[COMPANION BUILD] Tuono e Fulmine

[Ascaloth]

 

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Tuono e Fulmine
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Difficulty: PotD v.1.1.0.0035
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Class: Herald (Frermas mes Canc Suolias + Chanter)
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Race: Avian Godlike
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Background: Vailian Republics (Soldier)
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Stats (char creation, no Berath's Blessings):
MIG: 12
CON: 13
DEX: 11
PER: 14
INT: 13
RES: 15
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Important Skills: Athletics, Intimidation
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Abilities (a=auto, r=recommended, !=important)

 

PL1

Paladin

Sworn Enemy (a)

Wrath of Five Suns (a)

Flames of Devotion (a) (!)

Deep Faith

Chanter

Blessed was Wengridh (a) (!)

Not Felled by the Axe, Nor Broken by the Storm (a)

Common

Fast Runner (!)

 

PL2

Paladin

Zealous Aura (!)

Divine Purpose

Chanter

At the Sound of his Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff ®

Common

Two Handed Style ®

 

PL3

Paladin

Eternal Devotion (!)

Aegis of Loyalty (!)

Glorious Beacon ®

Chanter

The Fox from the Farmer did Run and Leap (!)

 

PL4

Paladin

Exalted Charge (!)

Scion of Flame (!)

Chanter

...And Their Fear Followed Them into Foothills (!)

Common

Tumbling (!)

 

PL5

Paladin

Inspired Beacon ®

Righteous Soul

Abjuration

Chanter

...Nor Flame, Nor Thrusted Blade

 

PL6

Paladin

Virtuous Triumph

Chanter

They Shielded Their Eyes 'Gainst the Fampyr's Gaze (!)

Old Siec Would Not Rest til' His Hunger Was Sated

Their Champion Braved The Horde Alone ®

 

PL7

Paladin

Sacred Immolation

Chanter

Boil Their Flesh from Skin to Bone

Many Lives Pass By, Each Leaving Footprints

 

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Items (*=additional enchantments; !=important, r=recommended):

Weapon set 1: Whispers of the Endless Paths (Offensive Parry*!, Spinning Assault*!) (!)
Weapon set 2: Kitchen Stove (Thunderous Report*!) (!), Xefa's Empirical Explication (Inexplicable Mass*, Open Choke*)

Chest: Nomad's Brigandine (Feigned Retreat*!, Head of the Column*!) (!)

Helmet: N/A

Amulet: Heart-Chime Amulet (Winged Steps) (!)

Cloak: The Magnificent Escape Cape (!)

Gloves: Gatecrashers (!)

Ring: Ring of the Solitary Wanderer ®

Ring: Chameleon's Touch ®

Belt: Gwyn's Bridal Garter ®

Boots: Boots of Speed (!)

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Tuono e Fulmine (Thunder and Lightning) is a build designed specifically for Pallegina, geared for battle tactics that synergize as perfectly as possible with her unique racial abilities. With this build, Pallegina is able to hit like Thunder, and strike swift as Lightning.

 

Thunder

 

The first seconds of the battle is Pallegina's "Thunder" phase, which involves her use of the Kitchen Stove and Xefa's Empirical Explications blunderbusses. This is where a part of her racial comes into play; Vigilant Quarry gives her Resistance to Intellect and (more importantly) Perception Afflictions, and what this means is that she can use the Powder Burns Blunderbuss modal without drawbacks, since it cancels the Distracted status with each and every shot. This makes Pallegina a natural blunderbuss wielder, as there is no reason for her not to use the modal.

 

After marking a target with Wrath of Five Suns for the increased Accuracy, Pallegina's next move would be to use Eternal Devotion on that same target, which makes her do a Full Attack with double Burn bonuses (Powder Burns + Eternal Devotion) at the target, and gives her a Burn lash on her attacks for the next little while.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But once she has discharged both shots, it is possible to make her fire a third shot immediately afterwards. The trick is Kitchen Stove's enchantment, Thunderous Report; apart from being thematic to the build, this ability allows Pallegina to do massive amounts of terrible, terrible damage once every encounter. Command her to use Thunderous Report immediately after she's completed her Eternal Devotion shots, and you can get results like this;

 

Boom

 

Boom

 

Boom

 

Afterwards, this is typically when Pallegina should transition into the "Lightning" phase for the rest of the battle. However, she does not have to stay there indefinitely (although that's how it usually works out in most encounters); in certain circumstances, where ordering Pallegina into melee combat is either infeasible or unnecessary, she can always transition back to the "Thunder" phase to feed the enemy another barrage of burning shot, and/or refresh her Eternal Devotion at the same time.

 

Lightning

 

The "Lightning" phase is centered around the Whispers of the Endless Paths greatsword, and more specifically its Offensive Parry enchantment. The core of the idea is that Pallegina would make her enemies miss their attacks against her, and retaliate with alacrity.

