Kaylon
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Posts posted by Kaylon
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Tuotilo's Palm has the same penetration and accuracy as your fists, just lower damage. Once enchanted it offers also great defense and either better accuracy or damage with fists.
The lantern is good for just one thing - the chance to restore mortification - which for me is a trap because the dps gains for having Swift Strikes available (maybe) longer are inferior to Tuotilo's Palm gains. The best way to benefit from the lantern is to keep it in the second slot and when an enemy is near death switch to it and let Xoti deal the finishing blow (if you really need mortification).
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1 hour ago, Boeroer said:
Oh, I forgot: Frostseeker's AoE that procs on crit is a melee attack (weird, but it's like that).
Then it should work also with Hylea's Talons, Boltcatchers, The Left Hand of the Obscured...
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26 minutes ago, Lovecraft1986 said:
@Kaylonwhy would the FF/troubadour have the easiest way ?
It's because the troubadour, using Brisk Recitation and Many Lives... has the easiest time to keep Dorudugan away, while shooting him with a bow. (you summon skeletons faster than Dorudugan can kill them). While any MC troubadour can use the same tactic, only monks have Resonant Touch which makes things much faster.
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Any type of monk can kill Dorudugan, but not with (just) melee damage. The idea is to stack enough resonance stacks then blow him up. The easiest way to kill him with any type of monk is to use Enduring Dance to generate wounds, summon the Dichotomous Soul to keep him busy and use Essence Interrupter or Frostseeker to damage/build stacks of resonance on him. (Of course you need specific equipment for this encounter in any case).
The votary can also facetank him using FF and eventually blow him up but, if the health bug is also present in the vanilla version, it's better to use the "classic" way to kill him.
The assassin/FF can also use the "classic" way to kill Dorudugan. The other possibility is to use Vanishing Strike and then Gambit with Mohora Tanga in the main hand while invisible, (but probably less reliable).
PS. A FF/troubadour would have the easiest way to kill Dorudugan of any class.
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7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:
I've been working on builds that can face tank without armor because I've been playing various magran's fires things and armor breaks. Plus you attack faster without it. Some FF builds can do it by attacking very fast, e.g. steel garrote / FF is one, others stack healing sources like ravager stalwart defiance + ff or brute with stalwart defiance + rapid recovery + unbending. Brute can facetank pretty much anything naked and with **** deflection.
I do think your build steel garrote / FF build is very good. Don't think it can beat Dorudugan without gear change. He has to have passive health regen that doesn't show...Might be as simple as putting on effigy's husk, that should nearly double damage output and reduce dorudugan's healing if you script to stay bloodied.
WOTW costs nine wounds in BPM and you don't start with that many, so I guess you have to use enduring dance, wait, use WOTW, shadowing beyond, wait, repeat? I've played a ton of builds but have mostly stayed away from rogues and druids. Know the rest reasonably well.
Ha Mohora Tanga is asking for trouble. My PC cost 10k and it still sometimes crashes the game from proccing a hundred plus times. Even when it doesn't the frame rate stutters badly.
I didn't think about grave calling freezing enemies vs paralyzing. So if they're resistant it is downgraded to paralyzed... the description says it paralyzes but I do recall using the sabre and it actually freezing them when I used strand of favor to stack freezes, but I thought it was just a visual distinction at the time. Sounds like an interesting build.
Don't understand why are you talking about BPM or Magran's fires since @Lovecraft1986 is not using them... My builds are for vanilla game + community patch.
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I never put more than 3 in CON and never regretted it. Hylea's Bounty works like +5CON and with enough self healing and defense you won't need more (and with Berath's Blessing it's even easier).
Since @Lovecraft1986 is playing with the cap increase, adding another class to the FF will make it even stronger and you can still apply the basics of a SC FF. Since he plays also with the community patch the FF attack is considered a melee attack it benefits from health draining/damage add of the steel garrote or the sneak attack/deathblows/deep wounds of the assassin.
Regarding the FF, until you get Clarity of Agony, it's ok to attack a little slower but maximize defense and healing. Once you obtain Clarity of Agony you can start to optimize your build further.
The steel garrote adds the superior defenses and healing which allow you to face tank any boss in the game. You get also some good offensive tricks - Eternal Devotion, Brand Enemy and Sacred Immolation (which can be used almost without drawbacks).
The assassin synergizes perfectly with WotW (all assassinate bonuses are applied, and also backstab, sneak attack, deathblows and deep wounds). VS single enemies you have a great synergy between Gambit (which can be spammed) and Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming. You can either use Mohorā Tanga (if your PC is good enough) or use the combo Grave Calling/Scordeo's Edge and freeze enemies/trigger Blade Cascade (only enemies immune to dex afflictions can't be freezed/paralyzed and against them you can use Stunning Surge).
