PoE What class for your main character in PoE?

[Morrandir]

Hm... which classes profit best from high Resolve?

 

[Fenris]

I will play a Muscle Wizard of Course
"Your Spells are weak, do you even lift !?"

... but probably only after the Game hits the bargain bin; I really don't like their design decisions; they have to deliver a stellar Story with lots of C&C to convince me otherwise.

 

[azarhal]

Hm… which classes profit best from high Resolve?

A tank or melee character that start with low deflection or anyone you don't want to be interrupted often (interruption affect all actions).

 

[Kordanor]

Btw, does anyone know how playing with less than six characters will work out? I read that it's even possible to play solo and that you'd get experience faster that way, like in other party-based RPGs. However, there also seems to be a level cap of 12, which could make things difficult later on, depending on how soon you reach it. So I'm wondering …

I think you will do just fine with lesser characters on lower difficulties.

There is however a mechanic similar to an "Enrage Timer" you find in MMOs like World of Warcraft. Just that in PoE it's not the boss who becomes stronger, but at some point your character will have no way to survive.

Why is that? Because PoE uses two health bars. One is actually called health. And another which is called endurance and is what we are used to as health bar.
Health is dependent on class X times higher than endurance. When you get hit by 10 Damage, this amount is reduced on both, Health and Endurance.

But in the fight you can only heal endurance. Health can only be generated by resting.

So lets say you got 400 health and 100 endurance. You get hit for 90 damage, healed for 90 damage. You are now down to 310 health and 100 endurance. At some point your health will be lower than your maximal endurance, and at that point you can only be healed until this limit is reached. And at some point health is gone and you die.

You also cannot get completely immune to any kind of damage. Even if you have 10 damage reduction against a hit of 10 damage, you will take the minimum damage of 20%.

So there is no way you can play through the game with one character only except by exploiting something maybe. But something like in MMX wont work.

And yeah, from what I have heared XP is divided among party members. And the level cap is 12.

Hm… which classes profit best from high Resolve?

Resolve is considered one of the worth Attributes overall. So who can use it at all?
Tanks get additional defense (other classes dont really need it)
Casters get additional concentration (which isn't needed a lot if you stay out of melee range apparently).
So who can use it most? I guess it's a casting tank. Probably a Paladin or Chanter I guess.

 

[azarhal]

huh? The Health/Stamina mechanics has nothing to do with an Enrage Timer. It's an exhaustion gauge that tells you that maybe your should be resting now unless you want characters with low health to die in the next encounter. If you play solo, losing all stamina will kill you.

Rule of thumbs, if your health is lower than your stamina, go rest.

 

[Kordanor]

Well, it serves the same purpose: You cannot tank through an encounter.

 

[Archangel]

A tank or melee character that start with low deflection or anyone you don't want to be interrupted often (interruption affect all actions).

To be more specific, a Monk probably needs high resolve because with a monk you want to be hit often so you get wounds to power your abilities but you don't want your actions to be interrupted.

 

[azarhal]

Well, it serves the same purpose: You cannot tank through an encounter.

What? If you try to play PoE without a tank you are going to get raped. I even suggest you bring two to share the pain and increase the adventuring day.

If you lose all your health in a single encounter you are doing something very, very wrong and probably facing something way beyond your level, even when soloing. The game is balanced with the idea that you can face off against 4-5 encounters without having the need to rest (a bit more if you are better at avoiding damage, a bit less if you use a low health class as tank).

 

[Kordanor]

I don't think you get what I am talking about.

The Enrage Timers in WoW for example are there to make sure, that the group is past a certain gear. Otherwise they will not be able to beat the opponent within time.

And that is exactly the same with the health mechanic in PoE.
If this mechanic did not exist, you could get into each fight with a character who has extremely high deflection, extremely high dr, so that he only gets hit by the minimum of 20% damage. Even if he just does 2 damage per hit, doesnt matter. With enough health and mana potions (well, there is a cap of four) and maybe another dude behind him who heals) he would not go down (the fighter also has a passive auto regeneration). You would hardly do any damage, but due to potions time would be on your side. You could literally tank your opponents to death.

But due to the system they have this is not the case. Even with a lot of potions, you are constantly losing health. And at some point you WILL die, there is no point around it.

 

[Maylander]

You are correct in that health could work as something of an enrage mechanic, but I don't think it will, as I don't think the encounters are designed around a "war of nutrition" the way WoW bosses are. They seem to be more bursty than that, but I haven't seen high end fights.

