[Character Build] The Holy Hand Grenadier (Holy Slayer)

[arkane83]

The Holy Hand Grenadier
(OK, so he is really a holy hand mortar maniac… but I wanted the Monty Python reference!)

Class: Holy Slayer
 

Subclasses: Goldpact, Kind Wayfarer, or Bleakwalker / Streetfighter

 

Description:
This is a very straightforward build. You use blunderbuss modal to activate streetfighter’s amazing speed boost. The hand mortar and fire in the hole are both AOE weapons and can be used to quickly spread afflictions and Damage Over Time (DOT) to your enemies. Paladin provides a ton of defense which helps offset the downside of constantly fighting under the distracted affliction. The hat and rings make your FoD laser accurate. You can quickly move around the battlefield with escape, and your zeal will feel nearly endless for AOE ranged full attacks. Use escape to get really close, have a nice deflection, and blast enemies with hand mortar.

I went with Goldpact for a more balanced, survivable build; however, if you want to maximize crowd control and AOE (Area Of Effect) DPS (Damage Per Second) I recommend Bleakwalker. The added corrode damage and sicken affliction are extremely strong when applied as an AOE. Goldpact is going to add a tremendous amount of armor which is going to go a long way to keep you alive and helps offset some of Streetfighter’s inherent weaknesses from fighting distracted. Kind Wayfarer is also great since you will be using Flames of Devotion often, but can sometimes work against wanting to stay blooded. The choice is completely up to you, the build works great with any paladin subclass, but if running Goldpact with exalted endurance, it gives you a way to keep your health at 50% in relative safety without worrying that your next FoD is going to drop your dps.

 

Race: Human (Any will work) 
Race is very unimportant to this build. Pick what you like. I went with Human for the DPS boost while blooded, which is a state we like to be in anyway!

Attributes – No Berath’s
Might: 16
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10
Perception: 18
Intelligence: 18
Resolve: 6

Attributes – With Berath’s Blessing (Recommended)
Might: 16
Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10
Perception: 18
Intelligence: 18
Resolve: 18

Attributes – With Berath’s Blessing (Min Max DPS)
Might: 20
Constitution: 8
Dexterity: 16
Perception: 20
Intelligence: 20
Resolve: 6

I personally hate min-maxing, so I made my character well rounded with a high resolve and nothing truly weak. Dexterity is unimportant to this build as you will get tons of speed from the synergy of streetfighter and powder burns. I like to run with a chanter in my party running Sure Handed. This build will also always dual wield. This game has a funny way of stacking speed where there is a diminishing returns on gains past a certain point of speed increase. I would keep dexterity as close to 10 as possible in your stats since the gain is quite marginal with so many sources of reload speed.

Abilities:
Level 1: Sworn Enemy, Flames of Devotion, Crippling Strike
Level 2: Lay on Hands
Level 3: Deep Faith
Level 4: Zealous Aura, Blinding Strike
Level 5: Two Weapon Style
Level 6: Escape
Level 7: Sworn Rival, Arterial Strike
Level 8: Gouging Strike
Level 9: Eternal Devotion or Shared Flames (if in party)
Level 10: Exalted Endurance or Focus (your choice),
Level 11: Strike the Bell
Level 12: Finishing Blow
Level 13: Deep Wounds, Psion of Flame
Level 14: Eliminating Blow, Pierce the Bell or Ring the Bell (more dot damage)
Level 15: Withering Strike
Level 16: Virtuous Triumph, Toxic Strike
Level 17: Improved Critical
Level 18: Uncanny Luck
Level 19: Stoic Steel, Death Blows
Level 20: Whatever you want

I took Strike the Bell for even more DOT stacking, but this is completely optional. Shadow step is one option, but IMHO the paralyze affliction doesn’t last quite long enough for the heavy guile cost. The core of this build is the combination of dual wielding aoe blunderbusses with rogue debuffs and using paladin’s great defenses to make you less of a glass cannon. There is actually a ton of room in the above abilities depending on your personal preferences. I stuck to ranged, so I skipped riposte and persistent distraction; however, you could easily work them in by dropping withering strike and toxic strike. You will have a ton of great damage abilities and sometimes it’s nice to have DPS do some off-tanking.


