Eternity Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire + DLC Thread - now with turn-based combat!

[Haplo]

Eh, I do love the Initiative based systems. Wonder why they've seen so little use...

 

[Desiderius]

Game has nice aesthetics (almost Diablo I level), but that's outweighed by the awful writing/not much better companions. That and the mailed in rewards for (early?) exploration (you find... 17 waterskins! Direct result of dev resource mismanagement) and faceroll if you follow the vectors made it hard to stay interested. Hap talks about the itemization but would be a lot better if all percentages were doubled to accentuate the differences more. The Wiz 7-style (broad stretches of stats not mattering at all) armor penetration system they ended up with is also hard to stomach.

I was 1/3 of the way through another playthrough when WotR Alpha got me back to Pathfinder, so I'll return someday with my better strategies for difficulty management (i.e. no Maya/no Cipher MC) and probably enjoy it reasonably well.

 

[Desiderius]

Enlighten me, Dr. Ritalin, what am I missing?

 

[Horvatii]

You miss nothing.
But difficulty management is eazy.

Fight vs Frightened Child in Forgotten Sanctum at level 11. She is level 20.

streamable.com/9z0vtr

Fun encounter.
Took me a bunch of attempts.

1. Sent my assassin to kill her and after doing a 150 dmg backstab crit, she lost a pixel of her HP bar. Realized that those 10 spirits buff her.
2. Blocked the door with Eder and tried to kill them all and then her. But they are too strong and have a rogue and monk that love going for the backline. Cant hold the bottleneck.
3. (Turned on God mode to find out who gives her the HP and Heal) Spirit fighter and priest give her 3000 HP and 60HP/tick heal.
4. Tried the door block again but cant reach the priest and the fighter would position himself shitty so that I cant bring peak dmg to him and they heal and heal.
5. Tried dominating the fighter to get rid of the 3k HP buff. Doesnt work.
6. What if I put Eder against the far wall and backstab the priest?! <- working strategy
789. Its not failsafe, enemy rogue and monk love to go for the backline and enemy ranged units too if we are close enough. But it worked out.

The video is even a clusterfucky attempt.
Wilting wind backstab does 0 dmg to the spirit fighter...
Spirits at some point kill Serafen. And they go for Maia and kill her. My assassin manages to gib the spirit fighter and switches to axe fro that sweet 200% bleed over 60sec.
(the idea is that if we all die, the Child will bleed to death, Maia's bird is still in stealth and not in the fight)
Manage to ressurect Serafen who Charms the spirit rogue who actually plays a huge role in killing the Child.
Ressurect Maia but enemy ranger does this fucky jumping arrow strike and kills my assassin and brings Maia to 15 HP. The Child is down to 2/4.
And Maia manages to gib the Child before getting killed. Nailbiter.

 

[Haplo]

I'll return someday with my better strategies for difficulty management (i.e. no Maya/no Cipher MC) and probably enjoy it reasonably well.

Well, on my current playtrough I've equipped Swashbuckler Eder in a more balanced kit offense/defense wise (light bashing shield, light armor) and he's dealing more damage then Maya.
Acts less, but also Ripostes enemies when they (often) Miss (or Graze with Community Patch).
Plus keeps multiple enemies rooted and Persistent Distracted.
Magran's Favor axe with bleeding cuts modal, Tuotilos Palm buckler with Binding Block modal (+15 Accuracy after enemy miss), immune to flanking and increasing Deflection with Gipon Prudensco light armor.

He once did like 170 crit damage full attack (with axe power proc), with regular Crippling Strike crits in 75-100 damage range main hand and offhand shield strikes 15-35. He crits all the time. And the main hand damage gets reapplied as DOT with Bleeding Cuts axe modal.
It's great for turn based, where initiative is of limited value (and both axe and light shield modals come with hefty speed penalties), but should be good even in real time, due to frequent passive full attack Ripostes (as long as you don't need him to serve a primary Interrupter /disruptor role).

 

[Desiderius]

Yeah, I always had Eder on Swashbuckler. Better Riposte proccing would be a big improvement for his action economy IIRC.

 

[Lacrymas]

(pick up an SSD, for fuck's sake, they're cheap these days).

My SSD arrived today in the mail!

 

[Horvatii]

So, need PROTIP for dire spiders in the SSS arena (which is surprisingly the toughest fight that I have fought yet...).
POTIP is limited to 1 custom char, maybe 2. Max character level is 11 (Tier 6 abilities available). I think its beatable. Single/multiclass, any items/potions/scrolls/gear that are available before this.

The problem is 2 fold, the small spiders heal 21 hp per tick as long as big spiders are alive. And the big spiders pop 4 spiderlings out on death...

My tactic is as follows:
Eder up top pulls everyone, has about 6/7 casts of Unbending so he can survive ~140+ sec of dmg.
The 3 spiderlings at the bottom dont follow and go for the stealthed group (cheaters...), we quickly try to bruteforce through their regeneration.
After that assassin does backstabs of Wilting Wind and Thunderblow from pistol, and depending on how the big spiders position themselves, we can kill 2 and the third is down to 1/2hp. Assassin dies.
Now the problem is that 2 big spiders are still alive and 8+7 spiderlings too. And they have the tendency to go for what is shooting them... They also have ~350hp and close to 250 for spiderlings.

