Core VS Hard

[Destroyner]

Just beat the game for my first full playthrough on core as an angel oracle and had a great time. The beginning was fairly challenging but felt balanced and due to my KC I became an unstoppable force by mid act 3. I wanted to try something different and go for more of a challenge so I rolled an exploiter wizard to go lich and bumped up the difficulty to hard.

It's like I'm playing a completely different game. All the tips and tricks/gameplay mechanics I learned and picked up along the way feel mostly useless and I am getting dumpstered constantly. Grease is pretty strong but has about a 60% success rate and prevents Seelah/Woljif from doing anything even if I carefully put it right on the edge of the enemy's character because the actual AoE is larger than the visible grease animation. Not to mention it only has a few casts per rest and I am trying to clear Kenabres before the tavern defense so rests are limited. My KC has a glaive to attack from reach but enemies seem to disregard my front line and just bee line to him and down him constantly.

My companions also seem to be far less useful than in the last run. I'm doing fairly similar builds (I'm still fairly new to pathfinder so following CRPG Bro's build guides) but everything seems less effective. Seelah can't tank for ♥♥♥♥, even with Camellia spending every turn using protective luck she still seems to get hit 30% of the time for half of her hp. Wenduag hits hard but only about 50% of the time. Cam is on hex duty as I figured that having a paladin with constant protective luck would be more efficient than 2 front liners with mediocre AC. Ember provides great support but sleep is of course less useful against higher saves. Woljif is top bro as usual and I have nothing negative to report on his performance aside from him hitting less frequently but that is to be expected.

I suppose the main point of this rant is to ask if this is purely a skill issue and I just need to play better or does hard start to require more cheese tactics on the road to unfair? I have no interest in playing unfair after reading about it but core felt too easy so I'm trying to find a middle ground. Are arcane casters just that much weaker early game compared to divine? Is a pet tank mandatory to get the AC needed to not be shredded? For the record I've been able to clear everything so far except for the water elemental, the shadow demon, and the vrock from the ritual circle. I'm just not sure if this is tactical inefficiency on my part or a standard experience for making the jump in difficulty.

[fauxpas]

Its mostly just a numbers game, but yes some of it is class choice.

[coRex]

I played my first playthrough on hard, and especially early on it was quite the challange. But thats also because i am not super familiar with the ruleset, so i didnt know about the shatter defense, freebooter, monk dips, mobility 3, etc... things that help out on higher difficulties.

After a few levels hard became much easier, to that point that it wasnt that much of a challange anymore. But as i said i used a lot of advanced build mechanics.

I just started a new playthrough on core, with the tabletop mods and a melee MC (i played a sorcerer first), and having a real good time with it, because i basically havent to restart a fight because some rolls went wrong, and even if they do, on core there is mostly a way out of it and still win the fight.
And i could do some builds, that are fun, but not really that much effective.

So as fauxpas said, it is a numbers game, and sometimes there is nothing wrong with your strategy when all enemies saving throw against grease work :D

[RandoFingerBANG]

You say your new so I'll also say that having a solid grasp on WOTRs ruleset will help a lot.

The difficulty increase from normal through unfair increase decently at each step so it's not so surprising that it can be tough adapting to the new changes.

Exploiter wizard is good but if you're blaster casting consider taking a level in cross-blooded Sorcerer and a relevant bloodline to add more damage.

For hexes, use cackle/chant to extend them without using your turn up on just hexing.

A pet or pajama tanking (Dodge/Crane Feats+Fight Defensively!) will probably be necessary, yeah... Unless you're Ulbrig (haven't tried shifter on other classes). Dips can add a lot of AC too, like Scaled Fist or Sohei for Seelah. Scaled Fist for Pajama tanking; Sohei for early pet.

Remember that early game is the hardest part of the game. Your mythic path will massively help as the game progresses.

Selective metamagic will help you if grease is causing your own team some headaches.

Strong builds are a good start but team synergy is equally helpful.

If you're team isn't filled out yet or if you have any weakspots, consider a merc until you hit MR3. A bard or skald can help smooth out the early game. You can also consider making your KC a certain build and them respeccing them it becomes a bit easier.

If you're still struggling, posting your builds so people can critique them might help you out.

Lastly, if you play RTWP, consider Turnbased until you find your footing.

If you can do core, I think you should be able to conquer hard!

