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I am almost finished with my 1st Play through.

 

I would like to take suggestions for my next main character and his potential party members. I have a few prejudices:

  • I played a Fighter/Rogue with my last play through. I'd prefer something different.
  • I am thinking some form of caster.
  • I think I'd like to avoid druid, or at least Relentless Storm - that Spell is borked.

 

Thanks for the feed back!

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Hand Mortar/Fire in the Hole Cipher is pretty fun in TB - you fire at any grouping of enemies and max focus turn 1, then just spam cipher powers. Don't take Ascendant (it's underwhelming in TB). You can multi with just about any martial class, though Helwalker Monk deserves mention for being able to give +10 to 2 important caster stats, MIG and INT. Single class Cipher is also very good - the extra PL is helpful and Shared Nightmare is ridiculous.

 

If you don't mind taking on a supporting role, I've been enjoying Priests a lot in TB. Between delaying and initiative manipulation, it's pretty easy to consistently hit your whole team with some major buffs. Wael is good for tanking, Magran for nuking, and Woedica for control. There's definitely some cool roleplay moments for Berath Priests too.

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Thanks for the advice!

 

I am currently looking at Forbidden Fist/Skald.

 

I was playing around in the console, and the changes they've made to the Forbidden Curse duration are interesting [from 10 seconds ->6 Seconds]. With high Resolve, you can get a very small duration on the curse, allowing you to ramp up wounds and use Forbidden Fist freely (on RTwP).

 

On Turn based this is a little borked-  The curse will always expire at the end of the following round as a baseline.

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Thanks for the advice!

 

I am currently looking at Forbidden Fist/Skald.

 

I was playing around in the console, and the changes they've made to the Forbidden Curse duration are interesting [from 10 seconds ->6 Seconds]. With high Resolve, you can get a very small duration on the curse, allowing you to ramp up wounds and use Forbidden Fist freely (on RTwP).

 

On Turn based this is a little borked-  The curse will always expire at the end of the following round as a baseline.

Did they change the curse from being considered a beneficial effect and thus increasing with things like INT? Because if it isn't anymore, then Forbidden Fist seems pretty decent. I wonder where the cut-off for something not lasting an entire turn is, you could get the curse pretty low. Eviee the pet grants +2 RES, a few boots give +1 RES, Mohora Wraps is a 30% straight reduction, and Strand of Favor is a straight 10% reduction, so an Aedyran/Ixamitl Human/Orlan could have -79% hostile effect duration. -82% if you wanna Bloodpool Grieving Mother or Pallegina, -88% if you Bloodpool and Berath's Blessing. That makes the curse ~1.3 seconds (~0.7 seconds Bloodpool/BB). (Those numbers could be really off because I didn't test and it's not always clear where effects are applied - eg does Strand of Favor apply with RES or before/after RES is calculated? I'm calculating like 20 RES plus Strand is -40% of 6 seconds - a greater benefit than the option of 6-30%=4.2-10%=final result) It's moot if your INT still affects curse duration, though, since Skalds definitely want INT and you'll probably use Duality of Mortal Presence for INT - you might be looking at all that gear just to keep the curse down to one round.

 

I did play a Helwalker/Caster in TB, and fwiw Dance of Death/Enduring Dance is very good is TB. It's somewhat unlikely you'd need to rely much at all on FF's usual wound generation with that ability. It's a Free Action that generates its round's effects immediately when you activate it, so even if you've been hit enough to drop it, there's effectively no down time.

 

I'm also doing a Skald for my current playthrough, and fair warning: One-Handed is a trap option in TB. Dual Wield generating twice the attacks is so much better than 20% hit-to-crit (plus you save an ability point because Two Weapon Style is useless in TB). Course you might have been planning to dual wield anyways, seeing as Monks have the best Dual Wield weapon in the game - fists. If you're going with a high RES build anyways Tuotilo's Palm also becomes a pretty interesting option - Monks have a good enough chassis for tanking and adding Weapon and Shield Style really solidifies that. It does conflict with Skald a bit, since Tuotilo's Palm won't get enchantment accuracy bonus and will crit less than normal Dual Wielding.

