Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Game of the Year Edition

[Lambach]

So using it for damage more than the Trip.

Yes, with the right Feats, abilities and gear, the damage could get obscene and there was no way to resist it in any way, at least from what I remember.

Perhaps that was due to poor implementation, tho. I remember Deadly Earth shredding the Lantern King, who, being a floating ball of fire(?) should logically not be affected by surface-altering abilities.

 

[skaraher]

Can someone explain to me how Deadly Earth is "cheese"? Are you kiting until they fail the CM roll? Strange that most fights are over in 1 or 2 turns in my game using just regular spells and abilities and hearing somebody call anything cheese, especially something that makes fights last twice as long? Same thing with Sirocco. And that doesn't even get into having to worry about you own dudes avoiding the area. Just seems like a lot of work (opposite of cheese).

Deadly earth end most fight on round 1. There is a combo with aspect of kalavaku of demon mythic path. Each succesful trip while in demonic rage grant you one free attack of kinetic blast on the opponenet triped. You want that one to be an energy blast so it can target touch AC. You can set up deadly earth before fight start and earn a surprise round. We're talking of a whole room of ennemies taking 600 or so damage on round 1. And with Deadly earth there is no AC. No save roll. No energy resistance because you obviously went Ascendent Element (Fire) and use the composite magma blast. Throw the starting one while gathering power to ensure Extend and Maximized metakinesis for 0 burn cost.

For scripted fight, dialogue fight etc you can set up your deadly earth on the spot the fight will start for maximum gibs. The only downside of Kineticist is that it don't really synergize with any NPC nor any other Mythic Path than Demon, so it may be tricky to work around all challenges on Unfair. It is a one trick pony, but it does what it does really good. Massive damage output, free trip, free trip creating even more damage.

 

[Average Manatee]

The trip is still effective against like 90% of enemies. It just doesn't chain-down major bosses. Also a big part is that you never need to rest for it, so there's no reason not to abuse it for every fight that you have prep time for. At least with Sirocco you're only using it a few times per rest and other characters have their chance to shine. Not so with Deadly Earth, you're better off turning everyone's AI off.

There is a combo with aspect of kalavaku of demon mythic path. Each succesful trip while in demonic rage grant you one free attack of kinetic blast on the opponenet triped.

Damn, that's hilarious. How does that work with metamagiced kinesis? If you have empowered + maximized kinetic blast as your default attack and it takes 0 burn because you have maximum draw power selected, will your free attacks be that?

 

[skaraher]

The trip is still effective against like 90% of enemies. Also a big part is that you never need to rest for it, so there's no reason not to abuse it for every fight that you have prep time for. At least with Sirocco you're only using it a few times per rest and other characters have their chance to shine. Not so with Deadly Earth, you're better off turning everyone's AI off.

There is a combo with aspect of kalavaku of demon mythic path. Each succesful trip while in demonic rage grant you one free attack of kinetic blast on the opponenet triped.

Damn, that's hilarious. How does that work with metamagiced kinesis? If you have empowered + maximized kinetic blast as your default attack and it takes 0 burn because you have maximum draw power selected, will your free attacks be that?

Yes. Running the 2.07 version, still wasnt patched at that time. Dont know if it is the case for the future DLC patch. You have to have kinetic blade equiped and gather power activated. No range limitation. The game attack all the tripped enemy with your equiped weapon.

 

[Lambach]

Deadly earth end most fight on round 1. There is a combo with aspect of kalavaku of demon mythic path. Each succesful trip while in demonic rage grant you one free attack of kinetic blast on the opponenet triped.

Jesu Kristo.



I still have the Saves from my Demon playthrough, I might have to load one and re-spec to a Kineticist just to try this out.

 

[Desiderius]

Game seems more or less solved ATM. Will do an all-Chaos (no Mark of Justice, no Nenio Illusion pwnage) Trickster run with the Shifter Companion I think then off to BG3 and Rogue Trader.

LotRO has a huge new starter area my boys are enjoying.

 

[skaraher]

Downside : basically everything that has wing is immune to trip so needs to be murderized the old fashioned way. You are a glass canon as you want to put all stats in CON for maximum damage output. No dips. Dips are for loosers. You are the Avatar, master of earthbending.

Have two ranged companions with greater snap shot and combat reflex for maximum hilarity when enemies tries to get up.

Nenio is still running Sirocco.

