Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Parabalus]

Is there a point to wearing armor without stats at all on someone that isn't a tank lol? I'm currently wearing plain clothes and have 3 of my other peeps naked.

No, especially on ranged characters. On melee it's iffier since that AI can swap to them willy nilly. When the came out my PC rogue wore Ixamitl clothing the whole game, with TWM you can remove recovery from robes so clothing does get phased out definitely.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, I remember wearing only plain clothes on my PC the whole game when it came out, too. I was just wondering if that has changed. I guess not. It's kind of a weird design choice tbh.

 

[Jason Liang]

Still undecided about this game but Rogue is awesome, especially compared to Ranger. Ranger's pet is pathetic even if you waste feats buffing it. So the only thing Ranger has over Rogue is Arrow Sense (+15 deflection vs range attacks) but Rogue's damage feats are like 3X better than Ranger's. Besides Rogue has awesome feats like Escape and Shadowing Beyond.

This is based on solo PotD but I don't see why it would be any different with a party.

 

[FreeKaner]

Yeah, I remember wearing only plain clothes on my PC the whole game when it came out, too. I was just wondering if that has changed. I guess not. It's kind of a weird design choice tbh.

The issue is DR of anything below a breastplate doesn't really matter and any of your characters will be much more tanky with a shield and weapon & shield style talent that only really a paladin with deep faith can compare. This is what Josh is trying to adress with new penetration mechanics I assume.

 

[Lacrymas]

Ranger's pet is pathetic even if you waste feats buffing it.

Which one? I picked bear for my hireling ranger because I wanted to use him (her? who knows?) as a tank, buffed it with Resilient Companion and it can stand its own pretty well, at least for now.

 

[Haplo]

Yeah, I remember wearing only plain clothes on my PC the whole game when it came out, too. I was just wondering if that has changed. I guess not. It's kind of a weird design choice tbh.

My frontliners typically wear Plate, minimum Breastplate. I rather like them alive and kicking and Plate helps a lot. Also Sanguine Plate is of this type and I like both it's Frenzy trigger and the +2 Survival bonus.
Wizard usually wears padded... when he casts DaoM he's very fast anyways and gets diesplacement and Arcane Mantle when he gets the heat.
Cipher wears Breasplate, like her to keep on kicking, even if she gets aggro.
Ranger typically wears Leather/Robe, depending on need.
Priest.. I would like to protect him, but his cast speed is pretty essential, so Durganized chain or even Robe, I guess.

Still undecided about this game but Rogue is awesome, especially compared to Ranger. Ranger's pet is pathetic even if you waste feats buffing it. So the only thing Ranger has over Rogue is Arrow Sense (+15 deflection vs range attacks) but Rogue's damage feats are like 3X better than Ranger's. Besides Rogue has awesome feats like Escape and Shadowing Beyond.

This is based on solo PotD but I don't see why it would be any different with a party.

Disagree. Ranger is like two characters in one. The pet is an excellent offtank/interceptor or flanker, who's great at protecting your backline and can coordinate with the ranger to tear anyone apart in seconds. Attack speed is low, but hits like a truck. Ranger himself is excellent at removing enemy squishies without ever being at risk. Best Ranger class skillset out of all games I have played.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Still undecided about this game but Rogue is awesome, especially compared to Ranger. Ranger's pet is pathetic even if you waste feats buffing it. So the only thing Ranger has over Rogue is Arrow Sense (+15 deflection vs range attacks) but Rogue's damage feats are like 3X better than Ranger's. Besides Rogue has awesome feats like Escape and Shadowing Beyond.

This is based on solo PotD but I don't see why it would be any different with a party.

You need to invest in deflection or heavy micro to keep your rogue uptime to dish the damage.

 

[Grunker]

Ranger's pet is pathetic even if you waste feats buffing it.

Which one? I picked bear for my hireling ranger because I wanted to use him (her? who knows?) as a tank, buffed it with Resilient Companion and it can stand its own pretty well, at least for now.

As usual, Jason's absolutes are misleading. If you want damage, Ranger can't compete with the Rogue (well, mostly, at least). The Ranger brings utility and harassment to the table that the Rogue just doesn't have.

 

[Prime Junta]

Is there a point to wearing armor without stats at all on someone that isn't a tank lol? I'm currently wearing plain clothes and have 3 of my other peeps naked.