 

I'll also give the piece of advice that if you want to be more of a caster this playthrough, you should pick up one of the PL 3 or 4 non-offensive invocations. They cost 5 phrases with Skald, so they effectively act like a passive that says +3 max and starting phrases. I ended up grabbing Two Fingers of Daylight and it surprisingly has saved me once or twice. More importantly, though, I get to cast for the first 2-3 rounds before going back to normal Skald alternating weapon attacks and invocations routine. The theoretical "best" choice for a non-offensive is Ogre summons but the practical best choice for a Monk is one of the PL 3 options since you're probably going to want to spend all your points on Monk abilities at PL 4.

Edited by Taudis
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Did they change the curse from being considered a beneficial effect and thus increasing with things like INT? Because if it isn't anymore, then Forbidden Fist seems pretty decent. I wonder where the cut-off for something not lasting an entire turn is, you could get the curse pretty low. Eviee the pet grants +2 RES, a few boots give +1 RES, Mohora Wraps is a 30% straight reduction, and Strand of Favor is a straight 10% reduction, so an Aedyran/Ixamitl Human/Orlan could have -79% hostile effect duration. -82% if you wanna Bloodpool Grieving Mother or Pallegina, -88% if you Bloodpool and Berath's Blessing. That makes the curse ~1.3 seconds (~0.7 seconds Bloodpool/BB). (Those numbers could be really off because I didn't test and it's not always clear where effects are applied - eg does Strand of Favor apply with RES or before/after RES is calculated? I'm calculating like 20 RES plus Strand is -40% of 6 seconds - a greater benefit than the option of 6-30%=4.2-10%=final result) It's moot if your INT still affects curse duration, though, since Skalds definitely want INT and you'll probably use Duality of Mortal Presence for INT - you might be looking at all that gear just to keep the curse down to one round.

The TLDR: The optimal Resolve depends on whether you're really maxing out Intellect - which is optional as a Monk due to Duality of Mortal Presence. I am more worried about Power Level scaling.

 

I'm not sure about the interaction between Power Level and Attributes. Are they Multiplicative?

I am going to assume that duration increases between Power Level and Attributes is Additive. If not, there are a few breakpoints which will be interesting. In general though -

 

The 10 to 6 second duration reduction is much more important for the FF than intelligence. You'll need +100% duration between abilities and Power Level. Any Intelligence score below 23 shouldn't effect your curse duration, even at level 20 with 10 Resolve. Previously, the 10 second base duration was so long, it was easy to get a long curse duration. The base duration decrease is a significant buff.

 

In the TB Mode, we have some issues- Forbidden Fist's self curse appears to be almost hard coded to last until the end of the next round. You'll never have a duration of 0, and anything above will round up to 1 round. Getting a duration longer than 1 round requires 23+ Intellect.

 

The TLDR? I think your optimal intellect is strictly based off of the desired duration/area of specific invocations. Specifically:

  • PL 1 The Thunder Rolled - it is possible to get 2 round base duration stuns at higher levels and high intellect.
  • PL 2 ...The Killers Froze Stiff - The base duration of 4 seconds makes hitting duration break points difficult.
  • PL 3 Reny Daret's Ghost Spake- This thing lasts forever on TB. Enfeeble an enemy for truly hilarious durations (I've gotten 12 Rounds duration off a crit).
  • PL 4 The Lover Cried out- The Lover Cried Out wants 20 Intellect for 2 round charm.

Looking at the above, and assuming Duality of Mortal Presence for increased intellect, anything above 15 seems fine.

 

The Lover Cried Out is interesting - At level 10 with 15 Intellect, you could empower the invocation for a 2 Round Charm. At 30 Intellect and Empower, you should reach a 3 Round Charm.   At 3 Phrases... That's a bargain.

Edited by mzum
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I'm not sure about the interaction between Power Level and Attributes. Are they Multiplicative?

 

I am going to assume that duration increases between Power Level and Attributes is Additive.

