Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[adddeed]

I used to hoard them now i chug them liberally. You can always buy more if you run out plus you find them everywhere in containers etc.
No point in hoarding them, at least stash them and sell them.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Ah, the eternal problem of hoarding consumables in case they will be needed later

I'm guilty of this myself - I think the paralyze scrolls were the only ones that I used, since they can actually turn the tide in some harder fights.

 

[Sharpedge]

Question for dudes that finished POTD one or more times - what fight you found the most difficult?

Looking back, for me it was probably the upscaled Alpine Dragon.

Funnily enough I didn't have any troubles with Llengrath and her pack - went into this fight totally unprepared (with lvl cap reached already) and whacked them on first try. Alpine Dragon was a pain though and I had to reload at least couple of times for some reason, but then again I haven't checked his immunities beforehand.

Early game. Any of the late game fights can be completed easily with all of the tools you have available. Early game your toolbox is much smaller. If I was to pick out a single fight, I would probably say Raedric's Hold if you try and attack him head on. Out of the late game fights, I found Craighold to be the most enjoyable, but it wasn't particularly difficult.

 

[Lacrymas]

RE: Toughest fight in PoE1 - I think it's the Glimmering Society fight on PotD. No boss ever gave me so much trouble. Adra Dragon is just fundamentally broken and is unlike any other fight in the entire game, be it with a dragon or otherwise. I never had any difficulty with usual favorites like Concelhaut or Llengrath, who I defeated on my second try at most. The party is way too overpowered by then to have any issues with these fights imo.

RE: Consumables - last week my boyfriend and I organized a one-shot D&D campaign which I made and DM'd in my own setting. I gave them each 3 healing potions at the start for the entire adventure and tuned the fights to be challenging (which I should've made even more challenging because I didn't anticipate the brokenness of the Circle of the Moon Druid). They didn't use them liberally and there was also roleplaying about whether they should use them now or conserve them, so I think that experiment was pretty successful. They did end up using around half the potions, but I think they would've used more had the Druid not been as OP as he was.

 

[Sharpedge]

I find it odd people struggle with the late game fights, you have so many powerful abilities by the time you get to them that for me there is pretty much no hassle in dealing with them. Most of the bosses can be disabled by Shadowflame or Wall of Many Colours (or a whole host of other abilities), then its just a case of beating them down.

Question for dudes that finished POTD one or more times - what fight you found the most difficult?

Looking back, for me it was probably the upscaled Alpine Dragon.

Funnily enough I didn't have any troubles with Llengrath and her pack - went into this fight totally unprepared (with lvl cap reached already) and whacked them on first try. Alpine Dragon was a pain though and I had to reload at least couple of times for some reason, but then again I haven't checked his immunities beforehand.

The Alpine Dragon is just the toughest because of the little guys that accompany it. Llengrath should be harder, but for whatever reason the Alpine Dragon always gave me more trouble. In my best POTD run Llengrath died almost instantly. The main thing for Alpine is just to figure out a way to take care of the adds first. You can also exploit his low will save and low pierce DR. Beast slaying pierce weapons are good to have -- it's not bad to invest in a full kit just for this fight because nothing else is as challenging.

I found the easiest way to deal with the Alpine Dragon is just to cast confusion on the adds and let the dragon deal with them.

 

[Parabalus]

Best to ignore consumables entirely.

I started a run recently and forgot just how better the setting and atmosphere is compared to Dumpsterfire.

I find it odd people struggle with the late game fights, you have so many powerful abilities by the time you get to them that for me there is pretty much no hassle in dealing with them. Most of the bosses can be disabled by Shadowflame or Wall of Many Colours (or a whole host of other abilities), then its just a case of beating them down.

Question for dudes that finished POTD one or more times - what fight you found the most difficult?

Looking back, for me it was probably the upscaled Alpine Dragon.

Funnily enough I didn't have any troubles with Llengrath and her pack - went into this fight totally unprepared (with lvl cap reached already) and whacked them on first try. Alpine Dragon was a pain though and I had to reload at least couple of times for some reason, but then again I haven't checked his immunities beforehand.

The Alpine Dragon is just the toughest because of the little guys that accompany it. Llengrath should be harder, but for whatever reason the Alpine Dragon always gave me more trouble. In my best POTD run Llengrath died almost instantly. The main thing for Alpine is just to figure out a way to take care of the adds first. You can also exploit his low will save and low pierce DR. Beast slaying pierce weapons are good to have -- it's not bad to invest in a full kit just for this fight because nothing else is as challenging.

I found the easiest way to deal with the Alpine Dragon is just to cast confusion on the adds and let the dragon deal with them.

You still need to hit the enemies, they can have >140 defenses.

 

[Sharpedge]

Best to ignore consumables entirely.

I started a run recently and forgot just how better the setting and atmosphere is compared to Dumpsterfire.

