Is there even a way to tank in this game ?

Mobs ALWAYS going for my squishies in the back even tho they are far away from my tank in the front, they just completly ignore him.

And because you have to strip down armor first it means there is also no way to CC them /sigh ...

Pretty frustrated right now with the game, in DOS1 I could just position my tank / pets just right and mobs usually would stop there and attack them, probably also because of the talent oppurtunist.

But in this game they ignore everything it seems.

So should I know build everyone as tank to have a chance ? In act 2 there are even mobs that are able to 1 shot.

Maybe Iam overseeing something and someone can enlighten me ?

I love this game overall very much but being unable to tank or CC is just frustrating at the moment, I see no way right now but just to build everyone tanky and that feels just wrong for "DDs".

All mobs are equally smart and therefore to smart, there seems to be no real difference in smartness between a zombie and an elite or a boss, so kind of misses a possibility in different enemie behaviour for better immersion.

they just need to make taunt usefull - a bit longer range and no armor resisted (based on chance or enemy's intellect).
It's so sad when the game so cool overall, but some concepts make it's parts just frustrating and nonsensible.

Perhaps one of the only safe "squishy" damage dealing classes would be an archer with sneak specialization. I didn't try a sneak build yet in the current game state, so i don't know how good it would be AP wise.

In other circumstances, if an enemy AI wants to hit you, they'll find a way, unless they glitch and attack columns or hit walls with projectiles. Also thanks to the jumps/dashes ability which makes positioning less effective.

Well they will always do the right thing, and that is "kill the paper hero".

BUT tanky characters of course have their uses - let them be tanky just enough to survive, but pump up their attack damage as much as possible, use opportunist talent and be VERY aggresive, and I mean seriously charge them head on, if you manage to position your tank between 3 squishier enemies, they will take a lot of damage if they try to flee thx to opportunist - or they have to engage you, and that is the moment when you are good as tank.

If they still use abilites and such on your squishies, just focus their armor asap and knock them down. Also alternatively, your tank should probably have most of the support skills like fortify, magic shell and such to help your damaged teammates

You can always play solo with a tanky char so you'll tank
If monster go deep like kamikaze it's supposed to get flanked fast enough.
Also a tank with opportunist talent is ok - can do several hits when mobs are running near.

Have the tank get Leadership and everyone will be tanky

And if they stand behind the tank, enemies that run past will give free AoO.

Also, if you are dying real fast in Act 2, it means you either need to buy/find new gears or go to another area for quests. Look at the level of you and whatever is in that zone (like animals and other npcs) so you can tell if you're in the right area or not.

Well thats the thing, they just stripped away choices it seems with DOS2. While in DOS1 I could try to tank, to status effect mobs or to CC here is nothing left but to have always proper gear for enough shields.

But because Ive tried so much around with different skills which are expensive I dont have any gold anymore to get better gear from merchants. Stealing is also not an option because Ive stolen pretty much everything always I could.

Iam lvl12 and mobs are lvl14, I cant find any lower anymore.

I was leaving Act 1 with lvl8 and I did everything on the map I could before leaving, maybe not questwise but killed every mob even in jail the dogs.

Dunno anymore nothing seems to work except better gear but thats not an option right now except maybe for cheating :/.

Ive tried already all, more constitution, stink, glass cannon/no glass cannon, full damage, alot of initiative, healing spells, armor skills etc. etc. etc., mobs right now are just dealing way too much damage while also being very tanky even the archers and no way to tank or CC except for spider legs.

So my only option would be to start all over and spend my gold always on good gear.

My party build is a

"Tank" with Warfare, Geomancer and Polymorph.
"Healer" with Hydro, Aero, 1 point in Pyro for dispel and 2 points in Polymorph for "Spread your Wings"
"Ranger" with Marksman, 1 point in Pyro for dispel, 2 in scoundrel for sleep and the teleport skill, and 2 points now for the healing spell and the one which makes you immune and nearly heal you to full
"Fire Mage" with Pyro/Geomancer, little bit more in Pyro than Geo, 2 in Poly for "Spread your Wings" and now also 2 in Hydro for healing and the immune spell

All I can say it doesnt work anymore, the healing really isnt sufficient to withstand all the damage and it also has CDs. And being able to fly around while nice is also not anymore enough because mobs are also teleporting and jumping around.

So as I said the only thing I could imagine would be better gear because here where it really lacks but items are not raining from the sky just magically and I dont have any gold left because like Ive said trying around with spells is expensive.

