arkane83
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Posts posted by arkane83
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I would consider one of these:
Fighter/Rogue (unbroken/trickster). This is one of the stronger tanking options in the game. This doesnt have the restrictions of devoted or the penalties of assassin or streetfighter. Should be fairly easy to play. One hand and shield style.
Paladin/Barbarian (Kind Wayfarer/No subclass). You dont need to be dealing with self inflicted damage as a novice. Everyone will probably hate this idea and say its telling you to nerf yourself, but this combo is actually really easy to play. Dual wield with this guy. Open up fights with frenzy and flames of devotion your enemies to death. White flames will help to heal you and your party. Requires some role playing, but it's easy to be a good guy
(Berserker is the power gamer choice I'm steering you away from)Wizard (no sub). Really, really strong spells at high power levels. Grimoires can give you access to EVERY spell. Makes this class more forgiving for bad choices. Pick up chill fog early. It pulses blind and is one of the most stupidly overpowered low level abilities in the game.
There are tons of builds to choose from. Just about anything will work on veteran. Best advice is really "whatever sounds fun".
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A look at a variant designed to give me higher Resolve for dialogue tests.
Stats:
Might: 15 (8 Base +1 Human +1 GotM +2 Berath's Blessing +1 Permanent Stat Boost +2 Woedica's Strangling Grasp)
Con: 15 (12 Base +1 Chameleon's Touch +2 Berath's Blessing)
Dexterity: 10 (5 Base +1 Boots of the Stone +1 Deadfire Archipelago +2 Berath's Blessing +1 Chameleon's Touch)
Perception: 20 (18 Base +2 Berath's Blessing)
Intellect: 20 (17 Base +1 Strand of Favor +2 Berath's Blessing)
Resolve: 20 (15 Base +1 Nalvi +1 Resolve +1 Human +2 Berath's Blessing)
High Might isn't really needed for a Streetfighter multi. This also allows for a no-frills way to get the Woedica mace. Also, the difference between 10 Dexterity and 13 Dexterity is literally a few tenths of a second, so that gives me three extra points to play with.
Actually marauder really can get away with DUMPING might. The reason is twofold:
1) you get a ton of other weapon damage bonuses that are additive.
2) high might means more frenzy raw damage on yourself.
You also get 5 might from frenzy. My marauder with no blessings looks like this:
Mig 5
Con 18
Dex 10
Per 18
Int 13
Res 14
If I'm using blessings, human for bloodied synergy:
Mig 6 (3 + 1 racial + 2 blessing)
Con 20
Dex 10
Per 20
Int 15
Res 18
These stats are just base + racial + blessing
While a ton of int helps barbarians, I feel you can get away with a lot less and still feel quite effective vs groups. For one thing you will eventually get resistance to int afflictions, so your carnage radius won't get penalized by frenzy and the extra 5 int won't be missed once you get geared or proper food.
Constitution is something that you really want a ton of for a maurauder. 25 with frenzy is going to make it WAY easier to stay alive during frenzy . Coupled with having only 11 might under frenzy and voidward, higher level self raw damage is much easier to live through.
It's bad enough that frenzy gets a power level bonus (penalty), dont feed that with more might. Go as LOW as you can tolerate being s wimpy warrior
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Maybe try exalted endurance instead of exalted focus. You could also bring a chanter and ancient memory through that damage. Its not a whole lot, and passive healing pretty much heals more than powder burns will do.Been playing this a little more and dual catches up and exceeds single REALLY quickly.
My current problem right now is the fact that I absolutely demolish my tanks with Powder Burns.
Edit: I had Tekehu in my party, and I'm pretty sure his ancient memory helped the powder damage a lot.
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Yeah, thank you for confirming.
I'm always tempted to go back to my initial Berserker Voulge builds. Always uncertain which build to go with though. Berserk/Helwalker? - nah, too squishy. Berserk/Streetfighter? - maybe, but can't always end up with the Streetfighter, right? Maybe Brute? Or maybe pure? That'd be a novelty that could actually work.
I'm a big fan of berserker streetfighter. Dump might, max per and con, leave dex flat, and use the rest for int and res (10 to 14). I'm running a character like that with the voulge and she is a beast.
