Stronghold "Manual Resolve" attack - squishy dies at the start

[bbfloyd]

At first I did not like PoE much, but once into Act 2 it grew on me.
I've found my first real complaint, and if you have constructive advice, please answer below.

I've got my first incoming attack on my stronghold, so I took the party to Caed Nua; we're rested/no bonuses; the main keep was just completed hours ago. I've got a basic starter party: fighter, wizard, priest, hunter, chanter, I'm a barbarian. Easy difficulty.

I try to manually resolve the attack; but it is unlike every other combat encounter I've had ingame so far:
1) your party spawns within ranged combat distance of the enemy.
2) combat starts instantly - no positioning, buffs, strategy.
3) your party formation preference is ignored.

Result: Aloth the Squishy spawns closest to the attckers, instantly has aggro, and is attacked and 80-100% unconcious before I can pause the fight or reposition the party in my usual formation.

The word I am telepathically projecting describes the brown gooey discharge of the posterior sphincter of fertile male bovine mammals...

I do win the fight, it is not really even a question, but why does it start the fight by sacrificing my squishy - with prejudice?

Is there a way I can get Aloth to spawn farther back, like the way I have my custom formation configured? How do they pick that initial formation/positioning for the stronghold defense encounters and can it be controlled?

[oldrocker99]

I canna answer your question, but your eloquence was entertaining.

[bbfloyd]

So I've reloaded this fight about 25 times for my personal noob training and research.

I've not found a way to cause party to spawn in different formation during the stronghold defense. This means with this party, Aloth is always the initial tank for the fight. Please let me know if there is a way to control the starting formation, because being forced to tank with a squishy wizard is complete total B.S.

Only solution I could find that prevented Aloth from being knocked out early in the fight was to make him less squishy, and even then it was a "hack". I put him in Eder's "Saints War Armor". Aloth still went down in the first moments, but the "Second Chance" enchantment revives him; by this time the priest had put up some endurance regen for the party, allowing Aloth to survive until the real tanks can take charge.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Screenshot?

What you describe is hard to comment on without a screenshot made at start of combat. Pause combat immediately, if it doesn't pause automatically. Give Aloth and other vulnerable companions heavy armor. Withdraw. Use summons. I doubt he is placed directly in melee range of attackers.

[bbfloyd]

I've moved on, as you were correct, the only solution to keeping him in the fight beyond the first seconds was to up his armor. A spell caster in armor...

Aloth was not placed in range of melee attackers, but he was placed closest to them, drawing the first two hits from the enemy archers and an attack from their mage. I have to really square dance a do-se-do with the party to get him physically behind my tanks the way they spawn into the fight. The stupid hunter's pet spawns farthest away from any enemy, and has to run around the entire party to get involved (I usually keep hunter pet up front with tanks).

I actually reapeated this fight many times with all the auto pauses enabled. No matter what, Aloth would draw several ranged attacks before any of the auto pause triggers would stop the fight, leaving Aloth about 20% endurance remaining before I ever have any control of any character.

Unless you can control the party formation going into the stronghold attack manual resolve encounter, the game chooses your tank for you, and you're screwed if it is soft.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

You may also return to Caed Nua, open the party management screen, replace Aloth with a capable warrior, and then defend the stronghold.

[bbfloyd]

Defending Aloth by leaving him out of the party is not the sage advice I was hoping for :(

[McCloud]

That is my experience with all manual resolves of stronghold attacks. Aut-resolve is much worse though. Nearly all attacks you will fail so at least manual you can win them all after the opening 2 seconds of most hirlings dying and a squishy or two from your party dying.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Originally posted by bbfloyd:

Defending Aloth by leaving him out of the party is not the sage advice I was hoping for :(

It is sound advice nevertheless - in addition to what I've mentioned earlier. You don't receive tons of XP anyway. You can swap in Aloth again directly after the fight.

[bbfloyd]

I finally figured it out.
My complaint stands, for these encounters the game is ignoring the formation setting totally and just tossing your party willy-nilly directly into combat, which is so very unlike the rest of the game.

But you can workaround it somewhat.

Answer one: When spawning into a new place your party starts in the two column formation no matter what you have selected. The stronghold defense encounter starts you in this same formation. That formation positions charaters based on the order they were added to the party as shown in the party management screen.

What II was overlooking: My boggle was that during my testing, the party order wouldn't change on the management screen when I messed with it - dismiss/add Aloth, he comes back right beside me. Add dismiss a few more, they all came back to the same positions. So I gave up.

Answer two: What I missed was that you can reorganize the party order if you first dismiss party member(s) and fully ACCEPT the dismissal changes, then add the members back in a new order; then the party will appear in the Party management screen in that new order, and the default two man column formation spawns with the new order.


Now it makes a little sense - sort of.
I had recruited Aloth first, so he spawned front row beside me and nearest combat.

By dismissing everyone, forming myself into a solo party, then going back and adding the tank first and squishies/Aloth last, I got a party that fared much bettter in the warmup round.

I'm sure this is less relevant later game, and have a few hirelings and some levels and gear.

[Dean Sherman]

You can reorganize party order by dragging character portraits at bottom left corner.

[Heresy]

Originally posted by Dean Sherman:

You can reorganize party order by dragging character portraits at bottom left corner.

Hes gonna facepalm when he reads this. I didnt figure this out either until about 10 hours into game when irealised my squishies where up front lol.

[bbfloyd]

I'll try that out TY.