Difficullty

[Hibuki]

Is it just me or are the enemies in the burning Priest overtuned?

I used the Accessibility menu to lower things to 70% and my character is still getting killed in 2-3 hits despite having 899 HP + 20+ Defense + Decent armor.

Especially the boss - if he stuns you with an attack, his follow up is pretty much guaranteed to smack you as well...

I don't know if people find this fun but I do not...

[flushfire]

I'm assuming you mean the final map.

The damage definitely ramps up sharply compared to any other spike in the game. I think they balanced it with the expectation that the player does a bit of grinding and had invested into other trees.

Although, 900 HP isn't particularly high at that point. Also, defense is somewhat of a trap because of heavily diminishing returns per point. At 900 HP and 20 def I'd assume per point of con will give you 18 HP while def gives 0.6% (?) resist. 18 HP is 2% of your total, if you think of it in EHP (effective hit points) terms, a point in con is equivalent to 3 points in def.

It also has to do with the disparity between classes. The flameweaver - vanguard - vindicator trees/classes are able to mitigate a lot of damage late game.

[Hibuki]

Originally posted by flushfire:

I'm assuming you mean the final map.

The damage definitely ramps up sharply compared to any other spike in the game. I think they balanced it with the expectation that the player does a bit of grinding and had invested into other trees.

Although, 900 HP isn't particularly high at that point. Also, defense is somewhat of a trap because of heavily diminishing returns per point. At 900 HP and 20 def I'd assume per point of con will give you 18 HP while def gives 0.6% (?) resist. 18 HP is 2% of your total, if you think of it in EHP (effective hit points) terms, a point in con is equivalent to 3 points in def.

It also has to do with the disparity between classes. The flameweaver - vanguard - vindicator trees/classes are able to mitigate a lot of damage late game.

Thanks for the constructive input - I honestly did not bother doing the math but noticed that I am getting 17hp instead of 20 whereas Defense was giving me a flat 0.8%

I might respec with more of a focus on HP but I don't think it would make much of a difference for me. If the attacks can kill my character in 2-3 hits, then maybe it will change to 3 hits instead of 2-3 which is still problematic...

I play the rogue class and use dual daggers so I don't have many defensive options - just the dodge roll + blink ability which blinks behind the enemy.

I'll give the boss a few more attempts as I was able to clear the first phase a few times but the run back is annoying (running through and dodging all the enemies is just tedious). Not to mention that the second phase can just knock you off the edge...

[Falkon Swiftblade]

i'm near the end with over 80 armor and some enemies still can 1-2 shot me. One thing you can do is craft minor shield potions that negate any direct next attack. that has helped on a few boss fights. Also training the cloth merchant to max upgrade lvl lets you get a decent bandage to help on fights.

[Allibernus]

Originally posted by Hibuki:

Is it just me or are the enemies in the burning Priest overtuned?

I used the Accessibility menu to lower things to 70% and my character is still getting killed in 2-3 hits despite having 899 HP + 20+ Defense + Decent armor.

Especially the boss - if he stuns you with an attack, his follow up is pretty much guaranteed to smack you as well...

I don't know if people find this fun but I do not...

Here are some tips to help you counter the high damage/instakill problem. Try the following combination: Burning Blood (Flameweaver) + Divine Intervention (Vindicator) + Iron Will (Vanguard) + Furion's Protection Ring. All of these drastically reduce the damage you take, especially when you're below 50% health. Also, even if you take enough damage to die, Burning Blood gives you time to drink a healing flask. For the last boss, if you've opened all the shortcuts, the runback would be very short, it's never bothered me. For the second phase, my strategy (Vanguard) is to never, ever, leave the central platform. When he's not in the middle, take advantage of it to use the lantern. When he teleports to the middle, tank the damage and start hitting him. If he releases those chasing spheres, stay still and jump at the right time to get rid of them once and for all (don't keep jumping around the stage, because they'll follow you and you'll take more damage, lose lantern time or fall into the pit). Try this and let me know.

[flushfire]

Originally posted by Hibuki:

I play the rogue class and use dual daggers so I don't have many defensive options - just the dodge roll + blink ability which blinks behind the enemy.

Nightshade is in a rough spot as many of its skills are downright weak to the point of uselessness. Poison is useless, and a third of its talents are poison related. IMO it's the hardest class to play.

However, you do have a couple paths you can take. One is I guess the default, upgrade Shadowstep to give you invulnerability, and focus on critical and stamina related talents. The goal is to keep stamina up so you can keep attacking to also keep combo points up, letting you Shadowstep continuously. You may need alacrity on your weapon and +crit chance on head & gloves. Use a low stamina cost dagger. Also take Burning Blood from the Flameweaver tree and don't forget Blade Dance makes you invulnerable.

The other is to build like a tank. Start from the Vanguard tree to connect to the right side of the Flameweaver tree. Pick up Eternal Rage on the way. Get Burning Blood and Warrior's Might from Flameweaver. Back to Vanguard, get Veteran (if you don't mind grinding), Enhanced Endurance, Armor Breaker, Iron Will. Connect to the left side of Vindicator and make your way to Astral Power, you can also get Valor otw. After this you can pick talents from the Nightshade tree. Use Ring of the Unstoppable, rest defensive rings. Use Eclipse or Nacreous Amends (they scale off str). Draco Tuatha set is good.

[Zafarion]

One thing a I noticed is that in this game you need to heavily rely on the DAMAGE REDUCTION rings/potions/capes/food. Stack everything and you barely take damage. I don't know how defense/armor calculation works nor if raising these stats are effective, but the damage reduction rings/potions/capes/food really impact a lot.

The rings I always equip in bosses: "reduce 20% damage taken when you are -50% HP", "reduce 10% physical damage taken" (if boss do physical damage), "reduce 10% damage taken for all elements" (if boss do elemental damage).

If the boss do elemental damage (majority of later bosses), the game also has capes that reduces a percent of damage taken. One for each element.

And don't forget to abuse of the damage reduction potions/foods in boss battles. Stack up everything and you barely take damage.

But to get the diagrams for them, you need enjoy exploring every corner and backtrack to previous areas when you get abilities like the double jump for example.

[Bearis]

decided to open up my character that i face tanked the game with for some comparisons. they have 1096 health, 10 defense, 142 armor, 36% full damage reduction on the talent tree page. the trick i found is is combining the talents astral light + iron will with the rings furion's protection + ring of magic protection + shield ring. i think this combined with healing from some talents and consecration does much more than just upping your defense does. another thing to understand is physical resist is often hard to get and physical damage is highly over represented. i did two face tanky playthroughs and they both ended up with physical damage being 50% of my total damage taken and being as much as every other damage type is combined. 131k physical damage taken versuses 266k total damage taken. for that reason i always suggest keeping halberdier cloak on at all times as well as shield ring. even glass canon builds will notice a pretty big boost in survivability by doing this.

[Shio]

Originally posted by Hibuki:

I'll give the boss a few more attempts as I was able to clear the first phase a few times but the run back is annoying (running through and dodging all the enemies is just tedious).

Stop doding and just use the wings to run back its way easier that way.

[Hibuki]

Thanks for the advice everyone