grasida

Okay, I think I’ve settled on contemplative. Kind wayfarer looks good, but feels a little one-note, I’ve done a ton of tricksters, and, for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to enjoy barbarian too much in Deadfire. Still a little tempted by Skald, though. At any rate, what flavor of priest would work best? Wael gives tankiness that pairs well with high resolve and some debuffs to extend with forbidden fist. Berath gives touch of rot for early damage, the summoned greatsword to provide nice complementary damage types to the fists, rot skulls look like a fun possibility and the flavor works for barring death’s door and forbidden fist spam with a death godlike. Eothas is my favorite role play choice, but the powers are so boring (I remember when this was focused on elemental damage in the beta and I created a custom subclass mod that replaced the generic priest spells with some special burn DoTs and other powers, but I lost my files for it, and don’t feel like trying to recreate the whole mod on my steam deck). Magran, Skaen and Woedica don’t interest me that much. I love skaen and woedica’s powers, but feel too bad when I pick the cruel choices, so I feel like it comes down to Wael or Berath.

Thanks! I think I’m leaning towards either priest or chanter, but I’m still tempted by street fighter(I’ve never played one) or kind wayfarer (I loved them in PoE and have never played one in Deadfire. But with street fighter, would it actually be possible to keep distracted up from powder burns? It seems like the duration would eventually get too short to be sustainable, though I guess it could still be a source of wounds. Other than street fighter, is there another class where it makes sense to use a blunderbuss together with a melee weapon? I’ve never really figured out another use case for that combo.

I’m contemplating another play through and I’d like to try forbidden fist because I love monks and it looks like a really fun subclass. I almost always go for gish type multiclasses with some casting, though I’m sort of considering other builds. I’ve done a ton of soul blades, so I’d like something other than cipher. In terms of weapons, I’m thinking of trying mohora tanga, which I never played with before, though a sword and buckler (or sword and blunderbuss) swashbuckler type build is always tempting. Searching the forums, it feels like forbidden fist goes well with practically anything, which is worsening my decision paralysis. Please help me decide! How would you rate the following combinations in terms of 1)damage, 2)tankiness, 3)versatility, 4)overall fun? Are there any other builds I should consider? -Forbidden fist/skald -Forbidden fist/priest -Forbidden fist/druid -Forbidden fist/blood mage -Forbidden fist/street fighter -Forbidden fist/kind wayfarer I would be playing on upscaled potd with the story companions and the community patch installed. I generally can’t stand picking the evil choices in rpgs, so even though the evil priests and paladins look really strong and fun, I don’t want to play them. Of course, this is very subjective and how I build the character specifically matters a lot, I just want to petition the build sages for fun ideas.

If I were to do a Dragon Thrashed chanter (I probably won’t), it would definitely be troubador. I’ve been away for a good while, so my recollection of game mechanics isn’t perfect, but doesn’t brisk recitation effectively have no downside for Dragon Thrashed, since the DoT isn’t strictly a linger? If so, that means troubador is effectively the only choice for building around that ability. Does a Monk/Skald get enough accuracy to really get good returns out of swift flurry? Certainly you can stack impressive layers of defense debuffs on enemies with invocations, but will you be able to crit enough? I also feel a little tempted by Kind Wayfarer, which I’ve always kind of wanted to try. I guess that would be better off dual wielding than with Whispers, though.

What do you all think about skald multi classes? Is there one you generally consider most fun or effective? I was thinking of Helwalker/Skald or Ranger/Skald. Helwalker seems overall better for boosting invocations and doing melee damage, but ranger seems really good for generating crits and landing control. Either way I’d go for Sun and Moon with Sasha’s Singing Scimitar. How is Dragon Thrashed in the community patch? Could you make a decent Helwalker / Troubador going for Dragon Thrashed, melee damage and general utility from invocations?

I’ve already played a Ranger / Soul Blade, as well as a Trickster / Soul Blade and Helwalker / Soul Blade, though I didn’t actually finish the game with any of them. I never got up to disintegrate with the Seer, for example. It is a nice combo though. Sure, you could use Takedown Combo with another character, but you won’t get the accuracy bonus from Ranger, and that’s the real meat of the combo. Not only is accuracy disproportionately valuable for Soul Annihilation, Cipher has a lot of high impact single target spells. Even your buffs typically need to hit the enemy to work. And even on top of that, your AoE debuffs, like Secret Horrors or Eyestrike, need to succeed their roll on the primary target or the whole AoE fizzles, which, again, makes accuracy extra valuable. A lot of caster multiclasses have the issue that their synergies could be done better by two single class characters, but Seer’s synergy is legitimately strong. It’s just I’ve played soulblade to death already. How is single class trickster? Would the high level spells be worth it over Gambit spam?

