Eternity Pillars of Eternity + The White March Expansion Thread

[Delterius]

I got 3 NPCs (durance, elf, little druid) + MC is a druid, enlighten me what META combo should I go for, for faster pack clearing? Rangers are useless (all of my backline is equipped with ranged weapons, so it's about 70% effectiveness of a ranger + actually relevant skills), most melees are auto-attack bots. Unless I go for a cipher/chanter gimmick there's no other composition that makes sense.

You people are full of shit I swear

 

[2house2fly]

I think swords are overrepresented, but that might be because there are so many weapon types that just fall under "weapon with long blade you hold by the handle" and they just blend together as swords in my mind. Obviously swords, great swords, estocs, sabers and rapiers are different weapons with different mechanics in the game, but visually they're similar.

 

[the_shadow]

Nothing is overrepresented and you can look in the wiki for where to get any of the unique weapons and decide on when to do it.

Most weapon types are well represented. Spears are the least impressive by far, and staves aren't that great either, although Durance's staff is decent early game. Hatchets are pretty poor unless you're putting them on a high deflection character. Clubs, maces, crossbows, pollaxes, pikes and warhammers aren't that great either IMHO.

 

[AwesomeButton]

They've tried to make everything's effects pretty mild, "just for roleplaying", but it adds up.

 

[Tygrende]

Spears are the least impressive by far

What? There's plenty of unique spears and Tall Grass is one of the most powerful weapons in the game.

I would say arquebuses got the short end of the stick. There's only 2 unique arquebuses in the entire game, one is okay at best and the other one comes very late in the game and is totally not worth the opportunity cost ( +20% graze->hit conversion isn't worth losing +0.1 crit damage and +1 to Stealth and Mechanics from Dungeon Delver). There's no soulbound firearms of any kind, too.

 

[Prime Junta]

Tall Grass is a pike.

(There are a quite a few good spears though, notably Cladhaliath or whatever it was called I can't be arsed to look it up RN.)

 

[Tygrende]

Tall Grass is a pike.

My bad. But like you said, Cladhaliath can be amazing depending on how you answer the questions.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yup, the game definitely lacks arquebuses.

 

[fantadomat]

Tall Grass is a pike.

My bad. But like you said, Cladhaliath can be amazing depending on how you answer the questions.

Yeah but spears are kind of stupid,from what i remember they can't hit from the second row like the staff.

 

[FreeKaner]

The gun options are limited, but they are all rather fun.

My favourite experience from PoE1 is still blasting people with flames of devotion through silver flash, when the divine mark procs on a low armour target (which you can attain by using form of a helpeless beast), the numbers are ridiculous, over 200 is possible effortlessly.

 

[Quillon]

Ending question: Is it a possibility that Thaos meddled with the souls during the whole events happening that would somehow interfere with Galawain & Berath's options?(Hylea's option is fucked up to begin with IMO). Like later on Woedica would benefit from the people with reinforced souls in Dyrwood or reborn souls from the cycle? Fucking Rymrgand's option was the safest?

 

[Parabalus]

Nothing is overrepresented and you can look in the wiki for where to get any of the unique weapons and decide on when to do it.

Most weapon types are well represented. Spears are the least impressive by far, and staves aren't that great either, although Durance's staff is decent early game. Hatchets are pretty poor unless you're putting them on a high deflection character. Clubs, maces, crossbows, pollaxes, pikes and warhammers aren't that great either IMHO.

There are pretty cool weapons for all of those types:

Clubs - persecuting mace, great stacks with everything debuff
Maces - soulbound mace, sucks tho
xbow - soulbound one for 1xhaste/rest, weak type overall
pollaxe - dragonslayer&last WM2 bounty
pike - tall grass extremely early, probably best "all around" melee weapon
hatchet - last WM2 bounty, triggers fatigue
warhammer - Abydon hammer (+4 free might for casters) + sky dragon hammer (stunlock) + elms one with disorienting + tank one in Od nua

Think it's more placement than lack of choices. They probably made sure individual weapon focus groups had enough power throughout game progression, instead of individual types.

