Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Jezal_k23]

Can someone please recommend me some powerful spells/combos that wizards, druids or ciphers have? My last playthrough was done relatively blindly and I feel I wasn't creative with what I can do with my spellcasters.

 

[Lacrymas]

Cipher - Amplified Wave and Defensive Mindweb. Once you get Amplified Wave the game is practically over, you just spend the next half of it mechanically grinding the encounters. Defensive Mindweb is ridiculously overpowered, it makes everyone in the party unkillable. Don't know about Wizards or Druids, didn't have any in my party. I think the game would be most enjoyable without a Cipher and Priest in your party, they trivialize the vast majority of it.

 

[Quillon]

I think the game would be most enjoyable without a Cipher and Priest in your party

The game would be most enjoyable without GM & Durance you say, interesting :D

 

[Lacrymas]

I don't recommend taking the companions at all, hire adventurers, you get more useful party members with the added benefit of very welcome silence. There was a whole laundry list of things I had to do to make the game playable and enjoyable, so no surprise there.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Currently got myself (ranger), Eder, Aloth, Durance, Hiravias and Kana, playing on PotD. Acquired GM, but I didn't know whether to use her or not. If ciphers are that OP then I might not. Will think about getting rid of Durance.

 

[aweigh]

indeed, playing without a Priest immediately makes PoE combat 1000x more "tactical". forces you to craft potions to heal, buff allies, remove ailments/afflictions and also forces you to level up everyone's LORE so you can craft for them scrolls of defense, scrolls of protection, scrolls of immunity VS x/y/z, etc.

priest class is ridiculously OP, not only are they the only source of real healing, but later levels durance gets spells that fucking wreck everything, i don't remember the name of it but i remember beating all end-game encounters by having durance spam a high level priest spell where some golden sun rays flash down on an ENEMY ONLY AREA (no friendly fire) and the shit first does fire damage, then fucking crush damage from meteors or some shit, and I think it even had a chance to land a minor affliction, blind or something.

plus it's absolutely inexcusable that level 1 spells like SLICKEN and level 2 spells like repulsing seal are better than half the entire spell lists for wiz/priests. PRONE affliction 2 stronk. Josh did good adding via patches enemy immunities to shit, but he should've just DECREASED THE INNATE ACCURACY BONUS OF THOSE TYPES OF SPELLS.

In fact, shit like Slicken should come with -5 ACC modifier, etc.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, sure, Priests are great, but due to 3 reasons IMO:
1. Huge party wide buffs to Accuracy PLUS huge debuffs to enemy defences with stuff like Painfull Interdiction. Accuracy is everything, so that makes them very desirable.
2. Immunities (not as overpowered as people make them out to be IMO, as you face many of the afflictions way sooner then the Cleric learns to counter them and the best ones are single-target).
3. I guess also Crowns of the Faithfull. That's a huge defensive boost (Deflection + Willpower + Concentration)...

Then there are the DR debuffs, offensive spells, Spark the Souls of the Righteous (really potent DoT) and so on.

I would not include healing there. I mean sure, they can heal and it helps... sometimes... but I've found their heals inferior to druid heals.
I've rarely used the Cleric heals. Did use their Revival magic sometimes though. Trying to outheal incoming damage on a squishy with a Cleric is a lost battle. You either shut the enemy down, Withdraw your ally... or wait and revive your ally.

 

[aweigh]

...or use your Rogue's COORDINATED POSITIONING and swap places with them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111



OMGOGMOMG POEP OEPOE POEEEEee

 

[CptMace]

In fact, shit like Slicken should come with -5 ACC modifier, etc.

Another way to balance these out is by removing grazes from the equation. When you're assured to prone for half base time +36% (thanks to heroic intellect), you're basically assured to hit all the time, which made these aoe(enemy) spells so damn good in the first one.
This, I suspect, although counts in the critics towards poe2's wizard. Wizards don't have access to grazes by class feats.

 

[The Bishop]

Can someone please recommend me some powerful spells/combos that wizards, druids or ciphers have? My last playthrough was done relatively blindly and I feel I wasn't creative with what I can do with my spellcasters.

