I reported a similar problem. I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that they retaliate with 'Dominating Gaze' when interrupted.

 

I don't think this issue was addressed in 1.1. My party is level 19 and I still get destroyed in the Cave of Threshing. Everything else in the game has been easy.

I had trouble with that location on PotD until I decided to craft a 'Meteor Shower' scroll and lure the Fampyrs into its AoE.

Same problem here.

Yeah so I hit this too when I finally decided to go check out that island.

 

My main character has literally been charmed the entire fight, every 2 seconds I have Pallegina hit her to break the charm and immediately after she gets charmed again. It's extremely stupid, honestly, which is why I assumed it was a bug and looked for this thread.

 

I didn't see a reason why it would only happen to my main character, but based on responses here it might be because I keep having her use Rogue abilities to damage and interrupt (she's a Swashbuckler, every active rogue ability interrupts). If every interrupt on these guys dominates, not only is that pretty stupid mechanically, but it also means that Rogues are a liability since all their active abilities interrupt.

 

Edit:
I'm not even sure if it's the interrupt, but whatever it is it's extremely stupid. I just tried replaying the fight to try to figure out what's happening and on the very first auto-attack out of stealth my rogue was dominated. Right now it just seems like a massive "**** you" to my rogue in particular since none of my other characters have this happen.

 

Edit2:
Hah, yeah, so I break the charm above, go to hit another Fampyr (who is currently Terrified and can't do anything) hit it with Penetrating Strike (so no interrupt component) and immediately get charmed. Don't even get the Full Attack off. Super stupid and broken, I'm not gonna bother with this fight on other runs until this is fixed I think. I don't mind being charmed once in a while, it's what Fampyrs do, but making my Rogue completely useless every time she attacks is not fun.

 

If you guys want a save file let me know, it seems like on this character every single melee attack by my Rogue gets her charmed. Or maybe it's just proximity, I have no idea, I just broke it again and as soon as I targeted the (still Terrified) Fampyr she got dominated again, it's actually kind of funny at this point.

 

Final Edit:
I went ahead and uploaded a save right before fighting them, why not. To repro just try fighting them and watch the Rogue constantly get dominated (well, charmed as long as Pallegina's chant is on).
https://www.dropbox.com/s/tnxhsjtcthn9a2d/Selesne%20%28CaveofThreshing%29%20%288dd37337-66e9-403d-976f-8e10b1724244%29%20%28777339335%29.savegame?dl=0

Edited June 10, 20187 yr by Answermancer

I used Gouging Strike, which is supposed to disable the use of gaze attacks, against a Fampyr, from stealth. The attack hit and the additional effect from Gouging Strike critted, but it still used Dominating Gaze on me.

Edited June 20, 20187 yr by -dib-

I beat the encounters with Fampyrs on Splintered Reef recently, and had quite a "fun" time with these guys.

 

Apparently their dominating gaze is a proc-based effect that is triggered when you hit them directly - either with basic attack or an ability. The idea is that, when you target them directly, you have to look at them, thus you are subjected to their gaze. There IS some target-selecting going on, though, so it's not like if all your party attack a Fampyr at the same time, they are all subjected to the gaze - I'm not too sure about this part. Either way, because of the way it works, this effect can be triggered even when they are paralyzed or stunned (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO). Paralyzed, maybe, but stunned? Ehhh...

 

So if you hit them with an AoE spell that is not aimed directly at them, you won't be hit by their gaze. If you ignore all the Fampyrs and only focus on other enemies, no one will ever be charmed.

 

According to the combat feedback, if you hit a Fampyr with Cipher's Disintegration, your cipher will be subjected to the gaze with every damage tick from Disintegration.

 

Captain's Banquet counters their gaze completely. I also relied on Suppress Affliction a lot since it has short casting time, cancels charmed effect instantly, and prevents any incoming charmed effect for the entire duration.

Edited June 25, 20187 yr by try2handing

I beat the encounters with Fampyrs on Splintered Reef recently, and had quite a "fun" time with these guys.

