[COMPANION BUILD] Pallegina, The Fire-Breathing Drake

[TheMetaphysician]

I have long thought that we’ve needed more builds designed for companions in our build list; too many of the builds we have must be used with the main character or a hireling. I’ve also noticed lots of interesting build ideas for companions that people have mentioned briefly in a thread somewhere but then never written up, and so they do not appear on the build thread. So I’ve decided not to feel bad about writing up builds when I got the basic idea from someone else. I got the idea for this Pallegina build from user mporubca on this Reddit thread.

 

This build is designed for Herald Pallegina. It isn’t quite as cool or flavorful as the Tuono e Fulmine build, but it is still both effective and flavorful, and more importantly fills a very different party role and playstyle than that build does. The roleplaying thought is this: despite the fact that Pallegina has a conflicted relationship with her status as an avian godlike, she still cannot help but feel a certain innate kinship with the beasts of the air – in particular, the great fire-breathing drakes. Her personality seems to fit: she’s a bit of a fire-breather in her interactions with others.

 

The Fire-Breathing Drake
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Difficulty: PotD v. 4.1
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Solo: not intended for solo
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Class: Paladin/Chanter
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Race: Pallegina’s
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Background: Pallegina’s
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Stats: Pallegina’s

Skills: Whatever the party needs. I think Intimidate fits her and fits the build.

Weapon Proficiencies: None especially needed

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Abilities (!=important, r=recommended, (a) automatic)
PL 1 (levels 1-3)

Paladin

(a) Sworn Enemy/Wrath of the Five Suns (!)

Deep Faith ®

Retribution ®

Chanter

(a) (whatever she starts with)

PL 2 (levels 4-6)

Paladin

Zealous Auras (!)

2-handed weapon style (!)

Divine Purpose

Chanter

Wurm summon invocation (!)

PL 3 (levels 7-9)

Paladin

Eternal Devotion OR Shared Flames (!)

Sworn Rival OR Brand Enemy (*see note below)

Aegis of Loyalty

Chanter

Reload chant (!)

PL 4 (levels 10-12)

Paladin

Exalted Focus (!)

Scion of Flame (!)

Chanter

Mith Fyr chant (!)

Wurm summon upgrade (!)

PL 5 (levels 13-15)

Paladin

Inspired Path

Iron Gut

Chanter

Drake summon (!)

Rapid casting

PL 6 (levels 16-18)

Paladin

Virtuous Triumph

Chanter

Quick Summoning ®

2 of: Old Siec, They Shielded Their Eyes, Seven Men chants

PL 7 (levels 19-20)

Paladin

Pick something – whatever

Chanter

Drake summon upgrade (!)

Pick something – whatever
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Items (!=important, r=recommended)
Weapon Set 1: Dragon’s Dowry (! - +Volatile Runelock (!), Blazing Fury (!))
Weapon Set 2: Magran’s Favor, Sun and Moon

Head: none (godlike restriction)
Back: Rekvu’s Scorched Cloak (!)
Neck: Dragon Pendant (!)
Armor: Sharpshooter’s Garb is best; but since this build pairs well with other gun users, it may be in use by one of them. Just pick a light armor you like.
Waist: Belt of Magran’s Chosen (for the build theme; Sash of Judgment is probably better)
Hands: Lots of options; Aegor’s Swift Touch and Rekvu’s Stained Grasps stand out
Rings: Ring of Focused Flame (!), Ring of the Marksman ®

Boots: Lots of options; nothing stands out
Pet: none (companion)

 

* Note regarding Sworn Rival/Brand Enemy: it offends me that there is in the code a version of Sworn Enemy that has both the Wrath of the Five Suns and Sworn Rival (or Brand Enemy) upgrades, but we can’t actually pick it when leveling Pallegina. And since Wrath of the Five Suns is worse than Sworn Rival/Brand Enemy, her class’s signature ability actually makes her worse than a typical paladin. So I just console in whichever version of the ability I would pick at power level 3, giving her the Wrath of the Five Suns with either the Sworn Rival or Brand Enemy upgrade. It doesn’t make or break the build, but it is nice to have. If achievements matter to you, you could use the Unity Console and then uninstall the Unity Console when you are done.

 

The idea here is that Pallegina becomes a fire-breathing drake, and a queen among drakes. She breathes fire herself in the form of the Dragon’s Dowry arquebus, summons an army of fire-breathing drakes to her side, and confers upon her allies a hint of her own fire-breathing abilities (with the Mith Fyr chant and Shared Flames).