So either the new armor system is a problem because you cant CC and not even status effect which is a real bummer as a mage type class or that you cant tank. If my tank only would be able to tank or I to CC :/ but its not possible.

You can use the same combo enemies do on their tanks.

Fortify REactive armor TAunt. That deals huge burst damage, enough to go through most shield or even kills since it does damage based on how much armor you have. Then you can taunt with that.

The game really expect you to have Thievery or Magic charm especially with the free reset mirror if you want to keep up with new items every level.

Ive just tried reactive armor today, its a nice spell no doubt but also not enough. When boosted it does like ~500 damage and mobs having over 1k armor.

My ranger has 5 thievery and really I always stolen what I could because I liked it, it was like a minigame. And you only can steal once from a NPC so thats not possible anymore.

I sadly have to say I like DOS1 EE much better, more options and choices.

First I thought I would have get used to the new system but being now so deep into the game and tried so much I really dont like the new shield system. I mean it would be ok if my tank would be able to tanke like in DOS1 but its not possible, not even taunt works.

And even if taunt would work its just for 1 round and a small radius.

SO the game seems to be just a HUGE gearcheck instead of letting the player to play around it by CCing and status effecting mobs, this is sad and no fun :(.

But thanks anyways for your time, appreciate it.

I still think that having a reverse stench talent and maybe having it scale with warfare points would be a neat addition to solve this issue.

I also agree with Kalrakh here. Turning every single grunt into an expert battlefield tactician was a bad choice. High int enemy mobs should, of course, use highly effective tactics, but yeah. Zombies? Give me a break.

Well how about having all your squishies be in stealth at start of the combat? This should allow your tank to get hit by lot of precious cooldowns before your other characters join into the party, greatly increasing your survivability

Also just use oil on everybody, and they will have MUCH harder time to do anything at all..

I feel like I should be glad I didn't play the first game as it provided that I didn't have any expectations for the second game. All the stuff people having problems with design wise are ok to me. Only thing that does igg me a bit is once I use all my skills in a turn, I'm probably stuck with basic attack for 3-4 turns while my skills are on cooldown(turndown? lol). Having said that, I just try to get all the enemies to go after Red Prince. Dude is a freaking bustruck(yes new word).

Yes, this is a flaw with AI 2.0. Making them all equally smart and most interested in targeting the weakest target undermines many things which would otherwise be useful. Smart AI is best used in a smart way.

Hi Crusher,

I felt the same and then decided to go the other way around: if we can't Cc at start, let's be able to move my chars and enemies a lot. And you know what, it works like a "charm"

Add Teleport on mostly all you character as well as mobility spells.

Try and let me know, I'm pretty sure it'll help you overpass this tough moment you're having and get the XP you need to keep up with the future enemies!

Cheers

That is, what the game should not be: Having four characters with the pretty much completely same skill set, because those skills are kind of mandatory.

Reactive armor is one of the few skills that reward defense with offense. If the armor system isn't overhauled, then one way to capatilize on enemy AI ignoring your tank, is to introduce more skills that punish them for going directly after your squishies.

With that said though, Taunt definitely needs a buff.

I used to be a proponent of taunt working through armor, but the idea of enemies being able to taunt me whenever they want to terrifies me. Not because I don't get to use that char for the next turn, but rather because when you're taunted the scenarios play out like this:

*Magister casts taunt*; "Hey Ifan, I bet those elf babies loved that deathfog you put on them!"

*Magister words penetrate Ifan's leather vest*; "WELL F*** YOU, I'M GOING TO DRINK ALL MY POTIONS AND USE ALL MY SCROLLS THAT'LL TEACH YOU!"

I've had characters using all available AP point extending abilities like tea and adrenaline rush just so they can drink more potions. The list goes a third way across my 1920x1080 screen.

Sometimes if the AI is feeling whimsical it will use source points for the most retarded reasons as well.

For these reasons I see taunt as very punishing to the player and needs to be resisted by armor whether it makes sense or not. If taunt will remain affected by armor, there better AOE CCs I'd rather be using on the enemies anyway. So until they fix mad/possessed/taunted AI, they should just leave taunt in a ditch where it belongs. Loss of control of characters is probably the most frustrating thing in the game for me.

By extension the concept of a single tank doesn't really make sense in the current state of the game.

Seconded that taunt is frustrating vs player and it ignoring armor is absolutely not an option. Besides, if you have tank character with high dodge and resists taunt = hard CC. All other hard CCs need to get through armor and by extension you can argue that they should get through it. As long as they don't, taunt shouldn't either.