I actually forgot about power level scaling. PL is multiplicative. The % added is from the total after your INT is factored in. It does the same for MIG and damage.

 

The TLDR? I think your optimal intellect is strictly based off of the desired duration/area of specific invocations. Specifically:

  • PL 1 The Thunder Rolled - it is possible to get 2 round base duration stuns at higher levels and high intellect.
  • PL 2 ...The Killers Froze Stiff - The base duration of 4 seconds makes hitting duration break points difficult.
  • PL 3 Reny Daret's Ghost Spake- This thing lasts forever on TB. Enfeeble an enemy for truly hilarious durations (I've gotten 12 Rounds duration off a crit).
  • PL 4 The Lover Cried out- The Lover Cried Out wants 20 Intellect for 2 round charm.
Looking at the above, and assuming Duality of Mortal Presence for increased intellect, anything above 15 seems fine.

 

The Lover Cried Out is interesting - At level 10 with 15 Intellect, you could empower the invocation for a 2 Round Charm. At 30 Intellect and Empower, you should reach a 3 Round Charm.   At 3 Phrases... That's a bargain.

 

Thanks for writing this out, good info.

 

Have you figured out where exactly cutoffs for jumping from X rounds X+1 rounds are? It doesn't seem like you have to make it over the line - I did some testing with Eder and his Disciplined Barrage was getting 3 effective rounds of uptime at 16.5 seconds. The tooltips showed 2 rounds but in actual play he had a round 0 where DB was on for his turn but not any remaining turns in the round. That's obviously pretty meaningful for buffs and CC-style debuffs. Actually, I wonder if that's what is happening with Forbidden Fist Curse? It could be marking any time left over as your "round 0", and applying "round 0" to last until your end of turn.

 

The multiplicative PL thing does change some math - The Lover Cried Out only needs about 20 INT when empowered to hit 3 rounds, at least assuming it follows the same round 0 practice as Eder's Disciplined Barrage (getting it with at least ~16 seconds and also getting it all). I also have to wonder where the 2 round break point is for The Thunder Rolled, since 20 INT gets you a respectable ~10.1 seconds. If those both get the effective extra round from "round 0", I'd say the INT break point for duration is ~17 if you're casting from turn 1 (16+4 Wounds-3 Thunderous Blows+2 Enduring Dance=20), ~15 if your first action isn't always to cast (same math but +2 more from Dance), or ~12/14 if you don't use Thunderous Blows (since +5 MIG can really hurt with Forbidden Fist). Basically you're right that 15 base INT is what you want but I'm writing it out to process the info because I'm interested in trying out the new Forbidden Fist now too.

 

It does feel weird to not simply go with the most INT possible on a Chanter for maximum phrase AoE but it's not like it's going to be small esp once you get DoMP.

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I'll check some of the durations. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some bugs in the implementation of Durations.

 

Durations appear to tick at the end of the Subjects turn, excepting if they were applied during the Subjects CURRENT action.

 

  • Example: Eder Applies Disciplined Barrage as a free action. He gets its effects for 2 turns after this one.
  • Example #2: A chanter casts The Thunder Rolled, giving a 1 round Stun. The enemy takes their next turn, does nothing, and the Stunned condition expires. The enemy acts normally next round. (The Lover Cried Out should work this way)

 

I'll have to think about Power Level scaling. With respect to The Lover Cried Out, it doesn't particularly affect anything, outside of empower.  We have some new breakpoints, but non-empowered Power Level differentials won't kick in until you're close to endgame.

 

The Thunder Rolled... Hmm. Multiplicative Power Level might make this worthwhile. Currently, once you hit The Lover Cried Out, I'd much rather Charm a group than do a little bit of damage and stun them. At PL 5, a FF would have +20% duration... times base duration or Base Duration + Intellect Bonus?

 

I'll look into how the durations are actually calculated.