Proficiencies:
Blunderbuss

Skills:
Athletics, Explosives, History (if using Giftbearer’s)

Weapons: 
Set 1: Hand Mortar and Fire in the Hole (upgrade for bonus damage <2m and projectile bounce)
Set 2: Your favorite dual wield combo of melee weapons (Modwyr and Duskfall are great)

Other Useful Gear:
Head: Acina’s Tricorn, Ranged accuracy and reload speed
Ring: Ring of Focused Flame, more accuracy with FoD
Ring: Ring of the Marksman, more ranged accuracy and penetration
Armor: Anything that improved recovery or action speed. Devil of Caroc and Miscreant Leathers are both great.
 

Edited July 18, 2018 by arkane83

[whimper]

Very cool. Kind of like a tankier version of Dorftek's The Howitzer.. 

 

(I'm currently running a Goldpact Paladin/Streetfighter solo PotD run myself, and when I opened this I expected to see something similar. But it's completely different. Says a lot about the depth of the game, I think, that the same multiclass combinations can be used for completely different builds...)

[arkane83]

I like the Howitzer build too. One of the nice things about my build is that it works nicely early game. You get hand mortar super early and some of your better abilities are PL1-4.

 

The other gear is really easy to get too. Both rings are early game and the hat is pretty cheap. Penetration can be tricky with auto attacks, but I rarely feel resource starved.

[gkathellar]

Ooh, cool. It's nice to see alternatives to the standard Trickster/Bleak Walker build for Holy Slayer.

 

How do you find your AoE potential? Paladin and Rogue are both pretty single-target - are the basic attack AoEs really enough for dealing with crowds?

Edited July 19, 2018 by gkathellar

[arkane83]

Ooh, cool. It's nice to see alternatives to the standard Trickster/Bleak Walker build for Holy Slayer.

 

How do you find your AoE potential? Paladin and Rogue are both pretty single-target - are the basic attack AoEs really enough for dealing with crowds?

The bounce upgrade on fire in the hole goes a long way to add a few more targets to an aoe arterial strike or FoD. In my party my watcher is able to do most of the damage, but I didn't run this solo.

 

I built eder as a persistent distraction tank with high disengagement defense. Start with arterial and have your tank drag them around. They will usually bleed out quick just from that. You get two aoe chances to apply each debuff and only need one to make enemies hemorrhage HP like no tommorow.

 

Explosives skill is going to be more of a back up. I rarely used it, to be honest. The itemization adds a ton of accuracy and the extra point of pen really helps.

Edited July 19, 2018 by arkane83

[dbarbarian14]

I am having problems staying alive while bloodied... I am not sure what I am doing wrong.  (decided to go Kindwayfarer because of this; but that means any time I use main ability, well there goes bloodied, because I healed to full).

[arkane83]

I am having problems staying alive while bloodied... I am not sure what I am doing wrong.  (decided to go Kindwayfarer because of this; but that means any time I use main ability, well there goes bloodied, because I healed to full).

 

I found goldpact with the balanced stats was the easiest to stay blooded. Make sure you use the blunderbus modal for distracted, that way you don't have to be blooded 100% of the time. Sometimes its easier just to get the speed boost for some encounters. I ran this build with blessings, so I may alter the stat spread for no blessings to put back some resolve. The high resolve does make a big difference.

 

PS I played this build on both Veteran and PoTD, and the goldpact + high resolve made Veteran a joke.  PoTD is going to be harder because enemies have more accuracy and penetration. You definitely will notice a difference and likely wont want to intentionally stay blooded until you have more levels and abilities.  Also, penetration is far more of an issue, but not so much for raw damage dots. The fact that you can spread them to multiple targets really makes a difference, and as a result, finishing Serafen's quest for a second aoe blunderbuss is super high priority. 

[lorddarkflare]

Currently trying out a build pretty similar to this.

 

Wild Orlan

Streetfighter/Bleakwalker

 

Might: 17
Constitution: 8
Dexterity: 11
Perception: 20
Intelligence: 18
Resolve: 4

 

 

It seems to work pretty well One-Handed do far in the early game, and I am seriously considering just going that direction.

 

Have you tried a variation with a single Blunderbuss? Is it worth it?

Edited August 16, 2018 by lorddarkflare

[arkane83]

Currently trying out a build pretty similar to this.