Thanks for the replies! My first character when the game came out was Helwalker/Life Giver, so I might pick something else. It was fun and quite strong, though. I was thinking about Barbarian/Ancient, but it didn't occur to me that Lance of the Midwood Stag would boost carnage and thus provide consistent help on the melee end. Actually the last character I played was an Assassin/Priest of Berath, though I didn't get too far in before burning out on the game in general. I did enjoy it, though. I'll seriously consider Assassin/Wizard. It seems like Ranger/Priest could do quite nicely with Cleansing Flame and Take Down Combo. I don't really enjoy picking cruel dialogue options, so I'll probably pick something other than Skaen, Berath might be the clear best for the DoT route, or maybe Stalker/Wael for tankiness. I could use Griffin's Blade and Sun and Moon to build up accuracy quickly with hunter's claw. The melee damage side might be weak, but Griffin's Blade should be nice for defense on a very accurate attacker.

I’m a returning player probably coming back for another run through the game. What do you all think? I’m looking for fun, active, synergistic combos for PoTD, not necessarily the strongest possible builds. I’ll probably take Eder as a swashbuckler, Aloth as a wizard and Tekehu as a druid, maybe with a rotating slot for other party members. Ranger or Assassin look like fun martials for the accuracy boosts, though I’m not sure how I’d be getting a lot of melee damage out of either. I’d tend to prefer to avoid wizard, shifter or summoned weapons since loot is good. I’ve played soulblade to death, so I’d rather avoid it as the caster component. I wouldn’t mind it as the martial side. Arcane archer with some kind of sword and pistol combo looks perfect, especially single class, but it also looks really hard to make the class work with melee.

My first play through was with a helwalker/life giver multi class and I thought it was really nice. You have to be very cautious with the PC at the start of fights, because helwalkers can be burst down very quickly by multiple enemies, but once you get all your heal over time powers active, your whole party heals so quickly it’s pretty hard for most enemies to damage you meaningfully at all. The character is very versatile, with strong healing, strong melee and spell damage and strong control. You just have to make sure to protect them and never let them get surrounded, though with heals all active, they can handle moderate pressure.

Primary attacks come out faster if you use two weapons in RTwP, making dual wield good for monks or soul blades. Losing that is a harsh enough penalty. They don’t need a damage penalty on top of it. It is pretty weird and inconsistent that bread and butter monk attacks like torment’s reach, skyward kick and force of anguish do better with two handers than monk fists, but I’m mostly okay with that given how overpowered monks are in RTwP. One thing that does really annoy me about dual wield in turn based is that free full attacks make even the rare few uses of single weapon style mostly irrelevant. In RTwP, you might choose a single weapon, or melee/ranged if you have something with really good on-hit or on-crit effects like scordeo’s edge or seeker’s fang. Now you will always hit with both weapons regardless, so single weapon style is even more pointless.

Regarding points 1 and 2, single rapier will be better as long as your accuracy is around 25 points higher than enemy deflection assuming no hit-to-crit other than the single weapon passive. Past that, the two attacks from dual wielding will result in more crits overall. If you're using your invocations and your parties' abilities to lower defenses or you're attacking paralyzed enemies, two weapons are probably better after the early game. Regarding 3, the rapier modal and the small shield modal don't stack because we can't have nice things. Regarding 4, as Elric Galad mentioned, sun and moon is excellent for building crits on a skald. The singing scimitar is also amazing for skalds since it lets you cast back to back top-tier damage invocations in every fight. Given the current balance, a rapier with the modal will probably beat sun and moon in phrase generation unless you already beat the target's deflection by a lot and you have a priest buffing you with devotions for the faithful (which also doesn't stack with the rapier modal, so reduces it's usefulness). Maybe this is possible if you've equipped the ring of focused flame and are spamming flames of devotion. Anyway, the flail also boosts either the power of your melee or the power of your spells, depending on the time of day. I think the singing scimitar will beat out any other weapon on a skald, since it effectively gives the effect of 6 melee crits for free, allows you to empower every fight and it's shocking lash applies to everything you do, including attacks with the offhand weapon and your spells. TL;DR on the above, use sun and moon if you have a priest in the party, don't have a party member who wants the ring of focused flame more than your MC and you plan on spending most of your zeal on flames of devotion. Otherwise use a rapier. Sasha's Singing Scimitar is almost certainly the best skald weapon, unless there's some synergy I'm not aware of (e.g. disengagement riposte and AoE attack shenanigans with Whispers of the Endless paths). Regarding 5, I imagine whatever good ranged weapon you have access to is fine for a back up. Late game, the wand of the weyc is beautiful for chanters, since it gives you +3 power levels after empowering an invocation. I don't know what refreshing recovery does in turn based, but it's great in RTwP. With the robe of the weyc and the singing scimitar, you can open every fight with two super strong invocations very fast, give yourself +3 power levels and apply brilliant to your entire party. Be sure to bring a priest to cast salvation of time, since the brilliant has a very short base duration.

