Strong AoE-hitting MC. Which class/race can be?

[Slack83er]

I'm currently level 5 with my pally, and doing good so far. He's a pefect sniper, and does a fairly high amount of damage... (almost 90 with a good hit).

However, noticing that he only strikes 1 foe at a time, I began to wonder if something like an AoE hitter actually exists. I know a mage can cast a fireball and so on, but... Taking out mage, priest and generally speaking casters, is there a way a non-casting MC can actually affect a large area in AoE attacks? Something like an exploding arrow, or a huge area massacre from a barb... dunno... I was just curious..

[Elric Galad]

The top AoE damage dealer is the chanter, because Dragon Trashed does an incredible amount of damage. It's basically a DoT fireball in endgame that procs every 4s and does not hurt your team. And it does this while walking around. Not sure it counts as a non-caster though.

Paladin is not to bad either from lvl 13 due to Sacred Immolation.

 

But if you're looking for a character who deals AoE just by swinging his weapon... well it's the very definition of a Barbarian.
Barbarian are quite good at this, are not too bad at tanking and are able to debuff foes a bit.
But their ultimate weapon is heart of fury. It is basically a carnage of carnage (every target that you normally hit with carnage will trigger carnage itself). It is the best AoE Power Spike of the game when used a tight group.

 

Ranger deserves a mention, as Driving Flight enables hitting a secondary target behind the first. It's not exactly AoE but it still hits several target.
You may also pick Powder Burn ability with guns, but honnestly, it's not that good. 

Edited February 14, 2018 by Elric Galad

[Torm51]

The top AoE damage dealer is the chanter, because Dragon Trashed does an incredible amount of damage. It's basically a DoT fireball in endgame that procs every 4s and does not hurt your team. And it does this while walking around. Not sure it counts as a non-caster though.

 

Paladin is not to bad either from lvl 13 due to Sacred Immolation.

 

But if you're looking at a character who deals AoE just by swinging his weapon... well it's the very definition of a Barbarian.

Barbarian are quite good at this, are not too bad at tanking and are able to debuff foes a bit.

But their ultimate weapon is heart of hury. It is basically a carnage of carnage (every target that you normally hit with carnage will trigger carnage itself). It is the best AoE Power Spike of the game when used a tight group.

 

Ranger deserves a mention, as Driving Flight enables hitting a secondary target behind the first. It's not exactly AoE but it still hits several target.

You may also pick Powder Burn ability with guns, but honnestly, it's not that good. 

Ya if its non caster you are looking at go no further than these two. 

 

Chanter: with Dragon Thrashed, Dragon Wailed.  This character could have a DEX attribute score of -1000000000 and it would not matter cause Chants are not affected by DEX so put him or her in some plate, get a hatchet and all defensive talents and literally sit there and melt everything in sight while the enemy cant touch you cause of all of your talents are defensive lol

 

Negative to the Chanter: You have to wait until level 9.  Leveling 1 through 8 just go all defense and summon your ghost/grab the paralyze invocation and use those as needed until level 9.

 

Barbarian:  What Galad said Carnage obviously and Heart of Fury will take a tight group of enemies and turn them into ground beef (its better with a Duel Wielder or Sword and Board bashing shield), 

 

Negative to Barbarian: Early game has ABYSMAL ACC and Carnage has an ACC malus so ya there is that but there are ways around it in solo and obviously with a party (ACC buffs/talents!)

 

 

Honorable Mention:  Paladin with Sacred Immolation you have to wait until 13  but once you have Sacred Immolation you will be a death machine and Fighter with Charge although its a Line and not a circle type AOE but man it hits like a TRUCK (unless crush immune).

Edited February 14, 2018 by Torm51

[Boeroer]

Barbarian. You already played one and complained that he only can crush skulls and not play the banjo at the same time. The chanter could play the banjo and burn and slash enmies at the same time though. You just have to wait till lvl 9.

[Boeroer]

Negative to Barbarian: Early game has ABYSMAL ACC and Carnage has an ACC malus so ya there is that but there are ways around it in solo and obviously with a party (ACC buffs/talents!)