 

 

But to make that happen, she would need fairly high Deflection. And as it so happens, she can achieve that specifically by provoking Disengagement attacks, provided she had the right setup. And said setup includes the following; the Zealous Charge Paladin aura, the Fox from the Farmer Chant, the Tumbling passive, The Magnificent Escape Cape, and the Boots of Speed all provide Disengagement Defense. In addition, the Nomad's Brigandine with the Feigned Retreat enchantment not only lowers whatever damage Pallegina might take from a successful Disengagement attack, but gives her another shot at retaliating against the one making the attempt.

 

But the one thing that makes Pallegina uniquely suited for this strategy is the Heart-Chime Amulet; equipped on her, the Winged Steps trait gives her even more Disengagement Defense. And as of the time of writing, there is no helmet that offers the same bonus, nor is there any amulet - not even the Heart-Chime Amulet itself - that does the same, even for any other Godlike. As the sole playable Avian Godlike in the whole game, Pallegina enjoys an edge that no other Companion, Sidekick, hireling, or even the Watcher him/herself can match when it comes to provoking Disengagement attacks and retaliating accordingly. And that's how you get her doing things like this;

 

She runs away from enemies, and they explode.

 

Couple that with the Stride boosts from Zealous Charge, Boots of Speed, Fast Runner, Winged Steps, and Blessed was Wengridh, and you have a recipe for a Herald who zips across the battlefield faster than anyone else, counterattacks anyone who tries to take a shot at her, and can always be counted upon to position herself wherever you need her; in short, she strikes like Lightning.

 

Final Thoughts

 

This build is so suited to Pallegina's unique strengths, I consider it my headcanon for her setup and will use it for all future playthroughs. Feel free to have fun with this one.

 

[ntbittle]

Thanks for posting.  This looks great and will be used on my next playthrough.

[AndreaColombo]

Great build!

 

My only pet peeve with making Pallegina a Herald is that her banter with Kana in the first game implies she's a bad singer, so it feels out of character for her to be a Chanter.

[TheMetaphysician]

Totally awesome. We need more of these companion builds, and this one is perfect because it uses distinctive abilities that Pallegina has. I love it!

[Ascaloth]

Thanks for posting.  This looks great and will be used on my next playthrough.

 

Have fun with it! 

 

Great build!

 

My only pet peeve with making Pallegina a Herald is that her banter with Kana in the first game implies she's a bad singer, so it feels out of character for her to be a Chanter.

 

Thanks. 

 

I vaguely recall that in one of her banters with Kana, Pallegina sang a Vailian song and it turned out she wasn't half bad at it. I also somewhat remember that many people requested that she had the option to multiclass Chanter in the first place because of that, actually.

 

Totally awesome. We need more of these companion builds, and this one is perfect because it uses distinctive abilities that Pallegina has. I love it!

 

Thank you. 

[PatrioticChief]

Lore friendly and power gamey. I dig it. 

[jtbehnke]

Is there a way to utilize this WITHOUT Whispers of the Endless Paths as Pallegina's weapon? Say, like if your Watcher wanted that sword for themselves?

[InsaneCommander]

Well, I was going to have her as a Herald in my party on my next pt anyway. Might as well use this cool build.

[Ascaloth]

Is there a way to utilize this WITHOUT Whispers of the Endless Paths as Pallegina's weapon? Say, like if your Watcher wanted that sword for themselves?

 

The problem with that is, there is currently no other weapon as far as I can tell that has a similar enchantment to WotEP's Offensive Parry. That means WotEP is a core element of this build, and if you take it away from Pallegina, that's as good as gimping her.

 

She may still be able to pursue the Tuono e Fulmine strategy solely relying on Nomad's Brigandine with the Feigned Retreat enchantment, but even that is only a 50% chance to reflect Disengagement attacks. Long story short, not a great idea. If you really want a greatsword for your Watcher, there are better alternatives out there anyway.

 

Well, I was going to have her as a Herald in my party on my next pt anyway. Might as well use this cool build.

 

Have fun with it. 

[jtbehnke]

Really? What greatswords do you mean? All the other ones look either super-plain (Effort and Queen's Rule) or like no one bothers to clean them (Distraho and the Sanguine Great Sword).

[AndreaColombo]

Voidwheel.

[jtbehnke]

Isn't that the one that hurts you each time you swing it?

[AndreaColombo]

Isn't that the one that hurts you each time you swing it?

 

Yup, but it's also pretty powerful and pretty cool. A HoT effect would make up for it (if you have a Druid or Paladin, you should be able to get the Robust Inspiration for that.)

[peolone]

Awesome build. Can you share your chants selection please? What would you recommend? 

[Ascaloth]

Awesome build. Can you share your chants selection please? What would you recommend? 

 

Well, Tuono e Fulmine is more of an Invocation-heavy build, because Pallegina really only needs two Phrases in particular; Blessed was Wengridh, Quickest of his Tribe and The Fox from the Farmer Did Run and Leap.

 

I've only ever used one slot in her Chants list, which alternates between Fox from the Farmer for the Disengagement stacking and Blessed was Wengridh for the Stride stacking. Which is not to say you can't take additional Phrases apart from those, but since this build focuses on stacking Disengagement/Stride more than anything else, switching off from either of those would be effectively gimping the build.

