Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Lacrymas]

It's useless for basically anyone, except maaaaybe a Barbarian "tank" build (funnily enough).

 

[Parabalus]

Well, i was focusing on characters that benefit from resolve and other dialog stats. I guess this is another wierd aspect of this game, that the "charisma" stat is the tanking stat. Resolve seems pretty useless for a barbarian for instance.

If you dump RES to 3 mobs in melee will often immediately switch aggro to you.

You of course play around it with positioning and reach weapons etc., but it's different gameplay than higher RES values.

 

[Decado]

Well, i was focusing on characters that benefit from resolve and other dialog stats. I guess this is another wierd aspect of this game, that the "charisma" stat is the tanking stat. Resolve seems pretty useless for a barbarian for instance.

It's helpful for deflection. It's one of those stats that I wouldn't subtract from but I would not pump it for a barb. Really, it's the tanking stat because it bumps deflection, will, and concentration. The last one is not that useful to a tank, but any increase in deflection or will is worth it. Especially will, since mind control effects are prominent in the later game and they are a royal pain in the fucking balls. And you can't pre-buff against them. So, having the opportunity to resist that first domination or w/e it's called from a fampyre while Durance casts Prayer Against Treachery is a nice bonus, because if your tank gets taken out of the fight you can get hammered pretty fucking hard.

 

[ColonelMace]

the "charisma" stat is the tanking stat

I'd suggest that it actually isn't.
Your only relevant tanking factor is the class, really. Because that's what ultimately defines HP, stamina and defense indexes per level.
Even min maxing his stats at character creation will not give any non-fighter lad the fighter's innate efficiency at tanking. Which is unmatched.

Then again, you have a couple of funny options in this regard, including wizards, who make for surprisingly competent frontliners.
As long as you heavily specialise them and reach a sufficient level and gear to do so (because, again, their class defines they default HP, stamina and defense indexes, and they're very low by design).
In such a case, for instance, intellect becomes the actual tanking stat, as it's necessary to ensure your buffs stay on for the whole fight (which, in most cases, isn't a problem anyway).
Dexterity, however, and despite being the regular wizard's most important stat, becomes practically a dump stat.

Keep in mind this is a rare exception.
Most classes in PoE define a character much more than any stat distribution you can come up with.

 

[Lacrymas]

It depends on what you mean by "unmatched in tanking". Paladins have the potential to have much higher defensive stats than Fighters.

 

[ColonelMace]

I think constant recovery alone makes for more effective HP than any paladin build could sustain.
But I rarely play with defensive paladin builds, and may be wrong about that.

 

[Decado]

It depends on what you mean by "unmatched in tanking". Paladins have the potential to have much higher defensive stats than Fighters.

I'd be interested in seeing this in the numbers. They are okay as tanks but IIRC, priests have a higher base deflection than paladins, I checked, I'm wrong. Anyway, they lack battlefield control abilities -- no Knockdown, no Clear Out, no Into the Fray. I feel like it would be tough (not impossible) to "main tank" with a paladin.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

On PoTD, it's far more efficient to avoid damage entirely rather than heal it or reduce it. Pala with his extra defensive stats is definitely supperior at soaking up all kinds of punishment, but he's not really "tanking", just kinda stands there and doesn't die.

 

[Lacrymas]

But again, building characters for "tanking" isn't the best move in general. The first of your problems if you are intent on going that route will be that the AI tends to ignore characters with high defenses and beeline towards your squishies, so so much for the tanking bit. The second problem is that tanks are useless outside of that role (which they aren't good at, as the first problem shows) and aren't a threat to the enemies if ignored. There are better characters to take their spot.

 

[Lyric Suite]

I was under the impression fighters were the best tanks because of the engagement shit.

Paladins can still act as support while being tanks, provide auras, buffs (like that accuracy thingy), healing and that immolation thing later on. I guess they would be more like second line tanks. One interesting thing about paladins is that they seem to be shit unless you pick them as main character. Like, i don't see the point of ever recruiting the bird negresse wombyn.

On my first try i had a resolve of 10 and even with some of the early buffs you get i couldn't make several dialog checks.

 

[Haplo]

But again, building characters for "tanking" isn't the best move in general. The first of your problems if you are intent on going that route will be that the AI tends to ignore characters with high defenses and beeline towards your squishies, so so much for the tanking bit. The second problem is that tanks are useless outside of that role (which they aren't good at, as the first problem shows) and aren't a threat to the enemies if ignored. There are better characters to take their spot.

