Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Parabalus]

Not really, as there are caps how low you can go, as Parabalus explained. Once you hit 0 Recovery (doable with 3 Dex while dual-wielding), the attacks speed benefits are very minor.

I think you got something wrong here. The irreducible part is around 1/6 of your animation at 0 recovery, and it's still there even if you do have recovery. The DEX benefits don't disappear, they are just a tiny bit relatively lower because the irreducible part is a larger part than before, since DEX affects recovery, they are still very substantial.

Frenzy will last 80% of the time if you use Sanguine Plate. Of course, it's not light, so there is a cost to that. Another option could be to use Spelltongue - if you're dual wielding. Besides making your buffs last, that's another +15% Speed which stacks with everything.

Sanguine plate on a Barb is a waste IMO, since you have 6 people to equip. "Optimal" setups are IMO x/Spelltongue in plate or 2h in lower armor which lets you hit 0 recovery with just frenzy. Having to rely on consumables is leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, but that's nitpicky.

 

[The Bishop]

What build did you have in mind with the monks>> statement?
I found monks to be very good because they can decent damage with high tankiness, but they can't really go full out on DPS attributes since you need CON for wounds.

No specific build, no. I'm not even sure if there's a way to build a bad monk (reasonable build choices of course).

The thing with monks is that with the way damage scales on their unarmed attacks, high level monk is basically double wielding two-handed weapons, yet with very short animations and recovery time. Damage requirement for wounds, however, remains the same, so the proportion of damage to your health total that you need to take to fill up your bar becomes progressively smaller. No need for particularly high CON to be viable at high levels. And then you don't need to wait to be hit by the enemy to fill up on wounds either. Just hit your own monk in a beginning of a fight, or disengage and refill instantly.

So you get a character with already top class damage, DPS, great survivability, but then you also get very potent abilities that power off an easy to obtain resource, are very spammable, and since expansions all of them can be used at range too (with Long Pain), at ridiculously high rate of fire. As much as I like crit rogue, a monk can probably match him in damage and DPS, and then can also tank, stun/knock down individual targets even at range when necessary, drop AOE bombs, tripple up in number, you name it. All without any special preparation or unique items.

The only problem with monks (and the reason I don't really like to play them) is that they require a lot of micro to operate, and so can get very annoying to control, especially if you have more than one.

 

[The Bishop]

Not really, as there are caps how low you can go, as Parabalus explained. Once you hit 0 Recovery (doable with 3 Dex while dual-wielding), the attacks speed benefits are very minor.

There are no caps for DEX. Well, there are, but only because of engine limitations. DEX speeds up animations, not just reducing recovery time. Just launch the game, open console, set a character's Dex to 999, and see what happens when that character attacks somebody.

Lowering enemy defense is a great bonus, but I primarily knock them prone so that they cannot hurt my party and/or advance behind my frontliners.
Not much is needed to get that low. Devotions of the Faithful is already +20 Accuracy (also an armor debuff, but not very practical due to limited range), Cipher Phantom Forces gives every enemy in a huge radius -10 Deflection and lasts very long, till the end of most fights. Then there is Painful Interdiction, which Weakens enemies in a huge radius (particurarly good for Brute Force Barbarians, who target Fortitude instead of Deflection). Doesn't last that long, though. Of course, there's also a ton of other stuff, like Blind, Paralyze, Stuck, Stun, but these are not essential. And in most cases, either the duration or the radius isn't great. But with some you can even bring the gap to 60 points advantage.

And DPS? DPS is good, as you're typically hitting (and disabling) at least 3 enemies at the same time. 5 isn't uncommon.

My point wasn't that debuffs aren't good, but that if you had an opportunity to debuff somebody into oblivion, it really doesn't matter what builds you're using to clean up. You already won. With or without barbarian, stunlock or not.

Frenzy will last 80% of the time if you use Sanguine Plate. Of course, it's not light, so there is a cost to that. Another option could be to use Spelltongue - if you're dual wielding. Besides making your buffs last, that's another +15% Speed which stacks with everything.

We're wandering away from stunlock barbarian here.

