[Lampros]

I will (almost) never switch characters within a single playthrough, but I am really strongly considering breaking lore and giving Gimli warhammers instead of axes, as I need as much CC as possible (dual damage type is nice, too). I am also thinking about making Aragorn a 2H user and let him go with Tidefall or instead of a double Bittercut. Since I am not going to crit all that much with a Paladin, I am not sure I will utilize Annihilating all that much, unfortunately.

[Lampros]

I made a separate thread here on this ( https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/93871-potd-crit-starvation-dps-paladin-weapon-choice-advice/ ) but this PotD crit starvation phenomenon is completely throwing my party plan off is how low my crit rate is. I have built my entire party on the assumption I'd achieve at least 30-40 percent crit rate on every DPS character (as I could in Normal), but it looks like only the Fighter can even remotely come close to that. So I am not sure what I am going to do now since my Tall Grass Barbarian and my Rod of Pale Shades Priest or Wizard were also going to rely on on-crit stuns.

 

So probably a straight damage weapon like Tidefall for Paladin, move melee crit to the Fighter and give him the stun hammer, and re-think what I will do with the Barbarian and the casters...

[Lampros]

Almost level 6 now. Defiance Bay is super-easy, and I think I am going to be okay until I start meeting mass charmers or caster zerg (Spores on the way to Act 3?). Shatterstar and Tall Grass mean that the Fighter and the Barbarian are performing even better now, though the rest are still not performing up to my pre-game hopes. (The Priest is so damn squishy, and I suspect this won't change for the rest of the game.)

 

Zero knockouts yet, and I am not save-scumming at all, because I am playing as if this is an Ironman run. I have yet to use friendly fire possible AoEs either.

Edit: And I am going to leave Raedric and the Spores for a long time.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Lampros

[MaxQuest]

I have built my entire party on the assumption I'd achieve at least 30-40 percent crit rate on every DPS character (as I could in Normal)

Don't build your party around crits for the early game of PotD

Or at least make sure to start each fight with Painful Interdiction -> paralyze effect -> hit the target with deflection lowered into abyss)

[Boeroer]

Huh? What paralyze effect in the early game? You mean Fetid Caress and Mental Binding? Well, maybe only Mental Binding, right?

[Dr <3]

I think he meant the "block person" Power of the chiper. ( The most affordable source of chronic paralyze spam)

Edited September 23, 2017 by Dr <3

[MaxQuest]

Huh? What paralyze effect in the early game? You mean Fetid Caress and Mental Binding? Well, maybe only Mental Binding, right?

You got me

 

Although paralyze aside (-40 def), blind (-20 def) and charmed (-25 def) effects can help with lowering deflection as well. And for early game there are:

- sunbeam, chill fog, curse of blackened sight

- the lover cried, whispers of treason, charm beast

Edited September 23, 2017 by MaxQuest

[Boeroer]

Don't forget stuck: -20 to reflex and deflection. Comes with your beloved Mental Binding as well.  

[Blades of Vanatar]

 

Glorfindel the Barbarian? Tsk..Tsk.. very disappointing.

Compromise between lore and game-play efficiency was inevitable! I just could not come up with a spear/pike Barbarian figure from Middle Earth. Perhaps Glorfindel "discovered" Aeglos; and he is sort of more aloof or mysterious than the other Elves we encounter. Okay, I am stretching it.

 

I am still in Ciliant Lis, so maybe I can change? I could make Gimli a dual wield Barbarian instead of a dual wield Fighter and stick a 2nd Chanter as a Tall Grass 2nd-liner. But Tall Grass seems the most effective for a Barbarian - and frankly only truly effective for a Barbarian. And I really want a Tall Grass character on the 2nd line as a link between the front-line melees and the 3rd line squishies.

 

Anyways, I can already see I need a lot more Accuracy later. My DW Paladin has like 31 percent hit chance against the big spider in Cliant Lis. WTF? Maybe I should have given him more Perception. I had 18 Might, 10 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 12 Perception, 18 Intelligence, and 10 Resolve. I didn't want to dump any stat. Maybe reduce Might to 16 and increase Perception to 14? Also, will 10 Dexterity be a problem later, even if I have a lot of speed buffs?

