Path of the Damned

[GarfunkeL]

So once the 2.0 patch came, I finally had time to start my proper PoE playthrough and of course I went with Path of the Damned because I'm a real manly man.

But it's not fun at all. I have 5-man party now, so I'm still in early stages. But each combat is just my PC and Durance being surrounded by a swarm of enemies while my casters/ranged hang back. That's the only bit of tactics. Then I blow all my cooldowns and focus fire to bring them down. At which point I might as well trek back to town for sleeping in the inn. Rinse & repeat.

Am I a fucking retard and doing it wrong? Does it get better and I should stick with? Or just lower the difficult and breeze through instead to focus on story?

 

[Infinitron]

Where exactly in the game are you?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Spoiler

it will not get better

 

[Orma]

Early game is tough in PotD but you will breeze through act 2 and 3 as usual. Caed nua might be challenging after level 11 or so too.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Where exactly in the game are you?

I've explored the first few zones - the forest bit, the beach bit and so on, trying to find out companions. I explored a little in the abandoned temple in town, but haven't gone inside either of the two castles.

 

[Orma]

Raedric's hold should be pretty easy as well, unless you want to kill raedric.

Spoiler

That particular fight is pretty difficult, it's always easier to kill his cousin

 

[Delterius]

Well, I don't know. PotD certainly forces you to use every resource at your disposal but, in the end, its still the same game. You have to ask yourself why resort to the highest difficulty mode. One thing is to find Normal and Hard entirely too easy, or to believe that later game challenges aren't up to par. Another entirely is if you dislike the game on a fundamental level.

No game is made for everyone and making any game punishing isn't some sort of great equalizer.

 

[Infinitron]

Where exactly in the game are you?

I've explored the first few zones - the forest bit, the beach bit and so on, trying to find out companions. I explored a little in the abandoned temple in town, but haven't gone inside either of the two castles.

I see, thought you were trying to 100% the Temple or the Endless Paths at too early a level.

Well, those are just wilderness areas with trash mobs, BG1-style. Except that unlike BG1, they don't die in one or two hits from level 1 characters. Boars in particular are killers at this stage, too difficult compared to the reward you get for killing them (maybe that's what you ran into that made you create this thread?). If you're looking for interesting stuff to do to level up, the Raedric's quest is your best bet.

 

[Immortal]

Raedric's hold should be pretty easy as well, unless you want to kill raedric.

Spoiler

That particular fight is pretty difficult, it's always easier to kill his cousin

I did raedric as soon as I got the dwarf ranger girl..

> Stand at doorway to throne room
> Send Wolf pet in to initiate dialogue with raedric.
> No teleport for conversation - Even BG did this....
> Wolf runs back to party during convo (auto AI)
> Battle begins.. Eder standing in the doorway.. the guards trickle into the doorway one at a time..
> Pepper Priests / Archmages / raedric with bullets, arrows and fire balls while he can't hit back...


Infact.. this has been my strategy for The Dragon at Steam Lake.. 3 / 4 of the bounties.. Raedric and pretty much everything else. Corridor block enemies.. have eder tank some weak ass guy while the heavy hitters are blocked from even reaching him.. then spray and pray on all the enemies except the one hitting my tank with spells that lower resistance / accuracy and fireballs.

I don't even notice I am playing on POTD.. I am using all companions you get from the story except I made one rogue with maxed might that can basically two shot any non-boss character.

 

[Gord]

Am I a fucking retard and doing it wrong? Does it get better and I should stick with? Or just lower the difficult and breeze through instead to focus on story?

Get some CC abilities and learn to use them. E.g. Aloth should be able to use Slicken, which is quite powerful unless they nerfed it.
A tank or two helps as well, Eder is good for it.
PotD also makes it necessary at times to stack a few debuffs on enemies so you can increase probability and duration of CC spells.

In the early game it might be necessary to postpone a few areas/quests until later, i.e. after you have gained a level or two and found some more NPCs.

I have no experience with the latest patches, however, so no guarantee it's still valid.

 

[Orma]

Raedric's hold should be pretty easy as well, unless you want to kill raedric.

Spoiler

That particular fight is pretty difficult, it's always easier to kill his cousin

I did raedric as soon as I got the dwarf ranger girl..

