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

[Desiderius]

Mounted characters only get attacked by AoEs or follow up strikes from full attacks that killed something.

Which makes no fucking sense at all

If a mob has reach it will use it to attack Mounted sometimes.

 

[Desiderius]

If you're in melee for something for a long time (in this case meaning, like, more than 3 rounds), enemies sometimes switch and go after something weaker if they aren't hitting their target. Is that it? My normal fights generally consist everything dying within 1 round of my characters getting in melee with them so I don't see it much outside of early boss fights against really high AC things. e.g, prologue/act 1 fights where my pet has 35 AC and protective luck on him so the boss never hits the pet but we're not hitting the boss much either, sometimes the boss will redirect to hit something softer.

Its gotten to a point where Camelia keeps dying because the enemy ignores my mounted character and rushes her down.

Are you using Camellia in melee or ranged?

Melee. She has those recommended melee feats. Thing is that it doesn't matter because the enemy will just past the front line. What I used do is wait until the AI is distracted by my tanks and then move her in, but now they just ignore my tankiest boi and go after the squishies.

I really wish there was a taunt or something.

The enemy will only attack characters it has detected. You can use Stealth/Invis/Positioning/Surprise Round to control who that is.

That's why I was poasting pics of Seelah away from the party since I was letting them detect and engage her first before moving in with everyone else. In regular fights it was also as others have described where fight would be over before enemies can act but it takes awhile to get that good at the game. For me they seemed to stick on Seelah if she started with a Charge regardless but you can also use Difficult Terrain (Feather Step. Mass to make your team immune) or Nenio's Illusion spells to control the enemy's ability to move in the first place.

I was also playing TB that playthrough as are many of those giving you advice here. RTwP plays out quite a bit differently so its important to test out different strategies that work for you there.

 

[Desiderius]

there's not nearly enough cloaks of resistance to go around if you have more than a few characters who need them and you aren't immune to most things.

(1) There are if you explore the map.

(2) Resistance bonuses are easy to get in any case.

(3) This is what I mean by diminishing returns on mounts/pets. Unfortunately it looks like people were whining so much they overnerfed the pathing (i.e. large beasts taking up physical space) problem but there's still the issue of gearing and buffing them all. 1.5 pets/mounts seems like the sweet spot so builds like I'm advising on Seelah and Reg free up those slots for characters like Daeran who really benefit (to alleviate his downside for starters).

 

[Desiderius]

Drezen is pretty cool, but its easy to get lost and there's a lot of difficult encounters. I think the hardest so far are Shadow Votaries, who can trap your entire party before you have time to react and then just fireball you to death.

It doesn't help that RTwP mode makes your party members suicidal idiots who walks into danger.
There's one particularly nasty ambush in the temple where a Vorock Votary casts Blade Wall from outside of vision range, which willl one shot your characters. That's kind of bullshit.

Use your map a lot to stay oriented. Think of the wall as your hallway to get to the various areas (rooms) and rest after you've cleared each one (there are a lot of the supply stations that let you do so). Clearing top of wall (and gatehouses) first is a good idea anyway since it will eliminate the Giants pelting you. You can get up on top of it just NE of the Temple entrance (and even avoid that fight with good skills if you want to).

Use a Scout (character with high Stealth and Perception) to make sure the enemy is reacting to you instead of vice versa. There's one custom made for that in the Prison.

Shadow Votaries can be zerged with Charges in RTwP (which is a good idea since they seem to have Mirror Image on contingency after the Surprise Round). Votaries are Human so not Immune to Poison (including Stinking Cloud), and can be stunned with Sound Burst (which doesn't target). The Agony Hex that Ember gets at lvl 10 has 60 ft range so is good vs the human casters that seem to be giving you trouble, but only if you see them before they see you.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Drezen is pretty cool, but its easy to get lost and there's a lot of difficult encounters. I think the hardest so far are Shadow Votaries, who can trap your entire party before you have time to react and then just fireball you to death.