I find it odd people struggle with the late game fights, you have so many powerful abilities by the time you get to them that for me there is pretty much no hassle in dealing with them. Most of the bosses can be disabled by Shadowflame or Wall of Many Colours (or a whole host of other abilities), then its just a case of beating them down.

Question for dudes that finished POTD one or more times - what fight you found the most difficult?

Looking back, for me it was probably the upscaled Alpine Dragon.

Funnily enough I didn't have any troubles with Llengrath and her pack - went into this fight totally unprepared (with lvl cap reached already) and whacked them on first try. Alpine Dragon was a pain though and I had to reload at least couple of times for some reason, but then again I haven't checked his immunities beforehand.

The Alpine Dragon is just the toughest because of the little guys that accompany it. Llengrath should be harder, but for whatever reason the Alpine Dragon always gave me more trouble. In my best POTD run Llengrath died almost instantly. The main thing for Alpine is just to figure out a way to take care of the adds first. You can also exploit his low will save and low pierce DR. Beast slaying pierce weapons are good to have -- it's not bad to invest in a full kit just for this fight because nothing else is as challenging.

I found the easiest way to deal with the Alpine Dragon is just to cast confusion on the adds and let the dragon deal with them.

You still need to hit the enemies, they can have >140 defenses.

The Alpine Dragon will attack them while they are under the effects of confusion. If you are properly buffing and using spells like remove fear to deal with the dragon's terrified affliction, its not really a problem.

 

[almondblight]

POTD is pretty tough for the first time, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone tbh.

I played the first time on PotD and thought the difficulty was about right, if a bit on the easy side. Any easier and it'd probably be boring. I was a wizard though, and had Aloth with me, so that might have been it. Wizards felt pretty overpowered.

It would have been nice if the higher difficulties had better AI, though. Most spellcasters wouldn't even bother to drop an AoE spell on you.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Yeah, as I've said it's mostly matter of how quickly you grasp the system and figure out which CC spells works the best, and that accuracy is the single most important stat here, not the attributes.

This, plus your party build - any newcomer starting on PotD and not taking combo of at least two chars from wizard/priest/cipher classes can have a pretty hard times without all the CCs.

 

[Fishy]

Well, finished it after all. Act 3 was way shorter than I expected, and with my time in White March, stupidly easy. The final fight had a few characters knocked out, but nothing I couldn't deal with or rez. Alpine Dragon and Concelhaut were definitely tougher, and I'm sad that it was so short as I'd expected to have more time to go back and bash Concelhaut's stupid face.

Main story spoilers, old game but you never know:

Spoiler

At the god thingy, I sided with Galawain, since he seemed the most fitting to my style and Abydon/Magran weren't an option. Turns out, Abydon and Magran are with him, so that made the choice even easier. I wasn't too fussed about what to do with the souls tbh, so the request didn't bother me. Using them to strengthen the living was fine for me. Sending them back to where they belonged didn't seem as rosy considering people have accepted their loss and moved on, it doesn't seem that great to send them back on the emotional rollercoaster, particularly when others will have lost their hollowborn children already. The other options didn't feel terribly fleshed out, so meh. Whatever.

The main story Big Reveal felt a bit flat for me. The gods were always fleshed out as "too human" in their concerns and behaviour, and well, it's a fantasy universe, so the idea that gods are artificial? Well, meh, what difference does it make? As long as Abydon can smash a hammer in your face, he's real enough that one can decide to worship or not care. And well, the whole premise is a bit rushed in Act 3, so there was no time to really start caring much for the problem, your awakened past, or the martyr elven maid. Even Thaos didn't feel much like my villain. A villain, sure, but mine? Meh. I just sent his soul back so he can keep remembering how he failed.

Main plot reservations aside, the ending slides were sweet and got me to browse the wiki. Didn't expect that last plot twist with undead Raedric. Ah well, my bad. Shitty resolutions too for all my companions as I didn't complete a single personal quest. Got close for some, but just didn't find the right NPC in time, and the main story caught up with me and felt more urgent so... Durance's bad ending felt true to the character, mind. Love the crazy fucker. Bit disappointed I couldn't romance Sagani for a better ending, but ah.

All in all, with 58h clocked, I had a great time. This is a magnificent game, with some lovely world building and solid mechanics. Much better combat than the cooldown madness that plagues Tyranny. I've seen that you can import your game state into Deadfire, I'm curious to find out what gets taken into account.

 

[Piotrovitz]

Well, finished it after all. Act 3 was way shorter than I expected, and with my time in White March, stupidly easy. The final fight had a few characters knocked out, but nothing I couldn't deal with or rez.

Yeah, Act 3 feels very rushed and unfinished, almost like devs wanted to close the story as soon as possible.

The laziness reached the peak when they've created two almost same dungeons, with the only difference that the one is red and you fight dwarves, and second is blue and you fight elves.

