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

[volklore]

Act3 difficulty drops down a lot if you rush M4. But first playthrough wintersun was quite difficult for sure.
Molten scar and Greengates are probably first things you should be doing while waiting.

 

[scytheavatar]

MegaTreant in Wintersun can be trivialized by Creeping Doom and Mark of Justice....... Ghosts in Wintersun are annoying but most of them can be trivialized by casting Death Ward, then going RTWP and waiting for natural 20s. The only one that can't is the asshole who spams Finger of Death, you need Guarded Hearth and Madness Domain against that ghost.

 

[Haplo]

It seems my Domain doesn't scale with Inquisitor levels but character level.
Law Domain is at level 14 and I'm Level 10 Sacred Huntsmaster and 4 Hellknight.
I dunno if its because of Impossible Domain : Animal, or if its just how it is.

If it's bugged then its probably bugged on a per-ability basis. I haven't noticed that with other domains but then you have to looks closely if you're only slightly multiclassed.

It seems to be that way with Law Domain, at least.
I have 2 uses of Staff of Order.
You get one use at level 8 and an extra use every 4 levels afterwards in the class that gave you that domain.
If it only counted Sacred Huntmaster I would only have 1 use as I'm level 11.

However, as I'm level 14 total I have 2 uses.

If that's how it is with all domains then I'm fine with it; it makes multiclassing and prestige classes more viable.

Classes with Domains will advance those Domains. What's bugged about it? Did you take Law Domain via Godclaw Order on Hellknight?

Nope, I took Order of the Nail and I started the game with Law Domain on my inquisitor.
My point is that even when I took Hellknight it still advanced Law Domain.

Well, a Hellknight CAN progress the Law Domain. But he should pick Godclaw Order & Deity and then the Law Domain as Discipline. Seems to be a bug that you do without those picks.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

It seems my Domain doesn't scale with Inquisitor levels but character level.
Law Domain is at level 14 and I'm Level 10 Sacred Huntsmaster and 4 Hellknight.
I dunno if its because of Impossible Domain : Animal, or if its just how it is.

If it's bugged then its probably bugged on a per-ability basis. I haven't noticed that with other domains but then you have to looks closely if you're only slightly multiclassed.

It seems to be that way with Law Domain, at least.
I have 2 uses of Staff of Order.
You get one use at level 8 and an extra use every 4 levels afterwards in the class that gave you that domain.
If it only counted Sacred Huntmaster I would only have 1 use as I'm level 11.

However, as I'm level 14 total I have 2 uses.

If that's how it is with all domains then I'm fine with it; it makes multiclassing and prestige classes more viable.

Classes with Domains will advance those Domains. What's bugged about it? Did you take Law Domain via Godclaw Order on Hellknight?

Nope, I took Order of the Nail and I started the game with Law Domain on my inquisitor.
My point is that even when I took Hellknight it still advanced Law Domain.

Well, a Hellknight CAN progress the Law Domain. But he should pick Godclaw Order & Deity and then the Law Domain as Discipline. Seems to be a bug that you do without those picks.

I'll have to try it with other classes.
It could be that Domains progress with Hellknight, regardless if you picked Godclaw due to a bug.
Or it could be intended to simplify coding, with the added benefit of making multiclassing more viable.
I'll have to see if it progresses with HKS too.

One easy way to check would be to multiclass Sosiel, and see if his domains progress too.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I think Convicts might be bugged. They suffer from low morale for no reason. When I check their status it just says Overwhelming Grief, and I couldn't find any demon unit that inflicts that.
I suspect that their terrifying presence ability might be applying the morale debuff to them rather than to the enemy. I never see the enemy break after getting hit by convicts.

 

[Haplo]

What weapon type would you use for a charge-based character? Using Arcane Rider obviously with mythic charge and stacking every charge bonus item I can find. Spell Combat only works with one handed/finesse weapons, which would leave me stuck with short spears (for their x2 damage on charge), unless there's another one-handed/finesse weapon with big enough bonuses to outweigh that (doubt it).

But, Quicken rods are a thing and you eventually get Dimensional Ride as a quickened action at level 14. That basically leaves a gap of all of Act 3 where I'd need to quicken with rods. So, Longspears might be better since twohanding is king and they tend to have better bonuses anyway. Or, would a higher crit rate on other two handers still be better?