It doesn't help that RTwP mode makes your party members suicidal idiots who walks into danger.
There's one particularly nasty ambush in the temple where a Vorock Votary casts Blade Wall from outside of vision range, which willl one shot your characters. That's kind of bullshit.

Use your map a lot to stay oriented. Think of the wall as your hallway to get to the various areas (rooms) and rest after you've cleared each one (there are a lot of the supply stations that let you do so). Clearing top of wall (and gatehouses) first is a good idea anyway since it will eliminate the Giants pelting you. You can get up on top of it just NE of the Temple entrance (and even avoid that fight with good skills if you want to).

Use a Scout (character with high Stealth and Perception) to make sure the enemy is reacting to you instead of vice versa. There's one custom made for that in the Prison.

Shadow Votaries can be zerged with Charges in RTwP (which is a good idea since they seem to have Mirror Image on contingency after the Surprise Round). Votaries are Human so not Immune to Poison (including Stinking Cloud), and can be stunned with Sound Burst (which doesn't target). The Agony Hex that Ember gets at lvl 10 has 60 ft range so is good vs the human casters that seem to be giving you trouble, but only if you see them before they see you.

Yeah I already managed to get to the citadel and killed Jhoran. It was a silly fight. No one could hit each other.
It was literally just 2 guys, a girl, a dinosaur slapfighting a dwarf who tried slapfighting them.

Yes, I know about touch spells. No, I didn't have any melee versions on me and Nenio can't shoot into combat for shit so she didn't either.

 

[Parabalus]

So what would you use to make the most out of Demonic Charge?
Seems like the most fun ability they have.

Yeah, I guess still Cleaving Finish Vital Strikes. Not really a meta build after the nerfs, though.

What did they nerf about them?

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That ghoul pit was nuts.
I think I killed like 30 ghouls and then they dropped in two Nabasu on me.
Fuck that dial puzzle though. Even if you complete it you get jumped by 4 shadow demons who just one shot your party with fireballs. Its a lot easier to use See Invisibility to find the head Shadow Demon and kill him first

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I survived the shadows after the puzzle, but it was a pyrrhic victory for my squishy caster party. It was a reload. The Votaries in the temple were very brutal for me. Several reloads. If you happen upon a summoning circle, wait until you get mythic level 3. I did it before and it took me probably 45 minutes to beat it. I had no problem at all against Jhoran Vane, but if you did, you're not going to like fighting Stauntion Vane. That encounter is a bullshit DPS race. Easily my least favorite encounter in the game thus far. I'm only about halfway through Chapter 3 though.

 

[razvedchiki]

you can use the ghould pit to kill a certain npc that lingers nearby, she drops a full plate +4 among other things. (use to anyways)

 

[Average Manatee]

That summoning circle in Drezen gives something like 10k XP for beating what they summon, and while it is deadly its AC is less than the other bosses in the area IIRC.

There's a few "take this to make the game much easier" abilities. For me its loading up a cleric (or anyone with domains) with Impossible Domain: Community and Madness and Domain Zealot to use them on a whim. Allows you to quickly boost all the main attacker's AB in your party by like 10-12 at your level. Most things that are hard are hard because you only have like 5-15% hit rate so upping that to 55-65% makes them trivial.

 

[Haplo]

So what would you use to make the most out of Demonic Charge?
Seems like the most fun ability they have.

Yeah, I guess still Cleaving Finish Vital Strikes. Not really a meta build after the nerfs, though.

What did they nerf about them?

Vital Strike damage is no longer multiplied on crits.

 

[Desiderius]

That summoning circle in Drezen gives something like 10k XP for beating what they summon, and while it is deadly its AC is less than the other bosses in the area IIRC.

There's a few "take this to make the game much easier" abilities. For me its loading up a cleric (or anyone with domains) with Impossible Domain: Community and Madness and Domain Zealot to use them on a whim. Allows you to quickly boost all the main attacker's AB in your party by like 10-12 at your level. Most things that are hard are hard because you only have like 5-15% hit rate so upping that to 55-65% makes them trivial.

