[Class build] Lady of Pain - the b!tch is back

[baldurs_gate_2]

I am Level 15 on PotD solo with this build and it's really a breeze. But i took no subclass for monk.

Edited May 24, 2018 by baldurs_gate_2

[Madscientist]

Very nice. I wanted to post something like this later, but you were faster.

 

I wanted to use a Shattered Pillar, just because I hate the concept that you have to take damage in order to deal damage. It will do less damage, but it should be good enough.

Also I want to spamm torments reach+stunning upgrade and rooting pain. This means I will change some talents, but the basic concept stays the same:

A Devoted/Monk with max mig and per who focusses on attacks that trigger more attacks.

Without the helwalker penalty and since I do not play on PotD, I can skip the talents that improve my chances to survive.

[AndreaColombo]

One thing I forgot to mention in the OP is that this build is better served using fists until you get Whispers of the Endless Paths, and possibly until you upgrade it to Superb and get Armored Grace. That's because 2H weapons are generally pretty slow, while the Monk's fists attack as Fast weapons and benefit from the dual-wielding bonus.

 

Don't bother wasting a talent point on Two-Weapon Fighting unless you want to respec later on (which is currently inadvisable as a bug will wipe all your Watcher powers if you respec); using fists already gets the automatic 30% speed boost which is plenty enough. Besides, fist scaling is pretty good so you'll end up with higher Accuracy and Penetration than with a 2H until you enchant WotEP.

 

 

But why you didn't went with Scordeo's Trophy? Even on my War Caller I pretty much get that 0 recovery proc every fight so with Swift Flurry it would proc like crazy.

 

EDIT: I just tried your build with Dual Wielding Scrodeo and I was pretty much guarantee to proc 0 Recovery in every fight due to Swift Flurry + Charge + Cleave stance. The DPS was just out of the roof. Did same with Wishper of E.P and it was much slower to kill group of enemies.

 

I think Scordeo is perfect for this build and much better than that 2h, which is still nice (I tested it few times now). But that 0 recovery every fight... man... It definitely proc more on this than on My Warcaller and that is just crazy. Also you don't utilize Charge fully if you don't dual wield. Not only that but you also stack + Accuracy from Scordeo every hit and that also counts Swift Flurry and Cleave attacks, which can give you in first two attacks in fight a +20 to +30 Accuracy, which also helps a lot. And they have higher penetration (sabres) on Devoted than 2h swords.

 

Lovely build but I feel like this one is absolutely made for Scordeo sabre.

 

You make a fair point.

 

There are two main reasons why I chose not to dual-wield sabres with this build:

• The Lady of Pain is historically a 2H build and I didn't want to stray from its original concept.
• I'm brainstorming Edér/Serafen builds who would be using Scordeo's Edge + Min's Fortune, so I wanted to keep those available for other characters in the party.

Obviously people who read this guide and want to play the Lady of Pain are welcome to substitute Two-Handed Style with Two-Weapon Fighting and wield dual sabres if they prefer

 

I find it odd that dual sabres would kill significantly quicker as WotEP attacks twice in an AoE and Spinning Assault is practically an I Win button. I suspect sabres will lose their edge (pun unintended, but nice notwithstanding) once Swift Flurry, Heartbeat Drumming, and Cleaving Stance are prevented from proccing themselves.

 

Why can’t u just use both? I mean I would just use scordeo to trigger 0 recovery buff and switch to whisper of endless if I was u, it’s just a buff anyway and as fighter u have quick switch.

 

Is that how the buff works, though?

Its wording isn't the clearest; the way I interpret it is that every attack you make with it has a 20% change to recover immediately. That's 1 attack out of 5 exclusively with Scordeo's Edge, unless you micromanage very intensively (and even then, it may not be possible to switch fast enough to make the second attack with a different weapon.)

 

Or is the no recovery buff lasting until the end of combat once it triggers?

 

I wanted to use a Shattered Pillar, just because I hate the concept that you have to take damage in order to deal damage. It will do less damage, but it should be good enough.

Also I want to spamm torments reach+stunning upgrade and rooting pain. This means I will change some talents, but the basic concept stays the same:

A Devoted/Monk with max mig and per who focusses on attacks that trigger more attacks.

 

Devoted/Shattered Pillar is a variant I've toyed with and enjoyed a fair deal.

 

I eventually decided in favor of Helwalker to abide by the Lady of Pain's maxing MIG staple, but Shattered Pillar has better survivability and can spam Raised Torment which is pretty great. My suggestion is to set A.I. to use Raised Torment when you have 5 Wounds. This will make the cone AoE and Staggered affliction benefit from the +5 INT bonus from Turning Wheel (as well as the +25% burning lash from the same.)