Alternatively, would spell combat still be useful enough that I should stick with shortspear? It is basically an automatic free action usage of any spell as long as the other action you want to do is an attack, and if I'm understanding the mechanics right you can even quicken a spell, do the spell combat spell, then still pull off a full round attack (which due to being on a pet has a range of like 100'). Might be interesting to build as an off-nuker or something. Even though Magus is conventionally focused on touch spells there's nothing that says you can't throw out two fireballs a turn.

Obviously will be using a skald to deliver pounce. Not sure which charge bonuses apply to only the first attack or which apply to all attacks in the charge round, but I think most of them apply to everything.

If I want to use Spell Combat, my favourite weapons for a magus are Grave Singer - battleaxe version (not very original) or Battle-Forged warhammer from the Hellknight fort trader.
Both allow both one-handed and two-handed grip. Both boast a x3 critical multiplier. Grave Singer also has 18-20 critical range, while Battle-Forged has 19-20 - but also base damage of a greatsword.

Spears are decent for charges, but weak otherwise. Also Spear bonus charge damage applies only on 1st hit in a pounce (if its different in vanilla right now, then its a bug and might get fixed - like Spirited Charge). While you get a chance to crit multiple times per round with pounce.

Arcane Rider obviously

NEED dimension door for positioning, otherwise obstacles get in the way and you have to spend a turn backing off to charge again. Nothing else compares, I'm not going to pick a melee character that becomes randomly useless for 1/3rd of the fights in the game and struggles to use their charge for more than one enemy on the other 2/3rds. Gendarme would get a x3 charge bonus at level 20 but that's 19 levels of suffering. Unless there's some other way to get a lot of swift action dimension doors on an excellent melee class, if so then tell me.

My preferred classes for charging are inquisitors: Sacred Huntsmaster for multiclassing (for example with gendarme) or Sanctified Slayer for main class. They get Swift teleport from Travel Domain with Domain Zealot.
Arcane Rider is okay-ish, but pretty slow progression, late Swift teleport, bad AC. Also worse initiative and skills. And Swift Dimension Ride is in fierce competition for Swift Actions and Arcane Pool points with Dimension Strike.

Also relaying on a skald for pounce on a teleporting charger is not a very good solution IMO. Skald Inspire Rage blocks Spellcasting and Spell-like abilities - which include teleport abilities.
Kitsune is the best race for a teleporting charger by far.

 

[Parabalus]

Also Spear bonus charge damage applies only on 1st hit in a pounce (if its different in vanilla right now, then its a bug and might get fixed - like Spirited Charge)

Why would this be a bug?

Without it charge is trash and you might as well just full attack.

 

[Haplo]

Also Spear bonus charge damage applies only on 1st hit in a pounce (if its different in vanilla right now, then its a bug and might get fixed - like Spirited Charge)

Why would this be a bug?

Without it charge is trash and you might as well just full attack.

Because the tabletop rules state that only the first attack in a pouncing charge can get such damage multipliers. Which makes sense if you think about it - you can overpower an enemy with the impact of a charge... but if you keep on swinging, these attacks won't have the same momentum as your initial charge attack.

By the way, after release Spirited Charge used to work for every attack in a pounce, it was later patched to only work on the first strike.
Increased spear damage multipliers are a recent addition to vanilla, I expect they will get a similar treatment - if they haven't already.
Unless the devs want to increase the popularity of spears, I suppose.

 

[Desiderius]

What weapon type would you use for a charge-based character? Using Arcane Rider obviously with mythic charge and stacking every charge bonus item I can find. Spell Combat only works with one handed/finesse weapons, which would leave me stuck with short spears (for their x2 damage on charge), unless there's another one-handed/finesse weapon with big enough bonuses to outweigh that (doubt it).

But, Quicken rods are a thing and you eventually get Dimensional Ride as a quickened action at level 14. That basically leaves a gap of all of Act 3 where I'd need to quicken with rods. So, Longspears might be better since twohanding is king and they tend to have better bonuses anyway. Or, would a higher crit rate on other two handers still be better?