Sometimes the casters are bunched together, but often not, true. Concelhaut was a special case though. Tough sucker. But that fight isn't really representative. Strong singular enemies are probably 1% of the combat encounters, most are mobs. Potentially dangerous mobs, like the Lagufueth.

And I disagree that's just "another source of aoe". Other sources are typically somewhat limited, meanwhile a Barbarian can fight all day and night. And with high Int each his attack will be a large aoe.

Yes, strong singular enemies are involved in a small fraction of total encounters. They are however a huge fraction of encounters that are actually somewhat difficult. Doesn't make much sense to judge power of a character by fights you'd be easily winning anyway.

As for limited sources of AOE. Chanters can do what, 120 dmg to everybody in their aura without even having to fight anybody? Wizards can rack up hundreds of damage per shot with Kalakoth's minor blights. Priests can nuke everybody from the orbit with 160-240 dmg from Shining Beacon. And last but not least, monks can spam Torment's Reach for 100+ dmg each at a machine gun rate, they can even do it from the distance. There's no shortage of super strong and reliable AOE options in PoE.

 

[Parabalus]

No specific build, no. I'm not even sure if there's a way to build a bad monk (reasonable build choices of course).

The thing with monks is that with the way damage scales on their unarmed attacks, high level monk is basically double wielding two-handed weapons, yet with very short animations and recovery time. Damage requirement for wounds, however, remains the same, so the proportion of damage to your health total that you need to take to fill up your bar becomes progressively smaller. No need for particularly high CON to be viable at high levels. And then you don't need to wait to be hit by the enemy to fill up on wounds either. Just hit your own monk in a beginning of a fight, or disengage and refill instantly.

So you get a character with already top class damage, DPS, great survivability, but then you also get very potent abilities that power off an easy to obtain resource, are very spammable, and since expansions all of them can be used at range too (with Long Pain), at ridiculously high rate of fire. As much as I like crit rogue, a monk can probably match him in damage and DPS, and then can also tank, stun/knock down individual targets even at range when necessary, drop AOE bombs, tripple up in number, you name it. All without any special preparation or unique items.

The only problem with monks (and the reason I don't really like to play them) is that they require a lot of micro to operate, and so can get very annoying to control, especially if you have more than one.

It's kinda hard to compare builds exactly since there is no "training room", I do agree mostly with your assessment, but I do think it's not that gloomy. I'd estimate a monk probably does around 80% in AoE / Single Target / Tank compared to a dedicated Barbarian / Rogue / w.e. tanky . I don't think he can surpass them in an individual category, but the whole package is very strong, yes.

High CON is basically everything over 3, most other classes can comfortably roll with that, but you'd have to rest way to often with a monk for my taste to do that.

I think monks are the most micro intensive class, you have a lot of stuff to pay attention to play optimally - but even on the base AI they are very effective since it spams torment's reach by default.

Never tried Long Pain myself, I'll give a shot when I feel the urge to play again.

 

[The Bishop]

It's kinda hard to compare builds exactly since there is no "training room"

You can do a lot with just console commands. Create new characters, level them, manipulate stats, create items, make crafting free etc. I just keep saved games in areas with conveniently placed enemies or create characters and have them fight each other when I want to test something.

 

[Haplo]

Not really, as there are caps how low you can go, as Parabalus explained. Once you hit 0 Recovery (doable with 3 Dex while dual-wielding), the attacks speed benefits are very minor.

There are no caps for DEX. Well, there are, but only because of engine limitations. DEX speeds up animations, not just reducing recovery time. Just launch the game, open console, set a character's Dex to 999, and see what happens when that character attacks somebody.

Okay, caps wasn't the right word. But dimnishing returns from Dex do apply. For normal speed weapons (single normal one hander or two-hander), with NO other speed modifiers, the difference between 10 and 20 Dex is 85 -> 66.5 frames. Or 22%. At 10 Dex and no other modifiers, the next point means a 2,8% speed increase. At 20 Dex, an additional point means a 2,1% increase.. If you reach 0 recovery (easy for dual wielders, a bit more tricky for two-handers/single weapons), that's 35 -> 28. Still almost 21%, BUT 7 frames really aren't much.

