Character Building GUIDE! (Pillars of Eternity 2, No Spoilers!)

[Music] if you've played any RPG before I'm sure you're well aware with the concept that your journey begins at character creation and if you're anything like me that character creation will easily take multiple hours but there's a fraternity to is certainly no exception to this rule ultimately you're working with a party of up to five different characters but knowing how to build those characters especially your main character is very helpful if you want to traverse across the heart or difficulties so with that in mind here's a basics guide for character creation in pills of eternity - I'll go for specific mechanics and combinations you should keep in mind when building a character starting with the various races races are far less important for your characters effectiveness than they ever were in pills of attorney one in short and absolutely pick whatever you feel like for role-playing purposes but nevertheless here's how they do in the power skill Island alwah get a very specific immunity to terrain impediments these terrain effects are rather far and few between meaning this is indeed a very specific racial but can actually be quite useful as a lot of the situationally harder fights can be found in these zones if you're making a damage dealing melee character this isn't too shabby to go with albeit extremely situational coastal Omaha get a resistance to my deflections I've gone over these specific mechanics in my combat mechanics guide so if the concept of an affliction or resistance confuses you you might want to check that out too but nevertheless all of these resistances are fantastic to have as the protector from debuffs in this case mighty buffs and downgrade them to the previous tier meaning that a resistance prevents a character from ever being hit by a tier 3 debuff of that attribute my debuffs are particularly nasty if you rely on this character for engagement ie a tank as all my debuff spray engagements so for those characters this can be an a shield especially and for everyone else not being able to get stunned is an amazing defensive passive Morial dwarfs have possibly the worst ratio in the game a very specific and small increase to primordial type enemies only and are frankly not a race I would recommend as such mountain dwarves have resistance to Constitution afflictions which notably reduce healing taken so again in the case of a tank these are particularly good but certainly excellent for everyone pill elves have once more an extremely situational ratio but quite a good one in those moments for more armor rating versus burn and freeze which is quite good for anyone as these tend to come in the form of area effect attacks albeit this ratio will of course do nothing outside of those moments that said four is quite a lot of armor what else have resistance to dexterity afflictions which is generally more relevant for melee characters than ranged characters although this includes paralyzed which is a massive debuff that gives enemies a huge chance to do critical hits so once more a great shield for about anyone humans gain increased accuracy when they are at half HP or less which in particular works out quite well for a Street Fighter rogue though for most other characters this won't be very relevant not too bad to pick up on a tanky character that also focuses on damage output wild Orlin get resistance to resolve afflictions which in particularly lower your power level and frighten prevents ability usage entirely making these especially useful for casters opiate again a good shield for anyone harf Orlan get a small conversion from hits to crits when targeting something an ally is already attacking now usually important is to keep in mind that these conversions don't stack and have diminishing returns for instance if you have 25% here to crit that means another 20% hit secret will only be 15% in actuality so in short stacking more of these is ineffective making this in particular worse for rogues and fighters which already have great access to these conversions honestly because you likely already have pretty good access to these conversions as the game goes on for instance any character that can do paralyze will give this to your party this ratio is ultimately not that good and finally we get to the most min max race of all the godlike keep in mind that playing and godlike means you forfeit the use of a helmet which does lower your fashion sense dev god-like gain increased damage against characters on 25% HP or less which is generally a solid ratio for damage dealers but especially useful for characters that gain benefits when they deal the killing blow such as paladins inspiring triumphs talents or barbarians with bloodlust the second part from godlike is less relevant in most cases they gain increased power level when near death power level doesn't really work as well for characters like the Paladin or barbarian so this part instantly becomes relatively irrelevant except for the most niche of bill's fire godlike gain a single point of armor when they are in 50% HP or less and will lash out to deal a very very small amount of burn damage to attackers this is only useful for tank characters and even then one point of armor nism that huge but nevertheless it isn't bad either and secondly they gain to burn armor rating baseline moon got like are a lot weaker than in pillars of eternity one but nevertheless aren't bad at all they deal a small AoE healing wave that baseline heals for ten around themselves whenever they dropped a 75% 50% and 25% HP meaning you'll have three waves of healing / combat this racial is especially useful for tanks as such and does skill with might