Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Florian Gheorghe]

So, after 400 hours or so I found out that actually using IE mod to turn off autosave lowers in half the loading time.

 

[Lady_Error]

So I finally finished it, with White March this time. What an improvement over the vanilla version!

Really liked having two Rangers and two wolves as meat shields. The wolves did up to 80-90 hp damage towards the end, you don't have to worry about their health and can even restore their endurance twice per encounter. The whole party had ranged weapons and buffed up perception and might.

I also liked the Chanter actually. His summoning of drakes alone was worth more than almost any other spell in the game and it is a relatively low-level chant. When the two wolves are not enough to hold back enemies, keep spamming drakes at them...

 

[Haplo]

Thank you.
Just started playing and look forward to reaching the White March myself!

Hmm, I already forgot how tough the beginning was. Maybe because I played a Cipher last time and they are really potent.
Now a Barbarian is nice but somewhat squishy and needs all the Accuracy he can get.

 

[Prime Junta]

Now a Barbarian is nice but somewhat squishy

You know you are allowed to wear some armour, right?

 

[Haplo]

Yeah. Tried to stick to moderate armor, like chainmail, but maybe I need to go higher. Though he's real slow with 8 Dex and a two-hander already. Then again now we're 4 with Eder, Aloth and Durance and, since I tend to stay behind Eder's back, Barbarian's armor isn't the main issue. Rather how many resources need to be expended in roughly half of the encounters on PotD, at least early on. I don't like sleeping after every second fight
Plus groups with Shades, who have stellar defenses and shrug most damage and Skuldr Kings, who dish out fast and have high dr also. Painful at level 4. Oh and that Xautrip Skirmisher, who kept my character perma-stunlocked was fun also.

I see that vessels/spirits now have appropriate racial immunities. That is very good indeed!
But doesn't make handling them easier... Plus apparently highish reflex as well.

 

[Prime Junta]

Early on, Aloth with Chill Fog is your Win button for most mob fights (except spirits). That Blinded debuff makes all the difference.

The shades will go for your least armoured dude. Make that Aloth and have him pop Elemental Shield which gives virtual immunity to their attacks, then finish them off at your leisure.

 

[Haplo]

That's good advice. Thank you, Prime Junta.

 

[Prime Junta]

Do I need a priest on POTD?

Need one, no. Does it make it a lot easier? Hell yes.

 

[Grunker]

I played without a priest on my PotD-playthrough and think the game was more enjoyable for it. When you're forced to work within the confines of negative effects combat has a lot more diversity.

 

[axedice]

There used to be a weapon switch build with aumaua rogue and blunderbuss / combusting wounds combo. Is that still viable? I'll do a second play-through for WM

 

[Prime Junta]

There used to be a weapon switch build with aumaua rogue and blunderbuss / combusting wounds combo. Is that still viable? I'll do a second play-through for WM

It's viable. It's requires absurd amounts of micromanagement though, I wouldn't want to deal with it through an entire playthrough.

If you want a gunner, I'd go with a ranger with Swift Aim (+ Swift and Steady etc), and Gunner. For extra lulz, have a chanter with Sure-Handed Ila onboard too. Combusting Wounds does work really well with blunderbusses.

 

[Luckmann]

There used to be a weapon switch build with aumaua rogue and blunderbuss / combusting wounds combo. Is that still viable? I'll do a second play-through for WM

It's viable. It's requires absurd amounts of micromanagement though, I wouldn't want to deal with it through an entire playthrough.

If you want a gunner, I'd go with a ranger with Swift Aim (+ Swift and Steady etc), and Gunner. For extra lulz, have a chanter with Sure-Handed Ila onboard too. Combusting Wounds does work really well with blunderbusses.

To be fair, though, for the overwhelmingly vast majority of encounters, you won't have to micromanage the weapon-switching. You'll mostly be auto-attacking. While it's not making the most of the build, you don't really need to pull out all the stops for each encounter, only a few select ones. In all the others, you'll be fine with just one weapon. In fact, it's often better to keep them in reserve "just in case" - if things go sideways, rapid switching allows you to counter negative combat developments that arose because you were getting lazy and sloppy, which is something that's a real risk in PoE.

 

[Parabalus]

To be fair, though, for the overwhelmingly vast majority of encounters, you won't have to micromanage the weapon-switching. You'll mostly be auto-attacking. While it's not making the most of the build, you don't really need to pull out all the stops for each encounter, only a few select ones. In all the others, you'll be fine with just one weapon. In fact, it's often better to keep them in reserve "just in case" - if things go sideways, rapid switching allows you to counter negative combat developments that arose because you were getting lazy and sloppy, which is something that's a real risk in PoE.

To add, weapon switching is bugged, if you swap weapons right after you fire you avoid the recovery (not reload) time after the shot, so it's kinda exploity to rapidly switch. But if you don't switch, or after the 2/3/4 alpha strike, guns fall way behind bows in the damage department, so it's rather rare that guns are "better" for classes other than ciphers.

Sure-Handed Ila is so good it's hard to justify not having a chanter if you have any ranged chars.