 

Edit: Some Theory Crafting:

 

At Level 10, we are at PL 4, giving the stun off of The Thunder Rolled:

  • 15% PL Bonus. (Duration: ~5.75)
  • 12/5.75 - 1 gives us a needed bonus of +108.6%. So... 32 Intellect? Not Easy but achievable
  • w/Enfeeble: Enfeeble is multiplicative, I on the back-end I believe. We'll need a duration of 8 seconds to reach 2 round stuns with Enfeeble up. 8/5.75 -1 gives us a needed bonus of +39.1%. So... 18 Intellect at level 10.  22 Intellect from Level 1.
  • w/empower: At Level 10, an Empowered The Thunder Rolled lasts 7 Seconds. 12/7-1 gives us a needed bonus of +71.4%. So... 25 Intellect.

  I'm not sure this changes too much. Enfeeble gives you some really low hanging fruit at 18 intellect. The other thing to take into account is criticals. Perhaps there's a crit-based spell build around Forbidden Fist. Wizard perhaps?

Edited by mzum
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  • Example: Eder Applies Disciplined Barrage as a free action. He gets its effects for 2 turns after this one.
  • Example #2: A chanter casts The Thunder Rolled, giving a 1 round Stun. The enemy takes their next turn, does nothing, and the Stunned condition expires. The enemy acts normally next round. (The Lover Cried Out should work this way)

 

Interesting. So rule of thumb for offensive stuff is get it to the next six second increment if possible.

 

The Thunder Rolled... Hmm. Multiplicative Power Level might make this worthwhile. Currently, once you hit The Lover Cried Out, I'd much rather Charm a group than do a little bit of damage and stun them. At PL 5, a FF would have +20% duration... times base duration or Base Duration + Intellect Bonus?

 

20% x (Base Duration+INT). I don't know if I like Lovers Cried Out better if you can actually consistently hit 2 round duration on your 2 phrase Stun!

 

WRT theorycrating: Don't forget there are some pretty easy PL boosts from consumables. Food can give +1 PL and is basically always on. You should probably be able to be getting 2 round Thunder Rolled by level 13 simply by having 17+ INT and using DoMP.

 

Perhaps there's a crit-based spell build around Forbidden Fist. Wizard perhaps?

 

If we're just talking spell crits in general? Play whatever kind of caster you want, and build your party around it. I'd grab a Priest for Devotions of the Faithful, a Rogue dual wielding Club and Flail who picked up Confounding Blind, and a Wizard who can cast Miasma of Dull-Mindedness. Then only pick spells that target Ref/Will. Sample round:

  • Priest casts Devotions. You, Rogue, and Wiz delay until past spell resolution so you can act while buffed.
  • You and Wiz delay to let Rogue go if necessary. Rogue lands their Confounding Blind Club/Flail Modal because Devotions and CB give +20 to hit.
  • Enemy is at -35 Ref and -25 Will
  • You delay to let Wiz go. Wiz lands Miasma of Dull-Mindedness because they have +10 to hit against a defense that's already down -25.
  • Enemy is at -55 Ref and -65 Will
  • You crit because you have an effective +65-75 accuracy boost on top of whatever your normal accuracy is.

You should still be fine to crit against mobs since Miasma is an AoE and the Wiz should be able to land it against mobs just from Free Action buffs and Devotions. You'll continue to crit the entire combat with this set-up since Devotions and Miasma have great durations. Nothing is immune to weapon modals or Miasma, so it's always "on" (Miasma even bypasses Arcane Reflection since it's not targeted).

 

If you don't want to dedicate over half your party to it, a Paladin can replace the Priest and Rogue. You'll lose some Ref debuffing and some accuracy but Exalted Focus boosting accuracy/hit-to-crit plus Flames of Devotion's +10 Acc to land your modals should be good enough.

 

There's not any build that's going to come anywhere close to being as meaningful that sort of supporting party for spell crits. A Forbidden Fist build works of course. A lot of spells like the Enfeebled duration bonus and Dance of Death boosts spell accuracy for more crits. Your Wizard suggestion'd be good on the spellcasting side too because then you could be the Miasma caster. Eldritch Aim also helps with more accuracy/stacks with everything mentioned so far.