It may seem odd dumping might, but it makes your self inflicted damage less, and you have a ton of damage bonuses for weapon damage thanks to streetfighter. 5 is good so you end up at 10 with frenzy.
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Why choose? Berserker/streetfighter is pretty darned good
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Achievements for playing a game. Also known as trophies for sitting on your tuchas. Kinda like giving someone a medal for using a lot of marijuana.
Pointless.
I wholeheartedly support allowing people to play however they want. Obsifian should just add the challenges into the new game menu and, if they absolutely give a rat's patootie about achievements, code a separate achievement for no blessing challenges.
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What about with clear out from fighter? Primary attack on multiple enemies.
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My maurauder, berserker/streetfighter, is an absolute terror on PotD. I have her using two handed weapons and find it really easy keeping her alive and at least one of the conditions to activate streetfighter. Even when she isnt at full speed and damage, she has enough pen and damage types to make a huge dent. Using willbreaker and lord darryns voulge.Eh Streetfighter is a one trick pony. Sure it's powerful but it *requires* the use of the Blunderbuss. Doing that every fight is tedious. Maybe for power gamers it's the best for DPS but for those looking for more versatility and less redundancy, Trickster is def better. Plus you still have to deal with thennegatice penalties of Flanked.
Edit: not solo btw, in a party with a herald healer/tank and eder as a persistent distraction tank.
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I actually like the character progression in Deadfire. Multiclassing really opened up tons of character concepts and has made replaying this game actually fun.
(I have about 110 hours of play time).
That being said, I find PotD to be extremely limiting in how you can build your characters. The higher armor and penetration that enemies have makes your own armor an all or nothing affair and penetration enhancing abilities mandatory.
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Am I reading this right? Illusion doesn't even *have* a PL 9 spell? Or a PL 7 spell?
Wow. That's just the worst.
Yeah, its actually quite illuminating seeing everything broken out by school.
Further confirmation that wizard specialization is terribly designed.
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I've been thinking that part of the problem with specialist wizards is a lack of role definition, so I created a spreadsheet breaking down wizard spells by school for reference purposes.
Maybe it'll be of use to someone.
Found a little error. Chill Fog is Transmutation not Conjuration.
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Sadly it seems his negatives from wildmind far outweights the positive, since all the positive aspect like debuffs or charm is already covered by base Cipher abilities. The problem is the wildmind explosion which if happens immediately kills at least 2 of my team members. I wonder if send him to melee range and let him be a bomb would be better, that way he stack up focus and wildmind explodes the enemies rather than my own, but dude is a paper in melee and dies faster than my wizard.If you are not into save scumming (or are playing a mode that disallows it), Serafen is the absolute worst companion in the game as a cipher or witch. The negatives, when they happen, can cause a wipe on a hard fight, as you already discovered.
My suggestion if you made him a cipher? Get unity console and just change his class if you are hellbent on keeping him in your party and already picked anything with Wild Mind. I would make him a Berserker/Soul Blade... yes its cheating, but I can also hire an adventurer with whatever build I want.
As a witch, he's generally durable enough to make the inevitable kaboom count. But yeah, under no circumstances should you use him as a ranged combatant. Wild Mind is bad, but it's considerably more tolerable on a witch than on a straight cipher.
Yeah, if you send him in alone as a kinda kamikaze type all by himself. Still sucky if he turns a pack of enemies invisible who then proceed to make your life hell...
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<p>
It doesn't, but it does hamper one of the best Tuotilo's Palm upgrades, which grants +1 Deflection and Reflex per wound. However, I would strongly advise you that Shattered Pillar renders Shattered Pillar worthless. As is, there are three problems:
- You only gain wounds from damage dealt with auto-attacks. This means you spend a lot of time getting ready to do cool stuff, instead of just doing cool stuff.
- The actual amount of damage you have to do to inflict a wound is fairly ridiculous, especially since, again, it has to be done with auto-attacks.
- Being limited to five wounds seriously hampers one of the monk's other best abilities, Duality of Mortal Presence.
Exactly this.