and finally nature godlike have increased power level by two whenever they have a might dexterity or Constitution inspiration which is incredible for casters in particular and as a result make some of the best casters in the game or anything that heavily relies on power level another thing to keep in mind with these races from a mid mechs perspective is that raises that gift perception or dexterity so elves godlike or Orlan can be mimics slightly easier because these two attributes in particular are quite strong so let's go over attributes first and then we'll swing back to classes in the end might might increases healing done and damage dealt in addition to the fortitude defense now for damage specifically might isn't necessarily right at my twenty you are increasing your damage by a mere 30 percent however the game has a plethora of damage increases that match or heavily outclassed at 30% sneak attack from rogues for instance already does plus 30% fighting whip from a cipher also increases damage with 20% these are baseline increases these classes get regardless ultimately high mite is a heavy point investment for something that one piece of gear is probably going to do equally if not better exceptional weapons for instance gain plus 30% damage in addition to penetration and other statistics you may have heard that might is multiplicative but that was only the case in the beta so in short for damage purposes might is an amazing and an easy stat to keep on the baseline values Constitution Constitution increases health and like might it increases to 42 defense it's a very straight up attribute and frankly the best attributes for / tanking purposes because health has been simplified in comparison to the first game it does count for more in that regard not a great stat but it never hurts dexterity dexterity is one of the best stats in the game due to action speed being so incredibly important for any class that isn't meant to be a stationary armored wall again I'll refer back to my combat mechanics guide for more information regarding action speed but suffice to say it's easily one of the biggest damage boosts you could get and as such I would much sooner recommend dexterity over might if you're looking at dealing damage and based especially for casters I still think this wins out because even though you have limited resources you'll still have enough for most fights and your weapon damage will still be solid in the argument of burst damage versus sustained damage dexterity still skills better as it allows you to much quicker cycle through heavy hitting spells in quick succession just be worried that action speed increases do have diminishing returns so if you're already planning on wearing light armor dual wielding and using abilities such as frenzy or swift strikes then you aren't going to get nearly as much out of this perception perception is another very important stat for any character that isn't meant to be purely a blockade or does buffs and healing perception increases accuracy which is of course your most important stat in actually hitting a target even though classes like a fighter or Ranger already get plenty of accuracy increases perception is still very good to get and because that's like might or less effective perception is going to work out a lot better in general it doesn't scale as well as you level up but because accuracy increases are rather difficult from gear and accuracy is so vital in most cases I would certainly max perception intellect the main increase intellect gives you is ability duration it also increases area of effects but the actual increase is rather small in most cases lastly it also increases the whilst at for most characters leaving intellect at the baseline 10 is more than enough to have good durations on abilities but if you are relying on a lot of different buffs or solely on area of effect abilities intellect is a good attribute to increase finally resolve resolve is probably the least effective attribute for every character in pills of eternity - for every point of resolve your deflection is increased by one point deflection is your most important defense but nevertheless the amount you get from resolve is incredibly tiny at best you are looking at about a 10 to 15% down scaling between three resolved and 10 resolved like perception it doesn't scale but unlike perception the amount it gives you isn't a lot and there are other ways to get deflection if you're looking for a tanking stat definitely get more constitution than you would resolve additionally it does decrease the amount of time for key buffs to stay on your character but honestly most of these are rather few and with the inspiration versus affliction mechanic you have much better ways of dealing with this and that's a global outline of the game's attributes of course the actual attributes you are looking to take will vary from character to character but in general if you are and damage dealer I would prioritize perception followed by dexterity followed by intellect or mites depending on whether you use self buffs at all for a tank I would prioritize dexterity followed by perception if you still want this tank to do damage but if you simply don't care about whether he or she does damage and just want this character to stand in the way of enemies then focus on Constitution instead moving on to weapons and weapon proficiencies first of all in order to use a weapon you don't need to be proficient in it the only thing a proficiency give you is the modal ability it has no impact on your weapons actual effectiveness most of these are extremely situational and a lot of them aren't worth the payoff that modal abilities are generally the ones that decrease