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Here are my suggestions if you play without BPM and with the lvl cap increased:
- if you want to feel like a boss from the start to the finish you should try FF/Steel Garrote (be just rational if you don't like to be cruel)
- the ultimate death machine would be FF/assassin (vs solo enemies you have the deadly combo - Grave Calling + Scordeo's Edge with Gambit and Swift Flurry/Heartbeat Drumming)
- if you like casters then BM/troubadour is very strong (but if you don't use the grimoire imprint trick then it requires more strategy)
For a FF to make things go very smooth you should max MIG, RES, PER, min CON and split the rest of points between INT/DEX. Pick pale elf (with resolve bonus) and dagger+medium shield as first weapons and Hylea's Bounty as deity bonus. With both modals activated and wearing the brigandine you can just spam FF (the curse should expire just before the next hit) while having incredible defense and healing from the start (maybe you need to test the build a little if you play with Berath's Blessings).
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7 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:
You could complete the game like this, but definitely not all the content. Not Dorudugan, probably not HOW. Probably not Neriscyrlas due to oblivion's call healing her. Definitely not the changeling's dance and subsequent slayer path content. Not a lot of optional content like Sissak's Lair fight, certain fights in the enclosures where paladins spam light of pure zeal, etc.
Dorudugan can't be killed just with summons, but it's definitely the easiest megaboss to kill with a troubadour MC (just chant Many Lives... with Brisk Recitation and pelt him using Essence Interrupter). Also the guy who claimed to beat the game with this tactic was playing in TB were things are handled differently (sometimes easier) and I wouldn't rule out any possibility. Of course there are some fights where you can't stay stealthed or can't just use summons and you have to alter your strategy, but these are exceptions.
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With 2 pairs of Missile Gloves it might be possible to proc the charm from the wand. However there are abilities that look like spells (all paladins abilities and I think also invocations), but aren't considered spells (and don't get the damage bonus from Captain's Banquet for example).
Vela adds a very high layer of difficulty, especially for the herald. However there's an easy method to deal with most encounters (easier if you play with Berath's Challenge activated). Basically you should learn to trigger the combat from stealth (using traps) and then use summons to kill the enemies (while you and Vela remain stealthed the entire fight and far away from the enemies). You can pull enemies into traps (and trigger combat mode) using sparkcrackers or drawing the attention from enemies by going near them (more risky). Someone even claimed it was possible to finish the entire game (megabosses included) using this tactic.
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32 minutes ago, Shai Hulud said:
Not how I would have spread the stats but I'll defer to your expertise on this. My experience with paladins is relatively limited and heralds really just Pallegina. I guess it's pretty different solo, and in a great many fights just outtanking things is sufficient to win, though these kinds of builds inevitably have trouble with certain fights where enemies heal themselves (like Dorudugan, or the vithrack and moon spiders in forgotten sanctum).
My line of thought was you'd generally have a wall of summons and good healing, hence little need for resolve. But I can see that dexterity is not very important either, granted phrases build up automatically and invocations are rate-limited by phrase buildup more than dexterity.
The herald can of course use summons, consumables or adopt a different style of play if needed, but 99% of the time he just needs to stand in a corner or a bottleneck and beat everyone to death.
PS. And the most important thing - always use max speed mode during fights.
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17 hours ago, Caeyrii said:
I've gone back to the game just recently to actually finish it this time (stopped after defeating the slime superboss as a solo Herald, Darcozzi/Troubador). Lost a bit of knowledge of my playthroughs. I like 'Thrice' shout as a source of early damage as well, but I'm being conflicted in whether to invest in MIG or in DEX, as the latter does really give noticeable difference in summon time. What do you suggest?
The strength of the herald comes from his ability to outheal the damage taken and that is achieved by maxing his healing and defenses (max might, per, res, dump dex/con). Dex is basically a dump stat because the melee dps gains are negligible and the other sources of damage (Thrice..., Brand Enemy and Damage Shield) are affected only by might. As for the loss of reflex, the shield will make up for it. The herald is not a dps machine, but someone who will outlast all his enemies.
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3 hours ago, Stardusk78 said:
So I have decided on the rather simple route of Herald Shieldbearer/Troubadour; maximum defences and healing as well as summons. I think I lack the technical know-how atm to plan out something much more complicated so this is just endure and slowly kill I guess? using Community Patch and going Death Godlike.
Death Godlike is useless unless you can benefit from Barring Death Door and a human (who can also wear a helmet) is most of the time a superior choice. If not for RP purposes I would recommend a pale elf instead (his racial bonuses are the best).
Shieldbearer isn't a very good choice for solo because his subclass bonuses help only in a party. The best paladin subclass for solo is the darcozzi (easy to RP too) - the dmg shield has a very long duration and keeps adding damage to all enemies that hit you in melee and the cold resistance is nice too.
Summons are very weak at the beginning and take a long time to cast. Pick instead Thrice Was She Wronged... which can be used (multiple times in a row) to frontload damage against multiple enemies.
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Playing solo requires good knowledge of the game not only for the build itself (stats, items, abilities), but also for the order to do the quests, which battles to avoid, what choices to make, what tactics to use in the hard encounters, how to get the best items fast, etc.
Pure casters have to avoid fights until high levels (when they get their strong abilities) and also require constant buffing.
