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Monks are pure offense, so giving them a shield is counterproductive. Hopefully you're using her unarmed too as damage, accuracy, and penetration scale by power level.
Well, there is a nice trickster/monk defensive riposte build which puts the shield to good use. Also most of the monk's skills are Primary attacks, so if you're able to spam abilities, you don't loose that much by having a weak offhand.
Also going unarmed is a choice, rather then an obvious thing. Admittedly its more tempting for pure monks, with higher power level.
Alright, so new update. The plan was to go Neketaka to get a full companion roster and then shoot directly back to Fort Deadlight.
SPOILERS AHEAD
Then I spoke to Serafen about it, and he suggested getting some Principi colors for access to Deadlight. OK, sounds reasonable: get access to Neketaka black market, buy colours, sail away.
Two evenings have now gone without me finding those damned colours
From exploring Queen's Berth to getting access to Delver's Row to realizing there was no one who sold Principi colors to thinking maybe it was someone else in The Narrows to solving quests in The Gullet to being contacted by Dereo. I'm now in the Old City fighting Skuldrs and Greater Earth Blights above my level (which make for satisfying if not insanely hard fights - Skuldrs are pretty pushover but the Greater Earth Blights were really nice, while grubs have proved somewhat annoying). The skeleton ambush after you find the other Conch was also pretty rough until I spammed escape with Maia Rua to take out the Skeleton Sorcerers. I kindda wish you couldn't just eat food or other consumables to get through text adventures you don't have the stats for.
Itemization continues to get me giddy with excitement like I was a teenager and I gotta say: if the writing is par for the course, I'm not sure I understand those who claim nothing's changed. Yes, highlight-words are annoying, yes, the writing is nowhere near getting me as invested as something like MotB, but the lore dumps are way, waaaaaay less present and people are way less verbose. I'm actually following most of the writing here and being mildly interested, finding characters funny or interesting, as opposed to many parts of OG Pillars where I was actively bored. The voice acting is unnecessary but I haven't found any cases of bad voice acting yet - and a few characters are voiced well (Serafen again).
Serafen remains a downright awesome companion, easily my favourite Pillars companion so far. Xoti remains meh, and I'm almost 100% sure Tekehu will not make it out of this party alive. He is straight out of Bioware but somehow WORSE since you notice it way more in a world that's much better crafted than Bioware's trash.
Maia Rua I find cool so far - I like how she's written more or less as an adult and is less subtle than most RPG companions, without being boring (like I thought Edér was in #1).
I've grown a bit fonder of the Empower mechanic (meaning I'm now just Meh rather than Hate on it), but my ability use patterns aren't very diverse yet. As for companion contribution to combat:
- Serafen (Cipher) mixes it up the most, using control, affliction, heals and of course often just auto-attacking as well. On paper Cipher is a boring class, but I like that it's a class where you can leave them alone and then once in a while you have to check in and make a choice between different stuff. Unfortunately Serafen just doesn't seem like a great companion - he deals less damage than Maia Rua and his spells are way less potent than Tekehu's.
- So Cipher can auto-attack and then once in a while cast a contextually great spell... as opposed to Monks that require constant micro spamming the same damned ability (Prime Junta you said they were fun to play ). Xoti (Monk) is mainly just someone I have to click every 10 seconds to reactivate the Quick Strikes-thing or whatever it's called.
- My main character is the most fun to play (Chanter/Paladin). Healing, summoning dudes, paralyzing (thanks Safav Hamon and Prime Junta for talking me into Perception!), dealing constant damage and just generally being an unkillable utility bot :D
- Tekehu (Druid) is obviously powerful, and seeing how he performs in the Old City where every enemy is immune to his best spells makes me think he's going to murder everything once I fight stuff that Chill Fog affects.
- Maia Rua (Ranger/Rouge) is an odd one. She murders everyone and deals as much damage as three other party members combined (with The Red Hand), but her abilities doesn't seem to make much difference - besides finishing off tough enemies with the ability that deals damage based on health lost. Leaving her to auto-attack she seems to contribute nearly as much.