Alternatively, would spell combat still be useful enough that I should stick with shortspear? It is basically an automatic free action usage of any spell as long as the other action you want to do is an attack, and if I'm understanding the mechanics right you can even quicken a spell, do the spell combat spell, then still pull off a full round attack (which due to being on a pet has a range of like 100'). Might be interesting to build as an off-nuker or something. Even though Magus is conventionally focused on touch spells there's nothing that says you can't throw out two fireballs a turn.

Obviously will be using a skald to deliver pounce. Not sure which charge bonuses apply to only the first attack or which apply to all attacks in the charge round, but I think most of them apply to everything.

If I want to use Spell Combat, my favourite weapons for a magus are Grave Singer - battleaxe version (not very original) or Battle-Forged warhammer from the Hellknight fort trader.
Both allow both one-handed and two-handed grip. Both boast a x3 critical multiplier. Grave Singer also has 18-20 critical range, while Battle-Forged has 19-20 - but also base damage of a greatsword.

Spears are decent for charges, but weak otherwise. Also Spear bonus charge damage applies only on 1st hit in a pounce (if its different in vanilla right now, then its a bug and might get fixed - like Spirited Charge). While you get a chance to crit multiple times per round with pounce.

Arcane Rider obviously

NEED dimension door for positioning, otherwise obstacles get in the way and you have to spend a turn backing off to charge again. Nothing else compares, I'm not going to pick a melee character that becomes randomly useless for 1/3rd of the fights in the game and struggles to use their charge for more than one enemy on the other 2/3rds. Gendarme would get a x3 charge bonus at level 20 but that's 19 levels of suffering. Unless there's some other way to get a lot of swift action dimension doors on an excellent melee class, if so then tell me.

My preferred classes for charging are inquisitors: Sacred Huntsmaster for multiclassing (for example with gendarme) or Sanctified Slayer for main class. They get Swift teleport from Travel Domain with Domain Zealot.
Arcane Rider is okay-ish, but pretty slow progression, late Swift teleport, bad AC. Also worse initiative and skills. And Swift Dimension Ride is in fierce competition for Swift Actions and Arcane Pool points with Dimension Strike.

Also relaying on a skald for pounce on a teleporting charger is not a very good solution IMO. Skald Inspire Rage blocks Spellcasting and Spell-like abilities - which include teleport abilities.
Kitsune is the best race for a teleporting charger by far.

Can also go straight-up Divine Hunter Hunter archetype with full Travel Domain and Domain zealot. Takes a little longer to get there but gives you everything you need without muti-classing along with some nice utility. Aeon combos well with the spell selection.

 

[Haplo]

Sure, its an option. Personally I've respecced my Sanctified Slayer Aeon - gone Divine Hunter - back to Sanctified Slayer
Like him much better this way.

 

[Average Manatee]

If I want to use Spell Combat, my favourite weapons for a magus are Grave Singer - battleaxe version (not very original) or Battle-Forged warhammer from the Hellknight fort trader.
Both allow both one-handed and two-handed grip. Both boast a x3 critical multiplier. Grave Singer also has 18-20 critical range, while Battle-Forged has 19-20 - but also base damage of a greatsword.

Spears are decent for charges, but weak otherwise. Also Spear bonus charge damage applies only on 1st hit in a pounce (if its different in vanilla right now, then its a bug and might get fixed - like Spirited Charge). While you get a chance to crit multiple times per round with pounce.

My preferred classes for charging are inquisitors: Sacred Huntsmaster for multiclassing (for example with gendarme) or Sanctified Slayer for main class. They get Swift teleport from Travel Domain with Domain Zealot.
Arcane Rider is okay-ish, but pretty slow progression, late Swift teleport, bad AC. Also worse initiative and skills. And Swift Dimension Ride is in fierce competition for Swift Actions and Arcane Pool points with Dimension Strike.

Also relaying on a skald for pounce on a teleporting charger is not a very good solution IMO. Skald Inspire Rage blocks Spellcasting and Spell-like abilities - which include teleport abilities.
Kitsune is the best race for a teleporting charger by far.

Hmm, interesting. Might need to end up respeccing my character then. Got through most of chapter 1, if it doesn't end up working then I might just redo the whole team in chapter 2 or 3. I am trying a bunch of off-brand builds for companions (e.g. Judge Cammy, Incense Sythesizer Woljif) so I'm amenable to a full redo of everything if things don't work out or I hit a brick wall.