 

[Prime Junta]

There are a couple more good crossbows, including one that's pretty early in the Endless Paths.

There really isn't a bad weapon group in the game. Some of them are asking for specific builds though.

 

[Parabalus]

There are a couple more good crossbows, including one that's pretty early in the Endless Paths.

There really isn't a bad weapon group in the game. Some of them are asking for specific builds though.

That one only does damage, iirc. Aren't xbows just worse than bows in the DPS department, because of reload mechanics? Never really did the math.

Arbalests have stun/prone-lock options and guns do more alpha strike damage.

 

[Prime Junta]

That one only does damage, iirc. Aren't xbows just worse than bows in the DPS department, because of reload mechanics? Never really did the math.

Arbalests have stun/prone-lock options and guns do more alpha strike damage.

I haven't done the math either. They do have higher damage which means they work better against armoured opponents, i.e. most of them. I played pretty far into the game with a crossbow ranger and he wrecked stuff with the best of 'em. They strike a pretty good middle ground between the fast-but-weak bows and the slow-but-strong arbalests. And that soulbound crossbow really is boss.

 

[FreeKaner]

The ship is sinking, abandon thread.

 

[Bonerbill]

The gun options are limited, but they are all rather fun.

Guns lack a superb option, but the few unique guns you do have are pretty decent for enchanting anyway. I think it's worth it enchanting an Arquebus or Blunderbuss, especially if you're going to do the gun switching build that allows you to frontload huge amount of damage before reloading any of your guns.

 

[Sextant]

There are a couple more good crossbows, including one that's pretty early in the Endless Paths.

There really isn't a bad weapon group in the game. Some of them are asking for specific builds though.

That one only does damage, iirc. Aren't xbows just worse than bows in the DPS department, because of reload mechanics? Never really did the math.

Arbalests have stun/prone-lock options and guns do more alpha strike damage.

No armor, no boni and warbows rule.

But in plate (as you should be...), with good Might and Dex (which helps warbows strongly), and reload reducing perks the picture turns. Armor is especially important, the heavier it is, the less damage per frame bows do.

I didnt look at firearms because they are tactically unsound. The AI does not see max range shooters and never switches onto them (except for languwhatever, their AI cheats and sees even beyond LOS). So you can stand around with Eder and 5 shooters.

And fights against low DR enemies dont matter. They are pushover trash.

Arbalests rule because of the Prone on crit. I proned the Alpine dragon at least 3 times with a level 7 party/rogue on POTD despite all the Blind and Slicken from the wizard failing. Rest bonus, Devotion from priest and Eldrich Aim, topped of with 20% hit-to-crit conversion from abilities, 15 from consumables and Dire Blessing (it doesnt stack though... i think). Could have done even the Forge ench for even more Hit to Crit whcih is not about damage. Its just Prone Prone Prone pls. Would not have survived without the Prones.

 

[Sextant]

Then again, the key to such fights it not get in range at all...

Second attempt at the fight, got lucky:
Hit to Crit on Finishing blow

And then later at the end of the fight for 140 dmg

Two Prones when you are out of summons and in danger of being completely instagibbed with a single breath.

 

[the_shadow]

Spears are the least impressive by far

What? There's plenty of unique spears
.

There's a few unique spears, but they are inferior to uniques in other weapon types. I went through the effort to get the Cladhalíath in one playthrough and was pretty disappointed. Spears in general are a weak weapon type since most enemies have high piercing resist.

Compare them to greatswords. You can get gloves to summon Firebrand soon after reaching Defiance Bay (huge fire damage, esp. on crits), and another one which prones on crits from the Club for Gentlemen. Mid-game you can take on the drake and get Tidefall, or buy the Hours of Sir. Rum. from Dyrford. And greatswords can go between slash or pierce.

 

[Parabalus]

There are a couple more good crossbows, including one that's pretty early in the Endless Paths.

There really isn't a bad weapon group in the game. Some of them are asking for specific builds though.

That one only does damage, iirc. Aren't xbows just worse than bows in the DPS department, because of reload mechanics? Never really did the math.

Arbalests have stun/prone-lock options and guns do more alpha strike damage.