Couldn't come up with a Barbarian? Beorn! Or a as Druid.

[Boeroer]

Isn't Gimli a barbarian? I mean the only thing he's doing with his axe is cleaving around. And he gets thrown at his enemies (aka Dragon Leap). He's a messy eater as well...

[Lampros]

 

I have built my entire party on the assumption I'd achieve at least 30-40 percent crit rate on every DPS character (as I could in Normal)

Don't build your party around crits for the early game of PotD

Or at least make sure to start each fight with Painful Interdiction -> paralyze effect -> hit the target with deflection lowered into abyss)

 

 

I have no Cipher; but I do have Painful Interdiction.

 

 

Huh? What paralyze effect in the early game? You mean Fetid Caress and Mental Binding? Well, maybe only Mental Binding, right?

You got me

 

Although paralyze aside (-40 def), blind (-20 def) and charmed (-25 def) effects can help with lowering deflection as well. And for early game there are:

- sunbeam, chill fog, curse of blackened sight

- the lover cried, whispers of treason, charm beast

 

 

For now I was still staying away from Chill Fog, because I want to not use friendly fire AoEs to train for TC. And the Chanter CCs are definitely not reliable, as they take even longer to build up than Cipher CCs! Finally, no Druid, and it works only against 1 enemy type.

 

Don't forget stuck: -20 to reflex and deflection. Comes with your beloved Mental Binding as well.

 

Again, I find Invocation-based CCs not so reliable.

[Lampros]

 

 

Glorfindel the Barbarian? Tsk..Tsk.. very disappointing.

Compromise between lore and game-play efficiency was inevitable! I just could not come up with a spear/pike Barbarian figure from Middle Earth. Perhaps Glorfindel "discovered" Aeglos; and he is sort of more aloof or mysterious than the other Elves we encounter. Okay, I am stretching it.

 

I am still in Ciliant Lis, so maybe I can change? I could make Gimli a dual wield Barbarian instead of a dual wield Fighter and stick a 2nd Chanter as a Tall Grass 2nd-liner. But Tall Grass seems the most effective for a Barbarian - and frankly only truly effective for a Barbarian. And I really want a Tall Grass character on the 2nd line as a link between the front-line melees and the 3rd line squishies.

 

Anyways, I can already see I need a lot more Accuracy later. My DW Paladin has like 31 percent hit chance against the big spider in Cliant Lis. WTF? Maybe I should have given him more Perception. I had 18 Might, 10 Constitution, 10 Dexterity, 12 Perception, 18 Intelligence, and 10 Resolve. I didn't want to dump any stat. Maybe reduce Might to 16 and increase Perception to 14? Also, will 10 Dexterity be a problem later, even if I have a lot of speed buffs?

Couldn't come up with a Barbarian? Beorn! Or a as Druid.

 

 

Beorn is a good one, but I consider more him a Druid. I was also frankly trying to avoid more than 1 Human front-liner, as I think Pale Elves and Mountain Dwarves superior due to the various resists.

 

Isn't Gimli a barbarian? I mean the only thing he's doing with his axe is cleaving around. And he gets thrown at his enemies (aka Dragon Leap). He's a messy eater as well...

 

I wanted a Barbarian Tall Grass guy, as I don't think I can stomach the frustration of baby-sitting a Barbarian front-liner the early game.

[Lampros]

Guys, terrible news. I lost my saves again. I am at this point infuriated, and I am almost halfway to giving up on the game.

 

Apparently this is a relatively common problem, and I tried every work-around suggested in Obsidian and Steam forums, and none of them have worked. I tried to desynch from Steam Cloud, playing as Administrator-only, un-checking read-only from save file (you can't do this in Windows 10), deleted the Appdata files, disabling my antivirus - literally everything suggested.

 

Basically what is occurring is that saves are regularly disappearing, and I can neither see them in game or save folder. At times, I can see very old saves again for some odd reason, but they also disappear when I re-launch the game.

 

I have not tinkered with the game in any fashion other than install the IE Mod, disable auto-saves from there, and install MaxQuest's UPMod. That's all.

