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

[ERYFKRAD]

How do you melee mage in Deadfire?

Same as everyone else. Get in range and tell your dudes to attack the mage.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How do you melee mage in Deadfire?

Same as everyone else. Get in range and tell your dudes to attack the mage.

No, I mean how do I play as a melee mage. As in, a spellcaster that knows where the pointy end of a sword is.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

As in, a spellcaster that knows where the pointy end of a sword it.

Well, you'll figure it out once you get hit by that pointy end.

 

[ColonelMace]

How do you melee mage in Deadfire?

Same as everyone else. Get in range and tell your dudes to attack the mage.

No, I mean how do I play as a melee mage. As in, a spellcaster that knows where the pointy end of a sword is.

From what I recall:
Martial self-buffs from the wizard ability pool are instant cast. So at the start of any fight which requires buffing, you can shift queue every citzal martial prowess, concelhaut parasitic staff etc to almost instantly "prebuff". Summoned weapons are very good, and usually lets you play with higher tier gear at lower levels.
Heavy armor is mandatory.
High intellect is mandatory for effect duration.
Stamina is kinda shit due to the wizard low base health (maybe worth it if you dual class with a martial kit).
You'll eat shit in the early levels.
You'll be a martial god in the endgame.

edit sorry for multiquote

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How do you melee mage in Deadfire?

Same as everyone else. Get in range and tell your dudes to attack the mage.

No, I mean how do I play as a melee mage. As in, a spellcaster that knows where the pointy end of a sword is.

From what I recall:
Martial self-buffs from the wizard ability pool are instant cast. So at the start of any fight which requires buffing, you can shift queue every citzal martial prowess, concelhaut parasitic staff etc to almost instantly "prebuff". Summoned weapons are very good, and usually lets you play with higher tier gear at lower levels.
Heavy armor is mandatory.
High intellect is mandatory for effect duration.
Stamina is kinda shit due to the wizard low base health (maybe worth it if you dual class with a martial kit).
You'll eat shit in the early levels.
You'll be a martial god in the endgame.

edit sorry for multiquote

So I don't have to multiclass then? Interesting.
I was tempted to go conjurer / fighter, but then I lose out on the last two tiers of spells and that's just sad.
Being able to summon a breastplate and two greatswords that I can duel wield sounds too ludicrous to pass up.

 

[Yosharian]

The thing is, the main reason to go pure Wizard is to get high power levels. High PL on an Evoker for example absolutely destroys. Most of the abilities you would use as a Conjurer-type battlemage, such as Citzals, don't gain very much from high PL. At least, that's what I've gathered from researching this online.

Also, Conjurer as a subclass really isn't recommended. You lose:

• Arkemyr's Brilliant Departure
• Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights
• Arkemyr's Dazzling Lights (Trickster)
• Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment
• Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Priest of Wael)
• Arkemyr's Wondrous Torment (Trickster)
• Bewildering Spectacle
• Concelhaut's Crushing Doom
• Confusion
• Confusion (Priest of Wael)
• Confusion (Trickster)
• Curse of Blackened Sight
• Dazzling Mind Trap
• Gaze of the Adragan
• Gaze of the Adragan (Priest of Wael)
• Gaze of the Adragan (Trickster)
• Kalakoth's Freezing Rake
• Kalakoth's Freezing Rake (Trickster)
• Lidless Gaze
• Llengrath's Displaced Image
• Llengrath's Displaced Image (Priest of Wael)
• Llengrath's Displaced Image (Trickster)
• Miasma of Dull-Mindedness
• Mirrored Image
• Mirrored Image (Priest of Wael)
• Mirrored Image (Trickster)
• Reflexive Mirror
• Ryngrim's Enervating Terror
• Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage
• Ryngrim's Repulsive Visage (Trickster)
• Wall of Many Colors
• Wall of Many Colors (Trickster)
• Wizard's Double

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Ah, so not conjurer then. Just a pure wizard then I guess, PoE1 style.
I did try using Fassina and she does seem pretty limited as a conjurer. She is not Edwin.

 

[Yosharian]

Ah, so not conjurer then. Just a pure wizard then I guess, PoE1 style.
I did try using Fassina and she does seem pretty limited as a conjurer. She is not Edwin.

I experimented a bit with a kind of battlemage, it's on my steam page. I never got around to actually testing it though so I don't know if it really works

 

[Desiderius]

Haplo is your man for Deadfire.

Aloth can set up as Battlemage if you want to try it out.

Summoned weapons are good but so are actual weapons. There are different multis that let you exploit having really high AC from buffs etc...