For Wizards I'd recommend avoiding all their direct damage spells (which are garbage, especially compared to priest) and focus on disruption. In my experience Confusion is the most useful Wizard spell, followed by Shadowflame (obtainable in WM1) and Enervating Terror. What makes Confusion strong is the very thing discussed above - even a graze will flip your target, and even the target that just decides to do nothing will be targeted by allies. Sneaking up on a group of enemies and opening up with Confusion trivializes many fights, because it gives you ample time to buff up and choose your targets while enemies unload all their most dangerous abilities on each other. Shadowflame is instant cast mass paralyze, so that's obviously very strong too. Enervating terror is just a good genral purpose debuff that stacks well with other good debuffs, all in big area and for a long period of time.

If you want to do damage, use summoned weapons. Minor Blights can deal ludicrous amounts of damage against clumped up enemies if you have Penetrating Blast on your Wizard, because each shot you make has an AOE, and each enemy damaged by this AOE will generate blast.

As for combos, Deleterious Alacrity of Motion works great with everything, especially summoned weapons. Binding web + immunity to stuck works very well for structuring battles.

Generally strong stuff for Wizards - Slicken, Chill Fog, Curse of Blackened Sight, Essential Phantom, Gaze of Adragan, Wall of Many Colors. Bewildering Spectacle can be ok as an early game version of Confusion. Writhing Tentacles and Pull of Eora can be situationaly useful as well.

It's ironic that one of design pillars for Wizard in PoE was to have limited number of spells per level so you'd have to switch grimoires, but there isn't enough useful spells to fill more than one. The useful ones are pretty good though.

 

[Lacrymas]

Prime Junta also says Dangerous Implement Wizard is very strong. Otherwise, yeah, many spells for all classes are overshadowed by just a few which are more useful in 99% of situations.

 

[Prime Junta]

More or less as above.

(1) IMO Pull of Eora is hands-down the most generally useful wizard spell. Combine that with an AoE hazard (some druid spells are especially lulzy although wizards pack a few too) and it's mass murder. Oh and Combusting Wounds is a fabulous damage amplifier, slap that on a cluster of enemies and follow up with anything that does lots of hits fast (an implement and Blast f.ex.) and mobs will melt.
(2) Yes, Dangerous Implement wizard will get you direct weapon damage up there with the best, without the melee microing. Pick Infuse with Vital Essence for spell mastery and remember to cast it near the end of the fight and he'll keep trucking forever. Also some defensive self-buffs in case he gets swarmed. This also makes a really powerful solo build once past the very early game.

 

[Haplo]

Agree with Pull of Eora. It's insanely strong. No save against the effect as long as you're in radius, I think. Plus AI is too stupid to leave the aoe until next action tick... by then the spell effect triggers again and lumps everyone together again.

Confusion sure is potent (as well as Cipher charms), but personally I've found it more trouble then it's worth. It would change enemies to allies and my guys would stop attacking them. Worse, they would break my flanks, penetrate my ranks unhindered. Make the battles real messy. Sure you can force-attack them.. but again it's more trouble then it's worth.

 

[Mexi]

Currently got myself (ranger), Eder, Aloth, Durance, Hiravias and Kana, playing on PotD. Acquired GM, but I didn't know whether to use her or not. If ciphers are that OP then I might not. Will think about getting rid of Durance.

I must not know how to play with ciphers because they aren't so overpowered that you destroy everything. They're the definition of glass canon. I have to micromanage with GM. It's fun, though. I don't feel like they're so overpowered like mages in Baldur's Gate, but yea, GM is a fucking beast in terms of damage and cc. I can still die if I hit an area at a low level, though. I went into White March with a level 6 or level 7 party with GM and still got wiped out. Had to wait until level 8 to where I could actually kill the first boss encounter. Playing PoTD, by the way.

I think GM, Durance, and Eder are mandatory. They're the best characters in the game.

 

[Iznaliu]

Otherwise, yeah, many spells for all classes are overshadowed by just a few which are more useful in 99% of situations

That makes it a lot like the Infinity Englne games, and is yet another piece of evidence against those who say that the IE games are totally different from PoE from a player's perspective (rather than a system designer's perspective).