How to make a tank? First of all, why do you expect the game to support the "tank" playstyle? It's not an oldschool MMO. If you're just a damage sponge with no other abilities you're useless and rightfully so. If you are actually able to do damage you can punish enemies for ignoring you with AOO. I usually made my cleric/summoner my "tank". He can heal/summon/restore armor/remove CC/teleport enemies away etc while having a shield and being really hard to kill or CC himself. Works just fine.

Why we expect Tanks to be viable? Perhaps because Retaliation exists? It's useless if you not can tank.

One way to make Taunt less frustrating if it were to bypass physical armor might be to change it so that those inflicted can ONLY move and use their basic attack - no potions, scrolls, or skills.


Also yes, the game needs a "reverse Stench" Talent. I would call it "Punchable Face", it makes the person targeted much more by enemies, and it also restores 5% Physical and Magical armor per turn.

Retribution is not gonna be fixed by taunt, I think it should just be removed and damage reflect left to items. Imo it can only exist in 2 states: UP or really OP and boring (if values per level are increased substantially).

Preservation should probably also be scrapped and maybe all characters should have it to some degree by default.

It would still be super frustrating against player - characters you can't control would just run to their untimely death.

And it would be OP against AI too. E.g. imagine using evasion buff + taunt to lure all melee mobs to one location and negate all their attacks and then just nuking everything with aoe. It would be the single most powerful CC in the game.

"reverse Stench" Talent sounds more reasonable as long as it's only an increased probability to attack that char and not an automatic taunt.

Just last page, MadDemiurg, you seemed to dismiss the entire idea of having a tank character at all.

It might not be an MMO, but it is still a group-based game, and given the AI's dedication to focusing on the squishy party members first and foremost, wanting a way to mitigate that is valid.




Any more frustrating than other types of hard CC? But all right, do you have any other suggestions for how Provoke/Taunt can fulfill its main function without being annoying, or should it just be deleted completely?




In my opinion, you're greatly exaggerating the power. Taunt also only lasts for 1 turn. But fine, combine the "only move and basic attack" with changing Taunt from everything in a small AoE to single-target, but at long rage. Combining those two things would limit the amount of enemies affected.




It would be an increased probability, not completely automatic, but keep in mind that as a Talent, players would be unable to turn off "Punchable Face". So in every single battle, they would take a lot more of the attention, even if you would sometimes rather that they don't, so it comes with an inherent drawback (hence why its secondary effect is slight armor regeneration).

You have many ways of mitigating it as is, such as shielding your weaker characters, CC or at least punishing enemies for moving with AOO. Most forms of CC are blocked by armor now (the ones that are not are surface based and can be countered by surface clearing/transmuting abilities). Just because you can't make all enemies attack you with 100% chance without even damaging them doesn't mean you can't control combat. Also, maybe try not to have complete glass cannons in your party and build more balanced characters unless you're confident in your ability to wipe out enemies on the first turn?


No, just as frustrating (when applied), but also going through all armor. CC currently is only balanced by the fact that there's armor, otherwise it's 100% success. Taunt is also CC. Should we make knockdown/freeze/stun go through armor as well? And how taunt is not performing its function? It works just as well as any other CC when armor is down. The only problem is that it has to compete with knockdown that would usually win if it's not on cd, then again provoke is only 1 AP + aoe so there's that. Maybe add low physical armor damage to it, idk. If you compare it to battlestomp it's always gonna be meh, but battlestomp is OP.


Most CC lasts 1 turn. You don't need more than 1 turn of enemies being bunched up to nuke them with aoe. And 1 turn of your character doing dumb shit is enough to get him killed. Single target would be probably reasonable vs AI (we should account for the fact that it's pretty dumb as is and is not impaired by taunt as much), but still very frustrating vs player, since it takes away control with no chance to resist (besides going first and killing the enemy with taunt). Maybe it's the case where PCs should be just immune to taunt.



A lot of RPG systems found a way to make "tanks" viable without resorting to the "taunt" crutch btw. E.g. dnd 4ed had "tanks" being able to shield allies, get damage bonus vs enemies attacking allies (thus discouraging enemies from doing it) or just outright getting free attacks vs them when it happens etc. All of which is imo miles better than the 100% loss of control for the taunted side.

"Guardian aura" is imo a much better designed tank ability, shame you only get it very late into the game.

Changing Taunt is not a very good idea imo. Tanking in the traditional sense is not quite possible currently, since the AI is smart enough to not attack a character that looks like a damage sponge, and if tanking was possible the game would be much less fun... but that doesn't mean we just have to accept the fact that the AI will target our mages/archers...