 

[Desiderius]

I think my current playthrough is Arcane Knight (Darcozzi/Evoker) and it's a little too good. Outworn Buckler protects team from Nukes that center on MC.

 

[Haplo]

How do you melee mage in Deadfire?

Same as everyone else. Get in range and tell your dudes to attack the mage.

No, I mean how do I play as a melee mage. As in, a spellcaster that knows where the pointy end of a sword is.

From what I recall:
Martial self-buffs from the wizard ability pool are instant cast. So at the start of any fight which requires buffing, you can shift queue every citzal martial prowess, concelhaut parasitic staff etc to almost instantly "prebuff". Summoned weapons are very good, and usually lets you play with higher tier gear at lower levels.
Heavy armor is mandatory.
High intellect is mandatory for effect duration.
Stamina is kinda shit due to the wizard low base health (maybe worth it if you dual class with a martial kit).
You'll eat shit in the early levels.
You'll be a martial god in the endgame.

edit sorry for multiquote

So I don't have to multiclass then? Interesting.
I was tempted to go conjurer / fighter, but then I lose out on the last two tiers of spells and that's just sad.
Being able to summon a breastplate and two greatswords that I can duel wield sounds too ludicrous to pass up.

Multiclassing is fun. Though some of the high level spells are neat as well.
The Citzal's Armory spell isn't that great, though. High base stats, but no unique traits, from what I remember.
There are more interesting summoned weapons, like the Black Bow that fears enemies and bounces arrows.
Nice to equip a summoned weapon and then create a clone with Essential Phantom. Also works for one-shot weapons which don't dissapear on the clone - like the Concelhaut's Touch (Will based attack).

With defensive buffs you probably don't need a tanky multiclass. But it is sure much more hands-off.
Personally I enjoy Cipher for a gish melee/caster hybrid. Some great weapons nicely synergize with this playstyle.

Monk is a very nice multiclass for casters, as he gets a hefty Int buff and can also increase his might big time (Helwalker) or greatly extend debuff and DOT durations (Forbidden Fist).
Ranger can be interesting for maximum Accuracy and high crit rate on spells.

In turn based mode I've had a great time with my Bloodmage Assassin, who'd start under Stealth, Free Action full buff on combat start, recover all slots with Blood Sacrifice, self-shock with Deltro's Cage Helmet for Shocking Lash (also on spells) plus trigger low health bonuses, fling spells from Stealth with +25 Accuracy (leading to very high crit rate), +4 Pen and +50% Critical damage. And then free action vanish before the enemy turn and be untargettable...
Bonus points later on to also trigger Engolier de Espirs Ghost Blade life leeching kill cascades and fully recover HP in the process...
Not really what you were asking, but a fantastic build for turn based mode.
This doesn't work as well in real time, buffs are fast but not instant - take some seconds, you're very squishy and can go down very fast.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

The Survivor missions in SSS suck. They outstay their welcome way too fast. Seeker is great, Slayer is ok but Survivor is just a slog.
Overall though SSS feels weaker than BoW. Still better than the base quest though. Kind of silly how they put all of the DLC content at the end of the game but before Ukaizo where you don't need all of the new gear anymore. Unless Ukaizo is like, I dunno, 5x more difficult than the rest of the game or something.

I think Pathfinder might have better endgame content than pillars. In PoE 1 I just rolled over Sun in Shadow, even with High Level content active, and Deadfire is overall pretty easy unless you do the DLC or try the megabosses.

Do enemies just outright ignore engagement in TB like they do in RT? The AI has an annoying habit of just walking through your front line to all gang up on your MC, even with disengagement attacks. That sometimes happened in PoE1 but in Deadfire it's a lot more common.

 

[Haplo]

Well, there is a subclass (and an Ability AFAIR) that specializes in punishing those, that'd try to leave your ZoC.

In general I'm guessing your "tank" isn't threatening enough. If he were, most enemies wouldn't do this. But if he hits like a wet noodle, the enemies will ignore him to go after higher threat targets.

I was always of the opinion that dedicated meat shield tanks are useless. And you should always mix your fighter or paladin with something like rogue, barbarian or monk.

 

[Lacrymas]

Tanks, as in the MMO term, have always made 0 sense in RPGs.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Tanks, as in the MMO term, have always made 0 sense in RPGs.

Ok Dexbarb

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How do you prevent terrify? For some idiot reason Obsidian removed immunity spells but they buffed terrify so that now your characters can't do shit.

