Musketeers + Macaw is entirely unfair

[disasternoj]

My group was doing just fine, despite having no spare lives left, at level 9, when we ran across a level 5 musketeer boat. No big deal, right? Wrong. The two Musketeers went first, and had a Macaw with them, who proceeded to group rush them right as they reloaded and kill me from 60 health by piercing my armor before anyone in my party got a turn.

For the love of all that is holy, devs, please do not give group rush to people who get armor piercing AND high speed. It's entirely unfair and unbalanced, and completely shut down an otherwise great run with no warning whatsoever.

[FireGryph]

Sounds to me like you learned something for your next playthrough.
Dont fight musketeer ships.

Heck, dont fight anything at sea if you dont have to. Just about every damn fight in the ocean is terrible.

[Liro Raériyo]

alternatively, use focus on ambush to force first turn onto your party, party rush and cheese them right back with the same nonsense? you know its a thing now so you can be better prepared for it next time.

besides, sea encounters are good, they are all treated as forts, and with this update forts have a chance to drop a treasure chest, very worth it if you know how to deal with the enemy composition.

[disasternoj]

While I appreciate the advice, "don't fight musketeers" and ways to work around them are not solutions to "musketeers are broken".

[FireGryph]

Well, because they arent broken. Any enemy can kill you if you go into the fight unprepared. But now you know how to prepare for the fight, or know to just not fight it. Thats the entirety of the game. They say knowing is half the battle, but in FTK, knowing is 90% of the battle.

[Liro Raériyo]

That and 95 Speed on at least one party member so you always have the first move... assuming you didnt get ambushed or botched your own ambush... but even those have answers to them!

[disasternoj]

I strongly disagree with everything you two just said and/or its feasibility. Any fight of a reasonable level shouldn't kill you instantly (unless you play on Master to suffer), 95 speed is frankly a pipe dream, and sometimes the low-awareness party member has to start fights.

[FireGryph]

In no way was this fight necessary. I honestly cant remember the last time my group HAD to fight at sea, apart from ghost ships, kraken, and sometimes a mimic. So this fight was almost definitely something you opted into doing. Next time, dont.
Or if you absolutely MUST fight everything, now you know that this match up can do a ton of damage in the event both musketeers focus on the same party member. So ensure everyone has enough HP to survive, by resting or using godsbeard, whatever.

To me, being out of extra lives is not 'doing fine.' My group generally runs on journeyman diff, and weve run all of the scenarios many times. If we make it through the first full day, generally the game is practically won already. Not a single time have we ever been ended by this particular group, and like I said, we basically never get forced to fight anything on the ocean. But we rarely end up dying at all. The only times we really lose are when its a full party wipe, which these musketeers are not gonna do.

As I said, knowledge is key. You played, you lost, you know better than to fight these guys now, so just dont.

[squirleybob]

60 health is a bit low to be going into a level 5 battle with...

At any rate, it seems that your party speed is rather low. Macaws are around 80 speed (if I recall correctly), and it is pretty easy to get at least one person above that. 95 speed is somewhat easily-obtainable even before Glittering Mines, but it won't guarantee first move (imps have a higher speed and I think some other enemies too). Also, distraction helps combat such rush-fire attacks, just not on the targeted person.

Don't blame the game for getting shot up - learn from what you did wrong and play it differently.

[Blorem]

Anyone saying to 'just get good lol' is delusional. The vast majority of issues with the latest patch and DLC is that the enemies hit way too hard, and enemies in the base game already hit VERY hard.

[squirleybob]

Originally posted by Animelored:

Anyone saying to 'just get good lol' is delusional. The vast majority of issues with the latest patch and DLC is that the enemies hit way too hard, and enemies in the base game already hit VERY hard.

Then you're playing it wrong! The game is not meant to be easy! And not all the enemies in the base game hit very hard, only some of them (and they are much slower or bosses to counteract that).

[binxmuldoon123]

Beat the new DLC on journeymen first run through. It can't be that hard because I am not that good. I really doubt any of us had more than 70 speed either. And fighting at sea is generally something we avoid because it often results in boat damage we don't want to fix.

[BlueLightning]

Originally posted by disasternoj:

I strongly disagree with everything you two just said and/or its feasibility. Any fight of a reasonable level shouldn't kill you instantly (unless you play on Master to suffer), 95 speed is frankly a pipe dream, and sometimes the low-awareness party member has to start fights.

Me: with a ranger consistently hit 95 awareness and speed in every single run.