> Stand at doorway to throne room
> Send Wolf pet in to initiate dialogue with raedric.
> No teleport for conversation - Even BG did this....
> Wolf runs back to party during convo (auto AI)
> Battle begins.. Eder standing in the doorway.. the guards trickle into the doorway one at a time..
> Pepper Priests / Archmages / raedric with bullets and arrows while he can't hit back...


Infact.. this has been my strategy for The Dragon at Steam Lake.. 3 / 4 of the bounties.. Raedric and pretty much everything else. Corridor block enemies.. have eder tank some weak ass guy while the heavy hitters are blocked from even reaching him.. then spray and pray on all the enemies except the one hitting my tank with spells that lower resistance / accuracy and fireballs.

I don't even notice I am playing on POTD.. I am using all companions you get from the story except I made one rogue with maxed might that can basically two shot any non-boss character.

yeah, i did the same for the red dragon.

for raedric, i positioned my party behind his casters in the corner of his throne platform, formed a wall with my melee characters and pets

 

[GarfunkeL]

I hoped that it would give me a BG2+SCS kind of experience. But so far, there isn't really any tactical movement because enemies appear in such numbers that they surround your entire party and the only counter is to push melee forward enough so they get enveloped leaving casters/ranged free. That's a no-brainer. Then I blow all cooldowns on the enemy. Oh and if it's trolls I'm fighting, then my PC has to switch from DW to 2H to get through DR but that's it. Combat is over really fast, with either my party stomping the enemy or vice versa. Since there is no pre-buffing and I'm almost always out-numbered heavily, there doesn't seem to be much of tactical thought required. What I'm asking is - does this change later in the game? Will there be more interesting encounters that require me to use different abilities that I don't have access quite yet? Because if 90% of combat in the game is like this early part, then I might as well lower it down to Normal and just experience the story. Note that I have kept away from the PoE thread since I didn't want to get spoiled.

Get some CC abilities and learn to use them. E.g. Aloth should be able to use Slicken, which is quite powerful unless they nerfed it.
A tank or two helps as well, Eder is good for it. PotD also makes it necessary at times to stack a few debuffs on enemies so you can increase probability and duration of CC spells.

CC is pointless because of the short LOS range, long cast times and fast movement speed of mobs. By the time the pansy elf is casting Web, the enemies have seen him and are already surrounding him.

 

[Infinitron]

CC is definitely not pointless - try experimenting with it some more. Web may not be the best spell, try Chill Fog or Curse of Blackened Sight instead. Use them combined with a Rogue if you have one in your party, you will like the results.

Also, by "cooldowns" I assume you're talking about your melee characters' per-encounters?

 

[Gord]

Get some CC abilities and learn to use them. E.g. Aloth should be able to use Slicken, which is quite powerful unless they nerfed it.
A tank or two helps as well, Eder is good for it. PotD also makes it necessary at times to stack a few debuffs on enemies so you can increase probability and duration of CC spells.

CC is pointless because of the short LOS range, long cast times and fast movement speed of mobs. By the time the pansy elf is casting Web, the enemies have seen him and are already surrounding him.

Unless they changed casting times and spell range a lot (which I doubt), it's perfectly possible (and necessary) to use CC to your advantage. In the early game, slicken is your best friend. Learn how to predict enemy movement and it's quite easy.

In some battles you can also use bottlenecks (doorways) to your advantage. Some Charm spells, if available, can help as well.
PoE's spell Web is actually not nearly as powerful as the version you might know from DnD - it's better used as a debuff spell or in combination with other spells/abilities.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Just play on Normal. PoTD is pointless time sink. There are some challenging fights and tightly designed encounters in the game, but 90% of combat is just as you described. Hold formation, blow out your abilities, focus fire to clear the rest. The only practical difference between PoTD and Normal, is more backtracking for camping supplies.

 

[Immortal]

CC is mostly pointless - go for spells that improve accuracy / reduce defense and then go for raw output.

IMO the best CC is -dead-. It makes enemies lie on the ground and sparkle.

 

[Orma]

Eh normal is just mode, since even PotD is mostly too easy.

 

[Rostere]

I did raedric as soon as I got the dwarf ranger girl..

> Stand at doorway to throne room
> Send Wolf pet in to initiate dialogue with raedric.
> No teleport for conversation - Even BG did this....
> Wolf runs back to party during convo (auto AI)
> Battle begins.. Eder standing in the doorway.. the guards trickle into the doorway one at a time..
> Pepper Priests / Archmages / raedric with bullets, arrows and fire balls while he can't hit back...