Well barbs have 25 starting ACC which is not bad at all. Only Carnage starts off with 15 which is really bad and can lead to the false impression that a barb can never hit stuff. Luckily it gets +1ACC per char level. With Accurate Carnage it will be on par with your base accuracy at lvl 5 and after that be even better. So in theory (letting buffs like Disciplines Barrage aside) barb's Carnge will have better auto-attack ACC than a fighter.

 

What's really abysmal about barbs is their deflection (for a dedicated melee class).

[Elric Galad]

You know the difference between a Chanter and U.S.A. ?

U.S.A. are a melting pot.
The chanter is a melting DoT. 

[Torm51]

 

Negative to Barbarian: Early game has ABYSMAL ACC and Carnage has an ACC malus so ya there is that but there are ways around it in solo and obviously with a party (ACC buffs/talents!)

Well barbs have 25 starting ACC which is not bad at all. Only Carnage starts off with 15 which is really bad and can lead to the false impression that a barb can never hit stuff. Luckily it gets +1ACC per char level. With Accurate Carnage it will be on par with your base accuracy at lvl 5 and after that be even better. So in theory (letting buffs like Disciplines Barrage aside) barb's Carnge will have better auto-attack ACC than a fighter.

 

What's really abysmal about barbs is their deflection (for a dedicated melee class).

 

Thanks for the correction my friend.  I meant to say their CARNAGE ACC is bad early game but ya it gets fixed.  Yes their deflection does suck hard early game lol

[Boeroer]

Yes, Carnage doesn't do much in the early game because of its bad accuracy. And even if you're not mising you do grazes which lower your damage by 50% AND Carnage has a 34% malus on damage as well. So... really low numbers if you connect at all.

Edited February 14, 2018 by Boeroer

[Slack83er]

Whoa, thanks for all your contribution. I don't know if I'll be able to use immolation, ad I'm ranged... but if I can I will. Chanter is too... autopilot for my tastes.. and I like kana too much to take him out...

[MountainTiger]

The real AoE Ranger option is Stormcaller.

[Torm51]

Whoa, thanks for all your contribution. I don't know if I'll be able to use immolation, ad I'm ranged... but if I can I will. Chanter is too... autopilot for my tastes.. and I like kana too much to take him out...

Kana is a chanter

 

Oh ya forgot about ranged so you SI might not work

Edited February 15, 2018 by Torm51

[MasterCipher]

With a chanter's flame lash chant, Cipher silent scream is okay (can crit for 150 4m rad), but their foe only beam is even better, can crit 100 damage every second. Beam is passive so you can melee or silent scream or whatever after you get it up. Priests (stacking dots), Wizards (prismatic wall, blast pike spell or blast implements), and Druid (stag form w/ the lvl 8 lightning buff) have some powerful AoE options too. All 4 of these classes can spike higher dps than the chanter dot, but the problem is you have to press buttons and time things.

[Slack83er]

So to sum it up.. it's just chanter or barbarian.. there's no such thing as an explosive arrow or similar.. pity that. And to make an AoE paladin I have to stay almost melee.. I can go towards quick shift... but that'd change the nature of the mc..

[Boeroer]

There is the ranger with Stormcaller. It's kind of an exploding arrow.   

[Slack83er]

There is the ranger with Stormcaller. It's kind of an exploding arrow.

Yeah.. heard of it.. the bow. Must it be a ranger or anyone can use it? Cause.. what do you do while you wait to acquire it?

[Blades of Vanatar]

What about the Monk? Torment’s Reach does AoE correct? You can get that in Act 1. What can you stack with that ability?

[Boeroer]

On hit/on crit effects for example. They also work with the cone.

 

@Slack83er: Before getting Stormcaller you can't have exploding arrows. Other candiates are chanter with Stormcaller (triggers the stun invocation cone every now and then) or a cipher (triggers Soul Shock AoE from time to time). But the ranger with Returning Storm is cooler.

[Slack83er]

Yes it's AoE.. don't know what can stack with it though.. master Boeroer knows for sure..

 

Edit: I told you he knew

Edited February 15, 2018 by Slack83er

[Slack83er]

Cipher is not bad.. huge rp too... even though ranged ciphers seem to be the minority.. aren't they tough?