If your build is going to go high deflection and not get hit much, I highly recommend Nalpazca. Drugs are fairly cheap and easy to get. They are also really strong and worth using!
Helwalker is also great, but taking more damage on a character that sounds like you want to be tanky, can be a bit harder to work with.
Basically, it comes down to:
Are you holding wounds for passives? Helwalker
Are you spending wounds on actives? Nalpazca
Are you trying to make your character weaker? Shattered Pillar
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Is a shame for such a cool character with a refreshing personality he is absolutely objectively the worst companion out of everyone AND sidekicks, wildmind need some kind of tuning to make Serafan worthwhile.He's a cool char but the absolute worst combat prowress. I never use him unless it's his personal quest.
Yeah remove it and replace it with something that gives +/- power levels or a wacky combination of miss to graze, graze to miss, hit to graze, graze to hit, and hit to crit for his cipher abilities. Keep the randomness, but remove the self wipe nonsense that makes him useless on higher difficulty.
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If you are not into save scumming (or are playing a mode that disallows it), Serafen is the absolute worst companion in the game as a cipher or witch. The negatives, when they happen, can cause a wipe on a hard fight, as you already discovered.
My suggestion if you made him a cipher? Get unity console and just change his class if you are hellbent on keeping him in your party and already picked anything with Wild Mind. I would make him a Berserker/Soul Blade... yes its cheating, but I can also hire an adventurer with whatever build I want.
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Well the added accuracy does help early on, before you get your second aoe weapon, ring of marksman, ring of focused flame, and acinas tricorn. Once you have the gear, it's going to shift in favor of dual wield (2 attempts at 50% chance to hit is 75% to hit etc).
Maybe if obsidian made it so that one handed and two handed style get double hit rolls, two attempts to hit but only best one counts. Otherwise, dual should always be more reliable at applying the debuffs to packs of enemies.
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Currently trying out a build pretty similar to this.
Wild Orlan
Streetfighter/Bleakwalker
Might: 17
Constitution: 8
Dexterity: 11
Perception: 20
Intelligence: 18
Resolve: 4
It seems to work pretty well One-Handed do far in the early game, and I am seriously considering just going that direction.
Have you tried a variation with a single Blunderbuss? Is it worth it?
One hand is really good too, especially before you get your second aoe blunderbuss, fire in the hole. The advantage to dual wield is multiple attempts to apply the same effect and when you use your full attack abilities. Statistically trying to apply a bleed 2 or 3 times (bounced aoe can hit the same thing twice) is superior than 1 time. Also, both blunderbusses are good in their own way. Fire in the hole can bounce, and hand mortar can get 20% more damage in proximity.
I went dual wield because it felt like it was more reliably applying the effects to packs. This was from 1.2 and they did actually fix a bug where offhand blunderbus has more accuracy. I would have to re test this in 2.0 and see if that makes that big of a difference (I dont think it does)
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Amor/Penetration still has too much influence in my opinion. I also find it bad that in PotD not only types of enemies changes and numbers of enemies and stats like health, accuracy and defenses get raised but also AR(!). Why is that? It wasn't so in PoE and for a good reason: It means that certain weapons are worse for PotD - which I find really bad. You have a more narrow choice of weapons for PotD if you want to play efficiently. For example great sword (the modal also doesn't help at all) have a really hard time on PotD while suddenly estocs are great (if you prefer two handers).
This is my biggest beef with PotD. It's not just weapons, but also subclasses and builds that we are pigeonholed into thanks to insane AR. Playing a fighter striker? You better pick devoted or you will hit like a wet noodle. Playing a barbarian? Zerker every day for the same reason. Does your character have talents that increase pen? Take them or literally underpen the majority of enemies.
I get that PotD is about full knowledge of game mechanics and synergy, but at of right now you either use specific weapons, talents or subclasses or you will make the mode much harder for yourself.
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Other thing to keep in mind is increasing EHP while keeping actual HP low(ish) is generally better, as it increases the value of your healing. Ofc if you don't have healing then it's all the same.
Kinda. It's really more that the stats and items can go other places to make your character better.
More HP is never going to make your healing less effective. It just moves your health bar less, with the same amount of HPS.
