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

[Safav Hamon]

It's only -7 deflection. Very insignificant compared to what it's costing his action speed and accuracy.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

It's -12 Deflection compared to his build, mate. That's in addition to -30% less Health and Endurance. 1/3 less in all the key defensive stats is not a nelligible difference on a tank character.

PoTD is all about fine tuning the stats. We all do everything to squeeze as much Perception to be able to land things, but the same dynamic also works for the mobs. If you squeeze as much defense as possible, they won't land things.

As for whether going full tank is optimal, that's another conversation. It's viable and it's pretty effective on characters that don't rely on big spells to make an impact, but can just stand there, never die and continue providing massive benefits to the rest of party once they get few key abilities.

 

[Safav Hamon]

By the same logic it's -45% action speed by dumping dexterity. That's not good if he wants to maintain constant summons and healing.

If he wanted to do a full tank build ( I think it's overkill), he should of went with a fighter. They get abilities such as Vigorous Defense, Guardian Stance, and Unbending Shield.

 

[Grunker]

Anyone know this? It's really fucking annoying

Is there no way to add a general AI for summons? Right now my summons are completely idle unless given specific instructions or assigned an AI for every. new. summon. I just want them to auto-attack as a base.

 

[Safav Hamon]

Highlight summon, scroll over the icon in the middle, and select Auto Attack Only. They will automatically attack every summon.

 

[Grunker]

^ I have to do that all over again each time I summon currently. That's what I'm asking if it's possible to change?

 

[Safav Hamon]

Okay, I figured it out. Your character must be set to inactive AI.

 

[Grunker]

ah! Thanks

 

[AwesomeButton]

Everything written here is under the assumption of PotD (which you are playing). On other difficulties stats distribution is much less crucial.

Any opinions on how to build Serafen? Since I'm going with the new companions I'm having some trouble figuring out who should be in the melee stack. My PC is Paladin full tank, and it looks to me like Maia Rua should definetely be built for guns.

That leaves Serafen, Tekehu and Xoti, and of these Serafen makes the most sense in the frontline it seems, in which case full class Barbarian seems the best option, no?

I susbscribe to the opinion that Maia is best as a ranger/rogue combination. With an Int of 10 her spells' effects wouldn't last all that long, and if your weapon is a ranged one (which it should be on a wizard/ranger combination), she would only be good for casting ranged spells. On the other hand - good might, dexterity and high perception serve very well both a ranger and a roque. Being ranged, you would lose a number of cool rogue features, but you would gain the ability to cause blind and the "X the bell" line of abilities from afar, which is great. You would also benefit greatly form using a high-damage firearm like the arquebus with a rogue ability which multiplies your damage like Finishing Blow. You will have a great damage dealer which will mostly be out of range for enemies.

Looks like attributes are better balanced this time around with additive boni? Not as easy to just dump

All the youtuber pros I've been looking at for advice tend to minimize Resolve. I'm not sure why, and what do they do to counter the increased duration of negative effects, which is the more serious penalty than the deflection one.

You live and you learn. If this thread is any indication complete min/maxing makes the game too easy later anyway. Terrible how though?

15-16-4-10-15-18

Minimizing Dexterity doesn't look like a good idea, even though it's on a character in a tank role. Intelligence of 15 is good, because your summons and effects will last longer, but 18 would be even better. Higher Might would increase the amount of healing you will do as a Paladin, including when healing others. You have probably maxed Resolve for the deflection bonus, but as I've been arguing some time ago - you gain 3 Deflection per level, and as levels advance, this 7 Deflection bonus you got in the beginning will become less and less important, taken as a part of your total Deflection, whereas a high Perception and Dexterity serve you equally well throughout the whole game - scoring more hits and more crits. Therefore I would keep Resolve at 12-13 at most, and that's just because of the shortened negative effects duration.

Why would I max Perception? If it's anything like PoE1, a Paladin/Chanter full tank won't hit for much of anything anyway, making the debuff from a modal the only reason to really not dump Per.

A high Perception would increase the accuracy with which you would use abilities on enemies, so that's also not bad to have.

 

[Grunker]

Thanks man! Based on the experience with dumped dex I ended up discussing it with PJ too and made some adjustment in the way you and Hamon recommended (18 PER), tho a bit more balanced with 10 DEX and without dumped RES...

Is there a way to respec? Because over an hour into this I'm starting to think I should chosen Soft Whispers rather the damage reduction phrase. It has much better synergy with what I'm trying to do it seems.

As for party, currently I'm leaning towards:

PC Paladin/Chanter
Xoti Monk
Serafen Cipher
Maia Rua Rogue/Ranger
Teheku Pure Druid

Still not certain with Xoti and Serafen though, I might go Priest and Witch instead.

 

[Lacrymas]

You can respec at taverns.

 

[Grunker]

Is it still bugged though? Google is swarming with bug reports about the respec

 

[Grunker]

Seems like you can't retrain the level 1 stuff either, at least the inn I'm at only resets me to level one and lets me respec level 2 - not level 1.

 

[AwesomeButton]

This may be down to playing styles but I find priests to be indispensable so far, much more important than wizards when I prioritize among targets. The fact that you can start with inspirations lasting 45-60 sec. Also, I find healing-over time a great economy on characters' time - cast consecrated ground, and you get like an invisible 6th character who does nothing but cast healing on all your other characters.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I think debuff auras still check defense so they won't land with low perception. So yeah just picking the ones that buff your party.

And yeah, build advice to always tank Resolve and Con regardless of the character annoys me, because it doesn't take into account that you might want to specialize your guy to perform a certain role. And in this case, like AwesomeButton says, the way game works healing-over-time is generally more efficient because you can have your dudes actually do something instead of standing there and channeling big spells.