If I were making a dual-wielder with no reliance on magic, scrolls, pots and such, I'd probably dump Dex and leave it at 3, since I'd be at 0 recovery anyway and the rest of the frames do not amount to that much. I could still use items and buffs to reach ~8 Dex, which should be plenty for a dual-wielder.

 

[Geckabor]

When is the best time to start the expansion pack content? I'm currently doing Act 2 quests/sidequests in Defiance Bay (just reached level 7).

 

[Haplo]

That's not a bad time to start. Depends really. It will level scale, so no worries. Only advice is not to visit that content and later come back fort more - as your first visit will level lock the White March pt. 1 (and after the dream, next visit will level lock pt. 2.). Additional areas outside White March can be tackled anytime, but are some of the most challenging content, so better left till Act 3.

 

[Prime Junta]

When is the best time to start the expansion pack content? I'm currently doing Act 2 quests/sidequests in Defiance Bay (just reached level 7).

Either do it now and start a new game when you finish them, or leave them until just before the endgame and play the with level scaling on.

If it's your first playthrough, I'd recommend the latter because there's a lot of neat stuff in the base game that will be completely eclipsed by the epic lewt from WM, so you'll kind of miss out.

 

[Haplo]

On the other hand, its a shame not to put all that phat lewd to good use.

 

[Geckabor]

The issue I have is that the main story is actually interesting to me at the moment, and WM would probably detach me from all of it for quite a while. Then again, people say WM is the best part of PoE, so I'd want to play it before possibly getting burnt out from the game... tough decision!

 

[Parabalus]

Don't worry about it at, you can mix and match at will. WM1 has a lot of cool goodies right at the start, you can check it out and go back. If you level up past 10 and didn't finish WM1/Act3 you can type ToggleScaler in the console (bypassing the "level lock" Haplo mentioned), if you think you're steamrolling stuff because of level difference, just enjoy the ride.

 

[FreeKaner]

What's the best animal companion, lads?

 

[CyberWhale]

For you? A roach.

 

[FreeKaner]

Old meme.

 

[Sizzle]

For you? A roach.

Did you just tell him to play the Witcher 3? :D

 

[CyberWhale]

It's not about the originality, it's about proper usage, goddamnit.

 

[FreeKaner]

It's not about the originality, it's about proper usage, goddamnit.

The propler use is for Brits, trust me, I know memes.

 

[Prime Junta]

What's the best animal companion, lads?

As meat shield, bear. (Antelope works also.)

As damager, wolf. (Lion works also.)

 

[HoboForEternity]

I'm finally finishing up the White March II.

Whoo! What a fucking amazing expansion. Every encounter is fucking fun as shit to play.

yeah. Playing white march makes me wants to play the game all over again, but remember i will probably disappointed because the main gaem encounter sucks

 

[santino27]

I'm finally finishing up the White March II.

Whoo! What a fucking amazing expansion. Every encounter is fucking fun as shit to play.

yeah. Playing white march makes me wants to play the game all over again, but remember i will probably disappointed because the main gaem encounter sucks

Yeah, I'm doing a full playthrough now to prep for POE2 next year, and while the expansions pieces are a blast, the knowledge that I'll still have to mow through Twin Elms and the rest to finish kind of sucks.

 

[Starwars]

Use that soulbound weapons that sometimes downright destroyes vessels. That almost broke some of those fights.

 

[Haplo]

Use that soulbound weapons that sometimes downright destroyes vessels. That almost broke some of those fights.

WHICH ONE IS THAT

St. Ydven's Redeemer I guess (greatsword).
Also Abydon's Hammer should be effective against them.

 

[FreeKaner]

The Kraken itself is a joke to beat

It needed way more armour, it's way too easy to just blast it up with guns before it can even start attacking you, especially with blunderbusses.

 

[Prime Junta]

Any of you guys managed to find good ways to fuck the eyeless up? I managed to do okay using aloth's magic missle that shoots in an aura around him. That really really just rapes.

Abydon's Hammer. That's what it's for.