spell casters going down too often help

[hottwiz]

so everytime i fight a enemy that has alot of range or can teloport like spirts my "priest,wizard and druid" tend to hit the floor.
is aggro a thing is this game of not is there a way to "protect" my casters? like what spells and armor to use.
i ask this because i just cleared the light house and on both floors i somewhat got my ass kicked.

[briarroot]

Enemies go after the people who they sense can do them the most damage first, so you'll need at least one of your front rank people to be capable of doing a lot of DPS to distract them from your casters. Sometimes it helps to initiate combat with your front ranky while keeping your rear rank out of it for a few seconds, then bringing them in to clean up.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by briarroot:

Enemies go after the people who they sense can do them the most damage first, so you'll need at least one of your front rank people to be capable of doing a lot of DPS to distract them from your casters. Sometimes it helps to initiate combat with your front ranky while keeping your rear rank out of it for a few seconds, then bringing them in to clean up.

ok thank you.sodps does relate to aggro,i guess i need to respec my "fighters a little.

[QNecron]

The AI in PoE is a little... cheat-y? They'll go for anything with low defences. DPS has nothing to do with agro in PoE, I know as I have built several dual-wielding fights dishing out 90% of my teams DPS and they ingor them for the most part. Fight regen + base defensive stats plus decent armor and they go untouched wrecking enemies with 130+ crits.

Want to have fun with the AI? Entire team of paladins and fighters... hey get confused and hardly act at all. Pretty funny.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by QNecron:

The AI in PoE is a little... cheat-y? They'll go for anything with low defences. DPS has nothing to do with agro in PoE, I know as I have built several dual-wielding fights dishing out 90% of my teams DPS and they ingor them for the most part. Fight regen + base defensive stats plus decent armor and they go untouched wrecking enemies with 130+ crits.

Want to have fun with the AI? Entire team of paladins and fighters... hey get confused and hardly act at all. Pretty funny.

lol.ok so they go after the weak ones.so any tips for making them appear stronger "before" the fight? as the casters have some sheilds but i don't use them.

[QNecron]

I try to keep everyone in at least scale mail, it slows casting times and other actions but is totally worth it. I also like breastplates for my back line because of the protection they offer, you just need to remember to offset the Fire and Cold resistances (Pale Elves are great in them).

Keeping melee equipment also helps, for instance all the backliners I have have a melee one hander and at least a Fine+ small sheild so if someone does close in on them they will just go melee.

I also try to keep everything enchanted, minimum Fine for the first 8 levels, then Exceptional after that. It can be costy but it is totally worth it.

Buying time at the begining of the fight with spells like: web, winter wind, halt and mental binding helps big time.

[numsei]

light house is one of the most hard quest in the game, in general, fighting spirits is aways hard, for your priest make him use a good medium armor, like the chain mail and have a weapon set with one hand and shield for emergency off-tank, for your mage aways have a combination of deflection + improve armor spells for those type of emergencies, they are aways fast to cast spells and last a good amount of time, making your wizard close to unkillable

[Alamo Jack]

First setup a good custom formation. Have casters further back and have your tank front and center. Setup other melee if you have to protect flank.

Make sure your tank is specced to deal with aggro. So in other words he needs perks that let him engage more enemies at a time.

Always initiate the fight with your tank only. That way the enemies initially aggro onto your tank because it's the only guy they see. Once engaged, send in your casters.

With phantoms and teleports, you can draw aggro with tank initially then retreat closer to your party so everyone is closer and can focus whichever one attacks your backline.

Remember how aggro works in this game. There is no aggro. Instead it uses engagement/disengagement. If you engage an enemy, they are locked into battle with whoever engaged them unless they decide to break the engagement which will cause them to suffer disengagement penalties. The more you can get locked in with your tank at the start of the fight, the better.

As long as you have good DPS then you should be abler to focus them down quick enough to not worry about anything like that.

Not sure how many melee characters you have, but I see you have 3 casters which is fine. A good high DPS melee character like a rogue or barb or something would be really nice to help the backline with those pesky flank attacks.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by Dixieland:

Not sure how many melee characters you have, but I see you have 3 casters which is fine. A good high DPS melee character like a rogue or barb or something would be really nice to help the backline with those pesky flank attacks.

so i have my
1.custom fighter (leaning towards tank)
2.custom pally tank
3. eder fighter
4.custom druid
5.priest
6.dps wizard

so having just fought "the silent one" drake twice and lost both times.i'm going to run back to town and clear heritage hill to gain some xp aswell as swap out Eder if you think its nessesary?
but yeah any tips would be nice for getting some money to upgrade my equipment.

i'm going to eat ill hope back onto POE in a bit.hopefully you have more useful advice.