So the goal is to finish of 2 remaining big spiders and then the mass of spidershit... before they realize that something is kiling them.

I have tried Barb and he got eaten alive in seconds. Multiclass Barb/Fighter does not reach Unbending...

 

[Horvatii]

Slight... adjustment, 550 hp and 115 deflection, they are hard to kill. And they do have a heal, when you go melee, they teleport away and get 10 sec of Robust which heals them for about 30hp.

Also, charming/dom the small spider removes his regen though this maneuver tends to turn the others on the charmer. Range is too short.

 

[Sheepherder]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

 

[Butter]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

 

[Ninjerk]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

You have fun wrong.

 

[Sheepherder]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

You have fun wrong.

I had a lot of fun spawning in all the items with console and testing out their interactions with each other, until finding something that worked. Also spawning a bunch of those testing zombie dummies in the first tavern and trying out different builds with hirelings.

 

[Fedora Master]

I'd love to mock this thread with porn the same way I do with the OTW thread but I don't think there even is Pillars rule34. What a shameful game.

 

[Fedora Master]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

You have fun wrong.

Well Yea he IS playing PoE.

 

[Sheepherder]

I'd love to mock this thread with porn the same way I do with the OTW thread but I don't think there even is Pillars rule34. What a shameful game.

Holy shit you're right, even sadpanda only has a gallery of PoE1 concept art and no actual porn :D

 

[Haplo]

Back when Deadfire came out, there was a cool trick with a unique halberd dealing electric damage AoE and a helmet which amplified electrical damage dealt by the some amount of electrical damage received. The halberd AoE would also hurt the wielder, creating a loop. So with a monk for crits and a fighter for self rez I would kamikaze bomb every encounter to hell and back within seconds. I remember it was patched soon after I finished the run with that char. Was very fun while it lasted.
Is there anything as broken as that in the current version of the game?

Well, Deltro's Cage no longer cumulates all electricity you throw at it in the form of an additive lash... but its still pretty OP and you can get a pretty strong lash from it.

Crit yourself with Chain Lightning for 130 damage, get a 130% damage lash.

Then you can do some nifty spell damage

Spoiler

I'm also rather fond of Engoliero de Espirs kill Blade Feast cascades (best vs large numbers of weaker enemies)

Spoiler

 

[Haplo]

If you want broken stuff, well, I guess you could try a Single Class Monk using dual mortars with Whispers of the Wind.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'd love to mock this thread with porn the same way I do with the OTW thread but I don't think there even is Pillars rule34. What a shameful game.

Holy shit you're right, even sadpanda only has a gallery of PoE1 concept art and no actual porn :D

There is porn of PoE floating around, it's just not good. The only decent one is female nature godlike + Pallegina.

 

[Lacrymas]

Lesbian PoE porn -

Spoiler

There's more out there, but mostly of Eder.

 

[NJClaw]

Lesbian PoE porn -

Spoiler

There's more out there, but mostly of Eder.

My character was a female nature godlike and I feel personally attacked by this.

Also, since Pallegina is 50% pidgeon, this is 25% bestiality porn and shouldn't be on this sacred God-fearing forum.

 

[Lacrymas]

Since some people are saying it doesn't load, here's a better link, NSFW obviously -

Spoiler

[/quote]

 

[Roguey]

The only decent one is female nature godlike + Pallegina.

This one's fine http://rule34.paheal.net/post/view/2955435#search=pillars_of_eternity

 

[Lacrymas]

The nature godlike + Pallegina one is drawn with the best technique, though. The others are kinda bootleggy in a way.

 

[Horvatii]

PROTIP for dire spiders in the SSS arena

Outsmarted teh spiderbros.
Hired a Chanter Troubadour, who at level 11 gets acccess to key Spore summoning, which can cast an infinite amount of Charm with the deciding factor being the 16m range. Spiderlings dont trigger on the Spore.
So you charm a spiderling, it loses HP regen, they turn on him, before Charm runs out, you start casting Charm again to hit it just before it regains its HP regen. You can have 2 spiderlings charmed at all times.
Big spiders even cast their poisoned net that hits the spiderlings hard for a long time.
When the rogue dies, only 3 big spiders and 2 spiderlings remain. The chanter is still stealthed and is now pumping out 3 little Wyrms every 15 seconds (troubadour halves chanter phrases time) and the spiders cannot kill the drakes fast enough
Except when a big spider dies and splits into 4 spiderlings, its a key moment, when they gain enough DPS to kill the Wyrms before refreshments are ready and maybe go for Maia.

Those wyrms are a Great matchup vs spiders, they are immune to Web and do fire dmg which the spiders are weak to. Also they have the most HP out of all summons at that point. 3 drakes at 208 hp. Ogres have about hte same but basically 0 dmg output and get raped by spiders. The single drake is a shit summon.


At one point, I fail a concentration check and the spider lands a web on Eder, who can tank it but the rest of retard party gets caught for 20 sec and holy shitto this a death of a 40 minute fight...

But the priest get out of Paralyze just a single tick (3 sec) before the Chanter dies and manages to heal us out of doom. Granted, the priest also still had 1 ressurection but who knows what

Interestingly, the Chanter fails as a character vs the Naga horde, the summons just get shredded. While the ciphers works with the constatn domination and the Nagas do srs dmg to each other.