Ranged Enemies and Dodging Their Attacks

[phaze]

Progressing through episode 2, I find that the ability to dodge ranged attacks becomes more and more difficult.  For example, I have found that Orc Javelineers consistently hit my Selen (greater than 50% approximately) with a Dex of 12, Stat Dodge of 9, Bonus Dodge of 12, and Evasion 6.  While this character is not maximizing Dodge, it is a reasonable die pool of 21 standard and 18 strong die.  How much accuracy do ranged enemy attackers have?  On the flip side, a high enough armor value (like 120 or more) can actually mitigate a low damage roll from ranged attackers and make their attacks more like tickles than deadly wounds.

Have other players had success with Dodge and successfully using it to avoid ranged attacks?  If so, what were you Dodge choices and die pool sizes?

For strategy, I am thinking of migrating over to equipment that involves increasing the ability to handle damage, i.e. HP and armor.  Fighting in the Underforge, distance attackers cannot damage high armor Vraes/Fyona while pounding the snout out of Selen/Kjartan.  Switching Selen from Stealth Armor to Light Armor and increasing her Armor by 20 points made a noticeable difference.

After all, if the enemy is going to hit you regardless of your damage avoidance scheme, than sometimes it is better numerically to just reduce the damage being taken to create consistency over the yo-yo effect on your character's HP pools. Increasing armor by 20 is like effectively increasing your HP 10-20 pool per attack. It is never the high damage dealers that kill me, but rather the combination of successful, multiple hits.

I've had really good experience stacking high levels of Parry/Weapon skill to avoid hits, but successful Dodge builds that function well into Episode 2 elude me.  I would love to hear other people's experiences with Dodge and ranged attacks for later game content.

[Cory Trese]

I find my best success comes from high dodge builds, especially with Selen. I have found that trying to mix medium dodge and medium armor is less effective than going full bore into one or the other.

Fighting Vernauk I have 16 Dex, 24 Dodge, 6 Evasion with Selen playing on Nightmare.

When I am playing without Warder's Shield, I usually go with a high armor Selen, lower Evasion but still max out Dex.

[fallen]

In the early game, I find that my strategy of generalist works well. By the end game (E2, UF, etc) I differ from Cory in that I more and more focus on one thing (high Dodge, if that is the choice). But for it to work, you need High Dodge, and you really need to focus to make that happen, across the board.

[vdx]

I have to say this in all caps: THIS ISSUE IS EXACTLY WHY I SWITCHED FROM USING STONE SKIN TO PHALANX SHIELD for Vras. Stone Skin is nifty but the high success rate of ranged attacks in EP 2 makes the dodge and automatic miss bonuses of Phalanx Shield a better suit for my preferred party. In addition, opting for Dodge over Parry bonus in amour/accessories helps too.

With Phalanx Shield and Warder's Shield rasided to at or above level 5, I'm finding the hit/miss ratio of EP 2 range attackers bearable.

Also, tactics wise, using the terrain to reduce or eliminate line of sigh from enemy archers/casters helps a lot too. Use choke points, corners, random obstacles and even simply falling back to reduce the number of range enemies are within range to attack. Much better to take on 2 or 3 per round than 6 or 7.

[vdx]

Oct 5, 2014 13:13:18 GMT -5 phaze said:

I've had really good experience stacking high levels of Parry/Weapon skill to avoid hits, but successful Dodge builds that function well into Episode 2 elude me.  I would love to hear other people's experiences with Dodge and ranged attacks for later game content.

The use of Phalanx Shield Coupled with Warder's Shield is discussed in a post, see link below.
startradersrpg.proboards.com/post/106097

The AoE nature of Warder's Shield means the entire party gets the bonus on top of improving Vras's defensive stats, which helps against EP 2 ranged attackers.

Also, it may seem a little odd, but when weighing parry vs dodge bonus for accessories, using the thumb rule that +1 doge is worth at least +3 parry seems to help. While the math gets complicated, the idea is simple: Dodge is used for range and melee attacks, making +1 dodge  better than +1 parry. In addition, in most fights that have mixed melee and ranged opponents, the ranged attackers are able to hit first and more often compared to their melee counter parts. This is especially true for my party build which uses a ranged attack based standard party (standard heroes, built and geared for ranged attacks).

I've tried a parry focused Vras.... note past tense.

[phaze]

We have different view points on this one. I've found Parry to be excellent coupled with a weapon skill. Through Episode 2, enemies largely cannot hit Vraes/Kincaid/Fyona/Selen with one talent boosting parry, weapon skill, and a shield/high parry weapon and Shield of Cortias.

I've found ranged enemies to largely never miss unless one utterly boosts all-out Dodge. This is not helpful as it constraints equipment/talent/attribute choices. Through all of my play throughs to date, parry equipment is always more plentiful then dodge.

+1 Dodge equaling +3 Parry is not backed at at all from my experience. Yes, dodge contributes to ranged and melee defense, but parry is a strong die for melee whereas dodge is not. If you are aiming to avoid melee attacks, you have to have a decent mix of parry in your stats. The die only matter if you have a sufficient pool to score more successes. Adding die to a pool means nothing unless you can skew the frequency of wins over the enemy.

For example, playing on Nightmare, my Kjartan with all points into Dex, robes with Evasion, and equipment geared towards dodge (including boots that give +6 dodge) and high level shield of cortias still is hit by ranged attackers over 80% of the time. Gamewise, this effectively means Dodge is useless on Kjartan if you cannot achieve sufficient dodge levels. Better to boost HP and armor if you are going to hit no matter what you do.

As ranged attacks can be controlled by distance and positioning, I find Dodge to be less and less useful with more game experience. I'm testing an all out Dodge Kincaid at the moment and the results are disappointing. With all out Dodge (meaning all Dex points, Evasion armor, Dodge-based skills, Shield of Cortias, and whatever Dodge equipment I find), he maybe Dodges 50% of the time in Episode 1 nearing the Ratkin Warrans. Given his smaller HP pool than Vraes and eventually lower Armor, I'm rather grim on his long term chances as a Dodge machine. That way lies death.

Phalanx Shield is one of my favorite skills and skews the discussion due to its auto-ranged block. However, the auto-block is less useful in episode 2 I've found as the ranged attackers attack through-out the entire party unless Vraes is the only character in range. The Underforge is quite tense if you get a barrage of damages headed towards your archer/mage. Again, my experience in UF is vastly better for having boosted armor and completely ditched Dodge.

Fascinating that we have had such different experiences in the game.

[captain nemo]

Fascinating that we have had such different experiences in the game.

phaze that's the truly awesome thing about TB games, you'll always get a great experience and because there games are so deep and complex you get so many different adventures and experiences.

[algesan]

The thing I'm sweating so far is looking at max Dex and max Dodge Talent buffs...with more harder hitting content to go. Makes me wonder if the party that survives without a death to the end will be Vraes, Vincent, Kyera, Selene with everything being optimized for max Dex, max Dodge, max Armor and max HP on Vraes so he can hopefully take more than one hit.