No armor, no boni and warbows rule.

(math)

But in plate (as you should be...), with good Might and Dex (which helps warbows strongly), and reload reducing perks the picture turns. Armor is especially important, the heavier it is, the less damage per frame bows do.


I didnt look at firearms because they are tactically unsound. The AI does not see max range shooters and never switches onto them (except for languwhatever, their AI cheats and sees even beyond LOS). So you can stand around with Eder and 5 shooters.

And fights against low DR enemies dont matter. They are pushover trash.

Arbalests rule because of the Prone on crit. I proned the Alpine dragon at least 3 times with a level 7 party/rogue on POTD despite all the Blind and Slicken from the wizard failing. Rest bonus, Devotion from priest and Eldrich Aim, topped of with 20% hit-to-crit conversion from abilities, 15 from consumables and Dire Blessing (it doesnt stack though... i think). Could have done even the Forge ench for even more Hit to Crit whcih is not about damage. Its just Prone Prone Prone pls. Would not have survived without the Prones.

Shouldn't you factor in haste buffs, which benefit bows more?
If I'm reading correctly you only have 30 DEX, no haste, since weapons have recovery listed, when it's trivial to for them to drop recovery to 0 (DAoM/pot, chanter shout, haste enchant, durgan, modal, gloves), while you can't do that to reloading. With 0 recovery you also lose the 5ish dead frames, while you can't remove them on a reloading weapon.

I had no idea about that max range exploit, too bad.

Consumables should stack with DB, else it's a bug. Arbalests are great for locking, warbows also have easy access to Borresaine.

 

[Sextant]

Technically, the Dex bonus is just a universal percentage speed up. So, potentially I can just type in whatever to get a frametime for a single attack. But I took the base values from here, since POE time calc is so retarded, I am not applying boni to recovery or reload individually.
https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/

As for haste boni, just as a typical example with realistic might and ench boni:
Warbow Durgan, Plate, Daom, Chant: 93
Arba: 243

In Leather though

What help are Gunner and Swift Aim talents (obviously not fair to bows) though, made for reloading shit:

I dont understand why people want 0 recovery so badly? Dps is dps, no? Only for interrupts?

I dont think max range shooting is an exploit though. You stealth to an enemy, game autopauses on sight, now you can actually leave stealth and the enemy is not attacking. Only when you shoot them. And you can shoot them with 12m range weapons which is exactly the LOS...
I believe the AI sometimes checks range to target to actually decide if to switch. So the farther you are away from the it, the less it switches, less being never.

And the Languafenthsomething are interesting because you can trigger a fight with single char and some of the Langs will target your dudes who are 2 screens away, clever girls...

 

[Sextant]

Than again, this thing disagrees with me on DPS vs DR10
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vDm5MOrCK6S95h5u0EzZbGTv_u_rYqjuO0-zupqk0_A/

 

[agris]

Fun new quote for the PoE1 bandwagoners.

I do feel in light of PoE1, being able to do chunk deletions easily might have benefited the narrative presentation.

 

[Parabalus]

Technically, the Dex bonus is just a universal percentage speed up. So, potentially I can just type in whatever to get a frametime for a single attack. But I took the base values from here, since POE time calc is so retarded, I am not applying boni to recovery or reload individually.
https://naijaro.github.io/poe-speed-calculator/


I dont understand why people want 0 recovery so badly? Dps is dps, no? Only for interrupts?

I know DEX affects everything equally, hence why I brought haste effects up, which don't, so if comparing DPS you should count them in. With how they stack 0% recovery in plate with 50% buff is easy, in durgan cloth permanently without.

Than again, this thing disagrees with me on DPS vs DR10
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vDm5MOrCK6S95h5u0EzZbGTv_u_rYqjuO0-zupqk0_A/

I think you can see what I mean easier from this one:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WcgHNkpy-JDuJUhPe4fJc6yilxZaaDET1DKwch19yK4/edit#gid=0 (credits), just compare 2 first blocks, 0 speed vs max speed, for xbow vs warbow. Seems to be similar to the one you linked.

Nice to see how outrageous Firebrand and Citzal's are though .