 

Apparently their dominating gaze is a proc-based effect that is triggered when you hit them directly - either with basic attack or an ability. The idea is that, when you target them directly, you have to look at them, thus you are subjected to their gaze. There IS some target-selecting going on, though, so it's not like if all your party attack a Fampyr at the same time, they are all subjected to the gaze - I'm not too sure about this part. Either way, because of the way it works, this effect can be triggered even when they are paralyzed or stunned (which doesn't make a whole lot of sense IMO). Paralyzed, maybe, but stunned? Ehhh...

 

So if you hit them with an AoE spell that is not aimed directly at them, you won't be hit by their gaze. If you ignore all the Fampyrs and only focus on other enemies, no one will ever be charmed.

 

According to the combat feedback, if you hit a Fampyr with Cipher's Disintegration, your cipher will be subjected to the gaze with every damage tick from Disintegration.

 

Captain's Banquet counters their gaze completely. I also relied on Suppress Affliction a lot since it has short casting time, cancels charmed effect instantly, and prevents any incoming charmed effect for the entire duration.

 

Even it works as intended, imo there should be a inner cooldown on how often it is triggered.

Even it works as intended, imo there should be a inner cooldown on how often it is triggered.

Yes, a cooldown would be nice. Their combat design feels really cheesy to me and fighting them really feels like you're just cheesing them back - trying to outchesse them.

 

I just did an Ancient Fampyr encounter earlier, and I think something is different with their gaze attack, compared to the normal Fampyr's. In my previous post I said Suppress Affliction prevents incoming charm, because I clearly saw that in the combat log: Maia was hit by a gaze, but nothing happened. That didn't work in the Ancient Fampyr encounter.

 

And for some reason, my Cipher never gets affected by the gaze if I attack with a rod. The Fampyr's eyes and my Cipher's eyes would glow as if the effect is proc'ed but nothing actually happens. The moment I swap to a melee weapon and land a hit on them, I get insta-charmed. Maia will get insta-charmed if she lands a hit with an aquebus. Aloth never gets affected when using dual scepters or Caedebald's Blackbow. It could be that the target-selecting of the gaze (or AI) is messed up when you use a ranged weapon with bounce effect or if the weapon has a best-of damage type? I'm not sure.

Edited June 25, 20187 yr by try2handing

My rogue has to pass the gaze check every 1 or 2 second because all his attacks are single target ones and it seems DoT will trigger the gaze check too. While in contrast my other companions are rarely get dominated or terrified.

Maybe it can help a little

 

Edited June 26, 20187 yr by kilay

Interesting. They actually have two separate abilities of the same name, Charm (Dominating) Gaze. I'm not talking about the distinction between charm and domination. I'm talking about the inconsistency in "How" and "When" this charm (or domination) effect is triggered, from what I observed.

 

Because I've seen that sometimes Suppress Affliction blocks incoming gaze, but other times it doesn't. Sometimes the combat log says the Fampyr "activates dominating gaze", while other times there's no feedback for it. I would hazard a guess that one of the two gazes is quite like an active ability, which can be activated any time, while the other gaze is more like some sort of passive "mark" that is attached to your character, and it would be triggered by your dealing damage to the Fampyr with a direct attack. Suppress Affliction would block this passive trigger, but it can't block incoming gaze activated by the Fampyr.

 

Now that I think of it, I wonder if attacking from behind their back would protect your character from the gaze attacks.

Edited June 27, 20187 yr by try2handing

You're overthinking this. Fampyrs use charming gaze, whereas Ancient Fampyrs have access to the dominating variant.

There's definitely a bug because even on Story Mode the fampyr and ancient fampyr fights are absurdly difficult.

With the food and gear (Banquet, Shimmering? Scale [shield has enchant to imm:Gaze]) that gives you immunity, its not terrible, if prepared.  Theres also been talk of blinding your own party to get around it, but I haven't tested that yet.

Luminous lobsters and Attuned Self (or whatever that potion is called) saved my butt, but they still weren't 100% effective. And Eder has the highest defenses, and well over 100 will, yet is always, consistently the first to go and the one charmed/dominated the most.

 

Do with that what you will.

