Woo, first time? AWESOME. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to help. I sent you a Steam friend request, too.
Are you going Lich? You should probably go Lich as a sorcerer.
As for RTwP vs. Turn Based, it’s all about the difficulty of the encounter. And the difficulty can vary wildly based on the game difficulty setting and your party builds. But difficult encounters, like the one you mention in the GG, will almost always require turn based. You definitely want to kill the miniboss before she can summon the swarms (or before they get to move), because they’re gonna kick your ass bad.
I’m going to guess that you didn’t have the permanent Haste buff you can get in the GG, or the Inquisitors to help with the miniboss fight.
I feel I’m very much an outlier when it comes to the use of TB in WotR: I use it all the time. Yes, it makes everything much longer, but I think I’ve been converted from preferring RtwP since it was an option way back in the day to enjoying the ability to watch everything unfold through TB combat. In parties that can be spread out, I find I miss too much action when I’m in RtwP.
Also remember that, for no penalty, you can reduce difficulty at any time if you’re getting frustrated with a battle. Unless it affects an achievement, of course.
I’m about 50-50 RTwP vs. Turn Based. If it’s an easy encounter and I can just steamroll it, I’m going with RTwP because it’s so much faster.
I mostly RTwP the two big Act 5 dungeons because they’re undertuned.
I ticked over 3k a few days ago.
I bet you’d be great at a Pathfinder trivia night.
Noting that you use cloud saves. Have you found that they work pretty well? I recall many years ago having a cloud save, which was older, overwrite a newer local save in some game I was playing and now I pretty much avoid cloud saves since I don’t need them for between device play, only for backup really.
They work pretty well. If you’re worried about it, back them up before you turn them on.
I guess the biggest issue is that when the game crashes (and, oddly, it’s been doing that a lot more since DLC4 came out), Steam will want to sync saves and I’m like, “no, I just want to jump back in the game.” And sometimes Steam is like, “oh, ok, sure,” and sometimes Steam says, “no, fuck you, you have to wait for me to sync this shit.”
Of course, sometimes when Wrath crashes it takes Steam with it (wtf).
I can even exit the game and put my computer to sleep immediately afterward, interrupting the sync, but Steam figures it out and syncs when it wakes back up.
So I’m just starting the Crusade part of this. I’m not really sure what to do. I’ve moved my dudes to a couple of encounters but now it feels like I should actually start gathering troops and stuff, but I have no idea what/how to do in that regards. Since we have a Pathfinder savant here in @Belisarius I figured I’d finally ask. Been at this point for months and just frozen with indecision so haven’t played.
ikr? Maybe that Roman general dude could help you out!
Buy some guys, stick them in an army. You want to make a super stack, just like the good ol’ Civ3 days. Then go clean up the map. Save before every battle - a different strategy might help. Mage generals with Scorching Ray are OP, then later Fireball and later Firestorm. The other classes of general have received some buffs, but I doubt they’re really competitive. The meta is solidly in the mage camp.
When upgrading your generals you usually want the Master of Maneuver feat line, as that will let you add more guys to the stack. Then some heals, to bring back “wounded” stacks.
You will find enemy armies you can’t beat right away all over the map and will need to build up your armies to beat them. This is intended.
There’s not a lot of meat here. Later on you’ll the get the option to upgrade units. Archers → Marksmen are the meta, but again other options have been buffed and might be competitive, but we’ll never know because everyone always chooses Marksmen.
Feel free to friend me on Steam. Balasarius
Oh I tried. Many times. And more besides. Hold person, slumber, Seelah beeline, Lan focus fire, summons, grease, etc, etc. et al. There were dozens of attempts. DOZENS. And I’ve actually done it, by which I mean “temporarily stunned” the fuck. Problem. I can’t kill 'em before they can summon the swarm anyways because there are a load of other dudes in the room I can’t just ignore.
