Asking for advice and build ideas for a party (PotD upscaled)

[peolone]

Hi. I'm asking for help because I'm not able to decide a proper for a party for my next run on patch 4.0. My main objective is to complete all DLCs and beat all the megabosses. I'd prefer to use the default companions and I want to side with the Huana (so: no Pallegina and no Maia Rua).

 

My ideas so far (I've been lurking around the forum for a bit, so nothing original here):

 

MC: I'd like to play an Ancient druid damage dealer who casts beast and plant spells with max PL. So I'm going to be a Nature Godlike and I'll be holding the Spine of Thicket Green. That means I want to debuff Fortitude as much as I can. 

 

Then I'll need somebody around who can protect my MC and help him land his raw damage spells. Ergo I was thinking about 3 melee guys and one mid range support:

 

- Eder as a Fighter who uses Willbreaker with Clear the Path or a as Swashbuckler with Kapana Taga and shield. Which one's the best?

 

- Aloth as a Spellblade. Which is the best way to profit from Zandethus draconic fury ? I've always wanted to try the spell, but I couldn't figure out how to squeeze the most value out of it. Another idea could be using Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon and max out fire PL. What do you think?

 

- Serafen as a Barbarian with high armor rating and barbaric retaliation and battle axes. No big doubts about this one.

 

That leaves open the last spot, the guy who fights just behind the melee line: Xoti or Tekēhu? 

 

- If I choose Tekēhu, he should be a SC Chanter since I want to be the only druid around. How does his chanter subclass fare? And what about the chants? The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning seems like an obvious choice to me, since it further debuffs fortitude. Any good ideas to play him as a ranged character ?

 

- If I choose Xoti, I'd be more inclined to make her a SC Priest. Maybe she works better with dual mortars as a SC monk, though. But if I am not bringing around a priest with me, I'll miss so many buffs and I don't know if this party could work without a priest. 

 

What do you guys think? I'm a bit worried about megabosses. The main thing that the party seems to be missing is a source of "Brilliant" or another way to replenish resources. Any comment/critique would be much appreciated.  

Edited February 9, 2019 by peolone

[giftmefood]

Hi. I'm asking for help because I'm not able to decide a proper for a party for my next run on patch 4.0. My main objective is to complete all DLCs and beat all the megabosses. I'd prefer to use the default companions and I want to side with the Huana (so: no Pallegina and no Maia Rua).

 

My ideas so far (I've been lurking around the forum for a bit, so nothing original here):

 

MC: I'd like to play an Ancient druid damage dealer who casts beast and plant spells with max PL. So I'm going to be a Nature Godlike and I'll be holding the Spine of Thicket Green. That means I want to debuff Fortitude as much as I can. 

 

Then I'll need somebody around who can protect my MC and help him land his raw damage spells. Ergo I was thinking about 3 melee guys and one mid range support:

 

- Eder as a Fighter who uses Willbreaker with Clear the Path or a as Swashbuckler with Kapana Taga and shield. Which one's the best?

 

- Aloth as a Spellblade. Which is the best way to profit from Zandethus draconic fury ? I've always wanted to try the spell, but I couldn't figure out how to squeeze the most value out of it. Another idea could be using Magran's Favor and Sun and Moon and max out fire PL. What do you think?

 

- Serafen as a Barbarian with high armor rating and barbaric retaliation and battle axes. No big doubts about this one.

 

That leaves open the last spot, the guy who fights just behind the melee line: Xoti or Tekēhu? 

 

- If I choose Tekēhu, he should be a SC Chanter since I want to be the only druid around. How does his chanter subclass fare? And what about the chants? The Long Night's Drink Birthed the Revenge of Morning seems like an obvious choice to me, since it further debuffs fortitude. Any good ideas to play him as a ranged character ?

 

- If I choose Xoti, I'd be more inclined to make her a SC Priest. Maybe she works better with dual mortars as a SC monk, though. But if I am not bringing around a priest with me, I'll miss so many buffs and I don't know if this party could work without a priest. 

 

What do you guys think? I'm a bit worried about megabosses. The main thing that the party seems to be missing is a source of "Brilliant" or another way to replenish resources. Any comment/critique would be much appreciated.  

 

Eder as swashbuckler with reckless brigandine armor, kapana taga weapon and akola's apex ward large shield mows mobs while being tanky asf. Stack as much +1 engagement and armor as high as you can through items and skills. It works so well especially once you unlock mob stance for fighter and persistent distraction for rogue. 

 

With Aloth, go pure mage. Tier 8 and 9 wizard spells are devastating. 

 

With Serafen, I would actually go for pure ranged cipher either will dual blunderbuss/mortar so you can build focus quick. Ciphers have really powerful tier 8 and 9 skills too. And since you were talking about replenishing resources, Cipher has a spell that does that. So you can use Serafen to replenish Aloth's spell resource. 

 

With Xoti, SC monk all the way, no doubt. It's that strong. She will be your highest damage dealer. You don't need to worry about priest because Eder will TANK all the mobs very easily without any healing whatsoever. Since you've stacked + 1 engagement items on Eder, the enemy won't be able to attack your backline as they will be focused on Eder. 

[peolone]

Thanks. I was aware of the Kapana + reckless brigandine build. In fact, I've alreay played that build in my last playthrough (was my MC). I was thinking that maybe someone had some other idea about an Eder build as Swashbuckler or as SC Fighter.

 

I can definitely swap Aloth and Xoti, putting her in the front line and playing Aloth as a pure caster. I'd like to use him as a melee front liner though, that's why I was asking. But if it doesn't work, I'll stick to your advice.

 

As for Serafen, fact is that I want to avoid his cipher Wild Mind subclass. I hate to have my party randomly destroyed by one of his bursts.

Edited February 10, 2019 by peolone

[djinnxy]

If you prefer Serafen as Barbarian the obvious weapon choice (considering you want to debuff fortitude) is morning star. To fill your other prerequisites then take Ydwin as pure cipher. You gain your last slot and a source of brilliant. Along with that you fulfill giftmefood's tier nine ideals (I tend to agree.) The damage you lose from Xoti as a monk will be made up for with Serafen. You won't need to worry about damage anyhow with Aloth pure wiz and you as pure Ancient.

[peolone]

I'll go Aloth SC wizard and Serafen SC barbarian then. Now I'm guessing if having just Eder and Serafen in the frontline will be enough to fend off attackers. I don't think there's a way to build Ydwin as a mid-range melee character, right? It seemed to me during my last play-through (maybe I'm wrong though) that is best to have at least 3 not completely squishy melee characters. Otherwise everything will jump at your backline and screw your plans (especially in case of scripted battles).  

Edited February 10, 2019 by peolone

[djinnxy]

I'll go Aloth SC wizard and Serafen SC barbarian then. Now I'm guessing if having just Eder and Serafen in the frontline will be enough to fend off attackers. I don't think there's a way to build Ydwin as a mid-range melee character, right? It seemed to me during my last play-through (maybe I'm wrong though) that is best to have at least 3 not completely squishy melee characters. Otherwise everything will jump at your backline and screw your plans (especially in case of scripted battles).  

With the staff for reach and the easy summons from ancient you should be able to cover melee while casting. If you have problems tank up aloth. It's easy enough to do and you still have plenty of firepower left for casting damage.