 

[Luckmann]

To be fair, though, for the overwhelmingly vast majority of encounters, you won't have to micromanage the weapon-switching. You'll mostly be auto-attacking. While it's not making the most of the build, you don't really need to pull out all the stops for each encounter, only a few select ones. In all the others, you'll be fine with just one weapon. In fact, it's often better to keep them in reserve "just in case" - if things go sideways, rapid switching allows you to counter negative combat developments that arose because you were getting lazy and sloppy, which is something that's a real risk in PoE.

To add, weapon switching is bugged, if you swap weapons right after you fire you avoid the recovery (not reload) time after the shot, so it's kinda exploity to rapidly switch. But if you don't switch, or after the 2/3/4 alpha strike, guns fall way behind bows in the damage department, so it's rather rare that guns are "better" for classes other than ciphers.

Sure-Handed Ila is so good it's hard to justify not having a chanter if you have any ranged chars.

...didn't they fix the "timing your weapon-switching"-bug? I was almost certain that they did. I remember early ranged weapon-switching builds being completely broken because of it. I could be mixing things up, though, I haven't had such a build in a long time and I don't really play PoE anymore, nor keep up with the changes, ever since there was an update that broke IE Mod functionality.

 

[Prime Junta]

an update that broke IE Mod functionality

I haven't tried it myself but I believe IE mod works with 3.05.

 

[Sacred82]

There used to be a weapon switch build with aumaua rogue and blunderbuss / combusting wounds combo. Is that still viable? I'll do a second play-through for WM

It's viable. It's requires absurd amounts of micromanagement though, I wouldn't want to deal with it through an entire playthrough.

If you want a gunner, I'd go with a ranger with Swift Aim (+ Swift and Steady etc), and Gunner. For extra lulz, have a chanter with Sure-Handed Ila onboard too. Combusting Wounds does work really well with blunderbusses.

Gunner and Sure-Handed Ila were not supposed to stack anymore as of 3.X

 

[Parabalus]

Gunner and Sure-Handed Ila were not supposed to stack anymore as of 3.X

According to this, which is from a month ago, they should.

 

[Sacred82]

maybe they changed it again, maybe the info was false.

 

[Luckmann]

an update that broke IE Mod functionality

I haven't tried it myself but I believe IE mod works with 3.05.

Yeah, maybe, I haven't checked in an extremely long time, and updates haven't been coming in a while, afaik. I'd be surprised if it's not updated by now. It was super-dead for quite a while after the second part of the expansion, though.

 

[Suicidal]

Just finished WM. Really enjoyed it. I feel this is something that PoE really needed - a story that explores the setting and its history in greater detail. I like how they improved pretty much everything in the expansion - the main quest was a lot more interesting, Durgan's Battery was a pretty good and atmospheric dungeon, better than most in the base game, I also liked the Abbey of the Fallen Moon cause any dungeon that lets me sneak and talk through most of the mobs in PoE is a good thing, there were a lot more different choices in dialogues and scripted interactions (some actually leading to pretty spectacular failure), cooler items (although I still beat the entire game without the need to ever switch my protag's common purple vest to match his purple hood or Zahua's hobo underpants), better pacing.

The combat was also improved somewhat, but I still think it sucks massive dingaling, but at least there were more legitimately challenging battles, mostly from optional quests, than in the base game.

Also the ending was fucking beautiful. Those were some legit "feels" moments. I also loved how the random diving helmet I got from a stronghold quest was what helped my party member survive at the end. On the other hand, the final boss was pathetic. The random pack of Ondra cultists I fought before entering the Eyeless cave was more difficult.

Overall while playing WM, there were many moments that made me think "yep, this is what I'd expect from a company that made MotB". A shame that the much inferior original campaign probably killed most of the Codex population's boners for PoE so they'll never give WM a try. Oh well, I don't really give a shit. For me WM has significantly boosted PoE's position in the "good RPGs" list that exists in my mind.

The original, while I enjoyed it at the start, towards the end I was really getting tired from it due to all the repetitive shit fights and the slow pacing. I'd probably give it a 7/10, maybe even a 6/10 because whenever I was progressing along the quest and saw another pack of 20 mobs that needed killing I just wanted to alt F4 immediately. But with WM and all the patch changes that happened I'd rate it a solid 8/10. For me it already surpassed most of the old combat-focused IE games that it's supposed to be a spiritual successor of. The only one I think is still better is Baldur's Gate 2, but honestly not by much.

Hopefully we can expect more of this kind of quality in PoE 2.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Yeah, the diving helmet solution came completely unexpected for me. Felt really rewarded that I got it.

 

[Parabalus]

You have to try giving the Devil of Caroc the hammer, totally badass.

 

[Suicidal]

You have to try giving the Devil of Caroc the hammer, totally badass.

That was my plan initially but Zahua asked my protag to let him be the sacrifice instead and I thought that would be a perfect conclusion to his personal story (another chance to save people from destruction, something he once tried and failed) so I agreed.

Watched what happens if you give DoC the hammer on Youtube, yeah that's pretty hilarious

 

[Suicidal]

Also, apparently, if you have both PoE and WM installed and finish the main game without doing the WM quest, you get this ending:

Spoiler

 

[2house2fly]

I think that's just if you complete WM1 but not WM2. One ending to the WM2 main quest which I have no idea how to get is

Spoiler

Ondra rescues you personally, and says "gods are forbidden to meddle in the affairs of mortals, so don't tell anyone about this"