If you want to enjoy the game from the beginning, I would recommend classes that are strong from the start until the end like:
- forbidden fist monk - tanky melee damage dealer (starts with good single target dmg and self healing ability)
- darcozzi paladin/troubadour - versatile tank (starts with good AoE dmg, good defense and passive health regen)
- troubadour/blood mage - caster (starts with summons, passive health regen and good ranged damage)
- steel garrote/blood mage - tank/damage dealer (starts with great defense, passive health regen and passive draining ability)
- tactician/assassin - sniper (attacks enemies from stealth and kills them one with an arquebuse)
- troubadour/arcane archer - summoner archer (can use summons from stealth and then attack from range with bow)
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Any class using Mechanical Marvel with modal activated and stacked speed/recovery reduction from items can interrupt the gigantic/massive oozes. Any class can also kill the first form using Lover's Embrace and a potion of invisibility. Massive, greater and lesser oozes can be killed/interrupted using scrolls of Tornado. The difficult thing is to deal with the two massive oozes while wearing light armor.
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Heralds are very strong and versatile if you build them well. For a party I would pick a darcozzi/skald because his long duration damage shield helps his damage output more than any other active abilities (also darcozzis are the most fun paladins to roleplay). The skald has a lower cost for offensive spells which allows casting more often Her Revenge... (very effective AoE even at high levels).
Arcane knights are overall even stronger than heralds (especially blood mage/steel garrote) but they require a lot of buffing (however it's possible to use AI scripts to make it less tedious). Also they can use some tricks like summoning Concelhaut's Draining Touch for the entire fight or perma stealing spells up to lv3 with infinite uses (using Grimoire Imprint) which makes them even more crazy.
I would say the fury druid has the least synergy with the paladin since you are mostly a melee fighter. Animists and shapeshifters are probably better choices (either for increasing melee performance or for using the shapeshift as a buff).
Paladin/priest is a bit redundant if you play normally. However with Salvation of Time you can do many crazy things too.
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4 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:
I'm usually playing with Abydon on also so weapons tend to break, though generic weapons don't break for some reason, and I'm pretty sure I've found legendary morningstars somewhere, but no idea where.
Interesting, are you sure it's not because you're using some abilities? And it happens only to weapons or to the armors as well?
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10 hours ago, Shai Hulud said:
I've been testing the cantor build some more. Its main weakness is relatively low accuracy and no obvious way to deal with Hauani O Whe. I've managed to get one of the gigantic oozes down to near death a couple times but just barely, and the fight is so frustrating to practice since solo it takes over half an hour to get through the first stage.
Cantor should be able to deal with Hauani the same way as a herald.
You can also try to deal with the merge using Mechanical Marvel (with Sure Handed it should be easy enough to keep the oozes interrupted with modal activated) and later with scrolls of Tornado.
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With the right build a FF is one of the few classes able to solo Changelling Dance 100% of the time. The secret is to keep the rogue alive because his Deep Wounds work like a healing battery. The killing order should be monk>cipher>fighter>wolf>ranger (the rogue should be already dead from Soul Mirror).
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I would say the Ascendant/Arcane Archer with Frostseeker/Essence Interrupter and bear companion is easily one of the most versatile, fun and powerful builds in Deadfire. With cipher's buffs, the bear becomes very sturdy while also dealing good damage. Frostseeker is great for AoE dps, while Essence Interrupter (with modal) is the perfect backup weapon for high AR/single targets - for tougher fights you can always use scrolls of Avenging Storm and unleash mayhem. At high level you can refill your focus in 1-2 shots which means you will be ascended 90% of the time, allowing you to switch at leisure between spells and bow. The full package becomes complete once you get Pull of Eora which is the ideal CC for your AoE dmg.
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If you want to go melee then Soul Blade/Stalker is the most suitable combo. For stats max INT (for buffs), keep MIG/PER/DEX high while CON/RES are very low priority. Pick bear for max AR and survivability...
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Forbidden Fist/paladin is basically immortal while also doing great damage (use Tuotilo's Palm and Mohora Tanga for maximum effectiveness and gladiator style). Can also use Sacred Immolation for massive AoE damage with very little drawbacks (max resolve/Clarity of Agony).
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In PoE1 the best bows were also hunting bows (Persistence and Stormcaller). In PoE2 it was also well known that hunter bows had the best ranged dps due to their modal (only the Red Hand and Frostseeker can do better). Their biggest drawback was their damage types - slash/pierce AR can be both very high (especially on PotD) - however the Essence Interrupter fixed that. Ranger/cipher and ranger/monk are very powerful combos with great synergies (with both Frostseeker/Essence Interrupter).
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Like I already said I expect to always do pierce damage... Personally I think weapons shouldn't magically pick the damage for the wielder. It is the wielder who should make a conscious choice and pick the best damage type based on the situation, which in these cases is pierce. This behaviour is addressed by the game with an algorithm based just on the resistances. There could be a debate why some monster have 0 burn AR... It is to make absorption vs the element more effective or it's a conscious choice to make weapons with dual damage ineffective vs them?
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Detailed Companion Builds?
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
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Keep in mind that Eder is not the best tank and he's better in the role of a support/offensive tank. My ideal equipment for him as secondary tank would be: