Looking for Death Knight advice

[UponATime]

Hi folks, first time posting here!

 

So I've been wanting to go through POTD again and toying with different kind of builds. My first campaign MC was a shady Black Jacket/Ascendant guns and blunderbusses user but I wanted to experience melee a bit more this time around.

 

I settled for a truly evil character of type Death Knight (think WoW DK) and I was wondering what classes/subs you could recommend. I'm mostly looking for RP fluff as I'm still not fully familiar with the PoE setting. Having lots of stuff to do in combat wouldn't hurt though, the less auto-attacks the better!

 

At first I was thinking 2h Bleak Walker/Beckoner but I was kind of disappointed by the summons durations in my limited testing, not to mention I would be missing on classic DK frost and plague spells (and I'm not sure how the paladin auras work in combination with summons, if anyone could enlighten me on that, that'd be great!). Might still give troubadour a shot seeing as it can be quite active in combat.

 

So yeah, basically I'm open to any and all suggestions! Thanks.

 

 

[Boeroer]

The Paladin auras work on summons. Also Shared Flames (+20% burning lash for allies for 20 sec) work on summons. Stacks wth Mith Fyr (+15%). With a Troubadour you can run Mith Fyr + another phrase parallal without a gap. Also some invocations are a nice fit for a "Death Knight" or "Blackguard".

 

Bleak Walker seems like a must. Wizard may be a nice multiclass option. It has several great self buffs and also several "evil" spells that evolve around draining (Concelaut's spell) as well as decay. Freeze spells are also there.

[Clerith]

I also came in to recommend Paladin-Bleak Walker / Chanter-Any multiclass. Straight up evil paladin that can drain life from enemies, buff weapons and summon skeletons with chanter abilities? Sounds Death Knighty to me!

[Dorftek]

I'd go Bleakwalker/wizard and stick to evil spells like the terrify image and the life drain etc etc. Also would definitely get the "Watchers Blade" and enchant it to summon a phantom whenever u slay a kith with it. The blade also looks super awesome and its really fast and easy to get!

[Ganrich]

Gonna echo the Bleakwalker/Troubadour sentiment. There are some great phrases for a Death Knight vibe.

Soft Winds - AoE damage and self heal

The Long Night's drink - AoE weaken. (-5 con and -50% healing for enemies it hits)

Old Siec - 12% lifetap for you and party.

Many Lives pass by - summon a skeleton passively.

Mix in Mith Fyr with summons for a lot of padded damage.

Then we have some good Invocations.

Level 1 phantom and or skeleton summons.

Hel-Hyraf - Armor Rating Debuff. Upgraded damage to target extends duration. Skeletons work well with this if you put then on the debuffed target.

AoE paralyze that can be upgraded to add a
Frightened Affliction after the paralyze.

White worms explodes a Corpse, and can be upgraded to sicken targets.

Seven Nights if you want some AoE frost damage.

Boil Their Flesh - does Raw damage and if it kills a target they explode doing more Raw damage.

So, on and so forth.

Combine these with Bleak Walker and you have a winner.

Edited May 26, 2018 by Ganrich

[Grubworm]

Bleakwalker/Troubadour sounds very evil :D

[gkathellar]

Chanters are also where a lot of the necromancy is at so ... yeah Bleak Walker/Chanter ftw

[Myrtillo]

To offer a different view, you could go single class Priest of Berath and wear a heavy plate.

 

Berath gives a lot of decay/plague/terrifying spells, summons a greatsword that would perfectly fit a dark knight. And when you reach level 19 and you unlock the incarnate, Berath aspects are the Pallid Knight + the Usher 

So you have a freaky looking giant evil knight servant, and another entity (I don't know what it looks like because it is invisible in my game due to a bug...) that can cast more Berath spells.

You can fill the battleground with symbols of Berath.

[Nemesis7884]

imo the one that would fit the description the best is either

 

berserker - bleak walker

or a soulblade - bleak walker

[hinnehmen]

To offer a different view, you could go single class Priest of Berath and wear a heavy plate.

 

Berath gives a lot of decay/plague/terrifying spells, summons a greatsword that would perfectly fit a dark knight. And when you reach level 19 and you unlock the incarnate, Berath aspects are the Pallid Knight + the Usher

So you have a freaky looking giant evil knight servant, and another entity (I don't know what it looks like because it is invisible in my game due to a bug...) that can cast more Berath spells.

You can fill the battleground with symbols of Berath.

Did you tried something like that in potd? Maybe chanter beckoner/berath priest? I'm at work now but man that sounds evil with the whole summon and plague theme

[Myrtillo]

The thing is, if you multiclass you won't get access to the incarnate spell (pl9).

And this spell rocks, it's by far the coolest priest spell, no matter your deity.

 

I did not really play it yet, just experimented with it, but I don't see why it would not work, even in PotD, in a party of 5.

Only problem is the slow recovery of plate armor combined with the already very long recovery of priest spells.

 

Definitely not op, but playable and roleplayable. And anything op in this game defeats the purpose of PotD at the moment, I tend to avoid those.

Edited May 25, 2018 by Myrtillo

[hinnehmen]

The thing is, if you multiclass you won't get access to the incarnate spell (pl9).

And this spell rocks, it's by far the coolest first spell, no matter your deity.

 

I did not really play it yet, just experimented with it, but I don't see why it would not work, even in PotD, in a party of 5.

Only problem is the slow recovery of plate armor combined with the already very long recovery of priest spells.

 

Definitely not op, but playable and roleplayable. And anything op in this game defeats the purpose of PotD at the moment, I tend to avoid those.

I should try it and see how it goes, thanks for the quick respond

[UponATime]

Thousand thanks for all the advice!

 

In the end, I've decided to start from scratch and do an evil playthrough of PoE (which I've never finished) as a Bleak Walker until Deadfire difficulty is fully patched up, then try to transfer it as a Bleak Walker/Troubadour. I'll be using companions to fill in the gaps in the Death Knight/Blackguard skill set (mainly frost magic, plague). 

 

Thanks to you, I already have ideas for the next character though! Have fun