Pillars of Eternity - Combat Mechanics Tutorial & Guide

Wait... im playing this right now and perception dors not give deflect... it gives accuracy

This helps a lot in understanding stats. I zoned out during the learning curves playing the tutorial. I am stuck on Dragon Age Origins way of stat building.

Wish I watched this video b4 starting the game.
I really struggled with combat at the beginning

By mid act-2 I figured out a few old reliables and stuck to them ignoring the intricacies of mechanics. Throw in a berserker to the front line, spam ranged attacks. Cast druid’s stone skin on all, block the mob with all party members and let the wizard deal with threats from far away. Spam summoned creatures.

In act-3 these approaches stopped working and I finally had to pay attention to damage types, status effects, make sure my party is well equipped with potions, all weapons are enchanted, and the rest bonus favors the area im in.

Fighting a sky dragon was a major turning point when I started micropausing to time when to stun the dragon cos it was the only thing that would let me survive and I had a very limited number of stuns.

It’s great how in this system no matter how you throw stats around you will always be vulnerable to something which keeps the welcome necessity to pick and plan your battles alive till end game. Meanwhile in most RPGs you eventually end up with a juggernaut that in invincible to all, so any battle degrades into mindless hacking until you win.

I can't believe such an incredibly good game doesn't have multiplayer.... Great video! Thanks!

Very fun addictive strategical combat.

It's mechanic is more complexe than it reall6 beats Baldur's Gate 2.

I am killing Drakes on hard mode with à Party of 6.

Excellent video and summary! These few minutes learning how the game works will make for much better (many!) hours of gameplay later

Thank you, from xbox one.

Yes school does not teach you how to use soft soft

I got this game on switch and I keep pushing so far before camping someone drops. glad I watched this to actually figure out what deflection actually does

Great video! Bought this game a bunch of years ago, but only just getting into it. Kind of a slow burn, but really satisfying now that I’m learning my way around.

I just started playing (on Game Pass). Finished taking out Readrick and on my way to Defiance Bay. It's a fun game but I'm not a fan of the game mechanics. The constant pausing of the game throws the experience. Every fight devolves into the same exact encounter.

Trigger enemies, everyone charges into a cluster of chaos where you can't tell who is who. The flashy spells and obstructing terrain make it aggravating. Which leads to the map. Its static. You're always stuck with an awkward angle where it makes telling what's going on impossible (no, I shouldnt have to read a tedious combat log to figure out what's happening).

The lack of voice acting is jarring. One second you're getting good voice acted dialogue and the next half of the very same conversation is ALL text you have to read. I like reading but I have my limits. There are major encounters that have no voice acting at all.

Had this game played out like Divinity of Sin, it would have been a much more enjoyable game. With that said, I'm still having fun and I will keep playing. I just feel like this game has tons of flaws that hamper the experience

There is so much to understand in the character building and battlefield, so thank you for explaining all this, I'll use this better on my next playthrough. I'm having trouble with my stash being full mostly by pages, letters, notes, books, am I safe to just sell all those old letters from my inventory without drawbacks? Can someone please help me with my full storage problem?

I am brand new to game and loving it. Restarting as I had no idea what I was doing and here I go again. But this video helped me understand more. Im on PC using xbox season pass to try before I buy and definitely adding to collection. Anyone out there wanna get on discord while playing let me know. Would love the help.

I'm still confused about whether I'm stopping and starting the game after each "skill use" (e.g. Knockdown on my Fighter), then programming another one then pressing start again, or do I just let the game autoplay? How do I control three party members too?

Best guide on YT for this game. Thank you Sir. Can’t wait for your BG3 vids.

Finally came to console so just started. Loving the first couple of hours so far.

When you got to break something and your Wizard with 18 Might is the one for the job it makes these stats feel WEIRD.
I tried this game so many times but I feel even though it really did a lot and revived the whole CRPG genre, it fails soo hard in certain aspects and for me the most important ones, like Lore and World building, the game throws HUGE WALLS OF TEXT at you with no context or anything, the plot feels wacky as fuck.
And I'm not against walls of text, I think Planescape: Torment is the best CRPG ever, and the reading was REAL on that game and combat was absolute garbage, I just think most of PoE is not well written or boring, you are building a whole universe on every conversation when most of the time is not needed.

Thanks for the video dude, I tried playing this game several times, I wanted to give it a chance one again but I needed a whole refresh on most of the combat mechanics.

PSA: Avoid every single character in the world that's from the Kickstarter, it really breaks immersion, they make 0 sense to have outside of pleasing each specific backer.

Just started playing this and this is a great tutorial on the mechanics (I've played IWD,IWD2,BG games, these are my favorite types of games)

Now I understand how stupid I was for starting this game for the first time on 'Path of the damned" and 'Expert mode' turned on. I didnt bother reading the tooltips of what they actually change, suffice to say it wasnt a pleasant experience. I didnt get far...

This is why I play on Story mode.

No.

Fuck this combat. You have so little control and there are so many variables. Hell even turn based would have been a smart implementation.
I would love a game like this with grid based strategy with a mix of Fire Emblem and Xcom mechanics.

Are battles done automatically?

The red area on spells represents the area that you can deal damage to party members

Quill18 is the legend of tutors!

Imagine programming this game!

Thanks Quill

Ok I'm extra late to the party, some what have an idea of these games .alot of what you shared was very informative ty broheim

I always hit my party members with my spells

This game is hard for me since its my first rpg with realtime with pause combat rpg. Spells having limited uses per rest was a mechanic that i had a hard time dealing with. Character building is something that i guess u can make a few mistakes on but still make it out alright. On my first playthrough, im on normal & on act 3. Once i finish this game, its on the back burner for a few weeks, i will be playing the sequel in turn based mode. Overall its a great game

horrible game mechanics

This game is so good but I cant keep track of all the spells, every level up I am clueless on what to take. way too much choice. and when you get a new party member and have to now learn a whole new class. I cant keep up :(

I reached the ending where I pwned by the final boss. I raged and uninstalled this game.

I'm about to pick this up for the very first time (on the Switch), and this was VERY helpful to watch before I begin. Glad I did. Great video

bestiary
bes·​ti·​ary | \ ˈbes-chē-ˌer-ē

As someone who's never really played this level of RPG, seemed a bit intimidating at first but your vids actually convinced me to try it (thank you).

i played through the entire game... i now see just how little i understood about the game.

Never buy the Switch version. The port is has tok much bugs and features that makes your experience pure torture

that's really helpful, thank you

Just picked this up on Switch and I am getting battered on easy mode. Will be watching a lot of your vids it seems 😂

in english

This video could have been 10-15 minutes holy shit...

The biggest killer for me is keeping track of spells and abilities of all 6 part members .

I can barely do that for 1 character when I'm playing a spellcaster on D&D....let alone 6 people...let alone in a non turn based environment.

Great tutorial! Thank you!

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I am kinda new to the whole diceroll, actual pen/paer rpg stuff.... Playing this game on easy so far, but would realy like to have my second playtrough, a bit higher on the difficulty, and this is where videos like this can really make the difference. Love the in depth explanation, GG m8 :) Gonna subscribe, good channel :)