Engagement - Still not very useful

[KDubya]

Rolled up a Unbroken/Shattered Pillar (Fighter/Monk) to try out going heavy on engagement. Using a spear (modal adds +1 engagement), Defender stance (+3), Unbroken (+1 with shield) gives him +5 engagements and a +10 penetration to disengagement attacks.

 

Theory was he would grab the first five guys and keep them stuck.

 

Reality was his reach is short and probably only had three at a time max. The rest of the fish guys just slide around and engulf the team. 

 

Might be that combat speed is so quick that I can't tell any effect from engagements, or that fish people are too big. Maybe you need small xaurip to grab that many.

 

My fear is that Engagements will not be that great and that reduces a Fighter to the melee guy who gets regen (really good), and some so-so abilities that is best used for Devoted for the penetration and as a multi-class.

 

Anyone have success with going hard for engagement?

[Wormerine]

My experience with engagement on fighter (using default fighter mercenery) is that when you use defencive modal people seem to stick to him like flies to honey. Its almost to good. Backline went on almost unharrased (played on veteran.)

The ability to do Scorpion style pull was a hit&miss. Everyonce in a while someone would brake off and attack mage but with two additional melee DPS (monk and rogue) they didn't pose much problem.

 

I did find it important to lead with my fighter and position him as a roadbloack between enemies and party. Once enemies scattered around and engaged other party member attrackting their attention was rather tricky.

 

I also left enemies engaged with fighter and focused on other enemies one or two at a time. If an enemy gets hit hard by one of your companions he might consider leaving fighter alone and going after attacker.

[morhilane]

People should keep in mind that some classes have + defense to Engagement attacks passives and abilities. The Barbarian's sprint even grants immunity for the duration.

 

My experience is quite similar to Wormerine too. Enemies rarely breaks engagement and I don't have much trouble keeping my backline safe. One that I do know though, is that I do not start combat from my backline characters. I always start the assault by making my frontline seen first.

[Boeroer]

It might be that taking an orlan is bad for engagement builds. Because the ground circle of an orlan is smaller than that of other kith, meaning that there's less room for multiple enemies to engage.

Just checked if Aumauas have bigger circles: They don't. But Animal Companions have bigger circles anbd they can have additional engagement slots. Also some summons have very big circles and can have additional engagement slots - for example with the help of that chanter phrase. Six to twelve (Beckoner) skeletons with engagement totally lock down the enemies' movements.

[mostundesired]

Bad at multitasking as I am, I went at it with two min maxed characters, one tank(crusader) and one DPS(scout). Engagement became useless only if someone decided to go after my scout instead of my crusader, but that scenario tended to happen only when they were too far from my crusader, in which case my scout have to run around my crusader and hope he catches them before they catch my scout, or my scout was in melee combat and the enemy just turned around to attack her, in which case I just have to use one of the disengagement abilities.

The former is the real problem. There isn't a way to actually encourage enemies to go after my tank. Stay on my tank, sure, but aggro management isn't a thing. Which I'm okay with, honestly, and doesn't reflect a problem with the engagement system.

As for when enemies disengaged when my scout did high damage from range, disengagement attacks only mattered if the crusader did enough damage to make it a non-issue, or if he could knock them prone. Which he couldn't, by the way, because that ability isn't available to crusaders until level 10. Still, thise occasions are rare and I just need to work around them when they come up.

TL;DR Engagement is pretty good, disengagement attacks aren't inherently valuable unless they're high damage or inflict a status to make the disengaging enemy less of a threat, and that's good enough for me so long as I have options on how to deal with that.

 

**EDIT** Failed to emphasize, the hard part isn't holding engagement, the hard part is getting enemies to engage you in the first place, and that only gets harder as the fight goes on. It's not very hard if you use the right abilities and positioning, but as the encounter goes on, and you use up your abilities, it approaches impossibility. Especially if more enemies join in halfway through the fight.

Edited November 22, 2017 by mostundesired

[dam]

Rolled up a Unbroken/Shattered Pillar (Fighter/Monk) to try out going heavy on engagement. Using a spear (modal adds +1 engagement), Defender stance (+3), Unbroken (+1 with shield) gives him +5 engagements and a +10 penetration to disengagement attacks.

