Got my Votary to lvl 8 and now I’m torn whether or not I’ll go with it or the Holy Slayer for my first crack at the game. The HS does more dmg, but the Votary is more fun to play.
I would always suggest fun over form, so to speak. Maybe do both with a custom party member?
Cool video. Takes itself a bit too seriously but still fun to watch.
Thanks! The two handed and one handed styles don’t say melee only, does that mean e.g. bows count as 2 handed weapons?
Can you elaborate as you why the voters is more fun? Monk plus Paladin works in suppose because monks are powered by receiving wounds, and paladins can heal those wounds so you’d have a much higher threshold of wounds I imagine.
Plus Paladins can also hit quite hard iirc.
Apologize if this has been asked before, but couldn’t readily find it. I know these comments/information is not based on the full game, but how do you think it will compare to Divinity Original Sins 2? What does it do better/different than DOS2? Or is DOS2 considered the better game, if so, why? Or they are too different of games to even compare?
Really have been enjoying the information provided so really appreciate any thoughts folks might have.
I’ve played both and they scratch different itches.
Pillars seems more…grounded, more dnd.
D:OS2 seems more…flamboyant, bombastic.
It also relies on environmental manipulation more.
I know this specific one works (taking the 2-handed feat makes bows do more damage) so I suspect, for instance, taking the one-handed and using a single pistol (no shield) would give you that bonus as well (converting grazes to hits, iirc).
@BloodyBattleBrain has the right of it.
They are very different games - only the fact they are RPG’s really associates the two titles. Pillars will be a more grounded, traditional setting in some ways (but not in all ways) and it should also be more reactive to your choices as well as having more reactivity and interaction with your companions. It will also not feature co-op/multiplayer like DOS2 does.
I also feel like DOS2 is a bit of a chore to play on my own, way too fiddley and demanding (ironically, the fact it’s a hard core turn-based game is part of this problem - every battle starts to feel like a puzzle you have to solve).
I love DOS2 quite a bit, but Pillars is more my speed, personally.
Just for fun I put together a Crusader build (Fighter/Paladin) using the Unbroken class and the Paladin order that provides extra engagement when wielding a shield. The results were awesome/hilarious.
I jacked up Resolve and Con to max, and enjoyed a Deflection bonus so high when wielding a large shield that even if the enemies I fought rolled a natural 100 on the attack roll, they couldn’t score a crit on me.
I could engage up to SEVEN enemies at once and would have 13 armor base. This, coupled with having nearly 200 hit points and an Athletic skill such that I could gain 124 from using it made me pretty much invincible. I mean, not really, I did almost lose that fight, but with the modal on the shield* the back row of dart shooters couldn’t hurt me much, my resistances were so high I was almost immune to the paralysis effect on said darts, and the more enemies that engaged me the less damage I took (fighter defensive stance), 5% per enemy up to 15% reduction.
So yes, I nearly died, but I managed it without potions and I took out ALL FIVE ENEMIES myself and soaked almost 300 damage doing it, while the rest of my party said with their AI turned off in the back of the map. It was glorious. Talk about a tanky build!
*The modal ability for Large Shield Proficiency gives you a 50% reduction in damage from ranged and reflex based attacks but you can’t move. That’s fine with me, I was planted at a choke point anyway. Toggling Modal abilities off and on doesn’t cost any recovery and the cooldown is very short (maybe just 1-3 seconds?) so I could actually turn it off, charge the ranged attackers once the melee was down, and put it back up since they continued to use darts against me in melee range).
Next up - someone asked for a Mindstalker build, a Cipher/Rogue, and I think I have come up with a good one, so once the household wakes up I’ll record some footage of it.
Thanks!
This sounds like a great tank! I was thinking of fighter+chanter but maybe this is better.
A fighter/chanter would probably have a lot more options actually, and be more fun to play (more tools to use). The Unbroken side of this provided extra engagement (+1 from Unbroken w/shield and +3 from the Stance) as well as some other great passives (like Recovery healing), but with a Chanter you could have some options with spells/passive song buffs, so it’s kind of tough to say which is better vs. more fun. This build I did was solid as a … tank, but didn’t have much to do other than pop Tactical Barrage and drop a Flames of Devotion from time to time. YMMV!
Good points, I guess I’ll stick with the original plan. The other character I’ve planned so far is a mindflayer (trickster plus beguiler, concentrating on ranged debuffs. ) then your votary sounds good for physical damage, and I’d want a healer and a nuker. If I didn’t want to go straight priest and straight wizard , what do you think might be fun? (I’ll play on veteran and not PoD so that should give me a little slack not to focus only on how powerful the team is.)
I’m running Xoti in my party and that’s why I was testing a Votary (she can be Monk or Priest or Votary) and so she’s in, because that was a great combination. For a Wizard I’m sticking straight wizard - fast access to the highest level spells and a higher power level really make pure Wizards devastating nukers, and that’s my plan there. But if you wanted to run Wizard with something else, I think making a melee Wizard/Barbarian would be lots of fun. The second level Wizard spell Infuse with Health could offset the penalties for a Berserker Barbarian nicely, letting you safely nuke from the front row and preventing Carnage from hitting allies while letting you enjoy the benefits, in theory.
Interesting variation! I’d rather play the cc version I described but that is a group character, not much for solo.
Pillars 1 is a pretty good looking game. The spell effects would only really rate as “decent” though.
I say this only to reiterate that watching Pillars 2 in action is chefs kiss.
Yeah, they really hit it out of the park making the visuals both look much more impressive but also somehow more readable at the same time. I’m especially fond of the option to adjust special effect transparency when in pause-mode, that was a slick move.