[grasida]

Can the OP or anyone who’s tried this build pitch in on how to maximize the effectiveness of disengagement retaliation? I’m thinking of making a harbinger that works in a somewhat similar way, but I’m worried it won’t be easy to actually be targeted by engagement, then disengage and trigger riposte. Is it possible to really get a significant number of disengagement retaliations per fight?

[Ascaloth]

Can the OP or anyone who’s tried this build pitch in on how to maximize the effectiveness of disengagement retaliation? I’m thinking of making a harbinger that works in a somewhat similar way, but I’m worried it won’t be easy to actually be targeted by engagement, then disengage and trigger riposte. Is it possible to really get a significant number of disengagement retaliations per fight?

 

I'd like to tell you that I have a reliable way of actually attracting Engagement with this build, but... sorry. 

 

Best thing I can think of is to put Pallegina front and center of the party, starting each encounter in Thunder mode with blunderbusses out. If you give the rest of the party decent Deflection rates, the fact that a Tuono e Fulmine Pallegina doesn't actually have high Deflection or AR outside of Disengagement should make enemies beeline for her.

 

This is because this build is designed with provoking Disengagement attacks in mind, as opposed to attracting Engagement in the first place. That said, a Tuono e Fulmine Pallegina who's being ignored by the enemies just gives her breathing space to do a wide range of other things; Killers Froze Stiff, Glorious Beacon, switching back to Thunder for another Eternal Devotion Full Attack, so on and so forth.

[UltimaLuminaire]

@grasida

 

These are my observations. Hopefully they can help you determine how to best bait engagement.

 

For enemies with engagement, most Wilders and Undead (spirits and vessels) are able to engage you regardless of melee weapon/shield. Might be an inbred talent. Beasts are generally able to engage you, but only if they're big enough. Bigger Beasts should be able to engage more enemies, but I haven't verified this beyond Drakes and Kraken. Kith-wise, you just look for enemies with a shield, any sort of barbarian that has Thick Skin (note higher slash, pierce, and crush resist; only relevant in bog locations), or anything with Constant Recovery as they likely also have Hold the Line. Anything with Guardian Stance goes without saying, but I've only seen enemies with Mob or Conqueror Stance so it'll be interesting if you do see an enemy with that stance.

 

As for any peculiar casters with engagement, IIRC, not even Concelhaut on PotD engages you with summoned weapons. I think just Battle-Lich will engage with a great sword, but there's only one of those for now. A few fampyr casters also don't engage, but that's usually because they're too busy tanking up and doing shenanigans. I'm sure they could if they wanted to.

 

Engagement also has some rules. You can engage immediately if you aren't in recovery and the opponent isn't terrified (yellow) or charmed (green). In cases where I've seen an engagement during recovery, the recovery was purely melee weapon recovery and not spell or weapon switch recovery. Abilities that initiate a primary or full attack counts as weapon recovery, but not abilities that generate an AoE that results in a Primary or Full Attack (ie Heart of Fury). Once you've delivered an Opportunity At- ...Disengagement Attack, it appears you cannot re-engage that same target for a period of time. My best estimate is 2 seconds, but someone might be able to dig out the real cause/result from the game's code. I haven't been able to find the correct status effect in the gamedatabundle files.

 

As far as how enemies interact with those rules, I don't recall seeing an enemy break them. You just need the speed to actually run past multiple enemies without getting minion blocked, which the Pallegina build provides. Barring speed, push effects can help you navigate mobs but may result in breaking engagement.

EDIT: Just to be clear, engagement happens immediately. The focus target is the first to be engaged, and further engagements are first come, first serve. If an enemy has more than one engagement, they'll usually force engage on you once they've engaged their focus target. Enemies also love to focus engage targets that do not have a method of engaging (such as Pallegina in her Thunder mode). This can help you begin the Lightning phase with incoming focused engagements. It doesn't appear enemies switch focus before your weapon switch recovery ends, so you can abuse this. Weapon/shield passives seem to activate pretty much immediately. It's active abilities, like Modals, that can't activate till you finish weapon switch recovery.

Edited July 25, 2018 by UltimaLuminaire

[Rooksx]

Just to note that Offensive Parry still works properly on turn-based. A roll of 1-24 will graze, but Offensive Parry does activate.

[Rooksx]

If on the Nomad's Brigandine you upgrade to Tactical Withdraw (immunity to disengagement attacks) instead of Feigned Retreat, wouldn't you trigger Offensive Parry every time you disengage? If that's correct, then you don't need to build up all that disengagement defence?

[Boeroer]

@Rooksx: Yes, that is correct.

But to be fair this wasn't widely known until someone tried it (kind of by accident) and posted it here not too long ago. Before that I guess most players just assumed that "immunity vs. disengagement attacks" just meant "immunity to engagement" or that it wouldn't be counted as a real miss.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Boeroer

[Rooksx]

Yes, I am using this build and stumbled on across one of your posts about this. The 'Thunder' aspect of the build still takes useful advantage of one of Pallegina's unique abilities, so it still thematically fits.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Rooksx