 

 

+10 penetration on disengagement attacks, or +10 accuracy ?

 

'cause +10 pen seems broken as fck really given the current, tiny amounts by which we can increase pen right now.

[hilfazer]

I find poleaxe's passive rather meh:

- lower damage for your normal attacks

- lower damage for your disengagement attacks

+ 1 extra engagement slot

 

Not balanced and doesn't seem well designed. It would be if penalty was to recovery not damage. Or does recovery affect disengagement attacks in some way?

[Archaven]

Maybe they should go with timed taunting instead of engagement? I'm not sure how it should be implemented but if there's no solution where there's many mobs in POTD and there isn't sufficient utility preventing the mobs to reach your DPSer, then it probably means DPSer has to sacrifice damage and look towards defense or escape mechanism. That will somehow forced every build to be tanky and that limits build diversity?

Edited November 22, 2017 by Archaven

[dam]

Maybe they should go with timed taunting instead of engagement? I'm not sure how it should be implemented but if there's no solution where there's many mobs in POTD and there isn't sufficient utility preventing the mobs to reach your DPSer, then it probably means DPSer has to sacrifice damage and look towards defense or escape mechanism. That will somehow forced every build to be tanky and that limits build diversity?

 

Problems every game has with timed taunting include :

- your taunt fails, you're fcked up (as in, your MT is standing there like a retard, and your backline's running away like headless chicken, for their lives)

- you get ALL the aggro at the same time, and thus possibly a damage spike

- also affects casters and ranged characters (which are then not free to select your backline as their target, for no reason other than your tank making a face at them)

- your own backline can't be properly tied up if the enemy should chance to get close to them, just run away, wee

 

 

First bitch you take down as a human, intelligent player in a fight ? Their wizard.

Mage > priest > high threat melee > archer > tank

 

High threat melee is a subjective term, as far as I'm concerned, an enraged barb rushing for my backline is high on the threat list.

Edit: same as a rogue or a monk , can't let those go toe to toe with my squishies

Edited November 22, 2017 by dam

[dunehunter]

Quarterstaff is better than Poleaxe for engagement currently because the larger weapon range. And quarterstaff also has passive modal to give them 20 defense(does not stack with mage prot spell currently) to help fighter defense.

[mostundesired]

Problems every game has with timed taunting include :

- your taunt fails, you're fcked up (as in, your MT is standing there like a retard, and your backline's running away like headless chicken, for their lives)

As I illustrated before, that's already an issue. Although I prefer engagement over taunts in this regard.

 

- you get ALL the aggro at the same time, and thus possibly a damage spike

That's what healers and potions are for. Still, agreed that it shouldn't be all or nothing. In Dragon Age, this was made into one ability for all, and one for individual.

 

- also affects casters and ranged characters (which are then not free to select your backline as their target, for no reason other than your tank making a face at them)

- your own backline can't be properly tied up if the enemy should chance to get close to them, just run away, wee

Agreed, don't care for this. Although I would like to have options to deal with the latter situation.

[cheesevillain]

On the other side of the battle, I find breaking enemy engagement is usually very painful for my PCs if my characters' are not built to survive it.

 

Engagement shouldn't be so powerful that it's THE single most important thing to winning a battle.

[Wormerine]

On the other side of the battle, I find breaking enemy engagement is usually very painful for my PCs if my characters' are not built to survive it.

 

Engagement shouldn't be so powerful that it's THE single most important thing to winning a battle.

True, engagement cant be punishing. However, at least in my playthrough I have couple different abilities that would help in breaking engagement coming from my fighter, monk and rogue.

 

Rogue especially was great in moving around battlefied and disabling key enemies.

[mostundesired]

True, engagement cant be punishing.

Bit of an overstatement. It should be a benefit to both sides of the fight. If there's no punishment for being engaged, there's no point in having it at all.

[hilfazer]

Quarterstaff is better than Poleaxe for engagement currently because the larger weapon range. And quarterstaff also has passive modal to give them 20 defense(does not stack with mage prot spell currently) to help fighter defense.

 

One more reason to rework poleaxe. Thanks.

 

"Currently". So they are going to change that?

[Boeroer]

In PoE engagement had nothing to do with reach. You could not engage with a quarterstaff when standing 1.8 meters away, but you could hit. I guess it's the same in PoE2...?