 

Wild Orlan

Streetfighter/Bleakwalker

 

Might: 17

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 11

Perception: 20

Intelligence: 18

Resolve: 4

 

 

It seems to work pretty well One-Handed do far in the early game, and I am seriously considering just going that direction.

 

Have you tried a variation with a single Blunderbuss? Is it worth it?

One hand is really good too, especially before you get your second aoe blunderbuss, fire in the hole. The advantage to dual wield is multiple attempts to apply the same effect and when you use your full attack abilities. Statistically trying to apply a bleed 2 or 3 times (bounced aoe can hit the same thing twice) is superior than 1 time. Also, both blunderbusses are good in their own way. Fire in the hole can bounce, and hand mortar can get 20% more damage in proximity.

 

I went dual wield because it felt like it was more reliably applying the effects to packs. This was from 1.2 and they did actually fix a bug where offhand blunderbus has more accuracy. I would have to re test this in 2.0 and see if that makes that big of a difference (I dont think it does)

[lorddarkflare]

 

Currently trying out a build pretty similar to this.

 

Wild Orlan

Streetfighter/Bleakwalker

 

Might: 17

Constitution: 8

Dexterity: 11

Perception: 20

Intelligence: 18

Resolve: 4

 

 

It seems to work pretty well One-Handed do far in the early game, and I am seriously considering just going that direction.

 

Have you tried a variation with a single Blunderbuss? Is it worth it?

One hand is really good too, especially before you get your second aoe blunderbuss, fire in the hole. The advantage to dual wield is multiple attempts to apply the same effect and when you use your full attack abilities. Statistically trying to apply a bleed 2 or 3 times (bounced aoe can hit the same thing twice) is superior than 1 time. Also, both blunderbusses are good in their own way. Fire in the hole can bounce, and hand mortar can get 20% more damage in proximity.

 

I went dual wield because it felt like it was more reliably applying the effects to packs. This was from 1.2 and they did actually fix a bug where offhand blunderbus has more accuracy. I would have to re test this in 2.0 and see if that makes that big of a difference (I dont think it does)

 

 

 

The -10 Accuracy allows single Blunderbuss to compete for a time, but I think dual may still be better by the time accuracy becomes much less of a problem.

 

I really wish Obsidian would address the disparity with weapon styles.

[arkane83]

Well the added accuracy does help early on, before you get your second aoe weapon, ring of marksman, ring of focused flame, and acinas tricorn. Once you have the gear, it's going to shift in favor of dual wield (2 attempts at 50% chance to hit is 75% to hit etc).

 

Maybe if obsidian made it so that one handed and two handed style get double hit rolls, two attempts to hit but only best one counts. Otherwise, dual should always be more reliable at applying the debuffs to packs of enemies.

Edited August 17, 2018 by arkane83

[lorddarkflare]

Been playing this a little more and dual catches up and exceeds single REALLY quickly.

 

My current problem right now is the fact that I absolutely demolish my tanks with Powder Burns.

[arkane83]

Been playing this a little more and dual catches up and exceeds single REALLY quickly.

 

My current problem right now is the fact that I absolutely demolish my tanks with Powder Burns.

Maybe try exalted endurance instead of exalted focus. You could also bring a chanter and ancient memory through that damage. Its not a whole lot, and passive healing pretty much heals more than powder burns will do.

 

Edit: I had Tekehu in my party, and I'm pretty sure his ancient memory helped the powder damage a lot.

Edited August 24, 2018 by arkane83

[lorddarkflare]

 

Been playing this a little more and dual catches up and exceeds single REALLY quickly.

 

My current problem right now is the fact that I absolutely demolish my tanks with Powder Burns.

Maybe try exalted endurance instead of exalted focus. You could also bring a chanter and ancient memory through that damage. Its not a whole lot, and passive healing pretty much heals more than powder burns will do.

 

Edit: I had Tekehu in my party, and I'm pretty sure his ancient memory helped the powder damage a lot.

 

 

 

Herald Pallegina seems to be be the most affected. Not sure why see feels so squishy. Might have to squint closer at the logs.

[zorroa]

Trying this out as a Kind Wayfarer, paired with Pallegina using Ascaloth's "Tuono e Fulmine" build. I start combat against most mobs with two paladins sneaking up with dual-wielding blunderbusses, and get off a good seven blasts in the first few seconds. it's amazing. thanks for this build!