your recovery speed the rakers modal for instance recovery speed decreases count more significantly than action speed increases due mathematically making them very hard to balance out resulting in a lot of lost damage over time wind bill slash the Sabre modal is probably the only recovery loss modal worth it's situationally because of the high penetration you can reach with Sabres and even then it takes a lot of consideration for tanking however you have quite a few useful ones the spear modal increases your engagement slot by 1/4 15% less trite which is combat movement not a huge deal the dagger increases your melee deflection by 10 at the cost of 25% damage on the dagger attacks not a big loss especially for a tank and the hatchet incurs a 10 accuracy penalty on the target you hit at the cost of damage but you can also quickly turn this model off after D buffing your opponent and as such is a very good modal to use not to mention these weapons baseline are very good for tanks for range damage dealers pistols and hunting bows offer viable constant modal's these take away accuracy for increased action speed but if you have a lot of perception which you should and have buffs such as Rangers mark or fighter self buffs then you most likely get quite a lot out of these modal's despite the accuracy penalties everything else is going to depend a lot on your party setup some of the more obvious ones that take away defences for increased damage are of course going to be useful as long as you make sure that character is not going to get hit let's swing back to the actual classes there are a lot of different ways to play these classes and with the introduction of multi classing there's so much more going on than before and frankly I'm sure I haven't considered even half of the options yet so with that in mind I'm going to give you a very basic beginners overview of what you can do let's begin with single classes versus multi classes single classes are recommended by the game for beginning players but in general do tend to fall behind on multi classing if built properly there are a number of exceptions however casters in general perform really well as single classes as they gain little out of multi glassing and benefit thoroughly from the increased power level wizards priests and druids as such are all excellent single classes but there's also the notion of subclasses for instance the ascendant cypher is fantastic as a single class caster grouping them up very roughly I would do the following single class works very well for a berserker barbarian for a nonce cult chanter for the ascendant cypher for a non shifter druid for any monk for any priest and for an evoke Asian or no subclass wizard that said any barbarians any chanters and a no sub class wizard make excellent multi class characters as well anything else I didn't mention I would recommend multi class / single classing but let's get a little bit more specific and quickly look at the subclasses themselves barbarian berserker berserker is by far the highest damage dealer subclass of the barbarian if not any class and can be built both single class and multi class into an amazing high damage output character with a risky play cell that requires a lot of micromanagement in the case of single class I'd focus on perception and intellect above anything else and you want to focus a lot on making sure this class gets the kills to keep chaining bloodlust for insane action speed and barbaric smash resets this way your barbarian will be very squishy and will require a lot of flanking and proper movements but it pays off with insane damage output for both single target and area-of-effect if you want to multi class him you will mainly be giving up heart of fury but you can go with fighter for a lot more durability and accuracy allowing you to deal more consistent critical hits or can go with paladin for similarly more durability especially bleak walkers works very well here then we get to corpse eater which will quickly skip because they are friendly terrible due to their immense penalty of rage ability costs increase for a rather underwhelming bonus needless to say I wouldn't recommend playing lys likewise I would not recommend playing mage Slayer either as they too have immensely bad downsides through spell resistance that will block allied spells prevent potions and Scrolls and half all of Yourself buffs including frenzy durations what you could however consider is a no subclass barbarian which I purse I'm quite fond of for multi-class purposes as they pair rather well with most Marshall classes to make solid front line tanks or damage dealers just keep in mind that if you are making them sturdy barbarians you'll not fully benefit from their killing blow passives and skills gender chanter are probably the most broken class in the game currently as they grant insane buffs and if built as a summoner make most combat scenarios absolutely trivial if you do want to build a summoner beckoner is the most obvious one doubling your minions but Troubadour also works troubadour gets brisk recitation allowing you to use phrases quicker but the best elements is in fact the longer phrase slinger without risk recitation as this allows you to overlap to chance at any given time making for an amazing support center buffing your party and your summons if you want to make a scold I'd recommend pairing this with a fighter as scold wants to do more crits and fighters due to their discipline barrage of the most consistent way to go in order to keep doing more crits in that case you want to pick up killers froze stiff in order to paralyze enemies for more party white crits keeping in mind that this is a rather squishy class with no defensive benefits even when pairing it with a fighter it's best making this a squishy damage dealer as opposed to a tank cipher as I said ascendant ciphers benefit a lot from single classic due to higher power levels and in that case are excellent long-range casters big Eilers are rather poor and I would recommend skipping this while soul blades most specifically work very well when multi-class with a fighter or barbarian in order to benefit from heavier area of effect damage through cleave stems or carnage also make sure to pick up phantom foes in that case in order to throw that flanking on all the enemies you're about to hit with area-of-effect weapon damage drew it's true it's as I said make for good single class characters even though most of their heavy hitting spells are front-loaded in the first seven levels which is what you get access to as multi class there isn't a lot of reason to multi class the enemies Truett's as dual caster multi classing doesn't really work out exception being chanters which work with everything fury as a curious one it's not one i'd recommend from beginning players as it locks away some of your strongest spells restoration spells for relatively little gain that said if you know you won't necessarily need to rely on these and have another support character to back you up you can certainly go this route life-giver is really strong but actually works out slightly better as a multi-class because the strongest level 8 and 9 abilities are all summons which are locked out on the life-giver as such I'd recommend pairing them up with a chanter or simply a paladin or fighter for extra durability shifter is then the go-to multi-class for drewett's they don't care about their spells and care the least about intellect depending on the multi class pairing these with any marshal class fighter paladin monk or Marian can work out very well keep in mind through the voted passive which we'll see in a moment doesn't work for shape-shift weaponry talking about devoted let's go to fighter fighter is one of the best multi class characters in the game as they have so much to offer both offensively and defensively in almost all of their subclasses black jacket is the most awkward one as it takes away your best defensive passive and is the only subclass I would recommend against using except when you're playing around with niche builds such as equipping your character with multiple firearms and even then isn't great to do the bluntest critical passive all firearms have devoted is arguably the best specialization for fighter as it grants you a lot of benefits at the cost of only being able to use one type of weapon throughout the game devoted works as both tank and damage dealer extremely well one thing to keep in mind is that fists also count as proficient weapons so if you are looking to dual wield with a devoted which works for tanks and damage dealers you can equip a weapon in the second slot leaving the first slot open for a fifth do this though when you multi class with a monk as they are the only ones with proper scaling fist damage but this combination is extremely competent unbroken is then the go to tank subclass but devoted and no subclass work excellently as tanks as well unbroken notably gives you the best disengagement attacks in the game which highly incentivizes enemies to stick around while the negatives aren't very big but in general for all your fighter purposes DPS or tank devoted is going to win out globally for fighters you always want to get disciplined barrage and upgrade this to discipline strikes giving you one of the best damage buffs possible by converting 25% of your hits to Kris stances especially cleave stance which is one of the biggest area of effect damage upgrades in the game charge and their defensive abilities are all very good to use as well monks monks are extremely powerful when both multi class and single class they have some incredibly strong late-game abilities so single classic a monk is a very good plan and they are very self-sufficient through their buffs as damage dealers another big consideration for single classic a monk is that fists skill with power level and therefore are better when single classed like I set though devoted fighter with a monk very well for instance even though your fists will skill-less subclass wise hell Walker is a very risky monk for relatively little game as I've mentioned during attributes might isn't actually that amazing although monk does get more out of it through their talents nevertheless the downside is very huge and will result in a monk that will go down very fast shattered pillar in general is the best and easiest pure damage-dealing option to go with for no very significant downside no paska is also a very good subclass if you find with relying on alchemy items they are very strong indeed in general the only monk subclass I would avoid is hell Walker whereas all others adjust your playstyle no subclass monks get the most out of the wound passives shattered pillar avoids having to take damage to gain wounds and make for the best ability spam monks and nil Pesce have a unique flavouring through their alchemy use that isn't too hard to manage to great effect paladin paladin's make for great multi classes and relatively poor single classing as they don't get a lot in the final power levels peloton's work with practically everything because they give an innate immense defensive boost to anyone so even with casters just multi glassing them into paladins makes them very sturdy indeed subclass wise you'll want to look at bleak walkers first and foremost if you're looking to deal damage because they're flames of devotion which itself is fantastic will deal more Kuro damage and inflict sicken which reduces Constitution meaning even less HP on enemies whereas gold pack Knights and shield bearers are tempting options for tanking paladin's though paladin's either need to wear shields and spears or multi class into fighter Ranger or barbarian in order to get enough engagement slots to be a real threat if you do want to make them a tank in those cases you probably don't need go pack knight or shield bearer either kind wafers are also a really good option if you want to be dual wielding as their healing increase on flames of devotion will trigger twice for an immense sell fuel and AoE party who boost every time you use these dark cozy Paladini as such are the only order I would stay clear off in its entirety priests priests make for excellent single class characters offering the most support potential and should be single class if you go Bharathi oh tha's or migrant skein and will do offer some multi class potential in particular scale works well with a fighter because of their summoned weapons and will offer some baseline defensive protection if you are looking to expand as support casters arsenal say a life-giver druid while also picking up a little bit of defensive potential priests specifically is the only class where i would HIGHLY as might over perception resulting in their priorities being might followed by dexterity followed by intellect Ranger Rangers are very poor single class characters but work very well multi glassed ghost heart is a rough one because having to summon your pet for a bond is an immense downside even though the engagement immunity would be really tempting it's not a terrible subclass it just doesn't do a whole lot sharpshooter is obviously meant for ranged Rangers but the two best multi classes Rogan fighter already take care of that hit secret conversion and the amount of penetration gained is merely one resulting in a massive recovery downside at the reward of very very little so if you are looking to make a ranged Ranger I'd be more inclined to recommend baseline Ranger than sharpshooter stalker is the go to melee Ranger subclass although with proper positioning works just fine at range as well and one of my favorites and offer some very nice defensive capabilities for little downside getting them one armor and five deflection for both themselves and their pet with the only stipulation being that their pet has to be within 7 meters which isn't too hard to manage so like I said multi glass wise you're looking for a fighter or especially rope if you are doing ranged Ranger and you are looking at a fighter paladin barbarian possibly monk if you are looking at a melee ranger which can both be built towards tanking or damaged healing depending that twice if you are looking for a sturdy companion the boar antelope and bear are all very good options whereas the wolf wins out from a damage perspective followed closely by the lion the antelope is essentially in-between tanky and damage-dealing talking about rogues rogues have one saving grace when it comes to single classes and that's gambit which theoretically offers unlimited resources outside of that though they make excellent multi classes as their resource management becomes rather tough meaning the benefits of another class are very nice to have for single classing your only options are no subclass or assassin trickster is counter your goal with spending as little guile as possible to use on gambit and Street Fighter does not work as a single class rogue because it is inherently too squishy know in general multi classing is the way to go with rogues offering a lot of damage potential through sneak attack especially and works as both melee and ranged damage dealers with fighter monk barbarian paladin and Ranger in the case of fighter you also have a compelling tank built through Street Fighter with persistent distraction and sneak attack damage on cleave stands as a final note for rogue dual wielding works well for most of their abilities but if you're planning to utilize backstab extra damage from Stealth consider focusing on two-handed weapons as the Bexar bonus is only applied on the first hit and then finally we get to wizards wizards make for good single class characters especially with the evoker and transmuter subclass in this case you get some really strong damage spells and quicker power levels where single classing is going to win out guaranteed however wizards can also be billed as magical frontline characters through illusionist enchanter or no subclass especially illusionist and enchanter both have a competent bonus but no subclass offers the best access to the strongest spells in all three schools which are very strong for this type of character allowing you to use the great conjured weapons like sidsall spirit Lance in addition to the defensive buffs and with that we've briefly gone over all of the basic classes subclasses and some strong multi class options actually you'd wise if I didn't specifically point out anything I'll refer back to the attributes section and again if some of the terminology confuses you make sure to check out the combat mechanics guide with that said thank you for watching my name is Ben us and I'll see you in the next video or livestream

Channel: HaasGaming

Views: 131,845

Keywords: Pillars of Eternity 2, Deadfire, Pillars, Eternity, Lets Play, Ironman, Trial of Iron, Guide, Character, Build, Builds, Building, Creation, Path of the Damned, Hard, Hardest, Difficulty, Tips, Tricks, Campaign, Story, Companions, RPG, cRPG, Classic, Combat, Mechanics, Teach, Teaching, 1440p, 1080p, Power Level, Resistance, No spoilers, Spoiler-free

Id: HbT4eH1tFm8

Length: 23min 18sec (1398 seconds)

Published: Tue May 22 2018