Infact.. this has been my strategy for The Dragon at Steam Lake.. 3 / 4 of the bounties.. Raedric and pretty much everything else. Corridor block enemies.. have eder tank some weak ass guy while the heavy hitters are blocked from even reaching him.. then spray and pray on all the enemies except the one hitting my tank with spells that lower resistance / accuracy and fireballs.

I don't even notice I am playing on POTD.. I am using all companions you get from the story except I made one rogue with maxed might that can basically two shot any non-boss character.

This is pretty accurate, but then again, it is possible to block off openings in all similar RPG games, and it is always a good tactic. The only difference between PoE and BG2 in this aspect is that AI in PoE is much meaner, which necessitates proper positioning. In the BG and IWD games you could often have your wizard stand just 2m away from your fighter surrounded by enemies without any protection at all, and this would work fine unless he/she accidentally entered LoS of an archer, AoE spells or something. IMO PoE has made combat more realistic in this respect.

So once the 2.0 patch came, I finally had time to start my proper PoE playthrough and of course I went with Path of the Damned because I'm a real manly man.

But it's not fun at all. I have 5-man party now, so I'm still in early stages. But each combat is just my PC and Durance being surrounded by a swarm of enemies while my casters/ranged hang back. That's the only bit of tactics. Then I blow all my cooldowns and focus fire to bring them down. At which point I might as well trek back to town for sleeping in the inn. Rinse & repeat.

Am I a fucking retard and doing it wrong? Does it get better and I should stick with? Or just lower the difficult and breeze through instead to focus on story?

You are definitely a fucking retard if you have to go back to sleep at the inn after every fight.

TBH there are really no "hard" open world-ish RPGs, it's just a matter of picking the XP piñatas in the right order (possible in PoE, not possible in IWD, for example), which if you suck hard enough will of course become tedious.

 

[Immortal]

I did raedric as soon as I got the dwarf ranger girl..

> Stand at doorway to throne room
> Send Wolf pet in to initiate dialogue with raedric.
> No teleport for conversation - Even BG did this....
> Wolf runs back to party during convo (auto AI)
> Battle begins.. Eder standing in the doorway.. the guards trickle into the doorway one at a time..
> Pepper Priests / Archmages / raedric with bullets, arrows and fire balls while he can't hit back...


Infact.. this has been my strategy for The Dragon at Steam Lake.. 3 / 4 of the bounties.. Raedric and pretty much everything else. Corridor block enemies.. have eder tank some weak ass guy while the heavy hitters are blocked from even reaching him.. then spray and pray on all the enemies except the one hitting my tank with spells that lower resistance / accuracy and fireballs.

I don't even notice I am playing on POTD.. I am using all companions you get from the story except I made one rogue with maxed might that can basically two shot any non-boss character.

This is pretty accurate, but then again, it is possible to block off openings in all similar RPG games, and it is always a good tactic. The only difference between PoE and BG2 in this aspect is that AI in PoE is much meaner, which necessitates proper positioning. In the BG and IWD games you could often have your wizard stand just 2m away from your fighter surrounded by enemies without any protection at all, and this would work fine unless he/she accidentally entered LoS of an archer, AoE spells or something. IMO PoE has made combat more realistic in this respect.

I disagree.. in BG2 especially, bottle neck did work but also grouped you up for a nice wail of banshee / horrid wilting / whatever else.
Plus you had spells that could totally destroy your tank sponge.

Compare a spell like Maze to "Josh sawyer balanced spell of 6.3 seconds of prone".. It doesn't even compete. Eder can literally just sit there forever taking almost 0 damage even though the enemy has 4 wizards trying to path find through a wall..

There is just no range threat that I have to care about.. so I can just congo line the enemy and wreck them from the other side of a door way.

Also for cutscenes like Raedrics in baldurs gate (With some exception..), sending in a gnoll or gibberling to kick off dialogue would actually teleport your entire party to the dialogue spot. You couldn't kite shit across a level after the dialogue finished.

BG actually forced you to be in a less than ideal positioning.
Is that a good thing? I dunno but it's way more challenging.

I am not arguing that BG couldn't be cheesed.. it definitely could be - but PoE is just as bad for all the wrong reasons.