[Seveers]

I go: Eder, Palle, Aloth, Custom priest, My chanter and Hiravias.

Aloth does the aoe black hole thing. Hiravias does a massive aoe stun over that zone. Chanter dominates a few enemies. Eder and Palle tank. Priest does priest stuff. Win.

[Roy Stampler]

I'd say crow control is the most important factor here, for expert mode I'd recommend cipher or a pronebarb (tall grass crit build - max int and per) for sustained Foe AoE CC

[Gregorovitch]

Originally posted by hottwiz:

Originally posted by Dixieland:

Not sure how many melee characters you have, but I see you have 3 casters which is fine. A good high DPS melee character like a rogue or barb or something would be really nice to help the backline with those pesky flank attacks.

so i have my
1.custom fighter (leaning towards tank)
2.custom pally tank
3. eder fighter
4.custom druid
5.priest
6.dps wizard

so having just fought "the silent one" drake twice and lost both times.i'm going to run back to town and clear heritage hill to gain some xp aswell as swap out Eder if you think its nessesary?
but yeah any tips would be nice for getting some money to upgrade my equipment.

i'm going to eat ill hope back onto POE in a bit.hopefully you have more useful advice.

That is a solid party - you have solid of melee up front and that is important, and good range of casters.

it might help if you could tell us:

1. Are you using the party AI much or mainly microing?
2. What are the wizard, prient and druid spells you use most?
3. What formation do you use in battle?
4. Who do you consider your main damage dealers?

[briarroot]

I've got over 500 hours playing time so far (and I'm still going!) and I've wrestled with this problem for a long time. IMO, the enemy AI doesn't target casters because they have low endurance and health - in other words not because they're easy toi kill - it targets them because they are the biggest threat. Casters appear to be the most dangerous companions to the AI bcause they are (ultimately) far more powerful than even the best equipped melee companions. Therefore it's wise to have one of your front rank start dealing out major damage at the start of every big battle. An enchanted 2-hander in the hands of a high-Might character often does the trick. That will focus the AI's attention and allow your casters to survive the intial attack.

Try this experiemnt. Run a Wizard up to level 4 or 5 then go to an inn and recruit a level 1 melee fighter - ranger or rogue - something that poses little threat. Now give your Wizard as much protection & deflection gear as possible, plus a Spellward Amulet if you have one. Strip your new level 1 char of everything - no armor, no weapons - and line him up in the rear rank next to your Wiz. Now start oa fight with a decent sized group; it helps if some of them can teleport. Watch who they go after! Not the easy to kill naked lvl 1 char standing next to your Wiz,, but the Wizard himself in full plate! Why? Because Wizards are for more dangerous.

[briarroot]

Originally posted by hottwiz:

ok thank you.sodps does relate to aggro,i guess i need to respec my "fighters a little.

Sorry, I misspoke. It's not DPS per se, but the *amount* of damage dealt at the start of a fight that attracts the most aggro. The AI focuses on the biggest threat - the most dangerous characters - which are usualy casters. So it helps a LOT to have one of your front line able to do major damage at the start of the fight.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by briarroot:

Originally posted by hottwiz:

ok thank you.sodps does relate to aggro,i guess i need to respec my "fighters a little.

Sorry, I misspoke. It's not DPS per se, but the *amount* of damage dealt at the start of a fight that attracts the most aggro. The AI focuses on the biggest threat - the most dangerous characters - which are usualy casters. So it helps a LOT to have one of your front line able to do major damage at the start of the fight.

so your tanks has to beable to tank,fight and be first into combat lol. but i understand now thank you.

[hottwiz]

Originally posted by Gregorovitch:

Originally posted by hottwiz:

so i have my
1.custom fighter (leaning towards tank)
2.custom pally tank
3. eder fighter
4.custom druid
5.priest
6.dps wizard

it might help if you could tell us:

1. Are you using the party AI much or mainly microing?
2. What are the wizard, prient and druid spells you use most?
3. What formation do you use in battle?
4. Who do you consider your main damage dealers?

1.so i try to use party AI but i'm not very good at setting it so my guys sometimes stand around,so i end up micromanaging,which i'm not very good at.i would perfer the TOEE combat :P
2.http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/266099102111949192/4BBF201B20600994D416FD41E0C4A0BFDE75D3C2/ i hope this help.
2a) for my wizard im not sure what to use so i just use AOEs to deal damage.
2b)with my priest i try and support cast but i don't know the spells very well again.
2c)with my druid i do some healing but i mostly do damage with AOEs like "winters wind", "danceing bolts","blizzard" and sttag horns"
3.just the standard. midn you i am only playing on normal.
4.i wouls say my casters mostly.my fighters can do some damage but its depends on who we are fighting and the fact that my weapons and armor are "not up to scratch"