Rooting Pain is a must with Shattered Pillar as well.

Edited May 28, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[Clerith]

I played the build to level 15 and then started a new character, dual wield version, level 13 right now. While both were very powerful, the dual wield one is noticeably better, even without Scordeo. I went Shattered Pillar both versions for personal preference, Charging around killing stuff near instantly, feels better for wound generation than getting hit. I used fists till level 9 or something. Have to say, the unarmed animations in this game are rather fantastic.

Edited May 28, 2018 by Clerith

[dambros]

This is actually a build I tried in PoE1 so I will give this a tey as soon as 1.1 is out with the difficult changes.

 

My current build is a mess Im using to learn the game

[thundercleese]

Hi there.

 

Just wondering why this build has been tagged as deprecated since 1.1 release, as while the patch contained a lot of nerfs to a lot of things, none of them stood out that would ruin/break the build. Is it just that DW is generally better? If so, does the extra PEN from 1.2 change anything?

 

Also wondering which of the mutually exclusive enchants you went for on Whispers. Most people online seem to really love the reposte, however I wonder how often it'll proc on a character that doesn't stack tons of deflection (especially on PotD), whereas the stacking recovery buff seems to fit the build theme. Or do you only need a it to proc a couple of times to get the value from it? Also we want to be hit to gain wounds, so...

 

Also wondering if Run-Through also procs the cone, if not then Spinning Assault seems by far the better choice.

 

Been playing it on PotD in 1.1 and everything has been smooth so far. Went with a Wild Orlan, since with the Blessing of Berath only 17 MIG is needed on creation - more PER and affliction resistance is always nice. Barely used the sword as I can't afford superb (that 30k went on the DoC BP), and fists feel better atm. Still very early in the game though!

[Boeroer]

Whisper of the Endless Paths was nerfed in 1.1. It does half the damage to the initial target now as it used to.

 

The deprecated tag was put on request of the OP. Actually he wanted me to remove the build from the list entirely - I went for a deprecated tag instead. It will eventually be removed from the list at some point if nothing changes.

 

Run Through only hits the initial target and procs no cone. It has very high base damage though (works well with lots of dmg mods sure as Backstab) and its prone effect lasts a long time (compared to others).

Edited July 4, 2018 by Boeroer

[thundercleese]

Thanks, didn't realise the base hit got nerfed too. Ah well fists it is then

[heldred]

I played a version of this (went lighter armor, with a shield/sword in weapon slot #2 for emergency situations) and it was among the nastiest melee builds I’ve run. There is always something new with the next patch

Edited July 4, 2018 by heldred

[Boeroer]

Actually I think the build didn't get pummeled to hard (in comparison to others). It's no problem to bring a second Great Sword for single targets and keep the WotEP for mobs. Mule Kick with AoE is still pretty cool.

[AndreaColombo]

My primary point of concern with regards to 1.1, and the main reason I chose to abandon this build, is the gratuitous blanket nerf of recovery and action speed bonuses.

 

In 1.02, this build could reach about 2s recovery in medium armor. That firmly put it into "barely acceptable" territory, especially in consideration of the fact that in PoE the Lady of Pain could have 0s recovery in heavy armor. That DW would be a superior choice stung, but I chose to live with it as I did the best I could while staying true to the original build.

 

Enter 1.1 with its unnecessary nerfs to speed bonuses. Now in order to reach the same 2s recovery you must use Berath's Blessings to start with 18 DEX and use BotEP (which is actually a better choice for this build than WotEP.) That's quite a bit of pigeonholing just to get to a "barely acceptable" result. Without Berath's Blessings, DW is overwhelmingly superior to 2H for this build (and, frankly, for any DPS build); with Berath's Blessings we're back to its being superior, just not overwhelmingly so.

 

Basically they've pigeonholed all DPS builds into DW as though that wasn't enough of the case already—and not because DW is overpowered, but because the other styles aren't up to snuff. I've already said so during the beta and I'll repeat: Because in Deadfire you can't reach 0 recovery, speed bonuses never stop paying dividends. Because they never stop paying dividends, there's no reason for you to ever stop seeking them and stacking them. In this context, it is obvious that anything that grants a speed bonus is superior to anything that doesn't regardless of almost anything else when it comes to DPS, so forgoing DW is a no-go.

 

In PoE, on the contrary, all styles could reach the apex of DPS that is 0 recovery—it all boiled down to how much flexibility you were willing to give up for it. DW made it easier, so if you wanted 0 recovery with a 2H (which netted you higher DPH as well) you had to focus on very specific choices. A fair trade-off.

 

In Deadfire there's no trade-off. DW is straight-up better than 2H unless you do somersaults—then it's just better.

