Offline and online pros and cons

Now that I've done both I can compare the two:

Pros to online/cons to offline

You have the option to buy endgame gear/ore/etc instead of spending hours grinding for it
Can team up with other human players, i.e. Eastreach Gap

Pros to offline/cons to online

Can save the game and try an unvirtuous path, then restore the game and try the "correct" path

 

So, which are the pros and which are the cons?

 

Pros to offline

• Companions
• Can purchase some (should be all) premium items using crowns
• Can purchase crowns with gold
• Better chance of good loot (crowns, supply bundles, artifacts drop more often, get more out of supply bundles)

Cons to offline

• Crafting not viable
• Few offline game features (can't sleep to pass time, can't purchase POT, can't purchase crafting materials or crafted items, no achievements)
• Lots of waste (empty player housing space, few reasons to explore, etc)

Pros to online

• Can obtain crafted items without learning everything yourself and spending lots of time/waste creating them (because someone else did)
• Other players to group with

Cons to online

• Other players

 

there's a qa server that's reset every so often that you can test things on without affecting your live character. you also get lots of extra gold, crowns, and xp, and sometimes access to items and scenes in development.

 

Offline pro: Grinding not required.

 

Add this con to offline:

• Devotionals only provide the minimum benefit.

Yup.

 

As an aside, I'd love it if they made companions in online mode (beyond pets)... even if they're private-only.

 

What specifically do you mean by this? Are you referring to CotA? Yeah, you can up your skill levels, but you still have to grind like crazy to amass enough ore and wood to craft endgame gear.

 

Tell me more about both - do devotional blessing increase in strength as your character levels up? Also, I'm still just getting into it but I have yet to experience any negative interactions with other players. What am I "missing"?

 

Devotionals like for example Courage only give +3 STR bonus in offline because none of the lots in Resolute have been claimed. The more lots that are claimed in a town with a Devotional go up the more lots that are claimed. They only go up to a max of +5 however. Like for Courage.

 

I expect that you would have to claim 20 lots in order to get the maximum effect from a devotional. I feel that the buffs should be the maximum in offline mode without having to claim any lots.

 

Yeah. It should be easier with 200 across the board, though. One day I may find out. I'm still playing online. However, if you think I'm going to grind XP again for years again offline, you've got the wrong thought.

 

I played offline and I used CotA to up a BUNCH of my skills to 179, and I STILL struggled to kill all 18 siege engineers. I think I only successfully did it once, then when the cabalists showed up the fight lasted about 15 seconds before I had to haul my ghostly behind to an ankh.

The point being even if it's "easier" I'm sure one still needs to employ the right combination of socketed, enchanted and masterworked gear, food buffs, devotional blessings, decks and attention to the action during a fight.

 

Interesting enough, I'm way below lvl 179 in every skill and siege engineers aren't a real threat to me. Cabalists last only 1 minute or so before they hit the ground. Maybe it's more about gear than it's about skills, I don't know.

 

All off your offline inventory and storage is stored locally, just the same as skills levels. If you already have something, you can change the quantity to anything you want, and if you know the ID for something, you don't even need to already have it to just make as much as you want out of thin air. You can even get almost all the artifacts in the game very quickly by opening blue or orange bundles.

Offline is pretty nice for testing stuff, because it's expensive and time consuming to respec and reallocate skill points, and gear can be really expensive too. Sometimes things that sound like a good idea end up sucking, so it's pretty nice to be able to try things out first.

 

I replicated my plate and halberd build offline. The differences being offline skills are all at 200, I had no potions or food, and my halberd and plate were the plane versions found on the NPC vendor on the upper level of Owl's Head. I used the same spells and combat glyphs as I use online. I entered a siege with Indigno. I followed the same pattern through the scene as I do on live. I used the same tactics at each catapult station as I do on live. I handled them about the same as I do on live. Lack of focus restoration potions and food made itself known. The battle with Indigno was about the same. It would have gone a little quicker with focus restoration, but Indigno has the uncanny ability to buy an avatar some time. Fancy equipment and the aforementioned focus stuff would have made the battle easier. The only flaw was I missed an arcane catalyst, and so could not turn in the quest.

My original easier comment above was concerning gathering of resources. Gathering skills at 200 across board should speed things up. I may duck into Elysium Mines to find out. I'll want test high level master working at some point.

 

For me the real threat is the ebon cultist high wizards. When I go up to the top of one of those hills I usually see an ECHW, an ECMarksman, 2 SEs and 2 ECArchers. If I don't take care of the ECHW immediately, his fireballs (which do 50-200 damage) cut me down before I can blink. If I take care of the ECHW first, I'm left with so few HP from 5 archers filling me with arrows from behind that I have to be very very careful not to DIE, and I'm usually not careful enough.

With that said, the SEs definitely have significantly more hit points than the ECAs, and they tend to run away more often than the ECAs, so they're definitely more of a challenge. Ice Arrows seem to effective slow down their running.

My main damage comes from skewer, puncture, spinning attack and leg sweep, plus earthquake and the occasional shield bash, stone arrow, ice arrow and searing ray.

I have a level 70 Water Elemental too. His healing definitely helps. I should probably try to control him a little better, i.e. make sure he's attacking the same enemy I am to reduce their numbers more quickly.

I just recently started using poison, but I don't have any of the skills yet.

I use almost all of the defensive skills (absorb impact, crystal shield, deflect, bolster balance, glancing blow, parry, earth's embrace, celestial blessing etc), but I'm not sure any but deflect actually help against arrows.

A couple things I HAVEN'T tried recently that I'm going to try to work in: 1. use Dazzling Rays and/or ice field on the archers while I'm trying to take down the ECHW. 2. Long ago I used Immolation and Ignite Weapon, but I got away from those two particular spells when I got tired of the fire tree's ultra-high fizzle chances - those two would be useful against these mobs.

Anything obvious I'm not trying that might help?

 

My strategy is so complex that some people can't really understand it:

I'll try to break it down so everyone get it:
1) Jump into the middle of the Ebon Cultists;
2) Guns blazing;
3) Be sure to loot them;
4) Stop by silver ore node to mine a bit;
5) Rinse and repeat.

Jokes aside, I think the difference must be in gear. Once you buy yourself some high end pieces of gear, it's going to get way easier.

 

How often in the online game do you enter a zone intending to pillage it only to find that there's already someone in there pillaging and there are less monsters and resources than normal? Is that an actual thing or was it my imagination?

 

Not as often as in the past. However, I know where some players hunt in some scenes, so, to borrow a phrase, I stay where they ain't. If I don't know, or see one where I'm heading, I go somewhere else.