The enemies usually target my dual weilding mage, so I use Leadership, Guardian Angel, Shackles of Pain, Erratic Wisp and Uncanny Evasion to great effect, but I doubt that alone explains her survivability rate (she didn't die at all since she drank the Blood Rose potion at the end of act 1, now she's level 19). She's a mage, so her magic armor is very high, enemy mages can't deal with her; any melee oponent has to survive her Flaming Tongues and Medusa's Head (they rarely do, those spells are insane even in low levels) and archers have to out-damage her Heart of Steel and Fortify, if they manage to get close to doing so and they're still alive, they'll have to rage quit after the Bone Cage scroll. My dual weilding mage is a pyro-geo-poly Lohse with very high wits, so she's usually gets to go first and decide if it's better to blow people up or prepare/prevent to be focused. If she doesn't go first and someone manages to cc her, the rest of the party will ensure her survival with buffs or plain retaliation.

If the AI happens to go second and see a buffed mage, they'll have to pick between a very tanky SS poly-warfare warrior, a high Dodge necro-scoundrel rogue and a tanky wand/shield undead support mage. They can't win, they can't focus fire effectively

give your "squishy" characters stuff like fortify and bone cage and they're no longer squishy

there are enough defensive options in the game for each role (from armor to invisibility to evasion and beyond those) that i've never felt the need to have a tank, but if you do want to build one it's perfectly possible with sword and shield (you sacrifice damage, although bouncing shield scales amazingly throughout the game) and use positioning to make targeting your mages less of an option for enemies

instead of having one character just taunt everyone you need to do a little tactical work in order to make "tanking" viable, but it is

edit: i will say that taunt needs to be reworked as it's currently useless. maybe have it act as a "use auto-attacks/single target abilities on the taunter only" thing instead of simply being unable to target other characters with single target spells. enemies who are taunted can still aoe the rest of your team to death, and this presupposes you're taunting someone without physical armor instead of just knocking them down or crippling them

Yeah, I had a aero/geo/necro/hydro (1:1:0.5 - mem:con:int) Lohse in my first playthrough. She did massive healing and support in general so I didn't need a tank in the party. She also did massive damage at times with stuff like blood rain > decay > leach. Necro source spells are also nuts. My other chars had some basic support spells too.



Good ideas, IMO.

What if Taunt (against a player) only made the player lose the option of which enemy to choose, but not lose control of their character?

Another suggestion, other than the one you provided, would be to make it turn off at 50% HP, similar to how "what a rush" is inactive until the 50% mark.

That might be a good idea too.

The only real time when somebody from my party was tanking was back in fort Joy. Beast and Co. had just emerged from the prison dungeon and were happily striding up the wooden scafoldings when they encountered a whole upper courtyard full of magisters. That's the place where there is a tent and two wooden fences with a small opening in between in the upper section of the fort, next to the main gate. It was the only such fight I had in the whole of the game, with Beast blocking that small path and taking the heat. Later on I respeced him for a full blown out strength monster, cuz who needs constitution.

Playing through Pillars of Eternity after Original Sin 2 made me appreciate tanks so much more ;D. Yeah, I think that the whole of the OS2 combat design just doesn't come together very well. Just my 2 cents.

Tbh in pillars classical "tanks" were non functional either. The only mechanic that allowed them to somehow punish enemies avoiding them was engagement (which enemies were all too happy to ignore, on POTD at least), so a tank with low damage was a useless tank, unless you use him for door blocking exclusively. Guess what, you have AOOs here too.

OS2 has a lot more easily accessible mobility skills which render bottleneck blocking even less viable, while in PoE you can very well do it all the time. Couple of deflection oriented chars in front make every dungeon in the game, plus a few other areas, a cakewalk. The open field requires a lot more control and micromanagement, I agree, but it isn't nonviable. OS2 leans more towards not having a tank at all, but rather an aggressive opportunist/shock trooper, which in PoE's terms most closely resembles a barbarian/melee rogue.

I feel D:OSII is inspired heavily by Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) 3.5 where tanking in the MMORPG sense doesn't happen. Something is threatening because it casts spells or destroys foes in one hit or one round, not necessarily because it funnels enemy attacks onto a subject.

I find this a refreshing change from many other games which require or heavily promote MMO-style tanking. I find this a welcome change to, however intentionally, give us a D&D 3.5-style video game as a tactical turn-based RPG, better than the official ones (Temple of Elemental Evil, Pools of Radiance, etc.)

The core issue remains, even stupid creatures like zombies act highly intelligent.