 

[aweigh]

As The Bishop says, Wizard spells like Confusion, (AoE spell which) Blind Enemies (forgot its name), EXPOSE VULNERABILITIES (Foe-only AoE which debuffs enemies' Attributes and defenses and DR, it's retarded), and even good-ole SLICKEN will "trivialize" almost every single fight in PoE.

That is not to say that only Wizards can do this, in fact even innocent items can do it! There is a shield you can get in Vanilla PoE (no DLC required) which reflects spells back at the caster. There's also another shield which has Bash property (that Bash thing SUCKS and never use it except for this specific shield that) procs a spell which immediately "Interrupts" + damages the enemy, essentially making the Melee-oriented char with this shield able to STUN-LOCK ENEMIES simply by taking "Interrupt. Blows" talent then using this shield + one of the various Interrupt-oriented weapons (like Mabec's Morningstar).

I recommend doing the following in order to have the most "tactical experience" with PoE:

- Always go against non-Martial (i.e. I'm referring to caster-types/hybrids)-- Ahem, always build them against their "standard" build path.

- Since Wizards trivialize encounters by CC'ing instead edit Aloth's stats (or hire a custom) and give him 18 MIGHT and 18 DEX, and fill his spellbook with direct-damage spells that are either "Fast" or that "Interrupt":

1) Thrust of Tattered Veils (Fast, plus instantly interrupts foe and does some damage)
2) Mirror Shards something or other (Fast, hobbles enemies, foe-only AoE)
3) Corrode Lance (or whatever it's called); it's "Average" speed, but it will be your biggest pure DAMAGE DEALER spell if you...

3b) ...take the talent (under Utility tree) which boosts +25% the "Corrode" element/property, thus turning Necro-Lance (whatever it's called!) into your all-game, all-purpose, any-enemy single-target direct-damage spell that has GOOD RANGE and with the above Talent plus Aloth's edited 18 MIGHT, well it's p. fucking good.

Etc, etc, you get the gist.

-- BONUS TIP FOR NOT MAKING PoE WIZARDS BORING, i.e. TOO GOOD --

DO NOT TAKE THE WIZARD TALENT "Penetrating Blast".

- It turns Aloth's auto-attack with an implement weapon into the game's most damaging, most easy-to-abuse, most power-gaming friendly enemy killing tool.

1) A Wizard with the 2 Blast talents (Pen. Bl. + the one that upgrades it) combines + spell which summons magical implement (Something Floating Blights spell) plus combines + PENETRATING SHOT (Talent which makes RANGED ATTACKS deal extra +3 DR to foe) plus combines + Talent called something like DANGEROUS IMPLEMENTS which makes the Wizard deal more DMG but loses like, 2 hit points every 2 hours.

Penetrating Blast + Pen. Blast Tier 2 + Vulnerable Shot + Dangerous Implements + (optional really) that spell which summons magical implements (Something or Other "Blights").

If you do this, it will turn Aloth/Wizard char into an auto-attack killing machine that, without any hyperbole, would you make 6 of these custom bad boys and have all 6 custom Wizards blasting and penetrating, by mid-game you could win any encounter by simply letting them all auto-attack without ever even having to watch the screen.

------------------------------------------------

The other class that "breaks" PoE and makes it less "tactical" (lol) are the Priests.

- Above posts already outlined main reasons why. Their spells are simply too good, too accurate, and cover too many areas of exploitation and/or party defenses.

Instead, go against common sense and do this:

1) Edit Durance's attributes and give him 18 MIGHT, 18 DEX, 18 RES, sacrifice the other attribs. (Or make custom Priest).
2) Edit Durance's "sub-class" change him from MAGRAN priest to: priest of Skaen. (or make custom one this).

Why? Priests of Skaen get for free their very own SNEAK ATTACK. Yep. Mhm.