I find the game most enjoyable to play with everybody wearing some armour -- generally padded-ish or leather-ish for squishier ones, breastplate-ish to platemail-ish for frontliners. It is possible to play the game effectively with little to no armour, but I find it tedious -- I find it requires too much micro or other busywork.

 

[Prime Junta]

About rangers.

Probably my most steamrollery party I played with had three rangers, two paladins, and a druid, all dwarves or orlans. First line is the animals, second line is paladin, druid, paladin, third line is the rangers. Animals hold the front, rangers rain destruction from the back, paladins keep the animals standing as well as provide overlapping auras (Focus and Endurance or Charge), plus buff and remove status conditions, and if there's anybody left when the animals finally go down, mop it up and hold it down to finish the fight; in really tough cases I'd let Hiravias off the leash with his spells.

 

[Lacrymas]

Stacking classes usually breaks this game, so I'm not surprised.

 

[Prime Junta]

Stacking classes usually breaks this game, so I'm not surprised.

Does. Six chanters is lulzy too. Soft Winds of Death stacks with itself, so...

 

[Grunker]

I can confirm. Currently playing with four paladins and it's pretty clearly not meant for stuff like that. When I get Sacred Immolation I suspect it's gonna get pretty stupid

 

[Prime Junta]

I can confirm. Currently playing with four paladins and it's pretty clearly not meant for stuff like that. When I get Sacred Immolation I suspect it's gonna get pretty stupid

...says the guy who was sniffing at my Red Wizard / Arcane Scholar...

 

[Grunker]

Those games are piss easy tho

 

[Jason Liang]

"Ranger is like two characters in one."

Why do you need two characters in one to play a game that you can solo on the hardest difficulty? If my rogue actually needed a tank or offtank, I'd have recruited Eber or a monk.

 

[Parabalus]

"Ranger is like two characters in one."

Why do you need two characters in one to play a game that you can solo on the hardest difficulty? If my rogue actually needed a tank or offtank, I'd have recruited Eber or a monk.

Why do you need a party in Bg2 when you can solo on the highest difficulty? It's fun.

 

[Prime Junta]

Why do you need to play the game at all? Because it's fun, that's why.

 

[Lacrymas]

Lol, Red Wizard/Arcane Scholar. You don't get more munchkiny than that. You can play BG however you wish and it's still great. You can solo PoE with a level 1 ranger btw - https://pastebin.com/3b6zF0k0

 

[Lacrymas]

Here's a funny bug - Eder has a quip when you get to the second level of the Eothas Temple, but it still triggers even if he isn't in the party. It's like nobody at Obsidian could fathom that you might not have Eder in your party then, so they programmed it to trigger on area transition rather than checking if he's present.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Anyway, cleared out Magran's Fork, coming from BG1 the combat is very clusterfucky and it feels 10 times faster (in a bad way). I might start using slow mode.

Combat is pretty bad, coming from BG and IWD. I find slow mode to be a must.

 

[Sentinel]

Does Paladin Vagina make a good replacement for Edér as the party's main tank? If so, does she need a shield?

 

[FreeKaner]

Anything can make for a "tank", but tanks aren't really something you need in PoE. Give someone a shield and weapon & shield talent and they can frontline, the problem comes from them providing utility afterwards.

I feel while Paladins can get super hard to kill they don't provide enough impact when focused purely as a damage-soaker. Pallegina has an advantage of in-built talent of AS boost for your party. Still you are forfeiting a lot of damage.

 

[Lacrymas]

My paladin is currently level 3 and almost impossible to take down, so they are fine as tanks. They can't engage as many enemies as fighters, but eehh. The combination of heavy armor + shield fucks up your recovery, though, which pisses me off to no end, active abilities take forever to activate and with the ultra-fast clusterfuck that is the combat I feel it's a major negative.

 

[Sentinel]

Well I'm trying to replay the game with different companions... I already used 90% of them in one of my playthroughs, and Edér was present in all of them and I never really used Paladin Vagina so I was looking to replace him. I'm having a hard time finding motivation though because everything's still the same.

This is yet another one of PoE's short comings. BG had at least 2 companions for each class in the game. In PoE1 and 2 with one playthrough you see 90% of the companions available and there's really no point replaying the game.