Search the Community

In part I of this topic, the goal was to more or less get close to 200+ in as many defences as possible, in light of the +20 Deflection +20 Reflex/Fortitude/Will introduced by the pirate outfits in 3.07 as part of the Deadfire item pack. This was to be achieved by using Wizard's Double, which offers +40 Deflection and so long as you're not hit/critted by any attack roll (not just those targeting Deflection). As mentioned in the previous thread some attacks seem to break Wizard's Double whether they hit you or not, but these are very unique circumstances from what I've seen and for the most part Wizard's Double works as intended. Buutttt... in 3.08 these uniforms are now going to get a nerf to +9/+9 in the respective defences. This is significant, as this now means the best possible Deflection granted by clothing is by the Cape of the Master Mystic at +12, meaning an 8 Deflection loss from the build due the +20 originally offered by the outfits. Bummer. This prompted me to re-evaluate what the goal of the entire build should be (rather than just looking to hit arbitrarily high defences as I was doing before) and see whether, with the loss in defences due to the pirate uniform nerfs, if I could still meet this specific goal. So here we go: What's the point Jojobobo (of the build, of course)?!?! So I decided the new underlying goal of the build should be it is now to obtain grazes/misses only, in all defences. As Boeroer pointed out in the previous thread, Wizard's Double is broken by a hit/crit with any attack roll no matter what defence it targets - so if you want to maintain it graze/miss only is a must. On an attack roll where your defence minus opponent's accuracy = 0, on the 1-100 attack roll 1-15 results in a miss, 16-50 results in a graze, and 51-100 results in a hit. Every point of defence you have over an opponent's accuracy is subtracted from the attack roll, broadening that miss chance and reducing the hit chance. As the standard window for a hit is from 51-100, you need defences 50 higher than the accuracy of the opponents attack to ensure graze/miss only. Naturally this means I need to know how accurate boss monster attacks are in order to ensure I'm 50 defence over them, which I've tested out and will get onto in a little bit. What was learnt in the 3.07 test of the build Attribute Spread, Race, Talent Choices and Spells In terms of designing the attribute spread, what I did was assume max Resolve and reverse-engineer the levels of the other attributes to hit the levels of defence needed to get grazes and hits from boss monster attacks (with is done with simple algebra like I did in the first thread, taking opponents accuracy +50 - what I would need in a particular defence for graze/miss - then subtracting all the bonuses I would get to leave me an amount of defence that had to be made up from innate attribute scores). However, that's not exactly presentable, so instead I thought I'd lay down the attribute spread and show the work up to specific defence scores in the next section. So... Defensive Benchmarks In terms of defence, I checked my saves just before a few key fights on a old character to see what the enemy was hitting. I didn't have a save before Magran's Faithful, but I think if I'm a good match for Thaos I shouldn't be too troubled by that particularly bounty. Here are the accuracy benchmarks, and the required defence therefore to get a graze/miss: Alpine Dragon wing attack 154 accuracy vs. Reflex. 204 Reflex needed. Turisulfus attack 134 accuracy vs. Deflection. 184 Deflection needed. Turisulfus Wing Slam 150 accuracy vs. Fortitude. 200 Fortitude needed. Turisulfus Fear Aura 150 accuracy vs. Will. 170 Will needed with Looped Rope and Mental Fortress. Thaos Cleansing Flames 141 accuracy vs. Deflection (his pesky Symbol of Woedica gives him +30 acc). 191 Deflection needed. I also checked the Kraken and Concelhaut, but the accuracy of their attacks weren't as high as the benchmarks set above. Defiant Resolve procs all the time against dragons, and so can be factored in there, but not against Thaos. From here I wanted two separate defensive modes... Deflection/Reflex/Fortitude/Will - 184/204/200/170 (at least) for the Alpine Dragon/Llengrath fight, and... Deflection - 191 for Thaos without Defiant Resolve (buffing the other defences as normal). Alpine Dragon/Llengrath mode: Thaos mode: Conclusions Overall this post demonstrates how on solo a Deflection/Reflex/Fortitude/Will spread of 188/205/204/173 can be obtained for the Llengrath fight, which with buffs against fear effects (+20 Looped Rope, +10 Mental Fortress) means that for most of the fight the dragons will only be capable of grazes or misses (predominantly misses) and Llengrath herself will outright miss you all the time (or close enough to it, her accuracy is way lower than the dragons). Likewise it demonstrates that 192 Deflection is possible for the Thaos fight, 51 points higher than his Cleansing Flames accuracy (I know his grazes with that still hurt a lot, but again he should be predominantly missing, and one or two grazes are do-able). I also wanted to address the nerf to the pirate armor coming in 3.08 and how that effected the build concept from the previous thread. With working out the necessary Deflection needed for Thaos, and throwing in Mental Fortress to keep my defences up against Turisulfus's Fear Aura, the answer is not very much. With the addition of Envenomed Strike, this build should work as an extremely tanky front-liner with some heavy hits to boot (you can go for Plate with this build and with Second Skin, Iron Skin and a DR survival resting bonus hit 30+ DR - on top of the already massive defence scores). Naturally, I'll be restarting this character and avoiding the pirate armor to ensure it's solo Expert PotD viable, so it'll take me quite some time before a full class build surfaces, but the bare bones of it are all here for anyone wanting to play it a little earlier. Hope someone enjoyed, I thought the drilling down into enemy accuracy in this thread added a lot in demonstrating how Wizard's Double is maintainable even in the hardest of fights. Have a nice day!