Pure defensive Pala/Chanter takes a while to get going, but once you get 2 key defensive auras - Pala's Exhalted Endurance and Chanter's Ancient Memory, you're pretty much just standing there and provide fuctkon healing and damage absorption in a huge range without as much as touching the keyboard.

 

[Haplo]

This may be down to playing styles but I find priests to be indispensable so far, much more important than wizards when I prioritize among targets. The fact that you can start with inspirations lasting 45-60 sec. Also, I find healing-over time a great economy on characters' time - cast consecrated ground, and you get like an invisible 6th character who does nothing but cast healing on all your other characters.

I also love the priests. They are actually not the best healers (druids are better at this, particularly lifegivers) but they act as force multipliers with their awesome buffs. I particularly love Salvation of Time, which extends durations of all buffs. It's generally nice, but particularly valuable for powerful but short lived effects, such as monk Blade Turning, Ascendant Cipher Ascension or priests own Barring the Death's Door, which suddenly become a lot more usefull. Also useful for moderate duration but somewhat expensive stuff like fighter Unbending or monks Thunderous Blows.

At high levels priests also become solid damage dealers.

I aways make Xoti a pure priest, as I like their buffs so much.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

By the same logic it's -45% action speed by dumping dexterity. That's not good if he wants to maintain constant summons and healing.

Which is why I said it's better to dump Perception instead.

If he wanted to do a full tank build ( I think it's overkill), he should of went with a fighter. They get abilities such as Vigorous Defense, Guardian Stance, and Unbending Shield.

And he would gain absolutely nothing, while losing summons, two healing auras, one armor aura, one damage absorbing aura, all of which you can run at the same time, as well as Pala's active heals and revival spells.

Full-tank builds with typical frontline classes - ie. single class Barb or Fighter, are pointless. On that we can both agree. A char like that will just stand in front soaking damage and not doing anything useful.

But if you manipulate the attributes to create a full tank class out of what is essentially a support class, that is a different thing entirely. With a build like that he maximizes his supporting abilities while still being able to tank 3x better than your 3 resolve 8 con dude who will do more damage but needs a backline healer to support him. Meanwhile I've beaten the entire game, including SSS, with full tank Pala/Chanter as the only source of healing.

 

[AwesomeButton]

And he would gain absolutely nothing

Barbarian/Fighter will give you the best combination of hitpoints (Barbarian/Fighter will advance faster in hitpoints than a pure Fighter) and defensive abilities. It's really quite a strong multiclass combination.

 

[Haplo]

Personally I'm fond of swashbucklers - both DD and engagement riposte tank variants. Even as tanks they can still do decent damage. Of course Pala/Chanter provides a lot of support.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Anyhow, one thing that fucking infuriates me with the DLC is that main rewards are soulbound items. Which you have no time to unlock, because by that point the game is over.

Whoever came up with this idea deserves to be facefucked by a gorilla.

 

[Tigranes]

I second AwesomeButton on Maia as Ranger/Rogue. In general R/R has great synergies for combining the good single-target damage output of the Ranger with all the sneak attack etc stuff, and you won't really find yourself making Maia cast a lot of spells anyway. People complain all the time about rangers in POE1/2 but I really like them, it feels nice to maximise range and interrupt/take down key targets at the back line.

It's also cool to give that Leap boots so she can keep running away from people attracted by her high damage rate.

Munchkin optimisation can't help but minimise RES/CON because, well, you're usually talking about builds designed to smack down enemies superfast from carefully prepared alpha strikes & if needed savescumming. And Dex/Per//Int in particular tends to be really attractive to powergamers because you can do so many things with faster actions and longer-lasting debuffs. I would say, even on POTD, it's perfectly OK not to go that extreme.

It's just that an 18 DEX 3 CON/RES guy can be optimised to great (if lopsided) effectiveness, but a 3 DEX 18CON/RES guy, not so easily.

 

[Haplo]

Leap boots? Why? Rangers have Evasive Roll and Rogues Escape. What more mobility do you need?

But sure, Maia is DEADLY as a Rogue/Ranger.


And 3 DEX 18CON/RES could still work pretty well on a Streetfighter, if he can trigger his special (be flanked and/or blooded), as he would still be pretty fast. Would be damn slow when not flanked/bloodied though.

 

[Haplo]

Anyhow, one thing that fucking infuriates me with the DLC is that main rewards are soulbound items. Which you have no time to unlock, because by that point the game is over.

Whoever came up with this idea deserves to be facefucked by a gorilla.

That's a point. Lucky me I've never reached end game so far, I suppose. I'm kinda drooling over the new rapier for my Transcendent Helwalker/Ascendant. 50+ damage DoTs on crit, I look forward to you....

 

[2house2fly]

There are the optional fights which can be done after the main quest, but I agree getting a soulbound item as a reward is pretty insane. The soulbound shield from the first DLC is also insane, to unlock the final level you have to be missed in combat 500 times!

 

[Tigranes]

Leap boots? Why? Rangers have Evasive Roll and Rogues Escape. What more mobility do you need?

But sure, Maia is DEADLY as a Rogue/Ranger.


And 3 DEX 18CON/RES could still work pretty well on a Streetfighter, if he can trigger his special (be flanked and/or blooded), as he would still be pretty fast. Would be damn slow when not flanked/bloodied though.

It's silly, but I really like the boots - sometimes you can get to places where the enemies more or less can't touch you and you can fire at will for the rest of the battle. I've always found the roll, etc. stuff a bit fiddly. It's true though that even as a multiclass, R/R will have a bit of talent points to spare.