I actually think having one "tank" was rather good in the original PoE. Combat could become way too messy otherwise. Of course, Eder fills this role nearly perfectly.
Unless you build some more exotic parties, like all arquebus chanters. Or make all characters extra durable, like a mix of martials, battle-mages and such.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

AI tends to ignore characters with high defenses and beeline towards your squishies

Not true from my experience. You can defiantly hold actual front line with 3 melee characters that have extra engagement talent(or items). Only very few enemies would change target if they are engaged already, basically they need to have a blink like ability or some spells/abilities that are used on the character with lowest defense. What you get I would suspect is your guys attacking enemies that are not engaged or sliding around the front line because of the atrocious pathfinding.

 

[Decado]

The main reason to take a fighter as a tank is for Defender, which gives them 2 additional engagement slots when active. If you also take Hold the Line, they gain a further additional slot. This allows you to engage up to four targets at a time, which is nice. Any other class will max out at 2 engagement slots.

 

[Haplo]

Also the constant recovery regeneration thingy.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've never had a Fighter in any party I've ever played in this game, so I don't imagine it's that useful.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

The main reason to take a fighter as a tank is for Defender, which gives them 2 additional engagement slots when active. If you also take Hold the Line, they gain a further additional slot. This allows you to engage up to four targets at a time, which is nice. Any other class will max out at 2 engagement slots.

Eh, not really. The main reason is the best starting Deflection and Accuracy as well. With Disciplined Barrage(+20 accuracy buff ever battle) it gives your other active skills (Knock down, the pull one) insane consistency even on PotD. You can get more engagements from items so Defender is not that crucial, it's more of a convenience. In the end you get good defense and decent damage without the need to invest heavy in either. Fighters fall off late game as their lvl11+ abilities and talents are trash compared to other classes.

I've never had a Fighter in any party I've ever played in this game, so I don't imagine it's that useful.

Fighters are awesome. You just let them fight in front, forget about them and focus on your casters.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Tanks don't work bro, I'm telling you.

No I never played one and I don't know how to build one, why do you ask?

 

[Lyric Suite]

Maybe i could try a Bleak Walker for the sake of trying something new. I don't even know how that would work act 1 was filled with do-gooder's quests up the wazoo and i also remember there was a reputation mechanic, and i'm not sure i'm looking forward to being despised by people.

That said, this paladin order is one of the few that actually kinda of feels interesting. I mean, Swayer seems to have made it his business to just subvert everything and anything in this setting, but he was consistent enough to even subvert evil lmao.

 

[Lacrymas]

Tanks don't work bro, I'm telling you.

No I never played one and I don't know how to build one, why do you ask?

I have built tanks before, just not a Fighter, that's how I know they are mostly useless. Engagement slots are not the problem.

Maybe i could try a Bleak Walker for the sake of trying something new. I don't even know how that would work act 1 was filled with do-gooder's quests up the wazoo and i also remember there was a reputation mechanic, and i'm not sure i'm looking forward to being despised by people.

That said, this paladin order is one of the few that actually kinda of feels interesting. I mean, Swayer seems to have made it his business to just subvert everything and anything in this setting, but he was consistent enough to even subvert evil lmao.

Bleak Walkers have a very sick build with corrosive damage. You also won't be despised by everyone, the reputation system is token at best. There are some cool interactions with reputation in White March and quests which were added later on (mostly having to do with the stronghold), but that's it.

 

[Decado]

The main reason to take a fighter as a tank is for Defender, which gives them 2 additional engagement slots when active. If you also take Hold the Line, they gain a further additional slot. This allows you to engage up to four targets at a time, which is nice. Any other class will max out at 2 engagement slots.

Eh, not really. The main reason is the best starting Deflection and Accuracy as well. With Disciplined Barrage(+20 accuracy buff ever battle) it gives your other active skills (Knock down, the pull one) insane consistency even on PotD. You can get more engagements from items so Defender is not that crucial, it's more of a convenience. In the end you get good defense and decent damage without the need to invest heavy in either. Fighters fall off late game as their lvl11+ abilities and talents are trash compared to other classes.

