GamingBolt is pretty legit. Also that news has been going around.
Also I am super jealous of Paradox.
I have to say that this is the first game, in a very long time, that I think about when not playing (at work, running errands). I didn’t have time to play last night, but I fired it up for 15 minutes just to change my party’s equipment loadout, enchant some weapons, and make better sense of their stats so that I can try some new strategies the next time I can play for a bit. I am slowly intuiting and gaining a deeper understanding of the combat and that in turn feeds into applying different more advanced tactics on the next map I travel to. I haven’t had a game occupy my thoughts this much since probably Banner Saga early last year.
/Self-indulgent post
-Todd
Let’s talk about Shades and their shadowy brethren, because those guys are dicks. Super minor mechanical spoilers, I guess, if you’re that concerned and haven’t encountered them yet.
They’re only marginally tankable, since they like to shoot frostbolts at and teleport onto seemingly random non-melee targets. They have huge deflection and fortitude defenses and resist the hell out of pierce/slash/crush damage. They also have huge DR for freeze/shock. Shades love to summon Shadows, who are also dicks.
How do you guys fight them? Burn and Raw damage (and maybe Corrosive?) seem to be the jam, but I don’t have many sources of those – particularly sources that don’t attack Deflection or Fortitude. Just about all I’m able to do is drop regen effects and buffs – their damage output really isn’t that high – and slowly wear them down. Now, I still don’t have a great grasp on all my priest/druid/mage spells, so it’s very possible I’m missing the round peg I need and am just jamming the square peg I’m familiar with into a hole unsuited to it.
Anyone have any thoughts or used anything with notable success? I’m running Druid/Chanter/Fighter/Ranger/Priest/Wizard for the record.
I think Durance has some spells that attack Will. The ones that look like slashed/claws, both level 1 and level 2. I might be mixing those up but they seemed effective.
Durance is a total all-star in those fights for sure. Just wish I had more uses of his Radiance, that thing is so great.
Teiman
1828
Well, Core Gamers has been asking for attention too long, jumping up and down like a hentai fan in a porn convention in Osaka. Core Gamers deserve a “Not to be completely abandoned” label tag and is good if somebody can find something that can be polished and sell to them for a profit.
For those of you experiencing extreme save/reload delays, look at this post: http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/73986-chanter-rime-and-frost-traps-get-saved-causing-mobileobjectssave-to-grow-out-of-control
Seems like a Chanter ability creates invisible trap objects constantly, and the game keeps track of them… ALL of them!
robc04
1830
So far Act II (the catacombs) has seemed so easy that I wonder if there is some difficulty level bug. The options screen is showing it set to Hard. Is there any other way to check it?
There have been some fights, that due to numbers were a bit of a pain because it was hard to control the battlefield, but there really hasn’t been anything that difficult in a while. The Endless Paths was difficult when I got over extended. The Temple of Eothas was hard because of those damn shadows that Adam loves so much. Even the final battle in Raedric’s Hold was easy if you use choke points effectively.
I tend to take the path of least resistance, so if I don’t need to be careful I tend not to be. Combat is becoming, select all, target 1 enemy and wait for him to die. Target next enemy.
Razgon
1831
Well, you know what to do then :-)
Just got a druid in my party. Thinking of rolling a one companion game with 6 druids. Or one with 5 druids and a priest. Thoughts?
I’m noticing that, with 3rd level spells available, the wizard is becoming a bit more useful, but I can’t stand the disparate ranges on the spells. Makes Aloth a real pain in the ass to control in big fights.
Anyone who’s played through have any thoughts on the late game class power curve? I’ve heard a bit here about Monks becoming killing machines around level 7.
Mark_L
1835
There may well be shade problems that can’t be solved through judicious application of Fire, but if there are they’re something like this: You and your community theater troupe spend every weekend for three months practicing for your performance of Annie Get Your Gun and then, after opening weekend, the critic for your small town local paper, who happens to be a shade, totally pans it. The best thing he has to say is a backhanded compliment about how the orchestra “at least drowns out some of the more middling singing”. You can burn him to death too, sure, but the damage has already been done, you know? And without a good review, the rec center for wayward youths is gonna get torn down to expand the safeway’s parking lot and you won’t be able to afford to buy out the land first.
Fortunately, companions don’t mind you hitting them with friendly fire.
Burning hands Burning hands #
Eh, fighter’s down but so are the enemy, win!
(#See - “Spell Names, Really?”)
Yeah I’ve won a few fights by just healing through friendly fire. Giant bouncing fire orbs and flaming hands, yay!
The life of a fantasy adventurer must be extremely painful.
robc04
1840
I’m wondering if its been so easy because I have 2 fighters in my party. Anyone else have a 2 fighter setup? My character is more of the tank, while Eder does more damage and tends to die faster. I ended up keeping all the story NPCs in my party so I could travel with them, but it sounded like most of you had 6 member parties. BleedTheFreak, with your prior experience with PoE, any ideas what may make the game get really easy? I hope it isn’t a bug of some kind.
I definitely don’t want any more enemies. I’d actually prefer fewer, but stronger ones.
I have a Paladin, Monk, and Fighter as my front row - two of them are heavy armor. It works pretty well, but the Fighter can hold engagement on FOUR enemies, which helps.
Some of the fights are down right brutal, especially the side quests, even for a party of level 10 or so. The main quests seem to be pretty easy going in terms of difficulty, though, but some of the bounties and a few of the later-game side quests were really tough. Now I’m level 12 and few fights are posing too much of a direct challenge, but again I’m mostly doing the main story now. I am interested to run through the Endless Paths - I’ve heard those areas get brutally hard even for a fully equipped/stocked level 12 party.
It could also be that you did a good job exploring/side-quests, and the like and are just a few levels higher than the encounters you are facing - even a single level can make a vast difference.
That’s why I use “autopause on end of ability use”.
The best setup, I think is:-
-
Turn OFF “autopause on combat start”
-
Turn ON “autopause on spotting mobs + STOP on spotting mobs” (1 and 2 are logically alternative, and 2 is MUCH better as it allows YOU to control engagements).
-
Turn on “autopause on ability finish”. i.e. the game pauses as soon as any of your guys have finished firing off an important spell or ability (not autoattacks).
-
Also turn on “autopause on trap spot” (or whatever it’s called - it works for any trap or purple hidden item).
Then the flow of combat is like this: you can either zip around full speed or stealth around, and either way, YOU have control of the engagement because you spot the mobs before they spot you, and you STOP, then you can decide what YOU want to do: either to grab aggro with the tank, do an alpha volley from ranged, move back a bit and set up traps, etc. The options are all yours to toy with.
Then, when combat is going, it all takes care of itself - i.e. you don’t need to even THINK about manually pausing (except occasionally - obviously you’ve still got to keep an eye on things). All you need to think about is who to target with what, and then, when one of your guys finishes casting an important spell or a special ability, WHAT spell or special ability to fire off with that guy NEXT.
That way, your spell/ability effectiveness/dps is min-maxed - you are ALWAYS firing off some useful spell as soon as you can POSSIBLY do so.
It’s the best way, I think. Formerly, I too found the combat a bit annoying and chaotic, but since I picked up this tip, it makes combat smooth and logical, and as close to turn-based as you can get with this type of system.