If it turns out Pounce doesn't give more charge/mythic charge activations, do you know if cleaving finish does? Maybe if you just get enough damage to one hit things on charge you can keep that going on new targets.

 

[Desiderius]

The two Mounted MCs I still want to play are

(1) Order of the Paw whenever Danger Sense gets fixed (if ever) for the ultimate mounted tank. Advantage on saves AoE is prettty good.

(2) Disciple of the Pike riding Bismuth with Signature Skill: Persuasion and Dreadful Carnage to Charge into battle with a massive hit that scatters the enemy in Fear, then Charging down all who flee.

 

[Average Manatee]

By the way, Judge is actually completely awful. You need both a swift action to activate your judgment and a swift action to spread it to your allies. Both only doable after battle starts. Feels like this wasn't tested at all, surely someone would notice the problem. Good luck if you want to use sentence as well which is also swift action, and makes using domains in battle even with domain zealot not really a thing.

Definitely gonna respec Cammy in a bit. Shame because sharing judgments ontop of letting her be the domain bitch of the group sounds like an excellent party support combo. And I think the idea of her being an evil judge who goes around using the law as an excuse to murder people is kinda fitting.

 

[Desiderius]

Judge is one of those memes where you can tell the guy writing guide never actually played it.

Kind of like what I did with Wrath Kineticist where I didn’t know it was bugged. At least I did play it in P:K, but you’re always better off respeccing an old save and testing a class for yourself before starting a playthrough with it.

 

[Haplo]

If it turns out Pounce doesn't give more charge/mythic charge activations, do you know if cleaving finish does? Maybe if you just get enough damage to one hit things on charge you can keep that going on new targets.

Mythic Charge works on all pounce hits so far. Boots of Stampede too. Cavalier Supreme / Transfixing Charge as well.
Only Spirited Charge was fixed in vanilla AFAIK.

Cleaving Finish would follow the base behaviour I believe.

 

[Average Manatee]

Did some testing on current patch to be sure of exactly what works and what doesn't.

Most bonuses: Proc for each hit in attack. Obviously didn't test them all but it works with Living Ram and Devastating Blow from Above. With both if you have 4 attacks they'll deal 4x 1d4 and 4x 1d6 procs

Mythic Charge: Applies to all individual procs of damage during charge action. So with Living Ram and Devastating Blow from Above and 4 attacks you're getting 12x d6 mythic rank damage, and its divine so hard/impossible to soak. Might be a reason to go dual wield for massive amounts of attacks, but at the same time you're probably overkilling so hard that you'd rather have range so your follow ups can hit other things further away.

Spirited Charge and Spear inherent x2 multiplier: Applies only to first hit, seems to sporadically apply to all procs in that hit. For some reason I can get 3x on the normal hit, the additional proc from Devastating Blow from Above, but only 2x on the Living Ram proc. Might be useful late game, even without pounce getting 30d6 mythic charge damage upgraded to 60-90d6 mythic charge damage is a big deal, and there's more items that'd work to supply procs.

Most of this is what you guys were saying but it was all unclear since lots of the information is conflicting based on patches, just wanted to test everything and make it clear.

Other interesting findings:

Leading Strike does work pretty well if riding a pet and your pet has pounce for charge, or just for general full round attacking. I think its worth picking this up as a general melee bonus for characters on pets, especially for real time where you're just chewing through enemies.

Dimension Door is still kinda iffy for charges, but I should really be using it more often just to get next to the enemy in turn based mode. Throw out a few quicken rods to everyone and even use the mass version, helps completely solve any chokepoint issues and ensures everyone is next to the target before the first character makes their attack (so even if the first character crits, all characters are in position for outflank procs). Also helps ensuring pets get full attacks along with their rider for above mentioned leading strike. Feels like I've been leaving a lot of damage on the table by not using this a lot, considering I run parties where 2 or 3 characters could easily load up on it.

Was surprised to see that Arcane Rider's pet gets all bonuses from their Arcane pool boosts. Both the normal damage/elemental stuff and bonuses like Arcane Accuracy, Dimensional Strike, or Prescient Attack. I don't think that's mentioned anywhere in the class abilities, but its really powerful. If you are riding a pet with trip attacks it'll also apply to that, virtually guaranteeing successful trips against anything trippable. None of your charge bonuses apply to pets charges though. Not sure what happens with the late game barding that applies damage on charge, I'd assume none of your bonuses apply to that since its the pet wearing it.