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Ahh. But the Lover Cried Out has a significantly longer Duration. You only need 20 Intellect for a 2 Round Charm. (8 second base). With Skald, its only 3 Phrases!

 

Nice suggestions on the spell criticals.

 

I am really enjoying my FF/Skald play atm. I don't use melee attacks... ever, so maybe Troubadour is better? They are virtually identical at the moment, but later on, doubling up on Phrases would be nice. I also can't imagine Full Attacking over casting Forbidden Fist. Alternating Fist + Stun/Paralyze/Fear/Charm is just too good.

 

He's like the Protagonist of an action movie - Witty Line, Punch. Witty Line, Punch.

Edited by mzum
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I had a Harbinger Troub/Trickster hireling in my first TB playthrough, and I had a bunch of fun with that character so I'm doing a Harbinger Watcher now. I gotta say Skald>Troubadour in TB for being a caster. If you don't wanna summon (IMO too much micro in TB anyways), all the Skald invocations are the same equivalent phrase cost as Troubadour Brisk Recitation except by taking just one non-offensive invocation you can skyrocket your starting/max phrases. I can pretty much always spend the first 3-4 turns casting invocations and between Riposte and full attacks, might only need to take one turn off before casting a few more. Troubs can only open with 2-3 invocations max and can't spike right back up to full phrases for spamming higher cost stuff like Eld Nary.
 
I am kind of abusing Riposte, though. Gipon Prudensco's "Immunity to Disengagement" actually just makes disengagement attacks auto-miss, which can proc Riposte. I think it's really funny having an orlan be like "Uh oh, low on phrases! Time to run through these pirates' legs, givin 'em the Kapana Taga frat initiation!"
 
Lovers Cried Out vs. Thunder Rolled I think is a playstyle thing. I have a lot of AoE casters on my team, so Lovers Cried Out is for evening overwhelming odds. Often quicker to just "pause" the enemies so they hold still while I burn the world.

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I am kind of abusing Riposte, though. Gipon Prudensco's "Immunity to Disengagement" actually just makes disengagement attacks auto-miss, which can proc Riposte. I think it's really funny having an orlan be like "Uh oh, low on phrases! Time to run through these pirates' legs, givin 'em the Kapana Taga frat initiation!"

 

Oh damn! That's cool. I hadn't looked into using riposte. You could get 3 attack rolls per disengage with that! Very cool.

 

As far as Troub vs. Skald, originally I wasn't convinced there was a difference, but I can see that at Higher-levels you wouldn't be able to spam 2-3 invocations back-to-back. But...

 

Last night I was thinking on how Chants work. I think Troubadour may have some fun interactions with 'Chant' Dancing. Rather than theory-craft, I'll do some testing and let you know the results.

Edited by mzum
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Keep in mind rn rogues "Escape" breaks stealth, at least in TB. This alone turned me off the class entirely. Not to mention the Vanish power (I forget its name) is a full turn action. 

 

I found that out while playing a wildly sub-optimal Debonaire/Tactician on my 1st play. I still think Rogues have a ton of fun shenanigans.

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Keep in mind rn rogues "Escape" breaks stealth, at least in TB. This alone turned me off the class entirely. Not to mention the Vanish power (I forget its name) is a full turn action. 

 

I found that out while playing a wildly sub-optimal Debonaire/Tactician on my 1st play. I still think Rogues have a ton of fun shenanigans.

 

Not for me, ruins the stealth aspect of em

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Yeah it's kind of sad that you can't use smoke bomb to make stealth attacks in turn based since it runs out before your next turn (unless you have stupid amounts of intelligence). The only useful way to use assassin is the stealth upgrade to escape since it's a free action, but it costs 3 guile instead of 2 like smoke bomb so you can't use it much. Still does work on my cipher/assassin, open from stealth to fill focus, spam spells for a while, then vanish to refill. Works because I can get several turns worth of cipher spells off of one stealth attack, wouldn't be as good for a true melee that was trying to attack every turn since you'd run out.