 

I am going to try one last resort and copy saves in a wholly separate desktop location before I exit the game every time. If that does not prevent this problem, then I am likely done. I can tolerate bugs but not game-crushing bugs like this. Repeatedly.

 

Edit: I am on Windows 10.

Edited September 23, 2017 by Lampros

[JerekKruger]

For now I was still staying away from Chill Fog, because I want to not use friendly fire AoEs to train for TC. And the Chanter CCs are definitely not reliable, as they take even longer to build up than Cipher CCs! Finally, no Druid, and it works only against 1 enemy type.

 

You should train for TC by using friendly fire AoEs as much as possible in order to get used to their templates and hence become able to use them safely without seeing them.

[Lampros]

 

For now I was still staying away from Chill Fog, because I want to not use friendly fire AoEs to train for TC. And the Chanter CCs are definitely not reliable, as they take even longer to build up than Cipher CCs! Finally, no Druid, and it works only against 1 enemy type.

 

You should train for TC by using friendly fire AoEs as much as possible in order to get used to their templates and hence become able to use them safely without seeing them.

 

 

But do I need them mid-/end-game? It seems like the top end-game spells are foe-only anyways - for instance, the Wizard's AoE petrify.

[Lampros]

By the way, if I am arsed to start yet again today, I think I am definitely going to go with either only 3 melees or 4 melees but 2 pikes. The issue with idle melees were driving me nuts the last playthrough.

[Boeroer]

Yes, 4 is a bit messy indoors. 3 is my prefered number of (non reach) melee guys. 4 or more can be nice though if you like to spread out.

[Lampros]

Yes, 4 is a bit messy indoors. 3 is my prefered number of (non reach) melee guys. 4 or more can be nice though if you like to spread out.

 

One more question:

 

If I take a Ranger (egad!) to relieve the front-line congestion - instead of a 2nd pike guy - what weapon is better? Borresaine or Stormcaller?

[Boeroer]

For me no doubt Stormcaller. Take Swift Aim + Driving Flight and later retrain from Swift Aim to Twinned Arrows.

[Lampros]

For me no doubt Stormcaller. Take Swift Aim + Driving Flight and later retrain from Swift Aim to Twinned Arrows.

 

K, thanks!

[Lampros]

Okay, I have made my decision. I will re-start with a few more pre-cautions to prevent lost saves. I will only play off-line, back up before exiting the game in a separate file, and see what happens. If the game still continues to lose saves, then I do not know what I will do. I guess a full re-install of everything?

 

Anyways, a change in party composition:

 

The tall Grass Barbarian is getting dropped; he's getting replaced by a Ranger who will use Borresaine and likely switch to Stormcaller later (unless people tell me that Borresaine is better). 4 melees was simply too difficult to manage. More important, I needed a ranged auto-attacker to take out or disable enemy casters fast. Finally, I am assuming the Ranger can wholly replace the Barbarian's AoE damage and CC role in addition to getting to the enemy ranged more quickly.

 

Also, the Chanter tank is getting moved to the Tall Grass role. I do not want 3 melees on the first-line.

 

So this is how it now looks:

 

1st line: Aragorn the Tidefall Paladin (will go Outworn Buckler/Shatterstar for more difficult fights); Gimli the dual war hammer Fighter

 

2nd line: Elrond the Tall Grass Chanter; the Ranger pet (technically, he makes it 4th melee as well, but I don't care if he lives or not, so I am not really going to micro-manage him)

 

3rd line: Legolas the Ranger (should he go on the 2nd line, too?); Galadriel the Wizard (Gandalf gets dropped, because we need more females to satisfy the men in the crew); Arwen the Priest.

 

Edit: Legolas has been changed to a ranged Rogue.

Edited September 24, 2017 by Lampros

[Boeroer]

I would take Persistance instead of Borresaine. Better dps and constantly triggers Predator's Sense (which I would recommend).

[Lampros]

I would take Persistance instead of Borresaine. Better dps and constantly triggers Predator's Sense (which I would recommend).

 

Hmmm, but Persistence is slightly later (e.g. I can buy Borresaine at level 5, but I had trouble even at Od Nua level 2 at level 5 and decided to come back later). I am also not planning on micro-ing the animal much. He will just be a sacrificial lamb