 

 

Those who are still keen on this build should use BotEP and Berath's Blessings for 18 DEX. When fully buffed you can get pretty good DPH with 18 PEN and great Accuracy (more so if you've got a Priest to cast Devotions for the Faithful on you.) But your recovery won't get better than 2s, which means you're slooooooow and better off dual-wielding anyway.

Edited July 4, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[thundercleese]

Thanks for the reply Andrea.

 

I have no qualms changing to DW, however not being able to respec my starting proficiency means I'm stuck with fists as my weapon unless/until a mod is made. Not that that's necessarily bad, as monk fists hit as fast as daggers and as hand as sabres, with a better damage type than either. You just miss out on the cool enchanted effects.

 

I can understand where they're coming from with the nerfs, as having every build reaching zero recovery seemed a bit silly to me in the first game. Basically if you could reach zero recovery and your build would benefit from having zero recovery, then you were pigeonholed into gear/talent/ability choices, as zero recovery was the biggest DPS boost for most builds. The thing is in Deadfire while they are trying to alleviate this by making permanent zero recovery impossible to achieve, they haven't addressed the issue that hitting faster is almost always better than hitting harder, so you are still pigeonholed into stacking speed buffs. Slow attacks just feel worse too.

 

One idea I've had to narrow the gap between DW and 2hand (+1 pen is a good start but still not enough imo) without gimping one hand/S&S is to impose some kind of penalty to DW. So if you have two weapons equipped you have -1 pen or -10% damage or -5 accuracy, something like that. A similar system was employed in DA:O which I thought worked quite well, though they had passive talents to then remove the penalties.

[AndreaColombo]

The thing is in Deadfire while they are trying to alleviate this by making permanent zero recovery impossible to achieve, they haven't addressed the issue that hitting faster is almost always better than hitting harder, so you are still pigeonholed into stacking speed buffs. Slow attacks just feel worse too.

 

Exactly this.

 

When they implemented the combat speed slider, I was hoping they'd also go back to the initial beta recovery times (average was 3s instead of 4s; others followed suit) but that never happened. 4s average recovery is way too slow, and feels like I'm playing Pillars of Recovery. If I speed things up with the slider, everything becomes the Benny Hill show while recovery still lasts too long relative to everything else. In this context, packing speed bonuses is not just a way to gain actual power (it is still the greatest DPS boost; more so than in Pillars of Eternity, actually, as DR is no longer eating away at your DPH) but also to ameliorate the general slow drag. Slow attacks just feel like you aren't powerful even if you are, and they are boring.

 

When all DLCs are out and the patching cycle's over, I'll probably mod all items' speed to be what it was in the early beta builds (as well as undo most of the unnecessary nerfs.) But this build will still be worthless—a build that requires mods to be good isn't good.

[AndreaColombo]

Quick note.

 

I've decided not to give up on this build just yet. I will wait until all three paid DLCs are out and take a look at it again to see where it stands without any mods or Berath's Blessings; if I like what I see, I'll post a full-blown update. However, I will most surely use both myself in my every playthrough and I will heartily endorse the use of a mod that brings weapon recovery times back to what they were in the first iteration of the Deadfire backer beta (I made that mod for myself and will eventually publish it on the Nexus.)

 

 

If you're keen on using the build right now:

 

• Replace Whispers of the Endless Paths with Blade of the Endless Paths. The latter has better base damage, better penetration, very good enchantments for single-target DPS (which is what this build is about), and the Quickened Blade enchantment to make up for part of the speed lost to nerfs.
• Equip Cutthroat Cosmo from the beginning of the game to enjoy the reduction in armor recovery penalty. You may switch to Nalvi later on to benefit the entire party at the cost of a 3% for the Lady of Pain.
• Use Mohora Wraps as your go-to food as soon as you can. Its -20% recovery time stacks with the extra Action Speed from Swift Flurry / Lightning Strikes and helps to make up for the speed lost to nerfs.
• If you're using Berath's Blessings, strike my original suggestion to allocate them to Resolve and go for 18 Dexterity.

This should bring you back to where the build originally was speed-wise (in fact, slightly better off if using Berath's Blessings and Mohora Wraps in conjunction), with higher DPH and Penetration. The latter should suffice for just about anything; if you run into an enemy that is straight-up immune to Pierce damage, switch to your fists (with which you're automatically proficient) and enjoy the extra speed while you're at it.

Edited August 5, 2018 by AndreaColombo

[mant2si]

Maybe `Brute` will be better than Brawler ? More Action Speed, AOE damage for Blade of the Endless Paths ? 

[mosspit]

So you mean Lady of Pain - The b!tch is back, is back?