For now, incorporeal enemies like shadow demon swarm is the weak point of the build.

Built Camellia as an average tank but didnt really put much thought into it. 60 or so AC, could probably have a lot more but well it's Core.

 

[Lambach]

For now, incorporeal enemies like shadow demon swarm is the weak point of the build.

Deadly Earth worked just fine on incorporeal enemies like ghosts and such in Kingmaker, I was nuking those level-draining ones in Armag's Tomb with it. Which made no sense to me, but oh well.

I don't remember if it worked on Swarms, tho.

 

[skaraher]

For now, incorporeal enemies like shadow demon swarm is the weak point of the build.

Deadly Earth worked just fine on incorporeal enemies like ghosts and such in Kingmaker, I was nuking those level-draining ones in Armag's Tomb with it. Which made no sense to me, but oh well.

I don't remember if it worked on Swarms, tho.

It works on them but you do half damage and I think Shadow demons are immune to prone.

 

[Desiderius]

Bane of Spirit is a Godsend against Swarms.

 

[Lambach]

After I hit a certain point with my Kineticist in Kingmaker, the Tripping part became completely irrelevant because Deadly Earth would kill everything in 1 or 2 Rounds anyway.

But enemies do have a lot more HP on average in WotR (specially later in the game) so I imagine that component remains useful all the way.

 

[skaraher]

For LARPing and storyfaggotry reason I went with a Chaotic Neutral Rovagug worshiper, it fits nicely with the Avatar of Elemental destruction schtick. Was surprised to see some unique instances of the game reacting to your deity choice. My first run was Zon Kuthon faithful, Aeon, and I assumed the few time his god was mentioned were generic instances.

Went blind on the Demon path choices. Basically clicking everytime I see the option to [Demon Mythic Path] Unleash DEMONIC RAGE.

Hilarous and unexpected reasults ensue.

I think the game narrative followed nicely my character going of the CORRUPT path. Did mostly sensible choices during Act 1, only major EVIL decision was to ally with Wenduag. But you can always rationalize it by being forced by the circumstances. Even the DEMONIC RAGE on the Wardstone wasn't really evil, you basically free all the angels, and the corrupted one too.

Drifted to Chaotic Evil mid-Act 2 by taking increasingly desperate decisions. Using the Vescavor dirty bomb on the demons, executing deserters during the shitshow at the Lost Chapel, generally lashing out against my incompetent lesbians sidekicks as the bodycount piled up. Was nice to see a character caught up in the whole Crusade thing slowly driving off the deep end.

 

[gurugeorge]

Basically if you have primarily a melee mounted team with Outflank, crits and buffs out the wazoo and all that, and maybe one CC meister, it compeltely trivializes the game, even on Unfair (once past the initial hump). RTwP fights are over in an instant - BLAP, BLAP, BLAP it goes, as the red numbers roll up. You barely need to pause at all.

In fact pretty much any team loaded with all the pre-buffs, up to and including the short duration ones, trivializes the game, but a mounted/Outflanked/crit-based team most of all.

So it's not difficult seeing what "wins" the game, the challenge is in making weird sub-optimal rp combinations work.

Just demolished Playful Darkness at level 15 mythic rank 4. I had the dispel magic + 20 googles from Drezen to soften him up. His immunity to prone rendered him resistant to Kineticist cheese.

We will see how the full-good party will fare against him on Unfair.

Full-good should do very good, I imagine Mark of Justice or whatever that Paladin ability is called does wonders for spanking Playful.

Mark of Justice and a few Creeping Dooms and he melts away in no time, it's the easiest way to deal with him. But it does feel a bit cheesy

 

[Lambach]

Basically if you have primarily a melee mounted team with Outflank, crits and buffs out the wazoo and all that, and maybe one CC meister, it compeltely trivializes the game, even on Unfair (once past the initial hump). RTwP fights are over in an instant - BLAP, BLAP, BLAP it goes, as the red numbers roll up. You barely need to pause at all.

Yes, but that requires some thought and pre-planning put into it to make sure you have a well-built, optimised Party with good synergy, whereas Deadly Earth is just one ability that you can spam and roflstomp everything, and you pretty much don't even need the rest of the Party most of the time.

At least that's how it was in Kingmaker, not 100% sure about WotR.