You need to go turn-base. It’s for all intents and purposes unwinnable in real-time. The only fight in Act 1 that is! (confirmed by me)
Perma Haste Yes. Inquisitors what? The fight was still a load of BS.
The onboarding for the Act 2 Crusade mechanics isn’t great. Quit out and just watched a youtube video instead. Now I crushed all the demon armies (except for the rank 7 ones because my main army is only Rank 5)
Basically what I did:
- Talk to that orc women in golden armor in the camp and pay the gold for more reinforcements (lots of extra army units)
- Buy all the footmen and archers that are available immediately
- Buy the mage general that has flame scorcher and +1 to army size
- Merge all of the units together
- Deathstack stomp all the rank 5 or lower Demon armies on the way to Drezen HoMM style
Also get Hellknights. They are pretty good.
Oooh. Thanks @roguefrog and @Balasarius . Good info especially on how to start working with the armies. I’ve got too much on my gaming plate but I may dive back in between rounds if Diablo 4, CK3, Midnight Suns, BotW, etc.
In the Marketplace you can recruit either Hulrun or Ramien to assist you in the Gray Garrison. If you take Hulrun, his Inquisitors will teleport in during the miniboss fight and aggro most of the trash enemies, letting you focus on the miniboss. Makes it a lot easier.
Although, if you kill Hulrun, later in the game you can look another inquisitor dead in the eye and tell him that you killed Hulrun simply to make the world a better place, it’s fucking awesome. Unfortunately, keeping Hulrun alive leads to better outcomes later in the game.
I didn’t kill him because the Priest said not to. Just couldn’t get his help, not that I knew I wanted it. He seems like an asshole and a half.
I just jumped back into my Midnight Isle save. My current party has the Spellsword tailwind. It appears to have bugged out because the attack and damage bonuses are just growing inexplicably huge. My Sword Saint currently is getting over +100 on every hit. The rest of the party is getting between +20 and +85.
I’ve done some “tests” and turn-base makes the game MUCH easier than real-time changing no difficulty settings whatsoever. There’s really no contest.
Same strategy vs the same encounter. Just attack the enemy with everyone. Nothing fancy.
-In real-time everyone died. Total complete party wipe.
-In turn-base the enemies were killed with only one member moderately damaged.
-That’s pretty radical
Now I wonder if the game difficulty tuning is geared more for turn-based with real-time being…an afterthought for some encounters? Mainly in terms of some of the big fights. I can say this wasn’t the case in Kingmaker which I completed 100% RTwP.
Ultimately I feel like you have to switch between the two to be optimal which is kind is finicky. There are absolutely just loads of easy fights you should blast through using RTwP while there are fights you MUST use turn-base or you are going to have a bad time.
If you stick to turn-base 100% you’re good, but the game will waste your time. I guess in a perfect world the game would have a smart system that could flag encounters RTwP or Turn-base for me automatically. Alas.
Full disclosure: This all stems from that ONE bullshit fight in Act 1.
You can kill Kaylessa for a +3 Composite Longbow as soon as you get the Marketplace. You lose out on an Act 3 crusade event to get 50 units. Small price to pay for a bow you’ll be using into Act 4, imo.
Aww shit, now I need to make a speedrun through the Abyss.
Oh and the best bow and the best rapier in the game both come from Areelu’s lab, because they’re Speed, and there’s nothing better than an additional, free, full BAB attack. You can buff them to +5 with Greater Magic Weapon.
The only exception would be maybe if you’re going Lich and can get perma Haste.
E - Oh yes, Killing Pace is Speed also. Stack mobility!
Played again tonight. The tailwind bonus was reset to zero when I loaded, but it appears to just scale infinitely as long as you keep playing instead of expiring after 1 minute like it’s supposed to.
Had it up to over +300 on every attack and damage role. That gets applied to every damage roll, so a magic missile will get it for each individual missile. It was also basically impossible to miss with attacks unless you get a natural 1 which can be solved by that Mythic ability “There’s Always a Chance”.
It’s a very cheesy bug.
