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On April 06 2015 02:27 lprk wrote:
There were few people on obsidian that finished triple crown with rogue+traps and abusing stupid ai with stealth.
Yeah those builds sound insane. I suspect I will hit a wall when I hit level 12 and the rest of the game catches up to my level. But for the meantime, I'm having more fun in combat and a lot of the spells, stats and items I wouldn't normally touch are now essential to my play. Play the same fight 10 straight times is actually more fun than it sounds too. 10/10 would recommend torturing yourself doing solo potd without cheesing.
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I think any class can honestly triple crown solo, maybe priest would be hardest.
There's 3 major bugs that you can exploit that make most fights very easy.
1. you can split up individual enemies from a group by pulling them and just running(this is easier if you have higher move speed, so talent for MS is needed + someone like chanter is really nice for this)
2. mobs will return to their original position if you have higher movement speed than them and just run away. You can abuse this for infinite kiting
3. you can skip any recovery/reload animations by abusing the inventory bug. in essence, you can get like 3-4attacks/spells off per second
Rogue's probably the easiest to do it with because of easy disengangement, I'd put ranger or chanter second because there's a lot of cheese you can do with summons/ranger companion.
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On April 06 2015 03:49 Andre wrote:
I think any class can honestly triple crown solo, maybe priest would be hardest.
There's 3 major bugs that you can exploit that make most fights very easy.
1. you can split up individual enemies from a group by pulling them and just running(this is easier if you have higher move speed, so talent for MS is needed + someone like chanter is really nice for this)
2. mobs will return to their original position if you have higher movement speed than them and just run away. You can abuse this for infinite kiting
3. you can skip any recovery/reload animations by abusing the inventory bug. in essence, you can get like 3-4attacks/spells off per second
Rogue's probably the easiest to do it with because of easy disengangement, I'd put ranger or chanter second because there's a lot of cheese you can do with summons/ranger companion.
3. with slow ranged weapon that does a lot of damage on a rogue that made the enemy blind for sneak attack bonus. Insane, agreed.
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I just realised that spear spiders are having a 15 point armor penetraton in potd. Is that something unique to them that never gets mentioned in the spread sheets, or is potd largely ignoring armor? Ivory ones only have 10, so it does not seem to be that bad. Also, how can they do 16 damage glances?
Also, i hate phantoms so much, who ever designed encounters whith 4 fast mobs that have around 80 resistances and are stunlocking everyone they attack before anyone can do a thing is a sadistic asshole. Seriously, the great hall encounter is so much bullshit, there is no fun in just repeating the same fight 20 times and hoping for a good roll on the first fan of flames and then surviving with 1 or 2 people....
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On April 06 2015 05:56 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On April 06 2015 03:49 Andre wrote:
I think any class can honestly triple crown solo, maybe priest would be hardest.
There's 3 major bugs that you can exploit that make most fights very easy.
1. you can split up individual enemies from a group by pulling them and just running(this is easier if you have higher move speed, so talent for MS is needed + someone like chanter is really nice for this)
2. mobs will return to their original position if you have higher movement speed than them and just run away. You can abuse this for infinite kiting
3. you can skip any recovery/reload animations by abusing the inventory bug. in essence, you can get like 3-4attacks/spells off per second
Rogue's probably the easiest to do it with because of easy disengangement, I'd put ranger or chanter second because there's a lot of cheese you can do with summons/ranger companion. 3. with slow ranged weapon that does a lot of damage on a rogue that made the enemy blind for sneak attack bonus. Insane, agreed.
Hmm yeah. If you give a rogue a blunderbuss he actually sneak attacks 6 times and applies 6x deep wounds if you have them. Don't think that's supposed to work like that as well.
In the mid game you're doing like ~70-120dmg + 60-80 dot dmg with a good blunderbuss.
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On April 06 2015 08:12 Broetchenholer wrote:
I just realised that spear spiders are having a 15 point armor penetraton in potd. Is that something unique to them that never gets mentioned in the spread sheets, or is potd largely ignoring armor? Ivory ones only have 10, so it does not seem to be that bad. Also, how can they do 16 damage glances?
Also, i hate phantoms so much, who ever designed encounters whith 4 fast mobs that have around 80 resistances and are stunlocking everyone they attack before anyone can do a thing is a sadistic asshole. Seriously, the great hall encounter is so much bullshit, there is no fun in just repeating the same fight 20 times and hoping for a good roll on the first fan of flames and then surviving with 1 or 2 people....
One simple not-so-cheesy way to beat the great hall encounter is pretty simple. Just find a good spot where you can put Aloth/durance/kana/whoever next to a wall and then Eder in front of them. That way shadows can't teleport to your backline due to no space. Also it's very easy to aim your aoes if you're playing expert this way, dazzlings lights + cold fog(think its called like that) + whatever aoe dmg is really nice.
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The problem is, that even eder dies incredibly fast, as stunned reduces the defenses. And you do sooooo little damage due to the defense of the phantoms. But i managed to win, it's just very hard and not in a good way.