I might have oversold it, but you're underselling it here. Fair to say extra engagement isn't the main reason but its a huge part of why fighters can effectively control the battlefield. Being able to tank twice as many enemies as any other class (plus, yeah, folding in an item or possibly two with Guarding abilities) allows them to excel at one of the chief responsibilities of a tank in PoE, which is controlling the battlefield and keeping attention off your more vulnerable party members.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, seems i picked the right time to plan a playthrough:

Hi folks, sorry for the delayed response, we've been heads down working on the deployment of this patch.

We're anticipating to release in the coming weeks, we're just locking in deployment on the various platforms now. Currently we are targeting Steam, Game Pass, GOG, and Epic Store for PC. We've also been working on Mac and Linux builds, which we're hoping to push in a separate patch along with more continued improvements and bug fixes.

Thank you all for your patience and support.

If it's a couple of weeks i can postpone it until the patch is released, since i gotta go out of town for a bit anyway. More than that and i think i'll just start anyway, hoping the patch doesn't mess up the save.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The main reason to take a fighter as a tank is for Defender, which gives them 2 additional engagement slots when active. If you also take Hold the Line, they gain a further additional slot. This allows you to engage up to four targets at a time, which is nice. Any other class will max out at 2 engagement slots.

Eh, not really. The main reason is the best starting Deflection and Accuracy as well. With Disciplined Barrage(+20 accuracy buff ever battle) it gives your other active skills (Knock down, the pull one) insane consistency even on PotD. You can get more engagements from items so Defender is not that crucial, it's more of a convenience. In the end you get good defense and decent damage without the need to invest heavy in either. Fighters fall off late game as their lvl11+ abilities and talents are trash compared to other classes.

I might have oversold it, but you're underselling it here. Fair to say extra engagement isn't the main reason but its a huge part of why fighters can effectively control the battlefield. Being able to tank twice as many enemies as any other class (plus, yeah, folding in an item or possibly two with Guarding abilities) allows them to excel at one of the chief responsibilities of a tank in PoE, which is controlling the battlefield and keeping attention off your more vulnerable party members.

They also have innate endurance regen which helps a lot, though ironically, it can make them more prone to permadeath depending on what's going on.

 

[Lyric Suite]

So i was fiddling around and i just found out if you disable expert mode, and reload the game, it goes back up.

This means that if you are autistic enough you can just save, turn it off, check out all you need, and reload to have it back on and still get the achievement at the end.

Not that i lack the self control not to do that, but still, i'm a bit disappointed it's that easy to cheese. I guess it's good to know if you just want to check out the range of spells before hand, since the intelligence bonus makes it more difficult to just memorize the area of effect like you could with the old Infinite Engine games.

Seriously considering making a Bleak Walker run with all the dialog indicators off. I mean yes some of those options i remember to be quite vague. Like, it's not always easy to know what each dialog reponse is actually supposed to be which is annoying, but having that damn indicator on felt so stupid on my first attempt to play this game.

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer's not hung up on policing that kind of thing.

 

[ColonelMace]

This means that if you are autistic enough you can just save, turn it off, check out all you need, and reload to have it back on and still get the achievement at the end.

It doesn't really add difficulty to the exprience anyway. PotD does that more effectively.
Expert mode is like Hardcore mode in New Vegas : it adds more or less tedious factors to make the player think a little bit more about what he's doing.
But it's still not all that impactful. The only parameter that I found made an actual difference was hiding the AoEs when casting fireballs and such friendly fire sensitive abilities. (Without mentioning how it makes it all reminiscent of the IE games as well).

Another aspect that, this time, mattered little in my memories was the restriction to accessing the party's chest.
If i'm not mistaken, you could exploit the UI to transfer stuff from the chest to the characters' inventories. Although it's probably been fixed.

The single most excellent aspect of expert mode, though, is hiding all the dialog tags from the player (regarding skills, background, reputations etc).
It makes the whole game more organic on this front, which cruelly suffers from purple prose and lack of personality for most npcs.
This, however, turns into a severe flaw when playing either a Paladin or a Priest, who benefit or suffer from whatever reputations they earn during the journey. Simply because it's more often than not unclear whether a choice is benevolent, rational, stoic etc.

Overall I'd recommend playing on Expert anyway. Hiding numbers, aoes, dialog tags etc makes the experience much smoother imo.

PS. I guess I should have read your whole post before quoting because you're already aware of all of this. Apologies.