 

[skaraher]

Basically if you have primarily a melee mounted team with Outflank, crits and buffs out the wazoo and all that, and maybe one CC meister, it compeltely trivializes the game, even on Unfair (once past the initial hump). RTwP fights are over in an instant - BLAP, BLAP, BLAP it goes, as the red numbers roll up. You barely need to pause at all.

Yes, but that requires some thought and pre-planning put into it to make sure you have a well-built, optimised Party with good synergy, whereas Deadly Earth is just one ability that you can spam and roflstomp everything, and you pretty much don't even need the rest of the Party most of the time.

At least that's how it was in Kingmaker, not 100% sure about WotR.

I'm trying to upload a screen of the Kalavaku cheese. If the kinetic blade you have equipped is earth blade with bowling infusion you can cause a trip loop and murder any kind of enemy with medium AC in one round.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I've finally gotten to high enough CL to test my arcane trickster elemental barrage build. It uses TTT, for reference. I'm using Elemental Spell metamagic and splitting the damage between cold and the base damage type. It definitely triggers Elemental Barrage, but there seems to be some kind of screw up with the cold damage calculation from the metamagic. It splits the spell damage in half, but sneak attack damage is not split. It does base spell damage type.

For example, I've been experimenting with a Level 0 (Completely Normal Spell) Burning Hands augmented with Elemental Spell (cold+ Favorite Metamagic) and Intensified Spell (Favorite Metamagic). CL is 15, Trickster Mythic Level 5. I have 9d8 sneak (Mythic Sneak Attacker). At L15 I have a cantrip that does a cone of 10d4+9d8+5d6 damage (17-142) without the benefit of any items. It will eventually improve to 10d4+12d8+10d6 (22-196) in a cone AoE before items. Not too shabby for a cantrip. I've also done experiments with Elemental Spell on Elemental Assessor, which is now a L6 spell for me. The damage is bonkers. Having a L2 Fireball that does 15d6+sneak+barrage is also pretty neat.

 

[skaraher]

Round 1 as you can see.

 

[Lambach]

Round 1 as you can see.

That faint howling sound you hear in the distance is the sound of Josh Sawyer writhing in agony.

 

[Daidre]

Can someone explain to me how Deadly Earth is "cheese"?

Mostly because Deadly Earth was and, possibly still is, bugged - it does first "tick" of its damage twice, right after it was casted. Something about trigger event shooting twice. Same with a LOT of spells, like Stinking Cloud (Forces two Fort saves right after cast).
It was found way back when people were modding Kingmaker and turned out to be extremely complicated bug to fix with their limited access to engine.

There are also inconsistencies with reapplying of persistent effects, like Nocticula's aura - if you break it with damage from another character, when should it be reapplied when affected character's turn order order arrives: in the beginning of the round, before he gets his chance to act, or after it, or at the end of turn altogether.

Anyway, author of the Dark Codex claims that he fixed this shit and I am inclined to believe him, even if I am not sure about current state of this issue in the unmodded game.

Patch.Patch_FixAreaDoubleDamage

fixes area effects triggering twice when cast

 

[Average Manatee]

Knowing Owlcat there's an equal chance that they fixed it, or accidentally made it apply thrice in the most recent patch.

 

[skaraher]

Knowing Owlcat there's an equal chance that they fixed it, or accidentally made it apply thrice in the most recent patch

Well the exploit was known since release and there was a still a build video on this perticular thing last month, so...

More cheese my Lord ?

Didn't even have to use Deadly Earth, an Earth blast is enough to trigger the Tripping loop and cause any under-45 AC enemy to vaporize instantly.

The only downside is that your limited by your number of Demonic RAGE which is relatively low, but in Act 4 you can rest whenever you want with basically no penalty.

Don't forget to take the Pickpocket background to max out initiative.

 

[Desiderius]

max out initiative

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/those-are-rookie-numbers

 

[skaraher]

I think Act 4 is the best act in the game, but I read lot of peoples don't like the gimmicky navigation in the city. Also, it's basically a trip into murderhobo town.

 

[Grunker]

I think Act 4 is the best act in the game, but I read lot of peoples don't like the gimmicky navigation in the city. Also, it's basically a trip into murderhobo town.

I agree.

 

[Desiderius]

I think Act 4 is the best act in the game, but I read lot of peoples don't like the gimmicky navigation in the city. Also, it's basically a trip into murderhobo town.

It's the plane of Chaotic Evil. Calling it "gimmicky" is brainworm. Should have just made it random instead of player controlled.