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As others have mentioned positioning is important. On the immediate left of the entrance their is a narrow area that only needs 2 people to block it off, and you can have every one else protected behind them and only a limited number of enemies able to attack.
I am not sure if everyone knows this but if you press J then click on cyclopaedia and then bestiary on the left you can see the numbers for each enemy you have fought. The numbers are gradually filled in the more of that type you have fought. For shades they deal freezing damage, are weak to burn damage and their fortitude and will are lower than their deflection and reflex.
Just outside there are some flame enemies that should give you what you need for the enchant burning lash which adds fire damage to a weapon. There is a wizard spell called bulwark against the elements that will reduce all elemental damage against you it is also possible to create a potion for it. Combusting wounds is another useful one, adding burn damage to every wound. There are a variety of useful spells that can buff/de-buff/incapacitate as well as scrolls and potions that can provide the same effect. Go into fights with a plan to reduce the enemies strength and attack their weaknesses.
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Beat the game in hard yesterday. A bit disappointed by the last act and the conclusion of the plot + Show Spoiler +Not a huge fan of the "fake" gods thing and how it's suddenly a huge deal 
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On April 07 2015 00:33 Merany wrote:Beat the game in hard yesterday. A bit disappointed by the last act and the conclusion of the plot + Show Spoiler +Not a huge fan of the "fake" gods thing and how it's suddenly a huge deal . Still overall an excellent game. Will probably wait a couple months for more patches before starting a new playthrough though I'm not sure yet what it's going to look like... Evil badass rogue that murders people and goes on rampages could be really cool but those Triple Crown achievements are tempting too... We'll see
I am too playing on hard and although I have not yet finished my 1st good guy Monk play, I have already planned my second one.
Druid that follow the philosophy of people only being worthy if they are strong enough to survive and also does not like meddling with souls as it considers it unnatural.
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Is there any way to kill the people in the first area + Show Spoiler +without making your companion turn on you
You also get a bit of experience just for starting the battle, which is very nice.
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Nope, but if you attack with Calisca first caravaneers will turn on her and she will turn on you so you create kind of unique 3 way fight.
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On April 07 2015 06:34 lprk wrote:
Nope, but if you attack with Calisca first caravaneers will turn on her and she will turn on you so you create kind of unique 3 way fight.
The Caravan Master and Guards are totally bad asses. Interesting alternative start.
+ Show Spoiler +Don't see how they lost to the people that are there in the normal route, much stronger than them.
Couldn't loot, so there went my extra money start. Normal seems better. :/ Maybe a bit more xp from encounters and so on would be worth it but probably not worth the pure luck dice rolls to get through that fight. Cave with one more person is likely nicer than extra xp from it.
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I must be really bad at this game, everything I run into destroys me.
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I tried a bit today, wasn't that convinced by the combat system. Now I have to keep going for the story i guess.
How much time do you need to finish this at a normal pace ? (I took 80 to finish D:OS)
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Depends on difficulty, your degree of completion (all quests, all bounties, endless dungeon), speed of reading and whether or not you read everything (all dialogues, all books etc).
I've seen people finish it in 35hours, I currently am at 55 and not finished yet. Will probably reach 65.
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Finished my first playthrough on hard in around 50-60 hours according to steam. But there are quite a few hours of doing other stuff like testing game mechanics in order to min-max for my 2nd playthrough or RL stuff like cooking/eating/breaks.
Did almost all quest and read all the story text. Took me around the same time as finishing D:OS although the latter wastes much more time during fights since it's turn based.
Doing a PotD run now, around ~40 hours in and almost at the final bossfight. But then again I did all quests and the endless path (including that stupid dragon).
I did my first run on hard with a mixed group of 6 different classes and evaluated their performance when all characters hit lvl 12 (which was right after finishing all bounties) after which I hired the missing classes that I had not tested yet. Here's the things that I learned from my experiences:
-Cyphers (with Blunderbuss) are much more powerful than both Wizard and Druid as they can go all-out on every fight. Since I don't rest too much (only 2 campfires on hard/potd) the Cypher usually pulls ahead after the first 2-3 fights. Apart from that they have a spell which basically trivializes all packs of trash mobs regardless of the difficulty once they hit lvl 11 (Amplified Wave).
-Scrolls, Potions and certain other items makes Priest or Druid healing very much optional. I did PotD without either class just fine.
-Since enemies don't have an "aggro table" all characters that engage in melee will take damage which means that there is no such thing as a pure melee DPS character. As a result a small/medium shield Fighter turned out much better in direct comparison with both Paladin and Barbarian. I started PotD with a Fighter + Barb composition and decided to kick out the Barb in favor of another Fighter at the beginning of Act 3.
-Chanters are really really good secondary tanks that helped me get through the first couple of levels on PotD through the strength of their summons and AoE paralyze/charm alone. In the later stages they have competent buff for hard fights and potent AoE damage (the dragon trashed and wailed) for clearing large groups of trash efficiently and fast.