I really hope working for Dereo gives me those colors though, because otherwise I'm afraid I'll be clearing the entirety of Neketaka before I set sail again
My biggest current conundrum is figuring out how my main character (whose damage cap is like 5) is going to accomplish actually killing an opponent so I can activate the first level of Modwyr
Haven't you thought about the easiest way to get one's colors? :D
Hint: You have those cannons onboard for a reason.
But yeah, you're on the right track now. He enjoys knitting after all. Though there was also one sample that could be stolen from a location you passed trough working for Dereo
Serafen is a great mate, but he's terribly unoptimized. His classes, abilities and skill choices all suck badly. So I roll with others.
And Cipher is not boring IMO. Particularly Ascendant is fun, though you can build interesting SoulBlades as well. My favorite class. But Serafen is quite terrible really.
Hint: the reward you get from Dereo is really nice if you enchant it with the per-encounter special attack, which does huge damage and typically instantly maxes your focus.
As for Maia dealing the most damage, she's the only rogue in your party, right? Rogues get sick damage bonuses in this game. They start with +30% sneak damage (goes up to +60% at PL VII, more for pure classes). Eventually they add Depp Wounds passive bleeds, later also Deathblows for another +50%. Then there is Streetfighter who, once Blooded or flanked, adds ANOTHER +50% Sneak (starting at level 1) and 50% Recovery reduction PLUS, when both flanked and Blooded, yet ANOTHER +100% crit damage on top.
And that is without counting rogue active abilities, which add between +25% and +300% above that.
I never found the Principi colors in Neketaka, but you can raid a Principi ship for it. I got into Fort Deadlight some other way (non-violent) that I don't remember.
Cool that you can get ship colors that way, though I'm probably going to opt against it for now until I decide which faction reps I want to get.
As for Serafen being unoptimized, I'm not terribly worried about that. I usually don't optimize my parties in RPGs, I just make sure they are viable for the highest difficulty. And right now I'm doing fine killing double-skull enemies.
It's not like sinking their ships spoils your relationships with them
In fact, if you want to do all/most of the bounty quests, you'll be sent after ships from all factions.
Unless you prefer to roleplay a corsair and only sink the enemies of your faction...
It's like for every superflous word Obsidian and inXile used in Pillars of Eternity and Tides of Numenera, Roxor lost one permanently from his vocabulary
I never found the Principi colors in Neketaka, but you can raid a Principi ship for it. I got into Fort Deadlight some other way (non-violent) that I don't remember.
Figure out Obsidian's UI you mean? You have to click the bottom center owl's head when you are in the Main Menu. I wish I was joking, but that's really the way.
Yeah, the gameplay and narrative ramifications kick in only if you are in negative rep. Maybe Obsidian are trying to tell us something, that only conflict gains us anything. It's quite interesting what meanings can be extrapolated by interpreting mechanics.
1. Nope, its almost universally considered the worst monk subclass, by far, and not recommended. Nowadays they only get wounds when autoattacking - and much fewer then they used to. In addition to the previous loss of high wound count bonuses, like Int bonus and fire lash from Duality of Mortal Presence.
Go Nalpazca, no subclass or Helwalker - if you feel brave or plan for ranged/hybrid.
2. No, they do it even when you don't pay them any compliments. In fact they even do it sometimes while your party stands idle. Or in serious situations where something completely non-romantically related is happening. It's downright bizarre.
Grunker tweak Xoti's AI, or just set it to one of the monk defaults. She'll do the routine stuff on her own initiative while leaving the big guns to you. In any case I enjoyed monk-Xoti way more than priest-Xoti.
(Serafen and Maia are deffo the best new companions, and Pallegina was okay also.)
). Xoti (Monk) is mainly just someone I have to click every 10 seconds to reactivate the Quick Strikes-thing or whatever it's called.