[Mocker22]

Ya all these nerfs were a major bummer, but tbh a lot of it was probably needed. Have you put any thought into other class combinations that may still meet most of the requirements for the build? I always loved the lady of pain in POE1 because the damage felt amazing and you could still take a serious beating. Although it is NOT my preference, I'm willing to DW if its the only way for this to feel really good. Monk/Barb maybe to inject the litany of speed boosts barbarian offers. Would turn it into more of an aoe dmg build instead of single target, but that doesn't bother me personally.

[AndreaColombo]

Maybe `Brute` will be better than Brawler ? More Action Speed, AOE damage for Blade of the Endless Paths ? 

 

I did entertain the thought of going Devoted/Berserker on occasion, although Devoted/Helwalker eventually won out. The Brute can certainly be built to great effect, but it bothered me to miss out on +10 MIG (which is very consistent with the LoP concept) and +10 INT in exchange for a Carnage ability that isn't but the shadow of its PoE self. Granted, a Berserker brings more to the table than just Carnage, but especially at lower-levels I like Monk's abilities better.

 

Ya all these nerfs were a major bummer, but tbh a lot of it was probably needed. Have you put any thought into other class combinations that may still meet most of the requirements for the build? I always loved the lady of pain in POE1 because the damage felt amazing and you could still take a serious beating. Although it is NOT my preference, I'm willing to DW if its the only way for this to feel really good. Monk/Barb maybe to inject the litany of speed boosts barbarian offers. Would turn it into more of an aoe dmg build instead of single target, but that doesn't bother me personally.

 

Helwalker/Berserker wouldn't, in my opinion, make a great combination. Helwalker really needs Constant Recovery (and any other source of HoT) to offset the extra damage taken while hoarding wounds, and a Berserker would effectively replace it with DoT from Frenzy. The inability to see one's Health while being exposed to 50% extra damage also hurts, whereas Thunderous Blows wouldn't stack with Frenzy and you'd miss out on +2 Penetration. Paired with how meh Carnage is in Deadfire, I would still favor Devoted/Helwalker by several orders of magnitude. A case could be made for the Devoted/Berserker build as mentioned above, although the Brawler just pushes all the right buttons with me.

 

If you're willing to dual-wield, I suggest using sabres since you can always switch to the Monk's fists when facing highly-resistant or immune foes. Min's Fortune in your main hand, and any of the following (depending on availability and personal preference) in the off-hand: Scordeo's Edge, Grave's Calling, Beza's Toothed Blade. Since you would no longer need the Helm of the Falcon, you could replace it with Heaven's Cacophony for Avenging Storm, or Fair Favor (once you complete Serafen's quest) for extra damage with sabres. Two-Weapon Style instead of Two-Handed Style goes without saying.

 

I personally still prefer 2-handers, though I realize in Deadfire they are overwhelmingly inferior to dual-wielding since there's no DR and no way to reach 0 recovery.

[Boeroer]

Helwalker/Berserker generates so many wounds while frenzied that you can spam stuff endlessly - but you really have to watch out. Savage Defiance + external healing are a must or else you drop dead more quickly than you can say "Get wounds! DO IT"!

Edited August 7, 2018 by Boeroer

[Mocker22]

Some great points. Thank you.

 

I might just try out a pretty simple Brute build with Lord Darryn's Vouge. Very good synergy with Carnage and keeps me using a 2her. Moreso than carnage I really like Barb for all of the speed buffs from Frenzy, Bloodlust and Blood Thirst. I feel like this can really help make up for the slower 2hers and allow you to keep dex lower and pump up your tankiness.

 

Man I tell ya, for someone who had chronic reroll syndrome bad in poe1, the amount of options in poe2 makes the head spin. Ugh.

[thundercleese]

Helwalker/Berserker generates so many wounds while frenzied that you can spam stuff endlessly - but you really have to watch out. Savage Defiance + external healing are a must or else you drop dead more quickly than you can say "Get wounds! DO IT"!

You can also have a Cipher cast Pain Block on you, but yeah while it is very fun and powerful you definitely need extra healing.

[Theosupus]

Helwalker/Berserker generates so many wounds while frenzied that you can spam stuff endlessly - but you really have to watch out. Savage Defiance + external healing are a must or else you drop dead more quickly than you can say "Get wounds! DO IT"!

Specially with Oathbreakers.

[Boeroer]

Yes, better take Engoliero do Espirs with Ghost Blades proc. It's not as strong but you won't hit yourself with it.

[thundercleese]

Oathbreaker proc is area around the mob, so you can just take Instruments of Pain. Or just clear your confused.

[Lampros]

May I ask why this is deprecated as well?

And is there a way to revise and thus save this build for today's turn-based environment?

Edit: Never mind. It was answered by two separate posters.

Edited October 16, 2020 by Lampros