I hope any of these tips helped and good luck

[Deo]

I started and completed the game on Unfair, and after I wanted to see Core out of curiosity.
It's a joke difficulty - everything dead from 1 hit, you can just send your party and not think about tactic at all. You will not learn anything on Core, sadly.

Grease should be used as Selective, or not used at all. Heightened after, but I found it unreliable. Best CC that worked for me on Unfair was Sirocco, from a specialized merc - selective, heightened etc. You stack 5-6 of them on top of each other, and it works.

For strong enemies I used another specialized merc Shaman 8(Frost)/Winter witch 6/Loremaster(4)/Crossblooded(1)/Instinctual warr(1) - he can control whole battlefield with Shouts learned via Loremaster. He saved me countless times, absolute monster controller, while also providing hexes.

My tank was a pet. Camelia can be built into tank, but I hate her.

Also, enemy AI in turn-based and in RTWP is very different, and in turn-based it is WAY more dumb. You can easy test it - in RTWP enemies will run at your backline after 3-4 seconds, while in turn-based they will stack attacking the tank.

I'd say you have a skill issue, since you are building Seelah into tank.

I played without story companions, but there is a guy on Youtube - juzamdj52, he played with story companions and completed Unfair. You can watch his walkthroughs and you will learn from them more, than you learned playing on Core. I recommend him to you very much - he is explaining a lot, which is good for a new player like you.

[Winter Wolf]

Originally posted by Deo:

I started and completed the game on Unfair, and after I wanted to see Core out of curiosity.
It's a joke difficulty - everything dead from 1 hit, you can just send your party and not think about tactic at all. You will not learn anything on Core, sadly.

Grease should be used as Selective, or not used at all. Heightened after, but I found it unreliable. Best CC that worked for me on Unfair was Sirocco, from a specialized merc - selective, heightened etc. You stack 5-6 of them on top of each other, and it works.

For strong enemies I used another specialized merc Shaman 8(Frost)/Winter witch 6/Loremaster(4)/Crossblooded(1)/Instinctual warr(1) - he can control whole battlefield with Shouts learned via Loremaster. He saved me countless times, absolute monster controller, while also providing hexes.

My tank was a pet. Camelia can be built into tank, but I hate her.

Also, enemy AI in turn-based and in RTWP is very different, and in turn-based it is WAY more dumb. You can easy test it - in RTWP enemies will run at your backline after 3-4 seconds, while in turn-based they will stack attacking the tank.

I'd say you have a skill issue, since you are building Seelah into tank.

I played without story companions, but there is a guy on Youtube - juzamdj52, he played with story companions and completed Unfair. You can watch his walkthroughs and you will learn from them more, than you learned playing on Core. I recommend him to you very much - he is explaining a lot, which is good for a new player like you.

I mean the dude said early game and you are giving him late game advice...and tearing him down while building yourself up. Seems suss from an empathy pov anyway.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by Destroyner:

Just beat the game for my first full playthrough on core as an angel oracle and had a great time. The beginning was fairly challenging but felt balanced and due to my KC I became an unstoppable force by mid act 3. I wanted to try something different and go for more of a challenge so I rolled an exploiter wizard to go lich and bumped up the difficulty to hard.

It's like I'm playing a completely different game. All the tips and tricks/gameplay mechanics I learned and picked up along the way feel mostly useless and I am getting dumpstered constantly. Grease is pretty strong but has about a 60% success rate and prevents Seelah/Woljif from doing anything even if I carefully put it right on the edge of the enemy's character because the actual AoE is larger than the visible grease animation. Not to mention it only has a few casts per rest and I am trying to clear Kenabres before the tavern defense so rests are limited. My KC has a glaive to attack from reach but enemies seem to disregard my front line and just bee line to him and down him constantly.

My companions also seem to be far less useful than in the last run. I'm doing fairly similar builds (I'm still fairly new to pathfinder so following CRPG Bro's build guides) but everything seems less effective. Seelah can't tank for ♥♥♥♥, even with Camellia spending every turn using protective luck she still seems to get hit 30% of the time for half of her hp. Wenduag hits hard but only about 50% of the time. Cam is on hex duty as I figured that having a paladin with constant protective luck would be more efficient than 2 front liners with mediocre AC. Ember provides great support but sleep is of course less useful against higher saves. Woljif is top bro as usual and I have nothing negative to report on his performance aside from him hitting less frequently but that is to be expected.