- They also can pick a talent which gives them +10 ACC with: Stilettos and one other weapon I forgot.
- Pick from Def. tree the talent called "Weapon and Shield", give Durance a any one of the MANY, MANY MAGIC STILETTOS in the game, ALL OF THEM over-powered, but easy pick is Azureth's Stiletto from Gilded Vale shop which procs Jolting Touch (lewl) during usage.
- Use priest spells like "HALT" (immobilizes enemy, targets will, long range), Repulsing Seal (prone) to...
- ...have them watch you then use AGGRANDIZING RADIANCE (talent which makes priests' Radiance ability power him by +3'ing every attrib., and doing less healing to party instead)...
- ...give the this Skaen Priest a shield w/ BASH property.

Remember how I said Bash-shields are worthless because the Bashing atk. is useless, does almost no damage, and the shields add recovery time?

There is one detail: in PoE, weapons which "proc" something (like that stilletto which procs jolting touch) become 2x more effective when you are using a BASHING SHIELD.

The "Bash" attack counts as a FULL ATTACK, so the 2nd attack (the Bash itself), while slowing you down and doing no dmg will also trigger the MAIN WEAPON'S "Proc" CHANCE AGAIN.

This also applies to FULL ATTACK ABILITIES like "Knockdown". If Eder is using Weapon + Larder Door, and uses Knockdown on enemy: he will get TWO CHANCES FOR THE "Secondary effect" (the Knockdown) to "trigger", as the BASHING ATTACK, if it grazes/hits, WILL TRIGGER THE "Knockdown" ABILITY.

Obviously, "Eder" would get the same 2x chance for ability trigger dual-wielding, but would not benefit from Shield + corresponding Talent for Shields. Obviously way less DMG output, but I mention this because very few people know about Bashing property's nuances, and it makes a character/build who relies on Weapon/Attacking-based Abilities (like Knockdown, or all Rogue abilities, etc), AND ALSO uses Proc/On-Hit property Main-hand weapon much more useful.

This means a "Sword and Shield" character, with Main-hand weapon a good one with a good Proc or any other type of "on-hit" trigger ability, will benefit from 2x the chances of having that weapon "trigger" + have very high Deflection + Reflex from the Swd. and Shd. talent and...

...if said character is a Rogue then combine + "RIPOSE" talent which makes the character "counter attack" an enemy if the enemy misses, and the "Riposte" itself also counts as a Full Attack which means 2 more chances for the Main-hand weapon to "trigger".

Yup, simply put it is as if you had 2 of the same weapon. Not as good, of course, because if you actually did have 2x Azureth Stilettos you would have less recovery time than you do using a Bashing Shield, but...

- This priest will sneak attack + use proc'ing weapon with 2x chance of triggering due to the + use of Bashing Shield + talent "Weap. and Shield" will then round him out by boosting DEFLECTION and making him viable to have go into the "melee" of the encounter.

---------------------------------------------------

Ciphers:

- Don't use Ciphers!

----------------------------------------------------

Here's another pro-tip to make PoE SUPER TACTICAL:

- DON'T EVER USE THOSE ITEMS THAT SUMMON: Beetles, Animats, etc. DON'T USE THEM. EVER.

Why? They're insta-win items. Sell them instead.

- DON'T MAKE MAJORITY OF PARTY WEAR PLATE ARMOR.

Why? Plate is too good. WAY too good. It prevents you from enjoying all the cool other types of armos.

I like doing this:

1) Char 1 uses Brigandine.
2) Char 2 uses Mail.
3) uses Breastplate.
4) uses Scale.
5) uses Leather.
6) wild card! Anything you want cept plate. Usually this 6th slot would be Aloth/Hierovas, i.e. your main caster character. Currently I just:

- From Raedric's Keep acquire the special custom robes you use to disguise yourselves there, because they're the only items in the entire game that have DR (2 dr) and 0% recovery.

Enchant those things and have the 6th slot (caster char) use that shit.

 

[aweigh]

Remember, everything in above post is stuff you shouldn't do if you want PoE to be "tactical".

That means: you'll have to craft foods, potions, scrolls, use bottlenecks when possible, intelligently use/abuse engagement system (right now I'm even using those talents for ove Speed and +Defense vs Disengaging), etc.