[MountainTiger]

 

There is the ranger with Stormcaller. It's kind of an exploding arrow.

Yeah.. heard of it.. the bow. Must it be a ranger or anyone can use it? Cause.. what do you do while you wait to acquire it?

 

 

It's soulbound for Chanters, Ciphers, and Rangers. Each class gets a different hit/crit proc; Rangers get Returning Storm, which is by far the best of the three, to go with their generally good performance with a bow.

 

You can pick it up in WM1, without completing the Battery questline IIRC, so it's available pretty early; until then, you just play like any other bow ranger.

[hansvedic]

Consider looking in the Provisional Builds thread for an unarmed barbarian.

 

With the way unarmed damage works, grazes don't hurt your DPS nearly as much as with weapons.

[Boeroer]

Also the Carnage malus to damage is less severe. Downside is that damage bonuses and crits don't lead to significantly higher damage and that the ACC bonus of the fists will not work with special attacks like Barbaric Blow or Heart of Fury.

[Slack83er]

I'm getting a little confused... It's a lot of ideas, and I don't have the time to test all of them, I must try the most promising...which seems to be the ranger so far. I know there can be lots of builds, but... I'll build a ranger, if I get enough side info. Such as: which animal is best? (or it doesn't matter..) which race? Stats? and so on..

[Elric Galad]

Pets have exactly 3 differences :

- Stats, with similar number of total points ( https://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Animal_Companion ). For some reason, Anteloppe has 2 less stat points.

- Special abilities 1 per pet (also check on the page above)

- a  :devil: hidden    attribute that is Base Attack speed. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86684-mechanics-the-big-attack-speed-conundrum/

 

To make it short, Bear and Lion are LAME because they attack 1.5 slower (66% of damages outputs) without any thing to compensate.
Yes, they have abilities, but all other pet have one and I don't think their abilities are better.

Yes, Bear has +2DR, but is it significantly better than Anteloppe +7 all Def ? NO.

Is Bear stat distribution significantly better than Anteloppe to justify 1/3 less damage output ? No way.
Lion's terror (despite of poor INT) might be situationnally helpful but I still feel it is a bit gimped.

Wolf has a little disengagement bonus, but its main asset is higher base damage. That is huge. It does pretty much as much damage as a 2 hander !

Anteloppe bonus defense and +7 all def makes it versatile. I like it.
The boar ability is weird, and won't help as much as wolf base damage bonus BECAUSE BAUSE DAMAGE GETS MULTIPLIED BY PET LEVELLING. Boar bonus only stacks, and it is not even always active.
Stag is a "why not". Carnage AoE is small (low INT) but Carnage is always good to have, especially because pets get a ton of damage bonus by levelling.


So for me :

The good :

1 - Wolf / Ituumak (a wolf with -10% HP and +~6% attack speed)  
2 - Anteloppe (despite its low stats, its ability is solid enough. Nice for tanking... if you have healers. Defense are high, but HP are not)*

3 - Stag More complicated to use but probably quite fun you are looking for AoE aren't you ? 

 

The bad :

4 - Boar. Normal attack speed but IMHO the worst ability.
5 - Lion. Terror is a situationnaly good but lame DPS
6 - Bear. No way to justify from a powergaming point of view. 2DR isn't enough to justify lame DPS.


*Tip : Pet + Healers is awesome because pets have infinite health and their DR shine at high level.
Lay on Hand is especially sweet, as chanters talents, Sacred Immolation healing, or Ranger 2x heal per encounter

I would advise you stag.
It gives you a "baby" barbarian (probably quite bad at low levels) with support AoE.
And it is probably quite fun.

Or just go on with your current party and pick up Sagani 

Cheers

Edited February 15, 2018 by Elric Galad

[Slack83er]

Or just go on with your current party and pick up Sagani 

Cheers

 

Already have her in party. But I'm looking for a MC who does AoE... Sure I'll give her the bow eventually. 

The pally does awesome damage with sworn enemy+FoD.. It comes to about 90 dmg atm... 5th level..not bad I'd say... But the speed is awful and it only targets 1 enemy...thus my question. Thanks for the info, though Elric, most helpful. If the pally could wield some AoE weapon, I'd be happier...