The only thing this really effects is when you want to be blooded or near death. For those builds high hp is really great because it keeps you in those "zones" with less risk.
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Effective Health = Health / Percent of Damage Taken
So if your armor reduces the damage you take to 25%, then it would be like
300/.25 = 1200 EHP
400/.25 = 1600 EHP
This doesn't even factor in deflection, just having 3 more armor than your opponents penetration. Factor in deflection and your EHP gap widens.
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Druid and fighter actually have a few good synergies. I think they are fairly unpopular because of just how amazing devoted is for almost every other class, especially in PotD. In PotD everything has boatloads of armor, and the devoted subclass helps you overcome that. Unfortunately, druids are not considered proficient in their animal form claws, so they get an accuracy penalty when playing as a devoted and no bonus penetration with claws. I'm not sure why this was done, monk/devoted are considered proficient with their fists, but this is what we have.
Druid/Fighter is great for Veteran or Below. As already stated, the subclasses don't make much sense for a druid, but a no-subclass fighter isn't a bad thing. You can get tactical barrage, which is a boost to accuracy, aoe size, durations, and power levels for your nukes. As a shifter, you SHOULD be using your attack spells to open a fight. I like opening with any of the aoe damage over time abiltiies, shifting into boar form, and bleeding them out. All of your fighter abilities are going to be usable as a Shifter, and they will also really help. Stances while in bear form should make you a fairly good tank if needed as well. The combination of constant recovery and healing when you shift is going to give you a ton of self heals as well.
Unfortunately, on PotD this build is going to be much harder to make viable because you can't pick devoted. Not being able to make your shifted weapons have bonus penetration will make you feel like you can barely hurt anything. Being stuck with animal form armor, with no other armor buffs, generally means that you will get penetrated and take full damage anyway. On the plus side, you do get multiple sources of self healing (constant recovery, unbending, shifting between forms, and druid spells) which can be really strong if you build with support in mind.
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Beserkers suck. The raw damage you get from it will flog you especially if you put points in might. It scales with level. You also cant see your health.
Ive tried numerous times to get them to work and trust me they are the most useless class in the game.
Maurauder. Zerker / streetfighter
5 might
18 con
10 dex
18 per
10 int
17 res
You shouldn't have much of a problem with self damage using that spread. You dont need might when using rogue bonuses and legendary weapons...
Don't make berserkers into paper tigers and they do pretty well. Using a hired adventurer with those stats on my current PotD run and she is a beast.
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Skeletons + grave calling. Not entirely useless...
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Strap on Nomads Brig for immunity to engagement and those new boots that leave hobbling frost wherever you run. Use blunderbusses Handmortar+kitchen stove and pull of eora scrolls in bigger fights.
This is pretty much how I played my Howitzer except he was monk/rogue and more focused at making the Handmortar aoe as big as possible and chainstun grps of enemies with stunning surge.
Healing vs ranged enemies can be problematic, in wich case there are some items with passive heals one could use.
Rogue/x + hand mortar may be one of the stronger aoe debuffers and bleed builds in the game. My holy hand grenadier used street fighter and blunderbus modal to add some fast autoattacks and low recovery abilities to the mix.
I really like the idea of a scout that loads up the bleeds. Driving flight + hand mortar + fire in the hole with bounce upgrade = screen full of enemies bleeding out. It's nice that all of the abilities in question are full attacks
I actually wonder if one hand style may be stronger on PotD for the added accuracy. Scout should get a ton anyway, but it may be more reliable.
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(Berserker is the power gamer choice I'm steering you away from)
build suggestion for first timer?
in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Characters Builds, Strategies & the Unity Engine (Spoiler Warning!)
Posted · Edited by arkane83
Devoted / Streetfighter for DPS, but you need to pick a weapon type for the whole game (not recommended for newbies). No subclass / Streetfighter may be better if you dont know what kind of weapons you like.
There is a list of builds on this forum, it's the top pinned post. There should be a swashbuckler build there to give you ideas.
Edit. Found one for you https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/104050-character-build-the-iron-hammer-swashbuckler-unbrokentrickster/