I suppose the main point of this rant is to ask if this is purely a skill issue and I just need to play better or does hard start to require more cheese tactics on the road to unfair? I have no interest in playing unfair after reading about it but core felt too easy so I'm trying to find a middle ground. Are arcane casters just that much weaker early game compared to divine? Is a pet tank mandatory to get the AC needed to not be shredded? For the record I've been able to clear everything so far except for the water elemental, the shadow demon, and the vrock from the ritual circle. I'm just not sure if this is tactical inefficiency on my part or a standard experience for making the jump in difficulty.

sounds more like a legit problem of Arcane casters

Arcane casters have been over-rated for decades realy
super unrelible
super fragile
super meta game min max needed
super inconsistent
there sprinters not marathon or endurance runners so trying to complete stuff in as short rests as possible is super hard on an Arcane caster vs divine or Martial characters

then again i still remeber that one youtuber hwo claimed you should never play a Martial character who then got dumpsterd on for how wrong he was over-all and how bad his infomation tips where ...

[THAC0]

Originally posted by Winter Wolf:

Originally posted by Deo:

I started and completed the game on Unfair, and after I wanted to see Core out of curiosity.
It's a joke difficulty - everything dead from 1 hit, you can just send your party and not think about tactic at all. You will not learn anything on Core, sadly.

Grease should be used as Selective, or not used at all. Heightened after, but I found it unreliable. Best CC that worked for me on Unfair was Sirocco, from a specialized merc - selective, heightened etc. You stack 5-6 of them on top of each other, and it works.

For strong enemies I used another specialized merc Shaman 8(Frost)/Winter witch 6/Loremaster(4)/Crossblooded(1)/Instinctual warr(1) - he can control whole battlefield with Shouts learned via Loremaster. He saved me countless times, absolute monster controller, while also providing hexes.

My tank was a pet. Camelia can be built into tank, but I hate her.

Also, enemy AI in turn-based and in RTWP is very different, and in turn-based it is WAY more dumb. You can easy test it - in RTWP enemies will run at your backline after 3-4 seconds, while in turn-based they will stack attacking the tank.

I'd say you have a skill issue, since you are building Seelah into tank.

I played without story companions, but there is a guy on Youtube - juzamdj52, he played with story companions and completed Unfair. You can watch his walkthroughs and you will learn from them more, than you learned playing on Core. I recommend him to you very much - he is explaining a lot, which is good for a new player like you.

I mean the dude said early game and you are giving him late game advice...and tearing him down while building yourself up. Seems suss from an empathy pov anyway.

ppl like that are Thoery crafters they like to state things / pull things that look good on paper but dont work Realisticly speaking

Arcane casters are basicly the Hard Differcult of CRPGS

[Destroyner]

Thanks for the replies. The numbers game aspect is certainly a big factor. I tried save-scumming the vrock with evil eye saving throw debuff/sleep/coup de grace and even though I statistically had a 25% chance for it to fail the save I gave up after 20 tries and will try to squeeze out another level before trying again. I play a lot of Solasta/5e as well though so I know that sometimes the dice just don't want to cooperate. I haven't posted on this forum much so my response formatting may be hideous but I'll give it a try.

@RandoFingerBANG
I pretty much use my KC strictly for CC and some additional melee damage from reach at this point. From what I've seen he will turn into a damage powerhouse once he merges spellbooks but for now he is relegated to grease/glitterdust duty. I definitely plan on taking selective at level 5. I thought I could delay taking it at 3 but that may have been a mistake. I actually plan on using toybox/respec mod to turn one of my companions into a Skald/BFT at level 5 so I'm on the same page for that. I do a mix of RTwP and turn based. I usually try to get an alpha strike charge with all my melee chars + ember sleep and camellia AC debuff in real time then immediately switch to turn based. Doesn't work on all fights due to pathing/npc variety but it has mostly been beneficial. Good feedback though thank you.

