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[CLASS BUILD] The Way of the Formless Form (The concept of yielding to overcome) Core Concept This build is inspired by martial arts style known as Tai Chi in which self defence is realized by the ability to react to an opposing force and redirect it onto the attacker. Seemingly, the Monk's PL3 ability Blade Turning is imo one of the Obs's attempt at representating this martial arts form. And this is in line with my inclination to create builds that has a retaliation concept. I have to put in a disclaimer to state I am in no way qualified to state and discuss anything pertaining to Tai Chi. This build is only my personal intrepretation of what this martial arts form could be in the context of Deadfire. =================================== The Way of the Formless Form =================================== Difficulty: PotD v.1.2.0.0008 -------------------------------------------------------------- Class: Brawler (Unbroken / Helwalker) -------------------------------------------------------------- Race: Pale Elf -------------------------------------------------------------- Background: Deadfire Archipelago (Hunter) -------------------------------------------------------------- Solo: Untested -------------------------------------------------------------- Stats (char creation, no Berath's Blessings): Mig: 12 Con: 13 Dex: 20 Per: 16 Int: 13 Res: 3 Skills Alchemy (max 10*) / Athletics * Alchemy is set to 10 to avoid overly abusing consumables. Potion of Spirit Shield is quite decent on TWotFF at Alchemy 10. Also this is an attempt to future proof the build if Obs decide to nerf Alchemy and one increase the levels to hopefully gain the same effectiveness. * Note: Patch 1.2 nerfed consumables as expected. So it is possible to bump Alchemy to about 15 without feeling too OP. Potions of Spirit Shield is too good for tankiness at a Pinch. Recommended Items (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important) Head: Heaven's Cacophony (!) Body: Devil of Caroc Breastplate (!) Neck: Stone of Power (®) Gloves: Firethrower's Gloves Belt: Ngati's Girdle (®) Legs: Boots of Stone / Bounding Boots Rings: Ring of Greater Regeneration / Ring of Overseeing Cape: Three Trolls Stitched Weapons: Set 1: Squid's Grasp (®) / Tuotilo's Palm (!) Pet: Abraham Recommended Abilities Level 1: Force of Anguish / Discipline Barrage Level 2: Swift Strikes Level 3: Lesser Wounds (®) Level 4: Fighter Stances / Two weapon style Level 5: Clarity of Agony Level 6: Mortification of Soul Level 7: Rapid Recovery / Blade Turning Level 8: Soul Mirror Level 9: Determination Level 10: Hold the Line / Thunderous Blows Level 11: Rooting Pain Level 12: Duality of Mortal Presence Level 13: Mob Stance / Crucible of Suffering Level 14: Unbending Level 15: Unarmoured Grace Level 16: Tough / Enlightened Agony Level 17: Turning Wheel Level 18: Falgellant's Path Level 19: Unbreakable / Heartbeat Drumming Level 20: Swift Flurry Mechanics Blade Turning This ability is not very commonly found in builds but it is one of the abilities that define this build. BT will grant complete immunity to melee strikes during its buff period. In the combat logs, you will notice that attacks onto TWotFF will be treated as though the attacker directly strikes its peers. And CC effects the would be attack would trigger will also be retargeted to the victim Rooting Pain Another aspect of TWotFF is to trigger Rooting Pain via skill and belt. Rooting Pain benefits from the Fire Dmg of Turning Wheel, and can trigger Sungrazer's effects as well as Avenging Storm. * Note: Patch 1.2 nerfed Sungrazer so Squid's Grasp is used to aid the survivability of TWotFF. Avenging Storm is still used to provided added DPS. But inevidently there is significant DPS loss. Make sure to snapshot Avenging Storm at max Wounds. * Note: There is also significant DPS loss from Rooting Pain nerf. There is more reliance to use auto attacks once you dwindle down the enemies numbers. Recovery Speed and Int TWotFF will benefit greatly with high action / recovery and high int as one will want to overlap the effects of BT to achieve near 100% melee protection. Action / Recovery to reduce the time between BT activation, and Int to increase the buff duration of BT. This build is also incorporates many self buffs and so high Int provided by stats and Turning Wheel can help with sustain. High action / recovery speed is achieved by max dex, Devil of Caroc Breastplate, Mob Stance and Abraham's pet effect. Due to Mob Stance, it is ideal to use Unbroken as a subclass for the bonus to engagement and AR as the recovery bonus scales off number of engagements. And for that Tuotilo's Palm will also provide the best synergy for this build. Snapshot This build has no issues with hitting 10 wounds easily. For that reason, the bonus of +10 Mig from Helwalker and +10 Int from Turning Wheel is very achieveable. Therefore it is best to time the use of Unbending and Avenging Storm at max or near max Wounds as the duration can be snapshot. Wounds Manipulation Against a large number of enemies, TWotFF will hit the Wounds cap easily and one will want to dump the Wounds so as to enable Rooting Pain triggers. The key to this is Thunderous Blows which is instacast. A cycle of TB and BT can drop the Wound count by 5, which will mean 5 more possible triggers for RP. Against a single target, Mortification of Soul can be used to artificially generate the Wounds and trigger Rooting Pain. BT might not be triggered consistently due to the Recovery Speed drop but BT will now also solely return the melee attack back the same attacker Enlightened Agony and Crucible of Suffering These 2 abilities synergize to give respectable saves on all defences except deflection. Soul Mirror can utiize the high saves to cause ranged attacks to miss and likely to be reflected back to the attacker. Ranged Weapon Attacks The bane of TWotFF is most likely ranged weapon attacks so as a seconadary weapon set, one can go with a Large Shield together with the Large Shield to deal with ranged aggression in certain situations. Other Synergies TWotFF works well with a Cipher companion due to Pain Link and Pain Block. Pain Link will add on decent amount of dmg as TWotFF will potentially take in good amounts of incoming aggression. Pain Block gives AR and healing, which is what TWotFF needs. Cons This build is quite micro intensive as it involves the constant juggling of BT which is essentially a short term buff. I will maybe include some updates on AI micros that can ease this aspect of this build. Other Notes I am currently running a playthrough with this build and will most likely be updating things as I do along. Happy Sailing! Note: Using Patch 1.2 for new playthrough