 

Joe

Yeah I mean, if I do this fight again before it's fixed, I'm just gonna have everyone eat a Banquet.

 

I know that now, but it's still almost certainly a bug and should be fixed.

 

I posted my save from when I first hit this earlier, and at least when I was trying it, my rogue literally spent the entire fight charmed. I would break the charm with Pallegina and a second later the rogue would be charmed again.

 

It's silly. It either needs an internal cooldown or some sort of counterplay besides "make everyone immune to Intellect afflictions".

I think the bug is fixed in the 1.2 beta patch. I turned on story mode, started a fight with fampyrs on Splintered Reef, and went to make some tea. When I came back the fight was over and the log didn't show any absurd permanent domination shenanigans. Was also underleveled and my Fanatic Watcher had 3 int, 9 resolve, and a total of 57 will. She got dominated a few times but before the 1.2 patch she was basically constantly dominated.

I use Chill Fog in Fampyr and they cast fampyr gaze with the blind status. Or a blind character is enchated for a fampyr sometimes. Annoying bug.

 I just had the toughest POTD-fight ever in Splintered reef with those 4 damn fampyrs who kept gazing my party to death.

 

• "Defiant"-Headpiece (the one you get at start) -> doesnt help against gaze-attacks, cause the gaze targets INT instead of PER. Weird, but OK.
• "potion of focused mind" on all direct-attack-chars-> didnt help much, just helped with keeping friendlyfire in control a bit, since my party got "charmed" instead of "dominated"
• "They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze" - see above. Got me properly mad I have to admit, since the name suggested something else.
•  "Suppress Affliction" used by priest + party (rings) -> helped only for as long until the next dot-tick or hit occured, then allegiance was shifted again
• "Liberating Exhortation" used by MC -> Didnt seem different for me than "Suppress Affliction", so I saved the resources for DPS. Error on my part?
• "Dismissal" - No effect on the fampyr at all, no kill, no damage. Dont even get a hit-indicator. My party is all LVL 20, all other targets explode on the spot -> New Bug after 1.2B?

Winning this was somehow a relief when it worked finally but before it was rather infuriating...

 

 

I just had the toughest POTD-fight ever in Splintered reef with those 4 damn fampyrs who kept gazing my party to death.

• "Defiant"-Headpiece (the one you get at start) -> doesnt help against gaze-attacks, cause the gaze targets INT instead of PER. Weird, but OK.
• "potion of focused mind" on all direct-attack-chars-> didnt help much, just helped with keeping friendlyfire in control a bit, since my party got "charmed" instead of "dominated"
• "They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze" - see above. Got me properly mad I have to admit, since the name suggested something else.
•  "Suppress Affliction" used by priest + party (rings) -> helped only for as long until the next dot-tick or hit occured, then allegiance was shifted again
• "Liberating Exhortation" used by MC -> Didnt seem different for me than "Suppress Affliction", so I saved the resources for DPS. Error on my part?
• "Dismissal" - No effect on the fampyr at all, no kill, no damage. Dont even get a hit-indicator. My party is all LVL 20, all other targets explode on the spot -> New Bug after 1.2B?

Winning this was somehow a relief when it worked finally but before it was rather infuriating...

 

Until this is fixed, the only real counterplay is to trivialize them by eating Captain's Banquet which gives total immunity to Intellect afflictions.

 I just had the toughest POTD-fight ever in Splintered reef with those 4 damn fampyrs who kept gazing my party to death.

 

• "Defiant"-Headpiece (the one you get at start) -> doesnt help against gaze-attacks, cause the gaze targets INT instead of PER. Weird, but OK.
• "potion of focused mind" on all direct-attack-chars-> didnt help much, just helped with keeping friendlyfire in control a bit, since my party got "charmed" instead of "dominated"
• "They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze" - see above. Got me properly mad I have to admit, since the name suggested something else.
•  "Suppress Affliction" used by priest + party (rings) -> helped only for as long until the next dot-tick or hit occured, then allegiance was shifted again
• "Liberating Exhortation" used by MC -> Didnt seem different for me than "Suppress Affliction", so I saved the resources for DPS. Error on my part?
• "Dismissal" - No effect on the fampyr at all, no kill, no damage. Dont even get a hit-indicator. My party is all LVL 20, all other targets explode on the spot -> New Bug after 1.2B?