Since my Aloth doesn't CC enemies, and I don't like taking Arcane Veil (it's too good), whenever he gets swarmed he just runs away (have him using some gear that also ups Disengagement defense).

Have Eder and everyone who is non-caster using HOLD THE LINE talents + in Eder's case Defender talent. These talents are ASS and are blasphemy to power-gamers, but I've already power-gamed PoE like you wouldn't believe. It's fun watching the engagement system work as intended, and every time my Skaen-priest Durance uses his HOLD THE LINE to Engage an enemy while Aloth fires a Thrust of Tat. Veil spell at the enemy and to keep that enemy stun-locked (interrupted) thus making that enemy susceptible to sneak attacks...

...I think: am I having fun? wtf am i doing, and then I alt + f4.

 

[Lacrymas]

Good write-up. Basically any smart play will trivialize PoE, even using specific classes. Only one thing - Priests of Skaen don't get the sneak attack for free, it's a talent they pick up.

 

[aweigh]

You gotta give Obsi this though:

Even if their game is retardedly easy to "break", it is also very, very fun to "power game" even insofar as doing "reverse power gaming", and it's a rare game that is fun when playing optimally, AND STILL FUN when trying to find ways to make "junk" talents/properties/builds viable.

I didn't even know about how easy it is to make a "Riposte" Rogue using a Bashing Shield and using an "On-hit" type weapon to wreck enemies while having high defense from Shield-talent. It only occurred to me recently when I was reading through a thread on Obsi. forums where they broke down the Bash property by looking at its code.

I would go so far as to say that probably most of the devs themsevles would not even know that Bashing Shields count as a Full Attack for game purpose of having main-hand weapon and/or ABILITY USE trigger on the BASHING attack.

The game itself is so poorly documented that nowhere will you find details like:

- Depending on weapon used, when a character finishes their ATTACK FRAMES and enter RECOVERY FRAMES (from the weapon usage) they will "randomly" be penalized with an extra 2-3 extra "frames" where the char. will simply not animate, until then beginning "RECOVERY PERIOD" (i.e. the period affected by ARMOR, etc).

Anyway, my ponit is simply that one thing PoE gets right is giving the player a lot of options and succeeds in having them all be viable. This means it's too easy to outsmart the game, but on the flip-side it also means there is more replay value for those who simply want to not do the optimal strategies, and still actually have fun.

(i.e. just because you don't use optimal strategy/build/items, it doesn't mean you won't have fun). In a lot of other RPGs this is rarely the case and non-smart playing builds/styles are usually relegated to stuff like self-imposed challenges.

Like, say, the dumb Resident Evil players who finish it knife-only.

EDIT: If the game were easier to mod, I would've done a balance pass a long, long time ago. I would've changed everything for the better (trust me!). Too bad it is a fucking unbelievable pain in the ass to mod.

You can't even just hack the game files via HEX EDITING as I tried that in early days of PoE release and the game flips the fuck out because of Unity or something. EVERYTHING needs to be EXPORTED via Unity software, edited INDIVIDUALLY (!!!), then IMPORTED BACK INTO GAME or else the game won't work.

Otherwise changing values on items/talents/classes would be as easy as opening the file in a hex-editor and changing a 2 into a 5, etc.

 

[Lacrymas]

Finding ways to gimp your characters by making shitty builds is a "self-imposed challenge" :p

 

[aweigh]

sure, i agree, but my point was/is that in this specific case (PoE) it can result in the game still being "fun" to play, unlike most other games where similar conditions are relegated to gimmick-runs.

 

[FreeKaner]

How do you guys stay on top of all these learnings?

Josh: Well, one of the things we’re working on integrating now is telemetrics. So, there’s a lot of subjective stuff you can get from observing Twitch and YouTube, and while we haven’t done it in a while, we do occasionally invite people in to play the game and then we’re in another room watching the feed. You can get a lot out of that. But telemetrics allow you to sort so much data from a larger pool – it goes beyond the anecdote of an individual player’s experience and you see a lot of patterns emerge, such as things they miss, or drop, what chests they open or don’t open, what paths they take through and in what order, did they notice a secret door, where they stop, or where they die, or where they quit playing. There’s all sorts of things that we can get out of that.