There could be tough encounters later on, such as dragons, where health basically works as an enrage timer, but for the most part I think it's more of a tactical choice regarding how many fights you want to tackle in a row before resting.

 

[Kordanor]

I guess this will also pretty much depend on the difficulty level. I am pretty sure it becomes more often the case with Path of the Damned.

But I think it's designed as enrage mechanic. Not to check your damage like in WoW though, but to avoid exploiting mechanics / the AI by loopholes in the mechanics. Like the dude who played Might and Magic X with only one character (a paladin which just survived while the enemies killed themselves via thorns).

It gives a bigger importance to the DD classes.

 

[azarhal]

a "war of nutrition" the way WoW bosses are.

Best typo ever!

 

[Morrandir]

So I'm going home now. Need to somehow negotiate an evening off. Wish me luck with my dice rolls, wifey's will save is quite high.

 

[Arhu]

I went with an Orlan Cipher as planned, and still it took me an hour to create him. So many choices, so much to consider!

I had planned to make him focus on blast waves and such, but then one of the peculiarities of the stat system hit me. High Might means high damage spells, but also high physical strength. Orlans are puny (penalty to Might) though, so I wasn't sure what to do.

In the end I chose to go with a Hearth Orlan for the looks, who is timid and weak, but quick and very observant — in line with his racial benefits. He's completely focusing on abilities that mess with opponents' minds: fear, blind, mind-control and so on, as those don't depend on Might at all. It's working out well enough so far.


By the way, how hard can it be to offer two input fields for name and surname? NPCs have surnames (the companion mage just told me his!), but show only their given name on character portraits. The player character can either a) have no surname or b) have their full name be used at all times. Bah.

 

[Morrandir]

So I went with a dual whield human Chanter.
Stats are: Might 10, Constitution 14, Dexterity 10, Perception 10, Intelect 17, Resolve 17.
Wanted high Resolve for dialog options.
Would normally have gone for Wizard, but I wanted Aloth in my party and didn't want to have 2 wizards.

Playing in normal difficulty, so I think it'll somehow work.

 

[DArtagnan]

I designed a Human Rogue with 16 str and 16 dex, as well as 14 int and 14 res - and I reduced con by 2 - as I don't intend to be hit much.

But I'm going to redesign him with higher str and dex - as int and res seem underwhelming for my build. I'll probably miss out on dialogue options, which is a really annoying design decision. I don't understand why I can't be effective in combat and still have extra options during conversations, but maybe it comes later on.

It took me a while to realise that my background options are "assumed" from the beginning, and the stat bonuses you get are already applied. Which means you'll often see a lower total on your sheet than you'd expect.

Anyway, I really like the game so far.

 

[Morrandir]

I'll probably miss out on dialogue options, which is a really annoying design decision.

Indeed. They could have solved that by adding something like a Speech skill.

It took me a while to realise that my background options are "assumed" from the beginning, and the stat bonuses you get are already applied. Which means you'll often see a lower total on your sheet than you'd expect.

Ah, I wondered how this workes. Thanks.

 

[DArtagnan]

Indeed. They could have solved that by adding something like a Speech skill.

Agreed, something like Diplomacy as a general skill for the smooth talkers among us - and then various stat checks, which I'm sure they already have. But in the BB - almost everything was about res and int. I hope that changes.

 

[Kordanor]

I don't think that a speech or diplomacy skill is a good idea as to me this sounds like a skill I am "forced" to take with the main character to get the better solutions. And it's a skill which is totally useless for all other characters.

The way they have set it up you can chose to solve the problem via "lore", but it might not even be the best choice.

If half of the time you would get screwed chosing your "diplomacy skill" you would feel trolled.

The extra points in conversaionts are only hidden if you chose so by the game option or by taking the expert mode. In both cases I'd recommend to check out some of the "regular gameplay" so that you see what you actually miss.
I personally chose not to take expert mode, mostly because for me this is mostly difficulty by annoyance. Like playing a shooter without crosshair or an graphics adventure without hotspot highlight.
The only things I disabled are the shared stache (which seems to be broken though and which I as well could enable) and the maim option, so that my characters instantly die if at 0. I am trying to not let them go that far anyways.

 

[DArtagnan]

You're going to be forced if you want to be good at something, no matter what.

If you want a diplomat character - or one that excels at communication, it makes sense that you sacrifice some skill points for that. Just like you would for "Survival" or anything else.

Makes perfect sense to me, and I think it's supremely stupid that I have absolutely NO idea of what it will take to be good at talking to people. It takes that option away from me when creating a character.

But, to each his own.