Winning this was somehow a relief when it worked finally but before it was rather infuriating...

 

As far as PotD toughest battles compared to the level I was able to achieve prior to the encounter, this still isn't the hardest to me. The thugs in Gorecci St, the dig site, and the shrine outside of Crookspur were all ones I had to either return to later or find someway to avoid. In terms of just grinding the enemy down Nemnok was the toughest. I never tried to fight the dragons. I might this playthrough, There was one other I can't remember, but they were self healing faster than I could do damage. THAT's frustrating. The Lich was harder for me than the fampyrs. Oh, and the Woedica Temple where Oswald was kidnapped. I jumped on that way too early in my career because I wanted Konstentine's room. Tip: don't trigger that encounter and decide to return after resting. Oswald bites it then.

 

Luminous lobster and Capt Banquet didn't work 100% for me, though. I also had to take "Reduce negative affects" precautions so my time spent charmed was at least minimized.

 

Joe

 

Full-quote of my previous post

 

As far as PotD toughest battles compared to the level I was able to achieve prior to the encounter, this still isn't the hardest to me. The thugs in Gorecci St, the dig site, and the shrine outside of Crookspur were all ones I had to either return to later or find someway to avoid. In terms of just grinding the enemy down Nemnok was the toughest. I never tried to fight the dragons. I might this playthrough, There was one other I can't remember, but they were self healing faster than I could do damage. THAT's frustrating. The Lich was harder for me than the fampyrs. Oh, and the Woedica Temple where Oswald was kidnapped. I jumped on that way too early in my career because I wanted Konstentine's room. Tip: don't trigger that encounter and decide to return after resting. Oswald bites it then.

 

Luminous lobster and Capt Banquet didn't work 100% for me, though. I also had to take "Reduce negative affects" precautions so my time spent charmed was at least minimized.

 

Joe

 

Yes, strength through enemy packs can be a hassle in the beginning, I agree. Gorreci Street is a good example. For these I got myself a chanter to help with CCs.

Also tricking enemies helps a lot. In Oathbinders Sanctum (Oswald) I used Cpt. Stinkfeathers (Ishiza) to first trigger the dialogue sequence while rest of party remained in hide, then triggered combat and lured all enemies into the room on the opposite side of the hall. By the time they had caught up to him my party had already ambushed the last who passed by, cutting their numbers so tanking+killing them when their focus shifted to the rest of my party was way easier.

Lich is nasty, but it's only this 1 character. I actually found the fampyrs to be a harder fight.

 

@ Answermancer: good point, thx! At the time of writing this I had not fully realized how Resistance and Immunity work. Hence my madness about "They shielded their eyes 'gainst the fampyrs gaze".

Edited July 6, 20187 yr by nightkin

@ Answermancer: good point, thx! At the time of writing this I had not fully realized how Resistance and Immunity work. Hence my madness about "They shielded their eyes 'gainst the fampyrs gaze".

Yeah, it's kind of ironic that "They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze" does very little to protect you from a Fampyr's gaze, lol.

 

It reduces dominates to charms, which is okay, but considering that they can just chain charm you constantly (because of this bug) it's not much of an improvement. I suppose with the patch change that makes Charm break on damage from your "new team" it might be more useful, but probably not since the AI probably won't attack a character that it charmed.

From what I can tell, DOTs trigger the bug. I can consistently trigger it with Wounding Shot or a rogue with Deep Wounds.

 

Interestingly, if my cipher is hit with either of those it triggers Psychic Backlash every tick as well. I can almost guarantee these two bugs are related.

This is still a thing. I absolutely can't bring Maia to Fampyr encounters atm, or she will be permanently dominated and wreck my party, especially since there are now no more easy options to evade charming afflictions altogether. Resistance against intellect afflictions (dominated -> charmed) doesn't really help.