Or you could just, you know, use the abilities you already have better. There are more than enough there if you take the time to figure them out and where they’re best applied.

Not really a one weird trick game. It sort of can be, but that ends up being pretty boring compared to simply good play.

 

[Desiderius]

So what would you use to make the most out of Demonic Charge?
Seems like the most fun ability they have.

Yeah, I guess still Cleaving Finish Vital Strikes. Not really a meta build after the nerfs, though.

What did they nerf about them?

Vital Strike damage is no longer multiplied on crits.

Saving people from themselves again. Full attacks cost no Feats. Sux if you’ve got a good Move Action (like Freebooter’s Bane or Demon teleport) you want to pair with a single-target Standard Action, but that’s a pretty narrow case.

(Surprise) Charge followed up by Full Attack is still the bread-and-butter of the vast majority of classes (or simply firing Full Attax at range without having to move and hitting multiple targets after the first dies instead of simply overkilling one), and trying jam Vital Strike in everywhere has done people far more harm than good.

Now if you’re Haplo and know how to stack all those dice to get those sweet thousand point hits then the nerf does suck no doubt.

But even he’s been up to other things lately.

 

[None]

Speaking of charge, it is a shame they nerfed Wide Sweep. I had a good time with that on my first character, a cavalier, chain cleaving entire groups of enemies in a single charge. Was/is there a more broken weapon?

 

[Parabalus]

So what would you use to make the most out of Demonic Charge?
Seems like the most fun ability they have.

Yeah, I guess still Cleaving Finish Vital Strikes. Not really a meta build after the nerfs, though.

What did they nerf about them?

Vital Strike damage is no longer multiplied on crits.

Saving people from themselves again. Full attacks cost no Feats. Sux if you’ve got a good Move Action (like Freebooter’s Bane or Demon teleport) you want to pair with a single-target Standard Action, but that’s a pretty narrow case.

(Surprise) Charge followed up by Full Attack is still the bread-and-butter of the vast majority of classes (or simply firing Full Attax at range without having to move and hitting multiple targets after the first dies instead of simply overkilling one), and trying jam Vital Strike in everywhere has done people far more harm than good.

Full attacks don't chain with Cleaving Finish, so with Vital Strike you didn't really overkill, since you popped the next mob as well.

Besides, this isn't even about Vital Strike, but about who makes best use of Demonic Charge.

 

[Desiderius]

Full attacks don't chain with Cleaving Finish, so with Vital Strike you didn't really overkill, since you popped the next mod as well.

Besides, this isn't even about Vital Strike, but about who makes best use of Demonic Charge.

VS isn't supposed to work with Cleave in any case. Cleave is a fine thing to pair with Demonic Charge. It's my understanding that Standard Action Dazzling is now working with Dragonheir Scion so that would be a good combo as well, along with the Natural Weapons Training to beef up Aspects and Gore attacks.

Speaking of charge, it is a shame they nerfed Wide Sweep. I had a good time with that on my first character, a cavalier, chain cleaving entire groups of enemies in a single charge. Was/is there a more broken weapon?

It would be if Wrath were Diablo. You have five other characters, more than one of which is very good at neutralizing random mobs already. There are no adjacent bosses.

 

[Desiderius]

Yeah I already managed to get to the citadel and killed Jhoran. It was a silly fight. No one could hit each other.
It was literally just 2 guys, a girl, a dinosaur slapfighting a dwarf who tried slapfighting them.

Yes, I know about touch spells. No, I didn't have any melee versions on me and Nenio can't shoot into combat for shit so she didn't either.

So this approach is going to kill a good bit of your enjoyment. You can think of the Owlcat PF games as 5-dimensional rock, paper, scissors. If you're expecting to be able to use your scissors to beat every fight it's not the game that's full of shit.

Now people will tell you how to find anti-matter scissors that can even cut through rock but it's far easier (and more enjoyable) to find the paper you already have, and that's not just touch attacks. Owlcat will give you fights ahead of time that force you to do so to prevent the game from becoming a slog later on when you have to fight maps full of Jhorans.