-I did not get too much experience with Monk, Ranger and Rogue but from what I've seen they are not that competent in a full group unless you abuse certain mechanics with a Rogue for example. After some quick tests at max lvl I preferred Barb/Fighter/Chanter over Monk/Rogue for melee and Cypher/Chanter over Rogue/Ranger for ranged DPS.
As a result I went for a group which consists of 2 Fighters, 2 Chanters and 2 Cyphers for PotD and had a fairly easy time apart from a certain level area (3-5) where you are up against Shades, Phantoms and other nonsense which have like 90 defense. But my Chanters carried me over that stretch and the rest was just fine.
The hardest fights I encountered where:
+ Show Spoiler +-Adra Dragon which has 130+ defense, 120 accuracy and tends to graze my tanks for 200+ damage: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Eo5HiCX.png) and yes, my tank has 110-130 defense and 25+ DR with almost 300 Endurance. -Enemies with Plague of Insects... That stuff ain't funny: ![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/GSVnDpM.png) note that the packs consisted of 6 druids behind a meatshield in a tight area and that the AoE of that spell covers almost the entire screen. Problem was that those enemies also have a pretty high defense which makes chain CC almost impossible.
Overall I enjoyed the game a lot thus far and might do another run with Expert + PotD and a different group setup next. Not going to bother with Trial of Iron though. That has to do with some bugs that I have encountered:
-pathfinding during combat in this game is... I don't even know how to describe it. BG 1 had better pathfinding to be honest. I had 2 members of my party getting stuck on each other because they somehow decided to run circles around each other for a minute straight.
-positioning or maintaining the position during combat is a real task at times since the hitbox of the characters is much larger than their circle around them. There appears to be enough space for a melee to engage the enemy but your character then decides that this is not enough and runs around your whole formation and the enemy formation in order to get into melee range while taking a bazillion disengagement hits in the process. Even on slow it takes less than a second of your character derping around for it to die to disengagement attacks on PotD. I had to start a lot of fights all over due to that.
-engagement and disengagement attacks don't seem to work too well. Sometimes enemies are able to run past your melees despite being engaged (green arrow) without taking any disengagement hits. In those cases the green arrow will still point towards those enemies despite them being half a screen away without taking a hit.
-you take disengagement hits even when you just want to reposition your character without actually disengaging the enemy. This in combination with the above 3 points makes for a really frustrating experience at times since your characters will randomly derp into range of enemies and they are essentially stuck there as moving them around means dying to disengagement attacks. D:OS had a much better system in place for this (you only take the hit if you leave the melee range of the enemy).
-random potions/scrolls/spells/effects will cause your character to get stuck, frozen in place. I had this bug after killing the Adra Dragon... just to find out that one of my characters would not move or do anything anymore and combat did not end, so I had to do the fight all over again. In that case it was due to the Bulwark against the Elements potion.
Stuff like that can mean the end of the Trial of Iron run... Please note, though, that I did not abuse stuff like kiting or the inventory exploit for weapons with reload. That'd ruin the experience for me tbh.
Enjoyed the story and interactions with NPCs, felt pretty much like Baldurs Gate. Their system for stats/attributes/personality affecting dialog was pretty awesome aswell, lots of different outcomes depending on what you say or how you behave.
The combat system works great and seems to be more streamlined and easy to understand than D&D. I liked the Health/Endurance systems since I did not feel the need to rest after every fight like I used to in BG. As a downside the limited amount of campfire supplies makes it hard for "per rest" classes to compete in min-maxing scenarios at least on the lower levels so they might want to take a look at that.
I hope they can build onto that foundation and make a good addon/sequel with a little more time spend on QA and class balancing. But then again Baldurs Gate was not really famous for class balance either (Paladin, Dual class Kensai, Sorc/Wizard).
But god did I miss a proper CRPG... This might be the first year where I do not have the urge to play through BG 1 and 2 like I usually do every year or so.
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On April 07 2015 09:12 Faust852 wrote:
I tried a bit today, wasn't that convinced by the combat system. Now I have to keep going for the story i guess.
How much time do you need to finish this at a normal pace ? (I took 80 to finish D:OS)
Depends on how fast you play. I don't rush, read things more slowly, enjoy each conversation and think about all encounters. I also explore all maps in Scout mode and don't use Fast speed all the time. I am at 55h and still in Act 2, I have not touched Endless Paths at all. I am guessing that I will need 80+ hours to finish the game.
Also I have been only reading some of the lore books and I have not been reading any of the backer NPC soul descriptions.
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If one of your characters gets randomly stuck, try to use an effect or spell that either moves them or makes them prone. Once they clear of the prone debuff, they should be able to move again.
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Does melee dps characters have any place in this game on hard/potd? I wanted my character to do big dips with weapons, and while my rogue certainly does it, whenever I move in to attack I instantly grab all the aggro from everything, even if Eder the tank went in 1st. All the enemies start bashing him and after my rogue attacks they still change target, except the one directly fighting Eder. I even gave him the skill to be able to have more than 1 target engaged but it doesn't work most of the time. Everything just bolts straight for the rogue.
Also, it's really annoying that stealth is group only and you can't backstab from stealth after your other party members start combat or get discovered.
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EPT