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I had a Harbinger Troub/Trickster hireling in my first TB playthrough, and I had a bunch of fun with that character so I'm doing a Harbinger Watcher now. I gotta say Skald>Troubadour in TB for being a caster. If you don't wanna summon (IMO too much micro in TB anyways), all the Skald invocations are the same equivalent phrase cost as Troubadour Brisk Recitation except by taking just one non-offensive invocation you can skyrocket your starting/max phrases. I can pretty much always spend the first 3-4 turns casting invocations and between Riposte and full attacks, might only need to take one turn off before casting a few more. Troubs can only open with 2-3 invocations max and can't spike right back up to full phrases for spamming higher cost stuff like Eld Nary.

 

I am kind of abusing Riposte, though. Gipon Prudensco's "Immunity to Disengagement" actually just makes disengagement attacks auto-miss, which can proc Riposte. I think it's really funny having an orlan be like "Uh oh, low on phrases! Time to run through these pirates' legs, givin 'em the Kapana Taga frat initiation!"

 

Lovers Cried Out vs. Thunder Rolled I think is a playstyle thing. I have a lot of AoE casters on my team, so Lovers Cried Out is for evening overwhelming odds. Often quicker to just "pause" the enemies so they hold still while I burn the world.

Haven't played a chanter, how is the Trickster/skald built? around reposte? Starting stats/weapons? 

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Starting Stats: Max PER, max INT, then everything else to your liking. I dumped CON and pumped RES. You should probably boost DEX in RTwP and you can't dump it in TB because you'll eventually be a caster and at the start you're still a controller and want to act before the enemies.

 

Weapons: 1st set is Sasha's Singing Scimitar and a stat stick. I've been rocking Marux Amanth for extra defense while casting and the boss killer ability but I'll switch to Weyc's Wand once I get it. This set isn't very necessary until you get Lovers Cried Out because that's the 1st invocation actually worth empowering.

2nd set is Kapana Taga and Rannig's Wrath. It's all about bonus accuracy and flanking immunity. Club modal helps land your invocations in theory - in practicality the only enemies you need help hitting tend to be immune to your invocations. Still nice for your party members.

 

Chanter Side: Thunder Rolled, Shield Cracks, Killers Froze Stiff, Lover Cried Out, and Eld Nary for Invocations. Soft Winds, Long Night's Drink, Thick Grew Their Tongues, and Many Lives for Chants.

 

I also have one non-offensive to increase max/starting phrases - it's literally just whichever one costs the most and I rebuild as new ones become available. I do occasionally use Ancient Instruments of Death once I grab it.

 

My prepared Chants are Long Night's Drink/Soft Winds for trash mobs, Thick Grew Their Tongues/Long Night's Drink for some boss fights, Thick Grew Their Tongues/Many Lives for other boss fights, and Long Night's Drink/Many Lives for interrupt immune bosses.

 

Rogue Side: Persistent Distraction, Dirty Fighting, and Confounding Blind are the only important abilities to pick. I use Ryngrim's, Mirrored Image, and Llengrath's a lot. Very big shoutout to Ryngrim's plus engagement - this passively refills your phrases via disengagement crits very well.

 

I personally built it as a Riposte build but that doesn't trigger pretty much at all until you can stack Cloak and Bracers of Greater Deflection with the improved graze range. So, no Riposte until you're partway through SSS. Except for... Disengagement! If you get Gipon Prudensco, that armor provides a very interesting immunity to disengagement - it makes disengagement attacks auto-miss you. This is extremely powerful in TB where you can run around after casting and use Riposte crits to refill your phrase count.

 

In actual play, the character is far more of a Chanter/Illusionist than a Rogue and spends 90% of the time casting. Your role is primarily debuffing, and then damage dealing in the late game with Eld Nary.

 

My build is very similar to Ascaloth's Cunning Duelist: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/101088-class-build-the-cunning-duelist/ I dual wield instead of going all in on One Handed and prefer Kapana Taga to Squid's Grasp but most of the principles of the build are the same.

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