EDIT:

You were correct about 30 lizards surrounding a fighter while a mage stands 2 feet away shooting fireballs.. That was a huge AI issue that I think was mostly fixed with mods.. but if you're telling me that in 15 years we couldn't get a little better AI.. well.. common.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, AI must be shit, because in real life if people block the door I just disperse into atomic form and reconstruct myself on the other side.

 

[Immortal]

Yeah, AI must be shit, because in real life if people block the door I just disperse into atomic form and reconstruct myself on the other side.

You are probably the worst poster next to SausageInYour.. JK it's the same person.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, AI must be shit, because in real life if people block the door I just disperse into atomic form and reconstruct myself on the other side.

You are probably the worst poster next to SausageInYour.. JK it's the same person.

Sorry if I broke your monocle.

 

[Immortal]

Yeah, AI must be shit, because in real life if people block the door I just disperse into atomic form and reconstruct myself on the other side.

You are probably the worst poster next to SausageInYour.. JK it's the same person.

Sorry if I broke your monocle.

That... doesn't even make sense.. It's like you are trying to edge post.. but...

 

[Rostere]

I disagree.. in BG2 especially, bottle neck did work but also grouped you up for a nice wail of banshee / horrid wilting / whatever else.

Bottlenecking in BG wasn't even necessary. In most situations, you could just put your tank at the front and everyone would be piling in on him/her. Bottlenecks would require a maximum of two people to block, that's not much to think about in terms of tradeoffs really.

Plus you had spells that could totally destroy your tank sponge.

But there are spells which can totally destroy tanks in PoE as well. Even trivial things like Knockdown can wipe your entire party if you're not attentive (because they will break engagement, your party will be overrun), all forms of immobilization/charm spells are potentially dangerous.

Compare spell like Maze to "Josh sawyer balanced spell of 6.3 seconds of prone".. It doesn't even compete.

omg maze

such genius, very balance

Seriously, it's hard to tell if you're being ironic or not.

Also for cutscenes like Raedrics, sending in a gnoll or gibberling to kick of dialogue would actually teleport your entire party to the dialogue spot. You couldn't kite shit across a level after the dialogue finished forcing you to be in a less than ideal positioning.

Is that a good thing? I dunno but it's way more challenging.

WTF? I've never ever in any of the BG or IWD games had problems with kiting any enemies to where I want them. The only possible exceptions being battles like Behlifet where he is scripted to start by dispelling everything on your party (which are teleported in in the middle of enemies... but even that is actually possible to dodge if you move fast), or early on in BG if you meet enemies which are hasted before you get that spell.

Positioning did matter somewhat in battles like with the hook horrors in IWD2, where new enemies would literally spawn behind you. Otherwise it was just a matter of walking with your fighter first, handling everything else ad hoc. I can't recall any battle where teleporting your party to conversation was worse than a small nuisance.

I am not arguing that BG couldn't be cheesed.. it definitely could be - but PoE is just as bad for all the wrong reasons.

I understand if you think PoE is more tedious. Every character needs to be micromanaged in PoE to an extent that only certain spellcasters needed to in the old IE games. Sensible positioning is actually important.

The truth is that the BG games had a lot of filler combat, but filler combat in classic IE games required minimal player effort and was virtually impossible to get wrong whereas filler combat in PoE is very unforgiving if you get your positioning wrong.

 

[Immortal]

I can't be assed to quote you.

Engagement is a joke. Even when Eder is knocked down he is still targeted and rarely do creatures use that opportunity to break engagement.
Even if they do, if you kite them for any amount of time they will rotate back on to your tank.

Also they will never break engagement if it leads to an attack of opportunity. Ever. Even if the auto strike would do like 3 damage. Once engaged any non-shadow creature is there for good. GG.

Maze was one example. The point is - ignoring ranged casters was suicide for your meat shield. In PoE they are a joke. I couldn't give a shit about random little debuffs and disables that last for 4 seconds or 6 seconds. It doesn't require countering or preparation.

I never use consumables or counter-buffs.. I have them all sitting there for that just in case moment that never comes.

I can think of several boss fights in BG2 where mages are auto-buffed, exits are blocked off and you are transported to a specific location through cut scene dialogue.
What you do after that.. (Haste away) is whatever - okay fine..? Didn't dispute that..