New party, need help !

[Lougandy]

Hi !

 

I recently reinstal PoE and start a new playthrough with a party composed of :

- druid tank

- chanter tank

- damage dealing druid (who's dealing more than the 5 others combine TT)

- damage dealing paladin

- priest for buff

- ranger 

(all custom)

 

the thing is : I'm playing on normal and things are really too easy + I don't really like this party :/

 

So, I wanted to start other, PotD difficulty but I'm having a hard time deciding what to include in this new party.

Since I really don't like to go back and forth between the dungeons and the inn (loading times are killing me), I tend to avoid having too much spell caster. 

 

The kind of party I'd like to build :

- Very sturdy

- Melee oriented (max 2 ranged characters, ideally one)

- Don't need to rest too often

 

What would you do ? And how would you build them ?

A priest feels mandatory but after that ?

A paladin for the defensive aura + the shield providing 5 def to the team ? 

A chanter for the buff ? To be honest I find this class a bit "slow", they stand there buffing and doing nothing really useful :/

An other priest for more buff ? Some king of melee priest of Skaen with a club (the new soulbound one for example ?)

A rogue if there is a way to build them not too squishy ?

A warrior / A barbarian ?

Any suggestion ? 

 

Thanks !

 

[Frog Man]

Good for you! Skip over hard and jump right to POTD. I would strongly recommend the in-game companions. They enrich the experience with their personality and banter and they are quite strong as well! They will start off a level higher than custom companions anyway.

 

The advice you are going to get here is that you can build your team however you like. Looking at your specifications, I would do the following:

 

PC Melee Cipher - 1 hand saber and shield. Focus on CC and later defensive mindweb.

Durance - the only MUST character IMO. Priests make life so much easier with their buffs and spells. Plus He is fantastically voiced and written.

Kana Rua- main tank. Healing AOE and later awesome damage with dragon thrashed.

Pallegina - 1hand tanks build. Focus on improving accuracy for the team. Marking weapons to help the next character ...

Eder - Tanky dual wielder with war hammers.

Zahua- you said you wanted sturdy team right? Add another beefy dps! Juggernaut build from these forums. Fist dps.

 

That’s a heavy melee and sturdy party. Sub out Eder or Zahua for A wizard or Druid and that would work great as well. A wizard or Druid would be amazing for AOE cc to let this beefy team go to town on everyone. You still don’t need to rest much. Just save your big spells (storm, confusion) for the hardest fights. Hiravias or Aloth work perfectly fine.

Edited January 17, 2018 by Frog Man

[MaxQuest]

The kind of party I'd like to build :

- Very sturdy

- Melee oriented (max 2 ranged characters, ideally one)

- Don't need to rest too often

The first requirement rules out rogues and glass-canon wizards. Also you can't have 1 cipher (either 2 or 0). So the following comes to mind:

 

frontline: chanter (tank + passive dd), paladin (sup + maintank), chanter (tank + passive dd)

midline: druid, wizard

backline: fire priest

 

- chanters built as: 18/18/4/8/20/10 moon-godlikes, plate armor, 1h + small/medium shield. Wound Binding. Dragon Trashed.

- paladin: 18/16/10/4/20/10 wild orlan, plate armor, fast 1h + herald shield. Wound Binding. Lay on Hands.

- druid: 16/10/16/10/18/8 pale elf, cat form, plate armor, fast 1h + small shield. Built for Relentless Storm + Spiritshift dps.

- wizard: 2/14/16/18/18/10 wild orlan, plate armor, fast 1h + small shield. Built for cc. Take Infuse Vitality.

- priest: 16/10/16/13/20/3 moon godlike, raiment of wael eyes or wayfarer's hide, soulbound scepter. Wound Binding.

 

It may be tough on levels 4, 5 and 6. But it will get easier from lvl 7 once you get Shining Beacon and other rank 4 spells. And a cake-walk from lvl 9 onward, due to Dragon Trashed.

 

The general idea is to repeat the following sequence: Painfull Interdiction -> Relentless Storm + Slicken/Shadowflame -> 2xDragon Trashed. And if you need even more dps, there are Cleansing Flames + Shinning Beacon; or you can make your priest just keep buffing.

 

Regarding chanters:

- let chanter1 use the following sequence: Blessed Was (+10 reflex) -> Dragon Trashed -> Dragon Trashed (ad infinitum)

- let chanter2 use the following sequence: At the Sight (+10 will/fort) -> Dragon Trashed -> Dragon Trashed (ad infinitum)

Edited January 18, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Frog Man]

Fun ideas Max! Can you talk more about the wizard build? Does the weapon matter at all? I’m assuming this guy does atrocious melee damage anyway and you’re just building him tanky so he can survive to throw out more confusions, slumbers, and slickens.