[dunehunter]

In PoE engagement had nothing to do with reach. You could not engage with a quarterstaff when standing 1.8 meters away, but you could hit. I guess it's the same in PoE2...?

 

Yeah but Imo long reach weapon should have more control of battle and get larger engagement range. Thanks for mentioning.

[Climhazzard]

 

In PoE engagement had nothing to do with reach. You could not engage with a quarterstaff when standing 1.8 meters away, but you could hit. I guess it's the same in PoE2...?

 

Yeah but Imo long reach weapon should have more control of battle and get larger engagement range. Thanks for mentioning.

 

 

Full reach engagement leads to the possibility of engagement kiting.  Without at least a global cooldown on engagement attacks it's broken.  Something like this 

 

I didn't read the replies here and am putting in my 2 cents anyways, so take it with a grain of salt, but if you want to keep 5 enemies engaged then your best bet is to unstealth your tank first and wait until he engages all 5 enemies before coming out with the rest of your party.

Edited November 22, 2017 by Climhazzard

[Katarack21]

Since engagement is now an ability, I think engagement makes a great "fighter ability". Much more so than, do example...two weapon fighting.

[morhilane]

Since engagement is now an ability, I think engagement makes a great "fighter ability". Much more so than, do example...two weapon fighting.

They already have "hold the line" (+1), the defensive stance (+3) and another thing that gives them + 1 engagement under some condition. That's the base fighter. Unbroken get a +1 for using a shield and you can use a weapon with a +1 engagement modal on top too.

 

It is very much the only thing the Fighter is good at: stacking +engagement.

 

It's pretty much useless mechanically to have more than +4

[mostundesired]

Since engagement is now an ability, I think engagement makes a great "fighter ability". Much more so than, do example...two weapon fighting.

It sounds like you're bringing in arguments from another topic. Maybe this one should continue to be about engagement, and not about who gets what passive talents?

[Katarack21]

Yes, sir, Mr. Thread Police, sir! Because I respect your authority and care about your decisions about what is and isn't engagement-focused enough.

[dam]

 

Problems every game has with timed taunting include :

- your taunt fails, you're fcked up (as in, your MT is standing there like a retard, and your backline's running away like headless chicken, for their lives)

As I illustrated before, that's already an issue. Although I prefer engagement over taunts in this regard.

 

- you get ALL the aggro at the same time, and thus possibly a damage spike

That's what healers and potions are for. Still, agreed that it shouldn't be all or nothing. In Dragon Age, this was made into one ability for all, and one for individual.

 

- also affects casters and ranged characters (which are then not free to select your backline as their target, for no reason other than your tank making a face at them)

- your own backline can't be properly tied up if the enemy should chance to get close to them, just run away, wee

Agreed, don't care for this. Although I would like to have options to deal with the latter situation.

 

 

Regarding point 2, I just cannot agree with your approach.

Proper battlefield control replaced by healing potions just isn't a viable solution.

 

"In this brand new game, forget the idea of having a tank, outfit your wizards in the heaviest armor possible, he gets platemail+3 (and potions)" won't sell a game, at least for me.

 

 

Regarding point 4, you do have a solution to deal with the latter situation.

If an enemy manages to close on your backline and Engage them, tying them up in place, well you have cc spells, you have debuffs to lower the accuracy of the disengagement attack, you have engagement breaking abilities...

[dam]

On the other side of the battle, I find breaking enemy engagement is usually very painful for my PCs if my characters' are not built to survive it.

 

Engagement shouldn't be so powerful that it's THE single most important thing to winning a battle.

 

Counter-view, it should.

 

 

It is only natural that people be punished for leaving their very fragile, very classy, very pompous wizard unprotected.

 

You get a glass canon (altho in the current state of the game, we may debate the canon part), you protect it.

 

 

 

Your reward for getting past the enemy frontline is dropping their wizard and priest ASAP so they can't have too great an influence on the battle via support, debuff and damage spells.

 

It follows that the enemy should have the same goal and work towards it.

[mostundesired]

Yes, sir, Mr. Thread Police, sir! Because I respect your authority and care about your decisions about what is and isn't engagement-focused enough.

Cute. So how exactly does this improve the discussion on engagement being underpowered or not?