 

[Desiderius]

Jhoran fight is very interesting:

(1) Alignment

If you've been slicing through the rest of Drezen using Smite Evil/Chaos that's not going to work here, since he's neither one. If you've ever read the spell Eaglesoul and wondered why it has the Sickened clause well now you have your answer. His alignment changes when he decides to stick up for his evil bro, literally making him Sickened. Elegant use of a pre-existing ruleset to tell a compelling story.

(2) The value of Heavy Armor/Shields

Likewise if you've been using Shatter Defenses or other ways to make things flat-footed to lower AC that's not doing much here since his AC doesn't come from Dex bonuses. Owlcat does a good job here letting people experience the blindspots of the "armor is bad" meme.

(3) Creature type

Crusader's Edge goes from almost completely useless in P:K to God-tier in Wrath, but Joran isn't an Outsider. Another thing that made getting here a lot easier that all of a sudden stops working. Likewise other abilities like Favored Enemy Outsider (that Aru can share with party). That can also work against him since he doesn't have Demon immunities either. Lightning and Poison can hurt him.

If you're already set up for Touch attax those can of course work well, but that's not Nenio's strong suit or the only way to beat him. Identify weak save and exploit it is a general approach that's good to learn (the Sicken already debuffs his saves), and not necessarily with damage. Even I'm not above throwing down a Grease under the Vhane bros, but AC debuffs like Hampering Hex also come in very handy.

you can use the ghould pit to kill a certain npc that lingers nearby, she drops a full plate +4 among other things. (use to anyways)

 

[Parabalus]

along with the Natural Weapons Training to beef up Aspects and Gore attacks.

Don't Gore attacks need Full Attacks, i.e., you can't use them after Demonic Charge?
For iteratives charging with Pounce seems better.

 

[Desiderius]

I tried to get value out of Demonic Charge in my abortive Demon playthrough but things were too bugged to tell what was good.

I think most of those have been fixed since then as Shifter brought them to Owlcat’s attention. Instinctual Warrior was nice for the extra AC after you Charge and I also respecced into Primalist which seemed like a decent fit. Rage Powers are pretty good but so are some of the Bloodline abilities it gives up.

One thing I worked on way back was using it with Hagbound to position Vile Curse Standard Action and Cone spells (Demon can buff DCs) but that’s pretty out there.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I survived the shadows after the puzzle, but it was a pyrrhic victory for my squishy caster party. It was a reload. The Votaries in the temple were very brutal for me. Several reloads. If you happen upon a summoning circle, wait until you get mythic level 3. I did it before and it took me probably 45 minutes to beat it. I had no problem at all against Jhoran Vane, but if you did, you're not going to like fighting Stauntion Vane. That encounter is a bullshit DPS race. Easily my least favorite encounter in the game thus far. I'm only about halfway through Chapter 3 though.

I didn't have that much trouble against him (the most he did was deal 20 damage to Camellia), it just took forever because none of us could hurt each other.
It was just silly. That Vampire Lord and the Ghoul Pit was a lot harder because those actually dealt some damage.

I did not find a summoning circle. It must be down that other flight of stairs. Does the Chapter immediately end after you kill Staunton, or can I go back and deal with the circle after killing him?

 

[Desiderius]

It ends. But you can come back after getting Mythic 3 to clear stuff, with Demons like Blightmaw getting the -4 malus from the Sword of Valor.

 

[Max Damage]

I've finished Act 2 recently, looking forward to putting my newfound lich powers to good use. Feels kinda surreal to basically jump 4 levels ahead on spell progression so fast. Still a big improvement over Kingmaker, although army fights feel like afterthought.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah I just killed Blightmaw and trying to fight Vhane.
Is he immune to grease? He doesn't even roll for it. I know the pit works though.

 

[Max Damage]

Yeah I just killed Blightmaw and trying to fight Vhane.
Is he immune to grease? He doesn't even roll for it. I know the pit works though.

I've loaded my save before the fight to check, and yeah, looks like immunity (Movement Impairing one, I guess, or the second Slow actually means Tripped)