Tanking is almost impossible, you got enemy mages that teleport your squishies into the heat of battle, you got nether swap to work against, sometimes i will cloak and still get hit in the round that im cloaked. Not to mention teleport has a loooong cool down time, so you lietterally need to have it on every character to try keep your archer and mages out of trouble.....frustrating

Some abilities in game haven't made sense when it comes to the armor/MA interaction.

It's as if people wearing armor are suddenly deaf and can't hear that their mother is a leper gnome.
I wish I could throw on some cardboard, call it armor, and just ignore my girlfriends nagging all day, tried it once and told her I saw it in game and it should work, but the results are poor.

Another ability that I have a love/hate relationship with is Shackles of Pain. There's absolutely no counter play to it, other than ignore the guy that's more than likely going to roll your face. The AI acts the same way, just ignores the character with SoP on whomever and goes for another target, it's basically a better version of Taunt or the stinky characteristic. Bone Widow pales in comparison on just how unfair this ability can be.

Abilities that require source as compared to the first game for, example, Acid Spore, shouldn't cost source. Unless the two source hunters are OP versions of God Woken, I would think that an ability like Acid Spore would be a free source cost ability that costs a lot of action points to cast, rather than a one shot ability per fight. The most disappointing thing about the Source Abilities is that they're largely underwhelming or cut and paste.

Just some gripes, still love the game overall.

In my experience, zombies are super dumb. They attack the closest person then they move to attack someone else lol.



Yes, tanking in the traditional sense is almost impossible. But there are many ways in which players have the edge. I explained my tactics on a previous post and adding to that there was this time when during certain rescue mission, the baddie decided to use Overpower on my Guardian Angel "tank" and it's allies Hail Stormed the area shortly after. The fight was instantly harder because I found myself trying to restore everyone's armor, spending so much AP! Gladly, everyone in my party is full of scrolls of everything, so after two rounds trying to protect people and unintentionally giving my enemies the opening they needed to do a lot of damage and position themselves better, I decided I was going to go on the offensive; and just like that, the need for a protector disappeared. I noticed then, this is the first game in which I actively use scrolls. Seriously people, scrolls are OP. Craft them!



I agree! Shackes are super annoying, but they require the target to be stripped of PA, so it seems it's more useful to the AI... When the AI uses it against me, I use two counters 1) Cryostasis: it works for 1 round, so I focus the shackler. 2) More Shackles: casting shackes of pain on a shacked character, breaks the previous shackles, albeit giving your enemies the chance of damaging two of your guys at the same time; I use it if I just want to prevent a large amount of damage to the shacked and I don't have cryostasis... I never tried using the shackled character to shackle the shackler, but it should be interesting...

That's pretty ingenious use of Cryostasis, never thought of it, thanks! Lol.

I've tested some things with SoP and the mechanics/behavior of the AI. Note: Normal mode, tactician may have different results.

Scenario 1.

AI applies SoP on your character. AI will choose one of the following:

1. Continue attacking character with SoP effect with no deviation from typical AI behavior.

2. Attack the AI character that applied SoP provided that they have either Armor/MA for additional damage. The latter is usually done if the AI considers no other damage alternative, or see's a way to cause bonus damage with an AoE.

Scenario 2.

AI applies SoP on your character.
Character's turn; applies SoP on the AI that applied SoP on said character earlier. AI will then choose to attack another target, usually the next weakest in party.

AI will continue attacking the character that applied the SoP on the AI if one or more of the following conditions are met:

1. All other player party members are dead/play dead/ invulnerable, aside from the one applying SoP on AI.

2. All player characters have applied SoP on AI. Will proceed to attack the weakest member of party.

3. The character that had applied the SoP is near death, and the AI will risk attacking/killing the players character.

Another interesting mechanic for SoP is that you cannot attach more than 1 SoP on the same character until the duration is over. Maybe it was a bit obvious that you couldn't stack it, but I'd like to think it'd make fights a bit easier for bosses that relied on AoE such as the Corpse of Alice.

I really do wish, however, that SoP can be removed with abilities like Bless or Mass Cleanse Wounds. Something that gives the player/AI more options on how to deal with this ability. Or do as you do, because I have yet to see the AI apply Cryostasis on itself to prevent the damage.

Edit - Also, in scenario 1 where I mentioned the AI will attack itself for the bonus damage provided the AI character has Armor/MA, I think anything that deals direct vitality damage would trigger the SoP effect, rather than taking overall damage from anything would overall help balance SoP to be a bit more fair.

Give your tank Glass Cannon talent. Pump up his hp and shield. Ta da! You got your shield a meat bag. Literal meat bag.

Problem solved.