 

[ColonelMace]

I believe fighters have a passive to prevent it naturally. Otherwise, as with any debuff, you need to counter it with a buff of the associated Stat. In this case, a Resolve buff (Steadfast/Courageous/Resolute).
Priest's holy meditation should do the trick.

 

[Desiderius]

Well, there is a subclass (and an Ability AFAIR) that specializes in punishing those, that'd try to leave your ZoC.

In general I'm guessing your "tank" isn't threatening enough. If he were, most enemies wouldn't do this. But if he hits like a wet noodle, the enemies will ignore him to go after higher threat targets.

I was always of the opinion that dedicated meat shield tanks are useless. And you should always mix your fighter or paladin with something like rogue, barbarian or monk.

Or nuker

It's really good!

 

[Desiderius]

How do you prevent terrify? For some idiot reason Obsidian removed immunity spells but they buffed terrify so that now your characters can't do shit.

That isn't how second person works.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Well, there is a subclass (and an Ability AFAIR) that specializes in punishing those, that'd try to leave your ZoC.

In general I'm guessing your "tank" isn't threatening enough. If he were, most enemies wouldn't do this. But if he hits like a wet noodle, the enemies will ignore him to go after higher threat targets.

I was always of the opinion that dedicated meat shield tanks are useless. And you should always mix your fighter or paladin with something like rogue, barbarian or monk.

Yeah, next playthrough I think I'll make Eder into a fighter/rogue. Apparently that's the "canonical" build for him. It seems that if there are two single class options and a multi, then the multi is the "canonical" class that fits that character's background. If there's 2 multi and a single, then it's the single class.

I like my ghost heart ranger. It is a pity that gunner is ranger locked though and you have to a take a pet if you want to use guns better. I wanted to make my first character import a shooty fighter only to find that fighters don't have gunners. I guess I could have gone black jacket but weapon switching is a bit too much micro for my taste. Maybe it works in TB, I dunno.
I guess one could just take ghost heart as a multi-class and never invest in abilities that concern your "pet", but then you're not using your class's abilities to their fullest.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

How do you prevent terrify? For some idiot reason Obsidian removed immunity spells but they buffed terrify so that now your characters can't do shit.

That isn't how second person works.

What do you mean? When my units try to fight a dragon they get terrified and do nothing. Even if I buff will they still get hit by CC because there's no true terrify immunity.

 

[The Bishop]

When my units try to fight a dragon they get terrified and do nothing. Even if I buff will they still get hit by CC because there's no true terrify immunity.

https://pillarsofeternity.fandom.com/wiki/Rejoice,_My_Comrades!_Two_Fingers_of_Daylight!_(Deadfire)

 

[Nekron]

this game is quite underrated here right? I just started playing ("everything bad" history so i don't have the dipshit companions from poe1) and it's fun so far, lots of opportunities to be a huge asshole
made a custom party of vampires and rot-priests, but kept xoti cuz she seems like a based soul-eater

and just run around murdering everyone and making all evil decisions.

• guy asks me to get his coin purse back from some hoe living in stick hut village
• go to village, kill her, take coin purse, then murder the entire village
• take all 2000 coins out of purse, return empty coin purse to the guy, say "lol u asked for a coin purse here it is bitch"
• randomly blow up groups of travelers while exploring island
• kill head of guard in prison to free dude who wants to join ship crew, move on to next island for more carnage simulator
• just let xoti eat the souls of everyone who dies

idk, i've played a lot of crpgs and this has one of the better class systems and spellbooks, allows you to build a custom party so you don't need to roll with a bunch of cucks, and gives a lot of freedom

kinda miss durance from pillars 1 but xoti is a good replacement

i did install one mod, to delete the narrator voiceover because whoever narrated this game sucks dick

 

[ColonelMace]

It has unbearable performance issues the longer the playthrough goes. Towards the end, any ability that spawns a unit will cause a half second freeze for example. That's what I remember from back then at least, but I doubt any of that changed as it was engine and code related iirc.

If you reach the endgame, The Forgotten Sanctum dlc is also p.good and I'd recommend it.

 

[Nekron]

It has unbearable performance issues the longer the playthrough goes. Towards the end, any ability that spawns a unit will cause a half second freeze for example. That's what I remember from back then at least, but I doubt any of that changed as it was engine and code related iirc.

yeah actually i was getting stuttering every few seconds, i looked it up and i guess it's a memory leak issue that the game has, restarting usually clears it up
also setting framerate limit to 30 fixed it entirely so far

hope it doesn't come back later, i summon LOTS of skellies