Unfortunately Spirited Charge really is just buggy, and while I keep thinking I've found out what causes it to not work I then find I can't actually reproduce it not working once I've gone to another area. But whenever you notice it stopped working you need to dismount and mount again to get it working. Ends up being really annoying and kind of killing my enthusiasm for charging now.

 

[LannTheStupid]

As a side note, I have a habit of remounting all riders after every major location change. Call it paranoia.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Do you have to kill Playful Darkness in Act 3, or can it be done later?
I'm thinking of going after him before using the three keys but I heard about how hard he can be and I don't want to waste time trying to kill him with my level 14 party.

 

[LannTheStupid]

If you like the game, then none of its content is "wasting time". If you perceive anything as "wasting time," go play something else.

Seriously, those Westerners and their "time management"...

 

[scytheavatar]

Do you have to kill Playful Darkness in Act 3, or can it be done later?
I'm thinking of going after him before using the three keys but I heard about how hard he can be and I don't want to waste time trying to kill him with my level 14 party.

He can be trivialized by creeping doom and Mark of Justice. A ray caster backed by Guarded Health and True Strike can make short work of him too.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

If you like the game, then none of its content is "wasting time". If you perceive anything as "wasting time," go play something else.

Seriously, those Westerners and their "time management"...

Hammering my head against the wall to kill an optional enemy that might be intended to be fought with a higher level party is certainly a waste of time.
Being a good little masochist isn't the only indicator of liking a game. You can like a game and find some part of it to be dreadful, you know.
Like how swarms are implemented.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Yeah no, I think I have to come back later. It just ignores my summons and kills my party members in a single turn. It just instantly downs my MC's mount, even with displacement and other buffs.
I tried blocking the cave with monsters, but it just runs past them.

 

[scytheavatar]

Yeah no, I think I have to come back later. It just ignores my summons and kills my party members in a single turn. It just instantly downs my MC's mount, even with displacement and other buffs.
I tried blocking the cave with monsters, but it just runs past them.

Did you cast your summons before aggro the boss? If you do that afterwards, it's often too late.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah no, I think I have to come back later. It just ignores my summons and kills my party members in a single turn. It just instantly downs my MC's mount, even with displacement and other buffs.
I tried blocking the cave with monsters, but it just runs past them.

Who are you fighting? Playful Darkness?

 

[Yosharian]

OK I see that you are fighting PD. Yes he will ignore summons to a certain point, but here are some strategies that I found worked on him. This was on Unfair but without the 2x crit multiplier.

1. SWAMP him with summons. Like, fill his entire local area with skeletons. He MAY ignore them at times but it will help to get his attention.
2. Deny his ability to charge - his charges are what really destroys targets. Use as many Selective Siroccos as you can on his position in order to exhaust him so that he can't charge anymore. Charging is what allows his AI to ignore local targets and pursue backliners, he really doesn't want to lose his full attack iteratives.
3. Try to get him to target a character with the mythic ability that gives them a couple of turns of immortality. They will eventually die but this will buy you a lot of time. Remember that the arcane spell 'Blink' isn't bypassed by any form of True Seeing or similar ability, so its very useful to deny his attacks.
4. Debuff him, this is extremely important. Use the glasses that give you a natural 20 on your dispel roll. You can have two of these per fight if you use the ability on the desired character, THEN rest - the ability will stick, and you have a use of the item left.
5. At the start of the fight, try to use line-of-sight to stop him from charging your squishy characters, I had limited success with this but eventually he charged my tank instead of my backline.
6. Use REACH to discourage him from attacking your main character and any other important damage dealers. By swamping him with skellies, he may frequently choose to attack them instead of your reach character. Lunge is absolutely clutch here, and obviously you can use reach weapons.
7. Use as many AC-lowering debuffs as you can, such as hexes. Works well together with Jinx.

He is very defeatable even on the higher difficulties, you just have to really bring your A-game.

Spoiler

You can of course choose to use swarm strategies on him such as Creeping Doom, this is basically cheating IMO because the swarms are immune to his damage, but whatever, fight cheese with cheese I guess.