I always finish everything there right after act 2, and just before jumping into the point of no return, I go to WM1/2, which upscaled is way more fun and challenging.

 

[Parabalus]

The opposite is also fun, ie. going to WM1 as soon as you can, finishing it so you open up WM2 and all the cool items.

Usually requires upscaling something with the console later on though.

 

[Piotrovitz]

I never bothered to figure this out, but maybe someone here has some insight:

How does marking property of ranged weapon works (e.g St. Garam's)?
Let's say ranged char is shooting and melee one is approaching the same target. When he engages said mob, and the ranged one is reloading/recovering, does the +10 acc applies to melee's attacks?

Also, same question for the Dozens perk, when the main char is a ranged one.
When I send melee char to engage some mob, but before they meet, my ranged MC is shooting, is the +5 acc bonus applied?

 

[Lacrymas]

WM1 and 2 are the whole reason you play the game, though. Act 3 being strangely barren is easily understandable - they didn't have time and resources to do it justice. We've talked about this, but there are some people (including me) who argue the structure of the whole game would've been better had Defiance Bay not existed. There are already a ridiculous amount of analogues to BG1, but they didn't make use of one of the best decision in that game, namely how the Big City (Baldur's Gate) comes at the tail-end of the game. Because the city is so densely populated and closely packed, it looks like the amount of content increases, but it's actually not true. There aren't a lot of quests in the city, or at least not when compared to the rest of the game. However, that feeling contributes to the culmination and tension and it feels like the situation becomes appropriately tenser towards the ending.

One of the problems of PoE1 which isn't very often spoken of is the weird pacing issues which are mostly caused by Defiance Bay being awkwardly situated at the start of the middle portion. WM 1 and 2 have a pretty good tension trajectory when taken in a vacuum, it's also one of the reasons they are pretty good, even if I think WM1 is better.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

There's really 4 games in there, losely held together by duct tape. Act 1 and 2 are one game, WM 1 and 2 are another, Cad Nua is yet another, and act 3 is the shitty game you skip because it sucks. There really isn't much of connection between all those aside from being on the same map.

 

[Desiderius]

Devs lose interest in lategame because they see the Steam stats.

What they don't understand is that that 6% is their Marketing Department.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Every so often i get the itch to try this game. I mean, i bought it, so why not. But then i start looking for guides to build my character and the desire goes away.

I mean, i want to do a simple Paladin, so let's see:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416939844

Paladin with stilettos and daggers? Lmao, let's move on. Might to increase healing le fuck is this?

Just fucking hell i think i genuinely hate Josh Sawyer now.

 

[Butter]

Character building just isn't interesting in the first game, even if you can look past those points. The talent list feels sanitized and overly balanced. Compare that to something like Underrail, where you can spend days theorycrafting new builds because the feat synergies get fucking ridiculous. Even Deadfire improved on the first game in this regard.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I want to play at Path of the Damned can i do it just by winging it? How hard can it be worst come to worst i can always save scum lul.

BTW, what's expert mode?

It goes without saying i'll be using the companions. The guide said they suck but i have to see them at least once.

 

[Lady Error]

Get a Ranger, LS. That way you have an additional unkillable tank up front.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Why would a ranger tank...

Ho shit i give up.

 

[Lady Error]

Their pets... You get two characters for one. At least, that's how I played. Get a wolf or a bear.

 

[Butter]

Expert Mode disables all of these options:

Combat options

• Maim Companions Before Death: Characters will be maimed instead of dying permanently the first time their health reaches zero.
• Area of Effect Highlighting: Provide a graphical display of the range of area-of-effect spells.
• Show Relative Defenses: Hovering over enemies will provide a popup comparing their known defense scores to the attacker's accuracy.
• Combat Tooltips: If this option is enabled, lightweight combat tooltips will be shown above all characters during combat.

Non-combat options

• Show Unqualified Interactions: Display conversation options for which the party does not meet the prerequisites.
• Show Qualifiers: Display qualifiers that cause a conversation option to be unlocked.
• Don't Restrict Stash: Allow the stash to be accessed at any location.
• Show Personality/Reputation: Display the effects of choosing each conversation option on the player's reputation and personality.
• Detailed Quest Updates: When a quest is updated in the Journal, the log will identify the particular quest that was changed.
• Show In-Game Tutorials: Show tutorial pop-ups during the game to explain various game mechanics.

Path of the Damned is hardest in Act 1 when the game is more linear. In Act 2 and WM, you can pick and choose the easiest sources of XP to trivialize some of the harder fights. The optional boss fights can be rough in PotD.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Can you respec in this game? If yes i'll wing it. If not i think i may have to read up on this 2+2=5 system.

 

[Riddler]

As long as you have a priest in your party it should be a walk in the park past the very early game.