I’ve played a soul blade with sun and moon before (for a while, I restarted without finishing the run) and I agree it’s really good. I’d prefer a different aesthetic this time, though. Something with a kind of magic swashbuckler feel. Also, I think a soul blade mystic with sun and moon is just a weaker soulblade with some priest tricks, which is good, but doesn’t feel all that stylish to me. Soul blade seems to make a lot more sense paired with street fighter or trickster. I was thinking ascendant already has great synergy with priest, then Seeker’s Fang can build up to higher than Disintegration level DoT after a few jabs, which then combos extremely well with cleansing flame. I’m still tempted by beguiler, though, since ascendant would probably do better just spamming damage powers, while beguiler could lay down AoE soft control without losing focus, then just attack with the rapier freely for single target damage. Beguiler/Priest of Wael has great flavor, too.

I’m pretty sure the answer is yes to both of those.

I’ve gotten the idea that I want to play a mystic, probably a cipher/priest of wael focusing on melee attacks, possibly built around the soulbound rapier from SSS with the poison DoT on crit once I can eventually get it. I’m not looking to min max, just to make a fairly strong character on PotD. A mystic of wael should be able to maintain pretty solid defenses between borrowed instinct and arcane veil as well as tear down enemy deflection very well with divine mark and shining beacon to enable crits with the rapier. Against enemies with lots of hp, the rapier’s combined DoTs, shining beacon, maybe a disintegrate, topped off with cleansing flame should do massive damage. But I’m not sure what subclass to go for. Soul blade is obvious for melee and is one of my favorite classes, but doesn’t synergize with the rapier very well, since damage per tick from its DoT scales based on current focus and soul blades typically hover around zero focus. Ascendant seems the most synergistic since, for one, ascension can be prolonged with salvation of time, and for another, the higher max focus and the ability to stay there for extended periods means you leverage the on-crit DoT very well. The rapier has a nice per encounter that can apply 3 stacks of the on-hit DoT as well as the on-crit DoT in an AoE while building lots of focus. But once you’re ascended, casting cipher spells looks more appealing that jabbing with the rapier, however vicious your DoT. Beguiler seems like another interesting choice, but, again it looks more focused on casting than melee, since the point of the subclass seems to be to avoid using your weapon and focusing on spamming cipher spells. Any thoughts on what subclass looks good and how else to build the character? Any other creative ideas for a melee mystic or for interesting things to do with the soulbound rapier?

Those didn't "become viable". They were already viable. Look at the builds forum. There are lots of builds using heavy armor and two-handed weapons in there. There are tons of really amazing two-handed uniques, and mechanically two-handers are very strong. Probably lots of people would say that the morning star is overall the best weapon type in the game, with high penetration, dual damage types and a fantastic modal. Heavy armor does require a trade-off, yes, but that's the whole point. The only way heavy armor has "become viable" in turn based is that it now allows characters that wear it to deal the same damage as characters in light armor, but it prevents far more damage as well. That said, I agree with people saying that a direct translation of the RTwP action economy to turn-based would also be awful. Even super efficient players in RTwP are going to waste some actions, but every action can be carefully considered in turn-based, meaning action economy advantages would be far more pronounced. Just look at how people are mentioning things like weapon swapping and free actions, actually not very meaningfully different from their RTwP implementations, as being problematic. But that doesn't mean that discrete rounds with initiative is okay either. Who is ever going to choose to use a rapier and dagger under this system? Some way to get extra actions in exchange for investing in speed is something a huge amount of the game is built on.