@Deo
That is really impressive. I like to think of myself as fairly competent but can't imagine jumping into this game on unfair for my first playthrough. I disagree about grease only being useful with metamagic. Even pre-selective it can be great to disable an entire backline of casters/ranged characters so that you can focus down the melee and then dispel it or just have your ranged characters focus them after. Even vice versa by dropping the melee then having your tank move forward to draw shots while your ranged kill the backline is usually effective as well. I definitely look forward to not having to romance it as much to use my entire team with it though.
The sirocco advice is probably beneficial but it will be several levels until I have access to that spell. Also stacking 5-6 of the same spell sounds like it would eat through spell slots far too quickly for the way I like to play. Certainly sounds powerful though.
I find that even with turn based the enemies will ignore my frontline and rush my KC but upon further reflection I think I may be starting with a wishful team formation and need to space them out a bit more to reduce the likelihood of that happening instead of trying to squeeze out a little extra damage with my KC being further forward.
I will partially concede about the Seelah tank part but I don't agree entirely. On my last playthrough I used her + her horse (which I don't have yet) as tanks for my entire run and they did great. I think it is a bit of an issue of me trying to have my cake and eat it too. I built her specifically for tanking my last run but changed builds to have her be more of a dps while mounting her horse that will do the tanking but since I don't have her horse yet she is middle of the road and not particularly useful at anything. Can't imagine how desolate a merc only run would be but it does sound like it would be more efficient from a min/max position. I kept the same core team for my entire last run as a good character so I'll be taking evil companions + maybe Sosiel for this run. I'm not actually sure who will be my tanks now that I think about it but that is a problem for after Drezen.

@THAC0
I'd be lying if I said this wasn't what I wanted to hear when making this post to feel better about myself so I will accept your input without question. Quasi-jokes aside, that is good to hear. I don't mind playing something that takes a while to ramp up as long as I'm aware that there is an expectation of early game weakness. I had like 3-4 pets by this point in my last playthrough as well and their absence is very noticeable.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by Destroyner:

Thanks for the replies. The numbers game aspect is certainly a big factor. I tried save-scumming the vrock with evil eye saving throw debuff/sleep/coup de grace and even though I statistically had a 25% chance for it to fail the save I gave up after 20 tries and will try to squeeze out another level before trying again. I play a lot of Solasta/5e as well though so I know that sometimes the dice just don't want to cooperate. I haven't posted on this forum much so my response formatting may be hideous but I'll give it a try.



@THAC0
I'd be lying if I said this wasn't what I wanted to hear when making this post to feel better about myself so I will accept your input without question. Quasi-jokes aside, that is good to hear. I don't mind playing something that takes a while to ramp up as long as I'm aware that there is an expectation of early game weakness. I had like 3-4 pets by this point in my last playthrough as well and their absence is very noticeable.

Arcane Casters are normaly Early Game Whimps Late Game power Houses
so yeah your Arcane Caster is going to be better late game I mean provided you build it right (Like all good proper builds) but your going to suffer in the early stages pretty hard
mid game is going to be a mix bag for you its that period where your not as weak early game but your not strong like late game

reguardless Save scumming or playing on turn based combat (while it takes alot longer) dos tend to make combat easyer
its up 2 you how you wanna do it

you could always be someone who just makes a Merc and go that route let them carry you early game but i kinda go MEH @ t hat route all the time.

[xunlaiAgent]

Originally posted by Deo:

I started and completed the game on Unfair, and after I wanted to see Core out of curiosity.
It's a joke difficulty - everything dead from 1 hit, you can just send your party and not think about tactic at all. You will not learn anything on Core, sadly.

Grease should be used as Selective, or not used at all. Heightened after, but I found it unreliable. Best CC that worked for me on Unfair was Sirocco, from a specialized merc - selective, heightened etc. You stack 5-6 of them on top of each other, and it works.

For strong enemies I used another specialized merc Shaman 8(Frost)/Winter witch 6/Loremaster(4)/Crossblooded(1)/Instinctual warr(1) - he can control whole battlefield with Shouts learned via Loremaster. He saved me countless times, absolute monster controller, while also providing hexes.

My tank was a pet. Camelia can be built into tank, but I hate her.

Also, enemy AI in turn-based and in RTWP is very different, and in turn-based it is WAY more dumb. You can easy test it - in RTWP enemies will run at your backline after 3-4 seconds, while in turn-based they will stack attacking the tank.

I'd say you have a skill issue, since you are building Seelah into tank.

I played without story companions, but there is a guy on Youtube - juzamdj52, he played with story companions and completed Unfair. You can watch his walkthroughs and you will learn from them more, than you learned playing on Core. I recommend him to you very much - he is explaining a lot, which is good for a new player like you.

