Well, a few things.
First, welcome to the forums!
Second, tanking works well because of engagement. Once an enemy is near a character with an unused engagement slot (1 slot per character by default, but the best tanks take skills and abilities to give extra engagements) they are “engaged” and that means if they try to leave the tank to pick a new target, the tank gets a super high accuracy high damage attack against them. Some AI actors will have boons that make that less effective, like a teleporting spirit, but for the most part the AI respects being engaged and will try to take your tank down.
Third, the AI likes to target low deflection characters. Like the players, once they make an attack they know the stat of the target, and (I assume) use the same AI scripts you can set up to target characters with the lowest defense stat, usually deflection with a melee attack. If your Helwalker is next to the tanking Paladin, the enemy can turn focus to the monk and start attacking and not incur a disengagement from the Paladin.
So yeah, every character will eventually find themselves in melee at some point, for sure, but that’s generally how it works.
I just got the backer email with the news that all the conversations in the game will be fully voiced. That’s crazy. Of course, I came here, and found out Scott posted about that 18 days ago. Heh. Scott’s well ahead of even the backer emails.
Thanks for the info. I´m just a bit worried that I built my character a bit too defensive only to realize that he never actually gets hit at all because my tank keeps enemies busy. Like going for a Votary Shattered Pillar/Gold Pact when the armor boost isn´t even necessary.
Btw, big fan of your videos. They have really helped at least narrow down the kind of character I want to make.
I do what I can! :)
@Deadeye543 The good news with the Helalker and Monks is without wounds they are still devastating opponents. If you find your enemies turning their backs to you, that’s going to end poorly for them! Also, if you do find that enemies are gravitating towards your other characters, feel free to drop down to lighter or even no armor to compensate - you’ll be much, much faster to make up for not getting extra wounds. In theory!
EDIT - Also, also, I should mention there are two powerful early game skills a monk can pick up if they aren’t being hit on the field. One, Mortification of the Soul I think it’s called, instantly hurts you enough to give you a few wounds, so you can always use that for free as needed if you pick it. Also, you start with wounds and I believe a Helwalker starts with 4 actually. But the other skill I wanted to mention is … uh… dance of something or something. It gives a constant, stacking bonus of accuracy and extra wounds to you for as long as you don’t get hit. So if no one is fighting you pop it and let the bonus accuracy, wounds, and helwalker damage pile up on yourself while you move into a flanking position.
Dammit, I’m talking myself into a Monk at launch.
Well, that’s going to make things at least somewhat easier. Now I just have to decide on the second class. Paladin is great from what I have seen. But so would be Cipher. Or a shapshifter Druid. Or just a plain old Fighter. But then there is also the Shepherd. Or the Scout. Guess I will have to do some real soul searching over the next 7 days.
Good luck. Every combination you just mentioned sounded awesome to me.
I think I’m going Transcendent. It sounds so much fun.
Man, it’s wild to put up a video on YouTube that has over 100 views by the time I get back to work.
I’m thinking some sort of Shapeshifter Druid for me.
Hey @Scotch_Lufkin and/or @John_Reynolds, I know that you get to choose your companions’ classes from a couple of choices - do you get any input on their subclass, or is it a pig in a poke?
Also, when looking up the companions, I found out there are also ‘sidekicks.’ What the heck is the difference? Companions have quests maybe?
Companions are fully fleshed out. Sidekicks are characters Obsidian made available for party play but don’t have as much depth.
You mean votary. :)
I don’t know about the first class’s sub, I would assume the companion is already level 1 and thus that sub has already been decided. If you multi then I’m sure you get to pick the sub.
Just tried a Tempest, a fury druid + flesh eating barb that was focused on using great swords. The spell Firebrand puts a nasty weapon in your hands, it’s a 2nd level spell, does good melee dmg and you can still shapeshift or cast those fury spells. Fun combo. With Frenzy and pork I was at 25 Might.
Being able to switch to fire damage is awesome, too, and should make a big difference in a number of situations.
Woot! Josh is making that face just for Scott.
Two more codes out today.
Good thing I’m not reviewing it… It’s going to be real hard for me to be unbiased about this game.
The joy of the internet is that things like this can happen.
Scott for President!
Grats to @Scotch_Lufkin. I gotta admit, I’ve started really looking forward to your videos. Hope you get a lot more hits and subs due to the shoutout. But you only have 4 or so days to do the remaining 100 combinations, so you’d better get to work!