 

Btw I know the stats are off, but I’m assuming this play style works with Aloth?

[MaxQuest]

Fun ideas Max! Can you talk more about the wizard build? Does the weapon matter at all? I’m assuming this guy does atrocious melee damage anyway and you’re just building him tanky so he can survive to throw out more confusions, slumbers, and slickens.

Yeap. Offtank control freak.

 

You give him Gauntlets of Swift Action and either [Malina's Boots + White Crest Armor] or [boots of Stability/Fenwalkers + Argwes Adra]. For boss fights you can give him some good hide, leather or scale armor if you want instead. In this case he'll be able to achieve zero recovery with spells after casting DAoM.

 

I had a playthrough where my minor-blights-based wizard, despite contributing to damage dealing, was most useful because of his ability to start the fight with Shadowflame and continue with Slicken/Call to Slumber. So in a party that already has lots of damage dealing stuff, it's better to build him as pure crowd-controller. And the saved points from MIG, are going to CON making him also a very decent offtanker (when in plate armor).

 

Regarding weapons: it better be a fast weapon, because if he made an attack, you will have to wait less till he's ready to cast a spell. And there are several options:

- defensive: the +5def from hatchets is passive. E.g: Captain Viccilo

- offensive: weapons that stun or prone on crit. This wizard has high PER and can paralyze, so he can crit through deflection relatively often. E.g: starcaller

- supportive: Forgotten Tear, Spelltongue

 

 

Btw I know the stats are off, but I’m assuming this play style works with Aloth?

Aloth will work on Hard and below. But on PotD will likely feel like a liability if used that way. Edited January 19, 2018 by MaxQuest

[Lougandy]

Thanks a lot for your detailed feedback ! I'll try it this weekend

[Boeroer]

Why that? In my experience it doesn't matter at all if you use Aloth or a hireling. In the early game he's even better because of his higher lvl and in the late game it doesn't really matter that his stats are not 100% fitting - because everything is so easy anyways and a few stat points don't matter at all with all those bonuses and buffs.

 

If I'd want to do a playthrough with less resting and therefore no "per-rest" casters I would use:

 

tanky marker Paladin/tanky Dragon Thrashed Chanter/tanky Monk

dps Barbarian/dps Fighter

ranged Cipher

 

Items:

Paladin: marking weapon like "Shame or Glory" or marking Cladhaliath + Outworn Buckler

Chanter: hatchet + small shield (later Little Savior)

Monk: sabre (Bittercut) + bashing shield (first Larder Door, later Badgradr's Barricade)

Barbarian: either great sword (Tidefall or Hours of St. Rumbalt), dw hammers (Shatterstar + Godansthunyr) or pike (Tall Grass) or Firebrand with whatever two hander as backup

Fighter: dw Rapier + dagger (Sword of Daenysis + March Steel Dagger, later Drawn in Spring) or great sword (Tidefall)

Cipher: war bow (Borresaine, Cloudpiercer the Rain of Godagh Field)

 

Alternative: make the monk a Long Pain user (hybrid melee/ranged) and put the cipher into second row as melee with Firebrand (even better, bit more micro).

 

The Paladin (Darcozzi) can deliver lots of single ACC boost (Zealous Focus + marking + Coordinated Attacks + Liberating Exhortation = +46 ACC), the Chanter will burn and slash everything to pieces whike he heals the party with Ancient Memory/Beloved Spirits and requires zero micro, the Monk (Fire Godlike) can profit from multiretaliation +lashes and deliver Full-Attack-Torment's Reach uses, the Barb is self explanatory and the fighter can rush behind enemy lines and take out casters with Knockdown + really fast attacks while being sturdy enough to survive. The cipher will shoot stuff and deliver CC. Give him Borrowed Instinct, Tactical Meld and Disintegrate for the dragons, too.

 

Every one of them except the cipher should take (Veteran's) Recovery and skill survival a bit (like for the healing bonus or even 10 for the ACC bonus. The healing of V. Recovery stacks with Ancient Memory. The defensive bonuses of Outworn Buckler and Little Saviour stack with each other, too.

If the cipher uses Firebrand he should skill survival for max flanked dmg bonus, get Appr. Sneak, Savage Attack and Two Handed Style and an item like Glanfathan Stalking Boots. Then use Phantom Foes to put flanked on all targets he will hit with that sword. But first hard-cc them. He gets pretty nasty dmg bonuses together with Biting Whip and Scion of Flame that way. A monk with Long Pain will take out single targets in no time.

 

Every one of those can be done with the official companions on PotD. Did several non-caster playthrough a on PotD so far.

 

To be clear: nothing's better than a priest, followed by druid and wizard, but it also works pretty fine without them. A little bit more challenging during the big fights (dragons,bounties).

Edited January 19, 2018 by Boeroer