Seelah is a passable tank and consistent damage dealer. Give her one level in sorc and grab critical immunity with the mythic feat that lets you take the final power of your sorc line. Then some mirror image / etc. scrolls for tough situations, and she is mostly fine.

Yes, this is somewhat cheap (why would Seelah have sorc levels???), but in this game a tank kinda needs that crit immunity. It's still less dirty than a druid/monk with untouchable AC.

You stack 5-6 of them on top of each other, and it works.

I used this strategy a lot in kingmaker. Herding mobs into AoE vomit of doom. Plague Storm is also very good for this purpose, or at least was in Kingmaker.

[fox5s]

Yeah, the Oracle Wizard difference is pretty harsh. It looks like you've gotten some pretty decent advice already. Arcane casters can really start doing their thing around level 12. Before then, especially above Core, they are limited to buffing, some CC, and maybe some chip damage.

Here's an example of an Unfair viable Nenio build and the hoops she has to jump through to be able to do things with the extreme stat bloat present there:

https://pastebin.com/RbdQQSqx

And I've seen screenshots of her, using a likely similar build since it was taken by the same person, CCing the Veskavore queen with very high reliability in Unfair. Though, there was cheese involved that forced the Queen to roll 11 for her save.

[Deo]

Originally posted by xunlaiAgent:

Seelah is a passable tank

She really isn't. Owlcat devs are a big trolls, and love to make you think that character is a tank, because they gave him heavy armor and shield. Was the same story with Harrim in Kingmaker (that 9 dex, ouch).

Seelah is great damage dealer, absolute beast and will carry you through first act (or make you money to hire mercs). Just pick her 6 Sohei levels right from level 2, and she rocks.

[THAC0]

Originally posted by Deo:

Originally posted by xunlaiAgent:

Seelah is a passable tank

She really isn't. Owlcat devs are a big trolls, and love to make you think that character is a tank, because they gave him heavy armor and shield. Was the same story with Harrim in Kingmaker (that 9 dex, ouch).

Seelah is great damage dealer, absolute beast and will carry you through first act (or make you money to hire mercs). Just pick her 6 Sohei levels right from level 2, and she rocks.

Oh boy your in the minority there

Shelah can 100% be a tank
its been shown that even a Tower Shield Spec can unfair differculty level 1-20 and be Tanky about it granted it required some knowledge and gameplay facts (Like being an Aeon or such) but still
Seelah is a character that can tank on unfair you will need to multiclass her but still she is normaly a better tank on unfair then a damage dealer ....

[xunlaiAgent]

Originally posted by Deo:

Originally posted by xunlaiAgent:

Seelah is a passable tank

She really isn't. Owlcat devs are a big trolls, and love to make you think that character is a tank, because they gave him heavy armor and shield. Was the same story with Harrim in Kingmaker (that 9 dex, ouch).

Seelah is great damage dealer, absolute beast and will carry you through first act (or make you money to hire mercs). Just pick her 6 Sohei levels right from level 2, and she rocks.

Why not though? She is still a paladin, and there is an item that gives her Sacred AC instead of Deflection AC from smite. Then give her something like Legendary Proportions or scoll of Frightful Aspect. Her AC will not be sky high, but quite passable especially with Protective Luck.

Though now that I think of it... I guess I used bugged Vestment spells to boost her AC in early game, but those were fixed at some point?

[Deo]

Originally posted by xunlaiAgent:

Why not though? She is still a paladin, and there is an item that gives her Sacred AC instead of Deflection AC from smite. Then give her something like Legendary Proportions or scoll of Frightful Aspect. Her AC will not be sky high, but quite passable especially with Protective Luck.

Though now that I think of it... I guess I used bugged Vestment spells to boost her AC in early game, but those were fixed at some point?

You can just level Lann from level 2 as Wandering Marksman, and his Leopard pet right from the get go will be 2x times better tank than Seelah. And he will be better tank than Seelah in the mid game too, and in the late game. And with all the buffs you described. he will still be better tank.

While at the early game, Sohei Seelah saving you tons of money if you want to go merc run, or just carrying you through Unfair if you want to play with story companions.

Magical vestments spell was fixed long time ago, and Greater Magic weapon too.