 

Fiery Gunner. The basis of her personal damage is the interaction between the Dragon’s Dowry, the reload chant, the Ring of Focused Flame, and the paladin’s Flames of Devotion. The ring’s accuracy bonus applies to the arquebus’s regular attacks, and of course to any flames of devotion attacks. When upgrading flames of devotion, pick Eternal Flames or Shared Flames depending on your party setup; if she’s the only one benefitting, of course pick Eternal Flames; if you have like 2 other gunners or something, shared flames might be better overall.

 

You get another damage boost once you add the two upgrades for Dragon’s Dowry: Volatile Runelock (takes the burn lash to +30%!) and Blazing Fury. Both give fire self-damage, however. How do we deal with that? If you have a ton of passive healing in the party, you might just ignore it. My solution, though, is to throw on Rekvu’s Scorched Cloak for fire immunity. The injury you want is Serious Burn: it gives -3 burn AR, which doesn’t matter with the cloak, so the only downside is the -2 dex. You can get that easily after you rest if you have a wizard in the party; just take Pallegina’s armor off, throw a grimoire on the wizard with fireball in it, and fireball her over and over until she is knocked out, and she’ll revive with a Serious Burn.

 

Queen of the drakes: party support. As you would expect from a herald, a lot of her value comes from party support. She summons other drakes to do her bidding, which is why she has chosen the wurm and drake summon invocations (and their upgrades) – no ogres or floating weapons for her! She wears the Dragon Pendant for a further drake family summon. She also gives her subordinate drakes (including party members) some of her powers. She grants fire damage to their attacks with Shared Flames (if you pick it) and the Mith Fyr chant. Her other chant is the one that boosts reload speed, and so she pairs especially well in a party with other gunners and ranged attackers.

 

Miscellaneous thoughts. This is a fun and low-micro build, for the most part. Shoot Wrath of the Five Suns at a caster and focus it down, interspersing flames of devotion to keep up the buff from either Eternal or Shared Flames, then rinse and repeat. (It is pretty easy to write an AI routine to do that.) The addition of Rekvu’s Scorched Cloak to handle the self-damage from the Dragon’s Dowry upgrades adds some fiddlyness to the build, for a couple of reasons. First, Blazing Fury is per-rest, so you’ll want to be resting regularly to use it often, and then you’ll need to fireball Pallegina anew each time you do that. Also, the build is basically complete at level 12-13; you don’t get much you need after that, but Rekvu’s cloak comes relatively late. You can go without the upgrades to Dragon’s Dowry before you get the cloak, or just eat the self-damage if you have good passive healing. She does have very high defenses for a ranged character, so she’s as well-suited to eating the damage as anyone you’ll find.

Edited February 4, 2019 by TheMetaphysician

[Jayd]

This looks like a really cool concept, and I apologize for going on a slight tangent, but Pallegina leaves you if you follow through with the Huana questline, right? I can't imagine her being cool with you orchestrating a war between the VTC and RDC. That's the main reason I haven't allowed myself to get excited over Pallegina builds - burn the imperialists!

[Triple - A Foxy Lad]

its cool, u can do like, 99.9999999% of the game and put off triggering the final faction quests until uve cleared everything. u wont need an optimal party by then. all the big challenges will be in the past.

 

i find it really hard not to use pallegina extensively. i know none of the companions are optimised, but herald + avian godlike is just so effective without any need for specialised game knowledge.

 

helps that shes one of my favourite companions. i love it when u get her to +2 reputation and she occasionally substitutes 'for the republics!' with 'for the watcher!' it feels like *such* an achievement, like uve reached across an ocean, or earned the devotion of a lion.

 

i know we joke about her being sawyers wife, but i hope he finds an excuse to indulge that little vice further.

[Boeroer]

Isn't this version 4.1 (the actual version)?

[TheMetaphysician]

Isn't this version 4.1 (the actual version)?

 

Yes, thanks, fixed. That was left over from copy-pasting another build for the format. Pretty sure it was one of yours.

[TheMetaphysician]

Hey, has anyone reported the fact that Pallegina can't select Sworn Rival/Brand Enemy upon level up -- despite the fact that such abilities (with one of those and Wrath of the Five Suns) exist in the code, and that Goldpact Knights can upgrade their Gilded Enmity ability -- as a bug? I think I will if no one else has.

[malboro_urchin]

I just started playing very recently with the turn-based update (just picked up Tekehu in Neketaka)

 

Would this build still work in turn-based? If so, would you need to make any significant modifications?

[TheMetaphysician]

Yeah, it should work just fine. The Blazing Fury upgrade to the arquebus might be less valuable, just because action speed is less valuable in turn-based. You could throw on a heaver armor if you like for the same reason. But neither of those changes affect the central ideas of the build.

Edited February 4, 2019 by TheMetaphysician

[malboro_urchin]

Thank you!!