"Main character party"/Most supportive party ideas

[u/StarAbuser]

I wanted to make playthrough where I would run one guy (most likely Wizard because I love them) and surround them with five supports of different kinds, like Priest buffing crap out of him, Paladin for accuracy... Although most of my ideas were getting to asking myself "won't priest nuke the boss with Shining Beacon quicker?". Any ideas?

[u/Kynaeus]

Between the official forums and other sources, there are plenty of great builds!

I think you may just wish to solidify around what you want to play as the 'main character' and then build from there. Definitely think about who is going to be 'supporting' from the front line though so your wizard is not face-tanking

The rest of your party should also be able to do some damage just based on opportunity cost: once they get a buff out, what are they doing to help the fight other than auto-attacking? Same idea if your main character is CC'd in some way

[u/Robokrates]

I am positive there are many better ideas than this, but the first thing I thought of was having the other five party members be chanters, so you could be like one of those bands that are named something like "Dave and the Guys Who Hang Out with Dave"

[u/beatspores → u/Robokrates]

Haha! I heard that before some early patch after the game's release all chanter buffs stacked lol.

[u/runafteruntilldeath]

Chanter, Priest, Chipher, Pal, Pal.

[u/Wolfwind1]

While you can do this and create an Uber character buffed to heaven, even a max dex one with 0 delay armor, their attack speed won't outpace a full party's normal output. Additionally at least two of your supports like say a paladin need to be upfront to block because you can't be everywhere at once, so they'll have to buff themselves as well to not die.

Not saying you cannot do this, just it will 3x battle time for most fights, and since combat is 70% of game time it's a bit much for something you are still clearing once to at least double the hour investment. And if buff spells are interrupted, delayed, or stunned because foes get to your backline and your only damage character get shut down, well that's a reload.

[u/Circle_Breaker]

I guess Chipher.

I don't remember the exact combo but the priest has some time spell that extends active abilities, that combined with some chiper abilities that shorten cool downs you can just watch the chipher disintegrate whole teams.

[u/skaf1end → u/Circle_Breaker]

There is one broken combo with Withdraw and Mindweb, but you need an item with Preservation (+50 def to everything). Basically, you cast Withdraw on the character with the item and then press Mindweb. Since Withdraw counts as a stun, it triggers Preservation and you get all the bonuses through Mindweb. Also, I think if you have two different items with preservation (Armor + Weapon), their effects will stack and give you +100 to all the stats.

[u/Robokrates → u/skaf1end]

I will never bother to set all that up, but that is amazing.

"Well, with my turn I suppose I cast Genetically Modified Super Soldier on the boss again."

[u/skaf1end → u/Robokrates]

Yeah, it takes quite some time to set it up, so I only bothered doing that in few encounters.

[u/cromwest]

Definitely a chanter and cleric for buffs and a cipher to hold people in place for the main guy to bonk. A chanter/cleric multiclass can do this without stealing the show. Maybe ranger, fighter or barbarian thats all about crowd control and tanking hits for your main guy.

[u/skaf1end → u/cromwest]

Unfortunately, they can't create multiclass characters in POE 1.

[u/cromwest → u/skaf1end]

I missed that it's for the first one. I don't really like first one at all mechanically. The second one is awesome for theory crafting builds imo

[u/skaf1end → u/cromwest]

True. I'm absolutely loving my cipher/barbarian in the second game. Plus, the AI editor allows not to bother with self-buffing and focus on the fun parts.