It’s not something that Obsidian has a ton of experience doing, but we’re realizing increasingly that there’s a lot of data that you can’t even get through polls. Polls, in a lot of cases, involves a specific community and a very specific type of player. I remember talking to a guy who did brand management for Lucasfilm, and he said, “who would you guess is the most popular character in the prequel movies?”. And I said, “I dunno, maybe like Jango Fett or someone like that?” and he said, “it’s Jar Jar Binks.” I said, “there’s no way” but he told me that if you go online and look at forums, then the answer you’ll get is that it’s never going to be Jar Jar Binks, but when you ask people anonymously in a different context outside of a community setting, a lot of people will then go for Jar Jar – often it’s kids or people who feel intimidated by online communities.

So it’s not that that’s the case with Pillars characters or anything, but what people tend to do versus what they say, especially within a community, can be very different, and telemetrics can tell a different story. It’s not that one story is the whole picture – it’s a matter of just getting more insight into informing our understanding of how people actually use the games that we make.

Interesting read, but it raises some red flags.

Josh's talk about Jar Jar makes me concerned that Obsidian's aim is to analyze and actively pander to the preferences of average mainstream customers, which inevitably leads formulatic garbage à la Marvel movies.

It not only raises red flags, it's completely concerning and could actually explain quite bit of design decisions in PoE2 so far.

 

[Lacrymas]

PoE2, and to some extent PoE1, seem like they are designed around some mystical, vague and not-very-well defined audience that doesn't really exist. Or it may only exist within their own playtesting sessions. Their insistence on removing everything that people don't understand the very second they read it (f.e. Health/Endurance) show that they underestimate their audience and don't really give them a chance to prove that they aren't stupid. I feel like people are going to understand more than Obs give them credit for. Or I might just be naive, there's a very amusing story about the composer Sergei Prokofiev where he was absolutely sure that other composers were underestimating people by not putting more modern and complex music in operas, so he wrote The Love for Three Oranges with the intent to prove them wrong. At the premier, however, there were riots and harsh criticism from critics, calling it "the only joke in the opera is that people paid money for it". So, yeah, maybe Prokofiev's experience is doomed to repeat itself throughout time.

 

[FreeKaner]

I feel like Josh and the rest in Obsidian are currently in the process of making a mistake by assuming the statistical median is an actual person, then after that trying to cater to this imaginary person. They might be forgetting individuals are not projections of the mean of sum of the statistics, also likely forgetting their audience already exists at the margins of the common video game consumer. It's actually kind of sad seeing Josh read about how the average person is a fan of Jar Jar Binks then considering Jar Jar Binks a success. Average person does not play roleplaying games, following path of telemetrics would essentially result in scrapping PoE altogether and making a FPS star wars game.

 

[Quillon]

I always found it strange the amount of resources poured in audience research, especially those polls with obvious/joke questions; of course I want reactivity in your game very strongly, if some idiot doesn't want it, that idiot is not interested in RPGs, it shouldn't be hard predicting what your target audience wants.

Telemetrics will show that most players are playing their characters as the good hero(which they don't need telemetrics to know), which will lead them to reduce morally questionable choices in their next game and eventually they'll make their games without choices but players will get to take that only choice with different attitudes! That's the way to success as Bioware shown... actually, yeah they are the example; Obs don't need telemetrics to be the next Bioware, they were collecting gameplay data since DAO, follow in Bio's footsteps and you'll be fine Obs, just don't fuck up the animations

Anyway, jokes aside I don't think this will have much impact to anything, I trust they are not idiots so they should find good use for the data they'll collect and whatever route they'll take in the future, it won't be cause of telemetrics, it'll be whatever Ferg & Co wants. If they wan't bigger piece from the pie in the expense of making things they don't particularly like, they'll start with adding multiplayer features to their - supposed to be single player oriented - games which they haven't yet so Obs is safe from the dark path for the foreseeable feature :D