[CLASS BUILD] The Way of the Formless Form

[mosspit]

[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.

 

 

 

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The Way of the Formless Form

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Difficulty: PotD v.1.2.0.0008

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Class: Brawler (Unbroken / Helwalker)

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Race: Pale Elf

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Background: Deadfire Archipelago (Hunter)

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Solo: Untested

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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

Edited June 29, 2018 by mosspit

[zendingo]

I tried a blade turning build but the character ended up just standing there casting blade turning over and over and never had time to do anyting else, not even auto-attack because he was always either casting or in recovery from casting blade turning. Does the high recovery of this build make up for this and let you actually do something besides spam blade turning?

[Boeroer]

I used this concept in the beta, but instead of Helwalker I used Nalpasca/Unbroken because I liked the constant flow of wounds better. With Blade Turning on you won't get hit a lot and at some point you won't have enough wounds to fuel it. With Nalpascs, a drug and Dance of Death (and lesser Wounds) you will generate Wounds as quickly as you spend them for Blade Turning (and trigger Rooting Pain all the time while casting it repeatedly). But as zendigo said I mostly stood there after gathering enough enemies and casted and casted. Still very powerful. I wonder if monk/Streetfighter wouldn't even be better...?

[Esajin]

This build seems exceedingly vulnerable to perception afflictions. How do you plan on dealing with those? They usually come with an interrupt and a -100% recovery debuff (eg: Gouging Strike).

[mosspit]

I tried a blade turning build but the character ended up just standing there casting blade turning over and over and never had time to do anyting else, not even auto-attack because he was always either casting or in recovery from casting blade turning. Does the high recovery of this build make up for this and let you actually do something besides spam blade turning?

There are opportunities for other actions once TWotFF gets into the groove of things. The good recovery speed coupled with decent Int can result in the following values

 

 

 

 

 

So you can basically alternate in attacks if you want to (attacks using the flail and shield is pretty fast too thanks to the recovery speed). But for me, I was mostly keeping my eyes on the buff durations and alternating between Thunderous Blows and Enlightened Agony in between Blade Turnings. The thing is Sungrazer and Tuotilo's Palm is mostly for the passive procs which synergizes with Root Pain and Avenging Storm. You can attack if you want to, but it is better to sustain BT when surrounded.

 

I used this concept in the beta, but instead of Helwalker I used Nalpasca/Unbroken because I liked the constant flow of wounds better. With Blade Turning on you won't get hit a lot and at some point you won't have enough wounds to fuel it. With Nalpascs, a drug and Dance of Death (and lesser Wounds) you will generate Wounds as quickly as you spend them for Blade Turning (and trigger Rooting Pain all the time while casting it repeatedly). But as zendigo said I mostly stood there after gathering enough enemies and casted and casted. Still very powerful. I wonder if monk/Streetfighter wouldn't even be better...?

 

Nalpazca is definitely a strong contender. But I was quite reluctant to base the build on consumables as I am unsure of how the future patches will change up consumables. Main reason I used Helwalker is due to the Might gain that can boost self heals of Unbending and Contant Recovery, and of course damage. Plus the increase in damage received is useful to power Pain Link.

 

I did consider Streetfighter. It is definitely an all-out balls to the walls approach, providing the best recovery out of other subclasses. Problem was survivability. It didn't have any good self heals for a build that is meant to sit in the middle of groups and hold position. And Blade Turning with Rooting Pain procs, while is okay dmg, will not kill enemies fast enough to avoid the need to heal up. The beginning of the game especially will not be smooth.

 

This build seems exceedingly vulnerable to perception afflictions. How do you plan on dealing with those? They usually come with an interrupt and a -100% recovery debuff (eg: Gouging Strike).

Enlightened Agony and Crucible of Suffering can help with debuffs. Also there are self heals to weather the storm to deal with too much incoming dmg.

Edited June 28, 2018 by mosspit

[mosspit]

Made adjustments due to Patch 1.2

 

Overall significant DPS loss but imo still viable in party play

[mosspit]

Update to the build, I just completed a full playthrough with this build and some thoughts. It was a full party playthrough on PotD (no upscale), but it was on Trial of Iron.

 

A few thoughts

• Decent survivability and by snapshotting Undending correctly, the build can overheal incoming dmg without the Unbending upgrades
• Dmg is not that good. It can win via attrition but it is better if team mates are killing enemies faster
• Perception Afflictions can be gotten rid of by using the instacast Discipline Barrage
• Besides Tutilo's Palm, weapon slot is not that critical
• Surprisingly not too much issues with Ranged Attacks. Didn't have to change to Large Shield modal
• Fares well against Arcane Dampener as Unbending doesn't get removed. Really annoying to deal with if using drugs. That's why I only use things like Svef for affliction res mainly

Edited July 21, 2018 by mosspit